#i almost had her with a power up item but decided a sack that has something in it would do well enough

[the-blind-geisha]

Scene reminiscent of King Boo appearing at Darkshire to ward off the people from coming into his woods in my King Boo story. It takes place at night, so a good enough excuse to say it's not that busy with people--even for a town that's in the Boo Woods where it's constantly shrouded in darkness. lol

This image... oof. I had all the pieces put together in June of last year, I wanna say, but I took a look at it and instantly intimidated myself out of it. It sat in my idea list forever until I wanna say, September or so, I finally kicked myself in the rear and got to working on it. I almost tormented myself with making every window visible in regards to the inside, but decided 'nope' and made a lot of stained glass windows instead. Future me thanks past me for that choice..

I had a lot of fun drawing the bandits. I realized I don't draw them enough for someone who has them as a fave enemy, so in they go.

I do have the background saved solo for future projects or any commissions where folks want to ask for it as a substitute background. 😩💦

[capt-spooki3]

By The Witch's Grace

Chapter One

A Sbi "choose your own story" fanfiction

It seems Y/n, a known and hated magic user in their small town, has a lot to deal with after the rowdy bunch that is Philza, Wilbur, Technoblade, and Tommy, show up at their door step in the midst of a giant snow storm...

Warning: Cursing, talk of hate/discrimination

2.6k words

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“Alright, we need flour, milk, apples... Uh no no stop meowing, please. Shit okay, flour, milk, apples, and what? Oh god, was it- oh! Bottles! Of course, geez.” Y/n laughs at themself before kneeling down, and pets the head of their cat who was demanding their attention. The little feline, who looked like a little toasted marshmallow, purred and meowed as she was happy with the much-needed attention.

“Alright Poppy, I’ll be back. Be a good little girl for me, okay? I’ll be back in time to give you supper I promise.” They baby talked to the cat with little forehead kisses before getting back up to their feet and reaching toward the wall where a large cloak was hung on a large nail next to the door. They threw on the heavy fabric and clasped the small glass button to keep it on their shoulders, their hand lingering as it passed over the glassy eye that permanently stayed on a chain around their neck. The result of a curse placed, not too long ago, that bound it to their person until death. Just the luck of someone who often plays with magic that they can barely comprehend.

The piece would pass as a decoration to any untrained eye, but to those who delved into the arts of magic, any one of them could tell you what this object was. With the deep and light greens with accents of blue and a cat-eye pupil that was forever staring, there was no mistaking an eye of ender. The object was rich in stored-up mana, but it was no joke. Even with the most skilled of mages, they had to be most cautious and limit their time interacting with the eye. The sooner they distanced themself from it the better as the eye has been heavily rumored to take possession of people who use its magic for too long. Mages long past wrote notes in books, Y/n as read countless times, on how the eye has influenced beings to cause great harm and destruction. Its motives are still unknown. 

With the object on their person 24/7, they take caution every moment in case the eye decides it's time to take control. They hope it isn't any time soon.

Tucking the eye of ender under the latch of the cloak, they peeked outside to be met with chilled air kissing their cheeks. The bitter promise of snow.

More the reason to get their errands done as soon as they could to get back home. As if their life being in danger wasn’t the biggest reason to rush so they could hide again. They carefully pulled on their hood and hid as much of their features as they could within the cloak before stashing a satchel that jingled with coins and setting off through the door.

Being able to leave their distant home was always a treat, but also a constant threat to their life. They were never positive if they would return home after each venture. As a magic user, thoughtfully given the nickname of ‘Witch’ from the townsfolk, they weren’t liked much. They made the mistake of trying to show off their powers once before learning quickly that magic was despised among these people. It was only associated with the rich who treated people lower than them like they were dirt under their shiny boots. Luckily they still had a vendor in the town that sold to them, it was the only thing keeping them going.

After about a hour walk down a few winding forest paths that they carved out by themself after years of taking the same route, the port town was in view. Snow littered the ground to the sides of the dirt roads that they walked along and the small breeze that was present ran cold, the overcast sky promised a harsh amount of snow. That is bound to make next week fun. They sure were lucky to bring extra coins so they can stock up.

Once reaching the main town, they made sure to keep their head down and slip through the hundreds of bodies at the markets. It was all routine now, sadly. They took a turn down an alley that harbored a few stray cats and even a dog that scattered when they pressed on down the alley. Softly, they knocked a code to the shopkeep on the old wooden door.

The door just barely creaked open and an old green eye peered out. Y/n looked down to meet the weary eye peeking out at them and couldn't fight a smile. An old cackle rang out and the door opened up wide to an older woman. She was small and had all gray and white hair that was long and braided over her shoulder, but her eyes were alive and she was brimming with joy.

“Oh my little bird, how are you doing?” She said fondly with a slight German accent and Y/n knelt for the woman when she reached to hold their cheeks and look them over.

“I’m well Oma, thank you. You look as young as ever.” The kind words made the woman laugh and she put her hands on her hips and let out a sigh of contentment.

“So what do you need today? I just got in a big order of sugar if you want some.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful actually. I need flour, milk, and is Opa at his shop today? I need apples and he always has those bottles that I need.”

“Actually, he is home sick today,” She started and she walked into the shop to retrieve what Y/n needed. “He caught a small cold but he’ll be better soon. Wait just a moment and I’ll go grab everything.”

The lady went off on her way and Y/n sat on the doorstep, waiting and watching the people walk past the end of the alley. They cringed to themselves whenever they caught the word witch in some distant conversations, they seemed to be a tall tale at this point. At least they weren’t being actively hunted down anymore.

A few long minutes passed and there was a small thump that caught their attention in the shop, when they looked back there were two large sacks and no sign of the woman. Rest assured, after a few moments, the old lady was just barely managing to carry two more large sacks filled to the brim with the few things they had asked for plus much more as they usually only bring one sack home each trip.

“Oma! Oh no, I don’t have enough for all of this! Besides, I can’t possibly carry this all back home.”

“I know, I know. You’ll need it with the weather we have coming on tonight, as payment you can show me that magic you talked about last time. You know that… carrying magic..” She gestured wildly, trying her hardest to remember the word as Y/n stood back up.

“Oh, my spatial magic? I’m not too good at it, but I am sure I can manage this. Alright, are you ready?” They checked the alley for possible watching eyes before holding their hands out with their palms toward the bags.

The old woman stepped back and watched with excitement, her eyes practically sparkling already. Y/n closed their eyes and sucked in a deep breath, their hand flexing a bit and opening wider. A soft purple light began to emit from their hands and two thin, long arms that seemed to be made from the night sky itself stretched out and each hand touched the sack and engulfed it in darkness before retreating back within Y/n’s hands. They let out their held and concentrated breath with a deep sigh, their muscles and bones feeling heavy as they held some of the weight of the sacks within their being.

“That was amazing! Oh, you are so talented, I am so proud of you.” The woman said happily and walked forward, pulling Y/n down and kissing the head of the young mage she seemed to love. “Please hurry home now, stay safe. Opa and I love you and I hope to see you again soon.” 

She waved them off and Y/n waved back, pulling their hood down more for precaution, and slipped into the crowd toward the road they took back home. They felt rather blessed they were able to make it home without even a scare.

They walked along the road, waiting to see their well-worn path as the heaviness of their body grew with walking uphill. Using magic like this weighed on the body and the soul with however much the individual was carrying. They reached up, pulling down the clasp to their cloak to reveal the eye of ender to the world. As much as they didn't want to rely on its power, it was the only way they would confidently make it home. Grasping the warm object tight, it pulsed with magic beneath their fingers as if it were alive, they sent their mana into the eye to mix and grant them a magic boost. They knew quite well the item was evil and no good to toy with, what else should one do when it's bound to them for life? With a soft purple glow to their eyes now, their body felt lighter and the strain to keep their goodies in a personal pocket in the dimension lifted almost completely. They shook off their bits of anxiety with the gain of power and picked up the pace to get home as small flurries were filling the air around them.

The walk back home was fast and they were beyond relieved upon opening the door and feeling the hug of the warm cottage and a string of excited meows when their familiar raced to greet them.

“Hey Poppy, miss me?” They stroked the cat before kneeling on the ground to perform the same technique of magic for consuming the sacks to spit them back out onto the ground in front of them and hummed a soft tune while they went through the goodies and put them in their respected places around the three stories of the home. Before they noticed it, the world outside had grown dark and they lit the lanterns around the house and peered through a window to see the snow blowing strongly and the wind howling, they hadn’t even gotten a chance to see the sunset. This was turning out to be a real blizzard, they did a silent prayer that it wouldn’t last long.

Just as Y/n was trying to put the last of the sugar away there was a heavy thump on the door followed by a hurried couple of knocks of which were all inconsistent but did the job of grabbing their attention. They fumbled with the sugar but safely put it down before hurrying to the door, their fast movements spooked the cat and caused her to scramble away to go hide.

Once getting the locks undone they opened up the door to see four individuals standing there, waiting. Two of the larger individuals there stood on the sides to frame the group in a way. The one on the left most who had shoulder-length pink hair and noticeable tusks sticking out from his bottom lip and inhuman down pointed ears, was using his large, red cloak to hold a blond boy who was about to his shoulder, against him and shield him from the snow. The two both had on heavy armor, though, the blond’s armor was a bit more leather than metal. On the other end stood a taller man with brown hair who also was in armor and was hunched over to be able to get covered by a large dark grey wing that held him. Said wings belonging to a man who was shorter than the brunette and had on expensive-looking mage robes and messy blond hair. The winged man looked to Y/n in desperation as he began to speak.

“Please let us stay for the night. We will leave as the sun rises, please just-”

“Stop talking- just come in. Hurry! It’s got to be below zero out there.” Y/n hurriedly ushered the bunch inside as they held the door open for them.

The burly pink-haired man was the first to make a move as he pushed the blond boy off of him and through the doorway and was already reaching over to push the brown-haired man next. He made sure the winged individual made his way in before going in. He looked at Y/n who was still holding the door and adjusted his jaw, a nervous habit it seemed, eyes darting around a bit before he returned his eyes to them and gave a nod of appreciation.

Y/n barley was able to get the door closed after him before they turned around and was assaulted with a hug from the winged man, he was incredibly cold. They hugged the man back, rubbing his back a little as he said many soft thank yous to them, though they watched the other three who stood close and looked around at the bottom portion of their home. The blond boy hugged himself close, shivering and the brunette rubbed his back as he looked around.

They hope they wouldn’t regret not thinking it through before letting a bunch of strange people into their home.

“I truly cannot thank you enough for this. We would have died out there.” The man said as he finally let go of Y/n and studied their face for a moment, looking for words it seemed. “We should introduce ourselves. I’m Phil and the big guy back there is Technoblade. The lanky one is Wilbur and the blond one between them is Tommy. They are my sons.”

Y/n watched them as Phil introduced them, each of them giving them some sort of little greeting when they were called. Whether it was a head nod or a little wave or a smile. They seemed nice.

“One hell of a family..” Y/n mumbled which Phil seemed quite funny and even Wilbur chuckled a bit.

“Oh yeah, but they are my boys.” He said while looking at the three with fondness.

The sweet moment was caught a little short when Technoblade crossed his arms, his body language screaming distrust. He looked down at Y/n and sized them up as he grumbled out a question that sounded more like a command. “What is your name. Who are you.”

“Techno- for god’s sake be a little nicer could ya? Bloody hell, they just saved us.” Wilbur retorted and Technoblade huffed a little growl and looked away. Wilbur gave a short and annoyed sigh, looking back at Y/n as he pulled his hand away from Tommy and instead rested a hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist. It wasn’t meant to be seen as a threat, but the gesture did make Y/n a bit uneasy as they shuffled back a tad. Instead, he just spoke kindly with an inviting hand gesture.

“What is your name?” He stated and he and Phil looked at them expectantly.

They hesitated for a moment with the eyes on them and cleared their throat, standing taller. “My name is Y/n... it’s nice to meet all of you.” They thought for a moment about what they should say to these people who stood awkwardly, warming up from the cold. “How about I uh… go get some blankets for you all. Blankets and I’ll set up my two spare rooms.” They added as more of a side note to themselves than the group and hurried up the stairs to get things together. 

This was going to be a long night. They can only hope the snow stops soon.

[Chapter Two]

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[fandomvariousness]

Finally

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x reader

Warnings: angst, mentions of violence & death, nsfw content

Summary: reader finally sees her lover Eren after the team retrieves him to the airship, yet he’s not the same. Will she bring him back?

Word count: 3.2k

A/N: Forgive me if some details are inaccurate, this is my rendering of the situation, so some things may not add up!

Finally.

Finally, the day you’re going to see Eren again.

You shivered with anticipation, thinking about the letters that were going sparse, until there were none. You’ve been inseparable, supporting each other every step of the way, but Eren had to deal with unthinkable, horrible things along the same steps too, and you couldn’t take all of it away – the burning hatred seeped into his brain, numbing his senses and compassion.

He offered no explanation in letters as to why he’d stopped writing so often, and you didn’t ask for one – he’s in enemy’s land, surely he has his reasons, but deep down you knew he was pushing you away.

What were you going to say to him? Will you hug him? Will he hug you? You had no idea, and it was killing you.

Your adrenaline was over the roof. Everything around you was destroyed, splintered, ground to pieces – Eren did that.

It seemed that you lost it when you realized that Eren had transformed without the care of hurting innocent civilians – his sense of revenge was stronger than anything else. You haven’t been able to approach him yet, to look into his mesmerizing jade eyes. You suspected Captain Levi has positioned you away from him on purpose – who knows how you and Eren would’ve reacted to each other’s presence after so long.

You felt the insides of your stomach turn as you hooked your cables on the airship and zipped-lined towards it. Just a minute ago you saw how Mikasa made it inside, dragging Eren along. You heard a commotion above you – Captain Levi was cussing Eren out. The casual.

You felt how everyone stopped whatever they were doing as you were climbing on board – secretly, they all wanted to know what will happen once you two meet again. That’s how powerful you two are. Were.

Out of breath, you stood up, regaining your posture, your rifle still in hands as you finally looked at him: if not for the emerald sheen of his eyes, you wouldn’t have recognized this ragged, miserable man with a chestnut resembling that of a lion.

You stared into each other, the unbearable grief that consumed you rendering you immobile. Quickly, your vision worsened, tears blurring your eyes as you realized there’s nothing behind those of Eren. He looks at you, yet doesn’t say anything, doesn’t feel anything.

“Move,” Captain Levi muttered and lightly pushed you aside.

You tore your gaze away from Eren, breathing shallow breaths as you stumbled towards the wall, leaning on it.

And then you heard the shot.

~

It was unbearable. One fleeting moment, one slightest miscalculation, and she’s gone. Sasha is gone.

You kneeled beside her tomb with your head hanging down, hot teardrops sinking into the pale stone. Everything was always shit, but now… now it’s pure hell. You sobbed and raised your head to look at the cloudy sky, cutting off the air flow, trying to pull yourself together.

“Hey,” Jean approached you, Connie not far behind. “Come here.”

He crouched down to your level and placed his palms on your shoulders reassuringly, helping you stand up.

Eren was nowhere to be seen. He kept to himself in his quarters, but Captain Levi forbid anyone to properly visit him anyway. He thought Eren’s unstable.

But you thought the opposite. Eren’s perfectly stable – the deadly precision, calculation and determination fueled his conscious, revenge-fueled decisions, and frankly, you were afraid. He wasn’t thrashing around like he would years ago, screaming and tearing everything apart, consumed by fury – he knew what he was doing now.

The last time you laid eyes on him was during Sasha’s funeral, but it seemed that he wasn’t even there. His body was, of course, but his mind was fleeting somewhere else, somewhere where he could continue plotting the utter extermination of every last one of his enemies.

It’s going to be hard, bringing him back. Hell, you didn’t even know if it’s possible – he truly looked like a goner. But you were going to try, because there isn’t any other living being in the world you love more than Eren Jaeger.

~

You sat on your bed, facing the one that belonged to Sasha. She would tell you to stand up and go straight to Eren and whoop his ass for ignoring you.

You sank your teeth in your lower lip as you stood up and made your way towards Captain Levi’s office.

“Come in,” his low voice muttered after you knocked. He rolled his eyes when he saw it’s you.

“What is it?” he asked, his desk already stuffed with a bunch of paperwork.

“I need to visit Eren.” you realized how selfish your request sounds in the midst of everything, but you couldn’t help it.

“No.” he answered after a few seconds of regarding you, without any care in the world. “You’ll just wind him up.”

Your heart skipped a beat – if Captain Levi thought that Eren still feels something for you, then maybe it’s true.

“Please, Captain, I –”

“Stop whining, brat.” he hissed, silencing you.

There was a wall of miscommunication between the two of you as you stared at each other, trying to convince one another silently.

He put down his pen after a few moments and leaned back in his chair as he sighed slowly. “You’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you?”

You shrugged ever so slightly as you stared at nothing in particular.

Some more silence passed. “I’ve not yet decided on giving you week’s-worth punishment for insubordination, but go. Get out.”

“Thank you, Captain.” you bowed your head to him quickly, suppressing your smile as you basically ran away.

Levi rubbed his forehead. “Stupid brats.”

~

As you approached the door of Eren’s room, your heart pounded against your ribs so hard, you truly thought they’re going to crack. Yet here you were, standing within a step from the door, eyeing the little crack of light that emits from within – it’s not completely closed.

You lifted your trembling arm and knocked softly, then once again, harder this time, thinking he may not have heard it.

“Eren?” you whispered weakly after you got no reply once again.

You gulped and pushed the door further, stepping in – empty. He’s not here.

You released a breath you didn’t realize you were holding as you stepped further, looking around. The whole room looked almost untouched if not for the sack of a few items he brought from his old room. Your eyes flicked towards a stack of letters on the desk – your letters.

Your lower lip quivered as you approached them, picking one up – not even opened.

Pain and anger spun like a vortex inside you, bringing hot tears to your eyes. How important must’ve been the reason that he denied you the slightest explanation?

The letter dropped back to the desk as you flinched, hearing the door shut behind you.

Gasping quietly, you turned around, seeing him clearly for the first time since a couple of days ago. He stood there in all his cool, newfound glory: hair long enough to be messily gathered in a bun, naked torso adorned with chiseled abs, V line protruding from his waistline, and pants that hugged his muscular legs.

He had a toweled hanging over his shoulder – that’s where he’s been, in the showers.

You didn’t know what was the exact reason for the hot blush that crept to your face in a second – the fact that Eren is even more attractive than you remember, or that you stood there like a mute, with your jaw basically on the floor.

His own gaze was unreadable – he watched you like a hawk as he approached the chair and draped the towel over its back, stuffing his hands in his pockets afterwards.

You snapped awake, glancing at the letters behind you, and then back at him. “You never opened them.”

“You need to forget me,” he spoke, staring directly in your eyes. “I’ve only have a few years left anyway, if I’m lucky.”

It hurt you how assured of his words he was as you turned your body from him, desperately trying to calm down. He stood there just the same when you dared to look at him again.

“Why are you doing this?” you asked, failing to conceal the tremble that laced your voice. “I’ve told you countless times, I’m with you until the end, and even then.”

“That’s exactly why.” he raised his voice just a bit, reminding of the old Eren you used to know. “I can’t bear the fact that you’re okay with… all this.”

You covered your face with your palms momentarily before stepping a couple of steps closer to him. “Did you honestly think I’ll go down with this scheme of yours?”

“I’m determined to make it happen.”

“Eren, don’t be stupid!” you couldn’t control yourself anymore. “I’m not some… weak maiden in need of constant attention! I’m your partner!”

“You want to be partner of the monster that I am?” he asked, a faint hint of disappointment in his voice.

You sighed, closing your eyes. “Eren…”

“I’m a murderer.” he said as he lessened the space between you a little more, trying to impose his truth on you – you could almost feel his breath on your skin, what made another shiver run down your spine.

You opened your eyes abruptly, because you knew he expected that you won’t be able to even look at him after what he’s done. His jade eyes were the same as before as you drowned in them.

You couldn’t help as you placed your dainty palms on his ripped upper arms, the tips of your fingers jolting with electricity. Eren felt that too, for you heard him draw in a sharp breath.

You were going to say something, but right now you couldn’t focus on anything other than your skins touching again, after all this time. You gulped as you gathered courage to lightly stroke down to his forearms.

“You’re not a monster.” you spoke again. “You’re just a hurt boy who can’t help but hurt others.”

He stayed silent, because he knew it’s true. You always did this to him – always had one last argument that made him shut up. His eyes became glassy as he looked down in shame, gripping your own forearms in his calloused palms.

“Come here,” you mumbled as you wound your arms around his neck, cradling him, as his own arms snaked around your waist, head buried in the crook of your neck.

You were only hugging, but it felt ecstatic. You gripped him tightly, swearing to yourself never to let go again. You felt a few wet drops run down your shoulder, yet Eren didn’t release a sound – you knew he was holding back.

“I’m sorry for everything.” he whispered. “You don’t deserve this.”

“Eren, you’re never getting rid of me.” you whispered into his hair before planting a tender kiss on his head.

He released a breathy laugh, tickling your neck. You nuzzled into each other more, and then you felt his lips on your neck, pecking it lightly, immediately blazing flames in your lower region.

You arched your neck back, providing him with an easier access to your skin. You couldn’t suppress a small gasp as his hot breath trailed up to your jaw, along with his longing-filled kisses.

“I missed you.” he whispered against your jaw, before pecking just below the corner of your lips.

Your mind was already in shambles. “Believe me, I missed you more.”

Your lips finally collided: desperate, needy, hungry. His fingers dug into your hips, aligning your centers as your palms slid down to the either side of his neck. You moaned into his lips between the famished, open-mouthed kisses as he gripped your behind, trying to savor it all.

Your palms were running down his chest on their own, exploring every crevice and scar, some old and some new, still unexplored. You felt his hand slide under the hem of your shirt up to your ribs, leaving a scalding-hot trail in its wake.

You rutted your hips against his automatically, getting needier with every passing second, your hands hooked around his neck again, holding on for dear life.

Your jaw slacked as he sneaked his hand under your bra, his fingers coming in contact with your hardened nipple. He drew back a little so that he could see your flushed face and hazy eyes, a light sheen of saliva reflecting from your slightly lolled out tongue.

“More, you say? Just how much?” he teased, his eyes darting from your eyes to your lips repeatedly, the corners of his lips upturned ever so slightly.

“Really, really much,” you whimpered before he discarded you of your shirt and bra, his hands roaming down your sides as he sucked on your jugular, your hands buried in his hair, ruining his bun.

“Jump.” he said between the wet kisses as you felt his hands under your thighs.

He made his way towards the bed before gently dropping you down on it, feeling the tent in his pants become unbearable, almost painful. How could it not, when you lay sprawled out under him, hair messy around your head like a halo, all the while needy breaths escaping your lips?

You knew exactly what you were doing to him, but you wanted to drive him crazy, to make up for all the painful time you’ve spent apart. You started wriggling out of your leggings, your gaze never leaving his eyes. He unbuttoned his own pants before they slid to the ground, revealing a formed tent under his boxers.

Suddenly, he grabbed you by your calves and yanked you closer, forcing a yelp from you. Second after his lips crashed on yours again, making their way down, passing your neck, collarbones, stomach, until they reached their destination.

You found it hard to breathe as he kissed your inner tight, getting closer and closer to where you needed him most.

“Eren,” you whimpered, your eyes closed, hands gripping the sheets. “Please…”

You felt him smile against your thigh before his tongue flicked against your clothed clit lightly, coaxing another high-pitched moan from you.

You put the back of your hand against your mouth quickly, embarrassed at the sudden reaction. You felt the bed shift before you opened your eyes and saw him parallel with your own body again.

“Don’t,” he asked as he removed your arm from your face. “I want to hear every little sound you make.”

He kissed you once before making his way back, hooking his fingers on your panties and sliding them down painfully slowly. The cold air on your skin peppered it with goosebumps, yet when you felt Eren’s face lower to your center, your body ignited once again.

A moan got stuck in your throat as you felt Eren’s slick tongue go all the way from your entrance to your clit, circling it, literally driving you crazy.

“Eren,” you moaned, the back of your head buried into the mattress as you wound your hands through his hair, completely ruining the bun, his chestnut hair falling to the sides and framing his face.

His fingers dug into your thighs as he pleasured you with his tongue, awakening the passion in you that was dormant during his absence.

Eren loved the taste of you on his tongue as he sucked on you, holding down your squirming hips. He knew you were close; he remembers everything your body language tells him.

“E-Eren, I’m gonna—” you choked out, confirming his observations.

You felt cold air hit your slick folds as Eren drew back, quickly discarding himself of his last piece of clothing before he leaned down, planting a sloppy kiss on your lips.

“Ready?” he breathed into your lips, receiving a nod.

The burning sensation followed his dick breaching your entrance, stretching it out after so long.

“Fuck,” he groaned against your mouth, having forgotten just how good your pussy feels.

You choked out a groan as you wound your legs around his waist, urging him to plunge deeper, despite the slight pain that strains you.

“This good?” he asks between his heavy breathing as he makes his way deeper into you.

“Yeah, yeah,” you nod quickly, your voice out of tune.

He finally hits your cervix, staying like that for a few moments, allowing you to adjust, peppering your neck with kisses as your chest rises and falls heavily.

You kiss his lips as you place a hand against his buttocks, urging him to go on. He goes back to the point of pulling out before hitting you deep again, building up his pace as he does so.

Your mind is getting hazier with each thrust – it seemed that the room turned into a sauna as you could almost see the huffs of air that escaped both of your mouths.

“You’re doing so good, baby,” he groaned against your ear as he pinned your hand above to your head, intertwining his fingers with yours.

He was barely controlling himself as your pussy clenched around him – he probably never had to restrain himself with you as he does now, regarding the absence of your touch for such a long amount of time. You’ve never been apart that long, and he hoped you’ll never be again.

“Eren!” you screamed, sensing your release fast approaching as you wound your hands around his neck.

He pounded into you hard, bringing some steamy memories of your times before for a moment.

Finally, you fell, arching your back, your stomach gliding against his, as every nerve of your brain exploded. Eren continued thrusting into you until a few moments after you felt his own release spilling inside you.

He moaned against the crook of your neck, planting a few kisses. He rolled to your side and faced the ceiling with his eyes closed, until they snapped open again, hearing you sniffle.

Guilt washed over him like a tempest as he leaned on his side, gently gripping your waist as you covered your eyes with the back of your forearm. “Did I hurt you??”

“No!” you yelped and removed your arm from your face, placing your palm on his cheek instead. For a moment you were so frightened he would blame himself for something he didn’t even do.

“No,” you repeated, more softly. “I’m just really happy you’re here.”

He leaned his forehead to yours, worry leaving his body almost visibly. He sighed as he brought you closer.

You tucked a few of his locks behind his ear, making him look a couple years younger. “I love your hair.”

Eren chuckled, his eyes still closed in the afterglow bliss. “Captain hates it. He said –”

Then it dawned on him. “Wait, how did you get here?” he leaned on his forearm as he looked at you, genuinely interested, amusement threatening to widen his smile any moment.

“I simply asked Captain.”

Eren raised an eyebrow. “And he let you?? Just like that?”

“Well,” you trailed off. “He did mention something about a punishment for insubordination…”

“Unbelievable,” Eren whispered, as he sunk back into the mattress, quiet laughs emanating from his chest, as you drew shapes on it with a stupid smile on your face. “And you still came.”

“I’ll be fine if you visit me at least twice while I’m behind bars?”

You two laughed even harder, and this moment, this tiny moment in the vast space surrounding everything, was perfect.

[reversemoon255]

(This is the final of a three-part series chronicling the development and ideas behind “Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites,” a Pokémon DnD campaign. This last entry will be about the final string of encounters, some of the later ideas for story elements, and a deep dive into the overarching themes of the campaign’s Starters. Speaking of, the fantastic art of them, along with many of the other original Pokémon seen here, was done by @extyrannomon on Twitter, and I highly suggest you check them out.)

Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites - Phase 3: Fauxchemine

Like the Queen Durant, the Steelix/Glacix fight would have been a transitory battle between phases of the campaign, taking place right before the Starters were about to evolve for the final time. Glacix was an idea I came up with early in development. As Rock, Steel, and Ice have a relationship throughout Pokémon, having Onix evolve into a specially tanky Ice-Type rather than the physically tanky Steelix made sense. This was also a design I put a lot of work into the actual proportions, like stretching its face vertically as Onix is circular, and Steelix is horizontally stretched. Also, as Steelix has two long spikes on every other segment, Glacix has four smaller spikes in the same pattern.

Glacix was also the first of the four penultimate boss encounters before the close of the campaign, each representing one of the four sacred beasts of Chinese mythology. I thought it would be a pattern that players could recognize and possibly plan ahead for. Glacix was always planned as the Phase 2-to-3 transitory boss, but I actually had roughly prototyped the other three before I realized Glacix fit into role of the Azure Dragon (which I was missing).

The second of the bosses, representing both the Black Tortoise and Rare Variants, was a Dire Torterra. The idea was this Torterra was symbiotic, housing a Sudowoodo instead of a tree, and hiding its identity was a shiny Altaria capable of Mega Evolving thanks to the Key Stone that had replaced one of Torterra’s stone spikes. This was a rough concept, and I’m sure it would have changed drastically by the time the players would actually encounter it.

Third, representing both the White Tiger and Ultra Beasts, was Shora (from Shodo and Tora, the Japanese words for calligraphy and tiger). A pure white tiger that paints floating, metal stripes above its body with its brush-like tail. This was an idea I was very happy with, though I lacked the artistic abilities to render it effectively. If I remember correctly, the markings above its shoulder were based on the Kanji for Tiger. I also hadn’t settled on an ability for it, which was key for depicting Ultra Beasts in this campaign.

And the last of the penultimate bosses was Phanic, being a second Ultra Beast and representing the Vermilion Phoenix. Sadly, I had little planned for this guy apart from some concept designs, like the rest of them. I was working on these as the campaign was starting, and didn’t pursue finishing them after its premature conclusion.

Phanic (from Phoenix and Panic) is actually an Ostrich. If you picture a phoenix, you typically imagine great plumes of feathers around the head, wings, and tail, which are all things Ostriches specifically lack, and I wanted to subvert that typical depiction. I liked the idea that when it was startled, it would scatter its feathers resulting in an exclamation point forming using the spot on its face. It was supposed to seem unassuming compared to the many larger and more imposing bosses, though just as dangerous. Also, it was Electric-Type because it is frequently “shocked” *Ba-dum-tish.*

=====

Let’s talk about our players. One of the backstory elements our Grass Trainer, Ethan, had was that his parents’ restaurant was struck by lightning and destroyed some time before he went to school, and saw a Pokémon at that time. This left him with a fear of lightning (ironically picking an Electric-Type Starter). With this knowledge, and as I was using Ultra Beasts, I altered his backstory slightly so that it was caused by a Xurkitree, and would eventually encounter one during the campaign with his victory over it (probably with a lot of Wisdom Saves) curing his phobia.

Johnny, our Fire Trainer, had a goal of becoming an entertainer, but was vague about what kind. I had an idea for a “Streamer” Trainer Class he could run into. Someone who uses their Rotom Phone to live stream battles and get reactions and advice from their chat. (Let’s face it, if Pokémon were real, this would totally be a thing.) There was also DJ Tomomitsu, who runs Stelopy City’s Trainer Radio, and was a Gym Leader. The idea was to present a bunch of different Pokémon-based entertainment ideas and professions and have him decide which ideas he liked and wanted to pursue.

While our other players were aiming for careers, Orion, our Water Trainer, was more interested in exploring his relationship with his family. His father in particular; both he and his wife being high-ranking executives for Silph Co., and raising their children to also be successful. However, Orion had always wanted to be a Trainer, and it was his parents that prevented him from adventuring. I had it that his father was so against the idea was because he, too, was a Trainer in his youth. But not a successful one, failing many more times than he succeeded, and didn’t want his son to suffer the same disappointments as he did. His partner was Rhyperior, btw.

Lastly was our Fairy Trainer, Arthur. He wanted to be a Gym Leader, and cited specific interest in the Galar League. He also mentioned in his back story that his father was belligerent and against the idea. While the Leaders of the Galar League are entertainers by profession, if you look at the list of Gym Leaders and Kahunas in US equivalent regions, almost all of them have a profession and run Gyms on the side:

(Restaurant Owner, Museum Curator, Artist, Model, Business Tycoon, Pilot, Actor, Teacher, Rock Star, Mayor, Shop Owner, Police Officer; 12/15)

It felt like a hobby, rather than a career, and I ran with this idea as it seemed like Arthur and his obsession with the Galar League hadn’t noticed this fact (nor had his player), but his father had and was pushing him into a sports-based career (one that is usually lucrative and has off-seasons) so he could have a well-paying job and time on the side for his interests, similar to Orion’s father.

Though, no DM can control their players, and even by the end of our fist session I could tell I would have to change some things. It’s just good to have some idea of where to lead everyone, and adjust as you go.

=====

There’s one more Pokémon I want to talk about before we get to the Starters.

This is Necrotiti (Combining Necro with the Egyptian God Nefertiti), an evolution of Cofagrigus, evolving if it’s holding an item called the “Ceremonial Jar” (literally a jar filled with Yamask’s human intestines). It was meant to evolve from the Yamask they could catch during their museum field trip. The reason it exists is... silly. It’s another instances where I wanted to surprise my players, and giving the “Gardevoir Treatment” to what I consider the creepiest Pokémon was funny (which I feel is a reason I cite a lot). And I was really happy with this design, which is why it got commissioned.

A lot of the original ideas I had for this campaign were meant to either surprise or creep out my players. Everyone I was playing with knew Pokémon very well, so I had this fear that if I presented them with a standard adventure they would either become bored or be able to easily predict where things were going. Having a Pokémon adventure within a single city, having it be more a mystery than a collect-a-thon, and using new Pokémon were all ways I came up with to keep interest high and have them guessing as to what would happen next.

Back to Necrotiti, despite having a sarcophagus Pokémon, we didn’t get a mummy. I wanted to make the body effeminate without being overly so, which is why her body is very geometrical in specific areas. For the mask, I went with a typical Egyptian Nubian motif mixed with some of the overall design elements and basic lines from Yamask, and the colors and patterns from Cofagrigus. But despite how much I like it, I don’t know if I would have used it. It didn’t match the Mutant Evolution concept, with its only similarity being that it’s a rare occurrence.

Onto the Starters: Epipesis has evolved into Drachenura (from Dragon, Lichen, and Meganeura). Grass Starters are typically based on extinct animals, and Flymph’s line is based on a Meganeura (an ancient species of giant dragonfly). Apart from some bulking out and additional colors, the lichen sacks in its tail are now yellow, as the plant matter has evolved with it. It supplies it with so much energy that it has to constantly move while the sun’s up to burn it off. Its tail tip is also based on the X-15, the fastest aircraft to date, as it was designed to be the fastest Grass-Type.

Steared has evolved into Auradiat (from Aura, Auroch, and Radiate). Now a Fire/Ice-Type, it’s based on an extinct species of cattle found around the time of the Ice Age. Its ability to absorb energy with its horns has become so powerful that they have frozen over. When I was originally designing it, I was actually trying to base it on the phrase “Irish Bull” (meaning a paradoxical statement), but as I kept working on it, it became more and more Minotaur-like, so I kept the Fire/Ice-Typing and dropped the more abstract elements. As I did, I actually made it more bull and less Minotaur since all Fire Starters are bipedal, and I wanted to try and avoid that.

Knaval has evolved into Chivalazuli (from Chivalier, the French word for knight, and Lapis Lazuli). This was probably my favorite example of features naturally changing as it evolves, with the antenna growing longer and the shield and lance growing harder (going from carapace, to stone, to crystal). Some of the things you might not have noticed at first glace were his forelegs becoming sub-arms on his chest, him gaining the lobster nose and it becoming a face guard, and how his eyes recess into his head. Also, almost every Starter is symmetrical (apart from patterns), with the only exception being Torterra, so I designed it to be asymmetrical throughout.

And Uteteo has evolved into Makutah (from the Aztec naming scheme used for their Gods of wealth and abundance and Utahraptor). He’s Fairy/Flying, with the gold adornments that first appeared on Uteteo now on his head and arms, giving him a more bird-like appearance. The idea was to have him naturally evolve from a Dinosaur into a bird, with the leg bands making them look more like talons, and the face mask giving him a beak. Also, he starts out with the singular sickle toe raptors are known for, and gets a new one every evolution, ending with a full set.

The thing that sets these Starters apart from ones you’d find in the games is that these are designed to be a team. As such, there are a few themes they all share to help reinforce that. (This ignores Utaw, but) All the Starters, throughout their evolutions, have a distinct yellow detail on their heads (eyes, nose ring, and antenna). Furthermore, once they reach their final stages, they share colors between them, with Drachenura having red on its extremities, Auradiat having blue neck fur, and Chivalazuli having flecks of green in its gemstone. And on top of that, they also all have two overarching themes. First is they all represent different time periods, with Drachenura being pre-humans (Precambrian), Auradiat being prehistoric humans (Ice Age), and Chivalazuli being more modern (Medieval Period). Secondly they all represent DnD, with a Dragon(fly), Auradiat filling the role of a minotaur and its connection to a labyrinth/dungeon, and the adventurous knight who traverses them.

There’s also reasoning behind their types, as all three’s secondary Types are also strong against their usual counterpart (Grass and Electric are both strong against Water, Fire and Ice against Grass, and Water and Rock against Fire). Furthermore, Electric, Ice, and Rock are all strong against Flying, which is the reason behind Makutah’s Type (a joke against the player who joined late).

Makutah does fit into these themes, but more loosely as it was created later. Utaw and Uteteo lack the yellow facial details (though they do have yellow eyes), only really achieving this during their final evolution. He also doesn’t share any colors, as Fairy is outside the usual threesome. It does somewhat fit into the themes of the others, but not as cleanly. Utaw, being a Dinosaur, is still pre-humans, but closer to them than Flymph is, and having Aztec themes puts him past Medieval and closer to the Renaissance in terms of human history, but is very close compared to the other time gaps. Also, the gold was partly to fit him into the DnD theme, representing treasure.

=====

One of the first things the players were told at the beginning of the campaign, and was reinforced throughout, was that Pokémon from outside the Wellou Region were mysteriously popping up all over the place, with the Ultra Beasts being the most extreme example. As to the cause, there were a number of red herrings. Silph Co. employees could occasionally be seen in areas where UBs were with strange equipment, Tomomitsu could occasionally be found before something would show up, and there were a few other strange characters like the Regional Champion or Silph Co.’s president. The only definite thing they would know was that there was a strange, creepy, grey Charizard that would occasionally appear when they took something down.

However, it would eventually be revealed that the above were only trying to understand what was going on, and prevent the appearances of such dangerous Pokémon, like our heroes. And as a massive Ultra Wormhole appears above the city, they come face-to-face with the true mastermind. Not an evil team, or a lone conqueror. Merely a single, twisted Pokémon. And our heroes have interfered with its fun long enough.

“You stare up at the now familiar form of the grey Charizard, which stares back with unblinking, dead eyes... Its mouth stretches wide, wide enough to swallow you whole, and a hand appears. And another. And another. Four skeletal hands pry its maw open from the inside, stretching it until its skin falls down to settle on its hips. What looks down on you now, with a single, glowing eye, is a monstrous form made of bone and rotting flesh. And witnessing the four of you before it, it lets out a high-pitched, chilling laugh...

“‘Fofofofofo...’“

Fauxchemine. A sadistic Ultra Beast capable of warping time and space to its will. All the disturbances throughout the town, all the strange creatures that have appeared, all the monsters sent to terrorize our heroes; all the result of its twisted sense of fun, and the consequences of getting in the way of it.

So there’s a running joke among my friends that we all “hate” Charizard. Not actually, but it’s always pushed in marketing with new forms and such, even though its popularity has been dropping steadily over the years. As such, I thought it would be somewhat cathartic to have the big bad they have to beat up at the end be related to Charizard. ‘Chemine’s skeletal nature comes from trying to cinematicly picture the encounter in my mind, with the eerie image of the mouth stretching open from the dialogue earlier. With bone white and rotten greens, the skin wasn’t meant to reflect Charizard as a shiny, but rather with all its color drained from it, as it’s more a puppeted skin than an actual part of the Pokémon. And as many Pokémon draw inspiration from Kaiju, ‘Chemine does, too, specifically calling back to an Ultra-Kaiju named Greeza with space warping abilities.

It’s Steel/Dragon with Thick Fat. When planning encounters, especially this late into the game, Auradiat made things tough since its offensive Typing is insane, and that combination made it resistant to all of the Starter Types except Fairy. This was supposed to be the toughest fight in the campaign, so I wanted to build a Pokémon that would be difficult to deal damage to. A swift Pokémon able to warp around the field, summoning Ultra Beasts or other versions of Charizard as adds or for specific attacks, I wanted this to be memorably difficult.

Oh, and the name? It’s meant to rhythmically sound like “Pokémon,” with the ‘faux’ symbolizing its disguise, and the ‘mine’ representing its personality. Everything in this world is its to play with.

But that giant Ultra Wormhole wasn’t just for show. Part-way through Phase 2 our players were sucked through a Wormhole themselves, both they and Fauxchemine bearing witness to a titanic creature as they did, and upon its defeat, it is let loose upon the city:

Standing over 100ft tall is Wreknarogg (from wreck, to destroy, Níðhöggr, a massive world-ending creature from Norse mythology, and Ragnarok, the end of the world). A massive symbiotic group of four Pokémon from a dead world, the whale-squid Bayleige, the parasitic Serrasite, and the barnacle Rhizocano. This was actually the first symbiotic Pokémon I designed, and its creation sparked the others like Shiinotic and Torterra so this wouldn’t be the first time our players encountered one.

Whales are the largest creatures on Earth, so using one as the base for a kaiju-sized Pokémon fit. It also helped that the prototype designs for the Cloverfield monster were based on a whale, so I had something to go on. Secondly, I really like a lot of the eldritch design philosophy, and a lot of those are based on sea creatures, which is where the combined squid elements came from. Also, when I was prototyping the design and trying to make it creepier, a friend suggested having a parasite coming out of its blowhole, which is what sparked the creation of Serrasite and Rhizocano (as whale’s are known to have such parasites in real life).

This was a design very inspired by the world it was supposed to inhabit. Coming from a desert world where they are the only living things remaining, they symbiotically support each other to stave off their own inevitable death, with Bayleige able to create rain with its ability and Rhizocano able to make artificial sunlight to feed Serrasite. Serrasite then gives energy to Bayleige to allow it to keep moving, and Rhizocano takes energy from Bayleige. It’s an incomplete system where energy is slowly lost over time.

Stage 2 of the final boss wasn’t supposed to be as intense as the last one. A gimmick for this fight was, at the start of every round, I was going to roll a D100, and an event would happen. They would be things like their friends showing up with healing items, trainers they knew joining the battle, wild Pokémon they’d befriended getting in pot shots, etc. It was meant to be a fun, celebratory, “you’re at the end of the campaign” fight rather than an intense one off the back of another. I was even considering having everyone use their full parties.

But after it’s defeated, a thick, dark haze enshrouds everyone. With their allies gone, and left with just their Starters, our players are alone in a dark void. I did say there were four Pokémon earlier...

And the final encounter is Wreknarogg (Core). The Pokémon who brought the three titans together, and controls them while siphoning off some of their energy to survive. Similar to Phanic, this was another unassuming Pokémon. Designed to resemble a virus while calling back to aspects from mythical Pokémon like Jirachi or Manaphy. I understand it might not feel as climactic as there wasn’t any set-up compared to ‘Chemine, who was shown throughout, or the previous Wreknarogg, who was foreshadowed, but I wanted a 3-stage boss fight, and this felt like a good way of concluding it.

While stage 1 was supposed to be difficult, and stage 2 was meant to be fun and call back to the long journey, stage 3 was an un-losable, cinematic fight with a somewhat somber tone to it. It was the final fight, the end of it all, and there’s a certain level of sadness that comes with that in accordance with the jubilation of completion. It was also meant to see how much everyone had grown; how would they handle this encounter? Fight it? Catch it? Persuade it? Maybe I haven’t listened to enough DnD finalés, but in how many can you beat the final boss by being nice to it and calming it down?

=====

And that’s the end. There would be some sort of epilogue, picking up with our characters some months or years later, but that’s not something I could write without witnessing the actions of the players. I was debating having everything that came from an Ultra Wormhole be sucked back in after Fauxchemine’s defeat, including the Starters (pull a Digimon Tamers), but as Wreknarogg came from a dead world I thought that a little cruel.

And to end things how I usually do; Overall, despite not getting off the ground, I was very happy with this project. I’m the type to pick up and drop projects frequently, and the fact that I stuck with and continued to work on it for months was something I was really proud of. It was also a great learning experience on many levels. And who knows; maybe I might do something like this again in the future...?

[occasionaltouhou]

[ran voice] it’s not illegal if they don’t catch you

Yakumo Yukari had shown up that morning unannounced and declared that she would be staying over for a few days.

It was hardly unusual for her to do that; and at this point, Hakugyokurou had a guest bedroom permanently reserved for her, so it was simply a matter of Youmu clearing out the dust and moving all her bags into the room. More than once, Youmu had wondered why Yukari didn’t simply use her abilities to immediately tailor the room to her liking, but she assumed that it would be a needless waste of energy when Youmu was right there.

Still, it was mid-afternoon when she returned to the main room to announce that her work was done.

Yakumo Ran, the gap youkai’s shikigami, was dutifully pouring tea for Yukari and Yuyuko. Youmu wondered if Ran had the same kinds of thoughts that she did about Yukari’s abilities, then decided against it; even ignoring the shikigami’s programming, she was far too diligent to have any such thoughts about her master.

As she made her announcement, Yukari grinned one of her catlike smiles, the kind that you could never be sure what they really meant, and remarked, cheerfully, “Finishing that early means you might be able to take Youmu on the shopping trip with you, Ran.”

Ran glanced at her, but said nothing, so Yukari continued.

“We’ll need a lot of food this time. I’m planning on staying for at least a week, if not longer. And we might have some events, too~! Not that it isn’t lovely to just spend time in your company, Yuyuko dearest, but it’s important to keep things interesting, isn’t it~?”

“Of course, of course,” replied Yuyuko, drinking her tea and smiling to herself. “Maybe we could invite the Prismrivers over… get an exclusive performance from them.”

“Those ghosts with their music to sway the listeners’ hearts, hmm~? Oh, that would be very interesting to see…”

Youmu, seemingly forgotten after her entrance, began to turn around, but Yukari’s voice interrupted her mid-step.

“So, Ran, you should take Youmu now, hmm? After all, we might even be able to get them tonight, and we wouldn’t want to be short on food.”

“Of course not, Lady Yukari. I’ll head out immediately.”

“Make sure to get everything on the list, Ran~ I won’t take any excuses this time.”

“Of course, Lady Yukari.”

Ran sighed, almost imperceptibly; the kind of sigh that only the long-suffering servant could identify. Youmu would have glanced at her in surprise, but she was still barely keeping up with the conversation as it was; any conversation between Yuyuko and Yukari tended to give her a headache.

So instead she followed Ran outside, still dressed in her somewhat dusty outfit, and watched as the kitsune stood in Hakugyokurou’s courtyard and began to make gestures in the air, gestures that left orange trails of flame that began to take on their own shape, a writhing, blazing golden symbol floating in the air.

“Wh-where are we going?” asked Youmu.

Ran glanced down at her, but didn’t cease in her casting. “Outside.” Then, she sighed again. “Lady Yukari always overdoes it when she comes here, even taking into account Lady Yuyuko’s appetite… and there’s only one place to get all the food we need.”

Youmu supposed that was true; every time that Yukari came over, they inevitably threw a party that involved dozens of dishes she’d never seen before. She considered herself lucky that it was Ran, rather than her, who’d had to manage the kitchen in preparing them.

Then the actual response to her question caught up with her thoughts.

“Outside?” repeated Youmu. “Like… Outside outside?”

Ran nodded, and made a final gesture. The seal began to spin, and as it spun, the world around them was swept away, and another one took its place; a world of cold white lighting and tiled floors, and seemingly endless metal rows filled with food.

Ran had changed in appearance, too; her indigo tabard had become an indigo jacket, whilst her white dress had become a white shirt and ankle-length white pants. Her ears and tails, too, had vanished… and yet, there was still the illusory impression of a pale golden haze around her; that something was there, and it simply wasn’t visible.

But before she could think any longer, Ran was already walking off quickly, taking a list from a pocket she hadn’t had a moment ago and grabbing something that resembled a wheelbarrow made of thin pieces of metal. By the time Youmu had begun to collect herself, the kitsune had already begun to remove things from the shelves and put them into the odd wheelbarrow.

As she went, Ran meticulously ticked each item off the list, but even as she did, she seemed to be putting things in without ticking them off. And normally, Youmu would have asked, but this strange, bright world was overwhelming her with other things to pay attention to. As she walked next to Ran, she took a small metal can off one of the shelves and looked at it. Its labelling was written in a language she didn’t recognise, but there were pictures of tomatoes on it, so she supposed it must be full of tomatoes. Still holding the can of tomatoes, she followed after Ran once more.

“Where are we?” she asked, as they turned into another corridor lined with cans.

Ran hesitated for a moment. “It’s… somewhere in America,” she replied. “It’s just a supermarket. Lady Yukari likes Western food, and they have a lot of it here, so it saves me multiple trips.”

Youmu nodded, then was silent for a moment. “What’s a supermarket?”

“It’s like a market, but bigger.”

Youmu nodded again. “And they have lots of these in America?”

“Quite a lot, yes.”

Ran went back to silently filling the wheelbarrow, and then another thought occurred to Youmu.

“Am I allowed to be out here?”

Ran glanced down at her, and smiled. “Allowed?” she repeated. “There’s no rule preventing youkai from leaving Gensokyo, it’s merely risky. In Gensokyo, our existences are secure; outside of it, we’re at the mercy of human belief. That’s why I placed us under an enchantment, even though there’s no-one around.”

“Are there normally more people…?”

“Of course. But it’s early in the morning over here, and the workers who should be filling the shelves have all decided to take a break.” Ran smiled to herself, and something in her smile was more Yukari-like than one would expect; a clever, sharp kind of smile, almost bordering on cruel. “The cameras won’t see us, and even if someone does happen across us, they’ll just think we’re meant to be here. Humans are so easy to manipulate… they only want to see what they expect to see, so if you give to them, they’ll give you no trouble at all~”

“M-miss Ran…?”

Ran glanced back down at her in surprise. “My apologies. I usually do these trips on my own, so I’m used to talking to myself… And you’re half-human, yourself, of course. Although, you aren’t so vulnerable to illusions as these ones are.”

“Mhmm…” There was another silence, and then, “Miss Ran, why do you serve Lady Yukari?”

“Why I chose to become her shikigami, you mean?”

Youmu nodded, and for the first time, Ran stopped moving the now-overstuffed wheelbarrow.

And then she grinned, and this time it truly was a sharp grin, with sharp teeth, and glittering golden eyes.

“When a kitsune has nine tails, she’s become truly powerful -- but she’s also reached the limits of her ability. Lady Yukari offered me to go beyond those limits, and I accepted, without hesitating. Now, let me ask you -- why do you serve your Lady Yuyuko?”

Youmu opened her mouth to reply, and then frowned to herself. Ran took up the handles of the shopping wheelbarrow and resumed walking.

She supposed it had been a rude question to ask, Youmu thought, and she should have expected that kind of answer, but she’d never really thought about it before. Serving Yuyuko was simply what the Konpaku family did; she’d never had to think of a reason for it.

For the last few minutes of the journey there was silence, until they returned to the slightly-more-open space where they had initially appeared, and Ran began to cast a blazing symbol in the air once more.

“Lady Ran?”

“Yes?”

“Is it alright… if I don’t have an answer?”

Ran raised an eyebrow. “I think you do have an answer, though. You just might not recognise it for what it is.”

Youmu looked blank for a moment, and Ran smiled; not her fierce smile from earlier, but a calmer, gentler one. “I confess… I lied a little bit, earlier. That’s why I chose to become Lady Yukari’s shikigami, certainly, but that’s not why I stayed. And the truth is, she’s a difficult employer… she leaves me with a lot of work, and is rarely ever grateful. Even with the power she offers, I could simply refuse to take it, and leave…”

The mark was almost complete once more.

“But the truth is, it’s interesting to follow her. And it’s fun, in its own way. And what about you, Youmu? Do you have fun doing what you do?”

Youmu thought for a moment about the work she put in around Lady Yuyuko’s home, work which was rarely acknowledged beyond an offhand comment. Then she thought about the parties and events she accompanied her to, and invariably had to clean up after, and often had to put up with teasing during.

And yet--

Whilst she was having them, she was certainly having fun, right? Fun she wouldn’t have been able to have, with people she wouldn’t have been able to meet, in places she wouldn’t have been able to go, if she weren’t Lady Yuyuko’s attendant.

Indeed, why had she even hesitated?

“Of course I do!”

Ran grinned again, a smile that was washed away with the rest of the world as that stark white world was replaced with the cool shades of the Netherworld’s evening.

The wheelbarrow had somehow become an immense sack which Ran held over her shoulder effortlessly as she strolled back into Hakugyokurou; then, she unfurled it, and Yukari immediately began to critically examine the pile of food.

After a moment, she nodded. “This should be satisfactory. As usual, excellent service, Ran.”

“Of course, Lady Yukari. And Miss Youmu’s assistance was greatly appreciated.”

“I’m sure it was~” replied Yukari in a singsong voice.

“Of course it was, Yukari,” said Yuyuko, nudging her with her shoulder and smiling brightly. “Youmu’s extremely capable, so I’m sure she did a fantastic job, as always!”

And somehow that made all of it worth it.

[bssaz97]

RWBY Post AU: Training Pains Part 3

|Day 1|

– Rose Household –

[05:59 AM]

Rowan lightly snores as he sleeps on his comfy bed, covered with warm blankets. Turning only slightly as to find a more comfortable sleeping position.

..........

[06:00 AM]

BBBEEEEEEEEERRR!!!!

Rowan screams in shock, jolting up from his bed into a sitting position and extremely alert.

Whitley puts away the air horn he was holding, storing the item into his coat, “Well it’s about time you woke up.”

Rowan rubs both of his eyes, blinking confusingly at the man before him whispering, “Wha, Mr. Whitley? What are- What are you doing in my room?!”

The young boy was still recovering from the shock of being so abruptly awakened in the morning. However, his new tutor gave no instance of remorse, “I seem to recall telling you not to be late. So I decided to wake you up myself.”

Rowan was baffled at his tutor’s words, “But you said to wake up at 06:00!”

Whitley rolls his eyes dismissively at young Rose’s objection, “It was a figure of speech. It means you should have been up and ready to start by now.”

“Then why didn’t you ju-?”

Rowan is interrupted by a bundle of clothing that was tossed at his face. He looks down and upon recognition sees that it was a set of his clothes that were picked out for him.

“We’ve wasted enough time. Get dressed and be down in five,” Whitley tells the boy sternly and begins leaving the bedroom.

Gasping, Rowan quickly sits up on his bed and starts to change out of his pajamas to get ready for his first day of training, “Yes sir! ...Can I at least-?”

“You’ll eat when we’re done,” Whitley shouts from behind.

The boy whined silently, but continued getting prepared for their first day.

—————————————

Rowan, now fully awake and clothed, opens the door to the back of his home where he sees Whitley standing by a nearby tree. It looked like he was marking something on the bark of the tree.

“You’re here, good. Did you get plenty of rest last night,” Whitley asks but never turned around to face the boy.

“Uh, yes sir,” Rowan tells the man.

Whitley nods then turns to face him, “Good, you’ll need it. Today’s lesson is simple, we’re going to be going over the importance of Aura in battle.”

Rowan blinked, raising an eyebrow, “Huh? But Mr. Whitley I know about Aura though from class.”

“Oh really? Well then, enlighten me on what you know about Aura,” Whitley said.

“Ok... Well, aura is the embodiment of one’s soul. It can protect us from mortal wounds and it empowers huntsmen with the ability to use a unique ability called a semblance. With this we’re more able to combat the Grimm,” Rowan recites to his tutor.

While listening to Rowan’s understanding of Aura, Whitley began pacing back and forth while a smirk formed on his face. However that look on his face took new meaning when the Schnee began shaking his head.

Whitley chuckles, “‘...we’re more able to combat the Grimm.’ So that’s your honest belief then?”

“I... guess so,” Rowan replied.

Whitley sighs, “Well that certainly explains a lot.”

Rowan tilts his head, “What do you mean Mr. Whitley?”

“Unfortunately what they’ve been feeding you children is that Aura is a magical force field that gives you superpowers.... Of course they’re not entirely wrong but they sure did take the liberty to sugarcoat the absolute hell out of that mess of an explanation,” Whitley said to the young student.

“So you're saying that there is more to aura than what they’re teaching us?” Rowan asks.

“Precisely. Granted I never attended a combat school like yourself so I have little knowledge on how gradual your education progressing. But I believe we shouldn’t have much challenge getting you ahead,” Whitley stops pacing to face the boy.

Rowan quickly perked up at that, his eyes shining with excitement and hands shaking, “Really, you mean it?!”

Whitley motions the boy to settle down, “Rowan, you’re at ten again. Go to a four.”

Rowan does as he was told and returned his hands to his sides, “Sorry.”

“Now onto what we will be doing today,” Whitley began instructing.

Rowan clenches his hands together in excitement. He was certain that whatever this training was going to be, it would certainly be epic!

“You... are going to stand in place and focus on maintaining your aura to its maximum state until the sun reaches noon. I’m going to watch you from by that tree over there,” Whitley said, pointing towards the tree he was standing by originally.

Rowan’s hands fell as did his excitement, “....Wait, that’s it?”

Whitley nods in confirmation, “That’s right. So get your aura all the way up and keep it up for as long as you can.”

Rowan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Keep his aura up all the way to noon? That was the easiest thing in the world! Too easy!

“Mr. Whitley I thought-?”

Whitley cuts the young boy off, “Also you can’t speak until noon. Just focus on breathing and keep your aura up. No words.”

Rowan's mouth was gaped, this was how his training would be starting? By just standing in place?!

Rowan sighs, ‘...well I might as well get started,’ he thought to himself.

—————————————

[ 5 Hours Later ]

Rowan admits that he may have spoken too soon about the ease of this task. While he remained in place, Rowan began to feel his body ache. After standing in place for a few hours without moving an inch his limbs became tired and were almost on the verge of collapse. It seemed that the only reason he was still standing was because he was focused on maintaining his aura, which was beginning to become harder and harder to maintain. Who knew focusing on your Aura was so tasking?

Just hold it... hold it... you can-

“Bah!” Rowan cried his knees giving out and fell on his butt.

Whitley looks up from his scroll to see his student has fallen over, “Well it’s about time.”

Rowan pants tiredly, “I’m sorry Mr Whitley... I did my best, but I- ‘pant pant’ couldn’t hold it ‘pant’ ...any longer... I failed.”

Whitley stares curiously, “Failed? Who told you that you needed to pass this lesson?”

“...wait what?” Rowan said, looking up at the man confused. “But you said-?”

“I told you to focus your aura until noon, yes, but this particular task wasn’t designed for you to pass,” Whitley explained.

“Wait so ...this was a test? For what?” Rowan asks.

Whitley sighs, but starts to explain further, “I wanted to see how long you could endure continuous aura application. Most kids your age and skill would’ve dropped after one hour. You, however, managed to stay on task and keep your aura which means either of two things.”

Whitley walks over to the boy and tosses him a towel. Rowan catches it in his hands, looks up to his white haired tutor before rubbing the towel on his face, cleaning off beads of sweat that had been staining his face.

“One, it means that your natural aura capacity are quite high. While not a rarity, it does speak volumes of the amount of control you have over it at such a young age,” Whitley said.

Rowan looks at his tutor surprised, “Really? But I barely held onto it for the last one and a half hours.”

Whitley shakes his head, “That only means you were able to push through the strain your aura and body was undergoing. You were training your aura as if it were muscle, an extension of yourself.”

Rowan looks down at his hands with curiosity, “Extension of myself? But I thought that only the semblance was meant to be an extension of ourselves?”

Whitley nods his head, “True, a huntsman’s semblance does indeed derive from oneself. But remember, aura also comes from within. It’s often said that aura is to be a finite source of power that ranges differently from person to person. I do not believe that to be the case. I have come to believe that aura is an infinite pool of energy that exists in every living being, and that only those with powerful wills can fully utilize it. Those that can accomplish this are often unstoppable in the battlefield.”

Rowan stared in awe after listening to Whitley’s words. They seemed to have a sense of clarity but also depth that he never heard from the man before.

“Whoa...” Rowan mouths.

“Or two, it just means your dumb and don’t know when to quit,” Whitley commented.

Rowan frowns, “Hey!”

“Either way, you did well. How did you feel?” Whitley asked.

Rowan groans, “A bit tired. But I think I’ll be ok.”

Whitley hummed in approval, “Good. Now get up so we can start the next part of training for today training.”

Rowan stood up on his feet, “Ok, I’m ready!”

“Very well. Your next task is... to take this flag away from me,” Whitley instructs as he began wrapping a handkerchief around his neck.

‘Ok Rowan, you can do this. All you gotta do is be smart about this, do a fake out, reach for that handkerchief and step away before he notices. A piece of cake,’ Rowan told himself mentally.

Rowan moves toward his tutor, fakes a reach for the handkerchief with his left hand but pulls it back quickly. With his right hand going for Whitley’s neck, Rowan gets caught off guard when the man simply grips his right forearm.

‘Uh oh...’

“You have made a grave mistake.” Whitley chides as he uses his other hand to grip Rowan’s shirt.

Rowan swallowed, “I figured. WWOOOAAAAH!!”

Whitley lifts Rowan above his head and tosses the boy to the ground. Rowan, with his aura still recovering from his earlier training, experienced the literally meaning of being ‘tosses like a sack of potatoes.’

Rowan groaned painfully as he laid down on the ground.

Whitley crossed his arms as he looks down at the young Rose, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Rowan groans, “Regretting following through...”

“That is true, but I don’t seem to recall telling you to take a break. Now... get up,” Whitley said.

Rowan groaning continued as he got up from the ground, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

—————————————

[ 4 hours Later ]

Mother and daughter are seen walking up a trail that leads back to their home, after a long day out taking care of some errands and getting groceries in the process.

“Hey Mom. How do you think Rowan’s training is doing?” Summer asks her mother.

Ruby looks to her young daughter and smiles, “I’m sure they’re doing fine. Whitley is a friend of your Auntie Yang and Auntie Weiss’s little brother. So I think anything they’re doing is standard and–”

“AAAH!!”

*THUD!*

Both mother and daughter stopped mid-stride, having heard the loud cry in close proximity of their cabin in the woods.

Summer swallows in worry, “That sounded close to home. You think-?”

‘Darn it Yang!’ Ruby mentally cursed.

The two Rose women made a beeline to their house to investigate what caused that scream. Once they arrive and quickly place their things down, they go to the back of the house and see the young boy and tutor in the back opening. The man looked unharmed, standing wearing a handkerchief scarf and the boy very much on the ground with an excess amount of dead grass and grime covering his face.

“Get up. You’re not done yet,” Whitley said to the boy.

Rowan groans, straining to getting back up.

Ruby’s eyes widen and her face pales, her motherly instincts kicking in and her only focus at the moment is her child who is still struggling to get up off the ground. With one foot in front of the other she strides towards them.

Whitley turns his head taking notice of both the mother and daughter’s arrival, but fails in anticipating the atmosphere, “Oh you’re both home already? How was your day?”

Ruby looks at him, giving him a menacing stare, “My day? Whitley what have YOU BEEN doing?! Rowan, are you ok?!”

Quickly the young mother runs to and cradles her child’s head.

Whitley's eyes widened upon realizing how this situation was making him look, so he tried to defuse the mother’s frustration, “Ruby listen, he’s fine, I didn’t throw him that hard.”

“Fine? Fine! Look at him! Does he look fine?!” Ruby shouted angrily.

“A bit dirty but that’s about it.”

“Wha- Whitley, I can’t believe you! I thought you were training him, not beating him up!” Ruby continued to shout.

“Technically-”

“AH! I don’t want to hear it! I can tolerate many things Whitley but I won’t tolerate this! ...Whitley I want you to leave,” Ruby said.

Summer tries to interject, “Mom-”

“This isn’t a discussion Summer,” Ruby quickly tells her daughter, then turns to look at Whitley with narrowed eyes, “this contract is over. Now please leave my-”

“Not yet...”

Rowan shook himself from his mother’s grasp until finally he’s able to break from her hold and roll himself face-down on the ground. Despite feeling his aching arms begging him to stop, he raises from his sides and uses them to partially lift himself by upper torso which feels thousand times more heavy.

“Rowan, what are you doing?! You’re hurt!” Ruby said as she tried to reach out to him.

“No!” Rowan yells.

Ruby halted, staring in shock at her son who raised his voice at her. Sounding both frustrated and sad, almost pleading.

Slowly his legs slide up, despite lacking any strength. Even so he pushed on.

“I-I’m... n-not... d-done yet,” He groans.

The boy manages to raise himself to rest on his hands and knees. His breath is hoarse and he feels his heart racing through his ears. Rowan closes his vision was gets blurry, perhaps from all the times he was tossed into the dirt.

He closed his eyes and all he saw was Peri with his smug face, but it wasn’t just his face he saw. Rowan saw the faces of the three Beowolves in the forest, looking to make easy prey of him. Then he saw the faces of everyone in class that looked at him in pity. He knew not all of them were doing it intentionally, but he didn’t want them to look at him like he was hopeless!

Rowan needed to be better before his next match, he couldn’t afford to hold back a year. They were all supposed to be going to Beacon after completing their fourth year of basics. Summer, Liena, Joanna and Blaze. They are expecting him to be there!

Rowan slowly stands up, groaning out, “I-I’m... not... done...!”

Slowly Rowan walks towards the male Schnee, who remained standing in the same spot he had for four freaking hours! After nearly falling under his weight three times, Rowan finally made it close enough to where he could grab tight hold of his tutor’s shirt. So that Whitley couldn’t throw him again, and to have something to hold onto because he could barely stay standing for so long.

One of his hands lets go of the man’s shirt slowly and reaches up until his fingers had met and were firmly gripped onto that damned handkerchief. Then in an eased motion, Rowan removes the handkerchief off Whitley’s neck.

Rowan began laughing with glee, “Hehehehe! I did it... I finally got... that stupid... flag...”

His eyes drift close as he begins collapsing.

Whitley catches the boy with one of his arms, then carefully lifts his weakened form in both arms.

“Well done,” he whispered.

—————————————

Rowan stirs upon awakening and quickly regrets the action as he still feels slight pain in his limbs, but not as significant as before. He slowly looks around the room and sees that he is back in his room and on his bed and not outside on the ground. What happened?

“Rowan?”

He turns to his left where he sees his twin sister’s face, her eyes puffy and dry. Something had made her upset, and judging from how her expression turned from worried to annoyed, it seemed to be directed at him. Rowan was going to ask what was wrong but she beat him to the punch by using her finger to block one of his nostrils by poking at his nose really hard.

“You stubborn dummy! You had us all worried after you passed out! Why did you push yourself so hard?! Do you want Mom and me to have a heart attack?!” Summer cries out.

“Summer! Can’t breathe!” Rowan shouts, voice becoming nasally due to the poking.

Summer ceases her poking, then glares at him angrily, “Well I’m sorry, I’m just the one who was worried sick, thinking if my twin brother died during his first day of training!”

Rowan’s eyes widened in shock, “Wait what? I almost died?!”

“Yeah dummy! You were barely standing yesterday and you almost stopped breathing three times while you were passed out!” Summer yelled.

‘Whoa... Mr. Whitley really wasn’t holding back was he?’ Rowan mentally said to himself.

“Why do you always gotta be the one to make me worried sick? First with the beowolves, now this, can you ever not get into situations that will not let you almost die in the process?!” Summer cried out, her eyes began shedding tears again.

Rowan looked at his sister guiltily, “Summer-”

“Look I know you’re trying your best. So just.... don’t be a dummy and die before you get to Beacon. Because if you do, I’m gonna kick your butt!” Summer said while dropping her head down, her bangs covering over her eyes.

Rowan didn’t know how he was supposed to react to his twin’s statements, on one hand she was correct to call him out on his reckless abandon for his safety, but on the other hand neither of these instances did he ever predict would happen. So how would he calm his sister down?

“Summer, look at me,” Rowan said.

Summer reluctantly looks up, wet streaks falling down her eyes.

Rowan asks, “How long have you known me for?”

Summer looked at him with confusion, “What? What kind of a question is that? I’m your twin sister, I’ve known you my whole life.”

“And how many times have I ever left you behind or hanging?” Rowan asked.

“Not....many times, ‘sniff’ or any times I think,” Summer said.

And when I make you a promise?” Rowan asked her.

Summer sighed, “Rowan...”

“Come on Sum, what do I do with all my promises? What mom taught us to do?” Rowan asks his sister.

“...We keep them,” Summer answered finally.

Rowan laughs, “Good. So when you hear me say, ‘I promise to not die on you or leave you all by yourself,’ you can always trust that I will alway be here for you. That’s because...?”

Rowan pats her head, then uses strands of her hair to wipe away her tears.

Summer does her best to laugh, wiping away the remainder of her tears, “You’ll keep it.”

Rowan nods, “Yep, so don’t expect me to die or anything, anytime soon. Kay Sum? I’ll make it through this training and be up to par with the rest of the class in no time.”

“Hmm right,” Summer sniffs before she pauses, remembering something important, “Oh... yeah, I just remembered something.”

“What’s that?” Rowan asks, raising an eyebrow.

Summer pokes her fingers while looking to the side,“Well, while you were unconscious, Mom kinda... fired Mr. Whitley as your tutor.”

“She WHAT?! Why didn’t you say that before?!” Rowan questioned.

“I was under a lot of emotions at the time! I’m sorry it wasn’t the first thing on my mind,” Summer said defensively.

Rowan groans, “I gotta talk to Mom-Ah!”

Summer reaches to help her brother, “Easy Rowan! You’re still pretty banged up. Also why do you want to talk to Mom?”

“Why else? To change her mind,” Rowan tells her.

“Wait, you want to keep Mr. Whitley as a teacher? Why? All he did today was toss you around,” Summer asks him.

“That’s not the point Sum, I know it doesn’t make sens but there’s a theory to his teaching. He’s methodical in his own way and was testing me today,” Rowan said.

“By pommeling you to the ground?” Summer asked unconvinced.

“...Yes? Look, I know it sounds really backwards, but he’s my last chance at passing this class, so if I have to get my ass whooped in order to get better then so be it. But to do that, I need to convince Mom to change her mind,” Rowan said urgently, trying to get off his bed.

“No need, kiddo.”

The Rose twins directed their attention towards the entrance of Rowan’s room to find both their Aunt and Mother standing outside. The former smiling at her niece and nephew, the latter looking at her son with concern.

“We heard a good bit of your conversation from here,” Yang told her niece and nephew.

“That we did,” said their mother.

Rowan swallowed, “Mom, I-”

Ruby raised her hand, causing Rowan to stop what he was trying to say and pay attention to his mother, who looked to want to say something.

“Rowan, I know you want to do anything that could help you get better in combat class, but I also want you to be safe while doing so. Training this way... being toppled until your black and blue, is not the way to go about it. I’m only looking out for your safety,” Ruby said to her son.

Rowan lowered his head, guilt swelling inside his stomach after seeing his mother’s concerned face.

“But it’s not Mr. Whitley’s fault...”

Ruby sighs, “Look I know you’re trying to defend him but he went-”

“It’s mine mom!” Rowan said to her.

Ruby looks confusingly at her son, she didn’t understand what he meant but decided to hold her tongue to hear what he had to say.

Rowan takes a moment to find the words he wants to say, “...Mr. Whitley wanted to stop after he saw that my aura was going into the red, he insisted that I stop and that I was done for the day. But I didn’t stop.... I kept pushing myself, kept charging him for nearly two hours because... I didn’t want the day to be wasted for nothing! I wanted to win! I want to prove to those other students that I have just a right to be there and not to feel like I’m some.... loser!”

After finishing, Rowan is left panting, his face red from all the hidden frustration that had been plaguing his mind. He now waits with nervous trembling, fully certain that his mother’s reaction will be very disappointed now that he has metaphorically spilled the whole can of beans.

He was partially right.

“Rowan, who’s been saying that you were a loser? Is it another student?” She asks.

“Peri Phelps,” Summer said.

“Summer!” Rowan yells.

Yang's eyes widened in realization, “I remember that name, he’s that student you were sparring with the other day wasn’t he?”

Rowan sighs, “Yeah, he was.”

“Rowan why didn’t you say anything to me about this, if he’s bullying you then the teacher has to be notified,” Ruby asks her son.

“It’s not that he’s bullying me mom, he’s just a competitive jerk who thinks he’s the best in the class and likes to rub his victories into other’s faces, just because his semblance gives him a better chance at winning,” Rowan tells his family.

“Yeah,” Summer said angrily while pouting.

“Well either way, training like the way you did today isn’t going to help you get better,” Ruby chided gently.

“Okay...” Rowan tells his mother.

“Which is why Whitley is going to make sure you’re being properly trained and not pushing you’re self too harshly,” Ruby adds.

Rowan perks up on listening to her, “Wait really? You’re not firing him!”

Ruby wasn’t finished, “Only because today’s mishap was your doing and he’s a family friend, kinda, so I’ll give him a break. But I expect you to do everything he says, understand?”

“Yes mam!” Rowan said happily, giving a nod and toothy smile.

“Good, now get some rest, both of you,” Ruby tells her children.

“Yes mom,” Summer said.

With that all three female members of the house began leaving Rowan’s room to allow the boy to continue resting. Ruby stood by his door and told him goodnight.

“Goodnight sweetie, sleep tight,” Ruby said.

“Goodnight mom,” Rowan returned.

Ruby whispered, “Also, don’t think we’re done about this Peri issue...”

“Yes mam,” He nods.

“...and make sure to hit him extra hard, ‘kay?” Ruby adds with a smirk.

Rowan laughs before smiling, “Yes mam.”

– End of Part 3 –

A/N: I wanna give special thanks to @thatorigamiguy and @tanakaclinkbeard for both being Beta-Readers and giving me feedback on this post. I spent A LOT of time on it and it’s thanks to them I was able to get it done.

Also thanks to you, everyone, for sticking with me, I know I haven’t been too active on this blog for awhile, but hopefully I can get back into the groove of things.

So I hope you all enjoy this post. Have a great day and be good people :)

[knamjooned]

Magicae Foresta (2)

pairing: (forest)dragon!namjoon x (unpracticed)witch!reader

genre: magic/supernatural au, shifter au, fluff, angst, smut, soulmate au

chapter words: 2,267

chapter warnings: mention of death

chapter rating: PG

STORY SUMMARY: The magical world your grandmother told you about had always been real to you. Once she passed away, you find yourself honoring her memory by searching for the one magical creature she could never find.

CHAPTER SUMMARY: You spend time with the hummingbird shifter, Hoseok, and learn a bit more about their world.

TWO

The most friendly creature I have met in these woods is Hoseok. He is a shifter and his animal form is a hummingbird. Full of life and kindness, I know if I need something he will do his best to help me. I hope he finds what he is looking for in life, though. Underneath that sunshine is a bit of clouds. He can’t hide that from me.

You continued to read the entry, making sure you understood the place she was describing. This was where Hoseok could be found. He was your first stop for information about the old dragon. You had found the bright red flowers, Lobelia cardinalis or Red Cardinal Flowers, which was listed as his favorite. This was the largest spread, so he would most likely be here.

It was dawn of your second day in the woods, the favorite time for hummingbirds to drink the sweet nectar that kept them so energized. After a few moments of sitting on the naturally fallen tree trunk, you heard the leaves shaking as someone approached the spread of Red Cardinal. Standing you turned fully to face whoever was coming. He froze in place, staring at you with curious eyes. 

“Hi. Er, hello. I’m ____, Silvia’s granddaughter?”

“Oh! You’re the Magic Mother’s successor!” He hurried toward you as other hummingbirds flurried into the area. The birds’ wings hummed as they circled you in excitement. Hoseok took your hands. “I’m Hoseok.”

“I know,” you laughed, the joy of life spreading from his presence into yours. It was hard not to smile and feel at ease. You pulled back and bent down, grabbing the journal. Holding it up, you continued. “She wrote about her time here.”

“Of course Miss Silvia did,” Hoseok murmured, chuckling. He looked at the birds moving about them. He waved them away. “Go head, I know you’re hungry.”

You watched with wide eyes as they all transformed into their human forms, completely naked. You dropped the book and covered your eyes with both hands quickly. Hoseok found it hilarious, snorting as he took your shoulders and turned you away from the group.

“They’ll get dressed before we eat,” he assured you. You lowered your hands and let out a sigh of relief. “Is that usual, shifting into human form without clothes?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Since we’ve been interacting with humans more often, we’ve made a point to wear clothing when in that form. We each have a small bag we wear when we transform. The Magic Mother actually made it for us, allowing it to grow and shrink with our body sizes.”

“She did mention it, but only once or twice.” You frowned, wanting to know more about the process of making such an item. You took a deep breath before changing to the topic you had initial wanted to ask. “I’m looking for the dragon.”

“Oh, really?” Hoseok chuckled at that, waving it off like no big deal. He was searching the bag, which was hanging on his shoulder by a strap. You frowned. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw it. Immediately, he stopped looking for whatever it was and looked fully at you. “Everyone is looking for the dragon, Miss _____. No one finds him. He finds you.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Sometimes.” You waited for him to elaborate as he went back to his bag. Hoseok pulled out a thin gold chain with a gold band hanging on it. He raised his brows toward her as he clipped it around his neck. “It’s not my place to tell you where he is. His privacy is extremely important to him, as well as respect.”

“Okay, so how do I get his respect? I need him to teach me.”

“Teach you?” Hoseok frowned in confusion, hands on his hips. “Teach you what?”

“Magic. Tata was gone before I asked her about my powers. What to do with them. He’s an old dragon, he has to be pretty knowledgeable.”

“He’s the most intelligent creature I know,” Hoseok murmured. Letting out a big sigh, he stared at you as he thought for a long moment. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I can do. I’ll be speaking to him in two days. I’ll tell him you’re here, and if he’s interested, he’ll find you.”

“That would be very helpful,” you said slowly, holding your excitement at bay. 

“Good!” Hoseok clapped his hands and gestured behind you. You turned and saw the group of shifters, now clothed, sitting among the flowers sharing food. “Would you like to join us?”

Namjoon felt Jungkook’s presence before the honeybee was spotted landing on the edge of his tea mug placed on the table. Raising an eyebrow, Namjoon leaned back in his kitchen chair. 

“How’d you get in?” The insect buzzed away from the mug and transformed into his human form. Namjoon waited patiently as the young man quickly put on sweatpants and a t-shirt.

“This is so inconvenient,” Jungkook muttered, frowning down at himself. Namjoon chuckled, agreeing with the sentiment. Still, it’s what they had to get used to doing to survive when they were around humans. Jungkook looked at the dragon and bowed his head respectfully. Namjoon lifted his cup in response, then took a sip. “The window into the washroom seemed to be open a crack.”

“I knew I forgot something,” Namjoon replied. He had been cleaning the mud tracks in there, and opened the window just enough to circulate the air. “Sit, would you like some tea?”

“No, thanks,” Jungkook answered, sitting in the only other chair at the kitchen table. He dug into his sack and pulled out a plain white envelope. “Here is the time and place for the gathering.”

“Thanks.” Namjoon took the envelope from the bee shifter, opened it, and took out the sheet of information. It didn’t take long for him to scan over the handwritten note from Yoongi. He placed the sheet on the table with the envelope, then looked at Jungkook. “How’s married life?”

“Fantastic!” He grinned, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. Namjoon immediately noticed the soft look in his eyes as his queen popped into his mind. The dragon grinned, feeling the waves of love and happiness roll off the young man. “Minji is just… I still can’t believe she picked me! Out of all the others….”

“You’re mates, my friend, assigned by the Great One. But the emotions are all your own. You look very happy.”

“I am.” Jungkook stood and stretched his arms over his head, yawning. “Now, back to my queen. We have heirs to produce!” He laughed with a gleam in his eyes as he decided to go through the door instead of transforming. Namjoon watched Jungkook whistle a tune as he strolled out of the cabin. He would most likely take the grassy path from Namjoon’s place toward the main vein of dirt paths made throughout the forest.

“Love,” he murmured, letting out a large sigh. Namjoon stared at the empty chair across the table. After almost two centuries, would he experience it? Though he preferred to be alone, he would go into the human world for lovers every so often. Even a solitary dragon like himself needed physical comfort sometime. None of them had been more than a warm bed and a pleasurable night. None of them had even known what he truly was.

He stood, washed his mug, then went to the washroom to make sure the window was securely shut. Namjoon went over his to-do list for the day: weed the gardens and restock the kitchen. His magic abilities made it easy to clear out the unwanted plants, but restocking the kitchen meant going into the human world for a few hours.

He had a good stash of money from selling flowers and herbs at the local fresh market every Saturday, which meant he could get the best meats offered.

You stayed with the hummingbird shifters for the night, setting up your tent as the sun finished setting. The small campfire you made amused Hoseok, as you hadn’t used any magic to do it. As the stars started to twinkle in the sky, visible between the branches, Hoseok and his shifters started to turn back into their animal forms for rest. Before he could, though, you asked him a question that had been on your mind the whole evening.

“The band you wear, what does it mean?”

He was silent, staring into the flames. You two were alone now, the others comfortably in their nests. You waited patiently, not wanting to push if he didn’t want to tell you. Hoseok took a deep breath, the usual cheerful smile falling into a deep frown.

“My kind, the hummingbirds, value their freedom, their independence. We make the most of life. We tend to prefer being free rather than tied to a partner,” he added with a short chuckle. “But, the Great One decided I would be different. Maybe because I’m the leader, or maybe I was just a random choice.”

“Oh,” you breathed, starting to understand. 

“I fell in love with a human. Long story short, we planned our lives together. They eventually found out about my shifter abilities, but didn’t care. Unfortunately, they became sick. We never got the chance….” Hoseok swallowed with tears in his eyes. “They bought me this just before the Great One took them.”

“I didn’t mean to bring about sad memories.” 

“No worries, friend. I look upon those memories with fondness. I’m glad I could share a little about them with you.”

After a restful sleep, you woke, wrapped in a warm blanket you carried in your pack. The tent had just enough room for you to stretch as your mind slowly began to leave your dreams. As you made to get up, you heard an unknown male voice just outside your shelter. 

“Wait, she wants to what?” 

“She wants Namjoon to teach her magic,” Hoseok answered.

“Are you sure she’s the Magic Mother’s successor?” a second known male voice asked skeptically.

“She is, Jimin. I felt it, as well as her being Miss Silvia’s granddaughter.”

At this time, you had dressed and decided to exit the tent. Hoseok stood with two other men, and flushed with embarrassment as they realized you had probably heard their conversation. You smiled, though, and started to take down your shelter.

“I’m _____. You are?”

“Jungkook.” A young man with dark hair and a playful grin bowed his head lightly. You acknowledged him with a nod of your own.

“Are you a shifter?”

“A honeybee,” he answered proudly, lifting his chin.

“Married to Queen Minji,” Hoseok interjected, grinning widely. Jungkook’s face flushed with happiness, obviously in love with his wife. As the tent lay disassembled on the ground, you glanced at the other, shorter man. You began to fold the material in a specific way as to put it in your pack.

“And you?”

“Jimin,” he answered, licking his lip nervously. He looked at Hoseok, who nodded and then brought his gaze back to you. He sent you a shy smile. “I’m a mouse shifter.”

“Nice to meet you, Jimin, Jungkook.”

After all your things were tucked into your pack, you put your arms through the straps and began to prepare to make your way further down the almost hidden path. It was mostly flattened grass, which you assumed was made by the creatures living here.

“Are you not staying another night? I told you I’d speak to Namjoon tomorrow.” Hoseok looked surprised as you said goodbye to all the shifters near you. You glanced at him with a smile as you strolled onto the path. 

“No matter where I am, he’ll find me if he wants to, right?”

“She’s right,” Jungkook murmured, raising his eyebrows toward Hoseok. Jimin lifted a hand and waved with a smile as you nodded and headed out into the trees. It was early morning, the birds chirping and the smell of sweet flora in the air. You wondered which creature was just an animal of the forest or a being made of some form of magic. You saw a few creatures you thought might have been dryads and fairies. 

In the late morning, you caught the glance of a large horse-like creature with a horn in the middle of his forehead. When you turned to stare in awe, the unicorn tossed his mane and moved further into the trees. You waited a moment to see if the unicorn would come back, but nothing appeared. Sighing with disappointment, you turned back in the direction you were going, stepping lightly down the pathway.

When the sun hit its highest point, you stumbled upon a cabin, with a porch from on side of the front to the other. It was a surprise, going from just trees to a suddenly clearing large enough for the home and a small garden. For a moment, you stared, taking it in. It was a simple place, made of wood with a bit of moss growing over it. There were sparkling chimes hanging along the edge of the roof, the noise tinkling pleasantly through the air.

You marched toward the porch steps, but suddenly was blocked by an invisible force. You frowned, placing you hand on it. It was solid but clear. You tapped on it with a finger, then pushed with both hands. Nothing happened. Grunting with frustration, you kept your hand on the invisible wall and followed it around the home back to where you started.

Someone didn’t want anyone coming in.

[retroateez]

Prophecy - Chapter Five

i still don’t properly understand how this website works but slowly,,, i am learning.

also if ur enjoying this au please like/reblog bc it rlly helps me out ty x

wc; 2649

A month had passed since Yeosang took you under his wing, and he (thankfully) hadn't decided to kill you.

Although the trip to harvest the sand mandrakes often made you think otherwise.

Despite that, Yeosang had been patient with you as you grew accustomed to his lifestyle. Oddly, he trusted in you immediately, sharing with you secrets he wouldn't dare tell other strangers.

"I'm a mage," he had told you suddenly over porridge one morning. He clenched his large palms into equally large fists and laid his forearm upon the table, facing upwards towards the canopy of jade leaves above your heads. "You see those blue lines? They're called veins, and our blood runs through these."

You nodded silently, unsure of what his point was.

"In mine, flows blood as well as chaos," he explained. "Almost anybody can do basic magic, provided you're taught by the right people."

Using his other hand, he ran a gentle finger down the stripe of his prominent veins, and the cerulean bumps bubbled and boiled into a startling shade of sunlight. You squinted in awe; you swore you could see a lightning storm rattling around inside of his arm.

"But only those born into chaos possess the abilities to truly wield it." Yeosang snapped his fingers, and the bolts of lightning in his veins returned to the cool, sea blue they were before.

He had grinned at you then, proud that his magic had impressed you. He didn't get to show off his magic often; most people would trade his life and talent for money in a heartbeat.

Except now, Yeosang wore a frown as you pleaded with him.

"Why can't you teach me any magic?" you beg. "You said yourself that anybody can be taught! By the looks of it you're well up to the task!"

You follow him like an excited puppy, bouncing along behind him and pawing at the back of his shirt to get his attention. Yeosang had his back turned to you, intent on finding the wolfsbane he had been asked to find before you arrived in his life and threw it slightly (majorly) off balance.

"I said no, Iris" he murmurs, keeping his eyes on the mossy ground.

You weren't sure where Yeosang had gotten the name 'Iris' from, or why he started calling you that in the first place. It certainly wasn't your name. Not that you had ever told him your name. He had never asked, so you assumed he didn't want to know. Either way, you didn't care, nor did you find it particularly important, so you let him call you whatever he pleased.

"Why?" you whine, grabbing the bottom of his cotton shirt and pulling it. "What harm can it do to just teach me a little magic?"

He sighs harshly, and turns to face you. Scowl evident, he shoves a handful of wolfsbane into a basket and grabs you firmly by the shoulders.

"I said no. Do not make me repeat myself. Do I make myself clear?" His eyes burn into yours and guilt washes over you; you hadn't meant to make him angry.

"But-"

"I said," he growls. "Do I make myself clear?"

You stare up meekly into his eyes, seeing the same flashes of firebolts from his veins, now crashing around his pupils. You nod, not uttering a word. Yeosang lets you go with a soft huff, and heads back up towards the house. If you'd have known he would get so angry with you, you wouldn't have pestered him so badly.

A few more days pass, and neither you or Yeosang bring up the incident in the woods. You, in fear of angering him again, and you assume Yeosang just didn't want to mention the subject at all. Maybe it was a sensitive topic for him? He acts like it never happened, resuming teaching you how to cook various stews and soups, testing you on the properties of sage and echinacea.

"Echinacea... helps burns?" you hazard a guess, Yeosang's face contorting to an expression of pain informing you that once again, you were wrong.

"Echinacea helps colds and flu." he corrects you with a sigh.

Frustrated, you hurl your notebook down onto the desk in Yeosang's study, crossing your arms and exhaling harshly, much like a horse. His study was as breathtaking as the rest of his house. It was smaller compared to the main, circular room and had no windows. With no natural light, Yeosang had strewn luminescent mushrooms across the ceiling and draped them all over the walls. They were long and thin, but the heads and stems shone bright in tones of seafoam green and azure blue. They made the room glow a strange, ocean mash of colour, often making Yeosang look as if the ocean floor had sprouted atop his head, dyeing his neutral blonde locks with a very startling sea themed concoction.

The room had an earthy smell, as did the entire house. You theorised Yeosang either had an addiction to growing plants in his house, or plainly a plant addiction. Still, the air throughout his home was always immaculately clean, so you couldn't complain about the slight dirt smell, or the soil that was always clinging to your arms and legs.

"I'm no good at this, Yeosang!" you cry. "I don't know why I bother!"

You glare angrily at the wooden planks of the floor, blinking back frustrated tears. You desperately wanted to prove to Yeosang that you were capable of learning something worthwhile. After all, your survival depended on it; why would he keep you around, feed you, house you, protect you, if you couldn't offer anything back to him? More than that, it actually gave you a purpose, something more than just stealing your way through the game of life. Here you were, handed an opportunity to learn and, provided you were any good at it, use the skills to help people in the future instead of stealing the products of other people's hard work and determination.

You're dragged from your thoughts by Yeosang crouching down at your figure sitting on his desk chair. He softly places his rough hands on your knees and offers a rare, but soft and caring smile.

"You'll get the hang of it ,Iris, don't fret. I failed my alchemy exam five times before I finally passed it." His eyes crinkle at the corners when he hears your quiet laugh at his comment.

"Only an idiot would fail five times," you quip. "What happened to three time's the charm?"

"Charm is a load of bullshit," he remarks. "Everything is decided by fate, you know that don't you?"

You nod in response. Everybody knows your destiny is your destiny. It can't be changed, altered or avoided. You wonder if magic has any effect on destiny. After all, before meeting Yeosang you had no idea magic was real in the first place, so really the possibilites could be endless.

"Does magic work on destiny?" You ask the golden haired mage.

Yeosang leans back on his heels, glancing up at the glowing fungi as he ponders his answer.

"Yes and no," he admits. "No magic can directly change, or redirect your fate. But magic can delay it, sometimes quite significantly"

"How so?"

Yeosang lets go of your knees and with a grunt, falls back so he's sitting on the floor in front of you.

"Are you familiar with Virgil's Aenied?"

He takes your silence as a 'no'.

"The Aeneid is an epic poem, centered around a single man named Aeneas, whose destiny is to discover the land that would become Rome. There's a lot that goes on inbetween," Yeosang explains. "but Juno, the goddess of love and marriage, despised Aeneas, and did everything in her power to make sure Aeneas would never be the catalyst of Rome's foundations."

"But Juno couldn't stop him from doing that, could she?" You connect the dots fairly quickly, and Yeosang nods.

"Correct. Even the gods have to abide by the laws of destiny. Jupiter himself unravels the scrolls of time and fate, and nobody can change them. But what Juno did succeed with, was delaying Aeneas as much as possible. Setting him back years and years from the destiny bestowed upon him from the very beginning, at the sack of Troy."

"Do the gods powers count as magic though? You're not a god" You think aloud. You think you catch a wave of offense wash over Yeosang's face, but it passes so quickly you can't be sure.

"In a way, I suppose you can view it as a divine type of magic, magic so powerful that people on our realm couldn't possibly wield it without certain death, or other circumstance..." The mage stands up, bones in his knees cracking as he moves.

"Anyway," he continues. "My point was that your destiny is exactly that. It's been written in the stars since the very dawn of time, and you physically cannot escape it. You may delay it, but the time will come where you will have to fulfill your role in destiny's prophecy. The first step to that though, my young student, is passing your alchemy exam!"

You and Yeosang spent the next couple of days pouring over his hand-written notebooks, reading and re-reading his scrawled handwriting and weirdly endearing drawings. Him presenting you with various herbs and smoking liquids, making you guess what they were used for and forcing you to eat and drink the gross ones when you got the answers wrong. You hated it, but his method of teaching was rather effective.

"We're going to have to make a trip into the city," he tells you one gorgeously warm afternoon. "I've run out of primrose and the only source I can get it is the kingdom."

Yeosang hadn't taken you to the kingdom of Ateez yet, nor had he visited there since your arrival, but the way he spoke about it terrified you to your core. He refused to go unless he needed to, no pleasant day trips or lesiurely strolls. For him, it was dangerous.

"The King has a special band of witch-hunters," Yeosang explained to you as he grabbed his brown satchel and coin purse. "Of course, they're just referred to as 'guards', he wouldn't want rival kingdoms knowing he was explicitly prejudiced towards anybody." he spat.

"Have you met the king?" you ask quietly, handing him a notebook with a list of items you needed to purchase.

Yeosang notably hesitated.

"Yes... he helped me a lot. He gave me this land, and in return I occasionally do him favours."

"I thought he didn't like mages?"

"Hatred for magic kinds is rooted in fear," he turns to you. "Whether or not you like a mage, it is always better to have one on your side, as opposed to having one against you."

"So if the king likes you, why are you so worried about going to the kingdom?"

Yeosang wedges a soil brown hat onto your head, pulling it down over your eyes.

"He doesn't like me," he corrects you. "He merely tolerates me because I posses something that may prove very useful to him one day. Anyway, enough questions, small one. We have plants to buy!"

---

You wished Yeosang had told you just how long the walk to Ateez was before you agreed to go with him. Technically you didn't have a choice, but still. You'd been wearing 'tailored' versions of Yeosang's clothes (tailored being he had ripped the excess material off), as your own were ruined beyond repair during the storm. They were too big for you even still, the sleeves of his white cotton shirt coming past your fingertips and copper breeches almost hanging off you if not for the makeshift belt, (wine red ribbon Yeosang used to bunch flowers together) tied around your waist. As grateful as you were, his clothes were weighing you down and making the journey painfully longer.

"We're almost there, Iris!" Yeosang calls back to you. He was wearing an outfit similar to yours, except his actually fit and suited him. He was extremely good looking, you'd admit. What with his piercing cobalt eyes and effortlessly wavy hair. You wondered why he had been alone before he met you, and for what reason.

You turn your attention to where Yeosang was pointing and felt your stomach drop immediately. It felt as if a pit had opened at the base of your torso and every one of your organs was being sucked into the abyss. Despite the uncomfortable feeling seeping throughout your body, you felt compelled towards the miles of kingdom below you. You could see almost the entire kingdom from your position on top of the hill. You realised too, that the western side was situated on the edge of a cliff, with your best friend, the ocean, waiting readily thousands of feet below. You felt uneasy thinking about the drop.

Between the bottom of the hill and the gates of Ateez, was a vast stretch of forest. Towering oaks bundled together like a poor family on a cold night, protecting one another with what little comfort they could provide. You didn't want to imagine what creatures lurked in the woods either, having a hunch that they wouldn't welcome strangers into their habitats with welcome arms.

"We don't have to walk down this hill, do we?" you gulped.

"No," Yeosang said. "We can just jump."

You stared at him.

"Of course we have to walk down it, Iris."

You both began the everlasting descent down the hill. Luckily, a dirt path had been stamped into the grass by plenty of other people making the same journey as you.

No matter how much you tried to push down the growing feeling in your stomach, it wouldn't go away.

You could hardly explain the feeling either. Like your intenstines were lined with the prettiest hydrangeas, and somebody was tugging at the flowers with the strength of a thousand horses, but regardless of how hard they pulled, the roots stayed firmly put.

You surveyed the kingdom, the endless rows of tiny houses and roads, the pathway up to the gates of the castle and the grand towers standing in the castle grounds. On the highest part of the city, towards the east, was the most important building of all; the castle itself. Overlooking the entire of Ateez which stretched out for miles.

"Once we reach the bottom of this hill," you ask. "Won't we have to walk all the way to the gates?"

Yeosang glances back over his shoulder at you, pushing his wavy blonde hair out of his face.

"No, they have horses and carriages that take people to the city, thank the gods."

After approximately 3 decades, you and Yeosang reach the bottom of the hill (more like a mountain, you think). Yeosang guides you over to a line of carriages, attached to the biggest, bulkiest horses you've ever seen. The ones you'd seen back at home were simple, baggage carrying horses. Nothing compared to these absolute monsters. Your companion hands the coachman of a carriage a handful of coins, and you both clamber into the back.

Throughout the journey, the hole in your stomach continues to expand, growing deeper and wider that you're surprised it hasn't totally consumed you. The closer you get to the kingdom gates, the more and more nauseous you feel, the beating of your heart and pounding in your head keeping perfect time with the canter of the Shire horse pulling you along.

The second cog, hand-crafted but not yet complete, waits patiently. He cannot continue welding it until the next steps are taken; until destiny is fulfilled. Until then, he sets the half-finished cog on his workshop table, then he too, sits patiently. Fate is a waiting game, and everyone is a pawn to fate.

Chapter Six

[magical-marvelous-mistoffelees]

🔥 🗡 💎

Bombalurina, Macavity, Rumpleteazer

I tried to keep these brief, but they all ended up a bit long.

Macavity:

He is Old Deuteronomy’s eldest son. Munkustrap is the second oldest, and Rum Tum Tugger is the youngest. As the oldest, he was training to be the next Jellicle leader.

As he grew older, he found he wanted to use magic as a sort of weapon to defend the tribe. However, Old D insisted magic was only to be used as the Heaviside layer intended; magic was only to be used in defense or for non-harmful means.

He started manipulating and training large and dangerous alley rats to work for him and even communicating in private with stray cats. He also worked to develop his powers in secret, almost burning down the junkyard a couple times.

Feeling isolated and trapped, as he was forbidden from working on his magic, he became irritable and restless. He started fights and began attacking other Jellicles with his magic. Eventually, he was exiled. He only managed to convince Demeter and Bombalurina to come with him.

Outside of Munkustrap, Macavity is the only other cat who knows Old D is on his last life (assuming that cats have nine lives and can only be reborn eight times).

Macavity’s magic isn’t as strong as everyone believes it to be. He can manipulate fire very well, throw his voice, create several apparitions of himself, disguise himself as someone else, control other beings like a puppeteer, conjure and teleport, and seemingly fit where no one should be able to. However, he is extremely smart. Many of his tricks revolve around intelligence and understanding how to use human items (like power cords) to wreak havoc. He also relies mostly on brute strength in a fight, as his powers aren’t great for close combat fights.

Macavity has the ability to change his appearance, just like Mistoffelees. His normal appearance is bright, dusty ginger with darker tabby stripes, but he can change it to be mostly black when he feels like it. Think of it as comparing 1998 to 2016.

He had a brief infatuation with Demeter, but only continued it to keep her and Bomba from leaving him. Jemima is his daughter, but Jemima doesn’t know. Demeter escaped before she was born.

Since Mistoffelees was not born directly into the tribe, Macavity has tried to convince Mistoffelees to join him on several occasions. However, Bustopher Jones protected Mistoffelees and Victoria from him by bringing them to the tribe for protection. Otherwise, Mistoffelees might have actually joined him when he was younger and more naïve. 

Bombalurina:

Her sister is Demeter and her mother is Grizabella. Grizabella abandoned them when they were kittens and unable to defend themselves. 

Rum Tum Tugger was her best friend when they were kittens, but through being his friend, she also grew close to his brother Macaity.

When Macavity left, he recognized how vulnerable and defenseless Bombalurina and Demeter were. He tricked hem into thinking they’d have safety and resources with him. The sisters worked for him for several years after that.

Rumpleteazer and Mungojerrie joined a little bit after the sisters, and were younger than them. Quickly, the two sisters realized the twins had no one else and decided to treat them like younger siblings. 

After Bombalurina realizes Demeter is pregnant, she demands they leave and escapes with Demeter back to the tribe.

When they are accepted back, they quickly try to get Jerrie and Teazer allowed in as well. 

Once back, Bombalurina realizes she has feelings for Tugger. However, Tugger is totally taken with Mistoffelees. Initially, Bomba is jealous, but she gets over it eventually. 

She is fiercely protective of her sister. Their dens are adjacent to each other, and she even moves to a den closer to Demeter when Demeter moves in with Munkustrap.

Bomba is scared of having kittens of her own because she doesn’t want to end up being a bad mother like her mother was to her. That’s partly why she fell for someone irresponsible and unobtainable, because if she was with Tugger she wouldn’t have to worry about having too serious of a relationship. Despite all of her worries, she’s actually great with kittens without even realizing it. 

As much as Tugger likes to think he’s the favorite relative, Jemima secretly loves Bombalurina more.

Her closest friends are Tugger and the crime twins, as well as her family, but she’s also surprisingly close with Jenny, Jelly, and Coricopat. Her friendship with the two older queens comes from Bomablruina being forced to mature faster, but her friendship with Coricopat came as a surprise to everyone. 

Rumpleteazer:

She and Jerrie have the same human home in Victoria grove. They were Christmas presents for the kids in their family, however they were quickly forgotten about. The family still spoils them, but the family doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to them. 

Before they were taken in, they were strays just grabbed off the streets because they looked expensive. Nobody knows if they’re actually purebred, but they act like it anyways. 

Rumpleteazer’s favorite collar is her pearl necklace, which is actually just a bracelet. However, she has many other stolen bracelets she wears. Some of her other’s are a solid gold bracelet, a ruby bracelet, and a diamond bracelet for special occasions. However, she wasn’t given dinner the night she stole that one.

She hides all of her stolen jewelry in a striped pillowcase (also stolen). This is the same pillowcase she and Jerrie use as sacks during the ball. 

Her favorite chaotic activity is parkour, or anything that will get her from point A to point B in the most fun way possible. Her methods of choice are sliding down the banister, swinging from curtains, and using people and pillows as launch pads. 

Mungojerrie is actually a better thief than her, because she cannot keep a poker face or stay quiet during a heist. She often is the distraction to divert attention, causing a mess somewhere else. 

If they ever need to talk their way out of a situation, she does the talking. Mungojerrie always says the wrong thing.

They became wrapped up in Macavity’s nonsense when he saved them from some neighboring Pollicles they had upset. After that, they owed him their lives. They worked as messengers and thieves for a while, often the middle man for many exchanges. 

When Demeter and Bombalurina begged Munkustrap to let the crime duo join the tribe, Munkustrap and Alonzo went out in search of them. All six agreed it would be dangerous to let them in immediately, so they are allowed to stay whenever they want and join the tribe for the ball, but they can’t be permanent members until they officially leave Macavity. They try to help the tribe in return by acting as spies against Macavity, warning the tribe when he’s up to something.

Skimble and Jenny take care of them when they’re in the junkyard. Tugger would also die for them. However, many of the older cats don’t trust them still.

Jerrie and Teazer treat a younger queen Domoria (my oc) as a sort of younger sister to them.

Rumpleteazer has a huge crush on Victoria, despite Victoria being with Plato.

Her best friends are Victoria, Cettie, Bomba, Tugger, and Tumblebrutus. However, she gets along with all the kittens.

[wirewitchviolet]

Hate Mobs Gotta Go

Last night, I did something I have never expected to do, and just full on gave up on a fun RPG writing assignment. Which I had to do because I hit a point where it was so overdue and unfinished that I was falling asleep sitting up and stress vomiting and other such things. There’s a whole lot of factors behind that. Other health issues, the toll of being on total pandemic lockdown for months, with neighbors just straight up open mouth coughing at my door, emergencies with friends and family, multiple fires and hardware failures, but the main thing was, and still is, the constant harassment from a militant hate mob, completely out of touch with reality.

Years ago, I remember there was this thing the internet at large was fond of doing with foaming at the mouth far right religious extremists- Mercilessly ridiculing them in public to expose how disconnected everything they said or did was from reality. Remember seeing this one float around and laughing your head off?

And if I mention the Westboro Baptist Church, you immediately picture a single family of raving bigots picketing funerals and such with their big homophobic signs, with a bigger crowd mocking them, right?

For some reason, the modern version of that particular flavor of fringe weirdo doesn’t get that sort of ridicule. Presumably because they’re focusing almost exclusively on trans people, and most people have this weird thing where like if you stick up for trans people you get cooties or something and never dig into the real juicy ridicule fodder. But for real, this stuff is OUT THERE. Just look at a few examples here.

Come for the weird ravings about harvesting baby organs. Stay for the... adult woman who apparently believes breasts get their shape from actually being sacks filled with milk under women’s skin? Now, how about this colorful comparison?

For anyone who wasn’t aware, pronouns are words like “I” “you” “he” “she” “it” and “this,” while rohypnol is colloquially known as “the date rape drug,” so this is utter gibberish. The full context of course is that this person is trying to make the argument that forcing this bigot to refer to women she’s prejudiced against as “she” instead of arbitrarily tossing around “he” or “it” is... raping her brain, I guess?

So... this is pretty clearly some creep’s weird little fantasy. The obvious giveaway is pretending that trans women “aren’t in the correct bathroom” when going to... the correct bathroom, and that the non-existent law about this is somehow enforced by... random bigots opting to deputize themselves. What DOES happen for real though is bigots like this being arrested for barging into public restroom stalls with camcorders aimed at the crotches of women on toilets and trying to defend themselves by insisting they have some duty to check what their genitals look like. On which note...

That’s just disgusting. It’s also as close as I feel comfortable to posting all the graphic fantasies I see from these people about the barbaric genital mutilation they imagine trans women subject ourselves to which really has no basis at all in reality. Well maybe I can post this one.

I’m not going to go through and itemize all the baldfaced lies in that, because I really kinda hope I don’t have to, and also because the person who slapped this together was kind enough to break it up in such a way that I legitimately can say “every single line of this is a completely baseless lie.” Also the art in the corner is stolen from a child-friendly comic whose author is trans, so, that’s extra slimy. Also wow that “bone scans” bit is actually one I’ve never seen. Where the hell do they even get these ideas?

Also this one needs some setup. If you have time, this right here is a freaking journey, if not, I’ll try to summarize.

So a while ago, this one particular unhinged bigot decided the most productive way to spend all her time was to get in touch with a bulk sticker printing business and order thousands if not millions of these weird gross poorly framed slabs with a really crude drawing of a penis and bunch of gibberish she really wishes were the names of popular twitter hashtags that nobody else but her ever uses. And then after receiving these, just... wandering around the city she lives in all day every day plastering them on phone booths and power poles and the mirrors of bathrooms in like.. elementary schools and park benches, just everywhere. And then makes multiple passes a day apparently to make sure nobody has tried to remove any of them, as detailed in this amazing thread I’ll link again.

So the latest break in that particular saga is that same zealot going around plastering stickers like this around too, to make it seem like “both sides do it.”

It should be obvious that that’s a “blacks rule!” sort of fake between the baffling text and using the extra inclusive, particular emphasis on supporting people of color, general purpose LGBT+ flag, but also, like their fellows on 4chan, they plan this sort of “false flag” crap in broad daylight:

I should really properly credit the whistle-blowing on that particular oddity, and I should also note that aside from the breast milk sacks, this is all just stuff I saw TODAY catching up on my twitter feed, but my main point with all this is to illustrate that we really are dealing with Jack Chick/Westboro Baptist-level unhinged zealotry... but again, nobody’s out there pointing and laughing. And it turns out, when you don’t have people pointing and laughing at this sort of thing, you get people taking it seriously. So... when I went to quickly search for a news story to link with the bit about creeps barging in on women with cameras, the results I got were... this.

That... sure is a lot of stories about totally innocent people in a demographic I belong to being murdered by total strangers goaded into blind murderous hatred by the sort of people I’m pointing and laughing at! Ha ha! There’s a very real chance of that happening to me every time I step outside, for any reason! Tee hee! I live in a state of constant fear! Whoopsie!

And it’s not just stuff like that. The people posting these rambling tirades about “breast milk sack implants” and putting crude penis stickers everywhere, never being called out as the unhinged weirdos they are, either have the world turning a blind eye to all this crap, or have everything they do downplayed in the media to the point where outright sexual harassment, doxing, and slurs I don’t want to repeat get headlines like “so-and-so made comments that some fringe trans activists on the internet deem ‘possibly transphobic’” and that’s AT BEST. More often you get stuff like the one incident I managed to bring a lot of public attention to way back when, where some bigot just literally walked up to someone on the street, grabbed them, savagely beat the hell out of them until pulled apart, had friends film the whole thing, and bragged after the fact about it, and every story that appeared as a result claimed the assailant was the victim, because they were all written by her friends.

Face obscuring provided by me here, by the way.

And that isn’t a one-off incident. Because, see, most of these unhinged weirdos spewing out all this transphobic gibberish are not, as you would think, a bunch of barely educated Trump hat wearing members of some fringe religious congregation. They’re editors and producers in major British news outlets. This isn’t me shouting conspiracy nonsense either, this is well-documented. Like, The Guardian gets public internal protests over this crap. So does the BBC. Yes, other respected news sites cover this. Media watchdog groups do their best to reign this in with hearings and such, but, don’t actually have any power to enforce anything really. So when there’s “reporting” on this crap, it’s coming directly from the “breast milk sack implant” people. Oh and here’s some screenshots of the headlines of those stories you’re too lazy to click through and actually read:

And of course, sometimes when they want to really come across as respectful, they try to find “scientists” and “doctors” who back up their ravings but all they have to fall back on are disgraced quacks who spend most of their time on activism work to normalize pedophilia.

I’m not bringing that point about Cantor up to discredit his writings about trans people by the way. He doesn’t really HAVE any writings about trans people. He just pasted the names of a bunch of random studies from the 70s about whether playing with barbies makes you gay into his blog a few years back and this crowd was so desperate for validation they declared him an “expert in the field” and started passing out links to his.... pro-pedophila blog. Which is part of this whole pattern, but I’ve written about that before. Oh and the governments of multiple countries manage to treat all these people as “experts” and make policy decisions based on their ravings. That’s fun.

Anyway, aside from encouraging random people to, you know, just randomly murder anyone they see who looks like maybe a trans woman, every so often this weird little cult pulls in an actual celebrity who then has a public meltdown as they post all this gibberish to a wider audience. Currently this is going on with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (who’s actively promoting the pedophile guy up there on Twitter), and I think also William Shatner, but I haven’t really looked into it. The last big one though was Graham Linehan. Who you might remember from co-writing some sitcoms that were popular decades ago in Britain, or from being the weird cartoon villain who tried to kill the funding of a children’s charity, prompting this strange pledge drive marathon of Donkey Kong Country.

You might also know him as one of... I think honestly just two people who have ever managed to be such out of control stalking hate mongers that they were actually given a permanent no possible appeal ban from Twitter. Personally though I know him more as, you know, that one absolute creep who’s been obsessively stalking me for like 5 years and never shutting up about his weird personal obsession with me.

I WOULD link the recent freaking filmed interview he did where he spent forever rambling about me, but I’d have to actually watch it to confirm I had the right link, and also the only place I could quickly find a link to it would be on his twitter feed, which as stated, no longer exists. Oh and random side note there, despite being personally, by name, the person he was explicitly targeting all his hateful ramblings at, he wasn’t banned from that site for any of the disgusting stuff he said to me. He just slipped up and mentioned a cis woman with a professorship while shouting about this crap recently and that caused people to actually take action. I do so love being invisible.

Anyway, point is, prior to Rowling grabbing the baton from him as his social media presence went up in flames, this guy was name-dropping me a LOT. Presumably he still is, just in places fewer people see it. And when you have as big an audience as he did, and that audience is as full of hatemongers as his was, that has a pretty noticeable effect. I’ve been deluged with so much hateful garbage for so long it’s impossible for me to put any numbers on it. The closest I can do to quantify it is note that hate dump was big enough that I was also flooded with more weird messages intended as support from total strangers than I could deal with, totally losing access to social media feeds and my e-mail from the volume for a good bit, and THAT flood was big enough that I got this whole second wave of creepy stalkers who’d built up this whole weird fanon where this stalker here is like, someone I used to date or be business partners with and not just some creepy dude like twice my age stalking me over the internet, from a completely different hemisphere.

And I mean... in the broadest of strokes, I can kinda laugh all this off. Because... these people are completely ridiculous, out of touch with reality, and mostly live in other countries. But... all the threats and shouting are very real and very constant and like.. picture someone outside on the street shouting at your windows about how they’re going to break in and kill you. You really can’t ignore that. Even if they’re unarmed, and all they’re really capable of doing is shouting and pounding on your door, you can’t really just ignore that shouting and pounding and just watch a movie or play a game or write this article you promised would be done 3 months ago. You can certainly try, but a pretty big part of your brain is going to be occupied with thoughts about how maybe you should call someone to see if they’ll escort this violent person away, or maybe you should barricade your door in case all that pounding does something.

And I mean this isn’t a bad metaphor for how all the constant threats and stalking I’m dealing with thanks to celebrity bigots personally obsessed with me impacts my life, but it also does a pretty good job of describing how my night went pretty recently when I ACTUALLY DID HAVE SOMEONE POUNDING ON MY ACTUAL REAL PHYSICAL DOOR SHOUTING ABOUT STABBING ME TO DEATH, and no, there was no resolution to that beyond the sound of sirens causing that person to back off.

I also had an experience not too long ago where I was supposed to take a cab to a routine appointment, a car showed up with the cab company’s name on it, somewhat early, and proceeded to drive me... out to the middle of the freaking woods like an hour from where I live, and when my phone rang with my actual cab asking where I was the driver freaked out, had me get out of the car, and took off leaving me just... stuck in the middle of nowhere freezing to death and trying to find a landmark an actual cab could pick me up from. Still don’t know what the hell that whole thing was about and whether a cab driver just REALLY didn’t know what he was doing and panicked or what, but I do know that talking about it publicly in the vaguest of terms lead to a bunch of unhinged shouting from... apparently some unconnected ride share driver with a habit of dumping trans women between stops when they try to get medications or something, convinced I was calling him out for that.

So.... yeah. Things aren’t exactly going great in my neck of the woods. I’d really appreciate it if people would properly treat these unhinged violent weirdos like unhinged violent weirdos and not respectable members of society so they quit getting so bold and public with the violent stuff, and people who listen to them get properly shouted down for doing so.

[currentlyreadingmanga]

Toilet-bound Hanako-kun: Chapter 9 - The Young Exorcist (Part 1)

Previously: we’ve dealt with the confession tree, and Hanako and Yashiro filled my heart with feelings. It was a mostly light-hearted chapter, with a lot of funny moments but that last scene we had with them was very sweet and a solid foundation for their relationship to keep growing. I’m glad that we could see that even if Hanako does have a very teasing nature, he actually seems to genuinely care about Yashiro and he can be serious when he needs to be.

Now onto the next chapter!

Ohhhh okay it seems we are shifting the focus onto the Minamoto brothers with a flashback (I’m guessing the Minamoto-senpai Yashiro had a crush on is Kou’s older brother because same last name and they do look alike (fun fact: I mistoke them from one another when Kou was first introduced because of their looks and because we don’t know the older brother’s first name, but then I noticed they had different colour hair. I guess I would have been more confused if I hadn’t been watching the anime)

Anyway, the flashback. It seems to be set when senpai (I’m calling him that until we get a name) was eight years old and he’s fighting a....thing....that will probably haunt my nightmares at some point....but yeah, they ones overseeing him point out that he’s very skilled for his age but that also is to be expected of him. So I’m guessing he must be a very well regarded exorcist now if he was THAT talented when he was a child....which makes me wonder why he hasn’t done anything about the aparitions around the school. Is only Kou in charge of it?

Look at this baby. Look at him, my heart, he’s so cute. Kou is one year younger than Yashiro, right? and if Minamoto is a second year in hs (if I’m remembering correctly), then he should be six years old here, right? Smol bean

He jumps to hug his brother but senpai doesn’t seem happy that Kou followed him to his....training, I guess? Since he seems to be surpervised by a couple of men. And it makes sense, they’re both very young and things could go wrong, especially if no one know Kou is there 

And here we also see that Kou is very excited to follow up on his brothers footsteps and wants to be a great exorcist like his brother and it’s very on par with his attitude when we first met him and he tried to exorcise Hanako

But he then says “that’s what I always wanted, but...” and we cut next to him with his friends but looking back at Hanako in the hallway. And ah, the title for this week is “the young exorcist (part 1)”, so that means we’ll get a more Kou-centric chapter(s)? Exciting! That “but” and the cover page make me think that it’s very likely that he’s having doubts about the whole “beat all the supernaturals” thing since Hanako has been a pretty alright guy so far. If that’s the case, it could set up a good internal conflict for his character

This poor child is such a third wheel right now lol It’s okay, Kou, you’ll get used to their banter

But hey, it looks like Yashiro is trying to continue from where we left of last time when she decided she wanted to get to know Hanako better. Well, at least that’s what I think she’s trying to do with this compatibility horoscope

Okay, yeah, she’s definitely trying to get more information under the guise of the horoscope lol but Hanako doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. And I mean, it makes sense since I see him as someone who pretends to be carefree but doesn’t actually share important details about himself until he feels completely comfortable. After all the only reason we even know he killed someone is because Kou told us.

“If you wann do a compatibility horoscope, do it with one of your crushes. Like Minamoto-senpai or somebody” well, try not to sound so salty, mister

Kou is surprised by these news and Yashiro is saying that her crush on senpai is more akin to having a crush on an idol, someone you just admire from afar. And yeah, considerering how minimal their actual interactions were, and she realized that she doesn’t really know much about him besides what’s public knowledge

Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear lol He has the pretty boy sparkles and everything, huh? I can understand why Yashiro was so infatuated with him, he’s one handsome guy. Also if I was in this situation right now, I would crawl into a hole and die because that’s so embarrasing omg 

We have a name! Teru Minamoto, okay, easy to remember. We have upgrade from senpai to Teru. And he’s thanking Yashiro for being kind to Kou, awwww

oH. That...that doesn’t look good..........that smells like trouble. Also the change from sweet older brother figure to that cold look he threw towards Hanako was quick and a bit terrifying ngl

He’s pulled Kou aside and now they’re talking and he’s reminding him that if he encounters any of the seven mysteries, he should expel them immendiately but Kou doesn’t look too happy.

Ohhh okay, Teru says that they are aware of recent change in the supernaturals’ behaviou recently and that they hadn’t acted because they hadn’t put the students in danger before. And we know that’s true if we think about the mokke and how they said that they had been living in peace with the humans at the school for a long time until their story changed and they didn’t have another choice but to do as the rumors said

He also mentions that the seven mysteries are the most powerful and dangerous supernaturals in the school. Which makes sense, since Hanako mentioned that the seven are the ones controlling the seven boundaries between this world and the spirit world.

Here we seem to get a glimpse of some of the others, but most aren’t really distinguishable. We have Yakko and Hanako, then at the far left I think there’s some sort of mask, then there’s two silhouettes, and then we have what seems to be a girl holding something in her hands and then a mirror besides her.

But yeah, Teru says that since these seven are the most problematic, they should erradicate them first and foremost. Which, from a logical point of view makes sense but since we’re privy to their behaviour and we know that we could change things if we change the rumors, I want to say please do not exorcise my baby, he’s trying to keep the balance

And it seems Kou agrees with me. Hanako still pisses him off but he admits that the little sassy ghost has been really helpful (and he even protected Kou during their escapade to the Misaki Stairs despite saying he wouldn’t). Teru really seems to disagree, though, and

oH. Again. It really seems like Teru has his mind set about this. Like, I guess it make sense, we saw that they were trained from a young age and they are part of a legendary clan that has been exorcising spirits for generations, so the history probably doesn’t have much to say in favour of the apparitions

He also answers the question I had before about why it was just Kou going after the mysteries: apparently he had thought it would be a good way to let Kou grow as an exorcist but he now sees it had the opposite effect since he’s feeling sympathy for Hanako.

“I’m taking you off the seven mysteries case” that’s-that’s really not good if his glare to Hanako earlier is anything to go by. “I’ll clean up this mess” yiKES

Oh, okay, it seems like Kou managed to buy himself some more time before his brother intervenes. And yes, here’s the internal conflict I was hoping for

He knows what his duty is but he also has grown to care for not only Hanako but also (and especially) Yashiro. So there’s not only the fact that Hanako has been helpful but also the fact that Yashiro clearly cares a lot for the ghost since she protected him the first time they met. Kou seemed like a really sweet guy and all this just reinforces that notion.

Okay, so now has make it his mission to find evidence to prove to his brother that Hanako is not a bad supernatural. And it’s not a bad plan, since he would need to keep a close eye on Hanako either way, so it works in his favour.

I.....Hanako, sweetie, why-what-

Okay, he’s clearly collecting things with the help of the mokke and putting it in the big sack he’s carrying. But yeah, it really doesn’t help his case when Kou is trying to prove he’s not suspicious

Pfffft Kou really needs to work on his sneaking abilities since he almost got discovered by a teacher and immediately after that Hanako found him. Although Hanako probaly already knew he was being watched

Also

The ghost child really has no notion of personal space, huh? It’s not just Yashiro who has to deal with him all up in her face

I really love their dynamic, they’re so silly together 

Omg

Kou looks so distraugh here omg like “omfg please i’m trying to prove you’re a good guy why are you doing with all this stuff WH Y”

But Hanako is quick to point out that he’s actually collecting the things the mokke stole so he can give them back to the owners. And that this is happening because even though Yashiro changed the rumor, the mokke still feel the need to steal objects from people. And I hadn’t thought about it, but it makes sense since they’ve been doing it for so long and the rumor still technically says that they steal things from you even if now there’s a way to stop them from killing people

I just wanna head pat this cute child look at him.

Now Hanako is asking Kou to help him retrieve something that was stuck up in one of the towrs surrounding the school. My first question is why can’t Hanako float up there since he a ghost but it looks like Kou is asking the same thing and apparently he can’t float that high. Huh, okay. That kinda sucks and seems inconvenient but okay, good to know. 

And Hanako is apologizing for making him go through all this trouble but he insisted because the item seemed like it would be important for somebody. He seems honest and Kou is once again hit by the feeling that Hanako is not really a bad supernatural. And yeah, it’s like I said earlier: there’s probably not a good record of supernaturals doing good deeds and that’s what his family knows after generations spent fighting spirits. But Kou is hopeful that maybe his brother wasn’t totally right and that, as Hanako has been demostrating, good supernaturals can exist. 

OH

Oh no. While Hanako seems to have caught what they were looking for, he also slipped from Kou’s grasp and that’s not good....well...kinda. I mean, he’s a ghost, right? Like, this sounds horrible but he’s already dead, so he can’t get too hurt from this fall............right?

I feel like this chapter has been full of me just gushing about what a good boy Kou is and honestly? he is and I regret nothing

He’s so worried ahhhh  but Hanako is okay and they remembered that the ghost was in fact a ghost so risk no greater than a couple of ghost bruises

AHHHHH

Just. This whole page. It’s so precious. Look at them sharing a laugh together because they were being dummies and then Kou finding out that the thing Hanako was working so hard to get back because it looked important was his earring ahhhhhhh that’s so cute omg look at them!! I didn’t even noticed his earring was gone! (I checked again and he had it when the three of them were talking but it was already gone when he had his talk with Teru. I guess the mokke he had on his lap took it. That was a nice subtle detail)

Awww and he’s made his decision. He believes that Hanako is proof that there are good supernaturals so he won’t exorcise him. Hanako looks shocked and is asking him what made him change his mind since Kou had himself said that he was “the evil spirit of a murderer”. 

Kou says that he’s sorry because he didn’t know any better and that he’s sure that Hanako had his reason for what he did but-

...........He makes a fair point. Like, at this point we know very little about Hanako’s life and motives. The only fact that seems to be certain at this point is that he has killed someone when he was alive, but we don’t know any of the circumstances around it. He has had moments where he looked and acted with what appeared to be malice, like when he told Yashiro that crying wouldn’t solve anything, and when he pointed his knife at Kou during their first meeting and when he explained to them that scary experiences are the ones that stick in your memory the most. There’s been an underlying aura of danger in Hanako that’s impossible to ignore, there’s no denying that. But there’s still the fact that he has done everything in his power to protect Yashiro and now Kou in dangerous situations. So a part of me believes that there has to be a reasonable explanation for his actions; if we take the really angsty route I would guess that he did it as an act of self-defense or something like that. But yeah, “when is it right to kill someone?” is a very tricky question

............................ah. that underlying danger i mentioned? here it is again, back at full force.

But also the look on his eyes, while the swirls give off that crazy vibe, the wobbliness and his overall expression convey a very hopeless feeling, I don’t know, he just looks very distressed. To me it looks like he really doesn’t want to do this, but he also needs to prove his point to Kou

(ﾟдﾟ；)  (ﾟдﾟ；)  (ﾟдﾟ；)

Oh no  (ﾟдﾟ；)  (I stand corrected: I’ve spent only half of this chapter gushing about Kou, the other half I’ve been going “oh no” almost every time Teru appears)

And again: the quick switch from “pleasant charming” smile”to “I will destroy you” look is terrifying. This does not bode well oh man oh man next chapter is gonna be crazy and stressful

[myshittybrainwontshutup]

I had a dream where I was wandering in the woods and I found some weird abandoned facility. The Dream Works logo was painted on the side and the door was open, so I just sauntered inside. There were tons of big, drab concrete rooms all full of toppled over desks. Giant pillars held up the ceiling and plunged down into the earth. I thought that this place would be a magnet for graffiti artists, or just delinquent teens in general, but this place looked untouched by everything except me. There wasn’t even rat poop or cockroaches to point to a sign of life. Like the dumbass I am, I started walking down the staircase that wrapped around one of the concrete pillars. On the forth or so level down it stopped being the same old rooms full of desks and started being bedrooms and showers. There were literally hundreds of bunk beds, all with the same cheap white sheets. I investigated the bathrooms and found that the showers still worked and even better, they still had hot water. I guessed this place had an independent generator and the dim ceiling lights supported my hypothesis.

I decided I needed a shower and scrubbed down, then wandered over to one of the beds for a nap. (Yeah, sleeping in your dream is kind of weird, but I do it rather routinely. I guess I’m just that tired.)

My thought process for using the beds is that they may be dusty, but I hadn’t seen any evidence of any other life, so bedbugs were unlikely.

After I woke up I pulled on my clothes, which I vividly remember being a burnt orange tank top patterned with tiny carrots, high waisted jorts and my three-sizes-too-big black jacket.

I kept going all the way down to the bottom level where I was confused to hear talking. I crept around the corner and saw this old dude in a lab coat and these two blond collage age girls drawing a circle on the ground. The amount of sigils inside the circle made me think that this couldn’t be anything good, but before I could really do anything about it one of the girls spotted me. She shouted, “Hey!” and pointed at me. I didn’t waste any time getting the hell out of dodge, and I heard the old dude yell, “Stop them! No one must know!”

The two girls started chasing me. Because I don’t ever skip leg day, not even in my dreams, I made it up the stairs before they could. I made it through the door and almost made it back to the woods, but instead of going forward and disappearing into the flora I was suddenly going up. Out of freaking no where, I was caught in a tractor beam and being towed up into a space ship. I didn’t get to see if the girls had seen me getting abducted, but my prior circumstances were quickly ripped out of my head as I was blasted with water. Even though I’d just taken a shower I guess I was too dusty for these aliens to handle. I was “disinfected” and my wet clothes were confiscated and replaced with a very unflattering blue-gray jumpsuit. These particular aliens were very octopus like, but slightly taller than humans and their version of an invasion force was capitalism.

Instead of being forced into hard labor I was forced into a job that is actually hell to me. An “internship” as they called it, where I had hours of paperwork to do. Paperwork is a punishment worse than hell to me, so I did the absolute minimum effort I could get away with. I was set up at a station with three other people. One was Merida from Brave, one was Miles from into the spider verse and one was Stanford from gravity falls. I didn’t let on that I knew them, but I did become pretty close with them. While we were just doing paperwork together time was sped up, but as soon as we were called out to test a new piece of tech that the squid aliens had invented time resumed its normal pace. We were brought out to this floating asteroid that seemed to have an atmosphere that I guess was their testing site. One squid alien on a three piece suit came along to supervise us. The thing we were supposed to test was a Portal esc wormhole gun. I had to keep from laughing my ass off for reasons that will become apparent later. The squid fired it off, setting of each side of the portal in mid air about twenty feet apart, gave Merida a rope and instructed her to walk trough it. Reluctantly she agreed and walked through. The portal didn’t immediately close or collapse as she entered and she wasn’t lost in some in-between place, so the squid was ecstatic. However, Merida and the squid pulling on the rope was apparently enough to rip a hole in space and time. The rip started to drag Merida and the squid in, but Miles, Ford and I were standing far enough away. Miles managed to pull Merida out of range of the rip’s suction, but the squid fell into the gaping black maw. It was growing larger by the second and I knew we would be consumed before long unless I did something.

One of my recurring powers in my dreams is that I can open my own portals, in addition to some others. I turned around and opened my own portal back to the woods I was wandering earlier and had everyone run through. I closed it off as soon as we were all through. We landed on a dirt road that was at least sixty percent mud. It must’ve rained since I was abducted.

Ford immediately turned to me, his eyes wide.

“How did you do that?!” He demanded. I shrugged.

“I just... can?” I said. I actually have a reason, but I didn’t feel like telling him. I opened another portal to the room where our stuff was being kept on the ship and let it just fall through into my arms. We each headed into the woods to suit up in our normal clothes, though Merida forwent a dress for jeans and a tee shirt. We started walking down the road as quite the marry band until we found a homestead. No electricity, no generator, just one small shack and the sound of a lot of voices. Out back was a pigsty and it looked like this place hadn’t been up kept in years. The others wanted to take the stealthy approach, but I just kicked in the front door. There were a bunch of middle aged men sitting around drinking, about fifteen children ages nine to four and six toddlers, all huddling together in the corner around the one teenager who seemed to be about sixteen. Most of them didn’t have clothes any more sophisticated than a potato sack, and all of them had bruises. The teenage girl had a black eye. Cold rage bubbled up within me. I have very strong opinions about how children should be treated, namely, they should be treated with dignity and respect, no matter what age they are and no one ever has the right to hurt them. Something told me that there used to be more older women, but they’d died due to either violence or childbirth.

The biggest beefiest guy stood up and demanded to know who I was and what I wanted. I could tell he wasn’t seeing me as a threat due to my appearance. I mean, I’m exactly five feet tall, very feminine and not exactly buff. I demanded to fight him for the children and he laughed. Until I summoned my weapon. In my dreams I also can summon quite the arsenal. This time, I summoned my whip made of razor wire and cracked it right across his face. He immediately grabbed a huge black iron sword off the table and rushed me. I sidestepped out of the front door and cracked my whip again. It happened extremely fast so I’m not sure on the specifics of the fight, but I do know it ended with my whip wrapping around his throat. One quick tug and his head was on the ground as his body slumped to the side. All the other men, enraged that I’d killed their buddy grabbed their own swords. My whip is an awesome weapon, but it’s only good against one opponent. I tossed it aside and it burst into glitter, just before I summoned my sword.

I really like my sword. It’s a short Damascus steel blade with a gold gilded hilt and a ruby pommel. I’ve been using it for a really long time and I’ve gotten really skilled with it.

These guys clearly didn’t expect me to hold my own against all of them, but in combination with my portal magic I’m a formidable fighter in my dreams. For some odd reason the thing that ended the fight was a misstep from one of the men that lead to me accidentally chopping off the toe of his boot and the toe of his foot. He fell to the ground crying and demanded that everything stop. They agreed to leave and wandered back down the road, carrying their now toeless friend.

I went inside and found a yellow construction paper crown sitting on the table. I picked it up, put it on my head and muttered, “I’m the king.” With a big fat smile. I was mobbed by the little boys that demanded I teach them how to sword fight, the sixteen year old thanked me for getting rid of the people who hurt her, Merida asked where I learned to fight like that. Everyone else hung on the sidelines, not exactly liking that I’d just straight up killed and maimed on a whim. Ford was mostly interested in how I could summon and dismiss weapons on a whim.

“That’s not all I can do!” I grinned and stepped back outside. I told the teenager to release the pigs into the woods and told the kids to grab any items that they would want to take with them. Then with the three other interns watching, I waved my hand and an oak tree started to grow out of the ground. It grew so big that at a glance you could think it was hundreds of years old. With a snap of my fingers a massive treehouse constructed itself in the cradle of the tree’s uppermost branches. I subconsciously made it Halloween themed because it’s my favorite holiday. There were leaf streamers and grinning jack-o’-lanterns all over the place. One more wave of my hand and it was fully stocked with food and clothes and solar panels for its own electricity. I instructed the kids to climb up. The bigger kids carried the toddlers up. After we were all on board I snapped again and the tree started moving, walking along on its roots. I headed up into the main dining room and tried to add a little more decor, but it wouldn’t work. The plate of Halloween themed sugar cookies started laughing at me.

“What the-“ Ford started.

“I’m loosing control. I’m waking up.” I interrupted.

“What? Waking up?” Ford asked. I pulled him in with an arm around the shoulders.

“Listen, I don’t have much more time, so you’re in charge. I may be the most powerful here, but you’re the smartest. Keep them safe.” I said and put my paper crown on his head.

And that’s when I woke up.

[shannie-writes]

*throws confetti* CONGRATS ON 300 CHIEF!! you deserve it and so much more! ԅ( ˘ω˘ԅ) i honestly had a hard time deciding on this because your AUs are always so good;; so i decided to go with the one that quite literally stole my breath away this last time: the caravan AU!!

Oh my gosh Avril, your request made me so so so sooo happy! ;A; I hope you enjoy the super pared down AU description and way too long snippet below!

——

AU: Caravan

Pairing(s): Jonah/Lancelot, Sirius/MC/Ray, Seth/MC2

Setting: Fantasy, Desert Biome

The Basics: A large oasis city in the middle of the desert, Cradle, houses the majority of life–named as such as it is the birthplace of the growing commerce of the country. Here was where the current royal family used their magic to help the oasis grow and thrive into what it is today. Many people come here as a gathering place for events, trade, and witnessing the magic of the king.

Several caravans travel between Cradle to the other, smaller cities to trade. Some caravans are constantly traveling, never settling, and have become masters of the desert.

It is said that there are more magicians who live out in the desert, forced to keep their powers a secret lest the royal family snuff them out. Nothing is more dangerous than a magician who cannot control his magic and they aren’t going to let any become a danger to the city they have worked so hard to build–and rule.

—

Lancelot: The King of Cradle, comes from a line of magicians. Had some friends from the city when he grew up, but they have since left to face the dangers of the desert. Will put on magical parades every few months for the people of the city and visitors.

Jonah: A dancer in Cradle, one of the most renowned and talented. Caught the King’s eye and through time, became both his personal dancer and lover.

Edgar: Is a night guard in Cradle. He knows the surrounding deserts like the back of his hand and isn’t afraid to investigate if something looks wrong.

Kyle: A healer in Cradle. Is an expert with any heat-induced ailments and is well known across the country for his quick work and his love for spirits.

Zero: Is a day guard in Cradle. Knows every street in the city and is happy to give directions to those who ask him. One of the most approachable guards but has no qualms taking misconducting citizens and traders to the pits for a time.

Ray: The leader of the Black caravan. Is a wild magician, and though untrained, uses his magic in the desert for utilitarian purposes.

Sirius: Essentially the second leader to the Black caravan. Is the navigator and keeps an eye on the stock to plan where they travel to next. Has a mysterious history with King Lancelot, who he checks in with each time they go to Cradle.

Luka: Didn’t want to become a dancer like his parents and older brother pushed him to be. Ran away with Ray’s caravan and learned to play the oud, which he uses to perform and help gain coin for the caravan when they drop by cities.

Seth: The master negotiator for Black caravan. Haggles for both selling and buying supplies and trinkets made by the caravan members and tends to get the most money out of it.

Fenrir: A hunter for Black caravan. Is able to go out into the desert and come back to the caravan with something to eat, even if they haven’t seen anything but sand all day.

Harr: A snake charmer. Lives out in the desert with his apprentice Loki. Teaches Loki how to use his magic in positive ways.

Loki: Harr’s apprentice. He has learned to charm desert animals and is slowly gaining control over his wild magic.

Blanc: A Cradle official. Oversees the political meetings for the town and makes sure to keep all records of items brought up, making sure to follow through with all the changes that were suggested during them.

Oliver: A Cradle official. Oversees a lot of the trading street and is in charge of the city coffers.

MC(Alice): A seamstress in the Black caravan. Makes clothing for both the caravan members and for sale. Is a lover to both Ray and Sirius.

MC2(Nancy): Had originally joined the Black caravan as a cook, but fell in love with dancing when she saw Jonah perform during one of their visits. Convinced Jonah to teach her to dance and now she uses it to perform in other cities, paired with Luka’s oud playing to gain coin for the caravan.

Snippet:

The smells and sights of the trading center in Cradle was always something to behold. Colorful fabric separated the temporary and static stalls. The shouts of traders selling their wares and general chatter was almost overwhelming if you weren’t used to it. The scent of freshly baked bread and spices were enough to make you drool, tempting you to try a bite.

Seth finished buying a heavy scoop of salt, humming happily to himself as he carefully eased it into an empty jar and placed it in his sack. Pleased with his deal, he turned around to look for Nancy. With a frown, he twisted his head back and forth. She had been just behind him, looking at fruit only a minute before. Worrying, he walked down the row of stalls, weaving between people until he spotted another familiar head that rose up from the crowds.

“Sirius! Oh, and Alice!” He spotted the seamstress behind her tall companion as he came up to them at a fabric stall. Alice paused in her rummaging of raw silks to look at him with a smile.  Sirius watched him, a protective hand on Alice’s lower back to keep her safe from the other shoppers that wove around them. “Have you seen Nancy anywhere?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen her since we arrived,” Alice said, turning to look around the streams of people for her.

“Do you want us to help you find her?” Sirius asked.

“No, I’ll keep looking. Thanks!”

With a nod to Sirius and a wave to Alice, Seth continued down the pathway, keeping eyes and ears on everything he could to try to find her. He had almost gone full circle around the square when he finally heard it, the unmistakable sound of the bells she kept around her ankles.

seshseshseshsesh

Turning the corner of the stalls, he found her. She was looking around for him as well, her head peeping up and down as she walked. Grinning, Seth quickened his pace to walk behind her.

“You ran off on me.”

“Seth!” She turned and gave him a smile that had him immediately forgiving her for any of the stress caused by her disappearance. Her eyes were bright and she reached out for his hand to tug him to the side, in a calm spot between stalls. “Look what I got!”

Seth adjusted his hand to link his fingers in hers. He peeked at the kabobs she had in hand and smiled. “Those look delicious. Though I must punish you for running off on me. Getting lost around here is no joke.”

She wore a light blush, smile growing wider despite the threat. “And what is my punishment?”

“You’ll have to feed me.” He didn’t move as she lifted a kabob, offering him the small chunk of meat on the end. “By mouth.”

“O-Oh!” Her eyes widened and her blush intensified. He wasn’t sure if she was too embarrassed to do it, but when she tentatively nipped a corner of the first piece and slipped it off the stick, he felt his heart thrum with both excitement and arousal. She stepped closer, lightly tugging at his hand as she moved onto her toes, bringing the meat to his waiting mouth, her tongue brushing the tip of his as she pushed it past his lips.

He melted as easily as the meat on his tongue, tender and spiced to perfection. And as she prepped the next piece, he planned all the ways he would reward her that night for following through on his silly punishment.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG128 /o/

- I!! Hate!! The!! Parallels!! In!! This!! Series!!

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: Why are you here? BREEKON: Dunno. ‘t’s not right… on my own… not right… No point in doing it on my own. Don’t know what happens now…

[…] “I fed her to it. She took him from me. Made us a me, and she doesn’t get to die for that. […] I am without him, now. I. am. I can feel myself fading. Weak. No reason to move. Nothing to deliver. […] I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now, they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: I, I saw that… thing’s mind, i–it’s lost on its own. No partner, no… purpose, I… I honestly think it just wanted to do another delivery.

The ~ surviving part of a half~ explaining how his whole existence is pointless and driveless now that his partner has been killed… sounded so, so much like Basira’s own situation regarding Daisy since:

(MAG112) DAISY: Elias is… keeping me busy. Hunting. Takes a while. [FALTERS] I’m used to working… with a partner. … It’s fine. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: It’s fine. BASIRA: Right. … But it’s not, though, is it?

(MAG117) BASIRA: […] But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. We go in, we plant bombs, we leave, we blow it all to hell. Or we die. I don’t think I’ll ever have clarity like that. Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.

1°) Basira and Breekon both are the remaining part of their own duo; the difference between monsterhood and humans being maybe… that Basira’s existence isn’t intrinsically tied to Daisy’s; that humans can feel loss and pain, but won’t get their literal raison d’être, sense of purpose and belonging shattered if they lose part or one aspect of them. In a way, that makes monsters’ existence more tragic, since they’re not even able to overcome, to thrive and to survive?

2°) I can’t help but wonder, flipping the situation: and if Daisy had been fed to the coffin first, and if Basira had stumbled upon Hope right after, would Basira have tried to hurt (one of) them the same way they had hurt her by taking Daisy’s life? (Would Jon have done it, too, if given the opportunity to hurt the ones who had hurt Tim and Sasha? He… actually did hurt Breekon here, and it is so, so easy, now, to perceive him as a Monster from the monsters’ point of view…)

3°) Jon’s summary of Breekon’s current state to Basira felt… quite cold compared to the statement itself, I felt? It wasn’t just “another delivery”: it was Breekon trying to viciously hurt what had hurt him. It was achieving a personal revenge before disappearing. I’m… a bit surprised that Jon went so clinical about it.

4°) But it could have also been a kind of protection, since… Yes, “Breekon” and “Hope” tortured and killed, delighting in others’ suffering and misery. And Breekon also confirmed something that we had seen through Jude’s erh, fascination with Agnes: that monsters and avatars are sentient. They have feelings. They are able to form attachments, to feel loss, to desire revenge. So… just because someone cares about a selected few, wouldn’t prevent them from hurting bystanders, innocent or people who just don’t personally matter to them. That’s not something especially encouraging when we have Jon in mind – he cares about the assistants and about Georgie, and he felt sad for the victims in previous statements, and I hope he will be able to remain this way, but… what will happen, what will be become when he “drowns”, indeed?

- I’m often struck with waves of awareness about how much I love this friggin’ series when listening to new episodes, and it happens in various ways – this time, my heart got full of love with the way Breekon’s statement definitely connected the dots between previous ones, through his point of view and in chronological order? And in the midst of it, we got a confirmation of what had actually happened in the second episode of the series!! How rad is this? How rad is it that, while the statements in themselves provide a story that works on its own since the beginning of the series, we’re able to revisit them with information that adds so much more meaning to things that were already there?

* Jon had wondered about “Breekon” and “Hope”’s alignment since they appeared to be involved with various powers, but seems they were indeed part of The Stranger in the end:

(MAG093) ARCHIVIST: But Breekon and Hope? Speaking Russian and helping transport a victim of… whatever dark power rules over disease and rot. And insects, maybe? I was just about convinced that they served the Stranger, and their speaking Russian might well support that if it ties them to the Circus, but… this is not the first time they’ve been delivering things that seem to be tied to other beings. Are they a neutral party, carting round whatever horror needs delivering, just a piece of otherworldly infrastructure? Or are they fully part of the Stranger, just serving as allies of convenience for other things that need to be moved?

(MAG128, “Breekon”) It wasn’t the plague they feared; it wasn’t the death that awaited in our wagon; it was us. Two strangers rolling towards them, unstoppable and uncertain, wearing faces they would only half-remember, bringing a fate they would beg their god to forget. They could not hate us anymore than they might have hated the rock that falls on them from a crumbling cliff. They did not know us. But they knew what we might do to them. What we might bring them. And we did. […] We always take what jobs are before us, deliver whatever will bring that fear and misery, but there is no joy in carrying Meat and shifting, writhing Spiral things.

They followed various phases of progress and technology: long-distance boat journeys as they served on the Robert Small during the 19th century, crossing paths with prisoners from Millbank sent to Australia (“Poor wretches who emerged from Millbank, with tales of Australia and its cruelty on their lips, bundled into the cramped and creaking ship that would drag them away from everything they loved – and towards everything they feared.”); trains, as they became conductors; cars, as they delivered items for auction houses at the beginning of the 20th century.

* Pre-MAG024, MAG044: during some time, including from 1948 to November 1952, they joined The Other Circus, feeling like they belonged:

(MAG024) ARCHIVIST: […] on page 43 of Gregory Petry’s Freaks and Followers: Circuses in the 1940s, I found a reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph. It shows a small group of carnival workers: a contortionist, a fire-eater, two strong-men, a ringmaster and an organist sitting behind a calliope. The photograph is labelled as being from 1948 and taken in Minsk, Russia.

(MAG044, Yuri Utkin) As I scrambled back, I felt a large hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see two huge men in overalls. They lifted me easily, so my feet hung almost two feet from the ground. They talked fast, crude Russian, and their words seemed to shift back and forth between them, telling me that behind the tent was off-limits […].

(MAG128, “Breekon”) Then were the good times, the Circus times. […] with the Circus we were amongst our own kind at last. […] We carried and lifted and helped the Circus move towards its next destination, the next, doomed town. Sometimes we joined the show, lifting weights and things that looked like animals. Sometimes we lifted members of the audience. Sometimes we even put them down again. […]

They didn’t like Nikola at first, but were impressed by her, though they eventually decided to leave when she “lost the ancient skin” – that one is, I think, a mystery? Gertrude stole the gorilla skin from the taxidermy shop but that happened June 23th 2013 and April 4th 2015, so it can’t be the same incident.

* For some time, they picked up hitchhikers (and starved them to death), though they missed having clear destinations and carrying spooky items bringing misery to people.

* MAG096: From 1993 to 1996, they slowly took over Alfred Breekon’s delivery company “Breekon & Hope”, stealing from him its name aaaand the infamous Cockney accent (MAG096: “[One] turned to his companion and opened his mouth. ‘Breekon at your service. Who might you be?’ Instead of the Russian accent I had expected, he spoke in a broad, cartoonish Cockney that I assumed must be a mocking impression of my own voice.”). They went back to doing deliveries or moving items for different entities (MAG093).

(MAG096, Alfred/Arthur Breekon) They wore featureless grey overalls, and even now I’m not sure I could easily describe what they look like, other than to say they seemed solid. Somehow heavier than the world around them. […] Strange folk began coming around asking for Breekon and Hope, and when I told them who I was, they just shook their heads, and I knew who they were after. They often brought crates or boxes with them and, once, a sack full of hair. […] For all that, they do seem to have friends, or at the very least, people who come to see them regularly. Most I don’t remember, the features difficult to put together from memory, but I know that more than once I’ve seen the pair of them talking to a figure at the other end of the depot. They always make sure these meetings are in shadow, and I can never get close enough to see exactly who they’re talking to, but I think they’re dressed like a circus ringmaster.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) Driving aimless, waiting for the call, sat badly with us. We were meant to know our destination. We were meant to have a cargo and an address. So it was we found a man named “Breekon”, and we took everything they were until there was nothing left but the sweet taste of a broken soul’s disquiet and confusion. We took the van and started to deliver once again.

* MAG002: In the 90s, they helped “John” carry an item from The Buried, when he was trying to test its powers – except it backfired badly, since the test subject he had picked turned out to be the Most Practical “Would Survive A Horror Movie” Statement-Giver Ever, and Joshua Gillespie managed to resist the coffin’s temptation for almost a year and a half. We already had a hint about “John” being from The Stranger in MAG002, because of how Joshua had trouble describing him:

(MAG002, Joshua Gillespie) I’ve tried to describe the man who now sat opposite me many times, but it’s difficult. He was short, very short, and felt like he had an odd density to him. His hair was brownish, I think, cut quite short, and he was clean shaven. His face and dress was utterly unremarkable, and the more I try to think of exactly what he looked like, the harder it is to picture him clearly. To be honest, though, I’m inclined to blame that on the drugs. […] John had to take a second to look me up and down, almost in disbelief, as I asked if they’d come to collect their coffin.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the Earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for Death to find you there, within its mocking shape – buried alive. It was one like us that found it. A thing of shifting names and déjà-vu. A fool, that believed because it found a coffin in chains, it would be an easy thing to control, to bargain with. But there was no remorse when the test finally failed and it fed on the thing that considered itself the master.

Since Joshua had managed to not open the coffin, “John” was swallowed by it instead when they went to retrieve it.

* Breekon and Hope ended up stuck with the coffin and had to carry it around.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) But there was no mention of us in the deal. No thought towards what might happen should a victim pass the test. And what happened was… we were stuck with it. It was still our cargo. Nowhere to take it, no address or destination, so back in the van it went. A long time, we’ve carried it. Keeping it as close as it wants, not listening to it sing in the rain.

When Jon was sequestered by Nikola, she had made her distaste of the coffin clear, hinting that it wasn’t from The Stranger, while Breekon and Hope had said they couldn’t separate from it:

(MAG101) NIKOLA: Oh, don’t worry, it’s not for you. You won’t even need a coffin – we’re going to use every piece of you. ARCHIVIST: [MUFFLED EXCLAMATION] NIKOLA: Now could you two please move that thing somewhere far, far away? BREEKON: Not really. HOPE: Needs to be near us. NIKOLA: Well, just… just move yourselves away, and take it with you.

* MAG061: The coffin notably ate Daisy’s partner, Isaac Masters, on the 24th of July 2002 while they had stopped Breekon&Hope’s van (accompanied by a “Tom”) on the motorway for driving too slow.

* Overall: in MAG078 (2001, the Web table now binding the Not!Them), MAG024 (2004, the calliope), MAG020 (2009, Father Edwin Burroughs’s pale yellow stole), MAG054 (2013, stopped in front of the Taxidermy shop), possibly MAG083 (2013, taking the ringmaster “mannequin”), MAG035 (July 2016, bringing the Web table and the Web lighter to the Institute for Jon), MAG099 (May 2017, Jon was the (unwilling) package.), Breekon and Hope carried and moved things around, being mostly active for Stranger-related activities.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) Even when the mannequin that now called itself Orsinov came back to us, told us we could help the world Unknow and fear again the coming of Strangers, still we had to drag it with us: an unclaimed package.

* MAG119: during the Unknowing ritual, we heard Daisy as she snapped and tore Hope apart, Breekon then trapped her into the coffin.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) But I suppose it was worth it in the end. When that Hunter killed him, when she took her violence of mindless instinct and unleashed it on us… it was there. It was waiting. I fed her to it.

* MAG128: with Hope dead, Breekon realized he wasn’t tied to the coffin anymore and delivered the coffin to the Institute. Breekon fled, but will probably fade away soon.

- We got some additional information / some confirmation about Nikola’s creation, too:

(MAG097) ARCHIVIST: Who are you? NIKOLA: Well, my father called me Nikola, and then I killed him, so I thought I rather deserved to have his second name too. Which makes me Nikola Orsinov. Pleased to meet you at last. ARCHIVIST: You, um… You killed Gregor Orsinov? NIKOLA: Yep! He got really boring, and I’m a monster. I mean, what do you want me to do – not pull him apart? I did use all the bits.

(MAG102) ELIAS: […] There is also one, the “Danseuse Étoile”, that requires a costume of special power or distinction. Gertrude believed that Orsinov and his circus created a dancer specifically for this role. ARCHIVIST: I–I’ve met it. Calls itself Nikola.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you.

(MAG128, Breekon) We didn’t like the puppet, when Orsinov began to carve it. It seemed wrong to us to try and bring one like us about; to create or remake it in such a solid, static shape. We were wrong, of course. When Orsinov carved into the thing that had once called itself Grimaldi, and fed the pieces they didn’t need to the shuddering organist, even we found ourselves impressed. And when the faceless puppet peeled its creator and moved itself with their tendon strings, he looked at me… and laughed… and laughed… We followed her a while, but she was unpredictable, while we are things of point and purpose. When she lost the ancient skin, we went our separate ways and found ourselves a lorry, long and dirty grey.

I had assumed that “Nikola” was the Hellish Lovechild of Gregor Orsinov (the ringmaster) and Nikolai Denikin (the organist), but it sounds like Denikin did Not Have A Great Time in that process after all, oopsie – we knew, according to Gertrude, that he had left the circus by the 70s (MAG044), so it might have been precisely because of what was done to him during Nikola’s creation. I wonder if he fathered his child before or after he was fed Grimaldi’s pieces, though? Because if so… is Leanne (statement-giver from MAG024), his granddaughter, kind of part-monster?

- With the chronology given through the courriers’ point of view, Breekon’s mention that he felt itself fading, and Jon’s following comment:

(MAG128) BASIRA: And there’s no chance more of the Circus survived the explosion? ARCHIVIST: I don’t think so. At, at least… Breekon didn’t think so.

… it sounds like Breekon’s statement served mostly to close The Stranger’s chapter. It feels… very weird, in a way. The Stranger had been the most prevalent of the entities since the beginning of the series: it opened it (MAG001), it was the invisible enemy through season 2, it was the shared target through season 3. It took Sasha. It took Tim. And now, the close future doesn’t sound much brighter: there are still books, monsters and avatars roaming out there, there is still the New Unidentified Menace, there is still the possibility of The Watcher’s Crown, there is still The Web weaving Her/its plans. The only satisfaction is that The Stranger’s ceremony won’t be a concern again for a few centuries, but there are still so many other threats to deal with…

- I’m also so fond of the way… things in Magnus tend to be hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time? That statement went full-on burlesque, twisting the deep-rooted complementarity and love into grotesque, and then bam, the conclusion just felt… sad? Tragic?

(MAG128, ��Breekon”) They knew this and feared us in kind, and we drank it down, the taste of it sweeter than the food that now rotted on our plates or the drink that curdled in our cups. And we both tasted it together. When we left our destination, the mule whining at the new weight behind it, he would reach behind us and find a face, sagging, sloughing off its skull, and would pull it to him. He’d place it over the one he wore already, and he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Sometimes it fell off. Sometimes it stayed for weeks. I kept the face we chose, but I loved him for our levity, and the corpses piled ever higher. […] We knew she wouldn’t scream as she was hollowed out and drunk, but still he thought best to cover the sounds with a laugh. He was always our humour. […] And when the faceless puppet peeled its creator and moved itself with their tendon strings, he looked at me… and laughed… and laughed…

[…] She took him from me. Made us a me, and she doesn’t get to die for that. […] I am without him, now. I. am. I can feel myself fading. […] I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now, they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you.

ROMANCE!! IS!! NOT!! DEAD!!

- I’m very serious about how WOW did Breekon and Hope sound like soulmates, in a romantic or queerplatonic way. That “I remember our first automobile” too, felt like an old couple taking a look back on their whole life together. “Things” pretending to be “humans” and at the same time… demonstrating genuine emotions? And the whole use of pronouns! Breekon was avoiding them in his first sentences – sometimes avoiding to say I because he couldn’t say “we” anymore! Sentences being short and segmented, as if waiting for Hope to complete with the next part!

(MAG128) BREEKON: [HUFFS] Yeah. Just like when we… when I… fed the copper to the pit. […] In here. Realized that I’m not tied… to it anymore. Not on my own. Thought you could have it. Pay your respects, lik– […] Dunno. ‘t’s not right… on my own… not right… No point in doing it on my own. Don’t know what happens now… Thought I might kill you. Missed my chance. Thought I might just… deliver something. So here’s a coffin. [RATTLING SOUND] In case you want… to join your friend.

And in the statement, too: Hope was The “He” for Breekon, while humans tended to be “they”, even when identified as male/female (only exception being the old woman taken by The Web). Nikola was a “she”.

That’s… very fair, considering how Jon and others tend to use “it” for monsters: Jon began the episode by calling Breekon a “he”, and then switched after the statement (“I, I saw that… thing’s mind, i–it’s lost on its own. No partner, no… purpose, I… I honestly think it just wanted to do another delivery.” Rude, Jon, rude!!! Especially since the monsters just proved themselves to have feelings :w)

I never thought I would grow sad for effing Breekon and Hope, godsdamnit!

- Since MAG127 already mentioned Millbank and its possible ties to the Institute (through Jonah Magnus), and Breekon also consecutively mentioned both here, it sounds more and more likely that we’ll dig a bit into that part of history later:

(MAG128, “Breekon”) Poor wretches who emerged from Millbank, with tales of Australia and its cruelty on their lips, bundled into the cramped and creaking ship that would drag them away from everything they loved – and towards everything they feared. That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal. But we were drunk on the dawning horror of transportation and took no heed of it.

It’s… curious how Beholding has been grounded in the same place for so long? It seems to be the only entity to have become sedentary like this – Elias even mentioned that “Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit.” (MAG092). That made it practical to feed The Eye (with people giving statements to an identified place), and now a danger since other entities know where The Eye’s people reside. Given how the place sounds so important, is The Watcher’s Crown supposed to take place right there? Though we don’t know how long the Usher Foundation in Washington DC and the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing have been around and whether they have the same status and history as the Magnus Institute (there wasn’t any mention of Archivists being tied to them, though; Xiaoling even explained how she had suggested someone from her centre for Elias…)

(I don’t know if the word “pedestal” was used on purpose here but… etymological root has to do with a foot. Elias had also said that “Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it.” We’re completing the anatomy analogy?)

- Overall: HOLYYY MEEWWWWW, even though I’ve relistened to the episode multiple times by now, I just get chills every time when Jon… freezes the scene. The sound effects were so good, too!! Regular static, encasing that high-pitched buzz… and I loved the echo so much when Jon gave orders We’re so used to Jon getting slapped around that this sudden moment of control and authority was!!! The fact he sounded more offensive, aggressively protective!!

Even at the beginning of the episode, the fact that Jon was in charge of the situation was audible, since there were some shared elements with Nikola’s debut:

(MAG097) ARCHIVIST: [SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH FROM THE ARCHIVIST] NIKOLA: You don’t want to do thaaat~ [FOOTSTEPS] I mean, you can if you really want to, but you’re not going to like it. Sometimes not being able to see something is actually quite a good thing. […] Don’t turn on the light.

(MAG128) BREEKON: Don’t say a word. [SILENCE] BASIRA: [LONG EXHALE] [DOOR OPENS] BASIRA: Jon. Don’t turn on the light. Go get Melanie. Quickly. ARCHIVIST: It’s alright Basira, I know he’s here. BASIRA: So what are you doing? ARCHIVIST: I imagine he’s here to deliver something. Thought it might need signing for.

Light off, a Stranger who sneaked their way into Georgie’s house/the Archives. With Nikola, Jon was startled, stuttering, afraid, toyed with, dominated; with Breekon, Jon… managed. Stayed put. Snarked and used his powers. Stopped Basira and Breekon when they were on the verge of fighting. Neutralized Breekon.

(Though I think that Breekon might have punched/tackled Jon on the ground when he fled, and Jon collapsed right after reading the statement aloud so, eh, Order Is Restored in the world. Jon also still a punching bag.)

- Aaaaand in-universe, it was awful, thanks!!! So, Jon finally used compulsion again. He’d really held back until now, and mostly used it when Breekon was refusing to answer Basira’s own questions:

(MAG128) BASIRA: Is he here for revenge? ARCHIVIST: I don’t, I don’t know. Ask him. BASIRA: Like he’s going to answer me. ARCHIVIST: Fine. [INHALE] [STATIC–] Are you here for revenge? [/STATIC] […] BASIRA: What do you want? Why are you here? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] [STATIC–] Why are you here? [/STATIC]

That was a lot of compulsion, but expected from an interrogation, and mostly to back Basira up. Jon also knew that Breekon was there – probably from another ~insight~. The new thing was how… Jon then proceeded to very naturally use a brand new power? Not 100% sure whether he was driven by a will to prevent harm to Basira (she was ready to fight Breekon) or by a desire to know Breekon’s story, or a mix of both, so intentions are not absolutely clear. The process, however, was worrisome in the mere concept of EXTRACTING a statement out of someone; the fact that Breekon clearly didn’t want it, told Jon to stop and was suffering from it… made it absolutely horrifying.

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: Stop. [HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING SOUND OVER STATIC–] BREEKON: What’re you doing? BASIRA: … Jon…? What are you doing? BREEKON: What’re you– Stop it… Stop it! ARCHIVIST: [ECHOING] No. BREEKON: [STRUGGLING, BUZZING INCREASES] Enough! Stop… looking at me!

(And I’m not sure that Jon didn’t actually contribute in Breekon’s feeling that he was “fading”: Jon got to know the unknown. I doubt that it can do any good to an agent from The Stranger – it seems like hurting their nature.)

+ Bonus point for Jon possibly developing night vision, since the whole scene took place in the dark (Basira told him to not turn on the light, and we didn’t hear the clicking of any switch). Though Basira also managed, so maybe Jon didn’t need to see.

(He looked at Breekon, however: did it feel like the whole weight of Beholding, like Jon experienced in his nightmares?)

- Basira had just summarised Jon’s powers last episode (MAG127: “So. You can’t be killed by a collapsing building. Major injuries scar up fast. You can force the truth out of people and knowledge pops into your head whenever you need it.”) and we’re already adding one more to the list – and it turns out to be that Jon can extract the story of an unwilling person out of them. It might have been in order to protect Basira here, but it also feels like the slope from one thing to the next could be so, so slippery… (from there to using his powers against a monster that wasn’t directly harming them, because they need its information; to using his powers against… anyone, really, as long as it’s protecting the assistants, even against people who never wished harm to them). Just this would make it understandable that Basira refuses to trust Jon or to get too close to him, since he’s proving that he’s developing, and fast, and that she can’t know what he will (become able to) do.

… At the same time, Jon would definitely need anchors and moral compasses around. (Martin, while you’re busy and involved into Peter’s schemes, and maybe truly fighting an actual threat, Jon is turning into another one ;;)

- Added horrifying bonus: it… sounded a bit like the “statement never given” that Elias did to Daisy? There was static when he gave it:

(MAG082) ELIAS: Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to make a statement. Your statement. […] Statement of Alice Tonner, regarding the crimes and death of Calvin Benchley. Statement never given. […] Everyone calls me Daisy. I like that because it sounds so gentle, and I’m the only one left who knows about the scar on my back.

Jon’s and Elias’s powers had sounded very distinct until now, but some bits are making them sound more similar, this season? Thinking about MAG102 again, I remember the sudden burst of static just before Elias mentioned that Melanie was coming up with a knife: had he seen that, or had he known about it (like Jon’s insight, same burst of static), since I doubt that Melanie’s knife was in clear sight in the corridors leading to his office?

(It wasn’t the same thing as what Elias did to Melanie in MAG106 and Martin in MAG118, since Elias didn’t present those as statements and used the third person, and, overall, the whole concept of it felt different: it wasn’t about extracting their stories, but about carving information they didn’t yet know in their brains. Putting in knowledge that wasn’t there. Will Jon become able to do that too eventually/soon…?)

- MMMMMMMMMMM

(MAG127) ELIAS: Possibly. Then again: you are beset by enemies on all sides, Basira. And unless you expect Jon to record them into submission, it would seem you’re in rather dire need of another option.

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT NEW POWER, YOU AWFUL MAN :| (Since Jon “extracted a statement out of them into submission” and it was recorded.)

It also sounds less and less likely that Elias’s reasons to not be face-to-face with Jon are truly about ~*Jon’s own good (according to Elias)*~, uh.

(MAG128) BASIRA: […] So you won’t see him, but you’re happy for him to hear our conversations. ELIAS: He can listen all he wants, but he’s at a very delicate stage right now, and I… fear my presence would be a… a distraction. I’ve made it clear my cooperation’s contingent on his not seeing me, and my terms have been accepted thus far.

YEAH L-O-L ELIAS. Are you actually fearing that not only Jon could compulse the heck out of you now, but also pull out your own fucking statement out of you without you having a say in that. Hilariously (/horrifyingly), is the fact that Elias was thrown in jail… actually protecting him from Jon?

(I’m not saying that Elias wouldn’t be into Jon forcefully extracting his statement out of him. He was really into getting compulsed, even while fighting off the effect of it. But it would mean that Jon forcing information out of him probably wouldn’t be serving his plans right now, which means… he indeed Has Plans and things he wants to hide.)

- At least, Jon’s new power sounds like it’s taking its toll on him, which I’m taking as a good thing (since it will force him to be cautious about that, the sheer immorality and violence and cruelty of the power in itself notwithstanding):

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: Statement… ends. [RUFFLING OF CLOTHES ENDING WITH A THUD AS PROTAGONIST, WHO DEMONSTRATED A FAIRLY SURPRISING AMOUNT OF USEFULNESS THIS EPISODE, PROCEEDS TO SLIDE OFF CHAIR AND PASS THE FUCK OUT.]

I’ve laughed too many times on that stupid moment, I have no excuse for feeling like it’s Comedy Gold, but. But. Listen. It’s so… so Jon.

Another reason for Jon’s tiredness could also be due to the amount of statements he’s been handling lately. He has had periods like this: the end of season 2 was… pretty intense, only three weeks from MAG071 to MAG080. Right now, less than twenty days have passed from MAG121 (15th February 2018) to MAG128 (3rd March 2018). Assuming that MAG122 also took place on February 15th, 2018: MAG122: February 15th MAG123: February 17th (“Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”) MAG124: February 24th (“It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened.”) MAG125: ? MAG126: ? MAG127: ? MAG128: 3rd March That means that since MAG124, Jon has been reading a statement about every other day (and at least once two days in a row). The current rhythm feels very close to the streak from MAG091 to MAG094, April 28th and 29th, which resulted in Jon giving up at the end of MAG094 and blaming it on the amount of statements (“Are you alright? You look like you’re about to keel over.” “Uh, no, I– I just… Ther– There’s been a lot of statements, in not a lot of time. I’m… I’m exhausted.”)

The average rhythm was around once a week usually, I don’t know if this means that Jon has been exhausting himself lately (to be fair, he doesn’t have a whole lot to do, since nobody wants to talk to him and he’s unable to do satisfying follow-ups) or that he feels withdrawal faster than before… and/or, in any case, if he’s just “obeying” the tape recorders when he sees one running.

- I feel Basira’s distrust very deeply, since… since Jon chose to write Breekon’s statement before recording it.

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: It’s fine…! [/STATIC] Get me a pen… please. [CLICK.]

[…] ARCHIVIST: Basira, we, we can’t– BASIRA: Yeah, I can read.

It’s not a given at all. Why did Jon decide to write it down, when he probably could have just recorded it right away?

I’m obsessed with this but: I can’t help but think that it might be related to Jon’s dreams – did he assume that recording right away would have made it count as a live-statement and that he would be “given” another dream, Breekon’s?

Assuming that Jon still sleeps. But at least, we know he can pass out! And he still drinks. He had asked for water back in MAG122, and Basira brought him another glass in MAG128 according to the sound.

(MAG122) BASIRA: […] Anything else? ARCHIVIST: Water. Please. BASIRA: Sure thing. [OPENS DOOR] ARCHIVIST: … Oh, or a cup of t– BASIRA: [CLOSES DOOR]

(MAG128) BASIRA: Here. [GLASS CLINKING] ARCHIVIST: Thank you.

- Now that we’ve had confirmation that Daisy is actually alive, reminder that:

(MAG120) ELIAS: […] All through it, the shadow is above him; the shape that gazes down upon him, bloodshot and unblinking. The rain is still there, though it is empty; the long and desolate road, slick with the downpour, a police car’s lights flashing over the unmoving van. The doors are open and the two familiar statues stand either side of the well-worn wooden box. He looks around, his eyes scanning this forever road and the clouds of iron grey, looking for her – but she is not there. The Archivist expects, he hopes, to find the violence in her looking back at him, hungry for pursuit and murder. But the emptiness of the place is complete, the only sounds the gentle singing of the box, and the pounding, bitter rain. He knows the writing on the coffin has changed, though is still carved into the splintered wood: [STATIC INTENSIFIES] “I am for you.” He knows it is not addressed to him, but he reaches down and pulls the chains off all the same. It opens, and he walks slowly down the steps into the earth; but even as it closes above him, the great shadow still Sees him. There is nowhere in this universe that it would not blot out the sky.

We don’t know what is supposed to happen if a live statement giver dies. Daisy’s case, though, was already an oddity, since her dream was still there – without her. Breekon did imply that The Eye couldn’t access the coffin when mentioning “John”:

(MAG128, “Breekon”) It was one like us that found it. A thing of shifting names and déjà-vu. A fool, that believed because it found a coffin in chains, it would be an easy thing to control, to bargain with. But there was no remorse when the test finally failed and it fed on the thing that considered itself the master. No face to Change in the cold, dark earth, and no Eye to fool, where it is now.

So although The Eye is all-powerful in Jon’s dreams, the coffin seems to be out of its reach in our world. Is that an overall property from The Buried, or specific to the coffin? I wonder if Leitner’s pamphlet, A Disappearance, is actually a Buried book too? (My suspicion had been The Spiral until now.)

(MAG080) LEITNER: Hardly a book. Barely twelve pages. It is entitled A Disappearance. If read cover to cover it removes one from the world. I cannot say precisely what that means, only that the assistant I assigned to it, Jacob Feng, was never seen again. I have found, however, that reading only one or two words is sufficient to hide me from the prying eyes of your master. It allowed me to talk with Gertrude in relative safety, and occasionally come above ground for my own ends.

(We… don’t know the status of that one, by the way, since Leitner had it close with him when Elias butchered him. So Elias probably got his hands on it.)

Overall: Jon still hasn’t mentioned anything about his dreams so far, while telling Basira that she could trust him and sounding very transparent and honest… I’m still not sure if Basira is suspicious of Jon having an active part in the dreams she used to have before becoming an assistant (and that Daisy still had as of MAG112, since she wasn’t an assistant), but if she is: that’s another reason to be wary of Jon. She would know there is something else that he’s not telling her anything about. What do you know/remember about your dreams, Jon…

- YOU KNOW WHO CAN FIND PEOPLE/THINGS THAT ARE “CONCEALED” THOUGH? THINGS THAT THE EYE CAN’T REACH?

(MAG101) “MICHAEL”: The Eye watches, and the Stranger conceals, but me… I lie, Archivist. I am the throat of delusion incarnate. They can’t hide you from me.

Jon! Jon!!! Could “Helen” help to reach the inside of the coffin…? (Really not sure about it, since it was about The Stranger, not The Buried, but then… Breekon was able to tell that people didn’t die inside of the coffin. How could it know? There might be ways to know/feel what is alive down there…)

- Basira time because Holy Mew did I get feelings all over.

(MAG128) [CLICK–] [SILENCE] [MOVEMENT, CHAIR RATTLING] BREEKON: Don’t say a word. [SILENCE] BASIRA: [LONG EXHALE] [DOOR OPENS] BASIRA: Jon. Don’t turn on the light. Go get Melanie. Quickly.

BASIRA, gdi!!! The fact that she was still level-headed enough to give instructions right away while threatened!! (I wonder if she told Jon to get Melanie to protect her, or if she thought that Melanie could still… be well enough to act as their fighter again, even when not under The Slaughter’s influence and recovering?)

And SSSSSSSSHHHHH you felt the shift when Breekon alluded to Daisy; Jon needed to act with her like she had acted with Daisy in the past, that really meant that she was ready to snap hard.

(MAG092) DAISY: Bouchard. BASIRA: Easy.

(MAG128) BREEKON: Yeah. Just like when we… when I… fed the copper to the pit. BASIRA: [ANGRY INHALE] ARCHIVIST: Easy, Basira. BASIRA: [EXHALE]

(And towards the end, was ready to FIGHT BREEKON…….)

(MAG128) BREEKON: In here. [KNOCKS ON SOMETHING] Realized that I’m not tied… to it anymore. Not on my own. Thought you could have it. Pay your respects, lik– BASIRA: Daisy’s in there.

Her voice and my heart broke at the same time with her “Daisy’s in there” AOUCH AOUCH AOUCH…

I’m still so fond of the way Basira is able to assess things very quickly and efficiently… and for once, she tipped over and lost her cool. Breekon made her crack, and holy Arceus, the fact that it was about Daisy…………….. hhh.

- Given how Basira announced that she would leave right after Jon stated that the coffin was from The Buried…

(MAG127) ELIAS: I might have an idea, yes. BASIRA: And what does it cost? ELIAS: Just some of your time, Basira. Just your time. BASIRA: … [SIGHS] Okay. Let’s hear it. [CLICK.]

(MAG128) BASIRA: Where does the coffin lead? ARCHIVIST: … The Buried. BASIRA: Right. [SILENCE] [INHALES] Right. Keep it safe, I’ll be gone a few days. I have some leads I need to follow up. ARCHIVIST: Sorry…?! BASIRA: You heard me.

I’m suspecting that Elias might have told her something cryptic and Buried-related, and that Basira pieced it together at that moment? What Elias told her could have been totally unrelated but it feels like an odd coincidence (especially since Jon had just proven that he could use his powers to neutralize enemies after all) and… going back to MAG120:

(MAG120) ELIAS: Hello, inspector. Martin. I’m… sorry to hear about Tim. MARTIN: Don’t. ELIAS: And Daisy, I suppose. MARTIN: Don’t. you. dare.

It sounded, back then, like the usual joke of belatedly remembering Daisy’s existence. But it could have also been Elias knowing that she wasn’t dead like Tim.

- I’m worried about what Elias told her, though, and what Basira will have to do ;; Assuming it’s all to bring back Daisy: is she supposed to go fetch an item that could help? Or someone: a Buried avatar? A Vast avatar (as they’re opposed): Simon Fairchild, since Jon doesn’t want to meet him? (He’s probably deaaaad but ;; can’t help but think about Jan Kilbride? He “disappeared” after going back to Earth but we know that he was still around in February 2008, when he gave his statement (MAG106), and probably June 2008, where he was implied to be with Gertrude when she went to stop The Buried ritual in America (MAG097). Probably died countering the ritual, but if he survived… he has already fought against The Buried, had met Gertrude, had collaborated with her to stop an apocalypse. Could be an interesting option. Though, once again: is probably long dead.)

… or is Basira supposed to ultimately take Daisy’s place in the coffin…

And I’m so worried over the fact that it… doesn’t seem like she told Jon anything about her meeting with Elias? Though Elias had told her that he didn’t mind Jon hearing their conversations (so she’s not coerced into hiding information, it’s her own decision)? It’s also unclear if she’s given the tapes to Jon, but we’ll see if Jon mentions them while she’s away – or… not at all. Jon will complain about Elias if he’s hearing anything from him.

- ;; We got Basira’s own summary of the events following The Unknowing and… indeed, her point of view clears up a lot of why she’s been so cautious and distrusting. Her previous situation was strongly tied to Daisy’s, and based on the assumption that she could more or less trust the others (though she wasn’t very confident in Tim and Jon’s abilities to fight):

(MAG0117) BASIRA: […] I don't want to be here. But by the end, I didn’t want to be police either, so… guess I don’t really know what I do want, which… maybe that’s just as well. My options… they’ve gotten a lot narrower over the last year. I don’t know. I feel kind of bad. Everyone seems to be having a much worse time of it than me, and I was meant to be the hostage. It’s amazing, how much you can ignore when you keep your head in a book.

Basira had been involved in the Institute against her will (MAG092); it has never been a place she chose. But in order to get out of The Unknowing, she couldn’t rely on anyone. She managed on her own, and since then: Daisy was officially dead, Tim was dead, Jon was in a coma. The only remaining people were Melanie (who had been unstable since then, while infected) and Martin:

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: […] You can trust me, Basira– BASIRA: Stop saying that. [SILENCE] Do you know how I survived the… The Unknowing? ARCHIVIST: I… No. No, I don’t. BASIRA: No powers, no… magic or… help. I was trapped in that place, and so I tried to figure it out. And I did. A little. So I kept doing it. I kept going through until I got out. I… reasoned my way out of that nightmare. ARCHIVIST: Good lord… BASIRA: Then everything ended, and Daisy was gone. And you were gone. And Tim. And then I got back to the Institute, and Martin sent me to meet the new boss. Then I stood alone in an empty office for more than one hour. I can trust me, Jon. That’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS]

It officially answers why Basira said that she had never met Peter Lukas in MGA123 (“Never seen him. As far as I can tell, Martin’s the only one who has.”) despite the fact that Peter had asked Martin to bring Melanie and Basira to his office in MAG120 (“Well, if you could send Melanie and Basira up to see me, I’d like to introduce myself.”). I get the impression that Martin’s behaviour really was what convinced her to not trust easily? She… hasn’t been mean towards him since the beginning of season 4, actually defended him, acknowledged that he has had a difficult situation, but at the same time… I wonder if she isn’t having the same suspicions as I am: that Martin and Peter are one and the same, or that Peter is rooted in Martin, without Martin being aware of it? And the conclusion would be that just because someone is genuine and wishes you no harm doesn’t mean that they can’t actually be a threat to you. Hence her wariness towards Jon, even though he insists that they’re on the same side.

(Ironically, it’s… a bit like Tim’s reasoning in season 3: when he got back on his feet and driven by his desire to avenge Danny’s death by destroying the Circus, he also began to avoid everyone since he couldn’t be sure that they weren’t something like the Not!Them or plainly didn’t know them, and he decided to only rely on himself. We know how that ended for Tim; that doesn’t bode well for Basira… ;;)

- Basira used to like Jon’s sense of humour and… it’s not the case anymore, uh.

(MAG088) BASIRA: I just, I mean he was good company. Y’know, when he wasn’t being a paranoia machine. He was funny, you know? MARTIN: What, Jon? BASIRA: Yeah. MARTIN: I don’t think I’ve ever heard him tell a joke. BASIRA: Maybe you weren’t listening.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] So: we’re under siege; Melanie is aggressively unstable; Martin is working very closely with The Lonely, who is, predictably enough, isolating him; and, oh, yes, Tim and Daisy are still dead. Which is at least easy to keep track of! BASIRA: That isn’t funny, Jon. ARCHIVIST: I know it’s not–! … Sorry. It’s just… it’s a lot.

(MAG128) BASIRA: And don’t open the coffin. ARCHIVIST: [HUMOROUS EXHALE] It is addressed to me! [SILENCE] … Yes, alright. … Alright.

I COULD JUST FEEL BASIRA’S GLARE IN THESE LAST SECONDS. Jon relenting and changing his tone was so beautiful.

Too bad for Jon he mentally scarred the only person who was still finding him entertaining:

(MAG128) BREEKON: … That’s ‘s name? Then sure. ‘t’s in there. Whatever’s left. Find out if you like. ARCHIVIST: Would you please drop that ridiculous voice?! BREEKON: [DIFFERENT ACCENT] Apologies. Is preferred like so? ARCHIVIST: Christ, that’s worse… BREEKON: [CHUCKLES] ARCHIVIST: [STATIC–] What is your real voice? [/STATIC] BREEKON: [CHUCKLES] Nikola said you were funny. Didn’t believe it.

Jon, why do you do this to the people who at least appreciated one (1) thing about you.

(I’m still rolling on the floor about how, while a MONSTER had SNUCK INSIDE the Archives, and was partially THREATENING THEM, and had proven in the past that it could WRECK YOU in a fight, and had even PUNCHED JON HIMSELF before throwing him in its van back in MAG099… Jon’s priorities involved getting irritated about its fake accent. Jon. Joooooooooon. You’re especially funny when you’re not even trying.)

- At the same time, Basira didn’t absolutely cut Jon out entirely. She’s still probing him with questions, still waiting for him to share his discoveries. She brought him water. And… the fact that she’s leaving the Institute for a while incidentally puts Melanie and the coffin in Jon’s care – that’s… actually… a form of trust, in a way? I wonder if she might be, despite it all, trying to test whether she can trust Jon on some matters.

(MAG128) BASIRA: You heard me. Don’t ask about [my leads], and don’t know about them either. ARCHIVIST: I can’t exactly control that! BASIRA: Learn. ARCHIVIST: … [SIGHS] I’ll do my best. […] BASIRA: I’ll try and be back in a week or two. Don’t think about me. ARCHIVIST: Right.

^Could be a way to check if Jon can prevent himself from spookily knowing or trying to investigate? Forcing himself to find a way to refrain it even if he has no idea about how at the moment? (Basira is absolutely the reverse of an enabler, which… makes sense, since she keeps finding new ways to get herself out. She managed to survive The Dark. She was the only one who managed to find her way out of The Unknowing, by herself. At the same time, what she told Jon is… easier said than done. But indeed: it’s that, or enabling and probably accelerating Jon’s downfall.)

(- At the same tiiiime, re:Martin, maybe it would be Very Too Much Hopeful, but. But.

(MAG128, “Breekon”) […] The Spider’s always an easy job – no fuss, no complication, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a Stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to injure.

YES, it sounds awfully like The Web and what it’s probably doing right now with Jon/the Institute. But I also thought about Martin, here, and I can’t shake the idea now: it’s clear that Martin is wary of Peter and he explicitly said he didn’t like to be manipulated – he’s not oblivious to what Peter is doing, though… he’s also been opening himself a lot more than feels necessary (Peter knows how to push Martin’s buttons and to persuade him). But what if it’s actually more about Martin trying to manipulate him – Martin showing some parts of him only to get closer, pretending to be vulnerable, trying to establish how Peter operates and what his weaknesses are, for when Martin would have accumulated enough knowledge to take care of the new threat? I mean, Martin took down the previous Head of the Institute through dissimulating and deceiving. He’s done it before. He could do it again.) (/ realistically: yes, it’s me trying to still hold on to the possibility of Web!Martin, sssssh >> I… was so fond… of the aesthetic of Martin being in control, albeit awkwardly…)

- Breekon breached into the Institute and mentioned that he’s felt “loss” since Hope’s death. So. You can’t convince me that Peter Lukas, Agent Of The Lonely, didn’t know that he had entered the Institute. And yet, he didn’t help, didn’t do anything at all.

He had mentioned that Elias was “very protective of his people” (MAG100), which wasn’t super-reassuring regarding how Peter himself takes care of his people, even less for people that are not even his, but… we still don’t know why Elias chose him as an interim director (… if he indeed did), and after The Flesh attack and now Breekon, it seems less and less likely that it was to protect the Archives or Jon himself. So: why was he chosen? What is he supposed to do?

- It sounds like what Peter had hinted at the end of season 3 worked exactly how we could fear – “giving everyone some space”, from a Lonely agent, sounded… very bad and worrisome. And indeed, they drifted apart:

(MAG120) PETER: […] After that, I’ll put through a couple of weeks of paid leave for you all. I think giving everyone some space, to try and deal with the loss of… Tim and… Daisy, might do everyone some good.

Hey!! Peter and Elias, so far, totally succeeded in shattering the Archives team. They’re not even able to collaborate on a common project like they did in season 3 (trying to stop The Unknowing, getting Elias into jail). Martin has been persuaded that his “isolation” will help to fight the New Threat; Basira is adamantly choosing to not trust Jon; Melanie has been refusing to talk to Jon so far. Jon has been successfully isolated, too. Was it the point, or one of the points, of what Elias and Peter did overall…?

- Jon, please, don’t say anything ever unless you’re being pessimistic/negative, since:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] and, oh, yes, Tim and Daisy are still dead. Which is at least easy to keep track of!

Daisy is not dead anymore! You were wrong again and things did get more complicated! Rejoice!

… Although Daisy is probably having it worse than death and has been for the past seven months; it could be that they’ll manage to get her out of the coffin only to have to mercy-kill her shortly after. Or will she have to make the same kind of choice that Jon did in MAG121? Like Jon, she’s in a place The End can’t reach:

(MAG121) OLIVER: […] The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off for a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him. I made a choice. We all made choices […].

(MAG128, “Breekon”) And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the Earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for Death to find you there, within its mocking shape – buried alive.

I would really like to see Daisy back and functional; the fact that she was Basira’s anchor makes me fear that ahaha nop, would be too hopeful (and she snapped during The Unknowing...), but I loved the familiarity they shared with Basira… And I loved Daisy and Jon’s weird little friendship, gosh!!

(MAG096) ARCHIVIST: So, what? Now you sell dead animals? What is this place? SARAH: The Trophy Room. A taxidermist shop in Barnet – it says above the door. Surprised to meet an Archivist who can’t read. ARCHIVIST: No, I– DAISY: [LAUGHS] Nice! […] DAISY: Come on. Before the Met get here. ARCHIVIST: Whatever you say~ DAISY: And wipe that grin off your face.

- In the meantime: how much will it sting, for Jon, to… keep watch over the coffin, knowing that Daisy is inside and that they might ultimately find a way to save her… while Tim is dead-dead and won’t come back, and there is no hope of him coming back ever again. When one glimmer of hope happens, it’s often hard to refrain from thinking that others could follow suit.

- We’re now 1/5th into season 4! And even if Jon feels ~static~, we’ve technically learned quite a lot? In the six months following the Unknowing, not strictly chronologically: Elias stayed in prison; Peter Lukas “managed” the Institute without revealing himself to anyone except Martin, only sending emails and memos; some researchers disappeared after ignoring his orders; Martin’s mother died; Melanie’s frenzy worsened; Basira tried to keep things afloat; other Fears have been targeting the Institute to prevent The Eye from completing its ritual in this cycle; the Flesh attacked the Archives and was defeated thanks to Melanie; Melanie & Basira have begun to live in the Institute; Martin visited Jon in the hospital, begging him to wake up and help, and given the lack of answer, accepted to work with someone (most likely Peter) with the promise that the others would be “safe”, and has indeed been working with Peter Lukas since then, getting more and more estranged from Basira and Melanie.

Since MAG121: The Dreamer, Oliver, revealed that he had turned into an avatar of The End. Jon ~made his choice~ and woke up. Georgie decided to stop taking care of Jon. Jon said that he didn’t remember everything about the Unknowing, learned that Tim and (presumably) Daisy were dead. We learned that The Web might have intertwined itself with the Institute for (at least) the past years, or at least that Annabelle might have intentions regarding the Institute or Jon in particular. Jon has used many powers other than compulsion, at an alarming rate: Knowing things, being directed towards specific statements (and feeling the presence of written ones), forcefully extracting a statement from someone’s brain, being able to See an otherwise undetectable spooky item (Melanie’s bullet). Basira and Jon removed said bullet from Melanie’s leg; Jon got stabbed in the shoulder, healed quickly. Melanie’s anger was confirmed to have been at least partially supernatural and Slaughter-induced, though she is still currently deeply hurt by the whole ordeal. Jon and Martin briefly saw each other, with Martin intentionally avoiding contact: he indeed made a deal with Peter Lukas, they’re working on Adelard Dekker’s suspicions of a new Menace, which requires Martin getting more powerful (and balance “between the two”), hence his “isolation”. Martin has been taking care of the Institute’s admin tasks for Peter, who “can’t stand computers”. We learned what happened to Albrecht von Closen a few years after he had sent his letter to Jonah Magnus: Jonah stole the mausoleum books from Albrecht, who turned out to have had sons by the time he died (his body filled with eyes). Basira visited Elias in prison: Elias gave her a tape recorder that had appeared in his cell, for her to give to Jon, and explained that he doesn’t want Jon to see him. He tipped Basira off about another potential “defender” for the Archives. Breekon brought the coffin to the Institute, confirmed that Daisy is inside and not dead; Jon used a new power on him to prevent him and Basira from fighting, unrolling his backstory. Basira is leaving for (she thinks) about one or two weeks, to follow up on “some leads”, potentially Buried-related, and forbade Jon from trying to Know what she is doing.

Tl;dr It feels a bit like things are dragging on and that not a lot is happening since Jon is back to being sedentary (after moving, going out and travelling a lot in season 3), that we’re waiting together with Jon… but at the same time, the shrouds around some mysteries are becoming a bit clearer, and a lot of elements have felt like they’ve broken the new status quo already. We’re getting a few missing pieces and completing new parts of the puzzle, while we’re advancing towards… something. (It feels a bit to me like the slow initial ascend of a rollercoaster, too: and there is the dread that when things will pick up for real, the velocity and savageness will simply be mind-shattering…?)

- I have a few ideas about Jon’s options but no certainty nor ~insight~ about what he could choose to do right now, since Basira left? Will he wait? Will he keep pushing his powers, trying to get redirected towards a statement that could help them… with the whole situation, or for the coffin? Will he try to actively research on The Buried or The Hunt? Will he try to focus on something else to avoid accidentally prying into Basira’s business: trying to get Martin back, digging a bit more into the Institute’s foundation or Gertrude’s notes again?

Now that Basira has left, though, a discussion with Melanie… might be coming ;; I’m eager and anticipating Pain at the same time, though… She had been aware of a change in her when she was influenced by the bullet (MAG117: “Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … asshole… God! I just want to rip his…! [BREATHES] When did I… start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger…? … Hm.”), so I’m really curious to hear her again, now that she’s been presumably freed from it – with rightful resentment and distrust… but also a clearer mind.

(I wonder if we’ll hear about Georgie again through her ;;)

MAG129’s title has been given on Patreon: statement-wise, I’m suspecting a Buried one (though could also be The Lonely, or The Dark attacking the Archives, maybe). As for the second meaning, I’m flipping a table in fear that it could be about Jon’s metaphorical inner door already – but at the same time… it would feel very early for that. So, hum. Could be about Melanie’s impressions from when she was under the bullet’s influence? Could be about Jon getting emotionally overwhelmed by everything and having a breakdown, without any door opening? … Could be about Martin and Peter again.

[writingarchangels]

God Bless Kale (Destiel)

Pairing: Dean X Castiel

Word count: 2.6K

Triggers: madness, kale

Castiel has been appointed with the task to watch over Jack... but then he manages to lose him. Gabriel might be at fault. Might.

“Are you sure that you will be fine on your own?” Sam asked Castiel, frowning in concern.

“Yes, Sam. I will be fine,” Castiel replied with a nod. Mary had called the brothers and said she needed help with something, so Sam and Dean were going to join up with her on a hunt. Castiel had offered to go as well, to stay by their side and aid them to the best of his abilities, but someone had to stay behind to watch Jack - whom was still a child in the ways that mattered the most. “Do call me if you end up needing my help with anything,” he added, at which Sam nodded.

The angel stood in the doorway and watched the hunter go towards the Impala - where Dean was doing something by the trunk. He was probably putting in their bags and the like. Sam got in the car, and after a while, the tires screeched over the asphalt and they drove off. Castiel watched them go until they disappeared behind the horizon.

Unable to see his friends anymore, Castiel turned back into the house with the intention of finding Jack and seeing what the Nephilim would be up to.

“Jack?” He called out, having closed the door behind himself.

“I’m here!” Jack’s voice called out.

Following the sound of the voice - and the pulse of celestial power he could sense - he eventually found himself in the kitchen. Jack has seated himself at the kitchen table with Sam’s laptop in front of him and wearing a pair of red headphones. He appeared to be watching something on the laptop. Moving to stand behind the child, the angel took a peek at what he was watching, a frown forming on his face.

It was an animated program with a yellow sponge and a pink star... Castiel did not understand just what he was seeing.

Pausing the program, Jack removed his headphones and gave him a smile. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi, Jack,” Castiel replied. “What are you watching?” He blurted out, unable to help himself.

“I’m not sure,” the Nephilim replied, “but it’s funny.”

“How are your powers?”

Jack glanced back at the screen. “Nothing strange has happened yet today, so that’s good.”

“Is there something that you would want me to get for you?” Castiel asked almost awkwardly. It had been a few weeks since Jack bought him back from The Empty, and the angel was trying his best to form a bond with the young Nephilim. He wanted Jack to like him, to look up to him. To see him as family. He had promised Kelly that he would watch over her son and protect him, and he was about to keep that promise.

Jack seemed to think about his question for a while, tilting his head in a way that was much like an angel’s. “Can you maybe bring me some nougat from the kitchen? I think we still have some left,” he asked, giving Castiel his best puppy-dog eyes - he had watched Sam do it many times.

At the mention of the candy, Castiel grinned. Sam has told him about Jack’s love for the candy and the hunter had always made sure that they had some in the Bunker’s kitchen. “I’ll go look now,” he said.

Jack smiled up at him and went back to watching his show in fascination as Castiel left for the kitchen in his quest for nougat.

A sound of rustling wings was heard and the Nephilim child looked up in curiosity, pausing his show again. “Castiel?” He asked, looking around for any sign of the angel - or for anything, really. He did not saw the angel, but his gaze did fell on an item laying on the ground. A wonderful delicious item. A true treat for the child of angels and men.

A nougat bar.

There was a trail of nougat bars laying on the ground, tempting him. His curiosity getting the best of him, Jack stood up and started picking up the candy, following the nougat trail as he went.

After a while, Castiel returned to where he had left Jack, carrying a few nougat bars as he went. “Jack, I found the nougat-“ he started to say, just to realize that he was no more in the room.

Castiel tilted his head in confusion. “Jack?” He called out, a bit louder now. He got no answer. Panic griping his heart, he put the nougat down next to the laptop - which was still turned on - and he went to search. Maybe he was just playing a game, he tried to tell himself. Yet it did little to calm him down. What if the angels managed to break in and stole him? What if he got hurt? Or what if Lucifer managed to get his hands on him? “JACK!!” Screw the ‘playing a game’, Castiel was in full on panic-mode now.

The angel went and searched in every room of the bunker. He looked under the beds, inside the closets, on the bunker’s roof, in the garage and even the dungeon. He looked everywhere. But there was no sign of the Nephilim anywhere, nor anything that showed where he could have gone off to.

Realization settled in. Castiel had lost Jack.

~~

A loud, highly annoyed, groan slipped from Dean’s lips as he attempted to haul Sam’s huge body out of the car and into the Bunker. If Dean didn’t knew any better, he would say that his not so little brother was drunk off his ass. But Dean knew that was not the case.

Dean had blown the brains out of the witch they were hunting, but that was not before she had managed to hit Sam with a beam of magic which had knocked him out cold. He had yet to come by, which was something Dean was started to worry about. And that was the only reason he had asked their mother to get Rowena to cure Sam of whatever was going on with him. He just hoped that Cas and Jack managed to stay out of trouble.

One thing he did not expect upon his return, was the state the bunker was in. Dean froze in the doorway, his eyes widening drastically. It was like the Bunker was hit by a furious tornado. The table in their ‘war room’ - as Dean liked to call it - was gone. The chairs and books were laying all over the place. Even the walls seemed to have been ripped apart, as if someone decided to look inside the walls and did not found what they were looking for. Fearing for his angel, Dean assumedthe worst and managed to pull his gun out of his pants as he stumbled downstairs - miraculously not dropping Sam.

“Cas?”

A sound of thundering footsteps was heard a few rooms over. Something was coming his way. And fast. In a second, Dean felt like how Simba must have felt in the ravine when all those larger animals came racing his way. Except it was not a pack of wild animals, but a single panicking Seraphim. “Cas!” Dean called out in shock. And then he was tackled to the ground by the angel, who wrapped himself around him like a hug. He landed with a groan, with Cas on top of him and he had dropped Sam, who fell to the ground and stayed there like a glorified sack of potatoes. “What’s wrong, Cas?” Dean groaned out.

“I lost Jack and can’t find him anymore,” the angel replied in a tiny voice, holding Dean tighter until the mortal feared that the celestial might accidentally crush his bones.

“Can’t breathe,” Dean managed to squeak out, face reddening. Castiel let him go and for one small second, Dean found himself lost in the angel’s eyes; feeling like he was both soaring and drowning in their depths. Dean shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “How did you lose Jack?” He asked as they stood up. “What happened?” He noticed that Castiel wasn’t wearing his trench coat and his hair was ruffled more than usual. The idea of Cas without his coat was oddly unnerving to Dean.

“I was getting Jack some nougat from the kitchen but when I returned he was gone. I looked everywhere,” a flash of panic appeared in Cas’ eyes.

Dean looked around at the destroyed room. He believed Cas when the angel told him he had looked everywhere. He nodded. “Alright. Just help me with putting Sam in his room and then I will help you search for our lost Nephilim.”

It was as if Castiel just noticed Sam, whom was still on the floor. “What happened?”

“A witch knocked him out. Mom is getting Rowena for help,” Dean explained quickly as Castiel reached down and threw Sam over his shoulder. Bless angels and their strength, Dean couldn’t help but think. They started walking towards Sam’s room as Dean gave him a more detailed report of what went down with the witch.

~~

“Okay, I think we really lost Jack,” Dean announced after they’ve been searching for about one hour. He had even went and checked the traffic cameras to see if a lost Nephilim would appear on them. But there was no trace of Jack. It was as if he had just disappeared into thin air.

Castiel gave Dean a panicked look. Dean felt like he had to say something to calm the angel down. “I think our best bet for now is to wait until mom gets here with Rowena to fix Sam. Then we can all work together to find Jack. We will find him, Cas, don’t worry.” Almost awkwardly, he gave the angel’s shoulder a pat. But it seemed to work on Castiel, for at least some of the tension seems to have left his shoulders. The angel nodded, giving him a rare smile and Dean felt his own mood lift drastically.

They looked up when they heard footsteps nearing. “Jack?” Castiel asked hopefully. Dean was more doubtful. It did not sound like Jack, the thread was heavier. It sounded more like Sam.

“I think that it’s Sam,” Dean voiced his thoughts aloud.

“That’s a good thing then,” Castiel replied, appearing to be relieved that their friend was at least fine.

Castiel’s relief was short lived. For none of them were expecting - or prepared for - what happened next.

The door burst open and revealed Sam... stark naked and covered head to toe in what appeared to be... kale? Dean’s eyes nearly burst out of their sockets when his brain slowly progressed the fact that his brother had, indeed, covered his naked and glue slicked body in kale. Why was beyond Dean.

But at least his ‘private parts’ were completely covered.

“Sam, why are you covered in kale?” Castiel bluntly asked. Dean shot him a look.

Sam gave them a crazed look. “He’s bewitched,” Castiel stated, looking slightly worried.

Dean’s head shot up in alarm. What the fuck did this witch do to my brother?!

“GOD BLESS KALE!!” Sam randomly screeched at the top of his lungs. Castiel and Dean alike jumped. And then Sam charged straight at them as if he was some kind of fearsome kale monster, a war cry of some sorts slipping out of his lips.

Dean nearly stumbled over his own feet while trying to get out of the way. The last thing he wanted was getting run over by his giant brother turned insane. Before Dean knew it really, he and Cas were running around the Bunker in circles, with Sam chasing after them and screaming his head off. “CAS!” Dean yelled. “DO SOMETHING!!”

“LIKE WHAT?!” Castiel yelled back.

“ANYTHING!!”

“GOD BLESS KALE!!” Sam yelled again.

~~

The door to the bunker opened again. Revealing Mary and Rowena. Upon hearing all the screaming and yelling, they looked up in sync. One look at Sam’s naked and kale-covered body, and Rowena turned around. “Nope,” the witch said and walked out.

Mary’s mouth had dropped open. She could only stare in disbelief. “Rowena, wait!” She called back to the redhead.

“Trust me, dearie,” Rowena called back, holding up her hands, “you do not want to get between this. I know this spell. The ‘crazy spell’ wears off in a few hours. And trust me, you don’t want Sam to see you now the way he is. Let’s just get a drink and then come back, when the moose is back to normal.”

Before Mary could say anything really, Rowena already started dragging her along to God knew where. Still too stupefied by what she just saw, Mary let her.

~~

Another hour or so later

Jack took another bite out of his nougat bar, feeling like he had ended up in his own personal Heaven. A hand touched his head and gave his hair a playful ruffle.

“You know, kid,” Gabriel spoke in amusement, slightly giggling to himself, “you really aren’t that bad. You got potential in you.” The main reason that the Archangel had bribed the Nephilim to him with nougat was because he wanted to screw around some with Castiel - he did not expect to get along so well with Jack, his nephew. Even just for the fact that they seemed to share a love for candy and everything sweet - the other angels never understood him, but this little Nephilim, on the other hand, did.

“You also aren’t that bad for an angel,” Jack replied. Gabriel decided to take that as a compliment. “But I should go back soon. I don’t want them to worry too much,” the child added, frowning slightly.

“Just say the word and I’ll zap you back,” Gabriel shrugged, throwing a few empty candy wrappers on the growing pile between them.

“I like to go back,” Jack announced after a while, throwing another candy wrapper on the pile.

Feeling slightly saddened, Gabriel nodded, respecting his wish. “I do have one favor to ask of you,” the Archangel said, “please don’t tell them, especially Castiel, that I am alive.”

Jack tilted his head. “Why?”

When he replied, Gabriel’s smile was sad. “That’s perhaps a story for another time,” was all the Archangel said. Jack nodded. “If you wish to see or talk to me again, for anything really, just pray,” Gabriel added, snapping his fingers once.

One moment Jack had been eating candy with the Archangel Gabriel, and the next he found himself back into the bunker. The Nephilim blinked at his sudden change of surroundings. I need to get him to teach me how to do that, he thought to himself, right before Castiel barreled into him.

“Jack!!” Arms wound themselves around him and Jack was wrapped tightly into a hug. Stumbling slightly, surprise hit him but he quickly composed himself and hugged the angel back. “Where have you been?” Castiel pulled back and shot him a glare as he held the child at arms length. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?!”

“I’m sorry,” Jack replied, eyes widening in shock. Remembering the promise he had made to Gabriel, he stayed quiet about his meeting with the angel. “I didn’t mean to.”

Castiel shook his head and sighed, bringing the child in for another hug. “It’s alright. I’m not mad, I was just worried.” He said. “If you’re going anywhere, just tell someone, alright?”

Jack nodded and was aware of Sam and Dean entering the room. He tilted up his head from Castiel’s shoulder and his eyes widened even more. Dean was paler than a ghost and looked like he witnessed the world’s greatest horror. And Sam looked as confused as it could get. “Sam,” the Nephilim gawked, “why are you naked and covered in kale?”

Sam winced as if he got visibly punched in the gut. But Jack never got his answer, for all three of them refused to speak about it.

Tags: @luciferstempest @gabrielsbackbitches @jgvfhl @staycejo1 @blakechaos08 @qslucid

IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED AS WELL, JUST ASK!!

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

🏰⚔️🐲 DMODT- - ashamedly, it's not a real update. My anxieties decided to be a bit*h so I gamed for most of the night

Ignoring Erwin and the sword until the dishes were dried, Eren now stood at the kitchen table, staring down at the sword. It still gave him a bad feeling, and he still didn't particularly want to touch it. Despite the fact it was wrapped in thick furs, and was yet to be unwrapped "It's just a sword" Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Erwin, Eren wished he could voice his inner thoughts. If it was just a sword, then the three of them wouldn't be standing around the table and staring at it "It's uncomfortable" "For God's sake. Get out the way" Snatching up the bundled item, Erwin pulled the furs from the scabbard, before placing the sword down on the table much harder than was necessary. The teen was almost tempted to ask which God, Erwin was referring too. They all swore to god, but that changed from region to region and from religion to religion... Eren would have liked to think he'd have asked, if a pungent smell hadn't filled the room once the sword was unwrapped. Gagging, he turned from it, fanning his face in an attempt to dilute the stink. It was somewhere between fish left to rot in the sun for days, and the stink of a body left in a street to rot. But sickly sweet and nauseating at the some time "Eren?" Looking to his boyfriend, Levi's face was filled with concern "Sorry. It's just the smell... it's revolting" "What smell?" Taking a step away from the sword, he waved his hand at the offensive item. Picking the sword up, Levi sniffed at it, before shaking his head "I don't smell anything too bad... other than the dust. Is it really that bad?" "We're taking it to Historia. I don't care what you say, there's something not right about it" "Enough of these dramatics. You're a royal mage in employment by the court of Eldia, I command you to look at the sword" Levi growled at Erwin, the alpha looked ready to deck him, while Eren's stomach clenched so hard he hunched over in pain "Undo the command! You have no right to put a command on my omega!" "I can when he's ignoring what he's told. Look, I'll even make it easier for you" Taking the scabbard, Erwin ripped the thin leather ties off from around the hilt, drawing the blade as Eren screamed "Don't!" The effect was immediately, the moment the sword left its sheath. The blade began to shake, sending out a rhythmic pulse that Eren could only describe as the thud of a heart. Joining the pulsing, a sweet sharp melody seemed to play through the air, Erwin crying out in rage and pain, trying to release the sword, only to find his hand turning a deep blood red. Extending from his hand, long red tendrils began snaking their way up the alpha's arm, as if there were actual snakes beneath his skin, the skin bursting and cracking audibly as they pushed their way forward. As Levi grabbed for the sword, Eren's magic rose without his control. The power within him desperate to protect his rider and his alpha from the sinister danger. He had no control as he swung his hand out. His eyes were black as the world around the three of them exploded outwards. Containing in within a shimmering bubble of volatile magic, his fingers glowing red at the tips, as a large disc of wind severed Erwin's arm just above the elbow, sending a bloodied spiral spraying across the insides of the bubble. The blood rushed to clash against his magic, black weeping openings forming as his magic rose further to keep the substance contained. Clutching the stump of his arm, Erwin swayed on the spot. The blood gushing from the wound would kill the man at this rate. Tearing Erwin's hand from away, the omega pushed his fingers forward, sealing the open wound, in much the same way he'd sliced through Levi's clothes. Taking off the very outer layer of stump and cauterising the flesh as Erwin howled in pain, finding enough strength to backhand him so hard, Eren crashed into Levi. The contact from his rider, rushed to pull him back to reality, as the bubble of magic they were in, swirled and swept up the blood, forming a dozen differently sized, yet perfectly shaped black balls which fell to the floor... or at least what was left of the floor... in his altered state, the cabin had been completely destroyed, as had everything else in a 10 foot ring around where the building stood. But none of that mattered to him, all that mattered was the man beneath him. Scrambling off Levi, Eren snatched the sword up. Levi had managed to get most of if back within the scabbard, enough that he shouldn't look so worried. Sliding it in completely, his boyfriend's eyes widened "Le..." Fucking command! Something was wrong with his alpha, his own emotions so overwhelming he couldn't feel like as deeply as he usually could... dropping the sword, Eren's voice trembled "Master?" "I... got his blood... in my mouth" Turning as he pushed himself up, Levi's whole body clenched, his boyfriend heaving and clawing at the ground as black vomit splattered between his hand. Not giving two shits about possible infection, Eren threw himself back at Levi, his alpha throwing out a hand to stop him as he scrambled "Get back..." "No..." "Eren, get back!" "No! No... let me see..." He could see his magic trying to work, but on Levi's hands where the vomit has splashed up, festering wounds were beginning to form. Tearing his hand from Eren's line of sight, Eren's eyes filled with tears as black blood dribbled down Levi's chin, a smile appearing across his lover's lips that wasn't his own. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, before reality seemed to hit, everything that had happened in a few moments felt like it'd taken hours to transpire. Above them, the sky grew dark as Levi slumped forward, his body fitting and seizing on the ground. Still blind to all that had happened around them, Eren started fighting as an arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him from Levi's side. Snarling, he clawed at the unwelcome hold, not caring who it was, only that they were taking him from Levi's side "Eren! Snap out of it!" Historia's soft voice came from beside his ear, Ymir grabbing the sword off the ground "Steege's got him. I'll grab the big stupid one, you make sure he doesn't lose control again" "Eren, we need to move. Can you stop crying for me? I need to know what happened?" The teen's breath hitched, shaking his head as he tried to fight Historia again. "Levi was hurt". "Levi is dying". The two sentences played on repeat. Their bond felt wrong, and Eren couldn't stop ugly crying if he'd wanted to... Coming to Levi, Steege hurled him up and over his shoulder, like Levi was a sack of flour and not the love of Eren's life "Lee!" "Eren..." Sobbing and grabbing for Levi, Historia hefted Eren off his feet. She might be slight and quite petite for a dragon rider, but she had the strength to lift him and carry him as if he were a toddler "Lee!" "We've got him. We've got him, Eren. I need you to breathe for me" Fuck breathing. He wanted Levi! He wanted his alpha! Levi was in so much pain... and it was all his fault. If he'd thought. If he hadn't used his magic. If he'd insisted on calling Historia... If... if he'd been better... He knew there was something wrong with the sword! He'd known it! "Eren, calm down. You're not making sense. We've got you, and the prince. We're taking you up to the house" He didn't know if he was saying everything out loud or if Historia was using her magic to get a feel for what he was going through, but he knew he needed Levi "Need... him. I can't lose him... I can't..." Hauled up to the manor, Eren still couldn't bring himself back under control. Taken beneath the manor house, he had no idea where Levi had been taken. No. Instead of being with his suffering lover, he was stuck in a medium sized room used for overflow staff, with Historia, Ymir and Erwin. Forced to sit on the edge of one of the single beds, Eren dissolved past sobs and into whimpers and whines. Sitting beside him, Historia gathered him into her arms, whispering words of comfort as her magic went to work soothing him. He couldn't get the image of Levi's skin rotting, or that revolting black vomit ruining his alpha's beautiful face. Holding him until he was finally calmed enough to collect his thoughts, he still felt immensely ill. His skin had begun to itch, while a fever was starting to set in. Neither his nor Historia's magic seemed to be making a difference. Sitting herself down on the other side of her mate, Ymir held the stupid sword that had started it all. Erwin was now out cold, snoring in the bed across from them. Most probably a spell to make him sleep, so he wouldn't feel any extra pain from his wound. Kissing his temple, Historia rubbed his arm softly "Eren? Can you tell me what happened?" "It's all my fault... Historia, it's all my fault" "Can you tell me what happened? What do you know about this sword?" Sniffling, Eren shook his head "It was the sword Zeke wanted" "The one with the egg?" "Y-yeah... I wanted to bring it to you, but he... he commanded me to look at it... I didn't... it smelt so bad. I didn't want to, but when he drew the blade... I'm going to be sick" As Eren threw up on the floor, Historia held him upright "Ymir, can you please retrieve Freya. I need her help to stabilise Eren. Also, make sure my father doesn't know about the sword" "Historia, he destroyed the whole cabin. Rod's going to want an explanation" "I don't care. Right now, we have a gravely ill rider and a dragon responding to his condition. We also have a prince who's now lost an arm, and absolutely no explanation as to why all of this happened, other than this sword. Erwin wouldn't be able to describe things as accurately as Eren can, but I can't stabilise him without Freya" * Slipping into a fevered state, Eren didn't respond to anything Freya or Historia tried. He felt as if he were dying, and if he was to, he wanted to see Levi one last time. Still beneath the manor, he had no need to worry about Mikasa and Armin. They'd be taken care of, he knew Historia would see to that, as would Erwin. The prince had already been moved to another room, for which Eren was grateful. He hated the man seeing him writhing in pain from the fever and the never ceasing burning of his skin. He couldn't eat, he couldn't drink, his temperature wouldn't lower and he no longer had control of most of his bodily functions. Each cough he gave was wet and bloody, his lungs not having been this bad for years. All he wanted was to see Levi again. When Ymir took Historia's place beside his bed, Eren knew he'd have a better chance at seeing Levi again. Being a dragon, she knew the love they felt towards their riders. She knew the desperate need to be by her riders side. Coughing as he fought to push himself up, Ymir scowled down at him "Quit moving, you idiot" "Need... to... see... him" The rattling in his lungs was so dry that even Ymir looked uncomfortable. It wasn't like she never showed emotion, she just usually limited it to all things Historia "No one's allowed to see him" "P-please... Ymir" It was useless trying to be playful, or jokingly fluttering his eyelashes. He could see on her face that she was waiting for him to die. Sighing exaggeratedly, Ymir dusted herself off as she rose "If you get your blood on me, I'm not going to forgive you" "Sorry... I can't make any promi..." His coughs cut him off, so did Ymir as gathered him up "You fucking stink. I hope you know that. Rod's absolutely livid. Freya's been out of it since she did a reading on that sword of yours, and the shitty Eldia prince is making demands to. He wants to see Levi, but that's not happening. Oh! Oh! Your little friends refuse to leave, and now I have to share my Historia. You lying down here dying, is probably the safest place in the whole manor" If he could have laughed, he would have. Despite her harsh words, there was no real bite in them, it was just how Ymir was... There was probably more than few questions over what had happened, and they were lucky that the incident had been contained. If the visiting dragons and their riders had been effected, the whole dragon populace would have been in threat. Chained to the oracle's altar beneath the manor, Levi had been left alone. Feeling anger flaring as his magic jerked back from their boyfriend, Eren didn't care. It didn't matter if Levi was under the affects of whatever happened, he was still the man he'd fallen for. Approaching his alpha, it was clear the curse had hit Levi ten times worse than him. His boyfriend rose to kneel, snarling and hissing as they came closer, tugging on his chains "Put me down" "Eren, he's not right in the mind" "It's ok, Ymir" If Levi wanted to kill him, that was ok. If his blood on Levi's hands was what it took to calm his alpha, that was also ok. Wobbling as the blankets fell from his shaking frame, Eren tried not to let his fear show. This was his Levi... just a little different from normal "Eren?" "It's fine, Ymir. You can leave us" "But..." "It's ok... it's what I want" Thank god for heightened senses. He could barely hear his own words, but Ymir heard, cursing him as she left. Making it to the altar, Levi laughed a cruel high laugh. Not his alpha at all. Collapsing forward, Eren grabbed the altar, engulfed by a sick feeling. Reaching out, Levi grabbed him by the throat, pulling him in to sniff deeply. With each movement, Levi's joints seemed to crack, the sores across his face popping and running as Levi held his gaze "You pitiful thing. You're dying and they do nothing" Sniffing louder, Levi pulled him up upon the altar by his throat, growling and clicking with his tongue, when Eren tried to help himself up. Flopping uselessly on the altar, Levi moved to straddle him. This wasn't his Levi, but how could he look at the man and think of anything other than his lover. Moving his free hand to his forehead, a blissfully cold feeling flooded his burning body, Levi's voice filled with annoyance "You're the one who heals this body, but couldn't heal yourself. You stupid fool" How was he supposed to heal something he didn't understand, and something Historia didn't understand. If she, a healer, couldn't figure it out, what chance did he have?! "Still. You're not without your charms... Sleep" Sleep was not kindly gifted. Levi's hand squeezing his throat so he couldn't breathe. His chest shook as he choked on his own coughs... this wasn't his boyfriend. Levi would never raise a hand to hurt him so. Left with no choice, all he could do was pass out beneath the man, wondering if he'd wake again. * A soft warm bed and the warmth of the sun were the first things Eren noticed. Groaning, the teen rolled over, nuzzling into the pillow in attempt to fall back to sleep. Feeling the bed dip, the omega whined his annoyance at whoever dared to wake him "Eren?" Levi?! That was Levi's voice! Shooting up, he headbutted his boyfriend in his hurry. Hissing, Levi rubbed his head as they both fell away from each other "God! What the fuck was that?! Why is your head so fucking solid!?" Rubbing at his forehead, his magic was already healing the impact, while his brain felt bruised "L-m-master?" Dragging himself back up, Eren looked to Levi. His eyes filling with tears as he did "You scared us. You weren't getting better, then you slipped into a coma. We... we weren't sure if you'd wake" A what now?! What? He'd been sick and Levi hadn't been Levi... They'd been down beneath the manor, and now... the sores were gone and Levi, Levi was looking human... not like the thing chained down on the altar. He was so confused... "But... you? The sword? What happened?!" This felt like his Levi... but not... but more than before... Levi sighed, turning to sit facing him "We need to have a talk about that, but first..." "No! Just... what happened? I remember being sick, and I remember you were sick. You were covered in sores, and vomiting black blood stuff... and Fluffybrows gave me a second command..." "Calm down, you're talking a million miles an hour" Maybe this was a dream?! Or was that the dream?! He'd headbutted Levi, and it'd hurt like hell... but he'd felt like he was dying. Confused, his scent flared as he drew his knees to his chest. He'd been sick... and now... "Eren?" "I don't understand" Reaching out, Levi cupped his cheek, tilting his face up to look the alpha in the eyes. His touch was just as warm as he remembered... but Levi's eyes... there was a blackness in there that he didn't remember "We need to talk, but first Historia has to make sure you're alright. A lot has happened while you were unconscious" "You?" "We'll talk. I'll be right outside that door" What? No. He wasn't awake enough to be talking, let alone sorting his chaotic thoughts into something tangible. He'd woken up like two minutes ago, been headbutted and formed the words. And now Levi was leaving?! "I... I don't want you to go" "You'll be fine with Historia" Leaving him, Eren felt as if Levi was dismissing him. Normally the alpha would have stayed, especially with the way his scent was at the moment. Rushing into his room, Historia seemed happier to see him awake than Levi had "Eren! You scared me!" "I'm sorry" Dropping down in the same spot Levi had sat in, Historia smiled softly "It's so nice to see you awake. We've all been so worried" "Historia... what's going on. I... I'm so confused. He... he was coughing up black vomit... and now he won't talk about it" "He's the most stubborn patient our healers have ever met" "You're the predominant healer of the household" "That's how I know. Now, let me have a little touch" Reaching out her hand, Eren jerked back from her magic, taking them both by surprise "I'm not going to hurt you..." "I know. I'm sorry. I don't know what that was" "I do. You're scared and confused. Don't worry, I just want to make sure your infection has passed" "Infection?" Placing her palm against his forehead, Historia sighed softly "I think you're safe. You got quite ill there for a while, your magic was trying to heal you and causing you more harm than good" "I don't know what happened... Erwin drew the sword, than everything went to shit... and Levi... he was chained up down on the oracle's altar, and it was him. It was him, but it wasn't him. Historia, what's going on?" Sitting back, the princess closed her eyes. Eren knew she probably needed a moment to collect her thoughts, but he wasn't in the mood for any of this "Please... Historia, please" Opening her eyes, Historia pulled her hand back "The sword they brought, it... it was made with a scale from Obsydin. Smith had sworn all of him had been burned, yet the man kept a sword made from his bone, fangs, tears and scale. I'm so sorry, Eren. If it'd stayed in Eldia, this never would have happened... if... if we'd just taken a look while were in Eldia. If we'd taken a look when Freya had examined the egg..." Historia's blue eyes filled with tears, the princess seeming so very human as she wiped at her face. Obsydin was bad news, but now he... Was Levi infected by Erwin's blood? No. Levi had been infected by Erwin's blood... but it was just a sword. Erwin had said it was just a sword... "Historia, you need to explain right now. I need to know what's wrong with my boyfriend. I need to know if everything actually happened, and why he's acting like nothing at all happened. I need to know what's going on" Historia wiped her cheeks dry, though her eyes remained wet with fresh tears "I'm sorry. You're right. Freya examined the sword, and it was indeed part of Obsydin. You know how dragon magic works, how it seeps into the soil, and how all things are connected. An egg and a clutch cannot hatch without feeding from the magic of its parents. Obsydin's egg was devoid of that chance, but the sword..." Eren nodded. It'd been part of the great dragon, imbued with all of his magic... "Despite it's being locked away, there was magic left in the scale. If it'd been left down there for a few more decades, it would have become just a pretty ornament. Even with your magic in the castle. Here... here is where he lived. Where his clutch lived... his blood and their blood stains this soil" It was like how he returned his scales to the ground, as an offering to Earth, only their offering hadn't been willingly given. They'd probably cursed Draecia as they burned "