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imtrashraccoon · 11 months ago

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This chapter turned out much different than I planned but it's a good change. I have learned that my biggest writing weakness is impulse. I usually only struggle when I impulsively decide to change or write something else.

@owl-bones

First Day, Previous Day, & Next Day.

Bad Sansuary: Nightmare - PJs

Word Count: 2,153

You were thinking about going to bed soon when a gentle knock sounded on your front door. You were already in your pajamas and it was rather late, so who could be at your door?

You retrieved your brass knuckles and slipped them on just in case. Taking a peek through the peephole, you were relieved to see that it was only Nightmare standing outside. Then the absurdity of this situation set in and you did a double take, looking again.

What was he doing outside your door?

Setting the weapons aside, you unlocked the door and opened it. "Hi, uh... I wasn't expecting you..." You chuckled and rubbed the back of your neck before adding, "What's the occasion?"

His permanent smile widened and he let out a soft chuckle. "I just wanted to come see you in person, my dear. I hope I'm not intruding?" His tentacles slowly undulated behind him as he spoke.

You shrugged your shoulders and stood back from the door to let him in. "Nah, I don't mind," you answered.

Once he'd come inside, you shut the door again and turned to him. "It's a bit late to really do anything together. So, unless you wanted to do something, is this like...a sleepover?" You couldn't help teasing him a little bit as you still weren't sure what he thought of you.

He seemed kind of confused and he studied you quietly for a moment. "Did you want me to stay over?" he asked in a soft voice.

You hadn't expected him to seem actually interested but you nodded. "Yeah, if you're able to I wouldn't mind. I've been a bit lonely lately, you know?"

His bonebrows furrowed with concern but he said nothing. He didn't need to anyways as you both knew what the reason for that was. You hadn't heard from any of your skeleton friends all week, and while spending time with Nightmare in the dream world was nice, you couldn't help missing your other friends too.

You decided to focus on something else rather than spoil a potentially fun evening. So, you started to pull out a bunch of extra blankets and pillows from your closet. Nightmare just sort of watched while you set about arranging them into a comfy nest of sorts on the floor in the living room.

You'd experienced very few actual sleepovers growing up, but thanks to the magic of tv and movies, you knew approximately what to do. It helped that you were already in your pajamas, even if they weren't cute ones and literally just a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt. While you didn't feel like making snacks, you could watch some random television together if Nightmare wanted to join you.

He was still just quietly watching you and it was making you wonder if he was alright. So, you decided to try and distract him.

"Do you have like...a favorite pair of pajamas, like something that's really warm and comfy? Or do you not care for that sort of thing?" You glanced over at him once you were satisfied with the blanket nest and tilted your head curiously for his response.

He got a bit of an amused look and shook his skull. "I do have pajamas but I don't actually require sleep, with the whole being a god situation." He hummed in a thoughtful way and added, "I can sleep I suppose but it doesn't give any real benefits whether I do or not."

"Huh... I guess that makes sense." You pursed your lips thoughtfully. "I didn't even consider you may not have to deal with fatigue like the rest of us."

He chuckled, "That's not entirely correct... Using too much magic is still tiring of course but that's not usually an issue." He glanced around before adding, "Give me a minute and I'll be back."

You nodded and watched as his body seemed to liquify before sinking into the floorboards and completely disappearing. You guessed that was his way of teleporting? Of course, he had to be much more dramatic than the boys were, who all just sort of disappeared with no melting involved.

He reappeared about a minute later just as he'd said but he was dressed differently this time. He wore gray plaid button up pajamas with a black silk bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. Honestly, it was kind of basic considering his usual penchant for finery, but pajamas were supposed to be comfortable to make sleep come easier.

"It's a little over the top for sleeping, isn't it?" you joked. You kind of felt out done right now in all honesty.

Nightmare sat down next to you with a huff. "I very rarely even try to sleep, okay?" His voice had a slight growl to it and there was the faintest hint of a cyan glow over his zygomatic bones. While he was quick to mask how you'd managed to fluster him, you knew what you saw.

"I think they suit you though," you said with a hum and leaned back against the couch. "You wanna just hang out and watch tv for a bit until one of us passes out?"

"Maybe until you pass out, my dear," he teased and lightly ruffled your hair.

You shot him an annoyed look but there wasn't any malice in it. You both sat there for a while just enjoying being close and watching some random reality tv show.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" you asked after a couple minutes.

He turned, giving you his full attention. "Of course, what's on your mind?"

"I've been thinking about what you said last night and I think I would like you to draw me into an Encounter. I want to know what my soul looks like."

He studied you for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Why do you really want to know?" he asked. His voice had taken on a much more serious tone now and his eye socket was narrowed as he continued watching you.

You were a bit taken aback by his question. You were just curious as it wasn't something society had allowed you to know. There wasn't anything wrong with that, right...?

Nightmare clicked his non-existent tongue and tilted your chin up so you'd look at him again. "I don't need to be a god to know that there's another reason you want this. However, I can feel the turmoil in your soul and you really should be honest with yourself."

You sighed and fiddled with your nails. "I guess... I just want to know what all four of you see in me that's so special... Why else would any of you continue to hang around?"

You felt his tentacles slither around you and he pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around your body as well. He held you close and gently leaned his skull against your forehead.

"You've been worrying about this for a while, haven't you?" he murmured.

"Yeah... It's only gotten worse lately..."

He ran his claws through your hair in a soothing way. "I'm sorry, I certainly didn't help with matters either I'm sure. Your soul is what makes you...you. None of us would have gotten so close with you if there wasn't something special."

You sighed, "That's the thing though... I just want to know what that is."

"It's your ability to be kind, dear." His tone sounded so confident and sure of himself that you found yourself speechless. He gave your body a light squeeze and continued, "Or rather, your ability to be kind despite everything you've been through and how you put yourself into other's perspectives."

You hummed quietly as you thought over what he'd said. Anyone could be kind though. You still didn't understand why you were different from anyone else. Surely other humans weren't so heartless like the boys had sometimes hinted at...

"That being said, would it help you feel better if I showed you?" Nightmare asked in that familiar velvety voice.

"I don't know. I want to believe it will but what if my soul doesn't look right? I don't know if it would convince me."

He gently chided you. "Your overall appearance and personality are greatly influenced by your soul. I highly doubt it will...not look right."

You sighed and wiggled in his grip until he released your body. "Okay, then I'd like to see my soul. I trust you, Nightmare."

He studied you for a moment before nodding. "Very well. I'm honoured to know that you can say that with such conviction as not many people would."

He moved his hand so that it was hovering just above your chest but he hesitated for moment and glanced up at you. When you didn't change your mind, his cyan eyelight began to burn brighter and he focused intently for a moment.

You felt a sort of pressure in your chest just below your collarbone before a small teal heart slowly emerged from your body. It glowed softly and the living room seemed to get even darker than before, even though you hadn't turned the tv off.

You knew now why Nightmare had been hesitant to actually draw you into an Encounter in the beginning. Not only did you suddenly feel incredibly exposed, but you could also see several hairline fractures criss crossing along the surface of your soul. You didn't know what they meant but you could sense that the fractures couldn't be a good thing.

Nightmare was silent and when you finally tore your gaze away from your soul, you saw the expression of contemplation that graced his skull. He seemed to sense that you were staring and his eyelight flicked up to your face again.

"Do you still doubt that you're special now?" he whispered and brushed his knuckles against your cheek.

"I..." You found yourself at a loss for words and struggled to articulate exactly what you were feeling at the moment. "I...didn't know souls were this beautiful..."

He let out a quiet chuckle. "Indeed. Not all are as beautiful as yours though."

His eyelight briefly glanced down at your soul before he looked back into your eyes again. "Your primary trait is in fact Kindness and your secondary is called Empathy. Incredibly fitting, wouldn't you say?" His tone sounded kind of like he was teasing but there was still a genuineness in his gaze at the same time.

"Yeah, it is..." You could feel yourself tearing up a little and desperately tried to keep yourself from actually crying. "What do the cracks mean?"

His eye socket narrowed and he pulled you a bit closer against himself before answering. "That's something only you can truly know. Everyone goes through events in life that can affect them in various ways. Cracks usually signify moments of hardship or negative experiences that affected you so deeply that they left a mark."

"I see..." you muttered. "It's still beautiful. Thank you for showing me, Nightmare."

He nodded and carefully guided your soul back into your body. You couldn't help letting out an inadvertent sigh of relief as the room became brighter again. He wrapped your body up in his tentacles, giving you a gentle hug.

"You're very welcome, my dear," he purred against your hair.

It was hard to focus on anything but what you'd just experienced. You felt like you should feel freaked out or at the very least embarrassed, but you didn't. Maybe it would set in at some point, but for now you had a lot to digest.

You knew what your soul trait was and yet your life seemingly hadn't changed. You were grateful that Nightmare had been willing to show you, but you weren't sure if he'd had his own reasons for doing so. It probably didn't even matter at this point anyways. If he was going to hurt you, he would have already or he could've done it while you were so vulnerable moments ago.

You were rapidly becoming more tired the longer he continued to hold you. You felt oddly safe with him though and so you didn't even question it when you inevitably fell asleep leaning against him. While you had a dreamless sleep for the first night this week, you weren't too surprised when you woke up tucked into your own bed again.

There was a note taped to your alarm clock in very intricate cursive writing, like the writer had used either a calligraphy pen or maybe an actual quill. While you had to squint and adjust how close it was to your face for a bit like a nearsighted person, you eventually were able to read it.

"Good morning dear, I am sorry that I had to leave before you woke up but please know that I enjoyed our little impromptu sleepover. I will see you soon and I hope you slept well after everything. Yours truly, Nightmare."

#badsansuary #raccoons drabbles #undertale #dreamtale #nightmare sans #nightmare #nightmare x reader #reader #female reader #have some empathy dear #oneshot

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letteredlettered · 7 months ago

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We’d all like the rest of your butterfly facts, please.

I have SO MANY; I'm not even sure how to share them all.

Butterflies and moths are not taxonomic or cladistic groups; they're colloquial terms to refer to lepidoptera (the taxonomic order butterflies and moths belong to) that have different characteristics and behaviors. That said:

Moths tend to be nocturnal

Moths tend to have fuzzy bodies, butterflies are sleek

Moths tend to have fuzzy antennae, butterflies just have straight plain ones

The additional fuzz on months allows them to sense what's around them, which is helpful because they're not seeing as much because they're nocturnal

Moths tend to build chrysalises with silk but also leaves and mud, etc. These are known as cocoons. Butterflies only use silk and don't have cocoons (either are known as chrysalis)

The Atlas Moth has the biggest wingspan of any lepidoptera

The Atlas Moth usually emerges from its cocoon without a mouth. It can only breed and die

The Atlas Moth caterpillar lives for months. It's generally in the cocoon for months! But it only lives as an adult moth for a few days (because it can't even eat!)

Inside their chrysalises, caterpillars don't just grow wings and longer legs. They liquify completely and reform.

Caterpillars have six legs called "true legs" that mirror the six legs butterflies have. Then they have additional nubs farther down their bodies that help them move around.

Butterflies taste with their feet. If they land on you, they're tasting you!

Butterflies can only eat liquid. They primarily eat nectar and juice from fruit. Rotten fruit is easier for them because rotten fruit is juicy.

The butterfly mouth is called a proboscis. It curls up when not in use and uncurls when the butterfly eats. It's like a straw.

The word "proboscis" can sometimes refer (as a joke!) to nose, but butterflies can't smell with their proboscis. They smell with their antennae!

Like many insects, butterflies have faceted eyes. But unlike the movies, they probably don't see the same image over and over, because their vision isn't refined enough for that. What faceted eyes allow them to see are big patches of color, which is useful considering they eat fruit and flowers. If you want a butterfly to land on you, wear something colorful.

Butterflies don't have lungs. Like most insects, they breathe through holes in their bodies called spiracles.

Incidentally, this is why insects are so small. If they were giant, these holes would have to be bigger or there would have to be many more of them, and that would mean their exoskeleton was not stable!

Oh, yeah, butterflies do not have bones. Like all insects, they have an exoskeleton.

Butterflies do not have blood. Like all insects, they had a fluid that moves most nutrients through their bodies. It's called hemalymph. It carries hormones, nutrients, and waste. It's blue!

Male butterflies tend to be smaller and more colorful than female butterflies. This is the same style of sexual dimorphism present in most insects. Also in birds!

Male monarch butterflies have distinctive dark spots on the lower wings that female monarch butterflies don't have. The spots are scent glands that help them attract mates.

Most butterflies migrate. Like birds.

Monarch butterflies in North America east of the Rocky Mountains have one of the most impressive migration patterns of any animal. They may travel up to 3,000 miles from Canada to Mexico, but what is most spectacular about it is that almost all of them end up in just a few spots relatively close together on some mountain peaks in Central Mexico. The monarchs are so dense that you can't see the trees.

Butterflies are great for studying evolutionary adaptations in coloration and appearance because they are so striking. Camouflage is the adaptation present when an animal blends in with its surroundings. Mimicry is the adaptation that makes an animal look like a different animal.

The owl butterfly is a great example of mimicry because it has two big owl eyes on its wings. The Atlas moth wing tips look like snake heads.

"Batesian mimicry" is named after Henry Walter Bates, who studied mimicry in butterflies. Batesian mimicry means that one species who is harmless looks like another species that is not harmless. Mullerian mimicry is when several species that are harmful all look like each other, so the warning to predators is stronger. Butterflies have great examples of both types of mimicry.

Monarch butterflies and viceroy butterflies were once thought to exhibit Batesian mimicry, because it was thought that vicroys weren't toxic, but it turns out both butterflies are poisonous and so the species have evolved to mimic each other in an example of Mullerian mimicry.

Monarch butterflies are poisonous because the milkweed caterpillars eat is poisonous

The best way to attract butterflies is to grow native plants.

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panzershrike-pretz · 11 months ago

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Enoch & Horace

Source: x x x | x x x | x x x -> song: The Hearse Song

Don't ever laugh as a hearse goes by For you may be the next to die They wrap you up in bloody sheets To drop you six feet underneath They put you in a pinewood box And cover you up with dirt and rocks It all goes well for about a week And then, your coffin begins to leak

[...]

Your brain turns into maggot pie Your liver starts to liquify And for the living, all is well As you sink further into hell And the flames rise up to drag you down Into the fire, where you will drown Your skin melts off as you descend And Satan tears you limb from limb Your suffering will never end And the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out They'll eat your guts and then shit them out And when your bones begin to rot The worms remain, but you do not So don't ever laugh as a hearse goes by For someday, you'll be the one to die And when Death brings his cold despair Ask yourself, "Will anyone care?"

- About;

- Enoch O'Connor Mahari Raskólnikov - he/him - England

Enoch's name comes from MPHFPC, as does Horace's. Enoch being a biblical name, the father of Mathusaleah. It means dedicated, trained and disciplined, which is very much what Enoch is.

Mahari and Raskólnikov, a japanese and a russian surnames were adopted by him after his parents: Hanabi and Rodion respectively. In-story Enoch chose to accept both his adoptive parents names as a way to honor them and show how graceful he was for the love he was given by them.

- Fighter

His role aboard Blithe is that of a fighter. As the name suggests, he works for defense or aid during raids; he's not all that fond of firearms or even swords - his main way of attack is by using Pax, his Hollow, as a shield or as an attacker. Due to his thick skin, size and being mostly invisible, Pax is extremely useful.

Other than that, Enoch is also responsible for sending the dead to the Other Side - that is, making an oppening so Pennydarren can guide them to their destiny, by cleaning the body and soul of those who die.

- Mordeshor (+ Shadow Speaker)

A Mordeshor (a term I got from a book, I believe it's called Winter's Magic) is a person able to see and comunicate with the dead; they stand in a thin veil between life and death - created by the Goddess of Death herself to care for souls and help the Gods. Killing one of them brings infinite doom, as their killer is cursed to die but never be able to move on to the after life.

As you can tell, Enoch's an important guy - most for the disgust of his enemies. Being able to see the dead and make their souls visible for the living, if they so desire, is one of his powers. Other than that he can do some minor necromancy by playing a flute, so dead corpses get up to follow him when he needs to move them.

Finally, he can see Creatures of Shadows, such as Pax, and talk to them by connecting to their minds. It's not something easy, because it drains a lot of energy (especially if there's no bond between the Speaker and the Creature) and, amidst a battle against the beast it's something even worse to try and talk to them.

All of it comes with some side effects; being capable of feeling what a Shadow Creature feels can take a tool on one's body, alongside increased anxiety and difficult to sleep. Spending too long inside a Hollow's brain can make someone go crazy, and it's always a fight having to control your own body and the body of a monster sepparetly at the same time. Besides, Mordeshores ates outcasts - people either fear or find them disgusting, so it's a hard deal living, especially in modern times.

Many Mordeshores consider their own powers a curse and stories say that they were never chosen to help the Goddess of Death - it was instead a blood-curse given to someone who wronged her. Athena never addressed it.

- Personality

He's very bitter, always tired and in a bad mood. Normally, the crew leave him be, doing his thing so they don't have to deal with his sassy remarks and uncalled comments. He spends too much time just cursing and being a pain in the ass.

Even if most of the time Enoch is terrible to be around with, guven his poor social skills and plain rudeness, the crew still holds mixed feelings about his company. He's useful and even if pouting the entire time, he does anything to keep his friends safe - it gets tiring to hear his voice all the time, but it's the price they pay for not shoving him to the sea and leaving him marooned.

Enoch's personality may be weird, and he knows very well that pushing people around him away doesn't make him any good - but still, he fears being abandoned again and somewhat believes that not having strong ties with anyone will be less hurtful when the time comes (even if it never will). His plan of pushing everyone away ended up failing the moment he accepted Rodion as his dad and Olive as his lil' sister (and favorite person ever).

The crew would like for him to believe that he'll not be abandoned - and he knows it, but still thinks they'll run away the first chance they get. No matter how much he says he doesn't care for them, he proves time and time again that he really does. They know that down bellow his stone-cold armor, he's just a scared kid who yearns for the love he never got. Being forever stuck in time is a hard deal for a traumatized guy.

- Funfact: Enoch is the oldest between the peculiars! He was born in 1897 and even if his body and mind are foreve3r stuck at 18, he's actually 127 years old. Pld man-

- Relationship: it's complicated 🤡👍

----------------------------------------------

-> song: I'm Still Here

I am a question to the world Not an answer to be heard Or a moment that's held in your arms And what do you think you'd ever say? I won't listen anyway, you don't know me And I'll never be what you want me to be And what do you think you'd understand? I'm a boy, no, I'm a man You can't take me and throw me away And how can you learn what's never shown? Yeah, you stand here on your own They don't know me 'cause I'm not here And I want a moment to be real Wanna touch things I don't feel Wanna hold on and feel I belong And how can the world want me to change? They're the ones that stay the same They don't know me 'cause I'm not here And you see the things they never see All you wanted I could be Now you know me and I'm not afraid And I wanna tell you who I am Can you help me be a man? They can't break me as long as I know who I am

- About;

- Horace James - he/him - England

As said before, Horace's name comes from MPHFPC. It means timekeeper (or some variation of time, such as season), which seems to go very well with his power.

Enoch calls him by the nickname Horus, the egyptian god of the skies and the living (while Enoch is the keeper of the dead 👀).

And James, his surname, was just an after thought. I had no real reason to choose it, but here it is. It's a biblical name and means "replacer".

- Tailor

Horace LOVES to make and mend clothes! He's an extreme lover of fashion and design - he was the son of a seamstress, after all, and grew up surrounded by her work. She was the one to teach him all he knows about making clothes, knotting, embroidery and sewing.

Horace carried his skills to Blithe; he's the one who makes most of their clothes (and fixes them when needed, ESPECIALLY Enoch's). Not only that, whenever they steal cloths, Enoch makes clothing to be sold wherever they make port, earning a good amount of money.

Never let him near a modern clothing store, though, he will go insane and scream at the "horrible modern clothing! What happened to common sense?? Back in my time people dressed properly! This is disgusting! Where are the dresses? And the suits and ties? People dress like they're in a carnival now!" stuff. He has MANY thoughts on modesrn clothes.

- Prophet

Horace's peculiarity is that of prophecy; he's able to see the future in his dreams - although is involuntary and he's not able to control which aspects he sees.

Even though he and Pangea share this same peculiarity, his future-seeing is more precise and only happens while he sleeps or is very tired, while her's happen in random bursts mostly while she's awake and are mores suceptible to change given probability.

Because of his peculiarity, Horace has a terrible sleep schedule, marked by insomnia. Not all of his dreams are prophecies, and he had to learn how to distinguish between them - a hard thing to do, most of the time.

He despises non-magical people who lie about being able to read the future. It's simple and pure hatred.

- Personality

Horace is a bit of a coward, but not in a bad nature. He's not suited to fight, so whenever a battle turns up, he runs and hides in fear, especially because he doesn't know how to defend himself. He's scared of a lot of things (maybe that's why he stayed alive for so long KAKAKAK).

Horace was an upper class boy when he was a kid and many of his manerisms derive from that time; he was born in the 1920's to a wealthy family and ended up being a very spoiled but polite gentleman due to his family's teachings.

He never felt good about the awakening of his powers or about leaving his family behind as the war drew closer and Miss Seagull took him under her wings. Being the youngest of three brothers, he knew his mom would be devasetaded if he lost all three - so he kept in touch, sending her letters as she grew older and he was forever stuck.

Horace is a caring boy, full of love to give. He's educated and hardly breaks any rules; to him, a strong connection between his new found family is all he needs to live a happy life - he's able to lean on them when needed and even if he's paranoic about being seen as weak and a burden, he tries his best to not let those things get to him.

- Funfact: he's absolutely obssessed with cleaning and has a gigantic phobia of germs. He and Enoch argue a lot about En's non-existent hygiene.

- Relationship: oh boy. It's a situation-

THE BOYS.

Enoch is Not Okay and poor Horace just wants to get away from him.

My Taglist: @luckynumber4 @xxluckystrike @whollyjoly @sweetxvanixlla @1waveshortofashipwreck @malarkgirlypop (please please please tell me if u want out!! I don't want to be annoying!)

#pretz oc #🥨🪶

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reallyprofoundkryptonite · 1 year ago

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Random Krogan headcanons

since Krogan is part lycanwing, he lacks some of the teeth that regular humans do. He has no molars, for example. What he does have is a hybridized version of molars and sharp back teeth for cracking bones open. Because of this, he often uses his hard upper pallet to chew things that are crunchy so as not to wear out his back teeth. This is allowed because he quite literally has a sandpaper like coating on the roof of his mouth for grinding things.

Among other weird things with his mouth, the only thing remotely normal about his set of teeth is the ones at the front of his mouth. Otherwise he has twelve canine teeth (three on each side both top and bottom). Despite this, fact and how large they are, typically he files the other two down to appear more natural, so it seems like he only has one set of canines instead of three.

To accommodate for these large, sharp teeth, in their natural state, not being filed down, he has a bit of a snaggletooth where sometimes one or two will poke out of his mouth, otherwise they do have a thin membrane attached to their roots that will tug them back and fold them in while not in use, considering these weapons are supposed to stay sharp since they’re used for both defense and offensive purposes.

Krogan has a forked tongue. It doesn’t impede his speech, and it is completely natural. He can move both forks of the tongue independently so use your imagination with that one I guess.

Krogan does have a strong enough teeth to crush an apple in his jaws without them breaking. He is also capable of using far more than the average human bite force (roughly 890psi in comparison to the average human’s measly 200-400 psi.) His bite is capable of leaving absolutely NASTY wounds since he can crush bones in his jaws very easily and he has a naturally venomous bite. (His venom is produced through his salivary glands.)

His venom is a neurotoxin. In high enough dosages it will go directly for the heart and the brain and liquify them from the inside out, thereby causing cardiac arrest and aneurysms. In a regular dose from him simply biting (he will guaranteed draw blood every single time. You cannot escape his venom.), you will oftentimes suffer severe migraines and very likely have permanent issues with your heart.

Humans are a natural part of Krogan’s diet. He does not actively hunt people but he will if he has to or is very hungry.

Krogan is for the most part an obligate carnivore. Much like a bear or a dog he can and will eat plants (mostly berries and flowers) but they are not a major part of his diet. It is only 20% of his diet. Otherwise he will get very sick.

Krogan has a third clear eyelid (nictating membrane) to protect his eyes while swimming or flying.

#httyd #krogan #httyd rtte #krogan rtte #krogan httyd #rtte #httyd fanart #httyd fandom #httyd au #httyd krogan #rtte krogan #rtte headcanons #httyd headcanon #headcanons

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jessiebanethedragon · 4 years ago

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White Sands Warm the Cold Sea

Star Wars, The Bad Batch Pirate!au (Hunter x Reader

Summary: the reader, betrothed to a disgusting Coruscanti Lord flees her home world and lands herself in a plethora of trouble, a ship of clones, and one pirate captain whose cold exterior needs much more than the tropical seaside sun.

Warnings: Swearing, takes place in time periods where women have dowery's and suchlike. The readers dad and bothered are asses.

Chapter one: The Sentencing

Fate, you had decided, fucked you over. Which in itself, was not only a very unladylike statement, but was also very ironic. But how fitting for a woman of your time, to want something her whole life only to be told she couldn’t have it by the most infuriating of men. For passion to be pushed into a corset and cinched into fake smiles and batting eyelashes.

Everyone has a value, never mind how little or much, everyone is worth something. And you are worth a great deal to me.

At the time you’d thought your fathers words were a statement of affection, love brought to light by goblets of rum only to settle in your lap as you tended to the fireplace and did your best to lead him into his bed, staggering every step of the way. It was now that you understood his words. The choice of word may have been valuable, but the more accurate synonym, dowry explained his true intentions.

Enter one Lord Volim Nython, a pretentious man with a mind that was far more shallow than his pockets and a reputation to match. What Lord Nython did not already possess, he bought. And what he was without currently, was a wife. He was a man with a personality inked in gunpowder and steel, crushing his enemies in the war that made his predecessors and your fathers fortunes.

A very fitting match. Oh how quaint, the wedding would be so grand, and the children, oh they will be beautiful. The distinct lack of sincerity infuriated you, older women with tea parties akin to that of toddlers and the gloved hands they rest on their chests as they shake their heads at the utmost ridiculous things. While the tautly curled hair stays perfectly in place, rage resided in you at an unfathomable height. But, it was not without its reins, and as its rider, you had to lead your rage onto a path that would result in your success.

You chose this night carefully, knowing that it was on the last of every month, when the money came in from gambling, debts and the crown, that your father quite literally liquified his earnings. You shiver in your nightgown, every fireplace in the house was still burning, and the oil lamps were flickering away, though the household was asleep save for yourself. The main doors shifted open as the intoxicated man made his way in. And you steady yourself before greeting him.

��A good night, I'll take it then?” You ask with a breath of a laugh, wrapping a shivering arm arm around his shoulders and leading him over to the plush sitting chairs by the fire. He waves you off when you offer him water and so you sit on your knees by his feet. Grasping his hands on your own. He regards you with a suspicious look.

“I… I wanted to ask you something.” You start carefully, eyeing his look. The rug is warm from the flame and the way it illuminates his face, you wonder how many times your mother sat with him like this, or how often he looked at her in such confusion.

“Well? Get on with it then.” He slurs leaning further back into the red velvet. Causing you to shift and bunch your nightgown.

“I wanted to ask if, if you thought, the lord...”

“Lord Nython.” He confirms, watching you jump as the fire crackles, your nerves electrified by what you mean to bring up next. And it gives away your intentions before you can ask them. After all, your father may know you better than you had originally thought.

“Do not tell me what I think you are about to do.” he warns tilting his head down so the orange light reflects the way he regards you through his brow.

“I think we could make a better match.” You try and appeal to his motivations. “I think we stand to make a better-”

“I’ve been given offers.” He interrupts, the liquor making him less angry and more level headed as you had intended it to. “No one will wed you for the price Lord Nython will.” He moves to stand, the conversation finished, but you are not, having given yourself a stern word of not settling until you are free from the man's clutches.

“There are richer men outside of Coruscant.” You say with more force than you had intended. The translucent fabric whooshing as you stand. Your father pauses at the helm of the stairs, like a Blurg righting itself after an unsuccessful charge, he is listening.

“Naboo royalty, even a low Alderanian Lord would double Nythons offer.” You take cautious steps forward, hoping that his underestimation of your intelligence works in your favor.

“Those men are oceans away, Nython will wed you tomorrow if the crown gave its blessing.” He counters, but it is not a dismissal.

“Consider this an investment then, the payoff would surely be worth it.” You press carefully, like a healer tending to an inflammation, you palpate the area with caution looking to avoid the most sensitive of the inflamed tissue. Your father huffs.

“Providing you could snag a suitable man.” Hope flickers within you, and it warms you more than the fire ever could, it makes you feel power, and control. And hope, like it does with most, makes you foolish.

“Love is a powerful motivator.”

His booming drunk laugh shakes you, fear flooding you as you realize your mistake. But you were so close! So tantalizingly close to being free from the wretched man.

“You think men marry for love?” You see him wipe away tears of laughter as he sways on the dark oak staircase of your home. “You my dear, are even more dull than I thought.” You shake with anger and anxiety.

“I want to be in love! Like you an-”

“Do not say you mother and I. Ha. You are truly delusional.” He interrupts, taunting you with drunken laughter. Your father never speaks of your mother, and when he did it was pushed aside in favor of something else. But alcohol has a way of loosening tongues.

“I… I-” you stammer, if there was one thing you remembered about your mother it was the love she shared with your father and the stories of growing up and falling into a love so pure with someone it made your heart ache for it.

“We were not in love, she despised me, and I her.” He spits from his place on the stairs. The height difference adds to how small you feel. How his pitiful stare shrinks you and sends chills into your bones.

“I do not under-“ He interrupts again:

“It was an act! Pretend! Meant to fool young girls into thinking they could have a life as such. And even in death she continues to lie to you!” You blink away tears and think, you try to think he is lying, that they were happy, she was happy, and that in his intoxication your father lies.

“She was adamant that we would be in love for you.” He sighs, and drops to the stairs to sit and lean on the railing. “That we would keep up pretences for your sake so that you would strive for such happiness.” With his words it is as if he is taking away the core memories of your mother.

“I will not marry that man.” You have to push the words out, but the meaning is clear enough.

“Yes.” Your father says ever so sternly. “You will.”

“I shall not!” You fight back, hating how your eyes cloud with tears and emotions bubble up. “He looks at me like one does cattle, I am nothing more than a trade deal to that man!” both parties know you are right, from the first meeting when he had stalked around you, looking up and down, tutting here, humming there. Not engaging in any conversation that you’d deem intellectual or interesting. You’d been disgusted then, and you are still disgusted now.

“Please!” Your father wipes drunken saliva from his chin, “Lord Nython is giving us so much gold for your hand in marriage you should be grateful, and a renowned war hero like himself. You will wed that man even if i have to drag you to the altar.” You’re stunned, and horrified, and your father leaves you weeping on the dark oak stairs, a mess for one of the maids to clean up before he wakes in the morning.

Tag list: @the-mandalorian-clone-lover @peacefulwizardfox @rex-meshla @s1st3r @and-claudia @kamino-mermaid

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kitkat1003 · 3 years ago

Text

Who Are You Really?

Chapter 4: Rush Hour

Summary:

Huh. Guess Spirit doesn’t have too much time to introspect. That’s okay, though. Introspection doesn’t lead to anything good, and Spirit much prefers action over thought when they start to think too far back.

They dig into their pocket, pulling out the proper token.

Ft. Almond, who belongs to @strange-lace

Spirit Masterpost

Spirit is nervous.

Macaque’s token is buzzing.

They don’t know if they should be. They’re nervous for clients, of course, and they’re polite to everyone they meet, but Macaque is...different. They’ve known him longer, longer than most of their clients.

They’ve done so many favors for him, he can’t hurt them. They know that. They know they know that.

They still tremble a little as they reach into their pocket.

Are the favors not enough? They have to be. Spirit has been operating on them for as long as they can remember, likely longer than that. Favors are dependable, favors make sense, they can tally them down and be assured, and know, and can quantify, and

And yet.

Macaque is like Red, but different. Close, but not a friend. Something else. And Spirit shouldn’t be afraid. They’ve done him favors, they’re safe. They’ve done everything he asked, even when it wasn’t good. Because they aren’t stupid, and they know what is and isn’t right. They haven’t been right for a long time maybe ever, but they just want to be safe, and this is how they will be.

They know that. This is how it has to be.

Because if it isn’t, then Spirit would have, and wouldn’t have, and

Spirit doesn’t like to think on the would haves, because they turn into should haves. They should have this, they should have that—none of that is helpful. Wanting more from the past doesn’t change the present.

Besides, they should have what they deserve, and

Spirit grabs the token and goes to where they are needed.

They’re not quite sure where they are, at first, but the cliffside they appear at is just a few miles from the town. They can see the weather tower from where they are. It’s the tallest building in the city, after all.

Macaque’s seeming lack of appearance would be worrying, but Spirit feels the itch that always happens in their eye, the big one, when Macaque is hiding in the dark.

“You test that a lot,” they say. “I haven’t missed you yet.”

They turn around just as Macaque steps out of their shadow. It’s kind of interesting, watching the flat object liquify into what seems like smoke, pulling from the rockface upon which Spirit’s shadow is cast. From shadow to smoke to flesh and bone, the transition seamless.

“I’m your teacher, aren’t I? Who else is going to test you?” He stretches his arms leaning back against the cliff face with his arms crossed over his chest.

Spirit supposes that makes sense. Macaque is their teacher, in the sense that he’s really the only person who has bothered to teach Spirit anything, save for their mom. But Mom isn’t a teacher, she’s Mom, so Macaque is their teacher. It makes sense when you think about it.

“So,” Macaque starts, a claw lazily tugging at Spirit’s sleeve to get their attention. “Got any new information? As a favor,” he adds the last part like he always does, and Spirit perks up like they always do.

A new favor is always so nice.

“Oh, well, the Demon Bull King was released,” they start. “Red Son, Princess Iron Fan, and the Demon Bull King have congregated on the outskirts of Wán Qiãn Chéng, where Monkey King’s successor lives, and they battle him from time to time—”

“Monkey King has a successor?” Macaque all but shouts, loud enough that Spirit takes a step back.

They fidget, and hide their hands behind their back.

“Um, yes?” Spirit shrugs at Macaque’s incredulous look. “He stopped the Demon Bull King when DBK first emerged, and has been protecting the city and, uh, the world since then. He’s a little younger than me, age wise I think.

“I haven’t gotten a good look at him, but he’s friends with the youngest member of the Long family, so he might be aristocratic? I don’t know,” They finish lamely, smiling a little.

Macaque grins. It’s not a nice one, one of his scheming grins he gets when he wants something and is figuring out how to get it. Spirit finds it familiar, considering Macaque always wants something from them, in one way or another. Why he feels the need to scheme is beyond them, because Spirit does most anything if asked politely.

Then again, they were a bit obstinate when Macaque and them first met. They made Macaque work for their favor, which is stupid. They should’ve listened better back then, and Macaque would maybe like them more now.

Most people don’t like them, though, so they suppose they should be used to it.

“Well then,” Macaque starts, rubbing his chin with his hand in thought. “That is something. Thanks kid. I’ll use that.”

Spirit brightens at the praise.

“You’re welcome!” they beam. “Um, anything else, sir?”

Macaque waves a hand. “Nah.”

He turns towards the horizon, and then, for some reason, looks back almost...shy? Spirit doesn’t really understand Macaque’s moods. He can flip flop in terms of good or bad feelings very quickly, with no rhyme nor reason Spirit can discern in regards to why.

They jump, scrambling to catch an item as Macaque just...tosses them a bag of what they soon realize is coins. A fair bit, if the weight is any indication. The bag is purple, with a silver drawstring for the pouch. They love purple and silver! Macaque doesn’t do silver, save for the token he made for them; his cuffs are gold.

They glance up at him in confusion.

“Got tired of carrying that,” Macaque says, looking away from them. “Figured you wouldn’t mind. Buy yourself something with it, or whatever.”

He glances back at them again. Spirit waves.

Macaque jumps off the cliff, and disappears.

Spirit heads back to town, after that, flitting through different shopping centers. They don’t really have a lot of money regularly, but they also don’t spend a lot of money regularly, so they’re typically okay with spending money when they want or need to.

The last thing that was a big purchase was getting their outfit fixed up for the third time. They always wait until the fabric is so worn that they can’t stitch it together to do so, because they try to be frugal, but keeping their one and only outfit in fair condition is a necessity.

Macaque had mentioned the practice, saying that it was how he kept his outfit pristine after centuries. Demons who could weave silk would restring the fabric line by line until it was simply the same but brand new, keeping the old string to be salvaged for whatever they could find within. It wasn’t terribly expensive, but was still a purchase to be saved up for.

They don’t shift into human form, staying in the alleyways where they’re hardly seen and glancing out to the streets to see if there’s anything neat to find instead of walking in the open as a human. Their eyes catch on a shop in the food district, a colorful storefront.

Bitter Sweets.

They can see the colorful creations set up in the window display. Sweets, pastries.

Pastries.

They remember pastries. It was such a rare thing to have. Father was always in the Inn, always toward the front side they’d have to cross to get to the indoor kitchen. They never wanted to cross Father. They knew what would happen.

But it became a game. Find whenever Father is gone, fixing up a room for a new customer, off to the town to find tourists, and sneak into the kitchen. Throw together the ingredients, skipping across the floor to find each and every item needed for the recipe. Mixing the ingredients into dough, kneading it and playing with it as Mother laughed, shaping it into its proper form, placing it in the stone oven and watching, waiting.

And then the dough would rise, and Spirit would lean in so close to watch that Mom would gently tug them back with a soft smile. She would pull out the finished product, and Spirit would tug on her sleeve and say ‘Now?’, and she would smile and shake her head and make them wait until it cooled.

They would pull apart the warm (but not hot!) balls of sticky bread just to see the inside and finally stuff a piece into their mouth, giggling. They’d take the lot and scamper off into safety with Mom, off into the back area where the infirmary was, where father couldn’t reach, the taste of sweetness on their tongue.

Spirit remembers pastries.

Entranced, they cross the street and enter the shop.

The inside is just as warm and bright as the outside, purples and pinks in pastel hues the general color scheme, with cool gray walls and white highlights to accent the colors. There’s a second display case by the front counter, a small table with two chairs off to the side, and a sweet smell of something baking that hits you both with nostalgia and hunger.

Spirit thinks about the last time they’ve eaten, and can’t quite remember. Then again, that’s not too terrible, considering they don’t need to eat regularly.

“Hello, dear!” A voice calls from further inside.

Spirit jumps at the sound, and stares as brown hair, purple skin, and red eyes greet them. The demon is of the spider variety, a cap on her head and smudges of flour and icing on her apron and face.

She has 3 eyes, just like them. But they’re not supposed to have three eyes, so it’s different. She’s allowed to like hers.

She wipes off her hands on her apron and steps up to the counter, a pleasant smile greeting them with her hands on her hips, ready to be of service. “What can I get for you today?”

Spirit stares for a moment.

Right. They have to order something.

“I-uh-um,” They stammer, because they didn't have time to prepare for this, and just a glance at the display case proves that they don’t know what any of the pastries are, nor do they know what the names mean.

And what did they even expect? That this random sweets shop would have the exact type of pastry they remembered making centuries ago with someone who has been gone so long it shouldn’t matter? Those things are lost to time, lost to a world they left behind when there was nothing left but blood and memories. The soft moments are held only by the crumbs left in their head; there’s nothing tangible here. They’re so stupid. So, so, so stupid.

“I can always help you pick something out, if you need help,” the shopkeep says, gentle as Spirit’s anxiety mounts.

No, they can’t ask for help, they’re not allowed to. They can’t do this, they should just run, run and never come back because this is stupid, what are they even looking for-

“Mooncakes!” they nearly shout, clapping a hand over their mouth a moment later, face bright red as they look away.

Their tail curls around their leg tight enough to hurt. The shopkeeper's eyes glance down at their leg, for a moment.

Spirit tries again, softer, and fidgets with their belt. “Um, if you, uh, if you have any mooncakes. I would...like those.”

They bite the inside of their cheek hard, just short of drawing blood.

Mooncakes are the only pastry they know by name. The only pastry that Father allowed and wanted them to make, special for New Years. That was when they could be in the kitchen for hours, baking batch after batch for customers in the Inn and to hand out to those in the infirmary.

Father never let them make anything outside of what people wanted, what could bring them in money. He was always so worried about costs, irate by a single lost yuan. They were only to do what could be profitable. Providing mooncakes to the tourists brought them business. That’s all he cared about.

Mom’s hospital business always made far more than the Inn ever did. It’s a point of pride they carry, that their Mother’s sunny disposition, kind nature, and astute healing practices made her far more of a matriarch than their Father liked. No one likes staying at an Inn with an owner who has such a cruel gaze, where the owner’s wife and child are too afraid to show their faces.

No one likes staying at an Inn where the owner doesn’t even have a face, but, well, Spirit wouldn’t know anything about that. Why would they? They’ve had claws for a long, long time, claws that are strong enough to rip and tear, but that has nothing to do with this. Nothing happened.

It’s none of your business. Stop asking.

The shopkeep smiles.

“Ah, Mooncakes,” she says. “It’s been a few months since the New Years celebration, but people are still coming around looking for them. I make a batch every other day just in case. Lucky for you, today’s the fresh batch!”

She turns away to the back, and Spirit lets out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Miss.”

“Call me Almond,” Almond calls from the back.

Spirit smiles. “Thank you, Miss Almond.”

They only ask for a few, maybe three, but after they pay and leave they find nearly ten in the bag they’ve been given. They idly chew on one, and almost stop in the street as the rush of nostalgia is accompanied by the taste of an expertly baked mooncake.

Watching the fireworks with Mom, bright lights up in the sky, sharing a mooncake with someone who cared, being carried home, half asleep under the stars and wanting to be nowhere else but where they were then, because the only place that was home was her arms because they were warm and safe and now they’re….

They blink back a couple tears and continue to chew.

They walk around aimlessly for a while, and eventually climb up a random building to sit on its ledge, letting the wind brush through their fur as they chew on their second mooncake.

They wonder if Red would share one with them, if they asked. They never stayed around long enough to share one with him on New Years. They almost pull out their cell phone and text him, but…well.

Red hasn’t been close for a long time. A rift was made because Spirit failed him, and they’ve always been a coward, too afraid to reach across the gap where something safe and special used to be.

They put their phone away.

A token buzzes in their pocket.

They dig into their pocket, pulling out the proper token.

Oh. It’s Spider Queen!

Spirit hasn’t heard from her in a long while, but they’re always happy to help, so they let the token whisk them to where they need to be.

They can hear the rush of cars overhead when they appear in what they assume is the sewers. Eerie green pods of something litter the walls and ground, and there’s a fair smattering of purple grey spider webs that lighten the dark stones.

“Spirit!”

They turn, and see the Spider Queen just a foot or so away, bathed in green light from a crater shaped pool that has a green, bubbling liquid boiling within. She’s grinning wide at them, and Spirit will say that, for a demon lost for half a millennium (that’s most demons, to be fair. They all disappeared when the Demon Bull King did. After all, if Monkey King could do that to someone, what would he do to them, the weaker ones?), she looks just as much of a threat as she did the last time they saw her.

They bow.

“Hello, Miss Queen,” they greet, and, after glancing back at the bag gripped tightly in their hand, they say “Would you like a mooncake?”

Spider Queen stares, for a moment, and then laughs. “Ha! My, aren’t you sweet?”

The sound of Spider Queen’s mechanical spider legs sends a shiver down Spirit’s spine, but Spirit has never minded spiders all that much. As long as bugs stay away from them, in the sense that they don’t crawl onto them, Spirit leaves them be. Spider Queen is more than just a bug, they suppose, and therein lies the danger.

They stand up, reach into their bag, and pull out a mooncake.

“This is just the thing I needed!” Spider Queen plucks the mooncake from Spirit’s hand. “You would not believe the day I just had!”

She takes a bite and Mmms at the taste while Spirit fidgets silently.

“You know, I had my favorite meal taken from me, but this might be the next best thing.”

Spider Queen is a lot like Macaque, in the sense that they both talk a lot and Spirit never knows what to say in reply. There’s a lot of bragging, grandiose statements and plotting, and then eventually an expectation of a response. Spirit is never good at responses, though.

Then again, Spider Queen likes to hear herself talk a little more than she cares for a response. She’s easier to handle, in that sense. Macaque is harder.

“Would you mind giving me a buff, sweetheart? As a favor. I’ve got a bigger task for you, and it requires a bigger explanation. Why waste the time, right?” Spider Queen holds out one of her mechanical spider legs.

“Right,” Spirit replies with a small smile. “Of course.”

Lucky that they keep the polish for this sort of stuff on hand. They pull it out with a rag and start to polish the metal, working out old scratches and making them disappear until the surface glitters like new.

“This town has become a hotbed of activity since ol’ Demon Bull King jumped out from the netherworld,” She starts, talking as Spirit works. “I thought I’d sneak in and see what the fuss was about, maybe grab a meal or two. It has been ages since the Spider Queen has ruled, and now that we’re allowed to play, I’m planning on rebuilding my empire! The monkey boy came in and stole my meal, but he left behind a little piece of himself that I can use.”

She chuckles darkly at that notion.

“Monkey Boy?” Spirit inquires, moving onto the second leg.

“Ugh,” Spider Queen growls under her breath. “Monkey King’s newest pet project. He comes tearing in, stealing my perfectly good dinner, that little—” She cuts herself off.

Spirit hands her another mooncake. She makes a motion with it in the air, huffing indignantly before continuing. “His hair is enough to give my venom the kick it needs, but I don’t have the minions I used to. I need tech.”

Spirit starts on the fourth leg. The position they have to be to buff is uncomfortable, a strain on their back, but to complain would be stupid, so they deal with the pain.

“That’s where you come in, dear,” Spider Queen turns to them.

Spirit glances up.

“You’re good at getting information, and you probably understand this modern stuff better than I do.” She waves a hand, almost dismissive. “I need someone to build me some spider robots to transport the venom. You don’t need to worry about the transport, I’ve got Huntsman for that, but they don’t know what to look for.”

Spirit worked on finishing the fourth leg while they respond. “Of course, Miss Queen. Does it matter if they’re a demon or not?” They like to know specifics.

“Pfft—no self respecting demon knows anything about these new fangled devices! We thrive off of power and magic, not tech like phones! Those are things humans use as a crutch,” Spider Queen rolls her eyes, huffing.

“...Right,” Spirit replies, pointedly not getting offended on Red’s behalf.

It’s okay. She doesn’t know she’s being rude. Spirit stands up, having finished with buffing Spider Queen’s armory.

“I’ll get on it right away, Miss Queen. Anything else?” Spirit finds that being polite does wonders, and Spider Queen likes it when she’s called a Queen.

“Nope! I’m gonna relax. Good luck!” Spider Queen’s legs sound with metal clicks as she leaves, waving as she does so.

Spirit waits until they’re sure Spider Queen is far enough away for them to relax. They turn, walking toward where they can hear open rushing water. The sewers are essentially a river, and all rivers lead to the sea eventually. Macaque taught them that.

It takes them around an hour to walk to the end of the sewers, climbing out of the pipe and sitting atop it.

They’re just a few hundred yards away from the city’s docks. They dangle their feet over the edge of the pipe and watch the rushing sewer water drain out into the sea.

They pull out their phone.

Red Son would likely know how to work robotics, but they’re supposed to find a human. Plus, they don’t want to involve Red in this sort of stuff. They can probably ask Mei. She doesn’t know about their favor business, so she won’t be any the wiser, and she won’t feel guilty! It’s the perfect plan.

‘Mei.

Hello! It’s Spirit. I was wondering about the technology of the city. It is very advanced. How was it constructed? Who keeps it running?

Let me know if you know!

Spirit’

That should be inconspicuous enough to get Mei to start discussing things. They don’t like dancing around subjects, but they don’t think this is the sort of thing they can just tell Mei about. Mei is the type to have more of a moral backbone than Spirit does. Spirit has their rules, of course, their lines in the sand, but they do most anything regardless of consequence. What is good, what is bad; they don’t have the power to deliberate on that sort of thing.

If they were powerful enough that no one could hurt them, they would choose good, of course. They don’t enjoy most of the work they do, they don’t find satisfaction in it besides the comfort of knowing that they’re a little safer, but it’s necessary. They don’t have the luxury of knowing powerful people to protect them. They don’t have anyone who would.

So they protect themself, somehow. It works.

They pocket their phone, and head back towards the city.

They take a detour to the forest, because being in the sewers did nothing to keep them clean. There’s a stream a few miles out of town that’s perfect for washing in, though, so that’s where they end up, carefully scrubbing the scent out of their clothes and fur and sunbathing on a rock. They sprawl across it, back curved as their head hangs off one end and their feet and tail the other. They have to bend their legs a bit, because the rock isn’t tall enough to keep every part of them off of the ground, but it’s mostly comfortable.

Just for a few hours, they let themself rest, polishing off the last few mooncakes as their fur and outfit dry.

They end up falling asleep and wake up as stars dot the sky. The more they stare, the more their vision becomes unfocused, so that the lights triple in number. It’s fun, sometimes, to have lopsided eyes. It creates an interesting view.

They stretch, grabbing their now dry clothes and putting them on. They’ll take a leisurely walk back to the city, maybe pick up breakfast. Maybe. They already ate something this week, and it’s not like they need much. Why waste the money if it’s for something unnecessary.

Then again, Comes a voice that sounds a little bit like Macaque, a little bit like Father, and mostly like a part of themself they prefer to ignore; Were the mooncakes necessary?

Spirit doesn’t have an answer to that.

An hour’s walk gives them plenty of time to introspect, but Spirit prefers to avoid that. Their mind is a winding road paved back centuries, but while it started with lovingly placed bricks somewhere along the way the materials were left shattered. Glass and broken stone leaves feet bloody and pained, and you can’t go around, only through. So Spirit chooses neither, and leaves the rest of the road to be forgotten.

The road they’re on now, the present, is made with a mosaic of materials they managed to cobble together, after everything broke. It’s bumpy, there are cracks in the pavement, and you have to be careful. Spirit is always careful, though; they’ve had the practice.

The issue with being so, so careful is that leaving behind the earliest stretches of road means they remember little of their childhood. Spirit would never say it aloud, but they don’t remember their mother’s face. To find that picture would mean flipping through the bloody pages of their photo album, and Spirit is, at the end of it all, a coward.

That’s enough thought for now. We have to move things along.

Spirit thinks they can have a leisurely morning, but yet another token buzzes in their pocket, much to their chagrin. Spirit wouldn’t say it, but sometimes it’s exhausting to be at everyone’s beck and call. They signed up for it, however, they’ve no room to complain.

Reaching into their pocket, they pull out Yin and Jin’s token. They frown, if only because Yin and Jin call them the most frequently and, often, the favors they’re called for are mundane and silly.

Though, compared to the harder, less moral favors, they find these preferable.

They consider letting the token ring. They’ve done that before. Yin and Jin have so many favors put down that they get a little cavalier with how they interact with the pair. The two used Spirit a lot before they knew how the system worked and realized using them as a crutch was a bad idea.

Apparently owing Spirit something is a bad thing. Spirit can’t imagine why.

They sigh. As much as Yin and Jin are long-time clients, that’s no excuse for being late or lazy. They take a deep breath, and let the token whisk them away.

They arrive within the city, at the front step of a hideout. Spirit recognizes the alley once they swivel their head around. It’s a fair few miles in the middle of the city, where a lot of nooks and crannies lie between the bustling streets. Perfect for hiding. It’s not too far from the main road that it would be invisible, though Spirit isn’t sure if that’s because Yin and Jin want to be near the main road or if they just didn’t think about it. With their general intelligence, it’s 50/50.

They step inside, posture straight. All business.

“Hello,” they greet.

Inside is a rather sparse dwelling. There’s what appears to be an unused kitchen off to the right of the main room. Said room is a large expanse, and a dirty one at that. At the back of it is a board, covered in pins and string, tying threads together in myriad ways that Spirit can’t quite decipher. They see Mei up there. A picture of Pigsy. The rest are unrecognizable.

“Hey!” Yin calls.

Spirit’s gaze drops down to them. They’ve been taller than the two for centuries.

“Got a favor for ya,” Jin continues.

“I assumed,” Spirit replies. “What do you need me to do?

Red eyes squint with twin sharp-toothed grins, and they pull out a large book.

“Well you see,” Yin starts.

“We wanna go after the Monkie Kid, yeah?” Jin continues.

“So we made a plan,” Yin finishes.

They open the book, straight to the middle, and on the page are...two steps illustrated. Pretty self explanatory, in the sense that Spirit can tell that they want to use some sort of artifact to trap the Monkey King’s successor.

“So, we figured, Calabash,” Jin points to the first picture. “We capture him in it, keep ‘im in there, right?”

“Right,” Yin agrees.

They look to Spirit.

“Right?” Spirit says.

They both nod.

“The thing is,” Jin moves on, which Spirit appreciates because they don’t know where this conversation is going, “The calabash is uh, in a museum.”

“It’s old,” Yin supplies.

“You want me to retrieve it for you?” Spirit parses out.

Yin and Jin smile again, all teeth. It used to be intimidating, but, well, Spirit is older, and smarter.

Spirit is scared of everyone, but there’s a certain safety that comes with knowing that when push comes to shove, they just need to kill one to incapacitate the other. They’ve seen the two when one is absent without cause. They can use that, if needed. Not that they would, but they could. That makes them safe.

“Now you got it,” Jin crosses his arms over his chest.

“Sound good?” Yin asks.

“Do I have a time limit?” Spirit likes to know the conditions.

They’re already working on one favor, and if they have to worry about the time limit of another favor, then they have to balance things. Not that they do much else when not working on favors, but still. They like to be a little organized.

“We’re gonna order from the restaurant the kid works at in a week or two,” Yin explains.

Spirit nods. That gives them time. They have a phone now, too, and Mei taught them how to search stuff on it, so they can look up the museum once they’re out.

“Okay,” They respond. “Anything else?”

Yin and Jin glance at each other. They have this way of communicating without words, and Spirit finds it kind of cool. There’s a twitch of an eyebrow on one face, a small mouth movement on the other. Their expressions don’t really change, just shift a little.

“Nah, we’re good,” Yin waves them off.

Spirit nods and vanishes without a farewell.

All in all, they don’t dislike Yin and Jin. Sure, the two are loud and rambunctious, but so is Red, and Spirit could never dislike Red. In a way, they’re almost jealous of the pair. They have each other. They have someone who will never leave, who could never leave. Inseparable, two against the world.

One is the loneliest number, and maybe Spirit is just a little jealous to know a Yin who isn’t always alone.

As they head off, scaling the wall and choosing to traverse the city over rooftops, they get a text. It’s from Mei, a response to their earlier query. Spirit stops, tail swishing back and forth as they perch on the edge of a roof, toes curled over the edge to grip it as they squat, leaning down to read the text.

‘hey spirit!

the city is the sum of hundreds of years of advancement, with tens of hundreds of programmers and hardware engineers building it up! ive been looking up a lot of them as inspo for my work in tech.

i like this one programmer, syntax. hes a mystery, theres only one public picture of him, but hes responsible for most of the tech in the city! he was the leading programmer for the weather tower and has a bunch of patents he makes money off. total recluse lol no one knows where he could even live near! ive always wanted to meet him. lemme send you some articles!!!!!’

Interspersed between the sentences are a deluge of emojis. A lot of green hearts, a couple dragons, some rain clouds when mentioning the weather tower. Beneath the text are a few articles. Spirit squints. They think they press their finger on those.

Sure enough, pressing their finger on the article pulls it up in a...they think Mei called it a web browser? They should ask her next time they’re called over.

Or...well, Mei doesn’t know it, but they’re doing Spirit a favor, giving them this information, and if there’s anything Spirit fears, it’s being in someone’s debt. She doesn’t know, but she could find out, and if she did, she could use them, she could hurt them—

Well, Mei doesn’t seem the type, but one never knows.

‘Mei.

Thanks. I’ll read them soon. Hey, do you want to meet someplace? I know your mother was not thrilled at my offer to teach you swordfighting, but I am still willing to. As long as we meet away from your house. I wouldn’t want to get in trouble.

Let me know!

Spirit.’

That should even things out. A good lesson or two, maybe more. Spirit would prefer to do more than less when repaying a debt, just to be sure.

They start to peruse the different articles. The only public image they have of this programmer is striking. He’s got eccentric hair and a small mustache. He frowns at the camera, clearly displeased with having his picture taken, a pristine lab coat on and a pair of bright green glasses adorning his face. There’s a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place as the picture is taken.

The only known thing that he does is go to a specific coffee shop. Evidently, anytime he goes, the cameras in the area including phones stop working, thus contributing to the lack of photos. People like to chat about him, simply because of the mystery of it.

They get a text back from Mei.

‘sounds great! i know a place. text u the deets later! <3’

Spirit smiles.

They decide to stake out the coffee shop this Syntax goes to. It’s toward the outskirts of the city, small, with a reputation for using specially designed and grown beans that no one else can replicate. Supposedly. It keeps a low profile, as well as a very high end coffee shop can, but most people are priced out of it anyway. From what Spirit read from reviews, a lot of people would get this coffee as a treat, something to save up for as a present on a weekend. It’s a large place, and people often go to sit and relax for a while with their drink.

Syntax, evidently, goes there up to five times a week, to the point that his drink is memorized by everyone who works there. He pays in cash, to avoid any trace that he was there, and then disappears. People say he avoids being followed.

People, though. Mortals. They can’t see souls the way Spirit can.

They catch him on day two of their stakeout, and they sit, waiting, as he orders. Cash is exchanged, and he walks away. No one tries to follow him, but Spirit must, so they will.

They blink, and the world bursts into different colors. Souls of all different shades, constantly interacting with one another. Syntax’s soul is a neon green, with lavender lines within that resemble code. The soul takes on the whole of the person, after all. People more powerful can have souls that show it. Spirit likes that. They like knowing that they can always check if people are lying.

They follow, and soon realize why Syntax is so hard to follow. Every turn and twist he sends out a...well, he can’t make clones, but they’re digital recreations of himself that continue walking in a different direction than the real Syntax is. They’re near perfect, able to fool anyone who just saw them as is, but they don’t have souls.

So Spirit follows the soul.

It’s a good hour walk, not that Syntax walks all the way. Once he’s out of the main city area, he hops into a hover car that seems like a personal project (if the paint job is anything to say about it) and blasts off. Spirit follows the trail, far enough behind that they can’t see Syntax but close enough that they can catch his colors in their eye.

It’s a good twenty minutes before they reach Syntax’s house. It looks like a fortress, a large mansion gated and hidden. Spirit takes a picture, grabs Spider Queen’s token, and disappears.

They were just told to locate him, after all. They prefer that. As much as Spirit is good at their job, they don’t like the thought of having to kidnap anyone, because the person would likely scream, or cry, or beg, and Spirit would have to see that.

It’s easier if they don’t see it. They already know it isn’t right, they don’t need the painful reminder.

Spider Queen’s lair is as dark and damp as they remember, with the added addition of an expansion of the green pool of bubbling liquid. It has spread to little pods scattered about the place, glowing ominously with newfound energy.

“Miss Queen?” They call.

Green eyes blink from the dark, and Spirit stays very still as she comes into view.

“Back so soon?” Spider Queen leans back on her mech, grinning like...what was the phrase Spirit had heard. Like a cat who had caught the canary? That’s it.

Spirit doesn’t know why it has to be a canary. Cats eat plenty of birds. And mice! Odd.

“I have what you want,” Spirit replies, keeping it short and to the point. “He’s an engineer and a programmer, and a recluse, so people probably won’t notice if he goes missing. I have a picture of his house, and I can take you to it if you want, bu_t”

“That won’t be necessary,” Spider Queen waves a hand. She clears her throat with intention, and Spirit tilts their head to the side as another figure comes out from the shadows.

“My Queen,” Huntsman’s voice is as gravelly as ever, and he bows a little in greeting.

Spirit gives him a small wave. He rolls his eyes at them.

Fair enough.

“I need you to hunt down this human. He’s important to my debut as Queen of the world! Spirit here has the details.”

Spider Queen gestures to them, and Spirit jumps a little as the weight of seemingly eyes all fall upon them.

“O-oh!” They fumble to pull out their phone. “I have-uh-I have a photo of his house, so you can use that, and, uh—”

They look down, and Huntsman is suddenly very, very close to them. They take a wary step back.

He sniffs them.

“Were you just there?” He asks.

Spirit slowly nods, holding out their phone so Huntsman can see the picture of Syntax’s house. He glances down at it, and then after scanning it over, nods decisively.

“I’ll have him here by tomorrow,” he promises.

“He-uh-!” Spirit raises a hand, pressing their fingers to their mouth in apprehension. “His house looks very high tech. There’ll uh-there’ll probably be, um, defenses.”

They haven’t talked to Huntsman or Goliath much, in the centuries they’ve been around to help Spider Queen with different things, but Huntsman gave them a knife once. Said it was because they looked pathetic without a way to defend themself. They didn’t want to tell him that they already had a weapon, so they kept the knife. He got them one with a purple grip, even! It was a nice gesture, and Spirit would like Huntsman to stay alive.

Not that they ever really want anyone dead, but they know it’s often an eventuality, and saving every person, wanting to keep every person they know around is hard, and will only lead to pain. They know from experience. Besides, they’re pretty sure no one would do anything to keep them alive. If a tool breaks you can always get a new one, so Spirit is expendable, and expendable means that you can’t be expected to be kept safe. They know from experience. But they like certain hands that wield them over others, so they’d like those ones to remain, at least.

Huntsman grins, at that.

“I love it when they fights back,” he almost purrs before skittering off.

Spirit watches him leave, head tilted to the side. They suppose it makes sense that he likes hunting, considering his name is Huntsman. They wonder if his name was because of his type or his profession. Or maybe his type dictated his profession? Then again, there isn’t such a spider type as queen, so that’s a little silly to think about.

“Thank you, dear,” Spider Queen says, jerking Spirit out of their thoughts.

Spirit bows. “Of course, Miss Queen.”

When they stand up, there’s a bag of money—smaller than the one Macaque gave them, but hefty nonetheless—being offered to them.

“You’re too skinny,” Spider Queen says. “I can’t have a servant of mine looking half starved! Do something about it.”

Spirit blinks. They didn’t think they were too skinny. Sure, they could feel their ribs easily, but that's nice, because whenever they break their ribs they can figure out which one super fast. It’s useful. They don’t want to disappoint Spider Queen, though, and while she didn’t say it was a favor she is giving Spirit money, so they might as well get something to eat as a job well done gift.

They ignore how that thought makes their stomach squirm. How they feel about the jobs they are given does not matter. It never has.

“Of course,” They repeat, taking the bag. With another bow, they leave.

Thankfully, this trip hasn’t ruined their clothes, so they don’t need to wash them. They leave through a manhole cover in an alley, and when they peek their head out to see where they are, Bitter Sweets stares them down from across the street.

Well, at least they know they’ll like something from the shop, right?

The bell above the door rings in their ears long after the sound leaves the room, and Almond comes in with a smile that is slowly becoming familiar. It’s almost motherly, but Spirit wouldn’t say that, because if they did they’d have to run. Run before the motherly figure burns to dust, disappears for the sole reason of being motherly to them, of all people.

So for now, they say it is kind, and warm, and comforting.

“Spirit!” she grins up at them.

Spirit smiles hesitantly back.

“More mooncakes?” Almond prompts.

“Yes,” They nod, toes curling in excitement.

Nostalgia hurts a little, but it’s nice, too. “And—” they start, because Almond is kind, and open, and soft and Spirit can be brave a little. “Maybe, um, you could recommend some stuff? I-uh,” They rub the back of their neck sheepishly. “I don’t know the names of most of this.”

They gesture to the display case lamely.

Almond’s smile somehow gets softer, and her eyes light up with excitement. Spirit’s tail swishes back and forth with a calm joy from making someone happy.

“Of course,” Almond replies.

Getting the Calabash is, unsurprisingly, boring. Stealing an item is much easier than tracking a person. One quick search and they find it in a museum, nestled near the center of the city. Sneaking in is easy, because while they are tall, they’re quiet, flexible, and smart. That, and the people here are very lax in security. Being so used to peacetime makes people complacent. In a way, Spirit is relieved that they have known conflict most of their life. It keeps them sharp.

They don’t know what to do in peacetime. There’s always something to do, a job to accomplish. A fight to help with. What else can they do?

The only thing that gives them pause is the existence of two Calabashes. One, older and far larger, is stated as the original. Evidently, using a mix of demon magic and more modern technology, a new one was made, one that aimed to capture rather than kill.

Yin and Jin never specified which one they wanted. If Spirit was to guess, they know the pair would want the original. The one that melts whoever is trapped within. The one that kills.

Spirit doesn’t kill children. And they don’t know the Monkey King’s successor, but he’s a child. Younger than they are.

Are they a child? Were they ever?

So they hedge their bets on the idea that Yin and Jin won’t notice the difference, and pick the newer, kinder one.

The pair does not notice. They’re a bit scatterbrained like that. Or maybe they don’t care.

Once the Calabash is secured and delivered, Spirit sits atop a random building, chewing on leftover pastries from their last visit to Almond’s bakery. The sunset is looking awfully nice, but Spirit thinks that the charm is lost once you lose someone to watch them with, so they pull out their phone.

In the news section, there is a small article about Syntax abandoning his favorite coffee shop. The article supposes that he picked another spot to get his caffeinated beverages. There are thousands of comments speculating, wondering where he could have gone.

Spirit knows the truth. The weight of that, the guilt, sits at the bottom of their stomach like a stone.

But there’s a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand stones sitting there, and they’ve been dragging Spirit down for a long time. One more isn’t going to change much, isn’t going to drag them deeper down than they already are. They’ve been drowning for centuries. Drowning, mouth clenched shut, holding in their final breath, as if the moment they let it go they’d finally succumb to the suffocation pressing against them on all sides.

When they were younger, they’d claw to the surface, take a breath or two, before another stone weighed them lower. The sunlight doesn’t reach them, with how deep they are now. Nothing does, because Spirit is alone. That’s what happens when you hurt everyone around you, isn’t it?

One of these days, they were going to let go. One of these days, they’d open their mouth, and finally they would be able to scream.

Sometimes all Spirit wants to do is let go, scream, and drown.

They look at the sunset. It’s looking awfully nice, don’t you think?

#kitkat1003 #Yin Spirit #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #monkie kid oc

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headaching · 4 years ago

Note

🎨

🎨 - show us a w.i.p of yours!

:-) this is from a college roommate au where zuko and sokka are sitting on the floor of their dorm after a night of drinking.

How the topic of their taste in men came up, Sokka couldn’t remember. Suddenly it seemed, Zuko was casually asking, “What kind of guys are you into?” Sokka stopped chewing mid-bite and set the upper half of the dinosaur-shaped nugget on the plate. He swallowed and avoided Zuko’s unbridled gaze.

“Um…” Sokka hummed as he crossed his legs and propped his elbows on them.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Zuko mumbled, then took a swig from the flask. He offered it to Sokka, who gratefully accepted.

“It’s okay,” Sokka replied before taking a long drink. He grimaced at the sensation of warm, shitty vodka burning its way along his esophagus. The immediate warmth flooded first Sokka’s stomach, then his cheeks, which only grew rosier as he considered a response. A stolen glance at Zuko revealed his knees had fallen to the floor, his hands braced beside him on the carpet.

“I don’t know,” Sokka admitted with a shrug, his eyes glued to the floor. “I’ve never dated a man before.” Sokka decided on another quick swig for his bravery, and passed it to Zuko, whose eyes hadn’t left Sokka’s face.

“Really?” he asked, sounding astonished.

Sokka nodded sheepishly and hiccuped. “Does that surprise you?” he asked softly, and Zuko tilted his head in thought.

“Kind of. You’re always talking about guys you think are hot,” Zuko observed, and Sokka’s blush crept to his ears.

“Take another drink,” Sokka instructed, afraid to be the drunkest one in the room. Zuko obliged, but his eyes didn’t leave Sokka even as the flask touched his lips. “Yeah, I think a lot of guys are hot,” Sokka continued, the scrutiny of Zuko’s stare a microscope, “but that doesn’t mean I want to date them.”

“Fair enough,” Zuko agreed, the words slurred. Zuko’s eyes narrowed in front of him, focused on nothing in particular as he tipped the flask back once more. When he was finished, Zuko shook the flask, the empty space accentuated. He held it out to Sokka and offered, “Want the last drink?”

Sokka grimaced. “I guess so,” he replied.

He almost spit out the vodka when Zuko nonchalantly implored, “So does that mean you’ve never kissed a guy?”

The alcohol effectively incinerated Sokka’s throat, so his confession was raspy, “No, I haven’t.”

“Do you want to?” Though Zuko’s words ran together, they were confident. The combination of Zuko and the alcohol had the room reeling, or maybe it was just Sokka. He could barely feel his legs as they pulled into his chest, or his hands grazing his shins.

“I do,” Sokka affirmed. His heart hammered like the beat of a drum and Zuko was holding the sticks. “I never really had the opportunity, and…” Words and complex thought alluded him, each blink slowed with drunken stupor. “What if I’m not good at it?”

The question suspended in the air. Zuko shifted so his entire body was directed at Sokka with his knees crossed. “Bet you are,” Zuko argued knowingly, his eyebrow raised. Sokka huffed a short laugh of disbelief.

“Yeah? You think so?” Sure, Sokka had conversed with Zuko on more than one occasion in a way that could be interpreted as flirting, but it was always for the purpose of lighthearted teasing. Sokka clung to the safety of claiming satire, but Zuko never seriously complained. Now, initiated by Zuko, it felt more substantial, somehow.

Zuko nodded, his assurance a simple, “Yup.”

“And why’s that?” Sokka prodded, and relaxed his position to mirror Zuko’s, unafraid now to focus his attention on him.

Sokka was bewildered for a moment when Zuko’s thumb drug across Sokka's lower lip. “That stupid mouth,” Zuko laughed, and Sokka’s jaw fell in mock betrayal. “It’s gotta be good for something.”

Sokka moved the plate to his other side so he could kick Zuko’s leg and slap his hand away at the same time. “Asshole,” he muttered, but Zuko’s giggle was relentless. He slumped over and rested his forehead against his arms as his shoulders shook with laughter. “Ya done?” Sokka asked sarcastically.

When Zuko craned his neck upward, he was no longer laughing, but a dreamy grin encapsulated his face. In one fast motion, Zuko’s fingers smoothed across Sokka’s exposed bicep and caressed the muscles lightly. “What if…” Zuko slurred as his fingers worked their way to Sokka’s chin. “What if I’m the first guy you kiss, for practice?”

Sokka let out a tortured breath as his hand closed around Zuko’s wrist, but he didn’t remove Zuko’s fingers. “Zuko,” Sokka breathed, his voice gentle, “you’re really drunk.” It sounded hypocritical out of his mouth, warped and garbled.

“So’re you,” Zuko countered defiantly. He even glared in the cutest way possible, and Sokka was sure his bones liquified. His thoughts jumbled all around his head, and logic was indiscernible amongst the whirlwind of excitement. Zuko bit his lip as his hand fell to Sokka’s shoulder. “Do you want to?” he asked hesitantly, and Sokka hadn’t the willpower to lie.

“Yes,” he replied instantly, and Zuko’s eyes fluttered closed.

Sokka resigned to his erratic breathing and focused on his fingers, testing a featherlight touch against either side of Zuko’s jaw. He unfolded his legs to rest his weight on his knees, and with him he brought Zuko’s head tilted upward. Sokka’s eyes closed and he leaned forward until their lips made contact.

#thank you so much for sending this!#i hope yall like it <3 #the concept is that sokka is an engineering major/dance minor and zuko is an architecture major because ozai is an architect ceo and wants #zuko to work for him but zuko doesnt like architecture and really likes fashion design #sokka and zuko are best friends/roommates but maybe definitely more and sokka has a plan to get zuko out of his head using the dance studio #anyway none of that is relevant to this excerpt really but im excited for the fic :^)#wip #my work #asks #mutuals #also i love your blog and your art 💖

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arllenn · 3 years ago

Text

image des: I really loved the fact that your brought their past into the light, that you made them actually effected and reflected on it. So often I just see stories focusing on their relationship with the "new" characters (Caesar, Luminous, Johann, The Gen fam) so following that line of thought.

Can I request a flashback scene? Like when we get requested to make it snow (at the beginning of the game) the group of friends reaction to it snowing makes you reflected on your past. In which a fluffy meeting/promise happens between Z, Renata and you. Or even any fluff you can think of between the three? It can be when they were kids or the age they were at during the game.

Admittedly I would love it if you can really focus on Z and the Character interaction/relationship because we all know he cares for Renata; they have that slacker x mother hen childhood friend vibe going on. But the idea that Z and you are ACTUALLY close (it just LOOKS like your friends with Renata and only friendly acquaintances with Z from the outside) makes me happy and bittersweet.

Sorry this got so long!

Tags for this chapter: fluff, hurt no comfort, bittersweetness, pure angst at first tho Tw: mentions of death and cannon typical violence, puke, death Time setting: pre japan like imagine if the mc got an adjustment period at cassell before they got shipped off to dragon war

You smiled happy to be of help to the friends who were separating today. Their cheerful giggles and cries of happiness as they raved over being able to leave on a snowy day just like the one from when they had met made your insides bubble with warmth and nostalgia. Z, Renata and you had been the same once..... before, before Herzog had...

You shake your head, now isn't the time for this. You wring your wrists, it's a habit you picked up from Z, though you two do it for different reasons. You feel a bit light headed, your knees are weak, it's so weird to see snow and not see your beloved friends among it. It just felt wrong to not feel their warmth around you in this cold tempature. The others giggling is getting too loud, it's beggining to ring in your ears and bounce around in your head at the same time as the memories of Renata and Z pour out of your head and spill in front of your eyes. You stiffly walk over to Claudia, left foot, left hand, right foot, right hand. Back and forth back and forth. You want to leave, but it’d feel wrong just going without checking with her.

“We met and departed on a snowy day.” She sounds so happy and while you’re glad that you were able to help them you also can’t help but feel cloying jealousy at the fact that this trio, Claudia, Susu and Leah get to be together, to meet and depart on snowy days filled with joy, while you can’t. You want to be able to see Z and Renata, you want to be able to tease them while jumping for joy and promising to stay in contact. You want to be able to send them off with a smile on your face and a promise to be well.

But you can’t.

And that’s it.

There’s no going back and searching, there’s no making up after an argument, there’s just nothing. Renata is dead Z is dead everyone is dead! And you can’t do anything about it.

Staggering away you start walking towards one of the benches in the courtyard that face the library. To say that you collapse on it would be an understatement. It’s like all the bones in your body liquified then disappeared at that moment. You clench at the snow on the bench, using the all too familiar feeling of it to guide you through your memories. The day you arrived at the orphanage, the first time you met Renata, Z and you arguing over who would get to hold which of Renata’s hands, the day Vera had arrived, so small and only a year old. You remembered her small finger curling around your own while Z helped you readjust how you held her.

Just Renata, Z and you.

But now it’s just you. You clench at your throat, clawing at it as if that’ll destroy the lump forming in it. You bring your knees up to meet with your chest. Burying your head in your arms. It hurts, you want to see them. At this point you’d even take Anton and Khorkina’s belittling of you or even Ivan and Sherkman failing horribly to hide the fact that they were dating over anything else that could possibly occur right now.

Rubbing your face on your knees you try to get rid of the few silent tears that have begun to spill. It doesn’t work, in fact it just makes everything so, so much worse. Memories of your childhood fly by, you’re loosing your grip on reality you know that. You don’t want to do it here. Not on a bench where anyone can see, if you’re completely honest you don’t want to confront them at all. But that isn’t an option, it’s never going to be an option for you, because you’re trying so hard to push them down and stamp them out right now. And it’s not working.

One of the wandering vending machines come up to you, clawed arm holding something in it. You can't see it at all, your line of sight only contains your legs after all, but you can hear the distinctive beeps of the machine, the whirring of its mechanical organs that allow it to move. You can feel the jagged edges of a wrapper lightly scratching at your leg through your uniform. The robot beeps twice shoving the snack into your leg once again before dropping it and skittering off. Lifting your head up you stared down at the snack you had been left with. Maybe the world really does hate you. Maybe you deserve to constantly have your mind ripped at and heart torn apart, because laying there in front of you is a cookie a chocolate chip one at that. The second your eyes land on the bubbly font that spells out chocolate you cant help but watch in horror as Vera falls in front of you, mere feet away, body still warm as she hits the snow, dead. You feel the bile rise in your throat, it isn't something that you can just swallow down either. Hand clapped over your mouth you stand, getting ready to run.

-----------------------------

You have no idea how you've made it back to your dorm room without puking on the way here, but now you're sitting over your toilet dry heaving into it. You stare down at the item that made you like this the choco- you spit into the toilet. Cookie, you'll just refer to it as a cookie. You consider tearing off the top half of the wrapper but then the smell of the cookie and the chocolate might just tip you over the edge. Instead you settle for smacking it away from you. In some small way it makes you feel better.

You hate that Herzog has ruined this for you. You hate that you can’t even see the word chocolate without feeling your insides churn, you hate that you can’t see snow without seeing your friends bloodied corpses staring back at you, eyes glassy and unfocused. Cookies were the first dessert that you had ever tasted and the last one. You remember the day you had first tried to bake them.

That day Z had let you in his room, Renata was sick, and neither of you were allowed to be around her as per Herzogs orders. With the knowledge that you have now you think you understand why you weren’t allowed to see her back then. Rather than actually being ill Renata was probably suffering from the side effects of the incomplete evolution pills. But either way natural disease or not it had been just you and Z. Sitting side by side on his bed, you laying with your torso hanging off his bed partially, practically upside down, and him crisscross leaned up against the wall that his bed bordered, a hand close enough to your leg to catch you if you started to slip. You two had been mindlessly talking, reading some book that you’ve forgotten the name of now, alternating turns each chapter. When you had gotten to a part where the main character was making cookies for their friend as a get well gift.

“Hey Z, have you ever had a cookie? I mean I’ve heard of them but I’ve never even seen one.”

“I can’t say that I have,” he yawned, “I’m not a big fan of sugar in general. That combined with the fact that the orphanage doesn’t even get the ingredients for them makes it obvious that I’d never even have the chance to try them, same as you.”

“That’s too bad, based on the description I think they’d be pretty good. You think Renata has ever had one?”

“I’m not her, I wouldn’t know.”

“I mean fair enough, but I kinda expected that you would, you guys spend forever having those late night talks after you send me to bed.”

You haul yourself up and spin on your ass so that you’re looking him in the eye, “Speaking of~, I won’t allow you to marry my daughter young man!” You cross your arms in an ‘X’ in front of you shaking your head. “Absolutely not don’t think I’ll allow anything of the sort!!”

Snorting he had pushed on your forehead with his finger until you were laying down the same as before and used his foot to roll you away from him. “2/10, If you’re going to give me a shovel talk then you should at least be intimidating, 1, and 2 you should do it in front of Renata so that you can embarrass her, who just gives that kinda talk straight to the supposed,” he raised his hands and gave out finger quotations “boyfriend?”

“Is that back talk I hear sonny? Don’t make me get up there!”

”Yeah because you haven’t already.” You can’t see him from your position but you can hear the smile on his voice. An accomplishment if you’ve ever seen one! You mean the stoic eternally tired Z was snorting and smiling because of what you said! You always loved times like this, when you would manage to break through his exterior and draw out a reaction, (preferably positive!!), out of him. Tapping his knee you grip onto his leg to pull yourself up once more, you can see him contemplating rolling you off the bed, thankfully he chooses peace for once.

”No okay but dead seriously, let’s go make cookies for Renata. We just got the shipments a little while ago, there’s got to be some of the stuff we need in there! We’ll just ask Herzog,”

“Or steal”

“Yes, or steal, come on it’ll be great!”

“Normally Renata would be here to stop you, which I am always grateful for since it means that I don’t have to be the one to talk you out of these things,”

You snap your fingers, “Speed it up Z, do I have a partner or am I gonna have to start running before you catch me?”

He claps a hand over your mouth which you look down at “Don’t you dare lick me,” is what he says in response to your stares. “As I was saying before someone cut me off,” if gives you a pointed stare, “Normally Renata would be here to be the voice of reason, however since she’s ‘sick’ and I don’t want to have her on my neck about you getting in trouble later here are my words of caution,” He takes his hand off your mouth and pats slaps your cheek twice before bringing the tips of his fingers in between the book page that you had been on and the next, folding it over and closing it. “Don’t, and if you do don’t get caught.”

It was your turn to snort, “What the heck, you suggested stealing in the first place!” You laughed. He shrugged his shoulders and set the book down on his bedside table getting up off the bed and bringing his arms above his head to stretch.

”I never said that we weren’t going to steal if that’s what you decide to do I simply offered you a word of advice about you stealing alone.

”AWWWW Z I knew there was a reason I put up with you!” You cried jumping up off the bed and attempting to latch onto his back,

He turned to face you swatting your hands away, muttering about you being “too big for him to carry like that anymore”

“What was that!?”

He pinched your cheek with one hand and used the other to ruffle your hair in a way that you knew wasn’t meant to be affectionate but instead to mess it up. “Look at how big the babies gotten! It can walk and talk now! Go ahead say ‘papa’ again!” You knew that you could never win against Z in a fight, all attempts left you on the floor with him sitting on you, or you hiding behind Renata and you exercising your lying and puppy dog eyes abilities. But boy oh boy did Z have a way of activating your Cain instinct and making you want to slap the shit out of him (affectionately of course). You heaved out a long suffering groan, and pulled Z’s hands off of you. You walked over to where his dresser was and sucked your teeth as you stared at your reflection. You tried your best to undo his damage to your hair, but it was a lost cause, hanging your head you turned to him with what you hoped was a horrifying, knee shaking, earth quaking, chicken baking, glare.

“This is why you’re an orphan.”

“Fair enough.” He said with a shrug before motioning towards the door, are we leaving now or what.”

“I’m coming, we’re going.” You said waving your hand at him in a shooing motion.

The minute you stepped outside it had been like you were ass blasted into one of the shipment containers mega freezers. You rubbed at your arms, lamenting the fact that you lived on a hunk of ice in the middle of a polar bears ass cheeks. “Okaaay so,” you clapped your hands together, “Do we know where Herzog is?” Z yawned and shook his head no from beside you. “Alright thank you for your participation! Gold star! I’ll go ask Anton, you stay here. And don’t fall asleep!” You ran off to go find Anton ignoring Z’s comment about you acting like a stray dog.

Heaving you clutched at the toilet, sobbing over the loss of your friends. You couldn’t even think of the times back then as being over, you just can’t.

No, that’s not right, you know they’re over, you know those peaceful days of snow and teasing are over. And yet you still long for them, you want to feel Z’s hands in your hair once more, want to feel the thrill of catching him off guard and running to hide behind Renata. You want back the times that you had spent, absorbed in watching Vera as she took her first steps, your young self amazed that anyone could ever be so small. You miss those moments when you seriously contemplated smashing Antons face into the ice under your feet, missed the random times when Ivan would pull you away to look at something cool that he had found. You just missed being homeyou miss the safe feeling that you had been provided with daily back then. Ignorance truly is bliss you suppose. If you had survived not knowing about what Herzog had done, if you survived thinking that all of this was just some randoms attack on you and your family would you have been happier? It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.

You dry heave and spit into the toilet, bile rising in your throat but not to the point in which it would spill past your lips. Your vision is blurry from the tears and your head throbs with the pain of the pressure your tears are both building up and releasing. “I wanna go home…” you mumble slowly laying yourself down on the floor, hands clutched into your hair, fingers threading themselves in with the strands and pulling at them like a tide. You would yank at your hair then let it all fall out of your grip, massaging your scalp slightly, and then yanking at it again. You continued in this way as the blurry memory of that day played in front of you. Anton being no help, Khorkina doing her best to goad you into punching her, Ivan being somewhere that you swear was unreasonably high up. Eventually finding Herzog and asking him, him granting you permission as long as you cleaned up after yourselves, running back to Z with the good news.

“Z! Z! Listen to this!” He looked up at you from his spot on the stairs, clearly bored out of his mind, but hey at least he hadn’t fallen asleep like you asked!

He made a twirling motion with his hand “What is it?”

You placed your hands on your hips and grinned, “Herzog says we can use the stuff in the kitchen as long as we clean up afterwards!” You gave an overzealous thumbs up afterwards to make your point even clearer.

“That’s great!” He said all too sarcastically. Getting up he put both hands on your shoulders resting all of his weight on them before finally standing up straight shushing you and your whining.

It hurry you so much to know that everyone is gone. It hurts to know that you’ll never get that chance to just see them again, to hear their voices, catch a glimpse of them on the street. Instead they’re all dead and there’s nothing that you can do about it. You had watched everyone die, you had seen their eyes glaze over and go out of focus. You had seen how their blood stained the pure white snow a bright and somber red. You had run past them as you registered them as dead, praying to nothing but everything at the same time that at least one of them would live. That you would get to hold at least one of them in your arms as you two promised to stay with each other. But you didn’t get that. Instead you got to watch as Renata faded into the distance, your last hope, you got to claw through icy waters, pleading your legs to move, to allow you to save your dearest friend….

”Z, Z, Z! Help me I have no idea why the egg keeps cracking like that!”

“Maybe it’s cracking like that because you keep squeezing them until they explode.”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me young man! I’ll have you know that Dr.Herzog says that I’ve made great progress in my home economics studies.” You proudly bumped your chest with your fist only to look down and see your uniform covered in egg goop. Z snickered before handing you a rag and motioning for you to hand him the bowl and the eggs. You slid it over to him with your elbow and focused on cleaning your hands and uniform up.

”Here,” he held up one of the eggs,”I’ll show you how to crack an egg, so that you don't end up wasting all of them.” He hit it lightly on the edge of the bowl, holding both ends of the egg with his fingers and pulling his palm so that the egg slowly slipped out of the shell before proceeding to throw the shell somewhere off to the side of him. He pushed the bowl back towards you with a smug look on his face. "You get it now?"

"Yep, yep, yep," you waved your hand at him dismissively before turning back to the book. "Okay so now we mix wet ingredients and dry, then we add in the chocolate." Getting the chocolate for the recipe had been the hardest part. With how rare chocolate is at the orphanage and the fact that you weren't allowed into your room because of how sick Renata was it had been hard to find any. Eventually after bribing Z and way too much effort on your part, you had ended up on Z's shoulders searching through the backs of the older and dustier cabinets, in one of which you had found a chocolate bar that was a week off from its expiration date. Not the best but it could've been 10 times worse you suppose. Z pushed the chocolate towards you with this hand before resting his head on his hand.

"So how much longer do we have? It's getting late." Z stifled a yawn.

You glanced at the book and back down at the cookie batter that you were currently scooping out and onto the baking sheet. They didn't hold their shape as well as the book described them as being able to but you supposed that it was just a matter of reality vs. idealized fiction. "Um I don't know. The book says that they need 25 minutes to bake properly and who knows how long its going to take to clean this all up."

"Well good luck with that." He said slapping his hand down on the table, turning around on his stool, and standing up.

Even if it was just the memory of the sound, the slapping of Z's hand on the table sent a wave of nausea scorching through your body. Everything was a blur, reality, what you were really seeing, cold white tile and the rug in front of the shower were blending together with the cold white of snow, the rug that was in you and Renata's cabin. You felt hands on your face, were they from the memory of Renata checking your temperature or were they your own? Your vision was swimming, you were underwater, you were lying on the bathroom floor. You were drowning, you're lying on the bathroom floor. You're dying, you can't see.

You clamored up in a haze, you have to run! You have to get to Renata and Vera and Anton and and and and! And you slam into a desk that was out in the middle of Hezog's lab. Z is right there, Renata is right there, Vera is right there! All you need to do is reach out a little further and you'll be there! You'll be able to save them! You finally latch onto Z's uniform begging him not to go, begging him to stay with you, because if you go alone then everyone will die. "PLEASE Z!" You yell out. "I need you, I need you, I need you, everyone's dying, dead, dying dead, dying, dead, I can't save them! PLEASE!" And then the Z you're holding onto collapses, leaving nothing but a pile of clothes behind. His uniform lies bloodied in your hands. Renata lies bloodied in your hands. Anton lies just out of reach, dead. "Come back, please." You clutch onto Z's uniform harder. The tears don't falter as you trace your hands along the sleeves of the uniform. "The sleeves are too short you should get Herzog to make you a new one." You chuckle fondly. only...

Only...

Only the uniform has too many mistakes for it to have ever been Z's, theres too big a difference in size. It doesn't smell the same. It's not his... it's yours. You're not at the orphanage, you're in your dorm at Cassel. You're sitting on hardwood floors right now, not the powdery snowfall of home. Its warm, not cold, theres no dead bodies, only you and the mess that you made when you stormed through here earlier. You choke on a sob, tears coming down in even thicker streams, your headache had bloomed into a splendid migraine. You can barely see straight, but you know for sure that this isn't anywhere near, by or in the orphanage. And it can never be. The orphanage is gone now. Everyone's bodies are probably still lying on top of the snow, glassy eyes unfocused and unseeing, faces twisted in fear. Or maybe they've been charred to ashes, with nothing left to remember them by, their remains carried by the winds or at the bottom of the sea. You clutch your uniform tighter, biting down on it to muffle your screams and sobbing.

You have no idea how long you've been here. Your tears have faded now, only leaving the uncomfortable burning of the dried tear tracks in their memory. You don't stare at anything in particular, theres nothing left of your emotions, just the dull ache of apathy. Your vision is spotted with dancing black circles and lines. They look a bit like what you imagine TV static would look like but you really have no idea. Your conscious waves and ebbs like the tides from back home. You can't think of anything other than the feeling of the cloth clutched in your embrace right now. Sighing you bury your face in it, resigning yourself to a night on the floor.

#dragon raja #zero dragon raja #dragon raja mc #z dragon raja #Dragon raja herzog #fanfic #dragon raja fanfic #Writing #angst #hurt no comfort #fluff #I suck at tagging

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five-rivers · 4 years ago

Text

Ectober 1: Fog

AKA Familiar Part 3.

Find this and the first two entries to this series here.

Beyond the tiny off-color spot in the center of his right eye, the whole ‘kidnapped and forced to be part of a weird magic ritual’ thing hadn’t altered Danny’s appearance. Good. That was something he always worried about. He let out a long, soft sigh that fogged the mirror in front of him before leaning back.

The police and Danny and Sam’s respective parents had believed the ‘overshadowed and kidnapped’ explanation as well, thank goodness, so they hadn’t gotten in trouble. Which… maybe shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was, considering that it had been true, if edited for length and certain damning content (e.g. all the parts with Danny being a ghost and the aforementioned magic ritual). Tucker’s eyewitness account had helped.

Vivian hadn’t made a repeat appearance so far, which was also good. At least, Sam hadn’t called him about her. Danny rubbed his right eye. Something told him she wouldn’t have to call him to know she was in trouble.

Good.

Overall, the time since Danny had flown them back through the portal had been pleasant, or nearly so. He felt happy and oddly secure. Was it just knowing that Sam was alright? She was a major target of his ghostly Obsession. Maybe they could get Tucker in on this as well? They’d taken the book with them, and Danny wouldn’t mind getting stabbed again.

His core vibrated happily in his chest, making his heart and bones shiver.

Yes, that would be nice…

There was a sharp rap on the door. “Danny?” called his mom. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been in there a while, and something like being kidnapped by a ghost…” She trailed off, a touch of anxiety in her voice. “That can be traumatic.”

Oh, no. He’d made Mom worry. Happy feeling gone.

“I’m fine,” he said, turning on the faucet to make it seem like he’d just started washing up. “Really!” He shut the water off and dried his hands quickly before opening the door. “Just, you, know, a bit tired, that’s all.” He smiled, broad and genuine.

Maddie smiled back, although her brow was pinched. She had pushed her hood back, and her hair was frizzy with static. “You were missing for almost a whole day, Danny. You’ll have to forgive me for worrying.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Mom.”

She sighed and ruffled Danny’s hair. “At least, next time you think a friend is being possessed, if there ever is a next time, come to me and your father. Okay? Making sure ghosts don’t hurt people is our job. So is keeping you safe.”

The irony. If only Danny got paid, he could say the same thing. Alas, it was not to be.

He nodded and smiled. No promises. “I think I’m going to go up to bed, now, if that’s okay?”

“Alright,” said Maddie. “Do you still want to go to school tomorrow? Everyone would understand if you didn’t.”

“Yeah. I just- It wasn’t that big of a deal. I want things to go back to normal.”

“Wow,” said Tucker, pointing at Danny. “That is not normal.”

“What’s not normal?” asked Danny, looking down at himself. Had he spilled something on his shirt without noticing? It had happened before. But, no. Everything looked just like it had when he put it on this morning.

“You’re wearing black,” said Tucker.

Danny looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. So?”

“All black.”

“Okay, captain obvious.” He turned to his locker and started putting in his combination. The hallway was just a little bit too crowded for him to feel comfortable phasing through the door to fish for his books.

“You never wear all black.”

“That’s not true. We all wore black at that Saints’ Fire concert just a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah, but that was for a concert. Danny, you’re even wearing the boots Sam got you!”

“I know what I’m wearing, Tucker. It’s just clothes. Do we need our textbook for English today? Or can I just bring Mockingbird? I can’t remember the schedule.”

“Just Mockingbird. Did something happen while you and Sam were in the Zone?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, honestly. “A couple of things. Got complicated. That ghost is apparently Sam’s ancestor. And also a witch. Witches and magic are a thing, I guess.”

“You sure? Could just be ghost powers,” said Tucker, momentarily distracted.

“Pretty sure it’s magic,” said Danny.

“Danny! Tuck!”

The two boys turned to face Sam, who jogged up to them and then doubled over, hands on her knees.

“Are you okay?” asked Danny, worried.

“I wasn’t able to sleep,” said Sam. “Too much energy. You?”

“I slept normally. Had to fight the Box Ghost at three, but,” he shrugged, “that’s normal.”

Sam straightened. “We need to—” She stopped, blinking. “You’re wearing black.”

“Yeah.” Danny shrugged.

“Why?”

“You said I should?”

Tucker made a sound like a dying pterodactyl. “Something happened!” he said, excitedly. “They’re embracing their feelings. I’m so honored to witness.” Tucker proceeded to squeal.

“Dude,” said Danny, “what is wrong with you?” Then he glanced at Sam.

Sam looked like she had swallowed a lemon.

Danny deflated. “Are you okay?” he asked, leaning forward, concerned. “I mean, other than not having slept.”

“We really need to talk.”

“Aw, come on, Sam, you can’t end your romance before it even begins,” said Tucker in a singsong voice.

The warning bell went off.

“Lunch, I guess?” asked Danny.

“Sure.”

They sat down in their usual spot behind the school, where no other students went because it was both out of the way and lacked anything resembling a comfortable place to sit. Sam, Tucker, and Danny, however, had adapted.

“So,” said Tucker, rubbing his hands together with glee. “You have to tell me the details. All the details. What happened? Are you guys dating now? How did you get de-liquified? That really freaked me out, by the way.”

Sam put her hands over her face and groaned. “No, we’re not dating. Ugh. How do I even explain what’s going on?”

Danny jumped in. “Sam’s witch ancestor did something weird to my powers and wouldn’t let us go until we did a ritual that, uh, sort of bound me to Sam as a familiar spirit. Also, she wants Sam to be her apprentice. So, we have that to look forward to.” He fished his sandwich out of his bag.

“Wow,” said Tucker. “I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“That was a lot more concise than I expected,” said Sam.

“It hits all the important points, though. Except for the de-liquification. If I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure how that happened.”

“Right,” said Sam. “Anyway, we have to figure out how to undo it.”

Danny choked on his sandwich. “What? Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why?’” demanded Sam, clearly aggrieved.

Danny furrowed his brow. “I know we didn’t do it under the—”

“Word of advice, man, whatever you did do, don’t phrase it as ‘do it.’ Unless this ritual thing involved—"

“Tucker?” said Sam, blushing furiously.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Got it. Sorry. I blame hormones.”

Danny had no idea what Tucker was talking about but decided not to ask. Instead, he let out a quick puff of air. “I know we didn’t want or ask for this, but it does seem to come with some benefits. Did you try out any of the spells in the books we took with us last night?”

“No, because the last one made me stick a needle in your eye!”

There was a fundamental misunderstanding happening here. A disconnect. Danny tilted his head. In moments like these, Spectra’s voice seemed to echo in his head. He ignored it.

“I didn’t mind,” said Danny. “I’ve been hurt worse. Besides, they don’t all need you to stick a needle in my eye. I read them, too, you know.”

“Do you not care about how you can’t lie to me?”

“No? You already know all my big secrets, anyway.” Danny didn’t know why Sam was so upset about this, but it was starting to make him anxious. His fingers had made deep impressions in his sandwich.

“Wait,” said Tucker, “it does what?”

“Yeah!” said Sam, running an agitated hand through her hair. “That’s not all, either. Apparently, he has to follow all my commands, too, like I’m some kind of discount Freakshow!”

“This isn’t like Freakshow!” protested Danny. “I didn’t have any choice about that!”

“You didn’t have any choice about this either,” said Sam, making a sweeping motion with her hands so violently that she rocked back on her heels. “We were basically hostages. You can’t tell me that you’re actually okay with this.”

“I am okay with it,” said Danny, taken aback by Sam’s vehemence. “I like knowing that you’re safe, and, if you have powers, too, you can, you know, be safer. Also, it would be cool if there was someone else who had them, I guess.” His sandwich was well and truly squished at this point. “I was actually… Earlier, I was thinking that it might be a good thing to see if Tucker can get in on this, too.”

“You’re joking,” said Sam, flatly.

“Dude, I think we’ve all seen that I do not handle power well.”

“No,” said Danny, shaking his head. “I like this. And I trust you. Both of you.” His face twisted up. “Maybe back when we started out, and you were talking about freeing zoo animals and wrecking Hummer dealerships I might have been a little apprehensive, but, even back then, I know you wouldn’t have made me do anything I didn’t want to do. You guys let me overshadow you to practice. This isn’t really any different. Right?”

“Don’t look at me, man,” said Tucker, raising his hands. “You two are the ones on the inside.”

Sam stared at Danny for a moment longer before pinching the bridge of her nose. “We need to undo this,” she said, firmly.

The edges of Danny’s eyes started to hurt, and he blinked them rapidly. “Okay,” he said. “If you want to.” It did affect Sam, too, after all. If she didn’t feel like she had consented, then undoing it really should have been a no-brainer.

Danny really didn’t want to undo it. He liked this. He liked the way it made him feel.

“After school,” said Sam.

“Okay,” whispered Danny, looking down at his destroyed sandwich. “I guess I should get rid of this, huh?”

And then he ran.

It would be wrong to say that Sam didn’t feel guilty. She did. She felt hugely, incredibly guilty. Like she’d kicked a puppy.

Thing was, she didn’t exactly have a choice. Danny obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. The ritual must have done something to his head beyond screwing with his free will.

How could anyone be happy when they were forced into obedience?

If they let this go on, Danny would eventually resent her more than she resented her parents. After all, her parents didn’t have mind-control abilities.

“Hey,” said Tucker, breaking the silence that had lain over them since they started the walk to Sam’s house. “Not to be a downer, but what do we do if that ghost—”

“Vivian,” supplied Sam.

“Vivian, right. What do we do if she comes back and she wants you to do magic stuff? Or she gets mad that you cut your connection? We didn’t do a super great job of fighting her last time.”

Danny shrugged, exhaustion evident in the curve of his spine. “We do what we always do. It won’t be the first time it takes us two tries to fight someone.”

“Strategies?” prompted Tucker.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can find some kind of weakness in those books… Though, she probably wouldn’t have let us take them if we could get her weakness from them. If all else fails, I guess we could chuck a bucket of water at her.”

“I hate to say it, but I doubt the Wizard of Oz is a good source for how to deal with witches,” said Tucker.

“Well, considering all the other ways of ‘dealing with witches’ are literal torture, that’s all I’ve got.” Danny’s words were clipped.

Yeah. He was mad.

“We could try some charms and stuff,” suggested Sam.

“Before or after we cut our bond?” asked Danny, no inflection in his tone. “Because that might make the difference.”

“Danny, I’m just not comfortable having you as my slave. Which is what this comes down to.”

“I know,” said Danny. He still didn’t sound happy.

They reached Sam’s house, and they all crowded into Sam’s room for the most intense study session ever. Not counting Tucker’s post-Ember deprogramming.

Sam started with the original book, the one the ritual had come from in the first place. Reading it again made her so mad. Mad enough that, at first, she didn’t notice her rapidly increasing heartrate. Not until she was pressing her hand against her chest and struggling for breath.

“What,” she gasped, “was that?”

Danny shook his head, eyes wide and worried even as he kept his fingers wrapped securely around Sam’s wrist. “I don’t know. Whatever happened, though, your pulse is going back down. What were you looking at?”

“Just the ritual from before… I wanted to see if there were loopholes we could use,” said Sam, trying to get her breathing back under control.

Tucker plucked the book from where it had fallen near Sam’s knee and scanned the page. He winced. “Hey, it says here that your side of the deal is giving Danny your heart.”

“Yeah?” said Sam.

“Your heart, which just went crazy when you started trying to figure out a way to back out of the deal?”

Sam felt Danny’s hand contract around her wrist. “Oh,” he said. “But I didn’t want that to happen.” He sounded lost, hurt, and more than a little offended.

“I know, man,” said Tucker, soothingly, “but you don’t want the contract to be broken, either, right?”

“No,” admitted Danny. “I’m sorry, I like it.”

“Yeah. So,” said Tucker, “I guess it isn’t as one-sided as you thought, Sam.” He made a face. “What was your ‘promise,’ anyway?”

“To be friends,” said Danny. “We thought that would cause the least amount of issues, in case there were penalties.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, okay,” said Tucker. “That makes sense.”

It did.

This was bad.

This was the worst-case scenario. Sam bit down on her lip. Danny was- It was like he was in a fog, as far as this thing went. That’s the only way she could describe it. There was no way he was seeing the situation clearly. It didn’t matter if it was because of the familiar contract or Danny’s ghostly nature.

If Tucker was right and Sam had a heart attack every time she tried to do something about it…

Yeah. That wasn’t good.

“Maybe we should look at something else for today,” suggested Danny, far too cheerfully. “Like, we should see if you can do some of these spells and how it affects us. It seems like I’ve been feeding you energy somehow, right?” He began paging through one of the books. “That’s probably why you were awake all last night. That’s going to be useful, I bet, and oh! This one sounds cool. We could make fog everywhere. Just think about it, Sam. We could be so spooky at night!” He brought out the puppy dog eyes.

“Ugh,” said Sam. “Fine.” She stabbed a finger at Tucker. “You keep searching for a way out.”

The corners of Danny’s lips twitched downward at that, but sprang back up when Sam turned her attention to the spell he had picked out. Weakly, Sam smiled back.

This was going to be hard.

#danny phantom #ectober #ectober 2020 #ectober week 2020 #day 1

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theelliottsmiths · 4 years ago

Note

Important question, and forgive my ignorance, but is Schnill a thing? And why dost I crave it?

In my heart, definitely. In the community it's not very common but there is precedent there is reason to dream. Why do you crave it? They're very different people and it's funny to consider. They're both beautiful in very different ways and so look great together. They can connect through their drumming history. Schneider is a Dom and Till is a sub. Schneider openly admits he thinks Till is hot [source below]

I feel like a lot of it is just that he doesn't always understand Till? So there's a lot of O.o moments for them. Schneider gives him a lot of Looks in interviews and whatnot, including in the In Amerika group interview

Some quotes:

‘’The lyrics are the work of Till, who is a really weird guy. We often have the impression that Till suffers from split personality. That is why those lyrics of his are so strange maybe. He is in them himself, he writes about his own experiences’’

"Sometimes we really annoy each other. Our dressing rooms got separated, and now before and after the concert each person can be alone. But Till, for some reason, always knocks on my door and asks: Schneider, can I come in? Well of course you can, I say. And after 10 minutes there's chaos in my dressing room. After all, if Till is allowed, that means everyone else is allowed too. It sucks."

". [Richard] asked his roommate Oliver, now the bassist for Rammstein - and then me - and wanted that we might have Till as a singer. Because he knew that Till always sang to himself whilst weaving his baskets. We started rehearsing, and wrote three of the first songs. Later, Till came up but things were grim at first; he could not sing. And I thought to myself, he's admittedly handsome and strong and all, but what is that supposed to be? Things were teetering on the brink. Till said (rather tersely) that first he ought to have a drink, and helped himself to a bottle of Korn... Back then it was quite hard to believe, that he was a good singer at all." I promise this is real its from Mix Mir einen Drink

"About fifteen years ago, Till was a drummer in a dark punk band. I've never seen anyone play like him. Incredible energy. When I thought he had given everything and could not continue, he played on."

I really like the flag one, it's like Till is just so thrilled that Schneider is that into it

Most of the visual stuff is Frau/puppy, he doesn't visit Schneider on stage otherwise and they aren't really together outside of work much it seems

Littol kisse :)

This is here because I think it's sweet that she holds back for a second so he can prepare for the slap and turn at the right moment

This one is Schneider being proud of his weird goth bf for doing something he doesn't want to do

I refuse to add the full sequence of this gif because the perv "accidentally" sniffs his hands

They've also has a few interviews together that I love, and any time Schneider mentions Till in a solo interviews it's just... Very funny.

youtube

If you haven't seen this I warn you, your bone marrow is about to liquify

youtube

Oh, and who could forget "Schneider, come make it a trio!"?

Ps. I uh. Technically write it? It's soft sweet angsty puppy fic and they don't fuck though. It's... Complicated

#me rambling #rammstein #till lindemann #christoph schneider #friends #hündchen

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fieryfantasybooklover · 4 years ago

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Lightning And Thunder - A Sanders Sides Fic

Ships: Anxciet, Royality, Intrulogical

---------------------------------------------------

“Virgil! Come on you’re gonna be late!”

“Well, Pat, have you considered my likely lateness is because I don’t want to come?”

Patton shot Virgil a disappointed look as he attempted to yank the anxious side out the door. “Oh come on Virge. Even you can’t deny that you need a break and a few laughs.”

“Well, why does this have to be the place where I get the fun?”

Patton, Logan, and Roman had been working together to plan a night of fun and games for all the sides. Logan had only agreed because he believed it would strengthen group bonds, Roman wanted to show off his musical skills, and Patton just wanted snacks and everyone to be happy. Janus protested but quickly gave in, and Remus maintained a “whatever” attitude. So, here they were, a few days later, gathering for a night of activities. Eventually, Patton managed to drag Virgil to the living room and shove several different snacks into his arms. Patton then proceeded to launch a sneak attack on Roman, seizing him in a bear hug and peppering his face with kisses as the creative side stammered and blushed, before turning back on Patton and also launching a kiss attack.

Virgil, smirking and gnawing on a shortbread cookie, dropped onto the couch next to Janus, pointedly facing the other direction even as his face warmed. The two fought nearly always, and it only intensified when Logan and Remus finally got together. The pair was currently murmuring quietly to each other while seemingly making the final preparations. They completed each other impossibly well, and neither had been happier then since they got together. Logan was always smiling and laughing, an occasion that was now commonplace. Even Remus had a happier air, and his pranks had downgraded from malicious chaos causing to harmless pranks. With Patton and Roman together and infinitely sweet, and Logan and Remus happy, the only ones left were Virgil and Janus. Both starkly refused the chances of getting together, pushing past and stubbornly ignoring the clearly romantic based fighting, the red faces, and the stammering.

“Virgil? Yes you I’m talking to you!” Virgil jolted and looked around for the source of the voice, mouth widening in shock when he realized it was Janus. “Yeah? What do you want.”

“There is no need to be that way. I just wanted to ask you how you are.” Janus’s smirk only intensified as Virgil’s face grew redder. “I’m fine! And I already know that you are gonna say something snarky or assholeish if I ask you how you are so I’m not going to bother!” Virgil whipped around, face burning, trying his best to avoid staring at Janus unconsciously any more than he already did. In fact, he turned so fast he missed the mild blushing on Janus’s own face.

“He’s a jerk. A mean, stuck-up, definitely not funny, hot-” Virgil was snapped out of his sudden stupor and inner rant by Patton’s loud, happy yell. “Alright kiddos, it’s time to get started! Take a seat and the games shall begin.” Thus began a night of fun and laughter. Roman and Patton tackled each other multiple times on the mobile games, laughing and shrieking all the way down, leaving Logan, Virgil, Janus, and Remus to be the witnesses. All shared a similar mindset watching this, something along the lines of “They’re adorable dorks. Adorable, but dorks. Oh well, gotta love them.” Logan and Remus had many hilarious interactions, leading to a constant source of amusement for everyone else. Even a few weeks ago, Logan would have stormed off and Remus wouldn’t have even been there. But now, both only joined in laughing and gave the other a kiss to spectacular applause.

As the night proceeded, the games got crazier, as did they. Everyone, even Logan and Virgil, had ingested unholy amounts of sugar. So, when Roman slyly suggested spin the bottle, there was no objection. Had Virgil’s mind been clearer, he would have spotted the clear attempt at a set up and avoided it. However, he didn’t. So, when they all stretched out on the floor, Remus with his arm around Logan and Patton cuddling against Roman, Virgil and Janus begrudgingly sat down next to each other.

The bottle was spun several times, leading to gentle platonic cheek kisses between Patton and Logan, Remus and Patton, and Janus and Remus. However, when the bottle, spun by Janus slowed to a stop pointing at Virgil, both choked on air and turned bright red. “Oh come on! He can get one respin right? Guys, come on!” Logan, barely hiding a smirk, nodded to Janus and he spun again. When the bottle once again stopped on Virgil, Roman spoke up. “Well, it seems like destiny is sending you a message Virgil! You must embrace it, or you shall perish!”

“Calm down, this is spin the bottle not a quest to save the world.”

“I’m with Roman on this one kiddo! It seems pointless to fight anyway. Just one kiss and it’s done!”

“Come on Virgil, just do it.” Remus rolled his eyes as he replied. “And truly, if this didn’t mean anything, you wouldn’t be fighting it so much. If it helps, we could leave.”

Virgil, clearly close to snarling but turning bright red at the same time, gave in and turned to Janus. “Just to be clear, this means nothing.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t expect anything else.” Janus replied, somehow still managing to smirk as the others filed out of the room and shut the door. Virgil and Janus stood and faced each other. Virgil, realizing he would have to start, ran his hands through his hair quickly, before quickly leaning over and kissing Janus.

--Janus POV--

Janus was unprepared for Virgil to kiss him all of a sudden. Of course, he really should have expected it. But, it was just so sudden. What he wasn’t prepared for even more so though, was the creatures that roared to life inside him at Virgil’s touch.

As the two kissed, the rest of the world fell away. To both, it seemed impossible that one single action could contain so much. In that one perfect, ethereal moment, lightning struck and thunder roared. Wind roared and howled, and meteors struck Earth as both Virgil and Janus rocketed to cloud 9. Hurricanes slammed into shore as euphoria roared through both of them at impossible levels. “Oh. So this is how it’s supposed to feel.” was the only musterable thought from either of them in that second. Surprised his bones hadn’t liquified already, Virgil raised his hands and ran them through Janus’s hair, the other’s hat long since discarded to the floor. Janus gripped Virgil’s face as gently as possible, before responding in full force. This would likely have continued for much longer, had Remus not hammered on the door and shouted “Don’t forget, you’re not alone, lovebirds!”

--Virgil POV (sort of)--

Virgil and Janus broke apart, both impossibly red in the face with hair all askew. Avoiding Janus’s gaze, Virgil strode to the door and flung it open, nearly hitting the others in the face. It could not have been clearer that they had been hovering near the door and waiting for them to emerge. “Remus, and I mean this is the kindest way, fuck off.” Virgil snapped as he practically ran to the kitchen, trying to hide his blush. Remus just roared with laughter as Patton admonished Virgil for language. Roman, shaking his head in exasperation, planted a tender kiss on Patton’s head before murmuring to him and heading down the hall towards the rooms.

Logan, who just tossed Virgil an all-knowing grin, gently turned Remus and led him down the hall, tossing one last “goodnight” to everyone there. Virgil was left alone with Patton. “I’m happy for you kiddo. I can already see it in your eyes. You’re glowing.” Virgil, unable to muster a response to that, just stood there as Patton also vanished down the hall. Finally, it was just him and Janus, who had just now emerged from the room, fingering his hat in his hands.

“Well-” Janus started, but was immediately cut off by Virgil. “Don’t mention it. I’ll see you tomorrow, my little bumblebee.” And now it was Virgil’s turn to smirk as Janus turned bright red and stuttered. Turning, Virgil threw a final “night” over his shoulder, chuckling and blushing at the “Night, my little thundercloud.” he received in return.

That night, both Virgil and Janus would lay awake, reliving that single moment. Reliving it and wondering how something could be so perfect, so wondrous, so world-shattering. That experience, that feeling, would be the last thing either thought before they drifted into the world of sleep. And even then, even in their dreams, a smile would hover on their faces and pink would linger on their face. The feeling and the remembrance was shocking and new each time it hit them again, sending more waves of unnatural happiness through them, coloring their dreams with vibrant rainbow shades. The cloud of highly concentrated joy would hover over the house for several more weeks, as Virgil and Janus allowed themselves to express all the love that had been pent up for so long. And as the others watched, hugged their love close, they smiled with quiet happiness and offered their silent, encouraging cheers.

#Anxciet #intrulogical #Royality #roman sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #cute #kiss #fluff #cursing tw #Sanders sides #megans writing

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paperanddice · 4 years ago

Photo

Image ID: Two pictures of game stat blocks for the zern. The first is for 5th Edition D&D and the second is for 13th Age. Full text is available below the read more. End ID.

The zern are a form of humanoid creature that have developed an exceptionally malleable body, capable of extreme transformations to better suit their needs at the moment, as well as powerful magic that can induce unstable shifts in another creature’s form. Outside of combat, this magic can slowly reshape a creature’s body to a new form, potentially allowing a zern to cause a permanent transformation, though these changes are difficult to perfect and only a few zern that have trained this ability to incredible levels can do so with fine control. Most simply use it as a form of attack, causing a target’s body to tear itself apart as bones, muscle and flesh pull and warp. This warping energy as they call it is exceptionally painful to most creatures, and is the basis of zern fleshwarping experiments.

Hostile zern factions are a terrifying thing, capturing other people and performing brutal experiments on them to reshape their bodies and minds into something more useful to them. Zern blade thralls and other fleshwarped monstrosities are the results of this, and for every success there are dozens of failures. More benevolent or kind zern often use their warping energy for healing purposes, and experts with the power will give voluntary transformations to patients who wish for their bodies to change. While painful, this is one of the few ways to be able to permanently change your body without the risk of the magic being reverted. Once a zern has successfully transformed a creature with its warping energy, the effect is permanent, stable, and most importantly, non-magical in nature.

The stat block above represents the most common zern warriors, who have trained to use their body to its most combat useful forms, and focused on their warping energy only to the point of effectively using it in battle to injure and kill. Those with their focus on other paths may have fewer or even none of the abilities of malleable form, as they haven’t trained their body to effectively take and hold these forms, but most will still have an affinity for transmutation effects and some innate ability to reshape their body. A scientist or wizard may have mastered the ability to grow an additional pair of delicate hands to better manipulate small objects, or a thief may have learned to gain a climb or swim speed without being reliant on the magic of alter self.

Zern average about 6 and a half feet tall, with rubbery skin that ranges from blue to purple to black. Their muscles are usually quite prominent, even with those who haven’t trained significantly, and their hair resembles a collection of short tentacles that are usually the same color as their skin.

Originally from the 3.5 Monster Manual IV. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a spot on the Paper and Dice Discord server, consider backing me there! I’m actually really fascinated with the zern. Their original fluff simply placed them as pure villains, in the same vein as the duergar, drow, witchknives, yakfolk, yuan-ti, and the many other random evil humanoid creatures. The zern caught my eyes though because unlike so many of those other beings, their specialty is in transmutation effects rather than the enchantment that so many of these many evil slaver types use. That’s unique and interesting enough to do something with, so I gave them quite the detailed writeup and will have a few of their fleshcraft creations coming up over the rest of the week.

5th Edition

A zern can perform a surgery that may permanently reshape a creatures body by spending 1d6+1 hours using its warping energy on the creature and succeeding on a DC 25 Wisdom (Medicine) check. The end result of the transformation is equivalent to the Change Appearance effect of alter self, though features such as height and weight cannot be changed by more than 10% of their initial amount with each surgery. This transformation is permanent and non-magical, so it cannot be dispelled by dispel magic and doesn’t disappear in an antimagic field or similar effect. If the check was a failure, the result is a painful, twisted version of the desired result.

After the surgery, the creature must make a DC 25 Constitution saving throw, or have its hit point maximum reduced by 23 (6d6+2). The creature has disadvantage on the save if the surgery was a failure. This reduction is permanent until treated with greater restoration or similar magic.

Zern Medium humanoid (shapechanger), any alignment Armor Class 16 (natural armor) Hit Points 127 (15d8 + 60) Speed 30 ft. Str 16 (+3) Dex 17 (+3) Con 18 (+4) Int 15 (+2) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 11 (+0) Saving Throws Con +7, Wis +4 Skills Medicine +7 Damage Immunities poison Condition Immunities paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, stunned Senses passive Perception 11 Languages Zern plus any 3 languages Challenge 5 (1800 XP) Fast Healing. The zern regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point. Malleable Form. The zern can use a bonus action to change its body and gain one of the following benefits. This effect is permanent until the zern uses this ability again. • Adrenal Surge: The zern's upper body grows more muscular, granting it a +3 bonus on attack rolls and weapon damage rolls. • Boneless Form: The zern's body becomes extremely malleable as its bones liquify. It can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing. • Impervious: The zern's skin grows into plates of armor. Its AC becomes 18 and it gains resistance to bludgeoning and slashing damage. • Size Shift: The zern grows to Large size. While enlarged, the zern has advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and deals an additional 2 (1d4) damage with weapon attacks. • Speed Burst: The zern's legs lengthen and strengthen, increasing its speed by 30 feet. Innate Spellcasting. The zern's spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 13). The zern can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: alter self 1/day each: gaseous form, polymorph Actions Multiattack. The zern makes two spear attacks. Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage or 8 (1d10+3) piercing damage if used with two hands to make a melee attack. Warping Energy. Melee or Ranged Spell Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., or range 120 ft., one creature. Hit: 23 (6d6+2) force damage.

13th Age

If a character voluntarily undergoes a zern surgery, it takes 1d6+1 hours and the zern must succeed on a DC 25 check. The zern adds its level+2 to this roll. If it is successful the character’s body is permanently transformed, with its general appearance being completely customizable, while its height and weight can be shifted up or down by up to 10%. On a failure, the target suffers a painful, disfiguring effect that has no mechanical effect but probably makes them unhappy.

After the surgery, the target must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution skill check, or else it is weakened until it completes a full heal up. The DC increases to 30 if the surgery was a failure.

Certain specialist zern may have a higher bonus to their check to perform this surgery, but obviously the average soldier has not the time or experience to perform these very successfully.

Zern 5th-level troop [humanoid] Initiative: +9 Longspear +8 vs. AC - 14 damage Natural 18+: The zern can make a warping energy attack as a standard action on its next turn. [Special Trigger] C: Warping Energy +9 vs. PD (one nearby or far away enemy) - 20 force damage Natural 18+: The target is transformed into a tiny animal until the end of the zern’s next turn. While in this form, the target is hampered and weakened, and its attacks only deal d4s for damage. Malleable Form: The zern starts the battle with one of the following benefits. 1/turn it can choose a different benefit until it uses this ability again. • Adrenal Surge: The zern gains a +5 bonus to attack and expands its crit range to 18+ with its longspear. • Boneless Form: The zern is immune to opportunity attacks and can squeeze through openings just a few inches wide. Also, while in this form the zern is immune to conditions except ongoing damage. • Impervious Hide: The zern gains a +5 bonus to AC and resist weapon damage 12+. • Size Shift: The zern grows to incredible size. Its longspear attack can now target nearby creatures, and gains a +5 bonus to damage (hit or miss). • Speed Burst: The zern can take two move actions on each of its turns. Shapechange: As a standard action, the zern can change its form to that of any humanoid, or back to its own shape. A successful DC 20 skill check can see through this disguise. Shapeshifter’s Bane: The zern gains a +5 bonus to damage if it’s target is any form except its original one. AC 18 PD 17 MD 16 HP 80

#long post #DnD #D&D #Dungeons and Dragons #5th Edition #13th Age #homebrew #my homebrew #monster #npc #humanoid

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huntsman-ash · 4 years ago

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RWBY LiveThoughts: Episodes 8 and 9

So I missed last weeks episode since I got busy with stuff (school mostly, basic bitch busy day and all) so here’s two for one.

Gotta say, Im interested to see where this is going...

So something I missed the last few episodes; the final shot of the opening has the words “happily ever after” turn into “happy never again”, which I am both trepitided by and also intruged.

Cut to the jail cell AGAIN...Schnee’s looking a bit ansty. Boi probably thought he was getting out sooner. Suck it mate, your lawyers are DEAD.

Convinent blast of fire is convinenet...knocks out the cell doors and punches a hole but thats it. My money’s on Cinder

Qrow becomes bird on reaction. Makes sense really.

Two fade to blacks in less than 2 minutes? Come on RT...

Ohhh its Nora waking up. So does that mean Robyn’s dead? I doubt it, but that drama spike is def a thing.

IV tech in Atlas is almost the same as our world. Interesting.

Whitley A poses like a god.

Looks like Penny’s back snapped. Or something...maybe a coolant pipe or something similar. And the return of British Klein.

And there goes the power. Probably a Grimm getting smashed into it during a fight...or they left it unguarded. Either or. Lot of explosions, either way...

Bombing run...has Atlas gone to area denial now?

...ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THOSE FUCKING FLYING JELLYFISH GRIMM CAN MELEE AIRSHIPS?! Can we just...how in the... (LONG SUFFERING SIGH OF MILTIARY FAN) Not...going to comment. MOVING ON.

Honestly that animation seems oddly...flat. Like they just did the bare minimum...the ship breaks cleanly too. ~12 or so bits in between its nose and tail section. Kinda reminds me of how the UNSC Savannah blows up after suffering a reactor breach in Halo Reach’s “Long Night of Solace” mission.

Yes, its too much Ruby. ITS WAR. Huntsmen and Atlas were not ready for it. Never have been. Welcome to the bloody grim fable.

Oh hi Willow, where did you come from. Also, vodka. Wait. Generator near the-Oh, I bet I know where THIS is going...fuckin Five Nights style shit at this. Slash Jurrassic Park...

Whitley showing the first signs of being human...utilizing Atlas cargoships for evac. Nice.

Shit, the storms spread across all of Atlas. How the hell are they gonna get out through that? Also DEF getting fuckin’ Jurrasic Park vibes here.

Why does a power startup sequence take so long...

Oh so they can talk. Also Blake says “as a girl”. Soooo what, she thinks shes older than RWBY mentally? I mean maybe she is (she did kill a man) but whos counting?

Ladybug fans getting FED right now.

Hehe, the houses CANDLES are fed by the main power. How quaint.

YEP. Knew shit was gonna hit the fan. CONTACT. Hound

The chess set seems to have black loosing. Wonder if that means anything. Or if its just random.

Yep its the Hound. Knew it.

DID IT JUST ONESHOT RUBY’S AURA?! THE FUCK RT WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT BEING RESILIANT?!

Oh its trying to kidnap her. Also those wings just EXPLODED out of it. Must have learned from last time. No weird screaming noises.

DAMN THOUGH WEISS’S MOM GOT THAT CAKE! THICC SCHNEE ASS

WOOPS. No more booze for you Mrs Schnee

And Pennys back up and SHES NOT PLEASED.

Also I like how completely dead and robotic Penny is while hacked. It amuses me. Unfortunatly for Watts hacking something with MAIDEN POWERS doesnt seem to work too well. SURPRISE.

Oh and of course its got backup, DISRUPTING WEISS’S SUMMONING AGAIN

Ha, it thought Ruby was Penny. Lul. Makes sense, young girl, whatever.

Oh look, a Hydralisk. Or, Salems horrible attempt at making a Hydralisk.

Hacking denied BY THE POWER OF BUTCH LESBIANS!

Willow having a panic attack, doesnt really surprise me. Then again she IS a Huntress, or was, maybe she’ll get over it.

Chandelier. Phantom of the Opera time?

Unsurprising twist is unsurprising...makes sense Whitley would get covered in that green shit.

Further proof to my theory the Hound is eyeless

And Willow doing her fucking job. NICE.

I know I should be worried for them while running but again, THAT SCHNEE ASS THOUGH GOOD LORD.

These bigger Grimm are getting smarter. They’re learning how to handle CQC.

Target DOWN. Sadly, did not explode into showers of acid when Ruby cut it down.

Okay that was pretty cool with the arm. Always was a fan of “useless limbs only for smashing”. Ah THERES the Silver Eyes. PROBABLY SHOULDNT HAVE TAKEN HER ROBOT WIFE PRISONER BIIITCCH.

Penny is just getting ALL KINDS of fucked up rn.

WELL THEN. The Hounds not ACTUALLY a Grimm. Just a parasite on a host. Salem couldnt get them smart enough by themselves (to no ones surprise, they’re completely SHIT in terms of actual lethality) so she steals a...faunus of some kind looks like. And just makes him wear a Grimm suit. Useful. Good to know.

Also this episode has been making excessive use of sweat drops. Did they get that figured out or what

HA! Grimm dont handle physics well do they!

The Grimm arm that results looks like Cinders. Intentional, Im compleretly sure. Also the fact theres bone underneath proves to me more what I thought. Its just a host.

How...UNIMPRESSIVE.

However the fact that the bones have TWISTED and resulted in the Hounds form is...interesting. Unless those were there first (and they seem to be as they last past the Hound vanishing)...was that a secondary feature? He had the ears...

We’ll probably never know.

Ah so it WAS Cinder breaking in. To get Watts most likely.

Kinda feel bad for these three troopers. Shoulda brought shotguns, boi.

Fucking moron with a rocket launcher. WHY is he firing this thing INSIDE? Against a humanoid target? Though it is nice to know that Atlas does in fact have rocket launchers.

And now, Episode 9

...wow, way to start us off. Field littered with dead Atlas troopers. Yeah MAYBE IF YOU HAD SOME DEFENSIVE POSITIONS buddy...least they still got fire from the Paladins.

You know this kinda feels like an Imperial Guard moment. Point made, RT.

Also those Mantas peeled off without DOING anything. Least you could do is drop some ordinance...

Wait I t hink they did...also, for about 2 seconds you can see the silverfish Grimm that won that contest.

Alright, so RJY is inside the whale now. Good.

Good question Yang. Probably cause you dont really have any other options?

I feel like Jaunes hair has become less plant-like and more realistic.

New fairy tale; The Girl who Fell Through The World. Interesting. Wonder if thats in the book somewhere.

So hes got access to magic but it makes them fuse faster. Alright, cool. Nice limitation.

...my god. Trenches. Standing formation. HUNTERS IN ARMOR?!

Its...its beautiful. Its everything Ive ever wanted! Seriously you HAVE to see this.

Just look at it. The lights, the Mantas in he background, the fact that FNKI is there and WEARING ARMOR! Neon in her skates with weapon at the ready, everyone else standing firm, winter Walking the trench line like shes fucking Commissar Vale...

Its. Just. SO. GOOD.

And then they rush to glorious battle moments later. OH YES PLEASE

“Right now, just kill Grimm.” PERFECT

Hazel short-walking amuses me to no end.

Hazel has “II” in roman numerals on his arm band. I doubt it means anything but its funny

Spontanious Emerald is spontanious. And convinenent.

Glowy blue titty woman yeahhhhhh

And there goes Hazel with his change of heart. Been good knowing you pal...I can guess where THIS is going.

Oscar is distracted by the big glowy milkys.

Also; Neo can...thats most interesting. Fully camoflauged. USEFUL. And of course you can see her ass for ONE SECOND and I bet the FANDOMS HAVING FUN WITH THAT

If Yang wasnt afraid right now I’d be very surprised.

Random floating Seer as well.

MAN THERE IS JUST TOO MUCH FUCKING CONVENIENCE GOING ON RIGHT NOW LIKE

I get it. Nice to see things not going according to plan for Salem exactly but

Ehh.

Hahaha. Juan. Bro doesnt even remember Jaunes name. Also that short section of fight is magnificent. This is what I have always imagined the HKs being like.

CLEVER. Nice work Emerald.

Also uhhh...dont need no semblance ot see THAT Ren, she got that confused scared face right on there.

Tsundere Emerald continues

Also, the fact that all the troops stand in line around the bomb when it arrives amuses me. Like, yes, we must worship this tool of horror we have created.

Timer...ohhhhh thats gonna end poorly. WHY AM I GETTING SHADES OF LONG NIGHT OF SOLACE AGAIN?

Did Salem straight up make a door right through the wall? With a perfectly good one behind her? God damn.

Also on that subject uhhhhh off the walls guys, not to hard. Landing strats right?

OH NO WAIT FIGHT TIME.

Magic still doesnt seem impressive to me. Just...mildly forceful. Yeah it whacked Jaune and Ren off their feet but

Still. No 40k psyker is she.

Ohh ho. OH THATS NICE

Also Yang punched her titty. That is hilarious to me.

BREAK, BITCH! SUFFER AND SHATTER! In the words of the Chaplain Grimaldus; “BURN HERETIC!”

Addit; First time we see her regeneration. Seems its literally anything, she pulls herself back together using Grimm bits. Obviously shes not fully human considering that blast Yang hit her with should have liquified her organs. Makes SENSE of course.

Okay, magic seems to kinda work, she didnt like that much.

I paused at the perfect time and Yangs ass is riiigghhhttt at Oscars crotch more or less. Unintentional I know but its funny to me.

Also those sigils...like Weiss’s glyphs perhaps?

Huh. Two kinds of magic. The bright sunshiny ranbow one she used to hit Ren and Jaune, and now this void looking shadowy stuff. So...two kinds perhaps? Creation and Destruction or...light and dark maybe is more accurate. Makes SENSE, shes studied in both and uses both. All aspects.

Okay NOW Im seeing why RT got Jen Taylor to do Salem. We jussttt had to wait to the point she got mad enough to really start showing off.

Also Salem seems oddly unconvinced about Summer.

Awww, Emeralds crying. HOW PATHETIC

Someones gotta distract her...well this works. Again, RIP Hazel, you were pretty cool.

Homie goin ALL out on this. YEAH!

Okay, magic seems to be both, she has the void walker balls shooting rainbow light...

I like how casually Salem takes it. Seeing that Grimm ichor splatter was REAL nice though

IMMOLATIOIN OH YESSSS

Good, SHE DOES BURN!

Awwww. And it ends there. Of course it does.

Well hey maybe hes NOT dead. Albiet that looked like him passing out/getting strangled so who knows. Good news; Salem burns just like anyone else. If it feels pain you can kill it

And thats this weeks!

#spoilers #rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8

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catsupdraw30 · 4 years ago

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Content

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What does LGD 4033 do?

LGD-4033 is a novel nonsteroidal, oral SARM that binds to androgen receptor with high affinity (Ki of ∼1 nM) and selectivity. In animal models, LGD-4033 has demonstrated anabolic activity in the muscle, anti-resorptive and anabolic activity in bone, and robust selectivity for muscle versus prostate.

Due to this, various safeguarding teams are required, although they are typically based on the benzyl or tert-butyl team. Boc chemistry was very first described in the 1950s and also needs acidic problems for deprotection, while Fmoc, which was not reported for another twenty years, is cleaved under moderate, basic problems. The amino acid N-termini are shielded by teams that are described "temporary" securing teams, because they are reasonably easily gotten rid of to permit peptide bond development. Two commonN-terminal protecting groupsare tert-butoxycarbonyl as well as 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl, and each group has distinctive characteristics that identify their use. Boc requires a reasonably solid acid such as trifluoracetic acid to be removed from the newly added amino acid, while Fmoc is a base-labile securing group that is eliminated with a moderate base such as piperidine. In cell biology, receptor binding or the substrate recognition uniqueness of recently uncovered enzymes can typically be examined using collections of homologous artificial peptides. Artificial peptides can look like naturally happening peptides and work as medicines against cancer and also various other major diseases.

Dietary Supplements.

At the forefront of products scientific research and also engineering, we can also locate peptides, although they do not always show intrinsic bioactivity. In this setting, self-assembling peptides have gained importance for their possible usage as biomimetic structures, such as collagen-like products or parts of synthetic extracellular matrices developed to advertise tissue regeneration. SAP have actually been also discovered as biocompatible vehicles for intracellular delivery of medicines or bio-signaling particles like, as an example, nitric oxide, a powerful vasodilator pertinent in numerous physiological processes.

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Are SARMs injected?

One substantial advantage of even the first-generation SARMs developed to date is that they are all orally active without causing liver damage, whereas most anabolic steroids are not active orally and must be injected, and those anabolic steroids that are orally active tend to cause dose-dependent liver damage, which

Peptides are just one of one of the most talked-about ingredients in the area of anti-ageing skin care. When applied to your skin, they demonstrate exceptional benefits, revitalising your skin and making it more durable and also stronger. But peptides do not possess enchanting buildings, as some brand names assert.

Sorts Of Sarms.

Ultimately, artificial peptides are made use of as requirements and reagents in mass spectrometry -based applications. Artificial peptides play a main function in MS-based discovery, characterization and also quantitation of healthy proteins, specifically those that act as very early biomarkers for diseases. Peptides are used to prepare epitope-specific antibodies, map antibody epitopes and also enzyme binding sites and also to develop unique enzymes, drugs as well as vaccinations. While peptide synthesis made use of to be labor-intensive and generate low yields, enhanced methods of production as well as peptide chemistry have actually made peptide synthesis a lot more readily available for general study applications. Whatever the worry, more than likely, there's a peptide for that.

Best SARMs For Building Muscle & Losing Fat - - VENTS Magazine

Best SARMs For Building Muscle & Losing Fat -.

Posted: Mon, 09 Mar 2020 07:00:00 GMT [source]

You can pick something plumping, brightening, moisturizing-- or all three, if you expensive. Peptides frequently locate it challenging to reach where they require to be; they are large as well as disapproval being around oil so they struggle to fit through the tiny, oil-based spaces between skin cells. Our 30% peptide blend consists of an innovative shipment system which ensures that all our peptides can dive deep right into the reduced layers of the skin for ideal result. As the light-weight serum is rubbed into the skin, the 30% peptide complicated begins its multi-faceted method to rejuvenating the skin. Collagen and also elastin production is improved, fine lines as well as wrinkles are smoothed as well as the skin's all-natural stores ofhyaluronic acid rise.

centrally manage sarms liquid online - pharmagrade.store : Teacher Tim Elliot, College Of Southampton.

The fact is that there is no single ingredient that will deal with all the indicators of skin aging - as well as peptides are no exception. Peptides are a fantastic possession to your skin, however it's best to be reasonable in your expectations to prevent disappointment.

Here's where to buy SARMS body building supplements in our on-line store.

https://pharmagrade.store/product-category/tb500/ have been established to be able to separate out the types results and also produce just the desirable ones.

For sport people this would usually suggest the capability to keep or grow muscular tissue mass without the undesirable side effects as well as without any water retention or fat gain.

These "Careful Androgen Receptor Modulators" work by enhancing androgen levels in the body which results in big rises in performance and also recuperation.

They are also created to be able to be taken by mouth instead of by injection, that makes them simpler medications to utilize.

Figure out moreSARMs UK supplements are an exciting course of supplements which function as choices to prohormones for those seeking something more powerful than an all-natural testosterone booster.

Any terrific anti-ageing skin care routine should have a healthy and balanced mix of skin-replenishing components, anti-oxidants, and various other a healthy and balanced dose of various other anti-ageing components as well as the most effective ones do. A faster route to brightness is to try an at-home peel, which will restore skin, efficiently scrubing to eliminate boring, dead skin cells and also exposing more youthful, plumper skin. We like Natura Bissē Glyco Extreme Peel which combines the exfoliating properties of glycolic acid as well as AHAs with restorative, firming as well as lightening up peptides for glowing skin. There are two variations of this, the initial works when inhibitor peptides are applied to skin as well as communicate to our cells to inhibit the process that breaks down collagen, which essentially quits our skin from noticeably aging. The 2nd kind works by inhibiting nerve signals, to make sure that our facial muscular tissues are incapable to move so effectively, and thus the fine lines that are developed by this activity can be prevented. When used topically to the skin, peptides act as little messengers, setting off skin cells to carry out particular features such as constructing collagen and elastin, urging skin. to look and also act younger.

The Winds Are Transforming: Its Time To Try Cyclone.

The last concentration of acetic acid or ammonia/ammonium bicarbonate allowable will certainly be determined by the use to which the peptide is to be finally placed. If the peptide still refuses to liquify, these unstable buffer systems may be removed by lyophilisation as well as different solvents tried out the same peptide sample. The continuing to be N-terminal protecting teams, all side-chain shielding groups and also the C-terminal shielding group or strong support are removed by strong acid therapy after peptide synthesis is completed.

SARM responds to Speech from the Throne - Farms.com

SARM responds to Speech from the Throne.

Posted: Fri, 04 Dec 2020 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The act of removing shielding teams, particularly under acidic problems, causes the manufacturing of cationic species that can alkylate the useful teams on the peptide chain. For that reason, scavengerssuch as water, anisol or thiol derivatives can be added in excess during the deprotection step to respond with any one of these complimentary reactive varieties. Amino acid side chains represent a wide variety of practical teams and also are for that reason a site of significant side chain sensitivity throughout peptide synthesis.

Peptides have outstanding benefits for skin yet the outcomes will certainly never coincide as an aesthetic treatment. All peptides purchased from us are manufactured by us in our laboratories.

If the peptide continues to be Insoluble, consider Its amino acid make-up prior to continuing better. What proportion of amino acids are hydrophobic as well as the amount of residues are positively billed or negatively charged? If there is a net charge at neutral pH, enhancement of dilute acetic acid or weaken aqueous ammonia or ammonium bicarbonate with more sonication should greatly aid solubility.

N2 - Therapeutic proteins as well as peptides have been determined as showing great assurance for the therapy of mind cancers as well as neurodegenerative illness. Restorative healthy proteins and peptides have been recognized as revealing excellent pledge for the treatment of mind cancers as well as neurodegenerative illness. Perfect for menopausal skin, this super-hydrating, moisturiser is rich in phytoestrogens, peptides and healthy proteins, every one of which collaborate to enhance skin's flexibility and also reduce the signs of hormone aging.

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The fibrous nonwoven supplied a structurally robust scaffold, with the capacity to control SAP release behavior. As much as 75% of P11-4 and also 45% of P11-8 were preserved in the fibres after 7-day incubation in liquid solution at pH 7.4. The encapsulation of SAP in a nonwoven system with apatite-forming as well as localized and also lasting SAP distribution abilities is appealing as a prospective ways of achieving economical bone repair work therapy for important size flaws. N2 - Cell-free translational methods are needed to speed up the fixing of mineralised cells, particularly big bone defects, using minimally invasive approaches. Cell-free translational techniques are needed to increase the repair of mineralised tissues, specifically large bone defects, utilizing minimally invasive strategies. According to Gomes, the following action to make Portugal truly competitive in Peptide Scientific research, by drawing in commercial companions working on or with peptides, is a large manufacturing system.

Locate your ideal peptide product to improve your CSA skincare routine; integrating anti-ageing with your details skin requirements. We like to maintain things simple here at Medik8, producing one of the most efficient yet reliable items we can.

Additionally, you can increase your skin's natural brightness with one of our most ingenious formulas; Clarity Peptides. Infused with 10% niacinamide, it works marvels for noticeably relaxing red, swollen or blemish-prone skin. This milky lotion promotes glass-like skin when you need it one of the most, optimal for anyone who feels like life is getting in the way of best skin. The formula includes next-generation Crystalide ™ peptides, which assist to tidy up the skin's waste healthy proteins to advertise a crystal clear skin tone. Quality Peptides is a perfect option to BHAs for tackling blemish-prone skin, especially for sensitive skins. Although peptides are an exciting improvement in skincare they have constraints.

AB - Cell-free translational approaches are required to increase the fixing of mineralised cells, specifically huge bone problems, making use of minimally invasive approaches. Regenerative bone scaffolds need to preferably imitate aspects of the cells's ECM over numerous length ranges as well as enable surgical handling and also addiction throughout implantation in vivo. Both variants of SAP-enriched nonwoven used in this study were shown to be biocompatible with murine fibroblasts and also sustained nucleation as well as development of apatite minerals in simulated body fluid artificial insemination.

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