#even the kind ones. to be fair to mages-one wrong move can lead to death or injury

[sidhedust]

The only good thing about that old novel-turned-manga-turned-VN cover that's horribly off model and poor in anatomy is that I nailed the design for the three fairies/little people depicted. I can't wait to update them in a new piece. I don't think it would hurt to make a design sheet of them and post em later this week, True Names and all.

They're probably my favorite side characters in the prologue-I find the supernatural supporting cast very fun to write in all arcs I have planned.

They have little to no stakes in what happens to the mortals, their magic is more wild and limitless, and even when they do care, their approach to problems can lead to more chaos. And having a main character that can summon them and talk to them leads to more fun scenarios. Even the prologue has its moments of supernatural whimsy born from their meddling, both asked for and not on Luana's end.

[belliesandburps]

OCs play Uno, Monopoly, and Mario Kart at different times. GO.

I've never played Uno, so I'm sticking to Monopoly and Mario Kart.

Monopoly

Hakari: He's going to lose every time because he doesn't like the idea of bankrupting people. So, he'd always give his friends a break...who will promptly bankrupt him once he lands on Boardwalk. He'll take his loss gracefully, but he will frown beneath his mask and mutter, "...That hardly seems fair... >: \ "

Nara: Two hours in, she will start shooting at the board.

Aidan: ...That board's gettin' set on fire...

Isole: The gentle ice boi is gonna bleed every player dry because he's so unassuming and so kind that you forget, if he has to throw down, somebody is goin' down. And beneath that gentle demeanor, lies a veeeeery shrewd Monopoly Shark... >:)

Runo: He'd steal all the Monopoly money and run off to try and use it to buy burgers and be so cockily proud of himself. "I can't believe those idiots were just sittin' on all this cash! I'm RICH!!! >:D "

Lowell: ...He'll start chewing on the houses, thinking they're gummy houses or something...and it will take quite a few swallowed down before he realizes that gummy isn't supposed to be hard...or plastic...

Kentaro: You're already broke. You just don't know it yet. He knows this game like the back of his hand and has never lost. Being a greedy SOB and a veeeeery cunning business man is this fatass' MO. He'll make all the right trades and screw you so hard, you won't see it comin'...

Drayce: He's going to question the ethics of upcharging people just for stepping on your property and driving them broke. It kiiiiinda misses the whole point of the game, but only reinforces why he hates humans so much that bankrupting each other is now FUN for them. XD

Roarke: Well, his player piece would be his favorite rock. And he'd ask if using rocks instead of hotel pieces makes them stronger.

Cadmus: He'll just stare at you with the most bored look on his face if you even ask him to play. A look that says, "Real life is meaningless...and you want me to spend three or four hours playing pretend business mogul...?"

Koloss: He's going to just start stealing houses and cash from the bank and snarl at you if you call him out for cheating. Aaaaand unless you want a trip down his gullet...suddenly Virginia Avenue can have ten hotel pieces on it...

Kasumi: Yeaaaaah, good luck convincing a wraith to sit down and play a game more long and agonizing than his own death was...

Kai: He'll breathe fire over the entire board, stomp his taloned foot over it and start laughing victoriously at winning Monopoly and ordering you all to bow down before him and bask in his greatness. That's how HE plays it, at least...

Mako: ...He thought he was playing Checkers this whole time...and he was STILL playing that wrong...

Mauler: Do not play anything that takes too long around Mauler. Because if Mauler gets bored, he gets hungry. And if he gets hungry, everything becomes a chew toy for the mutant...

Rameel: He'll start complementing whoever is in the lead and worm his way into forming a shared mutual understanding with them...then find a way to betray them and get the railroads.

Nero: He will excuse himself, leave the room, lure whoever is in the lead away for a moment...KILL them...consume them, and proceed to disguise himself as them so he can win the game.

Loch: He only plays some future space version of Monopoly, with holograms and lasers. And he once used said lasers to cut someone's arm off when they tried to steal some of the banks money. Proooooobably don't offer to play with him...

Mario Kart

Hakari: He'll be really enamored by the beautiful, colorful worlds, too much so to even care if he's winning or losing.

Nara: She's gonna be veeeeery interested in asking Lev to try and make bullets or drones like Bullet Bill.

Aidan: ...Yeaaaaaah, that game's getting set on fire.

Isole: He's really good at drifting and gliding because of his own powers, so he'd be really good at the game, but giggle to himself anytime he falls off and comes back as an ice cube in the cold levels. "Hehehehe, thaaaat's not how it works... XP "

Runo: "...Yooooooooooo...! That monkey's drivin' a go-kart!!! 8O "

Lowell: Prepare for several minutes of Lowell sniffing at the control and nibbling on it, then looking at the TV veeeeery confused about all the were-creatures and why they look so fake.

Kentaro: His fingers are literally too fat to hold controllers.

Drayce: Every single time he slides off the stage, he'd just stare in confusion and ask what the button is to reveal your draconian wings and fly to safety.

Roarke: He'd just be very, very, veeeeery confused about all the strange mages using all these random powers. Then, he'd ask if turtles really fly on clouds...

Cadmus: He would not give a rats ass. He'd literally just be bored and pushing a single button over and over half-heartedly while his character barely moves.

Koloss: He'd be grinning and guffawing at how spot on it feels plowing through all the meatbags as Bowser...then snarl murderously when he slips on a banana peel and goes flying off a cliff...

Kasumi: ...If any vestige of his living self still exists, he'd be torn between wanting to show you he's the best at everything, and wanting to both kill you and consume your shade for even suggesting the idea of playing a video game to a wraith...

Kai: ...He'll...breath fire over the game, smash the TV and console to bits under his heavy, clawed foot, and guffaw in victory, demanding you bask in his greatness. He's...umm...not very good at figuring out video games...

Mako: ......He thought he was playing Angry Birds...and asked how to perform a fatality...

Mauler: Watching all those characters on screen is just gonna make him hungry, and once he chews on the TV and realizes he can't eat them...well...best abort when you can...

Rameel: He'd use his sand powers to temporary blind you and use that opportunity to win. Yes, Rameel's biggest strategy is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTAXUYLbFYk

Nero: He'd win in the most efficient way possible, scanning the game, other players and the AI's, and mastering the perfect plays after willfully losing one round just to 3D map the road in his central chip.

Loch: He'd get bored after one round then sell you to space traders.

[rantheon]

the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p

in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet

my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom

using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs

an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess

told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life

if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc

the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy

also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at

the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress

the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead

it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting

the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story

the Angelique vibes are strong in this one

the villainess wants to marry a commoner

isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden

her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas

definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted

seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha

deathbound duke’s daughter

in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start

very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters

the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in

the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>

beware of the villainess

melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages

she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her

definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way

there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it

it’s great

death is the only ending for the villainess

penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying

what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)

but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning

the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin

upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues

i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes

addie is so cute ;o;

it’s definitely something everyone should experience

i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss

one of the finished ones!

post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues

mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters

the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together

milady just wants to relax

post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk

well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink

okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome

the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food

despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid

there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3

the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him

seduce the villain’s father

yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat

a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work

there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:

plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time

transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game

after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that

it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god

tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive

endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess

in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending

much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean

regardless it’s undeniably adorable

tearmoon empire

no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?

mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom

a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways

it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel

of course, i’ll claim palimony!

to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads

no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life

the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it

the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement

no isekai, just a plain old villainess

post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for

everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD

the holy grail of eris

now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either

our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death

i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up

+ some honorable mentions

i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)

a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)

it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)

inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)

the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)

expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)

since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)

level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)

may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)

this is getting long now oops

edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 7

Once more, I arrive, with Midnight Striga in tow!! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Boyd was utterly bored. Groaning, he slung his knife, Radical Chop, over his shoulder, lightly kicking the twitching corpse next to him, one of Reticulus’ leftovers. Those were never fun to deal with, ‘cause they were already dead! What was the point of a killer guarding a corpse, instead of, you know, killing? Eh, maybe he could practice his mutilations, he had been getting a little rusty in that regard. Humming to himself, he slung the ragged body beneath his feet into an upright position; a girl from the looks of it, brown hair styled into three rings on the top of her head, her left eye gouged out, and missing her tongue. Glancing down he saw that her heart and stomach had been extracted. By his estimate, he’d say she was about 12, verging on 13. Ah man, he could’ve had such fun with her!

Sighing, he twirled his knife before pointing the tip towards her. The knife lengthened, stretched, and bent, contouring around the edges of her face, slowly and cleanly skinning off the layer of tissue. If only that eye wasn’t missing, then he could’ve added it to his collection! Ah well, better luck next time. While he was seemingly distracted, one of the nearby Witches decided to make a break for it, a boy whose hair covered his eyes and possessed rather bat-like ears. Without even glancing his way, Boyd’s knife shot out like a bullet, cleanly slicing through his throat in an instant. He didn’t even have a chance to scream, how boring!

“Stupid Witches, can’t even die properly.” He grumbles, flicking the boy’s blood off of his precious blade. “Stupid Reticulus, never leaving any good corpses to slice up.” He briefly wonders again as to why, exactly, he was being stuck with this stupid job. He was one of the Squadron’s best killers, so why were his talents being squandered? He mulled it over in his head, knife idly slicing through the girl’s corpse, when a creak drew his gaze forward. As the reason finally clicked, he deadpanned. He was being used as bait, and as a test; great.

Three kids stood in front of him, staring at him like he was some kind of fucking monster; to be fair, he was one, no doubt about that, but it was always so annoying when people looked at him like that. He briefly contemplated trying to figure out which one Reticulus wanted to test, but decided it would be more fun to just kill the little shits. Not like they really mattered anyway. The chunky girl with the glasses started doing that stupid circle thing they did to cast spells, can’t have that. His knife shot out, smoothly slicing through her wrist and across her face, stabbing through her eyes into the brain.

Before the other two could do more than widen their eyes, he struck again. His blade ripped through the neck of the Mint-headed girl, and wasn’t that a color, sending her head rolling. Before the smaller boy could even scream, the knife slammed through his skull, entering through one ear, and exiting out the other. Scowling, he called Radical Chop back to him. No trouble at all, not even worth the effort of being clean. He sighed, only for a familiar, sharp pain to rush through his body; he had been stabbed. Glancing down, he was both surprised and not to see a dagger driven into his gut, the angle allowing for it to be dragged into his other vital organs easily. He spoke up, perfectly calm in the face of his death. “You can drop the invisibility now.”

As the air next to him rippled and faded, he was pleasantly surprised to see another kid, her face carefully blank save the familiar rage in her eyes, the kind he saw in all the kids who saw him kill their friends. He smirked. “Gotta say, pretty cold of you to throw your friends into the grinder like that.”

The girl snorted, calling over her shoulder. “Gus! Drop the illusion.”

“Got it!” A young voice called out, the corpses of the kids fading along with the blood coating his precious blade, the kids from before shimmering into view, ready to pounce if things turned dicy for the kid stabbing him at the moment.

Boyd snorted. He had underestimated them. He gave the girl who had effectively killed him a smirk. “So, you’re the little rat Retic wants to test, eh?” He laughed at her furious expression. “If you’re looking for him, he should be up ahead, going over the latest batch of bodies. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Before they could blink, he whipped his blade, his beautiful Radical Chop, up to his head, driving it through his own skull.

Gus gagged, while Amity and Willow looked on stoically. It was certainly an improvement over Gus actively heaving and the girls shouting. It was to be expected, as this was the fifteenth kill by this point, though they had only gone for the stealth option when they saw how quickly he had killed that Witch trying to get past him.

Amity glanced down at the Witch the man had killed. She recognized him. “Hey, I think I know this one.”

Luz walked over, glancing down at the bat-eared boy, curious. “Really? Who is he?”

Amity shrugged. “I honestly don’t know him personally, but Skara was interested in him a little.” She sighed, knowing that she’d have to deliver the news to her friend. “I really hope she takes this well.” She glanced up at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder, seeing Willow giving her a comforting, if hesitant smile, which she returned.

Luz sighed. “Let’s go, we’ve still got to take down Retic if we want this to end.” The others nodded. Bracing themselves, they moved, ready for the fight to come, or so they thought.

Eda moved to Lily’s side, shaking her roughly. “Come on Sis, we don’t have time for this!” She cried, frantically gesturing to the crowd under attack. She bit her lip, tilting Lily’s head up. “Listen, Sis, I know we usually don’t see eye to eye, but if you can’t get out of your head, that crowd is going to die.” She thought she saw a flicker of light in her eyes. “You always said you wanted to be in Bonehead’s Coven to help people, well now’s your chance to prove it! Those people up there? They came here to see you, because they believe in you! Are you really going to let them down!?” She got down on her knees, pleading. “Sis, I need your help, as painful and ridiculous as it sounds, it’s the truth! Please!” She glanced back at Rudolph, who had paused, enjoying the show. The bastard was enjoying watching her beg for her sister’s help.

Rudolph snickered, and laughed. “It truly is amusing to see! Earlier, I had lamented your decision to keep the wretched thing alive, but I see now that I was wrong!!” He cackled, relishing the look of enraged confusion on Eda’s face, even as the crowd desperately fought to survive.

“What in hell are you talking about, you psycho!!” Eda growled, bracing herself to defend if necessary.

Rudolph gave her an ugly smirk, oozing amusement. “Simple. You may not have killed her body, but you certainly killed her spirit! She’s lost the will to live, I’d say!” He cackled, soaking in the look of dawning horror on Eda’s face, the soul-crushing realization of what her display had done, even if she couldn’t comprehend how.

“No.” Eda breathed out, slowly walking away from Lily. “That wouldn’t happen, not with her! She’s too strong for that to happen!”

“Is she?” Rudolph mused, genuinely curious. “Everything we’ve gathered has pointed to a woman with a rather fragile ego; seeing her baby sister showing her up once again must’ve been quite the shock.” He was amused at Eda’s denial; for all she claimed to be the strongest on the Isles, a statement not totally devoid of fact, she seemed to be a tad oblivious to the fortitude of those around her.

“Gathered…” Eda muttered, her eyes widening. “You’ve been spying on her!?”

“Oh her, the schools, the government, you, everyone really. We carefully staked this out ever since we arrived.” He placed his hands on his hips, looking pleased with himself. “I must say, we certainly displayed an impressive amount of restraint, building all of this up.” He shrugged. “Normally, we just come and kill everything and everyone we come across. It was quite the learning experience!”

“You…” Eda growled, pure hate coloring her voice. “Just who do you think you are!?”

“Why, my dear, I think I’m the one leading the attack on your people, at the moment at least.” Rudolph cheekily replied. “After all…

“... We are the ones who hold the power in this situation.”

Mattholomule silently cried behind a stand, the crazed laughter of the maniac out front still ringing in his ears. He had just seen a woman torn limb from limb by flying chains, her organs and blood splattered all about. Bria sat next to him, biting her lip, while Gavin and Angmar played Rock-Paper-Scissors to figure out what to do. That choice was taken from them, however, when a chain yanked Bria out of hiding, prompting the three to scream in fear.

“It is simply the way of the world, after all. The powerful thrive, the weak die. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Emira held in a curse, while Edric hyperventilated next to her. Two squads of the invaders had just finished corralling a group of kids into a corner. She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the screams, Edric silently crying next to her, as the Mages ripped the children apart in a hail of magic. Glaring daggers at the murderers, Emira paused, a plan coming to her. Whispering to Edric, who nodded firmly in agreement, the two slunk into the shadows.

“Why, it is only natural for those with power, namely us, to do with it as we- HURK!”

Reticulus loomed over a potential donor, their limbs spread by his veins, dislocated from his body and acting as ropes to bind and restrain his target. He licked his lips. It wouldn’t do for the fools to potentially damage his prize with unnecessary struggling, now would it? Just as he reeled back to rip his prizes from the worthless husk before him, his body registered the sensation of a blade digging into his arm.

“Just shut your fucking mouth.” Eda warned, the butt of her staff slammed into the sadist’s gut. Seeing his hands take on that icy glow, she raised her leg, slamming him back with a kick to the chest. “You don’t know anything about the people of the Isles!” She shouted, her eyes spotting Bump summoning some Abominations in the stands, directing them at Rudolph’s troops.

“You think just because you’ve got a lot of power, you get to throw it around, and we’ll just take it?” She countered his frost with a fireball, landing a cracking blow across his jaw. When Rudolph slammed his hands against the ground, summoning an encroaching sheet of frost, she ripped it away with a shockwave of magical force.

“Your resistance to the inevitable is growing irksome!” He yelled, forming a fang of ice around his hand, lashing out at Eda. She blocked his blow with her staff, grunting as he forced her back. Spines of ice formed along his arms, stabbing towards Eda. “Your people are a pack of sheep, blindly following the words of a false prophet in their inane desire for safety!!” He encased her wrists in ice, preventing her from casting, before slamming his forehead into her eyes. “You may well be the strongest on the Isles, but that title is as hollow as their leader’s words!” He slashed his blades at Eda’s sides, a cry of pain ripping from her throat. Unbeknownst to either combatants, Lilith twitched at Eda’s cries.

“I…! Have stood on my own two feet… my entire life!” Eda choked out, hands grabbing at the claws currently pinning her in place. 

“I do what I want to do, nothing more… nothing less…!” 

Bria screamed, feeling the skin of her arms and legs stretching from the chains pulling her in either direction. The pain was like nothing she had felt before. Angmar and Gavin were being pinned in place, metal blades pushing into their hands to keep them from casting. She was… she was going to die here. Tears came to her eyes at the thought.

The maniac tormenting her gave a demented giggle, gesturing for the chains to rip her apart, once and for all.

“Stay away from Bria!” A young voice shouted. The agent turned in shock, his casting forgotten, as a fist as large as his torso careened towards him, pulping his skull. Standing defiantly, was Matty, tears of rage in his eyes.

“But for all that I hate Bonehead… I love the Isles… and the people who call it home…!” 

With the plan prepped and ready to go, Emira glanced towards Edric. Grimly, she nodded, with him flashing a thumbs up in response. In perfect sync, the two yanked on the cords they had set up, releasing a colossal explosion of smoke into the groups of killers. Working in concert, the twins cast a spell onto the two groups. When their vision cleared, both groups saw the other as a squad of Coven Guards. Reacting to the apparent enemy, the two sets of invaders unleashed their magic upon each other, and in a matter of moments, all were dead. The twins dropped the spell, clutching each other in relief.

“So if you think I’m just going to stand back… and let you kill people because you feel like it… then you’re even crazier than you look!!”

With a scream of rage, Luz drove her blades into Reticulus’ eyes, while Willow used her vines to rip free the near-victim, Amity conjuring up her Abomination to cushion the fall, Gus using his Illusions to guide the way to the exit. Using his broad back as leverage, Luz pushed herself off of his body, landing in a crouch near the others, eyes glaring daggers at the hulking monster before them.

Rudolph scoffed, his humor long gone. “And did you forget that my magical frost builds up and hampers you further the more of it you are exposed to? Hmm?” He accused, eyes narrowed in contempt.

“Nope!” Eda gamely replied. “I just decided I hated the look of you more than I was afraid of dying against you.” Her cheeky grin turned daring, eyes bright with challenge. “Even if I die, I’ll have died fighting for my freedom. Give me your best shot, you two-bit bully.”

With a roar of rage, Rudolph reared back his arm, fully intending to skewer the arrogant Witch who dared to challenge his might! His eyes widened in surprise, however, when his attack clashed against a raised staff, brilliant aquamarine eyes glaring at him.

“Stay. Away. From my sister.” Lilith hissed.

[theredhairedmonkey]

Thunderfall and the Narrative of Love

I’ll admit, I still have trouble watching Thunderfall, and in particular the scene where Avizandum is turned to stone.

Even during rewatches, I pause to do a quick gut-check and see if I’m up for viewing this particular moment again.

What can I say? This show sometimes isn’t for the faint of heart (of which I am).

But the focus of this episode is actually on King Harrow.

In the classical sense of heroes and tragedies, Harrow is the epitome of a tragic hero.

A hero is simply one who does great deeds, the sort of feats ordinary people could scarcely dream of doing.

But his story is also a tragedy. We tend to think of tragedies as stories with a sad ending, and that’s half right. But in the original definition, what made a sad story a tragedy is that the hero falls due to a “tragic flaw.”

So, for instance, when people read or watch the movie “The Death of Superman,” where we see Kal-El die after his fight with Doomsday, we conclude this is a tragedy because of its sad ending. But while we see Superman die, we never see him fall; he remains true to form, a paragon of virtue and heroism to the very end.

But in Greek tragedies, heroes have flaws that lead to their downfall. Achilles was a courageous warrior and had the strength of a god, but was stubborn and proud, which led to a series of events—him sitting out the Trojan war for a time, the sacking of Troy, his battle with Hector—which led to his demise at the hands of Paris.

Oedipus, probably the most famous tragic hero in history, had what Greeks held to be the ultimate flaw—hubris, or the belief that one could possibly oppose fate and the gods. His hubris led to Oedipus blinding himself and going into self-imposed exile.

In each of these, the tragic component comes not from how the hero dies, but how the hero’s flaws lead to their fall.

And that’s what Thunderfall is really about. It’s the story of Avizandum’s death, but it’s actually about Harrow’s fall.

He was truly a good king, putting the interests of his people ahead of himself.

Viren: “King Harrow worked tirelessly. He told me he thought of himself as a servant of all the people of Katolis. A servant King.”

Fighting to create a just world, one that treats everyone, rich and poor alike, with the fairness and kindness they deserve.

Harrow: Sarai, my father told me that above all, I must be a just king. The night he died, Lady Justice came to me in a dream…She said to me that justice was more than fair decisions and fair consequences. True justice was a fair system. Then she laid before me her scales, her sword, and her blindfold and told me to choose.

Sarai: You chose the blindfold.

Harrow: I did. She said the blindfold gives us a way to test the system.That I should use it to imagine I had not been born yet, and that I did not know if I would be born rich or poor, what color my skin would be, what culture or practices my family would have. That a fair system should be fair no matter the accident of my birth. That the rights, and laws, and opportunities within the system should stand to protect and empower everyone.

But Harrow was only a man. He found the love of his life, and she was taken from him not long after.

And for years he struggled to move past his loss. To be the better person. To look toward the present and the future.

But in the end, he couldn’t let go of his hate. He succumbed to it and let it consume him.

And this one moment of weakness set in motion everything that was to follow—Avizandum’s death and stealing the Dragon Egg; the Dragonguard’s betrayal; the Dragon Queen’s revenge; and the quest to return Zym home.

This all led to the moment when Callum found himself standing on the same field where Harrow once stood, wrestling with the same feelings and temptations that Harrow once wrestled with.

At this moment, Callum struggles to contain his hatred. Even Rayla looks somewhat shocked.

He’s feeling such a wave of emotion—pain, sadness, anger. Maybe even a little gladness that the creature who took his mother is gone.

But this all fades away to sadness and regret: “I feel so sorry that this all happened.”

Why?

That was the moment Callum saw beyond himself. His pain was personal, but it was never only his. Because even for Avizandum, the object of Callum’s hatred, there was someone who mourned his loss.

And someone who’s life was now emptier without him.

They were all bound together now, by both Avizandum’s life and his death.

Just like Callum, Ezran, and Rayla are.

Because of that, rather than succumbing to it like Harrow did, Callum decides to let go of his hate. He instead chooses to have faith that love—his love— could be enough to finally fix what was broken and set right what once went wrong so long ago.

One of the things I really like about Callum isn’t that he’s a strong character who is also vulnerable, emotional, and loving. Even though that’s not as common for male characters as I’d like it to be, it’s still not that rare. Some of the most iconic heroic figures—Superman, Luke Skywalker, Avatar Aang—are powerful characters who allow themselves to be vulnerable and sensitive.

But what’s different from Callum is that he’s not merely both strong and vulnerable, but that his strength comes from his vulnerability. He’s become a powerful mage in a matter of weeks because of his love—he’s always learned new forms of magic in response to a need; his love, and his desire to protect it, helps provide that need, and pushes him to break past the limits to his strength again and again.

He’s able to face so much adversity in his life because he’s not afraid to face his emotions and even his darker impulses—to learn from them and then let them go. And this is the lesson that Harrow passed on to his son; that strength means he no longer has to hold on to his hatred and his pain but look beyond to find something meaningful, something worth fighting for and protecting.

And that something might end up saving their world.

[chiislushie]

What FFIX Means to Me

This may sound ridiculous to some... but every once in a while I will sit here and I’ll just think about Final Fantasy IX and the impact it had on me and how I view life. Ever since finishing it a while back, I’ve wanted to just get my thoughts out there about it. So, that’s all I’m really doing here. If you choose to read this, thank you! and I hope I can convince you to play the best Final Fantasy game ever made and maybe even have a similar experience to the one I did.

Being raised in a Christian family growing up, I never thought much about death or the afterlife. You’re always taught that there’s life after death when you die whether it be heaven or hell. However, when you start growing away from those religious views and suddenly come to the realization that hey, there’s probably nothing after death. The fear... the hopelessness that left me with started to feel crippling. Trying to wrap your head around just not existing is both terrifying and impossible to really understand.

Now this is probably something that most people deal with to some extent as they grow into adulthood and everyone finds their own way to deal with it. For me that ended up being Final Fantasy XI. Now I played IX when I was around 15 or 16 and made it almost all the way through but was under leveled and wasn’t able to finish the final level. So one day a few years ago I decided I was going to replay the entire thing. I got out an old CRT and hooked up my ps1 and began what ended up being one of the most life changing stories I think I’ll ever experience.

I’ve played my fair share of Final Fantasy games at this point, including most of IX. I’ve loved the series for almost as long as I can remember and of course the characters and story are always enjoyable and well written. Every game has it’s themes. VII starts as a story of fighting a mega company, Shinra, in a desperate attempt to save the live blood of the planet while then moving into more of a story about identity. The entirety of VI is a story of loss and moving on from it. Not only does the main story follow this, but the backstories of every character mirror it. However, I can’t say any of them truly had any kind of profound affect on me. Well, this time, IX is a story of coming to terms with death and the meaning of life.

Now just to start us off for those who have never played the game, here is the setup to our story. Immediately you start following Vivi, our little black mage. Not our main character but probably the most relatable to our theme of death going forward. Vivi has a ticket to see tonight’s showing of “I Want to be Your Canary” performed by the theatre trope Tantalus on their ship of the same name. Vivi is then disappointed when he finds out his ticket is a fake. After this a mysterious rat-like kid shows him to an area on the roofs where they can see the play. They are then found by guards, where the rat kid ditches Vivi and Vivi is chased, leading him to the stage on the back of the Tantalus. For now this is where we’ll leave Vivi and switch to our main character Zidane, who on the surface, is our pretty typical puckish rogue main character type. Zidane shows up with the crew of the Tantalus, in disguise as a theatre ship, with the true goal of kidnapping the princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros. In the middle of the show, our main character Zidane sneaks into the castle and runs into a hooded figure wearing the classic FF white mage robes. The figure dashes past Zidane, down the stairs and out the castle. Zidane, realizing the figure is the princess he’s after then goes after her. The Queen then, realizing Garnet is gone, sends our next character after her. Steiner, Captain of the Knights of Pluto and final character of our opening. We then go into a three way chase which leads to the stage on the back of the Tantalus where the play is taking place. Here, Garnet asks Zidane to kidnap her and bring her to the city of Lindblum. He agrees. Now, this is where Vivi also shows up and with a large ball of fire, drives back the guards. Vivi then ends up roped into a battle with Zidane and Garnet against Steiner. The Tantalus tries to make an escape with Steiner, Vivi, Garnet and Zidane still battling on the back. A bomb is sent at the ship which goes off, damaging the Tantalus and causing it to crash in the forest.

After this our group is off! and our true story begins. Now I’m not here to spoil the entire game but rather just to talk about some key points. I will do my best not to spoil any main plot points, however, there will unavoidably be some small spoilers.

At one point early on, our group stumbles upon a village. Here they find these soulless dolls being packaged and shipped to an unknown location. It’s here that Vivi discovers that he looks exactly like these dolls. At this point he doesn’t understand what this means but it’s the beginning of where he starts to question his existence. What is he? Why do these dolls look like him? If these dolls were artificially created then was he too? It’s not until later when traveling to an unexplored continent he gets more answers, when they come across a village full of the dolls who have begun to think for themselves and escaped. These dolls tell Vivi that they were created as tools of war and they were created with a very limited life. Eventually, in an unknown amount of time, all of them will just stop. Vivi is visibly upset by this and dashes off. Throughout the rest of the game we have multiple conversations with Vivi about this where he mimics things that many of us can relate to.   Vivi: “I don't think I really understand what it means to live or to die. Where do we come from...? Do we go back there when we die...? If that's what it means to live... I wonder where I came from... Where will I end up when I die...? Why am I shaking? What is it I'm feeling...?"  Vivi: "I tried to stop worrying about things, but I just can't. I know you told me not to think too much, but..." Zidane: "That's because we're different, Vivi. You don't have to do everything my way, you know?"  Vivi: "I want to stop... I don't wanna feel like this anymore. What if I keep feeling like this?"

Vivi is going through these same thoughts many of us go through. Wondering what happens to us when we’re gone and what the point of us being here is. These were all the thoughts and feelings that I had been having for years. Things that I never told anyone or talked about. Never have I felt this connected to a games themes, not on this personal of a level. So every scene after this, every conversation these characters had, felt incredibly personal.

 Zidane:�� "Vivi... Well... in the end, it boils down to two simple choices. Either you do or you don't. You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more than two answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are. The choice is yours. I just wanna protect the people I'm with. Doesn't matter whether I can or not. It's what I believe in."

“You taught me that life doesn't last forever. That's why we have to help each other and live life to the fullest. Even if you say goodbye, you'll always be in our hearts. So, I know we're not alone anymore. Why I was born... How I wanted to live... Thanks for giving me time to think. To keep doing what you set your heart on...”

“That was the only thing you couldn't teach me. But we need to figure out the answer for ourselves “

 What is most important to you? What do you hold dear? These are the things you live for. When faced with the end will you say you had a life worth living? These are all answers we have to find for ourselves. No one can answer them for you. For some it may be family, others may want to see the world. There are no wrong answers as long as in the end you felt like it was a life worth living.

I still can’t know what is after death but I can at least do everything in my power to be sure, in the end, I can answer to myself “That was a life well lived”. To find happiness in the smallest things and show love to the people I care about. Then take the bumps life throws you the best I can. 

There is so much more to this game and so many other characters to love. So please! play it yourself... The memories from this game and the lessons it taught me are something I will always hold close to my heart. the ideals that I choose to live by are my own and won’t be the same for anybody else. They will probably change with time but I will always do my best to live up to them. So to end this...     “Everyone... Thank you. Farewell. My memories will be part of the sky... “

[emsartwork]

What are your winx couple headcanons?

Other questions about relationships also answered below

Like how they interact? I talked a little bit about the canon dynamics in an ask-dump here but I’ll write a little more and copy paste stuff here lol

BLOOM AND SKY:  so bloom and sky aren’t the most stable couple, and in my version it would take bloom a little longer to be ok with dating a prince. Bloom is fairly insecure in her relationships because of self worth issues, and tend to run away from problems instead of dealing with them. Sky on the other hand is confident but doesn’t really know how to handle people’s feelings and tends to push confrontation. Bloom is also prefers to move a little slower than Sky would maybe prefer, like he’s good with their relationship and tries not to push Bloom or make her upset but he’d probably like to be married already lol. Bloom and Sky have figured out that if they’re having conflict issues, one of the best things to do is for them to write out whats bothering them and send letters/texts/emails back and forth. This gives Bloom a safe space and time to process her emotions, and lets Sky express his opinion with out getting to intense and pushing for Bloom to talk to him. They’ve taken to doing this with non-conflict thingies too, like its not out of the norm for Sky to receive a wax sealed envelope with a beautifully calligraphied message on parchment that simply says Bloom saw a super fluffy dog that day lol

STELLA AND BRANDON:  They love each other so much its the best omg. Stella finds her worth in her appearance but she always seems to take Brandon’s complements in a less…. arrogant way? if that makes sense? like she truly appreciates them and wants his support. I wish we knew more about Brandon but he’s legit such a good boyfriend. I think they fight mostly when Stella is being a little selfish, or when Brandon is too busy to meet her emotional needs. I think Brandon and Stella are the kind of couple that could be married for years and still feel like they’re on their honeymoon, They would probably get married because of societal pressure but if Stella wasn’t a princess they wouldn’t bother with the ceremony since it wouldn’t change their devotion to each other. They flirt with other people pretty casually but neither would EVER cheat or go any further than idle compliments. Stella’s fear of being alone/disliked is still present, but Brandon will generally just pick up some chocolate, put on a movie and let Stella do his nails or hair or make-up whenever she’s feeling down. Stella was perfectly fine with Brandon not being a prince, she came to terms with the situation a lot faster than Bloom did. However, she does try to make sure Brandon knows she’s with him for him. One of Stella’s main love languages is gifts, and Brandon does appreciate it, but his main love language is actually acts of service, so sometimes he feels a little underappreciated (if Stella doesn’t pick up on this Sky will and let her know). In which case Stella will sneakily figure out what he needs and will take care of it (shopping for a new coat? done. its super flattering and makes his eyes pop. mess hall cleaning duty at Red Fountain? she’ll do it(with some magical assistance). he doesn’t have time to make himself lunch? she will try her best but it might be safer for her to order him some take out) Like Stella is silly, excitable, and can be self centered but she loves her people and wants to make sure they know that.

FLORA AND HELIA:  So Helia is more of a drama queen in the comics but we’ll ignore that for right now lol. Flora and Helia are probably the least problematic couple in the entire show. They met. Flirted a little. Confessed. and started dating with out any major problems. I think both Helia and Flora’s love language is quality time so they’re fairly low key and just like to be in the same space with each other. Unfortunately their issues stem from both of them being passive aggressive. Like Flora doesn’t want to cause problems or upset anyone, and Helia just doesn’t freaking talk. This can lead to slow simmering fights that build until one of them blows up. They learn to catch the signs of that starting earlier and earlier tho, so they’re both learning its better to bring up an issue earlier if its gonna be a problem later. Flora thinks Helia would be happier as a full time artist than as a warrior or mage, but knows he needs to come to his own conclusion.

TECNA AND TIMMY:  They’re super cute honestly. I think Timmy was probably the one to instigate the relationship and bonded with Tecna over technology since she wasn’t super emotionally available at first. They have issues when Tecna is unable to voice her emotions and Timmy needs to know what she’s feeling mostly, but after the first few times they’ve both learned to give the other space to figure their stuff out. Timmy will ask Tecna to use Emoji’s if she’s having a really difficult time figuring out what she’s feeling. He knows its not fair to Tecna but Timmy sometimes feels a little resentful because she’s had a fairly easy life, access to top rate tech, rich parents, stable environment, and barely had to study, while Timmy scrapped and saved and had to learn fast because of his environment.(his home isn’t exactly unsafe, but asteroid colonies are nomadic by nature which mean a certain level of instability is part of living in one)  

MUSA AND RIVEN:  Ok so, ignoring the several times Riven was LITERALLY MIND CONTROLLED his character is still difficult to deal with. I think Musa and Riven are both very intense people, and while that can be super fun and develop into a good relationship, it can also lead to LOTS of problems. For their relationship, I think they wouldn’t even start dating until like season 3 era at the earliest.(this is partially why season 4 is so rough for them, its a new relationship) a lot of their issues would stem from their attachment issues and how they respond to insecurity. Riven’s mom left him, just fucking dropped out of his life while he was a young kid, leaving him with an emotionally distant and dismissive father he could never please. So Riven responds by pushing people away before they can reject him, becoming controlling, or dismissing them in anger and pretending not to care about their opinion. Musa’s mother was taken away from her by illness.  I think it happened in Musa’s early teens, since it’s clearly still a tender subject in the first season. A parents death is painful no matter the circumstance, but a sickness that slowly steals the person you love away from you must be incredibly painful. As a result, Musa experience a lot of anxiety about the people she loves leaving her(whether by their choice or not), and becomes clingy, emotionally demanding, and sensitive. When Riven pushes her away to protect himself Musa tries to force her way back to him, when Musa wants Riven to act certain way or do something to ease her anxiety (even if its irrational and she is at fault) Riven dismisses her needs because it means he can keep himself safe from failure. They have similar problems but the way they respond to it ends up escalating every issue. They do eventually grow and become vulnerable with each other, Riven tries to express his affection more(even if it’s not through words) instead of hiding them in fear of rejection, and Musa tries to explain when her feelings are hurt more clearly instead of just assuming Riven knows what he did wrong. They also clash a bit over parentage, both only have their dads left, but Musa’s is involved and (now)supportive, while Riven’s is still distant. Musa has positive memories of her mother and misses her a lot, but Riven has very few memories and is terribly angry at his mother. I think that Riven still left at the end of season 6, but they didn’t exactly break up, they both recognized that Riven needed some time away from the specialists to work on his own shit and gain confidence in his own skills and self worth, so it turned into a low key long distance thing. (if he hadn’t come back in season 8  they would just decide to break it off but lol he’s back)

AISHA AND NABU:  ugh perfect couple. minus the kind of sketchy beginning lol. Aisha and Nabu generally don’t fight once they get used to each other. Nabu is a focal point that Aisha is kind of bungee corded to if that makes sense? like obviously not in a restricting way. Its just Aisha is hella active/independent and needs her own space to explore and grow, but Nabu is her solid ground that she relies on and always comes back to. Nabu and Aisha are both smart, but Nabu is a little more of a nerd than Aisha and has a lot of book knowledge. Nabu sometimes gets irritated at Aisha’s impulsiveness, he tries to let it go and jump with her sometimes but generally just lets her do her own thing, of course on the other hand, Aisha can get irritated at Nabu’s resistance to change, she knows pestering and pushing him won’t help tho so she tries to slow down and walk through it with him when she can. 

AISHA AND NEX:  So like I said Aisha is an active, independent woman, and if Nabu was a separate, stationary, focal point for her, I think Nex is related, moving, counter point. So like Nex can actually keep up with Aisha, and push her and challenge her. Which isn’t a bad thing in relationships so long as a mutual respect is there. Nex is aggressive and can be hot headed but I think he actually takes life at a slower pace than Aisha who is a master of multitasking. Aisha admires Nex’s drive but wishes he would be a little more directional with it. When they’re not being competitive, they have a very weird calming effect around each other. Aisha and Nex don’t seem to notice this, but the rest of the group picked up on it one day and could not for the life them figure out how two such intense people could have such a chill vibe. 

Daphne and Thoren actually met when they were kids, but didn’t spend much time together because it was at a formal event. Daphne is technically 20 years older than Thoren(only a few years older than Sky), but they’re the same physical age because Daphne spent so long as a spirit. I also like to think Thoren met her as a spirit(with out recognizing her) during his paladin training. They probably wouldn’t get married as quickly in my version, especially with Daphne’s trauma. Daphne was actually receiving physical and mental therapy on Ohm when Thoren visited the planet as part of his paladin duties. They didn’t hit it off right away, but didn’t dislike each other or anything. They actually bonded over scars, Thoren has scars from some paladin related incidents, but also has a scar from when he attempted suicide. Daphne asked him about his first, she eventually explained hers to him but since they were more recent it took a little longer for her to come to terms with what happened to her. Thoren finds her scars beautiful, partially because they’re a part of Daphne, but also because they mean she survived and that she’s healing. Daphne will have nightmares sometimes and Thoren has a whole routine for comforting her and helping her feel safe and grounded. Thoren gets anxious easily, and Daphne will use her magic to subtly change the environment so he feels more comfortable. They like to watch reality tv together and yell at stupid dramatic people. Daphne is terrified of losing her loved ones and can be over protective of Thoren even though he can take care of himself, and Thoren hesitates to ask her to do anything for him because he’s (irrationally)nervous about overwhelming her. In the future, Daphne is a little unsure about asking him to marry her, not because of their relationship, but because he would assume the role of King of Domino and that’s a lot of pressure but they discuss it and work through everything together. Neither of them are good at gardening, but they have a little section of the Domino castle gardens they like to try and grow things in. Thoren also does fine metal work with wires. 

Their families are very pleased with the relationship. Thoren’s mom and Daphne are pretty different but vibe together really well. Thoren and Oritel take up sparing together and Oritel has no problems with Daphne’s choice of partner. Thoren’s dad finds Daphne to be a very fine young lady, though he has concerns that his son is with some one who has so much recent trauma and he worries it’ll kick start Thoren’s depression again. Marion doesn’t think anybody is good enough for her girls but Thoren comes pretty close, Thoren has expressed interest in learning magic, and Marion is eager to teach him, though he may regret letting her once the lessons actually start lol. 

Oritel and Marion like Sky well enough, and they recognize he’s still young and is growing, but they privately think Bloom could do better. Erendor and Samara are concerned about Bloom’s civilian background (how will she handle ruling a kingdom when she has no political training?) and though the Dragon flame would be a huge asset to Eraklyon in power it could also draw unwanted attention and attacks so they’re also concerned about that. But besides those issues, Erendor actually really likes Bloom. Samara.... is very stiff and formal so its hard to tell if she likes Bloom or if she’s just being civil and tolerating her. 

Brandon’s parents LOVE Stella, they think she’s hilarious and cute and they dote on her whenever possible. If Stella and Brandon ever broke up they would probably still invite her to family events and stuff lol. Luna and Radius, when they’re not dealing with their own relationship issues, enjoy Brandon’s company. They kind of wish Stella had chosen a Solarian partner, but its customary to let Solarian children follow their heart and pick their own partner. 

Timmy’s mom hasn’t met Tecna in person, but Timmy talks about her all the time and Timmy’s mom thinks she sounds wonderful. Electronio and Magnethia were unsure of Timmy at first. They ran the numbers through the Zenithian Compatibility and Success in Relationship Indicator and Timmy + Tecna didn’t do so well on paper. However, Tecna was absolutely firm in her decision to be with Timmy even if it didn’t make sense to her parents, which was unusual for her. They like him a lot now, even if they don’t fully understand how he works lol. 

Helia’s dads think Flora is a total catch for Helia like “damn son how did you convince her to date you???” Helia just groans and rolls his eyes. Magic dad likes to talk nature magic with Flora and Warrior dad is always trying to teach her some new self defense tactic when she visits, much to the embarrassment of his son. Alyssa and Rhodos like Helia, even if they think he’s a little out there. Like Flora, they try to encourage his pursuit of art. Miele likes to mess with Helia and pull pranks on him, Helia pretends to be horribly offended but he actually thinks she’s hilarious.

Aisha was a dream match for Nabu’s parents, they cared more about her status as princess than her as a person at first. After Nabu’s death they blamed Aisha and rejected all of her attempts to contact them. In the process of healing, they’ve reached out to her and are trying to appreciate/get to know her as some one their son loved and not just a rung on the social ladder. Aisha’s parents liked Nabu, they didn’t really get to know him very well, but thought he was a smart, capable, and well mannered young man. They saw Aisha was happy with him and left it at that. 

Aisha’s parent’s were less sure of Nex, Andros is a fairly planet centric culture, and Nex, as a Mare Lynphean especially, didn’t quite fit into their Land/Sea dichotomy. Aisha of course, isn’t one to follow social norms if she doesn’t want to. Nex is a little worried about her parents approval, but Aisha insists that the only approval he needs is hers. Niobe and Teredor are currently leaving the relationship as is, knowing fighting Aisha will just make her dig her heels in more. Nex eventually wins them over with his bravery, charm, and devotion to Aisha. When Nex told his parents he was dating a princess, they were kind of surprised. They were also surprised when Aisha turned out to be an athletic, independent, and brash young woman instead of a delicate, dependent, and prissy princess. They absolutely approve and love spending time with her.

Musa hasn’t met Riven’s dad. Riven and his dad aren’t close, they talk maybe once a month and its usually a text from his dad with “update request; academics, physical health, extra curricular, and relationships statuses.” and Riven usually just responds with “update; fuck off.” Riven’s dad does know he’s dating some one but doesn’t have a lot of information. Musa’s dad DID NOT like Riven at first. He didn’t like his look, his reputation, or his attitude. however, Ho-Boe comes from a warrior background, though he prefer(ed)s musical pursuits, he came to respect Riven’s discipline in those areas, and eventually was able to relate to Riven’s rejection of his heritage.  

Bloom and Daphne are a little.... one sided, at least in the beginning. When Bloom first meets Daphne (that she remembers) Daphne isn’t even a real person, she’s a dream or at most a spirit. Even after Bloom learns her name Daphne is a mystery, and its not until like end of season three that they start talking regularly. On Daphne’s side, Bloom was a toddler, and then is suddenly grown up. Daphne still thinks of her like her baby sister, even tho the two of them are, physically, almost the same age now. Daphne also always knew she had a sister, while Bloom thought of herself as an only child for the majority of her life at this point. So while they love each other and get a long pretty well, they have misconceptions and don’t always view the other person as they actually are.

Sure! Stormy likes cream puffs, like A LOT. She owns only dark red lipsticks. She likes doing her makeup but has no patience for her hair, she usually chops a lot of it off every couple months and just lets it do whatever it wants. Stormy has a “worry stone” made of metal she keeps in her pocket. She’s got adhd and Darcy sometimes magically helps calm her brain down when she needs to focus. Stormy of course, loves thunder storms, she gets little electric shivers when they’re getting close. She collects static like nobodies business. Stormy is primarily Omegean and Androsian, tho a little Dominian, Zenithian, and Melodian blood runs through her veins as well. She likes cats. 

yaaaaaaas, ok so I actually gave his dads names finally Vaonaaj dad is Bi’ran (bee-ran) and Lynphean dad is Reed (last name is Deshene). When Helia was born Bi’ran used magic to like float him around and keep him out of trouble and stuff and it annoyed the hell out of Reed (like��“for natures sake please don’t hex my son” “im not hexing him its just a floating spell!!”) Reed gave Helia a little sword really early and Bi’ran was appalled ( ”why would you give him a weapon he’s like FIVE” “good he can learn early”) When Helia started to express interest in art his dads were confused af because neither of them have an artistic bone in their bodies. They try to be supportive but honestly have no idea what Helia is doing lol. Helia really wants to please them both so he spent a year at Lynphea College in the basic magic course. When warrior dad(Reed) started to pressure him to learn to fight as well, Helia’s grandfather Saladin offered him a place at Red Fountain, partially because he could see Helia needed his own space to figure himself out and partially because it would appease Reed. Helia was only planning on staying at Red fountain for a year but his relationship with Flora and his friendships with the rest of the group extended his stay. Bi’ran and Reed know they need to let Helia make his own path, but they worry and just want the best for him so they tend to stick to what they know and are comfortable with when advising him(magic and fighting respectively). Bi’ran and Reed have a standing date night every week, and usually they get really out of hand as they try to outdo the other in excitement and romance (dinner and movie one week leads to a 5 course meal and an play the next which leads to a private chef, a one of a kind meal, and an entire theater rented out for a personal performance etc etc etc) until they both realize they’re being ridiculous and promise to keep it simple from then on and the cycle repeats itself. Bi’ran really likes to play with Reed’s hair. Helia always beats them both at card games.  

[senseandaccountability]

Fic update: ‘I can see us gather at the gates’, part 8/32

Fandom: Dragon Age Pairing: Female Trevelyan/Iron Bull Rating: M for future updates Summary: He doesn’t trust mages, she doesn’t trust Qunari; it feels oddly fair. A former Circle mage and an estranged Qunari spy get entangled in each other’s lives over assorted Thedosian drinks. Chapter summary: Like all the previous times he’s been on the edge of it, dying is pretty overrated. Notes: I scream into the void with this fic but there you go. :D 

Chapter 8: Dragon Piss (Fallow Mire) (AO3 link)

x. 

He’s just a kid, unhorned and soft -  fat as a qalaba, Vasaad says, racing him to the outskirts of the jungle where the rocks form challenges and the sun never reach - and they climb the old trees and even older stone. They stumble, kids always do up there and that is the very clever reason they are not allowed to go. But they're just kids, far from clever. They stumble and fall and Vasaad is lucky, gets caught on a few softer corners and tree branches; Ashkaari crashes.  Everything after is blurry and gentle, the edges softened by potions.

“What were you supposed to do today?” Tama asks, without removing her hand from his arm.

Slowly, grasping for his memory, he begins to rattle off the tasks and duties; they’re as many as his fingers. Maybe that’s the point, to make them remember.

“So why did you run to the jungle?”

Ashkaari has no answer that Tama will want to hear so he drags it out, pretending to think while her touch remains. "You must take better care of yourself," she says sternly.  The Qun hates wastefulness and dead imekari is a terrible shame. For her, for them all. He doesn't want to make Tama look bad. He will remember.  For several months, at least.

x. “Welcome back,” Armaas says. His commander, the voice in the field. Hissrad can’t remember being gone, but his body is full of pain. A broken rib, a punctured lung, a long, deep wound running from his left shoulder blade to right side and he has to sleep propped up on his stomach in the infirmary. He learns that he has been out for days. He learns, too, that they're right about his commander. Doesn't lose a single man, they say. He leads from the front and shouts you back from the dead if he has to. The intense pair of eyes that follows Hissrad's every move here certainly looks like it belongs to someone who could. Years later, on Seheron, he’ll look into those eyes again before his axe falls down over Armaas's neck. Your soul is dust, Tal-Vashoth, he'll think but he won't be sure ever again. x. “Your blocking is still shit,” Hissrad manages from where he lies propped up by pillows and blankets and a wasted bedroll. Even his horns hurt. “Your plans are still shit,” Vasaad counters. “You’ll be the death of me, big guy. Can’t believe they gave you command.” “Maybe you were the only other option.” “Maybe they just want to let Seheron kill you so they don’t have to,” Vasaad says and there’s warmth and mockery and bone-hard truths in the joke. Hissrad grins. It must be the hundredth time one of them gets wrecked in battle, yet every single one feels like absolute crap, everyone worse than the others. Hissrad has carried Vasaad’s skinny ass across half a jungle, cursing into the skin on his back -  don’t you dare, asshole - and Vasaad’s dragged him out of burning buildings, pits of poison, traps laid by mages and rebels and they’ve always survived. They’ll always survive until one of them fails. x. Their newest Viddathari may be little more than a twitchy kid but he’s got hands strong as iron, knows curses in several tongues and he refuses to leave Hissrad’s bedside until Hissrad gets well enough to carry him out and lock the door. “Hey!” the kid protests but Hissrad is determined. His right arm may still be broken and the bone-deep wound along his side smarts like fuck but malnourished elves are tiny. “Sorry, Gatt,” he says and pats the elf’s head. “Can’t recover with an audience.” x.  Boss is heading towards the building where they expect to find the clan leader of the Avvar, her jaw set and her determination cut in stone, as if she’s gone and become a brawler when Bull wasn’t looking. They have my soldiers. She had been very closed-off this morning, grim and focused, barely had time for a briefing before they set out and her tone is still clipped whenever someone brings something up with her. “Surely you are not challenging their chieftain in battle, darling?” Vivienne’s voice betrays nothing but Bull is willing to bet she isn’t looking forward to having her day ruined by a bashed-in skull. “It will be fine.” At first it almost is. As fine as it ever is, fighting in someone else's stronghold, lacking every advantage of the enemy. But for a while they can make up for what they lack in strength with what they possess in terms of sheer determination. Until they can't. “Take out their mages!” “Let’s not,” Bull growls, carving his blade into the spine of an attacker. In the corner of his eye he can see the Avvar leader rushing forth, his greataxe in front of him, ramming into their flimsy line of defense and Bull curses, trying to wrestle free from the archers he’s stuck with but it takes too long. Vivienne shouts something, Boss shouts something back and when Bull finally shoves the last dead archer from his blade, there’s no time left. He pushes the mages back, hears them swear at him and then, things become a little blurry. --- He wakes up in darkness. Total, throbbing darkness and his first thought is that he’s lost his other eye. That would definitely be shitty. “Bull, can you hear me?” He does, he can. But when he tries to speak, there are no sounds emerging from his body. Great, now he’ll be both blind and mute. What a gift to send back to Par Vollen. Maybe they can put a ribbon on his horns. He feels her hands on his chest, magic flowing out of them and into him and it’s soft, like a warm bath but then she twists it, angles it so he gasps for air instead, crying out in pain, and immediately it stops. She’s leaning over him, judging by her breath against his neck, her voice closer to his ear now. “I’m sorry.” The pad of her thumb brushes over his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Bull, but I have to do that again. I’m trying to find what’s wrong.” Less talking, more healing, he thinks. She does the same magical crap again. And again. The pain is just as sharp, just as staggering. He feels like he’s losing his mind. There’s something broken that won’t mend, something stubborn that won’t budge. “Hurry,” Vivienne says somewhere nearby. “He’s bleeding quite a lot, darling.” “I know. Can you…  shit.” Boss’s touch leaves him and if he could speak, he would have asked for it to return. Magic or not, her hands are soothing and if he’s dying here, he’d like to feel calm about it. Like all the previous times he’s been on the edge of it, dying is pretty overrated. A burning, painful kind of overrated that he could do without. In the end lies glory, so the Qun claims. Perhaps that's right, he just can't see it. But then again his eyesight never really recovered from losing one eye. Even bad jokes are wasted on death. The last thing he hears is Boss, her voice increasingly desperate, telling him to stay with her as she pulls at the threads of his flesh with her magic, forcing it to close over his wounds. --- He drifts in and out of consciousness and sleep and through it all he can hear her voice. In fact, she never stops talking. She’s quiet when she’s nervous and she talks when she’s afraid; he knows this about her. He knows this about her and in this particular setting, it twists its way into the back of his mind, lingers. As the pain torments him and whatever draughts and spells he’s been exposed to do their thing, he hears her mutter her way through what sounds like magical theory in Orlesian. Between a nightmare and a potion-induced episode about ghouls he can discern sentences from a book on the Inquisition of old - he knows because the nights in camp get long and sometimes there's nothing to do but read the only thing someone like Cassandra or Boss has carried with them. He prefers it when they bring Varric’s crappy but hilarious smut novels over the tedious ones on human history, but he’ll read anything. "You can't take blows meant for me," she tells him because - as he’s come to understand - she truly has no idea what front-line bodyguard means, its concept as foreign to her as stealth or frivolity. Bull replies in grunts and monosyllabic words. “Don’t die on me, you stupid man,” she whispers to him as he drifts out of sleep momentarily, blinking as the sunlight from the window falls across her features. It makes her look on fire, lit with the sun itself. If he had been an Andrastian, he’d probably be praying by now.   “I’m sorry,” she says and he’s feeling more awake by then, though not awake enough to argue through the lack of strategy with his boss. He keeps his eyes closed. Feels her hands running over his chest, then quickly brushing against his forehead. She’s got the lightest of touches; it leaves some kind of mark. “This is on me. It’s my fault. Please, survive.” --- He wakes up, properly now, to her sleeping form. The room is dimly lit but his senses have returned, making it possible for him to discern the actual shapes of everything around him. A pile of medical supplies by his bed, a couple of books, a warm blanket and a goblet of what looks like water. Outside the only window in the room, darkness has fallen. He feels sluggish and heavy, unused to his own body. And there’s a sense of oddness somewhere below his chest. At first he can’t tell what the sensation comes from and blinks, prepared for all sorts of bad news as always after being knocked out in battle. You never know what limbs you’ve lost or what new impairment you’ve suffered, any warrior could tell you that. But this, Bull realises rather quickly, this isn’t him. It’s Boss, sleeping with her face pressed into his belly, her arms spread out over his upper body and her hair tickling his chest. Small puffs of warm breath dampen his skin as her body rises and falls over his; there are soft snores and sleep-sounds and there’s an intimacy to the scene that snakes its way into his chest, the unfamiliar outline of it at once thrilling and strange. It’s definitely…  something. All the gentleness in her, everything about her that she keeps hidden as they work methodically side by side to push this damn world back from the brink of destruction, is suddenly visible in the way she’s sleeping, unarmed, undone. Her hair is loose, strands of it cascading over his flesh; her neck is bared and looks more inviting in the candlelight than he’s ever seen it before; lacking its usual multi-layered outfit, her body sleeps free and soft, curved around him, around itself, the generous shape of her ass almost impossible not to reach out and touch. It’s the intense privacy of the moment, he thinks. The intimacy of sleep coupled with the fact that she had worried. About him. He pretends to be asleep when she wakes, startling herself, bolting upright like someone’s caught her in the act which effectively ruins his. Bull can’t hold back a laugh, even though it hurts deep inside him, all the way up along his ribs. Boss flushes bright red, cursing under her breath. The tension in her body is so acute, so severe that it practically cuts through the air. For a brief moment he wonders if she’ll set something on fire. Then, when she forces herself to look at him, he can see nothing but relief in her eyes. It hits him, like a hammer. Maybe it hits her, too, because she scratches the back of her head and looks away. She takes a step to the side. Another one forward. Glances at the doorway over her shoulder. “I’m - this-” she exhales slowly. “Not a word, Bull.” He remains exactly where he is, watching her and grinning - because it seems to infuriate her in a subtle and delightful way and also, mostly, because he can’t help himself. “My lips are sealed.” He gestures towards his mouth, ignoring the pain the motion brings. “I won’t tell a living soul that you snore like a bronto, Boss.” “You’re an ass.” Then, quiet and already half-way outside the room. “I’m glad you live.”

[homestuck-session-analysis]

ok this session is a little unorthodox, it's actually two different sessions that end up having to work together. players of the first session are knight of space, heir of time, witch of breath, seer of doom, Prince of mind, rogue of light. second session is maid of void, sylph of hope, thief of rage, bard of heart, mage of life, page of blood. also, these players don't really have any relationship prior to the game; this isn't an Alpha kids and Beta kids situation. thanks in advance!

This was a doozy, and one that was done three hours before being posted on this blog.  This is a really interesting session, and I would definitely read this one!  Here it is:

SESSION ONE

Knight of Space

Personality: Knights are a very insecure lot, typically using their aspect to attempt to create a facade that makes them seem more impressive.  As a Space player, they would try to manifest the “tortured artist” persona, and will very likely distance themself from others.  To develop as a person, they should learn to trust others and lower their walls.

Abilities: As a wielder of Space, they would be a teleportation master, being able to teleport themself or others or weapons in a fight.

Session Contribution:  The Space player’s duty is to breed the Genesis Frog, and this Knight will be able to do it very effectively on their own!  The Knight is called to a session with a lack of their aspect, in this case, Space, so either they must efficiently utilize the little creativity or physical space given.Heir of Time

Personality: Heirs tend to come off as very dumb, but a more accurate term would be happy-go-lucky.  They are very much a representation of “ignorance is bliss,” for they tend to grow up very sheltered and secure, especially under by aspect.  As a Time player, their source of security would, ironically, be change and moving forward.  This Heir would value personal growth very heavily, and difficulty appears once they form a more stable sense of self and life becomes stagnant.

Abilities: The Heir of Time would avoid danger through time travel, though it would take a while to be able to use this ability on a non-incidental level.

Session Contribution: The Heir of Time’s time travel can be very helpful in avoiding doomed timelines, and I can also see this as an offensive player.Witch of Breath

Personality: Witches tend to find themselves in societies or situations where they are dissatisfied, which makes them strong revolutionaries and visionaries.  Their rebellious nature causes them to change their aspect in ways inconceivable to others.  As a Breath player, the Witch sees people acting in their own sake and transforms that into unified motion and motivation.  Witches are only satisfied when their vision is realized, which is not always possible.

Abilities: The Witch of Breath would be a master of motivation, especially toward a common goal.  They would also have very powerful wind powers.

Session Contribution: The Witch would be an ideal leader and revolutionary.  You can be sure that your session will be going places!Seer of Doom

Personality: Seers are exceedingly intelligent, bright, and calculating.  They are the people who seem to be wise beyond their years, though they are often afflicted with hubris.  As a Doom player, this person will likely become filled with despair and misery, especially as they will regularly see their loved ones die.

Abilities: The Seer of Doom will have visions of death and the futility of their session.

Session Contribution: Seers are meant to guide players, so this player will be very helpful in avoiding timelines where people die.Prince of Mind

Personality: Princes have fairly destructive personalities and resent others, mostly because they strongly resent themselves.  Their self-hatred often lead to them harming others, either intentionally or unintentionally.  As a Mind player, this Prince will be very perceptive, but feel responsible for other people’s problems.  Because of this, he will avoid responsibility by avoiding difficult choices, which will ironically harm others.  They are very much the kind of person who feels that life would be simpler if one person had control over everyone else.  Princes need to learn how to accept accountability for their actions and accept themselves for who they truly are.

Abilities: The Prince of Mind would be able to destroy free will, being able to control other people’s choices.

Session Contribution: He will be either very useful to your session, or very dangerous.  He is also extremely offensively focused.  Also, Princes are called to sessions that have a large abundance of their aspect, and they are called to destroy that before it destroys the session.  As a Prince of Mind, I can see this manifesting as a surplus of consequence and decisions.  It is up to your Prince to prevent your players from making too many wrong choices, and preventing those consequences from being too significant.Rogue of Light

Personality: Rogues are very selfless people, as they share a worldview with Robin Hood.  Their strong sense of justice and equality makes them easy to talk to, as they are very respectful.  They are also very spunky and ready to do what’s right!  As a Light player, they would be especially concerned with free education for all and financial equality.  Also, I can definitely see this player being a huge ham.  Sometimes, the Rogue puts themself into danger to right a wrong, so make sure they understand that it’s okay that life isn’t always fair.

Abilities: The Rogue of Light would be able to take luck, knowledge, and attention from their enemy and redirect it to their team.

Session Contribution: The Rogue of Light would be very helpful to your Seer, as well as to your team during battles.

Session Overview

Leader: The Witch of Breath for obvious reasons.

Offense: Everyone is going to be helpful to the team in some way in this respect, except maybe the Seer.

Survival: You don’t have any healers in this half, but your Heir is pretty well protected.

Foresight: Your Seer is very good at seeing what you need to avoid to survive.

Loyalty: You need to watch the Prince, and the Witch might be an issue if they’re not aligned with the team.

SESSION TWO

Maid of Void

Personality: Maids often feel a great deal of responsibility that was pushed onto them without their consent.  They feel that it is their job to ensure that everything is working properly, even when they are not recognized for their efforts.  As a Void player, the Maid would be especially unrecognized for their efforts, but they likely wouldn’t mind that much.  They like to see themself as someone who works behind the scenes, like the stage crew for life.  Maybe they might feel responsible for keeping something behind the scenes, or for keeping lies and/or secrets straight.  Maids also tend to rely on others to feel valuable, so please make sure they know they are perfect just the way they are.

Abilities: The Maid of Void would be able to induce amnesia, and perhaps have some form of conjuration powers?  Unlikely, though.

Session Contribution: Be careful around them.  They’ll be your go-to when it comes to keeping your opponents in the dark, but I can envision them going rogue if treated poorly.Sylph of Hope

Personality: Sylphs are people who have a great sense of someone’s potential, and they tend to be driven to help in any way possible.  This can make them seem to be incredibly nosy and a little annoying, but they have nothing but good intentions.  As a Hope player, they’re the kind of person who sees the good in people even when there is none there, and push/support them in their strive to reach their potential!  Their biggest weakness is that they can’t seem to grasp when something is a lost cause.  

Abilities: They would be able to heal others by believing hard enough, as well as restore the optimism the other players have lost in growing up.

Session Contribution: They will be an amazing morale support, as well as a great healer!Thief of Rage

Personality: Thieves are extremely ambitious and tend to appear to be very selfish and overly self-confident, but their confidence is an act of false bravado.  What makes a Thief a Thief is their overwhelming sense of envy toward others, especially when it comes to their aspect.  As a Rage player, the Thief would be jealous of other people’s passion and ability to feel strongly about things, and this causes them to one-up them by being very over-reactive, even though they typically feel next to nothing.  Thieves need to learn how to be happy for other people and allow them to prosper, while finding and accepting their own worth.

Abilities: The Thief of Rage would be able to take away people’s negative emotions and confusion and channel that themself.

Session Contribution: This player can get very heated very easily, but ironically they are a calming presence.  They might go rogue very easily, but they can prevent other players from betraying the team.Bard of Heart

Personality: Bards tend to be extremely fixated on their aspect to the point of worship, or at least obsession, and they are only happy when they are able to share the wonders of their aspect with others.  They are so fixated with this positive image of their aspect, whatever that image is, that if someone were to break it, their entire life would change.  As a Heart player, they might possess a strong sense of identity that is likely inaccurate.  I can also see them unquestioningly following their intuition, even when it is wrong.  Their break would result when they discover that they don’t understand themself quite as well as they thought they did.

Abilities: The Bard of Heart might have some variation of Dirk’s ability to destroy souls, but they will more likely be able to manipulate emotions or identity in a way that invites destruction.  This may manifest as Rory (from Modfic)’s ability to convert the imps into allies, though that may be more of a Blood ability.

Session Contribution: The Bard of Heart can cause a lot of damage to your session’s team, or they can do great work in destroying your enemies.  It really depends on your Bard’s allegiance, so make sure to be gentle with them.Mage of Life

Personality: Mages tend to be very intelligent and bright, but also tend to be jaded and cynical.  However, they gain their knowledge through experiences, often painful ones.  As a Life player, this Mage would likely be forced to grow up at a very young age, likely to raise a sibling, save a life, or something of that nature.  Though this will have lasting psychological effects, this will give the Mage the experience needed to use their powers.

Abilities: They’d have a great sense of what is needed to protect their teammates, manifesting as healing powers.  They might also have some low level form of phytokinesis.

Session Contribution: This player is the closest thing you have to a healer.  They are very important to your survival, as they will also be good at keeping people alive independent of their powers.Page of Blood

Personality: Pages are known to be very weak and impressionable.  Like the knight, they are very insecure about their weaknesses, but instead of acting impressive, they display their weakness in hope that someone will help.  As a Blood player, they would be very awkward and distant.  They can only grow once they become confident in their interpersonal relationships.

Abilities: The Page of Blood would eventually be able to bring people together with bonds of steel.

Session Contribution: This player will be the source of much of the team’s cohesion in the late game.

Session Overview

Leader: If the Page matures before the sessions combine, then they will be this session’s leader.  Until then, I think your Mage and Sylph would be good co-leaders.

Offense: Your Bard of Heart is honestly all you need for a good offensive build.

Survival: You have both a Mage of Life and a Sylph of Hope, so I think this session is pretty well-covered.

Foresight: The Mage will know what strings need to be pulled to keep everyone alive, but not as effectively as the Seer in the other half.

Loyalty: The Page needs to mature, but even if they don't, the Thief would be able to handle any issues in this department.

COMBINED SESSION INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS

Usually I start off with “keep your Thief and Page separated” but to be honest, they can actually form a beneficial relationship with one another.  I always thought that was impossible.

The Mage would also be very good with the Page.

The Prince and the Bard will be issues to one another.  They won’t get along.

The Seer and the Mage are similarly dissonant, though I can see them working together to expand their worldview.

The Maid and the Knight would understand one another and provide emotional support.

The Rogue and the Maid would be super close.  The Rogue would shower the Maid with the attention they deserve, and the Maid would help the Rogue with whatever they need.

The Heir and the Seer would be friendly, though they don’t quite understand one another.

The Sylph would be friends with everyone.

The Page is intimidated by the Witch, but they can be good friends and help one another if they can get past that.

COMBINED SESSION OVERVIEW

Leader: The Page of Blood if they mature enough, and if not, the Witch of Breath.

Offense: Both sessions are strong independently, and combined they are a powerhouse.

Survival: The healers in S2 covers the lack of healers in S1, and the Heir is still very resilient.

Foresight: The Seer and the Mage can cover each other very well, and the Rogue is only going to help them.

Loyalty: The Page would be able to bring everyone together, the Witch will sooner, but not as effectively, and the Thief can calm down any disputes players may have.  Keep an eye on the Prince, the Bard, the Thief, and the Witch, because those players tend to have very strong egoistic tendencies.

Breeding: The Knight got it covered, but they can definitely get help from the Rogue, the Maid, the Heir, and/or the Mage.

Overall: Apart you had a good chance, but combined you have an even better chance.  However, I can see that many players are rather redundant after the combination.  Your success is going to be a question of teamwork, which makes your Page’s self-actualization of paramount importance.

]>>Maso

[insufferablegryffindor]

HPMA MC: Hester Huckabee

(Credit to @irisgallowayart on instagram and @sangled​ for these pictures. I made them on picrew!)

I used @hogwartsmysterystory​‘s character template for this!

Identity

Name: Hester Dorcas Huckabee

Gender: Female

Age: 11 - 18

Birth date: 15th June

Species: Human

Blood Status: Half-Blood

Sexuality: Bisexual

Alignment: Lawful Good

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Nationality: British

Residence: Ambleside in the Lake District of England

Myer Briggs Personality type: ISFP

The Mage

Wand: Walnut wood with a unicorn hair core, 10 ½ “ and supple flexibility

Animagus: Not an animagus, but her Maledictus curse lets her transform into a chestnut mare

Boggart Form: Her mother losing control over her transformation and being stuck as a half human, half mare

Riddikulus Form: Her mother transforming back into a human and doing a silly dance

Patronus Memory: The applause after her first successful Quidditch match

Patronus: Chestnut Mare

Mirror of Erised: Her mother as a human standing behind her, hands on her shoulders

Appearance

Face Claim: Kristine Froseth

Game Appearance: N/A

Height: 5’0” in first year, grows to be 5’6” until seventh year

Weight: 100 lbs in first year, increases with her height to 115 lbs in seventh year

Eye Colour: Deep blue

Hair Colour: Light brown with a tint of ginger when the sunlight hits it

Skin Tone: Fair

Body Modifications: Golden ear studs in second year, smiley piercing in fourth year, dimple piercings in fifth year

Scarring: None

Inventory: Wand, Broom polish, several hair ties and bobby pins, chocolate frogs

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Affiliations/Organisations: Gryffindor house, major fan of the Appleby Arrows Quidditch Team

Professions: N/A

Hogwarts Information:

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: O

Charms: E

DADA: E

Flying: O

Herbology: A

History of Magic: A

Potions: A

Transfiguration: A to P (over the years)

Electives: N/A

Quidditch: Gryffindor Keeper from Year 3

Extra Curricular: Astronomy club and Charms club

Favourite Professors: Professor Longbottom

Least Favourite Professors: Professor Binns

Relationships:

Mother: Millicent Huckabee (née Budd), now constantly a chestnut mare due to her Maledictus curse.

Father: Adam Huckabee, Muggle.

Grandmother: Liddie Budd, passed away at the age of 75 as a chestnut mare. First case of the Maledictus curse in Hester’s family.

Love Interest: N/A

Best Friends: N/A

Rivals: N/A

Enemies: N/A

Dorm Mates: N/A

Pets: Sphinx Rat named Chickpea

Closest Canon Friends: N/A

Closest MC Friends:

Shay Blunt (@lowtoleranceforyou)

Leon McNully (@death-or-sleep)

Cody Sinclair (@sirfluffelig)

(Hit me up if you would like your MC be friends/dorm mates with Hester <3)

Background/History:

Afflicted with the Maledictus Curse, Hester can turn into a chestnut mare at will. She saw her mother’s struggle as it was harder and harder for her to keep her human form. Hester’s mother Millicent has been a horse permanently ever since Hester was seven.

However, her mother lets her ride on her back, letting the two of them explore the English countryside - and teaching Hester horseback riding without a saddle.

Her father is clumsy and not great at comforting his daughter. He doesn’t understand her, but he tries his best. Hester however just crawls back deeper into her shell and doesn’t enjoy her time around him. She knows that they both feel the same pain about Millicent though.

Her father Adam is from East London, but as her condition worsened, the family moved to the countryside. Hester’s cockney accent is very thick.

She went to a Muggle school up until Hogwarts. Her grades were average, and she was quiet, not drawing any attention to herself.

Her mother was a huge Quidditch fan, mostly of the Appleby Arrows, and Hester carries on that legacy.

Hester doesn’t know who cursed her family, but her grandmother was a Maledictus as well, so she knows that the curse reaches way back.

Personality

Resilient: Even with the bad things Hester has going on in her life, she manages to bounce back and fight to be her best self.

Honest: Telling one lie will only lead to more lies, and Hester is not here for it. She is honest, but not blunt or abrasive.

Attentive: Always aware of her surroundings and living in the moment, Hester notices details that might slip from other people’s minds.

Assertive: Even though she doesn’t talk much, Hester knows exactly what she wants and will tell people if things she doesn’t approve of are happening. With each passing year, her presence gets more and more demanding

Impatient: She always feels like she is losing time when waiting for something, and so her patience is easily exhausted.

Impulsive: Despite the way Hester carries herself, she can be quite fiery and lots of her decisions are made impulsively and on a whim.

Stubborn: It’s hard for her to change her ways. Hester often feels like her way is the right way and she will follow it to the end, no matter how much people try to talk her out of it.

Forgetful: This is why Hester struggles in many classes - her forgetfulness also makes everyday life a little harder for her, especially when she forgets the password to the common room.

Miscellaneous

Hester has a kind of raspy voice that compliments her thick cockney accent.

The body modifications she gains over the years are her way of claiming her body back for herself - she feels like her curse is taking the control of it away from her.

She spoils her rat Chickpea and sometimes takes her to classes in the hood of her robes.

Transfiguration is a class that Hester can’t stomach, whenever a creature is being transfigured, she can only think of it being herself - especially when the transfiguration goes wrong.

[angst-fairygodmother]

Who Wants To Live Forever (The Witcher, a Highlander AU)

A/N: A warning was given. No assassins were sent. I wrote The Sad. Summary: Jaskier is not immortal, but rather is An Immortal. What better way to keep your head than to hook up with a witcher and pretend to be helpless? But time marches onward. And all things must end. Content Warning: Major Character Death, implications of suicidal thoughts Word Count: 1628 Cross-posted to AO3: here 

He would be needing a new name soon. “Jaskier” had gotten a little too popular and started bringing the wrong kind of attention. In the last town, while Geralt was off fighting a particularly vicious vampire who had been plaguing the region, a hunt that he said was too dangerous for Jaskier to tag along on, he had encountered another of his kind.

“We don’t have to do this,” Jaskier offered. “I just want to be on my way, entertaining the masses. I don’t care about the Game.”

“Well I do,” the other man sneered. “If you don’t want to fight, just stand still and let me have your head.”

“I said I didn’t care for it, not that I was willing to surrender and die.” His sword came out in a flash from where it lay, hidden, along the back of his lute case.

He held it before him, waving slightly, taunting the other swordsman. The man was larger than Jaskier, with a massive two-handed broadsword, clearly the sort to rely on brute strength over actual skill or talent.

“Last chance, don’t make me do this.” Jaskier’s eyes were stormy and the warning firm, dropping all the cheer of his normal tone of voice.

“Hah! You can’t possibly think you’ll win!” The man lunged, a move Jaskier was easily able to sidestep, graceful as a dancer compared to the lumbering fool.

“Okay, so we’re doing this.”

The fight was over even faster than Jaskier had predicted, the other man bleeding and on his knees, sword in the dirt far from him and Jaskier’s blade pressed to his throat.

“Promise me you will leave, never trouble me again, and you can still walk away from this,” he offered, pacing in a circle, never taking his eyes off his enemy.

The other man spit at his feet. “Just kill me already. You know how this goes, know the rule.”

“I do.” The bard sighed, raising his sword back and swinging it down viciously. “There can be only one.”

The storm rolled in from nowhere, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He quickly set about tucking his lute and doublet into a safe spot, sheltered from what was to come by a trough, upturned and placed on the distant edge of the open field.

The first strike of lightning drove him to his knees with a scream. It was unsurprising that the man, with all of his self-assuredness and aggression, was a powerful player. Still, that meant this part, never his favorite experience, would particularly suck today. He could only hope he recovered and made it back to the inn to change out of bloodstained clothes before Geralt noticed. Someday, he might tell the witcher the truth, but it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have now.

~

It was funny, he thought, how easy time escaped you when you knew that you had centuries. He hadn’t considered that when he’d attached himself to Geralt, all the way back in Posada, those witchers live an extraordinarily long time if they’re not killed by the creatures they hunt. And Destiny had been kind. The pair had managed to keep each other alive for so very long. Yennefer was of course, a sorceress, and the closest thing to truly immortal besides his own kind that he knew of. The one time she seemed to have died, it failed to hold her. Even when they added Ciri to their little family, she was a child with something magical about her, and seemed just as determined to outlive the average human, by will alone if she had to.

But he knew all too well that, whether it be a ballad or an adventure or a life, all things must end. Even love could only keep something for so long, and a life was not a flower, to be pressed between pages and held close with care until it was preserved for eternity.

If he had been able to keep them, it wouldn’t have been fair. The world had moved on. It was tame now, and quiet, with no need of monster hunters and mages in the wake of science and settlement. Geralt had seen it long before him, proclaiming that the world had no place for witchers anymore, and Jaskier had denied it, fleeing from the idea as if it was the worst monster they’d ever faced.

The four of them had stopped their adventuring near Oxenfurt. Jaskier had taken up teaching full time, Geralt guest-lectured when he wasn’t busy running the orphanage he’d founded. Even Yennefer occasionally deigned for a class or two, and then got bored of it and went back to her usual…whatever. Ciri was the least settled, serving as a diplomat and travelling the world still, only coming home on occasion to visit.

He never did tell any of them about his particular affliction. It wasn’t that he’d intentionally deceived them, but with their own longevity it never seemed relevant. Ciri was the only one who ever questioned it, once late at night while they both sat up with a cup of tea. He had shrugged and told her that he was nothing special, just very long lived. Which hadn’t technically been a lie, there were in fact a number of his kind (he didn’t know exactly how many but he’d wondered more than once), and her suspicious glare told him that he hadn’t completely fooled her, but she had dropped it anyway. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t admit everything, but after so long of avoiding it, it had come as a reflex to deflect.

~

The occasional challenger came for his head, and always he offered them the chance to walk away. He had no interest in power or being the last man standing. He just wanted all the time he could to read and wonder and learn, to love the world and love the three people he called home.

“Come back in a century,” he would say, “come back when they’ve left me. Maybe then I will give you my head; I will have no more need of it once I’ve lost my heart.”

When they refused, he would lead them away from the city, dispatch them quickly. He was not one to toy with his competitors, or even to take their heads if he could prevent it. A last offer of mercy, a feigned distraction to let them escape, a dive into the sea to end things a bit early.

~

Losing Yennefer had been…confusing. She had been caught up in some sort of magical accident at Aratuza that had left the magical school a crater of ash and smoke and death. At first, none of them believed that she was truly gone. After all, she had survived a fatal event before. But as weeks, and then months passed, they began to accept it. Geralt openly wept; Ciri returned early from her latest assignment, heartbroken and hollow, and tried to be strong for her adoptive father. And Jaskier carried on, the stability they sought as their world turned upside down.

Geralt had the unique honor of being the only witcher in all of history to die of natural causes, fading away in bed, a peaceful sleeping death. At the funeral, Jaskier had laughed about how he would have hated the distinction. They buried him beside Yennefer’s empty grave, and every three weeks they refreshed the wreaths of lilacs and forget-me-nots against the headstones.

It was just Jaskier and Ciri for a long time after that. He occasionally nudged her toward other people, suggesting that romantic connection and a family and all of that typical stuff might be more enjoyable than spending the rest of her days a spinster with her dear uncle. Secretly, it was because he was afraid. He didn’t know if he could handle losing her too, and if he saw her happily settled with someone who wasn’t him, he could disappear into the night, reinvent again, and not have to face the reality that such a day would come. It might hurt, but not as much as watching her die.

She refused. It had led to a horrific fight once, and they didn’t speak for months. He thought to leave then, but couldn’t bring himself to let their end be angry. So instead he had watched the Last Rose of Cintra blossom and grow, and eventually wilt, as all things did. By that time, the world was nothing like her youth, and a part of her had decided that it was time to move on from it, that it wasn’t meant for her anymore.

“But what about you, Jaskier?” she asked, lips dry and voice rasping. “You never aged, and will be the last of us. What will you do?”

“I am a bard above all else, and consummately able to adapt. I’ll carry on, and carry all of you with me.”

The night he buried the princess beside her parents, he used his savings to buy a boat, too small a craft to be called a ship, something he could pilot alone. The world was changing, and he needed time. A few years adrift to come to terms with who he should become, with everything that had gone.

He looked at the map and set his sails toward a little, distant point on it, marked now with his own flowing script as well as the cartographer’s.

“Here there [might still] be monsters.”

One could only hope. Otherwise, he might come back around and just let one of those pernicious little upstarts with only decades under their belt have him. Let pride be damned and it be said that only the witcher kept him alive all those years.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

be careful of the curse (that falls on young lovers) [iii/iii]

After a lifetime of being caught between the forces of good and evil, Ben Solo has developed one cardinal rule to maintain control over his own life: stay the fuck away from all things supernatural.

It’s a good strategy, one that works like a charm until the day he bumps into the devil herself.

The fact that she knows exactly who he is and what he’s running from makes things difficult. The fact that he’s ridiculously into her and they might be sort of, kind of dating? That makes things dangerous.

Part I | Part II | PART III: Ben’s Descent to the Underworld | Epilogue

Third and final chapter of my Halloween devil!Rey/mage!Ben fic! Will Rey and Ben find a solution to their conundrum? Will Ben be able to live with his decision? Will they live happily ever after in the Underworld? All this and more (a lot more, this chapter is 10k words, brace yourselves) below the cut!

Also available on AO3. Bonus backstory content here. Tumblr-only epilogue here.

she's got me so blind I can't see that she's a black magic woman and she's tryin' to make a devil outta me - Black Magic Woman, Fleetwood Mac

“Let’s just run away,” Ben suggests one morning, tracing idle circles into Rey’s lower back as the sun rises. It’s easier, sometimes, to entertain these outlandish scenarios than it is to grapple with the fact that even after a year of intensive research, he’s no closer to finding a viable solution than he was before. “We could leave it all behind, forget about the Force, move to a crowded mortal city where no one would ever find us…”

Rey shifts in his arms, folds her hands over his heart and rests her chin on top of her fingers. “Ben,” she sighs, the slightest hint of exasperation bleeding through. “You hate big cities.”

“I’d like them better if you were with me, I think,” he confesses easily, pictures the two of them in a tiny apartment overlooking a crowded city, space-saving charms on every available surface to house his books and her weapons; a home that’s entirely, seamlessly them.

“Besides,” Rey adds, never one to get caught up in impossible daydreams, “I can’t just leave. Who’d rule the Underworld? Who’d watch over my knights?”

Ben tries unsuccessfully to blow a piece of hair out of his face, and Rey just laughs after his third attempt, reaches up to brush the errant lock aside herself. “Does the Underworld even need ruling?” he asks, catches her hand before it can retreat and gently angles it so that he can press a kiss to her inner wrist. “I thought Darksiders thrive on chaos and disorder.”

Rey scoffs. “It’s all fun and games until a dispute goes on for two centuries with no end in sight because you don’t have any semblance of order or authority,” she explains. “The Underworld appreciates chaos, but even we don’t want to live in anarchy. Even that lawless cult land of your grandfather’s would happily welcome proper leadership.”

Proper leadership, as far as Mustafar is concerned, would mean nothing less than Ben succumbing to the curse his grandfather doomed him to and taking up Vader’s old mantle. Rey likes to remind him of that sometimes, to muse out loud how easy it’d be to unify the empire if he were by her side. It’s not a discussion he’d like to get into right now, so he quickly redirects the conversation before she can say something predictable.

“What about your knights? Can’t they look out for themselves?” he asks with a slight frown.

“The three of them together could probably take even me down,” Rey declares proudly before she goes on to lament, “but that won’t keep everyone else from calling them knock-offs and fakes.”

“Knock-off demons?” Ben echoes incredulously. “Since when are those a thing?”

Rey scowls, still resting on top of his chest. “They’re not,” she insists. “Sure, the knights were human when I found them, but I turned them into demons just like any other once they pledged their fealty to me. This shouldn’t even be an issue, especially not after all these decades.”

It’s clearly a sensitive topic, but Ben can’t help himself. “Sweetheart… you can’t just turn humans into demons.”

“Technically no, you can’t,” Rey concedes. “But once someone swears their allegiance to me I can do whatever I want, like extend their lifespans and imbue them with powers so that they’re demons in everything but blood. The rest of the Underworld is just pissed that I chose my own knights rather than picking from the noble houses.”

She admits to it so casually, making her knights long-lived and nearly invincible, as if that’s a common thing to do, as if that’s in any way an easy thing to do. In all his studies, Ben has only come across one instance of such a thing, when an ancestor of Rey’s fell for a mortal and tried her best to turn him into a worthy consort.

When her intended backed out at the last minute, too scared to go through with it after all, the jilted Queen killed him in a fit of rage and betrayal. It’s a depressingly common end for royal consorts in Rey’s family according to historical records, but the one time he found the nerve to broach the subject with her Rey had laughed her family’s messy love life off as a rumor and assured him that she would never hurt him.

“So without you around, you think they’ll–”

A sharp knock interrupts them, cuts into their peaceful early-morning silence with all the chilling precision of Rey’s knife-throwing. Ben tenses, and Rey immediately draws herself upright and growls at the open bedroom door, through which the front door is barely visible.

“I take it you weren’t expecting anyone?” she asks as the both of them get dressed, Ben pulling on last night’s tee shirt and sweatpants while Rey plucks a thick dressing robe of black velvet out of thin air. It’s a far cry from her usual morning attire – literally the shirt off Ben’s back, whenever he’s foolish enough to put one on – but then again, they’ve never had to deal with the possibility of someone tracking him down.

“Not at all,” Ben confirms as they both exit the bedroom, Rey taking the lead. He stops her in the living room with a hand around her wrist. “Stay here? Maybe it’s just someone asking for directions. Or one of those door-to-door salesmen.”

“I highly doubt even one of those people would be dedicated enough to trek all the way out here,” Rey frowns. “But okay, I’ll wait. The second something goes wrong though–”

“You can go all demon queen on them,” he assures her, leans in for a quick kiss before he proceeds to the front door alone. In all his years at Varykino, Ben has never once received a visitor. Even when the occasional lucky guess leads someone to his grandmother’s estate, the abandoned house is usually enough to send them away; no one would ever think to look for him in the isolated caretaker’s cottage, after all.

He curls his fingers around the doorknob with a fair amount of trepidation, and turns to shoot Rey a reassuring look over his shoulder before he finally opens the door to find–

“I do so hate it when Phasma is right,” a familiar redhead huffs upon catching sight of him.

“Hux?” Ben blurts out incredulously, blinking twice to make sure he isn’t hallucinating. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by for tea–” Hux says airily before he shoots Ben a scowl. “I’m looking for you, obviously! Twenty-seven goddamn years, Solo. We’ve looked everywhere for you, even placed a reversal charm on that crumbling house up the hill to see if maybe you’d just cloaked yourself. Phas had to go through the original blueprints for this place before she realized where you might be hiding out.”

Ben sighs. “She’s always been sharp,” he concedes before fixing his old acquaintance with a wary look. “Why all the effort, though? Don’t tell me you missed me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Hux snaps even as a grin tugs on the corner of his mouth. “When we heard that you’d left Skywalker for good, Phas and I thought that maybe you might have changed your mind. But I guess…” he gestures at the cottage, at the life and the choices it represents. Even stubborn, determined Hux knows what it means for twenty-seven years to have gone by without Ben contacting him.

“The answer’s still no, Armitage,” he confirms, though he tries to be polite about it. Hux and Phasma are just trying to be good friends, in their own odd way. But Ben has always known that the belonging he seeks won’t come from joining their Dark coven; now that he’s actually found that belonging, he’s less inclined than ever to join them.

Hux gives him a rueful smile. “Suppose I saw that one coming. But if an old friend were to ask for a cup of tea before he hits the road?”

Under any other circumstances, Ben would’ve flung his door wide open and invited the man in. After all, they actually were friends, at some point. In many ways, Hux might even have been the first friend Ben ever had – and the only one, up until Rey. But with Rey in the picture, and in his living room…

Before he can come up with an excuse, the cause of his hesitation snakes her arms around his waist from behind and presses her cheek to his shoulder. “Aren’t you going to invite him in, beloved? He asked so nicely.”

It’s almost comical, the way Hux immediately turns pale as death and drops down to one knee. “Your Majesty!” he cries. “I apologize, I did not know–”

“How could you have?” Rey asks with a dismissive wave of her hand, steps around Ben to look down at Hux. “Rise, Armitage. This isn’t court.”

Ben watches Hux hesitantly straighten up, takes note of the way he doesn’t quite meet Rey’s eyes as he thanks her. “You two know each other?” he asks, glancing between the two of them.

“The First Coven attends court every once in a while,” Rey shrugs. “And his father served Sidious, back in the day.” It’s an interesting bit of information, but nothing Ben didn’t know before. More than anything, it’s a subtle reminder for him to refer to her by her regnal name while they’re in the presence of company just as she does for her grandfather. He catches Rey’s eye and nods, just once, to acknowledge her message.

Rey turns to Hux. “Come in, then. I was just about to brew a pot of nightshade tea, and it’s always too much for one person. Ben here refuses to even try it,” she says with an exaggerated frown and bumps his shoulder teasingly.

“For the last time, it’s poison–” Ben reminds her.

“–which your body is perfectly capable of handling, Skywalker,” Rey points out before she disappears back into the house. She’s oddly convinced that he’s inherited his grandfather’s demonic physiology even though he hasn’t triggered the curse, but Ben’s not about to poison himself just to prove her wrong.

He turns to Hux with a resigned look, that what are you gonna do? half-smile his father used to wear whenever his mother got her way and Han was expected to just go along with it.

Hux returns the look with the wide eyes of someone who’s just woken up to find a dozen ghosts hovering at the foot of his bed. “What in the name of Andeddu?” he whisper-hisses. “Since when do you know Kira Ren?”

“It’s complicated,” Ben shrugs, giving Hux a default answer while he tries to come up with a better one. A year together but they’ve never actually been together in front of anyone else, which means that thus far he hasn’t had to explain the fact that he’s dating the devil.

“I’d say,” Hux snorts delicately, shoulders his way past Ben and watches as he shuts the door. “What the hell is even going on here?”

“Oh,” Rey emerges from the kitchen with a tray floating after her, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Hux blanch at the realization that she’s overheard their conversation. Show-off, Ben mouths fondly at her as she gestures for them to come sit in the living area. “I’ve recently started courting your friend here,” she announces casually, settling into the sofa with Ben while Hux takes the armchair. “Ben would make a strong King, don’t you think, Armitage?” Rey asks sweetly as she hands their guest a cup of tea.

Hux bows his head in thanks. “Certainly, Your Majesty,” he agrees immediately.

“And a handsome one too,” Rey sighs fondly as she raises a hand to caress Ben’s jaw, and he catches a glimmer of mischief in her eyes before she turns back to Hux. “We haven’t had a handsome King in centuries.”

The look on Hux’s face when he realizes she expects him to respond to that makes Ben snort into his teacup. The redhead clears his throat – twice – and begins with a shaky, “Um…”

It’s amusing, but Hux is beginning to turn as red as his hair, and only seems to get more nervous when Rey leans forward with interest. “Kira,” Ben says firmly, quietly.

“Oh, all right, I’ll stop teasing,” she grins, tosses her head back in that Kira Ren laugh that’s nothing like Rey’s. It’s somehow evaded him up until this very moment, the realization of how differently Rey is carrying herself around outside company, around a subject of hers. “So, Armitage, will we be seeing you at court this fortnight?”

Hux’s relief at the change in conversation lasts for all of five seconds. “Most likely, Your Majesty,” he grimaces. “We’ve been having some trouble with the Hutt tribe again–”

“Jabba?” Rey interrupts, her voice deceptively even. He knows for a fact that she detests the greedy Hutt and his network of criminals, and has a plan in the works to get rid of them eventually without collapsing the Underworld’s trade economy, but Rey keeps that admirably under wraps as she calmly addresses Hux. “Why wait until court, now that you and I are both here to speak of it? I’ll send a knight to check on the situation,” she decides. “Remind me, Armitage: you and Osado Ren get along well, don’t you?”

“We…” Hux does his best to hide his disdain, but Ben knows him well enough to see through his poor attempt at a mask. “We can be civil, Your Majesty.”

Rey can see through him too, if the way her shoulders shake is any indication. “No, you most absolutely can’t,” she titters. “I can’t tell who’s worse, the two of you or Phasma and Ẹsan. I’ll send Tiếc then, shall I?”

A quiet sigh of relief escapes Hux. “Her Majesty is very considerate,” he says deferentially, looking down at his teacup.

“See?” Rey nudges Ben’s shoulder with a grin. “I told you my subjects love me.”

He’s struck by the urge to kiss her forehead, but they’ve never really discussed the protocol for affection in front of her subjects. Ben gives her a fond smile instead. “Never doubted it, sweet–”

A sharp hiss from her lips silences him immediately, and both he and Hux watch on in concern as Rey sets her cup down on the coffee table with a clatter. She gets to her feet with a thunderous expression on her face, the kind that reminds him of just who she really is.

“What is it?” Ben asks softly.

When she turns to him, her scowl untwists itself and turns into a milder frown instead. “My knights,” Rey tells him. “They’ve found something.” She leans down briefly, presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ll be back later.”

To Hux she says, “It was nice to see you, Armitage,” and with that, Rey disappears.

“So…” Ben mumbles after a while, when the lingering smoke of Rey’s transportation has finally dissipated. “That was weird.”

“You’re telling me,” Hux snorts, instantly at ease now that his Queen is no longer present. “I’d always heard that she’s a different person around her knights, but I never expected to actually see it. I mean, she laughed!” he exclaims, throwing one hand up for emphasis. “Kira Ren laughed, and it wasn’t cruel!”

Ben can’t help the frown that tugs at his lips. “I was actually talking about you being a complete suck-up, but what do you mean?”

“You’d be a suck-up too if you’d ever seen her in her element,” the redhead huffs defensively. “I once watched her hang a man on a butcher’s hook and slowly tear him apart over the course of three days.”

Nausea rises to the back of his throat even as his mind automatically rejects this information. He flinches, just the slightest bit, and Hux instantly realizes what he’s done.

“She had her reasons,” he hurries to explain. “The man had been selling children into sexual slavery.”

“Oh,” Ben says softly, relaxing shoulders that he hadn’t even realized he’d tensed. This sounds more like his Rey, more like the Kira Ren who spends her free time hunting down targets like the murderer from the night they met.

Hux sets his tea down, leans forward. “She’s not a monster, Ben,” he says gently.

“I never said she was.”

“I know,” Hux acknowledges, holds his palms up in a wordless request for peace. “But I also know that your family hasn’t left you with the best impression of us Darksiders,” he adds. “Kira Ren isn’t like the others before her, Ben. She can be brutal, yes, but never unfairly so. She’s a good Queen.”

Ben nods. And then, because Hux knows him well enough to know that he needed to hear that, because Hux probably knows him better than anyone else aside from Rey, he asks, “Do you think it can work? Me and her?”

Hux considers it for a moment. “As odd as it’ll be to call you my King,” he grimaces briefly before settling into a rare genuine smile, “I can see it, the two of you.”

The thing is, Ben’s starting to see it too.

And it’s more terrifying than anything he’s ever faced before.

A lot of things about Hux’s visit stay with Ben, but none more so than the confirmation that Rey really does act like a completely different person around him. He’d had his suspicions before, in the early days of their friendship when he first noticed her shedding Kira Ren’s sharp smiles and veiled threats to reveal something infinitely softer and more genuine, but now the concrete knowledge keeps him up at night while she sleeps in his arms.

And with it, a question: which one is the real her?

Ben keeps his mouth shut for two months, tells himself that he’s overthinking things and confronting Rey on this would just hurt her. It’s a good enough strategy, until she comes back from a week-long campaign one night with ancient chaos in her amber eyes and electrifying bloodlust humming in her veins.

“Rhelg,” she grins triumphantly before he even asks, and staggers into his arms. Her armor is made entirely of dragon scales, impenetrable by both weapons and spells, and it scrapes against his palms when he wraps his arms around her. “And Ziost, too.”

They’re significant wins, symbolic takings that will definitely expedite her reunification efforts, but Ben can’t focus on anything other than the smell of blood clinging to her and the shadow of death curled around her Force signature. With his chin resting on the crown of her head and his lips tingling from her static-charged hair, he asks, “Is this who you really are?”

Rey tenses in his arms, backs away to look up at him. “Ben?” she questions, her eyes wide and confused but still ringed with amber, the same amber that flashes in her eyes when she’s chasing her pleasure in wild abandon, when she guides him down to where she wants him with hands so tight around his head he thinks they might crush his skull, when she digs her nails into his shoulder until blood runs down his chest as she moves above him. After, she likes to press gentle kisses of wordless apology to his bloodied shoulders before she looks up at him, and every single time without fail he catches her licking a drop of his blood off her lips as the amber in her eyes recedes and returns her to him.

He thinks of the shiver that runs down his spine whenever that happens, and it gives him the strength to continue. “To me you’re Rey, you’ve been Rey since almost the start. But around Hux and on the battlefield and sometimes even with me, you become a completely different person. You become the person I met that first night, the one I thought for sure was going to kill me the second she tracked me down again.”

“So I’m asking you,” Ben pauses, takes a deep breath to steady himself even as his heart weakens at the sight of Rey’s trembling lower lip. “I’m asking you, which one is the real you? My Rey, or Kira Ren?”

His heart feels like it might stop when Rey extricates herself from his arms and hops up on his kitchen counter the way she did that first sunny afternoon. “I was twenty-eight,” she says quietly, after worrying her lip for a bit, “when Snoke first appeared to me.”

“He’d been in my head for much longer than that, of course,” Rey informs him with a slight huff, a bitter half-laugh. “Since I was a baby, practically. When my mother was born, Palpatine took one look at her and knew she’d never manifest. When I was born, my grandmother took one look at me and knew I’d be everything Palpatine could’ve ever wanted in a daughter. And I’ve never been able to figure out, in the century since, whether that darkness she felt was me or Snoke.”

Ben hesitates, decides to step closer in a show of support but doesn’t reach out to touch her. “But I thought your grandmother–”

“–died when I was still a baby, yes. But she left her diaries behind, and I guess even my desperate alcoholic parents knew better than to try and pawn off a witch’s memoirs. When my parents abandoned me, I knew nothing about my family. Everything I knew about myself, about the voices in my head and the strange things I could do, I learned from my grandmother’s diaries,” Rey admits quietly, as if that’s something to be ashamed about. Compared to him, compared to the legacy drilled into his head before he could even string a sentence together, he sees why she might feel that way.

“So when I finally snapped, when I claimed my first kill and triggered the curse, what Snoke found was a clueless, scared child instead of the formidable heir he’d been hoping to turn against Palpatine. He ran with it anyway – he was always such a desperate, grasping man –,” she mutters darkly, lips curling in disgust, “and presented me to his troops as the future Queen. And there was this weight – Snoke’s expectations of me, a thousand demons just staring at me – I just… I panicked. I took all the worst things I’d read about demons in my grandmother’s diaries, all the ugliest things people in Jakku whispered about Darksiders, and I turned all of it into Kira Ren, into the demon queen they wanted.”

Rey looks up at him, holds out a hand beseechingly, and he immediately reaches for her. “That’s what Kira Ren is,” she whispers, leans forward to rest her head against his chest with a shaky breath. “Rey… I never got a chance to know her, before. I was six when my parents disappeared, and something in me just knew that they were never coming back. My father never cared, not really, and in my grandmother’s diaries I’d read all about the voices in my mother’s head, the ones that overwhelmed her and drove her out of her mind because she didn’t have the power to temper them. My grandmother knew that her daughter wouldn’t survive for long, even with all of the alcohol in the world to drown out the voices. It doesn’t matter what happened to my father; even if my mother was the only one to die, he would never have come back for me anyway.”

There’s a muffled sniff against his shirt, and Ben’s free hand, the one not holding hers for dear life, immediately wraps around her waist and pulls her closer. Rey goes quiet after that, but he can feel the way his shirt grows damp with her tears, the way she shudders in his arms.

It feels like hours pass before she pulls away and wipes at her cheeks. “I became what I had to be in order to survive. There was no Rey, there was only the girl who scavenged and traded, the girl whose only friends were the voices in her head. After I killed Snoke and took the throne and met my knights, that changed a bit. But it wasn’t until I met you, Ben,” she drops her voice into an awed murmur, cradles his jaw in her hand like the most precious thing, “that I discovered who I really am, as Rey. Before this I didn’t know my favorite food, and I didn’t know the way I curl around someone in my sleep, and I didn’t know all the little things that make me happier than any victory ever could. Everything about Kira Ren I came up with, I chose. Everything about Rey I’ve discovered with you, as if she was living in me my whole life just waiting until it was safe for her to appear. And I think…” Rey falters, offers him a hesitant, hopeful little smile, “I think that makes her the real me.”

Ben has made many mistakes in his life. Asking Rey to define herself, to retread the painful path of her past in order to prove herself to him, has got to be the absolute worst one. “I think so too, sweetheart,” he whispers as he leans in to press their foreheads together, remorse weighing heavy on his heart and demanding amends. “No, I know so. I know the real you, and I love you more than words could ever say.”

The first time he told her he loved her was months ago, nearly a year now. In the time since he’s said it hundreds, if not thousands of times, but Rey looks at him now as if it’s the first time all over again and her eyes shine with adoration and joy.

“I love you too,” she smiles through tears, and brings him down for a kiss. It’s tender even as she grips his hair so hard he thinks she’ll rip chunks of it out, even as he pulls at her armor until his palms are covered in scratches from the scales. Rey laughs against his lips when he hisses in pain, pulls back and looks him in the eye as she waves her hand over the front of her suit to materialize a hidden zipper.

The armor, priceless and irreplaceable, slinks to the ground and remains forgotten in his kitchen until much, much later that night, when the sweat on their bodies has cooled and they’re finally capable of coherent thought again.

“I should store it,” Rey says half-heartedly after a good laugh over the realization of her priceless suit’s whereabouts. She makes no move to get out of bed though, and Ben deters her from doing so by curling an arm around her waist.

“So, Rhelg and Ziost,” he muses, and leans down to press a kiss to her temple. “Congratulations, my Queen.”

Rey peers up at him from where she’s using his shoulder as a pillow. “Empress, soon,” she reminds him with a pleased little smirk, and Ben tries to hide his trepidation at that but something – his eyes, probably, it’s always his damn eyes – must give him away, because Rey’s smirk flattens into a mildly displeased look.

“Beloved,” she sighs, props herself up with one hand braced on the mattress and her palm curved around her cheek. “I don’t know what more I can say about this to make you change your mind.”

“I don’t think you can,” Ben murmurs gently, reluctant to get into this again. It’s still the only real argument they ever have, the only thing they can never agree on. And it’s the one thing standing in the way of their life together. “It’s just… it’s an empire, Rey. And I love you, and I trust you, but every single Dark empire in history has turned out the same way.”

“But who says it has to be Dark?” Rey challenges him, pulls herself up so that she’s sitting cross-legged and staring down at him. “I told you, Ben: balance. And I know,” she adds before he can voice his skepticism once again, “I know I’m more Dark than Light, that I don’t have the capacity for goodness in me.”

“Rey, no–”

She shakes her head at him, smiles almost sadly. “It’s not in my blood, Ben – the same way that Darkness is. And that means that I can control the Dark, that I can keep it in check and make sure it doesn’t overwhelm the Light. That’s what I’m trying to do,” Rey admits for the very first time, and he barely even catches what she says next, too surprised by this revelation to process anything else. “That’s the best I can do.”

He surges up to match her position, to get a better look at her. “Why didn’t you– Rey, you never told me that that’s– if I had known–”

“Would it really have changed anything?” she asks plainly.

“Well, I thought you were reviving your grandfather’s empire to amass untold Dark power and you’re telling me you’re doing it to contain Darkness instead so yes, Rey, it changes everything!”

“Not everything, Ben,” Rey says softly, shakes her head again with that sad smile he’s starting to hate. It’s wrong on her, resignation on a woman who burns so brightly and fights so fiercely. “I’m still reunifying the empire. I’m still asking you to rule with me. I’m still asking you to become a demon with me, and I know, I know better than anyone else that that doesn’t necessarily mean turning Dark, but realistically…” she shrugs, and it’s like a jolt to his system, to hear the terms of their future laid out so clearly and bluntly.

They sound so simple, these things that she asks of him in return for a lifetime of love, and yet... “Rey,” he rasps, his chest tight with indecision and conflict. “Rey, I…”

Rey sighs and curls up by his side again, presses her ear to his heart as she’s taken to doing in the last few months. “Let’s just go to sleep, Ben.”

She wraps herself around him, one hand across his middle and her leg splayed across both of his, and nestles deeper into him.

It’s been a long day, a stressful day. That’s the only possible explanation for why the idea of giving in to her terms seems less daunting now than ever before. In the morning, it’ll feel impossible again and there’ll still be no end in sight to their situation.

“Good night, sweetheart.”

In the morning, it doesn’t feel impossible.

A week later, he starts considering the logistics of it all, of leaving behind his life and triggering the curse and ruling by Rey’s side. The curse weighs on him heaviest of all, having struggled against it all his life, and even the knowledge that Rey could probably direct him to some scum of the earth who would more than deserve to meet their end doesn’t make the idea of spilling blood any easier to stomach.

But a month later she starts struggling and kicking in bed, cries and begs not to be left alone until he finally manages to wake her, and as she shakes in his arms for the rest of the night Ben decides that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that can stand between the two of them, that can stand in the way of his promise that she’ll never be alone again.

During a rare morning alone, Ben picks up a framed picture of his parents and runs his thumb over Han’s preserved memory. “I’m sorry,” he says, struggling to get the words past the lump in his throat. “I know this isn’t what you wanted for me, but you always believed me when I said there was another way. I think this is that way, Dad. I think… I think there could be balance, for once.”

Maybe Han would’ve sighed heavily, and maybe he would’ve grumbled under his breath for a bit, but at the end of the day Ben likes to believe that he would’ve reached out, placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and encouraged him to do something, anything to end this stupid war between his mother’s people. And Rey’s idea of preserving the Light from afar without meddling in it, of keeping the Dark prosperous without strengthening it? It might be just the thing.

His mother and his uncle won’t understand, might never understand. But as long as he can look at this picture of his father and feel at peace with the memory of Han’s dying wish, Ben is okay with that.

“Hey,” he says two days later, smiles when Rey looks up at him while milk drips from her spoonful of cereal. “We spend all of our time here, in my place.” It’s not just his place anymore, hasn’t been for a while now really, but still. “I was thinking maybe we should go to your home, today.”

Rey drops her spoon back into the bowl, and neither of them notice the way milk splatters over the rim and splashes everywhere. “Ben,” she breathes, her smile blinding. “Really? You’re ready to visit Korriban?”

It’s not so much a visit as it is a formality, a final inspection before he commits to a decision he’s already made. But he can’t let her know that just yet, just as he doesn’t let her know about the velvet drawstring pouch in the inner pocket of his jacket and the ring he intends to have on her finger by the end of the day.

“Yeah, I am,” Ben tells her, opens his arms just in time for her to barrel into him and shower kisses on every part of him that she can reach.

“Can we go now?” Rey asks, her eyes wide and bright with joy and anticipation. “There’s so much I want to show you, and I want you to meet my knights, and – oh, the garden, I really want you to see the garden–”

He laughs softly at her excitement, stands up with Rey still clinging to his neck. “Yes, sweetheart. We can go now.”

It’s been years, decades, since he last transported, and even then it was always his uncle casting the spell and him tagging along for the ride. It’s much the same this time, since Rey is the one who knows where they’re going, but with her all of the intense preparations and careful circles are replaced by simply taking her hand, closing his eyes, and trusting her.

Between one breath and the next Rey steps between worlds and guides him to her home, and when he opens his eyes they’re in the middle of a garden that could only be hers. Flowers bloom everywhere in a wild riot of life and thick green vines crawl over crumbling structures, beautiful and wild and the closest visual representation anyone will ever get to Rey’s chaotic, blinding, pulsing Force signature. She’s changed clothes too, in that blink of an eye between realms, traded his shirt for the black leather look she's always in when she comes home from holding court, but for once his eyes aren’t drawn to her.

“Rey, this is…”

She smiles, laces their fingers together and leads him down a path marked by nothing but telltale trampled grass. “Part of my grandmother’s healer abilities was the power to coax any flower or herb she needed to life. Sometimes,” Rey says quietly as she runs her fingers through a wine-red flower with petals like velvet, “I wonder if maybe I would have been a nature witch, had that path been available to me.”

Sometimes Ben wonders too, tries to imagine what Rey’s life would’ve been like if she hadn’t been claimed by her grandfather’s blood the second she was born. Would they have met, if she’d grown up to become a witch instead? Would she still have the Force, without Palpatine’s blood in her veins? Would they have been married by now, if they were both just practitioners with no moral conundrums standing in their way?

Would he trade everything they’ve shared in the past two years for even the tiniest shot at that life instead?

“I grew up in a barren wasteland instead,” Rey continues, “where the last of the trees succumbed to heat long before I was born and even attempts to grow crabgrass failed. So the minute I found out that all of this was mine,” she sweeps her arm in a wide arc, encompasses as far as the eye can see, “I knew immediately what I wanted to do with this land.”

“It’s beautiful,” Ben assures her, letting his free hand drag past flowers and leaves and little bushes heavy with berries.

Rey’s lips twitch with a little self-conscious smile. “Unusual for a demon queen, I know,” she says almost sheepishly before she comes to an abrupt halt and looks up at him. “But I wanted to show you that there’s life here, Ben. I could give you life and love and light here, even in the most unexpected places, if you–”

“Your Majesty!” a voice hollers in the distance. “Majesty!” it cries again, grows closer until both Ben and Rey turn around to find a lower-ranking demon sprinting across the garden to reach them.

“What?!” Rey growls as the demon reaches them, and Ben can’t tell if he shrinks back because of the ice in Rey’s voice or the heat in her glare.

“F-f-forgive me, M-Majesty,” the newcomer stammers, keeping a safe distance between himself and his Queen. “But you asked to be informed when your knights return–”

Rey blinks. “Oh,” she murmurs. “I did, didn’t I?” She turns to Ben then, waves at the demon. “Beloved, this is my assistant, Mitaka.”

Mitaka falls into a bow so deep and abrupt that Ben nearly winces for his bones. “My lord.”

“Um,” Ben turns to Rey with a helpless little look, clears his throat and awkwardly waves the man up. “Uh, you don’t have to do that.”

The little demon looks scandalized, shocked into such a catatonic state that he doesn’t even react when Rey takes Ben’s hand and tugs him a few feet away. “I’m so sorry,” she tells him with an apologetic little smile. “This is pretty urgent. Do you mind?”

Ben smiles, angles himself so that Mitaka can’t see him tucking a lock of hair behind Rey’s ear. “Sweetheart, you’re the Queen here,” he reminds her. “Go do what you have to do.”

“I’ll try to be quick,” Rey promises and, apparently not sharing his qualms about her subjects seeing her in an affectionate relationship, tugs him down by his collar to kiss him. It’s rougher than usual, admittedly, and to an outsider he probably looks completely lost to her will as she pulls on his hair to adjust the angle to her liking. When she breaks away and licks her lips with a smirk, Ben’s almost reminded of that first night when she stole a drop of his blood. “In the meantime,” Rey raises her voice so that it carries to her assistant, “Mitaka will show you around.”

“Oh,” Ben turns to the other demon. “That’s not necessar–”

“It would be an honor, my lord,” Mitaka says, dropping quickly into another bow. Ben turns to look at Rey, clueless and uncomfortable.

“Might as well get used to it, just in case,” she shrugs, a satisfied little gleam in her eyes. “Osado should be around the East Wing. Maybe you could meet him?” her voice is a little tentative, a little hopeful, and Ben knows how much it’ll mean to her for him to meet one of her knights.

“Sure,” he nods with an easy smile. “That’d be nice.”

Rey beams at him and it’s so at odds with their surroundings, with the persona he was expecting from her in her realm, that it sets him completely at ease. Whatever fears he’d harbored about Rey, about her and their relationship changing once they’re here, seem so ridiculous now. He’s struck by the impulse to ask her right now, but Osado Ren is something of an older brother to her, based on her stories, and Ben figures in lieu of any father figures he should at least make his intentions known to the knight, scope out his reaction to both the engagement and Ben’s eventual ascension.

Still, he can’t help but wince a bit at the way she barks orders at Mitaka as the lower demon flinches and stammers his way through the interaction. But Rey had warned him, hadn’t she? Hierarchy is everything in the Underworld, and the pecking order must always be painfully clear.

“I’ll see you soon, beloved,” Rey smiles as she slinks past him, her exchange with Mitaka apparently done. In this, in the way she carries herself around her subjects, she’s more Kira Ren than Rey. But as Ben watches the sauntering gait of her retreating form, head held proudly high and shoulders deceptively loose, he finds that he’s not too bothered by that.

“M-my lord,” Mitaka stammers behind him, and when Ben turns he indicates the opposite direction. “Shall we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ben shrugs and allows himself to be led away. He considers Mitaka for a bit, wonders if now would be a good time to try and get some information, but the poor demon looks jumpy as all hell. Besides, it feels dishonest, to ask around about Rey and her reign behind her back when he’s already decided that he loves and accepts her no matter what.

So they walk in silence, save for Mitaka’s occasional attempts to play tour guide by pointing out noteworthy structures and figures in their path. What feels like minutes but also hours later finds them climbing up the front steps of a looming structure that bears a passing resemblance to the old mansions that house his mother’s Light Council, the only major differences being the color of the façade and the figures carved into the black marble pillars.

Mitaka waves the front doors open with a sweeping gesture and presents the building to him. “The East Wing,” he announces. “Home to Her Majesty’s collections.”

Ben grins to himself. Of course Rey would arrange for him to be brought to her museum-slash-library. “She knows me too well,” he murmurs under his breath as Mitaka crosses to the far end of the hall littered with relics in order to light a fire. The flames crawl rapidly through a network of glass tubes suspended from the ceiling, and soon the whole hall is lit by firelight.

“Sir Ren shall join you momentarily,” Mitaka says, and after another painfully deep bow he closes the doors behind Ben and leaves him to his own devices. Ben takes the opportunity to explore the area, all curved onyx stands and dome-shaped glass cases. A closer inspection finds gold plaques attached to each stand and varying forms of documents contained within the glass cases, but none of the descriptions or parchments are written in any language he’s ever seen.

He’s just stumbled upon the presumable crown jewel of the collection – housed in the center of the hall, on a stand taller and larger than any other, with a description that appears to writhe on its plaque – when the great doors swing open once more.

“Ben!” Osado Ren greets him jovially, instantly recognizable from Rey’s descriptions and the black leather armor he wears, Rey’s sigil burned into the breastplate. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

Osado clamps his hands on either side of Ben’s arms, even though he has to stretch quite a bit to do so, and this close Ben can see the lines on his face that speak of the challenging human existence he’d suffered through before the loss of his love and the senselessness of her death had led him to invoke Rey and bargain with her. “Oh,” Ben mumbles as Osado releases him and takes a step back. “Re– Kira told you my name.” It’s an odd thing to be worried about, after a lifetime of everyone knowing his name, but he figures it’s more or less time to start.

“She’s Rey to us,” the knight assures him. “And you have nothing to worry about – we’re all family here, after all.”

“Family?” Ben echoes curiously. He’s heard Rey apply the term to her knights, and has no doubt that they feel the same way about her, but him?

“Well, Rey extended her home, her care, and her name to us when we had nothing, so yes,” Osado shrugs. “And you’re family to her, which makes us family as well. But,” he pauses, offers Ben a genuine smile, “if it makes you feel better, my real name is Poe. Poe Dameron. There, now we’re even.”

“Um, sure… Poe,” he says hesitantly, but the ever-present smile on the knight’s face remains firmly in place despite the use of his first name. Poe it is, then.

“So, what do we have here?” the knight asks, stepping around him to look at the piece he was studying. As if the plaque itself weren’t unusual enough, the document appears to be carved on a slab of marble rather than written on parchment or vellum like the rest of the collection, and the letters have been filled in with gold to match the veins in the marble. Ben can’t deny that he’s curious, and Poe seems prepared to take on the role of curator.

“Oh, it’s the prophecy! Figures that you’d be drawn to it,” he tells Ben with a knowing smile that makes no sense whatsoever.

“Right, the prophecy,” Ben nods, steps closer. “But what does this say, exactly? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this writing.” A novelty for him, considering all the dead languages his uncle had him study during his earliest years as a mage.

Poe shrugs. “Well, it’s ancient. Only a few of us still know how to read it, and it’s not exactly a skill you can learn,” he explains. “You can only decipher it with Rey’s blessing – which, of course, you’ll get as soon as you two finally make things official.”

The ring in his pocket feels like it weighs a ton. Maybe now would be a good time to talk to Poe about it; he’s not going to ask for permission – Rey is the Queen, after all – but it’d be reassuring to know that the closest thing she has to family is all right with him joining them.

Before he can say anything though, Poe points at the plaque; Ben swears he hears a faint hissing sound when the knight’s hand gets a little too close, and for a second there the writhing turns into the kind of shaking he associates with a provoked snake. Poe chuckles to himself, moves his hand a safe distance away, and the words go back to their endless cycle, almost like an Ouroboros trapped in the form of letters.

“The Eternal Reign of Kira and Kylo Ren,” Poe announces grandly, and playfully elbows Ben as he stage-whispers, “That’s you!”

“Right,” Ben feels more than hears himself murmur, a faint ringing taking up residence in his ears as Poe goes on to describe the contents of the prophecy itself.

“Previous reigns have never lasted longer than five hundred years – the Dark has a habit of consuming itself, self-imploding, plus there’s no shortage of backstabbing and coups, of course,” Poe explains. “But from the very beginning the prophecy has spoken of a couple, both of royal Dark blood in their own rights, neither born in the Dark but both born to the Dark. Sound familiar?”

“Um, yeah,” he forces himself to say, just so that Poe will keep going.

“Apart the two of them are already more powerful than any previous Dark monarch, but together they will be unrivaled in all the universe, their rule secured for millennia to come. You know,” Poe turns back to him, having apparently summarized the whole prophecy to his satisfaction, “for the longest time everyone believed this prophecy was bullshit. It’s been here since almost the beginning, and no one had ever come close to fulfilling it. Even when Rey took the throne and was anointed Kira Ren, no one thought she’d find her Kylo – no one except Rey, anyway. She just knew you were out there, said she could feel it the day you were born and has been waiting every day since.”

I knew Vader had a grandson, but I never bothered looking into it. 

I never saw you coming, Ben Solo. You’re the best surprise that’s ever happened to me.

In a way, we have that tourist killer of yours to thank. Who knows if our paths would ever have crossed otherwise?

The day you were born, Poe says, and Ben thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Hey,” Poe frowns, concern lining his face as he takes in Ben’s blank stare. “Are you okay?”

“I–” the words can barely come out, not with his throat so tight that no air can get it. “I–” Ben tries again, doubles over and closes his eyes, takes deep breaths and counts to ten. “I need to see her. Now.”

Poe looks worried, but there’s no hint of wariness, of realization that he’s just given away his Queen’s master fucking plan. “Yeah, sure. She and the others should be wrapping up soon, anyway. Let’s get you back to your girlfriend, huh?”

It turns out that Mitaka took him on the scenic route; Poe ushers him out through a backdoor and has them in the main structure of the castle grounds within minutes. As soon as the throne room is in sight, Ben speeds up and leaves a puzzled Poe calling out behind him.

“Who–” Rey demands before she sees who it is that’s burst into her throne room without announcement or permission. “Oh,” she smiles, gets up from her throne to walk past her two knights and over to him.

The knights - Ẹsan the boy she rescued the night he killed the warlord who enslaved him and Tiếc the girl who lost a sister when Poe lost a wife – turn to him just in time to hear him say, “Out.”

“Beloved,” Rey frowns, “what–”

“Get out,” Ben commands, and the knights scramble to leave after a quick nod from their Queen. The doors behind them slam shut with a blast of power, the kind of outburst he’s managed to keep in check for decades.

Rey reaches for his hand, eyes wide with concern. “Ben–”

“You lied to me!” he growls, and she staggers back. “You promised me you weren’t just another demon who’d been keeping tabs on me since I was born, you swore you weren’t using me for my powers!”

“Oh,” Rey murmurs to herself, stumbles backwards until she collapses into her throne. “Oh.”

“The night we met – did you plan that?” Ben demands as he advances on her. “Fuck, did you plan all of this? Was it just a game to you all along, Kira Ren? All the others failed, so you decided you’d try good old seduction instead and turn me Dark by breaking my heart, is that it?”

“Ben, no–” she claims, rises from her throne to place a hand over his heart. “None of this was planned, none of it needed to be planned. We were always going to find each other, eventually. We’re fated, Ben, don’t you feel it–”

“Fated for what, Rey?” he spits, pushing her hand aside. “For an eternity of you ruling with me as your attack dog? All those times you brought up how much easier it’d be with me by your side – you never meant as a team. You were talking about my bloodline, about my powers. Fuck, to think that I almost gave in to you–” he curses, stunned by his own blindness after a lifetime of vigilance.

Rey stills, looks up at him with those shiny eyes and trembling lips she wears so well. “You… you what?”

He pulls the pouch from his pocket, tosses it at her with a little too much force. No point in keeping it, anyway, not when he’ll never find a use for it again. Let her have this, then, if she’s so keen on having a piece of Darth Vader’s fucking legacy.

“Ben,” Rey gasps when she fishes the ring out of the velvet bag, holds in her palms the symbol of love his grandfather presented to his grandmother when he promised them a future of light.

“This was never supposed to be just a visit,” he admits, taking a sick sort of pleasure in twisting the knife, in rubbing in just how close she’d gotten to deceiving him. “I was going to ask you to marry me today. Stars, I was going to kill someone for you– fucking idiot,” Ben growls to himself, pulls viciously at his hair while he paces the length of the dais. “Balance? What a load of bullshit, as if the demon queen could ever–”

From her spot where she’s crumbled to the ground, sitting on the stairs leading to her throne, Rey chokes on a sob. “Ben, please, I meant it, I meant all of it–”

“Because you’re the picture of honesty,” Ben scoffs with barely a glance in her direction. “Were you ever going to tell me, Rey? Would you have gone cold the second I tied myself to you and your mission was accomplished? Or, no, wait,” he hates how cruel he sounds, hates how his lips twist into a sneer when he finally turns back to her, hates the fact that he’s hurting her even though she’s cut him deeper than anyone ever could, “you would’ve kept it going a little while longer, wouldn’t you, until we had that big family you’re always talking about. A whole army of the most powerful demons to ever exist, you wouldn’t even need me after that–”

“Don’t!” Rey snaps, pulls herself up and dries off her tears. “Think what you want, Ben, but don’t ever imply that I would’ve used our children–”

“–the way you tried to use me?”

“Fine, yes!” she cries, and it’s almost a relief to have confirmation, to know for sure. Now he can walk away with no what-ifs, no regrets–

“Yes, damn it, I wanted you for the prophecy, but not the way you’re twisting it!” Rey claims, a little scream of frustration lodged in her throat. “I’d been alone all my life, Ben, and here was a prophecy telling me that my perfect mate was somewhere out there, that once I found him I’d never be alone again, never be in danger again – whatever twisted idea you have of me using you, it was never going to be like that.”

He wants, so desperately– “How can I believe you, Rey? How can I ever trust you again?”

This time, when she reaches for him he lets her. “I could swear on my grandfather’s grave,” Rey whispers. “I could swear on my throne, on my life. But we both know these things don’t mean anything to me.”

“How convenient,” he mutters, but doesn’t shake her hand off his.

“But if you trust me, Ben, if you give me another chance – I will swear on our love, on our children, on the only things that matter to me,” she says fervently, digs her nails into his arm, “that you will never regret it.”

Ben scoffs. “That’s a bit of a gamble, isn’t it? What love, Rey? What love, Kira?”

Her nails break his skin. “Stop calling me–”

“It’s who you are, isn’t it?” he confronts her, that old fear that never quite let go of him bursting to the surface, sustained all the months by the amber flashes of her eyes and her callous treatment of others. Idiot, idiot, idiot, what an idiot all along to believe that he was the only one, that he was special enough to change her– “Whoever it is I deluded myself into seeing… she never existed, did she? It was you all along, tricking me, manipulating me, playing me like a goddamn fiddle and I fell for it all like the lovesick fool that I was–”

“Don’t,” Rey whispers, a fresh wave of tears shining in her eyes. “Don’t say that. Don’t say was as if you don’t love me anymore.”

And fuck it all but he does, she almost tricked him into an eternity of Darkness but it still hurts to see her this way, still kills him to know that he’s the one making her cry– “I love Rey,” Ben croaks in an attempt to cling to reason. “I love the woman I’ve spent the past two years with. If she never existed then–”

“She did, she does,” Rey insists as she hooks one leg around his ankle and knocks him off his feet, tackles him to the ground and softens the blow with her hands around the back of his head. “I love you. I’m her and I’m here and I love you, Ben please–”

“Please,” she whispers, brings her hands to cradle his face, her thumbs caressing his jaw the way she does when she’s trying to wake him gently in the morning, the way she does when they’re curled up together in front of the TV and her fondness for him overflows. “Please, Ben, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.”

He closes his eyes, lets his head fall against the harsh marble floor as she invokes his oath.

“You promised, Ben,” Rey says quietly, her voice small like a child’s, like the lonely child she’s been all her life, the one that calls to his soul the way every other part of her matches every other part of him. So different, so alike, perfect mates the prophecy calls them.

The prophecy he knew nothing about, the prophecy that’s a hundred times worse than the destiny he’s been trying to outrun all his life, and where did that get him? All that running, a lifetime of it, and here he is anyway, his soul in the balance, his heart in Rey’s hands–

Would it be so bad? If she’s trying so hard to keep him now, if she tries this hard for the rest of their lives… would it be so bad even if this is a lie?

No worse than the alternative, than walking away from her today and spending the rest of his life wondering about the truth, looking over his shoulder, dreading the day his fate catches up with him… that’s not a life. Not the life his father would have wanted for him, not the life he wants for himself.

Ben takes a deep breath, pictures the life he’s been dreaming of since the day the devil appeared in his kitchen, and comes to a decision.

“I promised,” he concedes, opens his eyes and lets his hands rest on her waist. “I promise. You’ll never be alone again.”

This morning he was willing to fall to the Dark side for her love.

Everything, and yet nothing, has changed since then.

Rey smiles at him, and he ignores the flash of amber in her watery eyes as she leans down to kiss him. “You won’t regret this,” she murmurs against his lips. “I swear, Ben, on our happiness, I won’t let you regret this. We’ll be so good together, you’ll see, no one will ever stand in our way, no one will ever tear us apart–”

Because no one will ever be capable of it, but he kisses her again before she can remind him of that, of the fate he’s giving in to. Rey leans back, rests against his bent knees and produces something with a twist of her wrist.

The ring, he realizes as she hands it to him almost shyly. She must’ve hidden it away for safekeeping.

He had a speech planned, this morning. All of the sacrifices he’s willing to make for her, all of the love that overwhelms him each and every second.

Now… now there’s nothing left to say. Ben takes her hand, notes that they’re both shaking and tricks himself into letting that make him feel better, into letting that make him believe her.

The ring is a perfect fit, just like he always knew it would be.

Rey leans down, kisses him with a smile on her lips and warm tears that burn his cheeks. “My turn,” she whispers an eternity later, pulls him up with her and leads him to the throne where her sigil is carved into the gleaming onyx.

“This is my throne, my empire, my power,” she intones, still holding his hand, still smiling. “And all this I choose to share with you, will share with you for as long as we both live.”

She takes his hand, presses his palm to her sigil. The carved lines of the rune turn red, and his palm tingles but does not burn. Rey holds his hand in place, waits for a sign only she knows.

When the red glow disappears, she pulls his hand away and turns his palm to him so that they can see the mark he will carry for eternity slowly sink under his skin.

“It’s different,” Ben realizes with a start, looks up at the throne once the sigil on his palm disappears and finds that it’s changed too, grown more complex somehow, more complete.

“It’s ours now,” Rey tells him, uses his hand to trace out a mark he recognizes from before. “Kira,” she reads, and then traces the newer lines, “and Kylo Ren.”

She lets go of his hand to step behind him, wraps her arms around his waist and presses her lips to the back of his neck. “My consort. My emperor. My Kylo,” she whispers, her voice warm with affection but dark with triumph.

And Ben, newly engaged and crowned–

–Ben stares at the sigil, their sigil, and doesn’t let himself turn back to see what color her eyes are.

Not my usual ‘and they lived 100% happily ever after’ ending, but this was never meant to be my usual kind of story. This chapter - this whole fic, really - hinged on the big reveal. I hope I managed to pull that off.

When I first came up with this idea months ago, it was meant to be a tiny one-shot posted alongside all the rituals between you and me as a pair of parallel fics. Obviously that didn't pan out, and I ended up spending months adding bits and pieces to my original outline without knowing if this fic would ever see the light of day.

Now it's done and it's out there in the world, and I can only hope even a fraction of the people reading this have enjoyed this odd little tale as much as I enjoyed bringing it to life. (And psst, if you did: stay tuned for a slightly risqué - by my standards, anyway - bonus scene/epilogue coming soon!)

As always, thank you so, so much for reading. If you enjoyed this fic and/or have any thoughts/comments/questions, please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment.

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 18

As we self-manage and discuss of how to apply ourselves the best, we reach the second floor of the dungeon.

The ambiance feels different. It feels like my surroundings changed from stone-built to a natural cave. Moreover, the miasma is definitely denser down here. This air is clean and fresh, straight from Mother Nature! is what I’d say. But for your average Joe, it’s more than likely to be suffocating. It doesn’t seem like many people come here to this dungeon. Knowing they’d be forced to fight in an environment like this, adventurers wouldn’t come here either. It also looks like there’s many places you could get ambushed from too.

As well, there are monsters standing guard at the entrance to the second floor. Monsters named Claret Sunflower are wriggling its roots and moving about. With their leaves, they hold spears that looks like they’re made from stems of a plant.

‘Aye… it is a well-known monster. It might have only recently made this dungeon home.’

Are we gonna be okay?

‘If you pay attention to the movement of the minions, you should have control over most of the situation. Its command and management seem to be lacking. They cooperate better when closer to their stronghold, but on the upper floors, the small fry do not pay much attention.’

Oh, that right? Now I’m kinda curious to how Veno’s lair is. Actually, if worse comes to worst, could I take refuge there?

‘You… you foolish humans too have a culture of locking doors when leaving home, do you not?’

Why are you asking me so nicely? Wait, don’t tell me… you locked your place up?

‘Aye. In my current state, I cannot unlock my own lair. I employ no underlings either, so expecting assistance there would be unwise.’

What, so I can’t take refuge there? Well, I don’t exactly wish to hole up and fight to my death in a dragon’s lair…

‘We shall advance whilst retreating! To battle!’ “Sure, sure. Muu, you ready?” “Mu!”

Muu voices his determination, so let’s go. We were investigating the second floor, but…

“Muu muu!”

Muu snapped at me over the present situation. We enter a battle with three Claret Sunflowers. Muu deftly pulls aggro away from me, but we devolved into a messy situation. I’m unable to fire my crossbow in fear of accidentally hitting Muu. Fortunately, by deploying poisonous mist with Poison Release, I was able to create some distance from the enemies. That also enabled me to take a few rapid-fire shots, taking them down. However, Muu angrily scowled at me.

‘I realized that you were trying to avoid hitting Muu and I am sure it also understood that. However, the difference is slight between that and Muu fighting alone.’ “Muu!” “I know, but—” ‘Sometimes, your best offense can be your best defense. And as Muu has Self-Regeneration, even striking him with your bolt would mean little to it.’ “Mu!”

I gotta say that I am afraid of hitting my allies.

“Isn’t it kinda cruel to say that it doesn’t matter if I hit Muu just because it’s tough?” ‘Think of it as training for you. Being sure in your aim to assist your vanguard should be your attitude. Even if your battle were to fall into disarray, there will be opponents that distance themselves away from Muu, correct? If you target said opponents first and then ones who are to attack Muu, you shall naturally be assisting.’

I understand that Veno’s criticism is fair. Still, I can’t capably make calls like that in the heat of the moment.

‘In your case, you are overly fixating on the enemy’s weak points. What is your profession? It is Poison-Wielder, is it not? Your job is to use poison to weaken your enemies.’ “That means I should use some kind of slow poison… but if I hit Muu with that, it wouldn’t be just nothing…” ‘I can understand your concern. Muu, we shall train afterwards so that you develop a resistance to his slow poison.’ “Mu!”

Comprehending and agreeing to Veno’s proposal, Muu nods. I want to rely on it… but is that a good direction to head to? Towards Muu being fine even with me hitting it? I’m not so sure about to what extent the power of my poison is. Filing that feeling away, we continue our capture of the second floor.

‘Aye… it is a shame we have not found a treasure chest or the likes, but for harvestable plants, we have much we can pick.’ “You’re talking about poisonous herbs and poisonous mushrooms?”

There’s even poisonous pollen. There are several pools of poison here and there for me to heal up in, so I can comfortably fight in this dungeon. I dare say this dungeon might even be one that fits me the best. If it was fire or water—no, even if this were a non-elemental dungeon, we wouldn’t have done so well so far.

“Mu!” “Muu, you’re almost messed up in the head how happy you are charging in and killing your own kind.”

At first, Muu was excited to get into fisticuffs with a Chartreuse Green Poison Shroom. In the end, Muu’s opponent received too many heavy blows and was literally torn to shreds.

The number of spores scattered in the air during that fight was just awful.

“Muu?”

On our way, Veno highlights and pings what he calls treasure, telling me to collect it. But all it is and what’s it all is just poisonous stuff.

Dietetrodake A mushroom with toxin so strong, simply touching its spores will cause numbness. Upon human consumption, it induces whole-body paralysis and death within minutes. It is a poor choice for assassination as its flavor and odor are terrible.

I am extremely concerned about that last part, but I ignore it.

Red Deathfire A red flame-like grass. Its toxicity is powerful but compounding it other plants will increase efficacy. Take caution when handling as direct contact with the plant leads to inflammation.

I guess this one’s slightly better in a sense. Is this a pile of treasure or a pile of trash…? Well, the number of poisons I can use goes up, so that can only mean our fighting strength goes up too. It seems like these poisonous herbs are considerably valuable as well. More than anything, though, is that these plants are difficult for normal people to bring back home.

Yet… if I weren’t a Poison-Wielder, I couldn’t have gone this deep into the dungeon. I totally understand why Arleaf only stays on the first floor. Well, I wouldn’t really want to see her having to fight all these monsters either. But… with a knife in one hand and a smile on her face, I’m sure she’d be gorgeous sneaking around and assassinating monsters too. It’d be like a horror flick though.

‘So, do you wish to see her doing so or not? Have you decided yet?’

I ignore Veno’s quip. Those are tropes that usually come up in stories. The ol’ damsel in distress versus action heroine. It’s not so much which is right and which is wrong though.

“Muu. Muu muu.”

Hmm? Muu is telling us about something. It’s going up and down, kinda like it’s riding on something. Please stop that. That’s indecent.

‘Are you not the one in the wrong here? You are the one imagining this as anything lewd.’

Quit picking on me! Anyway, what’s it trying to say? It’s flexing its biceps now.

‘Aye… it is able to advance classes now.’ “Mu!” “Oh, really?”

I check his status.

Muu Mutated Myconid Fungus Level 10 Acquired skills: Spore Scatter, Self-Regeneration, Stamina Recovery Rate Increase (Weak), Subordinate of Poison-Wielder, Class change available

Subordinate of Poison-Wielder? What’s that? I don’t really get what kind of effect it has. Is there some sort of buff by being my subordinate? Ideally, it’d give Muu some sort of resistance to poison.

‘If it were so, it would indeed be ideal. I have heard that when people gain Subordinate of Dragon, the effects they may gain are fire resistance and toughness.’

Poison resistance isn’t that far-fetched then. But having that said… in Muu’s case, it’s originally a myconid. It would be likely for it to have racial bonus to poison resistance. On the other hand, I can imagine it being weak to fire and stuff.

‘Due to its race… aye. You can alleviate some of your worries if you were to raise its fire resistance with accessories.’

That’s our best guess on what Subordinate of Poison-Wielder does. In any case, Muu is ready for a job change. We’re at a good place to wrap things up, so we should just head home. Not like we want to stay here overnight anyway. Plus, it’s not like we’re here to grind levels for either of us. It was just good timing for us both.

‘Indeed, it is so.’ “Alright, shall we get Muu its job change and go home?” “Mu!”

We go back the way we came from and end up on the relatively safer first floor. We fought some monsters along the way, but none of them would be what we’d call difficult opponents. And so, we end up back at the run-down altar to perform the job change. It’s the same as how I did it a while ago.

‘Good… now then, Muu. Pray in front of the altar. Wish to be stronger, pray for it, and have a clear picture and determination of how you shall use that power.’ “Mu-Muu.”

Muu is visibly nervous. Still, it goes in front of the altar, clasps its hands together, closes its eyes, and then touches the symbol. Just as how it was for me, a soft light envelops our surroundings.

‘Muu, you have chosen to be his subordinate by your own will. It means that you must gain his permission before you proceed with your class advancement.’ “Muu? Muu muu.”

Is it under my care then? I tilt my head over at Muu.

Muu has fulfilled all prerequisites for a class change.

Please select from the following options:

Fungus→ Warrior Ranger Mage Priest

Hey, whoa. There’s so many for it to choose from. I envy how they’re all standard RPG jobs. And it looks like he can sidegrade too, but he hasn’t fulfilled the right conditions to do so yet.

‘I have heard that it takes time and experience in other classes to cross profession branches. Take for example apothecaries. It requires set amount of time in gathering. The simplest methods include belonging to a guild and having someone with an advanced class to witness your profession change.’

Huh… so you’re saying it may be possible for Muu to spec into Poison-Wielder due to me being its senior?

‘That is correct. However, I wonder if it is possible for someone with such an odd job as you have. In your case, you may very well have a specialist class.’

Well, I don’t know how stuff like that in this world works. But I’ve gotta say, Poison-Wielder does sound like quite the specialist class. It’s what they call a debuffer, I think.

“Mu? Mu mu.” “Ahh, alright, alright.”

Muu calls to us deep in talk, hurrying us. Maybe it doesn’t like so much chatter before its big moment. If it were me, I’d like to get on with it and change my job.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread) (please support me on Patreon or Paypal)

[selenelavellan]

Era’harel

Concert AU

Some backstory that’s unlikely to come up naturally so I’m putting it out here. I actually wanted to do more bits, leading up to how Selene lost her  teaching job but this seemed long enough on its own, so that’ll likely be up tomorrow.

TW for Sexual Assault, Death, Violence, Rape, and Shitty Parenting

tagging @feynites for reasons

Era'harel joins clan Ralaferin when he is still a toddler.

His name was different before then. Sweeter, like music when it rolled off of his parents tongues.

But he can't remember it, when he is found. He tries to, tries to remember the way his parents smiled at him, and held him, and how they would call for him near cobbled stones and ratted ceilings. He recalls the warmth, and the love, and the way the sunlight streamed through endless branches of a giant tree in a courtyard. But no matter how he tries, he can not recall the words, in the end.

As he grows, he doesn't think it matters anymore.

“Era'harel,” They call him, as he is taught to string a bow and clean a corpse and sit quietly for a hunt. Something to make him useful, something so he can earn his keep in the clan with no parents and no family to care for him. Some of the members are kind, and he bounces from aravel to aravel wherever room can be spared. Wherever there is a spare bit of love he can snag, or warmth he can gather and tuck away for later.

He is thirteen when he goes to his first Arlathvhen.

It is loud, and raucous and he loves it.

There are so many other elven children to run with and dance with and kiss with, and he discovers that he really, really likes kissing behind the closed flap of a tent.

Or what he thought was a closed flap, until he hears the giggling, and spies several sets of eyes peeking through the cloth like sunlight through branches.

It doesn't bother him, but the other boy blushes and giggles and runs back to the main events with a quick pardon.

He frowns, left alone again and not quite sure where he went wrong, but doesn't think anything more of it.

By the end of the Arlathvhen, he has been traded to the other boys clan, anyways.

“Alaris, First of Clan Lavellan,” he reintroduces himself, as though his tongue had not been down his throat a few days prior.

Era'harel nods, and introduces himself again as Alaris takes him on a tour of the clan site. Lavellan is more centralized than Ralaferin had been. More of its members are reliant on crops and trade than hunts and livestock.

It's nice, but it's also much, much more boring.

The hunting team is smaller, so his workload increases substantially despite it being a less necessary trade here. Hunting becomes a daily ritual, rather than a weekly one. He hates it, really. No time to do anything else, just a repetitive, monotonous list of daily tasks. Wake up too early, fletch some arrows for the following day, inspect the ones from the day before, hunt, clean the kill, eat, sleep, repeat.

Ugh.

At least his dreams are vivid. Parties and people and never having to touch another bow in his life. Visions of massive trees in courtyards, music, laughter. Freedom.

He's grateful that he's been taken in by the Dalish, really. They could have left him to die, and there's always one or two members that won't let him forget it. But he watches the ink on the faces of the other hunters, the bow permanently scrawled over the features, and feels sick at the permanence of it. At being permanently tied some predetermined role that he hates. Life is meant to be enjoyed.

No one else seems to get that.

And then the wyverns come. A small grouping wanders too close to the camp, picking off their usual prey and the hunters all have to scare them off, or hunt them down.

Arrows whiz past his ears, long dark hair blowing past his peripheral vision in the aftermath. The wyverns remain, screeching, and dart towards the group. The hunters leap, climb into the trees effortlessly, as they have done countless times before.

Era'harel stumbles, and falls back onto solid ground. Three scaled down dragons barrel towards him and he panics. He stands, and looses a fireball, managing to strike one right in the eye as it lets out an ear-splitting shriek.

The other two don't even pause, and one slams straight into his ribs before he can run, knocking him flat on his back. The other hunters call for him, and the wyvern rears its head up, teeth gleaming in the sunlight as he prepares for his death.

Several arrows thunk into it before it can tear out his throat, and the beast collapses, dead, on top of him.

Which would be less of an issue, he thinks, if they were not so heavy.

Another hunter slashes the throat of the already blinded wyvern, and the last is taken care of in short order before they are able to pull the carcass off of him. His ribs are crushed, he feels as though his entire body has been flattened out like jerky, and every step he tries to take sends another shot of pain straight through his body. The hunters that are not busy bundling up the wyverns help carry Era'harel back into the clan, and into the healers aravel. They dump him (rather roughly, if you ask him) into the empty patients hammock before leaving to finish the hunt.

Alone again, he sighs. Immediately, he wishes he hadn't as his ribs press painfully back into him with the deep breath.

“You look like hell,” comes a soft voice from behind a shelving unit full of salves and potions. “What did you do?”

“I killed a dragon.” Era'harel lies with a smug grin.

The girl doesn't seem to believe him, on any account. White hair braided down her back, a small curl wisping over her forehead as she strides towards him in traditional healers garb.

She pokes and prods and hems and haws at him, and he relaxes at the attention, until he realizes something odd.

“You look like you're my age.”

“Well, how old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Then I'd say that makes sense, since we are the same age.” she quips.

“Why haven't I seen you before?”

“I'm not always around. The last few years my time has been split between the trade routes and, well,” she gestures to the space around them “being locked away in here.”

Era'harel blinks “They let you go on the trade expeditions?”

“Mm-hm,” the girl grins “I'm good with numbers, and Keeper agrees that I need to get out of my fathers shadow from time to time.”

“Do you get to go into the cities?”

“Sure do.”

Era'harel thinks of giant trees and laughter and ratted roofs, and how much he misses these things he scarcely remembers.

“Could you take me with you?”

She blinks.

“I...don't know. We need the hunters here, for food. There's only about six of you.”

“Well there's only two healers, and they let you go.” he points out.

“That's...” she frowns. “I mean, you're right, but I don't know...”

“What don't you know?”

“You, for starters.”

Era'harel thinks that's probably fair, and gives her the best semblance of a wave and a charming smile as he can manage in his current situation, and introduces himself.

“That's a weird name.” she comments. “They named you 'demon mage'?”

“It's not like I picked it,” he gripes. “So what's your name then, Ms.-hyper-critical-of-naming-customs?”

“...Sulvuna.”

“Oh, 'alive'. That's much better.” He snickers.

Sulvuna turns red beneath the strands of her hair that have come loose in the humidity of the aravel before she pokes him harder than is necessary for her inspection in the ribs. He yelps in pain, and notes the flat 'oops' she gives him in lieu of an actual apology.

She does end up asking if he can go along on the trade routes though. She even goes so far as to lie for him, claiming that his injuries will require more recovery time before he can shoot an arrow or cast a spell correctly. Her father scoffs and derides her for it, and Era'harel pretends not to hear him calling her a disgrace, or notice that it's the first thing he's said to her in the week he's spent resting in their hammock.

Still.

She was willing to stick her neck out for him. He should do something in return, probably.

They're on the road with another elf, a slightly older one who is far taller than any elf really has the right to be with bright orange hair, (“His name's Haleir,” Sulvuna informs him from beneath rosy cheeks and eyes that are trying to act like they aren't focused on him for half their trip) who is in charge of the actual trades. Lots of exchanges made over the years, and Era'harel notices the gifts Haleir buys for Sulvuna on their trips. Nothing extravagant, some clothes and foods and most notably a smooth stone in the shape of a crescent moon that she keeps tucked away on her person, even when they are back at camp.

He also notices Haleir giving gifts to several other members of the clan, when Sulvuna isn't looking.

When they are eighteen and he and Sulvuna consider each other best friends even in the daylight, they go into town with Haleir for the umpteenth time. But their first night, Haleir sends him away. Some errand he says needs to be double checked, and Era'harel goes without question.

When he returns, he finds Haleir asleep beneath the covers of the bed, and Selene with tear streaks down her face, her dress torn and shredded and hanging off her shoulders.

He's frozen in the doorway, her gaze going right through him. Empty, hollow.

Hurt.

And then he is angry. He doesn't ask what happened, doesn't need to, doesn't want to make her say it when he's seen the looks and he's seen the signs and he still trusted them here alone together and he was wrong, he was so wrong, he should have been looking out for her, he's supposed to be her friend damn it.

Era'harel drags Haleir out of bed, slamming him to the floor and shocking him awake.

“What the fuck-” Haleir screams.

“How dare you!” Era'harel interrupts “How dare you, she trusted you, the clan trusted you and then you turn around and pull this sort of shit, you fucking monster-!”

“Era-” Sulvuna whispers, moving to stand from the bed. Haleir speaks again and she winces, immediately sitting down as he starts yelling excuses to Era'harel about how it wasn't his fault, and of course she wanted it too, she just doesn't know how to have a good time, and it's right around this time that he stops listening and smashes his fist into the side of Haleirs jaw, instead.

Sulvuna freezes, stunned, still caught trying to figure out what the best course of action might be. Haleir, clearly unused to being held accountable for his own actions, is momentarily stunned as well before he pulls back and strikes at Era'harel, who narrowly ducks out of the way and uses the momentum to slam Haleir face down onto the bed, twisting his arms painfully behind his back until he's screaming in pain instead of anger, and pleading to be let go.

“Apologize.” Era'harel grits out.

Haleir is silent, until his arm is twisted tighter behind him, and he yells once more before finally saying “Fine, fine!” he turns his head slightly, to look at Sulvuna “Sorry for giving exactly what you wanted you fuckin-”

“That is not an apology!” Era'harel roars, before kneeing him as hard as he can in the groin and slamming the taller elf back into the wall. Haleir crumples to the floor, unconscious, while Sulvuna stares uncertainly back at Era'harel.

“I...thank...thank you?” She manages, voice scratchy and raw enough to break on the higher tones.

He sighs, and pulls her tightly into his arms. Tries to emulate what he knows is supposed to be reassuring. “I'm sorry,” he mumbles into her hair. “I shouldn't have left.”

“It wasn't your fault...” She whispers back, arms awkwardly coming up to wrap back around him. “You didn't know. I didn't know. These things happen.”

“That's not- That's not true, Sulvuna. The world doesn't have to be like this. Not everyone is like him, I've slept with plenty of people, and none of them were-none of them did anything like this! You're not supposed to!”

“It doesn't matter.” she whispers back with a shake of her head “It doesn't-I don't..It doesn't matter. It happened, and nothing I do will change that. I just...can we...can we go for a walk or something? I'd really like to...to not be here, right now.”

“Yeah,” Era'harel swallows, handing her his traveling cloak. “Yeah, wherever you want to go.”

She nods, and thanks him as she dons his cloak, and they step back out into the hallway.

They end up walking all the way back to the clan, without Haleir, and without going back.

Era'harel confronts her father first. He's a healer, and he's her father, and that means he should be the one to help her here, right? You're supposed to see a doctor after stuff like this, he's pretty sure.

But it becomes clear early into the conversation, Sulvuna thankfully still outside, that Elrogathe has no desire to try to fix the situation.

“I don't see the problem.” He shrugs without even looking up from his work.

“You're shitting me, right? Haleir raped your daughter, and you 'don't see the problem'?”

“Haleir is going to be bonded to Sulvuna soon, and then she will be expected to have relations with him regularly so that they can have children and strengthen the clan.”

“And if he knocked her up already?” Era'harel manages through grit teeth.

“Then for once in her life, my daughter will be ahead of the curve.”

The nonchalance grates at him. He should care, he should love her, parents are supposed to love their children. Era'harel can not even remember his parents faces, but even he knows that. Purple flames lick at his arm, and Elrogathe finally glances up from his work table when he smells the smoke.

“Please do not set the aravel on fire. It would set me back by months on work.”

“What is wrong with you? Doesn't Sulvuna matter to you at all?! Isn't her well-being important to you?”

“Sulvuna is important to the clan. Her mother and I are both from long lines of Dalish blood, as are Haleir and his parents. I wouldn't expect a shemlen like you to understand.”

“Excuse you?”

“Do you prefer demon spawn, then? I assumed Shemlen was the polite thing to call you.”

“I am not-my parents were-”

“Your mother was a whore from the city, who ran away when your father was slaughtered by templars. Keeper Ralaferin found her standing over you, already a demon, an abomination given in to her sin entirely. Ralaferin has always been a soft clan. They slew her to save her, and took you in in the hopes that a proper upbringing could make you better. An offering of repentance to the gods, to show that even the doomed could be saved.” Elrogathe leans back in his chair, raising one eyebrow.  “They were wrong, of course. We took you in, because we needed more hunters. But a demon dressed as an elf is still a demon in the end. You are still not one of us, nor will you ever be. And the next time you fall ill, do not expect me to save you. It is not worth wasting the resources anymore.”

“That's enough.” Sulvuna insists from the doorway, fists tight at her sides. “You are being needlessly cruel. Era'harel is a good person-”

“We call him demon for a reason, Sulvuna-”

“And yet his heart is kinder than yours.”

Elrogathe tsks, and returns to his work as Sulvuna snags Era'harel hand in hers and drags him out of the aravel.

“I'm sorry, for what he said.” she apologizes. “He was out of line.”

“Is it true?”

Sulvuna blinks.

“Is it true?” Era'harel repeats, more insistently.

“I...I don't know,” she admits. “I've never known him to lie, though.”

It stings. It stings, the only thing anyone has told him about his parents in years, and it's this. Slaughtered, given in to temptation. Temptation he's been eyeing himself, in dreams. Memories tainted, smiles and warmth and love all ended with blades.

His end too, probably.

Sulvuna hugs him.

She doesn't say anything, usually not one to initiate physical contact, especially given recent events, but she steps in and wraps her arms around him and pulls him into her until his head is on her shoulder and he returns the embrace.

And then he cries. He cries, and he howls for the first time in his memory as she holds him and hums old songs into his ear, and takes him to one of their more secluded spaces in the woods, one of their bottles of alcohol still hidden in the trunk of the tree.

They stay there like that until the sun begins to set. Sulvuna still stroking his back gently, soothingly. 

Lovingly.

“We should leave.” She muses.

He scoffs.

“I'm serious.” she says.

He lifts his head, pulling back from her and wiping at his face  as he makes eye contact. 

She certainly seems serious.

“Where would we go?” He asks, warming up the the idea the more he considers it.

“Anywhere,” Sulvuna shrugs “Anywhere we wanted, that's the point. We could go somewhere no one knows us. Reinvent ourselves, start from scratch. I've got some things we could sell, and we both know how much things are worth, and we could go. We could go anywhere.”

“Let's do it.”

She nods. “Pack a bag. We'll head out in...an hour?”

Era'harel grins. “I love you.”

She snorts. “Oh, shut up.”

–

They leave that night, and travel to the nearest city to find a bus. They take the bus for a few days, until nothing is familiar anymore, until no one's heard of their clans, or anyone linked to their clans. Until Era'harel is sure he's too far for it to be where he was born.

“We should rename ourselves.” he decides over a burger and fries at a small diner. And gods, he is not going to miss having to kill something to eat meat.

“You think so?”

He nods. “We hate these names anyways. Why drag them into our new life? If we're gonna start over, let's go full balls to the wall.”

Sulvuna laughs. Light and easy, and more freely than he thinks he's ever seen her laugh back with the clan. “Ok, sure. What do you want me to call you?”

He ponders it for a moment, before the perfect name hits him, and his face splits into a grin. “Desire.”

Sulvuna almost chokes on her milkshake. “Oh, surely something more modest and subtle for someone like you would be better.” she teases.

“Nah, I like Desire. Des, in fact. Des has a nice ring to it.” 

Like reclaiming the very thing they tried to condemn him for, he thinks. Fuck them. They want to keep it hidden behind closed doors, like some shameful secret? He'll wear it as a badge of pride, instead.

And besides, he knows he looks good. No one would argue it.

“What about you?” he asks.

Sulvuna ponders the question for a moment, nodding decisively and declaring “Selene. I like Selene.”

“That's like a moon thing, right?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Suits you. Hair like moonlight. People will write poetry about you.” He teases with a waggle of his eyebrows.

She laughs again. “I doubt that.”

“You never know,” Des smirks “Our future looks bright, after all.”

[eirlithad]

Calling on Song//Chapter One

Rating: M (subject to change)

Relationship: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan

Summary: Kasde Rhiannon Trevelyan was promised to the Chantry. Fate found her at the Conclave. The Maker saw her through it. As the world falls down around her, she decides to take a stand. With a little determination, and a fair amount of snark, she just might make a difference.

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         As she lay dreaming, clarity came to her in brief, jarring flashes. A voice she didn’t recognize, barking orders. A face she couldn’t place, pleading for help. Flashes of red splattered across a crest she struggled to make out, and a horse ran across a blood-soaked field. Amidst the disjointed jumble of memories, a kind voice called her home.

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Chapter One: Tangled Memories

         She woke to the cold and dank, damp stone biting painfully into her knees. How long had she been in such a position? The air smelled faintly of mold, wet straw, and the choking scent of torch smoke. Blearily, she blinked her eyes open and moved to wipe her face, only to find she could not.

         Heavy iron bonds forced her hands to her lap. Even with the proper tools, her movement was too constrained to pick the locks. It was a moot point, considering she had nothing on her person. Even the clothes she wore were not her own. The rough material scratched at her skin as she adjusted, trying to alleviate the straining in her legs and back. A low groan escaped her.

         She wasn’t alone, that much she knew. Two men watched her warily, swords draw in her direction. And behind her, she could sense two more. She was bound; they were likely guards, she surmised. Beyond the heavy door at the other end of the room, footsteps grew louder and nearer. Distantly, she was aware of a throbbing ache in her hand. When she glanced downward to inspect it, the ache turned to outright pain as a green spark shot from her palm.

         Funny, but she didn’t recall having that particular scar before.

         The door flung open with little warning, and a tall, dark-haired woman strode in. A second woman followed, silent and cowled, clinging to the shadows as though one of them. The first made a vague gesture, and the guards lowered their weapons. Her breastplate bore a flaming eye, painted in white. She circled, not unlike a predator.

         Clearly not concerned for her own safety, she leaned close. When she spoke, a distinctly Nevarren accent coated her words. “Tell me,” she demanded, “why we shouldn’t kill you now?”

         So, that was how it was going to be. The prisoner fought down a curt reply. However, she didn’t see a reason to answer so pointless a question. Whether she gave a reason or not – whether she liked it or not – it was ultimately up to them if she lived or died. She wasn’t foolish enough to delude herself.

         “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead.”

         Surprise jolted through her gut. Dead? Memories flooded into her brain – standing between a Revered Mother and a particularly imposing Templar. Talks of peace. The smell of ozone. Chaos. Screaming.

         The Conclave had failed.

         “Except for you.”

         She frowned. Ah, there was the crux of the matter. True or not, something had gone very, very wrong, and someone needed to be held accountable. With that in mind, she pressed her lips shut and glared.

         The Nevarren gripped her wrist painfully and hauled her still-glowing hand into view. “Explain this!” she snarled. As if on cue, her hand sparked painfully.

         “I…can’t!” The words were out before she could snatch them back.

         “What do you mean, you can’t?”

         “I don’t know what that is, or how it got there.” Her defense was falling apart before she’d even had the time to form one. If she didn’t do something soon, she was as good as dead.

         “You’re lying!” the Nevarren accused, and lunged for her.

         Suddenly, the cowled woman was there, pushing her companion back. “We need her, Cassandra!” The same, flaming eye patterned the brooch at her throat. Why did it seem so familiar?

         Unhappy, but placated for the time being, the Nevarren stepped back.

         “So,” the prisoner ground out, unable to hide the disdain in her voice. “What happens now?”

         The Nevarren, Cassandra, snorted, unimpressed.

         Her counterpart tilted her shrouded head, revealing a slash of red beneath her hood. “Do you remember what happened? How this began?”

         Truthfully, she couldn’t remember anything of the day – days? – before, much less her name, but that sort of response wasn’t going to save her. “I remember running,” she cracked, realizing too late the humor was lost on them. “Things were chasing me. And then…a woman?”

         The redhead seemed intrigued. “A woman?”

         “She reached out to me, but then…” Tangled memories slipped beyond her grasp, and she growled in frustration.

         Cassandra pulled her companion aside, muttering quietly. The cowled woman nodded obediently before leaving the room. The Nevarren returned and, much to the prisoner’s surprise, unlocked her shackles.

         “What did happen?” she asked boldly.

         The Nevarren snorted again. “It would be easier to show you.”

         Doubt pricked at the back of her mind. She had little choice but to follow. That didn’t mean she had to like it. She waited patiently while her wrists were bound with twine, fighting to keep her opinions to herself.

         Cassandra escorted her from her cell, leading them upstairs into a Chantry hall. Something in the way firelight bounced off the columns to light Andraste’s stone eyes comforted her weary soul. The sharp smell of incense helped clear the fog in her mind.

          Maker, she thought to herself, what have I stepped in this time?

          The light from outside was bright and relentless in her eyes. Gingerly, she crept from the relative safety of the Chantry into the open. What her weary eyes beheld next rooted her to the ground.

          The sky was torn. Lightning, tinged an eerie emerald, struck from the swirling mass of dark clouds above the mountain range. Fibrils of green energy poured from the gap in the sky, snaking down beyond sight. She felt her mouth fall open.

          “We call it the Breach,” Cassandra intoned. “It’s a tear into the world of demons, and it grows each hour.” She turned, noting a distinct lack of response. “It is not the only such rift,” she continued, “merely the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

          “An explosion can do that?” A nervous thrill coursed through her. Had she survived such a thing? Silently, she thanked her lucky stars, and the Maker, for good measure.

          Cassandra’s expression darkened. “This one did.” She turned to glance at the sky. “Unless we act now, the Breach could swallow the world.”

          Suddenly, the so-called Breach expanded with a peal of thunder. Her hand responded in kind, stretching toward the sky of its own accord, spewing green energy. The sudden pain tore a ragged cry from her throat and dropped her to the dirt.

          The Nevarren caught her, thankfully before her knees hit the ground. Her eyes were wild, concern tugging at the edges of her mouth. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads.” As if to prove her point, she tugged at the prisoner’s sleeve. What had started as a small, coiling scar on her palm had grown to cover the base of her thumb. “It is killing you,” she insisted. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

          “So, I don’t really have a choice about this,” the prisoner snapped. Unable to place a reason as to why, the thought of being used stoked her temper.

          “None of us has a choice,” Cassandra replied piously, and helped her to her feet.

          As the two women moved through the village, countless faces turned their way, tinged with varying degrees of grief.

          “They have decided your guilt,” Cassandra remarked. “They need it. Divine Justinia is gone, along with a great many of their loved ones.” They reached gatehouse, and even the guards there watched her with contempt. “We tried for peace – to end the rising conflict between mages and Templars – but in bringing their leaders together, it seems we condemned them to death.”

          “That’s not my fault!”

         Cassandra eyed he tiredly, as though she had not made such accusations herself. “I can promise you a trial,” she murmured, tugging her along. “Nothing more.”

         “That doesn’t make me want to help you.”

         The two trudged on up the hill, the prisoner struggling to keep her footing in boots two sizes too large. All the while, she kept watchful eyes on the Nevarren, twisting at her bonds whenever her back was turned. If she was headed to slaughter, she refused to die like livestock.

          Suddenly, Cassandra gripped her arm, wrenching her forward. For a moment, she wondered if she had been caught fidgeting, but the other woman gestured ahead.

          “That’s our route. We will cross the bridge and move toward the Temple,” she explained.

          The prisoner wrinkled her brow in thought. “The Temple?” she wondered aloud. “Of Sacred Ashes. Right, we’re in Haven, aren’t we?”

          Cassandra’s eyes widened. “Just how hard did you hit your head that you can’t remember?”

          “Harder than we both thought, I guess,” she replied.

          “Come on. We’ll cross the bridge and—”

          In that moment, the sky lashed out, striking the bridge with all the rage of the Maker and shattering it. Screams filled the air as the two women plummeted to the ice below.

          She hit the ground hard, rolling with the impact. Cassandra was already on her feet, sword and shield drawn. Beyond her, two dark shapes writhed, unlike anything she had seen in the waking world. Lidless, burning eyes, leered curiously at their prey.

          “Stay behind me!”

          Frantic, the prisoner looked for anything that could be used to fight back. After a moment, her eyes found salvation: a cart had fallen in the blast spilling its contents in the snow. A set of daggers gleamed in the green light cast by the Breach. Awfully convenient of you, Maker, she thought with a smile.

         Wild mabari couldn’t have stopped her.

         With a calculated twist of her wrists, her hands pulled free of the rope, and she was moving. Scrambling over the ice, she pulled the weapons free and dove headlong into the fray.

         She was fast, she realized; faster than she thought herself capable. In the thick of the fight, she found her mind oddly at ease. Her body seemed to know just what to do, singing out its own internal battle cry. She trusted the song, flowing from one motion to the next, deftly dancing around Cassandra’s defenses to strike from the shadows. Black blood sprayed across her chest, acrid smoke rising where it struck her clothes and filling her nose.

         Just like that, the memories came flooding back. Her mother, stern and cold, taking her daggers away. The youngest of her brothers, cleverly returning them with a wink. Her father, tall and proud. Riding her horse through the woods. Being sent to the Chantry – to Haven, and a painful goodbye.

         Her name.

         And then, Cassandra was pointing her sword in her direction, shouting something she couldn’t quite make out.

         “Drop you weapon!” she repeated. “Now!”

         The prisoner felt a low growl ripple up her throat. “Oh-ho, I don’t think so,” she snapped back. “If that’s what we’re up against, you need to trust me.” She made a show of dangling her blades away, balanced in the crook of her thumb.

         “Give me one reason to!”

         “Because my life is on the line!”

         The Nevarren visibly started at her words, but lowered her sword nonetheless. “Fair enough,” she grunted. “I can’t protect you, but you seem to do just fine. You didn’t ask for this, but I should remember that you did not attempt to run.” She rummaged in her pack, stuffing several red vials into the prisoner’s hands.

         “You’re a Seeker, aren’t you?”

         “Why?”

         “Seems my head’s clearing up. I finally remembered some things.” She pointed at the white sun painted across the other woman’s breastplate.

         The Nevarren smiled weakly. “Cassandra Pentaghast,” she offered. Then, almost as an afterthought, “If we’re going to be fighting together, I should know what to call you.”

         “Kasde,” the prisoner replied. “Kasde Trevelyan of Ostwick.”

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