#doing a WaR reread if u can't tell

[deathxfawn]

i love how Elain started healing and making friends a couple days after:

a) Azriel listened to her and discovered her seer power

b) L/ucien yeeted off to a different continent to find another woman

[ameliawarnerr]

POV: MC is drunk at Aurora and she texts Jake. 

One-shot (but with two parts. Two-shot? Maybe I'm drunk)

Part-1

Background story: When Jake could finally get free of the dark-web world, it was too late. MC told him that she'd moved on and it was best for both of them. But she confuses Jake again, texting him after she gets wasted. And Jake is confused and not at all happy about her recklessness. 

—Jake—

I stare at the screen, eyebrows creased in confusion. My mind is debating if her phone got hacked or it's with the likes of Dan. But then I reread the message, using more of my intellect and pausing the emotions at war. 

MC: IM AT AURORAA AND IF U DONT COMW AND GET ME I WILL SLEEP WITJ THE 1ST GUY I SEE! 

MC: bringg moneyyy some bitcj stole mine

No, it's definitely her. There's no debate about that. I barely pay any attention to the second message. My mind is still stuck on the first one. It's really unsettling. Despite how I've been upset with her, hardly seen or talked to her the past few weeks, still I want to get there as fast as I can. I cannot bear the image of the otherwise scenario. 

My emotions resume the war. I've never understood her entirely before but this is simply beyond my understanding. She went into heavy details explaining to me how she has gotten over me while I was away and how my barging into her life again isn't good for either of us. While I was on the run, making a new identity for myself, cutting ties with anyone who could pull me back into that long stretch of ruin I've been living in, I considered many outcomes. This is one of the more unlikely ones. Or maybe I didn't want to think about it so I didn't consider it fairly. 

She was already having a hard time telling me all the reasons I didn't want to hear, so I left. Ever since then, I've stayed at Lilly's place and it's a relief that her friends usually hang out at Cleo’s or Jessica’s. I haven't seen her or talked to her since then but I couldn't help asking Lilly how MC was doing every once in a while. Lilly would always tell me that MC felt like a different person and that I should talk to her. I refused. I simply couldn't bring myself to. 

I can't understand if she doesn't want me anymore then why am I the one she's texting when she's wasted at a bar. I guess I’d have to wait until she's sober. I feel a ting of hope and my mind calling me an idiot. 

I stop my car in front of Aurora’s front door. Usually, people are entering and exiting at every hour but as the street gets darkened, no one is seen around. Of course, it's 2 am. Why would anyone be here at 2 am when only a month ago a girl was abducted and another was found dead? And obviously, that anyone has to be MC. 

Sometimes her recklessness throws me over to the edge. 

I rush inside. All lights are shut down, only two of them shine at the counter. One male waiter cleans up the leftovers on the tables while another walks to the kitchen, loosening the knot on his apron. At the counter, MC is seated on one of the high stools, her head resting on the counter while her hands move above her head as she's explaining or complaining about something to…well, to the bar owner. Phil Hawkins. 

He's bent over to the counter, his arms set on the counter as he's nodding while grinning. His eyes fly to me as I near them. I notice that her phone is left unlocked on the counter with our chat opened so Phil isn't surprised to see me here. I have only met him once and let's say that didn't change my dislike for him. 

“We’ve only met once. And it feels like I've known you for years.” He says, straightening. 

I raise my eyebrow at him. “I don't return the sentiment.” 

Then as I stride to the counter, beside MC, I understand what he meant. 

MC is wasted, talking about me while being totally oblivious of my presence. “And I told him, Phil. I told him. You know what I said?” Her hands are moving vaguely, her voice is uneven, getting high randomly. It's sort of cute. “I said,” Her voice becomes a bit stable as she tries to deepen it. “I will know your identity soon.” 

I can't believe she's with a… decent looking guy, somewhat and she's still talking about me. I don't know how to feel about that. But I guess this just reminds me of what we could've had, could've been.

“And you know what he told me then? I remember it as clear as the day as we speak.” She moves her hand hysterically. I bite back a laugh and I look at Phil doing the same. 

Then, he says, “What? What did he say to you?” 

I would not be a part of this if I didn't want to hear her complaining about me. It's surprisingly funny and adorable. I don't use words like ‘adorable’ to describe anything else. I think I can't anymore– she's set the bar too high. 

She clears her throat, raising her head slightly, pointing a finger straight at the wall. “You can't. I am the hacker everyone's after. I'm unbeatable.” She pretends to be me, making her voice rough and deep but fails adorably. I couldn't help it anymore– I broke into a grin.

I decided to intervene. “I certainly didn't say anything of that sort.” 

Her pointed finger freezes at my voice. She slowly turns her head towards me as I try not to smile. But as soon as my eyes meet her, there's an effortless smile on my mouth before I can even begin controlling it. She stares at me for a moment. Her hair is a little messy, eyes squinting at me. Then she brings her hands to her mouth. “Oh my god, Phil, I summoned him.” 

I take a step forward. “Yes, you did.” I take another step forward, sliding into the stool next to her as I sweep her phone from the counter. I hold it up for her to see. “By texting me. With an awful amount of typos.” 

She snatches her phone from my head. “That wasn't me. It might be the owner of the bar– Phil.” She blames as if she doesn't see him standing two feet away from the counter. “But anyways.” She puts her phone on the counter. “You look too hot to be sent back now.” She places a hand on my chest. 

Phil coughs. “Alright. That's my cue to leave.” 

MC’s gaze follows his figure as he leaves. Then, she leans towards me and whispers, “You know, although it was true but I just said that so he'd leave.” 

I lean forward and whisper back, “Excellent plan. Next time, include me as well.” 

She nods several times. “For sure.” 

“Are you ready to leave?” I ask her. 

“Did you bring the money?” She questions. 

“Depends. How much do you need?” I place my elbow on the counter, supporting my head as I look at her panicking. 

“Well, w-well. It's about 300$.” She scratches her neck. And this time I am the one panicking. Not because of the money, of course, but because— 

“You drank 300$ worth of alcohol?” 

She blinks. “No. I broke three bottles. Phil told me he'd go easy on me so I have to pay for just two of them.” She shows two fingers, smiling. 

I try to look stoic. I look at her finger with the same grim expression and she lowers them awkwardly. I straighten, removing my elbow from the counter. I clear my throat, lowering my head, trying not to show her my smile.

I return my gaze to her. She asks, hopefully, “So do you have 300$?” 

I do. But I put my lips into a thin line, shaking my head as she frowns. “I don't have the money. But you know what? I have nothing to worry about since you're one who needs to pay.” I return my elbow on the counter. “All I'm saying is that it's not my problem.” 

Her mouth slightly opens and closes. She looks around, fidgeting a little. Then, she looks back at me. “So, you are going to leave?” Her voice is small and I almost give in. 

I shrug. “I can leave and come back with the money.” I offer and notice the immediate refusal on her face. “Do you want me to come back with the money?” 

She looks down, at her hands. “Don’t do that.” 

It takes me a moment to recover from the vulnerability in her voice. I realise as cute as she looks right now, but I still don't want her to be in his state when someone trusted isn't around her, someone who can protect her. That's when I promise to lecture her about this once she's sober. I don't care if we haven't spoken for weeks or where we stand right now. 

But right now, I'm calm, knowing she texted me and that I am here with her. 

“Why?” I ask. “Weren’t you planning to sleep with the first guy you see here? Once I'm gone, you could do that.” I do my best not to process my own words. 

She's still looking at her hands. “No, I only said that so that you'll come and get me. But it's fine if you don't want to pay for me. You can leave—” 

The last word stretches as I pull her stool closer to mine. Her legs stumble together between mine. Her head turns upwards as her eyes dart to different parts of my face. 

“You think I'm going to leave you here? I am here to get you and I would've come even if you hadn't sent me that threat of a message. Even if you had sent me a made-up word or merely just one letter or just my name, I would've come for you.” I affirm here, speaking very softly but ensuring my words hold the right heaviness for her to believe. 

“Even if you didn't know where I was?” She asks. 

“Even if I didn't know where you were. I'd find you.” I answer. 

“Even if I make you pay a huge debt and ignore you the next day?” 

“I’d be hurt if you ignored me. I don't care about the money.” 

“Even if I hurt you?” 

I hesitate. “Doesn’t matter. I'll get over it.” 

“And even if I make terrible jokes?” 

“Especially when you make jokes. Terrible or not.” 

She eases into a smile. I raise both my hands, fixing her hair with a smile. At last, I rested them on her shoulder. “Let’s go?” 

She nods. I nod back. “Just so you know, I’m not saying anything right now because you're too drunk to remember but once you get sober, I'm giving you a lecture about this stupid thing you did.” I can't help but to think what if I didn't see the message, or she couldn't find her phone. I don't particularly like Phil after tonight but what if he wasn't here or she had gone to some other place. 

“Good luck to her.” She says. And I laugh out loud, grabbing her phone and shoving it in my pocket. I put the money on the counter and turn to her. “Are you cold?” I ask her as I stand. 

“Cold? No. I'm extremely hot and a warm person. You were cold when we first talked.” She points a finger at me, accusingly as she tries to stand. 

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. If it makes you feel any better, I don't know who that person was anymore.” I put a hand around her waist as she leans into me. We walk towards the exit. 

“Really?” She asks, looking at me. 

“Really. He was so reserved and guarded.” I say, matching her accusing tone. 

“I know, right? He would ask me about all my findings on the case and wouldn't tell me anything he'd do all day.” She threw her hand, expressing her annoyance. 

I grin. “Really? He did that to you? That's so unfair. If I were you, I would never work with him.” We reach the door. I hold her with one hand as I opened the door. 

“Well, I wouldn't do that.” She says, unsure. 

“Why not?” I ask as we walk towards my car. It's been a long time since I've talked to her. I can't stop myself. I don't want to waste any second being silent. Turns out, I really don't know who I was before I met her. 

“Well, he would say ‘good job, MC’. I liked that.” She says, mimicking me. 

We reach the door to the passengers' seat. I hold it open for her as she stumbles onto the seat. She wriggles a little until she's comfortable. “Finally.” She eases back into the seat. Then, she looks at me. “I knew texting you was the right thing to do.” 

“Good job, MC.” 

She stares, processes, then she blushes. I close the door, smiling in an idiotic manner. When I enter the car, she removes her shoes. She sits comfortably putting her leg on the seat, looking at me, expectantly. 

“You want something from me?” 

“Say that again.” 

—To be continued—

Part 2

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

hiii

im not sure this is the right place to ask, but i have no idea where else to look. sometime ago i read a story made here on tumblr as a response to a prompt/concept/idea. id like to reread it as i really enjoyed it but i cant for the life of me find it again. its been a while so the details are blurry but what i remember is that the hero, who was the reader, 2nd person pov, was summoned to a fantasy magic world as a champion to fight a war. hero was fighting in a sort of trio with the princess of the kingdom and her knight. they deliberately didnt tell hero they cant return home but hero found out. these people, while considered the good guys, werent exactly good. i think there was a socioeconomic abuse problem in regards to the monarchy the princess was part of. regardless, the bit of the story that was posted showed the moment the hero decided to join the villain, who i think was an evil wizard guy. the dialogue was very good as the villain also didnt entirely fit with his role of antagonist and had freed the people previously enslaved by the monarchy. lots of grey area ethics. very engaging. the villain does a big reveal like ooh they are lying to u and using u, they cant send u back home!! and hero is like yeah, i know, im tired, what do u have to offer?

anyways it was really a lot better than what i managed to summarize and id really really love to find it again. if anyone knows of it, please tell me where i can find it. thank u!!!!

oof I am so sorry I can't remember this one specifically. if anyone else does, or if you're the writer themselves? please help this person

all the best!

- L

[fatuismooches]

Hello smooches, its 🥝 anon. I'm sorry for not popping up on ur inbox for a very long time again (health issues, again.) i hope that you are doing well! I see so many Dotty's rambling when i scroll down a bit and honestly i can't wait to read all of it 🙏🛐 (and also hoping to see just a bit of Capitano content from u-)

So.. Remember when i said last time that i have a brainrot about Capitano's Childhood Crush with fragile!reader? In ur Capitano Childhood Crush fic, reader always sends a lot of letters to him but he never recieved them, right? (It was disheartening, just like what u said on the fic..) And, Well..

Imagine that all of the letters are about reader telling him about their conditions, their illness getting worse and worse, until the last one about reader wanting to see him again for last time..

When Capitano wanted to see them again, he sends some of his Fatui agents to search for reader whereabouts (since it would be too dangerous for reader's safety if he is the one who come to them, also he never see them among the crowds for a very long time whenever he and his troops came back, reader always come to see him..).

Now, imagine his reaction when his agents told him that reader is already dead a long time ago or when he finally found all of reader's letters 😔

I'm trying to make my ask not too long, æügh 😩😭 i'm sorry if its messy- 😭 anyways, sending virtual hugs for u smooches for still feeding us Harbinger content for more than a year now 🤗💞🛐 as always, bless u and ur big brain writings

-a rotten 🥝 anon

(Also recently, i saw an "early" story leak about the next region on twt that we will have Dottore boss fight in Natlan instead of Capitano. Idk if its true or not, but if its true.. then, i guess you guys Dottore lovers better prepare for him now 👀 i want to see some C6R5 Dotty mains here)

HI 🥝 ANON!! I MISSED YOU! And don't worry about popping in! I want you to take care of yourself first above all! I hope you enjoy the plentiful Dottore brainrots though :3 (and i promise to post some Capitano brainrots. Just for you.) BUT AHHH THIS BRAINROT... WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SAD. (Yes, I remember when I put that in my fic! I can't believe it was so long ago though- you made me go back and reread it 😭)

Imagine if you live in a secluded part of Snezhnaya. It's quiet and pretty with only the servants in the house to keep you company. Capitano let you stay here instead of the mansion because staying in that big house without him would probably make you sadder. Though you are already sad without him, it's a bit better. But you spend a lot of time writing him letters. It was a habit of yours, telling him what you've done all this time even though he's not here. Some letters get sent, some don't. But you always put the happier stuff in the letters that get sent to him. He's out doing a lot of hard work, you don't want to bother him with your illness! Though anyone could see the lingering sadness in your letters. However, the battlefield is a tough place and the long distance doesn't help your case. Things are bound to get lost and go missing. So you're left waiting, and waiting, and waiting for your husband's replies that never come... Eventually, you stop sending them, instead keeping them in a box.

Although Capitano is busy with his mission, he wonders why you haven't reached out to him. Amidst the war and battle, he does look forward to your sweet letters, perhaps your handwriting may not be the best, but he loves to see how his darling is doing. He of course focuses on his duties, but he always thinks of you. So it wouldn't hurt to send an agent to report on you, since clearly communication isn't the best right now. When the soldier arrives and hears of your demise, he isn't sure how to break the news to his Harbinger. All he can do is hope that the letter makes it to him after the battle is over, so morale isn't too down. And it does. The Fatui win this battle, and the letter comes just in time. Ah, finally he can see how you're doing, Capitano thinks. But when he reads the first sentence, he's... well, I can't explain his emotions very well. Empty would be a good word. Why? Why didn't he know? Couldn't something have been done? You were find before he left, how did your condition worsen that quickly?

He won't know, because he won't ever hear your voice again.

AND YEAHHH i saw that leak too but. To be honest i don't really believe it, a bunch of story leaks have turned out to be trolls so tbh i don't really pay attention to them anymore, especially when they're so far into the future 😅 But my c6r1 Arlie savings are going strong right now! (400 wishes >:)

[whenthewallfell]

hey I’m obsessed with your hunger games posts (both the art and the written analysis)

i just reread the series for the first time since I was a teenager and i forgot how hard they slap. I love ur posts about gale (he’s just a mess bitch) (and by bitch i mean character) (but also I mean bitch)

I was wondering if u have any thoughts on finnick (or if u have any fanart of) he’s always been the character I relate to and find the most complex and interesting. i so desperately want to know ur take on the tragedy that is finnick odair. I’m also tempted to send u my own analysis on him but idk if it would be at all appreciated

So there's this kid, right. He's only 14, and already people can tell he's gonna be a looker. Rather than wait for him to get older and have more of a fighting chance, they send him into the annual death match then and there (side note, this is a weird choice for a career district, right? We can all agree that. It's weird.) He wins because he 1. knows he's hot and 2. knows how to use that.

He's smart, resourceful, and understands the value of sex appeal. At 14.

Two years on and he finds out that he's a little too good at the charming Victor act. He's forced into prostitution, not to save himself but the people he loves. (THG is all about self sacrifice, about what we do for others at risk of ourselves. It's the aspect of humanity that Snow exploits throughout the series.)

But he's a survivor. He takes a shitty situation and makes the best of it, building a business around pillow talk and turning himself into the most valuable commodity rumours can buy. He successfully mentors a Victor and falls in love with her knowing full well it puts him AND her in even more danger (sorry to keep harping on about this, but oh look how love is once again its own form of rebellion, gosh it's like it's a running theme or something)

And then he joins THE rebellion, knowing that it will put them all at risk but also realising that if not now, then never. He marries the love of his life, becomes the big brother to K+P (his relationship with them is so sweet I can't even), sheds the Capitol persona that's kept him alive for a decade, begins to heal from all the trauma...

...and dies. No fanfare, no heroic last stand. He dies fleeing for his life, torn apart by monsters, just one more death in a sequence already filled with casualties. Blink and you'll miss it. It almost feels meaningless, and unfortunately that's the point – people die whether we want them to or not. It's devastating, but then so is war.

Finnick is a man built on contradictions. He acts like a playboy but is devoted to one person. He seems arrogant and self absorbed but will do anything to protect those he cares about. He's a main character but he dies like an extra.

And I'm still not over it.

(op thank you I'm amazed anyone's interested in my ramblings, and also absolutely send me your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!)

[duskandstarlight]

Embers & Light (Chapter 54)

A very long wait for this next chapter, but it's here! And it's long! Big love to @noirshadow who listened to me moan about depression ruining my ability to write, how I might have to stop writing this fic, how I can't write Nessian anymore. BUT here we are and @noirshadow not only didn't kill me for my whining, but she also beta'd this fic for me so I could bring you a chapter before the new year :)

If anyone is still reading this fic, thank you for your patience! And drop in and say hello below so I know I'm not posting to tumbleweed, haha.

And for anybody who celebrates this time of year, I hope it's been a merry one <3

PS If, like me, you haven't read this fic recently, I'd recommend rereading chapter 53 as a refresher - I had to do it, too *face palm*

Chapter 54 Cassian

“And the Seer of the Sage was certain of Kallon’s intention?” 

Beside him, Nesta didn’t bristle at Rhys’ line of questioning, she merely raised her chin, commanding the space. If Cassian wasn’t so tense he would have been brimming with pride, but instead he remained seated on the U-shaped couch back in Windhaven and tucked in his wings a little tighter.

From where she stood behind him, Nesta’s hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder. The gesture was like a language in itself, albeit a voiceless one. 

Cassian tried to relax, to loosen his shoulders and let out a slow, measured breath. 

It didn’t help.

It had been like this since he and Nesta had planned their next steps in the forest. With the threat of the Blood Rite looming over them, there was no dispute that it was imperative that they move quickly. The information Nesta had learnt beneath the Lake needed to be shared. Their family and friends needed to know about Kallon and Cassian—about Cassian’s mother—so they could stop the death of more females and the bonding of a Enalius’ sword to someone truly terrible.

And whilst common sense and years of formulating strategy told Cassian that the truth needed out, his whole chest ached at the thought of parting with information that felt sacred to him.

When Nesta had unfolded Cassian’s history before him, an uncomfortable mixture or emotions had coursed through Cassian: adrenaline and wonder - and an intense sadness that had both brought him to tears and made him angry at his mother’s fate. He longed for the time to truly process it all, for it all to truly sink in. And whilst Cassian was no fool—whilst the general inside of him couldn’t help but barrage him with the hard facts—it felt as if the choice was being ripped from him

Despite Cassian’s best efforts, the Rebellion was strengthening day-by-day amongst the savager clans. And just last week, Azriel’s spies had reported that Kallon’s Killing Power in the sparring ring continued to grow.

That in itself was of great concern. If the Prince managed to bond the sword to him at the top of Ramiel, there was no telling what power Kallon could wield against the Night Court. With the supposed support of Enalius behind him combined with the swelling anger of his Illyrian supporters, Kallon might finally be able to take that mighty, arrogant step forward and invoke a civil war. 

So, even though there was so much swilling around inside of Cassian’s head and inside of his gut, Cassian had done what any general would do. He’d opened his mind, reached out into the ether for his brother and called for an informal council back in Windhaven. And then, despite the elusive and ever-moving tangle of emotions, Cassian winnowed himself, Nesta and Sala back to the camp he’d grown up in.

They’d landed clumsily, stumbling and righting themselves atop the main dirt path that ran through the camp.

Illyrians whisked past them, giving them a wide birth when they realised exactly who they intended to mow over. It took Cassian a few seconds for his instincts to reestablish themselves, and then he was tugging Nesta off of the road and out of harm’s way.

Windhaven looked as it always did, both beautiful and harsh. The usual clash of steel rang around them, partnered with the clang of cast iron pots over campfires and the beating of wings. On both sides, past the war tents and the scarce wooden houses, were the walls of the craggy mountains. They staggered upwards, past the needles of the pine trees until they met the sky. 

To their right, against the rare clear blue, the tombstone rock that marked the old widows camp was a harsh foreboding of grey.

Cassian wondered how the weather dared to be so cheerful when he felt like the world had been ripped out from beneath his feet. 

“I’m not used to winnowing,” Cassian apologised, his words hoarse against the dryness in his throat. His head felt light-headed, as if he’d left some of the weight of it behind.

Nesta didn’t lift her eyes to him. Instead, she straightened, the column of her spine climbing, her shoulder rounding back until she was set in her usual formidable posture. Then, she tracked her gaze around the camp, cataloguing every movement despite the bright sunshine threatening to blind her vision.  

“We’re here,” Nesta replied simply. Her voice also sounded diaphanous, but whilst Cassian felt as if a part of him was still in the forest, he knew that Nesta was caught somewhere in the future. 

It had been that way since she’d arrived back from the Lake. There was a determination that had set inside of her, a clear direction in which she was resolutely headed.

But whilst Cassian could sense the drive inside of her, outwardly Nesta merely lifted a hand to create a makeshift canopy across her brow, blocking out the sunlight. “Go on ahead, Sala,” she commanded. “Let Mas know we’re coming.”

The manticore didn’t need telling twice. Sala vaulted into movement, the fire from her tail blazing silver, a disappearing beacon that Nesta and Cassian didn’t hesitate to track. 

They set a punishing pace. Clouds of steam billowed in front of them. The morning frost had long since thawed from the hardened earth and mud slicked and squelched at their boots. But finally the bungalow took shape against the mud and the rocks.

Home. They were home. And it looked so perfectly picturesque that Cassian’s throat burned. Because everything that was happening threatened to destroy it. His life, finally right, stacked as precariously as a house of cards. One breath of wind, one wrong turn, and it could all collapse in on itself.

That, Cassian supposed, was the problem with happiness. Ever fragile and transient. Slivers of time, fragments of moments, rather than something permanent and steady.

Cassian hadn’t realised he’d come to a standstill until Nesta said his name. “Look,” she said, but there was something imploring about the way she ordered him, as if she knew the direction of his thoughts and wanted to divert him from the truth of it.

And, because Cassian needed to be distracted, he looked.

Mas stood on the stone step at the front door. Her wings were held proudly behind her back, her thick, dark hair ruffled by the wind. Her grin was toothy and wide, her expression pleased. And at her feet, clinging to her legs, was Roksana. 

“Sinta,” Mas said in greeting as they climbed the few steps that staggered to the door. She clapped Cassian’s face between with her palms and peered into his face in a way that made his chest tighten, as if someone was fisting his heart. Hazel eyes skated over him and what Mas read in his expression had her recoiling slightly. Cassian could have sworn a light winked out in the depths of her irises. 

He knew he must look a state. Whilst his body had healed from his fall from the sky, he was still covered in mud and pine needles and only the Old Gods knew what else.  

For a few heartbeats, Mas just studied him. The concern on her face was indisputable, but in the end, all she said was the blatant truth. “You are tired.”

For a second—just a second—Cassian allowed his eyes to close. He leant into Mas’ touch. She had been his mother in so many ways, had loved him irrevocably, filling the empty space in his heart that longed to have someone care for him in the way mothers did. “Just a little,” he admitted, even if it was a lie. Now he’d had a moment to stop, his exhaustion was so weighted his limbs felt like lead. 

Understanding deepened in Mas’ expression. She stepped back slightly, giving him space. Her head tilted slightly to the side. She glanced sideways at Nesta and then back to him. “You have had bad news?”

“Some,” Cassian admitted, because he couldn’t begin to explain, not even to her. Not even to his brothers. 

But Mas didn’t push him to explain. She only patted his forearm before she rested a hand on Nesta’s arm. “Come inside and sit by the fire, both of you. Roksana and I will bring you chai.” 

Now, Cassian sat with a drained mug cupped in his hands that Roksana had masterfully skimmed over the floor to hand it to him - the obvious skill a credit to Lorrian’s regular flying lessons — and waited for Nesta to reply to his brother. 

“My trip beneath the Lake was enlightening,” Nesta told Rhys in that way that was so Nesta—so artfully worded. “From what I’ve learnt, it’s clear that Kallon has been planning this long before he called to vote the suspension of the Rite. Ramiel has always been his back up plan, when all else failed.”

Nesta paused, her fingers closing around Cassian’s shoulder, asking his permission. So far, Nesta had purposely evaded Rhys’s assumption that she had met with the Seer of the Sage below the Lake of Souls. But now there was no avoiding it, the truth had to come out, and Nesta knew that Cassian couldn’t look his family in the eyes and tell them about his mother. 

Cassian did not turn his head. He didn’t nod or say anything. But something unravelled slightly in his chest, the barest of movements, like gears slipping before they locked back into place. 

Nesta took a measured breath. 

“There’s more,” she announced to the room. 

Cassian felt the peak in interest, the weight of everyone’s attention but he fixated his gaze on the threads of the carpet, on the individual fibres and didn’t look up. He couldn’t.

And then Nesta told them.

She explained how she’d not met the Seer of the Sage, but the real Maya—the twin and mother who had fled to Spearhead pregnant in the face of a Prophecy. The twin who had raised her youngling away from prying eyes, hoping that he could be better than other Illyrian males. 

When Nesta’s voice fell away, a stung silence followed.  

“So, Maya is not Maya,” Feyre said, eventually. Cassian imagined her eyes darting to him, but he remained hunched over on the couch, his elbows propped up on his knees.

The words fell into the quiet, sinking like a stone plummeting through water. 

It took Cassian too long to understand that they were respectfully waiting to see if he might speak. 

Cassian clasped his hands together, watching the way the tendons at his knuckles strained, the blood squeezed out until they were bone white. His siphons caught the light from the movement, the log burner blazing in the gems’ reflection, creating the illusion of a wet well of blood.

His lips flattened, the muscle in his cheek ticked before it disappeared completely. Cassian knew he was taking too long to answer, but he felt as if he were mute. “No,” he said eventually, his tongue thick, his speech slow even though he’d only spoken one word.

And that was all he said. His throat clogged up again, his ability to speak locked away, the key tucked into some secret pocket inside of himself that even Cassian wasn’t aware of.  

He hadn’t known he’d be like this—so silent. His body had decided for him, his slowly processing mind shutting everything down. Perhaps it was trauma of some kind, a delayed reaction that had everything in him grinding to a halt. His past had been cracked open and laid bare for everyone to pick at and Cassian wanted to hoard the truth of his mother, of his lineage, as fiercely as Amren guarded her jewellery.

Cassian had still not reconciled that the female living in his countryside cottage on the outskirts of Velaris was not just someone they had rescued from Ironcrest. She was his aunt, his mother’s twin, and her real name was not Maya, but Lyanne. 

As if sensing the knot of his thoughts, Roksana crawled across the carpet from where she’d been sitting close to Lorrian and Frawley and came to sit at his feet. 

“Lyanne was protecting her sister,” Nesta announced in wake of Cassian’s silence. “She can’t be blamed for keeping the oath to her twin.”

“Of course not,” Rhys cut in smoothly and Cassian felt his brothers violet eyes searing into his skin, felt the lightest touch of a claw raking down his mental shields. “I would do the same for my brothers—for anyone I consider to be family.” 

Cassian knew that was true. He, himself, would do the same for Azriel and Rhys. For Mor and Amren. For Feyre—for any members of his family—without a second thought. 

And Lyanne had sacrificed so much to ensure that everyone believed her twin to be dead. She had faked her own death and taken on the identity of her sister so convincingly that nobody suspected that she was not Maya. She had watched the male she had loved grieve for her even though she’d been right in front of him all along. And it was Marsh’s grief which had been the greatest distraction of all. It had stopped him looking too closely, had stopped him from realising that the wife he’d loved had not been unfaithful and burnt to death but had been living alongside him masked as someone else.

It was that mask which had acted as a constant reminder to Marsh of the wife he had lost. To Marsh, Maya had become an object of hate. She was the wrong twin: his brother’s widow had lived and she was the spitting image of the wife Marsh believed he had lost.

But he’d bedded her anyway. And in all that time, he’d never grasped that the wool had been pulled over his eyes. 

It made Cassian question how deeply Marsh’s love had really run.

If Nesta had an identical twin, Cassian could never mistake the two. He knew Nesta, down to his bones. Down to the cavern within himself where even now, her name still whispered like a secret that only he and Nesta understood. Nesta, Nesta, Nesta—

As if his innermost thoughts called to her, Nesta’s fingers fastened even tighter on Cassian’s shoulder.

“It makes sense.” Azriel’s voice cut through the sigh of Nesta’s name. As always, the Shadowsinger’s voice was chilling—not awful but the soft caress of midnight clouds passing over stars, the coolness of shadows seeping into your skin, dew on the grass sinking through your boots. “We’ve been wondering why Kallon hasn’t been acting, why no more females have been sacrificed in his attempt to bond the blade. Illyrian magic is amplified over the Rite.”

Cassian knew Azriel had directed the conversation purposefully, shifting the focus away from Cassian’s family history. His mother.

He and Rhys knew better than anyone that Cassian had mourned his mother. Since the moment he’d been torn from her and thrown into the Windhaven camp, Cassian had grieved for a female that memory had finally eaten away at, until she was nothing but the barest of fragments.

“It’s a sacred time,” Rhys admitted slowly—carefully. Cassian could still feel Rhys’ gaze on him, but he didn’t look up. Instead, he rested a scarred hand on the tangle of Roksana’s wind-tossed hair. The youngling didn’t shrug him off, she only nestled closer until she was tucked in the valley between his legs, her wings resting against the sofa. 

“And Ramiel can only be accessed tomorrow?” Feyre interjected. “If Kallon wanted to attempt to bond the blade by dark magic, then he’d have the best luck there?”

“It was Maya’s belief that the immense power found on Ramiel could be used to amplify the magic Kallon would need to bond the sword to him,” Nesta confirmed. “And Cassian and I have discussed it at length. Everything adds up. We believe that Kallon visited the Seer of the Sage to try and confirm his belief that he could bond the blade at Ramiel. And whilst we don’t know what the Seer of the Sage told him, we know for a fact that the Blood Rite isn’t just a time for Illyrians to gain status, it’s the anniversary of the thirty-third day of the battle against Vanth. Oya and Enalius defeated Vanth atop Ramiel’s summit and if the sword originally belonged to Enalius, where better to sacrifice the females than—”

“—atop Gods-blessed ground,” Rhys finished, the cadence of his words slow and stretched out as the realisation hit him. “And Kallon has sole access to it.”

There was a breath of silence, short and fleeting, and then Rhys was interrupting it with an abruptness that mimicked the change in his entire countenance. No longer was he their brother, he was the High Lord of the Night Court ready to defend his territory and brimming with power. 

It made Cassian look up.

“How successful will Kallon be if he attempts to use dark magic, complete the sacrifice and bond himself to the sword?”

Rhys’s gaze had pinned itself on the pale witch sitting in the corner of the couch, a blanket draped over her knees. 

As petite as she was, Frawley’s very existence had a way of commanding a room. It was like a tug at the periphery of your senses, like prey sensing something other.

Frawley didn’t so much as move but Cassian felt her authoritative presence expand into the room, until she was larger than life, even whilst she sat small in frame in the corner of the couch.

It was a while until the witch spoke up, her voice scratchy and beat up in a way that told Cassian that she hadn’t yet recovered from her trip to the Lake with Nesta. It gave Frawley’s voice an eerie, prophetic quality.

“Dark magic exists to attempt the unnatural, Rhysand, you know that.” Frawley laid out her palms, as if there was a story unfolding in the centre of them. The rest of her body was so still it was almost as if she had been frozen in place. Only her lips moved and whilst her eyes remained directed at Rhys, they blazed with focus, one burning hot, the other cold. 

“In the past,” Frawley began, “dark magic has been used to bend original intention and force the intended direction of power against its will. And sometimes it has worked, whilst other times it has caused great devastation in its failure. Dark magic is rarely ever permanent.” Now Frawley’s frosty blue eye snapped in Cassian’s direction, to the female standing guard at his shoulder. “As I’ve taught Nesta, magic feeds off sacrifice and eventually, it will get hungry.”

The static quality to Frawley disintegrated as she leant forward, her focus back on Rhys. “So, Kallon might be successful in bonding the blade to him but it will only be for a time. And when the blade begins to fade again, when its magic starts to flicker like a dying star, what will he sacrifice then? How will he maintain his facade?”

Nesta’s voice cut in without hesitation. “A sacrifice will become a ritual.”

“Yes,” Frawley agreed, her voice dropping out of its rasp to something hushed and undulating. A teacher praising their student, not in a condescending way, but in the way of two people being on the same wavelength. The witch and the Made.

For a short time, Nesta and Frawley looked at one another, but then Frawley’s hazel eye slid to Cassian. It felt like a touch, like something burning, and Cassian knew that Frawley would dare to tread where noone else would. “Yet whilst that is a problem in itself, we also need to consider that Kallon might want to keep the sword bonded to him not only for the sake of status and the support of the Rebellion, but due to his increased strength.” Frawley’s brown eye swivelled to Azriel, whilst the blue remained on Cassian. “You noted at Ironcrest that the Princeling’s power had grown to earn him a fourth siphon in the training ring—weeks after he’d acquired the sword—did you not, Shadowsinger?”

Azriel’s cold hazel eyes barely moved yet somehow they met Frawley’s. “I have it from multiple sources.”

And, as Frawley knew it would, it was the new direction of conversation which instinctively loosened the noose around Cassian’s throat, the one trapping his speech. Because just like Rhys had slipped from brother to High Lord, when it came to a question of power - of strength on the battlefield - Cassian couldn’t help but fall into his role of general of the Night Court’s armies.

Cassian’s voice was terse. “Kallon comes from a lord’s bloodline. His Killing Power is still reaching maturity. The growth in his power could be entirely unconnected to the sword, especially given that the blade disappears when he tries to wield it.”

“But what if it’s a byproduct of both?” Feyre asked quietly, tentatively treading down the path they all knew they needed to head down. 

Unsurprisingly, Rhys agreed. “That’s a good question, Feyre darling.” 

Rhys leant casually against the mantlepiece but Cassian was not fooled by the illusion of calm. Cassian knew that despite his best efforts, Rhys had read Cassian’s body language down to a tee. And whilst Rhys knew how close Cassian was to snapping, he still asked, “Remind me, brother. How many training siphons were you using at the age of twenty-four?” 

A growl coalesced in Cassian’s throat. Six. He’d had six siphons at the age of twenty-four and Rhys damn well knew that. “Don’t ask questions you know the answer to,” he replied shortly.

Seemingly unfazed, Rhys merely shrugged. “If Maya is your mother, then you and Kallon share the same blood. If, like you, his genetics have provided him with a large amount of Killing Power and Enalius’s sword grants him even more, he could potentially harness magic that makes him the most powerful full-blooded Illyrian in history.”

“If you combine a Prince’s status with an impressive amount of Killing Power and a fully-bonded sword, you’ll have a hard time convincing the Illyrians that Kallon isn’t God-given flesh,” Azriel added. And if Cassian hadn’t been bristling at how blasé everyone was being with his heritage, he would have been surprised to detect something dark in his brother’s voice, as pitch as the shadows curling around his ears. 

“And that there is both the key and the danger,” Frawley announced, lifting a finger before Cassian could even open his mouth to interject. The witch settled back into the cushions, as if their understanding meant that she could now rest. “Cassian and Kallon share the same blood. They are cousins. It is possible that the reason that the sword showed itself to Kallon is because the sword recognised the bloodline.”

“But,” Frawley continued with an abrupt finger, ignoring the way Cassian had finally straightened up, his expression black, “I’d wager that Kallon’s blood isn’t quite right. It’s not the blood the prophecy foresaw, so the blade disappears when he tries to use it.”

Feyre straightened up from where she was sitting across from Cassian, her palms pressed together between her knees. “If the blood isn’t quite right, how will Kallon successfully bond it to him?”

Frawley observed Feyre unflinchingly. “Dark magic twists and turns the intention of normal magic. That shared blood connection could be the very thing that allows Kallon to bend the sword to his will.”

Then, her eye swivelled to Nesta before she even spoke. “Maya thought that the sword might be using Kallon as an avenue.”

Cassian stopped feeling affronted about the way everyone was talking about him with a suddenness that was jarring. His heart had given an awful, adrenaline-fuelled thump.

“Smart female,” Frawley remarked with a dip of her chin.

“So you think she’s right?”

“Do you?”

Cassian didn’t need to look at Nesta to know that she was raising her chin. “I think that Kallon was never the intended end recipient of the sword.”

Rhys nodded. “I think we all hope that to be the case.”

Quiet hung around them for a pause, suspended like stars in a night sky. And Cassian couldn’t bear the pregnancy of it. He knew where the conversation was leading, what everyone around him had likely come to the conclusion of given his heritage. 

Even he and Nesta hadn’t touched upon it. But just as he opened his mouth to say something,  anything to break the awful suspense-filled silence, Nesta was speaking again. “Even so, Maya warned me that prophecy is not guaranteed truth, but an alignment in the stars that can rearrange themselves into a new orbit at any time. Allegiances can change.”

Feyre was following along, her chin bobbing, her eyes knowing and… old, somehow. It was something Cassian hadn’t seen in Feyre for a long while, but when he did, it was usually at times like this — when they all came together to discuss politics and enemies.“If that’s true, then we have to consider the possibility that the sacrifice might result in the sword acknowledging Kallon as its master?”

For a few breaths, Feyre’s question hung above them like a canopy of stars.

Slowly, all eyes turned to Frawley.

“It’s possible,” Frawley contemplated slowly. She lay out her palms again but the gesture was not unsure. Instead, it was as if the lines and creases on her palms were a map of constellations. A foretelling of what was to come. 

When Frawley looked up, both irises were glowing. And Cassian knew from the moment that her eyes hooked on his what the witch was going to say and that he wasn’t going to like it. “Kallon is not the only one who has the bloodline.”

The heat of everyone else’s attention was scorching, but Cassian didn’t back down from Frawley’s challenge. Even if under the surface he was thrashing like an animal caught in a trap.

Star-born. They thought he was star-born. 

The statement was so direct and so blunt that it would have pierced like an arrow if Cassian hadn’t mustered every ounce of warrior training into deflecting it. 

Cassian imagined Frawley’s words skittering off of him, the metal of the arrow head crumpling rather than piercing as Frawley leant forward and asked, “When you were in Ironcrest, did you touch the blade?”

Internally, deep down inside the impenetrable fort Cassian had built for himself, he bristled. But outwardly he didn’t allow himself to so much as blink. Even his wings remained motionless and expressionless, tucked in tight. 

Nesta’s hands tightened on his shoulder, just a fraction, and the movement felt as if she’d taken the brunt of the attack for him. 

Cassian fought the instinct to clench his jaw. “You know I didn’t.”

“But you felt its aura, didn’t you?” Frawley probed. 

“It would have been hard not to,” Cassian replied curtly, because it was true. 

“Your siphons winked,” Lorrian remarked. He’d remained quiet until now, his mouth set in a grim line, but now he spoke up, voicing what Cassian had already admitted to himself but had not spoken aloud. “And the gem at your chest. It lit up like a beating heart. I didn’t think think much of it at the time, I assumed it was because you have more siphons than the lot of us, but perhaps the sword was calling to you.”

Cassian thought of that moment. Everyone had felt the power of the sword in that room. They’d all known, undoubtedly, that it had been Enalius’. Nobody had disputed it, even before Frawley had confirmed what they all knew. 

He forced his voice to come out calm and steady. He knew where this conversation was leading and he wished they’d all just say it, speak their conclusion out loud so they could put a damn plan in place. “The sword called to all of us. Power thrummed off of it in waves. It was indisputable."

That, at least, was true. At the time, Cassian’s blood had howled, battering against his skin as it tried to beat its way out of him.

But had Cassian truly felt the sword’s power more keenly than the others? He’d not thought anything of it at the time. Lorrian had described the sensation as odd, but to Cassian it had felt like a rush of adrenaline, a calling. It had felt, Cassian realised, the exact same way as when he’d first met Nesta. As if something had turned over inside of him, flipping to the other side of a coin. 

His skin had itched for hours afterwards. His magic had moved inside of him like a restless tide, his power desperate to surge, on edge and ready to expel itself in a way that Cassian knew would have been relentless.

Cassian had attributed that to his proximity to Nesta, to the stress of their situation as they walked the precarious tightrope during their time in Ironcrest. They’d shared a room that night. They’d exchanged heated and angry words. They’d argued about Mor, about the war. About the bond between them, even though they hadn’t addressed it directly.

And all of that seemed so long ago. So much had passed since then. A bond had been accepted. 

And it had been broken. 

“My mother,” Cassian announced slowly, “told Nesta what we already know. The prophecy is a prediction, not a clear glimpse at destiny. We can’t fly headfirst into a plan that relies on me being—“

“—Starborn?” Frawley finished.

The word made Cassian’s stomach knot. And it almost bordered on humorous that Cassian had spent his entire life searching for answers about his mother, about where he came from, only to discover that he was linked to an ancestry that he despised. 

For years, Cassian had searched Illyria. He’d destroyed Spearhead camp and the males who were complicit in his mother’s death looking for answers. But now he was confronted with the truth of his past, he found that it was not how he’d imagined. 

All Cassian had ever wanted growing up were people that he could call his own and who would accept him for him. People who would recognise his worth not for the siphons on his hands, chest, knees and arms, but for who he was inside.

It turned out that Cassian had living cousins, an aunt, maybe even a father. He’d spent the first half of his life abandoned and so lonely it had ached inside of him, weaving into his blood until it became a part of his identity as a bastard. He’d never been able to shake off that feeling.

It was only Nesta who had eased that ache, like a palm smoothing over a brow. When her arms were banded around his neck, her nose in his hair, nothing else seemed to matter.

A sword would do nothing for Cassian. He had long learned that his race’s begrudging acceptance of him was due to the Killing Power in his veins and his ability on the battlefield. And it had never made it easier to bear the sneers and the derisive comments. Because at the crux of it, Cassian would always be one thing to them: a bastard.

Yet, Cassian knew that his mother had taken a great risk when she had fled from Ironcrest. But she had done it because if the prophecy had turned out to be true then the child growing inside of her was destined to be star-born. And Cassian’s mother had wanted her child to grow up fighting for what was right. If her child was destined for the sword, she wanted it to be wielded by someone good.

But Cassian couldn’t help but wish that there didn’t need to be a sword at all. 

“We are going to stop Kallon,” Cassian announced, grim resolution in his voice as he redirected the conversation where it needed to be—to the issue at hand. “Before he even gets to the top of Ramiel, we’re going to stop him. We are going to confiscate the damn sword and then we’re going to decide what to do with it. Wield impenetrable wards around it, just like we’ve done for the Cauldron.”

“And what if you have to intercept it?” Frawley pushed. 

“I am a warrior,” Cassian replied tersely. His jaw felt tight, his wings were tucked in so tightly his muscles ached with the effort of restraint. “I will always do my duty.”

“Do you know how it works?” Nesta asked from behind him. “If someone worthy was to touch the sword, would it immediately bond to them?”

Frawley’s head tilted to the side, her hair moving with the gesture. “If legend is to be believed, then yes. For the true intended recipient, there will be no need for dark magic. But we must also consider that the sword may be broken.”

“Broken?”

“The gem is missing on the guard,” Frawley reminded them. ��Enalius might have wielded the blade to defeat Vanth, but it was Oya who forged the sword from her own blood and bone. Without that gem, we must consider that the reason that sword might not be bonding to Kallon isn’t because he’s not worthy, but because the sword is damaged.”

“And from her chest she drew a blade / Bloodied steel and amplified rage / Bone of a prison,

the scarlet of sacrifice / A sword to banish immoral greed,” Nesta whispered. “Heroicis.”

“Yes,” Frawley confirmed sinisterly. “Roksana, can you fetch us the book?”

Thrilled to be useful, Roksana scooted over to the shelves and then made in Frawley’s direction, the brown leather-bound book too big her small hands. But Frawley shook her head. “Give it to Cassian, please Roksana. It’s his, after all.”

The leather was soft and supple as it always was—worn from hours and hours of perusal. 

His mother had touched this book, Cassian thought, as he stared at the cover. He’d known that all along, but to have a piece of her now, after Nesta had so recently met with her, had a lump forming in his throat. 

He opened the front cover, his eyes trying not to fall upon her writing inscribed on the inside of it, even though he knew the words by heart—warrior heart, never forget that you are loved—and turned to the drawing that he’d stared at countless times. He knew it like the back of his hand. When he couldn’t read, this is what he’d stared at. This line drawing with the arced blade and the curved pommel which he knew to be bone, not just because of the Heroicis’ stanza, but because he’d seen it in real life. 

“The gem was definitely missing from the sword in Ironcrest,” Cassian confirmed. He held the book up and tapped at the drawing so everyone could see it. “The handle was cracked, too.”

“Expected from centuries of existence,” Frawley replied matter-of-factly.

“But does Kallon know the jewel is missing?” Nesta asked. “And is the sword not bonding to him because the jewel is missing or because he’s not the intended wielder?”

“If we don’t stop the sacrifice we’ll find out,” Frawley said gravely.

Cassian’s jaw tensed as his brain worked overtime and came to the conclusion that he was sure Frawley had already drawn. “Blood. You think the females’ blood might restore the jewel, just as Oya used her blood and bone to create the sword.”

“What I think,” Frawley replied sternly, “is that dark magic might have the capability of manipulating the girls’ blood so the blade accepts it as a substitute of Oya’s.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Nesta said shortly. She looked to Azriel. “What do your shadows whisper to you? Have your spies tracked Kallon’s movements?”

“We believe that he remains at Ironcrest.”

Cassian knew what that meant. “What you mean is that nobody has seen him leave,” he said grimly.

Because Kallon could winnow - any Illyrian could the day before the Rite. 

Azriel remained still as always, his expression unreadable. But his shadows coiled around his ears. “Yes.”

Lorrian’s eyes darkened. “How many people have you got watching him at his residence?”

“Enough,” Azriel replied. “But he could winnow from within his rooms. My spies are excellent, but they can’t follow him there.”

Cassian heard the urgent bite in Nesta’s tone. “He could winnow himself to the base of Ramiel and your spies could be none the wiser for hours.”

Longer than that, Cassian thought. But he didn’t see the point in highlighting the obvious. 

“So, what do we do?” Feyre said. 

“We need warriors patrolling the skies and on the ground around Ramiel,” Cassian said brusquely.“Kallon can’t winnow directly to the summit until tomorrow. If we can pin down his location now then we can catch him before he has the opportunity to act.”

“I can look to deploy some Windhaven warriors that I believe we can trust,” Cassian continued, falling back into the role of general. Already his mind was sifting through the male faces that he ordered about during training, remembering which males stood out from the crowd. Loyal males that he knew didn’t follow the Rebellion and would have his back in battle. 

“How many?” Lorrian asked. “Mallory, Andreas and Protheus stand out from the aerial unit,” Lorrian said. “They’re quiet flyers, excellent at keeping out of sight, but I don’t know where their loyalties lie.”

“We can’t take risks,” Rhys said. “If any of those males are loyal to Kallon then we risk everything—”

“The widows will fight.”

Everyone turned.

Mas stood in the left-hand archway that led to the kitchen, a dishtowel in her hands. She was only looking at Cassian, as if to her, there was noone else. “We are not much, but we are loyal. And we will fight for you.”

***

The soapy water in the sink was so hot it was scalding, but the scream of Cassian’s nerve endings felt like a balm somehow - a silent expression of something that he could not express outwardly but wanted his body to scream all the same.

“That is not your job.”

A voice came from behind him. A familiar one. A motherly one. It held the sort of understanding that came from someone who knew him very well. From someone who saw it as their duty to analyse someone in the way that only family could. When they knew his every tick, the thoughts running through his head, without even glimpsing his face.

Mas drew up beside him, a tea towel in hand. “And by the looks of it, it’s not one that you’re good at either."

She ushered him aside to the draining board, until he had switched places with her and her hands were submerged in the suds. Silently, she handed him the cloth and he took it, because whilst he might lead the Night Court’s armies, he’d handed over the duties of the bungalow to her.

“You are angry with me,” Mas observed after a silence that stretched out taut and thin. She handed him one of the mugs the colour of Nesta’s eyes and Cassian took it, stuffing it with the cloth and twisting the fabric to dry the inside.

He did not look at her. “I’m concerned for your safety.”

The clink of porcelain promptly stopped and Cassian knew that if he cut his gaze to the housekeeper he’d not find Mas glaring at him, just simply watching him.

It took him too many heartbeats to summon the courage, but when he did turn his head to meet her eyes, she was waiting for him. Her expression was one of steady earnest, burnished with silent understanding.

But she did not back down. Instead, she gripped the top of his hand. Her skin was chapped and rough, forever weathered from her years as a laundress, but her grip was strong. Insistent. Her voice soft. “This is what the training has been for, has it not? We are learning to protect ourselves, to stand up when a threat rises against us. We might not be much, but we will fight for you.”

With slow deliberation, Cassian set down the mug onto the draining board. Then he closed his palm over the top of hers and let the barricades he’d constructed fall away so she could see his true expression.

All the worry. For her. For Nesta. For all of the Illyrians who would be harmed as a result of Kallon—his cousin.

When Cassian spoke, he heard the crack in his voice, the roughness around the edges before he exposed the soft and vulnerable middle. “You are much,” Cassian told her with quiet vehemence, “but nothing prepares you for using the sword. For battle. You saw Nesta. She’s the strongest fae I’ve ever met and Hybern haunts her even now.”

A shadow passed over Mas’s irises, but she straightened, an invisible hand of courage supporting her. And Cassian supposed he’d nurtured that hand. Since the moment he’d met her, he’d wanted to teach Mas to defend herself so she could walk with confidence. And now here she was, small yet tall before him.

“You forget I have seen battle fatigue, sinta,” Mas told him. “I have seen battlegrounds—I’ve been a part of them.” 

The skin around Cassian’s mouth tightened, bracketing his mouth like a grim smile. Because Mas was wrong on that count. He would never forget the day of the kerit attacks. He would never forget Mas’s body on the ground, her blood. He would never forget Nesta kneeling beside her, wreathed in the purest of light as she knitted the torn flesh back together. As she healed long brutalised wings. 

“Nesta saved me,” Mas continued, her voice resolutely soft in its purpose but determined all the same. “She brought me back for another life and I intend to fight for that life. For you. For Nesta. For everyone who has ever suffered under our own people. For a better life.”

Her words fell away and into more silence. Mas retracted her hands and reached back into the suds, her fingers slipping against cutlery which clattered against the sink. Eventually, she drew out a teaspoon and began to methodically clean it before she extended it out to him without glancing away from her task. 

Cassian found that he was relieved. To look at Mas now would mean to memorise every inch of her face, terrified that he’d not have the chance to study it again. He’d already begun to do it with Nesta without meaning to, his mind whispering its own cruel prophecy. 

“You saved me, too,” Mas continued into the grim yet resigned silence Cassian had woven himself into. “When we met, I was beaten down. I was so small and insubstantial, the wind could have just tossed me away. Do you remember?”

Now, Cassian forced himself to look at her. He felt his brow collapse in on itself, his eyes felt as if they might melt with the emotion—with the memory. “Of course I do,” he rasped through the chokehold in his throat. 

Because of course he did.

It had been a particularly icy day in November that Cassian had flown to Empyr’s monthly market. He’d braved the trip in frozen temperatures to order some specialised steel with a travelling Illyrian blacksmith and afterwards, he’d stopped at one of the many stalls to buy some food before he hit the skies back to Windhaven.

Cassian had been leaning against his chosen food stall polishing off a pastry when he’d noticed a small female in the long queue. Her clothes were clean but, like most Illyrians, they’d seen better days. Yet, it had been the black eye that had snagged Cassian’s attention. Hunched over and hobbling, Cassian guessed that the female was suffering from cracked ribs that had yet to heal properly. 

And from the look of her cracked and bleeding hands? Laundress. Definitely a laundress.

As it always did when Cassian forced himself to truly look at the Illyrian females around him, Cassian’s heart panged, as if someone had plucked a sad and melancholy string inside of him. The female had looked so small—not just in height, but in presence. She was a ghost, wraithlike, folding herself up, allowing the males to go ahead of her, head bent, timid and forgettable.

By most Illyrian standards, she was the perfect female.

It had taken her a while to make some headway in the line. And the entire time, Cassian had watched her, unsure why he was so transfixed by her progress—until it happened. 

Throughout Cassian’s life, he had learnt that good things happened because you brought them about yourself. Through blood, sweat and tears. Through fighting tooth and nail to survive and then to thrive. But sometimes, on a rare occasion, Cassian believed in destiny. He believed people could step right out in front of you, people who would change your life because the Gods had destined it so, if only you’d seize the reigns. 

Cassian had sensed it when Rhys had found him in his draughty and battered tent in the middle of the night. He’d felt it the moment he’d lain eyes on Azriel, even if he and Rhys had made it as hard as possible for the Shadowsinger at first. Later, he would believe it of himself and Nesta. From the very moment he’d set eyes on her in the human realm, he’d felt that flutter in his gut, some magnetism pulling them together. 

And Cassian had felt it then in Empyr as he watched a female that he’d later learn went by the name of Masak give her meagre coin away just so a little girl could eat. 

The little girl had snatched up the pastry as if she couldn’t believe what was happening to her. And then, fearful that it was too good to be true, had taken off, half-flying half-running across the frozen ground, across the bridges, until she disappeared into the woodland and was gone. 

Mas had watched the girl disappear with a look that was both heartbroken and rueful. But before she could turn away from the line, Cassian had found himself moving. 

A heavy, deliberate clunk had sounded as Cassian placed two small coins on the wooden counter. “Four more pastries, please.”

The Illyrian male behind the counter froze. Cassian had watched him sneer down at the youngling, ready to snap at her to scarper. And when he’d not been able to emit his anger, Cassian had known it was coming for the Illyrian female next in line. 

But Cassian’s face was known all over Illyria. Even if he hadn’t been sporting his siphons that adorned the backs of his hands, his knees, his shoulders, his chest… the Illyrian community knew the face of the General of the Night Court’s armies.

“And some chai,” Cassian added firmly, as he remembered how the female had eyed the cauldron bubbling gently away behind the counter. “Two cups.”

The male’s lips drew back for a second, as if he couldn’t stamp out the instinct to show his disgust at the female before him, before his expression was wrangled under control. “Anything else, General?”

“Not from you,” Cassian rebuffed coldly, the instruction in his voice the sort he used on the battlefield rather than with friends. Then, he’d turned to Mas. 

When his eyes had met hers, she had taken a small step back. Then another. 

When he held up the pastries and the cup of chai, she actually flinched. Stepped even farther away from him, jostling accidentally into some a male who sneered in disgust—as if she was dirty.

And in that moment, Cassian chose to do what he did best. He read his opponent.

The female before him knew who he was. Knew the control he had in Illyria. She was a low-born female who had been brought into the world to serve the male species. She would not dare disobey him and he… wanted to speak to her. Needed to.

The tug in his gut instructed him to.

So, he kept his voice deep and commanding. “Come with me.”

For a moment, he thought he’d read Mas wrong. That she might bolt. Her eyes darted around her but when she remained on the spot, when she fleetingly dared to meet his eyes, Cassian knew that her hunger was great enough that it won over her fear of him. And he could scent the latter on her, the tang of it so sharp, it could cut. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t use the weapon on him—none of the males who came to Empyr would use their weapons out of respect for the sacred site—every Illyrian female was raised to fear the fist just as much as the edge of a blade. 

Cassian had walked over bridges with water running steadfast beneath him. The air at Empyr was always heavy with the tantalising scent of food, the finest sort of mist, and the slap and roar of cascading water against rock. 

When he reached a wide clearing in the woodland that closed around the lip of the valley, Cassian stopped. 

There, he set down the food and drinks on a rock and took a few steps back. His senses told him that Mas had kept to the trees that hugged the open space, but he gestured to the pastries anyway. 

“Please,” he said. “Eat. Drink.”

Mas remained silent. She didn’t move, but her eyes darted to the food before they snapped back to him. The bruise around her eye socket was still black and purple—fresh, rather than old. A fae body should have healed her by now. And if she wasn’t healing? She hadn’t eaten for a long while.

So, Cassian told her straight. “Those injuries won’t heal if you don’t eat.” Pine needles crunched under his weight as he sat down on the cool earth and began to eat one of the pastries he’d kept in hand.

Slowly, he ate. Slowly, he drank his chai. 

Patiently, he waited. 

Eventually, Mas crept over to the food. Snatched at a pastry before she backed away to the trees again, far away from him. As if the pines would grant her safety. 

Finally, she ate. Small bites at first. Then huge ones, as if she hadn’t had a meal in days. In moments, the pastry was gone. 

Slowly, so as not to startle her, Cassian stood. Entreatingly, he held out a cup of chai to her. He did not dare her to look her in the eye. It was an olive branch—a sign of respect, a choice not to dominate and Cassian was certain Mas had never been granted that courtesy in her entire life. 

In fact, Cassian looked purposefully at his leather boots as he placed the cup on the ground between them, before he backed away. 

The winter wind ribboned around the clearing and Cassian scented roasted chestnuts and wood shavings beneath the dirt and grime of a fae body, heard the crunch of pine needles break as Mas chose to take the cup.

He felt her eyes on him the entire time she drank.

When she finished, Cassian gestured to the remaining pastries as he took another bite of his own. “Don’t let them waste.”

She didn’t.

When Mas was done, Cassian had formulated a plan. He knew what he was going to do and how he was going to go about it.

Gaze still averted, Cassian took a drag from his cup. The chai was too sweet and already lukewarm thanks to the punishing Illyrian weather, but he swallowed before he asked, “Where are you from?”

Mas stiffened, her fear spiking sharp. Yet, when she didn’t turn on her heel Cassian lifted his eyes.

It struck him that she was a small female by Illyrian standards, her dark hair thick yet cropped short, the ends hastily and unevenly cut in a way that made Cassian suspect it had, until very recently, been long. But it was her hazel eyes that haunted Cassian. They were dark in the only way someone’s irises could be when they’d witnessed too much.

When their eyes connected, Cassian found that there was something steadfast in Mas’ expression. It was not hope, more of bleak resolution. A female who had no choice but to run away from everything she’d known. 

Mas’s voice was scratchy, as if she hadn’t used it for days. Broken, as she spoke the dire truth Cassian had suspected, “I can’t go back.”

“I don’t imagine you should,” Cassian commented with a forced lightness that didn’t quite hit home. There was a grave quality frosting his voice that Cassian hadn’t managed to thaw out. And to be honest, he hadn’t wanted to. The way females were treated in Illyria? It was a crime. “I certainly won’t be taking you,” he added.

Mas’s lips parted. The bottom one was still red and swollen, but she managed to jam her mouth shut without a hitch of breath. It told Cassian that she was not unfamiliar with pain. 

A few beats passed before she spoke again. 

“Spearhead,” she admitted in a whisper. And Cassian knew that the fault in his voice had convinced her that he would not take her back there, because she affirmed more loudly, “That’s where I’ve come from.”

Just the mention of the camp had Cassian’s expression tightening. Yet, he made a show of brushing his hands together, ridding himself of the wayward flakes of pastry as he nodded slowly, processing the information. 

Then, he looked up at her. The bruises and scrapes were starting to heal, her body no doubt able to begin repairing itself now it had the energy to do so, but her wings—her clipped and brutalised wings—remained mangled. “And how did you get here?”

Clearly having noticed Cassian’s gaze, Mas tucked her wings in tight, away from view. “I paid someone to fly me.”

Cassian nodded again. The gesture seemed stupid and meaningless, but it gave him something to do. He knew better than anyone that paying someone to bite their tongue didn’t mean anything in Illyria. And the males at Spearhead? They gave Ironcrest a good run for their money when it came to cruelty. “And now? Where do you plan to travel to next?”

Mas didn’t say anything, but he could see behind her eyes that her thoughts had began to stampede. Cassian might have extended a kindness to her so far, but if she betrayed her next location—if she even had the money to move on—he could track her. He could report to whoever was looking for her where she planned to fly to. 

But, even so, Cassian could tell Mas had more pressing issues. If she had decided to leave her camp, she was running from something—or Cassian would guess, someone. And Illyrian males did not take the possession of their females lightly. They would hunt for eternity for something they believed to be theirs.

So, to go on the run? Mas either had no choice or she was formidably brave. 

And Cassian respected bravery, both on the battlefield and off of it.

“I’d hazard a guess that you’re out of funds,” Cassian commented, nodding to the empty wrappers and cups. “I’m in need of a housekeeper back in Windhaven. I travel often for work and I need someone to take care of the day-to-day running of the home: overseeing laundry, cooking, cleaning, tending to the fires. I can offer free accommodation and a good wage, but more importantly, I can offer you safety.”

For a long while, Mas remained in shocked silence. Her hazel eyes—which over time would shape into something soft and motherly when she looked at him—had been wary and confused.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because you had barely any coin to your name but you gave your last pennies to a little girl who could not afford to eat,” Cassian told her. “Because this,” he gestured to her black eye and took a step closer to her, “is everything that is wrong with Illyria and you do not deserve it. Because you look like someone who has been beaten down and needs a new start. I can give that to you.”

“I might have deserved it.”

The words were so unexpected that Cassian wanted to blink. But he just stared her down, telling her with every second that passed that he didn’t believe her. Even if Mas had hurt someone, it was most likely in defence. If she’d made someone bleed, if she’d lashed out, Cassian was sure whoever who had received it had deserved it.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not true though, is it?”

“No,” Mas admitted after a moment. She had grown brave enough to study him a little and he knew she was attempting to read him, to catalogue his face. It seemed to be something instinctual that she’d been tamping down—a warrior instinct suppressed from birth but clawing to get out. “Don’t you want to know what I’m running from?”

Cassian lifted a shoulder. “Not if you don’t want to tell me.” He didn’t really need her to. He could hazard a pretty accurate guess: her husband. Not mate—a mate would never harm the one they were bonded with.

“You’ll be safe in my residence,” Cassian told her. “If you work for me, I can promise you protection. And I can absolutely promise that I’ll never lay a finger on you. What do you say—”

A hand fell on Cassian’s shoulder. The sensation jolted him back to his place in the kitchen and away from the past.

Beside him, Mas was shooting him a knowing look. Her face was so different from when they’d first met. It was clean and free of bruises. Her eyes rippled as if she’d too just come out of the memory of that winter day. 

“I’d lost all hope when we met,” Mas reminded him, even though it wasn’t needed. Cassian had just relived it, after all. “I had no faith in anyone around me. But you saw me, bruised and dirty, and you bought me food anyway. You offered me an honest job, the chance to live a different life. And I took a leap of faith and decided to trust you—”

“Because you were out of options,” Cassian interrupted in reminder. 

He handed her the towel he’d been using and offered it to her so she could dry her hands.

But Mas ignored it, focussed instead on their conversation. She tapped a wet finger over his heart and leant towards him. “Not because I was out of options. Because you were different from the other males. And in time, as I came to trust you, I learnt that you were simply kind and good.” Mas punctuated her next words with a pointed tap against his chest. “You. Saved. Me. And I will never forget that. I don’t want to.”

A thick hand seemed to clutch at Cassian’s throat. Suddenly, it was hard to speak, but somehow he managed. “It was my pleasure.”

Mas dried her hands on the towel before she patted his cheek to show she understood. But she wasn’t done. “You freed me from my husband, a life of abuse, sinta. And now I owe you. Let me do this. Let me fight for you.”

The words unravelled something bound tight within Cassian, unfurling faster and faster until his emotions were unbound and swimming.

“What I did is not something you are meant to repay,” he started, but he had to stop to swallow. To gather himself, to speak the truth that needed to get out. Because he knew that Mas had heard them talking earlier—about his past and his ancestry. Knew she finally understood. And he needed her to know. Wanted her to, despite the fact that his voice dropped into something both hushed and cracked—exposed. “But if that’s what you’re worried about. You already have. You’re the mother I never had.”

Mas smiled sadly. Her eyes had grown soft and shining. In that moment, they looked like butter melting in sunlight. It was a vast contrast to her eyes when they’d first met. Lost and scared. Now, there was nothing but truth reflected in her irises. Something simple and uncomplicated and true. “And you are my son, stella,” Mas said simply, as if it was obvious. “And Nesta, my daughter. I like to think that we have given each other family.”

Cassian had to blink to stop the burning in his eyes. When he looked to Mas again, he saw that a tear of her own was rolling down her face. He caught it. As always, the skin of Mas’ face was soft and thin with age, but so lovely. “Does this mean you’ll finally move into this outhouse when it’s all over?”

Mas’s expression shifting into something earnest. “I like to stay with the other widows, the orphans. But when this is all over, when we’ve beaten Kallon, we will build houses in the camps together. We’ll give other females a home—anyone who wants a roof over their heads. How about that?”

One corner of Cassian’s mouth ticked. His heart was so warm and so painful. Like it was bleeding. 

But he just said, “That sounds like a deal.”

Mas straightened. “So you’ll let us come? Whoever wants to?”

“We’ll need to be selective,” Cassian told her. “Only the most competent and only if they want to come. I trust your judgement, but know that we’ll brief them in an hour and that they can’t breathe a word about it to anyone.”

Mas dipped her chin to let him know that she understood. “They won’t, not when it comes to you,” she told him. Then, she gave him a toothy grin. Ruffled her wings with mock-pride. “And not when it comes to me.”

Cassian couldn’t help it. He conceded a laugh. 

***

Nesta found Cassian in their bedroom. He’d left on the pretense of readying himself for battle, but really his intention had been to stand by the window and watch Mas leave. The housekeeper’s wings were held high and proud behind her and she held Roksana’s small hand in hers as they walked in the direction of the widows’ camp. 

The youngling fluttered alongside, fluctuating between walking, hopping and skating over the mud.

If Cassian could paint, this would be the image that he’d choose to brush against canvas. An endearing portrait of two seemingly happy figures retreating into the distance—a distance which meant that they were out of reach and safe. Unharmed.

The sensation of Nesta’s fingers sliding through Cassian’s snagged at the periphery of his attention. As always, his body sung at the proximity of her and he let that feeling vibrate through him until their fingers were interlocked.

“You agreed?” 

Nesta’s voice was muffled by the scales of his leathers. She’d pressed her chin into his bicep as she looked up at him. Affection was something that Cassian had been yearning for without realising it, but now Nesta was leaning into him, the warmth of her soaking into him, Cassian sensed the desire for it etched deep into his bones. It was like an unbearable ache, a building pressure that layered upon itself. And Nesta pressing against him, holding him to her? It made that pressure deflate a little.

If Nesta’s hair wasn’t woven back tightly for battle, Cassian would have threaded his free hand through her hair in thanks. Instead, he pushed back the sigh that coalesced in his throat. “They’re not as battle ready as the males.”

“They won’t be for a long time,” Nesta supplied simply. “Someone once told me it takes years to become a warrior. That it’s constantly a work in progress.”

“And you listened?”

Nesta’s snort was a wave of air, but she didn’t admonish him. She just clutched at his arm a little tighter, the silent gesture his admonishment. “I did.”

Usually, Cassian would have smirked—anything to rile her. But now, in their shared bedroom, Cassian couldn’t summon it. Not when he knew what they were about to walk into. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

Nesta straightened at his words and the scent of her, the jasmine and vanilla, finally tugged his focus away from Mas’ retreating back to the female beside him. 

Nesta had changed out of her everyday leathers and into the ones Rhys had gifted her. The smoky silver scales rippled in an exact replica of the flames at her fingertips, but Cassian couldn’t marvel at the magic of it, not when the female in question was pinning him down with her formidable eyes. “Isn’t battle always dangerous?”

“It is,” Cassian agreed lowly. “But I’m already worried about your wellbeing. And now Mas? The other females?” He swallowed, and his words caught in the clog at his throat. “There’s so much at stake—”

“You are not responsible for our lives, Cassian.”

Cassian’s voice became sharp without his command. “I am always responsible for those that step onto a battlefield for the Night Court, whatever shape that might take.”

“You are forgetting,” Nesta told him calmly, unperturbed by his whipped reply, “that those who step onto the battlefield do so out of their free will. Tonight, when we make our way to Ramiel, none of us will be coerced. But we are all driven by the same motive: to stop Kallon gaining power and starting a Civil War. The females are taking a stand because they have been oppressed for too long. They are finally standing up for themselves, showing their allegiance despite the fact that they could suffer the consequences. And I am doing the same. You can only respect that. You can’t take responsibility, Cassian, it’s not your right.”

There was no response to that, so Cassian just stood still, fighting the temptation to rub his tired eyes. 

Together, they had a rough plan in place but they didn’t know how it would all go. And if Cassian had learnt anything in his long years as a warrior, it was that no battle was a sure thing. There was no guarantee that everyone entering the battle would emerge breathing and whole. The battlefield was swathed in the promise of glory, but when you were in the thick of it, when you were knee deep in guts and shit and blood, it was nothing but horrifying.

And whilst they might not be entering a true battlefield, none of them expected to emerge from their conflict with Kallon unharmed.

None of them were that deluded. It wasn’t a pessimism, just a hard truth. A possibility. 

Cassian turned his body fully to face Nesta, his hand slipping from hers only for both of them to find purchase on her arms. 

“Don’t say it,” Nesta interrupted him, reading the grim look in his eyes. 

It took everything in Cassian to arch an eyebrow. To play. “Some might accuse you of being superstitious, sweetheart.”

Nesta let out a huffed breath. “Why tempt fate?”

“You are my fate,” Cassian told her quietly. He tracked her face, cataloguing it all—his Nesta. Again, that thought hit him: he wanted Nesta to be his wife. He wanted them to be joined in that way. She’d given him everything when she’d accepted the mating bond, and now he wanted to give her something human, something that she had always thought had been in her future. 

If she wanted it, that was.

Nesta’s hand tightened on his just as her mouth flattened. The movement was so brief Cassian would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching her so closely.

“And you’re mine,” she assured him slowly, and even though her face was near unreadable, Cassian felt the spark of embers in his chest as they glowed. Knew that she was telling him the truth.

For a brief instance, Nesta observed him. And Cassian let her, unstacking every guard he held around himself, as tight as a burning ring of flames until there was nothing left behind but ash and the heart of him.

What Nesta saw pulled a faint smile onto her face, but it was too brief and it was not wielded out of happiness. It was too sad. And when Nesta confirmed it by drawing his knuckles to her mouth and pressing her lips there, he knew that every worry he had for how tomorrow would play out… it festered inside of Nesta, too.

They both had a feeling. An ominous sense of something dark and lurking. 

Cassian watched Nesta drop his hand and turned towards the door. 

But when she reached the entryway, she paused. Her slim fingers wrapped around the frame and held on tight. 

Seconds passed as Nesta hesitated. Then, without turning to face him, she told him, “Ask me when we’re on the other side.”

The ensuing pause ate up her words, until nothing but a ringing silence hovered between them.

If they were in different circumstances, Cassian would have closed the distance between them and wrapped her hair around his palm. He would have looked down at her, revelling in the way her chin would tilt stubbornly up to meet him, that regal air wreathed around her like its very own crown.

But instead, Cassian just stared steadily at Nesta, waiting for her to turn. But she didn’t.

Cassian fought the temptation to curl his hands shut in a bid to distract the quickening tempo of his heartbeat. His siphons pulsed in anticipation. A whisper of something wound through him. A sighed name. “And what will I be asking, Nesta?”

He couldn’t see her but he knew Nesta had raised an eyebrow, the execution as perfect as the arch of it.

Her fingers tightened around the door frame, but still she did not turn. “Ask me when it’s over. And I’ll say yes.”

And it was in that pause, as her words stretched out between them, that the screaming started. 

Tags (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @arinbelle @superspiritfestival @sayosdreams @perseusannabeth @mylittlebigplanet @biggestwingspan-az @bellsqueen @ekaterinakostrova @bookstantrash @prophecyerised @rainbowcheetah512 @awesomelena555 @wannawriteyouabook @lovelynesta @melphss @laylaameer01 @a-trifling-matter @fanboy7794 @thalia-2-rose @champanheandluxxury @swankii-art-teacher @lavendergoomsltd @princessofmerchants-reads @jeakat @imwritingthesewords @nestable @inejbrekkxr @silvernesta @amelie775 @helen-the-weirdo @pizzaneverdisappoints @wishfulimaginings @trash-for-nessian @my-fan-side @sophilightwood @valkyriesupremacy @vidalinav @onceupona-chaos @inardour @thesunremembersyourface @teagoddess99

[amourcheol]

hi fia!! so i just finished rereading great war...i dont know if you remember my tags from my first read but i did cry again i am so sorry im just the biggest cry baby despite knowing what coming anyways i again was reading without having any power in my house i seriously do not know what is about me reading your fic that the universe makes my house lose power but i don't care i'll do whatever it takes to reread it a million times!! i just wanted to stop by again to tell you how much i absolutely adore your writing and to give you your flowers for the rest of time, you seriously have such a gift and tremendous talent i hope it takes you far and wide in your life because seriously everyone deserves to witness at least a snippet of your writing a little blurb if you will :) i know i said i wasn't really someone that leaned to the side of historical fics but you really put you're all into this storyline that it makes you fall into a rabbit hole and you make it so interesting (even though it already is, you add a bit more!!) i'm sure you know but the countless messages and notes/tags left on your post that your fic is very loved, it is by me that's for sure :') your jeonghan fic is next on my list and i can't wait! again i want to just say thank you for taking the time to write such a beautiful fic its forever engrained in my head!! i hope you take care :) 🫂

OH MY GODDDDDDD I DO REMEMBER YOU !! u best believe i reread ur comments on reading the Great War when ur power went out I CACKLED 😭😭

WTF U CRIED ?:£:!:!:!:!: no because that is a COMPLIMENTTT PLSSS and don’t even sweat it im such a crybaby too 😭😭 but wtf i feel like a Disney villain cackling w pride over making u cry 💀 thank u for feeling my fic as much as i feel writing it !! ur power going out again as u reread it pls this is too funny 😭

user chaerbears ur the sweetest thing ever 😞😞 thank you so much for coming here again and giving me such praise like??? The time it takes to read the Great War too is so long and still u REREAD it 😞😞nothing makes me happier than to have someone who doesn’t necessarily read historical writings enjoy my history works like !! thank u for giving it a chance 🥹 i hope u enjoy the jeonghan fic just as much, but again no pressure since that one is even longer than the cheol fic 💀 fia shut up challenge FAILED ‼️

[rollercoasterwords]

i was just rereading the last chapter of the hand that feeds - as i often do when i need to feel like a knife is digging in my chest and i need to some absolutely scrumptious gut-wrenching angst - and OH MY GODDD!!! i forget how fucking good that ending is and then i reread it and im telling you - literal goosebumps!!! the first section ending with 'This is a story about war.' i literally get chills everytime i read that!!! and the final few lines:

'A butterfly lands in the palm of her hand. She watches it flap its wings once, twice—and then it flies away.

Here is a secret.

Are you listening?

This is a story, and a story is not its end.'

my god reading this part after the emotional turmoil of the previous chapters is literally an out-of-body metaphysical experience. i feel like im dying!!! i love it!!!! :)))))

anyway it just sums up the fic so well and feels like such a thematic like thesis?? it just so perfectly presents such a compelling outlook on life and what defines its meaning and true value. like what makes a tragedy isn't its violent ends or its hateful and tense moments!! its the love and the family and the joy that truly make their lives a tragedy!!! and i love how you so beautifully execute that!!

anyway im getting serious brainrot right now, so i really just had to rant!!! now i have to reread!! kicking my feet and giggling for the angst!!!! <3

AHHHHH screaming u literally Get It. like...YES the ending to thtf is truly so special to me and one of my favorite things i've ever written. gonna use ur brainrot as license to ramble lol SPOILERS obviously

ok so the thing about the ending of thtf is that it is not at all what i originally had planned! like, i don't think it was until i was maybe...halfway? or like two thirds done with the fic that i just sort of had a moment where i was like NO i cannot end it this way it doesn't feel correct...and then i had like a eureka moment where everything fell into place and that last line appeared fully formed in my mind TRULY it was spine-shattering

so like. ok. when i started writing the fic i KNEW that i was not going to do any kind of afterlife epilogue, just because...well personally i was raised to believe in heaven and hell and center my life around that, and i lost that faith as i grew older, and now the idea of an afterlife just. is not something joyful or happy to me. like i know many people believe in some form of afterlife, but personally try as i might i have never been able to, and so i have had to seek meaning in life while believing that like. death is just it. i think ur brain dies and ur done and gone like i don't believe in souls or ghosts or anything lol. but even aside from like whether or not u believe anything happens or exists after death to me personally it's just been so much more meaningful to seek meaning in life absent any conception of an afterlife.

so i knew there wasn't going to be an afterlife. but i also knew i wanted to kill both dorcas + marlene in these very tragic and abrupt ways. like i specifically did not want to give them peaceful deaths. marlene dies afraid and alone and begging a god she doesn't believe in not to kill her here and now with so many things unfinished. dorcas dies consumed by rage and revenge and violence without ever getting a chance to heal from any of it, leaving behind friends and family who love her. and i wanted that partly because i love tragedy, yes, but also because...that is so often what death is. and that is so often what is terrifying about death. like most of us don't get any control over how or when we go, and it could be today or tomorrow and it could be peaceful or violent or painful. and that's so scary!

but i didn't want to end on that note, obviously. because the point of the story i was writing was not just to go "death is terrifying and the End and we don't get to choose when or how it happens!!" what i wanted to say was--death is terrifying and lonely and we can't control it, but life is beautiful and worth living anyway, perhaps even moreso because death is so out of our control. all the painful and scary and beautiful and joyful moments we experience are life, they are living, and there's no one experience that is objectively Better or Worse. like...grief and pain and sorrow are part of the experience of human life, just as much as joy and love and happiness.

anyway, so originally i was going to end with a little epilogue chapter from mary's point of view, sort of her and emmeline after the end of the first war like reflecting a little bit on their friends' lives and moving on. but honestly...that didn't quite fit with what i was saying, because again, what i wanted to say was that life doesn't need to be like...this endless continuing thing to have meaning. like you don't need to be remembered or leave A Mark on the world in order for your life to matter. i didn't want to make it seem like marlene and dorcas's lives were meaningful because of the people who would continue to live after them (although i do think that can be meaningful!! it just. wasn't what i wanted to say).

so what the final chapter ended up becoming is really this synthesis of like. my own worldview regarding life and death--and i feel like writing this story honestly helped me to like pin down that worldview which was a little more nebulous and difficult to articulate before. but like--last chapter. i wanted to take all these moments, both good and bad, from marlene and dorcas's lives--again, to emphasize that the "good moments" are not somehow inherently more important or meaningful than the "bad," that all life is experience and humanity and just...worth it. even the painful moments have meaning. and i also wanted to chop those moments up in time, to show that--hey! time doesn't matter.

like, we're so bound to this very linear view of timelines where life is like...i dunno. a straight line or a road or something. something you start and then you follow through to its end, and it's supposed to be like...a journey with a Final Destination. and we get scared of the End of that linear journey and we try to find ways to prolong it or tell ourselves that it doesn't have to ever end, that it can just keep marching forward in time.

and i mean, i'm still young. maybe my views will change. but as much as we are bound by linear time, i don't think that we need to measure life by those standards. all the moments of your life, good and bad and beautiful, they all exist somewhere in the fabric of the universe, forever. maybe that's a little optimistic streak of the spirituality i was raised with, but...yeah. all moments in life are meaningful, and they all exist somewhere in time, and so why does it matter what the "last" moment is? maybe death will be peaceful, or maybe it won't, but it's okay, because your death isn't your life. and that's what i'm trying to get at with the very last line--literally, a story is not its end. you can go back to any moment of a story and experience it again, you can skip around and read your favorite parts, and a story wouldn't be a story without every word and page in the book, y'know? so why should we fear the very last page? and why should we despair over the conflicts and the bits of the story that make us cry? it's all part of the story! it's beautiful! i love life and i love being human! and dorcas and marlene's lives were beautiful and tragic and wonderful and that's what being human is, and they died alone but they didn't live alone, and just....yeah! this ending is so so special to me <3

[evernkillian]

HP Fanfiction Recs | One- Shot Edition; Part 1

Standard Rec Lists Disclaimers Apply: Please for the love of God read the tags and Author's Note/s, This is NOT the ultimate rec lists or whatever, the fics below are my cup of tea.

Also, I tried my best to make the Quotes I included spoiler free but if you think it is just tell me!

(also, I have more fic recs! Here)

🍄🍄🍄

1. r/AITA by Seagate

G | 2k Words | Hermione / Draco

Summary: A budding relationship seen through the eyes of Reddit posts

Hermione POV. Well, Reddit Post Style. Hermione's a good friend 🥹🥹🥹 Actually, most of her posts are about Harry, seeking advice on how could she make sure that he won't get hurt/make sure that he's in good hands. ALSO ALSO they keep interacting in the comments so READ THEIR USERNAMES IT'S FUNNIER IF U KNEW WHO IT IS. To this day whenever I remember Voldemort's comment I laugh. I love Hermione's characterization- she's loyal, and she takes no shit. I laugh a lot reading this because Hermione sounds so serious but it's funny. Also my favorite quote:

I don't buy it for a second. The kicked puppy look, the lost baby blue eyes, and pouty lips? I was there when he perfected it. When he used the fake remorse to get out of trouble with the professors. 

I slammed the door in his face. I'd rather get murdered, thanks.

2. Do Not Collect 200 Dollars by KittySmith

T | 11k Words

Summary: It isn't Voldemort who is reverted to baby form from the Final Super Spell - but why is Harry still alive?

Is Voldemort... cooing?

Crack fic. Like, really crack. I reread this fic when I need a laugh. Voldemort's mind is a beautiful place it's so funny. I love how oblivious Voldemort is with Snape's kidnapping attempts LAUGHING CRYING SOBBING the interactions of these 3 are my favorite parts because of its peak comedy. Voldemort as the most bizarre doting parent ever. Oh, yeah, it's a Voldemort Wins AU. He's just taking care of Harry and researching. What an icon. ALSO MY FAVORITE QUOTE:

He examined the banana he had left consideringly, checking its heft before he threw it directly into Severus’ terrified face with a flat, “Bitch.”

3. Heartbreaking Confession by LiquidLuckandStuff (@liquidluckandstuff )

M | 1k Words | Harry / Tom|Voldemort

Summary: After the war, Harry visits Voldemort's grave after a bad day with a Mind Healer.

He confesses something he is too scared to tell even his closest friends.

Just Harry having a bad day and talking to Voldemort's grave. About Almosts, what ifs, what could've beens. This fic shows that Voldemort and Harry understood each other very much. The ways they've shown it while they're enemies, while one of them is dead. Also my favorite quote!!! It's longer than this, 3 paragraphs but i think that would be too spoiler-y so here it is!

Quietly, Harry whispered a terrible secret. “Sometimes, I want to crawl in there with you."

4. Breaking More Taboos by Destiny_Of_A_Dragon

M | 3k Words | Harry / Voldemort

Summary: The first time Harry broke the taboo, he’d been beyond starving, with little to no choice. The second and third times were much the same.

But the fourth?

That’s when everything changed.

HOLY MOLY THIS FIC!!!! MAKES ME FERAL!!! It's so unique and I've reread it lots of times!!! Can't say more because spoilers but!!! If you've read this scream about it with me. Sadly I can't put my favorite quote here since I don't wanna ruin the surprise factor but!!! Just know I have a lot of them!!!

5. Lightning Heart by Clarisse (transnymphtaire)

G | 1k Words | Harry / Tom

Summary: The first time you touch, a matching symbol is left behind where skin met skin.

ROLE REVERSAL AU!!! DARK LORD HARRY GRRRRRRRR. ALSO GRYFFINDOR TOM. Also Luna's part is brief here but she's a badass I love her. And!!! Harry giving tom gifts for courting. And they're soulmates! Favorite quote:

"Did you know that Gryffindor was my old house?” Harry ask conversationally, as if they’re not under the school, with a mirror hiding the Philosopher’s stone.

“It’s why I chose it over Slytherin.” Tom answers.

🍄🍄🍄

[crimeronan]

honest to god bota rewrote my psyche. the emotions especially chapter 25 and after like. feel fresh every time. still get chills and a taste of hopelessness and other indescribable feelings and it never gets old lol. it’s something i really enjoy in your writing all around but bota in particular :D

AAAA thank u 🥺 i still remember how satisfying it was to write, bota was my first heart project on that scale that i managed to complete and it was my most intricately planned project Ever to date. so it made me So Fucking Crazy to finally get to the bits i'd been sowing foreshadowing for from the beginning, especially since the plot twists still seemed to take people by surprise!

in the very Very beginning of the story there's a conversation where psii invites mai for dinner and she tells him that she can't meet him in person until their paths are doomed to cross. and as the story goes on she repeatedly emphasizes how angry he's going to be with her for Such a long time, and he refuses to believe this because he doesn't understand what could anger him like that when she's his friend and he understands that she has no autonomy in this situation and he loves her.

and i thought it must be So Obvious. that she was trying to warn him.

despite of course knowing that it wouldn't work. because she's already been with him after everything goes down and he's angry and there's nothing she can do about it. she just has this little space of time between when he knows who she is and When He Knows Who She Is to love him like she wants to. even though everything she's doing, INCLUDING helping him doom timelines, is a calculated manipulation to get him to make the choices that kill his family.

i thought it must be so obvious that this would turn out to be a true timeline story, instead of a canon divergence where the right allies help win the war. hang a gun on the wall, hang a dinner invitation in a pesterlog, etc

and instead most of the feedback i got was SHOCKED and HORRIFIED by the twist that psii had gotten it wrong, actually; this isn't a new story, actually; they've all been dead since the beginning, actually. of course the canon divergence tag does come into play after that, but the "we're in the true timeline" reveal?? i'd been planning it for three years and i was SO sure it was obvious and it felt SO good to write and be like yes, Woo, i hung the gun on the wall and then shot it in the third act.

so when people were surprised i was like. oh i see. this is one of those stories that's going to be fun (horrible) on the reread. it was all there the whole time

i don't know if i'll ever manage to craft a narrative like bota again but god Damn would i like to try.

[kindaichiyu]

i will take any excuse to rec a fic so. here r some of my fave seijoh-centric fics that make me go batshit !!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33415123

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7453651

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25904797

hello!! thank u!! i actually wanted to read them first and have the opportunity to discuss lol

peer reviewed recommendations <3

talk shit, get hit, presentability, & dog days

talk shit get hit.

oh my god oh my god. ok. so the thing is, when a story is written in third person, i feel like it's rarely much more than a neutral perspective with additional insight into the character's thoughts. but this is, fully in oikawa's perspective, this was written by him, in the third person, for this reason alone i really really already like this fic.

it's also something that manages to be heartwarming and batshit insane. if you suspend the feelings from the narrative it's crazy. one thing that i love about haikyuu is its ability to be an exciting shounen with low stakes (no one dies) and lots of humor. this is is the culmination of seijoh shenanigans and whatever combination marriage and war that iwaoi have had going on in their heads the last fourteen years.

there's so much in here from both the writing, the plot, and the characterization. this is oikawa in his most hysterical and theatrical form. i can't recommend it enough.

presentability

this was actually a reread for me! i have scoured the kyouhaba tag for things short and sfw and this is such a good one. we see from kyoutani's point of view but it's very easy to imagine that yahaba is very aware of what he's doing and trying to play it off like this is casual, this is platonic, this is very normal. and it's nothing too crazy, but i don't think these are bro activities, to say the least. i love how kyoutani just rolls with it, a little confused and maybe concerned, but just like the wall scene he accepts his fate and lets yahaba do his thing. this is happening now, it seems.

dog days

every year i tell myself i'm not a summer person. but the truth is that i have been so miserable with this cold and i should try to get outside as much as i can come july.

this fic made me so nostalgic for sticky summer nights, fireflies and msoquito bites, the sounds of crickets and cicadas in the night. night swimming!! it's kind of ominious because all around you is dark and who knows what's out there, but it adds a layer of charm, somehow. this one was really gorgeously written and heavier on the show don't tell.

overall awesome short reads, thank u again @shoyou-kun for the recommendations :)

[simmyfrobby]

Talk Hockey To Me

(tag game)

sneaky of u to tag me right back @captainbradmarchand 💛

Tell me about:

1. The thing that got you hooked on hockey

i'm big on sports documentaries & equally big on not paying for streaming subscriptions so i watched the pens 2009 cup run documentary on youtube kind of out of nowhere and there was a clip of Evgeni Malkin going from just walking normally to sudDENLY SKATING REALLY FAST and i was like oh that is COOL and then i found out that all these big strong professional athletes nicknamed their little goalie friend FLOWER and then that was the beginning of the end for me.

2. Your first ever fandom friend

@national-hockey-lesbian was the first person on hockeyblr i ever messaged (about a poem, unsurprisingly), but then it took a few months for us to actually start talking For Real. @sidcrosbrainworms was my first ever hockey friend.

3. The jersey you would most like to own

CAPTAIN BRAD MARCHAND BLACK CENTENNIAL JERSEY.

4. YOUR player (you only get ONE so choose wisely)

i almost said Brad. i was THIS close to saying Brad. but no. it's obviously Flower.

5. A pairing that deserves more fic

ok hear me out because i want there to be more tangerkarlsson fic as much as the next person but tangerkarlssonSULLY fic is where the real money is at.

6. Your favourite on-ice moment

sids goal against the red wings in game four of the cup final in 2009 where tanger celebrates by tackling sid to the ice.

THEN

link someone else's art/fic/etc that you love & think everyone should check out

this UNFINISHED mattdrai fic that i have reread 5+ times and still think about all the time. i can't tell you what it is about it that i love so much. i just do. i think it's incredible.

AND

link something you made & are proud of & want people to see

war is kind is probably my best edit. or at least my favourite poem.

tagging:

@lemondropbois, @eusuntgratie, @sergeifyodorov, @david-reinbacher

Talk Hockey To Me

(tag game)

Tell me about:

1. The thing that got you hooked on hockey

2. Your first ever fandom friend

3. The jersey you would most like to own

4. YOUR player (you only get ONE so choose wisely)

5. A pairing that deserves more fic

6. Your favourite on-ice moment

THEN

link someone else's art/fic/etc that you love & think everyone should check out

AND

link something you made & are proud of & want people to see

tagging:

@rimouskis, @captainbradmarchand, @gaybroons, @annieqattheperipheral, @kitebird-hockey, @mikathemad, @charleskachow, @jonassiegenthighler

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

OLA open forum on mary winchester lesbianism headcanon, i would love 2 know ur thoughts if u have any

HI MER!!!!!!!!! i haven't got many thoughts other than it is not headcanon it is simply fact mary winchester IS a lesbian. i think her story is ultimately a tragedy of epic proportions: the angels force her to love a man solely to create the vessels they want to wage their war through. and that's fucked up and that's never massively unpicked in the show!!!!!!!!!!! i know a lot of annamary looks at this in more depth which is think is so necessary because anna questions her faith because of mary and mary's love for her. they were the template for destiel. i also have so many ellenmary ideas that follow the same vein. like mary spends her whole life trying to unlearn comphet and accept that she truly loves another girl, and then. and then she does but the angels get her and one day she wakes up loving john and she doesn't know why and she's so confused. and it undermines everything she thought she understood about herself. and ellen, who was her girlfriend, now has to deal with the fallout of mary just falling out of love with her and marrying a guy. because in order to make mary marry john, the angels can't just give her love for john, they have to strip her of her love for ellen. this precious holy lesbian love which mary has finally come to treasure is RIPPED from her by literal religious beings and mary and ellen don't even know, mary just has to look ellen in the eyes and say she doesn't love her anymore. like what the fuck. and then this mary who now has all these radical ideas about comphet has to put herself through being a good wife and mother and it's not even in her control. i'm going to scream okay maybe i do have a lot of mary thoughts. and i think when she comes back the angels haven't got control of her anymore so she can once again fall in love with women and unpick the further years of comphet she went through with john. but she spends the entire time she's dating jody fearing that what if she just wakes up one day and doesn't, what if she has to tell jody what she told ellen. and i think that haunts her for a long time

(also i reread this sobs fic this morning and it made me have so many lesbian mary feelings i highly rec!!)

[drunkjaked]

hey sax, would you be able to expand on why you don't like longer fics? and even the thing about lowercase fics im so curious now that ik how you feel about them

Instead of sharing my thoughts (I can be really critical and fussy so I'll keep quiet) I'll leave 2 recommendations. These are some of my fave fics I've ever read:

The Art of War More by @/kpopfanfictrash (I'm so shy to tag, I'm such a big fan lmaoprotantor 😭😭😭)

Cherry by @fallinforgyu (Also shy to tag but Bunny and I r bffies now so I should get over my shyness)...

Proper like review type thing under the cut !

TAOM: This fic has like a college admissions scandal at the centre of it AND IT'S ABOUT JUNGKOOK MWAH! Anyways, really well written and such a good read AND E2L <333 And so so so amazing I love it so much, it's literally 42k words long and I loved every single word more than the last. All of this author's work (that I've read, mostly about Taehyung + Jungkook) is just phenomenal I love it so so so much.

It's so well done and I've never read a fic so plot driven (plot being the admissions scandal) that didn't make me lose interest - like I read it because I wanted to read a JK fic not because I cared about admissions scandals but OHHHH MY DAYS did this fic have me so engrossed in the whole thing, like even if this wasn't a fic or if it was about someone I didn't like I would have enjoyed this fic THAT is how good the plot is here

Cherry is just.. I literally started using cherry lip gloss because of this fic??? I HAVE GONE OUT OF MY WAY TO CHANGE MY LIFE BECAUSE OF THIS FIC?? If that doesn't tell you how good this is then.. idk what will .. it's around 30k I'm pretty sure (2 parts). The way Bunny wrote this is just so perfect I've literally never read anything like this in my life I can't believe it exists and I get to be alive to read it (AND IGET TO CALL MYSELF BUNNY'S FRIEND????In shock and awe at the state of my life????).

It's set in the 80's and it's the summer time "and the only thing hotter than the summer sun is the desire that courses through your veins." ??? THE FIRST LINE IM LITERALLY sigh I think about Cherry in all aspects of my day to day life and I adore it so much, I could write an essay on this fic (but I enjoy writing essays so this is something for me to consider), definitely due a reread.

And what's so crazy is that I'll see a picture / video of Heeseung and think omg Cherry Heeseung.. this has never happened to me in my life. So, yes, Cherry is that good

WARNING u will cry and sob like a child <3333

These 2 fics gave me hope that there are long fics out there for the impatient and concentration impaired ! If u have any long fic recs I would love to check them out but I really have to psych myself up to read them so it may be a while before I do.. Also omds sorry for the caps in here I'm typing on my laptop and I've been doing uni work all day so I'm in proper typing mode atm (in terms of my capitalisation anyways).

[jangofctts]

Okay OkAY first of all how about we talk about how you're Killing Me with all of these drabbles for the sunburst bois!!!!!!! HOW DARE YOU make me Pine for them!!! Since you insist on writing stuff that makes me think about them 24/7 I would like to Discuss either a night out at 79s or a DATE NIGHT. here are my thoughts (& some thots) I would like to know what U FINK

Blanche - doesn't seem to be down for ~feelings~ or at least ADMITTING THEM so if he were to do either I'm guessing it would be a night out at 79s not a date. would he want to go with you to 79s or would he want it to be a squad only thing? I think he'd be pretty intent on keeping you separate from the squad if he could help it. Mainly bc I think he has so many demands that he just wants one (1) thing for himself but he also wants to do it in a way where he isn't ACTUALLY GIVING HIMSELF TO YOU BC HES DUMB AND PUSHES YOU AWAY so my guess is he'd do neither would go out with the boys and then find you after to... U kno.... Fuck u through a wall... Bc if he can't have you then he can at least make it MEMORABLE FOR BITH OF U

Blue - definitely wants to go on a date. also wants to go to 79s with you. Wants to do everything with you???? I just think he'd drop everything if he could and would be like yes let's do literally anything as long as I am with you. A literal angel who I lub.

Jaws - date DATE D A TE NI G H T. Bump going out he wants to date you. He wants to date you hard. He wants to do all of the dumb dates he's seen in holodramas. He wants to walk you to the door of your apartment. He wants you to ask him up to your room for... Tea. Caf. Fucking whatever as long as he can bridal style carry you into your bedroom. Once you're in the bedroom tho that's when we are no longer in a holo drama but a BAD PORNO IF U KNO WHAT I MEAN

Sweets - b a b y. I feel like this would be tricky. Probably wouldn't want to go to 79s with you but would also be very stressed™ about going on a date with you. I think he'd really want to go on a date but would be so overwhelmed and unsure of what to do with himself. I think you would have to just suggest doing things together and not call it a date. Like take him to candy shops but not call it a date or maybe if there is a zoo or someplace with animals tell him you really want to go there and oh sweets do you want to come with meeeee. And then later he gets back to the barracks and the bois are like w o w sweets dates y'all and sweets is like... Sweets.exe has stopped working "tHAt wAS a DATE BUT I DIDNT OVERTHINK THE ENTIRE TIME" and then I fink he wants to go on dates with you all the time after that 💖💖💖

Kami - 79s all the way baby. Not only bc he wants to drink and have fun with the squad and you, but a l s o bc you two should go check out the fresher together. Maybe inspect the structural integrity of that wall in the back... Vigorously. Maybe make sure the supply closet is secure. M a y b e make sure the booth cushions are gonna hold up... For Science. I think eventually if you ever got to the point of getting a confession a REAL ONE out of him he'd want to go on all the dates but until then I think wacky hijinks in 79s is all you're gonna get... Not that we mind that 👀

Fuse - o fuse baby definitely no dates. Nothing even remotely resembling a date. If he smells date activity or feelings then he is o u t. I think he'd go to 79s with you but I al so feel like he would ditch you at some point NOT BC HE DOESNT WANT TO BE WITH YOU BUT BC HE THINKS YOU SHOULD FIND AOMEONE ELSE THE LITERAL DUMBASS definitely think he would mainly limit your interactions to quick fucks and that's it (u already talked about him breaking things off with you and how that would happen and how you would come back together and I CANNOT IMPROVE UPON PERFECTION)

Bruiser - kinda like blue I feel like he would be down to do anything as long as you're with him. 79s? Y es. Date? Also yes. Mainly I think this would come down to you. He wants to know what you want to do. He also definitely wants to fuck you whether it's after date night or after a night at 79s there is no hiding how much that man wants it 👀 he is looking respectfully JK HE WANTS TO F U CK he would not be shy about that. Would definitely be shy about feelings so I could see how dates could be a Big Thing for him. I think of Him often. I wanna date a Lorge Man plz and thank you.

Void - MY M A N. okay so I think that void would want to do neither. Esp when the war is going on. Maybe after the war things could be different. But all he wants to do is have a Nice Night In okay! Also I don't wanna make him sound boring like y'all will get up to things. Definitely having shower sex in your apartment. And then you're gonna fuck again after. And then since you made a mess you're gonna need to shower again... 👀 BUT NEEWAYZ I think he'd really like watching a holodrama with you or just eating dinner in maybe takeout maybe something you cooked together. He just wants to spend time with you in a Very Low Stress Environment. Maybe I could see you going on dates together but they would have to be the most low key chill dates ever lmao I think he'd mainly just want to spend time with you alone and relax as often as he could so that you could take care of him and he could take care of someone too where THEIR LIFE ISNT ON THE LINE OKAY LET HIM REST AND GET LAID I LOVE HIM SO MYCH LEMME PAMPER HIM MY HEART BELONGS TO H I M 😭💞💞

LITERALLY I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM HERE U GO U MADE ME DO THIS I HOPE U R HAPPY WITH YOURSELF 😤💖

THIS DEADASS IS SO ACCURATE LIKE IM KAJRKEHR IM SCREAMING LIKE THIS IS ALL SO SO PERFECT FOR THE BOYS 

I LOVE THIS HCS WITH MY WHOLE HEART AND IVE REREAD THEM LIKE FIVE THOUSAND TIMES I THANK YOU AHKWEJHRKH