#but you know what turned out to be particularly cursed? that dagger surprisingly

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

That Baldur's Gate 3 cover art with Astarion. But it's Sebille.

[lord-explosion-baku]

Sparrow

Prince!Satoru Gojo x assassin!reader

Warnings: violence, swearing, suggestive themes, dubious themes, blood

A/N: request numero dos is done! It’s kinda silly, but I think it’s pretty fun! I think it can be read as pretty lighthearted, even if it gets a little violent! it’s a little different that what was originally requested! I had the elements for a sword fight set up, but it wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to, so I took a slightly different route! theres still fighting though! I hope you like it!

It’s been a long journey to get where you are now, silently scaling the castle towers towards the prince’s bed chambers. An extra long journey, considering how many royal guards have been posted on top of kingdom rooftops. Like a shadow in the night, using nothing but the black elements to mask your presence, you’ve managed to slip by them, as well as the gatehouse soldiers, undetected, leaving only four men incapacitated, and not a vestige of your presence. All this sneaking around has been a trying job thus far, but it’s almost over now. You’re about to finish what you came to do.

Light as a feather, quiet as a dormouse, you swing your body up and over the limestone-clad palace window. The room is adorned with priceless artwork watched over by gilded ceiling paintings. Framing the biggest bed you’ve ever seen is a corona with royal blue drapery that hangs down to each corner. In the center of the bed lies the sleeping and wonderfully unaware prince.

His body is lopsided, and only partially covered by silk sheets. One of his feet hangs off the bed. Tousled white hair sticks out in every direction while still managing to frame his admittedly attractive face. Long white eyelashes. Peaceful and full lips. He’s young, you think, although you’ve been aware. But seeing him in the flesh solidifies the thought: you are about to be the end of his short life.

However, this mission comes with little remorse. There have been rumors that the Royal Gojo Family has been dabbling in alchemy for over a century now. To you, there is nothing more disgusting than the use of the unnatural sciences. It’s ungodly. And even then, this kill shouldn’t matter much since you can call it what it is: a job. This is what you do. Do as your master commands, kill without question, leave no trace, get paid, repeat. It helps that there have been rumors specifically centered around your charge; rumors that Prince Satoru is a complete and utter womanizer.

Well, not for long.

The bed doesn’t shake the least bit as you climb on top of him. The prince sleeps soundlessly and doesn’t stir when you situate your thighs over his firm hips. Normally, you’d simply slit your target’s throat, quick and easy, but since there are those rumors about the use of alchemy, you need to work a little differently tonight. To kill an alchemist user, one will have to pierce them directly in the heart with a silver blade. You don’t particularly believe that the prince is a user; his focus has primarily been on balls and parties and other social events, but you’d rather be safe than sorry. So, your primed weapon of choice, a silverlined dagger, slides up your sleeve and into the palm of your hand. You grasp its hilt, then line it parallel to his heart, pull up, and plunge it in.

Rather, you would be plunging it in, if it hadn’t been for the swift-acting hand wrapped tightly around your wrist.

“Drop it.” The low, sleep-crackled utterance sends shivers up your spine. Acting fast, you use your free hand to push on the hilt, your strength against his, but it doesn’t budge a centimeter, and instead, both of your wrists are captured by the prince. His grip tightens, squeezing you so harshly that you feel the tips of your fingers tingle, but you don’t relinquish your weapon.

Vibrant blue eyes blink up at you, narrowing into a scowl. You try pushing harder, ignoring the fact that his eyes seem to glow in the darkness, ignoring the fact that they are the prettiest eyes that have ever gazed at you, ignoring the fact that those pretty eyes are now trailing down your body. Your skin burns at the attention. You can’t let yourself believe that he’s checking you out in a life or death situation, but then you figure it’s in your head when he says, “if you wish to keep your wrists intact, you will drop. Your. Dagger.”

Surrendering is not an option. It’s either kill or be killed, because even when you choose to not kill, your termination will be absolute. You will be tried by the king with his son at his right side, then you will be hanged for your crimes. So with shaking hands, you attempt to exert more pressure, trying to keep your breath steady to not raise a commotion.

Surprisingly, the prince chuckles. “Has a little sparrow flown through my window to try to kill me?”

In one fell swoop, Satoru manages to flip you onto your back, his hands bringing your wrists down on the side of the bed, forcing you to drop the dagger to the floor. He eyes you speculatively for a moment, then his mouth turns up into a half-grin.

“A woman, no less.” He muses incredulously. Then his eyes dart back down your body, and by the way his grin widens, you’re sure he actually is checking you out. “Are you supposed to be some kind of peace offering?”

What an odd man. Although you've just made an attempt on his life, he’s smiling down at you like you’re some kind of acquaintance—no, friend.

“I mean…sending a beautiful woman to my bedchambers says a lot, wouldn’t you agree?” Prince Satoru asks after taking in your dumbfounded expression. “Not much for words?” He asks. “That’s okay, little sparrow. We don’t need to talk.”

You gasp when he begins to lean down, eyes trained on your lips. Without a second’s hesitation, your feet meet his bare chest, and with all of your might, you kick off, throwing him back a couple meters. You flip back onto the floor and attack him with throwing knives while you search for your dagger. If he is in fact an alchemist, your other weapons won’t do much damage, but could slow him down if you could manage to hit him.

“You’re strong,” Satoru gleefully appraises, dodging another one of your throwing knives, and catching the other. He throws it back at you, but you manage to duck behind the corona curtain at just the right time. “And fast.”

The dagger is under the bed. You grab it, gulp some air, then use the curtain as a distraction before charging at the prince, using the same swiping technique your master has taught you. Your blade cuts through the air with one swipe, and another. You’re barely missing him, and it’s frustrating because that goofy grin stays plastered to his dumb, pretty face!

In a moment’s notice, he grabs your outstretched arm, pushing down on a pressure point that has your limb lock up. “But you’re messy and unrefined,” he says as a hand slides up your arm. Now behind you, he places his free hand on your waist, moving you into a stance similar to what your master has shown you. “Don’t you fret, little sparrow. It’s nothing a little polishing won’t fix.”

His breath is hot and fanning your ear. Your stomach knots when he squeezes your waist, and to your utter horror, his lips graze down to your neck, tongue sliding over your skin. “Mmm…sweet.”

“What! Are you—?!” Bouncing away from him, you cover your slick neck with one hand while the other continues to point the dagger outwards. What’s even worse is that he doesn’t look the least bit jaded!

He laughs. “Even your voice is cute!” In the dim light of the room, you can see pink beginning to bloom across his cheeks. “Won’t you speak more? Say my name, pretty please.”

“Prick,” you hiss, once again charging forward.

“Do you kiss your master with that mouth?” Satoru begins using his arms to block and redirect your attacks, until he’s twirling you around as if you’re dancing and not trying to kill him! You fume, hating the fact that the prince knows you have a master to begin with. “I should hope not. The only person I’d have you kiss is me!”

He dips you down low, your dagger somehow tucked between the junction of your arm, and very smoothly places his lips against yours. You’ve been kissed before, but never in such a way that made you feel like floating. Like gravity ceased to exist. Like you were falling into a black hole that you didn’t want to claw out of. Prince Satoru Gojo’s kiss is different. It’s light and it’s heavy. It’s heaven and it’s earth. It’s a blessing and a curse.

He hums into you, making the knot in your belly tighten. For a moment, you don’t struggle. Instead, your lips part, and you allow the prince to cup your face to pull you in deeper, tasting you, relishing you. You wind your fingers through the soft strands of his starry hair, and lose yourself in the moment. When he breaks the kiss, pulling away with an expression you can only call beguiled, his thumb moves along the bottom of your lip. Your mind is the fog that clouds the streets at night. It doesn’t mean anything to you when you kiss the tip of his thumb, but when that grin you hate so much comes back, your body erupts in blusterous rage.

Realizing what you just allowed to happen, you snap at his hand. He pulls it away just in time for you to reach for your weapon and slice it across his chest. You push him back, only allowing yourself a second to collect yourself before aiming the dagger at his heart. He catches your wrist before it makes contact.

“So passionate,” he says with a smile, but through gritted teeth. “I must admit, this has been the most fun I’ve had in my bedchambers in a very long time. You might even be spoiling all the fun that the future entails as well. And I don’t even know your name yet. How sad.”

Satoru throws you against the wall, pinning your dagger-wielding arm against one of his extravagant paintings. He nods towards your weapon. “Throw that away.”

“You scared, alchemist?” You bite back.

“I’m only afraid you might hurt yourself, little sparrow. Sharp objects are dangerous, you know. Wouldn't want to clip your wings.” He winks. “And you should be referring to me as your royal highness. I am a prince, afterall.”

“With the dark craft that you and the royal family use, you’re no higher than me.”

Satoru chuckles. “Won’t you please tell me your name? Or at least join me in bed before you insist that I need to be killed.”

“This is not on my insistence.” It’s a slip, but it’s a big one. You’d cover your mouth if your hands were free.

“So, who sent you?” The prince prompts. “It can’t be a scorned lover. Hmmm. The Fushiguro clan? Pshh. No. They’d do it in person.” He flashes his teeth, omniscience glowing in his beautiful blue eyes. “Master Suguru Getou?”

You suck in a breath and he reads it all too well.

“I already know,” he purrs, lips brushing against yours. “Your fighting style is very similar to his. I’m just surprised he sent somebody with so little experience. It certainly proves how much of a coward he is.”

Your blood boils. How dare he insult your master to your face! Satoru Gojo, the sleazy prince and a lowly alchemist. He is scum compared to Master Getou.

You ram your head into the prince’s. Pain shoots down your spine, but you ignore it and thrust your dagger forward. Satoru grabs your arm and pushes it down, and soon, you scream after hearing a tearing sound, and feel a very sharp stinging at your side. Sticky warm fluid seep through your fingers at your side. It’s not a deep cut, but it’s just enough to make you bleed.

“Oh no,” Prince Satoru says in earnest. “Oh, this was my mistake. Dear sparrow, that was a reflex of mine. I didn’t mean to—“

There’s a knock on the prince’s chamber doors, followed by someone’s low voice asking, “your highness, are you well? I heard screaming.”

Shit. This is it. You’re dead. Sure, the prince wants to play with you, but anyone else will have your head in a heartbeat if they see what you’re doing. You should say your prayers now and kiss the world goodbye. You’re sending a silent apology to Master Getou when Satoru lifts you up and carries you to his bed.

“Sir Nanami?” The prince calls while he throws the sheets over both you and him. He climbs on top, pressing his chest into yours. The side that’s injured seers with pain, so you let out a little whimper the moment you hear footsteps enter the room.

“Don’t tell me you have a woman in here,” the man groans. “You know the king has forbidden any partner of yours from walking through these palace doors until further notice.”

“She flew in through my window, actually,” Satoru slyly admits. “But she’s no ordinary woman. She’s very special to me.”

Both you and the knight scoff at the same time, though you hope he doesn’t hear you. If he can believe this charade, perhaps you can get on with your night. And once you kill the prince, there will be a knight who will think that his murder is nothing but a lover’s quarrel gone wrong.

“I see.”

You’re staring at Satoru’s chest, and you realize that his wound from earlier is nearly healed. If you had any doubts about the Gojo family using alchemy, they’re out the window now. You run a fine finger across the red line that contrasts against his ivory chest, feeling the smooth bump where you’d cut him. Will it scar? you think. Disappear completely?

The prince squirms and grabs your hand. “That tickles!” He exclaims, bringing your hand up to his mouth to pepper kisses all over it. Even though the attention burns the back of your neck, you let him, since it’ll only convince the knight that the two of you are in fact being intimate.

Finally, Satoru says, “did you need something, Sir Nanami, or are you ready to confess your voyeuristic sins?”

Sir Nanami sighs, but you hear him back up a few paces. “Then, nobody’s hurt, your highness?”

“No,” Satoru says dubiously, “however, if you could fetch the healing medicines, that would be appreciated. She’s a little feisty!”

You slap his chest and he yips playfully back at you. It would be good fun if the two of you weren’t enemies.

Once the knight leaves, you’re quick to slink out of the bed, albeit wobbly. Dots of blood line his sheets, the sight making you feel a bit dizzy, but it doesn’t stop you from picking up your weapon.

“You don’t tire, do you?” Satoru asks impishly. “As admirable as that is, I simply cannot allow you to try to kill me anymore! You’ll get more hurt!”

“You’re nothing but a dirty alchemist.” You weakly thrust the dagger forward, nearing the window.

“Well, and a dashing prince, but that’s besides the point.” Satoru steps forward and you step back, your legs hitting the window’s wall. “Your master is no better.”

You bare your teeth at him. “Don’t you dare say a word to me about my master!”

“Please, little sparrow, you’re injured. Step away from the window and let’s bandage you up.” He reaches a hand out, and you swipe through the air, splicing his palm. More blood falls to the floor. Unafflicted, Satoru says, “you can’t hurt me.”

“Then let me leave, so that when I return, I can hurt you!”

There’s a purse on his lips. A pensive pause. Then the prince raises both of his hands, one of which is already healed, in defeat.

“There’s a medicine man who lives south-east from the gatehouse,” he says. “His name is Kiyotaka Ijichi. He’ll be asleep by now, but he’s a bit of a pushover and a sucker for a lady in distress. If you wail a bit outside his house, he’ll come out to offer you aid.”

“I don’t need anybody’s help,” you spit as you begin climbing out the window. You half-expect him to push you then. It’s a wonderful opportunity, one that you would seize if you were in his position. But the prince just watches you begin your descent.

“Do try to not bleed on any of the garden flowers,” he calls.

You wordlessly growl back at him.

“Oh, and little sparrow! Should you return here tomorrow evening, or perhaps the next night, or even a week or a month from now, shall I prepare red or white wine for you?” Prince Satoru offers you a charming smile. “And would you like there to be a violinist present? Anything to set the mood?”

Once you’re on your feet, you glare up at the beaming prince. He’s far too confident, but you make a mental promise to ruin that confidence someday, somehow. You don’t answer him, like you’re sure he doesn’t expect, but you allow him to watch you disappear into the black from whence you came.

[bonniebelleklyde]

Mistletoe

Word Count: 2871

Pairing: Loceit (romantic)

Warnings: Mild cursing, kissing

Summary: Janus finds himself the victim of a cruel prank involving Logan and a  baffling amount of mistletoe. Janus is completely unbothered. No, really, he is.

When you’re done here, check out sequel Things Unsaid and Prequels A Storm to Weather and The Small Hours.

The first time it had happened had been an unfortunate accident. Logan had been leaning casually against the doorframe that opened the living room up into the hallway, engaged in a conversation with Roman that must have been exasperating judging by the long-suffering huff of his breath and the roll of his eyes. Upon closer inspection, however, it was clear that the exasperation was mostly feigned—the lopsided curve of the logical side’s lips betrayed his fond amusement at whatever asinine argument Roman must have been making. All of this was readily apparent to Janus at a mere glance in Logan’s direction. Janus was, after all, keenly observant and had his gaze landed on Roman instead of Logan, he would have gleaned just as much information about the prince. Obviously.

None of that, however, was what stopped Janus dead in his tracks as he made his way down the hallway. No, what ground his mind and body both to a full stop was the small sprig of green and red hanging from the top of the doorway, just to the left of Logan’s head. Later, Janus would wrack his brain for some good reason that the sight of mistletoe arrested him so thoroughly, but for now he did the only thing he seemed capable of doing—he just…stared. His eyes locked onto the tiny plant as if it were the most fascinating thing that Janus had ever seen���or maybe as if it were something horrific that he couldn’t peel his eyes from. His feet moved without direction of any kind from his mind, as if the damn mistletoe had some sort of magnetic pull on him. He took one step toward the doorway and then another, knowing full well he’d had no intention of going to into the living room when he’d started down this hallway. In fact, he’d never be able to recall where he wanted to go in the first place.

He had no idea how much time had elapsed before Roman noticed his presence or his staring, but Janus’s eyes were finally torn from the mistletoe at the sound of a low chuckle, and he looked in the creative side’s direction to see a slow grin spreading over the other’s face. Roman’s eyes flicked from Janus to the mistletoe hanging over Logan’s head—Janus didn’t dare let his gaze fall to Logan for fear of what expression he might have been sporting—and took a step closer to the doorway.

Oh god, Janus’s useless, horrified mind provided. Suddenly, the deceitful side was absolutely certain of two things: first, that he was about to watch Roman step into the offending doorway and kiss Logan under that godforsaken mistletoe, and second, that he would rather tear off a limb than bear witness to that for one second. Upon reflection after the incident had passed, Janus would become certain of a third fact—that he’d never in his life looked more ridiculous than he did then, sprinting down the hallway to avoid two idiots and a stupid plant.

The second time it happened was all Roman’s doing. In hindsight, Janus really should have known that Roman was up to something when the other had called him into his room from down the hall, asking him to assist with some vaguely mysterious “problem.” Janus was deceit for crying out loud. He should have known.

“Wait, don’t come in yet—just stand right there by the door,” Roman said in a rush, his voice all giddy excitement.

Janus stopped short, confused, and looked passed Roman to see an equally perplexed Logan sitting on the creative side’s bed. Since when were these two attached at the hip? If there was some sort of happy announcement forthcoming, Janus suspected he might literally be sick. Because Janus simply had neither time nor the patience to hear about the romantic exploits of the other sides. And for no other reason. Clearly.

“Roman, whatever this is, I really don’t—” Janus started to drawl, affecting a bored, disinterested tone, when he cut himself off in his own surprise and confusion as Logan was shoved unceremoniously to stand directly in front of him.

Janus blinked hard, attempting to discern exactly what was happening here and coming to no conclusions whatsoever because he was struck by the much more important realization that he’d never been close enough to Logan to get a good look at the logical side’s eyes behind his glasses. They were rich and dark and surprisingly soft, and Janus was vaguely aware that his own lips had parted slightly of their own accord, his mouth gone completely dry in a matter of seconds. He was…ill. There could be no other explanation for his dry mouth and his complete inability to think straight.

He was torn from his reverie by the sound of Roman clearing his throat. Janus glared daggers at the prince standing behind Logan. The prince who was now jerking his head upward in an obnoxiously exaggerated motion, his eyes moving pointedly from Janus’s face to a spot above his head. Reluctantly, Janus followed Roman’s gaze upward and cursed under his breath when the sight above him finally shed clarity on this ridiculous situation. Mistletoe. Of course.

Like a child, Janus closed his eyes to avoid reality. Logan was anything but stupid, and he must have noticed that thrice damned mistletoe by now. Janus was totally unwilling to look Logan in the (deep, liquid, lovely) eye and see any of the myriad unpleasant emotions that must be there. Discomfort. Disgust. Horror. Pity. No, Janus refused to see any of it, refused to acknowledge that this cruel joke was being played on him. For a second time, he turned tail and ran without a word. Roman was yelling something from behind him, but Janus was too busy wiping at his face to pay attention to what it was. His eyes were watering because he must have some sort of allergy to mistletoe—it was the only plausible explanation.

The third time, Patton had somehow become involved. The moral side had cajoled Janus into helping him in the kitchen, and as Janus focused on his attempt to avoid burning the contents of the pan he’d been placed in charge of, Patton waved at something—or as it turned out, someone—behind them.

“Oh hi, Logan! Lucky you’re here; we need a third man over here. Could you grab the salt for me? It’s in that cabinet next to Janus.”

“Luck was in no way involved in my presence here, Patton,” Logan replied as he approached the relevant cabinet. His tone was equal parts exasperated and confused, and Janus hadn’t the slightest clue why it made him smile to himself, why such a mundane statement from Logan seemed to cause something to constrict in his chest. “You did, after all, provide an exact time at which my help would be urgently required in the kitchen.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Patton said, his voice overly chipper even for him. “Well, now that you’re here, why don’t you just add that salt to Janus’s pan there?”

“I hardly see why you needed a third person for this,” Logan remarked, but he didn’t sound particularly bothered despite his words.

Janus watched out of the corner of his eye as Logan moved to do what he was told, reaching over Janus’s arm to sprinkle salt into the pan. And Janus was imagining things when it looked as if Logan paused for no reason when he’d finished, and imagining again when he felt the brush of an arm gently over his. He was certainly imagining things when he snuck a peek at Logan’s face and saw a slight flush in the other’s cheeks. Janus…simply had a vivid imagination.

As Logan’s arm finally moved away, Patton’s hand suddenly shot out, causing Janus to jump violently backward. And sure enough, there was that fucking mistletoe again, dangling over Logan’s head from Patton’s hand. Subtle.

At this point, the mere sight of mistletoe must have triggered Janus’s flight response, as he had sunk out before he could so much as blink. He spent the rest of the day locked in his room. Because he was tired. What did he have to avoid anyway? No, he’d just had a trying day of…sautéing vegetables.

The fourth time, Janus had woken far earlier than he normally did and decided to fix himself a proper breakfast. In the kitchen, he found Logan looking absolutely nothing like himself.

The logical side was, for lack of a better term, a mess. He was on his feet but slouched over the counter as if without its support he would sink to the floor. He dawned a royal blue pajama set that looked like silk and was certainly something Janus had never seen the other wear before. Several buttons of his top were undone, and his glasses were nowhere to be seen. He was looking down at what was likely his fourth cup of coffee, so Janus couldn’t quite see his eyes, but they must have been tired because Janus could make out the bags under Logan’s eyes that, today, rivaled even Virgil’s. When Logan finally registered that someone had entered the room and met Janus’s expression with tired and inexplicably sad eyes, Janus had to make a concerted effort to restrain himself from the sudden impulse to round the counter that stood between them and wrap this man in his arms. To stroke Logan’s bedraggled hair and hum soft melodies in his ear until the stubborn man could be coaxed back to bed.

The deceitful side cleared his throat violently to dispel that dangerous train of thought, a sound that caused Logan to wince as if Janus had shouted at him.

“Are you going to run away from me again?” Logan asked in a tone that sounded like loss, like tragic defeat.

Janus blanched. Was Logan’s current state somehow Janus’s fault?

“No,” he answered in a tentative voice, just above a whisper. “And I don’t…I haven’t been running away from you,” he added weakly.

Logan chucked at that, the sound carrying no humor in it.

“I am many things, Janus, but I think we can both agree that an idiot is not one of them,” he said, and Janus would pay any price if someone would tell him why in the world Logan sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “Roman and Patton have conspired to play a cruel trick on you, it seems. I did attempt to talk them out of it, once I realized what it was they were trying to do.”

Janus wanted very badly to lie. To pretend he didn’t know exactly what Logan was talking about. Like he was blissfully unaware of the goddamned mistletoe and just how unfair this prank was to both of them. Somehow, his normally silver tongue had turned to lead, and he struggled to find any words at all, let alone a lie.

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to choke out, distressed as he was by the redness of Logan’s dark eyes.

“Don’t,” Logan returned, and it sounded like plea. “Apparently, it is I who should be making apologies.”

There was a bitterness to Logan’s last statement that Janus couldn’t understand.

“What do you have to apologize for?”

Logan blinked and a single tear escaped its duct to roll slowly down the logical side’s face. Janus watched it in horror. He opened his mouth to speak again, to say something, anything to fix this, but Logan cut him off.

“I don’t know,” he exclaimed. “I’ve recounted every moment of the past week in painstaking detail and I cannot come up with what it is I could have done.”

“You haven’t—” Janus rushed to interject, but Logan soldiered on.

“I understand that the nonsense with the mistletoe has distressed you. I understand that you find the act that Roman and Patton have attempted to set in motion with it is unpleasant to you. I understand that my feelings for you have always been unrequited—”

“Your feelings for—?”

“But what I cannot understand is what I have done to convince you so thoroughly that I would ever force you. That you had to physically run away from me to prevent…how exactly did you arrive at the conclusion that I would ever kiss you without your consent?”

In that moment, the slightest push would have knocked Janus to the ground. Since none came, he simply stared, frozen, mouth hanging open and he struggled to process all that Logan had just said. Logan stared right back at him with wet but determined eyes, evidently awaiting Janus’s answer. Regrettably, Janus’s bewildered mind had none to offer.

“Your feelings for me?” he tried again, a slight quiver in his voice betraying his fear.

Logan tucked his head downward at that, and Janus’s heart clenched painfully at the realization that he probably did so to conceal more tears. It was several moments before the logical side had composed himself enough to look up once more, his face confirming Janus’s suspicions.

“Must we talk about that part of it?”

Logan asked the question as if these feelings Logan apparently had were obvious, that there had been some sort of unspoken understanding between the two of them. But Janus continued to stare dumbly back at Logan. Perhaps it was cruel, to push further now. But Janus was selfish, and Janus was afraid—he was not going to subject himself to rejection. He couldn’t; it would defy the very fabric of who he was. He had to be sure.

“Yes,” came his answer on a disbelieving breath.

Logan nodded as though in defeat. He took a long, shaking breath before delivering his answer.

“Though I have been aware of the…unusual affect you have on me for quite some time now, it was only recently that Roman assisted me in coming to terms with the fact that the feelings I have for you have a name. That name being, as I am sure has been obvious to the rest of you, love.”

Love. Janus’s brain halted on the word and he was sure that Logan was still speaking, but the deceitful side’s mind had short circuited. His feet moved of their own accord, and before Janus could register what was happening, he had rounded the edge of the counter and was now standing directly in front of Logan, his hand resting on Logan’s hip.

Logan stopped speaking abruptly—may have even stopped breathing from the sound of it—and blinked heavily, eyes fixed on the spot where Janus’s hand had fallen. He opened his mouth several times and closed it again without speaking. He furrowed his brows as if recalculating a difficult equation to see where he’d gone wrong with it the first time. His brows were still furrowed when he met Janus’s eyes once more.

“Roman…told me it was obvious, that I loved you. You…you knew how I felt.” Logan’s last statement came out like a question.

Janus shook his head in slow motion, still struggling to believe the turn this conversation had taken. Logan’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t…you didn’t know…”

“It would appear,” Janus said softly, bringing a reverent hand to rest against Logan’s cheek and reveling in how easily the logical side leaned into his touch, “that you vastly overestimated my intelligence, dearheart.”

Logan’s breath hitched at the term of endearment, and the logical side moved closer to Janus as if pulled by magnetism, his shaking hand rising to rest against Janus’s chest.

“Why did you run away?” Logan asked as Janus’s thumb moved to brush a stray tear from the other’s face.

“Because I was afraid,” Janus answered, for once completely honest.

“You’re…afraid of me?”

Janus chuckled, the sound soft and fond and full of affection.

“Dearheart, you are terrifying. Now kiss me.”

Logan needed no further prompting. In an instant the logical side had closed the short distance between them, placing his free hand at the back of Janus’s head, and suddenly nothing registered in Janus’s mind apart from the feeling of Logan’s lips on his. They tasted like black coffee, and Janus had always hated coffee but all at once nothing had ever tasted so sweet. Janus moved the hand he’d placed on Logan’s hip to wrap it tightly around the logical side’s waist and pull him closer. The kiss was sweet and soft and gentle, and Janus couldn’t help but smile against Logan’s lips. There was a breathy sound of contentment that could have come from either of them—Janus hadn’t the slightest clue. Janus kissed Logan a second, third, fourth time, unwilling to come up for air as if the moment they parted, Logan would vanish.

The sound of Logan’s quiet laughter gave him pause. He pulled back just far enough to look the other in the eye, and saw that, at some point, Logan’s eyes must have turned skyward, as he was now chuckling at the ceiling. Janus followed Logan’s gaze upward and nearly doubled over in laughter at the small sprig of green and red taped to the ceiling above them.

“Goddamned mistletoe,” he muttered before leaning in for yet another kiss.

The stupid plant had its merits after all.

[leviosally]

Stay….he says. It’s what he always says, as though Jaskier was a small child or a particularly wayward puppy. He was neither of these things, obviously, but as he opens his mouth to protest for the umpteenth time, knowing full-well the argument is absolutely fruitless and completely self-indulgent he finds himself dispelled abruptly with the witcher’s second favorite silencing mechanism; piercing golden death glare. But, Jaskier was a man of principle, and arguing with Geralt was just that…a matter of principle.

Stay, Geralt whisper hisses over his shoulder, handing him Roach’s reins before sneaking ahead into an abandoned cave or shack or fog shrouded thicket or other such likely place, securing the area like some sort of overgrown, witchery body-guard. And while Geralt playing the big, bad protector did indeed have a rather charming ‘knight-in-shining-armor’ ring to it, Jaskier wasn’t completely useless.

Stay, he growls as he bandages Jaskier’s wounds, obtained more oft than not by merely tripping over his own feet, but that was hardly the point.

Stay, he says through gritted teeth, grabbing a fistful of Jaskier’s doublet and hauling him quickly behind the edge of a building before stepping out to put himself between Jaskier and this week’s angry lord, which sends a blush blooming in his cheeks for entirely different reasons. But, he had succeeded in out-foxing many a past dalliance long before Geralt came along and was well practiced at looking out for himself, thankyouverymuch.

Stay, Geralt orders before he takes off on a hunt, leaving Jaskier behind in camp or at an Inn, and no matter how he huffs and puffs and complains that if Geralt describes one more monster as ‘He was one-hundred feet tall with rolling orange eyes and rows and rows of bard-crushing teeth’, the witcher merely quirks a smile at him, golden eyes effectively rooting him to the spot once more as he swings up into the saddle and takes off into the growing twilight…and Jaskier absolutely does not swoon at that.

“Stay.” Geralt repeats even now, like a bloody mantra, and Jaskier barely looks up from where he’s scratching various rhymes and lyrics into his notebook with his tongue caught between his teeth.

*

Jaskier knows Geralt’s been gone too long as he strides up to the front of the tavern he’s playing in for his second set of the evening and the dim, corner table near the back remains steadfastly empty.

He knows Geralt’s been gone far too long as he gathers his coin and tucks away his lute, turning toward the stair leading up to their room with a worrying twist in his gut.

He knows something must be absolutely wrong as the hour turns later and later, pushing well into the realm of the wee morning with still no Geralt. So, he makes like any good friend, and builds himself up with reassurances that Geralt’s condition that he ‘stay’ surely came with provisos like ‘In the event of a Griffin evisceration, send help…particularly a devastatingly handsome bard with eyes the color of the bluest sky, and lips as sweet as cherry pie…strong enough to bench an ox and hands I wish would wrap my c—’ Okay, okay perhaps the last part was a bit wishful, but a bard could dream. More importantly, Geralt could be in trouble, and that certainly wouldn’t do…for a variety of reasons.

With one dagger tucked safely in his boot and another hidden away inside his doublet, he grabs his cloak and sets off into the night. The mayor who had contracted Geralt in the first place was understandably disgruntled, brushing his valet aside as Jaskier’s incessant hammering of the door, practically fit to break it in, finally yields results. Jaskier draws himself up importantly, waving aside the poor man’s outrage at the late night interrruption and proceeds to interrogate him about the location of the latest big bad Wyvern Geralt has been commissioned to dispatch. After talking the poor mayor hoarse, and apologizing again for the late hour, he bows his way off the front stoop and heads off in the direction of the mayor’s half-lucid gesturing, hoping against hope that he’s made the right choice.

There’s surely no better recipe for worry than walking alone down a dark forest path in the middle of the night by one’s self, fretting in equal measure about A. whether he’s made the right decision about venturing out in the first place; he had seen Geralt in action before, and knew the witcher was more than capable of taking care of himself. He flushed richly just thinking about how Geralt’s muscles rippled and flexed in the midst of a battle, effectively obliterating any wonder of why there was even a fight in the first place upon more than one occasion, and B. Hoping against hope that Geralt wasn’t actually seriously hurt, and that the hunt was just taking longer than normal because Wyverns were, by all accounts, very flighty and unpredictable beasts…with rolling orange eyes and rows and rows of bard-crushing teeth…bloody hell.

It takes Jaskier a surprisingly shorter amount of time to find Geralt than he thought it would, which was both a blessing and a curse as the witcher lay propped against a boulder breathing raggedly with a hand pressed over what appeared, even at a distance, to be a rather sizeable gash across his lower abdomen.

“Geralt!” Jaskier gasps aloud, closing the remaining distance between them at a desperate stumble.

“Jaskier…” Geralt breathes, drawing a slow, pained breath, “I told you to…”

“…I know, I know…stay” Jaskier shoots back, skidding onto his knees at Geralt’s side and examining the wound. It’s deep, judging by the blood that’s seeping slowly over Geralt’s fingers, and Jaskier swallows thickly, forcing himself to keep a cool head as he turns instead to rummage in his pack. He withdraws a bottle of alcohol (definitely not the drinking kind) and yanks the cork out with his teeth.

“Right now, I need you to stay…stay still unless you want me to suture your elbow to your crotch.” He manages to muster a small, encouraging smile as Geralt’s eyes flicker to his, before emptying the bottle over the wound, eliciting a sharp hiss from the witcher that makes Jaskier’s chest clench. He squeezes his eyes shut in a tight grimace as Geralt swears aloud, but he pushes it desperately aside, holding a small needle and thread up to his eyes. Jasier can see Geralt’s jaw clench and unclench in his periphery as he sets the point of the needle to the witkcher’s flesh. He can feel that piercing golden gaze on his face as he closes the wound, nimble fingers making quick work of the suturing and trying not concentrate on the way Geralt’s chest shudders with each stitch.

*

Stay, Jaskier whispers, helping him up on to Roach before climbing up in front and clicking the mare to a brisk walk so as not to disturb Geralt’s wounds.

Stay, Jaskier says reassuringly, lowering Geralt onto the bed and squeezing his hand just briefly before crossing the room to retrieve bandages.

Stay, he says, trying on his best imitation of Geralt’s glare before disappearing downstairs to retrieve food and Geralt’s favorite drink just so he can see the rare but nonetheless genuine smile Geralt reserved for the things he holds dearest in life (Ale, Roach and…well perhaps Jaskier ranked in there somewhere even if Geralt wasn’t exactly forthcoming…)

“…and now you’re going to stay here and rest…and let me take care of you…” He croons reassuringly, sitting upon the edge of the bed and reaching up hesitantly to brush a stray strand of silver off of Geralt’s face as the witcher levels him an un-readable look.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than Jaskier’s suddenly leaping from the bed as though burned, a wide-eyed look of comprehension dawning on his face as he darts across the room to his bag, wherein he knew resided an old dictionary. Ignoring Geralt’s grunts of surprise that chase over his retreating shoulder, his fingers flip madly through the pages until he finds the one he’s looking for:

Stay; /sta/ To remain in a specified state or position. To delay harm or risk or hurt. To prevent the threat of danger, harm, or loss. Often to impose the protection or safe-guarding of something valuable.

With an effort, Jaskier un-sticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and swallows the lump in his throat, a somewhat guilty sensation writhing in his chest….

…Geralt had been taking care of him all this time.

‘Safe-guarding something valuable’ loops on repeat in his head as he closes the old book and slides it back into his bag before rising slowly and turning back toward the bed. He finds Geralt’s inquisitive golden gaze, the hard lines of his brow drawn in a question, and Jaskier finds himself fumbling for the right words.

“Y’know, just…thought of a word for a song..” He murmurs, waving a hand dismissively when Geralt simply continues to stare at him with a look that is equal parts concern as though he had suddenly taken ill and something else that he could only describe as indifference…which Geralt could hardly be condemned for, as impulsively diving for his notebook was something Jaskier was indeed prone to doing, and often.

“You can uh…you should take the bed and I’ll kip on the floor here….” He produces awkwardly but Geralt’s penetrating gaze doesn’t falter.

Suddenly there’s a hand on his forearm as Geralt’s fingers close tentatively around it;

“Stay.” Geralt says in a low whisper.

[bimswritings]

Armorer x (Blacksmith) Reader 1/2

Warnings:Canon Typical violence

A/n: I had so much fun writing this! If anyone has fic recs for her send them my way! The next part of the Savage series and a new chapter of Our Way will come out next week!

_______________________________

The Armorer had experienced more in her lifetime than anyone else would care to. She had watched the rise and fall of small rebellions, crushed under the foot of the Empire. Seen her people hunted and killed until their numbers weren’t even fractions of what the great tribe of warriors once was. Chaos and bloodshed, hiding and waiting, had become as normal as breathing to her. That’s not to say she missed the many good things that happened. 

The sounds of foundlings and young ones as they ran through the halls of the covert, not yet burdened by the responsibilities of adulthood, acted as a reminder that her people were still alive. And there was no greater sense of peace to be had then when they would all meet in the karyai and dine together like the family they were. 

Well, except for her forge. 

Her forge was a sacred place. Not only for her but for the others as well. It was here that the most important and private of discussions were held. Talks about individuals as well as the coven as a whole. Who would go out and hunt, what responsibilities would be given to who, and where they would go for their next supply run to get food and medicine. It was important that they never went to the same place too many times, least someone followed them back, and the amount always had to be different as to not let in on their numbers.

All these choices, all this planning, was run through her. Their Armorer. Their Alor. They trusted her with their lives, leaning on her as an elder would a walking stick. Despite the immense pressure put on her, she never let it show. Never asked for anything in return. Seeing her people happy was enough to keep her strong, and looking towards the future instead of the horrors of the past.

Besides, when she watched the bigger picture, it left the others able to focus on the smaller things. Namely the continuation of their tribe, which they were doing an outstanding job on if her current project was anything to go by.

The three pieces she was working on would fit together perfectly. Though each their own unique piece, they were all made from one base ore.

The mother would come to possess the intricate dagger currently sitting off to the side, being highly skilled in close quarter combat it would serve her well. The handle of the blade would slide smoothly in the bottom of her eagle-eyed riduur’s blaster, and make it even more dangerous than before. The weapon would have no weaknesses, each piece supporting the other, and be usable in any scenario. Of course they would still need a way to be locked in place. Something that would make the connection between the two weapons stronger. The insignia would be worn by the child until they died, and then given to their closest of kin, be it friend, lover, or child. It was of the mother’s clan, which they would all take the name of, and the metal ranicor already shone with a radiant pride as she pulled it from the blue flames, quenching it the basin of oil beside her.

It would fit at the juncture, locking the weapons in place with an unbreakable bond. 

The two adults would present each other with the weapons, a symbol of their promise to protect one another both in and out of battles. Then, together, they would tie the insignia to the child with a leather thread. The only addition would be a Mythosaur skull, which they would receive should they take up the creed of the Mandalorian. If not, they would still bear the mark of their clan and wear it with pride.

It was hard work, but the Armorer would do it all over again in a heartbeat. After all, the exchanging of vows between two Mandalorians was enough cause for a celebration, but for the same couple to have a claiming ceremony of a foundling at the same time? It had sent the enter tribe into a nest of bustling activity in preparation. The elders were particularly excited, constantly coming in to inform her of any updates or changes. 

It was one of them that she had expected when she heard footsteps enter her forge, not the young warrior she was faced with when she turned around.

“What can I help you with, child?” For a young Mandalorian such as himself to enter without invitation or a offering to the tribe, it must be of grave importance.

He remained kneeling as he spoke, head bowed in respect to his Alor.

“Alor, I have heard troubling news during my patrol. A matter I fear has to deal with the pride of the Mandalorian name.”

Underneath the helmet, her brows furrowed though he could not see it. From his tone, he seemed almost hesitant to deliver the news, and she waited silently for him to continue.

“There...there’s been word that another possess the armor of a Mandolrian a few parsecs over on the moon of Quilon.” He swallowed thickly, audible even through the modulator, before continuing. 

“Someone not of any tribe or clan, nor a foundling or anyone who claims our identity.”

The tension in the room was palpable, and the Armorer couldn’t blame the heat rising within her on the fire she had been previously toiling over for so many hours without issue. Though she concealed it well, any who knew her, who could tell by the way her helmet tilted up or how her shoulders squared slightly, knew that she was absolutely furious.

“Then we must retrieve it immediately.” 

“Of course, Alor. Which of the warriors would you like me to retrieve so they may be briefed.”

“None.” She replied, hooking her tools into her belt, moving to grab her cloak from it’s hook, where it had been previously gathering dust.

“Alor?” He questioned. She had told him that they would retrieve it, but if she wanted none of the warriors then how would they?

“It is time that people are reminded of who we were. Who we are. Though we remain hidden in our covert, we are not weak. We bide our time until we once again rise.”

She tucked an extra blaster into her belt, though she knew the weapon would come second to her hammer. If it turned into an altercation of shots rather than strength, she would be prepared.

“I will retrieve it myself, and make an example of those that thought they could tarnish our name.”

With that she was gone, stalking down the maze of corridors on a warpath. Everyone who saw her coming was quick to jump out of the way. If there was one thing more dangerous than an angry Mandalorian, it was an enraged Armorer.

__________________________________

Landing the ship just outside the town, the Armorer followed the coordinates given to her before leaving. 

Just like every other planet in their system, Quilon was nothing special. Another small rock in space abandoned by the Empire and left to be overrun by bandits. Though their presence here was even more prevalent than on Nevarro. 

She paid no mind to the eyes that followed her from the shadows, hidden under masks and hats and behind drinks as she made a direct line to the center bar.

The man behind the counter was an aged Weequay, his already wrinkled skin dull but still showing the strength that lay in the muscle underneath. Though old, he was clearly someone who could still hold his own against any patron who had too many glasses of brandy.

He had no hesitance in walking up to her, despite clearly knowing who she was a part of.

“What can I do for you?”

She placed a stack of credits on the counter, gently sliding the pile over to him.

“I’ve heard that someone here has the armor of a Mandalorian. I wish to know where to find them so that we may...talk.”

The Weequay picked up the pile,clinking the metal as he tested the weight before looking back towards the Armorer.

“A matter of great importance for you, I’m sure. However, the person you seek is also of great importance.”

Silently, she reached into her pouch and retrieved a few more credits, the clinking sound they made as they were deposited with the others into his waiting hand causing a smile to stretch his face, revealing a number of missing teeth.

“You’ll find your person on the far west side of town. The shop will be located just a bit out. Had to relocate it with all the noise bothering the townsfolk.” He laughed, turning back to his other patrons as he deposited the money. “Just follow the cursing.”

Twenty minutes and another exchange of information later, the Armorer found herself in front of a shop reading ‘Galactic Metalworks’.

If she had been angry before, she was positively fuming now. For someone who was supposed to have an understanding and appreciation for all things forged, the fact that they would have Mandalorian beskar, undoubtedly knowing its importance and what is signified, was the ultimate insult.

She could only hope that they would have enough sense not to have tempered with the armor, else she would have to hold herself back from killing them too quickly.

She walked through the door, pulling the fabric flap aside as she stepped inside. Instantly she was greeted with the sight of a surprisingly organized space, with weapons of all kinds lining the walls and a case displaying more decorative items sitting just behind what she assumed was the front counter.

There was no one in sight, prompting her to move further into the shop. As she passed, she couldn’t help but admire the works as she went. Though more elegant than what she would have done with some, there was no doubt about the quality of each item. Every blade, trigger, and handle was carefully shaped and sharpened, each having a softness that one would not expect of such weapons. It seemed to be the artist's signature stamp, present in everything she saw.

He attention was drawn away from the shining metals as a loud, and rather brash, string of curses flowed from the back of the shop. Once again reminded of her reason for coming here. The Armorer walked past the counter and its items, following the sounds of metal being hammered around the corner to reveal an open aired forge. 

There you stood, in all your soot stained and sweaty glory, cursing like a Trandoshian pirate as you inspected the item before you. A crude imitation of a helmet, she realized, though the eyes were horrendously off center and uneven, and being far too long for any but a Kaminoan to wear without hitting their shoulders. 

Were you really the same person who had made all the items out front?

No. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that. She was here for business.

The intention was for her to take you by the element of surprise, leaving no room for a fight with the point of her hammer pressed into the vulnerable skin above your carotid. That was thrown out the window before she could even reach for the weapon as you quickly turned around, eyes locking onto her and going wide before frantically backpedaling. 

As luck would have it, the hammer you had been previously using was knocked from its stand and clattered to the floor, being stepped on and causing you to tumble.

Narrowly missing falling into the forge itself, your head still cracked painfully against its stand and your vision went black. By the time it cleared enough for you to stop seeing stars and your brain to process what had just happened, you found the very person who had startled you into such a state standing above you, feet on either side of your hips as a hammer was pointed dangerously at your face.

“H-hey!” You managed to stutter out, still dizzy and most likely concussed. “No need for that!”

Holding your hands up in an act of surrender and defense, should they still decide to attack, you balanced your weight onto your elbows despite the way it sent your head spinning.

They said nothing, only staring down through their owl-shaped visor as the golden shine of the helmet cast rays of brilliant light around the forge. Despite the situation, you could help but admire the stunning craftsmanship of the piece with envy. Each spike, every curve, was so beautifully done.

“I know you’re here for the armor, and I can get it for you! It’s right here!”

The Mandalorian remained still for a moment, contemplating, before moving back enough to let you get up, exchanging their hammer for a blaster, keeping it trained on your figure as you slowly rose and moved to the far wall.

Producing a key from beneath your apron, you moved one of the many boxes and unlocked a hatch hidden beneath. From there, you produced a chest that had yet another lock on it, setting it on your workbench and placing the key beside it. Backing away with your hands held up one again, the Mandalorian moved closer to the chest.

Hidden under the helmet, you couldn't see the way her eyes were narrowed in suspicion, laced with a hint of curiosity. You had gone through quite the effort of hiding it. Without your guide she might not have found the hatch, which had blended so well into the floor that when you had first moved the box she hadn’t seen it even with the filters of her visor. Why give it up so easily when you could have easily denied even having it in the first place, and no evidence to say otherwise?

Unlocking the box, she was even more surprised by what she found inside. While keeping a watch on where your figure had backed into the corner, she began shuffling through each item, peeling back layer after layer of fabric until she had constructed a full suit of beskar.  Not only was it stored with such care, the metal skillfully wrapped to prevent one item from damaging another if jostled around, but it appeared to have been freshly cleaned by a polish well known and used almost exclusively by smiths. It was meant to bring out the best shine and remove any scuff to increase the appeal and chances of someone buying the item.

“Where did you get this.” She put the items back in their case, closing it before turning back to where you were, blaster now lowered to her hip but ready to raise and fire in an instant.

“Bought it from some pirates who stopped by here to refuel.” You squeaked out. Despite knowing that all Mandalorians were warriors, you were still surprised to hear a woman's voice come from the helmet. The way she carried herself with such confidence and strength, you could only imagine the prestige and skill she had to back it up.

“I would have returned it sooner, but you guys are kind of hard to find.” You attempted to joke, letting out a nervous laugh as you shakily smiled. “I tried to keep it on the down low as much as I could to keep others from trying to come and take it. Paid a kid to let it slip when he saw one of you at a cantina you’re known to frequent.” 

The Armorer tilted her head slightly, still not believing you completely.

“Why not sell it, or melt it down for your own use?” She gestured to the space around you, at all the projects currently displayed or were waiting to be finished.

Your own brows knitted in confusion, as if you couldn’t believe why she was asking you that, and in reality you couldn’t.

“Well, I respect you too much.” Your shoulders shrugged lightly. “Growing up, my father told me all the stories of your culture, your people and what the armor meant to you. How it was more than just a piece of equipment, that it was like an extension of your own body and identity. Rather poetically, he would always put it.”

A small laugh made its way past your lips, taking the Armorer by surprise.

“If he could have met one of you and studied the armor he would have died of happiness. Probably would have even sworn an oath and donned the armor himself if he had the chance, no hesitation.”

Any thoughts of ill intention from before were reduced to nothing in the Armorer’s mind. The way you had spoken so fondly when describing your admiration for her culture, the same way you had when speaking of your father, was so gentle and sincere. Even if you had a helmet like hers she would have been able to tell just by your voice.

“You have my thanks for keeping it in such good condition until we were able to collect it. I know my people would share my sentiment if they were here.” She dipped her head in thanks, missing the blush that spread across your face at the action.

“It was no trouble at all, really! I hope you don’t mind but I did study it before hiding it away.” You nodded to the crude helmet she had found you swearing at when she had first entered. “As you can see, my attempts were less than successful. It’s like my father always said; If I could make armor the way I could make everything else, I would be far too dangerous.”

The Armorer silently agreed. If the display in the front of the shop was anything to go by, if you were able to make armor then you could potentially even give her a run for her credits.

“You are quite skilled in your craft. It would be a sight to see how you would interpret your own armor.”

“Rather poorly.” You laughed once again, and the Armorer found herself straining to hear its cheerful air, much to her own embarrassment.

It was time she left. She had gotten what she had come for, so there was no reason for her to stick around any longer. The more time she was away from the covert the more worried she became, mentally berating herself for being so ill-tempered and short sighted to have stormed here right away without thinking much of how the others would fare without her presence. Paz should keep a good handle on things, but it was still best not to be gone much longer.

Before she could excuse herself though, you had dropped the helmet you had previously been sourly glaring at and focused back on her, excitement evident as a bright gleam shone in your eyes. 

“You must have come quite a way to get here! Please, allow me to compensate you for having to come out to such a place.”

The Armorer tried to argue, to explain that it hadn't been a problem and that the beskar being back where it belonged was enough, but you wouldn’t listen, pushing her to the front of the store and practically demanding that she choose at least one of the items to take with her.

“They are all so well crafted. I could not even begin to know where to choose.”

Humming, you closed your eyes in thought before bounding back towards the forge, yelling over your shoulder for her to keep browsing while you went looking for something.

So she did, walking up and down and displays, taking in all the weapons and items as she duly noted that your leather work seemed to be just as good as your smithing if the wrapped handles and weapons holsters were anything to go by. Any choice that she made would make a fine addition to their armory, and Paz would be overjoyed with each item, though she made a mental note not to let him learn of your shop. The last thing she needed was him coming here and spending all the tribe’s money on your works, undoubtedly scarring you with his sheer size and gruffness as well.

It was in the middle of her browsing that a flash of color caught her eye. Many of the metals you worked with were the same shades of grey and black, even the occasional gold. But there, amongst the sea of cold steel in the display case, was the warmth of bronze. She moved closer despite knowing that nothing she would find there would be beneficial for the tribe. It was as if it were a magnet though, pulling her closer by the metal covering nearly every part of her.

The item was less flashy than those surrounding it, simple and to the point, if jewelry could be described that way. The charm was a small rectangle, no longer than an inch and less than a quarter of which thick. In elegant and delicately etched letters was the word ‘loyalty’. Nothing else.

“I never took you for someone to appreciate jewelry.”

She started, helmet looking up to see you coming back from your forge. In your hands was a cloth, wrapped around what could be anything.

“I was admiring the work. The detail is remarkably clean despite its size.”

“It's been here a while. Not many people come here looking for something other than weapons, and those who do usually want something a bit more eye catching. One of my favorite works though.”

Putting the item down, her attention turns to the bundle you’ve placed on the table. Carefully, you unwrap the fabric to reveal the blade underneath. The blade itself is silver, coming to a spearpoint tip without so much as a chip. It’s longer than a normal throwing knife but shorter than one would typically consider a dagger to be. 

“My own take on a vibroblade. Easier to throw but still small enough to be easily concealed.” You hold it out, prompting her to take it.

The handle fit in her palm like a glove, as if it were molded specifically for her. The weight was perfectly balanced, allowing her to switch into a reverse grip and back with ease. At just a glance she could tell that the ridge was perfectly straight, ensuring a smooth flight through the air to its target.

“From my own collection. I figured if a Mandalorian was going to use it, then nothing but my best work would suffice.” You took the blade back, wrapping and binding it before placing it in the chest alongside the armor.

“Your hospitality knows no bounds. I am glad our meeting can end on such terms.” 

Waving your hand, you brush away the compliment despite the burning of your cheeks. Something you blamed on the heat of the forge.

“It was the least I could do. If you’re ever out here again, don’t hesitate to stop by. It can get rather lonely out here.” The forlorn expression you took on despite your ever present smile pulled at something inside the Mandalorian. Something she had not felt in a long time.

“Though don’t expect another free weapon if you do. I have a business to run after all.”

“Of course.” She said, allowing you to lead her to the door, holding the fabric as she passed through.

The whole walk back, her mind was on you. Even after she had boarded her ship and set course for home, arriving much quicker than she expected, she was thinking of you. The fact that there were still those out there that thought of and revered her people as you had, it gave her hope that not all creatures in the universe were against them.

The others were eagerly waiting for her arrival when she returned, following as she made her way back to the forge where she would store the beskar until it was decided what to do with it.

“Did you kill them and take their weapon as well?” Paz questioned when she handed him the blade, immediately pulling it out to admire the item.

She didn’t answer, focused on putting away her haul and moving to clean up her space. Leaving so quickly had resulted in a cluttered mess for her to come back to, and she once again found herself cursing her temper. Traveling far distances was something she didn’t often do, and the experience had left her tired, wanting nothing more than to retreat to her chambers and rest. She had to make sure everything was in order before she did so though.

“What’s this?” 

She turned, facing Paz as he held something in between his large fingers. She walked closer, eyes locking on to the item with laser focus.

Its familiar bronze sheen shone with a new brightness in the dim light, the etched words now hardly visible. She didn’t know when you had snuck it in, nor how you had when she had been right there the entire time.

So, for the first time in years, the Armorer took something for herself.

Plucking the small charm from his hand, she dismissed him, pulling the shutters of her shop down and leaving her mind to wander back to you as she caressed the cool metal, which did nothing to dampen the sparking embers in her kar’ta beskar.

__________________________________________________

In all honesty, you hadn’t been expecting the golden helmed Mandalorian to return to your shop. After nearly a month and a half of seeing not even the faintest glimpse of beskar you had given up hope of ever seeing her again. Sure, you were still hopeful, but when you entered your shop for some late night smithing and found the silent warrior leaning against the outside wall you nearly screamed. If it hadn’t been for the light of the flames reflecting off her helmet you wouldn’t have even realized she was there.

“I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise. I don’t get visitors this late.’’

She tilted her head, gesturing for you to continue her work and decline the offer for a seat. Nothing more was said as you got to work, soon shedding your long sleeves in favor of the cool night air that flowed in from the open wall, exposing your toned arms to the Mandalorian. It was something you had always been proud of, the muscle earned from years of bending and forming metal with precise blows from your hammer.

After a few minutes of watching, the woman began moving about the shop, taking her time to inspect every inch of the workspace. Your previous encounter hadn’t left much time for her to admire it. Even though it was far less sophisticated and more worn than her own, she still felt a sense of familiarity within its heat, finding herself wondering if you would have a familiar feeling in hers. 

The thought was banished almost as quickly as it appeared. After all, an outsider not only entering the covert, but the armory as well? One of the most pivotal places of their people? Preposterous. She didn’t even know why she was here in the first place. One moment she was relaxing in a rare moment of peace she was allowed, and the next she was aboard her ship, coordinates for your shop already typed in.

From the corner of your vision, you watched as she approached your latest project; the same armor you had been working on for weeks. A warmth rose to your cheeks when you saw her inspecting it, picking up the helmet and rotating it between her hands. 

The visor had been fixed a significant amount, she noted, but it was still shaky at best. Both sides were still uneven as they dipped down into a point at the chin, and anyone who wore it would have the top of their heads pinched by the too shallow curve of the top.

“Your work has improved.” She noted, voicing it more to herself than anything.

“Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I know it's not very good.”

“Not good no.” She admitted, setting the heavy helmet down and moving closer to where you were and setting every nerve on edge. “But there has been improvement, which shows that you’re learning.��’

Watching as you bent a thin metal pipe into shape, sparks flying everywhere as you didn’t even flinch when they landed on bare skin, then quenching it before moving over to your workbench and beginning to assemble it with an array of other items. She admired the speed and confidence with which you worked. Leaning against the wall, she watched as the weapon began to take shape under your hands.

Hours later, you were finished, a new blaster sitting before you. Just as beautiful and dangerous as the ones out front, with intricate vines crawling up the hilt and along the barrel, soldered on by your skillful hands before her very eyes.

“So, what can I help you with?” Turning towards the Armorer, you were surprised at how close she had gotten since you started, now almost touching and forcing you to crane your neck back to look her in the face.

“As much as I enjoy the company, I doubt you would come here without a reason.”

She remains silent for a moment, simply staring back at your smiling face before reaching around you to pick up the newly constructed blaster. The soft leather of her arm brushed your skin, and your nose picked up the familiar scent of forge iron from her gloves, causing your breath to catch in your throat as she turned the weapon in her hands.

“I have a proposition for you.” Her visor locked onto you, and despite the slight shiver of fear you couldn’t help but feel drawn to her.

“You will make weapons for my people and repair any that need it. Should we need it, we will park our ships in your space and you will pick up anything we can not.”

Your brows rose as she rattled off the list. Though you would be glad to do anything involving the warriors, just for the simple fact of being able to see them up and close, you still had to question why she would choose you. There was no reason for them to trust you, even if you had returned the armor.

The Armorer took it a different way, thinking you were expecting a form of payment for your work, which only made sense.

“Of course, your efforts will be compensated. Should you ever need passage or protection, we would be more than willing to offer aid.” She reached into her pocket, retrieving a small device that she held out. Upon taking it, you discovered there were only two buttons on the disk. It might look like random scrap metal to someone else, but your trained mind recognized it as an old communications device. 

“Press the blue when items are done or you request a meeting. The green is for emergencies only. Life or death situations.” You nodded, turning to tuck the device on a higher shelf where it would be within reach but not have the risk of being accidentally pressed, and somewhat hidden should any unwelcome guest find their way back here.

“And,” she hesitated a moment, unsure of her next words. With just one visit, you had managed to lower the carefully raised walls she had constructed, penetrating its defenses in a way not even her own people had. But now, here with you in the peace of the forge, her tongue was loose and brain foggy, as if the heat was melting away every shred of common sense and survival instinct she had carefully honed.

“I will teach you how to make armor. One that will protect you. Under my guide as the Armorer of my tribe it will be nothing less than perfect. Though you must swear to never trade or sell it.”

Your eyes widened a fraction at her words, hardly believing what she had just said. Not only had you just learned a new fact about the stoic woman, that she was a smith just as yourself, but she was offering to teach you how to make some of the best armor in the galaxy. No, the universe.

“It...it would be an honor.” You tilted your head down in respect, only to have her leather clad gloves grab your chin, the worn material forcing your gaze up to meet hers. Though there was no way for you to truly see her eyes, you could almost feel the flames burning within them.

“Ni kar'taylir gar will not disappoint ni, ni goron.” 

__________________________________________________

If you had thought that your father had been harsh when he was first teaching you how to smith, then he had graced you with a mother’s love in comparison to the Armorer, a name she had given you to call her after multiple visits.

“It just feels kind of cold to keep calling you Mandalorian, especially with all the time we spend together.” You had told her when she questioned why you asked. There were other reasons too, namely being that she had her own name for you. Instead of calling you by the name you had given her, she had taken to calling you ‘goron’ or ‘tracinya’, in that unknown language of hers. You could only hope they weren’t insults.

She visited once a month, always arriving just before dusk and leaving at dawn, two to three weapons heavier and the occasional small trinket you had made between meetings. All night you would be bent over your forge under her watchful gaze, correcting your technique and giving the occasional tip when you were struggling more than normal.

At the end of the night you would offer your work to be inspected, glowing at any praise only to deflate with every critique, and she was nothing if not someone who was unafraid to express her opinion.

The entire time you talked with one another. Well, you did most of the talking, but it still felt nice to have someone other than the stray loth cat listen to your ramblings.

Every once in a while she would answer one question or another, though she never divulged too much information on her own tribe, apart from mentioning another Mandalorian in passing or treating you with one of her occasional stories from the covert. You respected her wishes nonetheless, and as much as you wanted to ask her about everything you resigned yourself to the fact that she would only tell you what she wanted you to know. Mandalorians were still very much sought after prizes, and the secrecy would only make sense, as it ensured their survival.

She also never picked up a tool, as much as you wanted to see her work. Her instructions were always verbal, with the occasional instance where she would place her hands over yours, moving them the correct way and never failing to send your cheeks ablaze. Thankfully you could blame the color on the heat of the flames and not your own growing feelings. Those were a different issue entirely.

You don’t know when it started, almost like it had always been there, building until they attacked with a snap. The fact of the matter was that you harbored feelings for the armored woman, and you couldn’t deny them, no matter how much you tried to push them down. Alone for the most part, she was the only person to regularly visit your empty residence. Ever since your father had died and left you the successor of his forge, both the shop itself and the small living quarters behind it had felt empty, haunted by his memories that couldn’t be chased away with any amount of plants you bought or how much time you spent working. 

The first time she had accepted your invitation for a drink after much begging was the first time the space felt complete in ages, though she simply sat on one of the only two chairs in the living room, drink remaining untouched in her hand.

You were content hiding your feelings. As long as it meant that she would come around, you would do anything. Though you feared your meetings may soon come to an end. While you were overjoyed with the progress you had made over the months, constructing enough armor for a single arm and leg, as well as a chest plate. Not much longer and you would have your armor complete, and her reason for coming around would be gone. No longer would she need to teach you, and there was no reason she couldn’t send someone else from the covert to collect weapons and drop off items for repair once a month. You remember her mentioning how their top heavy infantry warrior had asked to meet you, and as interested as you were in meeting other Mandalorians you didn’t want it to be at the expense of seeing her.

“What’s got you so distracted tonight, tracinya’ika?” she asked after you dropped your current project, a shoulder pauldron, for the third time that night.

“Nothing!” You managed to squeak out, only to feel her familiar presence behind you, growing closer until you felt her brush against your back, making you spin around only to be pinned against your forge. The heat burned your back, hardly noticed by your brain as you processed how close she was standing now, arms on either side of your body and helmet tilted to look you in the eye. 

“Tell me.” Her voice crooned, smooth even through the modulators and nearly causing your knees to give out.

Swallowing thickly, you struggled to get the words out.

“When...when you're done teaching me, will I ever see you again?” It sounded stupid to say it out loud. Needy, like a child wanting their mother. It made you feel foolish, believing she surely thought you weak and helpless now.

You were prepared for her to laugh or scoff, to chastise you for how foolish you were being about such emotional connections. 

She did none of those.

“Ni tracinya, as long as you still desire my presence, I will come. Until you give the word, and even after, our destiny will be intertwined.”

You didn’t, couldn’t, say anything after that. It was as if she had stolen every thought from your head, every word from your mouth, leaving you nothing but a gaping fool, staring at the powerful warrior before you as the sound of the spotted owls filtered in through the open wall from the cool night air beyond.

It was the Armorer who finally broke the trance, stepping back and pausing for a moment before collecting the prepackaged weapons from the table. She said nothing as she left, heading back hours before the sun had even begun to rise and leaving you with nothing to do but stare after her, wondering what you had done wrong.

Unbeknownst to you, the cause of the Armorers swift exit had not been your fault, but her own. The entire way back to the covert she berated herself for how foolishly she had acted, allowing her body to move before her mind yet again, putting you in a compromising position. Even while berating herself, the memory of being so close to you stuck in her mind. The way your hair stuck to your damp skin, practically glowing in the light of the flames as you stared up with large, innocent eyes.

She had wanted to take you into her arms then and there. Her kind hearted little smith. So gentle and warm despite the rough profession and living conditions in which you found yourself in. It made her feel all the more guilty about having allowed herself to grow so attached to you, bringing along all the dangers that came with being associated with a Mandalorian as well as the knowledge she provided.

With each visit the feeling only grew, and by this point her draw to protect you as she would one of her tribe was just as strong. You were a weakness. A chink in her armor that she would allow none to exploit. 

Unfortunately, she was just one Mandalorian, and there was a limit to her strength, as she would soon find out.

_______________________________

It had been a week since your last meeting with the Armorer. The way she had practically sprinted out played on repeat in your head, reviewing every second leading up until then in search of what you could have possibly done. Yet no matter what angle you looked at it from, you always drew a blank.

Well, what else were you expecting from a Mandalorian. As skilled as they were apt to run off without an explanation. On to whatever adventure was next. You could only hope that she would have some explanation the next time.

‘Or at least the decency to apologize for being rude.’ you huffed, slamming the door to the cupboard after retrieving a cup. You settled down with a mug of warm bantha milk and honey, still fuming. Hopeful a bit of reading would calm your nerves for now, ignited every time you thought back on the encounter. Hopefully you would be calm enough not to give her an earful when you saw her.

The fire crackled in the hearth, the only source of sound as you skimmed through the pages of the novel you had picked up. A cheesy romance that you wouldn’t be caught dead reading in public, highlighting a lowly dancer attracting the attention of a bounty hunter who bought them for their own operations, only for the two to inevitably fall in love.

The rough and brash nature of the bounty hunter in the story reminded you of your own Armored crush, and you found yourself daydreaming more than reading as you finished off your drink. 

If only real life could be like that. You were all too aware of how unlikely it was though. Such a warrior could never have feelings for a simple smith like yourself, no matter how much she admired your works. 

Still, there was no harm in dreaming, right?

That’s exactly what you allowed yourself to do, curled up on the seat with the book drooping just as low as your eyes. The warmth of the fire and a stomach full of warm bantha milk only helped the progression of sleep along, lulling you into a sense of security as the light humming outside grew.

That’s how the first shock wave found you, knocking you from content to the floor as it rattled the entire shop.

You scrambled to your knees, dazed and confused, unable to make sense of what had just happened before the next hit. This was much closer, rattling the windows and knocking items from the walls. Even from here you could hear the sound of metal clanging as weapons and trinkets were thrown from their shelves.

Above the ringing, just barely, you processed the sound of fighters as they blazed overhead.

The Empire, you realized with a chill. You had heard rumors of them doing this, decimating entire towns and villages in the dead of night while everyone slept. That was only for those who were suspected of housing rebels or acting as supply lines though! The most you ever got out here was the occasional ship stopping to refuel or gather supplies, which was done so quickly and infrequently you wouldn’t even know they had been here.

Now wasn’t the time to question why you had been targeted. Now was the time to act.

Stumbling to your feet, you ran to the only option of help you had. The shock wave of each sending another small tremor through the ground and causing you to stumble as dust rained down from the ceiling. Dimly, you could hear the shouts of the village as those still alive realized what was happening.

The transmission disk sat in the same place it always was, thankfully not knocked to the floor and hidden in one of the many small crevices of your now disastrous shop. Tools and metals of all types lay scattered about, creating a minefield across the floor for you to navigate and attempt to not trip.

She was the only one that could help you. There were no friends, no family. No one who visited outside of her. You weren’t even sure what you were expecting her to do. Take you to another planet that the Empire hadn’t marked for destruction? But what would you do once you got there. Your skills were that of a blacksmith. Even if she helped you to escape for now and come back, who would be left for you to sell to? As much as the thought of abandoning the forge you had grown up in hurt, there would be no profit in staying. If there was any place to stay at that is.

Still, you ripped the item from its shelf, frantically pressing the ill-fated green button and watching as a loading signal popped up. It jumped in small increments at an agonizingly slow pace, leaving you to watch helplessly as the distress signal transmitted.

Amidst the chaos and adrenaline, a flash caught your eye.

The armor you had been working on for the past few months sat openly displayed on the worktable, left over from when you had been tinkering with it earlier. It wasn’t yet finished, but there was no time better than now to test it out. They might have tie fighters in the sky, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any troops on the ground to ensure there were no survivors, and there was no way in hell you were going out without a fight.

So, while the message continued loading, you stumbled over and yanked on the equipment, cursing each time your hands fumbled with a strap or you dropped a piece. By the time you managed to get all of what you had finished on, as well as the half-worked pauldron and grabbing the closest weapon, the bar had only reached seventy two percent.

You watched with bated breath as it continued to climb, praying to the maker for it to finish already. You didn’t know how far away the Armorer was, but hopefully she would get here in time. To give your body a proper burial and out of the reach of scavengers if nothing else.

You never got to see it finish.

The agonizingly loud and now familiar scream of fighters your only warning before they unload their ammunition onto your home. It fell apart like paper, no match against the green energy beams as they took out whole sections of the ceiling and walls.

A flash of light, stars from the night sky now peering down from the open ceiling, before you were buried under the rubble. It pressed down with seemingly the weight of a moon, forcing every ounce of air from your lungs and preventing nearly any oxygen from entering as you desperately tried to pull in more air, only to choke on the thick dust that permeated and covered everything. Every movement brought a fresh wave of agony tearing through your body, and you could taste iron in the back of your throat. A sign of internal bleeding, if the stabbing pain in your side wasn’t enough. Your unarmored arm also hung limp and uselessly. Broken.

The chunk of rock that currently pinned and left you defenseless  was far too heavy to move with both arms, let alone one, leaving you scrambling nowhere to get out. The very building that had protected and provided you shelter, a place to work and thrive, had turned into your own personal death trap.

It was getting harder and harder to breath. Your movements became slower and weaker with every move until, finally, they slowed to a stop, left weakly grasping at the rubble around you. Everything had now gone silent. Not even the sound of fighter jets could be heard.

You were completely, utterly, alone. That’s how you were going to die.

Alone.

No tears escaped as you set your jaw, accepting your grim fate. You had no regrets in life. None that could be rectified by living any longer anyways. You had created a great deal of beautiful and skillful items. Whoever happened to stumble upon your shop's ruins would surely have themselves a treasure trove. 

The one thing you found yourself wishing was that there would be someone to mourn you when you were gone. To look upon memories and smile with fondness as you had with your own father’s passing.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Your name would fade into nothing, just as insignificant and unknown as a shout into the empty space of the stars above. Stars that you would never be able to see.

It became darker, black spots dancing across the edges of your vision and growing. With one last shuddering breath, your body gave out, succumbing to its injuries as your consciousness faded.

Mere feet away from your impromptu crypt, the cracked yet unbroken transmitter blinked weakly. Two words flash and flicker across its screen. 

‘Message Sent’

___________

Mandoa translations (Roughly. I did my best)

Baskar-armor

goron-blacksmith/metalworker

Ni kar'taylir gar will not disappoint ni, ni goron.- “I know you will not disappoint me, my blacksmith.”

kar’ta beskar.- Iron heart, center of their chest armor

Karyai- gathering place for relaxation/eating, center of the home

Tracinya-flame

Ika-little

[seeing-the-light]

New Dream Appreciation Week Day 4: AU

@gleamful-lanterns @autumn-ravenclaw

A View Like This Read on AO3 “Excuse me... sir? Are you okay?”  Eugene blinked, startled at the sudden address. He’d spaced out a bit, and must’ve been scowling thinking about his stupid father, and this stupid train ride in the snow to get to him, because of stupid reunions or whatever, and-  “Fine.” He muttered, before he looked up from his seat to see who was addressing him- and froze.   The emerald eyes of a woman - younger than him, but not by much, he guessed - stared back at him, brimming with concern. He cursed, internally - this wasn’t the place to let himself slip like that - and straightened, abruptly, “Sorry. That was terribly rude of me, I-“  “Oh, no it’s fine!” She said, hurriedly. Her gaze darted up and down the train corridor as the man behind her coughed, impatiently. “In fact, I’m... sorry for disturbing you, actually, it’s just that... you’re sorta in my seat?” 

The words were delivered in the most apologetic way, but Eugene’s brow furrowed. “Oh? No, I’m pretty sure this is my- ah, drat.” He realized, looking over his ticket. “You’re right.” Stupid window seats.  Why would he want those, all there was to look at was- 

 “... You don’t want the window.” She guessed, tentatively, breaking him out of his thought spiral again. There was something... bubbling underneath her tone, now, and Eugene looked up at her again, from gathering his belongings to shift to the inner seat. 

 “Not particularly. What’s there to se-“ 

 “Can I have it please, then? I’d love to look outside and see all the people and lights and sheep and-“ She cut herself off, abruptly, and gave an awkward laugh, trying to compose herself. “Sorry. But. Would you mind if I took it, then?”

 Something of a smile had begun to cross his face at her enthusiasm, and he found himself rising to let her in and gestured as if he’d just opened a door for her. “Be my guest.” 

 This made her give a tiny giggle, as she squeezed in past him. The man behind her was practically glaring daggers at her for holding up the line at this point, and something made Eugene decide he disliked him instantly. 

 He sat back down as she moved to arrange her belongings. Mostly, he just stared at his hands, and the rest of car- for some reason it felt like watching her do that would be awkward, which was weird, because awkward wasn’t a feeling Eugene Fitzherbert felt very often. 

 ... correction. Awkward wasn’t a feeling Flynn Rider felt very often, and Flynn was all that mattered to most everyone, because he was far more exciting and charming, without any of the fears and insecurities. In short, Flynn was the much better option. 

 “So, Blondie-“ 

 “Rapunzel.”

 “Gesudenheit.”

 She gave him a slightly annoyed look, and Eugene raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “My name is Rapunzel.”

 “Rapunzel.” He tried it around in his mouth. “Rolls off the tongue, surprisingly.” His brow furrowed in thought, thinking back to his attempted university days. “Say, isn’t that some kind of flower?” 

 “It is!” All at once, her animation was back. Eugene was just relieved he hadn’t made another misstep - for some reason, he was already beginning to care what she thought. 

 That’s dangerous, Rider. He told himself, internally. Letting people in was dangerous. Pretty soon they’d find the cracks in your armor, and stab, hard, when the moment was just right. 

 But he wasn’t going to think about Stalyan, right now, and how she was why he was on this stupid train ride to begin with. 

 “I can’t believe you know that! Most people just think it’s... weird. Or random.” She shrugged, playing with her braid instead of looking at him 

 “I don’t think it’s weird or random, it’s kinda pretty.” He responded, before he could stop himself. Dangerous, Flynn, he thought, as her face flushed lightly because of it. “Well,” He amended, trying to recover. “It’s a little weird. But in the unique way, not the bad way.”

“Pretty and unique, huh…” She gave him a small smile. “I think I’ll take it.”

 “Great, because I regret to inform you I don’t offer refunds.” He quipped. Wasn’t his best work, but it made her laugh, so he counted it as a success. Not that he quite knew what he was trying to succeed at.

“So, Mr I-Hate-Window-Seats, you have my name, it’s only fair that I learn yours.” “Now that’s just not fair-“

 “You called me Blondie.”

“Because you actually have blonde hair!” Some of the passengers nearby turned to look over at them, so Eugene lowered his voice, though it did nothing to diminish his indignation. “I don’t hate window seats.”

“You seemed awfully keen to give yours up.” “Yeah, well, that’s because-“ Eugene gave a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. “I hate snow.”

 “How could you hate snow?” The look she gave him was borderline horrified. “It’s so white, and pretty, and it makes everything sparkle, and you can go sledding and make snowmen and snow angels and have snowball fights and then later on when you’re tired out you can go inside and wrap yourself up in cozy blankets and sit by the fire- snow is magical.”

“Some of us don’t have much cause for magic, Blondie.” Eugene said, in a much more subdued tone, staring at his hands. Stalyan used to make a show of being cold, sometimes, so he’d be obligated to give her his jacket. In retrospect, he thought she just liked watching him shiver.

 But his comment had left the conversation at an awkward pause- he had to save it, somehow. “It’s just cold, and wet, and it gets everywhere…”

 “…did you just use your hatred for snow to make a Star Wars reference?”

The small smile Eugene gave her could only best be described as dorky. “…maybe.”

 “Oh my god.” She chuckled, rolling her eyes. “You know, you still haven’t told me what your name is.”

 “Hm….” Flynn Rider or Eugene Fitzherbert. Eugene Fitzherbert or Flynn Rider. It should’ve been an easy choice. It should’ve been easy, second nature, Hey, the name’s Flynn Rider, rinse and repeat.

 So why did he have this overwhelming, annoying urge to tell her the truth?

 “Flynn.” He said, before he could second guess himself, though if anything the answer he’d chosen just made him feel more like a coward. “Call me Flynn.”

“Flynn.” Rapunzel’s eyes twinkled as she said it, and somehow in that moment it sounded better than any time anyone else had ever said that name. “I like it.”

                                                          * * *

 Eugene – no, Flynn, he supposed, because of that split-second decision – had a big problem.

 He was trapped.

 Now, most traps weren’t really enough to hold him down for long. He’d been in and out of enough cells and vaults to know a thing or two about breaking out.

 His current predicament, however, was … rather more delicate.

 You see, he and Rapunzel had chatted about things for about an hour or so in fits and starts, when she’d decided to put her headphones in and journal for a bit. Flynn, being the gentlemen that he always was, had pulled out a book, to give her some privacy and  make it obvious that he wouldn’t be reading over her shoulder.

 But somewhere in there, she’d fallen asleep. Fallen asleep, and now she was resting her head on his shoulder.

This is dangerous, Flynn, He reminded himself, again. If he knew what was best for him, he'd wake her up right now. But he didn't. Honestly, more than any personal discomfort, he just... wasn’t sure how she’d react when she woke up. But she’d whimpered in protest when he’d tried to move her off, and he didn’t have the heart (funny, really, that he still had one of those) to try that again.

 And he’d picked up a few things from their conversation – she was an art major, at university, who was somehow trying to cram as many additional majors and minors into her degree as humanly possible. She truly seemed to enjoy learning, just for learning’s sake, and that outlook… well, it was refreshing. It wasn’t an attitude he came across often in his own circles.  But this was her first big trip on her own, without anyone – hence the pent-up excitement that’d released in sporadic outbursts, earlier. She was juggling a lot, and she had a lot ahead of her, so maybe it was best to let her rest.

 She’d tried to turn some of his questions on him, too. Not in an intrusive way – he didn’t know how to explain it, but he didn’t think she was manipulating him. It seemed more like she was just… genuinely interested in learning more about him of all people, which was bizarre.

 So he’d told her a few things. How he’d recently had a bad breakup [leaving out the altar part]. How she’d retaliated by exposing his whereabouts to the father who’d abandoned him as an infant out of some misplaced desire to protect him.

 You know, just the light material.

Her eyes had grown round and wide, even at that much. “Maybe you should give him a chance, though. What if he really was trying to protect you?”

Flynn’s eyes grew harder, but Eugene could only think about hungry nights and always being on the run. “If he was,” He found himself saying, in a low tone. “Then he was just as shitty at that as he is at being a father.” Rapunzel had gone quiet at that. From what he’d gleaned, her parents were a shade overprotective – her father, in particular, seemed borderline stifling – but on the whole they were fairly supportive of her interests. There was something darker hiding behind that, he thought, something in her past that cast shadows over everything she said if you squinted for long enough – but she never alluded to it, and he wasn’t going to pry.

 His thoughts were cut off by the train jolting, abruptly. Rapunzel gave a startled yelp, looking around frantically, before slowly coming to rest on him. She glanced at his shoulder, then back at him. “Was I-“

 “Don’t mention it.” Eu – Flynn said, moving to stand slowly to see if he could glean any information on why they’d stopped.

 As if on cue, a voice came crackling over the intercom. “Good evening, passengers. It appears our passage forward has been blocked by a fallen tree. We’re going to do our best to resolve this as quickly as possible, but in the meantime, please sit tight. We appreciate your patience.”

“Great.” He muttered, aloud. “Just great. As if the snow wasn’t enough when it was rushing past us, now we’re –“

 “Flynn, look!” Rapunzel said, giving a tiny gasp. She pointed out the darkened window, and at first he was confused about what she was even seeing out there.

 But when he carefully leaned over to peer through it, and look up at the sky, his eyes widened, too.

 “Whoa…” He said, softly. Aurora Borealis lit up the night sky – he remembered that from when he’d tried a few university classes, too. The ribbons of green and blue and purple light danced across the atmosphere, and for a moment it was easy to feel like this was a private show, meant just for the two of them.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Rapunzel’s voice was filled to the brim with excitement, and despite the circumstances and not knowing what’d come after this, he couldn’t help smiling. Maybe it was okay not to think about names, or plans, and just live in this, brilliant moment for once. “The stars are coming out too, in the background –  I could probably point out some of the constellations, too –”

 “And I could tell you the stories about some of them.” He found himself responding. Maybe being stuck wouldn’t be the worst thing…

“I’d love that, Flynn.” Something about the way that she said it so earnestly twisted something in him, and he felt compelled to-

 “Eugene.”

 “What?” Rapunzel blinked at him.

 Eugene ran a hand over his hair, self-consciously. “It’s Eugene, actually. My real name.”

 He braced himself for accusations, questions about why he hadn’t told her the truth to begin with… but she just smiled at him, softly. “I like it.“

 “But-“ He said, baffled. “But that’s exactly what you said when I said my name was Flynn.”

 “It’s not about what your name is, Eugene,” she said, turning back to the window to begin sketching a rendition of the lights still visible through the window. “It’s about liking what I know about the person behind it.”

She said it so casually, as if it was a fact, and he wanted to protest. He wanted to insist that there were demons in his past she didn’t know the first thing about, wanted to tell her that she was better off attempting to befriend practically anyone else. Most of all, he wanted to tell her that he was decidedly not a good person.

 But maybe there was such a thing as magic, because something about the train car and leaning out the window to look up at the sky together, as she drew, with the prospect of sharing the stars and stories long after the northern lights died down stilled any words to that effect that he might utter.

Instead, he let himself accept what she said, for the time being. He let himself smile, a little, and relax. “You know,” He said, quietly. “I could get used to a view like this.”

[wordsablaze]

Into The Unknown

Yennefer has never been particularly fond of djinns but she doesn't entirely hate them until they cause trouble for Jaskier a second time... day fifteen of whumptober.

A/N: last whumpskier fic, getting halfway is enough for this year !! today’s pairing: yennefer/jaskier | prompts used: possession / magical healing

-

Djinns are far more trouble than they’re worth.

Rinde had been a good example but Yennefer doesn’t truly accept it as a concrete truth until she comes across another one that also causes a small disaster. Or rather, until Jaskier comes across another one.

She hadn’t actually meant to run into him but she’s not complaining when she hears him start playing a song he’d written about her because, well, it’d simply be rude to ignore that gesture of good faith. Not that they need anything as flimsy as good faith to keep them together.

“You look absolutely ravishing, my dear,” Jaskier drawls as he settles beside her.

She smirks. “I know. Shame I can’t return the compliment.”

And for once, she almost means that. He seems to have taken a leaf out of Geralt’s book and dressed himself entirely in black and white, a bright shirt nestled in between dark breeches and an even darker doublet that matches his pointed boots.

Any other time, she might have just been teasing because she won’t lie when she says he can pull the look off just as well as their mutual friend, but there’s something wrong with his outfit, something that has her on edge.

“Have you taken some sort of potion?” She asks, wondering why he seems to be radiating chaos.

He just winks. “Something like that. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” And with that, he slips away, slotting himself into a conversation a few tables away.

Yennefer stares after him for a moment, shocked. That’s not the way their reunions usually go and she most certainly will not stand for being left behind. Briskly, she follows, grabs Jaskier’s arm, and pulls him outside with a glare. “Are you drunk? Or have you perhaps lost those stupid marbles you keep yapping about?”

Jaskier lazily grins at her. “None of the above, Yennefer of Vengerberg. I’m simply enjoying the options that have been made available to me.”

A horrible feeling settles in her gut; he never calls her by her full name unless they’re trying to bamboozle someone into doing something for them and he always vows that she is his best option. “What have you done recently that involves chaos?” she demands.

He chuckles. “You haven’t sensed it yet? My, he might have been wrong about your power after all…”

“He?” Yennefer echoes.

Jaskier points at his own forehead before raising an eyebrow. As she watches, he blinks and his eyes darken from familiar blue to brown, to black, to all but a pair of empty voids.

She gasps but before she can do anything, he winks and smoke fills the air around her. By the time she stops coughing enough to curse, he’s gone. Both him and whatever it is using him as a puppet.

A quick round of questioning inside the tavern tells her Jaskier has spent the last week entertaining a vast range of people in a vast range of ways and she almost winces when she finds out because she knows the stupid bard will feel awful and apologise far too much when he’s back to normal.

It’s not particularly hard to follow the trail of chaos but it is painful when she remembers that Jaskier’s strange morals are going to give him an extremely hard time over the broken hearts, small fires, impossible promises, and handful of slaughtered animals that he’s left in his wake.

She finds him at the edge of town, running his tongue along a dagger.

“Who are you and what are you doing with him?” Yennefer demands immediately, waving her hand and sending the dagger flying into a nearby tree before Jaskier loses his tongue.

Jaskier smiles at her but it’s all wrong, cold and crooked instead of his usual warm expressions. It doesn’t help that his eyes are still awfully empty. “Ever so direct, I appreciate that. And he does too, he’s truly quite devoted to you…”

A strange mix of anger and affection rushes through her blood at the words but she doesn’t dwell on it, raising an eyebrow as chaos crackles along her arms. “Get out of him before I make you.”

“We both know that’s going to be rather agonising,” he says, but then his eyes glint. “Unless of course, you don’t. Haven’t you figured out what I am yet?”

She hadn’t, but she catches sight of Jaskier’s hands again - of the blackened fingertips and tendrils of what look like smoke running along his fingers, past his wrists and up his arms -  and it’s abruptly all too obvious.

“Of course I have. I’d recognise the work of djinns anywhere,” she hisses.

Jaskier smiles, pulling another dagger out of nowhere and twirling it in his hands, something that would be beautiful if he were in control of himself. “Then you know that forcing me to leave would be interfering with a wish and might lead to… well, consequences.”

“I don’t care what he said, this can’t be what he meant,” Yennefer scoffs.

That awful smirk returns as he holds the new dagger against his own neck, her magic doing nothing to cast it aside this time. “Oh, it wasn’t him. Just an interested party.”

She’s going to murder whoever it was when she finds them.

She doesn’t particularly want to force the djinn out of him because he’s right - she doesn’t know what could happen if things turn sour- but she can’t let this go since she has no idea what the wish was and how badly it’s going to hurt Jaskier if she lets it play out.

“We’ve done a lot of singing recently but I think I’ve had enough of his voice, haven’t you?” Jaskier asks, his expression full of innocence as he presses the blade into his skin without even flinching.

“No!” she yells, freezing the djinn’s intentions by stopping Jaskier’s hand, cursing when she’s met with more resistance than she’d expected.

“One of us is going to kill him!” Jaskier shouts, but his voice is deep, layered, not his own.

“Over my dead body!” Yennefer snarls back, tugging on Jaskier’s presence and pushing against the djinn, letting herself scream as she fights it, forcing herself to keep going even as Jaskier’s screams join her own.

She doesn’t stop until she sees his eyes fade from nothings into the blue she’s grown rather fond of over the years, until she feels smoke dissolve around them as the dagger clatters to the floor. Unfortunately, Jaskier also slumps to the floor.

Pushing aside her own desire to do the same, she hurriedly kneels beside him, cursing again when she sees his newly-acquired necklace of blood. His eyes meet hers, wide and terrified as he coughs up red, spluttering on the liquid that spills over his lips.

“Oh no you don’t,” Yennefer hisses, placing her hands around his neck.

He panics initially, his hands weakly scrabbling against hers, but the shock in his expression melts into sheer relief as she starts willing his skin to heal. She can tell it hurts because his hands tighten around her wrists and a soft, broken whimper escapes him but, like before, she simply keeps going.

It takes longer than she’d like for her to undo the djinn’s damage but when she’s sure he’s not going to bleed out or lose his voice, she pulls her hands away, wasting a little more magic getting rid of the blood on her hands because for reasons she doesn’t care to decipher, she hates the very sight of it.

Jaskier groans when his neck finally finishes weaving itself together and Yennefer has one of her rare moments of regret because although the bard will never complain about her magically healing him, she knows it can sometimes hurt to undo an injury just as much as it did to acquire it.

“I’m so sorry,” Jaskier rasps eventually, and Yennefer’s almost surprised to see he’s crying.

She slips her hand into his, gently squeezing. “You don’t need to be, not for this.”

“But I-”

“Don’t argue with me,” Yennefer interrupts, but not unkindly. She doesn’t have enough strength to sound bitter anyway.

Jaskier sighs before letting his head fall back on the floor as he lifts his free hand to his neck, a small sob slipping past his still-stained lips. For all the emotions he cycles through, he doesn’t cry often, and Yennefer despises it when he does because it hurts her too. Gods, she really hates all these feelings sometimes.

She shifts, pulling his head into her lap and brushing his tears away with her thumb. “It’s okay, Jaskier, it wasn’t your wish.” It wasn’t your fault.

He squeezes her hand, curling into her with a jagged sigh. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice nothing like it usually is but still beautiful purely because he still has it, because the djinn’s master had failed to take it away from him, from them.

They’ll deal with the rest of the chaos later because neither of them want to move and good company can often be a surprisingly skilled healer.

-

so yeah, it’s been fun but life is busy and i’m gonna end this lil series here !! i have a lot of WIPs to work on anyway :p

-

thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier

[motleymoose]

Homecoming: Astray, Ch. 2

Chapter 2

Laserfights in the Dust

Fandom: The Mandalorian Characters: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin), Gender-neutral Reader, Unidentified Stormtroopers Words: 1.6k+ Warnings: Laser fights!, Angst???

Summary:

The bounty hunter may have caught me.

That's it. I'm caught and screwed and nothing could make this worse.

...Unless Stormtroopers are thrown into the mix.

Notes:

Heyo! Just an update:

I've several chapters in the works of being tweaked and edited. On that note, I just want to warn you that I'll be editing the first chapter of this part because holy moley I did NOT do the editing I thought I did before I posted it.

Hope you enjoy this installment of Homecoming. Check back this weekend for the last chapter of part 1!

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read my words. I really really appreciate it!!!

Homecoming Masterlist

The Mandalorian’s ship was of an older gunner class, bulbous and clunky in all the wrong places. I immediately took a shine to it.

“Mother of Moons,” I breathed, drinking in the sight of the Razor Crest. The ship was ancient compared to its neighbors moored in the docking field, her dark gray hull splattered with pocks and burns from laser fire, and carbon residue dulled the once-bright metal. Amazed that she could still fly, I considered the costs and labor associated with keeping something like her up in the air. The bounty hunter must’ve employed a fragging good blackthumb, or at the very least had a mech droid to keep up with all the repairs the ship constantly would need. My fingers itched to caress the control panels and explore the access hubs. Engineering alone would’ve been something to behold.

I was a mechanic through-and-through.

My captor’s gait changed the closer we got to his ship. Weaving in and out of the stacks of crates and barrels awaiting transport into the village, I noted the speeders parked in the path we were taking, not too far away from the Crest. Before I could have a closer look, gloved fingers dug into the tender meat at my shoulder.

“Yours?” he snapped, blaster humming to life and jammed into my kidney.

I shook my head. “I don’t have anyone willing to risk their neck to rescue me. Whoever that is,” I discreetly waggled my eyebrows in the direction of the speedbikes, “probably wants me dead more than you do.”

The pistol’s barrel eased from my back, and I released the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. He accepted the answer I’d given, which was a first in my dealings with bounty hunters. I doubted greatly that he trusted me, but maybe a mutual respect was building in the hour we’d known each other.

With his hand between my shoulder blades, the bounty hunter urged me forward out of the relative safety of the unloaded cargo. I assumed we’d wait out whoever was waiting for us, but apparently the Mandalorian liked to act before he thought.

Shoving hard, the bounty hunter knocked me to my stomach, bound hands barely breaking my fall. Wheezing, I rolled onto my hip to snarl at him just as he raised his blaster and fired over my fragging head.

“Frag!” I screamed unheroically. I automatically flattened in the dust, cuffed hands over my head. Laser beams sliced through the air above me, some coming low enough to singe my hair. Letting instincts take over, I crawled on elbows and knees until I made it under the belly of the Crest. White armored legs dashed by my hiding spot, and I shrunk farther under the ship’s hefty bulk. Even with the Empire collapsed, there were still loyal factions spanning the known galaxy. I wasn’t too surprised at their arrival, only that the Imps still had enough credits to outfit their armies.

I tore my eyes away from the gunfight to look for an escape. Near the landing gear, a square hatch barely large enough to warrant much thought caught my racing mind. Pulling myself into a crouch, I shuffled over to it, using my little dagger to persuade it to open. A few frantic, scrabbling moments later, and I pulled myself up into the crawl space and snapped the panel shut behind me.

Inside the crawl space - no, access shaft, I shimmied on my belly towards the only source of light.

“Please be an access panel, please be an access panel…”

It was not an access panel.

The light was streaming weakly through a rectangular vent in the floor of what must have been the hold, the streaky dark and bright causing my eyes to swim. Turning onto my back, I took a moment to blink, forcing my eyes to adjust to the dim light. When I looked back through the vent grate, I saw a face peering back down at me.

“Oh frag!” I shrieked, dodging clumsily out of the light.

No sound or shouts of alarm followed, and I sucked in my breath and scootched back to the vent.

“Oh. You’re not what I expected.”

Above me lay a slab of carbonite. Inside the carbonite was a face twisted in pain and horror, hands bound in much the same way as mine. Every detail of the being frozen in time was on display, if I wanted to hang around and eyeball her some more. Was the Mandalorian going to do that to me?

Gulping nervously, I turned back to my belly and continued my slow crawl through the carbon dust and wires that lined the access tunnel in equal parts. I strained my eyes as best as I could, feeling them water and sting from the dust my movements stirred up. I couldn’t make out much of anything in the unlit space, but I didn’t want to light a flame in the off-chance the bounty hunter was carrying more than just frozen carbonite. I was going to have to use my other senses to find the crawl hatch into the hold. From there, freedom.

A rustle near my boots startled me out of the vague plan I was beginning to form about escaping. Looking over my shoulder, I could see nothing beyond the little square of light falling from the vent.

“Bugs. Probably just bugs,” I murmured to myself, not at all reassured by the waver in my tone. Exhaling softly, I continued forward.

I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d entered the ship, but from the sounds happening, or worse yet, not happening outside, it was safe to assume the fight was over and to the victors went the spoils.

But who the victors were was still up for debate.

Urgently, I pushed through a particularly nasty tangle of wiring. Thick and winding and of all colors and sizes, some of the wires looked brand new while others were completely fried. A faint wisp of electrical smoke drifted lazily from a deep, melted gash severing a bundle that looked to be -

“The energy cycler wiring. Shit.” Quickly, I assessed the damage. The cut didn’t seem to go too deep, only about a quarter of the way through the wiring. I didn’t have the tools needed to make a decent repair job, but if I did nothing, the Razor Crest would strand anyone aboard her once the energy cycler ran dry. Which could be anytime as the damage looked like an older wound and I had no way of telling how much power was left in the containment systems.

Rolling onto my side, I awkwardly began to dig out what I had in my jumpsuit pockets that might help. Most of a roll of electotape; collapsible screwdriver base and tip case; handful of assorted plastic ties; hose clamps in various states of rust; thin, carefully folded sheets of aluminum foil; and my prized possession: customized multitool.

Feeling surprisingly lighter after emptying my pockets, I ordered my tools into a neat pile and got to work on the smoking wiring. I made sure to match every split wire with its original end. Using the foil, I connected the loose wires before taping over them with the stretchy black eletotape. Whenever the plastic coating proved to be in the way, I used the sharp cutter edge of my multitool to scrape it away and expose the damaged wiring, thus making it easier to reconnect. The plastic ties and hose clamps, the latter of the hardware being tightened with my collapsible screwdriver, were used to sort and organize the larger bundle into smaller, neater groups.

As I worked, sounds of rustling and rifling interspersed with tiny squeaks and sneezes floated through the air not that far from the soles of my boots. I forced myself to ignore it, hoping that whatever it was would stay well away from me until I was done repairing the wiring harness. I didn’t want to waste time fighting pests when my services could be better used fixing mechanical things.

Another sneeze, a delighted trill, and then the patter of small feet scurrying away alerted me that I was now, hopefully, alone. Tightening one last plastic strap with my teeth, I swiped my forehead with the back of a sooty hand and gazed proudly at my handiwork. Dang, I was good at cobbling together repairs.

A whirring clank shook the metal underneath me, and I jolted straight up, clunking my head painfully against the subflooring. Rubbing at the throbbing lump forming on the top of my head, I cursed myself silently and held my breath, listening.

Heavy boots thudded hollowly above me. Another clanking whir covered up most of the stream of Mando’a being growled above me, and I knew that the bounty hunter had won.

Frag.

Quietly as I could, I untangled myself from the wiring and inched away from the sounds of mumbling and stomping. I’d stowed away before, a long time ago, on a colonizing ship stopping on my backwater planet for refuelling and supplies.

But those had been farmers seeking a better life for themselves, not a warrior from a people more legend than truth, hunting me down for a bounty. I was in deeper kung than I wanted to admit.

The sounds of cursing and stomping disappeared, possibly to another deck, and I let out a heavy, relieved sigh. I didn’t have much time to plan before he ultimately found me, so I needed to come up with something that wasn’t going to get me killed, or worse - frozen in carbonite.

[yatorihell]

In The Darkness Chapter 57 - O.W.L.s

Noragami x Harry Potter AU

Words: 3,987

Summary: With Tenjin gone, Headmistress Oshi reigns over Hogwarts. With O.W.L.s exams in full swing, Yato suffers another far more disturbing vision.

Also available on Yatorihell AO3

The Daily Prophet lay in heaps on the Great Halls tables the following morning, the headline ‘TENJIN FLEES HOGWARTS AFTER SORCERER HOAX’ splashed in bold letters over a sepia moving picture of him sat at his desk.

Murmurs from students rippled throughout the castle for the rest of the day, not just because Tenjin had left, but because Oshi was appointed Headmistress of Hogwarts by the Ministry of Magic.

Whilst Professor Tsuyu was a close friend of Tenjin, she was permitted to stay at Hogwarts after a short inquest found no wrongdoing on her part. However, Oshi had announced that evening that Professor Tsuyu would ‘no longer be required to fulfil her duties to the Headmaster’, and had been ‘demoted’ back to her sole role of Professor.

The entire school could see – despite Professor Tsuyu’s short head bow acknowledging this development – that she was not pleased with being belittled by a jumped-up, underqualified excuse for a teacher, but she didn’t let it show.

The Hogwarts Order of the Phoenix had been disbanded and spared expulsion as Tenjin had taken responsibility for the group, although the trio had a sneaking suspicion that Oshi wanted them gone altogether.

Yato, Yukine and Hiyori watched as Kiun perched on top of a wobbly wooden ladder, carrying yet another Educational Decree. It was May now, and it seemed Headmistress Oshi wasted no time in setting out more Educational Decrees, each more ridiculous than the last. They were banned from talking about ‘the upsetting events of last year’, which Yukine cursed at, and use of the library was restricted.

Most worrying of these decrees was the new addition being tacked to the ever-growing collection that framed the Great Halls door. Educational Decree Number Eighty-Two: Students Must Submit to Questioning about Suspected Illicit Activities.

At first they’d feared Oshi would be using her Black Quill once again to maim students, but whispered talk between students revealed that a truth potion was being used as a more humane way to extract non-existent information about illicit activities.

It seemed the Hogwarts Order was well and truly dead. Yukine let out a frustrated huff and turned on his heel away from the hall, Yato and Hiyori in tow.

The usual peace of the castle was periodically interrupted by a tannoy system that had been introduced, allowing Headmistress Oshi’s voice to ring throughout the castle and follow them wherever they went.

“Boys and girls are not permitted to be within eight inches of each other,” the squeaky tannoy rang out, and Yukine gritted his teeth.

Yato and Hiyori exchanged looks, and their gaze dropped to their sides. Yato decided that he was not eight inches away from Hiyori, but he didn’t particularly care what an old hag like Oshi thought was an ‘educational’ decree. It seemed Hiyori didn’t either as neither moved apart as they continued walking to their next class.

The only peace in the castle was the greenhouses or the dungeons where the tannoy system couldn’t reach. Thankfully, they had Potions that morning.

“What do we do about this then?” Yukine asked. His voice rang hollow as they descended into the bowels of the castle, dripping eater echoing around them in stagnant puddles.

“We’d get snitched on immediately if we tried anything,” Yato said. He knew Nora was watching somehow; she did have some sort of ‘friend group’ which they had met when Oshi found them training.

“I can’t risk telling Sakura either as they’re checking the post now, so I hope Madame Kofuku has told her what’s going on.”

The walked in silence for a moment, save for the echo of their footsteps and constant leaks that paved their way through the dungeons. The sickly smell of ingredients greeted them before they could see the classroom, a smell they had become accustomed to in their Potions class, and Hiyori interjected a ray of optimism.

“The Order must be close to getting the prophecy by now,” Hiyori said quietly, seeing a few students loitering ahead of them on the corner.

Yato hummed his agreement. That much was true, but they wouldn’t know until they would go home for the summer and be away from the Ministry prying eyes. 

They arrived outside the Potions class and were among the last few students to take their places in a cavernous alcove in front of Madame Kofuku.

Yato prayed that Sakura knew he was ok, but for now, they would have to wait.

~

When Professor Tenjin warned them about OW.L.s exams, they didn’t expect it to be this hard.

For two weeks, the fifth and sixth-year students slaved over their chosen topics, mostly regretting every decision they made. It made it no easier with the library being restricted; studying became near impossible.

The Room of Requirement may have been useful, but Yato, Hiyori nor Yukine were willing to risk getting caught in there again. Instead they made do in their common rooms (also restricted use, Merlin knows why), bedrooms, and occasionally in an abandoned classroom.

When the last day of O.W.L.s exams came upon them, a collective sigh of relief could be heard throughout the castle. For Yato, his last exam was Divination. He was sure he had failed Ancient Seals – by far his least favourite class – but he thought he did ok on the rest of them.

The sixth-year students sat in neat rows in the Great Hall as usual for their exams, the scratching of quill on parchment softly filled the room. It would have been a calm exam, akin to a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, if it weren’t for Nora in the back corner.

How she was allowed to sit the exam was beyond him, as she had only been present for one term of the year. It also seemed that she was in every exam Yato took, which couldn’t be a coincidence.

Another pair of eyes watched over him and the class; Headmistress Oshi.

She sat in Tenjin’s high-backed oak chair in the centre of the stage, looking out over the room for would-be cheats. She wore her usual white robes, something which hadn’t changed despite her change in status, and kept her hands folded on her lap throughout the entire exam.

Yato felt strange when he looked at her. It was unnatural, how such a mechanical woman could sit so still when just a few weeks ago she looked ready to commit an unforgivable curse in front of the Minister of Magic.

She must have noticed Yato’s quill not moving as she looked across the room and fixed her eyes on him. Yato winced, feeling a twinge in his head. He dispelled in with a shake and looked down at his half-written sentence with a sigh.

It felt like an eternity until he bell rang, signalling the end of the exam as well as the O.WL.s period. The parchment was collected, and the class dismissed.

Yato made his way out of the Great Hall into the hallway amongst the hustle and bustle of students asking each other what they had wrote, comparing answers and lamenting over misread questions.

He had definitely failed Divination.

Yato made his way back to Slytherin to change; the summer heat had made it far too hot to stay in uniform any longer than necessary, but the cool walls that contained the dormitories were welcome.

Yato changed, opting for the light tracksuit set Sakura had bought him for Christmas and a plain white t-shirt. He hadn’t noticed before, but a little golden crown was embroidered on the right-breast of the jacket, and Yato smiled.

Yato dawdled his way back upstairs. He was thankful that school was technically over, although they still had a few weeks before they would say goodbye to Hogwarts for the summer. His smile remained as he thought of his new life awaiting him at Grimmuald Place with Sakura. And Ebisu and Buckbeak, of course.

Daylight blinded him as he reached the top of the stairs and turned right towards the Great Hall. A few students who had managed to change just as quickly as he had roamed the castle, enjoying what was left of their school life. Hopefully, it would be back to normal when they returned in September.

“Yato!”

Yato turned to look through the windowless archways of the hallway. Surprisingly, Yukine and Hiyori were waiting for him in the courtyard, hands raised in greeting. Yato clambered through the archway and landed in the flowerbed beneath it, unmindful of the flowers Kiun had just planted as he made his way towards them.

“How did it go?” Hiyori asked.

“Not great, hard to concentrate when you have daggers being stared at you,” Yato said with a wry smile. No doubt the headache had hindered him slightly, but still, he could feel it niggling in the back of his head.

“Well, you took a lot of subjects, so you will have passed enough for your N.EW.T.s,” Hiyori reminded him.

Yato nodded but his eye winced involuntarily. It was as if thinking about the pain he had in the exam had brought it back ten times worse.

It didn’t go unnoticed; Hiyori and Yukine frowned at the sudden twitch and subsequent grimace Yato made.

“What’s wrong?” Hiyori asked.

“It’s just a headache…” Yato said, but he could see both Hiyori and Yukine looking at him concerned. “Probably just from the exa-.”

A stab went through his head, and his voice cut short. His vision began to blacken at the edges, all too familiar and gut-wrenching. The words Hiyori had spoken swam away, lost in the thick air that clogged his senses and his throat.

The last thing he saw was Yukine reaching out to him and Hiyori’s panicked expression as he keeled over, and the world vanished.

~

Yato’s eyes opened, and within a moment he knew where he was.

Thousands of milky orbs lined the shelves around him, stretching out and up forever until they pinpricked the darkness like stars. The Department of Mysteries.

Whispers were interrupted by a scream that had Yato spin around, followed by a low, cajoling voice that he couldn’t make out.

A dark figure stood in the distance facing away from him. Yato stepped forward carefully, but his footsteps made no sound. Another scream, this time nearer, and Yato’s blood ran cold.

He stepped forward again, and it seemed he had transported to the unknown man’s side. He didn’t seem to sense Yato’s presence despite him only being over his shoulder, but it gave Yato a clear view of his face.

He wore dark robes, but his hood was pulled away from his face. He could see his light brown hair parted in the centre of his forehead in two lank bangs, and the twisted smirk on his face as he stared down at his victim.

His wand moved again with a wordless spell, and another scream ripped from their throat. Yato felt bile rising in his throat, and unwillingly looked down at the victim.

He froze.

“Please, don’t, no, please, I’m sorry, PLEASE…”

A shaky arm supported her collapsed body whilst the other was raised in a pitiful defence. Her clothing had been torn at the shoulders and chest. Deep gashes leaking blood ran in rivulets down her arms and face onto the dark marble floor which reflected the pitiful scene.

“Sakura?” Yato breathed, and all too quickly everything snapped into place.

The orbs which fenced them in an endless maze, the whispers of truths untold, and the prophecy which lay in one of them that Sakura had come to collect… and the identity of the man torturing her.

Yato snapped his head back to the man, a face he should have recognised, but his vision was blackening once again.

A flick of the wand, and Sakura’s scream ripped straight through him.

“YATO!”

~

Yato startled awake. A deepening blue sky hung over his head as did Yukine’s and Hiyori’s worried faces.

Yukine and Hiyori knelt beside him, and Yato was pretty sure Yukine had been slapping his face from the sting in his cheeks. This was the first time they had witnessed Yato have a vision, and it terrified them.

He tried to push himself up but Yukine had already placed a hand on his back to sit him upright.

“What did you see?” Hiyori asked.

Yato blinked, unsure whether he was about to cry or go into a frenzy when he realised that not only had the Sorcerer got into his head, but what he was doing.

Sweat dripped underneath Yato’s shirt collar and his back felt sticky under his jacket. Regardless, Yukine’s hand stayed.

“Sakura’s.. at the… Ministry… Sorcerer… attack,” Yato’s words came in short bursts, barely able to keep his breathing under control as panic threatened to engulf him.

It was just like Daikoku, but the Sorcerer himself was the perpetrator. A nauseating question came to Yato: Was he too late?

Yukine and Hiyori exchanged looks over Yato, eyes wide.

“Yato,” Hiyori said gently. “What if this is a trap, to lure you to the Ministry?”

“No!” Yato exclaimed, taking the pair aback. He knew they had a point – as Madame Kofuku had told him that his mind could be distorted – but he couldn’t shake the image of Sakura on the floor, bleeding out, screaming his name.

“We should call Grimmuald Place first, to see if she’s there,” Yukine said in an equally gentle voice. His eyes darted to Hiyori then back to Yato. “If she isn’t then we can get Madame Kofuku to send help.”

Yato could see he would get nowhere faster by arguing – even though he had seen Sakura in the Department of Mysteries himself – and agreed.

Yato pulled himself up with Yukine’s help, supported on the shorter boy for a short distance to the nearest office, which so happened to be Professor Takemikazuchi’s.

Thankfully, it was unlocked, and Hiyori popped her head around the door to make sure the coast was clear. The three of them piled in and closed the door behind them, hoping the professor wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

The office was smaller than most of the others, perhaps because the walls were lined with large wooden shelves that contained enough bottles to rival Madame Kofuku’s collection. The stout desk was placed in front of the window facing straight at the door and a shaggy black rug carpeted the flagstone.

Yato and Hiyori wasted no time ransacking the office in search of a familiar pouch of Floo Powder, whereas Yukine had made a torch out of one of the gas lamps to light the fireplace.

A thin whisper of smoke floated through the office when Yukine blew out the torch, stoking the fireplace with a poker in a bid to make the flames grow higher.

“Here!” Hiyori exclaimed.

Yato turned and saw Hiyori stood next to one of the shelves on the far side of the room. In her raised hand she held a large black pouch dusted with green powder. She threw it and Yato caught it deftly, emptying half the contents into his hand as he approached the fireplace.

Please, be at home, Yato prayed. He drew nearer to the fireplace, hand raised to the powder into the flames.

The door slammed open.

Hiyori let out a yelp and jumped back into the shelf, knocking a few bottles onto the floor with a shatter. Yato spun and the Floo Powder flew out of his hand, but only a fragment reached its intended destination in the auburn flames.

Three figures stood in the doorway, blocking out the sunlight that filtered in through the hallway’s arches. Headmistress Oshi, Professor Takemikazuchi… and Nora.

~

After sending Professor Takemikazuchi to capture Kazuma and Bishamon – who were deemed equally guilty due to their participation in the Order –, Oshi marched the trio up to the Headmistress’ office with her wand aimed at their backs.

“You three,” Oshi hissed, ���have been nothing but a thorn in my side. Spreading lies, and dissent, creating a rebellion!”

Yukine and Hiyori exchanged looks at Yato who stood between them. It seemed Oshi had completely lost her mind, drunk on power and blind to the truth just like the Minister of Magic. Now they were held hostage by a madwoman and her snitch who walked ahead of them up the spiral staircase, far away from witnesses.

But her next words would send a shiver down their spine when they realised the incident in the Muggle world was no accident.

“It was all I could do to send the Dementors to kill you before you could prove the Sorcerer has returned.”

Hiyori froze on the spot, feet on uneven steps. The group paused along with her, and Yato felt heat rise in his chest. He looked at Hiyori, who was too shocked to shed tears at the revelation, and felt guilted. It was his fault she got attacked again, all because they wanted him silenced permanently.

So the Ministry sent the Dementors? If that was the case, the Minister was as crazy as Oshi to allow such a thing, Yato thought.

His thoughts were interrupted by Oshi jamming her wand into Hiyori’s back, barking “Move!” and Yato gently pulled her by the hand. Yukine gave a sympathetic look at Hiyori as they walked the final flight of stairs in silence, and arrived at Oshi’s office.

Yato glared daggers at Nora once the door had slammed shut behind them. She stood against the wall close to Oshi, her eyes looking straight into Yato’s as Oshi took her place beside her desk. Whilst she had looked at Hiyori and Yukine in disdain before, now it was replaced by something that looked like regret when she looked over the trio.

You’re such a bitch, Yato thought bitterly, and Nora looked away.

Not too long later – whilst Oshi held her wand at the three of them – Professor Takemikazuchi knocked and entered. In front of him he herded Bishamon, Kazuma, and the Ravenclaw girl, Touma, who had been unlucky enough to have been dragged into this mess as well.

Professor Takemikazuchi guarded the door, arms folded. The students crowded in front of the desk where Oshi stood beside her chair, glaring down at the troublemakers.

“I know Tenjin is talking to you, conspiring against the Ministry,” Oshi accused. Her eyes had become a more saturated grey, madness raging behind those glassy eyes that looked down on them.  

Kazuma and Bishamon gave puzzled looks to Yato and Hiyori respectively. Yato gave an imperceptible shake of his head, willing them to remain silent. This didn’t concern Tenjin; it concerned Sakura and her whereabouts, which neither of them would know about.

Professor Takemikazuchi looked mildly comfortable, though he hid it behind a façade of grouchiness at being pulled into trivial matters.

“Headmistress, be as it may, these three broke no rules -,” he looked at the three of them pointedly, “aside than breaking into my office.”

“They were using an illicit substance to contact a traitor of the Ministry!” Oshi screeched.

Professor Takemikazuchi blinked in disbelief. Her entire personality seemed to have been replaced.

Touma wilted away at the harsh words, but this break in character had the trio as well as Kazuma and Bishamon intrigued. She was quick to react to any defiance now, yet she hadn’t batted an eyelid at Yukine’s outburst at the beginning of the year.

Working at Hogwarts seemed to have left her unhinged.

Oshi seemed to collect herself after realising the impact of her sudden outburst. Her deranged demeanour melted away, and an unnatural ambience settled in the room.

“Professor Takemikazuchi,” Oshi said, in a voice as sweet as poison, “please retrieve Veritaserum from Madame Kofuku. I have some questions for these students.”

Veritaserum, Hiyori recalled from Potions class, was a truth serum that would have the drinker tell all their secrets with only three drops. She looked at Yato worriedly, and he returned the look with pursed lips.

Yato knew exactly what Hiyori was thinking: a truth potion would reveal the real Order of the Phoenix, as well as Sakura. If she was still clinging to life, she would be sent back to Azkaban in a heartbeat, or receive the Dementors Kiss as intended.

“Certainly, Headmistress,” Professor Takemikazuchi said curtly. He gave a small and exited the room.

A moment after he had left, Oshi slowly directed her wand at the door.

“I have no intention,” the door lock clicked, “of using Veritaserum. You will tell me right here, right now, what Tenjin is doing.”

Hiyori could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as Oshi directed her wand back to the group. She squeezed Yato’s hand, and he squeezed back in reassurance.  

“As this is an issue of Ministry security, you have left me no alternative.”

Hiyori looked to the door, bidding Professor Takemikazuchi or Madame Kofuku to enter, but no footsteps could be heard. It was clear that Oshi never intended to use the potion, yet there was another way to extract information from them.

“The Cruciatus Curse.”

“That’s illegal!” Bishamon cried. Kazuma placed a hand on her arm as she took a step forward, warily eyeing Oshi who flicked her wand in their direction at the outburst.

“The protection of the Ministry is of the upmost importance,” Oshi said. “Such illicit activities that threaten it must be met with force.”

Bishamon was not one to step back, but Yato stepped ahead of her.

“You can start with me then.”

Yato’s eyes flickered to Nora, who watched him wide-eyed as if she couldn’t believe what he was doing. Then again, he had changed since they were siblings. He wouldn’t let his friends get hurt.

Yato looked behind him at Hiyori and Yukine who gave him startled – no, terrified – looks, as he put himself at Oshi’s mercy. He turned back to Oshi, watching her levelly as her wand’s attention was drawn to him.

“I am the only person who has talked to Tenjin.”

Maybe Yato was stupid – something Yukine had thought since the day they met – but right now he was stupidly brave. The Cruciatus Curse was unforgiveable for a reason, and no one could withstand its effect.

“Very well,” Oshi replied, too calmly for what she was about to do. Oshi’s wand raised to Yato’s chest, and her thin pink lips parted.

“Cr-,”

“No!” Hiyori shouted. She lunged forward, and Yato found himself stumbling under the force of her arm sweeping him behind her. Her arms came to rest slightly behind her, keeping Yato covered aside from his head which was nearly a foot higher than hers.

Despite the height difference, Hiyori remained steadfast in the wands aim, breathing slightly faster than usual as she clenched a fist in Yato’s jacket.

The spell died on Oshi’s lips and the room stood in dumbfounded silence.

Oshi’s mouth twitched sporadically, and Yato worried that she would lose it altogether and ‘Crucio’ all of them. Defenceless, he slowly placed a hand on Hiyori’s back the least he could do was push her out of harm’s way should Oshi attack.

“If you won’t tell her where it is,” Hiyori addressed Yato without looking at him, “I will!”

What the hell is she talking about? Yato thought for a brief second, until he realised what she was doing; she was trying to protect him.

Hiyori looked down at the floor, but she knew all eyes were on her. Oshi’s, on the other hand, were alight in victory at the mention of an item and its whereabouts.

“Tell me where what is?” Oshi urged.

Yato’s eyes looked down at Hiyori, feeling her hand shake against him from the tightness of her grip.

He was unable to see Hiyori’s face even as she raised it to face Oshi, revealing what she would believe to be the downfall of the Ministry.

“Tenjin’s secret weapon.”

[imacrowcawcaw]

Treasure Ch. 1 (Penntin)

(Ao3)

Pairing: “Penny” Adiyodi/Quentin Coldwater, past Penny/Pearl Sunderland, past Quentin/Alice Quinn, background Margo & Eliot

Fandom: The Magicians (TV)

Length of series: who knows

Warnings/tags: magic (like duh), universe alterations, canon divergence (obviously), spells gone wrong, magic rituals, slow build, enemies to friends to lovers, first kiss, first time, snuggling and cuddling, Penny is very physically affectionate believe it or not, attempted humor, fluff, angst, smut, happy ending

Summary: 

Quentin fucks up a spell (Penny may or may not have also helped/hindered).

Quentin is the reason Penny can’t see unless he’s hugging him and also why everything smells like the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Quentin’s run-amuck brain brings all sorts of problems to the table.

Quentin is starting to make Penny feel funny in his chest (and his pants). 

Fuck Quentin, man.

Author’s Notes: I’m nearly through season one and am also not willing to put in hours of research on this universe’s magical rituals, so -- keep that in mind, I guess. That being said, I am in LOVE with this show and also this pairing. 78 stories on ao3?!? Fair, but sad…. I am falling hard and fast for Penntin (idk the ship name). So I had to write out everything in my brain. So here. Plays off of some the other fics on here, particularly “Practical applications of falling in love” -- kudos to you, @echomoon, that was amazing and I can’t stop thinking on the concept!! 

----------

The smell was everywhere. It burned through Penny’s nose like it had a personal vendetta against every single one of his nostril hairs (which, it had been kindly pointed out a few years ago by a bitch who will remain unnamed, numbered quite a few. Especially visible when underneath him, which almost everyone was in this apparent plane of Hobbits. Right, moving on. Bitch.)

He covered his nose with his hands, then the scarf wrapped loosely around his neck - purple silk, today - but the smell just kept coming and coming until he was nearly choking. 

In the back of his mind, Penny could feel the waves of panic, frustration, and disgust coming off of Quentin fucking Coldwater in a mixture much similar to what he was feeling. More panic, or course, cause the guy was a walking circus accident, and some various streams of babbling mind diarrhea lamenting about the awful smell. Surprisingly, the guy had a vocabulary Penny could almost be impressed by. But he was much more focused on himself and his dying nose, no matter how insistent Quentin’s feelings were.

And Penny would like to point out that he never willingly associated with that geek. It was always outside forces convening to push them together, whether in a study group or room assignments or the weird-ass plot against their lives that somehow connected Mothman and cursed daggers and creepy pedaphilic authors (that he would have liked to punch in the face).

Of course, that ever-present, invisible asshole (fate, god, the Dean; what did he care?) pushed them together yet again with more disastrous results. 

Like them being together in the same room at all.

Like them being paired up to do spell work.

Like them fucking it up. 

The disastrous fucking results he just knew were going to happen were, apparently, this smell. He had scented some pretty bad (literal) shit in his lifetime, but nothing compared to the absolute atrocity that was Quentin bungling a simple ass locator spell. 

“Oh, my god!”

And that was the fucking idiot, desperately clutching his ever-present baggy shirt over his face like it would do some good against it. Magical stenches did not, as it appeared, let themselves be blocked out so easily. 

Penny rolled his eyes - watering like a baby’s, he might add - and made his way over to a window on the backside of the class, pounding at the frame with his fist when it wouldn’t fucking budge. 

Stupid Quentin, going and burning his nose because he couldn’t fucking concentrate on anything other than Alice’s tits. Bet he had something to do with the stuck window, too. 

“Come ON, fucking open!” Penny muttered. 

He was desperate for fresh air. He would beg and cry if he had to - his eyes were already crying, and also did he mention fuck this? - but he just needed this goddamn window to open up, so if he could just get the latch to jiggle a little more to the left-

Aha! Fresh air!

Penny stuck his head out of the window and breathed in deeply, opening his mouth as wide as it would go like a dog on a car ride. He gulped and drank in the life-giving oxygen -- but, but it was-

“-ON’T PENNY! GET AWAY FROM THERE!”

Ugh, Quentin. Trust him to fuck up not only the air inside the classroom but the whole fucking campus as well. He would have to be funding the entire infirmary at this point. 

Sighing (and then retching), Penny pulled back to shut the window and noticed something real fucking peculiar. And creepy. 

Either he had been blinded by the horrible smell - and it was that bad, he wasn’t immediately discounting the theory - or a thick fucking fog had rolled in while Penny wasn’t paying attention. Cause he couldn't see anything. All across his field of vision was grey -- actually, it was more of a murky blue than grey, and it was moving at a surprising speed for having no conceivable end to it. And it was so thick (like Quentin, god Penny was going to fucking kill him).

“Penny! Please get away from the window!”

Quentin was pleading with him now, and Penny almost felt bad about how scared he sounded -- not entirely, though; that voice crack was hilarious. Idiot fucking deserved to be scared. Look what he had done!

He turned around to tell him just that, except for, uh, he couldn’t see him. The fog was in the room. 

The podium near Penny’s left side was a vaguely visible outline, and the front lab table even less so -- man, don’t even get him started on the desks and chairs. There was nothing. He could be in Fillory for all he knew- oh. Hell to the fucking no.

“Quentin!” He roared, “Where the fuck are we?!”

“Wh- what do you mea-- here! We’re in class! Where the hell are you?”

So that was a relief, if a disappointing one (those were called oxymorons, right? Fits. Quentin was a moron who was causing him to run out of fucking oxygen.)

“I’m by the window, dumbass! Trying to get some fresh fucking air, cause you fucking destroyed it all and replaced it with dog shit!”

This is worse than dog shit.

Oh god-fucking-damn. He did not need Quentin’s thoughts right now. Penny carefully moved forward, sweeping one foot in an arch across his path before he stepped down. 

He figured Quentin was doing the same, because he heard the rambling oh fuck what was that where am I where’s Penny I’m such an idiot oh my god was that a rat streaming through his head as Coldwater, clearly, let all his wards down in an effort to fully concentrate on navigation and breathing. 

This once, Penny couldn’t quite blame him for devoting all of his energy to the task at hand instead of blocking him off -- but it was still annoying. He was so good at concentrating and yet Quentin managed to get into his brain clear as glass. And he was so fucking annoying. 

“Fuck, Coldwater! Shut the hell up!” Penny sighed and paused, running a hand over his hair. The waves of panic were increasing. “Just stay where you are and I’ll come to you. But stop thinking, please.”

“Yeah, okay- oh! Ow, fuck…”

There was a loud crash and then Quentin's pained noises as he clearly ran into some sort of furniture. Penny sighed again. What idiot had let this guy anywhere near a spellbook? (Nevermind how powerful he occasionally was -- that didn’t make up for stupidity.)

Penny breathed deeply - the one meditation practice he admitted could help, if only to calm him down - and kept making his slow way across the room. He was pretty sure that he was in the center of the room now, but he also knew that not being able to see made distances seem much longer than they were. 

He took another step and ended up tripping over the same goddamn chair Quentin had apparently ran into, because his body landed on another guy’s that made a pathetic “ow” noise again. 

“Jesus Christ, Quent, you could of at least picked yourself back up off of… the…. floor,” he slowly trailed off, looking around. 

There was no more fog. There was no more burning smell. The classroom was exactly like it was before they had started the chant -- empty desks and chairs left behind by all the people who didn’t have slow idiot’s for lab partners, wood paneling that tried and failed to look classy, and the front lab table covered in various magical instruments. 

“What the hell?”

Quentin sat up underneath him - as much as he could - rubbing his nose and sniffing deeply. Penny agreed. The air felt amazing, like a soothing balm on his poor, abused air canals. 

He quickly realized that there was still a geek that was responsible for all this mess half-lying on the floor underneath his body, and that someone could walk in at any moment. So that was un-fucking-desirable, in multiple ways (ugh, Quentin. Just thinking about him made Penny shudder.)

With a quick brace of his arms, Penny bolted upright and took several steps away from the nerd -- back into the fog and the awful smell. 

“Ah!”

He looked around, confused and pissed off. Was this some kind of joke the kid was trying to pull on him? 

Penny tried to do a simple fire spell, then again, and again; each time more desperately than the last. Nothing. It was like the fog was muting his magic -- it was curling in scarily tentacle-like clouds around his hands, engulfing them in dense smoke and snuffing out any sparks he could have produced. 

Now Penny was panicking a little. 

He was still mostly pissed off, mostly- extremely pissed at Quentin, possibly more than he ever had been before, and frustrated with just a twinge of panic at the absence of his magic; the opposite of the nervous nellie probably still huddled around a chair leg on the floor. 

Something grabbed at his foot, and, suddenly, the smell and fog had gone away again. He could breathe and see and there was a rather large flame coming from his hands, a culmination of the previously snuffed flames all working together to express his rage through fire. 

When he looked down, Quentin was actually clinging to his foot, not a chair, and looking very nervous. What was new. Penny tried to kick him off and succeeded after a moment, the blueness invading so suddenly he didn’t even notice the smell for a second. 

Then it was gone, again - he was gonna get whiplash from this shit - and Quentin was hugging his leg, again. This time he looked more sheepish than nervous, and it made Penny want to kick him in the face. 

(Ch. 2 on Tumblr)

“I, uh- I think that the fog and the smell only happens when we’re not touching each other.”

What. 

Well, it made sense considering the last three minutes of god dicking with the light switch - not to mention Quentin’s history of idiocracy and miss-castings, but-. Come on.

“Coldwater, I. Am. Going. To. Fucking. Kill. You.”

-----

(Ch. 2 on Tumblr)

[kisuminight]

Rainfire

Sometimes you remember something you watched when you were a kid and then you go look it up. And then you get ideas.

This story addresses the idea that never gets covered in the Spider Riders anime that the Inner World might (and probably does) have very different diseases. And Hunter, being Earthen, has no immunity to them.

Third Person POV, centered on Igneous. Adds a couple book elements and headcannons. Notes at the end.

~~~

“Oh, and Igneous? Sparkle won’t be able to make it to your afternoon training session today. Rainfire.” The way the Prince waved away gathering concerns with a smile and half-lidded eyes was all-too indicative of his own. Even if this method of informing the other Spider Riders was mostly an excuse to dodge his paperwork again.

Still, “It’s not exactly bad news.” Everyone knew that if you didn’t catch Rainfire young, it got much worse the older you were. In fact, “The Princess is almost a little overdue, isn’t she? How’s Hotarla doing?” His manacle felt warm on his wrist; a dry, soothing heat over his pulse point, Flame’s warm regard. They hadn’t been chosen yet when Igneous himself fell ill, but they’d already been friends; Flame had been nearly as worried as Slate, more so, even.

“Hotarla’s dealing better than Uncle Hop.” The protective fury and duty-born anger faded from that name long ago. It helped that Grasshop had always been hard to hate, even immediately after he’d defected. “Part of it is how Rainfire interacts with Insectors. Apparently, it’s inverted for them.”

Oh. Igneous thought about what it might mean if Rainfire struck the young hardest, and even Flame’s reassurance couldn’t ease the sudden chill. The Princess suddenly seemed much to young. “Aqune and Potia are in Insector territory at the moment; they would come if we called.

Most Insectors trusted the pair more than the other fourteen. Understandable, given the generations-long war, ut it still rankled. Spider Riders were supposed to be heroes, after all.

“No, it’s fine. Textbook Rainfire, right down to the crystal formation. I’m just glad she didn’t come down before…” Mantid. The name still felt cold on everybody’s tongues. Irregular, the way nobody knew how to say it now, and tangled up in unprocessable emotions.

“I’ll see if I can reschedule with Corona and Hunter. If they’re determined to be battle partners, they’ll need to learn teamwork with Shadow and Venus instead of just as part of their own pair.” Not that Hunter and Shadow did particularly well off the battlefield, given the arguing (even if it had lost that edge of cruelty as time wore on). Today had been surprisingly quiet.

“Hey! I heard our names mentioned?” Corona, greeting them with her left hand leading and manacle gem shining in a subtle indicator of Venus’ presence to the observant.

“Training session, this afternoon. Hunter and Shadow, too. Do you know where they are?” Probably not in the castle.

“He and Princess Sparkle were supposed to be doing something this morning.” That didn’t sound particularly likely.

But Corona’s manacle flashed in the shadow of her wrist, and Venus projected to the group, “He pestered Shadow into helping him wake up. He was very serious about helping Sparkle and Hotarla.”

But, “The Princess is down with Rainfire. She couldn’t have met Hunter this morning,” Igneous protested.

“He wouldn’t have slept through breakfast, and he wouldn’t have missed breakfast if he was awake.” The Prince’s smile turned wry and more than a little amused. “Well, I’m sure you’ll solve this mystery; I’ve got to go check on Sparkle.” Amazing how he could make Sparkle sound like Grasshop, who’s going to panic and maybe accidentally set the room on fire.

Corona shook her head, eyes pensive and deep after they waved the Prince off. “Now I’m worried. Neither of us have heard from Shadow, either.”

Igneous curled his fingers across his manacle, and offered a quick prayer to the Oracle fro patience. “Alright. We should use their room as a starting point, just for organizational purposes.” Flame’s opinions weighted on him, unsaid as they were, and Igneous felt the smile touch his lips under his spider’s approval.

So, Hunter and Shadow’s room: located a couple floors up and three hallways over. Rather than climb six flights of stairs (and also because they were, perhaps a little, worried), “Flame, Spider Out!” The jump to get him on Flame’s back slipped away from his memories, more habit than conscious act. Igneous held out a hand to Corona, catching her as she, too, leaped aboard.

Flame waited patient as a stone, for both riders to settle in their stances before he leaped, balcony to balcony in the clear, open space King Arachna III deliberately designed into the architecture, leaving more room and load-bearing capacity for the sake of the Arachnian Kingdom’s Battle Spider allies.

Dismounting at the floor they wanted, Igneous took a minute to lean into Flame in a stoic, silent geture of trust and gratitude. “Flame, Spider In.”

“Thank you, Flame,” Corona added, her manacle glowing in a manner that suggested Venus privately asking her Rider to rely on her, next time.

At a brisk walk, Igneous and Corona set out. Three hallways over put them near the outer wall, all the doors leading into large-windowed rooms. Hunter and Shadow’s  was near the end of the hall, if not quite the corner room. Next to Magma and Brutus’ if Igneous remembered correctly, though that pair had taken off to check on the harbours, now that peace seemed to be settling over the land with the war declared at an end and the embargo on the Insectors lifted.

Unsurprisingly, the door was closed. Corona knocked lightly. “Hunter, Shadow? Are you two in there?” Not entirely expecting a response, she tried the doorknob. Locked.

“Corona?” Shadow’s voice through the wood, but thin and thread with something Igneous couldn’t quite place. “Can you come in? Please?”

Wrong. Utterly wrong, in the way that would’ve sent Igneous into a panic if they’d still been fighting, under constant threat of something that could completely corrupt the mind (Mantid had never used a mask on more than Aqune and Portia, thank the Oracle). Sent him into a panic anyway because even for Corona and Venus, Shadow never used that word, never uttered it in a way more begging than confident.

Lips pursed, Igneous motioned Corona out of the way. He didn’t ask about the lock; as good a companion as a Battle Spider could be, they mostly got through locked doors by smashing them down. Besides, Shadow hadn’t mentioned it, meaning he had enough faith that they could get around it anyway. Fortunately, Igneous trained his skill with locks enough to subvert all the ones in the Palace.

Maybe Igneous would bother the Prince less about paperwork if he’d at least fill out the forms to increase his own security.

Kneeling, he examined the lock. A standard type three, nothing too special. Corona brushed a hand across Igneous’ shoulder as he retrieved his lock picks from his boot. “We’ll go around by the window.” Slipping into an unused room, he heard her call Venus even as he managed to get the first pin to click.

Second.

Fourth.

Sixth, and Igneous nearly threw the door open in his haste. Oracle, he was worried enough to spend the rest of the day lecturing the pair, never mind afternoon training with Corona and Hunter—

Hunter.

So admittedly a lot of the angriest thoughts had focused on Hunter. They hadn’t heard his voice and he’d just remembered the windows in this room couldn’t fit a fully grown Battle Spider, as evidenced by the way Corona had to vault into the room, leaving Venus hovering outside—some of the really dark ones accused Hunter of leaving Shadow in a room he couldn’t easily exit, the sort of childish disregard some of their arguments inevitable devolved to. But it hadn’t prepared him for this.

Hunter lay in bed, face flushed nearly as red as his hair and brow sweaty. He’d kicked the blanket off so they could see the golden droplets of crystal that had formed dancing patterns across his skin, deceptively beautiful. The most dangerous were an almost-collar spiking up about his throat and a heavy scale-like pattern putting far too much pressure on his ankle for safety’s sake.

“I thought we could deal with it. It’s just Rainfire, but then I realized something was wrong and I couldn’t call for help or get out.” Too quiet. Quiet and exhausted and not like Shadow at all. Igneous didn’t know what to do, how he could make this better. You couldn’t fight disease with a lance.

“It can’t be Rainfire. He’s too old for Rainfire.” Intellectually, Igneous knew it did happen. Those were usually the fatal cases. “Why didn’t he get it until this late?”

“Earthen,” Corona breathed like a revelation and a doom curse in one. “What if they don’t have Rainfire? What if they don’t have anything we have?” Meaning Hunter might not have any vaccinations, not even for the truly deadly diseases like Corpse Script or Weblung.

It was hard to even wrap his head around it. Corpse Script? Sure, fine, that one only had a case or two per year. But Rainfire? How could anywhere not have Rainfire? The crystal sickness was practically inevitable.

“What are you talking about? It’s Rainfire, I can’t think of anything more harmless.” Well, at least Shadow was starting to sound like himself again, if with more of an edge than usual.

“The crystal sickness is different for humans,” Venus scolded gently. “Do you have anything to keep the crystal projections from blocking his airways?”

“They’re not too tough in spikes like that; I can break them off without harm.” Thrown full-on into her task, Corona pulled out a clean cloth probably meant for cleaning weapons. She wrapped it around the points of the not-collar, steadily pulling away to try and remove the crystal from Hunter’s skin.

With tired determination, Igneous let Flame anchor him in their hearthfire as he dove into the still-gowing web of the current generation of Spider Riders. There was Brade-and-Dagger, a hollow gaping hole, Lumen-and-Ebony whirling gears-inside-gears, the currently-dim sun of Sparkle-and-Hotarla, Corona-and-Venus’ deep ocean of conviction, Magma-and-Brutus’ mountain-strong determination far away, and father still the mirror-and-ice palace of, “Aqune.”

Call initiated, he brought his manacle closer to his face and tried to ignore how Hunter-and-Shadow’s riotous jungle of a presence had felt more faded and threadbare than the presence of Brade-and-Dagger who were both gh—alternately present by the grace and thoughtfulness of the Oracle.

“Igneous,” Aqune responded promptly. “Is there something wrong at the castle? Any Spider Rider issues?” Igneous liked Aqune despite their history; always professional, he couldn’t help but liken her to the training master he and Slate had shared when they first joined the Arachnian Knights. Portia, too, reminded him of Flame, though she had less of a temper.

“Not quite. How much to do know about Rainfire in humans? We’ve got a fairly serious case.” One advantage of the manacle connection—enemies couldn’t listen in, or even see the picture of light and movement that formed on the manacle’s surface. Not that Buguese was an enemy, exactly, but his entire demeanor, while honorable, left him harder to trust than Grasshop’s goofy sincerity and joy with the Princess or Portia and Aqune’s own acceptance of their actions under the mask.

“Not so much about humans, but I’m sure you’ve guessed that some of Mantid’s policies meant we’ve had serious before.” Right. Because the lack of the Oracle Sun meant more inhospitable weather and less food, on top of a lack of medicinal herbs and vaccines being a primarily human export. That sounded uncomfortably close to a breeding ground for epidemics and plagues.

Igneous leaned on Flame’s solid presence in his manacle. “No, I hadn’t guessed.” He felt an oncoming headache; at least Hunter and Shadow weren’t totally responsible for it, this time. “I—look, sorry, right now we need help with Hunter. But when you get back, I’ll help you corner the Prince for some talks on policy.” Much, much needed talks on policy.

Wait. The Prince had said something before, something about—“Grasshop. Is he going to come down with something, too?” Because that would be a great omen for their budding peace.

“No. He’s had Rainfire before, and he’s Big Four.” Because Mantid wouldn’t want to lose one of his top four generals to something preventable, right. “So, first rule of Rainfire: keep the airways clear.”

“Corona’s on that already.”

“Okay. Next, keep them hydrated. Try water flavored with fruit, thin soup, or broth. Rainfire sucks the body dry.” Listening to Aqune’s voice list all of the things he could do, ways he could help, eased something inside him, the feral, snarling thing that lived in the deepest corner of his mind and so rarely rose to something louder than a hum—and only when helpless, like that first time facing Stags with Corona and nearly watching both she and Venus die, or when Insector Commander Scarab had laid hands on both the Prince and the Princess.

“And lastly, you can crack the crystal with hammer and chisel if necessary, but always hit from the side, and never straight down, and only with a denser cloth in place from the other side to protect from possible shrapnel.”

“Thank you, Aqune. I think we’ll be able to handle it from here.” He let a wry smile creep onto his face, chasing away what he knew to be a grim, worried frown. “Why is Hunter always the troublesome one?” More background than proper attention, Igneous heard Shadow huff out an almost-laugh.

“Talent,” Aqune returned, equally dry. “We’ll be back by tomorrow, in any case. Good luck. The Oracle is with you, that a chosen bond not be cut so soon.”

“Safe travels.” The connection cut, and Igneous hopped that we only meant Aqune and Portia. Even if—when Hunter got better, Igneous didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be too frazzled not to act snippy at Buguese.

“Do we really get another case of divine intervention?” Skeptic, but hopeful, and Igneous turned with Shadow to look at Corona.

“Um, maybe?” Corona paused to press a hand to her heart, closing her eyes. “Not a big one, like with the Oracle Keys, but it feels like the standard blessing that you receive when a manacle chooses you.”

“There’s a blessing?” Shadow sounded lost and a little embarrassed.

“Yes? There are plenty of Spider-Human pairings, but the manacles are the Oracle’s blessing to the ones she favors. They’re why we can transforms, and they help speed up our healing after and during battle, just a little.” She smiled and shook her head, pinning them both with her gaze. “I forget you and Hunter don’t necessarily know these things.”

“I suppose that means you and Hunter will be sitting history lessons with the Princess and Hotarla from now on.” Igneous sighed, forcing his body to relax. They would be able to attend those lessons. They would.

“I’ll go fetch the things Aqune recommended. Will you and Flame sit with them?” Igneous bit down his protest. If he felt useless in this situation, how much more so did Corona feel?

“Go ahead.” Igneous scanned the room, looking for a chair he could move to Hunter’s bedside. He couldn’t call Flame out in such a small space; the room barely fit three humans and a Battle Spider as it was. Yet, the presence of his partner eased some of the longing. “Bring some ice if they have any in the kitchens.”

Corona stepped out the window to Venus, and together they disappeared downwards. Climbing down the side of the building always sped up movements more than taking the stairs and hallways inside—normally Igneous didn’t allow such a thing, but this was something of a minor emergency.

“Don’t worry so much,” Igneous told Shadow as he scooted the chair across the room and tried not to make it more reassurance for himself. “He’s strong. Do you honestly think he can’t deal with a little Rainfire?”

“Venus said they’re different, though.”

“A lot of things are, it seems.” Igneous reflected on the tidbits the Prince had dropped, Aqune’s frank admission of things that shouldn’t have been a surprise if he’d bothered to think, and Shadow’s own startlement. “And while the lack of knowledge about them is understandable, it is not acceptable. Tell me how Battle Spiders view Rainfire.”

There was a stilted feel to Shadow’s legs as he thought; Igneous may not be able to read Shadow’s every thought in the microcosm of body language as Hunter would eventually and had previously shown signs of, but he thought the Spider might’ve taken too much chastisement out of a simple request for more knowledge.

“Shadow, I’m angrier with myself more than anyone else. I am an Arachnian Knight and a Spider Rider. Not knowing such crucial details about our greatest allies is an inexcusable failing on my part, not yours.” No, for all that Shadow was older than Venus, he seemed much less experienced with humans than his battle partner.

Tense mandibles relaxed. “…Rainfire isn’t rare, but it’s not common, either. I’ve never heard of any Battle Spider dying from it, but the legends say that only the strongest even get it. Proof from the Oracle that they are the strongest.” Hesitating, Shadow’s voice seemed to linger over his next thought. “I had it, once.”

Ah. “It’s not your fault Hunter is sick. He most likely got it from the Princess.” Or the Princess had gotten it from him. They’d both been out in that nasty storm last week; this shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all. “Rainfire is a little different with humans. You can only catch it once, and it tends to be milder the younger you are. For all our fussing, Hunter is still thirteen and otherwise healthy. It’s safest for him to catch it now.”

Igneous just wished that they’d been prepared for it.

“We’re back,” Venus announced as she used her webbing to help Corona maneuver—had they stolen the entire pot of broth from the kitchen? “It’s vegetable, carrot, sunpeas, and vinenut.”

“I hope you left some for the Princess.” Not much of a joke, but not as bleak as he’d thought it would come out. “Did you bring any dishware, too?”

“Right here. And the hammer and chisel.” Corona lifted a package of three half-bowls and some towels with suspicious lumps, bound up with spider silk. “I’ve got some bread, too. Can you believe it’s past lunch already?” Was it? He hadn’t been monitoring the time, just the heavy oppression of Shadow’s mood and the liquid flow-freeze of Rainfire’s signature crystal.

Rising, Igneous left the chair to Corona. Taking a towel from the pack of them after a short fight with Venus’ webbing, he unwrapped the plain stone mason’s wooden-hafted hammer and iron chisel. Carefully, he eased the edge of the towel underneath the edge of the crystal formation around Hunter’s left ankle; there was still a little space to wiggle the whole thing into position, but not much. Not enough.

They needed to get this off, now.

Ankles were important parts of footwork, and without good footwork, a Spider Rider was crippled. So, mindful of Aqune’s warnings, Igneous placed the chisel at a forty-five-degree angle. The fell of cool, lifeless metal felt very different from the sunlight-and-hope of his lance. Worried, Igneous switched hands. Flame felt Igneous’ fussing and stirred in the manacle; the outpouring of gentle warmth increased, suffusing his skin, and it felt better. Not right, just better.

Picking up the hammer in his other hand, he touched the head to the chisel. Then he pulled back slightly and tried to swing as gently as he could. Metal met metal, but the chisel only chimed softly off the crystal despite the vibration ringing up his arms. Too gentle.

Igneous swung a second time, worrying that it was too hard even as a crack in the crystal opened up with a sound like an Insector machine’s cannon. Hands almost numb, he set down hammer and chisel to pry at the crack with his fingers until he could pull away whole chunks. Held up to the light, they sparkled; beautiful and potentially deadly.

Would Hunter know the tradition of keeping a piece to mark your survival? Probably not. And the Earthen boy had learned to fit in well enough that learning what he knew, and what he was clueless about could no longer be divined with a simple look at his face.

Suddenly more exhausted than he’d ever been before, Igneous accepted a miniature loaf of bread and a half bowl of the broth from Corona. He had to set it on his knees to keep his trembling hands from spilling it all over the floor. Even dipping the bread into the broth didn’t provoke his appetite, and the bite he took anyway tasted like ash on his tongue.

“So now all we have is monitoring duty.” Hurry up and wait. It grated on his need for solutions now just as much as it had when his and Slate’s training master had first thrown the phrase in his face.

“Shadow, Venus, and I can stay, if you want to go train.” Corona’s offer was genuine and well-meant, as always, but Igneous didn’t need the sharp temperature flare from his manacle to know she’d annoyed them both.

“We’ll stay.” Curt, just a little, and disappointed. But he’d curled back the jagged edge of his temper to keep from snapping at her.

“Okay,” Corona accepted, and that was that.

The light from the Oracle Sun shifted the sky’s hues as the day wore on. Hunter continued to sleep (typical, but better than awake and hallucinating), but his fever fluctuated up and down. Despite proving he had the capability to enter and leave manacle space at will, Shadow stayed out. Venus, too, perched outside the window like a friendly, soothing guardian. Corona and Igneous switched places fairly often, and occasionally paced when the tension spiraled too high. Twice more, the hammer and chisel were necessary.

Only when the oracle sun had gone deep purple and the sky a velvety black, fading to green not dissimilar form Brutus’ coloring around the city and the distant horizon-lights made by watch lanterns did something finally change.

Igneous had lit the candles and was contemplating finding a firepot to re-heat the broth and provide additional warmth when Hunter stirred. A low moan started it, followed by a shiver that turned into a full-body shudder as he struggled awake.

“Wh—Corona? Igneous?” Hunter blinked hazy green eyes at them, slowly resolving towards clarity. “Sparkle! Shadow, why didn’t you wake me—”

“He tried.” Igneous leaned against the wall and allowed his shoulders to drift downwards into something less likely to be considered confrontational.

“Huh?” His gaze drifted to the window, past Venus’ silhouette. “That’s not morning, is it? Why’s it so late?”

“Both you and Princess Sparkle caught Rainfire. You’ve been sick all day.” Corona reached out, squeezing one of his hands in her own. “We’ve been really worried. Here, let me help you.”

“Sick? Why am I covered in this stuff?” With more active participation, the crystal began crumbling away in larger sections. “Is this like an Inner World cold or something?”

“No. You only get Rainfire once in your life.” Colds were the bane of every Arachnian Knight and Spider Rider—or just anyone who wanted to do anything productive. It was hard to do anything with a stuffed up nose and only able to get three words out between coughs and sneezes.

“So like chicken pox then?” Presumably. Hunter would know Earthen diseases better than anyone else. “Can’t you get vaccinated for it? Ah, vaccines—”

“We have them. And you’re getting them. But Rainfire has always been the one big exception.” Igneous sighed, straightening up to roll his shoulders. “You should get some more sleep, hunter. Tomorrow is a free day for you, Shadow, the Princess, and Hotarla. You can reschedule your training for a later date.”

With a short, cordial nod, Igneous stepped out of the room. He closed the door behind him and leaned on the frame, bringing his left wrist up to rest the manacle on his forehead.

“What was that about?” He heard Hunter hiss, despite the closed door. “I thought we were getting along better than that!”

“Igneous always acts like that after you’ve really worried him, is all. It’s second stage after the fussing.” Corona sounded a breath away from giggling. “You should’ve seen him after my first official mission as a Spider Rider. Right, Venus?”

“Even that wasn’t as pad as this, today. He picked the lock, you know.”

“Igneous can pick locks?”

“Yes? I mean, he doesn’t normally carry them because they don’t carry through the transformation.” More soft laughter. “Usually he just uses them to get into Prince Lumen’s study to wrap a blanket around him when he falls asleep doing paperwork.”

“Huh. And Sparkle and I, we’ll be okay? I’m kina dory we missed our training session.”

“You’ll be fine with just a bit more rest.”

“Of course Rainfire can’t keep you down. You’re as tenacious as kudzu.”

“Hey, bug! I didn’t explain that reference so you could use it on me!”

As Hunter and Shadow started arguing, Igneous let a little laugh of his own escape him. Everything would be all right. His team would be alright. At true ease for the first time since this morning, Igneous left to find his own bed. After all, he and Flame would need to be well-rested if them wanted to wrangle the Prince tomorrow instead of letting him slack off to hover around Sparkle, twice as attentive as he’d denied this morning.

~~~

Notes:

Rainfire is a little like chicken pox (childhood disease, can only get it once). It causes mild paralysis when you have it, which is why Hunter wakes up when the disease runs it’s course. Like with sleep paralysis, if you wake up/open your eyes while paralyzed, you may hallucinate something nightmarish preventing you from moving.

I always found it interesting that Igneous is the only Spider Rider who has military training. Yes, Corona and Venus have training, but Igneous is specifically also an Arachnian Knight. He’d be trained to be strong and patient, even though we can see (in the episode with the play), that he does have a bit of a temper/high strung personality. I think this training would also make him accept Aqune and Portia; they were only doing their duty until they weren’t, but that is mind control and not their fault.

In the books, the Spiders were telepathic. I’m incorporating this a little bit, but less outright telepathy and more Igneous and Flame don’t talk because they know each other so well that they don’t need to talk.

All the manacle stuff is head cannon. This includes the idea that when Spiders speak from inside the manacle, they can pick and choose whether it’s just their Rider who hears them, or everyone else, too (based on a bit of information that Ebony is supposed to be surprisingly chatty with Lumen, and yet we only ever hear him speak 2-3 times at all).

I also wanted to explore how the manacles could “call” each other, and I used that to do more of the Spider Riders have a profound bond with their spiders bit. This is also where the “only another Spider Rider can hear this call,” because they didn’t really seem to be afraid of using it, even when there might be (and rightly should have been, given that they were at war) enemies/spies around.

The bit about Shadow being older than Venus but less experienced with people is because he seems experienced with the Inner World (certainly more so than Hunter), but he’s been off fighting Insectors, and probably didn’t hang out around villages much.

I wish we’d seen more Spiders than the ones who had Riders. Otherwise, how else would people have even known in the first place that a spider-human pair = Spider Rider way back in the beginning of history? So I headcannon that spider-human pairings aren’t rare, but Spider Riders are (only being eight) and that makes them special (preserving main cast importance). The bit about blessings/healing--it’s a shounen with a bunch of magical girl overtones. How else could they have survived some of the faintly ridiculous things that happened?

[srrrokka]

WIP game: worry!

[Give me a word and I’ll quote it from my fic WIPs]

Please note that my WIPs are mostly a mess of notes, half written scenes, dialogue snippets, and so on, therefore this might look a wee bit weird.

I think this one ended up having all the good bits somehow hahaha

 Tethered AU

1)

One of the men stood up from the table and approached him slowly. He looked completely unhurried, unconcerned with his guest’s state. “Poison. Don’t worry, it’s not going to kill you.”

Ah.

Corvo tried to get up, do something, anything, but all he managed was getting on his knees before the two men. One of them pushed his chin up with the tip of his sword.

“Maybe he should worry.” He remarked, looking down on him. “After all, our client explicitly wants him alive. For what, I wonder.”

The way he said it made Corvo shiver. Couple of possibilities passed his head and none of them were pleasant.

2)

A warm hand guides his head back up and Corvo is met with an expression he hadn’t seen on Daud’s face yet - worry, he’s worried for him.

________________________

 Scratch Session

1)

What was unusual and somewhat worrying, he thought as he got up to find some clothes, was that he couldn’t remember his current life. It most often was something that was already there, something that he didn’t have to additionally remember, not even after recalling that he was from a completely different timeline. Not like his other memories from all the other lives that would return when they so pleased. It never happened before…

2)

He looked at his reflection critically, analysing the differences this new version of his life brought with it to his appearance. He seemed younger without his scar, without his broken nose, with skin smooth and unweathered by decades of working outside in the relentless Gristolian weather. The slimmer build of an aristocrat was something new but even as a royal he clearly didn’t let himself go. He sighed and closed the wardrobe slowly. He looked healthy, happy even. There were barely any worry lines on his face.

Was it weird to be jealous of your own life, Daud wondered, making his way through a small private library to his office.

________________________

 Witch Your Single Word (Token)

1)

Billie: Killian. Attano. Stop right this instant.

K: [curses under his breath. Corvo slowly stands up]

B: Attano, what is this supposed to be? And you better have a good explanation.

C: Might wanna ask someone that is actually required to answer you, *lieutenant* Lurk. [Spits some blood on the ground.]

B: [takes out her sword and turns to Corvo]

K: It was just a small, friendly quibble. Wasn’t it, Corvo? We just got a little carried away. We’re gonna go now, don’t worry about it. [Grabs Corvo under the arm and literally drags him away as fast as he can]

K: You. Have. Fucking. Balls. Or you’re just really stupid. She would literally shred you.

2)

K: Now you eat.

C: [takes his mask off and grabs the knife and bread to cut a slice]

K: are you alright, man? You haven’t tried to wreck anything in a surprisingly long time. Not that I’m particularly worried. Mostly suspicious.

C: [looks at Killian with his really hazy eyes] Yeah, I’m fine. [Looks right back at his hands, making a really crude sandwich]

K: [frowns] Bullshit. Have you seen yourself in the mirror recently? You look like you’re about to keel over. You better not be getting the plague…

C: [around his bread] I’m not, don’t worry. I think the marked are somehow immune anyway.

3)

Corvo looks up at Daud again, this time with a surprising calmness. The man looks tense, there’s a deep worry line between his eyebrows and his fist is wrapped tight around the token.

4)

He groans and folds over himself. There is a sound of a transversal right next to his bed. But he doesn’t look up, just makes another displeased sound and rolls one of his shoulders.

“Corvo? Are you alright?” Daud’s voice is filled with worry, he sits down at Corvo’s feet.

“Yeah,” Corvo’s voice is horribly gravelly and he clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just- everything hurts.”

________________________

 Soulmate AU

1)

Corvo: Just make me walk again and I’ll worry about the rest later.

Kieran: Oh, you mean worry about it when you’re dead? Attano, you really are one foot in the grave. It’s a wonder you got this far with this nastiness in your system.

C: [huffs annoyed] Void, I don’t have the time for this…

K: None of us have time for dying.

2)

Daud: The amount of trust you put in me is somewhat worrying.

Corvo: Well, I wouldn’t mind being stabbed to death right about now. [when instead of coaxing a laugh out of Daud it only makes his frown deepen, he adds with a sigh:] It was a joke, Daud. I don’t know how true it is, but I like to believe you wouldn’t hurt me.

________________________

  Fugue Feast Story

“Maybe next time I should order a pear soda instead, hm?” His eyes slide to the man’s hip where he can see a small dagger attached at his belt. Long fingers clad in leather wrapped around his jaw and gently turned his head back to their owner.

“Don’t worry, it’s just for protection.” The man says, small smile dancing on his narrow lips. His thumb brushes along Corvo’s mouth and Corvo has the stupidest idea yet, he opens his mouth and licks on the gloved digit. The pupils of the red masked man widen and Corvo feels a burst of idiotic satisfaction.

________________________

 Blind AU

But the moment burst like a soap bubble when a trickle of blood suddenly poured out of Corvo’s nose. Corvo licked his upper lip reflexively and frowned. He touched it and looked at his fingers to confirm his suspicion. He sighed but didn’t look alarmed.

“It’s fine, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He tried to reassure both Thomas and Daud who in the meantime approached the other two and was now having a closer look at Corvo with a deep frown on his face.

Out of lack of better options Corvo put the hem of his sleeve to his nose to soak up the blood that only started flowing heavier.

________________________

 Apocalypse AU

Anatole: [Picks up a small whale oil powered torch and checks the pupil reaction, while at it:] My biggest worry was that you might have a severe concussion. You’ve been unconscious for two days. But you seem to be quite fine. [She straightens with a smile] To come out of a fall like that with a couple bruises and a cut? [clicks her tongue and shakes her head] The Outsider must have a particular liking for you.

________________________

 DXMD fic

Jensen: Koller, who did this to you?

Koller: Wha- oh, this? That’s nothing, don’t worry about it, Jensen. I just had a little… bar brawl, you could say.

J: Koller…

K: Listen, Adam… I trust you, I really do, but- I just can’t talk with you about this, okay man? Unless, I really want to swim belly up with the fishes.

________________________

 Dark Matter

“Oh, no, no. Don’t worry. He won’t do anything.” Corvo’ s eyes don’t leave his double’s as he lifts his right arm, open palm up. A string of blackness appears in it and he closes his fingers around it. A blackness that wraps around Daud’s throat in a blink of an eye like a leash. He yanks on it hard enough to force the assassin to bow over with a startled grunt, his face now level with Corvo’s. “Will you, Daud?” He looks at him - grin too wide, eyes too black.

“Attano.” Daud barks out his name through clenched teeth. It’s a warning. It’s a reminder.

________________________

 Save Game

“Em…” Corvo’s voice is gentle but full of sadness. There it goes. The cat is out of the bag now. All of them. Emily runs up to him and hugs him as she cries into his shirt. He wishes he could hug her back but his arms are bound behind his back. “Shhhhh, Em… It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry.”

[queen-scribbles]

Gather Your Party

Second fill for @pillarspromptsweekly​ 45: Bit Parts. This one’s Two-tone Weaxel and Co. from the Something Secret quest, because I got curious about how they wound up needing to combine parties.

Two hours in and they’d already lost the damn trail.

This some kind of omen? Weaxel thought sarcastically as he watched Key and Bron scour the forest floor for some sign of where they were supposed to go. He wasn’t the superstitious sort, but between Bron’s crossbow breaking just as they were about to set off, his own lucky dagger going missing, and now this, he was starting to wonder.

“Gods, I know we were warned the trail was faint in places, but this is ridiculously,” Lila commented under her breath next to him. “Think we’re cursed, Weax? Or is Bron just not as good as he thinks he is?”

The towheaded dwarf looked up long enough to toss her a playful rude gesture for her teasing dig before going back to work.

“I’m hopin’ it’s neither,” Weaxel said, answering the question even though she’d been at least half joking. “Bron’s good, and that needs to stay true so we don’t run into any nasty traps.” His ears swiveled at the sound of something skittering though the trees nearby. “And I’m really hoping we aren’t cursed. We ain’t done a blazing thing to earn it, and would put a serious damper on the adventurin’ business.”

“Heh. Glad you’re a glass half full type,” Lila deadpanned, playing with the talisman of Galawain that hung around her neck. “Sometimes there ain’t a reason for things, boss. Gods don’t always need to be wronged or anything to curse some poor bastard.”

“And sometimes a string of unlucky breaks is just a coincidence,” Weaxel countered. “Though I will admit this one’s startin’ to push things.”

Even as the words left his lips, Key whistled and motioned them to her. “I think I found our trail!”

Sure enough, buried under under a large tree felled by a recent storm, rested the next trail marker they were looking for. Thus invigorated, the four of them pressed on, hoping the rest of this would be smooth sailing.

************

It only got worse. Turned out another adventuring company had seen the same posting, and when they crossed paths at the mouth of the ruin, it very nearly came to blows. The only reason it didn’t was Lila pointing out there were two corridors into the ruins and suggesting each group take one. “You can even pick first,” she said.

“Thank ye, we will,” the other leader grunted, shoving his pistol back in his belt. They picked the passage Weaxel had been planning to avoid anyway, but it turned not to make any difference. Both routes were deathtraps. Between Key and Bron they were able to avoid or disarm most of the obstacles, and they were all quiet enough to sneak past any beasts inhabiting the tunnels. They had almost made it to what Weaxel hoped was the heart of the place when their bad luck struck again.

Bron’s hand slipped while disarming a trap and he set it off instead. The resulting  lance of sun-bright light grazed Key and hit him dead on. When Weaxel blinked the spots out of his eyes, Bron was dead and Key was clutching her side, teeth grit against the pain.

“Blazing beasts take this place!” he snarled, and kicked the wall. “We should just leave now, ‘fore anything worse happens.”

“Thought you weren’t superstitious,” Lila commented as she knelt to look at Key’s side.

“I’m not, but whatever’s in there can’t possible be worth dying for,” he said irritably. “I’d rather back out now, while we can, and try for somethin’ else than run into something worse and suffer another loss.” 

“You know he’d call you chicken for that,” Key tossed back, grimacing slightly as Lila bandaged up her injured side.

“Probably,” Weaxel conceded. “Doesn’t make me any less right.”

“Oh, come on, Weax,” Lila said as she straightened. “Aren’t you the least bit curious what’s worth hiding behind so many blazing traps?”

“A little. But are you curious enough to gamble your life? Especially considering we no longer have our trap expert?” He gestured at Bron’s body. “Key’s good, but he was better. We miss somethin’, maybe you’re the one who goes flyin’ back to the Wheel.”

Lila considered for a minute before nodding. “I’ll take that gamble. I’d make a lousy follower of Galawain if I gave up seeking answers and knowledge because it got a little risky.”

“Fine,” Weaxel sighed. He doubted the wisdom of pressing on, but maybe the worst was behind them. “Key?”

“I’m with Lila,” she said. “Long as we go slow it should be alright.”

Overruled two to one--even if he was technically the leader--Weaxel shrugged.  “Alright, then.” His gut said they had a point. The death of a friend was a high price to pay, but if they turned back now, they’d have paid it for nothing. Or worse, for someone else to walk away with the spoils, depending on how the other team fared. And they’d traveled far enough into the ruin that hopefully it wasn’t too much of a gamble to say the worst was behind them.

So they pressed on. Slowly--gingerly, in Key’s case--making their way through the crumbling halls. The gamble paid off, and the trio eventually found themselves standing before a door that unmistakably led to a main sanctum of some kind. It was elaborately carved, the handles made of some metal that shone even through a patina of grime. Weaxel wasn’t familiar with the figures depicted in the carvings, but then, he’d never been particularly devout. Lila didn’t seem recognize any of them either, however, which was a surprise. There was no sign of the other adventurers. Weaxel wondered briefly if they were just making slower progress or if they’d met some unsavory end like Bron.

“There’s no traps,” Key said with a frown, still staring at the door.

“What?” Weaxel turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “You sure?”

“Positive,” she nodded. “There’s no traps, not even a lock, Weaxel. This doesn’t make any sense.”

It really didn’t, not with everything it had taken to get this far. Who snarled up every step of the journey except the last, most important one? “Sure this is where we’re supposed to go?”

Another nod. “Nothin’ to do but see what’s inside, I guess.”

All three of them tensed warily as they swung the doors open, but nothing happened. No gout of fire or burst of toxins, no beasts lying in wait for the foolish. Just a large open space and short flight of stairs to a dais with a pedestal across the room. They were still wary as they crossed the room, as they mounted the dais, as Key inspected the pedestal and the chest atop it for any sign of traps. She found nothing, and then delicately picked the ancient, rusty lock.

It proved a waste of effort, as the wood around the hinges had rotted and the whole lid fell off in her hand when she opened it. “Oops. Hope whoever posted that bounty only wanted the contents.”

“They did,” Weaxel assured her as he peered at said contents: a peridot almost the size of his hand, intricately carved in a style that matched the door. He carefully hefted the jewel, turned it over to ensure it was in good condition, and carefully secured it in a leather pouch before stowing it inside his armor.

There was the ominous clack of a pistol hammer being drawn back. “I’ll take that.”

Weaxel spun to face the voice and found the other group’s leader, face bloody and armor singed, raising his pistol to aim at the three of them. He crossed his arms. “Why? We worked just as hard for it. Why should we just give it to you for nothing?”

“Your lives ain’t nothin’, you little catfucker,” the man growled, his free hand drifting toward the second pistol in his belt. “I lost my whole blazin’ team looking for that damn gem, and by Magran’s fires, I’m not leavin’ without it.” He leveled the pistol at Key, likely taking the bandages around her middle as proof she’d be the easiest target. “It’s your choice how many of you walk out of here.”

Lila snorted a rush of air out her nose, gave her talisman an almost vicious squeeze, and threw herself at him with a wild yell. “Run!!”

Weaxel didn’t pause to argue, even as he watched her shoulder snap back with a spray of blood at the man’s first shot. He just grabbed Key’s arm and ran. Both of them flinched at the sharp report of another pistol shot, but it hadn’t been aimed at them. They didn’t stop running until they reached the entrance of the ruin, and then just to conceal themselves in the underbrush.

Weaxel flicked Key a worried look at her heavy, pained breathing, but she shook her head in assurance she’d be fine. They waited in their hiding place for three hours, until the sky started to darken, on the slim gamble Lila would emerge from the ruin.

She didn’t, but neither did the other adventurer. Apparently her last gamble had paid off.

Finally giving up the last threads of hope, Weaxel and Key carefully, cautiously, moved a short way further from from the entrance before making camp for the night. Drained in more ways than one, they were both quiet as they ate dinner. Key must have been hurting because she barely protested when Weaxel insisted on taking first watch so she could get some rest.

Both were fervently grateful when the night passed without incident.

************

In perhaps the biggest Fuck you the universe had given them yet, the “interested party” for whom they’d retrieved the gem--a hooded figure Hel-bent on being mysterious--paid them all of fifteen hundred pands. While not the shabbiest price for a single gem, and a peridot at that, it hardly seemed worth everything it had cost them.

“I’d rather have Lila and Bron,” Key muttered, shaking the coin purse as they made their way to the Goose & Fox.

“Me, too,” Weaxel acknowledged, dodging a pair of folk and ignoring the dirty looks they tossed his way. “What say we get rip-roaring drunk in their honor and from here out only take jobs from more reputable sources?”

Key smiled for the first time that day. “Sounds good.”

They’d only just started in on their first round when the grinning--surprisingly sociable--man at the next table over nodded a greeting. “You look like you’ve had a run of shit luck, friends.”

“Because we have,” Weaxel said frankly. “Lost a couple friends on our last job and got shafted on the reward to boot.”

“That is shit luck,” chipped in the pale-haired woman sitting next to the man.  “Our sympathies.”

“We lost our leader ourselves,” the man continued conversationally. “Name’s Daedon, by the way. This is Ilfa” --a nod to the woman-- “and Hurdy”--a nod to the towering aumaua on his other side. “We been together awhile.”

“Weaxel and Key, and same,” Weaxel said, getting a good grip on his tankard.  “Share a toast to the fallen?”

“Aye,” Deadon nodded approvingly, as he and his friends raised their cups.

One toast led to a second, then a third, and before they knew it they were five rounds in, swapping stories about the newly departed as if they’d all known each other for years. None of them later remembered who first suggested joining forces, but the plan was quickly--rousingly--agreed upon.

“You alright bein’ led by an orlan?” Weaxel asked, eyeing Daedon over the edge of tankard number six.

Daedon grinned broadly, drink sloshing as he set it on the table. “No change for us. Our former leader--Berath guard him--was orlan. Long as you’re fair and let us have fun, makes no never mind to us.”

More than a little surprised at how easy that had been--the alcohol probably helped--Weaxel shrugged and held out a hand to shake. “Partners, then.”

“Partners,” Daedon agreed emphatically as he shook the offered hand.

They went back to drinking. Tomorrow they’d sober up and go to Admeth’s Den, see if the Dozens had work for another adventuring party, Weaxel reflected, but for now they could just celebrate the forging of a new partnership. He had a good feeling about this gamble.

[imagine-loki]

The Shadow Of Your Heart

TITLE: The Shadow Of Your Heart

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 4

AUTHOR: FadingCoast

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you are Sigyn who saves Loki from torture.

RATING: Mature.

NOTES/WARNINGS: Sexual innuendos (no explicit sex) / blood / violence / torture.

Loki and Sigyn have known eachother since childhood. Tired of waiting, she gets engaged to another man, but Loki won’t accept it, and tricks Sigyn into marrying him instead. Will they get through married life, children and Ragnarok?

Chapter notes: Lots of fluff.

Recommended song: Between Two Lungs - Florence and the Machine

Also on Ao3

.-

Ch. 4: The breath that passed from you to me

Life at the palace was easy to get used to, easy to get bored of as well.

Everyone revelled in either fighting or feasting. Most of the time, both.

The feasting she could deal with, but Sigyn didn’t particularly enjoy the combat training. She wasn’t physically strong, though she made up for that in agility and speed. She also realized that ballet classes were more useful to her than lifting weights. And, the best part: due to her magic, she was always two steps ahead of her opponent: she would know exactly what their next move would be.

Of course, this ability of hers wasn’t common knowledge. So when Loki set her up to fight Sif (and place a huge bet in her favor) Sigyn knew where this was coming from.

“It will be fun!” He had said. And he was right.

Sigyn remembered how Sif, Thor, Volstagg and Fandral would make fun of Loki when they were in their pre-teens. She remembered how they would belittle him for preferring to read and work on his magic instead of clashing with makeshift weapons. She remembered how he was always confronted with the fact that he wasn’t Thor. It took Loki years to feel comfortable enough in his own skin to fight back with what he knew. His magic was his weapon: shape shifting, astral projection, illusions, deceit, and that bit of mind reading he still struggled with.

The “warrior kids” didn’t like it, in their eyes that was cheating.

It would be fun to turn the tables for a bit.

Word of the unlikely match spread out, Sigyn suspected that Loki had something to do with it. When the day arrived, the training arena was full.

I am going to kill you.

Loki smiled, his wife staring at him from the floor.

Kill Sif first, if you please.

I think that’s a little extreme. But I will try and humiliate her for your amusement. Granted she doesn’t break my back first.

Have I mentioned that I love you?

Not this week, so thank you.

Sif entered the training pit, full in armor and was greeted by the roaring applause of all her soldiers. With a smug smirk on her face, Sif stared at Sigyn.

“Are you sure you wanna do this, little one?” Sif taunted. She looked all powerful: a true goddess with her golden plate armor, spear in one hand, shield in the other.

“Well, we’re already here.” Sigyn shrugged. Her leather vest paled in comparison, her daggers looked small and frail in her hands. But she knew she didn’t need much. She just wanted to make Sif angry, and that was easy.

Sif measured Sigyn’s stance again, and charged. Of course, Sigyn could see what was coming before it came, so she dodged Sif’s attack with ease.

Sif charged again, and again Sigyn evaded her.

“Are you just going to run around that whole time?” Sif was getting exasperated, how could Sigyn be that fast?

Sigyn rolled the daggers in her hands. “Stop trying to hit me and hit me, then.” She said with a smirk.

Sif realized that Sigyn had cornered herself on one end of the pit. She thought it was weird, but at least she wouldn’t have room to dodge her again. She attacked, spear stretched out front, ready to impale Sigyn.

Sif could see the smirk on Sigyn’s face right before she jumped and landed on Sif’s spear. With perfect balance, Sigyn took another jump and landed behind Sif, taking time to kick the back of her knee. Sif stumbled. With a cry, Sif turned around waving her spear, trying to surprise Sigyn, but she simply bent down on her back and the spear wheezed over her head. Sif’s shield, however, she couldn’t manage to avoid, and took a blow on her arm that sent her rolling on the floor. The crowd cheered.

“Congrats, you finally hit me.” Sigyn said, gaining her footing again.

Auch! That’s going to hurt later.

Shut up, Loki.

Sif wasn’t giving Sigyn any time to recover, and charged again. Sigyn rolled under Sif’s shield, this time taking revenge for being struck: as she rolled, she put one of her daggers to Sif’s thigh, letting slide deep enough to draw blood, but not permanent damage.

Sif shouted. “You bitch!” Sigyn just smirked.

Winded and furious, Sif dropped her shield. If Sigyn was that fast, she’d have to be faster.

The sparring got even more aggressive. Sigyn knew the only thing protecting her from being skewered by Sif was her ability to see what she would do beforehand. Sif was stronger, more trained and right now she was seething.

With 3 powerful blows, Sif was towering Sigyn, spear mere inches from Sigyn’s face, only stopped by her daggers.

“You cannot overpower me.” Sif said, pressing the spear harder.

“I’m not trying to.” Sigyn taunted. It was time to actually use her magic. Sif only saw the golden glow in Sigyn’s eyes.

In a flash, Sigyn was out of Sif’s weight. Sif fell forward, her attempt to gain balance was stopped by one of Sigyn’s daggers on her ankle. Sif lost it and collapsed hard on the floor, her spear clattering far from her reach. Another flash and Sigyn straddling her back, knees on each shoulder, pinning her to the ground, dagger posed to her neck.

“Yield.” Sigyn demanded.

The audience went absolutely silent. Sif knew she could easily get up, but Sigyn would still be attached to her back and she would still have a dagger on her neck.

“You cheated.” Sif spat. “Magic is the cheater’s way.”

“You have your tricks. I have mine. If you expect everyone to always play by your rules, you’ll always lose.” Sigyn pulled a handful of Sif’s hair and pressed the dagger deeper in her neck. “Yield.”

“YOU CHEATED!” Sif said, sputtering all kind of curses.

“Sif, please…” Sigyn mused. “You didn’t lose because I cheated, you lost because you’re too predictable. I’m not nearly as strong, or trained, or disciplined as you, yet here we are. Now yield, so I can get a bath.”

Sif’s pride was shattered. “Fine.” She muttered. “I yield.”

Sigyn let go of Sif’s hair and stood up. “Make a lesson out of this. Don’t underestimate your opponent, don’t expect them to fight by your rules and be ready to improvise.” Sigyn offered her hand to Sif, but she slapped it away and stood up by herself. “You’re a great warrior, Sif. You’ll become General of the Asgardian Army one day. Don’t let your pride get in the way.”

Sigyn dismissed her daggers with magic and limped out the silent arena.

I love you even more now.

Shut up, Loki. You owe me a big one.

Anything you want, darling.

Right now I’d like a bath.

.-

After that, life became a little more interesting in the palace. Sigyn now had to accommodate a few training sessions with Sif (who surprisingly had gotten over her pride and “agreed” to train with Sigyn), between ballet classes, sorcery and healer training.

The bond she shared with Loki became even more useful, as he was being dragged everywhere by Thor. Apparently after Sigyn’s fight with Sif, Thor thought of a use for Loki’s powers, not only to train with him, but to take him into raids whenever necessary.

Loki would say he hated it, but Sigyn knew better.

I hate this

Liar

Okay, I don’t dislike it that much.

Face it, you’re thrilled that they might see you as one of the team.

Still, I can think of better things I could be doing instead of hanging out with these muscle-heads.

Me too, but I’m busy.

Loki smirked to himself. By the way, can I borrow the foresight? I’m afraid Thor is leading us right into a trap.

From sharing tricks to having conversations, each other���s presence in their heads became natural. Sigyn even learned to partially block Loki when he was getting annoying or she needed concentration.

They also discovered that the bond worked marvels when they were asleep, and that it activated whenever one of them was feeling a strong emotion, like rage or fear.

Even their seidr had mixed colors.

Loki’s seidr had been green for as long as he could remember, while Sigyn’s was golden. Now whenever either of them casted a spell, it would have flashes of green and gold.

Frigga thought it was beautiful.

.-

Loki was reading in the library, grateful for the day of peace his brother’s hangover had allowed him. He had missed to spend his mornings there, devouring books instead of getting demolished by Thor. There was a limit to how much his muscles could take.

“Loki.” Sif said, interrupting his reading. “Have you seen Sigyn? We were supposed to train this morning.”

“I haven’t seen her since she left at breakfast.” Loki looked up from his book and immediately tried to reach Sigyn, with no luck. “I assumed she was with you.”

“Well, she didn’t show up. She hasn’t been feeling right these last few days.”

This was news to Loki. Sif kept talking, but he was busy trying to contact Sigyn.

Sigyn?

In a minute, love.

Where are you? Are you alright?

There was no answer, and Loki started to panic a little. “Maybe she’s with Eir? She has been taking into healing. Maybe she just got her days mixed up.” Loki offered. “Or she thought none of you would be in a fit state to train after the feast last night.”

Sif huffed. “I am NOT those oafs.” Loki smirked and opened his mouth to remind Sif of one of the many times she was one of those oafs. “Don’t say it.” Sif cut him up. “Just tell her to reach me.”

“Will do.” Loki waited for Sif to leave the library before he scrambled for the door and sprinted down to the Healing Room. He was half way there when Sigyn stopped blocking him.

Sigyn, where are you?

Our chambers.

Is everything okay?

Silence again. Loki ran to their chambers and found the door half open. Sigyn was standing by the balcony.

“I have a surprise for you.” Sigyn turned and smiled to Loki.

“After freaking me out?” He huffed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were not feeling well?”

Sigyn smiled again and reached for his hand. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” While they spoke, Sigyn took Loki’s hand and pulled him close. “Stop blocking me, it’s annoying.”

“Fine.” Sigyn said, and placed Loki’s hand on his lower abdomen. “Look for yourself.”

Loki gasped audibly. “Are you–? Is it–? Wait a second… Twins?”

Sigyn nodded, a big grin spreading on her face as Loki took her in his arms and spun around.

“That’s why you’ve been feeling ill?” Loki said, putting Sigyn back on the floor.

“They are your kids, of course they’ve been misbehaving.” Sigyn said as Loki pushed a string of hair behind her ear. He had never been so overcome with happiness. He couldn’t even articulate the words, so he took Sigyn’s hand and linked their fingers together letting her read him.

Sigyn buried her head in Loki’s chest, arms around his waist.

“You’ll have to tell Sif you cannot longer train with her.” Loki said, returning the hug.

“You’ll have to tell your mother.” Sigyn said. “That’s going to be something.”

“For the norns, she’s gonna flip out, isn’t she?”

“And come up with some kind of announcement ball or something.” Both giggled. Sigyn took a deep breath, drinking in Loki’s silence. “What are you afraid of?” She asked, looking up to Loki’s face.

“Huh, you picked that up.”

“Whatever relationship you have with your father, just know that you are not him.” Sigyn said, cupping Loki’s face in her hands and staring right at him.

“I’ll try not to. I promise.” He said, leaning into Sigyn’s hands and kissing her palm. “I love you. All three of you.”

“We love you too.”

.-

[forged-through-trials]

Before we left the city, for what was sure to be a long exodus, I decided to pay one more visit to Mercator at “A Fighting Chance”, to see if he’d made any progress with Mephala’s blade. To my surprise, he’d made quite a bit, actually, producing a number of replicas of amazing quality, in an assortment of dagger, one-handed, and great-sword variants. ...all of which were WAY too expensive for me to actually buy. By the Nine, the great swords were all over twelve-thousand Septims, each! I could buy a house for that kind of dosh! ...but they’re kataaaaanaaaas! I waaaaaaaant theeeeeeem! So I guess I have a new goal in life; to afford one of these magnificent swords. I’ll be sure to add it to the ever-growing list of things I need to do, including the Mobius Strip of; “Fight vampires, get legendary sword, use it to fight vampires.” And hey, since Mercator was done with the sword, he said I could take it back. So... I now once again own this thrice-cursed blade as a reminder of all the innocent blood spilled due to Mephala’s conspiracies. ...yay? That done, Ruin and I vamoosed as quickly as we could. I told Ruin that I had ‘convinced’ Soris to part with the staff with a lot of smooth talk and a little coin, and he seemed to buy it. The trip back was just as unremarkable as the trip there, and after a few hours, we were back in Bravil! First up, was delivering the package we’d picked up, and as fate would have it, I was to deliver it to Aryaire at the Bravil Mages Guild. Perfect, since once I was done, I could turn right around and talk to Kud-Ei about that Recommendation.

Kud-Ei: “You’re back. And you have the staff? Excellent!” Trials: “I hope Ardaline appreciates what I went through for this; having to deal with both a creepy stalker and a crazy hermit.” Kud-Ei: “Your efforts will not go unrewarded. You’ll be granted a glowing recommendation from me, and I’ll even teach you a new spell to sweeten the pot.” Trials: “Oh, sweet, free magic lessons. Lookit me, Ruin, I’m turning into a real mage and stuff.” Ruin: Gave a thoughtful smile and turned to Kud-Ei. “We thank you, madam. May we ask, what is the word around town?” Kud-EI: She paused to ponder that a moment. “Well, have you heard the story of the Loches? Particularly, Aleron Loche, who has gone missing. Poor Ursanne has been beside herself since he disappeared, but hasn’t been able to find anyone willing to help.” Trials: “So that makes at least two people in this town who’re missing that the guards aren’t doing anything about.” I rolled my eyes. “Well, looks like it falls to the Forged-Through-Trials Detective Agency to do the guards’ job for them, again!” Kud-Ei: “With you on the case, I’m sure Aleron is as good as found. “You’ll likely find Ursanne at the chapel. She’s spent most of every day there praying for her husband’s safe return.”

With that tip-off, we made for the chapel. We got a few dirty looks after delivering that package the other day, but I just ignored them and looked for Ursanne Loche, whom we found weeping and praying, as was predicted. Ursanne: “You... I’ve seen you popping in and out of the Fighters and Mages guilds. I’m sorry to impose--” Trials: “Oh, it’s no imposition at all. I’ve heard around town that your husband was in trouble, and helping people is what I do!” Ursanne: “R-really? I’m... not wealthy, you know. I’m not sure I could afford to pay for your help.” Trials: “Hmm... payment is nice, but listening to your story, at least, is something I can offer for free.” Ursanne: “...oh, thank you!” She leaned over, and draped her arms around me, squeezing me dearly in her gratitude. Trials: “Aww, don’t thank me until I actually agree to take the job. So, what’s the whole story?” Ursanne: She drew back and wiped her eyes. “My husband has, well, a gambling problem, you see.” Trials: “Hey, it’s only a problem when you’re losing.” Ursanne: “Oh, he lost, and lost big. Big enough that he started barrowing money from a usurer to cover his losses and place new bets. “Well, doubling down didn’t quite pan out for us, and he ended up owing up to five-hundred gold to a ‘Kurdan gro-Dragol’. Kurdan breathed down our necks about the money for a while, until recently, when he sent for Aleron to meet him at the Lonely Suitor Lodge. My husband hasn’t returned since, and I’m sure Kurdan has something to do with that.” I furrowed my brow pensively at that. Back in Morrowind, I’d know a few slaves who’d gotten themselves into the life due to debts they owed. It was a viscous catch-twenty-two situation; they were in bondage from debt, but as slaves, could never earn the money needed to buy their freedom. For that reason, I had a healthy distrust of loan-sharks. I don’t know if Kurdan had sold Aleron into slavery or not, but that story got my hackles raised. Enough so that I decided right there and then, that even if Ursanne couldn’t pay, I’d take the case. Ursanne: She was visibly shaking. “I fear for my husband’s life. Kurdan isn’t known for his patience. I’m not wealthy, but I’ll find some way to repay your help, just please save my husband.” Trials: I crossed my arms, and gave a nod. “I’ll take the case, Ma’am. I‘ll have your husband back to you in a day or two!”

Ursanne gave us our first lead; the Lonely Suitor Lodge. It was just at the south end of town, so we made there, and asked around within to find Kurdan.

We found the man in his room on the second floor. Trials: “Ho, orc!” Kurdan: “Piss off, lizard!” Trials: “...okay, rude! Jeez, we just wanted to ask you about an ‘Aleron Loche’.” Kurdan: “I don’t know nuffin’, and even I did, I wouldn’t tell you!” Kurdan was evasive, and not too interested in talking, but I readied the spells Kud-Ei had taught me, and with a cast of the two of them, he finally opened up... somewhat. Kurdan: “Alright, maybe I know where Aleron is, and maybe I don’t. Maybe, if you’re willing to do me a little favor, it might loosen my tongue.” Trials: I sighed and grumbled. “Where to, and how many?” Kurdan: “One of my stupid relatives lost a prized family heirloom, the ‘Axe of Dragol’. But I’ve tracked it to Fort Grief, which is on an island in Niben Bay. I want you to go get it back. Do that for me, and I ‘might remember’ what happened to Aleron.” Ruin: “This sounds very suspect. What would happen were we to refuse this request?” Kurdan: “Then Aleron may not be coming home from his... uh, journey, for a very long time. Like, permanently!” Trials: “Yeah, yeah, we get it. So, how’re we getting to Fort Grief?” Kurdan: “I just so happen to have a boat you can take. It’s docked in the water behind A Warlock’s Luck. Now get moving, meat!”

Ruin and I agreed, this request seemed sketchy as all heck. But we were out of options, so we agreed to do Kurdan’s favor. We found the boat just where the orc promised it would be, and after an hour’s ride, we’d arrived at Grief Island. Embarking from the doc, we followed the short trail to the gate that led into the Fort. A nearby leaver opened the gate, and we embarked inside... finding a smear of blood upon the wall that led deeper into the Fort. Oh boy is that a bad omen. I feel like a month ago, I probably would have just turned tail and left without a second thought... but I’d made a promise to Ursanne Loche that I would find her husband and bring him home. Danger or no, we were going in!

Well, that was fast. There’s the man himself, standing right here, as if waiting for us. Aleron: “It appears as though Kurdan has tricked another pair of poor souls with his ‘axe’ story.” Ruin: “...I knew that story was suspect.” Aleron: “That’s right. There is no ‘Axe of Dragol’. It was just a ruse to lure you out here. I fell for the same trick. In my case, he told me if I retrieved the axe, he’d erase my debts. I was such an idiot to believe him.” Trials: “So why has he lured us out here? I’m guessing he’s not going to jump out from behind that pillar with sweetrolls and wine.” Aleron: “You might say that we’re here to play ‘the most dangerous game’.” Trials: “Is that the one where you lay your hand on a table and poke a dagger between your fingers and see how fast you can go?” Aleron: “...” He shook his head. “Uh, no, this is the one where wealthy psychos pay Kurdan to kidnap people so they can be hunted for sport.” Ruin: “...ah, yes, I know this game. Back in Black Mash, we used to call it; ‘Tirdas’, and whoever one got a prize!” Trials: “...by the Nine, Ruin, your old home society sucked.” Ruin: “Why do you think I left?” Trials: “Anyway, Aleron, we have a boat. We can just skip out on this sick game and bounce back to Bravil.” Aleron: “Don’t bother. The door to this place is now locked. The only way to get out is by descending into the Hunter’s Run--the dungeons under Fort Grief--and killing the hunters. One of them will have the key to the door. That’s Kurdan’s rules, and the only way we can ‘win.’“ Trials: I sighed and shrugged. “Can’t we go anywhere without having to leave a trail of bodies??” Aleron: “I wish I could help, but I can’t fight. I’ve never held a weapon before in my life.” Trials: “I’d never held a weapon before until a little over a month ago. Mastery comes surprisingly fast once you understand that the pointy end of the sword goes into the other guy.” Aleron: “...” He turned to Ruin. “You’ll save me, won’t you, Male Argonian?” Ruin: He shrugged and grunted.

Such was our job; to descent into the dungeon, and kill the sickos who came here to kill us for the fun of it. A dark and bloody task, but it’s them or us... and given the choice, I’d rather it be them. Dying hurts, Gentle Reader, and I plan to do as little of it as I possibly can! This was also my first real opportunity to try out the Night-Eye spell I’d worked so hard to master. With a wave of my hand, my eyes tingled, and began to glow in the gloom of this dungeon. And as you can see from the pictographs, the image was nice, bright, sharp, and clear! Now I can actually show off what I get up to in these dives! And can watch me kick some tail in bright, crisp color!

To the left of the entrance was a locked gate. Just beyond, I could see a lever, much like the one that let me into Fort Grief in the first place. The lock was too complex to pick, even with my best tools, so it seemed indeed that my only option was to win the Hunter Run. Just me and Ruin, versus a group of highly practiced loonies. Wish us luck! We’re going to need it.

[ahornedgod]

got drabble - (it’s us) against the world iii

a/n: i’m finally done with this part! :’D it took me forever omg. remember this is unbeta’d.

iv. in which some secrets are revealed, at last; Jon tries to be strong and reunites with a friend, not necessarily in that order

Arya gives him the details.

Atop the battlements, Jon breathes in the distinctive fresh air of the North – one of the many things he had missed during his stay in Dragonstone, one of the first differences he had noticed too. He breathes and relaxes and prepares himself for yet another morning filled with meetings and plans and what are starting to sound like recycled arguments. He enjoys the quiet, mostly. It is not exactly silent—he can hear the soft sounds of nature and of Winterfell awakening bellow him. He would be able to see the children training under the watchful eye of Brienne in the courtyard if he were so inclined, if he were to lean over the parapets.

As Arya does, next to him, a little smile grazing her face that widens every time it’s a little girl swinging a wooden sword. Usually, she’s down there helping – she has a good eye to spot which of the trainees are best suited to wield a dagger or a short sword, those light of foot. She ought to know, Arya is incredibly quick on her feet, incredibly hard to hit.

And Jon—Jon is unmeasurably proud of his little sister, yet his heart breaks a little more each time he dares to think of the horrors she must’ve seen – must’ve endured to acquire such skills. Though while he can push all those thoughts out of his mind in the moments they manage to train together, he cannot do so at any other time.

Oh, little sister, he thinks, casts a quick glance her way, then turns around to peruse the frozen landscape surrounding Winterfell.

Read at Ao3.