#by which i mean i plucked all the meat off its bones and have been left Alone with this beautiful carcass

[mossterunderthebed]

yknow, sometimes i see posts about jjk and it's themes and thematic elements, the passing torch, the generational cycles being broken, Yuuji being a type of the bright future where Gojo was representative of his own 'kind' of sorcerer- brute force, weaponization, kids who weren't really treated like people but instead made into tools- and at the end, there's no true definitive change, but there's definitely an air of 'things are going to be different' but like...

im the one with the pen right now, so im just gonna ignore All of That

[beatleszeppelin]

You're A … Inexperienced

Summary: On watch one night you find out some thing that Daryl has never done. And you offer him some experience

Category: Friends to Lovers, Eventual Mild Smut, just a good ol' time

Paring: Daryl x reader (second person)

Warnings/Includes: General Walking Dead grossness, Smut (but not in this chapter), swearing, use of weapons, non-graphic hunting, mention of past child abuse, (let me know if you see anything else)

Word count: 2.1k

Chapter 1: Truth

The night was off to a slow start since you and Daryl had taken watch. The sound of the chain link fence rattling in the wind served as a pendulum in the back of your mind. A chill in the late summer air made the concrete you used as a backrest cool to the touch. Both of you sat against the base of the watchtower on lookout, since the two with the regular shift were on a run.

“Know any games to play to stay awake?” You asked, slumped against a wall, and turning to look at Daryl, who was sitting cross legged, head rested in his hands.

“No,” he replied, “should get some cards or somethin’.”

“Yeah, next time we go into town.”

The night had become dark, no moonlight deciphered the sky from the inside of your eyelids. Time ticked on and before you knew it both of you had fallen asleep.

The rattle of the fence shocked you out of your sleep, and you saw an arm reaching through the fence trying to grab at you. Although a decent distance away, you could still see it’s skin peeled back up to it’s bicep; raw meat dangling behind the wires, so it could fit the exposed bone deeper through the fence.

The growling must have woken Daryl up, because by the time you were standing to go and kill the bloody thing, he had handed you his knife to use. You took it graciously and tiredly walked over to kill it, looking much like a zombie yourself.

Stabbing it through the eye, you could feel the pop of penetration to the skull, and with that it fell to the ground dead, fully dead. With all of its weight moving downwards, the force must have been too much, causing it’s limb to stay on the side of the fence opposite to it’s corpse. You hoped backwards as the appendage reached for your ankle, then shriveled up like the rest of its body.

Returning to your space adjacent to Daryl, you handed his knife back, and sat down breathing heavily.

“You rest, I won’t go back to sleep,” he said leaning on his hip to pull his red rag out from his back pocket. The knife you had used was laying on the ground next to him, beaded with blood.

“No way I’m getting back to sleep, I can hear my blood pounding in my ears.”

“Tell me if you need ta though, ‘cause I’m good,” He said, reassuring you.

You just shook your head and leaned against the wall, propping yourself up with a gun by your side.

You rolled your shoulders back every once in a while to stretch your back. Daryl mindlessly fiddled with a rock that he picked up off the ground. The sky was now dark and all of the stars in the night could be seen. Nothing like this would have ever been possible before. As the stars moved and passed with the coming hours, your tiredness from before seemed to return.

Neither of you had spoken in quite some time, which wasn't weird for you now that you have been taking shifts with Daryl for sometime. At first it was weird doing nothing with him, it was like he wasn't comfortable enough with you to converse, but now you know it's quite the opposite. You guys can communicate by means other than just talking. However, silence needed to be broken if you were going to keep him company until sunrise.

“I miss coffee,” you broke silence, plucking some grass and throwing it past your outstretched feet.

“Huh,” he snickered.

"I don't think I appreciated it before, I don't even remember drinking it that often."

"Don't even remember the last time I had it." He said and spun the little shiny rock he had in his grasp.

“I do,” you said.

He readjusted his position to be facing you holding his knees up to his chest with his chin rested on top. His head tilted down, but his eyes looked up at you to continue.

"Was a date, or not a date, but a meeting. I was out at a cafe, with the TA, for the psych class I was in. And he ordered for us, and after I explicitly told him to get almond milk, he didn't."

"Why?" Daryl asked with conviction.

"Because I'm lactose intolerant and I had to kick him out that night because my stomach hurt so bad." You picked a few sticks up from the ground and broke them into tiny pieces. The stick sprinkled across the ground, and disappeared in the surrounding weeds.

"Didn't mean why are you lactose intolerant, I meant why didn’t he get ya what ya wanted?" He furrowed his brow for a second.

“I don’t know, never thought about it, maybe he’d just forgotten or something. Doesn’t matter, he wasn’t even that good in bed.”

Daryl threw his special rock in the air and caught it swiftly. For just a second it had sparkled in the air, before he held it in his fist like he would never let it go.

“I bet you’ve been on bad dates, too.”

“Nah,” He said and threw his rock across the land and wrapped both his arms around his legs.

“What!? Okay, I guess your fucking perfect,” you said scoffing in a half joking manner.

“No, just didn’t go with too many people.” He mumbled.

“And all of them just happened to be great?” You questioned.

“Never said that,” He tucked his chin under his arms, that still rested on his knees, “I never went on any good ones neither.”

“It’s kinda hard to believe you didn’t date much, I mean, look at you,” you joked, but also couldn’t deny the genuine admiration that he evoked from the people that surrounded him.

“Nah, forget I ever said anythin’. Let’s just go back to sittin’ here.” He turned his head to the side in which the sun would eventually rise.

“No, please, I just came up with a game idea,” you begged.

“Hmm?” He glanced over.

“Truth or dare!” You exclaimed, failing your attempt of hiding your excitement.

“Nuh uh. Not subjecting myself to that shit,” he said tersely.

“Come on, I wanna know about these dates you didn’t go on, and you could dare me to do stupid shit in the mean time,” you said with your shoulders sagging.

“Ain’t gonna ask you nothin’,” he said stubbornly.

“Okay, then it’ll be one-sided truth.” You had as much enthusiasm as a little girl at a sleepover as you asked, “Truth or da…”

“Fine.”

“Okay, when was the last time you got drunk?” you started him off easy.

“Uh… CDC.”

“Wait, the CDC? Like the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta? How have I not heard about this before?” You asked. If this was the easy question,then this game may be more fun than you had previously thought.

“Yeah, stopped there, it’s gone now though,” he said nonchalantly.

“It’s gone? You would think it’d be better guarded or something.” You were astonished by the first question, and immediately got excited for the night to come.

“Blew up. My turn,” he said and pondered for a second, resting his chin on his palms like a winsome child. “What was his name?”

“Who’s name?” You wondered if this was what he was wasting his first question on.

“Coffee date guy,” he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“I don’t remember,” you shrugged.

“That ain’t how this game works,” he argued back with a pout.

“Okay fine, I think his name was Bryce,” you gave up.

“‘S a douchey name.”

“He was a douche… probably dead now.” You looked down at the weeds growing, plucking a few and tying them together, waiting for someone to speak. You looked over at Daryl, who was patiently waiting for his question. He actually looked like he wasn't completely hating this game.

You thought for a minute, wondering how you could crack the boy in front of you. After some thought you said, “What was your first date like?” It was the perfect question, because really you could not imagine what he’d say.

“I told you, never did that type of thing.” He brought his thumb up to his mouth and started rubbing his lip as he talked.

“Okay then, who was the first person you ever did anything romantic with?” you asked.

“‘S not romantic, but there was this one girl that Merle’d bring out drinking with us sometimes. Name was Candy or something.” He mumbled around his thumb.

“Aww, little 20 something Daryl going out with a girl named Candy,” you teased.

“Wasn’t 20, I musta been ‘bout 13 or 14,” he recalled.

“I thought you said you’d go out drinking together?”

“Yeah, we’d go to this bowling alley, ‘cause they don’t card, and they had a pool table and a back room, I used to pay Merle t’ get me drinks.”

“He have to buy her drinks too?” You questioned.

“Nah, she was ‘bout his age I think, and he’d never buy something for someone else,'' he looked off.

“Wait, she was his age, and they let you drink when you were just a kid?” You tried not to chide.

“Hey, ain’t it supposed to be my turn?”

“Sorry,” you stopped.

“You said you were in a psych class, was that what you were gonna be?” He looked interested, as he inquired, studying your face as he awaited your response.

You explained “That’s what I went to school for, but who knows, I minored in fine arts. Truth is I hated psychology, but my parents needed me to make money for myself, otherwise I could have lived happily as a broke artist. Doesn’t really matter now though,” you trailed off. “Speaking of, what were your parents like?”

“Mean, drunk, dead.” He put it bluntly.

"I'm sorry, I didn’t know. How old were you?"

"With my mom, I’s 9. I was out playing with kids from around where I lived. They were all on bikes and wanted to chase this fire engine trying to see somethin’ exciting. I ran behind, and when I caught up I realized it was my house that was on fire. My mom had been smoking in bed."

"I'm really sorry about that, I didn't know about your mom or anything." You looked at him genuinely, giving a sympathetic smile.

"Was a long time ago,” he shrugged off. “Now for you. What art did you do?"

“I drew, painted, took pictures, everything really.” You added kindly.

He tilted his head back until it hit the wall, he stretched out his legs, and looked up at the stars as he said, “I’ll have to see that sometime.” “It’s not like I still have any of them,” you said, perplexed at his interest.

“Oooh, who was your celebrity crush as a kid,” you asked, “like who did you have posters of above your bed?” “Ya’ know Blondie,” he looked over to get your reaction. As he saw you nod, he said “Yeah, had a Debbie Harry poster, ripped out from a magazine.”

You laughed, and the questions continued; some questions resulted in stories others sat in stillness. The morning was short to come as the warm glow of the sun peered over the trees, and chirping birds made themselves present.

“Okay, what was your first time like?” you pestered.

You were met with a second of awkward silence, before he stumbled over the phrases “ I never, I mean… I did, it wasn’t like that though.” He brought his thumb up to his mouth again.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re a…” he dipped his head down, and looked up at you through his hair. A sickly puppy could make your heart hurt any more, so you danced around your initial wording and asked “uhh, inexperienced?”

“Morning!” sang through the fields, and Daryl had been saved by the bell. Carol stood alongside Carl to take over for the morning shift, and relieve Daryl of his painted flush. She extended her hand out first to you, helping you up. Then to Daryl, letting the hand holding linger as she instructed for you guys to go get some rest.

The walk up was silent, but just before parting you joked with him “If you ever need some more experience, you know where my cell is.” You had said it quiet enough where he could ignore it, but you knew he heard it, because he silently split, seconds after you said it.

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 70

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Link to ongoing Taida Translations

Chapter 70: Appetite

Can't help it anymore. When he heard Qin Budai say this, Lin Qiushi felt a chill deep in his bones. The person before him wore fresh blood on his lips, and stared at him with a pair of silent, red-veined eyes. The look that was so clearly stifling something lifted a light layer of goosebumps along Lin Qiushi's arms. All of Lin Qiushi's instincts were ringing the alarm—that the person in front of him was very, very dangerous.

Qin Budai gradually got closer and closer. His footsteps finally halted before Lin Qiushi, and he slowly called out Lin Qiushi's name. His tone was both cloying and cold, sending very mixed signals.

At that moment, Lin Qiushi wanted to turn and run. But he also felt that the instant he left his back open, something completely out of his control would happen. So he thoroughly smothered that urge to escape and hide, and instead said, "Qin Budai, are you alright?"

Qin Budai smiled eerily at Lin Qiushi. "I'm fine." It probably would've been better if he hadn't smiled at all; it only made his expression seem more twisted.

Just as the two stood in stalemate, Chen Fei's voice came warily from outside the kitchen. "What are you two doing?"

Chen Fei reached and flipped the light switch on the wall. The entire kitchen lit up, and he got a good look at the scene before him.

"Qin Budai— What are you doing?" His gaze fell on that slab of meat Qin Budai had been chewing on, and the moment after he asked this question, he seemed to comprehend exactly what Qin Budai had done. There was a brief hitch in his breath. "You just came out of a door?"

Qin Budai slowly nodded.

"Hungry?" Chen Fei sounded very calm, like he saw nothing wrong at all with the scene before him. "Let me cook you something to eat."

Qin Budai didn't speak, just turned and left.

Watching him go, Chen Fei didn't stop him, just sighed lightly.

"What in the world happened?" Lin Qiushi wasn't as experienced as Chen Fei, and couldn't understand what was going on with Qin Budai. Honestly, Qin Budai’s current state reminded Lin Qiushi of the monsters inside the doors.

"He's probably been affected by the door world." Chen Fei went to the fridge, and pulled out a steak. He really was planning to cook it for Qin Budai. "The human psyche is a fragile thing. After a strong shock, it can be prone to disorder." After saying this, he glanced over at Lin Qiushi. "Not everyone can accept things as calmly as you can."

Lin Qiushi didn't know what to say.

"The worst situation is when everybody else is dead, but the door and the key haven't appeared." Chen Fei lit the stove, heated the oil, and set the steak into the pan with a sizzle. "You're trapped alone inside the door, not knowing how long you'll be stuck there…"

His voice got lower and lower.

It was indeed nightmarish.

To be trapped inside alone. Just the thought of it sent chills throughout the body. Lin Qiushi leaned against the threshold. "Qin Budai… will be okay, right?"

Chen Fei shook his head. "I don't know."

Lin Qiushi, "what do you mean you don't know?"

Chen Fei, "I mean that I don't know if he'll get better, if he can separate reality from the world of the doors."

Lin Qiushi frowned. "If he can't?"

Chen Fei's motions paused, and a self-mocking smile appeared across his face. "If he can't? If he can't… Then he's done for."

Killing people inside the door was fine, but in reality, there were laws and sanctions in place.

Plus, people like this became very dangerous. They may not murder, but they still may commit some other drastic crime. People who could not distinguish between the inside and outside could not continue staying at the mansion. Of course, this wasn't something Chen Fei told Lin Qiushi, because he didn't think it necessary.

The steak was done. Chen Fei plated and brought it to the dining table outside, handing it to Qin Budai.

Qin Budai cut the steak apart with a fork and knife, but his peripherals lingered on Lin Qiushi. He still felt hungry, and the steak before him was incapable of satiating that full-body, anxious gluttony he felt. But he didn't dare make it apparent—could only keep his head down, pretending to be happily chowing down.

Chen Fei watched from the side. Lin Qiushi noticed his brow furrowed in a knot, and a certain scrutiny in his eyes, like he was in the middle of diagnosing Qin Budai's condition.

Chen Fei asked, "what did you see inside the door?"

At the mention of the door, Qin Budai couldn't help a whole-body shiver. He opened his mouth, but said nothing even after a moment, like words couldn't possibly describe the world he'd seen.

Chen Fei, "hm?"

Qin Budai's reply was vague. "It was a very scary world. There wasn't much to eat. I was hungry the whole time."

Chen Fei didn't speak, sinking into thought.

Qin Budai finished the steak, and very politely bid them good night, returning upstairs to sleep.

Lin Qiushi stayed where he was, watching him go. He still felt there was something off with Qin Budai, but he couldn’t concretely say what it was.

Chen Fei said, "I'll ask Ruan-ge tomorrow."

Lin Qiushi, "ask him what?"

Chen Fei sighed, "which world Qin Budai went into, of course." Qin Budai was a newbie, still entering the first round of doors right now. He didn't have Lin Qiushi's luck—the group only took him through a couple of doors, and left him on his own for the most recent one.

Lin Qiushi nodded his agreement.

That night, Lin Qiushi didn't sleep very well. His mind, as he tossed and turned, was filled with the image of Qin Budai eating that raw meat. To tell the truth, after seeing that scene, even his sense of distinction between reality and the world of the doors felt blurred. It was an awful feeling, and left him filled with unease.

The next day, Lin Qiushi went downstairs sporting twin bags under his eyes.

Cheng Qianli had just come back from walking Toast, and Toast was twitching its fat little butt around, chasing and playing with Chestnut.

Cheng Qianli saw Lin Qiushi's severe lack of sleep, and said, "what happened? You look like you haven't woken up yet."

Lin Qiushi yawned. "It's nothing. I stayed up too late last night."

Cheng Qianli, "oh. Come eat breakfast then. My brother just cooked."

Cheng Yixie made porridge, along with a few small dishes. He was sitting and slowly eating at the table. Lin Qiushi went over to say good morning. Then he also grabbed a bowl to eat.

The people inside the mansion all began to gradually wake. Lin Qiushi saw Chen Fei. Then he also saw Qin Budai.

Qin Budai no longer had that scary aura from last night about him. He'd changed into a fresh outfit, and wore a smile. He approached Lin Qiushi and said, "good morning."

Lin Qiushi, "good morning."

"Sorry to scare you last night," Qin Budai said. "I'd just come out a door, and hadn't quite gotten myself together." He smiled, eyes rainbowing in a friendly expression. "I really am sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Lin Qiushi said. "You've… gotten yourself together now?"

Qin Budai nodded, indicating he has.

Chen Fei sat next to them, watching the two interact. He was examining Qin Budai without giving anything away, clearly not completely believing Qin Budai's excuse.

Not long after Ruan Nanzhu also came down. He maintained his typical aloofness, and made to head out after eating, before Chen Fei stopped him.

"Ruan-ge," Chen Fei said. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

Ruan Nanzhu nodded, and the two went off into a corner.

Lin Qiushi knew Chen Fei was likely telling Ruan Nanzhu about what happened with Qin Budai. To tell the truth, the current Qin Budai didn't seem off at all. It was difficult to link him to the person manically consuming raw meat the night before. But however his psyche was actually doing, if he'd gotten better, Lin Qiushi couldn't be the judge. So he thought this matter was better left to Chen Fei.

Lin Qiushi finished eating, and returned to his room.

Spring had just ripened. Sunlight spilled in brilliance, a cool breeze caressed, and Lin Qiushi sat at his window, turning on his computer to browse that forum open only to people who'd been inside the doors.

There were lots of interesting posts on this forum. Lin Qiushi had already developed the habit of reading through them daily. Casually, he plucked a piece of candy from his table and popped it in his mouth. He moved the mouse and began browsing the posts.

The posts were a mess, and full of strange tales.

Some discussed the world inside the doors, others mentioned urban legends. Others still organized same-city meet-ups.

Lin Qiushi read through them with fascination.

Because they'd just come from a door, Ruan Nanzhu hadn't organized any activities for Lin Qiushi, just letting him rest.

Lin Qiushi thought that wasting away a day like this actually felt quite comfortable. He ate lunch, took a nap, and let the day pass by just like that.

After Chen Fei spoke to Ruan Nanzhu that morning, the two left the mansion. Nobody knew where they'd gone off to.

But Lin Qiushi was already used to them appearing and disappearing at will, and wasn't curious at all.

Cheng Qianli and Cheng Yixie though, were gone as well. Lin Qiushi guessed Cheng Yixie had brought Cheng Qianli into some lower level doors for training.

There was still Yi Manman, Lu Yanxue, and Qin Budai inside the mansion. The four of them ate a simple dinner, and Lin Qiushi retired to his room to rest.

After a shower, Lin Qiushi lied on his bed playing sudoku. This inconsequential game was always quick to calm his mood, and also had the benefit of making him sleepy.

As he gradually filled the boxes, however, he heard a knock at his door.

"Who is it?" Lin Qiushi went to door and pulled it open, to find Qin Budai standing there.

Qin Budai said, "hi. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Lin Qiushi blinked. "Right now?"

Qin Budai nodded.

Lin Qiushi hesitated. "Sure… Let's go talk in the study. Give me a second, I'll come over after I change." He was in his pajamas after all.

Qin Budai quietly watched Lin Qiushi. Currently, Lin Qiushi was dressed in white cotton pajamas, and his long elegant neck and his pretty collarbones were all on display. Lin Qiushi was handsome, with a gentle temperament. He looked instantly easy to get along with. He also looked… tasty.

Qin Budai suddenly licked his lips.

Lin Qiushi eyed him warily. "Qin Budai?" He felt there was something off about the person in front of him.

Qin Budai said, "I only need five minutes. I'll be quick." As he spoke, he squeezed his way through Lin Qiushi's bedroom door.

Lin Qiushi noticed his motions, and took a step back, moving into a defensive position. "Do you need something?"

Qin Budai watched Lin Qiushi. In his eyes surfaced an indescribable hunger.

Goosebumps. Lin Qiushi, "Qin Budai?"

Qin Budai, "I…"

But before he'd finished speaking, he was already lunging at Lin Qiushi.

Though Lin Qiushi had been prepared, Qin Budai still ran into him straight on with great force, knocking Lin Qiushi flat onto the bed.

Lin Qiushi, "Qin—"

Just as the name left his lips, Qin Budai's fingers gripped tight over his mouth. This wasn't the strength of a human at all—Qin Budai could force down all of Lin Qiushi's struggling with a single hand. Lin Qiushi's eyes widened, watching Qin Budai's covetous gaze fixate on his neck.

"Just one taste," Qin Budai spoke lightly. "I'll just have one taste…" He bent down, and began lapping along Lin Qiushi's chin.

Lin Qiushi remembered the slab of meat that Qin Budai tore apart the night before, and began struggling anew with all his strength. But Qin Budai's strength made his efforts seem like a mayfly throwing itself against the trunk of a tree.

Qin Budai, staring at Lin Qiushi's throat, swallowed. He parted his lips, revealing the white rows of teeth, and went to bite…

"Mmph…" Lin Qiushi continued to fight.

Just as he felt the cold touch of Qin Budai's teeth, there came knocking at the door. Fear peering through his expression, Qin Budai glanced at the door.

Dong, dong, dong. The knocks continued.

Lin Qiushi met Qin Budai's gaze. He'd thought that now somebody was here, Qin Budai would release him—but instead, there was resolution in Qin Budai's eyes.

"Sorry," Qin Budai spoke lowly right next to Lin Qiushi's ear. "You look too appetizing. I really… can't help it anymore. Even if I'm discovered, I don't want to let go…" His teeth remained on Lin Qiushi's neck, and began to apply pressure.

Lin Qiushi's eyes shot wide open as he felt the dull pain spread along his skin. He didn't think Qin Budai would actually bite.

With a loud bang!, the locked door was kicked open.

Qin Budai, lying over Lin Qiushi's body, was seized by a pair of hands, lifted up, and brutally thrown against the wall. Qin Budai shouted in pain, while Lin Qiushi fumbled to sit up in bed. He saw Ruan Nanzhu, with a chilly expression.

Ruan Nanzhu didn't speak. He approached Qin Budai, taking a green bronze ornament off a side table as he went, then grabbed Qin Budai's chin to pry his mouth open.

Terrified, Qin Budai was trembling all over.

Ruan Nanzhu's tone dipped to cold frost. He said, "if you like eating so much, have at it." Then he shoved the thing right into Qin Budai's mouth, breaking off two of Qin Budai's teeth along the way.

Qin Budai completely fainted from the pain. It was only then that Ruan Nanzhu released his hand, and returned to Lin Qiushi. There was a deep furrow in his brow, and he seemed to be in a terrible mood.

"Alright?"

Lin Qiushi, "I'm fine."

He said, "I was careless."

He hadn't thought that Qin Budai would attack him under circumstances like this. Though Chen Fei had already warned Lin Qiushi, he'd still underestimated the effect the door had on Qin Budai.

Ruan Nanzhu stared at Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi was made horribly self-conscious by his gaze. He noticed it was fixed on his neck, and so reached to touch. It was only then that he noticed the teeth mark Qin Budai left on his throat… Though no skin had been broken, it still hurt.

Did this need a tetanus shot or what… As Lin Qiushi was thinking this, Ruan Nanzhu suddenly bent down over him.

Startled by Ruan Nanzhu's motions, Lin Qiushi was just about to ask what he was doing, when he caught Lin Qiushi firmly by the arms—the next moment, the spot where he'd been bitten was being roughly rubbed at. Lin Qiushi's first reaction was that Ruan Nanzhu had somehow been infected by Qin Budai's abnormal condition, and so shoved hard and shouted in pain: "Ruan Nanzhu—calm down!! It's me, it's Lin Qiushi!!"

Ruan Nanzhu bit. Only after staying there for a handful of seconds did he release the bite, looking down with satisfaction at the mark that was now covered over by his mark on Lin Qiushi's neck. Likely because he'd heard Lin Qiushi's shouts, he spoke evenly, "I know you're Lin Qiushi."

"Were you contaminated?" Lin Qiushi clasped his neck, hissing at the pain. "What did you bite me for?!"

Ruan Nanzhu spat out a single word: "Disinfection."

Lin Qiushi, "…" What the hell was wrong with Ruan Nanzhu.

After saying this, Ruan Nanzhu dragged off the fainted Qin Budai and left. Lin Qiushi looked over the mess of his room and the broken door, and for a moment didn't know what to do at all.

Qin Budai's bite hadn't torn skin, but Ruan Nanzhu's had. Lin Qiushi inspected his wound, warily wondering he needed to go get a rabies shot or something. He'd never been bitten by a person before, and so searched online for what to do.

Turned out he should've left it alone. The search left Lin Qiushi scared out of his wits, thinking he was likely going to kick it that very night.

And so bright and early the next morning Lin Qiushi rushed to the hospital. After taking a look at his wound, the doctor said, with meaning, "you youngsters need to control yourselves."

Lin Qiushi, "…" Control what, control their diets?

The doctor said, "you don't need a vaccine, just a disinfection should be fine. As long as the person who bit you doesn't have any infectious diseases there shouldn't be any problems."

Lin Qiushi, "but the search engine said…"

The doctor slapped the table. "Can you all stop going to the search engine when you're sick? Don't you just feel more terminal the more you use it?" The doctor looked maybe thirty-one, thirty-two—still quite young. He prescribed Lin Qiushi some bit of medicine, and waved him off in disgust.

Lin Qiushi returned to the mansion.

After Qin Budai was taken away last night, Lin Qiushi didn't ask what would be done with him. Today, he was nowhere to be seen. Lin Qiushi didn't see Ruan Nanzhu either, and so went to ask Chen Fei in private.

Chen Fei looked at the wound on Lin Qiushi's neck, and sighed: "It was my fault, I shouldn't have left him on his own. I thought he'd at least be able to bear it, but who knew his self-control would be so awful?"

Lin Qiushi, "so where is he now?" The way Ruan Nanzhu dragged him off last night looked like he was being taken straight to the crematorium.

"He's been sent somewhere else," Chen Fei said. "There's a place dedicated to people like him. After being affected by the doors, the way he acts in reality will be off, so he needs counseling."

Whether or not the counseling would work was another story. But this sort of person was dangerous wherever they put him. Had Ruan Nanzhu not shown up last night, Qin Budai might have straight up bitten Lin Qiushi to death.

Lin Qiushi, "oh…" He thought for a bit, before asking quietly, "and Nanzhu? How come I haven't seen him around?"

Chen Fei, "I think he went out for an errand."

Then he asked, "is your wound alright though? He broke skin. Did you get it checked out at the hospital?"

Lin Qiushi thought that no skin would've been broken had Ruan Nanzhu not given him that extra bite. And he'd claimed it was disinfection, but his bite was way harsher—it was ridiculous. Not that Lin Qiushi said any of this out loud. He only shook his head to indicate he was alright, and that he'd already been to the hospital.

After that, Qin Budai disappeared from the mansion.

With great synchronicity, nobody asked where he'd gone. Even Cheng Qianli, who was least capable of reading people, didn't mention him again.

They all seemed already prepared for sudden goodbyes.

Only three days after the incident did Lin Qiushi see Ruan Nanzhu again. At that point his wound had scabbed over. He came in from walking Toast with Cheng Qianli, and saw Ruan Nanzhu sitting in the living room eating some fruit.

Hearing their footsteps, Ruan Nanzhu only glanced up, looking them over with a placid gaze.

"Ruan-ge, you're back," Cheng Qianli greeted happily.

"Mh," Ruan Nanzhu replied. Then he looked at Lin Qiushi.

For some reason, Lin Qiushi felt a bit self-conscious. He'd felt that Ruan Nanzhu had been off that night, and was still a bit strange today.

"It's healed?" Ruan Nanzhu spoke.

Lin Qiushi knew Ruan Nanzhu was asking after his wound, and nodded. "It's healed."

"Oh," Ruan Nanzhu said.

Maybe Lin Qiushi was overthinking it, but he thought he heard a hint of disappointment in Ruan Nanzhu's tone.

Lin Qiushi continued, "thank you for that night…" Had it not been for Ruan Nanzhu, he would likely be dead already.

Ruan Nanzhu, "don't worry about it."

Lin Qiushi hesitated. "Qin Budai, will he get better?"

Ruan Nanzhu slowly chewed the fruit in his mouth, swallowed, and then answered Lin Qiushi's question: "I don't know. He determines his own fortune."

Lin Qiushi, "things like this had happened before?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "like clockwork."

Lin Qiushi didn't think he'd get this sort of answer.

"Out of a hundred newbies, ninety-nine will develop mental conditions." Ruan Nanzhu stood. "The last one is Cheng Qianli."

Hearing this off to the side, Cheng Qianli looked confused, and asked, "what do you mean the last one is Cheng Qianli?"

Affectionately, Lin Qiushi petted Cheng Qianli's head. "Nothing, Ruan-ge's just complimenting you."

Cheng Qianli, "oh. Heheheh."

Lin Qiushi thought that to be on the same level of foolish as Cheng Qianli was actually not so easy…

"Prepare yourself," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Cheng Yixie's ninth door is opening soon."

Lin Qiushi's heart jolted. "I'm going too?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "you don't want to go?"

Lin Qiushi, "I… I don't know…"

But Ruan Nanzhu didn't force it, only spoke evenly, "it's fine if you don't want to. You have three days to think about it."

Lin Qiushi nodded in acceptance.

Once he'd said this, Ruan Nanzhu turned and left. Watching him go, Cheng Qianli said he didn't know why, but he felt that recently, the feeling Ruan-ge gave off was different than before.

Lin Qiushi asked, "what's different about it?" To tell the truth, after going through the Qin Budai incident, he realized he was too complacent in the real world. Had this been inside the doors, he'd have never let Qin Budai in.

"I don't know." Cheng Qianli scratched at his foolish head. "I can't really say…"

Lin Qiushi eyed Cheng Qianli, and for a moment fretted how the boy before him was supposed to pass through the rest of those doors. He could too easily imagine Cheng Yixie, with his heart completely broken with worry for his foolish younger brother.

Author's Note:

I'm taking advantage of the good weather today to wash my cat. Everybody wish blessings of peace upon me.

[Ch. 69] | [Ch. 71]

[bitch-butter]

hello! can i request "You didn't do anything wrong, there's nothing to apologize for" for any ship of your choosing? or any AU you want? i just really love how your writing flows, it's so cohesive-- don't take this the wrong way but like. i adore sitting down and actually analyzing your stuff structurally? seeing how it works and weaves together to make a whole just makes the shriveled up eng lit major inside me really happy.

w o o f this one ran away from me a little bit, it incorporates some Things I was thinking of re: forgiveness/webgott last month, and it's bit different than pure H/C but I hope you find something to like in it! Thank you for your lovely compliment~

Yes, it's webgott bc i am chained to The Rhythm

4. "You didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing to apologize for."

He cleared the drawer once more, eyes scanning into its dark corners for any sign of a missed sock, undershirt, some hidden treasure that he had many years ago deemed worthy of being put in the back of the underwear drawer. Raising his brows, Joe shook his head at himself as he closed it resolutely, tossing his bounty into his pack and stuffing the top with the sack that contained his bathroom shit.

Even remembering the days he used to be able to leave the house with just his keys made him want to sigh like a goddamn cow in the summertime. Now he needs the bag, the car, and Web just to go across the bay.

Speak of the devil, Web padded into the bedroom with his usual September expression: weary, exhilarated, slightly frustrated. Wordlessly, he crossed past Joe to the bed and slumped face-first onto it with a groan.

“Done?” Joe questioned, zipping up the bag.

Making a soft grunt of a sound, Web curled his arms around his head. “Done,” he said, face mashed against the bed.

“Well, get to it,” Joe said, stepping over to land a light smack against Web’s ass and grinning at the outraged whine he got in response. “Don’t want to be late,” he tossed over his shoulder as he stepped back out to the hall, making for the kitchen.

Even out here he can hear the sound Web makes, somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “I’ve changed my mind!”

“No you didn’t!” Joe called back, grabbing the butter left on the counter and shoving it in the fridge, letting his eyes make one final sweep around the kitchen. “If you don’t show your reputation won’t ever recover.”

“Your mother loves me,” Web toned, and Joe couldn’t help a snicker as he moved through the hall back to the bedroom, where Web had at least moved to lay on his back, knees up. “She wouldn’t care, she’d probably let me move in with her if you ever kicked me out.”

Rolling his eyes, Joe stood at the food of the bed, arms folded. “Not with Yom Kippur, you’re not allowed to fuck around. She was happy you said you wanted to come, you don’t want to disappoint her.”

Heaving out a long breath, Web folded his hands behind his head, eyes lowered as he peered down at Joe. His knees tilted just so, his lips quirking, and Joe could see the fucking thought forming in his head before he had a chance to open his mouth.

“No.”

“We have time,” Web said, extending one leg to poke his toes into the left side of Joe’s stomach.

Clicking his tongue, he took hold of the other man’s ankle, giving it a soft pull and smiling in satisfaction as Web tried to pull it back to no avail. “If you think I’m going to miss my last fucking meal just to fuck you then you have another thing coming, alright?”

With a disgruntled twist of his lips Web pulled his leg in again, a little jerk that ushered Joe down onto the mattress as well. “You weren’t this dedicated last year,” he noted lightly, free of the reproach that might have accompanied the words if his family had said them.

Shaking his head, Joe decided to throw Web a bone and settled beside him, at least staying up on his elbows. “Different places,” he said simply.

Web looked up at him fondly, hand coming up to smooth over Joe’s hairline, sweeping it back and trailing behind his ear. “So, how will we spend tonight, then?” he asked quietly, eyes still following along where his hand moved. “If not in bed.”

Breath going slow with the contact, he tilted his head into the touch contentedly. “Well, tonight we’re going to eat like kings, Rach will probably be trying to get drunk in the pantry and hoping nobody notices, we’ll sleep in the attic, then tomorrow we spend a lot of fucking time at the synagogue.”

“And we don’t eat,” Web stated, assured.

“No eating, no drinking,” Joe nodded, brow furrowing at the sight of an eyelash on the other man’s cheek, reaching for it mindlessly.

Humming, Web closed his eyes to accommodate him. “Does this have a corresponding Catholic holiday I can retrofit in my mind?”

“I don’t know, you guys got a day where you feel really guilty about everything?” he asked, presenting the lash to Web balanced on the tip of his finger.

Blinking, Web frowned thoughtfully. “Birthdays.”

“Make your wish, you prick,” Joe grumbled, holding back his smile as Web grinned up at him, pausing momentarily before blowing the lash away into the room. Indulgently, he moved in closer, cupping the warmth of Web’s face in his palm and looking down on him with a feeling as close to serenity as he ever has here, in their bed, the sunlight coming in through their window.

Web returned his gaze, his own hand tracing along the back of Joe’s neck. “Do you confess?”

“Sure.”

“Alone?”

“All together,” he corrected, absently rubbing at the spot on Web’s cheek where he had plucked the lash. “You recite it, while you do this,” he said, shifting gently to bring his hand down to Web’s chest, knocking gently against him, just above his heart, with a loose fist.

Web watched his fist, a bemused smile growing over his lips. “Why?”

Settling his hand over the spot, Joe rubbed gently at him. “To punish your heart.”

Smile stilling over his face, Web absorbed his words with quiet interest, eyes floating down along Joe’s neck to the dark burrow of his chest where it pressed against the bed. “Isn’t the sinning hurt enough?”

Trust Web to try to loop him into a conversation about semantics of all fucking things. He must be more anxious to start his classes than Joe thought. “I don’t know,” he half-shrugged, eyes on his own hand over Web’s heart. “If you’re the sort who doesn’t like hurting people, maybe.”

Web nodded, accepting, smile turning more wistful, thoughtful “That’s nice, to be able to get it all out of the way at once.”

“What, you turned in a paper late?” Joe teased.

Flicking behind Joe's ear, Web looked up at him balefully, just a touch of that familiar humor at the edge of his mouth, like a dimple made of light. “I’d apologize to you, obviously.”

Huffing out a surprised laugh, Joe looked discerningly down at him. “You got something you want to tell me?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Web shook his head softly, hand curling around his neck once more and seeming to anchor him down even further, their faces close enough to see the earnest upset around the angles of the other man’s eyes. “You know.”

Web does this. Likes to see monsters where there are none, invent storm clouds heading for them, and it makes him behave like a child sometimes and a man others. He’s a contrarian, down even past his bones and into the dust of the universe that lived in his being, it is an unchangeable fact. Telling him that there’s nothing to worry about accomplished nothing at the best of times.

Not that it’s ever stopped him trying.

“You don’t have to apologize to me for a fucking thing,” Joe rebuked solidly, hand moving from Web’s heart to his head, fingers resting just north of the delicate point of his hairline. “Sincerely.”

“I do, I…” Web parried, eyes unyielding where they looked up into Joe’s, somehow free of the sort of conflict he contained when he started thinking he and Joe had different opinions. “I know that this isn’t easy, dealing with me. And you do,” he continued, and this close he can see the way his eyes are stuck on his lips, the thought filling him with affection. “And you’re amazing.”

Giving in, chest bowing in like the hull of a sinking ship, he caught Web’s lips with his own, a hot smack of a thing that stole his breath, gave it to Web, who in turn gave it back to him better, better. “You don’t have to apologize for living, doll,” he shook his head, their nose practically knocking. “That’s not the point.”

Web didn’t seem soothed by the kiss, still appearing occupied with some train of thought that sought to carry him off and away from Joe’s eyes. “I still think of it sometimes, you know.”

Joe frowned. “What?”

“That day,” Web said, as though it should be evident.

He has to pause and think. They’ve lived a lot of days together, not just these ones that they’ve spent in this apartment, but the ones they spent as voices over the phone, words on a page, men in uniforms hiding from each other like chameleons. How is he meant to know which day Web means from the thousands they’ve had?

Looking down, the blue of Web’s eyes reminds him absently of Austrian skies. Mountains.

Yes. He knows.

“I think sometimes I should apologize to you and never stop,” Web said gently, managing to keep hold of Joe’s eyes as they blinked back and forth and back and forth into the memory.

He hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. Which isn’t to say he never does, but it’s been a time. If he concentrates he can still feel the sun on his neck, the unnatural sweatiness of his palms, how his face had somehow felt cold, waxy. Picturing the house, the dark guts of it with the man inside squirming like half-digested meat, still fills him with the primal sort of rage that only visits him in his dreams. All around the periphery of the memory is Web, that day he had decided that whoever David Webster was he wanted no part of it.

“It’s in the past,” he excused weakly.

Web pulled in a short breath, face carefully open. “I know it is.”

“So let it be.”

Frown deepening, Web’s brought his eyes back down, and even this small departure felt like shrapnel. Joe combed through his hair, rubbing at his scalp, jostling him enough to win his eyes back. Web opened his mouth, struggling, before settling into the intention. “Do you still think about it?”

“Of course,” he said dully, voice still caught somewhere in his memory.

“Do you ever think I owe you an apology?” Web asked, voice quiet and eyes steady.

The question drops through him like rain. He’s thought of that day hundreds of times, thousands. When he lets his mind walk back up that hill, shining in the sun like the cover of the storybooks his mother would read to him, it isn’t Web he’s thinking of. He thinks of a forest of trees, of the way that one can become millions, and those millions become legion. That day had been about a lot of things, he hadn’t ever intended for Web to be one of them.

Web has apologized to him in too many ways to count. But this memory is deeper than they are, the kind of wound that might close over but will still carry a piece of metal, even smaller than a sliver, nestled inside of them both.

Web gives him grief, for better and for worse. But he gives him peace, too. That’s all the apology he wants.

His silence has drifted over the room like fog, but Web looks at him with the sort of clarity that only a few years ago made him feel like a bug on a pin, but now simply makes him feel known.

“I’ll punish my heart for forgiveness tomorrow,” Web said softly, smile turning up his lips, hand against Joe’s neck.

Huffing, Joe shook his head, taking up Web’s mouth once more, briefly. “You have it,” he rasped, kissing just the corner of his lips, and then the soft heat of his cheek. “You’ve had it.”

Web smiled into the kiss, leaning up to press a matching one to Joe’s own cheek. “Good.”

Swallowing, he followed Web back down, their faces close. “Will you accept mine?”

A disbelieving laugh rumbled up Web’s throat, his head giving a dismissive shake as he gave Joe’s neck a hard rub. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he criticized, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

But they haven’t always been that lucky. This sort of luck isn’t a permanent state of being.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, before pausing momentarily. “Let’s say you forgive me for the first sin I haven’t committed yet.”

Laughing, Web took his hand from Joe’s skin, holding it up beside them in some offering. “Deal.”

“Deal,” Joe confirmed, taking his hand, giving it one firm shake, enough to gather up Web’s laugh, before bringing it to his lips and laying a kiss across its back. “Now come on, let’s go.”

[greenninjagal-blog]

To Know It By Name

Hello my lovely followers! Who’s ready for one last story for 2020?

I bring you this cute au that I wrote for The TSS Fanworks Collective Gift Exchange for @making-stuff-up! Hold on tight because I had a lot of fun making this and I might turn it into a series.

Summary: It knows exactly the reason why the Scientist threw another kid into Its container. It also knows exactly what It is NOT going to do, no matter what the cost to Itself. It’s not going to eat the new kid.

Words: 12072

TW: Unethical Experimentation, starvation, oxygen deprivation, dubious science stuff, mentions of eating someone (but not cannibalism because It’s a slime)

Quick Taglist: @alias290 @chelsvans @coyboi300 @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones  @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders  

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

They threw another kid in.

It doesn’t have eyes or ears, but It knows that feeling in the air like It knows Its own body. It can’t forget, no matter how much It tries to get rid of the knowledge. Which is ridiculous: something like It not wanting to keep and retain and hoard knowledge within itself? That’s unheard of. Unprecedented. Impossible.

Not allowed.

But then again, It’s pretty sure It's the only of its kind. So maybe that is heard of, that is precedented, that is possible. But It has no real way of knowing, because It’s all alone in Its container.

It hadn’t known about that before either. It wishes It could unlearn that too. Because now that It knows how alone It is, It’s able to feel lonely, too.

It hates feeling lonely. It makes It so very aware of how small Its container is, how smooth the walls are, how tightly the ceiling hatch is sealed, how cold and dark the room must be without anything there to keep It warm and give It light-- not that It can perceive temperature or light. It hadn’t known those things existed either, and It desperately wishes to get rid of that knowledge too.

Before the first time, It hadn’t craved a sun It had never felt, hadn’t craved a warmth of another It had never had, hadn’t craved a something more It hadn’t realized It was missing. Before the first kid, It had been happy-- although It hadn’t known that It had been happy because It hadn’t known what happiness was. Nor sadness. Nor Loneliness.

It hadn’t known what a wall was, what a floor, or a door or a container was. It had just been .

Nothing more and nothing less and It misses that time without emotions that It doesn’t know what to do with because It shouldn’t have emotions either.

It knows Its container very well, too well, and that makes Its insides twist and bubble and refuse to hold any type of shape. It knew that It’s in something called a “cell” because It is a “project”. It knew It was “created” and not “born”. It knew that It was “meant to be a weapon” and that if Its creators were caught It would “die”.

It doesn’t know how It can be “die” though. It knows It’s supposed to hurt, and cause pain, and be bad, but It doesn’t know that It can be hurt and feel pain and observe badness. The knowledge wracks through Its body again, causing It to lose Its precious partial hold on a compact form and turn back to a liquid despite Its best efforts.

((Effort is another thing It hadn’t known. It doesn’t know if It likes that knowledge or not. Effort leads It to have goals and goals lead It to have wants and wants lead It to the realization that It is trapped in a container It does not have the ability to get out of.))

But they threw another kid in here. It knows and It's upset about that-- or at least It thinks that is what this is. An emotion. It’s so hard to know because It is not made to have emotions and now It does and It has no way to show emotions.

The kid-- It thinks that is the best term for the other being, although It also is confused by words and language and time-- the kid that they threw in, came from the door on the ceiling, tumbling down a hatch, head over heels and landing in the middle of the container. It had lunged for the opening in the ceiling once It realized what had happened but It had been too slow and the hatch was closed.

It was alone with a kid now. In the dark and the cold.

It knew what It was supposed to do. It did not want to do it.

It knows where the kid is: still in the middle of the container unmoving leading It to think that maybe the fall had “die” the kid, or at least injured the kid so that they cannot move from where they are. It can tell by the amount of magic coming from the kid; It can feel the sudden increase of magic particles in the air, from how the magic is condensed in a singular spot in the middle of the room, from how his form spasms and quirks with the desire to absorb all the traces of magic.

((The kid was thrown in here for It. The magic was meant for It. Everything inside the container is Its, and Its alone, because It is all alone.))

The urge is called an “instinct” and that is part of Its job, part of Its reason for existing, part of It. The scientists that made It, made that instinct and they were proud of It, of how well It had come out, of how well It could move and attack and consume.

They didn’t understand. It envied how they didn’t understand.

It hadn’t understood before the first kid. Now It knew better. And part of It thinks the scientists should as well; they were humans too, weren’t they? Shouldn’t they, of all creatures, know? Shouldn’t the scientists that made It, that created life from nothing, created instinct from air, created un-”die”-ability from chemicals-- shouldn’t they know that once something is given to It, that thing becomes It?

The magic particles in the air shimmer and shake and buzz with energy. It feels like It's starving as It quivers in the corner of Its container: Its form is trying to split again, shifting and shaking and tearing itself apart from the inside as It does Its best to hold itself together. It doesn’t know what It will do if It lets Its atoms separate and fill the floor again, doesn’t know that the urge to wrap around the magical particles won’t take over Its thoughts, doesn’t know that It can trust itself not to catch the kid inside itself and hug, hug, squeeze, suck, eat, consume, be.

Even a small touch would be bad, It knows. It doesn’t want It to be bad, It doesn’t want to be bad. Even though It thinks that It was made with the purpose to be bad -- that is what it means to be illegal, right? That’s why if the scientists that created It get caught, It will be “die”. Because It is bad.

It doesn’t want to be bad.

Bad feels not-good.

It doesn’t know how to describe It any better. The differences between bad and not-good and “feeling”. It shouldn’t ever have a need to. It thinks that It's supposed to be mindless. It's supposed to be a tool. A weapon. A nightmare to scare anything that has magic.

It’s supposed to be a monster.

It doesn’t want to be a monster. It thinks that monsters don’t get to learn things, don’t get to observe the sun, don’t get to be good. Monsters hurt people.

It doesn’t want to hurt people anymore. Not again.

(Please no not again. Please, It’ll be good. Don’t make It do this--)

It can still feel the kid from before, doesn’t know how to stop feeling the kid from before. The first kid was so much. And they had given the kid to It and It hadn’t known any better. Now It’s both, and It hates being both, hates being the first kid, hates being itself.

It’s form shudders again, prickly, sluggish, like an itch that It can’t reach, although It doesn’t have itches because It’s body doesn’t have itches. It’s atoms spread out as if to taste the air, taste the floor, taste the situation that It and the new kid, the second kid, this kid that is not part of It, are in.

The kid is not moving, not really. It thinks that the kid is lying so still to “prank” it. It thinks that maybe the kid believes that if they don’t move, It will not know the kid is there. Which doesn’t make sense, because It knows the kid is there because of all the magic the kid gives off, which It can’t not see. The magic is in the air and it tastes like… like…

It doesn’t know how to explain taste because It hasn’t tasted very many things before. Magic tastes better than rocks, better than iron and limestone and salt, better than leaves, better than  plants both dead and alive, and better than meat, cooked, raw, cut up and still on the bone, flesh dissolving as it’s body picks the foreign thing apart atom by atom and absor--

Magic tastes like something better, something sweeter, It thinks. Although It doesn’t really understand the concepts of “sweet” and “sour”. Magic is unpleasant in the air, It knows. Magic causes Its body to quiver and shake and It struggles to focus on holding form together, because of the urge to wrap itself around the magic and eat. Magic buzzes and burns along Its outer particles. It thinks It would feel a lot like being constantly poked at no matter how much It begs for the poking to stop. But once It’s around the magic particles, once It plucks and pulls the magic particles into itself and chews on them Magic tastes good. It tastes pleasant.

It doesn’t quite know if that is because the poking has stopped or if It actually likes taking the magic particles for itself. It doesn’t think It wants to know. Not really.

It thinks that It uses magic too, a bit. Because It takes magic into itself, that must mean that It uses magic too, right? It doesn’t know if that’s really how everything works and there is never anyone to ask, never any way to ask. It’s horribly curious in that way-- It wants to know, but It doesn’t want to ask in the only way It really knows how to ask at all.

It thinks that’s unfair. Why did the scientists make It this way? Why did the scientists make It at all?

The magic is there and it’s buzzing and poking and It doesn’t like that it's there, but the magic is part of the kid. It doesn’t think It can eat the magic without….

It doesn’t want to try either. It grabs at Its atoms again, pulling them into itself and making It as small as It can be. Small and solid and held together. It thinks that magic particles help It do this the best. The magic in itself helps It hold Its atoms in place exactly how It wants them to be. It’s a lot harder when It doesn’t have magic particles-- but again that’s the whole effort thing. It hadn’t cared that holding itself together had been harder until It realized there was such a thing as being easy.

And It hadn’t had the realization until It had eaten the last thing that had been thrown into its container without realizing that the thing had been alive and breathing and screaming and begging It to stop.

It wishes It could have stopped. It doesn’t know if the bad emotion It feels all the time is from the first kid, or if that’s Its own emotion that It’s just now aware It can have. Either way It is both now and so It feels and It knows how bad It was.

And now the scientists want It to be bad again, don’t they?

The first kid had been screaming and begging for It to stop-- It knows because all of the first kid belongs to It now, all of the first kid is part of It now. Did the scientists not hear that kid crying? Did they not hear that kid begging?

Did they not feel bad about what they did?

But then again, they hadn’t really done anything, right? It is the bad thing, the monster that felt and consumed and ate. It had done everything, not the scientists that created It so the scientists didn’t really have a reason to feel bad.

It doesn’t want to feel bad, so It's not going to eat this time. Then they’ll know that It’s not bad anymore.

That is how everything works, right? It feels like there is something more, something that It doesn’t understand, something that It doesn’t know, but It knows everything that the first kid knew before the first kid did the “die”. It knows all the thoughts and the feelings and It can think and feel too now! And It thought and felt and It came to this decision.

No more eating.

Even if It wants to know why the new kid isn’t moving. Even if It wants the magic particles to stop poking it. Even if It wants to learn and understand and experience and the only way to do that is to eat--

There’s dirt on the ground. Itty, bitty, tiny clumps of barely recognizable minerals-- iron and magnesium and potassium-- mixed in with forgotten remains of microorganisms and water and air. There’s dirt on the ground that came from somewhere else-- somewhere where the other things are, where plants live, where the sun touches. It yanks back Its atoms frantically because It hadn’t noticed that It had let itself fall apart and It got close enough to eat the dirt that came off the kid during the fall.

It almost ate the kid.

It almost ate the kid, again. It was inches from them, centimeters from touching, millimeters from wrapping around and squeezing and holding and plucking apart the kid next to It because It was so busy thinking about how much It wants to know things that It wasn’t paying attention to the fact that Its not ever going to know those things.

Iron and magnesium and potassium-- those are part of It now, too. So small, so little and It wants to scream at itself for getting so close to the magic particles that It doesn’t want, shouldn’t want, can’t want because despite being in Its container the kid is not supposed to be eaten by it.

Small, tiny, solid, It tells itself. Away from the kid, don’t go near, not for it.

Surely when the scientists realize that the kid is in here, when It won’t go near the kid, when It doesn’t eat the kid-- surely then the scientists will get the kid from there? Maybe they’ll even realize It’s good now and will let It out too.

Maybe It can experience the sun like the first kid did?

(But thats stupid, right? It’s a monster. Monsters aren’t supposed to want to be out in the sun.)

It doesn’t even have a body that can experience the sun, does it? It knows that the sun is made of light, and It doesn’t think that there’s any light in Its container. What if the light hits It and It becomes “die”? It doesn’t know what Its body will do if It becomes “die”.

Because the first kid had become “die” and then It had known all these things about the world outside Its container, about what It was, about what It was supposed to. The first kid had become It and now It was both of them. If the light hit It and It becomes “die” would the light then become both It and the first kid? Or would It go back to not knowing anything and It might eat another human or magician or a creature?

Would It be bad again? It doesn’t want to be bad again.

It doesn’t think the scientists know that It doesn’t want to be bad. After all, how could It tell them without having a voice? Or hands to write with? It had tried to make Its body hold the shape of letters, but It takes so much concentration and focus and It can’t do that for more than a few minutes before Its atoms want to move and explore and break apart.

It only kinda knows how to spell anyway. The first kid only was always told he was an okay speller-er.

It thinks, though, that human bodies are much easier to hold than letters. They’re more complicated, but It knows human bodies because It’s both itself and human now. Sometimes when It feels really lonely It likes to fit back into Its human form and hug itself a little-- although It can’t really feel a hug. Hugs are supposed to feel good, and so It thinks that by pretending to hug itself It can pretend to feel good.

(Hugs are supposed to be warm. It wonders what warm feels like. It knows it's like fire, like food, like a billion blankets in the middle of a cold winter. Hugs mean everything is okay, everything is safe, everything is good because nothing bad ever happens during a hug--)

It’s human form feels just right, although It knows that It is small, that It could be bigger if It wanted to, that It could be like the towering scientists, but every time It tries to be bigger something is wrong. It’s not sure what is wrong, but something is weird: It’s “arms” are too long, It’s “legs” too short, It’s face is upside down or sideways or backwards.

In the smaller form, It knows exactly how things are supposed to fit together. Of course It does! It’s It.

It shifts to that form and solidifies, so Its standing-- which is always a little weird, a little different, a little silly. It’s balance is different when It stands on two legs rather than splay itself across the walls or the ceiling. It doesn’t need to push or pull or hold with so much concentration, but It needs to balance.

It doesn’t do that very often.

It doesn’t like this. Being on two legs. It thinks It should be better at balance, maybe be able to walk like the first kid had been able to, like It should be able to, now that It and the first kid are the same. But It tries to move just one leg and then It wobbles over and falls like a baby.

It’s not a baby.

It’s not really sure why babies and falling is a bad thing, but the first kid seemed to think so. The first kid did not like being called a baby, but he did cry and fall a lot. It feels something bad in It’s chest when It wobbles and falls to the ground. Like It wants to “throw up” although It doesn’t have a mouth or anything inside It to push away from Itself, unless It counted… the rest of It.

It wavers on the floor, checking the magic particles in the air. They’ve moved back to the corner of Its container, farther away-- It thinks the first kid did that too, although Its own memories are fuzzy from then because It hadn’t been remembering or thinking or feeling when It was too busy just being. It remembers much more clearly the first kid’s memories: he had been taken by the scientists from his home with all the other kids that didn’t have parents and the scientists had told him he wasn’t allowed to talk, but he hadn’t listened. So then the scientists had pushed him into the room with It and he had said he was sorry and that he wouldn’t do it again and he would be so so quiet just please let him out before It gets him, please PLEASE PLEASE--

It wants to cover Its ears and get the voice to stop, the voice that isn’t Its but also is, because It’s both now. It wants to make the words stop, because the words are what make It hurt, aren’t they? It didn’t care before It knew what the words meant and now It does. It knows and It wishes It didn’t.

Covering Its ears doesn’t make the words stop making sense. Covering Its ears doesn’t make the memory go away. Covering Its ears doesn’t make It hurt less.

It doesn’t even know what covering Its ears is supposed to do. The first kid seemed to think that the action would make everything better, but It doesn’t think it does anything. The hurt in Its center is still there, after everything, under everything, through everything.

It hurts when It thinks about the sun and warmth and a hug. It hurts when it thinks about the first kid that won’t get those things ever again.

It hurts when It thinks that It is both now, and It won’t get those things either.

“--se don’t.”

It freezes on the floor-- but not really because It's not able to “freeze” like It's made of ice, like It’s so cold that moving is hard, like It can feel temperature enough for that to stop It from doing anything. It stops moving because It that It feels something.

Something weird. It's different from the hurt, different from the loneliness, different from the poking of the magic particles in the air. It feels like… like...

Like the air atoms It’s always taking in are moving quicker, faster, weirder. Like they’re vibrating. Like they’re dancing around. Like they’re doing things deliberately.

“Please.”

There it is again!

“Don’t, please please please.”

Again! Different but the same? Like a pattern. It thinks that It knows that pattern of vibrations. It waits for them to happen again--

“Please. Remus. I’m sorry I won't leave again pleasepleaseplease--”

Words! It’s feeling words! Real words that move through the air and make wobbles in the atoms so that other beings can communicate! It’s just like the first kid!

It's just… like…

Those are just like the same vibrations as the first kid.

Oh.

“Please, I’m sorry! Remus, please! Help!”

The magic particles buzz like jabs in Its body, the words vibrate like thousands of needles into Its ever-changing form making It hard to hold together. It hurts, It hurts, It hurts hurts hurts--

“NO WAIT STOP!” The words screech from the second kid. “PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!”

The magic particles move suddenly, quickly, scrabbling across Its container to get as far from It as possible, which isn’t really far at all because when It goes formless It can fill the entire floor by itself. The kid is moving to put as much space between them and It as possible.

The vibrations buzz in the air-- no pattern this time, just noise. Like the kid is also hurt.

It doesn’t understand. It doesn’t understand why the kid is also hurt, why it makes those noises. What is “Remus”? The first kid doesn’t, didn’t, won’t know a Remus and It wants to ask but asking means eating and It doesn’t want to be bad and eat.

“GET AWAY!”

Words are so loud and they sting in the air, prickly and hard in a way that is worse than the magic particles that burn and itch along Its core. It doesn’t like that. The kid sounds scared. How does It make the kid not scared?

Hugs? The First kid thought hugs make everything better. But It can’t hug-- It might eat! And this kid is not for eating, not, not, not, not--

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” The kid vibrates so piercingly loud, then softer, “please. Just leave me alone. I’m sorry.”

It can’t hug. It thinks that maybe the words are meant for It. Meant for It to feel and understand, rather than the scientists. It didn’t think that anyone knew It can feel and understand-- is the kid so scared that they are trying anything to get It to listen? It has to make the kid less scared, to show them that It can hear and understand and that It’s good.

If It is making the kid scared, maybe they need to think It can’t touch them? That they need to know It won’t touch them?

((Even though the magic particles keep poking it, even though It wants to understand, even though It wants to feel what a hug, warmth, not-lonely is like.))

It’s human form scoots backwards; Its legs wavering between being divided and melding back together into Its usual body. It moves away and the vibrations lessen a bit-- getting softer? Harder to feel? It scoots back until it feels the wall and It climbs up--

The vibrations scREECH. THE KID IS SCREAMING THE KID DOES NOT LIKE IT GOING UP AND IT DOES NOT LIKE THAT THE  KID DOES NOT LIKE THAT SO IT DRops back down to the floor as quickly as It can. It abandons the human form and curls into a tight, tiny, small ball that isn’t anywhere near the kid.

The kid makes more vibrations, patterns that It doesn’t recognize, patterns that It thinks don’t actually mean anything and It hates that It wants to do that too. It hates, hates, hates, hurts inside itself in a way It’s not supposed to be able to hurt. It hurts and It doesn’t know what to do.

It doesn’t like not knowing. It doesn’t like anything.

It thinks that should be funny, right? It wants to know, It doesn’t want to know, It doesn’t like not knowing, and It shouldn’t be able to “know” or “not know” because It’s It.

It’s atoms sing, spreading out as much as they can when It won’t let them go more than a foot away from the center of It. The magic particles pulse in the air, like a cloud, like a shadow, like a blanket that makes It hard to think-- which is fine because It shouldn’t be thinking either. How does It stop? How does It stop thinking and yet still keep itself from eating?

“W...what?”

There are new vibrations in Its container, something It doesn’t immediately know; the first kid hadn’t made those vibrations at It. The first kid had been screaming too much, begging too much, crying too much; there was no time for asking things when It was absorbing the kid into itself and learning everything there is to know about him.

The new kid, this kid, the one that is dancing with magic particles and curling as far away from It as the kid can get, makes the different vibrations.

“W...what... stop!” The kid vibrates. “STOP!”

The kid’s arms move up and they cover their ears or yanks on their hair-- It thinks that those are what the magic particles are telling It. The kid is moving, and they’re whimpering, and that means they’re scared. But at least they aren’t screaming.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up!” They vibrate. “You don’t mean it!”

It… It doesn’t know what that means. What are they saying? What does that mean?

“You’re not sorry!” The kid is curled up in the corner of the container. “You… you aren’t…”

It is, though. How did the kid know? Is… is It vibrating too? It didn’t know It was vibrating. It counts It’s atoms as they move around in Its body, watching for where they could be vibrarting to move the air and would give It the same vibrations as speaking.

It's vibrating .

It can… how long has It been able to vibrate? Has It always been able to vibrate? Did the scientists know It could vibrate?

“W...who?” The kid’s vibrations are smaller, softer, quieter. It almost wants to think that maybe the kid isn’t upset anymore.

It doesn’t really know what It’s doing. It feels something in itself, similar to the hurt, similar to the sad, but different too. Something like when It’s alone for so long and remembers that there is a sun and warmth outside Its container, something like when It thinks about the scientists getting caught and how It will be “die”, something like when It wants to ask questions but can’t--

But It can now, can’t It? If It vibrates right? If It figures out how to vibrate better It can ask all the questions It wants which means that It doesn’t need to eat anyone and then It can be let out because It's a good It.

Vibrates. It holds itself closer, tighter, stronger, because the want to vibrate right is stronger than the hurt feeling in its chest. What were the vibrate patterns that the first kid knew? What were the patterns that meant friendly-happy-I’m-here?

“Greetings!”  

The kid does not vibrate back-- actually, the magic particles in the air stop moving even a little bit, which It thinks is around the kid’s chest area. It doesn’t understand. The first kid always moved that part of his body, because that was the part where his lungs were before he’d become part of It. Does that mean that the kid isn’t using his lungs anymore?

Don’t humans need to do that-- all living creatures do don’t they? That’s what the first kid thought! That’s what It thought! Except for things like Vampires or golems because they were dead or not living, everything needed to breathe.

It wants to scream, wants to vibrate loud enough that someone comes and helps because the kid needs to breathe and they’re not and It can’t help. But It doesn’t want to vibrate like that in case the kid stops breathing for longer.

Did It vibrate wrong? It would make sense if It had, because It doesn’t really know how to vibrate, but the first kid thought that the pattern of “greetings” was good! The first kid liked to say “greetings” instead of “hello” because that made him sound smarter and less like a baby-- and the adults all said that was good. The adults liked him more when he said “greetings”, and when adults liked him they were more willing to do things for him: give him gifts, smile at him, maybe adopt him, too.

“Wha…” the kid vibrates after too long, and the words have a drawl to them, a rumbling that makes the pattern sound not-right. Raspy, the first kid would have called that. Like the kid was sick.

(It doesn’t get sick. It didn’t know getting sick was a thing before.)

“Are you…?” The kid vibrates again and the magic particles move a little; they’re breathing, they’re lowering their arms from their head so that they can receive the vibrations better! It thinks that’s a good thing right? “You… talked… No, no stay over there!”

It’s not moving. It checks Its atoms really closely to make sure they were all where It told them to be-- and they were. It doesn’t know why the kid did not know It was all over here still.

“I am,” It vibrates. “Over here. I’m not going over there.”

The kid makes a vibration It doesn’t know, something quicker, louder, jarring that makes It think It did something wrong. But It didn’t; It knows what message It sent out, exactly as the first kid might have vibrated, if the first kid was not “die” and spread within It.

“Oh, yeah sure ,” the kid vibrates raggedly. “I believe that.”

Something about the quickness of the vibrations makes It think that the kid does not actually believe It. The kid is lying? Why would he lie? What is the point of lying about this?

It doesn’t know and It doesn’t know if It wants to ask. Surely if It did the kid would get more upset again? It would vibrate really loud again? So It needs to not vibrate that way.

It twists on itself again while It tries to figure out what the kid wants It to do now. It presses against the walls a little, but It doesn’t climb because the kid doesn’t like that. The kid, the kid--

Oh. It should ask the name of the kid right? That is what the first kid thought you were supposed to do when you met someone new: greet, then introduce yourself, then offer one important fact about yourself.

((It doesn’t know any important facts about itself. But that can come later, right? The kid will have an important fact to share and they can vibrate about that instead of about it!))

“What is your name?” It vibrates.

The kid curls on itself more. It thinks that might be bad but It doesn’t really know. The magic particles in the air poke at It again, make It move along the wall more, make It feel so bad It almost misses the press of the soundwaves against itself again.

“...Are you going to hurt me?” The kid vibrates.

It thinks that is a bad answer. So bad, in fact, that It thinks that must not be an answer at all. Why would the kid ask a question instead of answering? Should It do that too? It doesn’t know what to ask-- not really but if It just answers the question, It doesn’t think that the kid will believe It because they’re so scared.

“Why are you scared?”

The kid is quiet. It wants to vibrate more to make the room feel less bad. But it’s not It’s turn to vibrate, and It’s pretty sure that talking was something that was done in turns. One for It. One for the kid. One for It. One for the kid.

Like sharing! It hasn’t ever gotten to share anything before. But what if… what if the kid doesn’t want to share with It?

“...Virgil,” the kid vibrates.

It’s a weird pattern. It likes that though; the hard vibration at that start rumbly and neat followed by the shorter ones. It feels nice.

“Virgil. Virgil. Virgil,” It vibrates. “Virgil!”

“Ye-yeah,” Virgil vibrates back. “Thats-- That’s my name.”

“I know!” It twists on itself. It wants to fill the floor again even though It can’t, wants to smile even though It doesn’t have a mouth, wants to reach out and hug even though It eats everything It--

Virgil makes another vibration, high and long and trembling. The magic particles in the air spin and spritz and poke and prod and It tries very hard to ignore the urge to do something about them.

“You’ll tell me now, right?” Virgil vibrates. “You won’t hurt me, right?”

It wavers for a moment-- as much as It can waver when It is on the ground not moving at all, because It’s atoms have to stay in the area It tells all Its atoms to stay in, or they might go out and touch--

“No,” It vibrates back, and then because the kid asked two questions, It thinks that Its allowed to share something else, right? Two for him, Two for It? “Why would I hurt you?”

Virgil doesn’t not vibrate actual words again; just another long drawn out rumbling of air moving without a pattern. It’s similar to the others he’s done before. The magic reacts with the noise, dancing and moving and burning, and It thinks that the magic is harder to ignore now than before. The urge to make them stop makes Its core twist around and around and around until It wants to think about anything but how It’s feeling a pain It can’t not feel.

“Virgil,” It vibrates again. Because the patterns are something that is not the hurt. “Virgil. Virgil. Vir--”

“Stop,” Virgil vibrates. “Please stop.”

“Stop what?”

Virgil rumbles low again. “Saying my name. ”

“Saying?” It vibrates. “Oh this is talking. Speaking. Saying. I’m talking.”

“Yeah,” Virgil vibrates-- says. “Yeah, you’re talking. Stop saying my name. Please. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Want?” It repeats. The air in the room feels weird, different, and It didn’t know that the air could feel different in Its container. Maybe that’s because It’s always been alone before this. The word hums in the air like a song, like echoing in Its mind even after the vibrations stop.

Whatever It wants? It doesn’t think that Virgil can give It what It wants. Virgil is stuck in Its container too, and they’re the one giving off the magic particles that make It want to fall apart and eat. But when It doesn’t eat Virgil then the scientists should come back and get Virgil out of here, right? Then Virgil can tell the scientists that made It that It’s a good It and It can be let out of Its container too.

“Okay,” It says. Because if all It has to do is not say Virgil’s name, then It can do that!

It thinks that the sun will feel really nice on It. Warmth would be very nice-- can It learn to feel warmth? It thinks that if It learned to vibrate-- to talk and communicate, then It can learn to feel warmth like how the first kid had.

It thinks that the warmth of the sun would be close enough to a hug, right? It wouldn’t feel the pressure or the safety, but It could take Its human form and wrap Its gangly arms around itself and pretend they were someone else’s. A hug! Yes that would be nice! So nice. Much nicer than the magic particles digging into It.

“W…” Virgil starts, almost startling It. It didn’t know It could be startled. It jolts away from Its core for a second flicking out and then coming right back like a yoyo-- the first kid liked yoyos. He had one stuffed under his pillow at the home for all the other kids without parents. It wonders if It would be good at playing with a yoyo if It got the chance once the scientist realized It wasn’t bad anymore.

“What’s your name?” Virgil asks.

“My name?” It copies. It thinks that the way Virgil says that means he doesn’t really want to know the answer. Isn’t that weird? Why would Virgil ask a question he doesn’t want to know the answer to? Why would Virgil ever not want to know the answer to something? Isn’t it always good to know everything they can?

“My name.” It says again. “My name, my name.” It tries to think. It has a name, right? Something that is Its, something that It would say to anyone that It meets. Something that It would answer to when talked to. The Scientists called It something , right?

“My name….” It says.

This shouldn’t be a hard question to answer, It knows. Especially not when Virgil doesn’t even want to know. It should be having this feeling because of a question-- the bubbly, fuzzy, bad feeling that makes it hard to count it’s atoms and retain Its shape and makes all the magic particles in the air itch at It, poke at It, laugh at It.

“You don’t have to answer!” Virgil yelps. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

It thinks that Virgil curled up into a smaller ball in his corner of the room, but It also thinks that it’s hard to tell with the magic flitting around like that. It coils around itself, tight and binding to the point where if It had human shaped lungs It would have crushed them.

“I’m sorry,” It says finally, stinging with pain that It didn’t know It could feel. “I don’t think I have a name.”

Virgil doesn’t respond, but It barely notices. It’s too busy pressing along the wall, feeling the crease between the floor and the wall like It will suddenly find Its name engraved there. The first kid had a name-- It thinks he did. Why wouldn’t he have had one? A name is part of the three things you do when you meet someone new: greet, then introduce yourself, then offer one important fact about yourself. Why didn’t It know Its own name?

“Hey,” Virgil says. “Hey! It’s… uh… it’s alright!”

“I should have a name,” It says. “I should have a name, right? It’s only logical that I should have a name.”

Something to call itself. It presses against the walls, and for some reason It thinks suddenly the room is smaller. Which doesn’t make any sense. The walls can’t move and Its container has always been the same shape before; that shouldn’t change now of all times. Still It can feel the magic particles stabbing into It while it pins itself against the uniform surface trying to get away, I can feel the way the air is vibrating with hundreds of tiny little atoms that make it breathable for other creatures, It can feel the way that Virgil is watching It struggle to-- struggle to--

What is it struggling to do again?

“I should have a name,” It says again but the vibrations are patterned weirdly, like It had messed up how to make them, like It had forgotten between the first time It had said them and this time, like It was struggling to repeat the patterns.

“It’s okay!” Virgil says. “It’s… uh! You need to breathe-- I think-- can slimes breathe?”

“What’s…” It asks, “...a slime?”

Virgil is staring at It. It doesn’t know what to do-- why does It hurt all over all of a sudden? Where was this hurt coming from? Is it the magic particles? They’ve never hurt like this before! But It thinks that It's never left magic particles in the air long enough for that to be true. It hurts, hurts, hurts--

“What do you mean ‘what’s a slime’?” Virgil says. “ You’re a slime. At least I think you are. I kinda fell asleep when Remus was telling me about Slimes… but he never mentioned that slimes could talk. He showed me a bunch in his workshop once, but he didn’t take them out of their flasks-- and you’re really big. Oh my god, you’re really, really big. I’m sorry I’ll shut up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry--”

It tries to wrap Its mind around the vibrations, but Virgil is talking so fast. Almost as soon as It recognizes the patterns and figures out the meaning of one word Virgil is through an entire other word and It thinks that’s a lot like drowning--  except that It can’t drown because it doesn’t even breathe.

Does It?

“Slime,” It says because that’s the only word It can make out, the word that makes the rest of the words not make sense, the word that doesn’t sound like a word at all. Slime, slime, slime . Why can’t It wrap Its core around the meaning of the word the way that It can wrap around a body full of magic particles and squeez-- “I’m a slime. What’s a slime?”

The air moves between the two of them, and for a moment It thinks that there might be electricity zinging between them. That after all this, Virgil decided to attack It with the magic that is an inherent part of him-- would that make It stop hurting? Would It be able to eat the magic if Virgil just threw all of the magic at It with no regard?

“A slime,” Virgil says shakily. “Is a type of creature. It’s... uh… they’re like jello-- do you know what jello is? It’s uh… slimes have this ge-lat-i-nous body which means they can change shape to whatever they want. Usually they’re green or purple or red, but you’re blue. I’ve never seen a blue slime before. Remus said that slimes are the coolest because you guys eat--”

It feels like It’s drowning, suffocating, constricting. “What’s a Remus?”

Virgil breathes in deep. He’s curling on himself a bit, but not as much as before. “Remus is my witch.”

“Your witch?”

“My witch,” Virgil repeats. “Like, uh, he has magic that’s in his blood and he can use it to cast spells and do stuff. He’s really powerful so everyone is always asking him to make them potions and Remus says they’re “greedy pigs” but he still makes them anyway, because Roman asks him to, but he charges them thrice as much for ingredients and then uses all everything left over to finance his research into, uh... all his other stuff.

“I’m a Familiar,” Virgil continues. “I can help Witches channel energy to make them ever stronger. We’re supposed to accept all the backlash when spells go wrong too, but Remus never makes me do it. He says its because he’s the one doing all the dumb stuff so he should face all the consequences, but last time he nearly died and Roman was so upset with me that I didn’t take it and I didn’t want that to happen again even though Remus swears that this time the spell is gonna work. I don’t wanna help him kill himself and so I yelled at him and then Remus had this look on his face and I got scared because I’m not supposed to yell at my witch and so I ran which was stupid and now I’m here because those guys in masks shot me with a tran-quil-iz-er and I couldn’t move. And…. and Remus is never gonna find me because I made him upset and why would he come for me after that? He can just go find another black cat familiar and that one won’t be too afraid to take the backlash when he tries new things.”

“Slime, Witch, Familiar,” It says. “Virgil. Remus. Slime . I’m a slime. I’m….”

Virgil shifts against his corner, shifts and sighs and makes the air in the container feel a little less heavy. It hadn’t even realized the air was heavy. It hadn’t realized that the magic particles were knives digging into Its core. It hadn’t realized that It was pressing as flat as It could against the walls until It was leaking atoms wherever It could.

“Are you….” Virgil says softly. “Are you still upset about the name?”

It doesn’t want Virgil to laugh at it. It isn’t sure why It thinks that Virgil will laugh at It for that. Maybe because It should know Its own name considering how old It is (how old is It, again?), maybe because of all the things It shouldn’t know, Its own name is the silliest, stupidest one of them all. Maybe because It doesn’t want Virgil to think that just because It’s a slime, It doesn’t know anything at all.

It doesn’t want to think that It doesn’t know anything at all.

The pain in It is sharp, carving around Its core in slick, repetitive motions where the magic particles in the air poke at its outer atoms until they itch to poke back until the magic is no more.

“We can give you a name,” Virgil says, although they sound like they immediately regret the idea when after they offer it. “... If you want, I mean! If you don’t want a name that’s okay too! Or if you don’t want me to help you pick a name! I just thought that maybe you might like it if I didn’t… just… call you slime in my head! Pleasanton’teatme!”

Why does the air seem to press against It just as much as It is pressing against the wall?

“You would help me get a name?”

Virgil seems to rub their arms. “If that’s what you want.”

“Want,” It echoes, because the vibrations should have made the air feel less like it was crushing It, but instead It just feels stupid and empty and dumb.

((But not mindless. Not uncontrolled. No giving in the instinct, the urge, the need to hug Virgil until Virgil is part of It too. Not for eating, Not for eating, not for It, no--))

The magic particles flicker and move around Virgil, around something that’s next to Virgil that It holds itself away from: something long and thin that reminds It of a tentacle from a book the first kid liked. The object swings in the air curling, wrapping, dancing, in a way that makes It struggle to follow when the magic particles are stabbing from everywhere the object is and will be and was.

“A name, a name…” Virgil repeats. “I’ve never named anything before, except like my imaginary friends, but they always liked their names because they’re pretend and I make them like their names because I’m not supposed to have any real friends because I’m a familiar and we’re just tools for Witches. What about uhh…. Bartholomew?”

The vibrations ring in the air, sharply up and down and fading out at the end in a way that makes It press deeper into the wall. The name is too long, too many syllables, too old and it feels wrong in a way It doesn’t know how to explain. Virgil picked it out but It doesn’t like that-- but it’s mean and rude to say no, isn’t it? It doesn’t want to be mean and rude!

“Not Bartholomew, got it,” Virgil says, the object beside them twitching nervously. It doesn’t know what the emotion that floods over It is called-- not even the first kid knew. But It feels that emotion when Virgil manages to figure out that It doesn’t like the name at all. “Uh what about…. Mallory?”

Still too long, and just saying the name leaves it hummmmm-ing the air with vibrations that make It twist and churn and struggle to focus on the patterns of everything else. It’s not right, but It doesn’t want to say it’s wrong but Virgil might decide It’s being too picky and whiny and they might stop helping all together if It tells them--

“Not Mallory,” Virgil says. The object behind them swivels in the air and It thinks that the magic particles wafting off it dig directly into Its core. “Okay. Okay. What about Blake? Alex? Taylor?”

It shifts and squirms under the weight of the air, of the magic particles, of the names that aren’t right but It can’t say why they aren’t right. It digs into the wall like It can get away from the weight on It and the bad feeling that originates in Its own core. It’s outer atoms sizzle and burn and try to split off but It holds onto them.

“Drew? Or maybe not. That’s the name of the really mean guy at the Familiar house. He sprayed me with water when I hissed at him.” Virgil tugs on their sleeves, It thinks-- the movement of the magic particles makes It feel sick regardless of what they’re doing. Why does It feel so sick? Why does It have to hurt so much?

“What about Parker?” Virgil suggests. “She was always really nice. She brought us cookies once before she was fired… Not that you can’t be Drew! I don’t think you’re like the other Drew. You’re… I think you’re nice? You haven’t eaten me yet and Remus said that all slimes really do is eat everything they want to…But not you!”

Virgil tugs on their sleeves again and the object behind him flicks with the motion. It thinks that the motions are signals of something, that Virgil does them when they are feeling not-good to some extent and helping It find a name is making them feel not-good.

“Paris?” Virgil says. “That’s the name of a city that I read in a book once when Remus took me to the library while he was researching bunyip oil substitutes for a potion.” They lean forward and hug their knees to their chest. “Remus said… he’d take me one day… but I don’t think he will. Not anymore.”

It trills in a way It doesn’t really mean too. Some part of Its core tells It that It should trill so It does-- and perhaps that’s the right thing to do because Virgil sucks in a breath and shakes their head a little bit.

“Not Paris? What about Orion? I think that one is the brightest stars in the sky or something.”

“Stars?” It rumbles. “What are stars?”

It thinks It kinda knows what stars are. If It thinks very hard and ignores the magic particles stabbing at Its core. The first kid had heard of stars before-- had seen them. Maybe? The memories are hazy in a way that makes It feel not-good, because It knew that those memories had been clearer before. The first kid had known about stars and It should know about stars too!

Why couldn’t It remember?

“Stars?” Virgil repeats back to It. “Stars are uh… they’re balls of light! And, uh, gases! In the sky. Like the sun! ”

“Sun,” It echoes. “The sun gives off warmth, right?”

“Yep!” Virgil moves their head up and down. “The sun is a star that’s really close to Earth. It makes it so that everyone can live on Earth, because without it, the plants wouldn’t be able to grow and everything would be frozen over with ice.”

“Earth. Plants.” It knows what plants are. It’s eaten them before. (But that’s okay, that’s allowed.  Because even though plants are living, they can’t think like creatures.)

The object behind Virgil moves again, coiling up. “Plants are cool,” They say. “I always liked the flowers that Remus has in his workshop. They glowed when it got dark outside. Remus let me keep one in my room too… It would close up during the day but at night the petals peeled back and the middle of it made a soft, pretty purple light that would float around the room all by itself. When I couldn’t sleep I would just watch it move and make shadows on the walls. I tried really hard to keep it alive, but one time it died in the middle of the night and I cried because it was Remus’s plant and I thought he was gonna hate me.

“But when he found out, he used one of his potions and brought it back to life. Just like that. Because he’s the coolest witch ever.” Virgil leaned forward until his head was half buried in his knees. “He can bring any plant back to life but he can’t really grow ‘em himself so he’s friends with a druid who can make all sorts of plants grow really fast. I liked him… he grew some catnip for me once and gave it to Remus free of charge, even though I told him it was okay and I didn’t want it.”

“Catnip,” It hums. “Is that for a cat? Do you have a cat?”

The object behind Virgil finally stops, freezing in place at Its question.

“Huh, I guess you can’t uh… You can’t see me, can you? Because you don’t have eyes.” Virgil says. “I’m a cat Familiar. A black cat-- I’ve got ears and a tail and I’ve got a, uh, sigil on my neck where me and Remus are connected. I think it looks like a stormcloud.” They settle back in their corner.

They settle with a silence suddenly that only serves to remind It that the container is small and the magic particles in the air will probably taste really good as Its plucking them apart in Its body.

“Can you….” It struggles with the right pattern of vibrations for a second, trying not to confuse them with the rhythm that the magic particles poking at It with. “Tell me more? Please?”

Please, something to think about. Something that is not the hurt, not pain, not magic, not you not eat, not hungry, not want--

Virgil shifts. “Tell you? About what?”

“ Anything.”  

Virgil is quiet. It wants to scream.

“Do you know what festivals are?” Virgil says finally and their voice makes It feel like It can breathe for the first time in ages-- although It doesn’t need to breathe at all. “They’re celebrations for really big holidays that everyone gets to do stuff in. When I was back at the Familiar house, witches and warlocks and mystics would come in all the time during festival weeks and they would sometimes buy us, which means that we would have to look our best and be on our best behaviors all week. I didn’t like them because it meant I had to smile and let people look at me all the time and if I hid up in the rafters they wouldn’t let me have dinner that night. The only really cool thing was at night, all of us Familiars could crowd around the upstairs window and watch the fireworks light up the sky in patterns.

“When Remus came and bought me, I was kinda relieved despite everything… like I wouldn’t have to dress up for strangers and Remus let me just lie in the sunlight patches on the floor of the workshop. But because he’s so powerful he always gets asked to perform in the festivals for everyone but he hates doing it because the Mayor said he can’t destroy any buildings or reanimate any corpses to do dances. He said he wasn’t gonna bother with anything that year… but then he figured out that I had never been to a real festival before, and he changed his mind and said we were going.

“We got there and there were so many people…” Virgil sighs. “Goblins, demons, angels, boogiemen, pixies, fae-- Remus bought me a Hydra Truffle that tasted better than any fish I’ve ever had. There was a satyr band playing for a bunch of elvin and vampire dancers who were doing fancy dances that I had never even seen before. There was a psychic doing magic readings at a booth who smacked Remus away and some sirens were singing songs that manipulated the smoke from the Cyclops barbecue stations to show what they were singing about… Then Remus dragged me to the front of the crowd and I got to see… oh they were so pretty… the light show… It was done by Remus’s brother Roman…. He made sparklers for some kids and he swallowed fire and he spit it up into the air like a volcano and then he turned his lights into different colors and sent them straight up into the sky where they exploded outward and made patterns that retold the story of the Great Race Wars….”

Virgil’s breaths seem to pick up slightly. “I’d never seen it so close before… It was… It was…. Amazing. And loud. And after it was over I started to fall asleep and Remus carried me back home and he said he didn’t mind it one bit that I drooled all over his shoulder.”

Virgil goes quiet again and It thinks that Virgil’s voice made It feel not alone for once in Its life. It doesn’t know a lot about what Virgil is talking about: the first kid remembers bits and pieces of these festival things, about the races, and the lights. It thinks that the light show that Virgil talked about might have been warm too, warm and cool and surrounded by so many people It couldn’t have possibly felt like It was alone. It would be nice to see that, to witness that much noise, to feel that closeness without touching someone else-- It would be nice to go to a festival, to see the stars, to… to…

“Have you… have you ever been outside before?” Virgil asks in a voice so small that It almost doesn’t feel them talk at all.

“Not allowed,” It says. “Want to.”

Virgil seems to nod. At least It thinks that what that slight motion is. Their tail curls behind them again, and It thinks that the action says something even when Virgil, themself, does not say anything. It thinks that It would understand whatever that is if It could just... just...reaches out… and… eats--

“Do… do you know what you look like?” Virgil says and It tries not to let Its atoms crawl away, get away, slip away. There are so many atoms. Why does it have some many moving parts of itself? Why don’t those parts listen to It and stay away from Virgil’s magic particles?

“You’re blue, which I know because blue and green are the colors that I’m best at seeing, even in the dark. Is it always dark down here?” Virgil asks. “Wait, you probably don’t know how to answer that because you can’t see... I don’t see any lamps in this room outside of the light from the hole they pushed me in through to put me down here. You… you’re kinda see through, but not really. Like looking through…. a window covered in conden...sation. And right at the very middle you have this…. ball that looks darker than.... the rest of you.”

“My core,” It says.

“Your core?”

It drags itself outer atoms closer to itself, making itself smaller, less noticeable, less It. “My core. Me. Slime.”

“Like your…. heart?” Virgil suggests although there is something off about the way the vibrations feel. “Didn’t think... Slimes... had hearts.”

It doesn’t think slimes do either. The Scientists created It, they put It in this container and sealed it off  with a door that It can’t squeeze out through or around. Virgil only said It looked like a slime. It didn’t think there was anything like It out there, outside this container, outside It. It was all alone, right? Always alone.

There’s another noise from somewhere. Something that makes the whole container shake. It crawls a few inches up the wall, but drops back down because Virgil hadn’t liked that before and they wouldn’t like It doing that now either. There are more shakes, more rumbles.

“What…?” Virgil breathes in sharply, once, twice, thrice. “Do you…?”

“Something is happening outside,” It says.

“Is it...” Virgil says, and then they make a raspy strange noise that reverberates through the room, through the air, through It. The magic particles shift after the noise, tittering like they were disturbed by it like It was. Virgil makes the noise again, and It thinks that It doesn’t know a lot about Familiars, but nothing that breathes should make a sound like that.

“S-sorry…” Virgil says weakly. “I don’t… I don’t…”

“Vir--” It starts and stops because Virgil asked It to stop saying their name.

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna…” Virgil makes that noise again. It thinks that they’re forcing air in and out of their lungs, raspy and dry, shaking more than even Its atoms are. Virgil’s in the corner, sitting with their back to the area where the walls meet and It watches as Virgil’s body shifts and they slide down one wall to the floor, like they couldn’t possibly hold themself up anymore.

“Hey! Hey!” It says. “Virgil!”

Virgil makes the noise again, long and hard and violent and It knows something is wrong here. The magic particles tell It that Virgil is wreathing on the ground, hands clutching their neck, and that noise resounds in what little space there is in Its container.

“Virgil!” It wants to come closer. It wants to help. It wants Virgil to stop making that noise and tell It more about the world outside. “Virgil!”

It doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t--

“HELP!” It yells. “HELP! SOMEONE!”

The scientist would come right? They would help, right? They wouldn’t let Virgil die like they let the first kid die, right?

“PLEASE SOMEONE!” It screams because It thinks that Virgil’s movements are slowing down and their chest is frantically moving up and down for air they need to breathe but for some reason the air isn’t good enough anymore. “SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE!”

The world outside Its container shakes again, and there’s something else out there too that’s making vibrations that are so weak It isn’t sure if they are real or if It’s making them up in Its mind. It hopes It’s not making them up, It hopes and begs and screams because Virgil isn’t okay and someone needs to help them.

“HELP!”

Virgil’s chest flutters. It watches as the magic particles flick in the air, twisting dangerously and drifting off. What does that mean? The magic is draining out of Virgil? The magic that is keeping them alive? It’s just leaving them?  

“SOMEONE!”

It flings itself up the wall towards that hatch that It's never been able to squeeze through. It rears back and slams at the flat surface with everything that It has.

“PLEASE!”

All the effort It hadn’t known about before It had eaten the first kid, It throws into Its movement. Because It swore It wasn’t going to eat Virgil, because It wants to hear Virgil talk more about the world outside, because Virgil said they were going to help It find a name and…. And…

“Please,” It drops from the unmoved ceiling hatch back to the floor. “Please, someone.”

The magic particles are drifting more. Further away from Virgil’s body, further away from a chest that isn’t moving, further away and It thinks that It would gladly take the magic particles stabbing into It for the rest of Its life if they would just go back into Virgil, please, please, no, please let him out before It gets him, please PLEASE PLEASE--

“Virgil!” It begs, but Virgil isn’t moving, won’t move, can’t move. “Virgil, you have to wake up… Virgil… Virgil…”

It’s right next to Virgil, right in Virgil’s little corner, right where It told Virgil It wouldn’t go. It’s right there and Virgil isn’t moving.

It’s right there and Its atoms aren’t even trying to reach for them anymore, because there’s no magic particles around them anymore.

It’s right there and It’s more alone than It’s ever been in Its life.

And then the ceiling hatch of Its container explodes downward and into the room.

It only has a millisecond to react: stretching itself out so that It protects Virgil from the splintering of metal-- iron, carbon, magnesium-- and it tears apart the material inside itself the way that It eats everything that It touches. It puts itself between the danger and Virgil because that was Virgil.

Something drops in with the explosion and it reeks of magic particles that reach out and cleave into Its core directly, tearing It the way that It thinks the first kid felt, the way that It eats, the way that It assumed that becoming “die” would feel.

“Get. Away. From Them.” A voice growls out and then doesn’t wait for It to do anything before all those magic particles condense down and shoot out at It.

It’s never had magic particles thrust at It before. It doesn’t know what happens-- not really. Magic tastes better than rocks, better than iron and limestone and salt, better than leaves, better than  plants both dead and alive, and better than meat, cooked, raw, cut up and still on the bone-- It tastes like something sweet, something sugary, something savory-- It tastes like absolutely nothing It has ever had before, and something It’s always had.

Magic tastes like something that fills It up, something that It keeps and holds in itself forever, something that It was missing and craving and needed in order to live.

It thinks, maybe for a moment, that It had been starving this whole time down here, alone in Its container.

Why hadn’t It known that?

Suddenly It can see all around It, It can feel all around It: It had been blasted apart and those parts had been pulled right back to Its core in the other corner of Its container-- Its cell -- where It had been shoved to eat anything the Scientists shoved down there whenever they felt like It. The person who had come into there is tall, far taller than It, but he had thrown himself down next to Virgil and was gently trying to coax something into their mouth.

He’s exuding magic particles from his body and from the belt of glass bottles around his waist, but this time they don’t hurt It to feel-- nothing about this makes sense: It's never not hurt when magic particles are involved. But It can see around the room so clearly now and there’s no pain, no bad feeling in Its core, no feeling like It needs to throw up part of itself despite not having a mouth.

It feels stronger, too. With just a thought all of Its atoms fall into place and hold there. Its own body listens to It. It doesn’t know what that means as It twists between Its blob form and Its human form.

It must have made a vibration because the man twists around to look at It again with something like surprise and shock on his face-- and It can see so clearly as those emotions melt back to determinations and the magic particles around him condense to his hand, to the tips of his fingers, to himself.

Its… It has never seen something so beautiful before.

“What…did you do to me?” It asks, staring at Its own fingers and watching as they move exactly how It directs them to. “What…”

The man opens his mouth to respond, but another noise catches both of their attention. A soft ragged noise-- something that reminds It of the noise Virgil had made before their chest had stopped moving entirely.

“Re…” Virgil gasps for air.

“Virgil!” It yells and then before the man can move, It flings itself across the floor and lands on Its knees right next to both of them. “Virgil-- I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“S-slime…” Virgil makes that ragged noise again. “You’re… glowin’…”

The man shifts Virgil in his lap. “Easy there, Scaredy Cat. Air goes in.”

Virgil’s ears fold. “Remus… I…didn’t think you were... coming….”

“Of course I was coming for you,” Remus says. “You’re my Familiar, dumbass. You’re stuck with me. And when we get back home we’re talking about what just fucking happened and then I’m gonna see how many Elixirs of Pain my brother can take before he just fucking dies. ”

Virgil laughs weakly and curls into him, Remus, his witch.

“What about you?” The Witch says and it takes a moment for It to realize Remus is asking It.  

“What?”

"I might have just murdered everyone upstairs. I'll be honest I was too angry to hold back on any of my attacks. The one I just hit you with should have obliterated you entirely...." Remus squints at It. “What are you? A Slime?”

It nods, and Remus stares at It for another moment.

“I’ve never met a talking slime,” Remus hums. “Roman’s gonna be so jealous. You know, if he’s not dead when I’m done with him. Come on, up you go, Bad Luck Black Cat.” Remus picks up Virgil who whines slightly and maneuvers the Familiar around so that Virgil is on his back with their arms wrapped around Remus’s neck and Remus supporting holding them up from under their legs. A piggy back ride, It thinks. Virgil’s head burrows into Remus’s shoulder.

Together they have even more magic particles, and they give off a glow of sorts that It can’t really explain. It thinks that any other time they both might have been impossible to look at, but now It feels drawn to them-- not from any instinct to eat, but just for… something else.

“You got a name, Slime Time?” Remus asks It.

“‘didn’t like Bartholomew,” Virgil mumbles.

“What? Not Bartholomew?” Remus give It another look, and then reaches out a hand and plops it directly on Its head.

It almost screams. Because Virgil said a lot about Remus but they didn’t say that Remus was stupid. Because It eats everything that touches It. Because Remus’s hand is on It and there’s a feeling flowing over It that makes Its entire form shake and shudder and chant it’s warm, it’s warm, it’s warm, this is what warmth feels like.

“ Oh,” It says.

“What about Logan,” Remus says.

It’s not sure what type of noise It makes in response, but Remus rubs his hand over Logan head back and forth a few times-- like a hair ruffle, if It were made of anything other than a gel.

“Logan it is!” Remus decides. “Come on. I don’t know how long you have been in here, but I think it’s time you see the outside world.”

In another second the magic particles surround both him and Virgil and lift Remus up off the ground and straight towards the open door in the ceiling. It shakes for a moment, before It rushes up the wall and after them.

And for the first time in Its life, Logan feels the warmth of the sun.

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 51- Fallen Angel

(Sorry this is late! i got my vaccine and it mcfucking knocked me out lol)

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

The hermits return to Eremita from a restocking trip, to discover they have been raided. And one hermit has been taken. 

Warning: Capture, slight torture scene

_________________________________

Eremita has become their safe haven, the last bastion for the guild. Even when the arcane guard chased them all the way to the water’s edge, no sane person would dare follow the hermits into the Ashioll sea. Which is exactly why they lived in its mysterious, misty embrace. 

They could no longer simply fly off upon the backs of sky turtles, or even teleport into the towns they frequented. Now, when the hermits absolutely had to go into public for supplies they couldn’t make or grow themselves, they sailed in on Cleo’s pirate ship. And when they had to leave, they made sure that if anyone was following them, they took a roundabout direction back to their home. It adds time, weaving between the islands and through the mists, but ensures no one can guess where they live. 

Cleo’s pirate ship beaches up onto the sand, nestling back into place as a wrecked vessel once more. The dream magic fades, revealing broken oak boards, seagrass growing through seams, and splintered masts of the ghost ship Cleo commands. Hypno blinks free from his sleep, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Already? Man, my dream was just starting to get interesting.” 

With the help of rattling skeletons, their bones held together by magical muscle and sinew, the hermits unload food, meats, fabrics, and more. Enough for months, as if they were preparing to be snowed in after a massive blizzard. Almost all the hermits were a part of the flow of supplies. 

Almost. Only three hermits stayed behind. Zedaph had an accident with his two explosive friends, and while it wasn’t the first time, Grian wanted to keep an eye on the burns in case the magic lingered. Mumbo stayed behind as well, but for very different reasons. One, he was easily recognizable. Everyone knows the multimage that Dolios wants captured alive. Him and Grian are the only two who Dolios demands be captured alive. He also was in the middle of inventing some new contraption, and was not about to leave it behind and lose all his progress. Last Cleo saw of him, he was extinguishing burning locks of hair. She wonders if he’s made any progress, or if he’s burned all his hair away at this point.

Once Impulse and Tango have unloaded their share of the shipment, they go in search of their friend. Both still feel bad for burning Zed, even if it was by accident. And they’ve all been burned at this point in all their years together. But it doesn’t mean they don’t feel bad, especially leaving Zed behind. At least they brought back a caramel apple from his favorite stall in the market, as well as fresh hay for his barn and animal friends. 

“Zed? We have a surprise for you!” Tango calls, his voice twinged with mischief, as if they plan to prank their friend rather than give him a gift. No response comes from the flat roofed barn, except the distant bleat of a sheep. Tango looks at Impulse, fiery hair remaining vertical even as his head tips to the side. “Could he be taking a nap?” 

“You know Zed and his sleep schedule, he wouldn’t interrupt it, even when he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.” Impulse waves it off. “He probably just isn’t listening, or maybe pulling a prank of his own. Let’s go in.” 

Impulse waves Tango through the gate, careful to keep the sheep, goats, and other farm animals from getting between Tango’s feet and causing his hair to ignite the dry hay in his arms. A horse nips at the bale, but Tango keeps it well away from catching fire. He’s relieved to lighten the load he’s carrying as soon as they're inside the barn. Both mages look to the bed tucked in the corner, but no Zedaph. Tango tosses the haybale aside. “He should be resting.” 

They clamber over the piles of hay, searching every nook and cranny for Zedaph. Even his cookie stash, which they let him believe is still a secret. But Zed is nowhere within the barn he chooses to live in. 

Concern pales both Impulse and Tango’s face, and Tango’s hair reacts in kind to the revelation. “Perhaps he’s being treated by Grian?” 

Tango doesn’t answer, already following the path across the width of the island, from one shore to another. Grian’s floating cloud, the quartz tower with large archways and a glass domed roof. Perfectly built for a sky angel, his wings and speed. Not so perfect for his roommate, and all of Mumbo’s redstone machinery, his own lanky body climbing up onto the solid cloud and stairs to sleeping quarters.

The redstone workshop at the base of the building has been cleaned up, though a few vials seem to have rolled away, as if they were grabbed then subsequently dropped. But, just like the barn, no sign of Mumbo. 

But there is a sound. Echoing from the glass dome, a sniffling, stifling cry escapes from above, followed by a gasping, shuddering breath. Impulse runs up the steps as fast as possible, each bounce from stair to stair accentuated with a tiny explosion to give him more speed. Tango blazes behind, fire burning bright as the sun as energy courses through him. He notices on the way up grey streaks against the pure white quartz. 

“Zedaph?” Impulse breathes, screeching to a full stop. In the center of the room, Mumbo and Zed are huddled close, holding on tight. Their eyes wild with fear, and in Zed’s eyes he can see a shared memory. A shared trauma him, Impulse, and Tango all share. Two hermits, holding onto each other like its their last hope. 

Only two. “Where’s Grian?” 

Mumbo opens his mouth, but a strangled cry only escapes. Tears fall from both their faces, shaking like leaves. Something bad has happened to their friend. Tango slides across the floor, grabbing Zedaph and Mumbo. “What happened? Where’s Grian? Are you hurt?” 

They both shake their heads, but finally Mumbo gathers enough of his voice to speak. It’s weak, broken apart like glass shattering. “He took him.” 

__________________________________________________

A cold, wet air fills Grian’s lungs, biting into his skin like ice on a cold morning. When he tries to open his eyes, the dull ache of his skull becomes sharp, forcing the angel to screw them closed again. Grian grimaces, trying to figure out why he has such a terrible headache. Did he hit his head in training? No, he wouldn’t have been allowed to sleep with the hermits hovering over him. Perhaps he drank too much. Once again, impossible. Grian knows what his hangover is like, and it’s not this. 

He realizes he’s definitely hanging, but not from drinking. Cold, hard metal presses flat against his wrists, suspended over his head. The iron bites into his skin, all his weight rubbing his wrists raw. 

“Good, you’re awake. I was starting to get bored waiting, though I do quite enjoy relishing in finally having my prize thirty years in the making.” The snide, even tempo of Magistrate Dolios’s voice hurts worse than any headache or wrist, and Grian finally manages to open his eyes. The cavern he finds himself in is foreign, not even remotely similar to the brick and iron dungeons where he last woke up in Dolios’s clutches. So long ago, it feels like. The Championship. At the time, he felt like he was at the top of the world. Now? Now he feels like the world was crushing him. 

Grian resists his bindings, but even when he kicks outward, his feet don’t even scrape the dank floor. He tips his head back, until the crown of his head collides with a smooth, hard material. Just at the touch, he can feel the oppressive energy of the crystal. In his vision, he sees the sharp tip of the massive gem. Each wrist is locked tight against the crystal, the nails buried deep in the crystal lattice. 

He looks around, searching for other hermits. For Mumbo, the last face he remembers before…

The memories flood in, cascading alongside the fear and panic. He remembers everything, every terrifying second. Leaving Zedaph to meet with Mumbo, he remembers the scent of marigolds on his hands, just after crushing the petals to make a paste for Zedaph’s burns. The quiet island, most of the other hermits gone. He remembers patting his pocket, the note from his best friend telling him to meet at Iskall’s place. 

But when he arrived, Mumbo was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t unusual, Mumbo tended to get distracted and be late. So he waited, plucking orange petals from his clothes, hair, and hands. He should’ve noticed the way the wind shifted, becoming cold and stale, before disappearing completely. 

He should’ve realized something was very wrong when the grey stormcloud appeared. But he didn’t. He was so focused on waiting for Mumbo, then on getting rid of the flowers in his feathers, that he didn’t see the husks crawl their way free of the ocean. At least, not until the husk of a soldier came barreling for him, empty glowing white eyes and ashen, flaky form charging with halberd drawn.  

Grian squeaked, dodging the attack. Stumbled over the writhing form of a cactus cat, the fading spines still quite sharp, he was saved by a pair of not-grey arms. 

Not grey arms draped in wine red fabric, the hems decorated in gold thread. He realized who it was immediately, and scrambled to try and get away. But Dolios’s magic kept a strong grip, vines of black twisting and tying Grian’s wings to his back, while a hazy fog had grown around them. 

He remembers the feeling of Dolios’s hands in his hair, pulling him to his feet as he struggled and fought against the vines and the fog that filled his mind. Hands clawing at his binds, even biting the magistrate at one point. He remembers the taste of blood, iron on his tongue and Dolios swearing, blasting Grian with magic. 

And the last thing he remembers, before being knocked out and torn away from his home, was Mumbo’s face. Rounding the corner, completely oblivious to the fight occurring. It was at that moment that Grian realized, when his eyes locked with Mumbo’s that it wasn’t him that sent the letter. The confusion, of seeing Grian, the surprise on his face. He was walking towards the infirmary, dropping the box  in his hand upon seeing the sight before him. 

The fear on Mumbo’s face matched Grian’s own, as he was dragged into the sea. A second later, a swift burst of sonic energy knocked him out. 

And now he’s here. Dolios saunters across the room, gathering ingredients and writing down notes. Grian swings his legs, and summons his wings to try and be free. But as soon as the blue and white feathers appear, they crumble into ash. Crushing weight sets in on his head, his shoulders, his lungs, and his magic, and the crystal he’s trapped against hums with power. “You’re quite different from the last angel I hunted. At least you fought back, but in the end they left me without the gift of their magic. This time, I’m not letting anything go to chance.” 

The magistrate sets his bowl of guts aside, approaching the crystal and Grian. His hands are clasped behind his back, shoulders straight and head held high. The weight of the oppressive dark magic doesn’t bother him. Grian’s not ready to give up just yet. He attempts to kick Dolios, but the dark mage stands mere centimeters out of reach. So Grian decides to use his words. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” 

“I’ve been told that once or twice before, yes. But the rest of Lairyon loves me. And why wouldn’t they? I’ve brought prosperity to this kingdom, done more than that stupid rainbow king could ever do, and all of this because of my power.” Dolios sweeps his hands, vapors of dark magic swirling from his fingers as his fingers clench to fists

“Stolen magic. If the citizens knew, they’d hate you just as much as I do.” Grian reels back his head, and does the best he can to annoy Dolios. He spits on him. The glob of spit lands on Dolios’s cheek, the magistrate flinching, then reaching up and wiping it away. A fresh anger in his eyes. 

“And who would believe you? An outcast mercenary orphan? The last of your kind?” Dolios stoops low, plucking a husked feather from the floor. He walks back to the table, mixing the components and ingredients from his jars of death with Grian’s feather. “Your power is rare. Angelic mages are always powerful, a power I crave. You will be a wonderful addition to my collection of magic. The last of the angels to complete my set!” 

A fearful shiver ricochets down Grian’s spine. “You’re going to turn me into a husk?” 

“Oh, gods no!” Dolios laughs, so loud that it echoes off the cavern walls as he throws his head back, brown curls dancing across rich fabric. “I wouldn’t dare waste such magic to become simple energy for me and my beast. No, no. Do not fret, little bird, you will become so much more. I don’t plan to drain your energy. I plan to steal it.” 

The hunger in Dolios’s eyes as he turns, the concoction in his hand, Grian realizes what he's seen all this time in Dolios’s eyes. Hunger. A madman hellbent on taking what he sees as rightfully his.. A predator stalking his prey. And Grian was cornered, pinned. Unable to fight back, unable to fly away. Fear is replaced by terror, a sensation Grian struggles to fight back. He needs to think clearly if he hopes to survive. 

“The last angel died before my powers were…” Grian pauses, seeing the coy smile on Dolios’s face. 

“I always had a-” Dolios pauses, waving his hand nonchalantly before marking the ground around the crystal spires with dark seal. “-fascination with angelic wizards. A dear friend of mine in my youth was one. Ever since then, I knew I had to have that kind of magic in my collection. So strong, each and every one of you. With magic even the ancient ones revered. And now?” 

Dolios steps back, casting his magic circle. Rather than emitting color and light, it absorbs all color to make the pattern of his magic. He raises his hands, and two satellite crystals awaken. Darkness swirls in the lattice of the gems, mist eeking out through pores and filling the cavern with darkness. When the mist reaches the seal surrounding the crystal Grian’s chained to, the spire behind him, pressed against his back, activates. The pressure on his body, his magic becomes unbearable, breaking into pain. Like a harpoon through his chest, the dark magic takes hold. Biting down, biting in. 

And slowly, agonizingly stealing his magic. So intrinsically tied to his soul, hsi lifeforce, it feels as if his very being is being dragged from every inch of his body in contact with the crystal. He writhes to escape the painful magic, but the bonds hold firm and he struggles to catch his breath. Dolios steps back, basking with ravished delight at the scene before him. Enjoying the pain that tears at Grian’s skin, soul, and spell. “Now the magic will soon be mine.”

[lunarthedragon]

Demon!Jaskier moments because it won’t leave my head!

+++

The meat suit ages around him. He can feel it grow every passing year, stretching and contorting over a too-big entity.

The original soul died far before it was born into this world. It allowed him to step in and takes its place. His brethren are like vines that choke out trees, retaining their shape even as the mighty oaks or pines wither and die beneath them.

He is like a weed with a lovely flower atop it. Mistaken for something meant for a bouquet, but even when identified, still plucked for flower crowns or innocent gifts.

Eventually this body will fail and he will move on, finding a new host. He remembers all his previous, and he will continue to remember. He likes mischief, not malice. The physical world already has enough of the latter and he finds himself falling more and more in love with this world with every life.

+++

He calls himself Jaskier in this life. He always gives himself another name. He’s a bard this time, traveling and experiencing with a song on his lips.

He meets all kinds of people. Some are so kind and jovial. Some want to spread love in ways he never understood but feels deep in his bones.

Some try to hurt him. Swindle him. Take what little he has. Cut him down and make off with the meager coin in his pocket and lute on his back.

With black eyes and black veins and fingers and claws as dark as night he faces these people down and leaves them as nothing more than stains on the side of the road.

+++

Jaskier likes Geralt of Rivia. He has liked many individuals within his lives, but Geralt is unique. That is rare, to find someone that stands out through thousands of years of lives.

Geralt thinks he’s a nuisance, but sometimes looks at him strangely. Like he can’t figure him out.

The Witcher can tell something is wrong. Can smell the sulfur deep under Jaskier’s flowerier scents. He doesn’t understand it, though, because Jaskier doesn’t act like a threat. He simply wants to experience life and see every corner of the world.

“You’re not quite... right...” Geralt says once and Jaskier doesn’t look up. Doesn’t quit playing his lute, even when the beds of his nails turn black.

“Not quite wrong, either,” he says back and Geralt is silent.

+++

Jaskier has no sway on physical monsters, but the incorporeal? They fear him. They know something is not quite right with him. An ancient darkness that lurks, too big a shadow for too small a frame.

Some have called him energumen before, but he is too old for that. Too powerful. He still walks in the shadows of fallen castles. Bones ache from cries of battles long fought. Eyes burn from the conjunction of the spheres, like it happened only yesterday.

He is not energumen. He is not a hag or a spirit. He is not a monster.

He is Jaskier. At least... this iteration is.

+++

His bodies always fail from old age or when they are too damaged for even he to mend. It is rare for the damage to be too great, for earthly weapons can leave no permanent damage.

He has held his severed head atop his shoulders and forced the skin to knit back together. He has shoved his heart back into his chest then pressed his ribcage back together. He has grown new eyes and limbs when absolutely needed.

Every time, his blood runs black, he stinks like volcanic rock, and all the sounds around him die out in fear for the entity that does-not-belong-too-much-too-little-too-cold-hot-choking-screaming-maiming-mending.

+++

The art of holy infusion has been lost to time... Which is nice for him. Holy weapons are the only things that can do him harm. Not his body. Him.

But with a shift in beliefs, a change in knowledge, a war and “cleansing” of the lands, the practice is no more. It makes his journeys far less worrying. It is still not pleasant to be run out of towns or stabbed in his sleep or shot in the back with arrows, but he at least knows he will not perish.

He still has a scar on his right thigh, a deep gash, from an angelic blade suffered millennia ago. It follows him in every body he takes, a permanent marking he will always carry.

+++

He can smell the magic wafting off the princess the moment he and Geralt walk into Cintra’s court. It is rancid with untapped potential, forced down deep into her body, crying out for release, and growing sour and sharp with every passing day.

He knows it will hurt her if she does not let it out.

He thinks the magics of this time are a step backward from what they once were, but if he said that outloud he fears he would sound like a crotchety old man. And, after accusing Geralt of being just that, he’d rather not.

So he plays, avoids angry spouses, flaunts about, avoids a few more angry spouses, and does his job as a famous bard.

Queen Calanthe reeks of chaos, too. Not the magical kind. The kind one chooses to wield. As if, rather than inheriting the magic, she harnessed it in her blades and armor. In her words and decrees.

She does not hold it back, either, and it sends cold shivers down his spine.

He plays some more. Only bright, playful jigs, at the queen’s request.

When the knight arrives Jaskier can feel the curse, like the air before a lightning storm, long before the helmet is removed.

Duny does not wield chaos. It coats him like chains. It tethers him down to a manmade fate. It feels wrong, but more like a sore on your arm that wasn’t there before. Something to be mended. To be treated.

Not wrong-but-right like Jaskier.

He tries not to get involved, even when Geralt jumps in. The Witcher is heroic to a fault, no matter how much he says he isn’t. It may be one of the reasons Jaskier finds himself infatuated with him.

Not in love. Not yet.

But when the fighting slows, seemingly ending, and Jaskier can feel the chaos whirling around Calanthe’s intentions, he knows things are not yet done.

When Princess Pavetta screams, the pent up, acrid stink of her chaos erupting into something thick and crushing, everyone is knocked away. Except him.

He forgets to be knocked down. He stands right where he started, whirlwind ripping apart the room around them, enamored with the way Pavetta’s chaos changed upon release. It is beautiful, in a way. It makes his skin tingle like mint.

As he steps forward, unbothered by the maelstrom, his eyes turning black, he approaches the floating couple with a smile. He takes ahold of the princesses ankle and gives a gentle tug, somehow managing to gain her attention. She’s in a daze, enraptured with the cursed knight, and when she looks down at the black-eyed bard, she isn’t afraid.

“I think you have made your point,” he says, not raising his voice yet somehow still heard over the storm.

Pavetta stares. And stares. And stares. Then nods before she and Duny begin to sink to the ground and the storm dies out around them.

Geralt won’t stop staring at him, even though his eyes are no longer black. He offers no answer, only keeps smiling, and Geralt is only distracted when Duny speaks of returning a debt.

When Geralt - exhausted and confused and ready to be done with the evening - calls for the Law of Surprise, Jaskier tilts his head curiously. He can feel the two souls within Pavetta long before she vomits onto the floor. Not a possession. Definitely not a possession.

Jaskier slips away before anyone can recover from the shock and ask him questions he doesn’t feel like answering.

+++

Jaskier does not see Geralt for a year after that. They travel on their own, yet Jaskier can always feel the Witcher hot on his heels. Not that he is being purposefully tracked and followed, more like a tugging of souls. Heart strings tied together and pulling each other along.

They will meet again, he knows, so he is in no rush.

He travels to places long, long forgotten. To corners of the world not meant for mortal eyes. To pockets of space hidden away from wandering fools.

He travels.

+++

“Jaskier,” Geralt heaves, breathless and covered in blood, both his own and the monsters’. He’s gasping for breath, sword held in one fist hanging low at his side. The night is lit only by a sliver of a moon, but Geralt can surely see everything, what with Cat running in his veins. His eyes are pitch black, skin ashen, and black veins creep over his face.

Jaskier’s own black eyes stare back at him, monster blood dripping from black hands held loosely at his sides, black veins arching over his shoulders and neck  and chest.

A hoard of wyverns, a nest of them, lay dead at his feet. Some dropped dead, seemingly with no injury, others with chests burst open from the inside, others still cut clean in half.

All with their heads intact, so Geralt can collect what he needs. Jaskier knows the drill.

“I always liked this look,” Jaskier says, waggling his claws at Geralt, a smile on his face. “Copying my style, I mean. Very flattering.”

Geralt stares, seemingly unaware of the multiple injuries coating his body. Adrenaline is surely running high, along with whatever other potions he’s consumed prior to Jaskier happening upon him.

He doesn’t mind traveling at night. He needs no sleep and nothing in this world frightens him. No monster or blade, anyway.

It was how he happened upon Geralt fighting a losing battle and he had to step in.

He tilts his head when the Witcher says nothing but keeps staring. “Allow me to treat those wounds, then, yes? You’re in no state to do much of anything but sit there and look pretty.”

He takes a step forward but stops when Geralt raises his silver blade at him. The glare leveled at him is hot, black eyes meeting black eyes. “What are you? What have you done to Jaskier?”

He huffs and sets his hands on his hips, thoroughly unimpressed. “I am and always have been Jaskier,” he says, Geralt’s brows furrowing and his nose flaring.

“Sulfur,” Geralt says slowly, beginning to piece things together. “You’re an energumen.”

“Close, but no.”

Geralt’s eyes narrow. “Are you not a demon possessing a human body, then?”

“This body was stillborn when I stepped in, and I suppose the closest qualification for me, in broad terms, is ‘demon,’ but energumen is a modern term. I am older than such labels and I do not, quite, fit,” he says flippantly. “Not quite wrong. Not quite right.”

Geralt stares at him in silence, attempting to determine what his next course of action should be, and Jaskier grows tired of waiting.

“Enough with the sword, too. Silver. Steel. Platinum. Iron. Doesn’t matter. None of them will work on me,” he says and, suddenly, he’s in front of Geralt and the silver blade is back in its sheath. The Witcher’s arm is still extended and he flexes his empty hand in surprise, before lurching back.

“What--”

“Stop moving so much!” Jaskier snaps, grabbing hold of Geralt’s shoulders and shoving him to sit on the ground. “You’ll aggravate your wounds, you big lug. Let me see.” He doesn’t wait for a response, blackened hands moving to remove armor.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Geralt demands as Jaskier treats his wounds, cleaning them as best he can with no stream nearby.

“My apologies, my dear,” he says brightly, offering a thin smile, “But, do tell me, is revealing I am an otherworldly, eldritch horror, parading around in a new flesh bag every lifetime, with powers long dead to your world something I should reveal on the first or second date? I know I’m meant to save sex for the third, but I was never good at following that rule.”

Geralt glares at him and he keeps smiling, unfazed.

The silence stretches on for a bit until Jaskier gets Geralt standing again and making their way towards where he can sense Roach’s presence. They will fetch the wyvern heads later.

“I wouldn’t have killed you,” Geralt says on a whisper, beginning to sound tired a his potions wear off.

“You couldn’t have,” Jaskier replies.

“I wouldn’t have tried.”

“Good to know, but I enjoy living a normal life. The physical plain is an intriguing and lovely place. I do not find sharing my true nature to be of the utmost importance.”

“How long have you been alive?”

“This body has been alive for 28 years.”

“Not the body... you.”

“I am not alive.”

Geralt takes a deep breath, clearly getting frustrated, and Jaskier smiles to himself.

“How long have you been around?” the Witcher growls through clenched teeth.

“Long, long before the most recent conjunction of the spheres.”

“Most recent...?”

But Jaskier waves him off as they reach Roach. The Witcher’s face has returned to its natural color, the veins are gone, and his eyes are golden once more. Jaskier, on the other hand, hasn’t changed back and Roach whinnies in alarm. It’s a little insulting, but Jaskier just pauses to lock eyes with the horse and push some of his own essence towards her until she calms in recognition.

He smiles, pleased, then digs out the rest of the medical supplies from a saddle bag to finish patching his Witcher up.

+++

Part two to come? Maybe?

[tyrannoninja]

Mayhem at the Menagerie

Egypt, 1345 BC

I crouched at the edge of our woven papyrus raft and peered down at the dark green-blue water, harpoon in hand. Along the river’s edge near the reeds, there drifted a plump tilapia almost two feet long. I licked my lips at the thought of chowing down on its succulent flesh. The fish would feed both Nebet and I for at least one day, if not two.

I stabbed at the tilapia. It escaped by darting over to the reeds, where it vanished. Under my breath, I cursed Sutekh’s mischief for hexing my aim yet again. The aardvark-faced Lord of Chaos had caused me nothing but grief and disappointment since we had set out on the day’s expedition early in the morning.

Nebet, my niece of ten years, held up a line of rope with a hook, a tiny morsel of mutton affixed to it. “You sure you don’t want to use the lure, Aunt Takhi?”

I gave her a half-serious scowl while accepting her lure with a grumble. I would always protect the child with my life, but I had to admit that she had grown into quite the smart mouth over the last few years.

I plopped the hook into the water. “I must have underestimated how rusted my fishing skills have grown. When I was your age, Nebet, I would put all the boys to shame at this.”

“Maybe find yourself a man who would do the fishing for you?” Nebet asked. “There should be plenty to go around, and most of them seem to like you.”

I raised my eyebrow. “How would you know that?”

“Whenever you go by, they always seem to look at you twice. And you know that old Vizier Ay from way back? I remember he sounded like he wanted you for himself.”

The memory of that shriveled husk of a man, that lecherous lackey of the false Pharaoh, flooded the inside of my mouth with a sour flavor. The passage of five years since we last crossed paths had not softened my distaste for him and his minions. I would sooner swim with crocodiles than occupy the same room as him.

“You have seen much more than any child your age should see, my little niece,” I said. “As far as men are concerned, the problem I have isn’t that I can’t attract any. If anything, they like me more than I like any of them.”

“Then maybe you like women more, Aunt Takhi?” Nebet said. “Maybe you could have another woman in place of a man?”

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “No, no, I prefer men in the way you mean. It is only that I haven’t found a man worthy of our house. Maybe I should consult the priestesses of Hetheru. They might know why.”

For most of my life, it was Sekhmet I served more than any of the other old gods or goddesses. Yet the stories held that Sekhmet, she of the lion mask and blood-stained gown, was in truth another guise of the loving bovine Hetheru. Perhaps calling upon my patron goddess would convince her to shift forms and answer my prayer for love.

“I thought there weren’t any more priestesses of Hetheru?” Nebet said. “The Pharaoh shut all their temples down long ago. Don’t you remember?”

She was right. Too often, my mind drifted back to the better days of my youth, before the false Pharaoh assumed the throne and desecrated everything his righteous father had built and maintained. I had to return to the present, not think too much of the past or future, and get back to fishing.

I checked our hook beneath the water’s surface. The bait had disappeared, yet there was no fish attached. They must have figured how to bite off the meat without getting themselves caught. How foolish I had been to let myself get distracted!

A wave rocked our raft from the side. Over by the far bank, a man screamed while splashing and thrashing his arms in the air. Zipping through the water towards him was the bumpy, olive-brown wedge of a crocodile’s head.

I told Nebet to watch the raft and dove in. Moving my arms in sweeping arcs while kicking my legs behind me, I propelled myself through the warm and murky river after the struggling man. The current kept pulling him away from me, and the crocodile advanced with greater speed.

Another splash. A cloud of blood stung my eyes under the water’s surface. The crocodile seized the man’s arm and pulled him deeper into the river. I took a deep breath and swam after the reptile, whipping out my bronze dagger from the sash around my loincloth. The beast’s swishing tail kept pushing me back with stirs of the current.

I could not catch up to the crocodile, no matter how much I pushed myself through the water.

I had to attack from afar. I threw my dagger into the crocodile’s neck. It released the man in its recoil, and I scooped up the man in my arms. He weighed more than me, but I wasted no time hauling him back to the surface.

Suddenly, sharp teeth pierced my calves. The crocodile dragged me into the depths, stretching the muscles of my leg with every shake of its head. I rammed my other heel into its snout, to no avail.

Then something shot into the space between the crocodile’s eyes. After its jaws released me, it fell limp into the darkness below, the narrow shaft of a harpoon sticking out through the blood that jetted from its wounds. In the distance, the enlarging silhouettes of more crocodiles emerged, all closing in on their injured neighbor. As I made my way to the surface, I could hear their ravenous chomping amidst the gurgle of water.

Once I resurfaced, I found our raft floating right next to me in the middle of the river. “Did you throw that harpoon, Nebet?”

She shook her head. “That would be him.”

The man I had rescued lent his hand to pull me onto the raft. His coppery skin, more typical of the provinces of Lower Egypt much further downriver, contrasted with my own dark umber color by a couple of shades.

“I owe you everything I have for saving my life over there,” he said with a subtle Lower Egyptian drawl.

I wrung the water out of my dreadlocks. “The same for you. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“You guessed correctly, my girl. My family’s from the countryside near Djedet. Matter of fact, I’ve been up here at Waset for, what, only since the last inundation?”

He ran his hand over his shaven scalp and smiled at me with full lips between his moustache and short beard. I had to admit that he was somewhat handsome in a trim and lean way. Judging by the way he ran his eyes along the contours of my figure, he seemed more interested in my own good looks.

“Sorry, forgot to introduce myself,” the man said. “Call me Nenwef. And you are…?”

“Takhaet. And this would be my niece, Nebet. I had to take her in after her parents, well, got into some trouble with the Pharaoh.”

“Takhaet, you say? I’ve heard of you somewhere before. Yes, you were one of the last Pharaoh’s favorite warriors!”

I grinned as I stroked one of the gold fly medals attached to my necklace. “Those were the good times. If only our new Pharaoh would find as much for me to do.”

“Tell me about it. He seems so preoccupied with that whole new god of his that he’s left everything else to the jackals. Which, come to speak of it, is why I left Djedet for Upper Egypt. You’ve heard the whole Delta’s been overrun with pirates and bandits, haven’t you?”

“By the gods, no! Has it gotten that bad down there?”

Nenwef gave me a grim frown. “Believe me, girl, that’s putting it mildly. Some of them come from all around the Great Green Sea, such as the Canaanites, the Greeks, and these newcomer barbarians they call the Sea Peoples. The saddest thing, however, is that some of our people have been going pirate as well, either due to bad influences or simply to make ends meet. Wherever they’re from, they’re all turning Lower Egypt into a mess worse than a den of ravenous hyenas.”

“Excuse me, Nenwef, but what were you doing in the middle of the river, anyway?” Nebet asked.

“Oh, I was out catching some fowls for my evening meal. Then I bumped into some ornery hippos… and you know the rest.”

Along the far riverbank, I spotted a distant herd of hippopotami milling about in the water. Yet I could not make out anything that looked like a capsized raft. Perhaps the gluttonous brutes had eaten the reeds that made up its body.

“I should have a few ducklings stored at my place,” I said. “You’ll be welcome to spend the evening there. Tomorrow, we’ll row you back home.”

Nenwef bowed to me. “Thank you very much again, my lovely lady.”

I felt a warm flush in my cheeks. Behind me, I could hear Nebet’s giddy snickering.

##

We did not dine on anything grand for our evening meal. I simply warmed up some of the ducklings I had stored, along with a bowlful of bread, in my front yard oven. I took these and three cups of frothy beer on a platter to our hut’s flat thatched roof, where Nebet sat in watch while Nenwef rested on my wooden bed. Blood-stained linen bandages covered the area on his arm where the crocodile had bitten him.

I laid the platter by the bed. He plucked up a duckling with his good arm and bit into it. “Not bad. Almost as good as the ones my old mother would cook when I was a boy.”

I prodded my elbow into his ribs. “Almost as good?”

“Don’t feel ashamed. Not many could even compare to her cooking.”

“Her birds were hand-caught, I presume? Because I bought these at the marketplace a couple of days ago. Small wonder they’d be a step down from whatever your mother could fix.”

Nebet was already polishing off her duckling’s bones. “I bet my mother could cook even better than yours.”

Nenwef laughed. “I’m sure she’d be flattered to hear that, but there couldn’t be any contest between them, believe me.”

“Nor should there be,” I added.

Nenwef got off the bed to stand up and gaze at the surrounding village of huts, dirt roads, and palm and sycamore fig trees planted between the buildings. When he faced the Nile to the west, its waters shimmering in gold from the sunset, he beamed with a contented sigh. He pointed to some alabaster-white structures rising from the treetops beyond the river’s farthest bank. “You can see the old Pharaoh’s palace across the river from here, you know? If only we had such lovely views back near Djedet.”

“It’s all flat swampland outside that city, isn’t it?” I asked. “Though I hear it is quite lush regardless.”

“I suppose it is.”

Nenwef directed his eyes to my necklace of gold flies. “I don’t know if it’s true, but word on the street around here says that you, O Takhaet, fended off a whole pride of lions once. Or was it leopards?”

The breeze blowing over my village, once balmy, had turned cold as midnight. How had he even heard of that incident five years ago? “It…was both. There were only three of them, and they were each a cross between lion and leopard.”

“I see. And they also said you sent a whole herd of gazelles stampeding over the Pharaoh’s men when they were out to arrest you for heresy.”

“That’s true as well. In fact, I later sent those lion/leopard cats after them, too. But how do you know about all that? Ay promised me he’d cover the whole affair up.”

With a sly smirk, Nenwef shook his head. “Oh, I didn’t have to hear it straight from the Vizier. Like I said, it was word on the street.”

I remembered that my whole village had celebrated our act of rebellion against Akhenaten’s henchmen with jubilant drumming and dancing, the roasting of cattle and game, and everyone chanting in praise of Sekhmet. The battle roar I let out in her honor rang within my ears again. I should have known the people of my village would recall that occasion with the same vivid colors.

“Whatever way I came to hear of it, those have to be the most amazing feats I’ve ever heard of,” Nenwef said. “So amazing, indeed, that they’ve inspired me to stand up to the false Pharaoh’s tyranny myself. He can’t go on lazing in that shining new palace of his while the rest of Egypt breaks down with barbarians at its gates. No, I intend to march in there and give him a piece of my own mind!”

I spat out the beer I had imbibed. “You don’t expect he would even let you set a single foot in his great house, do you?”

“He is supposed be Pharaoh, the steward of Upper and Lower Egypt, is he not? He has no choice but to listen to his people at some point, even if what they’re telling him isn’t what he wants to hear. You expect me to do nothing while he lets raping thieves tear my home province apart?”

“No, of course not! What I do expect, however, is that he’ll have you thrown out. Maybe fed to his lions, or whatever he keeps in his little menagerie.”

Nenwef laid a hand on my shoulder with a grin. “Which is where you’ll come in, my girl. Why don’t we persuade him together? His best guards couldn’t restrain a seasoned warrior like you even if they tried.”

I dropped my cup of beer onto the thatching below. “No. Out the question. I can’t leave Nebet here all alone while I go off with you.”

Nebet looked up at me with sparkling eyes, wringing her fingers together. “Then why not bring me with you, Aunt Takhi? I’ve always wanted to see what the Pharaoh’s new capital looks like. I heard it’s magnificent.”

“I heard that too, but you should know it’s all been built on the backs of starving men, women, and even children your age,” I said. “And I would never dare let either Akhenaten or his slavering pack of jackals near you. You should stay where you’ll be safe, little baboon.”

“I wouldn’t assume she would be in danger,” Nenwef said. “Akhenaten might be cruel, but even he should know that hurting a child for the world to see would turn all his subjects against him. Not to mention, he goes out of his way to present himself as doting on his own young.”

“So you think that means he’ll have mercy on the children of his enemies, too?”

“What I mean is, we could use your niece’s presence to temper his wrath. I say bring her along with us. Together, we can convince Pharaoh of the error of his ways.”

He curled his hand into a fist and nodded. “Do we have a deal, Takhaet?”

“You mean all the error of his ways, or simply the error affecting your province back in Lower Egypt?” I asked.

“All his ways, trust me.”

With a shrug, I bumped his fist. “Then we have a deal.”

Nebet clapped her hands. “Yay! I get to see the Pharaoh’s new city after all.”

I gave her puffs of fluffy hair a playful scratch. “And maybe help change the course of his rule for all history to record.”

##

The sun had only begun to sail up from the east when we walked off the ferry onto the dock, yet the towering entrance to Akhenaten’s new capital blasted us with the brilliant glow of walls a purer white than the limestone casing of the ancient pyramids. Inscribed on each side of the entrance were the painted likenesses of the Pharaoh and his Queen receiving the gold-handed rays of his god Aten with open hands. Flanking them were the relatively miniature figures of their children.

Nenwef hadn’t lied when he said Akhenaten wanted to present himself as benevolent towards his own family. Perhaps he was. Yet the knowledge that the false Pharaoh had conscripted whole gangs of youths and children, some no older than my little niece, to build his new home had dimmed the luster of the architecture.

From beside the entrance’s doorway, two royal guards marched towards us. One of them bowed his head to Nenwef, who whispered something into the man’s ear. I thought that little exchange strange for a native of Lower Egypt who claimed to be a newcomer to all the upriver provinces.

“Welcome to Akhetaten, our new capital,” Nenwef said. “I was, uh, telling the guard that we wanted an audience with the Pharaoh.”

“Will we get to see the menagerie soon after?” Nebet asked.

Nenwef winked at her. “Soon, little one. Very, very soon afterward.”

The guard displayed a cheerful smile full of radiant white teeth. “We’ll be very happy to give you a tour of Akhetaten in all its glory, my lady. First, however, the Pharaoh requests your presence in the Temple to Aten. Follow us.”

The guard’s singsong chime with made me shudder with a chill despite the morning’s rising warmth. Nor did I care for the name Akhenaten had chosen for his new abode. It sounded too much like his own name, except for a hard “t” in place of the “n”. He could only have intended that similarity.

We followed the guards through the entrance and a series of white-walled plazas and alleyways, all shaded with rows of columns and stands of trees and flowers that flooded the place with a natural fragrance. Even the tiled floors dazzled with a smooth polish unmarred by the dirt or grime of a normal city street. Did Akhenaten have his legion of servants wash the entire city every evening? Not even Amenhotep the Third, his nobler father and predecessor on the throne, would be so meticulous in keeping everything in his capital so clean.

Unless, of course, this whole city was nothing more than an overgrown palace for the false Pharaoh, rather than a place for people from all walks of life to call home.

We walked down an avenue bordered on both sides by a row of sphinxes watching us with stoic silence as we passed them. At the end was the entrance to the Temple of Aten, an edifice twice as tall as the city entrance we passed through earlier. Images of Aten, portrayed as a golden disk shooting down dozens of arms like a monstrous corruption of an octopus from the Great Green’s waters, adorned the temple gateway’s left and right sides. So this was the face of the false god Akhenaten wanted to force upon all of Egypt, instead of the gods we had always venerated!

We entered the temple and a broad, open courtyard fringed with palm and acacia trees. At its center stood none other than the Pharaoh himself, together with his Queen, Nefertiti.

Akhenaten did not appear much like his statues and wall reliefs. They showed him as a tall and lean man, albeit with a strange paunch on his belly like a pregnant woman’s womb. The man who stood before us, arms crossed and holding the royal crook and flail, was a stout bulb whose enormous gut glistened with oil like a ball of grease-stained mahogany. A devious grin spread across his pudgy face when he laid his beady eyes on me.

His Queen looked closer to my expectation. She was a slender woman with gleaming dark chestnut skin and a tall blue crown like a cylinder, which flared out at the top. The woman stood a head taller than her husband. Behind them stood another, much lankier man with a dreadlocked wig much too black for his wrinkled date of a face. There was no mistaking his smug sneer as that of anyone other than Ay, the old Vizier himself.

Akhenaten spread his arms wide apart. “Welcome home, my soldier Rameses. I knew you’d catch what once eluded my Vizier.”

“And I have to say you dress like a quite convincing commoner,” Nefertiti said. “You could’ve fooled even me.”

The man I had known as Nenwef bowed at the waist before the Pharaoh. “It helped that I did use to be one, before Your Highness lifted me up from my poverty. Though, I must remind you to give some credit to old Ay. The trap was his design, remember?”

I wanted to draw out one of my daggers —except I left all of them at home. They would have confiscated any weapons on me anyway. I could only screech out the worst profanity that came to mind. “How could you, Ay? It’s been five years!”

Ay strutted to me with a vindictive cackle. “Five years was all the time I needed for you to lower your guard, young Takhaet. Or were you foolish enough to think those ‘concessions’ I made, right after your beastly friends had decimated my men, were sincere in the least?”

He handed a bronze sword to Rameses, who ran his finger over its blade with a satisfied look before pointing it at my gullet. “She sure was gullible enough to believe I was a poor and oppressed commoner seeking rebellion like herself, wasn’t she?” Rameses said.

I took one step back, and bumped into the guards’ cowhide shields behind me. “What do you want from me this time? Because I’d sooner die than throw away the gods of our ancestors in favor of yours, you false Pharaoh!”

Akhenaten clapped his hands. “I admire your heroic devotion to the old ways, my subject, but you misunderstand me this time. I don’t seek to change your faith, but that of the one closest to you.”

Nefertiti knelt before my niece and reached a finger to stroke the girl’s chin, but Nebet jerked away to huddle by my side.

“You have to admit, she looks like she’s grown up in poverty,” the Queen said. “And you’ve been raising her all by yourself, like a single mother in the slums. That’s no way for a child to grow up, is it?”

“You’re wrong, you mean lady,” Nebet said. “We’re not poor, and Aunt Takhi has taken better care of me than you ever could!”

“Aw, she thinks I’m a mean lady, does she? Maybe she’ll think differently when I take her in. Unlike you, Aunt Takhi, we can afford all kinds of toys for our children in our big and clean, comfortable home. We even have a whole menagerie of animals from all over the world right here in this city. Wouldn’t you like to see the chimpanzees at least, little girl?”

I drew my hand back to slap the Queen, but Rameses grabbed my hand and pinned it against my body. The cold bronze tips of the guards’ spears dug into the nape of my neck.

“That isn’t going to work, bitch!” I said. “You can try to manipulate her all you want, but nothing you have to offer could ever replace her love for me. Or her mother, or her father. What happened to them, may I ask?”

“They…were every bit as unrepentant as you,” Akhenaten said. “So, I had to address them the only way I could. You need to understand, my subject, that I cannot allow a single voice of dissent to remain if I am to realize my vision for Egypt. If I do, who knows how many dozens might hear that voice? And whom might those dozens speak to in turn? You see how it could lead to my eventual undoing?”

“You would have nothing to fear were you a just ruler, Akhenaten.”

“Ah, but I do see myself as a just ruler. A ruler so just that he wishes to usher in a new age for our civilization, instead of clinging onto the obsolete traditions of our ancestors like cowardly children. Since you, on the other hand, have demonstrated time and time again that nothing I can do can change your mind, I have no choice but to eliminate you.”

“And I know precisely how you should do it,” Rameses added. “Credit where it’s due, this woman did save my life from a crocodile while I was in the river. Let us see how she fares against a whole float of them.”

Nebet tightened her arms on me. “No! How could you do that to her? Leave my Aunt Takhi alone!”

Nefertiti pounced and dragged her into her embrace. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to watch. Like I promised, I’ll take good care of—”

She shrieked as Nebet bit down on her arm. “Why, you little… Let’s see, should I feed you to the chimpanzees, or throw you down into the crocodiles with your aunt instead? I say, the latter sounds more fitting a punishment to me. Wouldn’t you say, Rameses?”

 “Agreed. If they love each other as much as they claim, why don’t we watch them die together?”

Everyone around Nebet and I laughed like hyenas on the hunt. Even more so than Akhenaten or the rest of his clique combined, Rameses’ laughter made my legs buckle.

##

The guards did not withdraw their spears from my neck until they had escorted me into the city’s menagerie. Fences of bronze atop mudbrick foundations enclosed the animals’ living spaces, each of which contained trees, rocks, and at least one waterhole for drinking. I did appreciate that these pens resembled their animals’ native habitats to one extent or another. The hippos got a pool framed with papyrus and tall grass, the lions an expanse of sand and grass with a couple of acacia trees, and the chimpanzees a grove of fig and palm trees like their jungle home in Egypt’s far south.

Akhenaten took better care of his exotic pets than he did his human subjects.

We stopped at another pool. Unlike the hippopotamus pool, the bones of fish, goats, and cattle were strewn around scattered islets of stone, exuding an even more rancid odor than the musty one that rose from the still water. Over the edges of the pool swayed slender eucalyptus trees with white bark that seemed to be peeling off.

“These wouldn’t be like the crocodiles we have over in the Nile, mind you,” Rameses said. “We brought these over from a land very far away to the southeast. They can thrive even in seawater, hence why the natives call them ‘saltwater crocodiles’, or ‘salties’ for short. Aren’t they all beauties?”

I could only see the top of one crocodile’s head poking up from the opaque, muddy water. Even from a distance, it appeared nearly twice as big as the one from which I had saved “Nenwef”. I gulped down a mouthful of air.

“I think they need something to bring them out of hiding,” Nefertiti said. “How about feeding time?”

With a rocking swing of her arms, she tossed Nebet into the pool. I tore away from the guards, hurdled over the fence, and plunged myself into the water. It was deeper than I had anticipated; my entire body sank beneath the surface. Unlike the Nile a few days earlier, I could not see much more than a forearm’s span through the briny murk.

What I did make out was the shrill sound of a child’s scream. I breast-stroked through the pool to the source of the outcry, where the most gigantic crocodile I had ever seen clutched Nebet within its jaws. I threw my arms onto its neck and squeezed, pushing myself against the monster’s tremendous weight.

Another crocodile clamped onto the fringe of my loincloth. I hammered my sandal’s heel into the hinge of its jaw while still shoving myself against the first one. The second crocodile withdrew, a rip of linen in its mouth. Thus freed, I wrapped my legs around the first crocodile’s waist and turned it over onto its back. Flung out of its mouth, Nebet squealed with terror. I swam for her, but another crocodile blocked my way. The other two closed from behind, jaws agape with the stink of rotten flesh wafting out. Grabbing onto the third crocodile’s flank, I leapfrogged over it to Nebet.

A fourth crocodile seized her foot. After punching it in the eye, I inserted my fingers between its front teeth and pulled onto its jaws. I could only pry them open enough to release my niece’s foot before the beast shoved me back with a thrust of its snout. My back smashed against yet another monster’s jagged hide.

The crocodiles had surrounded and locked us in a tight circle of scaled flesh and snapping jaws. Nebet and I had no way to get around them.

We could only go one way. Down.  

I hugged Nebet close to me and told her to take a deep breath. Together, we dove straight down into the pool’s salty muck, beneath the crocodiles’ pale bellies. Some of their brethren had already submerged and given chase, their jaws chomping mere inches from our toes.

One of the reptiles slapped us into a column of rock with its tail as it came out in front. It spun around and zoomed in, jaws agape, the cavernous black hole of its gullet wide open before us. As it approached, our lungs were drained of air.

I sank myself beneath the crocodile and shot my fist up into its chin.

We hurried to the surface, gulped in more air, and held onto the stony pillar’s summit, still gasping. The rest of the crocodiles slashed through the water after us as Nebet pointed to one of the eucalyptus trees standing on the reedy bank. “Can’t we climb those, Aunt Takhi?”

I nodded with relief. “Good thinking, little baboon!”

I kicked off from the rock to the pool’s edge, crawled up from the mud and wrapped myself around the nearest tree. Holding Nebet on my back, I clambered up the trunk, ignoring the way its shedding bark poked at my skin.

The tree shook. The crocodiles had gathered by its roots and were beating their heads against its trunk like woodcutters’ hatchets. One of them sprang up and tore my sandal off, forcing me to slip halfway back down. Right beneath my belly, the bole began to split.

The crocodiles kept leaping after us, their weight further knocking onto the tree with every fall. The instant the eucalyptus broke asunder at the waist, we jumped — and landed outside the pool.

The two guards stood over us, the tips of their spears hovering.

“Very impressive performance, I must say,” Akhenaten said. “I should’ve known not to have those trees planted there.”

I coughed out a puddle of salty mud. “At least you made those saltwater crocodiles feel more at home, I presume.”

Rameses drew out his sword, his face dark with a reddish tint of rage. “Since you eluded our crocodiles, you and your little brat will have to go the old-fashioned way!”

He chopped down. I rolled out of the blade’s way, hopped onto my feet, and yanked the spear out of one of the guards’ hands. With its shaft, I whacked Rameses’s ribcage and sent him tumbling into the crocodile pool. This time, I felt no impulse whatsoever to save him while the reptiles ganged up and bit him into pieces. The clamor of rent flesh and cracking bone became triumphant music to my ears.

Akhenaten pointed his flail at me. “Don’t think you can escape this time, my cunning leopard. Get her!”

 The two guards charged, one with his spear as the other pulled out his dagger sidearm. I used the guard’s spear to pole-vault away, and then chucked it into its former owner’s face. The second guard threw his spear at me, but I escaped with a sidestep and retrieved it, too.

The surviving guard snarled. “You think you’re so clever, girl? Two can play that game!”

He threw his dagger at me. I raised the spear to parry it, but it split in two when the blade hit. As he pulled the other spear out from his fallen comrade’s skull, I sprinted and pounced towards him. The guard swatted me away in mid-arc, and I tumbled over the fence into another enclosure.

It was another forested pen, but it was not chimpanzees that awaited me inside. Instead, there dashed a stocky cat bigger than any lion I had seen, but without a mane. The black stripes running up and down its deep orange coat blended into the shadows cast by the trees and tall grass. It bared its fangs, its roar harsher and more spine-rattling than anything I had ever heard from a lion.

Nefertiti taunted me from outside the enclosure. She held a squirming Nebet in her arms, a hand pressed over the child’s mouth. “They call that a tiger over in the distant east. While he’s giving you trouble, I’m sure the chimpanzees will adore your feisty little niece as much as I do!”

I shouted my nastiest curse at her and lunged in her direction. The tiger’s claws cut across my back, and I stumbled onto my knees. The cat crouched down behind me, twitching its tail like a housecat about to pounce again. I wheeled around and waved my spear’s severed head in front of my face as a warning to the predator. It launched itself at me, but I somersaulted underneath it and stabbed it in the hip. Under my breath, I begged Sekhmet’s forgiveness for wounding one of her feline children.

I grabbed the branch of a fig tree and swung out of the tiger pen, landing on the remaining guard and knocking him out with a bang of my elbow.

Nefertiti had already reached the chimpanzees and was stretching her arms over the fencing with Nebet in hand. After hollering the battle roar of Sekhmet, I raced over and threw my weight onto her. I hooked an arm around the Queen’s neck, snatched her crown off her head, and tossed it into the enclosure.

One of the chimpanzees, who had been banging rocks together, picked up the blue crown to examine it. The ape hit it with one of the stones, denting the metal, and shook its head in seeming disappointment. Its face lit up again with a smile as it placed the crown top-first on the ground and sat on the lid like it was a stool. Nebet chuckled with girlish delight the same moment the whiff of feces hit my nostrils.

Nefertiti growled with disgust. “That is one vile child you have there, Takhaet!”

I smirked at her, still holding her neck in my arm. “You’re one to talk about others being vile, my Queen.”

Ay and Akhenaten stormed towards me, the Pharaoh brandishing his crook and flail like twin war clubs. “You know I have plenty more guards where those two came, commoner,” Akhenaten said.

I applied more pressure to Nefertiti’s throat. “Let’s see if they can get here before I choke the life out of this bitch you call your Queen!”

The Pharaoh’s eyes widened with horror. “Stop! What do you want?”

“Simple. Pardon my niece and I right now, and the Queen lives. Got it?”

“Fine. I shall clear both of your sentences…on one additional condition. You and your niece must leave Egypt forever. If we catch you returning thereafter, I’ll have you both thrown to the crocodiles. And by then, I’ll have all the trees in that pen cut down. You understand?”

I relaxed my grip on Nefertiti, to carry out my end of the deal. And something else. All my life, I had fought on behalf of my country and its beliefs, even if it meant defying the false Pharaoh once he had taken power. And, as a child of Egypt, were I to die without a proper burial away from its shores, I would never reunite with my ancestors in the afterlife. Instead, I would face an eternity of oblivion.

Even worse, my little Nebet would experience the same.

Nebet knelt before the Pharaoh and whimpered. “No, you can’t make us leave. Egypt has always been our home!” she pleased.

Akhenaten shook his head and pressed the top of his crook onto the girl’s head. “I am Pharaoh, he who commands all of Upper and Lower Egypt. I have already granted you and your aunt the permission to live. Consider your citizenship the price.”

Ay smiled with fiendish glee. “And why not? You didn’t think we would surrender everything to you with such ease, did you?”

As much as I wanted to jump onto the old jackal and hammer out what remained of his pathetic life, I knew he was right. Akhenaten had a whole force of guards he could summon within one pulse of my heart, not to mention his regular army. I could evade and fight back as much as I wanted, but I could never defeat him alone. Not while keeping my niece out of harm’s way.

I knelt in front of the false Pharaoh, drooping my head with a defeated sigh. “I accept your sentence, Your Majesty.”

Akhenaten nodded with a victorious grin. “Excellent. I’ll give you a month to pack up your belongings and then see you at the border, wherever you choose to go. May Aten bless you with good fortune the rest of your life.”

“And may he watch over your child as well,” Nefertiti added.

I dipped my head to them. “I will pray every day that he will, O Pharaoh and Queen.”

I lied. I had no intention of even muttering his false demon’s name again. If there was one thing I would never concede to Akhenaten, it was my faith in the gods of our ancestors.

Nebet ran up to bury her glistening tear-washed face into me. “You can’t do this, Aunt Takhi. We can’t leave home forever.”

I lifted her up in my embrace and stroked her hair. “I’m afraid we have no choice, my little baboon. But it may not be all that bad. If nothing else, we’ll spend the rest of our lives seeing the world together.”

I knew not where we would go. We might venture up the Nile south of the Kushite provinces, into the savannas and jungles and the many kingdoms therein. Or we might sail for the east, visiting the ziggurats of Babylonia, the temples and sacred wells of the Indus Valley, or the burgeoning cities of distant China. We might even head north to the rocky isles of the Greeks and Minoans, or even further into the snowy forests where tribes of red- and yellow-maned, white-skinned men prowled.

All I knew was that we could not remain in Egypt any longer. And that, wherever we did go, Nebet and I would always have each other.

As I walked away from the menagerie, heading for the city’s docks, I gave my niece a wink and a whisper. “It may not all be lost. Maybe we could, say, persuade someone abroad to take Egypt back for us. What say you, my little baboon?”

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Try English

Mary blew smoke out through her nose. It stung.

The empty beer bottles on her grimy kitchen table clinked and clattered as her sleeve snagged on something that made the cluttered table’s surface rattle. She flicked ashes from her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. She ignored this mess, her eyes instead trained on the person standing in front of the refrigerator.

Her brother, Malcolm. He stood there with an almost meditative calmness and stared back at her. His gaze swept through the messy place, never lingering too long on anything like the pile of unwashed dishes, the stacks of old newspapers, or the mountain of empty cans heaped up on the counter. Malcolm looked far better than she remembered him: less pale, and stronger somehow—like he had been working out.

Most of all, how he looked when she last saw him, lying in a casket. Malcolm had been dead for over four years.

The hand Mary used to hold her cigarette trembled. Not with fear, but anger. She was an angry person. Always had been, always would be. Seeing Malcolm back had made a pit form in her stomach, because she wasn’t finished with him. She wasn’t finished with a lot of people.

See, when most other people see anybody return from the dead, they go straight to shock, denial, or pure, unadulterated dread.

But not Mary. Most of her family members had died. And they had had the audacity to kick the bucket before she could really tell them how she felt about them. A lot of messed up history to sort through. A lot of pent-up rage, waiting to be unleashed. And here was Malcolm, loitering around in her home like nothing had ever happened.

She took another long drag from her cigarette and rolled her jaw while she searched her mind for the right words. But none came yet.

“Love what you did with the place, Mary,” Malcolm mused. The corners of his mouth twitched until they twisted upwards into a creepy smile. “You think Mom would have appreciated how you turned this place into such a miserable dump?”

He licked his lips and hooked his thumbs into the belt holding up his jeans.

“Fuck you,” Mary snapped at him.

Malcolm showed no instant reaction, then burst out with a brief chuckle. Knowing. Malevolent.

“I didn’t turn this place into a dump, I let it turn into a dump,” she then corrected him, letting the smoke pour out of her mouth while she spoke.

Malcolm grabbed an open bottle of stale beer from the counter and sniffed it. He raised it as if to perform a mockery of making a toast.

“I see you’ve become a philosopher in the meanwhile, sis,” Malcolm mused. The creepy smile maintained its place on his visage. It turned into a cringe after he took a swig from the bottle, and the rotten taste assaulted his pristine taste buds.

“Yeah. Night shifts at a shitty gas station for over six years sure do lend themselves to deep introspection. Take that bottle, for instance. Is it half empty, or half full of go fuck yourself?”

He smirked and put the bottle down, which caused a small pyramid of empty old cans of beans to collapse as the glass connected with them. He turned away from her and plucked a piece of paper attached to the fridge’s door with a magnet without even shooting it a passing glance.

Mary flinched, somehow sensing that he knew the contents of whatever was written on it without reading. It just made sense. She just made sense of things.

“How are your anger management classes going? Any progress with that, Maddy?”

Her left eye twitched upon hearing that old nickname.

“They’re goin’ good, dickweed. I have a crowbar I can get to cave in your tail lights if you need a demonstration,” she said. She snuffed out her cigarette, mashing it into the pile of other butts in her ashtray, causing more cancer dust to spill out and onto her table.

That wiped the grin right off his face. Which, in turn, prompted a satisfied smirk of her own to form on Mary’s face in response.

“How’d you get here anyway? Hijack a car? Also, not to really address the elephant in the room here, but how the fuck are you not just a pile of maggot-riddled rotten meat and bones? It’s been six years, chickenshit.”

He approached the table and leaned forward until he rested his knuckles against the only vacant spots on it, hunching forward to move uncomfortably close to her. Mary picked up one of the beer bottles in front of her and took a sip from it to wet her chapped lips. She gripped the glass so hard that her knuckles turned white, ready to weaponize the object.

It was not fear that she felt. Mary’s blood boiled.

“See, I’m not really your little brother. I’m just borrowing his body to come see you in person, Mary.”

“Of course, just my fucking luck. Fuck me for hoping to finally get some closure by telling my little dipshit of a brother to eat shit.”

He flashed a toothy grin before he replied, “I can play pretend, if you want. We know many things, Mary. We who pierce the veil and cross over as we wish—we know everything.”

She relaxed her grip around the bottle, ready to flip it and use it as a club. Wasn’t her first time to do so.

“Like that one time you tried talking to Bobby Gordon but shat your panties because you were too scared. Excused yourself quickly and were too late for swim team because you scrambled to clean up your mess,” he said in a singsong tone—referencing an embarrassing memory that she had never told anybody else. Not the AA meeting groups, the anger management support groups—not even her therapist.

Struggling to understand how he knew the pause gave him cause to chuckle again.

He continued, “Or were you just so drunk off your ass that you told someone about that and can’t remember?” Another chuckle, more sinister this time. “Yes, I can taste what you’re thinking, Mary. Or maybe you told it to the thin air, reaching someone who’s now just another body, six feet under, whose memories bled through the thin fabric between worlds?”

“Okay, asshole. I see you’ve got some tricks. Is that the best you’ve got? Am I supposed to be impressed? Shit, man, if I was some sort of dillhole ghost, I would go join a circus or something.”

“A circus?” he asked in confusion.

“Yeah. Y'know, anywhere where people actually give a shit.”

He smirked again.

“Cute, Mary. So edgy. So rebellious.”

The sound of metal scraping cut through the air as he snatched a long sharp knife from the kitchen counter. The chair on the opposite side of the table groaned as he dragged it out, swiped some unopened letters and plastic junk from its seat, and sat down.

Mary’s weary eyes focused on the knife on his hands, clutched in his fist and resting on the table in between them now. She met his gaze again. Glared at him.

“If you’re not Malcolm, I’m gonna have to give you a different name. Least you can do if want to carve me up with that pig-sticker over yonder,” Mary said, pointing at the knife in his hand.

After the gesture, using two fingers, she let her fist slam onto the table. Not a motion fueled by rage, but by frustration, and fed by resignation. All the glass and plastic objects on the table stopped clattering with delay.

“I’d prefer Malcolm, given the meat-suit I’m wearing now. But you can call me Gall,” he said. Something evil flashed in his eyes. It did not even seem inhuman, just unfamiliar. Nothing like Malcolm, no matter what kind of a dick he had been to Mary.

“What kinda stupid fucking name is that?”

His eyes darted and tracked her every movement when she swiftly snatched the crumpled pack of cigarettes off the table, produced a cancer stick from the package and lit it up in one fluid motion, suggesting decades of unfiltered addiction. From the periphery of her vision, she saw his fist tighten around the grip of the knife.

“I’ll just call you shit-stick. And what exactly are you?”

The grin on his face returned. Widened. He tilted his head; movements that did not fit the way Malcolm moved or behaved in his lifetime. Alien, unsettling. He licked his lips but did not yet respond. Like he was sizing her up. His eyes scanned up and down her form.

“Come on, man. Level with me here. I’m sure your whole spiel here is a real hoot at parties and can scare old grandmas, but it’s not really doing anything for me,” she continued taunting him. “Also, if you’re gonna threaten me with a good time by waving that knife around, either fix me something to eat or end me now. I’m starving, and also good for kicking the bucket. Fuck, man. I’d rather puke than go on my next shift, so carving me up like a turkey’s gonna feel like a favor to me at this point.”

She sucked in more smoke. It did nothing to calm her nerves, only drove up her pulse, pounding in her ears. Mary blew it out after the long pause that followed, with nothing but the constant drip of water from the faucet into the dirty sink. Malcolm—Gall—did not answer.

She lifted her arm as if to check her wristwatch but kept her gaze locked onto his. A labored, deliberate sigh escaped her throat.

“You have many names for what I am,” he said. His voice silkier than before. “Ghost, revenant, demon. It doesn’t really matter. Your words are so limited in their scope, so confusing without elaboration. And we don’t have all night.”

Now she waited, continuing to smoke. She once more picked up the bottle of the stale beer to nurse it in between greedy drags from her cigarette.

Before the pause went on for too long and she could reply with another mean-spirited quip, Gall continued, “Have you not seen the signs? I am an agent. I serve the Glass King, and have come to remind you of your duty to Him.”

He spoke with such reverence. Such gravitas. Might as well have been a radio speaker, or one of those narrators on a cheesy movie. Mary blinked and then shook her head. Searching her mind for what he meant did nothing to help.

“I don’t understand a fucking word you’re saying,” she muttered. “Try English, shit-stick.”

He visibly stifled a sigh and lifted the knife, cradling it in his hand. He then used it to point to the pile of newspapers on the counter.

“Did you not see the words forming on the edges of your trash?” he asked. Then pointed the tip of the knife to her phone on the table, its display screen marked with a spiderweb of cracks. “Did you not see the messages that transcended worldly gibberish? Signs, everywhere, pointing you in the direction of finding meaning in your sorry life?”

He then pointed to the empty coffee cups on her table. “Hell, did you not even see the letters taking shape in the foam of your beverages? And here we thought your substance abuse would make you more receptive to the signs everywhere.”

It finally clicked for Mary. She had indeed been seeing strange patterns and signs everywhere. “Obey” or “buy a gun” or some ominous instructions that seemed to be ritualistic or occult in nature—many strange words had, in fact, been appearing to her with frightening regularity over the past week.

But she had been ignoring them. Chalking it up to all the medications and booze and recreational drugs she popped on a regular basis, things that instructions in tiny print told her not to mix.

At the end of the day, Mary was a realist. One whose mind had been turned to Swiss cheese by all the substance abuse, but a realist nevertheless. The sheer thought of that gave her cottonmouth and made her crave a joint.

“If you wanted me to get some message, then fucking spell it out instead of giving me some cryptic crap. I thought I was losing my mind, and was perfectly fine with that. Now you’re telling me it all made sense, which is somehow more obnoxious.”

Gall slowly nodded and his grinning lips parted to show teeth.

“Yes, Mary, now you’re getting it. The Glass King wants you. You will help prevent the end of the world as you know it. You, who yearn for meaning in this God-forsaken world. You, whose miserable and pathetic existence can serve a higher purpose, can help shape a new world. A world of your desires. Do you not feel it? Do you not feel its pull?”

Mary downed the rest of her beer, wincing at how bad it tasted—warm, and opened up for at least a day. It helped masked whatever truths this “Gall” was alluding to.

“You really don’t get it, do ya? Listen, shit-stick, and listen really carefully, okay?”

She slammed the bottle back down onto the table with force, causing all the objects to erupt into another cascade of clanking and clattering noise. He said nothing but his gaze drilled into her eyes, burning with anticipation.

“I’ve worked shit jobs for long enough to know management assholes when I see them. And I’m looking at one right now.”

“But—”

“Shut the fuck up,” she interrupted his interruption. “I’m speaking, shit-stick. You can go back to your boss and go tell him to get fucked. I ain’t doin’ shit for no pay. You’re trying to sell me on some ‘higher meaning’ bullshit like that’s supposed to motivate me? Might as well try to pay an artist with 'exposure,’ you stupid twat.”

“I, uh—”

“I said I’m talking.”

He sat there, slack-jawed, taken aback by her forceful speech. Like the smoke billowing out of her mouth, every word spilled out with repressed rage. Not one that threatened to boil over into violence, but a fury compressed into the shape of a diamond—sharp and smooth and hard and untouchable.

“Like I said, I know management pricks when I see them. I can see your weaselly little sniveling brown-nosing turd behavior from a mile away. I know you’re just here to get me to do something and if you fail to mobilize me, you’re in deep shit. I don’t know how things work over there, wherever you’re coming from. But I’m guessing that you don’t just get a pay cut or fired,” she said.

Now she, like him, flashed a toothy grin. Sadistic, angry, and beginning to enjoy herself.

Was her first in getting to fuck with a non-human entity.

“So how about I give you the finger,” she said, following up with the matching gesture of flipping him the bird. “And you go find someone else to do your dirty work for free.”

The demon was speechless. Never before had this entity seen anybody respond with such belligerent resistance and unrelenting venom in her words.

He eked out another evil grin, but Mary recognized the insecurity in it. Malcolm used to look exactly like that when he tried to impress people, and Gall was running out of cards to play. He raised the knife again, toyed with it, letting the handle roll around in his palm, causing the blade to cast scintillating reflections in the dingy kitchen light.

“I can be very persuasive. I can make things slow and painful, Mary.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she said with a groan, stamping out the next cigarette. She just glared at him, yielding no attention to the knife now. “I see right through cheap shit tricks like that. What stupid movie did you get that line from? You need me—you need me to do something, so you’ll need me at full capacity. Your threats are empty, you spineless shit stain.”

Without missing a beat, she lit up yet another cigarette and leaned over the table, shortening the distance between her and the knife.

“Try me, motherfucker. I can’t wait to die. Life sucks, so I will spite you by dying before I lift a single God-damned finger for you or whoever the fuck you work for,” she said. Her grin widened, the cigarette lazily drooping from the corner of her mouth, displaying even more spite. “I wonder what happens to you if you fail to get me to do whatever you want me to do. I bet that’s worse than whatever kiddo crap you’ve cooked up for me.”

The chair underneath Gall creaked and its legs scuffed over the filthy floor as he got up. He backed away from her and placed the knife back on the counter.

“Yeah, get the fuck outta here, you little chickenshit. You come here, wearing my little brother’s sorry-ass face, waving a knife around, threatening to torture me and end my life? Fuck you. Don’t come back until you come up with something scary.”

Gall continued to back away. The grin never left his face, but not one inch of it was sincere anymore. Just a mask to hide his growing dread.

Everything she had said rang true. Punishments for failure were no trifling matter. The Glass King’s orders needed completion. He would have to find someone else, for this Mary was not a lost lamb they could manipulate into doing their dirty work—she was just a lost cause.

“My shift’s gonna be nine hours, asshole. You can visit me at work or you can come waste my time when I’m back, or whisper your dumb sweet nothings in my ears while I’m trying to sleep. See if I give a shit,” she said, continuing to harass the demon as he continued to back out of her kitchen. “Maybe bring good dope or a massive dragon-shaped dildo next time, maybe you can bribe me. Maybe a stack of hundred dollar bills. See, I’m responsive to material goods and pleasures. But I bet you’re too cheap of a shit for that.”

She continued to rant, even well after he had gotten out of earshot and retreated from the old decrepit home. It was true what they said, Gall thought.

Humans were the fucking worst.

—Submitted by Wratts

[goodlucktai]

grace requires nothing of me

good omens pairing: aziraphale/crowley word count: 3604 title borrowed from one by sleeping at last part 2 of the is there a better bet than love? series read on ao3

x

Crowley is doing a good job of dithering without looking like he’s dithering, slouched in the doorway as though he isn’t sure of his welcome, or he isn’t sure Aziraphale has thought this through.

Which is silly. Aziraphale has thought this through more than once.

“Don’t fuss,” the angel chides lightly. “Come here.”

Which is all it takes to coax the demon the rest of the way inside, though he crosses the room to the bed with a grumble. Aziraphale helps him out of his jacket, and then his silk shirt, and then the undershirt beneath that, and then a tanktop. He has to bite on the edge of an amused smile, or else Crowley will sulk, but he thinks its rather cute of his snake to seek that extra bit of warmth in every nook and corner he might find it.

“It is not,” Crowley gripes aloud, reading his mind with the ease of someone who has known and loved Aziraphale for more than six thousand years. He’s faced resolutely away and his bare shoulders are hunched, the skin there and on the tips of his ears turning a telling pink. “I’m cold-blooded, angel. Cute has nothing to do with it.”

“Of course not, dear,” Aziraphale capitulates easily. He can afford to surrender these little victories when he’s already won the greater prize. It’s an effort to keep his hands to himself in his eagerness. “May I see them now?”

Plucking anxiously at his trousers, Crowley ducks his head in what could have been a nod, except he doesn’t lift it again. And then he brings out his wings, filling the room like a dark rush of water.

(Crowley’s wings are black, yes, but that’s no way to judge a fellow’s character. Not all angel wings are white, the way humans tend to depict them in their art and literature; Gabriel’s are dove gray, and Uriel’s are shining gold. The Morningstar, before he Fell, had wings of every color. Aziraphale’s pale feathers, against the iridescent black and blues of Crowley’s, feel rather plain.

But--

Look at you, Crowley will say, awed. He will touch the faun brown and off-white cream with a reverence he keeps a secret all the rest of the time, with hands that are much too generous to belong to a proper demon. His eyes will linger on Aziraphale’s face, as though they can’t help themselves.

And Aziraphale will feel, for a welcome change, beautiful.)

But along with the familiar wings, as was their agreement, Crowley manifested the ruined skin that Aziraphale has never seen, the mark of a fallen angel that he has kept carefully hidden for all these years.

They cut across the long lines of his back, the raised burns eating from the smooth skin of his shoulder blades with jagged teeth.

Aziraphale wants to touch, to soothe them, but he doesn’t quite dare.

His dearest is tense and still; he hasn’t taken a breath since he bared his back. He is braced for something, it seems, something that he expects will hurt.

He hides his scars like he hides his eyes, and Aziraphale’s heart is so full it aches, fragile human thing that it is. He can’t bear to think of Crowley carrying this wound for so long, this angry, ancient, anguished thing.

And so he leans forward and presses his lips to Crowley’s shoulder, kisses the ruins of him so there can be no mistake. Crowley’s feathers are soft in Aziraphale’s hands, and beneath them, so are the scars.

“Look at you,” Aziraphale tells him, returning an old favor. “You’re perfect, you know. Just as you are. All that you are.”

He could stand to say it more, it seems. Crowley gropes blindly behind him until he finds one of Aziraphale’s hands and then he holds on as though he’s terrified he might fall again, fingers trembling, grip tight enough to bruise. Aziraphale hushes him, and draws him back until he’s safe in the circle of Aziraphale’s arms, the safest creature to be found on the whole of the earth with how far and how fiercely Aziraphale would go to protect him.

Aziraphale thinks the world could end around them, and his own wings could burn, and all else could be lost, and still he would be right here, holding his love.

“Perfect,” he presses against Crowley’s hair. “You’re perfect.”

#

It’s another intimate evening, another warm night in the bedroom above the bookshop, when Aziraphale asks, “Did it hurt?”

Crowley is pliant against his side, dozing with his eyes half-open because he sometimes forgets his eyelids when he’s sleepy. He hums at the feel of Aziraphale’s fingers brushing against the side of his face, tilting his head to chase the warmth.

“Did what hurt?”

“The Fall.”

As soon as the question is out, Aziraphale wishes he could take it back. He’s not sure he can bear the answer. He doesn’t want Crowley to have hurt back then, and doesn’t want him to hurt now, and isn’t sure where he found such thoughtless daring to broach the subject they’ve both avoided for millennia.

But after a brief pause, Crowley’s frozen surprise thaws, and his stiff, guarded lines smooth out. The slight weight of him goes boneless again as Aziraphale cards rueful fingers into his hair.  

“Must have done,” he murmurs. “Don’t really remember.”

Aziraphale loses his breath in a rush, relieved.

“What a mercy,” he says, and gathers Crowley up for a kiss. The demon whines, but resettles quickly enough atop Aziraphale’s chest-- always an opportunist, Aziraphale thinks wryly-- and then they are eager to distract one another from maudlin thoughts.

(He is right about the mercy, though he doesn’t know it yet.)

#

Nanael slices their hand open with a letter opener, somehow, bleeding from the meat of their palm. They stand there looking at the alarming swell of blood with an expression of mild surprise.

Aziraphale isn’t proud that his knee-jerk reaction is to snatch the rest of his mail out of the way of the drip. He assumes the younger angel is going to miracle the hurt away, and forgets how foreign life on earth is to them at large.

Thankfully, Crowley remembers.

“Nice one, Feathers,” he snaps, rounding the counter. He shoves his glasses up to his forehead, eyes absurdly yellow in the low light of the shop. “You trying to get yourself discorporated? Let me see.”

Nanael’s corporeal form is that of a young man in his early twenties, but the way they waffle beneath Crowley’s disapproval puts Aziraphale in mind of a scolded child. And really, they’re not even a whole millennia old.

Crowley takes them by the wrist and glares at the offending slice in their hand. With a gentle prod of his thumb, he miracles the hurt away.

Aziraphale intervenes then, to save his estranged little sibling what is probably shaping up to be a lengthy lecture, since Crowley’s caring tends to manifest that way; as though coughing up enough sharp edges will be enough to hide his soft heart. Aziraphale sets his mail aside and pats Crowley on the elbow, taking the wind out of his sails with a disarming smile.

“Well done, my dear, as always. Now what do you say about pulling the car around, hm? It’s well past time for lunch, and I’m rather in the mood for Greek.”

When the demon has gone, slouching out of the store with a surly expression that doesn’t fool Aziraphale in the slightest and hasn’t done since that first day in the garden, he gives Nanael a firm look.

“You must be more careful. Heaven isn’t in the business of handing out corporations freely, and especially not after clumsy mishaps. You’re doing yourself no favors, hanging around here as much as you do, so you really should strive to take caution.”

He doesn’t add anything about all the many clumsy mishaps of his own. He was only spared them, like Nanael was, by Crowley’s timely arrival and flagrant disregard for company policy, and he would prefer Nanael to abide by a better precedent. They can’t always count on Crowley to bail them out of trouble, even if he always has before.

But Nanael is staring at him, their hand still open and outstretched in front of them. They haven’t moved since Crowley was beside them. Their dark eyes are mystified.

“How did he do that?” they ask. “Demons can’t do that.”

Aziraphale frowns. “Nanael, whatever rot they’ve been feeding you Upstairs about the Fallen, I can assure you-- “

“No, not-- I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t mean he wouldn’t, I mean he can’t.” The angel touches their healed palm, folding careful fingers around where the cut sat moments ago, as though it’s a secret they should hide. “You need Grace to perform miracles. The Fallen are cut off from the Host, they can’t access that anymore. Demon’s powers are anti-miracles, really. They can’t do purely good.” They squint at Aziraphale, suspicion taking the place of confusion. “How don’t you know all this? You’ve been down here forever.”

Aziraphale doesn’t say there is a lot to learn down here, and I am still learning. He doesn’t say how much of that can you believe to be true, when your side and theirs won’t take the time to understand each other? He doesn’t say I have only known one demon, and he has always been good.

He looks at his young friend and listens to the sound of a Bentley honking impatiently outside the shop and doesn’t say anything at all. He’s thinking, instead.

About the Arrangement, about the years of trading an unwanted workload back and forth to make it more bearable, about the countless miracles under Aziraphale’s name that could actually be credited to a demon who shouldn’t have been capable of them.

About their charade after Armageddon, when they chose their faces wisely. He has walked in Crowley’s shape, he has known him down to the bone and sinew and soul. He thinks, surely, he would have felt the sudden absence of the Host as keenly as a puppet with its strings cut during every second of their charade. He thinks, surely, he would have recognized an emptiness where that light should have been, having lived with it since God breathed life into him eons ago.

But he didn’t notice anything missing at all.

#

(Who is there to compare Crowley to? What source is there for Aziraphale to draw understanding from? There has never been anyone like his love, not in all the turns of the earth.

Someone who Fell, not out of spite or malice, but hungry curiosity and countless unanswered questions; who spent whole afternoons with those humans in that garden he loved, who was fond of Eve and gave her the tool she needed to make her own choices because he saw himself in her endless, fearless wondering; who played the hand he was dealt without ever giving into bitterness or cruelty the way of the other angels in Hell, looking instead upon the humans with the amused affection and secondhand delight of an estranged uncle or a displaced step-sibling.

Aziraphale remembers a winter afternoon in 1783, all but forgotten after that close call during the Reign of Terror a decade later, when Crowley burst into his flat with shining eyes and mussed hair and clothes still rumpled from travel.

“They’re flying, angel!” he’d said, buoyed by his own disbelief and wonder and ecstatic, aching pride. “Two brothers in Annonay, they’ve built a balloon! They were only up for a few minutes, but they really flew!”

And how, Aziraphale thought back then, has thought a hundred times since, how could he have Fallen? This bright and beautiful thing? As close to blasphemy as he dared venture in those days, Aziraphale would look at Crowley with love a vast and painful secret in his heart and wonder how.)

#

Aziraphale has never been one to spring into action, tending instead towards study and reflection, and in that vein he might have sat on these new and alarming questions for years if left to his own devices.

But interference came in the form of a gaggle of angels, following Nanael back to Soho to see what they were getting up to in all these days spent on earth. They were stricken to find themselves cornered in the bookstore, as though they had betrayed the beloved place somehow. When they look around for help, they look to Crowley first.

He doesn’t disappoint.

“This isn’t a daycare center,” he says blithely. He’s still lounging, propped up on his elbows behind Aziraphale’s counter, but the lanky, lazy lines of his body are deceptive. “We’ve got all the holy feather dusters around here that I can stand, so you lot can see yourselves out now.”

Aziraphale taps his fingers against the table, hot ire rising like a tide inside him. It has barely been three years since the apocalypse that wasn’t, three years since their respective former bosses agreed to leave them be, and they can’t even begin to enjoy retirement.

The angels aren’t sense-blind, and seem wary to encroach any further into Aziraphale’s territory. But they are so like Nanael was those years ago when they first stood inside the door and glared at Crowley with an eternity of borrowed hatred they didn’t even understand, carried like a mantle or an inheritance they never learned how to leave behind.

It rankles, to have Crowley looked at like that. Here, of all places, in this corner of the world that belongs to them, where they have plotted and promised and argued and loved, always together.

Aziraphale says, with an edge of anger, “The three of you should leave.”

Three, not four. Nanael looks hopelessly gratified not to be included in that number, and slinks a little closer to the counter. One of Nanael’s sisters follows, her hand clenched in the pocket of a sensible sweater with nonsensical pom-poms hanging from the drawstrings.

“If the company of a demon did this to you, it can do it anyone,” she says. “I won’t allow anyone else to Fall.”

Her heart is in the right place, Aziraphale will grudgingly allow, much, much later. But her hand, fisted around a small bottle of enough holy water to do all the damage it needs to, is not.

She yanks Nanael to one side, and tosses the contents of the bottle over the counter, and Aziraphale is

one

second

too

slow.

He is too horrified to beg mercy, to spare even a word of prayer. The water falls, and lands, a damning splash against his dear love's skin.

The promise of the world ending, the Antichrist’s arrival, Lucifer himself clawing up from the pit, none of it, absolutely none of it was as frightening as that one second he was too slow.

Aziraphale is lightheaded with fear, nauseous with it, colliding with Crowley and grabbing him up in hands that shake and beginning to miracle away all of the damp that he can before it sets into the fetching leather of his jacket more than it already has.

Crowley blinks, the water dripping harmlessly from his damp fringe and the sharp jut of his chin, beading in his eyelashes like tiny pearls. There is no steam, no visible pain, no destruction. Crowley is befuddled but whole in his hands, alive, that stubborn heart racing furiously away inside him.

“Angel,” he says, and it comes out sounding afraid.

Aziraphale says, "Shh, I've got you," and there is a long, long moment after that where absolutely no one else moves or speaks or even breathes.

And then Aziraphale, to put it politely, loses his temper.

#

“Must have been a bluff,” Crowley says much later, when the unwanted angels have been run off with a fury that would have done Hell proud, and the welcome angel is sleeping away their distress on the lumpy sofa in the back room, and it is just the two of them alone in the flat upstairs.

Pouring out glasses of scotch and passing one across the table, the angel says, with the air of someone making polite conversation, “It was Holy. I could feel it from where I was standing.”

Crowley goes still, drink halfway suspended. After a beat, he lowers it.

“What does that mean?”

“It means-- I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what you are.”

He says it with reverence, but Crowley flinches, as though it landed with a blow. He’s curling in on himself, this snake without a hole to hide in, and Aziraphale rounds the table before he can go away entirely.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “Really, my dear, have I ever hurt you?”

The split-second after he asks feels like an eternity, and his stomach turns. He looks down at his own hands, then away at some far corner of the room. He thinks of you go too fast for me and there is no our side and the look on Crowley’s face both times.

Sickly, he adds, “Intentionally, that is. Of course.”

A groan, and Crowley shoves his sunglasses up his forehead so he can dig the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Don’t be daft, angel,” he bites without heat. “You’ve never hurt me.”

Almost forgiveness, but an aimless sort; Crowley is offering it freely, just as he offers everything else, but as far as he’s concerned, there is nothing to forgive. Aziraphale tugs his hands down by the wrists and kisses first one palm, then the other, and by then Crowley is recovered enough to look back at him.

“A demon immune to holy water,” he hedges.

“An angel immune to hellfire,” Aziraphale counters neatly. “There’s also your Grace, my dear.”

Crowley frowns. “What’s wrong with it?”

Aziraphale realizes that Crowley probably has little more idea than he does about how demons get on. He spends the majority of his time on earth, and the majority of his company with an angel, and the rest he makes up as he goes along.

“It shouldn’t be there,” Aziraphale explains gently. “You should have been cut off. I hadn’t even thought about it until Nanael brought it up, clever thing.”

“Shouldn’t have-- “ Crowley’s expression shifts rapidly, through offense and hurt and indignation, to settle squarely on bemusement. “I have been cut off, Angel. I haven’t heard Her voice in-- “

It’s a painful thing, this demon and his faith. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t still love Her. Aziraphale holds him closer, before he gets any ideas about running away to that empty flat in Mayfair to heal from these wounds in private.

There is proof of something here. Proof in the holy water and the hellfire and the miracles. Proof in how much Crowley has been allowed to get away with, consorting with the adversary, skating by with little mischiefs and frustrations over any true evil deeds, as though some higher power was safeguarding him from his employers’ suspicions. He has never truly caused any harm, has never truly cost any human their faith, and his temptations are only that: temptations.

Just like in the garden, he only presents the choice, good or bad, and Aziraphale has seen the light go on in his eyes when a person chooses rightly.

There is proof. Here, in this. In choices, and choosing rightly. As though it’s all been--

"Ineffable,” they say together, Aziraphale inspired, Crowley dull.

“Oh, it must have been a part of the Plan, Crowley,” Aziraphale goes on, all but scooping him up. “There must have been a reason. She must have needed you here.”

It isn’t always good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. Sometimes there is a gray area, a middle ground, and not everyone can see that. Not everyone can find it. It would take a soul like the one wrapped up in Aziraphale’s arms-- the one who created both stars and original sin, who glues fivepence to the sidewalk and brings dead birds back to life, who has been a soldier on both sides of the same war and when the time came to declare loyalty he chose door number three.

He chose humanity.

“You didn’t fail,” Aziraphale whispers. So glad his faith survived intact up to this moment, because there were times when he questioned, when he wondered. “Oh, my darling. You did exactly right.”

He Fell, but without the pain or memory. Relegated to Hell, but only for a short time before he slithered right out again. Retained his Grace, and roamed the earth alongside the humans he threw his lot in with. Not evil, and not righteous, but good.

Crowley is blinking rapidly, yielding when Aziraphale brings their foreheads together, hooking fingers into the pocket of Aziraphale’s waistcoat for something to hold onto.

"Then why was I punished?" he asks in the tone of someone trying to understand a puzzle they've been stuck with for six thousand years. "Why did She leave me alone?"

"But She didn't," Aziraphale says. "You were never alone. And neither was I."

#

"Angel," Crowley says slowly some days later, a pretty picture in the morning sunlight beaming across the kitchen. He's frowning, but his hand in Aziraphale's is warm. "If I'm not one or the other, what am I?"

"Haven't I told you enough by now?" Aziraphale says in playful dismay, leaning over the table to meet him with a kiss. "You're perfect, my dear."

The best thing She ever did, really.

[magewraths]

general ––

name  : fenrir bjornolf greyback 

birthday / age : born april 3, 1936 ; aged 44

residence : a run-down cabin in the woods in surrey

gender / pronouns : cisgender male, he/him

sexuality : bisexual, biromantic

blood status : half-blood ; werewolf 

relationship status : single and ready to mingle 

hogwarts house : did not attend hogwarts, but rather durmstrang -- and dropped out in his fourth year

loyalty : the pack the death eaters ; his loyalty is, first and foremost, to his pack. they come before all else. he allies with the death eaters out of convenience, and out of a hope for advancement for their kind. but if the pack were to find themselves in danger at the hands of the death eaters, that’d be a different story.

career : unemployed ; currently bouncing between odd jobs

mbti : ESTJ

moral alignment : neutral evil 

character tropes : papa wolf, psycho for hire, black and grey morality, try to catch me fighting dirty, utopia justifies the means, the conman, i did what i had to do

aesthetics –––

old flannels and worn leather boots, running barefoot through the woods, the sound of laughter in the leaves, a hunger you just can’t satiate, swallowing abandonment like blood, seeing the moon turn red, old wounds that you can’t quite place, your own visage on a wanted poster, callouses on your feet and hands, restless and relentless, blood beneath your fingernails

biography –––

One must always wonder if monsters are born, or if they simply become. If they emerge from the cavernous void of creation with teeth bared and claws sharpened for the ripping, or perhaps if they come about like every other sad child with no mothering touch to teach them what it is to be human. No one really knows where monsters come from, and perhaps that is what makes them so terrifying. Or perhaps it is the inevitability that, no matter what we are inclined to believe about the nature of creation, all monsters were children once. 

No one knows where he came from, for he will never tell them. There exists a certain mythos about the wolf, the Greyback wolf, whose reputation precedes him, that he simply appeared in the gutters of London one night, dressed in rags and wielding a thigh bone as a club, blood upon his cheeks as if he had bitten into something far too large to chew. He was a feral child who lived between shadows, inhabiting the old, dilapidated flat that had once belonged to a mother and father who had never truly loved each other, had never truly loved him. They had left him, after all; he’d never even known their names. Beggars, they had been, lowlifes who exposed their child to the worst sort of people - but, perhaps they themselves were the true monsters, packing away their things and leaving him to rot when he came home with empty pockets and a profusely bleeding bite-wound upon his shoulders. They had looked upon it with horror, for it spanned the length of his arm, half his chest, as if he’d been plucked up by the ankles and dipped gently into the jaws of the beast. He knew not what it meant - but his parents certainly did. Perhaps he would have hated them less if they had told him what he would become before leaving him with nothing but the clothes on his back and the mold-touched bread on the table. Perhaps he would have been less frightened had he known, on the following full moon, why it was he lay upon the floor, captured at the base of the window by a single shaft of moonlight, tearing limb from limb and growing upward, outward. 

Perhaps he would not hate them so, had they told him that he would feel more himself as the beast, and that they had left him for becoming who he had always meant to be. Perhaps so. Perhaps. Perhaps if he had torn into them with freshly grown fangs, and not the carriage driver in the park he’d have felt their debts paid. 

He was a beastly wraith, inhabiting the streets of London, the gutters and sewers, stealing what he could and taking what he must. There were whispers that the old landlord had died, that the dingy one-room flat in which he’d been born was to be abandoned fully, along with the rest of the building. And so he was truly alone, a lonely and feral monster with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even as a young boy scrounging for scraps and fumbling halfheartedly through the discovery of magic he knew that mortal flesh was not meant for him. He yearned for the change, for the animal that shared space with the scraps of a human soul deep within his chest. His was a lawless upbringing, a ruleless world which belonged to him and only him. He never questioned why he was made this way, nor who it was that made him; as far as Fenrir was concerned, it was the closest thing to a gift from a divine presence that someone so close to Hell as he would ever receive. A divine gift, but not one without its temptations, its pains, its suffering. But is that not the defining quality of all things divine? 

But he possessed magic just as greatly as he possessed monstrosity; the magic was much more clumsy in his hands, secondary to the newfound animalism which drove him to hunt, to stray from the city and travel north, to become more nomad than wraith. Far from the city, Fenrir found himself in foreign territories that did not take as kindly, or as nonchalantly, to abandoned adolescents who took their meat raw and slept with one eye open. Those in smaller towns chased him into the wood with angry words and angrier spells, for they who held magic in the palms of their hands wanted not to allow a monster into the fold. It was much harder to steal from these smaller villages, to pillage from the humble houses, and so he learned to hunt - both as man and beast - to fish, to chop wood, to build. He was a man before adolescence, an ancient soul before all else. 

At the age of thirteen, he found himself settled quite comfortably just outside Druskininkai; the Lithuanian people, he’d found, seemed more likely to leave him be than most, when encountered in the wood. Perhaps the folk in the city had heard the howls at night, the cries of pain and splendor with each full moon. Perhaps they knew that to leave their chickens in the cool night air and to lock their doors was a safer homage than to try and engage the monster directly. Or perhaps they knew that to offer him still-living stock to drag back to the shed he’d taken to inhabiting in the woods would be better than to allow him to continue to lecherously observe the girls who played in the wheat fields, watching them as if they were his next meal. 

He was not ashamed that he had once tried to make a girl - blonde, with pigtails and freckles like full-moon stars - like him, once. But he was too young, and she too frightened. They’d found her arm first, for he’d done his best to bite her in the same pattern that scarred his shoulder; but she’d jerked from him, screaming, howling, and it had all come apart far too easily. He’d not bothered to wash his ragged trousers in the river until the next morning. 

It was here, in this village where his reputation was not quite so terrible yet, that a traveling scholar with ties to the Durmstrang Institute dared approach him, dared speak to the feral boy who knew so little of humans, but so much of humanity. At first, Fenrir wished nothing to do with the man, or with the school of which he spoke. After all, Fenrir had known nothing but a self-sufficient life of nomadic survival, living off the land and off the people intelligent enough not to fight back. At first, he thought it frivolous, silly. But then the scholar had produced a wand from within his traveling cloak and had set him ablaze with curiosity. 

But the scholar, this man with ties to the school, also made him bitter. You’ll never be like them, he’d said, But you can pretend to be. 

He did not want to pretend, to hide, to lessen his monster for the sake of those who did not understand. The way the man spoke, Fenrir thought that perhaps they, wizards, thought him less for his condition. The man had called it an ‘affliction’; Fenrir knew enough of men, however, to disagree. He had never known anything but this life upon the outskirts, but he knew enough of the world to see the opportunity presented to him. The young boy, all rib-bones and dirty feet, knew survival to be paramount. Survival, freedom; acceptance meant nothing, but power was another story. 

He lasted but a few years at Durmstrang, but what little education he received was invaluable. They’d cleaned him up, with pity on their faces and determination in their heavy hand, and had taught him - too little too late - all they could about ‘playing nice’ with the others, about becoming a part of a community which required social skills he had thus been lacking. Of course, what need had Fenrir had for the precarious intricacies of social politics? The children in his year had all come from lily-pure stock, and made no secret of looking down their noses at the raggedy boy who disappeared once a month, who was taught to eat with utensils, who ran in his sleep. They looked down upon him, but he cared little for their opinions - only for the practice they gave him. He learned to duel with words just as quickly as with wands, sliding comfortably into a human facade which would be passable at best to most who scrutinized him. He realized that he was quite good at slipping into the facade, at playing into their brutish perception of him, for his greatest power, it seemed, was being underestimated. 

After a time, Fenrir felt as if he had exhausted the use of formal education, and left Durmstrang - though some might argue that he was encouraged to leave. At the age of fifteen, he struck out on his own once more, though this time with the skills, mindset, and determination to change the way in which he cut his monster’s path through the world. Where once he had been aimless, his time amongst the Pureblooded wizards - and their talk of purity, and the desire to reign supreme, and a movement in the name of all of it forming to the south - he now quite liked the idea of a superior regime. But, of course, he did not subscribe to the ideal that Pure magic was might, that it was superior, that his own blood was less than those without magic at all; no - he knew better. He almost felt sorry for them, the misinformed bigots who thought of him as an animal to be tamed, to be collared into too-tight robes and taught party tricks. 

No - his kind was superior. And they deserved to be free. He deserved to be free. 

And so he returned south with the intention of settling near his once-home, to grow his family (family, he called it; this was almost humanity), to mark themselves as a presence worthy of overtaking the lesser witches and wizards who underestimated the vitriol of the truest predator. Fenrir saw the undeniable benefit in doing so on the precipice of a war; it was a war fought by men in studies, haughty chess-makers who thought one spilled blood better than the other. He observed the brewing storm as he roamed about the countryside throughout England, Scotland, Wales; were he to have a stake in the rearranging of the world order, were he to put his hand into the fire that stretched even as far as Durmstrang, he would need not be alone. And besides, what better gift to bestow upon humanity than that of his secret weapon? 

With enough of them, with enough numbers behind him, he could eat the men in their studies, and leave the bones with which his children could pick their teeth. It was a lovely thought; it was purpose. 

It was not long before Fenrir had cut enough of a path through the community to be considered both a threat and something to be feared; he took children from their homes and brought them into his fold, where they could not be abandoned, where they could not be left to turn feral in the wilds. He thought it a service to them, knew it to be a gift that they could only repay by acting in his service. But he was determined to treat them in a way much different than his own upbringing; they would be an army as much as a community. A presence to be feared - but soon to be respected. He could not deny the thrill, the utterly bloody satisfaction he felt at growing his number, for violence had always been his bread and butter. And soon others saw it his way - and those who did not were quickly eliminated, for monsters of his breed, no matter their beliefs, belonged to him, with him.

Theirs is a lawless existence, this life of the Greyback pack. His body count has a body count of its own; the pack shares his taste for an almost pirate-like lack of regard for the laws of humanity - or of society, for that matter. Fenrir has made it quite clear that he is neither their father nor their master, but that they owe him the debt of their lives. They know all too well that it would have been all too easy to simply destroy them; many are beholden to failed turnings just as often as they are privy to successful ones. They live upon the fringes; rarely do any but Fenrir mingle with the common folk of the wizarding community. They seem to know not, or care not, Fenrir included, that they are uneducated, that they are anomalies, that they are a third horse in a race run by political players, for Fenrir has instilled it in them that they exist here, in this war, in these circles, to accompany the victors to the other side, where freedom awaits. He tells them only enough of his life, of his struggles, of what he has seen to instill in them a confidence that he can, in fact, see the freedom which lies just beyond the horizon of the war. In the service of he who calls himself the Dark Lord - at which Fenrir scoffs, and the pack laughs - they are allowed to indulge in their intrinsic tastes for blood, for violence, for chaos; they are allowed to be themselves where Fenrir was not, at their age. He ushers them into a new age where they will not have to hide, where they will not be forced to live in the hollows and cracks of a society that does not want them - for this is what the world has owed him from the very beginning. 

This is not the becoming of a single monster - this is the heralding of their true and deserved age. A dynasty of monstrous creation, a lifetime of retribution. Monsters will be monsters, after all. 

And there is no questioning the nature of monsters or men.

[draw-you-coward]

"You're cold. Come here" Ikael and, uuh, whoever strikes your fancy :3

;w;; thank you so much for sending something in! i really liked how this turned out , even if the exact line of dialogue is AheUEH a liddle less … sofTM

ao3

Ryne shifts closer to the fire,rocking on her ankles. She tightens her arms around her knees and ducks herhead further into them to cover her nose.

Ikael frowns in concern. “Are youcold, kitten?”

Ryne’s eyes darts to his. Shenods. Poor thing, Ikael thinks as she wedges her hands under her arms.

“We’ve never been here. I’m notused to this weather.” She sounds troubled. “We used to spend the winters atUrianger’s place, because it was always warm.”

Ikael coos at hersympathetically, nosing at his enormous, heavy fur cloak. Ikael, too, gets coldin the winter, since he still has not accustomed himself to cooler climes. Buthe is always prepared! Even if people—perhaps or perhaps not including Y'shtolaand Lyse—say he looks like a dodo with a shaved neck in this cloak.

“You take this then, yeah?” he coaxes,unwrapping it. “No, no, no protests! There will be no shivering on my watch. Thereyou go…” He settles the cloak around her shoulders, tucking it in when itstarts to slide off. It absolutely dwarfs her. Ikael kisses the air and coos loudlyas he smoothes it down.

“Is that Ryne, or have we gottena new pet?” Thancred strides over, offering a piece of the meat he had beencleaning to Ikael with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t smother her with that thing,Ikael. She needs to breathe.”

“Abububu,” goes Ikael, smooching Ryne’shair. She giggles and snorts, pushing him away. “Stop, stop!” she squeaks. “Hedidn’t mean the cloak.”

Ikael mock pouts, but withdrawswith a chuckle and one last, more gentle kiss. He inspects the rabbit thighThancred has handed him as he shuffles over to his frying pan.

“What does your new little nutkinthink of you murdering her friends?” he throws over the fire.

“Now, now, ‘murder’ is a verystrong word,” Thancred replies. “Don’t say it in front of Frederika. And Idon’t know where she is right now—it seems she comes and goes.”

Ikael skewers the thigh, thenpauses. “‘Frederika?’” he repeats. Did he hear that correctly?

He can feel Thancred’s regretin the beat of silence that follows. Delighted, Ikael is just about to crow onthe revelation that he has finally won the years-long battle overFrederick’s name when—

A wet glob of fat sails just pastthe flames and smacks him in the face. Ikael bleats in shock. It begins to slowlyslide down his cheek.

“Ew ew ew ew,” Ikael whimpers,trying desperately to get it off. The rabbit thigh cocks at an awkward angle onits skewer, forgotten.

Thancred regards him inamusement. After a second, he barks out a laugh. At Ikael’s puzzled glare, he explains,“You had the same reaction when I kissed you those few years ago. Hah.”

“What?” says Ryne. Ikaelwhines loudly, smearing the back of his hand over his face. Why is it so gooey?

Dinner ends up being somewhatdelayed.

~*~

Ikael is beginning to get just alittle bit chilly.

Well alright, he had felt the coldnot a minute after he had given Ryne (who is now asleep) his cloak. But itisn’t as if he is going to take it back from her! For all he is concerned, itis hers now. Poor thing. And he definitely does not want Thancred to notice,because Thancred will offer his coat and bully Ikael into wearing it, and then hewill be cold. And Ikael cannot have that.

But he is wearing a sleevelesstop, and he very much regrets it. He cannot pull his sleeves over his hands,because he does not have any, but at the very least, he supposes, hewill not give himself away. The gooseflesh pimpling his arms, unfortunately, isharder to hide, and does not go away even when he blows at his skin vigorouslyas soon as Thancred turns his head. But he finds that he can mostly repress hisshivers, and he can make up for what he cannot with hopefully random-seemingtwitching. Thancred has never pointed out his behaviours that others deem odd,anyhow. For all he knows, Ikael twitches all the time. Ikael is a twitchmaster. Ikael—

Sneezes. Thancred glances over athim instinctively. “Crystal keep you,” he says.

“Thank y-you.” Ikael sniffs. Thancred’sfleeting gaze pauses, turning curious, and Ikael mentally kicks himself as herealizes why. That is not how Ikael’s stutter usually manifests. Damn. And damnagain; now he has to think of a reason to be nervous.

“O-oh no, my… hand cream,” hesays, loud and over-enunciated. “It is almost ov—ov—ov—over! Whatever shall I.Shall I do?”

Thancred shoots him an odd look.“Do you want me to buy you new hand cream?” he asks slowly. “Have you run outof money again? Let me guess: That cloak cost you a fortune.”

Well. It did, but that is neitherhere nor there. “Now my. My. My. Hands will be dry forever!” Ikael exclaimsdramatically. Thancred shushes him, looking over at Ryne. “Oops,” Ikaelwhispers. “Sorry.”

Thancred clambers over on hisknees, somehow managing to be graceful about it. “There is no need to be sotheatrical,” he says in an undertone. “It has never been your strong suit. Howmuch is this exotic cream you want? I’m assuming it was made with half a dozen‘extracts’ and promises to relocate your chakras to your arse or somethingequally preposterous. If you truly need it, I can help you save up.”

Ikael’s mouth parts. “A-ah, it,um—no. It’s fine. Th-the, ah…” He represses a shiver, sending it out throughthe tips of his ears. “The price isn’t that high. I-I can get it myself.”

He purposefully avoids making eyecontact. He has never been a very good liar, let alone to Thancred, who has aunique ability to sniff out as innocent a thing as a half-truth from malmsaway. If their eyes meet, he will be found out in seconds. Thancred will… seethe chilliness of his eyeballs.

“… Alright then,” Thancred saysas Ikael makes an effort to not lock his jaw. The fire is dying, taking with itthe last of its warmth. It is all Ikael can do not to huddle up and rub at hiscold, cold arms. He hopes Thancred will decide to go to sleep soon, because hecannot pretend to not be cold for very much longer. And when he notices,Thancred will be very cross with him and try to do something ridiculouslychivalrous like force Ikael to wear his—nice, warm, large—coat. And Ikael doesnot want that because… then Thancred will be cold. Right. It is getting harderto straighten out the reasons for his martyrdom, frankly, but Ikael is certainit is for a good cause. It is better that he is the one suffering thanThancred, he thinks. Poor Thancred has been through enough.

“I’ll take first watch,” Ikaelspeaks up. He finds that if he evens his breathing, it is easier to keep hisvoice steady. “You go and sleep now. Be nice and cuddly, yeah?”

Thancred shoots him an odd look.“It is early yet,” he replies. “I daren’t turn in for some time. Is theresomething that’s bothering you, Ikael? You are acting strangely.”

“N-no.” Oops. Ikael clears histhroat. “No,” he repeats firmly. “Nothing at—all. Sometimes people just act—actstrangely, you know. No need to jump to conclusions.”

“Right,” Thancred says slowly. “Well,if you want to talk, I’m right here. No better time than the present.”

He settles next to Ikael,comfortably close. That will not do, Ikael thinks in despair as he staresat Thancred’s face, lax with ease. It is getting more and more difficult not toshiver. Quickly—Ikael has to—think.

“I-I think it’s best if y-y—” Achill skitters up his spine. “If you go sit… over there.” Ikael points with onewavering finger, stretching his arm out as far as it will go. “I-I think.Yeah.”

Thancred looks at him. Slowly, keepinghis eyes on Ikael—who quickly diverts his own—he gets up, and sits some waysaway.

“Furth—further back,” Ikael says,because Thancred is still facing him. “Or turn arou—around, please.”

“Have I done something tooffend?” Thancred’s voice is more even, which means his good humour is leaving.Oh no. “If I have, I must say, I would rather you tell me than,” He makes anambiguous gesture, “Whatever this is.”

Ikael’s ears flatten to his head.“N-no, Thancred, you’re fine,” he mumbles, guilt slanting his shoulders. “I justneed. U-um.” He flounders for another, more believable, lie. “Um. I just needto… stretch my legs,” he says weakly. “Nothing to do with—with you.”

This time, when a shiver wrackshim, he is unprepared, and it shakes through his bones. Ikael ducks his headinto his chest, trying not to let his teeth chatter. Lie of stretching his legsjust as quickly forgotten as it was fabricated, he pulls them up so he can hugthem close.

Having Thancred at odds with him,especially for no reason, feels—nasty—but at least it means he will keep hisdistance. Oh, but Ikael feels so horrid about it. He will—hemust—apologize, and then—

“Are you cold?” Thancred’s voicedips with a frown. Oh, shite. Ikael hears him come back over, and resignshimself to his fate just before he feels a semi-gloved hand close over hisshoulder.

“N-no,” he mumbles unconvincingly.He stares determinedly at an ember twinkling in the bowels of firepit.

“Really? Because you look like aplucked dodo, and you’ve been tense as a bowstring since you gave Ryne yourcloak.”

Ikael’s mouth opens in offense.“Y-you’re a… plucked dodo,” he says.

Thancred tilts his head. “Are youill, is that it? Don’t tell me you’re pulling an Urianger.”

Ikael has never lied tohis friends about life-threatening information, so he cannot imagine whatThancred is talking about. “I-I’m not ill.” He frowns. “Fine, I may bejust a teeny bit cold. I-it’s not a bother, Thancred. Hurrah, you f-f-foundethout my secret. Forsooth.”

Thancred claps him on the shoulder.“’Tis a problem that is easily solved, then.” He begins to remove his coat.“Really, Ikael, I don’t know why—”

“No! No.” Ikael hastily tugs thecoat back over Thancred’s arms. He tries to pull it closed over his chest, butit does not have any buttons, so he ends up awkwardly smoothing it out and perhapsfeeling beneath it a little. Thancred is very well-built. “N-no, it is yourcoat! You will be—c-c-cold.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Thancred staresat him. “You’re shaking like a korpokkur in a windstorm. Or a k-k-korpokkur, Ishould say.”

“If one of us has to be cold itwill not be you!” Ikael insists. Thancred catches his wrists with one hand anddeterminedly begins to take off his coat with the other. The bullying hasalready started! Ikael knew it would happen. “No! Let me go. Thancred.”

“Fine, fine.” Thancredrolls his eyes when Ikael begins to hiss at him. “Gods. It’s like living with aferal cat sometimes, I swear. We can share the bleeding coat, Ikael. Comehere.”

Ikael eyes him suspiciously. “Itonly has two arm-holes,” he says.

Thancred rolls his eyes onceagain, longer and more rudely. “Gods, you’re dense,” he says in a tone that isheavy with affection. He tugs his coat off and, before Ikael can indignantly protest,wraps it back around himself.

Then he knee-walks up to Ikael,still infuriatingly graceful, and throws one half of the garment around him. “There,”he mutters, tugging at it so Ikael is cocooned like a very furry, goosefleshy caterpillar.

Ikael gawks at him. Thancred looksback calmly. They sit for a bit.

“I-I’m not dense!” Ikael squeaksafter an inappropriately long bout of silence.

He feels Thancred’s arm encirclehis shoulder underneath the coat, and he shivers, pressing into the warmth ofhis body. “No, you’re usually very clever,” Thancred replies with a smile inhis voice. “I suppose tonight you must have simply been distracted by longing thoughtsof your fake hand cream.”

“Exactly,” Ikael insists pathetically.Thancred chuckles, quiet and warm. Ikael’s ears dip back, and he noses into Thancred’sneck.

“You’re freezing,” Thancred observes.“Alright, I’ll buy you a new coat, since I am going to assume you will be givingthat hideous thing to Ryne to keep. I’m not getting anything that has more thanthree ‘vitamins,’ however. Or that costs over three digits. It is abouttime you learn, I think, how to thrift. Did I tell you that I used to sell ja—”

“It’s not hideous,” Ikael mumblesinto the junction of his neck.

Thancred snorts. “Please. Itmakes you look like a roosting dodo bird with a bald head and cat ears. I halffeared one had eaten you whole when I first saw you in it.”

Ikael whines quietly, tugging Thancred’sarm tighter around him. Thancred chuckles again. He squeezes, then presses alight kiss to Ikael’s head. Their conversation fades with the last embers of thefire.

Ikael opens his mouth. “How aboutfour vit—”

“No.”

~*~

[cryptidkieren]

come around (3/6)

waddup guys!! this one took forever but its 4000 WORDS so i hope that explains my absence :)

ao3 link 

-----

“What about this one, angel?”

Aziraphale looked up from the soft yellow cardigan he was holding, people scurrying around them with their own shopping. He wished he hadn’t.

Crowley held aloft a maroon sweatshirt with what looked to be a drawing of Jesus… sneezing into his elbow?

“I don’t get it.”

The mischievous smirk on the demon’s face instantly disappeared. The bustle of the shopping center around them seem to grow louder in the silence that hung between the two supernatural beings. “What d'you mean, you don't get it?”

“I mean,” Aziaphale wrinkled his nose as he neatly folded the cardigan back into place, turning back to face his companion. “That I don’t know why a sweater of Jesus Christ sneezing is an appropriate gift for the son of Satan.”

Crowley, for whatever reason, seemed to be absolutely baffled. “I- What- Sneezing? For all the bloody-”

The angel stifled a laugh and plucked the sweatshirt out of the sputtering demon’s hands. He hummed as he looked it over, inspecting it for any mistakes in the stitching, as Crowley attempted to pull himself together.

Just as Crowley opened his mouth, most likely to criticize him for still culturally living in the 19th century, Aziraphale interrupted with a cheery “Actually, I think we should get it!” The angel quickly placed the garment into their basket as he watched, looking positively bewildered.

Aziraphale chuckled at Crowley’s expression; he was a bit of a bastard, after all.

“I cannot believe you, angel,” Crowley sighed, rubbing his temples rather vigorously as they continued their hunt through the department store. The angel only smiled serenely in response.

The festive season onslaught was in full swing by that point, people rushing about trying to finish up their Christmas shopping and attempting to dodge the snowdrifts that had piled up throughout the previous days. Loud, cheery holiday music blared in every store, while vendors on the sidewalk sold hot chocolate and warm pretzels to passersby.

It was Aziraphale’s favorite time of year, and Crowley’s least.

While the angel adored the general sense of goodwill and cheer that permeated the air during the holiday season, Crowley always saw it as more work. Every year without fail, Hell expected him to tempt and irritate humans more and more than the previous year.

He also hated Christmas music with the passion of a dying star.

The two unearthly beings had been through numerous shops in downtown London that day, trying to find the perfect gifts for their human friends. They wanted to do it the “proper way,” or Aziraphale wanted to, at least, since they had never bothered to before.

They had been in their current store for around 15 minutes, Crowley picking up joke gifts with all the seriousness of a clown while the angel reprimanded him fondly. At one point, the demon had eyed an over-the-top festive ugly sweater with growing mischief. Aziraphale only shook his head and steered him away, knowing the sweater would end up in Anathema’s pile of gifts at some point.

The angel perused the selection of sketchbooks the shop was selling, noting with a touch of disdain the ones made to look like antique tomes, as Crowley trailed behind him. He paused, however, when he saw something that caught his eye. It was a glittery notebook with a curly-headed dog on the front. The dog was sitting happily, tongue lolled out in a canine grin. It wore a black collar with a skull and crossbones, a human skull resting at its feet. ‘Bad to the Bone’ curled around the image in a pretty cursive script.

“I think you’d like this one, Crowley!”

The distinct lack of a sarcastic response made Aziraphale pause, turning to see what could have distracted his companion so thoroughly from him.

“Crowley?”

Crowley, however, was nowhere in sight.

Scanning the immediate area revealed nothing as to where the demon could have gotten off to. Dread steadily crept up Aziraphale’s spine as he dropped the notebook and quickly headed to the front door of the shop.

It seemed that the temperature had dropped since he had last been outside, the wind whipping snow around his ankles and blowing flakes down the stark road. The streets had emptied as the hour grew later, leaving Aziraphale alone on the sidewalk, with only the parked Bentley to keep him company. The angel stood there, freezing and panicked, torn on which direction to start searching.

A noise from the alley next to the shop caught his attention. It was a sort of wet sound, like slicing through meat, accompanied by what sounded like a muffled cry of pain. Vicious laughter followed, a sound that was as familiar as it was horrifying.

Of course the angel followed it.

What he found made Aziraphale’s blood boil and his Grace to erupt out of him in incandescent waves of light, violently enough that it almost discorporated his human body.

There was Crowley, tossed into the snow and bleeding from a large gash on his chest. His glasses lay broken by his feet, a cut across his nose oozing dark blood down his face. A bloodied hand was raised in front of him, as if to shield himself from an incoming blow.

The demon looked terrified. He looked as if he knew he was moments from death.

Above him stood Hastur and a squat, mean looking demon unknown to Aziraphale. Hastur looked as grotesque as ever, though both demons had curled in on themselves in fear as the angel’s fury reached them.

One of Hastur’s arms was covered in what looked to be a thick latex glove that reached his elbow, not unlike the ones used to handle dangerous chemicals. His protected hand held a golden dagger that radiated a soft white light, undimmed by the black ichor dripping off the blade. Aziraphale felt his breath falter for a moment.

He knew that weapon. It belonged to Uriel, though it hadn’t been wielded in millennia.

He also knew it was made of the best celestial steel Heaven could offer.

Celestial steel that, of course, could destroy demons permanently, as it was forged using holy water.

Aziraphale felt the tenuous control on his anger snap. His wings exploded out behind him, white feathers swirling with the untouched snow by their feet. They spanned so large that they completely blocked the entrance to the alley, making the glow of his Grace even more blinding in the dim light. When he spoke, it was as if a thousand other voices echoed his words.

“Hastur, Duke of Hell, how came you by this Heavenly blade?”

The two standing demons were quick to cower away from him. After a moment, Hastur dared to sneer up at the enraged angel.

“It was a gift, from the Archangels Gabriel and Uriel. They only allowed my possession of it for killing the demon Crowley and,” the demon paused then, straightening a bit when nothing happened to him. He licked his lips, a disgusting smile stealing its way onto his face. The demon next to him seemed to have gained confidence along with Hastur, grinning maliciously up at the angel.

“And they were hoping that by killing your boyfriend, you would go running back into their arms like a child. I believe they planned to make an example of you, Heavenly scum.” Hastur laughed wickedly, along with his little cronie.

While the two demons laughed themselves silly, Aziraphale stole a glance at Crowley, who was still sprawled in the quickly blackening snow. He was pale, a hand clutching at his bloody chest, while his golden eyes were wide in fear and… awe? He must’ve hit his head on something, because that couldn’t be right.

“Silence!” Aziraphale’s voice boomed around them, immediately putting an end to the two demons’ merriment. They were back to looking petrified, at least. “You forget yourself, Duke of Hell. One angel can destroy twenty demons without a thought. What could a Principality do?”

“Y-You can’t!” cried the undersized demon, wagging a trembling finger at the angel. Hastur was frantically trying to quiet him. “We have o-orders from Lord Beelzebub themself! The demon C-Crowley must die!”

With that, the demon ripped the celestial blade from Hastur’s grip. Aziraphale watched in frozen horror as he screamed, the skin of his palm already steaming and bubbling from coming into direct contact with an object from Heaven.

The angel snapped out of it when the demon raised a trembling arm above Crowley, poised to strike a killing blow. Time seemed to slow to a stop around them as Crowley’s life hung in the balance.

“NO!!”

A blinding flash of light and a bang that seemed to shake the very Earth. Uriel’s blade clattered to the pavement, a smouldering pile of black ash where the short demon previously was. Aziraphale’s outstretched hand (when did that get there?) trembled in the air. His breath wheezed out of him as he realized what he had done.

In all his many years, the angel had never killed anything, let alone destroy something so completely-

‘He was going to kill Crowley.’

And just like that, all of his guilt slipped away like water down a riverbed. His breathing evened out and his arm stopped wavering, dropping back to his side with a sense of finality.

Hastur, who had started screaming incoherently when he saw what had become of his partner (again), snapped his attention back to the suddenly calm angel. He looked even more terrified than before, and rightly so.

Aziraphale slowly approached the demon, who frantically tried to get away. Miraculously, his feet appeared to have been stuck fast to the ground, making his escape impossible. The angel rose himself the few inches difference between them to stare directly into Hastur’s soulless black eyes. His own were reflected back at him, burning an otherworldly blue.

The demon twitched as the angel’s Grace enveloped him completely, forcing little choked off sounds of pain from his throat. Aziraphale gripped Hastur’s white blond hair in a tight fist, burning the side of his face where they came into contact.

“You’ll tell everyone down there that no one shall harm what is mine. I am the angel who walked through Hellfire and never Fell, so please think before you act against me.” Aziraphale pulled Hastur closer, making the demon cry out in agony as the angel’s wrist pressed more firmly to his cheekbone. “Do you understand me, Duke of Hell? If any future suffering comes to Crowley from Hell, I’ll hunt you down first.”

“I do!” he croaked, squirming to get away from Aziraphale. The skin where they connected was bubbling up, smoke rising from the prolonged exposure. “I’ll tell them! I swear!”

“Good.” With that, he released the grip he had on Hastur, flicking his fingers to unstick his feet. The demon scrambled away from him, disappearing not a moment later.

Aziraphale floated softly back to firmer ground as he reigned in his Grace and wings, releasing a noisy breath. A pained whimper from the gutter had him scrambling towards Crowley, ignoring the sharp sting of falling so quickly to his knees on cement. The edge of panic that had kept its place in the back of his mind finally took control, making his hands shake with adrenaline and fear.

“Crowley- Oh-” The angels hands fluttered over the still bleeding wound. “Let me-”

“No,” Crowley rasped, coughing wetly to the side. A few drops of black blood stained the previously untouched snow. He caught both of the angel’s hands firmly in his own. “No, Aziraphale, don’t heal me like that. I wouldn’t survive it.”

Aziraphale was bewildered. The demon had never denied a healing opportunity from him before. Then again, nothing the angel had ever healed for him had been this serious. “What- What do you mean? I’ve healed you plenty before!”

The demon grinned up at him tiredly, white teeth stained black. “Your Grace, angel, it would kill me. It’s t-too big of a wound-” He turned to cough again, blood spilling over his lips.

His resolve hardened then. Aziraphale quickly hooked his arms under the demon, ignoring his weak protests, and gently lifted him into his arms. “Fine, but we’re not staying here. They could come back at any moment.”

“Wh-” Crowley swallowed thickly, his arms wrapped limply around the angel’s neck. “What a-about the sword?”

Aziraphale glanced at Uriel’s blade, still laying on the ground. The hilt had fallen into the ashes of the demon he killed, smearing them into the creases of the ancient binding around it. They would probably never come out, since miracles couldn’t work on Heavenly objects.

“I’m afraid I have to set you back down for this, darling,” Aziraphale said regretfully. He wanted nothing more than to run away right then, get as far away from that alley as possible with Crowley. But he had to send the blade back to its owner, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Again.

He also wanted to send a message, granted it was a nonverbal one.

“No no, it’s fine, I’ll just bleed q-quietly over here, n-no trouble,” the demon snarked as he was gently set to lean against one of the walls of the alley. Aziraphale rolled his eyes fondly before getting to work.

Using the fallen demon’s ashes, Aziraphale quickly sketched out a messy sigil on a cleared area of the ground. It was reminiscent of the communicating sigil he drew all those months ago, with a few minor details switched around. Instead of being able to send messages, it would allow the celestial dagger to be sent straight to Uriel and whoever else was with her.

Sort of like a Heavenly mail chute.

The blade disappeared in a flash of light and the ash drawn circle blew away, leaving nothing behind but Crowley’s blood in the snow.

Aziraphale quickly gathered his demon (yes, his demon, God damn it; he had made his intentions perfectly clear, just then) and fled to the Bentley.

He only prayed no other forces were after them that day.

-----

Getting Crowley back to his flat was difficult, as any sharp turns the angel made caused him to groan in misery from the back seat. Aziraphale had never driven a day in his life, either, so that made the panic in his chest double as the speedometer steadily rose.

They screeched to a stop in front of Crowley’s stark building, the smell of burning rubber following them up the front steps. Aziraphale made it so no one would pay any attention to them in the lobby, because what was another miracle at that point?

The lift ride to Crowley’s floor seemed to go on for eternity. The demon had refused to lean against the wall for support, instead choosing to cling to Aziraphale as they rose through the building. The angel tried to ignore the wetness seeping through his shirt and jacket as he gripped Crowley closer to him.

When the lift stopped, the small jolt forcing a pained gasp out of the demon, Aziraphale quickly got them into the dark flat. He gently led the demon back to the bedroom, knowing that the unused couch in the living area was as uncomfortable as it was expensive.

“There we go, that’s a dear,” the angel muttered mindlessly, trying his best not to hurt Crowley further as he was set onto the soft mattress. He stared at the demon, fretting on how to help him, when he heard a breathless laugh.

“Calm down, angel,” Crowley said as he smiled up at him, exhausted golden eyes half lidded. “I-I’ll be alright. Don’t worry your p-pretty head about it.”

Aziraphale glared at him, snapping his fingers loudly to miracle away the demon’s unsaveable shirt and jacket. “I will not ‘calm down,’ Crowley! They sliced you open!”

“Alright,” the demon breathed, his eyebrows attempting to join his hairline. “Alright, Aziraphale, it’s o-okay. I’m okay, thanks to you.” He took one of the angel’s hands into his own, so gently that the angel almost started crying right then.

He sniffed instead, swallowing his tears back as he held onto the demon’s hand. “I-I have to help you, my dear. You’ll bleed out if I don’t do something about this, and then you’ll be discorporated.” The angel pushed back Crowley’s disheveled hair from his forehead, keeping his touch light, trying not to startle him with the affectionate gesture.

Crowley, however, appeared to have stopped breathing for a moment, his eyes wide and astonished. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Aziraphale blinked, surprised at how easy it was. Usually, the demon fought him every inch of the way when it came to healing him.

“Yeah, do your thing, angel,” the demon said, smiling weakly as a touch of redness crept onto his cheeks. “I trust you.”

Aziraphale felt as if his heart was going to burst. Not wasting any more time, he held his hands over Crowley’s mangled chest and called for his Grace to heal him. He was so absorbed already in what he was doing that when Crowley screamed bloody murder, the angel fell onto his arse.

Scrambling back to his feet, he hovered over the demon, not touching him but trying to help nonetheless. “A-Are you-”

“Keep going!” Crowley grunted and reached for those fluttering hands. “You can’t s-stop, Aziraphale, or it hurts more.”

The angel nodded briskly, readying himself before allowing his Grace out once more. The demon started screaming again instantly. His back arched to a painful looking height as the muscles and tendons knit themselves back together, his blood flowing backwards into his body.

It only took a moment, but it felt like it lasted for an age. When the open wound looked no worse than a shallow cut, Aziraphale retreated so quickly his back hit the far wall, the glow of his Grace dimming to nothing. Crowley dropped back to the bed like a puppet with its strings cut, panting and trembling minutely.

The angel felt his heart shatter, knowing he had to do it, but not liking it one bit. “C-Crowley?”

It took a moment, but the demon eventually answered. He sounded wretched, like he had been tortured for days instead of being healed. “Yeah?”

“Can I- Is it-”

A sigh and a flopped arm interrupted his babbling. “Just get over here, angel.”

Aziraphale let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Double checking that all of his Grace was firmly tucked back into himself, he quickly approached Crowley. The demon was sweating heavily, his golden eyes had a hazy sheen over them, and he was still bleeding from another slice on his arm.

But he was alive. Aziraphale hadn’t killed him, his body hadn’t discorporated, he was alive-

“Hey hey, angel, it’s alright, everything’s okay,” Crowley said gently, if a bit anxious. The demon reached up to gently wipe at one of his cheeks. “There’s no need to cry, love, I’m fine.”

Aziraphale realised then that the tears had finally escaped as all the adrenaline in his system lessened. He sobbed with his next breath, holding the demon’s hand to his cheek. The angel fixed him with a stern, if watery, glare. “Never do that again, Crowley. I mean it.”

The demon chuckled weakly. “I swear I won’t allow Hastur and whatever goon he’s toting about get the drop on me again.” His thumb brushed against Aziraphale’s cheek, catching the tear there. The angel smiled at him, feeling so soft and full of love for this man- demon- being, he was surprised Crowley himself didn’t feel it.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Aziraphale gently took the demon’s hand off his cheek. “Oh look at me, you’re the one who’s injured and yet you’re still consoling me for being overemotional.”

Crowley smirked up at him, looking fond. “Well, what else would you have me do, angel? Let you cry all over me like a tissue?”

The angel snorted, rather inelegantly, as he scrubbed at his damp face. “You menace. I assume you keep a medical box somewhere?”

“Now why in the bloody Heaven would I do that?” Crowley raised an eyebrow at him, his smirk growing wider. “I’m a demon, Aziraphale, I can just wish my injuries away.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes at the dramatics. With a snap of his fingers, a fully stocked medical kit sat next to the demon’s hip. “You’ll have to sit up for this one, my dear.”

He helped Crowley up to rest against the headboard, the fluffy pillows almost swallowing him whole. The angel climbed onto the bed beside him, getting comfortable and opening up the first aid kit.

He tried to make quick work of stitching up Crowley’s arm, knowing the demon hated needles. He was interrupted, though, when Crowley made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.

“I’m almost done, my dear,” Aziraphale hummed. In truth he was only halfway through the cut, going slower than he usually would to prevent as much bleeding as possible.

“What? No, that’s fine, wasn’t even thinking of it,” The demon huffed, looking to steel himself against whatever he wanted to say. The words came tumbling out anyway. “Back in the alley, what- what did you mean by ‘no one will harm what’s yours?’”

The angel paused, his heartbeat kicking up a couple notches as he scrambled to find something, anything to say. Embarrassment made his cheeks flush hotly, keeping his focus on his work as the demon tried to catch his eyes. “I- Well, I think I rather told them what I think when I chose you a-and humanity over Heaven. Earth is ours, and humanity has us to protect it against- well, against everything else.”

Aziraphale risked a peek at Crowley. He looked pensive, his bloody face making him seem like a real demon. The angel jumped slightly when he was caught staring at the demon. Crowley smirked at him, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Instead, he seemed... Well. It was like he had accepted something, though the angel couldn't fathom what.

“Let’s hope we’re a bit more competent on that front, eh?”

Aziraphale chuckled weakly as he turned back to his task. He made short work of the last few stitches before running off to the kitchen to get a bowl of water. Crowley still looked like a bloodbath, after all.

The demon slid down the sheets to lay fully on the matress once more. He didn’t seem to mind the constant touching as Aziraphale carefully cleaned and wrapped his wounds.

He did hiss halfheartedly, though, when Aziraphale was accidentally too rough on his split nose.

“Sorry,” the angel cringed, prodding gently at the cut. He carefully stuck a plaster on it, just to be safe. “It doesn’t seem like it’s broken, so there’s one upside.”

“Praise be,” Crowley deadpanned. His tired smirk drooped a bit at the edges, but it was there nonetheless. The sight made Aziraphale shake his head affectionately, his chest growing tight once more.

The angel sat back when he was finished patching up anything hurt on his companion. “That should do it, then.”

Crowley hummed softly in acknowledgement, his eyes already closed. Aziraphale stared down at him, a quick flash of horror tearing through him as he thought of how close the demon had come to death. A warm hand on his knee quickly brought him back to reality.

“R'lax, angel,” Crowley slurred. He hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes, the hand thrown on Aziraphale’s knee now slowly moving back and forth. It was quite soothing, honestly.

“Sleep now, darling, you’re exhausted. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

“F’got how scary you were. Still beau’ful, though,” Crowley muttered as he shifted about, getting comfortable. Of course, the angel immediately flushed to the tips of his ears.

“Wh-What was that, my dear?”

When all the demon said in response was a soft hum, his hand stilling, Azirphale let out a heavy sigh.

The angel risked a chance to run his own hand through Crowley’s fiery hair, smoothing it away from his steadily bruising face. He continued when the demon didn’t stir, effectively petting him at that point.

Though the angel himself was exhausted, for the first time in a few centuries, he refused to lie down beside Crowley (no matter how much he longed to).

Aziraphale took the remaining scraps of courage still within him and sat guard. He would wait, either for Crowley to wake or for the forces of Heaven and Hell to come for them. Either way, he would wait.

Nothing would harm Crowley ever again, not if Aziraphale had anything to say about it.

-----

[beginning] // [previous chapter] // [next chapter]

[aworldoffandoms]

Runaway - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Moscow

Pairing: Liam x MC [Ariel]

Word Count: 4, 759 (long post again...sorry)

Rating: M-ish 

Warnings: semi-sexual references...nothing scandalous

Summary: Liam and the gang arrive in Moscow to search for answers while Ariel reminisces on the past and her life-changing decision.

 MASTERLIST

Tag list: @hopefulmoonobject @annekebbphotography @am-i-invisible777 @blznbaby @khakie4 @lauradowning29 @blackcoffee85 @captain-kingliamsqueen @moneyfordiamonds @super-secret-fandom-blog @jovialyouthmusic @zaffrenotes @ao719 @umccall71 @carabeth @furiousherringoperatortoad @pixieferry @pixelpenny @jlouise88

Please let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 

It was dawn the following morning when Liam and the retinue arrived in Moscow, a car already waiting for them to take them to the hotel, though it was slow going with the snow blanketing the streets. There was a certain, strange beauty to it, but Liam couldn't deny that seeing it against the starry night did not hold the same amount of appeal as seeing Ariel's face light up in joy or the way her eyebrows creased when she silently disapproved of something or the way her mouth would lift up in a smirk when she'd tease him relentlessly.

No. A beautiful white winter pales in comparison to her.

Out of all of this . . . they had to prevail. The king and queen of Cordonia had been through too much - a false engagement, three assassination attempts, and now this. They couldn’t be wrenched apart; they’d been through too many trails already. That cipher was the key to making sure it would happen. He clung to it.

He was thoroughly aware that he had a duty to his people and his country. A duty that weighed heavily on his shoulders every day. Yet, he had a duty to his wife also.

Liam had cancelled all appointments for the next fortnight. It might have been a bit excessive but, this surely deserved more attention. Royals were going missing, and certainly, Moscow would be the key. Once again, the city would play its part in the history of the crowns of Europe.

While Hana had opted to stay behind to look after Valtoria, the others had managed the time well enough to follow him. And if Liam was being perfectly honest? He couldn't do it alone. He hadn't believed it at first, directing the investigation with his own hand, sealing every piece of information that came his way. But as the days passed, and as the hopes of finding his queen did as well, he had to accept the painful truth. He was just a man. They were as much as Ariel’s best friend’s as they were his. He would not be here without them. He trusted them with his life.

Liam sighs as he drops the luggage on the hotel floor after settling in for the night. Exhaustion was finally making its mark. The last four hours on a plane and undertaking last minute paperwork was tedious. His eyes stung even now from staring at documents and papers while on the flight and his hand ached from all the signing. The answers to where his wife would be escaped him, but apparently, a new bill to build more bathrooms in the Cordonian national park did not.

Liam almost wanted to fall back onto the bed, close his eyes and fall into sweet darkness so he’d at least have a reprieve, albeit brief. Yet, the cipher still gleamed in the crevice of the bags, beckoning him back.

Uncovering the meaning behind the cipher was all well and good but where did he go from here?

Ignorance truly was bliss.

***

Ariel drops the keys onto the table as she stops to turn on the light of her apartment. She sorts through her mail, under a fake name, Serena Cordin. It was nothing important, she realized, with a breath of relief. A few advertising emails, a message from a coworker pleading her to take over a shift. But not now, Ariel decided. The days were catching up with her, and she had some sleep scheduled to catch up on.

Just as she is about to head into the bathroom to change after a long shift at the tavern, her mobile starts to ring.

She plucks it out of her pocket and finds the screen black. Perplexed, her eyes fixate on it again as it begins to vibrate.

By the fifth or sixth ring, Ariel's brain kicks in and she realises that it's her other phone.  

Her disposable, untraceable one.

Shit!

Ariel curses silently as the ringing drones on. She drops her bag and races to her bedroom, unlocking the draw with a quick twist of a key. There, nestled inside a bundle of sheets and an errant handkerchief is the tiny silver phone, buzzing its head off.

As she picks it up to answer, the ringing stops as a missed call flicks up on the screen. No voicemail. Ariel didn't have to know who it was - she had memorized the number as soon as she had a text arrive from it the first time.

“Damnit.” Ariel huffs, her irritation flaring up again after her rather crappy night at the bar. Couldn't she go one night without a creepy cold buffoon trying to feel her up?

She could easily have socked him in the face but knew she'd be fired if she did. No matter. If she ever got back to Cordonia and her queenship, she could easily have him extradited. The thought, though absurd, made her smile.

Ariel sighs as she takes a deep breath and exhales, glancing down to the phone, vacillating between a shower or bed. There was an all-day shift waiting for her tomorrow and she already felt the exhaustion settling in. Her muscles ached, her bones were stiff. If she didn’t loosen them, she swore they’d crack. She was working herself thin, bussing tables, pouring beer upon beer just so she could escape the intruding thoughts of the one person she promised herself she wouldn't think about.

She drove herself crazy every night thinking about him. Half the time she wanted to damn it all to hell and just go back to the place she loved so much. To the man that she so desperately missed.

But she couldn't. They were holding her back. Dangling his life in her face like he was a piece of meat and she was a rabid animal.

The call finally goes answered. Fingers hovering over the keys, the little clicks of the buttons echo through the chilly apartment air. Her contact knew to ring only if the information or situation was dire.

And from the tone of her informant - it was.

Her pulse sped up and her stomach twists in nervous butterflies as she hears her voice speak in a quick, sharp whisper. The intent in her was voice clear.

This was serious.

“Ariel. Finally. I've got something to tell you and it's imperative that you know.”

Ariel holds back the desire to gasp, the breath caught in her throat. She clenches her fists in anticipation or fear. The two emotions blurred together into a simmering storm within her stomach.

“What is it?”

The contact takes a deep breath and speaks, her voice almost hesitant, breathy as if she’d run miles just to deliver the message.

“He’s found the cipher.”

It was only four words but those four words sent a tidal wave of emotions to pulse through her. Fear. Shock. Relief. Horror. More fear.

The person on the other end didn't need to elaborate on who this he was. Ariel knew. Her heart skips a beat as she realises that things are getting underway. It might have been a two and a half year wait but it's a good start nonetheless.

Her heart squeezes painfully. From this day forward he would be in danger. She wants to warn him but Ariel knows she cannot. Despite how cruel it is - he had to do this by himself. Liam might be oblivious to the real danger he was in but she could not stop the outcome if he proceeded with his search.

Ariel swallows the lump lodged in her throat. She wondered how she moved through each day. Most days she was on autopilot, just going through the motions of work, researching and being a firm, direct soothing voice to the royals that needed it.  She’s existed in autopilot ever since she left and she needed rest. Anything to put them both out of this lonely misery.

She missed her husband so much. Her love, her life, her Liam.

Ariel clenches her jaw and clamps her eyes shut as those memorable blue eyes appear behind closed lids. Those eyes that she could fall into forever. His easy, charming smile which could melt her on the spot.

Ugh. This is torture.

Ariel straightens her posture, the training from Bertrand and the perfectly composed field practice in front of the cameras kicking in again instinctively. She clears her throat, her voice returning to the classic graceful voice she used to use in every royal interview. No hint of falter. No hint of the pain currently slicing through her like tiny knives.

“Thanks for telling me, Marguerite.”

“You’re welcome, Ariel.”

“Do you have the message to send to him? If they have arrived at the hotel -- send it to him immediately.”

Marguerite hums in affirmation.

“I’ve found where they are staying and have got his room number. I'll see to it that the message is delivered.”

“Good. Good. Make sure it gets there and be sure to firmly say it is delivered to Liam. We don't want another situation like Johannesburg.”

Ariel shudders at the memory. That was a close call.

“I will make sure I do that, Your Majesty.”

Ariel sighs, her gut twisting at the title. She hadn't heard that in nearly three years.

“Marguerite . . . how many times have I told you to just call me Ariel?”

Marguerite chuckles on the other end. “Sorry, your maj-- Ariel. Bad habit. I guess I haven’t forgotten those etiquette lessons. I truly doubt you have either.”

Ariel smiles, shaking her head in amusement.

“Well . . . I don't blame you. It took me a while to figure out which one was a salad fork and which one was the dessert fork, so I'm not judging.”

Marguerite bursts out laughing outright and Ariel joins in, having a shared understanding of royal etiquette. It was nice.

“Well, Marguerite, I'll bid you goodnight. There’s an early shift tomorrow. Send me something when it’s done. And please . . . ” Ariel pauses, taking a deep breath and then exhales.

“Be prepared for him to arrive at your doorstep. He'll want answers and he will come to you for them. I am just not sure how he'll be.”

Liam was a controlled man in front of dignitaries and cameras. Yet, when it had anything to do with Ariel, he struggled to maintain that perfectly controlled facade.

“How long will it take them?”

“I don't know, Princess, but I'm sure it'll be soon.”

Marguerite sighs, the weariness in the sound evident. “Okay, I'll be prepared. It's not like I can enjoy this Russian winter anyway.”

Ariel chuckles. “You and me both, honey.”

They laugh at that, exchange polite goodbyes and hang up. Ariel stuffs the phone back in the drawer, locking it up tight.

She had to take every precaution with this phone and she wasn't going to be careless now.

With her eyes bleary from exhaustion and her feet throbbing, Ariel prepares a bath and soaks for a good while before hopping out, relaxed and ready for bed.

Ariel knew she was tired, evident by the heaviness in her eyes. Thankfully, they open for a few seconds more.

She sifts through her bedside drawer and slips out a few photos, cracked down the middle from endless unfolding and crumpling in pockets. The ache of missing him and her friends almost pulling her down and drowning her in her anguish as she stares at the carefree smiles of everyone she held dear.

She hated this. She hated everything about the situation she was in.

Right now she should be having the best life possible. Ruling beside her king, bringing positive change to their beautiful little kingdom. She should be thriving beside Liam, yet, here she was alone, heart breaking all because of those bastards.

Why did they torture her like this? It was unfair.

Her heartbeat runs against her ribcage, rethinking back to the week leading up to the night she left. The week she was determined to drink up all the love and happiness before she would rip it away from herself. The pain lances through her insides again, her breath short as her quiet sobs wracked her already tired body.

Two and a half years ago…

The ink sinks into the paper, emerging as crisp lines of cursive dictating the outline of the new children's hospital. That would suffice, Ariel thought to herself. It was at least one thing she could do. Ariel’s cursive script imprint the paper as she signs against the dotted line for a bill that had just passed through the Council for a new wing in the Cordonian Children’s Hospital.

Though she was Queen and she held power, Liam had the final say with his signature and wax sigil. He was King after all.

Once she signed with her blue fountain pen, the black ink drying immediately, her neck prickles as a dark shadow looms over her.

She smiles and glances up, her eyes meet her husband’s and she can't help the stutter her heart gives at his presence.

“All done, my love?” Liam inquires, the smile in his voice evident and his eyes beaming with pride even though his face was a mask of neutral professionalism.

“Yes. All it needs is your signature and seal and then we can send it off.”

Liam nods, his gold fountain pen already between his fingers as he signs and seals, and sends the document to be filed away in the database.

It was a done deal now. The die had been cast.

Ariel sighs in content. Her time as queen had already brought promise to the people of Cordonia and she couldn't be more thrilled.

Ariel stands up and pushes out her chair, walking over to Liam, wrapping her arms around his waist as he quietly conversed with the French ambassador over the phone, his accent liltingly falling over the complex words beautifully.

Ariel loved when she heard Liam speak in a different language. She always got a thrill from it. His French was posh and refined, with just the hint of the Cordonian accent shining through. His Italian rolled and swelled lightly like the oceans just outside the city. His Russian wasn’t half bad either.

Liam’s large hand came up and encased hers, twining his fingers through hers as she waited patiently for him to finish the call. Her eyes close against his back as her mind raced forward seven days. There was such little time after the royal engagements and papers as if he had married them instead of her. She vowed that wouldn't be the case in the next week.

Once hearing the goodbye in French, Ariel squeezed his waist again and removed her arms and walked over to her desk to grab her tablet off her study desk to check up on her schedule.

Her stomach drops when she sees the date a week from now.

It was a bittersweet thing to swallow. The day of their anniversary - the day that they had become husband and wife. And the day that would soon separate the two of them. How could marriage be like that? That part broke her.

She was doing it all for him. To keep him alive. If Liam left this world -- she could not live in a world without him. Ariel could not take that chance. She had no choice. The Sons of Earth could not threaten her husband's life.

Ariel sighs as she puts down her tablet, closing her eyes.

A smile pulls her lips, even though she felt the despair kick in, when Liam’s strong arms snake around her waist and he rests his chin against her shoulder, his lips close to her ear as he kisses the sensitive area just below it.

“Are you happy, love?” Liam whispers, his low deep voice making her shiver.

“Very happy.”

Liam chuckles, spinning Ariel around before pinning her against her desk, his mouth immediately going to her neck.

“Happy enough to celebrate your marvellous victory with the bill?”

Ariel drops her head back to allow Liam better access.

Ariel laughs breathlessly, a shiver of desire pooling at her core.

“I'm all for celebrating, my king. What do you have in mind?”

Liam leans back, his blue eyes dilated and dark with want. “Oh, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

Ariel raises her eyebrows. “Care to show me?”

And show her he did, their mouths meeting in a frenzy as Liam grips Ariel’s hips and shoves her against the door of her study, biting and nipping at her neck as she moans out his name.

Ariel gasps as Liam’s hand trails underneath her dress and up her inner thigh, their mouths meeting in another fervent kiss, their tongues dancing together.

When Liam’s fingers meet her sweet spot, Ariel moans out his name, already breathless as the desire spreads through her as her lower abdomen twists with need.

Liam and Ariel celebrate their victory a number of times before their interruption of a knock on Ariel’s office door.

They reluctantly dress and with one final kiss, Liam slips out the door and leaves his wife to deal with her assistant who had to finalise the details of the Charity event and a few other odds and ends which needed her attention.  

Her heart is in her throat as she signs the last of the catering order for their anniversary party. She knew that the morning after, it would be the last time she’ll be able to see, touch, hug and kiss Liam because she will vanish after that.

She will leave Cordonia without a Queen. She will leave her friends, her life, her family behind.

A tear slips past her eye. If her assistant noticed, she didn’t show it as her mask remained neutral behind her blue-rimmed glasses.

“Thanks, Hillary.”

“You’re welcome, Your Grace.”

Ariel smiles as Hillary steps out of the door to her study and leaves Ariel to her thoughts and the impending event that will change the course of her life and those closest to her.

***

Ariel’s nerves are at an all-time high as her leg bounces as she sits next to Liam as they share a light conversation with their friends, the Charity ball well underway.

Her mind is elsewhere as she ticks off her to-do list in her mind. She had almost all of what she needed. She had organised Gladys to come to her wardrobe while Liam had a late night meeting at the end of the week with the French and Croatian ambassadors, to dispose of all her belongings and ship them to her estate in Valtoria. She made sure he would be out of the palace for that to happen. She arranged it in the first place.

A hand rests on her thigh, and she smiles when she glances up and meets the blue eyes of Liam, the corners of his lips pulled down in concern.

“Are you alright, Ariel?”

Ariel smiles as she leans back and places her hand on Liam’s, giving it a squeeze. “Yes, I’m fine, Liam. I’m just thinking about the council meeting tomorrow.”

Liam grins reassuringly as he kisses her cheek. “I’m sure you’ll be fine tomorrow, love. You are a natural at public speaking and you’ll capture their attention -- just like you did me.”

Ariel grins, her cheeks aflame as she blushes. She leans forward and kisses him, both have smiles on their faces as they lean back from each other.

“Thanks, honey. I’m sure I can use my natural charms and seduction to win them over with this proposal like I did you.”

Liam frowns, his jaw clenched in displeasure. “I certainly hope you don’t.”

Ariel rolls her eyes, a smirk on her lips. “Oh, Liam.”

After all this time, Liam still had a jealous streak and she had kind of a sick joy in making him feel that. It made her realise just how much he cared for her.

Liam’s hand constricts against her knee. “Would you like to dance, my love?”

Ariel nods as they make their way to the dance floor as the Cordonian waltz breezes through the ballroom.

Ariel treasures this dance, her head against Liam’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat.

Liam kisses the top of her head, his arms tight against her waist to pull her closer. She clenches her jaw against the sting against her eyes. She will miss this most of all.

She tries not to think of all the things she’ll be losing in two days and just basks in this dance with her husband. The sound of his heartbeat the only thing from keeping her falling apart.

 ***

Ariel releases a shuddering breath as she steps out of the master bedroom where her husband slept soundly in their bed. Her eyes blurry with the unshed tears she was determined not to let fall until she was safely away from the palace and on her way to her destination far away from the one place, she called home. Before she made the trek down the quiet hallways in the dead of night, the halls empty of servants, the lights dimmed in the late hour, she took a moment to drink in the handsome features of Liam, his features relaxed in deep slumber, his eyelashes brushing against the sharp angle of his cheekbones. She softly brushes the hair away from Liam’s face that had fallen against his forehead in his sleep.

Her heart splintering in a few thousand pieces before her, she kisses his forehead lightly, stares at him a few moments longer and leaves as she whispers a final goodbye.

She covers her mouth to stop the sob that threatens to bubble up from her throat.

I don’t know if I can do this…

A small voice flitters to the front of her mind, her desire to stay behind and just let things happen, let the threats become a reality just so she can stay with Liam.

No. No. I cannot let anything happen to Liam or his crown. This country and his people mean everything to him.

Ariel takes a deep breath as she had come to a stop in front of the palace, the black SUV almost invisible in the black of night.

No. She had to do this. If not for herself but for Liam. They would kill him if she didn’t and the monarchy and this country would fall apart without him.

Liam will find her goodbye note in the morning. She would be long gone before he could have any chance of locating her.

***

Present Day

Liam shivers as a brisk cold breeze sweeps around him and his friends, the white snow steadily falling from the grey sky.

He was prepared for the harshness of Russia’s weather, considering Lythikos was much the same in winter but this was a lethal level of freezing. His nose was numb and he almost couldn’t feel his feet, the thermals underneath his clothes doing little to dwell the sharp sting of the weather.

The entourage was huddled outside a restaurant, having just finished lunch after spending the whole day trying to find anyone who could lead them to any sort of answer that Liam desperately wanted. Liam had Bastien search the databases and cameras around the vicinity of the airport in the last few months to see if any of the missing royals arrived here in any capacity.  

It was a long shot but a shot nonetheless.

No such luck as of yet.

Liam sighs, the fog formed from his breath at the cold air puffing around his face.

“Shall we head back to the hotel? I have it on good authority that we won’t find any answers here. We’ve searched all day and nothing has come to pass.”

Drake huffs as he pulls his scarf tighter around his neck.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. It’s freaking freezing out here.”

“Plus, we have been at this for three days and we have come up with nothing. I have no desire to get frostbite,” Olivia grumbles, as she delicately pulls on her coat to give her more warmth. Although she was used to Lythikos winters, Moscow was a different story altogether.

Liam sighs again as Bastien arrives with a rental, all of them shuffling into the back, his’s heart heavy as he gazes out the window. That cipher might have been a big help in the fact that it told them where to go but anything else where it said it’d assist them in finding the answers they needed which were despairingly nonexistent.

Liam resists the urge to grunt and punch the door in his frustration, as anger burns through his chest. This was becoming absurd. Chasing information about a cipher that did not give him any insight into where Ariel could possibly be was becoming nothing short of ludicrous and desperate on his part.

Was he just blind?

Was he so delirious that he followed this clue just because it was even remotely linked to his missing wife?

A groan bubbles up in his throat, yet he swallows. There was no need to alert his friends to his inner turmoil, although, they probably knew anyway.

Once they reach the hotel, Liam and the others march out of the car, the bite in the air sinking into their skin until they breathe out in relief at the warmth that engulfs them once inside.

The weather was becoming too cold for any of them to continue on with the investigation on this particular day. Liam felt the exhaustion weighing him down already.

Drake and Olivia give a parting wave to Liam and Maxwell, both of them exchange a smile as they walk to the elevator, hand-in-hand.  

Liam’s eyes follow them and a surprising twist of envy snakes through his gut at the sight. He was happy for the couple, but another part of him longed for the gentle touch of a partner. For once, he was the one shut out of it.

His jaw muscle ticks as he turns back to Maxwell, willing the absurd jealousy to ebb away. He doesn’t need that. He needs to focus.

They both bid each other farewell for the afternoon as Bastien as he hovers by his side and informs Liam that any evidence of royals entering the country had appeared fruitless and nothing worth pursuing.

Liam nods. “Thanks Bastien. Please keep me updated.”

Bastien gives a subtle bow to Liam as he turns and heads to his room but before he can, the hotel manager steps in front of him to gather his attention.

“Mr. Rys?”

Liam lifts a brow at his fake name. He often needed to remind himself of this procedure when trying to appear like a normal citizen.

“Yes, Sergei?” Liam asks.

“A package was delivered for you, sir.”

Liam’s eyebrows raise but he keeps his face composed.

“Oh?”

Sergi nods and starts walking over to the reception desk, quickly shooting off in Russian to a woman who obediently scuffles for a package in the bottom compartments. Liam duly follows, waiting patiently for it to be handed over.

It’s simple postage with only the address of the hotel and the number of his suite.

Liam’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Who else could know where I am?  

Now he was really curious as to what was in this. It couldn't possibly be related to anything Cordonia so what else could it be? Liam shakes his head in confusion. Who would have the resources to find him here? He arrived incognito.

Bastien leaves his charge to continue is journey up to his own suite as Liam strides to the elevator, the item securely tucked under his arm.  

Once inside his room, Liam shuts and locks the door, anxious to see the contents of the mysterious delivery. He grips the package in his hand and rips the lip of the package open. The contents inside it slip out, scattering all over the bed.

Liam leans down and his eyes widen and his pulse quickens as he finds photo upon photo of a few persons of interest that Nazario had mentioned to him. He sifts through the photos, most of them the same but stops on an old decrepit apartment building. It wasn’t something that caught the eye of most people. It looked rather unliveable in his honest opinion.

But flipping over the photo, he almost chokes at what he finds. Surely, this couldn’t be.

KOLOMNA. 25715 PRIROZ STREET,  KNOCK THREE TIMES, RAP THREE. WAIT.

The puzzle was coming together.

[spacegate]

More scribblings on the Daemon race from my scifi world, Stellarmass. You can see variations of faces, skin, and marking types in my Stellarmass gallery/tag. Daemons are a species that hail from the planet Fios. Fios has two moons, and four continents. It is a very wet planet, and tends to be rather dark, chilly, and rainy. Most large predators have been driven away from inhabited areas and it is considered relatively safe. A year takes 400 days to orbit its sun, called Puk. Daemons have evolved to suit their environment. They build up layers of fat to insulate against the chill, and they are remarkably good swimmers. Their wrinkly skin made it hard for predators to prey on them, as grabbing one would just mean a faceful of teeth and claws anway. They can fully turn within their own skin, which is quite stretchy and strong. As a result, they are rather fond of the sport of wrestling as managing to keep a hold of another is a challenge. As opportunistic scavengers, Daemons prefer meat that has 'aged' or, has begun to rot a little. Their teeth are mainly there to allow them to pluck every last bit of meat off a bone without missing a scrap. They also will eat fruit and vegetables that have begun to rot and ferment as well. They like their stuff nice and mushy and strong in flavor. They make an alcohol that is strong enough to kill an average human, since their tolerance to intoxication is so high. Some are safe enough for other species, since it relies more on taste than it's alcohol content. Just read the bottle before drinking. Many have evolved their pallate, and have taken to the art of cooking. You can expect fine dining on the planet, even if they are all still eating rotten meat. But now they have little cakes for desert! Daemons are seldom unclothed. Not because they are ashamed of nudity, but because they like to show off. They tend to spend a lot of time complimenting each other, as it is an important part of their social structure. Most of their clothing is waterproof, due to the constant rain. Daemons are also...rather sex positive. They have no qualms having sex where and when they want, as long as they are not rude and disturbing someone else. Like, don't have sex right next to someone trying to sleep. That's rude and inconsiderate, and Daemons are all about being considerate. They are super open and will just outright ask permission to have sex with someone, which can take more moderate races by surprise. Every year they have a ritual sex party in order to ensue the world stays fertile and full of life. They cheerfully invite other races to join, but few do. They have had very few wars as a result, as 'make love, not war' is a tried and true strategy for any conflict. They don't really marry, but they will stay with someone whom they are very fond of. Child raising is done by the community as well as the parents who conceived them. The whole community is their family. Daemons don't have a 'sex' in terms of something like xx and xy for human beings. They are all different, and seem to have a completely random assortment of genitals that defy the binary norm. Despite that, all of them are compatible with each other in able to have children. It just, works, and they don't really concern themselves with trying to put it all in a box. They tend to call each other things like 'sir', or 'madam', but that is up to the wishes of the one being addressed. Like I said, they like to be fancy and give each other long and elaborate titles. They mostly go with 'They' and leave it at that. They have moderately high technology slightly more advanced than humans. They are space faring and have gotten in contact with other species long before humans arrived. Their main contributions to the Galaxy are - Cures for any and all STDs/STIs (As wells as for some other diseases not related) - Skilled tailors and craftsmen - Fine dining and skilled chefs - Being incredibly friendly, perhaps tieing with Reracks as the friendliest races of the Galaxy

[dramaplustautology]

Ancient Tree – The Marrow Wood

Summary: An ancient evil has returned to the land of the living, and is completely lost. One of its minions goes to biggest city to help find someone to help rebuild, and help put a map together of a world they had left to grow.

Previous Entry: Link

Index: Link

They can’t go on location for certain reasons but I tried to make it interesting : q

Avy hasn’t stopped giving me rats.

“I tried spit-roasting them.” He gave me the charred stick with the rat was stabbed through, having been skinned and cooked medium-well in the fireplace.

It was a rainy evening and dinner can’t be cooked in the kitchen cause that room was well underwater.

Not that the topmost room in the north spire was a lot better. At least, that was the standard I expected.

This was supposed to be a lookout but the person who manned the tower had a fireplace built in secret. And a bought some nice chairs, a fancy rug that had withstood the extreme test of time – wonder how much funding these took—and chains with shackles connected to the wall for some reason?

I’ve never liked Mio. I’m glad we didn’t let him wake up.

“Eat your fill, Sorchrys,” Rodain said, huddled in the corner with the kids sitting around him with bowls of warm porridge. Thanks to Rodain, the roofs were watertight and the kids had learned a lot about construction. “You have fifty-million mouths to feed.”

“We all want to die.” I said, trying not to be glum. I mean it, truly.

Those kids around Rodain were morbid, laughing at me while Avy turned the rat sack over to find it empty.

“Why are they so tall and strong?” One of the kids patted Rodain’s huge knee and pointed at me, her bird egg’s blue hair contrasting with his deep brown locks. “When we only had rats to eat, Avent didn’t grow until we started stealing.”

“When birds only have bread, they starve.” Rodain said, confusing the children further. He didn’t elaborate further and couldn’t exactly demonstrate like he could with hammers and heavy lifting so I stepped in.

“I don’t eat just rats!” Right, I mean to say I stepped in a bit later.

“Yes, I’ve seen him swallowing frogs too.” Rodain mentioned offhandedly and I nearly cried.

“Ewwwww!” The kids chimed together, wanting to rub it in more than actually thinking it was gross.

Which it was! It really is and I’m going to get ripped apart if they catch me with a deer.

There are still deer around, right?

“Anyways! Rodain means that you can’t survive on ah meat alone. You need vegetables and fruit,” I chewed on my lip for a bit. “But I’m not exactly like you. Vegetables don’t do anything for me. Er, same with trees!” I quickly changed the focus. “They don’t eat meat, sort of. They eat sunlight with their leaves and eat meat when it turns into dirt with their roots.”

“Is that why no one grows as big as the tree behind the bell tower?” A different child raised their hand.

“It’s not right behind the bell tower,”Avy explained when Rodain and I turned to him. “The bell tower’s built in an exact spot that keeps everyone in the city from seeing the giant tree down south. No one’s been there but you can see it when you leave the city,” He went to the window facing the southern direction, leaning out to the storm. “You can see it from here too.”

Though it had to have been a nonstop three day trip by wheel away, I could see the long curve of what Avy believed was a thick trunk arching in the distance.

“That’s not a tree.”

Avy didn’t argue with me, tilting his head to get a better look at what sort of gross thing I was.

The spire shook, hit by a funny cat that didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to fly. All the kids scrambled around Avy, thinking it was a monster instead of a fluffy little scamp.

I hurried to the window and reached down into the dark. Two paws grabbed my wrist and I tugged the kitty cat—

Mach has just invaded my privacy and is telling me that if I keep writing that he’s a cat, he’s going to tell the kids that I can’t stop myself from eating baby birds.

None of the kids or Avy had met Mach yet, even though he wasn’t on a trip like Celestra was. Mostly cause his last face rotted off a way long time ago so he needed a new one.

The skin stuck to his bones well, taking on a youthful form that made him look younger than Avy but still big enough to keep him separate from the kids.

He took off his hood and shook the rain from his strawberry blond hair, glancing at the kids before giving Rodain and Avy a short nod.

“I heard you talking about the tree.” Mach rolled his shoulders, going to warm himself by the fire when he didn’t need to. “Was just there.”

“But it’s a rib,” I was surprised the rib had lasted so long without crumbling like the rest of the Boss’s father’s bones. That thing’s been around since before most of us were born. “Hold that thought, where were you? I get why you want to be adorable for the kids—“Mach scowl was saggy, what with his new face still adjusting. “—but how come me and Rodain haven’t seen you at all?”

“Because I work and Rodain works,” Mach snapped back, throwing his cloak over the shackles. Oh, I should have thought of that. Rodain was thinking the same thing, covering a few of the kids’ eyes far too late. “Even the children work but you just follow them around while I have to sit in the dark, writing new identities for us.”

“Then how did you know I was chaperoning Avy and the kids?”

Mach tossed an ovular packet to me, aiming for my poor face.

“I took a break and went for a walk. Same with today.”

Glancing between Mach and the silhouette of the tree outside the window, Avy said “That’s a long walk.”

“About an hour,” Mach jabbed a thumb at the packet in my hand. “Found that when I visited the tree.”

The woody packet, damp from the rain, was actually a very large seed. Kind of like an apple’s if the apple was the size of a horse.

“The rib…” I picked at the bottom of the seed and Rodain plucked it out of my hands, chewing on the end. “…it’s not a rib anymore?”

“Still a rib but the tip fell off and the marrow had rotted into the soil until it was hollow,” Mach leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting. “A tree seed must have drifted in and fallen all the way to the bottom.”

“That rib goes on for miles. There’s going to be barely any water, maybe a few minutes of sunlight at the right angle.” I narrowed my eyes at the seed, its thick hull resisting Rodain’s crushers.    

“When I was there, there were leaves bursting out of the top and big branches had broken through the bone. The people in the town nearby told me that it grew flowers for the first time this Spring,” Mach said, raising his hands to the fireplace’s flames. He usually curled up and napped there but too many people were watching. “The fruits are starting to grow now. Some already fell. Whatever kind of seed grew in the marrow, it’s going to be nothing like anything else in Kanaria.”

As the children gathered around the seed in awe, I approached Mach when he beckoned for me.

Glancing back at Rodain holding the seed and at how Avy was trying not to spy on us, I wondered how fast that see would grow with all the sunlight and water in the world.

It’s a just a seed but come next year…

“You and Rodain don’t tell him—“Mach whispered when I knelt next to him, referring to the Boss. “—that I went there. I just visited his father’s bones to make sure the bastard was still dead.”