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wonda-cat · 4 years ago

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Misconceptions About Tommyinnit’s Character That Genuinely INFURIATE Me

Since the recent events following the second L’Manburg Festival and subsequent war, I’ve seen many, many hot takes surrounding the nature of Tommyinnit’s character on the SMP. Some of which annoyed me to the point where I felt compelled to sit down and actually write this. I’m going to only be highlighting the most common complaints or questions I’ve seen, one by one, in hopes of providing a better understanding of Tommy’s character for anyone interested. (I also briefly discuss Techno and Tubbo’s characters as well.)

If you’ve said similar things to what I’m going to be discussing below, please know that it’s perfectly understandable how you’d come to these conclusions. Some of these aspects of Tommy’s character are not always obvious; especially if being watched from another streamer’s POV. This may become quite lengthy, so bear with me for now.

“Tommy’s motives are all over the place. He can’t decide whether he wants the discs back or not.”

Tommy is actually one of the most motivationally consistent characters on the entire Dream SMP. Even Techno, someone completely confident in their ideals, does more motivational flipping than Tommy. From the very start of the story, Tommy has always cared for three things; L’Manburg, Tubbo, and his music discs. However, him caring for something is not itself a motivation.

Surprisingly enough, his motivation isn’t even just, ‘Get my discs back,’ like many assume it is. Tommy’s one true motivation, since the end of the Independence War, has always been, ‘Keep things the way they are now.’

Tommy’s one fatal flaw is that he is resistant to change and refuses to let go of the past. This is seen through all of his actions and words; in all conflicts involving him. This flaw is the drive to all of Tommy’s mistakes. Burning down George’s house, an action which resulted in him getting exiled, was done out of a desire to pull pranks the way he used to before the first war. His friendship with Ranboo started because Tommy said he reminded him of Tubbo, back before he was President.

Tommy still talks highly of Wilbur because he chooses to remember him as the wise, kind mentor who cared for him. This motive is the reason he defends L’Manburg so fiercely; it’s his memory of a better past. This is why he holds grudges more often than any other character; especially refusing to forgive Techno after he killed Tubbo during the Manburg Massacre.

It’s why Tommy falls under extreme distress whenever Tubbo or Quackity tell him that something will never be the same again. This motivation is entirely formed from an underlying desire for peace and comfort, something Tommy has been denied since being forced into a life wrought with war and death. To accept change, to Tommy, is painful and terrifying. But he will only ever truly be happy when he finally learns to let go.

“Why do the discs matter so much to Tommy? They’re not actually worth anything.”

Tommy’s discs are much more than just any ordinary pair of music discs. They were never important for their material worth, but for what Tommy was willing to sacrifice in order to keep them. Tommy is entirely what gives the discs their value.

Tommy also commonly operates under the Sunk-Cost Fallacy, wherein he’s invested too much of himself into something to just abandon it, even if it’s causing him problems. This mentality is a huge piece of what keeps him tied to both L’Manburg and to his discs. He’s sacrificed too much at this point to simply let them go. If he admits the discs are worthless, then he’s admitting that he wasted all this time and effort, just to keep them.

The discs also act as a constant source of hope for Tommy because they are directly tied with his motivations as a character. They’re something he’s had since the very beginning. They’re something he used to listen to with Tubbo on their shared bench.

To Tommy, they symbolize a life before war, filled with comfort and peace. They are a love letter to his country and his late mentor Wilbur. They are a physical representation of Tubbo’s companionship. They are the only thing, besides L’Manburg and his best friend, that gives him the hope that he can one day return things to the way they used to be.

This ideal, paired with Tommy’s refusal to let go, has left him ruthlessly pursuing the things he’s lost. Not his music discs, but his peace and comfort, his friendship, his country, his mentor Wilbur, and his life before war.

In his desperation to hold onto his prized possession, it has only hurt and pushed away the people that love him. If Tommy continues to ignore this reality, while still refusing to resolve his major flaw entwined with it, he will lose all that the discs had once stood for. He will lose his country, then his friend Tubbo, and then he will lose himself.

“Tommy never grows or learns from his mistakes. This makes him a badly written character.”

Characters do not have to constantly learn from their actions to be well-written. Tommy is one of the best examples of this. The fact that his growth is infrequent is the entire point of his character; it’s completely stemmed from his fatal flaw.

By addressing himself, he would be accepting change, something that terrifies him; something he stubbornly resists until he is absolutely forced to confront it. Contrary to popular belief, Tommy knows when he makes mistakes, but he pretends to be ignorant as to avoid facing reality. He digs his head in the sand despite knowing better, puppeteering the person he used to be during happier times, now gone.

In spite of his infrequent growth, the idea that Tommy still hasn’t learned anything isn’t quite correct either. Tommy, as of the last three plot streams, has shown incredible character development. By giving up his discs again, he had finally demonstrated that Tubbo is more important to him than his possessions. Speaking as a makeshift leader, he put aside his issues with others to rally them together against a common threat, something which Tommy had never been able to do before. He owned up to all of his mistakes openly, apologizing to everyone he’s ever hurt in one place.

He apologized to Tubbo after they were reunited and came to terms with the fact that Tubbo was forced to exile him without choice, finally forgiving him. He was kind to Sapnap and learned how to be his friend after months of bitter rivalry. And these are only a few examples. This isn’t to say Tommy has overcome/fixed everything because he clearly hasn’t. There are still major things Tommy needs to work through that remain unaddressed, the biggest being his complicated relationship with Technoblade.

“Tommy only cares about himself. He does everything in his power to be the hero, always putting himself in the center of attention, especially during Doomsday.”

Tommy, since the start of the L’Manburg War for Independence, has never set out to be a hero. Not once. He may fall into the role of the protagonist, but his identity as a hero was pushed onto him by others. Giving up the discs was his only option during the Independence War.

So when Wilbur called him a hero for it, Tommy said he didn’t feel like he was. During the November 16th War, Tommy again said he didn’t feel like a hero because he had lost what he thought was everything at the time. During exile, Tommy certainly knew he was no hero. And upon reuniting with Tubbo, he admitted to feeling like the farthest thing from it. That he’d hurt everyone and all he wanted to do now was fix it.

The day before Doomsday, Tommy only took a leadership position because no one else was willing to, filling the role for Tubbo, who was crumbling under pressure. He had no choice but to try to bring everyone together, or fight alone. Most viewers never saw this during Doomsday, but before the battle, almost everyone who had vowed to fight alongside L’Manburg had abandoned them the very next day. They were convinced it was going to be destroyed either way, no matter what they did, so they chose not to see it through to the end; ultimately leaving Tommy and those who remained to fight a losing battle, alone.

After about a third of the way through the battle, it became clear to everyone that they could do nothing to win. One by one, everyone stopped fighting and stood by to watch their country go up in smoke. Tommy was the only person on the battlefield who refused to stand down and give up. And so he took over the role as leader again, trying his best to keep them alive, to keep Tubbo hopeful; to keep fighting, no matter what.

However, what most people don’t realize, is that this isn’t Tommy trying to be a hero or force himself into the spotlight. This is Tommy trying to convince himself to keep going. Because whenever things start to look hopeless, Tommy simply chooses to ignore them. He puts on a happy face and soldiers through it because that’s all he knows how to do. Tommy, at his core, is someone who wants peace through stagnation. He doesn’t want to fight, although causing the occasional friendly conflict is how he finds fun. He doesn’t set out to purposely hurt others.

Tommy may come across as self-centered, but this is because he is an extremely extroverted character. He finds energy and joy in the attention of others, both good and bad. It’s why he’s always seeking the approval of others and, oftentimes, will destructively insert himself into another person’s life in order to find it.

Out of every character in the story, Tommy is the most drawn to praise and positive reinforcement. He is constantly seeking out mentors and friends because Tommy needs someone else to help him feel confident in his own identity and abilities. It’s why Wilbur was such a positive influence on him. His boisterous confidence has always been a front because if anyone were to actually hurt him, he knows it will make his self-esteem crumble instantly.

This is part of why Dream’s manipulation was so effective against him. By isolating him, he’s left without energy and looking to another person’s guidance. Tommy outwardly may seem independent and rude, but just under the skin, he’s unconfident and lost when he’s by himself. Tommy will only grow from this flaw when he finds his own identity and inner confidence; when he finally learns to be okay with being alone.

“Tommy goes to the festival solely to get his disc back and then tells Tubbo to give it away immediately after. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Before the screaming match between the two friends during the second L’Manburg Festival, Tommy had been in exile, manipulated by Dream for long enough to lose his will to carry on. It is because of him that Tommy’s reality becomes distorted, long after fleeing from his abuser. This mangling of ideals leads Tommy to subconsciously believe that L’Manburg and Tubbo are unsalvageable.

Therefore, the only thing he has hopes of retrieving are his discs, which are easier to manage than the latter two things. And so Tommy does reprehensible things at the behest of Techno in a vain hope of getting them back, going so far as to kidnap and torture for them. This ultimately culminates in a confrontation between the ex-friends, quickly turning violent. It is in this violence that we see Tommy has sunk to his absolute lowest point in his journey.

Swinging his axe, he nearly kills his friend as he delivers a string of words that cause the room to silence instantly. He says the discs were always worth more than his friend. Within the quiet of the room, Tommy is forced to reflect on everything he’s done. How he kidnapped and tortured Connor. How he accidentally drowned Fundy. How he traumatized Ranboo.

And now he’s hurt Tubbo, the one person he has always sought to protect; someone he vowed to never hurt. This realization causes Tommy to break. He’s so ashamed of himself that he can’t look at anyone. Tommy knows now that he is worse than anyone he’s ever hated.

With pain in his voice, he tries and fails to apologize to Tubbo in the moment. The only way he knows to redeem himself now is to prove to Tubbo, after everything, that he can still put the discs aside. And so he does.

“The fact that Tommy is still trying to get his discs back after L’Manburg was destroyed is unreasonable and ridiculous.”

Tommy deals with grief in an interesting way, doing something very similar to Techno. His grief almost instantly becomes anger and a drive to prove himself. It morphs into a need for vengeance in response to injustice, always.

After the destruction of L’Manburg, Tommy saying he wants the discs back is a double-sided motivator. The obvious side being: Tommy still needs them to feel comfort. The subtle side beneath it: Tommy is using them as an excuse to find Dream and kill him. To make him pay for helping destroy their home, hurting his friends, and abusing him in exile.

Upon the loss of his home, I’d also argue the discs have only grown more important to Tommy in the aftermath. Typically, in grief, people hold onto things that survive devastation far more than if the tragic event never occurred. If your eldest child dies, one may hold their surviving children tighter. If your house burns down, one may deeply treasure a box of items that survived the flames. Tommy’s desperation after losing so much is entirely understandable.

On top of this, the discs are still the core to Tommy’s fatal flaw. They are what keeps him from achieving total happiness, so him getting over this intrinsic part of himself so easily would make for an unsatisfying character arc. He still has to work for his happiness in order to change for the better.

To add, I’ve seen a lot of people complaining that Tommy is still prioritizing the discs over Tubbo, especially in that moment. And while I mostly agree, there are some interactions that stand out to me as being different between the pair that may imply otherwise. Tommy says a few times that despite L’Manburg being destroyed, he still has something left to lose; each time, turning to look at Tubbo.

This subtly implies that losing Tubbo would be as devastating as losing his home. Tubbo also never voices disagreement over Tommy’s continued pursuit of the item. However, Tubbo frequently does what he thinks will make others happy, so this doesn’t implicitly mean support for Tommy either. Besides these two things, this is still Tommy’s fatal flaw shining through, continuing to hurt others around him.

I only hope Tubbo can learn to stand up for himself and voice his real thoughts to Tommy now, after everything. It would provide at least some desperately-needed closure for Tubbo’s character.

“How could Tommy betray Techno like that? Techno told him upfront what he was going to do.”

While it’s true that Techno was obvious about his plans, Tommy was also just as upfront with Techno about what he thought of it. In fact, maybe even more so, considering Techno attempted to hide them from Tommy for a good portion of their partnership. Whenever Techno brought up the idea of destroying L’Manburg or hurting Tubbo, Tommy would always remind Techno that he didn’t want to hurt anyone. And that if Techno ever did, Tommy would be there to stand in his way. He never once stopped saying this.

Tommy’s two major positive character traits have always been his undying loyalty and his strength to never give up, even in the face of death. Two classically heroic qualities, both of which, ironically, reinforce his fatal flaw. His refusal to change makes him stubborn; stubbornness being the only quality that makes unwavering loyalty and extreme persistence feasible.

Because of these two traits, it was impossible from the start for Dream to completely break Tommy’s spirit and for Techno to get him to agree to anything too extreme. Despite this, Techno already had no hope of keeping Tommy on his side after the events of the day before the Festival. During it, Tommy had asked multiple times for Techno to give his word not to hurt anyone. That they’d only threaten to spawn a wither, get Techno’s remaining weapons in exchange, then leave. That’s it.

Techno avoided directly promising Tommy but still agreed not to regardless. So when Techno chose to spawn the wither anyway, despite Tommy urging them to leave multiple times, whatever trust Tommy had with him went completely out the window. Thus, when the threat was finally real, that Techno would make due on his promise to burn his home country to the ground and slaughter his friends, Tommy intervened. It would be unreasonable to expect Tommy not to stand against him in that moment, especially after his mental breakdown which ensued as a result of him nearly killing his best friend.

Adding salt to the wound on Tommy’s end, Techno decided to also align himself with Dream, someone Techno knew Tommy was afraid of. This might have been a way to purposely hurt Tommy. More likely, it was because Dream and him shared a common goal in the moment and Techno desperately needed allies.

However, the implication of Techno siding with Tommy’s abuser most certainly hurt him, regardless of its original intentions. This is possibly why Tommy kept insisting through Doomsday that Techno betrayed him, avoiding actually telling anyone the reason as to why. If he couldn’t find the words to describe what Dream did to him, even to Tubbo, he certainly wouldn’t be able to tell Techno either.

“Techno gave Tommy everything, only to be repaid with betrayal.”

This statement regarding Tommy is the one I see most often. (It is also the one I get the most heated about.)

Dream’s character is well known for his manipulation tactics against other characters; pitting them against each other, crushing them under his heel, bending their will to conform to his own. It’s what makes him an interesting villain. It’s something fun to discuss.

But is it still fun to discuss manipulation tactics if they’re so subtle, almost no one notices them? This is the paradigm Technoblade’s character falls into. While people know Techno for his laid-back personality, dry humor, and complex motivations, many fail to recognize him as a manipulator. The reason why this is so hard to spot is because it is mostly unintentional on behalf of the character. Dream performs his craft with intention, Techno does it without realizing.

As well as this being unwitting, it is sandwiched between Techno’s actual attempts to connect with Tommy and care for him. Thus, making the manipulation feel less damaging. The only problem is, this still hurts Tommy just as much, regardless of the intentions behind it. Especially after just escaping Dream, Tommy’s reality and sense of identity are horribly distorted. In this vulnerable state, he desperately needs healing and someone to help ground him. This is what makes him even more susceptible to Techno’s influence.

And because it is much subtler, it is harder to notice, and much harder to break free from. Despite Tommy claiming to hate Techno for what he did on November 16th, he still chose to flee to his house because it was the only place he could think of going, as well as being the safest area possible. After the failed execution, Techno mentioned potentially hurting Tubbo through a vengeance plot. Tommy voiced extreme distress over this, to which Techno threatened to kick him out of his house.

Tommy then says he’s fine being homeless because he doesn’t want anything to do with someone who would hurt his friend. This is when Techno decides to weaponize Tommy’s own trauma against him. To be fair to Techno again, Tommy never told him the extent of the abuse he suffered in exile. But Techno isn’t stupid. He knows Tommy is extremely afraid of Dream, and for good reason.

So he tells Tommy that if he were kicked out, he’d be defenseless. That if he were out there all alone, Dream would find him very easily. That Dream would drag him right back to Logstedshire in an instant. He notices the way Tommy reacts to this, how quickly he changes his mind about being kicked out. He continues to use this trauma repeatedly in order to keep Tommy under his roof, no matter how disagreeable he gets about Techno’s plans. He knows he can’t retrieve his weapons alone because he has no leverage.

Therefore, using Tommy like a wild card was a major side strategy. Techno knows it will hurt Tubbo by doing this and may make the President more willing to compromise. In addition to this, many of the strategies Techno utilizes are Narcissistic manipulation tactics, categorized by their intent to keep the victim in a position below the abuser in terms of worth. This includes Techno using the silent treatment as a punishment, something which hurts Tommy since he craves affection from others.

He also attempts to isolate Tommy by telling him he doesn’t need anyone else; that everyone abandoned him during exile (something which Dream has also said.) He tells Tommy that he’s only alive because Techno is there to defend him and supply for him, as well as constantly reminding Tommy to not let any compliments he receives get to his head. These are both meant to make Tommy depend more on Techno and doubt his own abilities. Techno also occasionally engages in subtle gaslighting, attempting to sow doubt in Tommy’s mind about his relationships with Tubbo, Quackity, Ranboo, and Fundy.

It’s also vital to keep in mind what exactly separates Dream and Techno in this regard. The most important thing being that Techno actually does care about Tommy. He trusts him and wants to earnestly help him. He knows Tommy has been traumatized and abused in some way, but he doesn’t know how to help because he’s not that great with people. It also doesn’t help that Tommy is unable to tell anyone what happened.

In the end, Techno really does want to be a shield for Tommy. Despite debating handing Tommy over to Dream, it’s more likely Techno was using this as bait for Dream to waste his favor on something useless. After all, he could always save Tommy, should he ask for him to. Techno’s warnings about Tubbo and L’Manburg also come from a place of love, as Techno was personally hurt by them and wants to protect Tommy by telling him to leave it behind. However, just because something is done out of love, doesn’t mean it’s automatically helpful or good for someone.

There’s no better example of this than in Techno’s most damaging and frequently used tactic: ‘Buy Their Love,’ a technique commonly used on children by narcissistic parents. At first glance, nothing seems wrong. Techno gives Tommy most things he asks for; providing him with food, gifts, protection, and a place to sleep. The manipulation within this arises when the act of kindness is counted as a debt against the person who receives it. That by receiving so many good things, they would be ungrateful to go against their abuser. Doesn’t matter if they emotionally or physically hurt you, they gave you gifts, so you should shut your mouth and allow the abuse to continue.

Whenever Tommy speaks out against Techno’s violent actions or his plans to hurt his friends, Techno would frequently bring up all his ‘good deeds.’ He consistently reminds Tommy that he could’ve just thrown him back to Dream, but he was too kind. That he went out of his way to give him gear, food, and a roof over his head. That he was kind so Tommy should be quiet and let Techno plot to hurt the people he loves. Or else he’s selfish and ungrateful. Or else Techno will take all of his gifts back and leave him with nothing.

Knowing this, it is horrifying seeing people justifying this behavior by mocking Tommy’s character and calling him ungrateful using this very same fallacy. (Especially for those who grew up being controlled by this very tactic.)

It is through knowing Techno’s use of the ‘Buy Their Love,’ method that makes Tommy’s, ‘I am worthy,’ response, not one of betrayal, but one of triumph. This moment is a major positive character change for Tommy for many reasons. When Tommy decides to stand against Techno, this causes him to fall back on his most reliable tactic. He insults Tommy and then asks for the Axe of Peace back. Instead of caving, Tommy refuses.

By keeping the Axe of Peace, Techno’s final gift to him, he is not only rejecting the destruction of all he loves, but he is breaking free from Techno’s manipulation. He says, ‘I am worthy,’ because now he knows his own self-worth. He doesn’t need Techno or Dream to decide it for him. This moment is Tommy finally breaking free from not just Techno, but Dream as well. He is finally free.

“Tommy was only using Techno and never thought of him as a friend.”

Tommy and Techno’s relationship is complicated, which is why pretending only one side was in the wrong isn’t entirely accurate. Their friendship, in summary, is tragic when fully examined; being doomed from the start. Techno and Tommy are brought into conflict often because they are simultaneously so similar and so different. Techno and Tommy both deal with grief in the same way. They both long for a life of peace and comfort. They each long for companionship, hold their ideals in kind, and are both naturally resilient in the face of adversity.

Yet, their personalities and courses of action are polar opposites. What makes this friendship one of tragedy is the fact that not just Techno, not just Tommy, but both of them, actually thought the other was their friend. They had each wanted to be the other’s friend since the day they’d met. Tommy never stopped wanting to impress Techno and get on his good side, even if his methods annoyed the target of his affections. Him calling Techno ‘The Blade’ was never meant to dehumanize him; it was a title of adoration.

Along the same spectrum, Techno is a character who generally longs for friendship, but pretends not to after a lifetime of hurt. He’s been burned too many times, and so he chooses to stay alone. Techno is generally very reclusive and awkward around others, so when he likes someone or cares for them, it’s noticeable from a mile away. Their friendship has a very brotherly dynamic, and the fact that Techno allowed him to stay in his house, implies Tommy is a step above pretty much everyone else but Phil. Putting up with Tommy’s shenanigans is itself a sign of affection.

However, when their goals come into conflict and the two start to drift apart, they deal with this in massively different ways. With Tommy devastated and enraged, and with Techno withdrawn and hurt, once more burned by someone he slowly learned to trust. They were once both friends, neither one was pretending. Yet, both of them thought their companionship was unreciprocated.

On top of this, both Techno and Tommy were using each other. Techno used Tommy to get his weapons back by manipulating and lying to him. Tommy used Techno to protect him from Dream and get his discs back. They each hurt the other and refused to listen, both shouting valid complaints at the other that they refused to hear.

Their relationship is also deeply affected by the themes of vengeance in the current arc, which is something I haven’t seen many people talk about. Most of the current conflicts this past month have resulted from characters being unable to forgive, resorting to revenge as a way to cope with loss. L’Manburg was the first to initiate this, through the influence of Quackity. The Butcher Army was formed to punish Techno for a war crime he committed. And while this is perfectly reasonable, what isn’t is the way the incident was orchestrated. It was an unchecked abuse of power to execute someone without a fair trial, as well as punishing Phil, who was not involved whatsoever.

This was also particularly unfair to Techno, as many projected their anger at Wilbur onto him. Even Tommy did this, finding himself unable to blame his late mentor, so Techno was the next best option for him. However, it was Techno’s response to this that was interesting. He chose a path of vengeance, the same way L’Manburg did, after vowing to live his life as a pacifist. By doing this and following through, he hurt everyone, not just the people he claimed needed to pay for their actions.

Instead of just picking the weed in the garden, he set the entire flower bed on fire. Through L’Manburg’s destruction, he gets what he wants. He destroys their government, but he also scars the earth and shatters the sky. He leaves uninvolved people homeless, deeply hurting Ranboo, Eret, and especially Ghostbur. Philza turns to vengeance as well, taking his anger at the death of his son out on people who do not deserve it.

Tubbo, a day before the second Festival, was given another chance to seek revenge when Techno had spawned a wither on their land. Instead, all Tubbo could say was, ‘We do nothing … It’s pointless, vengeance. It’s poisonous.’ By doing this, he has managed to be a bigger person than even Techno was, with the strength and maturity to turn the other cheek. And now with Tommy’s plan to kill Dream, the conflict continues to escalate; only ending where forgiveness begins.

It’s sad to think, if Techno didn’t choose a path of vengeance and Tommy was strong enough to tell Techno how he really felt, the two might have remained friends. Who knows? Maybe they still can.

“Tommy was the one in the wrong. Techno was right to destroy L’Manburg.”

Techno is a lovely character. He’s well-written, engaging, funny. He has many values and quirks that are generally relatable and interesting. His motives are deeply understandable and sympathetic. And yet, he is perfectly capable of being evil, in just the same way that Tommy can be deeply flawed despite being the protagonist.

I’m sure most people already know that Technoblade is a villain. Or more accurately, a tragic antagonist. Techno (the streamer) knows he is and he’s having fun playing that part. Just because a character is morally in the wrong doesn’t mean their values and ideology don’t have merit. The best character I could compare Techno to is Thanos.

They have completely valid concerns and points, but it is the way in which they go about achieving their goals that makes them into evil people. And despite this, many will still agree with them, even after they do something reprehensible. Contrary to popular belief, Technoblade’s tendency towards violence isn’t a good thing, no matter how you look at it. Even Techno himself knows this, that’s why he decided to reform and become a pacifist with Phil. He was not a good influence on Tommy, on top of also manipulating him.

Techno caving to hatred and vengeance makes him no different to the resolve of the Butcher Army that pursued him. It is precisely the fact that he went on to destroy the home of not just Tommy, but also Ranboo and Ghostbur, that puts him in the wrong. He is allowed to despise all government and remove himself from it, but the moment he decided to insert himself into someone else’s country and take their home from them in order to destroy it, he abandoned an integral principle to his own values.

This principle being: ‘Choice.’ The act of letting others be free to decide what they want for themselves. It is a huge component to the concept of anarchy, the freedom to choose. And yet Techno robbed this from, not just the ruling powers that hurt him, but individuals who were not even involved in the first place. He justifies this by saying it’s for their own good, that he’s helping; while acting in a self-serving manner.

In his anger, he became the punisher, stooping lower than L’Manburg has ever gone. There is also the issue of Dream weaponizing Techno to destroy the one thing that has been a thorn in his side since the very start, manipulating Techno’s grief to achieve his goals. Tommy’s biggest sin in the Doomsday War was standing up to Techno and getting in the way of him hurting his friends and destroying his home.

This isn’t to say Tommy is perfect, because he still hurt everyone he ever loved. But the only way he knew to redeem himself was to fight for what he knew was right. And so he chose to fight alongside his best friend, Tubbo. However, just because Techno is in the wrong doesn’t mean others are wrong for wanting to side with him, or by finding joy in his ruthlessness. The biggest appeal of Techno is the fact that he opposes people like Tommy.

He knows how to put people in their place and it’s satisfying to watch. Some people love rooting for villains and it’s entertaining to see a being with so much power crush everyone else down so effortlessly. Especially because it’s so easy to sympathize with Technoblade. Sympathetic villains are the best kind; where they have understandable motivations, relatable flaws, people they love, and something they can lose. Dream is a villain you love to hate. Technoblade is a villain you hate to love. Simple as.

Despite the destruction of L’Manburg being either devastating or fantastic depending on who you are, there is one major good it has done. It has pushed Tommy more towards the completion of his character arc. By losing one of the three things he loves, it will be impossible for him to pretend any longer. He will be forced to confront reality very soon. It all depends on whether Tubbo will have to die first for him to finally see it.

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the-witty-pen-name · 4 years ago

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It Happened on Sakaar Pt. 1

Mando x F!Reader; Loki x F!Reader

Rating: M; 18+ Only

Warnings: swearing, mentions of drugs, alcohol, and exotic dancers, grieving, angst, slow burn

Word Count: 3.1k

Summary: The bounty hunter’s most recent puck sends him across the Galaxy to an unfamiliar and artificial planet named Sakaar- literally the galaxy’s trash can. Sakaar is a bizarre planet, but so is his most recent bounty. Din is chasing a man he only knows as The God of Mischief. The reader lives on Sakaar as a scrapper, a similar trade to that of a bounty hunter and has a tangled history with the man Mando is looking for. Will the unlikely duo team up to capture the mischievous Asgardian or will the reader fall victim to Loki’s promises?

A/N: I had planned on writing this in a few days but as per usual I put off coursework to write this fic! So here it is a couple of days early. I am also working on the next chapter of Deadbeat as well as Rest so look out for both of those within the next couple of days! I also am working on an adorable Obi-Wan x Reader request I received a few days ago that will be coming soon as well!

This is unedited and if I missed anything that I should include as a warning please let me know! Thank you y’all!

Tags and Requests are OPEN

He promised.

And you were foolish enough to believe him.

You were foolish to think you were different.

You were foolish to think you really got to know the real him.

You were foolish to think that everything he told you was real.

You were foolish to think that when he told you he loved you he meant it.

You were foolish to think he’d come back.

You, a warrior, a fighter, defender of the throne of Asgard, lied helpless on the ground, broken in pieces as you’re told by Odin that Loki was gone.

And he was dead.

You mourned him.

The ache never going away, day after day, that stupid statue just another thing to remind you that he was gone.

He wasn’t coming back.

Until he did.

And you realized how much of a fool you were.

And you realized everything you thought you knew was a lie.

So you left.

You left with the promise you made to yourself that you would never return to Asgard.

In your rage, you were blinded when you demanded Skurge open the bifrost and send you to the furthest planet from your homeland.

The thought crosses your mind that if it had been Heimdall, he wouldn’t have let you go, talked you into reason and asked you to stay.

If it had been Heimdall, Thor would’ve caught up to you in time instead of just missing you when you left.

You didn’t know where you were going and you didn’t care. Your only thought was to put as much distance from yourself and Asgard as possible. You landed in a gross pile of debris when you first arrived, and from there worked your way up to one of the favorites of the Grandmaster- you were dubbed Scrapper 451 and second in most captures to Scrapper 142. Time works odd in space, you’d been there for three years- completely developed a new life under your new alias.

You’d bring in life form after life form to the Grandmaster, always pleasing him by bringing him potential fighters.

You worked alone, you preferred it. The only friend you had was Scrapper 142 and that was hardly a friendship- more just a rivalry you both had your fun with. There was a mutual respect, and a feeling about her you couldn’t explain, but that was it.

When you met Mando, you almost killed him. You had heard a tip from a local shop owner a ship had landed rather roughly, and you made haste to be the first one to investigate, determined to beat 142 if there was a capture worth making.

Carefully navigating your way through the wasteland, you had finally found the ship in question. It was a model you had never seen before. You stay crouched behind a pile of trash, your stun gun aimed at the ship waiting for it to open.

You stopped and lowered your weapon when you saw the armored passenger had a very small creature by his side. A baby.

You hadn’t seen a baby on this planet since you’d landed. Sure, people have children, but you had never seen anyone bring their child to Sakaar. All the children whom you’ve met, had been born there- no one with a child willingly travels to this part of the Galaxy.

A metal man and a green baby. You scoffed. What an interesting duo.

You took in the appearance of the armored man. Sakaar had a very basic premise that determined your survival. Are you a fighter or are you food? This one was very clearly a fighter. Not necessarily one that you think could be a gladiator- not the right type. But you could tell by the way he walked out of the ship, he was a force to be reckoned with. The baby was really throwing you off of your game. You could have this man halfway back to the Grandmaster by now if he wasn’t traveling with a kid. Sakaar has not yet made you completely heartless, as much as you tried to be. You decide to compromise your position, in a hope of being able to just talk. Learn why he’s here.

No one comes to Sakaar. It’s never on purpose. Lost souls are dumped here. Yet, this man seemed like he was the only creature to intentionally travel to Sakaar like he was just passing through. If you couldn’t bring him in, maybe you could at least salvage parts from the ship.

“What’s your business here?” You ask, from behind the pile where you hid. You could see him but he could not see you. You watch as his first move is to close the floating pram, protecting his child first as he desperately looked around for the source of the voice.

“I’m passing through,” he replies, looking around at his surroundings.

“Nobody just passes through,” you reply. “No one comes here on their own accord. No one leaves once they arrive. What is your business?”

“I’m looking for someone,” he says nondescriptly, further irritating you. You stand up, slowly, your gun still pointed at the man as you walk closer.

“Who?”

“Bounty”

“You’re a bounty hunter?”

“No, I came here for vacation.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Who are you here for?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of bounty hunter are you?”

“One of the best.”

“Oh really?”

“Don’t test me, Princess.”

“If I’m a princess what are you?”

“Knight in shining armor?”

“Are you really hitting on me right now?”

“Only if you’d want me to be.”

“Gods.”

You can’t see his face from under his helmet but you could feel the smirk he was making. He clearly didn’t view you as a threat and it really annoyed you. Maybe you came off too friendly? No, you’re still pointing a gun to his head.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“Scrapper 451,” you said blankly. “Who are you?”

“You can call me Mando.”

“Mando?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of a name is that?”

“What kind of a name is Scrapper 451?”

“It’s a title.”

“Not going to tell me your real name?”

“Are you gonna tell me yours?”

“How-?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“What’s a scrapper do anyways?”

“Bring mouthy tin men in in exchange for a generous amount.”

“You’re a bounty hunter?”

“You could say that?”

“Are you going to turn me in?”

“That was my plan.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“The baby.”

“Slave catcher with a heart of gold?”

“I’ll get that on my tombstone.”

“Sooner rather than later I hope.”

“Ouch. Mando, I thought we were friends.”

“You know I didn’t mean it, Princess.”

“Who are you here for?”

“Someone who calls themselves the God of Mischief.”

You freeze, and you lower your weapon. You’re stunned. You hadn’t heard that title in years, and although you never forgot about it, you were great at pushing it back so far away where you couldn’t access it. The man is able to read your body language and can tell you know the man he’s looking for.

“He’s not here,” you finally manage to say, your knuckles turning white at how tightly you grip your blaster.

“He is here,” he says slowly, pulling out a bounty puck. Clear as day, Loki’s face shows up on the holographic screen. Your stomach churns.

“He’s not here,” you insist. “If he was, I wouldn’t be here. Trust me.”

“So, you know him?”

“Not at all.”

“Really?”

“Really,” you take a few steps backwards to walk away. “I wouldn’t stay on this planet long if I were you. Sakaar has a way of just pulling you in.”

“I think I can manage.”

“Get lodging,” you advise with a smile, “the next person who finds you out here won’t be as nice as me.”

With that you left, leaving the Mandolorian dumb struck. What was this planet?

Mando knew well enough to take your advice. With the Crest secured, he and the Child made a journey into the city.

Your words lingered in his mind. He knew you had information about the bounty you were withholding. He needed to run into you again. He reasoned with himself it was for the sake of catching the bounty, but part of him also wanted to see you again. He just wouldn’t admit it.

He found a place where he could get a room. An elaborate casino, with ornate decorations and loud music playing constantly. A large bar and lounge also attached. He received his room key and ignored the festivities that occurred in the bustling establishment- his first order of business to make sure the Child was settled and would be safe in the room. He regrets his decision to not ask Peli to watch him, but he knew he’d be distracted being so far away.

He figured he was far enough across the galaxy; he wouldn’t need to worry about those after his own bounty or the child’s. But he realizes that he forgot about needing a sitter. If he absolutely needed to, he could bring the child with him, but that was not ideal. Especially, since gauging your reaction at the mention of his new bounty, this didn’t seem like it would be any easy task. He sat down on the bed in the middle of the room, and pulled out the puck- reading over what little information he had.

He needed to find you again and desperately needed any information you’d be willing to share.

You were worried. There was no way Loki was here. You knew he wouldn’t have come for you, even if you thought about it when you first arrived. You thought if anyone would come after you, it would’ve been Thor, convincing you to return to Asgard and cleaning up another one of his brother’s messes. It hurt when no one from home reached out once in the last three years. However, you decided you were better off because if Thor had convinced you to return home, you’d have to face Loki again, and you were adamant on keeping your word you would not see him again.

***

His funeral was devastating. Although many on Asgard did not care much for Loki or his antics, the throne had lost a prince. It was a dark day. Weather on Asgard usually always seemed to be perfect, but on the day of Loki’s services, the God of Thunder was so distraught, he was unintentionally causing a gray and gloomy sky. Thor and you were affected the most.

You stood next to Thor as Odin spoke, but your gaze stayed fixated on the ground. It felt so unfair and you felt an indescribable amount of pain and loss. Your face was stained with tears, as was Thor’s, and you felt like you had just cried until you were physically unable to do so. He was gone and you couldn’t get him back.

Odin watched you solemnly throughout the services. He had told you that he knew how much his son loved you and how despite his absence, you are still considered family. He insisted you had an open invitation to be at the castle whenever you wanted. You could only nod and offer a very, very meek thank you.

You took advantage of that offer, and honestly, you knew you were overstaying your welcome under the palace walls. You found yourself coming, and spending the days in his room, trying to just feel him in anyway you could. You’d run your hands across the broken spines of his books, look at the kingdom from the view of his window, laying on the bed over the elaborate bedding to just try to feel him. You didn’t even know what you were hoping to feel, but you somehow thought this would help you be closer to him.

At events on Asgard, you continued to wear green, almost like your own twist instead of just the traditional black of mourning. It felt right to wear green in his memory, but it was nothing more than just another attempt to pretend like he was there.

You could imagine how he would react to seeing you wearing his signature color. When he was there, he looked at you like you were the only living soul in the room that mattered. He’d shower you were touches of affection and whisper nothing but praises to you, making you think he had actually loved you. This was back before you knew how foolish you had been, blinded by your own puppy love and your affections towards him.

***

You now sat in the lavish home of the Grandmaster. He always had hundreds of people in his home, a constant party, a group made up of Sakaar’s elite being entertained by drinking, drugs, or entertainment of sorts from his um… staff. Drink in hand, you sat cross legged on an elaborate circular couch lost in thought while a dancer performed on a table in front of the group you sat amongst. You didn’t even look up- you hated this part of earning the Grandmaster’s favor. You hated these parties with your whole being. They were hedonistic and you would avoid them if you had the choice. However, you knew the Grandmaster would take offense if you were not in attendance.

Music was loud, and there were many flashing lights. You couldn’t rely on any of your senses to navigate in a place like this, but that was intentional. The Grandmaster set this up on purpose. His parties were meant to be a completely immersive experience. It was probably great for those who wanted to be there, but for you, you wanted to escape and slip out as early as you could.

You weren’t interested in the company and you weren’t interested in the weird substances you didn’t recognize being passed around. You didn’t want to relax, and honestly, these attempts to relax always seemed to make you feel worse. Being sober at these events was invitation for horrible eye strain and a hefty headache.

“451! 451!” you heard a familiar voice call over the loud music in a sing song voice. It was the Grandmaster. He would be the only person at this party who would actually be looking for you.

“Grandmaster,” you smile, getting up and walking over to him. You kiss both his cheeks quickly as a greeting. “You look radiant,” you smile, the compliment going right to his head as they usually did.

“451! Look at you, let me see the ensemble,” he would say, talking a step back, and you would twirl once. It was a long golden dress that draped your body, with a plunging neckline. It was paired with golden arm bands and an elaborate gold necklace. You also had gold flakes throughout your hair. “Stunning,” he praised, “I wish 142 would be more involved like you 451- she’s the best, but ugh, she doesn’t know when to relax. Anyways, I called you over to meet a new friend of mine.”

“Are you replacing me, Grandmaster?” You say with a tone of mocked offense and it makes him laugh.

“451, there is no replacing you- you are the three B’s,” he chuckled, lightly guiding you over to another area of the party. “beauty, brawn and brains, a very rare combination indeed.”

“You flatter me, Grandmaster,” you laugh. If you went along with him to keep him happy, the Grandmaster was actually a pleasant creature to interact with. You had the ability to match his banter and he liked that about you.

“Anyways, anyways 451,” he says, as he remembers his train of thought, “I want to introduce you to someone. He’s devilishly handsome and talks like some stuffy aristocrat, he arrived here a couple of weeks ago and I was finally able to convince him to join us.”

“Did he say where he was from?” you ask curiously.

“Get this,” he chuckles, “Ass-guard. What a hoot, am I right? Anyways, there he is. We got to get whatever stick is out of his butt. I’m hoping you’ll help me to uh, loosen him up. Loki! I want you to meet one of my best, 451.”

Based on the look of surprise, you knew he didn’t expect you to be here. He looked like a deer in the headlights and it angered you that he was here. You felt your teeth clench, and you wanted to just get out of here as fast as possible.

“451 is one of the best scrappers I have,” the Grandmaster talks, “Of course, nothing compares to my Champion but she is ruthless. She’s second in the most gladiators she has been able to bring me.”

“Impressive,” Loki smiles, and you feel the urge to just scream. “I’m Loki, prince of Asgard.”

What an asshole.

“It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty,” you say between your teeth. You could kill him.

“I’m gonna mingle,” the Grandmaster announces, “I’m leaving you in 451’s hands.”

“Please let me explain,” he immediately tries to say as soon as the Grandmaster is out of earshot. You scoff.

“I’d tell you to drop dead if you hadn’t already,” you spit, “Don’t talk to me. I want nothing to do with you. Get off this planet.”

“Please, just allow me,” he begins.

“Fuck off, Loki,” you snap, and make a fast exit. You leave him standing there bewildered and you watch how stunned he looks as the elevator door closes behind you.

You felt small again. Like all the progress you had made gone in a single instance, and you knew tomorrow you’d face the Grandmaster but for now you didn’t care. You craved a warm bed and sleep more than anything else in the world.

You had planned on staying here so you didn’t know how you were going to make it back to your little apartment. You assumed just walk. You weren’t armed and that was always a terrible idea on Sakaar. You didn’t have anything except a dagger that was fixed to your thigh under the dress you wore. You wished you had your blaster.

“You clean up nice, Princess,” a voice modulated voice you recognize says when the elevator door opens.

“Mando,” you say curtly, stepping out of the elevator.

“You clean up nice,” he states.

“Thank you,” you reply.

“Leaving the party so soon?” He asks. You nod.

“Not really my scene. What are you doing here anyways?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest for a little bit of warmth.

“I received a tip that my target might be here,” he answers, you nod, not elaborating on that you knew for a fact Loki was upstairs. “Did you see him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

PART TWO

Taglist:

@msclifford

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pop-punklouis · 4 years ago

Note

top five HL fanfic!!!!

biiiiitch you all know how hard it is for me to choose only 5. but sigh FINE here’s my all-time favorite list that isn’t 5 sorry i can’t choose 😔:

• Here in the Afterglow (89k)

“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.” 1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

• Coax the Cold (86k)

England, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

• Wild and Unruly (124k)

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

• This Wicked Game (70k)

An AU in which The Bachelor is gay, Louis is a contestant, Harry is the bachelor, everyone drinks a lot of champagne, the entire world gets to watch them fall in love, and no one plays by the rules.

• Love is a Rebellious Bird (135k)

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

• Fixated On One Star (53k)

Louis is just a boy with the world on his shoulders, and Harry's just a boy from the wrong side of the galaxy. A little thing like love doesn't stand a chance against a thousand years of war, at least until the right two come along to break the mold.

Or: space Romeo and Juliet AU

• Finding Lou (60k)

Louis is the nomadic stranger who wanders into Harry’s bookstore. Harry is the skeptic who falls for him.

• California Sold

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

• Empty Skies (134k)

For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream -- making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.

Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He's still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?

• And Then a Bit (159k)

“We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”

Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts. (aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

• Dream Awake (31k)

The sun leaks through the tent wall behind him the way it leaks through eyelids, bathing the boy in an ethereal half-light as he croons. The crowd is mesmerized. Louis is mesmerized. This is the most important person in the world, he thinks wildly, and then can't figure out how to take it back.

On a hazy day in August, Louis sees Harry perform at a music festival as an unsigned act and convinces him to spend the rest of the weekend in his company. Harry gets signed; life changes. They never really wake up from the dream.

• Say You’ll Remember (93.5k)

au. louis and harry are best mates that are only half aware that they're also soulmates. alternatively, louis goes to university and harry travels the world, and they always manage to find their way back to each other.

takes place over nine years, in which they love and hurt, make mistakes and learn, and above all, grow.

• Outwit, Outplay, Outlast (61k)

Survivor All-Stars AU in which Harry and Louis are just in this game to win the million dollars, but they end up with something better.

Featuring Harry's yellow swim shorts, Louis in snapbacks, and OT5 shenanigans.

• Nothing Else But Us Right Here (35k)

Louis sighs and gives himself a mental pep talk as he smooths his jumper down over his hips. He can do this. He can resist the draw of Harry Styles, because he is a responsible, mature adult, and as much as he wants to tangle his fingers in that mess of hair and map those ridiculous tattoos with his tongue, he does not want to get his daughter’s favorite teacher fired.

• Wings to Break Your Fall (103k)

strip club AU. Harry’s work and family are keeping him busy. He really isn’t looking for a relationship, doesn’t want one. He just wants Louis. Problem is, Louis has other plans.

• Leave it to the Breeze (81k)

Louis couldn’t be prouder of his bake, but there’s something—there’s something. Something about Harry Styles and the earnest way he measures, pours, mixes, scrapes. Something about the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he knocks the air out of his batter.

or a great british bake off au in which louis cares about winning and winning only, harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and niall sticks his nose into other people's business. also featuring liam as louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and zayn as a macaron connoisseur.

• You Come Beating Like Moth’s Wings (81k)

Harry smiles. He's only known Louis for about two hours, knows nothing about him past his first name, but he's nice and sarcastic and helpful and so, so pretty. And Harry's still got a few days left in Barcelona, and he thinks he wouldn't mind spending them with Louis.

Also known as, Harry takes the summer before uni to travel Europe and meets Louis in Barcelona, and they end up traveling together.

• Hold Me Closer (36.5k)

Louis Tomlinson is one of the most promising dancers of the English National Ballet, on track to become the youngest principal dancer in the company's history. That is, until forces conspire to significantly complicate his life, including: a surprise ballet, an unfairly attractive guest choreographer, and being pushed into a rivalry with his best mate. Featuring lots of wine, dancing, pining, and a happy ending.

• In Vogue (121k)

Fashion AU. Louis is the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and Harry's running British GQ. Featuring Zayn as the crazy creative director and Louis' confidant, Liam as the sports writer that gets to sit front row at fashion week and DJ Neil as the only sane person in the whole story. (There are no skinny jeans in this fic)

• These Things Will Never Change for Us at All (1.5k)

The room falls silent as they stay wrapped up in each other. Harry can feel Louis’ soft breaths on his neck, and he almost thinks Louis’ fallen asleep until he says softly, “How did you know you were in love with me?”

Or, Harry and Louis look back on five years.

• A Runaway American Dream (15k)

AU. they take route 66 with only each other and their secrets.

• Things Have Gotten Closer to the Sun (49k)

it’s strange, making the choice to face his past—it almost feels like he’s heading for the sun straight on, like he’s screaming come on and burn me, i deserve it.

when a solar flare is announced to end the world in twelve days, harry reunites with the people that he used to know better than the back of his own hand.

• Here (in your arms) (60k)

the one where Louis is a successful real estate agent and Harry works at a retirement home. They’ve never had a real home. Up until now.

(Starring Liam Payne as a fitness trainer, Zayn as an artist, and Niall, who busks.)

• These Inconvenient Fireworks (190k)

Future AU in which nobody tries out for X Factor but the boys end up finding one other eventually anyway. Louis is a jaded bastard who owns a cat named Duchess and teaches drama to teenagers, Harry is an idealistic aspiring photographer/part-time footy coach, Zayn teaches English lit and wears leather jackets, Liam saves people from burning buildings, and Niall is Niall.

• In Dreams (23k)

AU. When Harry moves to a new city, his new flat come with a number of sweet, anonymous gifts and surprises that brighten his days. Could it be a friendly ghost? Another friendly presence in his new building is his tattooed neighbor, Louis, who seems determined to put a smile back on his face.

• My Heart is Breathing for this Moment in Time (160k)

When Louis first saw Harry at the 2010 X Factor Auditions, he thought he was watching a peculiarly special stranger. But Harry has known Louis ever since he was five years old. Because Louis has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to Time Travel to important moments in his past and in his future - and to Harry, always to Harry. When they’re put into a band together, it seems like everything Harry has been waiting and wishing for has finally come true. Except for the small fact that Louis doesn’t know that Harry is in love with him- that Harry’s always been in love with him. Fate, it would seem, is just getting started.

A story about growing up and growing together, and the impossible love that makes it all worthwhile.

• Paint the Sky with Stars (63k)

On 10 April 1912, Harry Styles boards the finest ship the world has ever seen. Still grieving the death of their mother, he and his sister are being sent to America to live with a callous uncle who cares more about his business connections than family. Harry prepares himself for a long, disappointing voyage alone in his stateroom. Louis Tomlinson has borrowed and saved, and finally has enough to purchase a Third Class ticket to America. With all of his belongings in a single ruck sack, he boards the Titanic filled with hope for a brighter future. Never one to sit still, he can’t resist exploring the massive ship, and soon goes sneaking into First Class in a stolen steward’s uniform. By a twist of fate, Louis finds himself in Harry’s stateroom, entranced by the most attractive man he’s ever laid eyes on. He keeps returning day after day, even if he doesn’t understand what it is about Harry that continues pulling him in. That’s all right; Louis has a week to figure it out, and Harry is plenty willing to help. Except they don’t have a week. They have four days. Because on 15 April, their entire world will be turned upside down.

Or, the historically accurate Titanic AU with a happy ending.

• Through Eerie Chaos (102k)

For as long as anyone can remember, Old Hillsbridge Manor has always been believed to be haunted. Everyone in the village agrees and keeps a respectful, fearful, distance. New in town after a bad breakup and an internship that led to disappointment rather than a permanent job, Harry Styles figures taking pictures of the decrepit building could be a great new creative project. Or at least a much-needed distraction while he searches for a job and crashes at his parents’ new house. No one warned him about the apparitions though; about the music, the laughter, the people who flicker and vanish when you call after them, the echoes of a past that should be long gone… Harry has never believed in spirits but even he can admit that there’s something weird going on. What starts as mere curiosity evolves into a full-blown investigation and soon enough, Harry finds himself making friends with an aristocrat from the 1920s and struggling with finding the best way to tell him that he’s dead.

The Ghost Hunter AU where Niall lives to prove ghosts are real, Zayn is a skeptical librarian and Harry gets caught up in a century-old mystery and catches feeling in the process.

#whew!#favorite fics #grey

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misedejem · 4 years ago

Text

I wrote 75 headcanons about Kannao

25 for Kanji, 25 for Naoto, 25 for them as a couple

Why?

Why not.

Kanji Tatsumi

1. He does actually need glasses, but he was hesitant to ask for contacts, so he spent most of P4 struggling to see until Naoto brought up that he looked like he was having a hard time. He wore contacts for a bit, but eventually he just stuck to glasses.

2. The scar on his head was a source of speculation for the other members of the Investigation Team for years, because he never cared to explain, resulting in some very wacky theories. Eventually they found out it was just from a fight with a gang member, but considering he got it when he was twelve, the story is still pretty interesting.

3. He hates mentioning medical stuff to anybody, but he’s prone to fainting spells out of nowhere. Thankfully, it never happened in the TV, which several members of the IT very angrily said to him when he blacked out in front of them one day.

4. He’s the spitting image of his father, only with shorter hair. He could never let it grow out for that reason.

5. He’s the only one from the Investigation Team B to go to college. He studies textiles and trains to become a teacher in Tokyo. He ends up being an art teacher at a middle school.

6. He’s actually pretty good at literature and humanities subjects, though he struggles applying those skills in a school setting until a teacher who hasn’t given up on him yet helps him through them.

7. Rise forced him to take dance classes the minute he moved to the city because he was ‘super good at it dammit’. Ditto the drums. He can sing too, but she’s not allowed to know that.

8. He actually just tends to go along with Rise’s plans a lot, partially because he knows her well enough to know stopping her is futile, and also because she understands his tastes very well once she learns what they are

9. He doesn’t dislike the way he used to dress in high school, but it wasn’t quite him. It needed more cuteness, and softer colours, which is how he started to dress once he graduated high school.

10. The black hair and glasses stay forever, but when he’s sewing, he still wears his hair pushed back. Yukiko gave him a hairband for it when she noticed him growing slowly more irritated with it getting in his eyes.

11. As well as his nose and ears, he also gets an eyebrow piercing in college.

12. He manages to make a small group of friends in college, with his course being the perfect way for him to find likeminded individuals who applaud his skills rather than shunning them

13. Kanji is the best cook in the Investigation Team. His baking skills, especially, are exemplary.

14. He has an online, worldwide store where he sells his plushies and the occasional drawing and outfit. He’s semi-fluent in English by the time he graduates college, so when Naoto travels abroad sometimes he goes too and hits up the conventions.

15. Ann is his go-to model once they meet. He helps her with outfits for a college final once and they work together so well that she sticks with him.

16. The reason Koromaru dislikes him is that he can tell he’s kinda rough with physical affection. He doesn’t realise it for the longest time because nobody points it out. He is really good with animals otherwise though, and he’s also really good with kids.

17. He’s a back-up fighter for the Shadow Ops should they need him, by virtue of being married to their resident detective.

18. The main reason he keeps training his body though is actually because Chie is determined to beat him at arm wrestling one day, and he’s too proud to let anyone win without a fight.

19. When Naoto’s cat, Mochi, had kittens, he got to name the one they kept. His name is Pocky. He has a little leather jacket that Kanji painstakingly crafted one night when he couldn’t sleep.

20. He needs a lot of alcohol to get drunk (which makes nights out with the IT interesting for him, given that the others are all serious lightweights)

21. If you give him a life sim, especially that one with the cute animals, you will not see him again for days at a time. He’s not huge on video games, but life sims will take over his life

22. Even if he does retreat into a cave to build a pristine village though, he will still probably emerge with a smooth face because he doesn’t grow facial hair very easily. He can, but it takes a while.

23. He can’t sleep as easily unless he’s holding something soft.

24. The easiest time to get him to speak his mind about certain things is when he’s sick and more vulnerable, which doesn’t happen very often. For example, the IT had no idea their jokes at his expense bothered him until he confessed it while extremely out of it on cold medication one time. He doesn’t remember saying it either, but he did notice they were more sincere with him after that.

25. Everybody in the Investigation Team ends up facing their Shadow again in their adulthood, but by the time Shadow Kanji returns, Kanji has become so accepting of the self the Shadow had represented in the past that he takes on a completely different form. Naoto is the only other person with this same experience.

Naoto Shirogane:

1. By the time they stop growing, Naoto is nearly 5’1” and they absolutely make it a point to let their friends know

2. They don’t really know how to look after their hair at all, hence the cap and general messiness. They tend to forget about it until it becomes too long and gets all tangled.

3. They’re very accident prone, and are covered in a lot of scars from their childhood. The worst one though is one on their back from that time Sho stabbed them at Junes.

4. One of said scars came from their neighbours’ huge dog biting them when they were five. To this day, they’re still absolutely terrified of big dogs.

5. They’ve experienced panic attacks for most of their life, though they occur less frequently as an adult.

6. They resemble their mother more than their father, but the height comes from the Shirogane side. Grampa Shirogane was quite small as well.

7. They are the only member of the Investigation Team who can tolerate Rise’s cooking. The others suspect potential spice immunity.

8. As well as piano and ballroom dance, they were also trained in a choir as a child, but fell out of favour with it in their teens. The Velvet Siblings hold a final Theatre Showdown with their guests in 2019, and this is when Naoto fully rediscovers their musical side again.

9. If you ask Naoto how much those specially tailor-made clothes cost, they will mumble and then change the subject

10. Naoto returns to Yasogami as a full-time student in third year after Mitsuru enrols Labrys in the school out of nowhere, intent on investigating her motives.

11. They hold the school’s record for highest graded paper for decades. It was on Sherlock Holmes.

12. Naoto has written a lot of Sherlock Holmes fanfiction as a kid. The others are aware this exists, but are not allowed to read it.

13. They don’t attend college after graduation, but don’t have much time to figure out what they will do. The mental shutdown incidents begin the same year, and Naoto decided to help the Shadow Operatives with it as much as possible.

14. Naoto hates the title ‘detective prince’, and actively tries to shed it. Akechi was a godsend in that light.

15. They actually hate the media’s attention in general but figured that they may as well use the platform they have for a good cause. They want to be the kind of person they needed to see on TV as a kid, but they very vocally opposed the ‘detective prince’ crap until it ended – which it did quite abruptly when the truth about Akechi came out.

16. Much of what Goro Akechi likes, he got from Naoto’s indirect influence, from the way he dresses to knowledge of that jazz club in Kichijoji. They’re more of a regular there than he is.

17. Rise set them up on social media, but they don’t really get how to use it. Their fans discovered it though, so they still have a fair number of followers.

18. Naoto has a slight friendly rivalry with the people who run a local escape room place. Their goal as a company is to one day leave Naoto stumped.

19. Naoto doesn’t actually like coffee. Too bitter. Tea is their go-to.

20. They got a standard-size motorcycle at eighteen but doesn’t drive a car. Yakushiji and Kanji refuse to let them behind the wheel.

21. After becoming comfortable with their childish side once again, they became openly enamoured once more with Neo Featherman, and have a lot of very expensive figures on display in their house. They even cosplayed at a convention once with some of Kanji’s college friends (though it was difficult to convince them to do it)

22. Yosuke was paid back all the money the IT owed him shortly after Naoto joined the team and discovered they were mooching from him. Yosuke doesn’t know for certain where it came from.

23. They adopted a kitten they named Mochi in 2017, who they found abandoned outside a supermarket (in an old box that had contained a shipment of mochi, hence the name). She’s an orange tabby, and she became something of a comfort animal when Naoto was at their lowest.

24. Their grandfather died from an illness in early February 2017. They didn’t handle his loss well, and they ended up falling into a depression that they never really came out of, though they weren’t able to admit that they weren’t okay. It was an encounter with their Shadow that eventually led to them seeking help.

25. While they’re still a Private Detective in theory, most of the work they do following the events of P5 are Shadow-related. The Shirogane Agency became one of the Shadow Operatives’ closest allies. Makoto Niijima is currently doing an internship there (they met after the Phantom Thieves helped the SOs deal with another incident in Tokyo in 2018)

Kannao

1. Naoto ‘came down with a fever’ around the time of the Love Meets Bonds festival that had absolutely nothing to do with their friend Kanji suddenly seeming way cooler than before.

2. The ‘fever’ got worse when they started having classes together in school, and Naoto agreed to help Kanji with his college entrance exams.

3. At this point Kanji had kinda accepted his feelings existed, but were unrequited, and that he didn’t want that to interfere with their friendship. Naoto was one of the only people who really got him, and he didn’t want to lose them so soon after building a rapport with them. Little did he know.

4. Naoto was the first one to eventually confess, once Rise, Yu, Grampa, Nanako, several books and google searches, and a random stall vendor at the summer festival in their hometown had convinced them that the weird feeling in their chest wasn’t actually an illness. They did it in the summer of 2013, at said festival.

5. They were also the first one to say they were in love. The realisation hit them one day as they were watching Kanji play a cute life-simulator game in his college dorm.

6. While they’re no longer awkward around each other all the time, there are ways they can still make the other very flustered. For example, with Naoto, it’s any time Kanji is wearing a suit.

7. They got married at Christmas in 2019. Kanji had a proposal planned. Naoto misread the vibe and proposed early and spontaneously on the day he had planned to, though he still got to go ahead with his as well.

8. Kanji doesn’t really like PDA. They get a lot of people staring at them anyway because of how they look, or because Naoto is recognisable from the TV, and he doesn’t want to make the stares worse. In private though, he’s the more affectionate one.

9. Naoto accidentally fuelled the rumours that ‘Kanji Tatsumi is in a biker gang’ again when they first started dating by parking their motorcycle outside the textile shop. Ma Tatsumi was quick to tell anybody who questioned it that it belonged to her son’s significant other long before she was supposed to know they were dating

10. Kanji keeps forgetting to specify which number in his phone is for Naoto’s personal phone and which is for work, which has lead to such wonderful anecdotes as ‘I accidentally hired a private investigator to fix my broken car’

11. They’re both used to the other bolting upright in bed at 3am because they’ve had an idea for a new pair of socks for the cat, or another hypothesis for a case. Naoto also wakes up quite a bit due to nightmares.

12. They lived together with the rest of the Investigation Team since 2016, but they don’t get an apartment as just the two of them until the year they get married. It doesn’t take long before there is an entire room in that apartment filled from floor to ceiling with toys.

13. Kanji is much tidier and more organised than Naoto, even though Naoto isn’t bad, so he’s the one who figures out where things should go. Decorating the house is his favourite thing

14. They are the unparalleled board-game kings. Somehow, they’re an unstoppable force of nature when paired together for them.

15. Surprising everyone, Naoto is the more likely of the two to use pet names. They are the only person who won’t be threatened if they call him ‘Kan-chan’.

16. Before it became common knowledge amongst Naoto’s fanclub that Kanji was their boyfriend, they thought he was their bodyguard. (The Risette fandom had the same idea)

17. Kanji never helped that rumour die, considering that when the media tries to shove cameras into Naoto’s face, he yells obscenities and gets in the way until the footage is unusable.

18. They have a daughter in 2025, when Naoto is 30 and Kanji is 29. She’s named Chihiro, mostly because it’s like a phonetic portmanteau of Kanji’s father’s name (Koichi Tatsumi) and Naoto’s grandfather’s (Yasuhiro Shirogane). But also, that was the name of the actor who played Naoto’s favourite version of Feather Swan. Naoto isn’t creative enough to come up with a portmanteau.

19. They are each 80% of the other’s impulse control

20. Naoto couldn’t care less that Kanji isn’t the brightest, despite common misconception. The Shirogane family, and the people who work for it, always placed emphasis on a person’s intelligence (hence Yu’s requirement for a lot of knowledge to start the Fortune link) but Naoto is strongly opposed to that mindset. To them, it’s freeing to have somebody around who doesn’t want to be an intellectual 95% of the time.

21. They are very private when it comes to their relationship, to the point that sometimes even friends or colleagues have no idea what’s going on in their lives until it’s let slip somehow. When Junpei and Yukari – the Shadow Ops Naoto worked with the least - found out they were expecting, it first had to be explained to them that they’d been married for five years.

22. They sometimes get mistaken for father and son at restaurants until their early thirties, to which point Naoto will make a scene of ordering a lot of alcohol to prove they’re old enough. Naoto can’t really handle booze.

23. They’re really bad at making face to face announcements about anything big to their friends, so they always find some way to do it elaborately instead. They told the IT they were having a kid, for example, through a series of puzzles put together by Naoto

24. Kanji loves making couples costumes and outfits, but then gets too embarrassed to wear them

25. Naoto is a fiend for stealing Kanji’s clothes as pyjamas. They are large and warm, and when they’re travelling for work, they remind them of him. It got to the point where Kanji would pack a shirt of his secretly in Naoto’s suitcase, knowing that’s why his clothes always went missing.

#persona 4 #kanji tatsumi #naoto shirogane #kannao #headcanon

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zankivich · 5 years ago

Text

The Arrangement: CEO’s Son/Dom!Shawn x Black Sub Reader Chapter 13

Merry Chrismukkah or whatever you celebrate, or just happy Saturday if that’s what floats your boat. Shawn is still dumb. Perhaps dumber. But these are my babies and they deserve the best. Just keep that in mind okay? K bye.

*Shawn’s point of view*

The New Year was a wonderful way for very rich people to throw very elaborate parties to tell people how rich they were. In his early twenties, he’s been roped in by the booze and the women and the occasional party drug or two. Something about twenty-four made him crave the serenity of naps, staying in, and home cooked meals. It could have been the maturity of growing up, sure, but he wasn’t exactly that naive. All he had to do was wake up wrapped around her to know that the only thrill he was going to get was by being with her. Y/n was the least industry, industry person he’d ever met. So, when she told him she had no plans to attend not one even one of the many she’d been invited to, he wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. He was happy to stay in. Or so he thought.

They were going to see a movie at this theatre in Manhattan that always showed the upcoming independent films of the year before they ever made it to the indie film festival. He really liked indie films, so y/n bought them tickets for a matinee showing. While y/n was in the shower getting ready his phone began to buzz and he was left without a choice but to answer it for one specific reason. It was his father. Or the Devil. Semantics.

“Yes, dad?” He sighed.

“Your mother is flying in for our annual New Years Eve party. I need you to get her here on time, and make sure she takes the uppers and not the downers this time.”

“Dad, Mom hasn’t been on pills since 2014. Remember the whole rehab thing?” He huffed. “And I’m absolutely not coming to that thing this year.”

“You absolutely the fuck are. The entire senior management team will be here, and I won’t have you make me look bad because you insist on being a child. You’re coming and you’re bringing your mother.”

His hands turned to fists and he pulled the phone away from his mouth just long enough to curse his father back to hell for once.

“I already have plans, dad!”

“Cancel them! The party starts at nine, I expect you and your mother here by ten at the latest. Put on a suit for Christ’s sake too, none of that skinny jean bullshit.”

His dad hangs up without another world and he collapsed back onto the bed to question how he had managed to be conceived by one of the worst people ever. Really, what were the chances?

“Baby do you wanna do chinese for dinner after the movies?” y/n called from the bathroom.

And that’s when he began to cry.

“Boy, what in the hell is the matter with you now?”

He uncovered his arm from his face to see her standing at the entryway to the bathroom wrapped in a towel and looking as soft as cocoa butter. He really wanted to cry.

“You know the crime shows where the kids kill the parents and you’re like, holy shit that’s fucked up? Well I’m starting to sympathize with ‘em.”

“Sorry, that’s a little too close to white nonsense for me. Why, what happened?”

She stepped over to where he was on the bed and he sat up to fall a little pathetically into her arms. She smelled like flowers and that whole cocoa butter business he was thinking of earlier. Jesus, life was so unfair.

“My dad is making me pick up my mother and go to this stupid fucking new year’s eve party so he can pretend that they haven’t not lived together since before I graduated high school. No options. I’m going.” He reported glumly.

Her fingers were cool from having dried after the shower and she ran them soothingly through his scalp. He nestled himself more firmly against her and tried not to purr too loudly.

“Hmm, well that sucks. I guess there go our plans huh?”

He peered up at her, chin resting against her chest.

“Absolutely not. We’re gonna go see our movie and then we’ll...just go drink my dad’s booze and maybe find a janitor’s closet to fool around in.” He shrugged.

She snorted. “How romantic. I told you I’m not taking my underwear off in a janitor’s closet ever again, Shawn.”

“Who said you had to? I can get creative, baby.” He grinned.

“Of course you can. I think you’re forgetting the part where your dad doesn’t know we’re together.”

“Oh hell, who cares y/n. I’m not going without you. Why would I spend new year’s without my girlfriend?”

“Because...Manny is Satan and would try to ruin my career?”

“Hey, he wouldn’t. Y/n, I swear he wouldn’t do that to you.”

She smiled down at him sadly and scratched at his scalp again.

“I don’t really think you could make that promise, sweetheart. It’s okay. I’m not mad about it. I understand.”

“But I don’t! I want to spend the day with you, not at some dumb party! I had a whole plan about us making love in my bed with the curtains open while the fireworks went on, dammit. I hate him!”

Her chest began to shake and he realized that she was indeed laughing at him. There’s no love in this world.

“This isn’t funny.” He whined.

“It’s a little funny.”

No. Love.

***

“Hmm you look good enough to eat.” She murmured from behind him.

Her arms came to wrap around his waist and she reached up on the tips of her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder as he adjusted his suit. He could not have been less excited.

“Good enough to eat, not good enough to keep me home, aye?”

She rolled her eyes. “You are about as dramatic as they come you know that? I’m trying to keep the peace. Now you just make sure nobody touches what’s mine and you bring your ass home right after that ball drops.”

He turned in her grasp, pulling her more tightly against him. She was in nothing but his sweatshirt and a pair of underwear that surely would make him drool if he stared long enough. He loved her.

“What was it again that’s yours? I just wanna make sure I have all my bases covered when I inevitably get hit on.” He smirked.

She reached quickly for his jaw and tugged him forward so she could kiss him with dominance and love. Why in the entire hell was he going to this party?

“All of it.” She whispered eyes lifting up and down to drink him in. “You call me if you need a reminder.”

He nodded dumbly, lips parted and ready to drool.

“Yea. Okay.”

Leaving her is nearly impossible, especially knowing that he won’t have an ounce of fun the rest of the night. His mum is half way to sloppy drunk by the time he arrives to pick her up and the party's at stifling capacity by the time they arrive. But as long as his dad is happy that’s apparently all that matters. It’s all that ever matters.

“Look you just stand against this wall and I’ll go get you something with bubbles in it.”

His mum only giggled and leaned harder against the wall.

“Okay!”

He goes to the bar and gets her some cranberry juice mixed with soda water. She was drunk enough that it wouldn’t matter, and he was hopeful that by the end of the night she might sober enough for him to get her back to her hotel without incident. By the time he returns from the bar, he sees his dad wrapping his arm possessively around his mother. He starts talking to some old guy in a hat that isn’t doing enough to cover his balding head, and it’s about as sickening as can be. The worst part is that his mum completely plays into it. Her head rests on his shoulder. Her fingers play with his hair. They play the happy couple so well, it almost has him fooled. Almost.

There used to be a day when he would have tried to defend her honor, a day when he thought he was strong enough to fight his dad. He’d gotten knocked on his ass enough times to know that was simply not the case. And that’s how he ended up hiding in a corner with a double scotch texting his girlfriend while everyone around him looked like complete and total jackasses.

Shawn: I miss you. This is dumb. My dad is literally the worst.

y/n: You are so cute when you complain like a sixteen year old.

Shawn: I am delicate, y/n. You cannot be mean to me in my current state.

y/n: You poor, poor thing. What can I do to make it better?

Shawn: Rescue me?

y/n: We’ll see. Go place nice with the fragile men who never lived up their father’s visions for them.

Shawn: I think I’d rather die.

The party really is dead. It’s all the people who kiss his dad’s ass on a daily basis. Most of them were in their fifties or older. It wasn’t even the artists themselves, just the people who made money off of them. If he didn’t know any better he’d say it was his dad’s way of fundraising for investors. And he definitely knew better.

He’s sitting at the bar counting down the minutes until he gets to go home. It’s maybe thirty minutes until the ball drops, and everyone around him is hammered to pieces. He hasn’t seen his dad since he got there, and his mum was probably being dragged around by that asshole as nothing more than a trophy piece. God he wanted to go home. And then the elevator doors opened.

She’s wearing the dress that he bought her after he accidently ripped the other one. It’s black and sleek with a thigh slit that has his lips parting even now. Her hair is tied sleekly up in a bun and the second she steps into the room the entire atmosphere shifts. She’s gorgeous. Every inch of her. They lock eyes from across the room and he just knows that he’s beaming, couldn’t stop it even if he wanted. She’s here for him and no one else, and that means the world to him. She means the world to him.

He orders her her go-to drink and goes to find his girlfriend only to find that she’s already been stopped. It’s one of the guys from his dad’s team. He’s on the younger side, maybe in his early thirties, probably drives an eco friendly car or something. He’s dumb is the point. Dumb. And ugly. And stupid. And talking to his girlfriend.

“You look beautiful tonight. I didn’t expect to see you here. You and Manny don’t really get along.”

She giggled. Why was she giggling?

“That’s certainly one way to put it. But a good old-fashioned rivalry never hurt anyone, did it? Especially not when I win.” She grinned.

“You know…I find that kind of confidence in a woman to be incredibly sexy.”

Her eyes widened and he leaned in to place a hand on her waist. He made sure to step between them before it got that far.

“Vodka cran right?” He interjected pulling her not so subtly against him.

She rolled her eyes but smiled up at him.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Who are you chatting with?”

“Shawn it’s Mike. We--We work together?”

He placed his hand on her lower back barely sparing him a glance as he led her away.

“Oh yea. Enjoy the party Mike!”

“You are not subtle in the slightest you know that?” She laughed.

“Yea, whatever. Only person who get’s to call my baby sexy is me, dammit.”

“I find your possessiveness to be both sexist and oddly stimulating. I will combat my feminist guide and get back to you.”

He snorted. “While you’re at it can you ask the feminist guide what it has to say about your whole, ‘it’s all mine’, shtick?”

“Hmm...you may have a point.”

He leads her onto the dance floor. Dancing is innocent. It can mean anything, and isn’t inherently tied to being in a relationship, so it acts as a safe space for the two of them. The party was too large for him to place eyes on his dad, so he had to just believe that they could occupy space together and be okay. No kissing. No waist touching. Certainly no ass touching. He really had to just hold onto his drink and soak her in. The good news is that soaking her in is better than not having her there at all. So he holds tight to the idea that he could have her there with him.

“You came here for me.” He murmured in her ear. “Why?”

She shrugs her shoulders and shimmies her hips to the beat of a Khalid song, ironically.

“You asked me to.”

“I know but...what about my dad?”

“Your dad is...always going to exist. No matter how long we’re together. If I let him stop me from enjoying New Year’s with you than I’m giving him power over our relationship. He doesn’t get to have that. Only we have that.”

It’s another one of those moments where if he looked back on his life, he could have identified it as a shift in their dynamic. This was y/n pulling down the final brick in the wall. She had chosen him fully and irrevocably in such a way that she was willing to go all in. His dad no longer matter mattered. Nothing really seemed to matter. Because they loved each other, and as long as they loved each other everything else would work out at some point. He had always been hers, but now he got to be her’s in broad daylight. Well, kind of.

They find a corner to shove themselves into away from the crowd. She crosses her legs and shows off more thigh than anyone has the right too, which reminds him that he hasn’t kissed her in hours. And so he sneaks a kiss on her cheek and hides his face in her neck, because he just wants to go home. He really wants to go home.

“I can’t touch you here.” He mumbled. “This is basically my own version of hell.”

She sighed. “Yea, I know. Usually your horniness is excessive, but this party is drier than Milania Trump’s pussy. Sheesh.”

He laughs because she’s funny and it makes him feel lighter, happier. He still doesn’t know how she does it.

“My dad is somewhere showing my mum off like she’s a thing and not a person. To him everything is a commodity, something for him to own and do with what he pleases.” He mumbled reaching for her hand. “I just want you to know that you could never be that for me. I would never, ever treat you like that.”

She smiled softly at him.

“I know. You’ve never treated me with anything but kindness, Shawn. You’re not your dad.”

He nodded. “See I know that, and yet still it feels good to be reminded sometimes.”

“You just let me know whenever you need reminding then.”

“Mkay. I will.”

“Shawn.”

The two of them looked up as his father ascended with his mother hanging onto him, eyes barely open. Y/n moved as far away from him as physically possible. He had to hide his face to pretend it didn’t hurt. It did hurt.

“What now?” He grumbled.

“Your mother is incompacitated. Take her home. Now.”

He stands up immediately, y/n remaining seated in her chair. She played coy incredibly well, bringing her drink to her lips and settling back deeper into her chair.

“Y/n,” Manny dipped his head. “So glad you could make it to our little suarey. Are you enjoying yourself?”

She smiled. “You know I was. I think I enjoyed myself so much that I’m gonna have to take a very long nap to deal with all the excitement.”

He catches the thinly veiled anger on his father’s face at Y/n taking the piss out of him as he reaches for his mum. She was in worse condition than he left her in, her eyes barely remaining open.

“Jesus, dad what did you do to her?” He hissed.

“She’s a grown ass woman fully capable of making her own decisions. Now get her out of here before she embarasses me further.”

“I do really enjoy the playful family banter. It’s sweet.” Y/n interjected. “And not incredibly cliche at all.”

He looked at her with pleading eyes to not make his father any angrier than he already was. If the look on his face was anything to go off though, his father wasn’t ever going to be happy when y/n was present. Manny sent y/n a scathing look before grumbling off to be with the rest of the crowd. His mum on the other hand was practically snoring on his shoulder. He hated the holidays.

“Looks like I’m gonna miss the ball drop. I gotta get her home.” He sighed.

“It’s okay. We can ring in the new year when you get back, okay?”

“Promise?”

She smiled up at him. “Promise.”

“K. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Neither of them noticed Manny watching them from the bar. Nor had they noticed the way he had watched them the entire night. In fact as Shawn was pulling his mother towards the elevator, Manny was calling for the party planner for the event that night.

“Can you look up a name on the guest list for me?” He asked.

“Of course, sir.”

“y/f/n y/l/n. She on there?”

The party planner flicked through the list twice before shaking her head at Manny.

“No sir, I never sent any invitation to a y/f/n y/l/n.”

Manny looked back over at the couch where y/n and Shawn had been sitting. She was already gone.

“Yea, that’s what I thought.”

***

*y/n’s point of view*

The fact that Shawn becomes a regular at Lenny’s Tavern is only a testament to his love for music. He went every Friday it seemed, to the point where he turned out to be a celebrity of the pub. It was his place of joy. You never saw him smile harder then when he was up there with a guitar in his hands. It was a blend of covers and originals, and when he’s up there getting the entire crowd to scream sing “Hit Me Baby One More Time”, you know that there’s something special there. He knows how to command a room, at first with his presence, but now with his talent. Something that could take years to teach an artist, Shawn was sitting there with it by the boatload. And so every night is a little bittersweet, because you know Manny and you know if he has his way Shawn will never get anything more. But, the smile on his face every time he asks you to go is enough to have you taking the forty minute drive out the city on Fridays.

He jumps down from the stage to ravenous applause. The smile and the light in his eye is exceptional. You watch him get stopped by a few women, an increasing occurrence at Lenny’s Tavern, who asked to take a selfie with him. The smile that he puts on for them is more calculated, more mass sex appeal. Honestly, he was a music exec’s wet dream. And not because he’s good at it, but because he does it with this sort of authentic happiness that no amount of money can buy. He’s just got it.

“Did you like it babe? I tried the falsetto on the ‘suit and tie’ cover just like you said.” He beamed at you.

You wrapped your arms around his waist and kissed his nose.

“You sounded amazing. Just like you always do. My baby’s kind of a star.” You grinned.

“Yea, only because of you. Can you imagine my life if you’d been my manager instead of my dick of a dad?”

“You’d be wildly sucessful for sure...But I don’t fuck my clients so…”

He frowned. “Then let’s just stick with this reality, aye?”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s go get me a drink.”

He trailed you to the bar, his hands playfully on your ass and hips. His unwillingness to quit touching you was much appreciated in just about every instance of your lives together. Why go through life not being touched by your significant other? It just didn’t make sense.

“Hey Shawn!” Ronnie, the owner of the bar, called.

“Hey Ronnie, man, what’d you think of the set?”

“It was amazing! You’re always amazing, you pretty bastard, and you know it.”

You peered up at your boyfriend as you took a sip of your drink. His cheekbones were more sculpted than yours and perfectly flushed. His curls were like the swirl of an ice cream cone off pinterest. The fucker really was pretty. Rude.

“Hey, it’s just an honor to get up there man.”

“Really? Cause see I had one of my buddies from Atlantic come see your set and he asked me to give you his card, but if it’s all about the honor then…”

“What?!” Shawn and you screeched in unison.

Ronnie stared at the two of you with a big grin on his face.

“Yea! Same way I got our little Niall to where he’s at. When the sets are good, they come to check out the talent man. And you’re better than good. Here.”

Shawn took the card and stared down at it. You could see the fear, but also the light in his eyes. It was about as tragic as can be.

“No man, I--I can’t take this.” He mumbled handing the card back to Ronnie.

Ronnie refused it.

“Keep it. You deserve it man!” He exclaimed before walking away.

Shawn turned to you with wide eyes and a terrified look on his face that had you reaching to wrap his giant frame up in your arms.

“It’s okay. Hey, don’t stress yourself out. Just don’t call the number.”

“But my dad does so much work with Atlantic. Like five of his artists are co-signed through them. What if he finds out somehow?”

You shook your head. “He won’t cause you’re not going to call...unless that’s what you want.”

“Huh?”

You ran your hands up his arms and over his shoulders trying to quell some of the tension.

“Look I’m just saying that, yea you signed with your dad when you were fifteen but that contract expired the moment you became an adult. That’s probably why he asked you to work for the company the moment you turned eighteen, so that he could retain this hold he has over you.”

He frowned at you. “But...but my music.”

“I know baby. You made a lot of music that means a lot to you, and I want nothing more than for you to have ownice of it. All I’m saying is that if you can’t get the music back, that doesn’t mean you can never create again. It doesn’t even mean you can’t make music for a living. Any label would kill to sign you. I know because I’d be right there fighting with ‘em.”

He released this big breath, face twitching with anxiety. You could tell it was getting to him, that the moment was becoming too much. You didn’t really know how to ease him into it anymore than you already had.

“I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. I wanna go home.” He mumbled, face red.

“Okay, I can be okay with that. Let’s go home.”

“Can we go to your place?” He asked head dipping down closer to yours.

You smiled. “Of course.”

***

*Shawn’s point of view*

Everything makes sense when they’re making love. It’s something about the way she tastes, or maybe is the vibrations of her moans against his mouth when he kisses her throat. His head is never more clear than when she’s in his arms. He loves her. God does he love her. He wants her to have everything, all of him, infinitely. So that’s what she gets.

“Fuck! Oh my god!” She sobbed.

“You gonna cum for me?” He asks reaching to stroke her clit with his thumb.

She nodded recklessly her stomach tensing, thighs trembling.

“Please. Shawn, I need it so bad.”

He flips her onto her back, hand wrapping around the top of her head for leverage as he lays into her. Her body shakes for him and she claws at his back so hard there will be welts later. But it’s her pleasure. It’s the only thing in the world that matters to him when they’re in this space together. So he keeps moving, keeps moaning, keeps holding on for every second that he can if it means she’ll stare at him like he just blew her mind. He always wants to blow her mind. And she bursts for him like an overripe fruit in the summer heat, and he makes sure that he’s right there to slurp it up for her.

“I love you.” He groaned into her ear. “I love you so much.”

The doorbell ringing is literally the last thing in the world that he wants to hear. She’s still panting against his neck and he’s just supposed to get out of bed?

“Let it ring.” She mumbled lips tracing his nipple.

“Oh. My. God, woman.”

She giggled and the result was something so cute and soft on her face that he could feel his exhausted body peak in interest. The line between whether to dominate and whether to cuddle deeply into the sheets got more blurred by the second with her.

The doorbell rings again.

“Jesus Christ.” He muttered.

“Fuck...look just go answer it. I have to get ready for work soon anyway.”

He immediately began to pout.

“But baby...I didn’t finish my moves.” He whined.

She snorted. “You finished just fine for me, dear. Go get the door.”

He does what she asks. But not without whining the entire time dammit. She puts on his Jimi Hendrix t-shirt and walks off to his kitchen without underwear or a bra. Whoever was at the door probably deserved to die. He didn’t make the rules.

“This better be good!”

He yanked open the door to see his dad standing there with two starbucks cups in his hands and the grin of Satan.

“Dad.” He mumbled. “What--what the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s time to talk to son.” He smiled making his way past him to get into his apartment.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Look now really isn’t the time!”

“On the contrary, I don’t think there could be a better time. Ah! Good morning y/n!”

Sure enough there she stood in the middle of the room where the living room met the kitchen with a pan in her hand and the fear of god in her eyes.

“Y/n my...dad is here.” He stated glumly.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’d managed to catch on, Shawn.”

“As much as I do enjoy watching the two of you prance around with no pants on, I think it’s time to get dressed. Shawn and I have some things to discuss. Take your time. I’ll wait.”

The room is dead silent. Y/n is looking at him like she’s contemplating hitting his dad over the head with the pan. Honestly, it’s not the worst visual he could come up with. Instead they walk side by side back to his bedroom. His hands are shaking and he tugs anxiously at his hair as he watches her get dressed. It’s impossible for him to wrap his head around this moment. Ten minutes ago they were making love, and now his dad knows about them. Just like that.

She tugs her shoes on and reaches for her keys and his heart spasms painfully in his chest. He’s got no choice but to reach for her.

“Hey,” He whispered hands still shaking as he gripped her waist. “I--I don’t know what’s going on right now. I’m freaking out y/n.”

She nodded. “Me too. It’s gonna be okay though. Just come to my place when it’s over. Whatever it is, we can work through it, y’know? That’s what we do.”

“I love you. More than anything. You know that right?”

She smiled at him sadly and ran her fingers through his hair to scratch at his scalp. It was the most calming gesture he could think of.

“I know. And I love you too. It’ll be okay. I wish I could be here with you in this, I do. But we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

He nodded solemnly letting his shoulders drop as she released him.

“Yea, okay.”

The last image he gets of her is when she walks through his front door without looking back. Her head was high, shoulders back, a lot like the first night he met her. Only now he knew better. Now he knew it was a part of her no doubt, but a constructed one too. With the presence of his dad, she suddenly needed to be a version of herself that no one could touch. Not even him. And so the last good image he gets of her is a version of her that’s not his, not hers. It exists outside of everything that they’ve become together in the months of their love. It’s a protective shell put up to hide. That’s the last image he gets.

***

*y/n’s point of view*

He doesn’t come over. And he doesn’t call. At first you thought maybe something happened. Maybe Manny shipped him off to Novasokia or some shit. But a woman left to sit in her apartment for hours can only come up with so much. By the time it was dark out, you got the feeling that he wasn’t coming over. All your text messages and calls had gone unanswered. You worried sick, and sad as all hell. You skipped work to wait around for him, and then couldn’t bring yourself to do anything but lie there all day. So when he doesn’t show up it’s a day wasted. And when you wake up the next morning to nothing? Not a facetime, an emoji, not even a fuck off? Your heart just sort of breaks.

“Hi, uh. I don’t really know what’s going on. And I don’t know what he could have said to you to make you not come over but...I’m scared, Shawn. I--I miss you. And I just want to know that you’re okay. Please call me. Bye.”

You showed up to work an absolute nervous wreck. It had taken you all morning to convince yourself not to go over to Shawns’ apartment. If he really didn't want to see you, then you probably owed that to him. The rational part of you was trying to come up with a solution. So, you convinced yourself that Shawn must’ve gotten into a really terrible fight with his dad and he had gone off somewhere to play music and blow off steam. It wasn’t the craziest scenario. In the time that you’d known him, Shawn had definitely fled the world to hide in a room somewhere with his guitar. This was just the first time, he’d shut you out too.

You walked onto the floor of your office and Tiana was waiting there with a hot tea for you and a very sad, anxious look on her face. It just so happened that you didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with anyone else at the moment.

“Hey Ti,” You mumbled. “I just need the day okay? I’m gonna go work on some stuff, but I really don’t want to be bothered.”

“I know sis but… you’ve got a visitor.”

Your eyes widened and quickly moved to get to your office.

“Is it Shawn? Did he say anything to you?”

“Y/n it’s not Shawn!” She called after you. “It’s Manny.”

You froze where you stood peering at your office door with confusion.

“What?”

“He was already here when I got here. He said that he had something to tell you, and that you’d be interested in hearing from him.” She explained. “But, I can kick him out if you want. I--I didn’t know!”

You swallowed and turned back to your friend.

“No uh, it’s okay. I’ll just...I’ll go in there.”

There’s a moment where you stood outside your office and took a huge breath. The truth of the matter was Manny had scared you for years. In the midst of your come up in the industry there were plenty of men who didn’t like you. Didn’t like your ideas, didn’t like your success, didn’t like your unwillingness to bow down to them. That you’d grown used to. But Manny seemed to feel all of those things at a level that no one else did. And while plenty of men would be happy to see your down fall not too many of them would actively participate in making it happen. You had known from the day you met him that Manny was the guy who would.

Falling for Shawn hadn’t gotten rid of the fear, but what it had done was shift your priorities. Whatever was on the other side of that door needed to happen, because you needed Shawn in your life. You loved him too much to be without him, and he loved you too much too. You knew that. You had to believe those two facts or none of it mattered. So you schooled your face into the mask that you’d created long before that day, and you walked into your office to meet it head on. Because there were no other options.

“Manny, I wasn’t sure if you knew where our office was located.” You smiled upon entering the room. “I always figured it was too urban of a space for you, not enough upper east side, ya know.”

He sat on the edge of your desk a lot like Shawn had the first time he’d been there. If there was anything to be said about the resemblance of the too, it was that Shawn did look a lot like his father.

“Well you’re right about that, y/n. I don’t exactly slum it unless I have too. I figured today was a good enough occasion.”

And subtle racist remarks all before ten am. This ought to be a treat.

“What do you want, Manny?”

You sat down at your desk and of course he immediately stood up so that he could tower over you. Men. So incredibly predictable.

“It’s over y/n.”

You rolled your eyes at the dramatics.

“And do tell, what exactly is over Manny?”

“Whatever hold you had on my son. It’s done with.”

“Ahhh. That’s what this is about. You’re upset that he started thinking for himself, and that his hands were no longer glued to your ass. I’m sorry but that has nothing to do with me. He’s a grown man; he thinks for himself.”

Manny stuffed his hands in his pockets and began to walk around the room. In retrospect Shawn was just about as dramatic as his father, just less evil.

“I should’ve known when it first started that you’d dig your claws into him. His rush to get me to introduce you two. The sudden trips to Rome on my jet, of course. The push back at work. His disappearing all the time.” He sighed. “I just thought angry pussy was better pussy or something.”

Your anger gets the best of you and a break appears in the mask.

“Excuse me?”

“Well you two really just weren’t subtle at all now were you? Which was fine at first. I’m sure you’re perfectly fine in the sack y/n, but it’s not like he’d ever marry you into the family. But then you started putting your nose where it didn’t fucking belong. That stint at the pub where we found Niall. Did you really think I wasn’t going to hear about that?”

You were absolutely rattled inside, varying on disgust and rage alongside a kind of fear you hadn’t experienced in years. But you couldn’t let it show. You’d rather die than let it show.

“He’s talented. He’s the best I’ve seen in years and I’ve got three of this years top artists under my belt. To block that? To keep him hidden because of your own inadequacies? That’s pathetic and you know it.”

Manny chuckled. “Your generation is so incredibly naive. That’s business, honey. Shawn can do more for me outside of the spotlight than he can inside it. It’s as simple as that.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. You old wrinkly white men and your archaic understanding of the world. That’s not business, that’s greed. That relentless, self-indulging, disgusting greed you sad, sad little man.”

The smile on Manny’s face dropped as well as the temperature in the room. You were without a doubt one of the only people in his life to challenge him. He didn’t like it at all.

“And what about what he wants? Doesn’t that matter at all?” You asked. “Doesn’t anything but your own self-interest matter to you at all?”

“Not even in the slightest. But it’s okay now. I’ve shifted my narrative in part because of you. So I thank you for that.”

“Jesus Christ you know you sound like a villain straight out of a Spy Kids movie, like at all times? Will you just get to the fucking point?”

“I’m gonna give Shawn his masters back.”

You paused. “What?”

“Yep. All two hundred songs. There his. He can do with them what he pleases. He’ll resign a contract with me of course, and I’ll give him the career he always wanted. He’ll realize that he’s nothing without me. And everyone lives happily ever after.”

“I’m just supposed to believe that a plan you cooked up when he was fifteen years old is over now? Just like that? What’s the catch here?”

Manny snapped his fingers and moved closer to you.

“Oh that’s right. My apologies. The catch is that he has to break up with you.”

At this your stomach and your heart and everything in between just dropped.

“What?”

“You heard me. Shawn can have everything that he’s ever wanted, every song he’s ever written, just as long as you’re not in the picture.” He smiled. “I know my son, y/n. And he will pick correctly and you will be but an unpleasant memory.”

It just ripped you to shreds. It was the culmination of everything that you knew about Shawn, and everything that you loved about him, being exactly the thing to take him from you. And it hurt. You were left utterly defenseless as if he’d ripped your carefully crafted mask right from your face. Your eyes watered, your throated tightened. This was it. This was the end. Manny had banked on your willingness to know Shawn, which meant he knew that you loved him. And perhaps that’s the part that hurts the most. That someone could take the goodness of your heart and use it against you in such a malicious way.

“Why...why would you do this?” You asked.

And he shrugged at you.

“I like to win y/n. And I always win. This time will be no different. And I’ll make sure of it.”

He left the room just as the tears spilled over your cheeks. Because in order for Manny to win, someone would have to lose. He had made sure that only one person would come out of this scathed. You lost.

***

Seeing him on the other side of your door makes the gaping hole where your heart used to be throb. His curls are wilder than ever. There are bags beneath his eyes that are unlike anything you’d ever seen. He looked exhausted and sad and really beautiful even then. When he sees you he pulls up a smile that is so pathetic it hurts. But, it’s honest. It’s him giving all of himself to you, even when there’s damn near nothing left. To look at him now was to be in pain. And so you had to remind yourself that preservation was a Black woman’s armor. It was all you had left.

He smiled sadly as you leaned against your door not inviting him inside.

“Hi.” He whispered waving in his favorite clappy hand like motion that usually made you smile.

Not today.

“Hi.”

“I can explain. And I am so, so sorry that I disappeared but--”

“There’s no need.” You interrupted.

He shook his head. “No, y/n, I swear to you that I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just needed time. I needed to clear my head and my fucking dad he--”

“I know. Shawn I know.” You mumbled. “He came to my office.”

Shawn’s eyes widened.

“He did what? What did he say to you?”

He reached for you and you stepped further behind the door causing Shawn to pause and stare at you. His face began to shift just as the puzzle pieces slid into place. As your lip trembled he raised his hands up in the air in a motion of defenselessness, as if he was waiting for you to spook and disappear at any moment. If only he knew.

“Y/n what’s going on?” He whispered, eyes wide open and scared. “Why won’t you let me touch you? W--Why can’t we go inside?”

You closed your eyes and breathed but it was pointless. The tears came in abundance now. His hand touched your cheek and you wished that it didn’t soothe you. Wouldn’t this all be easier if he didn’t soothe you so well.

“It’s over, Shawn.”

“What?” He mumbled, completely frozen into place. “What?”

You swallowed.

“It has to end. You and me, we’re done.”

“What are you talking about right now? Are you kidding me?” He sputtered. “I--love you. I love you with everything that I am, how could you say that to me?”

You shake your head to try and dispel some of the sadness with the hopes that you could even get through this whole. The problem was you already felt yourself splintering, and the more room you gave him to fight, the more damaged the both of you would be.

“I��m sorry, but that doesn’t matter right now.”

You can tell by the look on his face that you’re crushing him. This fact only ruins you further, only make the pain sizzle deep in your gut. You’ve got nothing left to give. You’ve gotta give it all to him so that he can go on and be okay. It’s for the best. It has to be.

“It does matter?! I love you! And you love me. And it doesn’t matter? Why are you doing this?!”

“Because it...it’s the only way to give you everything you’ve always wanted. And I love you enough to give you that. Goodbye Shawn.”

“Y/n, wait can’t we please just--”

You close the door in his face. Everything is blurry around the edges. You sink down to the floor and cover your ears as if it might cover the sounds of him pounding on your door. The two of you cry and sob for the other. You knows there’s no fixing this. It’s done.

***

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bittykimmy13 · 5 years ago

Text

The Longest Night

Midwinter is here. For years, Bristel has been smitten with Yarrow, a fairy from a viciously rival village. Nothing can prepare him for the moment that Yarrow requests his company at the Midwinter festival. And certainly nothing can prepare him for the consequences.

~~~

SAY HELLO to my fixation from the past 2 months!! Bristel and Yarrow will appear in a future Shot in the Dark novella!

Characters belong to me and the lovely @marydublin5 <3

(( More Shot in the Dark. ))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You don’t seem excited. What happened? You’re always buzzing before solstice festivals.” Rhona’s eyes darted higher in her vanity mirror to look at Bristel across the room. “You get to see your lordling. What, has he become less dreamy recently?” Bristel was sprawled on Rhona’s bed, so lost in thought that it took him a moment to catch up with what she said. He sat up, pointedly ignoring the dreamy comment. “It would be more exciting if he actually spoke to me.” “What do you mean? You’ve vanished half the night the past few festivals. You don’t have to lie to me if you’ve been sneaking off with him.” Her gaze sparkled with intrigue, desperate for gossip. “I won’t tell a soul.” “Well, when all your friends are soulless, that shouldn’t be hard.” He walked up behind her and checked the mirror to make sure his lavender hair wasn’t too tousled from laying down. “But for your information, I do not sneak off with him. Solstices have become so boring, I can barely remember them. Forgive me for not flying laps around the room.” “Hm. Maybe take it easy on the wine tonight, then.”

Bristel flicked his hand at the mirror, frosting it over with ice. Rhona whirled around, pouting.

“No need to get testy,” she said. “I was just so sure I saw him leading you off into the shadows during Midsummer.”

“What are you talking about, he barely looks at me!” He began pacing—luckily Rhona’s room offered ample space for Bristel’s wings to flicker with agitation. “I thought he was making some sort of cute game of it, but it’s gone on too long. He doesn’t have any interest in me. And, well… it’s for the best, isn’t it? It’s not as if anything worthwhile could actually happen between us.” Giving up on her reflection in the frosted mirror, Rhona strode into Bristel’s path. Her peach hair was pinned loosely, allowing most of it to fall in elegant waves. Her gown glittered like starlight, befitting a young woman of her status. “Don’t be a spoilsport,” she chided. “There are plenty of fairies around here who make eyes at the ravine villagers during solstice—and they do more than that, but you didn’t hear it from me. It’s harmless fun, it doesn’t have to mean anything.” She egged him on with a scandalous grin. “And don’t lie to me. I know you haven’t given up hope completely.” He crossed his arms. “What makes you say that?” “I see you fussing over your hair.” She reached out and tapped the side of his face with her fingertips. “And I know you only came in here so I can glamour some pretty festival glyphs around your eyes.” Bristel shrugged innocently. “Or maybe I like spending time with you when your posse isn’t around?” “Sure, Bris.” She steered him to the vanity. “Sit down and take that stupid ice off the mirror if you want me to make you presentable for your lordling.”

~~~

Bristel entered the Midwinter festival with silver glyphs shining around his eyes. It went perfectly with the icy decorations that swept across the tree trunks and shrubbery that enclosed the festivities. Soft light glowed from the windows carved into the tree trunks. Even the creek that coiled halfway around the grove seemed iridescent tonight. Already, the visitors from the ravine village had arrived. As Bristel and Rhona flew their way through the mingling crowd in the grove, he could sense the typical tension that was present at every solstice festival. They were civil enough tonight, but tomorrow, they would go back to being bitter enemies. The shaky truce was practically held together by Midsummer and Midwinter, when both villages would honor the extremes of the seasons side by side. There were musicians peppered throughout the festival—both from the creek village and the ravine village. The rivals tried to outshine each other. Some solstices, this led to a discordant tune of harps and fiddles and flutes. Tonight, the rivalry seemed to work in harmony. There was no denying the elegance of two rival girls practically dancing around each other in the air while they plucked their strings. Pausing at one of the shrubs, Bristel swiftly reinforced a shimmering pattern of ice that looked like it might be melting. Although it was the dead of winter, the grove was glamoured to stay at a mild temperature. He had performed a great deal of the spellwork that would keep the ice and frost intact through the night. Perhaps that would impress Yarrow. But likely not. Rhona grabbed Bristel’s arm, distracting him from his work. “Your lordling is looking at you,” she whispered. It was horrifically embarrassing how quickly Bristel swiveled his head. He tried to make up for it by allowing his eyes to rove casually, as if he hadn’t spotted Yarrow immediately by one of the decorative shrubs, accompanied by the other royal families from his village. He wore wine red tonight—one of Bristel’s favorite colors, but that was entirely irrelevant—and he was indeed looking back. Bristel tentatively raised his hand in greeting and wrestled away a hopeful smile. In response, Yarrow clenched his jaw and looked away, choosing instead to talk to his sister. Rhona shuddered. “I can’t stand that one,” she said under her breath, nodding at the sister. “High Lady Wren. What a nightmare.” Tearing his eyes away from Yarrow, Bristel frowned. “Why, what’s wrong with her?” “Really? You’re obsessed with her brother, and you don’t even know what she is?” “A high lady?” Bringing her voice even lower, Rhona glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Her affinity is manipulation magic, from what I’ve heard. I’m surprised the other royal families allowed her to take her father’s place after his death. But now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s using her magic to manipulate the lot of them. Or maybe they’re grooming her into some kind of torturer.” Pursing his lips, Bristel sized up Wren. Although she was older than Yarrow, she was smaller and unassuming. It was hard to believe she housed the kind of glamour that could completely rearrange and unhinge a fairy’s mind. Yarrow looked away from Wren to scowl at Bristel. “I don’t know what you see in him,” Rhona said, tugging his arm to lead him in the other direction. “He’s seems like nothing more than an egotistical hothead.” “He wasn’t always like that,” Bristel argued, allowing himself to be taken to one of the many refreshment spreads at the base of a tree. The familiar scent of vegetable stew and warm berries made him feel marginally better. “He used to smile at me. He used to look like he wanted to talk, but his father refused to let him leave his side.” “Well, his father’s not there anymore, is he?” Rhona grabbed a berry slice, weighing it in her hands. “Face it, your lordling is grown up now and he’s turned into one of them. He realizes you’re not worth getting tangled up with.” He shouldered her. “Hey, thanks a lot.” “Oh, you know that’s not a knock on you. Look at you, you’re positively enchanting. But he’s been taught nothing but contempt for our village.” “Since when have I ever really been considered part of this village?” The words came out hotter than intended. He started to apologize, but Rhona recovered quickly, clearing her throat. “Come on, if you want to fool around with a ravine boy, we could find someone who’s less… important.” When Bristel didn’t answer, she sighed and kneaded her temples. He saw her gaze wander closer to the center of the grove, where a group of her cohorts had their heads bent together as they talked excitedly about something or other. “Go on,” he said, offering a half-hearted smile. “I’ll come find you when I’m done moping.” Part of him wanted her to insist on staying and keeping him company while he moped, but she looked relieved at being let off the hook. She squeezed his shoulder good-naturedly and fluttered off, leaving him to his troubled thoughts. He tried not to feel empty inside when Rhona’s friends greeted her with a chorus of hooting cheers. Just as he was working up the motivation to grab a bowl of stew, someone came up beside him. He didn’t look their way, stepping aside in search of somewhere more isolated to gather himself. But then she spoke. “Hello.” Bristel nearly jumped out of his skin, goosebumps raising along his arms. It was Yarrow’s sister, Wren. A high lady and alleged manipulator. Her long hair was jet-black like Yarrow’s, decorated with little shards of rubies shimmering like wet blood. Her smile was friendly enough, but there was something lurking beneath her eyes that he didn’t want to search for. “A radiant solstice to you,” he uttered in greeting. He’d never spoken to a manipulator before, but he knew the stories. They were capable of terrible and amazing things. She didn’t seem particularly intimidating, and that made her all the more frightening. “You were staring at Yarrow,” Wren said, reaching for a berry slice. “You make it too obvious.” Color rushed to his face. “High lady, I-I wasn’t! I… I’m not even sure who you mean. Is he, er… related to you?” She giggled. “You’re a bad liar too. Are you enjoying the festival?” His mind raced. Why on earth would a high lady from the ravine village care that he, of all people, was enjoying the festival? “It’s fine,” he said, his gaze darting around desperately for Rhona. “It’s a bit boring, isn’t it?” He drew in a steadying breath. Wren must have been used to this type of flustered reaction, because she didn’t seem bothered at all. For all he knew, she was already working her magic on him as punishment for staring at her brother. He wondered if he would even be aware of it. Before he could answer her question, let alone sort out his own questions, someone came up from behind Wren and took her shoulder. “The other lords and ladies want to know where you’ve gone off to.” Yarrow. Wren turned to him and pouted. “I’m sick of talking politics. Can’t you see I’m trying to make friends?” She gestured at Bristel, who felt more like a hostage than a friend. “Isn’t the point of this whole dull festival to make nice with the creek people? I can’t do that with the court breathing down my neck—everyone around here is afraid of them.” Yarrow smirked. “Afraid of you, perhaps. With all your creepy staring and unsolicited conversation.” And unholy magic, Bristel added. “I find that offensive,” Wren said, jabbing Yarrow in the chest. “You have every right to. Now hurry, before they start getting upset.” It was the strangest thing, seeing a high lady shooed off by her younger brother, but they must have had a much more comfortable relationship than it appeared on the surface. Bristel couldn’t help but feel like he had been saved—and by someone he fancied, no less. Relief should have overtaken him, but when Yarrow’s attention turned to him, he found his heart thudding with uncertainty. “Don’t mind her,” Yarrow said. “She’s still getting used to her rank as high lady. Our father would keep us on a short leash during festivals to make sure we stayed out of trouble. I suppose we’re both still unsure what to do with the freedom.” Bristel nodded shakily. “Seems you never left the royals’ side for years.” Amusement flickered at the corner of Yarrow’s lips as the implication hung in the air with all the subtlety of an earthquake. “Not that I’ve been paying close attention!” Bristel stammered. “It’s just—well, the royal families in your village don’t seem very interested in mingling outside their circle. Not that I’ve been keeping track of that, either.” He heaved a sigh and dragged a hand down his face. “I’m not trying to be rude, really, I—” “I don’t think you could be rude even if you tried,” Yarrow cut in. “Though perhaps by accident. Do you remember when we were children? The first time you came to my village for Midsummer, you didn’t look where you were going. You flew right into me.” Bristel would have gladly allowed the earth to swallow him where he stood. “You remember that?” “Of course! My father threw a fit, and you were apologizing so quickly, I couldn’t understand what you were saying. Then you flew off before I could get a word in.” “You did get a word in. Several of them. ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going?’” Yarrow chuckled. “Did I really say that? I don’t recall. All I know is that I kept an eye out for you every festival after that.” Face growing hotter, Bristel stared at the refreshment table. There were other fairies there now, acting as though they were interested in the food, but he could sense them eavesdropping. “You wanted to make sure I didn’t ram into you again?” Bristel asked. “That, yes. And I always thought you seemed… interesting.” Oh, stars. Someone at the table was bound to have heard that. He’d have to ask Rhona about what sort of gossip started roving around—a ravine royal talking to the creek’s lonely outsider. “Yes, well…” Bristel gestured around vaguely, desperate to pile on how interesting he was. “I did help with some of the ice enchantments myself, you know. I mean, it’s… not as impressive as the decorative flames in your village during Midsummer.” A full-blown smile sprang to Yarrow’s face, startled and endeared and… sad? All three emotions vanished swiftly when he looked down and cleared his throat. Before Bristel could ask what was wrong, Yarrow fixed him with a more serious look that made Bristel’s heart sink. Certainly this was where the two of them would part ways, and Yarrow would tell him to stop staring all the time. “Would you like to accompany me tonight?” Yarrow asked. “Well, we’re… already accompanying each other right now, aren’t we?” Yarrow raised his eyebrows. “I thought it might be polite to ask a little more formally.” “Oh.” Bristel thought his heart might explode. “I’m not usually this stupid, I promise you.” Yarrow offered his hand, apparently oblivious to the stares around them. “Is that a yes?” Bristel wanted nothing more than to take his hand, but he resisted. “What about the royals, and your sister? Won’t they be upset if they see us… accompanying each other?” “You needn’t worry about them. I can make my own decisions.” He closed the distance and took Bristel’s hand. Then he lowered his voice. “But if you’re so worried, fine. Do you know of any places we can go where no one will bother us?” Bristel was reeling from the contact, praying that he wouldn’t let out a burst of ice from sheer excitement. “I know just the place,” he said. Although his wings were folded tightly to his back, Bristel felt like he was floating as he led Yarrow to the edge of the grove, careful to weave around the shrubbery to lose the gazes of whoever was casually watching. Along the way, he spotted Rhona, who looked on with a strange mix of disapproval and pride. She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers at him. Bristel pressed his lips together to hide a smile, hurrying on. “I’ve always liked this place,” Bristel told Yarrow, flitting over the roots of a massive tree. He landed amongst the entanglement and made his way down until the soft earth was beneath him. “It floods when the creek swells, but it’s safe enough right now.” Yarrow picked his way through the roots efficiently. “It’s nice,” he murmured. “And you can still hear the—” “Music,” Yarrow finished. “Of course.” He leaned back, half-sitting on one of the jutting roots near the edge. “So… you’re something of a ward to your village’s council, aren’t you? Does that mean you’ll have a seat on it one day?” Bristel swallowed the urge to lie. The last thing he wanted was to talk about how much less impressive his status was than Yarrow’s. “Not exactly,” Bristel admitted. “I’m more of an attendant, really.” “Oh? How did that come about?” “I wasn’t born in the village. My mother was nomadic. I was a child when she brought me—barely ten or eleven. We stopped in the village, and she… she was killed by an owl when she was out foraging. I was more or less adopted by the council and made to earn my keep. No family was willing to take me in, seeing as I was an outsider. Still am, in their eyes.” Yarrow scoffed, his eyes darkening. “Strange, how your village and mine have different ruling systems. Yet when it comes down to it, it’s all about blood and insiders and outsiders. What a farce.” He softened. “I’m sorry about your mother.” “It’s alright. She wasn’t much of a mother, if that makes it any better.” A funny little smile came to Yarrow’s lips. “No. It’s still pretty depressing.” He casually conjured a ball of purple flame and began tossing it back and forth between his hands. “But believe me, I know how it feels to be disconnected from those around you. The people who are supposed to be your family.” “I’m sorry about your father.” Bristel tried to catch Yarrow’s gaze, but he was too busy playing with the fire. “That was just a couple years ago, wasn’t it? Is it just you and your sister now?” “We have two younger brothers. We aren’t ready yet to keep them under control at festivals, so they stayed back at the village with their governess.” He gave a heavy sigh. “It hasn’t been easy since my father died. Not in the slightest. It feels as though every day Wren and I have to bend over backwards to prove that she is worthy of her title as high lady. And she… she’s changed quite a bit these past months. I barely recognize her.” Quiet hung between them for a few moments, wrapped gently in the music from the festival. “The other royals will have to accept her eventually, won’t they?” Bristel asked softly. “You’re both from a powerful lineage. They have to respect you.” Yarrow extinguished the flame, smoke curling in front of his face. “I’m nothing but a pawn to them. And now, it feels like she sees me the same way. Like I’m someone whose entire worth is based on how useful I am and how well I obey.” His gaze flickered up to meet Bristel’s, vulnerable. “Surely you can understand.” Bristel nodded slowly. “Of course I do. The council expects me to do everything they say, but it’ll never be enough. As long as I’m here. I’ll always be an outsider who should be grateful to live here at all.” Yarrow straightened up and pushed away from the roots. He looked taller with the low earthen ceiling hanging just above his head. He circled around Bristel, looking him up and down thoughtfully. Color rose to Bristel’s face, and he pushed his hair back, trying not to feel like he was being appraised. “I’ve seen you talk to others,” Yarrow said, sounding almost as if he was interrogating. “You’re not a complete outsider.” “Sure, there’s a few who don’t look down their nose at me all the time, but that doesn’t mean I belong.” Although Yarrow passed out of sight, Bristel still felt his eyes. He self-consciously reached up for his hair again, then dragged his fingers down the side of his face. As Yarrow came to stand in front again, his hand flew out and snatched Bristel’s. “Stop doing that,” Yarrow said matter-of-factly, as though he hadn’t just made Bristel’s heart ascend to the stars from the sudden contact. “You’ll ruin your glyphs. I’m sure you don’t want all your friend’s work to go to waste.” Bristel slid his hand free and frowned. “Did… did I tell you that Rhona did the glyphs for me? I don’t remember that.” For the first time that night, it was Yarrow who looked flustered. “Well, I always see you around her at the festivals, and I’ve overheard that she’s the one you creek people go to for solstice glyphs.” Something stirred in Bristel’s chest, knowing how closely Yarrow must have been paying attention to him and those he was around. The notes of the music outside began to stretch into a slower tune—a traditional ballad dedicated to the longest night of the year. Yarrow straightened his shoulders, as though composing himself, and met Bristel’s gaze. “Would you like to dance?” Yarrow asked. Bristel's instinct was to turn him down, certain that he would only make a fool out of himself if he danced with royalty. But instead, a breathless “yes” croaked past his lips. Yarrow didn't hesitate to pull him to the center of the earthen enclosure, and thankfully he didn't expect Bristel to lead. Bristel followed along as best he could, trying to keep his eyes on Yarrow's face instead of down at their feet. Luckily, the steps were similar to the ones Rhona had shown him the past few years. Finally, he was putting that practice to good use. They slowed down, and Yarrow guided Bristel's arms around his neck before slipping his own hands around Bristel's waist. “You’ve been practicing,” Yarrow said softly. “Is it that obvious?” Bristel’s chuckle cut off when Yarrow tugged him into the air, their wings buzzing in harmony. Bristel stared in wonder. “You're a master at this.” Yarrow pulled in closer, practically resting his chin on Bristel’s shoulder. “I have to be,” he whispered. The sound of his voice made pleasant chills creep along Bristel’s skin. Then they began to dance in the air. Bristel focused on not letting their wings collide, but that wasn’t a problem. Yarrow was a natural. He moved as if he knew exactly what to expect, as if the two of them had danced together a million times before. Has he been imagining this moment as much as I have? Bristel wondered. “Do you ever think about leaving?” Yarrow asked suddenly. Bristel stopped at a hover, snatching his hands back in sheer surprise. “Do you?” “All the time.” The light in Yarrow’s eyes was urgent, almost manic. “I just… I never wanted to go alone. I suppose I’ve needed someone to convince me to go through with it.” Unable to believe his ears, Bristel stammered for a second. He had thought about fleeing day in and day out for years. And somehow, the royal he had been swooning over was a kindred spirit. “What about your family?” Bristel asked. “Your rank?” “It doesn’t even feel like family anymore. I can’t take it. One of these days, I’ll end up speaking out. Everything is hanging by a thread, and I feel like I’ll ruin everything for Wren and my brothers if I stay any longer.” Swallowing hard, Bristel took a leap of faith and moved closer. “Then let’s go. Let’s leave this stupid rivalry and politics behind, if that’s what you really want. We could be nomadic.” Something strange came over Yarrow’s face again, rife with sorrow. He looked down, as if he was having second thoughts. “This rivalry… I’m sure you here all about how much your council hates us royals.” Bristel nodded somberly. “All they want is to have one over on your village. Wanting you to get the short end of the stick with trading and territory and all that nonsense. They’ve been especially upset these past few years. You always seem to be one step ahead.” “Is that so?” Yarrow pursed his lips and chuckled humorlessly. “What do you mean about trying to make us get the short end of the stick?” “Well, there’s talk to take more neutral territory for us. Through force, if necessary. They want to be sly about it at the negotiation tomorrow.” Bristel leaned in to catch Yarrow’s gaze, a tentative smile growing. “But that won’t matter anymore, will it? Not for us. That is… if you really mean it about running away.” Yarrow avoided eye contact, pondering. “We should flee while the festival is underway. We’re already at the edge—as long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves, no one will notice. We can stop at my village for supplies before we leave this forest for good.” Bristel could scarcely draw a full breath. He had never felt so simultaneously light and conflicted. No, not conflicted—just sad. He knew what he wanted, there was no conflict there. This place had never really been a home for him, but he would not be able to say goodbye to Rhona. He would simply vanish, though surely she would put two and two together once the news of Yarrow’s disappearance spread. “Let’s go,” Bristel said. He took Yarrow’s hand and guided him out of the roots. The fresh air seemed fresher than ever when they emerged into the night. It wouldn’t be wise to start flying until they were further away. In his hurry, he almost didn’t feel the clamminess of Yarrow’s hand. “Yarrow?” Bristel pulled to a stop and turned around. The music was still playing, and there were conversing voices just beyond a patch of shrubbery. He spoke in a low tone. “Are you sure you want to do this? You’re shaking…” Yarrow let go and took a step back, looking Bristel up and down before settling on his face. Then he grabbed Bristel’s shoulders and leaned in until they were nose to nose. One moment, they were frozen. The next, they both acted: their lips crushed together. Bristel slid his hands up Yarrow’s chest, then around his neck. For a few blissful moments, nothing else mattered. Not until Yarrow broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Bristel’s. “I’m sorry,” Yarrow whispered, his violet eyes wide and evasive. He delivered another kiss—fleeting and frantic. “I really am sorry.” “What?” Bristel cupped his face, trying to catch his stubborn gaze. “What on earth could you be sorry for? We’re leaving! We’ll be together. We’ll—” His whispers choked to a stop when someone came around from the side of the shrub. Wren folded her arms, looking amused. Bristel dropped his hands from Yarrow’s face, but Wren had to have seen everything. He turned to Yarrow, frantically searching for some clue of how to react. “My, my, you’re certainly getting faster at this,” Wren told Yarrow, then waved him off. “Stand aside. I know it wasn’t easy for you to watch last time.” Yarrow clenched his jaw with a longing glance at Bristel. “A few more minutes. Please.” She shook her head. “I told you to be careful, that you were getting too attached. But did you listen?” “What are you talking about?” Bristel demanded, looking between the two of them and shuffling back. Wren sighed and kept her eyes on Yarrow, as if Bristel was beneath her attention. “Tell him, if that’s what you want,” she said. “He didn’t take it well last time. Nearly had a breakdown, the poor dear. What makes you think this time will be any different?” “Yarrow.” Bristel felt like ice was spreading through his chest. “What does she mean last time?” Letting out a slow breath, Yarrow fixed him with a pleading look. He struggled for a moment before getting the words out. “Listen to me, Bristel. This isn’t the first solstice we’ve spent together. It’s the fifth. These past Midsummers and Midwinters, we’ve been sneaking off together, just like tonight.” “No, that’s… that’s not right!” Bristel closed his fists at his sides. “This is the first time we’ve spoken more than a minute, for stars’ sake!” But a shiver ran through him when Yarrow spoke his name—it was the first time he’d said it all night. And Bristel didn’t remember giving it to him. “Yet you’re always ready to jump into his arms,” Wren said, finally addressing Bristel with a sneer. “It’s quite sad, really. Sad enough to make you grow on Yarrow quite a bit. I’m not fond of seeing him upset. Feel free to take comfort in that, but it must be done.” “What is ‘it’?” Bristel asked. Yarrow hesitated and glanced at Wren, who merely crossed her arms, looking more and more annoyed. “It’s… memory alteration,” Yarrow said. “You won’t remember tonight as anything but another uneventful solstice. I’m sorry, Bristel… I just—I’m sorry. We needed to prove our worth to the other royals. Wren is able to keep her position if we offer inside information about trading and upcoming negotiations.” Bristel blinked hard, fighting the threat of tears. “Why? Why me?” “You’re a ward of the council,” Yarrow said helplessly. “And he saw you were smitten with him over the years,” Wren said. “And this is quite enough, Yarrow. There’s no sense in tormenting him any further. Leave, and let me do what I need to do. He won’t feel any pain, you know that. He won’t remember how terrible he feels right now.” Yarrow didn’t budge. He squared his shoulders and glared at her. “No.” “What did you say?” Wren snapped. “I said no. Not this time. Not ever again. I… I can’t do this anymore.” He stepped between Bristel and Wren, his hands trembling at his sides. “I’m done fighting tooth and nail just to be allowed in our own home. We can get far away from here, Wren. Now, while everyone’s distracted with the festival. We can stop at the village, get the boys, and leave all this behind. I refuse to be part of this.” “You’re out of your mind!” Bristel considered flying off as the siblings viciously bickered. There were other fairies just beyond the shrubbery, in the grove. He could call for help… But anger boiled inside of him. Whatever glamour had been performed on him must have been melting away now that he knew the truth. It all came rushing back the more he thought on it, like a blindfold had been ripped from his eyes. The past four festivals had played out the same as tonight, beat by beat. The difference was Yarrow’s improving efficiency. Wren startling him when he was alone. Yarrow coming to shoo her away. Bristel eagerly finding solitude with him. Dancing. Speaking as though they were kindred spirits. The promise to run away together… Betrayal. “It was your idea,” Bristel said softly. The other two turned to him, but he only had eyes for Yarrow. “The first time this happened… You said it was your idea. You laughed. You laughed at how easily I fell for you and your lies.” Yarrow did a good job pretending to be devastated. “Bristel, no. That was two years ago. That was before I… I got to know you. I was just so relieved we had a way to stay in the royals’ good graces—” “But it was your idea, wasn’t it?” Bristel snapped. “Tell me!” The music in the grove faltered at his shout. “Yes,” Yarrow said, his voice breaking as though the word stabbed him in the gut. If that simple word really hurt Yarrow, Bristel wasn’t content to leave it at an emotional wound. His affinity may have been ice, but an inferno of rage burned inside him. He gave a cry of anguish and threw his hands out, aiming them at Yarrow. A gale of ice blasted him squarely in the chest, and he choked out a grunt as he was knocked off his feet. He sprawled on the ground and gasped for air. “How dare you!” Wren shrieked. The sound of buzzing wings approached, voices raising with alarm in search of the commotion. Several other fairies came around the shrubbery—villagers from both the ravine and creek territories. One look at the lordling on the ground was enough to send the ravine villagers into a fury, but they were the least of Bristel’s worries at the moment. Wren was upon him. He could have shoved her off if not for her magic. She dug her fingers into the sides of his head, screaming an incantation he had never heard before. All at once, Bristel lost feeling in his legs. He collapsed while the other fairies looked on. He searched desperately for someone to help him, but no one lifted a finger against Wren. He opened his mouth, but he could not speak. Wren went on with her twisted magic, taking more and more from him. A haze entered the corners of his vision, tunneling into the center. He could see the creek village council and ravine village royals push their way to the front of the forming crowd. Two of the royals ran over to Yarrow, helping him sit up as he clutched his chest and fought to steady his breathing. One of the high lords took the lead, his voice booming over the confused murmurs. “What is the meaning of this?” “High Lord Ivar, this creek parasite attacked Yarrow!” Wren declared. “Unprovoked! I tried to stop him.” Bristel shuddered and tried to speak, but the glamour was too strong. Wren’s fingers were still locked around his head, holding him up. “Treason,” Ivar spat, rounding on the creek council. “Such violence at a solstice festival is punishable by death! And he is your ward, is he not?” Try as he might to fight his haze, Bristel couldn’t make himself react to his own death sentence. He merely sat there as if every bone in his body had been glamoured into lead. His eyes settled on Elise, the head councilwoman of his village—the closest thing to a maternal figure he’d had since his mother’s passing. Elise pursed her lips into a thin line, addressing Ivar. “How do we know your lordling didn’t strike first?” “You’ll find no burns on your ward,” Wren said, then she muttered another spell. “I have a dose of truth glamour on him. Watch for yourself.” She maneuvered herself around Bristel, placing herself right next to him. “Nod or shake your head. Did you attack my brother?” Bristel had no control. He nodded. “Did he raise a spell against you?” Wren asked. He shook his head, wailing on the inside that she had been the one ready to throw his mind into darkness. But his lips would not move. Outraged shouts rang among the crowd from the ravine villagers. Even the villagers of his own home looked on in disgust that he would bring shame upon them during the festival—one they were hosting, no less. Elise looked down at Bristel gravely and heaved a sigh. “There is nothing we can do to protect you, you fool,” she growled. “You know the nonviolence pact as well as anyone. Why you would choose to do this… I don’t even want to know.” She turned to Ivar. “He is at your mercy. Do with him what you must, but understand, he is an outsider. He does not represent us.” “No!” Yarrow staggered to his feet and went in front of Ivar. For a moment, Bristel thought he would tell the truth. Instead, Yarrow threw a glare of contempt his way. “As much as I would love a public execution, I humbly request that we take him prisoner. I want to make him suffer for what he did. I’m owed that much, seeing as I was his target.” Ivar narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “Select a team of guards to take the prisoner. You and High Lady Wren will go ahead to the village with them. The rest of us will stay a moment,” he said, turning his hard gaze to the council. “To discuss this unfortunate incident.” Wren undid the spell enough so that Bristel could not put up a fight, but he would not be dead weight. Guards came to collect him, and he was half-dragged away. He still couldn’t speak—he could barely breathe. As he searched desperately for someone to defend him, he caught sight of Rhona at the edge of the crowd. Her hands were over her mouth, and her eyes were glistening. But she only watched. ~~~ In the hour it took to reach the ravine village, Bristel focused all of his energy toward breaking out of the glamour, but it was no use. He was forcefully escorted down into the rocky chasm where the village was hidden, and everything happened so quickly that the following silence was more frightening than the initial descent. Soon enough, he found himself alone. The glamour didn’t begin to wear off until he had been laying in his cell for what felt like ages. Feeling came back slowly to his body, but exhaustion hit him and he could barely bring himself to move. There was little he could do but lay there and take in his surroundings. He had been taken to Yarrow’s village—a place he visited once a year on Midsummer—but he had never gone underground into the network of rocky tunnels. When they had dragged him in, he tried to keep an eye on where they were taking him, hoping to find his way back outside if he managed to escape. The twists and turns were too confusing to keep track of. They had finally stopped in a dead-end tunnel, and he had been shoved into an alcove. The team of guards performed spell after spell: an earth-affinity fairy had conjured roots to grow straight out of the rock to seal the alcove like bars, and another couple of fairies had glamoured his prison to make magic unusable on the inside. Once Bristel found the will to move, he took a shuddering breath and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He couldn’t fully stand in the cramped cell. Scraggly vegetation clung to the ceiling of the tunnel, dotted with the dim light of glowing white flowers. There didn’t appear to be anyone outside his cell. He tried to force his arms through the thick roots, but they would not give way. Thorns scraped viciously at his skin. He clawed at the base, where the roots erupted from the ground, but he was no match for the spellwork. It didn’t stop him from trying. He meticulously picked at every root, his hope dwindling with each fruitless second. He stopped when he heard someone coming. Jolting away from the roots, he folded his wings tight and sat with his back against the rocky wall. Perhaps his fate had been decided by the royals. Perhaps he was about to be executed. “This is where he is,” the earth guard’s voice said. “Perfect.” Yarrow turned the corner at the end of the tunnel, coming into the flowers’ light. He faced the guard. “Leave us.” She hesitated, biting her lip. “My lord, I don’t think it would be wise to—” “I want some privacy with my attacker,” Yarrow said coolly. “And unless you doubt the spellwork of your fellow guards and yourself, I should be perfectly safe.” The guard didn’t try to talk him down again. She walked off and turned the corner, leaving Yarrow and Bristel entirely alone. Bristel stayed back against the wall, his breaths becoming quicker. Try as he might to look furious and nothing more, tears pricked at the back of his eyes as he glared through the roots of his cell. He was glad his voice didn’t shake, at least. “Well, it looks like you’re about to lose your smitten victim,” Bristel said, astonished that he could talk about his own death so matter-of-factly. “What will you do when I’m gone, turn your sights on someone else? After that scene I caused, I doubt anyone from the creek will want to go near you.” Yarrow walked right up to the cell and dropped to his knees, gripping the roots. He began murmuring a spell, his eyes never leaving Bristel. Purple flames flickered from his hands and began eating away at the bars. Gasping, Bristel pressed himself back harder. The roots—the only thing separating him and Yarrow—fell away to ashes. Raising his hands, Bristle choked out his own spell, but the anti-magic glamour was still thrumming inside the alcove, even with the physical barrier gone. He peered wildly past Yarrow, wondering if he could rush past quick enough to conjure an ice spell inside the tunnel. But what good would that do? All Yarrow needed was shout for a team of guard to come barreling down the tunnel. Bristel squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the agonizing burn of fire. “Get up,” Yarrow whispered urgently. “I can make a distraction, but you need to be quick.” Bristel’s eyes flew open, releasing tears down both sides of his face. “No. Please. Please stop. I-I don’t want to do this anymore. No more games. Just do what you came to do.” “This is what I came to do.” Yarrow ducked into the alcove, making himself just as vulnerable to the nullifying glamour. He took a seat beside Bristel, who leaned away and looked straight ahead. The tunnel was wide open, but he wasn’t foolish enough to make a run for it. Not yet. “I had to make them think I came to torture you,” Yarrow went on softly. “But I won’t. Of course I won’t. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I wasn’t lying when I said that Wren’s changed. And about how I’m sorry for everything. You need to get away from here. I’m giving you the opportunity. It won’t make up for everything I’ve done to you, but it’s a start.” Bristel stared. For an instant, he allowed hope back into his shattered heart. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?” he asked nonetheless. Desperate as Yarrow looked, his eyes took on a reckless sort of spark. He grabbed Bristel’s arm, then shoved him out of the alcove. Bristel whirled around and to see Yarrow still crouched in the magic-free zone, making himself entirely vulnerable. “There,” Yarrow declared. “If you’d like to have a free shot at me, you’re more than welcome to. You’ve got nothing left to lose, right?” “You… you’re awful,” Bristel croaked. “You’re a liar. You may not have manipulation magic, but you are as much a manipulator as Wren. You could have gotten me killed tonight—and you still might. But… if you really mean it about escape, then get me out of here.” Yarrow crept out of the alcove and stood by him. He reached out to take Bristel’s hand, but that was not allowed. Bristel rigidly stepped away, and he thought he saw hurt flicker in Yarrow’s eyes. Good. Part of Bristel was still unsure about following him at all, but his options were limited. He could stay in the alcove and die, or he could follow Yarrow and probably die. Before he could fully weigh his options, Yarrow pushed past him and beckoned him along. “I’ll take you to a tunnel that will lead you straight to the opening of the ravine,” Yarrow whispered. “All you have to do is keep moving forward. I’ll lead them off your trail. Once you’re out, stick to the shadows. It’s still dark.” “My lord?” another voice said. The guard. She was far closer around the corner of the tunnel than anticipated. She stared at them, eyes wide. Her scowl fixed on Bristel, and the tunnel began to tremble from her earthen magic. “I don’t know what trickery you’ve fooled him with,” she spat at Bristel, “but you can be sure you’ll stay in that cell until you rot!” She threw her hands out and chanted. Roots sprang from the walls, floor, and ceiling. Yarrow blocked Bristel and unleashed his own magic. Purple light filled the tunnel, flames eating away at the enchanted roots. The guard stared in disbelief for a second before she drew in a deep breath and shouted behind her. “The creek boy is escaping! Yarrow has betrayed us!” Yarrow grabbed Bristel’s wrist and wrenched him along the tunnel, throwing a warning flame at the guard, who sprang against the wall to avoid getting singed. She continued screaming betrayal, turning the corner of another tunnel to get help. Bristel couldn’t have kept track of where they were going even if he tried. Yarrow led him down turn after turn. The flowers overhead changed color at each new stretch, until finally they emerged into a wide-open chamber. But it was not freedom. They were still underground, and it was too late. A dozen guards were already darting out of other archways and closing in on them. Before Bristel knew it, someone came from behind, and he was wrenched away from Yarrow, who sent out flame after flame, only to have each one extinguished by the water affinity guards. “Stop!” Yarrow shouted. “Leave him alone!” As they were both subdued, Bristel met Yarrow’s gaze desperately. It took several minutes for the purple flames to give up igniting. There was no way they could take down a team of guards on their own. Bristel knew it was pointless to fight as they were taken into another chamber—a spacious room with a dais at the front. It didn’t take long for the ruling families of the village to gather there, along with commoners looking on from near the walls. Bristel and Yarrow were positioned apart from each other, both of them flanked by guards. Wren was the last one to join the royals on the dais. Judging by the look on her face, she had already been explained what happened. “Yarrow.” Her voice carried over the murmurs around the room, silencing them. The coldness in her tone was undermined by desperation. “Tell me what they’re saying isn’t true. Tell me this… this parasite forced you to free him. Tell me you’re not a traitor.” “I’d tell you to put truth glamour on me, but I’ll save you time,” Yarrow snapped. “He didn’t force me to do a thing.” “He is a traitor,” Ivar said, turning his glare to Wren. “I pray such treachery does not run in your blood.” Wren paled. She struggled for words, looking between the other royals and Yarrow. “I’m not a traitor,” she said finally. “Nor our two younger brothers. I confess this to you to show my loyalty: Yarrow told me himself he had grown a soft spot for the parasite. He has fallen in love.” A buzz ran through the gathered villagers. Bristel could feel their disgusted scowls upon them both. He shivered where he stood and stared at the floor, the word love pounding through his head. Ivar’s voice cut through the murmur. “And what do you say to this, Yarrow?” “I refuse to a pawn any longer is what I say. Bristel had every right to attack me after what Wren and I have been doing to him.” Yarrow’s voice rose furiously. “Let him go, dammit.” But Wren wouldn’t hear it. The other royals were staring at her, waiting for her to make a just decision befitting such treachery. “Denounce him at once,” she begged Yarrow. “Both of you, denounce each other if you want even the slightest chance of making it through the night.” “Of course I don’t love him,” Yarrow said. “He’s just an unfortunate tool I’m sick of using.” The announcement might have hurt if Bristel believed it were true. When all eyes turned to him, he followed suit. “How could I possibly love him?” Bristel said. “He’s tricked me, used me.” “Very well,” Wren said quickly. “They have denounced each other. Take the prisoner back to his cell—have a guard there all hours of night and day while we deliberate on what to do with him. And Yarrow, you will come with me—” “This is insufficient,” Ivar interrupted, and other royals nodded grimly in agreement. “Yarrow was found helping the prisoner escape. He attacked the guards. He is lying.” “A truth enchantment, then?” Wren suggested. “No,” Ivar said coldly. “They are obviously lying to escape execution. Let us see for ourselves how desperate they are to live. A duel to the death. If Yarrow lives, all is forgiven. If the outsider lives, he is free to leave.” Bristel felt as though a knife had been twisted into his gut. There was a ringing in his ears. His guards turned him to face Yarrow, and in a matter of seconds, the two of them were alone in the middle of the room. In another life, they might have been closing the distance to dance together. Yarrow stared at him, his face unreadable. “Kill him, Yarrow!” one of the villagers shouted. All at once, there was a cacophony of voices screaming for Bristel’s blood. Yarrow’s wings twitched, and he began to step forward. Bristel flinched back and raised his hands, ready to retaliate against the fire that Yarrow would have no choice but to conjure. But instead, Yarrow merely reached for Bristel’s hand and placed it against his own chest. “Just make it quick,” Yarrow whispered. He threw a glance toward his sister, as though seeing her for the last time. “I know I deserve to suffer, but please. Just make it quick.” Bristel tried to pull away, choking on his own words. “What are you doing?” The voices began to quiet around the room as the scene unfolded. Yarrow fell to his knees and put Bristel’s hand on his forehead, shutting his eyes. “You can finally get away. From here, from the creek village. You can be free. I’ve brought you nothing but misery. Let me give you something nice for once.” Wrenching his hand back, Bristel could only stare. He barely knew Yarrow, but Yarrow knew him. Even the memories that had been hidden by glamour felt like they belonged to another person. But with each second that Yarrow impatiently awaited his death, Bristel felt like those solstice nights hadn’t been a complete lie. “I can’t do it either,” Bristel said. He turned to the rest of the room, eyes settling on the dais. “We refuse to duel!” “Bristel, no…” Yarrow shook his head. The low mutterings of the crowd settled into utter silence. It wasn’t a normal kind of silence. It was charged, ready to burst. Bristel thought they might start throwing their own deadly spells into the middle of the room at any moment. “Execution!” Ivar shouted. “Both of them!” “No!” Wren cried. Every eye turned to her. She stood in the middle of the dais, chest rising and falling with sobbing breaths. Slowly, she squared her shoulders. A golden aura gathered around her. “Yarrow is of my clan. The final judgement is mine.” She turned her anguished, furious gaze to the middle of the room as Bristel urged Yarrow to stand. “You are exiled. Take your parasite pet if he pleases you so. May you both suffer out there with no community, no family. If either of you are spotted in this territory, you will be killed on sight.” For an awful moment, Bristel thought the other royals might overrule her, but the fairies on the dais wavered for a moment, as if in a daze. They didn’t raise a word against her. As Wren stepped off the dais, she looked winded, as though she had just performed a great deal of magic. She exited the chamber without so much as a final glance at her brother, tears running down her face. The guards grabbed both Bristel and Yarrow, leading them toward an exit tunnel. Villagers hit the two of them with petty spells and insults on their way out of the chamber. Bristel flinched at first, but with every step toward freedom, his fear was replaced with clenched fists and an iron will. Starlight glimmered overhead. They were led out of the ravine. The guards, who might’ve known Yarrow all their lives, barely acknowledged him as they stepped back near the drop-off and watched to make sure that the exiled would not attempt to re-enter. Bristel and Yarrow began walking in silence, until the ravine was far behind them. “She saved us,” Bristel murmured finally. “She… she manipulated the other royals so they wouldn’t disagree with her. Didn’t she?” Yarrow’s stony expression didn’t change. “It was the least she could do.” Another beat of silence. “You shouldn’t have done that,” Bristel said as the shock wore off and the reality of their situation truly hit him. He hurried forward to step in Yarrow’s path, making him stop. “You had a life, rank, e-everything, Yarrow… Why would you do that?” Yarrow offered a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You know why.” “You… you did it for me?” “For us.” Yarrow stepped around Bristel and took off walking again. Bristel rushed to catch up. Somewhere along the way, Yarrow slipped his hand into Bristel’s. Somewhere farther along the way, Bristel stopped minding it was there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TWO YEARS LATER

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been about a week since the last resting ground. According to the directions given by the nomadic fairies, the next resting ground would be coming up soon—not soon enough, in Yarrow’s opinion. He was ready for some actual provisions and hopefully a bed. It was their third winter as nomads, and still Yarrow wasn’t used to throwing together makeshift shelters. “Is that it?” Bristel asked. Yarrow flew a little higher to see past the thick pine branches around them. He followed where Bristel was pointing and spotted some huge human machinery near the wide river. The yard was abandoned and rusty. By the look of it, the forest was taking over the edge of it. Occasionally, a car could be heard passing on the road nearby, but other than that, the place seemed devoid of humans. Just as the other fairies described. “It must be,” Yarrow said, breathing a sigh of relief. He tried not to complain too much. Bristel was quick to tease him about missing the comforts of being a royal. As they flew closer to the abandoned machinery yard, Bristel hesitated. “Did they have to put the resting ground so close to all this human… stuff?” “It has to be safe,” Yarrow said dismissively. “It doesn’t look like humans have touched any of that stuff in years.” They split up briefly to search the trees near the edge of the concrete. Within a few minutes, Bristel called Yarrow over to show him he had found exactly what they were looking for: a series of runes etched onto the bark of a barren oak tree that signaled this place was a haven for nomadic fairies. “Can you sense any glamour around? I can’t.” Bristel turned in a wary circle, running a hand through his lavender hair. “It could be abandoned. You’d think they’d wrap this place up tight with enchantments since it’s so close to the road.” “Are you suggesting we keep flying until the next resting ground?” Yarrow asked. Bristel shivered from the cold, clearly hating the idea. Yarrow smirked and flew closer, chanting an incantation to conjure warmth around them both. “I don’t think you’d do well out there for much longer. For an ice fairy, you’re awfully whiny about the cold.” In an instant, Bristel sent a flurry of snow from the ground at Yarrow. “Hey!” Yarrow intensified the heat wave around him in an attempt to melt the snow before it could hit him. For his troubles, he ended up getting sprayed with melted slush. “You seem to forget that it's a very bad idea to tease me when there’s snow around,” Bristel said, calling forth more snow with a wave of his hand. They both grinned breathlessly as they fired spell after harmless spell, weaving around the winter-bitten vegetation and trees to chase after each other. The sun still shone somewhere behind the gray sky; they had plenty of time before it got dark and they needed to get serious about shelter. However, their game was cut short when the sound of an engine approached. Yarrow whirled around, eyes darting between the trees until he spotted a car pulling right up to where the forest met the machine yard. He and Bristel were out in the open, and though they were a good distance away from the car, he got the sick feeling in his stomach that they could have been spotted. Cursing, Yarrow pulled Bristel up to the nearest branches. They wouldn’t have much cover with the trees in this grove being bare, but it was better than nothing. He made sure they were on the opposite side of the car. His heart seemed to skip a beat when the door opened and then slammed shut. Several minutes passed while Yarrow muttered to Bristel potential plans of how to get away undetected. Although there were no footsteps crunching through the snow, it didn’t sound like the human had left, either. The next sound was not footsteps or the car door opening, but the fluttering of fairy wings. “Hello?” Another fairy appeared around the side of the tree, landing on the adjacent branch. Her dark blue hair was ratty. Her eyes were wide, scared. “Are you hiding, too?” Though startled by her sudden presence, Yarrow nodded. “The human…” “I know. I’ve been here a couple days, and he’s been around quite a few times. I don’t know if he knows this is a fairy ground, but I do know that there’s a safer place for us to lay low.” She paused, then offered a weak smile. “I’m Ariella.” “Yarrow. And this is Bristel.” “A pleasure.” She looked back over her shoulder, then beckoned. “Follow me.” When she took off, Bristel grabbed Yarrow’s shoulder to stop him. “I don’t like this,” Bristel whispered. “Something feels off, don’t you think?” Yarrow felt a tug of guilt. Ever since they had become nomadic, Bristel had been overly tentative around every fairy they met at resting rounds, as though they might be hiding an ulterior motive. Yarrow knew it was his own fault Bristel had lost his ability to put faith in others. “We can’t stay here,” Yarrow muttered back. “She obviously knows this place better than us. Besides, if she was the swindling type, this wouldn’t exactly be the time for it. She doesn’t want to be seen any more than we do. Now come on.” Reluctantly, Bristel took his hand and followed. Ariella took them to a large tree than gestured at the hollow. “It runs deep,” she said, hurrying them in front. “Watch your step—it slopes down pretty quick.” Bristel hesitated again, but Yarrow didn’t have time to argue with him. They were low enough to the ground that the human could easily spot them. Yarrow gave Bristel’s hand an encouraging squeeze and urged him to go in first. Bristel relaxed somewhat and headed through the opening. No sooner than they took two steps inside, Yarrow was shoved sharply in the back. He lost his balance and fell forward against Bristel. The two of them tumbled to the bottom of the hollow and fell in a heap. Metal clanged around them. Yarrow threw himself over Bristel, expecting something to crash down on them, but once the sound finished reverberating in the air, there was silence. The ground beneath them was cold and smooth. Yarrow scrambled off Bristel and charged viciously after Ariella, but he ran into metal bars. He bounced back, gasping out an incantation. He tried to ignite magic, but it was no use. It made him think of the glamour that had been used on Bristel’s cell a lifetime ago. Except it was not magic that was preventing his flames. Iron. “I’m so sorry,” Ariella whimpered. She stood on the other side of the bars, wringing her hands and trembling in the shadows. “He saw you. I had no choice.” “Who saw us?” Yarrow demanded. She looked away and wiped her tears. “I’m sorry.” A steady sound broke the silence outside. “Yarrow,” Bristel whispered, coming up from behind and seizing his arm. “Do you hear that?” He did. Human footsteps were crunching through the snow, heading straight for them.

#mywriting #shot in the dark #the longest night #bristel #yarrow #rhona #ivar #elise #ariella

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 198: A Pair of Chuunis

Previously on BnHA: Shinsou, Tsuyu, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Kouda (henceforth known as Team A) faced off against Shiozaki, Tsuburaba, Shishida, and Rin (Team B). Kiri, Kouda, and Tsubu were captured, making it 3 VS 3. Tsuyu covered Shinsou and Kami with her disgusting frog mucus in order to mask their scent so class B wouldn’t be able to track their movements. They then purposely allowed Kaminari to get captured as a distraction to let Shinsou get close enough to Shiozaki to ensnare here with his quirk. Realizing what had happened, Shishida stopped talking so as not to fall under Shinsou’s control himself. However this also left him unable to communicate with his remaining teammate, and Rin was shortly thereafter taken out by Tsuyu. Shishida was knocked out shortly after that, and so Team A ended up winning the match, giving class 1-A the lead as we enter the second round.

Today on BnHA: Aizawa and Vlad provide their respective students with constructive criticism following the match. Meanwhile the remaining 8 teams begin to plan out their strategies, including Monoma who is excited to have the chance to work together with Shinsou, particularly after witnessing the first match. It turns out he’s not the only one interested in what Shinsou can do, as Aizawa and Vlad reveal to All Might and Midnight that today’s exercise is doubling as Shinsou’s exam determining whether or not he should be admitted into the hero course. The second round of battles begins, with Team MomoYamaTokoKure facing off against Team KendouKuroMangaToadette. Kendou is excited to be battling Momo, as she considers the two of them to be rivals, and feels that up until now Momo has been outshining her. Meanwhile Kuroiro from class B bonds with Tokoyami over their mutual goth aesthetic before the two teams split off to get things started. Toko sends out Dark Shadow to do recon, only to have Kuroiro -- whose quirk allows him to move freely within the color black -- hitch a ride back to Team A’s location. The two prepare to clash, and Toko gets ready to show off a new technique he’s apparently learned from Hawks.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 222, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

my man Aizawa out here making sure I continue to stan him

this is school after all!

and oh my god this title

you know it’s the Momo chapter when...

goddammit Kirishima’s self-esteem issues are acting up again

does anyone know if that “staring at yourself in the mirror and psyching yourself up by reminding yourself that you’re cool and awesome” thing actually works? maybe he should try that. he’s so good at complimenting other people but he’s so damn hard on himself. why are all shounen characters like this

Kouda says he needs to get better at issuing detailed orders to insects

good god Kouda, if you improve on your quirk you’re going to be fucking terrifying aren’t you

and I know I just said all shounen characters are too hard on themselves, but then along comes Kaminari to prove me wrong!

you were great, buddy. 10/10 I stan one adaptable and clever electric boy. I would pit you and Mina up against Rat Principal all over again because I bet you two would crush it now

(ETA: not to mention that as Jirou will shortly point out, he’s skirting on the edge of falling into his usual derp mode here -- but he’s managing to retain his senses for the most part, which is extremely impressive given how much electricity he put out in that fight, first against Shishida and then later against Shiozaki. Kaminari!! you’ve become stronger!)

Tsuyu says she wanted to win without any casualties and she regrets losing two of her teammates

Shinsou, who did amazing for his first time, says it was “incredibly frustrating” and that he wasn’t able to apply even ten percent of what he’s learned

kid, take that frustration and channel it into becoming even more determined to fulfill your dreams! that’s the upside of being a shounen character who’s too harsh on himself! you learn and you keep getting stronger, okay?

see, and Aizawa’s telling him the same thing

wow so he didn’t master it until he was out of school, then? or did he start on that before he entered U.A.?

say, aren’t we due some Aizawa flashbacks soon? this is the arc the manga was on when I first started reading, so it seems to be about that time I’d say

(ETA: so what is it exactly that made people have all these headcanons about him knowing the Iida family as a kid? I know he and Tensei are both in Vigilantes, so I’m guessing now it has something to do with that. lol and here I thought we were going to get a whole backstory. instead we’ve had all of one panel’s worth of flashbacks, and that was very recent and we apparently don’t know what the deal is with that yet except that he had some sort of cloudy friend that he doesn’t want to talk about. not that I’m not loving that, mind you; it’s just not what I was expecting. I really gotta start Vigilantes don’t I. maybe this weekend)

oh my god

I’m a simple girl, I see Jirou losing her damn shit over Kaminari and I hit like and subscribe for more great content

and yes, Aoyama, they do seem to be taking this much more seriously than the others. thinking about what would have happened in a real life situation. and I mean, that’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s just... they’re still kids. and already thinking about death and other worst-case scenarios because they’ve experienced it firsthand now. and man but that’s rough

now Aizawa is giving them his own pointers

he’s such a good teacher I love him so much

meanwhile Vlad is chewing out his own students

didn’t Horikoshi describe his teaching approach as being gentler than Aizawa’s? was that just because he doesn’t expel entire classes at the drop of a hat? sure not seeming real gentle right now lol

(ETA: strut strut)

excuse me Monoma who is the teacher here

but he says that despite the loss, he’s satisfied because they showed the rest of them “something marvelous”

(ETA: strut strut)

yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. he probably can’t wait to try that quirk out for himself

man if Monoma bonds with Shinsou and then Shinsou ends up joining 1-A I am going to laaaaaaugh

(ETA: lol except for the fact that I sorta kinda ship it now oh shit)

and they have an advantage over the class A Shinsou team since they actually have some time to prepare

wow they’re all strategizing now

friendly reminder that I love all of these kids and would die for them

and yes you, Todoroki. humility is all well and good but let’s not kid ourselves. you’re a powerhouse and you need to own it

I have no doubt that Team BakuJirouSeroSatou is going to crush this and I can’t waiiiit

(ETA: THEY SO CRUSHED IT)

and who fucking asked you, C-3PO. maybe they can’t have spare parts installed, but human bodies literally heal themselves given just a bit of time and rest. we don’t need to sit here and be dragged by someone who can’t even pass a damn turing test okay

All Might is reflecting on how much everyone has grown. he sure does that a lot

I guess. and also a way to finally introduce the other 20 U.A. first years after 200 fucking chapters lol

hey what

what is it. what’s with those faces. y’all wanna throw down or what?? bring it

oh they just want to know what they thought about Shinsou

All Might is so good I love you All Might

oh shit. so spoiler alert I guess he passes lol

is he aware that it’s a test? is this another one of your Logical Ruses you deceitful hobo

yessssssssss!

I honestly can’t fathom how a team with both Momo and Tokoyami could possibly lose. they’ve even got Aoyama “saving the day in the clutch” Yuuga and Hagakure “I’m the friggin’ traitor” Tooru for fuck’s sake

by the way, Hagakure’s right fist is facing out but isn’t that weird? wouldn’t it make more sense to have your fist facing toward you for this kind of “pumped and ready to go” gesture? idk why it bothers me. maybe because she’s literally only hands so you could at least get that one detail right lmao

and have I mentioned how much I love Momo’s cape. now if only they’d get her a fucking zipper good grief

that kid from class B who speaks in literal dialogue bubbles is freaking named Manga and I can’t you guys

I have no problem with calling Kuroiro by his name, but I’m pretty sure that legally I have to continue referring to Komori as Toadette. I don’t make the rules you guys

Kendou is asking Momo why she didn’t enter the beauty contest during the cultural festival

have I mentioned lately that Aizawa is the best dad? I have? well it never hurts to say it yet again. Momo had more important things to worry about than participating in the least rational annual event this school puts on

oh right, somehow I forgot that these two did their workplace experience together. actually can I just call it a fucking internship even if it wasn’t an internship internship? y’all still know what I mean anyway so come on

this is an odd thing to bring up now and I can’t help but think Kendou’s trying to get into Momo’s head somehow

(ETA: nope. just bein’ rivals)

oh, Hagakure’s bringing up that one guy at the festival who kept cheering for Momo. I had been wondering about that. so he was a fan of theirs from the commercial they did then? who the hell stans someone from just a single commercial

yes

ooh, hidden dark side from Kendou all of a sudden!

I mean, on the one hand I don’t like Kendou getting jealous because these badass ladies should be supporting one another, not harboring jealous thoughts and insecurities

but on the other hand she’s not wrong about Momo though trufax

okay good, this seems healthy enough

A WHOLESOME LADY RIVALRY, EH? BRING IT

oh my god

imagine going from drawing Shiozaki to drawing this guy. Horikoshi must be filled with relief right now

oh my god Kuroiro’s quirk is apparently amazing!?

holy shit?? WHIP OUT THAT DARK SHADOW AND TEST IT OUT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

lmao

if these two don’t watch it they are gonna cut themselves to ribbons on ALL THAT EDGE

so then is Hagakure gonna clash with Toadette. or Manga

so now round two is officially starting, and Sero is asking his friendly neighborhood Tetsutetsu about Kendou, Tetsu’s crush

I ship these two kids so hard. he adores her

lol he says that if she wasn’t around the whole class would have been “indoctrinated” by Monoma

he says she’s the big sister of class B

yeah, so basically the Momo

and now Todoroki is thoughtfully chiming in

you know, operation? as in scheme? as in whatever plan Momo’s thought up using the intellect that’s put her on at the very top of what is probably the most brilliant class in U.A. history?

so now we’re cutting to Team B, and Kendou is saying that they should wait and see what Team A has in store first, since even though they know their basic quirks, they don’t know what improvements they’ve made and what special moves they’ve come up with

go fuck him up Kuroiro! I know I shouldn’t be rooting for you, but I’m so fucking curious to see if you can use Tokoyami’s quirk against him omg

meanwhile we’re cutting back to Team A, and Tokoyami is reporting to the others that Dark Shadow has located Team B

oh shit

TOKOYAMI THEY GOT YO BOY

Dark Shadow’s zooming toward them now and Tokoyami’s shouting at everyone to disperse

HE LOOKS SO SAD OH NO

KUROIRO YOU ASSHOLE WHY ARE YOU MY NEW CLASS B FAVE

Hagakure is all “Kuroiro popped out from inside Dark Shadow!” as though everyone else didn’t just watch that happen right along with her

Momo’s flinging some ninja nets at Kuro but he’s dodging!

I LOVE IT

HOLY SHIT TOKOYAMI IS RIPPED. WHEN DID THAT FUCKING HAPPEN. WHERE WERE THOSE ARM MUSCLES DURING THE POOL EPISODE, JESUS

(ETA: and I’ll have you know Horikoshi even specifically described his arms as “fairly thin” when he did his little bio in chapter 101! so this is a recent fucking development. bird boy been hittin the gym)

also he sure does have a lot of natural enemies doesn’t he. his quirk is so powerful but it has a lot of weaknesses

and lmaoooooo at “a pair of chuunis” holy fucking christ

how is this chapter over already?? oh well, we’re almost at 200, let’s keep going and check out Toko’s new technique

#bnha #boku no hero academia #yaoyorozu momo #kendou itsuka #tokoyami fumikage #kuroiro shihai #kaminari denki #shinsou hitoshi #monoma neito #aizawa shouta #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #you know I wasn't quite as aware of it during my first read #but on the reread it's inescapable how much this arc is a shipping goldmine #I count like six different ships in this one 13-page chapter alone #kamijirou #monoshin #momokendou #tokokuro #kendoutetsu #todomomo #and I'm probably missing some others #and damned if I don't ship *all* of it #the best part is horikoshi probably isn't aware of like 90% of it #you just keep doing what you do dude #your characters all have great chemistry with each other and I'm pretty sure momo and kendou passed the bechdel test in this chapter #so basically what I'm saying is good job #keep it up

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dumpymuffin · 5 years ago

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Pokemon Red x Blue RP Partner Search {Looking for a Red}

Anyone interested in doing a Red/Blue roleplay centered in the Galar region? I think those two dorks would have a lot of fun in that setting, and I’ve been craving this for awhile! (Since their updated age and looks in Sun/Moon, I’ve been desperate to do this pairing!)

I would prefer to play the role of Blue! I have quite a few ideas set up, so if anyone is interested message me and we can talk it out!

I will say that I have little interest in roleplaying battles, I just want stupid rom-com romance with these two idiots and to enjoy their friendly rivalry. Of course Pokémon themselves will be featured, but I have little interest in writing much with them.

I’d prefer to roleplay with a light, happy, almost rom-com type setting. If you’re interested in a heavy angst plot, I can do that too but we’d have to discuss the details heavily before agreeing to anything! (I have triggers, and I’m sure you do too!)

A few basic ideas:

THE typical holiday roleplay plot:

Blue returns home for the holidays, only to find the festivities had already started without him. Sometimes, he wished people would welcome him home the way they welcomed Red. Blue was always the jealous type. Right now? He was just happy to see his friend off that damn mountain.

In which Blue comes home for the holidays whilst studying abroad in Kalos, and Red decided it was time to come back to civilization, surprising everyone.

Or: Red and Blue have a falling out after /someone/ refuses to admit his feelings (Blue), denying they ever existed, and claiming the makeout session in a specific cave on a specific mountain was definitely not an act of affection but one of pure instinct. Reds not buying that for shit, and now that Blues stopped running, Red’s ready to step up and make something out of this mess. Shenanigans ensue, in which Red flirts openly with Blue because he knows he wants a piece of that ass. Blue denies until it hurts, and they both break in favor of spending time in a more “adult” kind of way. After all, they are adults now, so why not handle things in an adult way? Right? Right??

Eh. Or maybe that’s just the spiked eggnog talking.

————

Host!Blue Roleplay:

This is a stupid idea my friend came up with while we were bored at work.

Basically, whilst studying abroad in Kalos, Blue picks up a job as a host to pay his tuition and bills. With his looks and confidence (and his namesake, let’s be honest.) he excels.

Meanwhile Red decides to get his ass off Mt. Silver only to find his longtime rival is nowhere to be found in the Kanto region. After hearing claim from Daisy that Blue set off to Kalos, Red decides to pay him a visit and try and mend their more then messy past.

He doesn’t expect to find Blue working in a place like /that/, and Blue certainly doesn’t expect to find his estranged friend sitting down as his client.

Shenanigans ensue, and lots of teasing about Blues host job. Flirting, rom-com stupidness, general fluffiness, and lots of smuttiness.

————

Established-Relationship Roleplays are always welcome! I have no ideas, but if you do please shoot them my way!

—————

*A/B/O ROLE PLAYS*:

I’m a huge fan of A/B/O dynamics (alphaverse, omegaverse, whatever you want to call it) and id love to give it a shot with these two dorks. I think the dynamic could work well with them.

Specifically I’m looking for a:

Alpha!Red/Omega!Blue rp

Or, /more/ specifically:

AwkwardAlpha!Red/OverlyConfidentOmega!Blue

I have three or so separate plots for a/b/o ideas, so if interested I’ll send those!

—————

A few quick notes/important details:

- while I love a/b/o dynamics, I’m not a fan of weak/really submissive omegas. I won’t be playing Blue that way, so if that’s what you’re looking for I’m sorry. He will most definitely be a strict bottom when it comes to anything sexual, but I play Blue as a power bottom. So keep that in mind!

- As mentioned above, I love smut! But I need plot with my smut, and I very much value a slow burn rp. It makes the build up that much more fun, yeah?

- The characters will be around the age of 22-24, I will never rp anything romantic/smutty with characters below the age of 18. I refuse.

- No one liners, or one paragraphers. Two paragraphs minimum. I’m not asking for a novel, but I like to get in characters heads and know what they are thinking/feeling! I expect my partner to do the same, otherwise I won’t stay engaged.

- Writing must be legible!

- Please talk to me about headcanons. I adore them!

- If you are unclear about the specifics pertaining to a/b/o dynamics, please ask!

- I have triggers, and I’m sure you do too. Please let me know if anything doesn’t work for you!

#pokemon sword and shield #pokemon rp #pokemon roleplay #male x male #red x blue #red x green #a/b/o dynamics #roleplay partner search

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wynja2007 · 6 years ago

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Gondolin, the Hidden

Chapter One: Birth

The birth of any City requires the blood of three individuals; a woman in childbirth, a warrior, an old person. This is the real reason there were few elven cities; elves were created immortal, and although childbirth and battle hold similar risks for elves as for humankind, old age is not something they know, just the weariness of ages.

Beautiful Tirion of the musical voice, he was born from the wisdom and sacrifice of one of the Maia, who foresaw the need for Cities, who had heard them sung softly in the Song of Creation, but it had been a brief threnody, growing stronger only when the theme of the rise of Men joined the melody. This one had thought it worth his life to take age upon himself and sit in the tallest tower of the city until the weight of his borrowed years crumbled him to dust that blew away through the open windows to be carried in the high winds across the land. Some settled like a blessing on the streets of Tirion, sparkling and glinting gold in the corners, for this was where his heart had ever dwelt.

(But some of his life force carried across the continent to fall elsewhere, to prepare the ground for further sacrifices).

The mother of Fëanor, Míriel Serindë, died shortly after he was born, but the deliberate sacrifice of all her strength to pour it into her fine, bright, doomed son began sooner, so that it was childbirth, his birth that began the process which took her life, and her essence of death was caught by the Maian sacrifice and mingled in the earth, waiting for the birth of the City. A son of Tirion, new to weapons and armour, died at Alqualondë, defending his friends amongst the shipbuilders, weeping as he saw friend turned against friend, brother against brother, and prayed for an end to kinslaying. (The same events saw the birth of Alqualondë from the ashes and flotsam of its broken fleet just a few days later, while Valmar, first of cities in Valinor, was last to gain her personification in the darkness following the silencing of the lamps.)

The Maia’s sacrifice, then, gave three cities the chance to grow and thrive. But this story concerns Gondolin, firstborn city of Middle Earth.

He was nearly born from the ice.

So many deaths, so much emotion, such need, calling out to anyone who might help, the sense of knowing the help sought would not come. The despair, the need, the need.

He stirred in Vinyamar, turning and stretching and testing out the bounds of the dark womb around him, but something held him back, some power outside himself, something with pity in its heart and awareness of his nascent agitation.

Finally, though, it was on the plain of Tumladen when the land shook, and shook, and shook that finally he broke free of the earth and stretched and stood tall, bewildered and exhausted from his difficult gestation and long-deferred birth.

Around him was a wide spread of the greenest grass, crossed with rivulets and streams. Above, the sky was unbearably blue and the sun was warm on his naked back. Around his feet, bursts of colour; Larkspur in bloom.

He felt a tug, a yearning in his heart, and started to turn, seeking the source, allowing his gaze to roam the landscape. There!

In the middle of the plain, walls of sheer stone rose up, forbidding and stern, beckoning, crowned with the towers and turrets and fine-made walls of Gondolin itself. Young as he was, new as he was, he could taste the people, their hopes and fears, their loves and their rivalries, the sense of relief, the sense of dread, and he saw himself reaching out to nurture them…

He smiled and set off towards the cliffs.

‘My lord? Can you come? There is something happening.’

Ecthelion, Lord of the House of the Singing Fountains and Captain of the Great Gate nodded and picked up his helm. He followed the sentry from his office – in reality a desk outside the armoury – through the passageways to the lookout point. His companions jokingly referred to it as ‘The Eyrie’, but such an appellation always made Ecthelion shiver; his friend Glorfindel spoke often of how he thought they were not so much blessed by visits from the eagles, birds of Manwë, as spied upon by them…

He repressed a shudder. They were all on edge, the secret city barely finished, the people still so recently arrived that sometimes they missed their way, still, nothing was familiar yet, nothing felt safe and so anything out of the ordinary was a cause for concern. The earthquake, in the night; had it been a warning? A sign that Morgoth was moving in the depths of the earth far away, sending his evil through the ground to shake them, to seek them out…?

There had been deaths that some said boded ill; a warrior, injured on the way and grimly hanging on to life, his wounds healing and breaking, had finally succumbed to injury and breathed his last on the plain. Then an elleth nobody had known was here had fallen, somehow, from the walls, and the saddest thing, the saddest thing, was that she had been about to give birth, but it was too late; the child had quickened, and died before any help could come. Ecthelion made a mental note to try to find a faster way down to the plain than the current system of tunnels and stairs and slopes with defensive corners and reminded himself he was not a superstitious elf, he knew a sign from the Valar would not come as an earthquake or an unexpected death, but as a formal, direct approach, a message or a visitation. After all, there had been another death, that of one of the oldest, earliest-born elves, who had travelled to Valinor and back again, and who had become world-weary and had said surely, this was what it felt to be old, and had faded, just two days ago. No. Not all deaths were bad, sad though they were for elves.

Ecthelion pulled his long, black hair back out of the way with one hand and passed under the archway that led to the lookout post before sliding his helm into place with the other; it was a fine piece of workmanship, decorative and elegant, and part of the uniform, but it was also topped with a high silver spike that sometimes got in the way and to constantly scrape it against the stonework was embarrassing.

At the lookout, the sentry saluted smartly, hand on heart, and stood aside. Ecthelion passed through to find the narrow ledge crammed with his warriors, all with bows drawn, arrows nocked and trained on a figure that seemed to be erupting from the greensward.

Ecthelion caught his breath; they were all jittery, fearing discovery, exposure. The king’s standing orders were to shoot first and question later; but there was something about the way this individual moved, the way Ecthelion’s heart had lifted…

‘Sir?’ The voice of the captain of the archers was tremulous, tight. ‘Orders, sir?’

Ecthelion stared at the figure. Tall, strong, gleaming in the sunlight with golden hair that shimmered and fell in waves to his waist, naked and obviously unarmed, he had begun to move slowly towards the cliffs below the lookout post. Slowly, but not cautiously; it was more that the individual was unused to walking, his feet sliding through the grass as if the landscape was flowing around him, carrying him forward.

As if he was part of the land…

Something, an unconscious connection in Ecthelion’s mind…

‘Send for Lord Glorfindel.’

‘Sir?’

The captain was right to question him; it was against standing orders, the stranger, by rights, should be lying dead and bleeding on the plain by now. But…

‘Keep your weapons on him, but do not fire yet. I think this is not an enemy.’

The message: ‘The Captain of the Great Gate demands your attendance, my lord,’ found Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, in the midst of debating with his sisters on the merits of yellow over blue as a colour for the Festival of Spring, so that it was with some relief that he headed out. He paused to collect his sword and helm, slung his bright red cloak across his shoulders, and was on his way to the Great Gate before his sisters even had time to complain.

He had time on the way to consider the summons from his friend, his more-than-friend Ecthelion; the formality, the use of his military title rather than his name or even his House title made it clear that this was not a social invitation. Ah, well. Thel’s duty tour was over soon, and there’d be time then to meet and dine and talk and all that could follow after…

He did not blink as he went from bright sunlight to dark, torch-lit passages as he entered the tunnels leading to the Gate, his eyes adjusting easily, but he did slow his pace as he considered the wording of the summons again. Not a social invitation, fine. But… it was odd. There was no strategic reason that Glorfindel should be needed here; if it was something serious, then Turgon, the king, should be informed. So why call him…?

Well. He’d soon find out.

‘Lord Glorfindel, there you are. Take a look and tell me what you make of this, would you?’

No friendly greeting, no ‘Hullo, Findel, old friend,’ no wink, no touch of hand on arm… but even as he assessed this, Findel was making his way to Ecthelion’s side. Together, they looked out.

Glorfindel spoke first.

‘Company?’

The stranger was closer now, so much nearer to the wall that the angle at which the archers had to hold their bows had steepened. One or two of the guards were glancing anxiously at their captain as they strained to keep the target clearly in sight.

‘Apparently so,’ Ecthelion said in an almost-laconic tone. ‘Remind you of anyone? Anything?’

‘The hair, could be mine…’

‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ A whisper, a flash of a grin that made Findel stifle a laugh as Ecthelion continued. ‘He broke free from the greensward and has been making his way towards us steadily ever since.’

The stranger was near enough now to make out features, details. His ears had the pointed tips that all elves had; his eyes seemed to shine and glow and there was something to him that reminded Findel of a long-ago, long-missed lord…

‘Tirion. He reminds me of Tirion the Fair.’ Findel gave a half-sigh, half-laugh. ‘I had thought him a Maia at first, until they explained to me that he was the City, its heart and fëa, walking amongst us.’

Ecthelion nodded. ‘I never met any of the Valinor Cities, but I remembered your descriptions of Tirion the Fair. What do you think?’

‘I think…’ Glorfindel paused, thinking. Every city had its City in Valinor, of course, the embodiment of the settlement, its soul, its streets, its people’s fëar all wrapped up and walking about through its own byways and highways. ‘If he is, then your arrows won’t kill him. But if he’s… what? Newly hatched, newborn? He could be angry, and although he may be vulnerable, he will still be dangerous. And besides, do you think it’s polite to make our first action on meeting him to shoot at him? Turgon’s standing orders be blowed, I think we need to talk to this fellow first, at least. Maybe offer him a pair of leggings before we all go cross-eyes from trying not to look…’

Behind Findel, one of the watch suppressed an anxious laugh; others took it up and a glance around showed several of the archers grinning; the tension was broken, at least.

‘Very well. Send to Stores, spare tunic and leggings…’

‘Extra-long,’ Findel said. ‘And probably extra-large, too.’

They argued in official, formal tones about who should take the garments.

‘This is my watch, my lord Glorfindel,’ Ecthelion pointed out. ‘It is my duty, and my responsibility, to investigate.’

‘Yet we all know that if you do so, you will be countermanding your orders, Lord Captain of the Great Gate. This is not my watch-post, and therefore while you may protest my actions, your life would not be forfeit for such disobedience. Nor would mine, since I am simply investigating, and the archers are watching with you in command of them.’

‘Yet the paths and tunnels running to the plain are many and finding the quickest way will be difficult for you; I have the knowledge to reach this… individual more swiftly.’

Suddenly Findel relaxed, grinning.

‘Oh, I know a faster way than the tunnels,’ he said, and vaulted over the parapet wall, the bundled garments tucked under one arm.

Gasps from the guard. Ecthelion shook his head, striding forward to look.

‘The Lord of the Golden Flower has not jumped to his doom, never fear,’ he admonished them. ‘Make way, there!’

Glorfindel was seated on a narrow ledge just below the wall, booted feet dangling over the void as if he cared not a jot for the danger. He glanced up and back at Ecthelion, grinning.

‘If this is our City,’ he said, ‘I’ve nothing to fear. Watch him carefully… Ai, but he looks so young! See how blue his eyes are? Bluer than mine, even!’

‘Never!' Echtelion leaned forward to whisper in Findel’s ear. 'Never was there anyone, nor will be anyone, with eyes as blue as yours, my lord of the Golden Flower!’

Glorfindel grinned, but continued. ‘…And freckles, whoever heard of an elf with freckles…?’

Lifting a hand, he waved to the probable-City.

‘Greetings, down there!’ he called out. ‘I wish to parley, may I join you?’

Things were happening; people were clustering, there were… things… sharp, pointy things… arrows, directed towards him. He felt the intention, the wariness, sensed the leader’s hesitation, his unwillingness to take life without need. Compassion. It was good, good that one of the first emotions he felt from his people was compassion; somehow, he felt it would form him into a compassionate city…

…but there was fear, and weariness of fear, and he could also sense that these, his people, had been afraid for a long time.

He continued on his slow progress towards the cliffs.

A new arrival, a golden, shining figure, and he felt his heart swell and reach out; this one, whoever he might be, he was precious, he was beloved, he was dear to someone… he mattered…

The golden person jumped over the wall and sat, apparently unconcerned about the drop beneath; he could feel that, sense it even as he was aware of curiosity and intelligence, warmth and friendliness. A lifted hand, a wave, a call…

He waved back, looked at the rocks of the cliff and thought of how a person might get from a ledge to the ground in safety. The rocks shifted, slurred, melted and reformed into a stepped pathway down which the friendly golden creature could descend.

A murmur from the watchers above, but the golden one was descending, unfazed by the sudden stairway’s appearance.

The new-born City waited, a stirring of impatience troubling him. But above, there were still pointed things aimed towards him; although he felt strong enough to withstand such minor things as they seemed, and the intent behind them was not malicious, it seemed right to wait here until he knew more.

So much was still unknown, just guesses at the edge of knowledge.

Finally the figure reached the lower steps, jumped down the last two.

‘Hullo! I’m Glorfindel,’ he said, smiling, and there was no doubting the warmth behind the words, the… wonderful, happy feeling… ‘Here; some clothes for you. It’s a bright day, but still a little cool and we didn’t know if you’d be like an elf, or impervious, or what. So. Welcome to Gondolin… you are our City, I take it?’

‘Gondolin. I am Gondolin.’ The new City took the garments, shook them, tried to work them out. ‘This is Gondolin?’

‘This is Tumladen the plain surrounding the city. Look, here, this… you step in, one leg in each side. Sit down, might be easier.’

Gondolin frowned, concentrating, finding out the ways of the clothes. The leg coverings tied in front, and the tunic tied at the neck, and the fabric felt strange against his skin, confining.

‘I am Gondolin. Where are my spires, my towers, my fountains? Ah, I can feel them I can… there are markets and wide squares, armouries and fine houses… it is beautiful!’

‘Well, we like it,’ the golden one said.

Gondolin turned to him, taking him in.

‘Glorfindel. Golden hair, you are beautiful. Bright blue eyes and elegant ears. Strong but not heavy with muscle. You are a fine person.’

Glorfindel laughed.

‘Well, you’re not so bad yourself, you know. Better hair than me, bluer eyes, although Ecthelion says otherwise.’

‘Ecthelion?’

The City repeated the name, taking into himself all that he could sense of the bright warrior in Glorfindel’s heart. It was like to his own emotional response to Glorfindel, and he wondered if he would feel for all his citizens as he did now, if it were a normal, usual thing.

‘Yes, Ecthelion, Lord of the Great Gate, amongst other things. You know, you could have got into awful trouble, emerging like that, if it hadn’t been him on duty today; I’ve talked to him of my City, Tirion – my first City, that is. You’re my City now. But what I mean is, there are orders… to protect the city, that’s all, but that all strangers should be… forbidden entry and… not allowed to leave.’

‘This is a riddle. How can one not leave and yet not be admitted?’

Glorfindel shrugged. ‘Orders are for the guards to shoot first and ask questions afterwards…’

‘Another riddle, Glorfindel. For how…?’ Gondolin felt the hard meaning of the phrase, the sense of regret from the glowing, beautiful elf before him, and understood. ‘They would not harm me. No ordinary weapon could harm me.’

‘Well, no. Probably not. But you’re… new. I understand that newborn Cities are more fragile than those who are established. Anyway, that doesn’t matter, what matters is that Thel – Ecthelion, knew of Tirion through me, and wondered it perhaps you were our Gondolin.’ Glorfindel smiled, but his eyes were anxious. ‘Do you mind waiting here while I tell him it’s all right? Then he’ll send for Turgon, probably, our king, and… oh, you’re probably hungry and thirsty. You wait here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘I…’ Gondolin frowned, puzzled at how suddenly he did not want Glorfindel to leave, at how much he wanted to stay at his side. Realisation dawned. ‘I love you, beautiful Glorfindel.’

Glorfindel smiled and twisted his shoulders, as if he felt awkward.

‘I love you, too. Or I will; you’re my City. And you’ll love all of us; we’re your people. So that’s all right, then. Only it might take a little time, with some of them. It’s been a long and hard road to get here.’

‘So…?’ Ecthelion asked as Glorfindel vaulted over the wall and onto the watch platform.

‘If this were my command, I’d stand them down. We have ourselves a City.’ He grinned suddenly, shaking his head as he saw the blank expressions on many of the guard. ‘What that means, essentially, is that Gondolin – or Gondolin, our new city – is important enough, vital enough, that it’s become personified; that individual down there, on the Tumladen – he is our City. He will walk with us, talk with us, share our fears and hopes, support our king. He will feel our pain, and he will strengthen our walls, he will care for us and we will care for him, and we will be the stronger for that. Now, someone should take meat and drink to our City, he will be hungry and he’ll want to meet you all as soon as possible. And if I may make a suggestion, we should send to Lord Turgon and give him the joyful news.’

‘And it is a matter of joy because…?’

Glorfindel clapped Ecthelion briefly on the shoulder, his eyes shining.’

‘Because, my dear Captain of the Great Gate, Cities don’t just happen at random; this means that Gondolin is here to stay!’

Notes:

With grateful thanks and acknowledgement to thecitysmith for permission to take their wonderful idea from 'Paris Burning' and re-imagine it for Tolkien's Legendarium. As well as the stories here on AO3, many wonderful tales for this inventive and fascinating new concept can be found on tumblr.

This story is in no way connected to, or dependent on, the amazing 'Hands of stone or hands of tallow' by consumptive_sphinx and our concepts of the City are a little different. But read it, read it anyway.

#thecitysmith

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tokyoteddywolf · 8 years ago

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Thank You, A Lance Minific

What have i d o n e.

Prompt: Lance getting thanked by a random alien and he just breaks into happy tears and the team is like “????”

Another planet, another Galra colony to put down. “Lance! Keep up, idiot!” Keith hissed over the comms, causing the Blue Paladin to flinch. “I’m trying, but we can’t all be close range fighters, mullet.” He grumbled quietly, shooting more androids and ducking to avoid a shot to the head. Vaguely, he wondered if the others would even care if he died. Probably not, they never seemed to want him around lately. Anything he did got a groan or a grumble or a glare, especially from the Princess or Keith.

Pidge seemed to be irritated with him just breathing lately, always growling at him to shut up and let her work or leave her alone whenever he tried to get her to rest from working on whatever code she was cracking or upgrade she was trying out on Green.

Shiro just flat out ignored him, too busy talking attack plans with Allura or training with Keith, or bonding with his Lion. Sure, occasionally he’d be… okay, with Lance nearby, always trying to offer a polite smile or a soft reprimand that some jokes weren’t appropriate for the time being, but it wasn’t like they were buddies or anything. Never speaking more than the bare minimum to make sure Lance still existed.

Hunk was trying to be there for his friend, but even he was often tired out by everything. All the fighting and repairing and more fighting was just draining for the Yellow Paladin. Hell, Hunk had even snapped at him once, after a terrible pun. He’d apologized right after, but the damage still stained Lance’s heart.

Plus, if Keith noticed that Lance didn’t respond back to his insults or challenges as much as before, he never said anything about it. He was probably relieved about it. Once, Lance heard him joke with the others about how nice and quiet it was that morning without Lance chattering away like an idiot. Coran had found Lance crying in his room after that day, like a concerned uncle.

Lance shook himself out of his thoughts and blasted through more Galran fleets, bursting into the prisoner camp and ushering everyone out and into Blue, whom he’d landed a few yards away. A young alien child with white skin and blue freckles over her tiny snub nose tripped, landing on the ground with a cry of pain and squeezing her three liquid silver eyes shut as she went sprawling, a tangle of four arms and two legs and a fluffy pale gray tail covered in black dirt. Lance’s heart clenched, because the little one was the same size as his 4-year-old sister back on Earth, and he looked up to see an android aiming for the helpless child.

“NO!” Lance yelled, running forward and taking the beam to the shoulder as he fired back a return headshot, scooping up the child and hurrying back towards Blue. The prisoners were all settled in the lower room compartment of Blue’s body, the alien child still clutching onto Lance and refusing to let go, whining at the dark red blooming over his suit and dripping onto his armor. He gritted his teeth and flew back to the village, as Shiro shouted orders for the others to obliterate the camp now, and getting confirmation from Pidge that everyone was out. For once, a total win.

The child whimpered, and Lance immediately began to hum softly to soothe the small creature, an automatic response one gained after soothing the nightmares and worries of younger siblings. The effect was nearly immediate; the child relaxed and buried her head into his chest. The comms were silent for once. Nobody yelling at him to shut up or be quiet or some other excuse to make him be silent. So, he kept humming.

When he landed back at the village, he carried the child out and watched the former prisoners reunite with their families, feeling a twinge in his heart at the thought of his own family back on Earth. God, he missed them. “Rina!” Someone called, and the child in his arms pulled her face from his neck and let out a sound between a mew and a chirp of excitement as an older, bigger female alien that looked extremely similar to the smaller alien pushed her way through the crowd, looking hopeful yet frantic, her movements tinged with worry. “Rina! Rina baby are you there?!?” The alien called again, a louder mewing chirp responding from the baby in Lance’s arms.

The mother pushed forward, her face falling in relief as she saw her baby in the hold of the Blue Paladin. Instead of blue freckles and spots, hers were golden orange. “Rina!” She rushed forward, the Blue Paladin allowing her to scoop up her child and spin her around, purring and chirping happily as her little Rina giggled at seeing her mother again. “Oh my sweet girl I thought you were gone for good- I’m so glad you’re safe-“ The mother was choked up with tears, ignoring the other Paladins moving closer to the scene in confusion. She whirled around and grabbed for Lance’s hands with her other two arms, palms shaking as she smiled at him with such gratitude that he was tearing up too.

“Thank you. Thank you so, so much for saving my baby.” The words were what did it. Tears started spilling down Lance’s face as he grinned back. “Yeah! N-no problem!” He managed to say through the happy tears soaking his cheeks. The team were confused. Why was Lance crying? “I mean it. Thank you so much, I’m so glad you were there to protect her. If you hadn’t- I might have never seen my girl again. So, thank you. I don’t know how to repay you.” The mother said gratefully, rocking her baby in her first set of arms as she shook Lance’s hands with her second set.

Lance smiled, sniffling. “You don’t have to, it’s- Just being thanked for something like this is enough for me. You have no idea how long it’s been since I heard those words. Or any nice words, for that matter.” He confessed, forgetting that his team was only a few feet away, not noticing their suddenly tense postures or horrified faces as they absorbed his words. They never showed that they appreciated him. No wonder he hadn’t been acting like himself lately.

Hunk, for one, felt like absolute shit as a best friend. What kind of best friend never said thank you when his pal tried to help him out with something? Every cooking attempt and conversation, trying to lighten the heavy mood that came with being in the middle of a war, and Hunk had never gone along with it. God, no wonder Lance had been so quiet lately. He didn’t see the point in talking to anyone because they wouldn’t respond or would just tell him to be quiet.

Keith also felt terrible. No wonder Lance never reacted to his insults or challenges like before, he didn’t see the point in it if he was just going to be put down. He really was trying his best out here, and Keith just had to go on and call him names and derogatory terms and just be an asshole to someone he considered a teammate.

Pidge thought back to every time she’d ever yelled at Lance, or told him to shut up or be quiet, and realized that in most of those instances, Lance had been trying to help her. He’d pried her away from her computer in the dead of night just to get her to eat and sleep and shower and she felt absolutely horrible that she’d never thanked him for any of it. What kind of “little sister” was she, never thanking her older brother figure for taking care of her when she forgot?

Shiro felt as if he’d failed as a team leader. How had he not noticed Lance’s feelings? Never showing Lance that he was an important part of the team, or thanking him for doing this even when he probably missed Earth and his family. Nice words? How long had it been since anyone ever said anything even remotely nice to Lance? Shiro couldn’t remember and the realization nearly gave him a panic attack. He looked at his team, who all had the same look of awareness on their faces. Shiro nodded to them, before turning and marching over to their Blue Paladin.

“Hey, Lance?” Shiro called, as the Cuban teen turned to him. “Yeah, Shiro? What’s up?” He asked, wiping away tear stains and flinching as he absently moved his injured shoulder. “I just wanted to say good job out there.” The shock on Lance’s face nearly made the Black Paladin flinch. Wow, they really hadn’t been nice to Lance if that was the reaction he gave to praise. Well, if he had any say in it, they were going to fix that. “We should go get that shoulder of yours patched up. Can’t have our sharpshooter without a working trigger arm, right?” He attempted to give a teasing, soft smile and the relief that flooded him when Lance smiled shakily back almost drowned him, settling all cold and soothing in his chest. They could fix this.

Pidge marched over and started asking about what he’d been humming on his way back from the camp as they walked to the Lions, Lance looking slightly amused as Pidge berated him for never singing sooner as he had a very good voice, Hunk chiming in confirmation from when they were kids. Even Keith joined in with a question about what kind of song it was, grumbling that Lance should sing more often if he was as great as Hunk said. The banter was light for once, and though Shiro didn’t believe in God or anything like it, he prayed that everything would be okay from now on.

It would take a while for Lance to open back up a bit, as the team occasionally forgot themselves and nearly snapped at him now and then, but now it was always followed by apologies and a giant cuddle session, like a family. A space family, Lance joked at one point, as was rewarded with laughter and smiles and a happy, warm feeling in his chest. He was praised more, and his rivalry with Keith turned into more of a friendly challenge thing than a heated anger and angst festival, much to everyone else’s relief.

And Lance? Well, now home didn’t seem so far away. Because while home was still on Earth with his blood related family, he now had a space family to keep the cold homesickness a little more at bay.

“Thank you, Lance!”

// sweats because what have I done I actually wrote a short fic by accident???? SEE WHAT I DO WHEN I GET A GOOD PROMPT AND PUT ROCKABYE BY CLEAN BANDIT ON LOOP FOR NEARLY 2 HOURS- ugh, I need food, bye! And yeah the song Lance hummed was the song I listened to while writing this. It’s really good and catchy and I sing it to my lil sis when she cries, which is a lot. So yeah, Lance humming to baby aliens is my fluffy jam okay- well, i hope it was good!

#lance mcclain #voltron #fanfiction #my writing #langst #happy end bc i dont do pure angst #hurt/comfort kinda???

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oh-my-otome · 8 years ago

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Otome Sitch: Fatherhood

Continuing with the last otome sitch, where you have a pregnancy scare, this time Precious Anon requested the suitors as fathers!

Three of these suitors are fathers canonically in at least one of their routes: two from MidCin and one from SLBP.

I used a random generator, and kept randomizing until I got these three daddios in the proper category, boy or girl, for the baby that they have in their routes.

Here we go!

Shigezane and Kyo are the laid-back, cool dads. They know all of the latest slang, but thankfully don’t embarrass their sons by using it in front of their friends. For the most part. There have been some cringe-worthy slip-ups.

They enjoy a close relationship with their boys, but that time they spotted their son in town and jogged over to say “hi,” only to realize that their son was walking hand-in-hand with his girlfriend, gave them a pang of longing for the days when he was only knee-high.

* * *

Sakamoto and Hijikata are surprisingly hands on. They watched you like a hawk for the first few weeks after your baby was born, and now they can do a better swaddle than you can.

They’ve deciphered your infant son’s cries in no time and can tell a hungry cry from a wet nappy one with their eyes closed.

Sakamoto can get your son to fall asleep by dangling his pocket watch in front of his tired eyes, while Hijikata is highly entertained by putting his reading glasses on your son’s sleeping face.

* * *

“Just wait here,” the young boy whispered, with the back of his hand framing his mouth.

“I’ve known him a long time,” Kenshin said, his voice just as low, as he pressed himself against the wall, the two of them sidling closer to the door. In playing their favorite game so many times, they had long ago made a mental map of which squeaky tell-tale floorboards to avoid.

“It’ll never work,” he continued, as his son peeked around the door frame on tiptoe. “I think I might have even tried it myself one time,” Kenshin added, looking down at the list in his hand, and back up again. “Pretty sure he threw a shoe at me.”

Clicking his tongue at his father, the boy flashed a confident grin even as he pressed his index finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. With a theatrical shake of his head to swing his bangs from in front of his eyes, the boy stepped forward into the room.

“Kanetsugu, father says you lack proper posture.”

“He what!? Him of all people?” Kanetsugu straightened upon his cushion in an unconscious display of proving the boy wrong.

“I bet him that you could keep your helmet balanced on your head if you bent over. Without the ties.” Kanetsugu gave a snort at that, as if it were common knowledge. “Father just laughed, though. Said there was no way.”

Incensed, Kanetsugu snatched his helmet from the shelf, his eyes blazing as his brows drew down on the bridge of his nose.

“Laughed, did he!?” he fumed as he fit the armor on his head, bending in a crisp bow that had his back almost parallel to the floor.

“Now see here! I’ll show you posture! First a bow and then--” There was a swift breeze, and Kanetsugu was aware that his head suddenly felt lighter. He stood up just in time to see a flash of the little lord’s kimono as he ran from the room, carrying his bulky helmet.

“Dad! Run! I got it!”

With a sudden snap of realization, Kanetsugu gave chase.

“The two of you and your damn scavenger hunts!”

* * *

Leo and Giles have a friendly rivalry with each other, every time there is a children’s spelling bee or trivia tournament. After each event, they take turns paying for ice cream or pizza, but more than once one of them will “forget” whose turn it is and their wallet just so happens to be “at home.”

* * *

Mitsuhide and Saito: helicopter dads. Always in the way following behind their toddlers, they can’t leave the house without a big bag filled with all kinds of stuff “just in case.”

Saito, of course, always has bandages to spare, while Mitsuhide has no qualms with using his own sleeve as a bib if he has to.

* * *

No one was sure exactly how it happened, but Louis’ son seems more like Sid in temperament, and Sid’s like Louis. When they’re with their own dads, they’re just fine, but when they get together for gatherings, all kinds of mischief would ensue-- such as the frog in the punch bowl incident that was not to be talked about.

* * *

Hideyoshi, Keiki and Haru are the types of dads who want their children to have everything that they never had. As such, they sometimes don’t know when to put their foot down. While that may be one of their flaws, they still respect their own family traditions: young Toyotomi helps his father tend their personal vegetable patch that they cultivate together each year. Keiki and his son happily live dual lives in the capital and helping in the kitchen at Shiki. And Haru and his son make an annual trip to see the cherry blossoms in their hometown.

* * *

It was a given that Nobunaga would have your son climbing trees as soon as he learned how to walk, but you were surprised to see this general fall so easily at the hands of “the enemy.”

Whenever they play fight with their wooden swords, your young son always manages to easily take down one of Japan’s strongest fighters. Nobunaga lies prostrate on the floor with over-dramatic cries of “you got me!” to your son’ delight.

You will never tire of how excited Takasugi gets whenever there is a festival. Previously, you couldn’t even get him to go if you paid him, but now he’s elbowing kids out of the way so that he and your son have enough room at the ring toss stall.

If they’re not coming home sticky from eating so many sweets, they’re wobbling toward the general direction of your house, barely able to see over the mountain of stuffed animals they won.

* * *

Your infant son tends to be fussy sometimes, so Shingen puts him in a wrap, tying it securely to his body, so that the baby is snug and warm against his chest. To your horror, he gets his mare into a fox trot-- baby and all. The motion gets your son to sleep in no time, but you can’t help wringing your hands.

* * *

Anytime your son cries, Mitsunari comes flying. He plucks the baby from your arms and settles himself in his library, a haori flung over them for warmth as he quietly reads your baby to sleep. Of course, your son is too young to understand what his father is saying, but the look of affection on Mitsunari’s face as your son snuggles up to him, eyes already drooping with sleep, is just precious.

* * *

“What about this one?” Okubo held out a thin book.

“Read it,” said his son flatly, not even looking up from his calligraphy.

“You barely even cracked it open!”

“Book osmosis.”

“That’s not a real thing!” Okubo cried, tossing it like a Frisbee toward the rest of the books in the corner. He had been trying all afternoon to get his son to read something. Anything. He needed to see it for himself. It shouldn’t be possible.

“How about the one on the--”

“Lame twist ending.”

“Fine! The one with the--”

“Butler did it.”

Okubo let out a scream of frustration before swan diving into a stack of books and emerging with the first one he laid his hands on.

“This one!” he shouts, thrusting it under his son’s nose. The boy moved back automatically, accidentally leaving a black slash on his parchment, ruining his meticulous hour of practice.

“You can’t have possibly read this one, yet! Your mother just bought it the other day! Let’s see your photographic memory handle this!” Feeling triumphant, Okubo joins you in the kitchen.

“He really does have a very good memory, though,” you say, rinsing off a pot in the sink.

“No one can read a book once, in less than an hour, and absorb every last word to the point of being able to recite it from memory.”

“Which book did you give him this time?”

“That new one you just bought. About the red letter.”

You drop the pot in the sink at the same time Okubo realizes what he’s done, his eye going wide.

He peals out of the kitchen with a screech.

“Son! Wait!”

“Do you know what time it is!?” you ask, as you slam your hand down to push yourself up in bed. You can’t take the off-kilter warbling a second longer.

“I think the sun just went down a while ago,” Kojuro begins, shouting over the sour notes being played on his flute. He rocks your toddler back and forth gently, rhythmically. The only semblance of rhythm in this situation, actually.

Your daughter bounces in time with the “notes” she’s “playing” as they echo off the castle walls with all the cadence of a cat being run over by a cart. Kojuro looks on in a state of pure rapture. She’s clearly a musical genius.

“Just how long have you two been-- the sun is coming up! Go to bed!”

* * *

“Dad, shouldn’t you be more...I don’t know...”

“More what?” Saizo struggles to say around the dango stuffed in his mouth. He picks a few of them clean from their skewers and reaches toward his daughter for more.

“No! No! Don’t throw the skewers away! I can teach you how to stab a man with them!”

“Dad!” she cries, looking offended, “anyway, shouldn’t you be a little more...stealth about this. Mom will know it’s you.”

“Us.”

“You, dad. I don’t even like dango!”

“A crying shame, really.”

With an exaggerated huff, his daughter soundlessly drops one tree branch lower, careful not to shake even a single leaf out of place, and presses her back against the tree bark. Saizo reaches down to hand her another empty skewer at the same time she reaches up to give him the last of the dango he has yet to inhale.

He peers down at her between bites, but she’s looking away from him, haughty and indignant, just like how her mother can be some times. She really did get the best of both of them: his hair, the color of dappled moonlight, and her mother’s eyes.

His agility and her mother’s cooking prowess.

He first combined the two when she was old enough to start cooking without her mother’s guidance.

“A game,” he called it, when she was younger. “We’re on a mission to sneak into the kitchen!” She used to love doing that when she was so much smaller. They’d stay up late making dango, and eating it, both of them, while they chatted happily in hushed voices. Then they’d wash the dishes and disappear without a trace.

“We’re like real ninjas, dad!” If she only knew. At breakfast, they’d share conspiratorial smiles as they said they weren’t really hungry.

It was their favorite game! Their precious father-daughter time!

But she “doesn’t like” dango, now. He can’t count how many times she’s shouted at him that she’s “too old” for this and that.

He noticed that her posture shifted, and she seemed to be gazing down along the garden path. Saizo stiffened involuntarily. Did his wife find out they had “borrowed” her ingredients again? It wasn’t that she minded, it was losing his touch that annoyed him. He may have retired, but he didn’t want to get rusty.

He followed her gaze and saw a teen, with the top half of his blue kimono pulled down, the sheen of sweat on his muscled back glistening in the sun.

“No.” Saizo’s voice was a low rumble of warning as he leapt down beside his daughter without a sound. For all he trained her surreptitiously, his daughter jumped and almost slipped from the branch.

“Wha-- dad! I’m not--”

Sasuke, meanwhile, continued to train unaware.

* * *

“Dad, stop giggling! You’ll scare them!”

“It tickles, I’m sorry! Okay, I’m good now.” Kondo wiped the tears from his eyes using his shoulder, careful not to disturb the birds perched on him. He was sitting on the ground with his arms stretched wide, palms up.

“They’re coming back! Let me give you more!” his young daughter cried, ladling more birdseed into his upturned hands. Finally, finally, he would get to interact with animals without them shunning him and running away. He’s waited so long!

“Look!” she said in a stage whisper, “It’s a squirrel this time! Quick, sit still!”

Kondo did as instructed, and the squirrel inched closer. The birds flew away on its approach, but Kondo remained where he was. It picked up the scattered bird seed that had fallen through the gaps in his fingers, and moved steadily closer with cautious steps, until it reached the hem of his hakama where a large seed lay.

“Uh...sweetie...”

“Shh, dad, you’ll scare him!” she said, but Kondo was already starting to slide his bottom backwards a little as the squirrel not only gathered the seed, but continued to prod around his pants leg.

“I think this is enough for today...” he tried to stand up, as the squirrel looked around to see if there was any more food to be had.

“Dad, wait!” but as Kondo pulled himself up, the squirrel latched onto his pants, deciding to stick with the source, hanging on for dear life.

“This isn’t fun anymore!”

* * *

Toshiie and Yuki full of energy when it comes to their daughters. If they’re not on their hands and knees pretending to be a horse, they’re giving piggyback rides or drawing in the dirt. They’re exhausted but happy at the end of the day, and your daughter never has a problem being “too tired” to take a nap, as many young children have complained.

* * *

Byron, Nico, Alyn and Albert stood watching their daughters play in a mud puddle. There was something satisfying about seeing their children do something proper young lords like themselves were never allowed to do.

As they chatted about their work and their wives, something went whizzing by them, and they ducked out of the way just in time to see a ball of mud splatter on the ground

“Whoa! Just a little off center. Sorry dad!” said little Burckhardt, wiping her muddy hands on her pinafore.

“Now, what have I told you!? Calculate the trajectory properly before you throw! Don’t stand there doubting your math while something sails through the air!”

“Excuse you, Burckhardt?” said Alyn to Albert as he stepped up beside his daughter.

“Don’t worry, dad,” replied young Crawford coolly. She flipped her auburn pigtails over her shoulders with a flick of her head as she packed more mud onto her ball. Handing it to her father, she stooped to make another one. “We can make up for it with pure speed.”

Byron’s eye slid toward his daughter, who met his gaze with a determined glint. They nodded silently in unison and she tossed her father the mud ball she was holding, which he caught smoothly, without looking.

“You had better start kneeling. Wagners don’t surrender!” she jabbed her finger toward the Burckhardts and Crawfords. On her mark, her father’s mud ball streaked across the gap, hitting Albert square in the chest.

Little Crawford took aim and her mud ball landed true, knocking Byron’s eye patch clean off, her father’s cry of “that’s my girl!” sounding over the top of her head.

Suddenly, there was a barrage of mud that seemed to come from all directions.

“You can’t hit us,” came Nico’s voice from the left, “if you can’t see us,” he said form the right. Following each phrase, there was a gust of wind, as if someone were running past, but indeed there seemed to be no one there.

“You were saying something about speed?” It was little Meier, this time, but from where?

As one, Byron, Albert and Alyn stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a circle, their daughters peeking out from the center, mud balls at the ready.

“Now!” Nico cried. From above! But it was too late. As the men below looked up at the father and daughter crouched in the tree above them, they could do nothing to stop the onslaught of mud balls being rained down upon them.

* * *

Rayvis and Robert may live lofty lives, but they prefer to have their daughters understand early on that not everyone can live that way. They bring their daughters with them to see the town, and when they notice that they have outgrown some toys and clothes, they ask their daughters if they would be willing to donate them.

When they go to market, their daughters are in tow, and whenever they can, they ask their opinion on what their child would like to donate to the food pantry in their school.

* * *

“I can’t. No more.” Okita sank into a crouch before giving up and laying down on his side in the grass. He considered wiping the sweat on his brow, but he didn’t have the energy for it.

“You promised to play!” his daughter whined, her head tilted to the side.

‘Is that what I used to look like? Is that what I used to sound like?’ he wondered, exhausted. She looked so much like him that he accepted that it must be true.

Little miss Okita tutted at her father, poking him lightly in the back with her wooden practice sword.

“I will! I just need a breather!”

“Ooh! Never mind, she’s here!” his daughter shouted. Okita looked up just long enough to see her long ponytail swinging in the breeze as she ran toward her friend, before closing his eyes again, and placing his arm across his face.

“Took you long enough, Yamazaki,” he said wearily, “had to spar with her myself.”

Yamazaki sat in the grass beside his old friend. He waved at his daughter at her cry of “dad, watch this!” The two were engaged in their usual playful duel of who was best: a samurai or a ninja.

“Hard to imagine you got bested by a little kid,” Yamazaki chuckled, looking back at Okita, “look at you all tuckered out. For shame.”

“Shut up!” Okita replied with what was intended to be a kick in Yamazaki general direction. He could barely lift his leg and Yamazaki had no trouble batting his foot away.

Sitting upon his elbows, Okita looked over at the two girls. Young Yamazaki performed a back handspring just in time to avoid the slash of his daughter’s wooden sword, both of them laughing as they went. It was no surprise that Yamazaki passed on his agility, but Okita remained amazed at his daughter’s inexhaustible stores of energy.

“I don’t know how you guys could stand me back in the day,” Okita started, weariness tinging his every syllable.

“Never said we could.”

* * *

Ieyasu is certainly raising an outdoorsy young lady. If they don’t have their bows slung over their backs on their way to the training grounds, they have their field journals in hand, the edges of the pages worn with use, as they look for plants and wildlife they have yet to identify and sketch.

There wasn’t a retainer in all of the Tokugawa brave enough to remind Ieyasu that he still had the flower crown, that his daughter made for him, on his head as he conducted his war council.

* * *

Katsura is a little too helpful when it comes to his daughter. Though he meant well, he was almost in the midwife’s way, when you were in labor. He enjoys walking through the town and showing her off while he’s out shopping. Katsura is the very picture of a proud father.

He won’t tell you, but he cried a little bit when “daddy” wasn’t her first word.

It was “Koma.”

* * *

“So embarrassing.”

“Unbelievable.”

The Ladies Date and Sanada knelt with their daughters on their laps at one side of the hall while Yukimura and Masamune crouched a few yards away, arms outstretched.

“We’re finally settling our feud once and for all!” Masamune said, giving the signal.

On his mark, the ladies gently set their toddlers on the smooth floor. They were matched for pace as they crawled toward their fathers, but they changed course just before they reached them-- baby Date determinedly going to Yukimura and baby Sanada giggling as she crawled toward Masamune.

“It doesn’t count!” Masamune starts.

“Do-over! That’s a clear do-over!” Yukimura agreed.

The ladies gather their children and leave the hall, shaking their heads.

* * *

“You look exhausted!” you remark, as Todo throws himself heavily upon the bedding, placing your baby daughter gently beside him. The bags under his eyes are darkening each day and he seems a little slimmer now that you look at him closely.

With a laugh, your daughter sits up and grasps at his sleeve, which he acknowledges with a tired smile, too worn out to even turn and look at her.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just fine,” he says, the weariest you’ve ever heard him, dragging a hand across his face. “She didn’t go far this time,” he says between yawns. “Do you think we should put a leash on her?”

You whirl around to tell him that you’re not about to put a leash on your baby, when you notice she’s no longer by his side.

“Shit. Not again!” you can hear Todo’s voice trailing off as he quickly fades from your vision the way a drop of dye disperses in water.

He reappears before you in a matter of minutes, clutching your daughter for all he’s worth, completely out of breath. As you take him in, you notice that his clothes are torn, and both father and baby are damp with snow.

“Where was she this time?” you ask, beyond surprised, at this point. The Todo clan genes are a little...special.

“I...I have seen some stuff today...” he begins, looking completely shell-shocked.

Taking your daughter from his clutches, you hand him a piece of parchment and a brush that you pre-dipped with ink in the short while that he was gone. Having done this so many times since she’s been born, you already have a system.

“You’re fine now. Just draw it on the paper. I’ll tell you where you’ve been.”

Todo sits down shakily and beings to draw upon the parchment in large strokes. With trembling hands, he passes the paper to you.

“Ah. That would be a woolly mammoth. Pleistocene epoch. We call it the ‘Ice Age.’”

#otome sitch #samurai love ballad party #midnight cinderella #destined to love

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royaltyjunk · 8 years ago

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One Found Love, Another Did Not [FE8 fic, T]

Summary:

Innes strives for nothing less than perfect, and Tana knows very well that he will take no challenges in his quest to perfection. Written for the FE: Community Design Challenge on Tumblr.

Author’s Ideas: Hey, why not. I took up the @fe-communitydesign challenge. The theme for March is “Family”, so have a thing featuring a favorite ship, unrequited Ephraim/Tana. Because I like to suffer. I would’ve done Cormag/Tana, but it didn’t really make sense with the theme, so have unrequited Ephraim/Tana. I would hope that you’ve finished Sacred Stones, or none of this will make any sense.

This fic uses one-sided Ephraim/Tana, Ephraim/Myrrh and Innes/L’Arachel.

Disclaimer: No, I don’t own Fire Emblem.

Innes strives for nothing less than perfect, and Tana knows very well that he will take no challenges in his quest to perfection.

She was young, a little girl who had just entered her eighth year, when she’d seen Innes first challenge Prince Ephraim of Renais. She’d been captivated by the prince, a young boy with turquoise hair and a skill with the lance so perfect that she could not begin to believe she could attain that skill.

Innes saw nothing of what she saw. What he saw was a threat. A rivalry was declared on the spot. They dashed about the Frelian castle, weapons and armor abound.

Tana tried many times to gain Ephraim’s attention, but to no avail did she succeed. Even so, her eighth birthday was her first memory of the two twins, and it would remain one of her favorite.

They would continue like that for the next decade. When Eirika and Ephraim’s birthdays come up, Tana and Innes make the trip to Renais. Eirika and Tana sit under the trees of the courtyard and watch their brothers spar in both lance and bow. Sometimes, other knights will come by and watch the princes. Seth will adjust their stances and teach them new moves. King Fado and Hayden just laugh.

Whenever Tana or Innes’s birthday were near, they were greeted by the royal family of Renais. Fado would present them with their presents and let the children scurry off. At some point, Tana started taking Eirika out on pegasus rides, mostly flying over the town and laughing as they soared over the rippling ocean that sprayed foam back at them. When they came back, they usually find Innes and Ephraim in the middle of a duel.

Still, when they see each other, a hole in her heart seems to open up, that his smiles are not for her, that his laughs and praise are not directed to her, that he has yet to talk to her for more than ten heartbeats before Innes butts in.

She promises herself that she will not be mad at her brother, though, and smiles whenever Innes and Ephraim dash off, and Eirika is left sighing.

Even through all the years, though, she still has not managed to gain Ephraim’s attention, let alone his affection, and she can feel the hope that had once blossomed and flourished in her heart wilting away.

The year 803 is Tana’s eighteenth year. It is also the year that Grado strikes Renais down, stampeding and tearing down the mighty nation that used to be its best ally.

Renais falls apart after the castle is captured, and Tana escapes to Fort Mulan in hopes of meeting one of the royal twins there, that she would be of help, somehow.

Instead, Eirika rides to her aid and helps her. When they return to Frelia Castle, Tana cannot help but notice her friend’s quiet demeanor, the look in her eyes that has hardened from the gentleness that once resided within it.

King Hayden refuses to let Tana go with Eirika, no matter how much she tries to persuade her father, but Eirika smiles at her and assures her to stay in Frelia, and for the first time since the war startd, her smile is warm, her hands calming.

Reports come in after she leaves on her expedition. Eirika saves two men in Ide from bandits. She defeats the leader of a great bandit, and helps reunite two childhood friends. She encounters dark monsters in the Za’ha woods and attains help from two magicians. She reconquers Serafew and says that she has discovered an ominous tale from a Grado sister that she will tell when she gets back. She saves Renais citizens being used as hostages.

The last report comes in on the night of the full moon. Eirika says she is planning on laying siege to Fort Renvall, where Ephraim is rumored to be held prisoner.

Tana can only sit in her room and pray like Father Moulder taught her to.

A day later, Eirika comes back, and the sight that she brings is enough to make Tana cry. Ephraim follows his sister, his hair ruffled, his sleeves torn and armor dented, his face haggard with exhaustion, but he smiles when Tana rushes up to him, even smiles when Innes bluntly leaves after seeing Tana’s teary eyes and hearing her rebukes.

She hears of his expedition to Grado, his quest to strike fear into the heart of the Grado capital. She knows of her friend, Eirika’s journey to the distant kingdom of Rausten. She is told of Innes’s destination, the sandy country of Jehanna.

She herself has no place to go, except to one of them.

She tears her gaze away from the forests and rivers of trembling Grado, and turns to look upon the Frelian port where Eirika is bound to set sail to Rausten from. Finally, she sets her eyes upon Carcino, forest-filled and mountainous Carcino, where she is sure to find her brother.

She cannot bring herself to meet her brother or the man she has loved for years, and turns her pegasus towards the churning seas of Frelia.

~ / . / . / ~

When the War of Stones ends, she perches on the balcony of Rausten Castle and watches Ephraim dance with an indigo-haired girl who laughs every time he smiles at her. Tana’s heart clenches, and she’s not quite sure why.

She watches other people, too. She spots Eirika, laughing alongside Kyle and Forde as Ephraim tells little Myrrh where to step. She can see Vanessa and Syrene, instructing young Amelia and Franz how to waltz. Duessel and Seth sit together, their smiles, for once, not forced, although Tana always did think they were a little too grim for their own sakes. Joshua sits by a wooden table, a solemn look on his face until Sister Natasha sits beside him, and they continue in quiet conversation, but a smile has slowly spread across the Prince of Jehanna’s face. Knoll and Saleh point out the old texts written across the Rausten walls. Tethys dances in the middle of the crowd, and L’Arachel accompanies her. Tana can see a smile on her brother’s face as he watches the Princess of Rausten spin and twirl across the room.

A gentle wind beats at her from behind, and she turns to see Cormag, the wyvern rider of Grado, soaring through the skies above the castle. She waves at him, and he waves back before zipping away.

Achaeus snorts, and Tana laughs, stroking her pegasus’s head before untangling the reins from a small pillar on the balcony. Achaeus takes off immediately, a white streak in the sky that flies over the towns and forests, crossing paths with Cormag more than once.

Tana sits, staring up at the star-filled night. They twinkle and shine like never before. Perhaps they’re a sign of new hope, of new days to come.

“Tana?”

She almost falls over the edge of the balcony, but Ephraim reaches out and steadies her at the last second. His hand tightens around her arm, and he spins her gently so that she’s facing him.

“Hello, Ephraim,” Tana breathes.

“What are you doing out here?” He asks. His face is suspiciously close to hers, but there is a friendly smile on his face. He lets go of her arm, and the warmth of his hand is well-missed in the midst of the cold night.

“Just… taking a break.”

“From what? Is someone bothering you? I can tell them to stop.”

“No, Ephraim,” Tana giggles, “no one is bothering me. I just wanted a take a break from the festival.”

“I see,” Ephraim leans his back against the balcony, crossing his arms over his chest and looking up at the sky. Tana stares at him, and when he turns to look at her, his blue eyes reflect the golden light of the stars, glazed over with beatific exhaustion.

“Ephraim?”

“Yes?”

“What will you do? After this war, I mean.”

“Rebuild Renais… handle my kingly duties… I suppose I’ll be focusing on taking the throne for a while.”

“After that?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Ephraim’s voice is soft.

“Oh.”

Tana jumps off the edge of the balcony, turning to look up at the sky. Her calloused hands grip the railing in front of her, and Ephraim tilts his head to the side.

“What about you?”

Tana tilts her head. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to help Innes… I suppose I’ll be around.”

Ephraim nods, and they stare in silence at the stars.

“Ephraim?”

Tana turns around, and Ephraim follows her gaze. Myrrh holds her hands together, her wings gently folded behind her back.

“What is it, Myrrh?” Ephraim rushes forward, crouching in front of her.

“I… um… your knight is… your knight is looking for you,” Myrrh murmurs.

“Kyle? Or Forde?”

“No… Sir Seth… and Princess Eirika…”

“My sister too? Why?”

“They said something… about an announcement?”

Tana snickers, a hand over her nose and mouth. Ephraim and Myrrh turn to look at her, and she waves them off.

“Eirika told me about it already,” she states, ignoring Ephraim’s curious gaze, and smiling. “You ought to head in.”

“Are you staying out here?”

“Yeah… I still need a breather from all that festivity.”

Myrrh looks up at Ephraim, and he nods before turning to Tana. The little manakete extends her wings and slowly flying towards the entrance of the ballroom.

The crown prince of Renais smiles at Tana, and she tries to keep the butterflies bubbling in her stomach down. Ephraim’s eyes are glowing with joy, and she gulps as he takes her hand in his. Myrrh calls for Ephraim, and he jolts, dropping her hand with a guilty look on his face.

“I will see you soon then, Tana.”

“Yes, I’ll see you,” The lady breathes. She watches Ephraim walk away, Myrrh flying in front of him. The sounds of their laughs drift in the wind, and Tana turns, leaning her elbows on the balcony.

She closes her eyes and cups her face with her hands. The light beating of wings and the clack of hooves makes her start up, and Tana opens her eyes and turns to see Achaeus, perched beside her, a questioning look in its wide eyes.

“Oh, Achaeus… I’m fine,” she reassures. Her pegasus whinnies and tucks its muzzle up against Tana’s cheek. The princess laughs, stroking the winged mount.

“What do you see in him?” Her brother asks from behind her. Tana jumps in shock, whipping around.

“Innes! Don’t startle me like that…” She sighs, placing a hand on her beating heart. Achaeus neighs, tilting its head away from Tana and leaps off the balcony where it had landed.

“You should’ve been paying attention,” Innes points out.

Tana sighs. “You heard Eirika’s announcement, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Well, I sure wasn’t when she told me last night,” she huffs.

“Did you never notice?” Innes asks. “I told you, you need to pay more attention to your surroundings. How do you expect to-”

“Innes, I told you already, I can look out for myself.”

“I can’t always take your word, Tana.”

“Well, I’m sorry, dear brother Innes!”

Innes sighs, leaning his head against the pillar behind him. Tana lets out an angry sigh, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Tana, please be more mature.”

“Hmph. It’s not like you’re helping, Innes.”

“Look, I try to help you, but you never listen to me.”

“I want to see the world as it is, Innes! Not with the protection of the title of princess and her brother! I’ve already seen enough to know that I don’t need to be shielded from the world by you or anyone!”

Innes stays silent, and Tana shrinks back against the balcony railing.

“Fine,” the prince growls, “but don’t come crying back to me when you get hurt.”

“I knew you would understand!” Tana exclaims, smiling. Innes mutters an inaudible curse, and runs a hand through his silver hair before a smirk spreads across his lips.

“Innes,” Eirika calls, peeking her head out of the ballroom entrance doors. “L’Arachel is asking for you.”

“What for?” Innes responds, turning to face Eirika.

Eirika smiles. “That’s for you to find out.”

Inner raises his eyebrows, and Tana suppresses a laugh.

“Tana, do you want to come too?” Eirika asks gently.

“No, I’m fine. Do tell me what happens, though.”

“Tana-” Innes starts.

“Go on,” Tana smiles. “I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t want to come in?” Innes asks one last time.

“Oh, Innes, I’m very sure,” she huffs, shoving Innes towards the ballroom. He sighs, turning to look at her.

“Just make sure you don’t stay out here too long.”

“Yes, Innes.”

When her brother leaves, Achaeus soars to her side, and Tana mounts the pegasus, flying away from a night of laughs and dancing, of bonding and healing, of camaraderie and a love that she knows doesn’t exist.

~ / . / . / ~

L’Arachel is blessed with Innes’s hand in marriage some two years after the war.

The wedding is the most extravagant ceremony that Magvel has seen since the celebration in thanks of the final fall of the Demon King. The prospect of the prince of Frelia marrying the princess of Rausten seemed impossible to some, but many things became possible with the war’s end.

There were many invited, and Innes almost drowned in invitations and questions. L’Arachel was buried in them as well, Tana heard. More than once did she and Innes sneak out on her pegasus to visit L’Arachel, who would travel to the Republic of Carcino on business matters.

“How do you feel about L’Arachel?” Eirika asks one day over tea, and Tana tilts her head, her cup in front of her face and tea pressed against her lips.

“I think she’s fine. Why?”

“Well, it is your brother’s wedding. You ought to care to some extent, right?”

Tana shrugs, drinking her tea, and Eirika smiles warmly, because they both know the answer to her question.

The day of the wedding draws ever closer, and the entire continent holds its breath in a stunning silence of realization. Visitors pour into the Frelian castle. First is Princess L’Arachel, who throws herself at Innes the moment she steps out of her carriage, her virtuous self forgotten to the anticipation and stress of the greatest event Magvel will ever see. King Joshua and Queen Natasha of Jehanna arrive, and then the Elders from Carcino. General Duessel rides into Frelia, and his company includes King Ephraim of Renais and Lady Myrrh of the manakete. Princess Eirika and General Seth have stayed in Frelia longer than their annual visit to help prepare for the wedding, and greet the King when he arrives. The heroes that fought valiantly in the War of Stones come last, albeit tentatively. Cormag and Knoll, Marisa and Gerik, Tethys and Ewan and Saleh, all of them seep into the Frelian castle, two or three at a time.

Duties keep Ephraim and Tana separated for the few days they have, although on occasion, she will slip through the castle halls and happen to catch glimpses of him through his open bedroom door sitting under a window, Myrrh ever presently at his side. Sometimes they’re reading, sometimes they’re conversing, and sometimes, she’ll be curled up against him, her face buried in his chest and hands in his.

Pegasi flocks scatter the sky like clouds the day of the wedding, and Tana feels that time has slipped through her hands like feathers in the wind.

The wedding itself is interestingly chaotic. Small disasters occur. A heel breaks. Necklaces tangle. L’Arachel has a panic attack despite her bravado the minute before. Innes can’t find his coat. The ringbearer goes missing.

Even so, the actual event proceeds smoothly, and the entire country of Frelia roars with screams and applause. Tana is the first one to leap to her feet, Eirika and Ephraim behind her, clapping and yelling. King Hayden cries, and Innes tries his best not to look at his father.

The dinner that comes after the ceremony passes by in a blur. There are congratulations and toasts, some more memorable than others. Soon, the lights begin to dim, and Tana realizes with a start that oh by the Stones, I have to dance.

“Princess Tana?”

She jolts up at the mention of her name, and comes face to face with the King of Renais, offering her his hand.

“May I have this dance?”

She can feel Innes, staring daggers into the King’s head from his place at the head of the dance floor, but she smiles up at Ephraim as she takes his hand.

“Yes.”

They tilt the dance floor into a gentle waltz, Ephraim holding Tana close as they dance to the soft music that fills the room like a warm summertime breeze.

The King of Renais speaks naught, and Tana tries to make small talk, but fails to get her words out of her throat. As the song comes to an end, Ephraim bows to Tana, and she gives him a clumsy curtsy, at best. He takes a step to leave, and she finally finds her voice.

“Ephraim?” Tana asks tentatively.

“Hm?”

“Have you… thought about taking on a queen? Er, wife?”

“I can’t say I have,” Ephraim responds.

“Oh.”

“Is something wrong?” He tilts his head in confusion.

“No, it’s nothing… I have to go now, I’ll- If… If you’ll excuse me.” With that, she drifts away from Ephraim’s questioning gaze. Once she’s out of the ballroom, she breaks for her room in the castle hallways, longing for the silent embrace of bitterness that wells up in her eyes.

What she doesn’t expect is for Innes to be standing beside the door, and she bumps into him as she dashes for the safety of her room.

“Ow… Watch where you’re- Tana?” Innes asks, and she freezes, making to wipe the tears off her cheek.

“Why are you here, Innes? I thought you were supposed to be in the ballroom. It is your wedding.”

“I stepped out for a bit. L’Arachel is… Are you crying?”

“No, I’m not,” Tana retorts angrily, but even as the words leave her mouth, she reaches up and rubs her eyes furiously.

“Is something wrong?” Innes rushes to her side, taking her hands away from her eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong!” She exclaims, tearing her hands from his grip and turning to leave.

“Tana! Listen to me!” He grabs her by the shoulder and spins her around. “I am your brother. Can you not confide in me what is wrong? Am I that worthless to you? I thought you said you wanted to rely on me! Are you going to take back your own words?”

“I just don’t want to talk about it!” Tana struggles out of Innes’s grip and hurries to push open the door to her room.

“Is it about Ephraim?”

She stops, and that’s all Innes needs to press her.

“What did he do this time?”

“He didn’t-”

“Tana.”

She turns to face Innes, biting her lip. She looks at him, and his black eyes flash for a second, a glow of concern and worry and all the feelings she always wished he could’ve expressed for her as a brother.

“Ephraim hasn’t thought about taking on a wife,” she reveals, the words spilling from her mouth as quickly as the tears in her eyes.

It doesn’t take long for Innes to catch onto the hidden meaning behind Tana’s words, and wordlessly, he reaches out and strokes her blue hair gently.

“I… I told you… it’s… nothing… I’ll get over it,” Tana hiccups.

“I’m sure you will,” Innes responds, and for once, there is no sarcasm stinging his voice, no arrogance or brashness.

She sniffles and leans into Innes, and her brother lets her, even pulling her closer.

They stay like that for a while, Innes holding Tana, who cries until she can cry no more, her mind blank and her eyes dry.

“Tana,” Innes mutters, his voice low and forehead bowed against the top of her head, a strange sight to behold, even to Tana. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” she asks softly, her breath hitching with the leftover taste of tears, “you’ve done nothing to be sorry about.”

He pulls away from her, and Tana is beyond herself in shock when she sees that he is crying. “I… I’m sorry. About Ephraim. I was a terrible brother. Blast! If I hadn’t gotten in the way every time you two had the opportunity to talk to each other, maybe-”

“It wasn’t your fault, Brother…” Tana takes his hands in hers and squeezes his reassuringly, but her brother doesn’t meet her gaze; just closes his eyes, turns his head to the side, and lets the tears fall.

So she wraps her arms around him and lets him cry in the safety of his sister’s arms. For the first time, he does not have to protect her. For the first time, she does not have to feel like a burden.

And, for the first time, they are happy that way. That one found love, and another did not.

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