#grain is surprised to find himself walking the path of stars

[this-hound]

that night i saw something i had never believed in

[writingpei]

wicked games (l.m) - chapter seven

previous chapter series masterlist next chapter

pairing: lee minho x reader genre: academic rivals to lovers wc: 2.1k words tw: parental abuse, daddy and mommy issues, toxic household

action and reaction

by the time minho returned home, the stars were already dripping across the sky covered in the darkness of the early evening. he carried several bags full of goods that he received from girls of all ages, desperate for any grain of time he was willing to spare them.

it was no secret to anyone that minho was a sucker for attention - especially coming from pretty girls - however, even though he was washed up with it for the last few hours, the confessions and smiles weren't enough to get him out of the foul mood that dominated his mind.

so when he pulls up in front of the vast house and sees the black car in the driveway that contrasts itself in his field of vision so aggressively, he can only laugh out loud in a humorless laugh, theorizing in his mind how bad the remaining of his night was going to be.

when he stepped into the house, his primary destination was climbing the endless stairs to the top floor on his way to his younger brother minhyuck's room. minhyuck didn't hide his surprise when he saw minho entering his bedroom, even more so when he threw all of the bags on the youngest's bed.

"what... what are you doing?"

"gifts for my favorite little brother!" minho exclaims in feigned enthusiasm, and minhyuck just frowns wildly.

"i'm your only little brother..."

"you have enough chocolate to keep and give to your grandkids and love letters to read and distract yourself with when you feel like crying in the middle of the night" he says, giving a thumbs up in minhyuck's direction as if that will transform what he had just said into something somewhat acceptable. “that’s it, bye.”

"oh, minho" minhyuck called him when he was about to leave the room. "mom says we're having a family dinner tonight and you can't bail it."

"guess i will have to make an appearance then" he sighed walking up to his own room, not bothering to turn on the lights and simply drowning himself in his bed, sighing deeply in that moment of such intense silence that even a buzzing arose in his ears, clouding his thoughts.

minho was fully aware of his ability to express exaggeration, it was already was a part of his daily script when it came to complaining about things, however, he did not make use of this attribute when saying that there were days he preferred to die than to share the dining table with his family for at least an hour of your precious day in agonized silence and hostility.

given that, when the family housekeeper knocks shyly on his bedroom door and blurts out, "mister lee, dinner is already served in the dining room," he makes no move to get up and head out toward his own personal brand of hell. it felt as if something of a humongous weight had made itself comfortable on his back and he didn't have even 1 percent of the strength needed to face it and get to his feet, simply losing control of his body completely.

he closed his eyes tightly, expecting the whole world to fall apart at that moment. he couldn't imagine what it was he'd done wrong this time to condemn himself to a family dinner, but he wasn't excited to go down and find out.

not wanting to hide under his covers like he did when he was a kid, he sucked it all up and got up, walking like a zombie down the path he'd known all that well. he was late, and that would only deduct points from his case. minhyuck and his parents were already sitting around the table, patiently waiting for him. on the plates, several different foods colored the dark wood, practically black, of the dining table.

he expected some snarky comment about his manners and his abominable habit of keeping others waiting, but was met only with silence, which just sent a chill running free down his spine.

dinner began in dead silence, creaking with just the sound of silverware hitting the bottom of china plates, but it was obvious that a tangible tension hung in the air. he had had no appetite since morning, so he just messed up and unscrambled the carrot and green bean cubes from one side to the other side, not daring to look up.

his mother was the granddaughter of an important man within the country's education department, and due to her social status, she was condemned to a life tainted by an arranged marriage and children she never planned to have. he had never seen his mother genuinely smile in his entire life. he started making jokes when he was little with the aim of making her laugh, but it never happened. minho couldn't understand why she didn't smile, even though he was trying his best every day. his confusion mingled with anger, realizing that his efforts to make her happy made no difference to her, and so it wasn't long before the humor morphed into sarcasm, and their interactions with each other became unbearable.

he could confidently say that he loved minhyuck a lot, but he wasn't blind enough not to notice that the boy was very sensitive and weak. as much as he had the insatiable desire to one day walk out the huge front door of the house and never return, he had been on target of belligerence for so long that he couldn't live with the idea that everything he had gone through during all his upbringing, being the eldest son, would be immediately transferred to his brother the second he vanished. that was the only thing that brought him back to reality in those moments of desperation.

"two questions" and then there was his father.

the silence is brutally broken when a fork is aggressively thrown against the table and flying to the ground, making minhyuck flinch in fright.

"two questions" and then there was his father, pinching the bridge of his long nose.

minho was already used to the man's sudden and ruthless mood swings, but his familiarity with his overwhelming presence didn't stop him from widening his eyes at the horrible noise, both of the fork hitting the table and his father's voice. it was obvious, how hadn't he realized before? of course, this would be all about his performance on the test, he should have expected this to happen since he first laid eyes on the rankings that morning.

"tough, isn't it?" he replied, smirking bitterly. “i almost cried when i saw it.”

he noticed his mother giving him a calculated look. she was never a fan of his little sarcastic comebacks. his father, however, wasn't having any of it; the dense energy emanating from the man across the table hit minho's skin with considerable thickness.

"you know very well how i feel about second place, minho. second place is more humiliating-"

"second place is more humiliating than last place, i know it very well" he interrupted as if he would succumb if he let him finish the sentence. 

"then why the fuck did you play such a ridiculous role, minho?!" he raised his voice, almost screaming. his attention shifted completely toward his son, eyeing him like a hawk.

minho was taken aback but didn't let it show, he just gulped and rebuilt his wall again brick by brick in a matter of seconds. he puts his hands in his lap, under the table, where he proceeds to clench them into fists as tightly as he can, trying to make his mind focus more on the sharp pain his fingernails caused in his palm than on the vicious words that dripped through his mouth like the venom of a serpent.

"sometimes you have difficulty in certain subjects, that's normal" he shrugged, pretending that the situation was still under control.

"cut the bullshit, you've been in more math competitions than you can remember and you've won almost each one by acing every piece of subject thrown in your face" his father snapped. he then leans his elbows on the table and rubs one hand over the other, tongue running over his teeth without taking his eyes that burn with anger from minho. "from time to time i wonder if you think i'm fucking dumb. if you keep humiliating me like this, i don't know what i'm going to do with you."

minho just takes a deep breath and his eyes slide down to meet his. the pride that was already built into his body prevented him from backing down. he thought that if he tried hard enough, he would be a force strong enough to hit his head-on. in his deepest sleep, in the middle of dreamland, he lived scenarios manipulated by his brain's desires in which his father lost his composure when he looked him back in the eyes, defying him. every so often, he also dreamed that he was apologizing to him after everything he made him go through. those were his most terrifying nightmares.

"you two, out." minhyuck wasted no time jumping out of his chair and disappearing upstairs.

"honey…" her mother began, but it would obviously be pointless.

"i said out!" and this time, she started to get up to leave. "i'm going to talk some sense into that ungrateful imbecile's head. if asking nicely isn't enough, maybe I can get it in other ways."

no matter how much more strength minho put into the grip in his hands, the more he felt his own nails tearing into his skin, he had been trapped inside that moment, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from his father's, as if they were locked together in a sick and sadistic connection.

his father got up and walked slowly across the table until he stopped directly beside the chair where he was still sitting. he noticed him take a shuddering breath, trying to maintain the calm that minho would know he would lose once he started talking again.

"you can't even imagine how much i bet on you, how wonderful and rich your life will be in the future for the things that i, that i did for an ingrate person like you!" he yelled as he pointed at himself to emphasize what came out of his mouth. "then i think you better not throw my effort on the gutter, minho, i'm going to make you regret it..."

"i already told you i didn't fucking mean to get it wrong!" minho managed to blurt out, hate consuming him from the inside out. his words just made his dad turn red with rage, and the sound of his fist slamming into the table in a loath-fuelled impulsive act made minho stay alert. he was approaching him dangerously. "i swear to god if you lay your hands on me, you'll be sorry. i’m not a kid anymore" he warned.

for a second, two, the silence between the two men was absolute. that is, until his dad let out a long laugh that slid down his throat, with fake sour humor. "i can guarantee you i'll do a lot more than just lay my hands on you," and minho tried not to shudder in his chair. he hated feeling weak, especially in the presence of the heinous man in front of him. "if i don't see your name in first place on the next test, minho, you're going to be in trouble. i think you know me well enough by now not to test my patience on this sort of thing."

the last warning was given in tremendous cautiousness. they looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds, his eyes that minho realized were so similar to his own that they made him hate them in himself, preventing him from looking at them every time he faced a mirror. after the non-verbal confrontation marked by looks of aggressive and deteriorating intensity, his father just soothed the part of his hand that had hit the table and turned his back on him, leaving him completely alone in the dining room. 

the table was still covered with unfinished plates, their food was still untouched, the decor was still disgustingly expensive, and the kitchen door was closed, where the cooks and other servants hid every time her father was home, running away from any contact with man. minho felt dirty and alone, standing in the middle of that huge room that looked like a scene from the apocalypse, in those places where people seem to have abandoned their lives in the middle of a normal day. he almost pinched himself to see if he wasn't imagining what had just happened, but he wasn't a child anymore, and he knew better than anyone that this was the only reality he'd had all his life, and sometimes he faithfully believed that it was the only one that apparently deserved it, since it was never different, not even once.

stay tuned for chapter 8! new chapters every sunday ☆

taglist: @liphglos (starting a taglist, if you want to be a part of it, send me an ask <3)

[bejun]

𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐆𝐄𝐍  ! 𝙿𝙴𝚁𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝚂𝙾𝙻𝙾

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 Jun performs HOT by Vertex … 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒: Performance Ref. | Line Distribution, Outfit & Intro Ref. 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 1276 words

Sizzle... POP tsssss... 

The sounds of cooking fill the kitchen, and yet the sky outside is dark, the city around him asleep. He’d needed to relax, and unwind—there was only one last day of practise ahead of him. Jun doesn’t know how many more weeks there are left of Next Gen, but if he’s going to come out on top, he can’t let his energy, his effort, his absolutely relentless will waver at all. So, he’s taking a moment to breathe, recentering himself as he stands over the stove cooking spam to add to the ingredients he was preparing for budae jigae that he’d cook in the morning and leave for Ollie. Something about cooking for his loved ones always made him feel better, as though the world around him stopped turning for a while, to let him soak up the scents and the sounds. He’s got quiet music playing, not too loud, as he doesn’t want to wake Ollie, but loud enough to make him feel like he’s the only person awake in the world right now. 

Junho needs these moments of respite, away from the stresses of the past couple months. Time seems to fly by—it seems only yesterday he was signing up for the show. Now, here he is, weeks in, and so much pressure on his shoulders that he’s worried he’d get chronic back pain. But, he keeps going. He’s going to keep walking this path, never slowing, until he reaches his goal. Seo Junho doesn’t give up, no matter what. He could be an idol, something he’d always wanted to be, or he could let himself slack off and accept his fate of being nothing more than a man in a lab studying stars that he could never reach. 

It’s that thought that keeps him going when he pushes through the final day of practise. There’s a tense edge to his voice at some points, when he reminds his group how much time they have left to get this perfect. But, when their break for lunch comes, Jun surprises them all when he carries in a precarious mountain of food containers, making multiple trips until a good portion of the practise room floor is covered in them. He’d ordered them all lunch from a nearby, somewhat fancy restaurant as a ‘thank you’, and ‘well done’. He wishes he’d had time to cook for them all, but this is the second best thing, he decides, as he sits down with his team to tuck into a well-deserved meal together. 

Then, like grains of sand slipping through his fingers, the day passes him by and he finds himself awakening the next morning, nervous, but well rested and ready to give it his all. There’s a mild ache in his limbs before he steps into the shower that morning, a familiar one that he embraces. The scalding hot water melts away the tension, relaxes his muscles, and he steps out with a desperate hopefulness clinging to the inside of his ribcage. “You can do this.” He reassures himself as he sets off, hoping that today won’t be his downfall. Jun wonders if after giving it his all for so long, he might burnout—then scoffs at the thought. You can’t burnout of hope. 

Preparations for the performance are a whirlwind of poking, prodding, last minute alterations and sneakily hidden safety pins. Somehow, getting his hair and makeup done isn’t that foreign to him, not after a certain ex turned him into her own personal Ken doll. Frankly, he quite enjoys it, watching himself transform in a mirror from a tired, grumpy university student, to a man who could, if you looked at just the right angle, be arguably handsome. He’d never considered himself particularly good looking, but somehow the stylists managed to make even him see something positive about his appearance. It’s nice, feeling confident about himself for a while. It’s not a familiar feeling, but one that he tries to grasp onto, despite how delicate and ghostly it feels beneath his fingertips. 

Jun stands on the stage, lights low as they find their positions, and he takes slow, deep breaths, looking at each of his teammates and trying to smile at them, even in the darkness. Somewhere, deep down, he remembers that self-serving feeling of wanting to win above all else, the realisation that he’d step on anyone to get where he wanted to be... yet now, he thinks it’s perhaps dampened by the fondness he feels for some of the other contestants. He wants so many people to do well, and yet he still can’t make himself wish it at the expense of himself. He wants them all to do well, but if anyone goes down in flames, he doesn’t want to get burned in the process, so he takes the last few seconds to remind himself why he’s here, to tell himself he can do this. 

And then the music begins. 

Jun and Ren begins the song with powerful solo lines, and this is Jun’s first shot to capture the judges, and the audience at home with a piercing gaze into the camera. He’d been practising finding the cameras, had asked for advice on how to find the right one, and he thinks he’d managed it okay. It was important to brush up on every single aspect of a performance, and while he wasn’t setting aside bigger things like his voice and his body and his expressions for simply finding the right camera, he knew that it would help if he could. His teammates solo parts gives him time to get into position to lead the song after the intro. He stands in the front and meets a judges eyes as he delivers his lines and perfectly executes the choreography. 

Jun had learnt long ago not to let nervousness get the better of him. He’d never done as well when he felt nervous, or thought too much about what came next in the song. He trusted his muscle memory, and the amount of time he’d put into perfectly memorising it all. Having a good memory came in helpful when it came to lyrics, so while he’d felt nervous when he first set out practising the song, he simply enjoys the performance now, interacting with his teammates and the judges, remembering to never let himself fade into the background, even when he’s at the back of side of the group. When he’s not the focal point, he’s still being watched, and he knows he can’t slip up for even a second. 

Every move is precise and powerful, and thanks to the sleeveless shirt, his arm movements are even clearer. He’d been pleased when he’d first seen the outfit, knowing full well his arms were his best feature, thanks to all the boxing he did. Any chance to show them off was great in his eyes. 

Then, just as they’d begun the song, Jun and Ren finish it out together. Jun holds his pose, feeling his chest heaving, shoulders rising and falling, and a trickle of sweat tickle his inner arm, but after a few seconds, when they all relax, Jun looks over to his teammates and beams. While he’d been so focused on his own performance—so much so he’d not noticed if anyone messed up, they’d done it. They’d performed what they prepared and Jun knew they’d all given it their all and he was proud. It was strange, feeling like a genuine team with people he was in competition with, but he supposes high-stress situations can do unpredictable things to people. 

He’s just surprised it happened to make him a little nicer. 

[luvyanfei]

anon said. ooo a new blog! can you do confession headcanons where xiao, childe, and scaramouche react to reader confessing to them and the aftermath of it? thank you!  

a/n. xiao’s is kind of terrible ;; ue ue gomenasai

“i love you, [character’s name].”

SCARAMOUCHE.

huh? is this some kind of a joke? if so, it’s definitely not a good idea to mess with his feelings like this, especially when he also shares the same sentiment. scaramouche is almost impressed by your boldness. not everyone has the nerve to confess their love for a harbinger in front of their own faces, after all. when he’s hit with the realization that you’re serious, he secretly pinches himself to make sure he’s not in a dream.

the sharp pain that comes with his nails making contact with his flesh affirms that this is real. he stifles back a genuine smile, choosing to stay calm despite the bliss he’s currently feeling. “i guess it can’t be helped. hmph, you should be lucky i’m rather fond of you as well, [name].” he says that, but he’s the fortunate one to have successfully stolen your heart before others can claim you for themselves.

unfortunately, his time with you is quite limited due to his affiliation with the fatui, so any fleeting moments are captured in photos from the kamera to look back on. he secretly carries a picture of you while he’s out of town on important missions so that he won’t miss you too badly. he fondly looks at your still, yet smiling face to cheer him up after a tough work while everyone else is asleep. well, almost everyone.  

“hmm, who’s that in your hands, scaramouche?” childe asks, gesturing to the photo the harbinger is admiring fondly. scaramouche rolls his eyes to hide his slight embarrassment and hesitates a bit before he answers.  

“oh them? their name is [name], my... sibling.” childe almost gapes in disbelief as he looks at the blue-haired man in shock. 

“you have a sibling? why didn’t you tell me? they’re so cute!” the 11th harbinger squeals in delight, which honestly irks poor scaramouche. he scoots away to give himself some space as he tucks the picture in his pocket for safe-keeping. 

“you didn’t bother to,” he explains matter-of-factly. “now if you’ll excuse me,” he stands up from his crouched position and dusts himself, “i’m going to take a walk, alone.” 

he wanders through a dark forest and grassy fields, until he finds himself standing on top of a cliff, the moon glowing brightly above. he peers up at the twinkling stars in the sky and imagines you beside him, watching the breathtaking view together. humming an unfamiliar tune to himself, scaramouche muses over the past and replays your confession over and over again. if he could, he would respond differently than he did before. 

‘i love you.’ those three letter words echo in his ears like a melody and he allows himself to smile. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

XIAO.

he automatically perks up an eyebrow in confusion. what? is it just him or did you seriously admitted you love him? xiao stammers for a brief second, no words spilling out from his partially open mouth. what is he supposed to say? “thank you?” “i love you too?” 

when he pulls himself together, xiao shakes his head and frowns. his answer is clear and simple: no. you mortals don’t understand just how dangerous it is to get close with someone like him - a yaksha. drowning in the brink of debt and despair, he doesn’t need you to suffer all the same. the dejected expression on your face pains him to a considerable degree, yet he convinces himself, this is for your own good. 

since then, he avoids you like the plague in hopes that your feelings for him will disperse into flames. you deserve someone better, someone who won’t place you in harm’s way, someone unlike him. out of kindness, you still visit him from time to time while you go and do your daily commissions, but your interaction is heavily tense and an air of discomfort seeps through your gaze. why does his chest hurt as if he was impaled with a knife and so much more when you look at him like that? the thought of breaking down and revealing the truth that he’s also in love with you tempts him eagerly, but his pride and anxiety tides over his desires. 

you, on the other hand, is aware that xiao harbors feelings for you. you discovered this secret of his when you climbed the stairs to the spot on the balcony where he was to surprise him with a greeting, but your ears captured a faint voice in the night breeze and you couldn’t stop yourself from eavesdropping on the little conversation xiao was having with himself. he muttered about “rex lapis”, the fate of liyue, and etc. you were about to leave him to his own devices, but the next words he said stopped you in your tracks. 

“will [name] accept me if i say i love them? probably not, i suppose.” you left before he could spare a glance in your direction and a smile graced your features as you happily walked away. and being the persistent individual that you are, you inquire verr on why he’s acting so cold towards you, desperate to seek the answer you need. “xiao is, as you’re well aware, a yaksha who’s experienced hardships throughout his life, and probably lost loved ones along the way. i’m sure,” she turns to look at the setting sun in melancholy, “he doesn’t want to hurt anyone important to him again.”

you plan ahead of time for the best way to approach him without giving him any chance to escape. unfortunately, this is the only thing you can think of as you place a hand on either side of his head, trapping him between you and the wall. xiao looks at you curiously, devoid of amusement. he crosses his arms and frowns. 

“what are you doing?” your hands twitch and you chew on your bottom lip nervously before you explain yourself.

“i heard from verr why you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder, that you don’t want to hurt anyone important to you, but...” you trail off to blink back the tears threatening to burst. 

“it hurts, when you ignore me like this.” your voice is quiet enough that he needs to step closer to hear you. “it hurts how selfless you are. can’t you be selfish just once? i meant what i said and i’ll say it again. i love you.” 

xiao stammers, at a loss for words, before he starts sniffling and buries himself in your arms, crying out apologies as you stroke the back of his hair and gives a closed-eye smile. “it’s okay, xiao. i’m sorry too, for not realizing how much you’ve been suffering by yourself. you don’t have to carry the burden alone anymore,” you say, looking into his tear-filled eyes, “i will always be here with you, no matter what path you choose to take.” 

“even if that path may eventually hurt you?” he whispers in a cracked voice, fingers curling around your sleeves. you nod. 

“it’s worth the pain as long as i can hold you in my arms, like this.” he chokes out a bitter chuckle and wipes away the glistening tears. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

CHILDE.

the harbinger blinks his cerulean eyes once, then twice, and... you find yourself pulled into his arms, as his lips uplift into a jovial smile. “really? you love me? [name], i had no idea you held such deep admiration for me.” you playfully roll your eyes and chuckle as you wrap your own arms around his body, fondly reciprocating his affection.

he’s the fastest to accept your confession than the other two men. you’d bet he would scamper to where he’s staying at to tell every grain of detail to his adoring relatives. 

he writes letters to his siblings about your daily dates and the progress you two are making in your relationship. they tease him for the most part, but they’re happy that he’s found the love of his life and requests that he bring you along with him on his next visit. childe smiles in relief, content that they accept you already despite never meeting you and he asks you if you’d like to come with him to his home country where you can introduce yourself to his family. without hesitation, you agree instantly, eager to meet the siblings he gushes about. 

snezhnaya is colder than you thought, as you hug yourself to preserve your warmth, even with the layers of clothing wrapped around you. “we’re almost there, [name].” childe notices your trembling and rubs his gloved hands against your back. “sorry, it’s a bit chilly here, but please bear with me.” 

you nod and continue on. when a building enters your field of sight, childe stops and grins shyly at you. “this is the place.” breath materializes in front of you as he gestures for you to head on in. almost immediately are you greeted with a little embrace as a young boy wraps his fingers around your waist and grins up at you. 

“so you’re the one who big brother said he’s in love with? have you kissed before? when is your wedding?” the child bombards you with questions excitedly and a girl has to pull him away from you, tonia, you guess. 

“teucer,” childe scolds gently, a light blush colouring his cheeks, which does not go unnoticed in his siblings’ eyes, unfortunately for him. 

a wedding, huh? seeing the sparkle in your eyes, the laughter in your voice, and the warmth of your touch as you idly chat with his siblings makes him hope, that maybe in the distant future, he’ll brave himself to take the next step to further deepen your relationship, for he wants to be with you always. 

as he tucks away the last sleeping child, childe wanders in to your shared bedroom, surprised you’re still awake. “you really love them a lot, huh childe?” he nods seriously, as you pull him to lie down comfortably into bed. 

“but do you know something else?” his breath tickles your ear as he intertwines his fingers with yours, offering a meek smile. you shake your head and nuzzle closer to him. 

“i love you too, [name].” 

[cleanlenins]

Ectober Day 2: Scream

He Just Screams Uncool

Ectober Day 2: Scream

During Fright Knight, Mr. Lancer gets sent to a fear dimension after being stabbed by Soulshredder. What would have happened if Dash had gotten stabbed? What would his fear dimension look like?

AO3

Warnings: Light body horror

Dash trembled, covering his ears and crushing his eyes closed. He cowered in a corner, unable to muster the courage to move. This wasn't real. This wasn't real. This wasn't real .

Freaky Fenton must have done something. He was so desperate to win the stupid Haunted House competition that he had cheated. Yeah, that must be what he had done. He had gotten help. Maybe he didn't even do any of it himself. Not that Dash had done anything himself either-

He heard a distant laughter and crushed his palms against his ears. He didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Leave it to the freak to come up with something like this.

He whimpered as he heard the laughter get closer, pressing harder into the corner. The brick walls digging into his arm. He thought back and tried to find some explanation for this madness.

Dash had already won. He knew it. He could see on Lancer’s face as he showed off his room. There was no way Fenton could top this. Fenton’s room was a joke, just like everything else about the loser. It was just up to Mr. Lancer to say the final words.

And then...what had happened? Dash can't remember. It was all so hazy, like trying to remember a fading dream. Someone had shown up, dressed in armor and face obscured in darkness. He almost remembered the horrifying feeling of metal sliding through his chest. But he checked and he was whole. There was no wound. No blood. No pain-

One minute Dash had been standing next to Lancer, the next he was suddenly outside the school? How did he get there? And it was daylight?  Dash blinked at the sudden light. It was crowded with students milling around, but he immediately spotted Paulina and Kwan. His friends could never be mistaken for the normal geeks and freaks that populated the school. Both of their backs were turned to him. Maybe they would know what had happened.

Dash had walked up to the duo, raising his hand to clap Kwan on the shoulder with a cocky grin. The smirk melted away as his hand went through Kwan's arm. Dash stared at his hand, completely dumbfounded. Frozen in place in his confusion. Was he tripping? He didn’t remember taking anything. Then Paulina and Kwan turned and walked through him. Dash gasped at the foreign feeling, like the ice baths he and the team would take after training. Except the cold was under his skin. Under his muscles. Like his bones were made of snow and mist. And then it was gone.

“Guys!” Dash shouted in surprise, but neither Kwan nor Paulina turned to face him. Neither showed any signs of even seeing him. They continued to walk up the path. Dash ran to cut them off, waving his hands in front of their faces. Neither blinked. Dash tried to block their way but once more they walked right through him. He bit his lip, scanning around the school ground for any other familiar faces.

He rushed over to Valerie and tried to grab her shoulder, intent on spinning the girl around to look at him. But once more his hand went through. Star gestured wildly and her hand went through Dash’s head. He flinched away from the uncomfortable feeling. Dale threw his football through the air, and instead of catching it, Dash watched it pass through his chest before nailing that nerd Mickey in the head. Dash couldn’t even take pleasure in the nerd’s broken glasses.

He wasn’t panicking. No, he would never panic. He was the school star for heaven's sake. The hero of Casper. He wouldn’t be beaten by some freaky trick. He started screaming, yelling for someone to notice him. He tried to grab people. Tried to throw books and binders. Yelled expletives in their faces. Tried to punch random people. He definitely didn’t cry, no, those weren’t tears. He was just sweating. His heart was pounding against his chest from the running, not fear. His scream broke off as he choked down a sob. No, it wasn’t a sob! He leaned heavily against the flag poles, somehow not falling through them. He glanced around the grounds in despair. He was at a loss. He was...losing?

His eyes snapped to a trio not that far from him. He focused on Fenton, who seemed to be engrossed in a conversation with Foley. Dash nearly growled in anger, before marching over to Fenton.

Fenton seemed to shudder as he approached, a cold mist floating from his mouth. Typical freak weirdness. The smaller teen looked up and met Dash’s eye. Instead of cowering in fear, a wide grin split Fenton’s face. Dash flushed in rage.

“What did you do, Fenton?”

“What do you mean?” Fenton asked, grin widening even more.

“Why is everyone acting like they can’t see me? Why can’t I touch anything? If this is something your weirdo parents made-” Dash stuttered to a stop as he watched Fenton’s smile only grow wider, every tooth on display and...were his teeth sharper than usual?

“What do you mean no one can see you, Dash?” Fenton tilted his head, unblinking eyes seemed to be staring directly into his soul. The pupils were blown wide, only hinting at a circle of blue around the black. “I can see you. I have always been able to see you.”

Fenton took a step. Dash swallowed as he took a step away. Fenton’s grin grew even wider. Impossibly wide. Could mouths even reach that wide?

“W-what’s that supposed to mean, you freak?” Dash stuttered as he put distance between him and the nerd. Fenton continued to stroll, a very low chuckle.

“That’s why you don’t like me, Dash. Because I can see you for who you are and who you will be,” Fenton giggled. “A nobody.”

“J-just-Shut up, Fenturd!” Dash tried to hold his ground, balling his hands into fists to hide the tremors.

“You know that someday they are going to see it, too. See you for the nothing you are. Stupid, useless, boring, lame-the list goes on, doesn’t it? You had hoped it would be after high school, but I guess everyone just came to their senses sooner than you thought, Dash .”

Dash lashed out, as he always did when he was afraid. He was expecting the satisfying crunch of his fist against Fenton’s nose. But his fist went right through Fenton’s grinning face. The smaller teen stepped to the side. He reached up and gently grabbed Dash’s wrist. Dash tried to rip it away, but found that Fenton’s hold was stronger than iron. He grunted as he yanked his arm, but Fenton didn’t budge.

“The only thing really good about you is all this strength, isn’t it?” Fenton asked, a cruel excitement in his eyes. “But that won’t last, will it?”

Like the rippling of wind on grain, the skin around Dash’s wrist began to change. Tanned and smooth skin became translucent and liver spotted. Chiseled muscle seemed to deflate and loose skin hung from the bone in a wrinkly mass. The effect flowed up from his wrist to his elbow, as Dash screamed in horror. He once more tried to pull away from Fenton, this time with success as he fell and sprawled on his back. He sobbed and he tried to crawl backwards away, Fenton giggled down at him with hand still aloft. Dash felt tears overflow, he glanced down at his arm which still held it’s withered appearance.

Fenton took a step forward, and Dash’s eyes were back on him.

“Are you crying, Baxter?” Fenton laughed. “Well, that just screams uncool doesn’t it? Don’t worry. You don’t have to cry for long.”

Fenton took another step closer, and Dash was on his feet. He sprinted away, cradling his arm and screaming for help. Anyone. Help him. Please. Someone save him. But while the school had been full of people before, now there was no one. Dash sprinted around the school building, making his way to the brick storage building. He fumbled with the latch, before ripping open the door. Closing it quickly behind him, he shoved himself as far into the room as he could, leaning up against the cold corner of the brick wall. He tried to muffle his sobs, his hands trembling. He listened hard, waiting. Waiting to see if Fenton would find him. Tears flowed freely as he scrunched up his eyes.

So here he was. Trembling in fear of the kid he usually beat to a pulp, with no explanation for his change in fate. He waited, tense as a bowstring, as he heard Fenton calling his name. Taunting him. Laughing. When the voice came close, he held his breath and bit down on his unwithered hand to try and muffle the noise of his chattering teeth. He heard the latch on the door wiggle, creating an eerie squeak into the silence and Dash swallowed a scream. Dash waited with baited breath to see if the door opened. The clack of the rusted metal latch continued, the door remaining closed. Eventually, the noise stopped, the latch thudding against the wooden door. Dash heard Fenton laugh as he passed by. Footsteps inaudible through the thick brick walls. Dash waited, sure that Fenton would come back to unstick the latch. Sure he would come back to continue whatever sick game he was playing. But he didn’t. Finally, Dash felt safe enough to let out a cautious breath. He clamped his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heart and block out the reality around him.

“Found you,” A voice whispered in his ear. Dash looked up to see Fenton, inches from his face, half of his body phased through the wall. Dash screamed, nowhere to run as Fenton reached one hand towards him.

“Mr. Baxter! Dash! You’re okay! It wasn’t real!” Mr. Lancer backed away from the screaming football star. Mr. Baxter scooted into the wall, eyes wide as he continued to scream and cover his face. Mr. Lancer glanced at Mr. Fenton and Miss Manson, who stared at their classmate in a mixture of concern and guilt. “One of you two should go and find a phone so I can contact his parents. “

“Right,” Miss Manson agreed. She locked eyes with Mr. Fenton, before rushing back through the haunted house.

Mr. Lancer tried to calm Mr. Baxter down. But the boy just continued to scream incomprehensible nonsense, clutching his arm to his body in such a way that Mr. Lancer was growing concerned that he had hurt himself. Mr. Lancer tried to distract him, tried to get him to get him to focus on something other than whatever it was that was scaring him.

But Dash Baxter would not look away from Danny Fenton.

[genshin-impacted]

empress of the first water // Zhongli x Reader (2)

Word Count: 1.8k

Palace/Harem Imperial Drama AU: You are a princess, soon-to-be-Empress, and Zhongli is the teacher invited by the royal court to show you the ropes before you ascend to the throne after a royal tragedy.

Notes: female + Princess!Reader, Teacher!Zhongli, mutual pining, fake politics, Zhongli POV

xiansheng - Chinese honorific translated to as “person born before another,” also used as a title to refer to persons of authority or skills; generally used to mean “teacher”

[Previous] [Next]

Zhongli’s duties as the Princess’ tutor, as spoken by the head noble-- a man who seemed to always have a sneer on his face-- was to fully and completely reeducate the Princess. He understands now why his room is so close to yours considering how they have asked him to spend the majority of your day with him-- and vice versa. You seem to take this schedule in stride, listening to his lectures with an apt mind and following whatever lessons he brings throughout the day, regardless of familiarity or novelty.

But you are quiet, and as appreciative as Zhongli is at a rapt audience, he knows you have more to say than what you are giving-- but he understands. Zhongli can’t imagine not having a moment of solidarity when the presence of others can be so oppressive in the face of grief. In the middle of his afternoon lessons, he excuses himself and allows you to have a break. He knows he has decided well when you shoot him a grateful smile and when he sees you deflate the moment he closes the sliding door.

“Has she not been raised as a Princess for her whole life?” He asks the noble politely as they walk down the long outdoor hallways of the palace. He had been called to meet up with him on his way to court with the intentions to review the Princess’s progress, only it seems as though the head noble had no intentions of listening. “Surely, there is no need for me to go so extensively into that sector of education," he presses.

The noble sighs. “Mr. Zhongli, with all due respect, the girl--” Zhongli can feel his brows raise at the lack of title used-- “...has never been properly prepared for the possibility to become the Empress. She was one of the last ones in line to inherit the throne, so no one thought she could amount to anything. Surely, you’ve seen the way she acts?” The noble lifts his round silk fan to his face, and Zhongli, despite all his efforts to not feel disdain for the callous noble, feels his patience wear thin. “It was such a surprise, you see, to all of us when that tragedy hit, but alas, she’s the only one left.”

“I see,” Zhongli replies coolly. “And so you would have me follow her and scrutinize her every action to make her fit to rule?”

If the noble took heed of his frosty tone, he does not react to it. Instead, he looks at Zhongli coyly from behind his fan. “I assure you, it will be best for both you and me to have her reeducated. To an extent.” The noble says, “I assume you know what I’m referring to? You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Zhongli. You come from a good family and know much of the world… but you could always, ah, possess more.”

“Knowledge is power, as I am sure you are aware,” he says, chuckling. Zhongli watches in silence as the noble walks away, waving a flippant hand. “Be sure to take care not to provide her with too much, Mr. Zhongli, and perhaps I’ll refer you to a different title someday.”

.

.

.

When Guizhong was chosen to become a lady of another country, Zhongli felt, for the first time in many, that perhaps there was more to life than a constant grapple for power and the legacy that it would lead. She had not wanted to leave as much as he did not want her to go, but he did not understand then that he held power in his mind and in his own actions to change the path in which his path would lead.

Despite his disdain for the lies and trickery involved with the power struggle, Zhongli knows he will keep his promise to his father to uphold his family honor. He has always been a man of his words, for he bound himself into fulfilling them as though they are contracts.

But as he watches the head noble disappear behind the court doors, Zhongli wonders if that is all he is capable of.

When he thinks of Guizhong-- when he thinks of you, who has lost so much and could lose so much more, he thinks that for how your world seems to be against you, he wants to be someone on your side of the ring-- despite how everyone pressures for the opposite. Zhongli does not know if he deserves it, but he wishes to have your trust. He has yet to know how to truly support you, but he wants to provide you the freedom of choice if he can-- even in the smallest of ways.

And so he gives you freedom in the only way he knows how.

“What would you like to learn about today?” Zhongli asks you the next day as the two of you walk quietly to the study room. He can’t help the smile on his face when you turn to him in poorly-hidden surprise. Despite how you may act in front of the nobles whom he knows has an ill-opinion of you as you of them, you cannot help the emotions that come to the surface. He thinks himself lucky, if he were honest, to know that he is at least in your favor enough for you to let down your guard to give him a glimpse of the Princess he had seen not a fortnight ago.

To this date, he has only seen you be as such with your lady-in-waiting, Amber, but he knows that in his presence, he has only barely scratched the surface to the depth of your relationship and personality.

“What would I like to learn about?” You repeat, looking out into the garden in thought. “I’m not sure,” you say, turning to him. “What do you want to teach me?”

Zhongli blinks. “Pardon?”

At his confusion, you laugh, and Zhongli cannot help how his chest flutters at your sound of joy, for how far off it seemed that you would ever express that again. Just when he thought he could not be surprised, you tilt your head and smile teasingly at him. “You and I both know that the nobles are the ones that have been controlling my schedule for the past week. I want to know what you would want to teach me personally.”

Zhongli feels his cheeks warm at the tone of your voice. “Princess, I--” His father would be horrified at his lack of composure, but Zhongli cannot afford to think of his family and their expectations when you look up at him expectantly without an ounce of impatience. He clears his throat and thinks deeply, much to your amusement, putting his hand to his chin. “I suppose… I suppose I could provide you the history of the glaze lilies that the garden has in abundance?” He says, watching as your eyes soften, “They’re quite remarkable-- able to bloom in a night and gone in the next, some even saying they possess a different scent if you sing to them.”

“I agree with them, whoever said singing to them creates a different scent,” you say, looking out into the garden by the bamboo where three glaze lilies lay unbloomed. “If you sing the Liyuen lullaby to them, it produces a very soft fragrance-- almost like baby powder.” You turn to him and smile. “They were my mother’s favorite,” you explain gently. “She always sang and picked one for me to keep in my room.”

Zhongli lowers his head in respect. “My apologies, Princess, I didn't mean to bring up such personal topics."

“No, no! Don’t worry about it,” you tell him, laughing. “It’s fine. It’s nice to think of something nice like that.” You brush your hair behind your ears, and if there was a nostalgic lilt to your voice, he does not throw attention to it. “I like it,” you say, “please continue. I’m curious about the glaze lily’s history.”  

And what was Zhongli to do for the Princess if not to continue?

Zhongli doesn’t know if you have committed his every word to memory, or whether you remember anything in regards to the dates he provided (you are terrible with dates, he has found out, much to your embarrassment; but much like everything he knows of you, he finds it endearing). But he watches as you walk through the garden with him, the most at peace he has ever seen you, and he continues to speak.

And Zhongli lets his voice rid of the garden of silence, your thoughtful hums and soft laughter as accompaniment. Soon enough, though, the sun sets and the stars begin to shine, and Zhongli leads you to your room where you will be served dinner.

You thank him for the lesson, and he nods gracefully, his hand upon his chest. When he raises his head, you are still smiling at him. (He thinks abruptly that he would like to keep that smile on your face, if only for a moment, and the next words tumble from his mouth.)

“If you are looking for a place by the sea,” he says, remembering your words from before, “‘where the wind blows and the earth is clean,’ then I believe that I shall make our lesson on that the next time we find ourselves free.”

You blink up at him, eyes wide-- lips parted as though awestruck until they widen into the kindest smile he has ever seen on you.

“Yes,” you say softly, “that sounds lovely. Thank you.”

Zhongli lowers his head again in respect, swallowing at the magnitude of your magnanimity. “Of course, Princess.”

He expects to be dismissed, but instead he hears you ask, “Would you like to join me for dinner, xiansheng?”

Zhongli wonders how many times a person can bewilder him one day. “Pardon me?”

“I’m asking if you, Zhongli xiansheng,” you say with a now-familiar lilt of amusement, “would like to eat with the Princess.” You laugh when he stands, tall as he is, gaping at you. “You can say no. I won’t take offense. Promise.”

And he thinks to himself that as generous as you are to offer him the option to deny your request, he doesn’t know if he ever would have.

Dinner consisted of the finest foods: Peking duck, the freshest peaches of Fontaine, the grains of Qingce Village, and bamboo soup that would have put his personal chef to shame. It is custom of the Princess to sit from a table distant from him, but in the confines of your inner chambers, you sit right in front of him, placing dishes in front of him for him to try. (Zhongli has a feeling you would pile food onto his bowl if you could.)

He has the delight of not only enjoying the foods you have offered but also the sight of your smiling countenance for the remainder of that night. And for once, he feels as though he has taken the reins on his own life-- for the better.

(He only hopes he can keep holding on.)

[scribeofmorpheus]

Himmeløyne [25/?]

Pairing: Loki Odinson x Reader

Catch Up Here | Masterlist

Warnings: Violence / Angst???

A/N: ... 

Taglist is open! Reblog, comment or leave a like please ☺

~Y/N

“You shouldn’t be here,” Loki said.

Shivers ran up your spine. For the first time since you knew him, he looked terrified. Helpless.

The Creature—the monster—that materialised from the mist inched closer. Its steady pace was unnerving, like pinpricks to the skin.

You took Loki’s hand in yours, felt his grip, ironclad, and said, “Right here is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

He smiled sheepishly, “Then our reunion was fated to be a short one.” He glanced at the creature, at its eyes, and clenched his jaw as tightly as his muscle could allow. He took an instinctual step back, pulling you behind him. “There’s no escaping it.”

You turned to the creature, unsure of what it was entirely that you sensed from it. It wasn’t fear—at least, not your own. Not hate either. Though it was masked in those emotions well. There was a drive behind its instinct, a purpose. Keenly aware of the fact you still had your magic, you let your magic do the searching where vision failed you. Tendrils of energy waned as if something unseen was pushing back, resisting. You planted your feet, took a deep breath and blocked out everything except the creature. There was familiarity there. A sense of pain. Grief. A broken heart.

Bestla’s words rippled back to you, reminding you of what she had said about Loki, “Loki is a fraught boy. Torn apart by two halves that will always be at war.”

A tendril of magic managed to touch the creature and incoherent flashes distracted you, making you lose balance.

With a grunt, you and Loki were both flung back, the wind knocked out of you. You rolled from your side and noticed the creature was undeterred from his path. A strong magical barrier surrounded it.

The creature lunged, its bone and flesh sword for a hand tearing the seams of Loki’s subconscious world.

You had to get Loki away from the creature, find a way to reassure him, give him room to process everything in safety. As long as the creature was a stone’s throw away, you wouldn’t be able to help him. “How do we escape it?”

Loki turned to you, downcast, “We don’t. I’ve never escaped it.” He looked at his hands. “I have no powers here.”

“But I do,” you forged a connection to his subconscious through your linked hands. “Think of a place, a memory, anywhere you feel safe. I’ll take you there!”

The creature neared and Loki’s mind flooded with too many images, too many years condensed into a barrage of smells and touch, hot and cold, emotion and emptiness. Steeling yourself, you clung onto the strongest sensation: smell. Berries. A burst of blue and purple. Warmth from an oven. A hug.

Instantly, the both of you were sucked into a portal of light, teleported deeper into Loki’s mind. Before the portal shut, the creature let out a roar, snagging skin from your elbow as it slashed and slashed in a frenzy. You seethed from the surprising burn of its cold touch.

You were thrust forward and wrenched back, a tension to your muscles, adrenaline soaking tissue. Your magic sparked, and you lost your bearing. When the world stopped spinning, you were in a kitchen, not the human kind with a hearth and cast iron pots, but Asgardian. Polished stones greeted your feet while gold embellishments decorated everything; curtains, fine dishes, the liquid within crystal clear tumblers.

“Where… where are we?” you glance around, unfamiliar with your surroundings.

Out from a blind spot, two boys darted into the kitchen area. Frigga followed soon after, a youthful blush on her face, hair the colour of magnificent straw. The boys played with wooden swords, clashing in a dull thud. Laughter keeping the room vibrant. The boy with the sandy hair yelped, and before your eyes, his wooden sword transformed into a snake, slithering away.

The raven-haired boy turned ghostly pale, frightened by what he’d just done. He clenched his fists in horror. Frigga calmed him, a sweet smile on her face as she ran her fingers through his hair. She hesitated for a moment before she hunkered low to hug both her sons. Soon after, a baker walked into the room with a silver tray of pastries. Blackish filling spilt over the folds, the smell of citric berries permeated into the space like a blanket, sweet and tart.

“Home,” Loki said. A look of longing crept over his face, a slouch to his shoulders. “I remember this day… This was the day before Father had taken us to the vault to tell us stories, of our grandfather, of the war…the Giants. Mother had asked the baker’s to make her favourite pies. We helped her pick the berries from a thicket near the edge during the day. It was the first time I used transformation magic. I was so scared. So was Thor. But not Mother… she just held us till we stopped crying. Made us feel safe in her embrace. She said I got my magic from her. That we were born under the same stars. Blessed by the same spirits.”

You placed a hand on his back and he leaned into the contact. “It seems like a happy memory.”

“Many of them were… before…” he turned to look away from the homely scene unfolding. “They were my family. My blood.”

The child version of him smiled with pie filling smeared over his round cheeks. You recognised Baldrick in his features. Slight, but distinct. The same dark hair and wide eyes. An impression more than anything.

“They still are,” you said.

“They are not my family…” he sneered, clicking his tongue. “And after what I’ve done, they couldn’t forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me.”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“I have done plenty wrong!”

You flinched, his anger turning the room cooler, snuffing out the air, closing you in. Mist crawled onto the windows, and, suddenly, you knew. This feeling—this dread—it had been warped around the creature too, preventing you from fully penetrating its barrier. That same magic now surrounded Loki. More apparent after his outburst.

“Not from where I’m standing,” you said. “Perhaps there is much you need to take responsibility for, but not this”—you placed your hand on his chest, felt the thrum of his heart—“not for who you are…what you are.”

 “They lied to me! Made me think I was one of them. Hid my birth rite from me. Hid me,” he shouted.  “I’m a monster!”

The mist had enveloped all the windows now. Cracks spread like veins. A chill wracked through the air.

You ignored the foreboding signs and kept your focus on Loki, “By that logic, so am I.”

His eyes snapped up meet yours, his lower lip trembling. “Not you. Never you.”

Your heart ached at his words. “I’ve taken life… Life that I now see was more than a simple monster made real from under my bed.”

Recognition flashed across his face, “The Giant in Jotunheim. The one who...”

You nodded, slowly. “Yes.”

“But he took something from you,” Loki held your shoulders, speaking in haste as he shook you. “You deserved vengeance. And wanting it… that doesn’t make you a monster.”

You let out a sigh, somehow feeling older as you did it, feeling the heft of another’s life—of Bestla’s life. “Only because something had been taken from him, too. Something that was rightly his.” A sad smile came over you. “Do you know what he said before I killed him? He said his kind were always the villains in my stories. I never thought much of it, at the time. But then I met someone…your grandmother. She told me things, about the Great Wars, the histories of the Giants, the truth. And I see now…”

Loki rambled, taken aback by what you said. "My... grandmother? H-How? When? I—I don't..."

The creature materialised into the room, stone walls exploding into flecks. It growled and Loki stiffened. He was about to pull you away, but you stopped him, mustering all your magic to urge the Jotun beneath his pale skin to surface. His breath hitched as he staggered, fighting the process. You kept watching as the creature continued on its approach. You had a few seconds at best.  

“I see now that there’s more than one side to any story. And war… war destroys more than the past. It takes history. It takes truth. It makes martyrs out of monsters and monsters out of martyrs. Makes kings. Destroys empires. Breeds hate. And these effects ripple out, for generations. You and I are but small grains of sand taken by the whims of the past, struggling to be still.”

“What are you—” Loki’s eyes went wide, making him look so small, so human, as his blue skin surfaced. You trailed along his arm, magic between the two of you building with a charge. With possibilities. He shuddered, taking a few deep breaths to centre himself, to grow used to his reflection in your eyes.

“And this is my truth…” you kissed him gently as the mist clung to your robes and feet. “I love you, Loki, Son of Asgard, Last Prince of Jotunheim... Trickster God. I love all of you. And I bent the world to save you, but the truth is, you aren’t lost, you’re running away.”

The creature lunged, and the wind died out. The creature’s shadow fell behind Loki. From over his shoulder, you could see it raise its arm high, ready to strike… ready to kill.

“It’s time to face who you are…” you whispered.

The creature struck. Loki shouted your name, cradling you close. There was a boom. A rush of air followed by a harrowing silence.

Loki stumbled backward, shocked. All around him were shards of ice, suspended in the darkness until it receded back from where it came. In the light, the creature sloughed away, like fungus being scraped off wood. The layers turned to snowflakes and dispersed all around you. Under the rage and strength of the creature was Loki’s double, pale skinned, blue eyed.   

You walked over to Loki’s double and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do you see now? Do you see what you were running from?”

Loki paced from left to right, never letting his eyes leave his double. Then he took a step forward, mouth agape, the reality of everything dawning over him. “It was me.”

“You blame yourself for everything. For what happened to my village and what happened to me in the throne room. I suspect you’ve always done so. Resolved yourself to hate the part of you that was different. That was hidden. And that part of you, stricken by self-loathing and doubt, guilt and grief, remained buried here, in the depths of your mind, alone. Apart from you. And when you went under, you could no longer supress him. But after the throne room, those feelings grew in your subconscious, giving form to the very thing you feared. The Jotun in you. The Giant. The monster of your stories.”

“N—No… I—It can’t be.” Loki shook his head, conflicted.

You held out your hand for him to take, “Do you trust me?

He nodded, at a loss for words.

“Then connect them, the two pieces that have been separated for so long. Accept the truth,” you delicately ushered him closer to his double who just blinked, expression empty, hollow.

As the two Lokis stood face to face and the world shook. You took several steps back and watched as Loki put his hand up. His double mirrored his action. When they joined palms, a torrent of emerald light streamed outward, both cold and hot all at once. As bright as a star. As piercing as an arrow. Everything melted out of view until it was only you and him, the illusion of a night sky forming in the background.

He stood close, his smile not quite right. Snaking his arms around you, he held you flush to his chest. You looked up, chin resting on his chest. Finally, you were home.

 “Thank you,” he whispered before kissing you. The kiss was life affirming, as though he was saying a thousand things in a single act. You kissed him back, lips tenderly caressed by his own.

A swell flourished in your belly. Warmth you hadn’t felt since the last time you were in his arms flooded back. It was joy. You gasped as that feeling of solace returned from where it had been stripped away. Elated that you could feel his magic again. Feel him again. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you could finally breathe again. Be at ease again.

“I—” Loki steadied himself, as though he were about to speak the world apart. “I—”

But before he could finish, you felt a third presence tunnel its way to your subconscious. A message warning you from the other side, from the woken world. It felt like Heimdall’s magic. And it was filled with desperation. “Wait! Heimdall… Something’s wrong!”

“I feel it too,” Loki said.

You felt yourself being pulled from the world, out and through. The world adapted to the invasion. Tears of reality blended into the space.

The voice of a guard shouted, “Captain! She’s resisting. We can’t separate them!”

“Pull harder!” the captain shouted back, her voice heated and coarse like lit charcoal.

Through the tears, you saw the healing chamber. Heimdall and the rest of your companions were defeated, huffing for air. They were being ushered out of the room in shackles. The resisted to no avail, dragged out one by one by the guards in shining armour.

Through the distortion, and past the ebbing flow of sound, you saw Odin enter the room. He carried a familiar tome in his hands. Bestla’s amulet!

You had forgotten that you’d left it in Heimdall’s care. Odin must have taken it from him as he was being dragged away.

“I haven’t seen this in a long, long time,” Odin said wistfully. His thumb brushed against the bird bones, beads catching light from the golden castle. He whispered to the captain, the amulet trading hands between them, from his to hers. Spine bent, Odin took his leave.

The Captain narrowed her eyes at you, and, had you been in your body, present and aware in all senses, you were certain you would have taken a step back.

The captain loomed closer, the tug of so many unfamiliar hands on your wrists and elbows. She shouted again, but the world phased and her sound never reached your ears.  

With a dimmer, Loki’s world had begun to flitter out of view.

Sensing this, he drew you close, desperate to have you hear his next words. His lips moved with fervour, words spilling out harried and muffled, incomprehensible. The outside world grew louder. More real. Loki tried to hold onto you, but you felt his hold on you slip away.

With a mind splitting headache, your body greeted your subconscious in the woken world. A wave of exhaustion washed over you as you were overpowered by the guards.

Loki, awakened, reached for you again as he shouted for the guards to desist. Some took a moment to consider, conflicted, but the captain silenced them with a look.

Loki struggled to keep his feet steady. The weeks suspended in the chamber had taken their toll on his body. It was spent. Just like his mind.

“I am Loki, Prince of Asgard, I command you to release her immediately!” he said, anger sparked within his eyes. He motioned to summon his magic, to use a spell to fend off the heavy men with heavy grips. 

Softly, you shook your head. Speaking low enough for just his ears, “No! Loki… No more violence.”

“Hold her still,” the captain ordered. You were wrenched further back. Loki was still reaching for you, just a little out of reach, staggering with weak knees.

“I’ll make this right!” he swore. “I promise. I’ll make it right.”

With a grimace, the captain placed Bestla’s amulet close to your neck and it came alive, a will of its own as it twined uncomfortably around your neck.

“Wai—”You recoiled from the deadened aura of the amulet. Once it settled in place, you fought the urge to cough. The amulet’s distinct lack of presence overpowered you. It made you limp and you felt sparse. Lacking. No magic. No warmth. Eyelids as heavy as boulders. The strength to stand seeming impossible in the moment. It was worse than the leeching. At least that came with pain, with something.

“Take her below,” the captain said before turning her sights on Loki and ushering a few healers into the space. “The prince needs assistance. Hurry.”

Woozy, everything seemed far, far away. The drag of your feet away from the healing chamber came with less resistance. Loki shrunk in your peripheral, still staggering to close the gap.

[pradaxstyles]

Sunrise Encounters

*not my photo*

hi everyone!!! i’m very excited to share with you my submission for @helladirections Summer Feeling Fic Challenge! my prompt was sunrise! this is my first ever fic challenge and i’m very happy with how this turned out. the masterlist for everyone’s work is here. check them out and send them some love!! i hope you enjoy! also a big thank you to @chxrrylove for helping me out and just being an amazing person. don’t forget to reblog! feedback is always welcome and appreciated 🥰

disclaimer - i don’t know anything about perth, australia. so if it’s not accurate or anything just roll with it, it’s fiction

song i listened to while writing (in case you wanna listen to it) - 5am amber run

word count - 2.7k

warnings - small mentions of being alone and uncertainty about life plans. other than that, nothing major. 

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The cool breeze of the summer air ran through her hair, almost as if it were playing with it. She was sitting in a clearing above Perth. The Australian city was brightly lit, creating little shadows on her cheeks. A million things were running through her mind. She knew it was late, but she enjoyed being out during the early morning hours. There was something about the city during 4 am that she loved. Maybe it was the stillness of it. How the usual bustling city sat quiet and dormant. Or maybe it was the vibrancy of the buildings among the horizon. It showed that even though the city lay still, the beauty of it was everlasting. 

The beach was one of her favorite spots in the city. The openness gave her a sense of peace and calmness. It allowed her to process the thoughts that ran through her mind and just let go for a little while. 

Having just moved to Perth, she wasn’t familiar with many places or people. The one place she felt most at home was the beach, watching the stars. It was something she did back home when the clouds didn’t crowd the dark sky. On the rare nights she couldn’t see the stars, she’d turn to her notebook full of poems. Y/N didn’t dabble in poetry often, but when she did, it acted as a release. It was a release of the emotions she couldn’t get rid of. 

Tonight in particular, there were no clouds in sight to cover the universe’s beauty. Her fingers dragged through the smooth sand as she traced random shapes. A sigh left her lips as she wished she could be back home. Y/N had left behind family, friends, and everything she knew to move to Perth for a “new beginning”. Before the move, she was excited. Y/N was excited to see the world and meet new people. But once she arrived, second thoughts riddled her brain. She wasn’t familiar with the area and didn’t know anyone which put a damper on her mood. 

She came upon the small beach when she first moved. Needing to find an escape from a reality for a bit, she ventured to the streets, looking for a place she could call a home away from home. 

This brings her to today, 4:30 am, sitting on the beach overlooking the city. The colorful beach towel lay underneath her, shielding her body from the sticky grains of sand. Y/N leaned back just enough so she could watch the stars while she was lost in her ocean of thoughts. 

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The beach was also Harry’s favorite place. He had a small house in Perth. He’d come when he needed a break, or simply when he needed a vacation. Harry had stumbled upon the clearing purely by accident. During some nights when he couldn’t sleep, he would go for runs and end up watching the sunrise.

On this specific night, he was wide awake. After a night out with friends to celebrate a win for their favorite sports team, he figured he would sleep nicely. Alas, he laid wide awake in bed staring at the ceiling. Sighing, he yanked the duvet off of his body and sat up. The lights strung along the walls lit up the room just enough so Harry could see the clock across from the bed. He closed his eyes in frustration as the numbers read 4:30 am. 

Figuring he’d start his day, he stood from the warm bed and shuffled over to the closet and slipped on some shorts and a tee shirt. Making his way into the bathroom, he flickered the light on. He reached for his toothbrush, turned the water on and began brushing his teeth. 

He sat on the bed and leaned down to tie his shoes. Moving towards his nightstand, Harry reached for a clip and twisted his curls into place so they wouldn’t fall to his face as he ran. 

Waltzing into the kitchen, he munched on a granola bar and sipped some water before making his way outside. The clearing wasn’t far from his house, he estimated about a mile. Taking a deep breath, he picked up his pace until he was jogging. The air whooshing around him filled his ears as he looked around to take in his surroundings. He was used to jogging this late, but it never hurt to observe the nature around him. 

The thoughts of his life consumed his mind. Harry was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. His parents were both doctors and his sister went on to be a lawyer. There was always a pressure on him to follow in their footsteps, but he knew deep down that he wanted to do something else. He wanted to do something that inspired people. 

Wherever he was in the world, he often found himself watching the sunrise. Harry realized that wherever he went, the sunrise always looked different. When he was visiting Greece, he found the highest point in Mykonos to watch the sunrise. The sun rose above the water and a beautiful array of colors were put on display. Different shades of purple and pink littered the sky as the sun was saying good morning. Or when he was in Colorado visiting some friends at their mountain house, he was blown away at the beauty the sunrise held. Hues of pink and orange illuminated the skies as the snow on top of the mountains seemed to reflect the colors, it was truly one of his favorite sights. 

It was during his escapades around the world that he discovered his love for the beauty of the world. He enjoyed making art ever since he was younger and it’s something that’s stayed with him as he grew up. Sketching people in the park, or painting the sunrises, he came to the realization that he wanted to paint the world in a way people didn’t often look at it. 

He sighed at the memory, a smile creeping its way onto his lips. He felt at peace with the path ahead of him in life. 

A thin sheet of sweat laid against his tanned skin as he glanced down at the watch on his wrist, 4:40 am. The sun was just starting to peak above the earth as he came up to the beach. Slowing his pace, his gaze fell upon a girl who was sitting on the sand. She looked to be his age, but he couldn’t get a clear look at her face. Harry wondered why she was here so late, there was usually no one at the beach this early. Shrugging it off, he decided to just come back on his way home and not bother the girl. 

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Y/N’s eyes squinted ever so slightly, trying to see the stars as the sun was beginning to rise. Laying down against the towel, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wondered if she’d ever find her place in the world. Y/N wanted to live dangerously. She wanted to go on adventures around the world and immerse herself in different cultures, soaking up all that she could. 

Tapping her phone screen on, the clock on her phone read 4:45 am. Glancing at the sky, she took note of how the stars began to fade as the sun began peeking through the buildings. Along with the stars, she adored watching sunrises. The way the sun brought so much light and warmth as it rose made her feel small in the world, content in a way. 

The sky that was once dark had begun to erupt in hues of pinks and oranges. She sat up, bringing her knees to her chest as she rested her head on them. The sand beneath her was cool, making her shiver slightly.

Above her head, birds soared high and the sounds of their chirps could be heard. Cicadas buzzed and hummed around her. The scene was serene, as if it was something out of a movie. 

Y/N took a deep breath as she admired the changing sky. 

Unbeknownst to her, Harry had come back to the beach. He was contemplating going up and seeing if she was okay or just heading home. He racked his brain, trying to remember if he had seen her before. But he had no idea who she was. Harry wondered how she’d found the beach since it was pretty well hidden from the public. He knew he couldn’t just leave her be without knowing if she was okay or not, so he moved towards the girl. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Harry questioned softly. 

Y/N jumped slightly, unaware there was someone on the beach with her. A hand lay on her chest as she mumbled, “Jesus, you scared me.”

Harry chuckled quietly and moved to sit next to her. He put some distance between himself and the girl, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. Stretching his legs out to sit comfortably, he cringed slightly as the sand clung to his exposed legs. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

She glanced at him and noticed his hair was pulled up into a clip and how his forehead glistened with sweat. “What are you doing here so late?” 

“I could ask you the same question. What’s your name?” 

Her lips curved into a small smile, “Y/N, and you are?” 

“Harry.” 

“Well-” she broke her stare from the sky and met his gaze, “it’s nice to meet you, Harry.” 

He smiled slightly and she returned it. A comfortable silence fell over them as they both turned their heads back to the city in front of them. More cars were seen driving down the streets and people walking around. Harry’s watch read 4:55 am, which is the time the sun officially began rising. 

“I’m okay. I just come here some nights to watch the stars and sunrise.” Y/N whispered, breaking the silence. She kept her eyes on the rising sun that had peaked through the tall buildings, casting shadows everywhere. 

Harry’s face softened at her words. After all, he does the same thing when he can’t sleep. “I do, too. I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other more.” His head tilted upwards as he took in the colors that painted the sky. Different shades of pink, purple, and blue covered the sky. Some clouds had rolled in and they reflected the colors beautifully. 

She nodded slightly at his words, before she spoke. “I just moved her from Tennessee. I found the beach while looking for a place to clear my mind. Its been my favorite place ever since, plus you can see the stars beautifully from here.” 

He hummed in agreement. There had been numerous nights when he ended up on the beach stargazing. It was far enough from the city lights that you could still see everything. “That’s cool, I’ve never been to Tennessee before. I’m originally from England.” 

Y/N giggled softly, “I figured, I could tell from your accent.” She glanced at him just as his cheeks started to heat up. The tinge of red could be seen and Harry knew it, his cheeks were on fire. He laughed along with her and sighed.

“What are you doing in Australia?” 

“I’m here for a new beginning, I guess.” 

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, “You guess?” 

He turned his body so that he was facing her now. Her head turned towards him as she observed him with curiosity. Realizing what he was doing, she did the same. The beach towel that was underneath her body was long forgotten as the sand also clung to her legs. The pair was now facing each other and Harry finally got a clear look at Y/N’s face. Her delicate features fit her perfectly. 

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I’m not too thrilled about being here since I have no friends at the moment. I don’t even know what I wanna do with my life.” She spoke lowly while laying her head against her propped up knee. 

“You’ve got a friend, you have me.” 

A smile made its way to Y/N lips and she glanced at Harry, who was already looking at her. He thought she was so beautiful. In his eyes, he felt like she represented the sunrise. A new side of her was always on display, and there was so much more for him to learn, so much he wanted to learn. 

“Well, thank you for being my first friend.” Her gaze lingered a bit longer on Harry’s soft features before she turned back to look at the sky. “Thank you for watching the sunrise with me.” 

Harry could have melted on the spot from her words. He just met Y/N but he was prepared to watch every sunrise with her. “No need to thank me, but you’re very welcome.” 

Y/N scooted closer to Harry and he opened an arm to her. His breath hitched as she laid her head against his chest. She didn’t know why or how she felt so comfortable around someone she had just met, but she felt like she’d known him her entire life. Inhaling deeply, Harry moved his arm to her waist and held her tightly. He loved the feeling of her body pressed against his. It felt familiar, it made him feel warm. 

“So..” Y/N began.

“So…” Harry continued 

“Wanna get breakfast?” Y/N twisted herself slightly so that she could look up at Harry. He glanced down at her and his tummy erupted with butterflies. 

“Of course we can get breakfast. Anywhere specific you would like to go?” 

She shook her head, “I don’t know any good places around here. You seem like you’ve got good taste, you choose where we go.” 

He chuckled at her statement, “Hm, well what are you in the mood for?” 

Y/N thought about it. Back in Tennessee, there was an amazing crepe place by her house. Her and some friends would get breakfast there every Friday before school. She smiled fondly at the memory and made her decision. 

“Are there any crepe places around here?” 

Harry thought for a moment, “Yeah there is. Do you wanna get some crepes?” 

Crepes were Harry’s favorite breakfast, but he wouldn’t admit it out loud. 

“I do, only if you like crepes though. We could always go somewhere else.” 

“No no, we’re going to get crepes. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it.” Harry moved to stand. Dusting off his pants, he reached a hand down for Y/N. 

Y/N was too distracted by his comment to realize his outstretched hand. Harry noticed her red cheeks and smiled to himself. 

“Come on, we can walk back to mine and I’ll drive.” Harry said. 

She placed her smaller hand in his and felt sparks fly through her body. He pulled her up and she grabbed her towel that was left in the sand. “Sounds like a plan.” 

Harry smiled sweetly and Y/N shot him a toothy grin. 

Y/N was thankful she found herself at the beach. If she didn’t feel the need for an escape, she would’ve never met Harry. She could already tell they were going to be best friends. Who knows, maybe she’ll bring him back to Tennessee. 

For once, Harry was happy he couldn’t sleep. He was also happy he knew of the beach. Y/N was like a breath of fresh air. She felt real, like she didn’t care about what anyone had to say. She was the friend he was looking for, someone who he could feel free with. 

The pair walked together, hand in hand, back to Harry’s house. The sun was a bit higher in the sky now, but the remnants of orange and pink could still be seen. Birds were busy chirping high in the trees and people were on their way to work. 

With the promise to watch the sunrise together the next morning, Harry and Y/N both felt giddy about the day to come.

[afni-fics]

Elder Scrolls DC - A Reluctant Dragonborn - Chapter 8: The Bandit Tower

Elder Scrolls DC - A Reluctant Dragonborn - Chapter 8: The Bandit Tower by C_R_Scott Chapters: 8/? Fandom: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Tim Drake, Lucien Flavius Additional Tags: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Skyrim/DCU crossover, Reluctant Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Not Beta Read Summary:

In the pre-dawn hours, Tim and Lucien begin their journey to Bleak Falls Barrows. Along the way, they come upon an old abandoned watchtower...

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About an hour before sunrise. Tim left Gerdur's home without waking its occupants and went to wait for Lucien on the bridge that lead out of town towards the mountains. He nibbled on some bread and cheese as he listened to the sound of the water rushing over the rocks underneath him. It was a calming sound that soothed his jangled nerves somewhat, and also helped distract him just a little from the fact that he had no access to coffee.

Now that several days had passed since first waking up on that road to Helgen, his body had acclimated enough to remind him, at that god-awful pre-dawn hour, oh by-the-way aren't we addicted to caffeine and why haven't you gotten your fix yet?! Unfortunately, far as he could find from both the inns in Riverwood and in Whiterun, coffee just didn't exist in Skyrim. Apparently Nords just woke up and powered through mornings like Kryptonians.

On top of the growing headache behind his eyes that always signaled the first miserable sign of caffiene withdrawl, Tim was also coping with the lingering pain from his burns. Though he'd used the balm and re-wrapped his torso, upper left arm, and shoulder in linen bandages, the ache of the burn had made it nearly impossible to sleep, especially since he couldn't reach the entire burn area on his back. There were areas he just couldn't get to on his own, and he hadn't wanted to ask for help from anyone else.

So he was sore, tired, and feeling irritable at hell. If it weren't for the weight of the three hundred gold coins resting in pouch at his waist, he would've seriously considered leaving Lucien behind to spare him the pain of dealing with his foul mood. The poor museum man just didn't deserve that.

"I'm going to step out on a limb and guess you are not typically a morning person."

Tim glanced toward the voice and scanned Lucien carefully. While the man had professed not to be much of a fighter, at least he had the sense to know how to dress for the climate they were about to travel into. He appeared to be wearing multiple, sensible layers of clothing meant to keep him warm underneath a long robe that was trimmed with intricate embroidery and had a hood that was already drawn over his head. Above that he wore long fur cloak that settled upon his shoulders and down his back. The man also had a backpack that was probably filled with his research gear, a small oil lantern that was clipped to one side of his belt, and a sheathed sword strapped to the other side.

Tim smiled wryly. "I've always been more of a night owl," he said, hoping belatedly that owls were actually a bird that existed in this place.

Apparently they were as Lucien gave him a sympathetic look. "I understand completely. Used to be the same way when I entered university a few years back. Here." The scholar reached into his bag and pulled out what looked like a leather waterskin. 

Tim took the waterskin and noticed it felt warm. He gave Lucien a quizzical look.

"It's a blend of tea I concocted to help with these kinds of mornings. Brewed some up and made enough for both of us. I figured it was the least I could do for surprising you last night with 'extra baggage' for your trip to the Barrows." Lucien urged Tim to try it.

Curiously, Tim did take sip. It definitely wasn't coffee, but as far as teas went it wasn't that bad. There was definitely a strong herbal quality to it, though Tim couldn't even begin to identify what it could be from. There was also a slight smokiness to the flavor as well, as if there was some sort of roasted grain mixed in. But most important of all, whatever was in it was taking the edge off his caffeine withdrawl symptoms. 

"Thanks Lucien. I really needed that," he said after a moment. 

"Wonderful! Shall we be off then?"

***

When the pair of them left Riverwood, though the sun hadn't risen yet the sky was clear. Unfortunately, the further up the mountain they went towards the Barrows, the worse the weather got. First there was fog. Then there was snow. Tim had shrugged his own fur cloak into a better position to cover more of his body. A glance backward confirmed Lucien had done the same. It was clear neither of them were acclimated to this kind of weather, not like the local Nords.

"How long do you think it will take to reach the Barrow?" Lucien asked as he paused to warm his hands over his small oil lantern. 

Tim made a mental note to purchase a lantern the next time he saw one at a general store. "Gerdur said that once we reach the abandoned tower, we should be about halfway there." 

They continued their trek up the barely there path for about an hour. The snow and the fog made it hard to see more than a few yards far in front of them. For awhile there, Tim wondered if perhaps they had missed seeing the abandoned tower at all.

As their path began to level off where the mountain began to naturally plateau Tim could finally see it. There was an old stone watchtower set right at the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the valley below.

"Finally," Lucien said as he caught sight of the tower as well. "Let's stop there for a bit of a rest before going up the rest of the way."

Tim almost agreed with him, but then he noticed movement around the base of the tower. "Wait!" he said as he reached out to snag Lucien by the cloak and dragged him behind a large pile of rocks.

"What's wron--" Lucien started to ask, but was startled by the expression on his companion's face. Tim's face was a mask of deadly serious focus as he stared at the tower from behind the cover of the rocks.

"There are people at the tower. At least two."

Lucien peeked over the top of the rocks, eyes squinting as he tried to see through the fog and snow. "They must be the bandits that have taken root in this area. But are you sure about the number? I can barely see the outline of the tower through all this mist, let alone any people." When he didn't get an answer, Lucien glanced to his side. "Timothy?"

Much to his surprise, he was all alone except for Tim's footprints winding around the rocks in the snow.

***

Tim stealthily moved closer to the tower by slinking from cover to cover. He hoped Lucien would take the unspoken hint and stay behind until he was done. 

This... felt good. Hiding in shadows. Keeping a civilian safe. Creeping up on goons/bandits while he plotted their inevitable takedown. Finally, for the first time since arriving in Skyrim, Tim felt like himself.

From where he sat, he could see that there was just a change in the guard. One who had been standing at a post a few yards from the tower entrance was swapped by another who'd walked out from it. Tim counted his lucky stars. It was this movement that had caught his attention earlier. Due to the weather, if it had just been the guard standing there, he might not have caught sight of him until it was too late.

Once the other guard disappeared into the tower, leaving his partner alone, Tim made his move.

The solid THUNK of the steel dagger embedding itself in the trunk of the tree he'd been leaning on immediately caught the attention of the bandit guard, startling him from his attempt to stay warm at his post.  

"What the--?!" he exclaimed as he whipped his head to the left and saw the dagger vibrating mere inches from his nose. Then the sound of rustling in a nearby set of bushes, and the sight of the snow-laden branches jostling around immediately caught his eye. It looked as if there was a shadow hunched behind it. With a growl, the guard immediately drew his sword and rushed the bushes, prepared to slice open whoever had thrown the dagger. However, he ended up choking on his warcry as he saw that there was nothing but a backpack sitting in the snow. "Huh?"

Tim smirked as he crept out from behind a large boulder, his quarterstaff a comfortable weight in his hands as he prepared to swing it at his unsuspecting target.

***

The sound of a body falling to the ground with a muffled groan after a series of suspicious thudding noises caught the attention of the original guard as she poked her head out of the tower's entrance. This one drew her bow and nocked an arrow immediately upon seeing that their compatriot was not where he was supposed to be. Cautiously, she walked across the bridge that led to the mountainside. Then she saw the body of the other guard. 

"Skialg!" she called out with alarm. Caution thrown to the wind, she rushed forward to check on him, though, she never saw the staff that jutted out in front of her feet, tripping her into the snow. 

The moment the bow was out of her hands, Tim stepped out and kicked it well out of reach. The female Nord bandit looked up to find a wooden staff pointed ominously at her face. Her eyes widened in horror. 

"You've got two choices," Tim said with a dark smirk and a low tone. "You can either jog down the mountain and never come back, or you can end up like your friend there, taking a nap in the snow. Which would you prefer?"

Tim was ready for a counterattack, and was mildly surprised when it never came. He was expecting anger and retaliation. Instead, there appeared to be genuine terror on the woman's face as she nervously scrambled to her feet and booked it down the mountain path, racing past Lucien without a second though even though she could clearly see him. 

As soon as she was out of sight, Tim relaxed and rested his staff on his shoulder. "Well that was disappointing," he said as Lucien walked up to him. Though the sky was still overcast, somewhere beyond the clouds the sun had risen and had lightened up their surroundings considerably. "Are bandits around here always so skittish?"

"Well how would you feel if you had a mage's staff aimed at your face?" Lucien said with a disapproving frown. "Honestly, Timothy! A Fire Blast or Sparks or Frostbite at point-blank range like that would have been completely excessive and resulted in backlash on you as well as your target. Who taught you how to use a staff with such bad form anyways?"

"Mage's staff?" Tim looked at Lucien with confusion.

Lucien noticed the odd look Tim gave him, then motioned for TIm to give him the staff. Without protest, Tim handed it over. After a moment, it was the scholar's turn to look confused. "Wait... Is this... Just a stick?"

"Actually, it's a quarterstaff."

"But... Wait, so you don't use magic at all?" 

"No."

"But you carry staff."

"Yes."

"That has no magic whatsoever."

"I guess not? Wasn't expecting it to when I bought it."

"But... What do you do with this, if not to cast spells?"

Tim blinked at him, then rubbed the back of his neck. "I just... well... hit people with it?"

Lucien gaped at him. "And, that works?"

Tim pointed at the other bandit that was still unconscious.

"Mara's mercy! Did you actually kill that bandit with a stick?!" Lucien went over and poked the bandit with Tim's quarterstaff experimentally

Tim sighed. "No, he's not dead. Just unconscious. He'll be out for hours, and we'll be long gone by then."

Lucien straightened up with a contemplative expression on his face. "So... your entire plan to get us past the bandits on our way to the Barrow was to sneak up on your own, with just a stick, to bludgeon a pair of bandits into Oblivion, but not really because you had no intention of actually killing them?"

"Yeah. Pretty much," Tim remarked as he went back to the original guard's tree. He tugged the dagger out of its bark and then went to retrieve his backpack from where he'd thrown it earlier. "Maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but even if they're bandits and on the wrong side of the law, they're still people with lives and possibly even families. To end their lives so casually, as if they were worth nothing at all..." He sighed as he closed up his pack. "It's just... not the way I was raised. Ending another human life should never be an option if there are other solutions available."

When Tim looked at Lucien again, he found the scholar studying him in a way that made him feel a little uncomfortable, like he was a puzzle needing to be solved. "That's a very noble sentiment. Truly in the spirit of Stendarr himself," Lucien finally said as he handed the quarterstaff back to Tim. "Hopefully it won't get you killed one day. Tamriel could use more people who thought like you do, though I doubt the bandits on the road will show us the same mercy."

Tim gave Lucien a weak smile. "Hopefully," he echoed. Then he motioned for Lucien to wait as he took a few minutes to drag the still unconscious bandit back into the tower. When Tim came back out to continue his journey with Lucien to the Barrows, he shrugged his shoulders at the odd look the scholar gave him. "What? It wouldn't be much better if I left him out in the open to die of exposure or to be eaten by a wolf."

Lucien laughed as he walked alongside Tim once more up the mountainside. "Somewhere up in the shrubbery there's a starving wolf that's sure to be cursing your name right now."

"Well lucky for me, I've got a big stick."

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Author Note: This is being pantsed more than plotted, and this is not beta read. We'll see where this journey takes us. Mostly I'm just doing this for my own amusement.

Note: If you have any questions about the playthrough and Tim's feelings/experiences that aren't described in the chapters, please ask me in the comments. I'll do my best to answer your questions as best I can.

[stressedspidergirlsfandomblog]

Ficlet cont under the read more. It’s like 4 pgs so I didn’t wanna wreck ur dash. Beware pining?

(I cut out the middle because I rewrote the entire beginning and it wouldn’t line up. So here’s… closer to the end, I guess.) 

He looks at her, trying to decide if he believes it’s the truth or not. When she stops them in the middle of the busy walkway, holding his gaze, he decides if she’s lying, he’d rather pretend she wasn’t. But her pulse was even, she smelled normal and he couldn’t think of a reason she’d lie. “I don’t need saving, or coddling,” he tells her.

“You need a great deal of coddling,” she pats his hand again. “But not because of that.” She leans into him as they walk, and then smiles. “I’m in the mood for breakfast, are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” he comments neutrally. He’d eaten some but was starving again already. He glances around, Dandelion isn’t far behind them, he’s occasionally stopped to chat with people, telling them where he’ll be playing that evening.

“Look! Fresh peaches, oh, do come over here,” she drags Geralt to a farmer’s small cart, and buys a few different fruits to sample. She’s not buying large quantities, but she doesn’t haggle much, either, so the farmer doesn’t mind her. Using her belt knife, she cuts the first fruit in half neatly, flipping the bit to the side of the walkway. Handing him half, she bites into her half and smiles in pleasure. The fruit is sweet and just the right amount of ripe. He samples his, watching in surprise when she hands off a peach to the bard. After having wiped fruit juice from his chin, he’s surprised when Yennefer pulls him down to kiss him. It’s wonderful in itself, she tastes of the fruit she’d just eaten, and she giggles a bit when they break apart.

“Strawberries!” she points out, tugging him to another cart. Some people have stalls or even what look like more permanent little shop stands, but she keeps choosing the smaller carts. Poorer farms, probably. The produce is no better or worse. She laughs as she feeds him one of the strawberries, and he kisses her in delight, to share the sweet flavor.

Dandelion watches always surprised to find that the witch shares the food with him. She doesn’t speak to him, doesn’t include him in her laughter, or allow Geralt to be distracted from her. He comes to realize it isn’t meant to be cruel. He’s along because he follows Geralt. She’s doing all of this to distract him and put him at ease. Teasing the witcher with a piece of fruit, a half of a pastry, a slice of roast lamb, and they walk and eat their way down the paths set up for the fair. He’s never really seen the witcher in this kind of mood, where he smiles a bit, and laughs some when Yennefer does. He bends his ear to her and seems lighter.

She’s undoing it, he realizes. Without any magic at all, she’s undoing the harm they did, not all of it, but some of it. She makes him feel less other. Less inhuman. People are more willing to approach and laugh with a man attached to a pretty laughing woman than a glowering man alone, witcher or not. He suffers alongside Geralt when they try some kind of smoked meat made with strong spices. Yennefer laughs again, unbothered, but finds them some soft, bland cheese and rolls to help take away the pain.

“What the fuck was that,” he complains, having thought he had a strong well cultured palette.

Geralt resists rubbing his nose on his sleeve, and blinks away tears from his watering eyes. The cheese had helped, as had the bread. When he finds someone with cups and skins of juice for sale, he purchases some, sharing with both the bard and Yennefer.

“Chiles, and peppers, they shred the meat and mix it together, then smoke it.”

“I shouldn’t want to eat that ever again. Oh, that was too much,” the bard wheezes. Geralt laughs, and Dandelion stares at him. He hasn’t seen him really laugh. He chuckles sometimes, but this is something new. It hurts a bit; he’s never managed to bring this side of the witcher out. He hadn’t realized how much Yennefer knew about Geralt, either. His favorite fruits, drinks, what types of meat he hadn’t tried but might like, what he might not like. She knew him, cared enough to remember his preferences. As far as Dandelion knew, Geralt would eat anything at least once, and didn’t much care what it was so long as it was filling. He hadn’t realized how badly the witcher just wanted to be a man with a woman and no burdens to carry.

His hatred for the sorceress eases a little. He doesn’t think he’ll ever like her. Especially since he knows all this frivolity and fun will just end in heartbreak again for Geralt, and he’ll be morose until they start again. Every time this happens, it makes him angry all over again. Why keep going back? He’d wanted to ask, but now he understands. At least some of it, it’s not as if he didn’t go back to the countess a few times. Or his duchess.

“Oh, Geralt, your favorite, come over here, I didn’t even know you could find it this far inland, come on,” she tugs him over, and he follows her. The sun is warm on his face, he’s clean, and while the doublet is obnoxious, it’s not as horrible as it had felt when he first put it on. She buys two of an oddly shaped fruit Dandelion hasn’t seen before, and deftly slices it against her palm without so much as nicking her skin. She holds half out to Geralt who takes it, and then offers Dandelion a few slices. He tries it cautiously, wondering what kind of fruit might be Geralt’s favorite. It’s sweet, a little tart, and has a very light flavor. Then he notices the little slices in his hand are shaped like stars.

Geralt savors the sweet flavor, eyes closed as they stand to the side of the crowds, out of the way. He’s mindful of the little seeds and knocks them free of the fruit before eating the rest of it. When Yennefer’s finished her pieces, he leans in to kiss her, heedless of how improper it might be. She keeps her hands away from him, to keep his doublet clean, but kisses him willingly.

They’re making their way past all the food and trinkets to the proper vendors, and when they’ve rinsed sticky fingers and faces in the fountain, their exploration of the harvest market begins in earnest. Yennefer does quite a bit more shopping than Geralt had expected and finds he doesn’t mind carrying some of it with him. Dandelion has his own things to buy, and for a bit the witcher finds himself trailing the bard as Yennefer haggles with a hedgewitch over some charms.

He lightly touches the back of the bard’s hand with his fingertips and Dandelion turns to him. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, unsure what the look on Geralt’s face is about. “You were enjoying your time with her, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. Soon enough you’ll both burn it down.” Then he hates himself. “I’m sorry. Maybe this time you won’t,” he says, gently squeezing Geralt’s shoulder. “Fuck, I don’t, she brings out the worst in me, I say horrible things and I don’t mean to. Or I do, but not to you, not…Let’s try that again. I’m doing wonderfully, this place is less of a backwater than I thought, and our horses will have more to carry as we travel.”

Geralt simply frowns at him a little, realizing he has been missing something about the bard. “I’m sorry, last night, that I asked you to…” he clears his throat and looks around rather than finish his sentence. “It wasn’t right. If that’s… if that’s why you’re uncomfortable with me, I wouldn’t… I was just desperate, and I would have asked anyone, it was…I was…I didn’t mean to upset…I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you, I’m just sorry I put you in that position.”

Dandelion hisses in his breath, stung by some of the apology. He glances over at Yennefer, still haggling and takes a deep breath. “If you had been fully in control of yourself and had asked me in earnest, rather than desperation I would have gladly done it,” his voice is a little clipped, but he can’t make himself confess anything.

Rather than feeling like his apology was accepted, he feels like he made the situation worse, he simply frowns. The words make sense individually but strung together they make him feel stupid. “You…you want…?”

“Not here, not now. It’s lovely out, there’s people to talk to, purchases to be made, food to sample, wines to try…apology accepted. You were suffering and now that it’s over, here we are. Looks like she got what she wanted,” he looks over as Yennefer comes to join them.

Bewildered, Geralt doesn’t try to press the conversation. Not that he ever usually does, in fact, quite often, he is trying to stop the conversation from happening at all. He links his arm with Yennefer’s and lets her lead them about a bit. He has no interest in most goods, he has two shirts, an extra pair of pants, and he’s wearing his boots. He doesn’t need much more, and he has nowhere to store any of it, anyway. Although, perhaps he could use some extra socks, and Roach might be able to use a newer saddle blanket…when they make their way to the livestock areas, he finds a woman who makes truly beautiful saddle blankets. He’s not interested in looks and selects a simple grey one. It seems well made and sturdy and the horse won’t care what it looks like any more than he does.

He also remembers to buy some small bags of grains and feed, along with a few wizened carrots. No need for fresh or fancy, the horse is just going to eat them and shit them out without caring.

Yennefer drops back to let him shop on his own, linking her arm through the bard’s. “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer not to walk through pig shit. He’ll come back when he’s done.”

“Ah.”

“It’s sweet, how he says he couldn’t care less about the horse, and here he is buying her things.”

“It’s not as if he’s buying saddle charms or trinkets for her mane or special soaps for her tail,” the bard protests, then wonders why he’s doing it.

“No, but he is finding care for her hooves, and something to make sure she doesn’t get mites in her ears, and a whole host of other things for her that aren’t strictly necessary. He just likes to have it all on hand. He has a great capacity for love,” she glances at the bard from the side of her eye. “He’d purchase something for you, but he has no idea what to give you. He knows he has no eye for fashion, you don’t bedeck yourself with much jewelry and he wouldn’t know what to pick, he can’t buy anything for your instrument -the lute or otherwise,” she smirks. “He has no idea what’s required.” She doesn’t let him shop for her, either. “He does look around for you. He does make sure he can see you, and that you’re safe. He won’t say it with words, but he cares about you as much as he does the horse, at the very least. Try to notice.”

When Geralt gets back to them, he smells a bit like livestock but in the open air it will fade quickly. Yennefer wrinkles her nose. “We should find a runner, so we aren’t having to carry things.”

“We could have asked some of this be delivered at the end,” Dandelion points out, for all he hadn’t purchased much.

“And hoped no one resold it to double their profit and then gave it to whoever purchased it last,” Geralt points out.

“Well then.”

“Let’s just take it back ourselves, and come back to enjoy the rest?” Dandelion suggests. The urchins hovering about seem more likely to steal than deliver their things.

They make it to the inn and back, going a different path to avoid the town square both times. Dandelion stays closer this time, snidely discussing the various other musicians who are busking around the festival. Geralt grins a few times, shaking his head ruefully at the description of one man’s voice the bard comes up with on the spot.

(if you want more, or wanna see the whole thing, lemme know. I’m debating putting the full version on ao3. Also if you just happen to like my fic, my blog is full of ficlets and fic I’ve written and links to my ao3. Just… just sayin.) 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655211/chapters/56780635

[kinkykinard]

Beyond Survival

Fandom: Star Trek AOS. Pairing: Leonard McCoy X Reader. Word Count: 2064. Rating: Mature (18+). Summary: Three years in space takes its toll on a body, and you decide you want to get as far away from the Enterprise as possible for a week, even if it means facing the wildnerness. Author’s Note: For @star-trekkin-across-theuniverse‘s birthday challenge!  Happy now horribly belated birthday you gorgeous, lovely lady!  Love you tons!  Somewhat inspired by Kid Rock’s All Summer Long and with references to Camping with Bones.  Reposting because Tumblr apparently ate the first one.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this again.” Leonard chuckles from where he’s sunning himself on the beach next to you and turns his head to look at you. “We’ve been here for three days, darlin’,” he teases gently.  “And if memory serves, it was your idea.” You roll your eyes behind your sunglasses and sit up from where you’re lying on the blanket beneath a large umbrella at the edge of the lake Leonard had first brought you to on your first ever camping trip three years before under the guise of getting you survival certified. You’d hated it less than you’d thought you would back then, and while it’s painful to admit it, right now you’re really, genuinely enjoying yourself, even if you know you’ve got another night of getting bled dry by mosquitoes and sleeping on a camp cot ahead of you. “If you ever say you told me so, they’ll never find your body,” you threaten darkly as you shift to a standing position, brushing some sand from between your toes.

It’s for naught a moment later, though, as you just step onto the beach and feel the minute grains working their way right back into the spots you’d just cleared.  Wading closer to the lake you can’t help but feel tiny amidst the towering trees of the woods at your back and the mountain peaks breaking the panorama in the distance across the lake before you. Stepping forward, you take your time approaching the water line, glancing out at the gently rolling waves, inhaling the fresh air.  As you cross the threshold from wet to dry, you feel the water-kissed sediment beneath your feet shift with every step, and you gasp as a wave of glacial water licks at your ankles.  It’s almost too cold to bear, but you persevere as you hike up your beach skirt before it can drag in the wash.  The water feels amazing against your overheated skin and by the time you’re up to your thighs, the slight tremors that wracked your body wading in have subsided and you feel content. You close your eyes as the sun beats on your skin and you relinquish your hold on the hem of your skirt, letting it trail in the water, dragging your fingertips through the wash as it ebbs and flows around you.  It’s all stillness and near-silence around you for a few moments and then, suddenly, you’re being snapped out of your reverie by a warm set of hands coming to rest on your upper arms.  Whipping your head around and glancing over your shoulder, you come face to face with Leonard and he presses a gentle kiss to your temple. “You scared me half to death,” you murmur only half-seriously. “Sorry, sweetheart,” Leonard says with a soft chuckle.  “Just wanted to come and enjoy the view with you.” “I thought I was the view,” you tease playfully. Leonard leans in closer and gently nips at the skin where your neck meets your shoulder, his teeth eliciting an electrifying sensation.  His hands come up to where your bikini is tied between your shoulder blades and you inhale sharply as you feel him tug on the strings, letting them fall aside and freeing your breasts from the top’s cups. “Leonard!”  You admonish with a squeak, reaching up to hastily hold the suit in place. “What are you doing?!  What if someone sees?!” “It’s just you, me, and the birds out here, darlin’,” Leonard says softly.  “No one’s going to see, I promise.” As he speaks, his hands slip higher up along your back, reaching the ties at your neck.  You feel them come loose a half second later and gravity quickly comes to Leonard’s aid, pulling your top down as you move your hands away from your chest, leaving it floating on the waves and you exposed to the sunshine and mountain air. You bite your lip as his hands come to rest on your waist for a brief moment before slowly sliding up your sides and around to your chest.  His chest presses up against your back as he pulls you close and his hands come to cup your breasts, kneading them gently as his lips find purchase on your shoulder. His kisses are so gentle they feel like no more than the brush of butterfly wings against your skin and you exhale softly, closing your eyes and enjoying the sensation. “You’re so beautiful,” Leonard murmurs into your shoulder. His hands are your undoing.  You sag in relaxation, grateful for the support of his body against yours as he massages your breasts, his thumbs occasionally flicking over your nipples.  It’s sensual more than anything and as your head drops back to rest against his collarbone you wish you could stay entwined with him forever. You don’t know how much time has passed by the time Leonard slowly, hesitantly slips his hands down away from your breasts but whether it’s been minutes or hours it’s been woefully little.  You reluctantly turn to face him, reaching out with one hand to fish out the bikini top that’s floating on the waves nearby feeling grateful that it hasn’t sunk yet. “Let’s head back in and have lunch,” Leonard suggests softly, leaning down a little to press a kiss to your forehead. You nod and shiver as he steps away from you, his body heat dissipating in the wake of his departure and leaving you chilled. Gritting your teeth, you slap the now-drenched bikini top back onto your chest and adjust it before reaching back to do up the ties.  It’s a clumsy and awkward process but you manage and wade into the shallows, wringing water out of your beach skirt as you go.  It doesn’t take you long to reach the spot where Leonard is packing up the umbrella and towels and you slip your feet into your sandals as you stop, grimacing at the feel of the sand between your shoes and skin. The walk back to the campsite is a quite one, but the silence is amiable.  You smile as the sun beats down on your face and shoulders, and as birdsong fills your ears and carries you far away from all of your worries back on the Enterprise. You’re still shaken and exhausted after the weeks-long combat situation that pre-empted the shore leave and so the further away from it all you can put your mind, the better. “Go ahead and get changed, I’ll get a fire started,” Leonard instructs you. You snap out of your reverie and realize that you’ve reached the campsite while you were lost in thought.  You smile and nod, half-surprised that he’s not coercing you into proving to him you remember everything he taught you during survival training by having you start the fire. It takes you only a few minutes to strip out of your wet clothes, dry off, and pull on a comfortable pair of shorts and a tank top.  Once you’ve gotten your feet into a pair of hiking boots, you make your way over to where Leonard’s already got a fire going and wrap your arms around his waist as he leans in to stoke it. “What’s for lunch?”  You ask. “I’ve got some chili stewing, and I was just about to whip up some corn bread,” Leonard replies. “That sounds amazing,” you say enthusiastically, suddenly ravenous at the thought of it. “Well it won’t take too much longer,” Leonard assures you with a smile.  “And if you’re still looking to work up a bit more of an appetite, I could use a little more firewood.” “Consider it done,” you say with a nod. You hurry off into the woods, glancing around for hazards and wild animals as you stoop down here and there to pick up some nice, dry pieces of wood.  You’re still a little uneasy being out in the forest by yourself, but the late afternoon sunlight still illuminates enough of the surrounding area that you won’t be surprised by anything creeping up on you. With a bundle of firewood in your arms, you finally turn to make your way back to the campsite.  You can’t see the path immediately ahead of you and so you try awkwardly to feel your way around with the toes of your boots.  You know you’re nearly back at the site when you start to smell smoke on the air and see glimpses of Leonard’s heathered gray t-shirt through the trees.  You’re just about to call to him when your foot catches a root and you’re sent sailing through the air and sprawling out on the ground. You groan as pain flares in your chest, dragging in a lungful of air after being winded upon landing.  You can feel scrapes smarting on your hands and knees and there are loose pieces of wood jabbing at you from all sides.  You’re about to roll over onto your back to relieve some of the discomfort when a pair of boots appears in your view and you glance up to meet Leonard’s concerned gaze as he crouches in front of you. “Alright there, sugar?”  He asks. You grunt at him and slowly haul yourself onto your knees, hissing as you’re reminded of the scrapes there.  You take the hand he offers to help you to your feet moments later and glance around at the wood you’ve scattered everywhere. “Fine,” you reply at last.  “Only my pride is irreparably damaged.” Leonard chuckles and reaches out, gently taking your face in hand and tipping it up.  As you stretch your neck a bit, you feel a stinging at your chin and realize you’ve scraped it, too.  Rolling your eyes, you pull away from his hold and stoop to pick up the wood, piling it back up awkwardly and starting off toward the campsite again, being careful to avoid the root that did you in the last time. Back at the campsite, you offload the bundle of wood next to the fire pit and step back to take stock of yourself. Leonard is right behind you and before you can protest, he leads you over to the truck and guides you to sit up on the tailgate while he retrieves his med kit.  As he pulls out the antiseptic and salve, you set your face in a contemplative albeit grim expression, earning yourself a quirk of his eyebrow. “What’s on your mind?”  He asks. “I’m trying to decide what’s worse – this or the sprained ankle from last time,” you explain. Leonard shakes his head and gives you a second to brace yourself against the stinging before he goes to work on cleaning out the wounds on your palms and knees.  It’s unpleasant but the discomfort becomes a bit muddled as you take in the expression of utmost care and concentration on his handsome face. It doesn’t take him long to finish with your wounds even with as much care as he’s using to avoid causing you any further pain and before long you’re sliding off of the tailgate and brushing the leftover dirt from your clothes. “The chili should be done by now,” Leonard offers as he returns from putting the med kit away.  “A hearty lunch is the cure for what ails you.” You snort at the sentiment and step forward instead, wrapping your arms around Leonard’s waist as your chest connects with his. “How about a little kiss to make it better instead?”  You suggest. “I think that can be arranged…”  Leonard trails off as he dips his head down a little, his lips brushing yours gently before coming in closer for a proper kiss. Soon, his hands are lost in your hair and yours are slipping under the fabric of his shirt to stroke along the skin of his ribcage.  The two of you become entwined in one another as you deepen the kiss and it’s not long until the chili is all but forgotten.   The two of you spend the next hour consummating the trip on one of the camp cots in the tent and as you lie tangled in each other’s arms in a post-coital bliss surrounded by the sounds and smells of summer in the woods, you can’t help but smile at your choice of destination for this shore leave.   It’s just what the doctor ordered.

[sad-goomy]

GladMoon Week Day 7

Endymionis somnum dormire

Summary: Gladion is fairly certain his life is becoming a Greek tragedy, but it's somehow so much more complicated than that, with a Classics minor, a recurring dream, and a new waitress. Read on Ao3

Moonflower Dreaming of love

“Why would you minor in Classics?”

Because I know what it’s like to have a dysfunctional family, Gladion thinks, but he has a feeling that’s not the answer his mother would be pleased with. He sighs on the phone, leaning back in his chair as he runs a hand down his face.

“Employers like well-rounded candidates.”

She tsks, and he’s on edge, but he knows that she usually drops the argument when he brings up his resumé. It’s the entire reason he’s had to go into business school. He thought that would be enough to satisfy her, but then she found a way to access his classes, and saw a few too many electives that she didn’t like, and now he has to speak to his mother for the first time in weeks.

He holds his breath a moment longer and then she mutters, “Just don’t let it distract you.”

“I won’t.”

There’s a pause, and Gladion debates if he should go ahead and wrap this up with a goodbye.

His mom hangs up on him without another word.

“Good talking to you, too,” he mumbles to the air, and places the phone back down on his dining room table, going back to the marketing plan he was working on.

At least she isn’t Medea.

Up the hill, the path he’s never seen but knows so well. The staff in his hand is worn, smoothed wood grain that crooks at the top. He pauses to smell the night breeze of salt and dirt, and looks out over the grassy hills, spotting his heard scattered amongst the hills.

And when he reaches the top and settles in his usual spot, she is above him, waiting for him as always. She smiles down from the clouds, soft and glowing, and long hair flowing from her until it melts into the stars.

Neither of them says it, but he knows what she is thinking all the same.

As surely as I rise, I love you.

“Same dream?”

Gladion blinks as he steps into the kitchen, still half-sleeping. Hau only waits expectantly for his answer, somehow up to his usual peppy self despite it being too early in the morning.

The half-full coffee pot explains that mystery.

As he takes a (mostly) clean mug out of the cabinet and helps himself to a generous pour, Gladion asks his roommate, “How can you tell?”

“You always have the same smile afterwards.”

The mug pauses halfway to the blonde's lips, because he didn’t even realize he was smiling. After the caffeine starts to hit him and he can think in more than disjointed phrases, he mumbles, “It’s been getting...fuzzier though.”

“Fuzzy?” Hau parrots, rinsing his mug in the sink and all too aware that he’s almost late to class.

“Less clear, almost like there are layers of static over it.”

“Huh.” They consider it for a moment, and then Hau’s cell-phone beeps to remind him that his lecture is starting soon and he grabs his bag, making his way towards the front door. “Wonder what made it change?”

Gladion shrugs, unsure himself – he's been having some version of that same dream on a weekly basis for almost a year now, and there isn’t anything off the top of his head that would cause it to go away. To be fair, he doesn’t even know why he started having it in the first place.

He manages to give Hau a wave before he steps out, leaving Gladion to think, to try and conjure the face of the woman in the dream.

He never can.

About a week later, he stops having the dream altogether.

It’s too soon to say if it’s gone completely, but it’s distracting nonetheless. He finds it hard to focus in the mythology class required for his minor, tapping his fingers absently against the keys instead of taking notes.

“Which brings us to the Lunar Goddesses.” The squeak of marker against whiteboard brings Gladion back to the classroom, watching as his professor writes out three names on the board. “Artemis, Hecate, and Selene.”

Looking down at his laptop, Gladion realizes his notes are a little too sparse, and chastises himself as he resumes typing. I’ll have to ask Ilima to share his notes.

The professor finishes writing, turning back to the lecture hall and continuing, “Although all three are associated with each other and the moon, only one is the actual personification of the moon: Selene.” He pauses, looking over the crowd of college students from his podium before he asks, “What do you know about her already?”

A few hands go up, and he calls on a girl in the third row. “She fell in love with – I forget his name, but he was a shepherd, I think, and he fell into eternal sleep, so she visited him every night.”

Nodding, the professor goes back to the board and writes down a fourth name, next to Selene. “Yes, she’s best known for her love of Endymion. As with all the myths that we’ve studied so far, there are several versions. Does anyone know one of the reasons why Endymion was put under eternal sleep?”

Those same hands go up, and Gladion listens and takes notes as they throw out theories, begin to tell stories.

Zeus allowed him to choose how he wanted to die.

He fell in love with Hera and begged for eternal sleep instead.

Selene sentenced him to it so she could watch him every night.

Their professor stops behind his podium once more, chewing on his cheek in thought for a moment. With a lopsided smile, he decides to ask, “How about we make our own version?” A murmur ripples through the students, and Gladion sinks further into his seat subconsciously. “Does anyone have an idea why he might have been put into an eternal sleep?”

Several moments of silence pass, and then a few students hesitantly raise their hands, barely high enough to count. With a scan of the room, the professor’s eyes land on Gladion.

He didn’t even realize he had raised his hand.

But he’s walked himself into this now, and he swallows his surprise, only to find an answer waiting right at the edge of his lips.

“Maybe he fell in love with the moon, and it’s the only way he could reach her.”

Gladion sees a few heads nod, and the professor seems happy enough, leaning back and nodding as he mutters to himself, “Now that’s interesting...”

Thankfully, he doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, instead collecting a few more answers, letting Gladion let out a sigh of relief, because he doesn’t know what else he would have to say.

I mean who would fall in love with the moon?

Lillie warns him that their mother is upset, but he can’t avoid the screaming match over the phone.

It’s two hours long, which isn’t the longest argument he’s had with his mother, but it’s the most vitriolic in a while. It doesn’t end so much as he feels himself losing his voice and hangs up before she can say something else that will set him off.

A soft knock at his door is followed by Hau’s voice. “You good, dude?”

Gladion checks the time – 11:30pm. “Yeah, I...” He lets out a deep breath, feeling some guilt take the harsh edges of fury off him. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no worries, it’s just, uh,” Hau falters, and even through the door Gladion can practically see him scratching the back of his neck, “Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s the same thing he’s offered since Gladion’s moved in, and doubly so after meeting Lillie and hearing the full extent of their home life. But it doesn’t make it any easier, and the thoughts are too messy, and so Gladion simply responds, “Maybe later.”

“Alright, uh, good night.”

The footsteps recede, and he waits until he hears Hau’s door close before grabbing his laptop and shoving it in his bag, deciding that he’s too worked up to even try to go to sleep.

It’s a quick walk down the street to his favorite diner.

Not that it’s a good diner, but it stays open 24 hours and the coffee is cheap.

The usual crowd of a Thursday night is there, which amounts to just about no one except another student and about three people having a meal before they work the graveyard shift.

He settles into his favorite booth in the corner, the red vinyl of the seat always peeling and not all that comfortable. With his laptop open, he decides to finish up an assignment for his accounting class before starting on the readings for his mythology course.

And just for the hell of it, maybe he’ll look at what the job market is like halfway across the globe (and as far from his family as he can get).

“What can I get you?”

It’s a voice he’s heard before, but he frowns when he looks up from his scream, because the face – from the freckles to the gray eyes – is entirely unfamiliar. Yet when he looks at her, his heart settles into a stronger, steadier rhythm, like some final piece has clicked in his life and the rest is history.

“You’re not Ruth.”

The young woman raises a brow, but there’s a secret in her smile. “No, I’m not.” 

She says her name, but it feels like she says seven, and they all slip out of his mind like silk. When he furrows his brows and tries to recall it, it only slips further from his mind.

“But you can call me Moon.”

His eyes widen, and he wonders how many coincidences he can chalk up in this moment. She’s still waiting for him to order, though, adjusting the apron of her uniform and watching him with a spark in her eyes that sends a wave of nostalgia washing over him.

“Just coffee.”

“Cream and sugar?”

Gladion shakes his head, and Moon smiles, nodding her head – her long black ponytail bobs with the movement. She turns on a heel, white sneakers squeaking against the cheap linoleum floor, and he goes back to his laptop, very nearly missing when she mumbles, “Be right back, Endymion.”

He freezes, sitting up and calling out, “Sorry, what?”

She stops, turning to him with a bemused expression, but he swears there’s a wink hiding in there somewhere. “Just said I’d be right back with your coffee.”

And he watches her walk behind the counter, humming a little tune as she brews a fresh pot, and leaving him to sit there in wonder, feeling remnants of that one dream beginning to stir in his mind and settling on the one phrase that always ended it.

As surely as I rise, I love you.

Maybe he’ll have to start coming here more often.

[wtf-taeyong]

Moonlight // Mark

Word count - 3.3k  Genre - angst, fluff if you use the term ‘fluff’ liberally. Warnings - None 

Fantasy!au, historic!au

This is a little epilogue/slightly continuation of my previous Winwin story ‘The Stars.’ I think it’s a little necessary to read that before to understand most of this, but I think you might be able to get it if you don’t?

A yawn tore itself from Mark’s lips and he raised a clenched fist up to his eyes to rub the bleariness from them. It had begun to get chilly in his room, meaning that the sun was rising over the cave system and was getting further away from the side his room was on.

He had no idea what time it was or anything like that, but there was no urgency to get anywhere. Honestly, he knew in his chest that he’d woken up later than he ever had before but that was alright. He hadn’t had to do anything proper since his mentor had left.

Sitting up in his cot, he extended his right wing outwards, then the left, stretching them just as he would his arms up above him. He hiccuped, and groaned, swung his legs over the side and feeling around with his feet for his leather sandals.

They had been a gift, from his mentor, and his heart panged slightly at the thought that he still hadn’t returned home. He missed him, and wondered where in the world his travels had taken him.

Strapping them around his ankles, Mark reached over to his robes and pulled them over his head, securing the belt loosely around his waist and then leaving his room. He didn’t have a door - nobody his age did, but generally his people were moved deeper into the cave system with bigger rooms with doors when they met their mates and decided to settle down - which left him free to peek his head into his friends’ rooms as he walked past.

They were all vacant, as was expecting, but it was still slightly disorientating to Mark to walk to the main hall by himself. Usually, he’d be with Jaemin, or Renjun, or both, discussing excitedly what they would be spending their days doing.

Mark was slightly older than the two of them, coming of age and getting to pick his chosen path before his friends. It was a difficult, troubling decision that Mark had been dwelling over each night since he had turned sixteen. Then, when he turned eighteen, he was relatively confident with his decision.

He was going to be a writer.

That kind of vocation wasn’t as popular within his race and his people, some preferring work that took them outside into the sun, or general work around the cave system to keep the society going. Writers and scholars typically rarely ever left the caves, staying indoors and scribbling away all hours of the days by candlelight. Nevertheless, Mark was excited to start the rest of his life and was pleasantly surprised when he was assigned to Sicheng.

Sicheng was a notorious loner, going against the grain of what one might expect from their kind. His race were the most social beings on the planet, doing everything together - they had no doors for goodness sake - so the first time Mark met Sicheng on the fateful day of his eighteenth birthday, his heart nearly fell out of his chest.

“Are you smart?” Sicheng had asked, drawing himself to his full height and staring down at Mark with an expression Mark could only describe as disdain. “I-I guess so?” “You guess so?” “No, I know so.” “Good. I have no patience for idiots, or laziness. Follow me.”

Never in his life had he ever met somebody so… Rude. Mark was typically met with happiness and smiles, as many had told him his sunshine disposition was somewhat irresistible, but Sicheng was entirely immune to his charms and Mark didn’t know what to make of it.

That was his initial reaction, anyway. In the months since that moment, Mark had broken down Sicheng’s frosty outer layer and was well on his way to becoming a friend; dare he say, a close friend?

But one day, about a month before his nineteenth birthday, Sicheng had woken Mark up in the middle of the night to tell him he was leaving.

“Leaving? Leaving where?” Mark was half sitting up, balancing his weight on his left arm and rubbing his eyes with his right fist. “I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere.” His tone of voice was half manic, a desperate tilt to it that Mark had never heard before. “Like, away? In the outside?” “Yes. I need to… Experience what it’s like out there. For all our books and tomes and scrolls, we don’t have any practical knowledge, and I believe that’d be invaluable.” “The All-Father would never allow it, you know this-” “That’s why I’m not telling anybody.”

Mark had been startled into silence.

“An expedition like this… Think about it, Mark, think of the benefits. Think of what we could learn.” “I understand that, but it’s too risky. You know what happened to-” “Yes, yes,” Sicheng waved his hand in the air impatiently, as if batting the thought away. “I’m well versed in what happened before. But it’s different now. I have a plan.” “A plan?” “Yes. I’m going to get caught-” “-That’s madness-” “-And the human will take me directly to their stronghold.” “But at what cost?”

Sicheng was quiet, staring at Mark with a kind of thoughtfulness that Mark was much more familiar with on the elder’s face. At this point Mark had memorised all of the planes of Sicheng’s face so well, Sicheng was the only person that appeared so clearly in the younger angel’s dreams. That was why the tint of desperation, a chronic need to have someone understand and support his lust for more knowledge and understanding of the beings that triumphed over them so long ago, frightened Mark more than anything.

He didn’t know this Sicheng.

“Alright,” the younger relented. “Alright. Go.” Sicheng leapt to his feet, but Mark’s hands darted out and grasped onto one of Sicheng’s. “When will you return?” “As soon as I feel I am ready, little brother. I’ll be back.”

His hand slipped out of Mark’s, and he disappeared from the room.

Almost four months had passed, and while that wasn’t a long time of his dramatically extended life, it was wearying. Mark was pressed for answers on the elder’s whereabouts daily, and Mark was beginning to grow frustrated at the constant squints of suspicion he received.

After all, Sicheng was a prominent figure in society, despite his prickly and antisocial nature. He was a primary educator, his mere presence demanding respect and obedience from even the youngest of them, so it was a great loss the next morning when Sicheng did not appear from his quarters.

Mark was the first to be interrogated, then the rest of the scholars in the cave system, but Mark didn’t relent. If anybody knew what Sicheng had done, there would be no shortage of hunters and trackers willing to bring him home, and Mark trusted the elder enough to come back of his own volition.

He still missed him, though. Nothing was quite the same without him. Mark wasn’t the same without him, as surprising as this realisation was.

“A penny for your thoughts, little Mark?” A smooth voice interrupted his flow, and Mark blinked rapidly. He hadn’t realised he had gotten anywhere, let alone sit down, but there he was in the library, seated at one of the writing tables he had gotten intimately familiar with the past year and a bit. “My thoughts are worth much more, Doyoung,” Mark said, turning his head to face the much taller angel. “Is something wrong?” “I should be asking you. Are you thinking about Sicheng?” Doyoung leaned against the high back of the desk, and Mark swallowed heavily. “I’m usually thinking of Sicheng.” “Yes, I think we’ve noticed. Are you lovesick?” Doyoung pressed the back of his hand against Mark’s forehead, his brows pinched in mock concern, but Mark grunted and smacked the hand away.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have the time for that.” “Good. You know what we’re like.” “Yes, yes, the entire… Monogamy thing.” Doyoung’s brows creased again. “You talk like him.” “Like who?” “Sicheng, you idiot.” “I do not.” “Alright.” “I don’t!” “Yes.”

Mark fixed him with a deadpan look, and Doyoung’s mouth split into a wide grin.

“Besides, it’s actually true. I understand that you’re ever the cynic, but not a single one of us have ever been able to find another, if our only one has been lost to us.” “Maybe we’ve just never tried hard enough.” “I beg of you to not pursue that experiment.”

Mark hummed, looking down at the wooden desk. The surface was worn with years of scratching quills and general activity, wax melted across the top from the stubs of candles lodged into the grooves. Scraping some off with a fingernail, Mark heaved a heavy sigh.

“I hope that Sicheng returns soon.” “As do we all, little Mark.”

Most nights since his abrupt departure, Mark had prayed for the elder’s return. He understood incredibly well the perils of leaving the cave system and willingly venturing into human territory, having experienced the loss shared by the survivors of generations past. Never before had he even entertained the thought of leaving his home, his family, and seeing what the world had to offer for him, but for the first time, his mind wandered out of the caves and into the sky, beyond the seas and above the mountains.

Perhaps, if he kept his wits about him, Mark would prosper out there, with Sicheng. They would lead the new age of living freely, without fear of those that would brutalise them, and Mark would spend his days soaking in the sunlight and feeling the air against his skin.

His childish fantasies were cut short, however, by Sicheng’s unexpected arrival, bringing with him a commotion unlike any other.

The crowds had formed one morning, and Mark was disturbed from his slumber by a very frantic looking Jaemin. Heading upstairs together, Mark felt him before he could see him in the goosebumps that erupted over his flesh and the chill that sunk into his bones. A hush fell over the entire crowd and fear bloomed in Mark’s chest, forcing him through the throng of people, Renjun and Jaemin pushing through behind him.

Whispers and sobs erupted from around him and tears lined Mark’s eyes without him understanding what they were for. He knew that Sicheng had arrived, he could feel him, but wasn’t this a joyous occasion? Where was the singing and the dancing now that one of their own had returned? Something was horribly wrong and Mark didn’t know whether he wanted to find out what it was.

He burst from the line of people that formed a circle around Sicheng, and his eyes were seeing but his brain wasn’t registering. Bile was rising in his guts, a sickening churning feeling bringing him to his knees and all he could do was stare.

They had stolen his wings.

They had savagely, brutally cut his wings from his body and all that was left was… Nothing. Red, bloody, twisted stumps that protruded from his back in the most gruesome way Mark could ever imagine and he was crying for his brother’s loss.

Wings didn’t grow back, so Sicheng would remain tainted for the rest of his life.

“Brother,” Mark was crying, shuffling forwards on his knees. Sicheng was kneeling too, curled protectively around something that Mark didn’t care enough about to investigate, for he was too concerned about Sicheng himself. “Brother, what have they done to you?”

Sicheng didn’t say anything, his frame shuddering as he heaved a great breath, and it was as if the entire cave stopped breathing as he straightened himself up to reveal-

A girl.

Sicheng was protecting a human girl.

A dead girl, Mark realised with sickening clarity. As if this day couldn’t get much worse, suddenly all he could stare at where the ligature bruises that rounded the girl’s throat, and the awkward angle at which her head was balanced on her body.

Hanged.

Shuffling ever closer, questions exploded into Mark’s head, but he didn’t get any closer before the All-Father’s voice boomed across the expanse of the room.

The crowds parted, but Sicheng remained unmoving, eyes staring at the girl but seeing nothing.

“What is the commotion?” The All-Father asked, arriving in front of Sicheng in one sweeping moving. “Sicheng? My son, you have returned?”

His eyes took in the signs of torture from Sicheng’s back, and the girl, but he reacted only minimally, his mouth thinning slightly. A sharp contrast to Mark’s tears and heaving cries.

“I ask us all to give our son, our brother, respect and dignity. Avert your eyes, and return to your duties.” The crowds of being flooded away as if harshly stung, but Mark resisted the pull of the words in order to come slightly closer and fist his hand in Sicheng’s robes.  “My son,” The All-Father said, his massively imposing form crouching down and holding his hands out to Sicheng. “Come to me.”

Like those were the words he was waiting for, Sicheng’s figure slumped over and fell into the All-Father’s arms, curling into a ball. Mark’s hands slid from Sicheng’s clothing, but Sicheng’s hands never left the girls body, bringing her with him into the All-Father’s embrace.

All Mark could think about was how impossibly small Sicheng suddenly looked.

The day passed by agonisingly slowly, the slowest Mark had ever lived through, and all he could think about was how tightly Sicheng held the girl to his chest when the All-Father brought Sicheng into his arms and carried him out of sight. Mark didn’t understand why she was here, or what she meant to Sicheng, but he knew that she must be incredibly important to be brought here after her death.

He wondered when he would be able to speak to Sicheng.

“How are you doing, Mark?” Renjun asked, his voice hushed as he moved his head closer to Mark in order to communicate quietly without risk of anybody overhearing. “Are you faring well?” “No, but I suppose Sicheng is doing significantly worse than myself.” “I don’t understand any of it,” Jaemin chimed in. “Did you see? His… Wings?” “They violated him,” Mark hissed, anger contorting his face. “They butchered him.” “They did, but anger isn’t the way forward. We must all be here for Sicheng.” Renjun reminded them, his words settling deep into Mark’s bones. “Impossible to be there for him when I have no idea where he is, but I’ll consider your idea.”

The two younger boys fell silent at Mark’s uncharacteristic harshness. Deciding it was for the best that they didn’t say anything for the rest of supper, they merely kept their heads down and let Mark stew.

He didn’t know what to think. Would Sicheng be alright? Would he be able to continue living among them? And who was that girl?

Perhaps it would have been better if Sicheng hadn’t come home.

Sicheng found him later, as Mark was lounging on a scarcely used window seat and staring up at the moon. Most of the cave system had shut down for the night, ensuring that no needless light would escape from the windows - using the term very lightly, considering they were just holes dug into the side of the mountain they lived in. They didn’t even have any glass panes, not like the pictures Mark had seen in the books informing his kind of human settlements.

So he liked picture books. He was an adult, he could like whatever he wanted, no matter what Sicheng’s raised eyebrow was telling him.

“Mark,” Sicheng said, and Mark startled slightly. Before he had left, Mark was becoming adept at feeling when the air in the room had changed slightly, signalling the arrival of his elder. Perhaps he was just out of practice; or, Sicheng was lacking a certain warmth that used to attract Mark like a moth to the distant moon he was still staring at. “I’m home.” “You are.” “I have a lot to tell you about my travels.”

His tone of voice was brittle, weak, and Mark was terrified that he was going to hear it crack. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know this Sicheng.

“I’m sure that you do,” Mark said, heaving a great sigh and hoping that Sicheng wouldn’t see the tears lining his eyes. “Maybe tomorrow?” “Mark-” “Brother, I don’t know what to do.” “What do you mean?” “I- I don’t know how to address it. What do I say to you?” “About… My wings? The All-Father said that I’m to stay with my people, no matter what wounds I carry. It was a learning experience, for myself and others.” “Brother, that’s not what I meant.”

Sicheng was silent, and Mark risked a peek at his face, finding that Sicheng’s previously soft features had melted into stone.

“There’s nothing else.” “The girl-” “There’s nothing to discuss.” “Brother, you can’t keep it all in-” “MARK!” Sicheng exploded, and a deep fear settled into Mark’s bones.

Sicheng never raised his voice.

Mark didn’t know this Sicheng.

“There’s nothing. Nothing to talk about.” Normally, Mark would submit to his elder’s wishes and obey him without question, but not today; not after what he saw. He was afraid it’d be an image that would plague his nightmares for years to come.

It was too absurd a situation for him to ignore it.

“I’m your friend,” Mark said softly, turning back to stare at the moon. “Friends’ trust each other, right?” “I- I’m not ready. Not tonight.” Sicheng was whispering, and out of Mark’s peripheral vision he could see that he was drawing in on himself, his posture weakening and his shoulders curling inwards. He’d never seen anybody more defeated. “Not now.” “Okay, brother,” Mark patted the empty spot next to him and Sicheng was slow to take it.

Mark could help but notice that his gait was slightly off, not being used to the missing weight that used to balance him. Mark couldn’t imagine what it was like, having his wings torn from him. His whole skeleton hurt at the mere thought.

“Then I won’t press it. Just know, however, that I’m always here for you, should you need me to be. I’m right by your side.”

Sicheng sighed deeply, and Mark couldn’t help but stare at him. He looked older now, but simultaneously less sure of himself, and Mark was frightened. He’d always considered Sicheng to be a guiding force during any kind of trying time, being readily available to Mark if he had any kind of difficulties, but Mark was having trouble extending the same notion to the elder. Whether Sicheng even considered Mark to be a close friend was a different story, but Mark hoped that he could offer some guidance.

“She really loved the moon.” “She did?” “Yes. She said that it made her feel so small, and yet so free.” “She sounds like a wise person.” “She is,” Sicheng said, the ghost of a smile quirking up one side of his lips before it fell heavily. Mark’s heart shattered. “She was.”

Mark didn’t know what to say that would help Sicheng regain some of who he used to be, but he supposed that whatever it was that Mark loved so much had died alongside the girl Sicheng was clutching onto. He’d just have to adjust to life with this new, quieter and much more damaged version of Sicheng.

He shuffled slightly on the stone seat, his wings fluttering behind him and Mark sighed. It was up to him now, to make Sicheng feel better. Whilst he was brimming with curiosity, he knew that it was respectful to maintain a distance from the subject, but suddenly the girl was all he could think of. Shaking his head slightly, he glanced over at the elder who still had his eyes glued to the moon far above them.

He supposed there was much to be said about the moonlight they bathed in, and how it both made Sicheng’s sorrow jump out at Mark whilst simultaneously smoothing his face of any sadness and despair.

Mark had always preferred the sun, himself.

[eponymous-rose]

Fic: Changebringer [Mollymauk | T | 2400 words]

[FFN | AO3 | Campaign Two Stories | Campaign One Stories]

The past is a tyrant. Mollymauk Tealeaf, the fates, and change.

Changebringer

Luck favors the bold.

- First Commandment of Avandra

"It's New Dawn the day after tomorrow, is the thing," Gustav says, beaming a smile that's just a little too for-show, just a little too bright around the edges. He hasn't stopped talking since he and Molly started working three hours ago, which hasn't exactly come as a surprise. Gustav is the sort of man who fears silence the way cows fear going down a set of stairs: it's so fundamentally alien to his nature that getting into it means he'll likely never find his way out. "You know that much, surely."

Molly shugs and smiles, leaning on the signpost he's just hammered into the ground and shaking out his freshly blistered hands. Never worked a day in his life, technically, and now here he is playing 24-hour man with Gustav, plastering the roadside ahead of the carnival with signs promising the show of a lifetime. There's bound to be a couple of aches and pains.

"What do you think about papering the house?" Gustav isn't actually waiting for a response, but he pauses, politely, before launching back into his spiel. "Give away enough free seats to fill the house on night one, might be able to get some interest going on night two. Anyway, I doubt we'll pick up that much business straight away. Hasn't been much entertainment in these parts. People will be wary, I think, rather than excited, though I suppose it's always hard to tell which way it's going to swing."

Molly narrows his eyes, scrunching up his face. It takes Gustav a second, but once the penny drops, he laughs. "You're saying they might be suspicious? Yeah, that's a fair assessment. Someone shows up offering you something for nothing, you take a second look. Still, I'm thinking we seem harmless enough that nobody's going to be looking too hard. These folk are nothing if not good at making assumptions about people, so we'll just make sure we come across as simple, frivolous, fun-loving people. Which is, mind you, broadly accurate."

Stretching out the aches in his back with a yawn, Molly bends and scoops up the rest of the signposts, cocking an eyebrow at Gustav. "Yeah, two or three more down this way," Gustav says. "I'll show you the kinds of spots where the crownsguard won't notice soon enough to tear 'em down. You'll be able to do this yourself next time." He squints at Molly. "Hey, you get more ink since last week? I run a job for five days and everything changes."

Craning his neck, Molly shows off the peacock, the green even more vivid against the still-reddened edges of his lavender skin. It's one of the rare tattoos he's had that's actually going to look less impressive the longer he has it. Gustav whistles, soft and low. "Great work, that one. Mona introduce you to her artist? Lovely, lovely." He stops in his tracks. "What were we talking about? Oh! Yes, New Dawn. The Changebringer. You heard of her?"

Molly has, but he's found that not knowing things tends to lead to infinitely more interesting conversations than the alternative, so he shakes his head.

"Not an approved deity, mind you, but I've found that this close to the edge of the Empire people tend to be a little more relaxed. New Dawn's her holy day. Change and rebirth and the open road. People mostly just treat it as an excuse to get hammered, and enough of the locals are not-so-locals that they remember some of the old prayers and such. Good business for a traveling band of folks wanting to make some honest coin." He winks. "And we'll do pretty well, too."

Molly's been giving it some thought, actually. So far he's been operating on the principle of leaning into what feels right, but gods are, well. A lot. But there's something appealing about the paradox embedded in the notion of a changeless, immortal divine being dedicated to the concept of change. Doesn't make much sense at all, which feels right in a way that makes his heart race with excitement.

Experimentally, when Gustav has his back turned to resume monologuing, Molly glances up at the sky and sketches a quick bow. The flashy moment lingers a little longer than he'd expected, and he catches himself staring down at the dirt, at the tiny grains pounded by hundreds of feet and hooves and wheels into a path, a road, a thoroughfare formed by a communal desire to be elsewhere, to be in transition, to be transforming. After a moment's hesitation, he nudges off his ill-fitting boots and stands with the chill of the dirt soaking into the bottoms of his feet.

And then he laughs, loud and long and hoarse, and sprints past a bewildered Gustav down the wide-open roadway, moving forward, forward, forward.

Rise against tyranny.

- Second Commandment of Avandra

Molly's mouth is dry, his voice hoarse from yelling in Infernal. He's also got a weird pain in his back from sleeping wrong on his bedroll the night before, and, well, he's got a sword in his shoulder, which isn't exactly what he was going for when he woke up this morning, but he's aware that it's now a thing that he's going to have to deal with at some point.

The bandit who'd owned the sword is long-dead, Yasha having considerately separated his head from his body, but the battle's become frenzied enough that Molly's not sure he'll be able to snag any friendly attention without simultaneously broadcasting his position to someone who might be inclined to add another sharp, pointy object to his collection.

So he slumps back against a tree stump, dropping his own swords to get a more careful grip on the hilt of the blade, holding it steady as he sits down heavily in the grass and waits for the battle to turn one way or the other.

It's a new experience, bleeding this badly, being in this much pain. He keeps trying and failing to focus his eyes, which makes him think about the way his heart is slamming into his ribs, which makes him think about the throbbing in his shoulder, which makes it hard to focus again. This is new to him, absolutely and unambiguously not an experience he has had before, but he also knows that the person he's not, the one who lurks deep in his bones, knows this kind of pain all too well. He's breathing slowly and carefully in such a deliberate way that it had to have been learned somewhere.

His arms get a little tired holding up the sword, so he tries letting them slump to his sides, which makes the sword shift, which makes him draw in a muted hiss of breath that almost throws his rhythm off altogether. But he slips slowly, inevitably, back into the metronomic, almost hypnotic pace of breathing, in and out, in and out.

"Hey," Yasha says, staring down at him. Time must have passed, because she wasn't standing there before, and Ornna certainly wasn't crouched at his side, and, hey, no more sword, many more bloodied bandages, all good things.

"Hey yourself," he says, dreamily. "They gone? We win? That's nice."

Yasha blinks, looking nonplussed, then hesitates, as if searching for words. "You're pretty tough," she says, finally. "Looked like it hurt a lot. You didn't even yell when they pulled it out, but you were still mostly conscious for that part, I think."

He shifts, turning to meet Ornna's furrowed-brow scowl. "What did they want?"

She shrugs. "By the sorry state of their coinpurses, probably gold. Maybe some of the silks we picked up last stop. Maybe our tents. Maybe our horses. Assholes like that always feel owed the things they don't have." She sees the next question in his eyes and the hard lines of her face soften. "Nobody hurt, aside from you. Nothing serious, anyway." Apparently done with her quota for kindness for the day, she swats him on the bad shoulder, making him yelp, and walks off.

Yasha is watching him still, looming like a particularly stoic monolith. There's blood on her face that she hasn't bothered cleaning off, though her damp cloak has obviously just been scrubbed clean. "You fought really well, like you'd done it before. Scooped up those swords and just-" She motions with her hands. "-really went at it. You know?"

"Beginner's luck." Mollymauk winks. "Give me a minute to get used to not bleeding to death and I'll tell you all about how I learned that."

She snorts. "You mean, give you enough time to make up a story to fool me with." But he's pretty sure that's a smile cracking the solid wall of her face.

Unlike Gustav, Yasha appreciates the value of a good silence, so Molly lets himself fade out a bit, listening to the quiet murmur of voices, smelling the sharp tang of blood in the air, while Yasha just stands, watching him, like she's trying to make up her mind about something.

He snaps back to himself when she finally crouches down. Granted, she's still looming, but he appreciates that she's making the effort. "A friend of mine used to call the past a tyrant," she says, slowly, like she's testing each word. "That it rules cruelly when it doesn't even have the right."

Molly thinks of a half-dozen glib responses and swallows them all. "I think your friend and I would have got on well."

Yasha hesitates, then drops a heavy hand onto the top of his head, between his horns. She looks panicked for a moment, like she hadn't thought this far ahead, then clumsily ruffles his hair. "Keep the swords on the outside of you from now on," she says. "Just a suggestion."

Dazed, he watches her push to her feet and walk away.

Change is inevitable.

- Third Commandment of Avandra

Lying flat on his back some distance from the campsite, Molly cuts his deck of cards with one hand and traces new constellations in the sky with the other.

It's a habit he's been cultivating, reminiscent of children seeing familiar shapes in clouds: this little triad of stars is a stone, clearly, and the larger cluster that sprays from it is a gush of water meeting its unyielding surface. Probably deeply symbolic of standing fast in the face of overwhelming odds. Deeply symbolic of something, anyway. These things always are.

Jester, perched on a log beside him, is sketching something in her notebook, squinting to make out color in the flickering firelight, but the sounds of her scribblings are more careful and deliberate than usual, and he can feel her eyes on him. He blinks, then props himself up with one elbow, smiling. "Are you sketching me?"

"No," she says, "I'm on watch with you and doing a very good job of it and definitely not getting distracted. Definitely." She narrows her eyes. "Stop moving around."

Obediently, Molly drops back and stares at the sky again. The fog of his own breath in the cool night air is making it hard to pick out individual stars, so he has to imagine pinpricks of light in the spaces he's missing. "I wonder what it's like out there."

Jester pauses. "What, up in the stars, you mean? My momma used to tell me the night was a big blanket, but someone knew we were scared of the dark and poked some holes to let the light in."

Molly smiles, drawing back to shuffle his deck with both hands. "Thus the great theological quandary: who poked the holes?"

"I think it's different for everyone," Jester declares. "We all see the stars a little bit differently, probably. For me, it was definitely the Traveler."

"That's a nice thought," Molly says, and waits for her scribblings to slow again before sitting up. "All right, I've waited long enough. Let me see."

She grins, not a hint of shyness about her, and hands over her journal.

He was expecting something silly or obscene or both at the same time, and while there are admittedly a series of surprisingly lifelike dicks scribbled in one corner, the main subject of the painting is untouched by anything objectionable.

The figure on the page is prone, reaching up to the stars with one hand, but eclipsing even the vastness of the stellar landscape is the peacock tattoo. It runs from the side of the tiefling's face, down the shoulder, and bleeds into the earth behind and beneath, stretching outward in vivid greens and red-eyed circles that anchor the figure to the earth, with long, colorful feathers sprouting from the dirt all around like cattails.

"That's lovely, Jester," he says, softly, and hands it back to her.

"I think it's such a nice tattoo, I wanted to make it as big as your personality!" Jester frowns. "Don't you like it?"

Something of the chill down Molly's spine must have shown on his face, but he shakes it off, beaming wide. "Like it? I think it's genius. A fabulous work of art. We'll have to look for a place in town to see about converting it to a fully fledged mural or tapestry of some sort."

Jester's eyes go wide. "A tapestry? Do you think they'd do that?"

He makes a show of considering the painting. "Absolutely. Make sure they include the dicks, though. That's a vital part of the artistic oeuvre."

That sparks a genuine laugh from her. "Anyway, I think the Traveler liked it." She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. "He thinks you're weird."

Molly blinks. "He thinks I'm weird?"

"I know, right?" She winks at him, then stretches, pushes to her feet, and starts meandering in her usual first-watch circuit around the edge of the camp.

Molly stays where he is for a while longer, trying to recapture the complexity of the constellations in his mind, but all that comes to view now in the spray of stars is a set of parallel lines: long, thin feathers in the sky, planted firmly and immovably into the blackness of the void behind them, the unblinking red eyes of his tattoos drawing him down and down and down into the uncaring earth.

Rubbing some warmth back into his arms, he stands, casting an unsettled glance at the camp behind him, and stares out into the deep, dark woods, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

[hawkeyebabe]

Petrol Soaked Papers, Chp. 2

Me 6 weeks ago: “Hey guys! Can’t wait to post a chapter every week!” Proceeds to move cross-country, plummet into a whirlpool of a quarter-life crisis (the third one in four years), and experience a bitch-slap from this whore called Life.

I’m sorry guys...I’ve been rather inactive. I even had all of this written long ago, I just didn’t have the energy to post it. I hope it’s mildly worth the wait -- it’s extra long, at least <3

Chapter Two: A Fight Worth Losing Previous Chapter AO3

Though she expected a struggle, waking at 0400 to meet General Mustang at 0435 was rather easy. Unable to sleep well the night prior, a racing mind battling with an overactive dreamstate, she’d found herself entirely awake by 0335 and spent the freetime reading over hot tea, the mug allowing the drifting wafts of steam to warm her tired face.

She once fantasized that the dreams would lessen after giving back to Ishval, and after earning the people’s trust. The night terror that had accompanied her that first sleep however, the memories more vivid than they had ever been before, forcing her awake with such violence as she felt phantom blood coating her shaking hands and her turmoil so fresh it manifested itself in the form of a sheet of sweat --- she realized that that had been a child’s wish.

She kept her belongings -- just a few pairs of clothes and toiletries -- in a small briefcase and shut the door behind her, stepping out into the desert night. She, Falman, and Mustang were the only constant Amestrans in Ishval, and their quarters were practically across the dirt path from one another. Scar, who acted as the Ishvalan Grand Cleric, wished to live among his people in the neighborhoods. A few empty shacks which were used for visitors or temporarily stationed officers sat gathering dust. Since the Trials, the following peace demanded only the three of them and the empty shacks welcomed nobody.

To her surprise, and impressment, Mustang was stood as a dark shadow outside her door. She’d convinced herself that her fist would be knocking on his door, for since she had known the man, departing his bed before the sun rose was a task he never quite mastered.

“Hey,” he said with a tired smile. She noticed the buttons of his long-sleeved shirt were one off-center, leaving an inch of material hanging clumsily at the bottom.

“Hi, General.”

“Wow…” He blinked away the sleepiness in his eyes and leaned forward several inches.

She stared back at him.

“What is it?”

“Your hair!” he almost exclaimed, truly surprised. “It’s gotten so long.”

With eyebrows perched upwards, Riza lifted a hand. So exhausted from the lack of sleep, she’d entirely forgotten to do anything with it. Actually, she then realized, she hadn’t even bothered looking at it, and she suddenly felt somewhat self-conscious that it was standing on end or tangled into knots. She stopped herself from toying with it.

“It’s nice,” he said casually, easing her worries, as he motioned his head over his shoulder to suggest they begin walking.

“Thank you, sir. Actually, I’d just noticed its length the other day myself.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it down for awhile. We’re always in uniform.”

Yes, they were. It seemed as though they lived in them, actually. Twelve hour workdays were common, and seeing one another outside of work hours was rare when work hours constituted an entire day.

Being in civilian clothes, as they were then, was a pleasant thing. Black slacks and a tan blouse, though simple, was the most comfortable thing she’d worn in what could have been a lifetime.

“Yours is getting a little long too, sir,” Riza teased dryly, her eyes roaming over his unkempt head. “You may want to consider a barber.”

“Don’t you think I should grow it out like yours?”

This earned him a genuine smile.

“I really do not, no.”

“Alright. Seeing as we’ll be in Central, I suppose it isn’t the worst idea. God knows there’s nowhere for me to get it done when we come back here.”

“I bet Kira would do it if you asked nicely.”

“Aroe’s five year old?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope you find yourself funny, Captain.”

Her teeth showed in a silent smile. He looked over at her, his eyes taking in the grin.

“Oh,” he pronounced. “Good. You do find yourself funny.”

“Only sometimes,” she assured him. A kinyee chattered in the distance, and its pack answered a moment later. “How do you think Vato will find having this place to himself?” she asked as their boots scraped across the road. Mustang chuckled.

“He’s never been given much opportunity to run anything himself. I think he’ll like it. Maybe it’ll get him to test for 1st lieutenant when January rolls around.”

“I doubt it,” said Riza fondly. “He’s never found much interest in rank. Just as long as he’s contributing, which he’s done enough of already, he’s satisfied. At least, that’s my theory. Power isn’t his supplier.”

“Well,” he looked down at her and gave her wink, which she ignored to notice how it seemed to warm her fingertips. “He is alone in that.”

They came upon the general’s car and drove to the station in the neighboring town of Khao. Ishval itself didn’t have a train depot, though that was another object of affection they’d been vying for.

“By the way, General,” Riza said, turning her head over her shoulder as she climbed up the steps onto the train. “You may want to re-button your shirt.”

His head jerked downwards, then returned to her with equal speed.

“How long has it been like that?” he yelled, though the cry was barely heard over the sound of the whistling engine.

“Well, probably since you put the shirt on, sir.”

“Damn you, Hawkeye. You could have told me in the car.”

“Honestly sir, I forgot. I figured now was a good time as any.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

The journey from Khao to Central Station was one of five hours. After failing to hypothesize the reason for the council, Riza and her general soon fell into a mutual tired silence and Riza’s eyes became heavy. She fought it for some time, but the car was warm and General Mustang was quiet in thought as he stared out the window, the glass framed in condensation. The image was a peaceful one. For so long, she had been surrounded by tension in the form of every figure she passed, every step she took, every grain of sand that blasted into her cheeks. Every anxiety, every day. Sitting there silently as the train rolled through the countryside, the autumn air stopped by the glass and mirrored by warmness inside, Riza felt, not lightly to say, comfortable.

It didn’t take long for her to surrender into a relaxed sleep.

“Captain…” he said gently. It failed to wake her, and he found he truly did not wish to. He placed his palm on her shoulder. “Captain, we’re here.”

Finally, her eyes peeled open, and she seemed to register his presence. Awareness filled her features.

“Oh, sorry, General,” she said quietly as she sat herself up.

“You must have been pretty tired.”

“Weren’t you?” she asked as she stood and gathered her briefcase. She followed him out of the car.

“I was.”

“But you don’t regularly have the capacity to sleep on trains,” she said behind him.

It wasn’t a question or an accusation, but only a statement. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling to himself as he stepped off onto the platform, greeted by the natural sunlight streaming through the many open windows and the exposed roof of the station. Birds flew around overhead, transferring from one steel beam to the next.

“That’s right,” he answered, though she couldn’t hear him over the bustle of the crowds, people flowing off the trains and wading towards the exit like a herd.

Central Station was near to Central headquarters, and they found themselves inside the building with 25 minutes to spare to change into uniform and give a quick hello to Lieutenant Havoc.

“Well, come by afterwords and let’s grab lunch or something!” Havoc said as they turned to leave. Roy, without looking back, lifted a thumbs up into the air.

“Will do, Jean.”

The council was scheduled to begin in ten minutes in a conference area on the second floor. Neither of them felt privy to being late, so they agreed to arrive early and await the remaining seat holders. After all, they wished to make a positive impression. Should this pertain to Ishval, many Amestrians, molded by prejudice, needed a progressive nurture. Roy opened the door for them both and he followed Hawkeye into the room.

Eight men sat waiting, each looking up at the arriving officers in unison like their heads were connected by string. Confusion was quick to find he and Hawkeye both, though she did not display it like he surely did.

“Oh,” said Mustang quickly. “My apologies, sirs, we were told to arrive at 1100…”

“That’s correct, General Mustang,” said General Fillbin at the head of the table. “Don’t worry, you’re not late.”

A familiar face shined like a light, and Roy’s eyes landed on Fuhrer Grumman. The Fuhrer, to only deepen Roy’s state of confusion and rising suspicion, looked troubled.

“But,” continued Fillbin. “We’ll actually only be needing you for this council, General, so please take a seat.”

Fillbin looked at Hawkeye and gave her a smile that seemed almost patronizing, though innocent enough, and something not too foreign lit up in the center of Roy’s chest. Not being one to follow the orders of any man but one, Roy saw her turn her head to look at him, confused, but awaiting his word regardless. Roy did not meet her eye, and only stared at the three star general.

“My captain was summoned as I was, General Fillban.”

“I understand that, but she will not be needed for this discussion.”

Finally, Roy looked down at her. It seemed as though the decision was made; perhaps there had been a mistake or a change of plans, and there was no way to notify them on short notice. Perhaps it was something else. Accepting this, Roy nodded to her. Her boots clicked as she snapped to attention, offered a salute to the board, and turned on her heels to leave. The door shut behind her, and he moved to sit.

“How was the train ride, General Mustang?” asked another officer, a major general named Foy Bakers. This was a kind man, one of stature and smiles. Roy always liked him as a person, though his non-confrontational demeanor was not well suited for his position. Still, Roy felt more at ease as he lowered himself in the chair beside him.

“It was very smooth, thank you, General Bakers.”

Roy flicked his eyes to Grumman’s again, but they were on the officer who sat across from Roy. He dared a glance before giving his attention back to Fillban. It was a man he did not know.

“Mustang,” said Fillban. “I’ve called this council for a very, very important reason. We’re having some...obstacles, in Roxwell Post.”

“Roxwell Post? That small town in the West?”

“That’s right.”

“Alright...what kind of obstacles?”

“There is a pastoral nomadic group out there, wandering and herding cattle, hunting in the forests. Creating a lifestyle, a small community.”

“Yes?” he prodded, agitation beginning to creep into his knuckles.

“Well, there is something very disconcerting about them, and who they are.”

Something was perplexing about this council. Had they summoned him from his incredibly important post in Ishval for this? For a group of wanderers?

“Yes, General Fillban?” he pressed. Could this conglomerate collection of decorated generals not handle this without him? Anger began to simmer, and he suppressed his still fresh agitation at the dismissal of his adjutant so as to remain

Fillban, unaware of his fumings, continued.

“We’ve received intel that a group of Drachma spies have infiltrated this group, and are possibly grooming them for an attack on West City.”

Roy’s spiting monologue halted, and his mouth parted as he prepared, and failed, to say something. He leaned back in his chair and blinked away the surprise.

“Uh...okay.” He glanced around at the faces sat round the table. “Does everyone know of this? Am I alone in just learning this information?”

“General Mustang,” Fillban said soothingly, an attempt to calm Roy before answering. “This wasn’t of your concern until we learned of new details only two days ago. And unfortunately...this is of your concern now.”

“Well,” Roy laughed without a trace of humor, “dammit, Fillban, fill me in here because I am quite obviously missing some key point, as a couple of gullible shepherds is hardly my goddamn specific concern considering I have other very important things going on right now. Don’t you have some other general putzing around here that needs something to do? Because I assure you, that man is not me.”

Roy was leaned entirely forward, his elbows square against the wooden table as he locked eyes with the general at the head of it. The absence of his captain was a blessing, suddenly, for if she heard him speak to a superior officer in such a manner she would have berated him for hours.

“Roy,” pushed Fillban sympathetically, matching his lean forward with a slow shake of his head. “The pastoral nomads are Ishvalan.”

Quite suddenly, Roy forgot anything he’d been thinking. Hot breath stuck in his throat like a rock, his annoyance blown out like a candle.

Ishvalan? That simple detail suddenly changed everything, and his place in the meeting became entirely apparent.

“We’re not completely certain why there’s a small community of Ishvalans all the way out in the West,” continued Fillban. “But we believe it’s possible they were refugees who escaped during the war, traveled as far as they could, and found a way of life in the pastures. The Drachma…”

Fillban sighed deeply and put his hand up to his forehead, his eyes glancing down at the wood.

“It’s only intel, but it is trustworthy. Their intentions, their methods, their entire mission is a mystery to us. However…” The look he gave Roy was a serious one, and Roy finally saw a general who seemed almost as exhausted as he was himself. “These Ishvalans, living in seclusion, avoiding the public eye, may not be aware of a great deal of things, including the Promised Day or the current efforts to rebuild their land. And the Drachma clearly have no allies within our border. Befriending these people for the purpose of a mutual attack is not something I would disconsider.”

Roy’s mouth was fully open, his chest still and his body even moreso. Images spat at him like a loaded slingshot, pictures of what he one day prayed to see: Ishvalans having families, growing their population, temples being erected in every major city so the people were free to express their faith in any place of the country, watching dark skinned people with red eyes shopping in markets and smiling with their children, letting them pick out candies or fruits and shaking the hands of the Amestrian vendors...he prayed for a time when one day, Ishvalans not only trusted the rest of Amestris, but the rest of Amestris disposed of their prejudice and trusted Ishvalans.

The words that had come from General Fillban’s mouth put all of those hopes into jeopardy.

He thought of how this news would so greatly disappoint his captain.

“Before you fret too much, General, we have begun preparing a team to deploy and intercept the Ishvalan nomads, in hopes of severing their ties and arresting the spies.”

Roy cleared his throat and gathered himself.

“Good. I’m certain if I spoke with the diplomats in Ishval, one of them would be happy to accompany. Having one of their own support our claims would prove monumental.”

“We’ve already employed an Ishvalan Shi’eq, actually. His name is Imam Klayton.” Fillban took a moment before adding, “But I’m glad you mutually understand why he is on this very important team.”

“Of course I would,” Roy countered, his head tilting. The comment seemed out of place. “Why wouldn’t I? In fact, a Shi’eq is the best possible person to send. A religious leader is more prone to trust and immune to lies, in the eyes of the Ishvalans. With luck, they will believe him. Who else is apart of this team? I intend on speaking with them before they leave, and I’d like their names and serial numbers.” This, he realized, was of absolute, paramount importance. He and Hawkeye would spend the night researching these people, reading any transgressions, studying references, and preparing lectures on what and what not to say to the Ishvalan nomads once they made contact.

“Of course,” indulged Fillban. “Leading the squad will be,” he motioned to the man sitting across Roy, “First General Joshuayne Boswick.”

Without moving his head, Roy glanced over at the man and gave him a nod.

“As I previously mentioned, Shi’eq Imam Klayton, a first lieutenant named Chile Spellman, a major named Borin Temstral, and,” he seemed to take the smallest precautionary sigh, “Captain Riza Hawkeye.”

A beat passed, then Roy’s head jerked backwards as if he were physically struck.

“Excuse me?”

“I understand her adjuncy is of importance to you, but her skills are well suited for---”

“No, absolutely not. I’m sorry gentlemen,” he lifted a hand to the man across from him, “General Boswick, but she is not available for commission. She stays in Ishval with me.”

“General,” reasoned Fillban. “It’s been decided by the council. All of these people were specifically chosen for this mission.”

“I do not give a damn, find another marksman.”

This caused the eyebrows of Fillban to shoot up to his hairline.

“If I may say, General Mustang…” said a new voice. Roy slowly turned his head to look at the unknown man, Boswick, across from him.

“Your captain can be a turning point for this mission. Although true her skills as a marksman and soldier may prove invaluable should we cross paths with the Drachma, it’s her relationship with Ishval that’s really selling. Her, in combination with the Shi’eq, could sway these people in a matter of minutes.”

Logically, Roy could not contest this.

However, it wasn’t logic that was making his stomach churn. He could not quite place what was; perhaps it was his anger, unbidden, and unmistakable.

“I’m sorry…” Roy pronounced without a hint of apology, his voice a staccato. “Was it decided, without my input, that a critical component of my Ishvalan efforts would be stripped of me? Is that what I am gathering? That you decided to put Riza Hawkeye on your list without even consulting me? Her direct superior?”

“We only just learned that these nomads were Ishvalan the other day, General,” cautioned Fillban, his hand moving as he spoke. The lines on his face were deep. “We only just contacted Imam last night.”

“You reassigned her without telling me, General Fillban, and that is a direct violation of our chain of command.”

“Actually,” started Boswick. Something about the man made Roy clench his jaw repeatedly, and he chomped down on his teeth as he looked back at him once more. “In times of crises, should the decision be time sensitive and/or critical to human life, chain of command may be overruled when agreed upon by a council.”

Boswick looked at the other men, at Fillban, Bakers, and the ever silent fuhrer, before returning his gaze to Roy.

“And this council agreed on the reassignment.”

“I understand your resistance, General Mustang,” Fillban interjected carefully. “But know that the decision did not come lightly. And what’s done is done.”

Roy pulled his lips into a tight line, his chest threatening to implode.

“And when does this squadron deploy?”

“Before the sun sets tonight.”

The churning inside his stomach was nearing a whirlpool of madness, and it took every ounce of restraint not to scoff in the faces of these very high ranked men.

“The summon you sent me said to pack for several days?”

“That was for your captain. Although, her absence will surely be longer than that allotted time. I’m sorry, we couldn’t elaborate in writing.”

“Fantastic.”

“She’s to report to the armory by seven.”

To this, Roy said nothing.

“I expect you will wish to debrief her?”

He suffocated his rage in order to answer flatly,

“I do.”

Fillban offered him a weak smile, then glanced around the table.

“Well, gentlemen. This meeting is adjourned.”

Chairs scraped as they were pushed outwards, and several pairs of boots thumped against the wooden flooring. Baker’s sympathetic hand squeezed Roy’s shoulder before he, too, vacated the area. Soon the room was empty, save for he and the highest ranking official in the country, both sitting in a mutual silence, both knowing the following conversation that was about to take place.

“You let this happen?” asked Roy finally, his arms crossed tightly against his chest as he found the nerve to finally look at Grumman. “You allowed this to happen?”

“Roy,” began Grumman lowly. “I know you are distressed. But you cannot refute the reasoning.”

“I have a phone, dammit,” Roy spat back at him. “There’s a working telephone in my hut of an office. Did no one have the sense to call me?”

“My boy, you ought to know better than anyone that telephone lines cannot be trusted. What if the militants knew we were coming?”

“I can’t believe this decision was made like this,” Roy fumed, not bothering to answer. “Beneath a layer of dirt and over my head. ”

“You speak with your heart, and not your brain, Roy. There’s no crookedness going on here, there’s no corruption to be overthrown. This is an unfortunate, but necessary, thing to be done.”

Roy’s lip twitched as he inhaled sharply.

“It hasn’t even been a year,” his fist slammed onto the table, “Grumman. Not even one single damned year, and the trials just finished three weeks ago! She deserves a break, not some shitshow that could put her right back in danger!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Grumman whispered back harshly. “I am fully aware that both you and your captain have put your necks out far too many times, but this is, by every definition, a crisis. Imagine what would happen if the Drachma got into those Ishvalan heads. If the people in the West saw Ishvalans raging in with torches and bombs, right alongside the country’s oldest enemy, killing people in revenge of a war we’ve been trying to repent for...everything you and your captain have done in Ishval would be in ruins.” His voice suddenly became remarkably calm. “It would be for nothing.”

“She isn’t just my captain, Fuhrer Grumman,” he snapped back, not bothering to let his voice quiet. “She’s your granddaughter.”

Grumman stood and shook his head woefully, tucking in his chair and pulling his hands behind his back.

“I was never in her life. I don’t have the privilege of calling her that. She is a skilled soldier, and has a well earned place on this squadron.” Finishing himself of the conversation, he walked around the edge of the table to leave. “I have learned to relinquish my love, though it will always be there, for the betterment of my country. It is time you do the same.”

Taken aback, Roy said nothing as Grumman walked past him and out the door, leaving him alone to listen to the sound of the distant birds outside the french-lined windows.

He whispered a curse to himself as he sat there, hands folded together and eyes lasering into the wood. Finally, he stood and opened the door himself, stepping out to see his captain standing dutifully beside it

On her face, though, was worry.

“Is everything alright, Col--uh, General?”

She hadn’t made that slip in some time. Though, he thought, she probably had taken count of the faces in the room when she was inside before, and had probably taken count of their exit, except for his. It was apparent that she knew something was peculiar, and, he thought with a drop of his heart, his old rank was said many times in many terrible situations. It was only natural to utter it now.

“Walk with me, Hawkeye.”

Mustang longed for his old office, where he could lead them inside, shut the door, and speak with her openly. Where he could be familiar with her in a familiar space.

Though, their old office was occupied by someone else now, the desks filled by strangers and the carpet gaited by no one of his team. They had been there for years, he and his men. And it almost saddened him to know they would never go back.

It was by good fortune that Jean Havoc knew of a colonel who’d left for the week, off on holiday with his wife. It was in that office that Roy told Hawkeye of the council’s content.

Silence passed between them when the words left his lips, though not a silence in shock or uncomfortableness or anything unsavory. She was thinking, absorbing the information presented to her.

“Well,” she finally said slowly. “I’ll be sure to get those Ishvalans back to their people, sir. As soon as I can.”

To this, Roy sighed deeply and hung his head. This was typical of her, to never compromise the soldier she’d been committed to being.

“General,” she implored. He lifted his head to watch her eyes search his. “It will be alright. We both know Imam, he’s a good man and very personable. If he’s with us, I have no concern about turning the nomads away from the Drachma.”

“Hawkeye,” he said with exasperation. “I---” He stopped, unable to finish.

She stared at him attentively, leaning forward in her chair with all symptoms of her earlier tiredness entirely gone. It was quite obvious his stress was not translating for her. He swallowed and shook his head, letting air push out from his nose as witness to his still seething thoughts.

“How am I supposed to run Ishval without you?” he asked, a change of direction.

“Like any day, General. Falman is there right now without both of us, I think you can manage.”

“You’re an equal part of this campaign. Your deficit will be a tremendous loss.”

She tilted her head and gave him a knowing smirk.

“You’re being a little dramatic, General. You and Vato are more than capable without me breathing down your necks. Maybe you’ll even like the break.”

A hand lifted to his face, a thumb pushing into his lip, as his eyes turned away in a shake of his head. Her prediction was entirely untrue, the coiling of his insides testimony to that. The rolling uncertainty was speaking to him in a different tongue, ailing him for reasons he couldn’t be sure of -- until the ailing gave him sense of only one thing. A childish thing. There was a soft thud as his hand dropped back onto the desk and he looked at her with intensity.

“I don’t want you to go,” he admitted harshly.

The silence that followed was a little different than the one before, and he was sure the acuteness in her eyes was in response to his own.

Something about her demeanor changed. Her shoulders loosened so they sat heavy, like weights on her body. A melancholy teased the dull crows feet at her eyes. The person who sat across from him was no longer his adjutant, but his friend that he’d known for so very long.

“Well I don’t particularly want to go,” she admitted herself. “But knowing what we know now, that those people whom we have vowed to protect need our help and guidance...there’s no way I can’t go. Even if I had the option not to, I would still go. It’s because of us that they were displaced from their homes in the first place.”

The tempest at the walls of his stomach stilled, and was replaced instead with a drifting kind of acceptance. She was right, and a swirl of pride blended jaggedly with the negativity.

“Well who the hell is supposed to watch my back?” he asked. Who the hell is going to watch yours? he wanted to say.

She lifted a shoulder in a sort of shrug.

“Jean seems a little bored over here.”

Roy smiled for a brief moment before it fell.

The truth was undeniable; he couldn’t bear to be separated from her. Having her in a different part of the country would be to rip him in half with a pair of scorching tongs. For witnessing her near death had been his purest torture, and it had nearly destroyed him, and since then...well, he thought, he hadn’t quite recognized it until now, but he wanted her within his sight every moment of every day. It was a sick thing, and selfish. Beyond inappropriate within light to their professional dynamic. And, he reminded himself, the woman didn’t need him to stay safe. After all, he couldn’t keep her safe that day.

Yet still, letting her go made him nauseous.

His heart nearly broke the walls of his chest as it thudded at the sudden contact of her hand over his. His fears quelled as he looked at her with alarm. The gesture was almost intimate, and entirely uncommon for her. Her skin on his was almost painful in the way that it ached.

“When I come back,” she started softly. “You had better be in one piece.”

His thumb twitched, asking him permission to brush over her hand.

“The same goes for you,” he said instead, quieting the want in his fingers. She raised an eyebrow slightly, slipping her hand off his as she leaned back in her chair.

“When I come back, I had better be in one piece? Wouldn’t me coming back default to being in one piece?” she clarified with a tease. His gentle smile returned, his eyes softening, as the storm inside finally passed.

“Just come back.”

The rest of the day had been spent discussing tactics with one another, with the occasional pipe-in from Jean. With no thanks to the board and their lack of communication, they had little evidence to send with Hawkeye to show to the nomads. The necklace one of the midwives had crafted for Riza, a hand-woven line with a solar pendant at the crest, was all she had, tucked comfortably beneath her shirt.

Hours passed before Jean stood from his chair, stretched, and announced he had to leave to meet a girl for a date. With prodding, he only mentioned it was another officer and that she was entirely out of his league. Isn’t every woman out of your league? Roy had asked. Jean answered with a smack to the back of his head.

“Stay safe,” Jean said to Hawkeye as he pulled her in for a hug. “Good luck out there. We’ll see you soon.”

“Of course,” she smiled back at him. He waved goodbye.

Soon the sky turned violet, the sun pulling downwards to sleep. Roy glanced at his pocket watch; quarter til seven.

The walk to the armory was quiet.

“General, the train ride is long,” she had said after Jean had left. “You don’t need to stay.”

“I know that.”

Quicker than what seemed normal, the day was nearly dark by the time they arrived. The before colors of the sunfall had flitted away into twilight. It was chillier in Central, despite it being early August. Summer was fading; autumn teased the land like a ghost. Men were passing boxes to each other and piling them into a large covered cargo vehicle, the tarp a washed out green and the tires taller than a child. Roy spotted Boswick speaking with another man near the passenger door, and he eyed him warily before stopping his captain with a touch to her shoulder.

“I don’t know who any of these men are besides Imam,” he said when she turned towards him, “but remember that you’ve got authority here.”

She gave him a look.

“Oh?” she asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” he replied sharply, an attempt to convince her. “They’ve probably never even stepped foot in that desert. You know who the Ishvalans are, you know their plight. I know I don’t need to tell you not to let these guys walk all over you, because God knows that won’t be an issue.” She smiled. “But just remember that if you’re ever in doubt, listen to your gut. Not them.”

“Boswick is a major general, sir. And his number two is a major.”

“Doesn’t matter. Your gut is fuhrer on that truck.”

Her smile turned to a quiet laugh, and the corners of his own mouth pursed at the sound. He found that he coveted hearing it one more time.

“Captain Hawkeye,” called Boswick, seeming to finally see her. “You ready to roll out?”

She turned towards him and snapped to attention, her hand whipping up to her right eyebrow in salute.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Boswick lifted himself into the cab of the vehicle as the other three men put the last of the boxes into the bed. The two soldiers helped Imam up onto the ledge, and the Ishvalan man parted the tarp to enter the back. Hawkeye’s hand dropped as she turned to face Roy.

“I’ll see you soon, General Mustang,” she said with a thin smile, gripping her briefcase tighter as she turned on her foot and set off towards the truck.

Without thinking, in no way planning was he was about to do, Roy grabbed her wrist and stopped her, allowing the spark between them to shock them both. She halted immediately and glanced back at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, her bangs fluttering about from the sharp turn of her head.

He quickly reached into his pocket with his free hand, wrapped his fingers around what was inside, and deposited the contents from his hand to hers. The hold he had on her wrist slipped downwards to her fingers so the materials were thick between their palms. He gave her hand a strong, formal shake.

“Come back,” he ordered sternly, quiet so only she could hear. Feeling the flex of her muscles, he knew she had a grip on what he’d given her and he slipped his hand out from its hold. She lifted her wrist, the darkening skies giving her little light to see, and unraveled her fingers to display what was in her palm.

Roy deliberately took several steps back so she couldn’t return them. By the time she finished digesting the gesture, her face was lined with something he couldn’t quite read. Perhaps it was his distance from her, or how the setting sun had bathed the land in a deep blue, but the look he could make out on her face made his throat grow tight.

He looked at her fiercely, any emotion buried under a layer of severity. To a stranger, he may have even appeared angry.

“Hawkeye, let’s go!” yelled a voice somewhere behind her. This seemed to pull her from her statuesque state, her face faltering at the shout, though she still hadn’t blinked away from her locked gaze with Roy. He swallowed and tilted his chin downwards.

Come back.

He watched the shadows of her face adjust as her nostrils flared and her mouth closed, and she gave him a single nod as she pocketed what he had given her. Then she turned on her heels, walked several steps to the truck, grabbed onto the handlebar to the right, and hoisted herself inside so she disappeared beyond the tarp.

[gwynbleiddyn]

in the absence of light;

Rion + Leliana; post-Adamant.

the Warden-Inquisitor can’t afford to stray from the dangerous path he walks across Thedas but his gaze is drawn to Weisshaupt in the aftermath of Adamant, and he must learn to balance the weight of his own legend against the heavy price of reality.

Ravens make terrible companions. They caw incessantly, squawk at anything, and flap themselves silly if you so much as breathe in the wrong direction. Rion can hardly get comfortable, feeling their beady little eyes watching his every move as he shifts his legs gingerly, arms remaining clenched around his heavily bandaged middle. His face is set in a terrible scowl by the time he looks back up and sees Leliana staring back at him, eyebrow quirked, dainty mouth no longer knife-like as a smile threatens her ominous visage.

“What?” Rion exhales sharply, ire fading. Leliana softens her stance, dropping her arms as she moves around her table. 

It’s a mess; papers litter every wooden inch, there’s dust in the grain-lines, talon marks where the ravens have made it their perch for the day. Virtually worthless by this point, but the information scattered atop it is invaluable. Rion barely glances over it, following Leliana’s gaze to a sizeable report sitting on top of the mess. It’s Cullen’s writing, and bears the signature of the commander as well as Josephine’s own. There’s one space left for Leliana to add hers, and when she does the report can be filed away along with all the others - a growing litany of conquest, by Rion’s cynical estimation. 

This one, though... oh, this one is the star of the show so far. Adamant. 

“Do you know how many times I’ve read this?” Leliana asks. Of course he doesn’t. She’s not asking for an answer so much as she’s asking for a question. Rion obliges.

“Why?” 

He doesn’t mean to sound so sharp, but that’s all he feels. Sharpness in every hollow. Rion might liken it to pain, but that isn’t the right word. The pain has long since receded with the work of careful healers, and he’s left with the emptiness of Adamant instead. 

Try as he might (he doesn’t), he can’t deny how integral the Wardens have become to his life. The Blight courses through him even now, binding his life to a cause he’d never dreamed of, and his victory at Denerim ten years past has become a mark of legend. He is the Warden-Commander. That has never changed, and whether by fault of his dogged determination or unrelenting stupidity, Rion still holds that title as though it shines as well as it used to. 

It does not.

The grey has cracked into splinters of black, the Blight reaching up from the dark with twisted, gnarled, knotted fingers. The sky of blue has broken with the first of many storms. The Wardens have become as tainted as the ones they hunt, and for some, that has been a fate worse than death. 

Rion’s blood still rages when he thinks of the soldiers he cut down, one by bloody one. Some of them with familiar faces, others with familiar names. All of them; his responsibility. Where Commander Clarel had failed, Rion should have shouldered her back up again instead of watching Erimond feed her to the beast like the rest of them. 

“If you were just the Inquisitor, I wouldn’t have to worry.” Leliana’s tones of quiet yellow bloom through the encroaching dark of Rion’s thoughts, and his mind clears once again. Looking up, he narrows his eyes against the flamelight as he tries to read Leliana’s lips. 

Just the Inquisitor... that would be easier, wouldn’t it? For all of them.

“Good to know you still worry about me.” Rion cracks a half-smile, made brighter when Leliana matches it with one of her own. There’s a fondness to her gaze that he’s missed lately, and it warms his heart to see it still exists. This Leliana sitting in front of him has scarcely been the one he’d known in Ferelden, full of hope and stories of Lothering’s single rose, and laughing with him over a dying campfire for night upon night. 

Their demons had been considerably lesser, back then. It is painfully evident now.

“You’re my friend.” Leliana says it so simply, and yet, it leaves a profound mark. Rion swallows, keeping quiet this time. Leliana doesn’t give anything else away as she sets the report back down and makes her way to the chair next to Rion, nudging it into place with a graceful foot. Her hood is down, gloves discarded, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Rion spies her freckles, and quietly recalls the conversations they used to have about the wonder of ‘skin stars’, as Leliana so fondly named them. Rion hated his own, but Leliana’s determination to find the beauty in such marks rubbed off on him after a while. 

She had - and still has - that effect on people. A stubborn kind of hope. A flower that blooms in the dead of winter, regardless. That was Leliana.

Just... older now. Softer. Rion can see the gentle lines beginning to form at the crease of her eyes - laughter lines that he knows, and others that he doesn’t. Maker knows he must have plenty to speak of, himself. In that regard, the burden of years seems lesser for her company. Rion is glad of it.

His thoughts are scattered once more as Leliana props her leg up on his chair and fixes him with another of her looks. Her smile is gone now, and her brow is creased with the lines of concern. 

“I prayed that day we found you at the temple.” She admits. Rion isn’t surprised at that - she prays every day. Always did. Why is this any different? He’s about to open his mouth and ask the question when Leliana continues.

“Only, I didn’t pray for myself.” Ah. That seems like more of an admission than before. Rion frowns, wondering at the implications. “I... prayed that the Maker would have mercy on you. That he would look kindly upon your mark, and grant you a light where there was none.” 

“A stubborn rose from a dead bush, no?” Rion understands, and offers Leliana a familiar thought. She smiles at that, fully, and Rion is glad to see there are more laughter lines than he’d guessed. Leliana nods, and in the flame-light, Rion can see the hopeful girl of ten years ago. A thought he will take with him when he leaves this room, but share with nobody else. She still has to play the elusive Spymaster, after all.

“But Adamant...” All too soon, the warmth is threatened by a cold wind. Bracing. The kind that makes your skin prickle, and your teeth grind together. 

“Adamant won’t happen again.” In his head, Rion sounds like the commander he thinks he is, but he’s sure that his voice falls apart in the moment it leaves his mouth. A desperate plea for reassurance, but Rion knows he will find none. It’s up to him to do better, and he knows that he will. 

“Those Wardens weren’t your res--”

“Don’t say that, Leliana.” Rion can see her words before they take their full shape, and he shakes his head to dissuade her from venturing any further down that line of thought. “I should have seen something was wrong the moment Clarel stopped responding to my messages. This has been a long time coming, and it runs far deeper than what we saw at Adamant.”

“So, that’s where Alistair...?” Leliana’s question is a sensible one. She knew nothing except that he’d gone. It only makes sense that she would put the pieces together.

“Yes. To the Anderfels.” Rion confirms her unspoken suspicion, dragging a weary hand across his face, scratching at his stubbled jaw. “Weisshaupt will answer, one way or another. They will answer.” 

A beat of silence, and then Leliana leans forward to rest a hand atop Rion’s arm on the table. A rare display. He looks at her with the visage of a broken commander, a far cry from the arrogance of his crowning moment at Denerim. There is nothing more he can say, and Leliana knows it. She smiles - it is torn by sadness, a melancholy that has followed each of them on their separate paths through Thedas in the years after the Blight, but it is enough to let Rion know he isn’t alone in all of this.