#clans-of-the-sea

[nin3kyuu]

"𝙻𝚘𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚡𝚎 𝚝𝚎 𝙼𝚊'𝚕𝚞𝚔 𝚃𝚢𝚊𝚜𝚊𝚖'𝚒𝚝𝚎, 𝚍𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚊"

A healer, a nurturer, a listener of Eywa and... Ni'nätya's mom.

Today in "This will fuck up my hand any further and I shouldn't be drawing" I BRING TO YOUUUUU, the remake of Ni'nätya's mom portrait :D as a sea na'vi, the first member of the Raizkit I'm introducing to you guys!

[davepeta]

reminder that my commissions are open and if you need convincing here's a recent art roundup

im doing these as a fundraiser for @anqarfamily :)

https://davepetacommissions.carrd.co/

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Chapters: 14/? Fandom: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fushiguro Megumi & Okkotsu Yuuta, Inumaki Toge & Okkotsu Yuuta & Panda & Zenin Maki, Fushiguro Megumi & Fushiguro Tsumiki, Fushiguro Megumi & Fushiguro Tsumiki & Gojo Satoru, Gojo Satoru & Okkotsu Yuuta Characters: Okkotsu Yuuta, Fushiguro Megumi, Fushiguro Tsumiki, Inumaki Toge, Zenin Maki, Zenin Mai, Panda (Jujutsu Kaisen), Gojo Satoru, Nanami Kento, Zenin Naobito, Ieiri Shoko, Okkotsu Yuuta's Sister Additional Tags: Post JJK 0, Pre-Season/Series 01, Gojo Satoru Adopts Fushiguro Megumi and Tsumiki, Zenin Clan Drama (Jujutsu Kaisen), How to Be A Good Senpai: An Instructional Guide, Guest Starring Okkotsu Yuuta as the world's least enthusiastic honeypot, Protective Gojo Satoru, Protective Okkotsu Yuuta, Sibling Love, Canon-Typical discussions of suicidal thoughts and actions, Gojo Satoru Acting as Fushiguro Megumi's Parental Figure, Fushiguro Megumi is Bad at Feelings, Fushiguro Megumi Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Additional Warnings In Author's Note Summary:

Studies in vivisepulture.

[ross-hollander]

The Sea Fox service...

...has many advantages over ComStar's old interstellar network, like still working, decentralized headquarters to allow for better maintenance response time, fewer cyborg jihadi assassins, and appallingly low rates for such a widely demanded service (they make it up in volume). One of the features not everybody appreciates is the replacement of the old UpStar/DownStar system in the forums with the Reaction Matrix, where you chart your attitude towards a post or comment between Approve-Disapprove, Appreciation-Disdain, and Support-Disavowal. (Thus you can disapprove but support and appreciate, or approve a position but disdain the particular case it is used in, and so on.) Clan users navigate this with such fluidity they are shocked anyone could get useful information out of the ComStar binary options. You would hardly be able to tell what people mean.

There is also the fact that in addition to "Block", "Report", "Share" and similar, the Chatterweb has a dedicated "Batchall" option, but only between users who have verified their identities with the moderators.

[lilianhuas]

Tomb of the Tibetan Sea Flowers || Wu Xie x Zhang Qiling || Closure

[clarissaexplainsbatchall]

Water cascaded over the pool of sharks, making them appear to lash and writhe in a frenzy across Clarissa's skin. The tattoo of the school of ancient predators stalking through a shimmering lagoon covered her entire back, an ever moving, living piece of art on a pale canvas of flesh.

Clarissa stood basking in the steam, running her hands through her white-blonde hair, her eyes closed. The shower soothed aching muscles and washed away the remnants of the sweaty battle only a few hours before. If she could stay here forever she would.

The sound of a door opening made her turn, and several pairs of bare feet slapped against the floor. "Hello?" she asked.

"Commander," said one of the twins, and Clarissa relaxed. One doesn't tend to grow up shy in Clan culture, but Clarissa was a Freebirth and had never experienced the close mixed gender dynamics of a sibko. Showering with unexpected men wasn't something she was ever likely to get used to.

"Is that both of you?" she asked, and the twins voiced their ascent as two more showers started up.

"Commander, we brought your uniform in from your 'Mech. We thought that you might want it." Which one was talking? The pair were tall, well muscled, statuesque women with flaming red hair and a rich tan skin, identical in every way except the way they carried themselves. Julie always stood a bit looser than her sister Nina, who was never less than as straight backed as an arrow.

"What did we get?"

"Archangel was taken in mostly intact. We got about half of the Bellerophon. The Barghest is scrap; Roderick hit ammunition." Julie, or possibly Nina, mocked the sound of an explosion. "No survivors except your captured MechWarrior."

"Better than expected. Good job. The star has been invited to dine with the general this evening. Dress well. And Nina, wear only a left earring. Julie, a right one. We are trying to be polite, after all."

"Yes, Commander," they drawled in unison.

Clarissa turned off the water, then reached around for a towel. Upon finding it she rubbed her hair, wrapped it around herself, then went to the locker room to retreive her prosthetics and clothes. A few minutes later she was back outside in the snow in her pressed Sea Fox uniform, glasses on, and hair thankfully dry so she didn't have to worry about it freezing.

Time for food.

[justsomeoneunordinary]

If we tweak canon just a teensy bit, we can make Katsuyu a sea slug (she certainly already looks it) instead of a terrestrial one, from the seas surrounding Uzushio, thus giving Tsunade a connection to her Uzumaki side that Kishimoto failed to do so himself

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

Average Diamond Shark/Sea Fox Chatterweb commercial.

(from Tex's newest video)

[nettleclan-clangen]

[Moon 21, Bonus!] [Lore and a written story below.]

"I'm Flailpaw, the first Nettleclan Wayfinder." Says the young tom, helping Longpaw to his feet. Longpaw feels overwhelmed by everything... but at least these new, strange cats aren't crowding him.

"What's a Wayfinder?" He asks, as Pebblepaw stands close to him.

"I find the dead cats in the waking world and bring them to the Sea." Flailpaw has a big smile on his face as he speaks. "Whether or not they're a clan cat doesn't matter. Everything goes to the Sea. Just depends on the location." Longpaw felt his pelt prickle.

"Is... T-that sounds sinister..." He can't help but say.

"AHAHA- yeah, it's supposed to." Flailpaw's smile grows, all teeth, and nudges the worried Longpaw with his hip.

"You're weird... And a little skinny..." He thinks aloud. Flailpaw shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

"Wow, thanks. I starved to death in the sand caves." Flailpaw shrugs.

"I fell on a rock!" Pebblepaw interjects, happily. Longpaw gives him a worried look.

"Is... that why your face is wet?" Longpaw lifts a paw, to touch his own face as a gesture.

"Mhm! Every Death Wound a cat gets turns into their own little mini-sea! I keep bluegill and catfish in mine. We can find you your own fishies to keep for yours!" Pebblepaw touches the back of Longpaw's head, to which he shivers.

It's wet. He can feel the cold-yet-warmth of Pebblepaw's toe-pads on the surface of his wound, rippling around like a proper body of water. Is that really what he died from!?

"Don't do that, Pebblepaw, he's still fresh." Firestripe finally says, batting away Pebblepaw's intruding hand. "We can worry about all that later... I think he should get some rest. A-and let him adjust to all this... The Sea knows how long it took for me to adjust..." Firestripe lays his fluffy tail on Longpaw's back, and leads him away from pure blue space they were at.

As they moved to a more familiar location, Longpaw recognized it as the beach just outside the clan's camp. He could see Greydrizzle, Meadowshade, Juniperstar, and the rest of the clan huddled around his body. Honeypaw was there, too, leaning on a sobbing Mousepaw. Meadowshade was digging a hole for his body, deep into the sand, with Juniperstar helping.

Longpaw watched, as Firestripe walked over and sat next to Fennelspots. He wrapped his tail around theirs, but they didn't respond. Longpaw hurried over to his siblings, pressing his pelt against Honeypaw's. He shivered, and looked around. There was no wind. Longpaw frowned, but... He wanted to be there, for his siblings, even if it was his own funeral. He watched as Meadowshade and Juniperstar jumped out his grave, and they took his body, and took it down into that sandy hole. Longpaw cringed at seeing his head bust open at the back. He felt ever more aware of his personal ocean as it dripped down his shoulders, uncomfortable.

Meadowshade and Juniperstar, his mom and the clan's leader, began to speak. Remembering the little things, crying, telling everyone how loved Longpaw was. He tucked his head into his chest, feeling warmth as everyone had something to say. Firestripe even muttered what he liked about Longpaw when everyone had finished, leaving the living to bow their heads in mourning.

Longpaw couldn't help but notice Billowspot was staring right at Firestripe.

[nin3kyuu]

Ni'nätya's full reference sheet

Not me realizing I didn't upload Nät's reference sheets

Update with Kalivu garments! :]

[oodlesofweird]

Not exactly a ship cause its one sided but the ideas still funny to me

@gaeric-appreciation

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.

[ross-hollander]

It takes some dedication...

...to earn any more than a few hours of Chatterweb ban, despite the Sea Fox Technicians who curate it having a reputation as merciless sentinels.

Nonetheless, the person who described abtakha as "found family, except they find you" managed it.

[morocosmos]

FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 11 - Surrogate

Masterlist Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Characters/Pairings: Leofard Myste & Warrior of Light Rating: Teen & Up Additional Notes: Takes place at during HW patch 3.5. Major spoilers for the Shadow of Mhach alliance raid questline. Ao3 Link

Lady Raimille. The picture painted by Stacia's tale was everything an orphaned child could want from a parent. Everything except that she'd passed on too soon — but not before giving her foster son one last gift.

The noblewoman’s real portrait hung above them, enshrined in Leofard’s quarters. Presiding over his affairs and his family; watching over the man himself. Moro'a knew that paintings like this cost a considerable sum to commission, and that taking care of them required specific knowledge and attention; unexpected obligations for a sky pirate. 

But the painting gleamed, immaculately free of blemishes. “I had wondered as to the origin of his vessel's naming,” Cait Sith said softly, his voice touched with emotion. “‘Tis a most beautiful painting.”

Moro’a’s time in Ishgard had also taught him that portraits like this one were made to memorialise — a likeness captured in brushstrokes, preserved from time. Remember me as I was, in this moment. Remember what this person means to us. Situated where their loved ones could gaze upon them, and never forget.

I doubt I'll ever feel worthy to sit where he sat.

Throughout their adventures, Leofard had pretended as though the portrait wasn’t there, and it was all Moro’a had needed to know not to bring it up. He’d accepted it without judgement, without ever considering otherwise. What was he here for, if not to hide from ghosts and broken hearts; from memory?

But now that Stacia had told them what Leofard would never impart himself, the pieces that made up the leader of the Redbills had finally begun to click: why a man who prized freedom so highly would build his new home a stone's throw from the Holy See, and why the loss of his airship had made Leofard retreat into himself, like a creature seeking familiar refuge. 

It seems she kept him safe until the very end, Utata had said, and Moro’a’s heart had clenched so tight that he thought it might shatter.

It wasn’t any of his business. The voidsent had been stopped, and Cait Sith had found a new home. His time with the Redbills was coming to a close. It’d been an engaging distraction, which was precisely what Moro’a had needed; there were no stones left to overturn, no more accidental revelations to be had. He would go his separate way, into the unknown, and then…

Later, as he was stowing the few essentials he’d brought into the manacutter, Moro’a heard footsteps approaching. He turned to see Leofard, who was already dressed in a clean set of clothes and red-tinted goggles. “I almost forgot,” the sky pirate said, as breezy as could be now as he held something out in his hand. A Redbill scarf.

“You didn’t have to,” Moro’a murmured, feeling a strange mixture of reluctance and guilt. 

“And I say otherwise, Warrior. I reckon you’ve done more than you’ll ever need to to have earned this.” His hand stretched closer, and Moro’a considered refusing. He was ready to quit this place, to move on. I’m not who you think I am, he wanted to say. 

Instead he found himself reaching out for the scarf, and tucking it in with the rest of his things.

If, after he'd said his farewells, his hand reached under the collar of his shirt to gently hold the necklace that rested against his chest, to remember, he was the only one who needed to know.

[clarissaexplainsbatchall]

Whirling rotors blew snow about in a cloud of white as the recovery VTOLs came in over FOB Hawk. Below them, hanging from a dozen taut lines, was a Coyotl omnimech inwith its left leg sheared off at the knee that they began to lower to the ground. Behind them came a Mad Cat III in the same teal and blue as the Coyotl, its right arm ending in a sparking stump at the elbow, and a great mass of melted armor like a tumor on its left side.

It came to a stop nearby where the VTOLs were depositing the omnimech. The sealed hatch to the cockpit opened and a rope ladder folded out of it, followed by Clarissa descending at a slow, tired pace. When she made it to the ground she reached for her neurohelmet, a custom built thing in grey and silver. Where a visor would be on most models of neurohelm there was only a bulky bulge of steel and flashing lights, leaving her looking like some kind of insectoid alien thing come to haunt the base.

She clicked a pair of fasteners on the helmet and in an instant the lights blinked out. As did the world. The aurora in the sky, the snow, the bustling people; they all vanished into nothingness to Clarissa. She could hear the wind blowing and the people rushing about, but to her sight, or rather lack of it, all was nothing. It was relaxing in its own way, a return to a childhood spent with only her skin, her nose, her ears, to guide her.

With a sigh she unzipped her cooling suit and the scent of her own body's sweat filled her nostrils. She really needed a shower.

[inquisitorpsyduck]

Decided to try some Sea Fox.