#even if she does get crescent rose back having to fight or think or without it will be beneficial moving forward

[majoringinsarcasm]

I will never be over the literal Players and Pieces callback like this will live rent free in my head for months on end. Plus the added thing of Ruby not being able to fight with them bc she doesn’t have her weapon. The Ever After may not be combat heavy like Remnant but both times an altercation has happened she could not help the way she usually does and mmmmmmmmm the angst is yummy

[heliosthegriffin]

The Witch is overpowered, but overly sensitive to pain

"This is it, Salem!" Jaune shouts.

Ruby slices through a line of Beowolves. "We're here to take you down for good!"

"Oh ho ho, well come and try it!" Salem poses dramatically, pointing a hand at them.

Jaune moves in front of Ruby, taking a hit of magic with his shield. Ruby lowers Crescent Rose on his shoulder, aiming at Salem's heart, if she still possessed one.

Salem does even dodge the shot, a shimmering shield of rainbow-colored magic blocking it, the bullet ricocheting above her, hitting the ceiling.

The bullet hits a gargoyle on the wall, making it wobble, then fall down. It drops like a heavy rock off a cliff. It falls down right next to Salem, and she is distracted.

Ruby speeds forward and cuts through the shield with the blade of her scythe, Jaune following behing her, pushes her back with his shield, and then kick her's in the abdomen.

"OW! FUCK! Ow-ow-ow!" Salem buckles over, breathing hard. Jaune stands uneasily over her, his sword held high, but not quite sure what to do next. He looks to Ruby, who awkwardly shuffles holding Cresent Rose.

Salem falls to her knees, holding her stomach. "Fuff-ha, fuff-ah. Shit, ow." She looks at Jaune in betrayal. "What the hell, man? Who goes and does that to a lady!?"

Jaune's eyes flicker to and fro guiltily. "Um, we're fighting." "Yeah, but like a high-fantasy magic battle! Where beams go pew-pew!"

"I'm not a wizard. I don't have a gun that make pew-pew."

Salem breathes heavily. "I noticed! Ah, my dad might have put me in a tower most of my life, but nobody's ever hit me before! Ah, ouch."

Jaune looked to Ruby, who seemed to have caught a case of second-hand shame. "Ruby over there has a gun and stuff, and shoot lasers of her eyes." Jaune offed.

"Yeah, I'm used to that! It's normal to shoot and use lasers on me, but who punches a lady in the gut?!"

"Kicked. And, I mean Yang, did that to you?"

"That was a double! A body double made of Grimm Ooze!"

Jaune noticed Ruby edging out of the room, but locked her down with a meaningful gaze. Which meant, 'You helped me get into this, you're helping me get out.'.

"I was back here playing Total Remnant Destruction!" Salem moaned, balling up on the floor.

Ruby around and offered a sympathetic hand to Salem. "Hey, hey how about we start this over, and without any hand-to-hand, or gut kicks." Ruby said, giving Jaune a awakward look, which he returned.

Salem took the hand. "Ok, lets do that."

Ruby then gave a pull.

One she did too fast, accidentally giving the Witch a headbutt, causing Ruby to stumble back groaning, as she didn't have her aura up, and Salem fell back to the ground, holding her forehead.

"AH! Ozpin blowing me was less painful!"

Jaune looked at her pathetic form. "I thought that was a double? When Oscar blew up the whale?"

"I was talking about when the first time he did it! When you get blown up with magic, it doesn't it hurt, it like a weird tickle, or your leg falling asleep and then waking back up!' She accidentally bent over, causing her bruised stomach to spasm.

"Oh no, uh urg. I think I'm going to throw up!" Salem's pale face went red.

"Jaune help her!" Ruby said urgently. "She got her hair in her face, don't let it get all messy!"

"Why me?" Jaune moaned, going over to help her.

"Because out of the three of us, you have the most experience with throwing up!"

Jaune scowled, but pulled back Salem's hair, causing her to cry, "Too rough, be more gentle -urggg!" She started hurling over Jaune's boots black ichor, with little tenacles and limbs flaying about.

Jaune's gaze went dead, but continued to hold her hair back, and offer gentle words of comfort, and little rubs on the shoulder blades, promising that everything would get better.

After moving her away from the vomit, and getting rid of his Grimm-stained boots, Salem started crying into his lap, and Jaune realized with horror, that Ruby had abandoned him when he wasn't looking. Probably unable to withstand the sheer uncomfortable air that came with caring for the person you were trying to destroy mere minutes ago.

Then he heard soft snoring. Looking down, the Grimm Queen had fallen asleep. She was almost cute like this, other than the black ichor around her mouth, which he took care of with a spare hanky, which was now quickly dissolving.

Jaune quickly resigned himself to being her awhile, and took out a book he had been meaning to finish, and now seemed just as good a time as any. He put on a pair of reading glasses, and gently patted Salem's head, hoping that she'd stay asleep for a while, and while doing so, keep the world from being destroyed for a bit longer.

---

An: I always thought it would be funny if Salem had a extremly low tolerance for pain, because how much it would contrast her being normally a mostly invincible villain and being a caster type fighter, who isn't used to getting up close and personal.

[itsclydebitches]

Clyde, a friend of mine brought this up and I was as wondering what you think: they said WBY not noticing Ruby’s mental state might’ve been more believable if the pass out scene had been cut, and after thinking about it I completely agree. If Ruby had maybe paused and froze up, then “recovered”, it would’ve made more sense, especially because the rest of the team would want to focus on getting out of the Ever After so they wouldn’t seem so neglectful.

That's a good point and I think I mostly agree. Removing the intensity of Ruby outright fainting and then insisting she's fine (which in and of itself is a red flag) would have put the emphasis more on the quiet moments that are mainly for the viewer's benefit. For example, does the team realize how much the game battle is messing with her while they're actively involved in the fight? Probably not. We see Ruby's terrified expression, head in her hands, etc. but the girls are currently busy defending themselves. Toss in the fact that Ruby isn't consistent in her depression - she's smiling polite with the Prince, is willing to leave Penny's sword behind, has bubbly moments like running while yelling "Kitty!" and is included in the early humor gags - and I could better buy the team missing just how much she was suffering.

There are two places where I pause, however. The first is with Yang. Granted, this is kind of headcanon-y, but I would hope that a sister AND someone with intimate knowledge of depression would better spot what was going on, even if it was more subtle, so I think even without a faint I'd be side-eyeing Yang's attitude this Volume. As for the whole team, I'd put the Crescent Rose situation in the same This Is an Obvious And Huge Red Flag category as the fainting. Ruby lost her beloved weapon, is completely defenseless without it... and doesn't seem to care. Even before the group sees her coming up with transparent 'Oh, I forgot to bring my weapon to a battle! Haha...' excuses and her actively flinching when Jaune offered it up, the fact that Ruby isn't looking for it speaks volumes. Especially after the Volume starts with Blake hunting hers down and Yang retrieving her arm. Especially when Weiss points out that Ruby is still without her scythe.

So for me, removing the faint and the Crescent Rose situation would have made things better, if not perfect. Plus, that's easy enough to do. Clearly the story wasn't committed to Ruby developing a bad association with her previously adored weapon, considering she nabbed it the second the writers knew she'd need it next episode and defended herself against Neo without a single hitch. Ruby has flashbacks so intense she's nearly eaten and can't even touch Crescent Rose; twenty minutes later she's back to her old fighting self and only failing because it's a 8 vs. 1 battle that includes psychological torture. That's another good example of, "Only the most recent episode is canon."

[camillabanilla]

The "death"/rebirth cycle of the Ever After; it's chekhov's plot device now. Like it HAS to come into play, somehow. To that end, we have three characters that have forgotten their "purpose" aka identity crisis island.

Ruby: does NOT have it in her to fight. If she does, her heart won't be in it, and I can't see her fighting since she can barely look at crescent rose without a panic attack. She no longer considers herself a hunter. Her identity is eroding, and no one is any wiser. Honestly this is kinda scary, like this kiddo is keeping this depression to herself and she needs to ask for help, but she won't and everything comes out all at once in a Very Bad Way. Too close to real life.

That being said, ideally Ruby discovers that it's okay for her to have bad days, to ask people for help, and feel her emotions. Honestly she reminds me of Riley from Inside Out. She takes the "bad" parts, and makes them a proper part of her self. The spectre of Summer no longer haunts her and Salem's taunts lose their effectiveness. You can even say, her painful memories and emotions "temper" her resolve. 👀

Jaune: my baby boi is a mess right now I don't even know where to begin. Yeah he was doing so great for volume 7-8 but maybe that just means he had the furthest to fall (get it lol)? Like he finally feels okay with himself, he's the team healer. He's not the type of guy to think of a mercy kill as heroics and it's literally the opposite of a heal so that entire cornerstone of his personality has been smashed. He's regressed to a place of self doubt. Except this time the stakes have risen and it's not that he can't become a hero, it's that he briefly was a hero and failed miserably (in his eyes). God even his angst is mature.

I feel like his trauma is different from Ruby's trauma in the way that hers is very psychological and deals with things that have happened to her, and Jaune's trauma deals with the things he's DONE or not done.

Shout out to the weirdness of him being super old now, but aside from becoming grumpy has moved on/changed on the least of all the characters. Like just look at the guy, he's literally rusting, even his new armor! His hair is long and unkempt compared to his previous fresh cut, and his broken ass sword is still....a broken ass sword.

He needs to forgive himself. Accept that all he can do is his best and it might not always be enough, but the world would be worse off without him. Sometimes being a hero involves doing the really hard thing, so that other people won't have to suffer. Like, reminiscent of Ironwood minus the paranoia and bullheadedness. Maybe he learns that he truly did help Louis and Alyx. Perhaps even, the tree requires Jaune and Ruby's help in resetting itself and he learns the benefit of a figurative rebirth. That sometimes death is necessary. That last one is icky.

Neo: our little murder goblin. Her sense of self is harder to pinpoint since we know her less well, and it seems like most of her motivation is "do crimes" and "do crimes with Roman". So I'm going to treat her like a villain for the most part. I do think she'll get some kind of closure on how Roman died: that if you fuck around, you find out/get eaten by a Grimm. I do find it interesting that we haven't seen diddly of her since she landed, like she's almost disappeared. Her semblance is wack and even though semblance evolution is a thing, I get the feeling that something about the Ever After is doin it for her. I don't think she has a good shot at coming out of this alive tbh.

But back to her "losing herself", she doesn't seem well. Maybe she thought Cinder would be her new partner in crime and she's super not taking that well? That could solidify that Roman was her one and only person, and she'll never experience that again

She won't go out in a blaze of glory without her either becoming a cautionary tale for not letting go of someone, or realizing for herself that she and Roman only have themselves to thank for their fate. Either way, I think she goes down with the tree. As much as I ship her and Fox, she's way too Chaotic Evil. I feel like there should be more to her story, but I can't pin it down.

[feleshero]

¥ Felicia stealing Khonshu's tomb and he gets her in the act 🗣️

She'd been told, time and time again, that picking a fight with divinity was not a very good idea. 'Mercurial', that's how the Gods were described. Mercurial beings that would lay a blessing at your feet in the morning, but curse your entire lineage before dinner. Ancient entities with too much power and far too little time spent learning manners. Attracting their attention, for good or for bad, was a fast path to suffering because they held grudges like no one else.

The row of cloth-wrapped, pitch soaked torches was a very good touch. Pulling one from its sconce and setting it ablaze over her head gave her just the Lara Croft feel she was going for! On the far end of an ancient temple (or was that... a tomb?), armed with only her wits, her mitts (two sets of very sharp claws), and a very reliable tip given to her by one heavily inebriated soul at the Midnight Mission, Felicia was making the loudest decision of her week: Picking a fight with a God.

And what a dirty fighter God was.

Crescent-curved blades were launched at her from hidden slats in ornately decorated, crimson-splashed walls that she had to pounce and prance around.

Storms of arrows flit through cobweb-coated rivets looking to perforate her.

Gouts of flame rose through hair-trigger pressure grates at her feet needing to immolate her.

Even the walls of the temple were closing in around her, compelled by an absentee landlord to turn HER into a lovely crimson splash adorning the walls! She hadn't had a workout this intensive since robbing Fury* all those moons ago.

[*Read Issue #7 - Sifr. ]

❝ You'd think they didn't want people to get down here, or something... Were you this anti-social back in your day? ❞

Can you blame her for taking a few seconds to catch her breath between traps? She may be the greatest thief alive, but even legends needed some moments in-between moments... and if the golden statue of a man with an owl-skeleton for a head minded her taking this moment, then he sure wasn't speaking up about it.

❝ Tell you what, bud. ❞ A groan of effort as Felicia lifted off of the floor, stretched and swayed to loosen up some. ❝ I can tell I'm crowding your space... so I'm just gonna get my things and go. ❞ Social grace didn't abandon her, even in a golden treasure horde of a hidden chamber. Oh, and what a horde it was.

Surrounded by gold idols, figureheads, weapons, trinkets, talismans... canopic jars? (who's organs were THOSE?), she'd danced her way all the way into God's secret little hidey-hole! She could've started hauling this stuff topside by the barrel load, but that wasn't her goal. Course it wasn't. If she wanted just riches, she could've saved herself a flight from New York to Cairo.

She wanted something very specific, something that even old Owl-Head himself wasn't supposed to have. Bast's Diadem. A funky little crown, marked with the sigils of life & death, and hidden away from the feline goddess for centuries, maybe millennia! What the Owl's beef with the Panther was, Felicia was sure she didn't care.

All she cared about, in this moment, was carefully being lifted from the dusty bust she'd found it on. It felt warm in her hands, like a gem that'd been sitting in the sun, smooth to the touch and heavy. A lot heavier than she'd expected... as i- as if someone were pressing down on it - !

"HAS CURIOSITY CEASED ITS RELENTLESS CAMPAIGN AGAINST CATS IN THIS ERA, GIRL?"

OHWHA-! Felicia pivoted on her heels so quickly, the dust she kicked up didn't move until she had already settled again. Staring, with an only lightly masked concern, as the large, owl-esque statue of a deity canted its head down toward her... and spoke again.

"THAT. DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. RETURN IT, AND YOUR DEATH WILL BE WITHOUT SUFFERING."

... ... ...

To say that the thief was - a bit - caught off guard? Well, it wouldn't be too inaccurate. She really only allows herself a moment to gawk, wide-eyed. A single moment to catch her breath...

❝ It doesn't belong to you either, sir! In fact, I think Mother Bast would be VERY interested to hear just why it is one of her favorites is riding the Duat instead of getting her tiara out of here. ❞

If - If that play worked, she can't tell. Owl skulls are notorious for not having readable expressions. The statue sits there for a spell. Silent, immobile, watching without watching. Felicia stands her ground. Diadem in hand, heart padam padaming something vibrant against her ribcage, but confidence on her features.

She's not going to die here. In a tomb? Killed by Moon Knight's patron? It would absolutely not be the end of her sto - !

"LYING TO A GOD HAS CONSEQUENCES, FELICIA HARDY. CONSEQUENCES YOU HAVE ELECTED TO SUFFER."

I - ugh. Tremors at her feet, the very room around her had been warbling steadily since old owl-head wke up, but now? Now it was rattling. Shaking itself loose, as if it were about to... crumble. Fuck.

❝ Okay, well... I can see that there's no talking to you about this. ❞ Time to go. Time to go! Stuffing that diadem in her go-bag, scooping up a gold coin, as a memento, the thief was RACING toward the exit - Or... well, she was about to be.

❝ Hey! ❞ Atop a large set of stairs, she paused. Turning back toward the statue, she crouched a bit so she could make eye-contact with the thing actively trying to murder her.

❝ Hey! Tell Marc & Stephen & Jake, that I said 'Thanks for the tip!' before you send them! ❞ And she laughed as she fell backwards down a rapidly crumbing hallway, narrowly avoiding a crescent-shaped blade of energy hurled at her head.

Sure, she'd been told, time and time again, that picking a fight with divinity was not a good idea. They held grudges like nobody's business and they always came to collect.

Luckily! She had a philosophy of her own she so enjoyed whipping out:

Don't miss heaven by two inches. If you're gonna piss a God off, give it your all and make them remember you!

Send me a ¥ and a command and my muse has to obey. ft. @nantosueltas

[blakistan]

SO MANY FUCKING THOUGHTSSSSS

Obviously bees Bees BEES YES! Saw the title and my heart skipped a fucking beat (then dropped when I saw a warning but then calmed down when I realized it was a photosensitive warning not a themes-of-death warning thank fuck) and hot damn I love the way they handled all that holy SHIT (looking forward to that song to complete the in-show trilogy of All That Matters, Treasure, and ???) Also cat, I don’t watch much anime but I know the cat’s voiced by a big name VA and everyone was making jokes about one of their past roles, wonder if those’ll get even better with the new info we have on the CC

Jaune’s POV segment broke my fucking heart like the clock fruit almost gave me a fucking anxiety attack (also the parallel that the first thing he does in the Ever After is the last thing he did on Remnant: stab something with his sword). Guess we were right about his first thing in the Ever After being that he wished he wasn’t too late/could go back and do things different, and ofc fucking wonderland does that in the worst way possible And um. Ima be honest the “Ruby will hang herself from the tree like Odin did” theories always struck me as a bit out of left field. Like at least I didn’t expect them to be so blatant but uh. Ruby is going to try to literally kill herself so at least one of her friends can maybe go back home. Fucking yikes. (not sure if they’ll find a way around that entirely, or if Jaune will bite the bullet for it, idk)

Also a little bit unclear as to where Jaune and Ruby stand on the whole. You know. Does Ruby know. Like I really don’t think the news would elicit any anger from her at this point shed probably just break but like. fuck. She wasn’t looking in any of the regret mirrors in the Punderstorm and I feel like that was deliberate

Also I love 1) that the Punderstorm is a thing that happens and 2) how matter-of-fact yet still “I feel stupid saying this out loud” Jaune is about it.

Oh yeah also having seen his face and style of dress I think we can rule out Louis/Lewis (idk if there’s an official spelling yet?) being an Ozcarnation. Curious to see if he’s been turned into something else or if he’s just actually dead

Oh and back around to the cat, loving the themes that like. People who assign purposes from on high are always bad like 100% of the time. RWBY is about individuality and making your own path and from the gods to Ozpin to Ironwood to the CC we never see anything good come of somebody sitting at the table and moving the pawns against their wishes. 

And jumping back around to the end again I can’t say I expected Ruby’s reaction to seeing Crescent Rose again but also yeah that about makes sense. She wants to forget everything she is and all the responsibility she’s shouldered and with the very clear “weapons are identities” theme that has been here since the first chapter of the show might I add, yeah she’s never gonna pick that thing up again if she can help it. When Neo’s Jabbermafia shows up again and everyone is called to fight, she’s going to: -instinctively go for the box CR is in -hesitate -suddenly find herself at the blacksmith again -pick up Summer’s axe in a desperate gambit to be a better person than the failure she thinks she is

All that said, every episode that passes without Ruby completely breaking down just seems to add more fuel to the yet-unlit bonfire that is her psyche, dear fucking god

[howlingday]

hey if you got some time wanna try writing a fight scene with jaune vs one of the rwby girls (or all four) where they're faster and stronger and more skilled than him but our boy's wearing a literal ton in armor and gear and has a great timing to negate their speed.

on rwby's end we got ruby who's high mobility means that it's damn near impossible to hit her with a timed strike because she gets to set the tempo,

yang who's needs to be taken down in a single blow to ensure her semblance doesn't heal and empower her

blake who can use her clones to take a hit even when jaune does manage to time his hits right,

and weiss who can control the battlefield with her dust usage and can summon fighters to do all the dirty work for her.

the main issue is that all four of them have huge egos and can be tricked into not fighting the right way pretty easily if they even think to fight properly against jaune.

if you do, do the fight scene, would ya mind showing us whichever girl(s) he fought swallowing their pride to ask jaune for pointers afterward?

Ruby: Uh, are you sure about this, Jaune?

Jaune: I have to know where I'm at, Ruby.

Ruby: Yeah, but I don't want you to get hurt. Like, the last time we fought-

Jaune: Was at Beacon, and that was with food. This time, we have our weapons.

Ruby: Not making a strong case for this.

Jaune: Please, Ruby? For old time's sake?

Ruby: (Sigh) Fine, but if it gets to be too much-

Jaune: I'll stop you.

The ground crunched under Ruby's boots as she widened her stance, slightly crouching. 'Like a spring' she thought to herself. Her grip on Crescent Rose tightened as she stared down her friend from across the arena. In a blink, the fight began.

Jaune charged forward, his sword and shield in hand. Ruby lept towards him, her scythe swinging wide from her side. He spun on his heel, catching her blade on his shield and using his momentum to carry his blade into her.

Ruby split into a flurry of petals and reformed behind Jaune. Her scythe shifted to it's rifle form and fired a shot into Jaune, nailing him in the back. He stumbled, but caught himself without falling on his knee. He turned and ran after Ruby as she land. Shifting again, Ruby ran at Jaune, swinging her scythe, keeping Jaune on the defensive back foot as she spun, the blade's size and momentum knocking Jaune's shield off by a few inches. He rolled backwards, shaking his arm.

Ruby: Need a break?

Jaune: I was about to ask you the same thing.

Ruby and Jaune ran towards each other again, but Jaune changed his tactics. He swung at Ruby, keeping shield out further than usual. Ruby stepped back, pointing Crescent Rose's muzzle at Jaune. He followed through, thrusting his sword forward while bring his shield closer.

Ruby fired, hitting Jaune square in his shoulder. He grunted, but continued his charge forward. Ruby petal burst to his side, swinging her scythe down onto him. Jaune caught the scythe's blade on his, then twirled himself along the shaft. Once he was in front of Ruby, he smashed his shield against her, knocking her to the ground.

She rolled backwards, but carefully climbed to her feet. Holding Crescent Rose tight to her chest, she panted from the surprisingly heavy strike from Jaune. Well, not too surprising, since he outsized her twice over. Worst yet, she could feel herself low on aura, while Jaune walked closer, taking a deep breath, and restored his.

Jaune: Can you keep going?

Ruby: Just... a sec...

Jaune: (Amps her aura) How about now?

Ruby: (Rubs her head) I still have a headache.

Jaune: (Chuckles) How about we break for lunch? My treat.

Ruby: It's always your treat.

Jaune: I'm trying a low sodium diet. I can't live on salt, Ruby.

Ruby: My food isn't that bad.

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

Weiss: I hope you're ready, Jaune, because I won't be going easy on you.

Jaune: I'd prefer you didn't, actually.

Weiss: If you insist, but just remember that you asked for this.

Jaune: How could I ever forget?

Jaune and Weiss took positions across from each other, swords in hand. Jaune gripped his firmly, heart pounding with anticipation. This is a woman who's been honing her craft since who knows when. He only picked up the sword a few years ago.

Neither moved from their positions, save for Weiss dragging her toe behind her, shifting her body to a fencing position. Jaune brought his shield close as he stepped forward. Rushing in would only get themselves hurt.

Jaune lightly jabbed his sword forward. Weiss easily knocked his blade aside and thrusted into his shoulder. He reeled back in pain, but never lost his grip. Blinking through the pain, he watched Weiss shift forward.

Weiss: That was your only warning.

Jaune: Noted.

He rushed forward, shield moving to cover his shoulder. With a wide swing, he opened himself to catch Weiss' rapier and knock it away. However, Weiss saw this coming and stepped back, lunging law and forward into his open guard. Jaune retreated, slapping his sword down against her blade, then swung an elbow for her face.

Weiss fell backwards, but quickly lept to her feet. He gave her an apologetic chuckle, shrugging his shoulders. She gave her own wry smile, lunging again. She aimed low and struck his thighs, stepped back and shot a round of fire dust at him.

Jaune stood firm, holding his shield up to block the attack. He lowered his defense and found Weiss charging him. He was about strike when he saw the glyph at her feet. In response, he held guard and watched as she soared through the air above him, her body turned to face him as she spun mid-air, her legs over her head.

He turned as she landed behind him and struck the ground, spying a glyph spiraling beneath. He turned and saw a massive construct of ice, summoned to life by his opponent.

Weiss: Do you yield?

Jaune exhaled, his skin glowing as his semblance restored his aura. He gave a chuckled as he gripped Crocea Mors tighter.

Jaune: Do you?

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

Blake: Are you ready?

Jaune: Uh, that depends. Does this count as us hanging out?

Blake: Why wouldn't it?

Jaune: Well, when was the last time we hung out together?

Blake: Last week. Remember?

Jaune: Huh. Really? Just the two of us?

Blake: I'm sure it'll come to you, eventually.

Blake ran forward, keeping herself low, arms close to her side. Jaune swiped with his shield, but his momentum carried him through the shadow, forcing him off balance. He turned to see her charge again, weapon in hand. She lept into him, kicking herself off his shield into the air.

She threw her blade at Jaune, who stepped away and stood ready for her to come down. Her descent was preluded by gunshots as her weapon shifted to it's submachinegun form, peppering Jaune where he stood. He held up his shield, covering his face. She tugged on the ribbon, pulling herself to the ground.

Jaune approached her, earning him another dose of gunfire as Blake unloaded the rest of her magazine on him. He held up his shield as he stalked forward, his sword at his side and ready to swing. Blake stood, switching her weapon to it's ninjato form. He swung, missing her entirely, earning him a strike in the shoulder from the girl.

He swung out to the side, missing her again, black smoke rising from the fading shadow. Jaune stepped away, keeping his guard up as he locked eyes on her. She stalked towards him, and on her face was a smile.

Jaune: I remember now. We were watching that ninja show together.

Blake: Ninjas of Love, yes.

Jaune: Yeah, then I said I liked it, and you started smiling. Just like you are now.

Blake: I'm not smiling.

Jaune: Not now, but you were a second ago.

Blake: No, I wasn't.

Jaune: Yeah, you were. You're having fun, aren't?

Blake: Shouldn't we be fighting?

Jaune nodded and breathed out, his aura refilling. He stepped forward to Blake and put a hand on her shoulder. She visibly relaxed as her aura was restored significantly. She had used her clones too frivolously. She needed to rely on them less. As he stepped away, Blake put her next plan into action.

Rushing forward, she jumped into Jaune. He swatted at her with his shield, but had to spin on his heel when Blake swapped herself with a clone, this time made of stone. She capitalized on his off balance and struck him from behind. She ducked away from another sword strike, and thrusted into his thigh.

Jaune stepped away, giving Blake room to jump again. This time, however, Jaune ducked aside as she swung at him. Using her ice clone, she trapped Jaune's sword as he thrusted at her. As she ran into his guard, he swung the clone into her, knocking her to the ground. She jumped to her feet, panting.

Blake: This is fun.

Jaune: Right? I haven't had a workout like this in, well, ever!

Blake: Well, I'm glad you're enjoying this, and not playing unfair.

Jaune: How would I play unfair?

Blake: You could amp your aura without amping mine.

Jaune: Oh... Yeah, I could! Totally! Do. That.

Blake: You didn't of it, did you?

Jaune: (Sighs) No, I didn't.

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

Yang: You ready to rock, Vomit Boy?

Jaune: Uh, not really. I mean, you are the best fighter on your team.

Yang: Aw! You're so sweet! Too bad it's not gonna save you from this savage beating.

Jaune: Oh boy.

Yang wasted no time, charging head on into Jaune. She swung a fist into Jaune's guard, knocking his shield away. In response, he swung down with his sword, but blocked it with a backhand and used her free fist to fire a shot into his ribs. He coughed as he rolled backwards.

Jaune groggily stood to his feet, shaking off the pain. Yang giggled across the arena, cooing taunts at him. With a sharp exhale, he reset his stance. He walked towards her, guard up and sword ready.

Yang tittered again before ducking low and launching herself to his flank, coming in like a bullet. He swung around and blocked, then followed with another sword swing at her. She bobbed away, entering his guard. He stepped back, forcing her to a shot he was grateful was empty.

Yang pressed in again, but this time, Jaune pushed her strike inward with a shield. On her flank, Jaune swung down. Yang took the hit and rolled forward, grunting. She stretched her shoulder with a grin.

Yang: That's one for you and... fifteen for me?

Jaune: Ah- Fifteen?!

Yang: Well, I did hit you with a buckshot round.

Jaune: Has anyone ever told you you're the worst?

Yang: Do you mean today, or just my team, or something else entirely?

Jaune: Ugh... You're the wo-

Yang: What? Am I so awesome you can't finish a sente-

Yang and Jaune both looked down in horror at the ground between them. Jaune's horror intensified as he gulped and looked at Yang. Yang's horror shifted to righteous fury as her eyes became red with a blink and her hair shone like the sun. Between them, lie thin, yellow strands of Yang's hair.

Jaune stepped back, holding his guard especially high and close as Yang stepped closer. With a single punch, Jaune was sent rolling backwards. He didn't want to imagine what would have happened if he didn't have his shield to block that.

Yang launched herself at him, firing her buckshot rounds each time. What Jaune couldn't block, he dodged, and what couldn't be dodged was blocked. He lept away and Yang fired another round. When it clicked, she fired another, only for it to click as well.

Upon hearing the clicks, Jaune rushed forward, striking Yang with his shield. Stunned, Yang stumbled a bit, and Jaune wasted no time striking her his his sword. When she swung back, he stepped away before stepping in and striking again.

Yang held up a hand, forcing Jaune to pause.

Jaune: You doin' alright, Yang?

Yang: Yeah. Yeah, just, uh... tired.

Jaune: Your aura did get kind low. And you are coming down from your super mode.

Yang: Ha ha... Super mode? What, like some kind of video game?

Jaune: Kind of. You need a break?

Yang: Yeah. Then, I'm gonna kick your butt twice as hard.

Jaune: Heh heh. I'm looking forward to it.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Sooo I know I’m abusing the power you gave me (let me send prompts) but I’ve a very good reason, I promise (I’ve Nie brothers feelings and I love your writing) and I need to ask for this “5 times everyone realises that actually NMJ is the pushover in the Nie brothers relationship bc let’s be honest NMJ let’s NHS get away with everything and every time NMJ tries to get NHS to do something he has to bribe him with fans or resign himself to never get that done” and I find that hilarious :p

1

“Your sons have quite a good relationship, Sect Leader Nie,” Jiang Fengmian remarked, but the man didn’t look especially impressed by the compliment.

“Especially given that they’re half-brothers,” Jin Guangshan added, and Jiang Fengmian sighed internally: the addition made the original statement into a taunt, which hadn’t been what he meant at all. “Rare to see such a good relationship in such cases.”

“Would you know?” Wen Ruohan asked, smiling poisonously. “And here I thought you had only one.”

“I’ve tasted pork; I don’t need to know how to butcher a pig. Look at how the older one lets the younger one around follow him around everywhere – certainly I wouldn’t have tolerated such a thing for one so much younger than me.”

“I always liked playing with others,” Jiang Fengmian said mildly. “The bigger the family, the better, in my view…it’s nice to help and be helped.”

“I don’t think the infant being carried around is doing that much helping,” Lan Qiren observed.

“And yet he’s clearly the one calling the shots,” Wen Ruohan mused, his eyes settling on the field where the two were playing – or rather, the toddler was demanding a ride and his older brother complying. “Given how stiff-necked the Nie family is, traditionally, it must be very reassuring to you, Sect Leader Nie, to see your son so – compliant.”

Sect Leader Nie abruptly changed the subject.

Later, he came to Jiang Fengmian, an expression of fury on his face. “It’s not any of my business, so I don’t care what’s going on with your search for that servant of yours and his family,” he said icily. “But I’ll thank you to focus on rearing your own children, and stop drawing unwanted attention to mine.”

Jiang Fengmian felt rather unjustly accused. It was true, he’d been thinking of Wei Changze’s son – of how well he’d get along with his own A-Cheng, if only Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren could be convinced to stop traveling around and come home for a little – but there was no reason for old Nie to be so snippy. There had only been the five great sect leaders around; what was he so worried about?

2

“You can’t be serious,” Lan Xichen said, pressing his lips together to try to restrain his laughter and altogether incapable of restraining his smile.

His smile only grew when Nie Mingjue’s shoulders rose up somewhere around his ears in embarrassment.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” he replied stiffly, and then he actually bought the – product.

Lan Xichen managed to hold himself back as they continued down the shopping street, and finally when they were back on the unoccupied path back to the Unclean Realm he let out a peal of laughter.

Nie Mingjue shot him a sidelong glare.

“Little Huaisang has you completely under his thumb,” Lan Xichen laughed. “You’re always buying him things, every time I see you – if it’s not new fans to add to his collections, it’s another animal for his little menagerie –”

“It’s not a menagerie.”

“He has a half-dozen birds, a mated pair of pangolins, and that – that beast you got for him –”

“The boar?” Nie Mingjue asked. “I didn’t buy that, I found it, and anyway the plan is to release it back onto the mountain once it gets a little larger.”

Lan Xichen waved his hand, dismissing Nie Mingjue’s little technicalities. “All that’s fair enough,” he says, laughter still in his voice and his eyes still curved up into crescents. “I would buy Wangji anything he liked, if only he had more hobbies. But even I would draw the line at purchasing my little brother erotic art.”

“He likes it,” Nie Mingjue said defensively.

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Lan Xichen said, trying to move his eyebrows suggestively like he’d seen someone do once. Judging from Nie Mingjue’s mildly horrified expression, he wasn’t successful. “Still, don’t you think you’re sending him mixed messages? On one hand, you’re always yelling at him about not practicing his saber enough, and on the other you’re spoiling him rotten –”

“He hasn’t formed a golden core yet,” Nie Mingjue said abruptly, and Lan Xichen’s smiled faded. “Yes, still. It’s late, no matter what standard you hold him to – forget the Great Sects, forget regular sects, even by the children of rogue cultivators usually have the basics of a core by now.”

Lan Xichen didn’t know what to say. Lan Wangji had formed his core very early, earliest out of all his generation in fact – he had never had to worry about his brother’s cultivation, not once.

He wanted to tell his friend not to worry, that it would come in time, that Nie Huaisang would catch up…but he was right, it was late. In another year, they would be sending out invitations for select people to come study at the Cloud Recesses, where Nie Huaisang had been a few times before, but this time would be the first time all the sect heirs were in a single place.

If he didn’t have his core by then, there was a chance he’d never get it. That he’d live only the short life of a common person, shorter even than the shortened life of a Nie cultivator –

That Nie Mingjue would have to watch his baby brother grow old and send him off first.

“So I buy him things,” Nie Mingjue concluded with shrug that was anything but casual. “More things than he needs. If he finally forms a core, there’ll be time enough then to teach him discipline – and if he doesn’t, well. At least he’ll be happy for the few years he’ll have.”

3

“The answer is still no,” Nie Mingjue said, just he had said the first few times, and without paying the slightest attention to the table Jiang Cheng had just overturned.

“Why not?” Jiang Cheng snarled, incensed. “If we join forces together and win, we’ll strike a blow against the Wens that will be felt across the land –”

“And if we lose, the damage will be incalculable,” Nie Mingjue said, unmoved. He didn’t look up from the correspondence he was reviewing. “We didn’t come here expecting to find a Wen stronghold; neither of us brought enough people. No.”

Jiang Cheng sneered. “We didn’t bring enough people, no, but there are enough at hand if there weren’t exceptions being made.”

Nie Mingjue paused and finally put down the letter, turning to look at Jiang Cheng. “If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Nie Huaisang isn’t that far away, with plenty of cultivators acting as guards at his side,” Jiang Cheng said, crossing his arms. “If you summoned them, we’d have enough to tip the scales in our favor. But you don’t, just because he doesn’t feel like fighting – why do you let him walk all over you?!”

Nie Mingjue looked at him for a long moment, his gaze dark and angry.

Jiang Cheng began to feel as if he’d made a mistake, but it was too late to retract his harsh words.

“Very well,” Nie Mingjue said, and Jiang Cheng began to brighten. “I’ll write to Meishan while I’m at it; your sister can come bring along the ones who are guarding her, too.”

Jiang Cheng blanched. “You can’t! Jiejie can’t –”

“Why not? Her cultivation is mediocre, but no more so than my brother’s,” Nie Mingjue said, and he was very angry. “Or are you going to say that she’s the only one left in your family but you? That you don’t want the Wens to have a chance to take even more of your family away? Isn’t all that just as true for me?!”

Jiang Cheng hung his head.

“We’re fighting this war to win it,” Nie Mingjue said. “There’s no point in winning if we lose everything on the way. Get out and talk a walk; I don’t want to see you until you’ve beaten some sense into that thick head of yours.”

4

“Da-ge, you know you can’t keep the secret of the saber spirits from Huaisang forever,” Jin Guangyao said, and his voice was reasonable as it always was – calm and even and to the point, just the way that Nie Mingjue had liked so much when he’d been his deputy.

The tone mostly just irritated Nie Mingjue now – but then, most things did, these days.

“I’m aware of that,” Nie Mingjue said, scowling. His fingers were pressing at his temples – another headache, it seemed. They were happening more and more these days, and that didn’t help the quality of his temper one bit. “He doesn’t need to know all the details yet. He’ll have to bear the burden eventually, but – not yet.”

Jin Guangyao chuckled. “You always let what he wants make decisions for you, da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue ignored him. That was normal, too.

“Let me play for you again, da-ge,” Jin Guangyao said, and his smile broadened. “It might help your headache.”

5

Wei Wuxian was of the opinion that disturbing the unquiet corpses that had been sealed in the Guanyin Temple in Yunping City was a terrible idea, but sometimes you had to make sacrifices when politics became an issue. The once-more-ascendant-Nie-sect-is-asking-only-somewhat-politely sort of politics.

Every once in a while, Wei Wuxian cursed Nie Mingjue in the back of his mind. Surely, if he hadn’t spoiled Nie Huaisang so much, he wouldn’t have become so demanding – so insistent!

(So incredibly good at finding just the right weak spot to press on…!)

“Your brother is still going to be a fierce corpse when we open that thing,” he said. “You know that, right? He didn’t recognize you then, he won’t recognize you now – he’s an extremely powerful fierce corpse, which is going to make it very hard to control him right away. There’s a great deal of danger involved in being here.”

Nie Huaisang nodded. “I appreciate the warning, Wei-xiong.”

“In light of that,” Wei Wuxian continued. “Don’t you think you should watch from further away?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”

Wei Wuxian sighed and lifted Chenqing to his lips, nodding at Lan Wangji, and together they set about unsealing the tomb.

Nie Mingjue’s corpse was just as overwhelming as he remembered, bursting out of the tomb a few moments before they expected it, and the backlash was enough to make Wei Wuxian, with his weak golden core in this life, cough up blood, which in turn made Lan Wangji stop everything to look at him, which meant that there was nothing between Nie Mingjue’s outstretched fingers, curled into claws, and Nie Huaisang, standing there with nothing but a fan in hand.

Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to – he didn’t know what, to try something to save someone who really had once been his friend, however he’d ended up and whatever he’d done, and who he still rather liked and who’d had pretty good reasons for things and who at any rate he didn’t want to see dead at the hands of his own brother –

Nie Mingjue’s clawed fingers stopped only a hair’s breadth away from Nie Huaisang’s head.

Wei Wuxian’s breath caught in his throat.

A moment passed, and then another – and then the direction of Nie Mingjue’s hand shifted, and he ran his fingers through Nie Huaisang’s hair with a delicacy that Wei Wuxian, an expert on all things resentful energy, had never thought a white-eyed fierce corpse was capable of.

Nie Huaisang smiled, content. “Da-ge has always let me get away with everything.”

[duskandstarlight]

Embers & Light (Chapter 24)

Notes: Chapter 24 - can you guys believe it?! I have brought you a lot of angst in the last few chapters, but there is a lil fluffy moment in this chapter which I hope you enjoy. Plus protective Cassian (one of my personal favourites).

As ACOSF draws nearer, I wanted to ask you guys a question. I initially was hoping to finish this fic before it came out, but I just don't think it's going to happen. So if you would still read E&L after ACOSF comes out, could you let me know? It will help me to make a decision on whether I need to start wrapping this all up sharpish, or whether I can continue to move along at my current pace.

Enjoy :) And I hope you all are having a lovely festive period.

p.s I’ve been having issues with tagging blogs lately. Let me know if you get a notification?

Chapter 24 Nesta

Nesta was drowning.

Drowning in the dark; in the unfathomable cold that bit at her ankles and dragged her down by invisible, insistent hands and sharp, pointed claws. Down, down, down Nesta went, into the inky blackness that sung of ancient horror, fighting for a breath that she could not take.  

Inside her head, Nesta was screaming; the sound an echo, as if she were detached from her body and she were listening to someone else. It was a scream of rage and unmeasurable pain as her body was torn apart and rearranged: her bones cracking and reforming into solid steel; her ears stretching into points; her limbs elongating. And with that fire a burning cold that was deeper than the gap between stars. Nesta screamed from the agony of it, but cold water rushed into her lungs and stifled the sound. Pain licked at her skin like the flames of a fire, until her blood was bubbling with rage and a thirst for revenge that ran so deep it became woven into the very fabric of who she was — of who she was being moulded into.  

Nesta should have passed out from the pain but instead she fought to remain conscious; wholly awake and wholly a witness as she tore at the edges of the blasted Cauldron. The sides were made of nothing but canvas, Nesta’s nails ripping through it as the Cauldron bucked and shrieked, like an animal caught beneath her paw.  

Bright light poured through the gaping holes, blinding her new born eyes that had not yet seen.  

She felt the power of it, the piece she carved out for herself in fury and with revenge singing in her blood. She made it hers, let that power sink into her bones, her skin, as they snapped and cracked and reshaped themselves…

The Cauldron continued to thrash and struggle. The water took on a thicker quality like tar, but Nesta did not relent. She ravaged that power until it was a part of her; stolen and consumed. Impossible to take back.  

And then Nesta was no longer drowning but falling.

The pocket of air hit her with such force that Nesta found herself with the irony that she could not breathe, even though it was what she needed more than anything in the world. But then her lungs were spluttering, her stomach lurching, and inky blackness — ancient death — was regurgitated onto crystalline rock. Nesta heaved until her stomach had no more and she was gasping for breath — cold, bracing fresh air that tasted like freedom — before she rolled onto her back, her hair plastered to her face.

She shivered from the cold and the unquenchable fury that would not see her yield.

Above her was midnight black, the stillness of what Nesta wanted to believe was sky but she knew was only an illusion. It brought her comfort even though she wanted to hate it; wanted to sob and scream until she was so exhausted that she couldn’t muster any more strength.  

And she should have been terrified but she also felt deathly calm, even as a voice spoke out of the darkness. It was a voice that was ancient; old and superlunary with a strength that whispered of unimaginable power for better or worse.   “I have been waiting for you, Nesta Archeron.”

Words like ice fire. Of steel and reserve. Of power beyond Nesta’s wildest reckoning.

It hurt to move but Nesta scrambled to her feet, slipping on loose rock and craggy stone. The sound that beat in her ears was an insistent, terrified rhythm, and it took Nesta a moment to piece together that it was her heart, throwing itself with a repetitive boom against strips of bone — a flimsy cage for something so fierce.  

Whirling around, Nesta tried to source the voice but found only that endless stretch of deep velvet, and in the near distance, a towering shadow that rose up, up, up into the darkness until it blended into the canvas, like something disappearing into the clouds.

Nesta made herself take stock. Made herself stand still. To dampen the terror and focus on that spiky, deep-set anger that still consumed her. Her back stiffened, her chin rose, and when she spoke for the first time with her new lungs, Nesta did not let her voice shake.

She clenched her fists until her new nails bit into the meat of her palms.    “Where am I?”

A sensual laugh as smooth as marble echoed around her — perfectly rendered. “Do you hear the wind? It moans your name, Nesta Archeron. Your twin can hear it. They’ve always been able to hear it. Your history written into the night sky where you only need join the dots. So easy to ignore until now.” A pause and Nesta felt that being move. Her head snapped around as the voice mused from behind her, “And your destiny: a sacrifice and a gift in the same moment.”

Nesta tightened her fists in an effort to ground herself and willed herself to lean back into   that odd sense of being rather than the fear that was making her heart race. She felt her nails break through her skin with a pop. She scented blood; metallic and salt. She was so cold she wanted to shake until her teeth chattered, but Nesta would not show weakness. She would not break down.

So Nesta rose up tall and made her voice ice cold; strong rather than brittle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Another long, sensual laugh. A caress akin to a brush stroking the softest of bristles over her skin. “No, you don’t,” the voice agreed. “Not yet. But you will.”

A moment in time stretched out, the pause pregnant and awesome. Then a soft light in the darkness above, growing in size: a fleck, a star, a luminescent ball of light…

“What do you want, Nesta Archeron?”

“I want revenge,” Nesta replied, her voice full of a sudden vigour as vengeance lashed out on a forked tongue.

Again, more soft laughter that licked over Nesta’s body in a shiver. “You have already got that, have you not? Do you not feel that deathly power in your veins? That hum of primitive power that you have stolen, that has been woven into who you now are.”

“I will end him. I will end everyone who has caused my sister harm.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. But what will that take from you?”

Hysterical laughter wanted to burst forth from Nesta’s lungs, as if she could only feel the sharpest of emotion and everything else were muted.

“Everything has already been taken from me,” Nesta spat, balling her hands into harder fists, her nails digging into her crescent shaped wounds.

Pain flared, fresh and sharp but Nesta paid it no heed. She was no stranger to pain and she would rally. Every. Damn. Time.

The light above Nesta continued to grow until it became distinct; a fiery palm emerging out of the dark. Nesta did not flinch. Did not scream or back away. Did not bow or yield or grovel. She only let pearlescent fingers close around Nesta’s own, the touch like a near-scalding bath that settled only when your blood thrummed beneath raw, pink skin. 

“So much sacrifice,” the voice pondered, turning Nesta’s hand. Nesta’s fingers unfurled from her palm without her willing it, until her palm lay open, the half-crescent moons bloody tears in her otherwise new skin. “But what about a gift?” the voice asked. “A gift for the girl who lives with such anger and guilt. The girl who sees the world in all its terrible glory and feels too much. What do you say to that?”

“I only want revenge,” Nesta repeated, her mind assaulting her with images of Elain as she was pushed under the inky water, as she emerged drowning and wholly new — wrong.  

No laughter this time. Only that hand rising, fingers coming together until they were pointed and pinching something out of the dark.  

A pearl of pure light hovered millimetres from those shining fingers, as if it were attached by an invisible string. It sung with such radiant brilliance that Nesta wanted to look away: it was the pure, unfathomable brightness of a midnight star. A melody that sung of promise and hope.

“What is revenge worth if it does not emerge from the desire to protect?” the voice asked, letting go of that drop of light. It did not fall like water; it floated down slowly, until it nestled in the crook of Nesta’s palm like a pearl that shimmered as it caught the light.  

Nesta remained deathly still, staring at the drop of possibility in her palm.  

“Revenge is choice, Nesta Archeron. It can be a wish for death and pain or to protect and defend.”

“Both,” Nesta said fiercely. “It can be both.”

“Multi-faceted and complex, as all decisions are,” the voice agreed. “And there are so many strands in you, aren’t there? Already you have felt one of them, although I do not think you have truly placed the puzzle pieces together. But here is another choice; something to cherish and use wisely on those who are worthy. Everything is cyclical. Day and night, birth and death, love and sacrifice…”  

The luminescent hand closed Nesta’s palm, but rather than the drop of light bring dampened by shadow, it sank into Nesta’s skin, until it too became a part of her.

“I don’t want a gift.”

But even as Nesta spoke she knew she did not truly mean it.  

She also knew it was too late. She felt her blood spike and thrum as that light channeled into her, twining around that deathly power that she had already stolen and forced into her remaking.  

A low hum vibrated the ground beneath Nesta’s feet. “Don’t want it or do not deserve it?”

And then Nesta was drowning again with such startling speed that she hadn’t the time to take a deep breath. Terror gripped her, and with it power sung in her blood, the sensation like boiling water, as if her very skin were bubbling with it even though that dark water bit with a cold akin to the fiercest frostbite.

As if fear had summoned it, silver fire began to glow at Nesta’s palms. Water rushed into Nesta’s lungs and with it, that power surged.

Up, up, up Nesta went, like an arrow unsheathed from a bow until the inky black was no longer concrete and colour swam on the surface.

Everything tilted as the Cauldron tipped, jerking the water and Nesta out onto the cold flagstones of reality.  

Nesta took a desperate, ragged breath through the gag that was suddenly back around her mouth, and cast a look around the room: to Cassian who was sprawled unconscious on the ground, his arm outstretched and his wings in tatters; to Feyre who was kneeling in her own vomit tucked into Rhysand’s side...

And on her sister’s face, Nesta could see what she was: ravaging, deadly, awesome. A face and figure to stop males and females in their tracks. A face and figure that would make humans and fae alike think twice.

But that was nothing of the forged steel in Nesta’s bones, in her blood, as she scrabbled across the floor to Elain on her long, unnatural limbs and tore the gag from her mouth.  

It was a steel that no-one could see but that they could all sense as Nesta locked eyes with the King of Hybern, that promise of death still swimming in those mercury eyes that moved.

She would have her revenge. Of that, she was sure.

***

Nesta gasped.

Her hands flailed, her body screamed with agony, her lungs were hoarse and raw, her abdomen set with a pain that went so deep she knew something was gravely wrong.

And through her veins… no whisper of her magic. Not a drop.

It was that which made her thrash, her lungs suddenly unable to breathe from the agony that wrangled through her body.

She heard her name. Again and again; the high-pitched desperation of a female. Feyre. But then something much lower. A caress. A rumble that quelled her fear and kicked the breath back into her with a force that had her gasping.

Nesta’s hand found a rough, calloused palm across the mattress. Fingers curled unbelievably gently around hers. She heard the rustle of wings. Smelt pine and musk and the bracing fresh air of the Illyrian skies.

“Nesta. You need to take your medicine. The morphine has worn off.”

Cassian.

Even with her eyes submerged in the dark, Nesta knew that Cassian had turned his head to murmur something in low tones to her sister — her senses heightened in the wake of the fear that was still bitter on her tongue.

Then light retreating footsteps. The click of a closed door.  A large hand on her temple. A wet rag against her lips. Nesta opened her mouth despite the foul tasting tincture which burned her throat and flooded her tastebuds; swallowing it down, begging it to soothe over the pain which she could not describe for its wrongness, even though she had been told that she would heal.

Frawley had come to visit her the last time Nesta had resurfaced. Had explained why she was there and what had happened. That Nesta had the gift of healing. That she had over-healed Mas's traumatic injuries and moved on to older ones. That she had sacrificed her wellness for someone else’s. That she would have died had Cassian not got her to stop.

Another power Nesta needed to train. As if she didn’t have enough to wrangle under control.

Nesta did not remember much after dropping to her knees at the widows camp. She remembered the click of a lock inside of her; the way her power had flipped from silver to startling, brilliant white. That she had known what to do as she lifted her hands over Mas and started to use her magic for something wholly good.

“What did you feel for your power came to the surface?” Frawley had asked before she took leave.

Nesta had bitten back a whimper of agony as she shifted uncomfortably on the mattress. She had been swamped in heavy blankets and consumed in Cassian’s scent.  His bed not hers. But the scent of him… it comforted her. She was too tired to rally against it. Had woken knowing that she was immeasurably safe even though memory tried to persuade her that she was not.

Eventually, when she realised that Frawley’s second eye had come to rest on her along with ice blue, Nesta had supplied, “I felt grief.”

“And what else?” Frawley had urged, her ice blue eye glowing with intensity.

Nesta had been too tired to answer. Her eyelids heavy from the sedative she had been given, despite the energising tea Frawley had administered to attempt to speed up the act of replenishing her magic. To fight the fatigue one felt when they had been drained of power.

And now she was waking again and Frawley was gone.

Braving the light, Nesta cracked open an eye. Her head throbbed, as if her brain were growing in her skull and it was pressing against bone.

Cassian was hovering over her, a crumpled frown twisting his brow as he dripped the medicine past her lips. He caught her eyes opening a fraction too late and she catalogued worry slide into relief before it was pushed back and a light was forced into those dark irises. When he smiled at her, it was too tight and anguished to ring true. She must have been in a bad way — very bad — for him to lose sight of his tendency to arrange his expression into that casual playfulness. For her sister to still be here, hovering by her bedside unsure how to act or how to behave. For her mate to be in the room next door, his star-blessed magic permeating Cassian’s bedroom even through stone and plaster and wood. She could even sense Azriel’s shadows moving like an agitated fog.

No Amren. No Mor.

Something to be thankful for.

“Mas?” she asked. Her throat was dry despite the tincture and the word came out scratchy and raw.

Cassian pressed a glass of water to her lips.

She drank.

“Mas has left to help relocate the widows and orphans,” Cassian told her. “I had her checked over by Madja and Frawley. She is perfectly fine. Roksana too,” he added when Nesta frowned. “Mas hasn’t flown yet,” he continued. “She wanted you to witness it.”

Something tightened around Nesta’s throat. It was not panic but… deep twisting affection for the housekeeper. It must be agony for Mas not to launch straight into the skies. Yet… Nesta was touched beyond imagining that she would wait for Nesta to witness something so precious. A moment in history that was not tainted in blood and death but joy.

Cassian had paused as if he were checking himself. He had moved away from her, to the dark dresser to the left of the bed. There was a clink of glass which Nesta supposed was him stoppering the medicine. “I know you do not like it here and I understand that. You were given no choice and Illyria is…” he trailed off, as if he were searching for the right word. “It’s brutal, in both harsh reality and its beauty. But the widows and orphans… they will not forget what you have done for them — how you fought for them. Mas has been shackled in so many ways throughout her life, but her wings… You have given her freedom, Nesta. She will never forget that ,and neither will those females who witnessed you healing her.”

When Cassian turned back to look at Nesta, his eyes were glowing with such intensity she did not know what to say. He seemed to understand that, breaking their gaze to stare out of the window.

It was snowing again. The scent of it was in the air and on Cassian’s clothes, from where Nesta imagined he’d been in the throng of it all, establishing order where there was chaos. She imagined that was why his family was here.

“Azriel has some information about the kerits,” Cassian said. He remained staring out of the window, his gaze fixed on the snow falling from the thin sheets of grey cloud strung in the sky. “About where we think they came from. We would like you to be a part of the discussion.” A pause. “If you would like to be, that is.”

Nesta held back a snort partly because she knew it would hurt too much. “I don’t think your High Lord wants me to be a part of any discussion.”

“Rhys specifically asked me to fetch you before we began,” Cassian replied, not flinching at her ice-sharp words. Nesta supposed he had become immune. “You are integral to the conversation.”

Noise caught in the back of Nesta’s throat. “I thought I was just a stain you all wished you could rid yourself of.”

No, not immune. Cassian flinched as if he had been burned, his wings spreading instinctively before he could catch them. He retracted them back in with a slow huff of anger. It was not a disparaging or exasperated sigh, more… defeated, as if it were a remark that brought him pain.

Still he did not turn to her. If anything, his focus became more intent on the scenery outside. At the bustle of Illyrians as they fought against the flurry of snow that promised to kiss everything white at the worst possible time.

Cassian’s jaw feathered. “If I remember correctly, it was always you trying to rid yourself of me.”

Nesta blinked at the coarse words that held no lightness, no mockery, no teasing. That were honest and unhappy. Twisted with a rejection which hit her to the bone.

You rejected me first, Nesta wanted to say, as she watched the taut muscles in Cassian’s back. They were vibrating with an energy that usually told Nesta that he needed to fight with his fists until his body was sated.

“We believe the attacks might be orchestrated,” Cassian continued. “Azriel went to scout the perimeter to see if there was any evidence. He has only just arrived back.” Finally, those amber eyes rested back on her. They were burning with a rage that had been purposefully dialled back, but Nesta knew how much Cassian cared about his people. “Will you come?” he asked.

Shock wound through Nesta at the confession. At the brutality of what Cassian was suggesting. Anger spiked through the exhaustion with such ferocity her magic should have been roaring, but it only remained quiet. Yet… a determination solidified in her mind. She did want to be a part of the conversation. Not just to be useful, but because Nesta cared about the widows and orphans. She longed to hold Roksana close and see Mas fly. To lay the dead to rest, to check in on the injured. To see if she could use her healing magic to mend their wounds. To show that she was not an observer but a fighter - a protector. That she would lay her life on the line to protect the females who had nothing and were helpless against every threat, just as she had once been.

She did not say all that. Instead, she just said, “Fine.”

A short nod as if Cassian understood. “We can do it in here or out there.” Cassian jerked his chin to the living room. “Frawley said you are not to move if it can be helped, but something tells me you’d sooner have died than be crowded on your sick bed.”

There. A small lace of lightness that had not been there before. Forced, maybe, but there all the same.

Nesta scowled. “You thought rightly.”

“It will hurt,” Cassian warned her. “For me to lift you.”

“Then do it gently.”

A soft snicker as he moved off the many, many blankets, and then strong, corded arms slid beneath her body.

Cassian’s voice was rough in her ear. “You’re the most stubborn female I’ve ever met.”

Gritting her teeth, Nesta tried to overcome the sharp, deep-set pain that made her want to cry out.

The way Cassian gathered her to him was pain-achingly careful but it was still too much, her wounds too fresh and Nesta gasped a high-pitched cry, digging her fingers so hard into his tunic that she knew they must have bitten into the skin of his shoulders. Cassian did not indicate that she had hurt him, he only cradled her closer to the hard planes of his body, his huge wing curving around her as if he could partition off the pain and keep her safe.

The glow of the membrane was not unlike that of rusty, glowing embers. Beautiful.

Cassian remained stock still, waiting for the pain to ebb and then, slowly, as if he were hesitant to do it, his forehead came to rest on the top of her head; a bowing gesture that was almost like a confession, folding her into a protective cocoon that smelt of pine resin and warmth.

If Nesta could move without crying out, she would have traced a finger down his wing, following the spider webs of his capillaries. She had never had the opportunity to study them this close up. They were as mesmerising as fire flames as they danced their way up into the sky; as captivating as woodsmoke as it were tossed about on a breeze.

“I thought you were going to die.”

Cassian’s voice was a low, deep rumble that she felt in the pit of her stomach. In her bones. In her heart.

“Not yet,” she replied drily, but the hoarse words were muffled by the embrace.

She knew what he was trying to say. Had felt it before. The way in which history had tied the two of them together. Had made them terrified not just of dying, but without the other. An immeasurable panic that clawed at her throat and tore at her lungs.

To end up on death’s door without her lying over him was unimaginable. They had vowed to go together and even now, when they were separate rather than entwined, she would still lay her body over his broken one and refuse to live.

“Don’t say that,” Cassian clipped, his voice suddenly sharp. Broken.

Even though it hurt to move, Nesta rolled her head to press against his chest, shifting his forehead so it was lower, his lips almost brushing her skin. Nesta could not bring it in herself to care. Cassian smelt just as his sheets had — pine, musk and untamed air. Comforting.

Hesitantly, as if she had surprised him, Cassian’s large hand came to cup her head.

For a moment, they stayed like that, until the burning question that had hung in the back of her mind became too much. “Why am I in your room?” she asked.

“I had to put Mas in your bed,” Cassian confessed. She felt him smile small against her — a promise of mischief. “It’s not the way I imagined I’d first have you beneath my sheets, but I guess I should just be thankful you’re alive.”

A quiet snarl from Nesta had Cassian lifting his head to laugh. The sound was a low rasp which did not hold its usual vigour.

He was still worried. She could feel it. The sensation was relentless as a crashing tide.

“Reign in your worry,” Nesta snapped weakly. “I can feel it and it’s making me nauseous.”

Another laugh, stronger this time, and then Cassian’s emotion vanished, as if it had been carried away on a sea-kissed breeze.

“I’m going to move now,” he informed her. “Best brace yourself for the pain, sweetheart.”

It was agony. The pain so awfully deep that Nesta could hardly breathe, even as Cassian moved as smoothly as possible. She wanted to cry out, to whimper, but she would not show weakness in front of her sister’s mate.

By the time she was settled on the couch, Nesta had broken that vow; distressed sounds escaping through gritted teeth as she panted desperately for breath. With a click of Rhys's fingers, the nest of blankets that Nesta had been swaddled in appeared on the couch, just in time for Cassian to lower her onto the cushions.

Nesta did not have it in herself to be angered that Rhys had helped.

At the sound of her sister's stifled shouts, Feyre rushed out of the kitchen. She was holding a steaming mug in her hands, which Cassian plucked from his High Lady and planted straight into Nesta’s palms.

Feyre allowed him to do it without a word of protest, anxiously wringing her hands as she studied what Nesta imagined to be her too pale face, the sweat that had broken out on her forehead…

They had not spoken properly since the attack, but Feyre had been there, hovering on the periphery; anxious and sick with worry that she did not know assaulted Nesta until she too became nauseous with it. Nesta’s icy guard had been down since she had dropped to her knees beside Mas, and she hadn’t the power to stack it back up. Not when she was as exhausted as she was, her power utterly diminished and her body focussing on healing.

Finally casting a glance around the room, Nesta saw that the flames in the log burner were raging mute. She wondered who had magicked them to become silent. She hoped it was Frawley rather than Rhysand.

Rhys was positioned to the right of the fireplace, and when Nesta’s gaze purposefully passed over him as if he were little more than part of the furniture, she felt his violet eyes flick to her, his expression no doubt hard and unyielding. But Nesta was too tired to battle today.

Cassian was watching her too, glaring with such intensity at her hands that Nesta was surprised they hadn’t moved involuntarily to raise the mug to her lips. Wanting him to stop, Nesta took a slow sip of tea even though it hurt to swallow. It didn’t work; those hazel eyes remaining unwaveringly fixated. He was standing right by her head, scrutinising everything she did, his wings spread as if he were contemplating launching into flight.

Nesta wanted to hiss at him, but then Feyre sat close beside her, and that made her want to hiss more.

At his place to the left of the hearth, Azriel’s lips twitched. He had been standing as still as a statue, like marble carved out of the finest stone, his shadows stolid, but now he shifted to face her.

Nesta guessed the shadowsinger could sense her emotions with her guard down completely.

She supposed there had to be a first.

When Nesta took the last sip of her drink, Cassian’s hands were immediately there, taking it from her, his siphons winking in the firelight. Nesta barely noticed. She only felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the first whisper of silver and brilliant white that twisted through her veins like two coiled serpents; intertwined yet separate.

Easing backwards with the intention of settling into the cushions, Nesta tried to ignore the pain that suddenly stabbed through her as her stomach muscles tensed. A sharp gasp escaped her, her breath knocked out of her lungs, but then cool, shadowed hands gripped Nesta’s shoulders. They took the weight off of her abdomen, slowly lowering her backwards until she was resting comfortably.

Behind her, Nesta heard Cassian’s wings snap in and out, clearly agitated at her pain.

When Nesta turned her head to Azriel, he dipped his head to her in acknowledgement. Black tendrils of shadow whispered back to him, curling around his arms and face, waiting patiently to be bent again to their master's will.

Then  the shadowsinger turned to Rhys, as if seeking the order to begin.

“Thank you for joining us, Nesta,” Rhys said tightly. “Especially given the circumstances.”

Nesta did not reply, could not find it in herself to do it, but she finally stared at their High Lord with unflinching determination.

As always, Rhys was irritatingly immaculate, leaning against the hearth as if he owned it. Already Nesta felt like he was tainting her space — her sanctuary — and although she wanted to spit at him to leave and not come back, she only gave a stiff nod.

It would appear both of them were going to be forced today. Circumstances that were greater than their feud were at work, and neither of them was going to be petty enough to undermine that.

“Feyre allowed me to view her memory of the kerits attack,” Rhys said. “Three males flew over the mountain minutes before it happened. They can’t have been a part of the usual patrol as they weren’t doing the scheduled circuit. Instead, they flew straight over the mountain pass. Do you remember that?”

Nesta frowned, reaching back into the far depths of her memory… The three dots that coursed across the sky, the winking flash of silver from steel.

Sharply, Nesta craned her head to look at Cassian, not thinking of her injuries. She gasped. The movement had twisted her abdomen in a way she was not ready for.

Cassian’s large hands fell briefly to her shoulders before he moved to perch on the left of the U-shaped couch, close to the corner where he had lain her down.

“Ragar—” she started.

But Cassian only shook his head, leaning forward so his elbows were resting on his broad thighs. His wings were held in high and tight to his spine. “Accounted for,” he told her. “And his friends. They were in the sparring rings with Devlon and countless other witnesses.”

His smile was grim. “It’s one of the first thing I checked,” he confessed. “But it made us start to wonder if perhaps the attacks have been orchestrated. One attack can be passed off as a freak accident, but three attacks across three different camps is suspicious, especially given that kerits do not venture into populated areas.”

Nesta’s expression sharpened. “You think somebody purposefully led those beasts to the widows camp?”

Rhys’s nodded. “We think it’s a possibility.” He pinned his brother with those violet eyes. “What did you find scouring the perimeter, Az?”

The shadowsinger’s expression did not physically change, but Nesta felt his shadows chill. “Carrion,” he said coldly. “A trail of it leading to the mountain pass. Morsels of it. Not enough to feed a starving pack, but deliberate enough to tempt them out of the depths of the mountains.”

“This winter has been especially punishing,” Cassian interjected. “I bet food supply has been scarce. They struggle to survive as it is. The sounds they made as they hunted probably alerted other packs who joined the hunt.”

Feyre sat forward so she was hovering on the edge of the couch. “That would be why they were so vicious. They knew they were competing with other packs for food.”

Nesta’s stomach turned as she thought of how the widows and orphans had been seen as as a meal. How they had huddled to the Eastern point of the camp with nowhere to go and no means of defending themselves.

“The carrion was well hidden,” Azriel continued with a nod, his voice as smooth as cold marble. “Frawley examined the remains. They weren’t killed with siphon magic and there were no visible wounds to the bodies. We also found boot prints in the mud; different prints ranging in size in two separate locations within a miles range of the camp. They were fresh.”

Everyone’s expression tightened.

Nesta didn’t ask if the carrion was human or animal. She didn’t want to know.

“Frawley has taken samples to analyse them,” Azriel added. “She said she will show her sisters, as well. To see if they can sense an insignia.”

“So that means the attack was orchestrated,” Feyre said. “Someone deliberately led those beasts to the camp?”

Rhys nodded. “The attack was certainly pre-meditated,” he replied, pinning Cassian with a look. “The real question is who would arrange an attack on three separate camps.”

Cassian snorted. “You know what the lords are going to say. What all of the Illyrian’s at Windhaven are going to say.”

“That it’s an attack from another war camp,” Azriel supplied, his voice chilled midnight.

“War lords usually have no issue in taking responsibility if they played a part in an attack,” Rhys countered.

“I know that,” Cassian interjected, impatience lining his voice. “So will the lords when they stop to see sense, but the moment we tell them that we suspect wrong doing, all hell will break loose. We can’t afford to lose any more lives to petty feuds. We’re still reeling from the loss of males since the war and the Rite is already looming over the camp.”

Rhys nodded to show he had heard. Nesta wondered if he mourned the loss of lives like Cassian did. The High Lord looked tired, as if he had been torn away from his mate for too long. Yet nobody looked as ravaged as Cassian did. Nesta did not know if his brothers knew of his recurring nightmares, but she hoped they learnt of them. Sometimes Cassian looked so exhausted that Nesta vibrated with a concern she could not shake. In the past, she had bitten her lip one too many times to prevent herself from ordering him to go to bed.

Nesta knew how awful it was to force someone to do something they desperately wanted but were too fearful to surrender themselves to.

“We will manage the lords,” Rhys assured Cassian. “We can decide how we are going to play that consul, but for now, we need to get to the bottom of how the kerits managed to get past Windhaven’s patrols. You and I both know how meticulous Devlon is when it comes to security around the camp. Those males shouldn't have been able to pass over the camp without being stopped by the warriors on patrol.”

“Whoever they were, they must have known that Cassian wasn't going to be in the camp today,” Azriel offered, the spymaster in him coming to the forefront. “The only good news is that they clearly had no idea that  both Feyre and Nesta would be at the top of the mountain and able to fight. And," he added after a beat of consideration, "they certainly underestimated Nesta’s ability to slay the pack if she had been alone today.”

If Nesta hadn’t been white from pain, she would have had to freeze the blush that dared to grace her cheeks at the shadowsinger’s compliment.

An abrupt snort came from Cassian. When he spoke, his voice was brimming with anger, “Of course they underestimated Nesta. Even though they have witnessed her fire daily and sensed the enormity of her magic, they still can't fathom that a female could be more powerful than them. It has to be Illyrian’s at the root of it. Only they would be chauvinistic enough to fail to see what is right in front of them.”

“Which,” Rhys interjected, “has worked unwittingly in our favour. Rather than fuel hatred towards the Night Court and cement the growing opinion that we do not protect the Illyrian community, we had two High Fae slaughtering the pack well before any warriors arrived on the scene. And then Nesta brought Masak back to life — someone who the Illyrian males in this camp do not see as worthy to live amongst them.”

Through the exhaustion, anger heated Nesta’s blood. She felt her magic whisper. If Nesta looked inward, she could see the two strands. Could now sense the promise of healing magic in her veins amongst her silver fire. As if she had been granted the key in the face of Mas’s death and she had turned it over in the lock, setting that power free.

Yet, even as Nesta grazed that healing power, it was her silver fire that promised to roar.

“I didn’t do it to stop a Civil War. I did it to protect the females who cannot protect themselves,” Nesta snapped weakly. She was too tired to muster enough vigour into her words, but she was annoyed at the false implication behind her actions. That she had not done it out of love for the housekeeper, but because of politics.

“That may be,” Rhys said, his voice forcibly light, “and what you did was honourable, but we cannot ignore how the Illyrian’s might interpret the action.”

“What Rhys is trying to say,” Azriel interjected smoothly as Nesta’s nostrils flared, “is that the females already respect you. The way you defended them today will not strengthen the dissent, only highlight that there are fae outside of the Illyrian communities who have their best interests at heart. You, for example.”

“You know they like you,” Cassian said quietly. He did not look at Nesta. Instead, he remained fixated at the hands that were clasped tightly in front of him, his elbows resting on his broad knees. “You know they have accepted you since you defended them against the males.”

“I protect them because nobody else seems to bother,” Nesta said coldly. “How many innocent females died because of the cruel intentions of males today? How many were injured?”

“Thirteen dead, thirty plus injured,” Cassian told Nesta quietly. “It would have been many more if you and Feyre not been there. You moved so quickly you managed to slay the majority of the packs before they reached the females.”

Nesta’s expression hardened as she thought of the trailing guts that had glistened in the grey light of day; the way Roksana’s hands had slipped in Mas’s wet, sticky blood, and how she had croaked for help. Her first word aloud since Nesta had met her.

“That is still too many,” Nesta insisted, her voice betraying her — shaking with the anger and horror of it all. “Why would they target the widows first? Why not lead the kerits down the other side of the mountain pass where they would could reach the main camp and weaken Windhaven’s forces?”

“Perhaps the kerits were never intended to weaken Windhaven’s ranks at all,” Rhys mused. “Perhaps they were intended to prove a point.”

A shocked, prolonged pause.

“Are you saying,” Nesta said, her voice shaking, “that you think the rebellion could have orchestrated the attacks. That they might have specifically targeted the defenceless females because widows are seen as disposable, but their deaths would be enough to fuel dissent amongst the camps?”

Rhys stared at Nesta for a moment. His head tilted slightly to the side, in the same way that Cassian’s did when he was trying to puzzle her out. But Nesta barely saw it. All she saw was the twisted body of the kind cook who had fed Nesta every morning… Of lovely Durkhanai, with her beautiful curly hair and bright green eyes. A female who had been dealt the harshest of fates. She had not deserved her end. None of the females had. 

Feyre’s hand crept over the blankets to Nesta’s. Her sister’s slim fingers wrapped around her own. “Surely they wouldn’t kill their own race?” Feyre said, her voice shaking. Nesta wondered if she, too, was thinking of the discarded limbs and pools of blood. “There were children in that camp. The females didn’t even have weapons…”

But her sister did not understand just how harsh the camps were. Unlike Nesta, Feyre had not lived amongst the widows for months. She did not know just how willing the Illyrian’s might be to offer the widows camp as a sacrifice for the sake of politics.

“I would not put it past Illyrian’s to see widows as a necessary sacrifice,” Rhys admitted eventually after a long, pregnant pause. His violet eyes had softened with grief. “If this is orchestrated by the rebellion, I suspect that by targeting the widows camps Kallon was hoping to fuel the anger amongst the Illyrian’s that they are not protected. That the Night Court does not care for Illyrian’s and offers them no protection. The widows would have been seen as a necessary sacrifice. They are outcasts in Illyrian society with no families to mourn their deaths.”

A ringing sounded in Nesta’s ears. The noise tuned out the room around her. It took her a while to realise that it was fury. It burned. It was not hot, but cold - enough to give her frostbite - as if her magic was not replenished enough to fly but was trying its best to rally itself. Inside of her chest, something cracked. It sounded like bone. With it, came creeping fingers of light, reaching towards her...

With all her strength, Nesta clamped down... until shadows ate away the approaching light and the room righted itself.

When she came to, Cassian was growling low in warning, his wings stretching as far as they could without hitting her square in the face. At who, Nesta did not know. Did not care for his territorial display when there were bigger matters to discuss.

“And why isn’t there protection?” she asked.

Nesta’s words were as cold as the chill in her veins. Rhys stilled, and with it, his magic trembled. The growl was still rumbling from low in Cassian’s chest — deeper even — and he sat forward, bracing his weight onto his thighs as if he were getting ready to launch himself at… someone. Nesta wasn’t sure who.

Feyre was still gripping Nesta’s hand tight, her grip firm enough to hurt. If Nesta had cast a look to her sister’s face, she would have seen that tell-tale glaze over Feyre’s eyes. It was the kind of far off look which told Nesta that her sister was speaking to her mate mind-to-mind. Or trying to, at least.

“Why was there no protection around each of the Illyrian camps given that there had already been two kerit attacks?” Nesta continued, ignoring the rumbling sound that had her heart wanting to beat that little bit faster. “I have seen the protective shields the fae used in war — around your City of Starlight. Why is that courtesy not extended to the Illyrian communities?”

A long, drawn out silence of star-kissed eternal and a whisper of ancient silver.

“I have offered protection numerous times to each of the war lords,” Rhys replied eventually, his voice too measured to be casual. “Each of them have turned it down. They see it as a criticism on their duty as warriors to protect and defend.”

Nesta’s snort was harsh but the hard quality to her eyes did not change. “They are stubborn Illyrian bats. Get them to change their minds. Or are you not their High Lord?”

A flicker of amusement passed across Azriel’s face, his shadows lightening the sharp, beautiful angles of his face. “Nesta is right,” he said, causing everyone to turn. “The war lords don’t have the luxury of turning down our help when it looks as if there will be more kerit attacks. There shouldn’t have been a gap in today’s patrol. Windhaven has always prided itself on its security — all the camps do. Have we found the soldiers who should have been patrolling the perimeter? I think it wise to consider that they may have been compromised by whoever tempted the kerits to the camps. Recruited, even. They could well be the males that flew over the mountain pass.”

“Nobody can find them,” Cassian growled. “We have males out looking for them as we speak. As soon as they are found we will interrogate them.”

“Cassian and I will interrogate,” Rhys told Azriel as a rare flicker of surprise fell across the shadowsinger's expression. “I need you to visit your most trusted contacts in the camps and tell them that we believe the attacks might not be random. We need all eyes and ears to the ground to find out as much as we can, not least to anticipate where the next attack might be.”

A tense nod, but Azriel folded into shadow and disappeared.

Cassian’s fists curled into fists on the tops of his thighs. “We need evidence. We cannot assume this is the rebellion without it.”

“Of course not,” Rhys admitted smoothly. “Which is why we need you to try and snuff out as much information as you can when you and Nesta go to the Solstice luncheon next week. Accept the offer to stay overnight.”

Nesta hadn’t thought Cassian’s expression could turn any stonier, but it did. “No.”

“The more time you spend at Ironcrest, the longer Nesta has to pick up any untoward emotion, especially surrounding conversation about the camps. It gives Frawley time to look and identify the origin of the sword, and it gives you and Lorrian time to pry out any information. Insist on you and Lorrian overseeing the aerial and ground units that next morning, it will ease away any suspicion. A trip there is long overdue but it is time to act on this rather than gathering information, which we have been doing up until now.”

Cassian blew out a long, steadying breath. Then he conceded,  “With the Rite meeting been moved forward to that afternoon, it shouldn’t be hard to extend our stay."

Rhys nodded. “Good.” Then his violet eyes rested on Nesta. “You are willing to go with Cassian?”

A raised chin. Defiant. Strong. Despite the pain and exhaustion that wanted to pull her down, down, down. “Yes.”

“Then we have a plan,” Rhys said with another nod. “Azriel will continue to train you. If he is not available,  I will travel to the camps and train you myself .”

At the edge of her periphery, Nesta saw Feyre’s eyes widen. In her stomach, Nesta felt Cassian’s surprise, a sensation which grew as Rhys said,  “Welcome to the Court of Dreams, Nesta Archeron.”

*** 

By the time the meeting was over, Nesta was drained; her eyelids unbelievably heavy, her limbs aching. She desperately wanted to sleep, so she took the tincture Feyre brought her without comment and didn’t protest when Cassian carried her back to his bed rather than hers; agony fogged the rational part of her brain.

She was practically asleep as Cassian lay her onto his mattress. She felt his fingers coax hers away from where they were clutching his leathers. Blankets were pulled over her, the weight a comfort. A sedative was dripped into her mouth.

And then she slipped under.

When Nesta next woke, the taste was still bitter in her mouth but the room was dark; the light having receded even from the gap between the curtains.

In the armchair beside her bed was Feyre, her feet curled up beneath her and her freckled nose buried in Love in Velaris. A bobbing faelight hung overhead, willed by her sister’s magic. It illuminated the pages.

From the dent Feyre had made in the book, Nesta guessed she had been asleep for hours. Beyond the room, the bungalow sat still — the way it did when Cassian was not home — as if it too were sleeping, waiting for its owner to come back and breathe life into the rooms with his presence.

A few seconds passed until Feyre noticed that Nesta was awake. It gave Nesta enough time to catalogue the concern etched on her sister’s pale face; the tight expression which made Feyre’s sharp cheekbones even more prominent.

Nesta did not usually see the similarities between them, but now, as Feyre’s serious steel-blue eyes snapped up at the rustle of blankets, Nesta knew why others had said they looked alike.

“You’re awake.” Feyre spoke slowly — unsure — as she unfurled her long, lithe legs. When Nesta winced as she tried to get into a more comfortable position, Feyre jumped up and moved to the dresser. “Here,” she said, pouring some tincture onto a silver spoon.

Nesta hated the way she needed assistance to lift her head, but she allowed Feyre to do it in a rush of pear and lilac. Nesta was not proud enough to deny that she needed the tincture to smooth away the pain. And whilst the pain wasn’t as agonising as hours prior, it was deep-set enough for Nesta to consider whether she could persuade Feyre to allow her to swallow down the whole damn bottle.

After some water to chase down the foul taste, Feyre stepped back. “How are you feeling? Frawley seemed to think she could speed up the healing Madja did, but you were so sick…” Her sister trailed off, setting back to examine Nesta’s face. “You look a little less pale...”

“I’m fine,” Nesta said hoarsely.

Feyre opened her mouth and then closed it again, as if she were contemplating what best to say. The action annoyed Nesta. She wanted to be alone and quiet. To fall back asleep and wake when the pain was gone and she no longer felt helpless.

“Don’t you have duties to attend to?” Nesta asked tiredly, turning her face to bury it into one of the pillows. It was a few seconds reprieve to calm the irritation that had started to hum through her.

Slowly, Nesta breathed in the scent of pine, musk and air that was so fierce Nesta felt as if she were almost a part of it. She had no doubt this was the pillow Cassian rested his head on. The scent soothed her, smoothing over that spiky, dangerous anger of hers to leave bone-lead weariness in its place.

“I wanted to be here,” Feyre told her. There was a subtle stubborn lift to her chin that Nesta knew Feyre had copied from her at a young age so many times that it had now become a part of who she was. “I wanted to look after you. To make sure that you were healing.”

“Well, I don’t need you to take care of me. You heard it yourself, I should be out of bed tomorrow. I just need to sleep.”

Nesta had intended to say it icily, but she was not well enough to muster the strength.

Feyre’s expression tightened, and for a moment, Nesta thought she might snap. But then she just straightened with determination; her tall, lean body rising to a height that called for attention. “Then let me say what I want to say and I will leave you alone.”

A long, stony silence and a blank, impenetrable mask that Nesta hoped with desperation conveyed the message she wanted to snap: Go away.

Instead, Feyre seated herself on the armchair and reached for Nesta’s ice-cold hand. “Nesta,” she started, the word practically a plea. “I know you and I - I know that our relationship has always been rocky. And you are right, there are many things that I hadn’t considered, not least when I sent you here. But… you almost died today and it’s made me realise what is important: I love you. I don’t think I’ve told you that before, but I always have. Even when we were younger and we were both so angry and bitter at our lot in life and we spent our days fighting. And I know you love me, too. Hiring someone to take you to the wall to find me told me that…”

Feyre let out a long, shaky breath and when she next spoke, her voice turned softer, dropping into a confession, “I forgave you and Elain a long time ago for when we were starving, Nesta. I want you to know that. I don’t — we were children. It was father that failed us, not you. I never saw it as your job to care for me and… I’m sorry that you were there when mother asked me to take care of you…. That must have been a horrible thing to overhear and… well, I would have felt resentment towards me, too, if I were you.”

More silence. Nesta would not allow herself to speak for the barbed words she knew would spill forth. About her sister’s mate and how whilst Nesta had tried to make amends, Rhysand’s obvious dislike of her had not disappeared with Feyre’s supposed forgiveness.

“I also want you to know that what you did in the war — you saved hundreds of lives. I know you witnessed unimaginable death and horror, but fae and humans are walking on Prythian because you struck down the male that promised to wreak havoc on our world. You did all of that and I never thought to thank you. And then I was so swept away by my duties as High Lady and recovering from Rhys’s near death that I did not give you the time I should have-”

Such careful tiptoeing around their father’s death. How Nesta had watched the life bleed out of his eyes, until they were nothing but glassy and wholly unconscious.

It was that which made Nesta cut her sister off. Even now, she had no desire to discuss his death. “I am not a burden you need to add to your list of priorities. I didn’t want your help. I explicitly told you to go away and instead you continued to force me to socialise when all I wanted was to be alone.”

Feyre let go of Nesta’s hand. Something akin to loss flashed through Nesta, piercing through the exhaustion and the pain in her abdomen.

“I think communication has always been an issue for us,” Feyre admitted, not backing down from the conversation. “I have spent time thinking over what you have said and you are right, I have not truly listened to you. But I was so scared for your safety I adopted drastic measures—”

“It is not your place to decide what is best for me,” Nesta said coldly. “I am not yours to command. And,” she continued with as much iciness as she could muster, “I do not think that an Illyrian camp is a place of safety.”

A deliberate pause to highlight how she were in bed suffering from major injuries.

“I thought if you were with Cassian that you would be protected,” Feyre said, her expression anguished. “I thought if anyone were to hold their own in an Illyrian camp it would be you. You are so strong, Nesta—”

“You thought a fae male could protect me when the protection I was promised by males has failed over and over again?” Nesta countered. “He is not even here all of the time. Sometimes he is away for days on end and I am left alone. You banished me to this awful place in front of an audience with no care for my feelings.”

But as Nesta spoke, something scrabbled in the back of her mind. Because it wasn’t fair to criticise Cassian for both leaving her and crowding her. Because Cassian had given her space and yet he had also been there, on the periphery if not right in front of her. Taunting her and encouraging her, but with so much space to grow. He had not made her train with him, dragging her spitting and screaming into the sparring ring. He had not thrown her out into the camp each morning and forced her to work or make friends. He had given her choices that she had more often than not denied over and over. And when she had done that, he had bought her more books or figured out the foods she liked to make the days a little less boring.

Cassian had not just protected her but allowed her to grow stronger. Had given her the space to decide for once in her life what she wanted to do and what she wanted to be. True, she might have been stuck in Windhaven, but she had never felt truly trapped. The skies made her feel unencumbered. The mud beneath her feet rendered her a part of nature rather than apart from it. The craggy mountains were a physical depiction of how Nesta was starting to see herself; sharp and angry but resilient and strong.

Outside the bungalow, Nesta heard the unmistakable crunch of boots in the snow. The low murmur of male voices floated through the bedroom window, which had been cracked open to circulate the stale air.

Feyre’s face crumpled in sudden irritation, and Nesta guessed that her mate had tried to speak mind-to-mind with her mid-conversation. From the way Feyre’s expression quickly cleared, Nesta got the impression she had banished Rhys completely or told him to go away.

The click of the magical lock from the front door rang through the bungalow, but Feyre’s attention was only on her. “Adjusting to the role of High Lady has been… a struggle,” her sister admitted. “Cassian, Rhys, Amren and Mor are my friends as well as my trusted advisors. But you are right, I spoke to you as a High Lady not as a sister when I told you to come here. I thought that using my new status would make you listen because my role as a sister had failed. It was a last resort and I knew… I knew that Cassian would look after you.”

Feyre stared up at the ceiling, as if the memory caused her pain. “As soon as you left I knew the way I had summoned you was wrong.” Feyre looked back to Nesta and sincerity swam in her eyes. “I did not consider that I had imprisoned you. I was selfishly only thinking of forcing you to be well.”

More silence.

Feyre got to her feet, her expression pained.

She waved a hand to the window, gesturing to the scenery outside. To the craggy mountains that stretched for miles and the sea beyond it. To the world that existed beyond Illyria. Beyond Prythian. “When you are healed, if you wish to leave Illyria you can. I don’t want you to feel imprisoned any longer.”

There was a finality to the words that rang true. Her sister meant them, even if it was obvious they caused her pain.  Yet… Nesta did not want to leave. Not now, not when she had promised to attend the Solstice luncheon to see what they could discover about the sword and the kerit attacks. Not when the females here were so vulnerable. Now when they needed help rebuilding their community — to mourn for the losses that Nesta had vowed would not go unnoticed.

“I said I’d help, didn’t I?”

Feyre halted at the door.

“And your help is invaluable,” Feyre said slowly, “but you are not obligated to do it. So if you wish to leave, you can. Just… please tell someone before you do and let us know where you are going.”

Feyre looked weary and Nesta wondered if she had even bathed since everything that had happened. Her body was clean like Nesta’s… but her leathers were crumpled and her hair dishevelled. Nesta’s own body felt like it was covered in a film of oil and invisible dirt. Her skin itched at the thought and she longed for a bath, even though she knew she would not be able to manage it without more rest.

When Nesta closed her eyes, Feyre’s blood-streaked face swam into view. She remembered how Feyre had gripped her hand in the midst of battle and told Nesta to lead the way to the Eastern side of the camp, even though they were in the thick of danger. Her sister had not hesitated or balked. She had only been fierce and unwaveringly brave, ready to put her life on the line for those who needed protection.

For all of their problems, when the two of them had been fighting side by side, it was the first time that Nesta felt as if she truly belonged with her sister. For a brief moment in time, their issues and past mistakes had bled away, as if they were inconsequential.

“I’d love for us to start afresh,” Feyre continued quietly from her place at the door. “We have both made errors, but I do not care about yours. I hope that with time you might be able to forgive me, and if you do, I’d like to start over, you and I, with a blank slate.”

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[seokmingiggles]

peonies.

Prompt: "Going somewhere?"

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x gender neutral reader

Genre: fluff, established relationship, quarantine!au (if that’s what you’d call it?), non-idol!au (this isn’t a typical tag of mine, but I want to make it clear!).

2.36k words

No warnings.

Being cooped up inside for the protection of others can become a redundant routine. Today, your boyfriend breaks that cycle and goes on an unexpected outing—safely, of course.

Alternatively, Taehyung decides that he wants to remind you of his love with the surprise of little gifts. Not that he needs to, but he wants to.

A/N: Here’s a little something I wrote in the span of a couple of hours tonight to separate my Seventeen teacup drabbles. By ‘quarantine!au,’ I mean this one-shot takes place in our current situation with Covid-19 :/ I truly hope all of you are able to stay safe and healthy. Please wear a mask when you go out! We will fight this pandemic!! ♡

•• The distinct metal clinking of keys jingling by the front door catches your attention.

"Going somewhere?"

Taehyung looks up from his feet after slipping on a pair of brown boots. He's got his keys in one hand, along with a slightly crumpled list of something illegible to you from your spot on the couch. A black medical mask is hung haphazardly to the side off of one of his ears.

He stands up tall, "Just got a couple of errands to run. I'll be right back." Your boyfriend flashes you a smile, rounding his cheeks into rolls of puffy dough.

You hum out, "Okay," and return his small wave as he leaves your shared apartment.

There's a slight crisp to the air outside today. It nips on the tips of Taehyung's cheeks exposed from his mask. The boy considers if he should have put on a scarf, too, overtop his jacket. Overtop his mask? It's too late now, he muses. At least his hands are warm inside his fleece-lined pockets, and his round nose is sheltered from the late-winter air. He clutches the piece of paper tightly in his right hand. Writing lists may be obsolete now in the digital age, but Taehyung can't deny how he likes the feel of pen on paper, even if he can recite each written line from memory; crossing off his to-do lists makes him feel accomplished.

His shoes gently click on the sidewalk. The streets are emptier than he's used to seeing. The light snowfall from a few days ago has already melted. Instead, some dead leaves rustle across the dry ground. Someone is walking on the same sidewalk, heading in Taehyung's direction. She's wearing a similar medical-grade mask with hands stuffed deeply into her pockets too. Her hair blows violently in the head-on wind. She looks up from her footsteps, and Taehyung swears he can see what might be a polite smile beneath her mask. The boy's eyes crinkle slightly at the corners in response, continuing on his way.

His first stop is the used bookstore. The smell of old paper and the slight dryness from the dust make their way through Taehyung's mask, into his nose. He doesn't have anything specific in mind. He does, however, know the types of books you like to read. Shelf after shelf, he scans the spines one by one, in search of a title that stands out to him. Stardust, he ruminates, eyes inspecting the plain royal blue cover. It seems simple enough, and if you don't like it, he may consider reading it.

Taehyung weaves through the maze of piled books laid out on the floor; there are far too many for the small shop to accommodate. The owner of the store is sat behind the desk at the side, likewise surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books. Some are dustier than others; some look newer than others.

"Just this one today?" the bookkeeper ponders, face half-masked.

"Yes, please."

The blue-bound book finds a place in the crook of the boy's elbow, pressed to his chest as he returns on his walk. This time, someone is on a run with their dog, jogging on the opposite side of the street. Taehyung never sees his face, only the back of his head as he moves ahead. But he does notice the little elastics of his mask tucked around his ears once he passes by. Muscular, yet lean calves push him to run further; the brown spotted dog seems to skip happily along the sidewalk next to its owner.

The aroma of the bakery is mildly evident before he crosses the street. Located as the first shop on the corner of a new avenue, the little store contains your favourite treats, Taehyung's too. A family-owned business, the boy wants to support their shop during this time of limited sales. Frankly, the boy wishes he could do the same for all of the little stores lining the streets here downtown.

The bell above the door chimes when Taehyung enters the store; the sound resonates in the single room. A rush of hot air smacks his face.

With the sound of footsteps coming down from the upstairs attachment, the shop owner appears in a blue mask. "Welcome!" her voice is jolly, eyes in crescents. "Is it the usual for today, Taehyung?"

The boy in question nods with a smile, fluffy bangs bouncing with the movement, "Please."

The patissier moves to the windowed counter displaying significantly fewer treats than what would have been a year ago.

"Is it a special occasion?"

"No," Taehyung admits. "Just because."

There's a twinkle in the baker's eye. "They're a lucky one."

Taehyung doesn't say anything, and instead, he thinks how he's the lucky one out of the two of you.

He pays with cash, rounding up as an extra tip. The two exchange thanks and other pleasantries, and Taehyung sets back out in the cool air on his way. The paper gift bag holds the two cardboard containers with mouth-watering snacks inside. He slips the novel carefully into the bag, making sure it doesn't rip.

The florist is his final stop on today's little journey.

Blooming buds of each and every colour of the rainbow and then some invade Taehyung's vision. He's sure the fragrant floral scent would be more potent without wearing his mask. He tries to sniff one of the bunches of tulips near the entryway. No, it's mostly neutral with a hint of dust leftover from the bookstore.

"For any reason in particular? Birthday? Anniversary?"

Taehyung is brought from his flower-sniffing, seeing the florist behind the counter bearing what might be an amused grin. The boy hides his frustration at being unable to read people's expressions properly when concealed by the masks.

"Ah, no," his face flushes slightly, "not today. Could I still get some flowers, though?"

"Of course," she beams. "Anything specific?"

The boy ponders, examining each prearranged bouquet laying about. They all look beautiful to him, but Taehyung also doesn't know much about flowers. What's more important to him is how much you like them; that's all he needs to know.

"Surprise me," is his answer, confident in the florist's abilities.

Taehyung ends up leaving the store with a combination of delicate daffodils, carnations, roses, and two large peonies in the center. The bright yellows of the daffodils compliment the ivory carnations and ruby-red roses. The pastel pink peonies, Taehyung thinks, might be his favourite from the bunch. Maybe the two of you are peonies? You're certainly pretty like a flower, yes, so why not a peony?

Taehyung heads in the opposite direction from his travels, starting the walk back to the apartment. The paper bag containing the pastries and the book is still clutched tightly in one hand, while the colourful, decorative flowers are held with significantly more care in his other hand.

The sky is grey today, filled with an abundance of dense clouds. Taehyung swears it had been blue when he had left the house earlier, although now, it looks like there may be another snowfall. More leaves scatter with the wind, blowing in Taehyung's direction. They dance in the breeze, scraping the cemented road and landing in the crook of an alleyway between two shops, both with their lights off and variations of 'Closed' signs decorating the doors.

Sure enough, what can barely be classified as snow begins to fall from the heavens. Tiny flakes of white flutter down, instantly melting as they hit the sidewalk. The only evidence of their existence is when they land on Taehyung's black woollen jacket, but even then, they don't last for very long.

The distinct metal clinking of keys signals your boyfriend's return home. Taehyung takes in your appearance, now off the couch and facing the stove with your back to him. You've changed out of your trusty pair of sweatpants you've been housed in for the past months, opting for something slightly more form-fitting, but comfortable still, nonetheless. Your hair looks washed. Maybe you took a shower in the time Taehyung had been out. You're boiling some water in a pot, from what the boy can tell. Yes, upon moving closer, some pasta swirls around in the churning bubbles, steam escaping only to be swept up in the oven range above.

"You're done with your errands?" you call out over your shoulder, returning your gaze to the cooking pasta as you listen to your boyfriend removing his outerwear by the front door. "How was it out there?"

Taehyung moves his sock-clad feet to where you stand. After washing his hands, a pair of warm arms tenderly wraps around your torso from behind, followed by a brisk peck to your cheek.

"It was quiet out there, as you'd expect," the boy mulls over as he traces some unknown shape onto your hipbone. "Do you want to see what I got?"

You comply with his request, turning the stove's burner down before moving in his embrace as he shifts the two of you to the kitchen island. There, the array of treats are splayed out.

Your eyes immediately land on the flowers: the colours nearly take your breath away. It's been so long since you've seen something so alive. You don't fail to notice the brown paper bag with your favourite bakery's emblem stamped on the side. Something else is peeking out of the bag, something blue that you can't distinguish.

"Why?" you can't help but ask Taehyung. "What's the reason for all of this?" Still held in his arms, you slightly twist so you can glance upwards at your boyfriend.

He's already looking at you with his big brown eyes. Little droplets of melted snow rest daintily in his hair. You reach upwards to brush some aside, also smoothing down some of the astray strands displaced from the wind.

"The reason is that I love you."

"You're too good, Tae," you whisper, hugging the boy properly and burying your face into him. "I love you too."

Another kiss finds your head before you pull away, but only to move closer once again to place your lips on Taehyung's. His nose is cold, but his mouth is hot as you move together with years of practice. You're the first one to part, but staying close enough for noses to brush. Taehyung has a hand cupping the side of your face, thumbing over the roundest part of your cheek from your smile: a shape comparable to a soft bread bun.

Being stuck inside has its downfalls; you and Taehyung are no exception. You've had more arguments in the span of the past ten months than all of the years in your relationship combined. Considering them as arguments may be putting it harshly, disagreements or miscommunication are more accurate depictions of your quarrels. Perhaps the fatigue of being confined indoors is to blame. The worst dispute was a couple of months ago, where you and Taehyung grimly doubted the status of your relationship—if any of it was worth it anymore.

Clearly, you managed to work things out as here you sit on the sofa now, biting into one of the flaky, buttery croissants—one of the few treats adorning the inside of the paper bag. The raspberry preserves on the inside burst across your tongue in a pleasant tartness, complementing the sweet pastry. The pasta on the stove now forgotten, moved to the side and off the burner for another time. You offer Taehyung a bit of the croissant to which he complies, taking a large bite from it. Little flecks of gold decorate the corners of his mouth; one finds a spot on his upper lip beside the dimple of his cupid's bow.

"You're cute," you mumble, gently removing the crumbs from his mouth.

Taehyung disagrees, a voice so soft you'd nearly miss it if he weren't in such proximity, "Not as cute as you, my love." He takes your hand in his, pressing a string of little pecks onto your fingers. Your hand stays in his even after the kisses placed, digits now laced comfortably.

You take another bite of the raspberry croissant until there's one mouthful left. You wordlessly offer it to your boyfriend.

The floral bouquet occupies the center of the kitchen table. It's a fluorescent sight between the dulled walls of the apartment. Like a little piece of sunshine, the flowers provide you with a sense of warmth or energy that you no longer experience trapped in your confined space day after day.

The snow has picked up outside. The clouds have only gotten denser since Taehyung's return home. The sky is gradually growing darker with the hour; streetlamps flicker on one-by-one, lining the streets in glowing amber and putting spotlights on the colourless, falling flakes. Rooftops and tree branches gradually become covered in a dusting of white.

"I love you," Taehyung repeats out of the blue, causing you to remove your gaze from the winter landscape forming outside.

You examine his face as his eyes flutter between yours. A pretty shade of pink blossoms on his cheeks while his mouth lifts into the smallest of smiles.

"I love you too," you say with all earnest. "Thank you for everything today."

"Of course," he nuzzles into the top of your head, pulling you close against him. "I'm sorry we have to stay indoors most of the time."

"It's not your fault, Tae."

The boy hums in acknowledgement. "Sometimes I wish I could solve it all, you know? Like if I wish or pray, or maybe if I believe hard enough, everything will be fixed. Everything will be normal again."

"Things will be normal again," you return. Your thumb strokes over Taehyung's on the hand you're still holding. Your head finds his shoulder.

Taehyung is warm and familiar and possibly the only constant in your life right now. Your eyes reach the flowers in the vase on the dining table once more—vibrant and attractive yellows, reds, and pastel pinks.

You squeeze your boyfriend's hand: a silent thank you; an unsaid I love you.

Taehyung squeezes your hand back.

To do:

live for today

and cherish (Y/N)

••

[breathings-of-the-heart]

Imagine Levi Confessing his Love for You

A/N: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PLEASE READ THE TEXT BELOW BEFORE PROCEEDING THANK YOU :))

HERE IS A TIMELINE /  EXPLANATION / BACKGROUND INFORMATION BECAUSE CASE THE TIME SKIPS OF THIS STORY ARE CONFUSING: I’m sorry for that everyone, I know the dates are sloppy and as a whole this fic doesn’t make too much sense; I tried to edit this piece as best I could to make the story as easy to follow as possible, but seeing as I can’t unpublish part 1 or 2, the cleanup still leaves things bit unclear. These imagines were originally chapters of a longer Levi x Reader fic that I decided to discontinue, which is why there are so many loose ends. Here was my original intention for this story, broken down for the few who choose to read the Author’s Notes lol.

We are going to do this in the order of the 3 part fic (I also put attached all the links to the titles)

Part 1: Imagine Relating to Mikasa About Loving Someone in the Military

The scene is set during the events of SEASON 1 of Attack on Titan, BEFORE the Female Titan Arc. (Y/N) was also hand selected by Levi to be part of the original Special Operation Squad; she bit her hand at the dinner table along with Petra, Gunther, Eld, and Oluo to show their dedication and understanding towards Eren wayyy back in the beginning of the series. The Survey Corps is making preparations for their first attempt to go to Shiganshina since the Fall of Wall Maria and not only uncover the mole who killed captive titans Sonny and Bean, but also to get to Eren’s basement.

Part 2: To Love Another

The flashback and opening scene in the beginning of this writing piece (where (Y/N) and Hange are talking to each other) occurs shortly after (Y/N) wakes up in the infirmary room, before anyone breaks the news that she, aside from an injured Levi, is the last surviving member of Squad Levi after Annie killed the others in the Forest of Giant Trees in her female titan form. Hange’s intentions were to bring the (Y/N) and Levi together so they would be able to support each other during this mutual loss. But alas, (Y/N) accepts his rejection and the two suffer the aftermath of this tragic news alone. To read this arc for context/bonus content to get a better understanding of this mini series, see my posts (as a sort of prequel, if you will) Imagine Levi Finding you Injured on an Expedition and Imagine Being the Last Member of Squad Levi To Survive to fill that time gap :)

In real-time, all of Season 2 and Season 3 Part 1 have gone by with limited interaction between (Y/N) and Levi. This part of the story is occurring during Season 3 PART 2, (spoilers) after the Coup D'etat, and after Historia becomes Queen. (Y/N) is no longer an active soldier, having sustained injuries too severe to be reliable in combat. She remains useful to the Corps as a battle strategist, however, which allows her to stay. The Scouting Regiment is currently preparing to go to Eren’s basement in their second attempt, knowing Reiner and Berthold will be waiting for them there.

Part 3: Imagine Levi Confessing his Love for You (YOU ARE HERE)

This part takes place pretty much a week or so after the events of “To Love Another.” It is revealed how much (Y/N) has isolated herself in the months between Parts 1 and 2 from not only Levi, but Hange, the only one besides Mikasa who knew about her feelings for Levi prior to their falling out. (Y/N) confesses her feelings for Levi before the mission to Shiganshina in Season one, and the fic parallels itself and comes full circle once their final interaction occurs before the second and final mission to Shiganshina, for which, (Y/N) is unable to go for her death would be almost certain. She seen to be more valuable inside the walls, where she can carry on the duties of the Survey Corps should the entire regiment collapse during the mission. This is the final part :)

I HOPE THAT CLEARS THINGS UP!

requested by @a-single-uwo @dracq and @little-diva-gurl and a lovely anon who def isn’t the happiest that this took so long. Deepest apologies! Hope this was worth the wait. I also hope this post finds everyone safe and in good health during these crazy times <3

~~~~~

Dread bottled up in the bottom of your stomach, which threatened to fall down to your knees. Even Hange’s eyes brimmed with concern when she informed you that Levi requested your presence in his office; all of which was out of the blue, uncharacteristic, after months of him being accustomed to giving you your space.

Feigning annoyance, you stared at the soldier dummy two paces ahead, dented heavily with the marks of your punches. The sun was beating down on the early autumn day, and heat waves rose from the ground. It illuminated the glistening perspiration sliding down your figure, torso rising and falling in short breaths of exhaustion.

Hange watched you carefully from a distance. She noticed your tense muscles, clad in a sports bra and boxing shorts; the lack of attire made it impossible to hide the sudden tension and stiffness embedded in your lean muscles, a tell tale sign of distress. As a creature of observation and analytics, the Squad Leader could sense your discomfort as if it was written across your forehead.

The brunette watched you wipe the sweat off your forehead and yell in frustration, turning towards her direction and moving to land a kick at her head.

Unfazed and in possession of sharp reflexes, Hange took a step back, only to watch as you twisted mid-air and landed a 360 Crescent kick to the dummy-shaped bag, which broke open on impact under the force of the blow. Sand poured out of its opening and spilled onto the ground in a steady stream that grew less heavy as the seconds passed.

“I’ll have to admit, you are getting better, but (Y/N), don’t get your hopes up,” Hange cautioned. “The problem does not reside in your muscles. No matter how well you learn to fight like you used to, Annie crushed your ribs and threw you to the ground: it's your lungs that will never recover. You can’t come with us to Shiganshina tomorrow like this.”

Hunched over with hands on your knees, you regained a regular breathing pattern and began to feel the explosive pain in your chest. Airways blocked, you began coughing, willing the oxygen to enter your body.

“Let me humor myself, Hange-san. If I don’t try, I might go insane.”

It was almost tragic that such a young soldier was out of commission; you were full of promise, rivalling Mikasa in skill. Hange knew you were itching to do what you trained for your whole life: Coming to Shiganshina and putting it all on the line had always been your number one goal. You didn’t want to be left behind again, to die bitter and alone without the only people you cared about.

“Regardless, (Y/N), you’re stalling,” Hange smoothly shifted the topic of conversation back to what brought her to you in the first place. “He still has that power over you, huh?”

"It'll pass eventually," you sighed, hoping the words were true.

You bowed towards the tall female. She smiled in return, shaking her head softly.

Whilst pacing away, said person stopped you once more.

“(Y/N). For what it’s worth, I stand by what I said before. Don’t look so nervous, okay?”

Her words replayed in your head, a haunting ghost of the not-so-long ago past. Time was strange, that way. It seemed like everything happened yesterday yet in another lifetime, all at once. “He loves you, more than he’s ever loved anyone. Surely you know that.”

Stupid, you thought, how I might have believed it once.

As you made your way down the hall, numbness crept into your body once again. You were too proud to admit you were afraid, especially with the Section Commander’s radiating sympathy, but everyone knew the once friendly dynamic between you and the Captain transformed into one more distant and cold. With each step towards the door, you felt the icy chill grow and that fact alone shook you to the core. 

But it didn’t matter, seeing as Levi was of superior authority. There was no way around it.

Your hand shook as it raised to knock.

~~~~~~

“Name and business,” Levi spoke, voice muffled by the closed door.

“It’s (Y/N), sir. I was hoping to speak with you.”

There was a pause, and in that time you considered the option of fleeing back to your room and retreating back to a life of emotional safety, normality. It wasn’t too late to forget.

It had been a week since you spoke to Mikasa on the rooftop, after realizing the deep shit your heart decided to put you in. You didn’t think Levi would notice the distracted nature of your behavior-- tried to make it as subtle as possible whilst you figured out what you felt for him. 

But before you could explore other options, Levi muttered a stern “enter.” You knew with the first expedition back to Shiganshina tomorrow, and the prospect of death closer than it has ever been on a mission, it was now or never. 

The room was dim, small, warm, and thick with building tension. Shadows danced across the Captain’s face, sharp features lit by an orange flame. Only candlelight, sourced at his desk, assisted your adjusting eyes. 

Your nose was hit with the smell of tea and cleaning products upon entry. This fact made you smile despite your bundling nervous energy. It was a familiar place, filled with memories of late night conversations (granted, of mostly you speaking and him listening), witnessed only by the large piles of paperwork. It started here and resulted in a natural, growing fondness kept secret to all except you two and the moon looking in from the window. 

This man was your squad leader, your commander, your trusted comrade. There was no need to be afraid-- Not unless of course, you held the potential to shatter such damn a delicate relationship.

And you did. 

Was it worth it?

Your gaze gravitated towards the center of the room where the Lance Corporal sat. And in that instant, your smile evaporated instantly. He placed his pen down, gracefully resting his cheek on his fist and lazily tossing the raven locks out of his eyes-- they landed on you, piercing yet drowsy and indifferent upon first glance. He was beautiful, as always. The allure was nearly sickening; unfair to the rest of the world.

Looking closer, however, he was anything but relaxed. The observant eye could see his countenance stirred something different. He seemed sharp and focused, ready to dart out and wrap himself around your heart, squeezing tighter with every breath you took. And you felt it-- the heart palpitations, which got worse at the sight of him.

He seemed… different. Dangerous, like a storm stirring in the distance, and the inevitable downpour that comes with it. The dark circles under his eyes told tales about the insomnia; a fresh cup of caffeinated black tea even rested on his left, steam rising out of it. And whilst attraction was undeniable, your concern always came first.

Levi was never quite good at getting proper rest before a mission.

“(Y/N),” The word was breathy, yet his voice was rough.

You shuffled in your spot, your name on his tongue making your stomach churn with desire.

Levi seemed to pick up on your affliction, getting out of his chair and gliding towards you. Everything happened fast and slow all at once, starting off with a momentaneous rush of air and  the collision of your back with the office wall. A small shriek filled the air, out of place against the silence; was that your voice? The pain should’ve been there, but it wasn’t.

Then the seconds dragged out. Levi was a new person, setting your skin aflame as he gripped your wrists and pinned them against the wall. His lips brushed your eartips, which turned red the instant the raven’s breath fanned over them. This normally reserved, disciplined man unleashed something you had never seen before.

“Finally ready to talk to me about why you’ve been acting so strange, brat?” he whispered.  

This wasn’t supposed to be so dirty. He was angry, but the mood was established in layers: something more sinister existed beneath.

The scent of fresh pine filled your nostrils until your brain went foggy. Levi was close--so close, and with the fact that you’ve been avoiding him mixed in with the fact that you missed him for it, all bets were off: there was no stopping the words that came out of your mouth next.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” you whispered back, looking him dead in the eyes, no fear this time.

His grip on your wrist slackened.

“Hm?”

You took in a deep breath, ready to leave it all on the line, and spoke.

“I like you a lot, sir. And not in a comradery type of way. I-I just thought I’d tell you before, you know, we leave tomorrow.” Your gaze found the floor again, too timid for your own good. But the statement was said, and it was finite; there was no turning away from it.

The Captain’s eyes went wide and gleamed brightly at you. His chest felt lighter and as he looked down at you in speechless awe, staring at anything but his face in your adorable embarrassment, he realized exactly why your absent look irked him those days ago. Why your lack of enthusiasm and lighthearted-ness gave him a strange sense of frustration. 

Levi never felt more awake, more hyper aware of his surroundings. 

The feeling of your chest pressed against him, the heat of those rosy cheeks, the pounding within his ribcage, the moon hitting your pretty face. With your figure in his arms, after the blissful seconds passed, everything felt, for once, okay.

Until it wasn’t.

Gaining the courage to look back up at him, you all but tore apart at the scowl on his face as demons flitted through his beautiful brain and polluted the image of happiness. Levi grew more indignant by the second, all but throwing your arms he held back at your sides like they were poison to the touch. 

Tears pooled in your eyes as the soft expression you didn’t get to see turned sour, disgusted-- the Captain’s lips curling into a snarl as he imagined what he could lose if he opened up his heart for this girl in front of him to take. The risk and pain of falling for someone, in the world the two of you lived in. And all the stoic man could think was how he allowed this charade to come so far.

No, he wouldn't allow it.

“Get out, (L/N)” he commanded, harsh and unforgiving.

You were trembling, body feeling detached from reality as it moved, convincing itself that it was simply a nightmare. Levi’s cruel demeanor all but shattered you as you looked wide-eyed and his anger grew, the short man pacing behind his desk and bringing a hand over his face. His free one crumpled into a fist, knuckles turning white as he slammed it on the wood, the loud bang making you jump; the fear, grief, confusion coming all at once until it choked you and your vision spotted black.

“I said GET OUT!”

The room stilled and Levi looked up to face you cowering near the door, a single tear rolling down your cheek. He stilled at the sight, the weight of his words dawning upon him.  

“I-I’m sorry,” you gasped before racing out of the room.

Had you looked back, you would’ve seen Levi’s outstretched hand betraying his body, desperately reaching out for you, gray eyes filled with pain.

But you knew now you’d never be dumb enough to spare him that second glance-- and maybe that was the right call, seeing as his feet moved in the direction you left, only to shut the door left askew in your wake.  

~~~

The Captain’s gaze was on you more than necessary, but it was clear the two of you had the same thought: You focused everything into this discussion, melting into the emotionally-detached soldier your duty commanded, just like Levi did. His words had no ulterior motive, no deeper meaning. They were monotonous and empty.

Or so you thought.

Levi stood up the second you came in, but your gaze fell to the ground in submission.

“Hange said you needed to see me, Captain?” your voice was small and weak; you kicked yourself for it. How pathetic.

“Damn you...”

The man said nothing more, brushing his fingers along your cheekbones and you everything hit you like whiplash, the memories. Levi ran them along your face, down to your chin to lift it gently, so that for once you’d let your eyes meet instead of looking at the ground like a coward.

When they did the man’s breath hitched in his throat, because although your (eye color) orbs were no longer as vibrant, they were still beautiful and entrancing; why hadn’t he ever appreciated them before? 

"I missed you, brat," he spoke firmly.

You felt a churn in your abdomen as you watched his eyes study the details of your face and take in every feature, committing it to memory painfully slow. You were paralyzed, his face inches away from yours and forcing buried emotions to resurface as months of restraint came undone. He didn’t speak, holding you delicately after not being this close for far too long and discerning what he’s been missing.  

“Um, Captain? What are you...?"

You bit your lip, feeling puzzled and confused as you remembered the hate in Levi's orbs the last time you saw him like this.

All you could see now was how quickly his emotions shifted from serenity to fury that fateful night, and as you recollected the way Levi lashed out, all chaos and fury, he retracted his hand.

And you flinched away.

The Captain froze.

“Don’t-- don’t fucking do that,” he growled, his urgency startling. “I would never hurt you, (Y/N).”

Your eyebrows furrowed, all inhibition thrown out the window the second Levi’s countenance flashed with hurt at your response to his touch. You let your fear go and emotions free at the irony of the raven’s statement. Your mind went into overdrive, recounting every instance you wanted to give up and leave, drown in yourself, give up on finding purpose in the aftermath of rejection and Squad Levi’s death and your permanent injury changing your way of life. Things you faced alone, because instead of rekindling any semblance of a relationship, Levi tossed everything away and berated you for feeling.

The man who resided here cut your heart expertisely like the countless swords he wielded then disposed. He did not have the right to look at you so kindly; did not have to right to fan the flames of false hope. But here he was, procrastinating until the very last day to take initiative regarding those actions.

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered, forgetting your composure.

“I’d advise you not to speak in riddles,” Levi spoke in a low and even voice, no real malice as he addressed you and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

You took a deep breath and fought to remain calm, grabbing Levi's wrist to keep him from touching you.

“Please don’t toy with me, or mock my feelings like this. Why did you call me here? You made it plenty clear how you feel about me, Levi. What else is there to say?" you begged, the lack of closure driving you insane.

This was the first time you used his name, an unprecedented amount of spite and pain expressed through it, because you wanted Levi to remember this moment. It was over: that time of feeling sorry and ashamed of yourself for being nothing other than human. The remorse was gone, and the heartache was fleeting.

“Tell me, dammit!”

His was overflowing.

“You want to know how I really feel about you, (Y/N)!?” the Captain shouted, voice rising because for a man who relied on impulse and action on the battlefield it was fucking frustrating, watching the woman in front of him live this way for the simple reason that he was not good with words. "The thoughts that go through my head when you can't even bear to look at me?!"

"No, that's not what I asked. I already know that you don't--"

"--Fuck this."

Relying on instinct to guide him, Levi leaned forward and kissed you.

The second his lips met yours, you melted on the spot, knees giving out beneath you. Tongue sliding into your mouth, Levi simultaneously lifted you into the air, feeling lightheaded as you moaned into him, eagerly returning the kiss. His hands were everywhere, grasping at your waist, clutching the back of your head, running down your thighs. You were in such a state of euphoria that nothing else existed.

Your own digits threaded through Levi’s raven locks and pulled needily, emitting a growl from his throat as he bit down on your lower lip. He reveled in the feeling of your legs around his waist as your soft lips worked against his own, hungry and relentless. The kiss was passionate and you’d imagined it a million times over, but this-- Levi successfully ruined you for any other man.

The need for oxygen pulled you apart, Levi’s strong arms keeping you in the air as his eyes remained shut; he pecked your lips once, then twice, savoring the moment until it mournfully passed.

He was hesitant to break the silence, but you deserved it. You waited long enough to hear the truth, and he knew his time was running out; you weren’t going to wait for him forever.

“(Y/N)...” he began to speak, forehead resting on yours as he panted softly to catch his breath. “I dreamt of you last night. I have been for days.”

“Levi--”

“--Just listen,” he interrupted, unable to stop himself from kissing you softly once more. “Neither of us are running away this time.”

You fell silent as the man let you down, pulling you into his solid chest as you buried your face in his shirt, patiently listening. His calm heartbeat thrummed soothingly in your ears like a metronome.

“Isabel, Farlan, Oluo, Petra, Gunther, Eld. They all knew that what they meant to me. And I them."

One of the only things that made it easier to say goodbye, you thought with a bittersweet pang in your chest.

"With us, it's different. I died in every dream, (Y/N). Every one. And in every single one, you lived on believing I never loved you. Call me selfish, but I...”

You pulled away from the stoic man, searching his gaze as he trailed off. Shyly, you interlaced your fingers, his larger hand enveloping yours and you prayed to whoever was listening upstairs that all of this was real.

“I just can't leave until you understand...”

He clutched you impossibly tighter, eyes squeezing shut.

"...that you, are everything."

~~~ Extended Ending ~~~

A soft hum filled the air, the tune dreamy and sweet as you repeated the melody once again. You smiled warmly as hands wound around your waist, pulling you closer to a toned and shirtless Captain Levi, silken sheets tossed haphazardly on top of the two of you. His breath sent goosebumps on your neck as he kissed your shoulder gently, warmth deliciously intoxicating. 

Giggling now, you turned around to face him, the man’s onyx hair ticking you softly. You captured your lips in his with one smooth movement and snuggled closer, taking in the small slice of heaven that was home in his arms, legs tangled together. Feeling unbelievably content, like your heart might burst, you leaned forward and rubbed your nose against Levi's. 

Although he wasn't smiling, the look he was giving you revealed his own sensation of happiness.

“I never thought you’d be the cuddling type,” you remarked devilishly, scrunching up your nose as you teased him. 

Though your tone was lighthearted, you were painfully aware that the moment was ending. You internally cursed the sun as it started to set, orange light peeking in through the window shades to signal the coming of night. Levi said nothing, looking deeply into your eyes, and like always, it felt as if he could read the contents of your soul. 

But it wasn’t vulnerability you felt: on the contrary, you knew you would never find as safe a place as here. With him. Finally.  

“Levi...” you swallowed, humor all but gone. “Now you have to come home.” 

To emphasize your point you sat up on the bed, legs tucked neatly underneath you as you stared imperatively at your lover. 

“Mhm. We’ve wasted enough time,” he agreed, taking you by the wrist to pull you back on top of him, to bask in this personal paradise if only for another minute. 

[laulink]

A.N : This volume is gonna be full of angst, I just know it, especially for Nuts and Dolts. They had too many good moments in these first 3 eps, it’s hiding something. So, I’m going to give into the angst... then give it a happy ending because I want to make this story into a fucking fairy tale and no one can stop me.

The wind was blowind way too strong to be natural. Ruby knew that. A few hours ago, seeing this power, feeling its raw strength would have amazed her, but the situation had changed. Oh, so much.

In front of her was Penny. Her beautiful, cheerful, kind, patient, funny, enthusiastic, intelligent, wonderful Penny. Turned into a lifeless doll by that mustached bitch, on fucking Ironwood’s orders. Ruby would have punched them both if they were in front of her. Her right hook had gotten pretty mean after Ozpin’s training and feeling these two bastards’ noses break under her fist would have been oh so satisfying.

But they weren’t here and Penny was the one facing her. Her eyes had turned red from the corruption in her systems, reminding her of Yang when she was angry and her mother, Raven, when she saw her for the first and last time at the battle of Haven. 

A familiar noise at her left alerted her just in time to dodge Penny’s blades and avoid being sliced in two. Her aura was low, it would have broken under the attack. Behind her, she heard Weiss talking to Pietro over her scroll.

“What do you mean you can’t access her systems ?! You did it just a few hours ago !

- Yes, when Penny was still functioning normally ! Whatever Ironwood and Watts have done to take control of her, it has blocked all remote accesses, I can’t do anything to break her out of it ! 

- There must be something we can do !” Blake screamed from her side, avoiding another of Penny’s attacks. Ruby semblanced her a bit farther away, out of Penny’s reach so they could take a breath while still listening to Pietro.

“I have tried everything ! I can’t get through to her ! This kind of control can only be broken from inside, either by connecting to Penny with a computer and running a counter program or getting Penny to break out of it herself. But I can’t do any of those things !

- What was that about getting Penny to break out of it ?” Ruby asked before ducking under yet another attack from Penny’s blades, semblancing behind her to try and cut the damn strings, and being pushed back by a blast of wind. Her ears were ringing, but she still managed to catch Pietro’s answer.

“Penny can break any form of control on her body. That’s something I made sure of when designing her. Earlier, in the operations room, she could have pushed me out if she had so desired. The same could be done here, but the program run to control her is complex. Watts really outdid himself ; without a strong stimulus, a mind breaking shock if you will, his connection to Penny will hold and she won’t be able to push him out.

- So what you’re saying is that we need to shock Penny into rebooting her brain ?” Weiss asked, disbelieving.

“Basically, yes. A strong enough emotion could do the trick ; there’s a reason people say that, under certain circumstances, their brains short-circuit. That’s what we need right now.”

Penny’s movements were getting more precise by the minute now. Watts was getting the hang of this, and Ruby wished he weren’t. If things kept going like this, they wouldn’t be able to avoid injuries, to them or Penny, for much longer.

“What can we do then ?!” she screamed in Weiss’ general direction. “What could possibly shock her enough to do that ?! We’re running out of time !”

Pietro was silent, probably thinking. Ruby felt someone’s hand on her shoulder and turned to see Nora looking at her, serious, but eyes sparkling in a way Ruby really didn’t like right now.

“I think you know exactly what we need to do, Ruby.

- No I don’t !”

But Nora’s cryptic words seemed to make it click for Blake, who’s ears perked up. She dodged a few more attacks from Penny, progressively getting closer to Ruby and Nora, who were retreating, protected by Weiss’ cover fire. When they were all close enough to talk without having to scream, Blake told Ruby :

“Maybe you don’t know, but you are what we need, Ruby. Or rather, what Penny needs.

- What does that even mean ?!”

Weiss seemed to catch on as well because she sighed loudly and gave Ruby a glare so withering that her leader could feel it even without seeing it.

“Come on, Ruby ! We need to inspire a strong emotion in Penny ! And we’ve all seen how you look at her ! Stop being a gay mess for two minutes and go get your girl !”

Ruby’s face turned as red as her cape. She turned around to face Weiss and deny, but Nora’s hammer deflecting an attack that would have otherwise turned Ruby into a hedgehog reminded her that she didn’t have the luxury to fight with her teammates. Instead, she used Crescent Rose to deflect Penny’s swords while screaming at them :

“Are you insane ?! Do you really think it’s the moment to play matchmaker ?!

- Actually Ruby,” Pietro spoke up, still on the scroll, “your friends’ suggestion is a good one. I believe that making your feelings known to Penny would provide a stimulus strong enough to break her out of Watts’ control. It’s worth a try.

- Have you lost your mind ?!

- No time to argue, Ruby !” Blake screamed while her clone was sliced in two where she was standing a mere second ago. “You have to try, now !”

She was right, they were at their limit : they wouldn’t hold much longer. Taking a deep breath to try and calm her racing heart, Ruby focused on Penny’s movements and semblanced her way between her blades, closer and closer until she was right in front of her and-

Materialising in front of Penny, Ruby screamed as she punched the girl, breaking her focus long enough to push her against a rock sticking out of the ground, trapping her with her body.

Taking Penny’s face in her hands with all the care and tenderness in the world, Ruby told her :

“I’m sorry Penny. I love you.”

Red eyes flicked back to green, then red, then green, then red again, almost too fast for Ruby to see. She was almost there, Penny was almost back, she just needed one last push... !

Letting her heart and instincts guide her, Ruby leaned up on her tiptoes and took Penny’s lips between her own in a deep, loving kiss, trying to convey all of her overwhelming feelings to the girl of her dreams. Her adoration for Penny, her happiness at seeing her again after so long, the warmth she felt whenever Penny smiled at her, whenever she talked to her, saw her face, the joy so enormous it felt as crushing as it was liberating when Penny hugged her or kissed her cheek... The love that invaded her entire being, unbridled and devastating, begging to be known, to be shown, unrelenting, whenever she so much as thought of Penny... She poured everything, her very heart, into this kiss...

... and almost broke it out of shock when she felt artificial lips start moving against her own and strong, gentle hands press against the small of her back, bringing her closer to Penny. 

She should have taken a step back, checked that Penny was really there, free, ask how she was feeling... but the moment felt so perfect, Ruby couldn’t resist it : she sunk deeper in Penny’s embrace, her hands moving forward and around the Maiden’s head to rest on the back of her neck, cradling her, keeping her close, as close as she could while she prayed this moment would never end.

Alas, the world wasn’t so kind as to let them in their little paradise forever. The two girls eased back, just enough for their lips to part, but still close enough for their noses to brush and their breaths to mingle. They locked eyes, silver and green, no trace of red to be found, and their lips shaped into twin grins, so wide their cheeks started hurting. Ruby couldn’t help it, she pressed her lips to Penny’s again, and again, and again, even though the contact barely counted as a kiss since they smiled too much to properly give one.

Penny’s arms tightened around Ruby’s waist, bringing her impossibly closer, pressed flush against her love. Having regained some of her composure, though tears shined at the corners of her eyes, Penny whispered against Ruby’s lips :

“Thank you Ruby. I love you too.”

Melting both from the embrace and the confession, Ruby responded with a loving smile and the sweetest kiss she could muster. As Ruby buried a hand in Penny’s hair to keep her close while she deepened the kiss, they both heard someone coughing loudly, reminding them they were not alone. Blushing, both girls jumped away from each other and turned to face their friends who were giving them very pointed -and smug- looks.

Weiss was the first to break the silence :

“When this war is over, I’m commissioning Blake to write a fairy tale about you two.

- No problem,” smirked Blake, “this story will write itself.

- “The Rose and the Maiden : tale of a fated love”. This will be a best-seller,” Nora promised.

As their friends kept chatting about the hypothetic book, Ruby and Penny shared a resigned, but happy glance. Without so much as a word, their hands sought each other out, their fingers intertwined and a feeling bloomed in their hearts : the certitude that, whatever would be thrown their way, they would overcome it together.

A.N : End ! I know that kisses in RWBY always lead to absolute tragedies, so I wanted to turn it around and have the tragedy be dealt with by a kiss. We are in a show inspired by fucking FAIRY TALES, God damnit ! Give me some true love kiss saving the day !

This was a bit rushed, but I hope you enjoyed !

[weakzen]

Left on the detective’s desk, a single red rose and a note written in precise handwriting:

Alex,

What happened to you - you didn’t deserve it. You can be loved, if you let yourself.

Happy Valentine’s Day

(yolo experimental style; alex/mason, early established relationship, angst and fluff; no direct mention of abuse, just oblique circling and fatalistic thoughts; rated m for mason; also on AO3~)

Even though I didn't finish reading it, even though I hid it from sight, imprisoned it in darkness, cast it to the depths of the bottom drawer until the end of shift, when it would be possible to smuggle the thing into the break room recycle bin without risking Tina's eyes or interrogation, that stupid fucking note has somehow still managed to reach up through all those heavy files and twist my stomach into knots.

For hours.

Plucking my nerves hard enough to make my hands fucking shake too. Typos in every report, backspace key pulling overtime without pay. Not helped by eyes that won't stop stinging. Armpits that haven't fully dried either, along with a weird chill, shivers that persist despite the sweater and the cranked-up thermostat.

At least the rose is gone. Snuck it into the arrangement on Tina's desk, the one I get her every year.

It looks better surrounded by friends.

It was nice to see it on the desk this morning

(Can still smell it perfuming the air.)

And if I could get rid of my thoughts as easily, I would. Because after half a day of chasing them in circles, I still can't figure out who the fuck sent that goddamn note, who the fuck would write something like that—say shit like that, to me—who could possibly fucking think or know or say anything about that, or that I-I, that I—

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckingfuck.

That sickly feeling wrenches again, hard enough to jerk me forward over the desk, face buried in my hands while my breathing shudders into something unsteady and vaguely gasping.

Fuck.

It can't be Tina.

It can't.

It should be, but it can't.

The writing's not loopy enough to be hers, and it's not slanted enough to be Verda's, and the damn thing isn't covered in nearly enough heart stickers to be from Felix. We all should know. Nate's been sighing nonstop for the past week, scraping them off every available surface in the Warehouse—except for the lacy pink one Felix managed to sneak right between Adam's shoulders.

And the glittery red one I pressed covertly to Mason's ass.

(Maybe not so covertly. Found a few hearts stuck to my underwear later when I slipped outta my jeans, and the secrets of how the fuck he pulled that off are still locked behind his smirk.)

A smile tries to pull at my lips, but the tightness in my gut warps it crooked.

Another shuddery breath.

It can't be from Adam either. If he had something to say to me, he'd just say it, preferably after he finished laying me out on the mats, all sweaty and sucking down air from another session of his gentle ass-kicking. Nate, however, would write a note to me. Has written a note to me. Has written many notes to me and still not made a dent in that stack of expensive stationary, and although the card stock was silk cream, the pigment obsidian night, and the calligraphy swooping in almost a dead ringer, I know it can't be from Nate because he would never leave a rose with his words, not the ones meant for me.

But there isn't anyone else.

There's Mason

And it can't be from him.

It's not his handwriting, to start. I think. I'm pretty sure. I've never actually seen his writing, but I can't imagine it would be anything resembling neat or careful. It's gotta be complete chicken scratch. All cramped and illegible. He's left handed too, barely patient enough to sit through a stoplight, much less give ink the time to dry, so there'd be definitely be smears, and there weren't any smears. At all. Can't be him.

Not to mention he'd never do anything like this.

Don't know why he keeps coming to mind anyway. Just because we're…

Together

—for now.

Doesn't mean he'd ever say anything like that—

He already has

(He did. He said I deserved better and I believe him, but I don't, I can't.)

—only because he'd say differently if he knew.

If he really knew.

He'd say different and I'm not gonna fucking tell him and it doesn't fucking matter anyway, it doesn't. Shine's gonna wear off soon enough. Novelty, satisfied. Boredom, returning. And at least the conversation won't be awkward, just… blunt. To the point. A first for us both, in topic, if not style.

I've never been dumped before, at least not in a romantic sense.

Another breath. Another shuddery breath.

Wonder how it's gonna feel.

(It's gonna suck.)

No fucking shit.

If it can't last, why agree to it at all?

I rub hard at my eyes, grinding palms into sockets.

If it can't last, why not tell him anyway?

Because I already fucking know! Don't need to hear it from him, don't wanna hear it from—

If it can't last, why does it matter what he thinks?

“…Stupid fucking note.”

It was nice to see it on the desk this morning

(Someone took the time, wrote it, left it in here. Someone cares.)

Someone's playing a sick fucking joke, more like.

What if it's genuine?

I scoff ragged, squeezing fingers around the back of my neck.

(Tina cares. So does Verda. The whole team, so many others, I know, and I believe them all but I don't. I can't.)

What if you didn't deserve it?

I did. I stayed and I did. My fault. Fucking stupid, like he always said.

(All Mason ever speaks is care. In a thousand different ways of touch, in silence, in lingering looks, he cares.)

What if you can be loved?

What if you can?

A brittle laugh wheezes past my lips and shoots toward something hysterical, boosted by acid burn and cloying petals and that churning, churning tightness. My shoulders hunch high around my ears while the sound pitches even higher, lungs immolated and screaming along, nails digging, cutting crescents as I shake and curl tighter, smaller, compacting into stiffness hard enough to rival diamonds, every muscle verging on a cramp and my throat is stinging and my eyes are on fire, hot, wet, and the door is closed, the blinds shut, and maybe I could just— this time— if I stayed quiet, I could—

I could—

But I don't.

I swallow once, twice, suck down, blink it away, then snap upright and get back to work. There's too much shit, not enough time.

Never enough time, not for that.

For you

(Remember to eat lunch.)

I don't.

I don't really remember talking to anyone either. Or finishing paperwork. Answering email. Clearing the inbox backlog, digital and otherwise, but the stack depletes, the numbers go down, Tina gives me shit from the doorway, and soon the peripheral lights tick off overhead in the foyer, a mop bucket rattles its rounds, darkness crept into my office at some point for a visit and now it's here to stay, just its quiet company along with the monitor blasting eye strain, clacking keys, tight shoulders, a headache, and then—

A familiar ass plops down on my desk and scares the shit out of me.

I jerk back in the chair, wheels rolling, hand over heart to keep it from pounding free and Mason looms above it all, bathed in harsh blues, deep shadows, a deeper frown, and eyes that refuse to obey the rules of any ambient illumination.

Right now? They're crinkled soft, even as they scrutinize.

He looks… worried.

When did he even open my door?

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“…Yeah,” I mutter. A lie, an obvious one, but I fight the urge to glance away and dare him to call me out anyway. “You need something, sunshine?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You're late.”

“For what?”

We didn't make plans.

“Getting home.”

Fuck.

I sigh, slumping in the seat, and now I'm looking away, now I'm backing down, running a hand through my hair, mussing and tangling, just like he always does when he's uncertain.

And when the hell did I start doing that?

“Yeah, I'm still behind on shit from my vacation. I was gonna stay late tonight, try and catch up…” I explain, because Tina and I also didn't make plans this year.

(Because she's been marinating in smugness ever since I sighed and told her about the relationship. Because she dropped that shit-eating smirk earlier—that I remember, at least—dripping suggestion all over my office as she waggled her brows and winked and made obnoxious kissy faces until I shoved her out the door, but not before she told me to 'have lots of fun tonight, Alexandra.')

Sure.

“Sorry I didn't text. I… forgot.”

That tightness in my stomach does another loop, and I huff a quiet breath.

Stupid fucking note.

Mason folds his arms. “…The fuck is going on with you?”

Concern blunts the teeth of his words, not that there's any real bite. There never is, not with him, but I tense up anyway, expecting it, expecting to be ripped open.

Blood and pain.

I'd tense up no matter how he asked.

It's okay

(He's not Bobby.)

“Nothing,” I reply, folding my arms, eyes down, “just…”

It's okay

(He's not looking to hurt.)

Probably will anyway, but fuck it. I already know his answer.

Let's just get it over with.

“You didn't leave me a valentine earlier, did you?” My gaze snaps to his. “On my desk?”

Mason scoffs. “Why the hell would I do that?”

This time, it stabs instead of twists, higher up, somewhere in my chest. Something sharp instead of dull.

Disappointment? …Relief? I'm not sure.

Just that it stings.

And it's nighttime, so maybe he feels it too, and maybe that's why he unfolds his arms and shifts toward me, boot heel dangling by the bottom drawer while his voice drops to a softness that matches his accent. “What it say?”

“Nothing,” I repeat, even quieter than him. “Just someone fucking with me. It doesn't matter.”

It does

(Shouldn't lie, not to him. Don't need to. Don't want to, don't like it.)

Mason doesn't like it either, but he doesn't push it. Neither do I.

We look away from each other.

The office swelters around us, too stuffy, too small. Too silent and uncomfortable now to stay. I roll forward to save my work, then turn the computer off and Mason's already waiting for me by the door, a dark silhouette framed by distant fluorescent, my coat and bag hanging off his arms. He pulls me in while I put it all on, yanking me by lapels before abandoning them for the sweater on my lower back, the loose hair at my nape. His lips brush against mine in slow movements, soft nibbling, and he's whispering something to me with it all, with the strokes of his fingers and the circle of our chins, but I can't quite hear.

So ask

(He'll answer—and he won't lie.)

I swallow, then I do.

“…What kind of kiss was that?”

“Dunno.” He shrugs beneath my hands, breath tickling my face. “I want you to feel better.”

“Oh.”

A shadow flits behind his eyes.

“…And if he's still bothering you, I'm gonna break his fucking jaw again.”

I chuckle softly. “Pretty sure it wasn't him this time.”

“Good.” Mason nibbles another kiss, then smirks. “Might still do it anyway.”

That gets a laugh from both of us, one that sprawls into a pause, grey eyes locked to mine while our grins fade out and our breath catches on everything unspoken and nameless rushing in to take the space.

Honesty. It's what I try to speak. Trailing up from the emotional ooze, raw and sticky.

I hope he can fucking see it, hear it cry, but I wipe it off and whisper the words into shape anyway, cheeks flaming, just to be sure—

“I'm sorry, I just… I don't wanna talk about it now.”

—and he answers me with a brush of his mouth, with his tongue parting my lips, with the way he teases into me before licking deeper, the way he jerks our hips together then shoves, a knee between my thighs, my back into a wall, a door frame, a sharp corner, a low groan rumbling up his chest directly into mine and I hear it all this time, in his breathy panting at the edge of our kiss, the firmness in his fingers angling my face to his, the solid heat of his cock pressed hard against me, grinding slow while I cling tight and moan, I hear it all, but he sucks my lip in with a sharp inhale, rolls me around his mouth before releasing with a drag of teeth, and he murmurs it aloud anyway, just to be sure—

“I know, sweetheart. It's fine.”

—then he nips down hard, and it's hard not to smile, hard not to laugh, harder still not to nip that asshole right back, so I don't.

Hold back, that is.

Our lips are swollen and sore by the time the station door swings shut behind us.

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness chapter 74

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(Ruby PoV)

"Spar with me," I ordered Cloud when I found him in the evening. He looked up at me in surprise from where he sat at the dining hall table. "Please. Like we used to?"

He sighed. "Can I at least finish digesting first?" He asked.

"Oh. Right." I suppose that was fair. I'd ambushed him a little.

"The doctors are insisting that I get three meals a day. Keeping my brain fed the proper nutrition," he said. "It's about repair and regrowth."

"But you're not sleeping well."

His eyes flicked away. "No. I suppose not."

"Penny said that's an important time for the brain to repair itself."

"Been talking with Penny about me?"

"She's my friend," I defended.

He raised his hands in surrender. "No judgement. Just curious."

"Yeah. I was talking to her during my mission today a little."

"I see. What was the mission?"

"Parts transfer for Amity." I slid into a seat at the table next to him. "Did you have a mission today?"

"Searching and destroying Grimm out in the tundra. Some bigass Goliaths were encroaching on Mantle. They needed somebody who can hit as hard as I can."

"Did anything interesting happen?"

"Nothing me and Limit Breaker couldn't handle."

"They usually have you deploy a landing strategy out there in the tundra."

"Limit Breaker. It's my go to for all my problem solving." He smiled. "I can glide pretty well when it's active. Not unlike you." He poked my side where he knew I was ticklish and I flinched to cover my ribs with my arms and let out a giggle.

"You should see some of the things I can do with Petal Burst now," I said with a smile.

"More of your usual bullshit, I suspect. You always did cheat."

"Hey, you and your semblance are in my ballpark now," I protested.

"My semblance doesn't make me invulnerable the way yours does. I have to work hard to give that impression."

"That why you always keep it almost charged? All the time?" I wondered.

"Maybe I'm a little paranoid," he agreed. "Sue me. I've got a lot to be paranoid about." He gave me a genuine smile that warmed my heart while I looked up at him. I reached out and stroked his hair and he leaned into my touch with a tired sigh.

I giggled up at him. Then I gave him a kiss that squashed out noses together. I really had missed him so much while he was gone. It was good to have him back. So good. I looked forward to the next chance I could get some genuine alone time with him. And Weiss if she wanted to be involved in that. I think she would.

I didn't mind sharing that kind of thing with her.

"Well alright. No sense delaying any longer." He slid off the bench and ruffled the part in my hair. I glowered at him with a smile and fixed my head dressing.

"You ready for a fight?" I asked. I slid off the bench and made to keep up with him.

"Are you? I'm going to knock you flat, Rubes."

"I'd like to see you try. We'll see if you can touch me." I used to beat him handily. Now… now I wasn't sure. He'd grown so much since even before Mistral.

I held his whole arm and skipped to the arena to keep up with his long gait.

It was late on a Monday so nobody else was using the room. Cloud strode in and spun his sword from the harness on his back in the broadsword form. I once demolished him with his weapon in that stance.

He carefully checked the tip of the weapon with his fingers. Drawing it back with his right hand and stretching out his left to brush off some Grimm ash that remained on the tip.

Crescent Rose unfolded from my back and I rolled it around hand over hand in his direction. I twisted the weapon behind my back and held it there until he looked over at me and gave me a firm nod.

He activated his semblance immediately because he was a cheater like that. And he dashed forward on a pocket of air with both hands on his weapon, holding it just before his shoulder. He had one leg bent at the knee and the other straightened out as he flew.

He swung in a low horizontal cut at me. I blocked with the blade of Crescent Rose but the attack sent uncomfortable vibrations all the way up my arm. He was truly unbelievably strong. If I was going to beat him it was going to be with my speed.

He flicked his blade out the other direction. I vanished in a blur of petals and popped back a step for a moment and leveled my weapon at him. I shot him once in the stomach and he grunted. He lowered his blade to block the next shot.

He was on me in a blue haze. He tried to hit me again but I met his strike. Then I expanded the blade of Crescent Rose backwards to make it longer. It forced him back an awkward half step.

I capitalized and slashed at him three times, spinning my blade up and around my body as I did.

He came back on me but I blew apart into three red caped swirls of red and nearly teleported behind him. I made to cut at him but he kicked me in rapid succession and brought his blade around down onto me.

I blocked high and pulled the trigger on my weapon to give us some horizontal momentum. I'd been ready for it and he hadn't and it pulled him off to the side.

I slashed at him twice with the blade and he knocked both attacks to the side fairly easily like he was still warming up.

I burst forward then back and caught him in the front then in the back. He grunted under the blows twice and though he stumbled he didn't look particularly hurt.

I twirled around in a circle and tried to catch him with the fully unfolded blade. He blocked alarmingly easily and riposted. He thrust his blade forward, then upwards in a massive flying leap.

Then he came back down on me from above with all the weight of his sword and armor and him. I burst into petals rather than take the hit. I reentered the same space I exited and kicked out with one of my legs. He blocked it on the side of his own.

He very rudely made to drive his elbow into my face. It snapped my head back. Then he brought his blade forward in slashing motion with the tip buried in the ground and slammed it into the whole of my body. His blade was taller than me, even held at an angle like it was.

He tried to open me up and combo me but I burst apart once more and flowed back together behind him. "Almost," I teased. I wrapped Crescent Rose around his waist and fired to jerk the blade backward against his body.

It caught him and made him stumble back, ripping into his golden aura. Then he whipped around and went for his Cross Slash. The first hit struck me in the stomach but I vanished out of the way of the following attacks.

He danced back a step. He was now in his limited state. He immediately flexed and started to charge the next round of his semblance and I took that as my cue to attack. His semblance forced you to approach him. To play his game. I pulled Crescent Rose over my shoulder. Then across my stomach, then around behind my back and in a twirling fashion over my head.

Cloud deftly blocked each one of my attacks and rather than riposte he stuttered back a step and went for his semblance again.

I whipped the barrel of my weapon up at him and fired at him three times in rapid succession. He dived into a hovering roll but not to the side or backwards. He dived towards me. His right hand held his weapon up behind his body easily enough and his left came up and forward to grab me. He snatched me by the neck of my cape and yanked me into the air like a brute. He made to slam me into the ground but I vanished again, I left him with only a palm full of petals.

Each time I disappeared it cost me something. I wasn't sure if that was his plan, to bleed me dry but it might just work.

He flirtatiously sniffed the petals for a moment in his hand before he blew them at me. I blushed a little but resolved to not let him distract me. Or to try not to. He was distracting enough without trying as it was.

He jumped and brought his weapon down in a massive overhead strike. I vanished rather than take that one either.

He guessed where I was going to reappear and trapped me in an attack that swung upwards and knocked me into the air. When I made to dodge in mid-air he read my dodge attempt and was waiting for me with a swing at the ready.

He hit me three times in the span of a tenth of a second. I yelped as I was flung into a pillar of cubes.

"You alright Rubes?" He called over to me. I was struggling to get up for a moment. I didn't have the most aura in the world. He had spades more than I did. That last attack did something like twenty five percent of my aura in one go of the mighty triple hit.

I picked myself up and blew my hair out of my face with a pfft upwards and to the side. I pointed the business end of my weapon at him in response and shot at him four times. The first one hit him in the chest and gave him his semblance. The next three went wide as he suddenly blurred to the side. My shots missed because of it and he started to close the gap on me incredibly quickly.

He flickered into my range and caught my whole body up in a massive upwards swing. He followed it up by juggling once. Then he let me down rather than spending the remainder of our match hammering me while I was in the air above him.

I quickly moved in on him and pulled Crescent Rose across my body and at him. Then from another side. Then I spun and tried to hammer him with the blade.

He reached out and caught the long handle of my weapon and picked me up into the air with it using one hand. I kicked him in the chest but he mostly looked bemused.

"This is serious," I protested. He wasn't taking me honestly!

"You're seriously cute." He countered. He had a wide grin on his face. "You're just not strong enough yet. We should do weights together."

I blushed at the thought of Cloud in tight workout clothes and doing exercises together. It sounded good to me.

He bent in and kissed my cheek before I could react.

I let go of my weapon and punched him in the chest. It did nothing.

He kicked me and made my aura collapse inwards with a crackle of red. He inhaled deeply, like he was enjoying the smell.

I rose with a tired sigh and he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. I jerked back like I was going to resist but then he kissed my neck and I let out a little moan. He ran his lips over to my jawline.

"Your sweat tastes delicious," he whispered right into my ear.

I shuddered. I tried weakly to push away from him. "You're cheating."

"No. This is cheating." He poked my sides with fingers while I was tight in his grasp and without aura to spend to get away and I laughed hysterically as he tickled me. He spun me around and he kissed my lips full on. I dissolved into the kiss with a little sigh. My eyes fluttered closed.

"Cloud…" I mewled against his lips. "We should stop. We're in public." I pushed against his rock hard chest weakly.

"We don't have to be." He released me, twirling me away from him like we were dancing. "You tease."

"Me?" I asked, shocked.

"In that new outfit. Absolutely. You and Weiss both." He laughed. I turned as red as my cloak.

"You're the one looking all… all like that." I pointed up at him. With his piercings and hair done up. He gave me a brilliant smile.

"Whatcha gonna do about it, little Rose?"

"I'll show you. Seriously. You look all… so hot." He kicked a leg up as he leaned against the wall with his knee out. His foot was flat against the wall and he looked like the hottest thing I'd ever seen in a man.

"Prove it," he murmured. His voice was full of an electric current. I could remember the feel of his aura smothering mine. I shuddered again. I could feel my own heartbeat between my legs.

I would prove it, damn it. Or my name wasn't Ruby Rose.

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"I'm going to Cloud's room for sex tonight," I told Weiss as I stepped out of our shower. "Well, we'll actually be leaving campus and finding a hotel room. The beds here are too small."

Her eyes ran up and down my figure in the tight towel. She flushed at me. Whether it was about my state of undress or how directly I came out with my plans I wasn't sure.

"I-I see. And…?"

"And is that something you'd be interested in?" I asked. She was already in her nightwear.

"Maybe…"

"Clear and effective communication, Weiss. We won't hold anything against you if you're not ready."

"I want to be ready. I'm just nervous I suppose."

I walked up to her, sashaying my hips as I did. I relished the way she watched me. Oh yeah. Weiss was bi as hell. Poor girl. Let me take care of you…

"You have nothing to be nervous about. Cloud and I will take such good care of you. He's a really attentive lover. He listens. He explores." I shuddered a little as memories ran me over. I got goosebumps as I recalled being pressed firmly against the cold tile of a shower wall. The chill of the tile and heat of his body and the water had been a stark contrast.

Then that time I rode him out in Anima. The way his body flexed under mine while we held hands was etched into my mind. His hands falling to my hips to control the pace even though I whined to be in charge. It was so domineering as he thrust up into me. So good.

Weiss took in my hardening breasts. I'd need to be careful. I just got out of the shower. I didn't need to let these thoughts overwhelm me. It was hard though.

"Well I suppose. He and I did get awfully close the other night."

"You said nothing happened," I pointed out.

"Some kissing happened. Some dry-grinding happened. But I wanted you to be there for my first time and I told him so," she informed me.

"You're such a sweetheart." I kissed her lips. She groaned a little as I pushed her back. My wet hair fell on both of our faces in a tight curtain. She went for my bottom lip but if she thought I'd bottom that easily again she'd be… oh…

I whined. I really was just a bottom in her hands. At least with Cloud I could pretend I was a switch. Even if it was only because he let me. I tried to soak that in. It was only because he allowed it.

She placed her hands on my back just above my butt through the cloth of the towel and pulled me deeper into the kiss. She put her tongue in my mouth and I wrapped my lips around it, small and pink, and gave it a tiny suck.

Her breath hitched when I did it. I sucked very gently on the tip of her tongue and welcomed more of it wiggling into my mouth. The tips of both our breasts were hardening now against one another and it felt good to pull her close.

"So…" I panted when we separated. "So will you be there?" I asked.

She rapidly nodded. She breathed hard and tried to calm herself down again too. Ha. Take that. I could kiss like nobody's business. "Is Cloud a top or…?" She asked.

"Yes. But don't worry. He'll take care of you. Between the two of us we'll find a nice place for you."

"Then I'm looking forward to it."

I squealed a little. I was going to be having sex with my best friends. I walked away from Weiss and began to put on matching underwear for the night. A nice surprise for Cloud to enjoy later. Not that he would care that much but it was the principle of preparation that was the thing.

"I think I might be a switch," Weiss mumbled. "I always thought I'd be a top but when he picked me up in the air on our date night it was just too much, he made me melt."

"That's what happens when you run into a real top. Cloud at least lets me pretend a little. But he's always the one in control. I'm not sure what it is my deal."

"You melt is your problem. You can't be in control when you're all gooey," Weiss said.

"It just feels so good though." I whined. She gave me a dark and thirsty look when I did and a little of her own dominance showed. She had that same hunger Cloud had. "And if he says he feels like a dog we'll just remind him how much of a man he really is. I don't know how much it'll help but it'll feel good."

"For all we know we're about to cure him. A lot of chemical activity happens in the brain during sex."

"Science!" I exclaimed pointing at her. "Take that Salem." She laughed.

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-WG

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain: Chapter 712: Collision:  Part II | III

Taiyang ran up to the top of the stairs, only to find eight groaning, injured soldiers. Some of whom were seriously injured. "What did I miss?" he asked.

"Only like all of the fighting, dad." Yang said to him.

"We won!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Is this all of them?" Taiyang asked.

"Well, dad." Yang said, and looked toward the garden, "If you look down there you'll see Cindy fireballing an airship, and like, winning."

Taiyang looked at the garden before looking back around the rooftop.

"Aren't you proud of us, dad?!" Ruby excitedly sighed.

"I, I mean..." Taiyang tried to say, running the different options through his head.

"What do you mean, dad?" Yang asked as she fought back tears.

"I mean, of course you won." Taiyang stated, "These aren't Huntsmen. They're just soldiers. I guess we spent so much time teaching you girls to survive, which after everything you've been through was still the right call..."

"Dad?.." Yang nervously asked.

Taiyang turned to look her in the eyes, "I'm not saying you did bad here..." he voiced.

"Why just it sound you're disappointed, dad?" Yang asked, quickly wiping a bit of moisture from her eyes.

"I'm not mad at you," Taiyang voiced, "but..."

"Oh?!" Yang shouted, "We get the I'm-no-mad-at-you speech!? I mean, like seriously, dad, a bunch of mooks just fucking attacked us on our fucking honeymoon, and we wiped the floor with them, but the least you could be is fucking proud of us!"

"Language!" Taiyang shouted.

"Fuck you, dad!" Yang shouted at him, and Qrow reverted between them.

"Easy, you two."

"And just where the fucking hell have you been, huh?!" Yang asked.

"Yang." Qrow strongly said to her, and gave her a look telling her she'd gone too far.

"Sorry, it's just..." she started to say.

"I wanted to get a bird's eye view." Qrow simply stated, "By the time I got there, you had already taken them out."

Yang then looked at the garden, "But what about Ladykiller?!" she screamed.

"Look, Yang," Qrow simply said to her, "you need me more than he does."

"But?!" a nearly panicked Yang asked.

"But your dad was right."

Yang turned to look at him with tears in her eyes, "But?!"

"AND YOU WERE RIGHT!" Qrow shouted at her. "We'll have all the time in the world to talk about this later, but we're still being attacked!"

"You mean?.." Yang asked.

"You go help the big guy." Qrow stated. Taiyang nervously looked about at all of the injured soldiers on the roof. "And you help them."

"But?.." Tai tried to ask him.

"I might have called you a coward from time to all-the-time." Qrow said to him, "But that cowardice is what kept the rest of us alive." He then looked to see Yang jumping off the roof. "Now I kind of get how you feel." he said, and then looked back to Taiyang. "Just be your plain old boring self, and do what you think is the most imporant thing for you to do right now."

"But... the girls?.." Taiyang asked, "Their husband?.. their house... their?.."

"A dozen certified Huntsman and a fire witch." Qrow stated.

"And what about you?" Taiyang asked as Qrow turned into a crow and flew down to the garden. "Same, dusty-old-Qrow..." he whined, and turned to the injured soldiers. Ruby and Nora reappeared on the rooftop, and Taiyang turned towards them. "And what have you girls been up to?" he asked.

"Getting the weapons!" Ruby exclaimed as she unfolded Crescent Rose, posing dramatically. Weiss cleared her throat behind them, and stepped out of the guardhouse, her Glyph carrying Crocea Mors and Ember Celica. "Okay," Ruby voiced, "Weiss did most of the carrying."

"But we TRIED to help." Nora added, "But Weiss was all Weiss, and..."

Taiyang smiled and she stopped midsentence, looking at him curiously. Taiyang nodded to the garden, and Nora turned towards it. "Right. Duh?" Nora said, and stepped on her hammer to launch herself into the air. Ruby Petal Burst next to her dad to give him a kiss on the cheek before Petal Bursting to the garden. Weiss curtsied at him before using her heels to focus her Glyph, and launch herself to follow them.

* * *

Three assassins stood atop the wall, looking down at Jaune below them. Mercury jumped down next to him.

"Great." Jaune voiced, "the cripple."

"Not exactly my first choice to be here." Mercury stated, "And don't make me bring up the bimbo."

"If we weren't in the middle of a fight, I'd level you!" Jaune bellowed at him, and Mercury actually flinched. How much had he changed since Beacon? Mercury felt the brutal authority in his voice, as if he wanted to rip him apart. Once the fear started to blend into the other feelings he momentarily felt respect for him. "Besides," Jaune continued, "she's a firecracker. You're just an asshole."

Mercury moved around in his ready stance a few times before stopping. "You know what, yeah."

"Let's just get this over with." Jaune sighed.

One of the assassins tried to throw a knife at Cinder, but she simply was not there when it arrived. She tried it a second time, only to get the same result. This meant the mind warper was nearby, causing them problems. They didn't exactly have the time to go and find her. The three assassins jumped down from the wall, only to be hit by Ilia's thunderlash mid-jump and crash into the ground. Her nude form then faded back into the wall and disappeared.

Jaune's antlers then shed off his head, and he leaned forward to sigh, nearly falling over. Yang landed just in time to catch him. "Easy there, big guy. You've had a day." Jaune just groaned in her arms. "Here, why don't you take a seat?" she asked, and lowered him to the ground.

Weiss looked on nervously, worried about not being able to help him.

"And what about her?" Ruby asked, and looked up to Cinder to see her dodge to the side, creating a sword just in time to catch Neo trying to stab her with the knife in her umbrella. Ruby Petal Burst away and Weiss launched herself up. Cinder looked fearfully at Neo for a moment until she saw a grinning Nora dropping the hammer. She summoned an explosion at just the right time to counter's Nora's, the two explosions crushing Neo between them. Her Aura flickered pink for a few moments before collapsing on the ground.

A portal opened up next to them, with Raven casually walking through.

"And just where have you been?" Yang asked her.

"Oh?" Raven asked with a smile, "I was planning to take care of the ones in the forest, but your friend there didn't take kindly to them having 'hate in their hearts' for your hubby. So, what is your kids' brilliant plan now. And why ever did you let Cinder out?"

"The plan for Neo is the plan for Cinder." Jaune stated.

"Simple enough." Raven replied, and then looked at him expectantly.

"What's up?" Yang asked.

"She wants to know why I let Cinder out." Jaune voiced. "The answers pretty simple, the cell wasn't exactly holding her in."

"You should have seen him casually rip the cell bar off." Yang said with glee. She then turned back to Jaune. "You going to be okay, there?"

"Yes and no." Jaune voiced, "Growing antlers actually pulls the calcium and other stuff from my bones. Doing it three times in a row turns them into paper."

"Sounds like you should get your hubby in-doors." Raven said.

"Everyone in the lounge." Jaune voiced, "Except Raven and Tai, they'll be on the roof."

"And you just expect me to do everything you tell me to?" Raven asked him.

"Of course I do." Jaune growled at her.

"Hm?" Raven asked with a smile.

"What's that smile about?"

"Oh?," Raven asked, "just getting respect for your hubby."

"Hands off. Yang said jealously, "You got your own, with, you know, dad, I mean..."

"Does that mean you approve of me and your father?" Raven asked, and all Yang could do was look about nervously. Raven turned into a raven and flew off up to the wall.

* * *

Jaune leaned up on the couch as Yang brought him a gallon of milk. Jaune chugged it as the others started arriving. By the time he had finished, everyone but Ilia was there. "We're waiting on Ilia?" he asked.

"She is here." Ren stated. "She is just embarassed about..."

"Ilia!" Jaune shouted, "Get out here." A moment later Ilia walked in, still in the nude. "Well, that's a..." he said and trailed off.

"Do you have to stare?" Yang asked.

"I, uh..." Jaune mumbled.

"Is she cold?" Weiss asked.

"Of course she's cold." Jaune snapped. "Okay, we're all alive, maybe we should let her use our bath."

"It is a really sweet bath." Yang said. She then turned to Jaune, "Are you going to be alright?"

"I did drink all of the milk." Jaune stated, and then slumped back on the couch. He then looked over to Taj and Aurora together, standing up and walking over to them. Even teetering and without his antlers he towered over all of them. Both of them looked at him nervously. "You took care of her?" he asked with deadly seriousness, and Taj nervously nodded. Before either knew what happened, he had pulled them in for a powerful hug. He then let go and shambled back over to the couch and slumped down. "So, Yang takes Ilia to the bath, Blake collects her clothes?" and Blake quickly nodded. "Who wants watch?" No one immediately volunteered, and he stuggled to his feet. Ren immediately appeared in front of him.

"We will be happy to volunteer." he said.

"We?" Nora asked, "Oh, WE!" she said, and walked up next to him.

"Will you be alright?" Weiss nervously asked. Yang put her hand in the small of Weiss' back and pushed her towards the couch. She looked at Yang quesitoningly before turning to the couch, seeing Jaune with his arm up. She quickly and eagerly slipped in underneath to cuddle him.

"Anything else we could do?" Ruby asked, and Jaune's stomach let out a terrifying growl.

Jaune looked about for a moment, "Aurora has been through..."

"We actually have a surprise for you." Weiss pleasantly voiced from under his arm.

"Hm?"

"A really cool surprise!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Uh-?" Jaune said, and paused, "huh?"

"Oh, oh!" Nora exclaimed, lifting her arm, "Can I say it?!"

"Say what?" Jaune asked.

"What day is it?" Weiss asked him.

[sneezehq]

darkness holding me tightly

Sleep takes a while to get used to. Especially when it comes to aspects of sleep such as nightmares.

I'm just going to casually continue ignoring the V8 finale thank you very much. This set in an AU where Penny survived and they all made it to Vacuo together. Enjoy!

Sleep takes a while to get used to.

Their first night in Vacuo, Penny doesn't realize how exhausted she is until she practically collapses, her vision going fuzzy in a way that is highly alarming to a person who only recently gained a body with human needs such as sleep. After a brief panic, the others had quickly figured out what was wrong with her, and they'd been shown to the dorms they'd be staying in to get some rest.

But despite how tired she'd felt, it still took Penny a long time to fall asleep that night. Sleep was such an alien concept to her, since she'd never had a need for it before. Sure, she'd known that sleeping was a thing that humans were required to do, but experiencing it herself was vastly different from the vague knowledge of it that she had previously possessed.

Ruby, as kind and helpful as always, had attempted to explain to her what falling asleep felt like, reminding her to take deep breaths and think happy thoughts as she closed her eyes. But in the end, what really helped was listening to her friend's soothing voice and steady breathing as she finally drifts off into pleasant darkness.

The first few days in Vacuo are a flurry of activity, much like the endless whirlwinds out in the sands of the desert. Penny eagerly helps the others as they help to find accommodations for the refugees of Atlas and plan to counter whatever Salem's next move might be. At night, they all find themselves too tired to do much besides shower and scarf down some food become collapsing into their bunks, Penny included. She's especially tired, what with the stress of trying to figure out how her new body works on top of her other duties as a huntress.

Penny has yet to experience the human phenomena of dreaming, despite having adjusted to her new need for sleep. This worries her. When she asks about it at breakfast one morning, concerned that something might be wrong with her new body, Blake assures her that it's normal not to have dreams sometimes, especially when you're exhausted. And, well, that sounds reasonable enough. Penny has been exceptionally exhausted lately.

"It's probably nothing to worry about," Blake says gently, smiling kindly. "Just give yourself some more time to adjust."

"Besides," Weiss cuts in. "Dreams aren't always good, you know. I wouldn't be too eager."

Weiss is referring to nightmares, Penny knows that. And while bad dreams don't sound terribly pleasant, Penny is determined to experience as much as possible in her new body, including dreams. And if a few nightmares are the price she has to pay, it seems well worth it.

She doesn't have any idea just how awful nightmares can get, however.

After a week flies by with them hard at work, they're finally forced to take a day off. Penny tags along with the rest of team RWBY to check out the sights in Vacuo, as they've been too busy with the resettlement efforts to do much exploring of the city. It's a fun trip that turns into an impromptu shopping spree, as Ruby and Weiss are determined to provide Penny with a brand-new wardrobe.

All in all, it's a fun day, a nice change of pace after everything that's been happening lately. They run into several of their other friends that Penny remembers from her brief time at Beacon Academy, sample the local cuisine, and check out every clothing store in downtown Vacuo. Truly a successful exploration of the city.

That night, it takes Penny a while to fall asleep. Sure, she's worn out from the events of the day, but it's not the same as the bone-deep weariness that follows a busy day of training. Still, she does her best to lay still and quiet in her bunk, trying her best not to wake the others from their well-deserved rest. It feels like an eternity, but eventually she finds herself drifting off to the sound of Ruby snoring softly in the bed next to hers.

In her dream, she's suddenly back at the Schnee manor. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although most of her experiences with the place have been less than pleasant. She's talking to Ruby, laughing at some joke her friend just told her—when suddenly, her vision tints red and she can feel herself losing control of her body again, no matter how hard she tries to fight off the effects of the virus.

She's forced to watch in horror as once again her body moves forward slowly and jerkily without her consent, shoving away Nora and Klein as if they were nothing. "You must go open the Vault and self-terminate," the voice inside her says, cool and calm and impervious to Penny's distress.

Penny's terror spikes—please, she doesn't want to die again—especially when she turns to make her way down the darkened hallway and Ruby is standing in front of her, blocking her path. "I can't let you do this, Penny," her friend says sadly.

Her fear continues to increase as she—or rather, her body, moving against her will—continues to advance on Ruby, Floating Array at the ready. Ruby, for her part, doesn't flinch, Crescent Rose steady in her grip.

"Stop!" Penny screams desperately, but it goes completely unheard, stifled into silence as Penny remains trapped, a prisoner in her own mind. Useless. She can't do anything.

Penny takes another step forward, and the blades of Floating Array circle and converge on their target. On Ruby.

"No!"

Suddenly, the dark halls of the Schnee Manor are gone, replaced with the comfortable darkness of the dorm room they've been staying in. Penny's breath catches in her throat. "What happened? Is Ruby okay? How did she get here?"

And then it hits her, reality slamming into her like one of those Goliath Grimm with the massive tusks. It was a dream. She's safe with her friends in Vacuo. She doesn't have to worry about the virus anymore, or being controlled, or anything like that. She has her new body, one that is completely hers to command.

Overcome with relief, she slumps back against her pillows with a quiet sigh. She hopes that she hasn't disturbed the others. They deserve their rest, especially when there's still so much work to be done—

"Penny?" Ruby mumbles sleepily. Penny can hear sheets rustling in the bed next to hers, and she immediately feels guilty for disturbing her friend.

"I'm fine, Ruby," Penny tries to reassure her, only to be suddenly blinded by a small beam of light.

She squints, clearing her vision enough to see that Ruby is holding up her scroll, using it as a flashlight to peer at Penny's face in the dark. "Penny," she says gently. "You're crying."

"Oh," she says quietly in response. Crying is one of those things that she has yet to get used to in her new body—it's such an odd sensation—but she must have been too disoriented by her dream to even notice. "I, uh—"

"Did you have a nightmare?" Ruby asks, keeping her voice low.

There's a beat of silence. "Yeah," Penny admits. No point in trying to keep this stuff from Ruby.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I—not really," Penny murmurs, staring down at the blanket covering her legs.

"Are you sure?" Ruby asks, as kind and gentle as always. "I find it helps sometimes, to talk about my nightmares."

And, well, Ruby usually turns out to be right about these sorts of things. It couldn't hurt to tell her. "I dreamed that we were back at the Schnee manor," she begins slowly. "And at first, everything was fine, but then, I was being controlled again, and you were trying to stop me, and I—I" she swallows hard, her voice dropping to a shaky whisper. "I attacked you, and I couldn't do anything to stop myself, and I was so scared—" Her voice breaks. "I don't want to die again. And I don't want to hurt you."

Tears start trickling down her face again, and she cuts herself off to wipe furiously at her eyes. She can hear Ruby fussing with the blankets. Suddenly, the bed next to her shifts, and Ruby is there, plopping down next to her and wrapping her arms around Penny's shoulders. "You're safe," Ruby reminds her, her tone fiercely protective. "I'm not going to let anything like that happen to you again."

Penny knows that Ruby can't protect her from everything, but right now, cocooned in her friend's warmth, with Ruby's determination ringing out loud and clear, Penny allows herself to feel safe. They stay like that for few moments, wrapped up in each other, but once she's calmed down a bit, Penny can't help but notice that Ruby is shaking slightly.

"Ruby? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Penny," comes the immediate response.

"Are you sure?" Penny asks cautiously. "You're shaking."

"I—" Ruby cuts herself off. "It's nothing, just a nightmare."

"Do you want to talk about it? I heard from a friend that sometimes that helps."

Ruby snorts quietly. "You're not going to stop until I tell you, huh."

"Nope," Penny replies, popping the P the way that Ruby taught her.

"Alright," Ruby sighs. Penny can hear her running a hand through her hair, like she always does when she's nervous. "I was dreaming about when we were back at the Schnee manor, and you almost got taken away from us."

"Oh." Penny thinks for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Well, I know it was scary, but I'm okay now. You stopped me, and then found a way to save me," she tells Ruby earnestly. "It's over now. We made it to Vacuo together."

"Yeah, I know," Ruby murmurs. She bites her lip. "I just—please don't ask me to do something like that again," she says, her voice cracking. She sniffles.

For a moment, Penny is puzzled. She tries to figure out what exactly Ruby is talking about—and then it hits her. "Oh, Ruby," she replies, clutching her friend close to her chest. "I'm so sorry. I was scared, and the only way I could think of to protect the power of the Winter Maiden was to ensure that it went to you, but still, I never should have said that. I never should have asked that of you. I'm sorry."

Ruby shifts, burying her face in Penny's shoulder. "Thanks, Penny," she mumbles, sniffling again before pulling back and scrubbing at her face.

They're quiet for a few minutes, content to just enjoy each other's company. Penny is the one to finally break the silence. "So, what do we do now?"

Ruby sighs. "Well, normally I'd say that we should try to go back to bed, but I don't really feel like sleeping right now."

Penny shakes her head. "Me neither."

"Well then." Ruby sits up, shifting away from Penny slightly and stretching her arms over her head. "Another thing that helps me when I'm having trouble sleeping is drinking hot chocolate."

"I've never had hot chocolate before," Penny says, smiling slightly.

"Well, we can't have that." Ruby pushes herself to her feet, extending a hand to Penny to pull her up next to her. "Let's go introduce you to the wonder that is hot chocolate."

Whatever happened in the past, they're together now.