#he outlives everyone out of pure spite alone.

[atelierlili]

Peeta would give Buttercup a seat the table for dinner. It would piss Katniss the fuck off, but as the old demon gets older, she softens and passes him more scraps when she thinks Peeta isn't looking.

[facelessxchurch]

Headcanons: The Red Right Hand

• Serpine is one of only a handful of people who ever gained the red right hand and not only bc it's a forbidden technique even among necromancers. Powerful magic like this takes a price not everyone is willing or able to pay. If you want to cause pain, you'll need to endure pain as well.

-> For one, the process of creating the red right hand is excruciating and requires a high pain tolerance and self-discipline.

-> Second, even if the ritual is a success the red hand might not work for its user. For it to function you must have the sincere will to kill and to cause pain. Any second thoughts, hesitations or any other form of reluctance and the technique will fail (think the three unforgivable curses from HP). This is a technique only someone sure of their own sadism would ever attempt to learn.

• That also means that the red hand is safe to touch as long as Nef has no interest in killing you and prevents him from killing anyone on accident.

• Despite that everyone (apart from Mevolent) still gets nervous when he takes the glove off.

• (That's why his coup failed. He tried to kill Mev with his red hand, but when he hesitated it stopped working.)

• Nef always wears a pair of black leather gloves bc wearing one glove would look odd and make him stand out, which could get in the way of him manipulating and charming his way to his goal.

• Even after the ritual is completed the hand will never stop hurting though the pain did dull with time. Nef got used to it eventually.

• But the more he uses the hand the more it hurts (nerfs the hand so he can't just one shot kill everyone). The worse the pain gets the longer it will take him to recover from it. Being masochistic as well as sadistic Nef revels in the pain he has to endure as much as the pain he causes but once it surpasses a certain level he'll require pain-numbing leaves which he always carries for cases like this. If he is desperate enough to use his hand until he himself ends up screaming on the floor, curled around his red hand he is long past the point where pain leaves will help.

• The Red Hand is the ultimate "I will shatter myself to cut you with the shards" which fits Nef and his spiteful, self-destructive tendencies so well.

• While the shadows necromancers use are magic fuelled by death, the red hand is pure death magic.

The Ritual/Learning the Technique

The ritual involved him having to flay his own hand. He needed to do everything himself or it won't work

There is no need to use the right hand for the technique to work. It just happens that Nef is left-handed. For one it would be foolish to do something like this to your dominant hand. But also, flaying yourself is hard enough with your dominant hand, let alone your other. Imagine the strength of will it took for him to calm himself and try to suppress the shaking of his hands as he kept cutting.

During the ritual, the use of anything that would dull the pain is strictly prohibited.

As if being flayed isn't bad enough, he had to coat his hand in a mix of oils and herbs which burned like hell. They prevent the exposed flesh from getting infected or bleeding out and offer the protection that normally the skin would have provided. It also prevents it from healing.

All through the ritual he has to repeat the incantations Tenebrae dictated to him in a magic language he only half understands due to its age and lack of access to the resources he would need to fully understand it despite his best efforts to obtain them.

Unbeknownst to Nef the temples have the missing texts needed to fully learn the language which is how Tenebrae was able to to change the incantations so the red hand would temporarily kill any necromancer it was used on before resurrecting them. This would ensure Skul's survival as well as protect the temples (including himself) from Nef should he decide they outlived their usefulness.

The ritual to learn the technique is written down in the Grimoire of a dark mage and former leader of the Irish Necromancer Temple which is why they still have it long after his passing and can use it without triggering the protection curse placed upon it. The curse is the only reason Nef didn't force them to hand the Grimoire over. He can either deal with breaking a curse or stay friendly with the necromancers. The latter seemed less suicidal.

The Grimoire is presumably still hidden in the abandoned Irish temple somewhere.

[thebadtimewolf]

The Vigilante nodded, though at least she knew what was going to be said. She found her thought almost synced up to what was spoken. Like a hailing signal. 'Any family that remained there was perished during the Time War.' That was always the line. Her mind wandered further into this thought.

It was not even a saying, no, that was the collective line. As if all of the same survivors got called in to remember a pledge of allegiance to any topic towards loved ones surrounding the event. It was always the word 'perished'. Not killed, not lost, not gone - perished. Fizzled up like pop rocks in one's mouth, they perished. As if there was no choice. As if a certain lord president's ego and delusion wasn't the main reason to manipulate thousands of those that were 'called back' to fight in a war that could've been solved by one party getting their jaw broken so hard, they forgot what species they were.

But, that what could've happen, not what actually happened.

And she understood. That magnitude of loss. At the end of it all. They were still gone. Still dead.

The Vigilante wouldn't say that there were survivors, not just her. Survivors that didn't reach out because of how it ended, survivors who didn't think to reach out because they were all still strangers before it and they remained this way after it. Her dad was lucky to marry outside his species, lucky to save his children, their ships. It was stumbling luck, but it was luck.

She didn't even want to say that her former spouse during the Time War hadn't perished like she thought - her platoon, yes but not her wife. Not their kids. Just on a whim they were off planet. Presumed dead, years before she met Malekith, and found them.

Guess it helped in this regard that many of the survivors were anti-lord president. Better than luck, pure spite.

No, no this too wasn't said.

There was the thought of him maybe after the war that he sought solace in someone, like all survivors did at one point. Maybe had gotten married, had a child, outlived them both with a newfound grief, met the companion that looked like her and lost that one and those that followed also gone and then became a dark elf. Maybe they were both a companion and their spouse. Maybe. But, from hearing what he says next, it made sense. Being alone.

No one could really compare to the first, it would always be inequal in that regard with the rest to – now, she should stop.

Instead, the Vigilante tilted her head with a solemn nod. A slight grimace of dark humored grief splashed across her face. What if those survivors were dead too? What if, what if, what if, maybe, maybe, maybe. She could even be widowed now...

There was a deep silence before she responded. "I should've guessed that. Sorry." A small breathy chuckle, "Why is it that everytime I ask this, no one can think of anything past that bloody war? And if they do, why is it always school? I can think of days, years of me holding my first spouse's hands. Their smile, how they spar, the way they eat certain foods. Our kids quirks or how they carry themselves. The first pet. What nail polish color they liked. A dress they favored more than the robes. My platoon in the war, I knew them at gatherings we had in the fields - before the war, one visited me at my mum's homeworld. Remember him trying on the clothes while calling it 'time lord observation of a species' culture and fashion'. I remember him petting an earth cat I used to have. Instead, everyone else's response is just: i confi–. I—" She shook her head, knowing her tongue could get harsh the longer she spoke.

💍 (propose to my muse meme; becauss i think it would be funny)

Send 💍 to propose to my muse!

Th-thump. He feels it before he hears the dual echo in his ears. Malekith's dark eyes widen a moment, then drift away--anywhere else but on that face. In another place in a lost time with another woman, he'd have leapt at the chance before she'd finished the words, spun her around in a fit of joyous laughter. Sometimes he wonders what might have happened if he'd told her he loved her back then...but Malekith knows better than to venture down that path. The man he was died eons ago, condemned by the Bad Wolf and that wretched blue box.

The former Dark Elf (former Doctor) finds her face--that face--again. One hand clenches and then subsequently unfurls at his side. Happy Endings aren't in the stars for a monster like himself. He learned that a long time ago. So Malekith balks at her offer, rolling his eyes.

"Is there not generally a courtship that precedes such a bold request? Save this foolish fancy for some unsuspecting mortal. I hear tell they're more likely to make impulsive decisions."

[katiebug445]

We Could Be Immortals, Just Not For Long

LingFan Week: Day 4

Prompt: Immortality

A/N PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION. IT’S REALLY SAD. 

He hadn’t aged a day. Ling poked andprodded his skin in the mirror, looking for any sign of a wrinkle, a laugh line, a gray hair - anything - to indicate that he was aging at all.

It had been five years since he’d become emperor, and he still had the body of an 18 year old. It wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but LanFan, Mei, and the rest of his friends and family were beginning to get older, to grow up, and he was left behind.

So far, it wasn’t too bad. Luckily for him, giving his body to the homunculus Greed had aged him a little, and he could pass for his mid twenties. Though before too long, he knew it would become a problem.

When Mei wrote to them explaining that she was engaged to Alphonse Elric, and sent a picture along with it, he couldn’t believe how much she’d grown up in such a short time.

When LanFan turned 29, she began to show the simple signs of getting older; the laugh lines around her mouth stuck out easily whenever she would smile. The crinkles around her eyes reached out closer to her hairline than they ever had. She’d even found her first couple gray hairs.

Ling wanted so badly to say he was going through this with her.

~

Edward was the first to go.

From what he’d heard, it was peaceful. At the age of 70, he went in the middle of the night, surrounded by his family, and apparently cursing that he was going to have to wait for everyone else for however long.

Ling couldn’t believe it. Out of everyone, he expected the oldest Elric to outlive all of them out of pure spite. Because that’s how Edward was. Larger than life in a pint sized package, with enough piss and vinegar in his heart to keep him around for a thousand years. Ling planned to visit him as soon as he could get away.

Roy was next. Ling had worked closely with Fuhrer Mustang since before he was given the position, in hopes of establishing a faster trade route from Amestris to Xing, and he’d even been present when Roy and the woman Lieutenant of his sneaked across the border to elope. He was happy for them, he could tell how much the two cared for each other. He and Miss Hawkeye were being driven back to his home by their son, when they were hit head on by a drunk driver. Roy sacrificed himself to save Riza, who was left alone after the deaths of her son and husband.

Miss Riza died of a broken heart not three months later.

Winry survived nearly two years after Edward. According to Alphonse, she’d overworked herself, and tried to stubbornly hand deliver a piece of automail to a child in in need, in the middle of winter, and ended up catching pneumonia. After a hard fought battle, the illness finally got to her, and it took her in her sleep. Their children had no idea what to do with themselves.

Alphonse was the next to go. With Mei at his side, the younger of the two Elrics had one last slice of apple pie, lay down in their bed, and closed his eyes with his hand in hers. When he didn’t wake up the next morning, she had called home to tell them all what had happened, and said she planned on returning home soon for a visit.

The trip across the desert was to be her last. She’d brought her and Al’s three children along for the ride, hoping they would get to know their Xingese relatives a little better, to know they still had some family left in the world.

When Mei arrived, it was apparent that she wasn’t handling things well. They all knew how much she loved her Alphonse, enough even to leave her clan and follow him back to Amestris when he left originally. She made it nearly a year and a half, living a nearly solitary life in the palace alongside her emperor brother, before she left them, explaining that it had been too long since she’d seen Alphonse and the rest of her small family. The last thing she said was that Ling shouldn’t keep her waiting forever before she got to see him again.

Lan Fan was the last one to go.

At 92, she was tired. She’d long since been replaced by another bodyguard, and got to spend the rest of her days in worry that nobody could do her job as well as she could. But every night, Ling came to bed, crawled in beside her, and held her in his arms. “You haven’t aged a day,” she told him, a gentle hand on his cheek. “You still look the same as you did on our wedding day.”

“And so do you,” he replied, his throat tight. “You’re still every bit as beautiful as you were that night.” He could see her rolling her eyes at him, but he didn’t miss the slight blush coloring her cheeks, either. His heart felt like a rock in his chest, seeing her like this, knowing what was coming sooner than he would have liked to admit.

“Maybe on the inside.” she settled back against her pillow, her breath light, and closed her eyes. “Thank you, Ling.”

He looked up at her, his eyebrows furrowed, and asked, “for what?”

“For always being you. For giving me one hell of an adventure of a life. It’s more than I could have ever asked for.”

“You helped make it one, Lan. But don’t talk like this, please. We still have more adventures to take!” He told her, his voice tight. Ling swallowed around the lump in his throat, and held her hand a little tighter. “Right?”

LanFan shook her head, slowly opening her eyes so she could see his face. “Thank you, my lord.” She gave his hand one final squeeze, and shut her eyes again. After a few moments, the rise and fall in her chest stopped, and LanFan was completely still.

“Lan?” He called, giving her a gentle shake. “LanFan?” Still holding onto her hand, he got to his feet, crawled up onto the bed, and shook her again. “No, please, LanFan! Don’t leave me!” He sobbed, cradling the love of his life in his arms, the tears finally breaking free and splashing onto her face. “You’re all I have left, you can’t leave me! LanFan!”

After a desperate few moments, he finally gave up trying to wake her, and let acceptance take hold of his heart. She was gone. The one person who he hoped would stay by his side forever, the one he’d always fought so hard to protect, was gone.  He was completely on his own, now.

Everyone who he’d ever loved, who he’d let into his heart, was gone.

Ling caught sight of himself in the mirror across the room, his face red, his eyes puffy, but still in perfect shape, with a face frozen forever at the age of 18.

He’d achieved his goal, yes, but what good was immortality if there was nobody left to share it with?