#heeelpp...

[ouroborosreilig]

resident meshi. dungeon evil. Yesd

[codecicle]

DOES HE KNOW HOW FUNNY HE IS. DOES HE HAVE ANY IDEA

[nobie]

how does he look utterly besotted and wary at the same time, immeasurably old and inconceivably young simultaneously, learned and naive in equal force

(cap cr: @thesherrinfordfacility)

[somdxr]

wanted to wait a little before i posted this but. oh well

[nepentheism]

                                tell me why, your hands

    are cold..

[athenamineblox]

I am having spinel brainrot SOMEONE HELP ME AAAGGRGGH

[androgymess]

scuffed nico and farah interactions :3 (first time drawing him - its gonna be SCUFFED for a while till i get a grasp on this man)

[gravyeater14]

alt ↓

[courtesanofdeath]

She's beautiful, isn't she? I can see why she's got fans at the station.

[sluckythewizard]

ive got TOO many damn comics cooking in the oven but heeere here you can uhh lick the spoon or wahtever. small sneaky peek. just for you.

[tzuu-died]

i found an older design buried in my files, and my friends said to give him a design so…

[n0tamused]

✶⋆.˚Deeds, not words, part 2

Part 1 > Here

Disclaimer: As I previously mentioned in part 1, these "chapters" are not the finished product and many details are subject to change. See this as my way of publicly exploring the details of this part of Jien's story and sharing these fake screenshots of her

Content: After the Preceptors detained Jien and her subordinate, Syaoran, the two are sent down to the prison to wait for trial and the rest of the team. They talk (idk I'm bad at these short summaries), Hanya cameo

Words: 30354 (woww- much longer than my first chapter.. I was feeling quite inspired)

The long halls climbed up around them like a throat leading them into the belly of a beast and the air was cold and disgustingly still. For a long while it was silence that accompanied them down into the prison. Jien spoke nothing, the guard only spoke in short commands - don’t touch this, follow here, don’t go there - and Syaoran was silent as well. His palms felt sweaty and he flexed his right hand, feeling the scarred tissue pull harder against the rest of his skin. He remembered when he got his hand burned and cut when he was young, and as the skin was healing it had become a habit of his to flex the fingers of his hand periodically. He had no sword now, though, no hilt to reach for, no hilt or gun handle. It bothered him, but he swallowed it all down and kept his mouth shut. 

They have given them the evidence, copied them more than once and sent one copy of the countless logs and footage to the Ten-Lords commission that held the records of team’s whereabouts for the entire last year with a clear promise that they could provide more if need be. There were holes in there too, though. Supervisor Jien seldom appeared on the cameras, but had all her logs clean, leading the High-Elder to believe the team forged her signature and reports in her name over time.

They did not, Syaoran told them, swearing they did not and would not think of doing so, telling them the process of their expeditions, their preparations and the ways they did their job. Jien simply never traveled much with them or on the exact same vessel as they did - that is all. She traveled ahead of them to make sure the road was safe, to do her own work and sometimes she'd bring one or two of them with her. But why would she travel ahead, months in advance if not to execute plans she did not wish to disclose to her team? Jien had to cut Syaoran off and  tell him to shut his mouth before things escalated further. All he could do is balk at her, anger and shock evident on his face.

‘Did you do it’ - he wished to ask as he glared at the back of her head, even if he knew the answer, his heart squeezing as the knife of unease threatened to cut his heart open. The walk felt longer than necessary. Jien didn’t speak, and he kept flexing his hand every now and then, feeling the cold of the prison seep into his bones. If she was found guilty, he was no less free of the burdens of having a criminal in his midst as he was in close ties with her as his supervisor and leader. No one would believe him differently even if he screamed it to them. 

Ahead of them he saw two figures waiting, a guard and - what he guessed - one of the judges. She looked as if she was born from the cold in the prison, pale complexion, pale gray-blue eyes and pale hair, only her clothes added color to her. She looked unfazed by their approach.

He didn’t catch onto her initial words, but as he saw her lips moving he quickly made himself listen. Hanya she said, one of the Judges at the Ten-Lords Commission.

“Your hearing was scheduled to be on the day after tomorrow, but it has been postponed due to the new information coming through” for all she did not look like, the Judge’s sigh felt heavy as she breathed it out. “The weight of your crimes has made it so that you will stand trial before the Ten-Lords Commission and the Seven Arbiter-Generals on the Xianzhou Xuling”

“..I understand, your honor. I must ask if this trial is to include my team members as well?” Jien asked, tone flat and nearly bored. She never looked so tired. Her hands crossed over her chest and she looked at the Judge alone, attention unwavering. 

“They will be put to trial. The Xianzhou Luofu has sent out a force to detain them and bring them here, but they will be judged on the Luofu and remain here until your trial is done” Judge Hanya told them, taking a brief look at Syaoran. He felt the corners of his mouth pull down, his eyes feeling heavy with unspoken irritation and unease. This trap had teeth.

He remembered the Preceptor, his ugly smile as he watched the Cloud-Knights coming to detain them two after they submitted their rich evidence. It didn’t matter to the old lizard, he barely cast it a glance before he handed the files over to the man next to him, kindly reminding them that the evidence will be looked at by all of them.

“Understood. In the meantime, we are to stay..here?”

“Yes. You will be able to talk to your subordinates once they arrive under the surveillance of a Wraith Warden. As for the.. evidence. It is currently being looked at. The Preceptors are preparing their evidence against you, you also hold the right to call upon any witnesses that may aid your favor, call upon someone that can bring you any other evidence. In terms with the protocol, these assistants will be under the protection of the Luofu”

Jien’s chin dipped for a brief pause, nodding at the Judge’s words before she straightened again with a deep sigh of her own. “Understood..”

The pale Judge regarded Jien with a final, observant look before nodding her head and turning on her heel to guide them the rest of the way. 

They were put close together into a moderately sized cell. It looked like one big room, only separated by the bars that ran at the half of it, splitting the big room into two sections. Jien was stripped of her heavy cloak and jewelry, and Syaoran as well. He missed his furred collar already, the black cloak that distinguished him as a part of the Team of Arched Archaeologists led by Jien. Not all of them wore black clothes, it was just him who had such a strong penchant for it, but the team accepted him in all his dark garbs and dark demeanor. Syaoran had begun to clasp his fur cloak with a clasp in the shape of a lily once he found out Jien favored those flowers and many others soon took up the habit with him. Kaiya became a figure he looked up to, the older man looked as young as he was, but when he revealed he was actually 140 Syaoran balked at him like he grew a second head.

Jien sat at the bench in the cell, her eyes empty as she stared at the hard cold ground.

“Miss YueXia” he called her from where he stood in front of the bars. His blood was restless, but it felt cold as it plunged through his veins and for a moment of insanity he thought he’d confess to feeling afraid and doubtful. 

She looked at him without moving her head, the darkness of her eyes nearly swallowing the white of them from his view. “Hm?”

“Why aren’t you talking? Why are you so quiet?” At their first meeting with the Preceptor she had shown her fangs,  and throughout the night as the entire team was up and awake to gather evidence and send them logs from their ship, Jien spoke to him. She told him of the protocols and what actions they might make - them and the Preceptors both - and she knew much about it. She looked angry too; it wasn’t once he thought she’d smash into the tablet and send it flying in pieces, but she never did. She poked harder at the screen at times, but otherwise she was gently treating the papers, the quill and the chair. He knew she was seething then, so would it be possible that the dragon’s anger could dissipate so quickly, now?

“Telling the judge before a trial that I am not guilty will not convince them to let me go. I’ll save my words for the trial” Jien said as she stirred her tail, rubbing up arms before she crossed them over her chest. Another heavy exhale came from her, her lips pressed together.

“Will you call for any witnesses?”

“What witnesses..?” Jien countered in a tone lower than previously, almost quizzically as she narrowed her eyes at him. “I doubt they’ll come, even if I call them,” she added after a heartbeat. Syaoran took a step towards the bars. “They will come, it is their duty to answer. You’re not inviting them to a tea party, but a trial - a trial”

“It is a duty they can also refuse - be reminded that the laws of the Luofu are not applicable everywhere..” 

“Will you call anyone as your witness?” Syaoran asked, his jaw set as he tried not to reach for the bars to squeeze them. He knew the chance of a witness being able to deny an order like this was slim, but she knew the law better than him and he wasn��t about to debate her on it.

Jien sighed and let her eyes fall shut, her tail moving from one side - over the back of her bench - until it was curled around her other. “I will. I’m just.. thinking. I hope my silence has not frightened you?”

“It has” he shot at her, but he said it so softly, without a trace of anger that he felt. He flexed his hand and licked his dry lips, looking around his small cell as Jien only looked at him blankly, swallowing the details of his face in that manner she always did, putting his face under a knife for a dissection. “I assume I will also be given the right to speak?” “Of course you will be. There are no laws restricting you there” 

“Good” He paces a few steps, then turns towards the corner to pace towards it in a slower rhythm. “I plan to speak then” he said to the walls.

“And what will you tell them? What more do you know than me of the Preceptors or my whereabouts throughout the course of last years?” She had straightened in her seat when he turned to look at her, her long hair falling down her exposed shoulders. She didn’t wear her hair down too much, but the sight made her seem relaxed, ready for bed even. 

“I know. Maybe not much about the Preceptors - this is the first time I met them - but I know you. You and your actions. I may  be new to your team, but I am no bleating sheep to fall to fear” Syaoran approached the bars that separated them again, giving Jien a weary look, something she returned gladly as a challenge - for a moment he thought he saw a ghost of a smile on her lip.

“Well that is good” she scoffed, a noise bordering on an unamused chuckle as she threw one leg over the other. “I don’t pick sheep to accompany me to faraway lands. Sheep stays where it is safe, and it is not safe where I go” she let herself be mean with her tone, Syaoran saw the way she had her lip pulled to sneer at him, showing a bit of the sharp edge of her canine. Angry, sad or disappointed or amused, Jien’s face never showed the emotions much, and when she did they were quick to fade.

She shook her head, blowing a strand of hair from her face, continuing on before he could say anything “But - sheep, wolf, lion or bird, I do not mean to throw you into the fire or the jaws of another”. She was honest, he knew and for a moment felt bad.

“I know what you may think. You saw some of their evidence as well - I wouldn’t trust me either after seeing that.. I know you are afraid, and I’m sorry about that. My words may hold little consolation, but surely my actions from before can be of some reassurance that I won’t leave you for them to skin?” Jien was looking at him with something else in her eye, a glint of sorrow or the weight of so many unspoken words. “I will see to it that you are safe”

Suddenly it dawned upon him, the implication of his words and the meaning of her silence. “You mean to confess to it?” he blurted out, horrified. “But you didn’t do it” he bit through his teeth.

Jien recoiled, shifting in her seat and putting both feet to the ground. “I didn’t” she echoed blankly, shaking her head. 

“You didn’t!” Syaoran pressed and Jien never looked at him more confused.

“Why confess to it then?” he added, his lungs feeling that familiar burn of the shortness of breath. Jien stood there, looking lost, big blank eyes staring at him - through him. He could almost hear it - why do you care - the thought held her voice, although she never uttered the words aloud.  He thought she’d say something, and he waited and waited but she just kept looking at him, peeling away the skins of his person until she got to the bone and the marrow and found no answer to her question. 

Syaoran huffed and sighed before he mustered the words to say something again. “I held doubt yes - life has taught me that I cannot trust my own mother, let alone someone I did not know for long. But I saw their evidence, but I know the truth of it. You cannot have me believe you’d kill a child or organize a whole group to undermine the Alliance as a whole - even if I didn't see ‘her’. This is the Preceptor's work” he concluded and paced down the side of the bars.  “You barely care enough for dinner, let alone this power that the Preceptors love to say is being stolen. If it is so easy to steal then it bloody well should be when they can't do so much as protect it”

“Is this your way of scolding me? Syaoran, while I appreciate your truthfulness, you will do well to keep your tone down. You don’t want the whole prison to know how you dislike the Preceptors?” she paced, slowly in a tandem with him. She didn't like his rants like this or when he yelled. She always advocated for more civil talks. “Listen… Regardless of my position in this - which we know very well” she said quickly when she saw him opening his mouth to talk. Holding her finger up she continued: “I will do my best to send you and the team back to your usual routines as soon as I can. It is me they’re targeting, their ire is with me alone. But they hope to hurt me by dragging others into this mess and they mean to shame me by making such a big spectacle of it” she talked to him like a mother to a child, a firm mother, but a mother all the same. Her head tilted from one side, trying to keep his gaze. 

“They do not know that their little tricks and attempts to scare me do not work.. Quite frankly if they so desperately wanted me to leave their precious territory I would have left long ago, but they always kept me at some arm's-length, as if to subdue me should I wish to turn around and bite. When have I bitten anyone unprovoked?” she mused, looking at the little puncture mark in his vest, where the lily would usually rest in.  “My point is - they are not as powerful as they think they are.. I just need all of their attention on me and I plan to use the trial on Xuling Xuling as grounds to dispel these claims made against me”

“But, what? You will confess if all of it comes to failure?” he inquired, tone suddenly icy. It all came back to the evidence they caught a glimpse of. Damned it all be. The woman in the footage had her face, her voice, and her reputation wasn’t all too hard to uncover. Working part time for the Intelligentsia Guild, leading a team of her own, traveling wide and far with regular disappearances when local forces were sent to track her down.. It all overlapped with Jien’s own character like an alter ego. It felt like a big, cruel joke, and the whole universe was in on it. Jien was trying to calm him, reassure him, but how could he feel at ease knowing what he knew? He was there with her when the woman wearing her likeness appeared. He was sure Jien was going to carve out his mind and scrape the memory of the encounter out with the way she looked at him - but she didn’t. She only told him to not tell anyone.

Jien sighed, turning to the side. “They will probably go forward with hearing you and the rest of the team out here first, then they’ll take me up to Xianzhou Xuling..” she trails off, she’s standing too far away for him to reach.

“Miss YueXia… The team has your back. I have your back” he told her, despite knowing two or three from the team who he could see being bought. But Kaiya, Accerly, Kaiya’s wife, who were from the Alliance; old master Noyal, Elisa, Samuel, Carwyn, and half of the team would speak truly for her. That Doctor from the Guild too, weren’t they close? - he’d speak truly, Syaoran knew but from this black cell he could seldom do anything about any of it. He had to get out. 

Jien found it hard to reply or to accept his words and she only crossed her arms over her chest again. “..Thank you.. I will do my best to untangle you from this mess. All I ask is your patience for a little longer”

Patience. Syaoran could get more of that. The time before the trial would give him ample space to think in utter quiet. He knows what to do..

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[codecicle]

debating on putting pins and accessories on my backpack for school this year, and the entire time i have the "I'll get shot for being an mcyt fan. No joke. It could happen tweet" in the back of my mind.

[skrrt16]

I'm panicking cause I have game programming class and since I installed unity(engine) my laptop has been getting stuck and making this noise when its hard for it to process stuff 😭😭😭 and I bought it a year ago and it's a gaming laptop

[kroosluvr]

head in hands thinking of my stupid makeup actor au thing again and all 3 of them being like nah the lipstick mark doesnt look good enough let's redo it (wipe) (reapplies lipstick) (kisses again) FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK (in goro's case akira's like hmmmmmmmmm idkkk its justttt not there yet and keeps kissing him and hes like ok. ok enough. stop. stop that) I HAVE TO END M YLIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[ashpkat]

untitled calron coffee shop au (a small unfinished snippet)

“Is this your number?” He asked and then pointed to something scrawled on the cup with Sharpie. With a jolt, Aaron realized why Tamara had been smiling like the cat who caught the canary earlier. She was a filthy meddler.

“Oh, uh,” Aaron squinted to read it better, and, yes, it was in fact his number. “Yeah. That’s me.”

Calls scowl didn’t let up, but Aaron was starting to realize he wasn’t actually mad, it was just his resting face. The boy looked a little lost, honestly, just staring at his face like he was peeling back layers of his skin, trying to decipher him. Then, Call turned the cup around in his hand and sighed. There was a little bit of black liquid at the bottom he chugged down before looking back up at Aaron (up, because the other guy was significantly shorter than he was).

He seemed to be doing some sort of mental gymnastics in his head judging by the way his eyebrows knitted together. The way his nose wrinkled and his mouth twisted in thought was shockingly endearing. Then, Call spoke. “What’s your name?”

“Huh?” After he’d said that, Aaron looked down at his yellow apron where his name tag should’ve been. The backings to the pin were, in truth, very cheap and awful. It must have fallen off, but his other pins were still there — his pride flag, a he/him pin, and one of a cat Tamara had given him. “It’s Aaron, uh, Stewart, that is.”