#can you believe they let the riffraff in??

[separatist-apologist]

Anyone know of any cool people worth meeting in the UK?

[muiitoloko]

Title: My control

Summary: You were impossible, but Elliott wouldn't have you any other way.

Pairing: Elliott Marston × Fem! Reader

Warnings: Smut

Author's Notes: Hello everyone. I think I'm going to be away from Tumblr for a while, so don't be surprised if I stop posting regularly. I'll be busy with some things and it may take me a while to get back, but I promise I'll return. 🥰 As for the story, I was inspired to write it by a Brazilian film. I hope you like it.

Also read on Ao3

Elliott Marston paced restlessly in the grand foyer of your house, his tall frame and piercing gaze filled with anger and frustration. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the floor as he waited for you to return. He should have known better than to marry a woman as bold as you, but her beauty had ensnared him, blinding him to the challenges that came with it. Now, he regretted it all—the impetuous decision, the spirited arguments, the nights of passion that turned into confrontations.

There was a sharp knock on the door, and he heard your voice calling from outside. "Elliott, open the door. Let me in."

He strode to the door and yanked it open, his baritone voice cold and cutting. "You're late," he snapped, his eyes narrowing as he took in your appearance. "What, were you at a pub, carousing with the local riffraff?"

You stood there, a defiant expression on your face, your hair windswept from the journey. "I was at Mrs. Murphy's, as I said I would be," you retorted, holding your ground.

Elliott scoffed and backed away, his anger palpable. He gathered the clothes he had already prepared for you and began throwing each piece at you. "This is a respectable house. You will not enter, you shameless woman," he declared, his voice laced with disdain.

You were indignant, scrambling to collect the clothes that were tossed at you. "Elliott, please, can't we discuss this like civilized people?" you pleaded, your voice rising with frustration.

He ignored your plea, his face darkening with fury. "You will sleep on the street tonight so everyone can see what a wanton woman you are," he spat, slamming the door in your face.

Outside, you gathered the rest of your scattered clothes from the floor, seething with anger at your husband's arrogance and stubbornness. "Damn you, Elliott!" you shouted, hurling the last garment towards the door. "You cannot treat me like this!"

Your voice rang in the quiet night, and you paused, listening for any response. But there was none. Anger burned in your chest as you stood alone in the darkness, the cool night air stirring around you. The grand house loomed darkly, its windows like accusatory eyes.

After a moment, you gathered your resolve. "Fine, if he wants to make a spectacle of me, so be it," you muttered to yourself, your tone defiant. You straightened your shoulders and turned towards the path leading away from the house.

In the distance, you saw the silhouette of one of Elliott's employees hurrying down the lane. You recognized him as Tom, the stable hand. He was Elliott's loyal servant, dutifully following orders no matter how cruel they might be.

"Tom!" you called out, your voice cutting through the quiet night.

Tom turned towards you, hesitating for a moment before he reluctantly approached. "Ma'am," he greeted you with a nod, his eyes avoiding yours.

"You're going to fetch the town priest, aren't you?" you asked, your voice steady despite the turmoil raging within you.

Tom glanced at the ground, uncomfortable with the task he'd been assigned. "Yes, ma'am," he mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

You took a deep breath, holding Tom's gaze firmly. "Tell the priest that he will find me here. I'll wait," you said, your tone commanding.

Tom nodded again, turning away without another word. As he hurried back towards town, you watched him disappear into the night, the weight of the situation settling heavily upon you.

Alone in the dark, you took a moment to collect yourself. "I can't believe it's come to this," you whispered to yourself, your voice filled with a mixture of sadness and anger.

But as you stood there in the dark, an idea began to take shape in your mind. You quickly formulated a plan, a reckless gambit driven by equal parts desperation and determination. A small smile touched your lips as you turned back towards the house.

Steeling yourself, you walked up to the grand front door. "Elliott!" you called out, your voice carrying clear and true through the night air.

Inside the house, Elliott's baritone voice barked back, cold and dismissive, "You're not welcome here, woman! Go away!"

Ignoring his venomous words, you continued, "Elliott, please open the door. I can't live without you. I love you too much to go on without you. I'm going to kill myself, Elliott."

Inside, Elliott laughed bitterly, the sound echoing through the heavy wooden door. "Lies! All lies! I sent for the priest so he can see what kind of woman you truly are," he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain.

Your heart raced, the pain of his rejection cutting deep. But you didn't hesitate. With a swift movement, you reached for the pistol you had hidden on your thigh, your hand closing around the cold steel. Holding the gun up, you shouted a last, desperate goodbye to Elliott, "Farewell, my love!"

With a quick and determined motion, you drew the pistol from its hidden holster, your fingers trembling with adrenaline and resolve. Without another moment's hesitation, you aimed the gun at the ground and pulled the trigger. The deafening crack split the silence of the night, echoing through the grand estate.

Inside the house, Elliott's eyes widened in shock at the sound of the gunshot. "My love!" he shouted, his heart clenching with terror and despair. Without a second thought, he bolted towards the door, his mind racing with fear that you had taken your own life.

Frantically, Elliott threw open the door and rushed outside, his hat askew and his mustache bristling with panic. His eyes scanned the darkness, searching desperately for any sign of your body. "No, no, no!" he muttered under his breath, his voice choked with anguish. "Please, my love, don't leave me!"

But then, he heard footsteps passing behind him, and he whirled around in confusion. There you stood, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon, blowing him a teasing kiss before disappearing into the house and closing the door behind you.

Elliott's shock turned to indignation as the realization dawned on him. "It was all a setup," he muttered to himself, his voice tinged with resentment. Clenching his fists in frustration, he marched up to the door and pounded on it, demanding entry.

You swung the door open with a flourish, a mischievous glint in your eyes as you tossed a pile of clothes at him, just as he had done to you earlier. "This is a respectable house, Elliott," you declared, your tone dripping with mock disdain. "You will not enter, you shameless man."

Elliott was stunned, looking at you in disbelief. But you merely chuckled, relishing the taste of revenge as you slammed the door shut in his face. "You will sleep on the street tonight so everyone can see what a dissolute man you are," you retorted, your voice ringing with satisfaction.

Outside, Elliott seethed with frustration, his pride wounded and his heart yearning for reconciliation. "Damn you, [Your Name]!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the night. But there was no response, except for the distant laughter of the wind as it swept through the trees.

He kept pounding on the door, his baritone voice filled with anger and desperation. "Let me in, woman! This is my house!" His shouts echoed through the night, growing more insistent with each passing moment. Inside, you listened with satisfaction, refusing to yield.

Just then, the town priest arrived, a lantern swinging from his hand as he hurried up the path. His eyes, weary from years of settling domestic disputes, took in the scene with a mixture of curiosity and concern. "What in heaven's name is going on here?" he called out, his voice steady and authoritative.

Elliott turned to the priest, his frustration palpable. "Father, she's gone mad! She’s locked me out of my own home! She came home late that night, and—" He gestured wildly at the closed door, his mustache bristling with indignation.

Before the priest could respond, you opened the door just wide enough to throw a bucket of ice water at Elliott. He shouted in shock, his sharp attire now clinging to his frame. "You vile woman!" he bellowed, shaking off the water.

"Don't listen to him, Father," you said, your voice quivering with feigned distress. "He's drunk and raving. He doesn't know what he's saying."

The priest's eyes widened with concern as he turned to you. "Is this true, my child? Is Elliott intoxicated?"

You nodded, tears welling up in your eyes as you put on a show of desolation. "Father, I'm so tired of this. Every night he comes home late, reeking of alcohol. I can't take it anymore." You wiped away a tear, your voice breaking.

Elliott spluttered, trying to regain his composure. "Lies, all of it! She was the one who arrived—"

The priest raised a hand to silence him, his expression stern. "Elliott, I will not tolerate such behavior. You will ask your wife for forgiveness at once."

Elliott's face turned red with rage and humiliation. He clenched his fists, struggling to contain his anger. "This is absurd!" he protested, but the priest's unwavering gaze left him no choice.

With a deep breath, Elliott turned to you, his voice strained. "Forgive me," he said through clenched teeth, his pride wounded beyond measure.

You held out your hand, a satisfied smile playing on your lips. "Of course, Elliott. I forgive you," you replied, relishing the taste of victory.

Elliott bent down, his heart heavy with resentment, and kissed your hand. Inside, he seethed, but outwardly, he maintained the facade. The priest nodded approvingly, believing the reconciliation to be genuine.

"Good," the priest said, his tone final. "Now, Elliott, you will show your wife the respect she deserves. I expect to hear no more of this drunken behavior."

Elliott's eyes met yours, filled with a mixture of anger and grudging admiration. "Yes, Father," he muttered, his baritone voice low and defeated.

As the priest turned to leave, you gave Elliott a look of triumph. He had no choice but to accept his defeat, at least for now. The tables had turned, and you were in control, your victory as sweet as the cool night air.

The heavy wooden door creaked as you opened it wide, allowing Elliott to enter. "Come in," you said, your voice laced with a mix of triumph and concern. Elliott picked up his hat from the floor, his eyes burning with fury, and stormed past you, dripping wet as he made his way to the bedroom.

You followed him, your heart pounding with a mixture of defiance and apprehension. As you entered the room, Elliott was already stripping off his soaked clothes, his movements sharp and angry. You moved to help him, but he suddenly grabbed you by the neck, his baritone voice a growl of contempt.

"You're manipulative," he spat, his grip tightening. "It should be you asking for forgiveness, not me!"

You struggled for a moment, your pulse racing with fear and anger. Then, with a swift motion, you broke free from his hold. "Elliott, please," you said, your voice steady despite the turmoil within you. "Let me help you."

He glared at you, his breath ragged with rage, but as you reached out to help him take off his wet clothes, he didn't resist. His muscles tensed under your touch, but there was a hint of vulnerability there, too, a crack in the hard exterior.

As you gently peeled away his soaked shirt, Elliott huffed in anger, but he couldn't completely hide the way his body responded to your touch. His eyes softened slightly, betraying the struggle within him. You leaned in closer, your lips brushing against his neck, and felt the tension start to melt away.

"You know the power I have over you," you whispered, your voice a soothing balm to his wounded pride.

Elliott's breath hitched, his resistance waning as you kissed him softly. His hands, which had moments before been filled with fury, now rested gently on your waist. "Damn you," he murmured, his voice a mix of anger and longing.

But despite his words, he didn't pull away. Instead, he drew you closer, his lips finding yours in a kiss that was both fierce and tender. In that moment, the battles of pride and power faded into the background, replaced by the undeniable connection between you.

You helped him out of the rest of his wet clothes, your hands moving with a mix of tenderness and command. Elliott's anger seemed to dissipate with each touch, each kiss, as if your very presence had the power to soothe the storm within him.

As he stood there, now free of his wet clothes, Elliott looked at you with a mixture of frustration and desire. "You're impossible," he muttered, but his voice had lost its edge.

You smiled softly, your fingers trailing along his chest. "And yet, you can't resist me," you replied, your tone both teasing and tender.

Elliott's eyes darkened with a mixture of emotions, and he pulled you closer, his grip firm but no longer harsh. "I hate that you're right," he whispered, his lips brushing against yours once more.

The tension between you melted away completely as the kiss deepened, the room around you fading into insignificance. In that moment, all that mattered was the undeniable bond between you, a connection that neither pride nor anger could break.

As you held each other, the night's earlier conflict seemed like a distant memory, replaced by the warmth and passion that only the two of you could share. And as the cool night air seeped into the room, you knew that, for now, you had won the battle, and Elliott was yours once more.

Elliott's hands roamed down your back, settling firmly on your ass. You moaned into his mouth as he squeezed, feeling the raw power in his grip. His anger still simmered, palpable in his touch. "Do you think you can leave whenever you want and return without consequence?" he growled against your lips, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

You were startled when he broke the kiss abruptly, pulling you towards the bed with a force that sent a shiver of anticipation through you. Elliott sat down, yanking you over his knees, his grip unyielding. "This is what happens to naughty girls," he muttered, the first slap landing on your ass with a sharp crack.

You screamed, more in surprise than pain, the sound echoing in the quiet room. His hand came down again, and again, each slap igniting a fiery sting. But instead of cowering, you laughed, your defiance only spurring him on. You tilted your ass upwards, inviting more of the punishing blows.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Elliott's voice was a mix of frustration and grudging admiration. "Naughty girl," he growled, feeling the heat in his palm and the wetness seeping through your panties. He pulled up your dress, yanking down your panties to reveal your reddened ass and glistening pussy. The sight of you, so brazenly aroused, stirred something primal within him.

"Damn, you're insatiable," he muttered, his own arousal evident. He couldn't deny the effect you had on him, the way your defiance only made you more irresistible. His hand traced the curve of your ass, fingers teasing the sensitive skin before delivering another sharp slap.

You moaned louder, your body arching in response. "Please, Elliott," you gasped, the line between pleasure and pain blurring deliciously.

"Please, what?" he taunted, his fingers dipping between your thighs, feeling the slickness of your arousal. "Do you want more?"

"Yes," you whispered, your voice trembling with need.

"Say it," he commanded, his breath hot against your ear.

"I want more, Elliott," you begged, your hips pushing back against his hand.

"Good girl," he murmured, his fingers finding your clit, circling it with deliberate, teasing strokes. The sensation was maddening, your body trembling with the need for release.

Elliott's hand continued its merciless rhythm, alternating between sharp slaps and teasing caresses. "You're so wet for me," he said, his voice thick with desire. "You love being punished, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," you admitted, your breath hitching as his fingers plunged into you, curling just right.

He groaned at your admission, the sound vibrating through you. "You're going to be the death of me," he muttered, pulling his fingers out and slapping your ass once more, harder this time.

Your body responded instinctively, arching into his touch, but when Elliott did nothing, you knew it was your turn to take control. Pushing yourself up from his knees, you straddled him, your movements deliberate and assertive. You could see the surprise in his eyes, quickly replaced by a glimmer of excitement as you undid his pants just enough to free his cock.

“Think you can control me?” you whispered, your voice dripping with challenge as you positioned yourself over him.

Elliott's hands moved to your hips, gripping them firmly. “You love it when I do,” he countered, his tone filled with that familiar mix of arrogance and lust.

Ignoring his words, you sank down onto him, a gasp escaping both your lips as you took him in. Your hands gripped his shoulders for support as you began to ride him, your movements fierce and determined, like a wild horse taming her rider.

Elliott thrust up to meet you, matching your intensity. “You're like a wild thing,” he muttered, his eyes dark with desire. “So beautiful, so defiant.”

“Always trying to break me,” you replied, leaning down to nip at his ear, your breath hot against his skin. “But you never will.”

He groaned, his hands tightening on your hips, guiding your movements. “We’ll see about that,” he growled, thrusting harder, trying to regain control. “You forget who you belong to.”

You laughed, a sound of pure defiance. “I belong to no one,” you shot back, increasing the pace, riding him with a fierce determination that left him struggling to keep up. “And I will always make you remember that.”

Elliott’s eyes flashed with a mix of anger and admiration. “You’re a vixen,” he said through gritted teeth, his hands roaming up to your breasts, squeezing them possessively. “A beautiful, infuriating vixen.”

You moaned, feeling the familiar rush of pleasure and power. “And you love it,” you teased, grinding down harder, making him gasp.

“Damn you,” he muttered, his control slipping as he matched your rhythm. “You drive me mad.”

You leaned in closer, your lips brushing against his. “Good,” you whispered, your voice a seductive purr. “I want you mad with desire.”

Elliott’s response was a low growl, his hands moving to your ass, squeezing hard as he thrust up into you with renewed intensity. “You’ll pay for this,” he promised, his voice thick with need.

“Promises, promises,” you taunted, throwing your head back, your movements wild and uninhibited.

The two of you moved together in a fierce battle for dominance, each trying to assert control over the other. Elliott’s charm and raw power met your beauty and defiance in a clash of wills that left you both breathless.

“Admit it,” Elliott said, his voice ragged. “You love it when I take control.”

You shook your head, a wicked smile playing on your lips. “Never,” you replied, tightening around him, driving him to the edge. “But I love watching you try.”

With a final, desperate thrust, Elliott cried out, his body shuddering with release. You followed moments later, your own climax ripping through you with an intensity that left you both trembling.

As the waves of pleasure subsided, you collapsed against him, both of you breathing heavily. Elliott’s hands moved to your back, holding you close, a grudging respect in his eyes.

“You’re impossible,” he muttered, his tone softer now, almost affectionate.

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way,” you replied, resting your forehead against his, a satisfied smile on your lips.

For a moment, the conflict between you faded into the background, replaced by a rare moment of intimacy. In the dim light of the room, with the night still stretching ahead, you both knew that the battle for dominance would continue. But for now, you were content to savor the victory, and the undeniable connection that bound you together.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

oh btw i spent all of my time away thinking about angelica and argalia uhhhhh vaguely sorted rough notes of some kind or whatever

Angelica was always the more sociable of the two. At first it was to get a leg up, but it eventually became a thing she did just for fun. She liked seeing what made people tick. What didn't. What saying certain things would get from people. (She was always a bit too soft at heart, in Argalia's opinion.) Shes very perceptive of how people act around her, and very good at hiding whats going on in her own head at the same time. The laid-back attitude helps.

Argalia, on the other hand, would much prefer if they stuck to themselves. He's not exactly Untrusting (though he is to an extent,) he just sees other people as some arbitrary riffraff thatd only get in the way. They're annoying, mostly. But he does know how to talk his way around things-- hes just a bit sharper with his tongue than Angelica is. He hides it pretty well, at least. Aside from that, Argalia is much less tempered to frustration than his twin is. He tends to get much sharper much quicker if things start going downhill-- so he simply makes sure that doesn't happen. He overplans just about everything, treating it like a game or challenge to overcome. He doesn't much like losing. (He doesn't understand how Angelica can be so lax about it. It worries him.)

After everything that had been done to him, Argalia had foolishly believed nothing else could hurt him as badly as what he'd already been through. Of course, this city finds ways to surprise you. Post-Pianist, he has a bit of a… main character syndrome going on. He believes he will be the one to lead the foolish world to freedom. They just didn't understand. He does though. It's no surprise they're too stupid to figure it out. (Such a shame that Roland lost it that badly. He cant say hes too surprised he reacted so gracelessly. Oh, well. What was he to do about it?)

The two are highly protective of each other, but it manifests in different ways. Argalia looks up to Angelica a lot, though it shows in a rather subtle way. He's much more passive in his defensiveness-- he doesn't much like letting much of his intent show, but he is just about always keeping an eye out for her.

Angelica, in contrast, will visibly take the lead if they're together, sometimes going so far as to physically put herself in front of her brother if she doesn't like the look of a situation. It's not something that shows very often, but she tends to get rather anxious if she is away from him for too long, or if she does not know where he is. Normally it isn't much of a problem, as they tended to be within vicinity of each other more often than not, but she can get rather fussy over him if she's nervous. (He never comments on it, but he always notices. He does his best to keep her from worrying.) It was a lot more prevalent when they were younger, but it's something that relaxes a lot with time.

in conclusion: yuor honor. Two Of Them

[falseroar]

Murder on the Warfstache Express

Part 10: A Ticket to Ride

((It's Big Dick Moneybags' turn to be interrogated, but as usual, all his thoughts are on himself. Afterwards, Abe has a few questions for Wilford as he tries to make sense of some things that aren't adding up.

Here's a link to the previous chapter, Part 9: Misplaced Motive. And here's one to navigate the whole series.))

Richard M. Bags, Esquire, barely looked around the darkened dining car before taking his seat at the small table with the air of a bored king taking his throne to hear the petty complaints of the little people, an image not helped when he leaned back with one arm resting on the seat of the chair and told Abe, “About time you pulled me out of there. I think I’ve had my fill of the riffraff for the rest of the night and then some, thank you very much.”

Abe didn’t take his seat on the opposite side of the table this time. Instead, he paced a loop around the scattered dining tables half-lit by the lantern sitting in front of Richard, making a wide detour to avoid where Wilford had retaken his vantage point and was lounging around and watching with all the delight of an under stimulated cat with nothing better to do.

“You said you didn’t know Happy when you two met at dinner,” Abe said, watching the rich idiot out of the corner of his eye even as he continued his pacing.

“Never seen him before in my life,” Richard answered, in turn studying his nails. “Couldn’t tell you the first thing about him.”

“And yet he seemed to know a lot about you,” Abe said.

Richard shrugged. “Lots of people do—it comes with the fame and fortune.”

“In fact, back at dinner you said you didn’t know anyone else in this car at the time, do you remember that?”

“No,” Richard said. “But I don’t doubt it. Why would I know any of those people back there? Look, detective, I know you have to do your bit here for the look of the thing, but you and I both know I didn’t have anything to do with whatever happened to that agent. Do I really seem like the kind of person who’d get my own hands dirty on such a vulgar task, especially for someone I barely even knew?”

“Here’s the funny thing about that: if I believed what everyone on this train has told me, then no one here knew Happy at all before he got on this train yesterday. Hell, most of them didn’t even know his name until after he kicked the bucket, much less care two cents about the guy.”

Abe stopped behind the chair he’d been sitting in for the last three interrogations and leaned on the back of it so that he was eye level with the rich man as he continued, “You though? Yeah, turns out you’re a different story there.”

“Oh, do tell me how they were singing my praises,” Richard said, chuckling to himself and missing the sharp intake from the other man sitting in the car as he eagerly waited for the detective to drop the shoe.

“Yeah, about that…”

“That man,” Dorene had said, straightening up at the mention of Bags, her soft, amiable demeanor immediately replaced by a harsh tone and a stern scowl, “is nothing but a cad and a scoundrel of the lowest order. I don’t think there isn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to make his pockets or his ego bigger, and I can assure you the latter is already inflated all out of proportion to any merit.”

“That’s, uh…” Abe admitted to being at a loss for a second before he recovered and admitted, “Probably accurate, but do you have a reason in particular to think that, or…?”

“I’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of spending some time in Richard Mayhew Bags’s company before,” Dorene answered, wrapping her burnoose tighter around her to ward off the chill in the train car. “At an auction, where we were both competing bidders for several rare items, and let me tell you, you can learn a lot about a person based on how they handle losing and winning. Do you know, before the bidding started, I shared with him some of the charity work I’m involved in to see if he might be interested, and do you know what he did?”

She looked over her glasses at the detective who waited for her to answer, the side of her mouth twitching with disgust at the memory. “He laughed. He laughed, and said…Well, better not to repeat those sentiments. Let’s just say, I wasn’t impressed, and I’ve done my best to avoid his company ever since.”

Benjamin tried a little harder to hide his disgust at first, starting with a weak, “I really shouldn’t say…”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re fine with the way he’s running this whole railway thing,” Abe said with a flippant gesture. “Guy’s practically a carbon copy for the actor, so you must feel right at home—”

“Excuse you,” Benjamin blurted out, nearly rising from his chair. “That fool is nothing like Mark!”

Abe shot a look around the car to make sure Wilford hadn’t returned, but the former butler was too angry to notice as he plunged on.

“Letting people go left and right without a care about how long they’d been with the company, zero concern for loyalty or hard work, every message we get is about how we need to cut costs here, there, everywhere, while he goes in front of the press and talks about how he ‘saved’ the railway, and from what? From people wanting to ever use it again?” Benjamin said, and Abe bit back any comparisons he could make about Mark dropping most of his staff just after the divorce or any of the much more damning things he said to the press on the regular.

“But when he’s riding the train, suddenly money is no object! Do you have any idea how much time we spent setting up that room of his, how much of our budget went into his personal wine stock for this one trip because he ‘can’t be seen frequenting the bar’ with the other passengers?! The man is a backstabbing disgrace only out for himself is what he is!”

 The chef had less words to spill on the man, but then he had zero of Benjamin’s hesitation in sharing his opinion with the slightest prompting.

“Man’s an asshole, plain and simple. Worst thing that ever happened to the W.W. Railway, and that’s including what happened to that other train that got stuck in the blizzard of ’82 for three weeks.”

“What…?” Abe started, but the chef just shook his head.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to, man. Least we got heat and food to get us through until help comes and zero hungry bears in the back, I’ll say that much.”

“I still haven’t actually seen what’s in the back of this train,” Abe pointed out.

“Point is,” the chef pressed on, ignoring him as usual, “I’d still rather take my odds with that train than have to trust Bags or that toady that follows him around on anything. Both of them would throw any of us under the wheels of this train in a second if it meant saving their own skins. Hell, they’d probably do it if it meant adding an extra penny to their pockets.”

Not that Abe shared any of that with Richard. Instead, he just settled for saying, “…They’re not fans. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone on this train hates your guts.”

“…Huh.” Richard thought about that for all of a second before shrugging it off. “Well, what can you do? I told you, you don’t get to where I am without stepping on a few toes along the way.”

“The kind of toes that turn around and kick your ass,” Abe muttered under his breath.

“Sorry, what was that, detective?”

“Just that you seem pretty blasé about that little fact for someone who’s received multiple anonymous death threats,” Abe said, pacing once again. “Why is that?”

“Well, I had been counting on Agent Apless to protect me,” Richard said. “But then he had to go and get himself killed—wait, you don’t think he was killed by someone trying to get to me, do you?”

Abe paused at that. “Do you really think this could all be about you?”

“Most things usually are,” Richard answered without a trace of irony or self-consciousness.

“While of this would make a whole lot more sense if you were the dead body, unfortunately that’s not the case,” Abe said.

“’Unfortunately’?”

“And why would someone stop at killing Happy if you were the target?” Abe continued without listening. “Or even need to go through him to get to you? What were you doing after dinner, while Mack was working in his room?”

“Sleeping like a baby,” Richard said. “Honestly, it was the best night of sleep I’d gotten since this whole death threat business started, at least until the train stopped and woke us all up. I’ll admit I may have been a little…spooked by our sudden stop and some noises in the dark, which is why I made Mack stay in the room with me. I’d have had the agent with me too, but Mack couldn’t get him to answer his door because, well, you know. We were fine until you dragged us out into the open to sit around in the lounge car like sitting ducks.”

“Exactly,” Abe said, getting a sputter out of the rich man before he continued, “You were asleep, alone, completely defenseless for hours—where does killing Happy come into that?”

Even if Happy had been keeping watch and caught someone breaking into Richard’s room, it wouldn’t explain the other evidence Abe found in the luggage car. What did that crate with the weird stone have to do with it, or the emptied weapons safe?

“Well, whatever this maniac’s reasoning may be, I’m sure you’ll handle it before they can finish the job,” Richard said, and once again Abe stopped his pacing to stare at the man.

“You just can’t imagine something bad actually happening to you, can you?” Abe asked. “Or, no, you panic and get scared, and then convince yourself that you can just buy your way out of the problem, is that it? Pay me or Happy or some other stooge to take care of the little wannabe murderer and continue on your way?”

“That’s your job, isn’t it?” Richard asked, shifting uneasily in his seat. “That’s why you’re here on this train, to protect me.”

Abe and Wilford shared a look of disbelief.

“Yeah, no, that’s not why I’m here. Trust me, I know that much,” Abe said. He approached the table again and fiddled with the lantern for something to do with his hands as he said, “No, I think it’s time you head back to the lounge car and sit back down with the ‘riffraff’ for a while.”

“But you said they all hate me, that one of them could be trying to kill me!”

“Then we’ll both have plenty to think about,” Abe said.

The rich man protested some more, but the detective shooed him off with a wave of his hand and, when that failed to work, pushed him out of the dining car and slammed the door behind him, leaving Richard to decide between standing in the cold connection point between the two cars or go on into the lounge car. Honestly, Abe didn’t care which he decided to do, so long as he had some time to himself to think.

Too bad there was a big, pink and yellow problem with that plan.

“You ever feel like you’ve forgotten something?” Wilford asked the dining car at large.

“…You’re joking, right?”

Wilford’s eyes creased with his smile. “Of course, of course, forget I said anything at all. Or, you know, don’t.”

Abe rubbed his face and turned his back on the other man, staring into the small window to the lounge car where Richard had fled freezing to take a seat far away from the others gathered around the bar.

“I’m missing something,” he muttered, and when Wilford made a noise at that, “I said missing, not forgetting. I know what they’ve all said, I have all of these pieces, but I know there’s something missing here, I just—”

He was pacing again without realizing it, and not for the first time wished he had something physical to put his ideas out there on, even just a notepad and pen so he could jot them all down and tear them apart, rearrange them until he could see the shape of the hole in the center of all of this.

“What do you normally do at this point in your little investigation?” Wilford asked. “When the corkboards and all the little photos and newspaper clippings and the string doesn’t fix it?”

“Like I know what normal is anymore,” Abe muttered, stopping at the window to look out into the darkness only to be met with a reflection of himself and the room behind him, the single lantern on the table glowing like a star but the rest of the room just vague silhouettes and shapes thrown up on the glass and merging with the drifts of snow outside until it was difficult to separate one from the other. Try as he might, he couldn’t find Wilford in the reflection, even though he heard the man’s voice clear as day behind him.

“Oh, yes, nice and moody answer, double points for that, but it doesn’t go and answer my question now does it?” Wilford sighed, and Abe heard the creak of the chair as the man tested how far back he could lean the chair before both went toppling over even if he couldn't see it. “You know, sometimes it just feels so obvious, like you’re looking at a man pointing a gun at you and, whoops, totally forgotten his name. Then other times it’s just…an itch in the back of your mind, a little something off, you know?”

“What are you talking about?” Abe asked, looking over his shoulder to find a bunch of empty tables and chairs, only the two he and the line of suspects had been using out of place.

“Forgetting things, of course,” Wilford said, now standing on Abe’s opposite side with a steaming mug of something in hand. He took a sip and stared out the long window, his mustache tilting as his mouth turned underneath it. “Or did you forget what we were talking about that? It’s okay, I get distracted sometimes too.”

Abe made a noise, a strangled combination of a frustrated growl and a yelp at the other man’s sudden appearance right beside him.

“Okay, more than sometimes,” Wilford admitted. He took a long, slow, slurping sip from his mug that filled Abe with a sudden desire to smack the thing out of his hands.

“Are you even real?” Abe asked, causing Wilford to pause mid-sip.

“That's an existential question that I am not prepared to answer at this juncture.”

“Warfstache!”

“Detective!” Wilford shrugged and took another long, slurping sip before answering. “What kind of question is that to go around asking people? Like being ‘real’ ever actually meant anything.”

“It means everything!”

“Does it though?”

Abe rubbed his face, turning away from Wilford so he could talk and think at the same time. “Nothing about this makes any sense, starting with you and how you—you’re constantly disappearing and reappearing, conveniently avoiding the only other people on this train who might recognize you, don't think I didn't notice that, just...being you in general and no one else so much as batting an eye!”

He couldn't see Wilford tilting his head, studying the detective's back with a thoughtful expression as he asked, “Be honest now, is there anything I could say to convince you one way or the other?”

“...No,” Abe admitted, glancing at the reflections in the window when he heard another long, irritating sip from that stupid pink mug with its words that wouldn't get out of his head. “But there is this.”

The detective spun around, and it was a split second after his fist connected with Wilford's cheek and sent that despicable mug crashing against the ground with a muffled thump that left it in several pieces that he realized it shouldn't have. Not when Wilford seemed to know exactly what he was thinking half the time, not when he had a habit of moving from one place to the other when eyes weren't on him.

Not unless he let it happen.

“Do you feel better now, detective?” Wilford asked, his voice slurring more than usual as he worked his jaw and touched his cheek with an exaggerated wince. “I'm a real boy! For a given value of ‘real,’ of course, but we'll take the win. One mystery solved.”

“Yeah, and about a dozen more to solve,” Abe muttered, wondering how he somehow felt worse now, and not just because of the pain in his split knuckles.

Wilford paused. “Those don't also involve hitting me, do they?”

Except even after that, Abe still felt like he was missing something obvious about Warfstache. Something not quite right, although with him it was hard to just point at one thing in particular. An aggravating irritant, on top of everything else.

“Would talking it out help?” Wilford suggested helpfully. “You said something about that before, right? Or was that later...?”

“Yeah, where do you want to start?” Abe asked. “How it seems like everyone on this train but the two of us has some kind of connection to Moneybags? How all signs point to a shootout in the baggage car but our dead man is found in his room poisoned, bludgeoned, and stabbed on top of the bullet in him? Why our dead man has a badge for an agency I’ve never heard of, or do you want to spend a few hours trying to decipher that letter he had on him from said agency? Or what the hell kind of agent runs around with a gun that looks like a kid’s toy?”

As if to accentuate his point, Abe pulled out Happy’s gun and dropped it on a nearby table, soon following it with the agent’s badge and the letter he’d had on him.

“There is one thing that’s been bothering me since the start of this whole rigamarole,” Wilford declared, and to Abe’s surprise he turned and pointed a finger at his chest, voice and expression both unusually serious as he asked, “Why did you get a double room, detective?”

“…What?”

“You heard me! Most suspicious thing around if you ask me,” Wilford said. “Mr. ‘I Work Alone’ with a side of hard-up detective who can’t even afford a decent outfit—”

“What’s wrong with my outfit?”

“It’s monochrome as hell and so 2018, but my point is, how does a guy like that end up in a room twice as big as he needs?” Wilford asked, physically and verbally prodding Abe until the detective smacked his hand away.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Abe asked, but Wilford tilted his head with an inquiring noise that suggested he wasn’t about to let it go. “I don’t know, it’s just the room I was put in, I didn’t pick it.”

“Ah! Then who did?”

“It…I don’t know, it was just the room that was available at the time, anyone could have ended up in it. Not like it even matters, since Happy and I ended up—”

Abe stopped midsentence and found himself voicing the thought that interrupted it out loud.

“Why did Happy want it? I thought it was to get closer to Moneybags, but he never actually said he was taking the rich idiot up on his job offer. On the other hand, our rooms were right next to each other, so it wasn’t like he was moving from one end of the car to the other.”

Wilford shrugged. “Maybe he wanted the extra space? Since clearly you weren’t doing anything with it, right?”

“What, to store all of his nonexistent luggage?” Abe shook his head. “I thought back in the luggage car he had something to do with the professor’s crate getting broken into, especially when she said he was real keen on that math she was doing related to her work, but that rock in there would be just as easy to hide in one room as another after he stole it, if that was his goal. My room was a little closer to the professor’s room, but Dorene was still in between them so he couldn’t hope to listen in on any conversations from there. Just what was he hoping to get out of a trade?”

Abe turned back toward Happy’s belongings on the table and leaned over them, staring down at the badge, gun, and letter as though if he just looked at them hard enough, he would find something new there.

“I’m missing something,” he muttered again, and vaguely heard Wilford’s voice behind him. “The letter, the badge, everything Happy said made it sound like he was on this train for a reason. He was scoping the train out all afternoon, looking for something.”

He paused and then turned back on Wilford. “Wait, what did you just say?”

Wilford froze, eyes full of innocence that Abe wasn’t buying. “Who, me? Why, I haven’t said a thing all night—”

“No, I heard you, I said ‘I’m missing something’ and you said—”

Wilford rolled his eyes. “Okay, I might have said, ‘Or someone,’ but who can really tell?”

He paused and gave Abe a searching look. “Unless you’re suddenly having a burst of inspiration, in which case I take full credit.”

Abe stood stock still as the idea sank in, before he was a sudden frenzy of motion, pacing back and forth in a vain effort to keep up with the thoughts clicking away in his head.

“That’s it! Happy wasn’t looking for something, he was looking for someone. He was going from one end of the train to the other this afternoon questioning people! Everyone agrees he never said anything about himself if he could help it, but Dorene said he was a good listener. That, and he’d done his research on Moneybags and knew enough about the Professor’s work to spot a mistake in her math—bet you anything those weren’t the only two he did his background research on. He was listening to see who didn’t match up, who wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“Ah,” Wilford said, eyes lighting up with understanding. “Trying to find out who among us is sus. Just like Monopoly.”

“What kind of games do you…” Abe stopped himself with a shake of his head and pressed on. “But you’re right, sort of. Happy goes through the whole train, listening and observing the passengers and crew, looking for…Looking for…”

There it was again, that something off, and Abe found himself asking, “He never talked to you though, did he?”

“Mm, can't say he did,” Wilford admitted, before prudently taking a step backward. “You're not going to hit me again, are you?”

“Eh...” Abe shrugged, unable to go so far as to commit to that, but continued his thought. “But when I described you to him, he didn’t seem especially interested in learning anything more, even after I said you’ve killed people.”

“Rude. Clearly a terrible judge of character.”

“But if he was so keen on going around and checking everyone, how could he miss you?” Abe remembered exactly how hard a person Wilford could be to find without even trying and corrected himself. “Why wouldn’t he try to find you? Unless it’s because I apparently knew you well enough to know you’re not an impostor—"

“Although not well enough to tell if I'm real or not.”

“—And he knew I was who I said I was because both Benjamin and the chef recognized me,” Abe continued. “All four of us unintentionally provided alibis for each other being who we say we are. Same reason he barely interacted with Moneybags and Mack until he was forced to during dinner—two people traveling together, neither of them can be his man. The other three passengers are traveling alone, but Illinois introduced himself to Ms. Whitacre right in front of him, and they knew enough of each other from their letters that he could rule them out after a few minutes. The professor’s the odd one out there, but he came prepared, well enough to check her work, literally. Then there's the engineer/conductor...”

“Yes? What about him?” Wilford prompted when Abe trailed off, but the detective's thoughts were not on Peter but on something he had said.

Or rather, hadn’t said.

“Wilford, do you actually have a ticket?” Abe asked. Peter had mentioned sending Wilford away multiple times for not having one, but surely...

Wilford rolled his eyes and scoffed as he plopped down in one of the empty chairs dotted around the room. “You sound like that guy now, all ‘do you have a ticket to ride,’ and I kept telling him I’ve never even played the game before—”

Abe groaned and rubbed his face with both hands. “You’re a stowaway?!”

Wilford perked up. “Oh, that’s a fun way to put it! But yeah, probably.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding the other two?”

“I also perhaps owe someone $20, or they owe me the money, and I can’t really remember the details anymore so it’d kind of be awkward…”

Abe considered hitting Wilford again, harder this time. Of all the reasons to avoid Benjamin and the chef, those were the only ones he could come up with?

But his eyes landed on the letter found in Happy’s pocket once again and he whispered to himself, “Stowaway…”

“If you could speak up a little…” Wilford suggested, only to blink owlishly when Abe rounded on him.

“The postcard, you’re sure you found it in the baggage car? You didn’t pick it up anywhere else?”

“This old thing?” Wilford asked, the postcard appearing between his fingers like a card conjured up by a street magician. “Of course I found it in the baggage car, that’s where you told me to search and it was right there in the middle of the floor where anyone would have noticed.”

Except Abe hadn’t, and he knew full well that Wilford and the general senses of time, space, or even reality itself rarely applied to him except when he could be bothered to let them.

“And I know I didn’t see it because it was still dark in the car with only the lanterns to see by,” Abe said, not sure whether he was explaining himself to Wilford or reassuring himself. “But I know I would have noticed something lying on the ground when I went into the baggage car earlier yesterday afternoon, just like Happy would have. Especially when the thing is a postcard sent from and addressed to two people who are not on this train, meaning it’s supposed to be on the opposite end of the train, in a car no one should have had access to since the train started moving. Do you get where I’m going with this?”

Wilford considered the question for all of a half second before answering honestly, “Nope, not even a little bit.”

“I’m saying,” Abe said, pulling out the set of keys he’d borrowed from Benjamin, “I think it’s time we finally had a look in that mail car.”

A good line, but Abe found himself hesitating when he did reach the door connecting the dining car to the kitchen car.

He looked back over his shoulder at the distant circle of light barely visible through the glass windows on the other end of the car, just long enough to confirm that the silhouette of the chef wasn’t already on his way to stop him, and added under his breath, “Better make this quick.”

The detective did pause in the space between cars to check out both of the side windows, his breath nearly fogging up the glass in the few seconds it took to look and move on into the kitchen car.

The very dark kitchen, which lacked the huge windows of the dining and lounge cars to let in even the reflection of moonlight off of the snow outside. There was only a single skylight overhead, which did little to help illuminate things now. Anyone working in here would have little to distract them from the currently cold ovens and cookware lining the walls above long stretches of counterspace with an island in the middle taking up much of the room in the center of the car.

Abe turned up the light from his lantern and held it higher, where it reflected off of seemingly every surface, from the polished oven doors and excessively clean counters to the absolutely massive fridge that occupied one corner of the car, its not so quiet hum filling the otherwise silent car. The light of the small flame left everything with an orange, flickering hue as though they had stepped into hell itself.

“Hell itself?” Wilford asked, repeating the thought that hadn’t left Abe’s mind. “Bit chilly for that, isn’t it?”

“To be fair, the guy who works here could be the devil for all I know,” Abe muttered. “Certainly wouldn’t put it past him to skewer us if he finds us in here.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t pick up another midnight snack?”

“Or anything sharp and pointy,” Abe said, slapping Wilford’s hand away from the knife block in the same breath. “And midnight was hours ago, probably.”

Actually, he didn’t have a clue what time it was. It being the middle of the winter and in less than stellar conditions, there could still be hours more to go until dawn, if the sun even bothered to show up at all.

“Then a pre-breakfast appetizer,” Wilford said, opening the fridge door only for Abe to slam it shut again.

And then reopen it to look inside himself, getting an indignant sound from the other man.

“Just checking to make sure there’s nothing in here that shouldn’t be,” Abe said. “You know, another bottle of poison, some more booby traps, maybe a body or two…”

“Certainly looks big enough to hold a few,” Wilford said, nodding. “But I can’t help but notice that looks suspiciously like string cheese you have there.”

Abe silently passed him another stick and closed the door, only commenting, “Well, no harm in checking. Come on, the next and last car should be the one we’re looking for.”

The detective led the way through the next door, pausing once again and wincing when Wilford ran into him so hard he nearly dropped his lantern.

“Could you watch it?” Abe hissed.

“Could you not stop every two seconds to monologue to yourself?” Wilford shot back, taking a piece of his string cheese and carefully pulling it free to eat.

“I’m not monologuing, I’m looking for clues,” Abe protested, drawing Wilford’s attention to the windows on either side.

Or trying to, but the other man’s attention was riveted on the piece of cheese in Abe’s hand, and the end very obviously bit off without any preamble.

“You heathen,” Wilford said, one hand held to his chest in shock.

In answer, Abe took another large bite before holding his lantern up to the window and saying over Wilford’s affronted gasp, “See the snow? No footsteps, here or on the other side, and the doors are locked on the inside—same for every car from here to the front of the train, and these are the only places where you can get out. No one on this train has left it since we got stuck, except when I went around with Benjamin and the conductor to take a look at the heap of snow blocking the tracks. If someone fled whatever happened in the baggage car, they either went into the engine car or back through the passenger car, no going around.”

“And that means…” Wilford prompted.

“It means I missed something, and so did Happy,” Abe answered as he shuffled through the keys on the ring to try and find one that matched the lock on the door to the mail car. “And this is the one place no one’s been allowed to check since we started.”

“Sounds fascinating! So why are we hanging around out here?” Wilford asked, and without waiting for Abe to point out the obvious, he reached forward and pulled on the door.

The door that, despite everything Abe had been told, clearly wasn’t locked as it slid open easily to reveal a figure standing just inside, holding a gun.

His gun, the tip of which was currently pointed at the center of his chest.

((End of Part 10. Thanks for reading!

Is it too late to be adding another character to the story, when we're this close to the end? Probably! Am I doing it anyway? Yes, yes I am. Also thank you to Mark for dropping that existential question line in that Poppy Playtime let's play, absolutely knew I had to steal that when I heard it.

There were 100% other ways to go about checking to see if someone's real, but Abe maybe still isn't over the whole "shooting me and my partner" thing...

Tag list: @silver-owl413 @asteriuszenith @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @95fangirl @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-star-eyes @shyinspiredartist @avispate @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox @hidinginmybochard))

[hussyknee]

Does reading a lot of books "count" if they're all only popular light-read novels? As opposed to classics and literary fiction and whatever 600-page in-betweens are called. I can tear through all of Cat Sebastian (who's either hit or very, very miss for me) before I can pick up, like, Sharon Kay Penman, even though they're both popular historical novellists, because SKP's are about real historical figures and wars where a lot of horrible things happen to people. So of course my brain is convinced that SKP's novels "count" more than CS's, because it only counts if you have to struggle through an emotional morrass that makes you feel glad to live in climate collapse because at least nobody is sticking people's heads on spikes anymore.

This is also why I can only stand well back from literary fiction and poke it with a stick like I'm waiting for rats and snakes to jump out because, afaik, most of them are about people being sad and ruminating on the Human Condition. I don't get why I have to read about that, given I'm a sad person who's trapped in the Human Condition.

(I sometimes think the people that write these things are either so removed from the unwashed masses that they can look at them like a science experiment or five inches from offing themselves at all times. Presumably some of them are those mythical Normal People who have somehow emerged from the existential soup without any mental illnesses. Idk. How tf do you write fiction about real human pain that isn't even self-indulgent whump fic? I'm still trying to recover from having read Ninety-One Whiskey four years ago.)

You'd think the solution would be to just read some escapist fantasy, except the serious non-YA adjacent stuff that get submitted for Hugo awards (or Netflix and HBO adapations that shit all over the source material) are also about Bad Things Happening To People. I suppose this is better than white Christian manifest destiny bullshit like Lord of the Rings* where Bad Things Only Happened to Boromir, whose fans are the kind of people who think Gone With The Wind is a literary classic instead of Ku Klux Klan propaganda or people like me who are pathologically obsessed with conservative white bullshit**. And yet have I ever picked up NK Jemisin, who seems to be for all intents and purposes the queen of decolonial high fantasy? Of course not. Better to bear that media where Bad Things Only Happen To Imbibers Of This Racist Bullshit, than fly to others Where Bad Things Happen To The Characters that we know not of***.

It's really fucking hard to be extremely mentally ill and have OCD that won't let you DNF stuff that bores and distresses you and makes you think anything that lets you have safe, happy fun is just easy mode riffraff of no nutritional value.

***Still trying to figure out where Guy Gavriel Kay fits in. Without, you know, just reading the damn books.

**Tbh the reason conservative white bs is so appealing is because conservatives genuinely believe in the Just World theory. They rationalize the chaos of reality by assuming that the world used to make sense and work the way it should until Bad People happened to it, and it can be restored to its rightful glory if we can just root out all the shit that upended the old order. That's fascism in a nutshell and why its so deeply seductive even to people suffering under it.

*No, I'm not going to explain why LoTR is smuggling white supremacy. Y'all care more about defending the intentions of white men living in the fading era of the British empire than understanding how they could possibly have internalised white Christian supremacy that informs their writings about Fair, Enlightened Folk of the West yearning for a mythical past where they reigned supreme. Figure it out.

[dragonologist-phd]

jumping on the bandwagon for character inspirations! Featuring inspirations for Piper, the lovely and charming bard extraordinaire!

be prepared for rambling under the cut:

Evelyn Hugo - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

"When you're given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn't give you things, you take things."

Oh, Evelyn. Charming, desperate, manipulative, cynical. She knows how harsh the world can be, and she's not going to be apologize for what she does to survive it. She's protective of the people she trusts, and she doesn't let herself trust many people. Piper's most cynical moments are heavily inspired by Evelyn!

Satine - Moulin rouge

"Diamonds are a girl's best friend."

I think Piper's stage persona, especially in her younger days, is a lot like the stage persona that Satine puts on. She's an enchanting performer and can draw a lot of shallow admiration, but it's a precarious position and she's still very lonely behind the scenes.

(Sad stuff aside, Piper would give a fabulous performance of every song in this musical)

Lindsey Stirling - Between Twilight Music Video

This one is purely aesthetic- Lindsey Stirling was already a big visual inspiration for Piper, and her look in this video is simply perfect. The hair, the dress, the violin- even the fairy light she follows through the forest has Azata vibes that work so well for Piper!

Orpheus & Eurydice - Hadestown

"I've been alone so long, I didn't even know I was lonely / Out in the cold so long, didn't even know that I was cold"

"I believe in us together, more than anyone alone / I believe that with each other, we are stronger than we know / We are stronger than they know"

Yes, I'm cheating and putting both of them.

At first glance, Piper takes a lot more from Eurydice- she's lost, lonely, hungry for a better life. Orpheus's idealism is appealing to her, but so is the cold pragmatism of Hades.

But beneath that, Piper also has a lot of Orpheus in her- she's a bard, yes, but she's also very devoted to the people she decides to care about, and when push comes to shove she'll start a whole revolution in their name. When she loves, she loves with her whole heart- but there's also that seed of doubt and insecurity that would make her turn around at the last moment.

Sophie Devereaux - Leverage

"What kind of world would it be if everyone who committed a silly little crime went to jail? Complete madness!"

I love Sophie so, so much; she's the world's most charming grifter, and is always such a delight. She's a more hopeful version of some of the previous inspirations here- she still has that loneliness in her past, and that uncertainty with who she is beneath all the lies she's told. But she's found herself a new family of people who love her, and she's using the illicit skills of her past to do good and help people who need it. Sophie provides a lost of inspiration for Piper's best version of herself!

Aladdin - Aladdin

"riffraff, street rat, I don't buy that / If only they'd look closer"

Another more hopeful inspiration- someone who, like Piper, has had to fend for themselves and deals with not ever feeling good enough, and who lies their way into actually becoming a hero.

[lauravanarendonkbaugh]

Word Finder Tag Game

@whatwewrotepodcast has tagged me in another #Writeblr game!

My assigned words: soft, purple, lies, coward

So let's see where this goes....

Soft

“It was his own son who caused the damage,” Lisveth protested stubbornly.

“It was.”

“By climbing through a window when he’d been told to keep away entirely.”

“That’s so.”

“And we not only schooled some poorly behaved brutes, but you nearly got your arm broken when you suddenly had to work around a child.”

“All of that is true.”

“And you want us to have done all of that for less than promised.”

Galen sighed. “Want? No. But there’s only so much water that can be squeezed from a stone. And I wouldn’t feel right leaving this man in worse condition than when he hired us, even if it’s not our fault.”

Lisveth blew out her breath in an irritated little puff and crossed her arms. Galen relaxed; she was acquiescing. “I don’t like it,” she said. “But I wouldn’t feel right, either.”

The baker ruined it by calling to them. “I’m not paying that much after my oven’s broken. And if you keep insisting, I’ll tell you to get out.”

Lisveth turned on him. “Get out? Or what? Or you’ll walk two towns over to fetch the sheriff? The same sheriff who couldn’t handle the riffraff you needed us to get rid of?”

He scowled, lacking an effective answer to that.

Galen stepped back and scuffed his foot, drawing Lisveth’s attention back to him. “Let it go. We’ll take half.”

“What’s that?” the baker called.

“We’ll take half,” Lisveth snapped. “And you can thank my soft touch of a partner for it.”

Purple

Pasiphae Jade smiled, amused by his hurry. “Don’t you think we might eat together? Discuss the kingdom and its affairs? Mend our friendship? We don’t know one another well, and I thought we might change that.”

Not even she pretended to believe her words, and Kayvin did not return her smile. “I don’t believe our friendship can be mended with a meal.”

“Our partnership, then. I don’t mind if you dislike that we must work together, but we must do it regardless.” She dipped her fingers into a proffered bowl and selected a small ball of baked dough. “And I have wanted to give you a gift, though my efforts have fared poorly so far. I thought we might talk about that, too.”

He exhaled. “I did not want what you sent.”

“I know. I was so disappointed in my gifts, because they disappointed you.” She took another bite and nodded toward the garden. “Don’t worry; there are consequences for failures. Would you care for some pork? It’s so tender; it’s the first of the season’s piglets.” She indicated the approaching servitor.

Kayvin turned toward the offered platter. The meat was white and moist, sprinkled with finely diced herbs. He selected a slice and glanced up as he lifted it. He jumped in his seat, nearly dropping the meat.

The woman holding the platter faltered, more visible in her posture than expression. Her face was too swollen to convey subtle emotion, her cheeks red and purple with bruising. Her lips were split and scabbed. She dropped her eyes from his gaze.

Kayvin stared.

“You remember Fiera, don’t you?” Pasiphae Jade said, choosing a piece of fruit. “But perhaps you don’t recognize her, though it was only yesterday. You saw her so briefly, and of course she does not look quite the same.”

Lies

A local apprentice tries to hire Lisveth for a retribution job. She's explaining why it's both beneath her and dumb.

Lisveth shook her head. “I saw revenge would only continue the disaster they had started, and I refused to do their work for them. Instead, to balance the disaster, I wanted to do something great and heroic. I dreamed I’d save a town from a landslide just before it was buried, or fight away one last dragon from a guildhall, or something like that.” She shook her head. “But I don’t have that kind of magic. All I’m really good at is lies. And lies are never going to save the world.”

Confused, he frowned. “I don’t care—”

"Shut up. My wanting to do something heroic, wanting to save a thousand lives, that was another kind of revenge. And it wasn’t any more possible than the first kind, and it still wouldn’t have changed what had already happened. Saving a thousand lives won’t undo a thousand deaths, and breaking another man’s arm won’t make you any better at turning a lathe. You need to learn that early.”

“You’re not so much older than me.”

“I am; I’m just prettier. As I was saying, then I was lucky enough to meet someone who could talk me into something else. I've realized I can’t be a great hero, and I can’t do anything to change what’s already been done.”

He started to stand from the bench. “I don’t see how any of this matters to my—”

“Sit down!” she snapped. “I’m not saying this for your benefit. I’m saying this because I need to say it, and I’m saying it to you because I can’t tell anyone whose opinion I care about.”

He blinked as he worked through this.

Lisveth continued speaking over his confusion. “I’ll never make a great difference. But I can make a small difference, again and again, and that’s worth more than a silly dream of stopping a landslide. That will do more to correct the broken world than my best revenge.” She waved her hand in a lazily derisive gesture. “I know you don’t understand. Pray you’re fortunate enough to never understand.”

He screwed up his face and delivered his best dismissal. “So you think you’re a tiny hero, now? A savior of small things?”

Lisveth leaned over the table. “Even on my tiniest day, I am still not the hero of taking up a shopboy’s petty fight in a village bar for scraped together spare change. If you can’t be enough of a man to admit someone else’s skill, then at least be a big enough boy to have your own tantrums.” She gestured with her drink, sloshing. “Go.”

Coward

Galen has just survived a fireball and is drawing reasonable but incorrect conclusions.

That would make sense. It was a gift from magicians, who wielded magic against one another. It could not have helped him against the guard Ned, who had offered purely physical threat. But the fire, the magical conjured fire, had rolled over him like a wave and left him unburned.

If this were true, then the sorceress could not harm him. He stared at it, his mind working at the realization. And if she could not harm him, he could be the one to bring her down. He could avenge the caravan’s fallen and win honor for himself. And he needed honor; he had fled, had run like a terrified rabbit, had not even thought of what he was doing. He couldn’t return to San as he was now, without any explanation but his cowardice. But if he returned with the captive Fire Brigand, it would be different. And surely there was a bounty for the Fire Brigand? He could gain wealth and renown, and he could make San proud of him.

He squeezed his fingers about the amulet until the twisted wires pressed grooves into his skin. How foolish of his uncles to argue over the thing when it was of no use to them, could never be of use to them. The Heel had not faced magical danger in generations. But now Galen, son of the Heel, could use it once more to make the world safer.

Thanks for the tag! These are all from my in-progress epic fantasy series The Poet's Eye.

I'm tagging @iamtheshriekingguineapig, @avaantares, and @amarawraith, with the words none, unbelievable, blister, and sweet.

[juulz]

I'm stoked that you both enjoyed and answered my question!

Yeah, usually when I end up thinking about them meeting I have to pull them out of context, then place them in that infinite white space Squidward got eebie deebied to.

There is one more thing I think the Silvers can agree upon and it's, "Fuck Giovanni and everyone who associates with him." I already figured they'd hate each other for abiding by what each other hates. What's sadder is that even if they got past their shoddy first impressions of each other (self-indulgent riffraff / pathetic warhound), the animosity would grow tenfold because they are equal, if not larger, foils to each other than their respective Golds are. I wouldn't be surprised if the Silvers' mutually saw their otherworld selves as the worst versions of their self.

Misfit Silver would absolutely drag AWSB for any level of compliance, geniune or decietful, he had in Team Rocket's plans. Even more so for trying to beat Giovanni at his own game and pretending that the end will ever justify the means, all while letting an innocent boy follow him into a place so dark, you never get to walk away from it. AWSB Gold would have lived a normal life without AWSB Silver, but he let him stay, and now he's ruined. He's killed for you. He's almost died for you multiple times. He'll never be the same and what for? A guy who was too weak to do it alone. A guy who caved as soon as someone said they loved him and didn't think he was a monster. Misfit Silver would grill his counterpart for not taking accountability in Gold staying. Not that Misfit Silver cares about either Golds or anyone else (denial), it just seems particularly low, like something dear old dad would do.

Where as AWSB Silver would probably take all that on the nose because lord knows he's torn himself apart thinking about all that himself and he has his doubts about everything he's done. Especially when it comes to his own Gold's involvment in the situation. But Misfit Silver had better circumstances, still not normal mind you, but better. And yet he refuses to love or be loved. Misfit actively fights and deeply resents any warmth his Gold brings out in him, rejects Gold's love as he judges it as superficial, desperate and/or false. Misfit Silver thinks it'd be better if he and Gold weren't together, so he tells Gold that he's nothing special and rejects him constantly? Tell me about how the ends won't justify the means. Especially when Misfit Gold is already suicidal. At least when AWSB Silver pushed his Gold away it wasn't because he didn't want to love his Gold or because he was too scared of pain to let anyone in. Clearly, Misfit Silver just doesn't want to lose anyone else, so he blocks everyone out, and yet he hasn't cut his Gold off either and won't take accountability for it.

I wonder if it'd get physical. I could see Misfit Silver trying to start a fight, it's just would AWSB Silver even entertain it? He'd be angry about how Misfit Gold is being treated, so maybe? Would he just dodge every attack and walk away? Or would he catch Misfit's fists and incapcitate him?

It'd be bad. Triggering as fuck because it raises the question of what makes someone who they are? Circumstances or choices? How could someone who has the same essecence as you end up so different?

Either Gold would be like, "Wow you're so amazing!" and the other would be like,"What? No, you're the amazing one! I'm just some lame guy who gets in Silver's way, I'm not sure why he lets me stick around." And it just keeps going.

As far as my hot take on Misfit Silver and AWSB Gold meeting goes, I think if there's anyone who could convince, or at least sway Misfit Silver into believing his Gold's feeling are genuine, it'd be AWSB Gold. Likewise, I think AWSB Gold would have more patience with Misfit Gold than AWSB Silver does, because he understands that 1) Silver is hurt and scared of being hurt again, 2) that Misfit Silver does love his Gold deep down. He knows because his own Silver shows his love through actions, and Misfit Silver's actions say he does care, it's just difficult. That said, if AWSB Gold opened up about his fears and doubts about his place in AWSB Silver's life, Misfit Silver would probably capitalize on it and say something hurtful. Which would cause AWSB Gold to spiral. 4.5/10.

When it comes to Misfit Gold and AWSB Silver, I think Silver would immediately recognize that Misfit Gold is an abuse survivor, drug user and suicidal, all of which would make him immediately protective. Ultimately, it's another thing that would worsen his relationship with his otherworld self. I think AWSB Silver would do his best to comfort and reassure Misfit Silver, telling him it's admirable that even when Gold hates himself so much, hurts so much, he's kept the light inside of him alive. You'd think AWSB Silver was the older one. Then if Misfit Gold found out about AWSB Silver's past, it'd be how AWSB Gold felt all over again. Misfit Gold would be utterly heartbroken, horrified, angry and awed by what AWSB Silver endured and how he manages to get by. How he openned his heart up to love despite it all and is still trying to make a difference, remains mindful of any collateral damage he may cause and how he tries to minimize it. 10/10.

Just thoughts.

Before I start I just wanted to take a moment and say HOLY SMOKES THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS, it was an absolute treat to read! And also OH BOI you’ve thought way deeper about this than I ever did. 

Fuck Giovanni and everyone who associates with him.

Facts. Be it for deep-rooted personal revenge or rejection of that part of society as a whole, imo in no universe can these two have a functional father-son relationship.

…worst versions of their self.

In short. Yes.

…it just seems particularly low, like something dear old dad would do.

Oof, how this is phrased. This entire paragraph, hitting all the right buttons. 

A guy who caved as soon as someone said they loved him and didn't think he was a monster.

This reminded me of a scene that never made it into AWSB. Went somewhere along the lines:

Silver with a resigned smile, reflecting on their relationship.

-I’m easy, aren’t I? Falling for the second person that chose to be kind to me.

Gold, in turn reflecting on the rollercoaster that was their existence the past few weeks, voice cracking, choking in disbelief.

-R-right. Easy.

Would he just dodge every attack and walk away? Or would he catch Misfit's fists and incapacitate him?

Probably a then b, since the guy would be quite persistent. AWSB!Silver has dealt with enough people that can’t/aren’t worth being reasoned with, so force is ever the option. One, to avenge Gold, two, to knock Misfits down a notch, three… well, wouldn’t beating someone with the face he so detests be oh so satisfying?

Misfit Silver would probably capitalize on it and say something hurtful.

Not out of malice, but as a knee jerk reaction.

Which would cause AWSB Gold to spiral.

This Silver is kind of a dick, huh? (He definitely is). Hang in there, Gold!

…still trying to make a difference, remains mindful of any collateral damage he may cause and how he tries to minimize it.

100/10 the difference between one that fought for and been through the stages to acceptance and the one who hasn’t.

I cannot stress just how genuinely amazed and impressed I am at the depth of your analysis and at how frighteningly well you’ve captured the characters. If left up to me, it'd be a comic featuring crudely drawn chibis and 99.9% a dick joke, but I absolutely adore reading your serious, grounded takes on the matter. So yeah, if such a crossover were to exist, that’d be exactly how the boys’ encounters would transpire.

One thing to note - AWSB core story is complete and Misfits AU isn't, so it’d be interesting to revisit this when that happens.

To me either universe is there to explore topics the other one doesn’t. AWSB - ultraviolence and, in place of a redemption arc, that one of a downfall (peppered with world-ending scenarios cus what pkmn universe would it be without that). Misfits AU - sex, drugs and punkrock'n' roll (some anarchy in the UK and all the life’s joys that come with the package).

[commanderauri-art]

Thief: Lock and Key ch 1

“Come now. What about this one, miss?” the handmaid, Charlotte, asked for the umpteenth time and held up yet another dress styled in the latest fashion. Elizabeth turned from the stack of corsets she’d been idly admiring the last few minutes and scanned the dress Charlotte held in hand before making a face. “What’s the matter with this one now?” her handmaid protested. 

“Lottie, tell me you looked at the neckline. It drops nearly to my navel!"

“Well, it is all the rage here in Riverside-“

“And I’m set to arrive in the Eternal City before this month’s end! I can’t be seen walking around in something so scandalous. Could you imagine the amount of heads that would turn? The gossip mill would be set for weeks!”

“But it might land you a husband.” Charlotte grinned a little but set the dress back in its place before her expression turned sober as she looked upon her lady. “You really don’t like any of the other suitors that have reached out? Your father-“

“Baron Matteus Northcrest knows better than to stick his nose into my business,” Elizabeth shot back in a firm tone, brushing back a few loose brown curls that had escaped her elaborate updo before walking about the shop. “He and Mother have been horrid these last few years about this husband business. I will find one on my own. Come hell or high water.”

“Language, miss!”  Charlotte lightly admonished, lips pursing. It was an effort for Elizabeth to keep from rolling her eyes. “Be that as it may, Miss Elizabeth, no husband wants a wife with a filthy tongue.” A disgusting innuendo suddenly came to mind but Elizabeth bit down on her “filthy” tongue. No need to embarrass Charlotte or the other patrons milling about. 

“Why do you think I keep up to date on my eccentric vocabulary,” Elizabeth said instead as she walked over to peruse a glass drawer holding delicate looking jewelry. A particular pair of diamond earrings caught her eye as they glinted in the shop’s light. “If my future husband can handle my choice of words then he’s more than welcome to try and court me. We will be living together forever anyway. He might as well get used to it before making it final.”

“You really did inherit your mother’s stubbornness, didn’t you?” Charlotte joined her before stopping and examined a string of pearls displayed nearby. “Oh, look at the pink hue! This would go well with your skin tone. You don’t have pearls, do you?”

“Hm?” Elizabeth turned around to look over the necklace herself and held up the bottom half of the string with one hand. “I have earrings in this shade, yes, but not a necklace. Unless I’d be wearing it for a suitor, Mother wouldn’t let me get anything like that. Or these diamonds. Anyway, I already have plenty from those courting gifts I’ve received these last weeks. I think this trip to the City may do me some good. As long as my father’s cousin doesn’t let it slip that they’re looking for a husband for me.”

“Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen. Gods forbid they locate a suitable man,,” Charlotte replied, sarcasm tinging her voice. At Elizabeth’s pointed look, she shrugged. “Perhaps the men in your father’s cousin’s city may be of a different breed. Who knows? Anyway, I believe we are set here. I have three sets of buttoned down blouses, two sets of trousers - I still don’t know how you can wear such things - a waistcoat and the other two tailored dresses will be dropped off at the manor tomorrow afternoon. We best start getting our things packed as well. Your parents will be leaving for the new world for a year, right?"

“Yes,” Elizabeth confirmed with a short nod as they departed from the tailor and set foot onto the cobblestone streets. Merriweather was a small but affluent city but even it had its fair share of doom and gloom. The city’s guards kept most of the riffraff pushed to the outskirts, their reserves funded by the Northcrest’s retainer. Blackhands still managed to slip past the Watch despite their best efforts. Thankfully, none had managed to break into the family manor. An air current found its way down into the shopping center and past the two women, causing them both to shiver. “Let’s hope winter will stay its hand. It’s only a few weeks away from the feel of it. The last thing I want is to roll through the snow in a carriage.”

“We’re in agreement there, miss. Come. Let’s get back to the house lest you catch cold.” The pair walked past the clock tower which decided then to chime out the hour, startling a flock of birds into the air. The weak autumn sun struggled to push through the haze of clouds as more leaves blanketed the city square. Little did Elizabeth know that her venture into the Eternal City was going to leave a mark on her forever.

—-

It was impossible to think that someone was more oppressive than Matteus Northcrest but Elias Northcrest had proven that statement wrong. Upon Elizabeth’s arrival to Northcrest manor in the beginning of the year NRy840, she was hardly let outside unless it was to attend matters of business or galas the aristocrats held every other week. If she needed something down in a shop, Charlotte or one of her other handmaids would be sent to fetch it. 

As frustrating as it was, Baron Northcrest hardly deigned to give her an answer. He’d simply tell her she was now living under his roof, despite her nearing thirty and having a full education. Word had gotten out the Baron’s niece had moved in and if the men here caught sight of her, they’d descend on her like wolves! Especially so once they heard she was unattached. Not to mention the womenfolk would gossip and that would no doubt tarnish the Northcrest reputation, something that had taken so long to be built up.  No, Baron Elias refused to let that sort of thing happen. 

So, Elizabeth Northcrest was confined to the manor grounds. 

In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. As winter rolled in, the brisk weather and snowfall made it miserable to linger outside longer than a few minutes. Elizabeth would curl up in the library before an open hearth with a new book she pilfered from the shelves and read for hours, watching the sun rise and fall as it crossed the heavens. There’d been countless books down here, several shelves blanketed with a fine coat of dust - clearly the Baron hadn’t visited his books for many months. Elizabeth, being a voracious reader ever since she was a little girl, settled in and made her nest the coziest thing amongst the pages. 

Most texts had been about science, others regarding the heavenly bodies or the mortal realm. Very few held the fictitious worlds she was used to but she made do until Charlotte had located a shop a few streets over in Stonemarket. She had Charlotte immediately scope it out and pick up what tomes Lottie knew her lady would like. After receiving a handful of recommendations, a gift box arrived outside Elizabeth’s door one morning packed to the brim with new titles, much to her delight. 

When she grew tired of reading, Elizabeth dabbled with the few tubes of paint she scrounged up along with semi-fresh canvas. Bits of charcoal had marred the white sides, of which she soon located. She was always one to experiment with new media and began to paint the courtyard, the guards patrolling the grounds, the birds that landed on her windowsill after being coaxed by seed. Even Charlotte had sat for her during Elizabeth’s charcoal phase. Black smudges coated her cheeks, nose tip and her forearms after she pulled back her day dress’s sleeves. Her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she sketched her handmaid’s profile, carving out the shadows and adding in highlights from the fireplace that played across Charlotte’s skin.

It had been a fine existence but only for a short while. After winter slowly turned into spring, greenery pushed up past the snow and dead leaves, Elizabeth had begun to get antsy. The library no longer felt like the wondrous escape as it had when she first arrived. Her illustrations began to lose that spark she first attained after acquiring a new muse. Even her stitching fell by the wayside. Standing out on the balcony attached to her room did little to quell the restless energy that hummed in her limbs. She wanted to get out and see the City’s people rather than observe them from above. So she did. 

After a handful of careful weeks’ worth of planning, Elizabeth finally decided to leave during the late afternoon. Elias would be holed up in his study, doing something or other Elizabeth cared not for, and would be in there for hours. There were times he didn’t even come out for dinner long after it had been set by his door. Now if she could get Charlotte to cover for her, she’d be set. The townsfolk had never seen her face before and her features were plain enough. If she applied powder in the right places, surely she’d fit right in.

After a quick stint in the bathroom and a change of clothes, Elizabeth braided back her hair and examined her reflection. Her twenty ninth birthday was coming up and she didn’t look a day past twenty. She always hated not looking her age but here she could play it to her advantage. Before she left the mirror behind, Elizabeth paused. The woman staring back at her looked tired, her skin pale from the lack of sun. In fact, the freckles on her face seemed to stand out in contrast to her sallow complexion. 

That’s a first, she thought. Elizabeth quickly checked her ears and fingers for any jewelry as she normally went about with one or the other before finally leaving her washroom behind-

To nearly run smack dab into her handmaid.

Both women let out surprised yelps as Charlotte dropped the laundry basket she’d been holding. Elizabeth quickly apologized only to have Charlotte dismiss her. Charlotte’s demeanor, typically straightlaced and formal when around Elizabeth, was loose and short. The handmaid fixed the bonnet holding her long waves of black hair back and quickly tidied up the mess on the floor. When Charlotte went to wave off her lady the second time did she do a double take.

“Miss Elizabeth?” Charlotte blinked at her for a heartbeat, taking in her plain attire and cloak. “What are you-? Where are you going?” her handmaid demanded as she shoved the remaining errant clothes back in the basket before standing up. Both women were close in height but Elizabeth was a half inch taller.

“Outside,” Elizabeth replied simply.

“Outside?” Charlotte repeated, staring at her before glancing about them. “You can’t- You know the Baron’s rules, miss!”

“All due respect, Lottie, fuck the Baron’s rules.” Elizabeth stepped around the other woman as Charlotte let out a sharp gasp. Elizabeth whipped around before her handmaid could scold her. “Lottie, I’ve done everything that man has asked of me since we got here. I haven’t stepped foot past the courtyard, I’ve entertained his guests, taken care of whatever tasks he’s asked me these last four months. I’ve earned a little bit of freedom. At least you’re able to come and go when you please.” That last was added bitterly as Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest, face red from her outburst. 

Charlotte’s expression softened a bit and she set down the laundry basket to tend to her lifelong friend. “I hadn’t realized…” she began before her sentence petered off. 

“What? That I’ve become a bird in a not so gilded cage?” Elizabeth joked lamely as Charlotte hugged her. Elizabeth returned the gesture, squeezing her friend and confidant tightly.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Charlotte asked, holding her friend at arm’s length. 

“I don’t know. You were enjoying being free to walk the grounds and flirting with the guards. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how Jonathan’s been staring at you lately.” Charlotte released her lady’s arms and flapped her hands, looking flustered as Elizabeth continued. A smile threatened to break out on her face. “I didn’t want to be a burden. And I was dealing with it… until I reached my breaking point.”

“Gods, Lizzie. I wish you would’ve said something sooner. Had I known, I would’ve done something. Oh, your mother would be so disappointed in me.” Charlotte placed a hand over her mouth and cast a forlorn look out the window across from them. 

“You can do something now, Lottie.” Elizabeth grabbed her friend’s free in hers, pulling Charlotte’s attention back to her face. “If Jonathan’s on watch, see if you can lean on him to look the other way for me. I’ve got the coin to bribe him if all else fails. I have also noticed there’s a large enough gap in the East facing gate. I can slip out through and back in and nobody will be the wiser. Please, Lottie. Please? I’ve been going stir crazy here.” Charlotte’s mouth thinned into a pale line and she soon let out a heavy sigh. 

“All right, Elizabeth, all right. But first, turn your coin purse like so. Keep it close. Stonemarket’s got a fair amount of blackhands running about. One of them’s gotten the Watch in such a tizzy lately. And don’t walk around too ladylike and formal. Well, if you do and someone says something, say you used to be a handmaid. Your clothes look okay enough that they’ll be overlooked. And-“

“And I’ve got that dagger Father reluctantly gave me a few birthdays back. I’ve had plenty of time to use it though it was only on a straw dummy.”

“Well, it should give most pause. If all else fails, run like the dickens back here if you can or hide out in a tavern. The Crippled Burrick is not too far from here. Food’s warm and ale’s aplenty. Just… avoid the home stew. Whatever was in it last I ate there played havoc with my stomach.” Charlotte scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue in emphasis.

“Noted. I’ll only be out for maybe an hour. Two at the most. The sun’s still out so I’ve got plenty of light to see by.”

“All right. Let me drop this bunch off and I’ll see you outside.”

Sometime later found Charlotte speaking closely outside with her lovesick guard and slipping a gold piece into his gloved hand and Elizabeth was home free. Jonathan was sure to help station a loyal friend of his to watch this hole and report back if Elizabeth hadn’t returned in her allotted time. The Baron would be none the wiser and the guards assisting them would be earning a few extra untaxed gold coins on the side on top of their normal wage. Unless someone squealed for gods’ knew what, they’d be set. 

—-

After a few heart pounding moments, Elizabeth finally slipped free from the manor’s grounds and quickly made her way into Stonemarket. Granted it wasn’t much to behold but her bit of freedom put it into a brighter light. There was an open market surrounding the base of the massive clock tower that seemed to pierce the sky. The bells inside clanged loudly to ring out the hour. Keeping an eye on the time, Elizabeth began to meander about the place, taking note of different points of interest. 

The Crippled Burrick wasn’t hard to pinpoint. It was mainly due to the patrons frequenting the place. Elizabeth surmised she’d visit the tavern last if only to wait out its customers. It seemed packed to the brim enough as it was. The outdoor market held little of interest so the lady turned common folk made her way over to another shop, laughing quietly to herself when she realized it was yet another jeweler’s store. Shrugging to herself, Elizabeth stepped inside and mingled with Serendi Jewellers’ other customers. 

As she passed by the displays, she overheard the store owner announcing to one client about a mask that was supposed to arrive in the near future. It was being custom made and only the highest quality of gems would be added to it. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. As much as she did enjoy a good masque, having something like that would be beyond gaudy of the shiny pieces she was currently examining had anything to say about it. She left the jeweler behind after purchasing a pair of modest earrings as a thank you gift for Lottie. She was going to owe her handmaid big if these outings became a frequent thing, something of which Elizabeth hoped for. 

She tucked the earrings away in a hidden skirt pocket as she stepped outside and meandered across the square. The clock tower decided then to ring out the quarter hour, drawing her attention skyward. As another flock of black birds took flight, Elizabeth could’ve sworn she spied… something moving carefully along the external beams but, once she blinked, it was gone. Dismissing it as nothing more than her overactive imagination, she headed for the next shop. 

The next forty five minutes had her clearing the square, a new serial romance novel in hand. With her nose buried deep into the pages, Elizabeth left the Stonemarket square behind her and stepped down another path. She glanced up every so often as to avoid bouncing off of a support beam or a wall that had suddenly just appeared. She’d been so engrossed in her new finding that she hadn’t taken notice of her surroundings until a cloud passed over the face of the sun, cloaking the area in semi darkness. Elizabeth squinted against the page as she neared the bottom and huffed in annoyance, finally tearing her gaze away from the tome only to have her stomach drop. 

She’d somehow wandered down a narrow alley that snaked behind various rundown shops and homes stationed above them. Bleak looking, rusty sconces mounted on the walls every few yards crackled with dying flames, throwing shadows everywhere. The smell finally hit her then. It was a sickly stench of urine, feces and vomit all mixed together. A wet hacking cough could be heard a few meters away, the owner hiding in the darkness.

Hells. Where am I? Shit, what did I just step- Okay, okay. Okay. Clean it off later. Don’t panic, don’t panic. She hurriedly tucked the book into another pocket, made sure she had easy access to her dagger and that it was also hidden out of sight then turned back around the way she came. 

Stride confidently. Don’t show weakness. Head up. Look like you know where you’re going. You’ll be fine. Elizabeth repeated that mantra in her head a hundred times over until even she believed it. She didn’t remember taking any turns but she was also so deep in that novel that she wasn’t terribly sure. Her bottom lip had started to hurt something awful after being clenched between her teeth for long before screaming with relief upon release. She loosed a sigh after hearing the first few notes of a song about Red Jenny nearby. Taking a left there spilled her out into a fish hawkers market that was strangely vacant save for a trio of guards bearing the Watch’s sigil on their chest pieces. As if sensing her presence, the men glanced up.

The looks on their faces were anything but kind. Elizabeth halted in her tracks immediately, a question dying instantly on the tip of her tongue. She tasted copped in her mouth and forced a strained smile on her face. “Apologies. I must’ve taken a wrong turn, gentleman.” The word sounded flat to her ears. “I didn’t mean to interrupt y-your card game and that, ah, lovely song. I’ll-I’ll be going now.” With that said, Elizabeth turned quickly on a mud covered heel and made to disappear back the way she came when a large hand wrapped none too gently around one of her elbows and steered her back into the fish market. 

“Now, now, miss. Where’d ya think yer goin’?” The guard’s grip tightened on her captured limb and pulled her closer to his compatriots. Elizabeth could do nothing but reluctantly follow, her sodden footsteps echoing dully off the stone. The place reeked of spoiled fish and fish guts which didn’t help with the queasy feeling rolling around in her own gut. “Come on then. Take a seat, put yer feet up.” The man yanked her over toward a nearby crate while his friends leered at her. The one closest to her leaned in for a better look, a big, bushy crop of hair springing out over his top lip. Elizabeth quickly pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders to cover her chest and glared back at him.

“Ease up, Roberts. Yer mustache frightens all the girls. I told ya ta shave,” the first man said with a laugh.

“Hm. I think I like her a bit more when she’s scared,” Roberts replied, his grin widening further. “She’s got a bit of spunk in her. Most dockfrocks don’t have that fire. It’s all fake.”

“Well, no shit, man. What woman in her right mind would shack up with you?” the first quipped and let out a booming laugh. Elizabeth felt like her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth, she couldn’t speak. What could she say that wouldn’t speed up this interaction or otherwise offend these men? They hadn’t quite put their hands on her really just yet but she knew full well that her time was running out. She was kicking herself hard for not taking up with those self defense lessons as the basics were completely wiped from her mind. If the gods, old or new, answered her prayers she was silently screaming in her head, she’d begin them again. 

“All right, gents. Who’s going first? I know she ain’t Lydia but at least this one doesn’t have a six month long waiting list. I’m also sure she doesn't have crabs,” the second guard remarked as he stood up to his full height; he was at least nearly two heads taller than her. Elizabeth gritted her teeth hard enough she was sure a molar cracked under the pressure. She took an inadvertent step backward as the man straightened up. The guards didn’t miss the movement. And he seemed to enjoy it.

The second guard’s hands quickly shot out to grip her biceps tightly and leered at her again. “Where you goin’, love? If you don’t scream, we’ll make this enjoyable for ya.”

“Now, that would be a feat in and of itself,” rumbled another man’s voice behind her. It wasn’t nearly as deep as the other man’s and had a sort of sarcastic lilt to it. The second guard released her arms but only out of shock rather than complete willingness and a gentle hand quickly wrapped about her waist, tugging her back a few steps. Elizabeth didn’t dare take her eyes off the men in front of her but she so desperately wanted to given the looks of anger mixed with surprise and a little fear on the Watchmen’s faces. 

“You.” The word was growled out with such malice and outrage that it nearly stilled Elizabeth’s heart. At least the anger wasn’t directed at her this time. The guard in front of them grinned an animosity filled smile as if a plan was hatching inside his head. “Well, men. It looks like the Master Thief has decided to grace us with his presence. We should be honored.”

Master Thief? Gods, this day just keeps getting better and better. Elizabeth quickly threw her gaze skyward with a pleading look. They sent a thief to save her? There were three heavily armed and armored individuals before the two of them and thieves normally sported light armor. They would easily get run through, if they got caught by the Watch. The other guards seemed to be following that train of thought as the other two spread out in a loose triangle formation in the square to head the thief and their quarry off. 

“What’s it going to be, Child of the Shadows?” the guard taunted as he advanced on the pair. Elizabeth only noticed now that she and the thief had moved closer to the alleyway she’d just exited only minutes ago. This thief had been inching them ever so slowly backward towards a means of escape. “There’s three of us and only one a’ you. You let the girl go and we might just give ya a good head start on getting outta here.”

“I think I’m going to have to decline that lovely proposition, Captain, as tempting as it may be,” the thief quipped. Something in his voice told them all he was smiling beneath that dark half mask covering his face. “Go seek a dockfrock over in the skin market. This girl’s not a part of their ledgers.” His fingers dug into her side as she was pulled closer. “You let us both go without a fuss and I’ll make sure this doesn’t get back to the man in charge of your sorry asses.”

The guard, the captain, let out a short bark of mirthless laughter and bared his teeth in some semblance of a smile. “Now who would believe the word of a thief, hm?”

“Maybe we should listen to ‘im, Cap’n,” piped up the young guard who’d been quiet until this point. “I mean, if the Baron or fore-“

“Shut your lid, Private,” the captain snapped, ripping his gaze away from the pair in front of him as he tore into his subordinate who blanched at the reprimand. “If I gave a shit about every little opinion that came outta your pissing mouth, we’d never get anywhere!”

“But sir-“ The poor lad was quickly cut off. With their attention diverted, the thief kept working both himself and Elizabeth back to the alley. She felt coarse fabric scratch the shell of her right ear as the thief leaned in close. This near to him she could smell the leather he wore, a soft scent that had been overpowered by the rotting fish around them. 

“Close your eyes and keep them closed until I tell you,” she heard him whisper. “All right?” Elizabeth sucked in a worried breath and dipped her head once in a nod after a heartbeat. 

“That’s my girl.” She was ever so thankful she wasn’t facing this Master Thief at that point in time as her face turned a bright shade of pink at his choice of words. Remembering he was about to unleash his plan, Elizabeth quickly shut her eyes and not a moment too soon. A bright flash illuminated the insides of her eyelids and she felt her body being scooped up and pressed against the thief’s chest, the belts and sheathed blades digging into her torso as he ran. The guards fumbled about themselves, cursing profusely and, just as they rounded a corner, Elizabeth could’ve sworn she heard the sound of a distant splash as one of them took a tumble into the murky water. 

“All right. You can open your eyes now,” the thief said some time later. Elizabeth did so and her shoulders sagged with relief upon hearing the familiar sounds of the hustle and bustle of Stonemarket trickling down to them. She was then intensely aware the man was still holding her. Elizabeth had been certain the rogue’s hands had never strayed into unwanted territory but if he was truly a Master Thief…

His arm beneath her knees gave way suddenly and her boots smacked the wet stone. The thief’s other arm steadied her briefly before letting go and that’s when she finally got a good look at him. Elizabeth tried not to peer at the rogue too closely for fear of him disappearing into the gloom but her hands itched for a bit of charcoal and clean paper. He wasn’t dressed like the other thieves she’d borne witness to, which weren’t many, but he had an air of maturity and professionalism about him. He knew when to pull back from a heist or so Elizabeth assumed. 

“You mind telling me what possessed you to wander down Glimmer Lane by yourself?” His low voice snapped her out of her musings and her face heated slightly at the scolding in his tone. “Most folk around here know better than to head that way alone. If pressed, they go armed and don’t linger long.”

Elizabeth glared at him but his words hit home. “I was armed, Master Thief,” she countered, crossing her arms over her chest as she hit him with a look of sheer annoyance.

“Yes, a small dagger and boring holes into their heads with that fierce gaze of yours count as proper weaponry. Just do us all a favor and don’t head that way unless you’re looking for trouble.”

“I-you- Why did you intervene? You were clearly outnumbered and could’ve been run through,” Elizabeth countered as the thief, clad head to toe in leathers, multiple daggers and a dark cloak that billowed out behind him, walked past her. 

“Eh, call it good timing,” he replied plainly as he neared a rickety old, metal ladder, a gloved hand resting on a lower rung. “Any chance I get to stir up a little trouble with the Watch I call a win in my book. Thanks for the extra coin by the way.” He seemed to smile a bit beneath that mask of his as he vaulted up the ladder with catlike grace. Elizabeth took her eyes off him and fumbled with her coin purse. Sure enough, it was just a bit lighter than when she’d gone down that alley. She glanced up where she’d last seen the thief and let out a huff, placing her hands on her hips. At least that was all that had been stolen from her. 

With her unexpected savior now gone back into the shadows, Elizabeth made for the Burrick for a hot meal and a pint of ale. She wanted to leave that whole fish market business behind her. The guards’ looks were burned into her memory and, each time she relived that moment, a shudder ran down her spine. She’d come close to something horrific and escaped by the skin of her teeth. Had that rogue not appeared at her side when he did… Elizabeth mentally shook herself. She did not want to continue that line of thought. Scarfing down a meal of potatoes, burnt meat and pisspoor ale, she left the Burrick and made for the manor, knowing her two hours was nearly up. 

It very much was given the panicked look on Jonathan’s face as he stood near the hole in the courtyard gate. 

“Where have you been?” The guard practically hissed like a snake as Elizabeth stepped through the bent bars. “Lottie’s been worried out of her mind for the last twenty minutes!”

“Sorry. Got held up the Burrick,” Elizabeth replied, as she gathered her skirts up to avoid them catching on the metal. 

“Well, don’t let it happen again.”

“Did the Baron notice my absence?” 

“No, miss. Like always, he’s been shut up in his study. Don’t think he’s left it since mid morning.”

“Just like I thought,” Elizabeth muttered to herself then placed a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. Looking at the man, he wasn’t that much older than her, perhaps a few years her junior. A bit of stubble graced his cheeks and he had a ragged scar poking out from the side of his helmet by his jawline. She could see what Lottie saw in him. He had kind eyes and a good disposition. “Thank you for keeping a look out here. Now that I know what to expect, next time should be a bit easier.”

“Next time,” the guard sputtered after her as Elizabeth made for the courtyard door. She tossed him a wave before slipping inside, hardly containing a giggle at the look of exasperation plain on his face. Once inside, the manor didn’t feel quite as oppressive. It was still there, that much she could tell, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as it was only a few hours ago. Before she’d gone any further, Elizabeth kicked off her boots, wincing a little at the smell. She needed to dispose of any and all evidence that she’d gone off the manor grounds. She also didn’t need to cause any additional havoc with the manor’s house staff.

After pilfering the downstairs linen closet, Elizabeth found an old pillow case that had been stuffed into the far back and bagged up her shoes before tiptoeing upstairs. She wanted to remain a ghost just long enough to get back to her room and change out of her sodden skirts. Just as she slipped into her room, Charlotte had entered from another entrance by the washroom. 

“Jonathan wasn’t lying!” her friend exclaimed as she rushed to her lady’s side. “You are back! Lizzie, you had me worried out of my mind when you weren’t back at the allotted time. What happened? Jonathan said something about the Burrick being overcrowded? And what is that awful stench? It smells like an outhouse!” Elizabeth held up the sack holding her shoes and Charlotte quickly took it away, placing it in the copper bathtub. Shutting the door kept the smell from further tainting the room.

“Lottie, what do you know about this Master Thief everyone’s been going on about?” Elizabeth asked, quickly derailing another tirade of questions her handmaid was about to toss her way. 

“I-What? The… Master Thief?” Charlotte slowly repeated before lacing her hands together in thought. “I… I only know what little Jonathan has bestowed upon me. This rogue is very cunning. Clever. Certainly is not your average man. Most of the Watch seem to think him a ghost given they haven’t been able to catch him.” Charlotte shrugged, shaking her head as she paced Elizabeth’s bedroom, her heels softly tapping against the old wood floors. “I mean, how does one catch a ghost?”

“Has anyone ever gotten close enough for a look?” Elizabeth pondered as she walked to her four poster bed and began to shimmy out of her stained clothes until she was only in her chemise. 

“None who’ve lived to tell about it. He seems to only be interested in stirring up trouble for affluent society. An opportunistic sort,” Charlotte answered, her hands spreading wide. Her handmaid then tilted her head to the side, studying her friend. “Why the sudden interest? Wait, did you run into him? Did he rob you?”

“Well, yes and no,” Elizabeth rubbed the back of her neck before playing with the end of her braid. 

“‘Yes and no’. What in the hells does that mean?” Charlotte demanded sharply as she walked to her lady’s side. “Elizabeth, did this man rob you? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Charlotte was already beginning to turn her friend this way and that, searching for any sign of an attack. Elizabeth grabbed her handmaid’s hands and stilled her movements.

“No, he didn’t but… a small contingent of the Watch nearly did,” Elizabeth said softly. Charlotte’s eyes widened in disbelief and she blinked. She remained quiet as Elizabeth recounted her trek through Stonemarket then her absentminded walk down Glimmer Lane which dropped her off into the fish hawker’s square. Charlotte had turned an even paler shade as Elizabeth recalled the guards’ filthy words and their even filthier intentions when the thief had made an appearance. 

“He saved me, Lottie. Why in the name of the gods would a thief risk his neck for me?”

Charlotte squeezed her lady’s palms once before letting go. “I wish I had an answer for you, miss. Why do rogues do anything? You did say he stole from you so perhaps he saw it as an opportunity to make a quick bit of coin.”

“He could’ve stolen the whole purse, Lottie, but he didn’t. It was like he just took a small fee. Oh!” Elizabeth scooped up her skirts and began rifling through the fabric fold until she located the right pocket. “That reminds me! I got you these.” She held out the pair of sapphire earrings she purchased earlier for her maid to take. “I hadn’t noticed he pilfered a handful of coins from my purse. I likely wouldn’t have noticed these were gone until now.”

“Oh, miss, these are just lovely!” Charlotte took the pair from Elizabeth’s hands and held them up to the lamp where they caught in the light. Small, colorful prisms were thrown against the nearby wall and danced as Charlotte turned her new piece this way and that. As Charlotte looked back at her friend, she sighed. “I can’t be mad at you now. Especially at this. And knowing you, you’re planning another outing, aren’t you?”

Elizabeth sheepishly smiled. “I’m also considering reaching out to Jonathan and asking him if he could walk me through a few moves. Basic disarming and the like. Something to help me hold my ground and prove I’m more of a threat than an easy target.”

Charlotte pocketed the jewelry and her mouth thinned but she eventually nodded. “You might need some more coin to convince but I think he’ll help. As much as I don’t like the image of you fighting, I detest the thought of you being hurt even more. Just promise me that you won’t take any risks.”

While she couldn’t guarantee it, Elizabeth nodded and promised her friend. Satisfied, Charlotte gathered up her lady’s sodden clothes and drew her a hot bath. Elizabeth insisted on cleaning her boots first, if just to get rid of the horrid smell quicker, before rinsing out and entering the tub herself. Charlotte tossed the stained clothes down a laundry chute and laid out fresh linens for Elizabeth to slip into for dinner. The rest of the night, the rogue who spirited her away from trouble remained in Elizabeth’s thoughts well into the late evening and into the following week. Sketching the man hadn’t helped much. 

She wanted to see him again if just to demand answers from him. She had enough coin to perhaps persuade him that way but that meant finding him again. Elizabeth didn’t fancy another meeting with that guard trio so she kept her head down. She remained indoors for the rest of the week until she decided enough time had passed that she was sure they weren’t searching for her. Still, she kept clear of the so-called Glimmer Lane. A few days after her second romp around Stonemarket, she visited the book sellers to pick up the next few volumes of her latest serial. After loaning the first in the series to Charlotte, Elizabeth needed to locate the next few as her handmaid tore through the book right quick. 

She also nabbed a book that gave the reader an in-depth overview of close quarters combat and sword play. She’d be damned before getting caught unawares again. 

[juuls]

Juulna’s 2021 Multi-Fandom Fanfiction Rec List - Part Three

(Yes, I realize this is a year late, but this year's been a bit nuts. I still hope you enjoy these fics anyway!)

Based only on what I’ve read with my own eyes this year!

Follow me on my journey into what, at times, was…

…actually rather calming! Perhaps you can find some comfort and entertainment, fluff and angst and romance and friendship, smut and a distinct lack of it, space adventures and fantasy and modern adventures, serial killers and good guys, redemption and reconciliation and learning to become someone completely different — there is so much here I read that stuck with me over the past year, and the 2021 Fanfic Reading Challenge ( @fanfic-reading-challenge ) allowed me a new way to keep track of all of my favourites. So props to that event! Definitely participating again (considering I run the event, yeah, that's probably a given lol, but full disclosure).

Without further ado, here were my 2021 fic favourites!

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six

Fandom: Star Wars

Kylo Ren/Reader:

Love Is Blind by @elmidol

After having been temporarily blinded due to an injury, you learned new skills. These you continued to hone after you had healed, and so you took to wearing blindfolds.

Supreme Leader Snoke deemed these skills useful for the Knights of Ren, which led to your quarters changing to those beside Kylo Ren's. Slowly you came to understand him. And, in his own way, he came to know you as well.

Reylo:

Gambits by bitterbones

In which an attempt is made on the life of galactic senator Ben Organa-Solo, and Rey is assigned to be his personal bodyguard. Their biology makes them fast enemies, and Rey struggles to balance her duty as a Jedi with the rivalry forming between them. Perhaps they even hate one another. Until suddenly they don't.

*Then he was moving through the darkness, and for all the training she had endured, Rey froze when faced with his shadow. He caught her jaw in his hand, and Rey shivered at its breadth. His hands were soft, his grip firm. That confusing scent assaulted her again, stronger this time as its source breathed in her face.

“But understand this, little Jedi, you are a guest in my territory. Any omegas I bring back are mine . I am larger than you, I am stronger than you. You listen to me , are we clear? I am dominant, between the two of us. I am the alpha .”

With a few steadying breaths she managed to dampen her alpha response enough to speak, “Get out of my face.”

The Stormtrooper's Handguide On How To Handle An Insufferable Boss by riffraffes

“We... have a favor to ask,” one of the Stormtroopers says slowly, almost sheepishly. The blank white faces of the masks stare back at her, but Rey can feel waves of embarrassment and fear rolling off of them.

Rey doesn't have all day to pander to them, so she lets out a low growl, daring them to continue.

“Can you please fuck Kylo Ren, already?” comes out desperately, and it's got to be the absolute last thing that she had ever expected to hear.

The Escort by @grlie-girl

Rey, a college student living in Chicago, gets roped into the world of high-end escorting. It’s Thursday night and she is on her way to meet her newest client: a man named Kylo Ren.

Delicious Ambiguity by Juulna

Rey and Kylo Ren repeatedly encounter each other in battle over the years, fighting desperately for the causes that they believe in even as they both grow in strength - and fight off growing curiosity. Yet when Kylo tells Rey that she's pregnant via the Force, will that affect their interactions? And will it change Kylo irrevocably?

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” ― Gilda Radner

They say that only the dead have seen the end of war by Juulna and @cuthian

“He traded his life for mine,” Rey choked, stomping back and forth in front of him so fast he could barely keep track of her. “He died. He died so I didn’t have to—and it’s not—it’s—after everything he’s gone through—it’s not fair.”

Tears were running down her cheeks now, and Poe wanted to do nothing more than hug her, but there was nothing he could say—nothing she would want to hear. Poe remembered all the people he’d lost, all the times he had raged and screamed and cried about the unfairness of it all.

“Leia sacrificed herself to bring him back,” Rey declared suddenly, ceasing her constant pacing around the fire as she looked straight at him. “And he sacrificed himself for me—and now no one’s going to know. All he’ll be remembered as is Kylo Ren, but he was—he was so much more.” She exhaled with a shudder and whispered, “He was a part of me, and I—I don’t feel whole without him.”

A Force Ghost Ben/Rey love story, with a side of rebuilding the galaxy.

The Shadow Knight by six4au

There are worse things than being a ghost. Walking through walls is kind of fun, and eavesdropping on conversations is certainly convenient, but how do you get the attention of someone who can't see you? Ineptly, it turns out.

Fandom: The Witcher

Geraskefer:

A history of dragons in popular culture by @deputychairman

“I wanted a point of comparison,” she said. “Because he looks at me like he really – loves me, or something.”

“Yeah,” said Jaskier, resigned. “He does that sometimes. Isn’t it a bitch?”

They were half way through the second bottle by now, and their shoulders were touching. She could feel the hard line of Jaskier’s thigh against hers. She was very aware of the chest hair visible at the open neck of his shirt, and how he could probably see down her dress from here. She hadn’t moved to put any distance between them and neither had he.

“Why are we still talking about him? I don’t care about Geralt of Rivia any more,” lied Yennefer.

“Nor do I,” Jaskier lied back.

A Twist in Time by didoandis

When Jaskier looks over the witcher has his eyes shut tight, his whole body seeming pained. Jaskier realises he wants to soothe him, and the strength of feeling surprises him. He’s been too long without company.

“What happened?” the witcher says finally.

Jaskier blinks. “That’s quite a big question. I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific.”

“With Nilfgaard,” the witcher clarifies, growling slightly. “It shouldn’t – it didn’t happen like this.”

In 1240, Jaskier the bard leaves Posada earlier than planned because of a devil in the mountains.

In 1263, three years after Nilfgaard conquers the north, Julian Pankratz, viscount of Lettenhove, hires a witcher and learns about the path his life should have taken.

This is not an AU.

Smother by @funkzpiel

The first time it happened, Geralt was alone. Not alone as he once had been. Not alone because he chose to be alone. Alone, because he drove them away. No one would have a man who used ill-gotten wishes and spewed nothing but poisonous barbs from their mouth when you tried to comfort him. Alone, in a tub of water to scald the ache from his muscles, he wondered why it did little to relieve the pain. Why still he ached. Why it coalesced around his lungs like a thorn bush.

And then the coughing started.

blood on the marble walls by @ghostinthelibrarywrites

After being ambushed during a hunt, Griffin witcher Yennefer wakes up in a cell with two other witchers— a Cat named Jaskier and a wolf named Geralt. Held captive by a mage who wants to use them to create more witchers, there seems to be no chance of escape. But as Yennefer grows closer to her cellmates, she realizes that she’ll do anything to get the three of them out of this alive.

Series: buttercup by bloomerie

Jaskier might run with witchers and witches, but she is, in the end, human.

Constellations by @penny-anna

"I know how soulmarks work. If a person has two names writ upon them by destiny, then one is to guide them to their true love and the other to their worst enemy. Everyone knows that." / "That’s an old wives’ tale."

When Jaskier was fourteen, two names appeared on his skin: 'Geralt' and 'Yennefer'.

Rumor Has It by @cardamomdaydream

The school staff can't help but wonder about Ciri's stupidly hot parents.

The Tale of Jaskier's Grudge Against Historians (and how they gave him his happy ending anyway) by notebooksandlaptops

[Text Sent From Ciri] Is there a reason why a love letter to Yen and Geralt is in the British Museum signed from you?? -C

[Text Sent to Ciri] Because Historians are nosey pricks. Do NOT tell your parents. -J

[Text Sent From Ciri] ;) – C

The winking face of a semicolon and a bracket stared up at him, composed of unforgiving pixels. She wouldn’t, would she? No. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

-///-

Or, an exploration of the reason (immortal) Jaskier hates historians (hint: it's because they keep stealing his shit and putting it on display)

Geraskier:

The Witcher Soldier by @avoidingaverage

Geralt barely managed to slam the pommel of his sword up in a glancing blow that shattered the metal latch holding the Soldier’s mask in place. The Soldier rolled into the movement with a dancer’s grace and came to his full height just as easily. For a moment, his hands reached up to run over the exposed skin, before he slowly turned to face Geralt once more.

The Witcher froze in a mixture of horror and near-frantic hope.

He stared into the eyes of a dead man and whispered, “Jaskier?”

The Soldi--the bard frowned at him in confusion and spoke with a voice rough with disuse,

“Who the hell is Jaskier?” ___________________________

Or, the Winter Soldier AU.

Series: Meet Death Sitting by @bomberqueen17

"OK this series has been going on for 2 years now and I should summarize it better.

The first part is several decades of, largely, Geralt and Jaskier's interactions, as they both fumble together toward some kind of meaningful understanding. That section largely concludes with a Jaskier/Geralt/Yennefer endgame.

Then there's a time jump, and the series picks up after the events of the Witcher 3 games. I follow Lambert as he copes with grief, and Keira as she learns new things about herself, and the lives they make.

I decided to tell the story of how Ciri became Empress after W3, which intersects with Keira and Lambert's adventures; I read the books somewhere in this and got invested in some of the themes they brought up. And entangled with this, I got interested in the politics of the North, especially the Upper Aedirn Free State and the threads laid down in the Witcher 2 game that didn't exactly get resolved in Witcher 3, and so I have several stories dealing with that thread, which will intersect with the other stories in the same timeline."

Fandom: Hannibal (NBC)

Hannigram:

Philia by @gweezle

Getting into Jack Crawford's Forensic Psychology class was a dream come true for Will Graham, until he learns that his final assignment is to attend twelve interviews with the notorious serial killer, Hannibal the Cannibal, in order to unravel his mysterious past.

Even as he grows closer to the truth, he also grows closer to Dr. Lecter, and the doctor is very eager to get to know this young man who thinks like a murderer.

The Unknown Prince by HissyTheDangerNoodle

Will Graham has days to find an alpha or he's done for. As if his life could be any more like a tragic opera.

Dévorer by @tauuuriel

He's always intense, always focused, but this is different. He's looking at her, and not just at her skin or her dress or hair or face or even the necklace he so lavishly doled out to her - he's looking at her soul, and she knows, just as she knows that yesterday someone died at the hands of an abusive husband, that he sees the way she's opened up like a flower in the sunlight, chasing off the dark shadows and revealing her true self.

A Perfect Set-Up by purplesocrates

Hannibal leans in slightly now, apparently intrigued. 'Well, the killer attacks single omega’s usually after being seen with someone high profile, many of them psychiatrists, as I’m sure you’re aware, Doctor. That’s the MO.' Will feels a sudden, very strong desire to run out of the room, maybe even the building. 'You would like us to be bait,' Hannibal states with a ghost of a smile that Will decides to ignore. 'Yes, quite frankly. You’d both be wearing a wire, and we’d have eyes on you at all times,' Jack explains to Hannibal, who is now actually smiling. ‘I thought this would be a good move and also allows us to keep an eye on you Doctor, after all, he may escalate to hurting alpha’s,’ Jack reasons. ‘At this stage, all we’re asking is that you have dinner.’ 'I’m sure we can manage that,' Hannibal says, looking at Will with a smirk that makes Will blush bright red.

Bright Hair About the Bone by MissDisoriental

Trapped in a system where omegas are little more than trophies to be bought and sold, Will Graham has done the unthinkable by escaping a forced bonding. Already in high demand as a profiler, Will's determined to find freedom on his own terms.

For Hannibal Lecter the outlook is far more straightforward: a slow, systematic seduction of the most uniquely captivating omega he's ever encountered.

As the shadow of a new and terrifying serial killer falls over Baltimore, the stage is set to redefine all accepted meanings of passion, temptation, horror and beauty – and to discover the ecstasy of a genuine love crime.

Mark me not a Savage by @katherinekrawl

When Will opens Hannibal's letter, it wakes something primal locked inside of him. He doesn't understand it, but what he does know is that he has to go to Baltimore hospital for the criminally insane, and he has to go now.

 Dear Will. He could still see the words, written in the curly elegance of Hannibal's hand, burning behind his eyelids. He breathed deeply through his nose to try and calm the unsteady flutter of his heart. A deep breath. One that clawed at his nose, one that penetrated his nostrils like a liquid, a smothering sting he felt intruding behind his eyes.

One. Deep. Breath.

And then it took him.

The Borderland State by @nekosmuse

Three years after Hannibal's arrest, Will Graham stands on the front porch of his Georgian seaside home and watches twin headlights navigate the winding stretch of his lane. There is only one reason Jack Crawford would travel all this way, in the rain: Hannibal Lecter has escaped from prison, and no one knows where he is.

Written for the Hannibal Kink Meme prompt: Will figured out Hannibal was the Chesapeake ripper, resulting Hannibal's imprisonment and a complete breakdown for Will. A few years later, Hannibal escapes from prison. Despite the risk, the first thing he does is go after his Mongoose. Give me obsessive, possessive, creepy as hell Hannibal who still wants Will for his own.

Series: When the Devil Smiles Back by @fancybedelia

Four years after his escape, Hannibal Lecter is once again imprisoned at the hospital in Baltimore. He's the same as ever, except that he refuses to discuss Will Graham, who there hasn't been a trace of in years. When the Buffalo Bill killings start, FBI trainee Clarice Starling is sent to interview him, and Hannibal has his interest piqued. But it’s not for reasons anyone would suspect, and as usual, his motivations are all about Will. A remix of Silence of the Lambs, where Clarice finds herself occupied not only with catching Buffalo Bill, but with unraveling the mystery of what exactly happened to Will Graham. And Hannibal knows more than he’s letting on about both.

Molly & Freddie, background Hannigram:

TKO by @sidnihoudini

Molly deals with the aftermath.

Frowning, Molly turns to retrieve two mugs from the cupboard. As she slides them from the cupboard she asks, “You think they’ll come back?”

“It isn’t likely they’ve left,” Freddie explains, eyes trailing over Molly’s hands as she sets the mugs down and pours their coffee. “Jack Crawford is looking for them in Florence. Hannibal’s ex-psychiatrist turned up a week ago missing a leg. You tell me what continent they’re on.”

The mug Molly is holding clatters against the counter top loudly, and coffee sloshes everywhere.

“Excuse me?” Molly finds herself laughing, sharp voiced and flabbergasted. She turns again, enough to see Freddie, smirking and staring back at her from the kitchen table.

Fandom: Humans Are Weird

Humans are Weird: Shorts by @thewildwaffle

What if when we get to space and we find out that all our movies, stories, etc. where humans are weak and (honestly) pathetic compared to most of the species in the galaxy, were wrong. What if we are actually the strong ones? The crazy ones? The hard-to-kill ones? The dangerous ones? Or maybe even the adorably cute ones? The ones that will out-progress most other species because we take seemingly too big/stupid risks and it pays off? Or we are very good at looking at problems from different perspectives. etc. You get the point.

Humans are my favorite mythical creature by @xandurielx

Short stories about humans on the galactic scene, some from alien points of view and others about these mythical tiny juggernauts. Brought over from tumblr and added to when possible.

Boldly Go by @cheezygoddess

[this was originally written as a fanfiction for Ultimate Spider-Man, however after much consideration and input from readers I believe this reads better as an original work] (dedicated to Audio and WebKat for giving me the idea). --- Sehmal and his fellow 'guards' were hand selected. Mainly for their ability to be surprised or alarmed without going into shock and dying. Secondarily because they had no bonded partners to distress if they died anyways. And only lastly because they studied aliens.

He just wished he'd been told before volunteering for this expedition that it was for the study of humans.

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis/SG-1

McShep:

Decade by canis_lupus

Ten years ago, an expedition left for Atlantis. They were never heard from again.

Decreasing Radii by @cathalins

An alien device forces John and Rodney to do something they wouldn't do otherwise. The aftermath is not easy. But sometimes, not-easy leads to good things.

Happy by crysothemis

"Wait," John said, because this had to be a joke, didn't it? "You know Ronon, but you don't know me? What the hell did that thing do to you?"

Weddings, Plural, and a Yak by @cesperanza

By the eighth time John Sheppard married Rodney McKay, they were old pros at the wedding thing, having weathered not only an Ouishan blood wedding, but also a twelve-hour Avalonian handfasting, a Malanese necklace exchange, and a Thurtu joining ceremony that invoked a fire god and featured seven kinds of cake.

Series: The History of Rome by @indygodusk

From Part One: When the IOA task General O’Neill to find a command staff for Atlantis, he delegates the selection to SG-1. On paper, they’re the best of the best. Unfortunately, the IOA won’t go for it because there’s one big problem: they’re all women.

Dr. R. Meredith Mckay is the leading expert on Ancient technology and a genius. Being a woman is merely incidental, or at least it should be. Major John Sheppard is a disgraced pilot. He doesn’t want any excitement in his life, but alien spaceships and hot scientists are hard to resist, especially when that scientist is Rome.

Written by the Victors by @cesperanza

Caroll, Franklin R. Atlantis Revisited. New York and London, Routledge, 2011. Chapman, Denise. Several Kinds of Genius: The Life of Rodney McKay. NY: Harper Perennial, 2015. Croft, Rosalind. City of Spires: A Memoir. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2009. Dugan, Paul. A Political History of Atlantis. Oxford: OUP, 2012.

Fandom: Julie & the Phantoms

AlexReggieWillieLuke & Julynn endgame:

Series: An Anchor, a Port in the Storm by @cuthian

"Home should be an anchor, a port in a storm, a refuge, a happy place in which to dwell, a place where we are loved and where we can love." Marvin J. Ashton

From Part One:

“How do you even know you wanna kiss a guy?”

And later, Alex wouldn’t be able to justify, even to himself, what made him say it, but the words that came out of his mouth were, “I don’t know. Just kiss me, see how that feels.”

Reggie’s eyes snapped open.

--Alex/Reggie prequel to Becoming a Memory, Becoming a Treasure OR How Two Himbos Explored Their Sexuality Together

[taruth3mighty]

Doodle World x Undertale

I wanted to just spit out a bunch of Undertale Soundtracks that fit certain characters or just areas where I believe will come up later. In no particular order. CORE. Which I believe could totally fit the style of DoodleCo City. It's literally an entire city built by DoodleCo and it's our final destination. CORE is the final area of Undertale so it fits in my opinion. Undertale (The Soundtrack) I can most definitely see this being played if we ever get an extensive look into Quincy's home and how it feels like. Considering how DoodleCo City is likely where he lives, I can see this playing in the background as we explore the place. The Choice Wouldn't it be fun to see Mister Riffraff talk to us at the end of the game, talking about our choice that we're about to make. Since keep in mind, we're still collecting these keys, we don't know why our Player character is still collecting the keys. To collect and get the large amount of money? To keep it all safe from the clutches of evil? To simply have it around? We don't know and that is a choice we have to make. Alphys I can see this being Portia's theme if hers ever got replaced, it's so nerdy yet means well. It also has that hint of darkness behind it, just like Alphys, considering her whole mom thing it fits with that. Oh! One True Love Okay this one is more of a joke but it's funny to imagine, just think of Mister Riffraff showing up in a dress like Mettaton does since he totally would. Barrier I feel like this would be a fitting theme to play once we meet Charles and see the two seals that holds the two sides of Somniere. Small Shock Again, another Asgore related theme that I feel works for Charles. Charles is essentially going to be the final boss from what I can tell. I've already made a Charles fic that references him as Asgore. Speaking of which... Bergentrückung & ASGORE These fit a final boss so well, especially a grieving being that cannot turn back his mistake and can only see his actions through the end. That what I feel like would be Charles' vibes. Though I could totally become wrong. Your Best Friend, Your Best Nightmare and literally all Flowey related tracks. They totally fit Joseph in my opinion. Joseph quite literally breaks the fourth wall just as Flowey does at one point. And he knows way more than he should. They are both always smiling and give off that friendly-yet-eerie vibe. And I believe that Joseph will backstab Charles like Flowey did to Asgore. But let's go into specific detail. You Idiot Literally would play as Joseph stabs Charles in the back as he takes the keys DoodleCo had accumulated throughout the Key Hunt. Being overly cocky and confident that no one can possibly put a stop to him, after all, they had to get through Charles and they were all too weak to stop him. Then of course, Your Best Nightmares plays. Don't Give Up All of the friends and people you've helped throughout your journey had finally arrived just in the nick of time to help out. Cheering you on as you become more and more determined to stop the man behind the slaughter. It all accumulates into a battle against him. Hopes and Dreams Everything has led up to this moment... Where you face the one once sealed away. Somniere. Everyone's hopes. Everyone's dreams all culminating in this very moment. Either whether or not you beat it or catch it. You will make sure this cycle of misery ends in this very fight. Everyone was relying on you, trusting you, and cheering you on. You were going to put a permanent stop to this dormant war. Reunited I've already made a fic about this, but I like to think that after you beat Somniere, whether you catch or knock it out. You leave the place where it was sealed away and walk out to your friends rushing in and just all making sure everyone's alright. Just a happy ending for everyone.

[taiblogcomics]

All the Trappings, None of the Substance

Hey there, straight-edge Bigfoot. We're nearly done with Avengers Undercover, can you believe it? All signs point to "this wasn't worth it!", so let's just barrel ahead and get to today's review~

Here's the cover:

Oh geez, this cover. Good god. Like, I guess Zemo looks okay, though personally I'd be pointing my sword towards the big giant face I was jumping at, not up. Also, I think his gun holster is empty. Zemo's fine. No, it's the big giant face of Giant Man that's truly horrifying. Like, it's a little too realistic for such a cartoony expression. Weirdly thin lips, giant squared-off teeth, mouth open too wide… Is he about to eat Zemo? I haven't seen Attack on Titan, but I'm pretty sure an Attack on Titan scene is about to happen. Also, there's no background, so this fight is just taking place in a white void. All that aside, the other problem with this cover? None of the teens this comic is supposedly about are on it~

So we open with the Avengers showing up outside Bagalia. Like, is it less of an international incident if they park their Helicarrier outside of the borders and fly in on their own than if they flew the whole vehicle over the border? I don't know how that works. And I say "Avengers", but we got Captain Britain and Meggan, who are part of Braddock Academy, and Hyperion, who is part of Squadron Supreme, and… Well, I guess Spider-Woman is an Avenger, so you got me there. Anyways, this dramatic action scene is undercut by a farmer yelling at them that they scared his goats.

Meanwhile, actually in Bagalia, we pick up from last issue with Anachronism fighting the mind-controlled Cullen Bloodstone (in his monster form). He's pretty worn out, to the point that his ancient Celtic warrior spirit has stopped offering advice. But Anachronism doesn't need advice, he's got guts. And his plan is basically "just don't stop fighting". He makes a poor taunt at Hellstrom, which is the cue for Hazmat to show up and roast Hellstrom. Apparently demonic fire < radiation, in case you were wondering.

Nico also shows up and punches Monster!Cullen, knocking him over and disabling Hellstrom's control. She then engages with Hellstrom while Alex Wilder watches all smirkily. Rather than keep fighting, though, Anachronism decides to use his words to defeat Cullen. He taunts the Cullen within the monster that he basically fell for the first pretty face to flash him a smile, when the smile belonged to a goon calling himself "Son of Satan" and prancing about in latex. Surprisingly, this works, and Cullen regains control of himself, stealing a kiss from Anachronism as thanks. I guess that resolves their plotline!

Nico and Hellstrom are still slugging it out, and both of them know that while she's doing good, he's still got the advantage. And that's when the Avengers literally drop into the scene. In addition to the four I mentioned earlier, we also have Giant Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Tigra. Hazmat and Anachronism marvel that the adults actually showed up for once. Only took them three months, didn't it~? To even those odds, the Young Masters also all get up and join Hellstrom. And then you get the big clash where both sides run at each other screaming.

So there's a big fight going on, and Baron Zemo himself casually strolls onto the battlefield, Madame Masque in tow. He sidles up to Hellstrom and gives him the word, and they spring their trap. All the Young Masters light up and vanish in a puff of flame. Alex gestures, and the entrance the Avengers just used seals up, cutting of Bad Guy Central from the remaining SHIELD troops. And then the teleport completes. All the heroes are stuck down there (now they're literally Avengers under some kind of cover, the title finally works!), while the bad guys have just teleported to the surface. Masque shoots the SHIELD man on the bridge, and the villains now control the Helicarrier.

While the Young Masters handle Maria Hill and her riffraff outside, Zemo, his main goons, and Deathlocket take the bridge. Deathlocket hacks into the Helicarrier's systems, giving them control, and apparently having no qualms about doing so. While they fly off to go make war or whatever Zemo's plan is, the comic ends by revealing Cammi is also on the Helicarrier somehow. And the caption boxes are all like "Oh, did you think she wouldn't escape jail? Nope, here she is!" You know, just in case you couldn't tell how rushed this ending is.

I will be fair to this comic. The stuff with Anachronism beating Monster!Cullen by just talking to him was actually very good. That stuff's on point. The rest of the stuff is... maybe not the worst, but not great either. Middling at most. I think really the worst part (other than the cover, because good god, I'm still not over that) is just the very last panel, where they deus ex machina in Cammi and then hang a lampshade on it with the caption boxes. And yes, I get the fact that they were being cancelled and didn't have a lot of time or comic to wrap things up, so what else could they do? Answer: anything other than this~

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 58

In her now blissfully-empty office, Tsunade finally let herself scratch her side. Somehow, she only ever seemed to feel an itch when it would compromise her dignity to scratch.

"Maybe I'm just allergic to work," she mused.

As the door opened again without so much as a knock, she rolled her eyes in irritation. This sort of riffraff was exactly why she needed Sasuke and Shizune around to act as bouncers. "Just come on in," she drawled ironically. It wasn't like she was going to have much time to herself anyway. Aiko probably wouldn't be gone more than five or ten minutes. That'd provide an excuse for her to toss out the idiot currently in her office.

Suddenly, she was metaphorically patting herself on the back for allowing the girl to Hiraishin to Suna. Unfortunately, even when her mind was in Suna, Tsunade's body was in her office being leered at by an irritating old pervert.

"My pleasure, hime." Jiraiya gave her a sleazy grin. He strode up to sit down in front of her desk, propping his feet up onto the wood.

'Barbarian,' Tsunade thought mutinously. 'That is mahogany.'

Never mind that she went through a desk a month. She was allowed to punch her own things.

"What do you want," she said instead. Giving him the reaction only made things worse. Granted, he was depressingly skilled at riling her up, but she didn't need to play into his hands.

The idiot leered at her. "Well, if you must know…"

"Please cut the crap," she sighed, rubbing at her migraine.

He straightened up a bit. Jiraiya was playful, but he usually didn't poke too much when she actually wasn't in the mood to handle it. "Can't I just stop by to say hello to the most beautiful woman in the world?"

Involuntarily, she huffed in amusement and had to roll her eyes to counteract the little smile tugging at her lips. "You're ridiculous, you know that?"

"Is that a no?" he asked innocently, blinking up at her.

'Ooh, that's a dirty trick,' she noted. 'I think he learned that expression from Naruto.'

But Naruto was much cuter. Speaking of whom… "Have you finally come to report? Don't think I've missed that you and Naruto passed the gates this morning." She gave him a faux-irritated glare.

"Well, I would have," he began awkwardly. One hand trailed up to scratch at the back of his neck. "But we got waylaid, you see." He grinned. "By some beautiful girls! I did my best to fight them off, but there were just too many, and they were too determined-" He trailed off sheepishly at the disbelieving look she was giving him. "Oh, alright," he grumped. Jiraiya crossed his arms, slouched, and pouted in a way that was most unbecoming for a full-grown man."Naruto ran into his sister and some blonde at the gate…" He gave her a mischievous grin. "The other little girl, Ino or something, invited him on a date. The brat misunderstood and dragged her off for ramen."

Tsunade giggled. "Somehow, that sounds exactly like Naruto." She pushed her lower lip out thoughtfully, worrying the inside between two teeth. "Ino, huh? You mean the Yamanaka girl?"

"I'd believe that," Jiraiya agreed easily. "She had that look about her." He shook his head like a wild dog. "In any case, I did have something more serious about Naruto. I already told Hatake because I ran into him about a minute after Naruto flounced off." He sucked in a deep breath as if considering how to phrase this delicately. But then again, he was Jiraiya, so he gave up on that and was just blunt instead. "I couldn't get him to master the Nine Tail's chakra. If he tries to use too much he loses control to the fox, and attacks anyone he can reach. He came very close to killing me."

Tsunade winced. "And how did he take that?"

Jiraiya gave an awkward laugh. "Well, you see…" At her stern look, he just bit the bullet. "He doesn't know. Naruto doesn't remember what happens when he loses control, and I didn't want him to know. You know how he is. I've told him that it's very dangerous and that he can't use it, but I'm not certain he's taking me seriously." He shrugged helplessly.

She groaned. 'Well, that sucks.' But that thought wasn't productive. So instead she just said, "We will just have to be careful, then. I assume that's why you told Hatake?"

"Yepp," Jiraiya nodded solemnly, wishing this awkward part of the conversation was over. And then he realized he had the power to do that. "By the way," he started seriously, stroking at his chin. "Just how long has Aiko had that crush on Hatake?"

Tsunade blinked, startled. "She told you that?"

'I didn't realize they were that close,' she marveled. 'Maybe I underestimated the pervert's abilities as a godfather after all.'

"Ah, no. But it was obvious to a guy like me!" He gave her a thumbs-up and a cheesy grin. Inwardly, his mind was working at top pace. Tsunade had all but confirmed it. Still… he should be certain, since he was thinking about using that information. "So how did you know? Saw the way she can't take her eyes off him?"

With a snort, Tsunade shook her head. She'd never noticed that, but then she never saw the two of them together outside of the professional setting of her office. "No…" She bravely resisted letting her lips curl into a smile by forcing them to still. They trembled anyways. "She came in here very seriously and told me she wanted to dissolve the apprenticeship because she had an 'inappropriate fondness' for him that was making it hard to work."

There was a moment of silence.

Then both Sannin started snickering. Jiraiya thumped a fist against his thigh, bent double from the force of laughing. "Oh Kami, I can just picture it."

Tsunade nodded solemnly, wheezing a bit. "And then she just broke down into tears, and it was so hard not to let her know I was laughing. Poor sweet thing." She sniffled, wiping a tear away.

"What a pair," Jiraiya snickered.

"It's apparently hard to be a socially awkward genius in love with another one," she agreed. "Still, it was adorable."

"It is, it is." Jiraiya looked contemplative for a moment.

It actually was pretty cute. The Hatake kid wasn't the worst person for his adorable little goddaughter to have a crush on. He had excellent literary tastes and class, had never been known to disrespect a girl, and Minato would have approved. He'd really liked Kakashi-kun even when he'd been just a wee grumpy little thing. (Emphasis on grumpy, even though he'd been equally tiny).

Jiraiya mulled over that last thought. "You know, the more I think about it, the more I like it," he mused. 'In a couple of years… It could work. And in the short term, encouraging the crush could keep her from finding trouble with the wrong sorts of boys.' He grimaced, as someone who had most definitely been one of the 'wrong sort' of boy. It was hypocritical, but there were worse things.

Aside from it having some worth as a real idea to shelve, it had an immediate application. More relevantly to the current conversation, Tsunade would hate the idea. She had strange hang-ups about age, to the point where she hadn't allowed herself to.

Tsunade blinked, then quirked her head. "What are you talking about, pervert?"

"They're cute together!" He sent his old teammate a gigantic grin and leapt up onto her desk. "Just think about it! I would be remiss in my duties as a godfather if I didn't provide Aiko-chan with assistance as well, now that Naruto is benefitting from years under my excellent tutelage!"

She stared blankly.

He was really on a roll now, though. "He even has the fatherly stamp of approval! Minato always liked the twerp."

"Oh god," Tsunade muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Oh, god."

"Just think, now that she's blossomed into a beautiful young woman, all the young men will be after her. How better to keep her away from all the wrong ones then to set her up with one I know will treat her right?"

"You're insane," Tsunade said flatly. "And anyways, I don't think she's the delicate flower you're picturing. Go away."

"But Tsunade-hiiime," he whined. "Just think of what beautiful children they would have."

She blanched. "They would have the weirdest hair in the Elemental Countries," she deadpanned. Her tone would have been sharper if she wasn't preoccupied with terrifying visions of Uzumakis sassing her en masse, never showing up on time and using Hiraishin to run ANBU patrols with minimum effort.

'Actually, that last part wouldn't be so bad', she mused. Her own personal army all equipped with the flying thunder god and chidori… Then she shook her head. 'No. That's crazy talk.'

"You never know, they could inherit his hair color and her hair texture," Jiraiya said doubtfully, clearly picturing the opposite. Then he shrugged. "Well, it's just a funny thought. I liked it."

Tsunade threw her stapler at him. "It's a bit of an age difference, don't you think?"

He shrugged, tossing the metal implement from hand to hand. "It's not so bad. What does a decade matter between two adults? After all, she must be an adult if you've put her in ANBU to ferret out traitors." He gave his old teammate a guileless smile. The last bit of amusement slid off her face, but Jiraiya kept pushing. "You would never be so inconsistent as to claim she was an adult one moment and child when it's convenient, would you?"

'So that's what this is about,' she groaned. "Who even told you she was ANBU?" Tsunade demanded crossly.

Jiraiya wiggled his fingers ominously into her face, forcing her to blink and jerk her face back. "I just know everything. Spooky, huh? But… I'm right, aren't I? That's why you put her in there." He shrugged. "You know, I might feel better about having a talented kid in need of guidance in ANBU if the reason is important enough and she has enough support…"

Tsunade twitched. He was fishing for information. That bastard. He'd used the lulling qualities of his general idiocy to force her into a rhetorical corner. Either her best chance at getting someone on the inside of Danzo's organization was a child and should be in a much less dangerous position, or she was an adult and it was none of Jiraiya's business what she did with her professional life… But also none of Tsunade's business if the cretin insisted on trying to pair them up. That wouldn't help the poor girl any- who wanted to be outright shot down?

'He can't possibly think I'll give this chance up,' she thought critically. 'Maybe it's a long-shot hope, or just a way to punish me for putting Minato's kid in such a dangerous situation by being irritating with my tentative blessing.'

Well. There was nothing for it. "You're right, of course," she drawled testily. "Aiko is an adult."

"Great," Jiraiya uttered through a fake smile, voice hinting at irritation. "Then you won't mind if I use my formidable abilities as the master of all things romantic to dramatically increase the likelihood of two of your favorite shinobi reproducing more people exactly like them."

"Not at all," she forced out through gritted teeth. "I'm so glad we had this conversation."

'Now would be an excellent time for a plan.'

"I could easily defeat him if he were in reach of my sand," Gaara muttered as if thinking aloud. Aiko blinked.

"Ask and ye shall receive," she mumbled.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," she said mildly. "Just a moment."

Gaara was right. He could smash Deidara like a pancake if he were in reach. Aiko was in the opposite position—Deidara would be a hard fight for her, but she could reach him if she were intelligent about it.

She didn't want to actually fight him. He was legitimately an S class shinobi and had been for years. She, on the other hand, had a solid skill set inflated by a few very impressive gimmicks. Hiraishin was a useful tool, but the fact that it gave her the capacity for perfect speed didn't mean she had the reaction time to reliably keep up with S class shinobi especially in such an unfavorable environment. Whenever she wasn't using it in combat, her speed was mid to high Jounin level. If Deidara had survived Akatsuki (and as a bomber no less) he must have very fast reflexes. Why risk it when Gaara was here and perfectly equipped to Sand coffin the living hell out of that asshat?

The plan that she formed was obvious and simple.

Step one: Get on bird.

Step Two: Get boy off bird, so Gaara can clean up his own damn house.

Step Three: Get very, very inebriated, so she didn't have to remember just how stupidly risky this short plan was.

That second part might be harder than it sounded. It would be stupid to assume she was physically stronger than Deidara without any supporting evidence. It could well be that she wouldn't be able to push him off. If she had momentum, or caught him off guard, it might be a different situation entirely. But without knowing exactly where she would end up in position relative to him, she couldn't well use Hiraishin at a sprint to gather momentum. She might end up soaring gracefully over the top of the bird or hell, even smacking into it face-first. It was tricky to orient around a kunai that was moving, especially at different elevations.

Still, Aiko was almost tempted to just throw a kunai up and flash to it immediately, but there were several possible fatal problems with that. One, her landings were terribly inconsistent. She could end up in the air next to the bird blinking stupidly like a roadrunner cartoon. If she was careful she could land safely, but that would ruin the element of surprise. The other unpleasant possibility would be that he'd explode the kunai immediately because he was an explosive happy lunatic and she would materialize in the middle of it. That would be an ignominious end.

'Well, I do have two kunai,' she reasoned. 'If I count Gaara's, anyway. I can toss one and see what he does. If he catches it I can go to it and be relatively certain that I'll at least land on the damn bird. If he doesn't, I can be somewhat certain it would be safe to try going to a moving kunai and risking giving up the element of surprise. It'd be better than nothing.'

For a few minutes she just tried to get a sense of timing—seeing where Gaara's shield of sand opened up and weakened when there were explosions, and what kind of targets Deidara was taking. She swallowed a bit nervously. "Hey, can you open up a hole above us for a minute?"

"Are you certain?" Even in his distracted state, he managed to sound dubious.

She didn't hold it against him. She was feeling pretty dubious herself and generally liked not having bombs fall on her head. "It should only take a second," she assured him in lieu of an answer just as he forced open a crack above them. "Oh, and one more thing. Be ready to catch."

He couldn't let Deidara get away, after all. She would try, but she probably couldn't hold onto him and prevent his escape once he realized what was going on.

Before he could ask her to clarify that not-entirely-reassuring statement, she'd flung the Hiraishin-tagged kunai in her hand. In a pin-straight arc of glittering metal, it zinged up, up, up, and slightly to the left of that stupid bird. At least, it was the left from her perspective. It was probably actually the right side.

It was a bit hard to tell from below. Deidara wasn't much of an artist.

"But he is a sucker," she muttered to herself, using a hand to shield her eyes from the sun when the chump above her caught the glittering metal and leaned over his stupid bird to shout something she couldn't entirely understand. "I'll be right back, dude."

Gaara blinked at the space next to his side where there had been a girl but was now only occupied by footprints in sand that he hadn't moved in a few minutes. "Dude?" he asked gingerly.

Her landing was a little jerky when her ass collided with sun-warmed clay and her legs stopped awkwardly a half foot above her hips. Disoriented, she grabbed onto the first thing she saw to stabilize herself. Of course, shirts weren't known for being particularly stable, but the boy attached to it seemed relatively sturdy.

'This is not entirely what I expected,' Aiko thought, blinking up at blue eyes that expressed about as much surprise as she felt. She was awkwardly sprawled on top of him, sitting in between his legs with hers propped over his thighs. Landing on someone's lap… well, it made some sense in the context of the tiny space she had to land on, and he'd been holding his hand above his head which had centered her over his body. This scenario had been one of the reasons she'd never gone to harass Yamato: it didn't seem like something she wanted anyone to remember her doing on accident.

It also entirely scuppered her tentative plan of unbalancing him with a good swift kick in the ass.

'But hey, it'll work.' She grinned at him, not caring that the expression was out of place. Then she latched onto a rather surprised (and surprisingly sun-burnt, he was pink all over his ears and cheeks) nuke-nin like a grabby baby koala and gracelessly threw all of her weight to one side.

Then he proceeded to pound the absolute crap out of her lightning-fast and she was blinking surprisedly up at the sky, winded and disoriented and her body wasn't responding she needed to reorient to land or she was going to hit it and break every bone in her fucking body and hell, this was a stupid way to die so far from home in the fucking desert-

A warm hand under her thighs and one under her back caught her attention about the same time that she detachedly noticed her right leg explode in a shower of fiery meat, splattering cinders and blood up into Gaara's face and chest.

Thankfully, she only stayed conscious for another few minutes.

"Oh, for the love of god," Tsunade snapped crabbily when the door to her office opened for the third time in so many minutes. "This is my office, not a playground."

"What happened with Suna?" Temari asked, standing side-by-side with Naruto and looked just about as worried and antsy at he did.

Tsunade had to take a moment to figure out what the hell she was babbling about.

Of course, Naruto had been silent for as long as he could handle when he was fidgety. "Why didn't Aiko come back," he demanded. "What happened?"

"Oh, right," Tsunade muttered, tucking a loose bit of hair behind her ear. "She never did come back, did she?" The girl had probably just gotten caught up talking to Gaara or hadn't been able to get in to see him immediately. It had been what, an hour? She frequently had longer waiting times. Everything was probably fine, although it was a bit unlike Aiko not to be punctual.

"Why don't you just check?" Sasuke prodded, looking irritated at having been dragged along on this silly crusade over what was probably nothing. "Aiko said you had a way to contact Suna quickly." He gave her a sullen expression that implied he wasn't pleased to have been out of the loop.

"Ah, yes," she said awkwardly. "I do."

Everyone waited.

"Are you going to use it?" the sand kunoichi asked with saccharine politeness.

Tsunade coughed. "I, ah. I don't have it here."

Temari's teeth were visibly gritted. "Where is it, pray tell?"

"In Suna," she admitted. As far as she knew, anyway. Maybe the girl had come back and forgotten to report? Because she was in a hurry or something?

The more she thought about it, the more Tsunade got the sneaking suspicion that something was actually wrong.

"What good does that do?" Naruto asked, sounding honestly baffled. "And what does that have to do with why Aiko never came back?" The Yamanaka girl made a muffled squeak sound that implied she had not been entirely on board with the plan to invade the Hokage's office en masse.

"It'll come back on its own," she admitted weakly. That story held together, right?

"You're not making any sense," Sasuke interjected sulkily. "Has senility finally caught up with you?"

"No," she snapped. "Look- just… Give me a moment to think." She furrowed her brow in consideration for a second. There was a way to check if Aiko was just messing around or if something had actually gone wrong. She didn't want to jump the gun and send off a rescue party if Aiko was just sitting in the Kazekage's office reading an old magazine. But she didn't have what she'd need to check.

"Get Hatake in here. Tell him it is time-sensitive."

The group looked at her stupidly. "I'm going to check on the situation, and I need something only he can do," she explained as if to idiots.

It wasn't fair to them at all, really. They had no reason to know about the Hiraishin, so they were hardly stupid for not making the connection. Once they'd filed out, she signaled the hidden ANBU to come out. "Bring me Hatake," she sighed. "Don't let him jerk you around. It's very serious."

The kids were almost certainly going to fail. Hatake was a sneaky bastard. But hey, it got them out from underfoot.

ANBU Ladybug (and Tsunade reminded herself to have a drink and a laugh about letting that sweet idiot repaint all the masks) brought him back in nine minutes. She knew, because she was glancing at the clock and half-expecting yet another interloper. Hatake didn't seem particularly impressed by being dragged to her office like a naughty child, but she spoke over him.

"I need you to activate the Hiraishin tag in your possession."

His one good eye widened, and he wordlessly pulled it out and complied. She held up a hand to silence him and just waited. An entire minute passed before she gave up hope.

"Well, fuck," she grumbled. "I suppose that does mean that something is wrong."

Aiko should have felt that immediately. The only reasons she wouldn't respond to an emergency signal were if she were already in a fight she couldn't leave or if she were physically incapable of sensing it and responding. Neither possibility bode well. At that point, the girl had been gone for nearly two hours.

"Hokage-sama?"

"Get your idiot team," she said in lieu of an answer. "You can have Naruto, Yamato, and Sasuke. You'll be escorting Sabaku no Temari back to Suna and investigating why Uzumaki Aiko is late to report."

She hadn't seen him move that fast in years, barring when he was hiding from that angry paperwork Chuunin.

'I should have known that idiot couldn't be trusted to do anything remotely important.' Sasori scowled, watching the position of the sun gradually move. He had waited hours after the explosions had stopped to give up on the moron. It had been over twenty-four hours since he'd reached their rendezvous point a few hours after that. Their agreed upon 30 hours time limit until one should assume the other was dead had gone by, and he was now certain that the inept hack he had been saddled with would not be returning. Sasori wasn't entirely sorry.

At this point, it might be wisest to retreat and gain reinforcements to try to retrieve his target later. But he hated waiting.

"Dying was probably the speediest thing that idiot ever did," he droned to no one.

He had to make a decision. Pein would be waiting for him to report in and request assistance with the extraction. Pein was cautious. He wouldn't risk showing his face via a projection until he knew Sasori was alone. He could call Pein and report the mission a failure, or try to acquire back up. Itachi and Kisame should be within a hundred miles- it hadn't been that long since he'd convinced them to donate their likeness to his puppets to serve as a delaying force if it was needed. But he didn't want to have to. Itachi would delay as he always did, eternally eager to put off the next mission. What a lazy boy he was.

He could easily infiltrate Suna to gain more information before he made a decision. He had set Deidara against the Kazekage for a reason: He would be a terrible opponent for Sasori in head-on combat. Sand could easily get inside the joints of his best puppets and make them all but useless. No, if he were to fight the Kazekage, it would have to be on grounds of his choosing and with preparation.

Sasori laboriously went through the process of oiling and re-loading his weaponry, killing time until departing to Suna would have him going through the gates at the busiest time of day when few people paid attention.

"Perhaps we were wrong to leap to force," Sasori mused, beginning the trek back to where he would re-enter Suna. Although it rankled and took a stupid amount of concentration, he used an advanced transformation technique to transform the wooden shell of Hiruko into a Suna Jounin he knew was missing from the village.

He'd killed him, after all.

Getting into Suna was piteously easy. Sasori had been using that spy for long enough that aping the fool's mannerisms was child's play. Making small talk was harder. "Did you see what happened?" His chakra construction leaned inward in the way his spy had been accustomed to.

The woman who had verified his identity (and clearly not particularly well at that) scoffed. "Are you kidding? I thought everyone saw. We hadn't even finished the evacuation when some Konoha kunoichi shows up out of nowhere and dragged that creep down. He didn't stand a chance after that."

"Konoha kunoichi?"

That was interesting. Was it one of the useless little medics that simpering, stupid Konoha had leant Suna? Back when he had lived in Suna they would have never stooped to accept such a denigrating 'aid'.

"Yeah," the simpleton agreed, completely oblivious to the fact that it had been a question.

Sasori rolled his eyes, knowing he wouldn't be getting anything more useful out of this interaction. He would check the hospital. It was a good bet that anyone who'd latched onto Deidara would have gotten a face-full of explosives. Surely a concerned citizen could find a little information about the girl who'd saved his hometown.

'I despise infiltration.' Behind his underwhelming guise, Sasori sneered at the idiotic masses clogging the otherwise efficient hospital entranceway. They were waiting to see their no-doubt equally witless friends and family. Deidara must have done something: He'd seen evidence of explosions like craters and dust around town. It was nothing on the scale of his usual destruction, though.

A pity. He could have at least had the decency to provide a better distraction for Sasori to work in.

He used a cloaking genjutsu to completely bypass the civilian secretary at the outer entrance. She would no doubt attempt to turn him away, and wouldn't have shinobi records in any case.

The desk that would have those records was where he remembered it being: cloaked under misdirective genjutsu and located in a room that appeared to just be another hospital room. At least the Suna nin were predictable. As he passed the doorway, he wordlessly set up a much more powerful misdirective illusion of his own.

If the staff had originally been a Chuunin (as had been policy back in the day), that medic had been pulled away to assist with emergency triage. There was no chance that the twitchy little thing behind the desk was anything more than a genin. Her hands were obviously soft, and she lacked muscle definition. Shameful. She blinked tiredly up at him when he entered, looking as if it was a struggle to raise her dusty colored lashes. "How can I help you, sir?"

"I wanted to ask about the Konoha kunoichi involved in the recent incident."

The weary smile she'd plastered on froze on her face. "I'm sorry sir, but I can't release that information. I'll have to ask you to leave now."

Sasori rolled his eyes and dropped his transformation at the exact instant the girl bolted towards the door, easily stopping her with wire around her ankles and pulling her back harshly to meet the floor face-first. She gave a high-pitched scream.

It was probably an attempt to summon more of her useless ilk, but it was a pointless gesture.

"Enough, girl. I do not have the patience for your babble. Were that girl or the Kazekage admitted to the hospital," he fished for information in a stern tone.

It would have been convenient to take the jinchuuriki from a bed if he were already injured and packaged up to go in bandages.

It only took a couple minutes to break the girl. She pathetically blubbered the answers to all his questions. The Kazekage had not reported any injuries, but he had carried a kunoichi in personally. Yes, she'd been treated for severe burns by personnel from her home village. No, she was no longer in the hospital. The Kazekage and his brother had removed her as soon as she was out of surgery the day before. Her orders had been not to share any information about the girl, from the Kazekage himself.

"Acceptable." Sasori dropped the girl to the floor, using Hiruko's tail to sever her spinal cord almost as an afterthought when she struggled to her knees in yet another pitiful attempt to escape and call for help. "Thank you for your assistance, nurse."

The Kazekage must regard this woman as an ally—understandable, if she really had come to his assistance against Deidara. He would be motivated to protect her from his many political enemies. She was probably under the protection of someone the jinchuuriki trusted…. That brother, perhaps. Yes, that was most logical. She would be hidden somewhere relatively close to where the Kazekage was operating so that he could respond quickly if something happened. But not just in some office building. No, she had been severely injured. She would be somewhere with beds, somewhere relatively isolated.

Unless Suna's layout had changed drastically, there was only one place that met all that criteria. The diplomatic suites. The majority of the civilians still hadn't been brought back from their evacuation hidey holes yet. Any important idiots who had been in the building would be gone now.

Sasori idly slipped into the skin of the girl he had left dead in the hospital with another illusion that hid him entirely while he puppeted her corpse. They would probably recognize the girl, and might even think she was carrying a message or medicine for a crucial instant when he made his presence known.

Assuming his information was correct, whoever this girl was had some sort of connection to the Kazekage. The fact that he had personally ensured her safety indicated that. Judging by the drugs prescribed on the clipboard he had found under the desk, she wouldn't be in any state to be offering objections about helping him get the Kazekage out of the city. All he would have to do would be grab the girl and make sure even an incompetent like Deidara would have been able to figure out he was the culprit and track him. Other than that, the Kazekage just had to know he was serious. It shouldn't be too difficult to make the point that not coming meant abandoning the girl to an unpleasant end. He would be unlikely to allow that without at least a cursory attempt at retrieval, if not for personal investment in her survival than because of his alliance with her village.

Fatally poisoning the brother (if he really was still babysitting so long after the girl had been released from the hospital) would be a nice touch. Sasori liked to kill the messenger.

Indeterminate time

'My lips feel like rubber.' Experimentally, Aiko curled her tongue just to see if she could move it. It felt so heavy that it was hard to believe she could. It gave her enough confidence to try something very important.

"Note to self. More plan next time," she managed thickly through the haze of adrenaline and healing chakra. "More better plan."

The medic nin who looked shockingly like Shizune didn't even spare her a chuckle. "Stop moving around, Aiko."

"Funny, you sound like Shizune too," she slurred drunkenly. Then… "Hey, you know my name."

As she frowned thoughtfully, a hand wreathed in green came up to her forehead.

The next thing Aiko knew, she was blinking gummily up at an unfamiliar ceiling. The feeling of strange bedcovers over her was disconcerting, so she immediately moved to fling them off and get up.

She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She looked at it for a long moment, not sure what it was doing there. It wasn't her hand, was it? No. It was big, and had stupid, rough-looking knuckles. She wrinkled her nose at it, not entirely pleased with having it in her personal space. So she licked it.

It quickly retreated.

"Hey now, don't be stupid." Kankuro grinned tiredly down at her. "I agreed to watch you because I didn't think you'd be doing much. You shouldn't be moving around. That medic pretty much reconstructed your leg and fixed up your rib and lung, but she said you're under bedrest orders for at least a week. And, ah…" He trailed off sheepishly. "And you're on a ton of drugs right now. I'm honestly not certain you can stand up. So, don't make my job hard. I'm beat already. I've gotten like three hours of sleep in the last 40 hours."

"Oh?" she asked tonelessly, still having a hard time remembering what was going on. She was starting to take inventory of her body. She was definitely under some wicked pain medication or sedation, judging by how odd she felt. Made sense from what he'd said.

Kankuro nodded. "Yeah, that asshole on the bird wasn't the only security breach. The other one scarpered off as soon as he went down, though." He gave a barking laugh. "Not much of a team player, I suppose. Gaara's off dealing with bullshit drama about all sorts of problems, but he didn't feel comfortable leaving you alone."

Aiko felt a little green, having remembered what she'd known last when he'd mentioned an asshole on a bird. A hand trailed uncertainly down her torso toward her leg. She'd remembered it exploding for no apparent reason, splattering blood all the way up into Gaara's face when he'd caught her fall. After that, things were a bit foggy.

'Man, I am going to have a wicked scar,' she thought. Granted, her memory was a bit fragmented, but she distinctly remembered looking down and seeing scorched bone. That probably meant nerve damage, didn't it? She'd have to wait until she could see the medic who'd fixed her up. Probably Shizune, if she was still in Suna. That hadn't been an injury most medics would tackle. They might have just pulled a sheet over her and moved on in triage. No, only someone who cared about her personally would have spared the effort to reconstruct her leg when there must have been plenty of other patients more likely to live out the day.

'I should get her the biggest fruit basket. No. A cookie bouquet.'

"Ah, Aiko? You still here?"

"Why am I not in the hospital," she asked distantly. That was where Shizune generally hung out. Her homies were there. Kankuro shrugged.

"Hell if I know. He wouldn't have won that fight nearly as easily if you hadn't been here, even if he won't spill what the hell it was you did to get the bastard within reach." He playfully raised an eyebrow. "Feel like shedding any light on that?"

'That doesn't make sense,' she registered, and wondered for the first time if she wasn't hallucinating. Shizune was highly unlikely to allow a sand nin to walk off with her patient. Not even if he had kitty ears.

She smiled weakly, feeling thick bandages over her lower half where her fingers touched under what felt like a dress or very short kimono. "Maybe later." Then she frowned. "What am I wearing?"

If Aiko craned her head, she could see splotches of lavender. Shapes were a bit hard right now, but she could definitely do colors, because something had happened that made them much more vivid than usual.

Kankuro shrugged. "One of Temari's old outfits," he explained idly. "I don't think she'll mind, given the circumstances. Your ah, shorts were…" He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, they didn't fare well in the explosion."

'I think that means he saw my butt.'

Mortified, Aiko sunk down into the bed and pulled the sheets up over her face. Even if he was just part of a dream—and what a weird dream, why would she see Kankuro of all the people she knew—she didn't want him to see her butt.

"Kill me now," she groaned. She heard the door open and sharp movement from Kankuro—which stopped immediately. He heaved a sigh just as she managed to get her stupid, uncooperative fingers to pull the sheets back down and poked her head out to see a pretty girl in a medic's uniform bashfully creeping into the room.

"Ah, it's you, cute nurse-chan," Kankuro crooned playfully. Aiko rolled her eyes and sank back down into the covers. "Did we forget something, or are you just taking me up on the dinner offer?"

"Not exactly," came a gravelly and very male voice.

'That clinches it,' Aiko thought. 'This is a fever dream.'

The pretty woman who sounded like an asthmatic 90 year old man was quite enough of a hint that her perception was off. When she lunged forward to attack Kankuro with a needle, Aiko just shook her head. "What a cliché," she criticized. "I'm not even scared of needles."

Kankuro turned to give her an incredulous look as he fell to his knees. The medic swiveled to look at her. "Of course you aren't," she agreed in her man voice, stepping on Kankuro as she passed. "Get up, it's time to go."

"No!" Kankuro wheezed, clutching at the spot where he'd gotten his immunization like a big baby. But still, fair was fair.

"Don't you have to give him a bandaid?" Aiko peered over the side of the bed. Her legs weren't cooperating, so she just leaned over and was surprised to land on the ground with a thud.

"I already did," the man-nurse said. "Here, let me help you."

"'Kay."

Aiko shivered when the surprisingly strong nurse picked her up like a sack of flour. Her flesh was cold and uncomfortable to the touch, and she appeared to have one long bloodstain dripping down the back of her uniform. Dream-Kankuro had been right about how hard it was to move: her arms were dangling on the floor because the nurse wasn't very tall, and motor control was difficult. Hearing was hard, too. She might have been imagining that entirely, because she couldn't feel the nurse's chest move at all when she spoke.

It was funny that she hadn't realized that she was in a hospital. In retrospect, it had been stupid to think she was anywhere else. Sick people went to the doctor and she'd been to the doctor.

"That drug I just gave you is one of my own design," nurse said. "You have about three days to figure it out. You'll fail, of course. But in the meantime, give the Kazekage a message. He needs to meet me alone outside city limits after dark, if he wants her released."

Aiko snorted. "I don't think Gaara does drugs," she offered skeptically.

Plus, that was so totally not hospital policy about releasing patients.

Omake

Kankruo fidgeted, studiously looking anywhere but down. Gaara was stock still, but not any happier with the conversation. "You know," Kankuro started, "Lending her some of Temari's clothes seemed like a much better idea before I realized someone had to change her."

Gaara gave a thoughtful, considering 'mm' of agreement.

"I both really want to and want to run away as fast as I can," Kankuro admitted with open honesty. "You'd better do it."

The unconscious girl in the room didn't assert an opinion one way or another.

"No, I really think you are more suited for this task," Gaara instantly rejected.

"As your big brother—"

"As your Kazekage," Gaara countered firmly. Kankuro glared.

"Low blow, man," he muttered rebelliously, glancing uncertainly at the purple dress in his hands and doing his best not to think about it. "Ah…. Well."

He startled when the door opened and the floor nurse poked her head in. "Excuse me, but your friend has been cleared to leave under constant supervision, although I have some instructions to go over with you before discharge."

Kankuro gratefully leapt at her with a grin. She recoiled, but he didn't seem to notice or remember that he was still wearing his ghastly face paint and additional blood on his neck and jaw. "Nurse-chan! I have a mission for you, directly from the Kazekage. Right, Gaara?" he added pleadingly, hoping like hell his brother wouldn't humiliate him like this.

He liked naked girls. Really, he did. But he liked them to be conscious, and he liked them to not be likely to tear him a literal new asshole if they got offended about him seeing them in an indelicate state. Plus he'd feel like an enormous creep if he ogled someone barely recovering from surgery and drugged as all hell. If his hormones really had so few scruples, he didn't want to know.

Gaara looked between the two consideringly, clearly mulling it over. "Fine," he conceded.

His older brother outright sighed with relief. "Miss, our friend here won't be happy about being carried across town or waking up in a backless hospital gown. Could you change her?"

"Oh." She blinked. "That's all? That's no problem."

'and here I thought it was going to be something weird.'

[nzeikayblog]

I am Igbo. I am proud of who we are. I love Nigeria. I love the best of her people and the many strengths. I love what she can be. But dear compatriots, I will not apologise to anyone who thinks that my success is a threat.

WALK WITH ME

I am Igbo. Go to Onitsha. Go to Aba. Go to Alaba. Go to Kano and see wealthy men who brag about how many millionaires they had minted in the course of their lives more than how many millions they personally had. Millionaires who sold the same things o. Competing with their former masters. Taking on more competitors will create more competitors over and over. Does it destroy the master? No! This is a mastery over greed that is not found elsewhere in the entire world. I am Igbo. And I am graciously proud!

My ancestors were the ones who in 1803 walked into the Pacific rather than be slaves. That legendary spirit is mine to claim. Every Igbo man has a personal god, his Chi. My success is determined by how much I want it. Not by obstacles. Not by what people call impossible. Not by how rich or poor my father was. Not by avoiding danger. But by a simple agreement between me and my Chi. “Onye kwe, Chi ya ekwe”. If you believe, your personal god will validate it.

I am Igbo, I was raised this way. To create success and share it without begrudging our neighbours and our hosts. We will teach our host’s children our way of life if they would rise above their suspicions. We don’t mind a Yoruba or Hausa boy-boy or Edo. We only ask that the person be smart and dependable. We are not particular about kings or queens. We don’t want to be your king. We don’t do very well with them. Before the white man we barely had any kings. A child who came of age had the right to speak in a village meeting when it was his turn. No one could stop them.

The community came together to build houses for each other. People who were struggling were supported and those who had lost children or had none were lent children for their farms. When my ancestors saw that education was good, they contributed to sending the village's brightest to school. Even people whose own children were Olodo happily contributed to other people’s children. Do you know why? We believed that a child belonged to everyone. I am Igbo. I will not apologise.

In those days we had leaders who were chosen purely on what they could do. Nothing was hereditary. Even the chief priest was chosen by the spirits from kindred to kindred, without a set pattern. Basically, we don’t want to rule in your land. We want to build wealth. Again we’re happy to share. We will build schools, hospitals, and markets without a single prejudice. Everyone is welcome. And no, we don’t only go to already-made cities. We particularly love to do virgin lands and make decent towns out of them.

I am sure there are many things for which you can be proud of your ancestors. I know a few because I try to educate myself. I will celebrate them with you. Your art & culture - ancient & modern. The warrior spirit of your ancestors. Their industry. I celebrate them all. I dare suggest that if other Nigerian ethnicities who prefer political power understood Igbos, they would rule forever and Igbos wouldn’t mind. Any Igbo will tell you: Provide a level playing field, and promote law and order and Igbo will largely ignore politics.

Let me reiterate. We don’t do well with kings and queens. Respect is earned not inherited. That’s how we see it. We only hate injustice with a terrible passion. How do you think the boy-boy system is sustained? If you don’t “settle” your boy, or skimp on how much, nobody will beat you, but you won’t be able to live down the shame. You will forever be known as the riffraff that doesn’t “settle” his boys. Just like that, your respect is gone. When a child who has “washed” his hands is chosen over you, your pariah status is sealed.

You may resist and ask, “What about Igbo governors? How come they do Ndị Igbo dirty and get away with it?” The answer is simple. No one chose them. They’re imposed with guns every election cycle. They are vassals of Abuja. Free and fair elections and none of these clowns will smell that seat. If not for the guns, even a small child will walk up to them and tell them that they’re full of crap. Ideally, everyone can speak. From the drunk to the village madman. You’re allowed to laugh at their craziness but you’re not allowed to silence them. “Mba nụ. Ị bụ Chi ya?” No! Are you his God? They commune with the spirits. So once in a while, they say things that save the community.

But a Peter Obi can live in Onitsha & walk into the market with little or no escort. Why? He embodies the best of us. His attitude is what our forefathers built over thousands of years. Industry without excessive greed. A peaceful man with grit and a truckload of bravery. Someone who pursues justice for all and uses public money for the public good. I am Igbo and I am happy to emulate the best of you. If it is a thing of value we will adopt it and we expect that as we are willing to share, you will extend us the same hand. But even if you decided not to teach us, we only need to see it to learn.

I know this is what gives you pause and whips up fears that we want to take over. Let me assure you that we wish to build a bigger market to accommodate all of us. Please let us try it our way. Our competition is not winner-takes. We share. We enrich. We make it better. I am Igbo, my mantra is “O je mba enwe ilo”. The traveller mustn’t make enemies. I expect that you will not understand me. But I believe that this is not your burden. So I learn your ways. Teach my children your language. Learn your customs and obey your laws. Stop trying to crush my spirit. You will fail. My spirit is my gift to Nigeria. It is rare on all earth. I don’t know how NOT to compete. I can’t accept being less than others. I can’t be enslaved.

Because I am Igbo & all I have to do is believe and my Chi will validate it.

#NigeriaDeservesBetter #AfricaDeservesBetter

[thegayestandalite]

CHAPTER 6

They had finished dumping the body

CHAPTER 6

They had finished dumping the body by a well known predator territory and were now standing in front of a pile of clothes, per cured from lines outside of human houses.

His clothes were not “fashionable” or something and also covered in blood, which was a point he could not argue.

He cocked his eyebrow.

“Really, those colors together?”

He looked skeptically at the clothes he was being handed.

“Is an actual from outer space alien complaining about my fashion sense,” she asked incredulously.

“An actual alien has transversed the galaxy to tell you to get your shit together and learn to color coordinate,”he said sourly.

She snatched the clothes back from him. “Alright, You don’t have to be rude.”

“Disagree.” He picked up a pair of off black, uh, leg..clothes and a top of electric blue to put over the bloody, but dry weave. Something to be said about clothes, they certainly are a barrier to whatever viscera you may encounter.

She held up a pink pair of much smaller clothing.

“This goes underneath your pants, you put them on first.”

He struggled to put them on, wobbling dangerously to the left and to the right.

“You know, it’s considered a violation to see a human without their clothing, without their permission,” she said evenly.

He straightened up to look at her, “Sorry.”

He took the pants to struggle those on too. They were tight.

“If it’s any consolation, I promise not to use this information for evil.”

She watched him again, critically.

“You don’t…sound like andalites we met before.”

He pulled on his top.

“You’re talking about our old outdated technology that struggles to accurately relate language to each other. So much like Aximili, his technology is weak and busted.

He paused.

“Or you may be referring to my own idiosyncrasies and syntax,” he continued, still struggling with the top, “In which case comes from region, class and status - most notably a divergence from standard military class syntax which you probably have been most exposed to. Basically, not all andalites are the same, fucking Cassie.” He finished pulling the shirt down and grinned at her.

“I’m what one would refer to as, what’s the word - ‘backwoods riffraff gutter trash’ hope that translated right.”

Cassie knitted her brows together. “I never considered there might be different classes of andalites.” It’s not very nice, we’re the unspoken words on her face.

“Is that why you have such a different name, Bor’ij?”

He lightly stomped the ground, shifting from foot to foot - an andalite eye roll. A Noticer, a Questioner, probably a Listener too by the looks of it. The worst.

“….”

“…..yes.”

He spread his arms out. “Am I acceptable to the human populace?”

“Mmm…,” she turned him in a circle. “You need shoes. And maybe some sunglasses, I don’t think I can explain away a twin.”

She pulled his arm towards the little town in front of him.

Getting the items was easy, once it was pointed out what they actually were. He took what he believed to be his size and left, putting the glasses to his face and leaning against the building to shove on his shoes.

Cassie caught him. “Did you pay for those?” She asked evenly.

“Like existentially? Because in a way, we’ve all paid.”

“I meant financially,” she said.

“Oh, then no.”

“Bor’ij, you have to pay for things here,” she insisted.

“No offense Cassie, but I’m from fucking space. I’m not here to participate in the futility of capitalism or arbitrary rules that conflate with your cognitive dissonances so that you continue to hold onto tenuous grasps of right and wrong. I’m here to save your planet.” He finished pulling on the shoes and was at a loss at what to do with the rest of the laces. He decided to stuff the loose ends on the inside.

He straightened up and cocked his head at Cassie, who was staring at him.

“I guess we better get going…I gotta…let’s get going. There’s a cafe nearby.”

A cafe was a small space with humans and food smells. Humans were either in pairs, facing each other or facing a small device, sipping from small bowls.

“ Sit down over there,” she pointed to a table with a booth. He obliged while she went off to wherever. He settled down, watching his surroundings with interest. He reached up and squeezed his ear in an unobtrusive gesture. This unlocked the magnetic, tiny discs that were clamped between his ear.

It remained unchanged and unobtrusive morph through morph.

"Sit down over there-" She pointed to a table with a booth. He obliged while she went off to make a call or whatever.

He cocked his eyebrow.

“Really, those colors together?”

He looked skeptically at the clothes he was being handed.

“Is an actual from outer space alien complaining about my fashion sense,” she asked incredulously.

“An actual alien has transversed the galaxy to tell you to get your shit together and learn to color coordinate,”he said sourly.

She snatched the clothes back from him. “Alright, You don’t have to be rude.”

“Disagree.” He picked up a pair of off black, uh, leg..clothes and a top of electric blue to put over the bloody, but dry weave. Something to be said about clothes, they certainly are a barrier to whatever viscera you may encounter.

She held up a pink pair of much smaller clothing.

“This goes underneath your pants, you put them on first.”

He struggled to put them on, wobbling dangerously to the left and to the right.

“You know, it’s considered a violation to see a human without their clothing, without their permission,” she said evenly.

He straightened up to look at her, “Sorry.”

He took the pants to struggle those on too. They were tight.

“If it’s any consolation, I promise not to use this information for evil.”

She watched him again, critically.

“You don’t…sound like andalites we met before.”

He pulled on his top.

“You’re talking about our old outdated technology that struggles to accurately relate language to each other. So much like Aximili, his technology is weak and busted.

He paused.

“Or you may be referring to my own idiosyncrasies and syntax,” he continued, still struggling with the top, “In which case comes from region, class and status - most notably a divergence from standard military class syntax which you probably have been most exposed to. Basically, not all andalites are the same, fucking Cassie.” He finished pulling the shirt down and grinned at her.

“I’m what one would refer to as, what’s the word - ‘backwoods riffraff gutter trash’ hope that translated right.”

Cassie knitted her brows together. “I never considered there might be different classes of andalites.” It’s not very nice, we’re the unspoken words on her face.

“Is that why you have such a different name, Bor’ij?”

He lightly stomped the ground, shifting from foot to foot - an andalite eye roll. A Noticer, a Questioner, probably a Listener too by the looks of it. The worst.

“….”

“…..yes.”

He spread his arms out. “Am I acceptable to the human populace?”

“Mmm…,” she turned him in a circle. “You need shoes. And maybe some sunglasses, I don’t think I can explain away a twin.”

She pulled his arm towards the little town in front of him.

Getting the items was easy, once it was pointed out what they actually were. He took what he believed to be his size and left, putting the glasses to his face and leaning against the building to shove on his shoes.

Cassie caught him. “Did you pay for those?” She asked evenly.

“Like existentially? Because in a way, we’ve all paid.”

“I meant financially,” she said.

“Oh, then no.”

“Bor’ij, you have to pay for things here,” she insisted.

“No offense Cassie, but I’m from fucking space. I’m not here to participate in the futility of capitalism or arbitrary rules that conflate with your cognitive dissonances so that you continue to hold onto tenuous grasps of right and wrong. I’m here to save your planet.” He finished pulling on the shoes and was at a loss at what to do with the rest of the laces. He decided to stuff the loose ends on the inside.

He straightened up and cocked his head at Cassie, who was staring at him.

“I guess we better get going…I gotta…let’s get going. There’s a cafe nearby.”

A cafe was a small space with humans and food smells. Humans were either in pairs, facing each other or facing a small device, sipping from small bowls.

“ Sit down over there,” she pointed to a table with a booth. He obliged while she went off to wherever. He settled down, watching his surroundings with interest. He reached up and squeezed his ear in an unobtrusive gesture. This unlocked the magnetic, tiny discs that were clamped between his ear.

It remained unchanged and unobtrusive morph through morph.

"Sit down over there-" She pointed to a table with a booth. He obliged while she went off to make a call or whatever.

[citizensofeggtonarchived]

Fantomet would glare at Tangle upon hearing them speak and with the rather annoying sound of hearing the rapping of the riffraff's tail against the floor, yet she didn't even seem to think twice about how the other's tail changed shape. "It's Madam Fantomet to you and only speak when spoken too," the fennec said before returning her attention to Vix. "As I was say-" Suddenly she stopped talking upon seeing the look on Vix's face.

"I believe I made myself crystal clear that this was my guest and to treat her with RESPECT," Vix said, putting extra emphasis on the word respect just she wasn't being completely clear with her stepmother. "I am aware my father always took your council and I will as well, but you will NOT undermine my decisions. As I said, if you truly have a concern with my choice then call a meeting with me and the council, understood?" The fennec asked, allowing her magic to steep out which caused the air to feel as if it was thicker than normal.

"...Crystal," Fantomet said, knowing very well that trying to strong arm Vix was an impossible task, especially when she made up her mind on something. "On to another matter. Could you at least inform the guard after you've dealt with an attacker? I nearly tripped over them seeing as they were left in the middle of the hall." The fennec continued to do her best to ignore the fact that Tangle was still in the room.

"Ah, I thought I forgot about something. Typically Kong will notify a clean up crew, though he is currently busy with other matter. Please forgive the sudden request, though may I trust you to summon someone to take them away?" Vix wasn't used to having to stay for clean up as she was extremely busy and often let Kong take care of something as minor as that. The fennec supposed most of her attention was on giving Tangle a tour of the castle.

"Very well, though do try to remember next time," Fantomet said before turning to leave, though not before giving Tangle one last glare. With that the fennec left the room and took a lot of tension with her.

Once Fantomet had left the room Vix was quick to turn her attention back to Tangle. "I offer my sincerest apologizes for my stepmother. It seems having my father's ear for so many years has made her forget that she isn't in charge, though I assure you I will not allow her to speak to you in such a manner again." The fennec could say she even felt embarrassed for the way her stepmother acted, yet none would know seeing how she keeps her demeanor calm at all times. "If there is anything I can do to make it up to your then please, let me know."

She knew all to well that the world was a cruel place. That it could snatch what you loved away in the blink of an eye. But Eggman was just a different kind of monster. He couldn't be reasoned with, he had no remorse, and he couldn't be stopped. He would simply keep doing what he was doing till there was nothing left. To think Belle was created by such a horrid man, still baffled her. But she didn't know what these people were capable of--- but she wanted them to know what they were up against.

She wasn't to worried about the device, she knew Tails probably built a fail safe to prevent tampering. It made sense to her at least, and he already had the long talk about not letting it out of her sight. Still she did smile at Vix and wouldn't have minded meeting her sister! She was pretty fascinated by this world so far, and was naturally curious about it and the people within.

" Can't be worse then tryin' to keep up with Tails... and i do try! Thankfully Sonic usually keeps him speakin' common! haha "

She did find it amusing how Sonic did it and the brotherly bickering those two had. It made her long for that kind of relationship with her own brother. But Zack and her relationship was still very strained...

" do I? ah i get it from Uncle... he's always had these bad jokes i guess it rubbed off! Sonic likes it though, can't really be all bad if the Hero of Mobius digs it! "

There conversation was cut off rather abruptly by the door swinging open and Tangle placed her hands behind her back. She could already tell this wasn't gonna be a fun conversation. The way the other spoke, and being called a riff raff! boy was she having some flash backs to high school! this was kind of girl Tangle would have gotten a detention for pummeling! still she bit her tongue, she knew when to keep her trap shut!

" Hi... I'm Tangle... "

Her eye twitched slightly, the urge was strong to pummel her! so strong her tail had formed a large hand and was rapping its fingers on the floor!

" Its a... pl...pleasure Miss...Ma'am... Madam... lady person..."