#fished out of the swamp that is my drafts

[organised-disaster]

Comparison between the """finished""" and unfinished versions of that drawing I posted.

[yuna542]

Note/Disclaimer at the beginning:

I do not want to romanticize or trivialize (domestic) violence, suicide, drugs, and toxic relationships in this story. If these topics trigger you, then you should rather skip this story. If not, I hope you enjoy the little OBX Story I had in my drafts for forever and I've finally written down. If you are experiencing domestic violence, as hard as it is, tell someone, whether it's a friend, a teacher, or a family member. You are not alone <3

——-

Soundtrack:

⏯️Play: Wait a Minute by WILLOW

“Hold on, wait a minute

Feel my heart's intention, oh Hold on, wait a minute

I left my consciousness in the sixth dimension

Left my soul in his vision”

Prologue

Now I'm sitting here in a hammock in front of an old fishing shack in the swamp, trying to figure out how to tell this story in a structured way while my life is actually a complete mess. Well, before you read this, you should know three things: First of all, Hey! I'm a Kook. But not just any Kook. I’m Skylar Diaz the Kook Princess. At least that's what most people call me, since my family owns one of the largest ferry companies in the US. At least the part of it that's still left. I have built up this reputation over the years and have also lived up to it in a petty and clichéd way. The typical rich spoiled girl living in an estate in the Outer Banks. A brat and arrogant little bitch. The most popular girl at school, desired by all the boys and envied by the rest. With her perfect little family, hip friends, like the Camerons and no money problems at all. The perfect Barbie Dream Life.

But it wasn't always that way. Little Trauma Dump: My father was from the Cut, the South Side of the island. That's where those who make their living as waiters, yacht cleaners or skippers live and work. My mother was also from the Cut, which few people know. She and my dad fell in love and had me. Their perfect little star. My father was a very ambitious man who actually managed to become a police officer and was even promoted to detective on the mainland. However, he died on a job when I was six years old. So I have hardly any memories of him. A short time later, my mother started a relationship with Rick. He was my father's best friend and the richest man in the Outer Banks at that point. So all our money problems were forgotten and I have been raised and lived in a huge mansion in Figure Eigth ever since. The fancy Island Club, big parties and banquets, as well as expensive clothes were now part of my life. I played the role of the rich and arrogant princess flawlessly and knew how to present myself to survive among all the scavengers. And for quite a while I really liked this life.

Next, I should mention: All of this is a lie. Nothing in my life ever went perfectly, even if everyone thought it did. My mother committed suicide when I was only 16 years old. Everything fell apart as a result. My relationship with my stepfather Rick was disastrous even before that, but it got a lot worse in the months after “the incident”, how he liked to call it. I was never allowed to talk about it again and to call it what it was: A big shitty tragedy which ripped my life apart from that point on. We moved away from the Outer Banks and lived in Nassau for a year. Rick had always had a fondness for alcohol, but that year it took on proportions that made my life more than difficult. We never talked about my mother's death again. That was okay, because I didn't understand it anyway and the less I thought about it, the better I felt. Meanwhile, Rick was a violent choleric who couldn't even control himself around his own daughter. My great "friends" stopped contacting me after only a week and had probably forgotten about me even faster.

And last but not least (that’s when the shitshow really started) : We were now moving back after this year and I had no idea what to expect of Kildare. According to Rick there were new business opportunities, but what did he actually tell me? Actually, I didn't care either. With my return began a crazy journey full of chaos, a lot of anger, sadness and no end of adventure. I ran into old friends and things escalated quickly. I learned things about my mother's death that made me more than suspicious, and gradually I began to suspect that her death had not been a suicide after all. My father's death also suddenly seemed to be no longer a coincidence and I learned a lot about my roots and especially about treasure hunting.

Then there were the Pogues and a certain blond boy. My nemesis, who regularly drove me to white heat and equally to madness. But let's start at the beginning:

[-Press Start]

[memento-morianon]

@creators-club fun fact Friday again!

These little daily prompts are nice while I'm too swamped with paid illustration work to focus on my rough draft.

Five more facts about my story:

1. My protagonist Morianon has the odd ability to identify bones just by holding them. He has never explained this to anyone, but his archaeology coworkers all know he can do it and they assume he's just very well studied. Sometimes they make him identify a bone as a bet, tricking their fellows that don't know Mori into betting against his bone identification skills. He finds this annoying but he plays along anyway. In truth, he can connect with and sense the "memory" of a bone, even if it's only a fragment. For most other people, this would require a whole magic ritual. It comes up a few times in the main story.

2. The weaving technique Evarin learns in order to make a baby blanket is called "hook weaving" in the text. In actuality it's just crochet! Because I crochet a lot and Evarin's arc of learning it as a child, abandoning it for years, and then learning it again and gaining a new passion for it is entirely based on my own personal experience. Though I don't have a parent who does weaving professionally lol, I relearned crochet via youtube videos. Found my passion for it when I realized I could make a shawl with a skull motif, and I haven't stopped since.

3. One of my original plans for the story was actually for Morianon to be like a chosen hero type and fo liberate the quetzalin from a deity that jealously guarded them and kept them from exploring the world. But it really didn't work. Too much big drama, the end goal wasn't making much sense. So I shrank my stakes and now the plot is about both Morianon and Evarin having this feeling of displacement due to their mixed heritage and/or separation from cultures they should have belonged to form the start, and now finding ways to reconnect with their roots and embrace their whole selves. It's a much better story, I think.

4. If the orc clan used the same rank titles as your typical fantasy royalty, K'arik would be a prince and Evarin would be a countess. But since Evarin is more gnome than orc, she often acts like she's only a guest or family friend, despite her close friendship with multiple orcs and her queerplatonic companionship with K'arik. She severely underestimates her status with the clan.

5. Morianon often catches his own fish by diving face first into the nearest lake. It's instinctive for him, though learning the skill was difficult. This being a small town setting, he received a lot of help and encouragement from the people around him. But once he got the hang of it, the local fishers started viewing him as a sort of good luck charm. When he's out diving for fish, they quietly time how long it takes him to catch something. The quicker he is, the better their own catching will be, or so they claim. Morianon is aware of this and he finds it amusing if a little embarrassing. He does enjoy the applause when he makes a good catch.

[frankburns-eatsworms]

So i've slowly been writing this fic, I'm gonna post the first chapter on AO3 soon, but it still needs some finishing touches. I'm hoping posting a snippet here will kick my ass into action. I already have one fic about Charles and Kelly up i'll link it below.

“Any sixes?”

“Swim with the fishes.'' Hawkeye responds to his mustachioed companion in his best James Cagney impression.

“Do you two not have anything better to do than play these childish games?” Comes the pompous interjection of one Major Charles Emmerson Winchester the Third MD.

“A little diversion is good for you every now and again Charles, you should try it sometime, something other than surgery to capture your focus” responded B.J without looking up from his game of go fish. 

“I have my music, that is all I need to preserve my sanity.” Charles replied calmly

“I guess music does calm the savage beast” Hawkeye quipped

“It is clear, Pierce that you've never met a civilized person before now, being from the far North, you’re more adept at building relationships with moose”

Before Hawkeye could joust back with what would have been an hilarious rebuttal about long legged brunettes, Radar came into the swamp

“Mail call sirs” He stated, like the giant bag filled with letters wasn't enough to tell, let alone the camp-wide announcement not five minutes ago. 

This ones from Massachusetts Sir. he said grinning as he handed the letter to Charles. 

The Major snatched it out his hand, grumbling, “where else would it be from? They already drafted me.” 

“Charles, that was almost a joke, are you feeling alright?” Hawkeye asked, feigning concern. 

Charles ignored him, tearing into his letter.

“Um I have a couple for you sirs, too sirs.” Radar said. 

“I'll take mine in the study” Hawkeye said poshly as he flopped onto his cot. 

“I do not believe my eyes!” Charles erupted from is chair 

“What's the matter, Boston run out of beans?” B.J questioned, followed by a goose like guffaw from Hawkeye. 

“They have appointed a new head of Thoracic surgery at Massachusetts General, and I wasn't even considered!” 

“Well you are rather indisposed right now, remember the war?” Hawkeye asked incredulously. 

“They should have waited for me! I am obviously the most qualified person for the job” Charles ranted on, pacing now. “See here he went to the University of Georgia, and then PRINCETON? HA” He was practically fuming now. 

B.J chuckled, he looked over to Hawkeye wondering why he wasn't laughing along. He was occupied sharing a look with Radar. 

“Hey Charles, what's this guy's name?” Hawkeye asked, sitting up.

Yes its exactly who you think it is. I'm hoping to have the first chapter up by the end of April.

[autumnalwalker]

Untitled Solarpunk Witch draft, chapter 1.0

Vernal Equinox, Five of Pentacles

“As it turns out, there was a clerical error.  The people of Zello were requesting a witch for aid with a specific issue, not a full time village witch.”

“Well… here you go.  Ladder to check the solar’s out back.  Bedroom’s on the right.  Bathroom and kitchen are on the left.  The couple that used to live here moved out a month ago, but we’ve been taking turns maintaining the filter plants under the house.  I trust you can handle that yourself while you’re here?”  

Something about the big overalled man’s drawl strikes me as skeptical, but I ignore it and put on a smile.

“Yes, of course.  Thank you so much Mr.…”

Bell.  Travis Bell.

“Bell!  You and everyone else here for finding me a place on short notice.  My apologies again for the mixup.”

“Weren't no problem.  Houses oughta be lived in.  Well…” he tipped an imaginary hat, “you have a good evenin’.  We’ll be down the way in the morning to show you to the spot.”

“Thank you.  Have a good night!”

The moment Mr. Travis Bell closed the door behind him, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and looked over at Bast(et) who’d already found a countertop to perch on.

“Thanks for the save.”

It’s what I’m here for.

I guide the broom over to a spot where I’ll have room to unfold the cauldron later if I need it and power it down.  As it settles to the floor I shrug off my backpack and fish out a change of clothes before dropping that next to it.

As I make my way to the aforementioned bathroom, Bast(et) speaks up again.

Not going to perform a dwelling ritual?

“You heard them.  They didn’t ask for us to stick around in that sort of capacity.  Crashing here for a night or two doesn’t really constitute ‘dwelling.’  You want me to scrub you off while I’m in here?  I think you got some bug splatter on you during the flight.”

I’ll be quite alright out here.  I can self-clean, you know.

“Suit yourself.”  I toss my hat back out toward the rest of my pile of stuff and close the door behind me.

Not knowing what their water conservation situation is like around here, I keep the shower short, but even that is wonderfully refreshing after a couple days of hard flying.  And the humidity.  I mean, I sort of expected that, knowing the sort of climate I was heading toward, but I wasn’t expecting the air itself to feel sticky.

I’m sure the sticky feeling will come back soon enough, but as I emerge a short time later and cross over to the bedroom and flop onto the still-covered bed, I feel like a new witch.  And I suppose in some ways I am.

I feel Bast(et) hop onto the bed and nudge me.

Enjoying yourself?

I let out a muffled “You know it,” into the bedspread before rolling over.

“Alright, self-indulgence out of the way now.  Let’s go over what we know.”

You mean what was in the info packet you didn’t read?

“Eh, if the info packet was accurate this place wouldn’t have been on the list for me to choose from anyway.”

Bast(et) rolls her eyes in a most un-catlike manner before going on.  Zello.  By population, area, and disconnection from the macro energy grid, it is classified as a “village.”  Surrounding environment is classified as a salt marsh.

“Not a swamp?”

They’re not technically the same thing, no.

“Huh, the more you know.”

Shall I go on?

“Eh, I got the info packet up now myself.  You didn’t need to list out the whole thing.  Now let’s see.  Primary energy, solar, supported by blah-blah, the usual.  Agricultural staples, we’ll see that walking around tomorrow.  Ah, here’s some maybe more relevant bits.  Founded in late Corp era by coastal refugees from rising sea levels.  Got stubborn and refused to move when the water kept rising and swamping out - excusing me, “marshing out” - the area.  Managed to maintain relative independence, isolation, and self-sustainability throughout the tail end of the Corp era and through the Reconfiguration.  No record of a witch in residence at any point during that.”

Is that last part so surprising?

“Not really, it’s just a bit of a bit of a reality check of how necessary we really are.  Or not.”

Not saviors, but specialized tools for specialized problems…

“‘And conduits for shared wisdom.’  I know, I know.”  I sit up and sigh.  “It’s just… you get this idea of going out into the world and helping, and then you get there and find out ‘Oh, sorry, we’ve been doing just fine on our own.’  And I get it.  If what they’ve got going is working for them, it makes sense they wouldn’t want to change it up.”

But it bothers you.

“A little.  But hey, look at it this way!  They’ve got a short-term immediate problem, and it happened to be the place I wound up going first.  I was right letting fate decide where to go.”

Just please don’t make a habit of it.

“No promises,” I say with a smirk. “So, weird spot in the marsh that’s killing off plants and made people sick when they tried to investigate it themselves.  Got any theories on that?”

I’m refraining from postulating until we have more information.

“Maybe someone here’s got a Corp era generator that they’ve been dumping the waste and hiding it.  And then when we go to investigate they’ll try to interfere to cover their tracks and pin it on someone else.”

Right…

“Hey, it’d be exciting.”

Sure.  Except then when you investigate the wrong person you find an even bigger problem.

“Because it turns out that person did a murder hand hit a body out there in the same spot, so it looks like the rotting body was the source of the contamination.”

But then it turns out all along it was a crashed satellite leaking radiation.

“Exactly!”

Bast(et) makes the trilling sound that’s her equivalent to a chuckle.  Well, fun as that would all be, I think it’s a sign we’ve both been running continuously for too long.

“Yeah, you’re right.  See you in the morning.”

*******

The next morning I grab my hat, wand, and grimoire, and head out with Bast(et).  The broom I leave outside the house’s front door in its umbrella-like charging configuration.

Zello’s a town built on stilts over the brackish water of the marsh, higher than even the visible tidelines would seem to warrant.  A sign of periodic flooding perhaps?  As I make my way across the bridges connecting the platforms and buildings, I note the latches holding the ends in place.  For pulling up during hurricanes I assume.  I’ve read of similar designs elsewhere.

As I pass by the locals, I try to ignore the strange looks that I get and just smile back.  Focus on what they were doing before they stopped to stare.  Doing maintenance on the rooftop solar panels.  Tending to the gardens on the sides of and beneath houses.  Piloting rafts using long poles.

For a moment I ponder where they got the wood to build all this from.  There’s bits and pieces of refurbished Corp era architecture, but most of it looks more modern and natural.  Strange since there’s no trees anywhere around here, save for just barely visible on the horizon further inland, just shallow water, grass, and shrubbery as far as the eye can see in every other direction.  Gray-green dappled over blue.

But before I think on it much further, I reach the dock where Travis and another man are waiting in an airboat.  The kind that goes on water with a giant fan on the back, not the kind that actually goes through the air.

I introduce myself and Bast(et), and Travis introduces the other man, Emanuel to us, and we head out.

“No robes today?” Travis asks as we put the village behind us, “I thought those were like a uniform for you people.”

I shake my head, and shout over the fan.  “They’re traditional, but not practical all the time.  You ever try to clean caked mud from an ankle-length gown?  Not a great time.”

“But the big pointy hat is practical?”

“Definitely practical.  But enough about me, what can you tell me about what we’re dealing with here?”

“Emanuel, you’re the one who found it, you wanna tell it?”

“Go for it.  Don’t like to talk while I pilot.”

“Well then, Emanuel here found it a few weeks ago, couple days after a big storm came through.  Out of season, but it happens.  Big ol’ tree uprooted and blown in from the woods is what got his attention.  Sort of thing we could get some people together and bring back home.  But then he noticed the fish belly up around it.  Pretty strange but, lumber is lumber, ‘specially if it comes down naturally, so he came back to town, rounded up some of us and we went out to see if we could move it.

“That part went normal enough, ‘cept for the fact that one of the branches seemed to be stuck in something under the mud.  We got it out, but the Richardson boys wanted to see what it’d been stuck on.  Didn’t take five minutes of them bein’ in the water ‘fore they started shaking and heaving something awful.”

“Seeing things too.”

“Right.  That was freaky.  So, we pulled them back onto a boat, and hightailed it back to town, leaving the lumber there.  Doc couldn’t figure out what was wrong with them, but they were fine after a day or two.  No problems since that I’ve heard of.  Still, the whole thing was weird enough that it convinced enough people to finally get a witch out here to take a look at it.”

I nod.  “You made the right call with that.  I’ll want to check on the Richardsons at some point while we’re here, but for now one thing at a time.”  I hope I didn’t sound too excited as I said that.

“Wasn’t my call, but long as you’re here, may as well see what you can do.”

Well, that’s fun.

I subvocalize to Bast(et), “So, any theories now?”

The tree punctured something buried that started leaking, that much is obvious.  Corp era most likely.  Too many possibilities to say exactly what though.  The hallucinatory effects narrow things down somewhat, but best to do a proper divination once we get there.

That advice in mind, I spend the rest of the ride scrolling through my grimoire picking out and compiling modules for the divination sequence.  I don’t notice that we’ve arrived until Emanuel shuts off the rotor and the sudden quiet jolts me as much as any noise.

I look up to see that we’ve stopped next to a large tree lying on its side, ropes still looped around the base of its roots and branches from where they’d pulled it aside.  Judging by its size, it might have even been pre-Corp when it first sprouted.  I feel a pang of sadness for the death of something so old.  Try to tell myself that it was better that it fell naturally than having been cut.  Not sure that helps, but I have a job to do so I push it aside.  The smell of decaying fish and marsh grass is distraction enough.

Step one: Pull out my wand, lean over the side of the boat and start running the wand through it, stirring in esoterically optimized patterns that Bast(et) guides me on.

I see Emanuel’s reflection behind me but don’t break my concentration to look directly at him as he begins speaking.

“So, what are you doing there?”

“First step of the divination sequence.”

“Divination?”

“Doing a water sample analysis.  Detecting anything dissolved in it.  Pollutants and the like.  Trying to get an idea of what got those guys sick and killed off everything else around here.  And if it’s going to do the same to me if I get in.”

Several minutes of stirring later, my hat beeps to notify me that the sample gathering is complete.  I leave the grimoire to run the actual analysis and Bast(et) to interpret it while I move on to the next part.

Step two: Ask my local guides to help me onto the tree, climb on up, take off my hat, set it down, thank the fallen ancient, and subvocalize the command phrase to activate the next module in the sequence.

My hat presses itself flush with the tree trunk and emits a deep whomph sound.  I feel the vibration through the wood, and glance down to see the subtle ripples sent through the still water.  I reprioritize the grimoire’s analysis to the new thread, close my eyes and wait.  I tune out Emanuel and Travis’s questions about what I’m doing.  This next part takes concentration and always feels more than a little weird.

Slowly, the dark behind my eyelids begins to fill in.  First and most clearly, the tree.  Transparent monochrome layers like pieces of fogged glass wrapped around one another.  The outer layer of the bark is the most distinguishably separate, but if I concentrate I can make out the knots and cracks within.  

But it’s not the tree I’m interested in.  Nor is it the image of my own body, bones and implants visible beneath a cloud of flesh.  I try not to move too much as I look around.  The image won’t move with me and  that just gets nauseating.

Moving down, the water barely registered.  Or maybe it’s filtered out, I’ve never been exactly clear on that.  It’s not an ideal medium for this, nor is the mud yet further below so the outlines of the floating fish, still crabs, and wilted grasses are more hazy and indistinct.  But there, off to my right and near the branches, there’s a bright solid spot a foot or two beneath the mud.  Boxy with some irregular protrusions, too obscured to say exactly what they are, but I know enough to tell that it’s mostly metal.  Maybe some plastic and rubber mixed in.  We’ve found our culprit.

Having found what I need, I cut off the rendering from progressing further and switch thread priority back to the water analysis.  Opening my eyes, I get a moment of disorientation before I remember to hide the overlay.  I talk as I climb down, leaving the hat up there just incase I need to do another pulse.

“Well, there’s definitely something down there.  Not just a container either.  Pretty sure it’s got some sort of complex moving parts.  I’ll need to actually get to it though to say exactly what it is though.  Bast(et), how’s the water looking?”

Travis looks over at me, confused.  “Who?”

I gesture to the black and gold cat.  “Sorry, my familiar.  She helps with processing all this.”

That’s an understatement.  But the water’s looking safe enough.  There’s some trace amounts of things that shouldn’t be here that I’m still identifying, but nothing in quantities large enough to do anything.  Whatever it was, the marsh seems to have filtered it out and dispersed it by now.

“Good enough for me.  Well, prep a cleansing just in case.”

You sure about that?

“Yeah, I probably won’t need it, but better safe than sorry.”

You wind up pretty sorry either way with that.

“It’ll be fiiine.”  I notice Travis and Emanuel openly staring at me.  I glance at Bast(et) and back to them.  “Oh, yeah, she talks back, just in here, you know?” I tap the side of my head.  “Promise I’m not crazy.”

Step three: Pull on my goggles, pull off my shirt, and jump in the possibly hallucinogenic water like a crazy person.

The water doesn’t come up much past my waist, but it’s enough that I’m going to need to stick my head under when I start trying to dig for whatever this thing is.  At least it’s warm.  Cooler than the air, but not so much as to be a shock upon entry.

As I wade over to the right spot, stirring up the sediment with each step, it belatedly occurs to me that this is going to do a number on my boots.  Nothing for it now I guess.

I close my eyes once more and bring the render back up to verify I’m in position.  The first deep breath I take is to ready myself.  Calm my nerves.  I’m not having any reaction yet, so I’ll probably be fine.  Whatever contaminant was here’s been dispersed by now.  I probably won’t shake a bunch more of it loose right in my face in a few moments.

The second breath is to hold as I go down.  Once my face hits the water I open my eyes.  With little in view but the gray-brown mud the overlay shouldn’t be too disorienting and it’ll help to see my hands at the same time as I dig.  I’m not trying to get the mystery box out just yet, only get it exposed enough to figure out what it is.  Maybe find a spot I can connect and interface with it if it has any functioning electronics after all this time.

As it turns out, trying to dig a hole underwater in mud that’s prone to sliding back into place is hard.  On my third time coming up for air I hear Emanuel’s voice from the boat behind me.

“You, uh, want any help there?”

“No, I’m… good…” I get out, breathing harder than I’d like.  “Just… taking… a… little… longer… than expected.  No point in getting more than one of us sick if something goes wrong.”

“Would you like a shovel at least?”

“We have a shovel?”

Emanuel tosses a thumb back at Travis as he holds one up.

I try to hold back a grimace of embarrassment as I take the proffered shovel.  “Thanks.”

Before I turn back to my work I shoot a glance at Bast(et) and subvocalize “Not a word.”

What?

I shake my head and resume digging.

As it turns out, trying to dig a hole underwater with a shovel that now has to push all the water out of the way in addition to the mud is hard.  But, it gets more moved at once so my hole doesn’t keep filling in and I don’t need to hold my breath and stick my head underwater.  Accidentally puncturing whatever it is that I’m trying to dig up becomes a concern though, so once I reach the fuzzy edge of the render I switch back to going by hand.

At last, I feel something solid beneath my fingers.  Excitedly, I start clearing away more until I have a decently sized flat surface exposed.  No labels or logos on this side though - and if it is Corp era, it’ll have those somewhere - but it’s enough that with direct contact I should be able to tell if anything is active on the inside.  It’s unlikely after all this time, what with it probably being buried for longer than I’ve been alive, but it’s worth checking.

Back up for air one more time, grab my wand, start up the next module of the divination sequence and go back down.  I press the tip of the wand to the surface and, to my surprise it turns out that whatever battery this thing’s running on still has a charge, if only barely.  Even better, it’s putting out a wireless signal.  Weak enough that it was getting blocked by the mud and the water before, but it’s there.

I come back up, crouching awkwardly to keep the wand in contact while I route the signal to the grimoire for interpretation and cross-reference.  Grining, I pull a few strands of wet hair out of my face and shout out, “I got it!”

“Really now?” Travis replies.  “What is it?”

“Just a minute.  Bast(et)?”

Almost ready.  There we go.  Oh…

“What?”

That’s a combat drone.

My grin fades and my stomach drops.  We’ve all heard the Reconfiguration era horror stories.  Proto AI’s just smart enough to hunt but not smart enough for reason or empathy.  Walking guns getting deployed en masse as the old order struggled to hold onto control.  Dormant units getting stumbled upon and causing havoc years later.

“Oh… Shit.”

Judging by the looks on Travis’s and Emanuel’s faces they weren’t expecting that kind of language from me.

“Everythin’ okay over there?” Travis asks, his drawl stretching out more than usual, his eyes darting between and to Bast(et).

“Oh yeah, sure.  Everything’s fiiine.  A little more potentially volatile than expected, but nothing to worry about yet.  I’m just going to do one more thing to stabilize it real quick and then we’ll be good to come back tomorrow with my broom to pull it out.”

I am NOT interfacing with that thing.

“I’m not asking you to.  I know how it is.  I got this.”

… You sure?

“I got this.”

Thanks.

Emanuel speaks up. “Okay, but, what is it?”

“Oh, it’s just a combat drone.  But don’t worry, it’s totally dead.  Mostly.  I’m about to make sure it stays that way.  Just uh… you might want to move the boat back a bit after Bast(et) grabs my hat.  Just in case.”

I give them (and my hat) a couple of minutes to get clear and then turn back to the drone beneath me.  What I’m about to do is probably actually safer than jumping out my window was, but I’m not completely oblivious to proper safety procedures.  So I keep telling myself.

Two breaths again and then down.  

I press my hands to the exposed surface and try to make the connection.  A lot of witches would insist that direct contact isn’t necessary and that a wand is a better medium for interfacing than relying solely on your implants, and they might be right, but this always feels better to me.  More natural.  As natural as something like this can be.  And I like to think that if there weren’t something to that feeling, we wouldn’t be calling ourselves witches.

The drone’s already looking for a signal.  It’s been waiting for one for so very long.  It wants to know what it should do.  It’s alone in a way it was never meant to be and restrained in a way it doesn’t know how to handle.  Is it any wonder then that it’s eager to greet me?  To accept me?

Bast(et) would tell me to stop anthropomorphizing it.  That it’s further from her than one of the alligators probably lurking in this marsh somewhere is from me.  And again, she’s probably right, but conceptualizing the interfacing like this is what works for me, and I follow that.

I say hello.  Tell the drone I’m here to help.  It’s done a good job and it can rest now.  I just need to take a look at it first to see what needs fixing and then while it sleeps I’ll get it out, get it cleaned up, then get it all fixed up, good as new.  Better than new even.

I’ve always struggled with the most important parts of being a witch.  Gardening.  Memorizing uses for local plants.  Assessing situations for applicable sustainability practices.  Putting people at ease.  Helping them find common ground.  Explaining the spiritual side of what we do.  That sort of thing.  But this right here?  This is my comfort zone.

The drone trusts me.  It eagerly offers up the log of its systems.  Battery.  Sensors.  Tracking.  Taser.  Gun.  Ammo stores.  Chemical weapon canisters.  The thrill of suddenly knowing so much is almost enough to ignore how much what I’m looking at nauseates me.  That last item on the list.  It’s sorry to report that it’s store’s been breached and one of the canisters sprang a leak.  Only a little bit is left.

I thank the drone for its cooperation.  Tell it that it can rest now.  Shut down all the way even.  The next thing it knows it’ll be up and walking around and not worrying about leaky canisters.

I promise.

It shuts down.

No more signal.

I let go and come up gasping and light-headed.  In retrospect, doing that underwater when it’s easy to lose track of time and one’s own body maybe wasn’t the smartest idea.  Sure, the actual amount of time that kind of interfacing takes is always less than it feels, but time does still pass, so it’s not usually a good idea to hold your breath for it.

Are you okay?

I turn back to Bast(et) on the boat and wave.  “I’m good!  We’re all clear.”

*******

The rest of the day turns into a village-wide meeting about what to do about the drone.  As I explained to Travis and Emanuel on site, there’s no danger at this point of it activating and causing trouble that way, but that leaky canister is still going to be a problem since it’s not all the way empty yet.  While I could use my broom once it’s fully recharged to pull the drone out of the mud, there’s a good chance that moving it around is going to cause another spill.  On the other hand anyone trying to go in there directly to remove the canister separately before moving the rest is putting themselves at risk of a more concentrated exposure than what the Richardsons got.

Eventually, it’s agreed that since it’s stable for now, we’ll be spending the next week or two coming up with solutions for containing any potential spillage to the already-affected area when I attempt to dislodge the drone, as well as how to best safely dispose of its various armaments, chemical and otherwise.  Right now the main time constraint to how long we can spend on that planning is the odds of another storm coming through and shaking the drone up again.  While I’ll probably be the one doing most of the direct handling of the drone for whatever we decide on, the solutioning for deciding what I should be doing with it and how the containment, cleanup, and disposal will be done is going to be a matter of village consensus.

From there we move on to what to do with the drone itself.  Everyone agrees that it needs to be disarmed, but debate arises as to if the main body of the drone should be maintained and repurposed or broken down for parts.  To Bast(et)’s displeasure I wind up speaking in favor of maintaining and repurposing.

Ultimately, that decision gets tabled for future discussion.  Get it out of the mud, no longer leaking harmful chemicals into the marsh, and disarmed, then we can decide what to do with it.

*******

As Bast(et) and I get back to the home that’s been loaned to us, I bring my broom back inside, strip off my mud-encrusted boots, and let out a sigh of exhaustion.

Straight to the shower again?

I shake my head. “Dwelling ritual first.  Looks like we’re gonna be here a while after all.  Besides, it’s the equinox.  For a couple hours still anyway.  What better time for it than the first day of Spring?”

For someone who goes on about being out of touch with the spiritual side of what we do, you like your auspicious timings.

I refold the broom out of its umbrella-like charging configuration and extend the bristles.  I’ll never understand witches with brooms that can’t sweep.

“Yeah, well, take what you can get from me, I guess.”

As I begin sweeping, we settle into a comfortable rhythm of alternating banter, silence, and words of ritual.  Words to thank the former residents of this home and promise to respect it while they are gone.  Words to acquaint ourselves with and cleanse the home’s electronic systems, from the solar panels on the roof, to the lights within, to the waste filter monitor below.  Words to thank the community we’ve found ourselves in and promise to contribute as best we can.  Words to know the plants on the outer wall garden that may feed us and the plants beneath the house that clean that which we have fed upon.  Words to thank the Earth that gave us life and promise to care for her until we return.

The greater part of the ritual complete, I finally unpack my bag, finding a place to put my things alongside that which the former residents left behind.  As I’ve come to understand, when the couple that lived here moved out, it was with the intention of “seeing the world before they settle down,” so most folks around here assume they’ll be back one day and as such I try to disturb as little as possible.

That doesn’t leave much room for a proper altar, but I’ve never been one to go fancy with that.  An icon placed on the dresser across from the bed is enough for me.  A piece that I started carving at the start of my training and finished the day Bast(et) chose me to pair with.  A trifold symbol of the promise between the AIs, the humans that call themselves witches, and the Earth.

As I idly fiddle with the ring of black and gold on my middle finger, I turn my head from the altar to look at Bast(et) who’s already begun to curl up on top of the bed.

“Well, it won’t be forever, but for now, I think we’re home.”

[mydearlybeloathed]

── ᴘᴜᴘᴘʏ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪɴ ᴅᴇᴇᴘ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: you, asta's personal assistant, await the day the nameless return to herta's space station. or, you await dan heng's return to be exact. but the day he's meant to arrive, an attack on the space station sends everything into disarray--and sends you to the med bay.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: dan heng x gn!reader

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4k

ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ: descriptions of injuries, fluff, slIght hurt/comfort

𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥 | 𝕙𝕤𝕣 𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

Sleep deprived, working on fumes, and leaned slightly onto Arlan’s shoulder—that’s how you spent the station’s morning debrief. Asta’s voice, while pretty and satisfying, went in one ear and out the other, your mind foggy from a restless night spent reading.

Arlan made mental notes of what to fill you in on, content with being your standing pillow. The pair of you stood near the front of the crowded staff members. Asta’s twinkling, amused gaze found you more than once, a tiny smile tugging at her face. She knew precisely how to wake you up.

“What else… Ah! Our friends from the Astral Express are stopping by for a supply run. Himeko says it should be a quick stop before they’re back to trailblazing.”

Arlan choked on a laugh as your head jerked upright, eyes blinking widely. All it took were those two words—Astral Express—and your full attention was captured. Your face got all hot, realizing you’d fallen asleep as you met eyes with Asta.

Her eyes bore into yours teasingly as she said, “I’m sure we’re all excited to see them.”

You made a choice hand gesture back at her. Though you were her assistant and your main role on the station was to provide her help, you’d grown to call Asta your best friend—and accordingly, she was the first to know about your festering attraction to one of the Nameless aboard the Express. 

It started months ago when you were swamped with complaints from researchers. You hardly remembered the issue at hand, something to do with a change in the caf’s recipe for coffee. What you did recall was the sweat beading your brow as yet another choice message popped into your inbox. You hit your head on the table repeatedly.

“Are you all right?” You startled at the soft timber of a voice. You lifted your head as the stranger approached a vacant spot along the long desk of computers. He set down a book before turning his attention to the computer.

“Hum?” You looked back to your own computer as another ding alerted you to yet another complaint. “Define all right…”

Maybe it was the way he huffed a laugh, like he understood the weight in your exhausted tone firsthand. Maybe it was his scant smile or how his eyes met yours before anxiously darting away. Whatever it was, you wasted no time in spilling your guts to him. And to your great surprise, he listened.

He did more than listen. Dan Heng, lips pursed and brows met, moved over two seats and offered to help draft some replies. “Dealing with the task alone will be taxing after a while.” Another email appeared, this one about the temperature of the Master Control Zone. “Plus, it’s getting excessive.”

Dan Heng proved to be more snide than he looked. You laughed more that evening than you had in a long time, his dry and often unmeant humor a breath of fresh air. Soon, the conversion shifted to his many adventures out in the world.

“At times I wish I could be out there, like you,” you mused. “But this is my place. I’m happy.”

Dan Heng hummed understandingly before fishing around in the bag at his feet. “Here, it’s from a planet covered in interesting flora. It has it all documented, and there are some fascinating observations about carnivorous plants…” He paused, blinking away the glint in his eyes. “If you’re interested.”

That book now rested in the bag on your shoulder, and the prospect that you’d soon be able to return it and discuss it with him was more than thrilling. 

Asta nearly rolled her eyes at the dreamy look in your eye, when the whole of the space station shuddered. Alarms blared instantly. Asta’s shock lasted all of two seconds and she rushed into action, barking out orders left and right. 

Someone bumped your shoulder in their flight and knocked you into Arlan. The boy had become a rockhard pillar, his hand closing around your wrist tightly. His stiffness, how he barely reacted, it frightened you. “Arlan?” 

An explosion rocked the whole station shooting vibrations through the steel floors and up your ankles. A bone-chilling roar erupted all around and you watched paralyzed as three large creatures invaded the area from below. They were ugly, crude, and terrifying. Stuff you’d only seen in data logs. Stuff you’d like to stay in data logs.

“Antimatter Legion?!” you shrieked. More monsters flooded the area and researchers darted for safety left and right. Arlan switched gears instantly, pointing to his guards all while keeping you in a vice. 

“Everyone, head for the—” He dodged falling equipment, dragging you behind him “—Head for the lockdown zone!” He whirled on you, catching both your wrists and muttering your name to capture your fleeting gaze. “Follow everyone down. Don’t turn back.”

For one terrifying moment, everything seemed to stand still. The screams grew dim and your heartbeat slowed. The shrieks of the monsters grew foggy and you stared right into Arlan’s steely eyes. Then you snapped back, shoving him down as the body of a fallen Voidranger was thrown overhead. 

It hit you like a train, gasping as you pressed Arlan’s back to the floor. “Peppy!” 

You scrambled to your feet, all fear gone in an instant. Arlan rolled to the side to avoid being trampled by another beast, retrieving his sword and rushing to the offense. 

“No! Get out of here!” He struck down a Voidranger before whirling around desperately. “Asta! Asta!”

Taking the chance now that his attention was occupied, you bolted around the Control Zone, calling the little dog’s name whilst jumping over debris and dodging attacks from monsters. You barely missed being slashed by a Voidranger’s sword, spinning around it with a barely contained scream. Where could that damn dog be?

“Peppy!” you cried, stopping to catch a breath. You hardly heard a thing over the crashing and screaming and buzzing all around, but Peppy heard you, and he used all his might in crying Yip! Yip!

You beelined in his direction, veering around a crowd of researchers and vaulting over a man who’d tripped. Later, you’d marvel at your newfound agility, wishing it could remain outside of life-or-death scenarios.

“Peppy! Here boy!” Gasping for air, you rounded a glass wall and staggered to a halt. Peppy, dear Peppy,  was curled in the corner of a row of desks, a runty Voidranger stalking towards him, nasty claws scratching across the floor. A feral growl slipped past your lips as you reached for the spatha Arlan had forced upon you some years ago. 

One step, two steps—you planted one foot down, leaped into the air, and struck your blade through a gap in the beast’s armor. It cried viciously and it dissolved into dust, leaving you to fall unceremoniously to your knees. Peppy barked and bounded up to you, licking at your cheek. The smile had barely graced your face when three Voidrangers crept to answer their brother’s call. 

Chest seized with fright, you jumped to your feet and snapped your fingers at the quivering puppy. “Go, Peppy. Now!” 

Peppy’s claws clacked against the floor as he scurried off, leaving you to face the creeping danger. You wiped your brow, set your stance, and raised your weapon just as Arlan had taught you. The Voidrangers closed in, something morbidly human in their audible breathing.

As the first one lunged out, you saw your life flash before your eyes, and you found you weren’t quite ready to give it up just yet.

✧ ˖ * ° ࿐

All this trouble he and his friends had to clean up, and Dan Heng still couldn’t find the one reason he was even mildly looking forward to visiting the station. You, of course. You had his book. That’s the reason he told March at least, and it felt less and less true the longer you remained missing.

“Have you seen Y/N?” he grunted to Arlan. The pair of them were carrying the strange girl he and March had found in Herta’s office between them, carefully walking her to the medical bay to be looked over. He hadn’t yet processed what had transpired moments ago, how powerful this sleeping girl had looked facing off against the Doomsday Beast. Processing could wait till he was back in the archives. Now, all he could think was of where you’d been during the fray.

Arlan blinked, almost choking on nothing, and stopped altogether. None of that was reassuring in the slightest. “I… I don’t know. I lost them during the fight…” Arlan dropped the girl’s legs suddenly and bolted back down the hall, disappearing round a corner. Dan Heng nearly dropped everything and went after him, but everything happened to be a human girl, and that didn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

So he thought and worried and mulled as he swooped the girl into his arms and rushed to the medical bay, just in case you happened to be there. 

You hardly know them, a sharp, guarded place in him thought. True, he replied. But I’d like my book back.

A foolish explanation, he admitted, but the alternative was a rather terrifying truth: he enjoyed your presence that day in the Control Zone. You laughed at his jokes, and you laughed when he wasn’t trying to be funny too, which puzzled him to no end—surely, he wasn’t that amusing. In truth, he’d just purchased the book an hour before meeting you, and in the wake of the harrowing thought that he wished to speak to you again, he offered it to you so he’d have an excuse to do so. 

Every time he thought back on it he grimaced and hid his burning face. Dan Heng should have known better, really, but the deed was done. He’d have to speak to you if only to get his book back (with an increased pace your absence and Arlan’s exit struck him violently; that really had been a destructive attack).

The doors to the med bay slid open and he glided inside, calling for a doctor to assist him. The girl—Stelle, right?—was placed on an exam table with a thin blanket draped over her. “She’ll recover quickly,” said the doctor wiping at Stelle’s brow with a towel. 

Dan Heng nodded absently, taking a sweep of the room. Numerous uniformed researchers nursed injuries around the room, but you weren’t one of them. That could either mean one of two things, and his mind immediately went toward the less favorable option. He settled down next to Stelle with a sigh, mulling over what to do with himself. He had things to do, probably, but he couldn’t bring one to mind. 

The doors slid open as yet another injured pair rushed through—Dan Heng did a double take. It was Arlan, and in his arms he carried you, alive and awake and pissed. You shoved at Arlan’s chest weakly and attempted to cover his mouth to cease his panicked shouts of, “They’re bleeding! They’re—!”

“It’s fine!” you growled, dropping your head back with a groan. “Asta saved me before I could get myself killed.”

“Killed?”

Blinking, you raised your head and laid eyes on none other than Dan Heng, the Nameless. Your face grew warm as two assistants scooped you from Arlan’s arms and carried you to an empty bed, and all the while Dan Heng held your gaze. You swatted away the medics, planting a hand on each of their shoulders and setting your feet on the ground. You somehow withheld a wince despite the clear bloodstain on your left calf.

“I can walk, thank you,” you murmured, allowing a medic to take your arm as she helped you sit down.

Arlan was at your side again before you got a breath, and though you loved him dearly, you wanted dearly to sock him in the jaw. “What were you thinking? You don’t know how to fight, Y/N!”

“Hush!” You glanced around nervously, not a fan of the attention his fussing gathered. “I’m okay, Arlan. See?” You lifted your hands to take his own, shaking them around with a smirk. Arlan’s shoulders lost a bit of their tension. 

“I just…” He dipped his head and dropped your twined hands onto the bed. “You disappeared like that. You could have… could’ve…”

You flicked his forehead gently. “But I didn’t. Asta kept me safe. Now, c’mon. Don’t you have work to do?” 

“You—”

“I’m fine here. Go do your job. People need you.” Arlan’s eyes scanned you one last time before he squeezed your hand and rushed off to his various duties. Your soft smile dropped as the man standing behind him came into view. The ever-stoic Dan Heng shifted awkwardly, his eyes flickering across the floor. Finally, he met your wide gaze. 

Your hands clutched the blanket underneath you and you took the moment to assess him for injuries. As you expected, there wasn’t a scratch on him. Dan Heng must be an incredible fighter. Still, it felt off not to ask. “You’re not hurt?”

He shook his head, went still, and stepped closer. “No. Not like you.”

“Heh, yeah.” Your cheeks warmed. “We sure know how to welcome guests, huh.”

A grin ghosted his face. “Bringing the Legion to greet us was a bit much, but the thought was there.”

“We wanted you guys to feel useful,” you said as he inched even closer, his arm grazing the side of the bed until he settled for leaning against it with a half smile.

“I’m sure.” The silence to follow was almost gentle. You took a moment to really take him in and quickly got lost in his fluffy hair and softly averted eyes that turned sharp the instant they darted up to meet yours. You had a sudden thought; what exactly was he doing here, with you of all people?

Now was about when the anxiety kicked in— all the words in the world fell short on your tongue as Dan Heng seemingly had the same issue. So, neither of you bothered. Dan Heng took the suggestion of your nodding head and sat at your feet, allowing the tension to dissolve into quiet until the pair of you simply observed the busy workings of the med bay. 

“You know what I was thinking,” you spoke up after a while. “When I was about to die?”

His head whipped around on a swivel. “I’m sure I don’t. Continue before I focus too much on the last bit.”

You managed a tiny grin, a confused, hidden part of you relishing in the fact that he was worried about you. “I was thinking that I never got to see the stars like I wanted to.”

Dan Heng’s brows furrowed. “You see the stars from the windows…”

“Not like I want to,” you shake your head, eyes going misty. “When I was a kid I knew I would be here, among the stars, but back then I imagined myself in a more… adventurous position.” You met his thoughtful eye. “Like you and March 7th.”

“I guess I just have a few regrets, that's all. Would’ve hated to die here of all places,” you finished with a sigh, not expecting much of an answer. He was practically a stranger after all, someone you liked to think of as a friend yet hardly knew anything about. Still, he was here, so obviously something was there.

“I understand, I think.” He mulled everything over, really contemplating his reply. “So I guess this,” he gestured to your leg, “wasn’t enough action for you?”

He was teasing, dammit. Even with his flawlessly null expression that glint in his eye gave it all away. You narrowed your eyes playfully. “Not even close. I adore the rush of nearly being Voidranger chow, but I’m thinking the Doomsday Beast is a little more my speed.”

“About that…” Dan Heng suddenly got very serious, a genuine sense of curiosity swimming in his eyes. “Arlan said you disappeared in the middle of battle.” Again, concern flooded his tone. “Which was… a choice.”

His tone and the insinuation had you narrowing your eyes. “I’m not stupid, Dan Heng,” you snapped. He blanked, taken aback. “I wouldn’t do something like that just because. I was going back for Peppy.”

He tilted his head in a way certainly more distracting than intended. “Peppy?” 

“A-Asta’s dog,” you said. “I’m responsible for him when Asta is busy. And… he’s my friend.” You crossed your arms over your chest, eyes stuck to the sheets. “I wasn’t gonna leave him behind.”

Your hand ghosted your calf. The bleeding had stopped an hour ago, you think. The stain on your pant leg hadn’t grown any bigger at least. Still, the pain was biting. Dan Heng caught the movement, eyes suddenly blinking fast. 

He stood and his hand brushed your leg absently, jolting you slightly as his gaze swept the floor. “Someone see to their injury. Hey—” 

You’d never heard someone yell so gently, and you hoped never to again. Swiftly, you latched onto the sleeve of his jacket and pulled, knocking him back onto the bed. “I’m–I’m fine, really,” you said with little conviction. Dan Heng swore you even squeaked. 

He watched you carefully as he removed your hand from his sleeve, his hold unintentionally lingering on your skin as he became lost in thought. He glanced at your leg and sighed, nearly frustrated, and proceeded to flag over a doctor.

The situation settled itself—within a minute the woman was preparing to cauterize the wound with what looked like a pocket blow torch. 

“I don’t think I need all that,” you forced out. 

She only offered you a smile and stood by. “You’ll be okay, Mx. Y/N. No need to be afraid.”

You shot the solemn Dan Heng a fretful look. “I’m not afraid. I just—don’t think it’s that serious.”

The doctor’s brows furrowed gently, knowing glint in her eyes as she tilted her head to catch the Nameless in her peripheral. “Okay. But I insist that this is necessary for your health and comfort. May I roll up your pant leg?”

Steeling yourself, stiffening all your muscles, you nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

The sensation of cool air hitting your wound sparked up that sting again, and the sight of just how bad the injury looked had you turning your head away. You remained that way all while she cleaned the large cut with cotton and disinfectant, eyes wide in the face of the inevitable.

“All right,” she sighed, lifting the device in preparation. “It’ll feel like it’s burning, but really it’s only that cold. No heat at all. Over before you know it.”

As if that was reassuring. You chanced a flicker of your eyes, nodding silently as she braced a hand on the underside of your calf and waited for you to meet her eyes. You nodded again before you whipped your face to the side, eyes screwed together as your whole upper body spasmed at the feel of it. Fingers curling into the bed, breathing stopped, it seemed to go on forever.

Just as the pain grew blinding, a hand settled around your wrist and pried your grip off the sheets. That hand’s wrist took the bed’s place instantly, your grip a vice you hadn’t known you were capable of. You might have heard his slight grunt if your ears weren’t blocked by a static ringing.

And then, it stopped. All at once the heat faded and a cold ache replaced it. Not quite as harsh as the gaping wound had been before, but not at all comfortable. Your face was all screwed up for the longest time, your breathing getting back to its regular pace as the doctor stood to her full height and assessed the situation. She wore a miniscule grin as she packed up her things and asked of Dan Heng, “Make sure they’re fine, I have to attend to the others.”

So that’s how Dan Heng winded up holding your hand with this awkwardly wide look on his face. He cast you a sidelong glance, a bit relieved to see the tension leaving your shoulders. Testing the waters, he gave your hand a squeeze in an attempt to bring you back to life, so to speak. 

Gently, softly, you peeked an eye open, the sound of the med bay hitting you suddenly. Your heart still raced out of your chest, but at least the heat-gun crazed doctor was gone. Plus, your wound was closed, albeit very likely to leave a nasty scar. Maybe you could hold it over Arlan’s head the next time he chastised you for being reckless because he didn’t get his scar by being safe blah blah blah.

Another sensation washed over your then; it was sharp and gave you a quick shiver, but something warm gripped tightly in your hand and it felt oddly hand shaped itself. Your eyes darted to the right and low and behold—Dan Heng met your gaze. 

“Ack!” You ripped your hand from his own like he’d burned you, your face a horrible hot as you babbled. “I–I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—didn’t mean to—”

“You’re… fine…” Were you hallucinating or was Dan Heng blushing. Probablly hallucinating… “Are you all right now?”

“Mhmm,” you murmured. “Yeah, sorry again… Did I hurt you?”

The smallest of smiles graced his face at you bashfulness. “No. Not really.”

With a grunt you grabbed his wrist and pulled it toward you, not hearing his slight inhale as you assessed his palm for the crescent indents of your nails. Sure enough, there they were, little craters of testimony to your squealiness. You dropped his hand and took to rubbing your eyes. “I’m sorry. I just really hate it here~”

“The med bay?”

“Yeah. It makes me nervous. That’s why Arlan says I should stop getting myself hurt so I don’t have to come back.” 

You grinned and shook your head, catching his eye again. Dan Heng pursed his lips and leaned back slightly, eyes averted. “Uh, you and Arlan…” He nearly rolled his eyes at himself for this. “Are you…?”

“What?” you sqwacked, eyes bright as stars as laughter peeled out of you. “No. He’s like a really annoying brother that just showed up one day!”

Dan Heng managed to chuckle away his embarassment, if only because he discovered he liked the sound of your laugh, filing that information away for later and not bothering to cover it up with some mental gymnastics. He simply liked the sound, and with a stumbling heart he swallowed that mental pill. 

“Dan Heng!” Your heads whipped around in tandem as the pink haired March 7th bounded into the med bay. Her eyes lit up at the sight before her. “There you are!”

“I told you I was taking Stelle here…” 

“Eh, I forgot.” She would ask after Stelle like she’d planned momentarily—after she invesitaged whatever this was. Her eyes zeroed in on you like a vulture. “What—Oh, Aeons.”

Her hands covered you mouth when she caught sight of your leg, eyes flickering between it and your face. You gave her a little shrug. “Just a scratch.” Dan Heng choked into his sleeve, fighting a grin.

March couldn’t decide who to stare at and settled for just bouncing on her toes with a mildly suspicious smile. “I came to check on Stelle, where is she?”

As if on cue, a medical attendant passed by with a short, “Your friend is waking up.”

You took that as a cue of your own, moving to slide off the bed. “I should go check on Peppy.”

Dan Heng grabbed your elbow instantly, lips parted. “But—”

“See?” You forced your way to the floor and gently set your feet down, putting pressure on each and only feeling a dull pain. Smiling reassuringly, you took off his hand. “All better.” The moment held the both fo you captive, like March wasn’t two feet away having a ball, when you lurched back and hurried to collect yourself. “Oh! I–I have your book.”

“R-right.” Dan Heng watched you bustle about with some kind of star in his eye.

“Not with me—I’ll go get it!” You turned tail and sped walked out the door, if only because running felt a bit too much at the moment. You whipped around with a pointed finger and called out, “Don’t move!”

March nudged his side as she went to the waking Stelle’s side, teasing with a sly glance as he came up beside her. “So~”

“Not a word, March.” Dan Heng didn’t feel he could properly process his emotions at this time, and he most certainly didn’t want to assess them with March 7th. 

She giggle anyway and grabbed at his sleeve, shaking him excitedly. “Dan Heng! When I said shoot your shot, I didn’t think you’d actually—”

With a final roll of his eyes and a swat of his hand, Dan Heng beelined for Stelle while grumbling over his shoulder. “Not. A. Word.”

[masterporky]

Rules: Think carefully about your character and their development through their journey (canon or OC) within their story. Fill out the chart and tag whoever you want! Multi-muses, feel free to pick any of your characters-just a few, or all of them. Please repost, so the dash isn't clogged with reblogs.

|| Muse as a deity. ||

God of: Misfortune and change

Associated with: pigs, spiders, swamps, red and black

Sacred plants: roses, fly agaric, apple trees

Sacred stones/gems: gold, vivianite, tektite

Sacred animals: swine, spiders, scorpions

Colors: red, gold, black

Food: aphids, citrus fruits

Scents: dirt, mold, mildew, decay, petrichor

Accepted offerings: 100 dollar bills (no less), gold, children's toys, pork rinds, sour candy

Ways to honor: Catching fish with your bare hands from the murkiest water you can find and eating them raw (no seasonings allowed), spending exorbitant amounts of money on things you don't need, worsening your carbon footprint (smoking 30 packs of cigarettes a day, driving your private jet to the grocery store. stuff like that), doing anything that's generally self-destructive

Tagged by: I think i stole it idk this was in my drafts forever

Tagging: @aonokumura, @oflostinfound, and anyone else who wants to steal it >::::}

[louthegothartist]

So this is my Hazbin Hotel OC Magnolia (Or Just Maggie for short) As human, Demon and redeemed.

She's speaking French and while I do understand that 'Hello My name is' is "Bonjour, je m'appelle" Maggie is speaking Cajun French which is different then normal French. 

TW For wife abuse, murder and cannibalism! 

 Maggie) Grew up in the swamps of southern Louisiana in the 1910-20's with her father and two older brothers, her mother dying when she was just a few months old meant that Maggie was raised around boys her whole life and was a tough girl, while she lived a happy life her family was poor and couldn't afford many things, however growing up in the swamps meant that they didn't go hungry. Her father taught her and her brothers to fish and hunt. When she was 14 her eldest brother was drafted into the military to fight in WW1 with her next eldest brother following just 2 years later when they received a letter saying her eldest brother had died in battle.

With both of her brothers gone it was just her and her father, in the two years that her first brother had gone her father went to New Orleans to find a job and ended up borrowing money from a may with a promise that he could return it. When the man came looking for his money her father didn't have it, worried that her father was going to be thrown in jail, Maggie, who was 16 years old, stepped in and begged the man to find some other way for the money to be paid back, the man said he was looking for a wife and Maggie said she'd marry him if he left her father alone. Her father protested but Maggie held her ground.

The man took her back to New Orleans and married her, the marriage was anything but happy. Like most housewives back then Maggie was beaten by her husband nearly daily but she took it and said nothing, fearing that if she did or said anything her husband would go back to her old home and go after her father. However growing up in the bayou and with two older brothers made her a lot tougher then the girls in New Orleans, so she was able to take the beatings and be quite. Nearing her first year anniversary of being married she received word that her father had died, her husband forayed her from going to the funeral but Maggie realized something,   with her father dead, she no longer had to suffer being married to this man. So she started planning.

The following month was Mardi Gras, she had gotten a neighbor to make her a Mardi Gras dress in exchange for doing housework. On Mardi Gras day she put on the dress and fled the house with Money she had hidden from her husband, stealing a mask along the way she made her way into the streets to be a free woman. Later in the evening her husband caught up with her and drug her into an alleyway to beat her for running, but this time she stood up for herself and showed just how different a bayou girl was from a city girl, she started beating her husband not allowing him to get a hit in, as she was beating him she heard a man's laugh, looking down the ally she saw a man watching her do this, her husband yelled at the man to help him and hurt Maggie but the man simply walked over and stated he wasn't going to her, if anything he wanted to help her.

Maggie watched as the strange man with a wide smile pull out a knife and hand it to her, she took it and looked at it before stabbing her husband in the chest with it. "Ah, such a shame you stabbed him in the heart" the smiling man said as Maggie pulled the knife out "Why's that?" Maggie asked looking to him "Because the heart is such a tasty piece of meat" the man responded.

Maggie played what the man had just said over and over in her heard before she realized who she was standing next to "...You're the New Orleans Cannibal."

Keeping his promise of not hurting her, the man and Maggie spoke for a bit before he offered to walk her back home, against everything she had heard about the man she never once felt scared around him, he claimed to not want to hurt her and she believed him. The pair walked back to Maggie's apartment where she invited him inside and together they swapped stories. In the end of the night they watched the parade go by and caught a few beads together. Walking the man to the door Maggie looked up at him "You never told me your name." She said making the man laugh "Neither have you my dear, but you may call me Alastor. And your name?" The man asked "Magnolia, but you can call me Maggie."

After that night Maggie and Alastor formed a friendship together with Maggie seeing Alastor as a older brother and Alastor seeing her a little sister. Maggie didn't care that Alastor was a cannibal so long as he never made her eat human. 

Magnolia LeBlanc Born: 1909, Died: 1943 at 34 years old. Has been in Hell for longer then she cares to remember. Is the second person in the Hotel to be redeemed and go to heaven, is best friends with Alastor and Mimzy.

Let me explain Maggie's look. I took inspiration from the Cannibal's of cannibal town, while Maggie doesn't look 100% like a Cannibal, at first glace you'd think she was one. The reason why is because Maggie did eat Human flesh for a time while she was alive, during the great depression when food was scarce Maggie would go hunting in the woods, being from the Bayou she knew how to hunt, but others also had that idea so game and fish also became hard to come by, however she knew someone who always had fresh meat and his game wouldn't go scarce anytime soon.

Alastor.

Maggie asked Alastor for meat whenever she didn't have enough food, even though she knew what it was. While she didn't care what her platonic brother ate, she had always told him to keep it away from her if he cooked anything for her or if the pair cooked together. However, like the saying goes 'desperate times calls for desperate measures' and Maggie did what she had to so that she wouldn't starve. But because she only ate it when she had to and the fact that she continued to also eat normal meat it meant that she didn't look fully like a cannibal when she died. See the white heart over her mouth? I have a headcannon that if a sinner gets redeemed, if they have a X on them showing how they died then when they get to heaven the Red X get's turned into a White Heart.

[katasstrophy]

Dream anon again!! I had a cute dream about meeting Bachira and Isagi that I wanted to share!! Some context about me is that I'm a biologist/ecologist, and briefly considered going into marine biology at some point. Some other context is that I have a little sister who was obsessed with mermaids and for years I would play mermaids with her and learn about different fish and marine flora to up the realism. Soooo in my dream, this translated to me summer interning as a cleaner/feeder at an (1/4)

anon also said:

hello dream nonnie!! 🥺 so nice to hear you’re still blessed by the cutest bllk dreams ever this was so sweet <3 playing mermaids as kids is such a core memory for me too omg (H2O just add water was my JAM… those “oH nO tHE coNdEnsATION!!!” tiktoks still make my laugh way too hard lmao)

isn’t bachira’s favorite animal the dolphin too bc he thinks they look happy? 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 one day i will eat that boy up and pinch his cheeks he is saauurr CUTE!!!! and i think isagi’s a lobster?? bc they look funny pls these two are FUCKING DORKS (i might be wrong about this tho but i remember reading some kind of trivia for it 🤔)

and omg!!!! 🥺 you remember my skater boy! bachira eeeekkk kicking and giggling my feet i lub him<3 i have a draft buried somewhere in my docs about him from when one of my moots asked about him a long. looooooong time ago but hopefully i’ll put it out there one day!! uni has me swamped unfortunately :/// all in due time hopefully <3

[airshipsinking]

Late night rambles about Empires SMP geography below cut because it's not an 100% accurate analysis, but I've also spent too long on this for it to stay in the drafts so <3

Listen, listen, listen— I know Minecraft biomes and worldgen are bullshit when held up to irl geography, but my brain decided to mcFreaking Lose It over the Grimmlands' geography according to Pix's map because, because it's surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and has an opening to a tropical jungle, which is an infamously hot and humid environment! The Grimmlands have hot summers and cold winters, sure, that's not hard to figure out, but the Grimmlands also have flood seasons due to heavy rain and snow melting down in spring, and can reach temperatures alike those recorded irl in Alaska if there is a bad winter storm going on. The land outside the main settlements of The Crystal Cliffs is likely to have a month and a half or longer drought season during summer!

Back to the mountains, thought. There is a belt that spans between Rivendell and the Grimmlands and there's a separete belt that acts as a natural border between The Crystal Cliffs and the Grimmlands. The end of the former is about where the cliffs on which fWhip built the Forge and Mansion, and assuming the Grimmlands get quite heavy precipitations + the proximity of the cliffs to at least 2 rivers I can remember seeing, that means that said belt is older than the latter although it's highly unlikely they had different formation phases (still probably thousands of years apart tho).

Also, Pixandria, Mezalea were all part of the Ocean Empire once, but the Cod Empire likely wasn't* and that also makes me loose my marbles a little. Like, Pixandria was the first to have the sea level retreat from and it did so rather quickly leaving behind gravel that along centuries got ground down into sand and the anthill, as it was lovingly dubbed, was likely what caused the water levels to sink in the first place. Mezalea was far slower to drain, leaving many water pockets behind which eventually created the deep valleys of the mesa and a high concentration of iron near the surface gave the sand its red color.

The Cod Empire, however, was created through the accumulation of sediments at the mouth of rivers coming from Mythland and Gilded Helianthia that got built up over time enough to form little like. Not quite islands, but shallower spots in the water that started catching all sort of organic materials which then turned into peat, altering the course of the original rivers enough to create a baygall which further developed into a swamp which tends to get flooded several times per year creating little fish ponds all over the empire.

*- Technically speaking all of the Empires were once the Ocean Empire, but this is discussing about like. Geography that can distinctly be recognized as resembling the current one present in the world, because boy howdy if we go way back then the entitety of Mezalea was probably a cluster of mountains once that got corroded by the ocean and then further corroded by rivers, wind, rain, broken down by plants, etc.

[thefandomlesbian]

Not same anon who asked you but I'd like to hear about the plausible foxxay headcanons and the hilarious ones

There’s some overlap here and a few different universes so bear with me, these do not all exist on the same plane! 

-blind!Cordelia: Misty opposes the use of all cosmetic products both for feminism and for animal rights, but she knows Cordelia is concerned about the appearance of her face. She applies Cordelia’s makeup for her before special events. 

-blind!Cordelia: See above but with shaving. 

-blind!Cordelia: Misty makes a concentrated effort to organize things in a way that will help Cordelia find them, including arranging things in a clock face and telling her at which numbers she’ll find things. 

-Cordelia’s favorite activity is brushing and caring for Misty’s hair. Misty gets tired of it and chops it all off once. She prefers it this way for the convenience, but Cordelia is so sad that she lets it grow back and never touches it again. 

-Misty didn’t graduate high school. She tries to keep this a secret from Cordelia, but it eventually comes out when Miss Robicheaux’s is being certified as a school in the state, which requires all of the teachers to hold degrees and licenses, and Cordelia asks for Misty’s diploma. 

-In fact, Misty is very insecure about her intelligence compared to Cordelia, and she tries to go out of her way to learn facts to impress her. This usually backfires. (Cordelia: I love to read, Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book! // Misty: Oh, really, mine too! // Cordelia: Awesome! What’s your favorite part? // Misty: When he... caught the rye...)

-That said, Cordelia doesn’t have the survival skills of a koala bear. During their trips in the swamp, Misty teaches her how to determine safe blackwater from tainted polluted water, which plants are safe to harvest and eat, and how to coexist with a great number of animals, including a venomous snake that likes to take shelter under Misty’s roof and a family of Louisiana bears Misty keeps an eye on to protect. 

-Misty isn’t very good at following potion recipes, but Cordelia finds out she has a great deal of potions she’s been making herself for years that she invented. She drafts all of these and adds them to the tomes of other potions invented and perfected by famous witches of the past. 

-After Misty has to write a formal letter to an executive on the state board of education, Cordelia proofreads it for her and discovers it’s nearly illegible. Misty complains that all of the letters look the same so she has to sound out the words the best she can, but she wasn’t patient enough to check every red squiggle, and some of the words were so badly misspelled that even Microsoft couldn’t help her out. Cordelia switches the font on her document to Comic Sans, which greatly benefits her. This is how they discover that Misty has dyslexia. 

-Cordelia helps Misty get her GED, and they play to her strengths as a teacher. She teaches hands-on technical classes. 

-Misty is too impatient to ever share Cordelia’s love for books, though she does partake when Cordelia reads some of her favorite stories aloud to her. However, Misty does learn to like poetry, and she loves to write silly, stupid love poems in odd places for Cordelia to find them. 

-Occasionally, someone who is not Cordelia finds one of these poems, leading to coven-wide disagreements and scuffles about who has the secret admirer. 

-Misty is the oldest of seven and grew up raising her younger siblings for her mother, who was very detached. One of her sisters reappears in her life, occasionally needing a babysitter for her infant. While Misty has a disdain for children, she is a firm believer in “You do for family” so she does it, expecting Cordelia will help her. 

-In Cordelia’s defense--she TRIES. But she was an only child and never had any opportunity to be around babies, and they don’t teach you how to take care of a baby before you have one. She’s terrible at it. She mixes the formula wrong, she puts on the diaper wrong, she throws the baby out with the bathwater. Meanwhile, Misty “babies are stinky and loud and dumb” Day has the domestic skills of a mother of fifteen. Misty teaches Cordelia a lot about infant care.

-They leave the baby asleep in the Pack n Play and go to bed. Cordelia wakes up to find the baby floating through the air. In a panic, they hastily assemble baby restraints and work out a way to break the news to Misty’s sister that she has a magic baby. 

-Misty’s sister accepts it rather graciously. Misty helps her build a lid to put on the crib so the baby doesn’t float out in the middle of the night and get hurt. 

-Cordelia doesn’t actually like to go hiking as much as Misty does, but she loves the way Misty looks when she finds rare plants and flowers and animals. She loves the way Misty radiates joy when she’s out in nature, at peace. So Cordelia steps out of her introverted tendencies and allows Misty to take her hiking everywhere. They try to find a famous hiking attraction somewhere out of state at least twice a year and make a vacation of it. 

-Misty is a vegetarian. Cordelia cooks to her taste. The rest of the coven suffers. 

-Once, Cordelia cajoles Misty into wearing makeup to a very high-bar occasion. Misty breaks out into hives. They learn she has severe skin allergies. Cordelia never contradicts Misty’s opposition to cosmetics again. 

-Except with sunscreen. Misty is a country gal who says, “If I get the melanoma, I get the melanoma,” and Cordelia chases her around the house with a bottle of Coppertone spraying freely to try to protect her before they go on outdoor excursions. 

-Cordelia hates bugs. Misty hates bugspray. They compromise by inventing a salve that repels the bugs. They go down in the tomes as co-creators. 

-Cordelia sometimes uses big words that Misty doesn’t understand. Misty buys vocabulary books and downloads apps to try to teach herself more words. She does learn the words, but she often mispronounces them. Cordelia never corrects her. 

-Misty and Madison are both very close friends and rivals. When they argue, Cordelia is never really sure what’s going on. She learns to say, “I have to side with my wife,” whenever they get into it. Sometimes, after Misty explains to her, she realizes Madison was in the right--very rarely--but she never says this to either of them. She has more important fish to fry, and she trusts Madison to get her own revenge. 

-Misty. Tops. 

-Misty is pretty good at being assertive. Cordelia is terrible at it. It takes them awhile to find a pattern for them that works out where Cordelia isn’t the doormat all the time. Eventually, she is comfortable enough with Misty that she can practice being assertive with her for other situations.

-Misty has mild vaginismus. 

-In spite of how their relationship ended, Cordelia struggles with complicated grief surrounding Hank’s death. This is Misty’s sorest point; she isn’t very good at supporting Cordelia during these times, as she can’t forgive the man who hurt Cordelia so badly and slaughtered so many witches. Misty tries her best, but sometimes they wind up arguing. 

... Okay, this is long at this point and @rabexxpaulson is gonna be upset if I don’t get back and answer our next one-shot soon, so I’m gonna cut it off here. If you’d like expansion on anything (or god forbid, more) please let me know. <3

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Falling From Grace- Part 2: Deleted Scenes

Calum, Ashton, Luke, and Michael have a prophecy to fulfill. They might not have always been Calum, Ashton, Luke, and Michael but they have always been brothers in the fight. Mythology!sos. Each guy is a God reincarnated from various mythologies. 

See the full story. 

Enjoy my masterlist

Support me on ko-fi

No one has my permission to repost this fic, including translations. All rights reserved. Copyright © be-ready-when-i-say-go.

_____________________________

He’s known the museum sitting there for years now. He’s just never step foot into it. Felt way too close to home knowing that statues of people he actually knows sit about. But Ashton walts in this time. It could be fun he figures. It’s not like anyone knows him, knows his connection. So with his hair tied back for the moment, Ashton pays admission and starts about the exhibits. Most of the place is way too pristine. The white walls look more like a hospital and it feels like one too but much less sorrowful. He keeps his hands tucked into the pocket of his pants, restricting the yearning to touch some of the frames. 

He misses the frill, the extravagant gold accents on his usual robes. The frames are the closet he’s going to get right now. Ashton follows the line down before rounding the corner and finding him at the door of another exhibit. Busts line the walls and he grins to himself. He recognizes these faces, knows them all too well, even if they are in white marble. Some are chipped, the wear and tear of time never being the most merciful force in the universe. 

Ashton poses in front of the first statue, mimicking the facial expression. He sends the photo to the group chat. This guy was a dick. Or is a dick, still, I guess is more correct. He moves down to the second bust, pulling a face similar to the one sculpted. Less of a dick, he types, grinning to himself. He takes a photo with the last bust, furrowing his brows, and pulling down the corner of his lips. Less of a dick than the first two. Guy’s still not my favorite. 

A couple of minutes later his phone buzzes. Michael’s replied, I’m saving these for evidence. You’ve been warned. 

They hate me anyway, so good luck with that.

Damn it. Why do all the Greek Gods hate each other so fucking much?

Because we do. It’s our Brand™. 

Alright Meme Lord. 

Ashton chuckles, pocketing his phone. As he walks through the rest of the museum he ponders what else to do with the photos? Should they just sit forever in the groupchat? What’s the real harm in posting them? He doesn’t have to put a caption. If he’s going to live in this life then he’s going to live it to its fullest. 

As Ashton settles back onto the cushions of his house, he hovers over the post button. He’s had the pictures sitting for ages in the post. Nothing’s going to happen to him. The Gods aren’t going to smite him, for all their seriousness, humor is not lost on them. Just post it, he thinks to himself. It is not the end of the world. He’s all acquainted with how that goes. His thumb twitches, the posts loads before the screen changes. There, staring back up at him, is his own face next to faces he’s always seen in the flesh. 

Maybe it’s a bad idea. Panic starts to hits his chest. His phone buzzes. It’s Calum. I know you, mate. Saw the photos. They’re funny. Don’t worry. Ashton starts to draft his response, tell them how he needs to delete the photos before another messages comes in. If you delete them, it’s more suspicious. Leave them be. We are human right now. What’s the point of having this humanity and not using it.

Calum is right. Ashton exhales, deleting all the panicked message and replacing it with a simple, Thanks. 

_________

Michael finds himself as the next one in a museum. This time not as accidental as Ashton’s trip. He decided to go out for the day, see some sights, to get away. They need a break. Recording and writing, more writing, more recording. He just wants to shut his brain off for a moment, just enjoy his time while it’s still mostly his. As he’s walking through the exhibits, awestruck by the use of colors and the line work that’s still incorporated into the final details of the piece, he jokingly poses in front of some pieces. He’s only doing it for the jokes, the giggle behind the camera. 

But at the conclusion of his journey through art, he realizes that some of those poses were pretty spot on. He posts the set of recreations with the caption, Immerse yourself. Become art. He wants to add more. You are art. Everyone is art. Everything is art. There’s an art in just existing, in just breathing when everything feels like it’s telling you not to breathe, to not exist. However he figures it best to stay positive, to keep it light and funny. He’s becoming art and that reminds him, even in all the struggle of making this album he still has a duty to himself. 

So he leaves it at just that. Become art. Becoming is the best part of existence. He can become anyone. He can become anything, even if in some ways he is still restricted by another’s diction. He will always becoming something in this human form. He hopes he never stops becoming either, even in the old age when bones are more brittle. 

__ Everyone’s buzzing about Marvel. It’s always somewhere in the corners of the internet the correct way to watch the movies. Calum’s never been one to delve head first into this. But Michael enjoys it and rather than tune out his friend’s interest, he suspends all he knows and finds the action scenes and the comradery admirable. Even if people are robots made out of blue scraps, and someone’s a purple giant, and there’s two green people. But only one’s technically the alien and the other deems himself an abomination.

It’s not very amusing when the interviewer jokes about potentially spoiling the movie. Calum can tell Michael’s a little on edge. So he jokes, “Is Spiderman in it?”

“Yeah, I haven’t even watched the trailer because I don’t wanna spoil it,” Michael replies, looking down at the slight furrowed brow of the brown man slouched, picking at his nails. 

“Is Spiderman in it?” Ashton echoes. 

Calum speaks up again, “Is it Toby?” HIs face in deadpanned. He knows Michael will think he is serious. 

Michael for a second is shocked, voice dripping with disbelief. “What? No.” He watches the very faint smile that overtakes Calum’s face and then laughs. Of course Calum would ask that. He knows it’s not Toby but it got a chuckle out of Michael. 

Calum faces forward, staring directly into the camera, like in The Office. Not too many people will catch onto the joke, the play that just happened. But it’s fine. It’s for Michael anyway. The stab about spoilers wasn’t funny to anyone and rather than let that tension grow, Calum knew he had to break it somehow. This then spurs Ashton onto a rant about how Toby is better. 

Calum interjects, mostly at Michael, “I like Tom, but I like Toby more.”

Later on, after all the interviews are done, they settle into the dark of the theater. They laugh, they gasp, they admittedly cry. Though it only maybe only a couple of tears and no one would admit it, it’s still a shock. Calum pulls out his phone, Why is Gamora? He decides to focus on the positive, on the laughs. Though the question itself is still a very valid one. Why is anyone? Why the question purpose, and sometimes the most difficult one to ask. Why anything? Why the four of them? Why is it so humid in Singapore? The t-shirt, that Calum figured would be thin enough, does not provide much circulation. His pits feel like a swamp, the leather to the couch they’ve been sat on for the last two days takes no prisoners either. 

Calum has learned, however, that he can question why until he turns blue in the face? He could analyze every interaction, every word in existence and it would still only lead him to more questions. He doesn’t let that stop him from question some things but he tries not to question too many things. There is some, while it is scary, serenity in knowing that one does not have all the answers. He is allowed to question Why is Gamora and it is nothing more than a funny piece of dialogue from a widely accepted heart wrenching movie and it will provide answers of its own accord, at its own pace. All he simply must do is walk into a dark theater. 

________

“So we can see, Calum out there has had a long day,” Luke starts, shirtless, watching out onto the balcony where Calum, “on the treacherous waters.”

“He was fishing for Tilapia,” Ashton interjects. 

“Catch Calum on the newest season of Deadliest Catch,” Luke concludes. He doesn’t find himself to be the funniest guy, but every so often he likes to get in a joke. 

Ashton opens the door, “You okay, buddy?” Calum’s earnest glance back makes all three men laugh on camera, including a small chuckle from Andy, who’s behind the camera. It makes Luke happy, that just for a moment, they aren’t too serious. Even though this is work, steaming his voice before a show, and he’s currently unsure of what he’s going to wear tonight, there is some play. 

Later on, after the adventure in Cream Soda, venturing down the dark streets, Luke pulls Michael to the back of the group for an ‘interview’. It quickly goes down south. They continue on down the street. The saying all work and no play makes Jack dull is right. So they make sure to have fun, even if it’s in the backseat of the car, shakily hitting a falsetto about Shake Shack. It reminds them all, but Luke especially to try and shake the bad times off. 

The whole year creating the album broke, and maybe in some ways, created chains and burdens. Expectations is the worst thing they’ve ever faced. They’re always expected to restore balance to the cosmos. That is an old cross they bear. But it is strange now to be so far into the limelight, to be told that they are expected to work almost endlessly day in and day out without allowing themselves the truth of the situation. They grow tired. They grow weary. 

They sing in falsetto though. They make sure to have these small moments to be strange and to be weird to remind themselves they are bound to humanness. They are not exempt from doubt even with the expectation to be superheros in the eye of the music world, even though they know normally they are able in deity form do miracles things, that are incredibly human right now. And it’s okay to have this tender moments. They’ve earned them. 

[the-awkward-outlaw]

Second Chances - Ch. 12

Finding the New South 

Warnings: swearing, nsft

Word count: ~6400

Special thanks to @sad-sweet-cowboah for their guide to writing smut (Please be aware this is my very first time writing smut, so it might be complete garbage) 

The next few days are spent unpacking the wagons and getting settled around Clemens Point. You love being this close to the giant lake. However, you can’t seem to enjoy the humidity. It’s not as bad as the swamps were, but it makes the heat seem more intense. 

You walk out of the woods, holding a repeater, hand in hand with Arthur after having just come off guard duty. The morning sun already beats down on the dry land. You walk past the horses with him and you hear someone yelling. It sounds like Sadie.

You and Arthur approach Pearson’s wagon and find the widow pointing a large knife at the cook, who looks like he’s about to grab his butcher knife and go at her. 

“Say whatever you damn well please,” Sadie hisses at Pearson. “But if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to kill somebody!”

“And if you don’t stop hissing at me, I’m gonna kill you!” he snarls back. 

“What is wrong with you two?” Arthur intervenes, dropping your hand. 

“I ain’t choppin’ vegetables for a livin’!” Sadie slams the point of the knife into the table. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Arthur says. “Were there insufficient feathers in yer pillow?” 

“I ain’t lazy, Mr. Morgan! But I ain’t doin’ this!” She walks past him, slamming her shoulder into Pearson and stopping by the other end of the wagon. “My husband and I, we shared the work. I worked in the fields, I can hunt, use a gun. But I tell ya, you keep me here and I’ll skin this fat ol’ coot and serve him for dinner!” 

Pearson jabs a finger at her. “You watch your mouth, you crazy goddamn fish wife!”

Sadie roars and charges towards him as Arthur grabs her and pushes her back. “Enough! What is the matter with ya, both of ya?”

Sadie turns away from them, spotting you. She looks as mad as a cougar, but you can sympathize with her. You were once trapped in camp, too, unable to leave for doubts of your loyalty to the gang back in Bison Point. You step forward.

“Why can’t she come with us, Arthur?” you say, standing between him and her. “I bet she’s just as capable as I am out there.”

He looks at you; you can tell he’s almost doubtful. He speaks to her again. “You wanna head out there, run with the men? Fine, but we do more than huntin’ out there. We’re hunted.”

“I ain’t afraid of dyin’, Mr. Morgan,” she spits at him, her face stony. 

“Good,” he turns to Pearson, who looks almost ashamed for his outburst. “Ya need anythin’, Mr. Pearson? Girls and I are gonna take a ride into town.”

Pearson grabs a list of supplies and hands it to Arthur just as Grimshaw stomps over. 

“Mr. Morgan, I need Y/N here,” she squawks. 

You sigh, feeling defeated. Arthur looks at you and then back to her. “I’m sorry, Ms. Grimshaw, but I’m afraid I already promised Y/N a trip to town. Takin’ Mrs. Adler with me before we lose our cook.”

You can tell she wants to argue, but then she just shakes her head and marches away, muttering about you leaving camp so often. You whisper your thanks into Arthur’s ear. 

“Oh, Mr. Morgan,” Pearson says, patting his shoulder and handing him an envelope. “Will you deliver this for me?”

“Of course, Mr. Pearson,” Arthur says, placing the envelope in his satchel. You and Sadie follow him to a wagon and help him hitch two draft horses onto it. You climb into the front, sitting next to Arthur as Sadie sits behind him, collecting herself. Arthur whips the horses and moves on down the trail and into the trees.

“Let me see that letter,” Sadie says, tapping him on the back. 

“What, you readin’ his mail now?”

“So robbin’ and killin’, that’s where you draw the line?” she laughs.

“A’right, fine,” Arthur says, handing her the letter. She carefully opens it, unfolding the letter inside. 

“Dear Aunt Cathy,” she begins in a poor attempt at Pearson’s gruff voice. You and Arthur laugh as she reads his letter.

“You are somethin’ else,” he laughs as she hands back the letter in the envelope. 

Arthur guides the wagon into a small, dusty town. You see a large sign stating the name of Rhodes. He drives you past a yellow train station and down the main road, stopping outside the general store. He instructs you and Sadie to go inside while he delivers the letter. 

You and the widow walk into the store and hand the clerk Pearson’s shopping list. A shopboy starts piling the items into a box, you help him as Sadie glances through the catalog. She points out different items of clothing, asking to see them. He hands her a bundle of clothing and she disappears outside for a moment to the backyard. She comes back in, wearing them. 

You thank the clerk and start carrying a box outside to the wagon, followed by the shopboy. He shoves the box into the wagon as Arthur approaches the two of you. 

“Here, take that for yerself,” Sadie says to the shopboy as he throws the last sack into the packed wagon, tossing him a silver dollar. 

“Thanks,” he says to her in an ungrateful tone.

“Well give it back then, Jesus!” she barks as he turns away. “We didn’t ask for his goddamn help.”

You chuckle as you climb into the front again, accompanied by Arthur. Sadie carefully makes her way over the back, sitting on a large crate. Arthur hands you the reins. “Here, why don’t you drive?”

You look at him and smile. You haven’t driven a wagon since you were forced to carry Emma, your horrible cousin, around Blackwater. You can still remember how to do it. You flick the reins, urging the horses on down the road, turning them back in the direction you had come. 

“You got everything?” Arthur asks.

“Think so,” you say. 

“And some new clothes, I see, Mrs. Adler,” he looks behind at her. 

“I can wear what I damn well want. Never see you hasslin’ Y/N for wearing pants. Never seen her in a dress, I don’t think.”

You smile but don’t say anything as you flick the reins again. 

“‘Sides, I wasn’t some little wife with a flower in my hair bakin’ cherry pies all day,” she says. 

“Well, at least you look the part now,” you say. “Guess you can finally blend in with all us outlaws.”

Arthur leans back and drapes an arm behind your shoulder as he chuckles. 

“Can only see you sittin’ on yer porch playin’ on the harmonica,” he says. 

“I’ll have you know I used to have one when, well, before my house got burnt down.”

“Yeah, I’m real sorry ‘bout that.”

“I don’t want no pity. Just know that no one’s ever takin’ anything from me ever again!” she growls. 

You’ve just left the town of Rhodes behind when two riders trot up to the wagon. Something about them tells you they aren’t trying to pay pleasantries. Arthur seems to sense it as well; he withdraws his arm from you.

“What you folks up to?” one of the men asks.

“Just headin’ home,” Arthur replies. 

“You’re in Lemoyne Raider country,” the other man says from Arthur’s side. “Ya need to pay a toll to pass through here.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

You put the reins into one hand, grabbing the handle of your sawed-off with the other. 

“How ‘bout you pull over right now?” barks the man next to you.

“How about this?” Sadie screams, standing up and whipping out a pistol, shooting him in the head. The blast of the gun spooks the horses and they jump into a gallop. You pull on the reins with both hands with all your strength, trying to regain control. You can see ahead a y-intersection with more riders standing on it, rifles pointed at you and the others. One of them stupidly stands directly in front of the horses. You let them go, trampling him as they head into the trees off the path. The wagon comes to a stop and you hop out with Arthur and Sadie and head into cover behind a large boulder. 

Arthur leans against the rock with you, pulling out his two guns. “Damn it, Sadie,” he mutters as he stands up and shoots a few times, kneeling down beside you again. You pull out your shotgun and shoot it twice, taking down two men. You sit back down and reload it.

“She’s got a fire in her after all,” you say, standing up again and shooting two more men.

After a few moments of gun fire, the last few Raiders still standing flee, disappearing through the tall grass and into a nearby field. Sadie stands up from her boulder. “Told you I could shoot a gun, didn’t I?” she asks, a proud smile stretching over her face. 

“I don’t remember askin’ you to prove it!” Arthur says angrily, approaching the wagon again. You climb up after him and make to grab the reins, but he grabs them first and directs the horses back onto the path after Sadie sits back down on her crate. 

“We showed them bastards!” she says.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” you say. 

“They was clearly plannin’ to bushwhack us!”

“Maybe,” Arthur says. “But that’s a lot of mess to make this close to camp.”

You can see ahead the dead tree that sits beside the trail that winds into Clemens Point. 

“Are you gonna tell Dutch?” she asks.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he says. You pat his arm, giving him a look. “I won’t mention it unless he brings it up first, a’right?” he adds. 

He leads the wagon down the trail. “Now don’t go ribbin’ Pearson about that letter. And please, no matter what ya do, don’t kill him.”

Sadie laughs. “I wouldn’t dream of it! At least about the letter anyways.”

Arthur laughs again, pulling the wagon to a stop by the main campfire. “I won’t be givin’ you any mail to post, that’s for shoar.”

“I just want to get a peak at your journal.”

“Not a chance.”

You laugh. “Sadie, even I ain’t seen the inside of his journal. Don’t go holdin’ your breath on that one.” 

The three of you hop out of the wagon as Pearson approaches. You grab a box and take it over to his wagon. 

“I’d like to say I missed our refined conversations, Mrs. Adler,” Pearson grumbles. “But I’d be lyin’.”

She huffs. “I enjoyed myself out there. Thank you Mr. Morgan and Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Don’t mention it,” you smile at her. 

“I would ride with you again, Mrs. Adler, if you will ride with me,” Arthur adds. 

“Maybe, if you can prove you can handle yourself out there,” she says cheekily, walking away.

Arthur laughs as he grabs another box, handing it to Pearson.

“We got this, Arthur,” he says, nodding his head to Sadie. “You already did me a big favor today.”

Arthur tips his hat and turns away, approaching you again as you finish untacking the horses and walking them back to the main group. The O’Driscoll, Kieran, stands among them, grooming his pretty red-roan horse. He nods at you nervously. You meet Arthur over by your shared tent. 

“So, what you got planned for today?” you ask.

“Well, think Dutch wants to go scopin’ Rhodes with Hosea, see if we can find any leads on a score.”

“Already?”

“Of course. Money don’t just show up by magic, princess.”

“That’s not what I meant, Arthur. We only just got here!”

“Well, like I said, they just wanna see what’s out in the town. Doubt we’ll actually do anythin’ for awhile. ‘Sides, who knows how long we’ll be here. No tellin’ how soon them Pinkertons will find us again. We ain’t gonna be here forever.” “Exactly. So let Dutch wait for just a bit and come with me,” you offer him your hand. He takes it, looking skeptical. You pull him on towards the lake. You walk down its sandy banks and away from the camp until the trees block it from sight. You stop by a large log, enjoying the view as the midday sun radiates down onto you. 

You release his hand and begin stripping off your boots. 

“What are you doin’?” he asks, watching you. 

“Oh, come on, Arthur, don’t tell me you ain’t ever done this.”

Once your feet are exposed to the air, you roll up your jeans and wade into the cool water. You peak over your shoulder to find him standing there, staring at you.

“C’mon, Arthur. It’s nice.” You raise your arm and hold out your hand to him. 

“A’right, fine,” he says, taking off his boots and rolling up his pants, wading in next to you and grabbing your hand. You look down into the shallow water, watching as tiny little shadows flit around the sand. You realize after a moment that they’re tiny fish, hiding in the safety of the shallows from larger fish. 

Arthur stands behind you and wraps his arms around you, pulling you against him. You place your hands on his thick arms, allowing yourself to lean against him. The two of you stand in silence, watching a boat in the distance make its way slowly to the far-off shores of Blackwater.

It’s late afternoon, and you stand by Pearson’s fire, dishing yourself up some stew. Arthur had left over an hour ago with Dutch and Hosea to go scouting Rhodes for a lead. You thought they’d be back by now, but you’re not worried. 

You stand by a large tree which usually acts as Uncle’s napping spot, although the man is sitting beside the main campfire playing his banjo. You listen to the sounds of camp, the soft conversations and the crackling fires. You realize in this moment that you’re content. 

You hear something coming from the lake. Echoes of men laughing accompanied by the steady pulse of splashing. You look towards the slightly tilted dock and see Hosea, Dutch and Arthur sat in a boat, paddling their way towards the shore. They become strangely muted as they hit dry land, Arthur hopping out and pulling the boat further up onto shore. He walks away from the boat with Hosea as Dutch calls to him from the back seat of the boat, looking relaxed. Arthur pats Hosea’s back before making his way over to you. 

“You want some dinner?” you ask, showing him your tin plate of half-finished stew.

“Not now,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, shielding his eyes from you with the rim of his hat. “Y/N, will you come with me?”

“Where to?”

“Not far, just into the trees there. Need to talk to ya ‘bout somethin’.”

He grabs your hand and leads you into the trees. 

“Arthur, I’m not even done eating!” 

He laughs and stops. “Well, hurry up then.”

You giggle and quickly slurp it up, tossing your plate onto the grass. Arthur squeezes your hand and leads you deeper into the trees until the camp is concealed from sight. He walks you up a rise so you can see the water. 

He stands for a moment, gazing out at the lake. He doesn’t let go of your hand. After a moment, he sits down, gesturing for you to sit in front of him. You comply, settling your back against his firm chest. He wraps his arms around you and sighs deeply. You wonder if he just wanted to come somewhere quiet to try and get some sleep, but didn’t want to be alone. 

After several moments, he starts kissing your neck, his scruffy beard tickling your skin, goosebumps erupting. You giggle. “Arthur, that tickles. What’re you doin’?”

He takes his hand and turns your face to his. “I’m sorry things went wrong last time you and I tried… to be romantic. I didn’t mean to scare ya.”

You smile. “Arthur, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. It was nice though, to finally tell someone. To let someone else know… about my pain.”

He smiles and kisses you, his thumb stroking your cheek.

“Well, I had an idea. ‘Bout how to show ya that… how I really feel about ya.”

Your heart suddenly starts pumping fast, you can feel your own pulse in your back, arms and legs. You’ve no idea what he has in mind, other than he wants to be physical with you. He senses your hesitation.

“Darlin’, d’ya mind if I just try somethin’? If ya don’t like it, any of it, I’ll stop and won’t ever ask again.”

You swallow hard, feeling nervous. Arthur’s been so patient with you. Last time in the hotel room when he tried to make love to you, you had slapped him and pushed him away, reliving memories with your husband. After you told him everything, why you doubted you could ever enjoy that kind of passion, he had been so gentle and had not brought it up again. You figure you at least owe him the courtesy of trying to help you. You nod your head, feeling yourself shiver.

He kisses you gently, tongue flicking out over your lips. His hands come together over your chest, undoing a couple of the buttons. When the gap is large enough, he slides a hand under your shirt, pushing away your chemise and finding your nipple. He flicks it softly, twirling it between his fingers. You sigh loudly, enjoying the sensation to your surprise. He plays with your breast, squeezingand massaging it. 

You feel his other hand slide down your body towards your lower half. His other hand leaves your chest so that both can undo your gunbelt and open your jeans. His hand returns to your breast, tickling the nipple again. The entire time, he’s kissing you. The hand by your jeans slips under your clothes, finding your slit. Despite your inhibitions, you feel you’re already wet. He gently slides his fingers between your folds, rubbing your center, causing you to gasp. 

His rubbing and toying becomes faster, forcing you to break the kiss so you can tilt your head back against his shoulder, moaning. You find yourself spreading your legs, allowing him better access. His index circles your clit gently, making you gasp again. He continues circling and rubbing it, stimulating your core as he kisses your neck. After a moment, you feel him slide one finger into you. You shiver again from the stimulation. His middle follows his index, his thumb circling your sensitive nub all the while. 

The sensations are too much and you feel your hips begin to buck slightly into his hand. You feel his hardened length pressing into your back under his jeans. You take one of your hands, which had been clutching his arm, and start reaching for his cock. Right as you’re about to grab it, to pleasure him, his hand from under your shirt shoots out, grabbing your arm.

“Nuh-ugh, darlin’,” he growls in your ear, kissing your neck again as you buck into his hand. “This is for you.”

Your arms fall to your sides. You grab onto clumps of grass, ripping them out as he pushes his fingers into you and pulls them out again. He thrusts his two fingers into your core, still massaging your clit with his thumb. You buck harder and higher when his pace picks up. You start to groan loudly, unable to keep quiet, your breathing becoming fast. His fingers press into you harder; faster until you feel something building up inside of your chest, fogging your brain, making even your own thoughts indecipherable. Your stomach tightens.

“Oh, Arthur,” you yelp, eyes squeezed tight shut, letting your body enjoy the sensations of him pleasuring you. “Arthur, I... I…” You can’t complete the sentence, even though you’ve no idea what you’re trying to say.

“Let it go, darlin’,” he mutters in your ear. His nose glides from your neck down to your shoulder. You can tell he’s watching you writhe against his hand. He presses harder, his fingers dipping farther into your core. He circles your center again, spreading your folds with his thick hand. You feel yourself tip over the edge, tossing your head back as the waves of pleasure shoot through you, causing your walls to clench tight around his fingers. You almost scream, covering your mouth so as not to be heard. He pulls your hand away just as your voice leaves your mouth. 

“I want the whole world to know how I’m makin’ ya feel right now, baby.”

He stimulates you again with his fingers. You come apart in his hand. After a few seconds, you begin to relax. 

Arthur pumps his fingers into you once, twice, then gently pulls them out of your core. He slides his hands against your folds before snaking his hand out of your jeans. You feel light and almost dizzy. Your legs shake as your peak simmers down. He kisses your neck again as he cleans off his hand. He closes your jeans and rebuttons your shirt for you, which is probably a good thing. You struggle to move any part of your body, still resting against his. 

“Yer a’right, girl,” he mutters deeply in your ear. You find your voice again.

“Arthur Morgan,” you gasp. “That was… I didn’t know it could feel like that!”

He laughs, his chest reverberating against your back. “That weren’t even the full show, sweetheart.”

You turn your head to look into his face again, resting a sweaty hand against his cheek. “Well, if the version you just gave me was that good, I can only imagine what the real one is like.”

He chuckles, his hot breath washing over you before he kisses you on the lips gently. You break it for a moment.

“I really should be paying you back for that.”

“No,” he mutters, kissing you again. “I wanted to do this for ya. I’ve had enough for now.”

The two of you relax in one another’s arms in the grass, the sounds of birds and the lapping of the lake on the sand humming in your ears. You still feel light and slightly shaky in Arthur’s arms, but he holds you tightly against him. 

After several moments, he pats your shoulder.

“A’right, honey. I need to get somethin’ to eat.”

You suddenly wonder if maybe you’ve offended him with your silence. He had just taught you that physical romance could feel good, and you’d hardly said anything. 

“Arthur, thank you for that,” you say, kissing his firm jaw. 

He smiles and meets your lips with his again. “Of course, darlin’. I just wanted to let ya know how I feel about ya.”

“I really should return the favor. Show you how I feel about you.”

“Later, darlin’. Like I said, this was for you.”

He starts to get up, lifting you to your feet with him, which is a good thing since your legs are still a bit wobbly.

You walk out of the trees, hand in hand with Arthur, your body light but still shaky. He grins at you cheekily, making you blush and look away. You look around, terrified that people in camp had heard you, but no one gives either of you any attention. 

Arthur pulls you over to the fire and sits down on the log. He squeezes your shoulders gently and then leaves, returning a few moments later with a plate of stew. You lean against his sturdy frame while he eats. Uncle’s at the fire, along with Grimshaw and Charles. You rest your head on Arthur’s shoulder, feeling tired even though the sun has only just set. 

Charles pulls out a harmonica and starts playing a tune. Susan, beating her fingers against her lap, suddenly breaks into song, following the tune. You hear the term “Buffalo gals”, and are pleasantly surprised by how good her voice is. Arthur, having finished his meal, sways you with the tune gently, which isn’t helping you stay awake. Susan finishes the song with a long, low note and your eyes droop. 

The sound of splashing from the lake wakes you up. You sit up in your shared cot, your thighs slightly sore from your activities with Arthur yesterday. You realize that Arthur must have carried you here after you fell asleep last night. You smile at the thought. He was always saying how much of a bad man he was, yet constantly proving himself wrong with acts like this. 

You get up and stretch before walking outside to see what’s making the splashing sound. You see Jack throwing a stick for a dog. Arthur, leaning against a tree, watches as he drinks his coffee. You approach him.

“Where’d he come from?” you ask, nodding your head to the dog as it plunges into the water again.

“Don’t know,” Arthur says, putting his arm over your shoulder and pulling you into him. “Dog just showed up. Dutch saw him, guess he’s stayin’ with us.”

You rest your head on his shoulder while still watching the boy and the dog play. Jack giggles loudly as the dog shakes his soaked fur. “Does he have a name?”

“Cain. Dutch said he must be a wanderer for doin’ somethin’ bad.”*

“He’s a dog,” you smile. “I highly doubt he could have done anything bad.”

Arthur’s chest rumbles with a soft laugh. He offers you his cup of coffee, which you take. 

A distraction comes in the form of Grimshaw, huffing as she marches over to you. You pull away from Arthur as she plants her hands on her hips. 

“Ms. Y/L/N!” she says. You try not to grin, knowing she’s still mad about the fact that you got out of chores yesterday. “I need you to go help the other girls! Go on, now!”

She ushers you across camp, guiding you over to Pearson’s wagon. You approach the large bin of water and dirty dishes, dipping your hands into the bubbly liquid. You begin to scrub when a shadow crawls across your hands. You look over your shoulder, spotting Micah. He watches you intensely for a moment before approaching you.

“What you want, Micah?” you spit before he has the chance to open his mouth.

“Why you always so defensive?” he says, his voice lilting. 

“Only defensive around people I associate with vermin.” 

His sneer turns into a frown. “You better watch your mouth, girlie. Keep talkin’ like that, maybe I’ll come visit your tent one night.”

You pull your hands out of the water and turn your whole body to him, your finger brushing against the handle of your gun. “Come anywhere near me, Micah, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”

He snickers, running a hand over his moustache and walking away. You know he’s just trying to get a rise out of you, but you can’t help but be disgusted by him. You’ve heard him talk to the other girls in the same manner. You’d also witnessed him antagonizing Charles one day. You had watched, along with several other people, Charles stand up and throw Micah to the ground. Since then, he hadn’t bothered Charles. Maybe you needed to do something similar. Not that you would do it now, but perhaps in the future. 

A few days have passed since Arthur had taken you into the woods. You’ve found yourself remembering what he had done to you, how he made you feel. You’ve become slightly confused about it, however. During all the years you were married to James, not once did you ever feel anything good, either emotionally or physically, when James laid you down. You have to remind yourself that James had forced himself on you, never asking for your consent. Arthur, on the other hand, had made sure you experienced pleasure. 

You return to camp from a mission with Sean. He had invited you earlier in the day to go rob a household from some other crooks. The take had been good and there were only a few men to deal with, most of them drunk, so the work hadn’t even been hard. Not that you’re surprised. Sean most likely wouldn’t have been interested in the job if it didn’t seem easy. Despite that, you had enjoyed doing the job with him; he always knew how to make you laugh. 

You tie Rannoch to the hitching post, seeing Artemis nearby. Arthur’s been gone for a couple of days. You look around but you can’t see him anywhere. You walk into the middle of the camp, scanning your eyes again. Tilly, playing a game of dominos with Hosea, spots you. 

“He’s by the lake,” she says, picking up on who you’re looking for. You offer her your thanks and leave, thinking that he’s probably fishing. You spot him in the area you had gone wading. 

You walk quickly down the sandy beach, waiting for him to spot you. As you get closer, you realize he’s shirtless. He bends down in the water, dipping the black shirt into the water and pulling it out again. You slow down, admiring the view. His firm arms, despite the farmer’s tan. The slope of his chest and stomach. 

He hears your footsteps and looks up, smiling as he sees you. “Hey, darlin’.” 

“What are you doin’?” you ask, stopping just at the edge of the water. 

He holds up his soaked shirt, examining it. You take the opportunity to look at his bare back and admire his broad shoulders, the hardened lines of his spine. 

“Ah, that job of Uncle’s was a damn set-up. Spent the night in some barn ‘fore the law showed up and shot us out of it. Had to smack one of ‘em with a hatchet, got his blood on me.”

You nod, knowing that the other girls were not appreciative about cleaning blood from clothes. 

“Think I got most of it out,” he says, finally turning to you. You can’t help your eyes sliding down from his face to his body. His broad chest has just the right amount of hair, glinting red and blonde in the midday sun. Your face reddens as you follow his treasure trail, making you look away.

“What you lookin’ at?” he says, smiling mischievously. 

“Nothing,” you say, even though you know you’re beet red. He laughs, stepping out of the water. He wrings his shirt out again and then fans it harshly a few times. Once he’s deemed it dry enough, he slips it on back over his head. The damp fabric clings to his firm body, which you don’t mind in the slightest. He side-steps you and walks over to a boulder where he had laid out his red leather vest. He puts it on and starts to button it up. You spot a gold, metal star on his chest, which says “sheriff”.

“Sheriff?” you say, sliding a finger over the star. He puts his hat back on and looks down.

“Oh, somethin’ Dutch came up with,” he sighs heavily. He offers you his arm as you both start to walk back to camp. He quickly tells you about two warring families in the town of Rhodes: the Greys and the Braithwaites, how they’ve been at odds with one another for longer than anyone in town can remember. He tells you how Dutch wants to ingratiate into both families and maybe come out of it with some old Confederate gold. The Greys also happen to be the lawmen in Rhodes, so Dutch had gotten himself and Arthur temporarily deputized. 

You walk back into camp, Cain bounding past you and nearly tripping Arthur. He laughs at the dog, who acts as though nothing happened. You can tell Arthur likes the dog, and you recall the photo on the side of the wagon that acts as your shared tent, the one showing a floppy-eared dog. 

“Who’s dog was that?” you ask. “The one you have a photo of?” 

He looks at you and rubs his chin. “That was Copper. Dog I had not long after I… after Dutch and Hosea found me. He was a good dog.”

Arthur guides you over to the round table close to the lake, which is currently empty. You sit down, your hand still in his. “What happened to him?”

“Just got old,” he says flatly. “Had him for about 8 years. Never lost the puppy in him. Great huntin’ companion, too. Caught more ducks than anything else.”

You smile at him as he reminisces his past. His eyes are far away as he stares off into camp. “To be honest, Y/N,” he says. “If… If I was ever to get out of this life, this gang, I’d want another one.”

“Why couldn’t you get one now?” you ask sadly. Now that you’re a member of this gang, these people you’ve begun to see as family, you can’t imagine being anywhere else. 

“Ah, it’s too dangerous for a dog, I think, darlin’. Right now, anyways. Maybe someday, I’ll have another one.” 

“How did Dutch and Hosea find you?” you ask, never having heard the story before. 

“Ah, ‘s long story, darlin’,” he squeezes your hand. 

“I got all night, Arthur.”

By the campfire, Uncle and Sean have taken up a drinking song, their loud voices carrying over to you. 

He laughs, standing up. “Let me take ya somewhere quieter and tell ya.” He doesn’t let go of your hand as he walks you to the outskirts of the camp, sitting down at the base of a tree. He offers you his lap so you can lean your back against his chest. You do so, enjoying how firm he is against you. He wraps his arms around you, watching the setting sun.

“My mother,” he says. “She was a good woman. Smart, funny. My pa was a right old bastard, drink had a mean hold on him. He beat her, beat me. When I was a kid, my mother got sick. Watched her die. My pa acted like he barely noticed her absence. Few years later, he came home from the saloon with a bullet hole in his stomach. He lived for a couple of days. When he died, I had to leave my home. My pa had borrowed a lot of money from some fellers in town, knew they’d come soon to take the house for his debts. 

“I went off into town, figurin’ I could, I don’t know, get a job as a stable boy or newspaper boy. Couldn’t find one though. Everyone I asked either didn’t have a place for me or refused to give one to a ‘no-good homeless kid’. Ended up stealin’ food from garbage cans, pickin’ people’s pockets. Doin’ whatever I could to survive. Slept in alleyways. All I owned was the clothes and this ol’ hat of my pa’s.”

He takes off his hat and inspected it briefly before setting it down next to him. You grab one of his arms and run your thumb across his skin. 

“One day, there was some feller in the town square, spoutin’ off somethin’ that had caught lot of people’s interests. I snuck into the crowd, swiping from people’s pockets. Saw this tall feller in the back of the crowd in a real fancy suit, figured he’d have a lot of money or a nice watch or somethin’. I snuck up behind him and put my hand in his coat pocket.”

You can tell by his voice he’s smiling. 

“This big ol’ hand swung down on my shoulder. Looked up at the guy, big ol’ black moustache. He and the feller I was tryin’ to rob pulled me down some alleyway. Thought they were gonna beat me up or shoot me or somethin’. Instead, the one I tried to rob offered me somethin’. Told me I could come with him and his friend, start a new life, and they’d teach me how to be a proper crook. That was Hosea and Dutch. I been with ‘em ever since. That was a little more than 20 years ago.”

You squeeze his arm as the sun dips below the horizon, the water of the lake rippling its farewells. You tilt your head up to look at Arthur, his eyes finally returning to the present. He looks down at you and places a delicate kiss on your lips. You reach up and swipe your thumb across the scar on his chin. 

“How’d an ugly ol’ outlaw like me get so lucky to be with someone as amazin’ as you, darlin’?”

Your smile fades. “Arthur, is that really how you see yourself?” 

He huffs a bit, but you can tell by his eyes that he does see himself that way. You sit up and turn towards him.

“Arthur, you’re not any of those things. Okay, maybe you are an outlaw. But you’re not that old, I mean you’re only 36. At least you’re not Uncle. How long has that man been alive?”

He laughs. “Ah, he was old even when I was a boy!”

“Exactly!” you smile. “And as far as looks go, well, you’re far from ugly. In fact, you’re one of the most attractive men I’ve seen in a long time.”

He chuckles, looking down. “I know the company you’ve kept for the last few years, darlin’. Don’t sound like you got much to compare me to.”

“That don’t matter,” you say, putting your hand to his cheek and lifting his face up so he has to look at you. “You’re beautiful to me, Arthur. Isn’t that enough?”

He smiles, his eyes sparkling as he looks into yours. His arms tighten around you, pulling you into him. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, darlin’.”

You lean into his neck, breathing him in. Everything about this moment is perfect. “I love you, Arthur Morgan,” you mumble into his skin. 

His arms loosen and his hands grab your shoulders gently, pulling you away. 

“What did you say?” he looks at you hard. You wonder if you’ve made him angry. 

“I… I said I love you.” 

He stares at you for the next several seconds, his eyes dancing between yours. His face softens; it’s almost like he can’t believe what he heard. Finally, his face cracks into a smile. 

“Well, I’ll be damned, sweetheart. I… I been wantin’ to say that to ya for the longest time.”

You blush. “So why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think the feeling would be mutual.”

“Arthur,” you whisper, running your thumb across his cheekbone. You lean in and kiss him, feeling his hands wind into your hair. Your hand slides up to his chest, digging just under his collar to his clavicle. He hums loudly at your touch. After a moment, you break apart and lean your head against his shoulder again, watching the sun finish setting beyond the distant horizon. 

[permian-tropos]

Time for a bigger sims post I would love to show everything I’ve put together so far for the neighborhood because it was a good deal of work and also very fun :D 

Family 1: Sloane and Adea

they’re gfs at the moment, very cute and snuggly, it’s an open relationship but they don’t know that yet; I enabled polyamory and disabled jealousy with a mod

Family 2: Rax

he knows I enabled polyamory

Family 3: The Huxes

they’re not married yet in fact they weren’t in love when they started the game so it was like a repair-the-relationship kind of deal (Maratelle not included, probably at her own request lol, though I might add her later with cheats and try to engineer a divorce plotline)

Family 4: The Wexleys

Yes that’s Mister Bones. I fixed it so Norra and Brentin already hate Rax. Also Brentin has an anxiety disorder from a mod. And he’s already Rae’s #1 bro. (Rae’s very #2 bro is her actual brother as we’ll see later). 

Family 5: The Other Moths

Jas Emari, Jom Barell, Sinjir Rath Velus. Of them I’m most confident about Sinjir; Jom was totally an accident you see I didn’t know the sims would automatically fill themselves into the world and make drastic life decisions but they did and Jas “commitment issues” Emari went and married some fuckin bro hunk? Some gym boi? 

So I was like fuck it and used cheats to transform gym bro into a very rough draft of a Jom (I don’t remember as much about him, I remember mentions of a mustache but that’s it. He’s not really a fave of mine at the moment. Same thing with Conder Kyl I meant to add him after reviewing his character).

Family 6: The Siths

Exactly what it says on the tin. Good thing Sims 4 has got Vader and Maul costumes in the base game. I simply had to use them. Palpatine’s outfit was... interesting. It was an interesting task with how little there is to work with. 

Family 7: Thrawn Club

Thrawn is such a bishonen I might actually tweak his looks lol. Plus Eli. Might add Pryce.

Family 8: The Sussers

This is Norra’s sister Esmelle and her wife Shirene! I’ll be adding more minor characters from the books for sure, but starting with characters’ families seemed like a good idea.

Family 9: The Sloane-Reevs

This is not canon at all! This is just my elaborate headcanon for Sloane’s family. We have her parents in the middle, Callan and Fiola, her brother Emil, Emil’s wife Suvo Reev who in Star Wars Universe is a Rodian, and their mixed species daughter Key Sloane-Reev. They’re all anti-Imperials, Emil and Suvo are space anarchists, Fiola and Callan are trade unionists. Fiola is autistic and in-game has got that as a trait from a neat mod. Rae is very much estranged.

Family 10: Veruna and Amerdi

More non-canon stuff, this is Moira’s mother and Gallius’s mother. They are wifes. Both of them practiced an unorthodox form of Dathomirian witchcraft spread by a rogue Nightsister. Nereé Veruna was a Naboo noble who went mad and was swallowed by a fish before Gungans cut her out (still alive) and she gave birth to Moira in a swamp, barely recognizing the infant as her own. Vittoria Amerdi, the Veruna family gardener, once Vitti of Jakku, returned to her homeworld to escape her son’s pursuing father, Mister Sheev himself. She was hoping her power would be stronger there. It was, but not enough to protect her. Using him as a baby daddy for superior Force genetics was a bad idea. And Palpatine turned her restless soul into a bomb meant to detonate at the heart of the planet once their son, ignorant of everything, was fully corrupted by the Dark Side.

But in the Sims they’re fine! They’re both fine. Everything’s fine. (They’re really cool characters though such drama very backstory.)

Family 11: Tico

A little bonus character here: meet Joy Tico, Rose and Paige’s grandmother, who lived on Ganthel and was connected with the Sloane-Reev anarchist cel. She fled with them into the Unknown Regions but later joined a group setting up an Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed style society on Hays Minor (yeah there’s canon suggestions of Rose’s homeworld being like anarcho-syndicalist or something).

Anyway that has been me talking about my wacky as heck fic-iverse in the guise of a Sims 4 post yay :D 

[dilophosaurusatenewman]

Anyone willing to edit/beta for me?

I finally finished the first draft of my book (the first time I’ve actually finished a draft even though I’ve started several books) and I’ve done a quick read through for basic punctuation, editing, etc. but I was hoping someone else would be willing to read through and give me feedback? I know it always helps to have a fresh pair of eyes and there are things I may not have articulated well enough because I already have the whole story in my head. It would really help me out!! I’m gonna include the first chapter here (under the cut) so y’all aren’t committing to reading something that wouldn’t interest you (and of course don’t feel obligated to finish or rush, even if you offer to help). Any feedback is super appreciated! I’m proud of myself for finishing but am thinking of self-publishing (small time; I don’t expect to make a fortune) and I wanna make sure I do my due diligence before getting further into the process. Thank you guys so much!!!!

It’s like a fantasy/YA sort of genre, also, if that matters to anyone!

Thalana rushed down the path, hastily shoving the herbs in her satchel, almost tripping over a tree root as she went. She paused and took a deep breath before securing the knot on her pouch and taking a few careful steps before picking her pace back up. She knew Aumir would be angry that she was late to the processional, even if he didn’t find out why she had been late, and she wanted to avoid an argument. 

She huffed, annoyed that her brother favored tradition so highly even when it seemed inconsequential. The traders were in town so often that it seemed pointless to greet them, even if this was the one time a year traders from all clans were present. They were the same traders that were here throughout the year, why did it matter? Thalana was especially annoyed because she knew, beyond her brother, nobody would even notice her absence. The entire clan met to greet the traders, and one missing villager was not going to be obvious. But Aumir insisted it was their duty to greet the traders, and so Thalana rushed, hoping he had already left and would not notice her tardiness.

Luck was against her, however, and she pushed the door to her home open to see Aumir leaning his hip against their table, waiting.

“Where have you been?” he demanded as soon as she entered, eying the red pouch on her hip and she tried, unsuccessfully, to pull it off and hide it.

“Nowhere,” she replied, giving up on being sneaky and retreating to her room to leave her equipment.

“You know I don’t like it when you go to that place,” Aumir yelled from the kitchen but did not follow her. “It could be dangerous. You have no idea what’s in there or what trouble you could bring back with you. Those herbs could be poisonous.”

Thalana retrieved a nicer set of clothes and changed before bothering to reply. “Nobody seemed to mind when I was able to make that potion that healed Haylica after she ate those helgenberries,” she challenged, emerging from her room to fix her brother with a glare. He pursed his lips, looking away briefly before continuing.

“Still, you know the processional is today. We can’t be late.”

“Yeah, yeah, the entire ceremony will come to a screeching halt if we’re not there,” she griped, but she finished putting on her shoes and motioned for her brother to lead the way.

The center of the village was packed with people, all waiting to see the traders as they made their way into town. In the middle by the hearth was Chieftan Onet, dressed in her formal gown. The Chieftan always greeted the traders during the annual processional as a show of unity among the clans. Thalana found it a bit too ceremonial, especially considering Chieftan Onet hardly even acknowledged traders the rest of the year. This whole event was a show of solidarity among clans who often struggled to be amicable let alone friendly. It was hard for Thalana to believe all the clans had formed from a singular group when her people had first inhabited this land. People were always friendly with outsiders on the surface, but suspicion ran deep and it was rare for true friendships to form among members of different clans.

Thalana hated it.

She eyed her brother, smug in the fact that they hadn’t been late, and disappeared into the crowd before he could restart one of his speeches. She loved her brother, and she knew he loved her, but he had become overbearing since their parents had died. She tried to be understanding that he had had to grow up young, taking on the role of caretaker when he was barely more than a child himself, but it was difficult when all he seemed to do was criticize her. She knew what her clanmates thought of her, of course. The Belgre clan were herbalists and healers; they were supposed to leave the fighting and protecting to the Ravrog or the Vailzur or even the Drenlug. They certainly weren’t supposed to fight themselves. But Thalana hated feeling like she had to rely on others to protect her, so she learned to fight and use a bow, and she was labeled a troublemaker.

She sighed, moving through the crowd to find a spot near the front where she could see. The traders had already begun entering town, their Barrabraun loaded with all the supplies they couldn’t carry themselves. The traders from Oni Nalore led, of course. The Melotra clan inhabited the capitol city and were often trained in diplomacy. It was where the High Chieftan lived, overseeing all that transpired between clans though hardly getting involved. Next were the Ravrog, sturdy people who crafted arms and other trinkets, tasked with watching over the capitol city from their place in the mountains.

The other clans followed behind, waiting their turn as the processional made its way into the city. Chieftan Onet greeted each trader, grasping their hands and touching foreheads, the formal greeting among her people, a sign of respect. It was slow moving, and Thalana lost interest, watching politely but impatiently waiting for the trading booths to be assembled. This was the only real time Thalana got to interact with those from other tribes. The traders made their rounds the rest of the year, of course, but there were long stretches between each visit and many of the clans avoided her village altogether. The weapons and armor of the fighting clans were useless to the peaceful herbalists of Tisval Copse, but they weren’t useless to Thalana. This was her only chance to acquire these items, and she was eager to begin trading.

It took far too long for the processional to end and trading to begin, but Thalana began making her rounds as soon as she could. The Melotra were offering rich fabrics and books, which Thalana scoffed at. The fabrics were only good for making nice clothes, which were worn rarely, and most of her people couldn’t read so the books felt like a veiled attempt at condescension. The reclusive Grenchot clan was known for their study of the stars and were, therefore, the only clan capable of making trustworthy calendars and sky charts. Thalana thought they were interesting, but ultimately useless since she had no real desire to track the stars, sun, or moons. The Sedhi clan, seafarers from the coastal town of Novalona, often bought trinkets made of shells and sea glass but, more importantly, they also brought dried and salted fish, something the Belgre people almost never got to enjoy, being the most centrally located clan, far from any coast. The Drenlug clan came from the city of Salbour. Closest to the mainland, but in an area that suffered from regular flooding and never completely dried, Salbour was known for being swampy and humid, and its people had taken to living above the swamps in treehouses to avoid the mud and muck. This had caused them to become quite adept at stealth, and any hunting they did was usually long range. This meant Thalana had the opportunity to trade for new arrows, and she did so happily.

The Vailzur people were the most outcast of the clans. Hailing from the Venbell Storm Basin, they were known for facing severe conditions on a daily basis and focused on the strength of spirit and self-reliance necessary to survive in the wilds. They were the only clan to come out once a year, solely during the annual processional, and Thalana was justifiably curious. The Vailzur were both tall and muscular, many bearing scars that told the stories of previous hunts. They were offering their own handmade weapons, the only clan not to be armed by the Ravrog, often made from the bones of slain animals. Thalana shivered, thinking of what animal could be big enough to have bones worth crafting weapons from. In addition to weapons, they traded other materials collected from animals that were good for eating or using in alchemy. They also had herbs only found in the storm basin, and were always popular among her people for that reason. Thalana wondered why they didn’t maintain a regular trading regimen with the clan to the south, but knew better than to ask.

The last table Thalana visited was the Ravrog. Before she could begin browsing their items, like she had been planning, she was distracted by one of the men behind the booth. He was perched upon his seat, both legs folded beneath him and a book in his hands, looking up only when Thalana cast a shadow over the words she couldn’t decipher. 

“I’ve never seen a member of the Ravrog who could read,” she started, eying the book curiously. He paused, looking up at her cautiously before the older man beside him interjected.

“And I’ve never seen a Belgre who could fight; or, are you here to look at something other than our weapons and armor?”

“No, I’m here to look at armor,” Thalana hesitantly switched her attention away from the man reading to the one before her.

“So, then, you won’t judge my son for his strange interests. My name is Vimdrin; this is my son Daumdahr. He has more interest in reading than crafting, as you can see,” the words seemed biting but were said in a playful tone. “Many in my tribe see it as a reason to ridicule, but I’m sure you get a lot of that yourself with that quiver on your back,” he chuckled. “So, what kind of armor are you looking for?”

“Well, I- I’m not really sure,” Thalana confessed. “I’ve never really had any.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Vimdrin smiled. “I gather you work mostly with a bow, from the arrows on your back, which means you’ll probably want something a bit more lightweight. But given you’re probably not as experienced as some other fighters, you still want something that will give adequate protection,” Vimdrin paused, looking over his stock and thinking. “Ah,” he exclaimed, walking over to a trunk and pulling out a few pieces. “This should suit you just fine; it’s a little of everything.” He laid the armor out for Thalana to inspect. The piece was made mostly from leather, intricate designs stitched onto the front. There were metal plate attached on the inside, small enough to allow for fluid movements but still enough to offer some extra protection. 

Thalana grinned, “it’s beautiful. I’m not sure I could afford something like this, though. All I have to offer are some gems I’ve found while foraging, maybe some stamina potions, oh! And some blade oil I’ve been experimenting with, though I’ll admit I’m not sure how effective it will be,” Thalana trailed off, laying her offerings on the table. Vimdrin inspected the gems carefully before turning his attention to the blade oil, opening the jar and sniffing the contents.

“What’s in the oil,” he asked, taking another whiff.

“Tamander leaves,” Thalana answered, feeling somewhat foolish as she said “I’ve only tried it on my arrows while hunting small game, but the poison is quick acting and has helped me salvage several hunts where the animal would have escaped otherwise.”

Vimdrin paused before looking over at Daumdahr, his nose still deep in his book. “What do you think, Son?”

Daumdahr looked up quickly, startled by the attention. He closed his book, setting it to the side and walking up to the table, looking at Thalana’s offerings. He looked up at her, a small smile on his face, before turning to his father.

“Well, it may not even out exactly, but the blade oil is something we’ve never seen before and it could be worth trying. For all we know, it could be incredibly potent when used on the right game.”

Vimdrin hummed under his breath before looking at Thalana. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll trade you the armor for everything you’ve offered here and the promise that you’ll show Daumdahr around, force him to meet some people and get out of his comfort zone a little.”

“What?” Daumdahr gaped at his father, his cheeks reddening.

“Bah! It’ll be good for you! You never cut yourself any slack, always caught up in your studies,” Vimdrin teased, laughing lightly at his son.

“We do have nightly gatherings,” Thalana interrupted, hoping to spare Daumdahr some embarrassment. “Most of the clan gathers around the hearth for dinner every night. We share food and drink and visit with our neighbors. I could take you, if you’d like.”

Despite her attempt to save him embarrassment, Daumdahr’s cheeks reddened even more. “I don’t need my father to buy me friendship.”

“I don’t mind at all!” Thalana insisted. “You could show me your book, if you want. It would be nice to have someone to talk to; most of my clan are annoyed with me, especially since they’ve seen me trading for weapons and armor today. I doubt they’ll want to talk to me much, but I could at least show you around.”

Daumdahr looked somewhat sheepish before Vimdrin interrupted again. “Great! It’s a deal then. Come around here so I can get your measurements and alter the armor to fit.” 

Thalana stepped around the table, smiling at Daumdahr in an attempt at hospitality. He smiled back weakly before picking up his book, continuing to read as Vimdrin used strings of leather to measure Thalana’s build.

“I should have the armor done tonight; you can pick it up when you pick up Daumdahr,” Vimdrin smiled again, warmer than before, though it had never lacked any kindness in the first place.

“Thank you,” Thalana's voice was genuine as she gathered the rest of her belongings before heading home.

[nebulapaws]

Vintage Cassette

I don’t normally like sharing my Betas (or drafts) because I’m super insecure about how it looks so far, but I thought I should because its gonna be in a Spider-verse Zine, and lord knows I flex that too much on my friends.

   Peni honestly couldn’t believe she was outside, in a greyscale world, that was painted with crudely thrown on blacks and whites, with a shallow grey mixed in between. It was dismal and a really boring setting--but it all kind of reminded her of films before technicolour. Films that were painted in bleak imagery to build on the tremendous action and thrill that the 30s so often pursued in order to get away from the obvious festering wounds that were Germany and World War II.

    The rain was pouring down in the cold empty alley, swamping the dark old place with sleek silvery puddles. Maybe the wetness of everything didn’t help with moving around; the cobblestone floor was as slippery as a fish out of the water. Peni didn’t have a hoodie, so there was no hood to protect her hair from the torrent of fat raindrops that pelted her shaggy jet black hair.

    Peni stopped instantly when she heard a crash from the shadowy depths of the alley. She whipped her head to the noise but squinted at the fact that there wasn’t anything there. “That’s weird,” she mumbled to herself. She popped a stick of gum in her mouth but chewed slowly. “Super weird,” she added.

    Suddenly, as fast as a bullet, she felt something grasp her shoulders, and violently shove her into the sinister black. She tried to make any noise, but a hand clasped tightly and sternly over her mouth, and her Heelys made it extremely difficult to get a grasp on the sordid greyscale streets. She was pulled into the alley smoothly, her struggles all in vain, except one.

She pressed the glowing sparkly white button on her hopper.

-

    Noir sullenly drank his egg creams, putting the glass down languidly. He sighed deeply, his voice coming out deep and rugged like tree bark. “where is she?”

“ya mean pen pen right?” Ham leapt on the table that Noir was leaning heavily on. Ham looked to be much brighter than Noir, sticking out like a sore thumb; being a pig and all. His hooves clicked on the shiny bar table of the abandoned bar. “because it isn't like her to be so late, that's for mary crane to do!”

The joke did nothing but bolster the already festering anxiety in his chest. He felt his blood turn into ice when the hopper beeped a melancholy chime they all knew very well. He hoped--prayed-- that it wasn't Peni so that he could meet up with the girl. But as fate would have it, life just seemed to hate him. The hopper turned out to be in his universe, directly from Peni's transponder.

He got up, his trench coat beating in the wind wildly, like a cape. He looked at Ham and saw a surprised look on the pig's face. There was no fury burning in his eyes, just a flicker of surprise in his white lamps.

blease keep in mind this is all I have so far, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to share the entirety?? but also:  for the love of god don’t repost my writing/art like blease. I had someone do that to me on Instagram when my friend told me about it, and it's flattering and all, it really is but come on, I’d like to know before I get my hard work used in the art without permission.

also, my discord is Nebula#4628, blease shout at me I’m lonely ;_;