#felt like it’s the only number that symbolically fits him? Unless anyone else can think of a number he’s connected to

[hplonesomeart]

HEYYY GUYS quickly hopping back on here, messily taping/supergluing my art onto the blog, and then promptly skedaddling right afterwards because OH BOY I need to focus this week and lock into my animation MAP part. The time crunch has gotten real!! AUUUUU!! But I had to get this image out of my system before anything else so here ya go enjoy some solitary confinement Puzzle appreciation. I’m sorry that it’s rushed!! Maybe once I finish this MAP I’ll return and make it less janky (specifically for the animated gif here because OOF that looks rough buddy. But it’s the best I can afford to do without getting totally side tracked on my goals. It looks real lazy and is low-key triggering me but I’m letting it slide—sir is mocking my perfectionism right now. Gotta focus all that energy onto the MAP instead).

Yea okay that’s all folks byeeee

Okayyyy so apparently not only is the animated gif janky in motion but also kinda broken?? It’s supposed to loop but that’s not working on Tumblr so guess the entire thing needs to be redone when I have spare time :P

I’ve decided to include a compressed version so you can at LEAST see what I was trying to achieve jksjsksp help this is a mess right now

[robininthelabyrinth]

anything with jin zixuan marrying into the jiang sect, instead of jiang yanli marrying out?

ao3

It wasn’t that Jin Zixuan didn’t love his mother – he did, he truly did. He loved her, he supported her, he stood by her side in every argument. He would do anything within his power to help her get everything that she wanted.

It was only that he took a very reasonable look at the circumstances and realized he couldn’t. He couldn’t get her the one thing she’d always counted for.

He couldn’t win the right of succession to be Sect Leader Jin.

Maybe if his mother had managed to stop his father from bringing home all his bastards – there were nineteen of them, all together, and those were just the ones that were willing to admit it so who even knew – he might’ve had a better chance, given that he was after all the sole legitimate son. But legitimacy only took you so far: he was neither the oldest of the children, nor the most capable, nor the most cunning. He wasn’t even the best connected, despite his maternal family’s support; that honor went to another one of his siblings, born to an especially well-connected family through unspecified circumstances that might or might not involve rape but which sufficient money had plastered over.

The only thing Jin Zixuan had going for him was his legitimacy, but his father had long ago taught him - however inadvertently - that there wasn’t anything magical about a wedding ceremony that made him better suited to the role of sect leader.

What’s more, in his heart of hearts, Jin Zixuan didn’t even want it.

He wasn’t – he didn’t really like fighting. Or politics, or scheming, or any of it. It just wasn’t his personality. He didn’t like games of influence, he didn’t like backstabbing people that trusted him, he didn’t like gossiping and slandering and not being able to believe in people’s good faith and any of that, and no matter how much his mom pushed him, he didn’t think he’d ever like it. 

But that was what Lanling Jin did, what Jilin Tower was like, and if he wanted to take up the Sect Leader’s seat and reside in the Fragrant Palace, he had to get over himself and accept that that’s what the rest of his life would be like.

Forever.

Until someone murdered him and took his place, anyway. It almost felt inevitable, sometimes. 

Or, because he really truly didn’t want the job, because he really truly didn’t want to die, he could try to think of something else. Some way out.

For example, he could, and did, go to Jin Ziyao and ask him for help.

Jin Ziyao stared at him, eyes narrow and calculating as they so rarely were – he was very good at keeping a bland polite smile on his face, the best at it of all the people Jin Zixuan had ever met, and he’d met a lot. 

“That’s an interesting thing to say, brother,” he said, gently eliding as always the fact that they were the same age, born on the same day to different mothers. “Very interesting indeed. I must ask, though - why are you saying it to me?”

“Because you’d be the best at the job,” Jin Zixuan said honestly. He really thought so: Jin Ziyao was smart and clever, cunning enough to wear a kind face and tricky enough to actually pull off the impression of actually being kind, since people were more willing to forgive kind people, but also ambitious and ruthless enough to survive and maybe even thrive in the political world the way Jin Zixuan wasn’t. “And because you’re smart enough to come up with a way for me to get out of this without dying, if you wanted to.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Why would I want to?”

And that was the rub, wasn’t it? Jin Zixuan was the legitimate son, the rightful heir, and his father, their father, was just as likely to name Jin Zixuan as the next sect leader no matter how unfit for the role he was on nothing more than that basis as he was to name anyone else with a much stronger claim. 

It was in everyone else’s best interest to kill him, if they were ambitious.

Maybe not his sisters. They wouldn’t inherit no matter what happened to him.

(Sometimes Jin Zixuan wished he was lucky enough to be born a nobody, little Jin Ziyu, who just wanted to play with make-up and avoid all contact with his maternal Mo family. Nobody cared about Jin Ziyu, and everyone liked it that way.)

“You know my position,” Jin Zixuan explained. He didn’t need to say it out loud; he was bitterly aware that it was basically his only personality trait: legitimate heir of Jin Guangshan, the rich boy everyone thought would be the next sect leader unless someone else got in the way. “My support could be worth something to you.”

“Especially if it’s sincere,” Jin Ziyao murmured, looking thoughtful, contemplative. It wasn’t an outright no, anyway, or at least not yet. “And you would be sincere, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s a reason I said that I’m not fit for the role,” Jin Zixuan replied, his voice dry to hide the fact that his heart was in his throat. Jin Ziyao was the one most likely to succeed in finding a way to get him out of this mess, but he was also the most likely to figure out a way to kill him without being blamed for it, too.  There was a reason he’d come to him, but that reason was the danger - who was to say that Jin Ziyao wouldn’t decide it’d be safer to kill him, and to use this to accomplish it? He could be signing his own death warrant. “And even if you’re smart, competent, good at managing things, well-connected, and well-liked, you can still use my help.”

Jin Ziyao had only a single fault: his mother had been a prostitute. People still judged him for that, something which made no sense to Jin Zixuan whatsoever – it wasn’t Jin Ziyao’s fault what his mother did before he was born – but it meant he lacked legitimacy even more than the others. 

Having the legitimate son backing his claim would be a strong argument in favor of overlooking that.

“You know your mother won’t like it,” Jin Ziyao said. Testing, probing; he hadn’t agreed yet.

“I know,” Jin Zixuan said simply. “But I hope that she’d like me being dead less.”

He wasn’t actually sure about that. His mother loved him, yes, but he had never entirely determined if she loved him for himself or as an extension of herself – a symbol of what she would be fighting towards. A sign that her struggles with her husband had a purpose, that all her humiliation would one day be worth it.

That one day, when he was sect leader, she would become the true power in Lanling through him. 

(Jin Zixuan didn’t know what she imagined would happen to all his illegitimate brothers and sisters in that situation, and he didn’t want to; it put a sick feeling in his gut to think about it – which he supposed meant he did know, after all, what she would want, but was instead choosing to ignore it.)

Jin Ziyao studied him for a long moment, presumably trying to analyze his sincerity and how firm he was on the idea. 

Jin Zixuan didn’t rush him, knowing it was a gamble on his side as well: it would be worse for him to help Jin Zixuan out of the line of succession only for Jin Zixuan to change his mind down the road. It would make him look bad, make him a target for the others, and the backstabbing nature of Lanling politics meant that luring someone in with a request for aid was exactly the sort of trap someone might lay out.

Sometimes, Jin Zixuan was really, really tired of Lanling.

Maybe something of that showed on his face, because just when he was starting to lose hope, Jin Ziyao abruptly nodded – almost to himself – and said, “All right. How about your marriage?”

“What about my marriage?” Jin Zixuan asked, puzzled. 

He’d been engaged to his mother’s best friend’s daughter since before he was born, and amazingly enough the engagement had held despite everything – probably because they had barely met, to be perfectly honest. And also the fact that being surrounded by brothers that hid daggers in their smiles gave Jin Zixuan enough experience to realize that he was being deliberately incited when his so-called friends started telling him that he deserved better than a girl most often described simply as being nice.

After all, he’d already started doubting by that time that he even deserved the accident of his legitimate birth, so forget deserving any girl.

Also, being nice sounded…rather nice, actually. Certainly a relief, assuming she was actually nice rather than just pretending to be the way so many of his sisters were.

(None of them liked her, which suggested she might be.)

“You should get to know your intended better,” Jin Ziyao said. “Visit her more often.”

Jin Zixuan really wasn’t seeing the connection between that and his request for assistance, and Jin Ziyao’s gaze softened a little bit, though Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure if it was with sympathy or merely pity.

“It’ll make it easier for you,” he clarified. “For when you marry in.”

Marry in?

Marry in. The Jiang sect was a Great Sect, with enough power and influence to make unreasonable demands – and his father desperately wanted the alliance with them. If they could be convinced to demand that he marry in rather than having Jiang Yanli marry out, pointing to their smaller numbers or the tragedies that had befallen their sect…

Jiang Cheng would like having his sister around. He was also notoriously standoffish around women, and had viciously rejected any effort to be matched with one of the illegitimate Jin girls; it might even be possible to suggest to his father that allowing Jin Zixuan to marry in would mean that there was a chance that Jiang Cheng would be willing to leave his sect to a nephew surnamed Jiang, winning the Jin sect both an alliance and inheritance all at once.

Best of all, it had to be him. The Jiang sect had only agreed to the engagement because of Madame Yu’s friendship with his mother, not for any political reason; if his father tried to substitute him with someone else, they might break it entirely…

And someone who married out couldn’t be the heir.

“You’re a genius,” Jin Zixuan told his brother, who smiled crookedly in acknowledgement. “What should I do? Do I just – go over there? Send a letter? I can’t write letters…”

“Let me think about it,” Jin Ziyao said. “I’m sure I can come up with something more subtle than you.”

[opossumanonymous]

How did he get in this mess?

Warnings: Inko literally uses her quirk to pull out AFOs pubic hair because I don't think anything else would immobilize him temporarily, talk of inko using her quirk to pull organs, guns mentioned

I wrote this on my phone so sorry if anything looks funky for computer users. If I made any mistakes or any characters are too ooc please tell me. Also this is a fanfic featuring AFO as Midoriya Hizashi and Inko as a ex-Black Widow and mostly features them please enjoy!~

******************************************************

How did he get in this mess, face kissing the floor and completely caught off guard?

Hizashi wasn't quite sure himself actually. One minute he was doing some 'work' before he heard the voice of his wife over his shoulder.

"Hizashi, what are you doing?"

Then he was on the floor a nearly blinding pain spread over his body leaving him in fetal position unable to think of nothing else.

Once his mind got clear again he turned his head to the side looking up at the woman who he thought was his wife. Her usually gentle smile was gone leaving a cold look on her face as she read through his files. One of her hands out stretched towards him while the other clicked through the computer.

Which made him briefly realize he may have to put plan B into action but before that he had to know if this was his wife or someone else. Last thing he wanted was to do something reckless if this wasn't his wife.

"Who-" Before Hizashi could utter a word he felt another painful pull causing him to ball up even further trying to somehow ease the pain. He choked on air as Inko? Stared at him with a blank expression now turned away from the computer. She crossed her legs as she watched him wither in pain looking at with him cold emotionless green eyes.

Who was this woman she can't be Inko! It gave him brief fear realizing that a shape-shifting spy might have tricked him somehow. After all theres no way his sweet wife could ambush him, let alone be capable of hurting him this badly! But if this is someone with a shape-shifting quirk there's no way they would also have wife's quirk as well. Unless they can copy the quirks of people they shape-shift into but then-

"So was this what you were doing while I was comforting our son?"

His eyes widened at that realization, it hit Hizashi hard as he broke out in a cold sweat. He looked up at Inko who still had that chilling look on her face making Hizashi for the first time in 200 years feel...afraid.

He didn't know whether to be impressed at her or disgusted in himself, him, All for One, the symbol of evil, the villain who has brought many heros and villains alike to their knees is...afraid? It sounds unreal just thinking about it that someone could still scare him.

Not by much but still it was a feat that no one before her had done in a long time.

He felt like he was getting whiplash knowing that the same woman who cooked him breakfast nearly every morning, who cried at anything sad or happy, and cuddled up to him at night was looming over him like some villain.

"Hizashi speak up your mumbling." She spoke harshly as he felt another pull, he's starting to lose feeling in his legs.

"I already knew." He said breathless feeling defeated almost, yet another feat none before her had accomplished. He could almost hear his brother laughing from his grave at this point. "What?" Her forehead wrinkled the cold look leaving her face for a moment making her look more like the Inko he knew.

"I checked Izuku years ago, I had my suspicions when he didn't develop his quirk after he turned 5. While I can't tell what a quirk is if I don't know it, I can sense them." He told her truthfully "When I reached into his subconscious one night after I tucked him in bed, I found no sign of a quirk." He knew their was a chance Izuku would be quirkless anyway, Hizashi was from the first generation of quirk users after all.

But he would never give his son a quirk, no he's not going to let history repeat itself, if there's anything he's learned in his 200 years of life it's never give your hero loving relatives a quirk.

Plus being a hero is 10 times more dangerous now, no thanks to him, he'd rather his precious son live quirkless.

Despite the ridicule quirkless people get from society atleast he won't ever get badly hurt or worse killed. Luckily Hizashi had a back up plan just in case he needed to protect his family from themselves.

But seeing Inko looming above him is starting to make him think about adding more reinforcements to the vault. After all she's not so much of a gullible woman like he once thought she was.

"I see but that doesn't change anything, you weren't there for our baby when he needed you most. That's why after this you're going to march into our sons room and comfort him like a good father should." He almost winched at her harsh tone. He honestly didn't know if he should be scared or not. He did still have an arsenal of quirks he could use but none that were non lethal from a long range he could use on her.

"And if I don't, what will you do?" He was curious in all honesty after all it's not every day your usually gentle and emotional wife does a 360 degree personality change on you.

"Then I'll keep ripping out your pubic hairs till you comply." He felt a slight tug again at the slight flick of her wrist causing him to flinch.

He had felt tempted to challenge her, now realizing it was a mistake seeing as she has him by the balls...literally.

"And if you try anything...well you'll be surprised at how many organs count as a small objects." She said with a chilling smile which he almost hates to admit made him flinch.

He always knew her quirk was suspicious despite only being limited to small objects it could still be a deadly quirk if used right. The number of deadly weapons considered small objects was big and considering she only needs a vague idea of where an object is located to pull it to her which includes organs...Hizashi's starting to realize he didn't really know his wife like he thought he did.

After all who would've guessed his sweet Inko would use her quirk so...creatively. He nodded, head still pressed to the hard wood floor of his office.

Inko gave a sigh of relief as she genuinely smiled running her hand through her green locks. "Good I'm glad we could come to an agreement." Hizashi felt the release of her quirk as she sat back legs still crossed.

He slowly sat on all fours before rising to his knees still feeling phantom pains with each slight movement.

Once he was on his knees he wrapped his arms around her waist laying his head in her stomach. She gently caressed his head of white curls causing him to sink further into her and let out a content hum. After a while he looked up at her, the cold look on her face gone now taking a more softer expression.

"I knew you where a villain since the first week after we got married." Hizashi didn't think Inko could shock him anymore but that honestly got him, and yet again she conquered another feat.

He would have never guessed that she knew about him being a villain before now. "Honestly I felt like I got rusty since I found out so late, but I guess living a normal civilian life will make anyone like that." She smiled gently at him looking more like the Inko he knew. Or atleast thought he knew, she was one of the most ordinary people he met from her average nursing job to her adorable naiveté at times.(which he now knows was probably just an act) She played him like a fiddle, he underestimated her and made him fall even harder for her.

That's right, he didn't think it was possible to love her even more than he already did, but this moment proved that wrong.

"Wait then if you knew why did you stay and why wait until now to bring it up?"

She furrowed her eyebrows again before turning her head away from him thinking about her answer for a second before looking back. "I'm not exactly who I said I was either..." She trailed off with a far away look in her eyes almost like she was looking through him and not at him.

He took her hand which had stopped rubbing his head and brought it to his cheek. This seemed to help her focus again as she gave him a tired smile.

"I'm not a good person either Hizashi I've done alot of things that I now regret." For a moment he guessed that she was an ex-villain that he'd just never heard of.

Although that was very unlikely seeing as he liked to keep tabs on most high profile villains to find anyone with good...potential. Inko definitely wasn't a low class villain she just didn't fit the profile of a bank robber or common street thug. Her aura gave off a more experienced air to it not to mention no low class villain would have the guts to look him in the eye once finding out who he really is.

"I was once apart of an organization who specialized in training those considered...unless in society." The way she said useless held a malice to it despite her still having a smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"They kidnapped me and many other young girls most of them either being quirkless or having 'weak' quirks." Quirkless trafficking while rare nowadays still went on but he'd never heard of an organization making quirkless people assassins. Wlep there's a first time for everything he guessed.

"They trained and raised all of us to be assassins, to put it simply, they chose us because they knew we'd be underestimated."

Assassins? If someone had told him is lovely wife was secretly an assassin he'd laugh in their face before killing them for saying such a thing. But now after being brought to his knees by her he honestly isn't surprised, at this point he'd believe anything that came out of her mouth. She could tell him she could kill someone with only a plastic spoon and he'd believe her.

"I was one of the lucky ones i was able to escape before my 'graduation' if you could call it that. I was even able to find my birth certificate after months of digging through missing persons reports." She now went back to stroking his white curls as she spoke.

"After escaping I decided to live the life my mother wanted me to or at least I like to think she'd want me to." He knew she was an orphan, she'd told him that on their second date he never thought much about it.

He never even really looked into her mother much either only knowing that she died when Inko was young and that she was Nana Shimura's sister. When he found this out at first he was suspicious but over time he let his guard down, if that was a mistake is still up for debate.

"They called us Black Widows." He'd heard that name before but it's been so long, last time he heard the words Black Widow he was reading a comic book to his sick brother. It's either unoriginal or genius considering most will only think of the comic book hero Black Widow opposed to it being a real organization.

Finally getting the feeling back in his legs he stood up stretching slightly while she watched him. He stared down at her now that he had the high ground it was time to give her what she deserved.

He leaned down towards her his hands coming up to her face menacingly. But she just sat there unfazed with a serene look on her face, their was no real use in trying she knew he wouldn't hurt her. He held her face as he leaned in and gave her lips a gentle kiss.

After pulling away he took her hand and helped her out of his office chair. "Now time to go see about Izuku hopefully I can get him out of his depressed mood."

Giving her a true smile only reserved for his family he lead her out of his office not before shutting down his computer and locking the door.

"Yes please talk to him because I didn't know what to do than to apologize to him." She sighed clearly distressed. "While it has been a long time since I escaped somethings I still just don't know the right words for." She looked defeated like she didn't just have Japan's greatest villain nearly kissing her feet.

"It's fine darling soon Izuku will go back to being that happy kid again, you'll see." He gave her a final kiss before heading to Izukus room ready to help his son or else face the wraith of his wife.

He briefly wondered just how good of an assassin his wife is and just how many she's killed. But quickly shook those thoughts away as he entered his son's All Might themed room.

While he'd never ask her anything more about her past as a Black Widow he soon came to realize she was highly skilled as he watched his son on TV.

He was watching UAs sports festival with Tomura at his current hideout the boy exclaiming in shock at this year's winner.

The one to take first place was UAs first quirkless student Midoriya Izuku who took out the competition with only a pair of electroshock bracelets as wepons.

Not to say that it was only the support tools that secured his win, the way he bended dodging attacks and hit his opponents with devastating blows to the head made him nearly laugh out loud.

It was almost hard to believe that this was the same kind boy he once tucked in bed but he had to admit his son was quite reckless.

He's in all honesty proud of his son especially for beating Mizuki's brat whose bullied his poor son for years. While he isnt happy that his son's well on his way to being a hero atleast Inko trained him well.

Just how did Hizashi get in this mess he'd hoped quirklessness would make his son reconsider being a hero but it seems Inko had other plans.

*****************************************************

Extras:

So originally Inko was gonna hold him at gun point but I felt like AFO wouldn't be sacred of a gun so....

Also Inko has wepons (mostly guns) hidden in every wall in the apartment after all you never know when the red room might strike.

Inko still gets chubby but not from stress over Izuku being quirkless it's more so over the red room possibly finding him and taking him. She's still bad ass tho, can kill anyone with a just plastic spoon.

She also ran away from the red room before they could sterilize her.

Izuku does eventually get One for all but it's after the sports festival instead, tho he does still parade as a quirkless hero even after One for all.

He also is a vigilante on the side under the name Black Widow tho most think he's a girl because of the Black Widow reference. He even wears his mom's old Black Widow suit.

You could say he's hero Deku by day and vigilante Black Widow by night!

AFO totally knows it's him tho because he knows Inko wouldn't be that reckless or feral.

Izuku has no idea his loving father is AFO but knows his mom's an ex-assassin.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Like a Heart Needs a Beat, chapter 1.

Hello, everyone. This is part one of two of an Abby x Lacie story. The first chapter is pretty much just going to be pure fluff, and next chapter the ink-related angst will kick in.

This story, and the next two two-part shipping stories I write, will be “canon” to my version of events.

---

It wouldn’t have been the first time that Bertrum had dragged Lacie to one of the parties he hosted, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it. She got it, she really did- Bertrum thought she deserved to experience the finer things in life (some of which, to be fair, Lacie did enjoy), and didn’t get that no amount of exposure would make her enjoy this. Still, as she was now, forced into a suit once owned by Bertrum’s son and listening to Bertrum trade compliments that were really insults (or whatever they were. They had a strange way of communicating with each other that Lacie didn’t think she wanted to understand) with his client while dozens of men were flirting with each others’ trophy wives in the background, she felt out of place and a little irritated at Bertrum for insisting she come. It was as Joey and Bertrum were getting especially petty that Lacie just had to look away, and across the room, Lacie saw a woman who looked twice as miserable as she was and only slightly more in-her-element.

Lacie approached her. It was a pretty girl, despite looking like she was completely done with this party. She was wearing a grey suit, clearly tailored for her, and had short, curly hair, dark eyes, clear, dark skin. Her body was pretty nice, too. Yeah, Lacie was going to do this.

“Hey,” Lacie said, “You look like you could use some air. Want me to show you a place where we can get away from the party for a while?”

The woman slowly turned her head to look at her. “Sure. Why not?” she replied without changing expression. Lacie would have to hope that would change and that the woman wasn’t just a natural sourpuss.

Lacie smiled. “Come with me.”

Bertrum was a nice man. He allowed Lacie to step out of parties when she needed to, and even gave her one heck of a place to go when she did: Bertrum’s bird room.

Bertrum loved birds. Bertrum raised birds. It was his favourite hobby. The bird room contained two cages of small, pet-store birds, a larger cage for his doves, and a number of nests for his other birds- three chickens, two ducks, a goose, a swan, and (out of place as they looked amongst the farm fowl) two peafowl. It was easy to keep so many pets when you could pay people to look after them. The bird room opened up to an outdoor enclosure, but this time of day they were all in their nests.

“Pretty cool, right?” Lacie said. “Wanna feed em’? I’m the host’s plus-one. Don’t worry, he won’t mind.”

The woman seemed pretty impressed. “Sure,” she replied.

Lacie showed her to the plastic barrel of dried corn in the corner. The birds crowded them, eager, which made them laugh.

After they’d spent a while feeding the birds, the woman had cheered up significantly, and so Lacie tried to make conversation.

“So. My name’s Lacie. And you know why I’m here. What’s your name, and why are you here? And why don't you want to be here? Because it's obvious you don't.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Abby Lambert. Nice to meet you, Lacie. I’m here because Joey Drew begged me to be his plus one so he wouldn’t have to come alone. And... instead of telling people that I was his friend or his coworker, or lying and telling people I was his girlfriend, he made up this lie that I’d won a contest to get to go with him. That I was his biggest fan. I’ll be honest- that pissed me off. He didn’t think it was right for his image, I guess."

“Oof, that sucks. You know, I’m just one of Bertrum’s engineers, and I don’t know an eighth of the high society stuff he does, but he would still never do that.”

“Thanks. And thanks for taking me out for some air.”

“No problem.”

It was a few more minutes of feeding birds before Lacie decided to throw her shot. “If Joey wants to be a jerk he can stay here on his own. Wanna get out of here?”

Abby looked Lacie up and down, and suddenly Lacie wished she were wearing something a little more revealing than this ill-fitting suit- especially since Abby’s was accentuating every curve of her body. But Abby clearly liked what she saw.

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice.”

The two took a cab to Abby’s apartment, where they spent the night.

---

After the one-night stand, Abby had left Lacie her number. If one night was good, why not make it several? And then, Lacie had surprised her by asking her out. To an art museum.

“You like art, right? It’s not just a job? I mean, I wouldn’t want you taking me to a construction site.”

God, she was a dork. A muscular, handsome dork. Abby had to roll her eyes at herself for being so caught up on a woman, but she eventually broke down and asked Joey a few pointed questions during their lunch break a few days before the date. “So, Mr. Romantic- can you give me some tips about how to sweep a woman off her feet? I’m meeting someone tonight.”

Joey had smiled teasingly at her. “Oh, my. The ever-serious Abby Lambert is lovestruck!”

“You’re gross. It was good sex. That’s all.”

“Right. That’s why you came to me for advice. Well, I’d say just be natural. Be friendly, make jokes, find common interests, all that common-sense stuff. And then at the end of the night invite her over for some wine and radio, read her signs, and that’s when you start getting physical.” Joey suddenly went from smiling and talking with his hands to being much more serious. “Oh, and... I’m sorry about the other night. You know how it is... I respect you, the art department respects you, but I can’t trust random people to do so, and I can’t avoid interacting with people who won’t.”

He didn’t even have to say that it was because she was a black woman. It was the same reason why Joey had promoted someone else ahead of her as head of the art department- he hadn’t trusted that the others would accept her authority. But, after she’d handled the art department while her ex-superior was on vacation and there hadn’t been any problems, Joey had snatched the promotion right out of his hands and put it in Abby’s. Not fair to the ex-head of the art department, but Joey rarely was. Even if he wasn’t perfect, though, he was still one of the few in this day and age who would hand a high position to her under any circumstance, and one of the few she could discuss her relationships with.

“Maybe we should just not talk about that. See you soon, Joey.” Why think about that when Abby had more cheerful things to think about?

---

When Lacie showed up to the art museum, she was wearing a leather jacket, scuffed jeans, and heavy boots. She’d definitely stand out in a dainty place like this.

“So, do you know anything about art?” Abby asked as they went to the first section, which featured a number of surrealist paintings.

“Not a thing!” Lacie admitted, not at all ashamed. “Are you the type who likes to teach, or the type who just wants me to shut up and enjoy it on the level I’m at?”

“I... guess I wouldn’t mind explaining some things.”

“Okay. So, this one,” Lacie gestured at a painting of half-melted clocks hanging off of tree branches and the like. “It must represent something real deep, right?”

“Well, there’s more to art than symbolism, and surrealist stuff doesn’t have to have a deeper meaning. But... maybe it means that time just melts away when you’re having fun.”

It was midnight before Abby was back in her apartment. The museum had closed before they’d felt like any time had passed, and so they’d gone for a walk together in the city and stopped at whatever shops caught their eyes. It had been fun.

Abby’s apartment was the apartment of a chronically single woman in her thirties who had made it. It was clean and organized, but not too clean and organized. It had a large window overlooking the city in the living room, and near it, an eisel had been set up, with a half-done painting on it of a sunset over a city skyline. There was a rack of oft-used wine glasses in the kitchen, lesser-used exercise equipment in the laundry room. Abby’s bedroom contained her collection of houseplants, two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a closet full of suits her mom had tailored for her at a reduced cost.

Joey had always said that he never wanted to get married because he didn’t want to share space with anyone else. Abby had rolled her eyes and punched his arm for that. Joey was always coming up with reasons why he didn’t want a relationship, and none of them were true. Abby, on the other hand, had just assumed and accepted that it just wouldn’t happen. The chances were against it unless she made it a priority in her life, and she was focused on career and art. Could it really happen with this hooligan? It was hard to imagine letting her into this apartment- this apartment of a woman who had made it- on a permanent basis. But, maybe. Only time would tell.

---

Things went from there. They continued to date for over a year. Abby taught Lacie how to draw, and Lacie taught Abby how to fight. They started spending more nights than not over at each other’s places. Joey still didn’t know about it, because Abby knew how jealous Joey got when it came to relationships. Shawn on the other hand definitely knew, and teased the hell out of Lacie for it and later came to Lacie for help with his own relationship once he got into one.

Christmas that year, Shawn had scrapped together enough funds to visit Ireland. This was a problem, because Shawn and Lacie usually spent their Christmases together. As per usual, Lacie didn’t have the means to visit her home state of Alpaccia, so it looked like it would be a lonely Christmas for her.

“You want to come visit my family?” Abby offered as Lacie had been complaining about it.

“Yeah. I’d love that,” Lacie admitted. She hadn’t had a Christmas with a real family in... well, a long time, at any rate.

Abby’s family consisted of her mother and her two-years older brother, who had brought a wife and two kids. The father had died in the war while Abby was a child. They had a traditional Christmas together- old Christmas records, decorating a tree, staying up late to play cards and chat once Abby’s niece and nephew were in bed until they could barely keep their eyes open, and then watching the kids open their presents in the morning.

It kind of hurt Lacie to see such a beautiful family, but it was nice, too. It hurt because she remembered having to go off to her friends’ houses when her parents were too high to remember to feed her. She remembered having to make her own doctor’s appointments at the age of nine, and running off to live with her big sister at fourteen. But it was still nice to be there, just because it was.

As they were packing up in the guest bedroom, Lacie started crying, and Abby took notice. She’d never seen her cry before.

“What’s wrong?

“Nothing,” she said, and thankfully Abby had left her alone about it.

It was a week later, after Lacie had had some time to think, that she made her offer. “Abby, I want to start a family with you. I know we can’t get married in the traditional sense, but we can get a place together, find some man to give us a kid, and stay together for the rest of our lives. I could even buy you a ring if you want. Do you wanna do this?”

Abby was awestruck. “Lacie... oh my God, yes. Let’s do it.”

[dzamie-oc]

Smaugust 02 - Ancient

Victor and Clara stood at the mouth of the huge cave. Above were the claw scratches of a young dragon, kept fresh over the centuries - nay, millenia - by careful, loyal kobolds. It displayed the name of the master of the cave in a script forgotten even by Time himself. Above it, in similar fashion, but with the deeper cuts started by the claws of a far older dragon, was the name "Gehrakt" carved out in an old, primitive form of Draconic writing. However, the two humans focused their attention on a metal sign, on which was carefully carved in several modern languages: Gehrakt's Cave Those who seek power, begone. Those who want riches, flee. Those who require knowledge... Enter, and prove your mettle.

Victor stared at the sign, then looked to his friend. "Well, that's us, then," he remarked, lighting his lantern before the dark, deep tunnel ahead. "We really can't afford to burn time now." Clara nodded as she did one last gear check before picking up her hiking staff, and together, they ventured inside. They walked in silence for a minute, following a simple tunnel around gentle curves until the entrance vanished from sight. Though they passed a few discarded, rusting swords and flails, and a number of snapped wands and bows, they pressed onwards; if their equipment was not enough for them, the legacies of failed conquerers would be of no aid. From time to time, Vincent thought he saw something scurry in the darkness, but there was nothing when he swung the light around, and he could hear nothing but his and Clara's footsteps. "Do you think it was a bluff? Assuming nobody would try to fight or steal from a dragon who'd lived so long?" Victor asked as they rounded another bend. Clara shook her head, her eyes glued to the walls of the cavern. Nothing more than some kobold-sized claw scratches and some paintings, presumably also by kobolds, so far. "I don't think so. Bluffs only work if your opponent doesn't call them. And while nobody in their right mind would try, he still has to contend with those out of their mind." "True. Oh, look ahead!" He held the lantern aloft, where, rather than a single tunnel, the path split off into two, separated by a thick wall. "Tisk, tisk, Clara," he joked with a grin, "this never would've happened if we'd just kept assuming there was nothing." His companion snrked and playfully pushed him. "Alright, wiseass, but I reckon that assumption would lead us down a random path, and I like having better than fifty-fifty odds on my life." They looked closer, careful not to step into either tunnel yet. Down one lay scattered weapons and armor, much like they'd passed already, but in good condition. Arranged rather than tossed aside, arrows bundled next to a bow gleaming with magic. In the other, a few silver coins from ages long, long ago were scattered near the entrance; they turned to gold a number of feet beyond, and from there, the wealth started piling up. Diamonds, rubies, golden statues, and more poked out of mounds of gold currency and bricks. Both humans felt the desire to step in, and take just one, so even if the dragon wasn't helpful, their visit would not be a total waste. And yet... "Okay, so they both scream 'trap,'" Victor remarked, "one for power and one for wealth. But there's not third option, barring tunneling, and we don't have the tools for that." "Could be the middle? It's wide enough for a person, and those parables often come from SOMEwhere," Clara reasoned, then tapped her walking staff against the wall by her feet. Solid as, well, rock. "Darn." "To be honest, I'm relieved. Can you imagine if all the dragon older than the ancestors of our ancestors had keeping people out was a trick wizards learn to hide contraband from their parents and siblings? Still, where does that leave us?" "Backwards? Maybe the cave changed after we passed, or there's an illusion that hides a passage from one direction." Victor shook his head. "Nah, then this would reward people for giving up on it. The sign didn't say 'prowess' or 'sense,' it said 'mettle.' I think it intends on people to push forward and find the solution." "Well, if back's not the answer, the walls are solid, and forward's trapped, what's left?" As she said it, they both looked at each other, and slowly drew their gaze upward. Hanging next to a stalactite, a coiled up rope ladder was visible amidst the shadows. "I got it," Clara said, and reached up with her staff to smack the ladder. It came tumbling down, the lowest rung hanging a foot over the ground. "Right, then, up I go," Victor said, and began his ascent. His friend, meanwhile, swiftly unscrewed her staff into several shorter pieces to stow away before she followed him up. "Short, hard to reach, hidden... this feels like a kobold maintenance tunnel," he grumbled. They soon found a ladder down, and Victor descended. Clara called after him, "maybe it is! Makes the test all the more fitting, if we turned out to have beaten not just the puzzle, but the system it's framed in, no?" "Eh, it's also a simple enough answer that it's probably the intended solu-" he cut himself off as he looked around and sighed. "Man, beating the system doesn't feel as good when the system is THIS." Clara stepped down the ladder. "Why, what is it- oh." A two-foot wall obstructed the entrance to the narrow tunnel they had climbed into, revealing that it was, in fact, the middle path, hidden by a rocky illusion. "Okay, I agree with you. That's a disappointing puzzle." She reached her hand out to pass through the fake barrier, but was stopped by something solid in mid-air. An actual illusion. "You know, if it didn't just happen to me, I bet I'd find this pretty funny," Victor quipped, "now let's keep going, if anyone's got that cure, it's Gehrakt the Eldest." And the two of them set down the tunnel. They passed several sets of significant-looking scratch marks, but from what they could tell, it was all code, or at least unknown abbreviations and slang by the dragon's kobolds. Eventually, they came upon another metal sign in several languages. Upon this one was written, simply: Stand on the X to meet Gehrakt The humans looked down at the floor. There was a large circle painted on the smooth, rock ground. They looked around, but all of note on the walls or ceiling were some claw scratches in what were decidedly not X-like shapes. "So... do we stand on the circle instead?" Clara asked. Victor shook his head. "I don't think so. It's not an easy shape to mix up. Unless this is some illusion of an O on top of an actual X, which would be kinda unfair." Clara nodded. "And, like the going-backwards option before, it would allow in people who didn't understand the trick, too. Here, let me try something." Having reassembled her staff, she used it to scrape an X inside the circle, then placed a foot carefully on the new symbol. Nothing happened. The two of them read and reread the sign a few times, wondering if there was an error in translation that had been missed when putting it into their first language. To no avail, however; everything but the single, translation-unneeded X was as good as they knew it could be. Clara narrowed her eyes. With careful balance, aided by her walking staff, she placed her foot on the sign, right over the X. Almost immediately, a small section of the wall above the sign slid away, revealing a small, scaly head. The kobold yapped and wiggled an arm through the hole to point at the circle. "Stand on the circle?" got another yap. So the two humans stood on it, and in a flash of light, they were suddenly in front of Gehrakt. To say that Gehrakt was big was an understatement. Dragons do not stop growing if they are not killed, and Gehrakt was the oldest dragon by a long shot. He bore an old scar, now the size of three men end-to-end, across his eye. Victor and Clara had seen dragons the size of horses. They had heard stories of dragons the size of a house. There were myths and legends of dragons big enough to stand over houses and barely scrape their belly-scales. But Gehrakt? His scales were visibly tougher than just about anything. With a wayward bite, he could devour entire trees and barely notice. The two of them looked at him, and were given the distinct, unsettling impression that to walk from the tip of his snout to the end of his tail would take hours upon hours, if not entire days. HELLO, HUMANS. WHAT DO YOU SEEK? The voice was loud, impossible to ignore, and was not spoken, but rather appeared in their heads. Clara was glad she had her walking staff to lean on, and Victor rather wished he had one as well. It took them a couple of seconds to recover, before Victor could respond. "We... our town is afflicted by an illness turning victims to stone. We have no books on it, and seek knowledge on its cure, and on its prevention." AND NOT ON HOW TO RECREATE OR HEIGHTEN IT? "Uh... no? Look, one of our town's teachers is made of marble now, and when we left, my best friend had lost a foot to it. Subjecting anyone else to this is beyond our furthest thoughts." "Plus, if anyone actually wanted to weaponize petrification, there's always chucking a basilisk over the wall," Clara muttered, and was quickly shushed by Victor. THAT IS SUFFICIENT. KREER VITGEHRAKT WILL GUIDE YOU. IF IT IS WRITTEN, YOU WILL FIND IT ON THAT SHELF. The rapid sound of scaly feet pitter-pattered up behind them. The humans turned to see the kobold from earlier before them. Kreer yapped, and began to walk off. The pair followed it, and only once they brought themselves to look away from Gehrakt did they see his hoard of knowledge. Hundreds of spiraling, conical pillars jutted out of the ground, each one lined with bookshelves filled with countless books. As Victor stared at them, he spotted a number of moving shapes browsing the shelves, each one presumably having gone through a similar trial to meet him. He squinted, making out not only humans, elves, and kobolds, but also gnolls, some sort of slime, and a couple of harpies browsing the stacks. Clara hung back a couple steps. "Uh... Mister Gehrakt? May I ask a couple questions?" A bemused glint appeared in the eye of the dragon. YOU HAVE ASKED ONE ALREADY; WHAT IS THE SECOND? The human smiled at having seen the joke coming, then asked, "just before we got here, there was a sign saying to stand on the X, but it was an O that we stood on to get teleported here. Was tapping my foot against the X on the sign really the solution?" Gehrakt drew his massive head back, and for a moment, Clara was terrified that she had offended him. Instead, however, he turned to face Greer, who chirped out a few short phrases in Draconic. IT WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE SO. ONE OF MINE HAS MISLABELED THE TELEPORT GLYPH. IT WILL BE FIXED. THOUGH... THAT SOLUTION IS NOT A BAD IDEA. Clara let out a breath, then sped up a bit to catch up to her companion and the kobold. "So," she said quietly to Victor, "Kreer gave us the answer to that last test, because it wasn't supposed to be one. We overthought a mistake." They walked towards one of the nearer spires of literary knowledge, and as they climbed its slope, they passed by a gnome, a politely coiled lamia, and a small, yellow pegasus before the kobold yapped once more and pointed at a bookshelf, then stepped past them and made his way back down. The books were all medical texts on uncommon and rare communicable diseases. Between the two of them, Victor and Clara quickly found the information they needed. On a sheet of paper they had brought, they copied down facts about the strange disease and made multiple copies of the instructions for creating and applying the cure. Once done, they carefully walked back down the spire. The lack of handrail was much more apparent as they descended, but they eventually managed to get back to Gehrakt and the teleportation ring. HOLD, HUMANS. MY KNOWLEDGE COMES AT NO GREAT EXPENSE, BUT NEITHER IS IT FREE. They froze at the dragon's booming, telepathic voice. "What- what would you ask of us? We do not bring much gold," Clara said. I VALUE LITTLE OF PRETTY METALS. YOU WILL TRADE KNOWLEDGE FOR KNOWLEDGE. A new kobold skittered up to them, carrying a roll of parchment and a quill. It scratched a few words to test, then looked up at them. A COPY OF THE STORY OF YOUR JOURNEY. THAT IS THE PRICE OF THE CURE YOU SOUGHT. WORRY NOT, YOUR TOWN NEEDS YOUR TIME MORE THAN I, SO YOU MAY ABRIDGE YOUR TELLING. Vincent and Clara shared a glance, nodded, and began their tale...                

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x15: The Calm Before - Details

Okay, let's go through the pleasing nuances of this episode. Going to attempt to divide all my observations into categories. Bear with me.

***As always, spoilers abound for 9x15 in this post. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned.***

Whisperers = Wolves

Probably the most important thing that jumped out at me from this episode came during Daryl's conversation with Alpha, when she took him to see the big walker herd. Both of them used metaphors during that conversation that named Alpha and the Whisperers as wolves.

Alpha said the way Daryl's people lived was a shrine to a long dead world. He basically called her on her crap, saying that was just bullshit she feeds to her sheep. So, we have a reference to the sheep and the wolf metaphor. I’ll come back to that.

Then alpha more or less agreed to the way Daryl labeled her. She said her people followed her because she was the Alpha and the people trusted her leadership.

Now, many types of animals follow this dynamic, with a strong leader being in charge of the pack. In fact, the leader of any particular group, including humans, can be referred to as the alpha. But this analogy originally came from wild wolves. They have one strong leader, who generally uses violence to enforce their leadership, which is called the alpha. It's not even uncommon for the alpha of a wolf pack to be a dominant female. So, this fits the Whisperers very well.

The wolf and the sheep analogy often refers to a “wolf in sheep's clothing.” In a way, that fits the Whisperers too. They put on masks (sheep's clothing) and hide among the walkers.

Jesus's death was definitely a “wolf in sheep's clothing” situation. Most of us don’t think of the walkers as weak, innocent sheep, but most of the people still alive in TWD world have learned how to kill the walkers with relative ease. Unless they get overwhelmed with numbers, the walkers are less of a threat now. People are strong and know how to kill them. As we saw in this episode with Daryl's group, very few strong fighters can take out quite a few walkers. But when humans who are still alive and can think and improvise hide among the walkers, they become wolves in sheep's clothing.

Why is this important? I mentioned it yesterday. Because of Up the Wolves, which played at the end of Still. The chorus says, "There's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home."

So, this is another reinforcement of what we've said all along: Beth’s arc is tied up with the with the Whisperers (symbolic wolves).

Anyone who’s followed me long knows that, for a long time, I wondered if they wouldn't do the Whisperers at all, but would simply bring back the wolves and put them in the Whisperers role. Obviously, that hasn't been the case. My group has also wondered if perhaps the wolves are part of the Whisperers and simply broke off from them. That could still be the case, and I still sincerely hope we see the wolves again. They had such potential to be great villains and I felt like we didn't see enough of them or learn enough about them.

All that said, I'm officially leaning toward the wolves being a symbolic foreshadow of the Whisperers. That's why we saw lots of Beth symbolism around the wolves. It foreshadowed that she would return with the symbolic wolves (the Whisperers). So, when we heard Alpha and Daryl referring to the Whisperers as wolves, we might have had a few mini-meltdowns in my group. 😉

It's just a confirmation of stuff we’ve believed since Beth first disappeared in S5: that she’ll return with the wolves.

Another great point made in my group made is that another line from Up the Wolves talks about, “we’re going to commandeer the local airwaves.” Meanwhile, we have Eugene and Rosita trying to set up a radio that will do just that. It feels like the writers are taking lines from the song and making them come to life in the show. It makes me very hopeful because that song ends with the wolf coming home and everyone having a party or reunion.

TD/Grady Parallels:

During the fair, we saw lots of water symbols. Water barrels, Eugene’s dunking booth, etc. Henry changed back into his compass shirt, and the Highwaymen donated mannequins so Enid could do her CPR booth. (The mannequins remind us of the Rich Bitch mannequin/walker in Still.)

There is also constantly music playing at the fair. Even before we saw Luke and Alden singing, there was constantly people singing in the background and playing guitar music. There are also candied apples (Apple theory).

Lots of interesting dialogue as well. This is part of the tragedy of Henry, but he asked Carol when she was leaving and she said, "I won't leave without saying goodbye." Obviously a call back to Beth saying she hated goodbyes and that she was glad she didn't get to say goodbye. But of course Beth didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone, and neither did those who died and were piked, so there’s a parallel there.

Luke and Alden:

While we’ll always relate anything musical to Beth, I thought it was interesting that Luke played the guitar, which is the same instrument she played in 5x09. I also like that, while trying to convince Alden to sing with him, Luke kept saying of Enid, "Sing for her!" It just reminded me of blessing for Daryl in her own.

Luke said he didn't want a mid-tempo ballad. He wanted something more upbeat. That would give people hope. Luke and Eldon collectively represent Beth. It seems to me that a mid-tempo ballad (which Alden wants) is more like the kind of music Beth likes. Yet Luke says people need hope. A very Beth-ish thing to say. So they represent her collectively.

Connie Stuff:

Connie and Kelly’s conversation struck many of us as something that could have been said between Maggie and Beth. Kelly lamented that Connie left without saying goodbye. Check out this dialogue. "You left without saying goodbye… Any goodbye could be the last…What if you die?" Again, that could practically have been said between Maggie and Beth, and Beth and Maggie really didn't get a goodbye. Between this and Henry/Carol’s convo, there was definitely a “getting to say goodbye” theme going on in this episode, and that traces directly back to Beth.

At the end, Kelly says, “It’s okay. I get it.” Two very iconic Beth lines from Grady.

On a more plot-related note, it sounds like Connie might've lost a baby at some point. And this finally made it clear why she went with Daryl to begin with. She couldn't stand that the Whisperers were going to let that baby die. Obviously, she had a very personal connection to that issue, perhaps because she lost a baby herself. She told Kelly all about feelings that she hasn't dealt with yet. On the one hand, this is obviously a Connie thing. It tells us her motivations and also shows why she still alive. Many people predicted her death this season, but obviously she's got more story to tell.

Because she’s had some Beth parallels, we might also connect this to Beth and the Child/Baby symbolism.

Daryl leaves Dog with Connie. I know a lot of the shippers are making a big deal out of this, but the biggest thing I see here are Beth parallels.

First of all, there was really no reason for Daryl to leave dog behind. He's never not taken Dog with him before and he didn't give a specific reason for it. I'm kind of thinking this was a convenience thing for the story. If Dog had been with them when the walkers attacked, one of two things would've happened. Either Dog would've died because there were too many walkers and he would been bitten, or, had he lived, he would've talked attacked Beta and the Whisperers and might have helped TF escape. So, in terms of the story, having Dog there would have been a problem. They had to invent reason for Daryl to leave him behind.

But we’re also seeing strong symbolism here. They very specifically emphasized that, when Daryl was a prisoner a the Sanctuary, they only fed him dog food. We've seen cans of dog food many times. Here, he specifically asked Connie to feed the dog, so this is part of the dog food theme.

The thing is, we can relate this specifically back to Beth in Alone. Daryl wanted to bring the one-eyed dog into the funeral home so they could feed him. He specifically tried to get the dog to come in and eat. That’s when the walkers busted in and Beth disappeared. So again, feeding the dog is something we can relate directly back to Beth. It's yet another Beth/Connie parallel.

When Daryl's group is captured, shows up, shocking Daryl, who doesn't didn't realize until now the Beta had survived. He says that all Daryl had to do was give him Lydia and no one else has had to die. He then says, "But that deal is done." That is EXACTLY what Rick said to Dawn at Grady. "The deal is done." Beta didn't do the head tilt, but whatcha gonna do?

Rosita and Eugene worked on the radio. I won't say too much about this except that it's part of the Communication Theme and as I said the other day, everything around the radio smacks of Sirius/Dogstar symbolism. And Eugene specifically said he was looking for “ham” radio parts.

When Carol, Father Gabriel, and Rachel were all talking, Tara mentioned training new fighters and specifically training facilities. Rachel offered the beach. I'm not sure what's gonna come out of this, but it made me think of Abraham's line. "From Alpha to Omega, battlefield to beach.”

Alpha meets Ezekiel. She says she looks forward to meeting Carol, so obviously they are setting up an Alpha vs. Carol thing. It also stood out to us that Alpha mentioned it being “sweater weather” soon. This is something I haven't really thought about too much before, guys.

Sweater weather made us think of Beth’s sweater. My group tried to relate it to her through that. I think the parallels deeper here. We don't see cold weather very often on TWD. In a few seasons, we’ve seen TF start wearing long sleeves and jackets more, but it doesn't usually go too far beyond that. I was thinking that maybe that's very purposeful.

We definitely saw " sweater weather" in S4. In Still, Beth and Daryl wore T-shirts and sweated a lot. It was obviously very hot outside. It was obvious there was a few weeks’ time jump before Alone, because Beth was suddenly wearing her signature sweater and Daryl had a jean jacket on. But it occurs to me that, while we HAVE seen the weather cool slightly in other seasons, it hasn’t been every season, it hasn’t always been logical, and I think it’s almost always synonymous with Beth symbolism.

For example, Daryl and Aaron wore cool-weather jackets at the end of S5. That's when they came across the wolves and saw the blonde girl tied to the tree. S6 started only days after S5, but we saw no cold weather in S6. From there, we have the infamously slow-moving seasons. From S6 to the end of S8 only a few months passed, and we never saw any cold weather.

Now, Alpha mentions sweater weather again and of course are going to see snow in the next episode. I’m thinking this might be very intentional. Like maybe they were never going to show bad weather on the show until Beth came back. If so, mentioning sweater weather and that winter is coming soon could  almost be another way of saying Beth is about to arrive.

Henry goes to fix the water pipe again and that's when he disappears. Obviously, he's had a lot of Beth parallels this season and it occurred to me that he was trying to fix a water problem when he disappeared, and then died. (Beth equals water.)

Then there was the movie shown at the Kingdom. In it, we watch a duck vs. a fox. That's very important because @frangipanilove has found evidence that the fox is part of the Sirius/Dog Star symbolism. There was even a part where the duck pulled a mask off the fox.

Obviously another analogy for the Whisperers. They wear masks and so, kind of like the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” analogy, it's about them hiding behind the masks. We also saw this theme when Daryl said something similar to Michonne last episode about people wearing hatred like a mask.

More than all that, if this is part of the Sirius symbolism, it may point to the returning dog star character (Beth) wearing a mask too. In other words, she might be hidden in general, or she might be one of the Whisperers. Fascinating stuff. @frangipanilove is working on a whole post about all of this. Coming soon. 

Now, at first we thought the thing in the cartoon was a wolf, not a fox, and it was pointed out that the wolf/fox came home. (Again, “there’s gonna be a party when the wolf comes home,” even if it’s a fox instead.)

Also remember that in Still, Daryl’s story about Merle and the tweaker included a cartoon about a talking dog. Now Ezekiel is specifically showing a cartoon that could fit that mold.

Alpha tells Daryl's group, that Lydia is weak and never lived up to expectations. When it flashes back to Alpha and Lydia's face-off, we saw parallels to Dawn and Beth at Grady. Not only does Lydia stand up to Alpha, much as Beth did to Dawn, but Alpha keeps telling Lydia she's weak. At one point, Lydia even holds up her arm to show off her scars, kind of like Dawn grabbing Beth's arm and looking at the suicide scar on her wrist.

Alpha made Beta leave when she cried. That's a direct callback to Beth and Daryl. It’s sort of a parallel to Beth saying “I don't cry anymore,” but Beth also didn't mind if Daryl saw her cry. In this case, Alpha makes Beta leave because she's crying and doesn't want to appear weak in front of him. Then she kills the guy who was saw her cry. Yeah, never walk up on Alpha when she’s crying.

I noticed the guy she killed was holding a dead blackbird. Kind of interesting. We saw white doves (usually a symbol of peace) released at the fair. So the black bird just before a brutal death contrasts to that. It’s also part of the black/white symbolism, which we’ve seen a lot around Beth and Daryl. It’s also interesting to note that black and white birds are a big part of the new opening credits sequence for this arc.

Another piece of foreshadowing I noticed was when Ezekiel said, "Eat, drink, trade, and be merry." I thought it was kind of an odd thing to say. The reason being that it's a line from the Bible but it's actually a very negative line. It’s about people being carefree and not thinking they’ll have to deal with the consequences of frivolous living. The entire line says, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die…” And basically they think everything will be fine no matter what, but it won’t. So, it doesn't seem like a particularly appropriate line at a fair that’s about being positive and getting people to come together.

Then it occurred to me that it's something of a foreshadow. It literally happened in this episode. Everyone ate, drank and was happy at the fair. Then people died. ☹

Did you notice the sunrise in this episode? Ezekiel called the fair, "A Fair of New Beginnings." The new beginnings was a hint of the new arc and then when Alpha took Daryl to see the walker horde, the sun was coming up. So, we’re moving into a new sub-arc.

One thing I was wrong about: I really didn't think Henry would make it back for the fair. The way spoilers originally reported events, it sounded like Henry would be killed on his way to the fair, so I assume he wouldn't make it. But he did, and that was a good thing. It was good that he got see Carol again one more time. It was good that was Michonne and Tara made up before tragedy struck. Naturally, all the reunions had to happen to make the tragedy of it more potent.

Hilde:

Let's talk about Hilde for a minute. There were a lot of things that we could parallel between her and Beth. She’s the one who makes the H coins, which have a parallel to Beth’s spoon. There's the fact that she's blonde. She wears a green dress with pink flowers on it (Pink Theory). All symbols of Beth. Having Alpha put them on just lends more credence, in my mind, to Alpha being a foil to Beth.

Another thing that stuck out to me was that Alpha scalped her *shudders*. If you watch as the camera pans away, Alpha makes a cut on her forehead and then we don't see the rest of the scalping. It reminded me of the walker in the movie theater in episode 9x11. I said that was a parallel to Beth because Beth had a head injury and the cut was made in forehead (where Beth was shot). I still think that, and I think Hilde’s death here is a parallel to with Beth’s too, but the move theater walker was also a foreshadow of this.

We also heard Alpha sing the Lydia song here again. It’s kind of amazing how much Alpha sings, given the only other person who sang a lot. Again, Alpha = Foil of Beth.

Siddiq:

There's been a lot of talk about whether Siddiq is a traitor of some kind, who gave Alpha information about the communities. We don't really know for certain yet, but on TTD, they did seem to tell us that was not the case. I’m 50/50 on this right now. I sincerely hope Siddiq isn’t a traitor and I don't want him to be, but I thought something was going on with him in this episode. And it will may not be a plot thing. It really might be more of a symbolic thing.

As soon as I heard people talking about Siddiq maybe being a traitor, I actually thought that could work out well for one of my theories. Back in S8 when Carl died, I talked about how I thought something about Siddiq would lead to Beth. The reason is because we saw so much Beth symbolism (like the Phoenix) around Carl’s death. I think they were trying to say that something about Carl's death would lead to the Phoenix (Beth) rising. We haven't seen that yet because Beth hasn't returned. But I still think something about Siddiq will lead to her. That would mean Carl bringing Siddiq into the community, and dying because of it, would lead to Beth. Kind of like one sheriff dying for another.

I still think that's true and I thought if Siddiq betrayed TF in some way, that might be a clue to how this would play out. Which is not to say that Siddiq HAS to be a traitor for it to play out that way. I was just eyeing him suspiciously in this episode. He obviously has a significant role in this episode, and where Alpha is concerned in general, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on him moving forward.

There’s also the fact that Siddiq was tied to a tree. Granted, it doesn’t look quite the same as the blond walker tied to the tree in 5x15, mostly because he was sitting, but we know the Whisperers do this, so it’s still a parallel to that blond walker. Another way to associate Beth with Siddiq. Just kinda interesting.

I also wrote in my notes that the scene where Ozzie takes Daryl’s group to Hilde’s wagon reminded me of when Daryl and Aaron came upon the wolves’ destruction and the blond walker in 5x15. The reason being, Ozzie said something to the effect of, “the dead didn’t do this; the living did.” 

In this case, the Whisperers. But Daryl and Aaron said much the same thing back in 5x15 about the wolves. The reason I mention it is that Daryl and Aaron said that and then came upon the blond woman tied to the tree right after that. Here, Ozzy says the same thing and, though it doesn’t happen right away, Daryl’s group eventually finds Siddiq tied to a tree. Just saying.

Another evidence that something’s up with Siddiq, at least symbolically? Ezekiel’s speech at the beginning of the fair/episode was all about honoring Rick, Carl, and Jesus. (In other words, two sheriffs and the Christ figure?) And the episode where Carl found Siddiq and brought him into the community was called Honor. See what I mean? I'm not sure exactly how or what it means yet, but somethings’ up.

Questions:

Rachel seems to be leading Oceanside, and we still don’t know what happened to Cindy. Yup, the Rachel who signed the charter for Oceanside is little homicidal Rachel that kept trying to shoot Tara in S7 when she first discovered Oceanside. And remember Sydney Park is now on a different show. So I really don’t think Cyndie is alive anymore, but they haven’t told us why or what happened to her. But Oceanside does seem to be alive and well and thriving under Rachel.

I also questioned why, in terms of the writing and story, Yumiko went with Daryl's group. She didn't serve much purpose except to help them fight walkers and look vaguely horrified most of the time. So, I'm not sure why they had her go with them. It could just as easily have been just Daryl, Michonne and Carol who were captured and then found Siddiq and the pikes together. I'm sure there's a reason Yumiko being there, but we don't know what it is yet. Could be symbolic or could be that this affects her moving forward in some way

Things TD was right about:

I'll update the official post about this soon. For now, we can officially say that Ezekiel did not get his comic book death. Yes, it's possible he could still die during Whisperer war, but you all know I think he’ll get a death fake out. S, he may "die," but not for real.

Guys, I've been saying Ezekiel won’t get his CB death since S7. It was partly gut feeling but mostly because of precedent the show has set. Other than Glenn, not a single character on the show has gotten their exact CB death, and specific reasons were stated for why they kept Glenn’s the same. None of them applied to Zeke. Plus, if you look at symbolism around him and Carol, it’s obvious that there’s more story yet to play out for them. So again, TD was right about this, and it’s not wishful thinking or a wild guess we just so happened to be right about. It shows that generally do read the symbolism correctly and that’s why we’re correct about stuff. And then there’s Beth…

Enid and Alden: I didn’t by any means predict Enid’s death��I was surprised to find out she’d be one of the pike victims when I read spoilers—but I did sort of predict this in a round about way that even I didn’t realize would happen.

When we found out Enid and Alden were an item, I had lots of people asking me about the Entwined Fingers Hand-hold Theme. The reason being that Enid and Carl did the entwined fingers hand hold, which showed they were soulmates, so I had a lot of people asking what Enid’s relationship with Alden meant for that theory. In truth, I didn’t know for sure until things played out further, and told everyone as much. I offered a few weak theories, such as that maybe the handhold was for Carl rather than Enid. Like, she was his only love (because he died so young) but maybe he wouldn’t be hers. If that had turned out to be the case, it would have sucked because it would have weakened the entire theory, and sort of leaned toward Daryl possibly getting a new love interest at some point.

The other option I offered was that, more likely, Enid and Alden’s relationship wouldn’t be long term. Either they would break up or—more likely as this is TWD—one of them would die. And what do you know? Like I said, I didn’t at all predict Enid’s death. Honestly, my money would have been on Alden being the on to go. But they really emphasized in this episode that Enid and Alden were still a new and developing thing. (This was apparently the first time she’d called him her boyfriend) so, tragic as it was, they weren’t in love, they weren’t soulmates, and they certainly never did the entwined handhold that we saw. So the theory stands.

In terms of foreshadowing, the two of them being involved in the Grady-like prisoner exchange was probably meant to foreshadow one of their deaths. We can compare them to Bethyl because it was the man (Daryl/Alden) that lost the woman (Enid/Beth).

I also think there could be something to the fact that the one who sings (Alden) is the one who lived, while Enid died. (☹)

Ozzy’s Death:

Most of us are a little mystified about why Ozzie died. It’s just surprising that they introduced him and then killed him so quickly. I don't think it changes anything I’ve said about him, even though I thought he would play a bigger role in bringing Beth back. The symbolism still stands.

Watching a second time, I noticed when Siddiq told the story about what happened in the barn, he says Ozzie found and tried to rescue them. I’m not even sure exactly where I'm going with this, but it's kind of interesting that these guys, who we saw a lot of Beth symbolism around, attempted to to rescue everyone and were killed in the attempt. It just feels like a slightly skewed call back to Daryl trying to rescue Beth and her being killed in the attempt.

Random and Tragic Observations:

Henry had a crush on Enid at the beginning of the season, and, while he ended up cultivating a relationship with Lydia instead of her, he and Enid died together. Maybe in some way, his crush on Enid foreshadowed this?

Siddiq told the crowd that the victims died as heroes. He said, “That's the story I want us all to remember." I thought that could be the theme for the entire series. The writers are telling us that this is the main point. We lose characters often and it sucks. The thing to remember is that they died heroes, fighting for and defending one another.

Of course, Carol finding Henry was a total replay of Sophia. Even Norman confirmed that on TTD.

And finally, Lydia visited the pikes and left her H necklace there as a memorial to Henry. This was an obvious call back to Alone. Not only because of Lydia/Beth parallels and H necklace/spoon parallels, but putting it at the base of the stake felt a lot like Daryl putting yellow flowers on the “Beloved Father” grave. Then he and Lydia walked off together, much like Beth and Daryl left the graveyard together.

And this is actually more North Star stuff. Hilde said the H stood for “hope” and “home” among other things. So Lydia put a symbol for hope on Henry’s grave (who had insane parallels with Beth this season) and it just happened to be at the northern border (North Star) which Carl told Judith in S6 was how one finds their way home. Exciting stuff. The North Star/Sirius symbolism is directly tied to Beth’s return.

Okay, I think it's all I have to say for today. I’ll do predictions tomorrow. I'll talk more about what was said on TTD (because it's huge) and also what we’ve already seen from 9x16. If you haven't yet, get on the app or YouTube and watch the opening minutes of 9x16 and the sneak peaks. I’ll be referencing them. I’m seeing something awesome that makes me feel very hopeful that we could see Beth next episode. Stay tuned.

[alitaimagines]

Could you possibly do an imagine where they're show casing all the new heroes and a small but bad ass girl comes out and stuns all might. They start to get to know each other but one day she catches him in his small form and he gets insecure but fluff ending!!!

Toshinori Yagi x Fem! Reader

Note: none. 

You weren’t supposed to be as bad ass and strong as you were. You were a five foot girl who looked like she couldn’t harm a fly. Once a agency signed you and seen your work, they were immediately taken back. You didn’t cause damage, your quirk was strong and you didn’t even come from U.A. High School. You hailed from Ketsubutsu Academy and not a lot of people paid attention to them. 

The agency that signed you was the same one that signed All Might when he first became a hero. Soon enough, they started show casing their top heroes in order to gain some leverage on other agencies. 

You were among the first ones to be invited. Your quirk had the ability to trick villains into thinking that they were dead. You were a grim reaper of sorts but without actually killing anyone. It was first seen as a dangerous quirk because if you let it get out of hand, you could actually kill them but after training and learning how to control it, it wasn’t bad. 

The day of the event came and you were told to dress in business formal clothes but to make sure that your identity was hidden. In the end, you sported a black and white knee high dress with a mouth guard and a domino mask. It looked bad ass as hell and you were seriously considering your hero uniform. 

They lined up six different people and you happened to be dead last. Everyone at the show case was extremely tall but they all had quirks that you had seen before. Your quirk was a unique one that would make you stand out. Hearing everyones name and watching their hype video, you finally heard your name. 

“(your hero name), she graduated from Ketsubutsu Academy and went on to travel the world for hero work. After finally signing to our agency, we groomed her to the best damn hero anyone has seen on such a small girl. With the ability to trick villains into thinking that they’re dead, she has captured and turned in over 30+ villains.” 

They went on to explain your quirk even more and while everyone was stunned, you couldn’t help but laugh. After the video, they were playing “Dark Ages” by Thomas Bergersen as you stepped out. 

The crowd didn’t expect you to be so small and you stood in line with the other heroes. 

“Please welcome you’re newest top heroes!” 

All Might sat in the crowd over looking the heroes that would soon replace him. The one he couldn’t wrap his around was you. Your quirk was so unique but you were so tiny. You looked like one of his students, height wise. 

Once the showcase was over, there was a cocktail dinner in order to get older heroes to interact with the newer ones. All Might spoke to the newest heroes first in order to get to talk to you more. He noticed you with Present Mic and Midnight. 

“Ah! All Might! Have you met (your hero name)!” Present Mic asked enthusiastically. 

All Might nodded no but he noticed your face was struck with shock. 

“Holy shit, you’re All Might. The symbol of peace! Jesus fucking christ, I’m about to pass out,” You said without realizing what you actually said. “I am so sorry but I’m a huge fan. I’m so excited to finally meet you.” 

All Might laughed at your amusement, “Nice to meet you! It’s such a pleasure meeting someone with your unique quirk! You’ll do a great service to this agency!” 

Your mouth dropped in surprise and soon realized that Midnight and Present Mic had left which left you and All Might.

“You really did inspire me to become a hero! I was entering college when your first came on the scene and I can tell you that everyone in the room was so admired by your work when you defeated the villain,” You confessed. “I hope to reach your level of hero work one day.” 

All Might felt himself already slowly falling for you. No one had ever gushed about his work like that before. No one besides Izuku. 

“With time, training and work, you will reach great things,” All Might boasted. “Would you mind if I treated you for a drink.” 

You immediately accepted the offer and the two of you made your way to the bar. Sitting down and talking over some whisky, the conversation continued for over two hours. 

All Might looked down to his watch and seen that he had to leave before his body left, “I have some late night patrolling to do. I hope to see you around!” 

You nodded and waved him off. Just as you were about to get up, you noticed that All Might had left his number on a napkin. You felt yourself squealing internally and immediately put the napkin in your pocket. 

After texting each other and setting up a date, you felt a bit scared for actually going on a date with him. What if others seen it as some kind of way to be more popular? That you were only using All Might in order to gain popularity from the rest of the world. 

The date went smoothly as a first date could go. The two of you went to a secret restaurant that Midnight had offered. It was an exclusive club for heroes who wanted to date other heroes without getting caught.

After a few more dates, the two of you started to date. The topic of revealing each others real identities was mentioned but you knew that it had to happen if the relationship was going to be serious. You had no problem revealing your real self to All Might but he was the one who hesitated. 

The world knew about the relationship between you and All Might. The two of you exposed it and it got great reception from the public. The two of you teamed up a lot more and some of the public basically praised the ground you walked on. 

All Might did have his issues though. He could tell that a few new heroes had their eyes on you. You were attractive, smart, funny and knew how to interact with a crowd. You were everything that All Might used to be. Since he knew that he had to retire soon, you were going to be by yourself and working with other heroes.

The time that it really hit him was when you and Hawks were teaming up. You were kicking the villains ass while Hawks saved people. It seemed that the two of you worked a lot faster and while you did work at a great pace with All Might, he still felt that insecurity in the back of his mind. 

You were getting ready for a date and you knew that something was up with All Might. He was starting to leave dates a lot faster and not really participating in battles unless it was a serious one. 

Slipping on the domino mask, you heard the doorbell. You quickly put on your shoes and ran to the door. You seen All Might standing at your doorway with flowers in his hand. 

“All Might, they’re beautiful,” You whispered as you ushered him inside. “Let me put this in a cup and we can head out.” 

It didn’t take less than a minute before you heard coughing fit. Quickly turning around, you were greeted to someone else. A frail man with blood streaming down his face. 

“All Might?!” You screamed in a questioning tone. “What the hell, get in here!” 

You grabbed him by the wrist and brought him inside. Grabbing a towel, you wiped his mouth. 

“All Might, what in the hell is going on,” You asked as you sat him down. “You better tell me what’s going on or I’m going to force it out of you.” 

He sighed, “I’m Toshinori Yagi, the eighth person who held the One for All quirk.”

You nodded, “Is this the real you?” 

“Yes it is and if this relationship is willing to continue, you’re going to have to accept me for what I really look like. I might not be the muscular guy you fell in love with but this is who I am,” Toshinori confessed. 

You hugged him and kissed his cheek, “Toshnori, I don’t care how you look. Yeah, i might have fell in love with the muscular you but you look far better now. This is the real you.” 

You slowly took off your domino mask and ripped off your mouth guard, “If this is what kept you from me, I’m sorry. We agreed to be together and when people fall in love, we have to fall in love with everything.” 

Toshinori sighed of relief, “Now can we go out like regular people instead of hiding behind masks and mouth guards?” 

“Duh, now let’s get you some fresh clothes and go do something fun. The amusement park literally opened a few days ago and I’ve been dying to ride some rides,” You confessed as you immediately got up to your feet. 

-alita

[redsdesktop]

Unbalanced Scales

Chapter 4

Chapter Index

Warnings: Mild Swearing

Pairings: Christophe x Gregory

AU: Medieval / Fantasy, ABOverse

"How long is he going to be gone?" The paladin's voice broke through Christophe's silent musings, making the brunet look up at him.

"A couple of days, assuming that asshole survives. Though, knowing my luck, he always does." Christophe capped his waterskin after filling it in the stream they had stopped at. Gregory had decided that Christophe would take the group to the nearest town and investigate there. If this curse didn't die at the village that had been razed to the ground, then other nearby towns would be in danger. According to the map Gregory had left with him, the next town was a small logging village, something the kingdom would easily miss if they went silent. The royal court had always been a sore spot for Christophe, no matter how long time passed, things always seemed to remain the same in some way.

Just listening to the two kings in his company bicker nonstop was proof enough of that. Both wouldn't admit defeat, too stubborn and prideful, neither would admit they were wrong. Christophe tolerated Leopold and Stan a little better, though in reality Christophe didn't particularly like anyone. Leopold was more humble but he tended to let others walk all over him quite often, which irritated Christophe to no end. Stan was more reasonable in arguments, down to earth and maybe a little jaded, but he could be just as stubborn as the kings.

For now, they had decided to take a break for a bit of food, Stan had gone off hunting, Kyle was foraging around for any food nature would give him while Eric sat on a stump, no surprise there. The entire trip the wizard king had offered no help and Christophe was half tempted to ditch him if he wasn't under Gregory's orders. These four were under his care and if Gregory did survive, then Christophe would never hear the end of it. Christophe took a seat on the grass, taking a moment to relax and let the horses graze a little, waiting for Stan to come back before starting up a lunch. Leopold handed Eric a waterskin, in which the wizard king drank heftily from it, as if walking to the stream had been too much effort for him.

"So, uh, Christophe sir. You said called the dragons something I didn't understand, what sort of language was that, if you don't mind me asking that is." Leopold sat down next to Christophe, not too close, after the last time he'd got close, he ended up getting punched which hadn't felt too great.

"A dead language, so its not fuckin' important anymore. A honor bestowed upon me by my family." Christophe's tone was heavy on sarcasm as he plucked out blades of grass from the ground idly to pass the time. "And don't even ask for me to teach you, kid, I'm not doin' it."

"O... Oh, I wasn't gonna'." Leopold's passive nature basically made him roll over, making Christophe snort a bit. "Though, you and the Councilor sure do seem to know a lot about dragons. They didn't teach us much about them at the Church, so I was wonderin' if you would, uh, maybe tell me about them a little?"

"Why do you want to know? They're beasts and you kill them, end of fuckin' story." Christophe flicked a bit of grass into the air, watching them hurriedly flutter down to the ground again.

"Well, you see, I came on this adventure to-"

"Impress someone. Always thinking with your dicks."

"N-No! I mean... sort of. I want to become stronger for someone special. People think I'm stupid and don't know nothing about the world. So, it would help me a lot if I knew more." Leopold seemed to be stumbling over his words, further proof that this whole trip was a wash for Christophe. This wasn't a team of well equipped adventurers, all greenhorn in the ways of a true war. However, Gregory had seen something in them that would be useful somehow in their travels, so Christophe would have to put up with it.

"I'll tell you, since I don't have anything fuckin' else to do at the moment. But you better listen closely because I'm not telling it again, you hear me?" Christophe waited until the paladin nodded his head rapidly in agreement. "I lot of hundreds of years ago, I don't remember the exact damn number but it was a long ass time, the world was ruled by royalty. No surprise there, except the royal classes were, you fuckin' guessed it, dragons."

"How'd the dragons fit in the castles? Or were the castles built really big?"

"Don't interrupt me, damn it. They really didn't teach you idiots anything, did they? Dragons can assume different forms, depending on their tastes. Most of 'em looked like elves, but elves didn't exist at the time. You see when a daddy dragon fucks a mommy human, you get a pointy eared human. Which eventually they called themselves elves. Though, probably shouldn't bring that bit up, they get their panties in a twist about it. Being derived from humans and all, though the dragon side explains their..." Christophe waved his hand as if to conjure up the word he was looking for. "Dickishness."

"Anyways, the dragons were real assholes, killing humans without much hesitation. They had parties about killing humans sometimes. However, there was one major flaw with dragons, they were all alphas, so you can see that this would be a problem for wanting heirs and such. So they'd abduct omega humans, it became a big ordeal, the more omegas a dragon had in their harems, the more impressive they appeared. Sorta' like a damn status symbol." Christophe pause to take a sip from his waterskin, it had been a while since he had talked so much, but it did interest him to tell the tale, to see his listeners balk at the history their ancestors had tried to sweep under the rug.

"Even with omegas, it was very rare that one would give birth to a dragon and not a elf. So the more omegas meant the better the chance. But taking omegas from their families and partners, well, you can see how that'd stir up a revolt."

"So the alphas and betas stirred up an army and rescued the omegas?" Leopold seemed to be at the edge of his metaphorical seat, it appeared the kid enjoyed a good heroic tale.

"Sure, they tried, but dragons aren't the type that one can easily slay with pure determination and a sword. These weren't trained mean, Under the rule of the dragons, there had been no wars, no need for soldiers. They were simply fuckers with pitchforks and torches. They didn't stand a chance." Christophe leaned forward, drawing in close to Leopold to add more to the atmosphere. "No, the dragons were all too aware of the humans outside their gates that they paid little mind to the omegas within their very rooms. It took time but eventually, the harem members of the dragons all coordinated a single attack while their master's slept."

Christophe jabbed out a hand as if stabbing Leopold into the chest, making the paladin cry out in surprise and stumble back. Christophe stood up, looking down at Leopold as the paladin lay on the ground, frightened by the story, by the look on Christophe's face as if the man was intent on murdering him. "As midnight struck, the dragons were stabbed repeatedly by their own concubines. Over and over until their bodies were nothing more than fuckin' piles of gore. In one single night, an empire fell. So, that's why, kid, you don't ever underestimate a person. Don't let your guard down for anything or else you'll get killed. Got it?"

Leopold nodded hastily, scrambling away from Christophe as the man took another drink from his waterskin.  Green eyes turned to the one listener who had been unusually quiet during his tale. "Well, got something to fuckin' say, fuck face?" Christophe growled, though the wizard king didn't have to say anything for Christophe to know what was likely on his mind. The smug look, as if he knew something that no one else didn't. Though the smug look turned to ire from being called a insult.

"I'm just not stupid enough to fall for some goat farmer's mad fairy tales. Dragons? Ruling the world? Only idiots would believe that, dragons are nothing but stupid beasts. Not to mention the crown jewel of omegas doing anything worthwhile, but I do like the idea of a harem of them." Eric snorted in amusement, cocky as usual.

"Wow, you really are running for asshole of the year with that spiel. You get your fuckin' king title from actual wizardry or being the most loathsome scumbag ever." Christophe snorted as the wizard stood up quickly as if to fight him, he supposed a lot fed into this male's ego. A human holding magic was a very rare thing, but not completely unheard of. In the wrong hands, it could go straight to their heads, people feared magic and for good reason. Christophe on the other hand, didn't fear shit.

"Watch who you're talking to, goat fucker. I'm a wizard king, I'll turn you into a fucking frog if I want!" Eric held up his staff a little to indicate he was tempted, but Christophe knew the only reason he hesitated was he wanted Christophe to beg and grovel which wasn't something he did. Instead, Christophe did the exact opposite and took a step forward, reaching out and seizing the wizard king by the front of his shirt. He had just enough strength to force the heftier male onto his toes. Fearing that he might choke as the fabric of his tunic tightened around his throat, Eric dropped his staff and grabbed at Christophe's arm, trying in vain to pry him off.

"You think I'm scared of a squealing pig  like you? If not for your Councilor, you'd be rotting away on your throne, ruling over a festering kingdom. I suggest from now on you keep your mouth shut or I'll toss you to the fuckin' dragons, got it?" Christophe's lips curled in a aggravated snarl, so tempted to strangle the life out of this man. However, another pair of hands grabbed at his arm, glowing faintly with a holy light.

Instantly, Christophe jerked back his arm, tearing his glare away from the wizard king and onto the paladin. "Don't ever touch me like that again, kid. Not unless you want to keep those damn hands of yours." Leopold looked startled by the reaction, holding up his hands in surrender. It likely wasn't his intention to offend Christophe, just to defuse the situation but Christophe needed to nip that in the bud quickly.

Tension was high in the temporary camp when the sound of footsteps neared, revealing Stan and Kyle returning. Christophe took hold of the interruption to break the tension and turn their focus on the travel ahead. Kyle seemed to have managed to collect a decent amount of herbs and berries to cook with while Stan had managed to hunt down a few rabbits. At least when they made camp for nightfall they would have a halfway decent meal.

"Get everything tied to the saddles, we can't linger any longer. The quicker we get to this damn town, the better." Christophe directed as he moved to his dark bay horse who exhaled a sigh as if not really ready to leave yet. However, Christophe tossed the reins over the horse's neck and pulled himself up onto the saddle in one fluid motion. Riding horses wasn't something he was used to, but Gregory had taught him how to ride properly, back before everything happened.

Christophe turned his head, looking up at the nearby mountains that skirted the forest. Gregory had headed off there, knowing mountains were favored areas of dragons. Christophe still regretted letting Gregory go by himself, but with Christophe being an omega, he would likely only cause more problems than solve them with his presence. For now, he had to do the one thing he swore he'd never do again, and that was to trust Gregory.

[lxveille]

under a foreign sun

the8 x reader

word count: ~ 4200 warnings: some suggestive themes / physical intimacy a/n: a 100 ways request (minghao + 100); sci-fi au

The air is thick and hot on your skin as soon as you come to consciousness. You already wish you hadn’t woken and you’ve yet to even move a muscle. Soonyoung and Chan have the radio on in the next room over, and you have half a thought to shout for them to turn it up. Except your mouth and lips are too dry to summon the will to even try. So instead you strain to hear what the morning broadcast is saying without even opening your eyes.

From what you can make out, nothing of your circumstances have changed. Communications back to the Alpha station are still down. Repairs on the EcoBal system are still underway. They report is as being more successful repair rates than anticipated, given that they’ve restored all critical system functions in 82% of the units that experienced outage after the recent solar storm. The numbers on how many people perished still haven’t been released. There’s no way to estimate either, given that they haven’t even announced which units were the worst impacted.

All units remain still in self-contained lockdown until further notice.

You finally push yourself up from the sweat-soaked sheets and make your way out to the common room. Chan turns the radio off as soon as he spots you, as if afraid that whatever the reporter will say next could be exactly what you’re afraid of hearing.

“Temperature regulation is still out for us,” he says as means of greeting.

“Really?” you answer is a monotone, “I wouldn’t have guessed.” If not for the grueling heat, your might have genuinely meant it as a joke. Chan’s shoulders sink some, his uneasy smile falling into an expression that’s just obviously concerned.

Soonyoung takes it as his cue to pop up from his seat and bring a half-full water bottle over to you. He’s asking if you slept alright and telling you about a strange dream he’s blaming on the persisting heat all in the same breath. The energy that he has in this circumstance truly is impressive. The heat has him in a tank top, which means you can clearly see all of the tattoo on his upper arm. It reads with his full name above the insignia of the former presiding commander of Alpha station and L.Y. Penal Colony beneath it. The sight of it is an unwelcome reminder right now, not only of what your current home had been up until only two years ago, but of someone else the lockdown is keeping you from with a nearly identical tattoo on his own arm.

Except his reads Xu Minghao above the insignia Alpha station is doing its best to cleanse its memory of.

The first time you met Minghao, you still had been a little reticent of your neighbors bearing that now-taboo symbol.

It had been one thing joining the protests on Alpha station and celebrating when a new Commander was installed. All those efforts had felt justified when it was declared that Lilili Yabbay would be transitioned from a prison to a colony for the general populous. But it had been an entirely different thing to enter into the winding, tunneled system of artificial habitats and find oneself sharing them with people who, at some point or another, been banished as criminals.

He had, of course, seen right through your hesitance. He’d jerked his head to one side quickly to get dark hair out of his eyes without needing to dig his hands out his pockets and smiled a bit as he said, “Let me guess, when you signed up to join the new colony, you didn’t really think any of us old inhabitants were gonna stick around?”

“That’s not it,” you protested, feeling disarmed in the middle of the new non-fiction section of the library you’d volunteered to help stock. Whether it was your words or the look on your face that made Minghao’s lips slant further upwards, you may never know.

“Then what is it?” he’d asked. Worst of all, he then proceeded to act as if he hadn’t said a thing at all, bending over to pick up another book and find a place for it on the shelves.

It was that Minghao didn’t seem to fit any image you’d had of what the exiled inmates of Lilili Yabbay would’ve looked like. He radiated with an ease and confidence you would’ve thought would’ve evaporated out of anyone made to endure the injustices he must have gone through. Unless he hadn’t actually been wrongly imprimposed as so many had been under the old regime.

“Well -- I guess I did think you wouldn’t really want to stick around the place you were banished to,” you replied instead. Minghao hummed, like you’d just admitted to exactly what he’d already said.

“So we’d wanna go back to the place that banished us?”

“Things have changed since you were sent here.” It felt like a point of pride, since you had been one of the voices demanding change.

“Things changed here too,” Minghao retorted without looking up from the spine of the book in his hands.  At least not until the last word that he tacked on; an afterthought that also sent his sharp gaze back to your face, “Clearly.”

His eyes upon you didn’t feel as harsh anymore. No longer a callout on some kind of deep-rooted hypocrisy on your part, but a dose of genuine curiosity directed your way. And that, if anything, made you feel all the more need to look away from him yourself. To this day, you swear that right after you diverted your gaze was the first time you heard one of Minghao’s suppressed chuckles.

He could have left it at that. Instead, he caught you on your way out of the library to ask if you wanted to go out with him sometime. He told you later that five years as a prisoner was enough to make him throw aside hesitancy. And you admittedly similarly that at least half the reason you said yes was out of a misplaced sense that you had to prove you weren’t scared of him.

He took you out for dinner and insisted upon paying. It had been a lapse in better judgement when you asked if he really had the money for it. But he hadn’t been shaken by your question in the least. Rather, he turned right around and gave you pause by shrugging and admitting, “Recompense can cover a meal, at least.”

Minghao watched you shift in your seat and take in the reminder of his past. He leaned forward in his chair some, like he was about to tell you a secret, and added gently, “You can ask me about it, if you want.”

Some part of you couldn’t help feeling it was a trick question. You stared at the glass of water in front of you on the table. Suddenly every inch of your surroundings felt like proof that this planet’s settlement hadn’t started out with such pristine conditions and well-meaning intentions. “Would you really want to talk about all that?”

“Does it really seem like I’d really rather deny any of it happened?” There’s no callousness or accusation in the words he sends back your way. Only a perspective you hadn’t quite considered.

You willed yourself to look him in the eyes at that. They struck you as gentle. Earnest. Inviting, even, if you could let yourself accept them as being such. “Tell me all you want, then.”

So he did. How he’d helped distribute reformist pamphlets on Alpha station, calling for the resignation of the commander and for the shutdown of the penal colony that had been mistreating its inhabitants since its establishment decades earlier. How being caught with them in his room had resulted in being tattooed and sentenced to life at the age of fifteen.

And you appreciated anew how there had been a certain amount of safety in numbers when you had joined the most recent group that had called for a change in power.

“Can I show you why I really didn’t want to leave, when they told me I had been exonerated and could go back up to Alpha?” Minghao asked towards the end of the meal.

Which is how you ended up walking, for the first of many times, to the southernmost unit to watch the closest star set on the horizon of clay-colored hills. You’d stepped close to the clear outerwall of the colony’s enclosure and pressed one hand to the plastic surface with wide eyes. It was unlike anything you’d witnessed before: the sky alight with deep greens and violets that stood in stark contrast with the gray overhead and the muted tones of the earth all around. “It’s nice, right?” Minghao had asked. For the first time, he’d sounded nervous. Uncertain. It was only the need to reassure him that had you tearing your gaze from the setting sky.

All you could summon to say to do as much was a simple, “It is nice.”

If the way Minghao smiled was anything to go off of, that much was enough.

Soonyoung jolts you back to the present with a reminder not to drink everything in the bottle. You mutter an apology and hand it back to him before carrying on your way to the small kitchen of their living quarters.

It had been a mistake of timing, you tell yourself, that lead to you not knowing where Minghao is now. Not knowing if Minghao even is anymore. You had come to this unit looking for him only to be told by his roommate that he’d just stepped out. Not long after that, there’d been a surge in the electricity and warning alarms going off to signal that the connecting doors between units were shutting for emergency purposes. Four days have passed since then.

You’ve gone longer than this without seeing Minghao over the course of the past two years. Usually during trips taken back to Alpha station to see your family. It’s never made your stomach as queasy as it does now.

It takes three more days before the alarms sound once again to signal the connecting doors are opening between units. They didn’t sound without there first being a list of the units that had suffered critical power outages given over the radio. You sit on the floor with Soonyoung and Chan during the announcement. None you manage to quite look at each other directly. They don’t say it directly, but all three of you know what the case must be. ‘Critical’ includes airflow and oxygen supply. The list of affected units is the colony’s way of breaking the news gently on how many casualties the outage saw.

The trouble is none of you know where Minghao was when the solar storm struck.

You had been seeing Minghao for three weeks when he finally brought you back to his living quarters for the first time. By then, it felt like he had managed to kiss you in every unit of the colony except the one he lived in. There was a seed of frustration in the pit of your stomach already with how fleeting those more tender moments had been, and how chastely at least half of those kisses had been placed upon a cheek or knuckles of your fingers.

He had one hand still tangled with yours while unlocking the door. The light on the panel turned to green, but Minghao hesitated before pushing it open. A warning or a second chance for you to back out was about to come spilling out of him when a third voice interrupted, demanding to know if it was Minghao or a break-in.

Which is how you met Soonyoung, with his grins that somehow always had a tinge of mischief and his insistence on wearing long-sleeves almost constantly. (It had only been by Minghao’s own admission of how the two of them met that you discovered Soonyoung had been a prisoner once, as well. Naturally, your second question had been about what he could have possibly done to warrant the exile. Minghao proceeded that answer with a reminder that hardly any of the sentences to Lilili Yabbay were warranted. As he explained it, it was Soonyoung’s cheeriness and charms that had gotten him caught in the wrong person’s bed. Only a crime because the old commander decided entirely on his own that there was no way his own child would choose to be with someone like Soonyoung.)

“So nice to finally meet you!” Soonyoung shook both your hands at once, clasping your palms together between his own in a gesture that seemed entirely too enthusiastic for just greeting you. “I wanna say I’ve heard a lot but I promised Hao that I wouldn’t embarrass him when he finally introduced us,” he rattled off, and you almost thought you saw him send a quick wink Minghao’s way. For his part, Minghao looked rather like this was exactly the outcome he’d been afraid of. Oddly, it was relief that washed over you in that moment.

“It’s good to meet you, too,” you answered with a slight laugh shaking your words. Once Soonyoung let go of your hands, a more familiar hand came to rest on your shoulder with Minghao’s arm slung around your upper back. A casual thing and a kind of declaration all in one. You could read it on his face. He was happy, despite his roommate’s gusto, to have you here. To be able to have you here in the first place.

Some time after the introductions, Soonyoung announced that he was going to head over to Jun’s -- a further extension of Minghao’s circle of friends you would come to know well over the years to come. He asked if the two of you wanted to come along too. Minghao shrugged and left the decision to you.

Your decision gave you and Minghao your first chance to be alone together. Properly alone. Though it was the together part that became more significant by the end of the night.

The details of who did exactly what have blurred with time. Had it been your small trail of kisses from his lips to his jaw that settled it, or was it the way Minghao’s hand had traced down your spine and pulled you closer by the pelvis?

Either way, there are some things that remain clear in your memory. The low, warm lights of his room, to begin with. And the line of painted sunsets hanging over his bed. A hobby you hadn’t known he had until that night. One you were distracted from asking him about by how carefully he undid ever fastening of your clothing. He moved as if a single wrong move would shatter the moment. He was standing behind you when your shirt had fallen to his floor.

Your eyes were on the centermost painting of abstract swirls and splatters of muted pastels against stark, black outlines of the planet’s landscape. Even as his lips pressed to your nape, you found yourself unable to look away. Minghao’s arms came around your exposed torso, his chin resting on your shoulder for a moment as he tried to follow your line of sight.

“Are you okay?” he asked, fingertips pressing worried circles against your skin. Nodding hadn’t been enough for him. He stood up straight, pulled himself away from you and frowned as he repeated the question.

“I didn’t know you painted,” was the only thing you felt could be said to explain your state. He looked away from you to look over the small collection that had captured your attention.

He climbed half onto the bed, one knee sinking into the mattress as he leaned forward to point to one hanging at the one end up the line. The paper his finger tapped had a an entirely different aura than the one you’d been stuck on, despite the content being the same. The painted earth was light, blending more into the sky of colors in such a way that it was difficult to even tell in places where the hillocks ended and the bursts of color from the setting star began. The colors themselves were different too. Still blends of pinks and greens and purples, but brighter and richer.

“This is the most recent one I did,” he told you.

You reached out for him after that, and he pulled you up to join him in a kneeling position on the mattress. “I’m okay,” you answered him at last, arms curling around him and hands coming to rest upon his shoulder blades.

With that reassurance, he kissed you for longest he had yet.

There’s no official protocol or even an informal plan that the two of you ever made for a circumstance like this one. The risk of a shutdown of the colony’s support systems was something that everyone has always been aware of, to at least some extent. There were those who said the risk was half the reason the settlement was declared for prisoners in the first place. Who, they argued, would mind much if those declared dangerous enough not to remain on Alpha were deprived of oxygen?

But decades had passed without more than a flicker of lights within Lilili Yabbay. So for whatever the risk was, you hadn’t seriously considered it. Making plans of what to do when the doors opened after the shutdown would have required actually believing the units would ever be cut off from each other in the first place.

Soonyoung insists that you’re welcome to stay in the living quarters, just as you had been doing for the past week. “He’ll come home first,” he reasons. It sounds believable enough to you, so you accept his continued hospitality. And shortly after, you’re left alone in the common room as Soonyoung leaves with Chan to see just how bad the damage is in the unit where the younger’s living quarters are located.

You’ve never been on your own here. It’s always at least been you and Minghao.

Like it had been a week ago, before the solar storm struck. When you woke up in the same bed lined with paintings as you’d been invited to use during the shutdown. Half-dressed and half-awake, you’d hummed out morning greetings and questions of how he’s slept as Minghao’s fingers roamed in nondescript patterns over your form.

“I had a good dream,” he told you in sleepy tones. He turned onto his stomach, propping himself up on one arm to get a better look at you. His wandering hand came up to your face, tracing the line of your jaw delicately as he took in your features carefully.

“What happened?” you asked, waking up slowly to his gentle touches.

Minghao kissed you in lieu of answering. It had been an unhurried kind of kiss. A languid and wet thing you could’ve settled into for ages. His tongue warm and a little bitter from sleep inside your mouth. When he pulled back, his eyes were still trained on your expression with an attentiveness that made you want to sink further into the sheets.

“Was that all?”

He shook his head in response, and told you what his dream had really been about.

You shake yourself before you can remember his words. Before you can reminisce on the way everything unraveled from there. Or how that morning had ended with you pulling on clothes in a hurry and saying you needed time to think.

It crosses your mind to blame his dream for the fact the two of you had been separated during this shutdown. The question he’d asked at fault for how unsure you are if Minghao is even alive today. But it’s not really a fair assessment to make.

The only thing your really have a right to blame is your own panic and hesitance. 

When you hear the front door open, you don’t get up from the spot you’d sunk to at the foot of Minghao’s bed. You don’t look up from the spot of light reflecting on the tiled floors that you’ve locked your gaze onto.

You haven’t been keeping track of time. An intentional, self-preserving decision. If you were, there’s no doubt that every passing minute would feel like an eternity. This way, at least, it may still the torture of uncertainty, but without the added wound of time.

It’s unusual for Soonyoung to come in without making a loud announcement of his arrival. But for all you know, he’s just seen something horrific while bringing Chan home. With that thought, you suppose you ought to offer yourself as some kind of shoulder to lean on. No matter how poor a source of comfort you’re certain you’ll be, it will have to be better than leaving Soonyoung to deal with it on his own.

Your limbs feel heavy when you push yourself to your feet. The weight of dread, if you had to guess. You make your way to doorway of Minghao’s bedroom and find yourself drawn to a standstill as soon as you’re looking out into the common room.

From where you are, you can see a familiar black jacket that must have dropped on the floor and the open door into the bathroom. The water in the sink is running, and bent over in front of it is a frame far lankier than Soonyoung’s has ever seemed. Your throat dries out; your hopes refusing to life despite the evidence in front of you.

The water shuts off and the tall figure pulls up to its full height. When he turns around, he’s still pressing a towel to his dampened face.

Minghao looks tired. Like he hasn’t slept well or perhaps even properly at all since the shut down. He is disheveled, with stains of sweat or oil or something altogether different across his shirt.  He finds your figure, staring agape under the archway leading into his room, and the washcloth in his hands slips to the floor.

Not a single word makes it out of him before he can make his way in quick, certain strides across the space of the common room left between the two of you. For all the exhaustion so evident on his face, he looks like a man on a mission. Once his feet have brought him to the spot right in front of you, there’s a waver in his expression that makes you fearful he’s about to topple over and collapse altogether.

Your arms reach out for him as if in response to that fear. With an exhale of your name, he pulls you even closer. His clothes are carrying at least a dozen unpleasant scents, but in the never crook of his neck you find the familiar smell of Minghao himself. His hands splay on your back, seeking purchase and utterly unable to decide where to hold you all at once.

Through shock and relief, something urgent surfaces in your mind. You mutter his name against his damp skin twice over before he gives a small, throaty noise of acknowledgement.

“Do you remember what you asked me, that morning?”

Minghao tenses at the question. Which must mean he does, indeed, remember. Moreover, that he remembers the reaction you had to it.

It feels like a good time to be looking him in the eye, but you can’t bring yourself to pull away from his embrace. “Can I still answer it?” you carry on, taking his silence reaction as confirmation enough that he knows what you’re referring to.   

“Of course,” he replies, voice deep and laden with fatigue. “I love you,” he adds after a moment, either as reason why the question still stands or as a reminder of why he’d asked in the first place. Both, maybe, is the most honest explanation for the sudden admission. It’s far from the first time Minghao’s said those words to you. But it’s the heaviest they’ve ever felt; the most they’ve ever felt like they could make your heart burst and send you to tears and smiles in equal measure.

“Then I’m saying yes.”

Minghao leans back a bit. It’s the only way for him to try to get a look at your face without having to unwrap his arms from around you. With this proximity, you can see how chapped his rounded lips are and can catch every glimmer of disbelief in his eyes. You nod and tell him that you’re certain of it before he can form the question himself.

He sinks to his knees, nearly an exact mirror of how he had a week ago in the early morning when he’d asked if you’d marry him. It’s hard to say if it’s from some overwhelming emotion or a sign of him giving in to how exhausted he truly is. Either way, you follow him down, arms encircling his shoulders and murmuring quick, desperate reassurances.

One of his arms slings over your hips again before he lets himself collapse on to one side, lying with you in a tangled embrace on the floor.

“I love you,” he repeats, his eyes closed and the faintest smile angled upon his lips, and it sounds like the only thing left that matters.

[faithandfairies]

OUAT: Final Thoughts

I wasn’t going to write this because part of me doesn’t think this show deserves it. But...me watching this show has never been about the show itself. For me it’s always been about what I could glean from it. So I need to reflect. For me.

It’s been about a day since the OUAT series finale aired and I still don’t understand what the point was. I haven’t actually watched it and I honestly still don’t feel the need to, which I’m surprised by to be honest. The last episode I saw was 7x14 and I thought I’d want to finish the series but so far I haven’t had the urge.

But I’ve seen GIFs and reactions of the series finale and so from what I can understand Swan Queen wasn’t confirmed, well, at least not with a Textual True Love’s Kiss. (Neither was Captain Swan but that’s neither here nor there at this point. Given that a heterosexual couple is much easier to see and accept as real compared to a non-heterosexual one) A True Love’s Kiss seems to be the only way that it would have been accepted as existing by people who either don’t see it or choose not to.

The series (season 7) finale also seems to be the season 6 finale re-imagined. With the only difference seeming to be that this version looks prettier on the surface. Even though nothing’s really changed as far as I can tell. Which has always been my biggest problem with this show.

As far as I can tell Hook and Emma still haven’t worked out any of their issues. They haven’t really talked anything out. 

1. Last season there was one time that Emma confronted Hook about the fact that he lied which led to her giving him back his ring. Only for her to think he’d left her forever because of it. Which then led to her taking him back without them actually dealing with the problems they were having in the first place. Before she burst that one time, she just seemed indifferent to his negative actions.

2. Dark Hook was basically angry, abusive Hook in his prime. Which involved him throwing all of the hurtful comments at Emma he could muster. And Emma wasn’t much better. Which was yet another thing they’ve never talked out. 

3. It feels like they used a baby as a band-aid for their problems. (Which I guess makes naming it Hope poetic. And reminds me of the post I wrote after the OUAT season 6 finale on how the drawback of hope was left unaddressed.)

None of the above actually makes for a genuine, successful relationship in real life. 

Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure that Regina’s happy ending really was a happy ending. 

Regina never wanted to be Queen. She was forced into it. And yes, she’s been great at leading. But just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you love doing it. I think she originally just took back the Mayor job because Snow didn’t want it and she(Regina) was the only (other) person qualified to do it.

What she did want was love and freedom. The freedom to choose her own path and the love of the people. For the people to choose her and want her for her. And well I guess it does seem like she’s gotten that.

And yet...it bothers me. I mean, it feels like she got Elsa’s ending in Frozen. Which worked for me in Frozen because it was more about Elsa coming to love herself. But given who Regina is and how she’s struggled with loving herself  and how she’s always sought the approval of others-even though she does love herself now- the message feels like “You’re not worth loving unless you’re loved by everyone.” or something. Which is ludicrous because you can never make everyone love you. It’s impossible to please everyone. So on that level I’m not entirely okay with it. Of course, another way to look at it could also be “If you love and accept yourself for you, others will love and accept you too.”

But aside from that Regina also very clearly wanted love. A significant other. Which she doesn’t have. And yes, she has a son-two sons?- who love(s) her. And a best friend.

But her son will eventually leave for college and start his own life. And her friend has a husband and a new baby to tend to. People with families, especially babies, rarely have that much time for friends.

But a significant other is meant to be there with you when the kids go off to college and the friends are busy with their own lives. 

Of course, on a meta level if the fairy tale world represents Emma in a way, the people choosing Regina to become Queen of the realms could be symbolic of Emma choosing Regina.

Which could mean any number of things. Such as

A.Emma truly being in a coma still and Regina being her guardian whilst Emma accepts that and has reached a point where she would have chosen her as such because she trusts her with her life. 

B. Emma being in a coma and dying (in the season 6 finale?) after 6 seasons of Regina hoping for a second chance for her and Emma and telling Emma to beat this thing,  at which point the story becomes Regina reminiscing on her and Emma’s story. The series ending with Emma, Hook and the baby could then be a throwback to the last time Regina saw Emma when they were younger (Think Mulan and Aurora.) Regina becoming Queen of the realms could then just be about Regina finding peace in the world. Self-love, self-compassion, the unconditional love of her son. And restoring the healing, reflective properties of stories for her family after she and her son lost faith in happy endings/beginnings after Emma died. 

C. Emma being in a coma and waking up, possibly in 6x10, but since the story started in the Fairy Tale world with Snow under a sleeping curse, it’s possible they articulated Emma choosing Regina as a significant other as Regina being chosen as the Good Queen. Someone Emma wanted to be with. Since originally it would have been Emma then who named Regina the Evil Queen. Regina did say the people were the ones who added “Evil” to her name. Or rather title. Even though Rumple was the one who made her so. 

(Then the whole Swan Town discourse of season 4 also makes sense if Emma and Regina both represent the town/realms at different moments in the story.)

Of course, the Evil Queen’s first order of business on the show was breaking up “the happy couple” looking like sex on a stick. So does not breaking up “the happy couple” this time make her the Good Queen? Who knows. Not me. Nor do I think I really care.

Because to be honest, I’m tired of symbolism. I’m tired of the “maybe this means that or this means that”. I’m tired of LGBTQ+ stories being presented as something that needs to be hidden. To the point where their existence can be easily denied. I’m tired of LGBTQ+ stories being used for dramatic effect or as something to set a show apart for 5 minutes. I’m tired of our stories being sexualized and fetishized. I’m just...I’m just tired.

No wonder half the OUAT fandom thinks Swan Queen shippers are delusional.

Which leads me to the fact that I’m not even sure how I would have felt about Swan Queen happening. Validated, sure. Happy? I don’t know.

I mentioned this before in a post once but given the themes of this show and what I believe Regina did to Emma, I’m not sure I would even want them together. There are certain things that are hard to get past and sometimes downright  unforgivable. Where even if you do forgive a relationship with the person is no longer possible. Maybe because it goes against your principles. 

So I don’t pretend as if Regina wasn’t just as bad as Hook. Or close to. She was. Although everyone has a different opinion when it comes to this.The biggest or rather most obvious difference to me always seemed to be that Regina and Emma worked through their issues and grew together. That they seemed to communicate, talk things out and then forgive each other and do better. Which is what made me think they stood a chance as a couple. But that doesn’t negate the above.

Having said all that, having seen the season 6 finale, the first 14 episodes of season 7 and GIFs of the series finale, not to mention my unwillingness to look much past the surface story any longer, I’ve deduced that to me this story is a cautionary tale.

One about a girl who in order to please her parents decided to change who she was and marry a man she didn’t love and who in fact treated her like shit poorly. She then got pregnant and tried to use the baby as a way to make the marriage work.

So basically, the main lesson this show has taught me remains the same. DON’T. DO. THAT. It has shown me exactly who and where I don’t want to be in life. Don’t do things just to please others or to fit in in a certain structure. Don’t trap yourself in circumstances you don’t want to be in just because you think it’s the only way. There is always another. 

The other lesson this show has taught me is to never let any part of your happiness depend on another. Or rather be decided by another. You know you better than anyone. Only you know what makes you happy. 

Basically these two lessons really come down to one. You always have the freedom to choose. Free will. There’s always a choice. Make it yourself or someone else will do it for you. And you may not like the choice(s) they make.

For these lessons I am grateful.

But I’m still sad and worried for the young, impressionable teenagers who will think Hook is the model of a perfect boyfriend. And will go out to find themselves one of their own. Or who already have a Hook of their own and will try to make that relationship work in the same ways Emma has. Because “this is what Disney fairy tales are made of.” Lord help ‘em.

(x)

[bitchfromtheseventhhell]

Hi! This might sound a little silly, but I've been seeing a lot of gifsets about Ned's quote about Sansa and Arya being as different as the son and the moon and in them Sansa's the sun and Arya's the moon. I understand the aesthetic reason for the sorting, but I was wondering if there was a meta reason for it. I think both of their arcs could have the traditional sun and the moon parallels. Your thoughts?

I also got this anon within about 24 hours of your ask (was there a wank I was blissfully unaware of?):

Hey, I really love your thoughts on the stark sisters. This might be a silly ask, but who do you think reflects the moon better and who the sun? I know Ned’s words were more metaphoric than literal, but I always see edits with one sister being the sun and the other the moon, which always vary on which one is which. I can never decide. Do you have a preference?

Before I get into this, I… don’t really have a horse in this race tbh, largely because I think that focusing on the imagery in that line is missing the point of what Ned is saying.  He’s not necessarily saying “one of you is the sun and one of you is the moon,” he’s saying “you are as different as” so I think of it more as a poetic turn of phrase more than anything else.

But since you’re asking here are longer thoughts on the matter, the ones I do have go into symbolism as it appears for Sansa and Arya respectively.

The Quote Itself + Context

“Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.”

He sounded so tired that it made Arya sad. “I don’t hate Sansa,” she told him. “Not truly.” It was only half a lie. (Arya II, AGOT)

The first time that the reader ever encounters this quote about Arya and Sansa, there’s some very specific context going on.  

It occurs in Arya’s second POV chapter in the series, and it’s said by Ned to Arya.  It’s not simply a descriptor, it’s a way to try and get Arya to not be angry with her sister.

Arya is angry with her sister.  But, more importantly, Arya is upset with her sister:

“I don’t care about their stupid tourney,” Arya said. She knew Prince Joffrey would be there,and she hated Prince Joffrey.

Sansa lifted her head. “It will be a splendid event. You shan’t be wanted.”

Anger flashed across Father’s face. “Enough, Sansa. More of that and you will change mymind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expectyou to behave like sisters, is that understood?”

Sansa bit her lip and nodded. Arya lowered her face to stare sullenly at her plate. She could feeltears stinging her eyes. She rubbed them away angrily, determined not to cry. (Arya II, AGOT)

Ned very clearly is frustrated with the way that Sansa speaks to Arya in this moment; that doesn’t prevent Arya from wanting to cry.  As the passage continues:

No one talked to Arya. She didn’t care. She liked it that way. She would have eaten her mealsalone in her bedchamber if they let her. Sometimes they did, when Father had to dine with theking or some lord or the envoys from this place or that place. The rest of the time, they ate in hissolar, just him and her and Sansa. That was when Arya missed her brothers most. She wanted totease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. She wanted Jon to muss upher hair and call her “little sister” and finish her sentences with her. But all of them were gone.She had no one left but Sansa, and Sansa wouldn’t even talk to her unless Father made her.  (Arya II, AGOT)

Since they arrived in King’s Landing, Sansa has not spoken to Arya unless Ned makes her.  From Sansa’s perspective, the reason is, ostensibly, that she sees Arya’s actions on the Trident as being the reason that Lady is dead (in a later chapter, she screams at Arya: “They should have killed you instead of Lady!”–she places her pain at Lady’s death on Arya because it is easier than confronting the fact that Joffrey is a complete shit and Sansa–throughout the series–is someone who tells herself what the truth should be in order to make reality easier for her to bear.)

But the result of all this is a sense of ostracism.  Arya doesn’t feel comfortable around anyone, largely because no one–even Ned–understands her grief at Mycah’s death, and her sense of responsability in it.

Only that was Winterfell, a world away, and now everything was changed. This was the firsttime they had supped with the men since arriving in King’s Landing. Arya hated it. She hated thesounds of their voices now, the way they laughed, the stories they told. They’d been her friends,she’d felt safe around them, but now she knew that was a lie. They’d let the queen kill Lady, thatwas horrible enough, but then the Hound found Mycah. Jeyne Poole had told Arya that he’d cuthim up in so many pieces that they’d given him back to the butcher in a bag, and at first the poorman had thought it was a pig they’d slaughtered. And no one had raised a voice or drawn a bladeor anything, not Harwin who always talked so bold, or Alyn who was going to be a knight, orJory who was captain of the guard. Not even her father. (Arya II, AGOT)

So when Arya flees the dining room for her bedroom, and even contemplates running away she is so miserable, her father’s intercession has weight.

The weight of the passage above to me is not even necessarily about the sun and the moon and how different she and Sansa are–when Ned says “when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives” in the series–the only time he says them to any of his children–it is to Arya about Sansa.  He is creating in Arya the undeniable truth: that whatever she currently feels about Sansa, whatever their summertime “squabbles” are, Sansa is her pack, whether or not she likes it.  

You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me. 

And to drive the point home, he says that he needs them both.  

The Sun and the Moon

I feel the context is helpful, largely because of how I think that it fits into greater symbolism in text.  If you have “the sun” and “the moon” as explained here, it’s clearly supposed to evoke some imagery.  (I like the point that @quentynnymerosmartell​ made a while back about how the sun and the moon are the main symbols on Brienne’s sigil, which ties back to her vow to Catelyn.)

There’s a lot of imagery–beyond Arya and Sansa–for it to evoke.  The onset of winter means that there will be less sun in the sky period; if the long night comes again, it means there won’t be any sun at all.  Having both implies a healthy state of the world writ large because you have both light and darkness–not to mention light in darkness.

You may be as different as…

An issue that I think rarely gets talked about in all the #discourse about Arya and Sansa (when there is #discourse about both of them in one go) is that frequently things stop around the “they’re just different” without going into the hows of it.

When it comes to symbolism, parallels, characterization–there are frequent explorations of similar themes but the mechanisms are almost impossible to talk about at the same time because they fundamentally rely on each girl’s approach to the world.

For Sansa, you have a character who approaches the world through narrative.  She thinks in terms of songs and stories that she knows–both as regards the world around her and as she regards herself (“Be brave, she told herself. Be brave, like a lady in a song.”)  She is a society child.  She has been presented with a social infrastructure (Westerosi Patriarchy) and she adheres to it and thrives within it.  She doesn’t question it, but when she encounters things that don’t fit in with what she’s been taught, she will adjust narratives around her to accomodate for the ills in society by redefining societal definitions to meet her needs (“He was no true knight.”)    She has a recurring motif of birds, but what elemental motifs exist in her arc are depicted through societal structures more than they are depicted through nature itself.

Or, to use Bran’s(/Summer’s) words:

But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. (Bran I, ASOS)

If Sansa “left the wilds,” we have Arya (quoting from this seminal scene) who has a “wildness” in her.  She has “the wolf blood.”  She is the child who society had no place for and so had to carve her own existence out of whatever place she could find.  She fundamentally questions most societal infrastructures and what they are present for and why they are present because she is someone who–even though she holds power on a structural level as a lady and as a princess–is still rejected by society as someone who doesn’t accept the role given her based purely on her gender.

So to me, it’s not just a “sun and moon” opposition, we have going on here, it’s a “society vs wilderness” that we have going on here–and that’s not even touching on things like their respective approach to truth and lies, their coping mechanisms (which are literally! the opposite! of each other’s!) and any number of other contrasts that you have between them.

Society

Let me start this with a point that I’ll come back to: I would argue that the moon is symbolic of nature, of wild, of mystery while the sun is symbolic of society.  I look at this in terms of calendars: there are a number of lunar calendars that exist within our world: among them, there is frequently a leap month added every few years (how many years varies between cultures) in order to keep the calendar in line with the seasons.  The solar calendar exists for the sake of society (when do you harvest, when do the seasons change) while the lunar exists because the moon exists. 

I bring this up because I’m not going to be talking about the sun in any particularly meaningful way.  Maybe I’ll come out of my asoiaf reread with a completely different perspective on this, but I don’t actually think that either sister has particularly pertinent sun imagery attached to her (which I think is part of why we have this question to begin with).  It becomes, then, a question of how the moon appears in both storylines and what the moon symbolizes on a larger scale.  I don’t think the moon represents society, which means that what moon imagery exists in Sansa’s storyline fundamentally challenges her worldview, while also being interwoven with it.  It becomes then, in her case, a question of arguing–not for the sun–but rather arguing that the moon doesn’t quite fit, which I don’t think it does.

The main source of moon imagery in Sansa’s arc stems from House Arryn, whose sigil is is a falcon soaring against the moon.  

The Vale itself has a ton of moon-related infrastructure, probably for this reason:  You have the Gates of the Moon, the Moon Tower, the Moon Door, the Mountains of the Moon.  You have this house–an important one for a lot of Sansa’s identity themes, her relationship with her father and with Petyr Baelish, with her aunt and herself–that has taken the moon and used it as a a supplementary part of the house’s symbolism.  I say supplemental because I compare House Arryn’s sigil to House Martell’s: the sun is more important than the spear in House Martell’s sigil; the falcon is more important than the moon in House Arryn’s.  To me, then, the moon becomes the servant of society, an artful backdrop to the falcon, a piece of nature who has been detached from its nature in order to perform its function.

And so that means that the moon is not so much the moon in Sansa’s storyline so much as the image of the moon.  And I think that that very imagery is threatening to some extent.

You have the Moon Door, which is where Sansa almost lost her life and which, in AFFC, she’s still super stressed thinking about, and you have the Mountains of the Moon–where the Mountain Clans of the Vale have been hoping to use Lannister steel since AGOT to reclaim the Vale from the Andal society that wrested it from the control of the First Men thousands of years ago.  You even have the simple fact of the lie about Sansa’s identity while she is in the Vale, and what might befall her if her identity is revealed in the wrong way.  If you’re looking at symbolism, I see that as the moon challenging Sansa on a symbolic level, because Sansa is a character who operates within society and the moon is not symbolic of society.   

But that means that if I have to pick a “sun” and a “moon,” I don’t think it fits that Sansa is the “moon”: I think it means that she is the sun, and that as winter approaches, as the days get shorter and the nights grow longer, she–and society as Westeros knows it–is going to have to adjust to a long winter and a long night where the main source of light is the moon.

Wild

There’s a lot of meat to moon symbolism.  It is a symbol of womanhood–the lunar cycle frequently used to symbolize the menstrual–not to mention its ties to the tide and water.  But if the sun is symbolic of society and the moon is symbolic of the wild, then “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child,” lines up evenly.

And it does: there are mentions of the moon in important ways in Arya’s arc.  And, more importantly, it’s not symbols of the moon: it is the moon itself.  Which means that that moon gets to carry the weight of all its own symbolism, without being detached from it through a sigil.  

Arya takes comfort in the moon, even thinks that it is something that she can use as a way to guide her on her journey to wherever she’s going:

She carried neither candle nor taper. Syrio had told her once that darkness could be her friend, and he was right. If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. (Arya XI, ACOK)

It is associated with her burgeoning magic:

Sleep came as quick as she closed her eyes. She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled. (Arya V, ASOS)

Except in dreams. She took a breath to quiet the howling in her heart, trying to remember more of what she’d dreamt, but most of it had gone already. There had been blood in it, though, and a full moon overhead, and a tree that watched her as she ran. (Mercy, TWOW)

It as used as a timekeeper during her training at the House of Black and White:

Cat would always find the kindly man waiting for her when she went creeping back to the temple on the knoll on the night the moon went black. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

When the moon was black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

On a symbolic level there, you have the simple fact that when there was no moon in the sky, Arya ceases to exist: she is “no one” and not any of her other personas, and given the simple fact of the theme of self effacement in Arya’s arc, I think its’s not wrong to say that the moon in the sky means that Arya is Arya.  And this not even touching the fact of her wolf dreams (her burgeoning magic once again) as a touchstone for her while she’s blind and keeping her from truly sinking in to being “no one.”  The moon becomes just one more part of that theme for Arya, and a part of it that roots her in her own identity.

And, lastly, it is something that is associated with–and which Arya herself associates with the Old Gods of the North:

Shoving her sword through her belt, she slipped down branch to branch until she was back on the ground. The light of the moon painted the limbs of the weirwood silvery white as she made her way toward it, but the five-pointed red leaves turned black by night. Arya stared at the face carved into its trunk. It was a terrible face, its mouth twisted, its eyes flaring and full of hate. Is that what a god looked like? Could gods be hurt, the same as people? I should pray, she thought suddenly. (Arya XI, ACOK)

Except in dreams. She took a breath to quiet the howling in her heart, trying to remember more of what she’d dreamt, but most of it had gone already. There had been blood in it, though, and a full moon overhead, and a tree that watched her as she ran. (Mercy, TWOW) (Again)

The moon isn’t challenging Arya’s worldview, it is part of almost every single piece of symbolism in her arc, and is symbolically attached to her identity, her wildness, her magic, her skills in a way that the moon is not for Sansa.  

Even innate in that moon symbolism in Arya’s arc, you have it existing in opposition to society and thriving.  

So all this is to say…even beyond the optics of it (Sansa having the brighter coloring; Arya having the darker) if forced to, I read the moon as Arya and Sansa as the sun in that comment.  I don’t think that the moon imagery in Sansa’s arc holds a candle to the moon symbolism in Arya’s arc, even if I don’t think that either has any particular emphasis on the sun in their arc.

[weloseeveryweek]

season review

Champions of Europe.

That, ostensibly, is how any United fan will start a 2016/17 review. I say that. I know, just like everyone else, we aren’t, really. We’re champions of second-tier Europe, winning a competition by beating sides like Rostov and Zorya and Anderlecht. We won the most mickey-mouse trophies of them all - the Community Shield and League Cup - and we finished where we’d spent most of our time in the league, marrying sixth place in a love story still better than twilight.

Not, perhaps, the most illustrious for a team who hadn’t spent a single season without European football before Fergie left.

We’ve been in a transition period ever since 2013 when last we won the league, and I don’t know how much longer it’s going to be. It seems forever since Moyes took over and aspired his way to seventh; whenever the conversation turns to bad football experiences, watching MK Dons thrash us 4-0 at 3am in the morning always ranks up there. While it’s gotten a little better (Van Gaal, in particular, was an expert in lifting spirits with his near-impeccable record against Liverpool) it is by no stretch of the imagination where we ought to be.

I remember our twentieth time in vivid detail. It was way past my bedtime, and at that point I was still living with my parents and studying for exams so I was supposed to be asleep. I woke up at about 4am to find out that we’d beaten Villa and the party was in full swing. I remember my phone literally burning up with how much I was using it (all data, because my parents used to switch off the internet at night), reblogging photos and watching videos of the celebrations, Carrick wrapped in his flag, Evra and his rubber arm, the lads lined up in a row bouncing up and down singing that old refrain.

It was the best I’d ever felt about United. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to win a league title (sorry, Liverpool fans). It was better than the Europa league, and I hadn’t even watched the game. If I had known that I wouldn’t have that feeling for the next three years, and god knows how long after this, I’d probably have treasured it even more.

But that’s the thing - no one knew what would happen after Sir Alex left. There were other departures that hurt us too, of course. Losing Scholesy was a huge blow, as we’d already found out after his first retirement. Losing the backroom staff was a catastrophe almost on the scale of Sir Alex. But nothing was worse than losing the manager himself, the force of nature who had conditioned the players to perform far above their quality, such that we would always, always win regardless of circumstances, of players, of odds.

And we’ve been floundering since. Moyes was an unmitigated disaster, although in fairness to him he was sacked too early and following directly after Sir Alex was always going to be an impossible job. Giggsy was at best a stepping stone. I so desperately wanted to like van Gaal, especially with the knowledge that we could not become a sacking club, but even though he delivered big results and the FA Cup it was not the kind of football that United fans were paying (or not paying - don’t tell anyone) to see.

When Klopp was announced for Liverpool I almost cried. I’d hoped so desperately for him and we ended up getting Mourinho instead.

Mourinho.

Chelsea’s Mourinho, who led them to the worst title defence in history before Leicester trumped that this season. Real Madrid’s Mourinho, who left after underachieving / wrecking the dressing room / driving out their most important player. If you search through my tumblr you’ll probably find a bunch of acerbic jokes about him and his legion of glory hunting rent boys.

I was by no means overjoyed with the decision. In fact I was basically begging for Pep to change his mind and realise that it was the wrong side of Manchester, even though he would have come with his own problems. Mourinho wins trophies, but not much else, and his youth record worried me the most.

How do I feel now, a year and three trophies later? I don’t know. It’s certainly been our most successful post-Fergie season, and he has invested in some youth (although the last game and four debuts came as more of an afterthought, to be entirely honest). If this is a turning point, it feels much more like one than any of the rest that have come before. And believe me, there’ve been a lot. They existed under Moyes and van Gaal, but this is the most protracted spell of Things Are Possibly Going To Get Better thus far.

I suppose that would mean I’m well satisfied with this season. Certainly it gives me great pleasure to point out to errant heathens that we’re the second most successful club bar Chelsea, and I do acknowledge that Mourinho is trying to fit himself into the United philosophy - I suppose it’s different when it’s a job you’ve wanted for ages. At the same time, though, we’re Manchester United. Enough with the complaining about number of games and all that bullshit; look at our squad, our reserve squad is probably (on paper, anyway, you don’t have to tell me about underachieving) better than half of the league’s. The ‘99 treble winners hardly ever changed personnel during their long, hard, game-stuffed slog. Gary Neville started 54 games in that season; Marcus Rashford made 53 appearances this season and 23 of them were substitutions. Jose needs to get his shit together if he wants to make something of his time here, because winning the Europa was a breath of fresh air, but things can go stale very quickly if the window slams shut again.

More than that, though. More than the basics of the week-in-week-out trials and tribulations, the countless draws and ridiculous conversion percentages that make me want to smack someone with a big stick (volunteers welcome). More than our mess of a transfer policy and the ultimate will-they-won’t-they saga that is David x Real Madrid.

When I first came to England I was freaked out of my mind. I talked about this in my first prompt response, but really - I can’t even begin to explain what kind of stabilising effect football had on my life. If nothing else, I was finally in the country where it all began; I was walking on the same soil as my heroes, I could take a train up to Manchester any time I wanted (you think I’m kidding? I hopped on a train the day before my final exam to catch us lose 1-0 to West Brom). It was the kickoff I looked forward to every week, congratulating myself that it was at 3pm and not 3am.

I watched the final of the Europa League in a bar in Belgium with my friend. We had our United kits on, and we were screaming our heads off while the Ajax fans next to us grumbled and this big group of Americans in the same bar looked completely confused. After the game I slumped back, completely emotionally exhausted, but still absolutely fucking buzzing from the fact that we’d managed to pull something out of the bag after all.

It was only much later that I realised the importance of it all, and it hit me so hard like a sucker punch that I just stopped in the middle of the street and got weird looks off people. I was in Brussels because it was part of my graduation trip. I’m no longer a student; I’m going off to the world of working rat racers and stuffy offices. I’m going to be leaving London in two weeks. And, I don’t know, but it felt like such a huge, symbolic moment, that. I, too, am at that proverbial turning point, stepping off the island (in this case literally).

For all the terrible beginnings I have grown to love London so very much. If I had a choice in the matter I wouldn’t even be leaving. Every day I think about the fact that I move out in two weeks and my heart gets heavy and I cry just a little bit more. My fingers are crossed that I’ll be back one day, but if I’m not, then that’s the last game I’ll ever watch at Old Trafford. The last game I’ll ever watch at Wembley. The last time I’ll ever walk down the Thames, looking at the way the London Eye lights up in the evening, Parliament sitting pretty just beside.

So I suppose this season was about endings, beginnings, everything in between. There was some kind of strange, spiritual handover between my life and my team’s. The Mourinho era has begun. God knows what will happen. More trophies, more dressing room fallouts, Wayne Rooney being sent off to China somewhere. There was drama for people who wanted it, boredom for people who weren’t so keen, and while there wasn’t quite as much entertainment as the Louis Saxaphone van Gaal seasons, Fellaini played enough to get a laugh. I, meanwhile, went for two games, caught almost every single one but the last (I even leeched off public wifi in Glasgow central to watch us fuck up 2-0 to Arsenal), integrated Carrick’s testimonial into my graduation trip.

And then it was over; and then we packed up and thought about next year; and then I packed up and thought about leaving.

Unless you achieve something spectacular in that year, a season doesn’t really matter. It becomes a footnote. A wikipedia entry to tell you that your club still exists. Even though we won the Europa - champions of sodding Europe - 2016/17 feels like one of those to me; one where we were not spectacular but firmly middle-road, where any attempt to pretend that we were ever challengers would be delusional. If we aren’t fighting for the league there seems to be no point.

But that’s what it is, isn’t it? Hindsight and the way football plays you for a fool with it. There’s this quote from Nick Hornby in a book I’m reading now, where he goes to watch Cambridge United draw nil-nil with Grimsby, forsaking the comfort and company of Christmas in his parents’ home. On the way back, he says, he realises how incredibly pointless it all was; but on the way there all he could see were the floodlights and the promise of the three points that were rightfully theirs. That is a season - the promise of something. Not all promises will be made good, but just the fact that they are there makes you pick yourself up, rejig the telly, put on your kit one more time.

United, the rock to which I tied my ship, will go on. As will I. We’ve both circumvented the crossroads and who knows what’s going to happen from here on out. I don’t know if the rest of my life is just going to be a string of footnotes. I don’t know if the rest of United’s seasons will ever return to league-winning wikipedia section entries. But there’s one thing I know - the rock will always be there, and as long as it is, my ship cannot sink.

[grace-abaddon]

Gematria Pt.1 || Self || Para

A taste of freedom, that’s all she needed. She wanted to escape and fought with herself about sneaking Izzy out with her, but she knew Azazel hadn’t been the nicest to her-- at all. Abaddon didn’t want to chance that, not again. At least where she had been, the demon seemed to have left her alone. 

She’d bring her back something cool anyway.

Heading to her dad’s room, the door seemed to appear for her, the last thing she remembered Moloch telling her to do- hide in this room. The door still opened to her and that’s exactly what she did, slamming the door behind herself and leaning against it as if someone had been chasing her.

Moloch’s room.

Besides herself, it had remained relatively untouched. The velvet curtains, the silk sheets.. the collection of porn laying out on under the huge flatscreen tv and sex toys on the floor. Abaddon peered around curiously, last time refusing to touch anything. This time she knew better. If it was true, this room was technically hers and so were the contents. She just had to keep it hush-hush- especially if she found anything interesting.

Drawer after drawer, closet, even under the bed she began to check for things, even money, a credit card... Abaddon even fished through pants pockets. To her surprise she felt something. Taking it out, she found a wallet and quickly opened it. Cash, wads of it, filled the billfold. Crisp hundreds. Cards in here as well, three to be exact. She knew Moloch had more but he had accounts all over the world, constant money flowing into these. There shouldn’t have been any problem using these. Counting the hundreds, she was delighted to have five thousand in cash in hand. Pocket change to her dad. 

She pulled out other cards, insurance, lots of business cards written on and noted, even receipts. Abaddon found it strange to see the few ID cards with her father’s face on them, peering at the smug looks, unsmiling mugs... 

Fuck, she missed her daddy. 

Sitting down on the floor, she couldn’t help but fondly examine each picture, wanting like hell for him to burst through that door and reprimand her for going through his stuff. But her silent prayers to this godking were left unheard, leaving Abaddon with a frown as she tucked the ID’s away in the closet. 

Looking around more, she could see old candles put away, spell components in the closet corners... What else could she find?

The chest.

He had mentioned it before, thinking his daughter was preoccupied as he boasted about his security system in the asylum. Abaddon crawled out and saw it next to the wall, going over and trying to open it. It was sealed shut. Even if Moloch let someone in, he certainly didn’t want anyone getting into this.

She needed a key or something.

So Abaddon hit the top of it, pried the lock, even started to whisper demonic things--- willing it to open. Nothing. Frustrated, she rested her elbows on the top and cradled her chin in her hands, thinking of what to do next.

And that’s when it popped- literally.

It was her’s in a round about way just as everything else. And this revelation was stronger than willing it to be. In actuality, it was Moloch’s way of creating his own fail-safe should something happen-- yet that wasn’t known to anyone just yet. Abaddon slipped back and opened the chest, hinges creaking.

Bottles of alcohol filled most of the space, these not allowed in the asylum. But here he had hid some books, things he used when he had studied topside. 

Abaddon pulled one out, the weight of it heavy and almost burning at the touch of it. Power seemed to sizzle through the flesh bound cover as Abaddon handled it, her eye wide with the feeling of it in her hands. This book was the Wrath King’s rituals, spells, things that were too intense, too involved, and too powerful for any demon to use let alone understand. The demon magic in here could kill someone instantly if they were lucky, the unlucky ones would go mad as their mind could warp to nothing more than mush. That’s if they could read the pages at all. Each page was safe guarded, much of it seemed blank unless the reader could understand that level of power...

Curiosity filled her to see what sort of things the book had in it, especially since she had been studying. And honestly, she studied fast, abyssal and demon things coming to her almost naturally. A lot of it she hid from Azazel... Abaddon was excited but she wasn’t stupid. She knew Azazel fucked up a lot of her life, Izzy’s... and both their dad’s. So she was playing dumb mostly. If he knew how much she actually excelled...

She flipped open the cover, symbols of the demonic language appearing. Most of it she could read easily but parts of it jumbled and made her feel dizzy. Quickly she snapped it shut, getting the warning. “Just have to study more then I can read this.” Abaddon looked to the rest of the books left over in the chest, curious to what else could be in there. She began picking up another book as her phone went off. A slight huff as she sat back an pulled it out, not recognizing the number that texted her. “Hey come out here” it read as she looked at the number.

After a few moments of thinking, she messaged the unknown number back, “Who is this?”

And immediately, “A friend.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside the gates. Hurry up.”

She felt torn. On one hand she could leave and go on some sort of an adventure. Maybe it was Azazel. On the other... Moloch had taught her that even as he was a godking-- really a king of Hell, that there were demons and other creatures gunning to come and get her.

But no one ever did. Everyone seemed to be after Izzy. Maybe her dad was really just overprotective and no one would come get her...

“I’ll be down.”

Abaddon quickly put the books away and locked up the chest again, leaving the room as the wall made the room unreachable again, boots clunking down the hall.

Tired of running, Abaddon appeared near the gates and stopped at them, peering between the bars. It looked clear. No creepers creeping. No scary looking guys waiting on her. Maybe it was Azazel. Slowly, she opened the gate and slipped out, heading toward where Azazel would park his car. Carefully, she kept looking around, examining the parking lot. Still no one. Not even the car. “Hello? A friend? I’m here....”

Out of no where Abaddon felt herself being grabbed, everything going dark just as she screamed.

The soft hum of an engine played out in her mind until she realized she wasn’t dreaming. Quickly, Abaddon bolted out of her slumber and looked around herself, people she had never met watching her. Certainly not friends of hers.

“Uh. Hi?” Abaddon shifted uncomfortably, looking down at her hands and feet as they were shackled. Here, she was in a limo like the ones her dad would take her around in minus being bound with symbols against demons. “So... where are we going...?”

One of the few in here seemed to take lead, a woman with blonde dreads, dark skin. Most were dressed similar: dark colors or that of military but with torn hosiery or fishnets adorning their legs and arms or cargo pants, collars of metal and leather and boots made for combat. All of them had weapons on them. “A safe place.”

“Safe? Then why do you have me cuffed up?”

“For our safety.”

“Oh.” She looked down, feeling weird about this, even unsafe. “Who are you?”

“Friends.”

“Okay, no, friends are people I know, I don’t know any of you.”

“Friends of your father.”

The only real ‘friends’ Abaddon was ever told about were at the asylum, so the worry grew. Eventually she looked up, carefully studying each one until her eyes fell on the dark skinned one again. “My dad? He’s gone so you’re lying.”

“No, Abaddon. We’re saving you from Azazel. We want our King back.”

She wasn’t sure of the truths here but that tidbit of information had her excited and yet terrified. Aware of what horrors Azazel could do, it wasn’t like she wanted to be away from him. As they grew closer, so did the pull of their energies- cementing the belief that he was truly hers and she his. A month ago she didn’t want to believe it, but now she felt it. Unless he was pulling some sort of crazy demon shit, the feelings were there.

“You coulda just not tied me up like this. I want my dad back, too.”

With the same sort of expressionless face, the woman said, “We know you’re Azazel’s. We aren’t that stupid. All of Hell knows this.”

Welp. Looked like there wasn’t any way of weaseling out of this one. “So you’re all Wrath?”

One other demon snickered as the dark skinned woman gave a disapproving sideways glance at him. “We are all sorts, turned independent before Azazel wiped the legions clean.”

“You could do that?”

“Only in the most extreme of circumstances. We are marked as traitors and will be killed, but we needed to get our King.”

“You said you’re not all Wrath so... how is my dad everyone’s king?”

“He’s not,” the dark man chimed in from the front, “But Azazel didn’t claim the throne as he should have and even if he had, your dad had such a fear and respect around the whole of Hell that even our kings couldn’t deny. Azazel fills part of a prophecy, Moloch fitted a whole. Don’t consider us independent- that name is for scum demons. *he had to glance back to another chick in the car that quickly* Consider us rebels, demons who cut ties with our kings just for this.”

Abaddon hadn’t heard of such a thing and perhaps it may have been due to there never being a group like this-- or dad never told her this part of history. But the former made more sense, considering demons, no matter how spiteful and vengeful they were, never had an uprising in groups. “It’s just the five of you?”

“No.” The woman spoke again. “There’s many other where we are going.”

Shifting in her seat, Abaddon tried to look out the window but it was blacked out. “And just to make my dad king again?”

The woman just peered directly to her. 

“Right?” Abaddon looked back at her.

The woman smirked, finally a different expression, “Right.”

The car slowed and turned, feeling the change while they rode as it entered an underground garage. They were far from the asylum, so far in fact they were across the country, unknown to Abaddon. These demons were taking no chances considering the events that took place in Colorado. As the limo stopped, door opened and more of the same demons were there, all in this dress. Abaddon was led out by the arm as she peered around this parking facility. The limo was the nicest looking vehicle here, everything else was... well... military or altered and fitted with armor, guns, and who knows what else. Abaddon liked this very much and wanted to take a closer look but she was pulled harshly to follow the pack through the garage. 

“Ow. Be more careful!”

No one seemed to listen or care.

“Really, stop being so rough, I’m coming anyway--”

“Hush, Abaddon.” A voice came from the stairwell they were heading to as another demon stood there, dressed unlike the others. She barely recognized him, someone from the asylum she had seen in passing. 

“Were you followed?”

“Of course not. She was alone as expected. They probably don’t know she’s gone.”

“Come.” They all disappeared in their clouds and only Abaddon and the few reappeared in a room, this room looking as if it had no exits somehow, brushed steel walls and a single seat sitting on bare concrete floors. They rushed her to it, forcing her to sit as she winced, suddenly feeling confined as ornate demon traps surrounded her top to bottom. 

“What-- wait, why!?” Abaddon tried to struggle but she couldn’t move from the chair, bound to it.

“You are too dangerous to have moving around freely.” That man spoke again as he peered curiously at her.

“Are you like... their leader or something? Because you fucking suck right now.”

He chuckled lightly, “No, Abaddon. I’m merely in this for my own self interest. I’m assisting them on this endeavor and will inspire you to do the same.”

“So... you do want my dad back or....?”

“It doesn’t matter to me either way. Yet the demons here do want to return him to his throne. While they have rebelled against their kings and even the knights of the independents, I have stayed true to my domain. Gluttony. You need not know why my interests lie being here. All you need to know is that you, too, will learn to embrace your gluttonous nature.”

Abaddon didn’t enjoy this at all, not one bit. “It sounds like Greed. I think you’re confused.”

“Greed wants everything, gluttony is overly so and in the interest of the self, not in the interest of others. Self-centered. Unsympathetic. Egocentric. Greed wants everything to be their own... gluttony does not care about something if it does not benefit themselves in the process. Take for example the human that overeats. Greed would want all the food just to have it. The glutton would eat and over eat but stop as he is satisfied at some point, yet not restrained on just eating for nourishment nor until he is not hungry anymore. Greed would rather have this food regardless of how hungry he is, what it is, or how rare it is. All would be his.”

She swallowed hard, getting schooled by another demon that wasn’t someone she outright trusted or knew. Not that she completely had trusted Azazel, but that felt more like... At least the puzzle fit with him. Having this random demon teach her felt like something could be said wrong and then she’d just go on believing this and piss off someone who actually was right. 

“O... kay.... so.... why do you need to do this again? Can’t I just be at home reading a book or you come in for school lessons or some shit?”

“We want you to want your father for your own self interest. You have already awakened with Azazel, your interest there is moot. Right now you fight between your lover and your dad, but you are powerful enough to not need Azazel. For them to get what they desire, we will need you to focus and be completely aware of how your father fulfills your gluttonous desire. He will benefit you more than Azazel.”

“How the hell does that help get my dad back?!”

“You will be helping to locate and get him out of where he may be. But you cannot involve Azazel in the matter as Azazel would like nothing more than to stop us and yourself. You will need to be fully engaged in your self interest, not Azazel’s.”

This was all starting to sound like this was all in THEIR self interest. Yes, she wanted Moloch back and hated Azazel for taking him, but now she had money, she had all his things... Okay, that was sounding a lot like greed but it was for her own interests to even have these things... “I want Azazel.”

The demon woman who stood there slapped Abaddon in the face hard, Abaddon gasping as it struck her. “You will not think that way here. He is no king of ours and you will get Moloch back.”

A few of the demons looked to each other, knowing this would prove difficult to sway her despite having a reputable glutton demon around.

Abaddon looked at the woman, glaring, her eyes suddenly glowing black. “Don’t you ever hit me again. I am Abaddon, Queen of destruction and I will have your souls for this! When Azazel finds me like this, he will make your deaths slow and painful in my name!”

A couple shifted uncomfortably and others stepped back entirely, thinking this plan already failed them. But the woman remained steadfast and unmoving, smirking at Abaddon from where she stood in front of her. “We know you want your father back and so do we. Azazel will remain living so that you may live out your prophecy, but we cannot allow his reign over the whole of Wrath nor any other. We get your father back, Azazel’s rule ends. You two can reign under your independents-- we all win.”

Abaddon hadn’t stopped glaring but who was she right now to stop this? It would be nice to not only have her dad back, but put him at the top where he was and her and Azazel could just do as they pleased-- that didn’t make her any less of a Queen, did it? And she was the Queen of Destruction foretold, not a Wrath Queen if there ever was one. Demon politics seemed really confusing.

[magnusbane-lightwood]

It's me again :D 1. How seriously amazing is your header? I'm so very in love with it, I've been staring at your tumblr page for 5 minutes :DDD 2. I've started to read your number prompts and they are all so cute

And for the anon who asked: Can I have 17 written?Hi sweetie!

First of all: THANK YOU SO MUCH! Seriously, I tend to go back to this message and just get this incredibly goofy smile on my face. You’re seriously so damn sweet, thank you so much for, well for liking the things I write basically. It seriously means the world.

Second of all: This one got really long and since my day fucked up entirely and I won’t have time to write the last 1000 words right now, I thought I’d post it in chapters (hopefully I’ll be able to post chapter two tomorrow - since it’s almost finished - so you won’t have to wait long at all, please forgive me!)

Anyway, here’s chapter one! I hope it was at least somewhat along the lines of what you wanted (It takes place in the shadow-world still, but in this story Magnus and Alec didn’t meet because of Clary…):

You can read it on AO3 HERE if you’d like to!

17. “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”

Isabelle frowned when she walked into the dark loft. Magnus and her had decided to meet up for lunch two hours prior and when the warlock hadn’t shown up, Isabelle had assumed he’d gotten caught up in work and forgotten about the time again. So she’d gone to his apartment to find him, but seeing the empty space had her instantly worried. It wasn’t all that unusual for Magnus to forget about the time whenever he was caught up in some spell, but he was a gentleman and if he would be out of his apartment for work and risked being late, then he’d always make sure to tell whoever he was meeting up with as much.

She’d met the High Warlock of Brooklyn at a downworlder party she’d gone to for her previous boyfriend, Meliorn, a few months back and their mutual interests in both fashion and science (as Magnus had explained - mixing potions wasn’t all that different from what she was doing in her lab) had the two of them instantly clicking. Despite the night having ended with a breakup for her, after she found Meliorn in bed with two vampires, she’d still considered it a success after Magnus had invited her over to his loft for drinks to “celebrate her getting rid of the trash”, as he’d called it. Although they both knew that the Seelie had never made any promises of exclusivity to the Shadowhunter, Isabelle had still found herself appreciating the supportive sentiment. They’d been best friends ever since.

Which was why she knew something most definitely wasn’t right with the picture before her.

Picking up her phone from her pocket, Isabelle dialed Magnus’ number and waited for the dial-tone, praying to the Angel that he’d pick up - Only to have the call cut off almost immediately. Her heart beating slightly in panic, she started looking around the loft for any indication to where her friend might be. After looking through the entire apartment without any results, she picked up a shirt to try tracking him. The light flared around her hands and an image of Magnus flashed before her eyes. He was in what looked to be a cage, shouting something she couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on getting a location, but before she could get so much as a hint, something slammed into the vision and it blinked out. With a curse, she stuffed the shirt into her bag and ran towards the institute.

She needed a stronger tracking.

***

“Alec, I need your help!”

Alec looked up from where he’d been planning out next week’s patrol-schedule and raised his eyebrows in question to his sister’s abrupt entrance.

“I thought you were having lunch with your friend?” he said, straightening up and looking his sister over. “What’s wrong?”

“I was, but something is wrong. He didn’t show up and he wasn’t at his apartment. I tried tracking him, but I got cut off by something. I need you and Jace to use your parabatai bond to track him”, Izzy explained and Alec knew better than to question his sister’s instincts. So he simply pushed off the table and started walking towards the training-room, where he knew Jace would be - especially since Raj had walked by earlier with a put-upon sigh that told the oldest Lightwood-sibling that his brother had roped the poor guy into training with him again.

“Sorry to interrupt guys”, he announced their presence when they walked in and almost smiled at the sight of Raj throwing Jace down on his back and pinning him with a knife to his throat before they both looked up at them.

“That”, Jace panted, his eyes on Raj’s smug face, “Does not count. Alec distracted me!”

The other man just huffed a laugh, helped him to his feet with a roll of his eyes and turned to Alec with a rise of his eyebrows.

“What’s up?” Jace voiced Raj’s unvoiced question.

“Izzy needs our help to track her friend, she thinks he might be in trouble”, Alec explained and Jace nodded as he started to remove his training-gloves and walked towards them.

“I could use a small break anyway, you want us to go out with you to find him too?” he said and Alec shook his head.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll go with Izzy to check it out, call you if we need backup. You should probably go make sure Clary’s doing okay with her rune-studies anyway, leave Raj alone for once?” He gave Jace a pointed look and Raj mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him from where he was packing away the knives they’d been using.

“I have some work I need to get done anyway. You can try to beat me some other time, Blondie”, he said as he walked past them out of the room, patting Jace on the shoulder. Alec shook his head at Jace’s frown as he watched his retreating form.

“Still beating you, huh?” Alec asked and Jace returned his eyes to his parabatai with an exasperated look that made the corner Alec’s mouth lift, amused.

“I don’t know how he does it, the man is a freaking ninja! I figure out how to block one move and he’s already on to the next. It’s insane!” he answered and Alec just shrugged at him in a ‘what can you do’-manner.

“As much as I enjoy this little fanboy-moment of yours, Jace, we need to hurry up. Magnus is in trouble and I need to get to him”, Izzy spoke up, thrusting the shirt she’d brought towards them and Alec went into mission-mode as he grabbed the shirt along with Jace’s hand and started focusing on tracking the warlock.

The familiar feeling of Jace’s energy surged through him as the light swirled around their joined hands and a blurry picture opened up in his mind. He could make out the siluett of a man sitting cross-legged in a leaf-filled cell, light coming from somewhere above him. Magnus, Alec assumed as there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. He redirected his focus from the image to get a feel of where this cell was when a force slammed into him and both him and Jace grabbed the other tighter as they fought it to stay on the track. A symbol on the side of the cell caught Alec’s eye and as Jace gave his hand a small tug, he knew his parabatai had seen it to. Breathing out slowly, he felt Jace’s energy leave and slowly opened his eyes as he let go of the other’s hand.

“He’s in the Seelie-realm, in a cell of some kind. Doesn’t seem hurt though, but you’re right - we should hurry to get him out”, he answered his sister’s questioning look before walking away to get changed.

***

Magnus Bane was bored out of his freaking mind. Bored and irritated. He’d been stuck in this cage for hours, unable to do anything but wait for someone to notice his absence and come save him. He really hoped Isabelle hadn’t left him a message to cancel their lunch, because unless she noticed that he was gone no one would come for him in the next 24 hours. The prospect of sitting in this muddy room, with his magic drained enough to keep him from breaking out, for an entire day had him letting out another groan and letting his head fall back against the wall.

“If someone could send me a knight in shining armor to save me, that’d be great”, he grumbled towards the man-sized hole in the roof where the light was being let in. It was too high up for him to reach and possibly escape from and Magnus wasn’t too keen on risking a broken ankle in trying either, so he simply stared longingly at it and wished for a grand rescue of some kind.

***

“We should split up, we’ll cover more ground that way”, Alec suggested and with a confirming nod from his sister he broke away to search for her friend. He wished he could say that it was a surprise to hear that the Seelies had thrown the High Warlock of Brooklyn into a cage for some reason, but considering that during Alec’s last meeting with the Seelie Queen, she’d been just about ready to do the same to him for not wanting to sleep with her, he really and truly wasn’t. Honestly, what was a surprise to him was how the rest of the faerie-folk were still accepting her as their leader. If Valentine and his people were what gave the Shadowhunters a bad reputation, then people like the Seelie Queen most definitely was what gave downworlders theirs. He’d discussed the matter of damaging downworlder-leaders with Luke and Raphael a few days prior, and the two of them had suggested they’d bring in the High Warlock to their monthly meetings, since he apparently had the most sway over the downworld as a whole.

Alec had never met Magnus Bane, but from what he’d heard about the man he seemed like a good person with a rather wild reputation. The latter was just from what he’d been told by his parents though. Izzy had protested wildly as they’d argued that her new best friend was, in their father’s words: ‘Somewhat of a lothario who is nowhere near fitting for a young shadowhunter woman to be socializing with’, and Alec couldn’t blame her. Especially since his father, who followed Valentine blindly for years, most certainly wasn’t in any position to judge anyone else. Alec sometimes thought back to how he’d viewed downworlders only two years earlier, before befriending Luke and Raphael after Clary had stumbled into their lives and turned it upside down, and felt ashamed of his past self. He hadn’t known better at that time, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d thought of himself as above so many people when he’d had no right to.

Stepping over a few fallen branches, Alec surveyed the area around him, trying to see if anything looked even the slightest familiar to what he’d seen in his tracking-vision. It was no use though, they’d been forced to leave the vision too soon and hadn’t had a chance to see anything above ground from where the warlock was held. Alec heaved a frustrated sigh and continued moving forward at a swift speed.

He didn’t even make it another two yards before something sounded behind him and Alec whirled around, bow drawn and at the ready, only to be immediately blinded by a flash of light so bright he had to shield his eyes. In the shock he took a step backwards, and where he was certain there had been solid ground just a second before, were now nothing but air. With a surprised scream, Alec fell through the gaping hole in the ground.

***

Magnus looked up with a frown at the bright flash above him, just a second before something - or rather someone- fell through the hole in the roof of his cell with a scream and landed right in the middle of the little room. The man looked up towards the hole with a frown, obviously cursing its existence, before rubbing slightly at where he’d landed on his hip, grimacing slightly.

“I’m not at my full power because of the stupid wards on this place, but I’m pretty sure I could heal that for you if you want?”, Magnus spoke, rising and walking towards the man, surveying him calmly as he did so.

He seemed to finally notice that he hadn’t fallen into an empty cell and snapped his eyes up towards Magnus’ voice. The warlock felt his breath catch as the light from the roof-opening hit them, making them appear almost golden, but gathered himself quickly and reached out his hand with a gesture towards the man’s hip.

“So? You want some help with that, then?” he prompted, with a rise of his brows. That appeared to be enough to shake him out of where he’d been outright staring blatantly at Magnus - obviously still surprised that there was someone else in this stupid cell, not that Magnus could blame him all that much for that - and he started rummaging through his pockets until he finally drew a stele from one of them.

Ah, a shadowhunter then, Magnus thought and finally noticed the rune running up the man’s neck as he bent over to activate his Iratze.

“Or you can do that, I guess” he mumbled and dropped his hand before returning to sit against the wall. When the man had finished healing his hip, he returned his gaze to Magnus, cocking his head slightly to the side, and the warlock was once again struck how gorgeous this man truly was. In the shadows, his eyes appeared almost green and Magnus reached his hand out again:

“Well, if we’re going to be stuck down here together, I feel like we should at the very least know each other’s name. I’m..”

The man rose slightly from his seat to grab Magnus’ hand this time as he interrupted.

“Magnus Bane, yeah I know. I’m actually…” he started, before looking around, a frown etched on his face once again.

“Uhm… Well, I’m here to… To rescue you, actually. I came with my sister, she was worried when you didn’t show up for lunch and…” he looked at Magnus again and, to the warlock’s delight, seemed to forget what he was talking about the second their eyes met. Magnus raised his eyebrows in question at the statement and hummed in acknowledgement before he spoke:

“As much as I appreciate the whole ‘handsome knight in a not-so-very-white and shining armor coming to my rescue’, they usually tend to avoid falling into the cage with the princess. Well, prince in this case”, he teased and smiled as a blush rose on the other’s cheeks.

“Yeah, that’s… That wasn’t exactly part of the plan”, the man admitted and Magnus squeezed his hand where he was still holding on to it, dragging him slightly towards him to lean against the wall instead of sitting in the middle of the room. The shadowhunter followed without complaint and Magnus smiled to himself at that.

“Well, since it looks like we’ll be trapped here for a while why don’t you…” he started and then the man’s words from earlier registered with him and he looked up at him with a huge smile blooming freely on his lips.

“Wait, did you say sister? Isabelle sent you? She’s here?” he asked, more than excited about the prospect of the man not being all alone on this rescue-mission.

“Yeah, we split up and she went the other way. I… I’m not entirely sure when she’ll be here though”, the man confirmed and then muttered something about hoping she was smarter than him and didn’t accidentally fall in here with them too. Magnus cocked his head as he regarded this new information. Isabelle had told him she had three brothers and looking at the man before him he registered the physical attributes his friend had used to describe them all with. He hummed slightly to himself before saying:

“Tall, dark hair, gorgeous hazel-eyes and a preference for the bow… You must be Alexander then?” he purred and the blush on the man’s cheeks deepened furiously.

“Alec”, the man - Alec Lightwood apparently - corrected him with a nod.

***A/N: I hope you like it thus far and I’ll try to hurry up and get chapter two up for you by tomorrow! Also: I’m writing some other fluffy malec-things that were supposed to be posted during the day, but since my day just got completely fucked up they might have to wait until the weekend… ugh, life! Sorry!If you have any prompt you’d like to send me (or simply share your thoughts on some matter), my ask-box is always open! If you’d like to give me one of the number-prompts, then you can find the different numbers HERE!

[jemkook-blog]

lie

word count: 8136 series: wings pairing: jimin/reader

part 1

warning! mentions of intense pain, emotional abuse, violence, semi-graphic descriptions of burns, human experimentation, and death

“Jimin, please say goodbye to Haneul for now,” Mother calls, making Jimin drop his girlfriend’s hand.

“But Mother,” he whines, knowing that he’ll get nowhere. “Why can’t Darling go to school with me?”

Haneul laughs, resting her forehead against his shoulder briefly before pulling away altogether, causing the boy to pout. “Silly, we’re both 21, and I’m not as important as you are. You could become way smarter than I ever have a hope of being.”

He glances at her, sending her the look that usually sets her heart beating. He can hear it, even from this distance, and a soft blush coats her cheeks. He smiles smugly, and she pushes at his shoulder teasingly. “What’s the point of doing anything if you’re not there with me?”

She gets up, smoothing out her white dress and the white blankets that she had been sitting on. Underneath those were white sheets and a white mattress, and he had white pillows with white pillowcases. His room had white walls, and all of the furniture in it was the same goddamn shade of white. He would kill for an ivory lamp, something that would at least break up the monotony of the wintery room. She throws him a small smile, already recovered from his flirtations. “You wouldn’t be doing anything if I happened to be in the same room as you.”

She is right, of course, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He begins to unbutton his shirt, laughing and throwing her a wink as she flushes and turned away. “Don’t get so embarrassed, Darling. I’m only changing into my school clothes.” He walks over to her, shirt hanging loosely off of his shoulders, and wraps his arms around her from behind, a cheesy smile on his face. “Unless, of course, you’d like to do something else.”

Turning a little to reach him, she smacks his head, and he lets out a few short giggles before seriously changing into his clothes. She leaves, and he can hear faint mutterings from outside as Darling talks to Mother. He assumes that it’s the usual overprotective mutters from Mother, warning about not having sex with him because he’s valuable and if he slept well the night before. She’d probably tell Haneul to take her medicine as well. Mother has always cared for them a lot.

Yet, somewhere in the corner of his heart, Jimin wonders if this is what normal families are like, if they have to worry about monitoring their children’s strength and smarts, regularly educating them on everything under the sun, including battle tactics. Did other families find an ideal match for their son and have them live in their house with them?

The only people Jimin has ever known are Mother, Father, and Darling. They are the only people that he has ever felt the need to know, as they care for all his needs and satisfy him in every way that a human is supposed to be. He is fed, clothed, sheltered, shown proper levels of physical affection, complimented, scolded when his ego gets to be too much, and everything else a human needs to grow up properly. He has lived in this laboratory ever since he can remember, because he is special and has potential and should be protected until he can protect himself. Personally, however, as he grew older and began to learn more about the different places in the world, he found that he couldn’t wait to explore.

When he expressed these desires to his darling, however, she had taken on a sad look, one that tugged at his heartstrings and made him want to take back everything he had just said. “So you want to leave me?” she had asked, and when Jimin had protested that leaving her was the last thing that he would ever want to do, he had learned that she was sick.

She had been sick for a while, but she had always thought that she would get better quickly, and so never saw fit to mention it to him. Tears gathered in her eyes as she explained, and, too distressed to even consider the words she was saying, he had wrapped her up in a hug and showered her in kisses. She couldn’t leave the laboratory until and unless she was cured, so that decided it for him. He didn’t want to go anywhere unless she was by his side.

Because she’s sick, there are times when Father intervenes and tells him that he can’t go visit her. Jimin may not have another example to compare himself to, but he feels like a pretty awful boyfriend, considering he can’t even bring her the flowers that Mother grows in the white flowerpots outside Jimin’s room.

He misses her the minute that she’s out of sight, and though he loves Mother and Father, they rarely show him physical affection unless he’s lacking his ideal numbers for the day. It’s a cold house, but he’s grateful to even have a family. According to his school lessons, which Father specifically constructs based on his learning needs for the week, some people don’t even have a family. It saddens him to think of the strife in the outside world, but he wants to fix it. According to Mother and Father, he can, as long as he does well in school and always, always listens to what they say. Disobedience causes strife; this was a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

Dressed for school, he makes his way outside excitedly, eager to learn whatever Father has constructed for him today. It’s cold in the laboratory, so he adjusts his body temperature with a shake of his wrist, feeling himself grow warmer as he sighs in relief. He might be a little late if he doesn’t hurry. His schoolroom is about a couple miles away, with several staircases and winding hallways impeding his speed. He had found the fastest route after timing them all, however, and if he ran, he could make the two miles in four minutes. It’s a disappointing speed, according to Father, but he knows that, given enough time, he’ll get even faster.

A clock ticks on the wall. It’s a minute past eight, so if he sprints, he’ll be there exactly on time. He takes off, beginning to blur as he runs past Mother. He’s faster today; he can feel it in the slight strain of his muscles. He’ll be a little tired once he reaches the schoolroom, but it will be worth it so he doesn’t get scolded.

He overshoots the turn on the second to last hallway, skidding a bit, as he’s unused to today’s increased speed. He curses under his breath, one of the few bad words he knows from spying on Father watching his shows from the outside world. Once, Jimin had asked if he could see some of them as well, but Mother denied him, saying that it would only corrupt him. He was capable of higher intelligence than either of them; he mustn’t let himself be exposed to anything that could change that.

He’s making good time though, and he reaches the classroom ten seconds before the time changes to 8:05. Father is setting up his lesson projector. “Father!” Jimin cries, smiling excitedly. “Today I did 3 minutes and 53 seconds.”

Father nods, a small smile of approval on his face. “Congratulations. You must be practicing.”

He feels a small thrill of excitement run through him. It had been quite a while since he had garnered Father’s approval, who, while he was in charge of setting up Jimin’s lessons, is more concerned about his physical capabilities. It had always been Mother who read him bedtime stories, classics like A Tale of Two Cities and War and Peace. That one had taken more than a few nights to get through, but he found that when he went back and read it to himself later, it had taken him a matter of hours. It must have had to do with vocalizing the words, as he knew that talking always slowed down the thoughts in his brain.

“It’s ready. Take your seat, Jimin,” Father says, his voice as stern and unforgiving as ever. Jimin offers him a warm smile, then sits down at his desk, an apple in front of him.

“Thank you, Father! I love you,” he replies, and Father leaves. The projector whirs to life, showing ovals with different symbols on them. They remain on the screen, flashing between the different symbols every second. Jimin finds himself especially drawn to the one with letters on it, examining them closely. Eva means nothing to him, except perhaps in reference to the biblical first woman. Mother had always said that religion is false, but there is symbolism in it, and in that much, at least, he can identify with. Ave means hail in Latin, and he finds that it seems fitting. There is nothing about this oval that differentiates it from the rest, but something about it feels important, like it should be recognized.

“Ave atque vale,” he says, taking a bite of the apple. His head spins, and he collapses to the ground, his head pounding as he convulses, back arching and head tilted back. Dizzying amounts of information spin through his head, and he finds that he is so very tired, but it’s not as though anyone cares. Hail and farewell. The words spin through his head, and he wonders if now is the time for him to finally die.

Just as suddenly as it starts, the convulsions stop, and with a shaky hand, he props himself up, looking at his free hand with wonder. Something about it looks alien to him, and after looking around for a few more moments, he finds that everything appears to him in sharper detail, colors bursting from the apple and the white of this room almost too much for his eyes to handle. It adjusts, however, and he finds that he perceives the world with sharper clarity now. Eager to test out what else he is now capable of, he closes his eyes and meditates, looking within himself.

The warmth in his right wrist is there as expected, as is the warmth in his spine which advances his flexibility and balance. His skin enhancement is cold, freezing him just under his the top layer of skin, its metal sheen promising protection. In order to compensate for the chill that distracts him, he shakes his wrist, sighing as warmth floods him. Other than the eye enhancement, it appears as though something burns just behind his tongue. He huffs out a breath experimentally, somehow knowing exactly what he needed to do, and is delighted to find a few sparks fly from his mouth. As with most improvements that Father teaches him, he’ll have to practice in order to fully make use of them, but he feels confident that he can master this one fairly quickly.

His eyes snap open, and he stretches. By looking in a mirror, he finds that his eyes have taken on more of a blue tone. Curiously, he squeezes his eyes shut, and once he opens them again, he sees that they’ve returned to their regular hue. His vision has lost a bit of its clarity, but he notices that it’s still better than it had been before the improvement. It’s subtle, something that Jimin, for all of his flair and teasing, can appreciate.

There is only one improvement that he hadn’t told Mother and Father about, as he thinks that it could be of benefit to him, especially if they have no prior knowledge of this particular gift. Instead, he practices on Darling, finding that she falls prey to the charming smile and seductive look that his dual improvement inspires quite easily. He finds that he can even get her to circumvent Mother’s orders, despite the two of them spending quite a lot of time together trying to cure her. He finds himself quite grateful that his designated girlfriend is matched up with him, as Mother and Father might be the only people who could cure her of her mysterious illness.

It’s at that moment that Father comes in, eager to see what improvements have been made to him. Jimin smiles and blinks hard, letting his eyes change to blue again.

“A vision improvement?” Father asks, and he nods in response.

“That’s not it,” he continues, puffing out a few more sparks. Disappointed that he couldn’t produce anything more, he sent Father a sheepish look. “I’ll have to work on it a lot.”

Still, contrary to his expectations, Father looks more than pleased with the results. “That’s a good one. I’m quite proud of you for learning that lesson. You’re doing so well, Jimin.”

Jimin feels warmth flood his chest and a wide smile comes to his face. No matter how many times he receives it, approval is never a thing that he wins easily.

“Of course, the rest of your lesson will be spent enhancing your skills,” Father continues. “Unless you think you can stomach another bite of the apple.”

Only once has Jimin ever eaten two bites of the apple, and the convulsions were so bad that he had to rest in bed for two weeks, Darling spoon feeding him warm broth. It’s from that experience that Jimin had gained his charm abilities, and the knowledge of that combined with the desire to continue garnering Father’s approval compels him to nod his head.

“I’ll do it today, Father,” he says, and the man takes on an interested look, one eyebrow raised in mocking challenge.

“Are you sure? You didn’t fare so well last time.”

Jimin simply nods in response, and Father leaves after giving him an oddly delicate shrug. The gray haired man steadies himself, feeling a childish fear spread through him, making him want to rescind his decision. Only disappointment would reside in that route, however, so he takes in a calming breath, exhaling with a soft puff. How he wished that Haneul could be with him right now. He missed her more than he could say; simply knowing that she was beside him would have elevated his confidence far above what it currently is.

He fixes his eyes on the oval, still flickering on the wall in front of him. “Atque in perpetuum frater,” he whispers, his body tensing as though preparing for a blow. “Ave atque vale.”

He bites the apple, and the world flashes in vertiginous rainbows, his heart beating so fast that he feels as though it might explode at any moment. He falls onto his back, smacking the back of his head against the ground. He knows that the back of his skull is reinforced, Mother and Father’s desire to keep him safe protecting him from brain damage, so why does he feel something dislodge in his skull?

He has no time to worry about that when he’s trying to muffle his screams, however, his body overheating until, with a shaky flick of his wrist, it cools down slightly. It’s a temporary relief, as it begins climbing up faster than before, the desperate, panicky jolts of his wrist the only things keeping him from setting alight. He finds himself biting his lip to stop the pain, blood welling on his lips until he finds the protective layer embedded just under his skin. It tastes cold and metallic, and somehow, with that, he evens out.

The pain remains, however, aching and blistering, causing him to curl in on himself. If he can just survive this, push through before Father has to shut the lesson down, he can reap unimagined rewards. He wants to do well, and it’s this knowledge that allows him to sit up, despite the stabbing pain in his stomach. He pushes himself up slowly, and, as though he’s in a trance, he clenches both of his fists. He disappears, unable to see himself any longer, and the pain disappears as well. To his surprise, he’s invisible, though this only lasts a few seconds before he returns to his regular state. The pain returns with it, and he groans as he doubles over. Another secret, perhaps.

Continuing his exploration yet unable to meditate in order to find the source directly, he waves his hand to the side. Nothing happens, so he tries again, his hand brushing the air slowly as he moves his right hand vertically. Still nothing happens, so he shakes his shoulders, and to his surprise, colors swirl on the floor before him, rising up until they become an inconsistent, flickering image of himself.

Father bursts through the door, presumably to check on him, and gapes at the dual image he’s created. Jimin holds it for a few more seconds before releasing it, sweating and panting with overexertion.

For once, Father is speechless, but he recovers and quickly strides over, wrapping him in a warm, proud hug. Despite his exhaustion, Jimin manages to choke out a soft laugh, which the man reciprocates. This is the first time that he’s ever heard this laugh, so he finds himself filled with a strong sense of pride, which allows him to stand up straight as Father leads him back home.

“You can copy yourself?” Haneul says, her eyes sparkling with curiosity and wonder. Jimin almost tells her about the invisibility too, but he decides against it. He feels guilty for not sharing with her, as she’s given him no reason to mistrust her, but he wants to have his own secrets. There’s a common belief, from what he understands, that in small towns, everyone knows each other’s business. For him, it feels true, but he suddenly realizes how little he knows about Mother, Father, and even Haneul.

He tunes back in as he realizes that Haneul was talking, but is now looking at him expectantly. He laughs softly and flashes her that smile that reddens her face and distracts her from his distant mind. “Sorry,” he says softly. “I’m a little tired. Do you mind repeating the question?”

She nods, looking a little guilty, and he instantly feels chastened, knowing that he shouldn’t have manipulated her like that. “No problem. You did really good today.” She smiles softly, and he feels that glow in his stomach again. “Can you show me?”

He nods, eager to please her, and stands up from his bed, where he had been sitting with her. He takes a deep breath; he can still feel fatigue coursing through him, but he wants desperately to please her, so he simply shakes his shoulders, the jacket that he had donned earlier falling off of his left shoulder.

Like before, the clone appears first in a dizzying swirl of colors, rising into a form that matches his, complete with the jacket off the shoulder. She lets out a soft gasp, and he feels a little thrill course through him at the thought that he can amaze her to this degree. A few moments later, however, and it flickers back out of existence, the sweat that he wipes off of his forehead the only evidence that it had ever been there at all.

“Incredible,” she whispers, and he offers her a genuine smile, the slight slump to his shoulders the only proof of his exhaustion.

“I could do it again, if you’ll give me a couple of seconds. I was able to hold it for a full minute when Father timed me, so I could probably do it longer now.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she says, her eyes wide with wonder.

And because he could never say no to the girl that looked at him with such a bright smile and could trust more than anyone, he squeezes his eyes closed and ignores the sweat that beads on his forehead as he concentrates. His clone is still the spitting image of him though, and he finds that when he closes his eyes, he can see exactly what his clone does. He moves, but it’s not his body, the clone tracing gentle fingers across his darling’s cheek.

He finds that the clone doesn’t have the same capabilities that he does, and he wonders for a split second if this is what it means to be human, completely normal and just like everyone else. He shakes the thought from his head, though, and slowly lets the clone fade. It’s been about two minutes by this point, and he feels satisfied with his performance. Something nags at him, though, and he feels rather irrational for thinking it, but he can’t help the way that he feels.

It bothers him that Darling doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as entranced with his clone as she is with him. They are the same, so should she not have the same feelings? Logically, he knows that this is incorrect, that he is not his clone and should therefore not expect the same reaction. However, it raises a question in his mind. If he didn’t have Mother and Father, had he not been a part of the lab and underwent experiments, would Haneul have loved him?

He feels the same unsettling shift reverberate through his skull again. Now he can tell that something has been dislodged in his head, but if there was an aid there, why couldn’t he sense it? He decides to not say anything for the time being. After all, what’s one more secret when combined with the two that he has already? He’s nothing if not curious, and he wants to investigate for himself what exactly he’s dropped.

He forms a plan in an instant, a small lump of guilt wedging in his throat.He drops to his hands and knees, gagging, and Haneul shoots up, a worried look crossing her face. “Jimin, are you okay?”

He shakes his head and crawls to the bathroom, making sure to retch and pause for breath every so often. He props himself up by the toilet, and he can feel the thing curl in the back of his head. “Hit the back of my head,” he says, and she looks down with suspicion. A terrified thrill runs through him. Does she know? “Please,” he begs, casting his look at her. “It helps me throw up.”

She shrugs and gives him a delicate slap, and that’s all he needs to feel it begin to slip down the back of his throat. “Get Mother,” he chokes, out, desperate to get her out of his room. “I need medicine.”

She takes off, and as soon as she disappears, he reaches a hand into his mouth and pulls out a thin, speckled film. He gags as he pulls it out, its rubbery texture slipping against his tongue. He thinks quickly, knowing that Mother will be back soon, and rushes to the nightstand in his room, pulling the drawer open and dropping it in before slamming it shut and rushing back. In a couple of seconds, Mother is there, checking him over with the clinical calm that he’s come to expect from her.

“What happened?” she asked, an eyebrow raised. He thinks he can detect a hint of concern, but the realization that it’s not for him personally feels sickening. She looks at him the way a scientist looks at an experiment, and he lays his head down on the cool tile floor, truly not faking the ill feeling in his stomach now.

“I’m not sure,” he says, and it’s not a lie. A film covering his head had been enough to try to comprehend, but the unrecognized knowledge that had poured into his head is dizzying. Mother and Father are not his parents. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but it’s an undeniable fact, as surely as he knows that he isn’t normal. He is not simply capable of advanced learning; he was made to be this way, his genetics changed and his body rearranged in microscopic ways.

Of course, if he can’t trust Mother and Father’s intentions, he can’t trust Haneul as well.

“I just felt sick. I think I tried to perform too many of my teachings today.” The words sound stiff even to his own ears, but Mother apparently buys his poor excuse and nods, offering a hand to him.

“Rest for the remainder of the day, then we’ll see how you fare tomorrow. If you prefer it, Haneul will bring you your dinner tonight.” Mother is clinical, calm, and something about it infuriates him. There is more to learn, he’s sure, more to be discovered after the film had exited his head, but he can’t do anything else for now.

“I’d like that,” he says, voice soft and smile sweet even as every part of him screams out in confusion. “Are you sure that you won’t feel too sickly?”

This last part is directed toward Haneul, and he’s surprised to find that he feels bitter about that too. It’s suspicious that she’s always sick at night, especially when she looks like the picture of health now, and in this unfamiliar world he lives in, where he finds he has no one to trust, he can’t help but lump her in with the others.

She smiles, though, and he’s grateful that she doesn’t seem to detect his angry tone. “I’m feeling pretty good today, actually, so I should be fine to bring you dinner.” She winks at him, just out of Mother’s line of sight, and Jimin feels his stomach turn.

“Alright,” he mutters, unable to continue. “Do you mind if I sleep now?”

“Not at all,” Mother replies, smoothing a hand across his hair. He feels as though he should take comfort in it; she never shows him much physical affection out of the blue. Instead, it simply causes the turmoil that he feels to heighten.

They leave, and he finds that he almost can’t bear to look at his nightstand, but he has to, if only just to confirm his suspicions. As he pulls it out, the rubber like material curls against his hands, and he shakes it off with no small amount of disgust. The wire crossings and the faint glow that emanates from it makes it obvious that his thoughts are true. He recognizes this design, not from anything that Mother or Father had taught him, but he remembers the fear he felt before they put him under.

After all, he is nothing but an experiment in the evolution of humanity.

Bitterly, he huffs out a sigh, startling himself when a burst of flame followed. A moment passes, then a small smile turns the corners of his lips. He’s a success, isn’t he? As contrary as it is to the life that he’s lived for the past few years, he can’t help but feel a desire to prove to the scientists that had so drastically changed his life how much of a success he truly is.

The plan starts simply. It’s been a week of nonstop practice for him, and Father finally seems to be pleased with his results. It’s a bitter irony that the approval he had craved for so long is now finally within his reach when he no longer wants it. He tosses his parents cheerful smiles, kisses Haneul like nothing has changed, and practices his cloning like it’s a life or death matter.

For him, of course, it is.

And so, a week after his rebirth, his realization, he finds himself standing before his bed, colors swirling before him in an iridescent whirlpool. The clone forms, and Jimin switches minds, lying down in his bed, closing his eyes, and taking deep breaths. He reverts back to his original body and moves out, running as swiftly as he can to where he knows Haneul sleeps.

He’s never been back here, having always been instructed to leave her alone and let her rest, so naturally, he suspects that there he can find the information that he wishes to obtain. There’s nothing that he’s specifically looking for, only answers to the multitude of questions in his head. He stops himself just a moment before a door slides open, a cool, slick feeling enveloping him as Haneul steps out of the door, followed by Mother.

“Thank you for your reports, Haneul. I trust that you will do nothing to aid him?” Mother says, causing Jimin to shrink back, despite being invisible.

“Of course, Dr. Carmen,” Haneul replies, her words crisp and professional in a way that she had never seemed to him, with her youthful cheer and endless positive energy. This, more so than any concrete evidence, signaled to him the proof of something larger than him. “I may have felt compassion for Hoseok, but we have a success now, don’t we? There’s no further need for him.”

Hoseok. The name echoes strangely in his head, sounding familiar and comforting despite his inability to recall anything about its owner. More than anything, though, it told him that he is not alone, and that fact bolstered him as he slipped past the two women and tiptoed down the hall. He can hear the click of Mother’s heels against the tile of the floor, and the door slides shut, leaving him free to investigate.

Most rooms are boring in their immaculate upkeep, so he skips them until he reaches the file room. He opens the bottom drawer, finding that most of the files in there pertained to his experimental progress. The next file up contained files related to someone else. Perhaps they were related to the Hoseok that he had just overheard Mother and Haneul talking about. Still, they’re unimportant to him, and so he skips up to the top of the filing cabinet, which contains two lone files.

The first reads Experiment 12, Jung Hoseok, and contains a picture of a cheerful looking man smiling at the camera. He wears a casual outfit, a short sleeved yet well fitted shirt stretching across his frame nicely. He looks kind, radiating a sunny personality that seems genuine. This must be the Hoseok that had been mentioned earlier.

He flips open the second file, which reads Experiment 19, Park Jimin. Inside is a picture that he can’t remember taking, his eyes crescent moons in the unadulterated joy of his face. He’s wearing a striped shirt that makes his appearance seem more youthful, and there’s a lightness to him that seems genuine. It causes him to inhale sharply, the sense of loss that suddenly pervades him causing him to blink away tears.

“Jimin?”

He whirls around and sees Haneul there, dressed in a loose shirt and a pair of pajama pants, the least put together that he has ever seen her. They’re colorful, and it hits him all at once that she is not the sweet, angelic person that he has always known her to be. There are parts of her that he has never been exposed to, yet part of him still wants to take her into his arms and pretend that nothing happened. It’s a maddening feeling, so he chooses to simply look up at her, his gaze clouded over with a myriad of emotions. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

The hurt in his voice must be obvious, because although she still seems wary, she also seems to feel as though she has a certain amount of control over the situation. “Jimin, of course I wanted to tell you,” she says, and the compassion in her eyes is dizzying. “Your parents wanted to tell you as well, but they were scared that you would react poorly. I told them that it was stupid, that you would have to learn at some point, but they were worried about you, Jiminie.”

He wants to believe her, believe the words that come from the lips that he’s kissed so many times before. Love is the only truth that we have in this world. It was a lesson that Haneul had taught him, reading from the little notebook that she seemed to carry with her most days. He takes a hesitant step forward, feeling shakier than a newborn fawn. “Do you love me, Darling?”

She’s taken aback by his words, and he can see the countless thoughts that flicker across her face, and in that moment, he understands exactly what she had meant.A smile crosses her face, and she nods softly. “Of course I love you, Jimin. What reason would I have to pretend otherwise?”

He paces forward until he’s directly in front of her and meets her gaze with his own. “Keeping me under control when I eventually found out how you used me and lied to me. That would certainly be a good reason to orchestrate a fake relationship between a scientist and an experiment, right? I know that’s what I would do if I was in the business of lying, scheming, and ruining lives.”

Her eyes widen, and a foreign, detached part of him that lays beneath the roiling waves of anger that have overtaken him recognizes the fear that sparks in her gaze. He feels as though he should be repulsed that he could make her feel this way, but all that fills him is a deep satisfaction. He shifts, and she takes off down the hall. His initial surprise is all that allows her to get back to her room before he can reach her, and he’s rather impressed with her physical capabilities. She’s about to hit the alarm button when he forcibly turns her face toward him. He lowers his lashes and glances at her, tossing her a suave smile as he does so, and he feels her become complacent in his arms.

“And Hoseok? Did he get the same benefits that I did? Is he living my life in some other part of this laboratory?”

Haneul shakes her head, still under the effects of his power. “He knows what he is. All he has is me. You’ve been priority since we realized that you’re already more of a success than he will ever be.”

“Where is he now?” He feels his stomach turn, unsure whether he wants to hear the answer.

“Dead, or at least he should be,” she replies, her dazed eyes beginning to clear. He drops her as he opens her drawers, rummaging through them as she talks. “Dr. Carmen poisoned him this morning. He’s strong though.” She has a faint smile on her face as she says this, and with her lucidity fading, he almost feels a shred of sympathy for her, though it’s tinged with jealousy. “I hope he died, though. If she finds him tomorrow morning, it will be painful.”

With that, her head seems to finally clear, and she sits up. He turns toward her, a gentle smile on his face, though his mind is anywhere but on her. “What makes you think that I would let anyone touch a hair on my brother’s head?”

She finally seems to notice the small switchblade in his hand, and she lets out a piercing scream. He silences her swiftly, one hand clasped firmly over her mouth and the other opening shallow cuts along her arm. He hesitates, looking into her eyes as she squirms beneath him. He is made for this, he finds, much to his displeasure. It’s all too easy to overpower her, but when push comes to shove, he finds it harder than it should be to kill her.

He thinks of what she’s done to him. He may have loved her, he may still love her, but had she ever truly returned the sentiment? He finds himself breaking a sweat as he realizes that he doesn’t have much time. It’s almost certain that her scream triggered some sort of alarm.

Something snaps in him, and his consciousness travels back to the clone in his bed. His eyes are still closed, but he can hear sounds from inside his room.

“It’s a damn clone, Cameron,” Father says, his voice raised in anger. “Look in the fucking nightstand. He got the fucking filter out of his head!”

Almost against his will, his lip twitches. Never has he heard Father so agitated. It’s actually rather refreshing, to see the man exposed for the first time in his life.

Mother seems just as frantic, though she has a better handle on herself than Father does. “I know, Carson, but there’s no use complaining about it now. We know where he is now after hearing Haneul scream, so we can recover him.”

The loud sigh that Father gives shows no signs of willingness to comply with her words. “You’ve always been admirably dedicated to the experiment, but there’s only so much that we can do to recover a crazy ass powered adult. It’s better to just take him out.”

“You can do whatever you want. I’ll be leaving to recover him.”

With that, he hears the door close, and footsteps plod towards him.

“You can hear me, can’t you, you piece of shit?” Father hisses into his ear, causing him to flinch. Father hits him in the stomach, and his eyes fly open, the reinforcement saving him from the large majority of the pain, but still receiving a hard blow.

“You could have avoided all of this. You could have been the most revered person alive. We made you for a great purpose, greater than your tiny ass brain can realize. You could have freed us, but your selfish ass chose to fight rather than learn the truth.”

“And would you have told me that truth? What purpose was I made for?”

Father looks deranged now, and he delivers another unexpected blow to his head that sends him reeling. He reaches behind him and continues, saying, “We made you to challenge those who would claim themselves to be rulers of this world, those who think that the freakish aspects of their birth make them superior to those of us who have earned merit.”

With a sinking feeling, Jimin realizes that he’s pulled out a gun, aiming it with precision at his heart. His clone has little of the strength that he himself has, and he finds that he’s too dizzy to defend himself as Father flicks the safety off and begins applying pressure to the trigger.

“We made you to kill God.”

He snaps back into himself, chest burning and sputtering blood that isn’t truly his. Below him, Haneul has managed to partially free herself, and she grabs a heavy weight from off of one of her cluttered piles of random trinkets. He manages to raise his arm just in time to block the paperweight from hitting his head. It leaves a gash in his arm that exposes the shiny material of his reinforcements, and the shock causes him to loosen his grip enough for her to escape. He clambers after her, scarlet liquid dripping from his mouth. He catches her in an instant, pinning her arms.

There is no longer any time for hesitation. He remembers the sickening feeling when he was shot, remembers the searing pain. Father had missed just enough to make it hurt, and that memory motivated him to draw a quick line across her throat, dropping her as she coughs and whimpers in much the same way that he did. “I really did love you,” he says, his hands shaking but his resolve firm.

He dashes out into the hall in time to see Mother round the corner. He springs, a feral beast, and Mother barely gets out of the way before he crashes to the ground on all fours. His movements are clumsy with inexperience, but he’s on his feet again in an instant, his eyes turned an icy blue. His sharpened vision can spot the age on Mother’s face, the fears and smiles and worry that had made her who she is.

He hates it.

She has her own knife out now, even as she tries to soothe him. She has always been the one to be more affectionate, but now Jimin suspected that it had been more to do with the fact that she had never learned to fight like Father did. She had always dedicated herself to learning and the exact science of things rather than physicality. Of course, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t a threat to him in the present.

With his speed, it’s easy to land blows on her, but she’s surprisingly solid with her defense, never letting him get more than a glancing hit. Frustrated, he blows out a small stream of fire, and, seeing Mother flinch, he gets an idea.

The next time he launches an attack, he puffs out little spurts of fire. It becomes increasingly difficult for Mother to guard from both the fire and his switchblade, and soon enough, he gets a direct hit to her side. Blood gushes out, but she keeps fighting, seemingly unaware of the wound.

One wound turns into two, which turns into four, but she keeps fighting relentlessly, her movements showing no sign of slowing. It’s only when he hits an artery that she freezes, arms straining as though desperate to keep moving, and she drops. Heavy footsteps echo even from this far away, and Jimin masks himself, creeping down the hall soundlessly as he picks up Mother’s dropped knife.

Father stands armed with a short sword. Where it came from is beyond Jimin, as Mother had always been a pacifist, but a leer crawls across the older man’s face as his feet resound against the floor.

“I know you’re here, Jimin,” Father says, and it’s all he can do not to gasp. “After all, what would be the point of letting you have all the fun? I gave myself some updates while we worked on downloading content to you.”

Jimin bends backward as the sword swings where his head had been only a moment before. Panic begins to overtake him, as Father certainly does cut an intimidating figure. He continues, tossing the sword casually between his hands, almost like a dare. “I’m blessed with advanced strength,” he says, punctuating it by slamming a hand against the wall. The solid metal wall dents inward, leaving a baseball sized crater. “Advanced hearing,” he continues, his sword flashing centimeters away from Jimin’s nose. “And advanced speed.”

Then he is practically on top of Jimin, his sword drawing blood from the younger’s cheek. He becomes fully visible once again, weeping red tears. “What happened to the gun?” he asks, a brave smile etched across his face.

“Too quick for you,” Father replies, his sword barely missing as Jimin rolls backward, popping back onto his feet just in time to duck and avoid another hit. It’s clear that Father outmatches him in terms of physicality, so he has to mix it up. He hurriedly shakes his wrist, causing Father to laugh.

“Overheating, you weak bitch? I never understood the point of Cameron’s lessons, ensuring your comfort over something that would serve you in battle.” He pauses, watching Jimin redden, then seems to realize his mistake, lunging toward him right as he opens his mouth, spewing flames everywhere.

He breathes heavily, hoping that this is the end. Instead, a piercing laugh echoes from the heart of the blaze as it starts to dissipate. Parts of Father are still aflame as he swings his glowing sword at Jimin, the wound crossing his left shoulder. It’s cauterized in the same stroke, but he still lets out a scream and stumbles back, breathing heavily. With one arm practically useless, he prays as colors swirl around him that the earlier death hadn’t been permanent.

Blood still pours from his clone, but the wound seems to be closed, and it takes the knife from his useless arm and smiles at him. Somewhere in his mind, he knows he has full control over it, but he’d like to believe, at least for the moment, that it had done that of its own free will.

They redouble the attack, but Father’s performance seems to be barely hindered by the bubbling blisters on his skin. It’s a valiant fight, and for a moment, Jimin thinks that they might have him cornered, but then the older man’s free hand slams into his clone as his sword hilt smacks into his stomach. Both go flying back, and Jimin groans as his wounded shoulder slams into the wall with a crack.

Father stalks forward, bending down and grabbing Jimin’s head, only to slam it back against the wall. Though his skull is reinforced, he can still feel his head spin and his ears ring. He does it a second and third time, and Jimin can feel the blood seeping from the back of his head. He lets out a dazed smile, looking at Father with half closed eyes.

Father freezes. Jimin’s smile becomes more confident, the pale pink of his lips smeared with red. In his eyes, Father looks furious, but he finds himself immobile, and that’s all his clone needs to limp over and plunge its knife hilt deep into his back.

“I missed just enough to make it hurt more,” Jimin says, using his clone to pull himself into a standing position as Father collapses.

Jimin scrawls a note onto the paper that he had taken from Haneul’s room, then tucks it into the frame of the painting. He turns briefly, wincing as he strains his shoulder, and eyes the now unlocked containment facility across the room. He supposes that the minimal care he delivered would have to be enough, because with one arm incapacitated, he couldn’t do anything further for the man that lay inside.

He shuffles out of the room and picks up the slightly brown apple from where he had put it, scrutinizing it before raising it to his lips and reciting the words of his note.

“Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus,” he whispers, his breath fanning across the red skin of the fruit. “Advenio has miseras frater ad inferias. Today is a time of joy, however. You are not a failure.”

He bites into the apple, letting out a harsh scream as he collapses to the floor, his whines slowly turning into an inhuman roar.

Love, your brother.

“And with the reappearance of Park Jimin, 21, who disappeared almost five years ago, more credit is being given to Professor Bang Sihyuk’s theory of the connection between this incident and the disappearance of Jung Hoseok seven years ago. Currently, Park is receiving treatment for shattered bones among other injuries, but he seems set to make a miraculous recovery. He hasn’t revealed many details about the horrors he must have faced, but once the initial shock has faded, police feel confident that they will be able to get to the bottom of this case. Now, if you’re wondering about the best vacation spots, we’ll head back to Choi Eunsang for a special on-”

“Why do you watch this kinda fuckery? Shit melts your brain,” the man says, his words slurred from the drink in his hand. “If you have this kind of time, then go get me some beer from Yongwoo’s place.”

The boy grumbles, but he agrees with a nod, not wanting to anger him. He begins to slowly shuffle toward the entrance, but he keeps an ear out for anything that the man might say.

“Nayoung!” he bellows, continuing on his rant. “Where the hell is my food? The game is going to start any goddamn second now.”

The weary voice of his sister responds mere moments later, and it’s laced with a sweetness that the boy admires. How she manages to be kind to him despite the atrocities that he puts them both through is a mystery to him, but he knows why she does it. They’re struggling as it is, and despite the fact that Sung Cheol is a thug, they wouldn’t last a week without him.

He leaves, not wanting to hear any more of the exchange, and thinks of Park Jimin. How nice it would be to be taken away from this god awful life.

“Wake up,” he hears, and he rolls over, complaining. “Wake up, dumbass. I have a surprise for you.”

“You’re a fucking voice,” he groans. “How can you surprise me with anything?

“Just look up.”

Reluctantly, he rolls over, then lets out a gasp and hits his head on the bed frame. She lets out a peal of laughter, looking at him with a self satisfied expression as she flickers in and out of visibility.

“When?” he asks, incredulous, and she shrugs. He leans forward, trying to brush her hair out of her eyes, but his hand goes straight through her.

“In due time,” she answers, a soft smile on his face.