#he's revealing his deepest fears and vulnerabilities and she's just there on the outside

[aelswiths]

this shot haunts me

[bau-baby]

the ultimate loss. 2/?

aaron hotchner x gn!reader

Summary: While you and Aaron are grieving the loss of Haley, an untimely realization comes up on your part after a night of consolation. Will anything come of it?

word count: 3k

warnings: grief, loss

A/N: Holy cannoli I am so sorry for how long this second installment took me!! Also the ending seems kind of rushed and it’s not the greatest, sorry! Now, onward with the story! 

read part one here

It has only been a few months since Haley’s service, and you have been at a loss. Ever since the time you and Aaron had together on that patio, something changed. Something that you couldn’t really put a finger on. Neither of you addressed it for fear of messing with things you weren’t ready to face. So you both did what you do best: ignore it.

You’ve filled your time with hours on the job, Aaron has been doing the same. You both merely dance around one another, not allowing your colleagues to pinpoint or figure out what happened. And if you were honest with yourself, you weren’t either. Hell, you weren’t sure Aaron knew what was going on, and he is one of the best profilers you have the pleasure of knowing. 

It’s another late night, early morning at Quantico. You’re burning the candle at both ends, losing sleep by the day. You blame it wholly on losing a friend, and sure that was the big, main reason, but you also know it’s a ploy to throw whatever it is that’s happening with you and Aaron out the window for a time.

After-action reports fill your time as the coffee keeps getting brewed and your pen isn’t running out of ink anytime soon. And you always love to think that this is your time away from Aaron, when in reality he’s right up the stairs, hunched over his desk just as you are. You saved your glances for when your hand got cramped or you needed a refill on coffee. What you don’t see was the glances he’d send your way while you were engrossed in the paperwork. 

You normally end up staying late at the office since you have a tendency to take some of the extra files from Aaron as well as the team so they could get home quicker.

You finish up a majority of your reports just before midnight, opting to take the unfinished ones home. You gather your finished files, making the short walk up to Aaron’s office before knocking. You hear him faintly say “It’s open,” and open the door.

“Hey Aaron, just wanted to drop these files off before heading home for the night. If you-” Your words die in your throat as you finally look at Aaron much closer. His eye bags were getting worse, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. “Are the nightmares still happening, Aaron?”

He knows there’s no use in lying, especially to you. He nods as he presses his pointer and middle finger to his temple, trying to alleviate the dull headache that hasn’t left him in so long. It was one of the only constant things in his life, outside of Jack and you.  With the headaches and the nightmares saddled on top of the grief, he hasn’t had true peace in months.

You tentatively take a seat at his desk and wait him out. You know that once he feels like talking, he will. He takes his time, twiddling his pen in between his thumb and pointer finger.

“I miss her. I left her at home with Jack almost every day, I was never there for his appointments or for his big milestones. I forced her to be a single mom when I could have easily just been there. I-” He stops, and you can see his eyes are brimmed with tears. You swallow the lump forming in your throat.

“Aaron, she loved you-” He scoffs, “-No, she really loved you. It tore her to pieces when she left, she just reached a point where she had to put Jack’s needs first. She still cared for you. The call I got the day you were admitted into the hospital told me enough,” You look down at your hands, trying to find the words, “You’re a great dad, Aaron. You do your best and right now that’s all anyone can ask for.” 

Aaron lets out a huff of breath and leans back in his chair. He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to lessen the pulsing headache still fully present. You only hope that your words made a difference, and you start to get up to leave.

“Wait. Please don’t go. I- I can’t stand being alone here anymore,” The admission makes your heart swell while simultaneously hurting for the broken man, and you settle back into your seat. Maybe finishing up the rest of your reports in the company of a friend wouldn’t be so bad after all.

-----

The late nights you and Aaron were pulling to keep each other company quickly transitioned to going home early to see Jack, still keeping each other’s grief at bay. Didn’t help that Jack was the sweetest kid on the planet, and one you definitely couldn’t say no to.

There were days where Aaron would just break down away from the watchful eyes of his son. He wanted to remain strong and not worry the young boy, but he knew Jack was hurting too, just as you were. Even if he was vulnerable with you at times, he still kept some walls up and held some feelings to his chest.

And Aaron would never tell you, but some days it was hard to even be in that apartment. The wall has been long since repaired, the bloodstains lifted from the carpet. But that didn’t remove the nightmares that haunted him every time he came home.

He could never forget the acrid smell of Foyet’s breath as he continuously taunted him, the knife driving into his abdomen. He couldn’t forget the fleeting memories that he surrounded himself with, a hopeful yet useless distraction as he was bleeding out on his apartment floor.

He couldn’t forget Foyet’s smile, his laugh that haunted Aaron’s deepest nightmares. 

Foyet’s words would come to him in flashes, always coming back to remind him of everything he lost.

“Do you know how much you have to study the human body to stab yourself repeatedly and not die? I don’t want to brag but I’m somewhat of an expert.”

The humor Foyet found in what he was saying was not ever lost on Aaron.

He always felt the ghost of the knife, cold metal gracing his abdomen that was slowly losing heat due to the blood blossoming around his still body.

“Do you wanna see my scars?”

The image of Foyet’s mangled abdomen was stamped into his brain, a fateful image that spoiled his sleep every night.

“Yours are gonna look just the same.”

And that they did. Aaron hated the scars that riddled his chest, the raised, gnarled skin always a reminder of his failure. He not only failed Haley, but his son that he swore to protect and give a good life. He ripped the life away from both of them. Haley would never see what Jack would become, and Jack would never remember the woman who gave her life to protect him.

No matter how much he trusted you, there was still that wall that held him back from telling you all of this. His rational brain told him that you’d help him work through it, but his trauma-riddled brain told him that he’d end up overwhelming you, even though you both lost the same person, she just had different emotional ties to both of you.

That call that you listened in on while racing to Fairfax was imprinted in your brain. You’d continually tried to tell yourself that you couldn’t change anything that happened, that you couldn’t save Haley. You couldn’t give Jack his mom back, and you couldn’t bring back Aaron’s closest friend. 

You knew it wasn’t right to blame yourself. You knew that Foyet had fooled all of you. That didn’t stop you from taking the blame, forcing yourself to relive the worst moment in your career, just to subject yourself to something you felt you could have prevented.

Jack wouldn’t have any memories of his own mother. You would just plant four years’ worth of stories as he grew up, telling him tales of how strong his mother was, and how she was the best thing that happened to his father.

Maybe these similar trains of thought are what led you to be knocking on Aaron’s door late at night. And maybe, that’s what led him to answer.

“Y/N? It’s so late, what’re you doing here?” The opened door revealed a distraught yet cozy Aaron, floppy hair and eye bags in all.

“Can I, uh, can I come in?” You remain composed, trying to regulate your breathing before you possibly could fly off the handle.

“Yeah, of course. Are you alright?” 

Now isn’t that the question of the hour, Aaron Hotchner? You aren’t really sure what you feel, so instead of answering, you walk over to his couch and sit. 

Aaron trails in behind you, two cups of coffee in his hand. You accept the cup, the ceramic mug already bringing life back into your hands. Aaron sits on the other side of the couch assuming the same position you are: a blank, grief-filled stare aimed at the table in front of you. The only sign of either of you being cognizant is your periodic sniffles. You don’t even realize you’re crying.

“I just miss her, you know?” The sentence comes through a wavered tone, and you hiccup through the tears. 

Aaron’s in a similar state, his red-rimmed eyes giving way to a tear-filled, “I know. I miss her too,”

A watery laugh leaves you, “Y’know, one time when I visited Haley, told me about how you two used to be. Before Jack, before…”

Before the divorce. Before she died.

“-just, before. She even gave me a little insight on your stint as Pirate #4 in Pirates of the Penzance,” A watery smile makes its way onto your face, and you hear Aaron huff out a sad laugh, shaking his head as he does so.

“I swore her to secrecy on that. She liked you, honestly. She loved how you were with Jack, and I can’t say that I don’t either. You being here, for us, is something we’ll always be grateful for. Thank you,” The sentence makes your heart swell, as more tears fall down your face. They’re full of grief, sadness, and a love you don’t catch onto right away, but when you do, you force that back down to whatever depths it came from.

You hear the feet padding across the floor before you see him.

“Y/N? Why are you crying?” Jack asks as he clambers up next to you and into your arms.

“Hey, bud, what’re you doing up? Your dad and I were just talking about your mom, and how much we miss her,” You say, rocking the boy as you hold him.

“I miss my mom too. Do you think we could talk to her?” He asks. You could hear how tired he is, and you look at Aaron.

Go ahead, his look says, and you stand up with Jack still in your arms. You pick up the candle and lighter on the way.

You lay Jack back in his bed, grabbing the picture of Haley off his dresser. You light the candle and hand it to him.

“Hi, momma. Y/N is here, and I miss you. I love you,” You continue to listen to the boy, but you can feel the tears pressing at the back of your eyes again. You can’t imagine what this four-year-old boy is going through, trying to understand why his mom isn’t coming home anymore.

You feel a certain pair of eyes on you from the doorway of Jack’s room, and you see Aaron watching you and Jack. He’s got this soft, sullen smile on his face as he hears Jack recount his days since he’s last talked to Haley. Soon enough, the four-year-old runs out of steam and says goodbye, blowing out the candle. You reach over, tucking the covers up to his chin, and tell him goodnight.

You walk out to see Aaron sitting on the couch again, his elbows resting on his knees, hands covering his face. You sit with him until the early morning light washes over the DC skyline, sunlight peeking into the windows. You both laugh, cry, and sit in silence as you talk about whatever, but the topic keeps coming back to Haley.

“Well, if I want to make it to the building on time, I better go back to my apartment and change,” You say as you get up to grab your shoes that have long since been forgotten, as well as your keys and such. “Oh, I didn’t even notice the time. See you at work,” He says, getting up off the couch too.

“Bye, Aaron. See you at work,” You give him a soft smile, and make your exit.

Aaron doesn’t make light of this, but seeing you leave after the night he spent commiserating with you, made him miss it more than he thought he would. The freshness of it all, the connection you shared with mutual grief, was something he never thought he’d get out of his job.

-----

When you step into the bullpen, you’re the first one there for once. Fresh clothes and a rejuvenated heart puts a small pep in your step, even on no sleep.  After the night of vulnerability you shared with Aaron, you felt refreshed, if only a little tired. 

For the sake of making sure you actually stay awake, you make two cups of coffee. Made one cup just how you like it, leaving the other one black. You set your cup down at your desk, climbing the stairs up to Aaron’s dark office. You turn on his desk lamp, setting the coffee down. You knew he wasn’t too far behind you when coming to the office, it was only a matter of time before he walked out of the elevator. 

When Aaron finally makes it to the bullpen, he sees you already cutting into the reports he left on everyone’s desks the night before. He practically floats to his office, his lack of sleep starting to catch up to him. When he opens the door, he sees the coffee mug at his desk, a sticky note attached to it. Very familiar handwriting fills the note. 

Thought we could both use some coffee after our late night. 

You know where I am if you need anything, old man. 

Sincerely, 

A very concerned friend :)

Aaron just shakes his head at the note, a smile he’s not used to filling his face. He looks through the window out into the bullpen to find you with an equally facetious smile on your face. 

That’s when it all comes crumbling down for you. The realization hits you as you turn back to your work, and you have to slow your breathing so as to not worry anyone else making their way to their desks. 

Fuck. 

You’re in love with your boss. 

You’re in love with Aaron Hotchner. 

You could not have worse timing, you realize. He just lost his wife, you just lost a friend. Neither of you should be open to dating. He isn’t open to dating, and you’d be damned if you were too.

You were never known for your timeliness, but this is a whole other level of bad.

 What are you supposed to do? There’s no handbook, nothing to tell you what you’re supposed to fall in love with your divorced boss who just lost his ex-wife. And there shouldn’t be, you’re being careless. 

It’s normal for people in grief to come together, and after a loss people make strides to fill that gap. That’s all you're doing. You don’t actually feel this way about him. 

That’s what your profiling tells you, but you don’t try to reason with it. No amount of reasoning can fix this. You’re screwed, and you know it.

That’s why you make a vow to yourself- right there in the bullpen. 

You are not going to let this get too far too fast, and you are not going to scare this man away. He is your boss first, friend second, and lover will never make that list if you keep up this fast train of realizations and possible confessions.

You get saved from your rabbit hole as you hear Reid and Morgan walk into the bullpen, talking about whatever those two can talk about at 8 AM. You just shake your head at their antics.

Those two really are like brothers.

Slowly, the rest of the team trickles in, and you’re expected for a day of paperwork when JJ flashes a file at you. Seems like you won’t your day of reprieve, but if you’re honest with yourself, you’re glad.

On top of the Aaron Revelations™, It’s been really hard these past few weeks without Haley. You usually went over to see Jack and her often, talking and laughing over some glasses of wine. Now, you just... don’t have that.

But, all that aside, you have a case.

So you put the pieces of yourself back together, compose yourself, and take a breath.

You can do this.

-----

You can’t do this.

You did fine on the case, and you know that. You remained composed, and kept your head on straight. That doesn’t change your realization, nor does it settle your feelings. Professionalism is at the forefront of your mind as you settle into your seat on the jet. Aaron sits next to you like always, and you school your expression for most of the flight, but that didn’t stop your brain from going faster than light.

You lean your head against the window, and hope against hope that everything- every feeling, every thought- would just leave you. They didn’t, but you welcome the sleep that comes like an unknown force.

When you wake, you smell Aaron’s cologne. You’re groggy, and it takes you a minute to realize that his suit jacket rests across your upper body. 

“You looked cold, just thought I’d help,” Aaron says, not looking up from his file.

That man never stops working.

“Thanks, Hotch,” You say, sleep still laced through your words. You get lost in the moment, the familiarity of it all sinking into your bones. You smile blissfully, sleep consuming your conscious again

You just miss the small smile Aaron gives you after your eyes close, sleep taking your body again.

[nonbinary-renfri]

After they’re done and Yennefer’s eyes have raked over the expanse of his sweat-dappled skin, her fingers find the raised teeth marks gouged into his thigh. She sits up, tracing along scarred edges. “Ooo, nasty. This one’s new.” Leaning over, she lightly bites on top of the healed wound and drags her teeth over his skin, drawing a twitch and a warning growl from Geralt. With a satisfied smile on her lips, Yennefer slinks back up the length of his body, tweaking the nipple closer to her along her way before settling into the mattress next to him. Geralt rolls into her, playfully catching her earlobe between his teeth in retaliation. He bites gently at her collarbone and presses a kiss to her bare chest just above her sternum. She lets him nuzzle in close to her, tucking his face into her neck, the tip of his nose brushing her jugular. Geralt breathes her in, burrowing past that familiar perfume of lilac and gooseberries to the rich yet earthy scent of cloves and another similar scent with just a hint more salt that takes his mind to both loam and luxury.

He’d looked at her and thought she should smell of sweet plums and rich wine, and instead she smells like the wildest depths of the forest.

“I think I saw my mother recently,” he says into her skin and her hand pauses where she’s playing with a strand of his hair.

She winds the white lock around her finger. “I don’t know what that means, Geralt.”

“She’s a sorceress.” Yennefer pulls sharply on his hair, but he ignores her request for a name, continuing, “I came close to dying, while I was still searching for Ciri, and I think it was her, my mother, who healed me. It seemed like dream, but I’d be dead if it truly was one.” Geralt is quiet for a moment, unsure if the ache in his chest will steal the words from him. “She looked nearly the same as the day she abandoned me on the road outside the witcher’s keep.”

He can hear the rage in the lungs beneath his ear as Yennefer breathes deep, once, twice, before she speaks. “Some people don’t deserve to be mothers,” she says loftily and she means it to sound callous, like there isn’t pain running through every word of that statement, but the fingers stroking through his hair are a little rougher than maybe she means them to be. Geralt does not mind. He is not delicate; the tugging soothes an itch he wouldn’t have known to scratch.

There are moments, where you can tell someone something with a few words and in that instant hand them a huge chunk of who you are. Because not only does it tell them something about how you came to be, it reveals every lie, every excuse, every silence that you have ever used to hide that truth away from them.

Geralt breathes in Yennefer’s skin. Breathes out, “I was… most witchers are children claimed by the Law of Surprise.”

Again, she stills beneath him as she takes in the information, lets it run its course through her mind. He wonders what moments she’s thinking of, what conversations (arguments) might be revealing themselves to her under a new light. Yennefer goes back to picking apart a tangle she’d either found or created in his hair. “That makes a surprising amount of sense.” Her voice is softer than he expected. “No wonder you were terrified of your Child Surprise.”            Her fingernails scratch against his scalp as she cradles him close to her. He has exposed a vulnerability, given her something that can be used against him, and she would not be her if she does not exploit it. Yennefer doesn’t hesitate to put this new tool to the test, a single question all she needs to carve him open and expose his deepest fears with her usual uncanny precision. “Would you kill to stop what happened to you,” to us, “from happening to her?”

“Yes,” he snarls into her throat, bared teeth against her jugular that know the taste of lifeblood, know that biting into a neck just right releases a flood like ripping the cork out of a wine barrel, and all she smells of is satisfaction. The answer comes to him as easy as breathing and he wonders if this feeling in his stomach could be fear. Geralt thinks he may be holding on to her too tight and part of him wants to let go of the body in his arms, to crush the bedsheets in his fists instead as something he does not know how to name shudders through him. But this is Yennefer in their bed and she abhors it when he tries to protect her, even if it’s from himself. So instead he moves to spread rough hands wide over the smooth skin of her back and clutches her closer than he should dare. This is Yennefer, and she will forgive him bruises before any implication that he thinks her weak.

She pulls him from where his nose is buried in her pulse, thumbs nestling in that tender place behind his ears, and her eyes are shards of amethyst. She asks of him, “Would you kill Vesemir?”

He’s staring at her because he doesn’t think he’s ever given her that name, but also because it’s a question he has asked himself in the time since Ciri’s arms wrapped around him in that forest, one he has pondered only on the deepest, darkest nights. Geralt hopes it will never become more than a what-if, because he believes the old man has changed, believes the apologies always buried in his eyes; he does, he believes him, he does… but there’s a shattered little piece of him that used to be an innocent young boy and it can’t trust anything, anymore. And that’s why he knows his answer.

Geralt meets Yennefer’s frigid gaze and begs with golden irises for her to understand, to know what his reply is. He doesn’t want to-

“Say it. Out loud.”

Gods, he’s missed her. Missed this. She’s ruthless, makes him honest where it counts, and her ambition burns into him. She expects him to make hard decisions, to be perfect and unfailing and better than he would be for just himself. It’s ice, and familiar, and Geralt can finally breathe.

“Yes,” he gasps into the air that hangs between their lips.

She nods, satisfied. “Good.” She’s studying him now, a molten softness warming her crystal gaze, one hand sliding forward from the back of his neck to caress his cheek. Geralt feels flayed open and he wants to close his eyes, so he does. Fingertips gently trace along his jawline, the swirled etchings unique to her skin rasping over his stubble. Yennefer’s thumb drags across his bottom lip and Geralt tries to snag it between his teeth, breath catching in a quiet whine as it slips away from him. She guides his face back down to her throat and he takes it for the offering that it is, biting along the line of her collarbone towards her shoulder. As he soothes reddening marks with his tongue, Yennefer hums contentedly under him, her hands twined into his hair.

“Aretuza bought me,” she tells him, because Yennefer of Vengerberg pays her debts and she thinks she owes him something, now. And. It’s a piece of a cypher that makes her up, but it doesn’t reveal her as Geralt’s confession did him. He’s still missing too much to see her clearly, to know how to decipher what he’s looking at; she’s offered him merely a taste of what lays deeper, the tiniest secret sip of her given like she’s daring him to try and steal a mouthful more. She tells him nothing else and Geralt does not have the breath to drown in the past tonight; he is content to drift towards sleep beneath the quiet and her gentle touch.

If Yennefer were someone corny like Jaskier, Geralt might have fallen asleep to a whisper of, you’re important to me. He doesn’t need her to say it, though; her fingertips tracing his features are enough of a full circle for him.

[castiels-majestic-wings]

Sixth Sense - Chapter 2

Paring: Loki x Female!Reader

Word Count: 2,165

Warnings: None

Posted: 31/12/2020

Thor had taken Loki to Odin, in Asgard. But you had managed to convince him to at least ask Odin if you can go in and try to get a read on his- Loki’s aura. You were waiting for his answer. He said he would come back. And if Odin permitted you to see him- read him, maybe even question him. You could find out why Loki did what he did. Maybe even change his view of things, get him to be the brother Thor had once told you about.

You’ve been waiting for a long time. It’s been three weeks since Thor went back to Asgard. You had given up, not expecting him to return. But that’s when you saw the Bifrost on your balcony appear. But it disappeared just as quickly, only there was Thor, making his way inside, his mission included your presence.

“Y/N, it has been a while, my friend.” he extended his arms with a smile before engulfing me in a hug. You pulled away smiling.

“It hasn’t been that long, not even a whole month” You informed.

“Time flows differently in Asgard”

“I know, I know. So how was the trip? What was Loki’s punishment?” Curiosity filled your voice.

“Odin, my father. He sent my brother to prison for eternity.” Your eyes fell, you didn’t know why you felt concerned about him, nor why you felt compassion. You were worried about him. Aura’s can show a lot of things about a person, and his- his was a spiral of emotions. Anger, hatred, fear and betrayal. There was no sign of any positive emotions when you first read him at the tower.

“But, if made it so you can go speak to Loki, but only if you’re under my supervision.”

“You got Odin to agree? How?! I was sure he would decline”

“I explained that you could read him, find out what happened to the brother I once knew.”

“When do you want me to go?”

“As soon as you can, my father doesn’t take lightly to tardiness” A giggle escaped your lips.

“Okay, hold on let me sort some last-minute things and ill be right with you.” You had sorted through the last of your current mission report and packed a few small things in a backpack before making your way back to Thor.

“Okay, I think I’m ready” you readjusted your backpack while walking to the balcony, Thor not far behind.

“You might want to hold on” Giving him a questioning glance you held on to his waist. “Heimdall, bring us up” After a couple of seconds the Bifrost surrounded you. You shut your eyes in fear as you could no longer feel the floor. You slowly opened your eyes, you were scared but glad you did. The Bifrost was beautiful. A rainbow of colour surrounded you before you felt the floor at your feet again. You gathered your surroundings before releasing your grip on Thor. In front of you stood a man, removing his sword from the device in the middle of the room.

“Welcome to Asgard Y/N”

“You know my name? Heimdall knows my name!” You grabbed Thor’s sleeve in excitement.

“Of course, I see everything, I know everything within the nine realms.”

“Everything? Does that mean you see whenever someone is trying to conceive a child?” Your bluntness shocked the men around you. “What? I’m genuinely curious, he’s seen everyone naked!” Heimdall coughed into his fist.

“Uhm, no, I choose not to watch anything deemed inappropriate.” He clarified.

“Okay, that’s calmed me down, I was worried for a minute there.” Heimdall smiled, obviously used to your humour after watching over you for so many years. Thor had escorted you to Odin so he could speak to you personally. To say you were nervous was an understatement. You didn’t know how to hold a conversation with a normal person let alone a king. The walk there seemed long as if you had walked for hours. But in reality, it was only 5 minutes.

As you entered the palace you noticed how tight security was. Something must have happened here before Loki trie to attack us on earth. Thor stopped suddenly causing me to halt next to him. I looked up suddenly frozen, Odin’s presence, it was excruciating.

You knew you couldn’t say anything rash, you couldn’t question him either. You had never met someone with such a powerful presence before. You bowed without a second thought. I kept my position until Thor began to speak.

“Father, this is the Midgardian I informed you of. She holds incredible abilities, she might be the key to helping Loki” Thor's voice was followed by silence.

“And what makes you think she is capable of helping Loki” Odin's voice boomed through the halls, creating an echo that made me flinch.

“She explained her thoughts on his actions without even speaking to him. I believe she will be a great asset”

“I already permitted you to bring her here, she is under your supervision, Thor. If anything were to happen to, her blood is on your hands”

“Yes, Father. Thank you.” Thor bowed his head and turned, signalling me to do the same. Not allowing him to think you were a coward, you spoke.

“Thank you, Your Majesty, I shall try my best to make Loki the son you once knew. Please, put your faith in me. I will not fail!”

“Make sure you do not fail me, otherwise Loki will be the least of your troubles.” Odin snarled, obviously displeased with your presence.

“Yes of course” A small smile made it to your face before you bowed once more, taking your leave. Thor had escorted you to the prisons. Loki’s cell was to the left of the stairway as you entered. Loki had noticed you straight away.

“Brother! My my, what do we have here. The Midgardian that stayed hidden.” The smirk on his face was mischievous, much like his personality. The God of Mischief. You stood in front of his cell with Thor to your right.

“I’m a tactician I stay on the sidelines.” You were unable to place the confidence that took over your body, but you could bite back.

“Oh, but you’re much more than that.” Loki placed his forearm on the forcefield leaning on it. “You’re different, definitely Midgardian, but how you read me without my speaking was glorious.”

“Good so you know why I’m here.” His smirk fell off his face. “Don’t bother trying to hurt me, Thor will not leave my side. You won’t be able to attack me.” He lowered his arm and went to sit down on the bench in the corner. Thor opened the forcefield and entered, holding it open enough for me to walk inside. Loki glared at me, not wanting his deepest secrets revealed, by a Midgardian no less. You went to walk to Loki but was stopped by Thor’s grip on your arm.

“Thor, I’ll be fine, but if you want me to get a deep reading I need to get closer to him” I placed my hand above his as he loosened his grip. He tensed ready for any trick Loki might try. I walked in front of Loki and grabbed a chair to sit face to face.

“There’s a darkness in you that isn’t your own. It’s fighting your goodness, your natural aura.”

“Aura? There is no such thing as being able to see or read auras” Ignoring his comment you continued to stare at him, not losing eye contact.

“The colours, you’re naturally drawn to them. Greens and gold. There’s a hint of blue hidden within the darkness. That colour makes you sad, angry, frustrated. Why do you dislike blue so much” His eyes changed, no longer were they sarcastic and mischievous, but sad and vulnerable.

“Is it your heritage? Thor told me you were adopted. But still, you have a small similarity to Thor’s aura, you’re still Asgardian.” Loki saw in your eyes that you were nothing but truthful. Not one word that left your lips was a lie.

“What? No, that can’t be-”

“Why not?”

“I’m a Frost Giant, Odin stole me from Jotunheim as a Trophy, a way to bargain his way through if the Jotuns attacked once more.”

“Then if frost giants are blue, why aren’t you?”

“Odin altered my appearance when he found- when he took me”

“But you are Asgardian, Odin’s blood flows in your veins”

“I am not his son!”

“No. Not a son, but a relative of some kind.”

“How can you tell? You read auras?” Curiosity filled the room.

“People of the same blood give similar auras.”

“How can you be so sure?” Thor was eager to know, after finding out that Loki wasn’t his brother it broke him. If there was a chance that they were related- even distantly, he would take it.

“I’ve seen it, because of Clint. And his family”

“So Loki isn’t my brother? But a relative?”

“Yes, I can’t say what exactly but I could ask Odin. He might know something about this”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive-” I looked up at Thor. “I must speak to your father, alone.” You urged. Both Thor and Loki looked your direction. Both equally as confused and curious.

“Father does not allow just anyone to be alone with him.”

“I’m not just anyone” A smirk appeared on your face, much like Loki's when he knows- thinks he's won. “Let’s go have a chat with the Allfather” You stood from your position, Thor following before opening the cell. After you exited Loki looked at you curiously, with a hint of hope in his eyes.

“I will find out the Truth for you- even if I can’t tell you myself” He could tell you were sincere. Why would anyone be willing to do this for him? It intrigued him. He kept his gaze on you until he could no longer see your form. As you entered the great hall you had asked Thor to wait outside. Odin looked at you curiously seeing you make your way towards him alone.

“Odin, I must speak with you privately.”

“Privately? No one shall speak to me privately unless its Frigga or Thor”

“It’s about Loki’s origin. Unless you want the guards to know his birth mother, I suggest we have our privacy.” Odin’s eye widened, you hit a nerve. He signalled the guards to leave, and it stayed silent until he knew no one could hear us.

“What do you know Midguardian?”

“I know that Loki- even if his father is a frost giant, his mother was Asgardian. How she is related to you I’m not sure. But its royal blood- your blood.”

“How did you find this information?”

“Thor told you that I read auras correct?” Odin nodded, deeming the silence necessary. “Well families, that share the same blood have similar auras. And his aura- his Asgardian aura, is similar to Thor’s and your own. What can you tell me?”

“Who his mother is doesn’t matter”

“I assume she’s either dangerous or dead. Or both.” Odin seemed uneasy.

“I won’t tell either of them. Any information you tell me right now I won’t tell Thor or Loki”

“And why my dear, should I trust you”

“If you want me to clear his darkness, I must know everything”

“Not a word, to anyone other than myself”

“You have my word.” He sighed, composing himself. He hadn’t spoken about her in millennia, nor had he forgotten her.

“My daughter, Hela”

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes, My firstborn”

“So Loki he’s- he’s your grandson?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you won’t kill him? He might be frost giant, but he is still of your blood” Odin was breaking. His shell was slowly opening.

“Does Frigga know?”

“No”

“How could you hide that from her? She- Her daughter has a son!”

“With a frost giant! She was already trying to overthrow the kingdom. Working with the frost giants- then she became pregnant with Lafeys child” He growled, angered by the memory.

“I see. Now that I know, I should be able to get a better read of your grandson.”

“You must not tell anyone of what we just spoke”

“I gave my word. I shall not tell a soul.”

“Leave” He ordered. And you had no reason to decline. You left the grand hall telling the guards that they could return to their post. Your figure leaned against the wall, your nerves catching up, making your breath heavy and unstable. You slid to the ground, seeing Thor approach you.

“Y/N? Are you alright?”

“Yes- My nerves just caught up with me that’s all. Plus, your father is a scary man” A giggle escaped your lips making Thor smile, happy to know that you were okay. How were you going to keep this secret you didn’t know. But you had to- you gave your word. And you’ll be damned if you broke it.

Taglist: @lovermrjokerr @lucywrites02 @lord-byron

[the-peak-of-despair]

Mastermind! Chihiro Fujisaki - The Sixth Trial

This wasn’t exactly an old request, just a suggestion to write whatever I felt like. And I love mastermind AUs so fucking much, please, flood my inbox asking about them, I just wanna talk about our lord and savior mastermind chihiro - Mod Akane

“And that would mean..” Makoto begins, the realization striking him as he turns to Chihiro, staring fearfully back at him. “Y-You’re the mastermind, Chihiro!” 

There’s doubt in his voice. He doesn’t want to believe it. His friend, who’d opened up to him, who shares his deepest secrets, in his most vulnerable state… he’d orchestrated all of this? From the outside, he looked like he would burst into tears if he killed a bee. Suppose that’s the trick behind it…

“C-Chihiro..? I-It was you..?” Asahina stutters, looking at him horrified.

“I-I-” Chihiro begins to stutter. He looks like he’s on the verge of bursting into tears. No one in the courtroom believes this claim, how could they? But the evidence was stacked against him.. 

It’s before anyone can argue that Chihiro snaps into an entirely new persona, and the tears are gone. “Yep! That’s me! I’m the mastermind!” 

Everyone takes a step back. Chihiro’s face contorted in a way no one had ever imagined. In an instant, his entire personality changed. His tears evaporated into thin air and despair seemed to wash over his face, seeping down to his very core as his eyes lost all sign of true emotion.

“Gosh, you’re so smart, Makoto!” Chihiro says, clapping his hands like a child. “I can’t believe you found me out!” 

“No. There’s simply no way this is possible.” Byakuya interrupts, crossing his arms. “Chihiro, stop playing games. There’s no way you are the mastermind.”

“Oh no, I really am!” Chihiro smiles. With a snap of his fingers, Monokuma shut down, almost like he was playing dead where he stood on the ground. Chihiro left his podium and approached the robot, standing next to it and humming while he examined it.

..And then, in a sudden instant, he slammed his foot into the robot, kicking it as hard as he could. Monokuma flew into a distant wall, shattering into a million black and white pieces as Chihiro didn’t even blink. Everyone in the courtroom drew back, even Byakuya and Kirigri, unable to hide their shock.

“H-Holy shit!” Yashuiro screams in fear as Chihiro turns back towards the circle of survivors. The room begins to fill with smoke, making most people cough and wave it away from their faces. In a second, it clears, revealing Chihiro in a new outfit, with a Monokuma-esq color palette to boot.

“Da-dun-dun! That’s right, the mastermind all along was Chihiro Fujisaki!” He smiles wildly, throwing his arms out in a grand gesture. Standing between Asahina and Yashuiro at his new podium, he seems so small, but he’s so.. Terrifying. The sudden switch in personalities shook everyone to the very core.

“This doesn’t make sense..” Kirigiri mutters. “How could you control Monokuma and almost never leave our sight?” 

Chihiro backs up until he’s sat on top of the ‘throne’ Monokuma used to always sit on top of. He crosses his legs and leans back, getting comfortable in his seat above everyone else. “Pfffffffft! He’s an AI, come on Kirigiri, aren’t you smarter than this?” Chihiro mocks Kirigiri. “I’ve been living under your noses as the Ultimate Programmer, Monokuma wasn’t even my best work!” 

“That doesn’t make sense. His movements and conversations with us.. They’re nothing like any AI I’ve ever seen.” Byakuya argues.

“Clean your glasses, Byakuya! Didn’t you see Alter Ego?” Chihiro poses the question as he sits up and leans over the arm of his chair towards Byakuya. “They’re all easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!~ I’ve got an iron grip on the technology production from here to Towa City!”

“Speaking of Alter Ego..” Kirgiri interrupts, halting Byakuya’s personal slander. “What was the point of presenting him to us?” 

Chihiro lets out a giggle. “Yeaah, Alter Ego was a bit of a mistake on my part! You weren’t supposed to find it. But since you did I thought it wouldn’t hurt to spin you in the wrong direction a bit!” 

“And his execution?”

“Oh, that was Monokuma’s decision! Spur of the moment thing. I didn’t really mind, it was collateral damage!” Chihiro shrugs. “Collateral damage.. Kinda like Mondo and Kiyotaka!” He smiles, and as he watches everyone in the room come to a full stop before looking at Chihiro with disgust.

“C-Collateral d-damage..?” Makoto stutters. “T-Those were our friends, Chihiro! What the.. What the hell!? They were your friends!”

“Huh, were they?” Chihiro asks sarcastically, tapping a finger to his chin. “Huh. If they were, I just used them!” 

“Y-You what…?” Asahina stutters.

“I used them! I mean, Mondo and Taka were like a package deal! I needed Mondo to make me stronger, and Taka only played by my rules! Let me tell you, it was s-”

“S-Shut up!” Makoto interrupts Chihiro, who perks up, interested in his sudden boldness. “W-We still need to talk about what happened in the last trial!”

“Oooh, you mean where I killed Sakura and framed Toko ‘cus I got bored? What’s there to talk about?” Chihiro asks, excited. “...Aha, did I let that slip?” 

“R-Repeat that.” Asahina suddenly becomes cold, her fists balled tight at her sides. 

“I’m sure you heard me, Asahina!” Chihiro smiles, standing from his throne and once again approaching the podium. “I killed Sakua and framed Toko!”

Asahina begins to breathe heavy, doing  everything in her power to contain her anger as Chihiro continues to talk. “I mean, really, do you think Toko could actually kill Sakura? I don’t even think her wacky double-personality could’ve taken her down! So I worked a bit of magic, aaand..!”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Asahina screams, slamming her hands on her podium. “Y-You- You bastard! What the fuck is wrong with you Chihiro?!” She screams, turning and grabbing him by the collar, dragging him close to her face, so close that his feet barely grazed the ground. “I- You fucking killed her! Y-You killed Sakura! I-I- I loved her, you...you..!”

Chihiro doesn’t even look phased as Asahina spits venom in his face. “Hey, Hina! You remember what happened to Junko? Right?” He grins sadistically as the fear begins to strike Asahina, who drops him and takes a step back. 

There’s a familiar whirring noise, and out of nowhere there's a spear that shoots from the middle of the room towards Asahina, almost identical to what happened to Junko. Asahina flinches and draws back violently, forcing the spear to only grace her cheek before slamming into the wall behind her. She opens her eyes, breathing heavy with fear as she held her hand to her cheek. “O-Oh my god..”  

“Gah, I missed!” Chihiro pouts. “I need to get better at shooting games.” 

“G-Games?! Y-You could’ve killed me!” Asahina yells, still holding a hand to her cheek. 

“That’s the fun in it!” Chihiro grins. Once upon a time, this was a wide, innocent grin. Now, it was nothing but evil. Full of despair and agony. And that’s probably exactly what Chihiro wanted. 

Makoto could only wonder- what could possibly push this poor boy to the breaking point..?

If you looked close enough, the answer was laid out in plain sight. 

“Well!” Chihiro claps his hands. “What is there to talk about now? Surely the trial won’t come to a close so easily!” Chihiro scans the room, taking in every facial expression of pure disgust and pain around him. 

“Why..? Why did you do all this?” Makoto asks, basically gripping his podium for dear life. He couldn’t just take all of this in easily. One of his best friends, through this entire hellhole, a person he’d protected with his fucking life and would follow into battle blindly… he was the mastermind? Chihiro, a boy who no one would suspect, he was pulling the strings, he’d orchestrated every death, he’d warped Hope’s Peak into a place of despair..? 

He recalls the moment in the bathhouse when he told Kirigiri: “I’d follow you into battle if I had to!” 

And her response.. “Not such a wise choice, is it?”

Chihiro’s face falls. “Do you know what it’s like, Makoto..?” His tone changes, it’s low and unlike anything anyone had heard from Chihiro before. “To be bullied, every single day, pummeled into the fucking dirt?!” Despair overwhelms his entire face, but he starts to laugh.. “Every.. Goddamn day! Until the point where you.. Hahaa.. You’ve gotta change your whole identity, just to be safe!”  

“Chihiro.. I-” Yasuhiro looks like he’s about to set a hand on his shoulder. Forgetting for just a moment that this was a boy who’d killed his friends, and possibly even thousands, just remembering that once upon a time they were friends.  

Chihiro smacks his hand away with alarming strength, still laughing all as tears gather in his eyes. “NO!” He screams, almost like it was a reflex. “I don’t need.. Ahahaha.. I don’t need anyone’s help anymore! That despair..it only.. It only made me stronger! AhahaAHAHAHA! A-And I- I’ve basked this entire world in despair!” Chihiro hugs himself, breaking into boisterous, manic laughter. 

“What do you mean, the entire world?” Byakuya asks, seemingly unphased by Chihiro’s manic breakdown. Of course, Byakuya wasn’t ever ‘friends’ with the boy… though part of him couldn’t help but reflect on the.. Choice words he’d used against him before. 

Chihiro doesn’t even stop laughing. “Oh, ah..ahaha! I forgot all about that! While you were all locked up in here, the entire world has plunged into despair!” He claps his hands twice, before throwing his arms out wide, gesturing towards the monitors on every corner of the room. The monitors flicker, then turn on, showing a repeating news broadcast.

The broadcast was simple, a repetitive broadcast of a red sky overtop of war and destruction, all with the face of Monokuma plastered all over.  It shakes everyone in the room to the core, except for Chihiro, who gleefully watches his handiwork as he wipes his tears away. “Isn’t it lovely!? Everything destroyed.. Right down to your very bloodlines!”

“No. I simply won’t believe this.” Byakuya starts again. “This is foolish. A highschool boy couldn’t just take down the world.”

“Ahaha, I didn’t work alone, silly Byakuya!” Chihiro grins. “Despair spreads like a plague! And that plague even took down your precious Togami family!” 

“Wh-What..?” Fear seems to take over  Byakuya, if only for a split second. “Th-The Togami family doesn’t just lay down and die! Who the hell backs you!?”

Chihiro laughs. “Despair, dummy! How many times do I gotta repeat myself!?” The words send Byakuya down a spiral, even without evidence.. The very thought shook him to the core.

“H-Hey!” Makoto argues. “This can’t be true! Last I remember, the world was just fine! We’ve been here a month, tops, there’s no way you could’ve done this in all that time!” 

“Weren’t we already over this?” Chihiro asks. “You lost your memories! If I whack ya hard enough, you might get ‘em back! But we’ve all been cooped up, shielded from the outside world! And now you’ve spent your days trying to crawl out of this home we all built together! Isn’t that just a tad hypocritical?” 

“W-Wait, you mean..?” Asahina catches what Chihiro means first- the world had crumbled, and they’d all been here for two years, and then they… 

“W-What was the point of all of this!?” Makoto asks, cutting off any other thought processes about how they’d been gone for two whole years. 

“Huh? Well, I kept you alive, hijacked the airwaves, and displayed you murdering each other for the world to see because I wanted to spread despair to the last dying shreds of hope in the world!” Chihiro explains casually. “I mean, I’ve laid this all out in plain sight for you.” 

“W-” Byakuya begins to speak.

Chihiro interrupts. “Yeah, yeah, be quiet, we’ve had enough of you. Now!” He claps his hands together, excited. “Since this is a trial, I give you one last vote. You can vote for despair- vote to give me the punishment I deserve- or, vote for hope, and stay here for the rest of your golden days!”

“L-Let me get this straight..” Asahina starts. “If we just vote for hope, none of us die..?” 

Chihiro hums. “Well, I suppose, but.. That doesn’t sound as fun! So how about this: vote for hope, and I’ll only execute one of you! The rest of you get to live out the rest of your lives with moi.” He folds his hands under his chin, in an oh-so familiar way. Was he mocking Celeste..? 

“W-Who’ll get executed..?” Yasuhiro stutters.

“Hm..” Chihiro hums as he looks around the room. He starts pointing from person to person. “Eenie.. Meanie… minie… you!” He lands on Makoto, who exhibits a fearful look in return.

“Y-You’ll execute me…?” Makoto stutters, fearful. Somewhere inside him, this felt familiar. 

“Well of course! You seem to be the obvious answer.” Chihiro smiles gleefully, as if he didn’t just imply that with ease he would slaughter his friend. “Why, you used to be my closest friend! You.. were the first person I trusted! What better despair than for you to die at my own hands?” 

Makoto takes a deep breath as he turns to his friends, full of despair and pain. Their hands hovering over their levers, obvious that they would seem.. Almost willing to put Makoto’s life on the line. He looks back at Chihiro, with a devilish grin paired with despair-filled eyes. He starts to laugh, like a loud symphony, bouncing off the walls and into everyone’s ears in an inescapable manner. He laughs so hard he almost starts crying once more, laughing so much it hurt.

Laughing like someone who’d been torn up inside and out and loved every fucking minute of it.

[lucysnowe]

Happy Holidays! 

This is my @toa-secret-santa gift for @actuallyadroid! Since you asked for “Usurna being regal,” I wrote her a bit of an origin story. Read it below or an ao3 here. I hope you enjoy it! 

“Rise, Usurna, Queen of the Krubera.”

Her mother had never had much patience for whelps. Usurna remembered a legion of tutors in diplomacy, languages, the arts of geology, and even some dabbling in Troll magic, but perhaps the clearest moments were when her mother summoned Usurna to her private caves.

Even centuries later, Usurna would always remember how her mother exuded regality. It was something she constantly tried to emulate. The long robes of Ancient Troll society had long gone out of favor among most tribes, most Trolls preferring the simpler garb of short kilts or tunics made of crude leather. She couldn’t imagine why. She thought she cut a dashing figure in her flowing robes, made of a soft material, what humans called silk, pilfered from the human’s own stock (Usurna believed—no, knew, that humans were inferior in every way. But she could admit their soft fabrics had their own beauty). After all, she’d learned from the best how a Queen dresses herself.

She rarely saw her mother in her childhood, so the times she was allowed to even be in the Troll Queen’s presence were special occasions. Tense, but special. Her mother’s presence tended to leave her mesmerized, to the point she was too absorbed in admiring her mother to hear her lessons.

“Usurna, are you listening to me?” Her mother asked, her accent a crisp reflection of High Trollish, the language preferred by all royals.

“Yes, Mother.”

“I bear a great burden, my daughter. One day, that burden will fall to you. We are the Krubera. We act on their behalf; we represent them in Troll society, to those outsiders that do not have the strength to travel to our deepest caves. The Krubera are only as strong as its rulers are.”

“Vangaar says that strength is tempered by humility.” She said, recalling the words of one of her tutors.

“Remind me to dismiss Vangaar, because if he says that, then he is a fool. Strength, Usurna, is the absence of weakness. All vulnerabilities must be hidden, so that no one, be they enemy or ally, can ever take advantage of you.”

Her mother’s words echoed in Usurna’s mind as she heard the clapping of hundreds of Krubera around her. Barely 400, and here she was, at her own coronation. All the wisdom her mother possessed, gone. Killed defending her Tribe from Gumm-Gumm raiders. Rumor spread that Lord Gunmar himself was the one who delivered the killing blow. A rumor Usurna started herself. Frankly, she had no idea who’d slain her mother, but she couldn’t have her mother’s reputation sullied because she’d gotten herself offed by some random foot soldier.

Coronations were a rare enough occasion that the festivities were meant to last at least a week. Usurna tired of them after about an hour. She’d never been much for large crowds, and it wasn’t as though she was doing much celebrating herself. She’d mostly sat to the sides as emissaries from various Troll tribes brought her gifts. Most Trolls couldn’t go to the depths of the Krubera caverns, so they’d held the festival in one of their highest caverns. Still, she could see the caves taking their toll on some of the Trolls; a Conundrum diplomat near her looked nauseated. Good. Let them see they could never hope to infiltrate her home.

She was shaken from her thoughts by the appearance of her guards. “My lady, Gumm-Gumms! A whole squadron approach!”

How dare he? First he kills her mother, and now Gunmar has the audacity to invade her home at her coronation. How could she recover from these twin blows to her dignity as a sovereign?

Already she could see civilian Trolls fleeing. “Fear not. We will show them the might of the Krubera. Guards! Ready yourselves!”

She silently reviewed her combat training to herself. She didn’t care much for fighting, but she’d enjoying sitting in on her mother’s generals’ strategy meetings. This dress wouldn’t do for a battle, unfortunately. She hoped she didn’t ruin it.

From the reaction of her guards and the other Trolls, she’d expected the caves to be flooded with Gumm-Gumms, so she was shocked to see that it was in truth only a group of five. She couldn’t be sure that more didn’t lurk elsewhere, but still—her guards had clearly overreacted.

“We bring a gift. From the Underlord.” The faceless Gumm-Gumm soldier that led the group spoke directly to her. She could make out no distinguishing characteristic beneath their armor. It was unnerving to see these enemies so close, but she clasped her hands to stop them from shaking.

What she hadn’t noticed before was that the Gumm-Gumm actually held a bundle in their arms, something wrapped in a cheap fabric. The soldier made a big show of tossing it to the ground, the fabric flouncing as though it was the silk she wore. What was in the bundle clattered as though it was made of metal—

There, on the ground, sat her mother’s armor.

With no delay, her guards rounded up the Gumm-Gumms and had them summarily executed. Knowing what she did about the Underlord, the lives of a few of his soldiers meant very little to him. Perhaps he’d even intended for them to die in her caves. Still, it felt good to watch them die.

***

The soldiers in front of her were battered and dirty. Usurna had a feeling she knew what news they brought.

“There were more Gumm-Gumms than we anticipated, your Highness. We were able to fight them off—but barely. Most of my soldiers lie dead in the caverns.”

This new defeat left her fuming. Had she been able to speak her mind, she would have called him what he was: a pathetic coward. But she didn’t dare show how frustrated she was. How scared.

“Go back to your soldiers, General. Get as many healers as you can find and scour the battlecaves for any soldiers still living. We’ll discuss further strategy at the council meeting this evening.”

He nodded and turned to go. His mate waited for him, the couple’s whelp in her arms. Usurna forgot the child’s name, despite officiating its Naming Ceremony. She did so for the children of most high-ranking Krubera, but since new whelps were born so infrequently she rarely had cause to. Urgamont, maybe? Her General lifted the whelp gently, touched its forehead to his. Usurna frowned. Ever since his whelp’s birth, her General had been distracted. She thought back to her mother, who’d never allowed any affection for her daughter to cloud her judgment or interfere with her role as Queen. This General had been an appointment from her mother’s era—for the first time, she questioned her mother’s choices. Perhaps he’d been loyal as a young, childless Troll, but now she wondered: just where did his loyalties lie?

With a huff, Usurna walked (“Never run, Usurna, a Queen never lets others think you’re in a hurry) back to her private chambers. She let out a shaky breath. Something else breathed behind her. She turned, face-to-face with the Underlord himself.

“Your warriors suffered greatly today, your Highness.”

Decades of fighting against him, but Usurna had never been so close to Gunmar in her life. He towered over her, his long horns threatening to brush against the top of the caves. How had he gotten in here?

“To what do I owe the pleasure, my Lord? How rare it is for guests to come unannounced to my rooms.”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries. I despise them.” He breathed in her face, hot and rancid. “Your army is dwindling. My Gumm-Gumm soldiers will obliterate them soon enough. You and your Tribe will fall by my sword. I offer an alternative scenario.”

“How generous of you.”

“Pledge your loyalty to me and all the Krubera with the Gumm-Gumms. The Krubera are mighty, but on their own are no match for my soldiers. But together, we could be invincible. I will even allow you to keep your sovereignty, as you rule beneath me.”

She would be lying if she said she’d never considered surrendering to Gunmar. What he said was true—the Krubera’s defeat was imminent, and if the Krubera, with their extraordinary physical prowess and strategically significant isolation, couldn’t protect themselves from Gunmar, what Troll tribes could? This was a losing battle, and perhaps it would be for the best if the Krubera joined the winning side. Especially with such a tempting offer, one that happened to keep her in (relative) power. But—

“But the Krubera would never surrender to you, my Lord. We are a willful group, you see, and if I allied with you after your armies have wrecked such devastation, it would only breed unrest and division. But—

She thought once again of her General, his whelp in his arms. Where did her Tribe’s loyalties lie, if she was so sure they would rebel against her decisions as Queen? How would she look, still so new to her role as Queen, what would her legacy be, if she surrendered to the enemy mere decades into her reign? The memory of her mother still lingered in most Krubera’s minds, as it did hers. She must remember her mother’s strength, embody her mother’s strength, to gain the respect of her Tribe. She needed a plan. There must be a way to motivate her Tribe, keep them under her sway, while still garnering the favor (and protection) of the Underlord.

“You want Krubera soldiers? Fine. You want my loyalty? Fine. But I will not reveal my allegiances to my Tribe until the time is right. Until they believe it is a lost cause, that you are truly the future and hope of all Trolls. Until they trust me unconditionally. It may be a while, but we have nothing but time. In the meantime, you will stage a raid on the Krubera. We will bravely but narrowly fight you off. But not before you’ve kidnapped our whelps and most impressionable youths. Train them, put them at the end of that blasted Decimaar blade I’ve heard so much about, do whatever you will, and they will obey you. I will use my Troll’s anger and desperation against them, to sway them to your side, until the time comes they will all join you willingly on the battlefield.”

***

“My citizens,” she began, surrounded by hundreds of concerned faces, “we have suffered terrible losses today. But we have not been defeated. The battle is not lost. We still have our strength. That strength can never be taken away, by Gunmar or any other Troll in the Earth. If we double down on our efforts, fight back harder and stronger than we ever have, we will defeat our enemies—conquer them and demonstrate that we are the superior Tribe.”

“But to win, we must make sacrifices. We must put aside our own desires and allegiances for the greater good. It is only when we are united under a common goal—under one leader— that we will have any chance of defeating the evil at our threshold. I hope that I have acted as a Queen must: to serve and direct the good of the Krubera. As my mother did before me. And I will continue to serve you until the evil is vanquished!”

A few trolls cheered, until her General stepped up. “Your words are wise, my Queen. We will fight with strength and courage. For the Krubera! For Aarghaumont! For Usurna, Queen of the Krubera!”

[spn-meanttobe]

Summaries Part Two [51-100]

Claiming Info -- FAQs/Rules The first Claims post will be a separate post going up on Saturday, November 7th at 12 pm EST. The second Claims post will be a separate post going up on Sunday, November 8th at 12 pm EST.

51. My Only Vice She's as pretty as a daisy... Sexy, easygoing Rosie Bliss may look like an innocent flower-shop owner, but former vice cop now police chief Sam Maguire is suspicious of the so-called herbs she grows along with her blooms. As sweet as a rose... So the serious detective launches an investigation into Rosie and her very mysterious past. But his most disturbing discovery? He's irresistibly attracted to free-spirited Rosie. And as dangerous as a Venus flytrap! Then cool, controlled Sam accidentally drinks a cup of her special brew and loses it completely! Not only does he end up sleeping with his suspect, he craves more – of Rosie, the most potent drug of all.

52. Night Shadow In a city ruled by fear... A solitary figure shrouded in black walked the night, determined to awaken a terrified metropolis from the nightmare of crime. There was nothing -- no bullets, and certainly not legal technicalities -- that could deter the man they called Nemesis from his mission. Deborah O'Roarke, an idealistic young prosecutor waging her own war against crime, owed Nemesis her very life. She shared his passion for justice, yet she could not accept his lawless methods. Still, though she fought her unwelcome desire for this disturbing stranger, she was unable to deny her longing to share the shadows that were his home.... After the night he saved Deborah O'Roarke from an attacker Nemesis rediscovered the sweet ache of longing. As Gage Guthrie he could woo her. But the idealistic prosecutor abhorred his vigilante approach to crime fighting. So how could he reveal he was the phantom who lurked in the Night Shadow? Fear casts a long shadow....

53. Night Shift Her voice was like whiskey, smooth and potent, but it was her contradictions that fascinated Detective Boyd Fletcher―the vulnerability beneath her tough-as-nails facade. Late-night radio announcer Cilla O'Roarke was being threatened by a caller, and it was Boyd's job to protect her no matter what. But the sultry deejay was getting under his skin, and the undeniable attraction that sizzled between them concerned the detective…because anything could happen on the Night Shift.

54. No Good Duke Goes Unpunished The ruin of the lady means the taming of the scoundrel. A rogue ruined... He is the Killer Duke, accused of murdering Mara Lowe on the eve of her wedding. With no memory of that fateful night, Temple has reigned over the darkest of London's corners for twelve years, wealthy and powerful, but beyond redemption. Until one night, Mara resurfaces, offering the one thing he's dreamed of: absolution. A lady returned... Mara planned never to return to the world from which she'd run, but when her brother falls deep into debt at Temple's exclusive casino, she has no choice but to offer Temple a trade that ends in her returning to society and proving to the world what only she knows...that he is no killer. A scandal revealed... It's a fine trade, until Temple realizes that the lady--and her past--are more than they seem. It will take every bit of his strength to resist the pull of this mysterious, maddening woman who seems willing to risk everything for honor... and to keep from putting himself on the line for love.

55. Once Smitten, Twice Shy Legend claims this antique Irish wedding veil can grant your heart's deepest desire. But be careful what you wish for... Wedding videographer Tish Gallagher is at the end of her rope. Her business is about to go bust. She's just spent her last buck on nonreturnable (but oh so fabulous) shoes. And her most sustainable relationship is with a pint of Häagen-Dazs. So she makes a wish on the lucky wedding veil to get out of debt...and sees the man she never stopped loving, her ex-husband, secret service agent Shane Tremont. Sure, their chemistry was off-the-charts sizzling hot, but their clashes were legendary, and no amount of longing will change that. When her dream job of recording the first daughter's wedding appears out of the blue, Tish knows it's her only shot to get out of the red. Just one teensy glitch: Shane is the groom. From the moment they see each other, she knows nothing's changed - the same old black magic is still between them, as irresistible and potent as ever. But he's promised to another and Tish has been burned before. Will she always be... once smitten, twice shy?

56. One Night with Morelli Warning: one night will never be enough… Draco Morelli: ruthless businessman, adoring father and wary ex-husband. This gorgeous Italian only ever signs up for temporary flings with glamorous women who know the rules of the game. Until he is blindsided by the one woman in all of London not interested in a relationship with him…. Eve Curtis: dedicated workaholic, loyal friend and self-professed singleton. Determined to remain independent, Eve has been happy keeping men at a safe distance. Until now. Because when Draco sweeps her off her feet and into his bedroom, he opens her eyes to a whole new world of sin and seduction!

57. One Night with the Shifter A one-night stand with a werewolf has unexpected consequences. After he is exiled from his pack, Tyee Grayson must learn to make it on his own. But one night with a beautiful stranger who has luminous blue eyes changes everything…. Especially when his instincts shout that she is the one. All elementary school teacher Jessica Brierly wanted was a night on the wild side, but when she finds herself pregnant, all the rules change. Not only does her lover have more secrets than she ever imagined, but suddenly they're both fighting off vampires. When vampires attack the town she dearly loves, Ty must work with his old pack to save them from a ruthless enemy who could kill not only his mate and his unborn child – but the entire human race.

58. One Texas Night Melinda Amery awoke to the double-barreled deep blue eyes of Lieutenant Grady Sloan. A more formidable – or handsome – man she'd never seen. And he wanted answers about a murder. Only, Melinda had none. She had no recall, except she knew nothing good would come from remembering... Grady was the kind of cop who wouldn't let go until he got what he wanted. With his job on the line, he needed to break the case. But the only witness had amnesia – and tormented dark eyes that needed healing. And Grady couldn't help his overwhelming attraction toward Melinda. But would her hidden memories reveal more than either of them wanted to know... ?

59. Pushing the Limits No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible. Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

60. Red, White & Royal Blue When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instagrammable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Red, White & Royal Blue proves true love isn't always diplomatic.

61. Renegade Protector When intimidation turns to deadly force, it's time for Frontier Justice. If ruthless developers want Mariana Balducci's land, they'll have to kill her for it. And they nearly succeed—until Ty Morrison foils her attacker. The sexy San Francisco cop is part of a secret organization called Frontier Justice. Mariana is tough, but she realizes she can't win this fight alone. And when bullets fly, Ty realizes battling bad guys is easier than fighting their sizzling attraction.

62. Rocky Mountain Wedding Melody Pennington fled to Montana for a new start as a mail-order bride. Gabe Brooks, handsome older brother to the man she was supposed to marry, helps her settle in. But what Melody doesn't expect is to fall for the rugged, closed-off lawman...

63. Romancing the Chef When Veronica Howard is invited to compete in an all-star TV cooking contest, the up-and-coming restaurateur is ready for a fair food fight. Then she discovers who her main competition is: Ace Brown, her friend from culinary school – now the world's hottest celebrity chef. Has she gone from the frying pan right into the fire? Ace Brown – aka the Sexy Chef – knows what women want. After all, recipes for desire are his globe-trotting specialty. Ronnie may not have given him the time of day back in school, but this time Ace is cooking up a surprise she can't resist. Seducing the voluptuous foodie will be his pleasure…until she turns up the heat. With sexual sparks flying, is the footloose bachelor about to become a connoisseur…of love?

64. Rumors that Ruined a Lady Amongst the gossip-hungry ton, no name has become more synonymous with sin than that of Lady Caroline Rider, cast out by her husband and disowned by her family. Rumor has it that the infamous Caro is now seeking oblivion in the opium dens of London! There's only one man who can save her: notorious rake Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow. Soon Caro is installed in his country home, warming his bed, but their passion may not be enough to protect them once news of their scandalous arrangement breaks out.

65. Secrets of a Gentleman Escort He's the talk of the ton – for all the wrong reasons! Society's most outrageous – and popular! – escort Nicholas D'Arcy is renowned for his utmost discretion. So when he suddenly finds himself named and shamed by a jealous husband, he reluctantly accepts a summons to the countryside…a fate worse than death! Annorah Price-Ellis isn't what Nick is used to – innocent, feisty and decidedly uncomfortable with the spontaneous heat between them! Suddenly, London's most audacious lover is out of his depth, and in danger of revealing the real man behind the polished facade….

66. Seduced by the Operative For psychologist Claire Cantwell--code name Cyrene--the stakes couldn't be higher. Tapped for a top-secret mission for the president, the OMEGA covert operative needed the unique expertise of a man with whom she'd shared danger--and her bed. Lethally attractive special ops agent and ultra-suave diplomat Luis Esteban wanted more than Claire was ready to give. Now, with their very survival at stake, Claire has to trust Luis with her life... even if that means surrendering the one thing she vowed never to give: her heart.

67. Serendipity Faith Harrington was the classic girl of privilege - until her father was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme and then her marriage crashed and burned. Now Faith is back in her hometown, hoping for a fresh start. But her father's betrayal has rocked Serendipity - and not everyone is ready to welcome her with open arms. Then she runs into her teenage crush - the dark, brooding Ethan Barron. Ethan, no stranger to scandal himself, never imagined he'd own the mansion on the hill, much less ever again come face-to-face with Faith - the princess he once kissed senseless. The chance meeting reignites the electric charge between them. Still, when Ethan hires her to redecorate what was once her childhood home, Faith is sure that getting involved with the town's notorious bad boy will lead only to trouble. But her heart has other ideas. And so do the townspeople of Serendipity...

68. Shades of Desire Natalie Jones is the lucky survivor of an elusive killer who preys on young women and then disappears from view. And since her harrowing ordeal, the once gutsy photojournalist has remained isolated in her home, paralyzed by fear and her failing vision. Special Agent Liam "Mac" McKenzie has scars of his own. But despite his efforts to ignore the attraction that simmers between him and Natalie, he needs her help to catch a predator. Soon, they will forge a tentative alliance, charged with desire. Through a soft-focus lens, Natalie dares to envision a future with Mac beyond the investigation & never guessing that the clues hidden within her photographs are drawing them into an explosive confrontation with a madman.

69. She's Got it Bad Twelve years ago Zoe Ford let Liam Masters break her heart. But now? There's not a chance. Zoe is as tough and wild as they come. So when Liam shows up at her tattoo parlor, she's more than ready to take him on again. That's not going to be a hardship, since he's hotter than he ever was. This time she's staying in charge. And she's not going to consider their score settled until he's hot, bothered and begging for more! Then she'll move on as callously as he left her. Unless all that deliciously bad sex is just too good to give up….

70. Snowbound with the Soldier Maybe this Christmas…? It has been seven long years since Kara Jameson last saw Jason Greene. Returning home as a wounded war hero, Jason looks a shell of the man she once knew. Yet her heart still skips a beat as if it was yesterday…. Stepping back into civilian life, Jason looks to Kara for help. But there's too much water under the bridge – not to mention too much lingering attraction. But it seems that the mountain weather has other ideas, and when Kara and Jason end up snowbound together they are forced to confront the ghosts of Christmas past.

71. Soldier Caged

He'd lost blood and comrades on the world's battlefields, but neither compared to losing his memory. Waking up in a secret military bunker, drugged, with vague images of a mission gone bad, Jonah had nowhere to turn. Until help came in the form of the one woman he'd always remember... Psychologist Sophia Rhodes never got over the bad boy who'd stolen her good-girl heart a decade ago. But without military training, how could she possibly steal Jonah from a high-security facility? She had only one hope--that he'd never forgotten her, either. Sophia knew the breakout was the easy part. Somehow she had to help Jonah focus his hazy images--before a desperate man made sure he'd never remember...

72. Sound Bites Renee Evans has a knack for trouble. After walking in on her best friend and boyfriend in bed together, twenty-five-year-old Renee flees her dream job as a music journalist in sunny Los Angeles and returns to her hometown of Boston – only to meet Dylan Cavallari, the mysterious, aspiring musician who lives in her apartment building. Dylan's piercing gaze and womanizing demeanor make him exactly the type of guy that Renee should steer clear of – which is most likely the reason she falls for him. But when Renee's troublesome ex comes back and threatens to drive her and Dylan apart, Renee is forced to face her past and save her relationship with Dylan before it's too late.

73. Succubus Blues When it comes to jobs in hell, being a succubus seems pretty glamorous. A girl can be anything she wants, the wardrobe is killer, and mortal men will do anything just for a touch. Granted, they often pay with their souls, but why get technical? But Seattle succubus Georgina Kincaid's life is far less exotic. Her boss is a middle-management demon with a thing for John Cusack movies. Her immortal best friends haven't stopped teasing her about the time she shape-shifted into the Demon Goddess getup complete with whip and wings. And she can't have a decent date without sucking away part of the guy's life. At least there's her day job at a local bookstore--free books; all the white chocolate mochas she can drink; and easy access to bestselling, sexy writer, Seth Mortensen, aka He Whom She Would Give Anything to Touch but Can't. But dreaming about Seth will have to wait. Something wicked is at work in Seattle's demon underground. And for once, all of her hot charms and drop-dead one-liners won't help because Georgina's about to discover there are some creatures out there that both heaven and hell want to deny...

74. Tell Me Your Secrets It was a dark and sexy night... And Brooke Ashby knew she was in over her head. As head writer for the soap opera Secrets, she was used to living vicariously through her characters. But that all changed the day she learned she was adopted, and that her identical twin sister had mysteriously disappeared. What else could she do but try to discover what had happened, even if it meant taking her sister's place? It shouldn't be hard. After all, she was good at research and had a talent for acting, if she did say so herself. Her plan seemed foolproof…until Brooke found herself in bed with her sister's fiancé….

75. Temptation's Kiss Patrice Sutton has just landed the role of her career. Snagging the female lead opposite devastatingly handsome, six-foot-three movie idol T. K. McKenna is a dream come true. When she learns they'll be filming out West she's secretly thrilled…and ready to show her gorgeous co-star the ropes of life on the ranch. Until T.K. turns the tables – by initiating her into the art of seduction far from the camera's glare. T.K. knows that with her incredible beauty, talent and sweet sincerity, Patrice has what it takes to make it really big. And the burgeoning film star is showing T.K. a passion more real than anything he's ever experienced on – or off – the screen. But what will it take to prove to her that she's the only woman he'll ever desire…and love?

76. Texas Mom Texas veterinarian Delaney Blair will do anything to find a bone marrow donor for her four-year-old son, Nickolas. The only likely match is his Argentinean father, Dario. But Dario and Delaney didn't part on good terms. In fact, he doesn't even know he has a son! Delaney travels to Argentina to find him, and Dario, shocked, returns to Texas. It's not long before Nick and Dario become close. Not only that, Dario can't hide the feelings he has for Delaney – feelings that have been there since they met. Dario's family doesn't want him to be with her. But now they have to see if the love between them is strong enough to keep them together.

77. The Cajun Cowboy Talk about a bad hair day! Louisiana beauty salon owner Charmaine LeDeux has a loan shark on her tail, and Raoul Lanier, the six-foot-three hunk of testosterone she thought she divorced, has just delivered a bombshell: They're still married! At least the rundown ranch they've inherited together is the perfect hideout. Holy crawfish! It's hard enough for Raoul to play cowboy to a bunch of scrawny steer, let alone suffer the exquisite torture of living with the delectable Charmaine, who's declared herself a born-again virgin. What's a man crazy with desire to do? Seduce her on their home on the range, even if it means taking advice from bachelor ranch hands, Charmaine's belly-dancing great-aunt, and St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. With the moon shining over the bayou and the Dixie Mafia in hot pursuit, this Cajun cowboy must sweet-talk his way into his wife's arms again...before she unties the knot for good!

78. The Happy Baker We've all been there. The blind date from hell. The Big Hurt. The guy who details his various surgeries over Caesar salad on the first date. Who needs a pint of rocky road when you can head to the kitchen and work out your heartache with a whisk and a bottle of wine? Erin Bolger has been there, dated that and baked through it all. Turns out the more bitter the heartbreak, the sweeter the batter. So don't cry over bad dates, bad boyfriends or bad breakups – whip up a batch of My-Mom-Didn't-Like-You-Anyway Cupcakes and bake yourself happy.

79. The Heist FBI Special Agent Kate O'Hare is known for her fierce dedication and discipline on the job, chasing down the world's most wanted criminals and putting them behind bars. Her boss thinks she is tenacious and ambitious; her friends think she is tough, stubborn, and maybe even a bit obsessed. And while Kate has made quite a name for herself for the past five years the only name she's cared about is Nicolas Fox -- an international crook she wants in more ways than one. Audacious, handsome, and dangerously charming, Nicolas Fox is a natural con man, notorious for running elaborate scams on very high-profile people. At first he did it for the money. Now he does it for the thrill. He knows that the FBI has been hot on his trail -- particularly Kate O'Hare, who has been watching his every move. For Nick, there's no greater rush than being pursued by a beautiful woman... even one who aims to lock him up. But just when it seems that Nicolas Fox has been captured for good, he pulls off his greatest con of all: He convinces the FBI to offer him a job, working side by side with Special Agent Kate O'Hare. Problem is, teaming up to stop a corrupt investment banker who's hiding on a private island in Indonesia is going to test O'Hare's patience and Fox's skill. Not to mention the skills of their ragtag team made up of flamboyant actors, wanted wheelmen, and Kate's dad. High-speed chases, pirates, and Toblerone bars are all in a day's work... if O'Hare and Fox don't kill each other first.

80. The Inn at Eagle Point It's been years since Abby O'Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores. The Maryland town her father built has too many sad memories and Abby too few spare moments, thanks to her demanding Wall Street career, the crumbling of her marriage and energetic twin daughters. Then one panicked phone call from her youngest sister brings her racing back home to protect Jess's dream of renovating the charming Inn at Eagle Point. But saving the inn from foreclosure means dealing not only with her own fractured family, but also with Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago. Trace can be a roadblock to her plans...or proof that second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.

81. The Klone and I After thirteen years of marriage and two kids, Stephanie was devastated when her husband left her for a younger woman. Suddenly she was alone. Then a spur-of-the-moment trip to Paris changed everything. Peter Baker was a handsome high-tech entrepreneur also visiting the city. Stephanie was certain it couldn't possibly work. But much to her amazement, he contacted her when they returned to New York. And Stephanie embarked on a bizarre and hilarious adventure beyond her wildest dreams. Shy, serious Peter, chairman of a bionic enterprise, was supposed to be away on business. Instead, he's standing at her door, wearing satin and rhinestones. Naturally, Stephanie thinks it's a joke -- until the truth suddenly dawns: this isn't Peter playing a role. This is his double! Calling himself Paul Klone, this wild, uninhibited creature isn't even remotely like Peter except for his identically sexy good looks. This uproarious novel explores the outrageous love triangle that develops between Stephanie, Peter... and The Klone.

82. The Man from Atlantis These days, eligible, attractive, single men weren't exactly coming out of the woodwork! So when Jenna stumbled across a gorgeous male specimen, she couldn't let a mere ten-thousand-year age difference interfere with romance! Besides, everyone knows older men are sexy!

83. The Man With Emerald Eyes A victim of her brother's gambling debts, lovely Theone Danvers had been left to choose between the hell of debtor's prison - and the lecherous arms of the Marquis de Juliers. But Theone was a fiery beauty with a mind of her own. Disguised as a lad, she took to the highroad with smoking pistols, and stole herself a fortune in gold. Then, in the green depths of the forest, she meets a rival - a highwayman with haunting emerald eyes, a price on his head, and a noble secret in his past. They join forces, and Theone rides headlong into the greatest danger of her renegade career: the unquenchable passions of a woman's first love!

84. The Prince Charming List Heather Lowell asked herself this question after moving to Prichett, Wisconsin, to temporarily manage the Cut and Curl Beauty Salon. She's hopeful that this summer she will finally find the love of her life. She even has a list detailing everything she wants in her Prince Charming. But when two men enter her life, Heather suddenly needs to figure out what she really wants – and whether handyman Ian Dexter or rebel-artist Jared Ward figures into her happily ever after.

85. The Ranger Texas Ranger Mitch Striker's uncomplicated bachelor lifestyle suits him just fine: catch the bad guys and move on. But there's nothing straightforward about struggling single mom Brandie Ryland or her adorable four-year-old son, Toby. The beautiful redhead is the prime suspect in Mitch's undercover investigation. But when a hostage standoff leaves Brandie's family vulnerable and uncovers a roomful of contraband and drugs, Mitch second-guesses her involvement in the crime…and his ability to keep his emotional distance. With the danger growing and the clock ticking, Mitch must save Brandie, catch the perps and handle the daddy heartstrings Toby keeps tugging on. Then he'll have to face the secrets he's sure Brandie's keeping – before they become his undoing.

86. The Rose Contract Love is free. Innocence has a price. Raena Barren was born with a secret: of all the magic users in the kingdom of Soma, she is the only one who can hide her power. As a child, she used this magic to help her survive on the streets--until she saved the life of a strange boy called Jorr Portent. He rewarded her with a job in the castle of Soma--and Raena spent the next ten years falling in love with him. But while Raena's life as a servant is sheltered, Jorr's world is one of spies and assassins. When Raena comes of age, their paths will diverge forever… unless Raena can earn a place by his side. To become one of Jorr's operatives, however, Raena must get to know her own body, and outsmart the deadly people around her. She must also sell her innocence to whatever man pays the most… even if that man can't be Jorr.

87. The Secret His Mistress Carried Hiding from the Greek… The ink is barely dry on Giorgios Letsos's divorce papers, but there's only one thing on this unstoppable Greek's mind: finding Billie Smith, his mistress before his marriage. But the sweet, pliable woman he once knew slams the door in his face! Billie fought hard to heal her broken heart after Gio chose to marry someone else. When he storms back into her life, she's determined not to fall for his seduction again. Especially now that she has a secret to protect…their son. But she hadn't counted on just how badly he wants her back in his bed!

88. The Space Between Us Tesla Martin is drifting pleasantly through life, slinging lattes at Morningstar Mocha, enjoying the ebb and flow of caffeine-starved customers, devoted to her cadre of regulars. But none of the bottomless-cup crowd compares with Meredith, a charismatic force of nature who can coax intimate tales from even the shyest of Morningstar's clientele. Caught in Meredith's sensual, irresistible orbit, inexpressibly flattered by the siren's attention, Tesla shares long-buried chapters of her life, holding nothing back. Nothing Meredith proposes seems impossible – not even Tesla sleeping with Meredith's husband, Charlie, while she looks on. After all, it's all in fun, isn't it? In a heartbeat, vulnerable Tesla is swept into a spectacular love triangle. Together, gentle, grounded Charlie and sparkling, maddening Meredith are everything Tesla has ever needed, wanted, or dreamed of, even if no one else on earth understands. They're three against the world. But soon one of the vertices begins pulling away until only two points remain – and the space between them gapes with confusion, with grief and with possibility….

89. The Texas Ranger's Reward Is he seeing double? He can't believe his eyes. When Travis Stillman meets Melissa Dalton, it's as if he's seeing the ghost of his late wife. That explains why his young son warms to Melissa so quickly. The orthopedic therapist is working wonders to help Casey readjust after an accident -- his boy has come alive again. But that's no reason for this former Texas Ranger to let his guard down as he settles into life as a P.I. and single dad. No woman can replace his wife -- especially not one who could be her twin. And when Melissa hires him to investigate a break-in at her family's cabin, he's even more determined to ignore the growing attraction between them. Now he's got to protect both Melissa, and his heart.

90. The Vampire Affair The world knew Michael Brandt as a playboy tycoon. The underworld knew him as a fierce vampire hunter. Armed with a wooden stake and superior strength, Michael targeted the most powerful overlords in a clandestine do-or-die operation...and then tabloid reporter Jessie Morgan uncovered his secret. Only once before had Michael allowed a woman into his secret lair. Now he'd fight heaven and hell to keep Jessie from the same fate. But he couldn't fight the attraction that drew him to her like a bloodlust. An attraction that might prove deadly...or worse. For Michael was going up against the most powerful of the undead--and that vampire had his fangs bared for Jessie.

91. Thief of Hearts An Innocent Beauty. Prim and pampered, Lucinda Snow knew little of men and nothing of danger, until the fog-shrouded night she found herself abducted—and at the mercy of the legendary Captain Doom. Ruthless and mocking, tender and virile, the notorious pirate awakened all Lucy's passionate longings, then abandoned her with nothing but a kiss... A Pirate's Prize. Now safely at home, the alluring waif is tormented by treacherous memories—and by the presence of Gerard Claremont, her mysterious new bodyguard. Everything about him, from his forbidding size to his impertinent manner, sparks her defiance. And even when Gerard's smile turns seductive, no one can make her forget Doom. Yet only when Lucy's path crosses the captain's once more, will she learn who is on a voyage of retribution, and who is out to steal her heart...

92. Things Good Girls Don't Do Good girls don't steal. Good girls don't visit sex shops. Good girls don't have one-night stands. For Katie Conners, being a good girl just isn't worth it anymore. It used to mean getting the life she always wanted. But that was before she got dumped and her ex got engaged to his rebound. So, after a bad day and one too many mojitos, Katie starts making a list of things a girl like her would never do, not in a million years... As a tattoo artist with a monster motorcycle, Chase Trepasso isn't the kind of guy you bring home to mom and dad. And when he finds Katie's list in a bar, he's more than happy to help her check off a few items. Especially the ones on the naughtier side... Katie's more than tempted by Chase's offer, as long as they keep things uncomplicated. But as they spend more time together, she may just wind up breaking the most important rule of all: Good girls don't fall in love with bad boys.

93. This Tender Truce The Boutonnet vineyards, passed down in her family for generations, mean everything to Tory. But she hadn't counted on her grandfather's one condition of her taking over: marry his godson, Chance Mobley. Unfortunately, Tory had decided long ago that she could never truly love the arrogant Frenchman. He had been raised alongside her, and she had loved him once – a child's crush. But Chance has no business being officially inducted into the Boutonnet family, and certainly doesn't deserve her beloved vineyard. As it turns out though, wine might not be the only thing for which Tory has a passion. And Chance has a few things to teach her about love.

94. Undead and Unwed It's been a helluva week for Betsy Taylor. First, she loses her job. Then, to top things off, she's killed in a car accident. But what really bites (besides waking up in the morgue dressed in a pink suit and cheap shoes courtesy of her stepmother) is that she can't seem to stay dead. Every night she rises, with a horrible craving for blood. She's not taking too well to a liquid diet. Worst of all, her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious, power-hungry vampire in five centuries--a badly dressed Bela Lugosi wannabe, natch. Frankly, Betsy couldn't care less about vamp politics, but they have a powerful weapon of persuasion: designer shoes. How can any self-respecting girl say no? But a collection of Ferragamos isn't the only temptation for Betsy. It's just a lot safer than the scrumptious Sinclair--a seductive bloodsucker whose sexy gaze seems as dangerous as a stake through the heart...

95. Unguarded Rhiannon Jenkins is an events planner on the rise. And her latest client, Shawn Emerson, could make her career. Too bad the gorgeous man insists on mixing a lot of pleasure with his business. In Rhiannon's books getting involved with a client is the fastest way to exit a job. So, no. She'll resist all his come-get-me looks and tempting offers. While his charm is easy to overlook, Shawn in the role of confidant and friend breaks down all her best defenses. Suddenly the tables turn and she wants to be close to him. That means opening up about the ugly events of her past – a risk she hasn't taken before now. Oh, but he could be so worth it!

96. Walking Dead For once, Joanne Walker's not out to save the world. She's come to terms with the host of shamanic powers she's been given, her job as a police detective has been relatively calm, and she's got a love life for the first time in memory. Not bad for a woman who started out the year mostly dead. But it's Halloween, and the undead have just crashed Joanne's party. Now, with her mentor Coyote still missing, she has to figure out how to break the spell that has let the ghosts, zombies and even the Wild Hunt come back. Unfortunately, there's no shamanic handbook explaining how to deal with the walking dead. And if they have anything to say about it – which they do – no one's getting out of there alive.

97. What Waits Below Out of the depths... – All her life, Kendra Tremaine had trembled at the very thought of Lynx Lake. She had known even as a child that something unspeakable waited below the surface of the water and she had long sworn never again to set foot on its shore. And yet now she was back to take possession of the family estate that was her unwanted legacy. The legends of Lynx Lake had summoned another visitor, a man of strange powers and dark knowledge. Hart Rainwalker's obsession with the lake's secrets terrified Kendra, even as his brooding passion called to her soul. He claimed only he could protect her from the awful presence that threatened her. But who would protect her from her self-appointed guardian?

98. Wife for Hire The Prospective Husband with a Racy Past... Hank Mallone spotted trouble when she sat down and said she'd marry him! Maggie Toone was a tempting firecracker who'd make his life delightful hell if he let her pretend to be his wife in order to improve his rogue's reputation. Would his harebrained scheme to get a bank loan for his business backfire once Maggie arrived in his small Vermont town and let the gossips take a look? Maggie never expected her employer to be drop-dead handsome, or to affect her like a belt of bourbon on an empty stomach, but she was too intrigued by his offer to say no... and too eager to escape a life that made her feel trapped. The deal was strictly business, both agreed... until Hank turned out to be every fantasy she'd ever had, and Maggie was so bright, funny and downright irresistible that Hank fell head over heels in love! While the town watched, Hank wooed his wife with a charm that had never failed him yet. Could he make her dreams real by proving she belonged in his arms?

99. Wild Heat Sometimes old flames are the hottest of all... In the quaint little town of Cailkirn, Alaska, it's impossible to keep a secret, especially one as juicy as the unexpected return of Kitty Grant. Tack MacKinnon remembers her wild red curls and even wilder spirit-and still feels the sting from when she shattered his heart in college. But there's a pain in Kitty's gorgeous eyes that guts him to the core and Tack is determined to do whatever it takes to see the woman he still loves smile again - even if it means taking on her demons as his own. After fleeing an abusive ex-husband, Kitty decides that the best way to heal her broken heart is to come back home. But she gets a whole new shock when she sees how undeniably sexy Tack has become. More handsome, more muscular, more charming-more everything - he's impossible to resist. Before she knows it, they're reigniting sparks that could set the whole state of Alaska on fire. Yet trust doesn't come easy to Kitty anymore, and as things heat up between her and Tack, she can't help but wonder if one of them is going to get burned...

100. Zombie Moon Caleb Locke lived for one thing — killing zombies. And this man — this legend — was exactly what Samantha Wagner needed. In mist-shrouded alleys, hunted by zombies, haunted by fear, she vowed to find Caleb and convince him to help her. But she hadn't counted on falling in love…. Caleb kept his own secrets — like the one he couldn't hide when the moon was full. But his wolf was drawn to Samantha, recognizing her as his mate. With her in his arms, Caleb reveled in passion… and rued his deception. Would she still love the man who fought by her side if she realized that zombies weren't the only monsters? Samantha would have to make a choice—and she only had till the next full moon.

[wolfqueen-is-here]

“Especially Now”, Jon x Sansa fanfiction

Eh, so I went to the dentist a few days ago to have my wisdom tooth pulled. Despite being on a shitload of anaesthetics/painkillers, I needed a distraction from all the pain, hence - this. (And also I may have found out where the name “wisdom tooth” comes from. Since the extraction I’ve been feeling considerably dumber than usual, I believe that tooth may have contained a huge chunk of my usual eloquence, now irrevocably gone.)

If you prefer reading on ao3, here’s a link.

Title: “Especially Now”

Relationship: Jon/Sansa

Wordcount: 1742

Tags: love confessions (sort of), godswood, post-parentage reveal, mild hurt/comfort, POV Sansa, Post-season 7, before battle

ESPECIALLY NOW

It’s been three days since they learned the truth, and Jon doesn’t seem to be getting better. The Others are closer every day, Bran says, but Jon is either staring at the walls during meetings or he’s disappearing for hours, maybe longer. Even Daenerys Targaryen grows suspicious.

„Lady Sansa, forgive me,” she interrupts her once, smiling kindly. Littlefinger was right, she is the most stunning woman Sansa has ever laid eyes on. The worry suits her, too. Her face becomes softer, almost girly, a shadow of who they all were before the world forced them to grow up. „There are some final arrangements that we need to consult with your brother, but he is nowhere to be found. Would you please ask him to visit Lord Tyrion’s chambers as soon as you see him?”

It’s not even an order, it’s a plea. The Dragon Queen is concerned—and so is Sansa.

She gives Daenerys a brief nod and gets back to her solar to put on her coat. There is only one place where he would seek solace other than the crypts—and he’s definitely not in the crypts, Arya’s already checked.

It’s not possible to sneak up on somebody in the godswood, the snow crunching under Sansa’s feet announces her presence long before she reaches a hunched, miserable creature sitting on one of the roots. He knows that he’s no longer alone, she takes it from the way his shoulders tense up under a leather jerkin.

“If you want to freeze yourself to death, could you please do it after the Night King is defeated?” Sansa asks, and it’s supposed to sound playful but comes out almost mean. She bites her lip, comes a few steps closer, and then covers him with another fur, the one she’s been carrying through Winterfell’s courtyards, raising curious glances.

She lingers a while longer with her hand on Jon’s shoulder. “I’m with you,” she wants to say, but somehow the reassurance refuses to form. They’ve been telling him the same thing for days, why would he decide to listen to her now? He needs to be alone, she knows that, but unfortunately, it’s the last thing they should let him do. They are his family and nothing will change it.

Jon doesn’t move for another two or three minutes, and Sansa begins to consider releasing his shoulder and retreating to the safety of her solar when suddenly he raises his hand and places it over Sansa’s. She’s got her gloves on, but even through thick leather she can feel the icy touch. She glances down and realises that his hand went almost blue from the cold.

“Jon!” she yells at him—or maybe just whispers, it’s all very quiet around here, she wouldn’t want to disturb the gods—and crunches down in front of Jon to force him to look at her. “You need to snap out of this,” she says, a tinge of rebuke in her voice. “We need you. Not in some fight against the dead that we may as well lose even with you leading our armies. We need you as our family. Arya and Bran need you. I need you.”

Jon finally looks at her—and there’s so much pain in his eyes, it almost physically hurts Sansa to see him like that. She takes both of his hands in hers—partly to make him listen to what she has to say more carefully, the touch always seems to work magic between them, and partly to warm them up—and tugs them under her furs, close to her heart.

“I’m sorry that it happened, Jon. I truly am. No one should have to find out such things after years of carefully building their identity around some scraps that turned out to be lies. You might think that I have no idea of what I speak, but I too was always proven to be wrong about everything I wanted to be. It’s offensive to compare these two, I know, but please take it from the deepest, most honest part of my soul: you might not be our brother, but you will always be our family. There’s only four of us left, you and I, and Arya, and Bran. We are the pack. We are a family. We are the Starks.”

“I’m not a Stark,” he says grimly with a hoarse voice. Sansa is certain he’s been crying for the better part of the last few days. She’d do anything to make him understand.

“You are,” she insists. “Don’t be ridiculous. As far as I’m concerned this only proves you are more of a Stark than you’ve been thus far.” Jon doesn’t look away for a second, as if searching for something in her eyes that would make him believe her words. He seems so lost, she just wants to lock him in a tight embrace and never let go. “I know my mother was never kind to you. Your identity was a hurtful lie she died believing, and it breaks my heart to imagine how different our lives might have been in different circumstances. I hope you forgive her, and I hope she forgives Father for what he put her through. But Father… He loved you with all his heart. If you think even for a minute that Ned Stark wasn’t your true parent—” Jon squeezes her hand tight as if he’s clinging to this declaration. “I don’t care whose blood you share. Father risked everything he held dear to give you a good life, to protect you from King Robert’s wrath, from all the enemies who might have come for your head, had they learned the truth. He raised you as his own, and I’m sure he died regretting that the truth was dying with him. You are a Stark on your father’s side, and now you’re a Stark on your mother’s side, too. In fact, you’re more of a Stark than any of us. Arya, Bran, and I are all half-Stark and half-Tully,” she smiles.

And Jon looks at her for a moment with bright eyes—Sansa thinks there might be tears forming in them but it’s something else entirely, something thrilling, challenging even. And then he smiles back. It’s weak and lasts only a mere second, but it’s undeniably there. Jon pulls her closer and buries his face in her furs.

“You don’t have to be kind to me,” he murmurs.

Sansa rolls her eyes.

“Of course I don’t have to be kind to you, you dummy. I choose to be kind to you because I love you,” she says angrily, and to make her point stronger places a soft kiss to the top of his head, not unlike the one he once gifted to her.

They stay like that for a while, hugging tightly, their arms tangled together, Jon breathing into Sansa’s neck and Sansa stroking the top of his head with her nose, until it dawns on them how strange they must look from the outside.

Well, it certainly dawns on Sansa, because when she suddenly pulls back, Jon seems to have been taken by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a mortified expression, “was I making you uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?” She blinks at him. “Of course not. Why would you make me uncomfortable?”

There’s a long, silent moment when Jon studies her face carefully as if it is the first time he ever sees her. Then he lets go of her hands and hides his own under his cloak.

“If I asked you a question… Would you answer truthfully?”

It should probably offend her that he would think otherwise, but she decides not to comment on that. He’s way too vulnerable to deal with her wounded pride just yet.

Instead, Sansa simply nods.

It seems to be as good an encouragement as any, because Jon makes this stupid face which he uses when he’s being stubborn: like when he insisted on going to a fight with just a bunch of men, or when he declared that he would be riding south to convince Daenerys Targaryen to fight for them. Only this time it’s about something much more personal, she can feel it.

Jon lowers his eyes almost as if he can’t look at Sansa while he asks.

“About what you said earlier.”

Sansa expects him to continue, but that’s all she seems to be getting.

“I said many things, Jon,” she sighs.

“You said you loved me.” Ah, that. “Why?”

His voice is shaking, he sounds almost too afraid to be hopeful. It breaks her heart.

“What do you mean why? I said it because it is how I feel. You are the most important person in the entire world to me.”

Although Sansa has never wondered about it before, she knows in her heart that it’s true. She loves Arya and Bran more than she loves herself, but Jon is the first person she ever loved for who he was and what they shared together, not someone whom she was conditioned to love no matter what. Maybe it was lady Catelyn’s doing. Maybe it was for the better.

Jon still refuses to look her in the eye.

“Even now?” he asks quietly. “Even after it’s been revealed that I’m not your brother?”

“Especially now,” she answers without really giving it much thought. Seeing that he finally raises his head and stares at her, she gives him an encouraging smile and stands up. Turning to get back to the castle, she hears him whisper:

“Sansa.”

Something about the tone of his voice stops her in her tracks. She doesn’t turn back to him, hit by freezing wind from the North. For a short moment Sansa fears that they’re nearing the end at last, that Winterfell might be under attack, but then she hears Jon’s pleading words:

“Especially now?” There’s a thunder coming from afar. Or maybe it’s just the beating of Sansa’s heart? “Why especially?”

And at this moment, witnessed by the old gods, Sansa finally realises.

She loves Jon, yes.

But she’s also in love with Jon.

A terrifying awakening, and one that is followed by the sound of horns from the gates. “They’re here,” Sansa thinks, and Jon looks at her for the last time before he grabs her hand and they run together towards the castle. “Please,” she prays to the gods, “please let us live, so that I may tell him one day.”

[antheiin]

Revered - Supergiant Challenge

Part 1 (1,490 Words)

CHALLENGE: With no recollection of your life the past few hundred years, you sit at the throne of your temple. Your followers are preparing a ritual that will ascend you as an Elder God, but their success will end the lives of thousands. Your now-adult son has agreed to help you escape, but if you're caught they'll kill him. You have 48 hours until the ritual is complete. The challenge type is drabble, and you have 24 hours from the publication of this ask to start your challenge. Good luck!

She used to sleep very deeply. Used to, being the important part. Nowadays, it took little more than footsteps coming too close, or a change in the wind for her to startle awake. Too many incidents, too many close calls. Miriam did not play with her own safety in such vulnerable moments, not since she’d started spending most of her time outside. So, when she comes up from the deepest parts of unconsciousness, Miriam comes up all at once with the strange dread that she’s being watched. Sitting up, the quilt falls to her lap, and in just a moment, Miriam realizes how painfully wrong this is.

Her room is small, engulfed by most of the bed, eclectic in many ways. This isn’t it. This is too large and too light, too much, and the sense of dread falls way to an abject fear. It’s only three days after the day, right? There’s some sick joke involved. Miriam is to her feet in an instant, pacing back and forth and becoming further concerned about the fact that this doesn’t feel like her house. The windows are wrong, the scent of the air incorrect.

Then there are footsteps outside the door, and she bolts for the window. It’s no use, she soon finds, throwing the curtains open reveals a set of iron bars, twisted in a mocking decoration. Panic bubbling in her chest, Miriam whimpers, and debates what might occur if she puts her fist through the glass. Footsteps come closer, and closer, and the whimper becomes a strangled sob, somewhere between embarrassing and so overwhelmed that she might just explode. It opens up, and Miriam is flattened to the wall with a hundred questions lodged in her throat.

Where this is. Who this is. What’s happened to her. And if this is even the Spirale still.

The figure on the other side of the door is a tall one, a good eight inches above herself, and taking up the doorway. Miriam tries to speak, and stutters over herself, and the stranger comes closer, hands shoved into the pockets of a hoodie and gaze a bit too familiar for her liking.  The whole world has become wrong upon the opening of her eyes, and any stoicism that Miriam has is failing her further and further.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay, don’t, oh hell don’t scream.” The voice trips on itself, and Miriam gets flashes of his appearance in the form of dark hair and a beard, nothing she’s seen in a person before. “C’mon mom, I can’t have scared you that badly.” Those words spark confusion, and Miriam stops dead to stare at the other’s face.

It take her a minute, but Miriam begins finding the pieces she hadn’t before. The dark hair that used to be no more than dark fluff, now curling like his father’s did. The stranger’s nose was a carbon copy of her own, and the dense pattern of freckles across his cheeks and nose were nothing if not her’s. So many features that had not seemed so obvious when he had been smaller, now pieces of her and Thanatos clear as day. Miriam draws in a breath and promptly chokes on it, grabbing the much larger image of her son by the shoulders and clutching until her knuckles turn white.

“Fedir- holy shit holy shit this isn’t real. You, you were so small the last time I saw you.” Miriam���s heart is in her throat, and her head stuck somewhere on illusion. “What the fuck, this, I- explain. Explain right now.”

“What are you talking about?” The voice isn’t what she imagined for when Fedir got to talking. It’s rougher and carries more of the depth that both she and Thanatos could carry when facing the world head on. “I just saw you last week, remember? You were kinda out of it, but you recognized me just fine.”

“I, I uh. Yeah.” Play along, she begs herself. Keep all of those memory pieces in that you lose so often together and make something up. It’s going to be for the best, just until she knows something more. “Yeah. I just, I, god, you seem so real.” She’s sitting up now, looking over the other’s face now. Fedir seems tired, and trying to hide, judging by everything.

“I am real,” he replies, and Miriam chokes on her inhale. “You, I can’t stay long though. But I wanted to make sure you’re okay. With uh, with what you told me about what you heard, we gotta expedite this break-out.”

“Humor me. Please. Can you remind me just what I told you? I know it sounds weird, but just do it.”

Thankfully, the Fedir who skipped forward in time without her nods, and she doesn’t have to beg anymore. That gives her more brain power to focus on just how out of place she feels, and Miriam something akin to dread the more she puts into it.

“Okay, so, you were at the meeting, but you’re talking like you phased out for a little while.” Fedir gives her fingers a squeeze, and Miriam questions how much time has passed. “But, the Sergeant, he said that they were going to start the ritual soon. The um, you told me about it, but I don’t remember how it goes. Maybe that’s better.” He frets just like she does, and Miriam smiles weakly and squeezes his hands right back.

“Maybe, yeah. Just keep telling me. All of it. My head is really fuzzy.” It’s only a partial lie. The more Miriam tries to fit this into reality, the more her head hurts. Briefly, she checks herself for a fever, and wishes that this could just be that instead of whatever nonsense she’s been hurled into.

“The ritual, it’s the one where they’re apparently gonna, eugh, I can’t, I can’t talk about it without feeling sick. But it’s in that book the Sergeant keeps, the part about bleeding a god out of their mortal form?” Fedir’s facial expression contorts, and Miriam goes stark white. This part, she can remember. It’s clear as day, really.

Katherine had told her about it once, while cradling her face and running the flat side of her knife against her ribs. Miriam had been tied to a kitchen chair in the biggest house in that cult town somewhere in the fog, screaming herself hoarse the entire time. That memory is clear as day, and suddenly, everything made a little bit more sense.

When Katherine had discussed it with her, the process had been more thoroughly talked through in that odd encounter than it was here. It had been a whole thing, involving the burning of herbs and blood being smeared across the body before its eventual torment. A terribly eldritch thing, it’s purpose was to remove the human constraints that come to the gods who choose to hide that way. It’s a further step, an access to power considered damn near incomprehensible, with the degree of its power.

Just for a small price. Just for her body and the blood of thousands to carry it away in some terrible river.

It had been the thing she had struggled against the first time. Katherine, with that blade against her ribs, and spoken so sweetly of tearing her to pieces for the sake of her further ascension. The pain to herself had scared her more at that time, but now, when she thinks of the river instead of her body on it, her heart drops more, and that panic that had found her in the first moments comes back in a terribly different way.

This time, the panic is for something to come, a known entity, instead of the grasping fear of the unknown that swallowed her before. Still bad though. Still very bad.

“Well, that’s not happening.” Miriam says that much like she can just make it happen. It doesn’t feel so easy, though. “I’m not doing that, we’re, nobody’s doing that.”

“Yeah, we had that part figured out already.” Fedir’s voice is affectionate in the way one’s is when they’ve known someone for a very long time, and Miriam’s heart hurts badly. “That’s why I’m here, y’know. We’re doing a jailbreak, hopefully right now. I kind of need that decision soon, I really can’t get caught in here.”

“Duh,” she manages to laugh, and offer some minimal comfort to her also anxious son. “Let’s get out of here. Is there going to be a plan?”

“Sort of. I have an idea.” Sheepish, Fedir waves an arm, trying to rouse Miriam from her bed as he shoves a bundle of clothes into her arms. They’re all grey and black and look like nothing at all, a benefit for someone trying to hide. The heavy fabric of a cloak that she’s probably seen a dozen times before follows.

“For now, just get changed. And don’t let anyone see you.”

[dezembergirl]

Zweisamkeit

Well, I couldn’t help myself. This was one heck of a 2. Season and I miss these two very much. So here is my take on what happened after the last episode (lots of Winterberg fluff and angst). Read on ao3 or continue down here.

(I would love to write the Valentine’s Day date we missed out on, if anyone has suggestions pleeeease tell me.

Mia had had a mess of a day, a hell of a week - as in literal hell. And judging by the shadows around Alex’s eyes he hadn’t fared much better. So maybe it came as no surprise at all that the very Friday night she had wanted to spend celebrating Sam’s birthday, had ended in Alexander’s bed with more tears than could be healthy for anyone’s hydration levels.

The past two weeks, in particular, had left their marks. Mia knew what depression felt like and this had been too close for comfort. She’d spent days in bed without ever sleeping and as a result, the fatigue had reduced her to wallowing mess. And every time she’d seen Alex things had spiraled downwards at an increased speed.

It had confused her to no end. Mia had prided herself on her ability to read others, Alex in particular. Having him break things off because of a business course in London that wouldn’t start until late summer, had made no sense at all. Or maybe it had, maybe this - whatever this was between them - had never mattered to him enough. Once that thought had occurred to her, it stuck. It stuck so well that she couldn’t decide if she missed Alex or wanted to punch him. A serious punch, with real power behind it. Right into his perfect jaw, the very one she had kissed and traced with her fingers over only weeks ago.

Alex had lain ruin to enough of her morals, and violence was the one thing she strictly refrained from. Sadly, punching the douchebag - because kissing was very much out of the picture now - did not qualify as self-defense.

Maybe forcing him to interact with her was the only way forward? So she had typed out more than one message only to delete them all before pressing send.

Fuck London, fuck the business course, fuck Björn, fuck our parents, fuck you, did not make for a compelling counterargument. What was she even arguing against? Alex’s broken ego or her own bitter and hurt pride?

On Thursday evening, Hannah had once again proven to be the type of best friend every girl should have at least one of. She had talked to Sam, both of the Sams actually. One had agreed to celebrate her birthday with Mia with a breakfast date next Monday, and the other had revealed Alex to be enjoying his new found freedom in the skating park most evenings.

IIF YOU DON’T TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM, ILL KEY HIS STUPID CAR AND DO IT MYSELF, Hannah had written in all caps.

Love, the very word Mia had been pushing far, far away since Alex had become more than the stereotypical, arrogant asshole deriving to school in a Porsche. She was afraid, scared to death if she was honest. Mia had never considered herself in love before, infatuated sure, but never love. The notion that this was what tied her to Alex scared the living crap out of her.

Now that he had called it quits, confessing her deepest feelings seemed absurd. She hated how vulnerable it would make her, leave her entire flank exposed. But then, she also knew that Alex was not just another in a (very short) row of people she had kissed. He was the person that crept into her dreams and invaded her mind with memories of his voice and laughter. He had set up camp in her heart permanently, without the 50 euro per night fee. That’s why she’d rather not know if he didn’t feel the same way. Ignorance was bliss, she had told herself.

But ignorance was not a concept Mia could tolerate for long. It had taken her the entire day but once she had set a foot outside her apartment the doubts shrunk with every step and kept to the back of her mind. She opted to walk instead of taking the bus and the cold air made her face numb and sensitive all at the same time. She’d make him listen and tell him the whole truth. He had to see reason, wouldn’t he?

Her hands had grown into ice around the bottles of soda she’d brought when the door to the skateboarding hall had finally opened to reveal Alex’s unmistakable frame. He had looked sad and as miserable as she had felt but he had listened. The reluctance and how he had leaned away from her whenever possible had made her heart stutter and tears rise in her eyes. But she had hit something within him and the cold and indifferent eyes had grown wide with both relief and what was unmistakably love. And kissing him had never tasted sweeter.

Really, fuck you Timbuktu.

-

Ah yes, the tears.

They had kissed and hugged until the February air had penetrated their heated skin hidden under layers of wool. He had taken her to his car and Mia had never been more relieved to see the sleek leather inside of his Porsche.

She’d kept her hand across the center console toying with his right hand on the way home. It was, in fact, the first time she had agreed to enter the Porsche on the passenger seat. Alex did have a few years head start when it came to navigating his way through Berlin and she was in no state to drive. The stupid smile he couldn’t hide, she caught Alex press his lips together in an effort to keep them from rising up into a ridiculous grin. She hadn’t seen him this happy since the few days of bliss that had been the semester holidays. His cheeks were pink and the warmth in his eyes when he looked over made her insides twist and heat up in the most delicious ways. So much so that by the time he had parked them in front of his apartment building, her eyes were swimming in tears.

Alex swiped his thumb across her cheeks before unlocking the door. They lingered in the frame until he placed a kiss to her forehead and the look they shared spoke volumes. I love you had been the easy part. Love couldn’t erase the past week and both of them knew it. This would be a long, long night.

"Please don’t ever do this to me again,“ said Mia. She had curled up on the living room couch while Alex poured hot chocolate into mugs. The fridge provided an ominous background noise that stretched the silence between them. "I know that this,“ she gestured in Alex general direction „Will take work, so much work. But I can’t take the silence. It wasn’t fair and no matter how shitty things get we have to find a way to communicate that.“

Alex stopped inches from where she was sitting. The chocolate swayed precariously in the mugs as he sat them on the table. He didn’t sit down, but fixed her with his eyes and Mia knew this was not the moment to avert her gaze, no matter how heated her cheeks got.

"I am sorry, you know that. If I could go back and change how things played out, I would. I never set out to hurt you, not intentionally.“

Mia swallowed around the lump in her throat. The raw earnestness in his words tucked at her heart in the most painful ways. O,h how she wished they could jump past this to cuddles and kisses and waking up in the same bed. She should have brought the whole box of tissues, the tears were already announcing their return.

"There are many things I regret, and I think you do too,“ Alex sat, far enough away for another person to squeeze between them. "But if there is one thing I’ve taken away from it, it’s that honesty isn’t optional; not If we want to make this work. And in honesty, I would have probably reacted the same way again. That doesn’t make it right but it’s true nevertheless. Before you, there was no one who relied on me, who expected things. I’ve disappeared before, multiple times, and Sam knew the rough outlines so it was never a problem.“

"It is now,“ Mia toyed with the handle of her mug.

"Yes, it is. In reality, it always has been. And this is me telling you that I’m aware that it’s an issue. I will work on it. I have an appointment with my old psychologist on Tuesday. But it won’t be a quick fix, not by a long shot“

"So what if it happens again?“

"I will talk to Sam,“ Alex had started twisting his rings and his foot tapping made the couch vibrate ever so slightly. Mia wished she could pull him towards her and hug him tight for the next hour. Physical actions seemed so much easier because words were complicated and they hurt.

"I don’t intend for this to happen again, but I’ll give you my parents’ numbers. They are not the warmest people but after Sophie, they won’t turn you away. I know it’s not the perfect solution. But if this means as much to you as it does to me, I want you to know that this is not an empty promise. And I have to hope that it’s enough.“

"Thank you,“ Mia put the mug back down and reached for Alex's hand instead. It felt hot against her skin and when she squeezed it he closed his fingers around hers. "Thank you for giving us a chance. I felt so so stupid, but you breaking up with me hurt so much more than I wanted it to. And part of it is my fault. I was never totally honest, not to you and not with myself. The first time things got hard with Kikki, I was ready to run and I did. So, as much as I hated what you did, I can’t blame just you.“

They stared at each other in silence. Mia’s heart raced in her chest and Alex looked as close to tears as she felt. He exhaled and nodded for her to continue. "I didn’t listen to you after you resurfaced. Part of it was revenge I think and the other part fear. I don’t understand physical violence. I know why you did it and I can’t fault you for it now but then it felt like a betrayal. I couldn’t look at you without hearing you crack Björns ribs and I wasn’t brave enough to hear your side of the story regardless.“

Mia swiped away a stray tear and scooted closer to Alex. "Just like the butterfly effect really. We made minor mistakes and things spiraled out of control so quickly. I hope you can forgive me, I know I forgive you,“ she squeezed his hands again and looked up to find a tear making its way down his cheek. "I love you, so so much, and for now that is enough. I’m sure of that.“

"Of course I forgive you,“ Alex said and pulled her even closer and Mia felt his whole frame tremble as he did. They ended up hard hugging half spooning on the couch. "I love you,“ he traced the shell of her ear with his nose. "I love you, I love you so much.“

He kissed the parts of her face he could reach and Mia felt the warmth from his body overpower her own. With her head against his chest and her arms wound around his torso, the tears fell again. But Alex kept tracing circles on her back and pressing kisses to her temple and hair. Words hurt but pain could be cathartic. Mia felt a million times better no as if the thing that had slowly broken and splinter over the past week had been restored to its untouched state. The most important things were out in the open and as long as they had the truth between them things would work out.

Time slowed or increased tenfold, Mia couldn’t tell. But after a while, Alex’s movements had seized and her sobs had given way to the humming of the fridge. She felt his chest rise and fall in turn with his breaths. Just when she was sure he had fallen asleep Mia suddenly found herself being flipped over and off the couch. Before she could even register the impact - softened by the plush carpet covering his living room floor - Alex was already celebrating his victory, on his hands and knees hovering above her with his chest was heaving.

"I got you this time, no sleeping on the couch in my house,“ he had positioned his face inches above her own.

"On the carpet then?“ Mia tilted her head up but he pulled away before their noses could touch. "Doesn’t seem very Mr. - how rich exactly are you - Hardenberg. Or maybe on the hardwood, like a commoner?“

"You’re not in a position to taunt, Miss Winter,“ he clicked his tongue before moving on to her right ear and whispering in a voice, so low it made her hairs stand on end. "You have been compromised." Alex's lips moved against the shell of her ear. They weren’t kisses exactly but Mia suddenly felt very aware of just how close his body was. His chest hovered inches above her own and his breaths were fire against her temple. She couldn’t take much more, every fiber of muscle was pulled taught and her whole body hummed with anticipation.

Mia moved her hand, ready to close the distance but he shook his head. "Ah-ahh, so you do admit defeat? You will have to say the words, otherwise, it won’t count.“ He was still unbearably close to her ear and with every syllable enunciated to the max, goosebumps spread from her chest outwards, leaving her skin tingling. "Do you yield your rights to the couch?“

"No,“ she looked him dead in the eyes and for a moment she feared he had frozen and would keep her in this position forever. But Just as quickly his pupils dilated and the mischief was crackling in his eyes.

"I see,“ the corners of his lips twitched and before Mia could brace herself he had attacked her stomach. She gasped for air between laughter and half hysterical screams as he proceeded to tickle every inch of bare skin he could reach. Every attempt to block her body from his hands failed as he was kneeling above with her legs locked between his. The sensory input threatened to prove too much and when Alex finally relented Mia was panting beneath him.

She squinted away the tears that had leaked from her eyes, her chest heaving as she caught her breath; oh yes, even more tears. She would have to double her 2 liter water intake tomorrow.

Above her, Alex was running his hands through his hair, somehow managing to increase its volume even more. The dark spots under his eyes were still visible but the flush spreading from his cheeks made him look less like a worn man and more like an innocent boy. He was beautiful, with his stupid hair, cheekbones worthy of their own spread in Vogue and eyes that could, on one hand, make her stomach lurch, and explode with butterflies the next second. Now, they were fixed on her face, tracing her features from hairline to chin and finally landing on her own. 

"Are you alright?“ Alex asked and she nodded "More than.“

Alex laid down next to her, propped on his side. He pushed stray strands of hair from her face before moving closer and touching his nose to hers with an amount of care that made her heart swell. But Mia, having recovered her heart rate and breathing, pressed her lips firmly together before he could fully close the gap.

Revenge, were revenge was due, she rolled herself on top of him and found that "Well Mr. I have 99 problems and money solves about half, you are quite susceptible to this kind of torture yourself.

Indeed, his abdominal muscles clenched and unclenched under her fingers and after several seconds of silent panting he couldn’t hold back the giggles any longer. Laughter proved to be a very potent drug, especially this late in the evening. Once they had started it was impossible to stop. Love couldn’t erase the trouble of the last weeks and laughter wouldn’t put Björn behind bars or bring Sophie back, but it made them remember how happy they had been in this very apartment and how right it felt have that back.

The giggles bubbled from her lips with an ease she wouldn’t have thought possible this morning, and only subsided when her obliques ached from exhaustion. By then, Alex had put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.

She would hug him close and never let go, Mia decided at that moment. Future Mia’s spine would likely protest the choice (or lack of thereof) of a mattress but right there, snug in his arms, she couldn’t care less for how sore her back would be in the morning. At least the living room carpet should offer her a discount on the 50 Euro a night Hardenberg Suite.

Mia fell asleep to the sound of Alex’s breaths evening out and his chin tucked against her hairline. 

[tylersskeletonfire]

new trench/dema theory

okay guys, here me out here. ever since the announcement of the banditø tour i’ve been thinking about this one theory about what the whole vialism and dema thing could really mean. 

one day in latvian class, i was wondering what “vialism could mean”. when i asked my teacher she told me that “vial” meant “cup” or “vessel” and “ism” roughly translated to “drink of lightness” or “liquid with bubbles”. i believe this ties in directly to tyler’s solo album “no phun intended”, but i’ll get to that later.

if we listen to the lyrics of the four singles out now we mostly here tyler contemplating about the fear of being left alone or vulnerable in a new place as he tries to reach another safer place. we then here him asking for help or offering his own assistance in return for companionship (my blood). in jumpsuit we hear tyler ask his jumpsuit to “cover (him)” and in natn we here him trying to flee “im flying from a fire”.

now here comes the connection to npi. in a collaboration with his brother, jay joseph, tyler created possibly one of his greatest works, “taco bell saga”. in the song, tyler openly sings about his experience at the famous fast food chain and the struggles he had to over come while dining.

three lines from the song that will always stick with me are “i like your nachos like diarrhea”, “we got the stuff that'll your booty go *intense fart noise*” and, my personal favourite “now I have to poop”. what do all of these have in common? they all openly discuss the effect of eating poorly prepared food - diarrhoea.

now back to “vialism”, i believe "cup of liquid with bubbles” is directly refering to the cup of pepsi tyler or jay tries to order at the taco bell, “yeah can I have a big mac and a pepsi?”. this was the first stepping stone i found in directly tying the dema universe to “taco bell saga”.

this is where it becomes complicated as more and more references and allusions can be found within the new album’s lyrical content, instrumentals (e.g. the fart sounding bass line in “my blood”) and the original concepts presented by the dema.org website. 

i believe dema represents taco bell and trench represents the toilet both tyler and jay (the banditøs) must travel to in order to not poo their pants. the bishops represent the restaurant’s employees and the vultures represent the other diners.

(side note: i’ve always been confused as to why they chose “banditøs” for their tour name as it sounds very spanish, but what else is spanish? taco bell!!! kinda almost, hope that doesn’t come off as racist.)

some examples of references i have found so far include:

- “pressures of a new place roll my way“ - tyler is expressing his concern of arriving at the restroom but there not being a roll of toilet paper to clean his crack

- “just keep it outside, just keep it outside“ - as we know, “my blood” is most likely about one of tyler’s family members (jay!!!), this line shows how tyler is encouraging jay to fart outside rather than inside of the restaurant or car causing him to suffocate or “choke on smoke”

- a secret line i found in natn was “assholes“ (found at 2:54), many initially brushed over this line and excused it as a hidden message when played backwards, however this was clearly a distraction - it’s obvious what this quote alludes to as we all know where diarrhoea comes from

- the constant references to “fire” in natn - tyler is talking about a burning in his guts commonly felt before having the runs

- “i'm lighter when I'm lower, i'm higher when I'm heavy, oh” - when tyler refers to being “lower” he means he is able to sit on a toilet and get rid of his number two but when he is standing (”higher”) his guts are heavier as he is not able to relieve himself. also “oh” is probable him moaning in discomfort

- “danger in the fabric of this thing i made” - could be referencing tyler’s poor choice of clothes (e.g. white pants) which could easily reveal his sensitive bowel to the rest of the taco bell before he is able to escape to the toilet

so far i have found so many connections between “taco bell saga” and the trench universe that i am not able to believe these are coincidences. i believe tyler has been planning this album since the release of npi. i have no doubt that trench will be one of their most thoughtful and deepest albums yet and i can’t wait to hear more.

let me know if you want to here more of my theories though i may only be able to write them on a friday night at 12:36 after crying for a little bit

||-//

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

December 3, Christmas Caryl

Christmas angst, you say? Here, have a treat!! (also on 9L)

Feel the Joy

The holiday season had never treated Daryl Dixon well. While others gathered around food-laden tables and evergreens adorned with colorful baubles to open prettily-packaged gifts bestowed by loving family members, he followed Merle into the woods, to the one-room, ramshackle hut they’d built as an escape from their drunken, poor excuse for an old man.

It didn’t take long for Merle to wind up just as drunk as Daddy Dixon, but at least his brother kept his fists to himself. Daryl knew how to bite back any retort that longed to escape in response to Merle’s ridiculing, even if it made his blood boil, and eventually his silence would pay off: Merle would nod off, and Daryl could listen to the soothing sounds of nature in solitude (minus the drunken snoring that sometimes accompanied it).

In a world that offered him bad and worse, he’d take the bad of Merle all day any day over a minute with his scum of a father. But deep in his heart, Daryl had always wished…hoped…for more from what others called “the joyous season.”

He’d never expected to experience it.

His sundry family had attempted a Christmas celebration that first year at the prison, and though they’d included him—he’d received a few new bolts for his crossbow, some thick winter socks, a hefty, dark blue jean jacket, and a poncho (apparently they wanted him to keep warm on those long hunting treks)—he’d sat on the outside, unsure where and how he fit in.

But now that he’d learned how to let his family care about him and they had a relatively secure place to live again, he’d found himself anticipating the upcoming Christmas celebration. He had no doubt being with Carol accounted for the added hype he felt any time a mention of the holiday occurred.

She’d used the few decorations she’d found in the attic to decorate their home: a wreath on the front door, garland around the banister, a two-foot tall faux tree in the living room adorned with the miniature ornaments it came with, and red and green candles on the dining room table. A veritable picture of how he’d always imagined others experienced the season.

Her smile, a rarity over the past...well, since the prison...warmed his heart as much as her mulled cider—a concoction of apple juice, orange slices, cloves, and cinnamon. She’d even made some of those cookies he didn’t want to know the ingredients of. What she could stir up in a mixing bowl and his heart…

Daryl shook his head, irked at his train of thought, always headed right back to Carol like a homing beacon. His amusement at her holiday excitement had slowly waned over the past week until only frustration remained.

“Damn holiday,” he grumbled to himself, focusing on the deer tracks in front of him.

He hadn’t wanted to leave this morning to go hunting, one day before the big Christmas party. For the first time in his life, he’d actually looked forward to attending a get-together. But he’d fled from Carol a few hours ago to prevent himself from lashing out at her.

He didn’t deserve her, he knew that. But by everything good left in this world—and there wasn’t much of it—she’d chosen him.

Only recently had his shock begun to abate, and they’d settled into a slow and easy, if tentative, rhythm of life together, one he’d envisioned a million times but never hoped to live out. The few nights she’d appeared withdrawn, he’d used words he didn’t know he could utter to reveal feelings no one else on Earth had ever evoked in him, assuring her of his presence, his affection, their commitment, his love. She returned the favor when his doubts loomed too large and he emotionally withdrew.

But no matter how much she assured him of her feelings, he remained unsettled, always afraid in his core that she’d wake up one day and change her mind, just up and decide not to live with and love Dixon trash from the wrong side of the tracks.

And her behavior the past week hadn’t helped.

They’d both learned, albeit slowly, how to acclimate themselves to loving physical contact over the years, but he’d found himself struggling to initiate intimacy more than she had. Not from lack of desire—he’d learned back at the farm and even more so at the prison how to quell that in her presence—and the hunger he had for her had only increased over time. No, it was the fear of rejection that hounded him like a demon, at times nearly hollowing out his insides and holding him in its straightjacket when he longed to reach for her and show her in so many creative ways how he craved her. He’d managed to overcome the monster a few times, and each success made the next attempt simultaneously easier and more frightening with the realization of just how badly she could wound him…more deeply and irrevocably than any unkind hand before.

And that’s just what had happened, exactly why he had to flee.

Almost a week had passed now, and not once had Carol warmed to him. She kissed him chastely in the morning but hadn’t invited him for an early morning romp or to the shower with her. No mid-day sneak into the pantry or upstairs for a tryst. She remained firmly on her side of the bed each night instead of snuggling against him, her hand roaming his chest and abs, teasing him into an inferno. Behavior so unusual he’d ventured past the fear gripping his heart like a vice and tried to woo her.

And she’d passively rejected him each time.

She couldn’t be mad at him. Nothing else had changed between them. She still smiled sweetly at him, made sure he ate, discussed life as usual each night in front of the fire, and ensured he had warm clothes when he pulled overnight guard duty.

He’d wracked his brain trying to figure Carol out, but nothing seemed different. Except that she’d avoided his attempts at getting close to her. And that damn phrase she kept repeating to him.

Feel the joy.

What the hell did that even mean? Feel the joy.

Of the season? Of Christmas? Of being at Alexandria? Of being with her? Hell, he thought she knew he loved her. He’d told her. Shy, embarrassed, and even trembling because he knew how people could use your deepest emotions against you, he’d told her multiple times.

So what did she mean by ‘feel the joy’?

That damn phrase had sparked his irritation this morning. It’s why he now trekked through a light dusting of freezing powder in search of solitude and prey, neither of which he’d found. She haunted him like a ghost, burrowed so deep inside him he may as well be possessed. And the deer….well, he’d lost those treks back at thoughts of her hands on him again.

What was she trying to do to him?

Feel the joy, she’d said. Well, he sure as hell hadn’t felt any joy lately, thanks to her.

“Mornin’” he’d greeted her a few hours earlier, sidling up to her as she finished making breakfast.

“G’morning.” She gave him her thousand-watt smile, and he leaned to kiss her, but at the last moment she turned away and he ended up kissing her upturned cheek.

He pulled back, sheepish and a little hurt, but she appeared oblivious. “I made your favorite: eggs over-easy, turkey jerky, and some of my mulled cider.” She turned to smile at him. “I even snagged a few splashes of rum from Aaron. Just how you like it, and it’ll warm you right up.”

Thought that was your job. “Thanks,” he said instead.

He sat at the table as Carol served them both eggs. “What’re you up to today?” she asked amiably.

Up to my ears in confusion, he thought. “Rick an’ I talked about scoutin’ today, but we didn’t decide.”

She sat next to him, and he picked up his fork and shoveled a bite into his mouth to keep from reaching out for her. “You’ll be back in time for the Christmas party tomorrow night, right?”

“Imagine Michonne won’t want Rick to miss it, seein’ how it’s our first Christmas celebration.”

Her gaze settled on him, and he turned to see her eyes twinkling. “And you?”

“I’ll be here,” he promised.

“That’s a ringing endorsement,” she teased with a half-smile. “Just…feel the joy.”

Feel the joy. She’d thrown that little phrase into conversation at least once a day for the past several days now, and he still had no clue what she meant. It was starting to grate on him.

“Rather spend the night here with you.” He’d grumbled the words out before he realized how they sounded, and his cheeks flamed. He hadn’t meant to make himself vulnerable again, not with the rejections stacking up.

For a moment, he swore she was going to respond with a typical Carol flirtation, something he’d come to love and, yes, even crave, but instead she simply said, “We do that every night.”

His heart thundered, first in anger at her indifference, then with humiliation as realization hit him.

She didn’t want him anymore.

He nearly keeled over at the yawning ache in his chest. It had lasted longer than he deserved, but not nearly as long as he’d hoped, and he felt his heart drop into his knees, knowing he’d never hold her again, never kiss her or make love to her or tell her how much he loved her again. No more heartfelt goodbyes while wrapped in her arms before he left on runs or hunting trips or long, lingering hellos that sometimes lasted until the bedroom when he returned. No touching her skin, running his fingers through her curly, pixie hair, waking up to those bright baby blues that so often teased him with a single look more than that luscious mouth. No more of that mouth whispering sweet nothings and naughty promises into his ear, kissing him awake, speaking encouragement to his battered heart and love to his tortured soul. No more quiet nights at home, shooting the breeze with an ease and comfort he’d never known until her.

No more Carol with him.

What he’d feared the most had come to fruition.

His insides stung with humiliation. Tears burned the back of his eyes, but years of stemming the tide allowed him the small pride of hiding them from her. For now. But what about tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? The rest of his pitiful life?

He had no idea how he’d ever recover. Not now, not knowing what life with her felt like.

He looked down at the half-eaten food on his plate, his stomach churning, and he stood abruptly.

Carol peered up at him, a questioning look on her face.

“I’m…just...gotta be headin’ out,” he mumbled before stalking towards the front door. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

He didn’t turn to face her as he bundled up, but he heard her approaching.

“A few days?” she repeated, confused.

“Goin’ huntin’,” he bit out, snatching up a handgun from the entryway desk drawer before slinging the crossbow over his shoulder.

“Thought you’d be back by tomorrow?”

She sounded more confused than upset, though he heard a sliver of hurt in her tone.

What right did she have to be hurt? He tried to harden his heart against it, failing even as she broke him.

“Changed my mind.”

He felt her hand on his shoulder as he unlocked the door, exiting without a glance in her direction or a goodbye.

“Take care of yourself,” she entreated as he left the house that for so brief a time had felt like a real home to him.

The warmth of her hand felt like a brand on his skin, even now as he traipsed defeatedly through the forest, no longer on the trail of anything.

Sometime during his musings the snow had started to fall again, and he regretted storming out of the compound without food, matches, and gloves. Heartbroken and self-destructive, he knew he was in no shape to try to stay out in this weather unprepared, but he loathed the idea of going back.

He knew he could last longer than most, but the weather here, unlike Georgia, was more unpredictable, especially in winter. With an ache deep in his chest and a list of all the reasons Carol had to let him go, he turned and trudged back towards Alexandria.

Towards a home he no longer felt welcome in and a woman he deeply loved but who no longer wanted him.

 ***

It hadn’t taken long for Carol to figure out what had occurred in Daryl’s mind, but by then he’d disappeared into the woods, and she had no idea which direction he’d taken.

She’d pushed the game too far.

She hadn’t meant to come across as disinterested or make him feel undesirable, but her inexperience with fun and loving relationships and his with self-esteem and believing someone could actually love him unconditionally had pushed her little Christmas game into a harmful realm, somewhere she’d never foreseen it going.

For hours now, she’d fumed at herself, regretting each and every time she’d dissuaded a move Daryl had made toward her. It had taken all of her willpower to not lean into his kisses, to not curl into the warmth of his body each night, to not settle into his arms when he came home each day. She’d just wanted to build up the tension in them until…

Well, this wasn’t what she’d planned. And it had seemed like such a good idea last week. Hold out for a few days, tease and tempt them both into a fury, iterate her ‘feel the joy’ phrase until it had solidified in his mind, then…reveal the gift.

Now she’d feel lucky if he ever came back to her.

She sighed, frustrated with herself and her idiotic ideas of flirtation and juvenile games of love. What did she know about romance and seduction? About teasing your partner just to the edge but stopping before it became harmful or detrimental to the relationship?

Clearly not enough. And she feared she’d never have the opportunity to learn now that Daryl had stormed out.  

Her heart ached at having hurt him. He’d treated her so well, so loving, eons beyond how any man had ever handled her before. And he did so because he loved her. How…and why…it baffled her, but each time the man she loved told her, showed her, that he loved her too, she refused to question it for fear of opening up and having to face the scarred and dark past.

In the end, her plan had only been to please him. And she’d failed miserably.

The afternoon dragged on, her mind filled with thoughts of Daryl and regret at how she’d hurt him, and relief flooded her when, at dusk, Michonne came to relieve her from guard duty. Her mind hadn’t much stayed on task anyway.

With a hopeful heart, she opened the front door and called out for him, but as expected the empty house greeted her instead of his welcoming arms. It made sense, his withdrawal, but still it caused a raw ache in her chest. She only hoped he would allow her to make it up to him.

She blinked away tears, set the coffee pot going, and headed upstairs to scald the day away. Showering in a fog, she first mentally listed all the ways she could fix what she’d done before her mind started calculating all the reasons why he’d never come home and give her the opportunity. When that list became too unbearable to continue, she turned off the water, towel-dried her hair, and slipped on comfy black yoga pants and a black tank.

Grabbing the sweater out of her dresser drawer, she plopped down on the bed, staring at the offensive article.

It was the most horrid piece of clothing Carol had ever seen. She’d heard of ugly Christmas sweaters but had never had the misfortune of owning one. And thank God if the monstrosity she held were any indication of the norm.

She’d found it buried in the boxes of Christmas decorations in the attic, laughing at the ridiculousness of it until the idea that had gotten her into this mess had come to her. If she had known how her clever little plan would backfire, she’d have thrown in on then and sauntered up to him. They both would’ve shared a laugh before she whispered her joyous phrase, he would have removed the ugly Christmas sweater from her, and they would’ve spent the rest of the evening wrapped in each others’ arms.

Feeling foolish and dejected, she gathered the material in her fists and held it up to her face, wishing with all her being that Daryl would come back and let her make her mess of a plan right.

The front door slammed shut, and Carol startled, moving silently to the nightstand to grab her gun and listening intently.

“Carol?”

Though devoid of emotion, Daryl’s voice calling her name sent shivers up her spine.

He’d come back.

She threw the gun back into the drawer, slipped the sweater over her head, and wrapped the blanket from the foot of the bed around her shoulders.

The sweater was embarrassing enough on its own, but if she couldn’t rectify the damage she’d done, she wanted to hold on to a smidge of dignity.

Carol flew down the stairs, stopping abruptly at the foot of them as Daryl, leaving his crossbow in the front hall, went to the kitchen.

“Had to come back,” he stated monotonously, his eyes only flicking towards her once. “Didn’t take enough supplies for this weather.”

The cavern in her chest grew at the walls he felt he needed. Only yesterday he’d swept into the house with a warm hello, an arm around her, and a nuzzle into her hair.

He looked cold: hair wind-swept, cheeks red, broad chest still bundled in his jacket, which had melting flakes of snow on the shoulders.

Her chest ached with the desire to warm him, body and soul, from the cold eating at him.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she admitted tentatively.

With one hand on a cup and the other reaching for the coffee pot, he turned to look at her. Anyone else would’ve believed him angry; she knew he hurt beyond measure, filled with all the lies of the past and the rejection he believed she’d bestowed.

“Are you?”

The cold words sliced through her heart like a hot knife through butter, and he turned back to his task.

She moved toward him slowly, watching the hands she loved pour coffee, the man she adored ache in silence, and only by a thread did she refrain from rushing to hold him. Instead, she tightly clasped the blanket thrown over her shoulders.

“I’ll be gone soon,” he promised dejectedly.

“Daryl, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t bother,” he cut her off. “I get it.”

“You don’t,” she stated gently, approaching him. Still holding the blanket around her with one hand, she placed the other lightly on his forearm and he froze, though she noted he didn’t recoil. “I’m sorry because I never meant to hurt you.”

“I’m fine,” he countered, shaking her hand off and grabbing his coffee cup.

She gently grabbed his arm, and he let her, staring down at her in hurt fury. “It’s not what you think,” she told him, sliding her hand slowly down his arm. “I messed up.” She took the coffee cup from his hand and set it on the counter. “I’m not good at this stuff, and I only meant to...,” she drifted off, unsure how to tell him her stupid plan when he was still raw and hurting.

“I don’t want you to go. I never want you to go. Not out hunting or scavenging, not on guard duty, not outside those gates, not on that bike.” She placed her hand on his mid-tummy and slid it up his chest as she spoke. “I know you can’t stay locked in here forever with me, but at least it’s safe.”

Though he’d remained stock still, confusion settled on his face. “Then…what was all that…  I thought…” He couldn’t form the sentences, say the words he’d so feared were true. But he had to know…

“I know,” she admitted, turning away in frustration. “I…I wanted to…surprise you with…this dumb Christmas present. It was supposed to be funny and sexy and…and now I realize how stupid it was. I should’ve just given it to you then instead of trying to…” She shook her head, not knowing how to fix the fine mess she’d created.

“You mean you… I don’t have to leave?”

She swung back to face him. “What?! No. Never! The whole plan was to…get you closer.”

Daryl shook his head in confusion, even as relief swept through his taut muscles. “Can you tell me what this plan was…so I can understand better?”

He’d seen many expressions on Carol’s face over the years, but sheepish had never been one of them. “You wanna stay, right?”

His heart leapt in his chest. “Long as you want me to.”

“I do,” she answered swiftly.

Now that the moment had come to reveal her plan, she didn’t know if she could go through with it, not after how badly she’d bungled it.

“So…you gonna let me in on this plan’a yours?”

She noted the ease of his tone, so much back to normal, but she swallowed hard, embarrassed. “Umm…feel the joy, remember?”

“Yeah…?” he drawled, still unsure what the hell that meant.

“Well….” Carol took a deep breath, then flung the blanket off of her shoulders.

If the plan had gone how she’d originally foreseen, he’d have laughed, Daryl knew. As it was, with the misunderstanding between them, the raw emotions, the unsurety, each of their self esteem taking hits, he kept his laughter from bumbling out.

But damn, was he amused.

The ugly black Christmas sweater had white pom-poms lining the gently sloping v-neck. Large silver snowflakes and tinsel balls decorated the shoulders and the stomach of the material, and two green pom-pom balls sat at the wrists. But the two red mittens sewn prominently over her breasts, sitting just above the red letters that read ‘feel the joy,’ really drew his eyes.

His mouth quirked up in mirth. “I…get it now.”

Carol had brought this upon herself, but humiliation sat heavy within her, and she turned away from him. “I found this ugly thing in the attic. I only wanted to tease you. I’m sorry I pushed it too far. I’m even sorrier I made you feel—”

“Feel the joy, Carol,” Daryl whispered into her ear, cutting her off even as he slipped his hands under her arms and covered the mittens.

Heat ran through her veins at his touch, at knowing he’d come home and forgiven her, wanted her still. She turned her head to glance at him over her shoulder. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay,” he assured her heatedly, staring into her eyes.

“I never want you to think…”

“Ain’t thinkin’ right now…I’m feelin’ the joy,” he whispered across her lips just before he kissed her.

A/N: This story was inspired by this ugly but hilarious Christmas sweater. :D

[black-strike-otp]

part 74

The shortest of short chapters.

I’m going to bed now hnnngg stayed up too late yesternight I’m so tired.

Following behind the team of seekers sent out to surround and escort them on board didn’t put any ease of mind to Blackout. He remained deathly silent; turning off communications to Nighthawk. He was sure the medic understood the lack of radio contact. At least, he hoped so. Any conference was not going to be as private as a bot hoped in this area.

Trailing alongside the length of the large, barbed looking vessel, his viewers scanned the surrounding area. The fleet of seekers seemed to be growing around them. They were directing them silently, without an order of compliance or of attack, towards the top of the ship. Blackout knew what would be waiting for them, though he tried not to think about it right now.

Timidly, Novastrike tapped her digits on the arm of her chair. The action stirred Blackout’s anxiety back on to the little femme who was scrunched up in her seat.

“Blackout, why did we go quiet?” she whispered nervously. “Who are these bots?”

Before the huge mech could choose which words to express, they circled up near the top of the vessel where a lengthy landing stripe was laid out. In the horizon behind the ship, Blackout could make out the planet of blue and swirling masses of gas moving over its surface.

As they approached the platform, an enormous door began sliding up from the entry of the ship. Most of the seekers broke away from the swarm that encircled them, but a few ahead and behind Blackout aided in leading him through into the swallowing dim darkness that filled the interior of the vessel. A sickly purplish hue greeted him from the metal and the few lights that brightened further as they entered were a hideous unnatural yellow rather than the whiter, more natural hues he had become used to on ships like the Rising Star.

“Blackout?”

“Shh.”

He could feel Nova go rigid on the plating she was sitting on by his response. He wasn’t helping her fears but at the moment, he didn’t need to have the wrong words slipping out in such a delicate situation.

Flickering his attention to his other viewers revealed that Nighthawk had not entered the ship with them. The squadron of seekers must have had him land his craft outside. Considering he owed the medic quite a lot, he hoped the mech was going to be okay. He couldn’t rightfully try paying back his debt if Nighthawk ended up offlined and he didn’t need further guilt on his processor like the one he carried the most frequently now; of that failure with which he allowed Guard to perish.

One by one, the various mechanized robotics surrounding him began to transform. Their soulless faces stared blankly towards his alt-mode. They were clearly expecting him to do the same.

“Novastrike,” he said evenly, quietly. “You need to step out so that I can transform.”

Shivers raced over the femme as her breath hitched. “Do- Do I have to?”

“You’ll be safe, I promise. Just step out and give me a few feet so I have room to transform.”

Although she seemed reluctant to agree, Nova slowly rose up to her pedes and stepped around the seat. The door glided open near Blackout’s side with an ominous hiss. Some of the seekers took a step back like they didn’t fully trust him.

He couldn’t say he blamed them.

Nova climbed out from his interior and the door swung shut swiftly. He waited a brief few nanokliks to make sure she’d shuffled from his form a bit before he initiated his transformation sequence. Armor plating whipped around, revealing momentary vulnerable spaces and sliding groups of armor.

No bot took action against him. He didn’t expect them to.

As he finished shifting into bipedal, Blackout curled his digits just slightly. Novastrike seemed to have noticed the motion, or maybe she was so frightened she did so on instinct, but she scooted slowly over to edge next to his pede.

One seeker stepped out from the rest. Just as plain and uninteresting as the rest.

“The Lord would like to see you on the bridge,” the mech stated in serious monotone.

Blackout offered a curt nod in response. He could tell by the ring of bots around him that he wouldn’t simply be strolling alone.

“By all means,” he growled, giving a motion with his servo. “Lead the way.”

~

Novastrike stayed close to Blackout’s heel as they walked down the hall. Her helm was lowered, optics downcast to avoid making optic-contact with anything or anybot who may turn a curious gaze to her. It felt like her spark was lodged in her throat. She could taste the nervousness in the air without knowing how much of it was her own, and how much of it was that of the other bots around.

Her tail curled slightly between her legs in anxious submission. From the depths of the ship, he could hear so much noise. Bots yelling and arguing, fights going on, machines at work. It was a massive undertaking; much larger than that of the Rising Star. And from every symbol of the way the ship appeared from the outside to the air on the inside, she could only guess it was usually if not more violent prone around here than she expected.

Pedes clicking on the floor in an eerie unison march, the little femme tried not to focus on the scents of blood-energon and hate that simmered around her. There was such an abundance of negativity and hate on this ship; it was a cloud over her. Jealousy hung like a fog. There was no determining where any of it was coming from either; it seemed faint and then strong, moving in strange currents from vent shafts and down halls as many presences made traffic along the halls.

Blackout’s crimson optics dared to look down at her as she boldly looked up to him. She wondered if he’d felt her pleading, worried optics upon him. He hardly looked like himself. An alien once more; closed off and detached. It was a cold, calculated gaze that made her feel sick.

Then she noticed the faintest movement in his optics; the almost pinkish highlight crossing his gaze before it vanished. He turned his gaze straightforward again as his thunderous steps seemed to command and terrify all the bots around him save for herself.

It gave her a small sinking relief to know he was still in there and that he hadn’t dropped back to the completely isolated mech she’d dealt with so, so long ago. But such a comfort was short-lived when encompassed by bots. Especially bots she did not know; bots that Blackout seemed somewhat edgy to be around as though he was not sure of them himself. She wondered how familiar they were with each other. She had a feeling one way or another, she was probably going to find out.

No matter where she glanced, all Novastrike could see were gouges and scratches in the walls. Dents, stains of energon faint and not cleaned or hardly cleaned up. It caused a chill to run up her spinal strut. Whatever would allow bots to leave their ship so disheveled? Or was this all fresh; the conflict of turmoil and war that had not yet been addressed due to their own struggles?

The trail of passageways finally lead them to a massive double set of double doors. The seekers parted into groups and spread out from the door, fanning themselves out. Nova watched them out of the corner of her optics with awe and an understanding that whatever was behind that door was something powerful and to be respected.

With a shift of gears and metallic hum, the doors split apart and opened up to reveal the command center. Bots were sitting around consoles, though in a much, much larger and more organized format than that of the Rising Star. The panels of glass in the front were slightly darkened, revealing the planet that they had sighted just before coming aboard.

A center figure, standing alone, caught Novastrike’s attention. Clearly this was the bot in charge; a strong figure, stern stance, broad shoulders and a posture of perfection. His arms were behind his back, clasped servos together and staring out at the world beyond.

As he turned, his maroon optics glowering, bots in the room shrunk. Those that felt his gaze even grazed them began to bow with respect; wilting beneath his fierce optics.

Novastrike sucked in a shaky breath that made her chassis ache.

“Lieutenant Blackout,” the mech growled out with a toothy grin. “How nice of you to join us.”

~

Eons of training drilled into Blackout’s helm had him reacting on instinct. He balled up a servo into a chassis and placed it against his chassis. His pede moved so that he could kneel in the deepest form of respect he could manage. To his left, he could hear Novastrike hastily moving to copy him.

“Lord Megatron,” he rumbled deeply.

“At ease, Blackout,” the tyrant chuckled; his voice much like that of broken glass and rusted nails. “Are we not allies, old friend?”

Hesitating slightly, the obsidian titan raised his helm just enough to meet his former leader’s gaze. There was a twisted madness he wasn’t sure he’d noticed before. Had it always been there, lying in plain sight? Had he been that blind to it? He was tempted to try pulling up some of his long-term memory files to scan for it, but didn’t find it the appropriate time nor place to do so.

“To the bitter end,” he responded coolly after a nanokliks pause.

That same crooked grin of sharp derma glistened as the warlord stepped towards them. Bots even remotely in the way of all that protruding kibble and shoulder width made sure to give him the proper respectful distance as he parted a sea of working bots.

“Rise.”

It was a command.

Gradually but obediently, he moved to his pedes once more. Novastrike remained nervously bowed at his side. Preferable he supposed; the last thing he wanted was for her to make optic contact with his master.

As the Decepticon Leader came before him he stopped an arm’s length distance or so away. His optics moved over Blackout with lack of emotion afflicting his cold and calculating gaze. Blackout stiffened uncertainly beneath it.

“Good to see you’ve returned,” Megatron stated in his booming voice of authority. “You were always the most loyal of my commanders.”

Heat built up in Blackout’s core in response to the mech’s words. He remained still and quiet. It was the only approach any intelligent bot would take before such a powerful mech; one who had brought down governments and sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of bots.

From the way that Megatron was eyeing him though, there was the slightest hint of distrust. There was a million questions that seemed to reside in him that he wasn’t willing to put out there; or perhaps not at least out in the open.

Flashing that same sadistic grin once more, Megatron extended his servo towards Blackout. He didn’t even flinch at the sudden motion.

Offering out his own servo, he tightly grasped his master’s.

“I’ll see to it that your room is restored to its proper working order and reinstated to you,” the tyrant stated. He turned his helm towards one of the Vehicon standing nearby and nodded. The grounder was quick on his pedes to exit the room in a haste, clearly bent on carrying out the unspoken order.

“Thank you, my Lord,” Blackout growled, dipping his helm.

The tyrant released his servo and Blackout retracted it to allow it to drop down at his side once more.

With his grin stretched like a feral cat, the warlord’s snarling voice remarked, “I’m happy to see you survived the ordeal of battle so many years ago, Blackout. It was not an easy decision to leave you behind; although I had been assured you were certainly offline.”

“What’s done is done,” he stated in response curtly. “I live to serve, Lord Megatron.”

“Excellent,” rasped the frightening former gladiator. “You’re dismissed. I’ll have you summoned for a debriefing in the war room in 4 joors. In the mean time-”

Megatron raised his arms out in a theatrical display, his psychotic optics brimming and wide as his fanged derma flashed yet again.

“-enjoy some time wandering the halls and reacquainting yourself with the Nemesis.”

[mademoiselleseraph]

Like Pluto and Persephone chapter 2

Chapter Two of my Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour AU fic. ~~~~

The sun had set and La Muette was to slink her way to the exiled Montaigu. She had a letter the young man needed to read, and promised her lady that it would reach him.

The circumstances reminded her of her previous life. Everyone prophesied that Granada would fall, and the civil war between those supporting the sultanic claims of the one called Boabdil by Spain and Muhammad al Zaghal made the emirate vulnerable to the armies of Castile and Aragon. She did what she could to protect her homeland. She was literate, which was more than anyone expected from a skinny bastard girl living in destitution. In fact, no one expected a little deaf girl to be in the business of selling secrets, but that’s exactly what made her so effective.

She was snapped from her thoughts by the sudden sight of a young man on a horse, dressed head to toe in Montaigu blue. It was Benvolio, Roméo’s cousin. Of course, once he saw her, he commanded his horse to stop.

Whenever Benvolio meant to communicate with her, he spoke and signed at the same time. She appreciated the gesture, even if he usually intended to mock her with it. He had asked her why she was on the way to Mantua, and why so late. By way of response, she held up the note she was tasked with delivering. He, of course, snatched it up in turn, carefully separated the wax-bound ribbon stuck to it and unfolded it, meaning to read it in what was left of the twilight. And then he looked quite confused.

A noble effort, she thought, but she knew that there were astoundingly few people of Verona, if any, that could read or write Arabic. Much fewer than lived in Granada. It made her job easier. Writing that came so naturally to her could now be read by practically no one.

She reached her hand out, open and expecting, and he gave her back the note.

“I saw the lady Juliette’s name,” he stated. “Is this going to Roméo?”

She gave a curt nod and scampered off in hopes of not wasting any more time. He grabbed her arm.

“Wait,” he asked. “Let me take you to him.”

She turned without response and was about to start off again when he grabbed her shoulder.

“It’s a long way and it’s not safe for a woman alone. Please.”

She pulled a knife from her garter and replied with her hands, “Bad luck, attacking a woman alone.”

“I understand,” he told her. “It’s a day’s walk there and back. If you want a chance at being home by tomorrow I can help. Even if it’s just the way there and not the way back.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at him with suspicion, then tapped her forefinger on her forehead to ask why.

“In all honesty,” he replied, “I am alone as well, and I am not armed. Sharing the road with a fellow traveler would be good, one with a knife even better.”

She considered for a bit and accepted. She mounted behind him and rode side saddle so as to more easily reach her tucked-away weapon and dismount. She kept hold of his shoulders in order to not fall off.

Benvolio had often offered rides to others who went without. It was his way. His horse was a sturdy crossbreed named Janus, not the most agile beast or a particularly tall one, but gentle and strong enough to carry two. He had a special saddle constructed for the express purpose of allowing someone to sit behind him and make the weight of two separate people easier to bear.

Even with her behind him, he could see flashes of her red skirt out of the corner of his eye.

How do they afford the kermes to dress even the servants in red?, he often wondered, but he never needed to ask anyone. It was well-known that the Capulets kept a hold of their wealth through strategic marriages within the family. One second cousin once or twice removed would marry another and their child would then be wed to a third cousin God-knows-how-many-times removed and so on. Even the current Comte Antonio Capulet and his Lady, born Giovanna de Gondelaurier, were fourth cousins, though Benvolio couldn’t remember if they were any times removed. Marriages between first cousins weren’t too uncommon either, but the family tried to limit it to one every three generations, and maybe a second in case of emergency. The truth of the matter was, plainly put, that anyone born a Capulet was as inbred as a prized horse.

Or a mad dog, Benvolio thought, remembering how Mercutio would describe Tybalt. “A mangy crazed cur foaming at the mouth whose parents were pups of the same litter!,” he would say. It was only a few nights ago that Mercutio talked of a masquerade ball celebrating some Capulet brat’s betrothal. “And why not celebrate so lavishly?” he had laughed. “They never marry outside the family, so this is really quite an event!” But Mercutio was gone now. He would never shake the world with his laughter again.

La Muette would never honor the offence with a reply. That is, not a reply of words. Her hands would answer, but by forming fists instead of signs. Her anger was a rare sight, but that only made it all the more startling to see. It was not unlike a tiger that would slink out of the woods to drink at a stream where children often played and women washed clothes. Insulting the House Capulet was one way to bring forth her wrath, the other way was to call her a Spaniard.

The Comte Capulet took his own ship to rescue her and her elder sister; then starving, penniless, and recently orphaned bastard daughters of some great-uncle Capulet’s stepson. He brought them to his home as serving gentlewomen before their city fell to the Reconquista. Everyone knew of it, as discreet as it was intended to be, and murmured about from Venice to Florence and as far west as Savoy. They were charming girls, it was said, so much that a man could get drunk on their presence alone. Benvolio refused to believe it when he first heard it, but when he saw the younger sister laughing and shaping her thoughts in the air with her hands, he reluctantly admitted to himself that perhaps there was some truth to the rumor.

Her hair is red as fire, he’d thought, and there’s a passion burning as bright and hot in her eyes. She even moved in lithe and flickering sequences like a gentle flame and bore a sense of dignity befitting the sun.

And now she sat behind him with a beautiful, expressive hand on each of his shoulders. He wanted to reach for one, to touch it and hold it, but she was already suspicious of him and the knife she kept in her garter could without a doubt kill him before he could explain.

Alternating between trot, gallop, and rest, they arrived in Mantua just under two hours later. After some asking around about a recently settled exile, the pair were on their way to Roméo’s new dwelling.

It was smaller than anything he lived in before, more a room than a proper house. La Muette noticed it was about the size of the servants’ quarters only without all the beds. Roméo was trying to help the young servant boy he brought with him build a fire. Upon hearing steps at the door, he looked up and embraced his cousin without having to think about it. When he pulled away again, all could see tears streaming down his cheeks. They didn’t seem to match his smile.

“Benvolio, my friend,” he called, squeezing his arms and giving him a playful shove, “the Prince has cheated me. He seems to find banishment more merciful than death. He must not realize how lonely it is to be surrounded by strangers. I hadn’t until I arrived.” He took a breath and regained his composure. “Now,” he continued, “I appreciate your company, but tell me, why are you here?”

Benvolio cracked a smile and let out a chuckle. “Your mother sent me, as you could have guessed. She’ll not rest until I bring back news that you are not dead in a ditch.” He looked around his cousin’s miserable lodgings. “It’s seems her fears were not wholly unfounded.”

The servant boy, named Piero La Muette remembered, was taking Janus to a tiny stable outside. Roméo shot an irritated look at the wood in the fireplace. “It’s too green to light,” he explained. “We shall have to pile on blankets and pray for a mild night.” His eyes fell on La Muette dressed in Capulet red and he asked why Benvolio brought her.

La Muette answered herself by handing him the letter.

“The seal is broken,” he observed.

La Muette gestured toward Benvolio. Roméo nodded and unfolded it. It smelled of his love and that reassure him, but he couldn’t read the script. He turned it around, trying to see if he was supposed to be seeing something else.

“Arabic,” she explained with her hands. “Should it reach the wrong people. Lady Juliette’s words, she signed. I can interpret.”

“Pray do!” he implored. “I’ve a pen, ink, and paper. There’s a table you can write on.”

“Only for you,” she explained, her hands moving in subtle flickers, as if they were whispering. “Not with him.” And she moved her eyes in Benvolio’s direction.

Roméo nodded, instructing his cousin to stay near the door in case Piero should need any help. He did as he was requested and La Muette set to rewriting the letter so Roméo could read it.

My love, Roméo, it opened;

My Lord father and Lady mother know nothing of our union, and perhaps the secrecy has damaged more than helped. With he that they had betrothed me to dead, they decided to wed me to my own dear cousin, Tybalt. He has revealed to me that he intends for the marriage between us to be nothing but an act to appease our family. Worry not. We shall be together soon. With deepest and most ardent affection,

Juliette

His heart swelled and burst. He could have kissed the maid in red without realizing it, had he not his one shred of self control. He almost did anyway.

“Should I write a reply?” he whispered with clumsy signs.

“No,” she answered, her fingers still whispering like ember. “Only more trouble, more to hide. Ought to burn that translation. Soon as you’re able to light a fire.”

He nodded, crumpling the paper into his boot when he heard Benvolio open the door for Piero. The two approached the table and Roméo prepared to play the host.

“Unfortunately,” he started, “due to circumstance, all I have to offer is water and stale black bread.” He turned to La Muette. “Would our welcomed messenger like any?” he asked her.

She in turn explained that her business was finished and she needed to return home. He insisted she take a slice of the bread for her journey and wished her safe travels. She signed a thank you, curtsied, and left, thinking about how Benvolio looked at her when he thought she couldn’t see.

Meanwhile, her sister Carmina and Tybalt were sharing his bed.

He had so often invited her to spend the night in the large featherbed he inherited from his father that she began to make nightly visits as she pleased. He couldn’t be happier for it. He found comforting security in her arms and steady tranquility in her words. She was like stone, stoic and immovable, happy to listen and share her wisdom without moralizing.

In fact, with all that Carmina told him about her upbringing with La Muette, it often seemed the sisters were tossed into a fire pit. The younger sister became the fire, passionate and boisterous, and the elder chose to harden like clay rather than be consumed and crumble to ash. Tybalt was fond of her, thought her pretty, respected the simple and objective logic she used in her advice, but more than that, he trusted her.

Trust wasn’t something he gave freely, not even to women. She was the only one he told about Juliette, though he was sure she wasn’t the only one to know. He asked her if it was wrong to desire one so close in blood. She asked him in turn if it was wrong to want to kill every Montaigu when it was written by God “Thou shalt not kill”.

When he couldn’t answer, she told him, “Morality is often too ambiguous and life often too complicated for the two to ever align. Think instead of results. Right and wrong are questions for your confessor. You ought to ask yourself instead who will be hurt and if it’s worth it.”

She had said this with her fingers in his hair. He laid his head on her lap as he’d been violently sobbing into his wine. It had been the eve of sixteenth birthday after spending the better part of a year in France, and he asked her to keep him from making rash decisions. He felt safe with her, even in so vulnerable a position; with his throat bared to her and his hair loose and available to forceful hands.

He told her everything about it. About the woman in France his aunt sent him to, how she told him to kill her husband and her greedy touch and the way she filed her nails like she was honing a blade. He told he of the Lady Capulet as well; how she pushed him against the wall and slipped her tongue into his mouth when he returned home. He pushed away and hadn’t been able to look her in the eye since.

The two had quickly become inseparable.

And now Carmina sat at the edge of the bed, combing her fingers through her hair, saying, “This is our last appointment, isn’t it? I know that with any other woman you would consider, but you wouldn’t dishonor the little comtesse by keeping a mistress.”

“No,” he said. “My keeping a mistress couldn’t possibly dishonor another man’s wife.”

“So there was a wedding,” she snarked in conclusion while adjusting a stocking.

“And a consummation,” Tybalt added.

“You Capulets waste no time, to be sure,” she mused with a dry chuckle. “How do you know for certain? I doubt the boy would have lived if you caught him in the midst of it.”

He tried not to imagine the boy in the midst of it as he explained, “The bed was still a rumpled mess and it smelled of someone else. The window was flung open. She had a blush about her face as women get when they’ve just….” He trailed off and took a moment to shake off the shame. He hated thinking of her in so compromising a state and was disgusted with the jealousy it produced in him. “And, of course,” he continued, “he left a garter.”

“Then what does that mean for your union with our Juliette?”

“The two shared a confessor who agreed to marry them. I’ll talk to him and arrange for him to perform the ceremony in a way that’s not legally binding. We’ll retreat to the villa and I’ll take her to visit her true husband. From there, I can only hope they have children and no one suspects.”

“And if they do suspect?” she asked. “If they have reason to believe that there was no consummation, they might demand a display with witnesses. Even if she was your true wife in flesh and soul and loved you as such with all her heart, she would die of shame if pushed to that.”

“The betrothal will happen tomorrow,” he thought aloud, “and there will be at least a week until the wedding proper. I have time to figure it out. Not much time, but I have time.”

“And what am I to do with the ring, then?” she asked, looking intently at her left hand.

She wore an old Capulet signet ring like a wedding ring. It had been Tybalt’s and he gave it to her. It was something of a joke between them. Everyone knew what they were to each other and what they did behind closed doors and bed curtains. Even Juliette knew. Her Nurse told her that they were “off being husband and wife” and the little comtesse walked in on them one morning before Carmina had a chance to dress.

“Play the part you think fits best. Keep it on your finger and be bitter, if you think you should. Or wear it on a different finger and weep, if you think that would be better. Or wear it round your neck and look to suffer silently. I don’t know.”

She stroked his hair, whispering, “I don’t have to leave. I can stay if you need me to.”

He took her hand in his and slid it down to his cheek. “I would like that.”

She laid in the bed again with his head on her shoulder and her fingers combing through his hair.

“I was unkind to you the night before last,” he muttered. “I don’t expect forgiveness for it any time soon, but I swear to you it will not happen to that degree ever again.”

“I know,” she said.

~~~~

[nebulousneko]

A semi-incoherent MK rant because I’m having Feelings™

Tbh if Gosho is too busy to juggle both DC and MK that’s cool, I get it, but BOY what I wouldn’t give for Magic Kaito to have 900+ chapters worth of content.

I’d love to see 900+ of Kaito’s over the top, flashy, reality-bending heists that always still come back to him managing to pull off outrageous feats of illusion as a magician. I’d love to see more flashbacks of Toichi teaching him the tricks of the trade, his reaction the first time Chikage told him both her history and Toichi’s. I wish we could have seen what everything was like right after Toichi’s death, how Kaito and Chikage reacted, how Kaito has coped or just adapted to be the way that he is now. I wish we knew anything about Aoko’s/Akako’s/Hakuba’s families outside of Ginzo. 

There is literally so much that could be done just around Akako (who I’ll gush about because I’m biased towards her.) I want to know about how she became the heir to the line of red magic, I want to know more about the witches and other types of magic in this world in general. Jii knew that real magic existed and seemed to indicate (if I remember correctly) that Toichi and he both knew that it existed, so did Toichi also have a run in with other witches? I want to know more about Akako’s family, if she has any, if they’re still alive, if they were “witch hunted” and that comes around to what her deepest fear was (according to the Spider ep.) I want to see more of her growing and training and using her magic in different ways, maturing and honing her skills as someone who’s inheriting a line of ancient magic would be! I’d also love to know more about her interests outside of magic and “Kaito will be mine,” although the numerous ways she’s come to his aid when he faces danger is an aspect I absolutely adore. I want to know more about the magician vs witches feud, more in general about the magical side of Magic Kaito since.....you know.

I want to know equally about Hakuba and his family, what made him want to become a detective, it would be cool to see him butting heads with Conan at more Kid heists (although I digress I’d like to see more focus on Hakuba as Kaito’s main detective rival than Conan considering that’s what Hakuba was written for.) I want to see more Hakuba vs Kid shenanigans at his heists, but also more subtle instances of Hakuba helping Kid escape (which we have gotten on more than one occasion which is a direction I really like.) I want to know more about the other cases Hakuba’s solved, we don’t know much about his case past other than “he’s great, he’s pretentious, and he doesn’t get along with Shinichi and Heiji because his demeanor has pissed them both off although they have worked successful together (except one time they did it was Kaito anyway).) I’d also like to know more about his other interests and see him grow into a kind of confidant and friend for Kaito, an interesting contrast to the fact that Kaito and Conan, while they do help each other out every now and then, I don’t think have the potential to be as close as Kaito and Hakuba (because Conan isn’t supposed to be a staple of Kaito’s series anyway.) It would be really nice for Kaito to have a friend he can go to (once they both get over their rivalry that I would see as becoming more of a game for them as they start to actually value each other’s skills etc) and hang out with and complain about life stuff with, someone who has his back and likewise Kaito could do the same for Hakuba.

I’d love to see more of Kaito’s organization! Give me more Spider please he’s awful but such a cool villain to me!!! Give me more Kaito’s org villain shenanigans, give me Kaito catching them in the middle of bad shit instead of them riding his coattails and so he has to dive in preemptively to save innocent people. Give me more of Kaito coming into increasingly dangerous situations with them, needing to do more teamwork with Akako and Hakuba to get out of it (and probably protect Aoko in the process) honestly this type of teamwork is my SHIT. Tell me more about Pandora, where it’s legend originated, Toichi was originally looking for it too, there’s so much flashback material there to work with! Did Toichi actually manage to find it, did he die before he could leave proper clues for Kaito, or did he actually leave proper clues but they haven’t revealed themselves yet? Why did he prepare for Kaito to become the next Kid, is he really dead (because tbh I’m still skeptical about this.)

Give me some more goofy vacation eps and the Magic Kaito crew hanging out, give me Kaito confiding to Akako and Hakuba every now and then about all the shit he’s been through, about how he just needs a hug, and for shipping’s sake let him be more vulnerable with Aoko every now and then. She’s known him for so long and she is a consistent aid and confidant in his life, I know they’re still dancing around their embarrassing crush feelings for each other but something endearing centering around something other than teasing the fact that Kaito is Kid to her would be great.

Give me more Aoko employing those great detective skills she’s probably picked up from her dad. More Aoko bonding (not in a demeaning or superficial/rival way) with Akako and Hakuba. I know that we’ve already seen small snippets of this kind of interaction but think of all we could have if we had 900+ chapters of MK!

This list/rant is getting kind of long but there really is an endless litany of the things I wish we could have gotten out of Magic Kaito had it been the main series instead of DC, all of which has nothing to do with the DC plotline or what it brings to MK. I love Kaito, his world, his relationship dynamics, his story, his villains, everything! There are so many wonderful building blocks that could be expanded into such a fantastic and nuanced story, and the fact that this universe is essentially stuck playing second fiddle to DetCo and is considered inferior in comparison or just as a little extra to provide some more challenge for Conan (to some people) is just such a damn waste and is disheartening. :/

I love Magic Kaito with all my heart and soul and maybe one day I’ll be able to answer some of these questions for myself through fanfiction, but man.....thinking of all the potential here just makes me love the series even more, for everything it offers, everything it could be, and everything it does still deliver, no matter how meager it is, it will always be dear to me.

[siphen0]

Titans — Ep. 107 �� Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans last week was a great reflection piece for Dick Grayson who was able to look at this new Robin and truly come to realize why it is that he parted ways with Batman/Bruce Wayne. It was another memorable episode to have like the Doom Patrol episode for the sake of comic accurate introductions. Now that this is passed, of we got to more pressing matters. Namely involving the search for Rachel’s birth mother. Just from the looks of the promo, this was an episode to anticipate if you were truly looking for dark and twisted. .

How we got to the reveal of Rachel’s birth mother alive was quite the way to open this episode. The Messenger is a creepy guy, but this interrogation they put him through showed you that it could only get worse when he was able to speak a little more freely without eyes over his shoulder. When he said that he wanted to speak to Rachel, that could have gone any number of ways. How they actually decided to execute this scene was terrifying since the guy went to some extremes just to make sure that she was listening to what he had to say. How this ended up leading to the prison break for Rachel’s mother was equally interesting. There was this build-up in suspense because we already know that something had to go wrong in order for them all to get captured. The only issue I could take was how they landed in this position. It was the most bone-headed decision made, but you also couldn’t argue with the tendency of the two who got them into that trouble.

To say that this team gets a whole lot more than they bargained for felt like an understatement. When you know what this organization does with their brand of experimentation, and the kind of individuals who landed into their laps, it is terrifying to think of what we are in store for when they’re forced to face their deepest fears and vulnerabilities. Being held captive by The Organization in a mysterious psychiatric facility. This was like something out of a horror movie. The evil doctor looming over each of their prisons, the way they held each one of them, and lets not forget the general atmosphere that simply felt devoid of hope.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: John Medland / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

While Gar and Dick were in their own sort of trouble, I was more terrified by the thought of what Kory was about to go through. The only scene we were actually able to brace for was what happened once they put her on the table to experiment on. That was a clip we saw before the first episode even came out. I didn’t know when that point would come, but I knew I was not going to be ready for it. As this episode came, I still wasn’t. It doesn’t get any worse than seeing someone cut open, and alive. For Dick, it was intriguing to see what would happen once waking up with his suit on. Everything from the table he was strapped to, the drugs they pumped him with, and how he was the only one outside of his cell was something to get your heart racing. If anyone was going to be hardest to crack, it would have been Dick. To show that even he could be broke to some degree made a big difference. Of course, with that said it isn’t entirely too hard when he is riddled with nightmares about who he is. The reality of the situation was the biggest shocker. You get so hung up on one thing that you overlook the concept of what’s possible and what is not. Not too much time was spent on Gar during that period, but I loved what came of the aftermath. These doctors pretty much got what they asked for for better or for worse.

The escape from this facility was all the darkness and grittiness you thought you couldn’t get any more of. At this point it is something that you would have gotten used to. I for the most part found it exciting to see what could come of these heroes taking the gloves off. Especially what would happen once a certain someone finally let go of who they used to be. With that said, some will argue that the escape was a little too convenient or easy. It did feel that way for the hand in it that Rachel had, but that still didn’t change the obstacles they each had to face in able to walk out of this in one piece.

Titans “Asylum” challenged this team in a way that they were far from prepared for. My only fear after this episode is the bold move to break your toys so soon in the first season, but I’m still open to what the rest of these episodes have in store when they’ve decided it is time to put them back together.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans “Asylum” Review Titans last week was a great reflection piece for Dick Grayson who was able to look at this new Robin and truly come to realize why it is that he parted ways with Batman/Bruce Wayne.