#everyone. please perceive him. he slays so hard. lOoK

[hwaightme]

fashion king park seonghwa xoxo thank you i will go YELL now

[twitchesandstitches]

(Commission for @alt-hammer of a fantasy AU where Jade, a talented alchemist, has greated a boob expansion potion and refines it, gradually getting more enormously buxom as she and Dave get closer together.

This is set in, broadly, the same continuity as the godess terezi commission; some liberties were taken so, where there are differences, assume them to take place in their own micro continuities.)

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The town was an old one, near a vast forest that lay in the shadow of a temple consecrated to one of the old gods: the teal dragon goddess of mentality, rumored by some to be incarnate in the modern age. The era of magic and gods, though, was long behind them, and simply reverse engineering even a tiny shred of its power was a game-changer, especially for such a minor town.

Jade Harley, alchemist and adventurer, thought she had just about worked it out.

Okay, she thought, peering at a list of ingredients. Body expansion and modification. It used to be so much more common, in the old days. Did I figure it out?

I think I did.

She poured over the ingredient list, checking things off, and she was so busy in her work that she heard the bell over the door go ‘ding’.

“Yo-hoy, Jade?” Came the voice of Dave Strider, her best friend, with big quotation marks around the ‘friend’ bit. She smiled and stood up. Jade was a tall woman… a very tall woman, even bigger than some trolls, which was unusual for a human. She had a curvy frame, packed with power, and lately she had been thinking: not curvy enough.

And then, she’d heard stories about the old days. Ancients who had transformed their bodies in impossible ways, with nothing but their knowledge of magic. And she’d thought; if they did it, why not me?

Dave was waiting there. He was not a particularly tall man, or broad; he had the sort of wiry, vaguely feminine look that was quite popular these days, and paired well against Jade’s more voluptuous frame. She just looked big, especially next to him. Nevertheless, when he stood up, it was with a real sense of genuine strength and power that belied his seemingly frail look.

“You sure you wanna do this whole… thing?”

Jade indicated her chest. It was pretty ample, and again, especially for a human. But Jade had thought about records from the old days, that described people changing themselves to be… bigger. More buxom. And she had thought; if they’d done it, why not her? What was the missing keys to that kind of power?

Besides thousands of years of magical knowledge and infrastructure, she admitted. But they’d been learning, and she thought she might have rediscovered the key.

Jade wanted bigger boobs. She wanted really big boobs. It was a pretty silly thing to want, she would be the first to admit, but when she thought of herself, of the shape that Jade Harley ought to have, it was with boobs so big that they’d have to reshape the doorways when she left the house; pathway-clearing plows of a bustline, big and bouncy boobs so massive you could sit on them.

Or even bigger than that!

The default assumption that most men would have, in helping such a task, would be ‘yes please!’. Dave was surprisingly ambivalent; she had no doubt he’d be pleased by the results, but the actual experimenting was going to be an issue.

He worried a lot. About her in particular.

“I'm sure!” Jade put her hands on her hips. “I just… oh, I’ve been spending years on this, and I’m so close! I can practically taste it!”

“Right, right, cool. Passion project, I get that.” Dave patted her on the shoulder, the gesture completely reflective. He probably didn’t realize how intimate it felt.

Probably? Jade pondered that, for a while.

“Well, I got a map.” Dave laid it on a table; now they were free to plan, since no one came in after these hours. On the map was a chart of the most magically potent parts of the forest outside the town, where the most magically powerful ingredients… and monsters… were likely to be found. “I think these are the places we should start looking.”

“Right!”

For hours, they planned it out. The kinds of things they would need to hunt up, of course. The gear they would need to harvest things effectively, and explore the forest.

And the monsters they were likely to face, the mindless beasts generated by raw magical energies and attacking anything they perceived as intruders. Dave faltered a bit at the thought; not in fear, but he was looking at Jade as if thinking too hard about her getting struck by some beast’s claws.

He swallowed. “You sure you wanna do this? For… to get bigger boobs?”

Jade grinned. When you put it like that, the whole thing sounded silly, and she really didn’t mind that at all.

“Absolutely!” She insisted.

------

After that, Dave came in regularly, when he could.

At least once a week, in his official capacity as a courier. As much as possible when he was off work, or just playing schemes to pretend to be doing things on the clock, goofing off at her work place and racking up paid hours when deliveries slowed instead of doing paperwork. She was pretty sure that he definitely was not allowed to do that; his boss, Mister Slick, was a stickler for the letter of the rules for everyone if not himself, and he in turn answered to the chief courier, the Mendicant.

Jade had to consider that. She didn’t know the chief courier personally, but everyone knew of her; she was married to the mayor, who was something of a gremlin with a chip on his shoulder but a pretty relaxed attitude. The chief courier was a lot more strict, and probably wouldn’t approve of Dave doing that, so of course Jade kept the whole thing secret.

Dave had been scouting out the places they were going to hunt down; slaying a few monsters, scrounging up what he could for Jade to examine. It all worked out for her; monster flesh and bone, fungi and moss and roots all growing in places absolutely drenched in magic… it served her purposes perfectly.

She made her potions; not testing them on herself yet, though Jade tended towards the belief that a TRUE alchemist used themselves as a test subject before anyone else, but that was for a product proven to have the effect she wanted. Until then, she’d taken to quietly giving the uncertain batches to the cattle that grazed just outside her home, pouring it into their food when no one was looking. The cows, she was pleased to see, wound up moving unsteadily with obscenely massive udders so stuffed that they were propped up by them, and the consistency in it satisfied her.

Putting in magically charged milk, she determined, seemed to help. She imagined herself with such massive, swinging breasts and trilled with delight.

And they would need to go to magical places to find ingredients to make into potions; plants, fungi and the parts of monsters, all rich with magical energies. Alchemy was, as she explained it to Dave, the art of melting down magically potent substances and infusing them with arcane ‘aspects’ to effectively make liquid, drinkable spells. The trick was finding things powerful enough to infuse the solution, and for that…

Well, to the old forest, they’d both go.

-------

The days came and went. Experiments went by. Batches, failed and otherwise, were tested; the cows grew bigger and bigger, so much so that Zahhak dairy farming family found something of a glut of their product, and Jade jotted down their boasting or complaints under a list of things to bear in mind for the future batches.

Dave came and went. When he could reasonably swing it, playing off his ingredient hunts for Jade as part of his job; she paid him, at least, which generally satisfied Mister Slick, according to Dave. Jade did see the chief courier, glistening in the sun like a polished ivory statue, studying her shop as if looking for signs of slacking off, and she quietly told Dave the next time she saw him (complete with him bringing several baskets of mushrooms, roots and the occasional monster part) that they would have to probably save this for his free time.

So, in the end, they went together.

Deeper into the forest, where anyone had ever gone. Under the shadow of the ancient temple of the dragon goddess, where its primordial magic seeped into the trees, turning them and the crawling moss into living, teal crystals…

And where the monsters dwelled.

-------

And one day, they came back from there. Both of them bloodied, battered; panting with exhaustion and still trembling; with terror, at least for Jade, tinged with exhilaration. “That was amazing!” Jade said as they stumbled into her shop, her chest heaving and her travel robes hanging over her front like a mobile tent.

Dave put his sword down and flopped down onto a cot Jade kept around, in case he wanted to take a nap whenever he dropped by. “I warned ya, Jade. I warned you about the imps.”

Jade sat down on a chair, and it creaked under her considerable weight. She was simply too thick for most furniture; the legs were bending ominously, as she rocked back giggling to herself in a mix of post-adventure shock and genuine excitement. “The way they came out of nowhere! And the way you just cut them! Swoosh! Slash! That was so cool!”

“Am a little bit concerned with how easy you’re dealing with this.” Dave sat up. “You blasting them was pretty cool…”

Jade turned around. There was a lot of bouncing, possibly on purpose, and green spirals of magical energy swished around her. She’d cast so much magical energy that it was leaking out of, rising out with relatively small gestures, and it make her tingle all over; crackling like her blood was lightning and a sun beating in her chest-

She grabbed Dave and spun him right around, off his seat, and he squealed as she pulled him close to her in a tight not-quite-hug. She was too caught up in the exhilaration to realize it. “Let’s do that again!”

“Ye?” Dave said, lying on the floor now, red-faced and apparently losing the will to move on his own.

Jade was too full of vigor and excitement to stop now. She took one of the bundles of ingredients, plants and fungi and the harvested monster parts they’d been able to secure, and took them up to her work station.

Dave had time to recover, sitting up and recentering himself and not thinking constantly about the feeling of Jade’s body against his own (at least that’s what he would insist, later) as Jade took the things the ingredients they had found and prepared them for distilling. She chopped with knives, she crushed with a motorized pestle, and repeated this until she had a number of small chunks and fine dust. She placed that into a large flask she placed under a burner, but the flames she produced from it were a bright green.

It didn’t burn the chopped and crushed plants, meat and mushrooms. Instead it softened them, until they started dripping through a grate at the bottom of the flash. That became a fluid, propelled onwards through a series of tubes. There, other solutions and mystical fluids were dribbled into it; things to add in mystical formulas and spell-aspects, amplifying other aspects of the potion… negating the flavors and aspects of the substances they originally had been, purifying it into something completely divorced from its origins.

It eventually flowed, much thicker now, into a beaker. Jade poured a hint of something that looked a lot like milk, her magic flowing into it, supercharging it. A bit of milk to give it the right aspect for what she wanted. And a little bit of amplification, mixing with the raw power of the other ingredients...

And under the heat of the magical flame, which burned away solid matter and left behind only magical essence made fluid, Jade waited for it to finish.

She grew quiet, and intense. Dave, recovered by now, had long since learned to pick up on her moods and he knew she was getting very excited.

“I thought you didn’t use spells,” Dave said, to break the silence. “What was with all that… fwoosh?” He wiggled his hands, in the manner of the green fire he remembered Jade shooting all over the place.

“Fwoosh?” Jade said, absently.

“You were shooting attack spells and stuff.”

“Oh! I mean. I know how to do that kind of magic. Not so much in my job, but I know about the theory of magic in general. I couldn’t do alchemy right if I didn’t.”

“And the fire stuff?”

Jade giggled. “I always did wanna put that into practice!”

“Wait, you mean you’ve never fought until today?”

Jade, a woman who had turned a small part of the forest into a crater and probably infuriated the local spirits, looked bashful. “Did it show?!”

“...No. Not really.”

“Huh. Good to hear!” Jade suddenly shut off the flame, stirring it a few times; despite the constant heat, there was no sign that it was particularly hot. “This batch is done!”

Dave stood up. “You sure? I’d thought there’d be… more sparkles.”

“I might put something like that in a consumer batch; people expect sparkles, you know. But this is the testing phase!” Jade examined the potion, studying it. Her magical senses, and eye for detail, picked out things Dave couldn’t possibly have made out. Apparently satisfied, she put it up to her lips and started to tilt it up.

“Whoa!” Dave staggered forward, his stoic exterior cracking just this bit. “Is that safe?! Shouldn’t you test it on, i dunno, the cows?!” He gestured towards a herd visible right through the window, where the shop brushed up against a pasture (as the Zahhaks, as one of the older families, had the authority to simply build their homes into grassy places for the cattle to feed). A cow looked right through the window, hindquarters lifted right off the ground by an obscenely stuffed udder.

Jade lowered the flask, just for a moment. She briefly gave the cow a solemn look, her eyes wide and impatience seething from her; she looked at the cow with an expression all but screamed, to Dave: I want that.

She made a ‘tsk’ing noise, wiggling a finger scoldingly at Dave. “Oh, I’m sick of letting them have all the good stuff! I want that for me!” She grinned, wildly, and Dave knew that there was nothing he could do, short of slapping it out of her hand, to stop her, and he thought that it would be wrong to do that.

“If you’re sure…” Dave said, clearly dubious.

“I’ve never been MORE sure.”

And Jade tilted the potion up, and drained it in a single, powerful swig.

Dave winced, but didn’t argue.

She smiled, though, as her stomach briefly glowed green, the potion taking effect. “It’s nice that you worry, though.” She patted his hand, still upraised in protest, and impulsively, she kissed it.

His hand felt so warm against her lips; a heat flashed there, against her teeth and tongue, and down her neck. It lingered there in her chest, mixing with the magical energies and transformative vibes now swirling inside her. It felt so fine; a gentle euphoria rose inside her, and she couldn’t help but smile through an intense blush.

Green light swirled around her, and especially over her chest. On her breasts, swirling around them and outlining them, supercharging them with magical energies speaking of more and BIGGER, but brightest of all was her heart.

Dave felt the magic flowing from her, before any changes actually happened, and he took a step back; a little awed at what he felt flowing inside her, and maybe stunned by the kiss.

Later, he contemplated how and why he sensed anything. He wasn’t trained in magic; he knew the martial applications, the tricks to make yourself stronger and faster with the spiritual energy inside a person, or the energy around you, but he didn’t know how to use magic itself. Jade’s work was a mystery to him, and he was quietly impressed with people who did know how to bend magic more directly. The actual mechanics of how it was supposed to work was all a bit beyond him.

Nonetheless he felt it, right then. Right there.

Maybe, he theorized later, he’d learned to sense magical energy somewhere, in all the training to harness it. Flex a muscle hard enough, you learned to get a feel for when it was straining. A similar principle could apply, right?

In any case, he stumbled back, more and more, as Jade started to get bigger.

He was far from the only one to notice it, though; there were many people who’d worked out how to manipulate magic all over the town, or those who benefitted from thep precious and rare remaining bits of lore from older days. And some who were something else altogether.

Even people who didn’t live in town felt Jade growing: the professional spellcasters, the priestly high classes, and the hedge-mages learning it all on their own. Even those completely untutored, but sensitive to magic all the same, felt it. And those who knew their stuff felt it happen in intimate detail, like Miss Roxy Lalonde, probably the best student of magical theory in town, and she perked up at the sudden flare from Jade’s shop.

Karkat Vantas, living outside town in the old and long-abandoned manor, felt something even as he slept. His fiance, Terezi Pyrope, sat up and silently eased him back to sleep as she looked up. Her eyes were blind and felt very old, just like the ancient statues in the very temple Jade had walked in the shadows of. There were murals there… that looked just like Terezi Pyrope; as if those ancient sculptors had modeled them after her.

She tilted her head up, head craning and focusing right at the precise location of Jade.

She grinned. “Interesting~!” She said aloud, already making up her mind to pay Jade a visit as soon as she could.

People, intrigued or afraid or obnoxiously curious, gravitated towards Jade’s shop. The market outside her place broke up, the people in it drifting over to see what was going on. So, quite apart from Dave, Jade had an audience.

And in the shop itself, there was no blast of magic. No eye-searing pyrotechnics, as might be associated with a surge of magic so strong it made the cattle outside bounce and gush away in shock, or made Jade squeal with a mixed noise of joy and shock; she staggered back, as if her limbs suddenly were sapped of their strength, or something new flooding it and pushing out the old energy to make way for something fresh, strong and wild…

She gritted her teeth. They seemed longer, sharper; she took a step forward, and her legs kept shaking. No, wait. IT took a moment for Dave to realize, but they weren’t shaking.

They were getting wider.

Jade’s thighs slowly grew, leg muscles gradually bulking up and expanding outwards, a thick and appealing sheath of fat covering them. Not growing much past the knees, making them look surprisingly small past the thighs.

Her hips swayed and wiggled; first Jade just moved in an unconscious groove, and then it was a pattern of growth, and her hips expanded outwards in a smooth swell. Several inches added themselves on, and then about an extra foot of hip growth, to both sides. Jade stumbled as her thighs grew so big their sides were mashing together, and then made an embarrassed noise as her butt suddenly surged out, so bubbly and round that it was making the hem of her skirts rise up!

Her chest was still glowing, the focal point of all this. She dipped forward as they felt very heavy, her hands instinctively cupping her breasts. They wobbled at her touch, all on their own with indifference to gravity, and swelled. Jade made a squeaking noise of surprise, and then it melted into delight; waves of pleasure flooded into her from her chest. Oh! It had felt good, growing like this with her test batches, but nothing like this!

A cup size fluxed out, and then another, pushing at the fabric of her robes. Two more swelled out, pushing her palms down to support them, and they flowed out over her hands. They kept growing; bigger and bigger! The weight of them, rising with each sudden bouncy surge, was making Jade lean forwards, her breasts rising outwards. More than extra cup sizes, now, her breasts were almost doubled from what they’d been.

The magic surged and amplified her body, adding more mass, more flesh, more everything. Her breasts kept expanding, growing outwards, so heavy that she was bent nearly double, her robes straining out and pulling up from the weight. “Yyyeah!” Jade cheered, the delight coursing through her.

And the magic was slowly expended, totally absorbed and transmuted into more Jade. She breathed out as the growth slowed, a couple more inches adding on with each breath, and then it stopped altogether.

The sensation of power and pleasure alike faded from her. Dave gaped as she stood up to her full, imposing height; her breasts were huge, and Jade’s fingers gently traced their expansive outlines, the fabric stretched and almost translucent against her skin now.

Down, down her hands went, feeling her breasts. Much bigger than anticipated. She heard a distinctive sloshing noise, too, when she jiggled enough. Down, all the way past… goodness! Past her ribs, and then when she found the bottom of her breasts, they lay near her navel.

Almost two and a high feet high was each breast, she guessed. She shifted upright, and felt a very pleasurable bounce. Slung out by at least three feet, two, perhaps four!

She breathed in, hissing it out through a grin that was a little bit manic, and she said “Ohh, yes, this is definitely a success.” Now, she panted heavily. “Ooh…” She breathed in and out again, her newly expanded assets heaving with such weight she felt dragged forward. It felt like so much of her was in front of her now… it felt good. “That’s… that’s a fun sensation….”

Impulsively, Jade took Dave’s hand, her fingers squeezing gently around his palm. She smiled just a bit impishly, sharp teeth glinting behind her lips, and she felt Dave’s pulse quicken. His expression didn’t change, not one bit. Not a single muscle even twitched, and his expression was like stone. And Jade knew about stone, and a little bit about geology, and she knew enough that there was always a lot going on beneath mountains that looked all calm and steady, but on the inside?

They were exploding. And Dave could keep his face steady, but he couldn’t do much of anything about the hot blush coloring his cheeks.

Jade leaned in close and gave him a soft, brief kiss on the cheek.

Her breasts, so recently swelled by her potions, pressed against his chest. His body was thin but so firm, so strong; the ideal surface for her bustline to squsih against, and press out, the pulse of her heartbeat passing into his body. Against the plane of his chest, her own chest squashed deep, and she thought in a wild and romantic suddenness that it was like pressing her heart against his own.

She felt their breath twin, for a moment, and then his own stopped. She exhaled, gusting it against his chin, and she kissed him again in the cheek, in the same spot.

And finally Jade pulled away. Her breasts, bouncing freely in their sub-par restraint, wobbled heavily as she moved back, and it was completely on purpose.

Dave’s shades were slipping. The red glow beneath them was nearly visible. “Holy shit,” he said simply.

She realized he was staring, and she grinned, a little sheepishly and a little smugly. Pride welled up in her, at a job well done.

“Hey, I’m freaked out too, but watch the goddamn language,” a laconic voice said from the window.

Both Dave and Jade whirled around; towards the window.

Where what had to be at least a good third of the town was ogling her, and her new ‘features’.

The speaker was Dirk Strider; looking very much like a somewhat older version of Dave, a bit broader overall, his arms crossed over the window. Behind him was the Chief Courier, her porcelain-white shell glittering in the sunlight; she looked, as much as her face could be seen beneath the concealing uniforms she favored, a mix of amused and intrigued. Most people there seemed to have the same vibe.

Terezi was there too, looming over everyone else there, a big dragon-like troll with wings furled around her like a cape, and now she was grinning knowingly.

Jade instinctively covered herself, eyes wide, and she hurriedly thought: ‘What do I do!? What am I supposed to say?! Oh gosh they’re all looking at me!”

And then she thought: ‘Wait.

‘Isn’t this an opportunity?’

She stamped down the embarrassment and frustration at being watched, and declared, with a cheery tone, gesturing at herself, “So! Who might be interested in purchasing the next batch of my beauty elixirs, that’ll give you a body like this!?’

Her mortified feelings felt a bit dimmer at the glee of all the hands shooting straight up.

------

A couple weeks passed, after that.

There was a lot to do: adjust to her new body (oh, how doors were starting to be a problem! And clothes! She had to get them made special, or they’d pinch), going back with Dave to get the ingredients, preparing the next batches of potion for the rush of demand she was suddenly being met with…

Between the constant brewing, hunting down the ingredients from the most magically potent parts of the forests, needing to negotiate with the tailors, and all that, Jade had hardly any time with Dave.

That was a little sad, actually.

--------

But, as fortune would have it, he dropped in not long after that; he didn’t get to witness Jade testing more of her potions on herself, once she was satisfied with consistently bigger growth, and without Dave, she suspected her growth was being slowed. Warm feelings had something to do with it, she was sure.

“Dave!” Jade said, rushing over to him, nearly knocked over a couple people who were milling around her shop. Her breasts alone knocked a few people out of the way, and others quickly moved aside to get out of the way before they were bowled over.

Dave started to speak, but all the wind went right out of him as Jade lifted him clear off the ground, into a powerful and happy hug. “It’s been way too long!” Jade said happily, to some happy but muffled noises from Dave. He was pinned between her boobs, so it wasn’t surprising.

The other people in the shop awkwardly looked away, or giggled, or thought wistfully of envious thoughts for Dave’s position. Jane Crocker, a long-time friend of Jade’s, grinned at the pair, her own table slightly shifting weight from the pressure her potion-expanded breasts put on it; fully one side of it was covered by them, and she’d discreetly adjusted her coat to prevent any wardrobe malfunctions.

“Jade, help, need to breathe,” Dave managed to get out.

“Oops! Sorry!” Jade said. She dropped Dave, with a sheepish smile.

A voice cleared itself from behind her.

Jade turned around; the shop was fairly crowded now. But it had been, ever since she’d brought out her new line of potions. People had come to her all the time in any case; for potions of fertility or physical enhancement to strength and resistance, or giving big claws or aesthetic features like that; the occasional transformation for more height, or shrinking themselves a little bit. The healing potions had been quite popular, too. But her shop wasn’t built to have as many people as it did now waiting around, especially when after taking the potions they tended to hang around for a while, adjusting to their new bodies. Results still varied; some people got only a modest boost, while others grew as big as Jade had after months of careful experimenting and gradual growth (at least up to the first line of her bust enhancement potions, anyway). Jade remembered the kiss to Dave, and the warm feelings in her heart, and how much stronger the magic had felt then.

She was considering advertising them as best with mushy feelings.

The point was, Jade wasn’t very good at picking people out in the shop, since it wasn’t something she’d had to deal with until now. But now she realized that someone had come in with Jade.

Terezi Pyrope grinned; nearly twice as big as even Jade herself, looming over even the tallest people in town, she was a giantess among them, her body scaled in a way no troll normally was. A thick tail curled around her, and a great pair of wings flapped just enough to ensure that people steered clear of her. Jade found herself unconsciously ogling her; Terezi was big, enormously stacked on a scale equal to Jade herself, but somehow she felt… even bigger. The boobs were proportionately about the same as her own, but Terezi herself was so big that Jade could have used her breasts as exercise balls… or even cots!

Karkat was there, as he usually was; it was very rare to see one of them without the other. He hovered around her like an attendant, or a priest from old stories when the gods had walked the world, their clerics in tow. Jade had her own theories about that, given the sheer power radiating from Terezi…

But that was a thought for another time. Now she smiled. “You here on a professional level, or is this a friend visit?”

“A bit of both,” Terezi said. “You, uh, doing okay. You’ve been… going through some changes.”

Jade glanced down, and she felt aware of the eyes of others right on her expanded cleavage. She didn’t mind and laughed, privately cheering at all the attention on her hard work, with a great feeling of pride and confidence. “You could say that! But it was all on purpose so I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about, you know.”

Terezi chuckled. “Yeah, I figured. See? And Karkat was all worried about it!”

Karkat scoffed. “Someone had to. And Dave wanted someone to say something!”

“Dude, noooo….” DAve said meekly.

Jade turned towards him, head tilted. “Oh? Was someone concerned?” She grinned.

“...Maybe.”

“Oh, you should just hear what he says all the time,” Karkat said loftily, with the air of someone dropping a relationship rock right into a crowded social event. “It’s mortifying.”

Jade giggled. “Oh? I hope you’re saying nice things about me!”

Dave looked about ready to melt. “I dunno what they're talking about,” he said, trying to find refuge in denial.

“It’s so sappy,” Terezi said in a stage whisper.

“Aw!” Jade kissed Dave on the cheek, right in front of everyone. He made a precious ‘Hr-RK!’ noise that made her giggle again.

Terezi giggled as Dave awkwardly shuffled away, finding a desk and trying to recover his dignity. “But, seriously. I was wanting to buy a couple of these potions, maybe.”

That was a surprise to Jade; as the thrill of teasing Dave faded, she looked up and saw just more of Terezi’s massive, vision-filling bustline. They were so big already! As big as her own! “You don’t think you’ve got enough already…?” Jade asked, cautiously.

Terezi snorted. “You can always go bigger. And that’s kinda funny, coming from someone who’s still sampling her own goods.”

“Hmph. I don’t know what THAT means.” Jade tried to cross her arms over her chest but her breasts had gotten too big for her to do so easily. And true to Terezi’s words, they were in fact bigger than they had been during the initial growth, during the public event that had gotten all this attention. They were starting to tip closer to her waistline; it wasn’t too MUCH bigger, a product of Jade carefully watering down the samples as she kept experimenting on herself, and downplayed by her heavy work robes, but it was still a fair point. At least half a foot outwards, if not too much deeper.

“Well, I dunno. Let’s give you a baseline to outdo, hrm?” Terezi grinned. “Say, how much ARE these potions?”

Jade listed a number. It was a comfortable price that wasn’t too expensive, but didn’t diminish the effort it took to get the resources to make them; she viewed peddling them as a public service, in some ways. Terezi tossed some coins her way, and Jade handed her one of the bubbling flasks.

Terezi immediately popped the cork off. “Oooh,” Karkat said, eyes wide and amazed, realizing what she meant. Terezi lolled her massive tongue out and picked up the flask with her tongue, popping it into her mouth and draining the whole elixir down her throat in a single, heavy draught. Her thick tongue probed the flask, looking for every drop.

“You might wanna get closer to Terezi,” Jade quietly told Karkat. “It, uh, helps the change.”

Karkat hugged Terezi’s thigh, his arms squeezing deep into her ample flesh. “What do you mean-” He started to say.

“Eep!” Terezi exclaimed, magic radiating from her body, tinged with that special flavor of affection; her hand drifted right towards Karkat, and Jade knew that was just the right thing. “That’s the key!’ she thought. ‘That’s how to get big!’

And perhaps just to prove her point, Terezi grew. A little bit taller, but not much; a few inches, maybe. Just as well, given she was already a giant. Her hips swelled out, packing on a few extra inches; perhaps a finger span wider on both sides, and she was already so massively curvy that there might have not been that much to grow. Her clothes creaked heavily, especially as her big butt filled out even more, a few people behind her making awed noises at the wealth of butt they must have seen pushing up from the fabric enclosure. Her tail swelled, getting a little rounder, a little bit more like an eel’s tail…

Her breasts, though, erupted. In a single fluid motion, they swelled outwards, fluxing out like a cup being filled with water. They billowed, the teardrop shape growing more pronounced; from her gut, down to her waist. Her breasts expanded, and sideways too, swelling out so much that Terezi’s broad shoulders couldn’t even be seen. Most of her formidable body shape, in fact, was obscured; just her big hips, her huge thighs, the tail and wings, and those massive boobs.

Fabric tore. Her gut forced her boobs apart as it settled down, her stomach rising through the cleavage, and her shirt started to fray under the impact.

It was the quickest growth, and a particularly dramatic one; it was over almost immediately, and Jade gawked when she just had to acknowledge the reality of Terezi’s bustiness.

“Hah!” Terezi thrust her breasts out, openly delighted. “Beat that!”

Jade huffed. “Oh, I will!”

Karkat goggled. “Okay oh wow that is BIG.

From the side, Terezi’s breasts stuck out at least several additional feet; she probably couldn’t gather them up even if she stuck her arms out and pulled as much of her boobs in as possible. And given how big she was, they were big enough to use as exercise balls, or to sleep with. And from Karkat’s size… they must have looked so massive.

Terezi was probably thinking about that. Still smiling, she picked up Karkat, ignoring his usual token protests at being manhandled, and stuffed him right into her cleavage. His head popped out, expression suddenly completely calm, and then she pushed him down, completely contained.

Her face looked so peaceful. “Ooh yeah. That’s the stuff.” She grinned at Dave and Jade, gawking at her. “Hope this gives you ideas, Jade. Buh-bye!” With that, she walked off, Karkat encased in her cleavage.

Dave watched her go. Even her back was hypnotic, butt swelling up like a pair of wagons attached to her. “Sure did a number on her,” he said weekly. “What do you think she meant by that, anyway?”

“I dunno,” Jade lied. She thought about being so big she could do that to Dave.. stuffing him so close to her…

Her shirt felt tighter. Her breasts wobbled all on their own, and suddenly surged  a few sizes bigger. Dave saw the growth. “Did-did you just grow? Without taking any potion?!”

“Ooh, that’s… new!” She wasn’t really thinking about it, though. She was still watching Terezi strut off, all sexy and big.

“You’re not worried? Huh. Neat, I guess.”

She wasn’t really listening, either. Privately, Jade felt a surge of… envy, she supposed. Not that wasn’t quite it. It wasn’t that she wanted what Terezi had now.

She wanted more than what Terezi had now; it was like a competition, in some way. Terezi had outdone her, for now. But… her eyes narrowed. She wouldn’t let herself stay outdone!

She glanced up at Terezi’s mammoth body, where Karkat peacefully resting between her breasts, and she thought that maybe she DID envy Terezi having a boyfriend she could fit into her boobs. She then looked at Dave with an appraising look that made him feel strangely snuggly.

------

It had been quite some time since Chahut and Konyyl had been in town. The pair of them spent a great deal of time traveling abroad, to the other scattered townships and city-states, trading where they could and gathering things to sell back home. To be honest, and they’d had to correct others on this point (Konyyl irritably, and Chahut with a gentleness belying the terrible violence she could perform), they didn’t do the actual trading. They were hired muscle, protecting the merchants from bandits, overly strict travel policies, and sometimes shaking down someone trying to weasel out of paying on a deal.

They enjoyed their work; the traveling, and the hitting things. Still, while they’d been very well paid for what they did, staying on constant work wasn’t as appealing as the thought of going home until the next trade season rolled around.

Chahut was a very tall woman, even among trolls, who were generally bigger than humans or carapacians. Konyyl was a big woman too, and the two of them had similar thick-set body types; Konyyl with more obvious musculature, but given that Chahut was nearly twice her size, she looked bigger in every way. The two of them normally had no trouble clearing the way, with size and dark charisma and sheer force of ‘don’t mess with me’.

‘Normally’ being the keyword.

“I don’t, uh, recall everyone being this big,” Konyyl said as they walked past a crowd. She stood head and shoulders over most others, her own head somewhere around Chahut’s elbow, but that wasn’t the kind of big she was concerned about. Two carapacians, a few trolls and a human tottering behind them all went past them, diverting around them like water around a stone, and each of them had breasts as big as prize-winning pumpkins; the smallest had breasts as big as their heads, and the largest… their torsos, and some of their stomachs, couldn’t even be seen behind a wall of cleavage.

In fact, just about everyone they saw was sporting a bustline that dwarfed the pair of them. Konyyl crossed her muscular arms over her chest self-consciously. It was making her feel… small.

“Me neither,” Chahut said eventually. She sounded diffident, calm. But then… was she? Her voice had a slight tone of uncertainty. She glanced down at herself. Chahut wasn’t exactly a proud beauty, and Konyyl supposed that Chahut had never regarded her amplitude as anything except a minor facet of her physical form, but still. This was concerning.

“Something must have happened while we were gone,” Konyyl said, looking very off-balanced. “Some kind of weird magical event… maybe a weather thing, loaded up with magic?”

“A boob-storm?” Chahut’s tone dripped with amusement. “Now there’s a weird image.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Like to see you explain what’s going on here!”

Chahut turned. Their latest employer was hurrying over to them, and she noticed something else that way. “A potion that makes boobs bigger got real popular, maybe?”

“Well, maybe.”

“Look, little beefy.” Chahut pointed, and Konyyl turned. Down that way, there was a small advert board; freshly painted, from the smell. It displayed a grinning Jade Harley (a familiar figure to the both of them, though they didn’t know her closely, but everyone bought from Jade; they’d spent a lot of time at her shop, taking deliveries for a trading run), her face squeezed into a corner. The rest of it was taken up by her breasts, flooding over the entire billboard; absurdly massive, they were, extending out by at least five feet! The style of the ad was fairly cutesy, as fit her tastes in artwork, but they looked big enough to dip to her thighs, so big she could sleep on them.

ON the ad, between the art-drawn Jade, there was a bottled potion. “Want a bustline like mine? Come down to Jade’s Alchemical Esoterica for all your bust expansion needs!” the ad’s text said, in a cheery green font.

“Konyyl! Chahut!” said their employer, a human, and pointed at the ad. “Did you see!?”

“Kind of hard not to,” Konyyl quipped. Chahut nodded gravely.

“Not that! I mean… whoa, that’s a hell of an eyecatcher… but no! I mean, Jade’s shop is that way! Have you seen her yet!?”

“No?” Konyyl tilted her head. “Why?”

“I just… look, I gotta get a group together. We’ll need to find a demonstrator, and a caravan equipped to transport potion goods… gods, we’ll make so much money! But, ah!” The human fretted, trying to balance too many things at once in the mind, and thrust two large pouches heavy with coinage at them. “Here! So I don’t forget! Your pay for this trip. I gotta go, just… you might wanna drop in at Jade’s?”

And then, the human ran off, so full of excitement that there was a little bit of hopping and dancing. The two troll women watched him go. “Well,” Konyyl said. “I don’t have anything else going on. Azdaja’s got a while before he meets up with me. What about you?”

“Eh, same here. Not the bit about Azdaja,” Chahut replied, with a wry tusk-filled grin. “Let’s check it out, eh?”

The two of them followed the path to Jade’s shop. As they went, they were struck that navigating the marketplace was a more tricky affair than they remembered it being; almost every woman there was obscenely buxom, occupying at least a couple of feet in front of them with enough boobage to produce scandals in some of the more prim places they’d been. Both trolls moved very carefully to avoid bumping into someone’s breasts, and considering how much of that there was, it was very hard going.

It seemed demand for whatever Jade was selling was dropping; there weren’t that many people there, though all of them tended towards the same buxom frame. The few exceptions were doing their best to fix that; as they entered, they heard Jade’s cheery voice: “And try to drain it down in a single gulp! It won’t do any good to save some for later, it’ll transform you just the same. Be sure to drink lots of water and have plenty of food, you’re gonna be hungry!”

There was Jade, standing in her shop, her back turned to the entrance. Konyyl and Chahut were momentarily stunned. Jade looked so… thick. Even more than she used to be, even more than Konyyl! (Though at least, Konyyl reflected, Jade didn’t quite have the muscle.) A fairly slim dress as vibrantly green as her namesake jewel, clinging tightly to a body that seemed to be a waterfall of slowly expanding curves; a broad and huggable torso, an expanding waistline straining the limits of a dress, with hips so broad that it must have been hard to get through a doorway. At least a couple feet across!

Her butt, plump and round enough that a very small caparacian could have sat on it with room to kick up their legs, waggled back and forth as she spoke. Quite a lot of her big, unbelievably wide thighs must have been taken up with that butt. Konyyl felt her mouth go a bit dry, just at the sight of it. Even Chahut seemed impressed.

Though she did seem to have other things on her mind. “What’s that she’s got in front of her?” She wondered, squinting.

“Not sure,” Konyyl said. Two objects spread out in front of Jade from their angle, taking up a lot of space directly in front of her. She shrugged. “Let’s go in and get some answers.” They both stepped in, the bell atop the door ringing. A few people saw them and greeted them; at the door, sitting on a chair and off-duty, was Dave, waving to the both of them.]

“Sup,” He said pleasantly. “Try not to let her mow ya down.”

He sounded like he was talking from experience. He grinned a little saying it, so it wasn't a bad experience, either. Konyyl didn’t get a chance to ask about it; Jade had started turning around when she heard the doorbell, and the prospective potion buyer had already left with their purchase, and both Konyyl and Chahut stopped cold, mouths open and thoughts empty, when they saw Jade from the front.

The advertisement had not exaggerated, in the slightest. Completely obscuring the front of Jade’s body was the biggest… widest… roundest…

Konyyl’s brain shut down, a little bit. Jade approached. The shutting down got worse. There was just so much… bouncing. And that dress! The cleavage deep enough for her to sink into! Over four feet deep! Cut down to the belly, rounder and firmer, and it was making her look so curvy, just like a fertility icon of the Dragon Goddess…

(Distantly, Terezi had a vague feeling that someone was referring to her, or at least her true nature. She shrugged and got on with what she was doing, which was beating Karkat in a game of strategy despite not even knowing the rules.)

It had been a while since Terezi’s big transformation. Jade had taken her challenge to heart; she’d been growing periodically on her own, but she’d boosted the effects with regular intakes of potion, and spending lots of time with Dave, whenever possible, and the effects were definitely knocking the two trolls about.

Even Chahut was completely lost for words. Well, most words. She managed to get out: “...Hi, Jade?”

“WHAT THE HECK,” Konyyl demanded. She flung her beefy arms out, gesturing at Jade. “We leave for like a few months and you’re all… all… everyone is all…” She inhaled. She let it out with a cry of “Big! WHY.”

Jade swept both trolls, taller than her, into a powerful hug. The both of them, by no means frail, made squeaking noises as Jade’s surprising strength shoved the remaining air right out, or perhaps that was the full weight of her monstrously huge boobs shoving into them. From throat to Jade’s legs they spanned her body, probably weighing more than she did. It had to be her own enormous strength that prevented them from being a physical hindrance, or some kind of wacky magic?

Jade parted from them, the pair still stunned. “So!” She said, a flirty tone in her words. Dave watched, grinning expectantly. “How do I look~?”

“You look… good,” Konyyl said weakly.

“Big,” Chahut agreed, and it was so very surreal to see her look so shaken.

Jade grinned. “You guys haven’t been in town a while. I bet everyone’s looking a little bigger than they used to, eh?”

Konyyl made the connection; the advertisement, Jade’s potions, Jade’s own size… “Was it… did you do a magic thing?”

Jade pulled out a basketful of potions that could have fit into her cleavage with ease. Given that she did a little twirl before bringing it out, it was entirely possible she’d been hiding it in her cleavage for such a dramatic moment. “I might have come up with a potion that does some boob embiggening, yeah!” She grinned wickedly, dangling one in front of them. Both women stared at it, sense of intrigue naked on their expressions. “What do you think? Might you be interested?”

“I might,” Chahut said.

Konyyl tugged out her coin purse. “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY, SEDUCTRESS!”

Jade giggled and passed their purchases as Chahut and Konyyl got a couple each. “Be sure to take them when you’re with someone that you’re close to, or at least makes you feel happy. Like a friend, or something romantic.” She looked at Dave for a moment, across the shop, and absently tapped a massive breast, as if to say ‘he is responsible for this’. “It, um. Seems to help make bigger growth.”

Chahut and Konyyl glanced at him, and then Jade. Chahut made a heart-shape with her fingers. Konyyl said, “You and him…? Is that a thing?”

Jade fluished. “Well, I dunno. Um.” Her confidence, so recently ironclad and as abundant as her bustline, faltered. “It might be?”

The two women chuckled at that, with the tone of someone who had suspected it was a thing for quite a while, and left. Well, Jade thought, People were going to assume it was a thing, the way they liked to talk!

She didn’t really mind the thought, though.

It felt… official.

-------

And then, a few weeks onward, and word spread: even faster and wider than Jade’s bustline, or the average growth rate in town. Word of Jade’s marvelous bust-enhancing potions, and the increases many people had reported in their physical strength.

Caravans had already left, loaded up with bust potion, to peddle them to distant lands. Already, people who’d heard of it from travelers bearing incredibly massive breasts had come there, and left with potions and mighty busts of their own. And they’d told people, who came and told others when they got back…

And word had spread, of this town with its genius alchemist who’d captured a little bit of the past and its faculty for body modification elixirs for fun and profit.

Now, people were coming to town every day, caravans of them, traders zeroing in on the town, and not just for the potion, but for the other goods the town offered.

So, feeling rather dazed, Jade found herself being handed a big trophy, and a hearty handshake from the mayor.

A small, impish figure (so similar to the imps that lurked outside town, in fact, that Jade felt bad when her excursions required fighting them), his black shell glistening in the light like a little playing piece in the kind of games Terezi liked to play. Jade felt enormously self conscious and smiled awkwardly as what must have been a good portion of the town sat expectedly in the auditorium, listening to his speech. Or what bits they could understand; the Mayor spoke exclusively in the private language of the carapacian people, and the Chief Courier translated hurriedly, as best she could. Judging from her winces and split-second word swaps, the Mayor’s actual words were probably fairly profane and coarse at best.

“...And so, for your breakthrough in aesthetic transfigurations bringing such trade to us, we have prospered as we never have before!” The chief courier said. “Food, valuable minerals, magical substances of every kind, and livestock are flooding in, and we are doing better than we ever had!’”

“I didn’t mean to start an economic revolution,” Jade said meekly. “I just thought people would find my invention cool…”

“Well, we’re getting filthy stinking rich,’” the courier said, her expression implying this was the nice translation. “‘So all’s good! In my book! Now, go on, take your… um… yeah, I can’t translate that.” The mayor scowled at her, and waved a hand at Jade.

Jade took the award, a heavy gold thing that would look very nice on a necklace, though it’d probably sink into her cleavage. “Oh, very well… thank you so much! I’m glad to be of service!”

She bowed to the enriched crowd as they applauded, but she tried not to bow too much. Her boobs had continued to grow and grow, and her experiments had finally died down a little in efficacy; regardless of what she put in them, she was only getting a little bit of growth, and she figured she had reached the peak of what her potion could reasonably do, for the present. Her breasts had reached the biggest size she could manage for now.

But what a size it was! Most of Jade’s body mass was now in her breasts, she wasn’t any skinnier or less thick (indeed, her hips had continued to grow, so much so that doorways were too skinny for her now; four feet across, and counting, with a butt sticking three feet out and just the right shape for Dave to sit on it), but if her weight was to be counted, so much of it was in her breasts that she thought of them as the core of herself now.

She wasn’t sure of the actual weight. The scales kept busting. But they were so large that their bottoms dipped down, down, all the way past her knees! Each breast was four feet height, and over eight feet across, obscuring almost her entire body when seen from a front, a size proportionately equaled by no one. The weight of them moving, when she did, was so divine; she felt such pleasure at every bounce and wiggle, a micro-burst of euphoria whenever it surged forward and dragged her along with it.

She glanced at the crowd; she saw Terezi, looming over it, grinning and wiggling her claws at her, and Karkat on her head like an excitable crown, mirroring her friendly gesture. Near them was Chahut and Konyyl, their own breasts as big as the most abundantly fertile gourds; at least down to the naval, and she felt proud in making such big and beautiful women even larger.

Again she thought: No one is as big as me! She felt proud, and more than the award she held, her own body felt like a testament to her willingness to experiment.

She glanced at Dave. He’d helped. Not just the stuff he’d gathered; just being there for her, and the feelings he brought out in her. That was part of it, she was sure. Every time she’d started to grow really big, he’d been there, making her feel big. A feeling in her heart, expanding out and her body growing to match…

It was wonderfully, obnoxiously sappy. She had to love it.

The Mayor followed her gaze, and misunderstanding her thoughts, spoke at length. “The mayor would like to thank Mister Dave Strider for his tireless efforts in helping Miss Harley… despite it being on work hours,” The chief courier added in a stern tone. The mayor nudged her as if to say ‘get on with it!’. “Oh, right. Anyway. Please step up to the podium?”

“What?” Dave stepped over, looking surprised. “What? Oh, come on. This is all Jade!”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help,” Jade said sincerely, gazing down at him, eyes half-lidded and warm.

He flustered in the light. “Don’t be sappy, come onnnn….”

“I mean it!” She thought of a way to convince him that, yes, she really was saying it to be honest, and a wild idea came in front of her. In front of all these people, though? Part of her qualed at the thought…

But another part of her, proud and reveling in having such a massive, buxom bustline, retorted: ‘If we’re gonna be shy now, what’s even the point of having such magnificent boobs!?”

Jade thus leaned forward, her breasts clearing the floor, and encircling Dave’s whole body; he was caught up in boob-age, enwrapped and captured, and he managed a squeak of alarm as Jade tilted her body up, bouncing him even deeper into her cleavage, his whole body imprisoned and his face closer to her own-

And she moved her face to his own, and kissed him firm, softly, right on the mouth.

Lip to lip, the kiss deepened, like a promise she hadn’t realized she’d made

Dave initially didn’t respond, in his shock. And then, to her delight, he deepened the kiss on his own, sincere and honest as she knew he really was afraid to be. She didn’t think about it being in front of so many people, but later she thought: this was the best way to do it. To prove she was serious, showing it on her big moment.

The mayor, blushing, said something like “oh my!” The chief courier goggled for a moment, and she glanced at the mayor, and considered buying a few potions from Jade later, on the quiet.

“What’s going on?!” Terezi asked impatiently, her senses not able to compensate for her blindness this once.

“Dave and Jade are hooking up, I think,” Karkat said laconically on her head. “She’s doing the kinda thing to him that you like to do to me.”

“Boob sandwich?!”

“Yep.”

“Hah! I knew she’d do that!”

Chahut whistled, very much impressed. Konyyl nudged Azdaja by boob-bumping him; as it was, he’d been sitting down in front of her, his horns and height just right for her to rest her new bustline on top of his head. “This give you any ideas, eh?” She asked, grinning wildly.

“Yeah but I think you beat me to them,” He replied calmly.

The kiss kept going on, as the audience took it in. Dave and Jade, together? The overall vibe was less surprise, or shock or scandal (the town being a fairly amiable place, after all), and more ‘oh so that finally happened’. Not surprising, given the general opinion of the pair.

“All right, all right!” The chief courier said, shushing the smooching pair. “That’s enough! On your own time, you two!”

Jade allowed her breasts to settle, and down Dave went. He gracefully slid through her cleavage and back onto the floor, and awkwardly stepped away. He remembered the heat of her body, blushing intensely. He rarely showed clear emotion, or expressed himself too openly…

But now, he was smiling.

Dirk and Hal, in the crowd, both cracked their own smiles at the sight. “There ya go, little bro,” Dirk said softly.

“You owe me money now,” Hal said gleefully. “And here you bet it’d be another half-year before they hooked up!”

Dirk rolled his eyes and passed the construct some coins. “It was a safe bet. Took them this long to hook up!”

The ceremony ended soon enough, after that. People filed out, one after another, some of them pausing to congratulate Jade again. Others went to congratulate Dave.

But soon enough, the two of them were alone. Dave had some trouble marshalling his thoughts, the feeling of Jade’s warmth everywhere around him so beguiling that it was easier to just lose himself in the memory, not in the now....

He did his best, though. “Hey, Jade?” Dave asked.

Jade, thinking about the lovely feeling of Dave’s whole body in her cleavage, pinned and safe there, his heart beating into her whole-breast pulse, made a soft murmuring sound. “Mm?”

“What do you think about, eh… going on a walk or something. When things quiet down, I mean.”

She smiled sweetly. “I’d like that.” She leaned to the side and kissed him again.

It was the kind of kiss a lover gives.

[swoopy-phantom]

Minecraft Lore Time

Thanks to new ideas and updates in recent years, I’ve thought Minecraft to be purgatory. You are dead. You died in the real world. And so god has created a new one for you, just like many others. When you create a new world you are looking at it from god’s view when she is making your world. Choosing the assets and distinct features... she knows what you might and might not like. When you die you wake up in purgatory, like nothing ever happened in real life. You find yourself in the wilderness, forced to gather materials and start a new life. The angels watching over you in purgatory also helped create this world. They don’t look like the “ideal” angel though.. no. They are tall and lanky and will fight even you if it’s meant to keep yourself safe from the dangers of the world. They almost look like- wait.

is that..?

a zombie? why is it.. oh no.

You scramble to find a light source in the piercing dark veil of the night. Anything. Anything to fight off these horrible creatures.

These are your demons.

The Endermen come and in a way they protect you. They work with the phantoms. You see in this world you are meant to believe it IS the real world. Doing everything you’d do as normal. But something, in case you haven’t guessed, is wrong. It’s all wrong...

Where did my friends go..?

Where is everyone...?

You are alone.

The Endermen make sure you live a normal life. Or what they perceive as normal. Whatever god thought was normal when she was creating this world for you and giving the angels instructions. You are to eat, sleep, explore, and build maybe. Building extraordinary things. So long as you eat every day and sleep every night. You could die from natural causes such as starvation, or fall to your death from the highest point just from tripping and being clumsy. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing when night falls because that is when the demons come out whether you like it or not, and the angels are there among them. They make sure you go to sleep regularly and you’re not thinking too much about this world. They want you to think it is the real world. When you look at them curiously and start asking yourself questions, you are thinking too much. Don’t look at them because you will become curious and they will become angry. They’ll kill you if it means you’ll just go to sleep for the night. The phantoms have the same goal in mind. They’re just another form of “angels”.

The villagers are another aspect that’s just not right.. maybe when creating them in your image god maybe slipped up... somewhere. What is.. heh. Their noses... haha, and those heads. They’re like people.

What is.. oh? I’m sorry, I don’t have this kind of currency yet. Let me get some. Oh! There’s a farmer! Maybe he’d like some of the crops I grew at home.. maybe carrots? Here you are. And now I have emeralds to buy those books. But.. ugh. They’re in a different language. No matter. I just need a quill. Now where did that chicken go...

The villages were made in the image of cities. Unfortunately there is no technology, only magic in this world. Unless you find a way to become skilled with that red stone stuff, I don’t think you’ll be getting any closer to “modern” anytime soon. Now since there is magic, you must be able to get it and use it as you please.

What is.. oh! A cleric! You must make potions! How do I get one? Forged in.. what fire? Hell? Demons?? What are you talking abou- oh the rod.. oh. Oh.

Of course the magic will be hard to harness for yourself. Once you grab hold of it, keep it on a leash. And use it responsibly. Do not let the angels become aware. Deep in the caves you find the black stone the cleric spoke of, and light it like a fire, just like his instructions said to do. A mysterious gateway opens. It is very ethereal looking. It fits right into this world. This is your first use of magic. “Armor up” the cleric had garbled to you, for their language is much different. With your armor on and your sword ready, you walk into the gateway. Feeling dizzy, you find yourself almost immediately in hell. If only it weren’t so.. hot. You start sweating under your armor, but know you must keep it on. There is a.. oh god. What is that thing. Is it a squid? No, those are back in the ocean. I don’t think any kind of water life could survive a second here. It almost looks like a ghost. Why is it sad?

These are the ghasts. Unable to understand the cleric’s language, instead it came out as “ghast” rather than “ghost” and so that is what you call them. Hey.. it’s oka- WHAT THE HELL?!

He shoots a fireball at you, repelling any vivid emotions again. He is angry, and wants nothing to do with you. Do not pity him. If you do not stop looking at him right now you will die. You put your sword up in defense and- it fires back. You’ve shielded yourself. Successfully too. The fireball hits the ghast and you become locked into this kind of fight. Watch your step, do not fall into the ocean of lava below. There we go now just one more.. and it is dead. Tears..? Why do I feel stronger? Was that it’s soul that I just absorbed? I’ll save these tears for later. They almost seem crystallized. There is more ahead. You see a castle- no. A fortress. The yellow things.. they’re blazing hot! Blazing with fire.. what in the- Blazes. They are the Blazes you were told of. And you had to kill them. You rush forward with the mighty strength of the ghast in your soul and with the might of your sword you start cutting them up. One by one, gathering enough of what seems to be their spines for your brewing stand. The guards have been alerted. They are charred from the fires of this world.. poor things. Some of the lava and brimstone seems to have come to life in a big chunk. There are.. pigs? Men? We’ll call those pigmen. They must be guarding something too. Just do not interfere with their work, or you will be in a world of trouble. Is that.. oh no. The angels. Quick, find the warts for the magic and get back home. You stumble out of the portal, feeling dizzy as a drunk. Your home is just over there.. time for sleep, I guess. In the morning, you run to the tower you prepared for the magic you will be harnessing. You take the stone, the spines.. better crush some up for fuel. Everything needs power from somewhere. And it works. You place it on the countertop, grab your glass bottles. I guess these magics in bottles will need a base, huh? where was that river... oh right. These are going to be called potions, as the cleric had told you before your adventure. They are like spells, just drink the disgusting mixture instead. You pull out the fences, the sand of souls, and those warts you were told to grab. Do not step on the souls, you will sink and seem to walk slower, for they are pulling you in with them. These warts will be for future potions. Good thing you can grow them here. Now, what was the order? Oh right. Better hang up this chart he gave me for all of the possible potions to make. Let’s see.. the base. You place the water bottles into the slots of the stand. Now into the infuser these warts go.. it’s working! Now what? I have my base.. what would I need most right now?

You’re jumping so high you’re like a rabbit! And you don’t even get hurt! Now to fix my garden up. There’s no one here but.. it’s just for myself. And maybe if I can find an animal companion one day. Never thought you’d become a flower picker and potion maker, huh? This is nice... I could live like this for a long time...

—————————————————

Unfortunately.. there is another type of being in this world. The poor souls who are stuck in purgatory and decide that if they are dead, then everything else must die with them. God treats everyone fairly in this world. But sometimes she must punish.

—————————————————

Now, when you are creating your world, you are essentially creating it in God’s view. When you are choosing what you would prefer the world to look like and what seeds to pick for yourself, that is God looking at your souls and seeing what kind of person you were when you were alive. She is creating the world specifically for you. Choosing every individual setting for you. And her way of “punishing” you for being an awful person during your lifetime would be setting the monster level to “hard.” There are complications to this.. like how LDShadowLady is a wonderful person irl (this talk of “awfulness” has nothing to do with her) but she decided to play the One Life series, where it is on hardcore mode. This obviously in now way determines her morality lol. Same with the HermitCraft people! They are all wonderful. But just because they play on harder levels and do some of the things I’m about to explain and talk about, does NOT in ANY WAY determine their morality. They’re just having fun :’) But, all in all, Minecraft is just a game in the end. We are all just passionate. Back to the lore!!

—————————————————

Now the more heated people in purgatory are obviously going to be dangerous to some degree. Slaughtering everything that comes at them in the night. They don’t sleep, barely eat enough to sustain them, and collect every head the slice off, every bit of rotten flesh from the deceased souls and beings... they collect the glass eyes of the angels they fell, and the protective layers (membranes) and skins of the phantoms they slay. They end up taking over the Nether, making their homes there and literally living in hell. Using it as they please.

They have become too powerful.

God sends and obstacle their way. A withered being of sorts.. my goodness. It’s huge! Why does it have three hea- OH MY GOD. It throws a head at you! This thing is obviously dangerous.. use your bow and arrows! Dammit.. I can’t anymore. Guess it’s a sword fight then.

You have felled the giant creature and have absorbed its life force for your own experience. A star..? I’ve heard of these. I can use it to make a beacon...

God is waiting now.

After mining and mining. Digging and digging. Enchanting and enchanting... you’ve found it. The otherworldly portal. Space stares back into your bones and souls while you stare at it. After taking the last of the glass eyes you stole from the angels and mixing them with the power of the Blazes spines...

You

jump

in.

it’s dark.

You hear the roar from above you.

You see the black and purple oblivion around you.

You dig through the yellowish stone, up to the surface.

She flies overhead.

The angels look at you. There must be hundreds. You hear the deafening roar again.

God is here. And she is not happy.

This is The End.

After a long battle, you have killed God. Leave the egg. You do not care to hatch another god right now, for you have claimed yourself as the new one.

—————————————————

I have just described the two spectrums of Minecraft players: “Flower Pickers/ Potion Makers” and “Monster Slayers.” It doesn’t matter how you play the game, for it’s just a game. It’s totally okay to do whatever you want, because the game came from the creator’s imagination. By imagination, for imaginations everywhere.

Unfortunately Tumblr has messed up my text and spaces in some places during this, so I’m sorry if it ruins the intended effect of the writing.

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe Additional Tags: Established Relationship Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one who was shackled next to you? What do you have in common, save for the chains that bound you both?

Yvanne decided she wanted a garden.

Why not? The rebuilding was happening anyway, she may as well make some changes. The Howes had had a garden in the inner courtyard, but it had withered and died, and now only rotting leaves littered it. Well, not if Yvanne had anything to say about it. Her garden would have rose bushes and stone benches and black and white marble tiles. In the foggy depths of her childhood memory there was such a garden, in those memories where she still had a mother, although surely the garden in her memory was brighter and warmer than any real one had ever been.

Why not a garden? Everything else were being rebuilt. The Vigil’s beautiful walls were nearly all torn down, the keep itself riddled with holes. It would take so long to fix. So why not a garden? At least it made her feel better.

It could have been worse. It would have been worse, if not for the high iron walls and the strong armor of silverite. Yvanne comforted herself with this thought, in the moments when little else brought her comfort.

Loriel was sympathetic, Loriel was nothing but soft to her about it, but she didn’t understand. She hadn’t been there. She hadn’t lived it with her, and Yvanne was coming to realize that what had happened during the siege had changed her in some important way, shifted her soul just slightly to the left. She couldn’t explain it, couldn’t pin it down, but the person who’d left Loriel outside Amaranthine was not the same person who met her again in the courtyard.

It was a small change, a small shift, the cry of a young sparrow in the dense wood. But it was there, nonetheless.

These days Yvanne focused on learning more spirit healing. She rarely picked up a sword anymore.

She regretted looking in on Loriel through their Fade connection. She had seen a version of her that she’d never seen before, a strange cold woman who Yvanne didn’t know at all. She didn’t understand that Loriel, and maybe didn’t want to. In retrospect, it felt like a violation, although Loriel never said so. She’d told her everything, but now Yvanne didn’t know if she’d done it because she’d always intended to, or because Yvanne had already seen it.

Loriel tended to keep things to herself, it was true. She hadn’t mentioned learning blood magic when she’d first learned it, hadn’t mentioned her secret chamber below the Keep when she’d first claimed it, but those things made sense. They’d grown up in a prison tower filled with armored men ready to kill them for any perceived transgression. There wasn’t a Circle mage alive—and still possessing all of their faculties—who was not a master in hiding and deceiving. It wasn’t something you could easily turn off.

Yvanne wasn’t much good at it. She figured she was only alive now because Loriel had done the work for both of them. So she could hardly blame her for tending to be a little secretive now that they were out.

She shouldn’t have looked.

Slowly the walls of Vigil’s Keep rose again. Yvanne helped re-raise them. She took charge of the resupply logistics. She built her garden.

Sometimes she forgot Varel wasn’t the Seneschal anymore.

The weeks passed by, and with every passing day it seemed more and more likely that Velanna was gone for good. Whether she was dead or simply not returning, she was gone.

And then one day the elf appeared.

She strode through the gates as though she had every right to be there, as though no time had passed at all. Yvanne had been with the victims of a recent construction accident, but when she heard, she finished quickly and ran straight to the outer courtyard, where she could do the important business of Yelling.

“And just where the hell have you been?” was what she lead with. Velanna flinched. She looked so gaunt and drawn, like she’d been living rough for all these weeks, that Yvanne almost regretted yelling. Almost. “Have you any idea how many men I’ve wasted looking for you? What an uproar you caused? And here you are looking fine as anything.”

Yvanne waited for the cutting reply, but it never came. Velanna mumbled something apologetic, and then Nathaniel appeared out of the Keep, unconcealed joy radiating from his face. He asked her no questions and demanded no answers, only embraced her tightly—as a comrade?—and Velanna didn’t protest. She even closed her eyes, leaned in to the touch, and consented to being taken inside for food and a long bath.

Really? she thought, watching them go. Them? Those two? Well, stranger things had happened.

When she had no more duties to assign herself, Yvanne went back inside and collapsed in relief, not quite realizing how heavy a burden she’d been carrying.

—

“I need to tell you something,” Velanna said, closing the office door behind her.

Loriel nodded and gestured for her to sit. That was a major part of her leadership style, all the nodding and gesturing. It got most of the job done, depending on the job.

Velanna, looking a little better now than when she’d first arrived, eyed the petitioner’s chair with suspicion. She gingerly took a seat. “I went looking for my sister.”

“Yes, I assumed as much.”

Velanna glared. “You’re really mocking me?”

There was a time when that would have flustered her. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know that isn’t what I meant. Say what you have to say.” Why couldn’t Velanna have simply told Yvanne whatever she’d had to say? Why was she talking to her?

“I heard what you did at Drake’s Fall,” Velanna said. “You spared it. The darkspawn.”

Loriel tightened. “The Architect. Yes. How do you know that?”

“Sigrun told me.”

Loriel didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. Sigrun had been so angry with her. She’d even thought things would come to violence; the disabling spells had been on the tip of her tongue. She would have spoken them, if Sigrun had gone for her axes. She would have. She knew it.

She hated knowing that about herself, that she’d slay a friend and teammate at what now felt like so little provocation. At no other time had she wished more bitterly that Yvanne had been with her. Yvanne would have known just what to say to make Sigrun come around. It had been her who’d made them a real team, always passing out presents and bothering everyone for their life stories. Loriel was the Commander, but she knew who they were really loyal to.

Now Sigrun didn’t trust her. She still smiled when she saw her, still went about her duties. But she didn’t trust her. Loriel had tried so hard, and still ruined it before the end.

“I see,” Loriel said evenly. “What about it?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

Loriel blinked, and said nothing. Velanna was growing more uncomfortable beneath her gaze by the moment.

“I meant that as a peace offering,” Velanna said irritably. “Can you accept it so I can tell you what I’ve been doing?”

The Commander sighed. “I...apologize. Please, do tell me.”

“I have been in the Deep Roads.”

Not surprising. “The way I heard it, you disappeared in the middle of the battle, beneath a heap of rubble. Yvanne was very upset.”

Velanna scowled. “I was in no danger. I can move through the earth. But when I called to the earth to protect me, I fell through, into the tunnels below the Keep. They lead to the Deep Roads.”

“You didn’t think to rejoin the battle?”

“I thought I saw Seranni. In the shadows.”

Ah. “And you went after her. Or what you thought was her.”

“Yes.” Velanna leaned her forehead against her wooden staff for a moment. “I don’t know if it was really her, then, or just my imagination. But I had to check.”

She said nothing for long enough that Loriel was compelled prompt, “How did you survive down there? You were gone for weeks and weeks. Were you down there that entire time?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Velanna said, gripping her staff tighter. “I survived, that’s all that matters. And I did find Seranni.”

Loriel held still.

“She was with it. Him. The Architect.” She scowled. “We talked.”

“What did you talk about?”

“None of your business,” Velanna said, muttering an elvehn curse Loriel couldn’t understand. “I used to hope he would release her. But I was wrong. He’s never going to release her. She doesn’t even want to be released. She believes in it, what he’s doing.”

“And you don’t,” Loriel surmised.

“I don’t give a single mihrnig about what the Architect is doing,” Velanna said. “I just wanted my sister back. But I…” She inhaled sharply. “I have accepted that she has made her choice. So whatever you and that thing are doing, whatever idiot plot you have to end the Blights and bring peace amongst the darkspawn, this thing that Seranni was willing to throw away her life for—it had better be worth it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Loriel said delicately.

“The Architect had a message for you.” Velanna let out a long, slow exhale. “He said...he said that he accepts your terms. And that he looks forward to working with you.” She said it all in one breath, as though the words had been imprisoned in her mouth and were now being set free.

She practically threw a leather bag onto Loriel’s desk. “Now take this thing off my hands before it poisons me.”

It landed with a heavy thump, and did not bounce.

“That’s all I had to say,” said Velanna. “Do I have the Commander’s permission to depart?”

“You do,” Loriel said. “Thank you for delivering the message. We are all glad that you are back.”

Velanna probably hadn’t heard the last part. She was already out of the petitioner’s chair and at the door when Loriel got to it.

As the echoes of her rapid footsteps died away, Loriel reached for the leather bag, a small thing suspended on a length of chording. Inside was a crystal, perfectly black. Its faces were smooth and it seemed to pulse from within with some kind of anti-light, some energy of its own. It resembled lyrium, more than anything. But it wasn’t lyrium. Interesting, Loriel thought. She would study it carefully. And of course she was pleased to hear from the Architect.

She had no other meetings for the day, and it was late enough that it was reasonable she not be in office. She headed down to the chamber she could only describe as her laboratory.

Loriel had tried to aid in the rebuilding effort at first. It was only right. She was the master of this Keep, she could help in its re-raising—besides, Yvanne cared about it, that made it important. But somehow she seemed to only get in the way. She didn’t have the skills for it. Unparalleled master of entropy magic she might be, perhaps even a genius not seen for over a century, she didn’t know a single spell that could have been remotely helpful for rebuilding a Keep. With a faint start she realized she was a battlefield mage, and good for little else.

Well, one other thing, perhaps.

She recalled the conversation she’d had with Yvanne on the eve of her return to the Keep, down in the lower levels. She had explained everything, what she’d been working towards, why the darkspawn and the Architect were so interesting to her. The idea hadn’t occurred to her until recently—it had been percolating quietly for a long time.

She was going to cure the Calling. She was going to put an end to the Blights. She was going to transform the world, and she was going to do it her way.

Loriel told Yvanne everything, carrying on about all her ideas, about such and such reagents and that sort of distilling process and how she was going to write Avernus and wasn’t it good that they’d kept him alive after all, and how the Architect was going to help her and how it was all going to come together.

And Yvanne had listened long and careful and finally put her hands on Loriel’s shoulders. Loriel realized suddenly how much tension she’d been holding in them and tried to relax under her touch, letting her sentence trail off.

“That’s all great. But, listen,” Yvanne said, sliding her palms up to Loriel’s jaw, rubbing small circles on her cheek. Down here amongst the stone, her warmth was all-encompassing. “Are you happy?”

Loriel didn’t know how to answer that.

“Because you realize of course that you don’t have to do this. If you really want to, I’ll do everything I can to help you. I think you can do it, because you’re a bloody genius, and therefore probably won’t need my help, but you’ll have it. But you know you don’t have to.”

“Of course I know that.

“So why are you really doing it?”

“Because...you were right all along.” Loriel closed her eyes. “I should have gone with you. I should have protected our home. You needed me, and I let you go, and I’m so, so sorry.”

“Oh, you—stop it, won’t you?” Yvanne muttered, twining fingers into her hair, massaging her scalp. “You saved so many lives. What kind of monster would I be to wish you hadn’t done that?”

They didn’t want me to save them, Loriel thought. I should have stayed with you. She noted that Yvanne had not exactly said that she didn’t wish for that.

But this she didn’t say. If Yvanne needed to believe that what had happened had been best for the both of them, then Loriel was going to let her.

“I’m a terrible leader,” Loriel said. “I never should have brought us here. You were right not to want to come—”

“I never said—!”

“But I knew! I knew you didn’t want to, I knew you might hate it, and I insisted, because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.”

“It worked out, though,” Yvanne said softly.

“That’s right. It did. And I’m so glad it did, Yvanne!” Loriel found herself smiling. “I’m so glad you have this. I’ve never seen you so happy in my life. You’re alive in a way you never used to be. Do you have any idea how beautiful that is to me?”

“I pointedly note that you didn’t answer my question,” Yvanne said sharply. “Are you happy?”

Loriel thought about it. She wanted to answer honestly. “I’m as happy as I possibly could be, with everything as it is. There’s nowhere we can go where I think I would be better off, nothing I want to be doing more than I want to be doing this, and nothing you can do to make it any better. Except, just be with me. And be happy.”

“I can’t just…augh, I should never have left you! I was panicking, I thought you’d be right behind me, I didn’t think—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Result was the same, wasn’t it?”

“You saving the Keep? That result?” But not saving everybody, Loriel thought. Not the Seneschal, not all those young soldiers, not all those farmers and their families hiding in the Keep for protection as the darkspawn army fell upon it. Not all the people that would have been saved if Loriel had joined her, had been there to spare her some small part of that suffering, and then maybe the Seneschal would still be alive. As these dark thoughts darted through Loriel’s mind, she could see them darting through Yvanne’s mind, too, and suddenly she felt worse than ever.

“What I mean to say is—you’re important to me,” Yvanne said. “More important than anything else. And I do mean anything. I’ve built up this Keep, these lands, but that’s nothing to what I’ve built with you. Nobody in the world knows me like you do. I couldn’t replace that if I lived a thousand years. And I want you to be happy. And if that means we have to leave, find somewhere else—”

“You make me happy. And the work makes me happy.” Loriel cracked a smile. “No, there’s nothing for us out there. We’ve found a home. Now we just have to live in it.”

“Then we will.” Yvanne said it almost dazed, as though she hadn’t been expecting this. Like she’d been ready to give everything up, and was surprised to realize that she wouldn’t have to.

It still hurt, that she’d left. And Loriel could tell that for all her apologies, Yvanne was no less hurt. But was it any different from all the other times they’d hurt each other? There’d been many such occasions, more than she could count.

That was what real love was about, Loriel had concluded. You hurt each other, maybe even hurt each other a lot, because how could two lives be lived in such proximity without some measure of pain? You hurt each other, and you stayed, because it was worth it, all of it. It was worth it.

—

They were in bed. Normally they’d be asleep by now, but Yvanne wasn’t sleeping well lately. Ever since the siege, she was taken to waking up suddenly, and taking a long time to get back to sleep. Wine helped, a little. So they were having wine.

“The garden’s almost finished,” Yvanne was saying, “you should see it, it’s beautiful. Not quite like the one I remember, but only because it’s better. Only flowers I like in this one, no stupid carnations or anything. I know it’s indulgent of me, isn’t it? But we should spend more time in it now. It’s a peaceful place, you should see the roses, and I’m thinking perhaps a lemon tree seeing as it’s so warm up here in summer…”

Loriel fiddled with her hair, letting Yvanne’s voice roll over her.

“...but anyway. How was your day?”

She gave the question serious thought, then finally hazarded, “Has Justice...talked to you recently?”

Yvanne wrinkled her nose. “Why? Has he been hassling you about mage freedom, too? He’s been at it for weeks with me, and Anders for even longer, and he’s nearly talked him round. Now they’re both insufferable and I have no one to talk to at all.”

Loriel paused midway through winding her longest lock of hair around her finger. “Why? Don’t you think mage freedom is just?”

“Just?” said Yvanne, and rolled her eyes. “Show me one gram of justice in the world, one morsel of mercy. The world is what it is. The best we can do is find something worth protecting and protect that. Justice just doesn’t know it yet because he’s the spirit equivalent of a baby.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“Who cares if he’s right? Him being right won’t change anything. Anyway, if he’s been hassling you, you should tell him to knock it off and bother somebody who hasn’t saved the world a handful of times. Maker knows you’ve done your part.”

“He hasn’t been hassling me,” said Loriel. “He asked me about...well, he asked me about love.”

“Oh,” said Yvanne. “What about it? Has he been getting on with Aura? I know that’s important to him.”

Loriel thought for a while about how to put it delicately, even though she’d thought of little else all week. “He wanted to know why it is that we love each other but aren’t married. He thinks it’s—er, a requirement. Marriage, I mean.”

Yvanne actually laughed . “Married!” she said. “Imagine that! What with us being mages and all. Not to mention women.”

“Well,” said Loriel, growing heated. She’d had some wine. They’d both had some wine. “Why not? We aren’t Circle mages anymore. We’re Wardens, and Wardens aren’t forbidden to marry.”

“It’s still a foolish idea. What Chantry would recognize such a union?”

Loriel sniffed. She got out of bed and threw on a robe, suddenly remembering about some paperwork that she had to do right now immediately. “Well if you hate the idea of marrying me so much you could have said so from the start.”

Yvanne sat as though struck by lightning. “Does that mean—are you asking? Are you proposing?”

“I’m not doing any such thing,” Loriel said primly, “Seeing as you’ve made your feelings on the matter perfectly clear. Excuse me. I’ve forgotten something I need to do.”

“No! no no no no, stop that!” Yvanne leapt out of bed, dragging the sheets with her. “Are you serious? You’d marry me?”

Loriel huffed, crossed her arms, and looked away. “You know perfectly well…”

“What is it? What do I know perfectly well?” She struggled with the sheets, tangled. “Damn you! Did you really mean it?”

“Yes, I meant it,” Loriel managed. “I’d marry you, if you’d have me. Which you already knew perfectly well, and you should be ashamed of yourself for making me say it as though you need any more proof.”

“If I’d have you!” Yvanne closed her eyes, dragging her fingers down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but seemed only capable of repeating herself. “If I’d have you! Well! Isn’t that a fine thing to say!

Loriel could feel the beginnings of the blush. “I’m being difficult, aren’t I?” She sighed. “Alright, let me start again. Yvanne Amell, my love, will you—?”

“What are you doing?” Yvanne said, scandalized. “You can’t do that here. This is the entirely wrong place.”

A gentle lifting of an eyebrow. “What’s more suitable, then?”

Yvanne thought, rapidly pulling on whatever articles of clothing were nearest at hand. “The balcony! The moon’s almost full. It’ll have to do.”

She seized her by the hand and they ran through the deserted corridors, to the best balcony. Yvanne threw open the door and pulled Loriel through.

“There,” she said. “That’s better. Do you have a ring? Wait, I think I have one—it grants protection from fire, it’ll do—”

“I can hardly give you a ring you already have,” Loriel protested.

“Fine, then, I wanted to be the one to ask, anyway. No, don’t argue! You’ve mucked up your attempt already, that means it’s my turn! Fair’s fair, even Justice would agree to that.”

“Oh—you’re absolutely beastly, you know that? You’re taking advantage of me.”

“One word from you and all this ends.”

“Hm. Very well. Ask, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

Yvanne took out the ring of fire protection, or whatever it was, and sank to one knee. Moonlight bathed Loriel’s face, silvering her hair and glittering in her eyes. How could Yvanne have ever thought her plain? She was the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Loriel Surana, my only love, my truest and my dearest, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Loriel had fully intended on hemming and hawing and making a big show of thinking about it. But now that Yvanne was kneeling in front of her like that… “Yes,” she whispered.

She rose from her kneeling position, smoothly into a kiss. It was the most recent of many, and they would both remember it, later.

“We ought to get real rings,” Loriel commented, at length. “Sometime during the course of the engagement.”

“Engagement?” Yvanne whined. “How long’s that going to take? I want to be married to you now. I want to be married to you yesterday. Months ago. Five years ago. But now would be almost as good.”

“Now?” Loriel thought about it. “What’s the time?”

“Three hours or so til dawn, I think.”

Loriel nodded thoughtfully. “The Amaranthine chantry is still standing,” she said slowly. “We could make it there by morning. If we rode.”

“By sunrise if we rode hard,” Yvanne said eagerly.

—

They didn’t make it by sunrise, but that was just as well, since Revered Mother Leanna generally didn’t rise until nine at the earliest. Perhaps this wasn’t very holy of her, but, she reasoned, she had spent many long years righteously, diligently rising with the sun to go about doing good works. So in her old age, she felt entirely comfortable giving herself a break.

Which was why it was so annoying to have the gates to her Chantry banged upon no later than seven in the morning. She swore—with Andraste’s pardon, thank you—and shouted that alright, alright, she was on her way, just let her get decent first, and hobbled to the door. She was expecting something dire, perhaps a premature birth or sudden death or abandoned baby, and so was rather put out when instead she found two apparently quite healthy adult women.

Then she blinked, and realized, to her horror, that one of these women was in fact the Arlessa, the Warden-Commander, the odd pale woman who raised the dead and drained vitality from the living—and the only reason the Chantry was standing at all, Revered Mother Leanna sternly reminded herself.

She fell to profuse apologies for her lateness and rudeness, and if there was anything she could do to express her gratitude—

“It’s quite alright,” the Arlessa said mildly. “We’d just like to get married, please.”

Revered Mother Leanna looked between the two of them. “You’d like to get married?” she repeated.

“I’ve got the rings and everything,” said the Arlessa’s—betrothed?—and proudly flashed her left hand. As far as Revered Mother Leanna could tell, she had quite a number of rings, on both hands. Most of them were glowing faintly with enchantment. But the Arlessa was nodding along, displaying her own ring.

“I—well,” said Revered Mother Leanna. Well, she could hardly refuse. “Come on inside, then.”

Most of the sisters had risen already, and watched the proceedings curiously. “You have no witnesses?” said Leanna.

“Oh,” said the Arlessa. “Do we need them? We didn’t think of that.”

“No, no, er, the Maker and his Bride will serve for witnesses. Come along to the altar, then.”

Some of the altar candles had burned down. Leanna lit them hurriedly, then cleared her throat. Usually there was quite a bit more pageantry involved, but the essentials were all present. “Have you any vows you’d like to speak?”

The two women stared blankly at her, then at each other. “We didn’t think of those, either.”

“It’s alright,” Leanna said hurriedly. “It’s traditional, but not necessary.”

“No, I want to vow something!” said the Arlessa’s betrothed—bother, Leanna couldn’t remember her name, though she’d seen her about town before. “Let me think!”

But before she—Yvette? Yvonne?—could come to any conclusions, the Arlessa took her by the hands. “I vow to honor and protect you, to...to love you for all time, and…”

“Slay any enormous fuck-off dragons that might bother us,” she suggested.

“Yes, that, and also, spend some time in that garden you worked so hard on—”

“I vow all that, and also to take care of any irritating paperwork that you don’t want to do—”

“—and make sure you don’t sleep through breakfast because I know you like it when everyone’s together—”

“—and not to loom, not on purpose anyway—”

“—and not to be difficult for no reason.” The Arlessa looked at Leanna. “Is that suitable?”

Leanna realized she was being addressed. “Yes, it will serve,” she coughed. “You may exchange rings.”

“Wait, sorry, I’m confused,” said the Arlessa’s betrothed. “I thought rings were exchanged at the proposal, not the wedding?”

“I thought so, too,” the Arlessa said. “Should we find another set? Is the jeweler’s open?”

“Not necessary!” squeaked Revered Mother Leanna. “The Maker blesses your union! May your days be long and fruitful! You may kiss.”

They kissed. A particularly emotional sister, who loved weddings and always cried at them, ran to go ring the bells before it was too late.

“That’s it, then?” said the Arlessa when they broke apart and the wedding bells were ringing. “We’re married? Just like that?”

“Yes, you’re married,” said Leanna. The whole affair had taken less than ten minutes, and she was wondering whether she might be able to go back to bed for another hour or two.

“Well, good,” said Yvonne or Yvette or whatever her name was, smugly putting her arm around her new wife’s shoulders. “We should do it again sometime. Now we’d better get home; we haven’t slept in a while.”

Leanna wished the newlyweds the best of luck and all the joy in the world, and went gratefully back to bed.

—

They ambled back to Vigil’s Keep late in the afternoon, hand in hand and thinking of more vows to make for the next time. They were met at the gate by a stern—and rather matronly-looking, with the particular set of his crossed arms—Nathaniel Howe.

“Commander,” he said tersely. “You were missed today, I’m afraid. Lord Guy was here around noon, expecting a meeting and throwing his weight around mightily when he found you absent.”

“Oh,” said Loriel, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I forgot completely. I’ll write him an apology later tonight. We were out getting married.”

“It’s fine, I handled it,” said Nathaniel, “Only he’ll be back next week wanting—you were out getting what?”

Yvanne showed him the ring. “It grants protection from fire, too.”

He stood dumbstruck, then started grinning. “I—well—congratulations!”

“ Please don’t make a big deal out of it,” Loriel urged. “It was spur of the moment, more of a formality than anything.”

Nathaniel nodded very seriously and promised not to make a big deal of it. Only he made the mistake of telling Anders, who told the whole Keep, who subsequently proceeded to make a big deal out of it.

The ambush lay in store in the Great Hall, during what was normally the dinner hour. Anders was there, tapping his foot. “I cannot believe,” he said, at the sight of them, “that I would be betrayed in this way, by my two favoritest mages in the world. I trusted you, and I am hurt so deeply.”

Loriel almost went into a panic, and started mentally backtracking through every interaction she’d recently had with Anders and whether any of them might be construed as a betrayal. She started mentally composing an all-purpose apology, but Yvanne was already laughing and telling him to fuck off. It dawned on her in stages what was happening.

“You really didn’t think I’d let you get out of this without a wedding reception, did you?” he said seriously.

They were being thrown a party.

She wasn’t sure who’d put this together—Maker knew it wasn’t all Anders; perhaps Garavel?—or how they’d managed it so quickly, but somehow the whole Keep was in on it. Wine flowed, as well as other stronger things, and all the residents of the Keep who were so much as passing fair at a musical instrument cobbled together a makeshift minstrel troupe.

Apparently Velanna knew how to play the flute. She was pretty good at it, too. Anders was terrible on the lute, but it wasn’t stopping him. It didn’t take very long at all for Oghren to start a long and bawdy wedding night song about a nug and a bronto, and apparently Sigrun knew it, too, and it had a structure simple enough that soon enough more than half of everyone present was singing on it, and by then Loriel had drunk enough wine that she wasn’t embarrassed by any of it.

What she remembered most clearly was dancing with Yvanne. They’d never danced together before, and they were awful at it, and everyone was watching and laughing and cheering. How strange a thought, that they had never danced together—surely they must have tried it at some point? But no, there’d been no dancing at the Circle, and during the Blight they’d always been staring over each other’s shoulders, and then during the celebration at Denerim it had all been too heavy, despite the joy of victory, and after that, what with one thing or another…

But she would always remember this dance. Yvanne flushed and happy and looking completely ridiculous, looking at her and at nothing else. She would remember that for a long time, even when she had occasion to remember little else.

Shortly after that someone—probably Oghren, but maybe Anders—persuaded her to try the aqua magus, and her recollection of the evening grew rather fuzzy. What she did remember was that close to midnight Anders declared that it was time for the honored tradition of the bedding, and before Loriel could even begin to wonder what that was, they were being lifted bodily by the crowd and spirited away. Dozens of hands carried them through the Keep, up the stairs and to the Commander’s bedchamber, where they were dumped upon their bed amidst a great deal of hooting and hollering. Then the crowd, shouting helpful suggestions, were ushered out, until finally the door was shut and they were alone on their wedding night.

They were far too drunk to do anything but struggle under the covers and fall right asleep, and nothing went wrong for nearly an entire month.

[janiedean]

jaime, pia and perceived ideals of knighthood vs effective knightly deeds

for jaime lannister week, day seven: free choice [in this case: META DAY? APPARENTLY.]

so, for the occasion I figured I’d rant about a specific instance in jaime’s asos/affc arc that might be a tad overlooked as it features a minor character but that I think is really important to his arc/his character evolution, as in: how his subplot concerning pia in both books actually shows that while he thinks he turned into the smiling knight, for someone he’s been arthur dayne all along and how actually pia is about the one person to whom he’s never not been anyone or anything else else, which should in turn suggest that he’s been arthur dayne deep down for way longer than he himself thinks.

first of all, I would like to go into the canon instances on which jaime himself reflects on the issue:

The world was simpler in those days, Jaime thought, and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen? They were all in their graves now, the Sword of the Morning and the Smiling Knight, the White Bull and Prince Lewyn, Ser Oswell Whent with his black humor, earnest Jon Darry, Simon Toyne and his Kingswood Brotherhood, bluff old Sumner Crakehall. And me, that boy I was . . . when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys's throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead.  ASOS, Jaime VIII

"When I was a squire I told myself I'd be the man to slay the Smiling Knight."

"The Smiling Knight?" She sounded lost. "Who was that?"

The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. AFFC, Jaime IV

"You could kill Lord Beric, Ser Jaime. You slew the Smiley Knight. Please, my lord, I beg you, stay and help us with Lord Beric and the Hound." Her pale fingers caressed his golden ones.

Does she think that I can feel that? "The Sword of the Morning slew the Smiling Knight, my lady. Ser Arthur Dayne, a better knight than me." AFFC, Jaime IV

now, there are a few things we can deduce from these (there’s more on the arthur subject, but the crux here is the contraposition):

jaime has a very idealized view of his squiring period, obviously, because it’s the one time in which he was doing what he felt like he was born to do (being a knight) and in which he was part of an heroic quest/deed (slaying the smiling knight) that he carried out with his role model (arthur dayne);

the smiling knight himself is compared to gregor clegane, ie the worst person we could think of in these series;

in jaime’s head there’s a definite dichotomy in between arthur (extreme good) and the smiling knight (extreme bad);

jaime wanted to be like arthur (which he has no problem admitting now post hand-loss) but thinks that he turned into the smiling knight ie the worst possible other end of the specter, so he’a actually making himself look worse than he actually is as nothing he’s done in canon until that point is comparable to what gregor did if we stand by that comparison;

jaime *told himself he would slay the smiling knight* ie he dreamed of being the person who’d carry out that quest - it earned him the knighthood and he took part in it but he didn’t exactly do it as he points out later, as he says that arthur was a better knight than he was.

now, while we could discuss for ages about how jaime’s extremely idealized view of arthur and the rest of aerys’s KG doesn’t necessarily match up with reality (I mean, we don’t know much about what arthur was up to during the rebellion and we’ll never know until we get a direct account of what happened at the tower of joy but the man died trying to prevent ned from reaching his dying sister after his side lost the war, after rhaegar died and so on, which doesn’t look exactly knightly to me or at least it’s fairly morally gray/shady from the elements that we have), but the point I want to make here is that the way jaime sees it, he completely failed to uphold knightly vows, hasn’t measured up to his role model, turned into the kind of monster that he was dreaming of slaying when he was young and ponders when exactly that switch happened. and he mentions as possibilities a) when he went into the KG, b) when he killed aerys.

before I move on to the actual point, though, I’d like to point out one moment what is actually the oath knights swear when being anointed, as per ASOS and The Hedge Knight:

[..], do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children, to obey your captains, your liege lord, and your king, to fight bravely when needed and do such other tasks as are laid upon you, however hard or humble or dangerous they may be?

+

In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women....

so, very shortly and not counting the ones about obeying one’s commander or liege lord, the crux is protecting innocent/weaker people including women and children who can’t defend themselves any better.

so, jaime thinks he’s done nothing of that and that he’s not doing anything of that. fair enough. follow-up under the cut for length.

now, on to pia: before going on to how she matters in his arc, we should keep in mind that from what we know from arya’s chapters in a clash of kings:

Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle. Hot Pie was kneading bread, his arms floured up to his elbows. "Pia saw something in the buttery last night." Arya made a rude noise. Pia was always seeing things in the buttery. Usually they were men. Tothmure had been sent to the axe for dispatching birds to Casterly Rock and King's Landing the night Harrenhal had fallen, Lucan the armorer for making weapons for the Lannisters, Goodwife Harra for telling Lady Whent's household to serve them, the steward for giving Lord Tywin the keys to the treasure vault. The cook was spared (some said because he'd made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who'd shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.

so: we know that she’s a serving hand (so she’s a woman of low birth who has virtually no protection whatsoever), that she’s good-looking and that she most likely enjoys having sex (nothing bad about that)… but that people shame her for it (see the first quote). we also can deduce that she was willing in her enjoyment of sex and so on… but the last that we know from arya’s chapters, when roose conquers it, she’s stripped and shaved and left free for use for having slept with lannister soldiers, so we can add that on top of that she most likely was raped and we can deduce that not many people would have considered it such after because of her previous reputation for promiscuity.

now, what happens after is that qyburn sends her to jaime figuring that he’d appreciate it:

“I understand you had a visitor last night,” said Qyburn. “I trust that you enjoyed her?”

Jaime gave him a cool look. “She did not say who sent her.”

The maester smiled modestly. “Your fever was largely gone, and I thought you might enjoy a bit of exercise. Pia is quite skilled, would you not agree? And so . . . willing.”

what we can deduce here is that qyburn sent her to jaime after the whole part where she was put up for *free use* by any man who wanted her and he still says she’s willing, which is actually true but more on that later, but to qyburn it really doesn’t matter most likely because of her previous fame. also he talks about her as if she’s not a person with feelings (she’s skilled, you enjoyed her etc.), while jaime does not sleep with her out of faithfulness towards cersei, but what’s interesting is how pia said she saw the entire thing:

“She had been that, certainly. She had slipped in his door and out of her clothes so quickly that Jaime had thought he was still dreaming.

It hadn’t been until the woman slid in under his blankets and put his good hand on her breast that he roused. She was a pretty little thing, too. “I was a slip of a girl when you came for Lord Whent’s tourney and the king gave you your cloak,” she confessed. “You were so handsome all in white, and everyone said what a brave knight you were. Sometimes when I’m with some man, I close my eyes and pretend it’s you on top of me, with your smooth skin and gold curls. I never truly thought I’d have you, though.”

Sending her away had not been easy after that, but Jaime had done it all the same. I have a woman, he reminded himself. “Do you send girls to everyone you leech?” he asked Qyburn.

“More often Lord Vargo sends them to me. He likes me to examine them, before . . . well, suffice it to say that once he loved unwisely, and he has no wish to do so again. But have no fear, Pia is quite healthy. As is your maid of Tarth.”

Jaime gave him a sharp look. “Brienne?”

now, never mind that the entire exchange ends up with jaime finding out that brienne is in danger and it’s just before his dream and the bear pit as in, his Extremely Knightly Moment in asos which is also relevant as that episode (while not the first knightly thing he does after losing the hand since saving brienne from being raped while on their road trip would count) is the first major gesture of the kind he does: we know that after she was most likely raped repeatedly, she got sent to *him*, and we find out that she’s actually been thinking of him in extremely knightly terms all along since she saw him getting knighted. now she says she was a slip of a girl so she most likely was around four or five and she still remembers that he looked handsome and brave (knightly virtues) and that when she’s with other people she pretends it’s jaime making love to her, to the point that she can’t believe her luck that she’d actually end up with him. now, he refuses (even if he finds it hard), but he’s most likely one of the few people (if not the only one) who would have done that and he also doesn’t appreciate qyburn basically whoring her out, so at least he’s giving her some basic respect… but the point here is that to pia he sounds/looks like the embodiment of everything he thinks he’s not (brave/knightly) and she’s been thinking that since he went into the kingsguard ie one of the two moments that in the above quote he thought might have been when he turned from arthur into the smiling knight, which therefore would *not* match her idea of him as a splendid example of knightly valor… in theory.

now, at this point, regardless of what happened in between arya leaving harrenhal and jaime getting there, pia still seems to not having undergone through massive changes since what we saw in acok - she’s still pretty, she enjoys sex and she definitely is willing at least when it comes to the one man she’s been having an idealized crush on for years and that she thinks of when having sex with other men.

then jaime goes back to harrenhal in affc before heading for riverrun and he meets her again:

Any hopes he might have nursed of finding Shagwell, Pyg, or Zollo languishing in the dungeons were sadly disappointed. The Brave Companions had abandoned Vargo Hoat to a man, it would seem. Of Lady Whent's people, only three remained—the cook who had opened the postern gate for Ser Gregor, a bent-back armorer called Ben Blackthumb, and a girl named Pia, who was not near as pretty as she had been when Jaime saw her last. Someone had broken her nose and knocked out half her teeth. The girl fell at Jaime's feet when she saw him, sobbing and clinging to his leg with hysterical strength till Strongboar pulled her off. "No one will hurt you now," he told her, but that only made her sob the louder. +

“Take the whore as well," Ser Bonifer urged. "You know the one. The girl from the dungeons."

"Pia." The last time he had been here, Qyburn had sent the girl to his bed, thinking that would please him. But the Pia they had brought up from the dungeons was a different creature from the sweet, simple, giggly creature who'd crawled beneath his blankets. She had made the mistake of speaking when Ser Gregor wanted quiet, so the Mountain had smashed her teeth to splinters with a mailed fist and broken her pretty little nose as well. He would have done worse, no doubt, if Cersei had not called him down to King's Landing to face the Red Viper's spear. Jaime would not mourn him.

"Pia was born in this castle," he told Ser Bonifer. "It is the only home she has ever known."

"She is a font of corruption," said Ser Bonifer. "I won't have her near my men, flaunting her . . . parts."

so, what happens is that when gregor (as in, the person jaime compared the smiling knight with before) was in harrenhal he smashed her teeth with a mailed first because she spoke out of turn and as per what the next quote says, she’s also been repeatedly raped again, and she’s definitely way traumatized and in a position of absolute helplessness… and she throws herself at jaime’s feet most likely seeing him as a possible savior - let’s remember that she’s idealized him as a brave knight all along, and he does promise she won’t be hurt, which is what he technically should do per his knightly vows. now, when he tries to argue for her staying in harrenhal, ser bonifer ie the person appointed to mind the castle in his absence says he doesn’t want her around because she’s a supposed whore regardless of how bad off she is right now. he could have ignored the issue, but he doesn’t and takes her as a washerwoman in his own army, and with that he already removes her from a place where she would have been even less safe than usual, but the important thing is in the next part:

Pia listened as solemnly as a girl of five being lessoned by her septa. That's all she is, a little girl in a woman's body, scarred and scared. Peck was taken with her, though. Jaime suspected that the boy had never known a woman, and Pia was still pretty enough, so long as she kept her mouth closed. There's no harm in him bedding her, I suppose, so long as she's willing.

One of the Mountain's men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. "I had her before, a hunnerd times," he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. "A hunnerd times, m'lord. We all had her." When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had smiled through her ruined teeth.

now: never mind that jaime (who as we all know is not the kind of person who reacts with a shrug when hearing/knowing someone has been raped or he wouldn’t be feeling guilty about his inaction with rhaella nor he’d have risked his hide to save brienne from it thrice two of which were post-hand loss and in one of those he wasn’t even able to stand by himself) always thinks that if she has to bed someone the important thing is that she’s *willing* nor thinks less of her for he promiscuity, which for westeros is fairly progressive all things considered… but he gives her the head of the guy who tried to rape her and by his own admission did it before *a hundred times* same as other soldiers in his group, and… she smiles through ruined teeth ie she doesn’t even care about hiding it, when later she takes care to cover her mouth when she speaks around other nobles. also, we can discuss that when she and peck start sleeping together jaime tells them to use his bed and:

The squire turned beet red.

"If she'll have you, take her. She'll teach you a few things you'll find useful on your wedding night, I don't doubt, and you're not like to get a bastard by her." Pia had spread her legs for half his father's army and never quickened; most like the girl was barren. "If you bed her, though, be kind to her."

"Kind, my lord? How . . . how would I . . . ?"

"Sweet words. Gentle touches. You don't want to wed her, but so long as you're abed treat her as you would your bride."

now: obviously he can’t tell his squire (who is still noble) that he should marry a woman who is a commoner, most likely barren and way older than he is, but he tells him that he still should treat her *as if she was* until they sleep together, and his standard for how you’d treat your bride is sweet words and gentle touches which most likely is not what pia’s gotten until this point much if ever, and throughout the entire thing while he is attracted to her and he doesn’t deny it to himself he still doesn’t act on it. and meanwhile since she’s still traveling with his army of which he’s in command she’s in a position of relative safety, never mind that if people know that he ordered beheaded the guy who tried to touch her when she wasn’t willing she definitely isn’t under that risk right now.

back to the beginning, what are the knightly vows again? protecting innocent/weaker people including women and children who can’t defend themselves any better. what has jaime done with pia on her end? he didn’t sleep with her nor treated her as a commodity, he has quite literally protected her taking her into his service when she was in danger, he’s made sure that she wouldn’t have to sleep with anyone she didn’t want to, has respected her agency and gave her the head of at least one of the guys who raped her, which considering that the person hurting her was *gregor clegane* ie the man he’s roundabout compared *himself* to in asos if we go by the smiling knight = gregor comparison… it’s kind of the entire opposite thing and absolutely counts as fulfilling every single knightly vow he made since he protected/saved/avenged a woman in a position of absolute helplessness about whose agency no one cares because everyone decided that since she likes sex then she must always want it.

the thing that’s important though is that by doing that… he’s pretty much proved her right, in the sense that if she’s always imagined him as the brave handsome knight since she was a little girl and he had just been anointed and she always idealized him to the point where she’d think about him when being with other people because obviously his idealized self would be everything she might want then he about went and proved her right regardless of any other shortcoming of his or regardless of any horrible thing he might have done before or after, because to her he most likely would be a knight out of songs since he did waltz in, promised no one would hurt her after it happened to her and actually delivered on it in spades.

but, while for *her* it’s definitely the case, jaime himself doesn’t think of it in very knightly terms, at most we have:

“Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies." Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. "He has promised me Lord Beric's head. He's very gallant." She was blushing beneath her tears.

Jaime thought back on the head he'd given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. He would have had a few choice words for Harwyn Plumm as well, though gallant would not have been one of them. 

now, he’s thinking of it in the context of a romantic gesture since it was described as one before, but then he says gallant wouldn’t be one of those words and he doesn’t really register what he did as *gallant* or knightly while most likely pia would. also, he’s comparing himself to both the smiling knight and gregor (in another quote later he dreams of punching in the teeth one of cersei’s lovers the way gregor did while he’s still working through how betrayed that made him feel, but thing is, he doesn’t act on that at any point except when he punches ronnet for brienne and it’s nowhere near as bad as what he describes himself as) but he behaves in the entire opposite way since at least in pia’s case gregor about ruined her life and he avenged it/helped her/did what he could for her which is about more than most likely anyone ever did, and to her certainly everything he did would indeed look as knightly as it goes.

but like the entire point is that jaime doesn’t think of the knightly deeds he actually pulls off as such - he doesn’t think that of saving brienne’s life at the bear pit/saving her from being raped/giving her oathkeeper when brienne herself definitely sees them as such as in her affc chapters she keeps on thinking about both instances as proof that he’s Definitely A Honorable Person, he doesn’t think that of what he does with pia nor of anything else positive he’s ever done/does, which ties with the overall arc he has in which he has to realize that he can still be the person he wanted to be. in asos he thinks he turned into the smiling knight when he’s never been all along, in both asos and affc he does behave following the code when he can and hates not being able to when he can’t/when he’s forced to (see having to take riverrun when he says he has sworn to not raise arms against the tullys and he hates it) but he still doesn’t seem to have taken the leap and realized that he actually behaves in entirely different ways than he thinks (see that he thinks he’s the same as cersei when most of the things he does/he cares about are the entire contrary), so the subplot with pia shows that he’s actually doing that without realizing it… with the twist that, going back to the beginning:

he thinks he turned into the smiling knight (= gregor) sometime along the way when he wanted to be arthur dayne, then he’s the literal knight in shining armor to a girl who was hurt by gregor and his father’s men who always thought he was pretty much the embodiment of the institution same as jaime thought arthur dayne was, and it’s a girl who has no idea of anything else he might have done other than killing aerys and she obviously doesn’t care since she doesn’t mention it when she goes to his bed the first time. so there is someone to whom he was an arthur dayne all along, and the moment he could do something for her, he actually delivered and definitely was arthur dayne to her, not the smiling knight, and she’d know since she was hurt by the man jaime himself compared to him first. now, it’s important because everyone else that has had a chance to know that jaime actually does have that potential is people with whom he has an actual rship/who have seen him at his worst/with whom he has unresolved Issues To Solve ASAP (I’m meaning mostly brienne and tyrion - brienne didn’t like him whatsoever in the beginning and with tyrion there’s the whole matter of the tysha backstory which obviously ruined the high opinion tyrion had of him even if I think it’s salvageable) but in this case pia already thought she was arthur dayne As A Paragon Of Knightly Virtues (not as how arthur actually was which is as stated an entire other issue in itself) and he lived up to it without even realizing he was doing it, but he doesn’t even think once about whether he shouldn’t help her or he shouldn’t give her the time of the day. like, he doesn’t really consider doing otherwise or not giving a shit about what happens to her regardless. which should also automatically suggest that it’s actually in his nature to do the right thing/follow the basics of his vows. obviously he didn’t realize that but as finding out he has it in himself to be the person he wanted to be when he was young and that he didn’t turn into a gregor stand-in is I think one of the main themes in his arc, I also think this specific subplot really underlines how he’s still in the middle of figuring it out while also stressing that regardless of what he thinks about what he is or what he became, he can be arthur dayne As A Paragon and that he can deliver on that/be what he always dreamed he could be for someone who already saw him as that paragon and whom he hasn’t disappointed in any other way.

in short: by helping someone who exactly meets all the criteria for ‘category he swore to protect when taking his vows’ when this person already saw him as a paragon, he’s actually contradicting his own assessment of his morality/honor or lack thereof, because while he thinks he wanted to be arthur dayne and turned into the contrary, to other people he always was arthur dayne and when he could show them that he could be, he delivered on those expectations, differently from what most others did to him, and I find it quite a beautiful if heartbreaking parallel and also definitely a not so small hint that his overall storyline is going towards realize that he, in fact, isn’t the smiling knight at all and never actually has been.

[castawxayaway]

Loose Threads

​couple of things because I am a pain. I got accepted to my top choice university today which is kind of surreal, not sure how to feel but wanted to share as this is a space for me to say things. And I have tried a different style today, might do more in the future but who knows. 

Last thing is about requesting, please send some in as I love taking ideas and turning them into something exciting. I’ve started doing music requests whether it be based on 5sos or just a personal piece but either way let me know! 

Okay, enough of that, enjoy! :D 

​masterlist / request / submit

one / two

Pulling the loose threads at the end of your top out further you bluntly snapped it, leaving the curled black cotton around your finger. Sighing, you leant back into the uncomfortable wooden chair, interviews, who really enjoyed them anyway?

For the past two weeks you'd been doing press for your latest movie, it was one of your biggest roles to date along with well renowned stars that you got lucky enough to work with Day in day out. Today was the first of many interviews to do in LA and jet lag was settling into your system much to your dismay but as always you had to perceiver, put your brightest and loved smile on and bare through this hour.

Shifting again as microphones were attached to your top along with your co star whilst you waited for the interviewer to come in and begin. "Someone can't relax today." Caspar joked as the sound technician adjusted his mic one last time before giving the others a thumbs up.

"Well it is 7:55 in the morning, back home I would be getting into bed." You couldn't help but fantasise of the king sized bed with the softest fabric that felt like sleeping on a giant cloud surrounded by warmth. Caspar clicked in front of your face bringing you back to this less than favoured reality as the interviewer introduced herself.

"Hi Caspar, Y/N big fan of the film. Big fan. Saw it last night and I have to say that your performances were some of your best." She gave the usual generic compliments that you both accepted, gratefully as you were taught. They don't call you actors for nothing.

She began by asking the usual questions, how you both got on with the sets, learning lines, action scenes and romantic aspects. The same questions you had been answering for the past fortnight so there wasn’t anything new or original involved, that’s just how it is. “Yeah I think I speak for both of us but there was a lot of chemistry between characters and we really connected on a friend level, like we just got on from the start.” Caspar spoke up about the usual rumours on you two becoming a new power couple but that was the least of your concerns. 

“I think when we first starting filming we were going on from early hours of the morning to like what was it 4am some days?” Caspar nodded in agreement and you continued. “So there was this need to get on as we spent a lot of time together. As a cast we bonded overall.” Smiling to yourself the memories of late nights on set came to mind as you all powered through the tiredness knowing you had each other. 

Adjusting yourself in the seat you wished that heels weren’t the footwear you opted for earlier, thinking back to those comfy slippers but unfortunately they would’ve been in the shot so heels was the other option. “So Y/n we have to ask about you and Michael.” You could feel your heart tighten in your chest at the sound of his name and yours in the same sentence. 

Slowly you could feel the rips and tears grow through your chest, everything falling apart all over again. The interviewer saw the unsettling look that you wore and glanced to Caspar for some help, her eyes going wide as she flipped through her cards. A long silence lingered and you could hear mutters in your ear piece. “Just answer the bloody question, the longer you leave it the more of a fuss the press will make.” Your manager muttered into your ear leaving you with no other choice. 

“Me and Michael isn’t something to be concerned over, we are no longer together.” You held back the trembles in your voice, in the past few weeks no one has had the nerve to ask about Michael and you were grateful despite preparing for the worst of it. Yet, the second someone does it sends you into a state of panic, one that isn’t easy to suppress. 

Caspar placed his hand on top of yours and squeezed it lightly, “I, erm don’t think that’s something we should talk about. After all we are here to talk about the movie.” He stated and the interviewer continued, briefly apologising and went on as if it had never occurred. 

Soon after the interview ended and you both left sooner than you anticipated. Walking out of the room you played with the loose threads again, releasing a deep breath you were holding. “You holding up okay?” Caspar asked catching up to you as the two of you went to the car, leaving an awkward tension around, squashed into the back of the car as you struggled to think of anything else. “Taking your silence as a bad sign,” He sighed. “they shouldn’t have even thought about asking that, I guess it’s just because he did the soundtrack and-” 

“Can we talk about something else Caspar.” You cut him off and didn’t even want a response, the silence returned as you just turned away from him and looked outside at the passing sights leading to the next location of this long day of press. 

As you arrived you could hear your heart thumping against your chest louder than usual due to the tight fitting across your chest in this beautiful dress. Tonight was the night, after countless months of the same lines and hard work this was it, all of it would pay off for tonight was going to be as wonderful as you’d imagined since you’d finished filming. “You ready Miss?” The driver asked looking back to you, despite the trembling you couldn’t wait. 

The driver came over and opened the door for you, the screams of excitement and the calling of your name more powerful than you’d ever heard at any event. Helping you out of the car you pulled your dress to get the full effect of the beautiful black lace dress, etched with rose gold detailing. It wasn’t much but it was what you wanted to have, something simple in the mix of lavish items.

Flashing lights shone in your eyes, etched into your pupils every time you blink. Fans called for you along with photographers taking various photos from all angles; immediately you walked over to the fans, signed photos, posters and took infinite amounts of selfies and talked to some of them briefly before being hurried off. ‘I love yous’ and ‘slaying’ were prominent in what was being said making you laugh to yourself as you walked on towards tonights interviewer who greeted you with open arms. 

“May I just say how flawless you look tonight?!” She exclaimed and you did a little twirl for her, laughing brightly. “Okay okay I’ve got to ask, is it surreal at all? Your first big premiere for a movie?” 

You knew the answer almost immediately, “In all honesty I was slightly hungover this time yesterday and in pyjamas all day. So getting up being made up to this which is still unbelievable to be on my body I mean,” Wiping your head slightly you let out a small sigh as you glanced at the fans screaming with such joy. “I doubt it will ever be normal, and I don’t think I would want it to be.” Smiling you turned and waved to all of the fans. “And you guys! Thank you for waiting however long I love and appreciate every single one of you.” Blowing a kiss to the camera you then resumed the interview waiting to find Caspar wherever he may be.  

“What are you most excited about with the film then? Of course there are so many details but-” 

You lost attention on her question but still bored into her eyes, the fans calling, screaming changed to various names. Suddenly your palms got sweaty, the flashing lights seemed too intense and sitting down seemed like the best thing in the world. “Michael! Luke! Calum! Ashton!” Names called out yet his was over riding all of the others, it took a lot of guts for you not to look his way and instead focus back on the interview. 

“Sorry,” You apologise. “I zoned out.” Laughing apprehensively the interviewer could see the mild panic in your eyes and for once someone did you a favour. 

“Y/N L/N everyone!” She yelled with such force that everyone turned your way, now with no other choice than to wave to the fans he was in your channel of vision. 

It was like someone had taken the ideals of a fairy tale, the precise moment when the Prince locks eyes with the Princess and all the world should make sense again. Except instead of feeling like everything was going to be okay it felt as if someone was ripping my insides out. Looking into his green eyes brought back those last few weeks for you, every fight, every time he stormed out or disappeared in the middle of the night, every moment you wished things could’ve been as they once were. You struggled to find your way down the steps with his eyes along with his friends burning into yours. 

“Y/n?” Someone called your name but you kept walking, knowing if you kept walking they wouldn’t make a scene, not here, not now. Sighing in relief you straightened yourself up but it was too soon as an arm touched yours, turning around you couldn’t have been happier to see the cheeky grin of Caspar. 

Tightly hugging him you whispered, “Thank god it’s you. I’m not doing good.” Pulling away you both smiled and pretended to talk about good things, any opportunity the leads are seen together in a candid like way it’s brilliant. In reality they don’t care what we’re talking about, they’re too far to even have a rough idea. 

“So he’s here then.” He wore a look of resentment as well as his suit, tightly fitted in his eyes as he glanced around to find him. “Have you spoken yet?” Shaking your head vigorously you two walked on for more photo opportunities. 

“Do I have to speak to him? Do you think I can get away with leaving us be?” You questioned but knew how unlikely that would be, if you weren’t seen together then press would blow up, if you were press would blow up- there was no positive, no winning. “I guess I’ll have to do it.” 

“You sure? I know how tough it was hearing about them working on the soundtrack.” He spoke in hushed tones now, too many ears walked by. 

Thinking back to the moment you heard that 5 Seconds of Summer would have a song for the movies soundtrack you felt trapped. You thought you’d finally moved on, had some freedom- but he always found a way to worm back into your life whether you liked it or not. 

Walking towards you he was talking to his friends, he was more smart casual today, less punk which made a change. His demeanour screamed nervous, yet his eyes uttered confidence. “Looks like you gotta think quick on your feet here.” Caspar nudged you as Michael began to walk toward you, quick on his feet Caspar left before doing something he’d regret. 

“Hi.” You managed to get out as you tried to control your shakes and breathing, you didn’t want him to see this effect he still managed to have over you. 

“What a coincidence, heh.” It felt awkward, the air that hung around the two of you was like a bubble, trapping you there unable to burst free. “You look,” He struggled for words as his mouth hung open and eyes glazed over. 

“It’s rude to have your mouth hanging open.” You stated shutting it for him and suddenly it was as if his batteries had been replaced and he stood upright, facing you with a sincere smile. 

He moved closer towards you, closer to your ear until you could feel his breath on your skin. The sense of goosebumps that he used to make you feel returned almost naturally, you hated how he still managed to do this to you. “Radiant.” Whispering delicately into your ear you could just picture the headlines tomorrow and the rumours that would soon begin. 

“You don’t look so bad yourself, nice to see you smartening up.” He looked down to his own attire and chuckled to himself, you felt on edge by his remarks and felt as if you were back to being the unknown actress trying to make something of herself in one of his music videos. 

“Well I wanted to make a good impression for your big night darling.” He leant in and kissed your cheek, unable to react he winked before heading off before you could speak. “See you inside, can’t wait.” 

[ultcharge-archive]

heya gang i mentioned being a writerman on my about so i wrote a small chapter for the shimada brothers week run by @supershimadabros-inc ....i didn't see anyone else posting in the tag and a non-*ncest week for siblings is pretty cool. the prompt was 'dark days', and i came up with an au (i think i saw it on tumblr before it was pretty interesting) last week......okay that's enough, proper summary and fic under the cut: 

AU in which the Dragons that guard the Shimadas only do so for a price of a decade-annual sacrifice. And it just so happens that Genji is this generation’s lucky kid. 

The old bell reflected the sun as it sunk below the horizon of the city. It shone golden light onto the wooden floor, and onto Hanzo, where he sat on his knees, attempting to clear his mind of all thoughts. He focused on the cool summer air, breathing in and out in time to his counting. He listened to the birds flying through the courtyard, chirping and flapping their wings, flying from trees to the perches of the house. He traced the outlines on the bell with his eyes, each carving and coil as it twisted and turned, each detail on the dragons’ bodies. Hanzo had the same designs on his arm. He knew their design like it was a part of him. The ink felt heavy on his body as he sat, meditating, and trying not to think of what was yet to come. 

It had to happen tonight. He had been told of it weeks in advance, his grandparents and mother leading him into their meeting room after he was supposed to be asleep. They’d explained it all to him, and answered nearly all his questions, except for one: why? Why would he be the one to do it? Why could it not have been his father, or any of his family instead? Why would the Dragon demand such a thing of them? He had always been told it would protect him, and his whole family for the centuries to come. All they had to do was keep it pleased. Hanzo hadn’t known what that meant until he’d been told last month, and now he wished he hadn’t known at all. But there was no backing away from this. He had to be the one to make the sacrifice. 

He had tried to stay away from Genji since he’d woken up this morning, dread and fear filling every inch of his body. He’d spoken only a few words to him when he ate, and had avoided him during training completely. His behaviour shouldn’t have been suspicious to Genji; they’d been disagreeing on more and more things more often, and Hanzo could feel the distance between themselves growing. All that piled atop of what he knew he had to do had been making him feel terrible. The knowing looks his grandparents gave him as he walked through the house today made him feel sick. They did not speak with him either. It had been a silent day. Nearly everyone knew what was to happen. Everyone except for Genji, of whom Hanzo had noticed looking confused for most of the day. He couldn’t tell him. It would just make the task harder to complete.

Hanzo had felt the day coming for a few weeks, now. The dragons that attached themselves to him had been growing weak, disappearing for hours, and becoming unable to use their full power. He knew it was because their master was weak, and would not be sated until it was given what it needed. Hanzo’s family had warned him of completing his task on time, or else all of the dragons attached to each of them would return to their master. There was no telling if they’d come back, or what would happen to the family if the sacrifice was not made. The dragon had guarded their family for centuries, and it had always been given what it needed every ten years. A small price to pay for endless strength and guidance, his grandmother had noted. Where would we be without it?, she’d asked Hanzo. He hadn’t replied.

He’d practiced with his sword for a few hours in training, when Genji was nowhere in sight. Every slice he made into the thin air felt worse, and every step he took made him feel sick. This would be how he would kill him. He wouldn’t make it last longer than it needed to. There would be no fighting. Hanzo hoped it would be over quickly. He couldn’t stand thinking about what he was doing for more than a minute at a time. Even though his life and training had never been perceived as normal, no man should ever have to practice killing his brother. He tried to pretend as if he was practicing for a fight, in which he’d slay his enemies one by one, and return home without any change. It made the training easier, but the thought that the scenario was fake remained in his head. When he had finished, he’d left for his room, and hadn’t come back out until an hour ago. 

The weather was becoming colder as Hanzo stayed sitting by the bell. Sunlight had not yet faded from the sky, and a weak golden glow was still reflecting from the bell. He was alone in the courtyard, his sword lying in front of him, his hair out of its tie and tucked behind his ears. The loose clothing he wore covered his whole body, keeping him from shivering in the summer evening cold. And yet, while he tried to meditate and think about anything other than what had to be done, he could not take his mind away from it. He was going to kill his brother. He had to. It wasn’t a choice. He couldn’t have said no. He couldn’t have refused and saved him, disregarding years of honour and loyalty to his family. It was his duty to them, and to the Dragon. 

The carvings on the gold bell seemed to swim before Hanzo’s eyes. “I am afraid,” he confessed in a whisper, checking to see if anyone had come into the courtyard, and could hear him confessing weakness to the bell. “I know you are weak, and I promise you will not be for any longer…not for much longer…but I am not ready for this.”

The dragons carved into the bell did not reply. All was quiet, the birds even silent in the distance. Hanzo looked at his sword that lay at his feet. It was a gorgeous katana, the blue silver handle shining beautifully in the sunset. Hanzo always cleaned it after a fight so that blood would not stain the blade. He made sure that it always looked presentable and threatening, so that his enemies would not assume he was an untrained killer. Just looking at the clean blade made his stomach turn. 

“Why?” Hanzo asked the dragon bell. “Why do you want to take him? He is still young, still has hope….why couldn’t you have wanted me, instead?” He was met with silence once more. “Why do you want for me to do this?” Hanzo bit down on his lip, so hard he felt a small taste of metal. This would not unravel him any more than it already had, he told himself. He would not let the guilt and the fear destroy him, destroy his exterior. He had to do this. It wasn’t a choice. He was not to question it. Hanzo returned to his silence. The summer air was cold, and the courtyard was fully silent. He closed his eyes. 

Hanzo lost track of the time. He did not move for a long time, afraid of what he had to do once he did. He didn’t even notice the footsteps behind him. “You’re out here?” Genji’s voice asked, and Hanzo’s eyes opened. There was his brother, standing above him, staring in confusion. “I was looking for you.” Hanzo didn’t say anything. He tore his eyes away from him, staring back at the dragons carved into the bell. “Did I interrupt something?” Genji asked quietly. “No,” Hanzo replied, lying. “I was only about to come inside.”

“It’s not really that late. You don’t have to leave just because I interrupted you.” The sun was finally fading behind the horizon. The glow had stopped shining from the bell. Darkness was falling over the courtyard. The handle of Hanzo’s sword glimmered in the last fading light. He could feel the weight on his arm sinking into his skin, almost tearing into him, as if a reminder. “It’s alright. We’ll walk back together.” Hanzo said. He stood, picking up the sword and holding it in his hand. 

“I saw the sunset as I was walking over,” Genji said, looking into the sky behind the two. “It was nice. There hasn’t been one that pretty since all the storms last week.”

“Colours are always better than grey.” Hanzo agreed. He hadn’t gotten the chance to look at the sky behind him while he was meditating. 

As the two walked back from the courtyard, Hanzo tried to memorize what his brother’s face looked like. He tried to memorize the sound of his voice, the way he looked around as they walked, the colour of his eyes. They would not return to the house together. The time had come for the Dragon’s sacrifice to be made. It was too late to say anything, too late to abandon all honour and run away. The sword was so heavy in Hanzo’s hand. He tried to remember the steps he’d practiced that afternoon, slashing and stabbing at air. And he tried to focus on the evening around them, these last few minutes before the Dragon would return to its full strength, and Genji would be gone forever. Hanzo’s mind was so full of all these things, he couldn’t hear a thing Genji was saying to him. It didn’t matter, anyway. He didn’t need to hear it.

As Hanzo returned to the house, the night had turned dark. The first face to greet him as he approached the doorway was his mother, concern in her eyes, her lips pursed and hands folded.

“The Dragon is sated.” Hanzo said, holding the handle of his bloodied sword in his hand. His mother nodded, and went inside the house. Hanzo’s tattooed arm was no longer hurting, and he could feel his dragons still with him. He listened to the empty sounds of the night, biting down on his lip, drawing blood once more. His family would be safe for another ten years. He would be safe and protected by the Dragon for the rest of his life. It was a small price to pay for so much in return.

But Hanzo no longer knew if that price was so small and important anymore.