#he has utterly zero tit

[zephyrrhiesfyrian]

Holoform/humanformers designs for Windcharger, Trailbreaker, and Skids :D

they're my little guys and i love them so very much

[shotmrmiller]

tw: simon's mean and a sexist.

Simon who doesn't like you. He respects Laswell, who's intel is vital to their missions. Price as the leader of the Task Force. Gaz because he's proved his mettle time and time again, and Soap whose stubborn self has burrowed under Simon's thick, knotted flesh.

Not you, though.

You've yet to do anything substantial.

As a sniper, your job is to aim and kill; provide overwatch. Why Johnny insists on giving you praise for doing what is required of you is beyond him.

You aren't taken to below-zero temperatures as emotional support. Why you're taken at all is also another mystery.

Without your gun, you're utterly useless. And Simon proves it, time and time again during training spars at base.

He comes at you as if you're the enemy, with dangerous precision and quick movements. Simon gets enjoyment out of seeing your eyes widen when he moves, like an injured gazelle who's just spotted a ravenous lion.

His grip is bruising— the force that he slams you to the ground with devastating.

Simon can hear the air punched out of your lungs once your back hits the mat, and the time it takes for your vision to sharpen, he's already pinning you down viciously with a knee to the sternum.

Useless. Women don't belong in combat. He's seen that big brute from KorTac. He'd crush your pathetic little head under his palm, he'd kick your ribs hard enough to crack and the splintered ends pierce your lungs.

He'd kill you without a hint of effort.

And Simon intends to remind you that there is no place for weak, bitty things like you in the front lines. Unless you're to be used as a distraction by flashing your tits at the bad guys.

Out of place.

Every time you go up against him, he uses his size and strength against you, just like every other person will. He launches you across the floor with a single arm, only to watch you struggle to get up and continue this sham of a fight.

Confidence born of ignorance.

As if sheer will would ever beat physical prowess.

If your feet won't touch the ground, then the rest of your body will. Through spilled blood and bruised flesh, may you learn.

He whistles at Johnny, gesturing at him to take his place, only for the end result to be the same, albeit much more gently.

Simon watches you through half-lidded eyes as he leans up against the wall. You fight against inevitability.

Pathetic.

And then one day, you come at him with a snarl on your lips. Blunt teeth that have never had to sink into someone's neck and rip a throat out, out of utter desperation. An unblemished face that's never felt the sting of a sharp blade as it's sliced open contorted into 'rage.' Frothing at the mouth like a lap dog with rabies, barking out words that are as empty as your future.

A forceful wave of his hand abruptly halts you mid-sentence, causing you to involuntarily flinch in response. Good.

"If ya have a complaint, take it to Price. I am not obligated to humor your stupidity."

He spins on the balls of his feet, leaving you to sputter indignantly.

Then on a mission, you get shot. Simon grabs the handgun that's holstered on his chest, and places it in your bloodied hands. "Keep them off of us, or we're both dead!"

His fingers are curled around the thick strap of your tac vest as he drags you toward the LZ; his pace never faltering even while getting clipped by stray bullets. But you?

He'd think you got your legs cut off. Wailing like a cat in heat over a wound above your hip. A clean in and out, nothing vital hit.

Simon has seen Gaz fall out of a helicopter, dangle from a rope, and still use his gun. He's seen Johnny cross a town full of Graves' Shadows bleeding from his shoulder, armed with nothing but the makeshift weapons he crafted on the way to the church. Price inhaled toxic gas and made it out just fine. Even Laswell was taken hostage and didn't crack under the pressure, going as far as killing her captor with her bare hands.

And you're decomposing in front of his very eyes over a superficial wound.

Landing at base, he walks out without a glance back and heads straight for Price's office. He didn't join the 141 to babysit anyone, least of all someone who belongs in either intelligence or a kitchen.

[shogunish]

𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘁𝘆 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸.

synopsis. you think your breasts are too small to please satoru? he proves just how wrong you are.

genre. smut, nsfw, pwp

contents. boob fucking/play/smacking, dirty talk, vocal + horny satoru, reader has small breasts, nipple play, cum play, slight cum-eating, pet names (baby, my sweet girl), praise, implied size difference/kink

words. 810

notes. i need satoru to fuck me until my eggs are scrambled. (this piece is highly self-indulgent <3)

comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! <3

“it's just..i think my breasts are..too small to give you a..boob-job..”

one sentence was enough for satoru to strip you naked, straddle your ribcage and prove you how utterly wrong you were. all this time, he was left wondering why you were so hesitant about letting him fuck your tits. to think it was because you doubted your breasts could please him? it sounded ridiculous to him.

did satoru not suckle, kiss and bite them enough whenever his cock was buried so snugly in your cunt? did he not grope them enough? did he not get hard often enough whenever your shirt would hug those perfect little tits of yours?

blasphemous.

“fuck, your tits are so pretty, baby. yeah, so fucking pretty.” satoru groaned as his palms squeezed your breasts together, his heavy cock right in-between them.

droplets of sweat trickled own satoru's temple, watercolor eyes fixed on the way your tits couldn't even fully encase his girth – almost like that sweet pussy of yours. groans and grunts fell from his soft lips like honeyed prayers that were meant for your ears only as he fucks your soft, perky breasts, nipples so hard and begging so sweetly for his attention. slick with his saliva, they shimmered in the dim lighting of your bedroom.

it was almost embarrassing, the way satoru's heavy balls smacked against the underside of your boobs, the angry red tip leaking with pearly white pre-cum that stained the skin of your chest, collarbone and those sweet lips of yours. heat rose to your cheeks. your own gaze zeroed in on the way satoru's cock twitched and throbbed squished between your breasts.

“toru..it looks painful, let me just–” you spoke up, concern laced in your voice as you stared at the redness of your boyfriend's cock.

satoru swiftly cut you off, a reddish hue dusting his cheeks. “shh, just let me enjoy this.” skilled fingers flicked against your hardened nipples before pulling on the sensitive buds until he coaxed a moan, a whine out of you. “been dreaming about fucking your tits for so long. you've got no idea, baby.”

the pre-cum lubing his length up made each thrust so much more enjoyable, so much more slippery. coming to a brief halt, satoru took the moment to grope and massage your little tits just to watch you squirm. he knew how much you loved it when he played with them, sucked and bit them until you got all nice and wet for him to take.

“no idea why you're so insecure about them. they're perfect for me. just look at how hard you're making me.” satoru chuckled breathlessly, gave your tit a smack before he used them to massage his aching cock. a tingle tightened his balls. “fuck, gonna cum all over those gorgeous tits before i stuff your cunt full, baby.”

each thrust was more urgent than the previous one. satoru's grip on your perky breasts tightened until blunt fingernails dug themselves into the squishy, warm flesh that surrounded his cock so perfectly, so snugly. his jaw clenched, fine eyebrows furrowed as he chased his release.

so fucking pretty. so small and warm. perfect for him to spray his cum all over your gorgeous self. moan after moan escaped satoru's throat, his hips stuttered.

with a loud groan of your name, thick ropes of cum landed on your chest, your cheeks and your breasts. with each spurt, his heavy cock would twitch and throb, drawing moan after sweet moan from your boyfriend. he looked so pretty like this; eyes shut, head thrown back and strands of his snow white hair sticking to his forehead as he came.

“hah, you look so pretty covered in my cum, you know that?” a smirk graced satoru's features as he got off your torso, leaned in and pulled you into a messy kiss. the taste of his cum lingered on the tip of his tongue, causing him to groan into your mouth. only when he broke the kiss did he give your sweet nipples some attention, rubbing his seed all over the hardened buds. “my sweet girl.”

you gazed up at satoru through half-lidded eyes, face hot and his cum warming your skin. “toru..please..” arching your back off the mattress, your head lolled to the side and into the soft cushion of your pillows. “you said you'd fuck me once you're done..”

satoru clicked his tongue, grabbed your ankles and forced your legs apart where your sticky cunt greeted him with the intoxicating scent of your arousal. a smile tugged at the corners of his lips, cocky and confident. “let me correct myself. you're my sweet, greedy girl.”

dragging his fingers through your sopping folds, satoru spread them apart and licked his lips like a man starved. “let's see how much your pretty pussy can take..”

taglist. @cinnamonmon, @risuola

[soramel]

In Love and War (myg)

BECAUSE THIS YOONGI

Fanfiction

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This work does not reflect the true character of the real-life persons mentioned. Also, I do not own the picture above (though this picture owns me. Like, who isn't?!?!)

Yoongixreader; idol!au; romance

Part 1/3

At the time when most people are asleep, save for some who is swamped by table summaries which are to be presented later at the same day-

Labor was not your dream, but here you are, crunching nine zeroes for the capitalists. Who would have thought that real life could be this lucrative? Who would have thought creativity thrives in datasets and equations?

Almost everything could be translated into numbers.

1 for yes 0 for no

The scent of brewing coffee proliferated the space, it mixed with the fishy smell of cup noodles at three a.m. The AC was on full blast but you could feel your body sweat in self-generated body heat.

When was the last time  you took a bath?

Wetting your hair feels like washing away all the equations and tasks listed in your head. The coolness and refreshing feel of shower is not ideal right now that the presentation deadline is just around the corner. Specifically, later, in the morning.

If it wasn't just your late realization on some additional factors that could be significant on your projection, you wouldn't be this hairy oily mess. You blame your stupid brain for gearing up to be smart enough at the last minute.

If it were someone else, they could have just go through as planned, but not you. You hate doing things half-assed.

If there's something to milk out of the cow, you'll squeeze the tits high and dry.

In this case, that cow is Min Yoongi. Producer /  Songwriter / Rapper / Singer / Model / Influencer / The GOAT - not only of the Company you work for, but also of the industry he works in.

On that thought, cow isn't a fitting comparison.

"Hey, you're still here?"

Your ears perked up at the sudden noise that cut through your silent working space.

You found Min Yoongi, a.k.a the Greatest of All Time, by the door. His forehead scrunched as he sniffed the foul smell of your office.

"Do you live here?" he asked further.

You stood up from your swivel chair and subtly squirmed at the peeling off of your skin that has been in contact with the leather for hours.

"For the past three days, yes. Don't you dare report me to HR. They might ask me for my rent," you replied as you stretched out your spine and limbs.

Without an invite from your end, he welcomed himself to your temporary home. Yoongi shut the door without taking off his gaze full of disgust and judgment. He eyed you head to toe and back. Mismatched slippers on your feet, to your hideous elephant pants, faded brown oversized tee which matched your nest of a hair because to him you utterly looked like crap.

"Go home. You must. Look at you," he  reprimanded as he waved a hand to your direction.

"I'm almost done. Just one last check, making sure everything's good for the deck later. I'm gonna blow your mind," you replied, a smug grin plastered on your face.

He let out a chuckle, "You're blowing my mind already," he retaliated.

"I mean look at you, I, myself, couldn't stand this sight."

You clenched your teeth for the uncalled backhanded compliment.

Taking in a deep breath, you closed your eyes and reminded yourself that you're talking to the man who provides food on your table, a roof over your head, and satiates your strange addiction to the smell of new glossy colored books of anything under the sun.

Hardbound and thick ones.

Just like his attitude.

You faked a smile, and bowed down, "Mr. Min, thank you for your uncalled concern. I'll be heading home in a while."

Yoongi shifted his stance and cooly offered, "You can hitch a ride. I'm about to head home too."

He's quite a workaholic himself, but your dedication's still unmatched.

You waved your hands in front of you, shaking your head, "No, I'm alright, Mr. Min. My stench would only irritate you. You should be able to relax as you wind down. Both of us had a busy day, but I'm sure yours was more hectic seeing that you're still here at-"

The digital desk clock switched to display 4:00 a.m.

"-four in the morning."

Yoongi didn't back down right away. He weighed his options first before taking a step back.

From a concerned boss, his judging face came back before taking a step away.

"Okay, if you say so," he conceded before turning around.

He twisted the door open and stepped out of your office as he uttered a silent goodbye.

"Mm, yes, take care boss!" you politely greeted back.

Working with Min Yoongi has been easier as years go by. At first, he was in doubt of your capabilities. In all fairness, who would believe that data analysts could be of help in entertainment industry? He creates and put it out there and wait for people's reaction. If it works, then good, if it doesn't then he could try again on the next album release.

While you acknowledge that life is indeed full of trials and errors, perusing all the information at hand does not hurt. It works as a hedge in times of failure, and works as a catapult in times of success.

Soar high, fall with a plush on your ass.

That's the company's trade secret. They're willing to spend millions on data to gain billions.

They spend their money smartly on you. Though your six-digit monthly salary is not that obvious with your choice of clothing, people would gape at the fixtures and books in your penthouse.

That painting that occupied most of your foyer wall? You spent a million on that. It's a good investment though. The resell value is high.

The books that lined up your hallway crossed out the need for paint or decorations.

The sofa, oh, fine Italian leather that's expensive as your car.

You fell asleep on that couch and blacked out. You always do.

Apparently, three alarms were not enough to wake up a sleeping log like you.

That's why you almost slipped in the marbled bathroom to freshen up decently in five minutes. Showered in perfume, and slipped in to your formal suit.

Tying your hair into a bun is the easiest option.

Still, you made it 10 minutes before the meeting.

You barely slept, but the excitement to share the outcome of your research gave you an adrenaline rush.

You looked alive despite the bags under your eyes.

An alive dehydrated panda.

If there's such a thing.

But no panda will be as small as you, given that zookeepers do watch their weight. All pandas you've seen are all fluffy, while you look...

dehydrated

freeze-dried

Anyway, you could care less. You're friends with your fitness coach who you haven't seen in three months, and your dermatologist who you haven't seen in six months. They could play fairy grandmother once you're free.

That means getting the board and the management to give your brilliant project a Go.

Watching Yoongi stroll in the conference room made you nervous a bit. You'll be talking about his career progression after all. You smiled at him as you take in his effortlessly chic outfit. You chose the right artist to work for. Only Yoongi could pull off an all black suit and steel framed eyeglasses and still look like a superstar instead of a businessman.

You're barely a people-person, but converting human behavior into numbers made it easier for you to fulfill your line of work. As important people filed in, you eyed your team on the side of the room as you gesture for them to give the deck materials.

Those papers were still quite hot as they just got printed this morning by your associate. They panicked when they learned you tweaked at the last minute but assured them you got them covered.

That's the downside of working with you. You deliver exemplary works, but you're a bad boss.

You haven't asked for a team really.

But Mr. Bang, the CEO, was quite keen on it. It didn't help much since you still worked until 4 am just a while ago.

As the meeting started, you gradually become excited as you go through the presentation. At the peak of it all, after presenting them the demographics of the fan base, the casual audience, and the target public, you excitingly showed them the graph version of your artist's discography vs. album sales.

Yoongi shifted uncomfortably on his seat as he eyed the steep incline on the screen.

"However, let's take a look here." You prompted before your associate proceeded on the next slide. A zoom in on his last three albums.

You shifted your stance as you pointed out, "We do have a steep curve, but the past three are on the flatter side. Ceteris paribus-"

Mr. Bang cleared his throat and you knew what that meant,

"If we continue in our direction, without changing anything, and not considering other unexpected factors, we will not be able to maximize and use to our advantage the untapped audience."

"We have 25 million users but the engagement is at 30%. This peaks at 60% when the artist releases content--"

"People do have their own lives," Yoongi interrupted but you did not let him disturb your practiced speech.

"This is worse than four years ago when we garnered more promising engagement--"

"People do grow up and have jobs," he interrupted again which by now turned some heads away from your deck and directed to him.

"With all due respect Mr. Min," you diverted to his direction, facing away from the powerpoint.

You took a deep breath, before starting, "I'm here to maximize your potential,"

He scoffed, "Are you my voice coach?"

That left you silent.

Yoongi's mouth formed a silent "Oh,"

"Maybe you're my runway coach? Art director? Publicist?"

"No?" he added further in a mocking tone.

You pursed your lips in a straight line, looking around the table to get somebody's defense. Your gaze finally settled on Mr. Bang.

He's not meeting anyone's stare, but browsed through the next pages of the material.

"My point here is," Yoongi declared, "I'm an artist first, Ms. Y/n, I create. Spontaneously. I do respect your numbers, but don't you think focusing on these takes away my authenticity as a person? You do forget that people vie for my honesty."

More like tolerating his attitude, you want to mutter under your breath but stopped yourself from doing so by gripping your fists by your sides.

"Let her finish. I find these projects interesting. Magazine interviews..."

Yoongi scoffed, "I've done that already,"

"But they're all limited to your music," you retorted.

With a flair of both of his hands, Yoongi reasoned out "Because I'm a musician, what else should I talk about?"

Mr. Bang then went back to reading out loud from the short bickering of the two of you, "Socials and fundraising parties, talk shows guesting, tell me about them, Y/n."

Yoongi answered before letting you, "I'm a performer, not some sort of personality."

"You are a personality, whether you like it or not. You're mysterious and people like that, but to keep them intrigued we have to let them peek at your personal life. People wants someone they can resonate with, or at least someone who inspires them in the middle of the mundane. As much as they do love your music, we will gain more if you let them have a peek," you defended.

"I'm in this industry for ten years. They've seen it all, Y/n."

"Not quite," you retaliated.

"They haven't seen you as an adult. They see you as a performer, yes. As I said, people love following personalities they can reach, even though vicariously, even if just on surface level brain stimulations. We give them understanding, comfort, healing, that's what the company is all about." "Look, you can continue your own creative process, but you just need to put yourself more out there. Press loves stories. Intriguing, good, bad ones. For a celebrity, you sure do love to keep to yourself."

"It's called privacy."

"While being a public figure?"

"There are boundaries."

"And we're looking for expansion of those boundaries. We can compromise. We have to. There are other celebrities who are willing to do more. We can't just keep on dropping big bombs once in a while. Small consistent contents will ball up like a snowball and will have a greater impact on your stability in the industry."

"I know you already made a name. We just have to squeeze it dry."

Yoongi visibly flinched at your metaphor. Regardless, you continued,

"You're an artist. Great artists take risks. At this point, we're doing a well-calculated risk, and there is no measure to how this will turn out but the projection looks good. Show them the chart, Lesley," you told your team.

"The only thing we can do is take it. There's no perfect science, but we have to try it out and see where it will lead us."

"It shows desperation, Y/n."

"It shows strategic business plan while giving you an avenue to challenge your creative process and authenticity. We will lift the contract off with Wrath, let their paparazzis swarm, we will save millions and divert 20% of that funds to your security," you rifled on.

"What's there to hide Yoongi? You're a clean person as far as we know,"

As far as you know

He clenched his fists, teeth gritting, at your proposal.

You could have told him you don't want to see him anymore.

What would happen to his Wednesday dinners with you?

The occasional getaways if you were kind enough to not work on long weekends. He must be the busy one in the relationship given that he's the biggest star in the Company. Turns out the kingmaker's the real star of the show, working behind the scenes, on the sidelines, crunching and nerding out on lines and graphs.

He has come this far while protecting his privacy. Yoongi always get away with the excuse that it's part of his image. Being mysterious. When in fact, he only enjoys the animosity when there are no cameras when he's with you. It's not that he's ashamed of the relationship he has, it was because you made it clear with him, that all this will end if everything blows up in the press.

Mr. Bang cleared his throat as he rested his chin on his folded fingers. He carefully threw you a look before the scrutinizing gaze landed on his most prized talent. It was a fraction of a second when he realized he got his two best people batting heads in front of the board and officers.

"Y/n is right," the vice chair voiced out. "I second," said someone from the board.

The rest of the men and women on the long conference table nodded in agreement. Some of them hopefully looking at Yoongi.

"Besides, whether it's a good  or bad image, publicity is publicity. We need to give something new for the country to talk about. They're interested in you, but they do respect your personal space most of the time," said one of the talent heads.

Mr. Bang spoke up, "How can we make sure Wrath will not release any of their wildcards against Yoongi?" he voiced out, looking at the Legal counsel.

"It's in the contract. Any materials on the artist enclosed within the contract period must be held with strict confidentiality. We are imposing grave penalty once they violate it if ever we decide to terminate the protection deal."

Mr. Bang nodded, "I'm absolutely sure that our artist is clean and does not have any criminal records. His school records are clean. We have filed them," he assured everyone on the table.

Someone chuckled and raised, "More than that, he's the most sought after bachelor. For sure everone's dying to know who he's dating."

You unknowingly took a step back as you listen to them exchanging opinions.

On the other hand, Yoongi is visibly not pleased with any part of the meeting.

"That's a private matter of our artist," Mr. Bang defended.

The person shrugged and quoted, "As Y/n said, he's a public figure. His life is meant to be under the public eye. It's not offensive at all if you ask me--"

"No one's asking for your opinion," Yoongi jabbed, the table fell silent.

"I don't agree with this. You will move at my own pace. If you can't ride with me, I can easily switch management." He declared with finality before walking out of the board room with his manager following suit and apologizing on his behalf.

A loud sigh escaped Mr. Bang's lips.

He took over the meeting and told everyone, "Y/n's idea is promising. We just need another meeting to discuss it while I'll talk to Yoongi for the mean time."

Everyone nodded in satisfaction before they started filing out of the room.

You stayed behind together with your team. Mr. Bang turned his chair to face you. "Please leave me with Y/n," he ordered your team.

The boardroom's door clicked shut before Mr. Bang started, "Thank you, Y/n. It was a wonderful presentation, though I wished I get to hear the end of it. I will review the deck and I'll get back to you. I do have a gist of what you're proposing, but..." he trailed off before tilting his head to one side as he tried to put together the words, "I see you haven't talked to Yoongi about it."

"Mr. Bang, I didn't because everything was not finalized until the last minute. Actually, same projects were retained but I thought diverting the angle on the important numbers and emphasizing these would bring light to the why of things. I only wish the best for his career. If you actually look at slide 25, you'll see the age distribution of the population, we're gathering young ones still despite his tenor in the show business. I looked deeper into the age bracket A and found that, based on consumer and entertainment index, lifestyle was the most common interest with other age groups. It is the strongest suit and tapping into this interest-"

"He wants to retire, Y/n," Mr. Bang uttered silently.

The news shocked you. Retirement was not in his vocabulary. He's been saying how he would perform on stage until he's all wrinkly and wonky. That's how much he loves his job as an artist and as a performer. Though you have noticed how he picked up on some collaborations involving his hands on its productions, performing his own work is still incomparable.

"The crowd just gives me so much energy. Most time I don't even know where I am, what timezone I'm in, but each stage feels surreal, new, it never gets old. I think I'll do this until I can't anymore," you remember him saying one time.

So it then became your purpose to help him achieve that dream. Now that he doesn't want it, out of the blue, perplexes you.

Your heart dropped to the pit of your stomach. You can't put a name on your emotions as of the moment. It was a mix of anger and betrayal, irritation and all negative things. He never told you, not that he's obligated to, but with the relationship you had with him, you thought he'll trust you enough to tell those things.

On second thought, it is a private matter. You have no say on what he wants, if retirement was his plan then okay.

But not without you talking him out of it.

----- It was freezingly cold in the studio and music was blasting together with the random beeps of camera shutter.

You were waiting for Yoongi to finish his schedule before he ends his day. It was in the middle of the week, the time when his photoshoots are usually scheduled. You mostly meet him too after for dinner, having formed a relationship with him. It was a good timing to bring up what happened and what you learned in that meeting the other day. You could have texted him, but that would be unprofessional of you. Besides, it's a work matter.

Crossing your arms by your chest, you observed him from afar. His long and messy hair surely suits him. His cheekbones were highlighted, giving a chiseling effect on the hollow of his jaw and cheeks. Yoongi pocketed a hand, his thumb out, before swaying his body lazily to change his body angle. You unknowingly smiled. In a proud way. He always do things in an elaborate manner while appearing effortless.

He caught your gaze, so you gave him an acknowledging nod. What he did next was unexpected. He paused the shoot, by raising his hand, before jogging to you. It left you flustered and suddenly anxious from all the attention you're getting. Everyone's gaze were on you, or rather on Yoongi. Eyes would always follow his every move.

You shifted, starting to feel uncomfortable being part of everyone's field of vision just because the Star is in front of you, sharing the same space as yours.

"You done with work?" he casually said, unaffected by the curious stares he's receiving.

You shook your head no before finding your voice, "Please finish your shoot, don't mind me, I can wait."

His brows furrowed in confusion before his gaze became softer, "Okay, you can wait in my dressing room," he said to you and it was your turn to be confused. You met his gaze, but he averted his, making you thought he got shy for a bit.

"I can't concentrate with you watching my shoot. I'm not used to it," he muttered, the confession was meant to be heard only by you.

"Oh,"

"Okay," you nodded before turning your back on him and headed straight out of the studio.

As you walked through the hallway, you reprimanded yourself for not being able to think of that alternative. You rarely met him in his personal space, so it didn't really occur to you.

You didn't wait too long, you saw him walking towards the door of his room twenty minutes after. Pushing yourself off the wall, you greeted him with a curt bow. He looked surprised finding you outside.

"Why are you here? I told you to wait inside," he told you before ushering you in.

"Ah, that would be inappropriate. It's okay," you assured him.

He shrugged off of his coat outfit, leaving him in his black shirt. You watched him as he brushed his long hair back and was about to undo his pants before he remembered you were in the room. You quickly turned around, heading to the door. "I'm sorry! I... why are you changing in front of me? I'll wait outside, I--" you rambled as you hurry off, opening the door.

"Y/n! Wait!" he tried to stop you but it was too late.

Shock registered in everyone's faces, from Yoongi's manager, his assistant, makeup artist, stylist, and everyone else on his team. They glanced at Yoongi who was in the middle of undoing his pants and at you whose face were flushed red.

They quickly scurried away while one of them shut the door close as they shouted their apologies.

[mrskurono]

I couldn’t be happier that my favorite writer started watching Bungou Stray Dogs so here ya go…

Just imagine Akutagawa who’s so engrossed in doing his mafia work that he’s so pent up. He gets riled up so easily. Just a simple brush of your hand has his cock twitching inside his pants. The first time he came, he swore he could see stars as he mindlessly gazed at the ceiling while his cock soiled the inside of his pants after he accidentally ground himself against you. Now every time he sees you, he’ll be right by your side, rutting into your body while silently begging you to whisk him away and make him cum again. Poor baby can’t take care of himself so you’re his go-to executive when he wakes up with morning wood. It has gotten to the point that he makes it a habit to sneak into your bed every night and hump your ass while he gropes around for your tits. All the stored up cum inside his balls empty themselves all at once, his cock now akin to a jizz fountain with how much he’s leaking onto the sheets.

a/n: sexually repressed Aktugawa who can't do anything for himself ♡ tags: fem!Reader, dom!Reader, virgin!Akutagawa, masturbation

Utterly useless Akutagawa who doesn't even touch himself. Hasn't masturbated a day in his miserably orphaned life. Who would when you go from some place with zero privacy at an orphanage into adulthood where you're beaten like a dog and in constant survival mode. So now all he knows is the wet dreams he has and the relief he only sometimes gets from particularly "restful" slumbers.

That is until you come along. Full fledged mafia member Akutagawa being made into mush the second you lean into too close to him to speak with him or fix something on his outfit. Too close for his comfort. But when he catches a whiff of your smell. The slip of your tongue along your bottom lip as you casually lick your lips while you speak to him. Voice low and meant for only him to hear. That's when he realizes his body is truly not his to control.

An unknown throb to his body that can't be taken care of by "sleeping" it off. And far too obvious for you not to take notice. What is the point of being in such a high ranking position if you're subordinates can't come for you with anything? And having Akutagawa in tip top shapes means more wins for you. So tending to his needs are a must.

All bark and no bite when it's just the two of you. His threats are empty when he sees you lean in to his ear. Explaining that you have known of his little problem for a while. And that you can't have underlyings working at half mast all the time. Him being no exception.

Poor utterly useless Akutagawa who grips your forearms when you rub him through his black slacks. His moans falling past pale lips. No idea what you're doing to him or how you're doing it. But he doesn't want you to stop. Not until it's all done. With wobbly legs. His cum seeping into the black fabric. And his half lidded eyes heavy and his body weighing into you.

After that Akutagawa has never preformed better on a mission. Making it mandatory that he comes to you nightly. Because you won't have a failed mission simply bc one useless mutt can't help himself ♡

[sxlver-sweet]

dazai thirst: something about dazai being skinny and having a thick gf makes me ascend to heaven. imagine her crushing him with her thighs and tits, it gets better if she's pregnant 🤤

DKSLGDZSDK I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE. skinny guys with thick girls are just so *chef's kiss* and i literally don't know why

dazai is utterly enamored with your body, but you’re already well aware of that. his infatuation with your curves has always been evident in his inability to keep his hands to himself, whether it be by wrestling you down to rest his head on your thighs or teasing one of your nipples with his tongue as your ample breasts bounced in time with the roll of your hips along his cock. at this point, it was strange for him not to be hanging all over you. his obsession with you only intensified after he knocked you up and watched your body change in preparation for your child. his dark eyes sparkled with wonder and anticipation as he eyed the newly developed swell of your breasts and the rounding of your pretty belly, both which seemed to chip away at his carefully honed discipline more and more with every passing day. he took every available opportunity to bury his face in the valley of your breasts; and, sometimes, you had to physically peel him away from your chest out of fear that he wasn’t receiving enough air. but as soon as you released him, he face-planted right back into your tits without so much as a word, completely disregarding the scarlet flush of his face and the bleariness of his eyes. being completely honest, dazai would die a happy man with his face in your chest, lazily kissing and suckling hickeys into the supple flesh until his consciousness slips.

well, maybe there’s a more preferable method.

“dazai, not so loud!” you wince at the obscene slurp resounding from the apex of your legs, courtesy of the tongue zealously splitting through your entrance and the pair of puckered lips swallowing down the arousal gushing forth. dazai’s knees knock against the wooden floorboards as he shifts closer to you, slender fingers dimpling your thighs with a bruising grip as he pries them open to allow himself better access to your cunt. 

your words fall upon deaf ears. dazai has zero intention of heeding your warning, especially since his mind is so shrouded in a thick haze of carnality that he can barely even remember when the last time he took a breather was. but, you should know this—know him by now. how can you expect him to hold back when his pregnant wife is spread out on the edge of the bed, all trusting vulnerability and doe eyes? your bottom lip is tucked between your teeth in a bashful pout as you peer down at him over a stomach tumescent with his seed. your plump thighs—still decorated with remnants of love bites from previous sessions—tremble in his iron grasp as you fight the urge to close them around his head. 

but, with one ruthless suck on your clit, your legs are doing just that: snapping around dazai’s head as a soprano whine erupts from your lips. the feeling of your thighs crushed against his temples coaxes a moan from him, the vibrations reverberating against your puffy clit and sending your hips tilting against his lips in a slow grind. his face is roseate with heat and the strain of not breathing; but, he simply cannot find it within himself to care about oxygen as he melts against you, strong fingers kneading at your hips and saliva dripping down his chin as he laps up whatever you have to offer him. 

yeah, maybe suffocation via your thighs is a better way to go.

[yeojaa]

GIRL we need a devil in a new suit drabble where jungkook gets jealous pls bless us😭😭❤️

[ read devil in a new suit ]

pairing.  jjk x f!reader.  rating.  explicit.  tags.  kook being hilarious and naive, reader being a little frustrated but head over heels, smut in the form of:  titty sucking (kook is a big boob guy in this), cunnilingus, kook wanting to love you forever.  wc.  2.1k.  author note.  i am... so in love with this couple so what was meant to be a “kook gets jealous and breaks reader’s back” turned into... this.

Jeon Jungkook doesn’t get jealous.  Not because he doesn’t care, or he’s unaffected, or any other negative connotation under the sun.  He doesn’t because he’s him, too soft and sweet and silly to believe the worst in people.  (This, coming from the man who’d steered clear of dating apps and blind dates because he was worried he’d be hurt.)

Once, you’d been waiting for him to pick you - he’d been running late, dinner with his parents and younger sister - and he’d found you chatting politely to an old fling of yours.  Well, maybe not so old.  A recent fling, a friend of sorts.  Someone who’d swanned into your life during your college years and had remained there ever since, popping his head in from time to time. 

You’d always been on good terms, caught up for lunch every six months or so when he’d return home from his overseas job.  In the past, you’d found familiarity in the shape of his hands, the neon outline of his almond eyes and pouting lips.  He was good in bed, as charming between the sheets as he was on the street.

But your heart belonged to Jungkook now - had, before you’d even realised it - and Taewoo was just another guy.  Another face in a crowd.

Still, you’d thought your beloved boyfriend would have some sort of reaction.  Maybe a quirk of his perfectly groomed brows, a certain tightness belying his displeasure in the softly peaked bow of his mouth.  You’d spied neither after extracting yourself from the hug and waving goodbye.  Jungkook had been sunshine and sweetness, opening your door for you and stamping a kiss to your cheek.  

That night, he’d loved you how he always had, with you crying his name and making a mess of his sheets.

Another time, you’d been at a work function.  One of those ridiculous galas you loved, full of women in their highest heels and men in their swankiest watches.  (You’d worn Aquazzura that night, Jungkook with an Audemars Piguet loose around his wrist.)  

He’d stuck close to your side, far more interested in the way your dress hugged your figure, cut intimidatingly high over your thigh and revealed the swell of your ass at juuuust the right angle.  Yejin had been the only one to tear him away, insisting on shots that you knew she couldn’t handle.  Anything went if free booze was involved.

Thirty minutes later - give or take, since you hadn’t had a watch of your own on - your boyfriend had returned, flushed and adorable.  There’d been a garden of colour creeping over the expanse of his chest, peeking around the collar of his shirt and disappearing into his neatly tousled strands.  He’d giggled his way back to you, somehow completely oblivious to the man that’d found you at your table and settled himself into the spot labelled Jeon Jungkook.

The imposter had been affronted, gaze narrowed at the younger man who was a little too loose, a little too smiley.  Wholly out of place at an event like this, where people spent too much time up their own asses, noses held aloft and business cards exchanged.  

(One of the reasons you loved Jungkook so much.  He was a breath of fresh air in a world you thrived in - found humour in, at the very least - carrying you high above the clouds with the sound of his laughter.)

“Hi, baby.”  Your darling boy smothered you in kisses, traced them up and over the exposed expanse of your shoulder, nosing against your skin, utterly unbothered by the man shooting him daggers, wishing him ill from the spot he’d wrongly claimed.  

Of course, he’d thought Jungkook was making a point - claiming what was his - but that was so far from the truth you’d almost laughed when he’d spoken, voice carrying above the slightly laboured breaths of your lover.  “I guess that’s my cue to leave, huh?”

You’d smiled, nodded with a hand threaded into cornsilk curling over Jungkook’s nape.  “Looks like it.”

(Then your idiot love - your big-hearted moron, your doe-eyed baby - had come up for air, cheek resting in the palm of his hand.  “Where’s your friend?”  He’d asked, eyes so wide you couldn’t doubt the sincerity of his question.)

Such was the kind of person Jungkook was, with an unwavering belief in the goodness of others, a silver thread outlining everyone’s silhouette.  You sometimes wondered what it would take to drive him to any sort of displeasure, any sort of emotion beyond quiet melancholy (seldom seen but heavily felt, when the rare occasions rose) or easygoing amicability (his default setting).  Not that you’d ever push to see that, of course.

You were happy.  Hopelessly in love.  You wouldn’t have traded him for the world - couldn’t even fathom doing anything to hurt him.  

And yet, you discover albeit by accident - it’s really not that hard.  All it takes is a pretty girl.

“This looks incredible,”  she says, standing close, long dark hair falling in a fluid curtain down the line of her back.  It’s the loveliest shade, cool-toned beneath the boutique lights, and reflects colour like a waterfall.  You’d complimented her on it when you’d stepped into the fitting area, a handful of hangers set across the rolling rack.

Fingers smooth over embroidery, revelling in the feeling of it over your skin.  It’s a beautiful thing, black tulle that hangs to your fingertips.  Not Jungkook’s preferred style - he much prefers harnesses and so many straps it might as well be a cat’s cradle - but you think he loves it nonetheless. 

(You’d confirm, but he’s been stoically silent, seated in the plush chair tucked beside the privacy partition, normally soft gaze hard and trained on his phone.  He doesn’t seem very much in the mood to talk, hardly reacting with each outfit change.  A nod here, a smile there.  Not even the most scandalous of the options - a black corset decorated in Leavers lace - had elicited his usual enthusiasm.)  

“You think so?”  You’re not insecure about your body - know what it looks best in, which assets to play up.  Still, it’s nice to hear from someone other than your doting boyfriend, the people caught in your orbit.  

The sales associate nods, beams at you in the multiple mirrors.  A hand of her own drifts over the thin strap of the slip - an innocent gesture that dislodges wayward strands of hair from beneath.  “Of course— and I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to sell it.” 

You nod, satisfied.  Even if Jungkook doesn’t seem ecstatic, your own joy makes up for it, buyer’s delight spilling over.  “I’ll take the satin robe, the blush silk set, and this in the violet.”  

“Great choices,”  she hums, pulling back the curtain to the adjoining change room to allow you privacy.  Silence follows as you slip the delicate number off, returning it to its hanger.  You don’t expect when the brunette continues speaking - presumably to your surprisingly surly boyfriend.  “Don’t you agree?” 

“Yep.”  He’s never been a man of few words, usually so full of excitement that he rambles when he doesn’t mean to.  

It’s a dead giveaway - a confirmation that something’s wrong.

Unfortunately for you, you don’t have time to broach the subject, your purchases already paid for and a firm hand on the small of your back the moment you’ve stepped out of the dressing stall.  “Jungkookie?”  You mean it quietly, just for the two of you, but falter when he slots his fingers between yours and all but tugs you out of the boutique.  You hardly even have a chance to toss the helpful girl an apologetic smile, imposing glass swinging shut behind you.

“Men—men are fine.  I don’t have to worry about them.”  There’s a confidence you’re so proud to see, turning his words as solid as the weight that rests against your hip, sears burning heat into your bared skin.  “No other man is going to love you better than me.  But women?”  A shudder runs the length of his imposing frame, tugs his shoulders up to his ears and tingles the small of his back.  “Women are scary.”  (It’s a sentiment he’s echoed in the past.  In particular, months ago when you’d insisted he dive into the dating scene.)

Hands thread through his too-soft strands, twirl the ends around your fingers as he speaks, nearly muffled into the crook of your shoulder.  He’s being so tender, giving you all the love he has to offer as he writes his insecurities into your skin, offers them with the wet of his tongue.

“A woman might sweep you off your feet and steal you away.”

You laugh then - sound snapping past your teeth before you can tuck it away.  It filters loudly into the baies scented candle you’d lit when you’d gotten into his apartment.  

Jungkook whines in response - a terribly endearing sound that makes you roll your eyes but only with affection (always with that) - and buries his face into your tits, sucking your nipple into his mouth with complete disregard for the tulle that acts as a barrier.  Saliva stains the material, makes it stick to your hardened bud as he laves over it with his tongue - bites surprisingly gently - and tugs it just hard enough to have you keening.

“S-s’not funny,”  he huffs, palming your other breast in his broad tattooed palm.  When he continues, he bites into you like he’s got a personal vendetta against whatever lies beneath your flesh.  “She was flirting with you.”  

It’s less of a sigh of annoyance - more sensual, drowning in need.  “She was not.”

He nips at the delicate flesh again, spreads crimson marks all across the sensitive skin until it’s a mosaic beneath the fabric, his finest work painted by his second favourite brush.  “That’s what you think but she was.”  The hand previously kneading your skin drops, flat of his palm sliding easily over your bare pussy.  

There’s zero hesitation when he slots his fingers on either side of your clit, catches the delicate pearl against the webbing of his hand and applies pressure that has you bucking beneath him.  It’s not nearly as aggressive as he normally is but it’s just as good, paired with the sinful motions of his tongue and teeth. 

“She wants to be the one doing this,”  he continues, saliva pooling across your chest, slipping into the valley of your breasts only to be licked up by the flat of his tongue.  He continues even once you’re clean, skin sticky and a little gross but so erotic it makes you quiver.  Then he descends, pushes the hem of your new slip higher, and licks another stripe from the joint of your thigh up to your belly button.  Repeats it again, moving lower with each pass until he’s sucking your clit into his mouth.  “She wants to be the one tasting this pretty, pretty pussy.”

You reach for his hand - the one somewhere near your ribs, side of his wrist soothing against the ladder of bones - and tangle your fingers together as he drives you mad, tip of his tongue switching between sweet kitten licks and tantalising figure eights.

“Baby,”  you coax, reprimand almost.  Jungkook’s never this lenient, never this sweet on you (not inside the bedroom, at least).  It brings you to a different high, his love folded into lovely origami cranes you tuck into your pockets and the spot you’ve carved out for him within your chest.

“Sing for me, sweetheart.”

He doesn’t mean literally - refers instead to the sound of your voice when it leaps three octaves, bounces between sultry and singed, burnt at the edges by the fire he brings to life. 

“Tell me you’ll never leave me.”  Despite how the words muffle, come broken between the glide of his tongue within your fluttering walls, you can hear the sincerity in them.  The earnestness that begs you to promise him this simple thing.  “Not for her.  Not for anyone.”  

“I won’t leave you,”  you answer, threading the vow between your fingers as if they’re the thread binding your love story together.  “Not for her - not for anyone.”

[smallcatwoman]

More thoughts

Well I’ve been able to listen to pretty much the whole album now and I have some thoughts.

I’ll also just share my thoughts on her orientation. I basically abandoned this blog and tumblr in general for a couple years and I’m only back for simblr stuff on my main blog and misc memes/taylor/twilight stuff on this one sometimes. And it’s kind of tentative how much I’ll actually be here at all. I’m mostly on reddit and discord now. In terms of the speculating and talking about Taylor/Karlie, obviously they broke up several years ago and the intensity of the bullying and hatred from hetero fans was too much for pretty much all of us. From the Lover period onward she pretty much dove headfirst back into the closet and seems to want to stay there, and is pretty aggressively trying to dispute rumors about this whole thing, which didn’t help with the bullying and aggression towards lgbt fans. 

This album, Lover, and her general PR stuff has such aggressive “look at me and how straight I am, I’m the most hetero to have ever heteroed, look at my boyfriend dick allcock from man island who is totally not a twink who woohoos with guys on tinder and happens to get a huge fame boost from me” I have seriously considered if the straights are right and we were all “delusional crazy pants” or whatever. Like I have tried to be open minded and really go over all the analysis of everything. 

But there is absolutely zero hetero explanation for all the stuff between her and Karlie. You can look at photos/videos from their glass closeting days and its so transparently obvious. The best best friends video, the big sur trip drawing hearts in the sand with their initials, the way that they looked at each other every single chance that we saw them together, “I came straight from Rome” etc. Even when she started bearding it was such a disaster at first. She and Calvin so transparently hated each other and he basically outed her on Twitter after the fact saying that she was a beard. Her and Tom were so obvious that interviewers literally asked Tom if it was a PR stunt and at their super hetero fourth of july photoshoot with their “boyfriends” there were all those soaking wet photos of Karlie grabbing her tits and wrestling with her on a waterslide. 

Also reputation.. how transparently it was about Karlie. “wear you like a necklace,” “I don’t want you like a best friend,” “I would fall from grace just to touch your face,” “dancing with our hands tied,” all these references to a forbidden secret love. And she specifically picked Joe as an ugly male version of Karlie that she could pretend to sing about and be like “Oh I like a boyish man” as a blanket explanation for dating people like Harry Styles who last I saw him was wearing ruffly sparkling pink and rainbow suits on stage and singing songs about sucking dick with male pronouns. It was a good arrangement, especially considering she really loved Karlie and was in it for the long haul. And it seems like she and Joe are really good friends, get along well, and he has some musical talent so they’ve even collaborated on some songs a bit. 

Then we have Karlie’s marriage, their messy breakup, Lover which was supposed to be a happy rainbow album about being happy with her true love but there were some breakup songs snuck on there (False God, Cornelia Street, Death by a Thousand Cuts) and she looked utterly wretchedly miserable, like she was crying or sullen in a bunch of pap shots (especially NY pap shots) and in the City of Lover video she is dressed in all black despite the rainbow aesthetic of the album and seems to be basically on the verge of tears during the whole show. The performance of Cornelia Street from that show gives me chills. You can hear her agony so palpably. 

Folklore and Evermore have a lot of fiction based songs, and I do think it’s reaching to say that Betty is a gay song, like folks its a storytelling/fictional song. But there are a few heart rending breakup anthems. Like some of the saddest she’s ever written. Some scary lines about standing on cliffsides. But yeah she’s happy Mrs Toe in a long term happy relationship. 

Totally. In terms of Zoe Kravitz, they’ve been friends for many years, including while she was dating Karlie. Zoe divorced her husband at the end of 2020 and there are some interesting songs about having an affair with a married woman/leaving a toxic marriage that I thought were about Karlie but.. maybe they weren’t all about her. Zoe also seems to have collaborated with her on some of the music so it wouldn’t surprise me if some of those songs were written by her too. Zoe is part of her “squad” or “pandemic bubble” along with Toe and others and when she’s gone to visit Europe ostensibly to visit Toe Zoe happened to be there shooting films and Tay seems to have taken a Paris trip with a special someone. I really don’t think she’ll come out or do a glass closeting thing again after the disaster with Karlie. She seems happy to keep her love life between herself and her partner and emphasizes that in her recent albums (yet she’s publicly dating Toe? Again it doesn’t line up) So I basically just envision them all hanging out as friends, gallivanting around Europe with Jack and other friends/maybe some of Toe’s bfs, working on music together. She seems obviously happier and not broken up about Karlie. I’ll breakdown some of my views about the Midnights songs Lavender Haze - She put out some kind of ultra no homo PR announcement about this in order to defuse the fact that this is so transparently a song about the pressure for a lavender marriage, which she really really does not want. Like she’ll be in a happy hetero relationship with this man for all the world to see if it keeps the rumors at bay, helps her with her career, and gives her some privacy with Zoe.. but marriage is a lot and she really doesn’t want to do it. I can’t believe she was so blatant about it though. Like wow. 

Maroon/Bigger than the whole Sky/Bejeweled/Question/Mastermind/Great War - Some reflection on the Karlie debacle, but she seems to be recognizing it wasn’t healthy or perfect and it’s okay that it ended. I love Maroon, it’s like Red’s sultry older sister.

Vigilante Shit/Karma - Kanye debacle, gotta have some songs about that I guess.

Midnight Rain/Labrynth/Dear Reader - I hate the voice distortion effects on these so much. It makes my skin crawl and I couldn’t listen to those more than once to analyze them. I hope to god she doesn’t ever use that again in future songs.

Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve - About John Mayer. Even us conspiracy weirdos think that one was real, he was a toxic manipulative gross man who messed her up and it was basically a last ditch effort to try to be straight. She regrets the whole thing and I understand why.

Glitch/Paris/Sweet Nothing/ Snow on Beach/High Infidelity - She’s happy with someone new and it’s very unexpected.. someone she loves and trusts and she’s been friends with for a long while. Someone who left her husband for Taylor instead of the other way around like some people. Tay still has some trust issues and fear of abandonment but seems to be happy nonetheless.

Mastermind/YOYOK/Anti Hero - Her insecurities/mental health issues. She’s been in the Hollywood spotlight for basically her whole teen and adult life. It’s caused a lot of stress, disordered eating, messed up a lot of her relationships. She’s worried that she’s controlling, and the closeting/PR stunts will be too much for anyone that she falls in love. She’s afraid of getting old in an industry that values youth and beauty above all. In terms of “sexy babies and giants on a hill” I would imagine that if you’re worried about your weight and about aging that being unusually tall kind of amplifies those fears of being too large/too old/surrounded by youngsters that you don’t  fit in with.

 I cried watching the Anti Hero video honestly. She seems really depressed in terms of Anti Hero and her last two albums. Some really concerning lyrics about standing on cliffs and “one day I’ll watch as you’re leaving and life will lose all its meaning for the last time.” Like babe.. I really hope she’s getting help. Therapists are already sworn to secrecy per their job and I’m sure she could also have lawyers cook up the NDA of the century if she’s still concerned about talking to someone. Therapy can’t just solve all her problems but there are definitely tools that she could use to cope with this situation and it’s also good to get a different, positive, non judgmental perspective on things. I really hope she’s okay and stays safe. I’ll keep an eye on things but again I can’t really promise I’ll use tumblr very much.

[yukipri]

One Piece Mermaid AU!

Featuring Luffy as a rubber mermaid who can’t swim, and Ace who carries her on his back as they pirate together.

＊Genderbend warning, fem!Luffy

Sliding in last minute for MerMay, bc idk about you, but I need something to mark that May has passed this year...

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PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, EDIT, TRANSLATE, OR OTHERWISE USE MY ART. To share, please reblog! Reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!!!

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Base headcanons for this AU beneath the cut! ↓ ↓ ↓

Luffy's a mermaid who was raised in Fuusha village, just like in canon. And, just like in canon, despite being a mermaid, she SUCKS at swimming, a fact that Shanks finds absolutely hilarious. She still wants to become a pirate, she still eats her devil fruit and becomes a rubber mer(?), she still gets kidnapped by Higuma (who sees her as an excellent way to rake in cash, given how valuable mermaids are on the slave market), and Shanks still gives her his hat.

As a devil fruit user, Luffy's already atrocious swimming skills are now at zero. She can still breathe under water, but will sink like a stone, her strength sapped by the sea, and if she loses consciousness she'll stop breathing too. Needless to say, she stays out of the water, and the villagers come to accept that sometimes, mermaids just live on land.

Garp still comes back, and is still furious at her wanting to become a pirate (and inwardly, extremely concerned that a bandit tried to catch and sell her), and still takes her to live at Dadan's where she meets Ace.

Ace has no idea what to think of the weird fish-brat who he's now told is gonna be his sibling, and resolutely ignores Luffy. He's inwardly slightly impressed as Luffy continues to follow him through the mountain every day, not even particularly hindered by lack of legs and using a mixture of crawling, squirming, hand-walking, and ricocheting forward with rubber arms to move.

Luffy still meets Sabo the same way as canon, and is still caught by Porchemy, who at first is thrilled because a mer brat! That'll bring in WAY more money than the spare change Ace stole! But in the end, he loses his temper at Luffy's stubbornness and still beats her to a pulp.

Ace and Sabo still rescue Luffy, and they still exchange sake cups and become brothers.

Yes, brothers.

Because at this point, neither Ace nor Sabo nor any of the bandits, nor anyone really on Dawn island save Makino and Garp actually know that Luffy's a girl. Not even Luffy.

The three brothers promise to each other that they'll all leave the island when they turn seventeen, setting out to sea to become pirates (Ace and Sabo are honestly a little concerned, given how often people try to sell Luffy, and how despite aquatic appearances Luffy's vulnerable af in water, but decide to wait and see. They have seven years together, Luffy ten until seventeen, who knows how much stronger their baby brother will get in that time).

Sabo "dies."

Ace and Luffy continue to train, and things don't change until Ace is seventeen, shortly before he sets out to sea.

He's let Luffy crawl into his blanket to sleep with him (partially cold-blooded, Lu gets cold easily when inactive), and Ace realizes that his lil brother's chest feels a bit lumpy.

Concerned, he makes Luffy have it checked out by the bandits, who are shocked to find developing...breasts?

That can't be right...right?

Dadan makes a call to Garp, who snorts and says of COURSE Luffy's a girl, didn't he say granddaughter?

No, he had not, he had only mentioned "grand child."

Everyone is shocked, but none more so than Ace, who really doesn't know what to do with this new information.

(Luffy's not quite sure what a "girl" is, and when she asks Ace, Ace honestly doesn't know how to define "girl" either, so she doesn't get what the big deal is)

Ace realizes he's troubled because he can't remember the number of times he's rescued Luffy from potential traffickers, and the number of times he's heard the lament, "Pity it's not female, it'd be worth quadruple," from the kidnappers before he beats them to a pulp.

He already had doubts about letting Luffy go out to sea alone, three years after he's left. But now knowing that Luffy's a girl, and one of the most sought-after species that traffickers target...he knows the world out there is much bigger than a teeny peaceful East Blue island, and Luffy may not get lucky every time, and may not be strong enough in just three years.

But at the same time, it's not like he can order her to stay here. There's no way Luffy'd listen; the sea calls to her, freedom calls to her, and Ace understands that more than anyone.

Sabo, Ace thinks, what would you do?

The night before he leaves, Ace tells Luffy that there's been a change of plans.

He's still leaving for sea. He's going to get stronger, and work his way towards becoming Pirate King.

BUT, three years later, Luffy will NOT leave Dawn Island alone.

Ace promises that he'll come back, a stronger pirate capable of looking out for his baby brother (because girl or not, they exchanged vows of brotherhood, and that's something that can't be changed).

He refuses to let Luffy be his captain, he's still got his pride, but maybe, maybe if Luffy becomes strong enough, he'll let her be co-Captain.

Luffy is thrilled, because she wanted to be pirates WITH Ace, and grudgingly accepts the compromise, and promises to train and wait for Ace's return.

Ace leaves Dawn island, and makes a name for himself on the Grand Line (he's PISSED when he finds out he's eaten a devil fruit, because now how's he supposed to rescue Lu from drowning when he can't swim himself???).

He even eventually makes it to Whitebeard, and eventually comes to admire the man. Whitebeard invites him to his crew, and Ace honestly replies that a large part of him wants to accept...but he can't. He promised his baby brother that they'll be pirates and co-captains together, and he can't join another pirate crew without Luffy agreeing too. Even so, and he knows it's selfish of him, he wants to call Whitebeard his father.

Whitebeard tells him that Ace is already his son, regardless of where his allegiances lie, and gives him his blessing to return to East Blue to fetch Luffy. Whitebeard laughs that he can't wait to meet the lil brat that Ace speaks so highly of, and for Ace to hurry up and come back to the New World so they can meet.

Ace plans on traveling light, his former crew all choosing to join the Whitebeard pirates except for his first mate, Deuce. Ace loves his crew, but they're also his crew, and knows that he wants to make their crew with Luffy. So he thinks he and Deuce will be a good starting point (You're just bringing me along bc you want someone who can swim on the crew, Deuce accuses).

As they're planning on leaving, Marco lets slip to fellow commander Thatch that he heard that Ace's "little brother" is actually a super cute girl.

The next morning, Thatch shows up too, insisting that he come along, because hey! He's been with the Whitebeards for ages and hasn't been to Paradise in a while, he wants some change! And won't it be nice to have someone as reliable as him along, just until they get back to the New World and reunite with the Whitebeards? Really he has no ulterior motives like wanting to check out Ace's supposedly hyper hot baby brother-sister!

Ace is suspicious, but Thatch is already on board and the other Whitebeards are already waving so he lets it go.

(Shortly after they leave, Thatch discovers a devil fruit. Deuce tells him to sell the damn thing, it'll taste like shit, but Thatch thinks boy wouldn't it be great to be able to woo Ace's hot brother with a really cool devil fruit power. So he eats it, and yeah it tastes like shit, but now he can control Darkness which is sorta badass?)

(Somewhere on the Whitebeard ships, Blackbeard is still waiting for someone to find the darkness devil fruit, and well, it doesn't happen)

Before Ace returns to Dawn Island, part of him still hopes that Luffy looks passably like a guy. Having been to Fishman island, having befriended Jinbe, he knows that while mermen can still be targeted, mermaids are exponentially more vulnerable. He's learned the kinds of clothing that can help conceal tails, and is hoping that there's a slim chance they might be able to be pirates without the world knowing that Lu's a mermaid.

His hopes are shot when Luffy rockets into his arms at the dock, and his face is immediately buried in enormous tits that definitely weren't there three years ago.

Despite Ace's growing concerns (and red face; why does he feel so hot??? It's not his devil fruit...), Ace lets Luffy give Deuce a beating (why me?!) to claim her position as Ace's Co-Captain of the newly established ASL pirates (because if we're pirates together, Sabo has to be with us too!).

Luffy's gotten a lot stronger, but is still utterly ignorant of the outside world and the dangers it holds (such as the drooling Thatch who immediately wins Luffy over with his cooking despite Ace's burning glares). She's reckless and falls into the ocean every damn day, and while Deuce dives in after her and they've discovered her useful ability to talk to fish to ask for help, it still gives Ace heart attacks.

They still pick up more crew members while in East Blue, including Roronoa Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji, a pervy cook who competes daily with Thatch for Luffy's affections through food (Luffy appreciates the food).

At Arlong Park, Luffy encounters fishmen for the first time in her life. Arlong mocks Luffy's choice of friends and family, and invites her to join his crew made of her own kind. Fishmen and mer are the superior race, and Luffy will make a fine wife, Arlong says.

Luffy breaks his nose off, and Nami joins their crew.

Luffy's chosen mode of transportation is on the back of one of her sturdier crew mates, usually Ace, but often Zoro too. She unfortunately hates all the long skirts/robes Ace suggested for her to hide her tail, and so Ace has decided that being as intimidating as possible while carrying his brother glued to his back is the only way to go.

Needless to say, news of the former Spade Pirates Captain + Whitebeard Commander Thatch (are they an extension of the Whitebeards??) establishing the new ASL pirates spreads fast. That, and rumors that there's a beautiful young mermaid on board who can't swim. And despite the strength of the crew and their attempts at vigilance, Luffy's still dumb and gullible, and is kidnapped (and rescued) a dozen times before they're even on the Grand Line.

(after a few times, Luffy's uncharacteristically quiet, and privately asks Ace if they can break up the crew. She's holding Ace back; she not only made him come back to her, but half their adventures just seem to be her crew rescuing her. She's strong enough to defeat enemies, but not save herself. Ace tells her to shut up, and never bring this up again; they're BROTHERS, and he's not going to leave her behind or make her abandon her dreams when she can't accomplish them alone, and that's his choice. Luffy doesn't bring it up again, but works harder than ever to become stronger and earn recognition as co-Captain when the world seems intent on thinking of her as Ace's pet.)

During one of these kidnappings, Luffy's successfully brought all the way to an auction house before her crew can rescue her. An auction house that unbeknownst to them, was under investigation by the Revolutionary Army.

Liberating slaves is an unfortunately common mission for them, and Sabo's doing final sweeps as Koala frees the last of them when he notices a tank stowed away in a corner. He's familiar with these tanks, used to showcase mermaids in the rare occasions one can be caught, and it looks empty but he's still drawn to it for some reason.

It's only when he gets closer that he notices a mermaid crumpled at the bottom of the enclosure. She's completely slumped over, and he's afraid she's already gone, even as something about her screams with familiarity.

He's cracked the tank and has reached in to pull her out, when the wall behind him explodes in flames, revealing a furious Ace who snarls at the strange man with his hands on his baby brother...

...and then Sabo's memories come back.

~~

Something like that???? For an initial HCs dump????

This AU has continued! A LOT! Check out the comics, illustrations, and text stories for this AU under the Mermaid AU section of my One Piece Masterpost!

As always, REBLOGS, tags, asks, and comments greatly appreciated!

Advance posts for this AU and more are on my Patreon! (Patreon(.)com/YukiPri)

[popculturebuffet]

Goof Week: Sports Goofy in SoccerMania: GoofTales Woo-oo! (Paid For for WeirdKev27)

Gorsh all you happy people and welcome back to Goof Week, my Weeklong Celebration of everyone’s favorite goofus. 

And today we have a special treat, something nice and obscure but something that still has a vital place in Disney History. Welcome folks to Sports Goof in Soccermania!  

So yesterday in my Goof Troop review I wished there had been another DuckTales episode with Goofy, you know maybe find out what happened to Peg, see Max and Roxanne again that sort of thing.  Whelp SOMEONE must’ve hid a Monkey’s Paw around here somewhere because I got this special instead on comision. This is a VERY intresting little artifact as it came out only 4 months before DuckTales, was produced around the same time, and was written by Tad Stones, who would both go on to work on DuckTales and even more importantly create Darkwing Duck. 

Not only that but it has some odd things attached to it: it’s the first major production starting Scrooge, as he had an educational short about him, the first animated appearance of the Beagle Boys and most important the FIRST time Russi Taylor would voice Huey, Dewey and Louie, something she’d do till her passing a few years ago. At the time of this article she has not been recast, though I personally vote for Cristina Valenzuela, who took over the role of Young Donald and frankly does such a good job with that voice I didn’t know if Russi had already recorded lines for Season 3 before her passing. 

So what IS Sports Goofy in Soccermania you ask? It was a TV Special from 1987, again four months before DuckTales, that was later sold on VHS. My guess is Disney intended for this to become a regular thing like the Charlie Brown or Garfield specials, but my honest guess is with DuckTales MASSIVE success they wanted to put all the TV Animation resources into making more shows to go with it. The fact the special is essentailly a Scrooge story with Goofy in it and Scrooge and the Boys were now tied up in DuckTales probably helped the decision. So we only got one of these and i’m proud to share it for Goof Week. So join me under the cut to see what a Sports Goof is, what Scrooge sounds like without Alan Young or David Tennant andto see me refrence the film UHF because I likes it. 

 So we open with the titles which are neat and then open at the Money bin, we even get a great sign gag that looks like something Carl Barks would write.

So Scrooge greets his nephews the way he greets everybody.. with a canon to the face... though he backs of firing once he realizes it’s them. The boys ALL wear red this special so .. I guess Huey won and now rules all three bodies with an iron fist? So the Huey Hive Mind asks Scrooge for a donation, a standard Scrooge setup, ask the rich asshole for money, as their trying to help the local soccer program and they need a buck fiddy for a trophy. 

Scrooge’s voice here.. is terrible. I do not like to bash voice actors, they are hard working talented people who do a lot of great stuff, often for less pay than they deserve, and this blog ALWAYS makes that painfully clear. And Will Ryan is not without talent: While he hasn’t done much i’m familiar with he did play Petrie in Land Before Time and was great in it. So while I don’t dislike him as a person.. he did an utterly DREADFUL Scrooge. He dosen’t really attempt to do a scottish accent despite the character still saying cannae at one point, and as for what accent he is going for...

His Scrooge just sounds like someone trying to do a “foreign” accent and failing. It just sounds weird and makes every bit of his dialouge aside from one a chore to sit through. And the dialouge isn’t bad dialouge, it’s a well written and animated Scrooge even with the lower budget than Ducktales, but the voice just ruins it for me. Even without Young and Tennant to compare it to this just blows and the fact it’s paired up with the iconic Russi Taylor voice for the triplets.

This being Scrooge he instead fishes a Trophy out of the bin that’s all banged up and dinky and shoos them out. So in natural Barksian fashion the trophy turns out to be worth a million dollars. So we get some reaction shots.. INCLUDING GRANDMA DUCK!

For DuckTales fans joining us who have ZERO idea who that is, since she sadly did not make it into the reboot and Frank did have ideas, Grandma Duck is Donald, Della and Gladstone’s grandma. She’s a sweet old country woman who lives on a farm and is in fact the one who sold him Kilmotor HIll, with her husband renaming it from Killmule hill. I like her a lot since she reminds me of my own grandma and like her she still works when she can. Donald’s cousin Gus loafs around and eats as her farmhand. As you can tell I like her a lot, agani because she reminds me of one of my grandmas so this was nice even if she was only around for 20 seconds of screentime. 

This ends up in the paper and sends Scrooge through the roof, literally when he finds out. 

Two notes  before we move on: The bin has a unique really cool design , though I get why other productions haven’t used it: besides this one’s obscurity while cool it just looks a bit TOO nice for Scrooge. Even in 2017 while still damn cool looking it still looks practicle. This .. is not that.

This looks like MC Hammer built this. It still looks awesome bu tit’s just not Scrooge sadly. 

The other is that his Butler is named Jeeves here, but looks almost exactly like Duckworth. Just feels weird is all. 

Naturally the Beagle Boys happen upon the paper too and their leader, no name given has a plan: Enter legitmately and win the cup all legal like, which dosen’t sound like it lives up to the beagle code of no hones twork.... until he brings up theri going ot cheat their asses off. 

Meanwhile Scrooge tries bribing the boys with a giant trophy at their house... with Donald oddly absent despite Anselmo having taken over for Nash by this point. I know he was still a bit rough at the roll, but come on. It’s just.. weird especailly for reasons i’ll get into soon. 

So Scrooge agrees to sponsor the boys teams so he can get the trophy back square, and is forced to buy a knew ball and here we FINALLY get Goofy. I say finally because this special is 20 mintues long and it takes almost a fourth of it for him to arrive. It’s just weird for him to not be in it for so long. I mean I don’t want THIS

Flashbeagle didn’t take a fourth of the special to get to Flashbeagle. It did take longer than that to get to the title track but when your sitting on THIS

You gotta use it JUST right. Goofy here is not played by Bill Farmer, which IS odd as he did start playing him that year, but my guess is they weren’t sure if they were going with Farmer or the actor who played him in this special, Tony Pope, so they were trying out both as whoever DID get the role would have it for life. Disney takes the casting of the sensational 7 VERY seriously, as evidenced by the fact most cast changes are caused by death and unlike with Tony and Donald it’s clear Colvig hadn’t picked a succesor. I can also see why it’s a hard choice: while farmer IS excellent and was the right man for the job, Pope is still excellent in the role, bringing the warmth and energy you’d expect from Goofy and having excellent comedic timing that’s vital to getting the dog man right. I can see why this was such a hard choice, even if I also see they went with Farmer: Farmer just has slightly more energy to the roll. It’s a small diffrence and something that dosen’t effect the special, but it is a KEY diffrence and the reason Bill’s THE goofy to me even over his original voice actor Pinto Colvig. 

Also I may of mispoke there... see it’s not Goofy in this special it’s SPORTS Goofy. No really every bit of dialogue refers to him as Sports Goofy. It’d be like if they refered to then CEO Micheal Eisner as Won’t Think Through Eurodisneyland Micheal Eisner. 

So Sports Goofy helps them get a ball in an honestly awesome way and shows despite his clumsy manner, he’s damn cordinated, easily putting everything up and showing some real skill with the ball. So Moneygrubbing Scrooge decides Sports Goofy is his ticket to get the trophy back and recuits goofy as coach and star player for the boys team. 

So Asshole Scrooge meets his team the Greenbacks.. which are a bunch of random animal characters with no real personality. They are a hippo, a goat, expresso the ostrich, a navy (blue) seal,  an elephant in a beanie, a killaroo and a cheetah or leopard. But I have one question, really simple really easy one...

You need 11 players for a soccer team, thank you google. So they DID get that accurate. With Goofy and the Triplets you only need 7 more. THIS is why Donald’s absence is glaring: he’s just oddly not there when they needed 7 other characters but Elephant in a Beanie gets in there. And it’s not hard ot fill either: Donald , Daisy (Because duh), Gyro and Grandma Duck (Because both cameoed but I only mentioned Grandma Duck, though this is ALSO Gyro’s first apperance), Gladstone (who as it turns out had a cameo storyboarded that didn’t make it into the final product), Gus (Since grandma duck) and Scrooge’s butler since he was in an earlier scene anyway so why waste the character model. They could still play the same roll as easily steamrolled underdogs and it’d make more sense.  It just baffles me that with such a deep bench to play from, they don’t use ANY OF IT in favor of the cast of Animal Soccer World.

The Greenbacks can’t play for greenjack, which worries Scrooge.. but Goofy is able to carry them to the finals, while the Beagle Boys make their way there too. We find this out.. via newspaper transition. We get a bunch of headlines telling us what happened instead of you know a montage because that costs money and they already spent 1.50 making this special.. they only have 50 cents left. 

So the Beagles recognizing Sport Goofy is the only thing in their way plots a kidnappin. We get a gut busting scene of the beagles all hiding in Sports Goofy’s house with him being oblvious only to spring on him. 

The next day with Sports Goofy a no show the team is bummed, even mor ewhen they find a kidnapping note from Don’tGetNotToLeaveEvidence Beagle Boys. Seriously give that to the officals. 

So Asshole Scrooge tries to give a rousing speech... and it is a sight to behold and the one highlight of pope as scrooge... it’s why I picked it as the article image. That glitching isn’t me by the way: it REALLY does that. Coupled with the yellow eyes i’ts just fantastic. So the team decides to morosely play the game and Hivemind Huey boos scrooge for not having faith in him. Instead of again you know telling the officials. Maybe assimilating the other made Huey dumber. I

So the game begins and the Cheating Beagles cream the Give Up To Easily Green Backs, while Sports Goofy watches from the other Crime Beagles hideout. It honestly reminds me of UHF: a dumb well meaning guy whose vital to something succeding is kidnapped.. it dosen’t involve Weird Al dressing up as rambo but still. It also makes me want UHF but with the disney cast. Fethry as weird al, Donald as his best friend, Fethry’s girlfriend for the comcis as weird al’s girlfriend, Gyro as philo, Goofy as Stanley, and Pete of course is Stacey Keach. I could go on but you get the point. Someone draw this.  Sport Goofy is a clever bastard and escapes by working one of his shoes off, taking a nearbye knife and cutting himself free.. and almost stabbing a beagle boy in the face but that would just make two. Sport Goofy escapes and the lunkheaded beagle boys chase after him IN THEIR CAR WHILE GOOFY RUNS AHEAD OF IT.  Goofy, he can really move! Goofy, he’s got attitude! Goofy HE’S THE FASTEST THING ALLIIIIVEEEEEE. Sport Goofy makes it in time fo rhalf time, rallies the troops and it goes how you’d expect: They overcome the beagles blatant cheating, win the cup, the beagles attempt to cheat with a rigged ball backfires and they all get arrested. It’s by the numbers stuff. We end with Scrooge deciding to dontate the trophy instead (though in a great bit asking if it was tax deductible), and posing for a team shot> We get some awesome credits music and we’re out

Final Thoughts:

This special is mediocre: There are only a handful of great jokes, it’s your standard “teamwork makes the dreamwork plot” that dosen’t work because our underdogs really CAN’T play without their star, and Scrooge’s voice hurts to listen to. Pope and Taylor are great and while Will Ryan is an awful Scrooge, he is a good Beagle Boy or five. 

It IS worth a watch though. It’s riffable enough with the sometimes sloppy unfinished animatoin in the last part and Scrooge’s terrible voice, and it is still is a neat oddity for 90′s kids like myself to not only see Russi’s first thing as Huey Dewey and Louie, but to also see Scrooge and Goofy with vastly diffrent voice actors, as well as Gyro and the Beagle Boys first animated apperances. The fact this came just months before Ducktales makes it all the more intresting. So if your looking for a legit good Disney product.. this is shoddy at best if well meaning. But as a bit of disney history, especially only clocking in at 20 minutes so it’ sa brisk watch, it’s worth a look if your into that. 

Next On Goof Week: We come on in To The House of Mouse where goofy becomes faster than a speeding punchline,  more powerful than pete when his family has to wrestle him to the ground to take him to the doctor and able to make tall leaps of logic in a single bound. it’s SUPER GOOF!

So thank you for reading and if you liked this review give it a like and consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As a patron you’d get access to exclusive reviews, the patreon’s discord and to pick a short each time I do one of these shortstaculars. Donald’s comnig next month and the deadline is in only a few days to join up for said month so the clock is ticking. Even a dollar a month helps me reach my stretch goals so please i fyou can sign up today and if not, I understand and i’ll see you at the next rainbow

[buriednurbckyrd]

Oh, Baby! (1)

Mini sequel to Right In Front of You; The Reader has decided she’s ready to start a family and Bucky is definitely on board.

* * * Bucky was lost in his thoughts and the motions of his work out.  Y/N was due for her heat at any time now, which was normally enough to have him distracted from his surroundings.  But his Omega had dropped a bomb on him: she was ready for a pup.  She had met with Fury and Steve to discuss how she would adjust to potential motherhood, before anyone could put in their opinion on the matter.  Even her Alpha, which had rankled him at first.  But he wasn't a controlling Alpha, and while Y/N was stubborn, she wasn't a foolish woman.   “Any mission work that comes up during my pregnancy will be discussed with my doctor.  But my role on the team will still change during and after.  I will be switching gears to strictly defense and search and rescue.  Obviously being a mother will come first, but I'm an agent and I'm not ready to hang that hat up completely.”  To the point, no nonsense.  Exactly how she was in the line of duty.  He never doubted that she would get exactly what she wanted.  If she wanted to balance motherhood with field work, albeit in a different capacity, then she would figure it out and excel at it.   Before he could stop it, the image of his Omega's plump body expanding with child flooded his brain and the groan he let out had nothing to do with the weight he was lifting.  Her pre-heat scent was driving him crazy, reminding him that this time there would be no barriers to stop his seed from taking root.  He set the barbell back onto the rack and sat up, discreetly adjusting himself.  He didn't think he'd been less than at least half hard since she told him she was ready to try her next heat.   “Yo, Cold Miser!”  Sam's voice shook him from his reverie.  He looked over at the other man.  Sam held up Bucky's phone.  “This thing has been going off for ten minutes, man!  Didn't you hear it?” He scrambled over and took the phone, turning on the screen.  Five missed calls from Y/N.  He hit redial and cursed his distracted mind. “Y/N?” He said as soon as he heard his call connect.   “Bucky.” She sounded breathless.   “You okay, sweetheart?” His brow furrowed when he heard a whimper.   “It's starting Alpha,” she whined. “I need you now.”  He swallowed hard and willed his dick to behave while he was still in the gym with Sam.   “I'll be right there,” he assured her.  “I'm on my way.”  She hummed in approval and ended the call.  He looked over at Sam.  “I'm uh...” “Yeah yeah, I've seen the writing on the wall.  Stay hydrated you animals.” … FRIDAY had to let him into their rooms, but the AI didn't give him any trouble.  And when the protocol was in place to keep his Omega safe, he wouldn't complain about the extra three seconds it took.   “Doll? How're you doing?”  He called out, rushing to their bedroom.  She was stripped down to a flimsy tank top and her underwear.  Her pajama pants were balled up on the floor, discarded when her temperature began to rise.  Y/N looked up at him and made a pleased sound.   “So much better now that you're here, Alpha.”  She crawled to the end of the mattress and beckoned him closer.  “You sure you were just working out, JB?  You smell like sex already.”  She teased him, running her hands under his sweat soaked tee shirt.  He grinned and grabbed her hips, gently digging his fingers into her flesh possessively.   “Been thinking about you all morning, 'Mega,” he replied, his voice dropping an octave.  “You been smellin' so sweet all week, Y/N.  It was torture waiting for your heat to start so I can fill you up with my pups.”  She pulled his shirt off and dropped it.   “You think it's been easy for me?”  She licked his neck and sucked at his bonding mark.  Bucky let out a soft moan and slid his fingers into her panties, teasing her lips.   “You're already dripping, babe.” Instead of answering, Y/N cupped his cheek and guided him to her mouth.   “Kiss me, Alpha.  I need you.”  The kiss began soft, loving.  Expressing the feelings neither one needed to speak out loud.  This union was precious, and they basked in the strength of their bond.  But it was still a very primal, physical act and as Bucky continued to touch her the kiss turned into something more forceful.  She bit into his bottom lip and tugged, before pulling back to catch her breath.   “I fucking love you.”  He panted, sliding two fingers inside her slick channel.  Her head fell back with a surprised cry.  His metal hand gripped her tank top and before he realized what he was doing it was torn in two and his mouth was closing over one of her nipples. “Oh!” She nearly fell backwards, but his prosthetic arm darted out to catch her.  “K-keep that up and I'm gonna come!”  He grinned around her nipple and scraped his teeth other the little nub, at the same time the fingers inside of her zeroed in on her g-spot and rubbed firmly against it.  Her hands caught in his hair, pulling at the strands as he worked her closer to her first release.  “Alpha,” she whimpered.  “James, oh please…”  She broke off with a gasp and he knew she was nearly there. “Come for me, pretty 'Mega, come for your Alpha.”  He growled and bit her other nipple.  The unexpected sharpness tipped her over the edge and she came around his fingers.  Bucky gently laid her back on the bed without giving her a chance to recover he tore off her panties and his mouth was on her cunt, licking and sucking at her clit.   “Fuck! It's too much!”  She wailed, but her body told him a different tale as her thighs clamped around his head holding him in place.   “You got another one in you,” he rasped.  “Give me one more and I'll fill you up so good...”  He promised.  Three fingers worked their way back into her, stretching and preparing her for his knot.  He swore her slick was running down his wrist as he fucked her with his hand.   “Fuck fuck fuck!”  She sobbed out.  He could feel her thick thighs tremble and he added a final finger, stretching her full.  Her body went rigid with her second orgasm, mouth open in a silent scream.   Bucky carefully pull his fingers back from her sensitive pussy and licked her slick from his digits.  His Alpha side was very pleased and smug looking down at his fucked out mate.   “Think you're ready to take my knot, Omega?”  He pushed his sweats and boxers down his legs, stroking his cock.  “I'm gonna stuff you full of come,” he said lowly, his eyes growing darker.  “Breed my beautiful Omega, everyone'll know I'm the one that filled you.”   “Only you.”  She murmured back.  The submission in her voice surprised him, and when he met her eyes he saw a vulnerability he had never seen before from his fierce Omega.  It made him pause. “Y/N,” His voice softened and he brushed her hair back from her sweaty forehead.  “I feel like I should say...something.”  She smiled and kissed his palm.   “I already know.”  He returned the smile and ran his hands up and down her legs.   “You ready?”  His playful tone was back.   “Definitely. Fuck me, Alpha.  Breed me.”  She wiggled her hips and he groaned. Bucky lined himself up with her entrance and teased them both, rubbing the head of his cock in her slick.  “Oh god, James please!” “I don't think you've ever begged me before,” he chuckled.  “I kind of like it.”   “Cocky Alpha bastard.” “You love it,” he pushed into her.  “Ffffffuck you feel amazing.” He didn't stop until he was fully seated inside of her.  “'M gonna fuck you so good, sweetheart.”   “Promises, promises.”  She moaned out.  He seemingly ignored her sarcasm and groped her soft belly as he thrust in and out of her.   “I can't wait to see you get round and ripe with my pup,” he panted. “Fucking love your body, so perfect, my gorgeous girl...”  Bucky already felt his knot begin to inflate, the muscle poised to expand and lock them together.  “Play with those perfect tits while I fuck you full.”  He growled.  Y/N's hands went to her breasts, pinching and plucking at her nipples.  “Yes...” He hissed, slamming into her as he lost himself in the sensations.   “James, oh fuck, fuck your Omega!”  She worked her hips, meeting him for each thrust.   “Mine.” He snarled.  He hunched over her, sucking at her mark.  “You're mine.”   “I'm gonna come again Alpha, I need your knot!”  Her body was nearing exhaustion, needing a break to recover from Bucky's ministrations. “Come for me, baby, fill me up.”  She reached down and caressed his balls, already aching to come.  It never failed to give him the final push.   “Shit, Omega you know exactly how to touch me...” Her teeth caught his earlobe and she nibbled.  “Fucking hell I'm close!”  His thrusts grew shallower as his knot started to catch on her walls.   “Give it to me…” she purred in his ear, fingers finding his perineum and gently but firmly pressing down.  A jolt went through his body and he came with a choked shout, biting into the scar he had left when they mated.  Feeling his seed coat her womb triggered Y/N's third orgasm, and she went limp under him utterly spent.  Bucky was ready to collapse with her, but held himself up to catch his breath before carefully rolling onto his back with Y/N splayed across his chest.   “When we can move again I'll get you some water and something to eat.” He told her, stroking her back.  “God you're so soft...”  The callouses on his fingers sent a shiver through her and she clenched around his knot.  “Fuck!  You feel goddamn incredible squeezing the shit out of me.”  A smaller, mild orgasm rolled through him and he released another load inside her.   “I have a good feeling,” she said dreamily.  “I bet you got me on our first try.”  He let out a quite laugh at her sleepy voice.   “But we can still keep going just to make sure, right?”   “Mmm-hmm. After a nap though.  You wore your Omega out, Alpha.”  Bucky felt his heart swell with pride.   “Get some rest, Doll.  I'll still be here when you wake up.”  He laced his fingers with hers and kissed the top of her head.  It didn't take long for her breathing to even out and he knew she was asleep. … Three weeks later Bucky had been looking for Y/N for over and hour.  One moment she was in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea and the next she had vanished.  He wouldn't have been so concerned but he had tried calling her a couple of times and each time it went directly to her voice mail.  He jogged out to the garage where all the vehicles were parked and saw her pick up parked where it always was.  Her green house was empty, and no one had seen her come in the gym.   He had checked their rooms first, but decided to try there again.  It turned out to be a good idea, as he finally found her pacing in their bedroom.   “There you are!  Where the heck did you disappear?”  She stopped walking and looked at him with a guilty expression.   “I went out to get a test.”  She looked down.  “I took Natasha's car so you wouldn't suspect.”  She sniffled and he gathered her into his arms. “Hey, I'm not mad, but I would have gone with you.”   “I just didn't want to get our hopes up so I thought if I just got it and took it by myself...”  She trailed off and nuzzled his chest. “I can't look at it without you.  I don't know why I thought I should do it alone.”   “I'm here now, it's okay.”  He lifted her chin and rested his forehead against hers.  “You don't need to explain anything to me.  I know when you feel overwhelmed you tend to run and hide.”  He smiled. “But try and remember that we're in this together.  Whatever that test says, okay?”  She nodded.   “It should be ready.  I left it by the sink.”  He kissed her and took her hand.   “Ready to look?”  She took a deep breath and they slowly walked to the bathroom.  “We lookin' for a line?  Or is it two lines?”  She squeezed his hand and stared at the little white stick from the doorway. “I got one of those fancy digital ones, it'll say 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant'.”  He lifted their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles.   “No matter what it says, it's you and me.”  He said again.  She took another deep breath and reached for the test, turning it over so they could both see the tiny result window.  Bucky was speechless, looking up to see her eyes overflowing with tears and her radiant smile. “You're gonna be a dad.”  

next

[pengiesama]

The Gang Crashes a Party While in Drag (Chapter 2)(Fic, TOZ, Sorey/Mikleo)

Title: The Gang Crashes a Party While in Drag (Chapter 1, Chapter 2) Series: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Sorey/Mikleo

Summary:

Sorey and the crew investigate reports of a black market trafficking ring, and zero in on a particularly nasty noble at the center of it all. Luckily, said noble is opening his chateau to host a masquerade – the perfect opportunity to get close. Unluckily, the Shepherd’s fame has spread wide, and Sorey needs a disguise to make sure he’s incognito.

This is achieved by the obvious solution, and that’s to disguise him in a dress and pass him off as Rose’s sister. What could possibly go wrong?

Notes:

Written for the Sorey/Mikleo 2019 Big Bang! @sormikbigbang​

I partnered up with the wonderful Arivess @minstrels-ink​ and Nami; both of whom provided their artistic skills to complement my wack-ass ideas. I am eternally grateful to them.

Arivess’s art is featured in Chapter 1! You can find her Tumblr here. Nami’s art is featured in Chapter 2! You can find her Twitter here.

Link: AO3

Read on Tumblr!

“Presenting the representatives of House Sparrowfeather: Lord Roseino Sparrowfeather, first of his name. And the Lady Soreyella Sparrowfeather.”

“Our RSVPs must’ve been lost in the mail,” Rose began in an exaggeratedly posh accent, twisting her mustache as she spoke. “Surely you must have heard of us, else mamá and papá would be simply furious. And that is of course not getting into the matter of grandmamá and grandpapá…”

Rose’s ability to talk her way into anything wasn’t quite working as well as they’d hoped, and the staff seemed unmoved; frowning as he searched through the guest list for their names. Shyly, Sorey twirled a curl of his blonde wig around his finger, and cast a glance up at the armored guards and household staff who were eyeing him. His eyelashes were thick with some weird black stuff that Lailah had put on them; he fluttered them a few times to clear his vision.

“P-pleased to m-meet you,” Sorey said softly, before bending his knees into a curtsy, just as Lailah had taught him. Lailah had not, however, taught him to flash so much cleavage with the motion, and Sorey seemed oblivious to the affect it would have.

The affect being this: an instant success in Phase One of the plan.

The head staff member, recovering from his swoon at the sight of this soft-spoken and utterly charming big-titted ingenue, immediately ushered them into the ballroom proper to mingle.

(Before he wandered back to his post, he tried to get another glimpse down that bodice of House Sparrowfeather’s youngest maiden daughter – but suddenly, as if struck by heavenly judgment, he was doused with a torrent of icy-cold water from sources unknown. It also kind of felt like someone invisible stomped on his foot. Sputtering and confused, the staff member stumbled away.)

The party attendees were quite cosmopolitan – nobles and high-powered business owners from Hyland and Rolance alike. Rose and Sorey wove through the crowd to a quiet corner to regroup and discuss their next steps.

“…who does this chump noble think he is, not ACTUALLY inviting the head of the largest shipping and distribution company on the continent…” Rose griped. “I’m gonna go hit the punch table and work my charms on everyone worth charming. Sorey, keep your eyes peeled for an opportunity to sneak out. And…”

She trailed off. She was going to ask Mikleo to try to avoid hosing down every guest who tried to approach Sorey, but the current look on his face let her know that this might be…a little much to ask, right now, lest she also face the wrath of the hose. She beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the punch table.

“I’m going to go sit in the bowl of spinach dip and steal all the shrimp at the buffet,” Edna declared with no room for argument. She then made her way slowly away, yanking on her pantaloons and skidding around in her fancy buckled shoes, walking like a baby deer trying to take its first steps.

Zaveid tapped a perfectly-manicured finger against his lipsticked lips, scanning the room critically. “Ya think anyone’s drunk enough yet to not realize they’re dancin’ with someone invisible?”

“I think Lailah may already be testing that idea out…” Sorey said. He pointed to where Lailah was currently twirling a pair of slightly bewildered nobles around by the hand; the tails of her suit swirling around her like a comet’s as she moved.

“Great! We can get a conga line goin’!” Zaveid said happily. He then pranced off to join Lailah; heels clacking on the polished marble as he went.

Sorey looked around nervously. He tugged on his bodice, absently; it really was so tight. How did any of these people dance while dressed like this? He loved the skirts, he really did; they were like capes, but more. Maybe they weren’t quite as suited to climbing and exploration as trousers, but, well, Mikleo used to wear that dress-like thing when he was younger, right? And he made do just fine.

He looked at Mikleo. Mikleo was standing in front of him like an invisible guard, scowling at the crowd of people around them. He didn’t look as excited to be here as he should. They were going to finally see the archivolts, weren’t they?

“So…” Sorey said, trying to lighten Mikleo’s mood. “Do you want me to get you some punch too? Or some dip before Edna sits in it?”

Mikleo gave an unintelligible grunt. Geez, he really was in a bad mood…

“Are your shoes hurting your feet again?” Sorey asked. He tapped his head. “You can hop in here to rest a little bit.”

“No,” Mikleo snapped. “Can you seriously not see that all these people are…ugh, never mind.”

Someone nearby carrying two drinks was very suddenly doused in water. Sorey blinked, and stuck his hand down his bodice to fish out his handkerchief to help dry them off. Mikleo seized his wrist, dragged it out of his cleavage, and dragged Sorey away from their corner.

“Don’t bother helping them,” Mikleo said. “I heard what they were planning.”

“Planning?” Sorey echoed. “Mikleo, they were just carrying drinks.”

“They were going to offer one of those drinks to you. And then probably ask you to dance.”

“…I mean, I can’t really dance, but what’s the harm in asking me?”

Mikleo’s jaw tightened, and his lips pursed into a pout. His cheeks and ears were burning red.

“It’s – it’s rude and disingenuous and just a ploy. First a drink and then dancing and then they ask you out to the gardens alone and then they’ll sweet talk you and get all handsy.”

Sorey wasn’t sure that Mikleo’s line of logic was really tracking, here. Absently, he yanked on his bodice again; it really was so tight, and his squished-up chest was jiggling with every move he made.

“So…what do people usually do at these parties if they don’t drink or eat or dance or talk to anyone? Aren’t we supposed to be blending in?”

Mikleo led him to another secluded corner, and dragged over several empty chairs at once with his artes. He used these chairs to barricade their new fortress, and seal Sorey off behind them. He then sat himself on the frontmost chair, spreading out his knees in his gown and planting his feet on the marbled floor. He crossed his arms, and returned to his previous activity of scowling at the crowd. The nearest party-goers to them shivered at the cold sensation of being glared at by a phantom evil eye.

“…are we blending in?” Sorey asked.

“I am,” Mikleo said. “Perfectly.”

For her part, Rose was blending in with more success than Sorey. She flitted from guest to guest, from lady to lord, flirting her heart out and fluttering away, leaving broken hearts in her wake as she searched out information for their investigation. Information, or at least someone who could keep up with her on the dance floor. Maybe she should join Lailah and Zaveid’s conga line for a while to spice things up—

“Rose.”

…Well. There was bound to be someone to see through her clever disguise. And it just had to be someone who she couldn’t charm, no matter how hard she tried.

But she was open to trying again.

“Princess,” Rose greeted Alisha, offering her a hand to dance.

This party’s guest list was really just too interesting. So many influential business owners, but not Rose herself. So many nobles, but with so many mysterious absences. And so many equally mysterious attendees. Alisha, of all the nobles, had been invited – Princess Alisha Diphda, the youngest, the least influential, and certainly not the easiest to get along with. And even more certainly, not the easiest to bribe.

“Lord Mardoc throws a great party, doesn’t he?” Rose asked as they twirled around the room. “Man, it’s like waltzing was made for having these tense secret discussions in a packed ballroom. I can whisper anything I want into your ear and no one else will hear it. Ow.”

Alisha’s hand quickly moved back into position from where it was previously pinching Rose’s wandering hand.

“Rose,” she hissed back into Rose’s ear. “Why are you in that ridiculous disguise? Did you – did you sneak in!?”

“No sneaking,” Rose promised. “We just showed up at the gate like this. They saw my mustache and were charmed.”

With an irritated noise, Alisha reached up and yanked off the false moustache from Rose’s lip. The nerve!

“Tell me why you’re here,” Alisha demanded.

Princess Alisha Diphda. Not the easiest to get along with, and whose cooperation and good opinion could not be bought. For whatever reason she’d been invited here, Rose was sure it wasn’t because she was in on Mardoc’s business ventures.

So, she told her the story of how they’d found themselves here. Alisha was quiet, and listened throughout. (She giggled at Rose’s description of Zaveid’s entrance in his new gown, though. It was a sound Rose tucked away in her heart.)

“…Lord Mardoc of House Melwas is one of the only voices in the Hyland Senate that is still against the war with Rolance,” Alisha said. “His support is…vital, both politically and financially. I often find that he is the only one in the room who is listening when I speak at Senate meetings, and – during this past month’s proceedings, he invited me to this ball, so I could meet with like-minded supporters, he said…he said there were others, like us, who don’t want war, and if I could just speak with them in person…”

“So you’re here to network,” Rose finished for her. “Turn a blind eye to Mardoc’s extracurricular activities for the greater good, huh? They fund the anti-war effort, after all.”

Alisha glowered at her, eyes burning with determination and anger. “I said nothing of the sort. I’ve heard rumors of Lord Mardoc’s involvement in – shady work. Rumors. I have hope that they are baseless accusations, spread by those who are envious of Lord Mardoc’s legitimate business ventures, or those who wish to discredit him and his anti-war efforts. But I know that I must get the truth of it. I’m here to confront him; to ask him, face-to-face, if these rumors are real.”

Rose barked a short, helpless, offended laugh. “Am I really hearing this!? You think that you’ll get a straight answer out of him by asking him about it nicely?”

Alisha’s face burned red. “I—”

“And what happens if the rumors really are true, hmm?” Rose continued, low, in Alisha’s ear. “What if you find out that he’s been funding you with dirty money? Are you gonna arrest him right then and there, cart him off to jail? Watch as he pulls some strings to drop all the charges, then drops you like a rock after that? No more friendly face in the Senate for you.”

Alisha was silent. Rose stared at her, evenly.

“I hope you’ve thought about this, Alisha,” she murmured. “I hope you’ve thought about this really hard.”

While this drama was unfolding, further drama was unfolding at Fort Mikleo. Sorey had grown tired of being confined to a corner and guarded by a surly, invisible gargoyle in a dress (but a pretty gargoyle, Sorey had to mentally add), and had slipped the lead to escape back onto the dance floor. Mikleo was not far behind, and continued to guard him against the swarm of people who – honestly, all they were doing was offering him things, or telling him how pretty he looked, or asking to dance! The gifts were just jewelry and flowers and perfume, nothing interesting like a book or an Ancient Avarost artifact. And he couldn’t dance, and he knew they were just being nice with the compliments, because if they saw Mikleo they’d knew that Sorey was nowhere near as pretty as him. Sorey didn’t know why Mikleo was getting so upset.

“Lady Sparrowfeather!”

“Maiden Soreyella! Ah, you shy away from me once more, but my heart still burns!”

“Lady Sparrowfeather, please, just one dance and a kiss to your hand under the moonlight, and I will be sustained in love for all eternity…”

Mikleo hosed them all down again. This was becoming a very damp masquerade.

Even if Mikleo was being…strangely adamant about it, Sorey could maybe understand why he didn’t want them getting caught up with a million dance requests. They really did need to start looking through the mansion soon, before it got too late and the bustle of the party died down – that was an essential distraction, one that they needed to remain undetected.

– but they also needed to get OUT of the party undetected, and that was proving to be something of a problem…

“Unhand the blonde maiden!”

A booming voice made all of Sorey’s suitors stop dead in their tracks. Slowly, they turned around.

Sorey’s savior had come, in the form of another unexpected undercover agent. Captain Sergei Strelka of the Rolance Plantium Knights stood before them, resplendent in a dazzling glittering ballgown and a flowing chestnut brown wig. He had not shaved his facial hair for the venture. Arms crossed and shoulders back, he stared down the party-goers, a challenge in his gaze.

“As I said – unhand the blonde maiden! If you wish to dance, I challenge you to keep up with me! That is, of course, if any of you think you have the ability!”

Some of the suitors were clearly taken aback by this lady’s brusqueness. However, just as many of them were clearly totally into it. Whatever their thoughts on the matter, it was clear to Sorey and Mikleo both that this was their chance to bolt.

“Should we try to find the others first?” Sorey whispered as they went for the door.

Edna was clearly visible (to them, at least) from their position: sitting waist-deep in the spinach dip bowl, stuffing fistfuls of shrimp into her mouth and throwing the tails at those who ventured near her lair to seek dip. Lailah and Zaveid, to their credit, had seen the commotion and were in the process of keeping the guards distracted. They couldn’t quite find Rose – probably caught up in flirting information out of someone, no doubt.

“We gotta go now,” Mikleo said, dragging Sorey out into the halls. “Sergei can’t keep them all distracted forever.”

This was true enough. But where to start first, when looking for the evidence they needed?

“If I was a corrupt nobleman at the head of a black market human trafficking ring,” Sorey began aloud. “Where would I store all the evidence of my wicked deeds?”

Mikleo slanted a side look at him, and smirked.

“An underground cathedral,” he said.

“With archivolts,” Sorey added.

To a lesser man, it would be somewhat difficult to determine where in Chateau Melwas the entrance to its ancient underground cathedral lay. But that is because a lesser man had not poured over maps of Baudemagus Cathedral and had not planned elaborate imaginary expeditions through its depths with their very best friend before bed every Thursday night for ten years. With the help of a map of the chateau provided by Rose before the infiltration, it was child’s play for them to find the most likely entry-points from an architectural standpoint.

(“What are they even talking about?” Rose had asked helplessly as they compared the map she’d provided with the map from their dusty old atlas. “What cathedral? Check in his study or something first!”

“Rose,” sighed Lailah. “Must you still ask these things?”

Rose hung her hand. “I know…could you and Zaveid try doing a sweep of the upper floors while they do whatever?”

“Of course.”)

And so, they arrived: Baudemagus Cathedral, ancient underground marvel, thought lost to the world when its caretakers had built their private property on top of it. It was, honestly, inexcusable from a scholarly standpoint; to seal off an important historical point of interest from the public eye like this.

What was even more inexcusable was letting it become a breeding ground for hellions.

“Well,” Sorey said, unsheathing his sword from a hidden fold in his skirts. “Whatever he’s doing down here, it’s not good!”

Mikleo stared at him, stared at his chest, then flicked his eyes back up to his face.

“You’re going to be fighting like that?”

“…it’s not like I have anything else?” Sorey replied, confused.

That (very cute) pout pursed Mikleo’s mouth once more, and with a furious growl, he took the skirts of his own gown into his fists and ripped. Quickly, he tied the dangling strips around his long legs; freeing him from their confines, and also showing Sorey that he’d been wearing white thigh-highs and garters underneath. And also was wearing his own shoes instead of heels. Sorey was struck with two emotions by this display: fondness, and horniness. He was also struck by an idea of his own, and his fingers went up to his bodice.

He tugged hard; once, twice, until the laces sprang untied. He heaved a deep breath, relishing the air in his lungs, and the cool breeze on his bared chest. Mikleo’s eyes went huge, and he sprang in front of Sorey again, shielding him from the view of the prowling hellions.

He tugged hard; once, twice, until the laces sprang untied. He heaved a deep breath, relishing the air in his lungs, and the cool breeze on his bared chest. Mikleo’s eyes went huge, and he sprang in front of Sorey again, shielding him from the view of the prowling hellions.

“Mikleo?”

“I’m getting tired of – people looking at you like you’re a piece of meat tonight!” Mikleo said, swinging his staff like a bat to swat off a hellion that’d finally taken the initiative to pounce.

“Well, I’m – I’m tired of people not looking at you at all!” Sorey said, springing into the fight as well. “You look so pretty, Mikleo! Tonight, and all the time!”

They were back to back in the cathedral hall, covering for each other as the hellions attacked. Sorey turned his head just enough to confirm that Mikleo’s ear and cheek were red.

“You looked so pretty in the ballroom! If everyone could just see you there, I bet there’d be no more malevolence, and no more war, and everyone could live side-by-side—”

“Call my name and finish all these jerks off!” Mikleo interrupted. “If they haven’t already died from all the sap you’re spitting!”

Sorey grinned and briefly leaned his head back onto Mikleo’s shoulder. “First you’re worried about my modesty, and now you’re telling me you want me in that skintight suit. C’mon, Mikleo, you’re giving me mixed signals here.”

Still, with a shout of Mikleo’s true name and a shower of arrows, they stood triumphant in the shadowed cathedral hall. They split apart, and – still in their disheveled gowns – took a moment to catch their breath.

“Thank you for cleaning up the place. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen guests down here.”

It was an unfamiliar voice, and an unfamiliar face that greeted them. But from context, it was clear enough who he was.

“Lord Mardoc?” Sorey asked.

Mardoc smirked and gave a sarcastic tip of his head. “Pleasure, Shepherd. And guest.”

Sorey’s eyes widened, and he briefly looked at Mikleo before looking back to Mardoc. “You can—”

“See your seraph? Yes, I’ve been seeing things like him since I was small,” Mardoc idly said. “And things like those creatures at your feet…”

He lifted a hand, and the hellions that were still responsive enough seemed to react to the command there.

“They listen to me now,” he murmured. “They’ve always been here, beneath the chateau. Whispering and speaking to me in my bed at night. Why are you here, Shepherd? Invading my ancestral hall, drawing your sword in a holy place?”

The malevolence around Mardoc was thick; thick enough that Sorey was worried Mikleo would get nauseous. He was strong, now; strong enough to stand tall against this kind of corruption and protect those who needed him.

“Lord Mardoc. There are reports of a human trafficking ring stretching across the continent. Are you behind it?” Sorey asked.

“Yes,” Mardoc said.

…oh.

That was straightforward.

Mardoc lifted his chin and sniffed dismissively. “What of it, Shepherd? What, exactly, did you intend to accomplish by coming here tonight? Did you expect to find piles of clandestine paperwork in my handwriting, books and invoices? Did you expect to find rows of caged innocents for you to triumphantly set free?”

He didn’t wait for Sorey to answer. He laughed aloud, and started pacing in a tight circle as he spoke.

“Oh yes, I’m behind it all. A business venture that’s joined Hyland and Rolance together! It’s the greatest effort for peace between our nations that we’ve seen in decades. I am providing people with salvation. You’ve seen the world as it is now! Starvation, pestilence, war. The people approach me, begging me to save them. It’s an entirely reasonable exchange. I put them in touch with interested buyers. The money goes seventy percent to a beneficiary of their choosing – a starving family, for example – and thirty percent to me, as compensation for the service. And I take that thirty percent, every last bit, and put it towards efforts against the war.”

He was continuing to laugh as he went on, the sound becoming more and more hysterical.

“You all think I’m doing it for the money! But I’m not. House Melwas’ coffers sustain me handsomely! This work of mine is entirely in service of humanity. I am the most compassionate of those in the current market – arrest me, Shepherd, and the market won’t just go away. The problem won’t go away. They’ll go somewhere else, to someone else, to sell themselves! Or they’ll just die in the streets. Do you want that on your conscience? Is that something your pure heart can rationalize away?”

“Sorey, tell me you’re not buying any of this,” Mikleo said, low. “He’s trying to rationalize human trafficking because all proceeds go to charity.”

“Believe me, I’m not,” Sorey said back. “But he’s about one more minute of monologuing away from going full hellion, so brace yourself.”

“Such compassion you show towards your fellow man!” spat Mardoc. The aura of malevolence surrounding him spiked, intensified, boiled over. “Shepherd!”

And so, it came down to this: Shepherd Sorey and his faithful seraph Mikleo, dressed to kill, versus the Lord Mardoc of House Melwas, corrupted by malevolence and twisted into a monstrous form: a wolf-centipede, like the man that started this all, but so much larger, so much fatter, and constantly weeping false crocodile tears. Two against one, with the odds heavily in favor of the one.

“What’s the plan?” Mikleo shouted, dodging away from Mardoc’s strikes. “Did you call for everyone else!?”

“I did, but they still need to get down here!” Sorey yelled back. “We just need to hold our ground until then!”

Mikleo got a thoughtful look on his face. “Or…we could see if he falls for the same trick as the other one.”

“Getting knocked into a tree?” Sorey asked, confused. “Mikleo, we’re in a cathedral.”

“With plenty of pillars underneath those archivolts. Get it?”

Sorey did. “Luzrov Rulay!”

An arrow to the face, then another. Then, an arrow to a nearby pillar. Sparks of blue light erupted from the ends of the arrows, and suddenly, a chain emerged connecting the two. Mardoc screamed, and tried to pull away to no avail. He found himself chained in place, unable to do anything but thrash as Sorey and Mikleo circled around him; pinning him down further, to more pillars.

“SHEPHERD. DO YOU THINK THESE PILLARS CAN HOLD BACK MY RIGHTEOUS FURY?” Mardoc’s distorted voice growled. “I’LL TOPPLE THEM AND BRING THIS CATHEDRAL DOWN ON ALL OUR HEADS.”

“And bring your house down with it, with all your friends and supporters?” Mikleo shot back. “Hollow threat. Serves you right for building on top of a historical landmark.”

Mikleo shot another arrow between his eyes to punctuate his remark. Sorey felt himself swoon.

“Sorey! Mikleo!”

The cavalry had arrived, with some unexpected guests: alongside Rose and the other seraphim, Alisha and Sergei hurried as well. Sorey and Mikleo separated into two again, and explained what had just occurred to the late arrivals.

Alisha…did not seem to be taking the news well. She took a steadying breath.

“…thank you, Shepherd Sorey, Lord Mikleo. I apologize on behalf of Hyland for allowing this man to operate in our midst.”

Mardoc let out a horrible noise, a mix between a shriek and a sob.

“PRINCESS. DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? OF ALL PEOPLE. WE WERE DOING SO MUCH GOOD.”

Alisha lifted her head and looked at Mardoc directly, staring directly into his monstrous visage. But she couldn’t see the hellion he was right now, could she? Without resonance, all she could see was the battered, bloodied body of the man she once called her only ally. Wholly human.

“I will not build peace on a foundation made from such despicable acts,” Alisha said. “By the order of the Hyland crown, I am placing you under arrest.”

Sergei, his expression grave, bowed at the waist to Alisha. His dress glimmered in the low candlelight, dazzling. “Respectfully, Lady Diphda, I request an audience to discuss how we will manage trying him for his crimes committed under Rolance’s jurisdiction…”

Of all the things to bring two nations together, a criminal trial for a human trafficking operation would not have been anyone’s first choice.

But it was a start.

  --

 “…honestly, I don’t know how you do it, fighting in that tiny little corset of yours. I was about to suffocate the second we walked out of the inn…”

“I could say the same about you and heels.”

The ball was winding down – nothing killed a party like the combined forces of the Hyland and Rolance knights coming in and declaring that everyone present was being detained on suspicions of collaboration with a continent-wide trafficking ring. Sorey and Mikleo, however, had slipped out to take a walk through the gardens. It was quiet, out here, and moonlit. The perfect place for a private dance.

Sorey grinned and dragged Mikleo flush against him, one hand on his perfectly sloping waist.

“Hey!” squawked Mikleo.

“I’ve been dying to dance with someone all night,” Sorey said. “But someone’s been too busy hosing down guests to take the hint.”

Mikleo’s face was so very expressive; it was only one of the many things Sorey loved about him. He cycled from a pout, to wide-eyed surprise, to a charming blush, to a shy smile.

His hand came up to rest on Sorey’s, his other grasped Sorey’s shoulder for balance.

“I guess I do need to show them that you’re spoken for, Lady Sparrowfeather.”

[connorssock]

When Nines is found, he goes to live with Hank and Connor. However, he is an upgraded version of Connor, with slightly different skill sets, so he goes to work with the FBI rather than the DPD. They also don’t want him and Connor constantly being compared and contrasted, it’s better for everyone if they don’t work together.

However, he still meets the people of the DPD and they in turn start hanging out with the decent half of the FBI. It’s a happy mix, inter-agency co-operation has never been better.

“A bunch of us are going out tonight,” Connor turns to NInes, “want to come along?”

He’s surprised when Nines turns the offer down, saying he has a date. Connor doesn’t pry until a few weeks later, when Nines joins him, Hank and Chris for lunch.

“So, how was your date?”

Nines ends up giving a small shy smile and after a lot of prodding all they can get out of him is that his now boyfriend is very considerate, intelligent, softly spoken, gentle and works in the police force. His friends clap him on the shoulder, loving how smitten Nines sounds. They occasionally get an odd scrap of information here and there, the boyfriend loves quiet afternoons curled up on the sofa and reading, prefers hot chocolate to coffee and will dance to any song he can. They sound utterly in love and people are happy that Nines has found someone so openly adoring as a partner.

Meanwhile, Tina’s on the prowl. She’s spent long enough single and she’s ready to finally put herself out there again.

“Be my wingman tonight, pretty please?” she saunters up to Gavin one afternoon.

“Sorry Tina-cakes, this bird’s wings have been clipped,” there is absolutely zero remorse in Gavin’s voice. In fact, he looks pretty happy about his situation.

He still gets dragged out to a bar that evening for a grilling. Oddly, he’s very protective, almost secretive about his new partner. Or not that new, they’ve been together for a few months now but Gavin didn’t want to rub it in Tina’s face. Anyway, they weren’t going to go public with it just yet. They liked their little world without other people’s input.

Gavin still manages to say a little about his boyfriend who works for the FBI. Yes, they met at one of those inter agency event things that Fowler had set up, the guy had a wicked sense of humour, two left feet and loves to cook. Tina had never seen Gavin light up so softly at talking about anyone before, she’s happy for him, really is. But she still wants to vet the guy and give him the shovel talk. When she says as much, Gavin laughs at the idea and says if she gets round to that, he’d very much like to see the footage.

Upon further investigation, Tina finds out that Gavin’s boyfriend is a softie, loves stealing his hoodies even if they don’t fit him properly and really like gardening. That last fact she discovers when she visits Gavin and is surprised to find his windowsills filled with pots of bright, colourful flowers.

Time passes, things seem to go so well and everyone is happy. It almost becomes a matter of the norm that not everyone wants to live their private lives in the public eye and gossip dies down after a few more months.

Naturally, things go tits up. They’re police officers and can’t all be picking flowers for beautiful bouquets every day. There’s a hostage situation, it goes wrong despite Connor’s negotiation skills. It’s Gavin who draws the short straw of luck, a bullet is fired his way, grazes along his arm. Thankfully the bullet doesn’t hit anything vital but it still needs stitches. He’s already sat in the back of an ambulance, door shut for privacy when a sleek car pulls up and Nines storms out.

“Why does the FBI want our case? We’ve already done the hard work!” Hank whines when he sees Nines.

“Keep your fucking case, it’s already fucked up my fucking anniversary plans,” Nines barks.

It’s so out of character for him that nobody tries to stop him, not even when he demands to know “where is he?” and one of the rookies finally points towards the ambulance. Nines strides over and knocks on the ambulance door.

“Gavin?” he asks.

There’s no reply.

“FBI, open up!” he yells and raps on the door again.

People watch him with wide eyes, utterly confused and terrified at the way his face darkens when he’s told that only family can see patients at the moment. Nobody expects Nines to dig into his pocket and grab a box.

“For fuck’s sake Gavin, will you marry me already just so I can come and make sure you’re okay with my own to eyes?”

Silence reigns. The ambulance door opens and Nines is climbing inside in an instant.

“Wait, what?” Hank asks as he looks to Connor for guidance. They rush over to the ambulance and all but rip the door open.

Inside, Nines is sat on the gurney, Gavin next to him, curled against his chest, head buried in the crook of his neck while a paramedic stitches his wound shut. The image is shocking in and of itself. But what really draws people’s eyes is the ring the freshly adorns Gavin’s finger.

[takerfoxx]

RD Walpurgis Night 8, Part 9

Then…

“Homulilly!” Kriemhild screamed. She rushed over to the edge where her friend had disappeared. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she had managed to grab onto a ledge or a windowsill or something. Maybe she was fine, and Kriemhild wouldn’t be left alone in this hellhole.

She grabbed the edge of the small wall and looked down, already dreading the sight of a broken body lying in a puddle of blood.

What she didn’t expect was a spaceship.

It was silver and vaguely wedge-shaped, with two big engines like large fans on either side of the back. Its sides were open, and she could see people, actual living, breathing people hanging out. A few were pointing up to her and gesticulating wildly. Others were clustered around a specific spot on the spaceship’s side, specifically to hold onto a bony arm.

A bony arm belonging to Homulilly.

“Homulilly-chan!” Kriemhild screamed.

Homulilly was gasping and kicking as she swayed back and forth over the abyss, but the people who had her refused to let her go. Slowly but steadily, they drew her back up toward safety. As they did, the spaceship started to rise. “See!” one of them called out. “There’s another on the roof!”

Kriemhild scampered back as the spaceship rose into view. Now that she could see the whole thing, she saw that Homulilly had been brought fully on board. Someone had given her a blanket, and she was standing around, gawking at everything, her mouth opening and closing like a particularly surprised goldfish.

The people gathered around her were all young girls for some reason. They were wearing brown uniforms, and one of them was leaning out of the side of the spaceship, one hand holding onto a strap with the other extended toward Kriemhild.

“Come on!” she called. “We’re here to help you!”

It wasn’t that Kriemhild didn’t believe her. It’s just that she was so completely overwhelmed that she had forgotten how to respond to anything other than lying back staring.

Then Homulilly saw her. “Kriemhild!” she said. She beckoned. “Please, come on!”

Kriemhild blinked. Then she slowly pulled herself up, her legs falling into place around her.

“That’s right,” the brown-clad girl said encouragingly. “Come on, sweetie. You can do it.”

Feeling like she was in a dream, Kriemhild walked toward her. She reached out with both arms, letting herself be pulled on board.

The brown-clad girl was apparently very strong, and she was able to bring Kriemhild on board with no sign of effort. One she had her legs under her, someone gave her a blanket of her own. A lot of people started saying things to her, mostly words of encouragement and promises of safety, but to be honest she didn’t hear any of them. Everything was still too strange.

She did hear one thing though.

“Kriemhild!” Homulilly cried as she threw herself at her. She seized her with both arms and held her close, as if the slightest move might take her away. As someone who had been utterly convinced of Homulilly’s death only a few seconds earlier, Kriemhild had no problem in returning the embrace.

“We got them! Let’s go!” someone shouted, and the spaceship lifted higher and higher.

Still in each other’s arms, Kriemhild and Gretchen watched as the clock city retreated away from them. They saw the tower they had been bound to, something that had seemed like such an inescapable prison, now getting smaller and smaller. They saw the circular islands and their regularly shifting buildings vanishing into the distance.

“Don’t worry,” someone said, patting the pair on their shoulders. “We’re taking you someplace safe. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Anymore? Despite their apparent rescue, Kriemhild wasn’t so sure about that. But as she and Homulilly hold each other as they are taken further and further away from that nightmare, she allowed herself just a little bit of hope.

…

Now…

The musician meets with the knight.

Oktavia sits on the edge of the dock, looking out to sea. The sun was still rising behind her, sending sparkles dancing across the water. Behind her she can hear the sound of waves gently washing up against the shore, and gulls call in the distance.

It is a beautiful day, and one that she would have enjoyed more had she not been blown up to nearly ten times her normal size and clad in full armor. But sometimes you just have to make do.

She hears someone approach from behind. Looking over her shoulder was difficult with the heavy armor she was wearing, but she manages to turn just enough to see a young blue-haired girl walking across the dock toward her. The girl is dressed a bit more comfortably than Oktavia is, but no less strangely, wearing a blue-and-white uniform that seemed to be a cross between a sailor’s outfit and a military dress uniform, complete with a cape.

“Hey there,” the girl greets her. “This seat taken?”

Oktavia shrugs her massive shoulders, making the joints creak. “It’s a free dream. Or whatever.”

The girl sits down next to her much larger other self. “So,” she says as she lets her legs dangle over the edge. “This is kind of awkward.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve only been swimming around with your face and your tits. You here to take them back or something?”

“Our face and tits,” the girl corrects with a small laugh. “And I think you were making better use of them anyway. Plus, you let me keep the legs, so there’s that.” She sticks her hand out. “Sayaka Miki.”

Moving carefully so as to not accidentally hurt her, Oktavia takes Sayaka’s tiny hand between her forefinger and thumb and shakes it. She honestly could have closed her entire hand over Sayaka’s whole body. “Oktavia von Seckendorff.

“I know. But still: pleased to meet’cha!”

Oktavia nods. “So what’s going on here, anyway? Is this a dream, or did you really wake up?”

“Eh, I dunno,” Sayaka says with a shrug. “A little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B?”

“Okay, but is this real?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s still a dream, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

Oktavia frowns beneath her helmet. “Okay, that makes exactly zero sense.”

“Welcome to my world,” Sayaka sighs. “Anyway, I’m not here take over or anything, so you can relax.”

“Then why are you here?”

Sayaka looks out toward the horizon. “Well, I just felt that we ought to talk at least. Clear the air. I mean, we are still technically the same person, so keeping secrets is probably a bad idea.”

Oktavia looks out as well. “So I can ask you any question?”

“Any question.”

Oktavia thinks long and hard before deciding on her first question. “Do you hate me?”

Sayaka’s easy smile disappears. “I did. For about a day or so after I became you.” She looks down at her hands. “I hated myself, hated what I had become. Being a full witch is nothing but misery. Every bad thought you’ve ever had about anyone, everything you’ve ever been mad or upset about just gets blown up to a hundred, and you just hate yourself so much for feeling like that until there’s no room for anything else. Believe me, death was actually a major relief. But after?” Her shoulders lift in a small shrug. “Well, believe it or not, I really liked being you. You have your head on straighter than I ever did.”

“How so?”

“You just liked yourself better than I ever did.” Sayaka makes a face. “I dunno. It’s hard to explain.”

“You were there for all that?”

“Of course I was. I’m you. Anything you did, I did. Anything you felt, I felt.” Then Sayaka’s smile returns. “And most of it was good.”

The sun was now at its highest point, shining directly down on the two of them. “Huh,” Oktavia says as she mulls over that. “Okay, here’s another question: did you really sell our soul to impress some guy you had a crush on?”

She asked the question mostly in jest and expected a laugh out of her former self, but instead Sayaka’s face turned serious. “I sold our soul because someone who was very dear to me had everything that brought him joy stolen from him in a stupid accident,” she said. “I sold our soul because my friends were fighting alone every night with no thanks, no acknowledgement, no help, and I wanted to be there to support them. I sold our soul because I had seen firsthand what a witch could do to the normal people, and I wanted to be there to defend the people I love.”

Oh,” Oktavia winces. “Well, when you put it like that-”

Then Sayaka laughs. “Also, I wanted to impress a guy I had a crush on.”

“Ha. Figured.”

“At least that’s what I thought,” Sayaka shrugs. “I think most of all, I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be someone worth respecting, someone that people would look up to instead of being the one looking up. Looking back, it all seems so silly, but I really saw this as a chance to be a part of something bigger than I was.”

“I guess you got your wish.”

Sayaka makes a face. “Yeah. Just not the way I pictured.”

Oktavia hesitates before asking her next question. “Did Kyousuke ever…you know?”

Sayaka groans out loud. With a roll of her eyes she says, “Oh, Captain Oblivious never so much as suspected that I had anything to do with it. It’s fine though. I’m over it, and I’m glad he got his music back. Besides, I kind of like yours better. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was wonderful at playing music, but you actually create it!”

Oktavia smiles. “Yeah, it is really something.”

The sun is now nearing the end of the horizon, turning both the sky and ocean into a deep orange. Sayaka draws her legs up and scoots around so that she is facing the armored witch. “Okay, now it’s my turn.”

Oktavia looks down at her in bewilderment. “Don’t you already know everything about me?”

“Humor me, okay? And all I really want to know is this.” She takes in a deep breath, and then says in the most incredulous tone imaginable, “Kyoko? Really? Her? Kyoko?”

Oktavia bursts out laughing. She needn’t ask who “Kyoko” is. In the logic of dreams she just knows. And it is hilarious.

“What, you didn’t like her?”

Sayaka’s face twists up in a look of disgust. “Ugh, she got on my nerves so much! But Mami was friends with her or something, and for whatever reason Madoka liked her, so I just gritted my teeth and put up with the scoundrel.” She shudders. “We did start to get along better after we found out that soul gems were literally our souls. It kind of shocked her as much as it did me, so I guess we had that much in common.”

Oktavia tilts her head. “You know, when you have a magic rock that is named your soul gem, one would think-”

“I know, I know!” Sayaka says, holding up her palms as if in defeat. “It all seems so obvious in hindsight.” She sighs. “Well, I guess I can’t complain. And she did turn out to be pretty all right after all.”

“That she did.” Then Oktavia frowns. “Hey, am I going to remember any of this?”

Sayaka shakes her head. “Probably not. But you’ll still know.”

Oktavia sighs. “Okay, that also makes exactly zero sense.”

“Get used to it.” Then Sayaka looks back toward the horizon, where the sun has started to set. “Well, it was nice knowing you. And being you too. But I think I’d better go back to sleep now.” She sticks her hand out again.

Oktavia gently shakes it. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I think that is literally impossible.” Then she turns serious. “Oh, hey, could you do me a couple of favors?”

“I thought you said that I won’t remember any of this.”

“You’ll remember this,” Sayaka says with an absurd surety. “First of all, I know…Candeloro being Mami again is scary and confusing, but look after her, okay? She’s going to need all the help she can get.”

Oh yeah. Oktavia had been so wrapped with the novelty of speaking to her former self that she had completely forgotten about that. “I’ll try.”

“And second…” Sayaka hesitates, and then says, “Okay, look: I know you don’t exactly have a whole lot of reason to like Hitomi, but take it easy on her, okay? And when you talk to her, tell her that I still love her, that all is forgiven, and that I hope she can forgive me too.”

Now the sun is almost completely gone. “Well. I think I have to forgive her myself before I get to any of that,” Oktavia says with a scowl.

“Please.”

Oktavia sighs. “Okay, okay. But only because you asked.”

“Thank you.” The sun disappears completely, and when it does, everything from the ocean to the docks to Sayaka Miki herself starts to fade. “Be good, okay?

Oktavia opened her eyes.

“Oktavia?”

Blinking, Oktavia shook her head and rubbed her eyes. God, what a weird dream. She had been…she had been…

“Oktavia.”

Oktavia’s vision cleared. She had parked her chair in a corner of the Aurora Borealis’s hold. Why, she couldn’t remember. The others were bringing the karnuk in, and there had been little she could do to help with that. Even so, it was a strange time to take a nap.

“You okay?”

It was Denna, the Aurora Borealis’s head researcher. An athletic Jewish girl with short hair, tanned skin, and glasses, Denna was looking down at the groggy mermaid with a concerned look on her face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Oktavia grumbled. She flicked her chair’s controls to move it out of the recline position and sit her up. “Just dozed off for a bit. What’s up?”

Denna glanced over her shoulder. In the center of the hold, everyone was working to secure a very large glass cube filled with water. “Look, we’ve got things handled here. You can go be with your friends if you like.”

Oktavia’s stomach clenched. “Y-You sure? Because I don’t want to just wander off right now, when I could help with…” Her mind raced. “…uh, with…”

Denna’s mouth set in a straight line. “Oktavia.”

“Uh…” Giving up, Oktavia leaned forward, burying her face in her hand. “Oh, damn it. Look, I know I should be with them, but…”

“You don’t know how to handle your friend…changing.”

Oktavia sighed. “Yeah.” She slumped back and shrugged. “That.” She paused for a bit, mulling over everything in her head. How could she put this? “I mean, my girlfriend drowned. Again. So did two more of my friends. And I should be with them right now, but…I don’t…what do I do? What do I say to her? What does this change? Is she even still…herself? Did I lose one of my best friends? Do I have a complete stranger walking around with her face? What am I supposed to do here, Denna?”

Denna grimaced. “I…oh, I don’t know, Oktavia. Here I thought us catching the karnuk in the middle of a giant storm was going to be the highlight of our day, but turns out we’ve ended up with the ninth officially documented witch reversal in our infirmary. This’ll make the front page headlines for months. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.”

To be honest, Oktavia didn’t have the slightest clue how she felt about it either. “This must be a dream come true for you guys,” she muttered. “I mean, as scientists.”

Denna pursed her lips. “I’m a marine biologist. This is so far away from my field that it might as well be in another afterlife entirely.”

“Point taken,” Oktavia sighed. “So…what should I do?”

“Also not my field. But if you’re honestly asking for my advice…” Denna glanced over her shoulder toward where her coworkers were still diligently working. “Look, family’s kind of a weird word around here. We all lost parents, siblings, children, what have you. So we make new families however we can.” She shrugged. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but it sounds like your family really needs you right now.”

She was right of course. Oktavia was helping no one by hiding. But holy wow, was she not prepared for what was waiting for her.

“You’re right,” Oktavia sighed. “Of course you’re right.” She nudged her chair’s controls to get it moving, but then stopped. “But what if she really is gone? What if there’s no more Candeloro after all?”

“I…don’t have a goddamned clue,” Denna admitted. “But I do know this: you sure as hell aren’t going to find out hiding back here.” She tilted her head toward the far door. “Go to them. We’ve got the big guy handled.”

Oktavia nodded. She put her chair into motion, heading toward the far door.

However, before leaving the cargo hold, she paused, and glanced over to the room’s new centerpiece.

It was a huge rectangular tank of water, suspended by cables and wires. An array of catwalks had been erected around it, with the bulk of the scientist team clustered upon them.

Within floated the prize of their expedition.

It was sort of funny when she thought about it, albeit in a very disappointing way. All that bravado, and Oktavia hadn’t been the one to catch the damned thing after all. Hell, she hadn’t even encountered it. Her friends had been the ones with the close encounters, and the research time had been the one to tranquilize it and bring it in.

Well, she supposed that she couldn’t complain. Her friends were safe now, and that was what mattered. And it wasn’t like she had been completely useless. After all, she had been the one to bring something important in, something that was proving even more dangerous than the karnuk ever could be. At least it was just a hungry animal doing what hungry animals did. The worst it could do was subject them to a lot of physical pain that would pass in time.

The same couldn’t be said about what Hitomi had done to them. There really was no coming back from that.

…

The dancer finds herself speaking to the believer.

“You didn’t do half bad,” says Kyoko Sakura. She takes a bite of the red apple she’s holding and chews it contemplatively. “Hell, I’d say you knocked it out of the friggin’ park. Good job, other me.” She reaches into the grocery bag sitting at her side, pulls out another apple, and tosses it to Ophelia.

Ophelia catches it one-handed and took a bite. It ought to have been impossible, seeing how she didn’t currently possess an actual mouth, but in the dream logic of the situation she was still able to. Oh, it’s so good. “Thanks. But between me and me, I think we’re kind of done with the whole monster hunting gig.”

The two are sitting together on the steps of a giant ruined cathedral. The place had been abandoned for years, and everything was going to pieces. The pews were rotting, the roof fallen in, the towering stained glass windows smashed by rough weather and vandals, and rubbish lay everywhere.

Kyoko is wearing the same extravagant, yet aerodynamic outfit she had been dressed in the last time she and Ophelia had talked: a slim, scarlet tunic; a pink skirt; knee-high red boots; and elbow-length red gloves. Her long, red hair flows down her back in a tight ponytail. The only thing missing is the gem she had worn at the base of her throat. That, and her spear. Both of those are still in Ophelia’s possession.

In contrast, Ophelia has on a long, flowing robe, one that dazzled with color. She has to admit, she likes how it looks. Maybe it was time to update the ol’ wardrobe to have something other than red and red variants.

Also, in place of a head, she has a huge lit candle. There is no explanation for why she can see, hear, speak, or taste, but she can. No point in questioning it.

“Of course, it might’ve gone better had you actually used the friggin’ spear I gave you,” Kyoko remarks, casting a sidelong glance at the weapon in question. “The hell was up with that shit, leaving something like that behind?”

Ophelia sighs. “Look, I ran out of the house in a hurry and didn’t exactly expect to end up in the ocean with a sea monster, okay?”

“See, that’s your problem. You gotta be ready for anythin’. Can’t drop your guard just because you have a nice, easy life now.”

“We’re not monster hunters anymore, doofus. Besides, I would’ve probably just dropped the damn thing the second I went over the cliff. God only knows how Gretchen held onto hers.”

Chuckling, Kyoko casts a quick glance up at the ruined stained-glass windows. “God only knows indeed.”

Ophelia finishes her apple. She leans back against the steps, stretches her legs out, and sighs. “I often wondered about you, you know. Who you were, what you were like. In the beginning, I sometimes felt a little guilty about walking around with your face. Like I didn’t deserve it.”

Kyoko bites into another apple. She chews it thoughtfully for several seconds before swallowing. “It’s for the best,” she says at last. “I made a lot of bad calls. Ended up becoming someone I didn’t like very much. At least with you runnin’ the show, we have half a chance of being somethin’ decent, if that makes any sense.”

“Sure.”

Kyoko finishes her apple. Then she stands up. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

“This?”

There is a flash of light, and suddenly Kyoko is holding a spear of her own. “You wanted to take me on, right? To show you what I got?” She points the spear at Ophelia in challenge. “Well, this is our only chance to make that happen. So grab your weapon. Bitch.”

Grinning when your entire face is a ball of flame ought to have been impossible, but Ophelia manages it anyway. She picks up her own spear and follows Kyoko to the top of the dais.

The two face one another, Puella Magi and witch. Kyoko raises her spear in salute, and Ophelia mirrors her.

Then they went to it.

It doesn’t start off as much of a fight. For the first few seconds, they merely thrust, swipe, and clack their weapons against one another, neither really trying to do each other harm. It really is just a gentle sparring session, a way to feel each other out.

“So,” Kyoko says. “You got any questions for me?”

Ophelia sidesteps a lazy thrust. “About what?”

“About me, you great galumphing goof. About your past. About anything that happened.”

Ophelia silently counters Kyoko’s strikes for a bit. Then she says, “Nah.”

“You sure?”

“I saw enough to know that I don’t want to know,” Ophelia says. “Sorry if this comes off bad, but I’ve had enough tragedy for one day.”

Kyoko nods. “You know, I get it.”

The two continue to test each other for a near minute. Then Kyoko says, “He really did love us though.”

“Who?”

“Papa. I know what you think, and yeah, it did end that way. But he…was not well. He had the kindest heart of anyone I knew, but the world was set against him. It broke him down, little by little, and when I tried to help, well, I didn’t think about how he would see it, and…” Her voice falters.

Ophelia’s flame burns a little darker. “I said that I didn’t want to know.”

“Well, I wanted to say it. So there.”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t think being mentally unwell is a good excuse for killing little girls. Especially your little girls.”

Kyoko frowns. Then she shakes her head and says, “Okay, let’s take this up a notch.” She took a few steps back.

Ophelia readies herself for the attack, spear at the ready.

It doesn’t do her any good.

Moving so fast that Ophelia was barely able to register the motion, Kyoko strikes, her spear spinning like a band leader’s baton. Ophelia lifts her spear to block the blow, but suddenly Kyoko reverses her weapon’s direction, causing it to come up the other way. Taken back by the feint, Ophelia’s spear is knocked from her hands and sent clattering down the dais’s steps.

Then the pole of Kyoko’s spear separates. She swings it around, wrapping it around Ophelia’s body, binding her arms to her sides. The round counter-weight comes around to pass right through the candle-flame of her head, disorienting her.

Then the heel of Kyoko’s boot slams into her chest, knocking her down.

For several seconds Ophelia doesn’t move. Hell, she barely has any idea what just happened. The room is spinning, and it seems to have no intention of slowing down.

Her vision starts to clear, and she sees Kyoko looking down at her, another apple in her hand. “You’re right, you know,” Kyoko says to her fallen opponent. “Nothin’ excuses that. But hey, word of advice, Perfect Girl living her perfect life in a perfect town with her perfect friends. Maybe think twice before judgin’ people with broken lives. Because you never know if you wouldn’t make the same calls in their place.”

She sticks her hand out, and Ophelia accepts it. Kyoko pulls her to her feet. “There’s shitty people out there, no doubt,” Kyoko continues. “And bad’s bad, no matter who does it or why. I’m not…excusing what he did, not to me, not to Mama, or to…” Her voice catches, and she swallows before speaking again. “But there’s a lot of people out there that never had the chance you have. There’s a lot of people who never had anyone standin’ at their side, who made mistakes, and had the deck stacked against them from the beginning. So, don’t just throw them out because of that, okay?”

Ophelia tilts her flame to one side. “Are we still talking about your dad?”

Kyoko smiles grimly. “I’m just sayin’. If it was me that came here instead of you, things…probably wouldn’t have worked out as well.”

“Ah. Okay, well, point taken.”

“It better be. For now, I think it’s time for you to go.” Kyoko picks Ophelia’s fallen spear off the ground and offers it to her. “You’ve got people that need you.”

Ophelia accepts the spear. “You…sure you don’t want to come with? I think we could use you.”

“Nah,” Kyoko says with a laugh. “I’m a warrior. That’s why I kicked your ass so badly just now. And sure, people like me have our time and place. But right now, I think we need to be someone who knows when it’s time to hang the spear up. That’s you.”

“I guess so,” Ophelia says. She lifts her fist. “Well, thanks, Kyoko. I suppose you’ll be around.”

Kyoko bumps her fist against Ophelia’s. “I suppose I will. And hey, give my love to the girlfriend. She actually turned out pretty all right once she stopped moping all the fucking time.”

Saluting, Ophelia descends the steps and heads for the door. She passes by the rows and rows of abandoned pews, soggy and moldy hymnals and Bibles lying in ruins among them. She passes by the rows of windows that had once been bright and beautiful.

Once the church had been a beacon of life and sanctuary, but one thing had gone wrong and people abandoned it. Things change, and sometimes people can accept the change, but other times they can’t. Ophelia wonders what kind of person she herself happens to be.

She reaches the door, but before passing through she glances back over her shoulder.

The dais is empty, all save for Kyoko’s spear, lying across the top steps.

…

Ophelia opened her eyes, and was surprised to find them wet.

For a long time she just lay there, slowly breathing in and out. There was something incredibly nice about breathing, of being able to take in fresh air to refresh her body and expelling the waste whenever she felt like it. It was a wonder that everyone took it for granted.

She just wished that she could remember why it felt so good all of a sudden. She knew that something big and terrible had happened, but the more she tried to recall the specific events, the more they eluded her recollection. It had something to do with water. Okay, yes, she could remember being adrift at sea for whatever reason. But why would she allow herself to be put in that situation? She hated water! Okay, so maybe she could tolerate it more than she used to be able to, but she still didn’t like it. So why would she go swimming during a storm?

Okay, so it had probably not been voluntary. Something important happened, something to do with…Homulilly and Gretchen. They had ran off for some reason, chasing after…uh, someone named…

Oh.

Now that that had been loosened, the rest unraveled as well. The chase through the forest, the fall off the cliffs, the feeling of overwhelming terror and panic, the attack by the karnuk

Ophelia took a deep breath to brace herself. Then she forced herself to sit up.

Apparently she wasn’t one hundred percent back just yet, as her head immediately started swimming. Wincing, she waited until the dizziness stopped before removing the blanket and easing her legs around.

The more she moved the easier it got. Even so, her body did not appreciate being woken up prematurely and made sure to voice its disapproval every step of the way. She ignored it. It was her body after all; it had to do what she said!

Finally she managed to get vertical. Once she had both feet beneath her and the room had stopped spinning, she took a look around.

As deduced, she was in some kind of ship’s infirmary. There were other beds lined up, most of them empty. However, a few were not. Both Gretchen and Homulilly were tucked into two of them, apparently fast asleep. Or something more than asleep. They were breathing, yes, but very shallowly, and Homulilly’s flower had completely closed up into a tight bud with dull pink petals.

There was something else too, someone in the far bed up against the wall opposite of Ophelia, someone that she didn’t recognize. It was a girl with long green hair, and she seemed just as out of it as Ophelia’s friends were.

However, Ophelia wasn’t the only person conscious in the room. At the other end of the room, close to the door, were a line of chairs. And sitting in one of them was Charlotte.

Though she was awake, Charlotte seemed to be in a bad state. She was sitting slumped over, one arm across her legs, the other with its elbow resting against her knee and her face buried in her hand. Everything about her was a complete mess, from her hair to her poise. She looked like she had been crying for a long time, and would probably start crying again fairly soon in the future.

Ophelia swallowed. Was it just the trauma from being scared out of her wits? The ordeal that they had just experienced would mess anyone up, sure. Or had something else happened?

Charlotte must have sensed that she was being watched, as she then dropped her hand and looked up. Sure enough, her bright blue eyes were now blotchy red from sobbing, and her face was as much a mess as the rest of her.

But when she saw that Ophelia was awake and ambulatory her whole face lit up. “Ophelia!” she cried as she jumped from her seat and ran across the infirmary toward her friend.

Ophelia opened her mouth to ask Charlotte to take it easy on her, but by then Charlotte had already thrown her arms around her in a back-cracking embrace, so all that came out was a pained squeak.

“Oh, thank God,” Charlotte whispered. “You’re awake. You woke up. Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Uh, pretty sure we’re outside His jurisdiction now,” Ophelia managed to get out. “Also, glad you’re happy to see me, but please stop compressing my chest into my shoulder blades.”

Charlotte loosened her hold but didn’t let go. “I was so scared,” she whispered as she buried her face into Ophelia’s neck and shoulder. “I thought…I thought…oh God.”

Ophelia frowned. “There…there?” she said, awkwardly patting Charlotte on the back. What in the world had Charlotte been so afraid of? It wasn’t like any of them were in any danger of actually dying. That ship had sailed a long time ago. “Charlotte, what’s going…”

Then Charlotte froze. She released Ophelia and slowly backed away from her. “But you are…still you, right?” she said pensively. “You’re still Ophelia?”

Ophelia quirked an eyebrow. “Yes? Who the hell else would I be?”

“Kyoko Sakura,” Charlotte said flatly. “That’s who you could be.”

“Uh…pretty sure I’m technically her too, but strictly speaking…” Ophelia pressed a palm to her forehead and shook her head. She already had a bit of a headache, and this wasn’t helping. “Charlotte, what’s this all about? Where are we?”

“The Aurora Borealis,” Charlotte said.

“That wrecked ship that Oktavia works with all the time? Why are we there?”

Charlotte scowled. “Apparently the marshals tried to get a hover ship to us, but the storm crashed it right after takeoff. But Oktavia and her friends were in the area, so they took us all aboard their submarine and brought us here.”

“Huh?” Ophelia’s head jerked up. “Oktavia was there?”

“Yeah. You were pretty out of it at the time, but they brought the sub up and let everyone on board. Then they brought us here.” Charlotte shrugged. “I guess it’s the safest place to be right now, believe it or not.”

Well, that tracked at least, but it still left many holes that needed immediate filling. “Okay, but what happened after I passed out?” Ophelia said. “I mean, we’ve got Homulilly and Gretchen over there, so we managed to save them. Great. But I kinda…” Her voice faltered.

Charlotte sighed. “You drowned. Again. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Ophelia wondered why she wasn’t freaking out. Her body was probably saving that for later. Great, she was going to have to start her therapy all over again. “Okay, but what about the karnuk? Where’s Oktavia? And who’s that?” She nodded toward the green-haired girl.

Charlotte made a face. “They managed to capture the karnuk. They’ve got it caged up somewhere. Oktavia was here earlier, but had to leave to go talk to the scientists about something, so she’ll probably be back soon. And that is the person we have to thank for this whole mess: Hitomi Shizuki.”

“That’s her?” Ophelia tilted her head as she examined the unconscious girl. “Huh. She don’t look like much.”

“And she would be looking even worse if this place wasn’t under surveillance,” Charlotte said, casting a dour eye up toward a security camera.

“Wow. Hostile.”

Pure fury blazed in Charlotte’s eyes, burning away the grief. “After what she did…after all that she cost us…”

Ophelia scratched the area where her real skin met her fake dome. “Cost us what? Look, I know everything was really…fucking terrible, but we’re all still here, and we’ll get better. So what’s…” Then realization struck. “Wait. Does this have anything to do with why you asked if I was still me?”

Charlotte hesitated, and then nodded.

Uh-oh. “What happened?” Ophelia said.

Charlotte’s whole body tensed up. “It’s Candeloro,” she whispered.

“Candeloro? She wasn’t there for that whole thing!”

“She’s…” Charlotte’s voice started to choke. “She’s gone, Ophelia. Candeloro’s gone.”

“Gone? The hell can she be gone? We’re already dead! Even if she got evaporated by a superlaser or whatever she’d still piece herself back together in day or so!”

“No,” Charlotte said flatly. “She didn’t…die. The opposite happened.”

…

The sharpshooter confronted herself.

The bathrooms aboard the Aurora Borealis were just all a little bit off in the way such utilities aboard traveling vehicles tended to be. Geared toward practicality rather than comfort, it was just a little too small, had a lot of exposed pipes along the grey walls, and both the sink and toilet were made from stainless steel.

The mirror over the sink was the same as any other mirror though, and Candeloro found herself standing stock-still, staring at the face of Mami Tomoe.

It was a face she had been looking at for the last sixteen years, and yet had not seen since the day she died. The shape was the same, the hair color was the same, the eyes were the same, the shape of the mouth was the same, and in nearly every other respect it was identical.

And yet, it wasn’t. Her hair was now done up in twin spiral-tails on either side of her head, a style that she had never, ever worn since her death. Her face was touched up with makeup that she hadn’t actually put on, in a manner that she didn’t normally use in the occasions in which she would have put on makeup, but had once used every day. And as for the rest of her…

Candeloro looked down. Blouse, corset, skirt, stockings, gloves, shoes. Her old Puella Magi uniform. Even girls who died without becoming witches didn’t get to keep their uniform. Their magic still worked the same as always, and they could summon up their weapons whenever they chose, but not their uniforms. Why? Nobody knew. It was just a constant that nobody understood but everyone accepted.

And yet she had hers. Candeloro tugged lightly at the skirt. Was this something that happened to the exceedingly rare number of witches that somehow managed to reclaim their old identities? She recalled the time her class had gone to the museum to learn about Oblivion and the Void Walkers. Had Astrid also regained her uniform during her own transformation? Mami couldn’t remember, but no doubt the two of them would be speaking soon.

But the most drastic change came from her arms, and that change was that she had them at all. Candeloro held her hands open before her. She flexed the fingers and relaxed them again. During her first few months she would have gladly traded her ribbons in for working hands and fingers. Learning how to manipulate objects intended for fingers had taken her a long time. And yet, now that she had fingers, she wanted nothing more than to have her ribbons back. Everything about her arms felt wrong: from how some parts moved on joints while others were completely rigid to how each of their ends now had five new appendages to how she could no longer stretch them out beyond their visible reach. It was so strange, and it felt completely wrong.

But even with how her body changed, that was nothing compared to what was going on inside her head.

She remembered. She remembered everything. She remembered her childhood in Osaka, growing up in that small yellow house by the park, being taught how to ice-skate by her mother. She remembered moving to Mitakihara City when she was in the sixth grade when father had gotten a big promotion. She remembered developing a crush on the son of her father’s boss and daydreaming of one day becoming his wife.

And she remembered the day that it had all come to an end. She remembered the car crash that had claimed her parents’ lives. She remembered the terrible jolt, the sickening crunch of metal and plastic, the searing pain in her pierced stomach and her shattered leg. She remembered being convinced that she was going to die, only to look up and see the silhouette of Kyubey in the sunlight.

She remembered the first time she had ever transformed: the exhilarating release of magic, the rush of power, the feeling of purpose. She remembered the fear and confusion of fighting her first witch, of the wrongness in how it looked, how it sounded, and how it moved. She remembered how that fear had turned to joy when she began to move like a superhero, moving faster and with greater agility than any human being had a right to. She remembered the feeling of relief and triumph when the witch had fallen and its (no! Not it! Her! The witch had been a her!) labyrinth had fallen.

She remembered dedicating her life to the protection of humanity against the witches. She remembered traveling far outside of her designated territory to form connections with other Puella Magi and assist the beginners wherever she could. She remembered rescuing young girls caught in witch labyrinths and suggesting that they join the fight. She remembered the bond she had formed with her friend and mentor Kyubey (damn him! Damn him, damn him, damn him!) and how hard she had worked to help him complete his mission.

But most of all, she remembered the crippling loneliness that her new life had come with, and she remembered the things she had done as a result.

She remembered everything. And now that she did, she wanted nothing more than to forget again.

Tears blurred her vision, and Candeloro leaned forward to rest her forehead against the mirror. She lightly pounded one fist against the wall and just held it there.

Well, she might as well do something about her outfit. Sighing, Candeloro straightened up, lifted a hand and pressed her thumb against her ring and index fingers. It took some work, as her fingers didn’t remember how to properly perform the motion. She tried to snap her fingers, but they just ended up sliding off on another without producing any sound.

She tried again to the same result. Fine then. Sighing, Candeloro lifted both of her hands and clapped the palms together.

It worked. Her whole body glowed, and when the light cleared, her uniform was gone, to be replaced with the jeans and grey sweater she had been wearing originally. The makeup vanished, and her hair fell loosely down around her shoulders.

Her arms and hands remained, however.

Well then. There really was no going back.

Candeloro struggled with the bathroom lock until she managed to work her fingers around it and lift it out of the way. Then she pressed her wrist against the handle and shoved the door open with her shoulder.

She was partway to the infirmary when she heard a familiar hissing noise. She froze in place. Maybe she should…no. She shouldn’t run. This was something she was going to have to face sooner or later, and as past bad decisions had taught her, running from the truth would only make things worse in time.

Taking a deep breath, Candeloro turned the corner to see Oktavia in her chair.

The mermaid looked so tired. She had changed out of her wetsuit back into her tee-shirt, but had left off her cap. And it looked like been crying a little. There was probably a lot of that going around.

She reflexively looked up as Candeloro stepped around the corner. When she saw who it was, she smiled a little, but then she saw the hands coming out of Candeloro’s sweater sleeves and her face froze. She almost forgot to bring the chair to a stop, and had to scramble for the controls before it bumped into Mami.

Candeloro swallowed. “Hello, Oktavia.”

Oktavia exhaled. “Um, hi.”

The two of them just looked at each other in silence. Candeloro struggled to come up with something to say, something to alleviate the confusion her friend had to be having, but came up with nothing. What could she say? She didn’t even know herself if things were going to be all right.

“So,” Oktavia said at last. “This is you from now on.”

Candeloro nodded. She slowly lifted an arm and flexed the fingers into a loose fist. They shook a little. “Looks like,” she said.

“Are you…” Oktavia shook her head. “I mean, is Candeloro gone gone, and now it’s all…whoever you are now from now on? Or do you still, uh, remember me, or what’s going on here?”

“I still remember,” Candeloro said hastily. “Oktavia, it’s still me. I remember everything! I just…had some stuff that’s been locked up suddenly set loose, that’s all.”

“Oh. Uh, okay. Wow. So, do you remember the change at least?”

Candeloro sighed. “Well, no. I remember running from the house to the cliffs. And then…” She frowned. “Then I…I was offered a choice. That much I know, but I can’t remember who offered it or what they said, I just know that a choice was offered, and I felt that I had to do…this. To save everyone.”

“Wow,” Oktavia said again. “Which you kinda did. So I guess you chose right.”

“Did I?” Candeloro’s voice broke a little. She slumped back against the wall and closed her eyes. “You were only moments away from showing up. If had said no, everyone would still have been saved! Then Charlotte wouldn’t-” Her throat closed up. She covered her face as her shoulders started shaking.

After a moment Oktavia said in a small voice, “Charlotte would’ve been eaten. So would’ve everyone else. She told me that the karnuk was coming right for them. No way would any of us have gotten to them in time.”

Candeloro miserably shook her head but didn’t say anything. Not that she could have spoken even if she had anything to say.

Oktavia sighed. “Look, I don’t really know what’s going on or why everything happened the way it did. But you did what you did out of love, right? So that counts for a lot as far as I’m concerned. And b-besides, it’s not like you lost anything! I mean, you’re still you, and now you got a whole bunch of badass powers! So you didn’t give anything up, right! I’d call that a win!”

“It’s not a win,” Candeloro said harshly. “These memories…I don’t want them!”

“Wait, really?”

“Really! They were sealed off for a reason! Now I remember my parents’ deaths, I remember how I didn’t save them when I could have, I remember being alone for so long before I met you guys, and I remember…” She clenched her teeth. “I remember the day we all lost. I remember what happened. I remember it all.”

“Oh.”

Candeloro opened her eyes. “My whole life…it was so easy! Except for our first few days, I never, ever really experienced anything truly bad. Even when I screwed up and hurt you all, that was…that was just normal relationship stuff that anyone could have gone through! But now? Mami Tomoe’s life was a tragedy! She lost everything because of a stupid accident, was kept alive by a lie, spent the rest of her life serving that lie, and died crushed by the full weight of the truth, while all her friends died around her!”

Oktavia looked wholly taken back by that. “Okay, that…sucks, but it all worked out! I mean, past is past, right? Well, maybe it wasn’t that long ago over there, but here? Ancient history. We’re all together again, and we’re happy.” A few seconds passed, and then Oktavia hopefully said, “Right?”

Candeloro shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s all my fault.”

“What is?”

“That we died.”

Oktavia’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I thought we figured that I was the one that kicked that off. You know, because I was moping over that stupid boy. That’s what Charlotte said.”

“No!” Candeloro snapped. Then she amended, “I-I mean, yes, that day, you were the first to become a witch, and that did kick things off like you said. But I’m the reason we were in that situation to begin with!”

“How?”

“Charlotte,” Candeloro said heavily. “Because of Charlotte.”

“Wait, did we know her? “

“No. I mean, you didn’t, but I did! A little bit, at least.”

Candeloro paused for a moment. She had so many thoughts running through her head, so many dormant memories rising up that she was having trouble putting them in order.

“We knew each other,” Candeloro said at last. “A little, at least. She was a grade over me, but we were in some of the same clubs before I made my contract, and we would talk sometimes. Her name is…was Nozomi Momoe. And, well, of course we didn’t talk much after I had made my contract, but even so, we stayed friendly. A-And one day, she just showed up to school, and she was so distraught. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that her mother had become very, very ill, and wasn’t expected to survive. Only a miracle would save her, that’s what she said!”

Oktavia breathed out. “Okay, I think I can see where this is going.”

Candeloro slowly nodded. “I pointed Kyubey in her direction. I told him that she had a wish that she would need, that she would be receptive to making a contract. I saw it as a win-win. Her mother would be well again, and I would have another sister-in-arms! Besides, I knew what it was like to lose a parent.” She looked down at her hands. “Not saving them with my wish had been my biggest regret up until then.”

“Save them from…”

“The car crash,” Candeloro said in a hollow voice.

Oktavia winced. “Car crash. Right. And you wanted her to fight alongside you.”

“Alongside us!”

“Right,” Oktavia said hastily, holding up her palms. “Because we were a team.”

“We were,” Candeloro nodded. “I remember it all now. I remember training Kyoko, after she had made her contract. She was so…eager, so enthusiastic. We became so close, and then her life just went so wrong! She lost her whole family, her home, everything! It changed her, and she…she took it out on me. And I was alone again. Alone until I met Madoka. And Madoka was so different from Kyoko, so gentle and sweet. And I thought, well, maybe it would be different this time. Maybe I could protect her. Maybe she would stay with me.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “But then, Kyoko came back! It turns out she had missed me as much as I missed her, and she didn’t like being alone either! We held each other for hours, just crying. And to my surprise, she and Madoka got along great, and suddenly I had two young friends, keeping me company. But then you came along! You made a contract too! I remember how proud you were, how happy fighting witches made you! You told me that you felt like you had found your calling, that there was no way you would ever regret it! I mean, Kyoko made fun of you for it, but I was so happy for you too.”

And then things got even better, because that was when Homura showed up! She had already made a contract, and just seemed to know us so well! Madoka especially. None of us really understood where she had come from, but she was eager to help, so I didn’t question it. A-And Madoka enjoyed looking after her, and…and my apartment was rarely ever empty. There was always someone over, whether it be Madoka or Kyoko or you or some combination or everyone at once. It was the most magical time in my life. And I wanted Nozomi to be a part of it.”

Candeloro’s shoulders slumped. She felt exhausted, and yet a little better. Unloading all of that had been…difficult, but it was a relief to get it off her chest.

As for Oktavia, however, she just looked absolutely lost. “Okay. Now, I think I know some of those names, but…”

“Sorry,” Candeloro sighed. “Kyoko is Ophelia, Madoka is Gretchen, and Homura is Homulilly.”

Suddenly realization hit her, and she let out a choking gasp. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have told you all that! That was the opposite of what I should have done! You…You’re already dealing with spiritual dissonance, and I probably just made it way worse, and-”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay! Chill!” Oktavia said. “It’s fine! I think.”

“How can you say that? Just look at what Charlotte going by herself to talk to Hitomi did to us, did to me! And now I go and just spew-”

“Easy, easy, easy! It’s fine! Really. I…think we’re going to be okay.” Then Oktavia coughed awkwardly into her fist. “Um, granted, I’m like not one-hundred sure how I know this, but…I fell asleep a few minutes ago and had this…really intense dream about…okay, I don’t remember, but when I woke up, all those weird twitches I’ve been having just…sort of, I don’t know, stopped? And your story didn’t bring them back just now, so I think my soul kind of…fixed itself? I don’t know, it’s weird.”

Candeloro stared at her. “So you’re saying that you’re now immune to spiritual dissonance because you had a powerful dream.”

“Uh, that’s right.”

“Which you no longer remember.”

“Afraid not.”

“Ah.” Candeloro sighed. “Oktavia, you do know how little sense that makes, right?”

Oktavia stared up at her, then down at her own lap, and then at their surroundings. “It’s been a weird week,” she said wearily. “Just take my word for it, okay?”

“If you say so.”

Oktavia nodded. Then she frowned. “So wait, you and Ophelia knew each other before anyone else, huh? Is that why you…”

Candeloro winced. “Please, Oktavia. Let’s not go there.”

“Right. Sorry,” Oktavia said with a wince. “That was nasty of me. But, uh, Nozomi?”

Candeloro shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. But Kyubey showed up one day to tell us that a witch was hatching over at the hospital. So of course we rushed over there. But I was worried that Nozomi’s mother might be in danger, so I asked Kyubey about her, and he said that she had died that morning. Well, of course I was shocked, so I asked him about Nozomi and her wish! Shouldn’t that have cured her? And he just said that she had grossly misunderstood his offer and what it was capable of.” She swallowed. “And then I saw Charlotte, and I understood.”

“That’s when I turned, huh?”

Candeloro nodded. “You were…had been in a bad place for a while at that point. We had something of a nasty wake-up call a few days earlier, had found out that soul gems literally contained our actual souls.” She let out a bitter chuckle. “I know. Who would have thought? But, um, you didn’t take it so well, and the whole deal with Hitomi apparently happened soon after. Things…devolved from there.”

“Jesus,” Oktavia said. “No offense, but I’m kind of glad that I’m not the one with her memories back.”

Candeloro couldn’t blame her one bit. “So, like I said, it all comes back to me. Everyone’s dead now, all because I was selfish, all because I couldn’t stand being alone.” Her hands started shaking again. “And now I’ve done it again! I brought all these memories back for nothing, and now Charlotte won’t even look at me! And she shouldn’t! I took away her life twice!”

Oktavia slowly breathed in and exhaled. “Okay. Well, you really covered a lot of ground there. Um, l-look Can…Er, I’m sorry, but what do I call you now?”

“Please, just call me Candeloro,” Candeloro sighed. “I’ve been Candeloro longer than I was Mami, and I was happier as Candeloro than I was as Mami.”

“Okay. That’s fair. Candy, I’m gonna be real honest with you: this is freaking me out. I know you probably were hoping for me to say something all wise and supportive and all, but I don’t have the slightest clue what to think. This is…this is so far above my pay grade to deal with. It’s like I’m talking to a ghost here. I mean, a reverse-ghost I guess…” She scowled and threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know! This is insane!”

“I understand,” Candeloro said softly.

“But even so…you’re still our Candeloro, right?” Oktavia said with a hopeful look in her eyes. “Just, you know, different?”

“It’s still me,” Candeloro confirmed. “There’s just more of me than there used to be.”

Oktavia nodded. “Okay. Good.” She frowned, and then shrugged. “Well, all right. I still don’t know what to make of this, but if you are really our Candeloro, then fuck it. We’ll deal with this one stroke at a time. I’ll get used to it, they’ll get used to it, and we stick together. This’ll just be the new norm. Right?

Candeloro felt tears welling up. That was more than she had dared to hope for. And yet… “But Charlotte…”

“If she really does love you then she’ll come around,” Oktavia said.

“What if she doesn’t though?”

“She will. It might take her some time, but she will.”

Candeloro flexed her fingers. It still felt so alien, so unnatural. “Things are going to be so different from now on.”

“Yeah,” Oktavia sighed. “Yeah, probably. But, hey, that’s life.” Then she reached up to tug on Candeloro’s hand. “Come on.”

…

Ophelia was not often at a loss for words. No matter the situation she could be counted on having something to say, some opinion or suggestion or observation or joke or something!

Not today. For what felt like the first time in her life she had absolutely nothing. So instead she just sat in silence next to Charlotte, holding her hand.

Charlotte had settled into a sort of stupor. She stared at the ground, rarely blinking and moving even less. Occasionally she would lick her lips, cough, or sniff, but otherwise she just sat there, saying and doing nothing.

Ophelia couldn’t imagine what she was going through. Hell, she wasn’t even sure how she felt about it herself. Everything else that had happened had been very improbably and sucked beyond the telling of it, but it was at least fixable.

Not this though. This possibly changed everything.

So the two just sat there. Waiting.

Then Ophelia heard the familiar whine-hiss of Oktavia’s chair. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Oh, thank God. She couldn’t think of a time that she wanted her better half to be with her than that moment, and wanting Oktavia with her was sort of a constant state for her.

But then her ears caught another sound, that of a set of footsteps walking in time with Oktavia’s chair. A member of the staff, maybe? One of the coast guard? Hell, maybe Freehaven had managed to get a representative over to deal with the Hitomi Shizuki situation. Or…

She realized that such mental gymnastics were pointless. She knew who it was. And judging by how Charlotte had just gone stiff with a sharp inhalation, she did as well.

The door to the infirmary opened, and Oktavia maneuvered her chair inside. Her face lit up when she saw Ophelia sitting in one of the chairs instead of still lying lifeless. “Oh, you’re awake,” she breathed.

Ophelia didn’t say anything. She just got up and hurried over to throw her arms around Oktavia, who was more than happy to do the same.

The two just held onto each other for a long while, silently taking comfort in each other’s presence. “Are you okay?” Oktavia whispered at last.

“Will be,” Ophelia said as she drew back. “It was easier than last time, at least.”

Oktavia winced. “Yeah. Yeah, there’s that at least. Um, have you…heard?”

Ophelia glanced at Charlotte, who was still sitting straight and rigid in her chair, hands gripping the rests so hard that her knuckles were turning white. “I heard. Um, is she…”

Oktavia looked to the door and beckoned.

Moving slowly and hesitantly, Candeloro entered the room. For the most part she looked the same, but Ophelia saw the change immediately.

Whenever Candeloro was agitated, she had a habit of tying the ends of her ribbons into knots. And she was doing the same now, only it was less of tying knots and more of twisting fingers together.

Wow.

“H-Hey,” Candeloro said. “Look. I know all this is…”

Then she saw Charlotte, and her voice caught.

Charlotte abruptly stood up.

Then she started moving toward Candeloro.

“Charlotte,” Candeloro said, reaching for her. “Look. It’s-”

Charlotte dodged her hands and ran from the room.

“Wait!” Candeloro started after her, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to step out of the door. She just stood there, arms extended. Then she let them fall with a sigh and slumped against the doorframe.

Ophelia stared at her. “So,” she said. “This is you from now on, huh?”

Her back still toward her, Candeloro gave a small nod.

“Huh. Okay, can you-”

“I don’t remember how,” Candeloro said in a bitter tone. “I don’t remember why. It’s like that girl from the museum. Astrid.” She finally turned toward Ophelia and Oktavia. “One minute I was just Candeloro, and then I was…this.”

“Oh.” Ophelia’s brow scrunched up as she tried to process all of that. All told, she didn’t really do a very good job. “Okay…but are you still you?”

“She is,” Oktavia said in a low voice.

“I am,” Candeloro confirmed.

“Are you sure though?”

Candeloro shot her a look. “Please don’t make me prove it. I will use every embarrassing thing I know about you to do it.”

“Fair enough,” Ophelia allowed. She certainly would have plenty of material. “So…uh, what do I call you then? I mean, I’m assuming that you got your old name back, so…”

“Candeloro,” was the firm answer. “My old name was Mami Tomoe, if you must know. But I’ve been Candeloro for longer, and I frankly liked that part of my life better. So let’s just stick with that please.”

“And again, fair enough.” Ophelia took a deep breath. “Well, I guess you can’t say fairer than that.”

She stuck out her hand.

Candeloro hesitated. Then she slowly extended her own hand until they touched palms.

Then Ophelia suddenly seized her arm and yanked her forward into a tight embrace.

“I don’t have a fucking clue about what’s going on,” Ophelia whispered. “But you’re not going anywhere. Whatever’s new, we’ll get used to it. I don’t care what you look like or what you call yourself. You are not allowed to leave. Got it?”

Candeloro stood frozen in her arms. Then she slowly lifted her own arms to clasp them behind Ophelia’s back. Ophelia felt hot tears drop onto her neck.

Then Candeloro turned toward the beds. “How are they?” she said.

“Them?” Ophelia shrugged. “They’re fine. They already revived, so they’re just sleeping it all off. They should be waking up any minute now.”

“That’s good.” Then Candeloro turned toward the far bed. She frowned. “Is that her?”

Ophelia grimaced. “Apparently.”

“It is,” Oktavia confirmed. “Had to wring her out harder than the rest of you.”

“I see,” Candeloro said heavily. Her fingers curled.

Ophelia tilted her head. “You’re not thinking of doing something drastic?” she said. “Because honestly I would’ve pegged Charlotte as being the one to strangle her. She was even left alone with her for a long-ass time before I woke up.”

“Oh, yeah. That was probably not a good idea,” Oktavia said, her brow furrowing.

Candeloro stared at the slumbering Hitomi Shizuki a bit longer before turning away. “No,” she said. “No, I’m not. It’s not my place to decide what to do with her. The FIB will handle things from here.”

Sighing, Ophelia sat back down in her chair. “Candy, no offense, but I find the fact that that’s your reason for not wringing her neck, and not something like ‘Choking the life out of scared and confused kids is wrong’ to be really concerning.”

Candeloro sat down next to her. “I’ve been having a bad day,” she said flatly. “A really bad day.”

…

The lovers stand together

The place they are is so familiar. It’s their old dorm at the FIB, made up just how they remembered. It had been the only home they had ever known for their entire lives, and even though they had since moved on, it was completely ingrained in their minds as where home was.

However, they themselves look…different.

Kriemhild Gretchen is a nightmare of sketchy lines that vaguely resemble a human shape. Her arms are too long, her hands grasping claws. Her entire lower half is a cluster of twitching wires, hundreds of them instead of the twelve she normally had. Her face is the same basic shape as her normal one, but only just so. And her eyes burn hellish pink.

And yet, she is still beautiful to Homulilly’s eyes.

Gretchen looks down at herself. “Oh,” she says. “Oh! Oh my God. What am I?”

“Your…old self, I think,” Homulilly says. She was making a point not to look down at herself. “What you were when you were full witch.”

Gretchen looks back up at her. “You too,” she says softly.

Homulilly winces. She nervously hugs her arms to herself. “Is it bad?”

“Not to me.” Gretchen reaches out with one sketchwork hand. Homulilly hesitates, and then reaches out to take it. Her arms are still skeletal, so that much was familiar.

“Where are we?” Gretchen says.

“Our dorm.”

“Okay. Why are we in our dorm? And why are we…like this?”

Homulilly shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Are we…dead?” Gretchen wonders.

A beat passes, and Homulilly says, “Um, yes? We are, and have been for some time.”

Gretchen gives her a gentle shove. “Twit. You know what I mean.”

Homulilly shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

The two of them look toward the window. The blinds are drawn tight, and as far as she can tell there isn’t anything beyond them.

Then Homulilly dares to look into the full-length mirror that sits in the corner.

She is wearing a long, flowing purple dress. That is normal enough.

However, what isn’t normal is that now her hands, arms, and shoulders now match the rest of her. Her whole body is now bare bone, a full human skeleton from top to bottom. Well, except for the very top. Everything over her lower jaws has been sheared off, and a huge scarlet spider-lily is sprouting there instead.

The sight of it makes Homulilly’s head spin. How is she able to speak? Forget that, how is she able to see? None of it makes any sense.

Seeing her bewilderment, Gretchen gently touches the side of her skull and turns her away. “Don’t,” she says. “You’re still you. That’s what matters.”

Then they look toward the door. A light is on the other side, and from beyond they can hear voices.

Their own voices.

“Should we?” Gretchen says.

Homulilly shrugs. “Might as well, I guess.”

Hand-in-hand, they make their ways over to the door. Gretchen reaches for the knob, but hesitates.

“What’s wrong?” Homulilly asks.

“It’s just…what if that is the other side? What if we really are dead dead, and that takes us to whatever afterlife is after our lives? I don’t want to leave!”

“Me neither,” Homulilly agrees. “But I don’t think that’s what this is. I don’t think we’ve gone beyond. I think we’ve gone…deeper. Into ourselves, I mean.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, it’s a weird world. Hell, maybe this is just a dream one of us is having, and when we wake up the other will have no idea what the first is talking about.”

Gretchen’s burning eyes look at her in concern. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

“No, not really.”

Gretchen nods. And then she opens the door.

Beyond is what looks like a two-story apartment, with tall picture windows displaying a bright blue horizon. On a hardwood floor is a glass wedge-shaped tea table, with a light pink L-shaped couch wrapping around it.

And sitting closely together on the couch were two girls.

Homulilly swallows. It is them, or at least a version of them. The two other girls are quite obviously another Homulilly and Gretchen, or at least how Homulilly and Gretchen normally look, but with…noticeable differences. For one, Gretchen’s skin and hair are of a lighter tone, hers aren’t glowing, and she had actual human legs instead of the twelve wires that Gretchen normally possesses. As for the other Homulilly, there was no flower in her hair, and her hands, arms, shoulders, and back were covered with smooth, pale skin. The new Gretchen is dressed in a frilly pink dress that billows out at the skirt, while the other Homulilly wears a sharp uniform in black and dark purple. Her hair is done in two long braids, and she is wearing a pair of glasses.

“Is that who I think it is?” Gretchen says in a low voice.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Should we…go talk to them?”

Homulilly looks over at the two purely human figures. Then she looks at the monstrous abominations that she and Gretchen had become.

“I…I don’t-”

Gretchen smiles at her. Even with her face the way it is, it is still recognizably Gretchen’s smile. “Come on,” she says, giving Homulilly’s hand a tug.

Gretchen heads over to the pair, and Homulilly reluctantly follows. As they approach, they were able to hear what Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi are saying to each other.

“…not your fault,” Madoka says. “There’s no way you could have known.”

“But I should have!” Homura says. She sounds like she was crying. “How many times did I pull you out of paradise to suffer all over again? I didn’t save you, I couldn’t save you, and I just made things worse!”

“But here we, safe and together anyway. I mean, through them.”

Here the two Puella Magi turn toward their witch counterparts. Homulilly suddenly is all too aware of how hideous she looks. She hesitates, and Gretchen does as well.

Smiling, Madoka stands up and holds out a hand toward the pair. “Come on, you two. It’s all right.”

Homulilly swallows. “Is it though?”

“Of course! You’re us, after all.”

Homulilly and Gretchen exchange uneasy glances. “But…”

“We’ve been living through you for five years,” Madoka says. “It doesn’t matter how you look.” She sighs. “And…to be honest, you two did way better than we did with what you were given.”

Homura shamefully looks away.

“Uh…wait!” Gretchen says to her other self. “That’s not fair! We never had to fight monsters every night. Well, I mean, except for just now, but it’s not the same! And we didn’t have an alien conman poisoning our lives either!”

Then Homura clears her throat. “Well, maybe, but you managed something I never could.” Here she sends a small smile over to the skeletal Homulilly. “You…you made me feel good about myself. I could have never done that on my own.”

Oh. Okay, wow. Clearly there was a whole lot of baggage here. “So…wait,” Homulilly says. “What’s going on? Where are we? And are we the same people or not? Because if I’ve been walking around in your skin, then that just feels…gross.”

Homura looks hurt.

“Not like that!” Homulilly revises hastily. “I mean, like I’m using something I don’t have any right to! What have you two been doing all this time? Are you really just sleeping, and we walk around in your bodies?” She looks down at herself. “Because…if this is what I’m supposed to look like…”

“It’s not like that all,” Madoka insists. “We are the same. Just…” She frowns. “Different?” She uncomfortably shuffles her feet. “I’m honestly not really sure how this works either.”

“We have been living through you though,” Homura says. “Seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. We’re still there, just not…at the front. Sort of. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Gretchen sighs. “I’m getting a headache.”

Then a soft voice says, “Then perhaps I can explain.”

A bright light suddenly appears in their midst, like a shining calliope of pure white. It hovers over the tea table for a moment before floating toward the ground. There is a brief flash, and suddenly a small girl is standing there with them.

She looked…strange. She had clear features, but they seemed to be made of light, her skin glistening with every movement. She looked to be around eight, with short, straight hair woven from morning clouds. She was wearing a simple garment made of twilight, and her eyes were twin stars.

Despite her angelic appearance, the girl actually seemed to be quite embarrassed. “Hello,” she says, awkwardly shuffling her feet. “I’m sorry to have startled you, but…I kind of made a mess of things, and I figured I owed you at least an explanation.”

Madoka is standing the closest to her. She leans in closer, frowning as she examines the girl’s shining face. For her part, the girl cringes away bashfully.

“I don’t know you, do I?” Madoka asks.

“No,” says the girl. “None of you do.”

“Who are you then?” Homulilly asks.

“Me? Well, that’s kind of hard to explain. I have been called many things. Nephalie. Zeerin. Col. Masquard. My names are numerous, as are my faces. However, you might know me as Irn.”

All four humans and witches stare blankly.

The girl looks discouraged. “You know. Irn? Avatar of Determination?”

Madoka and Homura both look at one another and shrug. Homulilly reached up to scratch her head but found herself with a fistful of petals. Gretchen awkwardly clears her throat.

Now the girl is starting to look a little agitated. “Really? You don’t…Argh, city people! Go to any small hamlet, and I wouldn’t even have to introduce myself.” Irn sighs. “I am one of what you people call the Ideal Witches.”

Oh. Oh! Okay, now Homulilly understands. She grimaces, or at least she thinks she does. She doesn’t really know how much facial emotion she is conveying, given that apparently she doesn’t have much of a face. But even so, the Ideal Witches are something that she had at least heard about. Granted, they hadn’t exactly been taught in school, but she had come across an odd reference to them here and there.

“The Ideal Witches?” Gretchen says in a small, scared voice. “Those are real?”

Irn gives a hesitant shrug. “I guess? I mean, what is real around here anyway, am I right? We are all some kind of impossible being or another, aren’t we?”

Homulilly really isn’t sure how to react to that. Okay, sure, she does technically count as a supernatural being herself, and since she lives in the aforementioned wacky afterlife that regularly employed magic, it stands to reason that highly advanced beings like gods can actually exist.

But it was one thing to agree that hypothetically there can something more out there. It was something else entirely to meet one such being face-to-face (metaphorically speaking: of the five that were currently gathered, only three had something that could correctly be called a face, and neither she nor the godlike being were one of them). And not only that, but to find that the being was kind of socially awkward.

“Irn. I’ve heard of you,” Gretchen muses. “Aren’t you supposed to be one of the kotoss interdrent?”

“Once upon a time,” Irn says with a nod. “But I’m kind of beyond species, and have been for a very long time. So long ago that my original self really doesn’t matter a whole lot to what I am now.”

“Then what are you?” asks Homura, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “An exceptionally powerful witch? A Walpurgisnacht?”

“Um, no. Not really. Actually, the whole ‘Ideal Witches’ thing is just a name other people gave us that kind of stuck. Let’s just say that there are places out there in which reality is even more mutable than anyone is aware of, and one cannot spend an excessive amount of time in such places without experiencing changes.”

“What kind of places?”

“Places that you can never find, places that have to find you when you aren’t looking for them. But the deeper you slip in, the more you find yourself merging with the fabric of the afterlife itself. You do understand how things work around here, yes? How our respective territories are built from the memories of those who inhabit them?”

Everyone nods.

“Well, if you go out far enough, you find places that are…neutral, I guess. Places that don’t resemble any world at all. And the further you get, the weaker reality itself becomes. And well, I guess you can say I went out too far. And when I came back, I was…not what I used to be.”

Homulilly tilts her head. “Some people worship you, you know.”

“Ugh. I know, I know!” Irn shakes her head in disgust. “It’s so embarrassing! We’re not gods, and people…heavily overestimate how much we can influence. Honestly, we’re more like bugs in the program. The wish that created this afterlife was exceptionally powerful, but not very well thought out. I and the others are proof of that.” She takes a deep breath. “But I’m getting off topic. I’m not here because of any of that. I’m here because of you.”

“Us?” Madoka says as she sits back down next to Homura. She glances over to the witches and becomes them over.

“Yes,” Irn says as Homulilly and Gretchen sit down next to their previous counterparts. “All of you. You see, I’ve been around for quite a while, and I have seen some very strange stuff. But some time ago, I encountered a phenomena unlike any that I had ever even dreamed of.” She leans across the table, her voice lowering to a storyteller whisper. “For some reason, the world…reset itself.”

Homulilly and Gretchen stare blankly. Madoka looks concerned. Homura winces.

“Reset itself?” Gretchen asks. “Like, how?”

“One day things were going on much the same as they always had. But then it was like the entire world had collapsed. It just fell apart into a white void, swallowing up everything and everyone with it!” Irn grins in a disturbingly delighted fashion. “It was really quite exhilarating!” Then she sees how everyone else is staring at her, and her smile disappears. She quickly clears her throat. “Anyway, everything went completely white for a moment, but then suddenly, the world came back! Exactly the way it was, only twenty-three years, seven months, nineteen days, four hours, thirty-three minutes, and nine seconds in the past.”

A sudden burst of understanding lit up within Homulilly, and she leans over to stare suspiciously at her previous self, Homura. For her part, Homura was making a point not to meet her gaze.

“No one seemed to realize what had happened except for me and the others like me,” Irn continues. “The other Ideal Witches, I mean. I guess our…unique states protected us to some extent, at least allowing us to retain our sense of self and memories of what had been. Unfortunately, that didn’t give any of them much insight as to what had happened. At least the ones that still talk to me anyway.”

“Some of them don’t?” Madoka asks.

Irn shakes her head. “We’re…not all friends, and there’s a couple of them that I don’t like associating with. Let’s leave it at that. Anyway, we decided to wait and see if it would happen and, and-”

Homulilly sits up straight. “You waited twenty-three years?”

“I’ve been around much, much longer than that,” Irn says with a shrug. “Such a short period of time passes like a breeze.”

“Oh.”

Irn takes in a deep breath. “Well, we waited to see what would happen, and sure enough, it happened again. Not exactly the same amount of time, mind you. It was off by a couple of months. But regardless, time reset again, and I and the others were the only ones unaffected.”

She then turns to look straight at Homura. “This repeated three more times, and each time I was able to narrow down the source closer and closer. It did not start in the afterlife you see, but I was able to trace the ripples to their point of entry at least. Whatever it was, it was happening in the world of the living before reaching here. Each time, history played out mostly the same, with minute differences. Most of them, as insignificant as they seemed to be, were centered around Freehaven, so that was where I started to watch. And then suddenly, the resets stopped! Time moved on far past the point a reset might take place, and none did! History continued on unabetted.”

“What was the source?” Gretchen says in confusion. “And what does that have to do with us?”

Homura sighs. “Me. It’s me. I’m the source.”

Homulilly breathes out. “I knew it,” she mutters.

Now that everyone was looking right at her, Homura anxiously rubs her legs together and keeps her eyes focused on the ground. “My whole life…well, it wasn’t very happy. Actually, it was pretty miserable. I never knew my family, so I just kept being passed around from foster home to foster home. I had a weak heart, you see, and no one wanted to adopt me, but if I stayed in the system them they’d at least keep covering for my operations. I ended up having to go stay at a Catholic school in America for a few years. That was…” She swallows. “That was…”

Madoka places a hand over Homura’s. “It’s okay, Homura-chan. You don’t have to tell us.”

Homura nods. “When I finally came back to Japan, it was the first time I was allowed to attend a regular school. I was so scared. Everyone seemed so…aggressive. And I had no idea what to say to any of them. But Madoka…” She turns toward her friend and, for the first time, smiles. “She was the first person to ever call me by my first name.”

Gretchen’s jaw drops. “Ever? You mean, no one else ever had? Not even your friends?”

“I never had any real friends,” Homura says flatly. “I never stayed any place long enough to make them. Even at the Catholic school, we weren’t really allowed to…” She clears her throat. “Anyway, it was so…strange, having someone I never met before to show me that much kindness. And then later on she saved my life! I had gotten caught by a witch’s curse, and she came and saved me! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen!”

Madoka winces. “Well, that wasn’t exactly me, but…”

“You can’t understand what it’s like,” Homura goes on. “To have everyone in your life act so cruel or indifferent to you. I felt like I was lucky when I was staying with someone who didn’t pay any attention to me, except when it wasn’t.” Now she is talking directly to Madoka. “And then you came like something out of the stories. A magical hero. You thought I was worth saving.”

“Again, it wasn’t really me that had done that, but of course you would be worth saving, Homura-chan!”

This is all very touching, but something really needs to be cleared up. “What do you mean it wasn’t you?” Homulilly asks.

Homura fixes her with a hard stare. “I mean I watched her die.”

Homulilly and Gretchen both nearly leap out of their seats. “What?!”

“It was the Walpurgisnacht,” Homura explains. “I saw her and Mami set off to fight it, like they had so many other witches. I thought they would destroy it quickly. But then I saw Mami fall. I didn’t even think she could be hurt, but I saw her die! And so I begged Madoka not to fight it, but she said that she had to, to protect the people she loved.” She sniffs. “She failed. She died. Right there, in front of me.”

“Why weren’t you there fighting with her?” Homulilly demands. The thought of standing back and letting her dearest friend face that danger alone seems totally absurd.

“Because I wasn’t a Puella Magi then. Mami said that it’s not something to rush into, that it’s a dangerous life and that I should be careful not to make a contract unless I was absolutely sure. So I hesitated. I didn’t think I would be any good at it.” Homura sighs. “And then it was too late.”

Homulilly frowns. “Who the hell is ‘Mami’?”

Irn clears her throat. “You would know her better as Candeloro.”

“Oh. Um, okay.” Homulilly shrugs “I see. Hey, wait, what about Ophelia and Oktavia? Where were their past selves in all this?”

“Sayaka Miki did not make a contract in that timeline. Nor did Kyoko Sakura return to Mitakihara City.”

“Timeline?” Gretchen asks.

Homura nods. She sniffs and wipes her nose with her sleeve. “When I saw Madoka die, it felt like someone had torn my soul out. I couldn’t bear living on without her, so I finally made a wish. I wished to be sent back to redo our first meeting, only this time instead of being saved and protected by her, I would be fighting at her side and keep her from dying!”

“That was the first reset,” Irn says softly.

“But there were four more,” Homulilly points out.

“Yes.”

Turning toward Homura, Homulilly says, “You failed.”

Homura nods again. “Every time I learned a little more. I learned what Kyubey was. I learned what witches were. I learned the true nature of soul gems. And every time I tried to warn everyone, but nobody ever believed me! I tried my best to prepare for Walpurgisnacht, but it seemed to grow stronger every time. I even tried to bolster our ranks. The last time I edged Sayaka into making a contract and went all the way to Kazamino City to convince Kyoko Sakura to bury the hatchet with Mami. I thought if we all fought together, we might have a chance of winning with no one dying.”

“Instead, they all became witches,” Gretchen whispers.

Homura’s eyes had gotten a faraway look. “It just happened all at once. Sayaka…I should have never brought her into this. She just didn’t have the heart for it. She found out the truth about soul gems, and that bad business with her friends happened soon after, and she just kept unraveling. She got moody, temperamental, even a little paranoid. She was getting reckless during battle and stopped purifying her soul gem.”

“Why didn’t anyone do anything?” Gretchen askes.

“We all did! You, me, Kyoko, and Mami, we all reached out to her to try to get her to get a grip, but she wouldn’t listen! Then, one day, when we were fighting a witch at the hospital, Sayaka just…snapped. Her soul gem burst, and a new witch came out. And then-”

“It’s okay,” Gretchen says hastily. “You don’t have to tell us.”

Homura nods gratefully. “We were all alone against Walpurgisnacht. Just us two. We fought it for a whole day, and when we were done, there wasn’t much left of the downtown. But somehow…we still won! It took every bit of magic we had, every grief seed we had saved, but we managed to take it down!” She looks down at her hands. “But when it was over, we had nothing left.”

“And that’s what created us,” Homulilly finishes for her.

“I didn’t even have enough left to go back,” Homura says. “And honestly, at that point I didn’t even want to.”

Homulilly honestly couldn’t blame her. “So, wait. Ophelia, Charlotte, Candeloro, and Oktavia. They were this big Walpurgisnacht that we keep hearing about?”

“No. That was something different. We fought the one that they had become, and then a few weeks later we fought the second one.”

“That’s terrible,” Gretchen whispers.

Maybe so, but something else wasn’t adding up. “Why didn’t you just wish for Madoka to come back to life?”

“Because…” Homulilly swallows. “Because…”

Homulilly sighs. “Because you wanted to be the protector. You didn’t want to feel worthless anymore.”

“No,” Homura says with a shudder. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Homulilly thinks on this. On the one hand, it was kind of a really selfish thing to do, one that really screwed things up in the long run. On the other…

“You know, believe it or not, I kinda know how you feel,” she says to the ghost of the girl responsible for everything that they are.

“Please don’t blame yourself,” Gretchen adds. She leans over and places her misshapen hands over Homura’s. “You fought for so long and so hard. It’s not your fault.”

Rather than be repulsed, Homura just smiles at her in gratitude. “Even as a witch, you’re still the kindest person to me.”

“No shit,” Homulilly says. “You’ve been living in my head for the past five years and you haven’t figured that out?”

Gretchen giggles. “Homulilly! Language.”

Sighing, Homulilly turns back toward their luminescent host. “So, I guess that clears up a lot of mysteries. What happened next?”

“Well, I was able to figure out that the two new witches were the source of the resets,” Irn says. “I followed you, kept an eye on you, waiting to see if you being here would change anything.”

Homulilly frowns. “You spied on us?”

The question actually seems to offend Irn. “I’m a multi-dimensional being beyond the scope of space and time! It’s not spying if I do it!”

“Kind of is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Homulilly, relax, okay?” Gretchen says. “She didn’t mean any harm.”

Maybe not, but Homulilly still didn’t care for it. She has always been a private person, and she does not like the idea of being under observance, even if it was by a mythical being of legend. “Even so…”

Irn coughs and quickly changes the subject. “Um, anyway, for the most part the two of you seemed perfectly normal. Things were progressing pretty normally, but then something happened that threw everything out of whack.”

Gretchen sighs. “Hitomi.”

Of course. It all comes back to that walking disaster area. If only she had just thrown herself over the cliff without alerting Gretchen to her presence, they all would have been spared a great deal of pain.

Irn nods. “Someone who had been close to you in your previous life, a dear friend who knew everything about you. Someone who could reach the dormant memories buried deep within you and start stirring them up.” She sighs. “Which she proceeded to do with gusto.”

That she did, but now that Irn was saying it out loud, several puzzle pieces are coming together in Homulilly’s mind, and she is not liking the picture that was forming. “Wait a minute, did you have anything to do with that?”

“What?” Irn says with a blank stare. “With what?”

“Everything! Everything that’s happened! The fact that Hitomi just so happened to show up at the FIB when we were leaving! The fact that we forgot to turn in our keys and had to go back when she just so happened to be in that hallway! The storm hitting earlier and harder than anyone could have expected! The karnuk showing up and just so happening to be right where we ended up in the water! That was you, wasn’t it?”

Her words have immediate effect. Homura sits up a little straighter, Madoka looks troubled, and Gretchen glances between Homulilly and Irn in uncertainty. For her part, Homulilly just glares daggers at the diminutive advanced being. If all this is really her doing…

But Irn just rolls her eyes. “Hitomi showed up when and where she did because Freehaven is one of the biggest hubs for the newly arrived, so it would make sense that she be taken to the same place that you were. You ran into her because of sheer coincidence. You experienced spiritual dissonance because your curiosity caused many of you to ignore clearly stated rules, resulting in the obvious consequences. It happened at an escalated rate among your friends because they once shared a single soul, causing spiritual dissonance to spill over. The karnuk showed up because it’s an animal, and animals care little for such arbitrary things as ‘borders’ and ‘territories.’ The storm was bigger than everyone expected because it was supposed to hit a long time ago, but it was held back much, much longer than is normal, causing it to build up and burst free once it was released. It was, and pardon the pun, a perfect storm of unrelated events happening in conjunction but coming together at the same time to really upset your lives.”

“Really?” Gretchen says incredulously. “It was all just pure coincidence?”

Irn shrugs. “Roll an infinite number of dice and sooner or later you will come up with every possible combination.” Then she purses her lips. “Regardless though, I did influence one thing. And it might have been a mistake.”

“What did you do?” Homulilly says.

Irn winces. “You have to understand, despite what the stories say about us, we are very limited in what we can and cannot do! We can give reality a strong push, but we can’t just changes things on a whim and expect no repercussions! And I saw that all of you were in danger, and, well, I also saw an opportunity to send some help. But I might have acted…rashly.”

Homulilly takes in a deep breath. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“I brought one of you back,” Irn says. She stares down at her hands.

Homulilly practically leaps out of her seat. “What?!”

“Your friend. Candeloro. Her spiritual dissonance was accelerating at a greater rate than anyone else, her dormant memories kicking harder than anyone else. Things were spilling over, damaging her sense of identity. In a few days she would’ve needed to be institutionalized. I could’ve soothed her other self back to sleep, yes, but things were so dire that I gave her a choice, a choice between peace of mind or power. And she chose power.”

Madoka lets out a small gasp. “Mami’s awake? She’s back?”

“Yes,” Irn says. She sounds ashamed of herself. “And I th-thought that it was the right thing to do at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Those memories were locked up for a reason, after all. And now she has to live with them. Forever.”

“Wait, you did what to her?” Homulilly shouts. Gretchen. Madoka, and Homura all stare at her in shock, but she does not care. “Live with them?” She hurries around the table and seizes Irn by her shimmering lapels with two bony hands. “You destroyed her! You destroyed our friend! You destroyed her whole identity! She was happy being who she was! What gives you the right to just-”

“No, no, Candeloro isn’t gone!” Despite her supposed immense power, Irn actually seems intimidated by the angry skeleton shouting into her face. “Those memories are still there too! She hasn’t been replaced, she’s just…been added to.”

Homulilly sneers. “Yes. Added. Added pain and suffering to her.” Dropping Irn, she turns toward the two humans still sitting together on the couch. “I mean, right? Her old self went through stuff that no one should experience. She lost it to protect her, and she just brought it back?!

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Irn wails, sounding exactly like a scared child. “I know it was probably a bad idea, but-”

Gretchen lets out a gasp. “Oh no. Charlotte! What’s she going to think?”

Irn shamefully turns away. “She’s…not taking it well.”

“Well, great!” Homulilly declares as she stomps away from her. “Thank you so much! It wasn’t like we were dealing with enough already with…her stupid friend just wrecking our lives and sea monsters and super storms and us drowning and-”

“Do hurting people really scare you that much?”

It is Madoka who has spoken, and she does it so quietly that Homulilly barely hears her. But her voice is the same as Gretchen’s, and if anything was capable of bringing her rage to a screeching halt, it’s that. “What?” she says, freezing in place.

“Is your good life really so fragile that you can’t stand having someone in pain in it?” Madoka says, looking toward Homulilly with something rather like disappointment.

“No, of course not!” Homulilly is quick to say. “But when that someone in pain decides to recklessly endanger everyone I care about, and some so-called highly evolved being decides on a whim to dump a whole lot of trauma on one of my best friends, I take that personally!”

Now Homura is also frowning at her. “So us and ours need to just stay locked up so you and yours stay safe?”

Homulilly grinds her teeth together in frustration. “That’s not what I said.”

“Is it?” Homulilly says coldly. The hurt, timid girl is gone, and now Homulilly felt that she was getting a look at the steel that had kept her going for so long. “They kept Hitomi locked up in the downstairs ward to keep her from hurting you. And we were locked away too for the same reason. But we started slipping out anyway. I remember the day you buried me. You told me that you couldn’t keep being my ghost. Do you remember that?”

Homulilly has nothing to say.

“And to be honest, I was okay with that,” Homura says. “You were leading a better life than me. You were in a better place, and through you I could be with Madoka forever.” She slips her hand into Madoka’s, who takes it without hesitation. “It was really, really great. But once things started to slip, you fell to pieces. But when someone I loved was in danger, I stood and fought. I never had a real family there to help and support me like you do. I didn’t have a whole city of resources at my disposal. It was just me. And I had to go back over and over, watching the person that meant the most to me die over and over again, watching those around her die or break down. I had to talk her through killing her own friends. I had to fight an impossibly powerful monster over and over, even as my own body was beaten to pieces. And now you’re mad because you had a bad week?”

“But that’s the whole point!” Homulilly blurts out. “Look, I’m sorry for what you had to go through, I really am, but when someone’s gone through something like that,  maybe it’s best that they don’t remember! Candeloro is going to have live the rest of her life remembering everything she went through, and it didn’t have to be that way!”

“And you’re going to be there helping her, right?” Homura says pointedly. “Even if she looks a little different or goes by a different name?”

“Of course I am! But I am entitled to get angry that this was forced on her to begin with!”

Homura’s mouth thins out into a straight line. “If you say so.”

Then Madoka clears her throat. Homura-chan, maybe we’re being a little unfair. She’s not saying she has it worse off than us, she’s just mad that someone she cares about is hurting.”

Then Irn sighs, bringing everyone’s attention back to her. “Well. Um, I guess that answers that question.”

Frowning, Homulilly sits back down next to Gretchen. “What question?”

“The whole reason I brought you all here. Look, I realize that I may have done more harm than good. So I’ve been spending all day trying to fix things, or at least make things better.”

Homulilly stares. “Explain.”

“Well, basically you all have been offered a choice, to either have your other selves soothed back to sleep or to awaken fully, like Mami Tomoe has,” Irn says. “I figured that that might it easier for you to adjust to her new condition. So far, Ophelia and Oktavia have both chosen to make peace with who they were and remain as they are. And I wanted to make you the same offer. Only…a little more directly than I did to them. I mean, given how closely I’ve been following you two, I guess you would be the ones that I most owed an explanation.”

It took several seconds for the significance of what Irn is saying to crack through Homulilly’s stupor, and when it does, she just about falls out of her seat. “You…you want us to return to being Homura and Madoka?”

“I don’t want anything,” Irn says. “This is entirely up to you.”

Four sets of jaws drop open, and four pairs of eyes bugged out (well, three if they were to get technical about things, but whatever it was that gave Homulilly her sight was bugging out with the rest of them). This is…huge. Inconceivable, even. Homulilly looks over to her former self, and Homura just stares right back. Both Gretchen and Madoka are likewise gawking at one another.

Then Gretchen raises a trembling, malformed hand. “Could you please give us some space to talk it over?”

“Of course,” Irn says. “Just call when you’re ready.”

And then she is gone, leaving the four of them alone.

Homulilly tried to go first. “I…”

“You don’t want to. We know,” Homura says without hesitation.

“I’m…” Homulilly frowns. “Not. Sure.”

“Wait, after all that?” Homura says. “I would have thought that you’d be a flat ‘no.’”

“Well, I didn’t think that the same could happen to me!” Homura protests. “You’ve been pecking at my mind all week! And…well, after all I’ve wondered about you…”

Homura shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Trust me. You do not want to be me. I don’t want to be me. I think you need to grow up a little, but I was much happier being you.”

Madoka turns to her, her eyes wide and earnest. “Homura-chan, are you sure?”

“Yes.” Homura casts a glance over to Homulilly. “Right?

Homulilly shivers. “Yes. You’re right. I think we’d all be better off without that.”

Still looking a little unsure, Madoka turns to the twisted caricature of herself that’s sitting next to her. “Um, what about you though? I know you’ve been wondering a lot about how things were. And…my memories aren’t all sad. There’s a lot of happy ones too, about our family and friends and everything. “

Gretchen looks down at the thicket of legs she has curling around the bottom of the couch. “Um, I-I don’t know. I mean, I did want to know about our little brother. And I did want to know what it was like growing up with Hitomi and Okt…” She winces. “I mean Sayaka.”

“Gretchen, no,” Homulilly whispers.

Homura shoots her a furious glare. “Don’t decide for her. It’s not your life, it’s hers.”

“But-”

Homura gets up and plants herself right in front of the fleshless skeleton. “Listen, me. Consider this a message from your conscience.” She pokes at Homulilly’s bare ribs with her finger. “No matter what she decides, she will still be the girl we love, and you will love and respect and support her through the whole thing, because if you don’t, then I’m going to engage what could only be described as metaphysical self-harm. Because I did not go through the Hell that was my entire life just to have my other half start whining over a little change. Am I clear?”

For the first time during this whole bizarre meeting, Homulilly feels actual shame. “You’re right. You’re right.” She turns to Gretchen. “Gretchen, um, whatever you want to do, it’s all right with. I’ll still love you just the same.”

“That’s more I like it,” Homura says smugly. She goes back to her seat next to Madoka.

For her part, Gretchen just looks lost. “But I’m not sure if I want to. I mean, I would love to have those happy memories back. But I also…really like being me. And I know I won’t stop being me, I get that! But this…I don’t know.”

Then Madoka lays a hand on Gretchen’s shoulder. “Gretchen. It’s okay. Speaking as someone who’s lived both lives, I’m fine staying you.”

“But what happens to you?” Gretchen says. “You just came back! Aren’t you sad to go away again?”

Madoka shakes her head. “I don’t think it works that way. I mean, I really, really am you! Everything you’ve done, I’ve done. Everything you’ve thought and felt, I’ve thought and felt. This is all probably just a metaphor. An ath-anthy-antho-”

“Anthropomorphic,” Homulilly fills in for her.

“Right. Thank you. I’m just an anthropo….pomorphic representation of your old memories. So when you wake up, Madoka Kaname will still be there. With her!” Then she playfully butts Homura’s face with her cheek.

Homura looks surprised at the sudden affection, but then she smiles, and happily nuzzles Madoka’s face with her own.

“Okay. Okay,” Gretchen says with a small laugh. “You’re probably right.” Then she glances over at Homulilly, then at Homura. “Um, anyway, I hope I’m not intruding, but…”

Sighing, Homulilly gets up. “Come on,” she says to the dark-haired girl whose face she normally wore. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

The two of them move further away from the pair, going into the kitchen. As they do, Homulilly takes a good look at the place. It just seems so familiar, and yet she couldn’t place a finger on where it was that she knew it from.

“You know, I can tell why you fell for her,” she says to Homura.

Homura smiles. “You’re the lucky one. You actually got to love her, and be loved in return. Me? I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted.”

“I’m sorry,” Homulilly sighs after a few moments. “I was really, really harsh earlier. I don’t want to, uh, minimize everything you went through. I just-”

Homura shakes her head. “It’s fine. I understand. Like I said, I like being you better anyway.”

Homulilly nods. “You know, you probably remember this just fine, but a few years ago I realize how little I liked being me. And it didn’t…” She winces. “It wasn’t healthy. It nearly drove a wedge between me and Gretchen, and that’s the worst thing I could have ever experienced.”

“Yes, I remember,” Homura says with a nod. “That was very stupid of you.”

Ouch. Her old self knew how to cut deep. “Well, my point is, maybe you better think about that for yourself. I mean, you’re stronger than I could ever hope to be. You fought and kept fighting even when it seemed impossible.”

Homura frowns. “Fought and failed.”

“But you still fought,” Homulilly points out. “I’m just saying, don’t be so hard on yourself. Most girls couldn’t have endured even one of those loops. You went through five, and you probably could have kept going if your soul gem hadn’t shattered.”

“I guess,” Homura says. Then she sighs. “But I’m tired, Homulilly. I’m just so tired. Even resting in your soul for five years hasn’t changed that. I have nothing but pain to offer. So I’m really looking forward to going back to sleep. Just please promise me that you’ll try to be there for Mami. We didn’t really get along that well, but I have an idea of what she’s going through.”

“Okay,” Homulilly says, though honestly the prospect scares her a little. “I promise.” Then she scowls. “I’m not promising anything for Hitomi though.”

Homura laughs. “You know, I always kind of liked her. She was a lot smarter than Sayaka anyway. Anyway though, you’ll pull through. If I could do it, so could you."

Homulilly nods. Then she glances over to Madoka and Gretchen and bites the bottom of her lips. She spreads her skeletal arms.

Homura looks at her, eyebrow quirked in uncertainty. Then she stiffly wraps her arms around Homulilly’s ribcage.

Neither of them are really all that great at giving or receiving hugs, especially from each other. But they make do.

“Now, go on,” Homura says. “Go live your best life for both of us.”

…

Meanwhile, their loved ones are deep in conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Gretchen is saying. “I don’t want to sound so ungrateful.”

“No. Not at all!” Madoka says with a warm smile. “I like being you. And it’s not like these memories will be destroyed. Who knows? Maybe one day you could experience them for yourself.”

“Maybe.”

Madoka scoots in closer. “In the meantime, look after them for me, okay? Not just your other friends, but Mami and Hitomi too. Mami had been alone for a long time when I met her, and I know how lonely she was.”

That is a promise that Gretchen has no problem making. “Of course I will!”

Then Madoka’s face drops a little. “And I’m sorry for all the trouble Hitomi’s caused you, but please don’t abandon her. She was just scared and confused.”

“I won’t,” Gretchen promises. Well, that had been a lot simpler than she had thought. She looks out the window, at the bright blue sky. “So, I guess this is it.”

“I guess so,” Madoka says.

Gretchen coughs nervously. “Um, b-before you go, I just have one really big favor to ask you.”

Madoka tilts her head inquisitively.

“Can I have just one of those happy memories?” Gretchen asks. “Even if I don’t remember when I wake up, I’d like to experience it, just once.”

Madoka blinks in surprise. Then she smiles.

Without saying anything, she sits up on her knees and draws Gretchen’s head in close to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead.

…

Heart racing and weapon at the ready, Madoka crouches in the relative shelter provided by the reeds. The cool water of the river babbles past her calves and thighs while water insects buzz lazily around her head, blissfully unaware of the war that had taken control of the tranquil spot that they called home.

The enemy is in sight, moving through the shallows, their own weapon held in both hands, eyes searching for any sign of their prey. But they don’t see her, and soon they pass right by where she is hiding. Holding her breath, Madoka waits until their back is to her before leaping out.

“Gotcha!” she shouts as she fires.

Her Super-Soaker sprays straight and true, hitting Hitomi in the back of her head with a jet of cool water. Hitomi yelps and whirls around. “What? Where did you come from?” Hitomi says as she returns fire. “Oh, I don’t think so! Take that!”

Laughing, Madoka retreats from the riverbank back up the grassy hill, firing as she goes. “Too slow! Surrender! You’ll never-”

Then something soft and incredibly cold hits her in the nape of her neck. It drips down, dragging icy fingers across her skin and down into her tank-top.

Madoka lets out a cry of surprise and drops her Super-Soaker. She turns around just in time to have another orb of cold smack right into her chest.

Sayaka is standing at the top of the hill, a clear plastic jug full of snowballs in one hand, the other idly tossing another snowball up and down. Madoka opens her mouth to say something only to get beaned in the face by snow.

As Madoka sputters and frantically claws the freezing powder away from her face, Hitomi runs up to join them. “Where did you get those snowballs?” she demands.

“Had them in my freezer since winter!” Sayaka says. She takes a pitcher’s stance and hurls one right at Hitomi, who only barely just dodges.

“Since winter?” Madoka gapes. “You’ve been saving those since winter?”

“If you fail to plan then you plan to fail,” Sayaka retorts. “Now, tremble in the face of my superior firepower!”

Madoka and Hitomi exchange a brief, but meaningful, look. Hitomi nods, and they both lift their Super-Soakers up.

Sayaka immediately picks up on what’s going on. “Hey, wait. You can’t team up! That’s not fair!”

The ignore her. And they give chase.

“No fair!” Sayaka says as she starts hurling snowballs at them. She manages to hit Hitomi with a glancing shot off the shoulder before she’s forced to retreat, covering her head as she’s assaulted by twin blasts of cold.

The three of them run across the hills, laughing and shouting taunts. Madoka has a clear shot right between Sayaka’s shoulders. She takes aim.

Then a blast of water hits her in the temple.

Whirling around, she sees a grinning Hitomi still aiming for her face. “What?” Madoka gawks. “Traitor!”

“Every woman for herself!” Hitomi laughs as Madoka stops her pursuit of Sayaka to chase after her instead.

Then she hears Papa call out to them, “Come on, girls! Dinner time!”

Panting and giggling, the three of declare a truce and head back to where their families had spread several blankets over the grass, though Sayaka takes the opportunity to dump her last snowball right down the back of Hitomi’s shirt. Hitomi screams and chases after her, unscrewing the bulb of her Super-Soaker with the intent of making Sayaka take the entire load.

“So, who won?” Mama says as Madoka breathlessly plops down onto the blanket. She hands Madoka a towel.

“Not me,” Madoka admits.

“Darn tootin’!” Sayaka crows from her family’s blanket.

“Madda! Madda!” little Tatsuya gurgles from where he’s sitting in Mama’s lap.

“That’s right, Tatsuya,” Madoka says, playfully bopping her baby brother on the nose. “Madda got murdered!”

Papa hands her a plate, and she settles down with her family and friends. The sun is going down, and soon the fireworks will begin.

Madoka knew that all things came to an end; she knew that things changed and nothing lasts forever. But as she sat there contentedly with her loved ones after a fun day, she decided that if just one moment could last forever, just one, it would be this.

…

Homulilly opened her eyes.

She stared up at the pale blue ceiling. It was unfamiliar to her. Had they gone on a trip? Was she in a hotel.

Then she looked around and saw the rows of beds. Okay, so she was in…a hospital? Freehaven did have a clinic, but she had never had cause to go there. So why was she…

Memories came flooding in all at once. Homulilly gasped and lay back. The storm, Hitomi, the fall, the karnuk, everything. She remembered fighting desperately to free Gretchen from the karnuk’s grasp, trying to bring them both to the surface before her air ran out.

She remembered failing.

She had drowned. She had died.

Huh.

Then she lifted her arms up off the blanket and clenched the fingers. They remained skeletal, just as they were supposed to be. She reached up toward the top of her head and felt the silk petals of her spider-lily.

She was still herself.

Homulilly felt her throat tighten. For some reason this discovery was filling her with so much relief that she was now close to tears.

But why though? Of course she was still herself. Who else would she be?

A dream. She had had a dream, one that had changed everything and yet changed nothing. She had talked to someone in her dream, someone she had wanted to speak to for years. But like all such dreams, the harder she tried to recall the details, the more they slipped away.

Go live your best life for both of us.

“Homulilly?”

Homulilly turned to see Gretchen lying in the bed next to her. She also looked the same. For some reason that was significant, though she couldn’t recall exactly why.

“It’s me,” Homulilly said hoarsely. It seemed to be the thing to say for some reason.

“Hey, look who’s up!” Ophelia said as she went over to the pair. “How you feeling?

Homulilly coughed. “Um, good. Really good, actually. Better than I had for a long time. I think.”

Oktavia came striding over in her chair. “That’s good to hear. You kinda scared the crap out of me.

She sat up. To her relief, she was still wearing her clothes. And they felt like they had been cleaned and dried. Hopefully that had been done with magic and she hadn’t been undressed and redressed when she had been out, though to be honest, the potential embarrassment ranked very low on her list of concerns.

“Same here,” Gretchen said, rubbing her head. She frowned. “Hey, did we die?”

Ophelia made a face. “Welcome to the club.”

“Wow.” Gretchen blinked. “Okay.”

Homulilly slowly exhaled. Well, it had finally happened. She supposed that it had been inevitable, but even so, it was a lot to absorb.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“The Aurora Borealis,” Oktavia said. “My group picked up the distress signal Charlotte was sending out. Gotta say, that was one hell of a surprise. There are only so many jobs that you stand a chance of running into your roommates. Out in the ocean in the middle of a storm is not one of them.”

Wow, that had been lucky. “And…” Homulilly swallowed. “Wh-What about the karnuk?”

Ophelia’s face twisted up in a combination of anger and disgust. Oktavia just sighed and said, “Tagged, bagged, stuck in a tank. We patched up the damage you guys did to it and it’s sleeping it off in the cargo hold.”

“Oh, thank God,” Gretchen breathed as she leaned back into her pillow. “Um, Oktavia? No offense, but it’s going to be a long time before I go swimming again.”

“Well, to be honest, I can’t really blame you,” Oktavia said. “I just wish I had gotten there sooner.”

“Yeah,” Gretchen sighed. “That wasn’t exactly-” Suddenly she bolted straight up, her eyes popping wide. “Wait! What about everyone else? Where’s Charlotte? Candeloro? Hitomi?”

Homulilly made a face. She might be a terrible person for doing so, but a big part of her was kind of hoping that Hitomi was still somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

“They’re…here,” Oktavia said slowly. “Charlotte’s…out and about for now. And Hitomi’s over there.”

Homulilly and Gretchen both looked. Sure enough, there was the source of their problems, lying in another bed against the wall.

“Is she okay?” Gretchen said.

“Well, she drowned, so take that for what it’s worth,” Oktavia said.

“Good,” Homulilly said bitterly.

“Homulilly!” Gretchen sounded shocked.

Homulilly ground her teeth together. “I’m sorry, Gretchen. But I’m not really feeling all that warm and fuzzy about her right now.”

“But…even so! That’s terrible!”

“Guys, guys, leave it,” Ophelia said. “Not right now, okay?”

Homulilly’s hands squeezed into shaking fists, but she nodded. Fine. Later.

“Right,” Ophelia said. She made a face. “Okay, look: first time deaths are not joke, and…there’s a lot you two are gonna have to deal with. But first, we…kinda have something else we need to talk about. So I need you two to brace yourselves, okay?”

Homulilly swallowed. She wasn’t sure she could handle any more bad news. “What happened?”

Ophelia turned toward someone behind her. “Okay. Come forward.”

Candeloro slowly walked into view. She looked so incredibly tired and upset, but there was a lot of that going around. She was wearing a ribbed turtleneck sweater and jeans, her hair was loose and disheveled, and her face was a blotchy mess, but other than that she seemed okay.

“Hi,” she said, weakly waving to them.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” Gretchen sighed. Homulilly didn’t say anything. She just stared.

A few moments passed, and then Gretchen frowned. “Um, what is it?” she said, looking around at everyone’s faces.

“Gretchen,” Homulilly said hoarsely. She extended a trembling finger. “Look.”

Gretchen looked. At first she didn’t seem to catch onto what Homulilly had seen immediately.

Then her eyes focused on the one thing that was out of place: namely, a significant number of flesh-covered digits where there had previously been none.

She squeaked in surprise. “Candeloro?”

Candeloro slowly moved back her sleeve, revealing a perfectly normal human arm. “Yes,” she said. “I’m afraid so.”

Homulilly said nothing. Gretchen’s jaw dropped.

“I, uh, I…” Candeloro shot a pleading look at Oktavia and Ophelia.

Ophelia stepped in. “No she doesn’t remember how or why. Yes, it’s still her, she just got her powers, memories, and, uh, arms back. Yes, she remembers everything, but I’d avoid pressing questions about that for the time being. Yes, she saved us after we drowned. And yes, please keep calling her Candeloro.”

“Oh,” Gretchen said in a high voice. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Candeloro said.

“Don’t be,” Homulilly said after a pause. “You’re still you, right?”

“Yes.” Then Candeloro let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry guys, but I think I need to go find Charlotte.”

“Just give her time to come around,” Ophelia said. “She’s just scared that she lost you.”

“I know. But me staying away isn’t going to change that. Excuse me.”

Candeloro hurried from the room.

Homulilly stared after her. Then she laid back onto her pillow to stare up at the ceiling.

That cinched it. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

And she was going to murder Hitomi.

Almost as if the thought caused it to happen, she suddenly heard the idiot in question mumble something incoherent.

Everyone turned toward her. Hitomi was waking up. She was struggling to sit up, eyes blinking.

“Where…” she groaned as she rubbed her eyes. “What…?”

Then she saw everyone staring at her.

“Wait,” she said, her face going white. “It…didn’t work? I’m still stuck here?”

Homulilly couldn’t take it anymore. “Yes,” she seethed. In one fluid motion she kicked her blanket away, spun her legs around, and sat up. Her balance went weird and swimmy, but she managed to keep her feet. Anger made for a great source of focus. “You are. With us. And because you couldn’t accept it, you ruined our lives! We told you not to, and you did it anyway!”

She started toward the gawking girl, but Ophelia was there in a second. “Homulilly, chill!” she said, grabbing Homulilly by the shoulders.

Homulilly was still too weak to really fight back, but she could talk just fine. “To hell with you!” she screamed. “That’s where you should have gone! You ruined our lives, you bitch! You ruined our lives!”

…

“Charlotte!”

Charlotte froze in place. Then she started moving again, at a faster pace.

“Charlotte, wait!”

Shaking her head, Charlotte quickened her gait.

“Charlotte, stop! Talk to me!”

Gritting her teeth, Charlotte yelled over her shoulder, “There’s nothing to talk about!”

“Don’t give me that! There is and you know it!”

Suddenly Charlotte felt something entwine her wrist. It jerked back, turning her around.

Mami Tomoe was marching toward her, her eyes resolute and determined. In one hand she was holding a yellow ribbon, with its other end tied around Charlotte’s wrist.

Hand. Holding. No, no it wasn’t supposed to be like that! She wasn’t supposed to be holding a ribbon, the hand was supposed to be the ribbon!

Charlotte tried to pull away, but Mami Tomoe had already grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall.

“Let go of me!” Charlotte snapped as she tried to wriggle away.

“No! I’m not going to let you keep running away from me!”

“What does it matter to you?” Charlotte demanded. “I don’t know you. We’re strangers, all right? Just because you stole my wife’s face-”

“It’s my face, Charlotte. I didn’t steal anything.”

Charlotte felt the tears start their way down her cheeks again. “So you just show up and take it back, is that it? Get rid of Candeloro just so you can have your body back? You monster! She didn’t do anything to you! She didn’t ask to be born. You had no right to kill her!”

A look of genuine pain flashed in Mami Tomoe’s eyes, and she released Charlotte’s shoulders. “Charlotte, it’s me,” she said. “I’m still Candeloro. It’s…It’s not like Mami and Candeloro are two different people stuck in the same body. We’re one and the same.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. No, you’re not.” Then she gave Mami Tomoe a rough shove and stomped off. However, she didn’t retreat. She just needed to put some space between them. “All this time it’s been just us. Me. Candeloro. Ophelia and Oktavia. It never mattered who we used to be, what our relationship was in that other life. It was all gone. Our past selves? They were strangers! Dead strangers! Who cared if any of us used to be friends? Who cared if I was probably the witch you all were fighting when everyone died? We were a Walpurgisnacht! A family!”

She hugged herself, her shoulders shaking violently. “And th-then they showed up. Gretchen and H-Homul-l-lilly. And…it was fine! We had new friends! S-Sure they knew your past s-s-selves and not mine, but who cares? It just gave them a little push, a little subconscious connection! And i-i-i-it was fine!”

Then rage filled her. The shaking stopped, and her wet eyes narrowed. She turned around to face Mami Tomoe directly. “And then she showed up!” she spat. “Someone from your past, someone that remembered nearly everything! And everyone wanted to help her. Everyone felt sorry for her. And I thought, well, I’m safe. Maybe if I go talk to her, it’ll keep the rest of you safe!”

“But look at where that got us!” Charlotte said. “A couple days in and everybody starts experiencing spiritual dissonance! Except me, of course. Hitomi didn’t know anything about me, so whoever the hell I used to be didn’t get disturbed. But you? You woke right up! You know spiritual dissonance usually takes, on average, two-to-three weeks to completely drive someone insane? And that’s with constant disruption!”

“I don’t understand it anymore than you do, Charlotte,” Mami Tomoe said softly. “I just know-”

“Know what? Know what? Me?” Charlotte stuck a thumb against her own chest. “Do you know me?”

Mami Tomoe hesitated, and then slowly nodded.

“We…knew each other a little. From school.”

“School? That’s it? So I wasn’t part of the club after all, was I?”

“No. But-”

Charlotte threw her hands into the air and turned away. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know. We already know too much. That was the whole problem, wasn’t it?”

“Charlotte, it’s still me! Please don’t walk away. Talk to me. Charlotte?”

Charlotte paused at the end of the hall. “I…can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t right now. Just please, leave me alone.”

Then she ran off.

…

It had taken some time to get Homulilly calmed down, but they did. Now she was sitting smoldering in one corner of the infirmary while Hitomi lay in shock at the other. Gretchen was sitting by herself in the middle, clearly torn about what to do, while Ophelia also had placed herself between Homulilly and Hitomi, just in case something happened again.

Homulilly didn’t care. She had said her piece.

Then the door opened. Everyone watched warily as Candeloro reentered the infirmary.

“How’d it go?” Ophelia asked.

Candeloro just sat down in a chair. She put her face in her brand new hands and cried.

…

The storyteller sat alone.

Charlotte sat on the small bathroom toilet, face buried in her hands.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face that person, the one wearing the face that she loved the most but might as well be a complete stranger. Candeloro was gone, stolen away from her, and she could not accept that the person chasing after her was her.

She had lived her whole life with Candeloro. She had fallen in love with Candeloro. Candeloro meant more to her than anyone and anything else.

Not Mami Tomoe. She didn’t know Mami Tomoe. She didn’t love Mami Tomoe. She didn’t want Mami Tomoe.

“Why?” she muttered under her breath. “Why, why, why? Why her?”

Then she looked up at her reflection in the mirror across from her, at her disheveled pink hair and robin-blue eyes. “A gazillion to one chance,” she shouted at herself. “And it happens to her!”

She got up to confront herself directly. “Her! Out of all people, it happens to her! Why? Why her? I’d rather have been eaten! I would’ve come back! And she would still be there!” She started pounding her fist against the mirror. “She! Would! Still! Be! There! And! I!”

The mirror cracked, sending spiderwebs across her face, distorting it beyond recognition. A couple of the shard popped off and sliced her hand, sending trickles of pink mist upward.

Charlotte stuck the seeping cuts into her mouth and sat back down. “And I wouldn’t be hiding from her in the bathroom like a coward,” she moaned.

Because that was what she was.

A coward.

Candeloro had allowed herself to change to save Charlotte, and she couldn’t even face her.

God help her, she couldn’t do it.

…

Okay.

Right.

If you must know, it was the scene with Kyoko that got to me.

And it was the talk between Homulilly, Gretchen, Madoka, and Homura that gave me the most trouble.

And this monster was one of the weirdest writing experiences I’ve ever had. I thought it was going to be one of the shorter installments, but it turned out to be almost as long as the entirety of the beach trip arc.

And I am so tired right now.

Until next time, everyone.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Thirteen-One, part 2

Heavy clouds painted the horizon in a dull, bleak gray. Although still morning, the day was quickly fading.

Amy walked down the street. Her keys jingled in her leather jacket’s pocket, reminding her with each step that she needed to have someone check her car. She had not been able to start it this morning. Just another damned thing for her to deal with after the big move to this town.

From the corners of her eyes, she saw a shadow dart past. Her heart raced and she swiveled to spot her assailant. But nothing and nobody was there. Perhaps a mere trick her eyes were playing on her. Amy stood alone on this narrow road, amidst houses both old and new, some from the old colonial era and some just representing those artsy, newer architectural styles that she hated. Right now, she had no eyes for the environment itself, though. She was on the lookout for other people, specifically any creeping up on her.

Not a single soul here beside her.

Continuing on, a person took a left turn and joined her on the road, walking in the opposite direction and towards her. Some unknown man in his late twenties, dressed completely in black.

He just stared at her and a pit formed in Amy’s stomach. She tried to size him up but kept averting her eyes, both out of nervousness and just to see if eye contact could make him do the same. The real estate agent had sworn up and down that the area was all quiet and safe—"zero crime"—but Amy was new in town and the agent might have been full of shit.

The stranger’s course of walking was not in straight line towards her, after all. They moved along opposite sides of the small suburban road. He never stopped staring at her, however. He never turned his head. He creepily glared at her from the corners of his eyes until they had passed each other.

She could feel his gaze burning holes into the back of her head as she continued on. The pit in her stomach was still there, and she felt like all blood must have visibly drained from her face. Amy refused to turn around, refused to show any sign of fear—and listened intently to the sounds of his shuffling sneakers as they both walked on while the distance between them grew.

At the end of the road, Amy finally dared to look back. The creep was not staring back at her. Her gaze burned holes into the back of his head. Not looking where she was walking.

So she bumped into someone else.

Some man said, “Excuse you?” The voice tugged at some memory strings in Amy’s brain.

Under any other circumstances, Amy would have quipped with something snippy. But the day continued to be strange and unsettling all around, so she just looked up at the person she had crashed into. After a few seconds and incredulous blinking, she recognized a familiar face: her old high school friend and former band mate, Chris.

His furrowed brow made way to a face beaming with pleasant surprise. He asked, “Hey. Amy?”

Amy sighed and could not help but smile. With all the weirdness she had witnessed since getting up, followed by that weirdo gawking at her just before—seeing a friendly face turned out to be a true palate cleanser.

“Long time no see, fuck-face,” she said.

Chris chuckled.

“Uh, look. I’d actually like to catch up, but I need to be somewhere,” Amy said. She pulled her phone from her jacket, more demonstratively than anything, and added, “You still got the same number?”

Chris nodded and confirmed with a curt answer, then gestured to the sidewalk behind him.

“It’s cool, let’s walk together. I’m in no rush. I was just takin’ a walk to clear my head.”

Amy dug her hands into her jeans’ pockets and nodded. Chris plodded along by her side as she continued on with her way.

“I never thought you’d come back to this dumpy little town,” he said. “Especially not with the success you’ve been having in the big city. So—what brought you back?”

Amy shrugged. “Outside of the lame-ass answer you’d expect to hear about it never being quiet out there, I wouldn’t know where to start. Hey, so, uh—something else.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“You and the others still all in the same band?”

Chris’ face went blank and he stared at the sidewalk in front of them as they walked.

“Not all of us, no. Seth and Kevin left shortly before you skipped town. Don’t you remember?”

“Sorry. My memory’s kinda gone shoddy in recent years.” Amy took a deep breath, mentally crossing out the old haunt as a place she could find Seth to confront him about the disturbing video she had watched this morning. Then she asked, “So, is the band doing good?”

“I’d say so, yeah. Neil recently said he was gonna hook us up with some bigwig who could get us more serious gigs.”

“Without Kev, who’s doing the drums now?”

“Someone new—Beverly.”

“Hmm.”

“Wait, ‘hmm’, what? She’s really good!”

“No, I meant, ‘hmm’ in the sense that—well, I don’t know her. Like, neither as a person nor as a drummer.”

Neither Amy nor Chris looked at each other. The silence that persisted between them turned awkward.

“How’s Scott doing? He move back here with you?”

Amy stopped in her tracks.

“Scott?”

Chris followed suit and looked back at her.

“Well, yeah. Scott. Your boyfriend?” Burying his own hands in his pockets, he then asked, “Or your—your ex?”

“Y-yeah. He is—he has long moved to France. Neither of us thought the long distance would work. And here I thought I was the one who had memory issues. Do you?”

A short bellow escaped Chris’ throat. A bit too clipped, a bit too forced. Artificial.

They continued walking. Amy blurted out, “No, look, I’ve been seeing someone else. A real cutie, Steve. Steve Parker. You know him?”

“Nope.”

“Not surprised, he’s not from around here. Also staying in the city for now. Work.”

Chris grinned. There was almost something impish about it. Something devilish.

Where their road forked, he pointed up one way, leading uphill. Amy knew her path lied the other way. Chris nodded to her and said his goodbye. She called out after him, prompting him to turn around and proceed a few steps while walking backwards.

“Where are you actually headed to?”

“To this forest hut where we jam. You know—our band.”

Amy blanked out. And the memories of that morning returned to her in a flash, suffocating any positive feelings. The pit in her stomach returned, worse than when it had visited her before. She saw that single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

She saw her darker self, talking into the camera. Talking about needing to dispose of a dead body.

And the she remembered the dark, clawed hand, reaching out from the darkness inside that pentagram. The nails digging into her flesh, drawing blood.

“You okay?”

Chris’ question grounded Amy again, ripped her right back out of the strange imagery bombarding her mind and inner eye.

“All good,” she said.

She had lied.

They went separate ways. She quickly forgot about the encounter with Chris even though something about their conversation felt utterly wrong, as if she had heard either of them say something she did not like to hear. But Amy did not dwell on that.

Instead, she pondered the strange video she had seen that morning. She did not want to, but the images kept invading her consciousness. And she could not shake that horrible feeling. She still wondered if she should call the cops.

But she did not.

The idea of being implicated in a murder and not remembering any of it—if it had even happened at all—was both deeply disturbing and crippling her from seeking out help from authorities.

She finally arrived in front of a big apartment building. The formerly bright white of its facade had turned into muddied colors with the paint chipping off, weathered away over the years. Loud, aggressive heavy metal music blared out from one of the open windows on the first floor.

Amy approached the entrance and tried pushing through the building’s front door. But the door would not budge—it was locked up tight. She scanned the doorbells and rang one of them. Seth’s doorbell.

Nobody responded. The door did not open. She pressed the button to ring the bell again and leaned over and looked to the window out of which loud music continued to thunder. As there still had yet to be anybody to react to her ringing of the doorbell, she wandered back out of the roofed entrance area, looked around the bushed and picked up a rock.

She thought on it for a second, and then tossed the rock up through the open window. Someone must have gotten hit by it, because that faceless someone shouted, “Ow!”

A topless, tattooed man wearing only jeans, with greasy long dark hair tied back into a ponytail, looked out of the window to see who had thrown the rock and hit him. He glared. Then his gaze softened upon seeing and recognizing Amy.

Another old, familiar face from back in the day: Adam. Good ol’ party boy. Bit of an idiot, but soft core.

And decidedly not Seth.

She had come here to find Seth. This was where he lived after all. She had not expected to meet Adam here, but Amy was somewhat happy to find Adam here instead of Seth.

The more she thought about it now, the more unsettling Seth had always been.

“Come the fuck on in,” Adam shouted down to her with a wide, toothy smile.

Amy shook her head and shouted back, “I’d love to. But fucking how?”

“What?”

“Your music is too fucking loud, jackass!”

“Calm your tits, I’ll be right there.”

Adam disappeared from the window. The music stopped in the middle of a stanza, making way for an uncomfortable silence. Soon after, the front door to the apartment block swung open, and the young man stood there, dressed still only in jeans and wearing unlaced black boots that were more scuff marks than leather.

“Since when did anybody start locking that door?”

Adam cocked his head back, causing the skin underneath his chin to bunch up, giving him the look of a turtle for a brief moment of contemplation.

“Folks are paranoid these days, I guess. Bunch o’ crackheads even in this small town, nowadays. You either keep some guns or you lock your doors, I guess.”

He thumbed behind him.

“You wanna come inside or talk right here? Got beer, got smokes, and I’m willing to share with an old stranger like yourself.”

They went inside. The place was a vision of pure chaos. The apartment looked like what you would expect from a tornado hitting the inside of a tour bus. Piles of empty pizza boxes, crumpled up beer cans, and an overturned ashtray with its contents spilled all over the carpet in a dark gray stain, on top of soiled newspapers on top of a cluttered coffee table harboring all manner of drugs and paraphernalia.

Adam plopped down onto the couch with a sigh and Amy thought twice about sitting down anywhere. The whole place reeked of stale cigarette smoke, cheap booze, and dried cum.

“Damn,” Amy said, the word slipping out more than anything.

She always hated it when fellow musicians were walking cliches. She hated it when they smashed guitars on stage, screwed around nonstop with roadies, or steeped themselves in substance abuse.

With narrowed eyes, Adam used a naked hand to shovel through the mess on the coffee table. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of the junk and lit up a smoke with incredible speed and routine that only chain smokers possessed. Then tossed the pack back onto the table.

“Oh, you think this place looks bad?” Adam chuckled and choked a bit on the smoke as it came back up. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Shoulda been a quiet little evening, but somehow—somehow, way more people showed up, and it got out of hand.” He shrugged and took another long, greedy drag from his cancer stick.

Adam leaned back and started puffing out smoke rings.

“Can I bum one from you?”

“Dude. That’s a personal insult, coming from you. You think you need to ask me if you can have one of my smokes?” Scott guffawed. “Seriously. They’re not even mine. Pretty sure someone else forgot them here last night. So knock yourself out.”

He picked up the pack and held it open for her to take a smoke. When she reached out to grab one, he cringed when he saw that her hand was wrapped in bandages that had bled through so badly that a deep crimson spot had formed under the palm.

“You’ve got blood on your hands?”

Amy froze and stared at her own hand.

“Fuck off. Do you always need to frame things with such dramatic phrases?”

Through a faint smile and underneath a furrowed brow, Adam asked, “You got anything you wanna tell me?”

Amy took the cigarette and lit it up with a lighter from the table. Instantly regretting both the sticky texture upon what should have been a smooth plastic lighter, as well as the biting flavor of the cigarette, burning in her lungs like fire.

She flinched and shot him a glance that translated into a silent “Shut the fuck up.”

She asked, “What was that music just now?”

“It's—okay, Amy,” Adam paused and inhaled deeply from his cigarette, burning it down quickly and brightly. When he spoke again, his voice sounded tortured and the smoke billowed out of his mouth at the same time, “No small-talk, okay? What’s actually up?”

Amy let her own cigarette burn down between her fingers. She let her head hang before answering with a different question.

“Where’s Seth? This is his apartment, after all.”

“I don’t know. Woke up here all hungover after the party. I always thought he was more of a friend of yours than mine, y'know?”

Amy placed her cigarette onto the edge of an overflowing ashtray where it continued to smolder and gradually transform into a stick of hot ashes among the cemetery of fellow cancer sticks.

“Never really liked him, if I’m gonna be quite honest. Anything I can help you with, seeing he’s not home?”

Amy shook her head and asked, “Dunno. Does the number combination thirteen-one have any meaning to you?”

With a lopsided grin, Adam replied, “Well, since we’re speakin’ of Seth right here, I’d wager that’s the date when he sacrificed his neighbor’s cat.”

He burst out into laughter, holding his sides. He sputtered and his laughter ceased when he accidentally dropped his cigarette, causing a small explosion of tiny embers and provoking him to scramble and scoop it back up before putting the butt out in the ashtray.

“Big help,” Amy muttered. Though she knew he was right. Seth might as well have been a satanist.

“Sorry, but I really got no clue what I should do with that, but, uh, why—”

A smug grin overtook Adam’s face.

Amy whined, “You’re not taking me seriously, asshole.”

“No, not true. You know I take everything you say very seriously, but I sometimes just can’t help but fuck with you.”

Amy leaned back in the chair she had sat down on after assuring herself that it wasn’t as sticky as the rest of the dingy apartment’s furnishings. She stared out the window into the gloomy, overcast sky outside.

“I dunno. I dreamed something weird. Everything’s weird. Also, I saw Chris on the way over. Has any-fucking-body gotten out of this garbage town except for me?”

“If you’re back now, were you ever really gone, city-girl?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, so, you look a bit under the weather. I mean, I know what I did last night, and I’m still feeling kinda wasted—but what’s your excuse?”

Amy had no answer to that. Adam picked up a beer bottle from the table, sniffed it, and then took a swig of whatever lukewarm swill had been leftover in it.

“You know what I think? You should go see that new boy-toy of yours in the city—”

He shushed her with a hand gesture the moment she even opened her mouth to speak.

“Have a nice day, have a nice evening, get dinner, get stoned, stay out of town for the night.”

Amy leaned over, snatched the smoldering cigarette she had left on the ashtray, and stamped it out on the ashtray’s edge.

If Adam had taken part in any shenanigans involving a corpse, or a prank with the video she had anonymously received, then he deserved an Oscar for acting oblivious about it. More likely, he was badly hungover and had nothing to with any of this.

She gave him a feeble smile, said goodbye, gave him the middle finger after he made a rude joke, and left Seth’s apartment.

On the way out, she slung out her phone and tapped on Steve’s face from her contact list. The call rang, and rang, and rang. Steve did not pick up.

She paused outside the block. The loud heavy metal music started out of nowhere, continuing exactly where it had been paused and causing her to jump an inch of the ground in fright. Her heart pounded and she turned to yell some obscenities up at Adam.

Looking out the window was a figure clad all in black—not Adam. A deep unfathomable abyss yawned behind the darkness of the figure’s hood. Those living shadows stared back at her and Amy sensed a cold, seething rage. A malevolence so powerful that it felt like an invisible force wanted to rush at her and rip her heart out.

Frozen and unable to move, the honking of a car’s horn pulled her back into reality. Or at least, back into paying attention to her surroundings.

She stared into the angry face of a driver, waving at her to get out of the middle of the road. She had stood there for long enough to annoy some unknown man in a car. She got out of the way and when she looked back at Seth’s apartment, nobody stood in the window. Especially no shadow-person under a black hoodie’s hood.

The heavy metal music continued to blare.

The call to Steve went to voicemail. Amy hung up and did not leave a message.

She walked back home, furiously typing out a text message to Steve, asking him to get back to her as soon as possible. She feared that he was busy and would not soon find time to respond.

And she would be right.

Once Amy stood at her own front door, cramming her fists into her pockets to find her keys and unlock the entrance, she felt watched. She saw something move within the darkness of her home, though the reflections of overcast skies in her windows and her tired mind could have been playing tricks on her.

Fear gripped her heart. Someone was inside her house.

Finally, Amy called the cops. She would not tell them the whole story—only suggesting that someone might have broken into her home—and they would find nothing. The police officers left come evening. To her chagrin, they also declined her request to leave someone there to keep an eye out.

But evil was lurking inside her home. It had been there all along.

Amy had not noticed it.

Yet.

—Submitted by Wratts

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapters 1-12

by Dan H

Wednesday, 01 August 2007

Dan reviews the final Harry Potter book chapter by painful chapter.~

I really liked the first three Harry Potter books. They were brilliant, engaging, cleverly written, masterfully paced and - as AS Byatt put it - just scary enough. They were genuinely good children's fiction, of the kind that a grown up wouldn't feel too bad about reading in public.  Then JKR got famous, and her editors stopped doing their job. And she got sucked into a nightmare whirlwind of publicity. And it went downhill from there.  I hate Potter now. Genuinely, vehemently hate it. I hate it precisely because I used to love it, and it angers me no end that the books I enjoyed, about a boy wizard and his boarding-school adventures, have been swallowed by this "phenomenon." 

The Harry Potter books aren't "books" any more. They're events. That's why people queue outside a bookshop at midnight to buy a copy, as if somehow starting to read a book an hour later than somebody else makes the reading experience different.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have a burning desire to exorcise the spirit of Potter from my soul, and I intend to do it by writing a chapter-by-chapter review of the final instalment. There may be some delays while I fling the book across the room.  So, without further ado...  Chapter One: The Dark Lord Ascending In which Voldemort borrows Lucius Malfoy's wand. I should first take a quick moment to say that his book managed to piss me off before chapter one even started by having a quote from Aeschylus at the start. I mean for fuck's sake, what is this, a 1993 Vampire sourcebook?  Anyway, chapter one is called The Dark Lord Ascending although it should more properly be called "The Dark Lord Sitting In A Dining Room And Being A Bit Mean To The Malfoys But Basically Doing Nothing."  Fans of the series will of course be intimately familiar with scenes of Voldemort Doing Nothing. He's been at it for three books now. This chapter is particularly full of fine examples of the Dark Lord's sinister aptitude for inactivity.  The action - or rather inaction - takes place in the pleasingly alliterative grounds of Malfoy Manor. Voldemort and his wacky minions discuss the progress of their sinister plan to take over the Wizarding World. They bicker about when Harry is going to be moved from his present location, and then they do a lot of exposition about how they are going to take over the Ministry of Magic.  This is particularly heavy handed. 

"It's a start," said Voldemort. "But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister's life will set me back a long way." "Yes, my Lord - that is true - but you know, as the head of the department of magical law enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister himself, but also with the heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the others, and then we can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down."

Just in case you didn't catch that, they've got control of a man named Thicknesse, got that, Thicknesse, who is head of the department of magical law enforcement, and they are going to use him to get control over all the other ministers, and use that to take down Scrimgeour, and then take control of the ministry of magic.  Remember in the first book, where the Philosopher's Stone was barely seen, seldom discussed, and it wasn't until the very end of the book that you actually found out why Lord Voldemort wanted it so badly? Remember how cool and exciting that was. Damn I miss that.  While the Death Eaters bicker about whether their dastardly plan which they could have enacted at any time over the past three years is actually going to work or not, we are painfully aware that there is a figure, horribly suspended above the table in the centre of the room. Helpless and silent, we are forced to watch the black-hearted villains discuss their tedious-but-horrific plans, while this figure suffers above us.  Imagine, then, how our horror is compounded when we discover that this innocent creature who the Dark Lord torments so casually is none other than ...  ... Charity Burbage!  You know. Charity Burbage. She taught Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. Remember Muggle Studies? I think Hermione takes it in her third year. Or something.  So anyway, she dies. And this makes a Meaningful Statement About The Nature Of Death. Students of literary history will of course recall that up until 2000's Goblet of Fire, there had never been a death in any children's book ever written.  The Death Eaters talk some more. They make Nazi salutes (seriously: "in silence, both raised their left arms in a kind of salute") and are racist about Muggles and Mudbloods.  Chapter Two: In Memoriam In which Harry gets angry at a Daily Prophet article and shouts "Lies!" For chapter two, we are back following Harry Potter. I confidently predict that we shall never leave his side again.  In chapter two, Harry cuts his finger on the mirror that Sirius gave him. Then he reads two articles about Albus Dumbledore. These give us more information than we could possibly want about the plot-dumping old coot. Tragically, it seems fated to be but the tip of a very large Dumbledore-shaped iceberg.  And these articles are long. Like really, really long. It's basically like JK Rowling took her fifteen-year old notes about the character of Dumbledore, copy-pasted them into the text, and attributed them to a guy with a silly name.  The purpose of this chapter, it seems, is to make us believe that there was more to Dumbledore than we ever expected.  He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this obituary he had been forced to recognise that he had barely known him at all. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore's childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old.  Now I'm sorry, but that's just cheating.  Dumbledore spends six books being a moderately entertaining but utterly generic White Haired Old Mentor Figure. Harry's belief that Dumbledore had "sprung into being ... venerable and silver-haired and old" is of course literally true. JK Rowling invented him to be a mentor to her protagonist, and at no point does he act like anything else. Dumbledore spends six books as a plot device. Asking us to suddenly see him as a real person is pathetic. She might as well have gone the whole hog and written "Suddenly, Harry realised that JK Rowling was a really brilliant writer, and all her characters were really complex and interesting."  Harry packs his bags, and prepares to leave on his Epic Quest To Defeat Voldemort Using The Spells He Learned In His Second Year Duelling Class.  Chapter Three: The Dursleys Departing In which the Dursleys Depart, and it's actually quite touching. This chapter, unlike the previous two chapters, is not a waste of good wood pulp. We see Harry being taken away from the Dursleys for the last time, and the Dursleys themselves being taken into hiding so that Voldemort cannot target them.  This chapter actually contains something approaching a significant event, and even more rarely, some actual semblance of character development on behalf of the otherwise zero-dimensional Dursley family. 

"I don't think you're a waste of space."

It's a touch of the old style. The Dursleys remain, to the end, a rather pathetic caricature of a middle class family (and really, is there any easier target in the world than the middle class suburbanite?) but Dudley's admission that he doesn't entirely hate Harry, and that Harry did in fact save his life, carries a genuine emotional weight.  So the Dursleys depart in the company of two utterly forgettable Order of the Phoenix members, and we never hear from them again. From here on in we live forever in the magical world of Hogwarts, where fourteen year olds fight dragons, and Dark Lords are desperate to get teaching gigs.  Chapter Four: The Seven Potters In which Harry's mail client goes down. After the Dursleys leave, the Order of the Phoenix show up, and explain that Potter can't escape by magic, because he's still underage, and the "Trace" which detects magic being performed around underage wizards would allow the Ministry to locate him instantly.  So instead they decide to go by broomstick / Thestral / flying motorbike, with six "decoy" Potters, created using Polyjuice potion.  It all goes a bit tits up. They run into a pack of thirty Death Eaters, who start flinging killing curses at them.  Harry responds with the spells he learned in his second year duelling class, and manages to take out about half a dozen of the pursuing Death Eaters with Stupefy and Impedimentia charms, which they are clearly incapable of blocking. Note that since Harry is "still under the Trace," his use of underaged magic should have immediately notified the Ministry to his presence, allowing them to track him trivially. After all, that's why they couldn't just Apparate out of there in the first place. Right?  So Harry and the rest of the Order fight the Death Eaters. During this battle, however, the Order of the Phoenix suffers a Terrible Loss. 

"Hedwig - Hedwig -" But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage. He could not take it in, and his terror for the others was paramount.

Leaving aside the fact that I've seen better writing on fanfiction.net (I mean really "He could not take it in and his terror for the others was paramount," what the fuck?), I think it's telling that so far the casualties of this most dark and terrible war are a teacher who we never actually saw in a previous book, and Harry's pet owl. But the whole thing is presented in this massively portentous way that says This Is A Significant Event. I'm sorry, but it's an owl. Not only is it an owl, but it's an owl whose sole function is to deliver Harry's post.  So they fight the Death Eaters, and one of them gets his cowl knocked off to reveal that he is none other than ...  ... ready for this? There's a lot of these big revelations coming up...  ... he is none other than Stanley Shunpike!  Stanley Shunpike ... the guy off Knight Bus? Yeah, I don't care either.  Harry tries to disarm Stan with his trademark Expelliarmus curse, at which point Stan can identify him immediately. This is apparently significant, although since the Ministry is supposed to be able to tell the moment he performs underage magic of any sort anyway, I'm not sure why he's so shocked.  Some thing go wrong, and Hagrid flying tackles a Death Eater and gets all badly hurt and stuff. The next chapter is called "Fallen Warrior." But don't worry, Hagrid doesn't die. Because people only die if it won't get in the way of the plot. I wish I'd had JK Rowling to explain death to me when I was a child.  Chapter Five: Fallen Warrior  In which JK Rowling talks to us about the nature of death. Hagrid doesn't die. He and Harry are taken in by Mr and Mrs Tonks, Harry's tooth (which got knocked out in the previous chapter) is regrown by magic.  Harry and Hagrid travel by Portkey to the Burrow. Everybody else shows up one at a time, taking much longer than they needed to.  Lupin gives Harry a stern talking to about not trying to disarm his enemies. You see, the Death Eaters don't understand the idea of disarming your opponent. They're far too evil to consider the advantages of being armed when your opponent isn't. Or something. 

"Of course not," said Lupin, "but the Death Eaters - frankly most people! - would have expected you to attack back! Expelliarmus is a useful spell, Harry, but the Death Eaters seem to think it is your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become so!"

Essentially this little speech, like the bit about Dumbledore in chapter two, reads a lot like JK Rowling trying to pretend that her weaknesses as a writer are really deliberate character traits. The fact that Harry always uses Expelliarmus in a fight is a limitation of miss Rowling's imagination, her idea of non-evil things to do in a fight is strictly limited. Trying to claim that this is somehow saying something profound about Harry's naivete or his merciful nature is hogwash.  Most everybody makes it back in one piece. George (of Fred and George) loses an ear, which apparently can't be cured because it's "Dark Magic". And Mad-Eye-Moody dies. Now, I kinda liked Mad-Eye, but the character I actually liked was Mad-Eye as played by Barty Crouch under the influence of Polyjuice potion. Now admittedly, that character is pretty much identical to the "real" Mad-Eye, but that's rather strong testimony to how poorly developed he actually was.  This would all be fair enough, but JK then insists on making it very clear to us that there is Death happening and that Death is a very important part of the book, because it's important that children be told about Death.  So we get glorious lines like: 

Harry could not quite believe it. Mad-Eye dead; it could not be ... Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor ...

And... 

Nobody seemed to know what to do. Tonks was crying silently into a hand-kerchief: she had been close to Mad-Eye, Harry knew, his favourite and his protegee at the Ministry of Magic.

And of course the execrable: 

The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence.

The first two are just the old show-don't tell problem, which JK never really got over. She's never really worked out how to convey something to her audience without just telling it to them directly. The last line, though, is just completely fucking amateurish. It's up there with "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil."  Leaving aside the fact that, yet again, she's attempting to convey the information that the people in the room have been struck by the suddenness and completeness of death by saying "the suddenness and completeness of death was with them" she also seems to think that "was with them like a presence" is anything other than nonsense. I mean, how can something be with you without being like a presence? It's a completely empty simile. It's functionally equivalent to saying "the suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a thing" or "the suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a thing that was with them."  I really hate this book.  Chapter Six: The Ghoul In Pyjamas In which we get a plot dump about Horcruxes. In chapter six we have a refreshing change of pace. And by "refreshing" I mean "frustrating" and by "change of pace" I mean "slow to a painful crawl as we watch Harry and co sit around doing nothing for several days."  So Bill and Fleur are getting married. We spend an inordinate amount of time talking about this. Mrs Weasley is entirely preoccupied with it. Presumably because she's a woman and therefore doesn't understand important things like war, death, and her son losing an ear.  In chapter six, Harry Ron and Hermione explain to each other in great detail the plans they have made for their upcoming battle against Voldemort. So we learn how Hermione mind-raped her parents in order to keep them safe (she cries about this for four seconds, Harry and Ron do not comment). We learn how Ron has dressed up the Weasleys' pet Ghoul in an unconvincing red wig, so that nobody will suspect that he's really out to kill Voldemort.  The thing that bugs me about this chapter is that it tries to provide answers to questions which I wouldn't have thought were important until JK drew attention to them. If the book had just been about Messers Potter, Weasley and Granger hunting some Dark Lord ass, I'd be totally onside. Putting this chapter in to "explain" why Voldemort doesn't just capture the Weasleys and torture the hell out of them just highlights how ludicrous it is that he doesn't. Hell, once he's taken over the Ministry of Magic, he could very easily haul in everybody Potter has ever cared about, and start hacking bits off of them until Harry gives himself up.  But he doesn't. Because Ron has cunningly disguised a Ghoul as "Ron With a horrible disease and a completely different face". So they'll leave the Weasleys alone. They're considerate, those Death Eaters.  The other thing we find out is that Hermione has a copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art, otherwise known as the Big Book of Horcruxes. She proceeds to explain in excruciating detail exactly how Horcruxes work. Because lord knows we wouldn't want anybody reading the book to draw their own conclusions about that sort of thing. That would imply that reading a work of fiction was something other than the process of learning facts about the author's world. We can't have that now can we.  Similarly, we get things like: 

"I wonder when Dumbledore removed it from the library ... if he didn't do it until he was headmaster, I bet Voldemort got all the instruction he needed from here." "Why did he have to ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux then, if he'd already read that?" asked Ron. "He only approached Slughorn to find out what would happen if you split your soul into seven," said Harry.

Which, let's face it, reads like the Q&A section from JKR's official website. This isn't Harry talking to Ron, this is Rowling talking to her readers. At least, to the sorts of readers who ask that sort of question.  The chapter ends with no progress having been made towards finding any of the Horcruxes.  Chapter Seven: The Will of Albus Dumbledore In which Ginny kisses Harry Like She Has Never Kissed Him Before Chapter seven is a mystery dump. Harry wakes up shouting "Grigorovitch!" and we are left to wonder what this mysterious name means.  It's Harry's birthday. Ron gets him a book about pulling chicks. Ginny kisses him as she has never kissed him before. The Minister for Magic shows up and tells Harry, Ron and Hermione that they have all been left stuff in Dumbledore's will. Then he makes an inept attempt to grill them for information.  In Dumbledore's Will, Ron is left the Deluminator (the thing Dumbledore uses at the start of the first book to put out the lights in Privet Drive), Hermione is left a book of fairy tales, and Harry is left the Snitch from his first ever game of Quidditch. And the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, but he's not given that. We are then told that all of these gifts are Very Very Mysterious but that Dumbledore Must Have Had A Plan and therefore it is Important To Work Out What Each Of The Gifts Means.  Once again, nothing happens. Ron tells Harry to keep his filthy vacillating hands out of his sister's long, sweet-smelling hair. Team Potter wonders why Dumbledore left them the bunch of crap he left them. And of course they wonder why the irritating old coot didn't tell them what was going on while he was still alive, or give Harry the Sword of Godric Gryffindor when he still had the chance. 

"And why couldn't he have just told me?" Harry said quietly. "It was there, it was right there on the wall of his office during all our talks last year! If he wanted me to have it, why didn't he give it to me then?"

Going by previous form, the answer to this all important question about Dumbledore's already spurious motivation probably has something to do with love.  Everybody gets ready for the wedding. Because a wedding is exactly what you should be thinking about when a Nazi wizard with no nose is taking over the world.  Chapter Eight: The Wedding In which Voldemort takes over the world while Harry is at a wedding. One of the Weasleys marries one of the characters with a stupid accent. Harry is Polyjuiced into a red-headed stepchild so that he can hide amongst the guests. Harry then has to babysit an offensive aunt of the Weasley clan, who says horrible things about everybody.  Harry, being a man who has his priorities sorted out, decides that the best use of his time, seeing as how he's destined to destroy the Dark Lord and everything, is to get really obsessive about Dumbledore's family history. To be fair to the kid, it's not like he was going to be able to get anything done at the wedding anyway.  So we learn more tedious crap about how Dumbledore's mother was like evil or something, and he had a sister who was a squib. We also learn ...  ... get ready for another big revelation ...  ... this one's really big ...  ... no seriously ...  we also learn that the Dumbledores used to live in Godric's Hollow! Doesn't that shed a whole new light on the other books? Can't you just see it all now, how Dumbledore's every glance, every gesture was just screaming "Harry! My family once lived in the same general location as your family!" Truly, we are in the presence of a master storyteller.  We also find out that Grigorovitch was a wandmaker, that Voldemort is still evil, and that Voldemort has killed the Minister of Magic and taken control of the Wizarding government. 

The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.

Okay, I get it. It's punchy. But for the love of all that is holy, we're a hundred and thirty-three pages in, the Death Eaters have finally done something interesting, and we miss it because we're stuck following Harry, who is stuck at a wedding and angsting about his old headmaster.  Chapter Nine: A Place To Hide In which Team Potter sits around doing nothing.  Potter and his pals flee the wedding and hide out in a greasy spoon cafe, where they are set upon by Dolohov and Thorfin Rowle. Presumably these names mean something to somebody - perhaps to people who have religiously followed JK Rowling's "Wizard of the Month" updates on her website. These two Death Eaters fail to capture the Potterites, which should come as no surprise to anybody.  They decide to modify the memories of these two men, in order to cover their escape. Because lord knows a couple of mindless zombies won't attract attention. 

"But I've never done a memory charm." "Nor have I," said Hermione, "but I know the theory."

By "but I know the theory" she of course means "I mind-raped my parents into thinking they were completely different people who wanted to move to Australia, and by the way I told you fuckers that - like - two chapters ago and you didn't offer me any support or sympathy."  They decide they need somewhere safe, and they decide to go to Grimmauld Place, which is apparently safe because the late, lamented Mad-Eye had set up "protections" there, so that Snape couldn't get in and kill them all (remember that, although JK Rowling told us categorically that Snape was a good guy, we're supposed to ignore this information and keep acting like we think he's a villain). These "protections" turn out to be a tongue-tying curse that lasts for eight seconds (and can't Snape cast spells silently anyway?) and a Spooky Dumbledore Ghost, which goes away once you tell it you aren't Snape.  This chapter is mercifully short.  Chapter Ten: Kreacher's Tale In which we are told firmly that Sirius black was NOT GAY. Harry pokes around Grimmauld place, finding Sirius' old collection of bikini model posters, photograph of himself at the age of one, and a letter from Lily Potter which basically reads:  "Dear Sirius, I'm really glad we aren't going get horribly killed in the next six months. Baby Harry is wonderful and I love him very much. So much that I'll make him immune to dark magic by the sheer loving power of my loving loving love. Love Lily."  And of course, the letter ends on this note: 

Bathilda drops in most days, she's a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore, I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to believe, actually, because it seems incredible that Dumbledore...

The rest of the letter is missing.  You fucking hack, JK Rowling. Look, I get it. You've got a bunch of Dumbledore backplot you want to give us. You've told us that. Just give us the plot dump, or don't give us the plot dump. I don't care at this stage. Nothing's going to be as cool as "he was Ron from the future" anyway.  Next to Sirius' room is the bedroom of ...  ... wait for it ...  ... Sirius's brother: Regulus Arcturus Black.  It's a good thing that he put his middle name on his door really. And a good thing that no two people in the entire Wizarding world have the same initials.  So they've found RAB, but no magic locket of Horcruxness. They ransack the house, then realise that Mundungus probably nicked off with it. Bastard.  So they go to Kreacher, and he gives them a bit of backstory which, unusually is genuinely touching. It turns out that crotchety old Kreacher was given to Lord Voldemort by Regulus, and Voldemort used him to "test" the defences around his locket Horcrux, making Kreacher drink the poison so that he could hide the artefact underneath it. Curiously, this led the Dark Lord to believe that his defences were completely secure, instead of the more sensible opinion that his defences could be breached by anybody with access to a tractable house-elf.  Anyway, Kreacher was all wrecked by this, and when Regulus found out he turned against Voldemort (possibly the genocide was giving him the willies as well). He got Kreacher to take him back to the cave, drank the poison himself, and gave Kreacher the Horcrux with instructions that he should destroy it.  Which is actually kind of sweet, and I'm damned certain Harry and co would never dream of sacrificing themselves for a house-elf.  So they decide to be nice to Kreacher, and this gets him onside. They then send Kreacher looking for Mundugus, so they can get the Horcrux back off him.  Chapter Eleven: The Bribe In which Harry Potter bravely lets a house-elf do his job for him.  Harry Potter, realising that in order to defeat Voldemort he must use the Dark Lord's own methods, however despicable they might be, spends this chapter sitting on his arse doing nothing. Not that Voldemort has anything to fear: he's had decades to practice his sitting-on-his-arse-doing-nothing, and Harry's arse-sitting seems amateurish by comparison.  So anyway. Harry sends Kreacher to get Mundungus back, so he can ask for the Horcrux. While he is sitting around waiting, Remus Lupin shows up and acts like an asshole. He informs Harry that Tonks is now pregnant, and therefore he has decided to join Harry on his quest, because werewolves shouldn't be allowed near small children or something.  We also find out that Voldemort and his minions have continued their cunning plan to imitate the Nazis and have started making Muggle-Borns "register", and presumably wear little yellow stars as well, because in case you hadn't noticed the Death Eaters are a little bit like the Nazis and Voldemort's desire to wipe out the Muggle-Borns is a little bit like the Holocaust. Clever that, isn't it. Kudos to you JK Rowling. It's about time somebody took a stand against genocide.  Anyway, I digress. Remus shows up and acts like an asshole. Harry acts like an asshole back, and they get into this huge "who can be the biggest asshole" competition. This shows us that Harry has "grown up" over the course of the books. We know this because he is now acting like a forty year old novelist thinks a teenager would act, rather than actually displaying any form of personality or motivation.  Remus leaves to go back to his "wife and child", but not before giving us another one of the by now familiar "this is why this book totally makes sense and doesn't suck" speeches. When asked (very sensibly) why Voldemort doesn't just come into the open now that he's - y'know - taken over the goddamned world already, Lupin insists that: 

"Voldemort is playing a very clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion: remaining masked has crafted confusion, uncertainty and fear."

Once again, JK drops the "show, don't tell" ball, by having somebody inform us that Voldemort is being clever, when in fact all he's doing is letting Harry slip through his fingers by pulling his punches when he should be rounding people up by the truckload. I mean what, precisely, does Voldemort have to fear from open rebellion? And if he wants to create confusion uncertainty and fear, then I'm sure a couple of senseless massacres could do the same job with fewer administrative overheads.  Eventually Kreacher, who is the only person around here still doing his job right, brings Mundungus back, and he reveals that he gave the amulet to Dolores "Wasn't I Killed by Centaurs Already?" Umbridge as a bribe.  So Harry is off to the Ministry of magic.  Chapter Twelve: Magic is Might  In which we get yet another Polyjuice sequence. One thing I'll say for JK Rowling: you've got to respect her plot devices. While nothing will ever top the Room of Requirement for sheer brass-bollocked "yeah, this thing does whatever the hell I need it to" style, Polyjuice potion pulls its weight and then some.  So Harry, Ron and Hermione polyjuice themselves into Ministry employees and walk right in through the front door. This reminds us, as if we didn't know already, that the Ministry is run by morons who, despite Polyjuice potion being common enough that an above-average twelve year old can whip up a batch, haven't thought to take any precautions against their members being waylaid and replaced by rebellious seventeen year olds. Perhaps Voldemort couldn't increase security too much on account of his not wanting to "provoke open rebellion." He's just too damned clever for his own good, that Lord Voldemort.  This chapter is almost Tolkeinesque in its irrelevance. It essentially chronicles, in painstaking detail, the way in which Team Potter knock out some Ministry officials, polyjuice into them, and walk into the ministry. On their way in they hear terrible things about Mudbloods and Blood-Traitors being put on trial. For a Dark Lord, Voldemort is clearly very concerned about due process.  The chapter takes its name from an irrelevant but kinda cool piece of window-dressing. The phrase "Magic is Might" is engraved onto the base of the new (black) statue which has replaced the old frolicking magical creatures motif. 

Harry looked more closely and realised that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.

Now that's some serious Dark Lord style. But you'd think with his overall agenda of world conquest and crushing the Muggles and the Muggle-born beneath his pallid iron-shod heel, he'd be less concerned about hiding in the shadows.  Oh, also in this chapter we find out some more shit about Dumbledore or something. And Snape has been made headmaster of Hogwarts. And Voldemort is still looking for this wand-maker guy.  Next: The return of Dolores Umbridge, and more pointless backplot.

Themes: J.K. Rowling, Books, Young Adult / Children

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Comments (go to latest)

http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/ at 20:39 on 2009-02-08

That, my friend, was awesome. You had at least twice as many quotable lines in that piece as JKR managed throughout the entire book.

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Rami at 06:53 on 2009-02-09

Welcome to Dan's Fans -- meetings are every Saturday at 11... ;-)

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Arthur B at 09:16 on 2009-02-09

You realise, of course, that there's only one way this can end: sooner or later someone, somewhere, is going to write Harry Potter fanfic where Dan is a character. (He could teach all the kids physics and he could be in a big snark feud with Snape and Snape will challenge him to a duel and Harry will be all GO DAN SHOW THAT MEANY WHO'S BOSS and Hermione will be all OH WOW PHYSICS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN MAGIC I AM TOTALLY A SCIENCE NERD NOW and Ron is all MAN IF I WERE GROWN UP I WOULD TOTALLY SMOOCH DAN RIGHT NOW and Dumbledore is all MAN IF EVERYONE I KISSED DIDN'T TURN INTO HITLER I WOULD TOTALLY SMOOCH DAN RIGHT NOW and Dan beats Snape in duel with science and Snape is all I WAS WRONG TO SAY SCIENCE IS LAME YOU SHOULD STAY HERE AT HOGWARTS AND TEACH US ALL THE WAY OF THE MUGGLES and Dan is all like NO WAY THE KIDS OF ALL NATIONS NEED ME and he turns around and punches Voldemort in the jaw so hard his head comes off and then he takes off and flies away to the Moooooooooooooon....)

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Wardog at 10:54 on 2009-02-09

But Dan doesn't have long dark hair, skin like freshly poured cream and violet eyes....

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Arthur B at 11:03 on 2009-02-09

Aaaand there's my cue to post a link to the Sparklypoo comic.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/tjLTVHEducFb4rKDHU5DukBHtQcCbTVMEEq55v0CxV4-#5e156 at 19:43 on 2009-07-29

Brilliant, absolutely hilarious, I want to show the rest of the Harry Potter fanbase your review. I wonder if my inertia could ever be on a par with Voldemort's. "My inertia is with me like something that is with me."

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http://lunabell14.myopenid.com/ at 22:50 on 2010-07-27

I wonder if cutting out all of that unnecessary Dumbledore backstory would've helped the pacing, or at least cut down some of the reading. Seriously, even when it was first introduced, I couldn't help but think "Why are you telling us about this? How will this help with Harry's quest, at all?" And every time it was brought up, it just continued to irritate me. I honestly don't understand why her editors didn't insist she cut it out.