#but upon long rest she was headed to the grove anyway

[jazzums]

i wanted to save sazza and the grove and minthara and volo and halsin but i keep fucking up by not doing things in a specific order

[ashprince-of-bel-air]

The Tiefling Wizard.

Baldur’s gate was bustling, more busy than you had even imagined it to be, you weren’t sure if cities were always like this as a whole or if the tadpole issue had wiped your brain. You shook your head and continued on anyway, you had reasons to be here, more than just to defeat the Netherbrain.

You had first met Rolan at The Grove, then again at The Last Light Inn, he was so prickly, and self-assure that you wanted to hit him then and there, swiping that smug smirk from his face, you refrained from doing so at The Last Light Inn, feeling sympathy that he had lost his family. Taking pity upon him in his drunken stupor as you could see the hidden pain behind his eyes, you had then instantly made it your personal mission to ensure the safety of Cal and Lia, for some unknown reason you felt a pain in your chest seeing Rolan this way and refused to let him suffer any more pain as you watched him gulp down a bottle of Arrabellen Dry, not even having the courtesy to use the glass given to him.

After the bloody assault on moonrise and making sure that Cal and Lia were going to be safe, Rolan attempted to be nice to you, it was a feeble attempt but an attempt, nonetheless. Seeing the curt tiefling scold his siblings out of pure worry for them melted your heart, smiling softly watching the situation unfold as they embraced each other gently, knowing that the hardest part of their journey was hopefully behind them. As the night waned on in the Inn, Rolan wrested with his own pride over approaching you , he didn’t want to admit his previous attitude but he knew he could not leave without at least saying a thank you. The rest of the Inn were celebrating joyfully at your successful take down of the tyrant Ketheric, offer after offer of drinks being thrown upon you as you declined them politely, wanting these people to save their money, knowing that they will desperately need it in the up coming weeks. The only drink you did not decline was a glass of Arrabellan Dry that was placed down on the table in front of you by a very familiar crimson hand. Your face shot up to look at Rolan, confused at this gesture, all he replied with was a knowing nod as a thank you before saying in his low and smooth voice “If you make it to Bladur’s Gate, promise me you will come to Sorcerers Sundries?” His voice sounded almost awkward and desperate, like he was trying to ask for something more but he couldn’t find the words to do so. As Rolan walked away back to his siblings you helped yourself to the glass of wine he left, you wouldn’t spare his coin purse like you did every one else in the Inn because you felt like you deserved the wine from him after his snarky attitude the day before. The wine being a wonderful vintage you almost feel bad that he probably spent a good deal of gold on it, smirking softly your heart begins to flutter as you watch his happy visage as he drinks with his siblings, confused at how you could so quickly go from wanting to wipe the smile off his face with a slap to now wanting to be the person who causes him to smile.

The night at the Inn ends with your party waking with a hangover that even the gods could not cure, not that you didn’t try praying to all of them anyway. It was almost mid afternoon by the time you were all ready to move on and head to Bladur’s Gate, it would be a long journey at this rate if you were all going to be this cranky, the only person not affected by the hangover was Shadowheart as she was able to cure herself, not bothering to help anyone else though as it was amusing to her seeing the rest of you suffering. You silently cursed yourself “why did you have to give the Amulet of Silvanus to Gale you idiot” glaring at the back of Gale’s head blaming him for your hangover as if it wasn’t caused by the copious amount of alcohol you drank last night.

After a few days of travel you arrive at Baldur’s Gate, hardly unscathed as you had some complications along the way, your companions were now starting to irritate you somewhat after having spent so much time in each other’s company. Each one of them had their own personal issue to deal with and they all tried to talk over each other about them, all you could do was to pinch the bridge of your nose and hope this animosity would die down once you had all found a comfy place to sleep for the night. Collectively, you all agreed to a night off for the first time in months, you all booked separate rooms at the Elfsong Tavern and agreed that you weren’t each others problem tonight, you could all seek your own fun and enjoy the city. It wasn’t a surprise to see Astarion and Shadowheart gossiping over a bottle of wine downstairs in the tavern, nor was it a surprise to see Lae’zel head to the nearest training ground for the Flaming Fist, wanting to watch their battle style so she could learn from a potential enemy on their battle strategy. You sat alone in your room contemplating what to do, the only thing in your mind was Sorcerers Sundries. A bottle of wine and a nice fresh meal should have been first on your agenda, but you just could not get that damned cocky tiefling out of your mind, you did promise him that you would go there if you were in Baldur’s Gate, is what you told yourself.

The armour you normally wore was shed for the day, as you would not require it in the city, you opted for one of your more casual dresses, secretly hoping to impress Rolan with how soft you could look outside of a battle setting, proving you are more than just a battle-hardened warrior covered in blood and filth. Sneaking out of the Elfsong Tavern was no easy feat, you wanted to avoid Gale mostly, if he knew you wanted to go to Sorcerer’s Sundries he would have happily tagged along and told you all about the books he wanted to purchase there, making sure to show you every single one and summarise them for you when you got there. No, you wanted to go alone and see Rolan, you weren’t sure why you were so desperate to see him, there was just a feeling in your gut that would not let him go, not until you could speak to him properly.

It was almost dusk as you approached Sorcerer’s Sundries, the orange light hanging over the horizon made the building look more impressive, you entered and walked up to the empty counter at the front, hoping someone would be able to help you. A few moments pass and a mirror image of Lorroakan appears, you sneer at his smug reflection , you have heard of him previously and know that he is a jumped up poor excuse of a wizard, a fact Gale loves to tell you on occasion. Your heart sinks as you don’t find Rolan, wanting to thank him for the wine at the very least, at the very most you wanted to address this weird chemistry you seem to have, you exit the store with a sullen look and ponder your next destination.

As you walk through the cool night air your feet seem to take you back to the Elfsong Tavern, on the one hand you didn’t want to be there under the scrutiny of your camp mates wanting to know where you have been and why. On the other hand you were sort of glad that at least you were near your bed for the night so could get black out drunk if you wanted to. The tavern is bustling at this point as you are struggling to get served by the barmaid, cursing mentally that they only have one barmaid present at this time of day when most people would be heading in for a drink after a long and hard day of labour. Suddenly, you hear a familiar drunken tone and you stand up on your tiptoes to see over the bar. “I want a bottle of Mallorian White!” you hear the drunken voice slur, you smirk softly and shake your head, of course it was Rolan, you chuckled lightly. You begin to make your way around the bar to him, trying to ignore the knowing gazes from Astarion and Shadowheart as they are still sat in the corner, now watching the pair of you.

Rolan is leant against the bar, trying to argue with the barmaid to give him another bottle of wine, despite the fact he is clearly inebriated already. Your hand rests gently on his back and you interject ordering the bottle for yourself. “I’ll take the wine, thank you.” You smile at the bar maid and turn to face Rolan as she gets the bottle, your face drops as you see the purple markings on his face. Its not a conscious decision but your hand cups his face gently and strokes his cheek with affection and sympathy. “Rolan, Who did this to you?” your eyes were sad as you look at him when he shakes his head in refusal to answer, the barmaid places the bottle of wine on the bar next to you, assuming you didn’t need any glasses.

“come with me Rolan, I can help with those bruises” you say softly, intertwining your fingers with his. You grab the bottle of wine you ordered and both take your time walking up the stairs to the room you have rented for the night, him stumbling and holding on to you is what is slowing you down. Rolan mumbles a lot of confessions as you lead him to your room, you don’t catch most of it other than thank you. You are not sure what he is thanking you for at the moment but you don’t care, your concern is now to get him to bed and sleep, dreading the hangover he has In the morning.

Finally you manage to walk Rolan to the room you were renting, you had faced glares from Shadowheart and Astarion as to why Rolan’s arm was around you but you just rolled your eyes. You pushed open the door to your room and helped Rolan in, closing the door behind you, you then sat him on the bed. Rolan was sat swaying softly because of the alcohol, you knelt before him and placed your hands on his knees, looking up at him before speaking softly. ”Rolan, stay here okay? I’m going to get something to help with that cut.” You point towards his split eyebrow before you walk away, looking sadly back at him. How did he look more hopeful when he thought his siblings were gone? How badly was Lorroakan treating him? You pondered these questions as you found a salve in your pack, you found Rolan where you left him, swaying drunkly on the edge of the bed. The salve has a horrible smell but it works wonders, you warn Rolan before you apply it, you had had far too may people throw up on you when you hadn’t warned them about it.

The salve now on his face you smile at him, your hand still stroking his cheek. Rolan leans against it affectionately but you are unsure of his affections as he is drunk, you enjoy the moment for what it is, smiling at him and stroking his cheek still.

[spottyjupiter]

Eclipseborn

(A short story I wrote for a creative writing class.)

The Elves are long lived, rarely born, and seldom seen outside their groves. To see an Elf- nay- an Elf tainted by the Eclipse curse was perhaps a once in a lifetime event.

For an Elven woman to be perched upon a low stone brick wall outlining the town, a cigarette in hand and fine crafted glaive resting at her side, the townsfolk were understandably weary. She was tall, at the height of a human man, with a lean yet muscular build and pointed, batlike ears. Her face was angular, with strange large eyes that would soften her features if the Elf did not have that perpetual scowl. On her forehead was the mark- that accursed dark circle outlined by a ring of fire- the image of the dark moon as it blotted out not only its brethren but both the twin stars upon the day of the Eclipse. When it bathed the world in darkness and baptized those born beneath its reign in the deep cold of the void. It was said that curse bearers had magic inherently unstable, threatening to lash out upon those who dare wake the slumbering well of darkness within.

She sat, perched upon that low wall, holding her cigarette to her lips as she took a drag. The twin suns danced on the horizon, displaying an array of warm color as the long day came to an end and the first of the moons appeared in the sky. The sky was painted with pink, orange, and a soft purple wash as the burning twin descended into night first, leaving his frozen sister to follow soon after. A breeze tousled her hair, bringing a welcome cool to her head as she lowered the cigarette, flicking ash to the side.

The evening was peaceful. Perhaps too peaceful, seeing as it was rather quickly interrupted by the arrival of a young man. He wore simple leather armor, lacking a helmet and shield at that moment, with a sword worn down by countless years of use attached to a belt he wore. He skidded to a halt upon spotting the Elf, stopping in front of her and so rudely interrupting her quiet contemplation. She looked up, meeting his gaze with some annoyance as he sucked in a deep breath and began to speak.

“You’re Miss Zinnia, right? The accursed Elf?”

Already her mood was soured, more so than it had been before. She didn’t respond, continuing to stare at him with narrowed eyes. He was silent for a couple seconds. Waiting for her response, she figured, a response he would not get. She had decided long ago she owed nobody an explanation of her condition. Yet, he spoke again, looking away with a frown and reddened cheeks.

“... S-Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.”

The apology she had not expected, not so quickly. Humans rarely apologized, much less without insistence that they do. She sighed, finally responding, her voice deep and raspy- a far cry from the melodic voices of Elves in folk tales.

“What do you want?”

He met her gaze once more, eyes lighting up as he began to speak again. No comment on her voice. This boy was just full of surprises.

“I’m accursed too. I was- well- I um- I was hoping you might help me.”

“With what?”

“Life in general, I guess.” He sat down beside her, looking out at the sunset as he continued. “I’ve never met another accursed, so when I heard you’d come to town I thought, maybe, we could be friends.”

Zinnia scoffed, looking to the side to meet the man’s gaze once more.

“Right. Well, I’m not some exotic bird for you to show off, nor am I interested in becoming one.”

“Why would you become one?”

She gave him an incredulous look.

“I’m an Elf, boy. I know exactly what your friendship with me entails.”

His eyes flitted downward, brow furrowing as he fell silent for a couple long seconds.

“I see… No, no, I don’t want you for social credit. I don’t have any anyway. I want to get to know you. Can we talk, at least?”

“Fine.”

She looked out to the horizon, gazing upon the twin suns once more, bringing one knee to her chest and resting her arm upon it. Her other hand braced her upon the cool stone of the wall she perched on.

“So, er, to introduce myself; my name is Alder. I was born under the Eclipse, 23 years ago. I had a twin sister when I was born, but she, ah, isn’t here anymore... People around town have a lot of superstitions about it. And me.”

He paused, though Zinnia did not respond, merely giving a nod of the head for him to keep talking. People liked talking. If she let someone talk for long enough, they would eventually leave her, when they tired of the sound of their own voice.

“I’ve heard them saying things about you as well. You’re like me, one of the Accursed. I don’t believe what they say about you, so... Can you tell me about yourself?”

Silence settled between them, the air still for a brief moment. When had she last told her story? Did she even want to repeat it? She shook her head.

“You already know my name, that I’m an Elf, and that I’m accursed. That’s all there is to know.”

“How were you cursed? Were you born under an Eclipse?”

She looked at Alder again, studying him during a brief few seconds of silence. His hair, brown like the leather of his armor, was ragged and unevenly cut. Bangs, at least, the remnants of them hung over his face, half concealing a mark of the Eclipse upon his forehead. Freckles dotted his face, which itself was round, as if he never grew out of his baby fat. He was so, so different from her. From a different world, and different time, and yet in his eyes full of wonder she saw a reflection of herself.

“I was. Centuries before yours.”

A smile graced his lips when she responded. She wanted to pull back. Before she let another person hurt her again. Before she could get attached, then watch her curse damn another once again. In spite of all that she continued speaking.

“I was outcast by the Elves for it, before I came of age, when I first began to display the Eclipse’s power.”

This young man, this Alder, his expression wavered. His smile disappeared.

“My parents did the same. After my sister, when I...”

He trailed off, and Zinnia placed a hand on his shoulder. A motion which caused the boy to jump, eyes wide at the sudden affection from the Elf.

“I’m sorry.”

“You get it, don’t you?”

She sighed once more but made a nod.

“I suppose I do.”

“Hah, well, maybe we won’t be so alone anymore.” Alder reached toward his face, wiping a budding tear from one eye. “Right?”

She fell silent for a long moment, hand still firmly on the young man’s shoulder. It was as though time stopped for that brief moment, the twin suns setting on the horizon, bathing this human who not only came to her but showed her acceptance in a golden light. He was ethereal, like a piece of her dreams come to the waking world. Like the woman she loved. The woman who’d disappeared so, so long ago.

Zinnia smiled.

“Sure.”

[radishaur]

༄ kind words ༄

Warnings: mentions of unwelcome advances in Law's part Genre: fluff Characters: Luffy, Zoro, & Law Summary: How they realize they have feelings for you (words of affirmation edition) Author's Note: It's finally here! These keep getting longer and longer as I get more familiar with each character and the dynamic, especially Law's, but I don't think that's too much of an issue. I also kind of hate Luffy's but couldn't keep redoing it, so maybe I'll edit it later. Happy reading as I begin working on the next part!

masterlist

Luffy is great at giving compliments because he just says whatever he's thinking.

He gets complimented a lot as well. He's always running around and saving people, intentionally or not, so he's probably heard his fair share of compliments. I think hearing a compliment that's more deep and genuine, that comes from someone who knows him deeply, would be more meaningful than anything and would make him recognize his feelings.

~

Not every day on the Sunny was a fun adventure.

Setting out to sail across the whole world and strive for their individual goals there was bound to be hardship. Sometimes it came in the form of grueling battles with their latest enemy. Other times it was internal conflicts or disputes, simple disagreements or heated arguments.

This time, it was grief.

After so many months traveling together, the crew had learned how to tell when one of them was upset about something and needed space. Today, it had been Nami. For the past few days, her mood had been off. She'd been more quick to anger and had spent more time than was strictly necessary tending to her orange trees. Then today, she'd been even worse, snapping at Sanji's normal overbearing lovey behavior and brooding to herself under the shade of her grove.

It didn't take him long to realize what was bothering her.

Nami only ever got like this when she was thinking about Bellemere, which meant today must be the anniversary of when everything happened. The crew had spent most of the day giving her her space, allowing her to process what she was very clearly feeling. After a while, he took it upon himself to cheer her up. He made silly faces and played some of her favorite games on the deck, goading her into joining them by making bets he knew he would lose. He'd even secretly asked Sanji to incorporate oranges into their dinner. By the end of the night, Nami was laughing and she seemed a lot lighter, like whatever was weighing her down had lessened some.

Now, it was late at night, and the only sounds that could be heard on the Sunny were the lapping of waves against the ship and the snores of his crew as they slept. All except for him.

Sleep was avoiding him, so he decided that he would be much better off just joining whoever was on watch and maybe having some fun. He made his way up to the crow's nest and was happy to find you sitting on the bench, looking out across the sea.

"Oh, hi Luffy," you said, your voice quiet.

"Hi!" he said, sitting excitedly next to you on the bench as you looked out across the sea once more. "I couldn't sleep so I decided to come out and have some fun!"

You smiled, always amused by his antics.

"Well, unfortunately, there's no fun here. I'm on watch, remember?"

He pouted, knowing you were right but still disappointed anyways. You laughed at him as he whined and complained, but he didn't actually intend on distracting you, so after a while, he quieted down and let you focus.

"I hope Nami is feeling better," you said, resting your head on the arm you propped up on the window. You were frowning slightly, your eyes unfocused as your worry made itself visible on your face.

"She'll be ok, she's Nami! She's strong," he replied, no doubt in his mind that tomorrow she would be the same old Nami she had always been. "She might be sad now, but it's not forever. She has us to help her."

You hummed in agreement, a small smile on your face. He smiled himself, happy to see you smiling instead of with a frown on your face. He felt so lucky to have found a group who cared so deeply about each other.

"All that stuff you did today. It was to cheer her up, wasn't it."

You said it like a statement more than a question and he found himself smiling at how observant you were. "You figured it out. You're so smart!"

You laughed at him once again, his own laughter joining you as you said, "Of course I did. I know you wouldn't have made those bets under normal circumstances."

They had been stupidly dumb bets that left no chance for him to win and he found himself giggling as he remembered how Nami had perked up upon hearing him agree to them. He loved his crew more than anything, so what was a few beri down the drain? Your laughter subsided as you got lost in thought once more. You seemed like you were debating saying something and when you seemed to have made up your mind, he found himself sitting up straighter as you turned to look at him.

"You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for," you said, a small smile on your face and a playful admiration in your eyes.

He's not quite sure what to say to that. He's always been called stupid and to everyone's credit, he is. He doesn't think very often, preferring to act on instinct and figure out the rest of the plan later. He's been known to not read the room, to zone out during important world lessons, and to shout out the first thing that comes to mind. He doesn't think anyone has ever called him smart and for the first time in maybe his whole life, he's speechless.

"I guess that's probably not what you were expecting me to say, huh?" you teased, a light smile making its way onto your face.

He collects himself and asks, slightly incredulously, the question that's first in his mind. "Why do you think that?"

"Well, you just told me you did all that stuff to cheer Nami up, right? Someone stupid wouldn't be able to put together why she was upset and what would make her feel better. You pay attention when it counts and you're a lot more emotionally intelligent than people realize," you explain, relaxing slightly as you look out at the ocean once more. "Today it was Nami, but I've watched you help lots of people like that. Vivi, Robin, Sanji, even me. Maybe you don't say it out loud, but you pick up on people's emotions and what they need the most in that moment."

He listens as you talk and slowly realizes that you're right. He's always had a way of reading people and knowing what they really want or need, but he's never really connected it to intelligence. He always thought it was just his own special kind of stupid.

"I guess that makes me a genius!" he exclaimed, laughing heartily as your eyes widened in shock before laughing along with him.

"Maybe you are stupid after all," you say, but there's no malice in the words as you keep laughing at him.

Finally, your watch shift is over and the sun peeks up over the horizon. He'd stayed with you the entire time, just talking and goofing around until he realized how much time had passed and how tired he was. His dreams that night are filled with you and when he wakes up, your words are still floating around in his mind. Knowing that you think he's smart makes him feel funny and he thinks that maybe he should finally turn his ability to recognize people's feelings inward.

Zoro doesn't throw out compliments or encouragement left and right, he only says something if he really means it.

I think he's received his fair share of compliments, although I doubt he puts much stock in them unless they come from someone he respects. If he doesn't think there's any stock in the compliment, or on that same token an insult, why bother giving it attention? For this reason, I think getting a compliment or reassurance from you would rattle him a little and cause him to have an aha moment.

~

The town that the Sunny docked in isn't too interesting to Zoro, aside from the bar he's nestled into for the past few hours. He has a few empty glasses in front of him and he's almost done with his current one when he sees the door open.

He's not surprised when he sees multiple of the crew walk in, quickly noticing him in the corner and making their way to him. You're among them, talking to Robin about something that elicits a small laugh out of her. Begrudgingly, he scoots over and makes room for everyone in his booth as they smoosh in.

"I knew we'd find you here!" you say, the last to slide in so you're right across from him. "Already deep into your drinks, as expected."

"Shut it, woman," he grumbles, his brows furrowing as he finishes his drink and sets the cup down on the table. You laugh, looking at Robin as Usopp reluctantly hands Nami some beri. He feels his eye twitch in irritation as he notices the exchange. "Are you betting on me?"

Usopp gulps at the glare he sends his way and Nami simply smiles, dollar signs practically lighting up in her eyes as she answers, "Yep! I bet that you were already 3 drinks deep and I was right."

"We've barely even arrived! I thought-" Usopp protests, attempting to explain himself.

"You both are insufferable!"

His exclamation elicits another laugh out of you as Robin simply lifts a hand to her mouth to hide the amusement that is no doubt there. He wants to be annoyed, and he is, but he's been traveling with the lot of you for long enough that he can't really be upset, at least that genuinely. He simply huffs, waving down a server to ask for another glass.

The rest leap over each other to order their own drinks, some alcoholic, some not, and fall into easy chatter with each other. Periodically, he catches your eyes and you send him a smile, but he doesn't insert himself in the conversations, much preferring to listen. Eventually, Nami gets tired of just sitting in the bar and decides to go shopping. Usopp and Robin decide to accompany her, but you decide to stay behind. You wave, watching them go as he takes his previous spot in the booth back.

"Not in the shopping mood?" he asks, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

"No, I'd much rather stay here with my favorite swordsman," you tease. He bristles, knowing that you're just poking him for fun, but he can't stop himself from blushing, taking a long sip from his glass to hide the blush he can feel on his cheeks.

"You're worse than that damn cook," he mumbles, his glass now sufficiently empty.

You laugh at that.

"Now that's just a lie."

He can't deny that, the corner of his lips twisting up into a smile. He's spent enough time traveling with you to know that you don't act like that with everyone, just him. The notion that you reserve this behavior for just him is both agitating and yet satisfying. He feels something possessive lick at his heart but ignores it, waving at the server for yet another drink.

He asks you about what you've been up to on the island since they docked and you happily tell him all about it. It hasn't been long so you don't have much to say and it isn't long before the two of you fall into a comfortable silence. After a while, you finally talk again and it's not what he's expecting.

"I know you'll become the greatest swordsman, Zoro."

He sputters, the sip he was taking spilling all over himself as he coughs, trying to catch his breath. He can feel his ears heating up with embarrassment and sputters, "Where the hell did that come from?"

When you look at him, your face is set in firm determination, but your eyes are soft, filled with a fondness he wishes you would direct at him more often.

"Those pirates we fought yesterday," you explain.

He thinks for a moment before he's reminded of what you're referring to. On their way to this island, they had run into a rival ship following the same course. While they hadn't intended to battle them, the ship fired at them as soon as they were in range, so they had no other choice. He remembers the fight being fairly easy, each member of the crew handling their fair share of pirates.

He also remembers one of their crew having some rather nasty words to say to him.

"You're delusional if you think you can become the greatest swordsman," he had spat, struggling to breathe. "You'll see it eventually. Even if you won this battle, you'll never achieve your dream."

He hadn't paid much attention to the words. He was confident in his own abilities and his opponent had been defeated easily, so there wasn't any point in taking his words to heart. He hadn't thought anyone was close enough to hear it and he certainly hadn't brought it up, quickly forgetting about it.

He smirked then, letting the full force of his pride show in the grin as he said, "That loser wouldn't know what it takes to be the greatest swordsman even if it smacked him in the face."

"That doesn't make any sense," you say, your face wrinkling as you giggle at his statement.

He takes another sip as your laughter dies out.

"I'm not worried about what a crap swordsman has to say about me and my dream," he says, his voice a lot more serious now as he thinks about the promise he made all those years ago. "I will become the world's greatest swordsman or die trying."

"You'll do it. I know you will."

You don't say anything after that, seemingly having said everything you intended to, but your words linger with him. The thought that you had heard the man's words and felt it was important enough to dispute them made his heart feel weird. He had never doubted himself, even when he maybe should have. He'd always been sure that his will, determination, and hard work would take him to exactly where he was supposed to be. Still, hearing your words of encouragement, hearing your genuine belief in his ability, it affected him in a way he wasn't expecting.

"You will too," he says, his voice barely above a murmur.

A few seconds go by where you don't say anything and he wonders if you'd even heard him, but one glance at you tells him that you had. You're not looking at him, your eyes averted as if you're embarrassed and your lips are curved into a small, satisfied smile. The sight makes his heart stop and he almost goes to clutch his chest before the feeling quickly passes.

Before the moment can linger, you're shooting back into conversation with him. Despite his best efforts to pay attention, he finds that his attention is drawn back again and again to your words. He knows that the crew believes in his dreams just as much as he believes in theirs. It's part of why he's so willing to protect their dreams just as fiercely as his own, but for some reason knowing that you believe in him so much really sticks with him.

He thinks about it for the rest of the day as well as late into the night when they're all back on the Sunny and setting off for the next island. He doesn't like being distracted, so he mulls over why your compliment holds so much weight for him. He values your opinion, but you're also not a swordsman, so theoretically there shouldn't be that much weight to your words. When he finally realizes, it feels like everything clicks into place and so many things start to make sense.

He acts like nothing has changed, wanting time to sit with the feelings before he decides what to do about them, but he finds it hard now that he understands the full weight of his regard for you.

Law rarely ever gives out compliments, rather preferring to show how he feels with his actions.

I think he receives a few compliments here and there, but he's built an intimidating presence and image, so I think they're far and few between. However, I think if you took him off guard with a meaningful compliment, especially if its one that he hasn't heard before, it would make him start to think about his feelings towards you.

~

"Captain, we have a problem."

Law sighs, all of the worst-case scenarios running through his mind as he turns to face Sachi. They're docked at a port town so that they can restock the Polar Tang, preparing for another few weeks underwater. It's familiar and something that the crew should be familiar with by this point. They have a routine, a schedule that rarely changes, that details who goes with who to go get what. In theory, it should go perfectly smoothly.

It never does.

"What is it, Sachi?" he asks, his grip on Kikoku tightening slightly as Sachi walks up to him with the list of crewmates and jobs in hand.

"Well, you said that nobody is allowed to go alone into town right? For safety?" he asks, only resuming once Law has hummed in agreement. "Right, well uh, unfortunately, Penguin is sick today which means his partner doesn't have anyone to go with, which wouldn't be an issue since usually we have at least one group of three but, well, they're also sick so-"

Law grumbles under his breath about getting to the damn point, grabbing the sheet from Sachi's hands to just look at the issue himself. Sachi gulps, sensing his irritation, and nervously rubs the back of his neck. The problem becomes clear very easily. His beloved crew had partied a little too hard the last few nights and now two of them were sick, leaving no group of three to split up and someone unaccompanied. He looks for Penguin's name to see who's alone and feels his heart flutter slightly when he sees your name scrawled out next to it.

"Our only two options are to either make one group get two things, which would set us back at least an hour, or...," Sachi says, trailing off slightly. The unspoken second option is clear. Law always spend their restock days on the ship. The higher his bounty gets, the higher the chance that he gets recognized, so he always finds it easier and safer for him to stay behind.

"I'll go," he relents, watching as the tension in Sachi's shoulders dissipates.

"Great. Thanks, Captain!"

Sachi disappears before he can change his mind. He sighs, looking around the collection of his crew until he finally finds you in the mix. He makes his way over, watching as you converse with Bepo, catching the very end of your sentence.

"-seems like I'll be alone today. Sachi said he would look into it, but everyone already has their pairs so I don't know who could take his place."

"That would be me," he answers, watching as both Bepo and you finally notice his approach.

"Oh! Uh, are you sure? Don't you usually spend the day on the Tang doing research?" you ask.

He ignores your improper name for the Polar Tang as he explains the situation to you. You nod, smiling as you say, "I see. Well, I'm glad to have your company then, Captain!"

He's taken aback by your words but decides to just move forward instead of dwelling on them, so he turns around and shouts, "Let's go."

"Shouldn't you probably change?"

He stops, looking down at his attire as you add, "As much as it suits you, it doesn't really hide the fact that you're a pirate, let alone our Captain."

He can't really argue with that. The Heart Pirates logo is front and center on his shirt and Kikoku is certainly not doing him any favors either. He tells you to wait and then quickly shambles himself into his room to change. He has to dig really deep in his closet before he finds a shirt that doesn't have his symbol front and center, but once he does he leaves Kikaku leaning against his wall and shambles back up to you.

By the time he's changed and came back, most of his crew is gone. You're quicker to notice him this time as a result and the two of you finally head into town.

"What are we in charge of?" he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets now that they're not holding his sword.

"We're in charge of the medicinal herbs, Captain," you answer.

"Just Law is fine," he says, his hand fidgeting slightly as he adds, "No use in me changing if you're just going to use my title."

He sees you smile softly out of the corner of his eyes. "Right. Law it is, then."

His ears burn slightly as you say his name so effortlessly, but he brushes it off quickly and continues into town. It's not hard to find the store you're looking for and he lets you take the lead as you begin listing off the various herbs you need. It's not long before the two of you are walking through town once more, heading towards the submarine.

"Oh, look! That art is gorgeous."

He stops walking as he turns to look at what you're pointing at. There's a small stall in the marketplace's square that's selling paintings of all different sizes and mediums. He sees your eyes light up as you look at them and isn't surprised when you say, "Wait here, I'm going to go buy one."

He huffs, leaning against the wall of a nearby building where he can see the stall. He'd like to pretend that today had purely been an inconvenience, but he can't find it in himself to be that upset. While it was inconvenient that he wasn't able to spend the time studying the most recent medical book he had been interested in, the day had been pleasant. You'd made pleasant conversation with him while walking in town and your bright demeanor always seems to calm him down.

He looks back over to the stall, curious about what painting had caught your eyes, but feels his heart jolt when he doesn't see any sign of you. He stands up to his full height, hoping to catch any glimpse of you, but he still doesn't see anything. He curses to himself for letting his guard down and allowing you to somehow slip away and starts searching for you with his observation haki.

He picks up your signature in an alleyway and feels his gut churning. Not wanting to draw attention to himself by using his devil fruit powers, he quickly makes his way to where you are. As he gets closer, he hears you pleading with someone.

"Look, I'm really not interested and I have someone waiting for me, so-"

"Surely I can show you a better time than them, hm?"

He doesn't recognize the second voice but he doesn't need to to know what's going on. He feels anger burn in him as he finally turns a corner and sees a guy caging your body against the wall with both of his arms.

"I already told you, I'm not looking for that. Please let me go," you say, your hands clutching the bag of herbs you'd bought earlier as well as what looks to be whatever painting you had bought at the stall. He also sees the man take a step closer and open his mouth to talk, so he takes the opportunity to interrupt.

"You heard them," he says, his voice like venom as he enunciates, "Let them go."

The man looks at him, sizing him up as he takes a step back and lets his arms drop. "What are you, a good samaritan? Buzz off," he scoffs, turning his head back to you, clearly intending to ignore him.

He doesn't know what comes over him as he finds himself stepping closer and punching the man square on the side of his face. The man, clearly caught off guard, stumbles slightly. He doesn't give him any time to recover as he steps forward, putting himself in between you and the man whose face was now swelling up.

"What the hell?" he shouts, cradling his face as he finally catches his balance.

He can see the punch coming but knows that you're standing right behind him, so he only shifts slightly so that the punch only hits him in the shoulder. A moment afterward, it dawns on him that he can just get rid of the man, so he does.

"You're lucky I don't have my sword, or you'd be getting much worse than this," he seethes, holding his hand out as he says his classic phrase and sends the man shambling into the ocean. In his place, a mossy stone drops to the ground, echoing in the now almost empty alleyway.

When he turns around, you're staring at him speechless. He frowns slightly as he gives you a once over, checking for any visible signs of harm.

"I'm ok," you finally say, your voice shaky before you cough slightly and repeat, voice calm, "I'm ok. Just unnerved."

He doesn't take his chances and calls another room, switching you both closer to the Polar Tang. His guilt at letting you out of his sight and allowing this guy to drag you off eats at him as the two of you approach the ship. Once inside, he shambles the two of you to his examination room, pointing to the table and saying, "Sit. I want to check for injuries with the proper equipment."

You don't fight him as you make your way towards the table. You're still holding the bag and the painting until he gently takes them from you, placing them next to you on the table.

"I'm really ok La- I mean Captain," you begin, correcting yourself back to his title now that it's just the two of you.

He finds himself missing his name from you but keeps the comment to himself. He's supposed to be checking you for injuries. He's supposed to be assessing your well-being, which is only in question because of his own negligence. He frowns to himself and continues to check you for injuries without answering.

You let him, still assuring him that you're fine, that he only grabbed your arm for a moment at the stall, but he doesn't stop until he's sure that there's nothing wrong.

He sighs, finally stepping back from the table. His guilt still eats at him regardless as he goes over everything he did wrong. "I'm sorry, I should have been watching more carefully. No, I should have just come with you."

You simply smile at him in response and say, "It's my fault. I was the one who stepped away."

He doesn't have anything to say to that. He knows it's true, you did step away despite it being an explicit rule not to, but he can't deny his part in it as well. He curls his fists as the silence continues.

"Why didn't you dodge his punch?" you ask, your voice quiet.

He's surprised by the question, but also by how quickly his cheeks warm up at his answer. He looks off to the side, hiding behind his hat as he says, "You were right behind me. If I moved, he would have just punched you."

You have the audacity to laugh, loud and full as if he had just told you the funniest joke you'd ever heard and he can't help but scowl.

"You know," you start, laughter still floating in your voice, "For someone with such a cold exterior, you sure are kind."

The compliment catches him off guard. His face whips towards you as his eyes open in shock, the faint blush now burning bright red across his whole face. He meets your eyes and he doesn't see any hint of a joke.

He's heard himself called a lot of things. Scary, cold, bitter, even downright malicious, but never kind. It sends shivers up his spine as the word settles somewhere under his skin. You think he's kind. Kind.

"You're my subordinate. I'm not being kind, I'm just doing my job as your Captain," he corrects, not wanting you to misunderstand his intentions.

Your laugh this time is softer, more full of fondness, but it rustles him all the same. "You really are kind though," you insist. He's not ready for you to continue, barely able to handle the few words you've said, but that's never stopped you before. "I think you care a lot more than you want us to think. You wouldn't worry so much otherwise. Besides, you're always going out of your way to protect us. I think that makes you kind."

He doesn't know what to say, so he tries to navigate back into familiar territory. He takes a deep breath and calms his nerves, grabbing the bag of medical herbs from your side and turning around to begin putting them away. "Well, since I've checked and you don't have any injuries, there's no reason for you to stay."

He hears you shuffling around as he begins unpacking the herbs from the bag and chances a glance over at you one more time. He regrets it immediately.

You're looking at him like you can see right through him. You have your painting tucked under your arm as you look over your shoulder at him in the doorway and you're still smiling at him as if he didn't just ignore your comment and dismiss you rather rudely. It makes his heart ache, wanting to prove you right. To prove that he is kind, that he's worthy of your opinion of him, that he's worthy of your praise.

"Thank you, Captain. I enjoyed your company today."

With that, you disappear down the hallway, presumably back to your shared room to hang up your new picture. He stares at the spot you left long after you've gone, your words echoing in his mind. They rattle around in his heart until they finally settle, leaving a warm comfort he didn't know he craved.

You think he's kind.

That thought plagues his mind for the rest of the day. His guilt is completely forgotten, his mind too consumed by your compliment to make any room for it. He finds himself unable to even focus on reading the medical book that night that he missed out on reading earlier. Your words and the simple fact that you truly believed them chip away at his resolve until he finally has to come to terms with why it affects him so much. He mumbles your name, his hand clutching his heart as it beats, solidifying what he'd been ignoring for a long, long time now.

ღ radishaur — i do not own any of these characters. do not plagiarize. please enjoy and remember to be respectful! 

[defira85]

 A non-comprehensive list of the things Essek Widogast of Den Nein gets up to post-campaign:

when he and Caleb buy a house in Nicodranus, the only thing he insists upon (apart from the need for a library, which Caleb agrees with) is that it must have a garden. They spend the first year setting up a teleportation circle in the cellar behind the wine racks so that Caleb can commute for work

he learns how to garden. he gets sunburned more often than he should. their home is known for the vibrant swathes of flowers and bushes that threaten to spill out into the street

when Caleb is at work one day, he gets it into his head that he wants to plant a tree on the roof, like the Xhorhouse. He fell in love with the Mighty Nein in that house, after all. Caleb comes home to a sheepish husband and a tangle of roots threatening to overtake the guest bedroom

the tree stays

there are lights and lanterns strung through the branches. some of them are shaped like dicks.

there are always bowls and jars of candy in every nook and cranny of every room. just in case they have visitors. they have plenty of nieces and nephews and niblings now, after all

he picks the best flowers of the season and presses them for Yasha, every year. he keeps it up long after she’s gone

his detailed pressings and notes on rare flowers become incredibly important botany resources in years to come

he learns how to bake. the first thing he perfects is donuts, closely followed by cupcakes. He and Jester and her children go on a pilgrimage to this really amazing bakery they’ve heard about in Tal’dorei, in Whitestone

there’s a book club. he tries to make the others choose anything other than the smutty romance novels

it’s always smutty romance novels

he reads them anyway

he was never sure what he was in the faith of the Luxon, but it’s been abundantly clear he’s not welcome on that path anymore regardless. He visits the Blooming Grove and talks to Caduceus about the nature of faith. About life. About death. About miracles like bringing a soul back from oblivion and saving a life with love

he doesn’t call himself a follower, but he always takes a week or two every year at least, to rest in the shade of the grove. To consider

he visits Rumplecusp. he dances on the beach at midnight with his friends. with his family.

he visits Yussa once a week for tea and discussions of the arcane

he has lunch with Veth and Yeza regularly in the shop, and they always get distracted halfway through with excited sprints back to the workshop for some new experiment. It only catches fire half the time, usually

first their are nieces and nephews and niblings, and then grand nieces and nephews and niblings. his family keeps growing. new souls, new lives, not bound to the endless entropy of reincarnation and stagnation

he cries at every birth

and every wedding

now that he’s learned to cry he finds it comes quite naturally

he learns to tolerate the cat hair all over his fine clothing. he learns to love it, because its a sign of home, and comfort, and unconditional love

he learns that he can love. he can grieve.

he learns he can live

[astrabear]

axis mundi

Andromaquynh Secret Santa gift for @even-after-a-millennia. I’ve only written melancholy/bittersweet Andromaquynh until now; I hope I got the balance happy enough for you. (Complete notes and tags will be available when it posts to Ao3. No archive warnings, rated T.)

It’s a wet winter morning in the Sierra Nevada as Andy and Quỳnh pick their way down the trail. Andy is in the lead, on a bay mare, and Quỳnh follows on a red roan gelding. They’ve been riding for a few days now, long enough to feel like they’ve traveled back in time. Never mind that when they last rode together, neither of them had any idea these mountains even existed; never mind that there are still occasional reminders of cars and planes and electricity. They are Andromache and Quỳnh alone together on horseback, as they were for centuries upon centuries, and when they go to bed in their polyester tent under the open skies they make love as though the world was still new.

Today they’ll reach the first of the groves that are Andy’s destination. Already the composition of the forest is changing. The first sequoia they see, Quỳnh rides around the trunk and looks up in wonder. “That one’s just a baby,” Andy tells her. “Let’s keep going.”

So they do.

The drizzle clears up by the time they’re fully surrounded by giants, although the canopy is still partially obscured by haze. Quỳnh’s reaction is everything Andy hoped it would be: Her breath catches, her eyes are wide and amazed. “Like the Bodhi Tree,” she whispers. “Or Yggdrasil. They hold up the sky.” Andy comes closer and wraps around her from behind, resting her cheek against Quỳnh’s temple. Quỳnh continues, “I didn’t think this world had anything left to be awed by. To be… humbled by. But this…”

They stand there for a few minutes, taking it all in. Then Andy turns her head to kiss Quỳnh’s cheek and murmurs in her ear, “Some of these trees are older than you are.”

“Really?”

“Not many. But a few.” She shifts slightly, presses her cold nose into Quỳnh’s hair. “Since I found you, I haven’t been able to imagine a world without you in it. But they remember; they were here too.”

Quỳnh is still gazing around the grove in wonder, but she squeezes Andy’s arms to show she’s listening. “Are there any that remember the world before you?”

“Any trees? No. Not any plant or animal I’ve ever seen. Booker looked it up once. There’s a thing called a glass sponge, some of them might be over ten thousand years old. No one really knows exactly. But they live deep in the ocean –“ Quỳnh shivers in her arms. “Anyway, that’s it. Nothing else on Earth is older than I am. When I’m gone – “

“Andromache, don’t.”

“When I’m gone, the oldest living thing other than the sponges will be a bristlecone pine named Methuselah. You can go look for it then, if you want. It’s not far from here, just a day’s ride or so.”

Quỳnh sighs and turns in her arms, still looking at the trees but now holding Andy. “How old is it?”

“Almost five thousand, I think.”

Finally, Quỳnh refocuses on Andy, looking shocked and almost offended. She breathes in sharply, as if about to say something, then takes Andy’s face in her hands and kisses her fiercely, desperately. Just as abruptly, she pulls back and hisses, “I will burn it to the ground. I will burn them all. I will allow no more ancient things when you are gone.”

Andy just smiles sadly, and tucks a lock of hair behind Quỳnh’s ear. “Somewhere – maybe in this forest, maybe somewhere else the old trees grow – there is a tree that sprouted the day we met. And it’s been living and growing all this time. All through the years we were separated. If all goes well, it’ll keep growing after me.” She runs the backs of her fingers down Quỳnh’s cheek. “Don’t burn them all.”

.

They stop for lunch in sight of the General Sherman Tree, put hobbles and feedbags on the horses, and settle down together on a blanket. Some days Quỳnh delights in modern food, and some days she needs the comfort of the familiar. Andy made sure to pack both. Today, Quỳnh opts for a protein bar, a bologna sandwich on white bread, and dried fruit. Processed food, which tells Andy their discussion of her mortality hasn’t caused too much distress. They eat without talking, enjoying the solitude and their otherworldly surroundings. This would be a popular trail in the summer, which is precisely why they’re here now. It’s not as though they mind the weather.

When they finish eating, Andy leans back against the massive trunk behind her, and Quỳnh lies with her head on Andy’s legs. There’s a dreamy expression on her face, and she looks around like she wants to eat the trees with her eyes.

After a few minutes, Quỳnh asks, “If each of these is a world tree, do they all have their own heavens and their own underworlds? Or are they merely different paths all to the same places?”

Andy smirks. “Seems like a waste to me.” She has never cared much about upper or lower planes. “A tree that connects to another Earth, though. I might climb that one.”

“Mmm.” Quỳnh rubs her cheek on Andy’s thigh and looks up at her. “I would like to go to another Earth where cacao grew in the Old World as well as the New, so we always had chocolate.”

The smirk widens to a grin. “That would have been something. Think of all the political and economic changes.”

“Think of all the chocolate we would have eaten!”

“Oh I am,” and Andy pulls a chocolate bar out of her pack, still grinning. She breaks it in two and passes half to Quỳnh, and they each take a bite.

“And which different world would you go to?” Andy barely opens her mouth before Quỳnh interrupts. “Not that one!” She shakes a finger at Andy, which looks frankly ridiculous while she’s lying down. “Nothing that depends on us doing something differently. Life is too short for that.”

“Too short?” Andy laughs incredulously.

“Yes, too short!” Quỳnh sits up, pulls her legs in and turns toward Andy. “Tell me. If each of these was a world tree, and if each one could take you to another world where you did something differently… are there enough trees in this forest for each decision you wish you could undo? All the regrets from all the thousands of years you’ve lived?”

Andy stares at her and whispers, “No.”

Quỳnh leans in as if to kiss her, but just as Andy moves to meet her she stops, their mouths only a few inches apart. She looks Andy straight in the eyes and says, “So let them go.”

Andy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and when she opens them again Quỳnh has gone back to lying in her lap. She wiggles a little as she settles herself and grins up at Andy. “So. Try again. What world?”

What differences would be fun to explore, that don’t involve changing her own actions? She’s worked so hard to accept the world as it is (even if she could never quite extend that to herself); it’s hard to call up a fantasy now. Being alone in a beautiful forest with Quỳnh – a happy and playful Quỳnh – is already more than she’d let herself dream. But she’s done harder things than this, just to keep a smile on Quỳnh’s face. So she tries.

“I’d like to visit an alternate Earth where the land bridge never entirely went away and Siberia stayed connected to Alaska.”

“Oh, that’s a good one!” Quỳnh actually applauds. “And then we could still have had chocolate, so it can be the same world as mine!”

All at once, Andy is so overcome with fondness that she bends over and hugs Quỳnh’s face (but not completely covering her, not blocking all of her vision or restricting her air; she doesn’t even have to think about it consciously anymore.) Quỳnh yelps and struggles, and they spend a few minutes wrestling on the ground. The horses snort disapprovingly.

.

It’s their last night in the park, and they’re sitting around the fire pit. Nile introduced them to s’mores, which they’ve both enthusiastically adopted. Quỳnh is an expert at getting the marshmallows just right: hot enough to be gooey and melt the chocolate, but never so hot that they burn Andy’s fingers or mouth. In between bites, they talk about where they’ll go next. Copley got them tickets to rejoin the others, but the flight isn’t until next week.

“We’re in California,” Quỳnh muses. “Isn’t that where Disneyland is?”

It’s one of the more unexpected questions she’s asked since she got back. “How’d you hear about Disneyland?”

“I’ve been watching the movies with Nile. She said something about ‘cultural literacy.’ I like them a lot. But she told me I ruined Mulan for her, telling her all the things they got wrong.”</p>

“Mulan?” Andy can’t remember the last movie she watched, but she knows that name. “As in Hua Mulan?” Quỳnh nods. “Disney made a movie about her? Huh.” She notices that Quỳnh is looking at her expectantly. She must be missing something…

“Hey wait a minute!” Quỳnh starts giggling, now that Andy’s caught on. “We were nowhere near China then! Weren’t we mostly operating out of Kush? And… and helping with the plague around Constantinople?” By now Quỳnh is laughing, loudly, and Andy can’t help joining her. “You’re terrible.”

“I know, I know. Don’t tell her. Eventually she’ll figure out that being alive while something happened doesn’t mean knowing anything about it.”

“Yeah, well. She knows, but she’s got no frame of reference for it. She grew up hearing about things as they happened, no matter where they were.” Andy yawns and stretches her legs out toward the fire. “She never had to wait three months in a flea-infested hovel just because a message went astray.”

Quỳnh, who by now has heard more complaints about that incident than she can count, simply rolls her eyes and pokes Andy in the side. “Disneyland?”

There are so many reasons to say no: it’s the opposite direction from where they have to leave the horses; it’s too loud, too crowded, probably too full of surveillance; Los Angeles is a nightmare that Andy would normally chew her own arm off to avoid. Maybe she doesn’t lead the team in the field anymore, but she’s still responsible for them. She looks away from the fire, into the trees. Are there enough trees in this forest for each decision you wish you could undo?

Quỳnh pokes her again. “Andromache? Disneyland?” Her eyes are huge, shining with excitement and mirth. Andy’s hand whips out and grabs her finger in time to prevent another poke. The firelight turns their faces gold, but it’s less bright than Andy’s smile.

“Fuck yes. We’re going to Disneyland.”

[timextoxhajima]

Not For Sale: Week 14

NOT FOR SALE CHAPTER NAVIGATION

Member: Heeseung + Jay [ft. Sunghoon and Jake]

Pairings: [fem] uni exchange student! reader x uni student! HS x uni student! Jay

Genres: Fluff | Slice of Life | Comedy | Angst | Teenage Romance | Thriller

Warnings: scenes in the hospital

Word Count: 3k

Synopsis/Quote: In which your oblivious ass cannot tell that a popular boy in your class has a big, fat crush on you | “It seems like the one who was ruined was me.”

Taglist: @hyunjaethereal @seasideheeseung @wooya1224 @gratefulmaria @sunshineshouchan @youreverydayzebra @fayqj @witheeseung @haechanhues @w-o-o-y-a-a @miingxuxi @reallysmolrenjun @hrrhmay-primaryblog @rosie112703 @ac-ewow @liliansun​​ [drop me a dm/ask/comment to be added!]

You’re staring at the project document blankly, the pages filled with words and tables of the work you’ve done with Heeseung in the last few weeks or so. The weekend felt like three weeks, even when it was just three days - simply because you were in the hospital watching Jay flit in and out of consciousness and Heeseung’s still in a comatose state. 

The seat next to you is empty and there is no other word to describe being alone on your last week of school than ‘sad’. 

The Uber that picked Jay and Heeseung up had just been in school compounds and the police had found a rig in the brakes - the Uber had been stopped by another car driving straight into it.

Heeseung was on the side the car was rammed into. It’s a miracle he’s even still alive. 

“y/n?” 

The call jolts you out of your dissociation.

“Hey,” The professor walks up the stairs, and only now do you realise everybody else had left the lecture hall besides you. “I had the others hand up their projects but I saw you zoning out and I couldn’t do it.”

“Sorry,” Mumbling under your breath, you give the folder a quick flip-through before handing him the document. ��Here.”

With pursed lips, he takes the folder and glances through it, skimming through the contents and pausing on the last page where you and Heeseung had signed off on. 

“I’m sorry it happened.”

“I’m sorry the school had to go through so much to catch the idiot,” Through gritted teeth, you offer him a small wince. 

“Well, yeah, that too,” The professor pulls up the lecture table from the seat next to you and sits himself in the plastic grove. “But it’s not important now. He’s going to be charged for God knows how many felonies, but I just- I wanted to know how you’re holding up.”

The concerned question thrums chills through you. Heeseung would’ve asked that. Jay would’ve too.

Jake and Sunghoon have probably tried, but you’re too busy crying or zoning out at the hospital to process anything else even if they did try. 

“I’m fine,” You shake your head and stuff your iPad into your bag. “There’s nothing anybody can do to make him wake up faster.”

“I know that. It’s just... I don’t want a student ending her semester like this.”

The grumble of the zip as you close your bag is disgustingly loud in the empty lecture hall. You hug your bag, slowly looping your arm through one of the holes as you push the lecture table away. 

“I’ll be fine. I’m leaving next week anyway and Heeseung’s not dead, so.”

The professor goes quiet upon the declaration. 

“Thanks for the fun sem, Prof,” You give him a tiny, wretched smile that’s not genuine at all, lifting a leg over the backrest of the seat in front of you. “I’ll tell my dad to say hi to you every now and then.”

Finally on both your feet one row before him, he looks at you with sad, tired eyes. 

“It’s been a pleasure having you and Heeseung as students, y/n. Do come back to visit when you come visit your father.”

A bare nod shakes your head.

“Bye prof.”

The ceiling looks the same. The light dangling from the beige, crusty roof looks dusty.

The room looks the same - except the fact that 80% of it were in boxes now. The clock hung on the wall has the loudest ticking you’ve ever heard - had it been this loud since the start?

Bzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt. Bzzz-

“Hello.”

“Jesus Christ, how many times do you want me to call you before you’d pick up?”

Maybe until Heeseung wakes up.

“You know what? Don’t answer that.”

A pause.

“How are you holding up?”

“Great. I mean the sem’s over. I’ve handed up almost every project I need to submit.”

“Fuck you, you know I don’t mean that.”

“What am I supposed to tell you? I’m great, while I wait for my two friends to recover in the hospital? One of them’s not even awake.”

“I don’t want to be that person but no matter how much you cry or pray that he wakes up, it’s going to take time, okay? Let him rest and recuperate and he’ll spring back to life like he wasn’t just in an accident.”

“I shouldn’t have let them take the Uber.”

“For crying out loud, it is not your fault. You told them your dad was coming to get you and Jay didn’t want to cancel it for the fee. It’s a normal reaction. Who was supposed to know the Uber was rigged?”

You blink. 

“Have you packed?”

You count the boxes in your room. “Mostly.”

“I’ll be at your place when you come home. We can bake cupcakes and cookies and you can tell me about the school there.”

Your ears are taking in her words but your eyes are on the paper bag on your desk. It’s the tumbler that Jay got you. 

“Hello? You there?”

“Byeol, what if they don’t wake up before I leave? I have 8 days.”

“Have some faith in them, would you? Jay’s already awake right? He’s just flitting in and out of consciousness and Heeseung... They haven’t said he’s in critical condition, right?”

“But he’s been in the ER and it’s been three days.”

“Sis, I could sleep for three days. He’ll be awake before you leave.”

“Hope so.”

“Not going to the hospital?”

“Nah,” You roll over onto your side and stare at yourself in the mirror on your wardrobe doors. “Their friends are swarming the wards. It’s fine, Jake and Hoon got me onto the special visitors’ list.”

“There’s a special visitors’ list?”

“It’s Jay and it’s an expensive hospital with classier management. So yeah, pretty much.”

“That’s nice.”

Silence - except the occasional crackling of the static on the phone. 

“They’ll do fine, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I have to go now. I’ll call you tonight or tomorrow, I’ll text you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye bye.”

The car ride with your father is quiet, the gentle music from the stereo playing and you’re thinking about how your mother is back at home. She is a busy woman back home too so you hadn’t really had the time to call or text her.

For the first time in a long time, your father knows more about your life than she does. 

“I know you’re probably not in the mood to answer this but...” The car slows at a red light. “Have you started packing?”

You don’t turn. The trees outside are swaying gently in the light breeze on this sunny day. It reminds you of the day Heeseung brought you out to the beach for your picnic. 

“I’m about 80% done. The stuff left’s like my laptop and iPad and daily appliances.”

“That’s good,” You see him nod in the window’s reflection and glance at you. “Well, I’ll come by and hand you the documents for credit transfer later this week and I’ll send you to the bus terminal next Wednesday too, yeah?”

“Mhm,” Humming to yourself, the refracted red light turns green. “Sure.”

The car starts again. “Hun, I... I just wanted you to know that I know this sem has been difficult for you. I’m- I’m sorry that I suggested you come. Had I known that there was going to be a lunatic running on the loose, I would’ve stopped you from coming.”

“You wouldn’t have known,” You mumble, but still loud enough for him to hear. “It’s fine, it’s over.”

“And with what happened with Jay and Heeseung... I’m sorry. I really am.”

“They would’ve gotten caught up in this crazy shitfest with the psycho anyway, regardless of my presence,” Finally turning to look at your father, he side-eyes you while keeping his hands on the steering wheel. “It’s not anybody’s fault except that psycho’s that this happened.”

Your father remains quiet, unable to respond. The car drives into the sheltered drop-off point at the hospital and he watches you unbuckle the seat belt to let yourself out the car.

“Hey.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder and rest a hand on the car door. 

“They’ll be okay.”

A weak smile pulls your lips up your cheeks. 

“I hope so.”

By the time you’ve reached the floor where the wads were, you’ve run into a good number of their friends. Of course, there were one or two bad apples among the bunch, but most of them knew you were on a special visitors’ list and that’s why you came so late. 

It never gets easier though, the look on their faces when you know they want to tell you that they’ll be okay, but promises should not be made if they cannot be kept.

Walking into Jay’s ward, you see his mother helping to sponge his face while Jake and Sunghoon speak to a friend on the other side of the bed. 

You catch the room’s attention when you pull the plastic bag out from your bag and let the door shut behind you, Jay’s mother looking up and offering you a tired smile. 

“Oh, hey,” Jake grins and beckons you over. 

“Hi Mrs Park,” You gesture to Jake to wait before holding out the plastic bag to Jay’s mother. “It’s a box of tonic for you and Mr Park. Thought of getting fruits but I don’t think Jay can have them yet.”

“Gosh, you really didn’t have to,” She shakes her head and sets the cloth down by the bed. “Thank you. Are you sure you’re okay, coming to visit so often? You’re here everyday, aren’t you?”

You return her a tight, pursed smile. “Yeah, but it’s fine. I’m leaving to go home next week so I don’t have much time left to spend with them. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, honey,” She stands and takes the box from you, turning to set it down on the table behind her before returning you her attention. “I... I don’t know what to say. This must be all a lot for you.”

You break the eye contact first, knowing that you were probably going to cry if you hadn’t stopped looking at her.

“No, it’s fine,” You raise a palm and rub her upper arm. “All I want is to have a decent conversation with Jay before I leave, and I’ll be more than satisfied.”

“Oh!” She exclaims, nose crunching into a threatened crying mess. She holds her arms open and coerces you into her arms, patting the back of your head. “Of course. Of course, Jay will be fine by the time you need to go home. I promise.”

“I really do hope so,” You pull away first and smile weakly at her.

“By the way, Mr and Mrs Lee are with Heeseung in the ward next door,” She sniffles, anxiously rubbing her palms together.

“Oh, right- Do they know I’m on the-”

“Yes, of course they do, sweet heart,” She quickly rubs your arm to comfort you, then slides her hands down to yours to keep them in her palms. “Their parents are the sweetest couple ever and they’d be so grateful that Heeseung has a friend like you. How about I have Jake or Sunghoon bring you over to meet them?”

“Oh,” You watch as she waves to get one of the boys’ attention, Sunghoon quickly pulling away from the crowd to attend to you. 

“Would you do me a favour and bring her over to Heeseung’s ward? Introduce her to his parents.”

“Of course,” Sunghoon hurriedly nods and lowers his head out of respect. “Come on.”

“Thanks, Mrs Park,” You turn your feet to follow Sunghoon, but your hands are reluctant to leave hers. “I’ll come back later.”

“No, take your time, sweet.”

With a slight nod, you pull away and trail after Sunghoon out of the ward after leaving your bag with Jake.

The ward door closes with a soft hiss, then Sunghoon pauses right before you can come into view of Heeseung’s ward door, turning over his shoulder to look down at you. 

“I don’t mean to bring this up at a bad time but...”

“I know,” You nod. “I know I’ve been an ass the last few weeks. Honestly, I... I didn’t know who I wanted to be endgame either.”

Sunghoon gives your word one more second of thought before he turns around to face you. 

“It’s not my business but are you going to choose? Or... just go home next week?”

You frown and look down at your hands, reminiscing the warmth from Jay’s mother.

“I don’t know,” Your voice cracks. “I don’t think I can choose. Even if I do, I have 8 days, and neither of them are awake yet. I don’t... I don’t want to do that to them.”

He takes a deep breath and looks away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“It’s Heeseung. Choose Heeseung,” He says without looking at you. “The night they got into a crash, Jay texted Jake to tell us that Heeseung kissed you, and that was the moment he decided he would give up.”

The statement tears you apart on the inside. 

“Jay’s a tough guy to hurt and he plays his cards fairly and maturely,” Sunghoon nods and finally looks at you. “Don’t feel bad you’re choosing Heeseung over him. He had a truce with Heeseung. About you. And he knows he lost fair and square, so don’t feel upset. Just pour your heart and soul into Heeseung for the rest of the time you’re here, and worry about committing anything else after you’ve gone home.”

You part your lips to breathe, as if it would help you understand any faster or better.

“Anyway, both Heeseung’s parents are in there and they already have an idea who you are so... Just be nice.”

He watches you nod, slightly zoned-out, then pushes the door open. 

His parents can tell you’re more preoccupied with the limp, breathing body on the bed than their presence, but they still take it with grace and greet you like they’ve known you your entire life.

The sight of Heeseung being bandaged up with a leg hanging in the air makes you feel like shit.

Who wouldn’t?

Later in the night, after Heeseung’s mother had gone home and his father had left to get coffee, you’re left alone with him and the occasional beeping from the Holter monitor. 

There was a bruise and scratch on his left cheek, and his neck, arms and right leg were in a cast. You think about how much he was going to miss dancing when he gets told he’ll need to be on a 6-month break from anything strenuous. 

Tired, you pull your earpieces out and plug it into your phone, laying it on the bed while you hover over him to fit the earbuds into his ears. Then you sit back down and scroll through your playlist, playing with the volume buttons to make sure it was softer than the volume you’d normally listen to your music at. 

You make your selection, then quietly lay on the mattress with the faint music drizzling the atmosphere’s noise. That’s how quiet the room was. 

His fingers were sticking out of his cast, so you play with them. His hair was in his shut eyes, so you gently push them out in case he were to open them. 

“One more time, Heeseung. Just one more time before I leave.”

Jay’s mother was sleeping by his bed when you walk in to check on them, bag hanging from your right shoulder and lids heavy from the terrible sleep schedule the past few days. 

“Hi.”

And a smile stretches your lips out when you can see him blink, offer you his bright grin, apart from the cut on his eyebrow.

“Hey,” You whisper, walking towards him on the other side of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Jay clears his throat and blinks. “Had better days, but at least I’m alive.”

A snigger threatens to wake his mother up. “Good. Do you want me to wake your mom up? Maybe get a doctor in to give you a check up or something.”

He shakes his head, even managing a small wave in his fingers laying by his hip. “No, I’m good. I’m going back to sleep soon anyway.”

You lean over and adjust his pillow. “Well, then I shan’t disturb you. I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

“Sure,” He looks up at you and nods. Your gazes meet, for a split second, he can kind of know what you’re thinking of, and you know what he was. 

“Thank you for this sem, Jay. I really am.”

He shakes his head. “No, thank you. It was a fun sem because of you.”

“You call being in a hospital ward fun?”

Chuckling, he turns back to look at the ceiling for a second. “You will come back to visit us, won’t you? Zoom call us or something.”

“Of course. We could meet up during the summer break if anything.”

Satisfied, he nods again. “Good.”

“Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow,” You shove your hands into your pockets. 

“Okay,” He quietly responds, watching you turn on your heels. “Oh, y/n.”

You turn and raise a brow.

“Heeseung. He’s the one for you, and... he’ll wake up for you. I know he will.”

With a slightly ached grin, you nod and look down at your feet. 

“Bye Jay.”

“Bye.”

[spookyspaghettisundae]

It Walked Like a Person

Sleep.

Agent Parker needed sleep.

She fought the longing to slip into any dreamland, struggling against the weight of her eyelids whenever she sat down while the two men kept watch on their shifts. Tiny whispers in the back of her mind urged her to lie down and close her eyes and slip into the warm embrace of slumber—

But she could not. Would not.

Every time she watched while one of the others slept, her eyes burned, unblinking, as she stared into the impenetrable and never-ending mist. She never needed either of them to poke her awake from drifting off, unlike what she did whenever either Steven Walker or Joshua was on watch with her.

They could never rest more than an hour, anyway.

Zombies wandered the mist, hunting for the living. Other things slithered across the ground—tentacles, worms, it was hard to tell. None of them cared to know for sure.

And now, the ground throbbed. Where they sat, in a small grove of trees near the roadside, the earth itself had developed a pulse. A heartbeat she could feel in her legs and behind, and even the tree trunk she leaned against.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Dismissing the idea that she was imagining it or suffering from some sort of episode, she acutely sensed the alien pulse in the ground. Throughout it. Everywhere.

Steven had dozed off next to her, leaning against a different trunk. Same for Joshua, whose eyes had closed, though it was his designated turn to rest.

Parker reached over, grabbed Steven by the shoulder, and his eyes fluttered open before she shook him softly.

With his head on a swivel and eyes darting back and forth with growing fear, that same semblance of panic subsided as it dawned on him that he had only dozed off, and there were no threats nearby.

Leaving him no time to regain his bearings, she asked, "Do you feel that?"

He blinked a few times through eyes that looked as bloodshot as her own felt.

"Feel what?"

Placing a palm flat on the ground, she replied, "That. A pulse in the earth."

Steven copied her motion.

After a long delay, his eyes widened before he stared at Parker.

"What the hell?"

Parker pointed to the veins.

Fleshy black veins in the ground nearby.

When they had sat down here to rest, exchanging few words, Parker's mind and perception had idly dismissed those things as roots of the trees. They mirrored such shapes.

But they had turned pitch-black. The veins thrummed with the same pulse, resembling a heartbeat.

Slow, steady.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

They had to leave.

The veins had been spreading. Had Parker perhaps dozed off after all? Hard to tell. The exhaustion was overwhelming.

She had not witnessed any such transformation. She could have sworn that the roots looked like roots before, and now she even saw thin streaks of black in the tree trunks nearby.

Throbbing. Ever so slightly. Throbbing.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

With growing revulsion, she sat up and away from the one she leaned against, turning on the spot without getting up to confirm her suspicion.

More black veins.

The trees shared the same heartbeat.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"We need to go," she muttered, scrambling up onto her feet, patting her pants down.

Part of her dreaded to spot any black sludge or pulsing black veins upon her clothing.

Or under her own skin.

"Yeah," Steven groaned.

He was already shaking Joshua awake.

With few words exchanged—neither of them bothered to tell Joshua what he had missed, nor that he had gotten less than an hour of shuteye—they continued marching through the woods.

The colossus had not been here. There were no gaping craters, no broken trees, no trails of writhing and wriggling sludge, nor any rotten remains of human bodies and animal carcasses.

A plastic bottle crinkled under the pressure of fingers cramping around it. A sip of water. A single sip of water had to do. They had to ration it.

They had little concept of how far away they were from their destination. Their fortress and refuge.

Their prison.

How far away they were from THE MALL.

The little liquid left in the bottle sloshed back to the bottom. Parker handed the water to Steven. He took a sip and passed the bottle on to Joshua, who did the same.

They had to be close now.

They had to be.

Unless the same heartbeat that now thrummed in black veins in the earth and trees had been transforming the world around them. Shifting it, twisting it, making every path unknowable, and rendering every map a lie.

Crossing through woods, unfamiliar homes, and unable to navigate the mists because everything was bathed in eternal gray, and suffocated by a never-ending mist, they could only hope or pray that they had been heading in the right direction.

Parker neither hoped nor prayed. Empty words to her that she learned to use as a child. Expressions she let fall into disuse after growing up. She hedged no space in her mind for such things. Hopes often dashed, she saw little reason to pray for anything when she could take direct action and cared not to offend anyone if she did not truly believe in divinity.

Her stomach growled. What little supplies they had salvaged from the abandoned homes along the way, none of them had opened any of the canned goods nor junk food.

Besides, the fetid, grisly lairs of mutated people—decorated with hacked-up human remains and innards and blood—had robbed the three survivors of any appetite. Hordes of creatures forced them to stay on the move, leaving them little time to eat. And they would soon have to ration food with the people back inside THE MALL—if they even made it back.

Barely visible through the mist, Parker now wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Were the canopies and branches and leaves simply swaying in the breeze, or were they thrumming to the same pulse as the ground, and the fleshy black veins of the earth spreading everywhere?

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Spreading.

Spreading.

Joshua hissed a string of expletives through gritted teeth, pushing past brush and branches so thick they could have used machetes to progress.

The road, however, was no longer an option.

The colossus was out there somewhere, silent despite its overwhelming size, prowling the paved Kentucky pathways. Absorbing everything dead into its growing, towering, hulking mass.

Festering. Seeking out the living.

Parker shuddered as she dispelled her memories of that monstrosity. Of that mound of human skulls shaping a head, tethered to the colossal body by tongue-like tentacles and viscous black tar.

None of them were familiar with this neck of the woods. Steven came from a different town and hadn't been much of a hiker. Joshua and Parker hailed from different states entirely.

Marching in what they guessed to be the right direction, they were running ragged. The compass set into Joshua's survival knife helped, but every now and then the thing would spin out of control, unable to point north, with the little metal dial dancing madly about until settling.

Only owed to the digital watch on her wrist, Parker had any concept of the passage of time. She and Steven had been out here for almost two days and a night. Joshua even longer.

The conman had lost all his bravado and swagger, his gait so exhausted that he was only steps away from shambling around like the zombies. The southern drawl and accent he had been putting on since they met was fraying at the fringes of his words, and Parker was beginning to suspect that he came from Texas, not Louisiana.

And he was pale. Deathly pale.

So was Steven. But Joshua looked worse.

Parker had probably started looking like that, too.

She didn't believe in luck, either, but she was concerned they might have missed their mark. Simply following the compass helped little because they had to stay away from the roads. Wandering the untamed wilderness had offered them no clues to orient themselves.

However, she compared the local map to the last cluster of houses they had come across and suspected they couldn't be too far away anymore. If they chanced upon another road crossing their unmarked path, they had to follow that one east, and then they'd reach THE MALL again.

And some part of her did not even want to return.

But what choice did she have?

The people here and the people there all depended on her. She had not become an FBI agent for this purpose, but her iron sense of duty compelled her to fight for these people to the very end.

Even if she possessed no such sentiments, where would she go, anyway? The mist-riddled world seemed to expand forever in every direction. Nobody but the people inside THE MALL ever responded to any radio transmissions. TV and airwaves delivered nothing but a constant wall of white noise.

And outside THE MALL were only monsters. Once human, now transformed, grotesquely malformed in their proportions, and hunting for the few remaining alive.

The world as they knew it had ended.

There was no hope for survival out here.

After more hours of march, Joshua spoke up.

"C'mon, FBI, lemme carry that bag for ya."

Parker shook her head, grunted, lifting, and re-adjusting the strap of the golf bag containing her rifles and crowbar. It weighed heavily upon her, just like the heavy backpack of canned goods, but the two men were lugging at least as much. And Joshua looked very pale. Like he was about to keel over on the spot.

"Thank you. I got it."

Joshua clicked his tongue and shook his head, trailing ahead.

The only words they exchanged until they reached the road.

The movements of the two men gained speed, their excitement growing.

This had to be it.

They all stood out on the open and swiveled, squinting and straining their eyes to spot any street signs to confirm their read of the map. Without needing any words to agree upon it, they started walking east down the road. Even the compass excitedly stayed its hands, pointing north and south with clarity—shaky, but certain.

Down the road, some of the asphalt had split.

Unlike regular potholes.

The pavement undulated. Thrummed.

The roots—the black veins—they had run underneath the road. Cracked it from underneath. And now it all pulsed.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The trio exchanged no glances with one another. They wordlessly pressed on, stepping wide over that patch of broken asphalt, where a black veiny root throbbed underneath it, exposed for them to behold.

Things were coming alive. Things that shouldn't be alive.

Alive in all the wrong ways.

Parker checked her wrist. Not to study her watch or learn the time.

No, she examined the skin on her wrist. While walking, to the pitter-patter of their shoes tapping against the street at a steady pace, she studied her arm.

Her burning eyes strained to see it, however so microscopic. She could not perceive anything that her horrified imagination was painting, but she dreaded and expected to see it in equal measures.

The veins.

The black veins.

Underneath her skin.

Seeing no such thing, she sighed and stared ahead again.

The trees thinned out. The road connected to the mouth of a sprawling parking lot, a sea of paved grounds, with shadowy silhouettes of abandoned cars strewn about. A tall building loomed past the shadows. And letters upon that building.

The movie theater. The one west of THE MALL.

They had made it. Behind the shroud of fog, just beyond the cinema multiplex, THE MALL awaited them.

And the hordes.

Swaying, stumbling, shambling hordes.

Steven gripped his wrench, Parker produced her submachine gun from the golf bag, and Joshua drew his pistol. Crossing the parking lot, they neared their destination. Their salvation.

Their doom.

The closer they walked, the louder the shuffling of zombie-filled shoes. The clearer the shambling silhouettes.

Parker switched her radio on and tested the frequency the survivors had been sharing.

She whispered into the mic, "Coop—Memphis, Henderson, Lizzie—any of you copy?"

The walkie-talkie only crackled. No response.

The trio stopped at a safe distance from the walking dead, looking for a way they might break through the horde. Parker tried the radio again.

"Anybody home? We're back, just outside. Need an opening. Over."

Zombies stopped abruptly in their shuffling. They turned. Began shambling in the direction of the trio.

Parker muttered, "Not getting any response. Might be interference."

"Or trouble," Joshua growled.

Joshua was already aiming his gun at the crowd of zombies. Steven's gloves cracked as his grip tightened around the big wrench.

Steven asked, "What's the plan, boss?"

Parker didn't like the plan, but it wasn't like they had other options.

"We make noise and lure them this way. Circle around, get to the east end. Maybe we can climb up somewhere there or get a car up against the wall to help."

"Make some noise?" asked Joshua. He smirked. "Now, that—I'm good at."

Steven rapped the ground with his wrench, and the clanking sounds drew the attention of more zombies everywhere. Parker flipped the safety switch and trained her sights onto the nearest shambling corpse.

As the revolver and the machine gun spat out bullets, more and more zombies flocked their way.

Parker used only single shots. It was about the noise, not the takedowns. She counted every bullet and kept casting glances behind herself, noticing in time that other zombies neared from other directions. Interrupting Steven from hitting the asphalt with his wrench again, she pointed to their flanks, and Steven tapped Joshua on the back.

The three set into motion, refraining from firing any more shots. They did not run. They walked, careful to limit the noise their footfall caused.

The zombies could barely see anything. Those milky-white, rotten eyes had lost most vision.

The creatures mainly followed sounds.

Parker's lungs screamed as she throttled her own breath, worried she might breathe too loudly and draw their attention. The three humans snuck through the parking lot, and the zombies moaning and groaning all around them rose to a volume loud enough to drown out what little other sounds anybody made.

A painful eternity passed while they crept past the horde. Like a herd, the zombies headed in the direction where they had last fired their guns, thousands of shoes clapping and clopping and slapping against the pavement.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Parker's pulse raced. Many times faster than the pulse of the earth.

Joshua kept training his gun at different zombies, as if ready to shoot again, though they could not afford to make any such noise now. Some of the walking dead were only yards away from them, stumbling over upturned shopping carts that scraped and clattered, or emitting grotesquely raspy wheezes in the search for human flesh.

A flash of bright orange light—a fireball—flared up in the distance, not far from where they had been shooting. A thunderclap followed with a surreal delay, accompanying the explosion.

No way to guess what had caused it, other than the crackle from the radio.

A voice transmitted.

"East side, we got a ladder coming down. Hurry," said Lizzie with a mechanical distortion, piercing white noise.

Zombies nearby growled and moaned. Shuffled, turned, following the sound from the walkie-talkie.

"Fuck," muttered Joshua.

THUNK, went the wrench as Steven knocked a zombie in the head—and they ran.

The three ran. The zombies followed, their chorus of hungry growls and snarls rising to a crescendo. The humans could outrun these decaying bodies for now, but they were so many. Stopping or slowing down could easily spell out death if they were cornered or surrounded by the walking dead.

Joshua was first to reach the wall, pressing his panicked voice into a whisper, "Where? Where the fuck is it?"

He slapped the bricks on the wall of THE MALL—

Veins. Black veins.

Parker saw first black veins, coursing through the corner where pavement and brick wall met. Small, but growing.

Throbbing.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Her heart pounded away; the blood rushed in her ears. She said nothing but shared Joshua's sentiment.

Where was the rope ladder?

The towering industrial dumpster stood nearby.

THWUNK, went the wrench. Steven knocked another zombie down with a swing of his makeshift weapon, with brain matter spraying from the popped skull.

Something plastic and metal clattered and cascaded down along the wall, flopping against it several times.

A rope ladder had unfurled for them to use.

Joshua wasted no time in climbing it. Parker shot a glance up to the wall and saw figures peering over the edge, obscured by the mist. She rushed to Steven's side and clapped him on his football armor's shoulder pad.

"You, next," she hissed at him.

Flashing only a glimpse of his widened eyes underneath the football helmet on his head, he darted past her. Parker raised her gun and blindly backed up towards the wall, where the sounds of the rope ladder's clattering translated into Joshua having almost made it to the top.

No telling if they had secured it well enough to support the weight of multiple people, yet Steven followed and ascended before Joshua's figure disappeared over the edge above.

The muzzle of Parker's weapon flared up brightly, spitting single bullet after single bullet. Accurate, precise, steadfast.

Consciously dedicating thought to it while clearing her mind for the shots themselves, she forced herself to breathe as steadily as she swerved, stopping every few steps to take aim again.

Headshot by headshot, she felled more zombies closing in on the wall. Closing in on her. She bumped into the wall, right next to the clattering rope ladder.

Steven was almost at the top.

She fired another shot, taking down another zombie, then let the weapon fall to her side, dangling from the strap around her shoulders, and she grabbed hold of the ladder.

Climbing. Climbing. Climbing.

Every step up, every grip of the rungs left her shakier than the last. She had no fear of heights, but the ladder offered no support, no sense of safety. It dangled like she did, distance between it and the wall constantly growing and shrinking.

Just one slip and she'd fall. Right into the growing horde below.

Parker gripped with all her might as the rope ladder shook and swayed. A zombie below had grabbed hold of it. Were they intelligent enough to climb?

"Pull," Parker ordered. "Pull it up!"

She still had half the height to scale. More zombies clustered beneath her, and her heart pounded like a furious drum as she continued climbing, terrified of losing speed but even more terrified of losing her grip and plummeting.

One gloved hand slipped as the ladder yanked upwards a few inches, someone following her command. The zombie below yanked the other direction.

She paused, emitted a shuddering sigh, and held on with a single hand so tightly that she wondered if it would break the metal rung. With her other hand, she grabbed her gun and took aim.

Shot the zombie in the head, spraying the others nearby with goopy rotten sludge and bits of skull. The survivors tugged on the ladder again, but to no avail.

Other zombies had grabbed hold of the ladder.

Parker aimed again—no longer at the walking corpses.

One shot clipped the left rope of the ladder. The tugging below caused the rest of it to start veering right. She forced herself to breathe.

Steady. Aim.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

She shot the right rope of the ladder and the bottom portion plummeted from beneath her, flapping and flopping onto the horde of zombies.

Released from the zombies pulling from below, another yank from above transported Parker up another few inches, threatening to rob her of her single only grip on the ladder, with one of her sneakers slipping off a rung and leaving her to dangle there, for panicked moments as she let go of the gun and scrambled to secure her hold, hooking an arm around another rung.

She managed to clutch onto the next with both hands and dig her insteps back onto the rungs beneath her, gaining strong foothold, while others above continued pulling the ladder upwards. Metal and fabric scraped over the edge in steady intervals. Someone told them to "pull", ordering through gritted teeth.

The last few yards to the top, her fear of falling at the last second took over, driving her to scramble up and clamber over the edge, where helping hands gripped her by the arms and helped hoist her up onto the rooftop.

Collapsing onto her knees, she caught her breath, winded more from the terror than the exhaustion—though sleep deprivation and hunger were also doing a number on her condition.

Lizzie was there, as were George Mitchells and Steven Smith.

They had made it. Against all odds, they had made it.

Through a haze, and the deafening, pounding pulse of her own heartbeat, Parker barely heard whatever Lizzie told her as the young clerk gripped the FBI agent by her shoulders.

She saw sizable bloodstains on the rooftop nearby, where Father Henderson's stool had fallen, resting on its side.

Bad things had happened in their absence. Parker sensed it.

Very bad things.

Feeding into that sense, the smile of relief on Lizzie's face did not completely reach her eyes—elation over seeing Parker and Steven Walker again, dampened by a creeping sense of dread.

"Thank goodness you made it, holy heck," Lizzie said, hugging Parker, and pressing all remaining air from her lungs.

"What about the others?" Steven Smith asked with his gaze sweeping between Joshua, Steven Walker, and Parker.

Joshua grimaced and shook his head.

With the tip of his cowboy boot, he nudged the backpack on the ground that he had hauled all the way here.

"Count your blessings anybody and anything made it back here at all," he replied.

Lizzie let go of Parker—who had done nothing to resist the younger woman's tight embrace—and her face fell. Her eyes sparkled around the corners where tears were welling up.

"It's bad, Agent Parker," Lizzie said. "Real bad. Father Henderson is dead."

Parker grimaced in turn.

"What do you mean? What happened?"

"Someone murdered him! The bandaged dude—"

George grumbled as he interrupted, "That fucking freak is back. He survived and got back inside somehow."

"And you took him down and barbecued 'im, right?" Joshua asked. His expression darkened, matching the ones around him when they failed to confirm his question. "C'mon. Please don't tell me that motherfucker is still hidin' somewhere."

George growled, "Naw, we're pretty sure he left again. And not only him."

"What?" Parker asked.

It was a bit too much to take in all at once, but there was no stopping them.

"Rebecca and a dozen others are gone," Lizzie said.

"Gone how?" Steven Walker asked with a high pitch. He pulled off his helmet and readjusted his greasy glasses.

"Who the hell knows," George mumbled. "They just up and left one night when they were supposed to be keepin' watch, so nobody knows where they went. But they sure as hell ain't in the shopping center anymore. They took food and water and some weapons, too."

Still too much to take in, little to make sense of. Parker reeled. The world spun around her in a growing dizzy spell.

She had to sit down but rose to her feet. Steven Walker sensed her wobbly footing and offered a hand to brace her. Parker graciously took it for the length of a few heartbeats, until she felt stable enough to stand on her own. She cast a glance in the round, avoiding eye contact while her brain slotted the puzzle pieces around, trying to arrange them into the correct positions and order.

Other pieces were still missing, but it felt like she had completed the edges of the picture. The puzzle pieces in the middle still didn't fit together, leaving a gaping hole, but the edges were beginning to suggest something. Something sinister.

"Has anything strange been happening while we were away?" Parker asked.

Lizzie nodded.

"Plants inside have been growing like crazy, despite the lack of sunlight."

"Black veins?" Parker asked.

"Yup," George growled. The grimace had never left his face. "That disgusting shit is spreading. It's coming from the basement."

The basement. The hidden shrine of the cult.

"We know for sure it was the Bandaged Man who killed Father Henderson?" Parker asked to confirm.

The others nodded.

"Killed Memphis, too," George said. "Not a pretty sight. Even worse than what he did to Henderson."

Memphis. Parker frowned. Memphis would have been useful even if she disliked him.

"Steven Smith," she addressed Steven Smith. "Please write down a list of names of the people who left overnight and a second list of everybody who's still here. I'll need that ASAP."

Smith nodded in response.

Turning to George, Parker continued, "Can you please help Steven Walker and Joshua unload what we salvaged? It's not much, but it needs to be sorted, and probably won't compensate for whatever Rebecca's group took." Not missing a beat, Parker then asked Lizzie, "Can you check the security recordings? There's—"

Lizzie shook her head.

"Sorry—Bandage Dude destroyed the surveillance room equipment."

Parker sighed.

The exhaustion weighed heavily upon all her limbs and her eyelids.

She nodded and said, "I'll see you all downstairs."

Not wasting any time, she paced towards the door and entered the personnel corridors, leaving the distant groans of zombies and the erupting murmurs from the group on the rooftop behind her. The door automatically clinched shut behind her, cutting off those sounds.

She stood still, but the world spun. Dizzier than ever, she blinked to relieve her eyes of some burning, struggling to know the truth of what she perceived.

The walls throbbed.

Not clearly, not visibly, but the sensation made Parker's world spin even faster.

She wasn't sure if she was hallucinating or not.

There were no black veins here. Just stark white walls. Fluorescent tubes cast harsh bright light inside the access corridor. She entered the office labeled

MANAGER

Blood had repainted the floor. And walls. And ceiling. And the window overlooking the once majestic parking lot, now reduced to a sea of fog and walking corpses.

Blood everywhere. Fleshy giblets and organ parts had hardened on the floor where they had come to rest.

Whatever had been left over of Memphis was gone, removed from the office. Only the signs of carnage remained.

Something must have ripped the security guard apart. A bottle of scotch and the crystalline ashtray lay shattered, shards scattered among the human detritus.

Parker's stomach churned. She had been to gruesome crime scenes before, and the hunt for the notorious suspect colloquially dubbed the "Skin Thief Killer" had led her all the way to Kentucky with no shortage of such traumatic impressions.

Yet the combination of these grisly sights, the stench of feces, the exhaustion from these sleepless days, and the thought of the throbbing walls—

THE SUBSTANCE

It made her cover her mouth with the back of her gloved hand. Seconds, heartbeats away from retching. Vomiting. She could taste the bile. Felt sick. As if every molecule of her body rebelled. Screaming silently at her to take a break.

Backing out of the room and closing the door, the others shuffled past her. George's brow cocked as he passed, carrying Parker's backpack with the canned goods she had hauled all the way here and up the ladder.

She paid them no mind and entered the surveillance room.

It reeked of burnt plastic in here. All monitors had been shattered. Something heavy like a crowbar or lead pipe had smashed the keyboard, knocking out several keys like teeth from a plastic mouth. Computer innards were exposed, a massacre of electronics to match the massacre of the man in the room down the hall. The stacks of tapes had spilled onto the carpeted floor, smashed like the rest, with unspooled insides torn out from their plastic bodies, twisted and chewed upon by human teeth.

The Bandaged Man had trashed this place in a fit of fiery rage.

Or an act of cold-blooded calculation.

The Bandaged Man was unlike the zombies.

He was closer to the mutants they had encountered in their awful abodes outside THE MALL.

Or the colossus, chasing and demolishing their van.

All acting with devious intelligence.

Parker's knees buckled, forcing her to lean against the wall, fighting back any sense of sickness from overcoming her.

The dreams are strange.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The dreams have been getting weird lately—a common sentiment Parker would be learning of soon enough, mirrored in so many different ways of saying the same thing, all uttered from different mouths of survivors who remained in THE MALL.

She exited the surveillance room and returned to the rooftop.

Everybody had cleared out, leaving nobody to look out.

Parker stood alone.

The growls and groaning from the zombies outside had softened. The shuffling had grown distant again.

Gravel crunched underneath her shoes one her way back to the edge of the roof. The sea of zombies once more circled around THE MALL.

The wardens of their prison. Keeping them inside, while the walls of THE MALL kept the creatures outside.

An illusion melting away. Like black slime creeping down a wall, like thick blood running down in rivulets, peeling away wallpaper, melting the brick and mortar, opening a hole to—

Parker patrolled the rooftops, finding that the zombies still congregated outside, wandering aimlessly wherever they gained no entrance. Their shuffling, shambling silhouettes never ceased. Never stopped to sleep.

Just close enough to be visible despite the fog, just far enough for them to lack definition beyond their awkward motions.

Then, on the west side of the rooftop, peering out over the edge, she spotted something. Something else.

She froze.

Those movements. Movements that did not match the movements of the zombies. Past the pillar of smoke from whatever makeshift explosive the survivors had detonated to cause a distraction—

Someone stood outside the cinema multiplex. Still.

Parker was sure—the figure had been walking. Not shambling. Peeling from the hordes.

Now it stood still. As if gazing back at her. Then the figure turned, and disappeared into the shadows of that distant building, swallowed by the multiplex's yawning entrance.

That had been no zombie. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she knew it.

It walked like a person.

But the zombies nearby had ignored the figure.

Like they always had with the Bandaged Man.

—Submitted by Wratts

[the-great-bbe]

The children shriek with laughter as the waves roll against their legs. The sweet sound melds with the crashing of the sea, of Mellario and Ellaria gossiping about their beloveds, of Rhaella sighing and relaxing for once. All is bright and golden and warm, save for their ice-cold goblets of sangria. Elia tilts her head back against her chair and smiles. Let those bastards keep that ugly ass throne, she has all she needs right here.

Or, the sangria beach party that Elia and her loved ones deserved. A short fic to start off Summer is for Dorne!

Among his many talents, Elia’s little brother is a master of mixing drinks.

He is a viper after all, and vipers know their poisons and how to mix them. Tequila from the agave blooming across the hillsides pairs perfectly with lime juice and distilled orange blossom nectar to make a margarita. Horchata foamy and fragrant with Summer Islander cinnamon can be elevated with sugarcane rum. And there’s nothing better on the gods’ green earth than red wine—proper Dornish sweetwine, not that diabetic piss from the Arbor—left to idle in icy splendor with strong brandy and fruit. Blood oranges, black strawberries, white nectarines, even a tart green apple or two. Their cousin Manfrey picked them all fresh from his private orchards near the Water Gardens just the day before. The bounty of Dorne for Dorne and Dornishmen alone.

A pitcher of his perfect sangria rests in a bucket full of ice slurry. Already her goblet is half empty, despite her efforts to sip and savor. It tastes so rich on her tongue much abused by dull Riverlands ale and Reacher wines. There are few blood oranges to be found north of the Boneway, even for a Princess of Dorne, and Elia feels the urge to inhale her drink. She sighs and rolls her shoulders. Just another sip for now. Summer explodes on her tongue, ripe and rich and such a dear welcome home.

Elia doesn’t remember the last time she was this happy. On Dragonstone it was a constant haze of sulfur and marine fog, and Kings Landing reeks from miles away. But here, on a long stretch of beach near Saltshore, the sun burns bright and delicious above the palm trees. Not a single cloud in the sapphire sky, nor any fog to mar the turquoise seas. Elia rolls her head back against her wicker chair. Perhaps later she’ll relocate to the hammock strung between two date palms and let the balmy sea breeze lull her and her children to sleep. But for now her precious Rhaenys plays in the surf with her cousins and Viserys, and dear Aegon builds a sandcastle with Oberyn’s help.

Instead of cowering from the Mad King’s rages and simmering with hatred towards her once husband, Elia lounges in the shade. Zinc paste is cloudy white on her shoulders, nose and ears to protect her from the strongest of the sun, just like the children. But the rest of her body is resplendent with shea butter and avocado oil. Thick aloe leaves already sticky with cooling sap wait in a basket by her feet in case she must ward away a sun burn, but her skin soaks up the midmorning sun like a child returning to her mother’s embrace. Gods, but the sun! She stretches her arms above her head and nearly knocks her wide brimmed hat aside. She swears she can feel the sunlight itself like warm silk through her fingers, like a waterfall down her chest to pool in her stomach and ignite joy in her veins.

She lets her gaze fall back towards the sea. When was the last time Rhaenys laughed this loudly? When was the last time Viserys laughed at all? Poor boy, but he, his mother and his baby sister are well in hand now. Targaryens by birth they may be, but the blood of Myriah Martell and Dyanna Dayne run sevenfold in their veins. Dorne shall never turn its back on any child no matter the color of their skin, and even from her shaded refuge Elia sees the freckles blooming across Viserys’s shoulders. Good; the more sun the better. Uncle Lewyn’s eldest daughter Obara throws him headlong into the waves and he shrieks with joy, while her little sister Nym and Doran’s Arianne demand their own toss into the surf. Rhaenys and Manfrey’s daughter Sarella help Lewyn’s Tyene search for shells and crabs, giggling and kicking seaweed at each other. When they find a proper shell, they bring it to Aegon and Oberyn who add it to their castle. Aegon blows a messy kiss onto Rhaenys’s cheek and Elia’s heart runs over with sweet warmth. Her babies, alive and well and happy.

It was a terribly close thing by the end of Robert’s Rebellion. Elia’s correspondence was cut off by Aerys in his paranoia, but she was able to smuggle out a letter to Oberyn when Rhaella left for Dragonstone. He returned with his sellswords to rescue them from their imprisonment, and not a moment sooner—Elia remembers how Kings Landing burned from her view on the ship home to Dorne. To think of what would’ve happened had they stayed…they say that Aerys was cut down by his own Kingsguard, and that the royal nursery was torn to shreds by the Mountain That Rides in search of children to kill.

Elia shudders. Perish the thought, banish it to the seven hells. Rhaegar is dead, and her children are Martells now. Even Rhaella forsook the Targaryen name when they alighted in Sunspear and she was hurried into proper birthing chambers. Daenerys came to the world not as a Targaryen princess but as a Lady Martell of Dorne, with Rhaella Martell the new Lady of Planky Town. Viserys and Aegon shall not give their lives to the Wall and Rhaenys shall not be chained to a Baratheon prince. Not if Westeros intends for Dorne to remain in the Seven Kingdoms, and truth be told Elia wonders if Doran intends to leave anyway. They entered into a kingdom with a union, and perhaps they shall leave with the sundering of one…

But that’s not what matters today. What matters is refilling her goblet. Elia raises it high, and Doran shuffles over with the pitcher. Her dear older brother is shirtless, stained with sand and salt, and there is a sweet flush to his cheeks. Even his bad leg seems fine with the therapy of burning sunlight illuminating their bones from the inside out. Mellario must certainly appreciate that! Her good sister lies on a spread linen sheet on the sands with Ellaria, Oberyn’s paramour. Both of them are bronze in the sun, a silk turban around Mellario’s head and Ellaria’s curls formed into twists down her back. And its’ said that Cersei Lannister is the most beautiful in Westeros, obviously people are blind. They look up at them with mischievous grins, before bumping their heads together and giggling. Elia smirks at Doran. “Careful now, habibi. I believe you’ll be ambushed later in the night and whisked away by a mystery woman.”

He laughs and his eyes crinkle at the edges. “I’ll be sure to not fight back too much.” He plops down next to her and sips at his lemon water. The maesters forbid him from alcohol and sugar until his gout is under control, a true tragedy in Elia’s eyes as the sangria is excellent. But even more excellent is seeing how happy her brother is. Gods, to imagine him mourning her and her babies as they did for uncle Lewyn, it’s a fate she would not wish on her loved ones. She intends to live to a hundred and twenty, just to ensure he’ll always smile at her with crinkled eyes.

Elia leans against his shoulder and peers out towards the cabana higher up towards the oasis grove. “Has Rhaella returned from Saltshore yet? Dany was giving the wet nurse a bit of a hard time.”

“Missed me, have you?” Rhaella, emerged from their cabana and the platters of fruit kept safe from the sea salt there, calls down to them. It’s been only a few months, and Rhaella is unrecognizable. Elia is glad to see the plump roundness of her stomach and thighs where before she was only skin and bone. And her skin, once as pale as parchment and twice as translucent, is as dark as her great-grandmother Dyanna. It glows against her silver-gold hair and lavender eyes, and there is happiness in her face where before there was only stifled fear.

Elia waves Rhaella over to the empty wicker chair by her side. Perhaps later, when the children sleep off their lunch and the adults are properly sauced from sangrias and margaritas, they’ll return to the cabana and lounge on the day beds. Maybe even one of the cabana boys—cabana men in truth, with their strong arms and backs—can give them all shoulder massages. Rhaella has a little favorite who is always eager to help his new lady relax. Elia raises her eyebrows at her good mother and she takes a long sip of her margarita. Elia is far from judging, as Rhaella deserves whatever happiness she can grasp.

They all do. How long have they all suffered these last years? Suffering Aerys, suffering Rhaegar, suffering the war that they wrought upon Westeros. Elia still remembers the screams from Rhaella’s chambers during their terrible stays in Kings Landing, she remembers the cold silences before Harrenhal and the even colder absences after. And now those men are dead and thousands with them. All over some Northern girl, and a prophecy that probably foretold the coming of the seasons than any promised prince!

Well, fuck them. Westeros has a new king now, in that stinking castle filled with blood and shit and ghosts, and the Baratheons and Lannisters can figure it out now. Let them have the starving smallfolk ready to rebel after a harsh winter. Let them have the honor of bartering away pieces of their souls until all that remains is bleeding pride. Let them have it all. All that matters to Dorne is the rice crop, and managing citrus exports, and the wellbeing of its people. Elia plans to build a new school for smallfolk children and petty gentry in Sunspear, as she is now Princess of Sunspear. More Martell branches for a blood orange tree to bear wondrous fruit. All beneath the sun, so bright in that perfect sky…

Elia sips her sangria. Oberyn and Aegon are finished with their sandcastle, and now he’s pulled out a guitar from somewhere and tries to teach his nephew how to play. Rhaenys perches on Obara’s shoulders and pretends to joust with Arianne who is on Viserys’s. Manfrey and his Summer Islander wife Bellegara Otherys finally finish up their romantic walk up and down the shore, with Bellegara joining Mellario and Ellaria’s whisper pile and Manfrey pulling Doran away to talk drunken business. Something about making a fleet of ships to rival Nymeria’s, and selling sweetwine to Sothoryos in exchange for coconut and date liquor. Elia giggles and can’t stop. Not with the sun so warm on her skin, not with Rhaella raising her goblet and toasting the coming summer.

It’s still winter north of the Red Mountains, but not here. No, summer is here for Dorne, and it is here to stay.

The children shriek with laughter as the waves roll against their legs. The sweet sound melds with the crashing of the sea, of Mellario and Ellaria gossiping about their beloveds, of Rhaella sighing and relaxing for once. All is bright and golden and warm, save for their ice-cold goblets of sangria. Elia tilts her head back against her chair and smiles.

Let those bastards keep that ugly ass throne, she has all she needs right here.

[apothecarinomicon]

Spring week 4, part 2

We found the guy staggering down the creek. We heard him before we saw him—he was wading through knee-deep water, half hunched over and groaning in pain. As he got closer, I was able to make out that he wasn’t human but crocodilian, and dressed for fishing. His pants had torn away below the knees, and I could make out bright green vines with vermillion buds snaking up his legs. He was bleeding where they burrowed into his hide. He looked up at us with glassy eyes and weakly called for help, reaching out with both hands. 

Automatically I moved to support him but Calder held me back. He told me he recognized the vines as marshbloom, a particularly nasty plant native to Blastfire Bog. An opportunistic parasite, it latched onto any skin that came into contact with it and fed on its host, growing until they were entirely overtaken and drained of their minerals. Once the marshbloom had fed all it could, the buds would open and spread their spores to find new hosts. 

This guy already looked to have been wandering for a couple of days; we didn’t have much time—probably only about another 24 hours. I told Calder to watch after him and make sure he didn’t wander off. Since Calder didn’t technically have skin, we agreed he might be able to physically restrain the afflicted man as a last resort. Meanwhile, I raced back to the cottage to scour my predecessor’s notes.

I found that her overall knowledge of the bog and its flora were spotty at best, but she did have an entry on the marshbloom. Her notes said that it should be treated like any other virulent parasite, but with extra focus on healing the skin. With the entry wounds closed, she noted, the portions of the plant inside the host’s body would be unable to photosynthesize and would simply die, and the portions outside would lose the necessary minerals and fall away.

With a little more research, I knew what I had to get. I dumped out the remaining breadcrumbs from my pack, had Ailean hop up on my shoulder, and set out for Hero’s Hollow.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I told the guards at the entrance that I was foraging and expected to be inside for less than an hour. Then I headed in, map in hand, to find some liquid fire.

It’s not quite lava, this substance (lava is molten rock and this is more akin to superheated magic), but it is quite hot. You need special gloves to handle it. It won’t burn you, but it will certainly feel as if it had. It’s great for clearing parasites if you can get it down—like a flash fire fever. I found it fairly easily, flowing right out of the wall (turns out Hero’s Hollow has a lot of natural deposits), and collected it with little issue. It was as I was headed back out, however, that I heard heavy, clanking footsteps sprinting towards me accompanied by a “what ho!”

I turned and looked to find a suit of armor approaching me fast. The visor was flipped up, showing that the helmet was clearly empty. “I, the Baron, challenge you to a duel, brigand!” The voice sounded more like a jester’s than a knight’s—or a baron’s, for that matter. I backed away and tried to tell this Baron that I really didn’t have the time (or the equipment or the skill) for a fight, but as I said so my back bumped up against the wall. The suit of armor ignored what I’d said, unsheathed its sword (the thin kind with a point, rather than the kind with two sharp sides), took on a cartoonish stance, and cried “en garde!”

I stayed very still for a good long while, and so did the armor. Every few seconds it shouted something like “you shan’t best me, scoundrel!” or “your scourge ends here!” Its accent was all rolled ‘r’s and rapidly fluctuating pitch. After about three minutes of this I finally went to try and just walk away, and the suit of armor immediately lunged forward and skewered my thigh.

I cried out, more out of shock than anything. It was a relatively shallow wound (I wrote “skewered” but it was more like “scraped”), but the sudden movement and prick of pain surprised me. The Baron, for its part, seemed delighted. It immediately turned and began to skip away, occasionally clicking its heels in the air and crying “tee-ha! Tee-hee! I, the Baron, have bested thee!” It disappeared around a bend in the corridor, but I could still hear it for a long while after as I bandaged my wound.

What a blighting nuisance. I supposed though, as I limped out of the dungeon, that it could easily have been a lot worse.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I headed back to Glimmerwood Grove next, to look for wild roses. The hip seeds promote skin health, and I thought they theoretically should be fairly abundant. But, as is my luck, they proved to be frustratingly elusive. I was already pretty annoyed when I ran into Kendre.

Kendre was a satyr, and (as they volunteered immediately upon seeing me) a druid who lived in the forest. Their arms were wiry, the rest of their human torso obscured by what appeared to be a grass-stained burlap sack with arm and neck holes cut out. The fur on their goat legs matched their russet hair. They wore complex jewelry, with earrings and necklaces and adornments to their curled horns all connected by small chains to form one large piece.

I asked how long they’d been living in Glimmerwood and they said just about their entire adult life. They mentioned a shack deep in the heart of the grove where they lived and gardened and kept to themselves. They said they didn’t normally forage this close to town but they were looking for something elusive.

I asked them if they had seen wild roses around and they thought for a moment before saying that roses had been an unusually rare sight this year. They apologized, and offered instead the location of a different plant: the coffee cap. Though unrelated to the bean (it’s actually a mushroom), it does contain about the same amount of caffeine and releases it into the body quicker when consumed. When added to a potion, its only real effect is to sharpen the patient’s senses—not useful for the task at hand. Still, I thanked them and followed their directions to find some—it’s always better to have more and more varied reagents on hand, just in case.

Kendre was the second denizen of Glimmerwood Grove I’d met who seemed to have no connection to the human society in Greenmoor or High Rannoc at large. As I plucked a mushroom and put it in my bag, I wondered if there were any more.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I didn’t have to wonder for long. After retrieving the coffee cap I headed back towards the path. I took a right that should have led me straight back onto it, but instead I found myself in a beautiful (if dilapidated) courtyard. I must have been caught in some kind of dimensional fold, as I surely would have noticed the high, ornate walls that now surrounded me had they been present before.

The walls themselves were ornate but clearly weathered, dotted with tall thin windows and covered with hanging moss and climbing vines. The floor was made of smooth bricks that must have once been an intense shade of lapis or ultramarine, but that had faded to a (still gorgeous) azure. They were cut and laid in a pattern that was symmetrical but irregular. It took a good bit of staring for me to realize it depicted the phases of the moon, running from right to left across the space’s center. At the corners of the courtyard were raised plant beds that may have once been carefully maintained, but now grew wild. Each had a great tree at the center. Three of them had a least one side that had cracked or buckled, allowing dirt to spill out and their tree’s great roots to spread less impeded. The fourth one, the one in the far left corner, held a smaller tree, mostly obscured by—to my surprise and delight—wild rose bushes!

I began to hurry towards them before the sound of a clearing throat stopped me. I had completely overlooked what was clearly meant to be the courtyard’s central feature: along the far wall was a great, ornate throne. It gleamed golden in the light, its high back intricately molded with dozens of humanoid figures in myriad combinations and contexts—probably recounting the plot of some long-forgotten myth. Seated on the throne, still regal and imposing despite being dwarfed by it, was a man. As I approached him I realized he was much taller than me, or for that matter any human. His skin was extremely pale, his form rake thin, his hair a nearly-white blond. He was dressed in a garb unfamiliar to me, though the dense ornamental fur of his cloak and the rich purple of his tunic and pants communicated his status anyway. He regarded me cooly with orange eyes as I took in the sight. Finally, I noticed his long, pointed ears and it clicked: this prince was an elf.

Belatedly I dropped to one knee and bowed my head. I hoped that was the correct gesture of respect for elven royalty; it had been many years since I took politesse classes in primary school, and I’d never had much use for what I learned from them before.

He chuckled and told me to rise. His voice, though a fairly high tenor, had a commanding sense of depth. He told me it had been far too long since he’d had a visitor, and I should feel welcome to stay as long as I like. I asked for his name, and he raised an eyebrow before telling me I could not have it, but that I could refer to him as His Majesty, the Crown Prince of Sovereign Go’ed-Wigg. I quickly apologized for my careless wording, and told him he could call me ‘F.’ Given the Crown Prince’s care with his own name I figured care of my own was in order. I decided to let it be ambiguous whether this was an initial, a random pseudonymous letter, or if I had chosen “Eff” as a name.

I asked the Crown Prince (as I decided to think of him because that full title was simply too much) if I might have one of his roses, so that I could heal a patient. He thought for a moment then said I could on two conditions: I had to give him a gift in return, and I had to listen to a story. I told him that my patient’s time was limited, but that so long as the story was of a reasonable length (I believe I specified no more than fifteen minutes), and so long as I myself got to choose my gift to him I would be happy to agree to those terms. His expression was unreadable enough that I couldn’t determine whether I’d wiggled my way out of some trick or not, but he conceded my conditions.

As the gift, I gave him the coffee cap I’d just obtained, and explained its uses. He told me he had heard of coffee caps before, but seemed satisfied with the gift anyway. He said with my limitation we wouldn’t have time for the full story, but he’d tell me the first part anyway. I can’t recount the Crown Prince’s exact wording—he spoke for a long time—but I’ll summarize as best I can.

Once (he told me), there were three queens. A queen of spades, who ruled over those things on the earth, a queen of diamonds, who ruled over those things below it, and a queen of clubs, who ruled over those things above. The queen of spades and diamonds neither one had a king, but each had one knight. The queen of clubs had no knight, though she did have a king—but he was perpetually absent.

The realm of the queen of spades was verdant and teeming with life, both plant and animal. The queen of clubs’ domain was bright and open and free, always fresh and always changing. The queen of diamonds, on the other hand, ruled a territory rich with minerals, precious metals, and gems, which all things that lived would eventually join as they decomposed and returned to their base materials.

The queen of diamonds, though, was uncaring of these gifts. She surveyed her realm and saw rot, slimy worms and scuttling insects, and tons and tons of dirt piled so much upon itself that there was barely room for plants or animals at all. She looked over the queendom of spades and the queendom of clubs, and all the light and life and variety and air they had, and she grew jealous. She resolved to take the other queens’ territories for herself.

The queen of diamonds knew that going to war immediately would be foolish. Her two rivals (the queen of spades especially) had dozens of subjects in fighting shape, and she had next to none. So, she worked on expanding her population. She promoted immigration, emphasizing the riches to be found in her domain. With her (previously unmentioned) magical powers, she engineered those denizens she already had over the course of generations into stronger, smarter, better fighters. She was raising an army.

What the queen of diamonds didn’t know was that her knight and the knight of spades were in love. They kept their affair hidden from their respective queens for obvious reasons, but met in secret regularly. Wishing to limit the chance that they might have to meet in battle personally, the knight of diamonds told the knight of spades what the queen was doing.

The knight of spades took this information to his own queen, who thankfully didn’t probe too deeply into how he’d learned it. Instead, she immediately set about raising an army of her own, and passed the information on to the queen of clubs personally.

The queen of clubs, then, faced a rather pressing issue: like the queen of diamonds, she did not have enough subjects in fighting shape to raise an army. Unlike her counterpart, however, she did not have several generations’ notice with which to rectify that weakness—nor did she even have a knight of her own.

So, after obtaining permission from her new ally, she searched far and wide in the domain of the queen of spades to find a champion, one who could inspire their peers to fight their hardest, with the knowledge to select the generals and lieutenants and foot soldiers who would be able to defend her queendom.

And find one she did. The champion was such an effective leader, so adept at rallying people to follow her with true deep-seated conviction for the cause, that she would come to be known as the queen of hearts.

It was at this point that the Crown Prince stopped and gestured to the rose bush. I realized that I’d become so thoroughly engrossed in his story that I’d lost track of time, and I was thankful I’d thought to set a time limit. He sensed this too, and as I went to pluck a rose hip he asked if I was enjoying the story. I asked him in turn where he’d learned it. He said that he was the only one in the world who knew it. I asked if he meant he’d made it up, and he didn’t respond.

Instead, he said I’d have to come back later to hear more of it. I told him I didn’t even know how I’d gotten here in the first place, much less how I’d return, but he insisted that I’d find my way. As I left the courtyard, he turned his attention back to the mushroom I’d given him, turning it over and over in his hands.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

I was just about set to head back to Calder’s stream when I realized something all of a sudden: I couldn’t touch my patient, which meant I wouldn’t be able to force him to swallow the potion—he’d have to do it voluntarily, without spitting it out or spilling any. Liquid fire, one of my major ingredients, was notoriously both very hot and very spicy, making it difficult to stomach. I would need something to cover the taste. I remembered that I had the candy rock back at the cottage, but I was honestly closer to Moonbreaker Mountain. So, I decided to just run over and find some on my own.

I took a path I hadn’t been on before. About halfway up the mountain, I came across Mòrag McKinney, knelt at a shrine. It took her a long time to notice me, but when she did she smiled and bade me sit down next to her. She told me this was a shrine to Cernunnos, the antlered god of nature, hunters, druidry, fertility, and warriors. She said those going on journeys often placed offerings at it hoping for his favor. I asked if she was going on a journey and she said no, she’d just started coming here recently. Something about it called her.

She traced little circles in the dirt with her finger as she told me about Cernunnos, his ability to call animals to him, how wild-growing plants were considered his bounty. I had heard of Cernunnos before, even if I hadn’t studied him closely, but I let her speak. When she was finished, I apologized and told her I was on a deadline. I asked her where I might find the candy rocks. She seemed disappointed to see me go, but directed me a little ways up the path. I hurried off and found a large cluster easily. The rocks (crystals, really) were extremely brittle—I could break off a good-sized chunk with my hand. Once I’d done so, I hurried back to Calder’s river.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

Here is how I made the potion:

First, I crushed the rose hip seeds with my travel mortar and pestle.

Then, I collected some water (Calder was kind enough to let me borrow a bit of his)

Then, I combined it with the seed powder, liquid fire, and candy rock.

Finally, I shook it until it was all combined.

I decided to call the potion Bog’s Bane—a fitting enough name, as it ended up looking like orange mud. My crocodilian patient was staring vaguely off into the distance, so I gave the potion to Calder so he could help get it down. Once he’d finished it, the patient gasped and his eyes unclouded. Already the visible vines crawling up his legs were withering, their yellow buds falling off. I told him he ought to go see Dr. Ardor-Knox in town, and to tell them that he was seriously drained of vitamins and likely anemic. I didn’t know if the doctor had the requisite knowledge of crocodilian physiology to treat him, but I figured sending patients their way might help smooth things over with them. The crocodilian was still a bit out of it but seemed to understand well enough. He paid me for the potion and stumbled off in the direction of Greenmoor.

When he was gone, I turned to Calder to apologize that my work had cut our picnic short. He said to think nothing of it—the man would have stumbled into his creek anyway, so it was good that someone who knew how to treat him was present when he did. Nevertheless, I asked if we could have a do-over soon, and he said he’d like that.

It was far too late by that point for anything further to happen (though if it’s not wishful thinking there was certainly some tension), so I resigned myself to trudging back home. Now that I’ve recounted the day's events, I’m going straight to bed. Here’s hoping that tomorrow isn’t quite so hectic.

⇦●〇●⇨

[ultraintrovertedgryffindor]

Not Alone - Peter Rumancek (Hemlock Grove) Part 2 of 2

Eh, probably shouldn’t read this if you’re really squeamish 

~~~~~~~~~~

A week later, you were still trying to avoid Peter. But it was proven a bit difficult since school had started.

Just because you told him you weren’t buying what he was selling didn’t mean he could just leave you alone. No, that would be too easy.

Every chance he got, he’d try to persuade you to listen to him. To convince you that you were going to turn into a monster. You just couldn’t believe it. There was no way you were going to turn into a dog on a full moon. No way.

The closer it got to the next full moon, the more anxious you felt. You had no idea why, you’d completely convinced yourself that a scratch from a werewolf didn’t do anything.

But deep down, you could almost feel some of your senses were heightened. You didn’t even know if that was a thing, but maybe it was a placebo effect from all the horror movies you’ve watched.

Just a placebo. It had to be.

A brutal murder that happened to one of your fellow classmates didn’t ease your anxiety either.

You finally realized you were just staring into your dull locker when the bell finally rung. You weren’t as focused as you used to be, and that worried you.

You looked to your left to see Peter already staring at you, and you could sense it. You sensed that he sensed that you were struggling mentally. You hated it. You hated that in the back of your mind you actually believed him. You hated that you might be fated to live a life of misery and lies.

You slammed your locker closed and stormed out of school, not even caring that you had a couple periods left. You needed air.

Not really caring where you were going once again, you found yourself at the park where the Bluebell girl was murdered. You sat on a swing and sighed. You had no idea what you would do if you were going to transform in just a few nights.

“Y/N?”

You jumped, looking around to see Peter stood next to the swing set with a look of concern. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” You asked once you got over your mini heart attack.

Peter chuckled. “You’re asking me that?” He took a seat in the swing beside you, swaying in the wind gently.

“Are you sure...that I’ll turn?” You asked in an almost whisper.

Peter sighed. “It’s happened before. One of my family members, he attacked his wife in a rage. He only scratched her before he came to his senses...she turns on full moons ever since.”

You closed your eyes. “Fuck...”

“Hey,” He voiced softly, “it’s not as miserable as you think it will be.”

“Will I be in control?” You looked at him.

“Yep, the whole time.” He smiled.

“...will it hurt?” You asked timidly, suddenly feeling sick when the Peter’s smile went away.

Peter scratched the back of his head. “You, uh, you get used to it.”

“What’s the probability that I won’t turn?”

Peter thought for a moment, looking up towards the sky like he was searching for the answer in the clouds. “Like...two percent maybe?”

You groaned.

“I can be with you when you turn...if you want.” Peter suggested timidly. “I know how nerve wracking it can be when you turn for the first time. Greenies usually turn earlier than someone who’s been turning for a long time already. I could like...guide you though it.”

You didn’t know why you blushed, but you did. “Uh, I suppose. Might as well, right?” You giggled. “Man, it’ll be real embarrassing if I don’t end up turning.”

“Yeah, I’ll make fun of you if you don’t.” Peter teased.

Some more days passed and you started to feel nauseous almost constantly. You really hated the wait the most.

You and Peter started to hang out together more, now that everyone thought he had something to do with the murder at the park. But he assured you that it wasn’t, for the murder had taken place on the wrong moon.

What you didn’t like was that Peter had been somewhat friendly with the heir to Godfrey industry, Roman. You weren’t his biggest fan.

Currently, you were in Peter’s room, reading a book. You got into the habit of staying at Peter’s every chance you got to get away from your father’s sharp tongue. Lynda welcomed you with open arms as well.

You were starting to worry when Peter didn’t come home right away. Staring at the clock, you realized it was only a few hours till sundown. You really didn’t want to be alone when you turned for the first time. Although, Lynda would be with you.

The palms of your hands started to sweat as Peter stormed in the through the front door. “Where have you been?” Lynda scolded.

You stood up and ran to Peter, engulfing him in a hug. “You scared me. I thought I’d have to turn alone.” You laughed breathlessly.

Peter avoided your eyes. “Yep, you won’t be alone alright.” He coughed.

You furrowed your brows. “What the hell does that mean?” Lynda asked for you.

“Roman’s coming here.”

“What?” You shouted.

“He asked if he could watch.”

“And you said he could?” Lynda screeched.

“I didn’t say yes...or no.”

“Peter, this is the first time this girl is going to turn because of you. And you thought it was a good idea to let an Upir come here?” Lynda asked, making you confused.

“She’s gonna turn before me, so it won’t matter anyway.”

“Wait, what’s an Upir?” You asked.

Peter sighed. “It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is we need to prepare you for the your first turn. Come on.” He lead you to his bedroom.

Peter sat you down on his bed, and started to pace his room. “Peter, you okay?”

He laughed. “I should be asking you that.”

“Well, I’m not feeling too well.” You chuckled weakly.

“That’s normal. By the way, don’t worry about Roman. He’s only gonna watch me turn.”

“What should I expect?” You asked, starting to feel queasy.

Peter sat beside you. “The first turn is the worst. It’s scary, especially if you don’t have someone with you. It sounds horrible, but it makes it easier if you rip off your skin...helps the wolf break out quicker.”

Upon hearing that, you started to tear up. “I really don’t want to do this, Peter...” You cried.

Peter’s eyes softened, bringing you into his arms. “It’ll be okay. I’m gonna be with you every step of the way.” Peter’s watch suddenly beeped, making you flinch. He sat up, reaching his hand out to you.

“It’s time...I can feel it.” You whispered, voice wavering.

Peter brought you outside, motioning for Lynda to join too. “Okay...” He started. “You, uh, have to take off your clothes.”

Your eyes widened, looking to Lynda. She nodded, assuring you that it was something you were supposed to do. You slowly started to remove all the articles of clothing, blushing.

After that, you saw Peter and Lynda only looking at your face. You started to feel more comfortable, despite knowing you were going to turn.

You took a breath and suddenly, you felt a sharp pain in your side. You cried out, hearing and feeling your own bones shift inside you. 

You glanced up at Peter, him looking at you with remorse.

You cried out again at the repeated cracks of your bones, falling to your knees and hands. You felt like your eyes were going to burst. Then they did, your eyes burst and fell out of your sockets.

You were completely blind for a moment, then you could see, but your vision wasn’t like it used to be. It was like you could only see in certain colors. It was strange, but felt natural.

One by one, all your teeth started to fall out and were replaced by sharp ones. Canines. The pain got even more intense and you felt like you were going to die, you let out high pitched screams.

You wanted to yell, “what the fuck?” when you started to hear your screams come out lower and distorted, but you were too busy screaming out in agony.

You reached up and clawed at your face, violently ripping off your skin. It burned like hell, but Peter was right, it did make it easier.

Eventually, your human form didn’t even feel like yourself. It just felt like it was a cast over your normal self, and that’s exactly what made it easier for you to rip off the human flesh.

You clawed and clawed, finally finding it easier to break free of the heavy pink flesh.

You shook off the rest of the meat that was attached to you by its blood, spraying it everywhere around you. You saw all the meat on the ground, and you felt so hungry.

Peter watched as you started to eat your discarded human flesh. It was hard watching you turn, knowing it was his fault in the first place.

Peter could’ve gasped when he saw your fur. He wasn’t really sure what to expect of your coat. He thought that maybe you’d look exactly like his wolf, since he was the one who made you.

But your coat wasn’t exactly like his, but it was similar. Most of your fur was a blackish grey color, flecks of white around your chest. You looked up at Peter with icy blue eyes.

Peter thought you were beautiful.

~~~~~~~~~~

[jurijurijurious]

Writerly ephemera meme

I was tagged by @thisbluespirit in this rather intriguing meme!

Find five bits of yourself that you gave to your fiction (memories and places and phrases and things into our stories), post and tag five or more writers to share as well.

Now I know I do write bits of myself and my experiences into my stories, one way or another, I think everyone does, but it doesn’t half put you on the spot when you have to try to remember where you’ve done it!

1) I know that recently I wrote Walsingham passing out at the end of a scene in “Mea Culpa”. The entire description is based on personal experience. I went through a scary few years as a young teen where I would pass out for little to no reason, usually at school where there were lots of people watching to cause me huge embarrassment, which then almost gave me a form of PTSD. I was constantly anxious about fainting, it was not good, and we never found out why it happened. But that’s another story... I still occasionally pass out but it’s usually for a reason, after having a vaccine or blood taken or something, but the whole process of fainting, though horrible, is like an old nemesis to me, uncomfortably familiar. I generally feel intense sickness in my stomach, my vision is puckered increasingly with white dots, my entire body comes out in a sweat, and I hear a high pitched whistle-type noise as I lose consciousness. And so since that is my experience, it became Wals’s too:

His palms sweated, his pulse raced...  He shuddered and emitted another strangled breath, fingers white where he clutched the window sill, body trembling.  He needed rest.  Ursula's voice was becoming distant, the room was swaying like the deck of a ship caught in a storm.  He felt a sudden nausea in his stomach, could hear a high pitched sound in his ears, a siren's wail beckoning him into the abyss.

“I am sorry.  So very sorry,” he whispered, though he knew not exactly who he was addressing.  His own voice now sounded as if it was coming from underwater, far away; he was drowning and could resist no more, slipped where he stood and descended into the open arms of oblivion.

2) This is another Walsibeth example I’m afraid because I haven’t written anything else for about a decade! So... Though the pandemic and my lack of funds has put a temporary hold to my hobby of horse riding, I am a half-capable rider and love tearing across country if opportunity allows on horseback. I can thus write people riding horses (English style, anyway) with a degree of accuracy. So in my smutty one-shot fic “In perpetuum et unum diem” (the one which is mostly a pastiche of the raunchy finale of “The Tudors” season 1, and also an excuse for me to write shameless sex), I began the ficlet with a bit of a horse-race between Bess and Wals to get the blood up (a scene that in itself mirrors Elizabeth’s racing with Raleigh in TGA, I later realised). Though I personally haven’t raced a person on horseback per se, I have done beach rides and also ridden on a horseback safari in Africa where you gallop as a group, and “giving your horse its head” is the order of the day! So a lot of this passage is me:

She turned her head back over her shoulder and caught Francis’ eyes.  His lip quirked slightly at the corner but otherwise there was no change to his countenance.  But that was enough.  Her smile deepend as if to invite him to race her and she turned her head back around, gave her dappled grey mare its head and pressed her calves to its flanks.  And the beast responded, driving its legs harder, faster, into a gallop and flew like a falcon through the trees.

...

As the wind flew in Elizabeth’s face, making her eyes water, a great whoop of exhilaration escaped her.  There was nothing but her and the horse, and the knowledge that her blackguard of a lover galloped behind her.  This was what it should feel like to live, even in tragically brief snippets; to feel the blood in your veins, the air in your chest, and the sun on your face, wild and free.

They then jump a tree trunk which I’d love to say I’d do, and I might, but most of my falls have been from jumping so I’d probably wimp out and go the long way around... ;)

3) Annnd another one from my Walsibeth fic “Mea Culpa”, just because it’s fresh in my mind. When I was driving to work last winter, there was one Sunday morning which had a jaw-droppingly beautiful sunrise. I tried to take a photo of it but could not do it justice. I did find a photo of Lincoln Cathedral on instagram from the same morning though which captured the sky perfectly. It literally looked like the sky was on fire, or something, and I immediately worked this memory into my story! I felt that a sky like that would make the perfect backdrop for a single, forlorn, broken bastard riding his horse in a clear, freezing morning:

There was a strange light in the sky as the sun began to make its ascent.  It turned a deep crimson then lifted to shades of rich amber and gold; this combined with the few grey clouds passing overhead gave it the illusion of a huge fire, as if a great furnace now filled the heavens.  Some might have called it beautiful, others would see a grim omen.

4) I had a look in my dreaded old fic archive, so full of cringe, and I found this from the end of my Doctor Who fic “Choices”, which I reckon I wrote between 2005-2006, possibly finishing it later than that. This scene right at the end (told from the perspective of Rose and the ninth Doctor’s daughter, Hope) is literally my old senior school - the class length, the finish time, the uniform was what I wore, and my history teacher was Mrs. Gaskin, and my mum would be waiting in her car to pick me and my sisters up:

By a quarter-to-three in the afternoon, she was in another History lesson with Mrs. Gaskin, and was spending another forty-five minutes hearing about the Black Death, the plague doctors, and the red crosses that were painted on people’s doors. It was fascinating, but Hope’s concentration wasn’t there. She kept looking out of the window at the school yard, noticing the little details that other days she would take for granted - like the way the trees swayed in the wind, the way a crisp-packet rolled across the concrete, and the pure azure-blue colour of the cloudless sky. Something was afoot but she had no idea what it was, or why she was feeling this way.

The bell rang finally at the end of the lesson, as the clock read three-thirty, and the class disappeared swiftly out of the door. It was home time! The voices of myriads of children echoed and shrilled down the corridors, and desperate feet, eager to get home, pounded down the stairs, making for the exits. White shirts were un-tucked from trouser and skirt hems, blue-and-red ties were loosened from about shirt collars, and black blazers were thrown off and carried over shoulders as the mass of pupils took flight.

Hope, however, took things slowly, almost as if she might never see them again, picking up on every smile, every individual laugh, and every joke pulled on every unsuspecting victim. She waved goodbye to friends, hitched her backpack over her shoulder, and made her way out of the school gates toward the spot where her mum or Uncle Jack would usually be waiting to pick her up. As she turned the corner onto Petunia Grove, though, she stopped and sighed. The car - either her mum’s or Jack’s - was not there.

Hope pursed her lips and shrugged, taking another good look around just to make sure that she hadn’t missed it, but there wasn’t a familiar car in sight. She thus let her bag slip off her shoulder, and she perched her backside on the street sign, swinging one of her feet back and forth as she waited for the arrival of her escort.

In the meantime, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander again, as it had been doing often throughout the day, and looked around the street. There was a blue tit on the hedge over the road, stood near a couple of sparrows and a robin. The front door of house number five was a brilliant shade of red, something which she had never really noticed before, and there was some graffiti on the road sign on the opposite side of the street. It read ‘Bad’ something or other, but she couldn’t read the other word since it was blocked off by the blue box.

Hope blinked and slowly rose to her feet. It couldn’t be…

5) And for number five, this is a short extract from the an unpublished Star Wars fic I wrote around 2010, where I tried for what must have been the third time to re-write the Star Wars nonsense I wrote as a teenager, all starring my very Mary Sue OC, Nadia, who became Vader’s apprentice and was mentored by Veers. I have here again worked my experiences of passing out into the story - a psychologist would have a field day with me. Nadia’s thoughts about showing weakness were also real fears of mine - I never liked to be weak, to be ill, to be a burden, and my character was the mouthpiece for my own self-disgust. It’s written in the first person with Nadia narrating in this scene where she accompanies General (Maximilian) Veers to the Kaminoan’s cloning facility to review further batches of troops and is taken ill by the experience of seeing the thousands of farmed foetuses:

Max nodded whilst I remained breathless and shaky in his shadow. I could not get those tiny, wriggling foetuses out of many head - they floated upon my consciousness, their inhuman eyes glaring into my face and their tiny hands reaching out toward me. I tried to rid myself of these infantile phantoms, but I could not, and I suddenly felt quite ill.

“We shall need many more in our next delivery,” Max told the creature, who began to babble on about the problems of this request, but was halted mid-sentence when Maximilian wheeled about and grabbed me, saying my name over and over. He disappeared amidst the snowstorm of white dots that littered my vision, however, and I collapsed upon the floor.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a bright, white room. The walls dazzled me for a moment and it took my eyes and my mind time to adjust and to recognise reality. I looked slowly at the plain walls, finding myself alone upon a bed with my hands by my sides and a drip feeding liquid into my arm. This seemed quite surreal - I knew I was not ill enough to warrant this - but I resolved to stay put until someone came to me. I felt extremely tired and I thought that I may as well take advantage of the rest.

I fell back to sleep again and, when I next woke, I saw Max sat in a chair beside me. I glanced about the room - we were alone. I looked at him uncertainly, my visage undoubtedly betraying the signs of my mortification, for he first said: “Do not worry, Nadia, I am not angry with you. It cannot always be helped.”

...

I wanted to defy him, to be strong, but no, I just showed him weakness and insecurity. What indignity was this?

Thanks for the tag, that was fun! I can’t think of 5 writers to tag but off the top of my head: @feuillesmortes, @robins-treasure and @captainofthegreenpeas? Have a go if you fancy.

[weltonreject]

“look homeward, angel, now”

James lives and comes to find Oliver. Immediately post-canon. || Title and references from Milton’s Lycidas

I was crouched in my chair, looking for another pen, when there was a shallow knock on the front door. I paused for a moment, waiting for Meredith’s call to say she was answering. I pushed my chair back, remembering she was still out filming. I knew I had to stop relying on her for things, it was unbecoming. Felt like Dellecher all over again. Tied up between her and-- well, there was no other post to wrangle myself around. Just her. And still one end hanging lifeless in the wind.

“Coming!” I said, sliding my hand down the banister to keep myself from running. The knock sounded like it was a slow-response away from ditching.

Any other greeting I expected to say died on my tongue the moment I saw who had come-- who had found me.

“James.”

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead

It startled me to see he was soaking wet, like he’d walked right out of the sea and straight back to me-- but how could he have heard me? I cried silently and angrily in the hidden shadows of sleep, and isolated moments when Meredith would slip from the house for days at a time. I noticed, finally, that it had begun to rain outside. The explanation felt like a lie. Not the whole truth, as usual.

He seemed to notice my staring, my long dragging glances over his clothes, over his body. He was so much leaner than I remembered, than I ever dreamed of either, but he was still James. How could I find him unfamiliar?

"I’ve been here for over an hour... Trying to see if I should knock.” James sounded unsure if he’d done right. I pushed the door farther back to tell him he had. He didn’t move. “Truth is, I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Whatever you would like.” I said.

I tried not to overwhelm him with the truth of what simply the sight of him was doing to me. The return of a sailor we all thought had been lost to sea. I wasn’t even angry that he had been alive for years without a visit or a note-- except the one Filippa sent to me-- I didn’t care about the life he had before. It didn’t really matter. His had only started now that he was with me. And I felt the relief with as much greed as I thought to.

“We aren’t friendly enough for that anymore.” He whispered and it nearly disappeared into the rain.

"James,” I sighed and held a hand out to him. He’d begun to shiver. He resisted and I sighed, catching the wind of the rain. I spoke between the falling sheets. “ For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill, / Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; / Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd / Under the opening eyelids of the morn.”

My verse stopped him, shivering and all: surprised but not put-off. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but then again, we were different boys than those that could converse with only another man’s words. We were lost-and-found men. It felt wrong, at such a raw and exposed reunion, to start putting up the thin veil of our old selves, our old routine.

He stepped inside and I grabbed his coat, hanging it on the doorknob. The wet bottom hem stayed on the doormat, staying with James’s wet boots, as he toed them off. I half expected him to start shimmying out of his jeans, getting ready for bed after a long rehearsal.

Oh, how I wish there had been one. Maybe I would’ve had better lines prepared.

“What happened, James?” I started for the kettle as I lead him into the kitchen. I wanted to distract myself, but also didn’t want to take my eyes off of James. How had I gone without a single real glimpse of him for years? How had I allowed myself to become so starved?

I remembered it hadn’t been me who had made the decision.

“What do you want me to say?” He was genuinely asking. Calling for a line prompt. “The guilt swallowed me, Oliver. And I thought once I hit rock bottom it would be over. But it kept swallowing me. Over and over, right over my head, like--”

Like waves.

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, "What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?"

“You’re alive.” I prompted him finally.

"After the hospital,” James spoke softly, easing himself into the chair. The pain on his face told me of the time he spent, most likely cooped up and staring his guilt dead in the face, unable to utter it. Unable to heal. “I went to my family but, mostly to keep quiet. Gather myself without you knowing.”

“Me?” Anger flared in my chest suddenly, the hiss of the kettle a whimper compared to my impending growl, ferocious and unhinged after years in a cage. “Does everyone else know?”

“Meredith isn’t filming. She’s with Wren right now. I told her... I wanted to tell you myself. Alone.”

I glared at him, nostrils flaring as I tried to grapple with the sudden exposed strings tied to me. I heaved a breath, ready to scream, to rally a fight, but-- I sighed, seeing the guilt etched, again, on James’s features. They’d never return to the ones I used to study on stage; from across the room; once, right under my nose.

I couldn’t be angry at him. Between the two of us, what good was it? There was no score anymore. Just an extended intermission. Unfinished verse.

My anger caved and washed out of me and I nearly collapsed into the seat across from him.

Who would not sing for Lycidas?

“I can understand not seeing me, but you could’ve, at the very least, told me you were alive.” I said, trying to remain firm. “That’s all I cared about. Not the-- not an apology.”

“God, apology.” James became distraught again. He looked too weak to stand, but panicked enough to express another desire to disappear. “What can I even say to apologize? You wouldn’t let me-- and now there’s nothing I can say to give you back that past ten years of you life. I mean,” he choked on a long sob. “what could I possible do to give you any of that back?”

“Tell me you know why I did it.”

“What?” He ran the back of his sweater sleeve-- already soaked-- along his upper lip, composing himself.

“Tell me you know why.”

“I--” The truth was right there, held in our own held breaths. In the way our hands were both flat against the table top, finger tips too far apart to be purposeful, but trembling enough to say they were missing another half. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” James said more desperately. The words were as unrehearsed for him as they were for me.

I, again, chose words not of my own, hoping to dislodge the ten years of rust I’d let form around them. Never spoken, never practiced.

“Where, other groves and other streams along, / With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,” I blinked twice, looking down at my own hands. They weren’t as harsh red and thawing as James’s. I looked back up, knowing the rest of the verse, but changing it anyway. “And hears the expressive nuptial song, / In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.”

"I-I don’t know Milton this well.” Fresh tears had started in his eyes. One dangled over his cheek, his trembling body threatening his composure again.

I was pleased he at least knew the poem. I wasn’t just speaking in scattered verse, not just in a foreign tongue. It was code again. A secret layer of communication we could tuck between, like a warm blanket and firm mattress.

“Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more:” Against my better judgement-- against all judgement, really-- I rose from my seat and reached to brush the tear from James’s cheek. My hand never retracted. It stayed on him, thumb gently braced on his sharp, jutting cheekbone. “Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, / In thy large recompense, and shalt be good / To all that wander in that perilous flood.”

Weakness be damned, James himself stood again. He reached for me over the table, my shirt too simple for his grasp and going for my shoulders. He nearly folded me over across the table, bringing me to his lips. He was fully weeping by then, no sparse or embarrassed tears to be found. These tears were hot and pitiful: only I, a lost shepherd staring out over the sea, would be so foolish to be in love with him. Would forgive him with a heart so light it could so easily be handed over, passed from lips to lips.

“Don’t ever do that again.” He said, finally finding my face with both of his freezing hands. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

I wanted to make a joke-- a note that it wasn’t my decision, not really-- but I kept my mouth shut. Or, otherwise pre-occupied.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean it entirely. So I went on. “I wouldn’t have ever let you trade with me, but I’m sorry it meant you had to be with the guilt--”

“All without you.” He took my sentence and tied it up, keeping it ended. “There’s no one like you.”

“James,”

“No, no,” he said, pushing my hair back and cradling my face like he’d gotten to touch a marble statue: intimately and with wonder. “fuck ordinary and nice and disposable. Oliver, there is no one on this Earth like you, and I can’t believe that I let you fall for me.”

“There’s no one else like you.” I said, stepping around the table to take him in my arms.

He was sturdier than I would have thought, but maybe that was just years of harsh reality building a shell around him. I kissed him again, ignoring his quiet whimper of disagreement to my confession. His hand laid flat against my chest, an echo of a memory never finished. His fingers pressed against my collar bone, trying to find my heartbeat. As if he needed a jumpstart to his own.

“No one else worth knowing, quite like you.” We were both breathing heavy, my words nearly lost in James’s continued shy nips at my lips. He was trying to stop me from speaking, but I could tell he was eager for absolvement. Not of sins, but of shame.

Finally, I brought him to rest against me. Fiery passion and frail relief encased us both. Our arms tightly tried to keep the other impossibly closer-- as if it would push the rest of the world away. I thought to myself, incorrectly but with a hidden smile:

But O the heavy change now art gone, Now art gone, and never must return!

[to-be-a-spartan]

To Be A Spartan

Chapter 1: The Myth

18:38 Hours (Shipboard Time), July 20, 2557 (Military Calendar)

Slipstream Space

UNSC Infinity, S-Deck

Sarah Palmer wasn’t quite sure how her day had taken a turn to end up like this, and she damn sure didn’t like it.

The Infinity had picked up a distress call from the Forward Unto Dawn of all things. A ship that had been MIA, presumed destroyed since Operation: BLIND FAITH back in 2552 at the end of the Human-Covenant War. Well, it was a bit more complex than that but Sarah couldn’t be bothered to review the brief she was given on the ship in her head again.

Sarah rolled her eyes as she walked towards the First Officer’s Quarters. The entire ship was practically vibrating with excitement. It was ridiculous. She didn’t understand why they were so excited. The guy was probably dead anyway, because the distress call had been Cortana, his A.I., repeating a single phrase over and over. If you’d asked her prior to 2552 if she even thought the Spartans really existed, it would’ve been a resounding no. She figured the myths of Archangels of Death wreathed in invincible emerald green armor blazing through battlefields and slaughtering the Covenant were just from Shellshocked marines imagining things as reinforcements arrived and gunned down the perpetrators like dogs. She just assumed ONI Section II decided to highly publicize those few and far between victories and craft an immensely complex web of lies and stories to perpetuate the myth of the Spartans and raise morale among the ranks.

But then 2552 rolled around.

The Halo Campaigns, the Invasion of Earth, the Great Schism. So much happened, all centered around a Spartan. Not so much a Spartan, but the Spartan.

Sierra-117. The Master Chief.

One man almost singlehandedly saved the galaxy. That was when she started believing in the Spartans. Of course, Tom had told her stories of the Chief.

About the Covenant invasion of Circinius IV and the subsequent death of nearly all of his friends. Tom always said it was the Master Chief that had rescued them. Sarah loved her friend, she really did, but prior to 2552 she had remained skeptical that he really existed.

Setting those thoughts aside as she reached a bulkhead, she knocked twice.

“Come.”

The bulkhead slid open to reveal a relatively standard UNSC officer’s quarters. About a third larger than regular quarters, there was a steel desk on the far wall next to a wooden bookshelf that was definitely not standard-issue or within regulations, filled with actual paper books. The chair of the desk stood upon a single steel pole that rested in a grove on the deck. That groove contained a small track that let the chair slide along as it was needed and not fall or anything of the sort.

In that chair was Commander Thomas James Lasky, First Officer of the UNSC Infinity, and probably one of the only men who could call Sarah Palmer more than an acquaintance, commanding officer, or one-night stand (and those were very few and far between now).

The fair-skinned man span his chair around to face the door, reaching a hand up to smooth back his hair that was a few shades short of bark brown. He cocked his left leg at the knee and rested his left ankle on his right knee. Holding a datapad in his right hand and resting it in his lap next to the hand he lowered from his hair, he smiled. “I shouldn’t be surprised you’re here, Sarah. What is it?”

Sarah crossed her arms and leaned against the wall on her right side that the door she had entered from was up against. As she looked for the right words, she glanced around the room. Tracing her eyes along the wall, she passed over the small closet allotted to officers. Then along the wall to the door to the personal bathroom all officers were allowed (she also knew Tom despised that officers were given special privileges, so rarely used it for anything other than basic hygiene). From there she looked over to the wall that ran horizontal to the threshold of the door, and the immaculately made bunk pressed against the wall.

He’s nervous.... She thought, glancing back at him. She could see the abnormalities in the rise and fall of his armored chest. It wasn’t consistent. She could easily see the way he dug the tip of his right boot into the deck slightly.

“You’re nervous.” She stated finally, amber-brown eyes meeting his own chocolate-brown ones.

Tom’s brows furrowed ever so slightly, and after a second his smile switched from welcoming to bashful. She recognized the change instantly, she’d known him long enough that she knew every one of his mannerisms like the back of her hand. He lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, letting out a soft laugh. “You got me.”

Sarah’s lips ticked upwards in a small smile. Tom never failed to make her smile at least once a day. She pushed off the wall and and moved over to sit on the edge of his desk. “Talk to me, Tom. I may not be very good at helping, but I’ll always listen.”

Lasky turned slightly in his chair so he was still facing her. “I know, Sarah. I know.” Then he blinked.

“We don’t have much time. Let’s go.” The armored behemoth that had killed the alien stated in a deep, gravely, but unmistakably human voice.

“Over thirty years ago, that man saved my life.”

“You’re the only survivors.”

“In the school....?”

“On the planet.”

“He risked his life for a bunch of kids.”

“Get to the ‘Hog, I’ll draw their fire!”

“I’ll never understand why.”

“Don’t stop for anything. Including me.”

“I thought I’d never see him again. Twice, in fact.”

“Lasky, no!”

“Axios!”

“First on Circinius during our escape. And again after that, onboard the ship that took us away. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.” Lasky sat the datapad on his desk and uncrossed his legs, resting both feet on the ground and both elbows on his knees.

Sarah didn’t say anything, just reached out a hand and rested it on Tom’s shoulder not covered by that odd piece of armor. She squeezed gently and rolled her lips together, still not saying anything. She didn’t have too.

Tom reached up a hand to rest on Sarah’s on his shoulder, looking up slightly and giving her a grateful nod.

She returned it, sque—

“XO requested bridge. XO requested bridge. Commander Palmer requested bridge. Commander Palmer requested bridge.” Came the voice of the ship’s artificial intelligence, Roland, over the ship-comm.

The pair sighed simultaneously, both standing up and smiling at each other before exiting Lasky’s quarters.

——————

Sarah Palmer walked onto the Command Bridge of the UNSC Infinity with a purpose in her step. It was time to work.

Now clad in her MJOLNIR GEN2 Scout Variant, Sarah felt much more at home than in her skivvies. She let her eyes take in the room, the outer circle of consoles on a slightly elevated platform that had small dips in three places leading down to the second tier where the main holotable of the bridge was sat in front of the viewport with Captain Andrew Del Rio and Tom standing next to it.

Sarah walked over, taking a place opposite of Del Rio and truly working to withhold the glare that tries to work its way out every damn time she looks at the worthless piece of shit. Judging by the look Tom gives her, he’s having the same problem.

“Commander Palmer, how nice of you to finally join us.” Del Rio says in his ever-condescending voice, somehow managing to look down at her even though she towered over the old man.

She bit back a sharp retort, instead sliding into parade-rest and nodding. “Of course, Sir.”

“Now, in two hours we will be leaving Slipspace at the location of the Forward Unto Dawn’s distress call. I want boarding teams ready to deploy the moment we clear the slip. Commander Lasky, you will deploy with them. The Spartan may react better to an officer than another team of Spartans. Understood?” Del Rio spoke slowly, still in that arrogant tone. He didn’t care about finding the Master Chief. He was just looking for another promotion.

Tom looked ready to call him out on his lack of using the Chief’s title, indirectly of course, but just under the edge of the table Sarah caught his wrist and almost imperceptibly shook her head. “Sir, it’s against protocols for any UNSC vessel to not have an Executive Officer aboard at all times. Commander Lasky-“

“Commander Lasky,” Del Rio cut her off, puffing out his chest in an unconscious (as if) attempt to assert dominance. “is no stranger to breaking a few protocols.... isn’t that right?” He looked at Lasky’s chest, exactly where his dog-tags hung under his officer’s BDU.

Sarah found yet another reason for wanting to throttle the Captain. She knew exactly what he was referring to. And she also wanted to throttle him for the look that flew across Tom’s face; She knew Tom well enough to understand he wouldn’t dare say anything, but it had hurt him.

“Of. Course. Sir.” She replied through gritted teeth.

Del Rio studied her for a moment, visibly debating whether to reprimand her or not for her sharpness, but decided against it. “Very well. You’re dismissed.”

—————

Sarah felt the deck rumble beneath her feet as the Infinity lurched out of the blue-black of Slipspace.

“Holy shit-!”

Sarah heard the exclamation from one of the flight technicians fueling up the Pelican and peaked her head out of the Blood-Tray to see what he—

Woah....

Staring back at her through the atmospheric shield of the main hanger bay was a gargantuan metal planet. It had millions upon millions of lights scattered across its surface in perfect geometric patterns, and a large hole in the surface of the planet.

“Oh my God...”

Sarah glanced to her left to see Lasky standing with one foot on the rear ramp of the pelican, the other on the Infinity’s deck. He looked just as mystified as everyone else.

“Now hear this, Now hear this:” Came Roland’s voice over the ship-comm. Then, something spectacular happened: “We have picked up a UNSC IFF tag in the core of the planet. According to all known data on Forerunner constructs, the planet is hollow. All hands, brace for atmospheric entry. We’re going inside.”

And then the deck lurched, and Sarah had to grab the pelican to keep from falling. Tom looked at her, and she shrugged. “Roland!” She barked. “What the hell was that?”

“The planet caught us in a gravity well, Commander!” The A.I. replied, his avatar appearing on a nearby comm pad. “Helm can’t get us out.”

At the same time, his voice came louder iver the ship-comm. “All hands! Brace, brace!” The deck rumbled again and crates went flying as Roland’s avatar vanished.

“Hostile Covenant contacts! All Pathfinder teams are to deploy immediately, we’ll cover you!” Del Rio’s voice snapped over the ship-comm.

“You heard him Commanders!” The voice of Spartan Vixen (Sarah did a double take when she first heard her name to), a member of Gypsy Company, called from the blood tray.

Sarah patted Tom’s shoulder, nodding as they both climbed into the pelican and the engines roared to life.

This is not a good idea.... She thought, but didn’t voice it. No turning back now. Taking a seat next to Tom as the harnesses lowered to keep them in place, she rolled her shoulders.

“Commander Lasky.”

Tom rolled his eyes as Del Rio’s voice sounded over the Pelican’s comm. “Go ahead Captain.”

“I’m assigning your team to locate the origin point of the gravity well that dragged us in-“ His voice got quieter as he turned away from the mic for a moment. “Ready Archer pods Alpha 7 through Bravo 6 and fire!”

“Understood, Captain. We’ll get it done.” Tom replied, then shut off the comm as the pelican arced into a steep dive to avoid a stream of plasma fire, throwing them against the hull.

Several minutes of rapid aerobatics later, Spartan Vixen decided to break the silence. Her deep blue visor turned towards Lasky and she spoke. “First time on a combat flight, Commander?”

The rest of the cabin laughed, Lasky included. He rocked in his harness a lot more than the marines or Spartans, but he seemed fine. He looked at Vixen, smiling good-naturedly. “Quite the opposite, Spartan. I used to be a naval aviator.”

Vixen whistled, nudging another Spartan, Spartan Tetran, with her elbow. “Hear that boys? The Commander here probably gave us fire support at some point.” A holler went around the bay, and everyone knew they were just distracting themselves.

“Commander Lasky, you might want to see this.” Came the voice of their pilot from the cockpit.

Lasky glanced at Sarah, who raised an eyebrow that he shrugged in response to. He raised his harness and stood up, stepping into the cockpit. They didn’t bother to be quiet, so Sarah could easily hear them discussing the gravity well they had apparently spotted.

“Incoming!” The Co-Pilot barked, followed by a flash of gold-orange light, and suddenly they were plummeting towards the surface with fire trailing from their port side wing.

Sarah watched as Tom was thrown from the cockpit and slammed into the ceiling with a pained exclamation before being buffeted into Tetran’s helmet. She unlatched her harness without thinking and grabbed Lasky, holding him against her armored chest. She could take more hits than he could.

“Brace for—“ CRASH

The pilot was cut off as the pelican slammed into the canopy of the alien trees below, the sound of metal being obliterated like wet tissue paper filling her ears as she and Tom were thrown about the cabin. The pelican slammed into something else, causing the rear ramp to fly open and Sarah to be thrown from the bay with Tom in her arms.

She flew through the air, doing her best to ensure she landed first instead of To—

CRACK

Then everything went black.

[windarcher]

I rarely use this side blog which is a shame, so fuck it, let’s take advantage.

And today we have - my revised essay on why Millennial Tree and Wind Archer are not canonly related, under the read more because it’s a long post! I posted this a while back under a different blog, but I think I can do better. I’ll be honest, 90% of the reason I’m writing this is for fun and to just talk about them because I love these two so much.

Look, I don’t care if anybody headcanons that they are related. If you do? Great! If you do and use that as an excuse to throw hate on people who ship them? Not Great!

So here we go.

1. The Characters

Wind Archer and Millennial Tree!

Millennial Tree was introduced in Ovenbreak, while Wind Archer was around back in LINE. They have a very similar protector/protected dynamic to Knight and Princess. (We’ll be talking about them more later.)

Wind Archer has, as of this post, his main description and three costume ones. I’ll list those first, and we’ll do a bit of unpacking.

Wind Archer - Originally, this Cookie was the wind who loved the green of the forest. This wind delightfully spent its days spreading fresh and sweet fragrances across the forest. In order to save the paradise in peril, a mysterious being granted it the power to purify the Darkness. This transformed the wind into Wind Archer Cookie, the protector of the forest. As long as Wind Archer Cookie's heart keeps hope, he'll carry on his duty.

The interesting thing about this one is that it mentions a mysterious being who transformed him from the wind to the Wind Archer we all know and love. This, I think, is what led a lot of people to head canon him as Millennial Tree’s son- they take the mysterious being to be MT. Put a pin in that one, because we’ll be coming back to it.

Guardian of the Millennial Tree - Long time ago, in a deep dark forest, lived the guardian of the Millennial Tree. The Legend is almost forgotten, but his mission is as eternal as the light of his gem, the Emerald Heart. And it is calling him once again!

This one is interesting because it implies that Wind Archer has been around for a long, long time. Technically it doesn’t disprove the head canon, but it doesn’t help it either.

Night Raven - Wind Archer Cookie embraced the Darkness to become the merciless Night Raven. 

... Yeah this has nothing to do with the theory, but here it is.

And finally, our newest costume!

Zephyr of Life - The Winds of Life gently caress the Dessert Forest. Wind Archer Cookie lands upon the fields and looks upon the horizon. A mysterious power has enveloped the land and granted a blessing to the guardian of the forest. Each arrow leaves a bloom of flowers on flight.

A mysterious power. Sound familiar? I think we can tie that into our mysterious being from before. Still, that doesn’t technically count out MT, right?

Well...

Like I said before! Wind Archer was around in LINE Cookie Run. He’s mostly the same except for one notable difference.

There, the mysterious being that created him was named.

The Sugar Swan.

Now, the Swan hasn’t appeared in Ovenbreak. Yet. But I believe that, with the newest event, we’re getting ready to see her. I know you’re tired of hearing this, but we’ll get to that later. She’s gonna have her own section.

Now that we have a grasp on Wind Archer, let’s move on.

Millennial Tree doesn’t have much, but we’ll still give him his share of the spot light! He doesn’t have any costumes yet, but here we go.

Millennial Tree - Deep inside a secret grove, there was a majestic ancient tree. Its roots went deep inside the ground and far to the very corners of the world. When the scarlet curse devoured the grove, the tree sealed itself in a magical slumber to resist the dark sorcery. With the help of the Cookies, Millennial Tree Cookie's silence was finally broken. Once again he is ready to vanquish the Darkness and make the world a blooming garden it once used to be.

Notice - Not once does this describe him as mysterious. That’s the main tie in to my little theory here.

Now. Moving on.

2. What they think of each other.

Thanks to relationship tags, and a few other tidbits, we DO have an idea of what these two think of each other!

First off - the Relationship Tags.

WA, about MT - “I shall protect the Tree forever!” (Admiration)

Note that there is a Family tag, and note that it is not used for either of their relationship tags.

MT, about WA - “My faithful guardian, my curse is not your fault.” (Trust)

Fun fact: Admiration and Trust are the same relationship tags that Knight and Princess (respectively) have for each other.

There are not just these, however! There are a few more tidbits here in their loading/home screen messages.

WA - “I will protect the Millennial Tree!” “The Tree knows everything.”

MT - “My faithful wind guards me.”

Nothing we don’t already know, but that helps with my point. There’s nothing that implies a familial relationship.

3. New Content/The Mysterious Being

Oh boy oh boy did this new update give us a lot to unpack.

First of all, the costume I mentioned earlier.

Secondly? Though she hasn’t been spotted yet, there are SO MANY hints about the Sugar Swan! Who, might I reiterate, I’m sure is the mysterious being that keeps getting brought up.

Here she is, located in her Galaxy Lake, which was located at the tail end of the Dessert Paradise map. Does that sound familiar?

Well it should if you’ve played the new story event!

The very first line of the event?

“Vixey! Cubby! Let’s go play near Galaxy Lake!”

And, if you take a look at both Wind Archer’s New Costume - The one that ties in with being blessed by a mysterious power- and the lobby design that comes with it...

Here we have the updated version of the galaxy lake. And Wind Archer’s new costume is designed with lots of the same purple tones as the lake/the swan. It also has a much more feather design then his Guardian of the Millennial Tree costume. The trees are very clearly the same as in the version above, pale with stripes. The sky is, unfortunately, a bit hard to see, though there are still stars there.

These aren’t themed around his usual stuff- This costume is themed much more... birdlike then usual. Granted, it’s not the only one that has wings/feathers, but it features them and the color scheme most promisely.

But the BIGGEST part of the new update that makes me certain the mysterious being CAN’T be MT?

In one of the segment of the update, we get this from Churro Cookie -

“The wind was commanded by the Tree to travel far from paradise and protect a mysterious being.”

With all the other hints, I’m certain that the mysterious being has to be Sugar Swan. She’s the one who turned the wind into Wind Archer. She’s the one who blessed him and further enhanced him into the Zephyr of Life.

And MT had nothing to do with creating Wind Archer. So, they are NOT related!

4. Extra Stuff

This does quite fit the rest, but I thought I might as well add it.

There’s one more cookie that has some heavy implication to the importance of swans.

Whipped Cream Cookie!

And again, the cookie description!

“A graceful Cookie, decorated with the tender, sweet whipped cream and shiny pearls. This Cookie spends days looking at his own reflection on the surface of the lake and practicing fouttés and pas. It is said that Whipped Cream Cookie has learned the elegant ballet movements from the beautiful white swans. This romantic ballerino's eyes are filled with pure light, and smile is so gentle and serene, it can calm the most furious storm. May his graceful ballet dance continue forever!“

If you read this with the perspective of searching for hints on Sugar Swan, it’s got quite a few! He danced at a lake- IE, the Galaxy Lake He was taught by swans - and the character gushes about swans by calling him the most graceful beings.

And while that doesn’t technically mean that he’s tied in, well... We do have one connection to the whole situation up above.

He and Millennial Tree know each other!

WC about MT - “The Millennial Tree watched my first performance!” (Friendly) MT about WC - “In my dreams, I've seen this Cookie dance...” (Friendly)

There’s nothing technically there. Just some extra tidbits that fuel my own person parent/child head canon that Sugar Swan is Whipped Cream’s mom-

ANYWAY

5. Conclusion

Millennial Tree was not the one to turn the Wind into Wind Archer. That was most likely Sugar Swan, and the devs seem to be building up to her coming back with this new event!

This means these two are not canonly related, and if you enjoy shipping them like I do, fear not! There’s no reason not to!

[foursideharmony]

The Cat, the Prince, and the Doorway to Imagination (Chapter 6)

Summary: Logan goes for help. It doesn’t go well, but help (?) arrives anyway. Meanwhile, Patton makes a discovery.

Pairings: Platonic/familial LAMP/CALM, Platonic/familial DLAMPR

Content Warnings: There are some pretty hairy descriptions of violence in this chapter--brief, but potentially vivid. Also, Remus is finally involved, so watch out for that.

Word Count: 4,445

Read on AO3: here

People often underestimate how fast bears can run. They're so bulky, and most of the time are content to lumber along in an unhurried fashion. The best way to stop underestimating them is surely to be chased by one—anyone who experiences that will remember bears as the speedy animals that they actually are for however long the rest of their life might be.

The second-best way, though, might just be to ride one at a full gallop over miles of Narnian countryside.

Logan wondered just how fast they were going—he estimated between 35 and 40 kilometers per hour. With visual cues, he could have pinpointed their average speed more precisely, but he was clinging to Stoutpaws's back with his head down to minimize air resistance and his eyes closed to keep the freezing wind out of them. The bear's fur was unpleasantly coarse and smelled of a cloying mixture of dirt, honey, and wild animal, but Logan pushed all that to the back of his mind. This was necessary.

It was hours before they paused, and then only so Stoutpaws could shuffle to the top of a small bluff and confirm their destination. “That wood there,” he said, pointing with one paw. “Lantern Waste. That's where you came from, right, sir?”

“If the word 'Lantern' in the name refers to an antique lamppost stationed in the woods and inexplicably in operation, then yes. I believe the door we came through is just beyond it.”

“You use a lot of big words, don't you, sir?”

“I value precision in communication.”

They continued. Another hour brought them to the edge of Lantern Waste, and Stoutpaws slowed and let Logan dismount so that they could navigate more carefully. “Thus far, I do not recognize any specific landmarks,” the Logical Side noted after a time. “But it occurs to me that the lamppost is a unique feature in this forest, composed primarily of cast iron in contrast to the natural wood and stone that surrounds us. And I am given to understand that bears have an exceptionally keen olfactory sense. Perhaps you could locate it by scent?”

“I can certainly try, sir.” Stoutpaws reared up on his hind paws and turned his head from side to side with great nostril-flaring sniffs.

“As long as we are conversing, I would like to mention that there is no need to address me with an honorific. If you wish, you may call me by my name: Logan.”

“Oh no, sir, I couldn't do that. You're to be King, after all. And a fine one you'll make with your careful way of speaking, if I do say so myself.”

Logan found that he had no response to that. He recalled that the original book ended with the four children being crowned as monarchs of Narnia, but he couldn't say the prospect appealed to him. Neither did it pall, however. Still, he was pretty sure Stoutpaws had just complimented him, so he offered a nod of appreciation when he next met the beast's eye.

“No iron yet,” Stoutpaws was saying, “but I think the wind is against me. And there's something else...” He awkwardly pivoted on his paws, smelling to the northeast. “Hang on, that's the scent of reindeer! And lacquered wood! It's a sleigh! It's him—the White Warlock! He's after us!” He dropped back down to all fours and began pacing in a tight circle. “What shall we do, sir?”

“Let me up,” said Logan. “Head deeper into the wood and keep trying to smell out the lamppost.”

“I can't outpace the Warlock's sleigh!”

“Do your best, then, to buy us some time, and I'll work out a plan in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir!”

Stoutpaws took off at a dead gallop through the wood. They hadn't gone far when his nostrils flared wide and he declared, “I smell iron! ( puff, puff ) At least we're heading ( puff ) the right way!”

But just as they came within sight of the incongruous fixture, they began to hear, from somewhere behind them, the jingle of sleigh harness. “Oh, sir, he's coming ! He'll catch us for sure!”

Logan found himself wincing at the young bear's plaintive tone. “Let me down here.” Stoutpaws skidded to a halt and Logan dismounted once again. The sound of the sleigh was not as close as they had feared; Roman must have had to slow down among the trees. “I'll make it the rest of the way to the wardrobe on my own. You find a place to hide, and if anything should go wrong...please return to the others and let them know.”

“Nothing doing, sir! I-I promised to protect you with my life!”

“The best way for you to protect any of us right now is with information. Remember that, Stoutpaws. Knowledge is far more precious than strength or speed or even magic. Get yourself behind cover. Protect what you know.”

Stoutpaws's eyes were wide under his ears, half-flattened with fear. “Yes, sir,” he said meekly, before loping away toward denser brush. Logan stooped to pick up a pebble as the sound of the sleigh drew nearer and turned to sprint toward the lamppost just as it broke through the closest layer of trees and he heard Roman's bark of triumph.

Logan's turn of speed surprised even him, but he supposed it was only to be expected with the combination of adrenaline and fresh, unpolluted air. He had nothing on a reindeer-drawn sleigh, however, and with the grove of the wardrobe mere yards away, he felt a whiff of animal breath on the back of his head. In the next instant, he hurled the pebble as hard as he could into the grove and flung himself to one side in order to avoid being run down, losing his coat in the process. He landed hard, half-winded, the chill of the snow biting into his suddenly unprotected forearms, and wasn't able to pick himself up as quickly as he liked. He had only managed to raise himself up to his knees before Roman stood over him, looking every bit as menacing as he had that morning.

“I would have thought Virgil would be the one to try and escape. Did you really think I'd let any of you just leave?”

“Roman,” Logan panted, “this is highly uncharacteristic behavior for you. I would adv—”

“Spare me, Pointdexter, you're not my guidance counselor!” He reached out, and Logan found his chin forcibly tipped up by the end of what seemed to be an ornately carved icicle. “What was that you threw just then, Logan?”

Logan met his gaze with rock-steadiness. “A message.”

Roman's eyes widened and he turned to shout at his Dwarf attendant. “Hurry up! Get in there and intercept it!”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

Roman watched him scamper off before turning back to Logan. “It must suck to get so close to your goal and then fail at the last minute.”

Now that it was just the two of them, Logan noted, Roman had reverted to a more colloquial mode of speech. He carefully said nothing, balanced precariously between the desire to keep Roman talking and perhaps obtain clues to his precise mental state and how it had come about...and the need to avoid angering him further.

“Well? Don't you have anything to say?”

So much for remaining quiet... “I regret this course of events.”

“Funnily enough, I don't. Strike a pose, nerd.” Roman raised the icicle over his head, and Logan realized, just too late to defend himself, that it was actually a magic wand. He reflexively cringed away, taking whatever small comfort he could from the fact that he had succeeded at every part of his plan that was under his direct control...

  Patton decided to go for a walk. He'd had no luck at all cheering the Narnians up—if anything, their sadness was piling up on him, worsening his own—and he had reached the point where it was either get some fresh air and solitude, or have a breakdown in front of everyone.

Virgil insisted upon making sure it was safe first. They sent out a Talking Dog called Scuffer and a Raven by the name of Sallowpad out to scout the area by land and air, respectively, and make sure none of the enemy were nearby. Then one of the Fauns loaned Patton his pipes, so that he could blow an alert in case of any surprises. Thus equipped, Patton bundled into his fur coat and scrambled out of the shelter just ahead of the tears that were threatening to fall. The cold, clean air helped him gulp them back for the time being, and once he got farther from the camp, farther from all those forlorn faces and despondent voices, the space under the trees, with only his own quietly crunching footsteps and misty breaths for companions, helped to dissipate the horrid feelings.

Everything was going wrong. He couldn't deny that. The story wasn't going the way it should, not at all, and he and Virgil and Logan weren't familiar enough with it to figure out what the problem was and nudge it back on track, and he'd tried talking to the Narnians about the White Witch but their responses were always about the White Warlock as if whatever was going on with Roman had overwritten her, and...and...and...

And if Patton understood the situation with the Dryads correctly, Roman had just ordered someone killed in cold blood. She was just a figment of the Imagination, but it was still a cruel, vicious, tyrannical act! He just couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of Roman, the noble fairy tale prince, doing something like that. But he knew he had to fix it, but how could he, when he couldn't figure out how it had come about?

How could he, when he couldn't even inject a little cheer into a ragtag group of talking animals and fantasy creatures?

He came to a small clearing—well, more of a space between large trunks. The branches of the trees arched overhead, nearly meeting in the middle, so that in the summer, with everything in full leaf, the ground beneath would be too shaded to let anything other than ferns and moss grow. Right now, of course, there was nothing but a thick layer of snow covering a slightly thinner layer of dead leaves...except in one spot, where there was a patch of sun that seemed to have built up just enough warmth to let the snow melt and reveal the musty earth.

And sitting in that patch of sun was a cat.

Despite everything, Patton almost laughed out loud—probably the only outdoor spot in all of Narnia that was even a little warm, and a cat had found it. The stifled laugh came out as more of a snort, and the cat—which had been lying down in a semi-circle with its back to him—twisted its head to see where the noise had come from. “Hiya, kitty,” Patton said shyly. “I didn't mean to bother you.”

The cat stood up, yawned, stretched, and sat. Now facing Patton, it looked up at him with intensely golden eyes. It was a handsome creature, with long, tawny-colored hair that didn't seem to have picked up any mats or burrs.

“I sure wish I could pet you,” Patton went on. “I think I could use some furry snuggles right now, but I'm afraid you'd set off my allergies.”

The cat hopped to its feet and walked up to the Moral Side, turning its body sideways as it approached. It stopped about a foot shy of making contact with his legs and gazed up at him, as if asking permission. “Well...” Patton said, “...I guess a minute or two can't hurt. If anyone asks I can blame my symptoms on the cold air.” He stooped and held out his hand, and the cat rammed itself against his legs before half-rearing up to rub its head against his outstretched knuckles. “Heh, listen to me, planning to tell a fib. I must be hanging out with Janus too much. Wow, you sure are friendly, aren't you? Do you talk at all? No? I guess even here, not everything can talk.”

He slouched until he was sitting with his back against one of the trees and shifted from letting the cat rub his hand to actively running his fingers through the fur of its head. “I just don't want Virgil to think I'm not being careful. I don't think I could stand disappointing anyone else today, you know?” He sniffed a few times and couldn't tell whether it was hay fever or his emotions starting to spill over again. “I don't understand what's happening , kitty. One of my best friends is acting like the bad guy! And he's always been so idealistic! He hates evil! What could possibly make someone do a one-eighty like that?”

He leaned his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes. The sun must have been hitting the wood too, because it felt incongruously warm against his scalp. He continued to card his fingers through the cat's thick fur as fat tears finally began to leak from between his eyelids. Not hay fever, then. He didn't bother holding them back anymore. No one was around to be annoyed or to make a fuss over poor, sensitive, fragile Patton. It was just him and this startlingly affectionate feral cat. For a few minutes, he let the tears flow. They didn't freeze on his face—it wasn't quite that cold—so that was all right. They did make his cheeks burn a little from the salt and the chill of evaporation, but that was all part of the cleansing process. There was no better short-term therapy for icky feelings than a good cry.

The faucet gradually shut itself off. He suddenly envisioned Roman, the White Warlock, with his too-pale coloration and his huge ermine train and his icy crown with that monster diamond on it and his retinue of horror creatures. The image was unusually clear in his mind (Patton's imagination had always worked more based on how things made him feel, not how they looked), almost as if it were a painting that he could scrutinize at his leisure. For some reason, his attention kept getting drawn back to that diamond. Patton grew very pensive. If the diamond was drawing his notice, then maybe his gut had picked up on something important about it, and Patton was not in the habit of ignoring his gut. Not when it craved chocolate chip cookies, and not in situations like this.

He had to file the thought away for later, because the cat was suddenly pawing at his leg. “What is it, buddy? Are we done with pets?”

The cat ran a short distance away, stopped, and looked back over its shoulder at him, blinking meaningfully.

“You want me to follow you? Okay, gimme a sec to get up.” He braced against the tree and heaved himself to his feet, then let the cat lead him out of the clearing.

(He completely failed to notice that the snow dwindled away under its paws, only to return as it passed.)

He followed his guide for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, to a small grove of evergreens, like a forgotten Christmas tree farm. He hadn't know what to expect, but he was surprised anyway by the sight of none other than Ailim, kneeling near the center of the grove, her posture slumped. Directly in front of her was the stump of a pine tree that had been sawn off about two feet above the ground. The cut looked quite fresh, and—oh. Oh. Oh...heck.

“Ailim?” he said.

“Oh!” she responded, startled. “It's Patton, isn't it? What are you doing here?”

“My new fuzzy friend brought me.”

She just looked perplexed. “What friend?”

Patton looked around, but the cat was suddenly nowhere to be seen. “Well, he was here...I guess he led me here for a reason.”

“I apologize for appearing in this unseemly state.”

“No, please don't! You have every right to be out of sorts! Do you...maybe...want to talk about it?”

She looked downcast again. “There is little enough to talk about. The Hags divined the whereabouts of Muricata's tree and the party dragged us both here. She could barely keep her feet, so they made me hold her up. They used a saw. I felt her agony as her trunk was gouged apart.”

Patton flinched. His gorge rose slightly.

“When the tree fell, I felt the life leave her. Then she vanished from my arms. My sister...she is gone from the world. It is as if she had never sprouted.”

Patton rushed forward, shrugged out of his coat, and draped it over the miserable Dryad. She wasn't crying, but she evidently had been earlier; twin trails of hardened yellow resin ran from her eyes down to her chin. “I'm so sorry,” he murmured. Beyond that, he was at a loss. He wanted to promise her to make it better, but...her sister was gone . Murdered. Cut down in her prime (literally).

They hadn't even been neat about it. The stump was scarred with a shallow cut well below where it had eventually been felled. Patton ran his fingers over it, his heart squeezing in vicarious anguish. It seemed they had tortured Muricata first...but Ailim hadn't mentioned torture in her brief description of the execution.

As if she could tell what he was thinking, she said, “They started there, but the Warlock told them to do it higher up instead. I don't know why.”

Patton's heart was suddenly hammering against his ribs. This felt important . What was he looking for? What was the difference between the lower cut and the upper one, that Roman would make that call? Did he just want a convenient place to sit down in the forest? No, that was silly. Patton wished he were smart like Logan so he could figure out this sort of thing. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again they refocused of their own accord at the farther edge of the cut stump, where there was a sprig of greenery...

Patton walked around and peered closely at a few sprouts of fresh green needles growing directly out of the side of the trunk, as happens on pine trees. “Um...Ailim?,” he said, his voice wobbling with uncertainty, “I don't know if this helps at all, but this tree isn't totally dead. They left a growing part.”

“What?” Ailim said breathlessly, letting the coat fall from her shoulders as she sprang up. She leaned over the stump without touching it, peering at the needles. “You speak the truth. There is life left in the tree; it may yet regrow.” She gathered an armload of snow from the forest floor and spread it over the top of the stump. “In the meantime, this will protect it.”

“Does that mean your sister would come back?”

“I cannot say. The tree might acquire a new spirit, or Muricata might emerge again but without her previous memories. Or it might remain an unawakened tree, alive but with no sentient soul. But it seems that for all his wickedness, the White Warlock chose to leave this door open.”

“Yeah...” Patton said. “He made sure they cut above the growth. And he let you go. Ailim, will you come back to the camp with me? Everyone will be glad to see you're okay, and I think we should all sit down and try to figure out what it means that Roman did this. My head's starting to hurt from trying to solve these puzzles on my own.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ailim, fetching Patton's coat and offering it back to him, “you spotted this sign. You have given me a measure of hope, however slim. Thank you, Patton.”

And as they started back toward the Hill of the Stone Table, Patton began to feel like a few things were going right after all.

Halfway there, it suddenly occurred to him that the cat hadn't set off his allergies in the slightest.

Huh. That was weird.

Anything can happen in the Mindscape. Expect, as they say, the unexpected.

But Janus was of the opinion that there was no excuse for him to be walking along the upstairs hallway simply minding Thomas's business and suddenly get jumped out of nowhere. One instant everything was normal, the next he was flat on his back, struggling to hold a knife away from his face while the wielder of the knife, who had bulbous features and a shocking quantity of beard, was snarling at him. He caught something about a message and a warlock, but his attacker seemed to have worked himself up into a lather long before encountering Janus and was, in the main, unintelligible.

This left Janus with no clue what the fellow wanted, and when you don't know what someone wants you can't give it to them (or convince them that you've given it to them and pocket the difference) and get them to stop trying to stick a knife in your eye. Add to that the fact that he'd been completely unprepared for this, and that his attacker was noticeably stronger than himself, and Janus was well and truly up [Censored for indelicate language] Creek, sans paddle.

If there was one thing he hated, it was not being in quiet control of a situation. If there was one thing he utterly despised, it was having to adapt on the fly.

Well, if anyone in the Mindscape knew how to cope with [Censored] Creek...besides, this was probably his fault anyway.

“REMUSSSSSS!!!” Janus hissed, even though he was trying not to. High stress had that effect on him.

He heard, in the following order: rapidly approaching footsteps, “What's u—WOW!”, a sickening crunch as Remus's morningstar made contact, and the heavy thump of a body hitting the wall. Then Janus was free. He sat up to take stock.

His attacker was definitely dead, given the shape of his head, and he was a lot shorter than Janus would have assumed given his strength—a fantasy dwarf, then. That was all he was able to discern before the being evaporated into sparkling motes of light that dissipated: proof positive that he had been a figment. “Mind explaining what that was all about, Your Disgrace?” he said.

Remus was pouting at his weapon, probably because the victim's blood had also vanished. “Your guess is as good as mine, my favorite phallic symbol. Must have been one of my brother's.”

That gave Janus pause. He'd assumed, once Roman barged in on the morning's assemblage and then the entire cadre vanished for the day, that he had taken them on a jaunt in the Imagination...but to let a mayhem-oriented figment out unsupervised? That suggested...difficulties. And when he considered the dwarf's vague reference to a message...hm.

“Purely in the interest of maintaining order in this psyche,” he said in the most chipper tone he could manage, “I am going to get to the bottom of this.” He stood up, dusted himself off, and headed for Roman's room.

Remus, unsurprisingly, was right behind him. “Sounds like a blast! There's always plenty to maim when Roman gets into adventure mode! I'm coming too!”

“I'd be simply delighted to have your company,” said Janus. Remus, bless him, either missed the sarcasm or didn't care.

Roman's room was a mess, which was nothing out of the ordinary. This mess appeared to be the result of a deliberate ransacking, which was. Presumably the dwarf was the culprit; perhaps he'd been looking for the “message.”

The doorway to the Imagination, which had taken the form of a large wooden double-doored cupboard, stood wide open. One door actually hung askew from a single hinge, befitting the overall atmosphere of the room. Janus summoned his crook as a precaution before stepping inside.

About a minute later, he was already having regrets. Roman had made some sort of winter wonderland, and Janus's semi-reptilian biology was already starting to protest being made to function in the low temperatures. He turned up his collar, pulled down his hat, and tucked his free hand into his capelet, but he was going to have to find more layers somewhere. Maybe he could get Remus to create him a nice wool coat. Or some longjohns. (Although he was hesitant to ask, as he wouldn't put it past the Duke to instead grant him a yak pelt so fresh that it was still bleeding.)

“Hey, look, someone made an ice sculpture of the buzzkill!”

Janus looked up from his ruminations. Remus had indeed discovered a life-sized, transparent statue of Logan, but upon closer inspection, it proved to be not ice but rock crystal (silicon dioxide, as Logan himself would specify). The Logical Side was depicted kneeling, leaning back on one hand and flinging the other one up and out as if in self-defense. His expression was decidedly alarmed, and taken as a whole, the presentation made Janus distinctly uneasy. And the more he inspected the sculpture, the more that feeling grew. The thing was unreasonably detailed. He could make out the knit texture of his polo shirt and individual strands of hair...and because it was transparent, he could see that the carving went layers deep—Logan's necktie ran completely around underneath his shirt collar, and his eyes were engraved behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Welp!” Remus was saying, raising his morningstar. “Smashy smashy!”

The horrible truth dawned on Janus just in time. He lashed out with his crook to snag Remus's ankle and pull him off-balance before he could bring the weapon down.

“Awwwww! What did you do that for, J-Anus?”

Janus found himself trembling, and no longer could he blame it entirely on the cold. “Speaking purely as a hypothetical,” he said with an embarrassing creak in his voice, “what if that weren't, by the strictest definition, a sculpture?”

Remus tilted his head in confusion. “Well, what else would it...” His kohl-rimmed eyes widened in some chaotic hybrid of shock and glee. “Nooo! You mean someone's gone and put the ol' Medusa whammy on Geekboy?”

“Obviously.” Janus looked around the snowy forest, wary of everything. “I think,” he said, choosing his words with the utmost of care, because they were the truth, “that there is a great deal of trouble afoot here.”