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daniel306gaming · 2 years

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¿What if Peter Parker asked Wanda for help in Spider-Man No Way Home?

To: Tom Holland, Elizabeth Olsen, Jon Watts, Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios

Intro

¿What if events went differently in the MCU? ¿What if Peter asked Wanda for help in Spider-Man No Way Home? In today’s fan fiction we’re going to be exploring what would have happened if Peter Parker would ask Wanda for help in erasing everyone’s knowledge of his identity as Spider-Man instead of Doctor Strange in No Way Home. ¿How can this affect the multiverse going forward? This is my own take of events taking inspiration from the 2007-08 One More Day and 2014-15 Spider-Verse story arcs with elements from the 2010 One Moment in Time comic while following the mythology of Spider-Man and Scarlet Witch and the timeline of the MCU. Without wasting anymore time sit back and relax and enjoy this dark fan fiction.

Prologue

There are several parallel universes each separated by a certain occurrence in the mainstream of time. These universes come together to form the multiverse in which each one of them is unique for its own specific event. In the end it is only I the Watcher who oversees the happenings of all these worlds but I must not intervene as the principles of my existence will put the multiverse at risk. In our universe there existed a certain name. A kid named Peter Parker. The young man had spent a great deal of his life being a vigilante famously known as Spider-Man. But the burden of saving a populated world proves difficult for one child to bear. This became very evident when Peter was outed as the Spider-Man by the villain known as Mysterio. To fix the mistake he had caused Peter had met with the former Sorcerer Supreme to erase the recent happenings and grant him the peaceful life he had wanted. However, this fractured the multiverse itself. Nevertheless today’s story will take a very different format as we will explore a world where Peter met another to help him undo his evident damage. A woman whose only darkened her soul. I am the Watcher. I am ur guide to these vast new realities. Follow me and pounder the question. What If…

Story

The events of No Way Home were playing out the same as in our universe. Peter sat in his house biting his lip as he looked out the window. He could not believe that he was outed as Spider-Man. He could not believe that he was an infamous superhero. Now of course his pasts deeds of heroism had brought him into the spotlight. However, a certain villain named Mysterio had ensured the opposite happened when he framed Peter for his death. He had previously gone to Ned and MJ hoping they had gotten acceptance letters into their colleges. However, just like him they had been rejected. It was evident that this rejection was a result of their affiliations with Spider-Man. Peter knew that he needed to change everything. He would be able to endure everything that happened to him but he would not be able to endure the pain and the circumstances inflicted on his friends. Now it was time to meet a friend. He spotted Strange cleaning up the snow filled Sanctum with Wong. Peter instantly hoped that his prayers were now answered. He smiled as he approached the former Sorcerer Supreme requesting a favor from him. Or course this favor was a huge one as Strange had to cast a forbidden spell erasing the memories of everyone who knew Peter Parker as Spider-Man. It was a spell that even Wong advised against. It was a surprising turn of events. Strange looked into Peter’s eyes and told him that he would be unable to cast the spell as he now respected the laws of nature and balance. Peter would have to find another way to salvage his current predicament. A frustrated Peter walked out of the tower cursing beneath her breath. Wanda sat on her chair with her eyes buried into the deep mess of the Darkhold. She could feel her magic expanding as red expressions of energy shadowed the entire room. She knew what she needed and that was the power of the multiverse. With this power she would find a world her children were alive in and be with them but she could not find the power she sought. A situation frustrated her even more as her mind wandered in the deep trenches of the Darkhold. She began to sense feelings of frustration digging deeper. She realized that she had felt these feelings before coming from a certain young man who she had once befriended. A man who fought against her when she assisted Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. She would have to find Peter Parker and would have to render assistance to him. Peter then sat on his couch hoping his door was locked properly. He would not have another person coming to see and comfort him. Aunt May had down her very best but she could see that it was not working. Nothing could change the truth. Peter had ruined the lives of his friends. If only Peter knew he would ruin the lives of several others. There was a knock on the door and May opened it surprised to see it was a red-haired woman stepping into the building. She had a wonderful smile and some gorgeous eyes. She also had a cake in her hand. May knew she had seen this woman before. Then it hit her. “¿You’re the woman who blew up that building in Lagos right?” May asked. Wanda smiled ensuring she kept her magic in check. If she wanted to win Peter’s trust she would have to play nice. Wanda responded positively saying that she had assisted Peter in the fight against Thanos. She added that she had seen the news and wanted to make sure if Peter was alright. May smiled and pointed her hands at Peter’s room but May felt that something was amiss. She could not place it as the human heart is as weak as it is confused in some circumstances. Peter was surprised to see his door opened and Wanda stepped in smiling. As she approached him he jerked up from his bed embarrassed as he only had her underwear on. With a flicker of her fingers Peter found himself fully dressed. Wanda immediately asked him how he was feeling as she had heard the news. A frustrated Peter went ahead to spell out the recent events allowing his mind to be opened to Wanda. She could see the fear and guilt he had in his heart. He was susceptible enough for her. Before Peter could realize that he had talked too much he had noted the fact that he had gone to obtain assistance from Doctor Strange which Wanda chuckled to Peter. Peter seemed surprised to see that Wanda possessed no type of anger at his last concluded act. Then it hit him. He could ask her for assistance as she was sort of a sorcerer too. If only he knew that she was counting on his desperation. Of course Wanda tried to play the safe way. Knowing that performing a spell would be too dangerous and she did not want her powers to get out of hand. Peter responded by telling her that there was no need for her to worry ensuring that he included every possible expectation he needed to do. All Wanda needed was the spell to perform and he had to get it for her. Peter knew that he would have to steal it from Strange himself. Peter arrived at the Sanctum Sanctorum pleased that Strange was nowhere in sight. He hoped that he would be able to access the library that he had spotted earlier and get that spell from Wanda. As he moved he was quietly surprised to bump into Wong. “¿What are you doing here?” He asked stuttering. Peter said that he came to apologize to Strange for his earlier actions and that he really needed a friend to talk to him saying that it was something about what he said. This made Wong smile and Wong moved to get them a drink so that they could talk. Of course Peter used the moment to access the library when Wanda inquired on why Peter returned so late. He appealed that they shouldn’t talk about it which seemed fine by her. Peter handed over the pages to her which was engraved in a rather old piece of paper. Wanda collected the spell smiling to herself as she prepared to perform her magic. “¿Are u ready for this?” she wandered. A hint of concern showed instantly in her eyes. Peter noted that he would do anything to help MJ and Ned. Wanda smiled and began to cast the spell. Fortunately Peter was no sorcerer. He would not know the changes she had made to the spell and she made neigh changes to shatter the fabric of space and time. Strange sat in his chamber closing his eyes while he let his mind to wander. He was engaged in a meditation exercise that the Ancient One once taught him before she passed away. Suddenly, he felt chills go up his spine as he opened his eyes in shock. At that moment he knew something was wrong. The first name popped into as he heaved a frustrating sigh. “¿Peter, what have u done?” He said in his head. Ned and MJ could not believe her ears as Peter narrated everything to them including how Wanda had successfully made everyone in the entire universe forget that he was Spider-Man except the expectations he had mentioned to her. Ned made a comment about getting married to this Wanda eventually and Peter replied that she was not her type. As Peter turned to MJ he could not help but notice that MJ was definitely uncomfortable with the situation. “¿Are u okay?” He asked her hoping she was indeed alright. MJ noted that while she was glad at the extent of the sacrifice he made. She would have preferred he had met with the colleague administrators. Peter stopped her mid-sentence and promised that everything would be alright now and that everyone had forgotten about the events with Mysterio. However, MJ was not finished. Apparently she had already contacted the college and after a few favors the administrator agreed to put them on the consideration list. Shocked at MJ’s lack of trust in him Peter looked at Ned and realized that Ned was fully aware of MJ’s plans. Hurt by his friends he stepped out of the restaurant only to be knocked out by a large tentacle. Before Peter could recover from his brutal attack the tentacle came again striking him down with force. Then the tentacle grabbed and lifted him up. Apparently he applied a lot of force crushing his bones. Only then did Peter have a good look at his attacker. This was a man who had a lot of machines attached to his body. He seemed dangerous and moreover ready to kill Parker. The surrounding civilians had already fled with MJ and Ned taking a hiding position. As the tentacled man prepared to strike again a piece of metal flung towards his neck. The metal had made contact with that soft spot causing the being to fall crashing down. Ned and MJ looked in shock as the famous Wanda Maximoff came out of a corner and carried Peter’s unconscious body away. Strange could not hide his surprise when his attempt to teleport the madman who has attacked the restaurant and civilians including Spider-Man himself ended up bringing 2 high school kids to him. They had coming with the already deceased man appearing in the Sanctum with him. Strange listened in shock as he heard everything. The kids said that if Wanda had taken Peter then there was something very wrong truly. He intended to sent these beings back to their dimensions but right now they had a priority which was to bring Peter home but as he thought about Wanda he knew that he couldn’t be too careful with the kind of magic he possessed. He was going to have to bring backup. He closed his eyes and began to chant. Wanda smiled as she let her magic flow out of her system. With the multiverse now broken thanks to the spell that Peter had given to her she could manipulate this to get what she wanted but inside she knew she would need another source of power and she would do everything possible to find that power and use it to her advantage. For now she celebrated as the broken multiverse only made it much easier for her. Then, she began to sense a strange presence in her room. She lifted herself up as she was preparing herself for battle. The former sorcerer supreme came to have a little chat. Seeing her fighting stance Strange assured Wanda that he was just here to talk. Wanda laughed as she knew that their conversation would most likely end in more than just a talk. When Strange asked her why she casted the spell for Peter she said that she did it for a personal reason and he would not understand as he was too busy protecting the balance of the multiverse. Strange assured her that whatever was the issue that they could fix it together. However, what did she gain in casting the spell and abducting Parker. Wanda chuckled and noted that she had met Doctor Octopus a few minutes after he appeared in their world. Using her magic she spelled him to attack Peter ensuring he was weakened enough. Of course Peter would think she tried to save him and after the amount of anger that he just read from her mind it made the spell that she could cast a lot easier. Strange was shocked to see a red-eyed Peter step out of the shadows. He looked vile and ready to kill. At that moment Strange placed himself in a fighting stance. To Wanda’s shock she saw 2 new Spider-Men drop aside Strange. Strange noted that Wanda was not the only one who could ignore the rules of the space-time continuum to suit her agenda. Wanda snapped her fingers forcing Peter to attack his fellow counterparts. Peter-Two and Three shot webs at Parker occasionally eventually hoping to circle and put him down for good. However, Peter seemed like he was stronger and faster than the both of them combined. Of course he had been boosted by Wanda’s dark magic. Strange on the other hand battled Wanda and they fought viciously until Wanda used her magic to pin him to the ground. Wanda turned around to see that Peter-Two and Three were having a hard time with her minion. With a smile she waved her hands and pinned the 2 Spider-Men to the floor as well. She smiled to Peter and he smiled back with his red eyes still glowing. As Strange laid on the floor he casted one more spell. There was a pin drop of silence. Aunt May’s voice echoed in the chamber mentioning that Peter had more than enough goodness to fight off Wanda’s spell. He was a hero no matter what the world tried to think of him and it was time he started acting like one. He had a responsibility that he had to fulfill and he had to save his friends. Peter’s eyes hit wet as a teardrop fell. Aunt May had always known the right things to say. Wanda was mad as she turned to Peter. She was shocked when the young man shot a web flying towards her. In response she used her magic to fling him across the room. Peter landed on a sharp piece of metal crying out in the process. Wanda yelled in frustration with Peter injured. The spell that would shattered the multiverse had been broken. She quickly used her magic to fly anyways. Strange got up from the floor and rushed towards Peter. He looked up at Strange and apologized for everything. He should have trusted his friends more indeed. MJ kneeled beside Peter’s grave. Her eyes showed no emotion. She had been like this for the past 2 hours and she had no intentions of leaving. Strange stood beside her and she held her breath. She was going to avenge Peter’s death. She would join Strange and they would start searching for the Scarlet Witch…

To be continued in ¿What if Another Multiversal War happened in the MCU?

THE END!

And that is going to be it for what if Peter asked Wanda for help in Spider-Man No Way Home. Now this could setup a possible part 2 but I’m gonna leave that cliffhanger to u guys as you’ll will decide what will happen next and see how this could lead to an alternate version of Multiverse of Madness. ¿Will they be able to defeat the Scarlet Witch and avenge Peter or become Wanda’s next victims? Be on the lookout for more what ifs coming soon. Take care guys and have a fantastic day. Peace out!

#marvel studios #multiverse saga

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daily-chubby-logan · 3 years

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[ID: a three panel comic. In the first, a tombstone reading 'mod wil' can be seen. in the second, a hand pops up from the dirt in front of it. in the third, mod wil leans on the dirt, upper torso visible. wing has hair that goes just below its chin, feathered wings, and is wearing a labcoat. xe have multiple eyes on the left side of his face. she looks shocked and dazed. a speech bubble above his head reads 'holy shit.' end ID.]

im not dead, yay :] i have a lo post that'll be coming just a few minutes after this! but for now- how're y'all? how many of you are dream smp fans now? -🛸

#mod wil #not daily #mod post #i come back bearing a name change and forbidden knowledge #death ment #dsmp ment

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fromthedeskofelizabeththird · 4 years

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Exercises in Self Control

It's been five years since Endeavour divorced his wife and sent her away to a hospital.

You are his second bride and all he wants is to see you naked. Based on the short story 'The Tiger's Bride' by Angela Carter. You can find a summary of it here

Fandom: BNHA

Pairing: Endeavor x Reader

Rating: Explicit. Minors BE GONE

Trigger Warnings: Possessive behaviour, (it’s Endeavor, I mean, c’mon), Endeavor pre-redemption arc who’s still learning boundaries, references to suicide (not Reader), references to Touya,

Endeavor is spelled Endeavour because I’m British mmkay

AO3: Here | Want to support me? I have a Kofi

Your father lost you in a game of cards.

On the surface he was a respectable man, owner of several businesses and an outspoken member of the local community. He also spent much of his free time in underground gambling dens, betting more money than he could possibly afford on poker and mahjong. By the age of fourteen, you had made peace with the fact that you would never go to college. By seventeen, you had dropped out of high school and taken on a job in a hostess bar. By twenty-five you paid almost all of the rent and took full responsibility for getting the groceries and maintaining the house.

On good days, your father would return with diamonds and tiaras and remind you and your mother that you had come from rich stock. On bad days strange men would come knocking at your door, demanding the money your father owed. It was too much for your mother, whose family ran most of Roppongi. Prior to her relationship with your father, she had never had to go without. The shame of it ate away at her until there was nothing left; finally claiming her life when you were sixteen.

You decided at her funeral that you had nothing left to lose.

Oh, how wrong you were.

You were twenty-seven when the unthinkable happened and your father finally lost everything.

Well. Almost everything.

Two weeks later, the strangest and most frightening man of all arrived at your home, ready to change your lives forever.

You knew his name, of course. Everyone did. He was Endeavour, the world’s number two hero, as famous for his flames as he was his stern demeanour. He dominated every room he entered; easily more terrifying than any yakuza you had ever met.

Your father urged you to make tea and then promptly dismissed you, which in itself wasn’t unusual. He hated discussing business matters with you or your late mother in the room, mostly because he didn’t want you to know how dire your situation actually was.

It was the first and last time you gave in to curiosity.

You stayed outside of your father’s door and listened in on the plotting within. Endeavour made a proposal shortly after; a business deal so terrible that your knees buckled underneath you and you had to hold onto the door frame.

He would settle your father’s debts and buy each one of his businesses, but in exchange he wanted to marry you.

Surely your father wouldn’t accept such a fate for you? Surely he wouldn’t agree to have you marry a man thirteen years your senior that you didn't even know?

You had heard that Endeavour was married with children. What on earth did he want with you?

You threw yourself into his office before you could stop yourself.

“Please,” you begged. “Please don’t do this!”

You fell to your knees in front of your father, but the decision had already been made. Endeavour honoured his side of the deal there and then, transferring a down payment to your father’s account, with the promise of more after the wedding.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

You were married to Endeavour two days later. There was no ceremony or celebration and you signed away your life while your father counted his money.

The only pretty part of the wedding was the bouquet of white roses your soon to be husband delivered to your door and even then you cut your finger on the thorns. Endeavour took one look at the bloody smears on their beautiful white petals and appeared quite disgusted, burning them on the spot.

You thought of them as you climbed into the back of his car and bit back tears all of the way to your new home. You had sacrificed so much already, but losing any chance at love hit you the hardest. You told yourself that this was the way things had to be; that if you didn’t marry this man, your father would end up dead or worse.

Even so, you couldn’t help but wonder how things might have played out if the roles were reversed. Your father would throw anything he had at a chance of glory, but you weren’t so sure that extended to his loved ones.

You supposed it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered now was the man sitting beside you. In certain lights he didn’t look human; teeth fractionally too long and eyes too sharp. He did not speak his vows, so much as growl them.

You were going to have to have sex with this monster of a man and that knowledge left you twisting and turning your hands in your lap.

You expected him to take you to one of his other apartments, but in the end he took you to his main residence, opening the car door for you in silence and gesturing for you to follow him up the path. His house was massive and you shivered as you saw it, suddenly convinced that it wasn’t only your husband who would swallow you whole.

Every room your husband took you to was bare, as if the house was merely for show and not a family home. His staff stared at you as you passed, as curious of the new bride as any other exotic animal. You wondered how they saw you. Did they think you were despicable to even consider replacing the previous Mrs Todoroki? Did they look at your bright eyes and white wedding dress and think of you as a lamb to the slaughter? Did they think you were a whore? A jezebel who seduced their master for his money? They kept their cards close to their chest.

You weren’t sure what was stranger about the experience: the absurd circumstances behind your arrival at the residence; the way your husband gruffly pointed out each room to you; the fact that even now that you were his wife, he never once looked you in the face. It was all so very overwhelming and you couldn’t help but feel dizzy.

Endeavour’s children had been noticeably absent from the wedding. You knew that the circumstances were unconventional, but it surprised you nonetheless. You were going to be their stepmother. This would be a strange period for all involved.

As it happened, they were absent from their family home too, not only in presence, but sentiment. He pointed out each of his children’s rooms and skimmed over their ages, but that was the only sign they existed at all.

Fuyumi was seventeen, Natsuo fourteen and Shoto the youngest at ten. He passed by the final room with little in the way of acknowledgement, though you paused to read the name on the door.

Touya

The door was ajar, with just enough space for you to see inside, though you didn’t get the chance, for your husband noticed you weren’t following and came back to take you by the arm.

“You won’t be going into that room,” he said, without a hint of doubt in his voice.

You wondered why such an innocuous room was forbidden, though didn’t get the chance to wonder about it for long, as you arrived at the master bedroom.

Of all of the rooms in the house, this was the emptiest. It had a king sized bed with plain white bed covers, a dressing table and simple wardrobe and a set of bedside drawers. That was it, though. There were no photographs on the walls, no bookshelves, no possessions. Much like the rest of the house, it was as if no one lived there. The closest thing to a personal item was the mirror on the dressing table.

Endeavour closed the door behind you and it echoed on your senses, like the snap of a bear trap around your ankle. You were alone with him now, far away from home, with no one to save you or take you away. Your eyes filled with tears before you could stop them.

“Strip,” he said, with no room for argument.

“No,” you whispered, hugging your arms around your body.

You didn’t want this. You didn’t want any of this and didn’t bother anymore to hide it. You didn’t want to offer up your body to him. You couldn’t think of anything more frightening or distasteful than his hands on your skin.

“Strip,” he said again, but you refused him just as before.

It was just as you had feared; this man wasn’t used to or fond of being told ‘no’.

He grabbed one of the arms you had been using to shield your body. He was strong, too strong, and your attempts to resist were fruitless.

“We won’t be having sex,” he said, as if it would comfort you, “but I will see you.”

For some reason, that only made you cry harder. He squeezed your arm, sending a rush of heat through your skin.

“No,” you said, voice trembling and arm stinging. “I’d rather die.”

You looked up into his face and realised that this was the first time since his arrival on your doorstep that he’d actually looked at you. His gaze drifted from your tearful face to your heated arm to the cut on your finger from the wedding bouquet. You hadn’t gotten the chance to put on a band aid. He stared at the dressing table mirror behind you for an uncomfortably long time.

Something changed in his expression and he dropped your arm, saying nothing as you held it to your body. He said nothing, in fact, even as he left the room and slammed the door shut behind him, leaving you alone in the enormous bedroom.

You dropped to the floor and hugged your knees to your chest, sobbing silently at this terrible sequence of events. You hated your father, hated your new home, hated the heavy footsteps of your new husband as he prowled the hallways.

You stared into the dressing table mirror as he had, taking in your tearstained face and white wedding dress. You knew that under different circumstances you were beautiful. There had never been any point in denying it. You had taken advantage of it at the hostess bar, using your youth and good looks to make a fortune.

You were not beautiful then, though. Your hair was a mess and your arm pink where he’d held onto you. You rubbed the tears from your eyes and got to your feet, stepping closer to the mirror and loosening your gown.

He had told you that he would not have sex with you, and you wondered why, running your fingers over your exposed chest. Many men had tried and failed to get you into bed, be it buying expensive trinkets or leaving you hefty tips. You were all too aware that your body was the only thing you had left to barter and Endeavour meant to take ownership of that too. He had not lost control that day, but someday he would.

You vowed that you would never allow it, no matter what it took.

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You spent the evening listening out for Endeavour’s footsteps in the hall, waiting for the inevitable moment he came back to the bedroom, to sleep if nothing else. He never came back, though, and you fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, sprawled across the bed.

You woke a matter of hours later with a crick in your neck, eyes burning from keeping them open for so long. You squeezed your eyes shut and willed your surroundings to be different when you opened them. With any luck, you’d wake up back in your own bed to your own alarm clock, your father calling for you to get up and make coffee.

That’s not what happened, though. You were still in the master bedroom at Endeavour’s house -now your house- in the same wedding dress you’d had on the night before. You wondered what time it was. Sunlight shone through the blinds but, given it was the middle of summer, that didn’t mean much. It could have been four in the morning or two in the afternoon.

Someone was trying to wake you, though, someone knocking at your door far too gently to be your husband. You sat up and hobbled over to the door, wondering what on earth would greet you when you opened it.

In the end, you need not have worried.

It was a member of the house staff, clutching a pile of clothes and letting herself into the room the moment you opened the door.

“Good morning,” she said without looking at you, setting the clothes down onto the bed. “I’m here to get you ready for breakfast.”

“Oh, I…”

“Mr. Todoroki has decided you should wear this today,” she said, picking up a white summer dress from the pile.

“Thank you,” you said, “but I-”

You had clothes of your own. You remembered packing them the day before your wedding.

“Your bathroom is across the hallway,” she said, as if you’d said nothing at all. “Let me know if there’s something else you require.”

You accepted the outfit she held out to you, deciding to humour her for now. You would change into your own clothes when she wasn’t looking.

“One more thing,” she said, as you headed for the door. “Mr. Todoroki wanted you to have this.”

She held out a small jewellery box and you stared at it, picking it up in curiosity. You already had a wedding ring, what could this be?

You didn’t want to open it while the other woman was there, so you carried it into the bathroom with you.

You had never had your own bathroom before and, much like everything else in the house, this one was unnecessarily large. Someone had filled the cupboards with everything you might need: freshly laundered towels, aspirin, soaps, a toothbrush still in its packaging. It was as if you had entered a hotel bathroom and not a room of your very own.

You opened up the jewellery box as you ran yourself a bath. Inside was a pair of diamond earrings that sparkled in the light. They were beautiful, undoubtedly, but you weren’t sure you wanted to wear them. You had worn your mother’s earrings almost every day since her funeral and didn’t want to change that now.

You closed the box and set it to one side, stealing glances at it as you soaked in the bathtub. You would thank your husband later. It was the least you could do.

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You arrived at the breakfast table a short while later, stomach fluttering from nerves and hunger. You had no idea what awaited you, only that your mouth watered at the smell of food, in no small part because you hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day.

The housekeeper showed you to the breakfast table and, for a moment, you wished you had stayed in your room. Suddenly you were the main focus of four sets of eyes.

Endeavour and his children all sat at the table, clearing their plates in silence. The children appeared more than a little baffled to see you there and your stomach churned. Something about this was very, very wrong.

“Sit,” said Endeavour, motioning to the seat closest to him. That wasn’t wholly necessary, for all three of his children seemed to have positioned themselves as far away from him as possible.

You crossed the room, conscious all of the time of everyone’s eyes on you.

“This is (Name),” said Endeavour as you sat down beside him. “She’s going to be your mother from now on.”

In that moment, you realised the real reason for his children’s absence at your wedding. This was the first they had heard about the marriage.

You couldn’t imagine how it must feel to be in their shoes. If your father had brought home a strange new woman following your mother’s death, you would almost certainly have hated her guts.

You wanted to tell them that you had about as much desire to be there as they did, but the tension in the room was too much to bear.

“I…”

The oldest of the two boys, presumably Natsuo, was the first to speak.

“What the hell do you mean? What...wh…”

“Natsuo,” murmured the girl, presumably Fuyumi. “Don’t…”

“Isn’t it enough that mother’s in a hospital because of you? Now you’re going to replace her with some...some…”

“Natsuo,” said Fuyumi, stopping her brother before he could land on the word ‘whore’.

Endeavour sipped his tea, apparently used to these sorts of outbursts. You wondered how many arguments could prompt this sort of indifference.

“As I said. (Name) is your new mother. You will give her the proper respect.”

Just as the night before, he offered no room for argument. The table fell into silence once again, though only for a matter of seconds.

“I’m not going to call her mother,” said Natsuo, to which his sister elbowed him in the ribs.

“Natsuo, that’s enough,” she hissed, before turning to you with a weak smile. “Welcome to the family...m…”

She cleared her throat, glancing from you to Endeavour, who watched her in turn.

“Mother.”

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Endeavour left for work shortly after, announcing that you were not to leave the grounds except to meet him at the door when he returned. Just like that, he left you alone with his children, two of which swiftly dismissed themselves from the table. Only the youngest remained and he stole glances at you every so often with his mismatched eyes. You wondered how he had ended up with such a prominent burn mark on his face. You told yourself you didn’t want to know.

He got to his feet after clearing his plate, conflict visibly playing out across his face.

“Excuse me,” he said, before leaving the room.

You picked at your food for a little while before giving up, Endeavour’s words playing over and over in your mind. You were not to leave the grounds. You were to be the mother of his children, but none of them would be yours. He would decide what clothes you wore, which rooms of the house you went in. You had come to him a virgin and, as he had no intention of having sex with you, would remain so for the rest of your life. Overnight your life had become just as muted as the white roses he had picked out for you.

You wondered why his previous wife had ended up in a hospital. Had her circumstances been at all similar to yours?

No, you decided, they couldn’t have been. She was the mother of each one of the children at his breakfast table. There had clearly been some sort of physicality between them.

In that case, why were you so different?

What had changed in the past few years?

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

After breakfast you went to your bedroom to change out of the summer dress and into your own clothes, only to make a shocking discovery. You remembered packing your clothes; remembered sobbing into them as you took them from your drawers. You had expected them to have been taken into your wardrobe or stored somewhere in your room, but you couldn’t find them anywhere. The only clothes in your wardrobe were the ones the housekeeper had brought in earlier.

You told yourself that it had to be a mistake. You rifled through the wardrobe and under your bed for a flash of colour or anything familiar, though found nothing of the sort. When you flagged down the house staff, they seemed just as confused as you. Mr. Todoroki had said nothing about your possessions coming to the house. He had, however, made it perfectly clear that you were to have new clothes based on his own incredibly specific preferences. You were to have nothing made of silk or satin, no lace embroidery or skirts above the knee. Your necklines were to be no lower than your collarbones and the heels on your shoes three inches high at most.

He meant for no one to see you but himself and that only made you more determined to hide yourself from view.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

Days passed, each as slowly as the next, a never ending cycle of silent meals, boredom and your husband’s predictable nightly visits. Every night, just as every night before it, he would close the door to your bedroom and speak the same single word.

“Strip.”

You refused every night and he pressed the matter over and over until he grew tired.

That first night was the only time he ever touched you. He did not lean down for a kiss when he returned to the house. He never once reached for your hands. He would slam the door behind him and stomp around the house but he did not try to drag your clothes off himself.

Weeks passed by, in fact, without you so much as sharing a bed. A lot of the time he did not even eat meals with the rest of the family. The house staff explained that he very often slept away from the main building, in a secluded part of the estate once reserved for his youngest son.

Sometimes you slept naked, just to spite him.

One day, you told yourself, he would get bored of your constant refusals and send you back to your father. Until then you would have to be resilient.

You thought you had everything worked out. You thought you had him all worked out.

As with so many other aspects of your life, though, you soon realised your mistake.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

Three weeks into your marriage, you sat on the porch with a bowl of shaved ice in an attempt to combat the summer heat. By then you knew every square inch of the garden; knew the title of every book in the house. As miserable as it was, the most exciting part of your day was waiting at the gate for your husband, but even that was hours from then.

Your only other source of entertainment was the cat that very often came to bask in the afternoon sun, though more recently had taken to nudging you for pets to the head. On this particular day, it was chasing butterflies through the garden and you laughed as you watched. You wished you could be as free as that cat, coming in and out of this household whenever you pleased. You missed your friends, missed going out for drinks, missed going shopping for new shoes. Hell, you even missed your father. You hadn’t heard from him since the wedding.

You took a spoonful of shaved ice, enjoying the cold against your tongue. For the briefest of moments, all was right in the world.

That is, until the butterfly the cat had been chasing changed course and flew into the house, leaving the cat to follow suit. You set down your bowl and cursed under your breath, getting up to catch it before chaos ensued.

You rushed through the hallways, peering into every corner for the cat or the butterfly and seeing neither. You wondered where they had gone and wandered deeper into the house.

The cat streaked across your path, heading towards the bedrooms and you gave chase, reaching out to catch it and following it through an open door. You didn’t stop to think about which room you had gone into, far too caught up in the euphoria of scooping the cat into your arms. The moment you turned to leave, however, you realised your mistake.

This room was even emptier than the others, save for an altar lined with photographs of the same boy. Touya, you realised. There was no one else it could be.

This was the room Endeavour had told you not to come into and in that moment you understood why. When your mother died, you had been angry at everyone; yourself for every argument you had ever had; your father for allowing such a tragedy to happen. You hadn’t wanted to go to her funeral, didn’t want to accept that any of it was real.

You couldn’t imagine how it felt to lose a child and it must have shown in your body language, for the cat suddenly wriggled out of your arms and escaped through the open door.

You hugged your arms around your body, a chill creeping up your spine. Touya gazed out at you from every photograph, the same stern look in his eyes that Endeavour had. You weren’t supposed to be there and even the room seemed to know.

“What are you doing here?”

Someone called to you from the doorway, dragging you out of your thoughts. You turned to see Natsuo standing there, practically trembling with anger.

“I,” you said, realising how it must have looked. “I’m sorry, I-“

“This is my brother’s room,” he said. “You have no right to be in here.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, “a cat came in here and...I’m sorry...I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn't,” said Natsuo. “Why would you? It’s not like he’d ever tell you the truth. Even the worst of the worst would turn their noses up if they knew.”

He laughed miserably and you wondered what he meant. No one would turn their noses up at a grieving parent.

“How does it feel,” he said, “being married to a murderer?”

At that, your blood ran cold.

“What are you talking about?”

You didn’t like where this conversation was going.

You remembered how you had felt on your wedding day; your observation that Endeavour was more monster than man.

You had fallen so far into good behaviour and small victories that you had forgotten your fear on that first night.

You clapped a hand over your mouth for fear that you’d be sick and stumbled back out of the house. You needed fresh air, needed to escape. You walked along the garden path and didn’t stop, leaving the grounds far behind you.

You knew Endeavour had forbidden you from leaving. You knew he would be furious when he returned home and found you gone. You couldn’t stop, though, walking as far as the business district before finally stopping for air.

You hadn’t planned any sort of escape and it showed. You had no money for train fare and had left your phone in the house.

There was really only one place you could go.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

White Rabbit was the best known hostess bar in Musutafu and for good reason. It was sleek and stylish and, most importantly, discreet. All of its employees were carefully vetted and given months of training, making their debut only when they were as confident at karaoke as they were making cocktails.

The bar didn't open until the evening, but the boss was always on site by noon, crunching numbers and checking stock.

He was polishing glasses at the bar when you walked through the door and it was immediately clear that he didn’t recognise you.

“Ahhh, apologies, we aren’t open just yet!”

“Not even to me?”

He froze when you got a little closer, eying you from head to toe.

“It can’t be… (Name)??!?!”

He set aside the glass before you could answer, rushing out from behind the bar to look at you properly.

“As I live and breathe,” he said, “I didn’t recognise you.”

You glanced at your reflection in a nearby mirror, taking in your sweaty face and modest dress. You weren’t sure you would have recognised yourself either in his position.

He drew you into a hug and it took everything you had not to cry. You were still a minor when you interviewed for a job in his bar, but he took you on anyway, concerned that if left to wander the streets you would end up somewhere far less reputable. He kept you in training until your eighteenth birthday and even then kept you away from one on one sessions until you turned twenty.

He poured you a drink and you gave him the bare bones of the past few weeks, from your sudden marriage to your new role as a stepmother to your husband’s desire for nothing more than to see you naked.

You said nothing of your earlier conversation with Natsuo. That part was still sinking in.

The boss nodded at just the right moments, though didn’t seem at all surprised by anything you told him.

“I did wonder if that would be the case,” he said at last. “I suppose I share some of the blame in this matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well...you see...I was the one who told him your name.”

“You what ?”

This wasn’t a betrayal, but it felt like one.

Your boss sighed and took a seat beside you, his own story to tell.

About a year and a half ago a man came into the bar, offering obscene amounts of money for his presence to be kept a secret. He refused to hand over his name and was almost unrecognizable without his costume or fiery beard, but your boss was far too clever to be fooled. He knew within an hour or two that this man was the flame hero and was only too happy to adhere to his requests. If Endeavour became a regular, there was a lot of money in it for him.

It paid off, for Endeavour did indeed become a regular, even if your boss didn’t fully understand his reasons until later. He had no interest in booking company and always ordered the same drink, demanding that only the boss waited on his table. He wanted to be left alone and drink in peace and for months that was exactly what he did.

That all changed about a year ago, when one of the hostesses caught his attention. You. Endeavour still wanted to drink in privacy, with only the boss to attend him, but he also wanted to be positioned where he could see you. You and only you were permitted to mix his drinks.

You could barely believe your ears at this new information. You remembered having to drop whatever you were doing to mix strawberry daiquiris for a VIP, though would never in a million years have guessed it was Endeavour.

The mystery of the Strawberry Daiquiri Man had plagued you for months. You had chatted about it with the other girls and even tried to wheedle details from your boss. He was a professional, though, and far too discreet to let anything slip.

Endeavour’s requests soon got out of hand. He paid extra to have you spend the night at the bar instead of entertaining customers. He gave you hefty tips, he had the boss send you jewellery, all of which you sold shortly after.

About six months ago he asked the boss how much he would have to pay to sleep with you, to which the boss refused to answer. Some things just weren’t for sale, even to a VIP. Of course, as you yourself knew quite well, Endeavour did not take kindly to being told no. He told the boss that he had to have you; he needed you to be his and his alone. After many not too subtle threats, be it asking how fire resistant the bar actually was to implying that he might look the other way the next time he learned of trouble in the area, the boss caved and told him your full name. He offered up no further information, but that was all it took for him to find you.

The rest, as they say, was history. He showed up on your doorstep and bought you from your father, finally possessing you completely.

“I don’t understand,” you said, stirring your soda with your straw. “On our wedding night he said he had no intentions of having sex with me...but you’re telling me he was willing to pay?”

“I think he would have done just about anything for the privilege. I’ve never seen a man so heated...so to speak.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” you said. “Any of it.”

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

The weight of recent revelations was almost too much. With your boss’s blessing, you let yourself into the dressing room upstairs to take a breather and evaluate your situation.

You hadn’t realised how much you missed the familiar scent of stale perfume and pot pourri that lingered in every corner. There was still a pile of glossy magazines on the dressing table; still a set of abandoned pantyhose draped over the stool. You had spent so much time there over the past decade that it felt like coming home.

You were tempted to sit down at the table and indulge yourself further, but had a sudden flash of inspiration. You hadn’t come into this room when you handed in your notice. You had been too upset at the prospect of never coming back. As a consequence, you hadn’t emptied your locker, where you kept a set of spare clothes in case of booze related emergencies.

Your fingers shook as you entered the combination, praying that the boss hadn’t emptied it ahead of hiring a replacement. Fate seemed to be on your side, though, for jeans and an envelope of cash greeted you the moment it clicked open.

You snatched up the envelope and counted the notes. You had always kept a secret stash away from the house, knowing that your father wasn’t above searching your room in search of money. There was enough there for a plane ticket; enough to cover a hotel for several weeks.

You realised that this was your chance to escape.

You also realised that you weren’t going to take it.

Endeavour had found you using just a name. He would almost certainly figure out that one of the first places you would go was the White Rabbit. He had already threatened to burn the bar; who knew what he would do if he got into his head that the boss had helped you flee?

And then there was Natsuo’s revelation. Considering how he felt about you, it wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that he had been lying to you. Perhaps your swift escape was exactly what he wanted.

That said, if Endeavour truly had killed a child, should you leave his children alone with him?

You still had a great many questions. You didn’t understand why Endeavour had wanted so desperately to sleep with you, only to tell you he never would. Why had he gone to such a bar in the first place? What had happened to Touya? Why did your husband live away from the main residence?

There were too many pieces to this puzzle and none of them fitted together, but one thing you knew for certain.

No matter where you went, he would almost certainly track you down. If you went back, at least, it would be on your own terms.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

You returned to the house a short while later, just in time for your daily text message from your husband. He always texted you before leaving the office and then again a few minutes later if you had not yet replied. You weren’t sure what would happen if you failed to respond to the second one, largely because waiting for Endeavour to text was the most eventful part of your day.

You responded to the text and then packed away the clothes from your locker. The envelope of money you stashed away in the bathroom, emptying out the bottle of aspirin and rolling your notes inside.

It was like smuggling contraband and easily the most fun you had had since arriving at the house. It gave you a newfound confidence for when your husband came to your room. You were going to ask him about his presence at the bar; you were going to ask him about Touya. You felt brave enough to do just about anything.

That night, though, he didn’t come and you kept yourself awake long into the early hours of the morning, listening out for his footsteps as you had on that first night. Once again, you fell asleep sprawled across the bed, only to be woken by the house staff the following morning.

Endeavour, as it turned out, had outfoxed you.

He had arranged for you to take a trip that weekend to a private onsen in the mountains. As husband and wife you would almost certainly have to share a room and you would have little choice but to take off your clothes.

You scowled in the car all of the way there. This was supposed to be your victory. You were supposed to be the one holding all of the cards.

You refused to undress for him. Just the thought made you angry.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

You had to hand it to him. The mountains were beautiful.

You peered out of the window as you arrived in your room, taking in the sight of the summer flowers and open air. It almost distracted you from the elephant in the room; the single futon you would share for the night. You refused to think about it, grateful for the simple hiking trail around the property. You occupied yourself with admiring the view, wandering ahead of Endeavour and snapping pictures on your phone of the skyline.

Your stomach churned as you sat down to dinner, time steadily running out. You had no idea how you were going to get out of this. You couldn’t think of a single scenario where you came out on top. You stared into space as you showered your body, fastening your towel far tighter than was necessary and pinning your hair loosely in the hopes that it would fall.

Despite the steam and summer heat, you shivered as you stepped out towards the bath. Under ordinary circumstances you would have been excited at the prospect of relaxing under the stars, but right then you were terrified. You clenched your hands into fists to hide how much they shook.

The simmering heat; the silent night. Was this how it felt to enter a dragon’s lair?

“Sit there,” said Endeavour, pointing to the side of the bath.

You blinked.

You had expected him to watch you undress. Why, then, was he instructing you to sit away from the water?

Your bewilderment must have shown in your face, for he sighed deeply.

“Just sit there,” he said, sounding just as frustrated as every time you had refused him.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, you went to sit down where he had asked. Endeavour waited for you to be fully seated before stepping towards the water. He looked you straight in the eye and then cast aside the towel covering his waist.

You willed yourself to be modest and look away from his nakedness, but you couldn’t bring yourself to.

When he wore clothes he was imposing.

Without them he was magnificent.

He had a broad chest and sculpted waist, all of which was covered in a fine layer of hair. The evening sunlight cast shadows across his muscles, highlighting every contour and scar. He practically shone where the water touched him and your mouth ran dry.

His hair grew thicker on the lower half of his body, though it did nothing to hide how thick his thighs were, nor the sheer enormity of his cock even while flaccid. You caught yourself staring at it, wondering how big it would be at full tilt. If his fingers were anything to go by, it would leave you limping for days.

Your stomach fluttered, though not from fear. Had his jawline always been so sharp? Had his eyes always been so bright?

It was as if he had been carved from stone and he let you stare at him, not in the least bit self conscious. He sat down in the water and leaned back against the edge you were sitting on, close enough that you could reach him if you wanted to.

You realised with horror that you did.

“Something wrong?”

“N-no,” you said, turning away to look over the horizon. “Nothing.”

You weren’t used to this sort of desire. It crept over you unbidden, like the steam from the bath.

You closed your eyes, taking in the sounds of birdsong and gurgling water.

“Move over,” you said, shifting positions.

“Wh-”

Endeavour turned to you, mystified.

“Don’t look,” you pouted, getting to your feet and fiddling with your towel. You cast it aside like a second skin and stepped down into the ghostly waters

The water was hotter than you had thought; it prickled your skin as you sank. You didn’t know why you were surprised. Endeavour was a flame hero, it made sense that he was used to heat.

He simmered next to you even then, warmth radiating from his body.

You sank down to your collar bones, shielding as much of your body from view as you did when fully clothed. You sat in silence, listening to the sound of birds overhead. You realised that this was the longest you had been alone with your husband since the wedding.

“Thank you,” you said.

“Hmm?”

“For the jewellery.”

You still hadn’t gotten the chance to thank him. The only time he normally spoke to you was when he asked you to undress. It was leagues out of the ordinary and he seemed to think so too, for he stayed quiet for a few seconds.

Finally he nodded his head and grunted by way of response.

“You don’t wear them,” he said.

“No. They’re just so beautiful...I’m afraid I might ruin them.”

He fell quiet again at that, awkwardness bleeding out of his words when he next spoke.

“I would like it...if you wore them.”

Perhaps it was the change in your surroundings; perhaps it was your mutual state of undress. Whatever the explanation, this was not the man who had grabbed your arm on that first night. This one was subdued and clumsy in his kindness and you wondered which one was real.

You hugged your knees to your chest, just as you had on your wedding night. This time, though, you did not cry.

“Endeavour,” you said.

“Hmmm?”

“What happened to Touya?”

He stiffened at that and, for a second, you were sure the water burned. You realised that you had certainly poked at a sore spot, but knew it would be a long time before you got such an opportunity again.

“Why are you asking about that?”

The tension in his body showed in his voice too.

“I just...I’ve heard... certain things.”

“Like what?”

You chose your words carefully, making sure not to name Natsuo.

“I heard that...well…”

You turned to look at him and he glared right back, searching your face for hints at what you were about to ask.

“Well? Spit it out.”

You told yourself that this was no time to be afraid.

“I heard he was dead...and…”

“And I killed him?”

You closed your eyes.

“Yes.”

Endeavour sighed, sinking down into the water.

You willed him to tell you it was a lie; a bit of maliciousness on his son’s part. In Natsuo’s place you would have done the same.

He didn’t, though.

“That’s right,” he said. “I did kill him.”

Despite the heat from the water, the steam, from him, his words sent shivers down his spine. He said it as casually as if you’d asked if he had remembered to pack a handkerchief.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” He asked. “Does it make you feel better?”

He moved to get to his feet, but you reached for his arm. He froze on the spot at your touch and you realised that this was the first time you had touched him of your own volition.

“Wait,” you said, taking advantage of his hesitation. “Tell me what happened.”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“I’m your wife,” you said. “Right now it’s my main concern.”

You had him and you knew it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and cursed under his breath, though didn’t try to shrug you off.

“Fine,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. From the beginning.”

You didn’t want to flinch from this. You wouldn’t flinch from this. He was a pro hero and there had to be a reason, even if it wasn’t one you wanted to hear.

“Touya was my first born,” he said. “My first attempt.”

“Attempt? Attempt at what?”

He glared at you and you fell silent.

“I’ve been the number two since I was twenty,” he said. “I knew I always would be even then. With my own strength, I could never beat All Might. Another’s strength, though, refined and perfected…"

He lifted a hand out of the water and clenched it into a fist, the water on his hand turning to steam.

“My knowledge...my techniques,” he said, “everything I am and more…”

“And that was Touya?”

“Touya,” he nodded, “and then Fuyumi, Natsuo and Shoto. Until we got to Shoto not one of them was perfect. Fuyumi and Natsuo both favoured their mother’s side of the family. Touya favoured fire, but inherited his mother’s constitution.”

“Constitution?”

“R-My ex wife is an ice user. When Touya got his quirk, he set himself on fire,” he said. “My body is built to burn, but his wasn’t. His was built to insulate and trap heat to protect against the cold. However hot his flames burned, his body burned twice over. If he used his quirk for too long, he broke out in blisters and burns. Fire users run hotter than most people and Touya…well...his flames ran hotter than mine.”

You swore you saw him smile at that. You got the feeling he meant it in more ways than one.

“Shoto is my heir,” he said. “He is the perfect combination of fire and ice. His body does not burn or freeze. That one will achieve what I could not…”

“But…”

“...but it came at a cost. Namely, my ex wife’s mental state. I made a lot of mistakes...did some things I’m not proud of. One day I… heard Shoto screaming. His mother had burned him. I’ve never heard a noise like it. I don’t think I ever will.”

“If she was an ice user, how did she burn him?”

“Kettle.”

“Oh.”

“She’s in a hospital now,” he said. “I had her taken away. Our marriage was over.”

“Because she hurt your son?”

“She damaged my property.”

You didn’t know why you were surprised to hear him speak such a way of his children when he had told your boss that he had to possess you. Even so, it stung.

Not to mention, you still had questions.

“But… what does this have to do with Touya?”

“He was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Rei, my ex wife...Touya’s death was what truly broke her in the end.”

“What happened to him?”

“One day, in training, we both lost our temper. His technique was wrong; he’d been slacking off; he hadn’t taken heed of any of my lessons. He told me he didn’t want to be a hero, which was ridiculous. Of course he’d be one. Once he managed to endure his own flames, he would be an even stronger flame user than me.”

You had a feeling you knew what was coming next.

“He was angry that day. I told him he’d be a hero whether he wanted to or not and he told me that he’d rather die. In the end...he chose death. I sent him away...somewhere he could still be of use. A government program...They told me later that he burned his flames far hotter than he ever had before, so hot that he burned himself alive. He died in the hospital two days later. The doctors told me that even if he had survived, he would have needed full body skin grafts and the kickback from his quirk would be far more severe than before.”

Endeavour closed his eyes, leaning back against the water’s edge.

“I don’t understand,” you said, “Touya killed himself. That wasn’t you.”

“I didn’t hand Rei the kettle either,” he said, “but I might as well have.”

You weren’t sure what to say. It felt inappropriate somehow. In the end, you settled on your own suspicions.

“How long ago...with Rei, I mean? When did she leave?”

“Two years ago. Why?”

“No reason,” you said. “I was just curious, is all.”

You weren’t lying; you really were curious, just not necessarily in the way he thought. He didn’t know that you had talked to your boss and, consequently, knew he had started coming to the White Rabbit only a matter of months after his wife’s hospital admission.

The pieces of the puzzle were changing shape, though you still couldn’t quite see the greater picture. You still couldn’t understand why he had married you; why he had so desperately needed to possess you, only to hold you at a distance. There was a reason somewhere and you were infuriatingly close to finding it.

Endeavour watched you, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction. He did not seem to approve of your silence and stood up once again, getting up out of the baths and reaching for his towel.

“Wait,” you said, turning to face him.

You wanted to thank him for telling you the truth; for exposing himself to you so unapologetically.

You stood up yourself and exposed your own body, though only to waist level. You straightened your back and looked him dead in the eye in an attempt to hide how nervous you actually were. You might have worked in a hostess bar, but no man had ever seen you naked. You waited there in silence, watching as he took in the swell of your breasts and shade of your nipples. You wondered what sort of expectations he might have harboured and if the real thing lived up to them. Whatever the case may be, he finally gathered his composure with a ‘tccch’ and stormed back inside.

You decided to count that one as a victory.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

You stayed in the bath for a while longer before returning to your room.

You realised as you reached for the door handle that you had forgotten all about the shared futon, which filled you with a far different sort of fear than before. You now knew what your husband looked like without his clothes; if you slept beside him you wouldn’t get any sleep. All it would take was a brush of his body against yours to leave you thinking about how he had looked climbing out of the water.

To your surprise, Endeavour seemed to have already anticipated this. During your absence, he had swapped the double bed for two singles, along with a shield to divide both beds. Your husband had already gone to sleep with his back to the barricade, snoring softly.

It was a kind gesture and you couldn’t help but smile as you changed into your nightclothes and tucked yourself into bed, eyes darting to the shield and your husband’s silhouette. Even then, laid on his side, his back was broader than any you’d seen. You wondered how it might feel to drag your nails across it and then cursed yourself for doing so.

He was just a man, you told yourself. There were millions of them in the world.

You hadn’t seen all of them naked, though.

You didn’t want them as you wanted him.

He slept with his back to the shield, but you slept facing it, smoothing your fingertips over the wood until you fell asleep.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

The next few weeks were a new brand of torture.

The summer grew even hotter and you spent much of your time on the porch, drinking iced tea and fanning yourself to no avail. No matter how many ice cold baths you took, no matter how few clothes you wore as you slept, no matter how many windows you opened, nothing could cool you down and you feared the summer heat wasn’t entirely to blame.

Your husband no longer begged you to undress. Since returning from the onsen he had not come to your room at all and it bothered you more than you liked to admit.

You wondered if you had made a terrible mistake by letting him see you.

Every time you crossed paths in the house, you caught yourself eying the parts of his clothes that pulled against his muscles, knowing what lay beneath.

It was a problem.

You were starting to want him to come to your room. You wanted him to beg and plead to see more of you, just so you could have the pleasure of telling him no.

You wanted his attention, wanted to feel his gaze on your body, though had to settle for your own fingers. You touched yourself every night that he neglected you, running a hand between your legs and tentatively running your finger across your clit, which had never seen so much attention in the twenty seven years you had walked the earth.

You would think of him as you dipped your fingers into your folds, thinking of how much bigger his hands were than yours. You wondered how much he would have to warm you up before you could comfortably take his cock.

Every night you touched yourself and brought yourself to a boil, though it did nothing to ease the pressure inside of you. You would lay there, flat on your back and legs trembling, pleasure overtaking each of your senses, and none of it would be enough. It didn’t matter how hard you came, how much you changed positions or technique, your real desire ran far deeper.

One night, two and a half months after your wedding, you gave up on trying to make yourself cum.

You wanted him to want you so you could push him away...

You wanted him to want you...

You wanted him…

You wanted…

“Fuck,” you hissed, flopping back against the covers. “Ffffuck.”

You were sure you were going crazy. Every time he passed you now, you had to squeeze your thighs together.

This was how it felt to suffocate.

This was how it felt to die.

...die….

The word lingered at the back of your mind.

How ironic that only a short time ago you had told the same man that you’d rather die than let him see you naked, let alone touch you.

You closed your eyes, only for them to snap right back open. You pushed yourself up into a sitting position and stared across at your reflection in the dressing table mirror.

Could it really have been that simple?

You thought back to Endeavour’s tale at the onsen; his son’s last words before burning himself alive.

I’d rather die.

They were the same as yours on your wedding night and only now did you make the connection. Endeavour had stared into the mirror then too, and you had always assumed it was your reflection that made him flinch. You knew now, though, that you were wrong. He had been looking at his own.

That realisation was your rosetta stone, leaving every other piece of information to fall into place.

He had introduced you to his children as their new mother, for in his mind he had ruined the last one. What was it he had called Touya? His first attempt? He had told you without a hint of hesitation that each of his children had been born in the hopes of improving upon the last. Refined and perfected...an extension of himself.

You realised that the same was true of your marriage.

Losing his son and sending his wife away to a hospital had almost certainly brought to light a number of harsh truths. You weren’t the only one who had looked at him and seen a monster.

Just like Rei, you were the means to an end.

You were an exercise in self control.

He had held himself at a distance to prove to himself that he could. He had chosen to keep you chaste and childless because he desired the opposite and acting on his previous desires had ended in disaster.

Just like that, you understood your situation.

You knew what you had to do.

You got up from the bed and rummaged through your wardrobe, dragging out the pile of clothes you had smuggled out of the White Rabbit . Among your jeans and spare shoes was a silk nightgown, left behind for the occasions you slept at the bar. You pulled it on like a second skin, giving yourself a twirl and watching in the mirror as the fabric caught the light.

Next, you reached into your dressing table drawers for the various pieces of jewellery he had given you over the past few weeks. For the first time in over a decade, you took out your mother’s earrings and swapped them with the shining diamond ones from your husband.

You combed out your hair and fastened your nightgown so tightly that it hid how bare you were underneath, taking one last look at yourself in the mirror before leaving the room. You paused in the kitchen, a wry smile breaking out across your face at the scheme coming to mind.

┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

You had never been to the empty side of the property where Endeavour lived. You had no idea how he occupied himself when he wasn’t at work or sitting in stoic silence. You wondered what he was doing as you slipped away from the house, the moonlight shining on your pale nightgown.

You never did find out, knowing only that his voice rumbled through the door as you knocked.

You took a deep breath and opened the door, finally able to relate to your gambler of a father. This was just as much of a gamble as a round of poker, even if you knew you held all of the cards.

He had been getting ready for bed, wearing loose jogging pants and a tank that left little to the imagination. You weren’t sure who exactly he expected to visit at such a time of day, but you knew within an instant that it wasn’t you, much less as you were now. His eyes darted from your opalescent nightgown to your loose hair, to the earrings that twinkled as they hit the lamplight, to the blood red cocktails you had mixed before leaving.

Strawberry Daiquiris, stained red with Grenadine. Your speciality. His favourite.

“What are you doing here?”

You didn’t answer, instead walking straight past him.

As you had suspected, this house was a near perfect copy of the main building and you made your way to the bedroom as if by heart. You stopped at the door to the master bedroom, turning back to check if he followed, just as he had on the day of your wedding.

You were not nearly as nervous this time around.

This time you wanted him to swallow you whole.

He had not followed you, preferring to watch you prowl his home as if it belonged to you. You reached for the door handle and cocked an eyebrow.

“Well? Are you coming?”

That was enough to leave him lumbering forwards.

You stepped inside of the bedroom, waiting for him to follow before taking a seat at the foot of his bed.

“What are y-”

“Peppermint,” you said, to which he appeared confused.

“Peppermint?”

“It’s my safe word. What’s yours?”

He scratched his chin, though stepped closer. You got the feeling he had never had to think of one before, much less used one.

“I don’t have one,” he said at last. “Never needed one.”

“Peppermint it is, then,” you said, before straightening your back, a near perfect imitation of his own body language. “Now. Strip.”

Of all of the things you could have said, he definitely hadn’t been expecting that. He took another step closer.

“Undress me,” he said.

“No.”

He took another step closer, too close, and you lifted a leg, gently pressing your foot to his belly to retain the distance.

He was a big man, realistically speaking. If he wanted to, he could easily have swatted your leg away and taken command.

He took a step back, though, and peeled off his shirt, exposing his broad chest and defined stomach. You did not bother to be discreet, brazenly admiring his body and biting your bottom lip.

You were still holding your leg up, ready to hold him back if he came closer. He glanced from your leg to your hungry expression, before sighing and dropping his pants. He had not been wearing any sort of underwear and you took a sip of your drink, making a point to lick your lips as you dropped your leg.

He came closer and you stretched out your other arm, offering up the second cocktail.

Not only did he take it, but he swallowed it in one gulp, reaching up to rub the red smears from his lips. You downed your own and passed him the glass, taking the chance to admire his butt as he turned to place them on the nearest counter. There was something oddly satisfying about watching a naked man enjoy one of your drinks, especially when said naked man was as well built as this one.

He turned to look at you and this time you motioned for him to come closer. You continued to do so as he stepped forwards, only stopping to motion for him to get down on his knees. You fully expected him to protest at this point, but he dropped down immediately, looking up into your face with flushed cheeks.

You ran your fingers through his hair, wondering how you had ever been afraid of this man.

You lifted both of your legs, balancing one on each of his shoulders and reaching up to wipe the leftover syrup from your own lips. He ran his fingers over your exposed skin and spread you wide as you leaned back. You closed your eyes as you felt his warm breath on your cunt, willing him to touch you there.

Nothing could have prepared you, though, for how it would feel when he actually did. All it took was a stroke of his thumb across your clit to leave your mind falling blank. You gasped, back arching from the bed before you could stop it. He held you tighter, though did not continue, catching your eye the moment you opened them.

“Do...do that again,” you said, eyes rolling back into your head when he did.

He didn’t touch you with his lips at first, instead stroking his fingers around your folds, exploring the parts of you that he had wanted so badly. He chuckled at how wet you were, slipping the tip of his finger into you and swirling your wetness across your clit, sending a shockwave of shivers down your spine. He kissed the inside of your thigh and pinched a patch of your skin between his teeth. It would leave a mark in the morning and you didn’t care at all.

He parted your folds with one hand and held you open with the other, ghosting his tongue over your clit. You dug your nails into the bedcovers with a sigh and he ran his tongue across your flesh, sending a shudder of pleasure rocketing through your core. He turned his tongue in a figure of eight and wrote his name with his tongue, branding your cunt in the softest of ways.

You reached down to stroke your fingers through his hair, wanting to hold him there forever. He slipped a finger in then, though, and you dug your nails into his scalp. You had considered before how large his fingers were and it was apparent to you even then. He sucked at your clit and took it slowly, angling his finger to find that particular patch of nerves that would turn your insides to jelly. His touches made your stomach flutter, your legs quivering every time he made contact. You were grateful for his firm hand on your waist. Left to your own devices, you would almost certainly have been squirming in delight and grinding against his face.

He dipped his finger in and out and you willed him to go faster. The touches he didn’t make drove you just as crazy as the ones he did.

“Please,” you said, carding your fingers through his hair. “Oh g-”

You didn’t need to ask him twice. He pumped his finger into you so quickly that you could hear the wet sound every time he made contact. You arched your back into him, the pressure building in your core and threatening to overflow. The combination of his tongue and finger was overwhelming.

He added another finger and you snatched up the hand that had been gripping the bedcovers, digging your teeth into your fist to stifle your moans. You were close...so close and you needed some form of anchor. He didn’t seem to approve of that, though, for he let go of your waist and reached up to take it, holding you tightly as you cried out in delight.

Your stomach fluttered with butterfly light flashes of pleasure, so close to the real thing and yet so far. You couldn’t think of anything more than the growing tension within you. You stretched an arm over your head and dug your nails into the bedcovers, crying out at how close you really were.

He stopped then, though, and peered up at you through the valley of your breasts, smirking at how flushed your cheeks were. He sat up and crawled up on the bed, planting both hands on either side of your head. You wrapped your legs around his waist before you could stop yourself, linking your arms around his neck and pulling him down for a kiss, biting at his lips and sighing when he pushed his tongue against yours. You tightened your legs around him, relishing the feel of his stomach against yours and hard dick against your thighs.

You came back to earth as he tugged at your nightgown, a stark reminder of why you had gone to him in the first place.

You pushed both hands onto his chest and he allowed you to guide him, rolling over onto his back without a word of complaint. You sat up to straddle him, crushing your lips against his before sitting up to pull the tie from your nightgown.

His eyes brightened up at the slightest flash of your body, but it didn’t last for long. He reached a hand to drag away the final barrier between you, but you slapped away his hand. He seemed confused until you lifted the tie, finally understanding your real intentions.

You refused to be his experiment; refused to be docile and fragile because he said so. Your teeth were as sharp as his and he would not control you without your permission, just as you would not try to command him without his own.

He gave you a nod and sat up just a little, enough for you to drape the tie over his eyes and loop it into a simple knot. You waved a hand in front of his face and checked the gap as he laid back down, ensuring that he couldn’t see before sitting up straight and tossing aside the nightgown.

You sat down onto your hands and knees, planting soft kisses along his neck and shoulders. You kept them gentle until you reached his collar bone, at which point you sank your teeth into his skin, enough to leave a bruise but not to break the skin. He inhaled sharply and for a moment you wondered if you had gone too far, though that worry did not last for long. He reached up to stroke a hand across your exposed back, running his fingertips across your spine as you moved further down the bed.

If you had felt intimidated by the size of his dick before, you definitely were now that it was hard. It stood taller than any toy you had ever seen, much less owned, with a slight curve and prominent veins. He shuddered as you traced a single finger across one of the veins, fidgeting as you put that same finger between your lips and made an overly theatrical sucking sound, making sure to pop your lips as you pulled it back out.

“Oy,” he said, “that’s mean.”

“So am I,” you said, reaching up to squeeze your fingers around his shaft, slowly pumping your hand up and down and making sure to squeeze that much tighter as your fingers reached the tip. You leaned over and ran your tongue over the underside of his dick, mimicking the movements of your fingers until you were ready to take him into your mouth. You continued to pump your fist around his dick and bobbed your head along with the pace, making sure to suck him harder and harder and smack your lips whenever you let go.

“Fucking ffffff,” he snarled, reaching for your hair and gathering it in his hand to pin you in place. “Don’t you fucking stop.”

You made your feelings on the matter quite clear, spitting on his tip and giving him a quick stroke before taking all of him into your mouth, pushing your free hand against the bedframe and crushing the space between your thumb and forefinger, weakening your gag reflex and relishing the feel of him against your throat.

You were a virgin; not an angel. You’d watched your share of pornography.

He snarled in delight and you let go, pumping his dick far more furiously than before. You lowered the hand you had crushed against the bedframe and gave it a couple of quick clenches to restore sensation before running your fingers over your own poor, neglected clit. You touched your tongue to his dick, swirling it around the head and moaning into him whenever a pang of pleasure rushed through you.

You stole a glance at him and enjoyed what you saw. There was something sinfully sweet about the world’s number two hero falling apart at the touch of your tongue.

You wondered if anyone had given him head before.

Maybe you’d ask him when this was over.

You could tell he was close from his ragged breaths and increasingly tight grip on your hair. You didn’t know how much longer you would last either. You wanted him inside of you and found yourself jealous of your own lips and tongue.

You let go of him and crawled up the bed, straddling his waist and yanking off the makeshift blindfold. He stared up at you, drinking you in as he had the strawberry daiquiri. He reached up a hand to touch your breast and this time you let him, cupping the other yourself as you ground your pussy against him.

“Do you want me?” You asked through half-lidded eyes.

You knew the answer, but you wanted him to say it.

“Yes.”

“All of me?”

“And more.”

He swallowed drily, reaching out for your hip.

“Do you want me ?”

You closed your eyes, considering it. In truth, you did want him. You wanted his broad shoulders; wanted his rough edges; wanted his ambitions; wanted his guilt. Most of all, you wanted the lambswool he had so carefully hidden behind tiger stripes.

You smiled, considering your return to the house after your trip to the White Rabbit; the money you had tucked away in an aspirin bottle and never touched since.

“If I didn’t want you,” you said, opening your eyes and leaning your head to the side, “I wouldn’t be here.”

You sat up onto your knees and adjusted your position, taking his dick into your hand and sliding yourself down onto it. It was so much bigger than his fingers and took you a moment to adjust. You ground your hips, holding onto the hand he had placed on your hip. He loosened his grip to link his fingers with yours, holding you tight as you grew accustomed to his girth.

You rocked yourself, taking him slowly until you couldn’t stand it any longer. You arched your back and slammed yourself onto him, reaching up one hand to grab your hair and lift it over your shoulders, exposing you completely and giving him the perfect view of your bouncing breasts. The other you rested on your clit, frantically rubbing it every time your hips collided.

He squeezed your breasts; he held your hips; he groaned as you took him in. You planted your hand on his firm chest, slowing up as the tension inside of you broke.

“I’m coming,” you moaned, “oh god, I’m…”

You never got to finish that sentence, for the euphoria was too much. Your mind fell blank, the room fell into slow motion and you fell still for fear of ending the moment too soon. You cried out every time your insides squeezed around him and Endeavour watched, absorbing not only the tightness around his cock, but your own loss of control.

He pushed you backwards and spread your legs wide, pushing into you as you lay in a satisfied haze. You reached up to stroke his face as he slammed himself into you, sitting up onto his knees and holding your legs wide open as you fucked you harder. You could do nothing but watch and, in truth, you didn’t want to. It was as if all of the bones had left your body, pleasure washing over you like waves against the shore.

He bit your neck; you dragged your nails over his back. The time for common sense was gone and all you had left were animal instincts, every former pretense shattering around you like summer heat in a thunderstorm.

You dropped your hands to the bed and let him fuck you, losing track of where one wave of release came and another ended. He came with a roar, dragging himself out just in time to spill all over your stomach and breasts. You had expected him to come inside of you and found yourself oddly proud that he hadn’t.

You lay there for quite some time, catching your breath and rubbing your legs against his waist. He stared down at you as the fog lifted and he came back to earth, taking in the bite marks and puddle of semen he had left on your body. He hadn’t come out of it much better; scratches and bite marks on his neck, arms and most certainly his back.

The pair of you looked as bloody, bruised and dazed as if you had fought off a bear and you couldn’t help but smirk, admiring the tiger stripes and leopard spots you had left on each other.

He was yours and you were his.

Both of you human; both of you beasts.

#endeavor x reader #enji todoroki x reader #enji todoroki #todoroki enji #boku no hero academia #eisc

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greensaplinggrace · 3 years

Text

What Is There To Celebrate About the Darkling? (Part 3)

1 2 3 4

His shadow powers are so badass, literally how could you not celebrate him for that alone?

Villain wears black trope REPRESENT.

The way his cloak billows dramatically in episode one before Alina enters the Fold.

The way his cloak billows in general.

His little face in the background after his and Alina’s first kiss as he tries to compose himself.

Him knocking on the table in episode five when he gets back to see Alina. My mans was so hopeful that he’d finally get to third base with the love of his life. RIP.

Large hands. Very tall.

The way he literally cannot tear his eyes away from Alina during the entire scene where Alina dresses him and they have their first kiss.

The softest looking hair I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe Alina got to run her hands through it and she still left him.

How he urgently looks around for Alina outside after she leaves in episode five, right before he confronts Baghra. He’s very frantic and panting and clearly concerned and not being subtle at all about his emotions.

Also the way he walks when he’s leaving Baghra, with his hands stuck out to the side and his fists clenching and unclenching as his form grows smaller in the distance. He looks like a tiny penguin waddling away.

Son’s evil dastardly bastard plans once again thwarted by own mother. Can you imagine living for an eternity and never being free of your parents? Fuck all that other shit, no wonder he went darkside.

“She is all that matters now, not me. She is the future. She is the one-” SIMP

His little smile before he goes to answer the door after they kiss. The way his hold on her lingers as if he can’t bear to part with her. Forehead touch. They are giggling.

The way he runs back in for another kiss. This man is so gone it’s not even funny.

He calls her to him in the books and she spends the entire time agonizing over how upset he’s going to be. The man literally just wants to ask her about her day.

Defends Alina to Baghra after he witnesses her getting harassed. Defends himself to Baghra after she treats him like shit. Love that for him.

“I made something.” / “Let me make a mark on this world before I leave it.” / “It’s my own name I’m afraid of forgetting.” / “He understood then. The Grisha lived as shadows, passing over the surface of the world, touching nothing. Forced to change their shapes and hide in corners, driven by fear as shadows were driven by the sun. No safe place. No haven.” / “There will be, he promised the darkness, words written upon his heart. I will make one.”

Him offering Alina his kvas. They drink from the same glass.

Sasha “no thoughts head empty only Alina” Morozova having to look away and calm himself when Alina licks her lips after drinking his kvas.

Literally his entire confrontation with Kaz. Absolutely hilarious. Local centuries old Black Heretic gets bested by a teenager with one (1) flash grenade.

“I never intended for it to be the blight it’s become.” - Genuine regret. A+++.

Asks Mal what Alina’s favorite flowers are and then gives them to her. Was it manipulative? Yes. Was it awful? Absolutely. Was it the funniest and smoothest shit I’ve ever seen? 100%. I laughed my ass off.

Alina: *enters the fete dressed in the black kefta* *Darkling.exe has stopped working*

This man takes one look at her lack of guards and goes: what’s more important than how beautiful the wifey looks? her safety. *protective bf mode initiated*

He admires how pretty he appears in the mirror of his room with absolutely zero shame and 100% pride. We stan a vain icon in this house💕. Also the mirror is in front of the bed?!?! 👀👀👀

His knife ring.

“You looked like you needed saving,” as fire plays across his features and he looks at Alina with an expression that makes my soul want to splinter into pieces. The implications, the pain.

Will display his complete and utter adoration for Alina in front of the entire Court including the King and Queen despite the fact that that is the worst thing he could possibly do in the political environment.

“No ordinary tracker. No ordinary girl. Orphans of Keramzin reunited. AdOrAbLe.” - How do you say you have issues without saying you have issues?

The way he eclipses Alina when he’s stepping down from the dais. The inherent romantic symbolism of the eclipse and what that means for him.

Him getting excited about the stag to the point where he’s eagerly rummaging through the maps on his table and urgently asking Mal tons of questions.

The five second delay in his thoughts as he processes that Mal isn’t cooperating. Poor guy really thought that everything was finally coming up Sasha for once.

He constantly uplifts Alina after Baghra’s emotional abuse. He constantly helps her with her self esteem and reassures her that she’s doing well and that she just needs more time.

“Yeah I don’t know what Baghra’s summoning ability is,” he said, like a liar.

Even after Baghra suggests that Alina left he doesn’t believe it. He has to hear it from Kaz after searching for ages before he finally begins to believe it.

“You smuggle Grisha out of MY PALACE!”

Titty grab during the kiss scene.

He lifts her up onto the table!!

Local whipped dark overlord gets excited that Fedyor has found Alina and has to suffer through the embarrassment of acting like a lovesick fool when he learns it’s just about Nina.

His relationship with Nikolai.

The fact that Alina’s scarf blows past him before they even meet.

The way he nods with such an understanding expression when the Conductor is lying his ass off as if he sympathizes with everything the other man is saying and isn’t secretly planning his elaborate murder.

Puppy dog eyes all the time.

Every time his smile is forced and ingenuine and he looks like he’s about to stab someone.

Every time his smile is genuine and he looks super soft and loving.

“You have no chance, ShAdoW mAn.” Literally how is he ever going to recover from this.

His hands motions when he summons. I just think they’re neat.

He kills the Conductor. Hated that guy. And he looked sexy as fuck doing it.

He hates the Druskelle, he hates the Ravkan monarchy. I can relate.

He’s NOT a bootlicker, unlike some.

Dad mode gets activated when David raises his hand. Aleksander just goes along with it like an exasperated father.

Ben Barnes nose scronch.

He begs for Luda’s life.

“Merzost feeds on us. I forbid it!” two seconds later *frantic rummaging through notes on the merzost* *reading the Forbidden Knowledge™ without any hesitation* *Immediate Disaster Occurs*

“Mom look what I made!” “Your art is atrocious and you’re no longer my son.”

His history was written by the victors. The tale of the Black Heretic is straight up propaganda by the corrupt monarchy.

Immortal old man caught in a young adult love triangle: I read your letters. Malyen “what the fuck is happening on this here day” Oretsev: ??!?!?!!! who even are you??

Aleksander admitting he needs Alina.

Darklina hand holds.

He did not have to make that episode eight hand-hold on the skiff so sensual but he did it anyways.

The way he hides under his cloak like a turtle when Jesper shoots at him.

He looks so awkward and isolated at the fete surrounded by all of those colorful nobles.

He’s always ready to murder a bitch and honestly I respect that.

Would kill for his gf.

That entire scene where he kisses Alina in the snow in the books like the most awkward motherfucker and then goes “wtf just happened?! Darkling out” before fleeing the scene of the Emotion.

He’s eternally confused by his feelings for Alina and it’s hilarious.

“Looking for trouble, and if I cannot find it I will create it.”

He’s basically just a moth attracted to a fatal light. RIP.

The way he throws open double doors like a man on a mission.

“Follow.”

He’s utterly precious and I would die for him. 🖤

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yellow-faerie · 2 years

Note

Hello!! Might I persuade you to write either 20, 28, or 42 with Revalek? If you choose 20, it could go either way but for 28 I think angst would be more fitting and I don't think 42 could go anywhere but fluffy crack.

Listen, now I wanna write all of these but I think that #28 fits really well so I'm gonna choose that one!

(Revael Naver is my incarnation of Revan - Revael was the name she had before Revan, Naver was the one the Jedi council gave her after the mind wipe, and upon recalling more of her life she took the two names and put them together - and Kemir Shrik is my Exile's name before the war and her exile)

From this prompt list.

28 - "I miss [him/her/them]. I shouldn't, I know - I was the one to leave [him/her/them] - but still, I do."

They landed on Corellia three hours ago, standard time, and Revael had not got off the ship.

She probably should: after all, Carth is not going to be able to stop the combined force of the rest of the crew from doing something stupid and dangerous alone.

But she can't bear it. Although her memory is patchy, she knows that Corellia is where she grew up and it had not been a kind childhood. She doesn't want to face that just yet.

So she had made her excuses and now she sat in the engineering compartment of the Ebon Hawk tinkering with a useless piece of metal in the hopes of feeling useful.

T3 whistles and passes her a screwdriver.

"Thanks," she says softly. It's good that the droid knows what she needs because Revael is in such a strange headspace that it's difficult to focus.

On one hand, this is where she left to join the Jedi - to find her freedom and her purpose and her new family - but overlapping still are the odd snippets of broken memories, memories that were warped and changed and put there by the Jedi Council that she can't quite untangle from the real thing.

Kemir shares a loaf of bread with her, sitting on the edge of a skyscraper but they're also hidden in the slums; Atris is telling her to get out the archives, that she shouldn't be in there looking for such forbidden knowledge, but she's also standing om the clean swept floors of a middle class floor in better parts of Corellia and telling Revael to get out because this isn't where she belongs.

And Alek...Alek is always standing by her side, an extra hand in a theft; an extra sword in a fight; her partner, her heart, her everything, except until...

Revael still can't remember it. She has been told that Alek called that attack on her ship, a firing squad of his ships against hers, but the only memory that comes to mind when she thinks of it is the fake one.

They had just escaped a band of thugs and Revael had turned to smile at him, only to find something sharp in her abdomen and the soft apology whispered in her ear.

Revael fiddles with a bolt near the fuse and turns it just a bit too much and the whole thing lets out a loud bang.

"Sithspit," she exclaims, jumping back as the thing gives her a sharp electric shock. "Ah kriffin' fuck."

T3 whistles, low and concerned, and wheels over to her.

"No, I'm alright," she says and sighs. "I'm just a bit distracted by being on this planet and I shouldn't have been doing anything so complicated with my head somewhere in the unknown regions."

She wheels her chair back and stretches out. Carth says she looks a bit like a cat when she does this, pushing every limb as far as it can go in every direction, which always makes her laugh.

"I'm gonna get something to eat. You coming?"

T3 makes a happy beeping noise as an affirmative and rolls after her as she makes her way to the small storage room and forages up something that resembles a sandwhich.

"We're really running low on food," Revael comments, sitting down. "Next planet we end up on, remind me to go shopping."

T3 lets out a short string of beeps, rolling up to settle at Revael's side.

"Yeah, I'll find someone to give you an oil bath as well - it's about time."

Revael picks at the sandwhich, breaking off a small bit of bread and popping it in her mouth. T3 beeps again.

"No, I'm not getting off here. It's a dangerous planet and someone needs to stay with the ship - and from what I can recall, the food here really wasn't that good. It's only a day over to Alderaan, after all."

Revael wrinkles her nose at T3's reply. "I'm not a coward."

T3's next whistle is highly accusatory and Revael scowls.

"If you keep talking like that, I'll shut you down alright?"

That's enough to convince T3 to finally change topic but the conversation leaves a bitter taste in her mouth for the rest of the day, like...

She doesn't know. She's too much of a coward to think too hard of it.

"We should absolutely not be here," Kemir says but it's with a certain amount of glee that comes from doing something wrong.

"Loosen up a bit Kem," Revael digs her elbow in her friend's ribs, "you're starting to sound like Atris."

Kemir digs back and beheind them, Alek sighs.

"If we're gonna do this let's not get distracted," he says and Revael rolls her eyes.

"Sweetheart, we are not getting distracted. Look, I can see Master Vrook now."

Kemir lets out a nervous giggle. "We're gonna be in so much trouble."

Revael pays her no attention and lifts up the water balloon with the Force, holding it over the Jedi master's head. Kemir is shaking from trying to keep her laughter in and Revael can feel Alek's begrudging amusement across their bond.

When the balloon bursts, Revael scrambles back from the edge of the roof as Vrook yells something rather nasty. Kemir is not so lucky, bursting out into laughter and forgetting that she can be seen.

"Padawan Shrik!" Vrook screams. "Get down here right now: I am taking you to your master and I will be telling him about this behaviour!"

"Sorry Master Lamar!" Kemir yells back down. "I was aiming for the plant!"

"Don't lie to me Padawan, I know the truth!"

"Kem, I think it'd be better that you go down and face the music," Alek advises and Kemir glares at him.

"Neither of you are admitting to this as well, are you?"

Revael makes an apologetic face. "Yeah, we're gonna do a runner, love. I have things I wanna do this evening and listening to a rant by Vrook is not on it."

Kemir sighs. "Why am I your friend? You two owe me one."

She strides over to the ledge and slings herself over.

"I feel rather bad for her," Alek admits as he wraps an arm around Revael's shoulders and they start to walk towards the steps.

"Eh, she'll survive. Vrook's all bark and no bite. I'll find her some of that vodka she likes and we'll laugh it off later."

Alek smiles at her. "And while we're shopping, we can go to that bar we like."

Revael leans her head on Alek's shoulder. "Mmmm, there's that very nice room. Some soft blankets."

"Yeah," the stairs turn from stone to metal beneath her feet. "I'm glad I snuck them in there. The bunks are really uncomfortable without them."

Malak's arm falls from her shoulders and he moves to a step just behind her as they walk out onto the bridge. "Admiral Karath," Revan says. "How long until we reach Malachor?"

"A quarter hour now General."

Revan turns to Malak, hunched on the floor and covering his face. He's shaking but Revan feels nothing.

"I've called a medic," she says, feeling nothing. She knows she should because she loves the man she's just disfigured, but she doesn't.

She pushes open the door out of the training salles on the Leviathan...

...and wakes up with a gasp.

"The hot chocolate's warm enough, right?" Mission asks worriedly, taking a sip of her own mug. "Is it like when you make it?"

Revael smiles shakily. "It's perfect Mission."

"Does it help?"

"Yes, Mission." The cocoa is perhaps a little on the sweet side but Revael keeps her mouth shut.

Mission looks down at her mug. "Do you wanna...wanna talk about it?"

"It was a dream about my life as Revan. It wasn't anything bad, Mission, it just reminded me of...someone I lost."

Mission's mouth falls into a small 'O'. "Someone you loved?"

"I think so." Revael wraps her hands around her drink, letting the warmth sink into her fingers. "I'm not sure."

"Who was it?" Mission asks, her eyes wide and a little breathless from the excitement of it all.

"Well, Malak."

"Oh," Mission blinks and then her eyes widen. "Oh."

"Yeah," Revael agrees. "Oh indeed. And I...I miss him. I shouldn't, I know - I was the one to leave him - but still I do."

She swallows and shakes her head as Mission reels.

"But I'm being silly, and I probably shouldn't be talking to you about it. You've been very kind Mission, to help me, but I think it's getting late and you should be getting back to bed."

Mission nods. "Right, yes, that's probably...are you going to tell Carth?"

Revael rises and walks with Mission towards the bunks.

"I've already told him. We are partners."

"And he's not...jealous or anything?"

"What has he to be jealous about? Malak is dead and he was fallen before that - and any feelings for him that I may still harbour for him are my own business for they don't mean I love Carth any less."

Revael imagines that this is what Carth feels when he thinks about Morgana, the wife he lost to the Force. A hollow emptiness that sits right at the back of his mind that can't ever quite be filled.

Or perhaps that's just Revael.

"Now bed, Mission, or else I shan't spar with you in the morning."

Mission roles her eyes and groans. "You're such a spoilsport, ya know?"

"A spoilsport who knows that growing girls need their sleep. Bed."

Once Mission is finally asleep (or at least pretending to) Revael goes back to the cockpit and collects the empty mugs, setting them in the sink.

Perhaps the worst thing, she thinks, is that she doesn't even truly know what she misses, just that she once had a partner in everything and now...

...now he's gone.

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sabraeal · 3 years

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All That Remains, Chapter 8: The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure [Part 5]

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2021, Day 3: Strength Upright: Compassion, Courage, Self-Control Reversed: Weakness, Doubt, Discord

Once upon a time, a troll makes a mirror.

Is that not how we started this story, so long ago? How so many start: a vile creature forges an object. Who and what change in the telling; a troll makes a mirror, a god conjures a box, knowledge grows in a garden. In the end, it is all the same: what is once contained is opened, unwitting. Or lost, foolishly, in a heart so cold and cruel that it becomes bent to another purpose entirely.

But that is merely an allegory, a fiction composed to cover the raw edges we leave when we rub against each other. For that is the truth, is it not? There is no fell creature, no capricious and omnipotent beings to blame for our misery. There is only us, carving our place in our story by smoothing pieces off another. A snow queen is not made from frost and cold but by the blades of others, slicing slivers from her flesh until only ice remains.

That is the truth we cannot bear: the only monsters we face are the ones we have made. The only poisons we drink are those human hands have brewed.

And it starts like this, always: a girl in a garden, remembering the image of a rose, and wondering, how could I have I forgotten?

“You were quiet at dinner tonight.” Shirayuki hasn’t been at court long-- or rather, in court, privy to all its secret signals and capricious undercurrents-- but she knows that this is as close to an “are you all right?” as Haki can come. If confrontation is only allowed the glint of a knife, affection is stifled to a hint of warmth, a fire made in a room one is forbidden to venture. “I hope that the meal agreed with you.”

A flash of pharmacy white flutters at the corner of her vision, frustratingly out of reach. It’s been so long since she’s been there, since she’s thought of anything but silverware and schottische; when she tries it’s like a hundred voices shouting at once, each demanding to be heard. Just like being at Lilias, heads bent over a knotty problem--

“Shirayuki.” The consort does not crouch; it’s best, Lady Mihoko often remind her, to pretend one has no anatomy beneath the waist. But Haki does perch on a cushioned stool, her brows drawn tight over the elegant line of her nose. “You are not...indisposed, I hope?”

A solid shake dispels the fog mired around her. “What? Oh, no! I only...” It would be a mistake to speak of loam between her fingers, of the satisfaction of hearing a pod snap from its stalk. “I didn’t have much to say with my, erm, conversational partners.”

Royal brows raise to stunned arches. “Is that so? I would have thought you’d find much in common with Lord Kazunori and Lord Seiichii.”

They had both been older men, southern lords drawn to court for Seiran’s summit. Kind enough, but they spoke to her as they would their own daughters, which is to say: warmly, but brief. Not of any topics that one might sink their teeth into, lest it leaving lines around her mouth.

“I think they were more interested in talking to each other than to me,” she admits. In part because of her sex, and in part because-- well, her body may have been in that chair, obscuring the twining gods and goddess painted across it, but her mind had been a wing away, wondering if it was yet time to harvest the roku berries, or whether this year’s crop of apprentices knew akegi from yura shigure. “It seems there’s much to discuss before they all meet for, ah...discussion.”

Haki hands her a rueful smile. “There always is.” With a sigh, she sweeps to standing, as statuesque as any marble in Wistal’s halls. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to ask the majordomo to find you some more scintillating seatmates tomorrow.”

“Ah..!” Tomorrow. Never had a day seemed so far away, so much more than a handful of hours between dawn and dusk. At Lilias, the nights had wavered between seasons, some so short she hardly slept between sun set and rise; and others so long that she woke in darkness, only to leave the lab in the same. But still, none seemed so long as this, and for no reason at all.

“Is something wrong?” Haki turns to her again, concern rumpling the curved lines of her mouth. “Do you have plans...?”

“No!” Shirayuki rushes to assure her. “It’s only...you mentioned dinner, and suddenly I felt so...”

“Weary?” Haki offers, when she won’t. Her eyes soften with mouth to match, smile turning her from heavenly to beatific. “I’m not surprised. You have been hard at work these last few months.”

And hardly anything to show for it, in Lady Mihoko’s learned opinion. Shirayuki bites back a groan. She would be sixty before that woman found her approaching passable, and even then, she still wouldn’t be good enough for a prince’s wife. Not when his children might have some chance, no matter how slim, of seating their sullied bloodline on the throne of Clarines.

“Perhaps you have earned a break.” Shirayuki blinks, staring up into the consort’s glowing face. “A private dinner seems in order. A night of no pressure of expectation.”

It sounds too good to be true. “Oh, no! I couldn’t--”

“Give me but a moment.” Haki hesitates at the door to her boudoir, lips lifted in an impish grin. “Perhaps my good brother might find himself available as well?”

Her mouth snaps shut. It’s been ages since she saw Zen, just the two of them. He came to dinner rarely-- understandable, with the summit only weeks away, and entirely under his purview, despite Seiran’s tacit position as host-- and where he went, Mitsuhide and Kiki went too. Haki had been her closest companion these past few weeks, the only friendly face, but Shirayuki longed for someone who didn’t look at her and see a princess, but--

Nervous energy courses through her, jolting her to her feet. Her hands itch, wanting for something to do, and with no plants to hand, they land upon the package on the receiving table. It’s wrapped in humble brown paper, folds clean and crisp, twine tightly tied. Haki’s medication, she realizes, dropping it from her numb hands. Made in the pharmacy. There’s a note on top-- instructions. She’d recognize them anywhere; after all, she’d written more than a few of them herself.

It’s curiosity that makes her pluck it from where it sits. It’s been ages since she’s been in the lab, but her knowledge hasn’t faded; there’s no harm in seeing whether there are any mistakes. An apprentice could have made this, after all. The dose does, as Garack was so fond of saying, make the poison.

She flips open the card, already flushed with the thought of being useful, but--

It’s not some apprentice’s writing at all. Oh no, she knows this spidery scrawl all too well. It was on every jar at her bench, every treatise she read late into the night.

It’s Ryuu’s.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Always with a laugh, but stewing beneath it is envy and longing in equal measure. A pining for times past, for a childhood never quite as innocent as we remember.

For that is what we miss: innocence. Not the not-knowing, but state of not needing to know. The trust we felt towards those who always knew in our stead, who kept us safe from the dangers that pressed in around us. The ones who protected us with little lies; the small pauses to omit what might scare us, the careful editing to make our worlds the giddy fantasy we dreamed.

But there comes a day where all children must grow up. There is a day we must know these things for ourselves, so that we may see the world with clear eyes. For even innocence can be a cage, should some other hand try to lock you within it.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, but oh, only if they can keep you from knowing what it is you do not know.

May I ask you a question? the little girl asks, her gaze no longer on the garden, but the horizon beyond. It is bent in her vision, the glass made in such a way that each diamond blows out the edges, warping the world around it. She had never noticed when she looked only at the garden so near to it, but now...

Now the imperfection is all she can see.

Anything, the sorceress replies, her fingers wrapping around the caps of her shoulders. They’re cold, as cold as the glass beneath her palms.

The girl looks at their reflection, at the way the wave of the glass make those fingers bleed into talons. Where have the roses gone?

Shirayuki’s hands tremble, her eyes tracing every last loop, every hurried curve. “I didn’t...”

Haki peers around the jamb, letter folded in her hand. “Did you say something, my dear?”

This is the closest she’s been to Ryuu in months; even from where she holds it, the scene of lavender and akegi shigure waft from its paper. Not scented, not on purpose, but just from being left in a desk’s cubbyhole with his hastily tidied samples. His parchment smelt the same in Lilias, fragrant as the hothouses themselves.

Her chest can hardly contain her breath. “I didn’t realize that Ryuu was overseeing your treatment.”

A shadow flickers over the sorceress’s face, her grip painful for but a moment before she is her usual smiling self. A moment that could have been imagined, if only the girl was so sure it was not.

Roses? the sorceress asks airily. I’ve never grown any roses.

“Excuse me?”

“It only makes sense,” Shirayuki hurries to add, placing the card back atop the package. “He’s taken over for Chief Garack, and she always oversaw the royal--”

“Shirayuki.” Her name is firm from Haki’s lips, just shy of a scold. “I’m quite sorry but...who are you talking about?”

So many tales speak of trust as a blade, one that may be used to cut, that breaks when forged from brittle iron. A weapon, wielded and forgotten on the battlefield once the story is done.

But you and I know better: trust is a spell, woven to protect. It is a shield, unseen but always felt; sense by faith and not by fingers. And when it wavers, it does not break, does not shatter like a blade upon a stone; no, nothing so dramatic as that. Instead, it frays, unwoven one thread at a time, unnoticed until--

Until the hole can no longer be ignored.

She doesn’t leave the consort’s chambers meaning to break her curfew; oh no, when the door closes behind her, Shirayuki has every intention to head straight to her own. Her feet drag beneath her, weary from contorting herself into a mold that barely fits. There’s nothing she’d like more than to divest herself of all these courtly trappings and pass effortlessly into oblivion.

But she turns a corner, her mental map of the palace resolving, and she realizes: in one direction is her room, and in the other, the pharmacy. It’s late, but Ryuu would still be there, committing his last-minute thoughts to page while the offices emptied around him. She misses him, a longing so intense it aches.

It would only be a short visit. If Izana brought her before him in the morning, trying to act as both judge and jury-- well, Ryuu would be her physician, once she and Zen finally managed to make it down the aisle hand-in-hand. It only made sense to keep a cordial relationship with the man who would bear the next branch of the Wisteria tree into the world.

And if she missed him, the boy who straddled the line of friend and brother and son both-- there was no need to explain that to the king. It wasn’t as if Izana made a habit of confessing his ulterior motives to her. Though strangely, she thought he might understand that better than anyone.

Or all but one. And he...

Well, if there was a single person who might know where he went besides her, her feet were carrying her to him now/.

Were you to ask the girl, she would say she had not chosen night on purpose. The sorceress had housed her, fed her, loved her in her way; even with the image of the rose burned behind her eyes, she trusted her still, in the desperate way one does when one knows they should not, but cannot bear to contemplate why.

Opportunity chooses for her; the late afternoon sun burns hot, and when they finish their dinner, the sorceress excuses herself to lay down in the dark, to merely rest her eyes-- and does not wake, not even when the door creaks as the girl slips around it. The moon guides her steps when she walks into the garden, bright as the day itself, but she does not need it: her feet carrying her better than memory could.

There is one there, just as there was this morning: a petal, pink and sweet, fragrance so familiar she knew it even without sight.

Come out, she murmurs, digging her hands into the earth. Come out my lovely, my dear. I have been searching just for you.

A tendril spirals up from the ground, tentative. It flips and flaps, and oh, she is too shocked, too awed to help it. Even still, it finds her, wrapping around her finger, and with a single drop of blood the bush emerges, whole and dirt-smeared, from the soil.

What, it murmurs, impatience tinging its words, took you so long?

In the day, the pharmacy is all rush and chaos: apprentices burning tinctures and ushering patients to their rooms; masters emptying drawers as soon as they are filled, only for other herbalists to hurry to replace them. Guards arrive with injuries and nobles with ailments, no moment ever dull while the doors are open.

But at this hour, when the lords and ladies are all tucked in their beds-- or are at least pretending to be-- and the work is done, the pharmacy sleeps. There is no herbalist at the front desk, only the push bell Ryuu despised when she was his apprentice, since it always meant she would be pulled away from him or he away from his project.

A necessary nuisance, he called it once, and Obi had laughed. Just like me, eh, Miss?

She no longer remembers what she said-- it was early enough when he was one still, though she’d like to think she was too kind to say it-- but now she wishes, even if just for a moment, that she could tell him how much of a gift he was to her. How much he had made tedium bearable, even when she hadn’t known it for what it was.

Instead she bites her lips, rubbing at the ache in her breast. It’s hardly the first time she’s forgotten to say what matters, but-- but this won’t be her last chance. Obi might be away now, but he will be found, and she will tell him...

Everything. Every last thought she had since the moment they last spoke; her apologies and her worries, her failures and her triumphs. Because Obi hearing them-- that’s what makes them real.

Her hand wraps around the third door’s knob by habit; even now she expects to open it and see her projects spilled across her desk, to see a curtain closed beneath the other, and a window open between them. To see it waiting for her the way her heart waits for them, empty and waiting to be filled.

But there’s nothing of them there anymore. Nothing besides memories that no longer fit over the space it has become.

Her feet carry her onward, down to the last room, a sliver of light slipping across the hall where it’s been left ajar. She still expects to see a curled mass of blonde hair bent over the desk, long tables sprawled with books and half-finished studies, a bottle of roka medicinally sitting in the corner. But instead--

Instead it is a dark one, a riotous shrubbery of walnut and teak in desperate need of pruning. That had been her job in Lilias, along with Yuzuri’s helpful hands, but is seems no one here has yet talked the Chief Herbalist to task.

Give it a few years, Garack would tell her, and he’ll have herbalists as eager to get into his hair as you three were with me.

She leans against the jamb, a sigh slipping past where her heart clogs her throat. Ryuu had once fit beneath a desk half this size, and now he towers over it even seated, looking more and more like Shidan with each passing day, a man overgrown by time and deadlines.

“Ryuu.” It’s a palpable hit when their eyes meet. Everything else about him might change, but that gaze, so wide and thoughtful-- that never does.

Until now. One moment they spark, a fire lit behind blue glass, and the next...

It gutters, his gaze slipping away.

“Shirayuki.” His voice is so much deeper than in her memory, so much older. And colder too. “Excuse me, Lady Shirayuki. Is there something you need?”

“No.” She clings to the doorway, too aware of how fine her dress is, of how little it belongs in this place, his sanctum sanctorum. How little she belong here, now. “I saw a card you wrote to the consort, and I...wanted to see you.”

“A card?” His eyebrows twitch; she can no longer tell if it’s in surprise or confusion, not on this stranger’s face. “Ah. The powder for her migraines. Did you want some as well?”

“No, I’m-- I’m well.” It feels like a lie, even as she says it. It wouldn’t have, only hours ago. “I just...I’m here for you.”

His knuckles blanch where he grips his pencil. “Well, you’ve seen me. I trust you know your way out.”

You’re too late, too late, the roses say, their sing-song jangling in her ears. I’ve been hidden away for so long, and even now I cannot find him. The betrayal in their voice is thick when they ask, How could you forget us, your flower and your boy, when we have always grown together?

“Ryuu.” It leaves her lips cracked, broken; her mouth no longer knows how to form the shape that calls to him. “I know it’s been...a while, but please don’t think that I didn’t want to-- that I wasn’t thinking about you. I just...”

His pencil pauses on the page, but he does not speak. He just looks at her, the way he would at a stranger, and this room is suddenly a desert and ocean both, too far and deep to go by foot alone.

Still, there is nothing she will not brave, not for him. “It was hard to come,” she admits. “I’m not allowed in the gardens, and I’m not allowed to take patients. Coming here, watching everyone working the way I always have...”

It would have been like watching someone eat a feast while she was starving.

His eyes soften, even if they don’t precisely thaw. “I know that you’re marrying the prince, and that you don’t have time for m--” his lips press tight-- “this. I’m not upset because you’ve set your career aside.”

“But you are...” Her words limp as she says them, wounded fawns searching of an elusive mother. “You are upset.”

His hands flex as he places them on the wood, utterly silent. “I knew...” he breathes, so harsh it scrapes her own throat too. “I knew you’d have to give things up--important things. But...”

Ryuu had always spoken slowly, thoughtfully. But still, these moments when he meant what he said, when he composed rather than conversed-- it had never taken him to long to tell her what he meant. He trusted her, knew that even if his words came out garbled or his message was lost in a sea of ellipses, she would salvage it, gluing it back together with his intention.

So when he sits silent, it wounds her almost as much as his words.

At last his gaze lifts again from his work, but the glare he fixes on her-- “But I never thought you’d let one of them be Obi.”

Her mouth works, but the well from which she draws her reason is empty, leaving only pain in its wake.

“I didn’t...I didn’t let him leave,” she murmurs, more wind than whisper. “He never told me he was going. He just left without even...”

Saying goodbye. As if all these years had meant nothing at all.

“There’s a guardsman,” she says instead, her voice trembling toward something approaching even. “He said he saw Obi leave with--” a woman-- “someone.”

Ryuu grunts.

“He ran off with Torou, once.” She wants the words to come easy, but each one emerges from her trembling, the way her fingers are against her skirts. “On the way back from Tanbarun. That’s...that’s probably what this is. An old friend that needs help, and then he’ll come right back--.”

“He won’t.”

Each breath is a stab, deep in her chest. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He stands; a production with how much of him there is now. Cautiously, his hand extends, a fist hovering over the knotted wood of his desk.

It takes all her courage to take the first step, and all of it again to take the next. On and on until she’s crossed the room, hand outstretched, quivering beneath his own.

His palm opens, and into hers falls...a seed. Tiny. Blue. As clear as glass.

“An orbia seed?” Shirayuki lifts it up to the light, the plumule a hazy bead nestled in its luminous cotyledon. It’s impossible to tell by sight, but still, she’s sure-- it would germinate, if she planted it. “I was collecting these before we left.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny,” she murmurs, a smile lifting her mouth. “I never did find a blue one.”

“I know.” His explanation comes in fits and starts, a path never worn in the telling. “I had one. I gave it to Obi.”

“You...?” The thought catches in the light, just like the seed between her fingers. “Oh. Oh. But...” Her mouth curls, a silent question: why?

“I don’t know. I thought he might...” Ryuu’s shoulders twitch, as narrow as Obi’s when he first blew in with the wind. Before he settled into the man he became. “When he was ready...”

Of course. Her hand closes tight around the seed. Obi had what she needed all along. And she’d never known, not until...

Not until he was gone. “Where--?”

“I found it on my desk.” Ryuu’s fingers flex, falling by his side. “The morning after he left.”

Where did he go? the little girl asks, desperation choking her as surely as her tears. Where can I find him?

How should I know? the roses reply, thorns in their words as well as their stems. You are the one who left me buried under the ground. How could I watch him when you let us be trapped together?

“Did you...” Her mouth works, cutting itself against her question. “Did you tell Zen’s men, when they came? Do they know that he...?”

Said goodbye, she cannot say, to someone at least.

“No.” Ryuu blinks, his eyes as round and innocent and blue as ever. “They never did. Come by I mean.”

This is not the first time we have spoken of betrayal, is it? Of the wound that never heals, the jagged cut that scabs over only to be ripped open anew. The injury that teaches one to be wary, lest one be inflicted again.

But that is only after the wound is made. When it is first done...

Well, it is strange how long a heart can bear a blade through it without ever feeling the killing stroke.

“You are thinking,” Haruka remarks, with no small amount of disapproval. “I can tell.”

Shirayuki blinks down at her place setting, expecting to see broth dripped across the tablecloth, or perhaps the edge of her sleeve dipped in yolk, maybe even her tea dribbling over the edge of her cup--

But there is nothing. The white linen is pristine beneath her gold-rimmed plate, her sleeves and elbows tucked up and off the table, and if anything, her beverages of choice are picturesque in their vessels, juice beading with moisture and tea gently steaming. “What am I doing wrong?”

It, historically, has been the wrong question to ask the marquis, sure to send him into a silent huff that will stretch from first course to fifth, disapproval deepening with each sorbet. In his vaunted opinion, the fact her inexperience might cause her to trespass the unspoken rules of good manners is bad enough, but to not know precisely when and how it was done-- now that was truly unforgivable.

However, today he merely settles back in his seat, rubbing his fingers against the cloth tucked over his lap, and fixes her with his unerring gaze. She doesn’t shrink beneath it; oh no, instead something in her chest shifts, almost as if-- as if it grows.

His lips twitch, just the slightest upward tremor. “Nothing.”

Her mouth opens, then closes, stymied. “Then how did you know?”

A single, noble arch lifts. “Because you have never once stopped.”

It is to the tiger-lily the little girl turns, after the roses. They are a pompous flower, no doubt, as proud and self-important as any big cat, but despite their bluster, they are honest. The noblest flower in this garden, hearty and constant, and though they sniff when she kneels down upon their bed, dirtying her hem, they listen.

Have you seen him? she asks, heart lodged tight in her throat. Have you seen my precious boy?

“So what is it,” Haruka murmurs into his glass, “that has you so engrossed, young lady?”

Her lips press together, teeth plucking at the scar. “You told me once that I should know who is my ally, and who is my-- Zen’s.”

The rim has hardly touched his lips, but Haruka sets down the crystal, hands folding behind his plate. “I did.”

“But those are not the one two options, are they.” It’s not a question, not anymore. “Sometimes they may seem to be one or the other, or both at the same time, but really-- it’s their own, isn’t it? Everyone is just trying to do what they think best.”

“That is...” The marquis takes in a steady breath. “A very mature way to see a frustrating problem.”

“The consort has said that she is my friend,” she says slowly, each word shaken loose from her heart. “But she is also lying to me.”

“Is she?”

Haruka, she had said once, these long skirts tangled around her legs, binding fast as any chain, he’s hard to read.

Is he? Zen’s hand was cold against hers, like touching marble. Izana’s had been the same so many years ago; she wonders if it might be a problem with their circulation, perhaps passed down from a parent, but this doesn’t seem the time to ask about his mother’s medical history. He’s always seemed clear as crystal to me.

Though, he continues, mouth set in a rueful grin. After a childhood of lectures, maybe it’s easier. I can tell how stupid he thinks I am just from the degree of his eyebrows.

His brow is furrowed now, a tight knot over the bridge of his nose. There’s no angle, no lift, and Shirayuki isn’t quite sure what that might say about his perception of her intelligence. If it were anyone else, she might even call it concern.

“Is she lying to you,” he asks, posing it like Lata when he wants to ask something particularly perverse as a rhetorical. “Or are you not asking the right questions?”

Her fingers clench tight on her lap, linen rucking up between her fingers. She likes this far less than Lata’s. “Your Grace...”

Now his brows raise, shock stark on his face, “Yes, Miss Shirayuki?”

“Do you...?” The words stick in her mouth; to ask them is to admit defeat. No-- distrust. That the best interests everyone has been working towards are not her own. “Do you know where Obi is?”

I have seen no precious boy, the tiger lily trumpets, as proud as ever. Only a little girl loved by all who see her. How lucky she is to garner such attention!

I care not for me, the little girls mutters, impatient. Where do you think he has gone?

Away, away. The flower bobs beneath its own self-importance. He has been taken away. Down and gone and buried with the roses. Perhaps you are the better for it.

“No.” It’s the truth; he wouldn’t bother to lie to her. “As of now, his location is unknown, even to the king himself.”

She licks her lips, nails biting into her thigh. The orbia seed burns a hole in her hip. “Are they looking for him?”

A shadow ripples over his face, gone before she can follow it to its source. “Someone might be.”

“I mean Zen,” she clarifies. “Or Izana.”

“I know,” he replies, voice impossibly gentle from such a forbidding mouth. “I think we’re ready for the next course, don’t you?”

Innocence and ignorance, truth and illusion, trust and betrayal-- we have meditated upon each, as if they are but separate concepts that can be held to the light and have each facet revealed in turn. But surely you seen that they have all brought us here, to this part, to this singular place: a knife buried in a breast, a garden made into a cage. A girl in each, who has finally seen the truth beneath the illusion.

We should rejoice, should we not? For these girls who might free themselves, might heal themselves? But yet you do not, do you? For you know the trick of it:

A wound does not truly begin to bleed until the blade is removed. And a girl like this--

Ah, her hand is already at the hilt.

For once, Shirayuki is relieved that it is her round-faced guard that awaits her and not a more experienced one. Or worse yet, Kiki, who would anticipate her before she could get a word in edgewise.

But luck is on her side; this dear boy springs from his place on the wall, every muscle tense with anticipation, quivering to do his duty, and she-- she is ready to take advantage of it.

“Ready, my lady?” he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a hound eager to be given his leash. “It’s off to the ballroom next, isn’t it? With Master--?”

“Not today,” Shirayuki informs him swiftly. “I need you to take me to the king.”

The color leaches from his face. “The...the k-king?”

She nods, tight, officious. The sort Lady Mihoko gave her maids; the sort that belonged alongside a command obeyed.

“But, my lady...” He shuffles on his feet, loath to disappoint her. “Don’t you need an appointment to see His Majesty? I don’t think you can just go right in and--”

She’s already walked past him, chin held high. “He’ll see me.”

It may seem humble before the dawn, its petals as rumpled as bedsheets, drawn over its head like a child-- but when the sun casts its fiery crown over the garden, it is the convolvulus that is ascendant. It needs no dazzling pattern, no fanciful pinwheel of petal and sepal to make itself stand above its floral brethren, but only purity of color. For there is no other here that is so purely white, that has a color so simply blue. The tiger lily might roar among the plots, but it is to the convolvulus it bends, when it rises from its nightly slumber.

The little girl watches as the sleep falls from its petals, witness to its splendor. What, it asks, ruffling its delicate mane, could have made you seek me out, girl?

There is a not-insignificant portion of her life that has been spent waiting; not in the way of most of her colleagues-- for water to boil, or a titration to drip, or even for a letter of acceptance to arrive-- but for men with nothing else to recommend them but birth to decide they’re bored enough to receive the royal pharmacist. Shidan had called it fundraising and Kazaha glad-handing, but Shirayuki can admit now, as she flies past Izana’s steward, leaving him and her guard in her wake, what it really is:

Insulting.

The view always arrests her when she enters the royal solar, and this morning is no different; the sun setting, finishing its bright arc through the sky, but the angle of it, with the windows as they are-- it sets the king’s hair alight, a halo burning.

A target, she names grimly; and she the arrow. With his steward calling her name behind her, she takes a determined step toward him.

“Have you not heard then?” Izana asks, hardly bothering to look up from his papers. “I already approved your request to be excused from dinner.”

Shirayuki hauls up short, skirts swishing around her ankles. “Dinner?”

“Yes.” His brows raise, as does his gaze, already bored. “My brother already spoke about at length this morning. So if you seek to move me as well, please note that I have already stepped aside.”

“I...” She blinks. “I wasn’t here for that.”

Interest sparks in his eyes, quick as a struck match. “Then by all means, scold away. At least--” his mouth quirks, too amused-- “I assume that is your intention, marching into my office unannounced as you are.”

“Forgive me.” The steward presses a hand to his heaving breast. “Mistress Shirayuki--”

“It a force of nature,” his master replies, mouth curling like parchment corners. “So I have often had occasion to find out. You may leave us.”

“Your Majesty--” Izana merely lifts his brows, and the man stutters to a stop. “Of course. As you wish.”

“Now,” he hums as the doors close. “Just which wind sent this storm spinning into my office?”

Bound here you might be, but I know the trick of this place, the girl says, kneeing at the bed’s edge. What roots grow here touch the roots of all the morning’s glory. And you who wake with the sun-- you keep the closest watch on the horizon.

If there are any in the garden who know of my precious boy, she continues, the breeze rippling the convolvulus’s ruff. It would be you. So tell me, please...have you see him?

“It’s Obi,” she admits, heat stinging her cheeks. “I want to know the, er, status of the search.”

Izana blinks.

Oh, how kind it would be if this confusion was feigned, if it were all just a show to drag out her loyalties; to force her to admit that even if Zen was her heart, she could not turn her back on her home. That this was simply another moment where she would show him that friendship was strength, and the walls he erected himself were merely a folly.

But there is no smug satisfaction buoying his words when he asks, “The search? Didn’t Sir Obi leave my brother’s employ months ago? The beginning of the summer, I believe--”

“He didn’t quit,” Shirayuki insists, even as the seed weighs heavy between her skirts. “He disappeared, and Zen said he had put men out to search for him.”

A flower has no face, but the girl need no smile, no hooded eyes to discern the sorrowful bent of its stem.

I am but the morning’s glory, the convolvulus sighs, and when the night comes, I fold myself tight. Your boy does not pass me in my waking hours, so perhaps it is that he travels in the night.

But what does that mean? asks the girl. Why would he only travel at night? He is but a boy, a boy, and he walks in day.

The convolvulus is quiet, swaying in the garden’s eternal summer. I do not know, he admits. I do not know at all.

“Ah.” His eyes soften, no longer the unrelenting velvet of the night, but the waves of deep water, and Shirayuki finally has cause to find out: to experience Izana’s pity is a thousand times worse than his disdain. “I am not privy to the movement of my brother’s men, so long as I do not need them in attendance. He must not have put in his last report...”

“Please.” Her hand flies up between them, earning her an incredulous lift of a brow. “It only makes it worse that you are being decent about it.”

His laugh surprises her. “So you’d like me to gloat?”

“No.” Her breath saws out of her, great heaves that shake her shoulders. “I want you to grant me leave to find him.”

“You?” His brows raise, even his eyes widen, but to his credit, he does not ask, but what could you do? Instead his mask settles back over his face without a ripple, the king staring out from behind it. “It would be a waste. I have heard from your tutors that you are making good progress. Lady Mihoko even ventured to say you might make a passable princess, if you pushed out an heir fast enough.”

Her mouth twitches. Only yesterday, she would have nearly fainted with relief, but today-- “What praise.”

There’s a stern tilt to his mouth, a forbidding set to his eyebrows; if she didn’t know any better, Shirayuki would call it concern. “As I recall, our agreement did address this.”

“Then you mean...?”

“Yes.” He nods, splaying his palms across his desk, almost as if he were bracing himself. “If you leave the palace grounds, you forfeit your chance to be the one at my brother’s side. A princess leaves such things in the hands of her guardsmen--” his mouth twitches-- “and her husband.”

You want her to go, do you not? Even now you quiver at the edge of your seat, begging this little girl to open her eyes, to keep them open, to see through the illusion and run as fast as she can. You want her to leave the garden, to break through the last of this enchantment and leave safety behind.

But tell me, what would you do, with the knife quivering it in your chest? To forget it is to live with the pain. To remove it is to be free.

An easy choice, you might say. Who could live with a blade in their breast? Ah, but do not forget:

There is no way to know if the wound is fatal until the knife is removed.

“There is something I wonder, Mistress Shirayuki.”

His musings shatter the brittle silence between them; that fragile bulwark that has kept her in his skin. Now that it’s gone, she trembles, every muscle in her body fighting the urge to cross the king’s study and shake him until decency falls it.

A hopeless quest if there ever was one. “Is there something else you could possibly say to me?”

She says it sweetly; most would hear only that-- the tone rather than the content. But Izana has not sat so long on his father’s throne by being that sort of man; no, his mouth curls, amused.

“No. It’s only...” he hums, gaze lifting from his paper. “I wonder when you started to think Obi left.”

Then what do you know? the girl says, anger and bile rising in her tone. What good are you?

A flower cannot smile, but she feels teeth when it replies, I know that it will cost you, and cost you dear.

Izana might as well have struck her. Shirayuki rocks back on her heels, only just catching herself before she trips over her own hem. “I-I...what do you...?”

“When you came in here, you first talked as you had before.” Long fingers knit beneath his chin, though he does not deign to rest on them, not alert as he is. A cat before a kill, still toying with with the prey between his paws. “You insisted on his disappearance-- the implication being, of course, that you deny his own agency in his departure. Kidnapping or coercion, one might say.”

She cannot see its teeth, but Shirayuki isn’t so foolish to believe there is no trap. “Y-yes..”

“But now you come to me and ask after my men.” His mouth quirks. “You ask for my permission.”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” she asks, fingers clenching in her skirts. “A princess wouldn’t depart without the approval of her liege.”

“Of course.” He waves a hand, as if all those rules she spent late nights learning mean nothing at all, as if they were worth less than the paper on which they had been printed. “A princess would. But you, Miss Shirayuki, you--” his eyes spark, the way she only saw that night in Lilias as he closed the gates-- “you jump from windows. You follow a flower into a cave. If you truly believed your companion in danger, I doubt there is a single promise that would keep you by my side.”

She cannot breathe, let alone hazard an answer. Not when even a flutter of an eyelash could give her away.

“Which begs the question, doesn’t it?” His gaze fixes her to where she stand, pins through a moth’s wings. “Just what reason would make him leave?”

Me? the girl cries, already thinking of her lovely red shoes, of the boat they bought her down the river. Why me?

Because my dear, the convolulus hums. It is your fault that he has left.

The doors swing open, and the steward steps inside, sparing her an infuriatingly smug glance. “Sir Lowen, Your Majesty.”

“A moment,” the king tells him, “Mistress Shirayuki and I are nearly done her.”

The man nods. “I will tell him to await your will.”

Shirayuki blinks. “What--?” It’s trial to catch her breath, to make her heart stop pounding in her breast. “What is Mitsuhide doing here?”

“You need an escort to your dinner, do you not? I thought he would be the most palatable option for you.” Izana fixes her with a meaningful look. “I do hope you find your answers, Mistress Shirayuki.”

You don’t know me. Obi’s gaze is raw in her memory, too gold. You don’t know anything about me.

You know how he is. Zen’s smile curls at the edges, brittle, like parchment pasted to vellum. Obi has always come back on his own before.

Zen will take care of it. Mitsuhide won’t meet her gaze. I’m sure Obi will be back any day now.

“Don’t worry.” It’s a miracle that the words don’t catch between her teeth, the way she’s clenching them. “I will.”

A hand wraps around a hilt. A breath shudders. And with one, swift tug--

The blade moves but an inch.

#obiyukiweek21 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #All That Remains #snow queen au #ans #YET ANOTHER CHAPTER #WHERE I DO NOT REACH THE END OF THIS PART #it's coming guys #really it is...#...one day....#but at least you get this small glimmer of hope #FOR NOW

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saturnsstufff · 3 years

Text

The Blade and The Crow

warnings: mentions of death

Immortals are painted so delicately high in stories. Each brush stroke gently and precisely placed, placed without flaw. Immortal's either see Mortal's as a soft malleable child, open and willing to learn, yet desperately in need of guidance. Or they see them as fools, not cautious enough with their limited time.

When the Angel Of Death saw Mortal's he saw them as pure Fools. Too stupid and naïve in the understanding of God's, and Immortals. What made him turn his nose up the most however was their lacking in interest. They didn't want to learn, or understand the unnatural order. Mortals shunned the forbidden knowledge, to Phil- someone who loved to learn, someone who soaked information up seamlessly, he couldn't understand their uninterest.

Philza was young however, he was still new to this... power. No matter how long Immortals live their is always a beginning. A start to their story, a single hushed word, maybe written, thought, or spoken, sometimes even screamed, whether gloriously or in sin. sometimes their beginnings aren't wrote or even spoke of, sometimes they are painted, mostly because words cannot begin to explain.

When Phil started becoming Devine, he honestly didn't think much about it, frankly he didn't even understand it was happening. He was a teen, young, a bit of a lady killer if you asked around, but entirely he was kind and quite generous. His parents focused on raising a kind son, the type any girl could bring hoe to her parents and be proud of. Truthfully, between his never ending manners and his strive for hard work, it was hard to not be proud of him, or at least acknowledge he was striving for the stars.

Phil's story started Hushed, soft, gentle even. Like a slow morning. The sun slowly leaving it's hidden spot. Shining and blossoming out to something much larger, sometimes more threatening. Just like that Sunrise, no matter how small and frail he was, by the end of eons Phil would become something more threatening, and terrifying. Some wouldn't even know he was born a child, for every story and legend taken down described him as a immortal elder who flew trough eons as a blood thirsty, torn man.

However, about his teens he started to notice his aging slowing down dramatically. His mother would always play it off as having a young baby face. The common thing any mother would tell her child. “Oh it’s just your youth showing, no need to worry”, “It’s just a baby face, your father had it too” all things he was told. He believed it too, after all, was he supposed to look into it?

Sadly this odd aging became more apparent with every new year. By Nineteen he roughly looked about fifteen, when he turned twenty, he similarly looked the same. Because of this oddity he found himself staying home, or keeping away from the public more and more, not wishing to be ridiculed or looked at as a medical mystery.

He tried to grow close to some at least, some girls still lingered to his kindness. That was until they looked like a older woman carrying a child around on her arm. After being left so many times, Phil couldn't help but draw back, and subconsciously shut himself down on seeking out a possible partner. After all, who wanted to bee seen with a child?

When he matured into his thirties, he moved into a cottage by himself. He lied to his mother about the reasoning, telling her he wanted to explore the world more, grow up and experience it all. He knew his father wouldn't need help around the house anymore so it was perfect timing for the excuse. However, deep down he knew he was only leaving because he didn't want the village people to see a thirty-year old looking like a nineteen year old.

After his departure he only came back for two things. His Father’s and his Mother’s Funeral. He would always kick himself in the future when he looked back on his mothers death. He couldn't stay through her whole service, not because of the tears he shed, but because of the lingering comments the villagers made. They didn't recognize Phil, thus they assumed he never showed. So instead of whispering saddened through's about her missing child, they down talked him. They cursed his “absence”, they wished Ill on him, they hoped he suffered for it.

When Phil thinks back on this, he always remembers this as the first time he felt something deep within him stir.

For every word, every curse... Every ill will...

He wished it back tenfold.

“Shame their boy didn't show, I thought he was so kind”

‘Shame you don't open your eyes’

“Don't you think he would at least show? I mean its a funeral, its not like he had anyone else.”

‘I don't see anyone at your funeral, not with how you keep both faces upturned’

“I hope he remembers missing his mothers death, I hope it stays with him forever”

‘rot in hell’

He knew most of his anger was from grief, he knew he shouldn't take it out on the others, it wasn't the right thing to do.

But that didn't stop him from doing it anyway.

He should have been about a hundred now. he was easily old, yet he looked no older than twenty. He couldn't explain it, but that didn't stop him from living, he still kept going day to day.

After a few more he left the pew, no longer waiting to hear what else they had to say about his absence.

After he hit three digit numbers, he started to change drastically...

He met a woman on his One hundred, and fiftieth birthday, and Oh would he always remember her. She never gave her name, yet Phil trusted her with his whole heart.

She came to him when he was out late hunting. The night was cold, the first snowfall hadn't been long ago, so as Phil prowled the woods his breath came out in puff’s, the cloud showing his shaky breath. At first he thought he was seeing things, shadows moving too swiftly for a pure animal. He would see one on his left, then swiftly from behind him, then to his right. it was enough to drive anyone insane at the thought.

Pushing aside his fear, he drew the sting of his bow back, assuming a black bear had taken interest into his loneliness, prowling alongside him, waiting to send him back to his mothers grave in bits. Phil was wise enough to know the situation of “You or Me, we both cant leave” So before the bear could strike he pulled the arrow back, tucking the nock against the corner of his lip, the fletching brushing his cheek in the process, giving contrast to the cold night. With the arrow ready, he waited for the sound of movement.

When he herd the wind pass by his ear in a swift breeze, he released a breath and turned, releasing the arrow from his grip, letting the arrow pierce the air, waiting for the sound of a hit.

But it didn't come.

Instead, when he turned to see his kill, he saw a kind woman looking down at him. She was tall, yet beautiful in every point, wings of gold glittered under the moonlight, acting like a natural halo behind her. Her face was hidden by her black veil, black curls kissing her cheeks as they fell over her shoulder. Not only was Phil stunned, but he was left speechless when he saw her holding his arrow, the arrow he shot in hopes to end animal.

“Well hello there little one”

#philza fanfiction #technoblade fanfiction #technoblade #Philza #TBaTC

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anntoldst0ries · 4 years

Text

Everything else is just the weather

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count: ~5.3k (I sinned!) Summary: Ethan takes Elle out on their “first” date. Category: Fluff Warnings: None

A/N: It has literally taken me ages to finish this fic. To the point that I couldn’t look at it anymore, but here it is. I had it in mind for a really long time and now that OH is back, I feel like I’m ready to show it to the world. As always thank you for your support and I hope you like it!

This fic is part 2 of birthday present for my friend, part 1 is the fan art which you can see here. Once you read the fic, the fan art makes more sense :)

This is my submission for CFWC Silly Love Stories, Day 12: Date night.

Loud knocks resonated throughout the room.

"Come in!"

"Good morning, Mrs. Peterson.”

“Good morning, Dr Valentine. I think you are the only doctor in this hospital with some sort of manners, everyone else just waltzes in here as if it was a damn barn!”

“Hospital or no hospital, everyone has their right to privacy.”

“Thank you, child. Once again, please call me Faye."

"Alright Faye, but only if you call me Elle.” She smiled sweetly, and the whole room seemed to be suddenly lit by a thousand suns.

“How are you feeling? Are the meds making a difference?"

"They are. I am ready to be discharged today.”

"Not so fast. I am not ready to say goodbye to you yet."

“Why would you possibly like to be lumbered with an old nuisance like me for even a second longer than necessary?”

Elle just laughed and shook her head. The ‘nuisance’, as the elderly lady so lovingly put it, was exactly what she loved about her job. She loved spending time with her patients, she loved their stories and their worldly wisdom. It made her sad to see how many of them thought they didn’t matter or considered themselves and their lives boring. To her, they were anything but.

Many of Edenbrook’s staff members kept asking themselves: what is it about her? She was a great doctor, no two ways about it, and she was a genuinely nice person. But what was the source of power she had over people? If she woke up one day and decided to start a rebellion, patients would have most certainly followed her, even if it meant they’d be leaving the premises of the hospital with naked butts or trailing their IVs behind them. Doctors, nurses, administration, cleaners and security would follow shortly. She only had to say a word.

And how on Earth was she capable of turning Dr Ramsey, the grizzly bear of Edenbrook, into a benign teddy bear with as little as one look? It was beyond everyone’s apprehension.

Had they spent more time actually observing her, rather than gossiping in the corners, the answer would have unveiled in front of them within minutes.

It was very simple.

Noelle was truly curious about people. She genuinely liked them and was determined to get to know their story, for it helped her diagnose them faster and also satiated the young doctor’s hunger for knowledge.

Patients never felt like “curious cases” or “numbers” in her presence. They were… themselves - people with hopes, dreams, fears, pet peeves and odd habits. They were human.

So little and yet so much.

Those never touched by serious illnesses often failed to understand that sickness strips you of your dignity and becomes your identity. Your true self becomes covered by this weird, annoying sticker that wouldn’t come off no matter how hard you tried to remove it.

But this young woman, despite the nature of her profession, somehow managed to notice what was hiding beneath this misleading layer.

Had all these gossipers spoken to her patients, that’s exactly what they would have heard.

"What's happening today?" The older lady asked with a flick of curiosity in her wrinkle-haloed eyes.

"What do you mean, Faye?" The young doctor sounded genuinely baffled by the out-of-the-blue question.

"Well, I am no diagnostician, but I believe I am rather observant and you radiate with happiness. Something special is happening today, am I right?"

"Yeah, you are right." Elle blushed like a teenager caught in a lie. "My boyfriend is taking me on a surprise date today, but he won’t say a word about it, so I'm super excited to find out what he planned for us. He usually isn't one for romantic gestures, so the secrecy is killing me."

"Do you think he's gonna pop the big question?" Faye’s eyes lit up with excitement.

"No, we're not there...yet." Elle faked a smile, but a tone of doubt and sadness coloured her voice. They probably never will be, those things weren’t in the cards for Ethan, as he already stressed once.

But once was enough and she didn’t dare mention the subject again.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he's got some big guns in store, I would if I had a lady like you." - a male patient lying in the bed adjacent to Elle’s patient added smiling flirtatiously.

"Jerry, you were supposed to focus on getting better, not stealing my girlfriend." They all jumped when a deep baritone echoed throughout the room, hitting present company like a wrecking ball. She must have left the door ajar or Ethan could penetrate the walls soundlessly, because no one heard him coming.

Exactly how long has he been standing there for and how much did he hear?

"Dr. Ramsey, flirting makes your blood flow faster. Isn't it the very definition of life itself?” Jerry’s tone was brisk and lively.

"Well, it definitely isn't the definition of recovery after a heart attack." Ethan used his authoritative doctor’s voice but knew this wasn't a battle he was going to win. Jerry had something he didn't: a couple more decades of life experience under his belt and even the best medical school in the country couldn’t compete with this.

"Besides, Dr. Ramsey, I don't think that the beautiful Dr. Valentine here fancies old farts like me."

"That's where you are wrong, Jerry, looks like this is exactly the type I fancy." The two women laughed, however Ethan was far from amused. "Dr. Ramsey is 10 years older than me."

"10 years? What is 10 years in these times? Nothing. When I was getting married 40 years ago, it was something. But today? Look at all them playboys with girls younger than my granddaughter. 10 years is actually a very healthy difference. Men are immature and slower with growing up emotionally. So I'd say you've caught up, Dr. Ramsey, and the two of you are emotional peers now.”

“Thank you for the fascinating lesson in human psychology, Jerry. To think I’ve wasted all this time and money on medical school and no one taught me this.”

“Dr. Ramsey, it’s because schools and useful knowledge are mutually exclusive.”

Elle and Faye were on the verge of bursting out in laughter, but managed to keep their composure and used the non-verbal communication of exchanging glances instead.

Once they made sure their patients had everything they need, Ethan and Elle wished them a good day and promised to stop by in 2 days, as the following day was their day off.

The moment the door closed behind them, Ethan crossed his arms on his chest.

"I lose you from my sight for one second and this happens. 5 more minutes with Jerry and I'd be single again."

"At least no one wants to poke your eyes out for being with me."

"And someone wants to poke yours?"

"Where do I start... nurses, who had a crush on you long before I even set foot in Edenbrook? Female interns? Anyone, who has a pair of functioning eyes and ever looked at you?"

She was adorable when she was doing this, her whole body overtaken by excitement and her hands waving. When she was talking about something really important to her she wasn't just conversing with her mouth, she was doing it with her whole body.

Suddenly, his pager painfully reminded Ethan that this was neither the place nor the time to lose himself in adoration.

"I need to go, I'm completely swamped today and I have my favourite cherry-on-top board meeting. In case I don't see you for the rest of your shift - I’ll pick you up at 7."

He was gone before she was able to form a response. Was it just her or was Dr Ramsey weirdly… nervous?

* * * * * * * *

At 7pm sharp, Ethan Ramsey curled his palm in a fist and gently knocked. The door opened in an instant, as if someone knew he'd been standing there for the past few minutes.

"Ethan! I mean Dr. Ramsey...please come in!" Sienna squeaked with nervous excitement as she let him in.

"Outside of Edenbrook Ethan is just fine, Sienna. If you don't mind me calling you by your first name, of course."

"Mm..mme? No, yes, I mean... Elle is on the balcony." She tried to hide her embarrassment and motioned towards the tall windows surrounding the living room. Some time ago, he would have been oddly proud to have such an intimidating effect on people - nowadays, more than anything, he was amused. Has he really changed so much?

The answer to his question was leaning against the railing, glass of wine in her hand. Gauzy, flowery dress enveloped her frame and tanned skin.

For Ethan, it was as clear as crystal: summer had the face and scent of Noelle Valentine.

Long before she started leaving her toothbrush in his apartment and sleeping in his old JH t-shirts, Ethan noticed that whenever he laid eyes on her, his whole body started acting in a very irrational way. His doctor’s instincts prompted him to think of all types of biological causes and chemical reactions in the brain. Then, when he sort of admitted to himself it’s not just pure science, Ethan leaned towards the forbidden fruit theory - the more he couldn’t have his drug, the more he was craving it.

But the feeling never disappeared. Whenever he wouldn’t see her for a while - be that an hour, a day, or just when she went to take a shower or make a coffee - the very moment her face came into his view again, he felt his stomach somersaulting.

Every. Single. Time.

It wasn’t any different now.

"Drinking without me?"

She almost dropped the glass when his voice stopped the train of thought in her head. But then she saw his face, the way too seldom relaxed muscles and a barely-there smile.

A perfectly tailored shirt clung to his torso marvellously. If not in medicine, he surely would have made a name for himself in the fashion industry. Fortunately for her, the idea never crossed his mind.

The warm wind blew in her face, carrying the scent of expensive cologne which overwhelmed her nostrils. She didn’t know this one, so it must have been new. But she did know that smelling it for the whole evening while staring at his handsome face will be a pure torture.

Simply put, she was a goner.

"I don't know why, but I was quite nervous. Had to summon the courage somehow.”

“As you should be. After all, it's not every day that one goes on their first date."

She looked at him as if she’d just been told that a UFO landed on the roof.

“On a what?”

"Well, I was thinking a lot lately about how we never had a first date. Nothing was ever...typical with us. I promised myself I will do my best to fix things that caused you pain or deprived you of the things you deserved. Maybe I cannot fix some immediately, but this one I can, so I will."

Her eyes, overbrimming with affection struck him like thousand lightnings. Thank god a comfortable silence fell between them - had she asked him a question, it would have been clear that right now he is nothing but a simpering moron.

With this in mind, he took his hands from behind his back, holding a small bouquet of pink gerberas.

"These are my favourites." Her face instantly illuminated at the well known sight and smell. "How did you know?”

"I had some amazing helpers."

Elle instantly turned her head left and looked inside, where grinning, Sienna was showing her the thumbs up.

"Wow, now I actually wish I'd downed the whole bottle."

"I'm glad you didn't. I want to go on a date with a woman, not her lifeless body, even though the body itself is very appealing. Shall we?”

“King of compliments…”

* * * * * * * *

"You actually look like you are having a good time, Dr Ramsey.”

"Why wouldn't I? There is alcohol, sitting under the sky definitely has its charm and the company is acceptable." She playfully swatted his arm, the gesture a quick reminder of how comfortable they felt with each other, something he constantly remembered to never take for granted.

“Although I love this, I still don’t understand why you dragged me all the way outside Boston, I’m pretty sure the rooftop bars are pretty acceptable there, too. A bit more crowded though, that’s for sure.”

“Are you complaining about the fact that we have this entire place to ourselves? I know the owner and he was indebted to me.”

“Of course he was.” Looks like the whole town is indebted to Ethan freakin’ Ramsey.

“With regards to why I brought you here… you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Gosh. She couldn’t decide whether the mysterious side of Ethan Ramsey was hot as hell or annoying as hell. But she didn’t really have time to contemplate, because her companion asked her a question.

“Why did you become a doctor?” The ocean eyes pierced her to the core and she had a feeling that even if she was the best actress in the world, there was no way she’d be able to hide something from this man.

“That’s a terrible change of subject. Also, I must have told you like a million times already.”

“No, you never told me.”

When she looked at him and really, really thought about it… she suddenly realised Ethan was right. Elle told the story so many times she sort of… assumed she told Ethan, too.

“Are you sure you want to hear it today? It’s a pretty sad story, a mood killer I’d say.”

“It’s what makes you you, so yes, I want to hear all about it - the good, the bad and the indifferent.”

“I’ll tell you, but I need to ask something first. Why now? We’ve known each other for a while and you just… I just sort of assumed this isn’t the type of conversation you’d like to hold.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head.” Ethan’s expression was gentle, not a hint of irony in his voice. “I’ve known you for a while now, but there are still so many things about you that I don’t know. At first, I didn’t want to ask, because asking these questions meant admitting that there is something more between us. What a fail would that be, after I’ve mastered the art of denial.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a bitter or a nervous laugh, it was a genuine banter between them, as the British half of her soul liked to call it. “But you made me want to dig deeper.”

Was it the heat that made her catch her breath, or did it have nothing to do with the temperature?

“Plus, this is sort of what first dates are for, right? I’m sorry for skipping right to the more complex questions. It’s not that I don’t want to know what you were afraid of as a child, I want to know all the details… but it feels like the atmosphere calls for something…bigger.”

So she told him all about her friend, how she fell ill, how she couldn’t be saved and how the experience wreaked havoc on her whole life, tears glistening in her eyes at the mere memory of the events that shaped who she was today.

Ethan listened, his whole body tense and eyes transfixed. She was giving him one of the most fragile parts of her and he had to make sure his hands were there to catch, carry and care for this treasure.

“And that’s when I realised that if I focused on becoming the best doctor I could be, then maybe one day, I’d be that person who has an answer, who can solve a mystery and save a relationship that means the world to someone. Sometimes, people don’t realise that when a person dies, it’s not only them that’s gone. The part of someone who stays, who has to deal with the whole ‘me after you’ - that part is gone, too. So for me, in a way, this meant saving more than one life.”

For a couple of seconds he didn’t move. Then, without saying a single word and with an unreadable expression he got up and offered her a hand, which she silently accepted. He led her to the railing, where the sun was slowly sinking into the boundless waters of Quincy Bay.

His lips found the all too well known way to her forehead, placing a loving kiss on her delicate skin.

“I am so proud of you.” There was something so mesmerising in his whisper, sending a shiver down her spine.

“As a mentor or as a boyfriend?”

“Both. I want you to know that your dedication to people who rely on you is astounding and hardly present in doctors your age. Or any age, for that matter.”

“Wow, Dr Ramsey, smooth. Trying to hit on me with a recycled pick-up line used on a national TV? No wonder you didn’t have too many girlfriends.”

“No, I didn’t. But I believe everyone has a limit of luck they can get per life. And looking at you, I got a couple of lifetimes worth of luck.”

This was enough to render her speechless. She smiled and at this very moment he knew he would do anything to make her smile like this. She wrapped him around her pinky finger and suddenly his whole existence revolved around finding ways of seeing her curve these breathtaking lips as often as possible and making sure he is the reason she smiles… not crying her eyes out.

Although the other didn’t know, because none of them said it out loud, they both thought the same thing.

This feels so right.

There isn’t a hint of awkwardness in the fact that they can go from being serious or emotionally vulnerable to funny and teasing in seconds.

In one effortless movement, Ethan spun her and pressed her back against his chest. Then, he started placing a series of tender kisses along her jawline and the crook of her neck, slowly moving towards her shoulder.

Come on, just say it Ramsey. It doesn’t get any better than this.

He wrapped her palm in his and pointed them towards the sky.

“There they are - the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper.” Their intertwined fingers were jumping from one tiny flashing point to the other, as if they were playing connect the dots. “And that’s Orion’s Belt.”

“I really don’t get why at this point I’m still surprised that you’re good at everything.”

Elle was drunk on his every word, as this annoying trait of Ethan Ramsey being the know-it-all was actually one of her favourite things about him.

As for Ethan, he couldn’t help but think that life wasn’t perfect and was never going to be. But this - this moment - it was in fact perfect. Why take chances of ruining it, when so many things can go wrong?

What if she doesn't say it back?

What if she's just gonna laugh at him or tell him he had it all wrong.

What if he misinterpreted everything and she never thought about him this way?

He was terrified of being this exposed. The last person he loved so much left him without batting an eyelid and disappeared for 25 fucking years.

Maybe it was better to live in a perfect illusion than a reality in which there was even a 0.01% chance she doesn't love him back.

So they both drowned in the moment, drifted in the sea of rapture, lost in the illusion that it can all last forever.

It was her who broke the silence.

“I’m getting a bit cold, is it ok if we call it a night?”

“Right, of course.”

“Thank you for the first date, I loved it.”

Handing her his jacket (her favourite, the dark green leather one) Ethan was furious at himself.

Maybe he was broken. Maybe he will remain broken forever. Maybe that’s the way it must be.

“Do you want to spend the night at mine?” The question slipped his tongue before he was able to fully reflect on it.

“At yours? Unless you have some secret place I don’t know about, just a quick reminder - I live there too.”

“Since this was our first date, I thought it was a gentlemanly thing to ask.”

“In that case… I am afraid I have the ‘after the 3rd date’ sleepover rule, Dr Ramsey.”

* * * * * * * *

The morning came all too soon and the hot, ruthless rays of the rising sun announced that Ethan is now way past his regular wake up and get up time. He barely slept, tossing and turning, replaying every second of the evening in his head.

His hand mindlessly reached for what he hoped to be the familiar curves and softness of the body he adored so much.

But his palm hit the mattress with a loud thud. The bed was empty.

The all-too-well known feeling of hopelessness slipped into the doctor's mind with ease. What did he expect? He was acting weird the previous day. First date, what a stupid idea. She must have realised something is wrong with him and finally left.

But before he was able to fully wallow in the mud of pity, the feeling was soon replaced by an old friend Ethan haven’t heard from for a long time.

Panic.

Where was she? Is she ok? What if something happened to her and he was just sleeping like a log instead of being there to protect her. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her… again. Something grabbed his chest in a tight grip and wouldn’t let go.

Scenes flashed before his eyes, vivid and bright. Their hands touching through the glass wall. Her hand cupping his cheek through the layer of hazmat suit.

He got out of bed at the speed of sound and started running around the apartment, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, he noticed.

The balcony door was opened wide.

Shit.

Heart in his mouth, Ethan crossed the distance between his kitchen island and the balcony door in the blink of an eye.

Elle was just serving pancakes outside. The goddamn pancakes. The only thing he couldn’t cook. The one thing she kept teasing him about and he rolled his eyes every time she did.

God, he promised himself he will never learn how to make them, if it meant she would just tease him forever.

She was smiling as widely as ever, putting the sun and everything else in the world to shame. Ethan was still a bit shaken and his uneven breathing gave him away. Elle finally noticed his presence.

“Good morning, I was just about to—“

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They both froze.

The tension in the silence that had just set in was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

But the silence didn’t last long. As one man, with eyes full of disbelief, they both murmured simultaneously:

“What did you just say?”

This time, he felt obliged to break the silence.

"I...I...I mean, I…"

Damn it, get it together, idiot.

"I didn't mean to…”

Great, Ramsey, keep digging an even deeper hole for yourself, then crawl in and stay there forever.

"You didn't mean to say it?”

"Yes. No. I mean, damn it, I am making things worse, aren't I?”

She didn’t set him straight.

"The thing is, I wanted to say it yesterday. I had it all planned, I took you for a first date and I wanted to say it for the first time yesterday.”

"Why did it have to be yesterday?”

“Give me a minute.”

She just rolled her eyes, but Ethan didn’t have a chance to notice before disappearing inside. A few moments later he re-emerged, his face and torso covered by a neatly wrapped, rectangle-shaped object.

"What's this?"

"Something you should have unpacked yesterday, but then... life happened."

Elle sat down on cold tiles, her hands trembling with a mix of fear and excitement. And just like he did months ago, he took her hand in his, only this time he cupped his own cheek with her palm and placed the most tender kiss on the inside of her hand.

It was her favourite medicine, a remedy for all things wrong.

He sat beside her and nodded at the mysterious package. With impatience growing inside of her, Elle has torn the paper up.

Inside was a dark blue, framed print - the colour of it an instant reminder of her favourite set of irises.

She studied everything with intent. A circle must have been representing the earth and the irregular dots and lines must have been the stars and constellations.

"A map of the sky? That's beautiful, Ethan."

He knew immediately that although her delight was sincere, she had absolutely no clue what she was looking at and why she was looking at it.

“It's not just any map of the sky.” Ethan explained gently, hints of pride colouring his voice. “It's a map of the Boston sky from exactly a year ago. Well, a year and a day.” He smiled faintly, now a shade of sorrow in his enchanting voice.

Silence. Was she supposed to know what that meant?

“Aren’t you full of mysteries today? Ok, you need to throw me a lifebelt here. What's so special about the sky from a year and a day ago?”

“For the world? Probably not too much. For me? Everything.”

At this stage of their relationship, she knew a lot about Ethan’s behaviours, triggers, his body language. And not just a relationship as a couple, but also everything that came before Ethan became someone she was running through life with (the life of two doctors in one of the busiest and most prestigious hospitals was certainly not a walk in the park).

But it still fascinated her how his demeanour changed whenever the subject was serious, whenever he was talking about something that truly mattered to him. It was as if he’d stripped down of all the layers and let her look into his bare soul. These rare moments of vulnerable intimacy meant more to her than any night of passion they ever shared.

Her eyes turned to him in pledge, because as much as she wanted to, Dr Valentine still couldn’t fully comprehend the scene unraveling in front of her.

“Read the description below the map.”

Dear God, did she actually hear shyness in his voice?

She skimmed through the image again, and there it was, right at the bottom. Elle was so focused on trying to decipher the meaning of the image that she didn’t notice the words below.

The words which explained everything.

I WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY

THAT MADE ME REALISE

YOU ARE THE SKY

EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST THE WEATHER

Her emerald eyes brimmed with hot tears as the meaning dawned upon her. Words were very unnecessary, but now that he summoned the courage to speak, there was still a lot he wanted to put into words. He gently took the frame from her hands and leaned it securely against the wall.

Taking her palms into his, he placed delicate kisses on her knuckles, his lips tracing the shape of these two tiny hands, which held all of him. Everything he had, everything he was and was going to be, he placed in those two fragile palms, with an unspoken hope that they will hold him and catch him if he falls.

“Look at me.” The words were pulsing with care and affection, even though his voice coloured them in serious and desperate shades.

“One year ago… and a day from today…” He smiled and she felt the warmth spilling inside of her. The power he had over her was beyond the limits of understanding.

Little did she know that the object of her affection was lost in the same thought.

“I was standing exactly where we stand right now. It was dark and the view wasn’t that spectacular.” He freed one of his hands, but only to make contact with her cheek to caress it slowly. In this moment, he had to touch her any way that he could. With his hands. With his eyes. With his soul.

“But I always found comfort in staring at the sky. When I was at med school, I had countless moments of doubt, I wanted to quit more times than I can count. So I used to go to a secluded place at night and stare at the sky. It made me realise how, in one respect, I am just a grain of sand in the universe and how little my problems are. Funnily enough, this thought actually brought me a sense of comfort. If I am as little as I think I am, then what is the harm in being brave and taking chances? A wise man once said… There are some things that are worth any risk.”

She giggled through the tears, the sweet sound soothing his shattered nerves.

“I was standing right here and I never felt more miserable in my life. And I couldn’t understand why, for God’s sake. I was thriving at work. I had everything figured out and planned. I was pushing you to be the best you could be and I watched you turn into someone who would one day be far greater than me. But you looked so sad, so… broken. You already know I can’t just gloss over you feeling down. The sadder you were, the more miserable I felt. One evening, I was having a glass of scotch and I remembered some tiny exchange we’ve had earlier in the day, literally a chit chat. No idea what it was about. But I remembered your smile and your laugh. Every tiniest move of your muscles, your eyes, how your hair set around your face. It made me happy. Even if it was just for 5 minutes, knowing that you are happy in that very moment filled my chest with lightness. That’s when I realised I want to be the person who makes you feel this way.”

She blinked the first time in a while, as if she was afraid to make the tiniest movement, afraid it will all disappear and turn out to be a dream. Giant teardrops rolled down her angelic face, trailing the path of joy.

“Noelle Sky Valentine, I love you. I have loved you for a long time but I was too stubborn to let myself give in. And that, as you already know, will always be one of my biggest regrets.”

“Ethan, I don’t… I’m so sorry, I just don’t know what to say.” Her voice was saturated with emotions.

“I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.“

“I love you too, Ethan Jonah Ramsey. You are by far the most complicated and stubborn person I have ever met. You are… everything I never knew I looked for in another human being.”

Once he heard her say it back, he couldn't get enough of it and a lifetime didn't feel like enough to tell her he loves her, as many times as he wished to.

“But I do have to mention this, Dr Ramsey… from the first date to a love confession in less than 24 hours? I’m sorry, I think this is moving too fast.”

“I’ll show you too fast…but I’m afraid we need to get inside, I don’t want the whole world and its wife to see how I teach you a thing or two.”

Ethan scooped her in his arms and carried her inside, despite her mock protests. He smiled and corrected himself.

He wanted for the whole world to see.

Because the whole world was right there.

In his arms.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you’ve gotten this far, I need you to know you are absolutely amazing 💗

Tag 🏷 list: @jamespotterthefirst @romewritingshop @romereadingshop @genevievemd @starrystarrytrouble @terrm9 @mrs-ramsey @maurine07 @gryffindordaughterofathena @mercury84choices @lovingramsey @qrkowna @openheartfanfics @choicesficwriterscreations @lisha1valecha @oldminniemcg @iemcpbchoices @tsrookie @fayeswiftie @levinsdowneyy @brooks-eden @poudredevie @queencarb @caseyvalentineramsey @lucy-268 @tenaciousdeputydreamfriend @alwaysmychoices-sideblog @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @schnitzelbutterfingers @the-pale-goddess @lem-20 @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @liaromancewriter @ohchoices @archxxronrookie

#ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x mc #dr ethan ramsey #play choices #open heart #open heart fic #cfwc silly love stories #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week #ethan ramsey

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fallenrepublick · 4 years

Note

Hello i have been enjoying you're blog for quite some time now💕 (you are a phenomenal writer), if it wasn't too much of a hastle i was curious if i could request for a small piece of writing or a few words about darth maul and a (forbidden) lover? She's from a family who forbids her from seeing him, then One night she is out on her balcony wearing a (revealing) silk nightgown. and he comes up to her, it's all erotic slow sensual bliss, then they make a plan to leave together.

Hi, thank you!! I really enjoyed this prompt. Honestly, I was getting major Romeo and Juliet vibes with this, but with a (hopefully) happy ending. Thanks for that!

Warnings: Generally NSFW, pet names, smut, all that good stuff. No kinks to my knowledge (again let me know if I missed something)

He wasn’t one to wait. Years and years seemed to pass by in seconds when he recalled any past memories. Waiting was a luxury, one that someone like Maul simply couldn’t afford.

Yet he had spent hours on this planet, his wanderings aimless, and his thoughts on only one thing, one goal that had been kept far from his grasp for months now.

You.

Even as the sun was high, the time no later than midday, he had considered seeking you out, your home a mere minute’s walk from where he had wasted away his hours. Time and time again he had to stop himself from following his desires, even as you were near enough that he could practically sense your aura.

He wondered how he could be so ridiculous, so weak, a simple interaction threatening to consume his mind each time he returned to it. But your kindness with which you spoke to him, your gentle smile, the light touch of your hand on his arm as you reassured him, it still lingered in his ears, on his skin, that sentence often being one of the only things that anchored him to the ground in the hardest moments.

“I’m so glad I know you.”

The world fell away around him as he reminisced, stone walkways turning to grass, and the crowds fading to silence, until he was simply left with you, standing across from him, that bright smile once again painted on your perfect face. It was all he had. All he knew. And though he could see it clearly as day, he feared for the time when the memory would fade, when he wouldn’t be able to recount the moment up to the last detail, when your figure would become nothing but another shadow he’d be forced to turn away from.

But what choice did he have? It was something he asked himself with every recollection. When your once daily letters had stopped, and he found through unfortunate circumstances the tight leash on which you were held, powerful parents exercising their control over a daughter desperate for freedom, he knew there was little else that could be done. Even still, the waning daylight carried with it the resolve to try. And try he did.

The last light of day illuminated the top of the large building standing before him, almost a heavenly spotlight cast over his desires, though enough to make him hesitate, if only for a moment. But it wasn’t long before all had been overshadowed by the early nighttime, the first glimmer of the stars peppering the deep blue sky.

Looking up at the once vacant balcony, he saw, finally, the single thing he’d been searching for. The sheer silver nightgown you wore did only the bare minimum to hide your figure beneath, and you stared out into the far horizon, as if searching for something precious you’d lost long ago. The moonlight reflected off of your skin, creating a halo around you as divinity does an angel, a sight of perfection standing before him.

And he stepped forward, desperation for yet another simple memory of you pushing him forward, eagerness at his heels with every rushed step he took. He called your name, hushed in a whisper that only you could hear. Shocked, you leaned forward, searching the floor for the source, and your lonely expression changed to disbelief the moment your eyes fell on him.

“Maul?” You said his name beneath a stifled breath, your voice low and gentle, hiding your happiness, yet inviting him to come to you, wrong as it might have been.

You were but a few meters away, and with little effort, he had scaled the cool stone wall, swinging himself over the ledge that separated you. And you could have protested, you had every opportunity to do so. But your body carried itself, denying the logic that might have forced you to stay away, and you found yourself in his arms, clinging to the collar of his shirt like you still didn’t believe he was real. His arms encased you, holding you tighter than his mind had held the memory of you, and he feared now that he would never be able to let go.

“You can’t be here,” you whispered against his chest, not bothering to pull away. “You could get caught, and if anyone knew you came to see me-”

“I know,” he replied simply, his words gentle hums as he placed soft kisses at the top of your head. “I had to see you. It’s been so long.”

When you raised your head, shining eyes searching his face for even a hint of regret where there was none, he wanted nothing more than to lean closer to you, to feel your beautiful lips against his. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t want the same.

“They want me married off to someone meaningful,” you lamented, the word poison to your mouth that he would gladly drink away if asked. “Someone that will make them look good enough to the Senate for reelection. I can’t…”

As you stopped, he said nothing, only raising a hand to brush at your face, anger filling him at the thought of someone stealing you away almost immediately softened by the sight of you leaning into him, a sign that maybe, not all hope had been lost.

“Please,” you finally said, touching his wrist. “Don’t let them take me away.”

It was a simple request, one he would never dream of denying you. And it was against the better judgement that had seemed to escape the both of you that he leaned forward, lips finally touching your own, his tongue searching your mouth as you pressed against him. He could feel his pulse quicken, hearts beating at a speed they hadn’t in such a long time, every inch of him becoming warmer as his hands began roaming your ill-concealed body.

Your room was comfortable as they came, lavish furniture and ornately decorated walls meant to conceal the truth of your life all but faded to nothingness as you pulled him inside, the only hint that you were still home the feeling of the edge of the bed meeting the back of your legs. But it mattered little.

Heavy breathing filled the room, every bit of control within you fighting not to make sound as the crimson Zabrak bit and sucked at your neck, one hand lifting your leg to wrap around his waist and the other circling your breast, tracing light paths over the sensitive nipple.

“I won’t let them take you,” he growled against your skin between kisses. “You’re mine. You’ve been mine.”

You held his face, his gaze raising to meet you in response.

“Then prove it. Make me yours.”

He was back working at you in seconds, though a sense of urgency lay beneath his calm demeanor. His fingers pulled at your nightgown, which you happily tossed aside, eventually tugging at his own shirt as your hands began sliding against his chest.

His rough kisses continued, his sharp teeth moving down your chest, taking every opportunity to savor each inch of your body with his mouth. It was all you could do not to moan, and your small suppressed whines only drove him more wild. You could already feel how wet you were, ready for him to take you for himself at any moment.

“My perfect, beautiful Starlight,” he hummed, soft purrs now filling the space in the room. “Say you want me. Ask me for what you desire most.”

With effort, you managed to say, “You.” Your anticipation growing, your legs tightened, as if trying to conceal what he already knew. “I want you… I want to be yours.”

Slowly, he moved forward, kissing you gently, a stark contrast from his previous actions.

The first ridge was by far the most shocking, like a bolt of electricity being sent up your spine, the sensation causing you to instinctively clap a hand over your mouth to prevent you from crying out. Though less so, every ridge after sent waves of initial pain through you, but the almost instant pleasure that followed led you desperate for more.

You cursed under your breath, your legs completely curled around Maul’s waist, pulling him as close to you as physically possible. The first movements had you helpless, your hand doing practically nothing to hide your pleasured moans as his cock moved inside of you. And though it had been nearly no time at all, you had already begun begging for him, the initial pace only barely enough to keep you satiated.

His powerful hand held your thighs as he began pounding harder into you, his moans and calls of your name mixing with your own whines and gasps, the silent darkness now knowing only the sounds of your lover claiming you as his.

“I c-can’t…” you began, the tightening knot in your abdomen cutting your words off as Maul continued what you had asked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Cum for me, my Starlight.”

Your release left you shaking, the feeling of both of you cumming at the same time bringing with it a euphoric relief you hadn’t before known. Your slick folds still dripping as Maul pulled away, you could barely bring yourself to move as he lowered your still trembling legs.

Even still, he lay beside you, arms at your waist as you refused to allow him to leave your side. Your breathing still quick and chest heaving, he held you to his body, the vibrations of his purrs helping to comfort the aching that lingered between your legs and the racing of your heart.

“Leave with me,” he whispered to you in the silent darkness, his forehead pressed against your own. “I can protect you. I will. I can’t bear the thought of you with another for eternity.”

“I can’t,” you said, the answer painful enough to bring you near tears. “I’d never be able to escape, you know that. They’d come looking for me.”

“Then let them.” His amber eyes shone in the shadows, the transparency of dawn held within each iris, and you knew this was no bluff. “No one would find you, not for centuries. I could take you away tomorrow night, and no one would hear from you ever again. I swear this to you.”

Even in the twilight, you could make out the faint lines of his inky tattoos, your fingers carefully following the guided paths they painted, the story that each line told making you wonder how much more there was to read. Though even then, it seemed he had given you all you needed to know.

“Find me at the last light of tomorrow,” you said finally, tears still threatening to fall, though this time from gratefulness. “I’ll be waiting.”

And when dawn came, the feeling of your touch yet again lingering on his skin, he crept away, careful not to be seen, prepared to return for you when you had asked.

No, he wasn’t one to wait. But for you, oh god, he’d wait for eternity.

#darth maul #darth maul x reader #darth maul x you #maul #maul x reader #star wars x reader #star wars x you

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hlizr50 · 3 years

Text

Revelations Chapter 2: The Rise

Hawke tells Kieran that plans have changed. To what? Well, he still has to figure that out. But an attack on the Rise bring even more realizations to light about the Maiden, and Hawke isn't sure whether he should be astounded by her bravery or appalled by her recklessness.

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Hawke eyed the amber liquid in the short crystal glass as he turned it in his fingers. Two candles flickered on the mantle, casting the slightest glow into the shadows of the room. But the dimness mattered not: he could see every woodgrain and knot in the walls as well as if it were midday. He didn’t look up when the door opened, mind spinning with his new revelations and shoulders heavy with the burdens of leadership he had to bear.

How the fuck was he going to figure this out?

“Godsdammit, Hawke. Not that look again.”

He knew if he looked up his amber gaze would be met with ice blue, hallmark of the wolven. He imagined Kieran was running a large palm down his face, exasperated with his prince’s ever-evolving scheme. So he kept his eyes fixed on the stiff drink in his hands, but couldn’t help but tip up a corner of his mouth.

“And what look is that, Kieran?”

“That broody one. Where you purse your lips and narrow your eyes and think loud enough for all of Solis to hear the damned gears working,” Kieran growled, stalking over to join Hawke at the small table. The Atlantian only then looked up through a loose mess of dark waves, finding his brother spinning the chair to sit with the backrest to his front and resting his forearms lazily across the top. “So tell me what your idiotic new plan is so I can then tell you how idiotic it is, and then you can proceed to not listen at all and insist that it is not idiotic and that it is, in fact, the only reasonable course of action.”

Silence permeated the space, blanketing the room in tension – the same room in the Red Pearl where he had first met the Maiden. Penellaphe.

Poppy.

Poppy, who carried that dagger of bloodstone and wolven bone and had managed to stab Jericho during his ill-fated kidnapping attempt. Poppy, who was quick-witted and kind and beautiful.

Poppy, who was beaten on what seemed like a regular basis. Poppy, who had said that the Duke had touched her. Poppy, whose punishment seemed to warrant the presence of the lord whose reputation was so vile that it was common knowledge around the castle that one did not want to catch his attention, good or bad.

He was staring at his glass again. A harsh laugh escaped his lips as he realized the absolute madness of the words that rose to his tongue.

“We can’t give Poppy back to the Ascended.”

Hawke could feel his brother bristle at that, and he couldn’t really blame his bonded wolven for the reaction. It was absolute, utter insanity.

“Poppy. Poppy? We’re on a nickname basis now, Hawke?” Kieran spat his own nickname at him before pushing himself out of the chair. Hawke’s eyes followed his pacing, gaze trained on his dark features, made darker by the night’s shadows and his own frustration. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can already assure you it’s a bad idea. She’s not like the other ladies. You can’t just seduce the Maiden for a particularly impressive notch on your bedpost –“

“That is not what I am doing.” Red rage sang through his blood at the implication, knowing the suffering that Poppy had experienced. But Hawke reminded himself that Kieran didn’t know – had no way of knowing that the Maiden may have been as much a prisoner as he had been. He felt eyes on him and turned his head to meet that ice-blue stare. Kieran’s gaze was shrewd, questioning. He could likely feel the ire billowing off of the prince, thick black smoke from a fire stoked with malice.

“Then what is it, Cas?”

Hawke’s shoulders slumped at the use of his name, his true name. The two of them rarely used it, the need for his absolute dedication to the role of royal guard Hawke Flynn overriding all else. But the name and the quiet desperation in his brother’s voice… he felt the resolution solidify in his chest. He didn’t know what they would do, but the Maiden was leaving this place and she would not come back. Freedom from her current torment was paramount, but the implications were far-reaching. What about Malik? How could they barter for his freedom? And how could he guarantee her safety, in Solis or Atlantia? If she were found in Solis she would be immediately returned into the abusive custody of the Ascended, but if she were found in Atlantia…

She would be killed, without question, and probably not quickly and painlessly.

He hadn’t realized that his stare had grown distant and cloudy until the warm brown of Kieran’s skin entered his periphery. Blinking, he refocused and saw that there were hands – his brother’s battle-worn hands pressing into the ashy wood to his left. Amber eyes traced up his arms and met that pleading gaze. Kieran knew – he always knew – that he was unsettled. Hawke just hoped that he would understand and accept why things had to change.

“Today I had to deliver the Maiden to a summons from Duke Teerman.” He gestured for Kieran to return to his chair, not wanting to explain this whole mess with the wolven hovering menacingly. “When I approached her and her lady’s maid to fetch her, they both seemed to be seized with distress. I could see that her maid was alarmed, but of course I could not see the Maiden’s face.

“I dismissed it as we walked. She didn’t say anything and, looking back, that should have been the second indication that something was wrong. But when we got to the door she stopped and just… she seemed to stare at it, as if she were frozen. She waved me off when I asked about it and then she went inside.”

Hawke pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose, leaning back. He caught Kieran’s eyes flickering with impatience. “I know, I know, I’m getting to the point.”

“I didn’t say anything,” the wolven shrugged with a grimace, winning a dramatic eye-roll.

“Anyway. I stayed outside the door and when I listened it seemed like an ordinary lecture, and over ridiculous things. I assumed the Duke just liked to listen to himself talk and flex his authority. But then…” Hawke sucked in a breath. Heat coiled inside of him, a burning weight of anger and disbelief. And the pressure looming over him – the promise to free his brother, to raise Atlantia from the ashes – grew ever heavier, more confounding. But still he knew he could not abandon her to this fate, no matter what Kieran or the rest of his men or his country might argue. “He beat her, Kieran. And not a violence born of frustration in the moment. This was calculated and sadistic. With a cane. And he has been doing it for years.” Eyes trained on the fluttering candlelight, Hawke took two calming breaths. His companion had not moved or spoken – barely reacted at all.

“All I could think about was Carsadonia.” That got Kieran’s attention.

Kieran: friend, bonded wolven, brother. Hawke had suffered greatly during his time in captivity, but the wolven had also lived five decades of sickness and uncertainty. Those piercing light blue eyes flared and a muscle in his jaw twitched, and the Atlantian knew that his brother hadn’t expected this.

And then Kieran surprised him.

“So what do we need to do?”

~~~

Hawke scowled, leaning against the wall across from the heavy wood of the Maiden’s chamber doors.

Poppy. Poppy’s chambers.

She hadn’t left in two days. And even though she had warned him that it would likely take that kind of time to… recover… the time still ate away at him. The rage at such injustice ignited something in his chest that he wasn’t sure he understood. The fierce jolt of protectiveness was completely unexpected, and not something he truly needed right now. But he’d be damned if he was going to deny it.

At the very least Poppy was the Maiden – outwardly a symbol of the Ascended, their dominion, their twisted version of history and tradition. At the very least she was a girl who was put on a pedestal for the kingdom but was kept in a pretty gilded cage, forbidden to participate in life and forced to endure whatever torments and violations the royals deemed necessary to ‘ensure her dedication’. He had yet to discover the depths of those depravities, but he would. At the very least she was an innocent girl who only knew what she’d been taught and still had the courage to question it, even with the threat of harm ever-looming. Who she was, at the very least, would have earned his respect.

But she was more than that. Hawke knew. She was so much more, and he had known that since that first night. She was beautiful, with luscious red lips and soft supple curves. Her wit was quick, and those eyes and lips so expressive that he couldn’t help but try to frustrate her. She was just so… adorable when he had been able to push her buttons just so. And now… Gods, now? Now that he knew the stakes she was facing every time she even thought to move even her little toe out of line he couldn’t decide if he was in awe of her bravery or if he was frustrated by her recklessness. If he had wanted to save the Maiden, a girl who was only a victim of her upbringing, then his urge – his need – to rescue Poppy eclipsed that want. Tenfold.

All of his plans had exploded in his face and now lay in ashes.

And so Hawke stood there, on guard, staring at her door.

Two days. She hadn’t come out in two days. He should be thankful, as it gave him time to try to figure out a way to save both Poppy and his brother. He was working on that, but he found his mind coming back to the ‘lesson’ he had witnessed. The evil that had been thrust upon her. And while he’d gotten the answers about the Duke, about the cane, about how long it had been happening and how it had affected her, there was one looming problem that he had yet to completely understand.

Lord Brandole Mazeen.

There was a part of him that didn’t want to know his role in Poppy’s abuse, knowing the reputation that followed in his wake. Why had he been in the office with Duke Teerman? Hawke hadn’t heard anything other than the Duke’s drawling condescension and the sound of the cane cutting the air and striking flesh. But he had no idea what happened in that room – things that he wouldn’t be able to hear. Poppy had said that the Duke looked at her, touched her. Obviously, the Duke’s proclivities matched Mazeen’s sadistic streak. Maybe it was just a pastime they enjoyed sharing. Maybe it was a power dynamic they delighted in, knowing that Poppy would be unable to deny them their entertainment.

Fucking disgusting.

Growling, Hawke pulled a dagger from his boot. He needed to figure this out. Currently his strategy was to push Poppy’s curious, intelligent mind as far as he could and simply hope that she realized that things weren’t the way she had been raised to believe. He’d probably never had a more ridiculous, faulty strategy in his life, but there was something in him that whispered that she might just be willing to leave. She might even be looking for a way out. That would make their exit from Masadonia much easier than he would have initially anticipated.

He scowled down at his dagger, using it to pick under his fingernails. Getting out of the city and to New Haven was the easy part. But what if she did agree? What if she understood the wrongs of the Ascended and chose to come with him. What would happen when she found out who he was? Surely she wouldn’t just accept that and move on. And what of Malik? He couldn’t give Poppy back to the Ascended, but that also meant his bargaining chip for his brother was no more. Years of planning – ruined. Was it worth it? Was Poppy worth it? Something nagged at his hardened heart, telling him that she was. But how could he be sure? He barely knew her, could hardly know enough to care –

Horns blared and he jerked his head up. He returned the dagger to his boot and pushed away from the wall. The air shifted and, if the horns hadn’t been indication, the tingle of awareness that crept down his spine told him all that he needed to know.

The Rise.

He was already running when the horns called a second time and he barely noticed the tremor that ran under his feet. The entrances to the castle would be sealed within minutes. Hawke’s pace slowed slightly as he wondered for a moment if his priority was supposed to be the Maiden or the Rise. But he kept moving toward the exit. Poppy hadn’t left her room for two days, and the horns would signal to her and her lady’s maid to stay put. He was of more use on the front lines, making sure the invasion never even made it to the castle gates.

Some of his men would question his actions, his choice to assist in the defense of the Rise. But none of the men on the battlements were Ascended – of course they never chose to trouble themselves with the effort it may take to defend their cities, even if their strength and speed could account for that of ten mortal men – and he would not leave the mortals and potential ‘Descenters’ to die in the wake of their leaders’ indifference. And so he drew his short sword as he emerged into the chill of the night, stepping into mist-filled air. So it was craven. The clanging of steel, screams of men, demented howls of the hollow creatures that used to be men – they filled the night, wafting like the mist into the star-flecked sky.

Dispatching the craven outside the Rise was relatively quick work, the mist allowing for him to be much more lax about keeping his strength and quickness in check. Adding that to the fact that many had tried to scale the wall, he found himself with few of the ravenous, soulless creatures left. They had to have been newly turned, lacking their usual hollowness. Hawke took a moment to breathe, offering a brief prayer to the gods for even more souls lost to the Ascended. Perhaps one day he would learn their names and carve them in the wall – the only monument to the lost since the fall of Atlantia. He carried those names with him, carved into his very soul. He had known too many of them, and too well. The loss of each was like a brand, burning inside him.

Hawke stalked back within the protection of the wall, scanning the battlements for wayward craven that had not been taken care of. He caught sight of a cloaked and hooded figure, launching bloodstone arrows into the night – into craven. With impressive accuracy. Narrowing his eyes he studied the archer, spying pale fingers and unprotected arms. Whoever it was, they weren’t wearing the armor of a guard. They weren’t wearing armor of any kind. Hawke swiftly made his way – sword still in hand – to the short ladder that led to the parapet and marveled at what he saw.

It was no guard.

The fingers and arms of alabaster had not prepared him for the well-muscled leg that stretched out from under the cloak, balancing the woman who had crouched to a knee for the benefit of stable aim. Hawke didn’t need his enhanced Atlantian eyesight to appreciate the sheer… perfection of what was before him, from the top of that delicious, milky thigh down to those lovely delicate…

Slippers?

“You must be the goddess Bele, or Lailah, given mortal form.” He was absolutely reverent, and absolutely confounded. The figure before him spun on her knee, arrow trained straight at his head. He couldn’t see inside her hood, but gods did he want to. The arrow aimed at his face was a small bit concerning, however. “You are,” he breathed, sheathing his sword. “You are absolutely magnificent. Beautiful.”

He grinned wolfishly when he saw her body twitch, as if she was not expecting to be worshipped. But how could he not? With that spectacular leg and that spectacular aim. “The last thing I expected was to find a hooded lady with a talent for archery manning one of the battlements.” Hawke extended his hand to the warrior goddess. “May I be of assistance?”

The woman didn’t speak, but she did lower her bow and shift it to one hand. A relief. She gave him a motion, signaling him to back up. He placed a hand over his heart and bowed, still curiously awed by this mystery goddess. She climbed down the ladder but never turned her back to him. He was impressed at her vigilance, knowing not to give her back to a potential foe. When she reached the bottom of the ladder she slung the bow over her back. She flinched, almost imperceptibly, at the contact.

Hawke narrowed his eyes. “You’re… aahh…”

Staring into the darkness under the hood he could make out the swell of red lips, the gleam of emerald eyes. And the peek of shimmering white under the cloak – combined with that tiny twinge when the bow hit her back – drew all the puzzle pieces together. He knew that nightdress. He had touched it. He’d had his mouth on it.

This warrior, mystery archer manning the battlements, was Poppy. What in the name of all the gods…

She moved to make a swift exit and he blocked her path.

“What are you doing up here?” he demanded, cursing himself. She hadn’t left her room in two days. Two days. And the horns signaling a craven attack had acted not as a warning as he had hoped, but as a fucking invitation. Poppy tried to brush past him, but he caught her arm. He still had the upper hand. She had no idea that he knew who she was. He was bristling at her recklessness, but he wasn’t so frustrated to deny himself the fun of seeing this situation play out. “I think-“

Poppy spun in his grasp, twisting under his arm. Then she kicked her leg out low and swept his legs out from under him. He had to let go of her to catch himself before hitting the stone face-first.

That was… unexpected.

Hawke bent and retrieved the dagger from his boot. The Maiden… warrior? Poppy was running on the inner ledge of the Rise. He gripped the blade of the dagger and let it fly, catching the corner of her cloak. He felt a smirk forming as she was jerked back, and he stepped purposefully toward her.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he scolded. His eyebrows rose as she wrenched the dagger out of the wall and then flipped it in her hand, cocking back to send it flying back at him. “Don’t.” He warned, but she would not be swayed. The dagger flew at him – at his face. He turned sharply and caught it by the handle, giving her a condescending ‘tsk’. Spinning, she made her run toward the stairs, but Hawke was… not mortal. He jumped up to the narrow ledge at the top of the wall and used his stealth and quickness to sprint ahead of her, dropping down in her path. Poppy skidded to a stop, arms flailing, before landing on her hip with a painful-sounding thud. He inwardly winced, knowing that her back was still sore and that fall likely hadn’t done much to make it better. He would have to apologize for that later. And be more careful.

“Now that really wasn’t nice at all.” He grinned again, noticing how Poppy looked up to the ledge he’d toed and then back to him. Disbelief glowed in those eyes, shining under that hood. “I’m aware that my hair is in need of a trim, but your aim is off. You should really work on that since I’m quite partial to my face.”

Poppy kicked at him again, in his lower leg. She was quite the fighter, wasn’t she? She got to her feet, spinning to her right, but he blocked her, so she tried to sweep to the left. When she couldn’t get past him she kicked out again. He caught her ankle, getting another good, long, hard look up and down that delectable leg.

“Scandalous,” Hawke teased, but his voice was sensuous and dark. The warrior maiden growled and he couldn’t help but laugh. She was particularly enticing when she was frustrated. “And such dainty little slippers. Satin? And silk? They’re as finely tailored as your leg. The kind of slipper no guard of the Rise would wear. Unless they’re being outfitted differently than I am.”

He dropped her leg, but before she could react he grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. She took a ragged breath against his chest. Gods he could feel her against him. “You know what I think?”

Only then did he feel the blade at his neck. How had she managed that? Still, he didn’t let go of her, and was rewarded with her pushing the tip further into his flesh and drawing blood.

“Correction.” His laugh was breathy, ragged, but amused. She was absolutely the most intriguing, distracting, brave, reckless woman he’d ever encountered. “You are an absolutely stunning, murderous little creature.” Hawke glanced down, peeking the weapon that had nicked his flesh. His grin turned feral, knowing that she had revealed her hand without realizing.

“Nice weapon. Bloodstone and wolven bone. Very interesting…” He returned his gaze to those shimmering orbs under that infernal hood. “Princess.”

Poppy’s hand jerked back, pulling the blade from his neck. Perfect. He caught that wrist in his free hand. “You and I have so much to talk about.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“She speaks!” Hawke widened his eyes, feigning shock. “I thought you liked to talk, Princess. Or is that only when you’re at the Red Pearl. You’re not going to pretend that you have no idea what I’m talking about, are you? That you’re not her?”

“Let me go,” Poppy commanded, tugging on her arms.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Hawke turned them and pushed the Maiden against the Rise, trying not to agitate her healing back, and pinning her wrists against the stone. “After all we shared? You throw a dagger at my face?”

“All we shared?” she scoffed. “It was a handful of minutes and a few kisses.” Oh, no, she was not going to brush it off like that. He could have written off that evening in that manner, but not her. Not the Maiden, who had snuck out and let him touch her, taste her… who had asked him to help her live.

He lowered his voice a register. “It was more than a few kisses. If you’ve forgotten I’m more than willing to remind you.”

“There was nothing worth remembering.” Her retort was scathing, and he had half a mind to rip that hood off and kiss her until she took it back.

“Now you insult me after throwing a dagger at my face. You’ve wounded my tender feelings.” But the Atlantian smirked. She may be quick-witted, but he had over a hundred years on her. He could banter and quip for hours on end, but he would enjoy watching her grow more and more infuriated. He loved the way her chest was growing rosy with heat in the peeks of skin he could see behind that stupid cloak.

“Tender feelings? Don’t be overdramatic.” But… she did play the game well.

“Hard not to be when you threw a dagger at my head and then cut my neck.”

“I knew you’d move out of the way,” Poppy argued, but there was a hint of sheepishness in her response. She had hoped he would move out of the way.

“Did you? Is that why you tried to slice open my throat?” he countered.

“I nicked your skin. Because you had ahold of me and wouldn’t let go. Obviously, you haven’t learned anything from it.” Poppy’s answer was matter-of-fact, and he wondered how she could be so obstinate. He wanted to take the time to appreciate her skill with a weapon, to admire her bravery, but she was so damn stubborn – trying to keep a secret that he had known since that night in the Red Pearl.

Trying to keep a secret that, if it got back to the Duke… Gods, he didn’t even want to imagine. If seven lashes with the cane was an appropriate punishment for not doing her embroidery and looking at him wrong, what would the punishment be for sneaking to a brothel and, furthermore, participating in pleasures of the flesh?

“I’ve actually learned a lot, Princess. That’s why your hands and your dagger aren’t getting anywhere near my neck.” Hawke slid a thumb over the velvety skin inside her wrist. “But, if you let go of the dagger, there’s a whole lot of me I’ll let your hands get close to.” She had already slipped once, and he was determined to make her slip again. He knew he could wield innuendo to get under her skin.

Poppy seemed to choke on air. “How generous of you.”

“Once you get to know me you’ll find that I can be quite benevolent,” he purred.

“I have no intention of getting to know you.”

Oh, he knew that wasn’t true.

“So you just make a habit of sneaking into the rooms of young men and seducing them before running off,” Hawke scoffed.

“What? Seducing men?” Poppy sputtered. That had taken her by surprise. He gave her a glance. This close he could definitely see that pale skin inside the hood and the feral gleam of her beautiful eyes.

“Isn’t that what you did to me, Princess?” His voice had softened as he stoked a thumb across the inside of her wrist again. How he wished the gloves weren’t between his fingers and her skin.

“You’re ridiculous.” Her arguments were sounding more and more desperate, and he felt a spark of desire burning deep within him. She had surely taken him by complete surprise.

“What I am,” Hawke breathed, “is intrigued.” Poppy pulled against his arms, groaning. Her strength was surprising, and had he not had the benefit of enhanced strength she might have been able to move him. Not enough to free herself, but perhaps enough to catch him off guard. He snickered at that. He liked that.

“Why do you insist on holding me like this?” the Maiden demanded.

“Well, besides what we went over already, which is the whole being partial to my face and neck thing,” the Atlantian paused, feigning a thought, “you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be. I’m doing my job by detaining and questioning you.”

Poppy huffed a bitter laugh. “Do you typically question those on the Rise who you don’t recognize like this? What an odd method of interrogation.”

“Only pretty ladies with shapely bare legs,” he teased. He would definitely bring up those legs as much as he could. He wanted to trace his fingers down the length of them, feel them wrapped around him, dip his tongue in between them. He leaned in against her, feeling the rise of her breaths against his chest. “What are you doing up here? During a craven attack?”

What are you doing up here, putting yourself in danger when you didn’t have the strength to leave your room for two days? Putting yourself in danger not just from the craven, but from the Duke’s wrath should you be caught?

“Enjoying a relaxing evening stroll,” she spat. He felt his lip curl up, a sardonic grin. Gods, she could be insufferable.

“What were you doing up here Princess?” Hawke demanded.

“What did it look like I was doing?”

“It looked like you were being incredibly foolish and reckless.” And that was the gods-honest truth, regardless of the little game that was currently playing out between them. She was being incredibly brash.

The flame of challenge in her eyes wasn’t necessarily unexpected, but he found himself surprised by the ire in her voice. “Excuse me? How reckless was I being when I killed craven and-“

“Am I unaware of a new recruitment policy where half-dressed ladies in cloaks are now needed on the rise? Are we that desperately in need of protection?” And it wasn’t that she hadn’t put on an incredible show. He had compared her to goddesses, after all. But she was also in a nightgown and slippers, and while seeing her in that nightgown – again – was also quite magnificent the protective instinct within him flared at how ludicrously unsafe it was.

“Desperate? Why would my presence on the Rise signal desperation when as you’ve seen I know how to use a bow? Oh, wait. Is it because I happen to have breasts?”

Oh. Oh, far from it.

“I’ve known women with far less beautiful breasts that could cut a man down without so much as blinking an eye. But none of those women are here in Masadonia,” Hawke’s voice seemed to grind out, and he knew his body was reacting to his thoughts. Those legs, the fighting, those lovely breasts. “And you are incredibly skilled, not just with an arrow. Who taught you to fight and use a dagger?”

Poppy didn’t answer, but knowing who she was and the company she kept he figured it could only be one person. She had only two royal guards, and he had certainly not been training her. Her aptitude came from years of practice, and only Vikter had been by her side that long. “I’m willing to bet it was the same person who gave you that blade.” He paused again. “Too bad whoever they are didn’t teach you how to evade capture. Well, too bad for you, that is.”

Vikter would not be happy to learn that she’d been caught. But he shuddered to think what would have happened if any one of the other dozens of guards had been able to corner her.

Smart and brave and unexpected and, apparently, without even the slightest sense of self-preservation.

And that stubborn girl brought her knee up, hoping to wound a very important and very sensitive part of him. He shifted his legs, blocking her with his thigh, and he had to fight hard not to let his grin grow wide enough to reveal his fangs.

“You’re so incredibly violent.” He murmured. “I think I like it.” Gods, he didn’t think. He knew.

“Let me go!” Poppy growled at him.

“And be kicked? Or stabbed?” He shifted his leg between hers, further pinning her and preventing her to take any more shots at the area where the leather of his breeches had grown significantly tighter. “We’ve already covered that, Princess. More than once.”

Poppy bucked her hips off the wall in an attempt to push the guard off of her and oh that did not go the way she expected. He smirked inwardly, feeling how her breath caught and the friction of his thigh between her legs, and he wondered if the top of her thigh had grazed the ever-hardening bulge in his pants – if she knew what she was doing to him. His body was tense, their chests colliding with their sawing, uneven breaths. Hawke let the silence drag, let her feel the intimacy of this moment while fixing amber eyes on that luscious pink mouth.

“I came back for you that night.” Her eyes closed at his confession and he could feel her shudder beneath him. “Just like I told you I would I came back for you, and you weren’t there. You promised me, Princess.”

“I… I couldn’t.” Could he hear a tinge of regret in her answer? Had she wanted to stay? He’d known she would probably run as soon as he left the room – was honestly glad that she had now that the Duke’s violent discipline was known. But still… he had wanted her.

“Couldn’t?” He lowered his voice, a whispered purr he rarely used outside of the bedroom… or wherever. “I have a feeling that if there’s something you want badly enough, nothing will stop you.” Like learning to fight, and using those skills to help protect the Rise. He would have to ask her why. Women in Solis were never trained to fight, were not valued for much more than their appearance and their progeny.

Hawke frowned at the bitter laugh that she spat out. “You know nothing.”

“Maybe.” He released one of her arms and reached inside the hood, finally giving in to the urge to touch her. He stroked his thumb along her cheek, earning a gasp. Poppy tried to draw back, but there was nowhere to go. He gazed into the hood, features dark but still clear for him to see – surprise and uncertainty and… fear? “Maybe I know more than you realize.”

Hawke bent his head down, his cheek grazing the soft leather of the hood, until his mouth was where he figured her ear would be. “You really think I had no idea who you are?” he murmured, and felt the Maiden grow impossibly more tense against him. “You have nothing to say to that?”

He lowered his voice to barely a whisper, finally putting an end to their game.

“Penellaphe.”

He had expected a reaction – perhaps something more subdued and anxiety-riddled. But her response was one of anger and frustration, and she tried to lash out with that sharp tongue. “Are you just now figuring that out? If so, I’m concerned about you being one of my personal guards.”

Hawke chuckled. Give her another century and he had not doubt that smart mouth might actually knock him off-kilter. “I knew the moment you removed the veil.”

“Why… why didn’t you say something then?” she asked softly, and it was like the fight had gone out of her in that moment. She had expected him to address this with some level with authority. Maybe she still expected that.

“To you? Or to the Duke?”

“Either.” He had to strain to hear it, her voice no louder than a breath. And where her fire had cooled, his reared and writhed to the surface.

“Gods, I’m fucking glad I didn’t tell the Duke after what happened the other day,” Hawke growled. Fuck, he couldn’t describe how relieved he was that nobody had found her out. “I wanted to see if you’d bring it up. Apparently you were just going to pretend that you’re not the same girl who frequents the Red Pearl.”

“I don’t frequent the Red Pearl,” Poppy retorted, that simmering annoyance boiling up to the survace once again. “But I hear you do.” Ah yes, he much preferred feisty Poppy to the demure maiden.

“Have you been asking about me? I’m flattered.” He shot her a winning grin.

“I haven’t.” She insisted. His lips tugged downward.

“I’m not sure if I can believe you. You tell a lot of lies, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I like it better than what I’m supposed to call you. Maiden,” Hawke scowled. He hated the title, the veil, all of it. “You have a name. It’s not that.”

“I didn’t ask for what you liked.” It was like she couldn’t let him get the last word, even though she was fighting a losing battle.

“But you did ask why I didn’t tell the Duke about your little explorations – and Gods, knowing what I know now I’m even more thankful that I didn’t. But I didn’t because I’m your guard. If I were to betray you, then you wouldn’t trust me, and that would definitely make my job of keeping you safe much harder.” And that was all true. But that didn’t account for the new situation – something that her other guards had never saw fit to address. “Although… it would seem that the Duke is also someone that I need to protect you from.”

“As you can see, I can keep myself safe,” Poppy sighed, the tautness easing from her muscles. “At least out here.” It was obvious, with her skill, she could take care of herself. But inside that castle using that skill was an impossibility.

“Yes, outside the castle walls, I see that you can.”

Hawke furrowed his brow, hearing the booted footsteps of someone approaching. He pulled away from the cloaked Maiden, one hand still keeping a firm grasp on her wrist, and the chill night against his chest made him ache for her.

“Hawke?” A voice called from below, although he couldn’t place his name. “Everything okay up there?” He peered into the hood, found those glimmering green eyes shining back at him, wondering what she was thinking he would do.

He looked over his shoulder and called, “Everything is fine.”

“You need to let me go. Someone is bound to come up here.” Poppy tugged on her arm, still caught in his hand. He raised a brow.

“And catch you? Force you to reveal your identity?” he asked wryly. “These are the things you should have thought about before you stepped a slippered foot outside your room tonight, Princess.”

She sucked in a breath, and he felt a twinge of guilt at the small shimmer of panic that flickered under the cloak. “You know what he would do. It… It would be worse than the last time.”

She didn’t have to tell him who he was.

“How can you be so reckless? Knowing what he does to you? Over nothing?!” Hawke hissed. “I never would have imagined I’d have to worry about you sneaking out to fight the craven, or to meet random men in places like the Red Pearl. And who knows what else you do when all believe you are safely ensconced in your chambers. Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

He was only met with the sound of her breathing, heavier with that hint of fear of what might happen if the Duke ever learned of this escapade. She was right. He had to let her go, to get back to her room before someone came calling for her. Although, he supposed, that someone would probably end up being him.

This conversation was definitely not over.

He looked down at her and then released her, taking another step back. “You better hurry back to your chambers, Princess. We’ll have to finish this conversation later.”

He watched the realization dawn over her features, that he wouldn’t keep her here or report her. His chest lurched a bit at the thought that she might think that he could do that to her – could send her to that monster for more torture. He had promised her that the Duke wouldn’t hurt her again, and he’d be damned if he went back on that.

Poppy turned and fled toward the stairs.

And Hawke stood and stared after her until long after she disappeared from his sight.

#fbaa #fbaa fanfic #poppycas #poppy x casteel #fanfic #fanfiction

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organabanana · 4 years

Text

red || harley quinn/poison ivy

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Harley Quinn (Comics) Batman - All Media Types DCU

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Relationships: Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel

Characters: Pamela Isley, Harleen Quinzel

Additional Tags: Past Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Abusive Joker (DCU), blood (plenty), Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Femslash February 2021, Femslash February, Sex

Series: Part 1 of the Femslash February 2021 series

Summary: A breakup, a healing process, color therapy at Arkham, and a series of life-changing realizations by Harley Quinn, with help from Poison Ivy.

Notes: Written for prompt #1 of Femslash February 2021: Red. Written around Issue 1 of Harleen: Black + White + Red by Stjepan Sejic which is an absolute masterpiece. I feel like this can be read even if you haven't read the comic but honestly it's super short and you should go read it because it is a work of art.

[ao3 link]

She doesn’t kill him.

She could kill him. That’s important to note. She could kill him. But she chooses not to. And for once — for the first time since this whole nightmare started — she doesn’t do it for him. It’s not because she loves him so much she can’t bear to kill him. It’s not because she thinks maybe one day they’ll get things right.

No. She doesn’t kill him because she doesn’t want to kill him. She wants him gone but not dead. Well — she wouldn’t necessarily mind if he happened to die. Have Bats forget his self-imposed limit and finally kill him. No, she wouldn’t mind. She just doesn’t want to kill him herself.

They stick with you, you know? The people you kill. Even if they deserve it. She would know. And she doesn’t want to carry his death around for the rest of her life. She just wants him gone.

So she stands there, bleeding and panting and struggling to catch her breath as she looks down at his unconscious body. That’s her blood on the knife by his hand. On his knuckles and splattered on his face, and you know what?

“You know what, Jay?” She says out loud, because why not? It’s not the first time her blood’s ended up all over him. Not the first time or the second or the tenth or the fifteenth. She kicks the knife away from him for good measure, even if the bleeding crack on his temple makes it clear he’s not gonna be getting up any time soon.

Still, though. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s tricked her.

Wouldn’t be the first time she’s let him trick her.

Because, you know what?

“I’m smarter than you think.”

So she stands there, Harley Quinn, with her blood-stained mallet and her blood-soaked harlequin costume, looking for all the world like the psychopath her Arkham file says she is. And — just look at her. She wouldn’t need to be a psychopath to kill him. To kill the man who turned her from a promising young psychologist into his peppy murderous sidekick. The man who’s kept her in a sadistic cycle of toxicity (both literal and emotional) for all these years.

The man who — for fuck’s sakes — just tried to kill her with a butcher’s knife.

(Though that last one might have been self-defense, to be fair.)

What she’s getting at — and she’s getting at something, she swears, that’s why she hasn’t moved yet — is that even the most even-tempered, mentally stable, never-even-heard-of-Arkham woman would probably consider killing the man who put her through that. It’d feel empowering, even.

But here’s the thing: Harley Quinn is smarter than most people think.

You don’t just forget all your training and your doctorates and your research just because you’ve spent several years on a murderous spree with your sadistic lover, you know?

So she knows she wasn’t a helpless damsel in mental distress being manipulated by the handsome criminal mastermind.

Oh, no.

She chose to get involved with him. She chose to give into the want and the danger. She chose to keep going back for more because somehow, in some dark and twisted corner of her reptilian brain, the little moments when they were good were so amazing — so perfect — that they made everything else worth it. She chose to pull a trigger and kill a good man for him.

And now she chooses not to kill a bad man.

For herself.

“And that’s fucking empowering, Jay.”

***

She goes to Poison Ivy’s lair because… well, because where the hell else is she supposed to go? She can’t walk up to Gotham General’s ER and ask for some stitches and painkillers unless she wants to be back in Arkham within the hour. She doesn’t have her own place.

But she has a friend. So here she is.

“Hey,” she says as soon as she walks into the greenhouse-slash-evil eco-terrorism lab, “door was open.”

No, it wasn’t. It’s just Harley knows the combination to get in. Didn’t steal it, either. Ivy volunteered it. Harley’s always kind of suspected there was some pity involved in that decision, but she’s not gonna be picky about the deep unspoken motives behind the actions of the single person in this God forsaken city that’s been consistently good to her.

The second Harley steps further into the room and the gentle warmth of the grow lamps hits her, she sees Ivy’s face change from her usual unreadable near-smirk to sheer horror, and she knows she must look even worse than she thought she did. She knows for a fact it’s not easy to shock Pamela Isley.

She gives Ivy a couple seconds to try and come up with something to say, but words seem to fail her, so Harley decides to just cut to the chase.

Heh. Cut .

“I broke up with him.”

There’s a sort of unspoken rule between them that says his name is forbidden when it’s just them.

“Did he do all that?” Harley swears she can see the exact moment Ivy’s worry makes room for something that looks almost like rage. “Did he do that to you?”

Harley shrugs and manages a wink even if the cuts on the bridge of her nose sting when she does. “Should’ve seen the other guy.”

The joke falls flat, as expected — Harley’s pretty sure some of Ivy’s ferns have more developed senses of humor than Ivy herself — but Ivy finally manages to stand up and get moving, which is good. Harley kinda needs a hand. And medical attention.

“I won’t know how bad those really are until I’ve cleaned them up.” Ivy says, already opening the cabinet where she keeps all her medical supplies.

It’s funny because Harley’s been here a million times, and she’s been patched up by Ivy just as many times before — not always because of Jay, sometimes it’s one of the batlings getting frisky — but she never realized until now that Poison Ivy doesn’t need medical supplies.

Ivy can heal herself. She can synthesize her own meds. She keeps that cabinet stocked just for Harley. That’s friendship, right there. Right?

With a bottle of alcohol in one hand and a box of gauze in the other, Ivy makes her way back to Harley. But instead of getting to work right away, she stops and looks up and down Harley’s body. And for the first time, Harley looks down, too. At the blood-soaked stretchy fabric of her costume, at the gashes everywhere with cuts underneath.

She’s a mess and a half, isn’t she?

“Let’s just—“ Ivy shakes her head and leaves the alcohol and gauze on the nearest flat surface. That won’t be enough to fix this. “Let’s just get you in the shower.”

The next minutes feel like she’s watching them from outside her body. Like she’s watching infamous eco-terrorist Poison Ivy, of all people, carefully peel off her costume and guide her into the shower stall through a television screen. Like it’s not really happening to her.

But it is. Happening.

So when Pamela Isley doesn’t even hesitate before walking into the stall right along with Harley? Harley feels that. She feels it when Ivy grabs the detachable shower head and turns on the water and tests it on her own skin, first, just to make sure it won’t be too hot or too rough on Harley’s. She feels the cool water washing over her skin, and the gentle touch of Ivy’s fingertips as they scrub at the dried blood, and she watches the water turn red as it swirls around her feet and down the drain.

And it’s a bit too much, you know?

This whole thing.

Almost killing the man she loves (still, even if she’s decided that’s not a good enough reason to stay with him), and breaking up with him for good, and the amazing contradiction that is a woman with poisonous skin touching Harley more gently than anyone ever has before.

It’s really no wonder she starts crying.

“This one will need stitches,” Pamela says, like she can’t hear Harley’s sobs or feel the way her body shakes. Because Harley’s already naked and bleeding and in pain, and Ivy pretending she doesn’t know she’s crying feels like being given a bit of her dignity back. And she fucking needs that right now. “Most aren’t too deep, though.”

Ivy keeps talking, narrating what she’s doing even if Harley knows for a fact she normally works in silence. But Ivy knows Harley needs it. So she talks about how the cuts on her face will probably leave some scars, and how the deep one by her bellybutton will need stitches, too. And when the water starts running clear because there’s no more blood to clean but Harley is still crying, Ivy starts all over again.

“This one,” she says, voice even and soothing in a way nothing has felt in years, “this one will need a couple stitches,” her fingertip gently taps the skin right next to the cut on Harley’s hip, and there’s something oddly heartwarming in the knowledge that that little tap would’ve killed anyone else in the world, but not Harley, “most aren’t too deep, though, Harl.”

***

She stays at Ivy’s for a couple nights at first, just because she has nowhere else to go. Then she stays for a week because you can’t really find a cute little one-bedroom rental in Gotham overnight when you’re in-between jobs as a psychotic murderess.

Doesn’t look great in applications, you know?

One week turns into two and then three and then suddenly it’s been three months and she’s pretty sure she’s living with Pam now. Which comes in handy, because she’s pretty sure she’s working with Pam now, too.

It’s funny because their criminal interests don’t seem to align at first sight. Harley mostly likes the chaos and the action, and Ivy just wants people to stop polluting the air. But they work well together. Ivy picks the targets and Harley the method, and it’s fun. It’s fun and it’s freeing and — listen, she knows she’s still killing people, okay? But it’s for a good reason, and she’s her own boss. It could be worse. She could’ve joined a pyramid scheme.

And living with Pam is nice. They get each other. They really do. Pam is hermetic, which makes Harley want to poke and prod and figure her out, but she respects Pam enough not to do it. And it goes both ways, too — in three months, Ivy hasn’t mentioned that first night even once.

It takes Harley three months, two weeks, and four days to realize why Pam always seems a bit surprised when Harley goes for a run or a walk or really any one-woman activity outside the lair and then comes back like she said she would.

It happens one night when Harley feels that familiar urge to blow off some steam by doing any kind of physical activity and leaves their home for a run around the park. As usual, when she comes back Ivy looks a little surprised. Like she was expecting her to not come back, for some reason. But then Harley notices something else. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of detail. The smallest, subtlest kind of sigh.

Pam isn’t just surprised Harley’s back. She’s relieved .

And Harley knows why, of course. She knows Pam’s waiting for the other shoe to drop — for Harley to forget she’s better than the Harley from three months, two weeks, and four days ago and go back to him.

“Y’know, Pammy,” Harley says, walking over to sit on the very edge of Pam’s desk, “I really like it here.”

She could’ve said more. She could’ve acknowledged the mammoth in the lair and point-blank tell Pam she’s not going back to him. But for some reason, that feels like intruding, somehow. It feels like telling Pam she’s noticed the sigh and the relief. And she figures her best friend deserves the same kind of privacy she gave Harley that first night.

“I figured. You know, since you won’t leave.”

Pam’s kidding. As it turns out, she does have a sense of humor — it just happens to be a bit subtler than what Harley’s used to. Most things about Pam are subtler than what Harley’s used to.

“I couldn’t do that to ya. You’d miss me way too much if I left.”

“Feel free to test that theory. I could use some quiet around here.”

Harley grins. Something wide and genuine in a way her smiles haven’t been for years. Pam wants her around. She doesn’t want the quiet. She wants Harley in her space, making noise and turning straightforward plans into complicated (and often dangerous) adventures.

For a split second, a thought forms in her brain. Something — something she nearly manages to fully process, but not quite. Something about the reason why Pam wants her around. Why Harley doesn’t want to leave. Why she sometimes thinks about asking Ivy to touch her again, like that first night. For no reason.

But the thought is gone as quickly as it appeared.

“I’d break your heart, Pam-a-lamb.” Harley hops off the desk and winks at Ivy and doesn’t chase after the thought because she’s not feeling particularly adventurous tonight. “I’m a better friend than that.”

***

Six and a half weeks later, Harley realizes Ivy is in love with her.

She’d say she realizes she’s in love with Ivy, too, but she tries to be honest with herself and it’s more acknowledgment than realization at this point.

It doesn’t happen at the best of times. It could’ve happened at home, for one. That would’ve been convenient. Maybe even outside during a night walk or something. But no. Of course she has to have her big realization in the middle of breaking into a building that’s chock-full of guards ready to protect a CEO with appalling recycling habits.

(Or whatever he actually does. All she knows is it pisses Pam off, and that’s enough for Harley to be down with murder.)

It happens when they’re up on the roof, waiting for the guard on the top floor to finish his round so they can sneak in and do their thing. They’re hiding in the shadows, standing close together even though there’s plenty of room and it’s not cold at all. It just feels better to be close, that’s all.

“He’s gone,” Harley whispers as soon as he disappears into the elevator, “do your thing, Red.”

And so she does. Pam places her palm on the skylight they’ve been looking through, and a vine starts growing around her arm and toward the glass. It’s not the first time Harley’s seen Pam use the Green. Obviously. It’s not even the hundredth time. But for some reason, it looks particularly enthralling tonight.

“I love watching that,” she breathes out, even though she’s not sure why.

“Watching what?”

“That. You.” It’s only when she reaches over to place her fingertips against the growing vine that she realizes she’s never really touched Pam. She’s been touched by Pam, of course. She’s prone to needing medical attention. But she’s never touched Pam.

And it feels like kind of a waste. Since she’s immune to her poison and all.

So from the vine — which feels more alive than any plant she’s ever touched — Harley slides her fingertips down until she feels warm skin instead. And that’s when she sees it. Pam doesn’t move a single muscle — she doesn’t even look at her — but there’s suddenly a red rose blooming on the vine.

“Oh, Pammy .”

Harley can’t stop smiling. Who cares if they’re about to kill an eco-unfriendly asshole and there are a million things that could go wrong? Well, she cares. Ivy cares, she’s sure. But this feels much more important than murdering some rich guy right now.

“Red, I lo—“

And that’s when it happens. Listen, she’s never happy to see Bats. Never. But of all the moments when he could’ve showed up to surprise them before they can finish a job?

Right when she was about to confess her love to her best friend is about the worst possible time.

Maybe that’s why the whole thing doesn’t go as smoothly as it usually would. This happens at least twice a month, after all, so fighting Bats feels more like a dance than any sort of true fighting at this point. But she’s still rattled from the sheer enormity of what nearly happened, and when they’re about to escape Harley trips over her own feet and finds herself looking up at the big guy himself.

Ugh.

On the bright side, she knows Bats won’t risk letting her go to go after Ivy as well, so, you know. Small victories, right?

“Don’t make me wait too long, Red!” she calls out, just because she knows it’ll piss him off. Pam doesn’t need Harley to tell her to get her out of Arkham as soon as possible. And tonight Harley’s figured out why.

***

“Stop grinning like an idiot and come on !”

“Thirteen days,” Harley says, tone mockingly offended even as she pants and struggles to catch her breath. They’re home, finally. Even if they found the lair, which they never would anyway, the Green would keep them out. “What took you so long, Ives?”

Ivy rolls her eyes. Thirteen days is nearly two months less than the time it took them to get out the last time they were locked up together, so it’s no wonder she knows right away that Harley’s not serious at all.

“You know I like a solid plan. I’m not much for winging it.”

“Yes, you’re boring, Pammy. I know.”

Ivy scoffs and sits down on the couch in the middle of the room. Well -- she collapses onto it, really, if Harley’s being honest. A quick glance around their home, with every surface covered in plans and maps and more clutter than Ivy would ever allow, lets her know her best friend’s probably spent the last thirteen days and nights planning her rescue.

If Harley could sprout a vine or two right now and make a couple roses bloom, she would.

“Are you all right?” Ivy looks at her, tired eyes studying her from head to toe. “How was it?”

Harley shrugs. “It was Arkham.” They’re both familiar enough with the place. Sometimes the person in charge is more sadistic, sometimes they have a more gentle approach. Either way, it’s gonna suck. “They have a new therapist. She does color therapy.”

Pam lets out a quiet chuckle. “Color therapy, huh.”

“Mhmm.” Harley tilts her head. Pam looks like she’s balancing on the edge between being awake and asleep. Like if Harley just kept her mouth shut for a couple seconds she’d completely pass out. “Would show me colors and ask what they made me feel.”

Should she feel bad for continuing the conversation? Maybe. Pammy does look exhausted. It’s just Harley’s missed her for thirteen nights because of Bats, and before that for over four months because of her own obliviousness, and for years before because of reasons not worth thinking about.

So excuse her for feeling a bit greedy about their time together right now.

“Did it work?”

“Sure did, Pammy. I’m just here to pack up my shit and join the batgang.”

The sound that comes out of Ivy isn’t even a real chuckle. It’s a sort of hint that maybe under different circumstances she would’ve laughed, but right now the best she can do is a half-smile and a quasi-snicker.

Harley’s pretty sure she’s never loved her more.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, Red. We’re talkin’.”

“We’re always talking, Harls.”

“Not for the last thirteen days, we haven’t.”

“C’mere,” Ivy pats the empty space next to her on the couch, “what do you want to talk about?”

It’s not the first time she’s sat next to Ivy on a couch, so she knows her gesture was meant to encourage Harley to sit somewhere on the couch but keeping a respectful distance. Personal space, and all that.

Of course, that was before. That’d feel downright ridiculous now. So she sits right next to Ivy, feeling the warmth of her skin through the rough fabric of grey Arkham sweatpants.

“Wanna know what color they wanted to know about, Pammy?”

Harley decides the brighter green across the bridge of Ivy’s nose counts as a blush.

“Hmm…” even Pam’s hum sounds more alert than before, like she’s suddenly realized this isn’t just another rambling midnight conversation on the couch, “black?”

“For Bats? Nope.” Harley’s fingertips trace slow lines along Ivy’s fingers, across the back of her hand and towards her wrist. When she finally looks up, she realizes Ivy’s watching their hands, too. “Guess again.”

Ivy swallows and lets Harley wrap her fingers around a green wrist, moving Ivy’s hand to rest on Harley’s thigh.

“Blue?”

Harley giggles. “Blue,” she repeats, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to Ivy’s shoulder and smiling when it makes Ivy’s fingers flex and squeeze Harley’s thighs, “why would blue mean anything, Ive? Nothing’s blue.”

“Your eyes are blue.”

“Maybe they’ll ask you about blue, then,” Harley shifts closer, chin resting on the spot she just kissed, “what does blue mean to you, Ms. Isley?”

Ivy stays silent for a handful of seconds, thumb mindlessly brushing against the Arkham sweatpants Harley suddenly wishes she’d taken off before sitting down.

“Chaos.”

Harley rewards the teasing smirk on Ivy’s face with a kiss to her jaw. “But in a good way, right?”

“Hmm,” Ivy pretends to think, “sometimes.”

“ Most times.”

Ivy doesn’t argue. Harley has a feeling the true answer is always, anyway, so this is meeting halfway.

“I’m good for ya, Ive,” Harley says, shifting closer so she can tuck red hair behind Pam’s ear and kiss the spot right by her earlobe, “and you’re so good for me.”

“Harley--” It’s somewhere between a sigh and a breath but there’s an edge of something serious underneath. Something that makes her tense slightly with the fear of this becoming a whole conversation about things that make you sob in the shower or sigh with relief when someone gets home.

“Shh,” she whispers against Pam’s ear, “guess again.”

“ Harley .”

“Please, Pammy.”

A sigh.

“White.”

Harley shakes her head, letting her nose brush against Pam’s skin. She smells like freshly cut grass and jasmine and a field after the summer rain. When she takes in a deep breath, Ivy’s scent fills up her lungs and makes her wonder if she’ll ever be able to smell anything else.

She kinda hopes she won’t.

“You know I know you’re avoidin’ the obvious on purpose, yeah?”

Ivy turns her head and looks into Harley’s eyes for a second, and then two, and then she leans in and steals the air from Harley’s lungs.

Her lips taste like rosewater and something Harley can’t pinpoint. The kiss is slow and steady and demanding , increasingly deep in the kind of unrushed way that makes Harley feel almost surprised when she suddenly finds herself straddling her best friend’s lap.

Ivy kisses her like a woman who’s been waiting for so long the concept of time doesn’t mean anything anymore. Like the wait has been so long the reward should be, too.

“Ive--” Harley pants, struggling to catch her breath when there’s no room for air in her lungs anymore. Ivy’s lips are flushed red, kiss-swollen and parted to let out warm puffs of air. “Pammy, I--”

“Green,” Pam says, voice low and quiet and as soft as her hands slipping under that ugly Arkham shirt. Her fingertips trace the scar by Harley’s belly button -- that needed a couple stitches a lifetime ago -- and keep climbing up, up, up until they’re grazing the underside of her breasts. Harley can’t breathe, but what a way to go. “Did they ask about green?”

Harley shakes her head, teeth catching her bottom lip as Ivy’s hands cover her breasts.

“They didn’t ask about green .” Pam says, one eyebrow cocked in question as if the pressure of her hands isn’t making Harley’s back arch to push pebbled nipples against Ivy’s palms. “Should I be offended they didn’t make the connection?”

The sound Harley makes was supposed to be a giggle, but it turns into a moan halfway through and honestly she doesn’t really care.

“Pammy…”

There’s something building up inside her -- something big and warm in her chest, pushing against her lungs and her heart. She’d say it’s love, but it’s too solid for that. Love is chaotic. It knocks your life off-kilter and makes you feel like you’re walking on a tightrope towards someone but the slightest gush of wind could push you off. Love hurts but it’s worth the pain. Love isn’t like this, steady and warm and solid and relentlessly there . That’s not what love is like.

Right?

“What is it?” Ivy’s voice is as soft as the brush of her thumb against Harley’s nipple.

It’s like someone’s suddenly helped her off that tightrope and told her it was supposed to be a nice little path all along.

That it’s not supposed to be a lonely walk towards someone, either. Ivy’s already right here.

Harley opens her mouth to say it out loud -- to tell Ivy about this amazing discovery she’s just made -- but she changes her mind. Ivy knows, anyway.

“You still haven’t guessed the right color.”

Ivy smiles.

“You said it was the obvious. I already guessed the obvious.”

As amazing as everything feels right now, Harley’s never been the best at delayed gratification, so she finds herself pulling one of Pam’s hands down and out from under her shirt to bring it up to her lips instead.

“The other obvious, Ives,” Harley wraps her fingers around Ivy’s wrist, thumb pressing against the pulse point there as she watches Ivy’s pupils dilate with each fingertip Harley kisses, “the… metaphoric obvious.”

“The metapho--” Harley smirks when her lips wrap around Ivy’s middle finger and the breath catches in Ivy’s thoat “--rical obvious?”

“Mhmm,” her voice vibrates around Ivy’s finger before she lets it go with a wet ‘pop’, “c’mon, Pammy. Guess again.”

But Harley doesn’t think Ivy remembers her own name, let alone what they were talking about. Her fingers dig into the flesh of Harley’s breast and her eyes look so dark they may as well be black when Harley’s tongue licks a path up a second finger this time.

The only sounds she can hear are their labored breaths when she guides Pam’s hand down and under the waistband of her Arkham sweats, and then something halfway between a sigh and a moan when slick fingers slip between slicker lips.

Harley’s hands rest on Ivy’s shoulders, holding on for leverage as her hips begin a steady roll to the rhythm Ivy’s fingers set between her thighs.

“Keep going,” Ivy’s fingertips press up against her clit and Harley’s eyes flutter closed, hips rocking with more purpose than before, “don’t stop.”

Ivy leans forward, teeth gently nipping at the skin of Harley’s neck, and Harley swears if she didn’t know she was immune she’d think she’s under some kind of botanical spell. But no. No, this is just Ivy, as it turns out. Ivy finally thrusting two fingers inside her and making Harley move one of her hands to fist in soft, red hair.

She rides Ivy’s fingers with abandon, feeling Ivy’s tongue against her neck and Ivy’s hand on her breast and Ivy’s heartbeat somehow in her chest, and she’s amazed to realize she doesn’t feel like she could die for this. Like she could kill for this. Because she will never need to.

She feels like she could live for this, though.

Has she never been in love before?

“Red.” Ivy’s voice comes muffled against Harley’s neck just as she shifts her hand to press her thumb against a swollen clit.

“What.” Harley can’t even manage to make it a proper question. “Wh-- Fuck , Ives.”

“Is it red?” Ivy’s panting, struggling to push the sound out like she can’t quite decide whether she wants to speak or keep doing whatever black magic she’s doing to Harley’s neck.

“Harder,” Harley’s fist tightens in Ivy’s hair, “so close .”

She doesn’t know what does it. It could be the flick of Pam’s thumb against her clit, or the feeling of Pam’s nails against her breast, or the hickey Pam’s leaving on Harley’s neck. Whatever it is, it makes Harley come with Ivy’s name on her lips and her muscles clenching around Ivy’s fingers until she collapses against Ivy’s solid frame.

“We’re not done yet,” Harley mumbles, shuddering slightly when an aftershock of pleasure jolts up her spine, “don’t you dare fall asleep.”

She feels Pam’s chuckle against her neck even before she hears it.

“I’m not going anywhere, Harls.”

There’s a deep sigh, but this time it comes from Harley instead. “I know.” And she does. She knows .

“So. Was it red?”

“Mhmm,” Harley kisses Pam’s shoulder, “wanna know what red feels like, Pammy?”

She feels Ivy nod against her neck.

“Safe.”

#femslashfeb2021 #harley x ivy #harley quinn/poison ivy #harlivy #fanfiction #fic #comics #dcu #poison ivy

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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years

Text

3E Exam

On the second floor of the Library was a classroom where the 3E exam was held. Exam day was always exciting for the current students. I was like a horse race and bets were cast on who would come up on the top of the class. Tigre’s name appeared on the roster with no last name and no preliminary ranking. Some people thought it was a prank. A few others thought it was an error. Others, seeking to buck the trend, put down money on his name as a dark horse.

Tigre walked in through the morning rain accompanied by Toyama. Behind the desk was a cold-eyed man in rimmed glasses. Tigre didn’t recognize Manstein but Toyama was friendly and nodded. “Morning.”

“Coming in early? You’re the first student here.”

“I felt it would be wise to get him accustomed to these new surroundings first.”

This was a morning of great change for Tigre. It was the first time he put on a Cassell uniform, putting on a tie all by himself, understanding how his outfit put together. Toyama insisted on pulling his hair back and tying it even though Tigre found that a bit uncomfortable. It made him look less like a potential rockstar and more like a proper student.

Manstein frowned. “His eye color is a bit audacious.”

Tigre was used to wearing contacts by now, but his contacts were blue. Toyama had taught him to order his own. The blue mixed with the natural color of his eyes and made a striking aquamarine.

“We had ordered black but the contacts came in as blue. It is not a natural color but it couldn’t be helped. It was too late to order new ones.” Toyama explained.

Manstein shook his head. “Regardless, you explained to him the importance of the test so I trust he’ll be well behaved. No disruptions of this test can be tolerated. Do you understand?”

Tigre looked at Manstein. They were about the same height with Tigre being a fraction of an inch taller. Tigre just smiled. “I understand.”

Manstein glared a bit longer. It was supposed to be intimidating but Tigre felt more intimidation from Cassell's snarling raccoons.

Toyama led him around the classroom pointing at the desk with his name on a paper label. “Are you comfortable here?”

“Yes. But… you keep telling me I’ll do fine on the test and the test is simple. But you seem very worried. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Just relax and be kind to the other students. Sit quietly and wait for the test to begin.” Toyama patted Tigre on the shoulder and quickly left him alone in the room.

Tigre wanted to follow him out. Such an abrupt goodbye without any more chances for questions left him uneasy. But his last instruction was to sit quietly and be kind to the other students so there wasn’t anything else he could do. He just sat at the desk and waited.

Outside the window the sky was dark and the rain poured down a constant steady shower.

His mind thought back through all his experiences with Toyama, from learning words and phrases, to understanding how to use a cellphone. Pointing to things, Toyama would explain what they are and how they worked. But for this, Toyama gave him a little information and nothing more. And that’s why he felt so uneasy. Toyama was always free with his explanations and knowledge but suddenly that free flow of information had shut off, leaving him dry at the tap and wondering.

“Well, well, well, someone got here before us?” A tall black woman with a cloud mass of curly locks stood in the door. Behind her walked two other women. The differences between them were subtle. The one in front was the tallest but only by about an inch and a half. They all wore the same uniform but each one had a pin that was different. The one in front had a ladybug, the one in middle had a butterfly, and the one in back had a dragonfly.

Other than that he would definitely have a hard time telling each one apart.

The one in back, the dragonfly, sat next to him, the butterfly sat next to her and the ladybug filled the end of the row closest to the door. Dragonfly leaned over. “Hey I’m Porsche Smith. Nice to meet you!”

“Porsche… that’s a car right?”

The Ladybug laughed outloud and Porsche Dragonfly Smith turned to her and stuck her tongue out. “Anyways. What’s your name?”

“Tigre…” He said shyly.

“Tigre?” She stood up and looked at his name tag. “Like… Tiger? That’s an animal, right?” She said putting one hand on her hip.

“Uh…”

She tilted her head quizzically. “Is that your real name or do people just call you that?”

“I…” Tigre was taken aback. No one had asked him if his name was real before. What made a name real? Did people just call him Tigre? Was Tigre not a ‘real name’? If not, what was his real name?

The Ladybug sighed. “Two seconds in and you’ve already given someone an existential crisis. I’m Celeste Smith and this is my sister, Ruby.”

“We’re all sisters.” Porsche sat down. “So where are you from?”

“Mexico.”

“Really? You don’t look Mexican? Are you parents from there?” Celeste “Ladybug” Smith asked.

“I uh…”

Celeste tilted her head and squinted. “¿Hablas español?”

“Sí un poco.” Tigre responded.

“You’re just shy.” Celeste smiled kindly at him. “Don’t worry, we don’t bite!”

Ruby glanced over at him. “I’m just a little nervous about the test. That’s all. We got here early to see if maybe there would be some instructions but we haven’t received any.”

“Yeah it’s kinda rude. They tell you how this one test is going to set up some arbitrary placement in the whole college and yet they don’t even give you anything to study!” Porsche said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was hoping maybe we could ask someone and get more info.”

“I wasn’t told much either. Only that I would hear a series of questions in a language I’d never heard before. And I was supposed to write my best answer.” Tigre said helpfully.

“Wait, the questions aren’t in ENGLISH?!” Celeste slammed her hand on the table and all three girls stared at him.

“I… Well, I don’t know about that…” Tigre mumbled.

“It better be in English or I’m suing. How are they going to give us a foreign language test and expect us to pass?”

“Maybe it will be in Latin?” Ruby suggested.

Other students walked in and the girls suddenly raised their fingers to their lips. “Our secret.” Porsche said.

The girls all raised their heads at once and flashed their white perfect teeth at the people walking in, meeting eyes with all the men.

A man with a pair of grey eyes and a rakish playful smile leaned on the desk in front of Celeste. “So these are the triplets that’s got everyone talking.”

“Really? Everyone?” Celeste said. “Not one is left out?”

“I’m certainly not. The name is Moses. Moses Anderson. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but that’s how my family rolls.”

“Old-fashioned in a modern world? Isn’t that another word for backwards?”

“Nothing wrong with tradition, so long as those traditions are good.” Moses crossed his arms over his chest.

Celeste sneered. “I happen to disagree with that. Tradition has never done me any favors and I’m here to break it!”

“Fiery, I like it.” Moses said.

“Your name starts with A, so that means you’re at the front of the classroom right?” Porsche examines her nails and then pointed to the front of the room as a signal for this guy to move along.

Tigre shrank a little, happy that the women were absorbing most of the attention in the room. He’d never been around so many people before and was happy to disappear into their collective shadow.

“Woah so… Tigre isn’t a glitch in the matrix?”

“Huh?” Tigre asked, not understanding anything in that sentence. His mouth dropped open at the dark haired boy in front of him.”

“I’m Charles. Charles Xavier. Welcome to the school for the gifted.” He held out his hand.

“I… I’m Tigre…”

“That your superhero name or what?” ‘Charles Xavier’s’ eyes looked him up and down.

“Um…” Tigre glanced away. He got a bad feeling. He didn’t like how this person was looking at him. That half smile and those narrowed eyes stirred up a painful sensation in his chest and he imagined reaching across and grabbing his throat.

This reaction only seemed to intrigue Charles who lowered his hand. “What’s the matter? Tigre got your tongue?”

Before anything could happen, Manstein entered and spoke up. “Now that everyone is here, I will now tell you the rules of the test.”

"Cheating is absolutely forbidden, and violators will be disqualified! In the name of the chairman of the discipline committee, I ensure that the learning atmosphere at Cassell College is relaxed, but my rules are the strictest. Do not try to peek at other people's test papers. Cameras cover the entire classroom. There are no blindspots! And don't try to carry any little electronic devices. Radio waves are monitored in the classroom too! I know you are all geniuses, but I can tell you that people even smarter than you have also taken exams in this classroom, and all the cheating methods you can think of now have already been tried.”

Tigre looked over at the girls sitting next to him. He had already told them about what he heard on the test. Was that cheating? Was he already disqualified?

A flash of lightning burst through the clouds and brightened the classroom in brilliant light.

“if you do not pass this exam, what awaits you will not be a first class education in the world at Cassel College, but a disqualification." Professor Manstein continued, "The exam will officially begin in three minutes, now turn off your cell phones and place them on the corners of your desks along with your student ID cards."

Celeste, Ruby and Porsche immediately complied, their dark hands moving in unison, like a set of three perfectly trained dancers. Tigre’s breath stilled at the sight.

Manstein tapped his wristwatch and a black curtain silently emerged from above the carved wooden windows. The classroom was dark for only a moment. At the same time the classroom wall lights jumped and flickered on, and Manstein walked along to give each new student an white paper and a sharpened pencil.

Tigre was suddenly wracked with uncertainty. If the test was wrestling a bear or climbing a cliff face, he would be very happy and confident. But this was nothing like he’d ever done before. He didn’t want to let Dr. Toyama down. If he failed he would be kicked out and he would never see the Doctor again!

“Hey!”

A whisper made him look and the three girls were smiling and giving him a thumbs up. He nodded and took a deep breath to calm himself. Toyama said he would do fine. He just had to believe him.

#Dragon Raja

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ghosts-and-swords · 4 years

Text

(Because I am really bored and my new laptop is supposed to come up later today.)

Thriller Bark

Perona is the daughter of a rouge lesser noble that fled her country and joined the Gecko Pirates at some point. Moria never told her this and she believes he simply found her after her parents ditched her.

Moria decided to keep it a secret to spare her from the pain of knowing about her mother's final hours. He didn't want her to grow up wishing for vengeance on Kaido for what he did to her.

At some point during her childhood, being the spoiled little girl she obviously was, she demanded to get the cutest, creepiest Devil Fruit there was. Moria wasn't too happy to give it to her, knowing the consequences it would have, but in the end her tantrums won the argument.

When the crew captured Brook's shadow, he tried to win Perona's friendship in hopes she would help him break free from Moria's hold. Perona actually liked him a lot, and she enjoyed his music whenever he played for her, but she couldn't go against her father's orders.

She is a big fan of Soul King because of this.

Perona can't play instruments, no matter how hard Brook tried to teach her and how angry she got because of it. She has a nice singing voice, tho.

Perona never liked Hogback and Absalom much for their perverted personalities, but the doctor made her skin crawl. It worsened when he brought Victoria Cindry's corpse along.

Absalom, on the other hand, eventually grew on her when he bought her expensive teddy bears and cute things. Absa had a good eye for cute things.

Perona kept it a secret that Cindry had some of her former life's will left and befriended both the original Cindry and the shadow within her corpse.

Cindry, though filled with hatred for Moria, Hogback and dinner plates, always liked Perona and served her food in proper dishwear.

When Perona came back to Thriller Bark after the timeskip, she buried Cindry's body in her Wonder Garden, hoping she'd finally get some well-deserved rest. She took Kumashi back to Kuraigana to keep his remains close to her new home, and Mihawk helped burying him in the castle's courtyard.

Just after he adopted her, Moria got Perona a pet bear as a gift. It grew very large in no time and attempted to eat the girl several times. He was abandoned in the forests at some point, and whenever he and Perona crossed paths, the bear went feral.

Kumashi has nothing to do with said bear, but she named them the same because she's lousy at naming pets.

She asked Moria to change Kumashi's shadow several times in hopes her servant would get a nicer, cuter voice, but not a single soul seemed to be compatible with the zombie bear.

Perona is scared of all kinds of insects, but cockroaches in particular make her panic. She demands her zombies to be clean in order to avoid bugs from getting into her chambers.

Moria could never teach her how to fight, but insisted she mastered her DF's powers as much as she could. At some point, before PTSD and depression got the best of him, he was quite adept at brawling, but he could never get her to try it. However, she believed her father would always be there to keep her safe, and believed it wasn't necessary.

(This is somehow of a key point for one of the fics I'm working on) Perona developed certain necromantic abilities while reading many cursed books that she gathered from ancient zombies. She talked down this abilities with Hogback, thinking that perhaps she can help raise zombies without the need of her captain's shadows. Perona doesn't know this forbidden knowledge comes with a heavy toll, and I guess you can see where the plot is getting at.

Perona secretly resented hard crew never came out to look for her, but in part she knew she was also to blame, because she never looked for them either. When she learned about Moria's whereabouts, she was really sad about Absalom's death because she never got to say goodbye.

1 | 2 |

#perona #thriller bark pirates #thriller bark #victoria cindry #gecko moria #hogback #Absalom #soul king brook #Kumashi #Headcanons

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themuzzleofnemesis · 4 years

Text

6–Memory of Mother; Scene 1

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 201-217

…

…Who am I?

I am…

My name is…

--Levia.

Levia Barisol.

What was that just now?

I was sucked into that woman…

And now I was inside some building somewhere.

Was this--the hall of a theater?

There was a screen and audience seats. And behind me was a film projector.

I had no memory of where this was, but--

The name for this place immediately came to my mind.

--Evils Theater

A name that showed up in Nemesis' memories.

“…Wait a second. If that’s the case then this must be—"

That meant that I was inside the world in Nemesis’ memories.

That in itself wasn’t all that strange a thing.

I was after all in the middle of performing a “Swap” with her spirit.

But if this was a vicarious experience of Nemesis’ memories—

Then how was it that I was myself?

Normally I would lose my own memories while in the middle of an experience.

I would completely become Nemesis while seeing her life.

But right now, I—

I was inside Nemesis’ world while retaining my memories as Levia.

My feet spontaneously headed deeper into the hall.

I walked inside a single room there—it had “director’s room” written on the door.

This must be the director’s collection. Several antique-looking items were inside.

Katana.

Scissors.

Wineglass.

Spoon.

Mirror.

And--

That doll.

The green haired doll that Mr. Ziz had fished out of the sea and Gallerian had owned.

I approached the doll to look at it more closely.

At that moment, I incidentally looked at my face in the nearby mirror.

--Yes, that was my face.

Not Nemesis, me—Levia.

It appeared that this wasn’t just a memory, but that I had entered this memory world as myself, even in appearance.

…Looks like the Black Box has gone into a full-blown breakdown.

I was growing increasingly more anxious over whether or not I’d be able to return to the real world.

--I heard the sound of a door open from behind me.

A new person had entered this room.

“So you’ve come, Nemesis. …Or should I be calling you now Führer Sudou?”

It was a woman’s voice.

When I turned around I could see—the woman in the kimono who had sucked me in.

Despite my appearance, she had acknowledged me as “Nemesis”.

And yet, appearances aside even my memories were my own, not Nemesis’. Apparently we were acquaintances, but I had no idea how I ought to respond.

--However, my mouth began to run of its own accord, and said:

“…Long time no see, Mother.”

Bizarrely enough, regardless of the fact that I was myself, the memory was proceeding smoothly along with the vicarious experiencing of Nemesis’ life.

I wound up feeling like I was being forced to play the role of “Nemesis”.

“Surprising, isn’t it? That this theater alone is untouched despite the forest having completely burned down,” Nemesis’ mother—Kayo Sudou said.

But her expression immediately turned serious.

Rather, she almost seemed a little angry.

“…”

I—Or rather Nemesis—made no reply.

Kayo continued talking, gazing fixedly at Nemesis. “I had no inkling that you would be able to resurrect the ‘boy’—that thing that was sealed away a thousand years ago. I don’t know how you found it…Though, well, I imagine you had some hints from the ‘Demon of Wrath’.”

Nemesis, who had been silent up to now, finally opened her mouth.

Though my will tried to go against it, it was evidently pointless.

“That ‘boy’ was in that ancient legacy site in Levianta…Lunaca Labora. The only one who was able to undo the seal was his creator, the ‘Demon of Wrath’—Mr. Ziz.”

“So, the demon tried to trick you into using it to destroy the world.”

“No. Actually, Mr. Ziz was against it. It is because he didn’t want to use it that he sealed it away himself. But I persuaded him, and in the end he relented. He said to ‘do as you like’.”

“Why would you do such a thing…”

“I need enormous power to secure victory for Tasan Elphegort! …I’ve been working hard in the Tasan Party, and so I’ve become its leader. Now I am in a position to govern the whole country—but of course this important role is almost impossible for me to do by myself. Now that Gammon is gone I’ve been trying to better the country all on my own.”

“And the result of that was this invasion of your neighboring nations?”

“If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to hold down the dissatisfaction smoldering in the country. War begat war, and then suddenly Elphegort had become the enemy of almost all the other nations.”

It appeared that chronologically this was approximately around the time Nemesis killed Bruno.

Kayo took out a pipe and started to smoke it.

“—And so, unable to backpedal on your actions, finally you turned to a forbidden weapon.”

“I had my nation’s scientists analyze the ‘boy’ and improve upon it into a practical weapon—the weapon of mass destruction, ‘Punishment’.”

“The other countries aren’t likely to keep quiet once they learn such a thing exists.”

“True. Actually, just the other day some assassins arrived from the United States of Maistia looking to destroy ‘Punishment’. And their leader…was Bruno.”

“Bruno Zero!? That’s a blast from the past. So he was still alive, huh.”

Upon hearing that, Nemesis snorted. “—He’s dead now though. I killed him.”

“That’s quite merciless of you. I would think you’d view that man as your savior.”

“Savior? Him? …Don’t be stupid. He was always serving Gallerian. No—maybe he was the one who was truly ‘evil’.”

“Bruno…He likely had his own mixed feelings on you. Because he loved Gallerian he couldn’t simply watch his daughter die. But—I’m positive he also despised you, more than that. He hated me, so he hadn’t wanted to accept the fact that there was a child between myself and Gallerian.”

So, he had mixed feelings of love and hate.

“…That’s got nothing to do with me.”

On that point Nemesis and I were in agreement. It’s not like she chose the parent she was born to.

Kayo sighed as she continued smoking. “Hah…You’ve killed quite a few people, haven’t you. –Including Nikolay.”

“That was ten years ago already. He himself asked me to kill him. I merely granted his wish. …Nikolay told me something. That he ‘hadn’t been able to fulfill his role’. And that’s why you chased him out of the forest.”

“His ‘role’, huh—It’s true, he didn’t carry out what I ordered him to do.”

“But Nikolay did properly look after me. Unlike you, always absent from home.”

Kayo once again blew out smoke.

She shut her eyes once, and then immediately opened them again, saying, “…You misunderstand what Nikolay’s ‘role’ was.”

“What…do you mean?”

“I did not order him to protect you. …Just the opposite. I told him to kill you when he got the chance.”

“Wh…”

“But he opposed that. He wasn’t that soft when he was young, albeit. Maybe he was touched from having watched you from nearby for so long. Perhaps he was projecting, seeing you as being like his real daughter.”

“Now that you mention it, I think he did mention having a daughter…”

“You’ve met her yourself, I’m sure—Come in,” Kayo called out to the other side of the door.

Yet another person arrived in the room.

“—Postman!?”

Nemesis was the one who shouted that then, but if I had been able to move I would have shouted just the same.

“You know that she was a member of PN—or rather Pere Noel, yes?”

“Yeah. I would receive my assassin orders through her.”

“At the same time, Postman is also my servant. Due to some circumstances I was entrusted with her by Nikolay.”

Kayo gestured with her eyes, and Postman took off the cap that was hiding her face.

Nemesis—and myself as well—saw her face for the first time.

She was an adorable young girl with blonde hair.

--She was a girl!?

But comparing that fact with what Kayo had just said, one answer came forward.

Essentially, Postman’s true identity…was that of Nikolay’s daughter.

Though in spite of that, there seemed to be too much of an age gap there.

As though appearing to anticipate that question, Kayo began to explain. “Postman doesn’t age, you see. It’s a side effect of a treatment I performed on her.”

“A treatment?”

“When she was young, she was assailed by an incurable illness. Having been newly appointed a judge of the Dark Star Bureau, Nikolay—or rather, Hanma Baldured, consulted me, as I was the girlfriend of one of his then-colleagues. And I was rumored to have been a witch. …So, I performed a treatment with magic. But it didn’t go completely right. The illness was cured, but in return she had become doll-like, having lost her voice and her will.”

Kayo patted her hand on Postman’s head.

But there was no change in Postman’s expression.

“That wound up being the cause for Hanma’s divorce with his wife. Still he continued to raise his daughter alone for a time, but he was quite young, and with his eyes on advancement in the Dark Star Bureau he came to bear increasingly heavier responsibilities. At the same time, he also had become obsessed with magic that would allow one to wield power that exceeded human knowledge. Hanma volunteered to become my apprentice, and in exchange for accepting him I sought for him to give his daughter to me.”

“For—what purpose?”

“I was seeking a ‘raw material’ like her. A living doll to make into a ‘receptacle’. –Though, ultimately that didn’t work out. …Whatever the case, Hanma must have regretted having let go of his daughter, somewhere in his heart.”

“But wait a second. There’s a discrepancy in your age with that story just now. Isn’t Nikolay a great deal older than you?”

“…I’m like Postman. I am also a being that doesn’t age.”

I couldn’t make sense of it all, so far removed from common sense.

Nemesis must have been the same. She returned back to the main topic relating to herself.

“…Why did you order Nikolay to kill me?”

“It’s simple. You--were something that fulfilled its purpose to me merely by being born. Once you had achieved that, I had no more use for you.”

“I don’t understand…birthing a child only to kill them.”

“That’s not it. It’s not that I wanted to kill you, really. I just didn’t need you. I just asked Nikolay to dispose of my discarded refuse.”

“…I don’t believe you. You were always so kind to me—”

“You—have distorted your own memories. Right after you were born I left the forest, and I never went back until you were arrested. You have created these false memories of me raising you because you didn’t want to accept that.”

“…Then what about Mr. Ziz? The blue octopus you gave me as a Christmas present—”

“You mean the ‘Demon of Wrath’? If I had really given him to you as a present I would have then realized what his true identity was, don’t you think?”

“But Mr. Ziz told me you’d bought him at the market—”

“If he told you that then I’m sure he was just playing along with you. So as to keep you from falling apart if you noticed the inconsistency.”

--Certainly, among all the memories that I had seen up until now…Kayo had never actually made an appearance, not once.

Everything that had to do with her was just reminiscence in Nemesis’s memories.

…They had all been little more than her own delusions—

“You’re lying…That can’t…”

“Nemesis. Even you must have realized it somewhere deep in your heart, haven’t you? It was for that reason—you tried to kill me. –By dropping ‘Punishment’ on this forest where I am!”

“No! It was because there…are monsters in this forest, and people were frequently going missing here...I was trying to give the people of my country less grounds for concern--”

“It was for that reason alone you dropped a weapon of mass destruction on the country that you rule? You don’t think that’s strange for you to say? …Sorry, but you won’t be able to kill me that easily!”

Kayo leaped towards Nemesis, and started to strangle her neck with her hands.

“Grk…”

It hurt.

Nemesis’ pain was being transmitted to me.

She tried with all her might to throw off Kayo’s arms, but to no avail.

“H…ow? I…have…demonic…power…”

“What a pity for you. I also have demons inside me! I am not some mere contractor like you! I—have taken six demons into myself!”

Six…that lined up with how many antiques there were in the room.

“So I am able to kill you, contractor that you are. Once I learned that you had the ‘Demon of Wrath’ dwelling inside you, I couldn’t leave you be any longer. –I will kill you, and then steal the last demon!”

Kayo tightened her grip even further.

“Glu…eck.”

In response, I could feel Nemesis’ body progressively begin to grow weaker.

If this kept up—

“…Huh!?”

Suddenly the strangling force slackened.

Seeing an opportunity, Nemesis kicked Kayo in the stomach.

Unable to take the blow, Kayo released her.

“Hack!...urgh…”

After breathing on all fours for a moment, Nemesis raised her head.

--Kayo was laying on the ground, groaning in pain.

One of the artifacts in the room—the katana—was thrust deep into her back.

“Ggu—Postman…Damn you!”

Behind Kayo as she screamed stood Postman, expressionless with hands stained in blood.

“…”

Despite bearing a blade wound that would normally have been fatal, Kayo was still alive.

If what she said was true…Only a contractor would be able to put a stop to her.

“…Mother.”

Nemesis stood and drew her gun from its holster.

--It was the revolver.

“Hey Mother—Right now I’m pointing the muzzle of my gun at someone.”

That person was none other than Nemesis’ mother herself.

“You don’t have…the right to call me mother…You bitch, I should have killed you myself right after giving birth to you.”

“You are a very, very evil woman. Abandoning me in the forest, bringing so many people to unhappiness—"

“—If it hadn’t been for you and her, I could have taken in the Demon of Deadly Sin…and become a truly ‘pure being’…I was so close…”

The katana in Kayo’s back fell out, and the wound began to steadily close.

She had a marvelous recovery ability.

“Now, I…I don’t care what happens. No matter how hard I try I can’t help this world. So then, rather—”

“…That is your true nature, Nemesis. The one who desires destruction…Your real identity is—”

--What Kayo said in the end was drowned out by the gunshot.

…

Nemesis was kneeling by Kayo’s corpse, sobbing.

“…Ua—uuuaah…”

--Poor Nemesis.

Continuously betrayed by those you believed in.

Unable to make anyone happy no matter how hard you tried.

You aren't to blame.

The one at fault is--

This very world itself.

So you need to purify everything.

Destroy it all.

…Whose voice is this?

Mine?

No, it can't be.

This is--"the other Nemesis".

The being that had always been speaking to her.

The other me.

Me.

Nemesis.

Me.

Levia.

Me.

Obeying my voice, Nemesis left the theater.

And then entered the nearby Tasan Headquarters.

There was no way that it would be so nearby, but that doesn’t matter.

More important than that now.

Hurry and press the switch.

The forbidden device is beyond this point.

If you do it now no one will discover it.

Come, hurry.

Bring everything to an end.

Bring punishment.

Down to this world.

<<prev------directory------next>>

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majorshiraharu · 4 years

Text

Echoes In My Mind; Chapter 4 - Familiar Faces - EchoxReader Fic

Previous Chapter

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Content Rating: Mature+ Warnings: Swearing Anxiety Trigger Warnings: Depression PTSD Nightmares Trauma Torture ; only references from the previous chapters

If there are any warning labels I’m missing please inform me

Notes: Y/O/N = Your characters original name (before they went into hiding) Sorry this got a little long lol Taglist: @grand-admiral-luna

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They were right, after a few weeks and a lot of hard work you were walking again, your legs and arms were still weak at times, but at least you could move around without needing Echo to follow you like a lost puppy dog -- though you do miss having him around, you miss having him curled up at your bedside holding your hand as you fell asleep, you actually kinda miss having him feed you, mostly since it always annoyed Crosshair. It was nice having someone care for you, and it was nice to get to know Echo better over this time, though you didn't actually learn too much about who he was since he still didn't tell you anything about his past, and you fearing that if the man who captured you knew who you were, you didn't want to put Echo or the others in any danger by telling them about your past either, in case this guy ever found you guys, you couldn't bear the thought of Echo being hurt by that scum. - Though you really wanted to tell him, tell him everything, most of all, how you felt about him, you didn't want to waste this chance by repeating your mistake, but you can't, for some reason, you just can't bring yourself to tell him, not yet anyway. -------------------- You walk into the small area of the ship that Tech had all his things set up in, hoping to get an answer to a question you had. "Hey, Tech, about having questions, um, I have one..." you call out.

"Oh Y/N, sure, how can I help?" he asks, motioning you to come over. "So, uh, the guy who...tortured me...um..well he used the poison for more than just trying to kill me, he wanted to remove something, and I need to know if it's true, what he said, and if it worked..." "Ok, what is it? I can scan your body and blood again to check what you're looking for," he asked curiously, but almost like he knew what you were talking about. "Promise me you won't tell anyone about this, not anyone!" you say with a concerned look, worried about having just one person find out you're a force user. "Not even Echo" he teases "What...uh...no, why would you ask?" you shoot back trying to hide your flustered expression. "Oh....no reason....so, what is it?" he says smirking before looking down at his datapad. "It's um....for...uh....Midi-chlorians." "Hm, let me check" - he takes some blood from you and puts it into a slot by his holoscreen pulling up some graphs and numbers you don't understand. "So, what does it say?" you question, eagerly awaiting his answer. "Well, it shows normal levels," he says comparing it to other graphs and numbers on the screen. -"But, for some reason, it has increased since the last test I took, interesting, is this what you meant?" he asks turning around to look at you.

"Not exactly, he said he'd take it from me, but if they're increasing that means he failed, right, but....no matter how hard I try I still can't use it." "The Force? Well to my limited knowledge it's not possible to take it away, you can reduce the Midi-chlorian levels, but if a user is strong enough it will return, you would just need to reach a level closer to your original before it would fully return. This is the information I've gathered from some old Jedi text." "Wait wait wait, I never said anything about the Force, and I'm no Jedi, and why do have old Jedi text anyway, that’s forbidden under the Empires new laws" you say nervously.

"No, you're not, but you were a strong Force user that worked for the Republic," he said adjusting his glasses. "What, no, uh why would you say that?!" you're starting to panic, wondering how he could possibly have figured this out and if everyone else knew... "It was in your file - if you're wondering how I found it, - your blood is stored in the old files from the Republic I have saved, this includes some medical files and Jedi text, along with files on important members of GAR, when I input some of your blood samples into the scanner months ago your file popped up. Oh, don't worry I didn't tell any of the others, your secret is safe with me." "Ah, I thought those files would have all been destroyed, thank you for not telling anyone."

"The files were destroyed by the Empire and made illegal, but I have a lot of old stuff stored on this thing from back before the Empire took power, it's all saved locally so they can't remove or access it unless they get their hands on this, but I've got plenty of safety features to protect this information," he says patting a terminal next to the holoscreen. "Thank you Tech, so...then about the Force, it'll come back?" "It never left, your Midi-chlorians were taken down a lot, when comparing to your old records, but the more I study these numbers I think that not even this is true, I can't be certain, since I can't find the poison metal in your system anymore, but I think that is interfering with the Midi-chlorian count somehow." "What do you mean?" "You should be able to use the Force, based off of other records including our own, it appears that the only thing that can actually remove Midi-chlorians from the body is by losing parts of your body, an example would be Echo, he lost an arm and both legs, his count is lower compared to his old files, but that hasn't happened to you. My conclusion would be that the metal is somehow preventing the scanner from picking up everything." "But if I can technically use the Force, why can't I use it now?" "I'm not sure...the Force seems to be something that is based not only in the body but also the mind. You went through a lot, and since your body is mostly back to normal, I would recommend focusing on your mind. -Echo told me you have a lot of nightmares about the torture, maybe start with that." he says before hearing his name being called from the other room by Hunter. "Tech, get over here, we need you to review some bounty missions," Hunter shouts over the sound of his brothers chatting. "You should go, thank you for the help Tech, I appreciate it, hopefully, I can figure out what's wrong," you say looking down at the ground wondering how you were supposed to stop these nightmares and regain your abilities.

"No worries, based on your files I think this is something you can handle, but if you ever need help from any of us, --especially Echo would be happy to help," he says smirking while walking off to join his brothers. -You roll your eyes before heading back to your room. ---------------------------------------------------------------- You're sitting on the floor, trying to meditate. -You are back in the dark building, you hear screaming, - it sounds familiar, you move closer to the screaming. - The closer you get the more you realize it's you screaming, it's your voice. There's talking, but you can't understand what they're saying, suddenly you hear a voice calling your name, you look around and there is no one. The voice gets louder and louder until you're snapped out of your meditation. --"Y/N, hey, do you copy, Y/N?!" Hunter's voice comes in over your com. It takes a moment for you to realize where you are and answer your com, "Sorry, what is it?" you ask slightly annoyed that you were snapped out of your meditation.

"Come join us, we're discussing a potential bounty mission and we need your help."

"Okay, I'll be right there," you say turning off your com while you get up and head towards the main area of the ship. Requesting your presence at one of their meetings wasn't something that happened before, usually, you hadn't been included in the past ones because of your health, you're still not back to normal, now suffering more from mental than physical pain, but hopefully, you could be of some use. -- "You called for me?" you ask walking into the area of the ship they always held their briefings in. “Ah Y/N, yes we require your help on this mission, Tech decoded the frequency of the bounty request and it is coming from an Imperial base, we need the credits to stock up on our supplies and for fuel, but if the Empire finds out who we are we could be in some trouble. You're not a Clone so we're going to need you to accept the information from them and later on drop off the bounty, are you willing to do this?" Hunter said motioning you towards the table. They all look at you, clearly concerned, especially Tech since he knows you use to be part of the Republic, but none of them knowing if you might have a bad past with the Empire. You know they need these credits badly, you overheard Tech and Echo talking the other day about how low they had run on credits and supplies after tending to you for so long and not being able to take the more dangerous bounties which always paid better. You don't know how much Tech knew, if he found out that you use to work under the direct command of the Chancellor who was now the Emperor, you were a powerful force user, you were also a bounty hunter before that, you'd been found by him because of your skills, you were hired to be a military leader within GAR, taking dangerous missions all the time, you served alongside some of the best battalions and Jedi. When order 66 happened you were expected to fulfill your duty, to die, being the right-hand woman of the Chancellor now turned Emperor you were a danger to him and his new Empire, but you refused to accept that fate and after escaping you deserted the military, changing your appearance and never looking back. Even though a friend of yours helped you fake your death, you didn't exactly want to march into an Imperial base and help them, but you did want to help the people who saved your life and that you've grown to care for. After a long pause and their faces growing more concerned, you finally answered. "Yes! - I owe you guys for saving and helping me, I'm also starting to like it here so I gotta do something besides waste your credits and supplies" you say with a confidant but sad grin on your face.

"Don't worry about that, but it's good to have you on board for this one," Hunter said giving you a datapad with the information on it. ---------------------------------------------------------

You all spend a few hours planning and going over all the information provided, you also decided to go over some details in case anything went wrong -- the autopilot dropped the ship out of hyperspace plotting its course for the planet where this meeting will take place, Tech takes over the landing of the ship, setting the ship down near the designated hanger of the Imperial base. --------------------------------------------------------- Anxiety rushes over you as you put on your armor, Echo comes over to your side looking concerned, "Y/N, are you sure you want to do this? We aren't going to force you to do this, clearly, there's something bothering you about this mission and -"

"Echo it's fine," you say coldly, cutting him off, causing a sad expression to fall over his face, "Y/N, you know you can tell me anything." "Not this Echo, trust me you're better off not knowing," you say putting on the last parts of your armor, putting on your helmet and activating the voice changer, hoping this will keep the Empire from knowing who you are, even with your change in appearance you rather be safe than sorry. Echo attempts to say something but you ignore him, making his sad expression turn into a frustrated one filling his face as you headed over to the main part of the ship, walking out the door as the others wish you good luck, Tech had connected their coms through your helmet so they could give you tips or information, and just in case anything goes wrong they'll know right away this time. --------------------------------------------------

You march over to the building housing the office where your meeting will take place, avoiding as many Imperial people as you can on your way there. -- You finally reach the office, knocking on the door identifying yourself as only a bounty hunter here for the mission they requested. "Come in," says the Imperial on the other side of the door, you push the button to let yourself in, walking in you notice a person standing off to the side of the desk, she looks very unfriendly her short black hair rounding her face in an unflattering way, the man behind the desk looked pretty standard, clean cut black hair with some gray showing, but when he turned to fully face you you noticed something -- he was a Clone!?! What the heck you thought...well good thing they sent you, otherwise, they'd be in a world of trouble, suddenly you notice on the side of his face there was a scar tracing around the side of his eye in a distinct cut, you'd seen this before, you'd seen him before. After you'd been tortured your memory had gotten pretty bad, not helped by the many sleepless nights caused by nightmares, but you know him you just can't place it, right as you think of who he is he introduces himself. "I'm Commander Cody, who are you?", you can't believe it Cody is working for the Empire, well actually you can, unlike Rex he wasn't one who defied orders, at least not easily or often, but you'd rather not think about this because you use to be good friends and now he's working for the ruling force in the galaxy that wants you dead, what would he do if he knew it was you? You notice just how miserable he looks, he always enjoyed being out on the front lines, not stuck behind a desk, you try to lighten the mood some with your classic sarcasm which always use to earn you a smile from him. "The bounty hunter you called, genius!" "You were able to track us, hmph, at least that means you're somewhat competent, what are your skills?" he asks coldly, not even attempting to play along with your sarcastic jab.

"Whatever you need them to be." you reply jokingly

--"You are a cocky one, show some respect" the lady standing to the side snorts out. "Pryce!" Cody snaps shooting an angry look at her, making her squirm with fear. "Anyway, what I need you to do is stop some terrorist forces that are attacking a mining company, our units have had little luck stopping them or finding their armories and leader, I need you to go there and stop them, destroy the armories, and any weapons you find, then bring me their leader, alive, understood?"

"So what you're saying is the Empire can't do its job and you need me? Well you’re in luck so don't worry I can handle this," you say crossing your arms. The lady named Pryce speaks up again, "You better not destroy or damage any of our mining equipment, understood??" basically yelling this at you, earning another death glare from Cody, before he reaches for a datapad on his table sliding it across to you. "That contains all the information you need, and don't tell anyone we hired you for this."

"Got it," you say quickly looking over the datapad scanning it with your helmet before getting up to leave, "Good to se-... um... meet you, Commander," you say hoping he didn't notice your slip up. Both of them just look at you not saying anything. --After you leave the room Pryce turns to Cody, "You think we can trust that one?' she asks.

"I trust her more than I do Stormtroopers that aren't Clones," he says with a huff.

"The Empire was right to decommission the Clones, they are old and aren't needed, not to mention most of them seem to be in bad moods," she says walking towards the door. "Well, when we have to deal with people of your kind it'll put us in a bad mood. Oh, and if you eventually want a position in the Empire I would recommend you try and get along with us, this mission isn't over yet so you'll be stuck with me for a while," he said leaning back in his chair folding his arm and smirking. "This isn't some mission, it's a simple job my father asked you to do, but since your Stormtroopers failed him, he made me come check in on you and you had hired this bounty hunter filth. If you still want us to work with the Empire might I suggest showing me some more respect Clone."

"Who are you going to work for Ms. Pryce? You don't even call the shots at Pryce Mining, your father does and I doubt he'd be pleased to hear about your behavior towards the Empire." Cody scoffs causing her to stop in the doorway, frozen with anxiety and fear.

"You're right, forgive me, it's been a long day. I will be in contact in a few standard days, otherwise, update me if you hear anything sooner from her," she said before walking out the door. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're all sitting around a table looking over some holomaps and texted displayed on the holoscreen Tech had set up. "It seems these people attacking the Pryce Mining company are mostly angry locals, but, the weapons and tactics they are using are not their own, I can't trace any of the weapons, but I assume they are coming from a better-organized group with ties to the underground. Their tactics, on the other hand, are very similar to battle tactics used during the Clone Wars by the Republic Army."

"So what you're saying Tech is that these guys are getting outside help?" Hunter says hoping to get to the point Tech always seemed to drag out.

"Well yes, but I don't know who is helping them." "That doesn't change our objective, -- Echo you and Y/N go over the tactics some more, I'm having the both of you go with Crosshair to take out the armories in the southern sector, while Wrecker, Tech and I will take the northern sector."

"Are we sure Wrecker can comply with the stealth part of this mission?" you say jokingly.

"Just cause I hate em doesn't mean I can't do em," Wrecker huffs "All right everyone, cut the chatter, let's get to work, oh prepare yourselves, this mission won't be easy so you all better be on your a game," Hunter says before heading over to the cockpit with Tech. --------------- Echo and you look over the tactics some more, you notice them being similar to ones you had helped teach Saw and his rebellion during the Clone Wars. Rex and Anakin had drawn up most of these tactics. "Something about these tactics seems familiar," Echo says studying the information on the holomap you guys put together.

"They're similar to General Skywalker's and Rex's early battle tactics during the Clone Wars, I know cause I helped Rex and Y/O/N work on th---" suddenly he cuts himself off realizing he's just told you an important part of his past. You stand there in shock, realizing that the man sitting next to you has to be the same Echo you served with, no there's no mistake now, he is in fact the man you loved and served with on countless missions. You had spent some late nights together working on these tactics, and the way he says your name is the same, you can't help but let a shocked expression flow over your face, unsure if you should say anything, or if you should keep quiet... "Oh, um sorry, forget I said that," he blurts out quickly noticing your reaction. The room becomes awkwardly quiet, - filled with a stillness that was uncomfortable. You both look back to the information displayed on the holoscreens. Should you tell him, you think. Should I tell him everything...finally, -or should I spare him from everything, clearly he doesn't know it's you, how could he though, you don't act much like your old self and you look nothing alike. Even though it hasn't been all that long since the end of the war it was enough time to move on from the life before, not to mention Echo had died some years ago, or so you thought. You wonder where Echo's been all this time, how didn't you know he was back, that he was alive, how was he alive? -So many questions filled your mind, your breathing started to become as sporadic as your heartbeat, your brain was overloaded with all this information. Your legs started to tremble and you could feel a cold sweat breaking out across your body as your vision tunneled, you looked over to him for a short moment before everything went black and the only sound you heard was the painful crash of your head on the ground and Echo calling your name before calling for help.

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Hope you enjoyed uwu if you would like to be added to the taglist please let me know. This will also be available on my ao3 and saved to my Masterlist

#clone trooper echo #clone trooper echo x reader #echo x reader #echo fic #the clone wars fic #majorshiraharu #the bad batch #the bad batch fic

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