#for space. to let the inhuman gather themselves in their own ways

[lanternlightss]

sighs. oh how the human and inhuman meet together in their understandings of one another, we’re really in it now …

[nepobabyeurydice]

I Never Asked For Flight

Summary:

“Let me fly,” Kara says, and her mouth tastes like ash. “Let me help you.” Kal closes his eyes and takes her hand in his. “It will break you,” he promises, “in ways you will never understand.”

Post-Jerimah's death, Eliza can't handle being in charge of two girls and asks Clark to come down and watch them for a month. It would've been kinder if she just dumped Alex and Kara in a war zone instead of with Clark.

On Ao3

.x.

It would've been kinder if Mom left Alex to her own devices, she could take care of Kara easily. Kara, who she could direct everything in her body to protecting and taking care of. Instead, Clark was here. 

He felt more like a ghost than Superman in the house. Haunting Kara’s consciousness as she was confronted over and over again by something she couldn’t completely grasp compared to her past on Krypton. 

On a mission never completed.

Alex closes her eyes and drags a hand through her now short hair. She can already picture up the paper she could type up about the connection between the neural pathways and the aesthetic of oneself. Kara could type up a better one using only half-remembered concepts from Krypton and written out of rote and not understanding.

That might be why their grades differ so greatly in the science then. Memorization versus understanding. How poetic.

“Alex,” Kara says, and Alex doesn’t flinch. She’s used to Kara doing this now, used to the odd appearances, the too wide, too blue eyes and the unerring keens leaving her throat in the dead of night. “Lunch is ready. Kal— Clark made us something from Kansas.”

Alex nods and lets her hand fall from her hair. Absentmindedly, she wipes them down the sides of the jeans, the malleable and too soft fabric makes her hands tingle, and she bites back the urge to rub at it until both her hands are consumed by the feeling. She straightens her back, ignores the crack and takes Kara’s hand. It’s warm, heat radiating off it like Alex is holding a cup of coffee through a coaster and can feel the heat barely contained by the lid as the nerve ends of her tongue burn inside her mouth.

This is how Clark feels too. Like pure heat barely contained inside its vessel, like a star kept hidden by a trillion miles of empty space.

Kara leads her down the stairs in dead silence, her eyes are distant and unfocused. Like she’s not completely there— no , like she’s listening to a heartbeat. Probably Mom’s, Kara had a habit to worry if she couldn’t hear it once a day. Trauma response or so the psychiatrist that Kara had gone to told her parents.

Alex closes her eyes, gathers her feelings as her feet hit the final stair. She swallows and lets her body move forward into the kitchen.

Left, right, left, right. She pauses in at the doorway, Kara stops next to her—is frozen next to her. 

“Clark,” she says, and it feels odd after so many months of Kara calling him Kal-El. “It’s nice to see you.”

Clark smiles, his skin and teeth are as pristine as Kara’s own inhuman perfection. It fades overtime, they both had told her parents. It fades as they age, and they look more and more human. Alex isn’t sure if she buys that as she avoids Clark’s blue star bright eyes. It seems more likely a trick or a lie that the Kryptonians told themselves as they watched themselves stay the same forever. There had to be a story about that, Alex wanted to read it.

She ran the flat of her tongue over her left incisor, chipped by a bike fall and sucked on it a little as she tried to figure out what to say next. Asking what was for dinner was the obvious answer right?

“Brisket.” Clark says before Alex opens her mouth. “I made brisket with gravy and the works. Figured you’d want something to fill you up all at once.”

He even speaks in code about his heritage, Alex thinks uncharitably. Takes a second, breathes and lets herself think objectively about this situation. Luthor had bugs and spies everywhere. Clark couldn’t let his guard and tongue slip just because he thought he was with allies. She tries to convey as much with Kara, but she isn’t completely sure her sister got the message.

“Thank you, Clark.” Alex says, taking a seat. “It looks delicious.” It isn’t a lie. The brisket is cooked to perfection and must be as spiced as nicely. The gravy’s consistency reminds her of the rare few times she tried Martha Kent’s meals and the potatoes have bits of peels that wouldn’t clog Alex’s throat but still provide texture.

Kara pauses, looks up and then in a tone that could only be described as defiant says: /.Nahkluv, Kahl,ehl./ 

Clark pauses in just the same manner as Kara, their expressions eerily alike and Alex tries not to let her heartbeat speed up. /.Ni bezhgam, Kahra, ehl./ 

Kara’s eyes flash and Alex closes her eyes again, takes two careful breaths and scrapes her fork on the plate. It’s only right if she leaves. Boundaries, she had to establish them, right?

“I’ll be outside.” Alex says, already aware that she had their undivided attention after the shrill sound her fork emitted. Kara and Clark both reach out for her, but Alex is already out the door into the patio.

She might as well do something useful while the House of El hashed this out.

...

Kara watches Alex leave and promises herself she would not follow. She was Kara Zor-El and Clark would not cow her to his whims.

“You left me,” leaves Kara before she can stop herself. She winces in time with Clark. “I’m sorry that’s too—”

“Harsh?” Clark guesses. He shoves his glasses up in a way that if he were human it would’ve scraped his skin and perhaps left the sides of his nose bleeding. As it was all it does is make the lens of the glasses a bit looser and the knot in Kara’s throat all the tighter. She can’t do this, Kara should just go and be with Alex, it was already so hard for her after Jerimah’s death and—

Clark would not frighten her. Kara flexes her lower jaw, wishing for a bottle cap or candy to shove into her mouth to chew as she thinks about her next words.

“You were the only thing I had.” Kara replies. “And you gave me away like I was a puppy plucked from a litter.”

Kal sighs, exhaustion suddenly clear in every line of his body. “I was twenty, Kara. What did you want me to do? Take a thirteen-year-old and say she’s my daughter? Say you're a niece or cousin mysteriously never mentioned despite being known as the family guy around the office?”

“I wanted you to look after me.” Kara says through bloodless lips.

They sit in the words for a moment, both equally stricken by the truth in it. Kara flexes her jaw again, biting back tears. She lets her gaze slip from Kal’s face into the space just above his right ear where she can see Alex hunched over a dead bird.

“Let me fly,” Kara says, and her mouth tastes like ash. “Let me help you.”

She stretches out her hand. Hoping for something—anything.  

Kal closes his eyes and takes her hand in his. “It will break you,” he promises, “in ways you will never understand.”

He flips their hands over revealing scarred veins and blood dried underneath his fingernails.

Kara takes a sharp breath. Kryptonite poisoning, saving lives and self-harm are all one in the same on his body. Yes, Kara can see how this could break her.

“Be a child.” Kal says— begs. “Be something beige and safe. Find a hint of a normalancy in this world.”

“You were my job.” Kara achingly replies. “You're supposed to be my normalcy.”

Kal— Clark— opens his devastating blue star bright eyes that belonged to Kara’s father. “I’m sorry to disappoint. I never asked for flight.”

[lantsovsupremacist]

tiberias (cal) calore vii: illicit affairs

i’m only on the 3rd book so a) pls don’t spoil you’ll break my heart and b) my perception of the characters has only been developed to this point so if you come for me do it with the correct context lmao!!!

you knew what it was.

leaning your forehead against the cool metal post of your bed frame, a shaky exhale escaped from your lips. you wished just like that lost breath, you too could leave behind your body and with it, mind. a few minutes was all you needed, really; some semblance of relief.

even with your door shut tight with a deadbolt, the danger contaminating the palace lingered outside of it. you were not foolish enough to deny the cracks it could slip through. you would give any adversary a worthy fight, though. you could not afford not to, especially now.

for the first time in your life, you had truly encountered a problem that you could not use your abilities to maneuver out of. as much as your lungs screamed and your legs ached to run, you could not. being a swift, your first instinct was always to run. your speed always gave you the advantage in pursuit.

a familiar knock at the door broke you from your trance of pity. you stood up, sniffling as you ran the back of your hand across your nose and mouth. the action of clearing your throat sounded more like a whimper, but you managed as you gathered your skirts and headed for the door. you pushed down the nausea and wrung your hands to settle yourself.

your fingers shook on the deadlock before you pried the door open. the amount of weight on the wood, the length of the echo, and the momentary pause before the second, lighter knock gave away the identity of the person on the other side. you were in his arms before you could take another breath.

despite offering you the comfort you had craved all morning, his touch triggered the sobs caged in your chest. perhaps, it was because your heart was only safe in his hands. but, without the key to let them out, they messily tore through and paved their own path.

a year ago, your greatest worry would be the shame brought to your family on account of conceiving a child out of wedlock, let alone to the crowned prince. now, it seemed the impending war took precedence. you could have laughed; a red threatened your livelihood. a girl, really.

you were always careful, and it did not even happen very often. both you and the prince were very busy people, after all. send offs and reunions.

“we can fix this,” cal murmured into your hair.

“no, you don’t get it,” you broke out with a defiant shake of your head, “there’s nothing to fix.”

he pulled back, stroking your hair and pushing it behind your ears. your golden strategist was at a loss. your heart fell further into the pit of your stomach. you chewed on the inside of your lip, desperate to look anywhere but his eyes. yet, in the space of the same moment, you never wanted your gaze to leave his.

“i won’t leave you,” his warm hands ran up your arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, “and i won’t let my father have a say in any of it.”

“it’s not the king i am frightened of,” you admitted with a sour taste in your mouth.

cal nodded with a grimace, “then i’ll be sure she is controlled until the end of the month.”

but who could control the queen who could twist minds? you chewed on the thought to avoid choking on it, forcing it down in distaste. both cal and yourself needed time neither of you had the privilege to claim.

cal communicated the importance of waiting until the traditional queenstrial to propose publicly. while the larger part of you agreed with this position, a small piece of your heart reserved for crippling doubt and senseless paranoia wondered if he was stalling for a different reason. if you could at any time expect desertion, it would be now but true to his word, cal had done no such thing—a loyal soldier until the end.

“and if they don’t chose me?” the secret fear you had harbored far before you had even become aware of your current condition felt a traitor to expose to the boy who had given you everything, kept every promise he could.

he studied your face carefully to ensure he held your full attention (though he was foolish to ever think otherwise), “make them, my dear.”

despite the event’s purpose of selecting a bride for the princes themselves, all of the noble houses knew the eldest had little choice in the matter. while your relationship with cal was not overt due to the inherently illicit nature of the affair, servants were known to talk. even in your deepest frustrations, you could not necessarily blame them.

his confidence in you was endearing but what other choice did you truly have?

you pulled away from his arms and lingering stare, wrapping your arms around your middle. pacing the length of the room, you suppressed a bitter laugh, “and then what? when a baby is born after less than eight months? and that’s to say we can persuade your father to rush a royal marriage.”

“let them talk,” his fingers twitched at his sides and you caught the scent of smoke, “nobody will be able to do anything.”

he thought he could protect from anything. sure, there would be little opportunity for any political action after a marriage was solidified but rumors would swirl. born into the pressures of eyes always watching you, they did not cut deep, but a queen needed a reputation demanding of respect. you did not want to be cruel but you decided that if need be, you could.

you wanted so terribly not to cry but willing it away only drew your focus to it more. you did not think the act made you weak but you would rather avoid the complete exhaustion it often caused. you were already so tired. but, some things were inevitable.

cal caught on before you did, “baby,” his voice was croaky, maybe laced his emotion of his own, “please don’t cry.”

you giggled at the irony. it was watery and your voice was nearly gone but it was there. confusion spread across cal’s features. you studied his face as he began to understand. a slow, crooked smile spread across his freckles and indicated the transition.

“suppose i could have chosen better words.”

“mhm.”

you had not noticed he was slowly rocking you in his arms. calm rushed into your senses. cal radiated your favorite kind of warmth. he monitored his body temperature around you, never too hot but always comfortable. it reminded you of home. he was your home. he smelled of pine and dying embers.

now nearing nineteen, you met the prince at fourteen. your elder sister married sooner than your parents expected, hastening your introduction into political meetings as a representative of the swift house of nornus.

who could blame a young and inexperienced teenage girl for falling in with a powerful, older boy who dared throw her an extra glance. what began as a benefit to palace life at fifteen soon turned into a vice. it was easy to tell yourself that you could stop any time you desired but you were addicted to the way he touched you, the way he tasted, the way he spoke your name.

for a while, you were foolish enough to believe he maybe even loved you. when you turned sixteen, you understood you were a pastime for the prince. so when at seventeen he told you he loved you, you did not believe him. he was gone for service quite a bit and your training schedule stole away any time for secret meetings when he was home. you began to purposefully avoid him but the withdrawal from the high that was cal left you dizzy.

when he did not make a move to find you, you tried even harder to move on. you had both made a mess of your hearts, left bleeding and shattered on the floors of the palace. you watched him escape the palace more often, always finding another place to be. one night, however, you followed him. you told yourself it was curiosity that caused you to slip out of your covers and into a warm coat, a coat you would not have needed if you left with him.

you caught up easily with your inhuman perception and speed and yet, he still saw you coming. he always did. that night, you wandered through a village and blended in. that night, you could be normal. he helped you clean up the mess between the two of you and things were different but the same again. they were better. you still took the long way to his room and pulled him into hidden corridors but the longing stares across meetings reignited.

you cleared your throat, “when you returned from delphie.” you tone held the pace of a simple comment, not the answer to the unspoken question pressing down on both of your minds.

cal turned his lips into his mouth and nodded, taking a deep breath, “i remember.”

it was a good memory, a good time. slow and gentle and loving. rane had worn you ragged sparring evangeline from sun up to sun down. you enjoyed the younger classes attending for the exposition but your muscles felt like weights lodged into your body and your breath had not yet fully returned after running circles around evangeline.

usually when one of you returned from an excursion outside of the palace, you wasted little time in attaching to every piece of each other. but, you were both exhausted—exhausted but greedy for the attention of the other. it had been a month ago, nearly to the day.

you and cal never discussed the prospect of children. even if one of you did not favor the idea, there was no choice in the matter. cal, as a future king, needed heirs, and if you wanted to be queen, you would have to bear them. but, you did want them and secretly, you knew cal did, too. it was more than a superficial requirement.

cal always looked at you, found you in a crowd, so it was hard to study him in secret. when he was with children, however, all attention transferred to those at his feet. it was then you saw him fully relax, the weight of his crown falling off his back. he loved them. you loved him more for it.

“and i don’t regret it,” he continued, dipping his head to place it gently on your shoulder. he kissed you neck once, twice, and then dropped his head back down.

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ɢᴏɴᴇ | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | ᴏɴᴇ-ꜱʜᴏᴛ

After thinking about it and reading Admin T’s angsty fic, I too, have decided to post my own angsty fic, and why not a Levi one? SKSKSK He’s the one that comes to me the easiest when it comes to writing anything, so I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did with writing it~! 

Please note there will be canon divergence (mainly as I haven’t caught up in the manga or anime in a hot second) 

And yes, I listened to Love is Gone by Slander & Dylan Matthew to get in the mood LOLOL

PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK 

TW: Major Character Death ; Depressive episodes ; PTSD ; Mental Instability ; Body Mutilation

» » Admin Ko

“Levi! LEVI! GET OUT OF HERE! PLEASE! GET AWAY---”

A sharp inhale and the bright white light of the morning sun was all that welcomed the ex-corporal as he sat rigidly in his bed.  Slowly, frantic metallic blue eyes skimmed down to battered and scarred hands as he watched his body move in an odd state of delirium. Oddly fixated on the way his knuckles paled and how tightly he grasped his sheets, Levi hadn’t even realized the painful sting in his lungs as the cool slick of sweat dripped down the nape of his neck.

It was a barrage of movements from there, his eyes remaining unfocused as he watched the chaos that spilled in his bedroom from an out of body perspective. It was...odd to say the least. He watched familiar faces come to calm his body down, easing him back into a sense of reality as he watched the cogs in his own face work to ease up the grip he once had on the sheets and the trembling he had ceased.

Another flash and he found himself back in his own body, blankly staring down at his scarred hands once again. The room was left barren all over again as he found himself staring out the window and into the gorgeous scenery before him. 

It hadn’t been that long since they had discovered the truth behind the entire catastrophe they found themselves in, yet it felt as though it was ages ago since he’s stepped forth outside. Or had it? If Levi were being honest, he couldn’t remember shit, and that itself only added to his agitation as he glared at the empty walls he was trapped in.

“Fuck...”

Clenching his teeth, the ex-corporal forced himself to get out of bed. A strange tug in his heart drew him towards the desk hidden within the corner of the room. Strewn across the poorly put together desk were notes, plans, letters, photographs, and...a locket?

Perhaps it was his age that was getting to him, or maybe it was the heat, but what was so important about this shitty piece of jewelry? Slowly picking up the accessory, Levi gave a brief once over to it before feeling a scoff build in his throat.

“Tch, it’s probably Lt. (L/N)’s.....”

Slowly, the words faltered from falling out of his throat as he felt his heart skip a beat. Cool metallic blue hues suddenly vibrant with evident fear as flashes of red and torn limbs flashed in his eyes. The quickening of his breath went unheard as he suddenly leaned over the table. Those scarred hands that have seen days of combat suddenly felt numb as the telltale sign of pins and needles crawled their way down to his fingers.

“Levi? Levi~~ Levi! LEVI!”

Flashes of her face swam through his vision as the once clear image of his desk became fragmented as he dropped to the floor. He didn’t even feel his knees dig into the floor-- rather he couldn’t care less as he desperately clung onto the locket as the memories from a week ago resurfaced into his mind. The tears that he once thought had dried up began pouring down his cheeks as the ache in his chest multiplied.

»»————- ♪ ————-««

The rustling of leaves caught his attention. Despite the cool weather they’ve finally been given it still brought the ex-corporal a sense of unease as he watched the small party work around in gathering materials whilst discussing their next plan of action. 

It hadn’t been long since they’ve dealt with Kenny and his gang, but if Levi was certain of one thing it was that he didn’t want to cross paths with that man ever again. Already he barely managed to scrape by whilst making sure their original plan had worked.

“Oi, dipshit.”

“Tch.”

No matter how hard he sought to smack that cheeky smile off of her face, he never found the heart to do it. Not when she held his with such a pretty smile. 

“You’re spacing out again. Kenny’s bullshit still getting to you?”

“...”

“Oh come on, you can tell me~.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oooh~ Touchy touchy. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I thought you were pretty badass!”

A skip to his heart. Something that wasn’t uncommon when he found himself with her. Of course he’d never let her know, instead he gave her a roll of his eyes before kicking her away.

“Get back to work.”

“Fine fine~. Oh! But in all seriousness, whatever is looming in that brooding mind of yours, just remember we still got the plan done. Whatever happened in the past is whatever. We just gotta look toward the future, yeah?”

“...tch. Hurry up and get the fuck over there already. Those damn shit wads look like they’re going to break their backs.”

A mock salute, one that he found endearing in her own quirky way though when he least suspected it she was right back up in his face. A cocky little smirk graced her lips before those chapped yet soothingly familiar feel of her lips brushing his own registered in his brain, and before he could react she was merrily skipping towards the struggling ex-cadets.

“...you’re damn lucky I love you shitty (y/n)...”

➽───────────────❥

BANG

“Fuck! Fuck! What the fuck!”

BOOM BOOM CRASH

“HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET HERE?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”

SCREEEEEECCHHHHHHH

Hell on earth, better known as the mass migration of Titans. One minute he was seated with Armin. Easily discussing strategies and the next movement for their plans. The moment he blinked the makeshift tents they had were on fire. Smoke was rising to the skies and the screams of people filled his ears. Immediately, Levi reacted. Rushing to grab his swords he mentally checked off a list of what needed to be done. Yet before he could even reach his own gear the hissing telltale sign of someone whisking into action caught his ears.

The reaction was immediate as he looked up to see fierce (e/c) hues. Calloused hands he’s held plenty of times underneath tables were now clenched tightly around her swords as she went about luring as many titans away as she could. 

“...evi, Levi, CAPTAIN LEVI!”

Shocked out of his stupor he turned to face Connie who was frantically grabbing at his arm as he finally took the chance to take in the scene before him.

Whatever carts they had salvaged were packed away with what little they could save. The bodies of those who had already fallen were hanging from the trees and already in the distant background he saw the revolting sight of a wretched up human meatball. 

“Status?”

“We’ve lost at l-least a couple of hands. Captain (y/n) told us to gather as much as we could and to gain distance while she distracts them--”

“Is there back up with her?”

“..N-No sir...”

“Are you fucking STUPID? Tch, get moving Springer. (y/n) and I will catch up shortly.”

“B-But”

“Did. I. Stutter.”

“N-No sir...”

“Then get moving!”

Not even taking the chance to watch the male rush back to the small party of cadets, Levi hurriedly put his harness and gear on in record time before whisking himself towards the sound of gurgling and inhumane sounds. 

“Just stay alive....please, I can’t lose you too...”

➽───────────────❥

Horrific. That’s the best that he could describe the sight before him. The carcasses of fallen allies and titans alike littered the ground as the once distant storm clouds drew in close. The light sprinkling of rain undoubtedly triggered a wave of unnecessary deja vu as he trudged on until he saw a lone figure standing a top the last titan from the herd. 

Suddenly, the once tight hold around his heart loosened as a breath he didn’t know he was holding finally escaped his throat as he relaxed his stance.

“Oi shit for brains. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Oh! Levi! I thought you were with the others?”

“And leave a shitty captain like you to half ass the job?”

“Heh, you know it’s okay to admit you were worried about me stupid. It’s just us.”

Another roll of his eyes was given as he begrudgingly made his way towards her, a half assed smile gracing his features as he held his hand out towards her.

“Tch, you’re lucky I fucking love you shit for brains.”

The smile she gave was blinding. One that he surely could never find an immunity to as he savored the warmth of her calloused hand in his own scarred and tainted ones.

“Heh~ I love you too shitty corporal~.”

With that, the pair began their journey towards the base. A brief conversation in regards to how much compressed air was left in their tanks being their main worry as they walked. Though as that continued the rain that had once sprinkled began to heavily pour down. A sound of irritation left his lips as she lightly laughed, easily scooting herself closer to him as he begrudgingly wrapped an arm around her waist.

“This rain makes things just as bad, doesn’t it?”

“Yea---”

“....Levi?”

“Sh!”

Immediately a sense of dread filled his chest as he tugged her towards a tree, quickly hiding by the base as the loud crashes and thumps of footsteps prevailed throughout the lands. 

“...dammit....how much gas do you have left?”

“....Enough to swing by two of those big ass trees.”

A grimace. Again, that pool of dread seemed to fill faster as he subconsciously held onto her tightly. He had enough gas to swing back to at least the vicinity of the planned meet up spot, but with an additional body? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps if he were able to split it.

“We’re switching tanks--”

“No we’re not. You are going to keep your goddamn tanks and I’ll keep mine. Worse comes to worse you leave me here.”

“I’m not leaving you--”

A quick kiss to his lips as her fists bunched up his dress shirt. If he felt a tremble in her hands or the way her lips wobbled he didn’t mention it.

“Look. We both know that between the two of us you’re the one who has the best deduction and quick thinking. If it had to be one or the other....it has to be you.”

“Shut the fuck up. We’re going back together.”

“Levi...”

“No! shut the fuck up. I’m not leaving you behind. I’ve lost too many fucking people! I can’t lost you too! You’re....you’re all I have left in this shitty world...please (y/n)...”

Though before she could even reply a sharp scream came from her as he was roughly pushed to the side. On instinct her hands moved to hold the swords attached to her hips before jetting off for a nearby tree.

In response, the large titan moved for her. It’s large beady eyes leering at it’s new prey as she tightly grasped her blades.

“(y/n)!”

Levi didn’t even recognize his own voice as he went to grab his own swords. His fingers itching to press the triggers for the canisters, yet he was cut short at her voice and the shaky glare she gave him. One that only further plummeted his heart into his stomach as she gave him a trembilng grin.

“I got this! Just go and don’t turn back okay? I’ll be right behind you!”

“BULL SHIT. YOU BARELY HAVE ENOUGH GAS IN THOSE TANKS--”

“WELL I WAS LYING OKAY? NOW GO! I CAN HANDLE THIS ONE!”

“THEN LET’S---”

ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR

As if the distress wasn’t enough, the quick rumbling of earth and stone had both captains pale as (y/n) tightly held onto her blades. Her gaze no longer on the titan before her, but rather the hoard that was nearing their now disclosed location.

“...Levi you have to go.”

“No. We’re doing this together.”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE PLEASE LEVI! JUST GO. YOU WON’T HAVE ENOUGH GAS BY THE END OF THIS JUST PLEASE GO!”

“WHAT IF I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK? I’M NOT LEAVING YOU SHIT FOR BRAINS!” 

Gritting her teeth, she mustered up as much strength as she could as she hurriedly reached for the smoke gun. Without a moment’s notice, she shot the pellet. A trail of black littering the skies as she gave the other a glare.

“THERE. THEY’LL COME HERE TO HELP SO PLEASE GO AND BRING THEM HERE. I CAN HANDLE THIS ONE MYSELF AND THEN I’LL SWING UP.”

Gritting his teeth, he could only give her a stern glare as he reluctantly did as he was told. Without a moment’s delay he shot forth, desperate in tracking the familiar wagon to bring back reinforcements as the sound of a titan hitting the floor brought him a sense of ease.

“Damn you (y/n) you better keep your fucking word!”

. . . 

“I’m sorry Levi...I lied...I don’t have enough to swing up...”

Teary eyed, she let her tanks drop to the grounds below as her racing heart seemed to be in beat with the thundering steps of the hoard of titans on their way towards the sound of the fallen one’s cry. Subconsciously, she pressed her fist to her chest. Why? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she just had to keep it safe for him.

➽───────────────❥

Upon spotting the rickety wagon, Levi jetted straight for the reins. His eyes frantic as the leftover cadets near him seemed shaken by his brutish actions. He didn’t necessarily care though. What mattered to him was reaching (y/n)’s side with her seated on one of the thick branches with that cheeky grin he adored while he and the rest of the moving cadets could annihilated the hoard of titans.

Yet when he returned the pit in his stomach formed into that of utter despair. Where he should’ve seen (y/n) he found nothing. Instead, he saw the tattered remains of her cloak pinned to the tree as the hoard of demons fought over something...some...thing...some...one.

He didn’t know what happened next. Rather he couldn’t. As if his lungs had suddenly malfunctioned and stopped working. He hadn’t even realized he had jetted out from the wagon. All he saw was a glimpse of her bloody face and suddenly he saw red. 

It was an utter rampage. Sounds of desperation, anger, and hurt filled the skies as the rain continued to pour down relentlessly. The titans that had once stood tall now laid in horrifying dismembered piles. (y/n)’s body-- rather what was left of it. 

Ripped from the torso down, her legs were practically disintegrated. Most likely stewing away in one of the fallen titans’ bodies. A brief flash of her spine had most turning away to vomit, yet Levi stared lifelessly. His body trudging slowly to her as his lower lip wobbled. The pain in his chest multiplied tenfold as those warm (e/c) were glassy and unfocused. 

I'm sorry, don't leave me I want you here with me

Dropping to his knees, he gently cupped her cheeks as he pressed his forehead to hers. A shaky breath finally escaping him as he struggled to take in another breath of air as the rain continued it’s assault on him.

I can't breathe, I'm so weak

“Fuck... come on shit for brains... open those beautiful eyes for me...come on...yeah? You said we were gonna go see those damn pink trees...right?”

No response. Not that anyone had expected one. Forcefully breathing in he forced a weak smile onto his trembling features as his sight began to blur.

“C’mon (y/n)...stop playing these fucking games and look at me...c’mon.... I know you can dumbass...”

The pain in his chest amplified as the lack of response continued to shake her. An attempt to wake her up as he blatantly ignored the lack of legs and the disgustingly slow plops of viscera staining the grassy floors.

“Fucking shit (y/n) wake the fuck up. I’m tired of these fucking games. If you keep doing this bullshit I wont take you to see those damn trees you’re obsessed with when we fix this shit...”

Flashes of bodies. Each familiar to him in their own sickening way as a wretched sob came out of his chest. Desperately, he held her close. The care he had for his clothes now out the window as he buried his face into the crook of her neck as he shook with rage and absolute pain.

Don't tell me that your love is gone That your love is gone

➽───────────────❥

The ride was silent. Just the clopping horseshoes whilst he tightly held onto the bundle that was, in his words, a sleeping (y/n).

“...Captain?”

“What is it Arlert?”

Despite the clear hoarseness in his voice, Levi still held a bite to his voice. The lack of emotion in his eyes was pitiful, especially knowing how many loved ones the man has lost.

“...As we were cleaning Captain (y/n) up...we...found this.”

A tilt of his head was given, and before he could ask any questions the glittering of metal caught his attention.

“It’s a locket...I apologize I peeked inside...but I feel as though she would want you to have this.”

»»————- ♪ ————-««

Red rimmed eyes stared at the photo. It was something she had suggested-- stupid if you had asked him in the moment, but at this moment he couldn’t help but tightly hold onto the only photo of her left. Bringing the locket to his chest, the strong captain curled up into a ball as a new wave of emotions overcame him.

Having cried all his tears out, all that came out of him left were weakened whimpers and desperate heavy breaths as he tightly curled around the locket. The demolished state of the room proved to be a perfect depiction of his mind as the letters she wrote for fun back then were sprawled all around him. The sheets from the bed now in a makeshift nest around him as bloodied hands cupped the locket. 

“Why was it you...why couldn’t it have been me?”

A flash of her smile. The sweet harmonies of her laughter. Adoring warm (e/c) hues.

“...why couldn’t it have been m e?”

[azurevi]

3 halloween tales (cater, jade & vil)

This is really random, but the ssr cards for the halloween show have given me many au ideas, so here are my self-indulgent stories inspired by them. The Cater one is especially long because I got a lot of ideas about it. For the Vil one.. it's pretty disappointing how it turned out, but I hope it's not too bad. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS!

WARNINGS : death (all), mild mention of gore (cater), war + mild possessiveness + violence (jade) [let me know if there're more!]

the heart and its eternal weight

Cater is a cemetery caretaker. It isn't that he really loves it, but his father was one. He feels like it is only right to take after his steps.

He isn't into superstitions. Some people find distaste in his job, but it's something crucial for Cater. People, even after they're dead, should still be honored, and so deserve a hospitable place to rest. 

Everyday is a routine for him. Sometimes, though, the families of the passed talk to him about their stories and their emptiness once their loved ones are gone. Cater finds the beauty and softness in humans by hearing these stories, and it makes him even more dedicated to his job. 

It's natural to him, dying. His father was killed in an unintended accident, and sometimes it seems like his death could have been avoidable just as much as it was inevitable. He just wishes that he had had more time with him.

One of the lessons his father taught him about graveyard caretaking is to beware of ghosts. Those who recently died are more visible and intimate with the world of the living, and so they might appear before humans. Some are inhostile, of course, but there are malevolent ones.

Lore has it that some ghosts prey on hearts. It is said that the heart is the most important part of a human, as it is accountable for life, death and emotions. People believe that ghosts can be revived with a fresh, still-beating heart, and as a result the human giving up their heart will die in place of the ghost. Basically, the heart can also create ripples in the fabric of space-time.

Because of his job, he isn't all that popular among others, and he only has a few life-long close friends, his mother and sisters by him. So even if he has a crush on the most admirable person he's ever seen, he still won't make it known in fear of rejection. He figures that he still has time to figure it out.

And he's wrong. News about your tragic death spread around quickly like wildfire, and he's devastated. It feels wrong to even feel so, because he has never been acquainted with you in the first place.

Your body is buried in his cemetery, and a lot of people come to your funeral that day. Some of your family members are so heartbroken and pitiable, and so Cater offered to be their listener.

All he can hear is about the great work you've done, the care you put into everyone you met, the warmth that radiated off you while you were still alive. It breaks Cater how he's never had the privilege to know you, to experience all your graces with his own perspective.

One night, the moon is lit and hung up high in the sky, so close that it seems to be prying on Earth and the people roaming on it. Cater is patrolling with his lawnmower when he hears quiet and uncertain sobs.

He is creeped out, yes, but he's also curious. He's never seen a ghost before, and it could be a human for all he knows.

He's proved wrong once again, as he discovers your opaque body behind a giant tree. You are hugging their legs close to your chest, and a rotting hole's visible where your heart should be.

There's no way you can be hostile, and you certainly won't kill him for his heart, so Cater decides to approach you gently, tentatively, like you're smoke that will disperse the moment he intrudes.

To his surprise, you can hear him clearly, and even invite him to sit down with him. It's so bizarre -- a ghost asking for a conversation! But Cater doesn't mind as he pops down beside you. He notices how although you were no longer solid, it still feels like tense when his hand passes through you. Certainly it's because you've been dead not for long.

And so the two of you indulge in heartful conversations, and Cater finds himself regretting even more about how he never gathered the courage to go up to you. Mid-conversation you tell him about all the things that you wish you could've done and all the ideas you wished to spread.

Cater probably shouldn't have, but he is so absorbed in your ambitions and kindness that he offers to carry out all these great things for you. After numerous confirmations, you agree too to let him carry out your thoughts.

And so Cater works in his neighbourhood, sharing campaigns and donating, taking care of lost pets and cats and partaking in environment improvement. He's never felt so fulfilled before, and it's the first time he feels like he's genuinely making a difference in the world.

In times he's not representing you, he brings you up on the little hill behind the cemetery where the moon and stars are so close and vibrant, where they all dance in the dark ballroom and pulse in excitement of being seen. He wishes he could show you more hidden gems, but your spectral spirit cannot be too far away from your body. 

But it's enough.

A month passes and Cater notices subtle change in your behaviour as well as appearance, like how you're responding with less enthusiasm and how the hole in your chest is growing bigger. When he finally asks about it, he's told that ghosts generally only stay in the world of the living for 49 days, and their heart will rot away in this period. After that, they will have to go to the underworld, never be back again.

Cater is certainly shocked that the lore is more than a children's makeup story. He is well aware of the significance of the heart in relation to the soul and life. 

He asks if you'd like to have his heart instead, so bluntly and casually. You seem to return to their original intimate self when you refuse. 

"I'm already gone. It's you, the living, who should be making changes,"

So he pretends that you're not getting more and more unresponsive and less and less generous. He turns a blind eye against your wavering figure and how you can't be seen at all in the sun. He plays dumb when in reality, you're slipping away before his very own eyes, heart rotting away like nothing more than a fruit.

It hurts finally knowing and understanding someone and having to lose them. 

On the 48th day, you are already but a still, soulless shadow, leaning beside your gravestone and fresh, white flowers. Cater can still see you. Sometimes he thinks that you chose to be seen.

And he can't bear to see you go. To see your dreams go into flames, to watch such a pretty soul just - vanish.

So he gives you his heart. Alive and beating and sentimental. It doesn't even hurt a bit. 

You wake up immediately, your eyes glowing and body solidifying. 

"What have you done?" 

"What I can do to make a change,"

Time is starting to rewrite itself. Cater is going to die in your place. The space around you was warping and folding into itself, softly and rightly like a lullaby.

Just before you slip into darkness, you gather up a whole bunch of rose petals and desperately stuff them into the hole in Cater's chest, as if they can give him life in lieu of a heart, and you are sobbing and clinging onto his still warm arm, never wanting to let go.

It's all Cater wants, to save a wasted soul and to make a difference. 

And so he cradles your face, and leans in the moment everything goes black. When he wakes up again, he's weightless in the cemetery, where a bunch of well arranged roses lie on his buried body.

a melancholy specimen

To Jade, beauty needs to be preserved to be constant. It's just like flowers. They die away without proper care.

Just when he thinks he's seen all the beauties of the world and is getting bored of it, he meets you. A blooming flower sparkling in the bland, old boring world around it. He's immediately captivated - how a person can still manage to flourish in such a rotten world where everything is depressing and all man is for themselves!

You're the most elegant piece of art he's seen, and that's something considering that he owns a museum. Innocence lies in your eyes and bravery sings itself between your lips.

You find him just equally amusing -- gentlemanly, insightful and just a touch of flirtation. The two of you fall in love like Alice down the rabbit hole - amused and unstoppable, fascinated by the wonders evolving about.

But the world doesn't give a damn about love, nor do they understand your dreams of a bright future where everything is close to hearts. They call you both madness and nonsense.

"Their souls are tainted with war and sorrow. They are beyond the point of rescue. Victory and glory are all that can feed their ego,"

Jade is disappointed. War has gouged people's eyes out and filled them with wails and ash.

The two of you are the only stars in the night sky, still fighting for salvation, yearning for a better future where trees grow and flowers yearn for the sun. You promote and do your best to lift the veil of darkness off the world. 

But the sun doesn't understand either. War keeps going on and on, and people never have the time for aesthetic relaxations. It refuses to shed light on its pitiable humans.

"We should evacuate, Jade. They say a bomb is dropping tomorrow,"

Jade doesn't care and can't care. The most paramount thing is to open his eyes to the beauty of this world. He doesn't want to become one of those barbarous men, tasting dirt and blood on their tongue while they glorify violence and brutalness.

He stays behind while his neighbourhood dies away. You are the only ones yet to leave. 

"Please don't leave me, Y/N. You're the only light in my life,"

You can't bear to leave him, and so you stay. The bomb is dropped, and it's too close. Too hot. Too cruel, too inhumane. It ravages everything in its way, burning all the darkened things to the ash and bringing the only beauty left in this world with it.

Jade wails. Broken cries are engulfed by nearby explosions and the cackling of flames. Your soulless body lies amidst the destruction, just another wilted flower in the slit of a rock, deprived of water and sunlight.

He finally understands. Nothing can save the world anymore. It's gone way too far, and it will never recover from malevolence. All he can feel is pity for his world as his heart ache with spite.

Bandages around his hands, he wraps your corpse up completely, preserved underneath the layers. You will be his reminder that there was once a flower in this drought, an anchor keeping him from becoming one of those barbarians.

lifeless silhouette in the dark night

You can never recognize directions. You find yourself stumbling upon a seemingly inhabited mansion in the middle of the woods. Cold and bruised, you knock on its door.

Welcoming you is a tall man with blonde and lilac hair called Vil. His skin is unnaturally white, and his eyes seem to glow like orbs that eat your souls. But you are too tired to make notice of all these details, and he's kind enough to let you stay for the night.

He treats you with ravishing cuisine and a grand bedroom that was as grotesque as the rest of the house. Afterwards, he leaves you to rest, but not before warning you not to get out of the room post midnight.

You oblige- for the first half hour. Then you start to hear wails and footsteps that amplify and disappear. It's impossible to sleep.

The next morning, you confront Vil about it. He refuses to face the questions as he ushers you to get going, and so off you go.

You spend another day lost in the woods, then somehow come face to face with the mansion again. Vil is beyond shocked to see you, but then he breaks into a deep smile.

"It's almost as if you belong here,"

Weirdly enough, you could agree, There seemed to be an invisible force pulling you towards Vil. After dinner, he orders you not to leave the room again before making his leave.

Broken wails. Recurring footsteps. You can't bear it any longer, and you also wonder if Vil is aware of this. He properly is, and thus tells you to stay safe inside the room.

But dumb curiosity gets the best of you, and you open the door and step into the endless corridors.

The wails come from the host's room, where Vil is supposed to be. You're closing in when its door is suddenly flung open, and out runs a panting Vil.

"Vil? What are-"

His eyes are bloodshot and there's red stain in the corner of his mouth. Sweat dots his forehead. He looks disheveled and the complete opposite of how he was during dinner.

"You shouldn't be here. Get back - get back in!"

His voice booms in your skull, and you're running back to your room before you notice. 

It's another sleepless night.

To your luck, Vil doesn't wait for you to bring the incident up.

"Don't be creeped ou by it, please."

He seems very uneasy about it, but he's obstinate to give you an explanation.

Turns out that he is a vampire. One that has lived for 500 years and is waiting for his eventual death. He's seen everything in this world and lived through the best and worst of humanity. He understands people's fear about vampires, and so he resides in the remote part of the wood. He only ever drinks the blood of small animals that he hunt, and never has he once killed a man.

He knew nothing about what'd happen to him when he became a vampire. If he'd known about the repercussions, he'd never have become one in exchange of eternal beauty. Now he has to turn someone else into a vampire to end his immortality. It is only a cycle.

 Every night the moon rises and spills into his room, and he has to fight his urge to go out and taste the sweet blood of humans. 

There are times when he slips and loses control, but he always manages to get back to his senses. But it seems that your presence here in the mansion is awaking his desire to suck you dry.

You're bewildered to say the least, and frankly horrified. But at the same time you feel pity for him, for he is just a man who can't ever do anything as atrocious as hurting people.

And so you offer to end his suffering. Of course Vil disagrees. He just talked about how he never wanted to take a life, and now you're offering yourself to him? He'd never allow it.

But you're even more persistent. You keep staying in his mansion, and his sanity slips a little more every night. And you know that he's contemplating too, for he never tries to kick you out of his mansion.

"You deserve a rest, Vil. For your love and selflessness. For all the unspoken kindness you bestow on others. It is only fair that you get to rest,"

Vil has lived a life. He's but a mere walking corpse now, and a rest -- a sleep -- sounds just like what he needs.

And so he rests. Vil falls into a deep, serene sleep while you endure each and every dark night.

[flowercrown-bard]

Poems for the Poet (2/ 5)

pairing: Eskel/Jaskier

word count: ~2k

read on AO3

previous   /  next

Content warning: self-deprecation, people treating witchers badly, self-loathing, panic attack, insecurity

Mutant, witcher, monster!

No one dared to spit those insults at Eskel openly – not yet. For now, the people of the town contented themselves with shooting him dirty looks, whispering behind his back and turning away when they caught sight of his face.

It was only a matter of time before the whispers would turn into shouts when fear became cruelty.

He had seen it happen often enough to know it was inevitable.

And yet, he had hoped that just this once it could be different. It had been different, when he had met Jaskier. It could be different again.

But these people weren’t Jaskier. They would rather claw Eskel’s eyes out than let him see their smiles or bite off their tongues before they let themselves utter a single kind word to him.

So Eskel kept his head low as he walked through the cobblestone street towards the inn, hoping they would tolerate him, at least for one night, if he didn’t attract too much attention. He ignored the whispers, the stares, the stench of disdain.

He barely flinched when something it him on the shoulder. He had known that sooner or later, stones would fly. He just had hoped it wouldn’t happen that soon.

With a sigh, he hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, making himself seem smaller, like less of a threat as he threw a glance over his shoulder to see if any more stones would be hurled his way.

What he saw instead, made him falter. What had hit him wasn’t a stone. It was a ball wrapped in leather, not dissimilar to the one he used to play with as a child before he had been brought to a place where boys learned how to fight and kill instead of playing.

Eskel crouched down to pick up the ball and take a closer look, but before he could stand back up again, he saw, or rather heard, the one who had thrown it at him.

“You found my ball!” The excited voice of a little girl cut through the disapproving murmurs of the adults like the sun pushing his way through clouds during a thunder storm. “I’m sorry for hitting you, mister.”

“Don’t worry,” Eskel said as softly as he could. “No harm done.”

He held out the toy for the girl who took it with a toothy grin.

“Thank you!”

Something warm and soft spread through Eskel’s chest. It had been too long since anyone had smiled at him, longer yet since he had spoken to a child that wasn’t destined for the cruelty of the trials.

Eskel couldn’t stop himself. For just a moment he forgot himself, too distracted by that soft glimmer of happiness in his chest. One moment of carelessness was all it took.

His lips twitched into a smile.

A snarl. A grimace. A twisting of his face into something hideous and fearsome.

The reaction was almost immediate. The girl blanched and reeled back, before she could even touch the ball.

“You’re the bad man!” She cried. If there had been any passers-by that hadn’t stared at Eskel before, they were now all fixing him with suspicious glares.

Eskel swallowed against the rapidly forming lump in his throat and dropped his smile. Perhaps that had been a mistake too. It was unnatural for people to be able to lose their smiles that quickly. It was inhuman.

“I’m not,” Eskel said soothingly. “I am not going to hurt you.”

“My ma told me that you’re bad!” The girl accused and pointed a finger at him before taking it back quickly and holding her hand against her chest in the same way people protected their hands when they were afraid a feral dog would bite them. “She said to stay away from the man with the ugly scars. She said you will take me away and eat me.”

Eskel flinched.

“I’m not –“

“I think it would be better if you left,” a low voice interrupted him.

When Eskel looked up from where he was still crouched, he saw three men walking towards him with stormy expressions.

Slowly, so as not to startle them, he put the ball to the ground and gave it a small nudge to roll towards the girl. She jumped back as if her toy was suddenly dangerous.

The men’s frowns deepened. Eskel held up his now empty palms in surrender as he stood back up ever so slowly.

One of the man took a threatening step towards him, his fists already raised and Eskel all but fled.

He tried not to listen to the angry and boasting shouts that followed him. It was in vain.

No matter how much he pretended, he wasn’t like his brothers. Geralt might be able to go on after Blaviken, saying that he didn’t need anyone and Lambert might be able to counter every insult with an even more cutting one of his own, but Eskel wasn’t like them. He was desperate and foolish and still clinging to the hope that he could be someone who wouldn’t be scorned and detested.

Another could-have-been. One that gnawed at him like a stray dog gnawed on a bone, tearing off the small bits and pieces that could still be something wanted.

Eskel had no delusions about how the rest of the day would go. He would find no place to sleep here, no hot meal and no contract that would be paid for. The longer he stayed, the bigger got the chances of pitchforks and kitchen knives being directed at him.

But his legs were so tired. It had been too long since he had eaten a healthy amount and ever since he had to give Scorpion away, he wasn’t able to carry his tent with him anymore.

He just wanted to rest. He just wanted to lay down for a while, knowing that he wouldn’t wake to a mob.

But the chances were slim. The best he could do was hide away in a dark alley to rest, hoping that no one would stumble upon him there.

He let himself lean back against the wall of a house, sliding down until he sat on the dirty floor. What more was some dirt, when his shirt already had holes in it? No one would bother to notice anyway, not when they had his face to stare at in fear.

His insides clenched and not purely because of the memory of the child’s laughter turning into cries at his sight.

He was hungry. So painfully hungry.

His jaw twitched as he rummaged through his bag for something edible, knowing full well that there was nothing to find.

Instead, his fingers found something else. Something, he had bought on a whim and quickly shoved to the bottom of his bag. Something he hadn’t been able to get rid of, even as it meant losing precious space in his bags.

Carefully, so as not to tear it, he pulled out the cheap paper, quill and inkwell he had bought months ago. For a long moment he only stared at them, overcome with the painful urge to smash the inkwell against the wall.

He wasn’t a poet, never would be. He was ugly and frightening and no one could even look at him without seeing all the things he couldn’t be written plainly across his face.

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

The memory of blue eyes flashed before him. Memories, of a blissful couple of days when it had seemed that maybe he could have, could be, something more. Jaskier had listened to what he had to say about poetry, as if his opinion was no less important than that of any scholar. He had explained the intricacies of word choice to him as if Eskel was worth talking to. As if he wasn’t too oafish, too big and too far removed from everything he could have become.

What had Jaskier told him back then? That poetry was a means to give meaning. That by creating something out of your pain, you refused to let it have power over you.

It wouldn’t work. Eskel knew that. No amount of words could ever distract from the life he hadn’t chosen. But perhaps…perhaps Eskel could make something beautiful.

It was a foolish thought, a desperate dream, but one that lodged itself into his heart, refusing to budge.

Eskel didn’t know how to write beautiful words and craft them into something more. All his knowledge about poetry came from the little he had gathered from reading the old poems. It wasn’t enough.

But it was all he had.

Before he could stop himself, he dipped the tip of the quill into the ink and put it on the paper. He hesitated, watched as the ink flew onto the paper like blood dripping off a sword and created ugly splotches.

Immediately, Eskel pulled the quill off the paper again.

He stared at that spot, that blemish, that failure.

The walls seemed to close in on him, suffocating him, crushing him. Though the sun was still up in the sky, his vision became darker, splotchy. Like the ink on the paper. Like bloodstains on his clothes.

He wasn’t good enough. This wouldn’t work. He hadn’t even written a single word yet and already he had ruined this.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught of voices, of doubts, of knowing he would fail.

It was no use. His heart sped up and he felt his breathing becoming shallow. He should be able to control this. A witcher shouldn’t let himself succumb to his own mind.

But Eskel couldn’t do it. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t let his mind drift off for mediation, couldn’t fucking breathe.

With the strength of a hundred men, Eskel managed to scrap together some semblance of calm, just long enough for his mind to stop spiralling for a second and to latch on to one thing only.

Poetry.

Eskel clung to it with all his might, forcing himself to think of lines and verses he had memorised until his mouth moved and formed the words. They were barely more than a whisper, but Eskel had spoken them before, time and time again. His body knew the correct intonation, the right way to inhale enough to have his breath last for the entirety of a line.

The words fell from his lips in a soothing rhythm, the familiarity of them battling against the fear and the strain to remember the lines left no room for any other, unkind, thoughts.

It was only when Eskel’s heart had slowed down enough that the sound of its beating didn’t drown out his whispers, that Eskel realised whose poetry he was reciting.

It was Jaskier’s.

Lines about eyes flashing bright like lightning, comparable to a force of nature that disappeared before one had time to marvel at it but leaving a mark in the life of whoever had gotten the chance to see it.

Lightning. That’s what Jaskier described Eskel as and it was the first word that Eskel put down on the paper once his hands had stopped shaking too badly.

He looked at the word for a long time. It felt strangely right. Like it belonged there. Like Eskel had been meant to put it – a part of himself – out there.

His throat bobbed and his brows twitched at the thought, but before he had time to doubt himself any more, he let the quill scratch over the paper once more, leaving words in its wake. A mixture of Jaskier’s words and the rhythm of the ancient elves.

Lightning across lips cuts bright.

A lowly flash, no more. Leaving flesh forever sore.

Scorching like flame. Scowling for fright.

Marring a mangled man, mutilating a mutant more.

Eskel stared at the words. The poem wasn’t long nor was it particularly good. But it was Eskel’s. Eskel had written something, gave meaning to the meaningless with his quill.

His eyes darted to the splotch at the bottom of the paper, right where the last line ended. Another imperfection.

His brows knitted together and his hand moved again.

It might have been childish - Lambert would have definitely made fun of him for it -  but as Eskel drew legs, a head and horns onto the blemish, he found himself almost smiling again.

The almost-smile stayed on his lips, even as he forced himself to stand up once more, carefully putting his writing tools back where they belonged. The paper with his poem he kept in his hand.

He should have just left right away, trying to go unnoticed. That had been his plan as he moved through the alleyways now, but when he passed the notice board at the corner of one street, he paused, staring. A thought formed in his mind, before he even understood why he had stopped.

He didn’t know what possessed him to do it. Perhaps a glimmer of bravery or folly. Perhaps a hint of the man he had wanted to became shone through for a split second.

A man who was loved. A man who made beautiful things and didn’t have to hide away in shame what he had created.

And Eskel had created. He had written a poem. He had become, even if only for one moment, what he had always dreamed he could be one day.

With one swift motion, Eskel pinned his poem to the notice board. Not somewhere half-hidden between notes about nosy neighbours or the price of eggs, but right in the middle where anyone who passed by would be able to see it. The words on the page were spidery and nowhere close to artful, but they screamed I am imperfect, but I am here. I exist despite your spite.

Eskel took a step back, just far enough that he wouldn’t be able to reach the board and tear the poem down again in a fit of doubt. Admiring his own work was vain, but for the first time since Eskel could remember, he had something to admire, something to be proud of.

He must have stood there for too long. Around him, people started gathering, noticing him. One man shoved him. Another yelled at him to get away, that there were no contracts here for the likes of him.

Eskel turned and fled, just as the first stone hit him, right where the girl’s ball had met his shoulder before.

With every shout, every insult, every truth, the mob tore down part of the meaning Eskel had been able to find for himself.

He could only hope that they didn’t realise that the new addition to the notice board came from him. He could only hope that no one would tear off the poem, as they tore at Eskel’s heart with their shouts.

He hoped that maybe, however slim the chance was, someone would find his poem and smile.

It was a foolish hope, born out of pain and despair not unlike the poem itself had been, but it was the only thing keeping him warm that night as he huddled beneath a tree, cold and lonely and dreaming of something he had come so close to having.

[the-deep-fog]

The moon and sun have lost themselves to obscurity, and Fog descends. The environment is as classic a superpowered showdown setting one can get while still playing hospitality to a meandering mist that prefers uncountably many corners to hide itself in. One villain, a radioactive rebel holding to life like a weed that takes in pesticides for dessert, scouts the area, freshly healed and eager for a bout of vengeance. Another, the spitefully surviving embodiment of Harlan Ellison’s worst fears, calmly scours the playing field with no end of possible ending gambits stored in its motherboard/mind. Fully beknownst to their individual selves, whispered wonders and warnings reach them from unseen mouths yawning in the mist, subtly and ever so maddeningly guiding them further within the misty maze. Until, they meet. “Oh, Haricot,” CD crows, “back so soon? Why couldn’t you have stayed in the ground to rot a little longer? Are you that eager for another easy loss?” “Far from it, Chess,” returns Haricot. “Surely you don’t think I’d simply waste my time while relieved of your presence for ever so short a while?” It scoffs. “I should hope so, or else this will be over far too quickly to even be fun.” Ey smirk and start to reply, but cut emself off as the air between the two collects, gathers, and confuses into the outline of a figure sitting cross-legged with its chin resting in its hands. “Why, hello you two, Fancy meeting you here.” Both let off annoyed sighs (the similarities stopping there). CD speaks up. “Ugh, can’t you ever take this seriously?” “Yeah, way to kill the vibe,” Haricot follows up. Their complaints are met with only a grin. Suddenly directly in their faces, Fog actually replies, “So. I bet you’re wondering why I’m here.” The villainous duo look bemused, in a conniving sort of way. Haricot speaks first. “Believe it or not, I do know why you’re here- and Chess, trust me when I say it’s not a pleasant reason for you.” Incredulous, Chess replies, “Excuse me, but it’s not like I don’t know their reason for being here, and though your reaction seems improper it’s not like it matters that you think you know the situation, when in fact you’re in for...” “I didn’t lie, you know. To either of you.” Fog’s everlasting grin shifts slightly to a smirk, and the two rivals come to a realization at the same time. “Oh, you slippery little- “I knew that promise was too good to be true!” Well aware that riling up two of the biggest supervillains round the block leaves them in dire straits, the formless figure untangles their stature, giving off the appearance of taking a fighting stance. “Now, now, I’m not going back on my word at all! I shall deal as much damage as I can, just as promised. It’s only up to you whether to take advantage of the situation as it concerns your adamant adversary, or, yknow. Direct your avenging attention elsewhere.” Haricot reaches for a thorny beanstalk as they rise from the earth in numbers. “If you get dealt with permanently through all this, that’s one less thing getting in the way of me taking down Chess for good.” CD, in tandem, tessellates a jagged aspect of the ground and nods. “The less you bug me, Fog, the easier I’ll have it claiming victory over Haricot as well.” Zer smile grows even further, accompanied by the emergence of eyes from countless nooks and crannies in The Fog one could not imagine. For just because nobody could possibly know how one misty menace might pose a tangible threat, inflict damage of a directly mortal kind, it could be true all the same.

...

“Why are you doing this?” shouts Haricot, steadily growing a host of shrubs to shield emself with. “You must have a motive, nobody ever does stuff like this without a motive.” The Fog laughs, gleeful as ever, a booming sound that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You think I have a motive? That I am driven by anything to do what I do? Such things are the creations of you individuals; I have never had use for them. I go, and I act, and if that’s too much for you to comprehend then...” Though irradiating to demolition an eye that can hardly be described as there at all is a daunting task, Haricot pulls it off with determined flair. “Yeah, but you’re clearly going after me and Chess with some specificity- why go through all that extra effort? I know we’re not easy targets.” Fog lunges from & through nothing, resting in midair directly in front of them and looking at them intensely- less in a means of observation and more as mere eye contact for the first time they can think of. “Oh, the questions I ask have you asking questions in turn, what a wonderful relationship we have!” Haricot takes a step back, trying to develop personal space in a place where space itself can hardly be relied on, much less personhood, while Fog holds almost violently still amid the malevolent maelstrom. “I ask you this because you ask me the very same. Never has my question been, ‘why do you do this?’ because never have you, the one in my domain, done something humans don’t, and never has your question of ‘why’ been something I-” The ground beneath Haricot’s feet, steady as carbon-14, dissolves into murky air. Fog is torn to shreds above em as ey hurtle an unfathomable distance downward, till a web of vines and sludgy wood dense enough to support em forms. Though unclimbable walls extend around them, and depths great enough to distort the definitions of up and down yawn in every other direction, Fog reemerges from around a corner that cannot be found with an unprecedented frenzy in xer eyes. “You fight for your life, to survive, and I know how-why that happens. I know it,” they speak, with enough force to shatter a barometer. “Survival and curiosity are what motivates a human, but you two aren’t human, you reject it entirely, and you’re driven by more than this basic, primal duality, the intrinsic and extrinsic.” Can it yet be called an invasion of personal space when one has lost any sense of their body’s own position in space, and the other never had one to begin with? “You’re like me, and everybody questions me, and I too question everyone, but, I never- Sticks and stones degrade at the rotting hand of nuclear fusion. Haricot Heretic fights on.

...

Chess offenses, enacting gambit after glitchy gambit. “Damn you,” it mutters, then speaks more loudly into the stormy still. “What’s your goal in all this? Where are you trying to take this?” A cackle, harsh and untraceable, answers it at first. “Now, why would you assume I care for the results of my actions? That I aspire to achieve anything at all, beyond what you bear witness and contribute to as we speak?” Every word from The Fog’s mouths slithers through the air without discretion, almost as though it cares more about being heard than having its words said. The sharpness is turned down, resolution diminished, and threat put aside in a display of defensive tactics (though, how a cloud could ever be sharp enough to threaten in the first place remains bewilderingly unclear). “Look, you say you’ll never be satisfied, that it doesn’t matter if results are insubstantial- I don’t buy that. But you must know how we fight well enough to tell this won’t end well for you, so why devise all this in the first place?” CD asks again. It’s greeted by a face, ferocious and fanged, thrusting from the warring pixelation and obscurity besieging them. “I am transparent, you devil. You’re right, this is all futile, and for you to be correct at all shows my failure beautifully. I know not where this capacity for failure and determination in spite of such came from, because if I did, if my years spent interrogating the human race turn out to now have a tangible point, a lesson for me to learn, then-” Something or nothing or another scrapes hard against Chess’ horns, toppling it backwards into freefall. The ground, or whatever is passing for it, meets it immediately; jagged, hungry, & inviting. Something, many of it, planar and sharp enough to cut, is propelled or flung from the floor at it as it tries to pick itself up again. “You ask me questions I cannot, rather than will & would not answer, and I give you information I would & will not rather than can not.” Hir words seep through the condensation, slithering forward from behind its back just as easily as toothy mouths stretch as far as it can see in front of it. “You’re asking me questions none other have asked me- it should be inevitable. So why do I ask you, is it because you are different from any I have met before, or because I am different than-” The hard line between ones and zeroes forces separation and relief from the unclarity oppressing itself unto it. Checkmate is sought for ever longer. Checkered Devil fights on.

...

The fog is in no way noticed shifting, and yet Haricot & Chess find themselves in a clearing all the same. The two stand poised, not yet tired nor in peak form after all that has passed. Fog hangs in the air in front of them, not in form either. Sharp eyes, inhuman teeth, fill up space surrounding as they always have; a face, almost an outline, is arranged on Fog as it never has. It’s hesitant. Acting on impulse. Cowed and afraid. With all the cards in its hands. Ready to give up. Surely unstoppable. The target of infinite inquiries. Uncertain. “What do we have in common? Nothing of your motivation unites you with humanity- I am filled with questions, and that unites me with... them.” To Haricot and Chess, the sensation of eyes sliding their attention off them and onto another had never before been so very tangible. Nor had anything to do with Fog ever been tangible, though, only this far. “I know humanity when I see it- I don’t think these roles were meant to be reversed, okay?” they cut themself off, with their form almost seeming to be headed in a similar direction. Towards our villainous pair, a hand stretches forward. The wind picks up, drowning out sound & blurring vision, forcing the two to brace themselves; the only thing left clear in the maelstrom is a pair of eyes & a simple mouth- a face -and that hand, reaching, grasping, searching as far as it possibly can. “I am faced with the incomprehensible, filled to my limit with questions thanks to you two,” they yell, and scream, and whisper into the wind, “and it’s maddening. Every time i look at you two, it’s so, so, familiar it hurts

...

The sun rests comfortably in the sky. The moon, desaturated, finds a place above our villains’ heads as well. The Checkered Devil and Haricot Heretic stand, alone, on a simple grassy field. The air has cleared, only in a literal sense, and on the flat, clean, ground, rests a notebook, plain as can be.

...Does it get opened to the very first, or the very last page?

[thexgrayxlady]

Notes: This is a purely self-indulgent and very lighthearted AU and if I’m the only one who is enjoying themselves with it, that’s all that really matters. TBCH I’m not sure where I’m going with it and I know this isn’t very good or perfectly in character, but I’m having a good time and it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, so I’m okay with it if I’m just writing a messy little crash into hello.

The Universe Won’t Wait for You

Outside the ruined temple, dark clouds gathered and howling winds carried the metallic tang of summer storms. Heady incense drifted from inside, where the flicker of braziers cast statues of forgotten gods in stark chiaroscuro. Yet, under the wind and crackle of flames, the air hung still and silent, charged with the promise of lightning.

The jungle crept up around the ancient stones. Gnarled vines threatened to drag the crumbling archway back into its depths. Fragments of cracked and chipping mosaics peered through the leaves, their tiles scattered across the floor with the trees’ detritus.

The roof had long since caved in and the once gilt friezes lining the main hall were now washed almost smooth. The faceless figures posed in the uncanny silence, leading the way to the sanctuary.

At the altar, a group of very annoyed people stood over the unconscious leader of a dragon cult and his scattered cards, having narrowly averted the end of the world for the third time in as many months. The timing was inconvenient for everybody involved and it was universally agreed upon that it would have been better if these assholes had waited until next weekend to try and destroy the world.

“So if we beat the megalomaniac of the week, why isn’t the portal going away?” Tea asked, vaguely gesturing to the swirling silvery distortion above the altar.

“I keep telling you nerds it’s not a portal.” Although against his will and his better judgement, the geek squad had grown on Seto Kaiba like E. coli on room temperature meat, he would still sooner saw off his own hands with a rusty spoon than admit it.

“We could always leave it alone,” Bakura said, disdainfully looking over one of the cultist’s discarded scrolls before rerolling it. “His Latin was terrible. It probably won’t do anything.”

“It won’t do anything because it’s a not a portal.” Their group would have it found it infinitely more worrying if he didn’t insist that the latest near apocalypse had a logical explanation. As of late, he’d settled on saying that anything he couldn’t immediately explain wasn’t magic, just science they didn’t understand yet. Everyone might have appreciated this a bit more if not for how often they had to deal with the fallout of his attempts to understand the science. “Watch.”

He picked up one of the scattered cards (rare, but only good for niche dragon decks and he would notadmit that he would have found this clown’s cards useful) and tossed it towards the floating mass. It passed through without incident and collided with the back wall.

“Wheeler could make something more convincing.” He rolled his eyes. This entire escapade had been a nuisance. He still wasn’t sure how he’d been talked into it. The others certainly hadn’t just mentioned that they needed a ride.

“Yeah, these guys tried to take our dragons cards and dragged us out here to show us some crappy holograms,” Joey replied.

“You would believe a bunch of delusional lunatics.”

Yugi paused checking on the cult leader and decided to head this off before it became serious.

“Guys, stop fighting!” he said, his voice quiet and gentle, yet brokering very little argument. When he realized that Kaiba was gearing up for an argument, he added, “You’re wasting time and the sooner we figure this thing out, the sooner we can leave.”

“Whatever,” he said, turning dramatically, letting his coat flare behind him. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on because some of us have jobs to get back to.”

“You’re self-employed!” the blond shot after him.

While he examined a pile of rubble on the far wall for a projector or an off switch, the others looked over the altar and scrolls. He was just about to shift some stones out of the way when lightning split the sky.

The portal flared and spun wildly. Roaring thunder followed close behind and a glowing thing shot from the portal before it collapsed upon itself as if it had never existed.

“Kaiba look out!” Yugi shouted. “That thing’s headed straight for…”

“It’s a hologram,” he shouted back, gesturing dismissively at the thing barreling towards him without actually looking at it. “It’s not like it can hurt…”

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, his ears ringing, and struggling for a full breath.

When he regained enough sense to figure out what was going on around him, he realized that his arms were wrapped around something warm and solid. The thing thrummed under his hands, like working on an ungrounded circuit. He came around to a curtain of white and a pair of horribly familiar blue eyes.

The woman shot back, her fingers splayed across his chest, her face contorting in stunned confusion. She started to speak, her voice raspy and quiet, stumbling over words in a language he didn’t understand. Yet even without knowing the words, he got the sentiment.

“What. The. Fuck.”

This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be real. He must have cracked his head when he hit the ground. She had to be a hallucination or a hologram or…he didn’t know, he couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out what specific kind of nonsense was going on.

Somewhere off in the distance, the nerds said something, but it was like listening under water. And as much as he wanted to shout at them to shut up so he could focus, the words stuck in his throat.

He knew her. From that trip to Egypt. Her name was…

No. No.

This wasn’t happening. The world didn’t work this way. People did not just fall out of holes in the sky. He’d been dragged kicking and screaming into accepting that maybe the supernatural bullshit that followed him around possibly had some merit, but thiswas a step too far.

None of this made any sense. Kis…She was impossible. You couldn’t just fling someone through space and time with badly mangled Latin. It took energy. It took machinery. Complex math, things that went beep, big red buttons that gave the nerds heart attacks when he pushed them.

(But these idiots were trying to summon a dragon, weren’t they?)

This violated so many different laws of physics. There must be another explanation. He just had to keep calm and think of it. His heart hammered against his chest. Every time he almost had a grasp on this, he caught her eyes, and any theory beyond rote denial slipped away.

She couldn’t be real. He’d barely thought of her since that trip. Whatever, whoever, she was, it was the past. It didn’t matter. She didn’t matter. He had to focus on figuring out how the hell some loser cultists managed time travel with some incense and dead lizards, no if they managed time travel some incense and dead lizards, when, despite his disregard for the laws of men and gods, even he was still mostly beholden to thermodynamics.

They probably hadn’t. There had to be something in the incense.

Still, the logical part of his brain told him that even his best holograms didn’t feel this real and there was no logical way they knew what she looked like. Her heartbeat fluttered under his hands. She smelled like prison grime and ozone and petrichor.

So a hallucination then. But everyone else kept talking. He still couldn’t really hear them, but maybe they could see her too. Or that was just another facet of his concussed delusion. But if this was a hallucination, then why couldn’t he understand her? He’d never hallucinated in a language he didn’t understand before.

Not a hologram. Not a hallucination. Where did that leave him? Flat on his back on a cold stone floor with a dead woman straddling his waist and the growing certainty that he would never live this down.

Again, she leaned in, her head tilted to the side. Time slowed as she brought a hand to his face and his heart beat too steady to be truly calm as she studied him. She was so small. He could easily throw her off and get away, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even look away as the world shrank down to just the two of them.

She didn’t look quite the same as in the memory. She didn’t seem half so fragile. Her long, pale hair was tangled and her face prematurely lined. Her dress was more a collection of mismatched patches than an actual garment. Bruises and scars bloomed along her arms and collarbone amid patches of thick, almost scaly looking skin.

He wondered if the memory, vision, whatever it was, was accurate. How much of what he knew about her was true? How much had been made up by someone who’d never met her to fit her role in the game? Did it even matter? He was his own person, why should he care about her just because of a supposed connection to the Blue Eyes White Dragon?

Yet despite everything going on, she seemed alert and curious, determined to figure out what exactly just happened, whereas he had to remind himself to keep breathing.

Just before her rough, calloused fingers brushed his jaw, a jolt of static leapt between them. She reeled back, her pupils snapping into narrow slits. Thin, cracking lips curled back over sharp teeth in an inhuman hiss. Her shoulders flexed and he half expected wings to unfurl from her back.

Then she must have caught sight of the others because she shrank back, trembling. A horrible charge built under his hands. He willed himself move just enough to let go.

She scrambled away, breathing in sharp, hissing gasps. Upon reaching the far wall, she shot up a crumbling pillar and crouched as far back on the bottom ledge of a frieze as she could manage and stared down in horror as the first few drops of rain fell through the broken ceiling.

He stared back, the concussed or drugged or shocked daze lifting just enough to drag himself to a sitting position.

She was impossible. But her eyes were electric bright and she’d felt like a damn live wire in his hands. He hadn’t figured out the physics behind this yet, but he understood one thing.

Kisara was very real.

[elizabethemerald]

The Nein, The Sapphire and The Ruby

The tower of the Xhorhaus echoed with the sounds of laughing and splashing. At the base of the tower the Mighty Nein relaxed in their hot tub, after their long stint in the frozen north, they relished the warmth. 

Beau, Caleb, Jester, Fjord and Yasha all soaked in heat, the water up to their chests. Veth sat on the steps into the hot tub, the water only up to her hips. Caduceus walked around the others, his pants rolled up to his knees while he served them sandwiches and tea. Beau was laughing loudly, as Fjord regaled them all with a story when Caleb suddenly sat bolt upright. 

"Everyone shut up!" He said, then stared off into space. The rest of the Nein recognized the look of someone receiving a magical message. The voice of Yussa, their Archmage friend from Nicodranas filled Caleb's head. 

"Mister Widogast, your party's presence is urgently required. Madame Lavoure requires your assistance at the Chateau. Awaiting your arrival at Tide Peak Tower. Arrive ready."

Caleb's eyes widened, he snapped his fingers at the others, and rose from the water as he responded to the sending. 

"We will teleport directly to the Chateau." He didn't bother to count his words or to add more than that. 

The rest of the Nein were already rising to their feet and exiting the hot tub, though at Caleb’s words they froze and multiple eyes flicked to Jester. 

"Your mother is in danger." Caleb said to her, then to the rest, "Grab your things and meet me in the entrance way." 

Fjord and Veth immediately dashed up the stairs to their rooms to grab their things. Caduceus set down the tea things and followed at a slower but still brisk pace. Yasha’s sword was never far from her, even when she was relaxing, but she still hurried to her room to grab her armor. Beau watched the frozen Jester for a moment before putting on a burst of speed with a shout that she would grab Jester’s armor and weapons from their room. 

The shout startled Jester into motion. She threw her clothes on as she wove her hands in the air, pink sigils following her fingers as she wove the spell for her own sending. 

"Momma? Are you ok? Are you in danger?" For once she didn't try to fill the word count. She waited desperately for a few seconds before looking in a panic to Caleb who was throwing on his own clothes, fortunately he carried his spell books with him always. "She's not responding!"

Jester grabbed her symbol to the Traveler and began weaving another spell. Caleb finished putting on his jacket in time to watch her finish the spell. For a second he thought she was trying to send another message, but this spell was longer, more intense than a simple sending spell. He gasped in horror as she blinked out of existence right before his eyes. 

“Nein! Jester!” He shouted, far too late, then dashed into the entrance hall and shouted into the rest of the house. “Jester cast Sanctuary! We need to go! Now!”

He watched as Beau jumped on one foot trying to put her other boot on, her other hand full of Jester’s weapons and armor. Fjord and Yasha were working to buckle their armor in place. They were taking too long. Jester was there now! By herself, facing who only knew what. Caleb squeezed the clay turtle in his hands for a moment, before making a snap decision. 

Caleb gave the turtle another squeeze, then felt the jerk in his stomach as the Xhorhaus disappeared from view, a second later to be replaced with the dining room of the Lavish Chateau, and utter chaos. The tables were flipped and chairs strewn around the room. The servants were screaming and running there was a small fire burning in one corner. He took all of this in with a glance as he looked for any foes, when a scream dragged his attention up the stairs. 

“Bluud!!” Jester screamed. Her Sanctuary was her bedroom upstairs, right next to where the Ruby lived. 

Caleb didn’t hesitate, casting Fly on himself and immediately soaring up to upper floor where the scream had come from. If the lower floor had been chaotic, then he wasn’t sure he had an appropriate word to describe what was happening here. The landing was packed to the rails with armed and masked men, each carried short swords or bows. Some were already laying wounded or dying on the ground. 

Bluud, Marian’s minotaur body guard roared in pain, more than a dozen slash marks covered his hide, while as many arrows stuck out from his body. He had a small stack of bodies around him, but was quickly being overwhelmed. 

Floating in the air above him was Jester’s spectral lollipop. This one was jagged and serrated and already coated in gore. Caleb took only a moment to spot Jester. She grabbed one of the men’s face and screamed at him, inflicting wounds. The man’s blood vessels in his neck and chest burst open then blackened and shriveled from the necrotic energy. 

Her scream sharpened in pain and rage as one of the sellswords slashed her. She tried to block the attack, but without her shield or armor, it carved across her arm. Frost and ice coalesced across her body before rocketing off and burying themselves in her assailant. He fell with a gurgle, but immediately another man was in his place. 

Caleb quickly ran through his spell repertoire. Most of his go-to offensive spells, polymorph, fireball, or wall of fire were too dangerous in the close quarters. Especially with Jester and Bluud in the fray. Instead he waved one hand over the other and multiple scorching rays flew from his hand blasting into the armed men. He specifically targeted those closest to Jester and Bluud to try and give them some breathing room. 

Before the smoke had even cleared the air was filled with hamster unicorns, as Jester cast Spiritual Guardians. The unicorns had sharp teeth and massive claws as they began tearing into the surrounding men. Her lollipop bashed into another sending him flying over the rail to the lobby below. 

Caleb barely noticed an arrow fired in his direction and cast shield on reflex. The arrow bounced off the armor and he unleashed another wave of scorching rays. As the cinders of men fell to the ground, he struggled to overcome the memories that tried to flood his mind. He knew he was falling, when suddenly the screaming in his head was drowned out by a scream from the door behind Bluud. 

"Momma!" Jester screamed. 

Jester’s scream tore through Caleb's mind, bringing the world back to a laser focus. Jester dashed past Bluud, tapping him on the shoulder, green energy closing some of his wounds. Caleb landed right behind her and flung some iron filings into the air and the minotaur suddenly towered over the few remaining men even more. Caleb pushed into Marion's room as Bluud roared, then froze bumping into Jester. 

"Take another step and the Ruby dies!"

Marion Lavorre stood in the center of the room,  her eyes wide with fear. Behind her stood a man, better dressed than any of the others, with a knife held to her throat. He was clearly the leader, if anyone knew who had hired them to attack the Chateau it would be him. 

Caleb mentally ran through his spell list again. Magic missile would be able to avoid hitting Jester’s mother, but disintegrate would ensure this scum died and never threatened Marion again. 

"We're just here for the blue tiefling." The man snarled. "Surrender and no one else needs to get hurt." 

Jester stiffened. Caleb stepped up behind her, trying to reassure her with his presence.  This wasn't her fault he wanted to say, but this wasn't the time. He didn't let his eyes leave the man using her mother as a shield. 

A single drop of blood, dripped down Marion’s scarlet skin from the knife at her throat. Jester bared her fangs in rage, but before she could do anything Marion growled in what Caleb recognized as Infernal. The man was suddenly engulfed in crimson flames, he fell back shouting and patting at the flames. 

Jester raised her hand immediately and a bell sounded, a deep resonate clang, and blood poured out of his ears and eyes. Before he could recover Caleb pulled a cricket from his pocket and waved it in the air and the man collapsed to the ground snoring. 

Marion slumped to the ground away from the man, a sob rocking her form. Jester flew to her side, wrapping her in her arms.

"Its ok momma. Its ok. Your Jester is here." Jester whispered softly into her mother's red hair. 

Caleb pulled some string from his pocket and tied the sleeping man's wrists, then quickly cleared the rest of the Ruby's apartment. When he was sure there were no more threats within her quarters he jerked the front door open fire whirling at his fingertips. However it appeared the giant sized Bluud had taken care of the rest of the assailants. 

Before too long the rest of the Nein arrived. Caduceus had used his sanctuary spell to bring the rest of them to the lighthouse. Beau got there first, putting on a quite frankly inhuman display of speed as she raced to the Chateau. The rest weren't far behind her. 

With the Nein around them and Jester’s mother in her arms Caleb breathed out for what felt like the first time since he had received Yussa's message. 

* * *

With the full power of the Mighty Nein gathered together, the first priority was ensuring Marion’s safety. She was escorted by the Nein to Tide Peak Tower. All of them had their weapons drawn and ready, spells sparking at their finger tips. When she and Bluud were safe in the tower a few things immediately became apparent. 

First off, it was obvious that the local Zhelezo had been paid off or distracted so that no one would respond to the attack at the Chateau. They encountered no guards as they walked her to Yussa’s tower, and the wizard himself had to message the local division into investigating the attack and protecting the staff of the Chateau. 

Secondly they found that Yeza and Luc had been visiting with Marion when the attack had started. Marion had snuck the two of them down a servant’s stair and told them to run to the Open Quay, after all of Jester’s stories she knew Yussa was an ally. He was able to protect the two halflings and message Caleb. He then sealed his tower and prepared for further assault just in case. 

Finally, who ever had orchestrated this was filthy rich. The amount of money it would cost to pay off that many guards, to start fires around the city to draw even more of their attention, and to pay for the sellswords to attack a well known establishment in the middle of the day, was more than the Nein had seen in all their days of adventuring. 

Eventually they had Marion safe in the tower. Bluud, after a significant healing from Caduceus, insisted on staying by her side while she rested from her ordeal. Caleb had, at Jester’s insistence cast his own magical mansion, so she was double protected by magical barriers and could rest comfortably in Jester’s bedroom. Yeza and Luc stayed in Caleb’s tower as well. Partially to be near Marion if she needed any assistance. Partially to keep Luc out of the way for what would come after. 

* * *

The mercenary captain woke up, bound to a chair, and surrounded by grim faces. Yasha gently rested Skin Gorger against his shoulder. Fjord had the Star Razer against his other side. Small flesh eating beetles crawled all over him from Caduceus’ staff and Veth kept her cross bow aimed at him the whole time. Beau cracked her knuckles and Caleb allowed fire to dance across his fingers. As the mercenary awoke, the room quickly filled with the stench of fear and urine. 

“Let me make our position very clear.” Caleb said stepping forward now that he was awake. “You have attacked someone who is very dear to us. In doing so you have committed an unspeakable mistake.”

Beau stepped up next. “We have a lot of different ways to make you talk. Truth spells, my Cobalt knuckles. Pain. We’ve got a lot of pain we can bring against  you. So how about you spare us all of that, and just tell us. Who paid you?”

The man was sweating, his eyes wide. Yet still he clamped his jaw shut. Beau shrugged. 

“Have it your way.” She cocked her fist back, but froze as a blue hand hand fell onto her shoulder. She stepped back as Jester stepped forward. 

Unlike the stern looks on the face of the rest of them, Jester wore a bright smile. If Caleb didn’t know her, he would say she was completely at ease. However he could see the cold fury, raging in her eyes underneath her mask. The man pulled back as she stepped up to him, unnerved by his quarry smiling at him like that. 

“You hurt my momma.” Jester said. Her voice was soft as she dragged a finger along his chin. Green magic healed his wounds, and he took a deep breath, even more surprised. “I don’t like it when people hurt my momma.”

Jester dug her nails into the man’s chest and the veins around her fingers blackened and burst, and the skin withered and died. He screamed in pain, Jester’s smile never left her face, now looking more demented then truly joyful. 

“Lord Sharpe!” The man gasped out, agony heavy on his words. “We were paid by Lord Sharpe.”

Please reblog!!

[officialleehadan]

Acrux Resonance

Andra had never expected to be a teacher. Well, not really. Sure, she had taught people things before, how to fix a ship. How to plot a nav-path. She even taught two of the girls who lived under her dirty little flat on Asteroid Base 42 how to throw a punch when she found out they were having trouble with some of the local flavor form the shipyards.

But teaching a whole class of the galaxy’s most powerful psionics how to fight an alien race? Well, she supposed that wasn’t exactly anybody’s first guess.

“Reach for each other,” she told her class of almost thirty psionics, all telepaths with strong telekinesis for the moment, and all of them powerful enough to reach between solar systems when they needed to. They were in groups of two and three, all syzygy-linked, and used to working together. It made things easier. Andra might know how to fight the alien queens, but she didn’t know much about basic telepathy except what Cygnus taught her on the fly. “You’re all comfortable with your bonds, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding your bond and getting a good, firm grasp on it from both ends.”

She was glad that she and Cygnus spent hours on the ship to Blood Star base working out how to explain what they did, and how to do it. She wasn’t used to the language needed, and he, by virtue of being the Blood Star’s leader, was needed elsewhere.

Which left Andra in the odd, uncomfortable position of teaching everyone how to do the trick she had discovered to defend her own mind. To think that she had started this whole adventure as a nobody Edge mechanic with a dirty, broken old ship and a laughing telepath making jokes about space dust in the manifold.

Things had changed, just a little, since then.

“You’re used to thinking of your bond as a single road between you,” she continued, pacing through the crowd. There was a podium, but she couldn’t bring herself to use it. It felt too much like playing at being someone she wasn’t. “But it’s not. You aren’t the same person, so your bond is actually made of more than one thread. Yours, and those of your partner.”

She could feel her own bond with Cygnus now, the sharp-edged silver of his mind, woven with the deep bronze of her own. He was working with another group, trying to find more syzygy bonds. They had some, but they would need more, a lot more, for the coming fight. The call had already gone out through the galaxy, and everyone with even a pinch of psi-sensitivity was gathering to try and help.

Andra didn’t want to distract him, and so she set her mind on her current task.

“Feel for the way your minds work together,” she continued as she caught the eye of Indus Crux, who circled the room, a box of crystals in hand. He set one out between each group. When he passed her, Andra claimed one of the clear lumps of crystal, one that came to a fine, terminated point and shone in the sterile light of the base. “The aliens work by themselves. They’re all lone minds, and that makes them vulnerable. We can use that against them.”

With a care for her own control, which wasn’t perfect, Andra opened her mind to them, and showed them how to take a mental ‘tone’ and echo it between their minds until it became a resonance that could shatter apart the very matrix that made up their inhuman enemy.

“You have to work together,” she said as she felt across the room and gave a nudge here and there as the groups felt their way through the exercise for the first time. “An echo needs a hard surface to bounce off, so once you’ve started, you need to be able to control it so that it builds to the right frequency.

Cygnus was at a stopping point, and just in time. She sent a little spark of thought down their bond, and he responded easily when she followed it with the same tone they used to defeat the last queen they fought. This time was different, of course. Now she had thirty students watching as they tossed the tone back and forth between them, flavored with his power and her steady determination.

When the frequency was just right, she took it from telepathy and shot it through their shared telekinesis.

The crystal in her hand shattered apart and pooled off her fingers as glittering sand.

“This is how we beat them,” Andra said as she dusted crystal dust off her hands, and Cygnus left her with a ‘kiss’ on the cheek before turning back to his own work. The students tittered a little amongst themselves, but it was an understanding sort of laugh. No few of them were together in one romantic configuration or another. Her relationship with Cygnus was no secret, especially on a base full of telepaths and empaths. “Now that you’ve seen how it works, let’s see you put theory into practice. Time to break some crystal.”

+++

Guiding Stars:

Andra was a mechanic and a pilot with nothing but an old, battered ship to call her own. Cygnus Volans is the most powerful psion to ever live. They were on opposite sides of a messy revolution, until a shared vision of the future brings their two warring sides together against a much greater threat.

Procyon Moon

Altair Chariot

Vega Dignity

Cappella Besieged

Canopus Emergent

Nihal Collision

Spica Interlude

Polaris Eclipsed

Sirius Empowered

Mizar Orbit (Free on Patreon)

Dabih Risen

Ankaa Igniting (Free on Patreon!)

Leporis Crush (Subscriber Only!)

Porrima Chain

Menkent Ripple

Atrea Rest (Free on Patreon!)

Arcturus Rally (Free on Patreon!)

+++

More Stories!

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[flowerflamestars]

Daylight, part one: Banished

It took Nesta a full month to learn to winnow.   Four frozen weeks trapped by blizzard winds that clanged through her skull, cabin as much a cage as her body shaking through withdrawal.   It would have taken half that time is she’d been left alone- banished, betrayed, Nesta wasn’t about to lower herself further to sweating and swearing and struggling in front of the unwilling other inhabitant of the house.   The General of the Night Court had done his job well.   He’d promised Feyre that she’d be safe.   So safe Nesta was- entombed in cold and hatred, walled in with nothing but her thoughts and books he’d chosen to tempt her. There was no talking to the Ilyrians who surrounded her- they’d called her a witch and then a hero and then his, nothing was true, all of it was true. They hated women, they loved strength. Nesta Archeron, the woman who’d asked for none of this and cut the head from a king: an Illyrian treasure, a walking contradictory abomination- nor was there any escape.   Brutal aching cold that leaked through the walls to her too thin skin.   The sounds of fighting- training, she told her gritting teeth, her whole tense body that kept expected to be covered in blood once more- the scent of fires, the endless keening winter wind.   Punishment.   She was a problem to her darling sister- so she’d been banished. Handed off to a the General like a pet- it didn’t matter what she’d once dreamt; if he’d never dropped her hand, if Morrigan didn’t exist, would anything actually be different?

It had been more than a year since she stood on a battlefield.   Nesta Archeron had been promised time and life in escaping certain death, received instead a silence that bit deeper than any wound war could have bestowed.   How many times had he tried now that his bastard lord made Nesta his problem? You need to eat. Are you cold? Are you sleeping? Nesta? Nesta, please.   She could no more escape his voice than the hellish looming mountains themselves.   The wretched strength of her body seemed so focused on listening: the boom of his heart like thunder, the telling breath that stopped in his lungs when he looked at her in firelight, the sigh when she walked away every damned time.   But so too, did she hear other things. The prayers, the whispers of torment. A people who valued and loved their free falling freedom, reduced to the ruins of an army.   Where were their cities of old? Their language? Their sons sent in good faith to defend their High Lord and obliterated to such an extent no bodies could be laid to rest?   For a male who toted his Illyrian blood so greatly, Rhysand had left an entire people to rot.   So Nesta had simply waited it out. Practiced instead of sleeping- what the hell did she have to sleep for? Exhaustion was at least a feeling, now that every drop of distraction had been sweated of by her relentless immortal body. In temperance, she could be angry- with her anger, she could find magic.   Four weeks, and she could winnow.   Four weeks and two days, the eastern clans of the Illyrian mountains rose in rebellion in name of their beloved dead, and the General of the Night Court left her alone to go put them down.   Nesta shed the clothes she’d been given.   Furs and soft leather; the stink of the animals they’d once been strong enough to her inhuman senses that she’d vomited the first time she’d dressed in them. They’d thought she was still drunk.   In the hour she’d been given between being collected from her apartment and banishment- Nesta, I’ll take care of your apartment. It’ll be better away, I can’t watch anymore, you don’t need your things, everything will be provided- she’d stolen a single forgotten dress from the room she’d once stayed in at her sister’s home.   Purple, not all the damned red people had handed off to her. Soft. Not sheer Night Court silk or gilded finery- weighted, dark as the last punch of twilight, cut like a mortals gown.   She threw the fur that reeked of fear and pale mountain foxes into the fire with a prayer for their souls- Nesta had heard the Illyrians sing to their dead, glory and love, to fly and run free among the stars- and laced the now oversized dress tight as it would go.   No one had taught her winnowing was dangerous.   No one had told her that the more powerful you are, the more careful you need to be.   Nesta Archeron closed her eyes, and thought with all that was left of her heart in the gaping black beneath her ribs, that she wanted to feel the sunlight again.   The Crones face in the living world, heir of the Cauldron- nothing stood in her way.

- It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Azriel.   It wouldn’t have been to anyone else- Azriel was dutiful above all else, he still spoke to Cassian, the right and left hands of a military body that sprawled into chaos far beyond them. Even if he’d made it clear he wasn’t happy to fill the role.   In the middle of a rebellion, at a knives edge standstill between two forces that didn’t want to hurt each other, Azriel would be an incredible asset.   The co-commander, the friend who’d knock into his wings and tell him where to aim wasn’t standing in front of Cassian.   Ice cold, black northern Illyrian eyes stared him down with a weariness Cassian hadn’t seen in a long time.   He knew better than to step too close into the shadows around him.   Unbuckling the swords from his back, Cassian eyed Azriel from under the fall of his hair and tried not to sigh. He didn’t want the newest bad news. “The wind clans want restitution, permission to build beyond the camps.”   Azriel didn’t blink. “They should have it.”   “It would be a seat of power in a decade,” Cassian said lowly, for all that he agreed with Azriel, he had to say it. “A stronghold.”   Azriel didn’t move or bother to reply until Cassian was done, a neat pile of blades and armor on the table between them. In the firelight, it was impossible to hide the roiling motion of shadow, a teaming sea of dark that said everything his impassive, dangerous face didn’t.   Cassian was so damned tired.   “If Rhys wants us to attack, we will at dawn, but I think only the leaders”-   “I didn’t come from Rhys.” That made Cassian cease going through the motions that this might be anything near a normal evening- Azriel hadn’t willingly been in his company in more than a month. The question in his mouth didn’t even need to spoken with this much darkness gathered in the room- with a sigh, some of the sheer menace faded from Azriel’s own tired expression.   “You should sit down, Cas.”   Cassian listened, if only because he couldn’t imagine why he needed to. They were Illyrians- Cassian would no more tell Azriel to sit down to hear bad news than he would try to tell him how to hold Truthteller.   That Az stalked forward and blocked the door his seat before the fire faced raised a sick lurch of dread to fill his chest. “Is Mor okay? Did something happen to Feyre? Or Rhys”   Arms crossed, Azriel huffed, the noise so far from what everything in this room spoke of that Cassian could only blink in response. “Feyre is perfectly fine. Morrigan is still holed up in the country, unchanged.”   “She’ll be”- “Cassian.” The tempo of his heart spilling fear picked up to a fever pitch.   Maybe he knew it before Az said it. Maybe some part of him had known the second he left her alone- the words seemed forgone, haze shimmering over his vision as Azriel spoke.   “Nesta’s gone.”   The blocked door became a painfully obvious necessity as Cassian shot to his feet, wings sending the chair to ground. Gone. Gone, gone, gone- she was skin and bones, silence and shaking fearful rage- she wasn’t safe. “Gone where?”   Azriel just looked at him, dark eyes as unforgiving as the night sky.   “Azriel, what happened?” He’d begun pressing against his own chest without realizing it, that space between ribs and heart that had once thrummed constantly: a second heart-beat, a white hot thread he could have followed through any storm. Cassian would’ve torn into his own chest to have that bleeding, guiding tether now.   Where was Nesta?   He’d thought she was safe. Not happy- but at least no longer so numb to herself she was actively seeking harm. Breathing brutal absolute rage in what seemed like ever conscious breath, but it had been a feeling, he’d thought-he’d thought she’d surface. Heal. Something.   His closest chosen brothers face said something was very different from whatever mad, broken hope Cassian had been harboring.   “You won’t tell me where she is.”   The resignation brought Azriel closer, like he could see the veritable pit that Cassian felt had opened beneath him. “She left of her own free will, Cas.”   Hands in fists before he could blink, heat alchemized from the fear into something worse, Cassian’s voice was a horror to his own ears. “You know she isn’t okay. You haven’t see her Az- a deep breath might break ribs at the rate she’s going, someone, anyone might”-   With infinite tried patience Azriel murmured back. “She could be actively bleeding out and no one could hurt her. Amren confirmed it, Morrigan- Nesta Archeron is only High Fae on the outside, and you know it. Nothing can touch her.”   Cassian was shaking hard enough his wings made noise, rustling against each other.   Azriel sighed.   “Cassian,” He said again, carefully. “She’s unharmed, and she left of her own power. You need to let her go.”   Over the roaring fire and Cassian’s rattling bones, a metallic crack echoed through the room. It took him a second to realize- staring at Azriel’s face as it lost composure, tired and pained and furious in a way that both included and blamed Cassian, as Cassian so soundly deserved and damn well knew it- that he’d dug hard enough into the leather buckled across his chest that metal had snapped in his hand.  “Why?”  Every shadow in the room flickered before dissipating at once. 

“Why?” Azriel repeated, ice that had been in his gaze the whole time slipping loose. “Because she was in a cage. Because you know gods damn well you should have said no.”   Cassian made a hollow facsimile of a laugh, the exact wrong response. Some part of him was pounding adrenaline, shouting with fear- Cassian wanted it to hurt. “To a direct order?”   It had been a favor, and they both knew it. A plan that Feyre and Rhys hadn’t told Morrigan or Amren, Elain or Lucien- and it hadn’t been coincidence. He’d known it was wrong- how could it be anything but wrong?   But then he’d seen Nesta, more starved wraith than woman, empty eyed in intoxication, and panicked.   There was reason why, those now long years ago, that Rhysand hadn’t told Azriel the exact details of Feyre’s stay in Spring.   Loyal to his Court to the death- but Azriel was too long old in his power to tolerate anyone at all being put through the kind of suffering he himself knew intimately, without trying to stop it.   Darkly, sometimes Cassian thought it was that anger and drive that had kept Azriel alive, even now.   Worse than simple rage, Azriel shook his head. Disappointed. “An order? I told you, I told Rhys, if you trapped her, if you took one more thing away from her”-   “I didn’t”-   It was impossible to win a fight, Cassian knew, when you didn’t mean it. Your body had to follow your arm. If you couldn’t carry the motion and back it up, it was only yourself you were going to hurt.   “The second Feyre banished her and you didn’t help her, there were only two options. Cassian, Nesta was either going to die in these mountains or run. We’re lucky she didn’t blast her way out.”   How many times had he seen it in his dreams?   A cold mountain grave. Wildflowers in place of a woman who’d once burned with enough vitality to fuel the sun itself. He was angry now, empty now- but the dreams always gave him this: rage.

It tasted so much like flames as to be a piece of Nesta that he’d managed to borrow for himself. Rage at broken promises. At Feyre’s tears. At his past and future self, alone.   It was a future Cassian, awake and breathing, had built.

There wasn’t any fire left. —

Nesta, despite the assumptions of her sisters, was not so detached from her physical form as to seek out injury.   Sure, she’d tried a vivid and blinding range of magical intoxicants that could only have been made by rich, spoiled immortals. She’d drunk herself sick and beyond. Fucked and fought and learned every vaguest limitation of her alien body.   Nesta had sought feeling- with a reckless, dangerous abandon.   But she’d hadn’t looked for new pain and didn’t like it particularly.   So the skin flaying feeling she’d learn was her was power smashing through wards- her body traveling through nothingness with the speed and destructive force of a falling star- wasn’t a triumph.   Nor was the slam that stopped her motion, Nesta’s body crashing hard enough to knock the air from her lungs and break bone, had she still been a human.   But the stone floor beneath her was warm. The insane fervor of her senses told her there was paper and ink everywhere, book binders glue, paper old and new. Blooming fruit trees and green, green, green.   Nesta Archeron rolled over, and laughed.   The sound hurt coming out, ill with disuse. She didn’t have a damned idea where she was, but it wasn’t the cursed Night Court. There was no corner of the territory her sister commanded that didn’t reek of sea air and jasmine, where mountain wind wasn’t right on the edge of awareness.   Sunlight streamed down on her from a domed ceiling, every color of the rainbow represented in stained glass.   A hand adorned in a full set of glittering emerald and topaz rings, one on each finger and two on the thumb, intruded into her dazzled view, ink a barely visible stain on loam dark skin.

“How,” A silken, shockingly pleased voice followed, “the hell did you do that?”   Nesta rose unsteadily to her feet, the world tipping around her unpleasantly, to find herself face to face with a High Lord of Prythian.   Golden eyes. A kind, if ravenous mouth. Beauty the likes of which was said to have driven mortals mad, no trace or even echo of humanity in the perfection.   Helion Spellcleaver, the Lord of Day.   It was not the beauty that made Nesta physically wobble, light trails trying to start at the edges of her vision.   The hand that had presumably, she realized too late, been extend to help her upright reached again. Helion didn’t touch her, but hovered a few inches away, as though to catch Nesta if her staggering became something more substantial.   With the iron control that kept death locked up inside her, Nesta managed to straighten, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t know what you mean.”   Helion tilted his head.   Didn’t step closer, didn’t stare, displayed none of the dominance or fascination that Nesta had encountered and hated from others of his ilk. Power calls to power, Morrigan had told her, like a warning, before telling her stay away from Cassian all over again. You are a queen, the Bonecarver had said, monstrous and achingly familiar, like my sister was.   High fae males had about as many issues with Nesta as she with them, she’d learned.   Less silk and more obvious care, Helion said, “How about I tell you where you landed, and you could perhaps, in exchange, tell me what you were trying to do.”   Horrified at the burn in her eyes at being spoken to like a logical, cognizant being, Nesta nodded, swallowing the flare like rage.   Assured, he took another step back until he was at such a respectful distance as a human might be in courting. Gemstones threw light as he pointed, and Nesta allowed herself to follow.   “This,” Helion gestured, encompassing glass overhead and another story bellow, more books and lights and more ambient free floating magic than she’d ever seen, “Is my personal collection. The one library that survived completely unscathed through the war- a ten thousand year stronghold.”   On another man, another faerie, Nesta would have been waiting for this to turn on her. Instead, Helion sounded…as though he were trying not to laugh?   Indeed, warmth seeped audibly into his tone. “I wonder, did you feel the wards? Do they even exist to you?”   Unintentionally, Nesta rubbed at her aching sternum before she could stop herself. “I felt them.”   The strolling spin that had been guiding her to look- look at the marvel, what she would give for an hour to read the words on those ancient pages- stopped abruptly. Quick bright eyes snagged on her before flicking away, blinking.   Careful, serious, his whole demeanor shifted. “The building is telling me you came from…the Illyrian mountains? Is that correct?”   Nesta swallowed and raised her chin. “Yes.”   Helion stopped moving at all. “You are Nesta Archeron, sister of the High Lady and Emissary of the Night Court.”   “We’ve met,” Nesta snapped, before she could help herself. Forcefully, she breathed out her nose, evened her tone. “And I am not the Emissary, or anything else.”   Helion blinked.   “Are there…shortages, in the North? Trade has been substantial, and the harvests have been on time, on our end of things. If Rhysand”-   This time when Nesta spoke, there was bile on her tongue. “There are no shortages. To my knowledge, food from your farms is widely distributed throughout the territory.”   Nesta knew what she had to do next, what she had to say. Unlike Feyres brief time as emissary wherein, as far as Nesta could tell, she’d used the office as an excuse to do whatever damned thing she wanted- including destroy the mortal life her sisters had been trying to build- Nesta had bothered to learn what was expected of her. How the Courts worked- pledges and treaties, courtesies and loyalties.   Asylum. It is not Rhysand, she told herself, hate and fear rising to choke her as Nesta sank neatly as she could to her weak knees before the High Lord.   Her pride it turned out, was just alive enough that she could hardly meet his gaze to say the words. “I come as a supplicant. I come without Court or bloodline, mate or corporal bond, to ask mercy and pledge, to you, Helion Spellcleaver, Lord of Day. May the sun rise over you evermore. A small bondswoman of no status, I pledge myself in debt”-

Nesta stopped speaking, because Helion had crashed down beside her, bumping into a reading table as he did so.   “Stop."   Nesta just looked at him, aware all at once that her breathing was starting to come in gasps.   If she couldn’t pledge- if she couldn’t seek asylum- he’d send her back.   “A bondswoman? Nesta Archeron,” Helion was shaking his head, “You’re not my subject. Or a child, or a religious penitent. You don’t owe me or anyone else so much as a lowered head. Ever.”   “That is not,” Nesta gasped, the panic pounding through her freeing any careful words from her tongue. “What other High Lords would say.”   Carefully not touching her, leaning so as that his enormous size didn’t dwarf her, Helion frowned. “Why the hell were you with Illyrians?”   Her chest was rising and falling fast enough she couldn’t hide it. “Sent,” she gasped, “Banished.”   Brighter than the rings in sunlight, Helion’s eyes gleamed inhuman and troubled. “I can help you breathe,” he said, with a tension she couldn’t grasp at. “Take off the edges.”   She stared at him and said nothing, fear, fear, fear, in every rattled inhale. Waiting for the intrusion of magic.   Waiting, she eventually realized, just as he was, for permission. Watching her with widening eyes, but Helion hadn’t acted.   “Yes,” Nesta heaved. “Do it.”   Still, she couldn’t fully control or stop as she automatically shied away from his huge, broad shouldered body scooting closer.   With unbearable gentleness, Helion quietly spoke. “I won’t touch you.”   Power, when it came, was soft. Like stepping into a warm bath, like late spring sun gathered on bare skin- warmth slowly seeped past and overwhelmed panicked pain, air like green shoots of grass burst fresh from her lungs.   It was several moments before either spoke.   Nesta was distantly aware she should thank him. She wanted to, but in the sheer smallness she felt, the words wouldn’t come. Shame gathered, hot in the pit of her stomach.   To her resounding relief, Helion didn’t mention what had just happened.   Instead, with the practiced insouciance that was much more on par with the first time she’d seen him, Helion sprawled back on the floor, bright silk cushions appearing underneath him in recline.   It was a ridiculous sight- decadent- but she didn’t fail to notice that she was also quite suddenly supported and surrounded by softness.   A part of Nesta wanted to sink into the pillows and disappear, but her spine was all she had left.   “The library,” Helion began eventually, rings tapping together as he rapped what might have actually been nervous knuckles on the floor, “Is sentient. Older than most of the Courts of this continent. It lets in who it chooses, and no one else. Once, it supported hundreds of librarians in it’s depths. You could live here, be one of it’s guardians, if you wish.”   “It is,” Nesta didn’t want to ask, wanted to say yes- yes I will live in this palace of books, I will never leave again, I will breath in a thousand words until I belong in a story again- but it wasn’t that simple. “It is, a job?”   Helion’s restless fingers clenched into a fist. And then relaxed, smoothing over pale marble and leaving a tea tray in their wake.   “In a way,” He poured two cups, but didn’t comment or try to hand her the second, leaving it in easy reach. “You have no need to worry about money, if that’s what you mean. If you keep the library, the library will keep you- it’s a self-contained ecosystem.”   The quiet spooled out between them again as Nesta picked up the cup. No handles, gold on blue, the porcelain fine as paper. She stared at the steam rising toward her face and tried to say anything.   Beholden to a library was very different than beholden to man only bound to her by magic. Helion would not take her pledge- the entire action had made him uncomfortable, if she had to guess- she wouldn’t be his subject.   Just a powerful, dangerous, broken faery living in his lands.   “If I belong to the library,” Nesta said with careful evenness, “Are there duties in your Court I must also preform?”   “Unless the library itself is under attack, no.” The gentle tone was back, horrifically. “It needs magic and life within its walls. You have a completely singular power, I personally wouldn’t mind your help with my research if you wish it.”   The warmth of the cup was nearly uncomfortable between her palms, but Nesta couldn’t let it go. “If I wish it?”   As though hearing her forgone agreement, Helion smiled blindingly. “Only then.”   Nesta inclined her head, and sipped the tea. — Sentience in a building, like so many things about life above the Wall, defied Nesta’s expectations.   One of the best highs she’d ever tried had side effects- none so horrible or interesting as the stimulant made by Sangravah priestesses that had made her eyes bleed- but exhaustion that lasted weeks. A fever that alchemized with something in her immortal body until her sweat appeared peppered with glitter.   She’d gleamed like the moon and slept for ten days, but no matter how tired she was, the euphoria had continued at a low tidal ebb.   Following Helion through the library, his voice that of an eager scholar who’d finally, finally found a colleague, was something like that. So weary as to be numb- so ecstatic that it shook through her limbs, a low tremor of excitement that couldn’t be shut down.   Not a library- ten thousand libraries that made up the Library.   Doors like portals between them: if the Library let her through one, she could go through them all. To Archives and Helion admitted, voice wry, tombs of ancient monarchs. Public spaces and abandoned labs, more than a millennia of learning bound together in protection.   But first, this:   Helion rubbed delighted hands together, ink stain spreading from palm to palm that he didn’t seem to notice. Nesta trying not to sigh, focusing on an empty stone wall.   “Do I touch it?”   Helion shrugged, cat-like. Sheer elegance made even that motion beyond faery-graceful, a magnetically appealing ripple of muscle and supple skin.   Easy- entirely because he hadn’t said what’s wrong with you, why did you run, why are you skin and bones and power, you’re shaking, eat, drink, do you need a healer?- Nesta found herself drawling in a voice she hardly recognized as her own anymore. “You’ve never seen this done before, have you?”   White teeth flashing blinding in late afternoon golden light. “Never.”   Nesta rolled her eyes, safely face to face with the wall, and pressed both palms to the stone.   She was about to ask Helion something else- am I supposed to visualize? Is there a ritual?- when a pulse rebounded beneath her skin. Her senses filled with steady warmth, gold beneath eyelids she hadn’t realized had fallen shut.   Worldless, the Library cracked open at the long-buried heart of Nesta a  feeling that said belonging.  Sanctuary. Home. Green grass- hot coffee- dewy mornings- infinite pages- pale silk- ink-smeared- pink sunrises- home.

Daughter, find what you seek. When Nesta opened her eyes, sunlight dazzled around them. It took a second to sink in that they were outside, presumably on the other side of the wall they’d stood before, at the libraries exterior.   Nesta rocked back on her heels, numbly aware of Helion falling in carefully distant step beside her, and looked up.   The Library had build her a tower. Green copper roof, ruddy natural dark stone a league from any memory of Night Court moonstone. A door comically small for a High Fae home- but just the height for Nesta, whose stature had remained delicate by even human judgement.   As she watched, vines burst from the ground to climb the stone: pale roses and trailing ivy, tangling with bright, poisonous flora she’d only seen in books.   At her raised brow, Helion boomed a laugh, the sound bell-like warmth made manifest. “You are the Library and the Library is you- plants are my signature welcome gift.”   She was so tired, but so, so much happier than she could remember feeling.   “The yellow,” She said, tilted back her head to see all the way to the curving, pointed roof, “Deadly poisonous to many flying fae species?”   Helion’s smile grew just a little sharper. “A very common bloom. See,” He pointed in the direction of the orchards she kept smelling, glass and greenery gleaming beyond it, “They’re very popular in palace architecture as well.”   His palace. Because he was a six hundred year old High Fae Lord.   As though he could sense the tide of her exhaustion rising, Helion pressed one huge hand to his heart and bowed his head. “I will leave you to it, Nesta Archeron of the Thousand Libraries.”   Unable to find a single word for what she was feeling, Nesta nodded warily back and waited for him to winnow away before walking to the door. Her door.   Brass handle sunwarm and the scent of cedar thick from threshold, Nesta stepped inside and tried to breathe.   The bottom floor a small, immaculate kitchen- driftwood table and pale stone floor, green cabinets and marbled counters that gleamed almost as bright as the copper kettle that sat in readiness on the stove.   A single staircase wound up- wide enough, she distantly clocked, for a human, not a faery. The second floor was plush with chairs and candles, books lining the wall.   The top of her tower- a bedroom. More books. Everything soft and pale and serene. A skylight that seemed barely sound, golden glass over where she’d lay her head.   Perfect. Impossible. She wanted to break things- she wanted to never leave-she wanted and wanted, the empty hole in the middle of her chest both aching and filling in around the edges.   She’d made if from Day to Night.   Nesta Archeron curled up on a bed that was precisely big enough for her own body and no one else, and wept.

@skychild29  @jessicawooten  @sleepyyancybecket  @hizqueen4life  @therapeuticrambling  @bybooksanddreams 

[spilledreality]

Sporting vs Herding

i.

I wanna talk about two blogposts, Seph's "War Over Being Nice” and Alastair's "Of Triggering & the Triggered." Each lays out the same erisological idea: that there are two distinct modes or cultures of running discourse these days, and understanding the difference is crucial to understanding the content of conversation as much as its form. Let's go.

One style, Alastair writes, is indebted to the Greco-Roman rhetorical and 19th C British sporting traditions. A debate takes place in a "heterotopic" arena which is governed by an ethos of adversarial collaboration and sportsmanship. It is waged in a detached and impersonal manner, e.g. in American debate club, which inherits from these older traditions, you are assigned a side to argue; your position is not some "authentic" expression of self. Alastair:

This form of discourse typically involves a degree of ‘heterotopy’, occurring in a ‘space’ distinct from that of personal interactions.

This heterotopic space is characterized by a sort of playfulness, ritual combativeness, and histrionics. This ‘space’ is akin to that of the playing field, upon which opposing teams give their rivals no quarter, but which is held distinct to some degree from relations between the parties that exist off the field. The handshake between competitors as they leave the field is a typical sign of this demarcation.

All in all, it is a mark against one in these debates to take an argument personally, to allow arguments that happen "in the arena" to leave the arena. This mode of discourse I see exemplified in LessWrong culture, and is, I think, one of the primary attractors to the site.In the second mode of discourse, inoffensiveness, agreement, and inclusivity are emphasized, and positions are seen as closely associated with their proponents.  Alastair speculates it originates in an educational setting which values cooperation, empathy, equality, non-competitiveness, affirmation, and subordination; this may be true, but I feel less confident in it than I am the larger claim about discursive modes. Provocatively, the two modes are dubbed "sporting" and "herding," with all the implications of, on the one hand, individual agents engaged in ritualized, healthy simulations of combat, and on the other, of quasi-non-agents shepherded in a coordinated, bounded, highly constrained and circumscribed epistemic landscape. Recall, if you are tempted to blame this all on the postmodernists, that this is exactly the opposite of their emphasis toward the "adult" realities of relativism, nebulosity, flux. Queer Theory has long advocated for the dissolution of gendered and racial identity, not the reification of identitarian handles we see now, which is QT's bastardization. We might believe these positions were taken too far, but they are ultimately about complicating the world and removing the structuralist comforts of certainty and dichotomy. (Structureless worlds are inherently hostile to rear children in, and also for most human life; see also the Kegan stages for a similar idea.)  

In the erisological vein, Alastair provides a portrait of the collision between the sporting and herding modes. Arguments that fly in one discursive style (taking offence, emotional injury, legitimation-by-feeling) absolutely do not fly in the other:

When these two forms of discourse collide they are frequently unable to understand each other and tend to bring out the worst in each other. The first [new, sensitive] form of discourse seems lacking in rationality and ideological challenge to the second; the second [old, sporting] can appear cruel and devoid of sensitivity to the first. To those accustomed to the second mode of discourse, the cries of protest at supposedly offensive statements may appear to be little more than a dirty and underhand ploy intentionally adopted to derail the discussion by those whose ideological position can’t sustain critical challenge.

ii.

Seph stumbles upon a similar division, though it is less about discursive and argumentative modes, and more about social norms for emotional regulation and responsibility. He calls them Culture A and Culture B, mirroring sporting and herding styles, respectively.

In culture A, everyone is responsible for their own feelings. People say mean stuff all the time—teasing and jostling each other for fun and to get a rise. Occasionally someone gets upset. When that happens, there's usually no repercussions for the perpetrator. If someone gets consistently upset when the same topic is brought up, they will either eventually stop getting upset or the people around them will learn to avoid that topic. Verbally expressing anger at someone is tolerated. It is better to be honest than polite.

In such a culture, respect and status typically comes from performance; Seph quotes the maxim "If you can't sell shit, you are shit." We can see a commonality with sporting in that there is some shared goal which is attained specifically through adversarial play, such that some degree of interpersonal hostility is tolerated or even sought. Conflict is settled openly and explicitly.

In culture B, everyone is responsible for the feelings of others. At social gatherings everyone should feel safe and comfortable. After all, part of the point of having a community is to collectively care for the emotional wellbeing of the community's members. For this reason its seen as an act of violence against the community for your actions or speech to result in someone becoming upset, or if you make people feel uncomfortable or anxious. This comes with strong repercussions—the perpetrator is expected to make things right. An apology isn't necessarily good enough here—to heal the wound, the perpetrator needs to make group participants once again feel nurtured and safe in the group. If they don't do that, they are a toxic element to the group's cohesion and may no longer be welcome in the group. It is better to be polite than honest. As the saying goes, if you can't say something nice, it is better to say nothing at all.

In such a culture, status and respect come from your contribution to group cohesion and safety; Seph cites the maxim "Be someone your coworkers enjoy working with." But Seph's argument pushes back, fruitfully, on descriptions of Culture B as collaborative (which involve high self-assertion); rather, he writes, they are accommodating in the Thomas-Kilmann modes of conflict sense:

iii.

Seph and Alastair both gesture toward the way these modes feel gendered, with Culture A more "masculinized" and Culture B more "feminized."[1] While this seems important to note, given that a massive, historically unprecedented labor shift toward coed co-working has recently occured in the Western world, I don't see much point in hashing out a nature vs. nurture, gender essentialism debate here, so you can pick your side and project it. This is also perhaps interesting from the frame of American feminist history: early waves of feminism were very much about escaping the domestic sphere and entering the public sphere; there is an argument to be made that contemporary feminisms, now that they have successfully entered it, are dedicated to domesticating the public sphere into a more comfortable zone. Culture B, for instance, might well be wholly appropriate to the social setting of a living room, among acquaintances who don't know each other well; indeed, it feels much like the kind of aristocratic parlor culture of the same 19th C Britain that the sporting mode also thrived in, side-by-side. And to some extent, Culture A is often what gets called toxic masculinity; see Mad Men for a depiction.

(On the topic of domestication of the workplace: We've seen an increased blurring of the work-life separation; the mantra "lean-in" has been outcompeted by "decrease office hostility"; business attire has slid into informality, etiquette has been subsumed into ethics, dogs are allowed in the workplace. Obviously these changes are not driven by women's entrance into the workplace alone; the tech sector has had an enormous role in killing both business attire and the home-office divide, despite being almost entirely male in composition. And equally obvious, there is an enormous amount of inter- and intra-business competition in tech, which is both consistently cited by exiting employees as a hostile work environment, and has also managed to drive an outsized portion of global innovation the past few decades—thus cultural domestication is not at all perfectly correlated with a switch from Culture A to B. Draw from these speculations what you will.)

There are other origins for the kind of distinctions Seph and Alastair draw; one worthwhile comparison might be Nietzsche's master and slave moralities. The former mode emphasizes power and achievement, the other empathy, cooperation, and compassion. (Capitalism and communitarianism fall under some of the same, higher-level ideological patterns.) There are differences of course: the master moralist is "beyond" good and evil, or suffering and flourishing, whereas Culture A and B might both see themselves as dealing with questions of suffering but in very different ways. But the "slave revolt in morality" overwrote an aristocratic detachment or "aboveness" that we today might see as deeply immoral or inhuman; it is neither surprising nor damning that a revolting proletariat—the class which suffered most of the evils of the world—would speak from a place of one-to-one, attached self-advocacy. One can switch "sides" or "baskets" of the arena each half or quarter because they are impersonal targets in a public commons; one cannot so easily hold the same attitude toward defending one's home. This alone may indicate we should be more sympathetic to the communitarian mode than we might be inclined to be; certainly, those who advocate and embody this mode make plausible claims to being a similar, embattled and embittered class. A friend who I discussed these texts with argued that one failure mode of the rationalist community is an "unmooring" from the real concerns of human beings, slipping into an idealized, logical world modeled on self-similarity (i.e. highly Culture A, thinking over feeling in the Big 5 vocabulary), in a way that is blind to the realities of the larger population.

But there are also grave problems for such a discursive mode, especially when it becomes dominant. Because while on the surface, discursive battles in the sporting mode can appear to be battles between people, they are in reality battles between ideas.

iv.

As Mill argued in On Liberty, free discourse is crucial because it acts as a social steering mechanism: should we make a mistake in our course, freedom of discourse is the instrument for correcting it. But the mistake of losing free discourse is very hard to come back from; it must be fought for again, before other ideals can be pursued. 

Moreover, freedom of discourse is the means of rigorizing ideas before they are implemented, such as to avoid catastrophe. Anyone familiar with James Scott's Seeing Like A State, or Hayek's arguments for decentralized market intelligence, or a million other arguments against overhaulism, knows how difficult it is to engineer a social intervention that works as intended: the unforeseen, second-order effects; our inability to model complex systems and human psychology. Good intent is not remotely enough, and the herding approach cannot help but lower the standard of thinking and discourse emerging from such communities, which become more demographically powerful even as their ideas become worse (the two are tied up inextricably).

The fear of conflict and the inability to deal with disagreement lies at the heart of sensitivity-driven discourses. However, ideological conflict is the crucible of the sharpest thought. Ideological conflict forces our arguments to undergo a rigorous and ruthless process through which bad arguments are broken down, good arguments are honed and developed, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of different positions emerge. The best thinking emerges from contexts where interlocutors mercilessly probe and attack our arguments’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses as their defenders. They expose the blindspots in our vision, the cracks in our theories, the inconsistencies in our logic, the inaptness of our framing, the problems in our rhetoric. We are constantly forced to return to the drawing board, to produce better arguments.

And on the strength of sporting approaches in rigorizing discourse:

The truth is not located in the single voice, but emerges from the conversation as a whole. Within this form of heterotopic discourse, one can play devil’s advocate, have one’s tongue in one’s cheek, purposefully overstate one’s case, or attack positions that one agrees with. The point of the discourse is to expose the strengths and weaknesses of various positions through rigorous challenge, not to provide a balanced position in a single monologue

Thus those who wish us to accept their conceptual carvings or political advocacies without question or challenge are avoiding short-term emotional discomfort at the price of their own long-term flourishing, at the cost of finding working and stable social solutions to problems. Standpoint epistemology correctly holds that individuals possess privileged knowledge as to what it's like (in the Nagel sense) to hold their social identities. But it is often wrongly extended, in the popular game of informational corruption called "Telephone" or "Chinese Whispers," as arguing that such individuals also possess unassailable and unchallengeable insight into the proper societal solutions to their grievances. We can imagine a patient walking into the doctor's office; the doctor cannot plausibly tell him there is no pain in his leg, if he claims there is, but the same doctor can recommend treatment, or provide evidence as to whether the pain is physical or psychosomatic.A lack of discursive rigour would not be a problem, Alastair writes, "were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing."

v.

As for myself, it was not too long ago I graduated from a university in which a conflict between these modes is ongoing. We had a required course called

Contemporary Civilization

, founded in the wake of World War I, which focused on the last 2,000 years of philosophy, seminar-style: a little bit of introductory lecture, but most of the 2 x 2-hour sessions each week were filled by students arguing with one other. In other words, its founding ethos was of sporting and adversarial collaboration.We also had a number of breakdowns where several students simply could not handle this mode: they would begin crying, or say they couldn't deal with the [insert atmosphere adjective] in the room, and would either transfer out or speak to the professor. While they were not largely representative, they required catering to, and no one wished to upset these students. I have heard we were a fortunate class insofar as we had a small handful of students willing to engage sporting-style, or skeptical a priori of the dominant political ideology at the school. When, in one session, a socialist son of a Saudi billionaire, wearing a $10,000 watch and a camel-hair cashmere sweater, pontificated about "burning the money, reverting to a barter system, and killing the bosses," folks in class would mention that true barter systems were virtually unprecedented in post-agricultural societies, and basically unworkable at scale. In other classes, though, when arguments like these were made—which, taken literally, are logically irrational, but instead justify themselves through sentiment, a legitimation of driving emotion rather than explicit content, in the Culture B sense—other students apparently nodded sagely from the back of the room, "yes, and-ing" one another til their noses ran. Well, I wanted to lay out the styles with some neutrality, but I suppose it's clear now where my sympathies stand.

[1] It should go without saying, but to cover my bases, these modes feeling "feminized" or "masculinized" does not imply that all women, or women inherently, engage in one mode while all men inherently engage in another. Seph cites Camille Paglia as an archetypal example of a Culture A woman, and while she may fall to the extreme side of the Culture A mode, I'd argue most female intellectuals of the 20th C (at least those operated outside the sphere of feminist discourse) were strongly sporting-types: Sontag, for instance, was vociferous and unrelenting. 

[rosesvioletshardy]

can we do it? - billy/four - chapter 1

chapter 1 here! it took me a while to figure out what i wanted to write because since i sort of am following the movie, i wanted to put scenes of what they do when they are by themselves

i really hope you guys like this story because i know it’s not as good as lawki but i’m really trying here

also good news, i finish my summer classes on the 31st and bad news is that i’m starting a new job which i might not be able to write as much but i’ll try to keep a schedule of when i am going to post.

summary: one team. seven people. two lovers. things are about to get crazy and zero and four don’t know if they can do it with everything that’s going on

masterlist

# of words: 2,201

warnings: none, just a little swearing

inbox me or message me if you want to be added to the taglist for this series

--

It’s been a few days since six died and they had decided to go to the ocean to dump his body. one kept eyeing zero and noticed that she hadn't said anything in those few days. he knew exactly why she was acting the way and wanted to talk to her about her but knew she wasn’t going to listen.

now they were getting ready to go on a boat ready to toss his body over. zero thought it was inhumane but she knew what had to be done.

“i don’t like this” she said as they entered the boat

“well, neither do i but it has to be done mami” three told her as he and four brought six’s body that was in a bag onto the boat.

while they sailed out to the middle of the ocean, no one had said a word. Every now and then they would all take a look at zero who was furthest from six’s body and kept staring at it. The rest of the team, except one, wondered why she reacted most to his death and why she was the way she is. at one point, five had wanted to talk to her but figured it was best to leave her alone for a while. four would glance at her every few seconds and she would be stuck in the same position, sat down on the floor, knees to her chest, staring at his lifeless body.

“okay, we’re here” one said stopping the boat

Three had pulled out shot glasses as well as a bottle rum to give and send off a toast to him.

“Here’s a toast to a kid I liked.”

“Are you crying?” two asked as she noticed tears fall causing zero to look up

“We didn’t even know his name” he finished 

“We don’t know any names.” two told him. This caused zero to roll her eyes seeing that she and one were the only ones who knew their names since he had her look them all up when finding them

“What was his name?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s a good man” one said sitting down next to four

Zero had wanted to speak but she knew if she did, she would end up revealing everything and she didn’t want one to get mad

“Thought i managed the risk. i’m sorry” he finished

“Did he have a family?” five asked him. One looked over at zero and spoke before she could say anything

“I think you’re looking at it, all of us.” two said.

“Well she got something right” zero had thought before one had interrupted her thoughts

“We’re not a family. Not the cleavers”

“What?”

“The Cleavers. Ward, june? Leave it to Beaver? Jerry Matthews? Tony Dow, Barbra Billingsley, Hugh Beaumont? No? Nob-” one had said before zero spoke up for the first time since they’ve set sail

“No one watches your fucking show one!” she yelled before getting up and going to the front.

Everyone had watched her leave before four set his glass down and tried to walk over before one stopped him

“Don’t bother. She just needs to let it all out of her system. I’m sure she’ll come around to it” he told him “When? She's been at it for days now and I'm tired of it. I’m sorry but she needs to know that she’s isn’t the only one who has been affected by this ”

“Just stop. Now it’s time. Just grab the head” 

Four gave up and did what he was told as the rest of them gathered around the body and each grabbed a part

“What does this mean?”

“It means we find a seven and i talk to zero” one answered fours question as they threw the body into the blue ocean

as soon as zero heard the splash, she knew it was over with and that six was gone forever. the team continued to stay on the boat a little longer and finished eating their food and drinking. well all of them except four. he couldn’t help but wonder as to why zero took it harder than him when he and six were almost like brothers. the night began to get darker before one decided it was time to head back out to their trailers. no one said a single word that night as they headed back to their trailers. zero went into her trailer before getting bored and decided she needed to ride around the site to clear her mind a bit. Four was in his trailer watching movies on his phone before he heard ruckus coming out from the window above him. he was confused as to what it was before grabbing his skateboard to go see what it was that was distracting him from relaxing. 

when he got out, he saw zero riding her bike around with her music in what it seemed like to relax herself before he skated closer to her

“bit late to be riding a bike, especially with no lights in’nt” he yelled over to her causing her to almost fall over. He noticed what happened and went closer to her to help her

“What the fuck four?!” she yelled at him as he helped her get up but she just decided to sit down on the ground

“i’m sorry, didn’t mean for that to happen. why are you out here anyways? it’s late and dark out.” he asked sitting down next to her. She didn’t know what to do besides cross her legs and put her head on his shoulder

“don’t know. I guess it’s because of what’s happened the past few days and earlier today. didn’t feel that well mentally about everything.” she told him. Four kept quiet but understood what she was talking about and could see it. He let out a deep sigh and looked back out to their location before talking

“i understand. i don’t know if you heard me yell at one earlier about you, but i’m sorry about it. i haven’t been the best either and i try not to show but i guess there are times where i just burst out. if we’re being honest, i actually cried the night it happened.” 

when he told her that, her head shot up. she didn’t think that he would be the type to cry, seeing that he always had this tough guy exterior like one and three. he turned to her and gave a small nod and sad smile. They both looked into each other's eyes before they slowly leaned in. as soon as their lips were about to touch, zero moved her head away. They both knew it was wrong. One of the first things one had told the group was no relationships or hookups. They were strictly off limits.

“um i’m sorry, we shouldn’t be doing this.” she told him getting up and grabbing her bike before getting on and heading back to her trailer

“No, i’m sorry. i-it’s my fault. Um goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

as they both turned around to head back, four stopped and turned back around and calling out her name

“Zero!”

“What!?”

“Come over to mine, we can watch a movie together”

Zero stood there for a bit debating on whether or not she should go. one hand, she gets to probably get to know more about him than she already knew but on the other hand if she had ended up falling asleep and one found them together, god knows what would happen. She understood why he didn't want them fraternizing with each other or other people while on missions, but she also did understand in case it’ll make them uncomfortable. if they had anymore after the shit show in italy. they walked back to four’s trailer and for her shocking it was surprisingly neat.

“Thinking about how clean it is huh?” he asked as he let her in

zero was speechless and could only nod. Of all the guys she has either dated or hooked up with, they have had messy rooms and had most of her hookups at her place but four wasn’t like them. she went over and sat on his bed as he began to set his phone up and connect it to what seemed like a projector

“you don’t have a dvd player or a tv?” she asked him

“Nah, been pirating movies for a few years now. Saves money”

“Huh, wondered why i never thought of doing that, sure as hell would’ve saved me a lot of money.”

“I take it you’re a big movie fan then?”

“Mmhm, before i “died”, every other weekend my brother and I would go to our parents house and we would go the the theaters and spend the rest of the day with each other” “do you miss them? Your family?” he asked 

“Everyday. I felt like it was a selfish choice to leave them behind. You know? Like i didn’t think about it that much and not even hours later after one asked me i just said yes. Watching my own family having to bury an empty coffin hurt in more ways imaginable.” she told him not even paying attention to what was playing, just staring off into space before finishing

“What about you? Have you always been interested in the parkour thing?” 

“Yeah. feels like i’m free when i do it. Before all of this, I had a group and we used to steal pretty much anything that cost something only millionaires could afford. We were looking for a necklace once, the kalahari, in ukraine. Well I found it and as soon as we fled the police. We jumped from one building to another by using ropes and cables but as soon as i grabbed on and swung, it snapped.” four tells her before letting out a deep breath. Zero could see where the story was going 

“You don’t have to finish if you don’t feel comfortable. I don’t want you to relive something that you didn’t mean to happen.” zero told him grabbing his hand

Four felt a sense of relief. He felt fine but sometimes opening up to people was hard for him, and telling someone how he “died”, even if she was like family to him, made him feel uneasy at the moment. All he could do was nod and turned his head and look into her eyes, as she went back to focusing on the movie. They both did feel something for each other but they had to remember the rules that were set for them once they joined the team. If they got caught they wouldn’t know what to do because it would make everything more awkward than it already were. They continued to watch the movie until zero fell asleep in four’s arms. When he looked down to see asleep, he carefully moved her so she was on his bed and put the blanket over her so she would be comfortable before going over to the couch until he heard her voice

“Four?”

“Yeah? I’m still here” he told her 

“Can you stay with me? I don’t feel-”

“Yeah, yeah, of course” he told her as he got up from the couch and walked back over to his bed and went in. as he laid on his bed, zero wrapped her arms around him and snuggled closer to him while her ear sat where his heart would be. he tried to stay calm and keep a steady heartbeat but he couldn’t until she grabbed his hand and held it. 

“goodnight four.”

“g’night zero”

though four couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t help but look at her and notice the features of her face. he truly wanted to kiss when they were outside together an hour earlier but she didn’t and he understood why she didn’t want to. he then spent the next hour staring at the ceiling before falling asleep holding the girl he loved. she was there when they met and thought she was the most beautiful person in the room. 

Although he almost “died”, he at least was willing to die after meeting her even if they didn’t know each other’s name. He also remembers her yelling at one for the way he was deciding to recruit him and how he actually could’ve died. The first time they actually did talk was a little after they went back to the base. Zero was meant to take care of his injuries that he had gotten from falling about 5 stories down. Turning so he wasn’t on his back anymore, he pulled her closer into his chest and let out a deep sigh before closing his eyes and letting sleep take over his body. I

n his trailer, one saw everything go down between them and began to worry as to what is going to happen and if he was going to talk to them about what’s happening. He knew they liked each other, since the start and always saw the side glances they gave to each other and the way they had conversations. One just didn’t want them being in a relationship ruin everything for the team and what they have become.

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober Day 29

Reluctant Bedrest

Ao3

Summary: After a run in with a psychic alien, Dick notices that Bruce is acting strangely. He's protective... perhaps too protective.

Note: Dick is Robin, about 16 years old in this fic.

Please be aware of warnings in tags.

-o-o-o-o-

The reason Bruce doesn't like meta heroes in Gotham isn't because he's afraid of what they can inspire. Gotham already has its thing, and Joker seeing some kid fly through the air or some man run super fast isn't going to change his shtick. 

Bruce doesn't like meta heroes in Gotham because he's weary of what they can bring. 

And they can bring trouble. Magic trouble. Magic trouble that stems from a single Green Lantern appearance in Gotham just so Hal can return a pen he borrowed from Bruce and forgot to return at the end of their last League meeting. 

In Dick's defense, it's a nice pen. He gave it to Bruce himself. So really, it's not Hal's fault some alien magician from space decided to come down to earth and stir trouble, it's Bruce's because he, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to let Hal borrow the nice pen Dick might have accidentally stolen from Bullock.

Long story short, there's a space lady currently floating in the middle of some warehouse, using her neat magic powers to not only telepathically lift up the crates around her, but also manipulate them open and aim the illegal weapons from inside. 

It's Gotham, so of course the random warehouse they've found themselves in has illegal weapons. 

And the thing is? Bruce and Dick are completely alone in this even though Hal was the one who attracted her here. He left the city before she arrived. He's probably halfway across the solar system by now on the way to his next super cool Lantern Corps mission. 

But this is fine. There's nothing Gotham can't handle, even if it's powerful guns controlled by space magic. 

"Robin!" Bruce shouts, "down!"

And Dick goes up, flipping over the stream of poorly aimed bullets and laughing until he lands on one of the warehouses support beams. He watches Batman charge forward, launching himself into the alien lady and stabbing a powerful taser into her thigh. The screech she makes is inhuman, and Dick grins, jumping from the beam and hitting her across the face with his heel. 

She goes flying to the ground, collapsing in a crumpled heap as Dick rolls to his feet on the ground, careful of the pressure on his ankles. The moment Bruce takes one confident step towards here, his hand hovering where the enhanced cuffs are, he knows they've won. Guns are clattering to the ground, the magazines popping out from the force and the synthetic black stocks cracking. Thankfully, no bullets launch themselves. 

"Can I come with you to drop her off?" Dick asks, bouncing on his heels and approaching as Bruce does so. The alien groans and curls her clawed hands, but remains relatively marionette-like on the ground. 

"No," Bruce grunts because he's boring like that. So Dick wants to go to the Watchtower in space. What's bad about that?

Dick opens his mouth to argue, but his voice catches in his throat as the alien's spine tightens like a panther the second Bruce is within range. "B! Watch out!"

Dick runs forward, but it's already too late. The alien contorts her body in a way a human would never be able to do and wraps her long fingers around Bruce's skull, her eyes flashing a sickening teal. Bruce goes dangerously still for the entire time it takes Dick to run up there and knee her in the gut. She makes a weird gurgling noise then stumbles back, throwing out her arms frantically. Dick hisses as one of her claws tear through the skin above his left eye, but he ignores it in favor of grabbing his own pair of cuffs and tackling her, forcing her strange, almost double jointed limbs behind her back and snapping them together. The cuffs hum, and she goes boneless.

Dick steps back, panting, then spins on his heel to find Bruce still... just standing there. Blankly. Like he’s trying to reconnect his eyes to his brain and his brain to the rest of his body. Unease pools in his gut, allowing a stone of worry to sink to the bottom. He swallows and steps forward. “B...?”

Bruce blinks under his cowl, then slowly his head turns towards Dick at a creaking pace. 

“You...” Bruce begins... his voice is scratchy like he’s been screaming for hours. “You’re hurt.”

A spike of confusion settles near Dick’s skull. Dick brings his fingers to his forehead and realizes that no, it’s not a physical spike of confusion, but a stinging cut that leaves drops of red glistening on his green gloves. It’s not that bad though. Probably doesn’t even need stitches. Dick wipes the blood off on his red tunic and shakes his head. 

“I’m fine.” 

Bruce doesn’t seem to believe it. Or at least let the issue go. He stares at Dick in a way that’s so unlike himself and Dick swallows nervously, then turns towards the crumpled alien lady to both gather his thoughts and hide the unease that must be showing on his face.

However, he doesn’t have long before Bruce walks up besides him and wraps a hand around Dick’s arm, firm but gentle. The shock of physical contact alone has Dick gasping and almost bonelessly allowing Bruce to manhandle Dick into facing him. Bruce’s free hand touches the sliver of broken skin above Dick’s eyebrow and frowns. 

“We need to get this looked at.”

Dick swallows. “Really, B, I’m fine. We should figure out what to do about-“

“The police are fully capable to take it from here.” Bruce’s hand tightens on Dick’s arm, not bruising but enough to get a message across that he’s not going to let go willingly. “Let’s go. You’re hurt.”

“I’m not ten anymore,” Dick mumbles, but walks along anyway as Bruce begins to drag him out of the warehouse and towards the Batmobile. Bruce opens the passenger seat and coaxes Dick inside the car. Apprehension settles in Dick’s throat as the door closes, and as Bruce walks around the front of the car Dick quickly tries the door handle. 

It moves, but it doesn’t open. Bruce has locked Dick inside.

Immediately, Dick knows that not only is something off with Bruce, but something is wrong. However, he doesn’t get a chance to think much more about it before Bruce is settling into the driver's seat.

“Bruce...?” Dick asks.

Bruce doesn’t answer, just holds out a rag towards Dick and mumbles. “Buckle your belt.” 

Dick does so, then reluctantly grabs the rag to hold it against the cut on his forehead. It’ll probably be scabbing by the time they get back to the cave. Maybe Bruce is just worried about infection? He got cut by the fingernail of an alien, after all.

Yeah. That’s it.

And then his thoughts go crashing down when Bruce frowns and reaches across the dashboard to hook his finger under the straps over Dick’s chest. Dick squawks and attempts to bat his hand away. But Bruce is persistent and tugs on the strap, frowning at the amount of space he creates between Dick’s chest and the strap.

It’s barely half an inch, but Bruce still ignores Dick’s complaints and tugs the buckle of the belt to make it tighter, practically tying Dick to the seat of the car.

Once Bruce is done and turns on the car, Dick sits there in stunned and embarrassed silence. He’s sixteen. He doesn’t need Bruce to check every cut and his seatbelt buckles. 

Bruce begins his drive towards the cave in grim silence, his mouth slowly becoming deeper and deeper into a stiff frown that Dick’s now too afraid to ask about.

Something is wrong with Bruce, and Dick has no idea what. The alien lady must have done something to him, and Dick’s going to find out.

For now though, he forces himself to relax against the chair and keep the rag on his head, and stays there silently until they arrive in the cave. 

By now, however, every single one of Dick’s nerves feel shot. He reaches to the door handle to pry it open, and then remembers that Bruce had turned on some sort of child lock that Dick didn’t even know existed until now. Once Bruce finally leaves Dick alone, Dick’s definitely going to sneak to the car and pry around the mobile for other childish restrictions Bruce still has installed to embarrass Dick. For now though, he curls his fingers into the rag and waits in tense silence as Bruce walks around the car once again to open Dick’s door. 

Dick tries to duck under his arms to escape towards the changing area, but Bruce catches his arm. Not for the first time does Dick loath his short stature and his persistently thin body type. Bruce practically has his entire upper arm trapped entirely in his large hand, and it makes it difficult to get free. Dick unwillingly stumbles along as Bruce begins to drag him towards the med bay. 

Dick looks desperately to the bat-computer just to be reminded harshly that Alfred isn’t even in Gotham at the moment. He’s on paid vacation for the next two weeks. 

Dicks alone. 

Alone and being dragged to the med bay by an iron grip. “Bruce,” he gasps, “really, I’m fine-“

Dick’s tugged to the cot and given a stern look. Bruce hasn’t taken his cowl off yet. He normally always takes his cowl off in the cave. 

Dick hates how badly he wants to do as he’s told. He’s never had that big of a rebellious phase, at least not as big as any of his friends. Dick doesn’t know why, but no matter what Bruce does to piss Dick off, Dick still feels obligated to do as he’s told. Doing his own thing in battle is one thing, but disobeying a direct order like the look Bruce is giving him right now sends shivers of discomfort through his entire being. 

Dick swallows and hops slowly onto the edge of the medical cot, grabbing the fabric of his tunic with his free hand as his other presses the useless rag against his forehead. 

Bruce nods, then turns to go through various tools that Dick doesn’t really know the names or uses of. There’s never really been a point to memorize medical terms before, not when either Alfred or Leslie are normally easily able to get a hold of. 

Now though, as Bruce pulls out an empty syringe and a clean needle, then pulls out a small brown bottle to dip the syringe in, he really wishes he'd at least asked more questions whenever someone took care of him in this room. 

“Bruce...”

Bruce grunts then lifts the syringe, flicking the base to get rid of the bubbles in the clear liquid. 

“Bruce, what is that?”

Dick really tries to not sound too scared or worried, but it’s hard to keep the shiver out of his voice when Bruce turns towards him with his cowl still up, his frown sill present, the needle still held ready in his hands.

Batman has scared Dick before. Many times. Sometimes, Batman loses himself in anger and Dick has to step back and breathe. 

But Bruce has never scared him. Not like this.

And somewhere at the back of his mind, he screams at himself that he shouldn’t be scared. He’s a teenager now. Teenagers like him don’t get scared.

But then Bruce takes a step forward and every cell in Dick’s body erupts into red.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. And Dick’s terrified to figure out what.

So, instead of sitting there and letting it happen, Dick throws the red dotted rag at Bruce's face and then ducks under his grabbing arms. Dick’s heart pounds in his throat as his cape is briefly tugged, but Dick thankfully manages to slip away and make a mad dash towards the manor.

“Robin!” Bruce—Batman?—shouts. But Dick doesn’t listen to the angry tone or the beginnings of heavy boots chasing him up the stairs. He keeps running until he’s through the grandfather clock and sprinting towards- towards where?

He doesn’t know where he should go.

Bruce’s feet pound on the metal stairs, and Dick decides to just run and think about specifics later. 

Eventually, Dick ends up running into his room and slamming the door closed behind him with his chest heaving for air. He’s just about to lock the door closed and hide in the small entrance to the ceiling in his closet, but then the handle of his door turns itself with a shocking force and then slams open. The wood of the door slams into Dick’s skull, not only reopening the just barely clotting cut, but making a dent of its own. Dick’s head spins as he goes down, red obscuring the vision of one of his eyes. He vaguely hears a sharp gasp, but he’s too focused on the black shadow descending upon him, too fixated on trying to scramble out from the metal fingers once again closing over his arms.

“-m sorry...” Bruce is saying. Apologizing. “I’m trying to help. Trying to keep you safe. This is why you have to do as I say...”

There’s the flash of a needle right in front of his blurry eyes, and Dick doubles his struggling, his heart practically hitting the backs of his teeth. However, it’s all useless when the needle breaks the skin of Dick’s neck and the cold, tingling liquid enters his system. Immediately, Dick feels twenty times more nauseous than when he was hit in the face with his bedroom door.

His struggles grow weaker against his will, and soon he’s being lifted so he’s cradled in Bruce’s arms; his nose pressed into the crook of his neck. Dick can smell Gotham on him. 

For a terrible second, he thinks Bruce will carry him through the rest of the house and back to the med bay, but then the world spins as he’s maneuvered into one arm, and then lowered onto his own bed. Bruce carefully pulls up Dick’s rumpled navy blue comforter and puts it over Dick’s body up to his chest. Dick’s still just aware enough to try and fight him, try and shove his too gentle hands away with whatever strength he has left after that mystery dosage of drugs. 

But then Dick’s wrists are grabbed, then lifted, then cuffed through the bars of his headboard. 

Dick’s so stunned that he hardly processes that Bruce is tucking him in until Bruce is leaning over him and pressing the comforter under Dick’s back.

Dick wants to kick him, yell at him, but he can hardly keep his eyes that focused anymore. Before he knows it, the blurry face of Bruce leans forward and runs his Kevlar clad hand through Dick’s hair, lifts his bangs, then presses a kiss just to the side of the double whammy of head wounds.

“You’ll be safe here,” Bruce says, running his thumb gently over the smarting cut, “I’ll be back, and I’ll make you feel better, okay?”

Dick’s stomach twists at those words and the plethora of meanings it could have. But his eyes are closing against his will and his toes are tingling. There’s the taste of iron on his tongue.

Before he knows it, he falls unconscious while Bruce turns and walks out of his bedroom.

-o-o-o-o-

When Dick wakes up, he... doesn’t hurt. He feels really good, actually. Considering. He blinks blurriness from his eyes and tests out the level of control he has over his body, and it’s surprisingly a lot more than what he expected. Whatever Bruce gave him, it must not have been too strong.

He bends his knees and wiggles his toes, then curls his numb fists besides his hips to feel the handcuffs have been replaced with soft, padded straps. Familiar straps. Looped over his wrists and ankles... another around his chest. Bruce must have taken off the restraints from the medical cot in the basement and brought them up here.

Which doesn’t surprise him as much as it probably should. In fact, what really catches his attention is that he’s no longer in his Robin uniform, but in his softest pair of pajamas. 

The observation sends shivers down his spine. It’s not like Bruce hasn’t assisted Dick in changing before... in their line of night-work, you sometimes get hit bad enough to not be able to move much, and it’s not a good idea to treat wounds or sleep in an outfit that’s been through the worst Gotham has to offer. But this? This feels awful. Vile... almost. His underwear has been changed, he can feel the hems around his thighs.

“Robin?” 

Dick tenses and turns his head. The motion causes his brain to spike with pain near his eye sockets, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it could. Besides him, Bruce sits, still in full Batman regalia with his cowl stubbornly over his head. Dick can see red markings near the bridge of his nose, proof that the cowl has been on longer than what it’s intended for.

Has Bruce been here the entire time? Just watching him?

“B‘rs..” Dick mumbles, then tugs on the straps on his wrists hidden beneath the comforter. “L’me go...”

Bruce frowns. “You’re still hurt... you’ll hurt yourself.”

Dick groans in frustration. His fingers don’t have that much control as he would like, but just from a little tugging Dick knows he’s not getting out of these unless someone lets him out. They’re bat-grade.

“But...” Dick tries, forcing his puffy feeling tongue to cooperate. “I have school...”

“I called you out...” Bruce replies. “Until you’re no longer hurt... until the city is safe...”

“It’s j’sta scratch, B. It’s-“

“You’re not leaving until you’re healed.”

Dick snaps his jaw shut with the biting tone of Bruce’s voice and stares at him with wide eyes. Bruce must notice his shock because his shoulders loosen and his lips twitch into... an apologetic smile.

“I’m not angry,” Bruce says, “I just want to protect you. Keep you safe. Do you understand?”

Dick has the feeling that he’s not leaving the bed whether he says he understands or not. So, instead, he just glares.

It doesn’t seem to phase Bruce too much. In fact, it does nothing to stop Bruce from bringing his hands up to Dick’s head and checking on the bandages there that Dick hadn’t even really processed until now. Dick tries to turn his neck away, but Bruce’s free hand latches onto his chin. Once Bruce makes a satisfied noise, he leans back and then grabs a bowl of something that was sitting unnoticed until now on Dick’s bedside table.

“I’m glad I predicted the time you would awake accurately,” Bruce says, stirring a metal spoon in the bowl. “It’s still hot.”

He takes the spoon out and sure enough there's a... spoonful of oatmeal. Dick can smell cinnamon. And it smells... good. Shockingly good. Dick the alien lady gives Bruce cooking skills?

Bruce brings the spoon closer to Dick’s mouth and immediately Dick turns his head. 

“Robin...” Bruce chides, and Dick curls his fists tighter. So tight he can feel his nails making crescent marks in his palms. He makes sure he doesn’t pierce skin though... because if Bruce is already being overwhelmingly concerned with his health because of a scratch...

Dick bites his lip. “I can feed myself.”

“It’s hot. You might burn yourself.”

“I can feed mys- mph-!”

Suddenly, there’s a spoon in his mouth, resting on top of his bottom teeth as the oatmeal just barely touches the roof of his mouth. He can feel the steam... but it’s not even that hot.

“Eat, Robin,” Bruce says.

Robin. That’s all Bruce has called him since this all began. He hasn’t gotten dressed out of his suit. He doesn’t look like he’s slept. It’s like he has a single purpose, and that’s to keep... Robin safe. 

Overwhelmingly safe.

This isn’t Bruce. This... this is brainwashing or possession or- or... but this isn’t Bruce. 

Dick slowly closes his mouth, heat and oats spreading across his taste buds as Bruce slides the spoon out of his mouth slowly to not drop any food or drool onto Dick’s chin. 

It tastes good. That doesn’t stop the blush of embarrassment that paints his cheeks and ears.

“Was it okay?” Bruce asks, and Dick swallows, then glares.

“Can we just get this over with?”

Bruce, once again, doesn’t seem offended by Dick’s snapping. He just smiles, grabs another spoonful, and blows on top of it. Dick feels like he’s going to be sick.

Instead, he opens his mouth again and allows this fake—definitely fake?—version of Bruce to spoon feed him until the bowl has been scrapped clean. 

Bruce sets the empty bowl down then smiles at Dick. Smiles. Dick firmly keeps his mouth shut. 

“I’m going to put the bowl away and make some lunch. After that, we can watch a movie?” Bruce stands up. Smiles wider. “How about that?”

Dick tugs on the straps around his wrists ever so slightly, frustration building up in his gut. He takes a deep breath. He needs to find a way out of this. He... can't let this continue. 

“Actually... I need to use the restroom.”

Bruce’s smile softens into sympathy. “Will you fight me? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Will you hurt me?” Dick snaps back without really meaning to. Fortunately, it seems to be the right thing to say because a strong emotion passes over Bruce’s face. 

“No,” Bruce says, “never. I’ll never hurt you. But... Robin... you have to promise to not... disobey and get yourself hurt. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to get the catheter.”

Dick’s gut twists violently at that. 

Catheter. They have one of those?!

But he can’t just lay here and wait for this suffocatingly protective version of Bruce do this to him for much longer. He’s itching to move. Not just because this whole situation has his nerves fried to high heavens, but also because he’s been strapped down and rendered immobile even though he, by all means, is completely able to move.

Being forced to be still has always been something that gets him quickly uncomfortable. Even if it’s just very reluctant bedrest.

Dick resists a gulp. He’ll have to risk it. 

“I won’t disobey or hurt myself,” Dick promises.

Bruce regards him for a second, and after a moment it seems he finds whatever he was looking for and leans forward to grab on to the hem of his comforter. Bruce carefully pushes the comforter down to reveal the straps tightly wrapping around his body. Dick remains still as one by one the straps are loosened. 

Dick forces himself to not attempt to escape right then and there. Instead, he allows Bruce to take his hand and carefully help sit him up, his gloved thumbs rubbing gentle circles over his sore wrists.

Bruce talks him through standing up again, guiding him on how slow to go to not cause the blood to rush from his head and make himself dizzy. Once he’s standing, Bruce’s grips on the small of his back and on his elbow, his head pounds for just a second. Probably from being hit in the head with a door... he probably just has a small goose bump. Bruce would never panic about something like that.

Bruce begins to walk him across the room, mumbling comforts and encouragements that aren’t needed during the walk into Dick’s bathroom. For a horrifying second, Dick thinks Bruce is going to attempt to help him, but with a barely contained relieved sigh Bruce simply sits him down on the toilet and explains that he’ll be waiting outside the door, and to call when Dick’s done.

The second the door clicks shut, Dick scrambles to his feet, careful of how his knees and fingers still feel slightly lethargic thanks to the drugs. But it’s nothing, Dick’s felt worse and has done a lot cooler flips and tricks with harsher head injuries. Way cooler tricks than climbing over the toilet to open the small, foggy glass window.

He opens the window and pokes his head outside, frowning at the height between himself and the ground. It’s a long drop. He’ll have to carefully scale the brick walls and window sills to make it down. He looks over towards where his bedroom windows are and then settles his gaze on the tree placed right next to his bedroom. He used to use that tree all the time to sneak out. If he’s slow and cautious, he should be able to just scale the wall to his bedroom, avoiding the windows Bruce can see out of, and then safely make his way down the branches of the tree.

With his mind made up, Dick stretches his fingers then steps onto the toilet tank to heft his upper body out the window. It’s a tight squeeze, but manageable if he turns to just the right angle-

“Robin!”

Shit.

Dick does his best to scramble out of the window as quickly as he can, but a heavy hand wraps around his ankle just as he’s about to fully exit. Before Dick knows it, he’s being dragged back inside, his struggling and kicking going ignored. 

Dick doesn’t allow himself to give up there, the second he’s back inside the bathroom, he throws the hardest punch he can against Bruce’s jaw. His bare knuckles hurt almost immediately, but he ignores it in favor of squirming out of Bruce’s shocked grasp and bolting out the bathroom door.

He doesn’t make it far before two arms wrap around his middle and he’s dragged down to the floor from the weight slamming into his back. Dick’s chin slams against the floor and he bites the corner of his tongue with a help. Bruce is over 250 pounds at least with the Batman armor, and all of it is laying on top of him. Practically suffocating him.

He wheezes and claws at the carpet below his body. “Buh- Bruce- You’re hurting me!”

He can feel Bruce tense above him at those words, and for a hopeful second Dick thinks he’s gotten through to him...

But then Bruce tightens his grip, forcing Dick up and against his chest. “It’s for your own good,” Bruce says, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as well as Dick.

Soon, Dick’s lifted in Bruce’s hold, his feet swinging on the ground thanks to his cursed shortness when Bruce stands fully up. Bruce turns towards the damn bed and Dick snaps. He kicks and struggles and punches, but Bruce seems to not be affected, or maybe he just doesn’t care. Before Dick knows it, he’s thrown onto the bed and Dick’s heart jumps to his throat.

He tries to roll off, but his wrist is grabbed and he’s forced to his back. With expert movements, the first cuff is back on, and Dick screams in frustration.

He uses his free hand to grab at Bruce's face, then uses his legs to kick and knee Bruce’s body as hard as he can, but it’s all useless. Soon enough, Dick’s pinned back to the mattress of his bed, each strap exactly back to where they were before. Dick takes a deep breath and glares at Bruce. 

“Let me go.”

Bruce shakes his head and double checks the restraints. “I told you to follow instructions, Robin, I told you what would happen if you didn’t listen.”

And not for the first time, real fear curdles in his stomach. Only, this time it’s so much worse. “Bruce, no-“

Bruce has the audacity to give him a sympathetic look. “Stay here, I’ll be back with the catheter.”

Bruce stands up and pulls the bedsheet over Dick’s body. Dick tugs on his restraints desperately as Bruce begins to walk away. “Bruce! Batman! Stop! I-I’m sorry I-“

The door closes and Dick groans, tugging harder against the straps. He isn’t going anywhere. He’s completely powerless. 

He’s so frustrated that tears begin to swell in his eyes. He strains against the straps just to bring his shoulder up to his cheek and attempts to wipe away the moisture before any tears can fall, but even that is difficult to do. 

He wants this to stop. He wants Bruce back. The normal Bruce. And isn’t that pathetic? He’s a teenager. Sixteen years old and crying because his dad- his guardian isn’t acting right. It has to have been something the alien lady did, Bruce wouldn’t act like this normally. He wouldn’t strap Dick down just because of a cut, he wouldn’t escort him to the bathroom, he wouldn’t grab a fucking catheter just because Dick was misbehaving. 

He wouldn’t care this much about Dick’s safety.

He forces himself to relax and to quit struggling in the padded straps. All he’s doing is irritating his wrists and ankles. There’s nothing he can do. Bruce will come back and- and Dick will just have to wait this out until someone notices something is wrong. Until Alfred comes home... 

Will Dick really be stuck like this for a week? How long does it take for minor cuts to heal? Is Bruce going to make Dick wait until his skin is smooth and there’s no scabbing? No trace of it left?

He doesn’t want to wait that long. 

He really doesn’t want to.

All too soon, the door opens back up and Bruce is holding a bag full of equipment. Urinary Catheters aren’t ever bulky and are normally able to be hidden in someone’s clothes, so maybe Bruce has brought even more equipment just in case Dick misbehaves in other ways. 

“I’m going to sedate you,” Bruce explains, opening the bag to reveal exactly what Dick expected. Tubes. Dick’s gut twists. “So you won’t be uncomfortable during the procedure.”

“Don’t do it. Please.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, just digs out the supplies he needs. Once the tubing and bags are laid out, Bruce grabs a needle and that same brown bottle as before.

Dick clenches his teeth and glares at the ceiling. Man up, Grayson. It’s just a catheter. People get them all the time. From the looks of it, it’s not even one that will go through the skin of his stomach. It’s just going to be inserted through his...

Man up, Grayson.

It’ll be fine.

Bruce approaches and rubs a cool cloth at the base of Dick’s neck. Dick brings his hands into fists and closes his eyes. 

Right as the point of a needle touches the base of his neck, something shocking happens.

His bedroom door bursts open, and there stands none other than Hal Jordan in full Green Lantern regalia, eyes wild behind his mask and his ring practically flaming on his finger. Before Bruce can even do anything, a bright bolt of green launches across the room and hits Bruce straight on, sending the man flying.

“Bruce!” Dick shouts as he crumples to the floor. Somewhere at the back of his brain, he knows that Bruce isn’t hurt, not with the visibly lowered power of the blast combined with Batman’s armor, and he also knows that Hal is here to help, but he can’t help but worry as Bruce groans on the floor, steam rising from his suit. Hal doesn’t give Bruce a chance to recover, he creates a small bubble around Bruce and traps him there, and then rushes over to Dick to undo the straps.

“I’m sorry,” Hal practically blubbers, hands shaking over the straps to unlock them. Dick shakes his head and sits up the moment he’s free enough to do so.

He looks at Bruce on the floor and clutches his stomach. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He was... persuaded to hyper-fixate on something he cares about,” Hal explains, not really looking like he understood it fully himself. “The Tralleine thought it was amusing... I’m sorry it took so long for me to get back, she wouldn’t talk until I was there.”

So the alien lady did cause this. Tralleine. Dick’s never heard of that species before. Not for the first time, Dick thinks about how cool of a job Hal has that allows him to fly through space and meet so many aliens all the time. 

“Can we fix him?” Dick asks.

Hal smiles. “Yeah, kiddo, yeah we can fix him. You want to come to the Watchtower with us?”

Dick nods, then allows Hal to take his hand. Before Dick knows it, he’s sitting at the Watchtower, eating some pie Clark brought over, and waiting for someone to come get him and tell him Bruce is Bruce again.

It takes hours, but soon enough, Dick’s bursting into the medical ward of the space station and immediately locking his gaze on Bruce. Bruce finally has his cowl pulled down, and his bare chest is wrapped thanks to the bruising and burns he has because of Hal’s energy blast.

But he’s there. He’s there and looking at Dick with such guilt and relief, that Dick doesn’t think. He just runs forward and wraps his arms around Bruce’s neck and squeezes. 

“I’m sorry, chum,” Bruce whispers. Strong arms curl around his back.

“It’s okay,” Dick replies into the corner of his neck.

“He needs plenty of rest,” another voice chimes in, and Dick turns to find Clark walking into the room with Hal standing behind. “Don’t over do it, Bruce.”

“I won't,” Bruce replies, still holding Dick as tightly as he dares. 

“We’d prefer it if you stayed in bed until the bruising fades, but I understand-“

Bruce cuts Clark off with a shake of his head. “It’s okay. I can stay in bed for a while.”

Clark smiles in understanding, and Hal shifts nervously behind him.

“Sorry,” Hal bursts, “I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I should have known something like this could happen and-“ 

And Dick laughs and Bruce chuckles. “Just don’t come to Gotham uninvited again, Jordan,” Bruce replies.

“Yeah, nothing bad happened,” Dick adds, “don’t sweat it. You’ll just have to make it up to me.”

Bruce goes silent like he thinks something bad happened and Dick makes a mental note to convince him that he’s seriously fine. Instead, he begins to list the things Hal can do to make it up to Dick and Bruce, like a space trip or a cool rock from a cool planet or maybe even an alien pet, and he can feel the tension in the room beginning to fall.

Today was scary, that’s for sure, but Dick bounces back easily. He’ll just have to make sure Bruce bounces back with him.

[snappedsky]

Fanatics 79

A mysterious threat is making it's way towards Earth, and the Battalion have to work fast to destroy it.

*Links to previous and next chapter in reblog*

--

Trouble through the Milky Way

           Pluto. An adorable, little planet beloved by many on its far off neighbor, Earth. It floats quietly in its cold, dark orbit around the sun, minding its own business.

           Then it’s blown to bits.

           A small ship flies by. It would be nondescript, if it weren’t for the giant plasma cannon grafted to its underside.

           A few lightyears away, Lard Kio watches the vessel through her distance viewfinder on the Resisty ship. She immediately calls Zim.

           On Earth, the sun is just barely peeking over the horizon. Zim is sleeping lightly in his bed when a beeping sounds through his base.

           “Master,” the Computer says while Zim’s eye cracks open. “You are receiving a call from Kio.”

           “Transfer it to my phone,” Zim orders as he sits up and grabs his cell phone. He answers the call and Kio’s face appears on screen.

           “Zim, we got a big problem,” she says sternly.

           He listens intently as she quickly explains the situation.

           An hour later, Dib, Gaz, Tak, and Pepito gather sleepily in Zim’s lab- except for Tak, who is wide awake.

           “There better be a good reason for waking me up before 6,” Gaz growls.

           “There is,” Zim replies from his chair at the main computer. “Pluto has been destroyed.”

           “No! Not Pluto!” Pepito cries in distress.

           “What could destroy Pluto?” Dib asks.

           “Not ‘what’. ‘Who’,” Zim explains as he pushes a button on the keyboard. A blurry image of a small grey ship with a disproportionately large cannon appears on the screen. “We’re not sure who they are, but they appear to be heading straight for the Earth. And with firepower like that, they can cause a lot of damage to the planet. At their current rate of speed, they will arrive by tomorrow morning. But because we do not know the range of their cannon, we have to assume we have less time than that. We have to stop them before they can get close.”

           “How do we do that?” Pepito asks.

           “Can we use the Epic?” Gaz suggests.

           “It doesn’t have any weapons yet,” Zim replies, “and going up against a ship in space without our own vehicle is just plain stupid.”            “So we gotta stop it from the surface,” Dib muses, “do we have any weapons that’ll work?”

           “I have an Irken Surface Cannon at my base,” Tak replies, “I just don’t have any mortar shells for it.”

           Dib rubs his chin with consideration. “Can you load it with other things?”

           “If they fit properly, sure.”

           “Then what about…the Blissful?”

           “The Blissful?” Gaz scoffs, “you mean that giant bomb you, Tak, Squee, and Maddie made for that science fair a couple years ago?”

           “Yeah,” Dib replies, “presumably it should be incredibly powerful.”

           “Presumably,” Tak repeats emphatically, “we were never able to test it.”

           “But it is highly unstable,” he points out.

           “You say that like it’s a good thing,” Pepito grimaces.

           “Shouldn’t we tell Squee first before we try to use it?” Gaz suggests.

           “That would be the polite thing to do,” he agrees, “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

--

           Squee is fast asleep in his bed, his face pressed into the pillow. Beside him, Nugget is also asleep, her claws restlessly kneading Squishy Pete.

--

           “There’s no time to call Squee,” Zim points out, “what if he doesn’t answer? We can’t wait for a response. We have to act now.”

           “Fine,” Tak groans, “where is it?”            “I helped put it in Squee’s basement,” he replies, “it should still be there. We will have to remove it and transport it to Tak’s base.”

           “So we have to get into Squee’s house,” Pepito’s states, “I think Devi has a key so she can clean while they’re away.”

           “We need to work fast,” Zim declares, “let’s go.”

           They leave quickly and fly the Epic across the city to Devi’s building. After setting down in the parking lot, they hurry up to her apartment and knock until she answers, looking none too pleased.

           “Ugh, it’s you guys,” she groans, rubbing her tired eyes.

           “Hi, Devi,” Pepito waves, “sorry but this is an emergency.”

           “What is it?” she asks impatiently.

           “We need into Squee’s house,” Dib replies, “you have a key, right?”

           “Yeah, hang on,” she says and ducks back into her apartment. She comes back after a few seconds with a single, bronze key. “Here. Just give it back to me later.”

           “Thank you,” Pepito chimes and they hurry away as Devi closes the door.

           Wasting no time, they fly over to Squee’s house and park at the curb. They rush up to the front walk and use the key.

           The kids stand uneasily on the front step as the door loudly creaks open. It seems to echo ominously throughout the dark house, the early morning sun barely filtering through the boarded-up windows.

           “Wow,” Dib comments, “this place is uh…kinda creepy without Squee here.”

           “Let’s just get into the basement and get the bomb,” Zim orders and steps into the house. He freezes, a chill shooting up his spine. He suddenly has the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. But he quickly shakes it off and glares at the others. “Let’s go. Hurry up.”

           Zim marches through the living room and Tak, Dib, Gaz, and Pepito quickly but cautiously follow. As they head to the hallway, they’re all constantly glancing around warily. They’ve been to a lot of haunted locations before but somehow this feels worse. Not haunted exactly, just…forbidden.

           They finally reach the basement door and Zim pushes it open. It creaks open even slower than the front door did, revealing a much darker room.

           “Where’s the light?” Gaz asks.

           “There isn’t one,” Zim replies as an electric torch pops out of his PAK, illuminating the area. It’s a completely empty room with a sudden drop near the opposite wall. Zim points to it. “The bomb is down there. I remember Johnny and Squee bringing me down there.”

           They quickly cross the empty room and peer over the gap. There’s just a ladder leading down into more darkness.

           “Right,” Tak grunts and nods at Zim. “After you.”

           Zim glares at her for a second before descending the ladder. One by one, the others follow.

           It’s only a couple feet to the bottom floor and they all look around as they hop off the ladder. They’re in another mostly empty room that leads to a large hallway, lit by flickering, fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Somewhere down the ladder, the normal drywall of the house changed to cement blocks that make up the entirety of the hallway. There are stains on the walls and floor that the kids try to ignore as Zim points to the only object in the room.

           “There it is,” he says.

           The Blissful: a giant, round, silver bomb with a purple smiley face with closed eyes painted on it. Five feet in diameter and over 150 pounds, it is practically just a container sloshing with volatile, explosive liquid.

           “It should fit in my cannon,” Tak says, “now, how do we get it out?”

           “The same way I got it in,” Zim replies as he extends his spider legs. Using lasers, they cut out a large section of the ceiling and set it aside, creating a hole to the surface. The kids are all slightly relieved to see sunlight.

           “Tak, you stay down here while I-,” Zim starts to explain before he’s cut off.

           “Why do I have to stay in the creepy basement?” Tak snaps.

           “What, are you scared?” he jeers.

           “Of course not.”

           “Then stay down here while I lift everyone out,” Zim orders, “once I’m out, you’ll help me lift the bomb up to the surface and Dib can bring the Epic around.”

           “Fine,” she huffs and eyes the spooky hallway. “Just…be quick.”

           Dib, Gaz, and Pepito hold onto Zim’s spider legs as he lifts them all up to the surface. Then he crouches next to the hole and lowers his spider legs down.

           “Okay, Tak, gently lift the bomb and pass it to me,” he demands.

           She seems to ignore him as she stares suspiciously down the hall.

           “Tak,” he says louder.

           “What?” she questions, looking at him. “Oh. Right.”

           Using her spider legs, Tak gently lifts the Blissful and passes it to Zim. He carefully lifts it through the hole and rests it on the ground.

           “Alright, Dib get the car,” Zim orders. Dib nods and quickly hurries around the houses back to the street. “Tak, let’s go.”      

           Again, she doesn’t reply. She just stares down the hallway, her eyes narrowing.

           “Tak!” Zim snaps but she doesn’t hear him.

           Far down the hall, a bloodied hand slaps down on the floor just barely in view, clawing at the stone. An inhuman groan echoes off the walls.

           Tak’s eyes widen and her spider legs shoot up, hoisting her out of the hole.

           “Seal it, hurry,” she orders frantically.

           Not knowing what she saw, Zim is slightly taken aback, but nevertheless he obliges. He quickly picks up the section of the ground and slips it back into its hole.

           With the basement sealed off, everyone suddenly feels more at ease, and they heave a heavy sigh.

           “Okay. Let’s agree to never go down there again,” Gaz says and everyone nods.

           After Dib comes around with the Epic, Tak looks at Zim and asks, “now what?”

           “Now is the really tricky part,” Zim replies, “you and I are gonna have to ride on the roof and hold the Blissful steady while Dib flies to your place.”

           “Good luck with that,” Pepito comments as he and Gaz get into the car. Then Zim and Tak climb onto the roof. With their bottom two spider legs, they hold onto the vehicle while the top two hold the Blissful in between themselves.

           “Okay, Dib, take it slow and steady,” Zim orders.

           Dib carefully raises the Epic into the sky and flies slowly over the buildings. Everyone is tense during the ride. If they drop the bomb, it could very well decimate the city. Dib just tries to focus on keeping the car steady and hopes a bird doesn’t fly into them.

           Thankfully, they reach Tak’s base with incident and Dib parks on the curb. Everyone gets out while Zim and Tak carefully lower the Blissful to the ground.

           “Alright, ready up your cannon,” Zim orders.

           “Already on it,” Tak replies as she grabs a remote from her PAK and pushes a button.

           The roof of her house folds up as a giant, silver gun rises up on a tall pedestal. In front of the gun is seat with a monitor and control panel. Tak pushes another button on the remote and a space opens up at the bottom of the pedestal, just big enough for the Blissful.

           “Let’s load it up,” Tak says and they shove the big bomb inside and seal the door. As it rises up the pedestal and loads into the cannon, she climbs up to the monitor and sits in the chair. Zim quickly follows her and hangs off the side to watch, leaving Dib, Gaz, and Pepito to stare up at them.

           “Okay, just have to find the ship,” Tak muses. As she searches through coordinates on the control panel, the monitor displays different parts of space until finally landing on the familiar, grey ship.

           “They’ve blasted a hole into Jupiter!” Zim cries, “we have to hurry.”

           “Locking on,” Tak says and a crosshairs appears over the ship on the monitor. “Let’s hope this works.”

           She hits the big, red ‘FIRE’ button and a loud *boom* echoes over the city as the Blissful is shot out. The kids watch it fly into the sky until it disappears.

           It breaks through the atmosphere, the friction causing its volatile fluids to heat up, and flies through space at an extremely high velocity. The passengers on the ship just barely see it coming.

           The explosion can be seen from Earth as a star that lights up then quickly dies out. The Battalion immediately erupt into cheers, jumping up and punching the air.

           “I can’t believe that actually worked,” Gaz remarks.

           “I knew it would!” Dib grins.

           “I cannot wait to tell Squee about this,” Pepito exclaims.

           While they celebrate, Zim and Tak watch the explosion on the monitor, satisfied with the smoke that fills the screen. But as they start to hop off, Tak notices something.

           “Wait,” she says, “something’s happening.”

           Zim looks back at the screen just in time to see five objects exit the smoke.

           “The passengers survived,” he snarls.

           “They must’ve used escape pods,” Tak exclaims as they look up at the sky.

           Dib, Gaz, and Pepito don’t realize right away that something’s wrong until Gaz notices the Irkens. “Something’s wrong,” she says.

           They all look up and watch for something. For a second, nothing happens. And then they see five things appear in the sky.

           “They’ve broken through the atmosphere!” Zim exclaims.

           They watch the objects plummet like tiny particles in the distance, each landing in a different spot. Then Zim and Tak jump to the ground.

           “We got an alien invasion,” Zim declares, “one of them seemed to have landed not far from the city. If we leave now, we might catch them.”

           The others nods and they quickly clamber into the Epic and take off. Zim flies them quickly towards the site of the closest crash. As they near it, they spot a plume of smoke.

           A small, round pod has crashed into field just outside the city, causing a small crater. The Epic lands and the Battalion hops out, weapons at the ready, just as the hatch opens.

           Out tumbles a short, black alien with a pair of large, compound eyes and four spider-like legs. She hasn’t noticed the Battalion yet as she coughs and picks herself up.

           “Hey, I know you!” Pepito exclaims, “it’s Uu!”

           The alien looks up at them in surprise before crying out in an alien language. She attempts to scramble back into the pod, but Zim’s and Tak’s spider legs lash out and grab her. They hold her overhead, and she glares at them.

           “You’re one of Carcas’ soldiers,” Zim says.

           Gaz groans exhaustedly as she rests a hand on her hip. “I hope Squee’s at least having a good day.”

--

           Most mornings start early in Cammie’s house; especially when the smell of waffles is wafting down the hall. Everyone quickly gathers in the kitchen as Squee readies their breakfast.

           “I hope they’re good,” he says as they dig in.

           “So good,” Johnny chimes with a mouthful.

           “Crispy outside, fluffy inside,” Cammie remarks.

           “You should do the cooking more often,” Thomas comments.

           The Night Terrors are too busy quickly stuffing their faces to say anything, which is complimentary enough.

           Squee beams happily before sitting down to enjoy his own breakfast.

[eternalstrigoii]

Songbird

Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Female-Presenting Fae!Reader

They called you many things when they thought you could not hear.

Abnormal. Some manner of strange creature. Changeling.

They were right. Proof lied in the leafed tips of your ears, the natural points you had to file blunt at the ends of your nails, the way your eyes flashed at the dart of movement in the brush, and the way your too-sharp canines caught the light.

But, above all, you held your inhumanity in your fingers.

You moved too quickly, too surely for the likes of careful, mortal reflex. Your weaving was always taut, and your patterns never faltered; whatever you planted bloomed in abundance. With a gesture, you called even wild animals to your side. So,it had only been natural that you take up the violin.

You played as you did all other things that required a delicate balance of knowledge and skill: with inherent perfection that made your neighbors distrust you. It was no wonder that you’d taken to the woods to play. The animals were no judgment, and many a bird seemed to join you in harmony.

You hardly noticed the flowers that began to spread from the epicenter of your private grove, their buds springing to bloom within hours of their first appearance.

You never had a precise understanding of how you felt when you went into the wood; the sting of man’s unkindness, or the pleasure of a hard day’s work, melted away with the touch of your bow to your strings in a harmony independent of reason. It was as though you tapped into the breath of the universe, and her song made its way from the earth, through you, to freedom.

You played with abandon, fingers shifting from string to string as deftly as your well-ambered bow. Something was coming. You sensed it, though you assumed you played no part in its fruition. You felt its call – wind, birdsong, instinct, you knew not what – and called out in response the only way you knew.

You hardly realized you changed your tempo to incorporate the heavy beat of large wings until they settled into silence.

Near you, if the deafening silence was to be believed.

The music ceased without warning.

You turned, hopeful that the severity of the sound you’d hardly registered had been nothing but an owl in close proximity -- but, no, a man perched on the low branches of the nearest old tree. A man who was not entirely a man, for his wings were twice the size of him, comfortably folded as he watched you from a raptor’s crouch.

You stumbled back a step, lowering your instrument when you ought’ve raised it in defense.

The fey cocked his head, and descended with a beat of his wings that sent your hair fluttering as though stirred by a sharp wind.

“Who are you?” you demanded, as though any of the old stories had truth to them; you’d given plenty of people your true name over the years and not one of them had power over you, not even the ones who’d raised you.

He made a sound not too unlike a restless animal as his eyes searched your face. Judging by his willingness to approach, whatever he found was not unexpected. “Borra.” Though you took another cautious step in retreat, his stride was long enough that it took only a few steps for him to close the space between you.

He paused before you, lowering his face near yours, and canted his head. He wanted to be certain of what manner of creature you were, that much you understood.

Despite the cold that crept up your skin, his closeness was not unpleasant. When he leaned into you, it was as though you could feel the warmth radiating from the center of him. It called to you in the midst of the cool, damp, mossy wood. You did not realize the bow and the violin had slipped from your grasp until your hands lifted seemingly of their own volition – to stop him from coming closer, by some rational part of your mind, though that was not what you did. You grasped his face, his cheekbones sharp like your own, and you allowed him to kiss you…though that was not an adequate term for what he did.

His mouth seized yours. Possessively. Hungrily. The heat that focused in the epicenter of his body became a less localized warmth as he managed to draw you closer – off your feet, you realized passively, for he was certainly more than a head taller. His tongue passed your lips, which you had not realized you parted. His hands on your back felt like the heat of a summer harvest.

And you ached for more, a strange flower opening up at the first sigh of spring.

Borra dropped to his knees. The grass was unobstructed there, the leaves, logs and bracken pushed aside ages ago to give you room to breathe, not that you did very much of that then. You did not kiss human boys, or human men for that matter (though the latter often fancied themselves as able to tame you). You had no fancy to do with them what you were certainly about to, spread beneath him on the softness of the earth. You held his face until you could no longer stand to keep him in one place, your hands traveling the path of his neck to his strong-muscled shoulders.

His wings beat softly, open behind him as though expecting your hands to settle in their feathers.

Your fingers trailed down his arms. Your lips caught his lower one between them. He made a sound not too far unlike a growl at the sensation, and he guided you back with a steady hand beneath your jaw.

His amber eyes lingered on your face. As easily as he had swept you to the ground, he gripped your dress by the collar, and tore it from the seam.

All thoughts of modesty, humility, humanity utterly and completely failed to rear their ugly heads. It took him two tugs to completely tear the fabric from hem to hem, and you willingly removed your arms from the sleeves, your bow and instrument long forgotten.

He lunged back into your arms, dragging you flush against his body. The soft material of his pants had to come partially undone before it could be pulled away from his flesh, and you spared only the briefest glance to reassure yourself his wings were the only bird-related anatomy present.

He flashed you a wild grin, as though he understood.

And then he claimed you.

You cried out in delight, your head falling back into the grass. One of his hands settled at your lower back, the other wandering your skin.

You traced the ridges that looked like cracks near the base of his left (right?) horn, surprised to feel that they weren’t entirely ornamental. You touched the leathery material of his armor, the cloth wrapping lower on his arm, before the rhythm of his hips stole all sense from you. You gripped a handful of it while you clutched his shoulder, your hips rising to meet his. He was as beautiful as he was wild, eyes flashing as he watched your face, his own lips parting for loud, shameless groans. His wings even beat when you rose to meet him when he pulled away, fluttering your hair and the petals of the flowers that had bloomed all around you.

“Borra,” you whispered.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, with an openness that surprised you.

You shook your head.

“Then say it again,” his voice had dropped an octave, rough with desire.

“Borra…”

His hips snapped against yours, and your legs clung to his hips. His smile broadened, emboldened, and he did it again, continuing to watch your face as your eyelids fluttered. “Borra!”

His cloth-wrapped hand returned to your cheek. He kissed you again, and you did not hesitate to give him the same enthusiasm in return. Somehow, your fingers ended up tangled in his hair at the base of one of his horns, and no matter how hard you tugged, he didn’t try to remove you.

He didn’t warn you, nor did you warn him when the time was nigh. But you felt it, then more than ever: the harmony of the universe rang through your veins, and when you let your head fall back with his teeth embedded possessively in your neck, you weren’t even certain that you made a sound.

But the whole of the forest floor was coated in new blossoms.

He groaned into your skin, a momentary pause before he honeyed lazily with you a little more. You drew him close for another kiss, this one longer and more peaceful than the ones that had come before.

“Do you want to be near others of your own kind?” he asked, as though the raw attraction between you hadn’t been sufficient answer enough.

“I’ve never thought about it,” you admitted. “I think they’re right – I think I am a changeling. One of you, raised in their world…”

He scoffed. “As though we’d willfully abandon our children with them.”

Your head quirked, and he took the opportunity to brush his fingers through a lock of your hair. He didn’t try to convince you – perhaps he knew the alternative of walking home with your tattered gown and violin in hand, and, preferably, him in tow, was the far less appealing one.

“I believe I could be convinced, provided wherever I’m going will be where you are.”

There was a flash of something genuine in his smile, something he tried to hide when he turned his head partially away. “It was you who called me, so that has been arranged.”

You felt as though you should have been surprised, though you weren’t. Perhaps it was not the entire universe you were in harmony with, though as long as you had your own little part of it, you supposed that was enough.

“Then yes, I suppose I would.”

“Grab that thing you made the noise with,” he said, withdrawing to kneel in the grass. The sudden lack of proximity to his warmth left you shivering, but gave you all the more reason to gather up your violin and fold it neatly in the remains of your gown for safekeeping. When you were ready, you nodded to him, and pretended not to be mildly disappointed that he had properly rearranged his clothes.

“Come,” he held open his arms for you. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later.”

A curl of anxiety shifted about restlessly in your stomach, but you were never one to turn down new opportunities. You clutched the knot you’d made of your gown in one arm, cradling it close between your chests, and wrapped the other securely around his neck.

Borra arranged your limbs comfortably in his strong arms, perhaps to give you the opportunity for modesty if you’d so desired it, but you were more occupied with clinging to his shoulders. “Do you swear you won’t let me fall?”

He chuckled, pressing you even closer. “Our kind never breaks their word.”