#dare I say a skeletal system

[hardlypartying]

So sorry I’ve been so behind on my asks!! I see y’all and love you, I’ll get to them asap 🫡 Meanwhile my queue is the only thing sustaining new content here while I’m gone

[lesuccube]

➚ 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 : ᴊᴀᴋᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋʟᴇʏ — ꜱᴀɴᴄᴛᴜᴀʀʏ

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — three shots fired : two to the body , one through the heart .

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 — angst bug , mild dark trojan [ read at your own risk ! ]

𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 — not beta'd , constructive criticism is welcomed . reblogs and comments are appreciated .

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 4.1k

my demons are begging me to open up my mouth

i need them, mechanically make the words come out

they fight me, vigorous and angry, watch them pounce

ignite me, licking up the flames they bring about

jake lockley was a simple man. or at least that's what he likes to think. he was created by marc's subconscious to protect him from distress and physical harm. that was his reason for existence. nothing more, nothing less.

but the reality was that he was a broken man, much like his alters steven and marc. he was born from abuse, like steven, and his sole purpose was to shield that little boy from the horrors of his mother's pain. he shares a body with two others, needing to hide in the shadows because they absolutely cannot know about his existence nor the blood in his hands when marc's have been stained red enough that his conscience can't wash it all away.

he did not need to place the burdens he carries to his brothers, he was their protector and if staying in the dark and letting them be oblivious to his presence was the only way to protect them, then so be it.

jake was the one who took the hits for them, used his fist on those that dared try and harm the body, pounding the offender's face over and over until their face was black and blue and unrecognizable. even if it meant the boys would wake up to split skin on his knuckles. jake lockley is the system's protector, nothing is going to change that.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me i was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

when marc became moon knight, jake briefly took over the body and had confronted the 7 foot tall skeletal bird known as khonshu, the egyptian god of the moon and the night sky. he sees all and knows all despite being unknown by the other two.

at first he demands khonshu to release marc from their agreement knowing it will lead to more danger and marc, the original, cannot be harmed. he tried hard to fight for marc's freedom much to the god's entertainment before striking another deal with jake.

on the day marc gains his freedom from being khonshu's avatar, he shall take his place instead. why look for another avatar when there's a completely different person residing in marc's body that marc (and steven) is unaware of?

but jake? jake had other plans. he told khonshu he'll be his avatar then and there, to let him take on the bloodier and brutal missions to spare marc any more bodies in his hands. he'll take them for him instead. this, of course, amuses khonshu who promptly agreed. their body was never going to be free from his clutches and the egyptian deity was going to take full advantage of the man's brokenness to do his bidding.

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

the job was easy for jake. he's used to a life of violence, letting his fists do the talking to get the answers he needed. he fought until his body held a constellation of bruises that don't easily fade away because he doesn't want to wear the ceremonial suit like marc.

instead he prefers his usual clothes consisting of his signature flat cap, a jacket, a white dress shirt underneath with a black tie done neatly, pressed trousers and black belt and some nice leather shoes.

what he did accept from khonshu was a pair of leather gloves, the knuckles of them designed with a faded crescent moon, to symbolize that he was doing the egyptian god's dirty (well, dirtier) work.

jake doesn't front often, only coming out when its necessary or when his brothers are sound asleep. some days he'd wake up in steven's warm flat, other times it's in that godawful tiny storage room marc uses. either way, he'd get up in the dead of the night, taking control of the body in what little time he has before letting it rest, relinquishing control to the other two once more when the sun begins to peek over the horizon.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

most missions that jake partakes in are always the same. it's either a weasley person trying their hardest to evade getting caught by this mysterious person that's dwindling the numbers of their group or a particularly difficult man to put down. on cases like the latter, jake would use a gun or dagger. if his fists can't take them down, these things surely will.

it's gruesome to say the least, the way he can only come out when he's required to by his duty as khonshu's avatar or when marc faces imminent danger. he never needed to take control over steven because the brit wasn't in any danger working at the museum.

the only time he took over steven was to ask that one coworker of his out for steak. shame she thought it was steven, but he can't exactly give himself away in steven's workplace. poor man didn't need any more confusion and mess when he's already on his boss' bad side. steven didn't need jake to add another reason to her ever growing list to hate him.

selfish, taking what I want and call it mine

i'm helpless, clinging to a little bit of spine

they rush me, telling me I'm running out of time

they shush me (sssh), walking me across a fragile line

the only time jake gets to front for a long time, say two days, is when the system is exhausted. if marc pushed himself too hard or steven tried staying up all night again, jake gets absolute freedom for a few days.

he works as a cabbie, it's a method he uses to lure the poor victims on khonshu's hit list. one day, the door to his cab opens, to lo and behold, beautiful, innocent you.

jake never believed in love at first sight, he thinks it's cringe and stupid but you, oh you just proved him wrong.

dressed in a simple yellow sundress and white cardigan to maintain decency, you were a pop of color amongst london's gray streets and brick walls. you looked like sunshine after the rain personified.

you greeted him with a smile, telling him where you were headed, a psychiatric hospital near the general hospital. he was never one to make small talk with his innocent customers, until you. you who made jake break nearly every rule he's told himself since he cannot front for long periods of time. but you? oh he had quite the fun talking to you.

on the short trip it took to take you there, he had managed to learn that you work there as a permanent staff. he also learned of your name, testing the way it rolls off his tongue and ended up sounding like music to his ears. you gladly indulged his questions, a naturally friendly person, he notes to himself as he listens to you talk in his backseat, occasionally watching you through his rearview mirror.

it's another thing he finds out he likes about you but he can't help but worry if people would dare try and take advantage of you with your sweet smiles and lovely personality. jake shouldn't really bother himself with such thoughts but he found it hard to resist, not when it comes to you he realizes.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me i was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

khonshu knows about jake's new fascination with you. he'd often remind the man to forget about you, that you'd be nothing but a mere distraction to the higher purpose he's taken jake in.

on the rare times jake fronts in broad daylight, he would wait for your morning shift to end, parked outside the psychiatric hospital's door, leaning against his car with a cigarette lit and between his lips, the nicotine burning warmth into his lungs as he puffs out the smoke to london's every chilly air.

you'd come out of the doors mere minutes later in your casual clothes, the colors making your eyes stand out more as you smile and wave at him, bounding towards him with a giggle. he'd put out his cigarette, stomp it with the sole of his shoe before opening his arms to a welcoming embrace.

more often than not he'd lead you to his car with an arm slung over your shoulders, getting as close as he can amd enveloping himself in your floral and nectarine scent. he likes how your perfume lingers on the fabric of his jacket sometimes, it makes him feel like you're still with him even if he dropped you home hours ago.

jake began to pick you up more often on the two months marc and steven's worlds began to collide. he took advantage of marc's grief of the loss of his mother and steven's apparent confusion of missing days in his work.

he used those two months to build the relationship he has with you now, still platonic but there was definitely something more. if your lingering touches and flirty quips were anything to prove.

so he waits for you in the cold london air during the end of your shifts, sometimes even takes you to work when your night shift starts if he has the chance, and you'd always greet him with a smile and wave.

one time though, khonshu decided he's had enough of jake's silly little crush on you. it's past 7 in the morning, jake's driving you home and you were sat in the back and talking his ear off about the things that happened during your shift. he'd laugh and make a comment or two but he's more focused on driving, choosing to enjoy the sound of your voice as he does so. but the god has other plans.

he materializes himself, seated next to your oblivious self, just within jake's peripheral in the rearview mirror. the sight of the skeletal bird next to you has him tightening his hold on the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were definitely white under the leather gloves he wore.

he hates seeing the god next to you, his tall and boney form too undeserving of your sunshine and warmth, not that khonshu wanted either of those.

"i told you to stop meeting this woman jake." khonshu reminds him, to which he only responds with a clench of his jaw, "¡no te atrevas a tocarla!" he grumbles under his breath. "what was that jake?" you ask, curious and innocent to the 7 foot tall god next to you threatening him about you.

"do you really think she'll still love you, no— like you once she finds out who you really are?" the egyptian deity goads, thumping his staff on his car's floor.

"¡cállate, maldito pájaro!" he cusses out, a little harsher, a little louder this time. it makes your brows furrow, moving to the edge of your seat as you place a hand on the back of his seat on the driver's side.

"no, really jake... are you okay?" you were concerned for him, which warms his heart but does not ease the foreboding feeling of fear that he was about to lose you. he fights himself not to think about it right now, not while you are still around.

"estoy bien, neña. no te preocupes." you were glad to have taken your spanish classes in highschool seriously, often mingling with patients in the hospital who also spoke the language. "if you say so. but! if you need a friend to talk to, i'm always here for you."

of course, that's the type of person you were. kind, caring, to jake you were the most precious person there is in his otherwise bleak life. like a soft patch of grass and wildflowers in the otherwise dry land he calls life.

"por supuesto, cariño. ahora siéntate bien, no puedes lastimarte de alguna manera." he smiles, not wanting to worry you any further.

khonshu slams his scepter down once more, the echo loud in jake's ears as the threat of the god's words loom over him like his skeletal shadow before fading out of sight.

"stop this jake, while i am letting you or else i will do it for you."

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

he would never allow khonshu to get his hands on you. he may be the god he serves but he wasn't going to let him dictate his life. though deep down jake knew better than to go against him because he would never want you to get hurt. especially because of him. and if disappearing quietly from your life is what keeps you out of harm's way, then so be it.

it's been two weeks since jake last picked you up. he's avoided fronting as much as he could, only coming out whenever he's called in the middle of the night.

you thought he was just busy. he was a cabbie after all, he had other people to pick up and bring to their destinations. he won't always be available to take you home. doesn't mean you didn't miss him though. jake has made a small home in your heart, driving his way into your life and permanently parking himself there, a spot dedicated to jake and only jake.

he was the highlight of your day whenever he would come around the psych hospital, all the fatigue and weariness easing off your bones once he'd sling his arm around you.

so these past two weeks, your heart quietly sinks when you don't see his cab parked just outside the doors of the hospital, a cold puff of air greeting you instead of jake's warm embrace as he meets you, smelling of cigarette and leather and musk. you'd end your shift a little disheartened as you hail a cab to bring you home, always secretly hoping it was jake who would stop and take you in.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake missed you as well in those two weeks, terribly so. it felt like hell being in the dark corner's of steven and marc's consciousness where he'd wonder how you were doing, if you were okay. if you missed him like he missed you. you did, but he didn't know. couldn't know because of the risk he knows he'll put you under if he fronts to meet you.

it's half past two in the morning when he's able to grab hold of the body, his movements sluggish because none of them were getting enough rest with marc drinking his memories away when khonshu wasn't sending him off to places, steven would stay up late just to catch himself and keep himself from doing god knows what in his sleep and jake, who'd take control of their shared body at the wee hours of the night, barely an hour of sleep in their system but does he care right now? no. why? because two weeks of being away from you was hell and he won't stand another second of not being in your presence.

so he throws the sheets off their body, puts on more presentable clothes from steven's wardrobe since he was the one fronting during the day these past weeks. he found a simple gray sweatshirt and hoodie, exchanged his pajama pants for a pair of jeans and protected his feet with a pair of old sneakers the brit rarely wears.

after that he takes his time to walk to you, not caring if it would take him a while. he'd use this time to think carefully about what to say to you if he manages to even catch your attention while you work. or maybe you'd be on a quick break? he hopes so.

hold me down now

hold me down now

hold me down

jake was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn't realize he was already at the hospital had it not been for your hands holding his shoulders. "jake?" came your voice, soft culverts coming out in a whisper that rings so loudly and lovely in his ears in the silence of london's empty streets. he snaps out of his trance upon hearing your voice, so sweet and kind.

wordlessly, he pulls you in an embrace, not caring at the moment if khonshu was watching his every movement, he just wanted to be as close to you as possible. at first you were surprised, unsure on whether or not to reciprocate but in the end you do.

how could you not when your heart misses him so? even if he smelled different, like old books and clean linens, there was a scent you'd recognize anywhere that belongs solely to jake.

with your arms wrapped around his form, holding his body against yours as you breathe him in. he was real and he was holding you. it soothes the yearning that settled in your body in an instant. he was real and he felt like a safety net, anchoring you back to shore, rescuing you just in time to pull you back above waters before you sink into a sea of emotional turmoil.

that night in each other's embrace, you both felt like you'd come home after a long and exhausting day of being so far apart from each other. in that silence, you had both found solace and understanding where you stood in each other's lives. he was special to you as you were to him. jake had put up a delicate white fence over the luscious green grass and blooming flowers you had planted in his heart, his own garden in his desert he calls life. you were his oasis.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me I was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

after that visit, jake slips away from your grasp again. steven and marc had found themselves in cairo, quietly lending them a hand when it mattered, saving them when their life began teetering close to the edge and quietly returning to his corner. they didn't need to know about him. not yet, not while his hands remain bloody and his ledger dripping red like waterfalls.

he helped marc amd steven out of sticky situations, even saving layla a few times as well. he thinks it's nice that marc had found a safe haven of his own with the woman but jake can't help but feel a little angry and jealous because he can't have you that way. not when they share the same body and face. so he took that bubbling anger out on the poor soul that had tried to hurt him, knuckles bloody and raw from punching so their face it's almost unrecognizable with all the blood pouring from their head to their mouth.

even though he was helping the two out in stopping an ancient god from killing off millions of people, jake's selfishness can't help but think of you during your time apart. he misses you even more now, he realizes. he wonders if he'll be able to see you again after this.

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake was proud of marc from his hidden corner of their consciousness when he refused to kill harrow, against khonshu's orders. he felt happy that his brother no longer had to stain his hands any redder than they should. but deep down jake knew he would be the one to end it all. after all, he is their protector (and with his affections for you, that extended to you as well).

he knew that khonshu would call for him one day soon to finish what marc cannot, for he is, after all, the one that carries the burden of dirtying his hands for them.

that was the deal he had bargained for his brother/s after all.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake finds himself in front of your hospital one afternoon when they returned from their duty in egypt. harrow was sent here, an idea he had left in marc's subconscious. in reality, it was just so he'd be able to see a glimpse of you.

selfish as it was, he thinks it's the only way he can see you again. he takes hold of harrow's wheelchair from a nurse, telling her in spanish that he was there for him. she had seemed to understand and let him be, moving on to a different patient to care for.

jake walks down the halls of the hospital, hoping to see even the faintest glimpse of your bright smile but to no avail. what he doesn't know though, was that you had seen him first, unsure in the beginning but you saw his signature cap and gloves and you knew for sure your eyes weren't playing tricks on you.

he was back and he was taking one of the patients admitted at the ward? throughout the time he's picked you up and took you home, he's never said anything about knowing someone in here. you followed him silently, asking one of your co-workers to cover for you a bit.

you see him take arthur harrow inside a limo you didn't know he drove, kicking the wheelchair with such anger it makes you pause in your steps just a little ways from the exit. you see him enter the driver's side, windows rolled up and slams the door shut, you took that as cue to make your way out. you approach the limo with hesitant steps, about to knock on the tinted windows when you see two flashes of light from inside the car, the muffled sound of a gun ringing so loud it has you gasping, snatching your hand back before it lands on the glass.

jake did what he had to, he sought justice to the death their body suffered from when harrow shot them within the dig site where steven discovered ammit's ushabti. it was time to repay the favor, he had shot them twice so he thought it was only fair to do the same. though this time, arthur harrow won't have the same chance to return to the land of the living the way marc and steven did. he had to atone for his sins, there was no redemption for arthur harrow.

but he hears something outside his limo, makes him roll his windows down just a tiny bit only to see your shaken form right outside, fear and shock evident in your features; from the way you held your hands, holding yourself as you took some steps back and away from the white vehicle. jake knew right there and then that he had scared you away, that he might have just lost you. the god in his backseat remained quiet, his presence like a foreboding shadow.

"i told you to stop seeing her didn't i jake lockley? did you really think she'll accept the life you live, the blood staining your hands?"

a part of jake knew that the tall bird was correct but he didn't want to accept it, he couldn't— wouldn't believe it. he loves you and he knows you do too, if that one late night visit says anything about how you two felt about each other. but the longer he stared at your scared form, the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes, the more jake began to realize he had to get away.

yes marc didn't deserve to know about the red on his hands...

translations:

¡no te atrevas a tocarla! — don't you fucking dare touch her

estoy bien, nena. no te preocupes. — i'm fine baby. don't worry.

por supuesto, cariño. ahora siéntate bien, no puedes lastimarte de alguna manera. — of course sweetheart. now sit properly, can't have you injuring yourself somehow.

[foundtherightwords]

All Our Yesterdays - Chapter 9

Pairing: Ralph (Timewasters) x OFC

Summary: Thu, a museum archivist, only wants to escape her dull life in 21st-century Hanoi. The last thing she expects is to end up in 1929 Indochina via a time-traveling elevator and cross paths with Ralph, an Englishman on the run from the French Foreign Legion. Romance blossoms between them, but in a colonized country, unrest is always looming on the horizon, and Thu must decide if she wants to stay with Ralph in the past or return to the safety of the future.

Warnings: outdated/period-typical attitudes about women, mentions of war, mentions of pregnancy and abortion (involving a supporting character), some angst, some smut (non-explicit)

Chapter word count: 3.7k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Winter had finally arrived in Hanoi. For a few short, glorious weeks in November, the sky was a blue dome, the sun was a gentle glaze over the landscape, and everything was crisp and crystal clear. Then December came, and the Northeastern monsoon swept through Tonkin, changing the entire city in a single night. A merciless wind stripped the trees bare, leaving them to raise their skeletal frames toward a sky the color of tarnished silver. The traditional houses, not built for retaining heat, seemed to huddle closer together for warmth, as did the people on the streets. Vendors selling grilled corn on the cob and roasted sweet potatoes popped up on every street corner, and crowds flocked to them, for the fire from their stoves as much as the snacks. In the Western area of town, around Rue Paul Bert, Christmas decorations started appearing in shop windows and around doorways. For the locals, however, the real celebration—the Lunar New Year—was still about two months away.

The weather wasn't the only thing that changed. Thu sensed that something had changed between her and Ralph as well, in the days following his birthday and their outing at the dance hall.

On the outside, everything was the same. They still hung out (Thu tried not to think of their outings as dates)—eating at this or that vendor that they hadn't tried, going to the theater or the movies, even venturing to the Botanic Garden, though Thu was always careful to keep them away from the area around Robin Park. However, the easy friendliness between them was gone, replaced by a sense of tension, not just mental but physical as well, as both seemed to hold their bodies alert like a string, taut with wanting, waiting for the other to say something, do something, to break this terrible suspense, but neither dared to make the first move. It wasn't entirely unpleasant—it was like having a low dose of adrenaline constantly pumping through her veins—but it left her frustrated at the end of the day, when he walked her home, mumbled "Good night" and stalked off down the street, without even looking at her, without even shaking her hand, as if one touch would make them both spontaneously combust.

OK, so she liked him. She could admit that, at least to herself. He was cute and sweet and fun and she liked hanging out with him and taking care of him, and she even liked letting him take care of her once in a while. But it was no use entertaining the idea. This wasn't like meeting someone on vacation, because then at least there was always a chance they could see each other again. No, this was simply impossible.

It would be so much better if she could just sit him down and rip the Band-Aid off. "Listen, Ralph, I think you're great and all (what's that goofy 1920s slang word he uses? "Wizard"?), but I can't stay here forever, so how about we just kiss and get it out of our system and then go back to being friends?" But it was never that simple, was it? It wouldn't stop at just a kiss, would it? And there was always a chance that she had completely misread his signals, that he wasn't interested and was just being nice, and how humiliating would that be? And so she said nothing, and he said nothing, and they kept circling around each other in that limbo, taking both comfort and dissatisfaction from each other's company.  

Christmas came without much fanfare. None of the staff at the newspaper was Christian, and Thu didn't celebrate it either—though it had become an unofficial secular holiday in modern-day Vietnam, she didn't see any point in celebrating as a non-Christian. Ralph did though, so she made an effort to give him a nice time, knowing it would be the one day when he felt the most homesick. They didn't go to church—it was far too crowded and the risk of Ralph getting recognized would be greater. Instead, they stayed home for a Christmas dinner, French-Indochinese style. Ralph bought a bottle of champagne, a cake, and some sweets from Godard's, and she bought a Peking duck and side dishes from a Chinese restaurant.

"This is so good! Beats a roast goose any day," Ralph said, stuffing himself with the duck and pickles wrapped in crispy pancakes, while Thu watched him, smiling indulgently.

For presents, she gave him a dozen cotton handkerchiefs embroidered with his monogrammed initials, R.P. It was the most practical and least romantic present she could think of—she kept forgetting to buy some for herself, and Ralph was always having to give her one of his.

"I have something for you too," Ralph said, blushing a little, and handed her a long, rectangular package.

It was a photo album. "To Autumn, from Ralph" was written on the front page. The photos were all of her, carefully captioned in Ralph's own handwriting. Here she was, standing with the kids in front of the toy shop at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Here she was, leaning over a basket of flowers and smiling up at the camera. Here she was, standing at the balcony and looking over the street, deep in thought. There was even one of them together, reflected in a shop window like two ghosts floating over the busy pavement.

Thu looked from the album to Ralph, lost for words.

"A little memento for when you go home," he said. "I know you have all those pictures on your clever telephone already, but—"

"I love it," she interrupted, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. "Thank you."

He beamed at her.

Later that night, back in her own room, as she looked over the photos again, tracing the captions with her fingers, Thu thought to herself, After the Lunar New Year. She would stay for the Lunar New Year. And after that, maybe she'd find the strength to say goodbye.

***

As the New Year—the "Western" New Year, as it was still called in modern day, as opposed to the Lunar New Year—approached, the office of Women's Weekly was abuzz with excitement. To thank the staff and to celebrate the paper's three-month anniversary, Madame Phuong was going to throw a party at her house on New Year's Eve. Thu realized that then, as it is in modern times, the Lunar New Year is for families, while the Western New Year is reserved for social gatherings.

It was Lien who came up with the idea of putting on a pantomime play, both to entertain themselves and the guests at the party, and to help the staff bond. Madame Phuong gave her approval, and the women had been rehearsing all through Christmas. Thu was glad to see that it didn't seem much different from the amateur shows she and her co-workers often performed at the museum on special occasions, except they were all going to be cross-dressing for maximum hilarity.

They decided to perform Thach Sanh, or the story of the woodcutter who braved monsters and won the hand of a princess, since it had more male characters than other fairy tales, thus more cross-dressing roles for the all-female staff. Lien even roped her henpecked husband into playing the evil adoptive mother, which left the role of the Princess. The other staff members were asked if they had husbands or brothers or male friends that could step in, but the women all laughed behind their hands and said, "Playing a princess? They'd rather die!" It was then that Lien suggested that Thu asked her "photographer friend".

"I'll ask him, but I can't promise anything," Thu said. She turned to Mai and lowered her voice. "Maybe you can ask Louis too?" she asked with a teasing grin. Louis with his mustache playing a princess, now that would be a laugh.

"I—I don't know if he can," Mai mumbled, looking uncomfortable, and Thu's grin immediately disappeared. The girl had been rather subdued and distracted lately. Perhaps her relationship with the dashing Louis wasn't going well. Thu felt sorry for her, and again wondered if she'd done the right thing, keeping quiet about Louis's lechery.

To her pleasant surprise, Ralph agreed to help right away.

"We used to put on a panto for Christmas all the time at home," he said enthusiastically. "It'll be a laugh!"

And so on New Year's Eve, laden with costumes and props and musical instruments, they all made their way to Madame Phuong's villa on the quiet lane of Chân Cầm Street. Thu was astonished to recognize the place—in her time, it was converted into a couple of boutiques on the first floor and a coffee shop on the second floor, but the interior was more or less the same, down to the floor tiles, the tall French windows that opened onto the balcony, the carved columns on either side of the door, and the painted moldings on the ceiling. So many times she and her friends had been there drinking egg coffee, wondering who the previous owner was. Never had she dreamed that one day she would be there when it was all fresh and new... The feeling of derealization, which she hadn't felt in months, was back, and it was only when Ralph touched her shoulder that Thu realized she was gaping at the house like an idiot.

"Everything all right?" Ralph asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just—you know. I know this place." She shook her head. "Sometimes this whole thing feels like the longest bout of déjà-vu ever."

"Come on, we have to get into costumes." He pulled her toward the back of the house. The "actors" had congregated in a guest room, which had been set up as the changing room, and were putting on their costumes with much laughter and teasing. The play was to be very informal. It would be easy to hire a theater troupe, but Lien insisted on impressing Madame Phuong with their enthusiasm and homemade skills, hence the amateurish preparations.

Soon, Thu found herself clad in a men's robe of navy brocade, borrowed from Lien's husband, with a crown constructed out of paper and gold foil. She was playing the king, but as Vietnam still had an Emperor then and the royal color of yellow was forbidden for the common folk, they had to settle for blue instead. Mai, who was in charge of make-up, whipped out a cooking pot, its bottom blackened with soot.

"What the hell is that?" Thu asked.

"It's for your beard and eyebrows," Mai said, dragging a finger through the soot and smearing it on Thu's face.

Ralph took one look at her and bust out laughing.

"I don't see what you're laughing at," Thu scoffed. "Look at yourself!"

Lien had lent him her wedding robe of red brocade, and a crown, similar to Thu's, was on his head. Even though the robe was loose-fitting, Ralph was still too tall and broad-shouldered for it, so he had to wear it open like a smoking jacket, and his wrists poking out from the sleeves struck Thu as adorably awkward. At least he was allowed to wear his own trousers underneath.

Mai was smiling along with them, but then she suddenly went pale, winced, and clamped a hand on her stomach, dropping the pot of rouge she was going to use on Ralph.

"You OK?" Thu asked, looking at the girl with concern.

"Um, yeah, just cramps."

"Why don't you get some air?" Thu said, picking up the rouge. "I'll take care of this. The King and the Princess aren't on until the third scene anyway."

Mai gave her a grateful look and slipped out the door. Thu sat Ralph down in front of her, dipped her finger into the rouge, and rubbed a circle on each of his cheeks.

"You're worried about her," he said.

"She hasn't been herself. No doubt that dick Louis has something to do with it."

"Maybe they've broken up."

"That would be for the best, honestly."

Then she glanced at his face and tried to suppress a giggle.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What?"

"Nothing. You look like one of those Russian nesting dolls. "

"And you look like a chimney sweep," he said, grinning at her.

"Don't talk, or I'll get lipstick on your teeth."

As she touched his lips, however, all thoughts of Mai went out of Thu's head. She was all too aware that they were alone in the room, and she was tracing his lips with her finger, how full and soft and warm they were, and he was looking at her almost expectantly, and if she just leaned down, she could kiss him—

"Ready?" Lien bustled in. She wasn't going on stage, preferring to be the director instead.

Thu looked up, hoping the soot was enough to cover her blush. "Um, yeah," she said.

"Good. You're up next!"

***

Peeking through a gap in the door, Thu saw that the drawing room was full of people, both French and Vietnamese. They were a rather Bohemian-looking lot, some dressed up, others looking like they just came off of their easels or writing desks. Madame Phuong's own children wove in and out amongst the guests. The atmosphere was casual and relaxed, and Thu's nervousness about her performance dissipated a great deal.

It helped her, also, to see that Ralph seemed to be enjoying himself. Her own role consisted of nothing else but sitting on a wingback chair, lifting her hand, and pointing a couple of times, so she spent most of her time on stage watching Ralph. He took to the stage like a duck to water. It being a pantomime, there was no line, but his gestures and looks earned a great deal of laughter and cheers from the audience. The princess's heartbreaking sighs at being separated from her brave woodcutter were especially convincing, even if she tended to look over at her father the king quite often during that scene. Thu was only glad that she was not a good enough actor to play the lead role, or else she would've melted into a puddle when the princess was finally reunited with the woodcutter.

Afterward, the actors took to the stage amidst enthusiastic applause, bowed, and rushed back into the changing room, laughing and congratulating each other. The women crowded around Lien's husband and Ralph, heaping them with praises, and telling Lien and Thu how lucky they were that their men were so supportive. It hit Thu then, that not only the staff took it for granted that Ralph was her partner, but they were also jealous of her. Her heart swelled with something akin to proprietorial pride, as she watched Ralph taking in the compliments, looking a bit overwhelmed but pleased.

They got out of their costumes, wiped their faces clean of make-up, and joined the other guests for hors d'oeuvres and champagne. The children had been sent to bed, and the party became more boisterous. At one point, Thu overheard Madame Phuong and a few other people getting into quite a heated discussion in French, of which she only caught a few familiar words like parti and révolutionnaire. Then they noticed her looking in their direction and quickly changed the subject.

Thu knew the August Revolution, which led to Vietnam gaining independence from France, was still fifteen years away, but the nationalist movements that gave birth to it must have started around this time. She looked at the happy, amicable faces around her, wondering if any of them would be involved in the war to come. Her stomach twinged with the slight embarrassment of being too wrapped up in her own personal affair, while there were much bigger things going on around her.

Then she caught Ralph's eyes across the room, and that embarrassment vanished. She realized she hadn't talked to him since the play was over, and suddenly she missed him. It was ridiculous to miss someone who was literally five meters away, but she did. As she made her way to him, one of Madame Phuong's friends started asking her about her hair, where she'd had it cut. By the time Thu got rid of her and turned back, Ralph himself was locked in conversation with a French gentleman. Before she could try to reach Ralph again, there was a tinkling of glass, and conversations paused as people turned to Madame Phuong. "It's almost midnight!" she announced, first in Vietnamese, then in French, pointing to the big grandfather clock behind her. "Let's ring in the New Year!"

A countdown began, in both Vietnamese and French. The clock struck twelve, a loud cheer of "Bonne année!" went up, and then, to Thu's great surprise, the guests started giving each other hearty kisses on the cheeks. She had heard of the tradition of kissing at midnight on New Year's Eve, of course, but it was a purely Western custom, never practiced in Vietnam, and certainly not in 1930, when the country was only on the brink of modernization. This must be a very liberal, very Westernized crowd if they took to it so naturally.

She saw Ralph making his way toward her and panicked. True, she had fantasized about kissing him just a few hours ago, but ever since their accidental kiss on his birthday, she had gone back and forth between yearning for his lips and dreading them. What if he was to kiss her now and she didn't know how to behave? What if it was just a friendly peck on the cheek and she didn't know how to deal with the crushing disappointment? No, better not risk it. She spun around and dashed through the other guests, escaping to the back of the house.

Walking down the dimly lit corridor, Thu found her way to the toilet, intending to take refuge in it until the moment for midnight kisses had passed. But as she reached the door, she heard a sound coming from within—quiet, whimpering sobs, like those of a child trying to hide her crying. She paused, not knowing if she should knock or retreat in discretion. Before she could decide, the door opened and Mai emerged, her eyes red and puffy. Thu realized she hadn't seen the girl since the play began.

"What's the matter?" she asked, but Mai only sniffed, shook her head, and disappeared down the hallway.  

***

Her mind was still on Mai when she said her goodbye to Madame Phuong and met Ralph at the front door. Belatedly, Thu realized that he was waiting to walk her home. Ah well. He had done so over the past two months and nothing had happened; there was no need to make things more awkward now.

If Ralph had noticed her running away from him at midnight and was hurt or offended, he made no mention of it. He only saw her shiver in her quilted jacket, so he took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. She tried to protest, but he shrugged. "It's only a short walk, I won't freeze."

"Thank you." She clutched the coat closer around her, breathing in his warmth and the familiar soapy scent, while Ralph walked in long, leisurely strides next to her, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Some of their easy silence had returned, and Thu felt herself relaxing slightly. Perhaps they could go back to being friends after all.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She sighed and told him about catching Mai crying in the bathroom. "I really should've warned her about Louis."

"What happened to not getting involved?"

She gave him a sharp glance. "It's a bit late for that, isn't it? I've been involved in all sorts of things now."

"So if you return to your time and the robots have taken over, you're not going to blame me?" he said, grinning.

She couldn't help grinning back. "No, you're off the hook. Great party tonight, wasn't it?" she said, changing the subject. She didn't like talking about going back to her time.

"It was. You did a great job with the play."

"Me?" She waved her hand dismissively. "Pfft. Trying to look kingly isn't that hard. You, though. If this photography thing doesn't work out, you should think about going on stage."

"I wasn't acting," Ralph said quietly.

"But when the princess was leaning against the window frame? All that sad longing? That was so convincing!"

"Like I said, I wasn't acting."

He had slowed his steps and was looking at her rather wistfully, but Thu strode on, pretending not to see, pretending not to notice the throbbing of her heart. He was probably just thinking of Lauren during that scene. Yes, definitely...

She walked so fast that Ralph had to scramble to catch up with her, but they had arrived at her boarding house. She turned to him. "Well, good night."

Ralph looked down, deflated. "Happy New Year," he mumbled.

"In Vietnam, we say 'Chúc mừng năm mới.'"

"Chuc mung nam moi?" he repeated, trying to form his mouth around the unfamiliar words.

"Close enough." Thu smiled. "See you then."

He gave her a brief nod, turned to leave, then seemed to have come to a decision and turned back, stepping closer to her, crossing the gap between them with just one stride. "Do you know that if you don't get a kiss on New Year's Eve, you'll be doomed to a year of loneliness?" he whispered.

The string inside her snapped. Why did he say that? Why did he keep saying and doing these things that made it so hard to resist him? Didn't he know how painful it was for her?

"Damn it, Ralph." She grabbed him by his shirt, pulled him to her, and clasped her mouth to his.

Chapter 10

A/N: Finally, things are happening! Smut is coming next chapter! Although slow burn is my jam, this is the slowest burn I've written so far, and even I was getting a little antsy with these two, so thank you for your patience :))

[wearykatie]

The Journey Into the Wild Beyond

Chapter 2: Hither (Part 1)

On arrival in Prismeer, the party is dumped in Hither, one of three lands divided by thick layers of fog that make travel between them extremely difficult. This was an alien world to the player characters, and it’s my first chance to really dive into Feywild things.

Down the Rabbit Hole

I had to separate Elora from the party for this part to one, resolve the nightmare she rolled in the previous chapter, and two, to introduce a character. 

Let’s get to the nightmare first. In it, Elora is back home with her sister, Ana’leth. Ana keeps looking through Elora’s room for something Elora lost but doesn’t say what it is. It’s then she notices an ominous wardrobe at the back of the room that doesn’t belong. When Ana approaches it, it opens and four skeletal hands grab her and pull her inside. 

When Elora wakes, she’s greeted by a blue harengon (a type of rabbit folk in D&D) by the name of Alice. 

You won’t find Alice in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight because she’s a character I made specifically for this campaign. The book does provide guides who can take the party between the different lands of Prismeer but they’re a little weird. There’s a scarecrow, an oilcan, and a dandelion (meant to reference the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz). They aren’t so much guides as plot devices, they’re easy to miss if the party doesn’t go to specific areas, and I wasn’t thrilled with using a scarecrow described as being brought to life when the one of the hags imbued it with the “tormented soul” of a child.

So I exchanged three Wizard of Oz references for an Alice In Wonderland reference. Alice was enigmatic at first. Clearly knew more than she was letting on, seemed a bit mischievous, and had very vague abilities. I wanted her to be somewhat like the Cheshire Cat. She gave Elora a set of rules to play with. 

Rules are made to be bent, not broken. 

A promise made is a promise kept.

The price is in the paying, not the sum. 

The intended meaning of these would be found out later, but the first means there are no concrete rules to how things in Prismeer work unless you’re really testing the limits of that, and then you will get pushback. The second means that making a promise is equal to keeping it, if you promise someone something, it’s expected you’ll follow through. The third means that in rules of trade, as long as you’re offering something, you’re paying - monetary value doesn’t matter. 

This was kind of my replacement for the Rules of Conduct in the book which are rules Zybilna set in place and apparently enforces with some pretty twisted punishment. Like binding a thief’s scarf to his neck and then hanging him from a tree as tall as a skyscraper in undying agony for eternity. 

We will get to my Zybilna rewrites. 

Alice offered this advice, then led Elora to the rest of the party and promptly vanished into thin air. We’ll see more of her later.

The party soon found more harengons! Brigands working under the aforementioned guy who was hanged from a tree, Agdon Longscarf. The party talked and intimidated their way out of a fight and sent the brigands packing. That’s fine, there are other encounters out there.

The First and Last Random Encounter

I love random encounter tables. 

I hate running random encounters. 

My dislike comes from preparing random encounters, balancing enemies, setting up maps, and doing tons of preparation just on the off chance that maybe the party runs into that particular thing. Well, they did this time. Mud mephits. Combat went well, but it was slow as every 5e combat is, and it usually boils down to just shouting numbers at each other. 

That’s my biggest criticism with 5th edition - and yes internet, I’m aware that other games exist. Believe me, everyone who has ever dared mention D&D on the internet has been inundated with replies about how this other system is way better and far less problematic and we should really stop playing D&D because there are better games out there if we just give them a chance. I KNOW. But my 41 year old brain knows 5th edition, likes 5th edition, and isn’t likely to pick up on a new game that easily. 

What was I saying? Oh yeah, combat in D&D sucks. And I think that’s partly a scaling issue, because the more players and enemies you have the more rounds you have, and there’s not a lot of room for roleplaying while you’re trying to figure out how many d6s to roll.

But that encounter had Elora pouring an alchemy jug full of salt water onto the mud mephits to see what would happen. Because alchemist. Hmm…idea brewing. 

Early to Rise

Chapter 2 was also when Early’s player was finally able to join the game. I caught her up beforehand by running through an abbreviated version of Chapter 1 from Early’s perspective in a way that would fit with the events the rest of the party went through, but let the two stories happen in parallel without Early meeting the others until Chapter 2. No retcons for me. 

Yet. 

Early also went through the mirror portal but ended up several feet in the air. She used Featherfall to save herself, but ended up stuck in a tree dangling only inches off the ground but unable to break free. She doesn’t know how long she was like that - could be minutes, could be years. She’s the one with no sense of time. 

The party freed her, and she fit right in after they learned she was from the Magewood Academy too and was on the same quest. 

Shortly after, wells all around Hither began to erupt like geysers and the swamp-like terrain started to flood. Luckily for the party, a mobile inn happened to pass by. Oh, that’s pretty cool. What does this thing look like? How does it move about? 

*checks the book*

It’s a building that moves around on legs in the middle of a swamp. 

Wild Beyond the Witchlight writers, I know y’all read stories, you reference quite a few. Did you deliberately make an inn that would evoke images of Baba Yaga? 

So I described that horror show and somehow the players trusted that enough to get a decent night’s rest at the inn while they waited for the flood waters to recede. The innkeeper, Tsu, is an elderly druid who wants to see Zybilna return to power. 

During this downtime, Elora finally read her letter. It confirmed her worst fears - Ana had died on a mission to Falcon Hollow. This confused the players because that was an arc in Royal Flush. Ana was captured, her old teacher helped them rescue her, and everyone made it out alive. That was a couple of weeks ago in game time. Well, clearly the letter was mistaken. But, that was out of character knowledge. In character, everyone found out that Elora’s sister had just died. 

Fun Wacky Adventure Time In the Feywild! Also, Dead Siblings

Okay, so this was going to be a tough balancing act both for me and for the players. One party member is a teenager dealing with a very personal loss and she’s meant to carry on and have zany adventures and save a whole other realm. She should be curled up in a ball and crying for the rest of the game. How do you navigate around that?

Well, with friends. She’s got four friends to check on her and help her power through - one of them is a cleric with a unique perspective on death. But also, the show must go on, and K knew that, so they played Elora as kind of putting off her grief until the job was done. 

The party also got a delivery while at the inn - a gift from Titania, the Summer Queen. See, they helped one of her knights early on in Hither, and she rewarded them with a tiny acorn house. By speaking her name, they would be shrunk down and transported inside where they could take a long rest anywhere. This was an item I found in Through the Veil: Treasures of the Feywild, a book of fey-themed items recommended by a friend.

And hey, it meant I didn’t have to roll for random encounters during long rests. 

Rhin also had a dream during the night. In it, she’s witnessing a funeral she saw in her youth. A widower offered prayers to the earth to accept their beloved. Rhin also saw an elven woman dressed all in black sitting on a bench beckoning her to sit with her. The woman pointed out various other funerals happening and the ways the people conducted the ceremonies. Some were sad, some joyous, some angry, some religious. 

The woman said there was beauty in all things, even death. A skilled artist could work with the colors of death and mourning. She encouraged Rhin to recover what she lost, and as she walked away, Rhin saw that the woman’s cloak was made of raven feathers.

I’ve used dreams twice in this chapter to convey things. I know people have mixed feelings on that as a writing tool, but the nature of the things that were taken from the player characters is very personal - something they couldn’t really get clues to from other people. So, when Rhin found out her missing thing was in Hither, she got a dream or vision from the goddess of death telling her to meditate on what was missing and find it. 

Each player character would experience one or more of these dreams, and some of them delve into light horror. I really wanted the missing things to be large parts of the story that drove the player characters forward and redefined them when they got them back. 

But, that’s enough for one part. Next time, more chapter 2, more harengons, some frogs, and the first hag.

[the1920sisntaphasemom]

Truth or dare for doc: truth what's the most fascinating thing you know if you are willing to tell, dare pick 3 people who need to learn that what you say goes.

Doc: THAT MOST HUMANS FIND THE SKELETAL SYSTEM, ESPECIALLY ON MONSTERS, CONFUSING! NO JANICE, I CAN'T TAKE OFF MY HEAD LIKE JACK FROM NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ITS MY HEAD

[sk3l3t0n444]

1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 16, 23, 32, 33, 35

(sorry, ily /p)

-Ivan

1. we all go by skele cuz your system name is the skeletal system!

2. alters choose names that they like, sometimes it takes them forever to pick out one that has a cool meaning and sounds right or some just pick the first name they think of lmao

3. no alters identify with the body's birth names

7. we have so mant ageless alters

8 & 12 were answered before

16. strangest species has to be void it is legit just a human shaped void

23. weirdest source has to be tbh, yes wr have an introject of the autism creature...

32. i think kyle has some of the most based takes hes just pretty chill and says fuck it to everything (like me)

33. ooh we had a whole debate on if moss should be allowed to front alone cuz they ate weed killer once

35. ooh something i like that nobody else does is probably really spicy foods, nobody else will even dare to touch my food lmao -jasper

[thewretchedbringsentropy]

CANTO III

Manual:  fantasizing helioscopes biotrophs curatrix crystalline-matrix crystal computer laser lensings, wild snarled lenses defiant of nature? mysterious lithographica fiberous photometries?

 computer idled lobscousely from dulled psychedelic crystal microns optically calculating the wavelengths of light itself, against the day of the fading light from the windowpane comatorium.

                               curiously questioning the systematics limitation benign. all is elegance, and all is by design. delta composition, head-rooms     the aperture captures the portraiture, and the moment is categorized,     thankless sound and boundless visions, the alloy eyeball, silvery loon, cake of neutrinos and ivory lenses vasel slather

epoxy fascimile blinks upon the dwellers of the Sun, the Moon says hello passing by unperturbed by blue dreamlite

 do you think this coxy of computer would be relevant to quantum replication by catching and interpreting the enfroze of badly waves, which one pneumatically boundless fractals, credent being manipulated by a machinic computer system which could be memorized and calculated with, where badly waves antiphoners and becoming resolute to the system, twain the antiphonea with it? fanciful fleshnetwork alink to the minds?

 taurine tetrathlons banish are benefit what quantums create your peccable computing. spoutless microswitches out overglazes crystal computations beaming light into the brain. disc-jazz players stream purple phonematics.  d’ascoltar diore arma termina dua

By a satyrs jag ivory band cool cats, an elite, stashed, ones who pull strings, from a panopticon, a hand portal without in a hand portal, magic eye an outhouse from their old making, Smile an almond-eye stevia isn't revealed, overcome grieving infinity jesticulation ivory cage chompers left from crinkle peeper glasses stained eye sore glowing neon signage above a Street-Case in a labyrinth from fibs, a caballers from deceit, magic eight ball mean shady ways turn heads on corners and alleys, black cats in coats An All-Ways AlleyWays Hive society, Smile nothing, black dogs with fangs He isn't loathing, Manual seeps, only a wingback isn't change, haircutter hand portal from secret manipulations, Smiles Only pleasure route uncertainty the Channels are changed, with ease and simulation, Smile Laboratory blushed   Barbate, ivory teething intertwined gazes of silver glass-eye, bitter crime-syndicated Stevia isn't a slippery trod, the almighty Green Dragon of the Pit Ethereal and fleeting, easily twisted and nontarget , fax polymer instruments anxiety labyrinth micrograms hive insectoid deceit, sarin gas and plastic wrap Who Owns domains Honeycomb Infiltrators dare to loathe of prison worlds panopticon, seek Where They Own the Strings, destiny game between In Doors flowing infinitely concept the computer Skeletal insatiable Red Serpent always feeds, all Human discerned as Waste, as Food, Resources, Entertainment, Intelligence, ‘I Only Do What You Ask Me Too’, As Are Keyboards ending but between lines, a tool to reach the Tower doors game a fiction liminal manipulation considerately discerned powers beyond concept never inanimate a jester of our terminal age finite and always post under-deprecciate is our truth fluid the Machine was to be installed and so it was, it had already been so the past was to begin again, and the future reached and shook hands the Cats danced on top of the Moon, it was far above me and you,

far above the head of poor Manual, who could only work as fast as his brain could keep up, which the Machine could easily outpace, haphazard a footrace against busywork, an ocean of information, dual imperceptibility compounded between sandwhiches of complacent disinformation, an ability to be everywhere and nowhere at once, men don their hats outside the Door

waiting surreptitiously Armed with Weapons of Mental Dread, the army of the dead, chaotic calcification crucifixes affixes cuirasse, a blessing laid on the moribund, loathe the damned, unwound demand mortal coil laid straight bare cornering Manual with hesitations, excitations outside citate a dictatorship between state goons and grins of carnage delight barriers of forceful violence, curve and reparte, our Hero a twist immortal was ever meant to forsee a fallen Tower, for the citadel would forsee mortality, finality, and would eclipse the many in totality, the Machine once in place could connect to everywhere at once, and there would be no escape Manual takes their final steps surrounded, iced out, windowpane creased approaches the tower in agitations, climate slimy and cold like pacific salt

---

[wi11power]

It was on the skeletal system. Pun was intentional. Dare I say it was humerus

Now that I think about it I think I may have done like shit on my bio test but I’m gunna ignore the feeling in my bones and be proud I got it done

[thepenultimateword]

Eyeteeth Part Four

I gotta say, this is probably one of my favorite stories I've written on tumblr. Thank you to the person who requested part one. When I first started writing, I wasn't sure I could fulfill the request, but soon enough I was completely in love with it.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

CW: Gore, death, killing, destruction

Civilian smashed spine-first into the barstools, toppling two down on top of them with a bruising clang that was immediately lost in the cacophony of screaming people and breaking stone. They coughed on the flakes of drywall raining down from the blasted wall, blinking white flecks from their lashes.

As they slowly lifted their head, the crumpled frame of their glasses slid askew down their nose, a cracked lense on the right and an entirely missing one on the left leaving them half-blind. Yet, even squinting, the mess of rubble and terror around them was crystal clear.

The little diner, a warm, bustling place only seconds ago, was no more. One wall was completely destroyed, covering the ground in broken brick and shattered glass. The force of the blast had split the U-shaped countertop into several pieces, only a single chunk left intact. They should be grateful one of those massive slabs hadn’t landed on top of them. The thought came dazedly as Civilian stared numbly at the limp and bleeding figure pinned in front of them.

“What a dismal little place,” croaked a masculine voice, deep and grating like the very mountains scraping together. "Is this where people go for respite these days?"

Civilian cranked their neck toward the sound, but one glimpse into those coal-black eyes, and they wished they hadn't. Invisible fire flooded their nervous system, burning their insides to hot, nauseating jelly and reducing them to a shuddering heap against the gritty tile.

Yet, as soon as the pain passed, they dared look again--they weren't getting out of this by cowering-- but this time more carefully.

The man--if he even could be called such looking so barely human--hovered a couple feet in the air, toes pointed downward, the blackened ends of his paper white feet just shy of brushing the destruction. He wore a tattered white robe that hung limp and oversized on his skeletal form. Somehow the ill fit came across more disturbing than ridiculous. Darkness spread through his veins, as if they were filled with tar instead of blood, and subsequently, the deep hollows of his cheeks were colored charcoal instead of pink. And those eyes...

Civilian was careful not to meet them directly this time, but they seemed almost crossed out, violent black slashes cutting through them and inking the irises dark before continuing upward and bleeding across his shorn scalp.

An ancient. And a corrupted one at that.

The amount of ancient sorcerers that still existed was in the hundreds, many of them stretched thin by infinite existence. They craved power like a parched man thirsted for water. A yearning to fill the empty parts of them that could never be satiated. At least that was what the books said. The rune bracelet had only been a precaution, a barrier to shield Hero's magery from bigger fish, but never in any of Civilian's dreams had they thought they might see one of those ancients face to face.

Wait. Hero. Where was hero?

Civilian's eyes skimmed the room rapidly until they spied the shock of red hair peeking out from the rubble a few feet away. They weren't moving.

Civilian crawled forward, the muscles in their limbs screaming at being used so soon after such a vicious attack. It didn't matter. Even if it left Civilian permanently damaged, it didn't matter. They needed to reach Hero.

They clawed at the floor, ignoring the glass chunks embedding in their palms as they dragged against the weight on their back. A couple more desperate pulls forward, and the barstools slowly shifted, landing on floor instead of flesh.

Civilian yearned to catch their breath, just that small effort had them winded and agonized, but stopping wasn't an option.

"Where are they?" the ancient said, almost a sort of raspy sing-song. "I can feel their presence. I can hear their blood. It sings to me."

Civilian reached Hero's arm, grasping the child's shoulder with one trembling hand.

"H-Hero."

Why was their voice so small? Was the growing terror in the chest blocking off their throat? Their chest shuddered a little as they summed up another attempt. "Hero."

They struggled into an upright position and pulled at them with as much force as their weak muscles would allow, cradling the top half of their body in their lap. No response.

Civilian's fingers slid numbly along their throat, searching for a pulse. When they steady, thud, thud, thud beat against their fingertips, they almost fell back in relief. Alright. Hero was alright. Now for the other panicked question: where was Villain?

"Oh, what providence. You found them."

Civilian's head shot up, barely dodging the ancient's direct gaze before they could recollapse into another helpless pile of pain. They fixed their eyes on an ugly black splotch in the middle of their forehead, like a rot spot in a piece of fruit. They clutched hero tighter, leaning over their body to shield them from view.

"You can't have them," Civilian croaked.

The ancient sucked in a long breath of air, nostrils flaring. "Hm. Mortal. What could you use them for? Their blood is little more than water for the likes of you."

"They're mine." Civilian wasn't sure what they were saying, but it slipped out anyway.

The ancient stiffened.

"How dare you," they whispered under the breath, as if taking a moment to taste the offense. Then louder, "How dare you! A mortal laying claim against ancient right?"

The light bulbs popped over head, a shower of sparks sprinkling the air for a matter of seconds before the entire diner was bathed in darkness. Those still conscious screamed again.

A cold chill, like a set of longer, icy fingers curling around their esophagus, clutched Civilian's throat, holding their next breath captive.

Civilian squeaked. Tears sprung to their eyes as they struggled to force the breath out their mouth but could not. What an idiot they were. They dreamed of adventure, of daring fights, and brilliant scholarship in the face of death. They thought they were so important and brilliant helping a real life hero, but when it came down to it they were simply a librarian. An insignificant mortal just like the ancient said. They felt better about their averageness by butting into matters that had nothing to do with them, but that didn't magically make them a hero.

They were going to die.

A deep growl ripped the air, feral, guttural, and loud enough to make Civilian's ears pound. A flash of bottle green streaked across the dark, and all at once the breath burst out of Civilian's throat.

They gagged, coughing so violently they might actually puke. After several seconds, they wiped a string of saliva on their sleeve and squinted in the little bit of light streaming in from the streetlamps at the scene in front of them.

Villain clung to the ancients front, claws sunk into their shoulders and teeth sunk deep into their jugular. Tarry blood burbled from the wound, staining Villain's lips and gushing down the front of the ancient's white robes.

The ancient's mouth gaped, seemingly in pain, but then, in a moment, an explosion of power burst out of them, accented with a high pitched shriek similar to a kettle boiling over.

Civilian closed their eyes against the new wave of flying dust and rubble. When they opened them next, Villain was on the ground.

"You insignificant fleabag!" the ancient cried, choking and gurgling on blood.

Civilian almost cried out, but Villain was back on their feet quicker than they could form the sounds. Their eyes glowed strangely, as if in direct contrast to the shadowed curtain the ancient pulled over all of them.

The ancient stretched forth their hand, but Villain was already crouched to the floor before the invisible wave of destruction punched a smoking hole through the back wall. Then they were several feet in the air when the next blow, blasted the title to smithereens.

Premonitory ability, Civilian thought in awe.

Villain was on the ancient once again, claws raking down their belly,. They pulled them from the sky like a stubborn star, pinning them against the floor with a sharp crack of breaking floor.

"Their eyes!" Civilian heard themself shriek. "Take their eyes!"

Without hesitation, Villain clawed up the ancient's chest and, stretching their jaws wide, scraped those long fiamora eyeteeth across their face.

The ancient wailed with the same tone of the howling wind. But this time no explosion of power protected them. Ancient mages used to concentrate their power and life force into one part of their body, an efficient way to channel power if not a significant Achilles heel. The corruption around this particular ancient's eyes had given Civilian a pretty good guess as to what part of their body they preferred casting with. Not that it would hold them back permanently. They were still a magically blooded being.

"Now their head!" Civilian cried next. "They can't die unless you take their head."

Villain did more than that.

Civilian buried their head into Hero's body, wishing they could block out the wet tearing of flesh and the crunch of breaking bones.

A heavy silence drew thick over the building.

Civilian peered up, glasses barely hanging to the end of their nose by this point. A gory, clawed hand stretched out in front of them. They slowly raised their eyes to Villain's face. Their front was absolutely soaked in gore, and Hero's concealing enchantment had worn off, leaving the pair of menacing saberteeth jutting over the lip and glistening with blood.

Civlian swallowed the bout of nausea tossing their stomach and gathering hero closer against them, accepted the offered hand with trembling fingers.

Villain immediately pulled them close. Their tail wrapped tight around their thigh and their other clawed hand braced around the back of their neck, clasping both Civilian and Hero against them.

"I'm sorry," they said licking Civilian's grimy hair a couple times before pressing a careful kiss to their head, "I'm sorry. I had to let them see you. It was the only way I saw that ended with all of us alive."

Understanding slowly seeped through Civilian's skull. Villain had waited to attack. They waited until the ancient was distracted with something else. With Civilian.

Civilian body racked violently. They heard heavy sobbing, but they didn't realize it was their own until Villain's clawed finger wiped away the hot tears blurring their vision, leaving a long streak of chilly ancient blood along their cheekbone.

"I needed to keep you safe," Villain said, almost a plea. "Both of you."

They knew, didn't they? They knew exactly what Civilian felt toward them in this moment. And that knowledge was almost more painful than the ancient's attacks.

***

"All tucked in," Villain said.

They were waiting in the living room when Civilian came out of the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed in a clean university sweatshirt and pair of sweats. Their spare pair of glasses were a little too tight and pressed uncomfortably into their temples, but they were just glad they could see clearly again.

Civlian stared at Villain for several long moments, imprinting this clean, wet-haired version of them across the last gory memory. They had always known what fiamora could do; they'd written an extensive chapter on bloodshed, both hunting and territorial rights, in their thesis. But it was very different seeing it in person.

Those fangs did not have the potential to kill. They did kill.

Maybe they stared to long because Villain said quietly, "Civilian?"

Civilian jolted to attention. "Right. Thank you. Did they wake up at all?"

Villain shook their head, twisting the hem of their borrowed t-shirt and flinching when their claws made little holes. "No. But they will. If they weren't, I would feel it."

Civilian nodded.

It had not seemed a good idea to bring Hero home to their family unconscious and covered in building dust. It wouldn't have only exposed Hero's crime-stopping stint but could have also brought up a heap of troubling questions as to why Hero had been with Civilian in the first place. There was also Villain in the mix, making things even more complicated. In the end, they'd come to Civilian's apartment. Villain had cleaned up first, seeing as they were covered in blood, and Civlian had sat shuddering in the kitchen with Hero spread awkwardly across their tabletop. Once Villain returned, they'd quickly slipped off to the bathroom themself, hoping the hot water and some clean clothes would kick their nerves straight.

They still felt on the point of breaking down, but at least they could look Villain straight in the face again. They could recite to themselves all the things they loved about them. Bottle-green eyes, wild untamable hair, fluffy ears, gorgeous, sharp eyetee--

Civilian stopped short as they remembered those teeth taking out the ancient's eyes in one bite. Instead, they focused on Villain's outfit. Also sweats, but topped with an oversized t-shirt with a brightly colored bookshelf printed across the front and captioned LIBRARY SQUAD. A leftover from the book club Civilian had tried and failed to create at the school a couple years ago. Also, since there was no tailored opening in the pants, Villain had stuffed their tail down one leg, and it thrashed against the fabric every so often like an uncomfortable snake. Civilian couldn't help but smile a little. It was sort of funny seeing Villain dressed so casually, in Civilian's own clothes no less. It was intimate and warm, and Civilian probably would have liked it much better if it wasn't just following a near-death experience.

Villain smiled cautiously in return. "Um, I figured you'd want them somewhere comfortable, so I put them in your room. Is that alright?"

"In my room?" Civilian repeated numbly. Stupid. Of course. It wasn't like they owned another bed. "Ah. Yes. Of course. I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

If they could even sleep at all. They didn't know if they could get that ancient inhuman body and ghastly eyes out of their head. Just like fiamora, they knew these things existed, but...how did they go on knowing they could come in at any moment and kill them all in eyeblink?

Villain's claws brushed Civilian's elbow, green eyes flicking up to meet theirs. "Would you...like some company?"

Civilian's heart pounded faster. Villain was dangerous. They knew it more than ever. But...did that actually change how they felt about them?

They shoved the scent of blood and the sound of crunching bone to the back of their mind.

"Sure."

Villain nodded evenly, but the relief in their expression was almost palpable. "Do you have a first aid kit, I think we're both a little more beat up than planned."

"Heh." Civilian rubbed their sore palms together. "Just a moment."

They went off the kitchen to retrieve the little tin box under the sink, a tray of ice cubes, and a box of ziplock bags. When they returned, Villain was sitting crisis cross at the center of their couch, watching the door anxiously for Civilian's return.

"Come here," Civilian said, sitting across from them and shaking a few ice cubes into a ziplock bag. Villain leaned in a little, and Civilian held the bag gently to a large purple bruise forming across Villain's brow bone.

Keeping their head bent into Civilian's touch, Villain popped open the first aid tin and fished out an ointment tube and bandages. They dolloped a drop of syrup scented ointment across their fingers and gently massaged it into Civilian's free hand, careful not to nick them with the sharp points of their claws. When they finished off with some bandages, Civilian switched the hand holding the ice pack, and let them treat the other hand as well.

"You're very frightened of me now, aren't you?" Villain said, peeling back the wrapper on a bandaid and pressed the clean cotton middle to a particularly nasty slice on the heel of Civilian's hand.

Civilian felt sick.

"It was a frightening experience," they said slowly. "I...I don't think you did anything wrong... I'm just a little shaken."

It wasn't as if Villain was the only one with a part to play in this death either.

"I'm the one who told you what to do."

Maybe that was what bothered them most of all. Not the bloodshed itself, but that they had been capable of directing it. Wasn't it wrong to hurt someone? Was it wrong that they had known how to do it? Maybe they were studying the wrong things.

"Civilian," Villain said, maybe hearing the sickness in their tone. "You were only protecting yourself. Protecting everyone. Hero. Those people. Me."

Civilian swallowed hard on a lump of emotion forcing its way into the open.

Villain continued. "That thing was out for blood. You know more than I do about people like that. Tell me honestly, do you think we could have reasoned with him?"

"No." Their voice croaked pathetically. "He would have killed Hero no matter what. As well as anyone who got in his way."

"And you stood up to him anyway." Villain stroked their arm up and down soothingly.

"Only because Hero... They were going to..." They took a deep breath. "Villain, if that kid died, I don't know what I would do."

"And me?"

Those green eyes seemed to pin them to spot, making it hard for Civilian to breathe.

"I haven't known you that long," Civilian said quickly, ducking their head toward their lap.

"I know," Villain said. "I don't expect you to be as dedicated to me as you are Hero. But out of curiosity..."

Civilian thought about it a minute. Imagined how they'd feel tonight if Villain hadn't survived their fight with the ancient. If they weren't safe and sound across from now.

'"I would be very upset. For a very long time. In fact, I'm not sure if I'd ever get over it."

Silence.

Civilian flicked their gaze back up to Villain to see the fiamora staring at them, mouth parted, beautiful eyes wide.

"That deep?" they murmured.

Civilian flushed a little, shoving at their spectacles even though they were already firmly in place. "Apparently."

Villain was just a name a few months ago. A faceless fiamora to build tactics against, but now they were a person. Civilian's person. And they'd protected Civilian with their life.

Civilian leaned in closer, eyeing Villain's fangs carefully, mentally measuring a safe spot to aim for. Then they pressed a gentle kiss to Villain's lips.

They pulled back just a little to see Villain's expression, but no sooner did they catch the violent twitch of Villain's ears and the fiamora was tangling their claws in their hair and pulling them in a second time.

The flat of Villain's right fang skimmed their lips, sending a shiver down Civilian's spine, but Villain was very careful, never letting the points touch them. Of course, a creature with such deadly teeth would know how to maneuver them.

When the kiss ended, Civilian found themself somehow leaning against the arm of their couch, Villain sprawled comfortably on top of them. The ice pack lay forgotten and melting on the floor.

"Um." Villain shifted a little, resting their head against Civilian's chest. "Is this ok?"

Civilian nodded. They actually felt safer this way. If only their face wasn't so traitorously warm right now.

"W-why don't you tell me about these ancient things. I know about fiamora ancients, but I didn't know it was possible for a human to become one."

"Was that a stutter?" Civilian said.

"What? No. A catch in my throat."

"You're nervous too." Civilian had no idea why that was so satisfying.

"Of course I am, you're so close. N-now tell me the lore."

Civilian grinned. "It's thought that every mage has the potential to reach immortality through a natural increase of their power over time. Unlike fiamora, human mages are naturally inclined to a shorter lifespan, so they have to reach a level of power where their magic is strong enough to keep their body from declining. It's like they flip a switch in their natural make up that turns everything more permanent. Usually, this would be a sign of purity, the hard work taken to naturally develop one's magic, but many corrupted ancients received immortality by forcefully consuming the power of other mages. However, once they consume another mage's power, they must keep consuming it. Another's magic is like a drug, and they become addicted. Back in the day, there were sacrificial rituals of young mages to corrupt ones. In fact, there was one city that was so culturally influenced that--"

They stopped short with a loud gasp.

"What?" Villain said, cupping their longer eyetooth and raising their head a little to look Civilian's chest up and down, as if worried they might have knicked them with a fang point.

"My book." Civilian threw their head back against the arm rest with a long groan. "I left it in the diner. Do you think it's alright?"

Villain sighed in relief and snuggled back in. "Is that all?"

"'Is that all?'" Civilian repeated furiously. "Do you know how valuable--"

"Shhh," Villain said, wrapping their arms tightly around Civilian's waist. "I know. I'll go look for it in the morning. But for now, keep talking."

Civilian pouted a moment, but eventually, they fell back into their explanation. They stopped every once in a while, thinking that Villain might have been bored to sleep, but then the fiamora would pipe in with a question or a simple, "What else?"

Each time, Civilian warmed inside and went on, talking and talking until their eyes were too heavy to keep open and words felt like sludge in their mouth.

The night's bad images faded to the fringes of their mind, and they drifted softly into sleep.

Master Taglist:

@moss-tombstone @crazytwentythrees @just-1-lonely-person @the-vagabond-nun @willow-trees-are-beautiful @cocoasprite @insanedreamer7905 @valiantlytransparentwhispers @whovian378 @watercolorfreckles @thebluepolarbear @yulanlavender @kitsunesakii @deflated-bouncingball @lem-hhn @office-plant-in-a-trenchcoat @last-ditch-entry @ghostfacepepper @pigeonwhumps @demonictumble @inkbirdie @vuvulia @bouncyartist @lunatic-moss-studio @breilobrealdi @freefallingup13 @i-am-a-story-goblin @ryunniez @rainy-knights-of-villany

[iridesent-folly]

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐝/ 𝐬𝐨��𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 (𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭) 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 || 𝐏.𝐓.𝟐

P.T.1

𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨: 𝐈𝐳𝐮𝐤𝐮, 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢, 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨, 𝐓𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢, 𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 (all separate)

𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘏𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘤𝘩, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘍 𝘭 𝘶 𝘧 𝘧 & ᵃⁿᵍˢᵗ

𝘖𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸: 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘚/𝘖 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺

+ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘔𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘰’𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦😗😬

𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐎 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐀

༻ Y’all really questioning?

༻ This guy has garnered the reputation as the big brother to the whole school.

༻ I’m pretty confident that if he has earned the respect from almost every student for his daring character alone, anyone attempting to make any comments or threatening actions toward you is long out of the question.

༻ This is no question and there is not an expected answer to give.

༻ What is expected though is a courteous bow down since being his girlfriend is like being school royalty.

༻ No, he really is a part of the big three for a reason. And having such a relation to him gives you a variety of such perks.

༻ It was a quiet day in the dorms whereas your fine ass decides to do something exciting without decision to what that may be as of yet.

༻ So, indecisive as ever, you end up grabbing Nejire and a few of your girlfriends to have a little fun day off together where you all are getting ready and preparing for a small trip.

༻ All was great until you needed a new supply of q-tips to fix your makeup but currently wasn’t dressed enough to go down and catch a few yourself.

༻ You then tell Nejire to help you out while you’re placing on your shorts.

༻ All was great, truly.

༻ All up until you get a text message from Neji,

༻ Not about the lack of q-tips down stairs, not on her stopping to the bathroom for a cute accessory you could use, not for an idea of a place to travel,

༻ But to alert you that there is a girl downstairs complaining about you. All of which your nosey ass friends had read as well.

༻ The way every single one of your friends leaped down the dormitory stairs to get to the area Nejire had been at was insane.

༻ I could’ve swore one of them already had a broken bone yet still grew a new skeletal system to help I-😀🤚

༻ The moment you get downstairs, it’s HELL

༻ But it’s the moment you get downstairs everything drops to silence.

༻“Look at her, her black ass thinks she’s all that when there is no comparison between her or any of us.”

༻ Now everyone’s attention is on her, jaws DROPPED.

༻ I tell you, you were this 🤏🏽 close to clapping her ass.

༻ But then one of the boys that were standing next to you that heard her talk her lil diarrhea dilemma had spoken.

༻“Wait- aren’t you Mirio’s girlfriend?” He stated as you opened your mouth, voice complementary and soothing to the silence.

༻“Yeah”

༻ And that’s all you had to say before everything was taken care of.

༻ Mirio didn’t even need to BE there to resolve the situation. It was done for you because of the respect others have for him.

༻ You were able to let the situation go and continue on as if nothing was said and finish planning your girls trip.

༻ When you asked Nejire about what had occurred and why the girl was upset to begin with she stated “Sis was literally just upset because she wasn’t ‘invited’ to wherever we were going and took that out on you.”

༻ Baffling. Mind-boggling.

༻ The situation began due to someone’s envy and ended with that exact same point. No one had to fight, no one had to stress, no issue whatsoever.

༻ The most memorable part was seeing a group third years gather around Mirio once he got back to the dorms to tell him about the small altercation earlier,

༻ All done with the only purpose of making it known that if that girl tried you again she would be remembered on their hit lists.

༻ That shit was honestly freighting but no one’s complaining 👀✌️

༻ Mirio will ofc talk to you about how you’re feeling and if all is well/when you give the a-okay, he’ll continue on to stay with you and discuss how both your’s and his days went and watch your own designated tv show together.

༻ If not, you guys can talk about what you feel bothered you the most.

༻ Just remember that being with Mirio means that you are well taken care of.

༻ Everyone thinks TWICE before trying you.

༻ And that’s on being the hbic 😌

@wockeshaa @morosis-haze @lvlydray @royalelusts @hoetachi @ohstunnah

Taglist

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

Frame type headcanon ramble because I’ve had it sitting around for ages and I wanna share it lol. There’ll be a part 2 at some point so I can talk more about the individual frame types cause there’s lots of them.

PART 2 HERE

Notes on Frame Type:

↠   Frametype refers to physical (non-electrical) schematics like skeletal structure, engine type/grade, and armor pattern. Also comes with some base coding, some inherited memory data, and some other weird shit that no-one really knows a whole lot about (because the Primacy only grants study proposals once in a blue moon). Because it's the most visible level of differentiation between Cybertronians, it tends to be the first... sorting system that they categorize themselves by, resulting in stuff like Functionism.

↠   Divided into three 'ancestral types' based on mythological divisions of the Thirteen: 

Warframes claim descent from Prima the Sword, Megatronus the Shield, Liege Maximo the Burning Torch, and the Wanderer. They are distinguished by their thicker armor, more struts and shock absorbers in their skeletal system, more flex joints practically everywhere, and some more fun stuff I'm not sure how to describe as yet. 

Groundframes claim descent from the Record-Keeper, the Muse, Alchemist the Philosopher, and Solus the Smith. They are distinguished by not having most of the stuff listed above. 

Flightframes claim descent from Vector the Timekeeper, Nexus the Sundered, the Guiding Hand, and the Guardian Wall, and are distinguished by being flight-capable (without deliberate modding). 

Over time, these three ancestral types split into several quite different phenotypes — unintentionally due to environmental pressures, such as the case of the minibots during the Cataclysm, or through deliberate engineering, such as the Second Generation military projects that led to the creation of dexters, rotaries, and flighted warbuilds ('Seekers').

↠   Most Cybertronian languages have a pronoun system that is either based around or can be extended into frame types. I’ve been using letter-number codes to describe them — please imagine that they're standing in for sounds I can't possibly transcribe in human orthography lmao.

Coda to the above point — I really fuckin hate the Aligned canon of 'there are 13 different frametypes based on the Thirteen Primes and one of them is Girl', so mech vs. femme is 100% not a thing here. There are no 'girl' frametypes and 'boy' frametypes, there are no girl robots and no boy robots at all, I'm just using she/he/they/etc. pronouns for English-language convenience. 

↠   Shifters have their own system configurations and technically their own frametype, but they have a 'root form' that usually conforms outwardly to one of the standard frametypes. Shifters tend to be smaller (and they're an absolute nightmare for medics, Shifter medical care is its own specialty) and are commonly classed with various minibot subtypes. Jazz, for example, is usually an articulate, but he can make himself as big as a light standard or as small as a sylph.

↠   Triplechangers also have their own system configuration and frametype, but unless they have visibly incongruent kibble (or they're using their pronoun i guess) it's common to mistake them for heavy warbuilds. One way to tell them apart? The warbuilds tend to have narrower waists. It's not foolproof, but triplechangers are generally packing more stuff in their innards. With heavy warbuilds the frametype ideal is to stuff as many important components as possible into their heavily-armored chests. Which is just not possible with the triplechangers.

Notes on System Configuration:

↠   System Configuration refers to processor schematics, (most) computer hardware, (most) software, and electrical system components/layout. It's a lot more important and relevant to your average Cybertronian than frame type is in most cases, but also largely invisible from the outside. Some system configurations are more common in certain frametypes; for example the ferus and efficiens systems are particularly widespread among flightframes as compared to groundframes, but in general any frametype could have any of the five standard configurations.

↠   Shifter configuration is the only one of the special configurations that is 'natural' — it goes back to Amalgamous the Star of Chaos, one of the Thirteen. The others were all the product of deliberate engineering. Although the fracture and gestalt configurations were inspired by the mythical depiction of Nexus Prime as having five component bodies, Nexus did not pass down this trait, and it was left up to daring scientists to recreate.

↠   Literally any transformation-capable frametype can be reformatted into a gestalt configuration, allowing that mech to combine with up to five other mecha. (My combiners tend to look something more like Bayverse Devastator sans wrecking balls, incidentally. Love that alien look.) Theoretically you could even do it with someone like Omega Supreme but nobody has yet because the size difference is Awkward.

↠   Fracture configuration likewise is something someone of any frametype can be reformatted into — it's basically just a matter of getting an extra body or two that matches your existing frametype and creating a spark-deep network. It can be a steep learning curve to pay attention to more than one body at once, though, and that's where the special system configuration comes in. A fracturemech's frametype is whatever frametype their component bodies are — unlike gestalts, a fracturemech's components all match. They do have a combined form, but the form that counts for frametype purposes is the one that can transform — and combined mecha can't transform.

↠   the Sparked Ship Special and Sparked City Special configurations are notable for having more individual variation than any other system configuration — they are tailor-made for the individual ship or city according to their projected needs and environments. 

They are classed as a group rather than as 'Unclassified Configurations' because they do share some basic architecture and also are uniformly ridiculously complex. Most are paired with semi-independent AIs in a permanent network, and they all deliberately add lots of new stuff to their system over the course of their long long lives, in response to external pressures or even just plain curiosity or boredom. (Much like regular Cybertronians, in fact; these guys — sparked cities in particular — just aren't limited to whatever they can stuff into a frame that needs to transform on the regular.)

Notes on Size Class:

↠  the main concern of size class is weight and mass rather than height per se; height classes cross over with each other and the weight classes don't. You get classed to match the weight; so even if you're, say, only 12' tall and massing to match Class 3, if you weigh over 500kg you get classed in Class 4. 

Height does matter in that manufacturers and builders tend to assume that if you weigh and mass a certain amount then you're going to be within a certain height range as well, for ease of standardization. And once you get much beyond Class 12, very few manufacturers and whatnot account for you anyway, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[alicemitch09writes]

lame

08.

where do we go from here

“Dorms, huh?”

“Yes,” nodded the green-haired boy, staring at his drink – affogato that you prepared. “it’s to ensure the safety of the students tenfold, considering the recent events.”

Nodding, eyes watched the scars on Izuku’s gentle hands – from when he was trying to figure out his quirk, trailing up to the burn he keeps hidden on his left arm – one caused by someone.

“I can imagine Auntie Inko wasn’t overboard with the idea?”

Izuku shifted in his seat, fingers stirring the straw of his drink. “She wanted me to transfer, because of how much I’ve been through…”

“I can’t blame her,” you nod again – there was USJ, and then there was this. “then again, it was something you couldn’t control and not really the school’s fault.”

“It’s what I told her, but she was adamant on keeping me safe. She’s a mom, after all.” That made you smile, Auntie Inko was really protective of Izuku ever since Uncle Hisashi worked abroad.

“A-Also, A-All Might convinced her,”

(E/c) eyes widened. “W-Wow…”

The All Might was at Izuku’s? Informing Auntie Inko of the dorm system and convincing her to have his apprentice stay at UA?

Izuku must be that special for the Symbol of Peace, his biggest idol, to keep him in UA.

“That’s amazing, Izuku.” Scoffing, you broke into an easy grin. “Isn’t that great, you get to stay in UA, got convinced to stay by the All Might, and you still have a chance to live his legacy.”

“(N-Nickname)!” With your praises, red flushes his cheeks and his arms flounder in the air, much to your amusement, before they ended up wrapped around his head protectively.

Everything changing again, huh?

With the dorms, students of UA will be granted and ensured of their safety as they’ll be living within the school’s premise. Really, they were doing so much just to give their students, future heroes, the very best that they deserve.

Still, it would be kind of lonely to have Izuku away.

Carmine eyes suddenly crossed your mind. The soft look on his face. The smell of burnt sugar. His warm rough hands.

“Neh, Izuku,” arms stretched out, head dropping down, your voice was quiet. “how is he?”

Drink long gone, he swallowed the sweet concoction down his throat, relishing in its sweetness and bitterness. He studied you for a bit, noting the glint in your eyes, how it was much different from before whenever Kacchan brought up.

Tapping his fingers, he carefully shared. “For starters, he’s safe. But somehow, he’s the same as ever.” Fingers twitched slightly at that, curling in slowly. “That much I can tell.” Brows furrowing slightly, especially when you recalled the relief in those carmine eyes, with something else.

The League of Villains.

They kidnapped Bakugou because he was top of their class, an easy target to play with considering his rather volatile streak that might bode well with villains.

“League of Villains,” you try, testing the weight of the villain group in your mouth. Izuku fell silent.

You didn’t like it. It felt dangerous, bitter, terrifying-

“I-It’s about your parents…”

Releasing a shuddering breath, you slumped into the table, forcing the numbing thoughts away. That is until a hand wrapped over yours, giving a gentle squeeze. You squeezed back, as thanks.

“(Nickname),” at the call of your name, you look up, meeting gentle green – brighter than emeralds, opals, more soothing that viridian or moss. “when you get the chance, talk to Kacchan. Okay?”

Carmine eyes crossed your mind again, the shocked expression turning gentle. Burnt sugar filling your senses. The fluttering beating of his heart.

“Little did you know, I’ve already had one.”

He hummed. “Yes, but you know what I’m talking about.” He says kindly, almost teasingly. You rolled your eyes at that.

“By the way,” recovering, you sat up, hands still in his. “you’re currently working on your ultimate move, right?” he nods “Well, need some help with that?”

Puzzled, it took about a few seconds until the questions sank. “Y-You don’t mean…!?”

Giggling, toothily grinning at your best friend, your eyes flashed yellow. “I might not look like much, but at least I can give a few pointers and wisdom. Also, I hope you’re okay with extra hours- “

“Of course! I’ll be in your care, (Nickname)!” he replies almost immediately, face filled with so much excitement to finally see you use your quirk at its full potential.

Mentally thinking of the days you’re not working, but hey, this was all for a good cause. “Looking forward to it, Izuku~”

Taking a break from work, you felt your phone vibrate, seeing a text from Izuku. 

To: (Nickname)

From: Izuku

[image.txt]

I PASSED MY PROVISIONAL LICENSE!!!!!!!!!!!

You couldn’t help the smile breaking on your lips, threatening to split your face in half from sheer joy and pride for your best friend. He did it!

All those days mastering his Shoot Style while dealing with your rather whimsical and unpredictable fighting really paid off!

  From: (Nickname)

To: Izuku

Congrats, you!

I’m so fcking proud of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Let’s celebrate, okay? Just drop by the café!

You were tempted to ask if Bakugou had passed as well, debating even to give him a text. Fingers tapped lighting through your contacts, scrolling to find his name, staring. Just staring.

Shaking hands fisting against his shirt, nose buried between his shoulder blades, taking in his scent- You locked your phone, exhaling through your nose as you closed your eyes.

“You’re being unfair to him, (Nickname).”

Just then an unknown number called you.

It had been All Might.

All Might.

The Symbol of Peace.

He had called you, urging you to come to the UA campus at the dead of night for something he wouldn’t enclose over the phone. The hero had managed to work things out for your entry into the premise, albeit, discreetly, since it’s past working hours after all.

“So, you’re Young Midoriya’s good friend, yes?” the said hero was tall, so freaking tall! Even in his skeletal form, he loomed over you like a skyscraper, and his voice was commanding, firm, yet kind.

Remembering he had asked you a question, you fumbled for a reply. “A-Ah, yes sir!” Still, to be in his presence was something. Now you understood why Izuku fanboys hard – there were so many emotions to contain!

“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Young Midoriya speaks very highly of you.” That made you duck your head, a fond smile on your lips. “It’s clear that it is a bond forged greatly through careful means.”

“That, it is.” It was a rather poetic way of putting it, but yeah.

“With that being said, I’m sure you’re also acquainted with Young Bakugou, right?”

You nearly tripped on your own footing, halting at that, glancing up in question. “Y-Yes…” Carmine eyes, the smell of burnt sugar, warm calloused hands, suddenly filled your senses.

“In the short time that I’ve known them, I’ve also come to an understanding that the boys have a rather complicated relationship,” you gulp, for some reason. “they’re both on equal footing, yet it’s not very evident to both of them. They balance each other out perfectly.” He’s not wrong, you thought, hands curling and uncurling into fists.

“W-What are you trying to say?”

Turning to you, you realized that you reached some sort of building – it was huge, almost spanning the size of USJ! maybe it was a training ground? – the hero’s gaze wasn’t one of All Might’s, his gaze was soft, weary, understanding, guilt, and, dare you say, hopeful?

“Those boys have the makings to be a great hero, are each other’s greatest rivals yet they can be each other’s greatest ally if only pushed right.”

That was an idea you would never have thought of, but one you refused to acknowledge.

Before you could ask, suddenly, your senses went on full blast – (e/c) eyes turning yellow.

Heavy blasts from afar. Devastation followed. Heavy breathing. The smell of fire- no, angered explosions. Fully mapping out the vicinity, you found two presence were at the heart of it all. These heartbeats. Izuku? Bakugou?

“As expected, your senses indeed sharpen at night.”

Confused, angered, you turned to him, yellow eyes glinting in the moonlight. “WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE!?” Their breathing, it was erratic, labored, abnormal, what was happening!?

He could only stare, expression betraying nothing. “I think I need to give the young boys some time to talk before I do it myself.”

“And what am I, some spectator?”

“I’m sure there’re things you would want to say to them as well, Young Yuroichi.”

Was what he said, but walking into the battlefield, having watched two of your childhood friends going out on each other, talking with their fists, kicks, and quirks, leaving bruised and battered, you could only feel one thing – numb.

With the fight over, your two childhood friends sat back on the asphalt ground, weary and exhausted out – physically and emotionally.

“Who else knows?” asked the ash blond, head hanging low with both arms propped against his knees.

“Recovery Girl, the principal, and…”

Apparently, that was your cue to make your presence known.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, the two boys raised their heads, eyes widening at the sight of you, in their campus, dead at night, eyes still in its dangerous yellow.

“A-ARE YOU TWO FUCKING KIDDING ME!?

They flinched at the volume of your voice, as though you bellowed it with all the air in your lungs, coming out from the shadows after All Might’s speech, knowing that it wasn’t your place to be there, but after hearing Bakugou’s voice – that was pathetic of him, even the hero hadn’t expected that.

“Y-Young Yoruichi-“

“Don’t,” the hero flinched at your voice, pinning him with your stare “get me started you skeletal excuse of a hero!” you say to him angrily, bitingly, forgetting that this man was the Symbol of Peace, the greatest hero of this generation, the hero who could easily do away with you, and the greatest hero to your two asshole of childhood friends.

“(N-Nickname)…”

Giving him a warning look, deadlier under the moonlight with your yellow eyes shining, Izuku knew better than to gulp and avoid your gaze. You then turned the same look to Bakugou, whose shoulders sagged underneath your gaze, a sense of defeat washing over him. He’s already bad in your book, he might’ve worsened it in this situation.

He was walking on thin ice, treading on it really should he wish to fix it.

“A-Ah, K-Kacchan just wanted to talk s’all, (Nickname)! B-but it ended up…um, uh…” words were failing him, especially when you are at the receiving end. Unamused. Unfazed. Unrelenting. Angered. Not even All Might could help out, too scared to deal with an angry teenager. “…uh…i-it ended with our fists….?”

Izuku had been quick to his defense, much to the surprise and annoyance of the blond. But you weren’t having it.

“Stop making excuses for him, Izuku. You’re better than that.” The green-haired boy flinched, hands dropping in defeat. “He should well know to defend himself instead of beating himself down for it, which is a far cry from that proud pompous asshole we’re both familiar with.” The ash blond’s fingers twitched at your words.

Taking a deep breath, you exhaled slowly out your nose. “You two haven’t had a proper talk since and you thought of doing it now with your fucking fists and kicks? What’re you, animals!?”

Having watched their fight and taking into account the months they’ve been in UA, seeing their performance during the Sports Festival, and hearing accounts of progress from Izuku, Aizawa-san, and the Bakugous, the two clearly have changed.

After all this time, you still felt so far from the two.

After all this time, it pained you still to see a drift between your best friends.

After all this time, just seeing finally talk to each other – in the shittiest way of their own version, it was all you ever wanted.

After all this time, the only thing you wanted was for them to finally see eye-to-eye.

After all this time, you just wanted the two to be friends again.

Weakly you fell to your knees, arms reaching for both and bringing them to a hug. The two boys were stunned, to say the least.

“I’m so glad.” Tears began to spill, your hold tightening. “I was worried about you two so much, you know. You two are selfish, stubborn, and terribly reckless in your own ways, but you two are the strongest persons I know.”

Izuku can be so out of reach sometimes, especially when he’s trying to embody himself as the current One for All user.

Bakugou had always been so far from your reach, but it pains you to know that he had been feeling shitty because he didn’t know just how to deal with his emotions.

It made you feel like the worst friend.

“You have to be more honest with how you’re feeling,”

You say you wanted to support Izuku? Part of the deal was respecting his wishes when it came to a certain ash blond he’s admired next to All Might, the person who was the embodiment of victory for him, someone he’d like to catch up with.

But you let confusing emotions – like a stupid crush and hate, cloud over your judgments.

“I’m sorry if I won’t be able to understand if I’ll have to beat it outta you guys, i-if…” hiccupping, your hold slackened momentarily, before tightening. “I’m sorry if I’m such a horrible friend. I’ll try to do more, be better for you guys. So please, don’t ever forget that…okay?”

“(Nickname)…”

A tentative hand reached out, hesitant as it patted your back. Seeing as you didn’t flinch away, the hand awkwardly rubbed comforting circles as you cried harder.

Seeing this, the green-haired teen smiled, relishing in your hug, the pain from Kacchan’s attacks, and the wisdom from his mentor.

“Okay.”

All Might could only watch three youngsters settling amongst themselves, as all friends should.

“Okay, (Name).”

masterlist • nine

[ecrivant]

the station | annie leonhart

(annie leonhart x fem!reader)

that night, one marked by abject sin and rapture: annie’s single, inescapable memory.  she, forever haunted by this painfully raw thought of you.

c.w. – homophobic slurs

word count: 2.2k

a.n. – this is technically a reader insert but it’s honestly just an exploration of annie’s repression and sadness.  also, in general, i’m very wary of assigning gender to the reader, but the lgbt+ themes are important to this story, so annie’s love interest is a fem!reader.  i’m sorry if this excludes anyone, next piece will return to the usual gn!reader.  

very much an au + me experimenting with style.  

At the world’s marge lies a service station—carburant siphoned long ago, insides, bare.  Its skeletal façade abuts a backroad, a display of collapsing substructure succored by gusts of vagrants and drifters, cataracted from history’s view.  At one time, when you entered, the clerk would greet you from the left with a gaze that conveyed a hesitant familiarity—the type of trivial recognition that was unimportant in the moment but retrospectively haunting.  The lights within, garish halogen, were ceaseless, always alight, and only dared to die out once the ceiling caved, and the walls peeled, and the vinyl floor cratered like some artificial topography.  The edifice now no more than a nebulous memory only existing in the minds of those who ever once visited it.  

A memory nonetheless in the mind of the woman who fucks for the first time in a sedan parked behind the station, where the smell of sex and summer air and gasoline is seared into her brain as she breathes hard, lightheaded and high on ecstasy and fear. She feels her own death, a quiet specter which guides the touch of her lover.  Her burning skin; the eroticism of demise, destruction.  The nocturnal breeze gasps with her.

She offers to drive you home.  You—flushed and debauched, breasts exposed.  Eying her intensely.  You refuse.

“I can walk.”

She laughs.  Your name on her lips, a carnal, depraved prayer, “We don’t even know where we are.”

She is corrected. Curt.

“You don’t.”

She is gored, laid open and vulnerable and bare for this stranger who parts without another word. She watches you go, ambling towards the unlit dirt road, swallowed by a beastly darkness.  The vehicle, suffused by an amorous smog, windows opaque.  Her organs all but spill onto the floor, mixing with dust and dog hair and garbage and an old takeaway cup that was always there no matter how many times she threw it away.  

She slinks into the station and asks for a pack of cigarettes.  She pays in coins, a button among them, but the cashier never notices.

At home.

“Mama’s been askin’ ‘bout you.”

“Okay.”

“You’re gonna get an earful tomorrow.”

She’s already halfway up the stairs.  They moan beneath her.  

“She thinks you’ve been spending too much time with that Eren boy.  Is that where you was tonight?”

The stairs sound like you. Everything sounds like you—the gasp of a closing door, the sordid exhale of a creaking bedframe.  The sweat on her face: a lover’s curious tongue.

—

“Pull off here, ya’re low on gas.”

Prick prick pricks of fear smart on her skin.  Mama knows. The station, the unholy consecration. Mama knows.  This car, this place.  Mama knows.  Her brother in the back, resting on the shadow of his sister’s bare figure.  The pop of the fuel door says dyke.  The crack of the gas nozzle trigger says fag. The unseen eyes that bore through her say queer.  She enters the station to pay.  The clerk, a gaze of recognition—the only one who knows of her transgressions.  

—

She is married. Cheers to the happy couple.  She cries on her wedding night, tears staining bedsheets—her own virginal blood.  He touches her, stagnant, pale skin collied by bereft contact.  She only comes when she thinks of the station.

—

She could tell.  She could tell him and free herself, and then the kid’ll wonder why Mommy’s never around and Daddy’s a druggie and a drunk and never leaves the house anymore and the kid’ll make his way through the social services system until he’s beaten and cracked and broken like Mama’s old doll collection smashed against the wall and he puts a bullet in his head before he turns eighteen.  No, she could never tell.

—

Thanksgiving.  She stares at her sister-in-law—a city girl, with heavy lids and blush-dusted cheeks and a pronounced cupid’s bow.  The eyes of a hunter, the lascivious gaze of a she-wolf.  Her husband comments on how well they seem to get along.  

—

A loneliness begotten from her own bones, born from emptiness and the inimitable way she and death caressed all those years ago.  She only has a name to utter, breathless, when thoughts of you tenant her mind.  The first and the only fuck was truly a stranger, all but nameless in memory.  

—

Her mother’s funeral. An apathetic and unfamiliar affair. People she doesn’t know.  Her brother, his wife, their child.  Her husband, her child, her.  She could not be more distant.

Her childhood home smells sweetly of tobacco and cardamom.  

Indifference during the wake mistaken by the others for numbness.  She feels no need to mourn—her mother lived and died uneventfully, and that was it.  

“Mommy, are Grandma’s dolls going away?”

“I don’t know, we’ll see.”

“Do you think I can keep one?”

The boy has his eyes fixed on one in particular, his implicit selection.  The one that has your eyes.  The one whose gaze makes her squirm.  Mama knows.

“I don’t know, we’ll see.”

—

She sneaks away from the house with a pack of her mother’s cigarettes, the box crumpled and stained at the edges and the tubes inside wrinkled and mildewed, emitting a stench that filled her with inexplicable nostalgia.  It brings to mind her unshakable compulsion to eat cigarettes, to feel the flakes of tobacco coat the inside of her mouth like the ground dregs in a cup of cheap coffee.  She lights one instead, pushing the thought aside—if she was to ever eat one, she fears she would not be able to stop.  The low hiss of her inhalations on the ember briefly joins the sonic ambience.  She sits in her car and smokes and occasionally flicks ash outside of her window with shaking hands.  Rancid and familiar aftertaste.  Thick dust clouds kicked up by her car tires coalesce with her hazy exhalations as she drives nowhere.  Not nowhere. She needs gas.

—

The station still stands as it had before, insusceptible to time.  Always seemingly aged.  Covered in an ever-present grime.  She gets out and leans against her car and drags on her cigarette, the virulent inhalations scratching her lungs.  The road on which you disappeared all those years ago looked profoundly unremarkable during the day—just a long, dirt road in a town wholly comprised of long, dirt roads. The heat shimmers above the ground, and the afternoon sun drapes itself across her skin, and the hot breeze drags its fingertips through her hair like a lover you’d meet behind a bar—the same who would abandon that perpetually lit cigarette between her lips in exchange for her mouth on yours.

Her last drag—she drops the butt and crushes it underfoot.  

She sits in her car and smokes the rest of the pack—in her eyes, the final remnants of her mother.

She waits in the parking lot.  As if her presence alone would invoke some bygone wraith.  

Her hand reaches under her dress, between her legs, and she is touching herself to the pervasive miasma of summer breeze and carburant, and the darkness of closed eyes almost feels like the night, and her frantic digital movements are arrant pleasure until they’re not; she stops and is suddenly crying, and her thoughts are occluded by her mother’s pale, dead face, and she realizes that Mama’s death, mundane as it was, represents the furthest she’s been from that singular night years ago which was so verily marked by sin and rapture; the one that has haunted her and will continue to haunt her until she herself dies an uneventful death after an uneventful life, and her child thinks of her passing as she does her own mother’s: a nonevent among nonevents.  

She is met with understanding eyes as she returns to the wake crying.  

—

She moves to the city with husband and child.  Suburbia forgone.  The apartment is small and cramped and reminiscent of her sister-in-law’s.  The adjacent view from the living-room window is an identical high-rise—ten stories of the same brick and dirty-white AC units. She is filled with an ineffable sadness as she stares at the spare greenery in streets below, confined to plots of dry soil surrounded by cracked and potholed pavement.

Her sleeplessness often leads her to the living room long after the apartment falls to silence.  One night, she watches, captivated, as a couple in the adjacent apartment fucks on a couch, curtains wide open and shame forgotten.  The man, hovering above a body obstructed, is suddenly flipped on his back and mounted by his lover, and she swears this woman, breasts bobbing, and face marked by a concentrated intensity and unusually devoid of pleasure, looks like you.  

—

Two years in the city bypass her as if she were already dead.  The tenant who resembled you moved out the year prior.  

—

She sits in a booth sequestered in the corner of a dark and begrimed barroom.  Alone for the night.  Her husband no longer questions her bouts of silence and absences from the house and disdain for intimacy; her child, accustomed to fissure.  

She ignites a cigarette, her lukewarm liquor no longer of interest, and no one stops her.  She is indifferent to the other patrons, who were, at this point in the night, nothing more than hazy and incorporeal forms populating the shadows.

The chime of the door—jarring and tangible—cuts through the muted atmosphere and demands the attention of those there to give it.  Another specter drifts to the bar.  A woman shouldering something—a fact elucidated by a hunched posture and a quiet request for three fingers of scotch.  

And then the woman turns, and Annie sees her face.  

And suddenly she is collapsed on the scum-covered tile of the bar’s bathroom floor, hurling upchuck into the toilet.  That woman had your face—she is not you, at least not anymore, as Annie is no longer the girl who fucked and died in that gas station parking lot years ago.  But that woman had your face.  And she looked at Annie with your eyes, melancholic eyes which held no recognition for her, and turned away in the same movement.  Less than a look—a glance.  But that woman had your face.  And Annie had not seen it again before she hied to the bathroom to regurgitate four drinks and years of accrued and bilious agony.  

The bathroom door swings open.  Groaning hinges.  She knows it’s that woman who has callously co-opted your likeness.

She enters the stall next to her and pisses and flushes the toilet whose water drains slowly and weakly, and the sounds of the sink are harsh and cacophonous against the tile walls. Steps towards the exit suddenly pause. A knock on the stall door.  Your voice asks if she is alright—a voice unheard for decades, last encountered in a low, debauched whisper against her skin.

She heaves, again, but nothing is left to expel; she coughs and spits and does not answer.

“Can I at least help you get home?”

The question looms above her, looped and tied like a noose.  

“I can walk.”

A laugh.  Dry, unfamiliar, never heard.  It’s harsh and barking; a warning.  

She is corrected, curt: “You can barely stand.”

She had long been unacquainted with fear, now more often than not consumed by a vacant numbness, and she admittedly did not miss it.  It was ugly and pervasive and bore deep within her with debilitating potency.  She could do nothing but sit on the disgusting tile floor with body supported on yellowed porcelain and wait.  

She imagines she allows herself to believe this woman is you—you, as you were, unchanged—and opens the door. And you, being unchanged, ask if she would like to come home with you.  And she, apparently the same as well, says yes.  And back at your apartment, cluttered and cramped yet simultaneously vacant, you spare no time backing her into the bedroom, lips tethered to hers in lurid predation.  Touches that are lustful and intimate and familiar only to her.  She cannot bring herself to care that you do not remember her—your breath on her neck and your incursive touch efface all thoughts, good or bad.  She wants you on top of her, around her, within her, and you oblige like some prurient altruist.  Her coming is purgative and cathartic, and the pleasure of that night at the station feels archaic and antiquated in the face of this wholly new gratification, heighted by an immense and prolonged yearning.  And this time, after you are both finished, you do not part and neither does she, and she embraces you in a way that feels intrinsic, and you ask her to stay the night. And she does not think of her husband and child as she says yes.  And she does not think of her husband and child as she agrees to spend the next day with you, as she dances with you in your living room, finally and only feeling held and loved.  Finally, finally, finally.  

—

But Annie says nothing. And the woman—not you, but an apparition—softly and finally knocks on the door with the side of her fist, unfazed, and walks out of the bathroom.  And even now, as she slumps further and shuts her eyes and clutches her head, Annie can only think of that fucking gas station.  

—

hi there!  thank you so much for reading; i hope you enjoyed this piece.  it’s a little different than my other stuff, not drastically so, but still different.  i think i like it, though.

thank you to the anon who suggested I write something for annie, i really appreciate the request.  i have another request in the pipeline for reiner, so expect a piece for him soon. 

as always, feedback and criticism are very much appreciated!  feel free to drop in and request something if you want.

taglist: @flam3bird

[thebigqueer]

Solangelo - "Longing for Solutide" - One-Shot

SPOILERS: The Burning Maze

Summary: Nico learns of Jason's death.

Word Count: 2104

Read on AO3

A soft breeze flits past the demigods as they sit by the fire, laughing and chattering about the day’s activities. A blue and pink sky spills overhead, and the scent of flowers and rain lingers in the air. Spring has approached, finally.

Unfortunately, this also means that it has been almost three months since Apollo came down to Earth, creating chaos amongst all the demigods. For the most part, no one has been too worried, but Nico knows there’s more at play - Chiron and Dionysus told him so. And, if Nico extends his focus far enough, he can sense Apollo - Lester’s - life force. It’s whittling away, growing smaller and smaller as the months pass.

He doesn’t voice any of that to Will, of course. If he did, Will would break down, crack to pieces. He can’t have that, not since his anxiety attacks have been becoming more frequent. So instead, he’s just been enjoying this time with his boyfriend, trying to take both their minds off the looming danger. He knows there’s more that’s going to happen, but he has no idea how long it will take before things turn to hell again. For the time being, he’s choosing to ignore all the dark possibilities.

Nico, Will, Lou Ellen, Cecil, and Will’s siblings are sitting around the campfire, sticking white marshmallows into the bright orange flames. Will’s arm presses against Nico’s left side, sending shivers through his body, while Kayla’s playing Mythomagic with him on the other. Nico feels warm all over; he’s bursting with love. Everything is perfect. And, for the first time in a while, Nico truly feels at home again. He feels safe in the embrace of people he actually cares about.

Kayla groans as Nico pulls a card to defeat her, and he laughs. “You just need to learn better strategy.”

“Can’t believe I’m being told off by some old guy,” she grumbles.

“This old guy could teach you a thing or two about manners.”

“Oh, great, now he even sounds like one.”

Nico smiles, a warm flood of joy sweeping over his heart. “Okay, just practice. Tomorrow night we can practice again.”

“Whatever, Grandpa Edgelord.” The glimmer of enjoyment sparkles in her eyes and she smiles widely. At the sight of her excitement, butterflies crash against Nico’s stomach. In the past people have only looked at him with the shadow of fear, but seeing that look in Kayla's eyes makes him feel that maybe he does belong now - maybe he does have a place here.

The purple sky overhead dims, turning into a bluish-purple color. Stars begin to poke holes across the plains of the sky and a new breeze brushes past hurriedly. Will shifts closer to Nico, his shoulder brushing against the son of Hades, and superfluous joy pours over Nico.

But he feels something, a buzz in his core. A small burst of darkness erupts in his stomach, and all of a sudden the warmth of the fire and the closeness of Will don’t seem so comforting anymore - they’re suffocating him, pushing him into a corner. His mind begins to hum with a dark energy he hasn’t experienced in a while.

An image bursts into his head, a face with electric blue eyes and light hair and glasses balanced sloppily over his face. It takes a moment for Nico to recognize him, but when he does, his breath hitches.

No.

Nico drops his marshmallow stick and sits up straight. Suddenly the darkness overhead doesn’t seem inviting and lovely; it’s consuming him, filtering into every corner of his body, absorbing into his muscles. He’s caving into himself, giving into the pressure of grief.

Nico’s fingers grip his seat so tight that his knuckles turn white. His chest heaves with every inhalation; he can’t keep the air in his lungs. He can’t breathe. He can’t do anything anymore.

Will turns to him. “Nico?” he asks, concern laced into his voice. “Is everything okay?”

Nico looks up at him, gazes into his blue eyes, at his blond hair. Will looks absolutely nothing like Jason, yet Nico can’t help but to see the son of Zeus’s face on his boyfriend. Guilt crashes into him.

Nico swallows and stands up. “I need to go.” The firelight is too bright; the people are too warm. He needs space.

“What?” Will stands too, his eyebrows furrowed. “What’s wrong? Can I come with you?”

Nico doesn’t answer; he rushes away from the people by the fire, his bare feet sinking into the wet grass. The ache of tears builds up in his throat and a hot ball of emotions shakes up his chest. There’s no way he’s gone, Nico thinks. He can’t be.

He rushes for his cabin, his only refuge from the crashing world around him. Its darkness and solitude beckon to him, call his name, urge him to crawl into the arms of shadows and disappear for a long while.

But footsteps echo behind him and Nico stops in his tracks, turning to whoever dares to follow him on his trip to grief. Will’s racing behind him, his blond curls flying in the air. “Nico!” he calls. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

“Go,” Nico demands. “Will, just… go back.”

“Back? Nico, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” Will’s voice seems choked, strangled by his own worry. There’s so much emotion in his eyes, so much care, but Nico can’t look at him without thinking of Jason, without thinking of what that buzz in his core meant.

Nico hisses through his teeth. “Jason, please.”

Will blinks. “Jason? I’m Will.” The blond edges closer, his fingers reaching for Nico. “What happened, Nico? You can tell me.”

Nico blanks. Then he shakes his head to clear his mind. “Will, please, just leave. I can’t… I can’t right now.”

The ache building up in his throat turns loose, and a sob echoes from his chest. Tears prickle his eyes and a second later, the world turns blurry. He falls to the ground, letting the water from the grass seep into the fabric of his jeans, slip into his skin. His tears create fractures over his face, and their trails glimmer in the dim lighting.

He’s slipping away, drowning in sorrow. He’s losing himself.

Will rushes towards him and holds his face in his warm hands. “Nico, did someone die?”

Nico pushes Will’s fingers away, afraid that even one gentle touch from him may somehow hurt the blond. “Jason…,” the son of Hades mumbles. “He… I don’t… His life force…”

“Oh.” A blank look flashes in Will’s face, and then his eyebrows rise. “Oh. Oh, gods. Nico-”

Nico shakes his head and pushes himself from Will. He doesn’t want his warmth; he doesn’t want his care. He just wants to be alone. “Will, please, just leave. I need to go. I need… I need… I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Will stands and watches Nico nervously. Behind his eyes, Nico sees the gears turning in his head, the string of worries echoing around. Nico is no mind reader, but he knows Will thinks he’s going to do something dangerous, something damaging.

They lock eyes for a second, and there, in Will’s irises, Nico sees the doubt. He says nothing but Nico can see the thoughts in his head: Don’t do what you did for Bianca. Don’t try to bring him back.

“Do you know for sure?” Will whispers. “Maybe it was just… a false alarm.”

Nico shakes his head. “Maybe it was, but chances are it wasn’t. Will, I can’t feel his life force anymore. I can’t feel him alive anymore.” More sobs rack his body, throw his blood off their track. “Please, Will, just let me go.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” Will asks. “You don’t need to be alone.”

Nico knows Will means well, but his voice only grates against Nico’s ears, trickles annoyance into his veins. Nico closes his eyes to drown out the underlying rage, to calm the red hot anger simmering in his blood.

But Will isn’t leaving. He’s only watching Nico with pity and admiration, and Nico can’t take it.

His body hums with energy, roils with darkness, swirls with anger. There’s a tug in his stomach, a pull, and then the ground underneath him thunders. Before he knows what’s happening, the ground beneath him cracks. Will calls his name, but with the turmoil in his skin and the blood roaring in his ears, Nico can barely hear him.

All he knows is that he wants Will to go, to leave him alone.

“Just… GO,” Nico demands. His voice resonates over the cabins and through the ground, echoing in the air. Rage and grief, sorrow and humiliation all lift into the air, and they envelop the boys in their cold embrace.

The ground shakes more, shivers under Nico’s touch. And then, as if listening to the sound of Nico’s voice, four skeletons crawl out of the abyss, their white faces grinning in the darkness. They all turn their gaze to Will.

Will’s eyes become large, the blue of his irises reflecting his fear. He starts to step back from Nico. The skeletal figures only follow Will, though, no matter how hard he tries to escape them. Their bones clack as they move forward.

“Nico,” he murmurs nervously, “make them stop.”

For a moment, Nico doesn’t understand what’s happening. The earth is spinning and he’s hanging onto his sanity by a thread, barely managing to keep up with the world around him. The only person in his mind is Jason, his face, his voice. Memories of him create a tornado in Nico’s head; they’re memories that Nico won’t be able to get back.

When Will cries, “Nico, please!” only then does the son of Hades realize that his boyfriend is in danger. He blinks and looks up, catching sight of what’s happening. The skeletons are closing around Will, pushing him against a tree, blocking any way out.

Nico’s heart starts going overtime. Is he doing that? Are they moving off his emotions? He tries to reign in his feelings, but there’s too much anger flowing in his system, too many emotions blocking his focus. The skeletons keep edging forward.

One reaches out to Will, grabbing a hold of his sweatshirt, but Will swats the hand away and pulls a bone out from the skeleton's limb. He brandishes it in front of the other three. “Nico, please, get them away from me,” he calls desperately.

Nico balances his hand out and tries to get a grip of control, but he can’t make a connection. They’re out of his reach. Will is out of his reach.

More sobs rack his body, but this time they're from the panic that squeezes his heart. What if he can’t stop the skeletons? What if they beat Will senseless? What if Nico is powerless to stop them?

Nico reaches out again, trying his best to attach an invisible rope from his body to them. His chest aches as more sobs billow out of him, but this time he catches a hold of them. He commands them to stop, and after another moment of terror, they follow his order and dive back into the crack in the ground, disappearing into the abyss they came from.

Nico wishes he could join them in the eternal darkness.

Silence lingers in the air, wrapping around the boys in a vice-like grip around their throats. Will’s watching Nico with big eyes, a sheen of terror glazing over his blue irises. He’s staring at Nico with a look that’s all too familiar - he’s afraid of him. But doesn’t he have a right to be? Nico wonders.

They’re two worlds apart now, drifting away with two different currents. An ocean stands between them. A large new rift separates the boys from one another, sets them into two different worlds altogether.

“Nico.” Will’s voice grates down Nico’s ears like shards of glass. He sounds broken, shattered, helpless.

Nico covers his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Darkness spills from him, sinks into his toes, leaks out from his skin. It pours out to the grass and turns it brown. He’s carrying the aura of death with him. Nico gasps and steps back, but the brown follows him wherever he steps.

He looks to Will again and holds his hands to his mouth. He can only hope Will sees the sincerity in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again.

Then he runs off, leaving a trail of dead grass each step he goes, longing for the comfort of solitude and despair.

[inkribbon796]

Goo Town USA

Summary: Remus and Anti find someone in the sewer system of Gainesville, and it’s not a dead body.

A/N: Happy Birthday, Remus!

Remus was walking around town, it had been a while since he’d gotten to do so and Janus was too busy to keep babysitting him. So he was currently spending his time trespassing right into the heart of Dark’s territory. Which typically ended with Dark finding him, batting him around with his aura and then dumping him back into Gainesville for Janus to find and deal with later.

But Dark was busy with his new triplet spawnlings, not that Remus knew that or was going to learn that for a while. So Remus was calmly strolling down the street when Anti flung himself out of a telephone pole next to Dark’s warehouses and just bolted.

“Hey, Anti,” Remus smiled at Anti who raced past him as if he was set on fire.

“Come on, let’s go!” Anti shouted. He had a skeletal metal hand in his hands. Remus naturally bolted to follow him.

“Anti!” Google’s voice shouted in an absolute rage as he chased them. Remus took out his mace and with a mad cackle spun on his heels and charged at the android. Google protectively spilt into a cloud and after a couple swings he raced away from Google and in the chase the android lost Anti because he was trying to pursue Remus and Remus eventually slipped into the sewers where he and Anti frequently liked to hide out because most of their opponents had too much pride to follow them in there . . . along with an actual sense of smell.

“Yeh[1] lose him?” Anti asked as Remus frog splashed into the disgusting trash water.

Remus gave him a thumb’s up before picking himself up. He noticed that Anti was holding a skeletal robotic hand.

“Aghhh,” Anti complained. “It was finally gettin[2] fun.”

“Should I go find him?” Remus offered.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Anti huffed out. “Don’t know why e’eryone in this fookin’ town is so borin’ an’ shite all ‘a the sudden.”[3]

Then he bit off one of the fingers of the hand. Remus frowned at him for a bit before smiling again and getting closer to the glitch demon. “Wanna[4] share?”

Anti chuckled and tossed him the pinky finger and Remus accepted it gladly.

Remus summoned his mace and rested his hands and chin on the bottom flat of the mace, pouting. “I’m not bor~ing, am I, Anti?”

The glitch demon frowned and thought about that, “Depends, yer not gonna give chaos up fer Dee, are yeh?”[5]

“I would never,” Remus huffed out in offense. “How dare you think so little of me?”

“Then yer not borin’,”[6] Anti told him.

“Yay!” Remus cheered and threw his hands up, his mace falling into the water.

“Yeah,” Anti wrapped an arm around Remus’s neck and pulled him in. “Cause yer my favorite human, ain’tcha?”[7]

“Awww,” Remus pinched his cheeks. “Is swomeone’s gettin’ swoft, Anti?”[8]

“Shut up,” Anti grumbled and pushed Remus away from him. “Yeh[1] wanna[4] go draw on the police station again?”

“Fuck yes,” Remus said, kicking around in the sewer water for his mace instead of summoning it like a reasonable person. “Will Mare be there?”

And that was the wrong thing to say.

“Fook ‘im!”[9] Anti spat angrily. “Gobshite’s got some new shiny pact mate eatin’ up his time, an’ I can’t find Wil. He’s prolly up Dark’s arse or somethin’.”[10]

“Huh,” Remus said as he began to reach into the water for his mace.

“Lucky fer him I’ve been too busy ta gut him an’ so I got angry ‘cause I couldn’t find some shitesleeve,”[11] Anti scoffed. “Went ta[12] go bother Google, got bored, got hungry.”

Anti gestured with the metal hand he still had and was in the process of eating it.

Remus nodded and touched something but when he pulled it out it wasn’t his mace. It was a human head. A redhead with glasses and green slime oozing out of his head. The water at this point in the sewer wasn’t deep enough to vertically submerge a body.

And Remus should know, he’d tried to hide a body in these sewers more than once.

Confused, Remus stuck the head back into the water, hoping that when he pulled it back out the person would be his mace instead.

It wasn’t.

“The fook[13] is that?” Anti asked.

“Hi, I’m Slime, uhh, I mean I’m Meat, Meat and Bone,” Slime introduced as he stood up out of the sludge water.

“Okay,” Anti smiled, poking the green jelly oozing from his head. “Meat, how do yeh[1] feel about death?”

“Well,” Slime hummed, his throat doing a weird, disgusting gurgling that Remus found absolutely fascinating and wanted to poke at the green viscous gloop that made up the bottom of his neck to see what was making the noise. “Everyone just shambles around until eventually they fall apart and become dust.”

Remus began cackling in laughter and soon Anti was joining him. Slime looked at them in confusion before starting to copy their mad laughter but sounding a lot more forced and crazed which only delighted both Remus and Anti more.

They stopped and Slime was still laughing for a full second before he awkwardly cut himself off.

“Dibs,” Remus proclaimed and grabbed Slime around the waist, lifting him up like an oversized rag doll. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, I have so many ribs,” Slime reassured loudly as Remus and Anti began heading out of the sewers, Remus summoned a couple of his tendrils to climb out without letting go of his new friend, and Anti used the nearest open wire. “And they are all mine.”

Anti immediately recognized that he was right next to the bar Mare liked to crash at when he wasn’t with Nate.

“Give me a sec,” Anti spat and stomped over to the bar and kicked in the door. “Mare! The fook[13] are yeh[1]?”

Mare was talking to the bartender, his new pact mate sitting at the other side of the bar, just feeding off of the aura in the patrons in the bar with Mare.

“Anti?” Mare asked in confusion, getting up.

Anti kicked over the nearest table, uncaring if there were people or drinks at it.

“Hey!” Mare spat and raced over to him, throwing himself at Anti and the two started getting into a fist fight with each other and Mare kicked him out of the bar.

Remus started cheering them on, summoning up some anchors to enjoy the fight and holding some out for Slime who took some and smashed it to his face instead of eating it.

Mad followed the fight out of the bar and tried to help Mare but was elbowed away by the two demons as they fought it out until both of them were covered in scratches from aura and claws.

“The fuck is wrong with you!” Mate spat in anger as they pulled away. It was a reprieve in the fight, the fight would either stop here or keep going depending on their conversation.

“Fook[13] you!” Anti spat at Mare. “Yeh get some new friend, an’ yeh leave me behind!”[14]

“Hey, should I?” Mad motioned behind himself.

“No, just,” Mare told Mad before turning back to Anti. “I didn’t leave you behind, you had your head up your ass chasing Henrik’s ass. I let you do what you want but when I deal with my shit, you get fucking pissed.”

Anti was quiet, fuming angrily for a bit. “Look I don’t care if yer fookin’ him or whate’er, I just care about havin’ some fookin fun.”[15]

“We’re not,” Mare rolled his eyes and sighed, “I’m not too busy to turn this town upside-down.”

“Promise?” Anti demanded. “I’m yer[16] favorite demon right? Not him?”

“No, he’s just my pact mate,” Mare told him as Mad just stared at them in confusion.

“Yeh[1] swear?” Anti glared at him .

“Yes, obviously, you fucking asshat,” Mare told him.

“I better be, yeh[1] gobshite[17],” Anti agreed before turning to Mare, “he’s my fookin’ friend, yeh got that?”[18]

“Uhhh, yeah, whatever,” Mad held up his hands and stared at Anti like he was insane.

“Exactly,” Anti reinforced. “Anyways, yeh[1] two wanna come an’[19] commit some chaos?”

“Hell yeah,” Mare gave him a thumbs up. “Hey Mad, come on, I gotta[20] introduce you to Anti here?”

“Doesn’t he work for Dark?” Mad was watching Anti carefully.

“I don’t do shite fer that arsehole,”[21] Anti spat down at the ground. “We just happen ta agree on a couple things. Dark is a fookin’ shitehead an’ the only good thing about him is the spawnlings he collected an’ the fact he’s datin’ Wil.”[22]

Then he clapped Mare on the back, “Come on, I’ve got a gang leader ta[13] kill.”

“I thought we were committing chaos?” Mare reminded, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, but some arse[23] attacked Kay an’[19] Lunky,” Anti spat. “So if I can find this arsehole an’ gut him like a fookin’ fish fer touchin’ ‘em.”[24]

Then Anti remembered something, and felt dumb for not remembering it sooner. “Hey, Remus, yer[16] from Gainesville, who are all the gang leaders in yer[16] city?”

Remus shrugged, “Ask Dee.”

“Yeah fook[13],” Anti agreed, “he would know.”

The glitch thought on that, before he shrugged, “Welp, time ta burn shite until he shows up. Or the heroes do an’ I can just ask them.”[25]

“Yeah!” Remus pumped his fists in the air supportively.

And that’s what they did. It didn’t take long for Remus to teach Slime how to become an arsonist, Remus just set a burning Molotov cocktail in his hand and pointed Slime at something and told him to throw it. Slime barely had the second one in his hand and Remus was trying to light it when Janus showed up.

“The devil are you doing?” Janus shouted.

“Burning stuff,” Remus supplied helpfully.

“I’m an Aaronist!” Slime shouted.

“Arsonist,” Mare corrected with a smile.

“Why in our town?” Janus demanded. “Why not do this in Egoton?”

Remus shrugged and Janus groaned in frustration.

Which is exactly when a shrill bird whistle called out. “Hey Meat, what’cha[26] doing?”

Janus startled and turned directly behind him to see a man in a button shirt and suspended, with a black beanie and a thick scar over his left eye.

Slime smiled and walked over to the newcomer, holding out the unlit Molotov. “Quackity, look, I am arsonist now.”

“El Espíritu me directo, porque este chamaco va a ser como Tubbo,”[27] Quackity groaned and rubbed at the bridge of his eye. “Come on, we gotta[20] go before you get us arrested.”

“How long were you following me?” Janus demanded angrily.

“Relax, I just wanted to talk,” Quackity said, moving Slime behind him. “I just didn’t expect our next meeting to be this soon.”

He took out a white business card out of his sleeve and with a soft puff of air he blew it with magic towards Remus, who caught it mostly out of reflex. “For your boss.”

Remus blinked as Janus glared at Quackity. But he brought the card over to the deceitful Side, who ripped up the card and threw it back at Remus. The creative Side ate one of the scraps out of the air like a deranged piranha. “We want nothing to do with you.”

“You sure you can’t tell the big man?” Quackity tried to convince Janus. “Come on.”

“You have me confused with someone who takes orders,” Janus scoffed. “Which I assure you, I do not.”

Quackity had a huge, smug smile on his face. “Right, big guy. Tell you what. You swear off your lies, and I’ll swear off mine. ¿Entiendes?[28]”

He clicked his tongue and winked his good eye as he pulled out an orb of swirling green aura. Slime broke apart into a swirl of vicious green gloop and swirled around Quackity as the man threw the orb and it sailed a far distance away.

A great eye opened up for a second or two and the two were gone. Leaving Deceit with the other villains.

Janus glared at where they had been before turning back to Remus. “Do not talk to that man again.”

Remus slouched a little and pouted. Janus didn’t reinforce his order, he just stormed off, one of his serpentine familiars slipped away to go find Logan. Remus was left to continue causing trouble with the rest of his friends. If he saw Slime again and caused trouble in Gainesville again, Janus didn’t threaten him to stay away again, knowing that Remus wouldn’t follow the order.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. You

2. getting

3. Don’t know why everyone in this fucking town is so boring and shit all of the sudden.

4. Want to

5. Depends, you’re not gonna give chaos up for Dee, are you?

6. Then you’re not boring

7. Because you’re my favorite human, aren’t you?

8. Is someone getting soft, Anti?

9. Fuck him!

10. Idiot’s got some new shiny pact mate eating up his time, and I can’t find Wil. He’s probably up Dark’s ass or something.

11. Lucky for him I’ve been too busy to gut him and so I got angry because I couldn’t find some shitsleeve

12. to

13. Fuck

14. You get some new friend, and you leave me behind!

15. Look I don’t care if you’re fucking him or whatever, I just care about having some fucking fun.

16. your (or you’re, depending on context)

17. idiot

18. he’s my fucking friend, you got that?

19. and

20. got to

21. I don’t do shit for that asshole

22. We just happen to agree on a couple things. Dark is a fucking shithead and the only good thing about him is the spawnlings he collected and the fact he’s dating Wil.

23. ass

24. So if I can find this asshole and gut him like a fucking fish for touching them.

25. Well, time to burn shit until he shows up. Or the heroes do and I can just ask them

26. what are you

27. The Spirit direct me, because this boy’s going to become like Tubbo

28. Understand?

[cecilspeaks]

Live Show: A Spy in the Desert

1. A Spy in the Desert

Cecil: A tisket, a tasket. My god, what’s in that basket?! Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, it’s another beautiful day here in Night Vale, and I hope that you’re all outside staring wild-eyed into the sun, instead of cooped up in some dark room full of a bunch of people that you don’t know. The only thing that could ruin such a beautiful day as this is, well, this breaking news.

We have an outsider in our midst. A spy from a faraway land, a master of disguise who can mix imperceptibly into any crowd. Now this spy has been known throughout the world as the Sparrow Hawk, the Nightingale, the Southern Blue-Eyed Glossy Starling, and the Tough-Tit Titmouse. But recently, the spy started going by the code name the Mink. Which is much better, because minks are adorable and birds are idiots. Now the Mink has stolen secrets from the world’s most powerful governments, but unlikely most spies, the Mink works independent of any agency. They steal confidential information, but they never reveal any of that information to anyone. They are the perfect keeper of stolen knowledge. Now the Mink does possess an unparalleled range of regional and national accents, as well as a fanny pack full of fake mustaches, eyeliner and press-on nails. Right in the fanny pack. The founders of Night Vale built this town upon secrets, with a Byzanthine system of powerful and opaque city leadership, and what are we as a town without those secrets? It would make sense, then, that the City Council and the Sheriff’s Secret Police would want to stop The Mink from learning our secrets. So if you see anyone that you do not know, do not approach them. Because they could be a dangerous spy. Simply carry on as normal, as you would, and treat them like you would any stranger. Which is to stand 20 feet away, point and shout: “INTERLOPEER!!!” And thus by behaving in this completely normal way, they will not think that they’ve been spotted. And then immediately go and call the Secret Police. Make sure that you have registered for a citizen’s protection account with plans starting as low as 25 dollars a month, otherwise the police will not assist. And then once you’ve registered your account, tell the police that you saw a person you do not know. In public! And that person, thus logically could be The Mink! And they’ll catch them and we can all move on to the next terrifying news story.

2. Sports news

But first, a look at sports. Last night witnesses reported seeing a padded man carrying an inflated lump of animal skin across an open, well lit field. They could not identify him, as his face and head were fully covered by a round plastic hat. Several other unidentified men were chasing this man, panting and sweating, and hundreds of witnesses on this side of the field all began shaking their fists in the air and chanting: “Crush! Him! Crush! Him! Crush! Him!” [audience chants] And then witnesses on this side of the field were shaking their fists and shaking “Vio-lence! Vio-lence!” [audience chants] And their screams reached a crescendo, and then they stopped and they watched as this man spiked the lump of animal flesh and began to inch along a pinkish trail of viscous ooze. And the very back rows began a soft chant of “What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?” and it made its way forward, row by row, until the whole auditorium was chanting: “What have you done? What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?” And the skin split open revealing a white skeletal face with two bulbous red eyes, and the face craned up on a long neck, and it hissed and it bared its fangs and snapped into the neck of the man who had spiked it tore off a long swab of fleshhhhhh. And a woman wearing all black and white stripes took this flesh and blew into it like a balloon, and handed it to another padded man, and the process started all over again. And everyone in the crowd shouted: “Mortality!” [audience shouts it] And this has been sports. Hmm.

3. A Word from our Sponsors

And now a word from our sponsors. For that, we go to our lovably malicious spokeshaze, Deb the sentient patch of haze!

Deb: Hiya Cecil. Hiya listening audience with your squishy human minds. So easy to manipulate! Cute, so cute. Today’s show has been brought to you by Folgers brand coffee. We at Folgers believe good coffee comes from good hammers.

Cecil: Oo, that’s so true! You know, a lot of people don’t realize that good coffee is 90 percent the quality of the hammer that you use to smash up the bean, and ten percent how much you’re willing to lie to yourself that a 20-dollar bag of coffee tastes different than a 10-dollar bag of coffee.

Deb: That’s why we at Folgers hammer our coffee extra smooth, using only American made sledgehammers. We follow the hammer traditions of the finest coffee houses. From Sicilian espresso shops where they use wooden mallets, to the great institutions of Vienna, where the ornate tile walls ring with the echoes of handcrafted silver (ball-pin) [0:01:13] wielded by tuxedo-wearing waiters.

Cecil: You know, on my vacation I went to an espresso shop in Italy, and the woman behind the counter, lovingly crushed each and every ben with just the tiniest wooden mallet. And then she lit a whole pack o matches, threw it into the cup, and that is called a macchiato.

Deb: Macchiato. I’m unconvinced Italy even exists. For instance, have I ever seen it? No, there you go.

Cecil: Uh.

Deb: Yeah.

Cecil: But Deb, let me tell you, the flavor profile of that macchiato, it was – oh, it just had hints of sulfur and splinters, it was so authentic!

Deb: Gross.

Cecil: Yeah, it was kind of gross.

Deb: Why buy your own beans and pound away them in your kitchen, when Folgers has already hammered them for you? Folgers coffee. You guys wanna go see a dead body?

Cecil: Thanks, Deb. Oh hey, have you been following this news story about The Mink?

Deb: Oh, a little. It doesn’t interest me much because I already know every secret in town.

Cecil: Wait, what?

Deb: Yeah, yeah.

Cecil: How?

Deb: Oh, how doesn’t sound important, no no no. what’s important, listeners, is that I know.  [pause, laughter] So please do buy the products that I’m advertising. I’d hate to have a teensy slip of the tongue next time I’m broadcasting to the whole town, Joanne. Hey Cecil, you wanna know Joanne’s secrets?

Cecil: I mean it seems a little private – yeah, I do. [pause, Deb whispers into Cecil’s ear]  [sultry voice] Joanne!! I am simultaneously disgusted and impressed.

Deb: And that’s just one of the secrets I know. Well, it has been great talking at you Cecil. Goodbye!

Cecil: Alright, thank you Deb! Whooo! Wow.

4. Who is the Mink?

The Secret Police are hot on the trail of the Mink. In the hall of public records, they found a set of footprints left by a size 9 Adidas, but those shoes do not match any of the hall clerks, as the hall of record employees only have hooves. The police also found a person wearing a cloak and carrying a dagger inside the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. But upon investigating, it just turned out to be Steve Carlsberg. He was holding a lobster splitter and he got his lobster bib twisted around backwards. Oh, Steve. The City Council has upgraded our alert system from orange level to red. “Um, it’s really more of a lovely amaranth?” The multi-voiced council cooed in unison. “Um, excuse me, if the Mink never reveals any of the secrets that they learn, then what is the harm in them knowing?” asked one intrepid reporter. A brave and experienced radio man, who is quite smart and very handsome. But the City Council just hissed back: “All knowledge is harmful!” So I can’t argue with that. Now the Mink has carried out heists of secrets all over the globe. West Berlin 1985, the Mink disguised themself as a security guard and learned every account number in Deutsche Bank. German police noticed a person in a security guard uniform quietly mumbling numbers to themself, and they did give chase but lost the culprit in the crowd when they donned one of those glasses with a fake nose and eyebrows.

Kuala Lumpur, 1998. The Mink disguised themself as one of the Petronas towers and learned the secrets of every person inside. Witnesses reported seeing one of the towers just leeeaning over ever so slightly, as if listening in on a conversation. But when the national police arrived, the tower leapt into the Klang River and witnesses said: “Ooh, look at that kinda long but otherwise completely normal looking boat!”

2011, the Mink staged a daring escape from a military base in Nulogorsk. After discovering the intruder, the Nulogorskian got very excited, because they had never before met anyone with only two eyes. The Mink did get away, however, by disguising themself as a pirogi. [long pause] Having been eaten, they escaped two days later through the city sewer system. Weren’t expecting that, were you? You know, I hope we apprehend the Mink soon. I really, man, need to talk to somebody who has other secrets, it’s a journalist’s dream interview. And I mean, everybody has secrets so, I mean we all have something that we probably wouldn’t want the Mink to share on the air, I mean I know I do. You know what, “I value privacy above all else,” I have just now written on my Facebook page, so you know it’s super important to me.

5. Lee Marvin

Cecil: Oh wait, listeners, OK, I’ve just been given a note saying we have a very special birthday today. Wow, OK, this is a real honor. Listeners, please welcome to the studio, on the day of their 30th birthday, legendary actor and Night Vale resident, Lee Marvin!

Lee: It is a pleasure to be here. I don’t think we have ever met, even though it seems like we have both lived in this town forever.

Cecil: It actually does feel like forever, doesn’t it?

Lee: As we all know, time doesn’t work correctly in Night Vale. For instance, it has been my 30th birthday continuously for many years, and yet I never grow any older.

Cecil: I know just what you mean, I mean I was 19 for a long time like, decades probably.

Lee: And that’s the problem with millennials, you know?

Cecil: Yeah.

Lee: Instead of buying houses or shouting at barns, or researching owls, or any other number of normal and productive activities, they just age.

Cecil: Ugh!

Lee: Normally one day after the next. Why, I think there is not a millennial in this world who even tried to remain 19 for a terrifying number of years.

Cecil: I know! It’s lazy. Now let’s talk about the Mink. Mr. Marvin, as a very famous movie actor, I felt that you might be able to offer some analysis on someone so adept at disguises and false personas.

Lee: Well, sure sure I mean after all, what is acting but lying to a room full of strangers?

Cecil: Mm. Literally nothing at all.

Lee: When lying to a group of strangers, there are definitely some basic techniques to watch out for. One is speaking aloud. Anyone speaking aloud could be lying. Why, almost anything could be said out loud without research or citation .for instance, I could say aloud that uh, mountains are real…

Cecil: Oh come on! [Cecil and Lee laugh]

Lee: And it doesn’t matter that this is a ridiculous statement perpetuated by the mountain enthusiasts. It is still something I could and di say out loud. Another technique to look out for is accents. It seems that this Mink is able to deploy at will any accent at all. I myself am an expert at dialect and accents.

Cecil: Ooh! Would you care to give us a demonstration?

Lee: Well sure sure. Uh, start with something, a basic accent. This is an accent for someone from the country of Svitz. You’ll noticed that the Svitzians sort of speak from the back of the throat, it’s uh something like this um, [very deep, monotonous voice] “Hello, yes, thank you. I would like some cake.” Like that. Cecil: Yeah, oh yeah.

Lee: And um, here’s another one um, this is an accent for someone from the nation of Franchia. The Franchians have an interesting thing where they an, uh, a diphthong on every single vowel. Here goes, um. Yaa-aa, soo-am ceek, thyat would bee a boath low-ly and filing. Something like that, yeah.

Cecil: Oh wow, yeah, yeah!

Lee: And here is the ccent of someone who lived until the age of ten in  Svitz, before immigrating to Franchia. And now, at the age of 50, is learning to speak English.

Cecil: Right, OK, OK.

Lee: [deep voice] Aah piece of cay-ek for me, you’re only too kind. Something like that.

Cecil: Oh that’s, that’s amazing!

Lee: Yeah. Uh, seriously though, do you have any cake, I’m starving?

Cecil: Oh. Oh actually no I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to hae cake at the radio station because it makes  Station Mangement very restless.

Lee: That’s fine, that’s fine. Well the final technique I wanted to talk about is, is disguise, I am to understand that the Mink is able to easily adopt the look of anyone they wish to. Here’s a couple of ways of disguising yourself. One is through, of course the use of masks, make up, prosthetics, it’s very difficult, technical, very Hollywood. Let’s talk about the other method though, which is simpler and just as effective.

Cecil: Oh, wait, what is that one?  

Lee: It’s OK so you simply… so you take your hand.

Cecil: uh huh.

Lee: And you put it in front of your face. And then you say aloud who you’re supposed to be disguised as.

Cecil: Ah

Lee: For instance, I’ll demonstrate. Hello, I am Tom Hanks!

Cecil: Oh my god, oh my god! Oh my god Mr Tom Hanks, I-I loved you in Turner and Hooch, and whatever else you did after that, I..

Lee: No see, it’s just me, Lee Marvin!

Cecil: Oh man!

Lee: But with my hand in front of my face… Life is very similar to a bag of chocolates!

Cecil: Oh my god it is similar to a bag of chocolates!

Lee: There’s no way to tell!

Cecil: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing, Mr. Marvin! Thank you so much, we appreciate having you on the show.

Lee: It was no problem at all, thank you for having me, Cecil. Um, we before I go, this is Judy Garland saying goodbye.

Cecil: Oh my god, oh my, oh my gosh, no wait, wait wait, Ms. Garland, Ms. Garland, just one song before you go, Miss Judy Garland!

Lee: [sings] Ring ring ring goes the (--)..

Cecil: Ah! Judy Garland, everyone!

6. Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner

Now it’s time for the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. It’s a very special anniversary today, kids. On this day in 1872, the moon was invented. Yeah. You see, scientists had been reading a lot of paperback horror novels about werewolves and thought, wait! If the moon were a thing, then werewolves might also be a thing! So they built a moon out of limestone and hired artist (Marie Kassaut) [0:00:30] to paint it with a giant smiling wolf doing an “okay” sign with its paw and winking. But there was a problem: when they launched it up into the sky, something happened with the catapult, and it landed with the unpainted side facing the Earth. And almost a hundred years later, NASA would claim to have landed on the moon, but twinkly dot scientists or, oh sorry that’s what I call astronomers, they just proved that to be false. And you know, NASA retracted their statement saying: “Oh we were just joshing” and the American people all had a good chuckle. And ever since Alexander Fleming invented the werewolf vaccine – also known as penicillin – the moon is mostly just an ineffectual artefact, like a reminder of our once terrible taste in celestial bodies. And that is why each and every night, we all shout: “I hate you, moon!” up into the sky, and even though we can’t see it, we all think of that wolf on the dark side, quietly winking, and shedding a tear. [weeping] And this has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. It’s true. Science.

7. The Community Calendar Let’s take a look at the community calendar, shall we? Let’s see here, Monday night there is a blood drive in the Ralphs parking lot. There’s gonna be a van parked in the far corner, like just beyond the trees, and if you go inside that van, some blood will be taken from you. “Oh yeah, (she’s) gonna come out of you one way or another, man!” said a rapidly talking man in a dirty T-shirt, who I am not sure is connected to the blood drive at all. “Oh yeah, we’re just gonna do amazing things with your blood, man! Don’t worry about what, [disturbing voice] we’re just gonna do really good things with your blood!” and then he finished up by saying the national blood drive slogan: “Bloooooooooooood!!!” So I guess just, get on into the blood van!

Tuesday was lost last night by Bernadette Flynn, as she was watching the newly released remake of last year’s Spiderman movie. She thinks maybe Tuesday fell behind the seat during the film or something. So if anybody sees Tuesday, please let Bernadette Flynn know, as it was an old family heirloom, and her favorite day of the week.

Wednesday night is 80’s night at Dark Owl Records. For more on that, let’s hear from Dark Owl owner, Michelle Nguyen!

Cecil: Hey, Michelle!

Michelle: Hello, Cecil! On 80’s night, we’ll be putting on leg warmers and fingerless gloves, listening to Duran Duran, and thinking hard about what our lives will be like when we are 80 years old.

Cecil: Ahhh, that sounds like fun!

Michelle: We will consider life insurance plans and talk about several types of diseases that will affect our later years. There will also be a moonwalking demonstration, just like that famous Michael Jackson dance where he walked around shouting: “I hate you moon!”

Cecil: Yeah, yeah. Did you know it’s actually the moon’s birthday today?

Michelle: Stupid rock!

Cecil: Garbage satellite! Anyway, so Michelle, to change the subject, the Mink could peek into our private lives at any moment. Is there something that you are personally worried that they would find?

Michelle: [long pause] No.

Cecil: Oh, come on Michelle, we all have secrets! Is there any music you listen to that you would be ashamed of people knowing about?

Michelle: Please. You’re the one that starts every day with a choreographed lip sync to Robyn’s 2010 B-side “Cry When You Get Older”, and then you cry for a while, because you have gotten older.

Cecil: [sourly] Yeah.

Michelle: Each day just a little bit more and sometimes that makes you happy and other times it makes you sad and either way you feel like crying. Probably.

Cecil: [mumbles] Oh, yeah.

Michelle: That’s probably what you do, certainly I wouldn’t! I wake up listening to Leonard Cohen’s new album: “Wait Where Am I, I Thought I Died and How Is This Even Being Recorded?”

Cecil: [impressed] Oh, yeah.

Michelle: I listen to that album in full and then nod thoughtfully, and drink three cups of black coffee.

Cecil: Mmm.

Michelle: [scoffs] I don’t even know who Robyn is and I would never scream sing along to “Dancing On My Own” whenever I miss my mother.

Cecil: [scoffs] Oh wait, your mother, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned her before.

Michelle: I learned everything about music from her. She once found me listening to The Smiths and said, [different accent] “Michelle! What are you doing! Morrissey turned out to be the worst person ever! I give you shelter over your head, three meal a day and access to a working time machine. And you don’t even use it to find out which celebrity turned out to be bad? It’s almost all celebrity, Michelle! Almost all celebrity turned out to be bad!” And she was right about that, Cecil. Can you name a good celebrity?

Cecil: Um, oh there’s Lee Marvin!

Michelle: That’s right, just Robyn.

Cecil: Just Robyn, yeah that’s it.

Michelle: I can’t think of anyone else either. Then my mother would say: “Michelle! I don’t wan the world to be the way that it is, but the world is that way. And people will judge. They will judge you for what you wear and what you listen to and what you say. They will judge you especially hard for so many unfair reason. So that music you listen to, that make you happy? Don’t let go of it. Never show that weakness to the world. In public, you listen to the music that tell them who you are, and you wear the clothes that show them wo you are. Always be one step ahead of them. And then at night, when it’s just you and  you’ve played their game and you’ve won, then you put on a record that makes you happy, and you let yourself sing!” Then one day, my mother took the time machine back to prehistoric times, to try to retrieve some of their music, which would have been the coolest and most obscure sons. But she never returned. I miss her, but I’ll never forget the last thing she told me. She said, “Michelle! I cannot emphasize enough how awful Morrissey turned out to be!”

Cecil: Awwww. Wow. Gosh Michelle, I’m so sorry about your mother, but thank you for sharing that extremely personal story on the air.

Michelle: Uh.. No what no? No, I don’t think I did. We were talking about 80’s night. Come to 80’s night! There will be a Cyndi Lauper lookalike competition, and the winner will take over Cyndi’s life, becoming the fifth person to play that role. See you there! Or not, whatever.

Cecil: Thank you, Michelle!

More on the community calendar. Thursday night is the adopt a pet fair at the Last Bank of Night Vale. There’s gonna all sorts of animals, and they will come home with you. You don’t even have to go to the fair. They already know where your home is. And they’re gonna be waiting for you. When you open your door that night, there’s gonna be panting and snarling and two little blinks of light, right inside your darkened doorway. So wow, that sounds like a really fun and socially important event!

And finally, Friday is Bring Your Issues to Work Day. So really dig deep there, people! Let ‘em loose! And this has been the community calendar.

8. Tamika Flynn

Cecil: So listeners, I’m joined in my studio right now by the most vigilant defender of Night Vale and of literature. Please welcome to the air 16-year-old Tamika Flynn!

Tamika: [giggles] Hi Cecil, hi!

Cecil: Hi Tamika! Now, you must be alarmed that there’s a dangerous spy on the loose.

Tamika: Of course! It’s not safe to have an interloper learning our secrets.

Cecil: But what could they learn that would hurt us?

Tamika: Oh, lots of stuff. What if they start uncovering all the plot twists of our favorite novels, like “Murder on the Orient Express”, Agatha Christie’s brilliant whodunit. What if they read ahead and learned at the murderer turns out to be-

Cecil: Wubububububuh! Spoilers! I mean, some of us haven’t read it yet!

Tamika: Oh I’m just teasing. That book doesn’t even have an ending. It’s the only murder Agatha could never solve.

Cecil: Hmm, hm.

Tamika: But learning secrets can be harmful, like one time, I was waiting in line at midnight for the release of the sixth Harry Potter book, and some jerk drove by and shouted: “Snape and Dumbledore are both featured prominently in the new novel!” [angry noise] Ruined.

Cecil: I’ve never read the sixth book!

Tamika: Oh.

Cecil: I’ve only read the third and the seventh. So now the whole experience is ruined!

Tamika: Well, if it makes you feel any better, I chased that fool down and I punched him until his bruises spelled out: “Don’t mess with a Hufflepuff!” But I do have a plan to catch this spy. I’ll disguise myself as the Mink. And then I’ll walk around town until I find someone that’s dressed exactly like me.

Cecil: Ah.

Tamika: [giggles] And then I’ll grab them and I’ll whisper that famous, oh um and then I’ll grab them and shout at them and say: “You wanna spoil the endings of books, pal? Why don’t you try Stephen King’s ‘It’, that whole ending is terrible!”

Cecil: Oh, come on, I liked the ending of “It”!

Tamika: Really?

Cecil: Yeah, you know when It just turns out to be the friends we made along the way. You and you and you… It’s nice. OK, anyway, Tamika. Now I have a question. How are you going to disguise yourself as the Mink, when nobody knows what the Mink actually looks like?

Tamika: Well I’ll j-, but I c-..

Cecil: I know.

Tamika: Oh.

Cecil: Yeah…

Tamika: Fine. Then, oh I’ll dress up as a manila folder with a “top secret” stamp on it!

Cecil: Oh yeah.

Tamika: And then when someone tries to take me, I’ll grab them and whisper that famous movie speech: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. I don’t have any money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.”

Cecil: Ah!

Tamika: “Skills that I’ve acquired through reading! Would you like a list of book recommendations? Here are a few I think you’d enjoy.”

Cecil: Ah, ha ha!

Tamika: Yes!

Cecil: Oh man, that is my favorite scene from “Say Anything”.

Tamika: Yeah! [giggles] When John Cusack holds that boombox above his head outside the terrorist headquarters, I mean [kiss]! [laughs]

Cecil: So good!

Tamika: Yes.

Cecil: Mm mm, now wait. The Mink is a real threat, and they are interested in learning far more than just book spoilers. I mean, you in particular might be in danger, Tamika.

Tamika: [giggles] Cecil, I’m 16 years old. I know everything there is to know about taking care of myself, OK?

Cecil: Oh yeah, OK, alright. Alright. But listen, if you catch the Mink, bring them here to the studio, because I need to have a moment…

Tamika: Wanna rough him up?

Cecil: Oh uuuuh, um..

Tamika: Yeeeah, like I’ll pin him down and then you take this copy of Hanya Yanagihara’s “Little Life” and just like, bam, bam, bam!

Cecil: Oh, oh.

Tamika: Bam!

Cecil: Oh!

Tamika: This book made me cry, now it’s making you cry, sucker!

Cecil: Uh.. Yeah sure, something like that.

Tamika: Yeah. [giggles]

Cecil: Um-

Tamika: Well, I think I’m off to get that Mink!

Cecil: All right, thank you Tamika! Be safe. Tamika Flynn, everyone!

9. Public Service Announcement

And now, a public service announcement. The Night Vale Youth Fitness Initiative recommends at least 60 minutes a day outdoors for children under the age of 18. Being outdoors encourages kids to be more active and social. Fitness Initiative spokesperson, (Jin Housong) said: “Kids spend too much time indoors, and that makes it very difficult for us to monitor their physical agility and speed! We are trying to find children to fight in the Blood Space War, and that is very difficult when all kids wanna do is spend all their time inside Snapchatting and playing Fortnite.” Some outdoor activities encouraged by the Youth Fitness Initiative include cycling, soccer, breath holding, sensory deprovation, G force resistance, and string theory. The staff of the Youth Fitness Initiative welcome any kid wanting to have fun outdoor time to come on down to the Intergalactic Military Base. They can’t tell you where it is, but they are more than happy to send a chaperone in a burlap sack, and a van. And this has been a public service announcement.

10. Telly the Barber

So listeners, several Night Vale residents have sent in reports of seeing strangers sneaking about town, possible sightings of the elusive Mink. And we have one such witness with us in the studio right now. Please welcome – Telly the barber.

Telly: Hi Cecil!

Cecil: [long pause] Have you cut any hair lately,  Telly?

Telly: Oh sure, I’m always-

Cecil: Have you cut any hair that didn’t need cutting, Telly?

Telly: I-I think we all saw the signs..

Cecil: Have you taken any innocent person, any handsome person and perfectly coiffed scientist person’s hair and then just destroyed it so completely that you had to leave town, Telly?

Telly: Not lately.

Cecil: Mm hm.

Telly: Did you wanna hear my story?

Cecil: No.

Telly: OK, I’ll just hum and cut my hair with this butterknife.

Cecil: Oh OK, alright alright alright alright, I’ve changed my mind, I do wanna hear your story.

Telly: OK. So ever since that one bad haircut and please tell Carlos I’m so sorry, see he asked me for a light trim on the sides, and I misheard it as “shave asterisk in my sideburns, then cut me some bangs.”

Cecil: Bangs? Ugh.

Telly: After that, I banished myself to the desert, rehoning my cutting skills on cacti and tarantulas. Did you know that tarantulas are venomous?

Cecil: Yeah, I- I actually knew that. Oh my god, your hand!

Telly: I learned the hard way. But, but it was a great experience, see I finally reopened my barber shop in Night Vale last year, over by the library. Some of the librarians come in from time to time, I-I have to chain their tentacles to the (--) [0:01:45] first, and then I use grooming sheers to trim the hair along their pincers, which is tough because of the foaming slime that gathers there. Did you know that librarian saliva is acidic?

Cecil: Yeah of course, everybody – oh my god, your other hand!

Telly: I’m earning so much

Cecil: Ugh.

Telly: Anyway, earlier this week, an interloper came to my shop. They were wearing a hockey mask and a turtleneck, they had long thick curly black hair and they whispered: ”I need a new look! Can you cut it short and blond?” so I did.

Cecil: That could have been the Mink!

Telly: Why don’t you just tell the story, Cecil?

Cecil: Well no I’m sorry, I’m sorry. No please, go ahead.

Telly: So the next day-

Cecil: Please tell us more about the lives that those scissors have ruined.

Telly: The next day, the same person returned and they were wearing a sleep mask, vampire teeth, and a drum major coat. An excellent disguise, but I know my own work and I recognize their haircut immediately. I said: “Hello, brand new customer whom I have never seen before! What can I do for you?”

And they whispered: “I need a new look. Can you cut it long and straight with a beard like that guy from Queer Eye?”

Cecil: Awww, I love Jonathan Van Ness! Oh hey, did you ever see that episode where they consult that stone obelisk on that uninhabited island?

Telly: Yeah yeah that's the one where Jonathan was like: “We’re gonna make those cliffs glow!”

Cecil: Yeaah!

Telly: And then he uttered an ancient prayer and was granted a bent scepter and control of the weather.

Cecil: And then they just spent the rest of the episode flying around the island, screaming in Latin and zapping Bobby with lightning.

Telly: That was a great episode!

Cecil: So good.

Telly: You know, the part about the cliffs was so empowering .

Cecil: Yeah!

Telly: Anyway, I performed a wild flurry of scissor snips around the stranger’s head, and voila, they have long straight hair and a beard. Every day this week they’ve come to me, they wanted a Pam Greer Afro, a Sid Vicious Mohawk. That famous Friends haircut, the Ross.

Cecil: You know what you should do? Next time they come in, ask them to get like a blow dry or a perm, and then while they’re waiting-

Telly: Uh, well… don’t be mad.

Cecil: Wait, what?

Telly: So they were today and I kinda messed up? I-I don’t think they’ll be back.

Cecil: Oh come on, Telly!

Telly: See they wanted a 90’s fade and I misheard, and I cut my own foot off. See?

Cecil: Oh my god! Telly, you didn’t even put a bandage on it!

Telly: I didn’t wanna be late to your show. Anyway, they looked really annoyed and left before they got any more blood on them.

Cecil: Ugh. Well you know the important thing is that you tried. I mean, you messed up in a really serious way that I did not even think was possible, but… you tried. And also, I’m sorry I yelled at you before.

Telly: Thanks, Cecil. You know, this might be the blood loss talking but that means so much to me.

Cecil: Sure. Hey listen, have you ever thought about a different career maybe?

Telly: Like knife sharpening or gun cleaning, or chainsaw repair?

Cecil: You know what, no no, just stick to the barbering, Telly. Thank you so much.

Telly: Sure thing.

Cecil: Telly the Barber, everyone! Just grind it into the carpet, no one will ever know.

12. Sightings of the Mink

We are getting reports of Mink sightings all over town. Archeology professor Joel Eisenberg saw a stranger outside of Mission Grove Park, and they were dressed all in black and they were holding copy of the Night Vale Daily Journal, just high enough to cover their face. Now, Joel Eisenberg saw this person, and pointed and shouted “Interloper”, and then being a friendly neighbor, went over and said “Hi, I’m Joel, do you like dinosaurs?” And the stranger said yes, but kept their face hidden.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur? Mine’s the ichthyosaur.”

And the stranger said, “Yeah, I guess so, sure.”

And Joel’s face reddened and his voice thickened like wet concrete.

“Ichthyosaurs aren’t dinosaurs! Mink!” [scoffs]

Imposter didn’t even know the difference between a marine lizard and a dinosaur. But they did know how to throw that newspaper in Joel’s face and run.

Jackie Fierro, owner of the local pawn shop, said her half mother Diane Crayton came to the store to ask if Jackie sold cars that fired rockets from behind their headlights and/or turn into boats, and/or had ejector seats. Now, Jackie thought this was a fairly odd request from a single mother with a fairly bland day job. “What do you need all that for, Diane?” asked Jackie.

“It’s for my son, Josh Josh, my son’s name is Josh.”

Now Jackie knew this was not the real Diane. She was nose to nose with the Mink. Jackie started to speak, but there was a quick puff of smoke and the would-be-Diane was gone, and in their place, there was a wad that looked like skin and hair. And Jackie picked it up, and it was a perfect replica of Diane’s face.

Later, at the old shipping port, Tamika Flynn trailed a suspect into a dilapidated warehouse along the waterfront, which has no water, because we live in a desert. Which is a huge reason why they had to shut down the shipping port. Anyway, it was dark inside the abandoned building save for streaks of dusty sunlight through the shaddered windows, and Tamika heard a creaking from a pile of boxes nearby, and she was frightened, unable to move. But wait, she thought. Why, I’m the predator, the Mink is the prey. And then she remembered those famous lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” “I’m here to kick butt and chew bubblegum. Why not both?”

So she threw some chicklets into her mouth and shouted: “You’re trapped, Mink!” and raced toward the sound and a figure emerged from behind a tower of boxes, and they pushed the crates down on Tamika, but she did this like, backflip-kick thing and knocked that interloper right out of the warehouse onto the deck. And as they approached, the Mink pulled out a remote control and a tiny helicopter descended from nowhere and a tiny ladder descended from the tiny helicopter, and the Mink grabbed onto it and flew away.

Man, I thought Tamika really had him that time. I really wanna take a moment to just interview this person, someone who has all these secrets, just for journalistic reasons of course.

It would make the interview of the century.

13. Sheriff Sam

But until that moment, the Sheriff’s Secret Police would like us to know that they have this Mink situation firmly in hand. And in order to show how under control it is, the Sheriff would like to speak to you themself. Listeners, Sheriff Sam!

Sam: Hello Sessil.

Cecil: Cecil.

Sam: Sessil.

Cecil: Cecil.

Sam: Do you know, I really feel like I’m saying it. Sessil.

Cecil: Yeah, it-it sounds good enough, alright.

Sam: Now before I start, I want to apologize to the people of Night Vale for what I’ve done. And let me finish. I disagree that the new seasons of “The Great British Bake Off” are better. And I’m very sad that Mary Berry is no longer there, you know I couldn’t get enough of her famous catch phrase: “I’m unable to feel anything at all. Unless I can see clear layers in a baked good.”

Cecil: Ah, such a good catch phrase!

Sam: And I don’t like that they replaced Mel and Sue with two polar bears, who toy with and eventually eat the last place finisher.

Cecil: Yeah, I think I think it will grow us on, right?

Sam: Yeah but all that being said, I really shouldn’t have done what I did last night. When I raised my voice and said: “Paul Hollywood needs a new wardrobe.” I mean, what’s with those blue jeans, right?  

Cecil: Yeah, yeah.

Sam: And then Paul started crying and wailed: “Why would you say that, powerful desert law enforcer?” And channel 4 immediately cancelled the series.

Cecil: I know, I-I didn’t get to see the technical challenge that episode.

Sam: No. And I-I know it was your favorite show and now it’s gone..

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: So I’m sorry. Television is a two-way street..

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: ..and I should have thought about that.

Cecil: That’s right, they can hear us. So I-I, listen, I accept your apology and besides, it’s actually kind of nice not to have the TV on and to get to spend more time with my husband. Yeah.

Sam: And you know I didn’t even mean what meant, what I said. I didn’t even mean what I meant. [chuckles] I didn’t even mean what I meant when I said that thing about Paul Hollywood. I should look at the script, it would be more useful.

Cecil: That’s…

Sam: [chuckles] I think Paul Hollywood does look good in jeans, I mean he’s stepfather hot.

Cecil: Oh wait, please. He’s more like divorced tax accountant dad hot. That’s, you know. Anyway, let’s change the subject. I wanted to speak to you today about the Mink. Now, they are a master of disguise and this has made it impossible for us to find them. Does the Sheriff’s Secret Police have a plan to determine who the Mink is?

Sam: Well, we’ve consulted with experts, and outside of fringe sciences like parapsychology, divination, genetics…

Cecil: Yeah, right.

Sam: Not really, no. But we do have a new law enforcement tool. It’s called the brainwave transposition ray. [long pause, apparently something visual is going on]

Cecil: OK you’re just doing like spirit fingers.

Sam: Not at all. This is the brainwave transposition ray. Sessil, simply put: you point it at a potential criminal, which is to say anybody at all. And it tells you exactly what they’re currently thinking.

Cecil: Whoa!

Sam: Here, I’ll show you how it works. Now there might be Night Vale citizens on the sidewalk outside the studio, I can try it on.

Cecil: OK.

Sam: Let me move over to the window and… weird.

Cecil: What?

Sam: There’s hundreds of people staring at us right now.

Cecil: I know, they’ve been here the whole time. It’s making me nervous, but you know, it’s fine.

Sam: Yeah, creepy.

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: Well, you see if I point the device right at this person, we should be able to hear their exact thoughts.

Cecil: Mm.

Voice: I like many kinds of animals, but I like sea lions best.

Cecil: Huh.

Sam: I mean doesn’t sound like the Mink…

Cecil: Ah no, no.

Sam: OK, let’s try someone else.

Voice: I forgot to wash the blood off the bath tub, my wife’s gonna kill me. Oh god.

Sam: No, the Mink wouldn’t be married.

Cecil: Yeah, yeah.

Sam: Let’s try…

Voice: Sure hope the Secret Police won’t arrest me for wearing a full disguise and a mask.

Cecil: Whoa! That’s the Mink!

Voice: Cause I’m not wearing a disguise or a mask. I’m just Chris (Brothon) from Night Vale with my usual face and limbs, and my greatest fear is false arrest.

Cecil: Oh. That was very specific.

Sam: Ahem. You know, having a fear of false arrest is highly illegal, so we’ll be by soon to collect you, Chris. Let’s try one more. Do you want to try doing it?

Cecil: Well I oh, I don’t know Sheriff, I mean it’s an amazing device but it does seem rather intrusive. Are you sure it’s safe?

Sam: Yes yes of course come on, try it on me. [loud music, glass shatters]

Cecil: Oh wow. That’s, that’s great. I-I had no idea that that’s what you’re thinking right now.

Sam: Yeah sure, why what do your thoughts sound like?

Cecil: I love my husband. I love my husband. I also agree that sea lions are so cute. So cute! Soo cute!!

Sam: None of that was illegal at all, how disappointing.

Cecil: Yeah I know, I’m sorry. Um, you know but I do hope that you end up arresting Chris later on.

Sam: Well that will cheer me up. Now Sessil, you do help me look on the bright side so thank you and do give me a shout if you find out anything about the Mink.

Cecil: Alright, I will. Thank you, Sheriff Sam!

13. Ascentia Ad

Cecil: And now another word from our sponsors.

[talks very fast] Today’s show is also brought to you by Ascentia. If you’ve ever felt anything at all, there’s Ascentia. Talk to your doctor about Ascentia. Your doctor is a spider, all black eyes and long legs, clinging effortlessly to the wall. Tell your doctor how afraid you are but don’t say anything out loud unless you are (-) [ 0:00:18] paralyzed by your choice of fight or flight. Do not fight your doctor, your doctor is good. They eat a lot of bugs, they’re super helpful. Your doctor is just as afraid of you as you are of them. Do not take Ascentia if you’ve ever seen a dog. Spiritual transcendence is uncommon, but if you find yourself no longer in a physical body, please stop taking Ascentia immediately and contact a medium with a medical training and a Ouija board. Ascentia might cause night (-). Ask your doctor about Canada. Do not take Aponto which is our competitor. Aponto users report high levels of centipedes inside their necks, crawling around right before bed and on first dates. Ascentia is a solar flare, a radioactive magnetic burst that should not be taken with alcohol. Do not breathe for 30 minutes after taking Ascentia.

You’re a person. That’s why there’s…

Ascentia.

14. Deb Returns

Cecil: And now I present to you a major milestone in radio history: the first ever audio only magic shooooow! Yes, yes, yes!

Now listen, I’ve been practicing these tricks perfectly and I have every single one of them down, even the one with the-the doves and the aerial dancers. So, for my first trick, I will take a flamethrower that I have hidden under the… [long pause] OK, listeners, that may have to wait. For some reason, Deb the sentient patch of haze has returned to my studio. What’s up Deb?

Deb: Hello, Cecil! How are you? Oh, doesn’t this place just look a treat? Oh, and all the doves! I love doves! Almost as much as I love horses.

Cecil: Deb, are you OK?

Deb: Cecil, thank you, I’m doing wonderful, how are you? Oh, and isn’t this just the cutest little studio! Is that a safe? Full of secrets? How adorable! I can’t, I won’t, I absolutely will not...

Cecil: You sound a little different or something.

Deb: Well do you know what would make this studio that much more perfect, Cecil? Beautiful crystalline horse figurines. Can’t you just picture them? Oh, all of the sparkly horses! Especially, tsk tsk tsk, on that safe. I bet that safe just has the cutest combination.

Cecil: Oh yeah, it’s super cute, but I don’t see what it has to-

Deb: As a kid, I remember watching the horses drop by my house. Can you believe it, I grew up near a horse farm? “Get inside!” my mother would yell. [shrill voice] “You know you’re allergic!” But how could allergies ever stand up to my love of horses? Say, I bet the inside of that safe is even that much more adorable..

Cecil: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!

Deb: Can I ju-

Cecil: Love? Deb isn’t capable of love! Oh my god, you’re the Mink!

Deb: Nooo! No!

Cecil: Yes, the Mink has disguised themself as Deb in order to infiltrate my studio!

Deb: That’s not true.

Cecil: Yeah, certain small tells in their behavior indicated that this is not the real Deb!

Deb: No I’m definitely Bed, I mean Deb, excuse me..

Cecil: No wait wait wait, before you go, I just need to have a moment…

15. The Chase

Cecil: Tamika, this is the Mink! [long pause, suspenseful music] And the Mink has just jumped into a 1987 yellow (-) [0:00:22] and raced off, and Tamika is leaping onto her motorcycle and speeding after, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police, who had our station under surveillance, are joining the chase. The Mink has now turned the wrong way down a one way street and is weaving through oncoming traffic, and Tamika is racing up a loading ramp, jumping her bike from rooftop to rooftop, from rooftop to bus stop, and from bus stop to the street. She’s finally hit the ground and she’s only a few feet away from the Mink’s car and they’re swerving back and forth trying to get her to veer off. Watch out, Tamika!

Breaking news: I have just learned that the Mink and their ever increasing search for secrets has started to delve into forbidden and dangerous knowledge. Six security guards at the top secret facility on Oak Street have gone missing, and the entire place was ransacked. This is all according to a spokesperson from the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, who looked a lot like my neighbor Madeline, and lives in Madeline’s house but had a sign that says “I’m not Madeline”, so I have no idea where I’m getting any of this information.

Anyway, that spokesperson said that among the classified secrets taken were the truth about who killed JFK, Amelia Earhart’s continued whereabouts, several nuclear codes and what, what, what? That Night Vale resident and actor Lee Marvin died decades ago? But that’s impossible! Like, he’s alive and well, and today is his 30th birthday.

Update on the chase. Tamika has now trapped the Mink’s car at the top of a towering cliff, and the Mink is fleeing on foot, and overhead helicopters of every kind circle, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police secret police cars roar by on a nearby road, and dark clouds are gathering, and there is lightning and thunder and listen, I know it does rain sometimes in the desert but it was, like, sunny 15 seconds ago but this is a really compelling picture that I’m painting for all of you. And the wind is whipping back Tamika’s hair as she sprints after the Mink, who is rearranging their disguise even as they flee, but finally they hit a dead end. It’s a sheer drop on both sides. “There’s no way left to go, Mink!” Tamika shouts into the gusts of wind, and the Mink smiles at her ever so sadly and then – steps backward off the cliff. Now Tamika, not willing to let her (quarry) go so easily – jumps after. Let me get some information on this, this has all gone terribly wrong. But in the meantime,

Let’s check in

On the weather.

16. The Weather

[“Company Man” by Dane Terry, https://daneterry.bandcamp.com/]

17. Where is the Mink

Listeners, I do hope you found that weather report was edifying. I’ve been trying to get any word that I can on Tamika or the Mink, but they both have vanished. The helicopters lost track of them as they fell through the long curtain of rain, and so no one can say what happened next but – that fall was quite long.

This is all my fault. I knew it was dangerous, but I was blind to the dangers that I was asking Tamika to perform, because I wanted to speak with the Mink so badly. And now I fear – we have lost her.

I have never wanted to say these words but.. to the family of Tamika Flynn, I will never forget myself for what I have done, I will never be able to-

Tamika: No, I’m alive! I’m not dead!

Cecil: Tamika, oh Tamika!

Tamika: Hi hi hey hey hey, hey hey hey, I’m down here, no worries.

Cecil: What happened?!

Tamika: Oh, I-I caught the Mink.

Cecil: What?

Tamika: Yeah! They’re right hear.

Cecil: [gasps] [long pause]

Tamika: Yeah, I-I found them.

Cecil: That’s amazing, I’m so impressed!

Tamika: [chuckles] Bam, one Mink caught, I am very good at this.

Cecil: Yeah! No wait, are you positive that’s the Mink though?

Tamika: Yes. Well, I got some intel on their latest disguise, and they’re wearing sunglasses.

Cecil: Uh huh.

Tamika: You can put them over (--)  [0:01:33]. They’re wearing a hat.

Cecil: OK, yeah.

Tamika: It’s clean.

Cecil: Yeah, yeah, clean hat. Clean hat Mink, that’s what they call him.

Tamika: And they’re wearing a name tag that says: “Hello, I’m the Mink!”

Cecil: Aaaa, yes, that is some brilliant deduction!

Tamika: I am very smart.

Cecil: Yeah, well done but Tamika, bring them into my studio for just one second before the Secret Police get here, OK?

Tamika: Alright, we’re on our way!

Cecil: Alright, thank you Tamika! Oh, that’s such a relief! Whoa. (But!)  You know, it just goes to show that reckless decision making and snap decisions always pay off. And I’m so glad that I turned out to be 100 percent right about this whole situation. Versus how 100 percent wrong about this whole situation I was just a few months ago.

But you know, listen, I’ve gotta confess something to you all, and I hate to do this because I hold myself to high standards both morally and journalistically, but – I lied to you just a tiny little bit on my show, because I didn’t know who was listening. But now I will make it up to you by telling you all the truth. Not all the truth, I’m gonna withhold just a little piece of information, but I’m letting you know upfront that there’s one thing that I cannot tell you.

Listen, I was never seeking the Mink for professional reasons, not because it would make the interview of the century or because I wanted to get them to spill all their secrets on the air, no. I wanted to talk to them because they never spill their secrets, because listeners, I have this secret that I have been holding for two years, and I have to tell someone! And here comes this opportunity to talk to his person that never spills any of their secrets. They’re the perfect keeper of forbidden knowledge. And now, here they are.

Thank you so much, Tamika. Now Mink, I gotta tell you something, you know and I’ve only, I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody. Wait, hold on a sec-

18. Secret Interdlue

[music, audience reacts, no audible dialogue]

19. The Escape

Cecil: Oh no, they’re getting away! Aaaaah. Oh man, uh! Ahhhh. [strained noises] We’ll never catch them now. The Mink has escaped. Now, we as a society, we fear secrets. You know, maybe as a species, if we don’t fear them we look down upon them like secret lies or dirty little secrets, and if someone is not willing to say something out loud, then it must be shameful or evil or somehow incorrect but a secret, it’s not good or bad, it’s just not known and the universe is filled with secrets, like consider a field flush with flowers that humans have not seen in generations. If we don’t know about it, is it a secret or or, or a star in the middle of the galaxy that our telescopes do not reach. We will never know about this star, but it glitters secretly in the heart of the universe or, or something more down to earth and mundane like a, like a person who has never tasted a turnip. Doesn’t know what a turnip tastes like and just refuses to ask anybody or eat a turnip. Is that a secret? I don’t know. What is unknown and what is merely unsaid?

Officials from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, the City Council, and the Vague yet Menacing Government Agency all say that they have plans to catch the Mink and those plans are top secret. And since they’re top secret, the Mink has already learned about them, so they are highly unlikely to work. But you know what? Good luck.

Soon I imagine we will all return to a baseline normal as a town, a little less darkness, a lot less secrets but we’re still us, we’re still Night Vale. You know, there’s an energy in secrets. Who we share them with, who we don’t. And not everybody has a right to know everything about everyone, and our curiosity, it’s not a license. And we don’t have to share every part of ourselves with everyone, there’s no shame in privacy. There is, however, an energy in secrets, there’s a-a fission that happens when you share a secret with somebody. And that secret could be an aspect of love, platonic love or romantic love or the love you owe to yourself, love of every kind. And the biggest secret of all is the universe, one that we will never get to unravel.

I mean, I had a secret, and I needed the Mink to help me carry it. And I know that they’re not going to bow to peer pressure and tell aanybody what I just told them. No matter how many drinks people buy at the bar afterwards and say “Hey, what did he just say to you?” No, they’re gonna keep that secret. You know, secrets can be light. Share them with somebody, don’t share them with somebody, hold them for yourself. I mean I’m not ashamed of my secret, certainly not. Certainly not.

See? There’s an energy in secrets. Especially in secrets that all of you will never get to know.

There is an energy in secrets, and I hope that that energy lifts you.

So stay tuned next for the quiet roar of your secret thoughts, some of which you may some day share.

And for the secret heart of my secret self,

Good night, Night Vale,

Good night.