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honestlywrites · 3 years ago

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Anemone | Viktor x Magic! Reader (Part Three)

Lumen AU credited to my wife: @meliapis

Summary: Being away from Viktor has only thrown you into your research, but something is still missing. Despite your efforts to successfully create healing magic, you’re still missing a key component–the energy source.

T/W: Descriptions of severe illness, bruising, and paranoia. Non-descriptive ideas of self harm. Angst with resolution.

A/N: Firstly, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has read. This has been so much fun, creating for y’all. All the comments and reblogs mean a lot. Secondly, a quick shout out to my wife. I know I already credited her but I love her lots and so thank you for creating this wonderful world I’ve been able to tramp around it. And finally, I hope you enjoy! I have more stuff coming out soon so this won’t be the last you see of me.

Part One / Part Two / Masterlist

Primrose, also known as primula vulgaris, is a flower that comes in many different colors with a distinct yellow coloring in the middle. The flower represents a multitude of things–youth, safety and protection, femininity–but in the Victorian flower language, it means “I can’t live without you.”

After a month with Viktor, you had almost forgotten what loneliness felt like. What eating lunch in your lab sounded like, only your plants to keep you company in the silence. Your walk home every day felt like a chore rather than finally leaving work and time felt nonexistent. Knowing someone for a month doesn’t do this to anyone, but meeting your other half–truly the person with a part of your soul–and then them choosing to leave you was loneliness.

At first, you gave him space. A few days went by, then a week, and suddenly you realize that you’d lost him for the amount of time you had known him. His lumen constantly glowed dimly, creating space between the two of you. He never came to find a home in your shoulder, nor did he gently nudge your cheek whenever you were sleepy to remind you to get into bed or to lay down. You wanted to chase him, sit at the lab doors and wait for him to leave just to get a single word in, but deep inside you knew he was better off–or at least that’s what you told yourself.

Even when you were at your loneliest when your mother had died and you had no living family to rely on, you always had him floating nearby. He was your companion, a reminder that even if no one around you wanted your company, he always did. Now that he was gone, it was like a ghost following you around constantly and you didn’t know what to do. So, you dove into your passion–research.

After the situation with the plant, you began burying yourself in old books about runes, coming upon a couple of observations. Their color greatly correlated with the type of magic that was summoned or manifested. Green, for healing and life transferrence. Blue, for evocation and animation. And red, harming magic. These three, you had already tried and if you had more time and focus, there was a world of different magicks waiting–but healing was all you could ever focus on.

Sighing, you sit in the middle of your lab once again, stray notes surrounding you in all directions. It was the energy that was the biggest issue, a human body required incredible amounts of energy to fuel and heal oneself and you only had access to a greenhouse full of different plants. Simply put, healing magic, while possible, was incredibly taxing on not only the healer but for whatever power source being utilized. If you could figure out energy on a larger scale to power the healing magic, then you had the potential to cure Viktor entirely… only if he wanted it.

“Well, how much energy can a plant really produce?” you ask aloud to yourself, standing from the mess and looking around for a scalpel. You could test it on yourself first, a small cut was easy enough. Taking a step forward, your foot lands on a piece of paper, sliding underneath you. Swiftly, you fall back and feel the air get knocked from your lungs, causing you to cough as your back begins to ache.

“Ow,” you mumble, watching as Viktor’s lumen rushes over. Your heart skips a beat in your chest as he floats down and you feel a lump in your throat, tears welling up in your eyes. There had been minimal interactions between the two of you so seeing the concern warmed your heart in a bittersweet way.

Standing up, you can feel the aching in your back and the beginnings of bruises forming. You walk over to the reflection in the window and pull your shirt up slightly to feel the tender skin. That was one way to test how much plants were capable of healing–you didn’t need a scalpel after all. Looking around at the mess of papers and plants set out, you grab a medium-sized palm that is worth sacrificing and drag it into the middle of the room. Before you even attempt to summon healing, you pluck the copper ball out of the air and place him back into a latched box that you had found to ensure that he wouldn’t get swept away in the magic.

Positioning yourself in front of the plant, you take a deep breath in, ignoring the sharp pain in your back, as you focus and draw out the runes. This process was practiced, it was familiar after weeks and weeks of trial and error. You easily envision drawing the life of this plant into you as you finish drawing out the runes, weightlessness taking over for a moment as green light bursts from the circle. As you float in the air, motes of green light get sucked into your body, surrounding you in a blanket of healing. Instead of imbuing you with energy, the throbbing on your back lessens, completely disappearing as the plant fades into ash. You let out a sigh of relief as your feet touch the ground.

Walking back over to the window, you pull up your shirt to poke at the bruising, feeling the pain almost completely disappear. If a singular plant could barely heal your bruising, then you couldn’t imagine how many plants would be needed to heal severe internal damage. It feels hopeless, especially because you don’t know how extensive his sickness is and how far it has progressed in his body. You groan and plop back down on your stool before Viktor’s lumen shoots out of the box, barreling into you once again.

“Ow!” he floats a foot away, almost staring at you pointedly. “I know I did magic, you don’t have to remind me. I’m not going to stop just because you’re away.”

You stare back at the dark copper ball of light and feel yourself wanting to reach out and hold it close to pretend, if just for a second, that everything is okay. That Viktor would be waiting for you to eat lunch on the bay window. That after work, the two of you would walk to either of your apartments to eat dinner and talk about your findings. But it wasn’t. And when you reach out, the ball keeps its distance.

You turn back to your desk, letting your hand fall as you scan through the notes before you hear a loud thump hit the floor. Turning to look over, you see Viktor’s lumen on the floor of your lab, his color barely there.

“Viktor?” you fall to your knees, stool clattering to the floor behind you, and scoop him up in your hands. “What’s going on, are you okay?”

He thrums weakly, his copper light flickering as he weighs down your hands. Something had to have happened, he was either severely ill or in danger.

You gently place him on your shoulder, holding him as if he will shatter if you grip too tight, and rush out the doors, sprinting toward his lab. First, you check the lab he shares with Jayce, the one he’s usually in and experimenting on new technology into the night. Pushing the doors open, the room is devoid of life, quiet and empty.

Taking no time to delay, you rush to Viktor’s personal lab up the stairs around the corner. Mostly full of chalkboards and books, it was rarely used for any aggressive experimentation and mostly a place of peace where he could work in quiet.

Working through the two protective doors, you feel your heart stop when you find Viktor on the floor. Without any time to waste, you scream for help as you kneel down beside him. Calling for Jayce, for an enforcer, anyone. You wrap your arms around Viktor and pull him up into your arms, his bones digging into you and the gauntness of his face seeming to resemble a skeleton. Pausing to breathe, you don’t hear anyone coming and reach over to his wrist, feeling his pulse weaken. The only thing that thrums in your mind is magic that remains from before, energy that hums under your skin as Viktor lies unconscious in front of you.

Never have you tested this before on a power source of your size, plants are easy because they’re limited and disposable. Your own energy, your physical body, was different and when you had tried this before on Viktor–it almost killed you. You can see your lumen, bright green, worriedly hovering by Viktor’s cheek as you lean back to sit on your feet, making your decision quickly. Reaching your hands forward, you begin to draw out the runes in the air, green light illuminating the scene around you. It’s all you have to give him.

Envisioning physically giving your life to him, the energy begins to drain from your body as the circle of runes completes and spins like a record, creating a weightless bubble around the both of you. Your body floats alongside his into the air, green streams of light flowing from you into him like wires or strings. Inside, your heart rate slows as his chest begins to pick up and you think it’s done–your life for his–but something lashes out like a filament of plasma and interrupts the connection. Your vision begins to tunnel, slowly fading to black, as you only see the thrumming bright blue of a light glowing atop the desk.

You wake up, gasping for air and scouring the area for Viktor. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, but Viktor comes into your vision, motionless in front of you. His nasal cannula is hooked up to what you assume is a tank of oxygen and watch the slow rise and fall of his chest.

All you can think about was the fact that the rune circle didn’t work.

Besides you, Jayce sits in his chair–head in his hands as he stares down at the ground.

“Jayce?” you ask, sitting up and feel a sharp pain in your neck from sleeping on the chair for too long. “What happened?”

“You’re awake,” he sits up in shock, glancing at Viktor before turning to you. “We found the two of you passed out on the floor–you were fine, obviously, but Viktor… he’s not doing too well.”

“Is is the cough? I thought it was better,” you insist–the healing should have delayed it at least a little longer, or long enough for you to figure out how to harvest enough energy to save him.

“It was, but ever since the two of you…” he pauses and his face scrunches as he seems to find the right words. “Ever since you stopped seeing each other, I guess he just stopped taking care of himself. He started coughing up blood a couple days ago.”

“You didn’t take him to a doctor?” you ask, frowning. Anger builds inside of you, like a pressurized container waiting to pop. Perhaps it was the tiredness, or the anxiety, but Jayce was grating on you and all you could think about was him not being there for his friend.

“No, we’ve been a bit preoccupied with other things–”

“And where were you?” you hear the wheeze of the machine churning out air, aiding Viktor in his breathing. Jayce’s lumen shines a deep rose-gold, happy and content on his shoulder. His clothes look thrown on, hair mussed and there’s a sort of glow coming from him as well. You could only guess what he was up to before this. Rage threatens to bubble over as your hands clench besides you, your knuckles turning white. You feel the lifeless ball sitting on your shoulder, its color nothing but a dim copper and it weighs down on you as a reminder.

“Where was I when?” he asks, frowning. His hazel eyes gaze back at you in confusion.

“Where were you when this happened? Shouldn’t you have known?” you stand up from your chair, looking down at the large man in front of you. “He was coughing up blood, Jayce. Shouldn’t that have been an indicator that something was wrong? That you should have stopped focusing on Hextech for one second to help him out.”

“I was busy!” Jayce stands to meet you, his stature towering over. “With progress day and my new position on the council, I’ve had a lot on my plate. You can’t blame me for Viktor not taking care of himself.”

“You should have at least tried,” despite the exhaustion that seems to weigh your body down, the anger that builds up makes your body shake with rage as red light begins to glow from your hands–threatening to lash out at Jayce. His perfect lumen, shining brightly on his shoulder, the position on the council–all the power he could have ever wanted to actually make a difference in the world. For what? Jayce would be nothing without Viktor by his side.

For a moment, you contemplate letting it go and letting the fury consume you in red tendrils of harm and anger, but a familiar voice utters your name and you whip your head around to see Viktor with his eyes open.

“I’m here,” you whisper and rush over to the side of his bed, sitting on the plush mattress. Jayce comes over, sitting at his chair besides Viktor, glancing at you nervously.

“Jayce?” Viktor asks, his amber eyes looking around slightly dazed.

“Viktor, the doctors, um,” Jayce’s voice breaks slightly. “They said you’re–”

Viktor looks away from his friend, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“How much time do I have?” his voice is monotone, devoid of emotion and your chest tightens. Tears well in your eyes at the lost time, the time you could have been spending with him rather than working away or being mad at the fact that he left. Even if the healing didn’t stick, it was never about the power–only giving Viktor everything that you had to offer.

“The doctors give you two weeks,” Jayce whispers, staring down at the ground. “Maybe a little more.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, reaching out gingerly for his hand underneath the blanket. You expect him to pull away, to grimace and demand you leave, but he takes his hand out from the covers and intertwines them with yours. Besides his head, your lumen pops out from underneath his pillow, swirling with red and green light, and burrows into the fabric by his shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry,” his voice is thick with exhaustion, but his accent comforts you–you hadn’t heard from him in what felt like a lifetime. “You didn’t do anything.”

“But I can,” your eyes meet his and his irises burn with a deep copper fire. “You know I can.”

“I’m not going to let you risk your life for mine, it’s not worth it,” he shakes his head and you can see Jayce look up at the two of you.

“What do you mean?” he asks, perking up at the nondescript talk.

“You didn’t tell him?” you frown as you look down at Viktor. Of all the people, you’d think Jayce would be the first to know that you had magic, but it warms your chest a little to know he’d keep that secret even after he left.

“I didn’t tell anybody. You hid it for a reason and I understand that–I would not just betray your trust like that,” while his voice is weak, Viktor’s composure is strong and he squeezes your hand gently as he speaks. A chill envelopes you as the paranoia tries to set in. Inhaling deeply, focusing on the way your lungs expand in your chest, you attempt to calm the panic that threatens to take hold of you. You were safe, even if you told Jayce. He wouldn’t parade you around like a novelty, Viktor would make sure of that.

“I have magic,” you look over at Jayce as he glances between the two of you, processing the information. “I have magic and I had been using it to try and heal Viktor for the month I was with him. Obviously it didn’t stick, but… I’ve been working on it.”

“Working on it how? How could you keep this from me–I mean, I understand, but do you know how revolutionary this could be?” Viktor glares at Jayce from his position on the bed and he quickly closes his mouth before more words try to escape. “Sorry.”

“I know how to save you,” you look down at Viktor, the silence surrounding you floating like a fog. “I’ve been doing research and I know how to use healing magic without hurting myself, I just need enough energy. A plant can barely heal a bruise so, I don’t know where we would find that type of power.”

Looking up at Jayce, you can see the cogs in both of their heads spinning. This was what they were good at, what they were made for, and so this was exactly the kind of science experiment that they could solve.

“That’s easy–the hexcore,” Jayce pipes up, speaking as if the solution was simple.

“What’s a hexcore?” you frown as Viktor attempts to sit up in the bed, pushing himself up from the mattress.

“It’s hextech that evolves and reacts with organic matter–it was the matrix in my lab that I was working on when you found me. The magic inside is like the gemstone, in its purest form” he responds, sitting up against the headboard. “It’s incredibly volatile, but it could work–especially if you’ve figured out how to channel energy in a more sustainable way.”

You try to speak again, but Viktor cuts you off with his glare.

“But only if you can do it in a sustainable way–I seem to remember an instance when healing me meant your immanent ruin,” he add and you shake your head.

“That was the thing that stopped me from healing you in the lab. It lashed out and ruined the rune circle,” you admit and Viktor’s eyes widen in shock at the attempt. “It didn’t work though, and if it’s similar to the gemstones and you think it has enough energy, then I can heal you.”

Viktor stares back at you and the three of you sit in silence, Jayce glancing between the two of you for a moment before setting off to let the two of you deal with the tension.

“I’ll be back with the hexcore. Don’t break anything,” he quickly makes his way to the french doors, shutting them as he leaves. Staring back at Viktor, you hold your ground as you feel the grating stare begin to weigh on you.

“I can do it, I know I can. It’s all I’ve been doing for the past three weeks,” you feel Viktor’s lumen roll off your shoulder, dipping down to go meet yours for the first time in weeks.

“I’ve seen it, my little flower is quite green now a days,” he gently cups your lumen in hand, its usual blue color beginning to bleed through the other magic that had come to surface. “But I don’t want you to unnecessarily risk your life to save mine–you shouldn’t have tried to heal me in the lab, that was reckless.”

Your eyes flutter down to look at your lumens, cuddled up by the pillow and shining brightly as they brush each other. Viktor’s shines a tad brighter than before, amber bursting through the dull and dark cloud he had been in for the past couple weeks.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” your eyes meet his and he melts slightly, his features softening. He reaches out and gently grasps your cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb over your cheek.

Even with the simplest of touches, your heart fills in your chest at the feeling of him grounding you–of him being here with you. In your mind, everything is decided, but you can’t help the grasp the demon of terror has on your back. Even as you sit, Viktor caressing your cheek, the fear that he’ll crumble away into nothing seems to squeeze your heart. And yet, with him here–the world appears a little less scary–and so you push through the sinking feeling. You had to be honest with him, it was the only way he’d understand.

“When I was little,” you start, pushing down the fear and the vine of anxiety that threatens to surround your throat. “I killed a man by simply touching him on the shoulder because he broke into my house.”

Looking up, you try to gauge his reaction, but his features remain calm as he gestures for you to continue.

“My mom, who found me an hour later, took me in her arms even though I screamed she would die, and told me that I couldn’t tell anyone or else I would be in danger. So I didn’t, but I couldn’t help my curiosity. And after years of research, I never thought it possible to understand any of this until you came into my life,” you smile slightly up at him as he listens. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought I was protecting myself. But in doing so, I broke your trust. Now, I tell you, honestly, that I have figured out healing magic–just like you theorized. Different colors of magic mean different things, and even if you don’t want to see me again after this, I promise I’m not being dishonest about it.”

His hand is cool against your cheek and you lean into it, placing your hand on top of his. Hot tears stream down your cheeks. You had missed this, missed him. Before, it felt like pieces of you were fractured, never to be found again, but now they were whole. Viktor leans forward and you close your eyes to brace yourself for a scolding, but when his lips press against your forehead, they flutter open to see him smile slightly.

“I am sorry. For not taking the time to understand. But now I see all of you,” he lets go of your cheek and pats the place next to him on the bed. You scoot over and lean against him, his arm wrapping around your waist. Instinctively, your head rests on his shoulder as the tears drip down your cheeks onto his shirt.

“I have always been alone, much like you. So I understand the fear of letting strangers in–Jayce is my only friend, next to you of course,” a laugh bubbles out of your chest and you lean into him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. “I apologize for not being honest. I feel as if I had been honest from the beginning about noticing your magic, then maybe our month of solitude could have been avoided, no?”

“Maybe, but perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder–or something like that,” you mumble and he chuckles.

“I have always been fond of you,” he states.

You look up at him as he glances down, your noses brushing. Your eyes trail the curve of his face once more and it feels like you’re looking at him for the first time. Even as gaunt as he is, you cannot deny the beauty of his speckled face and the way his brown hair curls down around his face. If you leaned closer, you could brush your lips together. Tilting your head forward a bit, you attempt to press your lips to his as the french doors swing open in front of you to reveal Jayce holding a glowing blue cube.

“Oh great! You made up,” he states cheekily as you quickly pull away from Viktor, a flush warming your cheeks.

“Is that it?” you ask, diverting the conversation.

“Yep, the hexcore in all its glory,” Jayce nods as his lumen swirls around his arm dramatically, hovering around his hand. You slide off the bed, walking over to pick it up. When you touch the core, it glows brightly as it reacts to your presence and produces feedback like a circuit. The hair on your arms stands up from the way that the true kinetic energy seems to run through your veins.

“How do you want me?” Viktor asks, and you look up to see him staring back nervously.

“I think if you lay down, it will be easier on you. I’ll do it from here,” you mumble and turn to look at Jayce, just standing and observing. “Stand back, okay? I’ve never done this with anyone around but myself.”

He nods, going to stand in the corner. In front of you, Viktor scoots to the middle of the bed and sits, preparing to lay back. As he does so, he quickly leans forward and gently grabs your head, pulling you in for a peck on the lips before pulling back. The kiss is fleeting, only a brush, but your cheeks heat up either way and you can see his pale skin turning rosy as well. Out of the corner of your eye, your lumens flash with a bright light and a smile paints your face.

“For good luck,” he grins and lays back on the bed as you clear your head in preparation. Jayce plucks the other two lumens out of the air to hold them, in case anything goes awry.

Inhaling deeply, you clench your jaw and focus on drawing out the runes. You told yourself that this was easy, it was simple because of all the times praciticed in the lab on plants. These runes were memorized and you had nothing to fear–there was no room for doubt now. Drawing them out carefully, one by one, you can feel the magic of the hexcore thrumming through your veins. You feed on it, drawing it into your body and utilizing the energy instead of your own. It feels like pure electricity travelling through you but with no pain, as if it’s meant to be there. Quickly, the runes begin to swirl as you finish them off.

The runes circle quicker and quicker, picking up speed and you look down to see your body glowing a bright green as the usual weightless feeling takes over. Your feet leave the ground and you watch Viktor float into the air as well, looking around at the manifestations curiously for the first time.

You feel the hexcore leave your hand, watching as it travels into the center of the summoning circle. For a moment, it feels like time stops but the second the circle stops moving, the core shatters into motes of possibility, floating around the room and drawing into Viktor. It looks like green diamonds glittering in the air, all travelling toward him as they sink through his skin and muscle and into his lungs, rebuilding them cell by cell. As quickly as it happens, you fall a few feet down onto the ground, your knees hitting the floor. Viktor slams into the bed, bouncing slightly as you quickly get up to your feet and around to his side.

Your hands shake as his chest fails to rise and fall, Jayce coming over to the other side with his hand on his face in shock. Viktor’s not moving. You crawl to his side, placing your hands on his shoulder and lifting him up slightly to try and see if he is conscious, to feel for his pulse and his breath. For a second, you are convinced he’s dead–that you killed him just like that man, but his chest rises suddenly as he opens his eyes.

“Did it work?” he asks and you shake your head, falling down on the bed besides him.

“Don’t do that ever again,” you gently punch his shoulder as he continues to test out his breathing, his chest rising and falling easily without any issue.

“I’m sure there’s some test we could run later, but I feel fine now. In fact, I feel fine enough to do this,” he rises on his knees and leans down, pressing his lips against yours. This time, it’s more than just a brush of your lips, it’s pure adoration. His skin is warm against yours as he cups your cheek, pulling you closer to him. Your eyes prickle, not with tears of sadness, but with tears of joy as you kiss him back–reaching your hands up to tangle in his messy brown hair.

“Well you look healed,” Jayce comments, moving toward the doorway.

You pull away slightly to glance over at Jayce, already halfway out the door as he waves and closes it behind him. You let out a laugh and shake your head as Viktor presses his forehead to yours, staring down at you. Your noses brush, and he looks so alive, so youthful for the first time since you’ve met him. His eyes glow bright golden with joy as you gaze up at him.

“Nemůžu bez tebe žít,” he whispers softly and presses another kiss to your mouth.

“What does that mean?” you ask breathlessly.

“I cannot live without you.”

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popopretty · 4 years ago

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Hi! Sorry to bother you! First, thank you for all your hard work with the translations !! I would like to ask if is there any information about Chuuya's wings and the rings around him in the last chapter of Stormbringer when he decides to use Corruption? I want to draw the scene but I'm not sure about the details. Thank you if you answer! Love your blog <3

Hi,

Sorry it took so long for me to answer this. I saw the ask but couldn’t find time during the week to check the novel to get the answer. In the end, I decided that I would just translate a small part before and after that scene so you can get a better overview for your art. I am sorry if you have got the answers from someone else already. Also, this part has a short inner convo between Chuuya and Verlaine that I like a lot so I do want more people to read it :)

Feel free to retranslate if you want. Please note that I am not native in either Japanese nor English and may make some mistakes though. Thank you so much.

SPOILERS AHEAD

[CODE;04]

Chuuya was floating in the sky, lonely, with his whole body bleeding.

His body was almost at its limit. Because on top of Guivre’s attacks, the powerful gravity that he generated was too much for a delicate human body to withstand. Bruises, dislocations, torn muscles, and broken bones. He was literally just using gravity to support his body and somehow maintain a decent shape.

That figure was more lonely than anyone else in this world.

Those eyes moved. They turned to another lonely figure - The Demonic Beast Guivre.

Chuuya fell forward. And just like that, he accelerated forward. He leaped into the air and plunged into Guivre’s chest as if he was being sucked in by it. He hit it.

The attack went through the gravitational guard of the beast’s outer skin, and reached the turbidity of time inside. A violent dark wave immediately rushed in and snatched Chuuya’s body away, trying to tear it into pieces.

Arahabaki roared. He squeezed his two hands, creating a black hole. It rotated, and after swallowing up the muddy stream, became huge and brought out a giant photon sphere. The two gigantic forces voided each other one after another. A storm of heat, vacuum and time raged around Chuuya.

Chuuya was watching that in his faint and disappearing consciousness. When he opened the “gate”, he had already handed over the control of his body to Arahabaki. The only thing he could do was to observe the battle. But even that consciousness was nothing more than a spark of light that seemed to be fading away in the midst of the clash between the God and the Demon that was beyond human comprehension.

The black space let out a scream. It sounded like the voice of someone crying out. The voice of the loneliest someone on earth. A voice that seemed to be lost in the black torrent of hatred. But with the energy being consumed by Arahabaki’s photon sphere, that voice finally reached Chuuya’s ears.

“End this already.”, said the voice.

“This beast speaks for my emotions. Why giving birth to me, when I should never have been born in the first place? I am a pitiful soul who holds onto a question that has no answers, hating on my own existence and only getting a sense of my own life by means of assassination.”

“End it, brother. With your own two hands. End this lonely soul who couldn’t believe in this world, who couldn’t believe in human, like you.”

“I know.” Chuuya replied in his consciousness that was about to be blown away.

“You couldn’t bear the loneliness. That’s why you came to Japan. But that is not a bad thing. It’s just that your roll of dice happened to come out bad. It just happened that your dice came up with the lonely “one”, and mine came up differently. I got a side that was blessed with friends. That’s all. Even if our positions were reversed, it would not have been strange at all.”

“Moreover, it’s not just hatred that you have. You actually doesn’t want to hate. That’s why you showed me your memories. You showed me the way to destroy the Demonic Beast of Guivre. Isn’t that right, Verlaine?”

Beyond the storm of the swirling dark torrent, someone’s light was glowing like a shooting star.

Chuuya’s “gate” opened further. The rotating black hole grew even bigger. The photon sphere was now huge enough to overwhelm the space. From Chuuya’s back, a black gravity “control stick” emerged, one on each side. Those were the tails of the beast of Arahabaki. The manifestation of the divine beast burning in black. But it looked just like a pair of wings sprouting from Chuuya’s back.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Chuuya, now with the wings, shouted and raised his two hands upward. With that as a signal, the rotating black hole suddenly became huge. The photon sphere shone like a supernova, and cut the body of the giant beast in half from the inside.

The flattened and crushed black hole which was even larger than the giant beast, together with the photon sphere that was circling and shining around it; they lit up the Yokohama’s night and burnt deeply into the eyes of people.

“That is Arahabaki... Chuuya’s real form?” Dazai who was watching this from the ground, muttered in a voice that sounded like he was delirious from the heat.

Chuuya’s raised arms. The horizontal photon sphere that illuminated the ground. The burning black wings on that back. Chuuya’s face with his eyes closed. The incarnation of a raging God. The black divine beast.

The Demonic Beast collapsed and was suck into that photon sphere. That was like a process of a positive infinity being cancelled out by a negative infinity. The huge body broke down, its flesh turned into snow-like particles and drifted down to the centre of the photon sphere like gently dancing powder. With the flow of time inside the high gravity area being slower, from the outside, the destruction appeared to be terribly slow, even graceful.

The giant beast was not crying. It just opened its mouth and stood still silently as if accepting its fate. The photon sphere generated from its body engulfed its chest and its waist, then its arms and its legs, and finally shallowed its head. There was not a single sound. A tranquil disappearance. The death of a terribly quiet night that somehow went so well with the moonlight.

Eventually, even the photon sphere reached the end of its life. The rotating black hole collapsed while emitting heat rays. The smaller it become, the more heat it generated, and finally the black hole itself became a giant ball of light containing heat rays. It became a second sun, illuminating the night before finally quietly and gently disappearing.

After losing his strength, Chuuya drifted in the air for a few seconds, then lost the black wings on his back and slowly fell.

Dazai caught his body.

From the spot where Dazai touched, the nullification skill was activated.　The self-contradictory skill supporting the energy of the singular point receded, and the output of the singular point decreased. Eventually, it converged and the "gate” closed. The red imprints disappeared from Chuya’s whole body. Eventually, the gravitational field disappeared and the complete silence was restored.

“Good job, Chuuya.“ Dazai chuckled, looking at the Chuuya he was holding in his arms. "I forgot to bring my ink pen, so I’ll spare you from having your face scribbled.”

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #storm bringer #nakahara chuuya #dazai osamu #skk #spoilers

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miceenscene · 4 years ago

Text

Star-Crossed

din djarin/female oc | soulmate AU | pre-canon wc: 2.6k summary: The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one. People, house, clan. And when all else failed, your Match. “Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense. But what's a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin? warnings: canon-typical violence an: first go at mandalorian fanfic. we'll see how this goes :D Masterpost | ao3

Chapter One: The Urge

Din Djarin has been alone for a very long time.

And somewhere along in being alone, he decided he liked it. He preferred it.

People were pushy. Demanding. Rude.

They took one look at his armor and assumed the man underneath.

At least that’s what he decided was the reason he preferred solitude.

There was an unacknowledged truth, however, that perhaps choosing to prefer loneliness dulled its edge ever so slightly. Just enough to be ignorable most nights.

But some nights, deep in the slip of hyperspace, when it was just him in his tiny bunk on The Razor Crest, it wasn’t ignorable. It sat high in his chest, occupying the space between his lungs, filling it with an emptiness so big it threatened to squeeze the breath out to make room.

On nights like that, the helmet usually went back on.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one.

People, house, clan.

And when all else failed, your Match.

“Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense.

So many lamentable things were lost in the Great Purge.

The beskar, their homeworld…

Lose enough people, break enough pairs, does it even matter if the Matches still exist?

Or don’t, as the case might be.

So much of what the Mandalorians once had is lost. What’s one more thing?

What’s a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin?

He knew his stars. The constellation that outlined the path of his life.

Every Mandalorian had one.

The elders had been very keen to identify his when he first was found. They did eventually.

Tal’onidir. Blood struggle.

Or ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ as the Alderaanians would have said.

Though in the time before the Purge, both halves of a Match’s stars would have been consulted for a clearer picture.

But all he had was his half. All most everyone had was their half.

Very few of the old myths still applied in a galaxy barely free of an Imperial yoke. But even Din had to admit that his stars felt more right than he wanted them to be.

Life was a constant struggle.

Struggle to survive, struggle to continue, struggle to carve out some semblance of contentment with his lot.

He felt he was doing as well as any could.

And then, out of the clear night sky, everything changed.

He was in his ship when he first noticed something off.

Four fresh pucks from Karga, plotting the most fuel-efficient map between his quarries and Nevarro. When he found himself putting in coordinates for Tatooine.

None of the quarries were on Tatooine this time. He stopped, shook his head, and punched in for Jakku.

Desert planets were bound to blur together.

He brushed it off, deciding to get as much sleep as he could in hyperspace.

It was a helmet-on kind of sleep, though.

It came up again as he was leaving Corellia.

He’d actually locked in the coordinates that time and was halfway through atmo before he noticed.

And then it was when he set foot back on Nevarro, four carbonite platters ready for delivery later, that he felt it again.

He didn’t want to be here.

But it was in the middle of Karga offering up new pucks when Din really damned himself.

“Do you have any on Tatooine?” slipped out before he could stop it.

Karga did. Just the one, and a risky venture at that. A Captain in one of the Hutts palaces.

Din took it. He wasn’t even sure why he took it, but it was too late. He was half-way to the ship when he realized he hadn’t taken any other bounties.

Still some part of him unclenched as he finally made the jump to hyperspace.

He’d thought that this odd urge would evaporate as he landed.

It didn’t.

That way it said, gesturing metaphorically for the Dune Sea.

Even if his quarry was technically that direction, this whole journey seemed foolish. And he might have given up if not for that old saying his Armorer was so fond of,

‘Instincts can be misled, but they never lie.’

Peli was her usual self--some combination of persnickety and jovial that landed right in charming. But she did lend a speeder bike.

Finally Din was off, racing through the searing sands.

It was less than a day’s journey, however, when he felt the urge again.

Stop.

He did, scoping all around him, trying to figure out how this gulley between dunes was different from all the others.

Pulling out his pocket scope, gave him a clue. The Hutt palace warbled in the far distance. Now just to figure out how to get inside, kill and/or remove one of the better trained guards without alerting the whole palace.

He watched the palace for the rest of the evening, noting guard rotations, possible alternate entrances.

After the suns set, things began to get a little tense

Dark was the obvious option for trying a covert entrance to the compound. But the urge was rather adamant.

Wait.

“Wait for what?” he asked an empty desert before immediately feeling foolish

His answer came a few hours before sunrise.

A small barge left the palace, floating just a hundred yards north of him. There weren’t many people on board. A few guards, perhaps a slave--

And his quarry.

Well. Rarely did events turn out so damn convenient.

Follow.

Even better.

Back on the speeder bike, he kept pace with the barge, keeping a few dunes between them. Trying to log as much information as he could before striking.

Four guards. One slave. One quarry. No one appeared to be below deck. This wouldn’t be too difficult.

Then the slave kicked one of the guards off the barge.

Another immediately fired a shot at the slave, only to be gruffly stopped by the quarry with the flat of an axe blade.

Din watched on thermal as the quarry pulled something out of his jacket, and then the slave dropped.

An armor piercing scream echoed through the desert, settling high in his chest and constricting.

Now.

Speeder bike surged forward, and one shot with his grappling cable, he managed to land feet first on the side of the barge.

It dipped under his added weight. One guard leaning over to inspect and getting a blaster shot between the eyes for his trouble.

Two more leaned over, but Din ran along the side to get momentum and swing himself up on deck.

The quarry bum-rushed him, axe out. Beskar took most of the brunt, and Din knocked him back, nearly off the side but he gripped the railing, sending a small device skittering to the deck floor.

The slave stopped screaming and that tightness in his chest immediately relaxed, though it didn't evaporate.

Danger.

Yes, obviously.

Din shot one guard as the slave, a human woman in some sort of flowy very impractical clothing, got to her feet and knocked another one off into the sand.

“Duck,” he yelled to her, before shooting the last guard behind her, as she dropped to the deck.

The quarry got back on deck and instead of going after Din, or the woman, he ran for the device near the front of the ship.

“NOOO–” the woman yelled as Din ran after the quarry. But the quarry arrived first, smashing the butt of his axe into the device and destroying it.

Her cry cut off abruptly, but Din focused on getting a single shot to the back of the quarry’s head first. He succeeded.

The post-battle quiet rushed in, cut only by the sound of the barge motor still going and his own breathing.

Save.

He turned back to examine The Woman, who was prone on the deck, not moving. The tightness returned.

Civilian casualties were… an unfortunate reality. He did his very best to avoid them whenever possible. But there had been instances before.

Though those times didn’t make his hands shake as he turned on thermal again.

The shake ebbed as he confirmed she was still alive. Just unconscious. A breath cut out of him.

Save, the urge repeated.

Well, he couldn’t fly a stolen Hutt barge as the way back to Mos Eisley. Hopefully the speeder bike was where he left it.

It was. Though it wasn’t meant to hold three people. The quarry was strapped to the back like so much cargo, and since The Woman didn’t seem to be waking anytime soon, he had no choice but to hold her.

It was more awkward than anything else, her head flopped on his pauldron and her perfume filling his nose

He didn’t know the scent, but it was rich and sweet, and lingered in the back of his throat

They arrived at Mos Eisley as the suns broke free of the horizon.

Peli gave him a strange look when he asked for bolt cutters, but even if the woman was unconscious, Din wasn’t going to leave that collar on her.

Though now came the most important question: what was he going to do with her?

She seemed stable, no wounds that he’d noticed at all. Though she still hadn’t regained consciousness.

It was probably a fairly safe bet that an escaped slave wouldn’t want to stay planetside.

And if she did, he’d bring her right back after getting paid.

He tucked her into the only bed on The Razor Crest –though bed was a generous definition– and found every blanket to drape on top of her. Space was cold and the fabric of her dress was nearly translucent.

Save.

“I’m trying,” he muttered, heading to the cockpit for take off.

The Woman didn’t wake up before Nevarro.

Two and a half full days unconscious was not a good sign. Even for someone like him.

Thermal said she wasn’t running a temperature. At the end of the second day, he gave her a bacta shot for good measure.

Nothing changed.

Fix.

For all the time he spent on Nevarro, Din realized very quickly that he actually knew precious little outside of the covert. Which left him with Karga as his only source of guidance.

“Is there a hospital here? Or a doctor?” he asked, as soon as money had changed hands.

“Are you hurt, Mando?” Karga gave him a once over, as if checking for missing limbs.

“Not for me.”

“Well, we do have a clinic. But it’s run by a healing droid.”

“No droids,” Din responded with a fervency usually reserved for his ship.

Karga held up his hands in surrender. “Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

Fix.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Din asked, “Where’s the clinic?”

A Mandalorian carrying a blanketed bundle the size of a grown woman though the marketplace was bound to get a few strange looks.

Luckily, there wasn’t a line at the clinic.

Unluckily, the droid was still there.

The Woman looked concerningly pale on the table as the droid ran scan after scan. Her hair, dark and curly, didn’t shine like it had under the Tatooine double sun rise. It was limp and lifeless.

Like her.

Fix!

“How many more scans are you going to run??” Din snapped.

The droid was unfazed, finished its test before turning to face him.

“I have found the problem.” A projection appeared of The Woman’s head in profile. A small white square at the base of her skull. “She appears to have a chip implanted between her third and fourth cervical vertebrae.”

“Removing that will fix her?”

“All signs point to this being the root of the problem.”

“Can you remove it here?”

“Yes, but you cannot be present for the procedure.”

Though the idea of trusting her care into the hands of a droid made his palms itch, Din nodded.

He was allowed a moment to say good-bye, which felt both strange as he didn’t even know her name and yet not long enough all at the same time.

He touched a gloved hand to her shoulder, promising that this would fix it.

Though he wasn’t sure who he was promising that too.

A full hour crawled by as Din waited in the dingy clinic waiting room. The urge very insistent

Fix. Return. Fix. Return.

He was about ready to go ask what was taking so long again when the droid returned.

“The procedure was a success. She may be confused for a few days. But her mind will heal with time. Your wife is sleeping now, but can leave by the end of the day. ”

Side-stepping the presumption, he asked, “Do you have the chip?”

“Yes. Would you like to keep it?”

“Yes.” Mainly to find out where it came from in the first place. Implanted chips were rare and few, if any, were legal. Especially not ones capable of this sort of… control.

Given that The Woman was still sleeping, Din decided to take the chip to get some answers.

The urge was not happy.

Return. Return. Return.

But really, when she woke, the droid's face would be more expressive than his own.

From this side of the city, he took the southern entrance to the covert.

There was a tension shift as soon as he stepped down into the subterranean tunnels. The oddity of a Mandalorian was stripped away, thankfully.

At the heart of the covert was the armory and more importantly the Armorer. He sat before her forge and waited to be addressed.

“I see no defects in your armor,” she said, not stopping her smelting.

“I seek answers, not repairs.”

“Answers to what?”

He placed the chip down. She picked it up to examine it silently before setting it back down and returning to her work.

“Where did you find this?”

“Tatooine. Inside a slave from a Hutt palace.”

“Is the slave alive?”

“Yes.”

“They may provide more answers than I can.”

“She’s not conscious,” he explained, taking the chip back. “And–”

The Armorer waited for him to continue.

“I was… led to her.”

“How?”

He paused for a long moment, trying to find a way to explain. “Instinct.”

Danger, the urge suddenly said.

A slight commotion out in the hall behind him interrupted their conversation. Raised voices echoed down stone walls.

The Armorer’s comm link came to life. “Outsider at the southern entrance.”

Danger! Go.

Din was up on his feet before he made the choice to do so. And he was halfway down the hall by the time he’d realized he’d left.

A few other Mandalorians were also moving to the southern entrance, back up if there was an invading force.

Danger! Danger!

The urge pulled him into a sprint for the last corner.

Coming around it, something high in his chest resounded in fear.

The Woman was standing at the end of the hall, dressed in his dark shirt he’d pulled over her dress before taking her to the clinic, with at least six Mandalorian blasters pointed at her.

Save!

“STOP. WAIT.” Din ran down towards the stand off. “DON’T SHOOT.”

A few blasters turned his direction before their owners saw who he was. He could hear quite a few more Mandalorians also approaching from behind.

The Woman, however, did not seem bothered by the guns or the platoon of armored warriors surrounding her. She calmly walked forward, gaze focused somewhere ahead of her.

On him.

Return.

Her eyes were a soft grey, yet distant. Foggy.

Din drifted towards her. The urge now palpable under his skin.

Return.

However, it was only when she reached out and took one gloved hand in hers that it finally relaxed, disappeared.

“Outsiders are not permitted inside the covert,” one of the guards snapped.

“She’s not an outsider,” the Armorer replied.

Her voice seemed very far away to Din who felt it was more important to study this woman’s face than listen.

“She’s a Match.”

That cut through the gentle reverie of grey eyes.

A what?

Chapter Two: The Question

taglist: @kelenloth ; @keeper0fthestars ; @loversandantiheroes

#din djarin #The Mandalorian #din djarin x original character #pedro pascal #din djarin x ofc #The Mandalorian fanfic #Din Djarin fanfic #soulmate au #Star Crossed #i have no clue what the good tags are for this can you tell?#my writing

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alderations · 4 years ago

Text

you never changed, but i sure did

Nastya doesn’t know this, but she’s been floating in empty space for three years. (written for the @mechanismszine !)

Rating: T (for some swearing)

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Temporary Character Death, Post-Out, Memory Loss, Dissociation, Depersonalization, Angst with a Happy Ending

Nastya doesn’t know this, but she’s been floating in empty space for three years.

Nastya doesn’t know much of anything out here. Stars pierce the blankness, pricking her eyes like the tears that would form when it was too cold back home. It’s far too cold here, but her circuits, both metal and flesh, stopped processing that years ago.

She doesn’t have much to take in, between cycles of fading away and shivering back to life every so often when her mechanism can’t keep up with the crushing vacuum. There’s no logic to the moments of clarity in between her deaths, and maybe if she were aware of the anniversary of her self-imposed exile, she would resent it. Instead, her limited consciousness brings her back around to the same thought that’s haunted her since she stepped through the airlock doors: if the Aurora is no longer the Aurora, then who is she?

She’s had plenty of time to form an argument. At first, she would stare at the last remaining piece of her Aurora, mouthing her meaningless silence into the void, as if the tiny scrap of metal would answer her in saccharine Cyberian like the paradox her love always was. Now that Aurora is gone, she has no one to talk to, but she’s so frozen and so lonely that she can only cling to the same series of points.

So one more time, she asks: who is Nastya Rasputina?

A princess. Not remotely. She hasn’t been a princess since she took Carmilla’s hand, regardless of what her creator would say to her when soothing her girlish fears. A princess would have stood with her people when they needed her, rather than dying abhorred and forgotten. A princess was Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, and Nastya shed that name the moment she had the chance. A princess probably should’ve been a good person. She never was.

Cyberian. Nastya’s heart shattered when she realized that her love could no longer answer her in their native language, but it’s not as if those same words stuck with eternal precision in Nastya’s mind. No matter how stubbornly she clings to the accent, she couldn’t remember all the parts of speech and verb tenses that her tutors made her memorize in her frigid interludes of reality. Had she and Aurora ever spoken real Cyberian to one another? She can’t remember, and the fuzzy emptiness where that knowledge should be scares her more than any of the possible answers.

A Mechanism. She played their music, she told their stories, she jumped headfirst into their pointless violence before her cold hands could stop their trembling. She said I don’t want to die and she suffered on an operating table just like the rest of them. And she knows that all of these things make her who she is, that all of these moments in her immeasurable life were the ones that defined it, but if she tries to put herself in her own shoes at any given point, she can’t remember what it was like to be that Nastya. It feels like she’s read her own biography cover-to-cover hundreds of times, but nowhere has the Nastya of the past reached out to remind her how it felt to live through it. Besides, she’s not like the rest of them—her mechanism has never been something discrete, something to separate from herself and love or revere or despise. For Nastya, Every capillary, every cell, aches with the knowledge that she’s not what she’s supposed to be, and no one understands this but her.

Dead. That one’s easy. Nastya Rasputina is dead, but not for long; she shudders back to life with a scream clawing at her teeth before she can ever really end.

Beloved.

She has been loved. Lots of things about her are fuzzy, some forgotten and some uncertain to begin with, but she knows that she’s been loved. Aurora lived in her veins, and Nastya in hers, and she remembers a Nastya who knew what it felt like to be loved so wholly that it was written into the fabric of her flesh. The rest of the crew loved her in their own ways—Ashes steadying her with an arm around her shoulders in crowded cities; Ivy listening and cataloguing every detail as she rambled about Cyberian machinery lost to the rest of the universe; Marius failing to school the awe out of his expression when she outplayed him on his own violin. And, always, Jonny hiding his affection behind a veneer of murder. Jonny, throwing Carmilla out of the airlock so she couldn’t hurt Nastya again. Jonny, crawling through miles of ducts and vents to find her when she went days without eating, even as he scowled at her and Aurora for being too sappy. Jonny, bringing her trinkets and mementos every time she was too overwhelmed to stay planetside after a show. But Jonny watched her leave and did nothing to stop her. Now, who’s here to love her in the endless dark between stars? More importantly, who is she if not beloved?

Given all the evidence, there’s only one conclusion to make: she is no longer Nastya Rasputina. She has not been Nastya for a long time, probably even longer than she’s been floating in space. So even if her Aurora was still out there, still launching the Mechanisms from one tragedy to the next, she doesn’t deserve to be a part of that cycle.

The thought fades away, as always, moments before her lungs stop trying to breathe in the nothingness and she dies once again.

---

Needles prick every inch of her skin, inside and out, icy and blazing and unrelenting until she can’t draw in enough air to scream. Then there’s pressure, something cold-hot weighing down on her back, and light so harsh that she sees the afterimage of the stars that she’s stared at for decades, and sound. She can’t remember if she’s supposed to understand what’s happening. There’s no sound in the vacuum, but now she can hear every chirp and whisper and hum of the metal around her, and above all of it, a voice.

It’s been so long since she even remembered a voice.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” the voice barks, and Nastya only understands it because she’s been thinking in the same language this whole time, after all. There’s no resistance left in her, so she tries to move, only to slump to the ground. Was she standing? Strange. “Ashes, move. I said get out!”

The warm pressure on her back shifts, but doesn’t leave, and then something softer touches her face. Her body is faster to remember these things than her, but when she opens her mouth to reply, running on instinct and loneliness so deep it defines her, she can’t make a sound.

Another voice comes from somewhere farther away. “Be gentle, Jonny.”

“I am!” The blur in front of her moves in synchrony with the words. Jonny. Jonny. She’s supposed to feel something about that name. It’s not the name that aches inside her, deeper than her every conscious thought, but she should feel something about it. That feeling swirls under her surface, pushing at the edge of the emptiness that she’s made herself into, but she fades back out of reality before it can give itself a name.

---

“I rewinded to a few minutes before we pulled you in,” says Brian, prodding the screen with a gentle frown. “Are you sure about this?”

Nastya nods. “I—hm. Sorry.” She clears her throat, which she’s been doing every few minutes since she woke up, because even immortality isn’t enough to keep vocal cords working well after nearly a hundred years in space. “It’ll be… closure. At least.”

“Can I stay here with you?”

“Please,” she murmurs. He probably wouldn’t have left regardless, because they’re all afraid to leave her alone right now, but it matters that he asks. It matters that he takes her hand and runs a smooth brass thumb across her palm when she reaches out for comfort. Brian presses play, and the camera feed outside the airlock begins again.

Two minutes of silence, and then a cacophony of boots on metal and shouting and doors hissing open and closed as the crew realizes what’s about to happen. She still doesn’t know who actually tracked her down, who opened the airlock for her in the first place. By the time Ashes pounds on the keypad to open the inner door, Nastya is crumpled on the ground inside the airlock, skin waxy-pale and clothes filigreed with frost, and in the present her breath catches in her throat because she could swear she’s never seen that face before.

On the screen, Ashes drops to their knees and whips the coat off their back to wrap around Nastya, pulling her into their lap and squeezing her tight to their chest. There’s sound on the feed—muffled, but not enough to lose Jonny’s voice as he storms around the corner and shouts at Brian and Ivy to “get the fuck out of my way.” The body in Ashes’ arms flails hard enough that they nearly drop her, and Nastya catches a glimpse of her own face, etched into a frozen frown that makes her stomach go tight and uneasy. “Ashes, move. I said get out!”

Ashes lowers her to the floor, leaving their coat wrapped around her, and the Nastya on screen goes limp moments before Jonny throws himself down next to her and starts slapping her face. After a few seconds without a response, he lets out a scream of frustration as the other crew members back up to give him space. But for once his rage is contained, and he picks Nastya up instead, leaning his cheek against her forehead. She’s so much taller than him. Especially after a hundred years of space-vacuum spine decompression. Still, he’s practically jogging by the time he gets out of the airlock, the others following, and the door closes behind him on its own. The last thing Nastya fixates on is her own hand, limp and gray, dangling down from her body. It can’t be hers. She stares down at her hand in real life, but this one doesn’t look any more familiar.

“I s-still don’t know,” she starts, then pauses to close her eyes and take a deep breath when Brian turns to her. He’s so earnest sometimes, it’s hard to look at him head-on. “Who found me? Who got me out of space?”

Brian fidgets with the recording again. “I’m honestly not sure. Here, I can rewind farther—there was this… noise…”

Twenty minutes before the airlock opened. They watch a blank feed for a bit, Nastya’s hand trembling in Brian’s, and after a few minutes he sits down on the arm of the pilot’s chair and starts to stroke her hair. Every touch feels like a tiny shock, but she can’t stand the thought of him stopping. Then the sound comes from the camera feed—not an alarm, at least not one she’s heard before, and she is intimately familiar with Aurora’s standard operating signals. This is a wail, echoing from deep within the ship until the walls reverberate and everything pitches slightly to the left. A sharp turn, maybe? It probably shouldn’t show up on an internal camera like that, but that’s the least of Nastya’s concerns. “Was anyone on the bridge?”

“We can check,” Brian answers, hesitant. He pauses the feed and flips through the cameras—seven pods, kitchen, common room, bridge. Everyone is standing, apparently staring around in bewilderment, but no one is actively steering the ship. When Brian switches the feed again, it’s black.

They both stare at it for a second. “Engine room,” he reads off the top of the screen. “There… should be lights in there, yes?”

Nastya’s throat is too tight to speak. She hasn’t been down there—she’s barely been awake for half an hour, she’s not ready to come face-to-face with Aurora again. But she nods, and Brian presses play, and the wailing starts again, earsplitting even through the cameras. The video is still dark, but it’s clear that this is the closest they can get to the sound.

Of course it was Aurora. She didn’t need to see this to know, but she deserves this shattering ache in her chest, so she keeps watching. Brian apparently has other ideas, because he flips back to the airlock door again, and then switches the cameras to follow Nastya—in Jonny’s arms, and then Marius’s, and then lying on the sofa in the common room while Raphaella feels her forehead and the Toy Soldier bounces on its heels behind her—until she coughs half a dozen times and starts to wake up.

Through every moment, Nastya studies the face on the screen, recording every contour, every feature, every shadow. She can see the details, but when she tries to put them together, something isn’t right. “It’s not me,” she finally murmurs, leaning her head into Brian’s side. “I don’t—I can’t recognize… that person. That’s not me.”

“I can follow you all the way here on the cameras if you want—”

“No, I know,” she cuts him off, growing more insistent. “I know I’m wrong. I know, logically, that Aurora found me and plucked me out of space and you all dragged me inside and I’m here now and I’m fine now, but I don’t know that face, I can’t even recognize my hands in front of myself right now! I’m—I—I had almost a hundred years, according to Ivy, out there in space to think about it, and you know what I found out?”

Brian’s face is taut with concern when he looks down at her. “Nastya,” he pleads.

“I’m not Nastya. That’s what. I haven’t been—maybe I’ve never been Nastya, but I’m not now, and whatever the fuck I am is something that none of you know. Not Aurora, not even me. And they’re going to realize that, and what will they think then? How long will I have to watch you all mourn a Nastya who never existed every time you look at me?”

He stares down at her, mouth open but unable to form words, while she pulls her hand back to herself and curls up in the pilot’s chair, choking on a sob. There’s nothing to do but cry, when even Brian doesn’t know what to say and the camera feed keeps on going, inundating her with snapshots of a Nastya she never was. Shaky hands flicking the hair out of her face, shoulders brushing mindlessly against the walls of the ship, gaze fixed on Jonny’s ear so she doesn’t have to look him in the eyes. All of these things should add up to her, and instead she is empty.

There are thoughts building in the corners of her head, and she knows they’ll be dangerous if they can coalesce into words, but she can’t stop them. Jonny couldn’t, Ashes couldn’t, Brian can’t, Aurora—

As if she can hear Nastya thinking, a row of soft blue lights flickers on overhead. Nastya’s head snaps up, tears streaming down her temples, as every light in the room comes on in a wave, pulsing brilliant blue-white-golden over her and Brian, almost drowning out the stars ahead of them for a moment before they dim to something tolerable. When she knows she has Nastya’s attention, Aurora sings to her—sound traveling through the air, pulses of light, lines of code transmitted from the thrum of the metal underneath her and into her blood, carrying a thousand rehearsals of the same message.

I don’t care whether you’re the same Nastya, or whether I’m the same Aurora. I will get to know you again every time you wake up. I will love the person I meet more with every day. I am the one who loves you, and you are the one who loves me, and we belong here.

Nastya is crying too hard to form words, but Aurora’s song reassures her that she has nothing to defend. “Do you… want me to leave you two alone?” Brian interrupts, gesturing at the door.

It takes another minute for Nastya to calm down enough to answer him, but in that time, her hands find the control panel and, trembling, tap stream-of-consciousness binary into the metal until she knows that Aurora has once again heard her heart. “No,” she manages at last. “No, I want my family.”

Brian sweeps her into a hug, and the rest of the crew aren’t far behind.

#the mechanisms #nastya rasputina #nastyaurora #mechanismszine #alder originals #writing #im v v proud of this and it means a lot to me and even going through to italicize stuff #because tumblr doesnt feel like formatting right ig #is making me very emotional #i need a nap now

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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years ago

Text

Yamata-No-Orochi: (Part 4) Erii

ITT: The Mic Drop Heard Round the World.

The sun woke you. Bright light shone through the windows, forming a halo around the curtains and projecting the shape of raindrops from the window onto the carpet. Mingfei had left shortly before you fell asleep of exhaustion and grief.

You’d fought hard and rebelled against the world, but this last rebellion had taken you too far. Z raised, saved, and safeguarded you. But you refused to play his love game, and that was all it took to discard you. Caesar had been at your side, encouraging you to live all this time. But now that the clouds had gathered, and the darkness of the world surrounded you, he realized that, like Chance, life was not in the cards for you. And Chu Zihang? Well, he always was a sword at your throat.

Once again the world was laughing, mocking you with its silent game of keep away. Love? Syke! Happiness? Syke! Companionship? Syke!

You hated this world. Mingfei went to Erii’s room with the Desert Eagle. What was stopping you from planting your mind in the ground and tilting Tokyo into a rift in the Earth, like it was the undersea Takamagahara? To watch its towers topple, and its buildings burn would be a fitting end to a Godzilla movie.

The hotel phone rang, insanely loud. You reached over and picked it up. “Pizza Hut,” you mumble.

Lu Mingfei stammered for a moment. Then he laughed. “Hey. You, me, Erii road trip. Right now. I left some clothes for you.”

His voice over the phone, it sounded like Z’s. You are silent, mind completely inert, spirit aching. “Sure whatever.” You hang up.

You shower and pull a comb through your hair three times, leaving it to fall over your shoulders. You don't bother with jewelry or make up. He left you a pair of skin tight jeans and a shirt that said Wild Thing across the front. White ankle socks and blue low rise canvas sneakers go over your feet.

The phone rings again. Mingfei sounded breathless. “Come now! We have to go!”

You hang up the phone and dash outside. Mingfei is waiting for you in a cherry red porsche. Erii waves with bright enthusiasm from the passenger side as he gets out and folds the seat down so you can get in the back. “Erii this is my friend, MC, She’s sick like you.”

You startle. Mingfei just went out and said it. You hold out your hand and she takes it, examining your fingers with her dark red eyes. You were lighter skinned, but this girl was near transparent. She scribbled on a notepad. “Nice to meet you. You are very pretty.”

“Guys buckle up!”

Your seatbelt had just clicked when Mingfei down shifted and floored it. The engine let out a mighty growl and the car took off like a rocket down the street. But Mingfei was relaxed, with an impish, ‘catch me if you can’ sort of look. Something in your chest stirred awake.

Erii held up her notebook. “Sakura is the best, right?”

Her smile was so sly, not something you expected to see. “Oh yeah, he's awesome!”

Her nod was sassy, like, Damn Straight.

You look at him again. He was smiling like he was angry. He was acting recklessly. The buildings were a blur outside the windows. The car rumbled like a beast underneath you as the accelerator didn't let up. You weave through traffic like lightning and soon the police are tailing you with flashing lights.

If you thought you were going fast before you were mistaken. The car dug deeper, and it felt like you floated over the road. The police car faded into the distance, unable to keep up.

He pulls into a service station and pays the attendant way too much cash. “Where are we going?” You ask.

“It's a surprise!”

“Does MC like gum?” Erii held out a piece and you helped yourself.

You lean forward. Erii was covered head to toe in clothing, despite the good weather.

“MC said that Erii is not stupid, that Erii is smart. MC was right, you knew a lot about yourself. But MC was sad so I wanted to take her too.” Lu Mingfei was saying. “Because she cares for Erii and understands her.”

Erii looks at you for a moment. Then she wrote in her notepad, “Cheer up. Sakura is very lucky. Thank you for caring about me.”

Her expression was so earnest and happy. Did she really understand herself? You hold out your hands for the notebook and pen. You write, “I'm too sick so my friends are scared of me.”

She takes one look at the notepad and her eyes widen. She snatches it back and writes, “Erii is not scared, Erii will be your friend.”

“Please be my friend.” You say softly.

Erii reaches out and seizes your arm. Her face is serious and she nods. When you stop at the supermarket, she drags you along, purchasing snacks and a gigantic stuffed teddy bear. Erii was not interested in herself. She wanted to cheer you up! She understood beyond words the lifelong loneliness, the constant rejection, and growing up in a world that feared you. She forcefully shoves the teddy bear into your hands. And pulls you along. It's so big you can't see around it.

Her image blurs with that of Renata. If Renata had a chance to grow up, she would be this bold.

The bear is so tall it folds against the low ceiling of the porsche. You squeeze in next to it.

“MC is from Siberia. Where she is from, the sun doesn't set in Summer. And in Winter, it doesn't rise and lights dance in the sky.” Mingfei says as you take off again.

Erii swivels in a full body, “What?!” expression and you laugh. “It is true. It's exactly like that.”

“That is AWESOME!” She turns the notepad to you and then writes, “I want to visit your home!”

You recall your promise to Caesar to go dog sledding and feel a pang of regret. But your mind has already replaced Caesar on the dogsled and put Erii there. “Let’s go dogsledding!”

She looks confused.

“Here give me your notebook.” You draw a sketch of a dog sled pulled by a team of panting dogs.

If Erii’s eyes got any bigger they would fill her face. She wrote, “IS THERE SANTA IS HE THERE”

“I… no Santas not there, but we can pretend to be Santa.”

“MC is awesome!”

Before dusk, Lu Mingfei and you two ladies arrived in the town at the southwest end of Shikoku, which is more than four hundred kilometers from Tokyo. The Porsche sports car ran for a full four hours. The whole time Erii peppered you with questions about life in Siberia while Mingfei drove. She had the impression of a magical frostland full of sky and sea. Her sparkling impression was free of brutal reality. For four hours you spoke only of the beauty and wonder of the north. Erii’s notebook is filled with sketches of white quail, snow geese, cute arctic foxes, bears, seals, and whales.

The open-air parking lot was empty. Lu Mingfei found a parking space to park the car, and opened the door to hear the tide. You could not see the sea. A large hill stood between you and the ocean. The waves sounded like reverberating between the sky and the earth.

"The sea?" Erii wrote to Lu Mingfei, with excitement in her eyes.

Lu Mingfei nodded his head as an answer.

Ah the ocean… maybe four hours ago you might have been upset to meet up with the water. Now you just laugh.

Erii looks at you curiously.

“Did you know I got to ride dolphins?”

Erii practically staggers.

“If you're lost in the ocean, sometimes dolphins will rescue you.” You hook her arm in yours. “They're big and strong and won't let you drown.”

“MC knows so much.”

“Erii knows a lot about Erii’s world. I know a lot about mine.”

Erii nods and smiles.

Lu Mingfei pulled out the compass, opened the long-prepared map, and took you to the town not far away. The sign in front of the town reads Umezuji-cho. At this time of the year, the streets of Tokyo must be bustling with people, but in this small seaside town, there are no people on the streets, only a group of elementary school students in school uniforms passing by.

Mingfei seemed to be in a rush, but Erii dallied with you, asking questions and marveling at the tofu shop, or the batik store. More than once, Mingfei had to come back and usher you forward. He clearly had some sort of plan in mind.

You find out that he hurried was so you could catch the last mountain tram, which was built next to the town's shrine and had a 45-degree angle track that made a staccato sound as you climbed.

On both sides of the track there are dense trees. These trees cover the track like thick clouds, and it is as if you are walking through a tunnel of ever-changing colors, a tunnel made purely of foliage and flowers.

Both you and Erii are stunned with wonder. You did not have such dense forests like this growing up. The air is full of birdsong and frogs and early season cicadas. You feel someone take your hand. Erii points to your face. A bright tear shone there like a pearl. You didn't know you had shed it.

"Sakura is not Japanese, right? How do you know such a beautiful place?" Erii wrote in her little notebook.

"I saw a drama made in Japan. This is a very famous scene from that drama. I saw that drama a long time ago."

"What was the name of that TV series?"

"Tokyo Love Story." Lu Mingfei wrote one stroke at a time.

"I liked that Japanese drama so much that I searched the Internet for all kinds of information about Ehime Prefecture, and finally learned that the ending scene was filmed in Umezuji Town, and that the school and the separate stations in the drama were real. I had always dreamed of traveling to Umetsuji-cho and had done a lot of homework.”

You and Mingfei did not really know each other. You did not think he was this level of a romantic so you didn’t understand why Caesar would want to pair you two. Now it made a lot more sense.

Lu Mingfei took out a handkerchief and blindfolded Erii: "You will see a beautiful view when you untie the handkerchief later."

When he handed one to you, your jaw drops. “I can’t believe you.”

He doesn’t say anything, just ties your eyes. You feel his hand close around yours. You can’t see Erii’s expression. “Erii, I’m so excited. This is fantastic!”

You’re smiling, you can’t stop. The memories of the events of the days before roared like angry hordes of monsters in your mind, but Mingfei and Erii have shut the gates on them. His warm hand in yours, the rhythm of the sun's rays between the trees, the crunch of your footfalls on the trail, the constant sound of birds. It was all so soothing.

You walk the decades old mountain mining path, a road with uneven stone patchwork. At the end of the road is a long closed mine. In order to commemorate the mine that raised the town, the residents of Umezuji Town donated money to build a wooden temple-style building over the entrance and exit of the mine. Each rafter is hung with carp flags for prayers, and various porcelain dolls are placed under the eaves. This is a local custom. If the town's family gave birth to a boy, they would come here to hang a carp flag, and if it is a girl will put a porcelain doll.

“It's exactly the same as the Internet says." Lu Mingfei said.

The tracks of the mine car had long been rusted, and weeds grew among the sleepers. You followed the track to the edge of the cliff, and Lu Mingfei helped you to climb a rock that protruded from the cliff.

He pressed his hands on you and Erii’s shoulders and said, "Now you can take off the blindfold."

You untied your handkerchief.

The sunset blooms full in your vision. The huge sun disc had touched the sea. Ten of millions of tons of seawater slowly swirled beneath your feet. The tide broke into white splashes under the black cliffs. The wind blew endless hectares of forest. The evening woods also look like the sea from a distance, a pale red sea, with thousands of treetops swaying with the wind, forming cascading waves.

Small towns are distributed along the winding coastline, Lu Mingfei names of them one by one -- below the cliff is the town of Umezuji, a little farther away is the town of Yamamae, Tsukishita Castle Town and Matsuron Town, and further is beyond his knowledge.

The town's small school was already empty, and the silent playground was empty.

The Ferris wheel spins slowly but does not carry passengers. The Ferris wheel in Umezuji Town is only a miniature version, but it is magnified in the sunset, its huge shadow cast on the undulating sea of trees.

On the track facing the sea, the yellow slow train rumbled through the small unoccupied station, which was enclosed by white railings with the signs "Umetsuji X" and "Tokyo X”. You wonder how long it had to wait for a nostalgic and romantic fan like Lu Mingfei. Music starts playing and you can't help but laugh in disbelief.

Lu Mingfei had pressed play on the theme song of Tokyo Love Story. His phone was the latest and the speaker was good. You couldn't believe it. This nerdy little parrot boy and scared raccoon had somehow managed to comfort you completely. Outside the shadows of Caesar and Chu Zihang, he shined bright. Maybe being on a boat with him would be fun.

Erii held up her notebook. “The world is gentle.”

You look at her, expressionless. She was right. The world in its natural state was quiet and peaceful. You’d fallen asleep in violence and awakened in violence and pain. You didn't get to experience the romantic world like this very much. In your mind, you imagine Renata in her patchwork coat, sitting next to you. In your ears, she whispers.

You open your mouth, “Make a wish!”

Mingfei turns to you in surprise but Erii follows along, pressing her palms together. You pray.

Renata. I am coming soon. Sorry it took so long.

You sat under the roof of the mine. Erii kept writing questions. Lu Mingfei answered one by one. This girl seems to have saved up a belly of questions, and now they all came out. Mostly they referenced Anime and Manga you have never heard of. That was Erii’s world, a world of cartoon fantasy. He confirmed or denied that reality, shaping and creating the world anew as you watched her listen intently. Lu Mingfei had taken to heart your words and was upfront and simple, not lying or trying to say things she wanted to hear. You nod in approval, your eyes serious.

The sun gradually sank below the surface of the sea, the last afterglow scattered on the water. Half of the sun and its reflection form a complete circle.

"So this is what the outside world looks like." Erii wrote to Lu Mingfei to see.

"Yeah, that's what it's like, no Britannia Kingdom and no Celestial Organization… disappointed?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"No, not disappointed, like this kind of world, this kind of world is very gentle." Erii used the word gentle once again. You repeated the word in your mind. Gentle. It echoes there. As if without the constant threat of death and adrenaline, there was just empty space.

"I really like this world." As the sun is about to disappear, Erii wrote to Lu Mingfei. "But the world doesn't like me." Erii went on to write.

You stand up and move to the other side of her. You scoot as close as you can and rest your head on her shoulder. She hugged the huge bear and lowered her eyes like a cat that had done something wrong.

"I'll be a problem for everyone and I've been a problem for Sakura." Erii wrote again.

"I was too willful. So I ran away from home."

"I should have gone back a long time ago but it's still a pleasure."

"It's beautiful here, I should have known I should have come here on the first day. Thank you Sakura, MC, thank you.”

You lower your hand over hers as she’s writing.

"No."

Erii froze for a moment.

"No." Lu Mingfei repeated.

Lu Mingfei cocked his head to look at her with a rare serious look: "Don't think you can know what the world is like by coming out to see it. I'm still confused after living in this world for more than twenty years. You've only run out for a few days and you think you understand?"

His eyes look at you too and you’re just as shaken as Erii. But he is right! You never set foot outside the Port of Black Swan and that was 20 years ago. You saw the whole world through that tiny lens and haughtily walked around like you owned the place. You judged others through that same view as well.

"How big the world is depends on how many people you know, and for every person you know, the world gets a little bigger for you. There are many cities in this world. There are Tokyo, Paris, Cairo, London, Istanbul... but many of them are just names to you, you haven't been there and there are no people there you want to visit, so they don't really belong to your world. There are many, many more people in this world, but you don't know them, and they don't belong in your world. There are also lots of good food and fun and nice things in this world, but the world that really belongs to you is actually very small, just the places you've been and eaten and seen the sunset and the friends who will care if you live or die."

"Whether the world likes you or not only depends on whether your friends like you or not. Everyone has a few really good friends. They like you, therefore, the world likes you."

The world… was not Tokyo, or Cassell or Hydra… The world was Renata, Caesar, Chu Zihang, Lu Mingfei, and now Erii. You turn your head back to Tokyo, unseen in the distance. How could you leave…?

“What is a good friend?" Erii wrote in her little notebook.

"It's the kind of friend that's so crazy about that he'll believe in you no matter what, and he'll be with you no matter what.” Lu Mingfei growled low. "If the world really doesn't like you, then the world is my enemy."

The moment these cold and arrogant words came out of his mouth, you seemed to hear a familiar cold laugh coming from behind you. The demon of the sad world sneering with all its mockery.

Together, you and Mingfei both jerked back, but behind you were only cherry blossoms mixed with fallen leaves swirling in a breeze, and there was no sign of Z. Lu Mingfei stared at you with wide eyes and you stared right back. His mouth opened. “MC. You… heard…?”

"Wanted: a good friend."

He turned back to Erii waiting for him with a small book up.

"I am your good friend, and you will have more good friends in the future." You say.

"But as long as we are your good friends, how can we not like you?" He said softly.

She slowly crawled towards Lu Mingfei like a kitten, vigilantly figuring out his look. Lu Mingfei looks petrified and you cover your mouth with one hand while silently cheering, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

What did he expect? Even your heart was moving and you don’t even like him! Lu Mingfei is sitting here putting Kazama level moves on this girl and now that her arms are around him and her head is on his chest, he looks two seconds away from shitting himself. You ball your fist against your lips and swallow your laughter.

Clouds gathered in the distance and the sun had set, It was time to go. You would have to get up bright and early tomorrow to get on the boat to China. Your heart was relaxed again about Caesar’s decision. After all, he was just doing his best. If you died, you would go to rest. Caesar would be tormented for the rest of his days. He wasn't sending you on the boat to die. He wanted you to live. You still believed the omniscient Z. Leaving Tokyo was a death sentence. But you also believed Caesar had his own parallel script.

It was raining by the time the train came. You stand shoulder to shoulder on the platform. “Call me to wake me up tomorrow.” You say.

Mingfei lowers his head and laughs.

“Oh you’re planning to oversleep? Once again I have to be the mature one.” You roll your eyes.

The train splashes up to the platform and you make sure Erii has her ticket. She sits next to the window and stares outside. Much to your surprise, Mingfei sits you next to her. He gives you a fond smile and passes you a note.

"Dear passengers, this train terminates in Matsuyama City. We are now about to leave Umezuji-cho station. The train is about to close......" A sweet female voice echoed in the carriage.

The doors of the train close.

You open the note in your hand. The words make you squint.

You have to live.

You and Erii gasp at the same time. Mingfei is not on the train. The doors have closed. And he is not on the train!

You leap from your seat and pound on the glass door in front of the smiling Mingfei. “Where am I supposed to go?” You will miss the boat. You won’t go to China.

Your hands slowly slide from the glass. Erii is pressing her notebook urgently against it.

Lu Mingfei tapped on the window, "Someone will pick Erii up when you get to Matsuyama City. MC, find Ruri Kazama.”

"Won't Sakura take me back to Tokyo?" Eriki took the small book and showed it to Lu Mingfei.

"Your family won't like me." Lu Mingfei said.

Erii hugged the furry teddy bear and lowered her head, her long hair like a colored cloak that enveloped both her and the bear.

"Sayonara" said Lu Mingfei.

Erii nodded, finally realizing that this was their parting. The train ride to Tokyo will take several hours, but Lu Mingfei will not accompany her.

Lu Mingfei's face was stern and he didn't say anything more. There was nothing more to say. This was the parting, his carefully designed parting. He NEVER agreed to the boat. He NEVER agreed to kill you. He had carefully pulled the wool over Caesar’s eyes and convinced you that he was going to dump you on the boat. You grinned and shook your head. But the train began to move before you could even think of a comeback.

#Dragon Raja

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plumoh · 3 years ago

Text

[NatsuYuu] along the seams of shadows

Rating: G

Word count: 2079

Summary: Natsume Reiko is a pitiful and lonely human.

Note: AO3 link. A look at Reiko through Madara’s eyes.

Madara’s ears twitch when the tree branch starts creaking and the leaves fall down in a whirlwind of irritating pests. He’s two seconds away from threatening whoever is disturbing his nap when laughter reaches him—a plain, boisterous laughter that leans towards mockery instead of pure joy.

“You really are just a cat, Madara!” the voice says, as close to his face as ever. “Napping on a nice patch of grass, under the sunlight?”

Madara cracks one eye open. The sun is still high in the sky and the breeze that ruffles his fur is a pleasant addition, accompanying his solitary nap far away from noisy and ridiculous small fry. But he can never escape the unpredictability of an annoying, weak human.

“If you say another word you will become my afternoon snack,” Madara warns.

The laughter becomes louder, and in the sunlight that makes shadows bigger, pale hair shines brightly while unnatural eyes glimmer with an even more vivid color.

“I’d like to see you try, you big lump of fluff.”

Natsume Reiko smells like mischief, power and loneliness.

***

This forest isn’t big enough to swallow all the rumors that float around. There is no god protecting it and spreading rules to abide by, which means that everyone is free to do as they like, much to Madara’s displeasure. He’s a magnificent beast with strength that rivals that of a god, capable of destroying entire areas of nature and banishing youkais, but people here treat him like he’s the latest entertainment, to be jeered at by everyone and nobody.

He is not a simple creature that lazes around, and he definitely is not a human child’s pet.

“You should have eaten her long ago if you’re so irritated by these rumors,” Hinoe tells him, looking far too too smug for someone who is, without a doubt, clinging the most to that girl.

“It requires too much effort,” Madara growls, flicking his tail impatiently. “Reiko probably doesn’t taste good anyway. I don’t like my prey jumping and running around, it’s exhausting to look at.”

“You are the most boring beast I know.”

Madara rolls his eyes, turning his head away. “That’s a bold accusation when Misuzu is right here.”

“Misuzu is funny, at least. You, on the other hand, are boring.”

Hinoe draws from her pipe and exhales noisily, chuckling when some of the smoke gets into Madara’s eyes. Madara groans and rises on his paws, lifting a cloud of dust and dirt along with him, and a few little plant youkais scamper off deeper into the forest with squeaks. Madara watches them flee for their lives, feeling vindicated.

“I am a respected and intimidating beast, that’s what I am,” he huffs.

“Yeah, a beast that still refuses to play a game with me because he’s scared.”

Hinoe bursts out laughing while Madara tries his hardest not to simply snap and leave. Reiko jumps down from a tree (why is she always climbing trees?) and lands onto Madara’s back, her lips curled into a grin that could have been fueled by the sun’s spite, bold but burning.

Sometimes, Madara finds himself unable to make sense out of this girl appearing and disappearing from his life like a tornado.

“I told you I don’t have time to waste on your ridiculous games,” Madara says.

Reiko tilts her head, never ceasing to be the arrogant and confident person she poses as whenever she makes her words sharp and cutting.

“Hinoe is right, you are boring,” she snickers.

Madara’s tail hits the ground in annoyance, and he shows the barest hint of his teeth.

“Don’t you have human things to do, instead of bothering me during my peaceful rest?”

Reiko shrugs, sliding off Madara. She smooths over her skirt and passes a hand through her hair, as if they’ve never seen her in a dishevelled state or covered in mud after an encounter with rambunctious youkais. She stays silent, her smile frozen, but her eyes are blazing with a quiet, raging fire that sends chills down Madara’s spine. She’s only a young girl, inexperienced and foolish, running around and upsetting the natural order of things in this forest—but behind all this brashness, Madara senses something deeply unsettling.

“Human things aren’t as interesting as coming here and hearing you grouch like an old man,” Reiko answers. “Hinoe, you said you wanted to show me a new curse.”

Madara ignores the way Hinoe coos at Reiko like she is the most precious creature she’s ever seen, and observes. Reiko is someone they shouldn’t mess with, that is for certain; Madara doesn’t quite know yet why he cannot shake off the feeling she’s wrapping them around her finger.

***

Madara being Reiko’s pet becomes more of a joke than a real fact believed by everyone, and ultimately it doesn’t change anything in the way Madara’s strength is perceived. The others make fun of him for letting her live in spite of the influence she has on his image as the greatest beast of the forest, but for the time being he’s one of the very few who didn’t get his name down in the stupid book, so there.

There has been some turmoil and unrest in the neighborhood, lately. A vicious youkai destroying everything standing in its way, threatening small fry for information and leaving behind trails of blood that scare the weakest of them. Madara doesn’t feel particularly concerned about this kind of rampage, which happens a lot more often than people would believe. It’s best to let it pass and not get involved in this youkai’s affairs.

That is what he would have done, were he alone. In times like these, Madara remembers why he chose to live in solitude and not surrounded by other beings who have the survival instincts of insignificant bugs.

“The destroyed trees fall down and block some roads in the forest,” Reiko grumbles, tapping her foot. “People can’t circulate anymore, and cleaning that mess up will take many weeks.”

Madara sighs, glancing at the area of destruction. The claw marks on the trunks indicate that whoever they’re going to go up against might rival Madara in size, while the pace at which the forest is being attacked tells them it’s also nimble on its feet. Not an ideal situation, then.

“Why do you care about that?” Madara asks, turning back his head to look at her. “You don’t like the people of this town, and they don’t wander in the forest as frequently as you do.”

Sometimes, imperceptibly, Madara catches a flicker of pain in Reiko’s eyes at the mere mention of her own desires. It’s not a physical pain, nor is it a pain associated with the events she’s currently dealing with—it comes from within, deep from her soul and emerging in her gaze for one second. She hides it well. She carries this pain everywhere she goes, but she hides it well.

Madara never comments on it. He watches her school the features of her face back into ones she’s crafted over the years, all mischieviousness and no nonsense. Reiko grins and acts like the royal princess she has become in this tiny pocket of otherworldly space she is the only one to trespass into.

“I don’t like seeing people do whatever they want, like they’re owning this place,” she declares, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “The smaller youkais have been pestering me to do something about it. And it’s destroying my napping spots, too. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have your favorite tree cut down either.”

She’s an odd girl and a mystery Madara doesn’t pretend to understand. She’s confidence and contradiction and selfishness all at once, making it impossible to untangle the knots of her emotions—she uses words and rash actions to cover it up, like a nice tapestry concealing the damage done by a kid’s tantrum.

There is kindness in her selfishness, Madara thinks. Reiko obeys no one’s rules, and she makes up her own for her silly games, but her heart isn’t as corrupted as it may seem. And for this lost human shunned by everyone, doing small services unseen by her peers, Madara only feels pity.

He huffs, and takes off to find the troublesome youkai, whose name will end up tied to a piece of paper.

***

“That book of yours is useless if you’re not using its intended purpose.”

“Its intended purpose is to show off and to instill fear in my enemies.”

“You don’t have natural enemies, foolish girl, you’re creating them yourself.”

Reiko tips her head backwards and laughs, a sound carrying over the wind and echoing against the stone walls. She looks at Madara like he’s the one who has said idiotic things.

“It’s preemptive,” she says. “I’ve never felt that powerful before inventing the book.”

“The words that come out of your mouth are incomprehensible to me,” Madara grunts. “Humans are so unnecessarily complicated and confusing.”

“Don’t talk like you know how humans behave. You’ve barely had any contact with them.”

“And this is exactly why I find them annoying.”

Reiko smiles. She has her legs plunged into the cold but clear water of the lake, on this summer day that feels both too hot and too humid. Madara himself is lying down, head pillowed on his front legs and enjoying the slow pace of his day. He warned Reiko that playful and impish youkais would steal her shoes, that she had carelessly thrown in the grass, but she shrugged and didn’t find it particularly upsetting.

How strange, and how perplexing, to encounter someone who doesn’t adhere to any of the world concepts Madara knows. Reiko doesn’t belong to the realm of ordinary humans, and she has no knowledge of the exorcist community; she is an entity dancing on the blurred hinge of these worlds.

“I don’t need to use the power of their names, since I’ll never see them again,” Reiko finally says. “It’s only awkward if I happen to meet one of them and can’t remember who they are.”

“So you admit this book is useless to you,” Madara snorts. “Give it to me, then.”

Reiko scoops up water between her hands, and flicks it at Madara’s eyes. Madara wrinkles his nose and staggers back, glaring at Reiko’s self-satisfied expression.

“You’re a nuisance,” he tells her.

“And you’re not fun,” Reiko replies. “It’s my Book of Friends, so you don’t get to steal it from me. Attaching a name to a face makes it easier to call them friends.”

A pitiful human, truly.

“...They’re not your friends,” Madara says.

Reiko’s shrug feels measured. She gets out of the water, doesn’t bother drying her feet before retrieving her shoes (that are still where she left them) and putting them on. Madara’s eyes follow her movements, choosing to remain where he is.

“Maybe not,” Reiko concedes, her back turned on Madara. “I wouldn’t want to, anyway. But they gave me their names. Names are important, right?”

Natsume Reiko barges into their life without prompting and wrecks havoc on everything they know. She rips away their routine and replaces it with unpredictable events, summoned by her presence alone in these lands. She moves like nothing ties her down anywhere, but she’s restless. The tightness around her shoulders makes her small and fragile, when her entire attitude seems to prove she is none of that.

Madara doesn’t understand her. Her words and her actions are hard to parse, and he’s not sure she understands herself sometimes. She is simply grander than life itself.

“I hope you’ll play a game with me one day, Madara.” Reiko doesn’t fully face him but a small smile pulls up her lips. “You can’t run away from me forever!”

“Hmpf. I’m not interested in these childish games.”

“You’ll change your mind eventually!”

Reiko waves her hand and disappears in the forest, probably heading back to the home of her caretakers. Madara actually doesn’t know if she does live with them—she could have taken up residence in one of the old shrines with how often she visits them, for all he knows.

Madara curls up and closes his eyes. The Book of Friends, she’s called it. Such an innocent name for what is probably the most dangerous weapon against youkais—and it is simply used by a sentimental girl as a personal reassurance she is not alone.

Natsume Reiko already has friends. She just chooses not to see it.

#natsuyuu #natsume yuujinchou #natsume reiko #nyanko sensei #madara #rattles the bars of my cage i want to know what their relationship was like!!#i love the idea of sensei finding reiko interesting but also feeling sad for her #please @ midorikawa i need answers

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fangirlings-things · 5 years ago

Text

The Border Control Project [Part. 1]

• ───��━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

Fandom: Extraction

Pairing: Tyler Rake x female reader

Summary: you're Tyler's next mission and turns out, you need him more than you want to

Word count: 1.4K

Warnings: curse words, mentions of violence and kidnapping

Based on this imagine

Gif credit: @thoresque

A/N: let me know if you guys want a part 2 or to be tagged like @posiemax asked to (it was sweet, thank youuu). I have many ideas to this series, so let me know what you think!!

Part. 2

Theme song: Shameless, Camila Cabello

Right now I'm shameless

Screaming my lungs out for you

Not afraid to face it

I need you more than I want to

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

It had been what? Two, maybe three days?

You had lost track of time. After so much time in the dark, it happens. Your mind just washes away and it seems like you're floating in space, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

The blindfold in your eyes kept the light away and the restrains in your arms, made your whole body ache. The matress under you was actually soft, but even fluffy clouds could feel like a stone after being kept in the same position for so long.

Your throat was dry and hurt because of how you had screamed. Screams that were muffled by the gag you had in your mouth.

Every single spot those men had touched burned like a small fire and threatened to explode you. You were pretty sure you had marks all over. They hadn't been gentle when kidnapping you from the middle of the bloody street.

You was tired, scared and wanted to leave. Go back to your life. But you knew you couldn't. There was no getting out of there.

Taking a deep breath you tried to steady your heavy breathing, moving your hands against the restrains, to get maybe just a little more comfortable. Just a little.

That, was all you could do.

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

"Something new is up?"

That was the question Tyler had made when he got a call from Nik. It was unexpected, surprising. After what happened in Bangladesh many months ago, he had done a few other jobs, but none of them with her. Now, though, she seemed pretty determined to get him on board of whatever was happening. It intrigued him, made him frown while holding the phone against his left ear.

He had been laying low since his last mission, the elimination of a target that he completed successfully in Greece. That mission had been fast, too easy. Since that, he had been wasting all the money he got in alcohol and cigarettes. Living each day with the usual boredom of loneliness and headache due to the all the booze. The opportunity to get into some action and do something useful, sounded really good. Truth was, the idea of being fired at excited him, as twisted as it was.

That and all the cash that Nik said was at stake made him get into a plane two days later and land on Guadalajara, Mexico, where Nik had told them to meet. Now he found himself in the back of a rented apartment in a simple building, located in a poor part of the city. Description was a thing Nik valued a lot, and one of the things that made her so good at her job. The room was filled with people he didn't really know, although some of those faces were familiar from previous jobs. Over tables and armchairs ultimate technology they frequently used on missions had been gathered up, just waiting to be used when the operation began.

"Listen up people, let's begin" Nik said out loud, bringing all the attention to herself as everyone instantly stopped talking by hearing her voice. She was a natural leader, no doubt about that. Pressing a single button on the control of the projector that had been installed hours before, she made a photo show up there for everyone to see.

It was the image of a twenty year old girl. She was smiling to the camera as someone took a picture of her and the park she was in. She looked calm, happy. If her image was being shown there though, Tyler knew that something really bad had probably happened to that girl.

"Her name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N)" Nik said, after taking a step to the side to give everyone on the room a good view of the girl's face. "Her father is a US senator who's been a big name on the Congress for almost ten years" someone whistled, and others nodded in agreement. With only that being said, they already knew it would be a great case to work on. "Four days ago, she was kidnapped here in Guadalajara" she pressed the button again on the control, and a video started playing on the projector.

It was a security footage obviously, due to the black and white image and low resolution. In it the girl was walking on the street camly, carrying a backpack and wearing headphones. It was late at night, the corner of the footage marked 21:37. She was alone, and there was no one else on the street. That was the perfect opportunity for a kidnapping, Tyler thought to himself, and the response to that came seconds later.

A van approached the girl suddenly, apparently coming out of nowhere. Stopped by her side and before she could even do anything, the back door was opened and three masked men stormed upon her. She tried to run, but they had no trouble in grabbing her violently by her arms and legs and throw her on the inside of the van, leaving behind only her now destroyed phone. The whole thing happened in less than twenty seconds. No one noticed a thing, no one saw anything. That had been extremely well planned.

"Do we know who they are?" a guy with glasses Tyler had never seen before asked, analyzing with full attention the video that started playing again in replay.

"Negative. We couldn't get anything from the security videos and the family doesn't know specifically who could be behind it, but five hours later the Senator recieved a call" as Nik pressed the button again, an audio file started to roll and filled everyone's ears.

Senator (Y/L/N), we have your lovely daughter. If you don't drop the Border Control Project on the presentation day, she dies.

And then the robotic adapted voice was gone. That was it. Short, harsh and objective.

"What's the Border Control Project?" Tyler was the one who made the question, before anyone else did the same. With his arms crossed over his chest, his mind was working fast in taking in all the information he was receiving. He knew he would need them in the future.

"A project created by Senator (Y/L/N) to expand the police activity in the mexican-american border. If this project is approved on the mentioned presentation day, trafficking rotes will be affected, illegal transportations will be extremely lowered" Nik explained, dropping the control on the nearest table with a sight. "Dealers, politicians, traffickers, a lot of people could be behind it"

"So our only approach is to go after the girl herself" Tyler stated firmly, and the others agreed.

"Yes, we rescue her. And possibly in the meantime, figure out who did this. Senator said he will pay three times more if we do" some of the team members started clapping and Nik rolled her eyes, but had a smile on her lips. They were mercenarys, money was their greatest worry and desire.

"What was she doing in Mexico?" a middle aged woman with blond straight hair that was in the other end of the room across the australian, was the next one to make a question.

"She got a six month transfer to the local University. Student exchange happens at least twice a year between Mexico and the United States" Nik answered and then crossed her own arms over her chest. "We start the operation within two days. Tyler will do the field work, were going to give him all the support he needs. Meanwhile, we prepare yourselves. Got it?"

Everyone agreed and started to go to work, opening computers and printing files. Tyler didn't move, just looked around in complete silence. Nik was the one who approached him.

"You're good with this?" she asked, inspecting his features for any sign of denial.

He nodded, averting his eyes back to the projector where someone had again projected the picture of the girl smiling. Looking deeply into her eyes, Tyler sighted.

"I'm gonna need a whole file on her, anything you can find. When I get to her, I have to know or have something that will make her trust me"

He had no doubt. He would find her.

#imagine #x reader #fanfic #imagines #extraction #extraction fanfic #extraction imagine #tyler rake fanfic #tyler imagine #tyler x reader #tyler rake x reader #tyler rake imagine #tyler rake #chris hemsworth #chris hemsworth imagine

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vettelsworld · 4 years ago

Text

What’s Left Of You

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst, fluff

Word Count: 1.3k

Description: What happens after Bucky gets dusted?

(this was written a longggggg time ago before Endgame had been released so the ending is different to what actually happened in canon)

Emptiness, that's the last thing he felt before the darkness consumed him.

When Bucky opened his eyes, it felt like he had only fallen into the void a moment ago. Confusion swept through him as he sat up, only to find that he was lying on a beach. Sand ran through his fingers and the endless crystal ocean in front of him was calm. The sun was setting, the sky was golden and the air was still and warm, it was paradise.

He could hear distant chatter and laughter and he reeled around to see that he was sitting on the beach located below the fare at Coney Island, the cyclone's looming silhouette brought back memories of home.

He stood up quickly to find that the beach was deserted, save for one person sat a good few meters away. His feet seemed to move of their own accord as they carried him toward the figure - a woman. It was only as he came closer to them that he realised they looked familiar.

No. No, no, no it can't be. He thought, his eyes had to be deceiving him.

"Hello?" His voice came out shakier than he intended it to.

You turned your head toward Bucky and as soon as you did tears welled up in his eyes. "Hello, James" That soothing, airy voice that he would recognise anywhere, once again, filled up the space between you.

"Oh, (Y/N)! Please, doll, tell me you're real - tell me I'm not dreaming." It was like seeing a ghost. Bucky had been alone for so long and now here you were, the love of his life, sat in front of him once again.

"I'm real, Buck. Come on, sit. I've waited long enough." You smiled, joking around as if nothing had changed.

Bucky couldn't hold back any longer as he swiftly sat down by your side and pulled you into a tight hug; all of his desperation and love poured into it as you hugged back with the same passion. "I know, baby, I know," you whispered "it's been so long." You were trying to remain strong for him. He needed this, he needed you.

As Bucky pulled back he cradled your face in his palms, "Where have you been, doll?"

"Waiting for you." You answered. He had been so caught up in the moment he only now noticed that your eyes were glassy with tears as well.

"I've missed you, (Y/N), so goddamn much." He said. As you wiped the fresh tears from his face you savoured the softness of his skin beneath your fingertips.

"I've missed you too," you echoed his words "but I'm afraid we don't have long."

"Why'd you leave me?" The clear, desperate tone of his voice made your heart shatter in two. You knew about everything he'd been through, the torture, pain, loneliness, yet all you could do was sit at the side lines as HYDRA broke him down and stripped him of everything. However, you had also seen the triumphs; his road to redemption, the Avengers, the healing process, how Steve and Bucky were there for each other just like the old days you remembered so well.

"I didn't leave you - I could never leave you. I've always been here," you rested your hand on his chest and felt his steady heartbeat "and I always will be." He nodded and lay back on the sand, glancing up at the clouds that were hung in the napalm sky. You slowly lay down next to him and nestled into his side, breathing in his scent and taking in his sculpted features. He wrapped his arm around you and for a moment you just stared into each other's eyes, getting lost in them. For the briefest moment you felt like you were never apart at all, you were at home, this was where you belonged.

You'd lost track of how long you two had been lay like that but in the short time you'd spent together you'd reminisced and recounted old stories from long ago. The last traces of daylight were fading quickly and you'd noticed a change in the air. "Buck" the sound of your voice made his head snap in your direction.

“What is it, doll?” He had a feeling he knew what you were about to say but he wanted to hold onto this moment forever.

"It's time for you to go." You said, noticing how the temperature was slowly dropping.

"But I can't. I-I can't leave again, I just want to stay here. Me and you...in peace." Panic was building up inside of him and you could tell "a-and Steve! (Y/N), he'd be so happy to see you again, if we can't stay then you have to come with me so we can find him. He'll know what to do." He was clinging onto hope.

Fresh tears were emerging as you shook your head sadly, "It's not time yet, you've still got so much left to do. I promise, my love, there will be a time where we can stay like this forever." His eyes shone in the darkness, he knew you were right.

He moved forward and your arms wrapped around his neck as you closed your eyes, his lips pressed to yours and all your fear and worries disappeared. The kiss was slow and sweet and everything you'd ever dreamed of. You just wished that it didn't have to be like this, a parting kiss.

Suddenly, the pressure on your lips was gone and you peeled open your eyes to see Bucky fade into dust. You sighed and smiled as you watched the dust float out into the night air. "Soon, my love, we will be together, and we will have our peace."

When Bucky drifted back into consciousness once again he realised that he wasn't on a beach anymore, he was laying on hard rock. He sat up to find that he was on some strange planet he'd never seen and before his eyes Steve was kneeling. He was beaten and bloody and there, in his hands, was the infinity gauntlet, broken and burned. Steve's eyes met his and he huffed out a tired laugh, "It worked."

Bucky looked around to see all of the Avengers reuniting once again. He scrambled off the floor and ran to Steve to pull him into a hug. "I've missed you, pal." Steve smiled "Come on, there's a lot to catch you up on."

"What else is new?" Bucky joked.

Steve and Bucky then made their way over to a quiet area, far from where everyone was celebrating in the background. "Where do we start?" Bucky asked.

"You go first." Steve turned toward Bucky, ready to listen.

And so Bucky told Steve everything that happened in that short time he spent with you. Steve was shocked that what had been five years for him had only been about an hour for Bucky. He told Steve about how it was exactly like the old days and how you were just as he remembered. The two super soldiers sat side by side looking off into space as they caught up on what had happened after the snap.

And there, in the very back of Bucky's mind, a small, faint whisper echoed,

Soon, my love, we will be together, and we will have our peace.

A/N: I finally did it! After literal years I’ve worked up the courage to post a one-shot. This is my first time posting a fic to Tumblr so if it turns out to be formatted weirdly I’m sorry. I hope you liked it!

#bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #marvel #bucky imagine #james buchanan barnes #steve rogers #marvel imagine #reader insert #bucky fluff #angst #fluff #bucky barnes fluff #imagine #oneshot #bucky oneshot

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osomagine-san · 4 years ago

Note

I know I requested about the brothers S/O passing away, how about their only child passing away? I’m sorry, I love angst haha

Don’t apologize! I love it, too >:3 Good thing there are so many different ways to grieve/handle trauma! I made ‘em all longer than the last one, too

Osomatsu kind of... gives up.

His kid meant everything to him. He loved- no, loves, them so much. They never fought or had big spats-- not that the kid was the best-behaved kid in the world, but Osomatsu would always have a sort of childishness to him that bonded him so effortlessly to them. They were inseparable-- the kid was like a little mini him, and he loved them so much.

Standing in front of their grave with the rest of their family long gone was a lonelier feeling than I can describe or even really relate to-- to lose a child is, to my knowledge, one of the worst things you can experience. So young, too...

He remembers the day it happened. Before he even knew it had happened, he felt his heart suddenly leap into his throat, like he himself was in danger. He wasn’t-- he’d just been watching TV-- so what could the problem be?

As time goes on, he feels the same way. There’s a big, gaping hole inside of him that can’t be filled-- and oh boy, did he ever try to fill it. Alcohol didn’t work, food didn’t work, and talking about it didn’t work, either. There was nothing to be done. All he can do is sit in his sadness and... what? What does he do?

There’s a day, though, where he’s just sitting by himself. The pain is beginning to ebb. Thinking about the most beautiful child that was ever born doesn’t hurt so much at that particular moment. The days that they spent together were the most wonderful days of his life, and right then, he knows that his kid would be so mad at him if he just sat there feeling sad about them. They’d be so mad if they were forgotten or blocked out, too. The memories continue, and he cycles through them like one might cycle through the playlist on an old CD a friend had burned for them years ago. He’d start to cry.

━━━━━━

[Warning for death via car accident and a depiction of dissociation.]

It was strange, on the day of the loss, to see Karamatsu so loud.

He’d immediately called his brothers to the hospital when the accident had happened. When they arrived, Karamatsu was screaming at the poor receptionist, trying to wrangle any amount of information out of her. This was his son. He needed to see him immediately.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist said, “but I really can’t tell you anything. There isn’t anything to tell. I don’t have any updates.”

He had to be dragged away from her with the combined force of all five of his brothers.

Osomatsu had managed to calm him down the most. His attitude was so genuinely carefree that it somehow relaxed Karamatsu-- if someone could just laugh and shrug it off, maybe he was just making a big deal out of the situation.

It’s not that he felt like it was certain that everything would be alright, but he, at least, was able to relax.

He doesn’t quite remember what happens next-- just little moments. Following the doctor to the room where his son was lying, bruised and bloody and broken. The sight of his face was clear as day, but his brain did him the favour of blocking the rest out. Voices that sounded far away, comfort just outside of his grasp. The only thing his mind let through was the sound of the even, flat tone the heart monitor had taken.

Days went past in a bit of a blur, like that. Even the funeral passed by in the blink of an eye, and Karamatsu was present for it only in body.

Almost two weeks had passed before he came back to. He hadn’t lost every detail of his memory; he just gained awareness that he’d been floating around for the last two weeks without really accomplishing anything.

He checked the time-- one thirty in the morning. As he got up (good god was he ever hungry-- had he eaten anything?), he noticed that he was back at his parents’ house. His brothers were all back in their futon, sound asleep. It was a comforting sight. Things had gone back a few years.

He just reheated whatever leftovers were in the fridge-- in this house, there were always leftovers.

He went over it all that night. He recalled the majority of the last two weeks, even if he wasn’t totally present for them. He had a memory of Osomatsu and Todomatsu teaming up, poking at him, trying to get him to respond. Their persistence lasted a surprisingly long time. Osomatsu wanted to draw something lewd on his face and Choromatsu yelling at him not to do that. He’d responded, then, but he couldn’t quite remember what he’d said.

He sighed while he thought about his son. He should have been there, or done something, or something... He wasn’t sure what. He also didn’t really feel guilty about it-- it couldn’t possibly have been his fault. Sure, if he’d kept a better eye on him, it wouldn’t have happened; but it was more on the driver! That text message could have waited! That truck had mangled his only son, and now he was left with nothing.

“...Except for my leftovers.”

“Jyushimatsu, please don’t read my thoughts right now.”

━━━━━━

[Warning for death via illness.]

Choromatsu really only has the one way of dealing with pain and grief-- and it’s cleaning. He cleans the whole house over and over again until it’s completely spotless.

It’s obvious to those who are close to him (such as his partner) that there are some things that he just doesn’t touch very much. For example, the door to their daughter’s room was closed after the incident and he never went in there. She was a messy kid, too-- her clothes and toys still covered the floor to the point you couldn’t step anywhere without stepping on something.

There were also dozens of empty pill bottles on the nightstand as well as a little heart monitor next to her alarm clock (that she hadn’t used in the past year, since she wasn’t really attending school, anymore). There were also a lot of cups and glasses that had yet to be taken back down to the kitchen and washed-- the icing on the cake of this little situation would be finding mould in what used to be cups of various juices.

There were other things that Choromatsu hadn’t touched-- her little shoes were still lined up neatly at the door, and they hadn’t been touched in a long time. Choromatsu had been the one to line them up there in the first place. It was a Friday-- the last day she went to school. She wasn’t feeling well so he was going to let her stay home the following Saturday, but just before dinner, she collapsed.

They had a little whiteboard with a calendar on it. They used to cross off every day-- when Choromatsu or his partner forgot, their daughter would always step up and do it herself. She never let it slip her mind (unlike all of the homework she had due).

It was painful, but his partner had to bite the bullet and clean out their daughter’s room. It just had to happen. It had been two months and it was starting to feel unhealthy to keep all of that right there, and it was clear that the two of them weren’t going to have another kid anytime soon.

Choromatsu found the door open and his partner cleaning it out. Most of their daughter’s things were packed in clear garbage bags.

“What are you doing?! We can’t throw this out!” Choromatsu never yelled at his partner, but he was just so shocked.

“I’m not throwing it out,” they replied. “This just makes it easier to carry. I rented a storage unit and I’m going to put it all there. I’ll need help with the furni-”

“What?! Why?! You can’t just take all of her things like she was never even he-”

“I’m not! I’m not pretending like she never existed! I’m not trying to get rid of her.”

“Then why don’t you talk about her?”

“What?” They tilted their head and put down the bag that they were piling clean clothes out of the dresser into.

“You just...” Choromatsu looked at his partner and saw all of the times he’d spent with them, and with... her. His voice broke. “You just go quiet when she’s mentioned. You don’t say anything to me. You go back to work, and you smile, and you...”

“Oh, come here.” They hold Choromatsu tightly. He’d started to cry. “I don’t go quiet when she’s mentioned. I try to change the subject when someone brings her up around you. I know that you’re having a hard time dealing with this... I just hate seeing you upset.”

He held his partner close.

“I think,” they continued, “that having all of this stuff around doesn’t help anyone. I think we need it out of the house, at least for a little while. We don’t have to put everything away, but... a lot of it takes up a lot of space.” Choromatsu nodded. “And a lot of these glasses are disgusting.” He laughed lightly, despite the tears. “No, I’m serious. I’d rather just throw a lot of these out.”

━━━━━━

The relationship that Ichimatsu had to have been in ended shortly after the death of his daughter. He loved his family, and losing one member of it was too much. He had to cut out the other.

He became rude and crass with his partner; lazy, never picked up after himself until they just left him. There was no relief-- as soon as they were gone, he realized that he was testing them. And they had failed.

Oh, well. Better that ended sooner rather than later. He knew he could have been a little more kind (they were going through the same thing, after all), but he wasn’t. And he didn’t really care that he wasn’t-- he deserved it, after all. He deserved to lose that child and he deserved to lose his partner.

He lost his job because he just stopped showing up. He wasn’t qualified for it, anyways-- he’d been with them for a few years at that point, and it was only an entry-level job, but anything like that was better than he should have had.

He wound up back at his parents’ house. The cold and almost even cruel outer shell he’d developed was apparently his personality, now. He couldn’t stop being rude and ungrateful, and he hated himself for it-- but again, he didn’t deserve the kindness his parents were showing him, anyways. What did it matter? They might as well throw him out on the streets.

Of course, they didn’t. With a bit of love, Ichimatsu very gradually started to open up again. It started with his cat friends, who cycled through visiting. At first, he felt like he didn’t deserve it, or them. As they continued coming, though, he realized that the cats didn’t really care about that. They had no grasp on “good” or “bad”-- the only thing they had a grasp on was that he was kind to them.

The idea that maybe there was no such thing as “good” or “bad” was liberating to him. He didn’t deserve the cats’ affections, and at the same time, he so did. To love is to give without asking for anything in return.

He gave his child as much as he could while he could. There was no force of fate that put them in his life, and none that took them away. Sometimes, things just happened and it didn’t always have to mean something.

He probably never got together with another partner or ever had another child, but he started a cat adoption center. He let strays come and go as they please, and took in cats that were abandoned and gave them to loving homes.

━━━━━━

A hole manifested itself in Jyushimatsu’s life, and no matter what he did, he just couldn’t shake it. It was omnipresent, and the hole pestered and festered until he couldn’t take it anymore, and then some.

The hole manifested itself in strange and different ways-- sometimes as a void in his chest where his heart should be; on days like that, he’d clutch at the fabric of his sweater, like he was expecting something to be there, and then come up short. The surprise would cross his face only for a moment before he continued on like it had never happened.

Sometimes it was a sudden chill that he couldn’t quite shake. The initial shiver lasted only a moment, but the cold stayed with him until he’d fall asleep that night.

A couple of times, it manifested in shadows. He’d stare into the darkest corners of the room, and it would be hard for him to pull his eyes away. They had a presence, almost.

Either way, after the initial accident, he was able to mostly fully recover afterwards. There were some harder days when he could hardly make it out of bed, sure, but as more and more time passed, the fewer and fewer those days became.

The hole stayed with him, though.

━━━━━━

Todomatsu genuinely loses all memory of losing his son.

He continues his days as normal. He calls for him to go to school, and he comments a lot about how little TV his son has been watching. He’ll continue on to say how proud he is of him, because all that time must be spent studying, right?

His partner doesn’t know what to do. It’s hard to tolerate sometimes, because they feel so alone. Their worst fear had just happened, and the one person they thought they could share in their grief with was only making it hurt worse. They’ve broken down in front of him, begging him to remember, but he only got concerned for his S/O. Before they called his brothers, they thought that they were going crazy.

They got in all kinds of fights about him. Todomatsu, stubborn as ever, refused to believe or acknowledge it. He was beyond defensive about the topic-- he was rather laid back about most other things. He and his S/O had never fought like this about anything.

It’s during summer vacation that Todomatsu starts coming to. He notices that his son is nowhere to be found. He must be at a friend’s house, he thinks. His S/O had notified the other parents at their kids’ school that Todomatsu was having trouble coping with the loss, so the parent of his son’s best friend knew that trying to tell Todomatsu what had happened would amount to nothing. Of course, they didn’t lie to him when he called after a week, worried-- they told him straight up that they hadn’t seen his son in a long time.

In a panic, he called a lot of other parents-- even those that didn’t like his son. He was missing, and he needed to find him.

His S/O got a few calls from concerned parents about the situation and went home early. They found Todomatsu on the floor, sobbing and panting.

“I think something bad happened.”

#annetheman #Osomatsu #Karmatsu #Choromatsu #Ichimatsu #Jyushimatsu #Todomatsu #Ososan #Osomatsu-san #Osomatsu-san imagines #Imagines #Imagine #Angst #Ososan imagines #I wanted to leave Totty's ending ambiguous because I could not decide how I wanted it to end #Also I didn't want it to drag on and on #Also be honest does it show that I have 0 idea how to write Jyushimatsu???

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yeocult · 4 years ago

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ateez film diary analysis

ok i am currently typing with tears in my eyes but that’s cool!!!! gonna talk about ateez diary film for a moment. btw if you’re here for theories, this might not be for you, my brain is not capable of that critical thinking lmao. although, i will be rambling/analyzing the cinematography and overall admiring the film!! under the cut because this happened to be 1.5k words oops.

man, first of all, 16 minutes?? thank you for the food kq!! i think their concept is super cool. it’s unpredictable, refreshing, and just gives me a lot of high hopes for this comeback. ateez never disappoints, they come back each time stronger and better.

“this is the story where their dimensions are split into eight pieces again.” that kinds hurt me. throughout the film we see clips of them being happy and joyful with each other, but we also see scenes where they’re all alone. they didn’t get separated by losing contacts or whatever, literally dimensions.

phew okay, when the man with the black fedora approaching hongjoong like that was soooo dskjdj ugh i love it when they have a bright light in the back, capturing the silhouette perfectly. sorry i’m such a sucker for those types of shoots!! now hongjoong’s dream. “the world inside a television cannot be reached. the world they live in and the world that i live in is blocked.” yea.. they’re separated from dimensions. isn’t that so heartbreaking?? separated by time and space.

um this might be a huge stretch, plus i’m horrible at science. i’ve read a lot of articles on where, ‘if time stopped would gravity still apply?’ and i thought of this because of the items floating up around hongjoong. without time, gravity, acceleration, speed and force are simply meaningless, so i guess that’s why it’s floating? as if we’re going back in time. there’s a lot of consequences and weird things on going back in time/time travelling (most famously the ‘bootstrap paradox’) because time is not an object and cannot ‘go’ anywhere at all, not forward, not backward, nor can it stop. so i expected some not so happy events to occur.

anyways moving on to seonghwa’s memory. i loved this. “i thought i lacked in many areas and have much to learn.” then we see a bunch of to-do lists and i guess they’re kinda like goals to accomplish or things he wants to learn. the somewhat long shot of him sitting on this table and the camera moving away from him gave me a sense of isolation (i also don’t know why yeo in the smn box is on the tv but it could mean he’s trapped). we also see him walking straight, kinda like following a straightforward path with a lot of control, hence the to-do lists. then he hits stops. now the girl is the total opposite of seonghwa. she’s dancing, moving, and overall carefree i would say. everything seonghwa is lacking. she’s freedom. i don’t have much to say about this scene but i really like how when he was walking one step at a time, it was completely dark. but as soon as it hits stops and sees her, there were lights.

now my favourite, wooyoung’s choice. that transition to seonghwa’s little emo time to wooyoung’s hyped underground music and dancing was the serotonin boost i needed. let’s talk about his ponytail because it made me a whole simp for him. plus he’s so fucking cool?? if i become a wooyoung biased soon, you know why. he talks about stage fright and the scene where people were looking down at the camera was perfect, low camera shots show dominance or superiority. when you have stage fright, you’re worried and insecure about your abilities (at least that’s how i feel) and with people look down at you is almost like they’re judging and aren’t expecting much from you. ateez brings him courage and reassurance, they give him strength. the last scene with the rain and the flickering light so chilling. its almost like the rain washed away his everything.

yeosang’s time giving me slight dark academia vibes and i’m here for it!!! also bird metaphors?? yes please! “limited freedom. like a bird in a cage.” we see yeosang in a room surrounded by other musicians but he isn’t playing his instrument. almost like he doesn’t wanna be there or has no real passion for this field. hence him talking about ‘expanding his dreams’. we get a close shot at his face looking forward to the right, i feel as if he’s daydreaming or reaching out. taking back to say my name, we have yeosang trapped inside that box, almost like the birds with limited freedom. he drops his violin and suddenly the birds (they symbolize peace, transformation, freedom and power) are free, giving us a scene with his friends. he’s free.

san’s resolution might just be my favourite in terms of cinematography. can we just talk about the long amount of time san has the stay put for the timelapse to work?? the scene wins my heart. now we see the classroom in a mess, meaning school was never enjoyable to san. always moving and no friends. the way he’s moving seems like there’s not much he can do in his life. the escalator scenes kinda look like the one in wonderland. time is always moving, the escalator moving, and san runs back up despite it moving in the opposite direction. im not sure where i was going with this but i thought i was kinda cool, how he’s running back up to be with his friends.

next, we have yunho and his brother. in a matter of seconds, all the light in the studio flicker and turns off. this is quite similar to the flicker lights in wooyoung’s last scene. there’s a pattern here with flickering lights and how it means lost and loneliness. we don’t know what 5:07 mean, maybe its completely relevant but knowing kq and their team, almost everything seems intentional. also i saw on twt (not my analysis) but seonghwa’s to-do list includes a task of learning how to drive, then we get yunho getting hit by a car. not sure where i got from this but i thought i would include it.

actor jongho!!!! he’s so good i love him. ok so we get that basketball was his dreams but due to his broken leg, it seems impossible for him to pursue that dream. we him sitting at a distance, admiring the game and the people who are able to play. but when he’s in the court, he’s all alone (might just be because he can’t go in court when other people are playing but just let me be deep for a second oki). the burning basketball means he cannot play again. then the fight scene between him and mingi. i want to talk about the camera work for a second. it’s unstable, harsh and a little unfocused (because it’s handheld) and it makes it seem like another member’s pov, pushing the realism on us. hmm this might be kinda dumb but the loud bang when mingi got pushed was a little unexpected hence every scene with the boys was all very calm and had music in the back, no sounds. idk just a noticed. ohmygod another silhouette scene with beautiful lighting in the back!!!! the camera is moving away from him, moving away shows weakness. i loveee this so much along with the smoke. his dreams are burning up, literally.

last we have mingi’s diary. “earphones in my ears, the world is mine for now.” again, similar to seonghwa in the dark walking, mingi is isolating himself from the world. he’s using music to escape from reality. mingi looks trapped by the way its shot, cutting off his forehead and lips only showcasing his eyes and nose. this could be his facial features are more important than anything else right now. the camera angle is below mingi, again with the dominance and superiority… because he literally kicked someone. but still the same camera angle except this time mingi is looking up at the sky or forward, not looking down. with that, mingi no longer looks intimidating, he seems slightly vulnerable. and i think that’s really powerful how quickly he transitions despite the same angle. so we know mingi uses music as an escape, “i would rather be alone than encounter the world.” then we see yeosang (by his flannel) taking off his earphones. bringing him back to reality with the boys, and everything seems a lot more peaceful. its kinda like, without his friends, he would rather be isolated. now i want to point how the loud bang from jongho’s shot. it’s literally the same shot but the noise isn’t there indicating that mingi has earphones in (i think even when they’re not literally in, he still shuts out noise), shutting off the noise. i think the little details were so well done. we also get a match cut of mingi blinking, back to the darkness. i think it shows how quickly things can be taken away from you.

MAN THE SCENE WHERE THEY ALL GATHER TOWARDS HONGJOONG JAKJDSJKSDJKSD I CANNOT BREATHE IT GAVE ME SO MUCH CHILLS MYGODDOO !!!!!! like that scene in say my name. gotta love the build up of the song then it drops when the members all show up UGH I LOVED THAT SOO MUCH!! “the memories of short happiness. and dreams broken into pieces” brb gonna cry. the hourglass is finished,, what does this mean? ;o also i cant help but to notice the lighting on how one side is dark and the other has light. this could just be for aesthetics but idkkkk just another notice.

hehe sorry this made no sense,,, anyways that’s all i have to say, i’m so excited for their comeback <33

#h.txt #pHEW #haha dont clown me i know nothing about film #also send me your thought?#i would love to talk about cinematography!!#ateez #might add on to this later!!#moon talks

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elstreem · 4 years ago

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Shard’s Castle Adventure

A little fanfic about Shard (Baby Shadow, more info about him here!) But if you don’t feel like reading 4605 words have this little art ^_^

Summary: With the Four Swords away doing their duty, Shard is left alone at the castle. One whole day without his family, but he has Zelda, a cat, and two strange men wandering around the castle to hold his attention.

Five knights on their horses ran out of the castle gate, stirring dust and excitement in their wake. Castle soldiers raised their spears in salute, and villagers waved and cheered -

“Go get them boys!”

“Go, Link!”

“Still with the Link…” the knight in green sighed, though barely anyone in the cheering throng heard him over the sound of the horse’s hooves. However, his fellow knights still heard, and the one garbed in red smiled, “Well, it’s easier to just cheer ‘Link’ than say a bunch of colors, right?”

“Well yeah, but it’s kind of annoying me!” Green said.

“That or you’re worried about something else?” Vio asked.

“Me? I think you’re the one who was most worried about leaving,” Green said back.

“Well…” Vio said.

“Oh, come on guys, the sooner we do this the sooner we can get back.” This was said by the knight clothed in black, who looked a little different from the rest of the group.

“Shadow is right - so, come on!” Blue said.

“Yeah, you’re right - let’s go!”

By this time the group was already on their way along the path, and the people they served were oblivious to the group’s worries. Everyone was all too happy to see the Four Swords on their way to stop a rough group of bandits. Everyone, except for two figures standing at the window of the castle’s tower, watching as the kingdom’s finest knights left.

One of the figures was known throughout the land for her grace and beauty, but at the moment there was a frown of concern on Princess Zelda’s face. Beside her, barely tall enough to peer through the window, was a small child who looked very similar to knights of the Four Sword. However, his eyes were like opaque glass with no pupils. They looked like blank spheres to any passer-by, but Zelda could see the worry in them. The princess sighed and put a hand on top of the boy’s hair.

“It’s always hard, waiting for them like this,” Zelda said. The boy turned his face to look up at her, and Zelda couldn’t help but ruffle his hair.

“Don’t worry, Shard. They’ll be fine,” the princess said. Shard dipped his head in a small nod, but his mouth was also pulled into a frown. Zelda crouched down to see his face better.

“I guess you must feel lonely without them, huh?” Zelda said. Shard stared at her - no one was sure just how much he was able to understand speech, and for that matter, Shard could only speak in a garbled approximation, sounding very much like a baby with his high-pitched voice. But even without words, Zelda felt Shard’s loneliness, so she gently took his hands.

“Well, staring out there won’t help them come back quicker - could you come with me? I’m no substitute for Vio, but I would like to read to you, and I think I have a few books you’ll like,” Zelda said.

In answer, Shard gave her a sunny grin.

~~~~~

The hours of the morning passed pleasantly. Sitting together in the princess’s office, Shard watched and listened as Zelda read books to him. In a little while they also took a walk in the garden, observing the bees and ladybugs that flitted among the plants (once, Shard chased after a ladybug and caught the little creature, and proudly presented it to Zelda). And it was also Shard who accompanied the princess to the hidden room in which the seal of the demon Vaati was located. In the silent room, Shard stood guard, holding a small sword and shield he had made from spare wood. Normally Zelda would be accompanied by her handmaidens, or the Four Swords, or if neither of the two were available, a whole troop of soldiers would be assigned to her. But the threat of Vaati’s return was literally shattered in pieces, and so Zelda felt that Shard would make a suitable companion.

It was a good day for the pair, but unfortunately, the princess also had her duties to fulfill. Much as she would like to spend more time with Shard (of whom she was very fond of) Zelda was called away to royal duties during the afternoon, leaving Shard alone.

While no one would dare say it against the princess or the Four Swords, Shard’s uncanny looks drew him a lot of suspicion. And so, Shard preferred not to draw attention to himself, using his small size and fleet feet to dart around the shadows of the hallways. He was hardly noticed in the busy corridors, and this suited him just fine.

Shard eventually made his way to the busy kitchens, where Red sometimes took him to do some baking. When the two got permission to “mess about in the kitchens” they were given a small space to their own, but on a regular day the kitchen staff were hard at work, preparing meals for dinner or cleaning dishes that had been used. Shard decided to avoid the main cooking area and went around the back, observing the errand boys and girls who brought in, or tossed out food. It was not a very clean place and bits of leftovers were always in the area, and this attracted stray animals.

Shard watched in interest as a cat snagged a fish from an unguarded waste pile. Curiosity piqued, Shard followed closely. He was not familiar with too many animals as there weren’t a lot within the castle, though he sometimes helped the Four Swords tend their horses.

Aware of being followed, the cat slowed down and turned to face Shard, the fur on its back bristling. Shard stopped and the two stared at each other for some time. Seeing as Shard was not making any moves to steal its food, the cat decided to continue walking. The two wandered on and ended up near the castle wall. Shard passed the time observing the cat as it ate its meal and cleaned itself. Seeing that the curious boy was no threat, the cat decided to brush up against Shard’s side, and the boy looked with fascination at the soft fur touching his skin. With a meow, the cat decided to walk on and take a stroll through its territory, and Shard followed. If he was able to voice what his thoughts were, it would be to say that the cat reminded him of Shadow.

When the cat ventured beyond the castle’s wall, Shard waved the feline a good-bye, not willing to leave the only place he knew. He then turned towards the tower, intending to watch for the Four Swords’ return from the window. Moving silently through the lesser-used passageways, Shard was surprised to find a pair of men wandering about. They were dressed like the castle’s staff, but they were not moving purposefully and seemed lost.

Shard decided to hang back and watch the pair closely. They grumbled to each other and kept looking around as if they didn’t want to be seen. Being an expert in keeping himself hidden, Shard was able to keep out of their sight while following them.

Eventually, the two seemed to figure out their bearings and began to walk towards, of all places, the rooms where the Four Swords lived! Shard knew, of course - he lived there as well. In his determination to find out what the men were up to, it didn’t occur to him to call for help, and perhaps it was for the best - apart from the princess, the Knights of Hyrule, and the Four Swords, no one else could understand Shard.

Eventually, the pair reached the rooms of the Four Swords and began to search through the area, alarming Shard. It felt wrong that these strangers were poking around in the belongings of Shard’s family. The men even pocketed some of their findings, like the little pouches that held the shiny Rupees Shard liked to play with. Like the wary cat bristling its fur, the end of Shard’s cap floated upward and curled in the air as the boy’s anxiety increased. As silently as he could, he picked up his own sword and followed, and what he saw next made him freeze.

The men had stepped into Shadow’s room.

Shard peered around the door and let out a quiet gasp. The thieves were standing in front of the Dark Mirror! Well, a piece of it anyway - a piece that was only powerful enough to give Shadow a physical form once more, and more importantly...it was the piece of the mirror from which Shard himself came from.

“What’s this old thing?” one thief muttered.

“Might be some valuable artifact. Those accursed knights have magic weapons stuffed up who knows where, this might be one of them,” the other replied. The man reached forward and touched the mirror piece…and shouted in pain as Shard had given his shin a mighty blow with his own sword. The wooden sword, more like a toy than anything else, broke into splinters from the blow. Shard had felt such a sharp stab of fear that he swung the weapon with more force than he had ever done.

No one must touch the Dark Mirror!

“Wh-what’s this...freak!?” the thief gasped, staring in shock at Shard’s odd features. Shard bared his teeth and hissed - something deep inside him told him that he had to do something, anything, just to keep strangers away from the Dark Mirror.

“Quit standing there and grab that brat!” the thief that Shard had struck bellowed this as he hopped about in pain.

“N-no way! It’s a monster, can’t you see?” the other gulped, frightened at Shard’s teeth (which happened to be pointy).

“Don’t be fooled, that brat is just some weird kid! He just surprised me, that’s all,” the thief said. Shard jumped back as the thief aimed a kick at him.

“Come on - get him!”

And so Shard backed away as the two men chased after him, leading them out of the room, and away from the Dark Mirror, which was all that mattered.

It was at this moment that there was a sound of horns in the Castle - the main gates were being opened, which could only mean one thing.

“Oh no! We’re too late, the Four Swords are back!” one of the thieves gasped. Shard knew that sound well and looked in the direction of the main gates with a smile on his face.

Unfortunately, the thief saw the boy’s attention waver, and with a lunge he grabbed Shard by the neck and held him up. Shard gasped and struggled to escape the hold, but he was a child against a grown man. He looked into the face of the raging thief and tried not to cower from the fury he could see in the man’s eyes.

“The others promised they’d keep those brats busy until nightfall! We wasted too much time getting lost - and then this kid - !”

A sharp smack echoed in the empty room, and Shard’s head turned limply toward his side. Dizzy from the blow, the boy could barely comprehend what was going on, unaware that the thieves now had a dilemma.

“Oi, leave that kid alone! They’ll know something’s up when they see him injured!” the more cowardly of the thieves said, wincing on seeing how limp Shard was.

“I don’t care! We gotta get out of here somehow - and this kid here can be our ticket,” the other thief said.

“You mean -”

“I’ll take him hostage, you dimwit! Now, come on,” the other thief said, and spotting an empty sack in the room, he stuffed Shard into it and swung it over his shoulder, carrying Shard as if he was merely a bag of grains rather than an injured child. Ignoring his partner’s complaints, the thief hurried out, and after a moment, his partner followed.

~~~~~~

Zelda hurried down to the Castle Gates, and saw a welcoming throng of Castle soldiers blocking the path of the Four Swords. None of the knights looked too injured, which was a relief, and while they conversed with the soldiers politely enough Zelda could see they were getting antsy. Shadow in particular kept looking around, the floating end of his cap twitching like the tail of an impatient cat. The princess stuck up her hand and waved, and the soldiers nearest to her hastily cleared a path.

On seeing her, Green came forward. “Hello, princess!”

“Thank goodness you’re all back,” Zelda said.

“Why, is anything wrong?” Green asked, getting down from his horse.

“Well...I can’t seem to find Shard anywhere. I expected he would be at the tower window waiting for your return, but he wasn’t there when I was on my way,” Zelda said.

Green frowned - it wasn’t like Shard to miss their return. Sensing his worry, the other four followed.

“Zelda hasn’t seen Shard,” Green said.

“I asked the staff on my way here, but you know how Shard is, he likes to keep himself hidden,” Zelda said.

“Well, let’s start with our rooms, he might have taken a nap there or something,” Blue suggested.

“Alright. Green, help me take the horses?” Red said. Green nodded, and so the group separated.

Zelda, Shadow, Vio and Blue hastily made their way to the Four Swords’ quarters, with Shadow arriving first.

“Someone’s been here,” Shadow observed - the doors were open and some of their stuff was out of order.

“Shadow, wait -” Vio said, but Shadow had already darted into his room. There was a gasp, and Blue found himself drawing his sword and sprinting in.

Shadow was looking at a pile of wood splinters on the floor. “This is Shard’s sword!” Shadow said, looking up at Blue.

“He must have seen someone here, a stranger…” Blue speculated.

“....and if they were this close to the Dark Mirror he would have attacked them - but where is he now? And who would have come here?” Shadow said.

“Thieves! Look, our wallets have been taken,” Vio said.

“Did they also take…” Blue said, gripping his sword tightly. Shadow paled as he realized what other precious thing might have been taken.

Just then, a servant came up to the door of the room, all out of breath. “Princess, we appear to be missing several items of interest throughout the Castle!” the servant reported.

“Oh, no - have the wall guards been alerted?” Zelda asked.

“Yes, your Highness - we’ve sent soldiers to every entrance and exit,” the servant said.

“We have to go too! They might have taken Shard with them,” Shadow said.

Zelda nodded. “Let’s go together - surely with all of us we’ll be able to find him!”

~~~~~~

“I sure hope Shard is alright,” Red said.

“Shard’s not the sort to get into trouble, he’ll be okay,” Green said. Red nodded, but he couldn’t help but feel uneasy. It was a relief to be able to put the horses in the care of the stable hands and start going back.

But as the pair was walking, some soldiers came up. “Sir Li - er, Green, and Red, we have reports that there might have been thieves inside the castle,” one of the soldiers said.

“Some items were reported missing by some castle staff, and there were reports of unfamiliar men being seen sometime during the day. The princess has been informed,” another soldier added.

“Alright - thanks for informing us,” Green said. Red gasped and came forward.

“Wait - has anyone seen Shard by this time?” Red asked.

“Er, no - no one has seen him,” the first soldier said.

“Green! What if Shard had run into those thieves?” Red said.

Green frowned. Surely, with a Castle as big as this, there was little to no chance of some thieves running into a boy…but he couldn’t help but feel anxious as well.

“We’ll just have to find him and make sure he’s okay. Soldiers, please keep an eye out for Shard too,” Green said. The soldiers nodded and went on their patrol. The two knights also went on, praying that no harm had come to Shard.

~~~~~

It had not been a good day for the two thieves - first, getting lost in the castle and only being able to swipe a few trinkets here and there, and they were even unable to sabotage the Four Swords in any way. And now they were skulking by the back of the kitchen, dismayed to see soldiers running about and raising an alarm.

“Told you we should have left them treasures alone until we were about to leave,” the cowardly thief mumbled.

“Aw, shut it! That won’t help us now,” his companion said. Even with a hostage he wasn’t feeling sure of their chances against the whole of the Castle.

Running around the kitchens were various servants and soldiers - but also a cat, who was mystified by the frantic mass of people. The cat sat well out of the way, flicking its tail in disappointment as it found no leftovers in the area. There was however, the scent of something familiar…

The cat looked around, smelling the scent of the strange boy with blank eyes. The cat had been around the castle long enough to know that the boy was like a sweet little kitten, of no danger to anyone - but with no claws to defend himself, too.

Curious, the cat followed the boy’s scent, and found it led to a sack hanging over a strange man’s shoulder. The cat did not like the look of the man - he seemed like the type to give cats a good kick if they were in the way - and the kitten-boy was surely not safe in his hands.

The cat ran towards the thief while screeching, startling the man and causing him to jump out of hiding. The noise attracted the attention of some soldiers, who quickly noted the man’s suspicious looks.

“Halt! You there!”

Before the thief could think of some way to talk out of the situation, his high-strung companion gasped, “We’ve been found!”

Which is really not the best thing to say in that situation.

The thieves looked around and found a group of soldiers coming close. With a grunt, the thief drew Shard out of the sack and held him up, causing the watching staff to gasp in dismay. Shard, who had recovered somewhat, struggled and kicked out his feet, but was helpless to do anything.

“Get back! We have a hostage and I will hurt him if you get too close!” the thief shouted, shaking Shard. The soldiers lowered their weapons in uncertainty - no one wanted to see Shard hurt. Even the cat stayed still, though it hissed in defiance all the same.

“Let go of that child,” one of the soldiers said.

“Not until we’re free of this castle - make one wrong move, and…” the thief drew a dagger. The soldiers looked among each other - they couldn’t risk harm to Shard.

“Send for the Four Swords,” one of the soldiers further away whispered to his companion, who nodded and quietly ran away.

“Alright, we’ll let you out,” one of the soldiers said with a scowl.

~~~~~~

Red and Green had just reunited with the princess when a soldier came running up. The soldier gritted his teeth and prepared to be the bearer of bad news. “Princess, sir knights! We’ve located the thieves, and they have a hostage with them!”

“Oh no,” Zelda gasped.

“Who is the hostage!?” Green asked.

“It’s the boy,” the soldier gulped, feeling very much like he’d rather be doing anything but deliver that piece of news.

“THEY HAVE SHARD!??” Shadow exploded, red eyes flaming.

“A-afraid so...the man holding him is refusing to let him go until they’re well free of the Castle,” the soldier said. Shadow tensed as if preparing to run over there, but Vio caught his arm.

“We can’t just rush in there and show our faces - if they get spooked, Shard might get hurt,” Vio said.

“But we can’t just stand here and do nothing!” Blue argued.

“No, we won’t - come on, plans, what can we do?” Green said.

“Well, first of all, what is the situation looking like right now?” Zelda asked the soldier.

“There’s only two of the thieves, but the man holding the hostage has a dagger and we’re certain he will use it,” the soldier reported, hoping to be useful. “Oh, and they were last seen in the back of the kitchen area, so perhaps they’ll be escorted out that way.”

“That’s the exit that leads out to the farm roads - if they get there, we’re gonna lose Shard. We have to hurry,” Green said.

“Oh! We might be able to jump them if we get ahead. The area just outside of that gate has plenty of cover,” Red said.

“Then we have to go, now!” Shadow said.

~~~~~~

Shard did his best to keep still, though he couldn’t help but hiss in anger at the situation. He hated being trapped! But he couldn’t get away either, with such a tight hold on him. But if the man’s grip shifted just enough....Shard knew he had to take a chance. He had some very pointy teeth and he was not scared to use them.

The thieves walked as fast as they could while warily looking out at the guards around them. Though all the soldiers had lowered their weapons, they didn’t put it past a quick archer to attempt to stop them. Busy with looking around at the surrounding soldiers, they failed to notice that Shard had turned his face forward. Shard could feel the presence of the people he loved best nearby, hidden, but close.

The thieves walked out of the castle’s gate and this caused the one holding Shard to relax a little. His grip also shifted, and that was all that Shard needed. Without wasting time, Shard chomped down, biting through the thief’s glove and drawing blood.

“Arrrgh - cursed freak!” the thief screamed unable to stop himself from flinging his hand - and Shard was launched into the air. He tumbled onto the ground and got up to run, crying out in his high-pitched voice as he did so.

“SHARD!” came the answering cry and within moments a boomerang flew out of the trees, smacking into the face of one thief and causing him to stumble. Red and Blue came out of the bushes, Fire Rod and Hammer at hand, and the cowardly thief gulped and cowered. Shadow darted forward and caught Shard in his arms as Green and Vio stepped out, a bow and a sword at ready.

Behind the thieves, Zelda directed the soldiers to cut off the path, and now the thieves realized they were at the mercy of five furious knights, a princess who was also looking like she’d strangle them, and a company of soldiers who did not like having someone threaten the security of the castle.

“We surrender!” the cowardly thief squeaked.

~~~~~~

Much as Shadow would have liked to personally deal with the two thieves he had something more important to handle at the moment. Shard was holding tightly onto him, his small hands gripping the fabric of his tunic..

“Shard, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Shadow asked. Shard pulled back and looked at Shadow’s face. To Shadow’s surprise, tears were falling from Shard’s eyes - crying from relief? He hoped that was the case, because if Shard had gotten hurt -

“How is Shard?” Vio asked, still holding his bow even as he kneeled down to check on Shard.

“He’s crying, I can’t tell if he might be hurt,” Shadow said. He gently brushed the hair that had fallen over Shard’s eyes, but as his fingers brushed against Shard’s cheek the boy hissed and pulled back a little.

“Did they hit you!?” Shadow said with murder in his voice - it was hard to tell, but it did seem that Shard’s cheek was swelling as if it has been struck.

“Let’s get him over to the infirmary to be sure,” Green said. Shadow tersely nodded and scooped Shard up, who then rested the uninjured side of his face on Shadow’s shoulder.

“Let us deal with this - you go on ahead,” Green said. Shadow nodded, and accompanied by Vio, they walked back to the castle, pausing to give Blue and Red a brief nod and say, “We have to get Shard checked out.”

As the three went past Zelda, Blue took a deep breath and asked, “Care to explain what you did to Shard?”

Red tapped the orb of the Fire Rod and made the instrument flicker with light for a moment, just as a small encouragement. The thieves gulped in fear and lost no time spilling their stories.

~~~~~~

Later that night, it was with much relief that the Four Swords found themselves settling down within their quarters. There were a few crazy hours as Shard was assessed and found to have a few bumps and bruises from his adventure and given first aid. The thieves were found to be working with the bandits that the Four Swords had dealt with earlier in the day - the bandits were a distraction to draw the knights away, but they didn’t count on the Four Swords being so efficient with their jobs and the supposed thieves to be so careless. But now the ruffians were rightly imprisoned, Shard was having a well-deserved sleep on Shadow’s bed, and the five knights were sitting close, wordlessly expressing that they wanted to be close to Shard.

When Zelda dropped in to check, she found them talking in low voices, but seeing her they gestured for her to sit among them. Zelda smiled and whispered, “Carry on,” before sitting down.

“Well, as I was saying, I don’t know if I can ever leave him alone like that again,” Shadow said.

“Oh...about that...I’m sorry, I should have watched over him,” Zelda said with a wince.

Green patted her hand. “It can’t be helped, you have your own duties to fulfill.”

“Don’t blame yourself, your Highness,” Red said.

“Very well,” Zelda sighed. She looked at each of their faces and said, “But only if you don’t blame yourselves for this incident.”

“Yeah...I’m just glad Shard is safe here, and that those two idiots didn’t succeed,” Green said.

“How is he?” Zelda asked.

“Exhausted. But it seems like he was only struck once in the face, and he has no other serious injuries” Vio said.

“It could be better, but it also could have been worse,” Blue said.

“I suppose at least one of us should stay behind and look after him if something like this happens again? Shard must have been so lonely,” Red said.

“We could try that, but we never know if we’ll need each other in full strength,” Vio said.

“Well...he did handle himself well today,” Shadow said, turning a fond smile onto Shard.

“He did, didn’t he? He’s a knight, just like us,” Green said.

“An excellent knight of Hyrule indeed,” Zelda agreed. She stood up to leave, “We should all take our rest. Good night, my heroes.”

~~~~~~

The next morning, Shard woke up to see his family sleeping around him - the best type of morning he could ask for. He smiled and turned closer to Shadow’s side, and within moments was sleeping peacefully once more.

Outside the room, a new wooden sword lay on the table, quietly delivered by a soldier earlier in the day. It was small, more like a child’s toy than a practice weapon, but all the same the royal crest was carved into its hilt, with tiny words written, “For a Knight of the Four Swords.”

Whew! This was meant to be a quick little thing but my brain decided to keep on going. If you finished this, thanks for reading and have a bonus full art of Zelda and Shard ^_^ Also please notify me if the formatting needs adjustment!

#four swords #four swords manga #four swords fanfic #zelda fanfiction #princess zelda #green layout #red link #blue link #vio #shadow link #zelda oc #shard

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forgadgetsandgizmos · 4 years ago

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‘Cause You’re A Sky Full of Stars (I’m Going To Give You My Heart)

My fic for Day 1 of Alex Manes Week 2020 | Prompt: Home Can Be A Person

Read on AO3 Here

It was nearing sunset when Alex pulled his jeep beside the familiar, fading colors of Michael’s white-and-blue truck and cut off the engine. Looking around from where he sat in the driver’s seat, the place hadn’t changed in the decade since he’d last been here. He had been a hopeful 17-year-old in love, high on dreams of the future, carving A M into tree bark.

Alex chuckled under his breath. They hadn’t been brave enough to add the plus or a heart. With only two letters, it could easily be mistaken for Alex’s own initials, but Michael had left an empty space between with whispered promises of someday and after.

Someday, if they were braver.

After, when they’d be adults and free.

It was a sweet kind of irony that the reason they had always came here then was the same reason he was here now.

Michael had always found comfort in the desert.

Alex stepped out of the jeep, the uneven sand beneath his feet sinking in greeting. He sent a quick prayer of thanks that he had the sensibility to put on boots this morning - his prosthetic would be hell to deal with if sand got in it - before locking the car and heading forward.

A heavy breeze brought the sound of tree leaves ruffling, their healthy emerald color shimmering under the orange desert glow. It also brought sharp clinks of glass hitting rock from where Michael sat facing the sunset.

His body was a dark shadow against the tan background, the light illuminated stray curls escaping from under his trademark black cowboy hat. It reminded Alex of a scene in an old western.

Michael had to know he was here - he couldn’t be so drunk that he missed the loud rumble of Alex’s jeep - but he hadn’t turned around. Alex supposed that means he has to go to him. Though if he’s being honest with himself, the only somewhat flat part of the stone that can be used climb to Michael looked a lot more daunting at 28 than it had at 17.

Probably because the last time he’d climbed up and down that rock it had been with two steady legs and a sober Michael to lend a hand.

Banking on familiarity with the path and muscle gained from a decade of military training to compensate, Alex ducked under the tree blocking his way and started up. It was slow going, frustratingly slow, but he made it to the top without any injury to himself or his leg.

“You climbed up.”

Alex took that as an invitation and sat down, his legs (all one and a half) joining Michael’s in dangling off the edge. “I did,” he answered.

Michael grunted and offered him a bottle. “Whiskey?”

Alex took the bottle from him but shook his head. “I shouldn’t. One of us has to drive back eventually.”

“Then give back the bottle.”

Alex tipped it over the edge, far enough that sand would cushion the fall and it wouldn’t break. If the level of whiskey and the bottle opener he had scene in the truck were any indication, Michael was at least three shots past tipsy. He didn’t need to drink anymore.

“Or do that,” Michael scowled.

“You’re drunk enough already. It’ll be hard enough to climb off this rock sober, I don’t want to have to carry you.”

Michael flung a hand forward, “That’s what jumpin’ is for.” Obviously, his tone said.

Alex raised an eyebrow and gave the rock a kick with his bad leg. Boots were okay for walking, but they couldn’t keep all the sand out if he took a 15-foot drop into it. This was a new prosthetic too, and his doctor at the vet hospital in Albuquerque would kill him if he ground down the joints in less than a month.

Michael’s face clouded over, jaw clenched shut.

“We gonna talk about why you’re up here?”

”I like the view,” he drawled, tipping his hat with a playful smirk.

“You seem upset,” Alex prodded.

Michael snorted. “You’d think. I’m not.”

“Oh?”

Michael’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “Really, I swear,” he laughed. “Look,” he whispered, pointing head of them.

The sky was glowing.

As far as Alex could see, the sky was a myriad blue, purple, and pink shades. Where the sun still hit it, the sand, so often harsh and burning, reflected the colors back to the sky as if it was waving to an old friend. The rest formed a black contrast that seemed to deepen each shade. They set in comfortable silence in their oasis, watching the colors merge and morph on the horizon as sun inched down lower.

“Before I joined the Air Force, I assumed I’d never leave the west coast. I wanted to be a musician, so kid-me just knew that all I’d have to do was go to L.A. and never leave. I’ve never even been to L.A.” Alex remarked to himself, eyes still on the horizon. But in between the camouflage of fatigues and the gunpowder smoke, I saw so many different people, so many cultures.” He let his awe fill his voice as he spoke. “And I’d catch myself missing this ... empty desert that I grew up miserable in.”

Michael glanced at him with a confused smile.

“What?”

Michael shook his head softly. “I never thought of Roswell as home. I didn’t even live here until I was eleven. And Max and Iz tried their best but,” he shrugged.

“But you wanted to search the desert for pieces of an alien spaceship,” Alex finished. Michael wanted to leave. He still does, and Liz might have destroyed his best chance at Crash-Con.

“I worked so hard. The consul Liz destroyed would have killed a lot of people and I don’t wish it had, don’t get me wrong,” Michael rushed to say, alcohol slightly blurring his words together as he tried to speak too fast.

“It’s okay to mourn a dream,” Alex reassured him. He tried to project acceptance and comfort instead of the sick loneliness that always settled in when he thought about Michael leaving Earth.

“No, you don’t get it,” Michael exclaimed, knotting his fingers in his hair and knocking his hat behind him in the process. “I’m not mad, not pissed, and I should be so that’s why I’m drinking on a rock on a Monday.”

He must have scene a puzzled look on Alex’s face because he started to clarify.

”You said when you were a kid and home in Roswell, you wanted to see the world and once you did, you missed home, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. How did that have to do with anything?

“I always felt like I was already seeing the world and I was always missing home, even if I didn’t remember it. I don’t know when it changed but when I realized that consul had blown up and I hadn’t even tried to save it, I just ran off to help you and then Maria?”

He gestured to the whiskey bottle laying in the sand. “Yeah, I’m mourning, but I’m mourning my chance to see my past and to visit that world. I don’t feel like it’s my home anymore.”

The sky had lost its color now. If the sunset had been an old western, this was a black-and-white picture movie. Everything he saw was monochrome, washed out in grays and blacks.

“Roswell still sucks,” Michael continued. “but that’s okay. It’s not my home.”

Alex took a deep breath as if steadying himself for the answer. “What is?”

Michael met his eyes with a steady gaze. He looked confident, the slight glaze and wide eye-look from alcohol making his irises shine as if the moon itself was looking at him under the colorless sky.

He smiled sadly. “Home can be a person, Alex. I found mine when I was seventeen. It’s just taken me a little while to realize it, is all.”

Oh. Oh. Alex didn’t say anything, just stared at Michael in wonder. He didn’t think he could speak if he tried. He never expected, he, that - he never expected this. That he loved Michael more than Michael loved him was a fact that he had come to terms with. He didn’t know what to do with this.

Would Michael regret this in the morning?

Alex knew he was too afraid of the answer to ask.

After long, Michael’s face lit up with relief. His emotions had always changed often and quickly, even when they were kids. He understood the need, of course, to project a feeling you thought someone wanted from you, but unlike Alex, Michael seemed to actually feel it.

“You don’t need to respond. Really, you already have,” he pointed out.

Yeah, maybe.

“Let’s just lay here, yeah?” He leaned back, head to the sky.

Alex joined him, still silent. Words echoed in his head, each thing taking on a new meaning he hadn’t seen before.

They’re my family, Alex! All right, maybe. But you’re mine.

I loved you. And I think you loved me.

I know you loved me.

I know what he means to Alex

You are the best of me.

“In a little bit, I’ll be sober enough to move you down,” Michael whispered. “Until then, the stars are out.”

He meant float him down off the rock with telekinesis, Alex realized. For some reason, the notion warmed him almost as much as Michael’s earlier confession had.

Alex nodded, and they lay together under the stars illuminating the sky, Michael’s low humming joining the sounds of desert coming to life.

I don’t care, go on and tear me apart.

And I don’t care if you do.

‘Cause you’re a sky full of stars,

I think I see you.

Such a heavenly view.

Also on AO3

#roswell new mexico #malex #alexweek2020 #alexappreciation2020 #alex manes #michael guerin #roswellnm #rnm #roswell nm #tyler blackbrun #fic #malex fic #ao3 #my writing #alicewrites

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illshowyourhurricanes · 5 years ago

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A Familiar Face (Part 6)

It’s been a long time coming, but Ryan is finally making an appearance! Just for a quick recap of sorts, something completely unexpected took place in reader’s life, and Ryan was there to help in any way he was able (because that’s just the way our angel musician is). After a delayed dinner, it’s reader’s first night in an unfamiliar place. (This is basically setting the stage for a lot yet to come.) Thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoy!

Word count: 3750

Rating: PG (flirting, bedroom eyes)

Tag list: @dylanobrusso @obscurilicious @the-blind-assassin-12 @something-tofightfor @ms-delos @lexxierave @madamrogers @yannii04 @gollyderek @carlaangel86 @bicevans @maydayfigment @thisisparadisemylove @ladyofnaps @malionnes @thesandbeneathmytoes @crushed-pink-petals-writes

If you’d like to be added to or removed from my tag list, feel free to ask!

Dishes were a necessary evil. Ryan had put up a fight after lasagna was eaten and you both had full bellies, insisting that you had made dinner, which gave him automatic dish duty. You’d swatted him away playfully several times, telling him he was overruled and he finally obliged, backing away from the sink.

“Payback in the form of a few songs would be much more fulfilling,” you promised, an almost impish lilt in your tone, and you found yourself smirking as you turned back to the sink. Were you flirting? Your home had just been ransacked, you were offered a new place to stay temporarily, you’d finally had dinner… after all the ebb and flow of disaster versus small miracles, flirting was nothing short of a terrible decision.

Georgie is not present, you reminded yourself. He’s almost guaranteed to stay away for awhile. You are fully alone with this man who you’re inexplicably drawn to and fascinated by, this man who is warm and kind and very, very attractive. Tread lightly around Ryan Brenner. Be careful.

Conversation was easy between the pair of you, even if there were times when Ryan wasn’t very forthcoming. You leaned in the opposite direction, an open book about most things, and it became effortless to learn to fill silences, accustomed to doing so in making small talk with customers at the diner. But with Ryan, there was no need for filler by way of insignificant pleasantries. Silence between the two of you was okay, and you found that Ryan almost communicated with more clarity without words than he did with them. Sometimes, they weren’t necessary. His dark eyes were surprisingly expressive. There was a slight furrow of his brows when he was apprehensive; a look of authority about him as he’d walked with you throughout your apartment… he had been protective yet gentle, inquisitive but never intrusive. Ryan was attentive, in tune with everything around him. He noticed even the tiniest things, the slightest change in tone or mood, a flicker of emotion over someone’s features, small beats passing in hesitation.

You had become lost in your thoughts, and there was no question he’d picked up on the shift from joking about dishes to a stretch of silence. Instantly, he was mulling over possible reasons as to what caused such a stark change in so little time. It was more than what had happened in your apartment, and it was obvious Ryan from one small nuance he’d never seen you indulge in before. You'd started to gnaw on your bottom lip, and it was only when the skin grew raw that you caught yourself and stopped short. You’d barely realized it happening, yet Ryan instantly caught on.

As the sink continued to fill with warm water, you glanced across the kitchen to see Ryan clearing off the table, stacking plates one atop the other.

“Ryan!”

He crossed the room with two long strides, suddenly beside you where you stood by the sink. The plates were sat down onto the counter with a light clatter. Ryan shrugged lightly, but his eyes were trained on your face. You felt a heat creep up and over your cheeks; you were supremely aware of his gaze, unassuming, yet steady. Clearing your throat— a nervous habit you’d had for as long as you could remember—you turned off the faucet, satisfied with the water level in the basin of the sink. There was a layer of soap suds atop the water, reminiscent of a bubble bath; a few wayward bubbles floated into the air only to pop spontaneously into thin air. Promptly, you began washing.

“You okay,Y/N?” Ryan’s voice was soft, but the intonation of his question was clear— he knew the answer already. He studied your profile without a word, and your expression paired with a long moment of silence only confirmed the feeling he had.

Remaining quiet, you scrubbed at a blob of cheese that had melted onto a plate, stubborn and stuck, not budging against your efforts. Dropping the plate to soak in the dishwater, you finally met Ryan’s eyes.

“I will be.”

You smiled softly in appreciation. This man was an angel, you were sure of it. He in turn searched your face for a moment, that slight furrowing of his eyebrows making a brief appearance and vanishing as swiftly as it had appeared. You looked away only to battle against the glued-on cheese again, and you felt a small soar of triumphant gratification as a clean plate was revealed with just three swipes of your sponge. Ryan remained standing just a few inches from you, catching the feather light upturning of your lips. Gently, he took the plate from your hand and began drying it. You laughed, snatching the dish towel out of his hand. “Get outta here, Brenner!”

Narrowing his eyes playfully, he handed back the halfway-dried plate in mock defeat, backing toward the threshold of the kitchen. He stopped just short of reaching the corridor and laughed softly.

“I’m stoppin’, you get no more help from me.” He held up his large hands in mock surrender, amusement shining in his warm brown eyes. There was an obvious look of kindness to his expression; the glint of laughter and mischief there had softened to one of genuine fondness. With one small nod, he turned and disappeared down the hallway. You got back to work, and just as you pulled the stopper from the drain of the sink, you heard the squeak of old pipes followed by the distinct sound of the shower running, water pounding against ceramic like rain against a tin roof.

You leaned back against the counter, hands behind you as you braced yourself. You were hyper aware of the knowledge that Ryan was showering directly above you, and you shook your head, forcing yourself to clear your mind and focus… focus on dealing with your disaster of an apartment, of getting your life together and back in order. Those were important things, essential things, not at all related to the kind, gentle, talented, attractive and wonderful man who was currently naked and wet with nothing but the barrier of the ceiling between the two of you.

You shook your head vehemently, firmly reminding yourself that your mission was to focus on significant things. The only problem there was that you kept catching yourself focusing on Ryan, more than you probably should, and he made it so easy to do so-- almost too easy. It was within the ease of his authenticity, the careful choosing of his words and ever-present optimism; in the way he appreciated life’s simplest pleasures that everyone else took for granted; in the genuine kindness of his character, his quiet chuckling and bashful, boyish smiles. You were fascinated, enthralled, and charmed by this man, yet a single thought remained, tarnishing your view: he would soon be gone.

Ryan hadn’t said as much, hadn’t given a date or a time or even mentioned traveling to another location, but you had a striking feeling, and the realization hit you like a freight train. You’d made only a small space for him in your life at first, but you’d easily allowed that space to grow. Without him there occupying a bench in the cold, playing guitar with numb fingers you’d hope to warm up with a cup of coffee; without his presence alone giving you reason to actually make dinner; without the indulgence in pleasant conversation while you closed the diner… You were struck with a heavy ache deep in your chest. Your life would go back to normal to a point, but you had a hunch it would feel a little bit incomplete.

It was a feeling you were used to and thought you’d grown into, barely noticing it over the years, but you knew that this time, it would sting like rubbing alcohol poured over a fresh wound. It would linger.

You found yourself spiraling into a seemingly endless cavern of thoughts, just as you had earlier in the evening. How long would it take for the inevitable loneliness to fade? How many early mornings would be tainted with the memory that Ryan wouldn’t be there tuning his on your way to work, but instead making his way to a new location?

You’d consciously made the choice to live the way you did. When you weren’t working and surrounded by co-workers and customers alike at the diner, your life was one of solitude, and you were content with that. But that was before Ryan appeared and took up residence in your life. You were painfully aware that when he was gone, maybe that contentment would tarnish and corrode. Maybe your solitude would turn bitter with no one else’s voice to replace the slow drawl of Ryan’s, soft like velvet; no distraction from constantly remembering the distinct color and depth of his eyes, always radiating warmth; no substitute for the sound of his guitar-- the music that had brought Ryan into your life, bringing streaks of sunshine and brightness along with him, replacing your shades of grey. Maybe your solitude would shift and transform to loneliness.

How long was it going to take to find another apartment with affordable rent? Where would you even start to look? Was a space with an alarm system really necessary? Were you foolishly making yourself too available to access, and how could you begin to remedy that? Your brain was stockpiled with thoughts, ricocheting against the inside of your skull like bullets, no reprieve between one shot firing before the next one flew your way. Continuing to work, you opened several wooden cabinets until you found where the dishes were kept. You put them away, the soft clattering of stacked plates the only sound in the silent house; the soft pattering of water against the shower walls had stopped.

You located a roll of Saran Wrap, carefully tearing off enough to cover the remainder of lasagna that you and Ryan hadn’t been able to finish. Seamlessly, you covered the dish. It had taken a lot of practice and many, many sheets of Saran Wrap crumpled and thrown angrily into the trash, but since working at the diner, you’d finally mastered the art of winning the fight with cling wrap. The diner. You had to call Sophie, ask her to pick up your shift tomorrow if at all possible. I just need a day. One day.

You opened the refrigerator and placed your glass baking dish inside, disappearing just long enough until you heard footsteps echoing over old, wooden floorboards, accompanied by a creaking once or twice. Closing the refrigerator door, you gave the kitchen one last look. Absentmindedly running your palms over your denim-clad thighs, you exhaled, satisfied. And the anxiety that had been weighing like a heavy stone in your abdomen was all but gone. It was part of the reason why the diner meant so much to you— the routine of your days, the feeling of accomplishment as you wished another satisfied customer a good day and cleared away their dishes— there was a comfort there, and you found that feeling as you stood upright, softly closing the refrigerator door as you did so. The room was still empty.

Though you’d heard Ryan return from the back of the house, you were surprised not to find him there; it was out of character for him to leave you alone unannounced. You recalled the small exchange you’d previously had before he’d disappeared down the hallway:

You okay, Y/N?

I will be.

You would be, and it then dawned on you that a connotation may have been attached to those words, one that Ryan may have taken as your way of saying you’d rather be alone. Hoping desperately that meaning didn’t mistranslate in his mind, you ventured through the kitchen, your steps slowing as you peeked into the next room. Since arriving at Georgie’s, you hadn’t made it past that one small room, You found yourself in the doorway of what appeared to be a den.

The first thing your eyes settled on was an old set of French doors paned with long windows. The old wood that surrounded the windows needed to be stained, but the doors were charming in their own way. You paused to have a quick peek outside; you could barely see a blanket of snow on what seemed to be a back porch. The darkness was so much thicker out of town, tucked away and surrounded by trees. If only the weather was nicer.

You took a few more steps inside, noticing Ryan’s absence, and you frowned. You supposed he wasn’t required to babysit you. It was quite the contrary, actually. He was a grown man who led his own life, and just because he’d been kind enough to offer you a place to stay, his company would just be a bonus.

Even still, you were enchanted by the room you’d found, and decided to allow yourself to wander in farther and explore. On the far wall opposite from where you stood was occupied almost entirely by an archaic wood-burning fireplace, and the vision brought a full smile to your face. Outdated red brick ran from floor to ceiling. The hearth was surprisingly roomy, and a long mantle, solid wood in a warm chestnut shade, adorned the smoke shelf. It was homey, cozy, and you walked to stand in front of it as you noticed assorted picture frames decorating the mantle. You stepped past wainscoted walls, between a tawny, threadbare sofa set, and a bookshelf stuffed with books, not an inch left unoccupied on any of the four shelves. You spotted a set of encyclopedias, gold in your school days. Finally you reached the fireplace, bending at the waist to touch the red brick of the hearth. The brickwork appeared to be dusty from underuse, but in pulling your hand back, palm up, there was nothing dirtying your fingers. Your idea of dust due to neglect was quickly debunked by a small pile of ash in the firebox, soot caking the sharp end of the stoker hanging neatly from a wrought iron tool stand.

Finally getting around to the picture frames that had drawn you to the fireplace initially, you jumped at an unexpected clattering coming from outside the French doors. Spinning to look, you let out an involuntary yell as one of the doors flew open. In stepped Ryan, arms full of logs, his biceps straining from the weight, Kicking the door shut behind him, his eyes widened at the sight of you. Crossing the room in two long strides, he halfway tossed the logs down on the hearth unceremoniously.

“What’s the matter, Y/N?” There was concern in his voice and he was peering down at you with those piercing, dangerously dark eyes. The depth of them had stolen words from your mouth. When you didn’t answer, Ryan reached past the small space between the two of you, the rough palms of his hands calloused from guitar strings and train cars curling around your upper arms, and you yelped again, recoiling instinctively.

“Your hands are freezing!” Heart still pounding at your rib cage, you took a deep breath in in an attempt to steady your breathing. “Holy shit.”

Falling down onto the couch behind you, you started to laugh. You laughed harder the more you thought about the absurdity of the situation, tears pricking behind your eyes and overflowing, leaving tiny, wet rivulets down your cheeks.

You caught Ryan’s glance, eyebrows knitted together in what you could only gathered to be utter confusion. He watched your every move as you wiped the tears from your face with the backs of your hands, blinking quickly and collapsing back against the couch. Your laughter subsided and you managed to find your voice

“I thought I heard you while I was finishing up in the kitchen, but when I wandered in here…” You trailed off with a shrug. “I spotted the pictures on the mantle and was just about to get a closer look when you came bursting through the door. I was not anticipating that.” You let out a short breath of a giggle, and as if trading places, you were now the one watching Ryan’s every move.

His eyes lit up with amusement at your explanation, and by the time you were done, he was all-out grinning, apples of his cheeks rounding. You noticed then that he’d cleaned up his beard, trimmed it closer to his skin. He ducked his head, scratching the back of his neck as he chuckled, the sound deep and melodic. Glancing over at you, smile still there, Ryan just shook his head.

“You’re somethin’ else, you know that?” You caught his gaze lingering on you, and you swallowed a lump that had suddenly popped up in your throat. Like a stupid and inexperienced child, you looked away in a bout of uncertainty, cursing yourself silently.

“Thanks, I think.” You broke the momentary silence as Ryan turned to back to the fireplace, his back to you as he half-grinned into the firebox, arranging a few of the logs there. Afterward, he turned to neatly stack the remaining wood he had dumped onto the hearth. You tried not to think about the way the lean muscle in his back and shoulders shifted as he moved, the bulging of his biceps each time he effortlessly added to the stack. You felt as if your eyes may burn holes through his thin, white t-shirt. Your gaze fell to his lower half, and you allowed yourself the opportunity to appreciate the way his grey sweatpants hung low over his hips, loose-fitting but still highlighting his physique.

It was only as your eyes moved upward from his torso, again drinking in the rippling of his back that you noticed his hair. It was brushed back, away from his forehead, damp with snow. You let your mind wander, wishing you’d caught him a few minutes earlier than you had, fresh out the shower. You imagined him with his whole headful of thick, overgrown hair neatly combed back.

It was different, seeing him this way, his hat and coat abandoned, jeans and hoodie traded for something much more comfortable. It was a good different, one that made you feel oddly secure. You could get used to it far too easily.

Softly smiling to yourself, you settled further into the couch as Ryan paused, standing upright, hand disappearing into his pocket momentarily. Drawing out a lighter, he leaned in toward the firebox, supporting himself with one forearm on the hearth, and if life came with a pause button, you would have used it right then and there. It was a feat, but you tore your eyes away from his physique at the tell-tale crackling of a fire coming to life.

As comfortable as you were lounging on the old couch, you pulled yourself up and to your feet. Raising your arms high above your head, you stretched before dropping your arms back down to your sides. Joining Ryan in front of the fire, you rolled your neck side to side as you turned to warm your front. The fire was quickly roaring to life, and you were so thankful for the warmth.

“This feels amazing. The initial terror was well worth it.” You kept your voice quiet, just loud enough for Ryan to hear over the popping and crackling of the burning wood in flames. Rubbing your hands up and down arms for more warmth, you looked sideways at Ryan and smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

To your surprise, there was no hesitation on his end; no pause as he mulled over whether or not he’d mind answering, no shadow of apprehension over his eyes or pinching together of his features. Ryan simply nodded, made a low humming sound in acknowledgement as he turned his head to look at you.

A chunk of hair fell forward into his eyes and your breath hitched in your throat. You’d never put so much effort into your face remaining neutral, and it was all for nothing, because nothing got past Ryan Brenner. He may not necessarily vocalize as much, but you’d learned how observant and attentive he was.

Forcing yourself to exhale, the corners of your lips turned upward and you put your hands on your hips just for show.. “Why did you go out in the snow with just a t-shirt on?! You can’t go catching pneumonia, Ryan I need you.” Your voice has started with a teasing tone, but all traces of it had vanished as you finished. Underneath everything, you were exhausted and vulnerable, and this incredible man was all you had.

He cocked his head to the side, giving you a once over with no effort put into hiding it. There was no threat, no ill intent or shadow of anything inappropriate but your skin felt like it could burst into flames under the heat you couldn’t swear you glimpsed in his eyes. Ryan locked his eyes with yours, and there was no discerning where his pupils met their iris. You’d never seen his eyes so dark.

“Just didn’t think about needin’ to find dry wood.” His eyes were still trained on you as if you were a rarity, one he wanted to keep as a secret. “I was preoccupied.”

Ryan gave you a meaningful look then, eyes still startlingly dark, and turned to head out of the den. “I think I owe you a couple-a songs, Y/N.”

Your ears were tuned into the rhythm of his footsteps, the way the sound faded the further he walked. Inhaling deeply, your breath was unsteady. You’ve had more than enough action today, you warned yourself. Important things. Focus on important things. You heard Ryan’s footsteps growing louder, and your shoulders relaxed at the sound. Just knowing he was making his way back had already overruled your reminder to yourself, and you couldn’t have cared any less.

As if on cue, Ryan returned, guitar slung over his shoulder and hanging at his back. Important things. Ryan Brenner was an important thing, and you couldn’t change that. You reconciled that fact, and it was so simple to accept. Too simple. So be it.

You watched as Ryan walked across the room, sitting on the couch across from the one you occupied, he adjusted his guitar onto his lap and began tuning. Her tweaked and turned the pegs on either side of the headstock, that chunk of hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes again. You didn’t think Ryan even noticed. He was so focused on his instrument, so intent in getting the tuning right that he was completely absorbed in the matter at hand.

“Do you have any original songs, Ryan? Your covers are wonderful, but I’d really love some authenticity.” Your words were bold and you knew you were asking a lot, maybe too much. You braced yourself for a simple shaking of his head side to side.

“That’s one thing I can give you, Y/N.” With one last, single strum, the old acoustic was tuned to his satisfaction. He looked up from the guitar only long enough to turn his attention to you, giving a soft nod. You nodded back at Ryan, promising him your full and undivided attention, and with that, he positioned his fingers on the fretboard and began to play.

#a familiar face #aff #part 6 #ryan brenner x reader #my writing #fan fiction

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chaoticartwork · 5 years ago

Text

Like Peas in a Hive Pod

———————

In the halls of the HQ, a Titan roams the halls seemingly searching for something. He scratches his horned helmet and sighs, and begins to move towards the other end until he bumps into a Hunter by accident. Within a split second of running into her, he feels something odd. It feels as though he’s on constant guard, and the reek of the ozone is creeping into his mask. ‘This feeling is so familiar...is she?” He thinks to himself.

The Titan immediately grabs the girl by the arm to lift her off the ground and back to her feet. He excitedly clasps her hands together and exclaims: “You’re just like me!”

The hunter frowned a bit in confusion. She knew what this strange Titan fellow was talking about with the words 'just like me', the familiar feeling of loneliness and distance, as well as the twinges of pain in her back made it that more obvious. However she wasn't sure if she wanted to acknowledge and agree with him or deny his statement. She kept her silent and just observed for now.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Her ghost popped in between them to help her out.

The Titan immediately realizing what he did in the middle of the excitement. “Oh! I’m sorry! My name is Leon.” He steps back and bows quickly. “I apologize for my abruptness. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

"Leon?" The ghost turned to the hunter, wondering if she knew him. The woman shrugged back in response. "Well... Good day to you then." The floating thing said to the Titan and they turned their backs and walked off.

“Wait!” Leon calls out to her. “You and I have the same...affliction...I guess. Do you want to be friends?” He puts his arms on his hips. Even though he’s wearing a helmet its obvious to tell he’s smiling.

The hunter looked and frowned once more. Affliction? Same? She was doubting how accurate that described the two of them.

"Hmm..." Once again, it was the ghost that spoke up and not the hunter herself. "Don't you find that... dangerous to be talking about to a random person you just met?"

He stops for a moment. “I guess so, but this is my friend’s clan. I trust the people in it!”

The hunter's frown deepen, seemingly disapgreeing with his choice. But it was his, and at least he didn't meet anyone who will backstab him one day. This clan houses a variety of people. And these people, though guardians, don't all hold up to the honor that most mortals portray them to have.

They have people who abuse the broken rules of the crucible; People who hog all the power ammo in matches, any type of matches, because they want to be the star of the show, and will yell at others for taking their spotlight in any way;

There are people who lack focus, or have no patience, they jump from one thing to another and achieve nothing in the end; There are people who win by framing their achievements just right to make themselves look mighty, when in reality, their scores aren't impressive;

There are people who are rude, who uses their mental illness to gain sympathy and care from others, but when they get what they wanted, they will abandon those whom had once helped them; There are ass-lickers, boot-kissers, blind trend followers...

And there certainly are *backstabbers*. To put it simply.... The clan, regardless of branch, doesn't really do much screening before people join. It's always after do they find out the rotten piece of shit in the bowl of the steaming hot soup.

"Don't." The hunter finally spoke up. "You are not safe here."

He looks at Polaroid confusedly. “I can’t really confirm that, but hey someone who is going through what I’m going through is here, plus my dear friend!”

He takes off his helmet revealing his awoken face and green eyes. “I don’t plan on joining, I’m just visiting.” He smiles. “So do you want to be friends?”

The hunter looked at him. She had no reaction for him revealing his awoken identity. At this point in her guardian life, things are just not really that surprising or interesting anymore.

"Friends seem a bit.... abrupt." She spoke with caution. Her ghost backed down once she started talking, almost like she had an authority over him. "But we can get to know each other when given the chance. My name is Polaroid, by the way. If you find that hard to pronounce, just call me Camera. Same thing."

“Polaroid...Polaroid...that sounds so familiar.” He thinks for a moment. “Oh! I have a polaroid!” He pulls out a locket with a square. It opens showing three guardians with their arms around each other: Chaox, Leon, and a female hunter with blonde hair.

He shakes his head. “I’m getting off-topic. It’s a pleasure meeting you, Polaroid!”

The hunter felt like the man might pick her up and whirl her 'round and round at any given moment with all the energy he emits.

"A pleasure." She said. "So you're friend is...?" She didn't get to see the picture that well before he excitedly put it back to... wherever he pulled it out from. Either or, she would assume that he's here to meet the friend and is lost, that's why he bumped into her.

Leon’s face saddens. “Chaox...he’s my friend, but I haven’t seen him in years.” He slaps his face in an attempt to get rid of the sadness. “But enough at me, what about you? You’re a member of this clan right?” His smile returns.

"I barely interact with people of this space nowadays, but... yeah. I am." The hunter doesn't seem to be happy about anything, nor was she ever giving a straigh answer. "I'm the information desk worker in this clan." She wasn't lying, but she also weren't telling the whole truth.

“Really? Huh, so you meet a lot of people right?” He makes a serious face for a moment. “How’s...how’s Chaox doing? Is he okay?”

Polaroid paused. The last time she had ever talked to Chaox was when he heard about her take corruption. It was all over the news. Some people even formed hate groups and had plans to 'hunt her down', or so they claim. The hunter's friends were protective, and Chaox was... well he was interested. But after that, they didn't have interaction or contact.

"He's fine, I think. I meet a lot of people, but it gets to a point where you meet too many come and go, you forget who everyone is, you know?" She guided him towards Chaox's room, up the elevator, down the hallway.

“Here...we are.” He looks visibly nervous. Leon takes a deep breath in and blows it out. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Polaroid. If we can talk again about our...issues. I’d love to hear your story.”

He knocks on the door, and scrunches his eyes. No response. Another knock. Nothing. “Ah...this is embarrassing. He may not be here.” He chuckles. “All that deliberation and worry for nothing.”

Polaroid thought about what the Titan said. "Your story first." she said in response to that. She then knocked on the door as well. "Chaox?" She said softly, as if anyone could hear her from the other side of the door.

“Haha, I suppose that’s fair.” He smiles, but his expression turns serious again. “I was possessed by a hive wizard while searching for more hive knowledge. While in my body, they hurt and betrayed people who I was close with, and started a lot of the issues on the moon.”

He sighs. “They then went to the infinite forest to try and steal the vex’s knowledge, but Stera and Chaox beat them out of me. I wandered the forest for a long time, met Saint-14 and became friends. And well, here we are!” He smiles. “Also, I’m sorry if this is all too fast. I mean we just met a couple of minutes ago, and here I am demanding to be friends.” He laughs.

"It's nice to have people whom you can count on to keep you in check." the hunter said, mumbling her words. She took a deep breath in and out. "I..... " She was still unsure of telling her own story. "I was shot in the head by a taken sniper, and since then, I can see and talk to Taken creatures that are in another plane. I can even see if people are taken corrupted. And trust me, there's more than people think."

“Huh...how interesting. You never would guess it.” Leon hold out his hand. “It truly was a pleasure meeting you, Polaroid. If you ever want to talk to someone again to someone who knows what your going through, give me a call!” He writes out his frequency on a screen he pulled out. “It’s also nice meeting a new friend.”

The woman shook his hand without hesitation. She nodded, and quickly, they parted ways.

———————

Another fun little rp between @zennore and myself!

#destiny 2 #roleplay #oc rp

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razorblade180 · 5 years ago

Text

Lasting Embers pt30 Finale:What comes next

[Jaune’s House]

Jaune:*opens door* Finally home! Gosh it feels like we’ve been gone forever but it’s only been a few hours. Yujin what do you want for- *turns around* lunch?

Yujin:*face down on the couch* I’m not hungry. *sniff*

Jaune:But you haven’t eaten today. *sits next to her*You okay?

Yujin:Yeah, I’m fun; for once I’m crying happy tears. Things worked out fine. For once I feel....calm.

Jaune:I’m glad to hear it sweetie. Seeing you hurt was killing.

Yujin:*grabs hand* Thanks for tolerating me through all this. I know I didn’t make this week easy on you; not to mention the entire thirteen days she was here.

Jaune:It wasn’t all bad and I didn’t think you were a problem. Honestly I’m sorry for not helping you through this m- *pulled down*

Yujin:*hugging him* None of that! The time for being bummed is over! You’re wonderful, sweet, kind, and I’m grateful for you.

Jaune:Hehe, it’s been forever since you hugged me like this. I kinda miss them.

Yujin:*pulls out journal* Well from what I’ve read so far about myself, two year old me hugged you a lot. Also we took naps on the couch.

Jaune:Trying to recreate simpler times?

Yujin:Nah, just cherishing the people I have......around.....

Those words cut through the haze of her promise to Nora that almost slipped her mind. Suddenly her heart starts to weigh heavy as things are put into perspective.

Jaune:Yujin?

Yujin:Dad.....I’ve always had you around. Not just you but Gramdma and Gramps. Adam’s been around more than he’s had to be as well; sure I’ve felt lonely but was never alone. Right now though....I bet Tenzen is feeling real loneliness. He never brought it up though; all he did was help me.

Jaune:..........

Jaune:Wanna go back to Vale?

Yujin:*nods* By myself though; can you make lunch for three while I’m gone?

Jaune:*smiles* Not a problem.

[Vale]

Tenzen:*watching old dance videos*........

*knock knock knock*

Yujin:Tenzen? Are you home? *opening door* Sorry to let myself in but your mom gave me a-

She was at a lost for words. For as long as she’s known her best friend she’d think that he had nothing else to surprise her with. Yujin was wrong though; it dawned on her that there’s plenty she hasn’t seen him do. Crying was one of these things but not anymore. The sight of it once however was enough for to know she never wanted to see it again. Without another thought she rushes to his side and holds him close.

Tenzen:Gotta hand it to you Jin, I was knew you were strong but living without knowing how a parent is doing? It has only been a few hours and it’s already torture.

Yujin:Don’t worry, it’ll get easier. You’ll have me just like I’ve had you. Not just that but my dad even thinks you should stay with us until you head to Beacon.

Tenzen:I’m not going......

Yujin:Huh?

Tenzen:I’m not going to take the exam this time around. Too much has happened for me to focus. Besides, what’s the point if you’re going to wait a year? Going without you doesn’t feel right *holds her tighter* honestly nothing without you feels right.

Yujin:*red*........You should know better to say things like that after recent events. Don’t get a girl’s hopes up; especially when you’re a flirt. Can we just...deal with all that stuff when everything feels less....complicated? *chuckles*

Tenzen:*chuckles* My bad guess I’m a little emotional.

Yujin:I know how that feels. Well Beacon or not, you’re living with us now. Think of it as training for dorm room life. Next year we’ll blow everyone out of the water.

Tenzen:That.....sounds wonderful.

Yujin:Let’s go home. From now on we’ll stop looking back and-

[Ship]

Jael:*staring at the water*

Blake:Looks like she’s gotten her sea legs.

Jacquelyn:I’m sure her mind is just busy with other things to care. She hasn’t said a word since we left. I know I should probably give her space but.....sigh who knows what she’s thinking.

Sun:Blake and I can talk to her.

Blake:What? I’m not sure if- *dragged over* wait! Sun!!!

Sun:Hey kiddo, getting used to the ocean?

Jael:Not really......it still makes me bad. Can’t really tell though since I was already feeling pretty awful. It’s not about my father either.

Blake:Really? What’s on your mind then.

Jael....*turns around* Can you two train me fight?

Blake:What?

Sun:I’m with her, what?

Jael:Dad isn’t here to train me anymore and frankly both mom and sis tend to hold back. *holds chest* I know it’s practically impossible to surpass my physical limitations, even so I want to try. Beacon is going to be the hardest challenge I ever faced; I need every advantage if I’m going to keep up with the rest. So....*bows* I’d be honored if I could learn from both High Leaders!

Sun:*eyes widened* Hey what’s with the bowing!? We’re all family here; can’t speak for Blake but I’ll help train you.

Jael:Thank you! *looks at Blake* what about you?

Blake:I mean I’ll busy now that I’m taking over full time. Not to mention I never mentored someone before....

Sun:Aw come on. The Benevolent Shadow, Blake Belladonna herself is nervous of having a student? I’m sure it’s easier than leading an organization. Besides, you got me to help!

Sienna:Vacou’s favorite son.....

Ilia:The Ray of Hope.....

Jacquelyn:Fourth High Leader in history and second High Leader of The Guiding Light....

Jael:Creator of the Sinister Shadow organization....

Everyone:*points at Blake* finish it off!

Blake:*red*........My husband, Sun Wukong.

Sun:That’s me!!! You know I always got your back. *extends hand* we can totally be mentors.

Blake:*smiles* I guess I could give it a-

Jael:Sweet! Can’t wait to show you what I’m made of.

To Blake’s surprise, the young girl literally went sky high with excitement; floating above the ship with her arms casually folded. It’s almost like she was on a sky hammock.

Jacquelyn:Thank you for that.

Sun:No problem! Who knows, we could be training the next High Leader.

Blake:Or the next leader of an uprising....Sorry to be so negative but at the train station-

Jacquelyn:I felt it too...... I don’t want to believe my daughter will go down the exact same path of her father but I’m not naive enough to think she’s growing up perfectly. Jael is only fifteen though; hopefully it’s just teen angst. Watch her closely please?

Blake:Of course, Jael has the benefit of having grateful people around her. It takes a village right?

Jael:*staring at clouds*(Just you watch dad, I’m gonna show the world just how impressive it is being your kid. I promise I’ll-)

[Location Unknown]

Somewhere in Remnant near Salem’s old territories Ruby and the gang lay in wait on a rock pillar just big enough for all of them. It’s nighttime and rain is pouring down on them with thunder roaring through the area at a deafening rate. Each of the battled hardened heroes stare into the distance as a massive wave of black, red, and white approaches from the ground and sky. Grimm and cultist slowly make their way step by step with only the thought of complete destruction on their mind.

Adam:I think your planned worked Ruby. This better be all the bases coming at us or I think I might lose it.

Yang:Even if it is we still have to visit each one to make sure. No stone is being left unturned.

Weiss:Ruby I’ve followed a lot of your crazy plans through the years.

Ruby:.....But?

Weiss:No that was it. This one is up there but not the craziest.

Ruby:To be fair, Adam helped make this plan.

Adam:We all don’t want to be away from home for an indefinite amount of years so why not lure them to us? We’ll carve chunks out of their group piece by piece.

Raven:*eyes glowing* This enough rain? The grounds pretty soaked.

Weiss:It’s perfect; might want to easy it up a little just so we can see.

Nora:Your sword charged or do I need to hit again?

Adam:It’s fine *glowing red* and not a moment too soon; they’re within range.

Ruby:Everyone perfectly clear with the plan? I’ve said it for months but I gotta make sure.

Yang:We got the timing down no problem.

Weiss:You better have it down packed. Freezer burn with a ten second delay after I land and then another ten seconds when you fight.

Yang:I know how to count Weiss, my grades were overall higher than yours.

Weiss:If we live through this I’m taking you down a peg for that.

Adam:Stay within three feet of Yang or I might get zapped?

Raven and Nora:Yep..... *channeling lightning*

Adam:*inhales*.....got it......

Ruby:Alright everyone, let’s kick some ass. *flies up into clouds* 1...2...3...4...5...*closes eyes*

Raven:1...2...3...*fires lightning ball*

Nora:1...2...3...*fires lightning ball*

Weiss:1...2...3...4...5...6...7 *launches off a glyph*

Yang:......1-

Adam:After she lands.

Yang:I know I was just messing around hehe

Cult Master:Are we sure they’re here?

Cult Thug:Yes master Seymour. The trail lead this way.

Seymour:Then where the hell are they!? They’ll pay for the murder of my son Jericho and his entire-

He couldn’t get the rest of threat out. Before he got the chance the dual lightning attacks fond their way to the soaked ground and stunning anything on the ground as the electricity jumped from cult member to grimm alike. As it faded Weiss came slamming down on the ground with her sword stabbed into it. A thin sheet of instantaneously spread for miles thanks to the rain. Now all enemies stood immobile as their feet became trapped.

Seymour:What the hell is this!? A giant ice rink!?

Weiss:Close, it’s a mirror.....*looks up* you know what those can do right?

Seymour:*looks up* Oh no......

Ruby:*eyes glowing and staring at her reflection* Say cheese.....

Her silver eyes activate and bounce off the icy surface. The world itself seems to go completely white as everything becomes blinding for a moment. When it clears, cult members still standing are left in complete shock and pain as the sea of grimm they controlled now is crippled severely. Stone and smoke now make the land seem like forgotten ruins. Seymour quickly reaches for Weiss but is blown back by an intense wave of steam;Yang landed right on time.

Weiss:*Running away* (Alright, time for phase 2. Give me a little time you guys.)

Cult thugs:Damn! We can’t see!!!!

Seymour:*spots glowing light* The light is the brawlers hair! WIPE HER OUT!

Yang:*punches thug* 6...7...8...9...*jumps up high* 10!

A portal from Raven appears but out of it comes a massive horizontal moon slice that sweeps the area. Adam proceeds to jump through and gets back to back with Yang.

Yang:I’ll be honest, I was waiting for a betrayal or something.

Adam:I’ve known about your family for years. Why would I wait until now?

Yang:I don’t know, shock and awe?

Adam:*chuckles* and people think I’m paranoid. On your left....

Yang:*blocks an arrow* Thanks.....*shoots flare* I thought more would survive the attack.

Adam:Well they migh be more in the back. This fog doesn’t do us too many favors.

Yang:It’s buying us time. Just stay close and- Right!!!

An Ursa comes rushing at them with its jaw wide opened. Before it reaches them though a pink lightning bolt strikes it down instantly.

Nora:I really hope I didn’t hit them. All I can see from here is a bright light.

Raven:Just keep the strikes three feet away. I’ll handle the Nevermores. You get more accurate hits if you-

Nora:*strikes hundreds of grimm with one bolt* Hehehe

Raven:.....That works too.

Seymour:Agh, this is a set up! Status report!!!!

Cult Hunter:We’re scattered and losing ground fast! What are your orders?

Seymour:Crap......the dragon should be here shortly. Just in case though, go back to head quarters and tell them about this situation.

Cult Hunter:You sure that’s a good idea? It could be breached as well.

Seymour:We would’ve heard it was. Mountain Glenn is too massive just for anyone to search through. Jumps-Agh! *looks down* what?

A bloody sickle forces it’s way through the mans stomach. His vision starts to blur as he falls to his. The image of the young huntsman fades away slowly; turning into a woman with dark skin and green hair. Her eyes dancing with satisfaction at her accomplishment.

Seymour:How......? Our intel said-

Emerald:Thieves and mercenaries know how to make you think what we want you to think. Didn’t get the chance to properly pay your son Jericho back; I wouldn’t miss this for the world. This more than makes up for it. Mountain Glenn was it? *grabs scroll* You guys get that?

Mercury:*in an airship* Crystal..... we’ll scope it out.

Ren:See all of you there.

Seymour:All of you.....are still....gonna die....

Emerald:You’re still alive huh? About to curse me with your dying breath?

Seymour:You’re not worth it.....you might cut us down but.....no way you all will survive. The proof.......is in the sky.

Emerald:*looks in the distance* Sigh....you said dragon, not dragons.

Three heavily armored dragons make their way over at alarming speed. Each one bigger than the one at Beacon. Their screams shake the area.

Yang:Oh I know that sound.

Adam:Think we can take them?

Yang:I mean I’m kinda a dragon myself you know?

Adam:.......

Yang:Sorry.....a little nervous. *grabs scroll* Ruby, please tell me Weiss is ready?

Ruby:*smirking* You think you’re ready Weiss?

Weiss:Yeah.....

Seymour:Your fate is-*starts shivering* c...cold!?

A gust of cold air pushes the fog away. All humans on the battle field slowly stop as their breath becomes visible and a shadow looms over them. All cultists drop their weapons in disbelief at the sight of their enemies standing under their own dragon of Weiss’s creation; complete with it spawning it’s own grimm. The huntress herself stands on its head proudly and with an ice tiara for nothing other than to show off.

Weiss:I think I’m ready.

Seymour:........ *clenches teeth*

Emerald:Don’t feel bad. Plenty have tried to keep these people down; me including. That’s the thing about people like them, they do their best work when all seems lost. Cinder learned the hard way; Salem learned the hard way. *points out gun* Now you do too....

bang!!

Many grimm start to slow down and lose the mind control either running away or staying; enticed by the fear of the numerous cult members why now are drastically caught off guard.

Yang:What’s wrong!? Not gonna make the first move!? *cracks knuckles*

Adam:We’re more than happy to. Should’ve known you were in hot water when you us two on the same side.

Yang:Just say the word Ruby.

Ruby:*smiling* The honor is all yours sis.

Yang:*eyes glow* All right everyone, phase 3-

“keep moving forward.....”

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