#i have tomorrow off so perhaps... i will run it past some Trusted Individuals to get some input on the matter....

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

hm. you know... since i no longer hate my art... i Could transfer this blog to my main. i could shimmy right over there! it would make many things easier!

[rosesupposes]

Navy Eyes Dark Enough

Or, five times Geralt didn't realize Jaskier was a witcher and one time he did.

Inspired by this post. Read on AO3 here.

-

Most witchers move among humans with some difficulty. People want them around for their skills but they’re hardly considered good company. Their swords, their eyes, their medallions all give them away for what they are and inspire fear in the humans around them. Jaskier passes much more easily as a human than any other witcher he’s met. A pretty face and prettier words go a long way for a witcher and he’s been blessed with both. He’d been called a pretty boy since his earliest days at Gorthur Gvaed and the mutations had been kind to his looks, leaving him baby faced into adulthood and granting him navy eyes dark enough to hide the shape of his pupils from anyone who didn’t look too closely. His teachers hadn’t necessarily approved of his interest in poetry and prose but they didn’t mind him tearing apart the library for all the fiction he could find, so long as he was reading the nonfiction as well. He’s unafraid to leverage this advantage while on the Path. He gains a town’s trust faster than his brothers and is rarely underpaid because of it. He’s never found himself short of romantic partners. He’d talked himself into Oxenfurt because it sounded like fun. He spends his time as a traveling bard, taking contracts only when he’s low on funds or his brothers ask it of him. It hurts, sometimes, to keep his twisted Viper medallion hidden under his clothes but it makes it easier to hide in plain sight. For all he leverages the way he blends in with humans, Jaskier had never expected another witcher not to recognize him.

1. 1240 Jaskier has traveled alone for most of his time on the Path. There was the string of contracts almost two decades back when he’d helped Letho and Auckes but that was before he’d left Nilfgard and the South behind almost entirely. After a week of traveling with Geralt, he’s starting to realize that he’s missed it. Traveling the Path with someone else is different than the traveling Jaskier does in caravans as a bard. Despite their unfamiliarity with traveling together, they fall into an unexpectedly easy routine when it comes to setting up camp. Geralt, a Wolf to the core, insists on doing the “hard work” of it all and Jaskier isn’t going to complain about leisurely picking berries and filling their waterskins. By the time Jaskier makes it back to camp with their waterskins full, Geralt is usually finishing setting up their fire after having set a few traps nearby. He lights it with Igni, of course, like any witcher worth his Signs would. It isn’t until their second week of traveling together that Jaskier beats Geralt back to their camp. The area they’re in, despite being filled with berries and freshwater, was suspiciously devoid of game. Jaskier had suspected magic at first but his medallion is too silent for the kind of magic that would require. If it’s a monster though, it’s leaving them suspiciously alone. He debates the likelihood of various possible monsters while he builds their small fire. He’s not nearly as skilled at the technical aspects of fire building as Geralt but a Sign can level a playing field and he has it started in no time. Geralt enters their small clearing only a moment later. “That was fast,” he grunts as he moves past Jaskier. Jaskier shrugged. “I’ve always been better than my brothers at it,” he explains, moving his hand in a general approximation of the Sign. He’d always preferred his magic lessons to swordplay at Gorthur Gvaed and he’s a bit jealous at the way he’s seen Geralt so easily use his Signs while he fights. The double shortsword style of Jaskier’s school did not lend well to Sign usage while fighting. Geralt gives the fire what Jaskier supposes is a thoughtful look and then grunts, moving away to set up a small tent. 2. 1244 It is not often that Jaskier finds himself caught up in the habits ingrained in him during his training. He’s decades removed from his trials and, for the most part, he has kicked the habits that Ivar and the other Viper Masters beat into him. His posture is a wreck. He doesn’t keep a journal in the way a witcher should. He takes his medallion off more often than most witchers would deem advisable. Perhaps most egregious to other members of his school is his chosen weapons. He still dual wields while fighting but these days he favors daggers to the traditional Viper shortswords. They’re much easier to hide. He keeps a stiletto in each boot and two in his lute case. One habit he cannot break is the way he cleans and sharpens his daggers after every use. He has two silver and two steel because he is a witcher, even if he’s a witcher who rarely takes contracts. They rarely need cleaning, especially when he travels with Geralt, but when they do, Jaskier is almost religious about it. His latest kill is a pack of drowners outside Murivel, as he’s lazily making his way through Redania and towards Ard Carraigh after completing his obligations at Oxenfurt. He finds no contract for them in town, which is frustrating after he ruined this season’s traveling clothes in the fight, but he gets some decent prices for some of the alchemy supplies he was able to harvest. When he makes it to an inn, it’s a bit before the midday meal, just enough time for him to clean himself and his daggers before he sings for his supper and his room. The innkeep is gracious enough to give him the room first, because he remembers Jaskier and knows he’ll be good for business. He lays his daggers out in a corner of the room and sits on the floor in front of them with a small bowl of water and a cloth. It isn’t long before he loses himself to the familiar motions. Clean the blade. Sharpen the blade. Polish the blade. Unwrap the leather. Oil the leather. Rewrap the leather. Repeat.  It doesn’t take very long, given how much smaller the blades are than his old shortswords but he takes longer than most men would bother with. A blade ill-treated is unlikely to treat you well in moments of need.

He goes downstairs to sing a bit for the midday meal. He’s debating the merit of playing through Geralt’s song cycle without Geralt himself present when the door swings open and the witcher himself enters. He nods at Jaskier when he sees him and then goes to speak to the innkeep. Jaskier finishes his song and wanders over to Geralt as he plucks at the strings of his lute, playing but not singing. 

“He’ll join me, my good man,” Jaskier declares after he hears the innkeep tell Geralt there’s no available rooms. The inkeep shrugs and shows Geralt to Jaskier’s room while Jaskier continues to play.

It’s another hour before he joins Geralt, who is making notes in his journal. Jaskier brings two bowls of broth and some bread with him and they share a pleasant meal after spending almost half a year apart. 

“You’ve bought more daggers,” Geralt says as they’re finishing, gesturing to where Jaskier had left his blades out after their rather thorough cleaning.

“Not new,” Jaskier clarifies, “just clean. They were a little too useful on the way here.”

Geralt snorts.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Jaskier asks him, with no real heat. 

“What use would you have for a dagger, other than the one you carry on your belt sometimes?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes and gathers the bowls, immune to Geralt’s teasing for the most part. It is just like the other man, to consider the fighting style of another school inferior to his own. “Not all of us are trying to compensate for something with our gigantic swords.”

3. 1247

Jaskier manages to get his pants tied and his doublet buttoned as he runs back to the inn he and Geralt are staying at. He finds Geralt whetting his silver sword by the fire.

“Hello, Geralt,” he says, as casually as he can manage. “If you wouldn’t mind departing just a bit early, I think now’s a wonderful time to leave.”

Geralt grunts. “The room is paid until tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Jaskier says, moving quickly towards the table he’s been using as a desk to pack the papers he’s spread across it. “I’m afraid I’ll have to lose out on that coin. C’mon. Chop, chop. Pack your things.” Jaskier moves onto his small pack of clothes in the corner.

“Don’t forget your weird necklace,” Geralt grunts, shoving Jaskier’s Viper medallion into his hand and Jaskier remembers taking it off before going looking for a lay for tonight, trusting Geralt with it before trusting a random lay wouldn’t steal it.

Jaskier pauses for a second, offended. The Viper medallions aren’t the same heavy stamped discs the rest of the schools use- they were forged individually into various twisting shapes before they’d been enchanted. Jaskier finds them more attractive than the other schools’ medallions and more practical, easier to hide. “Excuse me, as if yours is better.” 

“Let’s go, Jaskier.”

Jaskier shuts his mouth and returns to packing for a moment before he’s forced to retaliate. “Fine but don’t think we’re not discussing your terrible taste in jewelry later.”

4. 1251

Geralt’s White Honey is absolute shit and Jaskier knows firsthand because he’s borrowed it before. He’d replaced it after, of course, and he could tell when Geralt used the one Jaskier had brewed because it flushed the toxins much faster than Geralt’s usual swill.

Ivar would be very disappointed if he knew how long it takes Jaskier to figure out why Geralt’s White Honey is so poor in comparison to his own. As it turns out, Geralt is preparing both the honeysuckle and the white myrtle petals incorrectly. He’s managed to flip their preparations, crushing the myrtle petals and chopping the honeysuckle, when it should be the other way around. Jaskier thinks maybe it’s a Wolf thing but he’s not sure it matters because watching Geralt butcher his potions every time is getting old. 

Jaskier doesn’t bother to keep his potions stocked beyond a few that are easy to keep in his packs but he helps Geralt when the other allows him to. Mostly he prepares ingredients as Geralt directs but given how sick he is of watching the other witcher butcher his potions, when Geralt asks him to crush some white myrtle petals he takes the knife from Geralt’s hand and chops them instead. “Just give me that,” he says, reaching for the honeysuckle Geralt had been about to chop. “You always do this wrong. You’re supposed to cut the white myrtle and crush the honeysuckle.”

It doesn’t take very long for Jaskier to finish preparing the potion, though he stops short of the final mix lest Geralt actually murder him. He wipes his hands and picks up his lute, idly strumming.

“Where did you learn that?” Geralt asks as he takes the ingredients Jaskier has prepared to finish mixing them. 

Jaskier rolls his eyes because White Honey, for all it’s helpful properties, is a recipe shared almost exclusively among witchers. “Oxenfurt, Geralt,” he answers with a hefty amount of sarcasm in his voice. 

“Hmmmm.”

And doesn’t that pique Jaskier’s interest. That’s Geralt’s genuinely confused hum, not his ‘Jaskier, shut up, you’re not that funny’ hum.

 “Where else would I have learned it?” he prods. “I am a Master of the seven liberal arts, as you know.”

“Didn’t know they taught White Honey at Oxenfurt,” is all Geralt says as Jaskier strums lazily at his lute. Geralt is being serious, Jaskier realizes- he believes he learned how to make White Honey at Oxenfurt.

White Honey is not taught at Oxenfurt. White Honey, per rather extensive experimentation by the Viper School, is mostly useless to anyone without a witcher’s mutations. While Jaskier is sure someone out there has the recipe who is not a witcher, it is certainly not taught at Oxenfurt. Jaskier is sure Geralt knows this but the other witcher is taking Jaskier’s joke seriously.

Oh.

Oh.

Geralt, somehow, just over ten years into their friendship, does not know Jaskier is a witcher. It takes effort to keep himself from crowing with laughter. This is just- Jaskier would be hurt if he didn’t find it so funny. 

Oh, this is incredible. Jaskier is going to milk this for all of its worth.

5. 1251

Jaskier continues to insinuate in every possible way that he can think that he is a witcher without actually saying it. Geralt does not catch on. It is simultaneously amusing and frustrating though it gives Jaskier a lot of perspective on certain aspects of their relationship.

Geralt is always surprised when Jaskier lights a fire quickly because he hasn’t considered that Jaskier is using Igni. Geralt insists that Jaskier’s hidden daggers are for show because he doesn’t quite believe that Jaskier knows how to use them. Geralt dismisses Jaskier’s Viper medallion as an odd piece of jewelry because he doesn’t remember that not all the schools use the same stamped metal the Wolves do for their medallions.

Jaskier’s current favorite game is trying to find the subject of his knowledge that will eventually push Geralt over the edge because he can’t accept that Jaskier learned it at Oxenfurt. He hasn’t found it yet.

He’s trying the Wild Hunt today because there hasn’t been a reliable sighting in nearly thirty years and he knows very few humans who actually study the subject. All witchers know about it, of course, but the Vipers are most familiar. They were founded to study it, after all, and Jaskier’s knowledge on the subject is both broad and deep.

“They’re elves, you know. Not the typical kind, mind you, but they speak an off dialect of Elder. Some of my teachers think they’re from some other world. There’s unicorns there, apparently,” he says as they walk beside Roach. It’s a not-quite-bastardization of the various facts and theories but Jaskier’s not aiming for the truth, he’s aiming to confuse Geralt.

Geralt just grunts. It’s not quite as satisfying a response as Jaskier had hoped but he thinks maybe Geralt is confused.

“I think the unicorns are a little far-fetched, personally,” he continues. “It’s a nice thought, though.”

“The Wild Hunt is not a nice thought,” Geralt says seriously. Which, well, is true. 

“I’m well aware, Geralt. I’ve read an entire library on the subject. The Continent’s biggest, in fact.”

“The biggest library on the Wild Hunt was at Gorthur Gvaed. It’s been destroyed.”

“Yes. Well.”

The painful reminder stops Jaskier short. He normally doesn’t have much trouble separating his memories of Gorthur Gvaed from its destruction. He wasn’t there and if he doesn’t think about the raid he missed, it’s easy to pretend it never happened; that the keep, with its hidden passageways and winding rivers, is still standing in the mountains of Nilfgard; that his teachers are still there tending to the library; that his brothers are still out there and they’re narrowly missing each other as they travel their own winding Paths. The mention of its destruction brings his idealized fantasy crashing down. Gorthur Gvaed is nothing but ruins and he has maybe five brothers left. 

Guilt wells up in the pit of his stomach and he decides the Wild Hunt is not the topic that’s going to make Geralt realize he’s a witcher.

+1. 1251

Geralt feels hazy and slow as he wakes. There’s the dull ache of a pain in his leg and his blood burns. His vision comes slowly and when it does he takes stock.

He’s trapped under a pile of rocks. The tunnel. The kikimores. The cave-in. The pain in his legs and his ribs is dull, due to his potions, but he thinks his leg might be broken and his ribs at least bruised. He has a concussion but he doesn’t think he was out for very long. There are potions burning through his system, one for the dark, at least, but with his head pounding, he’s not sure what else.

He’s in a fairly large section of the tunnel system, with a small stream running through. There are four entrances to the cavern. He was caught as the fifth tunnel gave way and caved in.

He can see where his sword had landed and he might have enough time to clear enough of the rock to reach for it. He doesn’t like his chances of getting out of the cave on his own but there should only be one injured kikimore left and if it comes to him, he might be able to take it out. Jaskier will come looking for him once he’s been gone long enough and as long as the kikimore is dead before Jaskier enters the tunnels, the foolish bard should be safe.

Geralt closes his eyes, trying to listen for the kikimore, trying to gauge where it is and how much time he has. Not much, he realizes, after a moment of listening to the echoes of it’s skittering legs, but he can do it if he works fast.

His legs are still mostly pinned under the cave-in when the kikimore enters the cavern from one of the tunnels opposite Geralt. 

Fuck.

He’s free enough to reach for the sword, stretching his body as far as it will go and exacerbating the pain in his leg, still pinned, as he does. His movement attracts the attention of the kikimore. It’s beady eyes turn toward Geralt. It’s a smaller specimen, a worker probably, but pinned as he is, Geralt knows it has the upperhand. He braces himself, trying to find the position that will give him the most power. If he can time this right, he might be able to behead the kikimore before it pierces his chest.

Suddenly, there’s another body in the cavern, a blur of blue putting itself between Geralt and the kikimore, a dagger in either hand. The kikimore stops, eyes focusing on the new arrival.

“Jaskier, get the fuck out of here.”

“Can’t do that, my dear.” Jaskier lunges at the kikimore, leading with his blades. 

Geralt stops breathing. His only goal after the cave-in- to kill the kikimore before Jaskier came looking for him- is now impossible. He hasn’t been fast enough for the bard’s impatience and now the fool is going to die trying to fight a monster some young witchers struggle with.

Jaskier lands the first blow, a lucky hit against one of the kikimores legs. It’s not deep but it’s enough to put the kikimore off balance. It strikes at Jaskier who dodges and pulls away. He puts some space between himself and the kikimore and pulls a small vial from his pocket. It’s one from Geralt’s own stores, though he can’t tell which. It doesn’t matter. It would kill any human. It will kill Jaskier.

“Don’t!”

Almost faster than Geralt can see, Jaskier throws his dagger into the kikimore’s eye with deadly accuracy, stunning it for a moment. In almost the same moment, he downs the potion and pulls another dagger from his boot in one fluid motion. He dives back in to slash at the kikimore’s throat, digging into it with both of his daggers. The kikimore chokes on its own blood, a sick wet, gurgling sound, and then suddenly it is on top of Jaskier, stabbing down and obscuring the bard’s body from Geralt. Geralt can barely see any of it but the sick sound of flesh being pierced overwhelms his ears. Instead of trying to watch, he returns to freeing himself from the cave-in.

It isn’t long before the sound has stopped and the kikimore is moving toward Geralt again. He can sit up fully now but twisting away from his legs to look at the scene behind him pulls at his ribs. Jaskier’s body is motionless on the ground and Geralt is furious. The idiot bard.

He manages to free the rest of his legs as the kikimore approaches. It takes massive effort to kneel up, ready to strike, but he manages. He still does not expect to make it out of the cave system but the least he can do is bring the kikimore down with him in honor of his friend.

Just as Geralt is preparing to swing at the approaching kikimore, it sinks to the ground. Standing over its lifeless body, is Jaskier, once again holding his daggers. His eyes are completely black and the veins surrounding them are dark beneath his pale skin. The toxicity of the potion hasn’t killed him. It’s swirling through his system. Geralt knows his face looks much the same.

“Fuck.”

-

“Eleven years, Geralt,” Jaskier crows as he helps Geralt back to the clearing where Roach is waiting for them. “How does it feel to have traveled with another witcher for eleven years and never once known? While holding his medallion in your hand and drinking the potions he’s prepared for you? Hmmm, Geralt? How does it feel?”

“Jaskier.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

[blackchessknight]

Ever Blue And Red

By @blackchessknight for @michellejones-stacy

This was really fun to write, I hope you like it. The premise is not what I expected to write from your prompts but that’s how creativity works I guess.

This is for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark,

Summary: To be fair to Peter, he had never planned to become an Enhanced individual that protected people by being bitten by a radioactive spider and becoming Spider-Man. Really, it made perfect sense that even if he hadn’t planned it, he would turn into a siren at the splash of water by eating a weird-looking fruit he found on patrol.

If anything, it was Mr. Stark and Aunt May’s fault because they made him eat something healthy every two hours. If the rule wasn’t there, he wouldn't have touched the fruit. Ok, that was a lie, he might have tried it just because it looked weird, but maybe somebody would have stopped him from consuming it if he didn’t have the eating rule.

On the bright side, keeping this a secret from them wouldn’t be as hard as keeping Spider-Man a secret, he has experience this time.

Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t even last a week.

Read on AO3

First chapter under the cut

Tail As Blue As The Sky Enveloped In Light

Peter wants it known for posterity's sake that it wasn’t his fault.

The case could be made that it was, indeed, his fault, but no judge had made the ruling and he was sticking to that fact. Not that it does anything to persuade the jury from condemning him to being grounded for two weeks after.

It all started that fateful day on patrol, spring break only a few days away. Sure, Peter had a lot of assignments to turn in, but not anything that couldn’t be done just before it was absolutely necessary. The most annoying were the essays for English and History, but hey, even STEM schools needed their students to course them. Anyways, since Peter would be spending the break over at the Compound with Mr. Stark while Aunt May took the week with her coworkers at the Caribbean-very likely being joined by Ms. Potts at some point- the last weekend hadn’t been a Compound weekend. It’d worked great for Peter, he got to hang out with Ned before the break where the other boy would go see family, and also to spend time with May.

It's a bright April afternoon as he swings from the buildings with not much happening when Peter comes across a small playground area with a few trees and some grass parts. The little park wasn’t rundown or badly taken care of and the trees were already a bright green. A few children call him over and he swings down to greet them. He even takes a few pictures with them.

On his way out of the park he sees it. Lying on the grass under a tree is a weird-looking acorn, it's purple with an orange stripe. Peter walks over and kneels down to pick it up. The texture feels closer to a peach and just as squishy. His senses weren’t going off in danger but it wasn’t like any fruit he’d ever seen in his life.

“Karen?” Peter asks.

Karen takes a few seconds before responding. “I haven’t found a match for it, but it appears to fall under the category of fruit.”

Hhmm. Well, that just made it more intriguing. There wasn’t much that Karen couldn’t identify. If the unknown fruit lasted long enough he could even ask FRIDAY or Mr. Stark about it, maybe run a few tests on it, perhaps he just discovered a new type of fruit. That sets it, Peter’s taking it with him.

Peter sets off to where he left his backpack webbed to an alley wall. He reaches the alley and his backpack is just where he left it, which is great-it wouldn’t be good to ask for another so close to the break, it was already his second one this year. Peter changes to normal clothes and proceeds to set the weird acorn inside the backpack, he doesn’t think anything in his back will squish it. With his backpack set, he begins making his way home in no hurry.

On the way, Peter plans all the assignments he needs to do for the week. It’s still early, he can go home to eat, do some homework and go out again to patrol another hour or two before curfew. There’s that calc and chemistry homework due for tomorrow that he’ll work on today. He’ll eat whatever May left for him, hopefully, she left money for Thai. May isn’t coming home until late, they were spending extra hours at the office before the break, half leaving things prepared for their vacation and half coordinating it. His mind travels to the movie Ned and him saw that weekend and the new Lego set they built. Then it takes him to his break at the Compound where he’ll get to train with Rhodey and work on his web-shooters, he’s also gonna work with Tony on the arc reactor and their prosthesis project. By the time Peter became aware he was already in the front of his apartment building.

Inside their apartment Peter finds out May hadn’t left money for Thai, instead there was a nice healthy meal waiting for Peter to warm up and eat. He supposes he should have known better. Peter shuts the fridge door and turns to his room. When May wasn’t able to ensure Peter ate, and ate something healthy at that, they got him these nice meals prepared from a nice restaurant that Pepper had found near their apartment. They all had him about being in a routine for eating healthy, he hadn’t eaten anything they thought wasn’t good for him in weeks. He was able to have a treat once or twice on the weekends if he had followed through during the week. Peter thought it wasn’t necessary anymore, he was perfectly fine now. He’d learned since his eating disorder started, but just try and get that through to them. Apparently, they had to trust the diagnosis more, which to be fair was really accurate, but still, he thought he was already past that.

Peter sits in front of his desk and takes out his chemistry book and worksheet. Maybe he’ll get hungry after working his mind a little, he begins to work.

The alarm on his watch startles him, a big contrast to the quiet room that makes it sound louder than it is. The alarm is a constant beeping that doesn’t cease until Peter presses the shut button twice, once to know there’s an alarm and a second to acknowledge what it's for.

Mr. Stark set the alarm for him to eat something healthy every two hours. They’d also been on his back about eating often and he usually ate a fruit or a bar. Peter looks around his desk, then his room, and notices there’s nothing of his usual stash. He doesn’t want to get up to get something, usually, there are always things nearby but he probably ate them all.

Peter remembers the weird fruit in his backpack from earlier, sure he wanted to research it but his priorities changed. He still has the analysis from Karen to ask FRIDAY with. Peter opens his backpack and fishes the fruit out, it looks exactly as it had when he found it. He doesn’t know what it is, but Karen said he could call it a fruit and he was allowed to eat fruit, since he also had to eat something he saw no flaw in his logic of eating it. Besides, if Karen said that he didn’t eat anything because he was too lazy to get up he would have Happy babysitting him again. No one wanted that. To Peter, the ends justify the risks.

Peter smells the unknown fruit and it gives no distinctive smell. Before taking a bite, he searches within himself for any signs of danger but when he finds nothing he bites it. It tastes good, feels softer than an apple but not quite like a peach as he’d thought. Oh well, it's still good, really good actually. He goes back to doing homework.

Minutes after his little snack break Peter begins to feel weird, not in a Spidey Sense tingling weird, nor it feels like something is happening to his arm weird, more like the insides of his body feel funny. Peter hasn’t ever felt like this before.

At first, Peter thinks it will go away and continues with his homework, but after he finishes his chemistry workout sheet the feeling has only increased. He doesn’t feel anything wrong though, just... different. He starts feeling a little sleepy, not in the sense that his body is tired, it feels like his own body is telling him to close his eyes and rest a little. So that is exactly what Peter does, he puts away his work, goes to his bed, and rests his eyes. It will only be for a bit, he still has time to go patrol a bit after resting a few minutes.

Those few minutes turn out longer than he thought. A lot longer. By the time Peter is opening his eyes feeling rested and just… different, the sun has already set and the night has fallen. The only source of light in the room is the lights coming from the streets through the closed window of his room.

Darn it! He probably had missed his dinner time! Peter looks wildly until he finds the digital clock on his nightstand that reveals he was still just within his time frame before Karen would alert Tony, or May. He’d been asleep far longer than he'd planned.

Peter is starving like he hasn’t in months, so much so he would eat that flavorless mush of food they’d made him eat that day at the Medbay after their “intervention”. He sets for the kitchen, takes out the plate with his food, and sets it in the microwave as the instructions show in the note.

You would think that Aunt May and Mr. Stark would be lenient that he missed his meal because he was sleeping but that was actually a very important point to them. Once he’d been awoken by a blaring alarm, it had almost given him a heart attack, he had thought it was an emergency, maybe the sky had been falling. It hadn’t been anything alarming other than him missing his snack. And not even mentioning that one time in class where he’d been called to the principal’s office for forgetting his snacks at home and Mr. Morita personally getting him a protein bar. That had been a horrible day. He still couldn’t really look Mr. Morita in the eyes.

The microwave beeped and Peter went to pull out the dish. He grabs a fork and napkin on the way to the couch. Karen may tattle about his food consumption but never where he eats. To be fair, Karen only has eyes in the suit mask, the rest of her input comes from his Starkwatch and Starkphone. Peter’s little humanoid golden robot, that he built with Tony’s help, C3PO, comes forward and sets his little arms up for Peter to place his plate on. Peter turns the TV on and settles back to continue his current series on Netflix.

Peter had been starving and food had never tasted so good in his life. He basically inhales it. Something not as good as he had been told but he was hungry. C3PO leaves with the napkin, the fork and the plate to the kitchen and Peter finishes his episode as he digests his food.

When the episode ends he gets up from the couch and walks to his room. As he walks in he sees R2D2, the little robot he’d made by himself at the lab in the Compound, having what seems his own little party in his room. R2 even has some music to dance with as he moves around the room.

Peter’s idea was to change again into his suit and patrol until his curfew but he feels a tug towards the water. He already did a patrol today, it had been a calm day. Peter decides he’ll settle for the night, finish some homework, and do more time on patrol tomorrow, he’ll make up for today then. Right now he will take a shower and finish his homework for Monday, be free for the entirety of the weekend.

C3 enters the room as Peter exits it to go to the bathroom. Peter might have programmed them with some personality traits reminiscent of their movie counterparts, and it usually ends with a bit of a friendly argument between the two. The good thing is Peter will be away while they do it, the bad thing is he’ll probably still hear them while he showers.

Peter takes off his clothes and sets his hand under the spray of water to feel its temperature. Once it’s to his liking he clambers inside headfirst. The water soaks his brown curls then covers his back. Peter backs his torso so his legs get sprayed with water and the change is fast, so fast it would probably be pretty seamless for anyone else. Peter doesn’t have time to react to the sudden feel of his legs knitting together and turning scaly before he loses balance with a startled yelp. Peter reaches out to the shower wall with a hand and sticks, stopping his fall but the momentum sends his back to hit the wall and Peter slides down, landing on his butt.

He blinks several times as he stares at his legs. Or more importantly, where his legs should be. In their place is a mermaid tail, just like the movies. It's a light blue like a clear skyline in New York mornings, with shiny scales that turn white when the light hits them and see-through red shaded fins. The tail seems to start at his hips but it fades up into his stomach with smaller scales, not a clear cut. Peter can feel the tail, he can feel it as if it were his legs but they feel different.

This isn’t normal, is it? This isn’t some long overdue side effect of the spider bite, right? This shouldn’t be happening, should it? There’s no way this is normal. This has got to be in the Top 10 weirdest things to happen to him. It fights for dominance right up there with the spider bite.

Peter takes a deep breath, he feels the fins and wills one to move as if it were his foot. In front of him, the fin moves. Peter shoves himself back startled, his head hits the other wall of the shower with force and he winces. He brings a hand to rub at his head, even if it doesn’t really make the pain lessen. He makes the other fin move, makes them both move at the same time, makes them move in opposite directions.

Peter stops playing with his fins. Wow, he has fins now, he has a tail. He can move the tail too. He has full control of it. It’s rather flexible too, more flexible than he’s become with his enhancements. Okay, so, he has a tail. He has a mermaid-merman?- he has a merman tail. He has a tail that is blue, and he can move it. It is right in front of him. Peter reaches for the middle of the tail with his finger and pokes it, sure enough he feels the poke, both in the tail and with his finger. It's real.

Alright, cool. So now that the shock has worn off it’s time to figure this out. Does this mean he can breathe underwater? Is he a merman now? Does he have to live in the Ocean? Would a lake suffice? His powers stayed, he was able to stick to the wall. Does that make him a Merman-Spider? Spider-Merman? Siren-Spider? Is he no longer allowed to eat fish? Do mermaids eat fish? Does this mean mermaids are real?

You’re getting distracted, Peter. Focus.

Was he a merman forever now? How did he even become one?

Yeah, focus on that. The how.

This isn't alien tech, that's for sure. He hasn't encountered anyone with alien tech in a while. That’s one out. So then… magic? Was magic real? Were there wizards? Was there actually a school for wizards? Oh gosh, that would be so cool. Like, Wanda Maximoff had magic, right? That's what she used? Or was that something else? It could have been magic, or maybe kinetic energy manipulation, that was also a possibility; but the idea of that being magic was always an option. Wait, he's getting sidetracked again.

Right, what caused this.

Ok, well, it couldn't be the spider bite either, it'd been far too long since and it didn’t make logical sense to be a result of it. Or... it could be if this was the product of a second reactant to the DNA alterations caused by the bite. Like, sure it would be weird to get a tail as a reaction, but so had gaining the powers of a spider through the bite of a radioactive spider; maybe they wanted to gain the powers of a fish and it mutated into a tail. Peter hadn't gone swimming recently and definitely hadn't been bitten by a fish but maybe he had, or eaten the radioactive fish by accident. He shouldn't have trusted that fillet, it had tasted too good. It could also just be a coincidence from another substance, really if this was a reaction he needed to know the second reactant.

Peter sees the water fall and splash on his tail and continue down the drain as he thinks. Water! Peter snaps his head to look at the showerhead. That was the reactant, water! The moment his legs got wet he got a tail!

Ok, so it wasn't a late side effect from the bite. That was good to know. It didn't rule out a reaction from the after-effects of the bite but it did give less evidence in its favour. So far the contenders are radioactive fish, reaction to his spider DNA, and magic. Only one of which Peter actually had knowledge of.

Peter sits up and moves forward to shut the water off. The tail was cool and all but he was kind of stuck in the tub. Peter lifts the end of his tail and moves the fins with narrowed eyes. He moves the fins close to the wall and then touches it, he wills them to stick and they do. Ok, he has better mobility than he thought he would. Feeling excitement fill him, Peter uses only his tail to lift his body and it works. He balances himself on his tail. He is definitely a Spider-Siren. He can stick, has strength, he assumes it also has his superhealing.

Peter grabs a towel from the rack and sits back down in the tub, he starts drying his upper body. The scales shimmer as he moves and Peter wonders if they would look the same dry. He sets the towel around his neck. Peter lifts himself from the tub and sits on the toilet lid, splaying the tail across the bathroom floor in all its glory before he grabs the towel around his neck. Peter starts drying his tail and the feeling is weird, he feels the towel through the scales and it’s closer to feeling something through his nails.

Peter has the sudden urge that his legs come back so he could experience the difference in them. Peter is scrubbing where the body of the tail meets the fins because it feels really good when the change happens. Peter senses the change a second before it happens but he is too confused at his Spider Sense telling him about it to notice what the change is . He lifts his head, dropping the towel, and looks around. Nothing is amiss and the sensation leaves. Peter turns back to pick up the towel and continue, now to try out the feel on his fins when he stops dead on his way to pick it up. His legs are back. His legs are back as if the tail was never there.

Peter pokes his legs, and just like the tail, they’re there. He moves them to make sure he has control over them, he does. He sets his palm on his leg and is surprised to find them completely dry, not even moist.

Peter looks back towards the shower, then he looks to his recently regained legs and back at the bathtub. He turns his head to his legs then the shower. Legs, shower, legs, shower. Peter bites his lower lip.

Like yeah, it could be a fluke and he may get stuck with a tail, but it could also be like his spider powers that he has control of. The tail disappeared when he dried it, it could be that if he gets his legs wet again the tail would return, and then it would disappear when he dries himself again.

What kind of scientist would he be if he didn't test out his hypothesis? He had to try. Besides, the worst thing that can happen is he has a tail, he'll figure it out later if he can’t dry it out. He has a feeling it will work anyways.

Peter fills the bathtub around three-quarters full. This is insane and just the type of experimenting he likes, trial and error. Taking a deep breath, he positions himself above the water holding himself by his arms, legs stretched out in front of him, parallel to the water below. All he needs to do is lower his arms and he will get his legs in the tub filled with water.

Peter lets out a little nervous laugh as he looks at the water. Like ripping off a bandaid. Peter takes another breath, releases it, and lets himself fall in one motion that splashes water over the tub’s edge.

The tail returns and this time Peter knows what he’s feeling. He realizes it's his legs morphing into a tail. It takes his legs a second to become a tail and it doesn’t hurt. It’s not a feeling he can put words to, other than from now on he can call the feeling his legs morphing into his tail. A part of the tail shimmers under the translucent water and his fins stay between water and air near where he thinks his knees would be-his tail is far too long to fit in the tub- while Peter moves it a little. He lifts the end of the tail and lets it smack back into the water, making a big splash that brings a joyous laugh from him. It worked as he’d suspected, the tail appears when his lower body gets splashed with water. Peter lifts himself from the bathtub and sits on the toilet seat.

Peter grabs the towel he first used to dry himself and begins to redry his tail. The same weird feeling of drying his scales returns. Willing his legs back as he dries Peter lifts the towel and grins. Where his blue tail had been are his legs once more.

Peter grins at the water, a rush of excitement cursing through his body. He has a tail now.

Just as abruptly his grin comes it falls and his heart begins to beat loudly in his chest. Oh god, he has a tail. He can't tell Aunt May, she'll freak out and ground him. And he can't tell Mr. Stark because he'll reprimand him, then tattle to May who will freak out and then they'll ground him together.

Ok, ok, ok. He can’t tell them, no big deal. He’s Spider-Man, he’s kept that a secret, he can keep this a secret. He has to figure this out first, then maybe he’ll tell them. If this is reversible they might never find out.

Does he want to reverse this? Food for thought.

He’ll figure all that out later. Right now Peter is going to take a bath, experiment a little, and then him and Karen will have a conversation about how much of a snitch the Babysitter Protocol makes her before starting his investigation.

[noragoldengaze]

Backlog

Daily Affirmation: Not all my efforts go unnoticed.

Today’s Lesson: Phantoms never leave us.

Tomorrow I will be better by: letting the dead weight leave the camp and get abducted.

Hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours: three

They still watch us. Even Cota has seen them, so I don’t feel quite irrational about it. It’s reassuring and terrifying to be proven right. Sleep is becoming a luxury that I am ordered to have now. The wildlife collection I promised the Good Doctor is starting to grow. Hopefully, he won't need much more than what I've acquired.

They’ve assigned me a trial. One step closer so he can move as he wills rather than be under the thumb and limitations of others. What a role reversal. It seems simple enough on the surface, but all things that appear easy are difficult in the execution. I’ll find Cota in the new few days and confer with her since she knows the area best. Perhaps there is some common ground between her world in mine.

I’ve been thinking since my discussion with Cota while were on watch. It twists my heart to learn that I was part of the slaughter of Wolf’s people in my first week with the company. It wasn’t discussed by anyone, only the bemoaning of the ruined building. To think Iron Sand would send Wolf’s own people to her new family for them to be slaughtered. How can she look at any of us and not remember that? It’s despicable and demoralizing.

And something I would have done.

When that thought entered my mind, I realized how personal all these attacks are. The Good Doctor commented that the group we are facing isn’t effective because they aren’t swooping in to wipe us out in one fatal blow. But this is torture. A slow and prolonged torture meant to break the spirit and will. Knowing the theme of the enemy, their actions make sense to me. He won’t see it my way despite my attempt to explain because it doesn’t fit into his way of thinking and appears illogical. But I understand it. Maybe too well. It’s all done to inflict pain, to prolong the suffering, and kill with a thousand cuts rather than a swift and merciless blow. And if I were them, I know what I would do next. Do I let it manifest or trust in leadership to hold the course?

My suspicions that Shey is a spy continue to grow. She arrived right as we left for the sojourn, is a conjurer (a group of conjurers attempted to abduct Kedha), and always happens to know what is happening when most others don’t. I’ve watched her for the last few days ask questions in regard to individuals' wellbeing and pasts. Gauging current moral? Looking for vulnerabilities? Shey attempted to delve into my justification for wearing my mask but I was able to redirect the conversation enough times that she stopped trying. I won’t give her an inch. She plays the good girl part well enough, but it is the easiest face to wear. If I mention my suspicion to the Good Doctor, he will just look at me in silence and then tell me I am being irrational. I will continue to watch and evaluate until I have proof of my claim. Maybe the gods will see fit to bless me by being wrong.

“One minute, he’s there at the house leaving for some mission, the next he’s left us all behind…left his wife behind.”

Chasing phantoms.

I must have heard this story a thousand times with different characters and settings. Have even played a part in it a time or two on and off the stage. The phrase rings a little truer to me than usual today. My phantoms are in my past, but they are part of my future and what guides my hand in the present. I’m a living legacy to the fact they once lived. Poor Cota.

Operation Hate Flower is continuing as expected. Pieces are in place and now it is only a matter of time before she springs the trap on herself. Sweet, bitter revenge will be mine.

Next Steps

200 push-ups

200 sit-ups

200 squats

13 malm run

[liibrii]

Chapter 2: Tattered 

Ojiro Aran x fem!reader

Series Masterpost || Ch. 1

wc: 3.2k

warnings: swearing, internalised guilt and shame, intrusive thoughts, self doubt, depression.

a/n: I don’t really have anything to say other than I’m enjoying writing for Aran so much. if you wanna be tagged in future chapters lemme know, and as always feedback is greatly appreciated! 

Aran knows people don't always mean what they say.  Even he had done it before and it destroyed a few of his relationships. Knowing that doesn't make your words hurt any less.

He tries to convince himself you didn't really mean it, still a part of him wonders if that's how you really feel. How you've always felt. For all those years he was assured of your friendship and now you've pulled the rug from under his feet. None of your words align with the image in his head. Perhaps you've never been the person he remembers. The you in his mind is just that, a memory, a perfect picture he created from bits and pieces he chose. Has he truly always seen only what he wanted to see?

Thoughts of you run through his mind as he stands on the back line. One more serve before he wraps up. Bam.

To always see good in people is what he was thought growing up and what he still tries to do to this day, even if years had thought him people aren't only their good sides. He always thought of you only at your best and failed to even get to know you properly. What kind of friend does that? You're in pain and he can't help because he has no idea where the wounds are. He has no idea where to look for them because he refused to see. 

Perhaps he is a terrible friend after all.

Bam. The ball gets caught in the net and falls. Aran watches it roll away before picking up another. He breathes deeply. It's all about focus, he reminds himself, even when his mind wants to slip he has to remain focused.

All of his teammates have left already. Home, to their partners, their families. What will he return home to? An empty apartment with take-out he'll eat on the couch. Alone. Maybe he should get a pet. But when will he have time to care for it?

Bam.

He should call home. Check on his friends. Maybe if he had checked on you more often then-

Bam.

What use is pondering over what could've been? With each serve his palm aches more, his muscles already sore from practice but he doesn't want to stop yet. One more.

“There's a difference between training hard and overdoing it, you know?“

Perhaps life is just memories of days long gone sipping into present.

When he turns to face you uneasiness rises in him. Any other time he'd be elated to see you. Now even words to greet you with escape him. You come closer, shoes softly squeaking on the gym's floor. “Doorman let me in. After a little bit of convincing.“

“Really?“

“No, I slipped past while his back was turned. How long are you planning on staying? I saw all of your teammates leave already.“

Aran turns the ball in his hands. It's becoming slippery from all the sweat. He can't bring himself to look you in the eyes. “My serves are gettin' sloppy. I need more practice.“

Bam.

You stay where you are, watching and fiddling with the strap of your bag, until you can't bear the silence anymore and speak up. “Aran, I actually wanted to talk to you. About you know... what I said.“

“T's okay. I know ya didn't mean it.“

“I did.“ Your voice eerily echoes in the otherwise empty gym. “As shitty as it is, it's how I felt.“ You're eyes stay fixed on the floor. “I'm sorry.“

Aran catches the ball he just threw in the air for another jump serve. When he looks over at you you're still intently focused on your shoelaces, gripping the strap of the bag so tight your knuckles turned white. Why are you beating yourself up so much? If you feel something, you feel it. What reason for it do you need to have? Knowing how you felt hurts, that much he can't deny. And yet he can't hold it against you.

He puts the ball on the top of your head, just like boys used to do back in high school to annoy you. “If ya really insist on apologisin' then I guess I have no other choice but to forgive ya.”

As his words sink in you shyly glance at him. “You sure?“

“'Course I am,“ smiles Aran, balancing the ball so it doesn't roll from the top of your head.

“You're not angry? At me?“

He takes the ball and starts throwing it from one hand to another. “Not really. Very surprised. A little hurt.“

“I'm sorry-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know,“ he cuts you off. “Set for me and we'll call it even.”

“Aran, my sets are in no way near the level you're used to.“

“So?“ he asks already walking over to fetch the ball cart. “Ya still remember where to stand, right?“ he teases, cackling softly when you roll your eyes and take off your bag and jacket, all while trying to hide a smile creeping on your lips.

It takes a few tries for you to remember how to make an overhand set. Aran's filled with giddy warmth when you manage to send the ball in the right position for him to spike it over the net. Perhaps all those lessons with Atsumu years ago didn't go to waste after all. Your little victory jump makes him burst into laughter and he rewards you with a high five.

It really is an echo of history.

Your skills are rusty, something that makes you apologise profusely every time you mess up, even after he reassures you he doesn't mind, and ruffles your hair.

With each set you relax more, till every smile and laugh seem sincere. Only now Aran realises how he missed this carefree side of you. Time always flies too fast when you're around and soon enough, out of breath and wiping the drops of sweat from your forehead, you call an end of this individual practice.

He hurries with showering and changing into fresh clothes, not wanting to leave you waiting for too long, especially since you have morning lessons tomorrow. He buys you a drink from the vending machine. It's not much, but staying hydrated is important, he tells you when you tease him about it.

“You know, that brought back a lot of memories,“ you say while walking to the train station, then poke his shoulder. “Thanks.“ The smile dancing over your lips makes his cheeks warm up. You glance over to the sky hiding behind a golden halo that city lights cast over the rooftops. “Do you ever miss Hyogo?“

“Sometimes.“

“I miss the stars.“ You kick a small stone from your path. “You've become quite a star too you know. With all the fans and attention I really wonder, do you get lonely?”

Your question catches him off guard. “I'm too busy to get lonely,“ he lies.

“I get lonely sometimes,“ your eyes still search for a glimmer of a distant star. “And tired. Some days I just want to sleep all day. Do you ever get the urge to do that? Skip practice and stay in bed?“

“No. If I skipped practice how will I become better?”

You purse your lips and nod. “That's why you're a professional athlete and I'm just trying to figure out why I have to separate blue and red laundry.“

“Those are two very different things.“

“Both are just some pieces of cloth. Why do I have to separate them? If they got problems with each other they should grow up and talk it out.” 

That’s not what he meant, but your slight annoyance over technicalities of doing laundry still makes him laugh.

In the coming days Aran checks his phone every chance he gets, just to see if you already wrote back. No matter what you talk about he wants to hear it; be it about your day or the delivery man being late with your order. His teammates notice and tease him about it yet he denies you're anything more than just a friend, and they exchange knowing looks when his back is turned. Even if his entire body heats up at the sole mention of your name Aran isn't ready to admit to himself, let alone others, he wants you to be more.

Not when he isn't sure if his feelings for you are being muddled by his memories.

That Tuesday you grab a dinner together that turns into a late night walk through the streets. It's not a date, Aran keeps reminding himself. It's just two friends hanging out as you've done a thousand times before. So why is his heart threatening to thump it's way out of his chest?

After that night weekly hanging out with you becomes a regular occurrence. Sometimes you go out to eat, sometimes you drag him along when you go shopping, saying he has a good eye for colour combinations. It has nothing to do with the fact he buys you ice cream every time. Some days you come to his place to play video games or watch movies. Seeing his favourite series making you laugh warms his heart.

As you become more comfortable around him your facade slowly, bit by bit, starts to crumble. He's scared to see what lies beneath yet at the same time he wishes it would break already. He can't help you if he doesn't know, can he?

Whatever is troubling you he wishes you'd trust him enough to confide in him. In the back of his mind lingers the question he's too scared too ask.

Does Kita know what's on your mind? Do you still talk to him?

You used to be close to the team. The one they relied on. The one who so lovingly tapped their fingers before each game. Do they know your eyes are puffy? Do they know every sleepless night that goes by makes the dark circles under your eyes harder to hide? Do they know his heart breaks every time he sees the tremble of your lips when you force a smile?

No matter how bad he wants to hold you, tell you it's going to be okay, the mere thought of reaching out paralyses him.

What if you don't want his help?

If you did, you would've asked already, right? Not even practice can stop him from thinking about you. His disappointment grows a little when he sees no new messages. Perhaps you don't want to talk to him after all.

He's just leaving the gym when his phone lights up and seeing it's your name makes his heart flutter. He eagerly picks up. “Hi!“

“H-hey.“ Already in the first word the strain in your voice is apparent. “Um, am I interrupting you?“

“No, of course not. I just finished with practice. What's up?“

“I-“ He hears you take a deep breath. “Um, I don't, I don't feel so good...“ Your next words are almost a whisper. “Could I come over?“

“'Course ya can come over. I'll be home in about an hour.“

By the time he arrives you're already there, standing by the entrance nervously stepping from one leg to another. You give a shy wave when he approaches. He noticed you've been acting weirdly sheepish around him and he's not used to it. You're friends. What's making you so nervous?

You trail behind him, hands tucked deep in your pockets. You don't even pull them out when taking your shoes off.

“Tea?“ he offers when you make your way towards the sofa.

“Sure,“ you nod, sitting and tightly hugging a pillow. “Sorry about that,“ you say when he joins you with two cups of tea, “I just... bad day, you know? Didn't want to be alone.“

With a smile he assures you it's no problem. You're welcome to come by whenever you want.

You tell him about college, about work. “Boss is a shit bag,“ you complain. The working hours make you late for your lessons and even professors are getting fed up with you always being late. Not to mention your classmates aren't keen on lending you notes to copy.

It's all too much, you say, work, college, the pressure of everyone's expectations. Your fellow students give you funny looks sometimes, you tell him. It's only a few years but you're still older than them, at the age where your parents are asking when you are going to settle down. Have children. Get a stable job. Well how could you when you haven't even gotten your degree yet? It all makes you feel like a failure.

And yet something tells Aran that's not why you're here. Maybe it's the nervous fumbling with the hem of your clothes. Maybe it's because you don't look at him at all. A silence falls on you as you sip your tea. Aran considers asking out right but you gather the courage before he does.

“Shin called.“  

“Ah.“ That's all he manages to say.

“He's doing good, in case you're wondering. He asked if we have any plans on visiting any time soon.“ Your eyes skim over his face. “That would be nice, don't you think?“

Aran forces a smile. “Sounds great.“ Once again your words threaten to shake the ground he stands on. All he hears is 'seeing Shin would be nice'. His grip on the cup tightens and he puts it away before he'd crack it.

“Do ya miss him?“ he asks, words coming out more choked up than he intended. He clears his throat when he leans back on the couch's backrest.

You think over his question. “I miss my best friend.“

He asks. Even if he doesn't want to know the answer, he asks. “Will you get back with him?“

“No.“ Your answer is quiet, but firm. You readjust yourself to lean on the backrest, facing him, the pillow still tightly squeezed in your grip. “Shin is a great guy just... not the right for me. Wasn't easy to accept but that's how it is.“ You fumble with the thread sticking out from the stitch. “I wasn't good for him, you know?“ you quietly continue. “He protected me since we were kids but at some point it all just... fizzled I guess. I was so used of always being by his side the thought of living without him terrified me. He was that stability I craved. For a long time I believed he would give me a goal in life, or something similar.“ You chuckle. “Try getting through seventeen-year-old-me's head that's not how relationships work. I knew we wouldn't work out. But I stayed because I was selfish and stupid... and scared. I think he knew. And it started to take a toll on him. So I left before he'd break.“ Tears start forming in your eyes. “Shin could never understand why I'm so sad without a reason... Maybe if I left sooner... well, it doesn't matter now.“

“Ya can still go back,“ hearing his own words shatters Aran's heart, “once ya feel better.“

The brief laugh you give almost sounds like a sob. “Can I?“ You forcefully wipe the tears away. “Even if I could it wouldn't be the same as I remember now. It's hard to explain but somehow, what’s in your memories is always better than reality. Know what I mean?“

He knows. Memory is the thief of future.

The lump in his throat grows larger, heavier as he watches you try to hide tears starting to run down your cheeks. He's lost, not knowing what else to do but to pull you closer, tucking your head under his chin. He hugs you and softly caresses your back. “It's alright,“ he whispers when you apologise through sobs and tears. He keeps repeating, it's alright. What else could he possibly say?

You relax in his arms and your sobs slowly turn to muffled sniffles. Aran only wishes you feel safe in his arms, your head leaning on his shoulder, your arms shyly wrapping around his middle. It's not the most comfortable position but he's to scared to readjust. He hears your hitched breathing sync with his own as he runs his hands up and down your back and, exhausted from your crying, you're soon fast asleep.

Perhaps for the first time in his life Aran's starting to really understand you. It pains him, knowing your struggles. You, who were always so full of light, you who were the pillar, tall and unyielding, one he could always lean onto. How memories managed to muddle his perception of you so much is beyond him. The only thing he can do is promise himself to never let them deceive him again. After all, who needs memories?

He messages you more frequently. Not too frequently, he doesn't want to appear nosy or pushy. Just often enough to let you know he's there for you if you need him.

You've been busier with college lately, so weekly hang outs turn to late night phone calls. Hearing your voice feels like a refreshing cool breeze on these hot summer nights.

He collapses in his bed, only half listening to your rambling on about one of the professors. He didn't catch her name.

“Aran? You still there?“

“Yeah, I'm still here. T's been a long day, t's all.“

He hears you hum and he can imagine the way you lean your head to the side. “Coach in a bad mood?“

“Not really. I'm just not feelin' my best. Couldn't sync with Aritsura's sets. But ya know, more practice 's all we need. How was your day?“ he asks, forgetting you just told him a few minutes ago.

“It was alright,“ you say instead of repeating what you already told him. “Actually, I wanted to apologise. About last time. I shouldn't have dumped all my problems on you.“

“How many times do I need to repeat it's okay. I'm here for ya.“

“Still. I'm sorry. It was a lot. I... I don't want to be a burden.“

His brows furrow. How many times does he have to repeat it? Why don't you get it? “Yer not.“ Your low chuckle makes him irritated . “I mean it. If ya ever need to talk just say, alright?“

“Yeah, yeah I will... Thank you. It's just that... I don't want to ruin this friendship too. That's all. Tell me when I become too much. Please.“

What are you talking about? “Whatever is on yer mind I promise I can handle it.“

“Can you? So you not being able to play your best has nothing to do with me dumping all my problems on you?“

Something in the way you say those words pushes the wrong button. He's only trying to be here for you, why can't you see that? “I don't care enough to let it impact me.“ Fuck. Even before the final word leaves his mouth he knows it came out wrong. “I'm sorry, fuck, y/n, I didn't mean it like that-“

“It's okay,“ you interrupt. “You're right.“

“I'm-“

“Get some sleep Aran. You have practice tomorrow. G' night.“ You end the call before he gets the chance to say goodbye.

Fuck.

Ch. 3: In the light, your name

Tags: @rosecaffelatte, @aonenthusiast

[gillian-greenwood]

My Episode 7 Predictions!

Mother of God! How have these weeks passed by so fast?! I've decided to share what I think will be answered tomorrow night and some of the fates of our beloved characters! The series has gotten off to an even bigger success than it's predecessor and EVERYONE'S talking about it! Without further ado, let's see what I'm predicting!

Who's H/fourth man (or woman) and will we find out?

The question that's on the nation's minds. That has been boggling us since 2017... My personal prediction still stands as CC Philip Osborne, however... I think he's purely sitting on his arse and pulling the strings, whilst others are doing his dirty work. Those people are Patricia Carmichael: who in all honesty I'm manifesting isn't actually bent but is so career driven and a bit of a lick arse that she's just taking orders and not questioning anything, plus she doesn't think much of Ted either... I have joked that she's been shagging Osborne on the side which would be quite funny. I also believe Buckells has been Osborne's true scape goat for years. Someone as laid-back and unpassionate as Buckells is easily manipulated - I mean how the hell has he become a super? As Steve rightfully says, he couldn't order a piss up in a brewery. Seeing the connections go well back into the early noughties whilst Buckells was part of an oasis tribute band, it's an easy conclusion to make. Lastly I will mention Thurwell, now I think Thurwell may have been more involved on his own doing anyway but I think he'd still been pretty busy doing things on behalf of Osborne up until his alleged death in sunny Spain (Belfast but shh). I know a lot of people still think Buckells, some reckon pas-agg Pat is the top woman... and a few still think our beloved Kate is 'H'.

Now the other part of my point is actually finding out... I think us as viewers will certainly know the identity of this mysterious individual. But, I think we'll find out in the very last few seconds and poor AC12 won't be any the wiser which will open up the foundations for a possible series 7. I think a lot of things will be answered for us viewers but not everything for the characters. I know that if they had a series 7 there would be an other primary focus but I just think it would be clever. Just like how we found out as viewers at the end of series 1 that Dot was a wrong'un.

Is Thurwell really dead?

I'm still very amazed by the whole induction of Jimmy Nesbitt as a series of photos. I know we were supposed to have a secretive guest actor appearance and I believe it was Robert Carlyle's name floating about which would have been insane! But that moment we saw Jimmy, I yelled at the screen. So, this answers the question of seeing a character that had only been mentioned previously - which has been very much hiding in plain sight. Even with a rewatch, I had forgotten about Thurwell and therefore hadn't even considered him. But, I did mention the list from series 3 which did loosely tie in. Anyway, when we learned that Thurwell and his Mrs were now dead and clearly had been for a while - it was cleverly shot so we didn't see who it was, only the Spanish Police's word. You know, I think if we were to get a series 7, Thurwell could appear and he's in fact not dead. It's very rare you get a very well known actor in for something so small without it leading to bigger things. Although, they got Andi Osho, a very much loved comedian in purely for archival photos and videos... I do feel that Thurwell could have easily been on the other end of the fake MSN, and doing Osborne's dirty work - especially with the Spanish connection. In a BTS photo we have seen a clue to a piece of paperwork regarding a time share (Spain mentioned) in front of Kate which will likely have a connection to Thurwell and Spain. I think he's possibly still alive but we'll see...

Joanne Davidson

Kelly Macdonald has been welcomed with a very warm reception. Wow, her connection to Tommy Hunter (albeit disturbing, homozygous DNA... nasty business) was not something I ever expected although I guessed very much so when we learned of the DNA match with a nominal. Would I define her as bent? I mean in layman's terms, yes she is. However each guest star has had a very complicated relationship with the definition - all have done dodgy things and usually for good reason... But I do sympathise with her because of her background, born into trouble, it was very hard to escape - even if her mum took her to Scotland for a life away from it all. From the very start of her career she was doing the OCG's bidding and it transpires she was in the police on Tommy's orders - so very much another caddy. I do feel Jo had always wanted to be a good person and do right and in some ways she did - however she's in too deep. Next I'll mention her relationship with Kate and it's something I'd never have predicted. A lot of suggestive and sapphic behaviour from the off. Now, I do think Jo cares deeply for Kate and has developed strong feelings - and I think Kate deep down has also but I don't think anything will happen sadly. And that's more for the fact that they had run out of track before they could even get going as so much has happened. Kate's gonna save Jo when her transport gets ambushed, that's a given... but I don't think we'll see anything happen that we want to happen. I hope I'm very wrong and we get something but with the hour we've got I don't think it'll be the case. And as for her fate? I think she'll survive. Guest leads usually die, eventually... with the exception of Roz who's serving time with one arm in Brentiss. Giving how unfortunate her life has been from her conception, I think it'll do her justice to escape with her life. Witness protection? Hmm perhaps... Although I think she's done enough dodgy stuff to warrant a prison stretch. Will she be instrumental in revealing who the fourth dot is? Well yeah actually, I think she grew up thinking Thurwell was her dad... and of course having connections to both Osborne and Buckells. Jo joined the force just before the turn of the millennium so would have been a copper when the Lawrence Christopher case occurred in 2003. Even though not directly working with them, I'm sure she knew what was going on and would have come across Osborne and Buckells at that time. I have a strong inkling that she knows exactly who she's been talking to and has been under their wing since the start. If she dies I will be gutted.

Kate

Where are we going with Kate? Well she's just killed Ryan (lawfully) and has gotten away with it. But Carmichael isn't thick... and nor is Steve and Ted. They all know but I think that'll be that for now. For ages I thought she was gonna D word but I think she's gonna be alright now. I hope that somehow she gets back into anti-corruption permanently because that's where she's best suited. I'm shocked that she hasn't had a glass box spectacular - my predictions for her to be accused of being bent and all that were way off the mark... and not a single mention of the two dying declarations... With only an hour tomorrow and so much to deal with, I guess that's not going to be mentioned. And Kate ain't gonna be sanctioned either. But, there's always opportunity with a series 7... She'll definitely be back in AC12, interviewing... I can't see all the BTS photos being Jed Herrings. But we'll see tomorrow!

Steve

Poor Steve eh? He's not had an easy time of it. Addicted to painkillers as I rightfully predicted, unable to trust his gaffer, torn on a transfer and a up and down friendship with his 'mate'. Oh and the car, actually let's not talk about the Mazda... Anyhow I believe that Steve will talk about his back and recent struggles with meds after a lot of emails from occupational health. Will he get pulled off the job at the last second because he didn't book an appointment... yeah I think that might happen and Kate takes his place or something. But there is a counsellor or something credited so I'm pretty certain on that. Will he lose his long overdue promotion? It's possible! I don't think the test was going to come back as a fail but more of a cause for concern - just that the levels of codeine etc in his system was higher than it should and it would be best advised to talk to someone. We haven't seen much pill taking going on since the drugs test so has Steve been going cold turkey? Or have they just veered away from that part of the story? In all fairness he's appeared fine with his back since the Windermere convoy - he ran across an industrial estate... I mean. I hope Steve gets a glimmer of hope and happiness because he rightfully deserves it. Ever since the start he's had his fair sharing of aggro and he deserves a break. I do think however he may be partly responsible for nailing the final nails into Ted's coffin - especially after he discovered the 50K up Merseyside and the truth from Lee Banks. I think he could be potentially happy with Steph, it would be nice for something to happen with them but we'll see. Steve needs a big hug.

Ted

This is going to pain me saying it. But, I don't think Ted is going to make it to the end. His retirement is inevitable. I can see the argument of the retirement being rescinded if they unmask the fourth dot etc and solve stuff but realistically, he's past retirement age. He's so focused on getting to the end of this marathon that I don't think he will see it through and know who it is - because he'll... yeah I don't need to say it. How? I've been saying his heart is gonna pack in. He's going to be in deep trouble over that 50k because Steve and Kate know the truth. But why would the likes of Carmichael find out... Well we've seen a clue of 'definate' on some paperwork - I reckon Ted by coincidence also makes this spelling mistake often as it is one of the most commonly misspelt words and therefore will be in the 'H' running again - he wont be 'H' as I reckon Osborne makes the same mistake... He alleges he misspelt it cos he studied the texts carefully but I think he spelt it how he usually would. They'll all go down the wrong path and accuse him which will lead to his ultimate downfall. Another little teaser is Steve appearing to listen to Ted's 2019 glass box spectacular however notably Carmichael says AC12 interview and not AC3... so mixing two different interviews to tease us? Maybe Ted might feel he has no choice but to sacrifice his career for the truth. However it all gets too much. Lies cost lives... I can't see Ted going on from beyond here and Ted was always supposed to be a minor character until he was very well received by the audience and he was made a main character. Realistically, his story is told and he's at his endgame. I hope he survives, by god I do... He's one of the most loved fictional characters at present. But I have a really bad feeling and I'm worried! It seems a total Jed thing to do for Ted to meet his end without ever finding the truth... seeing that's what his heart has been set on for about four years... I'm sorry to even be going there but it's what I think will happen. And I want to be wrong.

Miscellaneous Predictions

I want to round this all off with other little points. Carmichael won't be bent, maybe still involved with anti-corruption, you love to hate her, there's so much more they could do with her character. I don't think Steph's dodgy at all, she's just a widow whose been helped out by Ted in an unlawful way. I think her and Steve would be well suited. I hope Chloe will get to the end and continue on in anti-corruption, she's got a lot of potential. If Osborne isn't sussed, I reckon he'll still be CC. DCC Wise isn't bent either, just getting on with her job. But if Osborne does get caught and I'm wrong, there will be a lot of chaos for both him and Wise. Farida gets out of jail and starts afresh. Buckells I reckon will get out but won't be apart of the police force anymore. Lomax isn't bent, just a regular cop trying to get the work done. The rest of Jackie's remains will be found under the workshop floor, maybe with someone else? God knows who. Or maybe with some evidence that helps lead AC12 on the right track. Steve will still be an officer and Kate will be back where she belongs. There's probably more but my head hurts.

Will there be a series 7?

Yes.

Thank you all for reading my jumbled thoughts all packed into a text post. I'm nervous but excited for tomorrow night's finale. Let's see if I get anything right... probably not...

[saturniandragon]

“Fifty.”

Zanri says to himself as he counts the last piece of gold coin in his satchel. The sun is just preparing to send off its last ray of light, on the small island of Khenarthi’s Roost, just south of Elsweyr.

A month he has settled here in the small town of Mistral, although his definition of “settled” is very loose. Multiple times he had to come and go from the inn as he’s not able to continuously pay for rent, what with his inconsistent income not making things easy. And returning to Elsweyr mainland isn’t an option.

A month ago he arrived here, on his attempt to flee from his abusive, drug-addict parents who kept leeching off his earnings. It wasn’t a decision that he made lightly, as it hasn’t always been that way.

--

For the first 15 years of his life, Zanri al-Anaqi had a decent childhood, born in a humble Khajiit family who made living as traders. It wasn’t too small or too big of a business, just enough to feed the married couple and their only child. Young Zanri inherited his father’s archery skills and his mother’s caring and generous heart, and he proved it when he killed his first deer at age 13 from one ricefield length away, and grew love of working and giving to the local community.

It didn’t last, and the family’s luck ran out.

Their trading business suddenly started to lose clients, for whatever reason still unclear to this very day. Zanri’s father made all possible efforts of reviving their only source of income, but to no avail. At this point young Zanri was already making his own earnings, whatever small it might be, from doing community work and hunting animals. Most of the coins he kept for himself, but seeing his family work starting to decline he decided to help out both of his parents financially.

2 years later Zanri found himself as the sole financial support of his family. Whatever efforts his parents had committed to get their previous business back on its feet ultimately ended as they’d completely run out of savings. The 17-year-old Khajiit had to triple or even quadrupled his work just to make sure they all had enough food each day to survive. And not rarely he had to give up his portion of daily consumption just so his parents could have something to eat.

Fell into depression, Zanri’s parents opted for “less desirable” sources of income, even if it included thievery, robbery, skooma and gambling. None of them wanted to choose that path, but it was not like they had choices. With heavy heart Zanri let his parents do whatever they wanted.

But it took a turn for the worst.

What was once a healthy family in Elsweyr turned into a growing center of criminal activities. Zanri’s father became addicted to drugs, alcohol and gambling, especially seeing just how much coin he could farm from the first two. Zanri’s mother wasn’t much different.

But the real issue for Zanri was that they kept taking his earning from him even though they’d already made more than enough. Zanri hadn’t followed his parents trail of earning money from illegal ways, still holding true to his moral compass of being a lawful good citizen of Elsweyr, who enjoyed doing community work and earned honest gold out of it.

Numerous times he’d tried to reason with his father, reminding him of what they were in the past, that he wanted them to be a proper, law-abiding family again. But Zanri’s father had lost it, often not hesitating to throw punches when his son was trying to talk. And it got worse day by day as his father got even more addicted to liquors and substances.

After 8 years of living in a dangerous household, not even being able to survive on his own, what with his own parents constantly snatching 90% of his honest income and physically abusing him, Zanri packed up his belongings and snuck out at dead midnight. The decision wasn’t made on the spot; for weeks he contemplated if he should just stay and keep trying to turn things back to normal, if he just tried harder, but in the end he realized that his chances were minimal.

--

Zanri has just finished selling his hunting results; 3 small rabbits and one wolf hide for the local clothier in Mistral. He wishes his labor were paid a bit more, but it’s not his place to ask. His rent is due tomorrow and evidently fifty gold isn’t going to cover it, even if he gives up food. While the tavern owner provides food at affordable prices, it is offset by the high rent fees.

Zanri returns to his room, leather armor drenched in sweat and boots covered in dirt and sand. He sets his rusty bow by the nightstand and immediately throws his exhausted body on the bed. Not even bothering to have dinner first since he just wants to sleep after a long day outside.

Every night he wonders if shouldn’t have left. If he should just stay with his… family. And every night he has to remind himself that he should not turn back.

Morning comes and Zanri immediately starts packing, ready to spend the next few nights outside the city again. He meets with the tavern owner near the entrance and pays 40 gold, then apologizes for not being able to pay the rent in full before leaving the building. After spending the remaining 10 gold for morning breakfast at the market, he leaves the city through the gates.

Until an unknown voice greets him.

“You look capable.”

Zanri stops in his tracks and turns his head towards the source of the voice. A male Khajiit in black leather armor with gold eagle engravings, crossed arms while leaning on a stone wall near Mistral gates. His red mohawk hair shines bright under the morning sun.

“…excuse me?”

“Got stones in your ears? Of course this one was talking to you.”

The mysterious male Khajiit starts approaching Zanri, but Zanri takes precaution. He slowly moves his hands closer to his back where he hides his dagger, until…

“Now, now, there’s no need to go blade and blood this morning. This one simply wishes to ask for help, and looks like you’re a little low on coin. Perhaps we can help each other.”

“Perhaps, what do you need?”

Zanri slowly lowers his guard around the mysterious Khajiit, he maintains a keen eye on body language. Though overall the unfamiliar Khajiit doesn’t seem to be much of a danger to him. It is rather eerie how or where he finds out about his financial problems, however.

“This one is with the Aldmeri Dominion. One of our ships recently crashed on the west side of this island. We could use extra hands on helping the survivors.”

“Well I know one thing or two about being a field medic…”

Aldmeri Dominion isn’t an unfamiliar name in Zanri’s ear. The Elsweyr-Valenwood-Summerset alliance is pretty much known by almost any Khajiit by now, but Zanri hasn’t been one to meddle with political things or anything of its sorts. While he doesn’t have interest at all in actually joining the ranks, he’s pretty curious about their history and how they managed to unite three Tamrielic races under one banner.

And it’s a rare moment for him to be directly approached by one of them.

“Very good. We could use your skills. Do not worry, this one can make sure you are paid for your efforts.”

“But why me, of all the people here in Mistral?”

“This one knows a good individual when he sees one.”

“Hmph.” Zanri scoffs at his wordplay. While not fully trusting him, the Dominion Khajiit seem like a generally good individual, and Zanri is in need of some coin to provide him with basic necessities. “Fine, I’ll play along for now.”

Zanri and the Dominion Khajiit sets off from Mistral, heading straight to the west side of the island.

“By the way, this one hasn’t caught your name.”

“Zanri. Zanri al-Anaqi. What about you?”

“Razum-Dar, but you may call him Raz.”

Zanri al-Anaqi

[bluescarfvivi]

It’s happening again. 

Another midnight occurrence. This time, while viewing the ongoing event in her room, Vivi could make out a large figure through that yellow miasma. No...it wasn’t a figure, but a large structure. The entrance, the windows, the whole layout, it resembled their current residence. 

“No....that’s...” Whatever it could mean, Vivi knew it wasn’t something good. Not after the various experiences she and the others suffered through since their arrival. Those earthquakes, that whole Dark Hour event, so much confusion surrounding such a phenomenon. After they took care of the black monster and set those kids free, she took her time writing down every bit of information in her trusty, leather-bound notebook. Thank goodness it came with her. 

“....that’s our place. But...there’s no fog outside right now, correct?” With said book in hand, the bluenette flipped it open thumbing across scribbled pages decorated with her own chicken scratch, doodles of various supernatural beings, and bullet-pointed lines containing various tidbits of information. One would call this an entire encyclopedia of paranormal/supernatural factoids since its pages always looked like they never ended. 

After finding a new page, passing over her entry about the Dark Hour, she began writing down and sketching the scene in front of her. There were others in the compound who’ve encountered this phenomenon before: an event called The Midnight Channel. “It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before from our world...but from what I heard from many others was that it’s another world altogether. I think much like our own, so a mirror image? Perhaps...?” 

“It is also another realm where these beings called Shadows reside, and some of these children here entered said realm to take down a god.” Mystery padded over, taking a seat next to Vivi on the bed while observing the TV. “Huh....I find it so ironic whomever sent us all here decided on gathering together a group of highly powerful individuals.” 

“Here’s hoping the exploration team finds some answers come tomorrow.” After Vivi finished her scribbles and a rough-looking sketch, she closed her notebook then slid it back in her satchel. “Remember, you’re staying here at the compound. They’re going to need some protection here just in case something happens while the rest of us go explore that...other place.” 

“But...” His ears pinned back, while a little whine escaped his closed mouth. “....I would prefer sticking by your side for this. You have just been released from the medical ward, and I know you have kept your word on resting these past two days, however...I still believe I need to be there. To keep watch and make sure yo-” 

“Shhhhh, Mystery.” Vivi cupped her hands underneath his chin giving a light, gentle scratch. “I understand how worried you are about me. You got so scared when you couldn’t find me at first and then all of sudden you wind up where I’ve been. I know your anxiety is running rampant now, I can feel it too buddy.” She smiled warmly and smooched his cute, wet nose. “I think you’ll be useful staying back here for now. We don’t know what could happen to you guys when we split the party like this. There are still people recovering in medbay, they need that extra protection if there’s some kind of sudden attack. Plus, I won’t be alone either! We’re all a team here, whether together as one or split into many.” 

“...I do have faith in the others here, though I do not know most of them at the moment. Nevertheless, I will, at the very least, give you and the exploration team my blessings of good fortune.” Mystery managed a small smile, even a little gratuitous doggie lick on Vivi’s cheek. “And I will be asking they keep an extra eye on you.” 

“Awww come on, now you’re worrying a little tooooo much, boy!” She giggled and ruffled that thick mane of maroon head fur. “By the way, if it so happens something attacked the area here while I was away, I want you to know....” 

“It’s okay for you to go all out.” 

A sudden silence overcame Mystery. All movements ceased as the ‘disguised dog’ took a seat once again. Concern furrowed his bushy eyebrows as small beads of sweat dripped down his cheek. “....are you....positive...about this. I mean...there is already one person here who knows of that, and another presence holds some suspicion over my true identity but...are you a hundred percent alright with that?” 

“Yes.” Vivi stated her answer firmly, no pause and no flinching. “We need you here, all of you. These guys can be trusted with our own little secret. So if push comes to shove, and you absolutely need to jump in to save someone...go all out.” 

“.........” It’s not easy accepting something one has withheld from many others. A hidden fact, kept locked inside that old, broken but still beating heart. With a long sigh, the canine came to rest on Vivi’s lap. “....I shall take it....into consideration, at the very least. At the present moment, you should be getting some shut eye soon since you must be thoroughly prepared for tomorrow.” 

“I’ll try my best....for you and the others.” One last little snoot smooch ended the conversation. Once that foggy picture faded off the TV, she’d finish her preparations then jump straight to bed. 

[savannah-lim]

Sink Your Teeth In || Savannah & Carrington

Timing: Current Location: Teeth Parties: @savannah-lim and @carringtonblackwood Content: Just vampire shit Summary: Savannah goes exploring in dangerous places again.  

Savannah’s ex-wife had been a huge Dracula fan. She’d even taken her to Whitby on their honeymoon so they could sit on the very bench Bram Stoker had once occupied. This town reminded her of Whitby, in some ways. It was a seaside town, although in New England rather than England itself, and it had a fascinating obsession with the Macabre. Recently, Savannah had started to figure out that there was a pretty good reason for that.

She wandered through the area she'd come to learn was (affectionately?) nicknamed Freak Alley, looking for somewhere to have a drink. She was sure someone online had told her to stay out of these kinds of places, but curiosity was her best friend and biggest enemy, so she walked right in, heading into what she assumed was a goth or punk themed bar called 'Teeth'. 

People looked at her a little strangely as she walked in. Maybe she wasn’t dressed appropriately. “Sorry, I forgot my black leather jacket and velvet top hat,” she said to one particularly gawpy patron as she took a seat at the bar, then she turned to the bartender. “Hi, I’ll have a Gin and Tonic.”

Carrington was having… A Night. Whether it was getting better or worse was still up for debate. Five of his six current clients had called that afternoon to cancel their appraisal walk-throughs, Walter - the fucking ungrateful, orchid-ruining excuse for an oversized Venus fly-trap - had nearly taken his hand off when Carrington had fed the vampire watermelon his biweekly meal. And to top it all off, someone had scratched his Aston. Which would cost an arm and both legs to have fixed. So Carrington was in dire need of a distraction. 

Which ‘Teeth’ was more than happy to provide. Carrington was currently enjoying a very good buzz - thanks to a bottle or two of top-shelf fae blood - when something… unusual yet strangely familiar caught his attention. As well as the attention of every other vampire in the room. There was a human sitting at the bar. A human that wasn’t an employee, and therefore not under the owner’s protection. So it didn’t take long for the vultures to start circling. 

The woman’s scent finally registered with his intoxicated brain about the time he finished his drink. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Tomorrow's headline was already flashing through his mind: FBI Agent Orders Gin and Tonic in Local Bar, Gets Exsanguination Instead. Of all the fucking nights…

“Hello again,” he said, slipping up beside her and ordering another bottle of blood. “How’ve you been? And why, might I ask, are you all alone in a place like this?” 

Savannah had felt several dozen eyes on her. Eyes she had chosen to ignore. The bartender looked at her like she was crazy, but shuffled off to fulfil her order. She looked at the menu on the wall behind him. None of these seemed like normal drinks. Maybe they all just had fancy names. A shiver passed down her spine as someone brushed past her in the crowd, a sixth sense she couldn’t quite explain. But when someone took the seat next to her, Savannah was relieved to see it was someone who wasn’t a stranger.

She paid and tipped the bartender as he returned with her drink. “Carrington, hello.” Nobody was looking at him strangely in spite of him wearing regular clothes as well. Perhaps she was missing something. “I’m well, thanks.” She took a sip of her drink. “A place like this? Just because I’m not covered head to toe in tattoos with painted black fingernails, doesn’t mean I can’t find these sorts of places charming,” she teased, giving him a small grin. “But you can fix the ‘alone’ part if you want.” She cocked her head at him. “Did you just order blood? Was I supposed to use a code word or something, you know, to blend in?” 

“That’s good to hear.” He eyed her curiously. The first time they’d met, Carrington had been absolutely certain she knew shit-all about… well… anything to do with the supernatural. It was why he’d compelled her to forget what she’d seen that night. Though things could and did change quite quickly in this town. Perhaps Savannah was one of them. Either way, Carrington’s curiosity was piqued. 

He returned her grin with one of his own, one side of his mouth slowly lifting as he realized she was serious. And if one were observant enough, they might notice that Carrington sported a set of rather sharp canines behind his lopsided smile. He likely couldn’t have put them away if he’d tried, considering his current state. But oh well. In for a penny and all that. 

“Oh, I think you’ll find the charm goes much, much deeper than just the aesthetic…” Her casual invitation earned her another slow grin. “I think I can handle that.” The asked after drink came a moment later, and Carrington’s fingers paused against the bottle. He glanced at her, trying to decide how to answer in a way that wouldn’t send her running for the hills. Finally, he settled for the truth. She was here wasn’t she? “Yes.” The word was said with a slow, almost lazy candor as he lifted the bottle to his lips. “And no. But... if you wish to blend in…” There were still several sets of eyes on them as his arm slipped idly across the back of her chair. “I could show you how.

Savannah hadn’t even finished her first drink yet, but it was clear Carrington had already had a few. She decided to drink quickly in order to catch up. She had a feeling this was going to be an interesting night. “Fae Blood,” she read from the label. “Well, that’s not very nice.” Savannah waved the bartender down, much to his irritation, and ordered a second gin and tonic and a whiskey on the rocks. “Seems I have some catching up to do.” She finished her first drink almost in one long gulp, eyeing Carrington with curiosity. 

“You’re being strange,” she said, but her tone was one of interest and intrigue. She swore she could see the strange shape of his teeth beneath the dim lights. “Blending in, how?” she asked, curious to know what he’d be showing her. “I’d like to find out.” 

Carrington was well into his cups. Which explained why he didn’t bat an eye as she read the label on his bottle, other than to give her another playful smirk. “Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Besides…” He leaned towards her and pointed to a tiny bit of writing on the label. “‘No Fae were harmed in the making of this willingly-donated, generously compensated, and promise-free product.’” As if that should explain everything. And maybe it did. 

“By all means.” He watched her down her drink, raising an impressed eyebrow. The sweet smell of whiskey drifted towards him, and Carrington ordered one for himself, with a shot of A-negative. “Am I?” he asked. Her continued acquiescence was slightly surprising, but Carrington didn’t mind. Not one bit. “By doing what every other human that comes into a vampire bar comes there to do…” He gave her another curious, crooked smile, eyes slightly hooded as the implications of what he was suggesting - along with his sharply pointed teeth -  made themselves unmistakably clear. “And I’d be more than happy to oblige.” His fingers drifted up her arm to ghost over the line of her neck. “Do you trust me?”

Savannah had to be dreaming. This whole thing was almost as beyond belief as everything else she’d seen in White Crest so far. The idea of a vampire bar wasn’t strange. What was strange was that he should be so brazen about it, that he should be so open, even clearly a few drinks deep. “Why would I possibly want to try that?” she asked. She wasn’t a vampire, so she could only imagine it would taste awful. “I have my own.” She downed her whiskey and lifted the second gin and tonic. This would catch up with her soon. Maybe once it did, this would feel less bizarre. 

“How forward,” she snickered, almost a little embarrassed that this situation was - dare she say it - kind of hot. A therapist would have had a field day with that. “I’m not sure I’m drunk enough yet,” she said, her breath hitching in her throat a little turning her words into something of a sigh. “But you can show me around while I get there.” She leaned into him, whispering. “And no. I don’t trust anyone. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do something foolish.”

Carrington had no reason to hide what he was. Not here. Though his track record of making good choices when partaking of fae blood - he usually avoided it for a reason - wasn’t very good. Outside these walls, however, his identity was no one’s business but his own. And a very few trusted individuals. He opened his mouth to tell Savannah that the comment had been… well, somewhat rhetorical, but his attention quickly slipped to watching the line of her throat as she downed her drinks. 

“You asked,” he grinned, letting his fingers play over the slope of her shoulder. The way her breath hitched made Carrington’s fangs ache ever so slightly, but he was more than happy to grant the request to show her around. Before he could start what would hopefully be a very short tour on the way to something far more entertaining, she was suddenly very close. Again, she managed to surprise him with her answer, and again, Carrington didn’t question it. Instead, he laughed, the sound a low, genuinely pleased hum as he turned his head to whisper, “Good girl…” into her ear. He didn’t elaborate on which of her comments he was alluding to (it was both, actually), but pulled her and onto the first leg of the grand tour. 

A good bit later, Carrington’s head lolled towards Savannah. “Are we there yet?” he asked, grinning drunkenly, fangs on full display at this point. “Or well… are you there yet? I was there… oh-” He held up two fingers for her to see. “- three drinks ago.” 

Savannah swallowed. This was bizarre in a way that somehow made sense. It would have been beyond belief if not for the fact that it was so sensible and obvious. Savannah had no scepticism left in her. Carrington wasn’t trying to hide anything. He wasn’t a stranger trying to lure her backstage. She quivered, almost embarrassed as he whispered the words in her ear. 

She decided to see where this went, no commitment one way or the other. She explored with him, danced with him, had a few more drinks with him, and gave a low laugh when he finally asked the question. “I think I’m getting there.” She swung on his arm a little as they danced, twisting herself into his arms. “Tell me something,” she said, figuring now was her best chance to get some honesty out of him. “What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t found me at the bar?” she asked. In spite of being pleasantly drunk now, her curiosity hadn’t shut off. Savannah turned back to him, hands on his shoulders. 

“Can you be gentle? Can your friends?” she used the word loosely. There were several humans in the bar. Savannah could see that now. She’d passed the human blood bags and the fang bangers that were either paid to be here or came for their own thrill and enjoyment. They seemed to be having fun, but Savannah didn’t doubt there was a seedier underbelly to all this. Accidents happened. 

Her shiver didn’t escape his notice, but Carrington simply tucked that particular tidbit away for later. After that the evening was a blur. A pleasant one, if a bit strange. But only strange because he couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t have to hide a part of himself from a human acquaintance. Whether out of fear of losing a friend, or fear for his own safety. Neither of those things had even crossed his mind this evening. Savannah was… taking it all in stride. Without any evidence of a nervous breakdown in the near future. 

So, as was the theme of the evening, Carrington didn’t question it. He simply endeavoured to take things as they came for once. Her laughter vibrated against his chest as she spun around, and he let his other hand slide around her waist, holding her against him as they danced. “Excellent…” he smiled against her ear before letting his lips drop lightly to her shoulder. He stayed there as they danced, enjoying her warmth and her scent along with his own pleasantly drunken state. “Anything…” he murmured to her query. Though when it came, the question wasn’t quite what he expected. Nonetheless, the evening had thus far thrived on honesty, and Carrington was loath to change that. 

“Perhaps nothing,” he told her quietly. “Or perhaps someone would’ve fed on you. Without your consent. Or worse.” 

Her next question didn’t have a black and white answer. She’d seen the varying degrees of human/vampire interaction around the bar. Though some things weren’t meant for public display. How could she not be curious? “In general? Yes,” he said, and meant it. “We’re all capable of being gentle. We’re not much different than humans in that sense. Some good, some bad. Most somewhere in between. ” 

Carrington dipped his head towards her shoulder again. “As for myself… I’m always gentle…” His lips - along with a barely there, feather-light hint of fangs - brushed her skin as he smiled lazily. “Unless you ask me not to be...” 

Savannah's next shudder wasn't so pleasant. Fed on. Or worse. Those certainly weren't the most desirable of outcomes. "Well, thanks for coming to my rescue," Savannah teased, her words dripping with irony. She remained close to Carrington, paying specific attention to his lack of heartbeat. His body was a little warm, perhaps from the bottles of blood he'd been drinking like light beers. If she hadn't already known already, she wouldn't have guessed he was a vampire. She'd have to get smarter about that. 

She exhaled, continuing to casually dance with him as he explained his species to her, at least in the vaguest of ways. She'd try and find out more later, she was sure, once she wasn't so very distracted by the feeling of his skin on hers and how good he smelled. "Good to know," she murmured against his jawline as he promised to be gentle. She swallowed the lump in her throat as his teeth scraped against the shell of her ear.

Fuck. She was an idiot.

"Then I guess we'd better go back to your place." 

[nomolosk]

Snapshots (AU Yeah August 2020)

read on AO3:

Day 5- Bed Sharing

Marinette sighed wearily. First the embarrassment at work, then the time travel, and… had there been an akuma battle? She couldn’t even remember at this point. It had been a long day, that’s all. And of course it just had to be the day before the Small Business Convention. It was something Marinette had been looking forward to, and she had the setup and layout of her booth all planned out. She’d even rented a hotel room in the same hotel that was hosting it, just so she wouldn’t run into unexpected morning traffic, and thus be running late and more anxious than usual.

Now, she just had to gather everything up and-

Marinette paused, her eye caught by Tikki. The little kwami was zipping from flower pot to flower pot, a sure sign that she was upset about something.

“Tikki?” Marinette asked, going over to the window where Tikki’s little garden grew. “What’s wrong?”

Tikki paused briefly and then zipped around Marinette in a tightening spiral before landing in Marinette’s cupped hands.

“I… I don’t know,” she said plaintively. “Something is wrong, but… but I don’t know what it is! I just have a bad feeling.”

“Hm,” Marinette said, frowning. Things didn’t usually affect Tikki unless they were immediate dangers. “Do you think we ought to go out patrolling? We’re not on the schedule for tonight, though, and Chat might ask questions if he sees us.”

Tikki squirmed a little, back to hovering back and forth, though slower than before. “I… no.”

“Are you sure?”

“No… no, this is,” Tikki stopped, frustrated. “If I had even a little bit of an idea on what to look for, I’d say yes, but I don’t.” She gave her whole body a shake and came up with an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about it. You are Ladybug after all! Whatever is wrong, I’m sure we’ll catch on in time to do something about it. And in the meantime, you have that convention to go to tomorrow!”

Marinette smiled back. She was still worried, of course- it had been years since Tikki’s reassurances could wipe the existence of a problem entirely from her mind- but she trusted the kwami and appreciated her faith in her. And they had managed to defeat all the akumas (and other villains) sent against them to date.

----

Marinette snuggled into the hotel blankets, utterly exhausted. Her parents had helped her get everything packed into their delivery van and even agreed to let her drive it to the hotel so she’d have everything she needed to set up right there in the morning. Still, it had been a very long day. After taking a bath to relax, Marinette eagerly went to bed, secure that she’d done everything humanly possible to prepare for the morning.

----

Adrien sighed heavily as he accepted the hotel room key card from the desk clerk. This Small Business Convention wasn’t his idea of fun, but Father was insisting he spend the whole day there, as Gabriel’s representative, checking out any competition, and making as many business friends as possible. Gabriel might be a big name in fashion, but it was the ‘little people’ as Gabriel called them, who made everything run smoothly- caterers, professional launderers, and etc. And obviously Gabriel himself was far too important to ever stoop to paying attention to the ‘little people.’

Still, at least he’d managed to convince Father to spring for a hotel room- after the last minute photoshoot that had run far too late, not to mention the patrol he’d had to rush through, he wanted to actually sleep in for once and not face judgement from either Father or Nathalie. Both of them would have expected him to wake up extra early and arrive before the convention even opened, but Adrien knew that it would be better for him to arrive a little later, when the vendors would be warmed-up from interacting with a few other people first.

He let himself into his room, not bothering to turn on the lights. He didn’t have any luggage except a dress bag that he fumbled into the small closet he’d seen as he opened the room door, moving mostly by feel. Sighing again, he moved further into the room, toeing his shoes off. As soon as he felt the tell tale press of the bed against his lower legs, he flung himself onto the bed… only to get a sharp blow to the face, along with a decidedly feminine shriek in his ear. Rolling off the lump under the covers and back to his feet, he tried to regain his bearings. 

“What?” he said. “Who are you? What are you doing in my room?” The shock of it all sent adrenaline shooting through his system, waking him back up instantly.

“Your room? This is my room, thank you very much!” came the indignant reply. 

By now Adrien’s eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness in the room, helped along by the little sliver of light coming in from under the curtains over the window. The room wasn’t large- just big enough for a double bed, the bedside table and a small table and chair. There was a TV mounted to the wall opposite the bed, but nothing under it.

Adrien reached over and turned on the lamp. Sleepy blue eyes glared and squinted back at him. The girl- woman- sat up in bed. Now that the lights were on, Adrien could see other signs of her habitation- shoes on the floor, a purse sitting in the chair by the window, a portfolio and small overnight bag sitting on the table itself.

“I- I’m so sorry,” he said, beginning to feel foolish. “I just checked in, and this is the room they gave me.”

“Well this is my room,” the woman grumped, folding her arms across her chest. “Now, if you don’t leave, I’m calling the front desk, and then the police.” Adrien noted she already had her cellphone in her hand, still plugged into the charging cable that was likewise plugged into the USB socket on the base of the lamp.

Adrien held his hands up. “No, no, I’ll leave, don’t worry.”

He quickly moved past the bed, scooping his shoes up and had already pulled the room door open when he remembered the dress bag. “Sorry,” he muttered again, as he opened the closet door and grabbed it. She’d already turned the lamp back off. He thought about wishing her a good night, but figured he’d already ruined it for her and that would just be rubbing it in. So instead he just left.

Back at the front desk, the attendant was defensive, though Adrien suspected he was trying to come across as incensed on his behalf.

“There shouldn’t be anyone in that room,” he muttered, typing on his keyboard. “There!” he said in triumph. “The last guest in that room checked out this morning, and while that room was reserved for someone else for tonight, they never checked in. So of course, it should have been free for you.” He sighed in irritation and Adrien suppressed his own sigh. “I really don’t know how this happened.”

“Look, I just need a different room for the night, okay? It’s really late,” he said, trying to hurry the process along. But the attendant was now on a mission- he called the night manager out of her office. When that individual had been apprised of the situation, she looked briefly thunderous, and then smoothed out her expression with professional ease.

“I’m so sorry for this Mr. Agreste. I know our hotel doesn’t usually cater to the upper class, and I’d really have liked your first impression to be a much better one than this. We’ll get a new room for you, but in the meantime, please come with me. I can’t undo this bad first impression, but hopefully I can show you how we deal with freeloaders who bypass our security.”

“No, really, that’s not necessary,” Adrien tried to say, but she just swept past him to the elevators. Perhaps if Adrien had been less tired, he would have put up more of a fight, but as it was, his early training in shutting-up and coming-along asserted itself. 

So it was that he found himself back outside the fateful hotel room door, with the night manager knocking loudly on it. At- he checked his watch and cringed- nearly 2 am. Whoever was in that room was not going to have fond memories of their brief encounter with Adrien Agreste.

----

Marinette had just gotten over her previous irritation and gone back to sleep when there was a sudden pounding on her door. She jerked up, groaning. The pounding came again, and she was just about to slide out of bed when she heard the magnetic lock disengaging and the door opened and the lights came on.

“Alright you, up, up, up! You can’t stay here.” 

Marinette stared blearily at a middle-aged woman in a hotel uniform. “What?”

“You’re not supposed to be in here, this room is let to someone else. Now, we won’t press charges if you leave willingly, but I am prepared to call the police if you try to force the issue.”

Unbelievable. That jerk from earlier must have gone down to the front desk and complained. 

“I paid for this room,” Marinette insisted. “I checked in at 9, and I’ve been asleep since 10:30.”

“This room has been unbooked since the last guest checked out this morning.”

Marinette rubbed her forehead. It was way too early in the morning to deal with this. “Look, you want to see my reservation? Fine. Sure.” She got out of bed and walked over to her purse, pulling out the receipt the desk clerk had given her, along with the little paper packet with her room keys. “I reserved a room last month under the name Dupain-Cheng, and as you can see, I checked in around 9 pm.”

She handed the receipt to the woman, who reluctantly took them. She studied the paper minutely before checking and double checking the room number written on the keycard packet. Then she sighed heavily and uttered a begrudging apology. Marinette took her things back and stowed them in her purse before following the woman to the door, getting a good look at the sheepish-looking guy standing in the hallway.

He certainly bore some resemblance to the man who had unceremoniously dropped on top of her earlier, but she’d been too recently asleep to really recognize him. Still, given his expression, it seemed likely that he was the same one. Marinette glared at him, before starting to shut the door in his face.

She just caught the beginning of the woman’s apology to him- which sounded much more sincere than the one she’d received. 

“Again, I’m so sorry for the mix-up Mr. Agreste, something must have-”

The shutting door cut off the rest of what she was saying, but Marinette’s mind suddenly went into full-time panic mode. Gabriel Agreste was a big name in fashion circles- circles she was trying to break into, in her own small way- and now she’d inadvertently caused him considerable inconvenience and even threatened to call the police on him! Of course, she had been justified to do so, but still…

Groaning, Marinette put her ear to the door to see if they were still outside. But she heard nothing, so she cautiously opened the door and, seeing no one, slipped the Do Not Disturb sign onto the outer door knob before closing the door again and engaging the chain-lock. Hopefully that would assure no more interruptions until her alarm went off. But given that she’d just made an enemy out of Gabriel Agreste, she rather doubted she would be getting any more sleep that night.

Still, she flicked the lights off and stumbled back to bed, falling face first into her pillow and trying vainly to regain some semblance of the sleepiness she’d felt just a little while ago.

@auyeahaugust

[benditlikepress]

watch you sleep

ok hi @coffeedepablo this post was the first thing i saw when i woke up and it’s literally haunted me all day

also available to read on ao3

//

Tali didn't sleep for the first week after Ziva got home.

Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but she certainly hadn't fallen asleep at night and woken up in the morning.

Tony wasn't wholly surprised - he was used to it, even. She didn't sleep in her own bed for the first month after she began living with him, only passing out in his bed after hours of crying and tantrums. Though his knowledge of children at that point had been alarmingly limited, he knew struggling to get them to sleep in their own bed was something a lot of parents had to deal with. He supposed that most of those parents would have months or years to get their head wrapped around the idea of having to deal with it, though, rather than the length of a conversation with Orli Elbaz. That, along with the weight of everything else that had happened, was probably the reason why he had spent those first few weeks trying not to wake Tali up by crying as she finally dozed off next to him.

The guilt on Ziva's face when Tony told her this was seemingly onto second to the guilt she felt for keeping Tony and Tali apart for as long as she had, a choice which she herself seemed to find impossible to explain.

Tony and Ziva, too, had barely slept a wink in the past week. They found themselves waiting until Tali had passed out from exhaustion before they could have the many serious conversations that they had been constructing in their heads for the past six years, and their own sleep schedules were seemingly a thing of a past.

The conversations were sincere, and honest, and while they were a little cold at moments they were never argumentative or angry. Tony was determined to make it clear that he had no patience or energy to hold five-year-old grudges, and Ziva seemed to slowly be accepting this rather than using it as a stick to beat herself with.

She'd also been open about having been ill, about panic attacks and hallucinations and depressive episodes. Though it was clear this was something she suffered much more with since sending Tali to the US, Tony wondered if this might have played a role in why she did what she did - the weight of the world on her shoulders when he saw her in Israel, the guilt, the fear she explained having about telling Tony about Tali after she'd been born. She'd never spoken to him about that kind of stuff before.

It was strange to talk properly again after so long. Ziva had called two years ago to inform Tony of the situation and he had found himself surprised that he still trusted her, blindly, after everything that had happened. He had proved right to when she had shown up on their doorstep a week ago, teary smile on her face and bags under her eyes.

She looked older now, but it was difficult to tell how much of that was ageing and how much was the fact that she, too, didn't seem to have slept since the day she sent Tali away.

They’d barely had time to sit down all week. Tali had decided to show Ziva all of her favourite places: restaurants, the zoo, museums, parks. Ziva found it hard to say no in the circumstances, and Tony had always hated playing the bad cop but especially now when she was so innocently delighted to be the centre of attention.

Tony's first day back at work tomorrow (and Tali's first day back at school) was an added source of anxiety for all of them. They managed to get Tali down in her own bed just past midnight, and Tony was feeling positive until he and Ziva had been in bed for about 40 minutes and he heard her door opening down the hall.

"Aba," the familiar sound of her voice calling from behind the bedroom door had him running his hands over his face. Ziva watched him.

"You need to sleep. Go onto the couch, I will deal with her tonight."

They had dealt with her together every night, as a team, and Tony had usually taken the lead as understandably Tali sought him out first when she was upset.

"You sure?"

"I can sleep while you are both out tomorrow. You need to sleep." She repeated, using her own hand to pull his off his face. He sighed and sat up.

"If you get her to sleep just come sleep out here."

Tony squeezed Ziva’s hand in a gesture of thanks as he stood up wearily. He opened the wardrobe and bent down to retrieve the spare bedding, hearing his knee click at the tired movement. When he opened the bedroom door Tali was stood rubbing her eye with Kelev in her other hand, looking much younger than her 5 years.

“Can’t sleep.” Tali mumbled, looking at Tony and the pillow and blankets in his hand quizzically.

“You hop into bed with Ima, ok, baby?” He ran a hand through her unruly hair. She nodded, now using Kelev’s paw to rub at her eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“Aba is going to sleep because he has work tomorrow. You and me can stay in here.”

Tali accepted this readily, her mood suddenly lifting as she jumped onto the bed beside Ziva. Tony turned back to give Ziva a reassuring smile as he left the room and closed the door behind him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Try as he might to get to sleep, Tony found himself lying awake on the pull-out wondering what was going on in his bedroom. His and Ziva's bedroom, he corrected himself, (an unspoken decision when they ended up falling asleep side by side after talking until the early hours), though it still seemed strange to think of it that way and stranger still seeing as he hadn't kissed her since the one filled in equal parts with relief and disbelief when they were first reunited.

They hadn’t spent much time apart since being reunited, but the time he had gotten to himself Tony had spent thinking about that. Analysing his feelings, trying to get a grasp on what it was he wanted. He had spent a lot of time after Ziva rang two years ago questioning how things would be between them, whether he still felt for her the way he always had. The answer was a resounding yes, it was safe to say, but everything was different now. The individual priorities and conflicts that had got in the way in the past weren’t an issue anymore. There was a new priority – a living, breathing, shared one that took up all of their time. Whether this would make it easier remained to be seen (Tony wasn’t sure if crossing Tali or Gibbs was the scarier prospect), but it was an incentive to try even harder. There was no room to run away now, for either of them.

Unable to stop thinking about the quiet behind the door and the distinct lack of Ziva on the pull-out, Tony stood up and made his way back to the bedroom. The door creaked a little as he opened it and he lifted his hand to control the movement, pausing in the doorway to look at the scene.

The bedside light on his side of the bed was still on. Tali was lying on her back on that side, one hand raised on the pillow next to her. Ziva was curled into her, head in the gap between the pillows, hand resting protectively on her daughter's stomach.

Tony wondered how many times they had fallen asleep like this before he had been introduced into Tali's life.

He’d spent much of the past week watching them like this – curiously examining their interactions, the expressions on their faces as they talked. Ziva had been tentative by her standards at first, though that was understandable. Watching them now, you wouldn’t know that. The way she surrounded her was so natural and loving, something special between them. The physical evidence that there was someone else in the world who loved Tali as much as he did, who was as much a part of her as he was, still made Tony’s heart stop.

Of all the things he and Ziva had shared over the years (had it really been 15?), this was the most special.

Tony crossed the room quietly, trying carefully to not disturb either of them as he approached the bed. He placed himself behind Ziva, one of his hands instinctively landing over her waist. Tali didn't stir on the other side of the bed, but after a few moments he felt eyes on him.

"She OK?" he mumbled into the pillow as he burrowed his head down.

"Good. It only took one story. I must have fallen asleep myself." Ziva whispered groggily, and Tony opened his eyes again to meet hers where her head had turned over her shoulder towards him. She seemed a little confused. "I told you to stay out there."

"Couldn't sleep. Wondered where you were."

“I think I was more tired than I realised.”

Ziva turned her head back towards Tali, and Tony lifted the top half of his body a little so he could look at the little girl over Ziva's shoulder. She was still sleeping soundly, brow slightly furrowed. Ziva's fingers that had been on her stomach had moved to her necklace, and she started stroking the Star of David slowly.

"I used to try to take that off her before she went to bed. Didn’t go down well."

"She can be stubborn."

"I think it reminded her of yours." Tony signalled the necklace around Ziva's own neck, and her other hand instinctively raised to the pendant.

"It will get easier." She said quietly, sensing Tony's thoughts. He lowered himself back down to the bed behind her.

"I know." He burrowed his head into the side of her neck a little. "Straight to sleep after 1 story, that's progress."

"We used to fall asleep like this a lot. I wonder if on some level she remembers."

That answered his question from earlier, when he had stood watching them in the doorway. "What stories did you used to tell her?"

"Ones about you, mainly."

The silence that followed was loaded, as Ziva clearly waited expectant of a reply. "Oh yeah?"

"She had that picture by her bed, the one from Paris. She would get into bed and I would pick it up and lie beside her and talk about you."

"Did she ever ask where I was?"

"No," Ziva answered after a beat, "she was still too young. It was a deadline I had set myself. If I had not already done so, the first time she asked where you were, I was going to call you. Every time I roostered out of calling I reminded myself of that."

Tony's smile was instinctive. "Chickened."

"I am out of practice."

"What was your excuse before?"

Tony heard Ziva chuckle a little to herself. She was still watching Tali, head turned away from him.

"If you want to come with me to drop Tali off at school tomorrow, you'll have to walk home. I won't have time to circle back. That OK? It's only 20 minutes."

"Is that alright?"

"Is it alright that you come?" Tony studied the profile of Ziva's expression carefully, a hint of nerves evident. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Of course it is. She's your daughter, and she'd love you to be there. I would love you to be there."

"Tony, I..."

"What?"

"Thank you. Again."

"I've told you, you don't owe me anything. It's my job to take care of her."

Tony wondered if the weight of the similarity between those words and ones he had said to Ziva all those years ago was on her mind like they were his.

"You are right. Sorry."

"Ziva.." Tony challenged, amusement now hinting in his voice. She turned her head back towards him and he caught her eye as he smiled, their faces close together.

“I know. Stop apologising.” She echoed the words he’d been repeating with a roll of her eyes. “It is just a natural reaction in the circumstances.”

“Well, make new habits.” Tony’s voice got even quieter than the whispers they had been using, as he breathed in the gap between them. Ziva looked down at his lips briefly, and then back at his eyes in a silent question.

Tony lifted himself so he hovered above Ziva, and didn’t pause before leaning down and pressing his lips to hers. It was lazy, and sleepy, and somehow both achingly familiar and entirely foreign as Tony felt Ziva’s lips quirk upwards. They separated after a few seconds and Tony stayed above her, watching as she opened her eyes and a smile played on her lips, before settling back down in bed behind her.

“If that is going to be your solution to everything..”

“Shh. Go to sleep.” Tony playfully dismissed her, burying his face into the space between her shoulder-blades. Ziva grabbed his hand from her stomach and lifted it to her lips, pressing a kiss against his palm before dropping it again.

“Goodnight, Tony.”

[100storiesin2020]

Chapter 7: Columbia, Part 1

Come read on AO3!

*

It had been a very long week of practices. Blue had been far above her teammates back in Henrietta, but now that she was playing on a college team her new teammates were -literally- running circles around her. Drat that Neil. He hadn't spoken to her much since that first meeting. She wasn't sure if he was treating her differently because of what happened with Mr. Gray, or if it was simply that he struggled with new people. Kevin was also the bane of her existence. It was clear that he resented her presence on the team and didn't think that Neil had picked well. And that whiny little voice! At least try to make a goal. Fuck him.

Her Raven boys hadn't been having much more luck than she had. Gansey had somehow managed to offend nearly every single one of the Foxes individually. She'd overheard him accidentally being condescending to Allison. He got in a fight over some inconsequential history detail with Kevin on Tuesday and they hadn't spoken since. Blue wasn't sure what the problem with Aaron and Andrew were, but figured the twins didn't need much to be set off. Neil and Renee each seemed to distrust him on principle. Gansey's only good relationships on the team were with Dan and Matt, and that was because Gansey treated Dan with absolute, unfailing respect.

As for Ronan and Adam, it was going about as well as Blue could hope. Ronan hadn't gotten into any fights, and Adam was on neutral ground with everyone so far. Neither of them trusted any of the Foxes, but maybe that would come with time. They'd decided not to come out to the team until everyone was more comfortable with each other, which Gansey and Blue had promised to respect. Also, Gansey and Blue had a private betting pool on who would figure out their relationship first (the Foxes' gambling habits were addictive). Blue's money was on Renee.

Blue woke up on Friday morning feeling terribly homesick. It was nice to be on her own, but change was hard, and this morning she missed it all. The constant chatter of Fox Way. The quiet of her small bedroom. The tree with her father in the backyard. The knowing eyes of her mother. Carla's brashness. Persephone's oddities. Noah.

Noah would have loved to come to Palmetto, Blue thought as she cried silently.

Just as she was preparing to get up, she heard noises from the other side of the room. Crap. Up until this point, Blue had been the first awake every morning, and nobody had seen her without makeup yet. She only wore foundation. The other Foxes probably wouldn't judge her for her scars, but she didn't feel like explaining them. Maybe the other girls would leave her be and she could sneak to the bathroom later.

No such luck. Allison poked her head up over the side of the bunk. "Rise and shine, freshman."

"Go away."

"Oh my god, are you crying?" Even better. Blue sat up and turned to Allison to give her a proper tongue lashing but froze at the astonished look she received. Allison continued to stare for several seconds before breaking the silence again. "Damn, girl, you look like someone tried to gouge your eye out."

Blue threw a pillow at her. "Someone did. Go away." Blue threw the covers over her head and, blessedly, Allison left without another word.

Blue listened as the girls got ready, waiting for Allison to tell them all what had happened, but she never did. She woke up Dan and Renee and hustled them to the kitchen with promises of coffee, leaving Blue alone. Blue immediately jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom to put on her foundation. Then she got dressed and joined the others for breakfast.

Everything was as it had been for the last few days. Dan was throwing frozen waffles in the toaster and singing some dorky Disney song. Allison was sitting across from Renee, looking entirely too awake for a morning and chatting away, and Renee was sleepily sipping coffee and ignoring the other two. "Oh hey, Blue!" Dan said. "Want a waffle?"

Blue took a waffle and a container of yogurt and sat at the table, eyeing Allison. Allison looked at her and shook her head briefly before returning to her one sided conversation with Renee. She hadn't told the other girls, then. Blue contemplated that as she ate her waffles. She disliked Allison. Her constant perfection grated on Blue - the hair, the makeup, the expensive and tasteful clothes. In nearly all respects Allison strove to fulfill the feminine attributes as defined by the patriarchy. Also, she was a jerk.

She did have some nice biceps, though. Blue would give her that.

"So, Blue, what are your plans for the weekend?" Dan asked, sitting across the table with her own plate of waffles."

"Oh, yeah, its Friday already." What a week. "I promised Andrew I would go to Columbia with them tonight."

Dan's face turned hard. "You don't say," she said flatly. She stood, abandoning her waffles, and marched out the front door.

"That short little Monster dared to invite you to Columbia, did he?" Allison snorted. "Dan will never allow it."

"Why not?" Blue demanded.

"You haven't heard what he does there! The last person he took chose to hitchhike back rather than spent another minute with them."

Blue snorted. "Was it Neil?"

Allison laughed. "Who else would pull a stunt like that?"

"I will have to risk it. I did promise. I owe him for it."

"Keeping promises is the best way to get to Andrew," Renee said. The coffee was finally kicking in and she looked at least semi-awake. "He will respect you for it."

At that point the door opened and Dan returned, looking much calmer. "You have my blessing for Columbia." She took a seat and dug into a waffle as Allison stared at her. 

"But what about-"

"It's okay, babe," Renee cut her off, smiling sweetly. "It'll be different this year, and I think Blue can take care of herself."

***************************

They had just finished afternoon practices and Blue was starting to feel like she had been forgotten. As the team was leaving the building, she sidled up next to Neil. "So what's the plan for Columbia tonight? I haven't heard anything yet."

"We're going out for ice cream and then to a club," he responded. "Leaving at 5. Wear all black, if you have it."

Blue rolled her eyes at his smirk. Her neon exercise clothes were awesome, thank you very much. "I'll manage the black, but I am a little underage for a club. As are you, I believe."

"Not a problem."

"Okay then. What time will we be back?"

Neil seemed surprised at that question, the oblivious fool. "Oh, Nicky has a house in Columbia. We usually stay there overnight. That way we can be out late and drive back sober the next day."

Blue nodded. "Sounds good."

At that moment Gansey went past. "What sounds good?" he asked with a smile.

"Oh, I'm going to Columbia with Andrew and Neil and..." she trailed off.

"Kevin, Aaron, and Nicky. We're going for ice cream and to show Blue around the city," Neil finished smoothly. Apparently he didn't think Gansey would approve of the club.

Gansey nodded. "I hope you have a splendid time, Jane. Could I perhaps join you?"

"No, you and Adam are leaving to attend your mother's event tomorrow."

"That's tomorrow?" 

Blue rolled her eyes, but fondly. "Yes, it's tomorrow. You and Adam are going back to the tower to grab the bags you packed earlier today, and then you're leaving." Gansey looked relieved. "Now you boys stay out of trouble, and don't do anything that I would do."

Neil laughed. "Shouldn't you say, don't do anything I wouldn't do?"

"No, no, she was quite correct the first time," Gansey laughed. "You would have appreciated the scathing remarks at the last thing Jane attended. The Senator was scandalized. I'll see you later, Jane!" He hugged her close before leaving.

Neil watched him go with a bemused expression. "Is... is he alright in the head? He seems very forgetful."

"Oh, he's alright. The second time he died really messed with his sense of time."

"The second time he WHAT?"

"Oh, look, its Ronan. I've got to go talk to him. See you tonight!" Blue sprinted toward the BMW and hopped into the passenger seat just before it roared to life. She threw on her seatbelt as he peeled out of the lot, leaving a very confused Neil staring after them. "Hey, do you have any spare black shirts I can have?"

"Why, maggot?"

"I'm apparently going to a club with Andrew and Company tonight, and I've been informed that the dress code is all black."

Ronan laughed, a harsh sound. "Do you even own anything that is solidly black?"

"Why do you think I'm asking you?" Ronan groaned. "Also, I know you can just dream yourself a new shirt."

Ronan raised an eyebrow at her before turning his attention back to the road. "I'm surprised you don't just ask me to dream you a whole outfit."

"I don't trust you to get it right." Also, she enjoyed the making of things.

"I'm not giving you my stuff."

"Don't be such a shithead."

"Fine," he snapped, "but you owe me. Also you're getting a failed dream shirt."

Blue grinned. This was going to be fun.

**********************

It was obvious why Ronan had dubbed this shirt a failure. It was massive, longer than Blue was tall, and ripped through as if attacked with knives, or perhaps clawed through by a night horror. That said, the fabric was sturdy but soft, and it was one of the most fascinating things Blue had ever looked at. If you inspected it closely, it was definitely a solid black. Or was it? Seen from the corner of your eye, it swirled with overtones of color, like the sheen of an oil slick, always there but just out of sight.

Blue had a great time transforming it in the hour before she had to leave. She chopped off the bottom just above her knees, leaving it ragged. She used the rips as a starting point to pleat the fabric in odd directions, pulling it in on itself again and again until it finally fit around her waist, then belted it with a silver ribbon. She had silver knee high boots to match (a lucky secondhand find) and some black fingerless gloves which she had knitted for Ronan (it wasn't her fault they had shrunk in the wash). The girls whistled when she strode out into the living room area.

"You look beautiful, Blue," Renee said, sweet as always. "You are obviously quite talented."

"I can't believe you threw that together in an hour," Dan added.

Allison looked up from her phone, gave her a cursory once-over, and went back to texting. Silence was better than the cutting insults Blue had been receiving all week, so she would take that gladly. She said farewell to the girls and headed out the door, clothes for the next day packed in her backpack.

Ronan was waiting for her in the hallway, leaning casually against the door with a small duffle bag and Chainsaw on his shoulder. "Ready to head out, maggot?"

Blue raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize you were invited."

Ronan snorted. "As if I'd miss an opportunity to drink."

"He totally invited himself," Nicky called as he came down the hallway. "Knocked on our door and asked when we were going, wouldn't take no for an answer. Hold on, is that a bird?" Chainsaw cawed and flapped her wings, making Nicky duck. "Okay, you have a pet crow-" "Raven" "-raven, good god you're terrifying. Hot, but terrifying. Anyway, y'all ready to head out?"

Blue eyed him for a minute. "I'm ready as soon as I get some of that glitter you're dusted with."

"You're not getting fucking glitter in my car, maggot. And I'm not riding in that orange monstrosity."

"Hey, my orange monstrosity has quite the pedigree, I'll let you know." Ronan laughed. "But I suppose I've inflicted enough torture on you today." They followed Nicky into the parking lot where the other four were already in Andrew's Maserati. Nicky hopped in the backseat of the BMW to give directions in case the cars got separated, but sat as far to the side as possible after Ronan buckled in Chainsaw.

Once they were on the road, Blue asked, "How come Nicky can get glitter in your car and I can't"

"Nicky didn't steal my shirt, you fucking menace. Also, there's still some back there from the last time Henry decided to deck himself out."

"Who's Henry?" Nicky asked.

"A friend from Henrietta," Blue replied. "He didn't play Exy with us, but he'll be coming to school here in the spring semester, so you'll get to meet him at some point."

"Can't escape him forever," Ronan muttered.

"Shut up, you like Henry."

"He's a worse fucking nuisance than you are."

"And yet you still hang out with him. Anyway, Nicky, I think you'll like him. He's loud and fun and loves glitter as much as Noah does."

"Who is Noah?"

"Someone I miss a lot," Blue said sadly. The rest of the ride was mostly silent, beyond random chirping of kerah from the backseat. Nicky started to quietly give directions as they neared the city, and soon they pulled up to a place called Sweetie's.

Ronan pulled up next to the Maserati and everyone got out of their respective cars. "Guys!" Nicky yelled. "I can't believe I survived a trip sitting next to that omen of death!"

"Oh fuck off, Nicky, Chainsaw is harmless."

"You sure about that?" Ronan asked, grin sharp enough to slice.

"Actually, no. Not when Nicky has been pissing you off," Blue conceded. Nicky was apparently too intimidated by Ronan to flirt directly, but kept hitting on Adam. Adam was amused. Ronan was not.

"What did I do?" Nicky yelped as Chainsaw swooped at his head. Blue and Ronan laughed, and surprisingly Aaron and Neil did as well. As soon as those two realized they were both laughing at the same thing, they gave each other a look and turned away, pretending that it had never happened. Interesting. The whole group started walking into Sweeties, Kevin insisting all the while they will never let a bird in here. Ronan just shrugged and whistled, holding out his arm. Chainsaw landed, claws digging into his leather jacket. Blue had stolen the jacket and modified it to have more padding in the places Chainsaw liked to land. Ronan had never acknowledged it, but he wore the jacket more often now, and that was all the thanks Blue could ever ask for. Ronan tucked Chainsaw close to his chest as they walked in.

The group claimed a table that seemed to be a regular spot for Andrew and Co, as Blue had dubbed them. She'd heard the upperclassmen calling them "the monsters," of course, but didn't care for the nickname. She'd met real monsters. She suspected these boys had, too.

Nicky ordered the ice cream special for the table and Ronan added some baskets of fries. Chainsaw cawed only once before Ronan shoved a fry in her beak. The waitress sent them many sidelong glances, but as long as Chainsaw was quiet, she seemed reluctant to throw out a group of regulars. Blue sat back and observed the table as everyone ate. Andrew was staring out the window with Neil pressed into his side (there really wasn't room at this table for everyone). Occasionally they would mutter to each other in what sounded like Russian. Aaron was texting and sometimes getting dragged into conversation with Kevin. Nicky was chatty and bubbly and barely getting any ice cream into his mouth because of it. He was the only one really talking, Blue realized. He looked tired and stressed below the smile, as if he were trying too hard to be the happy one and needed a break. Blue knew that look. She wore it herself, sometimes.

Just like that, Nicky pulled her into the conversation. "So tell us how you and Gansey met."

I'm never making eye contact with him again, she grumbled to herself. "Well he insulted me at my job, accidently calling me a prostitute, and then I ran into him again the next day when he came to my mom for a reading."

Nicky stared at her. "Well, we don't have time to unpack all of that," he gave his best Mulaney impression. "But I'd really like to. A prostitute? Really?"

Blue grinned. "Not in those words."

"She sure put him in his place," Ronan added. "You should have seen his face."

"Yeah, I about strangled him when y'all showed up that next day," she laughed.

"So what do you mean, they came for a reading?" Nicky asked.

Blue sighed. She had gone a whole week without telling anyone but Renee, and now she was basically telling the whole team by telling Nicky. "My mom is a psychic," she explained. "A legit one. Her readings aren't always precise, but they're always true. And if you're one of the 'lucky' ones to get a precise one, well."

Nicky immediately launched into a spiel about how he'd been to a lot of psychics. They all sounded fake, in her opinion. Too much drama, not enough soul, as all fake psychics were. "So can you do a reading for me?" he asked excitedly.

"No, I didn't inherit any of the psychic talent." Still a sore point. "I sat in on a lot of readings, and I could definitely pass myself off as a faker, but there's no talent there."

"Adam could probably do a reading if you asked nicely," Ronan muttered.

Nicky beamed. "Is he a psychic?"

"Yes, my sort-of-aunt Persephone taught him. Though if you really want to talk to a true psychic, you should ask Wymack." The whole table gave her startled looks. "Come on, guys. How do you think he finds troubled kids?" Kevin nodded at that, looking thoughtful. 

Nicky wasn't to be deterred. "Could Adam maybe use his fancy psychic skills to help me win some bets?"

"Not a chance."

"Too bad. There's some good pots out there."

"Really? What on?" Blue asked.

"Oh, the usual. Most of the big ones involve all of you, though, so if I tell you I risk spoiling them."

Ronan turned to Aaron. "What exactly do I need to do to make this annoying dipshit lose money?"

Aaron looked up from his phone and gave a small shrug before continuing to text. "There's a bet on when you'll fight someone, a bet on your relationship status, and one on your sexuality." Blue was surprised. That was the longest sentence she had ever heard from him, as well as the least assholish one.

"My sexuality isn't a fucking gambling pot," Ronan snarled. "It's none of your fucking business." He stood up, making Chainsaw squawk in indignation as he pushed Blue and Kevin out of the bench so he could stomp off.

Blue didn't follow, but she did kick Nicky in the shins. "That's a horrible thing to bet on."

"It's not the first time," Kevin said. "They had a similar bet last year when-" he cut off with a grunt as Aaron imitated Blue's kicking technique. "Hey!"

"Shut up, you'll ruin the pot!"

Oh, that was interesting. Blue would have to think about that exchange. The topic turned to Exy strategy as they finished their ice cream, just in time for Ronan to come back to the table. Andrew left a pile of money on the table, enough for the ice cream and a good-sized tip. Blue added another $10 on behalf of Chainsaw as they headed out the door. "Where are we going next?" she asked.

"Eden's."

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse

Chapter 160:  Child’s Play

The woods on the edge of King George's land were vast. Hiding himself within them was not exactly an ideal way to locate the child, but he hadn't wanted to simply appear before the boy and startle him. It wasn't ideal, but he had a plan. From within his pocket, he pulled out the scrap of cloth that he'd cut from the boy's blanket as well as a tracking potion. He poured it over the blanket and watched as it glowed dimly. He was close, but not very.

He spent the morning hiking through dense brush, watching the cloth in his hand fade and then glow again as he got off track and then back on again nearly half a dozen times. It was well past afternoon, right around the time that he would have sat down with Belle for tea time when he saw the forest ahead of him begin to clear and heard voices. The blanket glowed strong in the palm of his hand. He was very close. So close that when he pulled back the limb of a tree in front of him, he saw what he'd hiked miles for.

A campsite. Not a portable or temporary one shared by dozens of people and hastily thrown together for a single night. No, this was a legitimate, livable campsite; nothing fancy, a campfire, a few tents for parents and child, pots, pans, tools, wooden crates that held all the family owned now. It reminded him of the site he and his father had when he was a boy and the roof had caved in. He wouldn't have wanted to live in it forever, but it was acceptable for a length of time.

The boy's family had purchased land. How much of this field actually belonged to them now he couldn't tell, and it wasn't his problem. But for the next few months, potentially a year, the family was bound to use resources from this forest to build a permanent home and start their lives. That meant months sleeping outside in tents, in the elements. Was he to trust a child to take care a book that long? Not in a million years.

He located the family. They stood a fair distance from him. Mother and father were holding a conversation with a familiar man who stood by a familiar cart. Clopin. They must have been the last he delivered. Thus why they were taking their time…

The boy was the indicator, he stood by his parents, shuffling and wiggling about as small children often did. The book was in his hands. He watched as the boy tried to get his parent's attention, tugged at their sleeves, whined at his mother, started to run circles around them as they talked on and on until finally his father put a stop to it.

"Jake, mummy and I are talking, go play in the woods," he suggested with strained patience. The boy whined but listened to his father. And he prepared to set his trap.

Deal making was all about making himself into what the individual wanted. He'd made deals with people of every age, gender, and race in his time, though he would openly admit that those deals he'd made with children were few; deals concerning children he had in abundance, but with children…his experience was limited to a handful. Still, he had enough experience with children that he felt confident about what he was about to do. He'd given himself until tomorrow morning to fetch his book, but as he saw little Jacob enter the wood, book clutched to his chest as he looked behind him at his parents, he was suddenly excited that he might be home by dinner. Perhaps this time around Belle would eat with him.

He sat down on a log a short distance away from the boy, one that he would see any moment now. He made sure that he sat at the lowest part of the log, putting himself as eye level to the child as he could be, and he made sure to relax his legs and his back. He slouched a little, giving the impression that he was tired. He let his elbows rest on his knees and let his hands hang together, giving the impression that he was approachable. He did consider, briefly changing his appearance, using a glamour to hide the curse of the Dark One. But the boy had already seen him once before. There was little point in pretending to be someone he wasn't.

The boy gasped and froze the moment he rounded the corner and saw him sitting there. This was the most delicate of all his meetings. The boy was obviously scared and surprised, but he couldn't let him become fearful and run back to his parents. This was the third time they'd encountered one another. Any other attempts to get the book wouldn't be as clean as this.

"At last, I see a friendly face. One that I recognize," he stated in a low hushed tone so that he wouldn't scare him. He hadn't hidden his face, but he wanted to seem as normal and sympathetic as he possibly could. He wanted to appear as a father figure, someone welcoming and trustworthy.

The boy swallowed, he hadn't wanted to scare him, but he was shaking. Still, he didn't run away. Brave boy. "You…you know me?" he asked in a small voice. "I'm not supposed to talk to people I don't know."

"But you do know me. Don'tcha, lad?"

The boy's eyes filled with tears, and his chin trembled. The grip he had on his book was suddenly so tight his fingers turned white. Fear was bad. he didn't want fear he wanted trust.

"Oh, there's no reason for that. No reason at all. I'm here because you have something I want, child."

"The…the way to help you," he said in a small voice.

"That's right," he smiled. "That's exactly right. You're a smart boy, to figure it out all by yourself. And brave too. Most little boys would have run away by now, but not you. No, you're different, aren't you?"

He watched as the boy swallowed, never taking his eyes off of him, but he did notice he seemed to stand a little taller. "My book…it says you're a bad man."

"But that's not all it says, is it lad?"

The boy loosened his grip on the book a bit. He looked down at the cover, and when he looked back up at him, he shook his head.

"What a smart boy you are. Tell me, child, what else does your book say?"

"It says…it says you can be good again."

"Does it?" he questioned. He'd meant to sound curious, but in the end, it wasn't hard to try. He was curious. Very, very curious about all the secrets that lay in that book of his; especially when the boy nodded in response. He smiled again. "Well that makes me very happy, young man, very happy indeed. You see, your book is right. I am a bad person, but…I've wanted to be good again for so long."

"You can be!" the boy exclaimed, his eyes widening with a new interest that reminded him of Belle. He took a step closer with the book in hand. "It says right here that you can!"

"But not if I don't know how…"

He was a smart child indeed, for the moment he'd said those words he swallowed whatever words he'd meant to say to him and looked down at his book. He knew what he wanted. He just had to get him to hand it over. And he was quiet certain he knew the way. One that didn't involve thievery or bloodshed, one that might let the boy keep a sense of pride as he grew. Not to mention one that would leave him feeling like a hero for years to come.

"Yes. You have all the secrets, secrets I need to be good again. And I have something that your family needs. Take a look…"

He stood up slowly, making an effort to keep his back hunched and his gate considerate so that the boy could follow him to the edge of the tree line. He did follow. And when he did he pulled aside a branch and the pair of them looked out over the green fields that his family had just purchased and would call their home for the next few years until the curse struck. He might not have a lot of time here, but he could make sure that whatever time he did have was good.

"You see, in this land value is not in knowledge, but in gold. Here, take another look."

He knelt down on one knee, coming down to his level once more just as he used to do with Baelfire and pulled a small leather satchel from his pocket. He opened the drawstring and let the golden coins fall out into his hand. He wiggled his fingers beneath them so that they would catch the little light they had and shimmer. The boy was mesmerized.

"Do you know what this could do for your family, lad? There's enough here to buy a house, some toys, a few sheep-"

"Or a pie?!" he asked, suddenly very excited. Children…

"Even a pie, yes!"

The boy sighed and looked down at the coins longingly. "I've always wanted to taste plum pie."

"It can be yours…but I need that book."

The boy stared down at his book, then looked back at the gold he held out for him. He made a motion that had his heart racing, for a second he was sure he was going to hand the book over! But then the boy pulled away, and took a step back with a small gasp. If it wasn't for the fact that the only heartbeat he could hear in the wood was the boy's he'd have thought his parents stumbled upon them.

"Is this a…deal?" he asked, looking down at his book. "The book says you make deals and it's bad."

"Oh, no!" he assured him. "No, deals aren't bad. You know what a deal is, don't you?" The boy shook his head. "A deal is an agreement. When two people both have something the other wants, deals can always be made. Now you…you've always wanted to taste a plum pie. And I…I want to be good again so badly. I want the secret your book has. So we'll make a deal. I'll give you the coins for your pie, and you'll give me the book so that I can be good again. If we agree to those terms, then we shake hands like men. You'll give me the book, and I'll give you the coins. So…" he reached out his empty hand into the space between them. "Do you agree? Do we have a deal?"

He would have been happy if he'd agreed a little faster, if he hadn't stood there and stared for as long as he did. But all that mattered in the end was that he stepped forward, timidly put his small hand in his own, and shook it.

"My oh my what a good boy are you," he muttered excitedly. "Good lad." When he let go he hustled the coins in his hand back into the small bag that he'd brought and tossed it at the forest floor, the empty space between them, almost directly below the spot that they'd just shaken hands. "That's for you. Now, you set your book down…that's very good," he smiled as the boy set it beside the bag of coins and then reached out to take the satchel. "Good. Perfectly handled," he whispered. The moment the boy stepped back he scooped the book up into his own hands. "Good boy, very good. Now we go our separate ways with our prizes. I can't thank you enough for being willing to trade with me. And I hope you get your pie, Jack."

"I hope…I hope it helps you."

"It will. Thank you, dear boy."

"You're welcome," he smiled just as he heard a female voice begin to call out.

"Run along and see to your parents now, eh?"

The boy nodded, a second later he turned and dashed away. The second his back was turned he went to the spot the boy had been and retrieved his book.

[corishadowfang]

Writeblr Hunger Games - Day Two

Events from Day Two!  (If you want to know how Aiden survived, the post is here.)

Silas and Guin belong to @rhikasa

Snow belongs to @spacebrick3

Yosh (mentioned in narration) belongs to @captain-sili

Begonia (mentioned by Gertrude and Snow) belongs to @ratracechronicler

Yana Blanche (mentioned in narration) belongs to @nightskywriter

           The fog had dissipated as the night dragged on, and eventually the sun shone on an incredibly dry, hot day in the arena.  Gertrude had stood up, dusted off her pants, and started moving in the early morning hours, before it got too hot.

           She wasn’t exactly a stranger to odd hours, and the long night had given her some more time to think. Food and water are the most important resources.  I need to stake out a source of water and, if possible, lay claim to it.  If I can set up defenses around it, then I can either pick off tributes who are desperate enough to try and get to the water, or keep them away until they—well.  A small part of her had to admit that she felt a little guilty about the slow death some of the other tributes might face if her plan succeeded.  It’s just survival at this point, she argued with her conscience.  She squinted at the sun.  And if I don’t do it, someone else probably will.  When that sun’s overhead, it’s going to get very warm, very fast.

           Footsteps whispered through the grass.

           Gertrude’s magic flickered briefly under her skin, but she turned around casually, hands shoved in her pockets in an almost bored manner.

           Without the fog, sneaking up on people in the field would be difficult to impossible—not that her pursuer seemed interested in attempting.  Silas stopped a few feet from of her, watching her with a speculative look.

           Gertrude masked her surprise behind a plastic grin.  “Well, can’t say I expected to see you again so soon, dear, but I thought we agreed our alliance was temporary.”  They hadn’t really spoken about it the day before; they’d simply banded together, seeming to come to the unspoken agreement that they’d have better luck surviving the day in a group, until Gertrude had split just before nightfall.  “Tell me, is Frankenstein here, too?”

           Silas shook his head, then offered a hand.  “I want to work together again.”

           Gertrude just lifted an eyebrow slowly.  “Do you, now.”

           “There are still enough tributes left that forming alliances will be beneficial for us.  I want to stay alive as long as possible—and I think that you do, too.”

           Gertrude’s grin stretched into something a little sharper.  “Mm. And what, exactly, made you think working with little old me would be beneficial?  I’m sure there are plenty of other tributes who would be happy to do so.”

           “We worked well together yesterday.”  The ghost of a smile flickered across his face.  “And it’s not like you’re the only one I plan on asking.”

           Gertrude considered the offer.  On the one hand, it’d be easier to defend a water source with a large group of people. On the other, it could make things that much harder late in the game.

           Silas’s hand was still outstretched, waiting.

           Gertrude made some mental calculations and began changing up her plans.  If I say no, there’s a chance we’ll end up fighting, and I’d prefer to reserve my energy for later.  That said, alliances don’t always last long in the arena.  If nothing else, I can study Silas and the group for weaknesses, scout for potential water sources, and slip off to set up camp during the night.  She gripped Silas’s hand and gave it a quick shake.  “Deal, kiddo.  Though I suppose I should specify—”

           “I know.”  The grin turned into something more genuine.  “It’s only temporary.”

                                                            ~*~

             Surprisingly, Gertrude wasn’t the first to break from their group.  They’d obtained three others in the form of Yosh (and wasn’t that awkward, given their spat at the Cornucopia?), Begonia, and Yana Blanche, and spent most of the day traversing the arena, gathering supplies and seeing what tributes they could find.  They hadn’t been able to explore the entire arena, but they had seen enough of it to tell that the terrain was incredibly varied; tall pine forests bordered the grassland, and if Gertrude squinted, she thought she could see a desert somewhere in the distance.  But still not much in the way of fresh water, she thought ruefully, her throat dry.

           Yosh and Begonia had been the first to break off, sometime around midday, in an attempt to find a water source.  Silas had found another group of individuals and, instead of waiting for their group to split further, had asked to join up with them.  Gertrude had decided to make her own break after that, leaving Yana Blanche behind without so much as a goodbye.  Have to be careful, she reminded her conscience.  You can’t truly trust anyone in these games.

           Blessedly, she’d finally found a small freshwater creek.  Despite her thirst, she’d stopped to run magic through it, checking warily for any poison.  She almost scoffed at herself.  No one would risk poisoning themselves.  Probably.  Still, can’t be too careful.  Satisfied, she’d finally taken a drink, and then set up camp.  Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll start figuring out traps.

           She was not, however, expecting someone to stumble into her camp come nightfall.

           Footsteps splashed in the water, and someone cursed quietly.

           Gertrude lifted slowly, hands moving to a defensive position.

           She thought she’d done so near silently, but the other figure froze.  The person lifted their hands.  “I don’t mean any harm,” she whispered.  “Please.  I’m a doctor. I’m not supposed to kill anyone.”

           “Strange place to be then, love.”

           “I know,” she admitted, and something sad entered her voice.

           Gertrude wasn’t sure what prompted it; perhaps it was the reminder of her own past, or perhaps she felt bad for the young woman, or perhaps she was simply reminded of her younger sister, far away and disconnected from her now but never forgotten. She blurted, “My parents wanted me to be a doctor.”

           The girl’s head shot up.

           Gertrude grinned, and she guessed there was an edge of something bitter about it.  “Didn’t really pan out on my end.”  And with that, the fight drained out of her.  She sighed, sitting and patting the ground.  “Come on, dear.  I won’t bite, for now.”

           The girl watched warily, as if she didn’t quite trust Gertrude to keep her word.  Then, slowly, she slogged out of the water and settled a short distance away, halfway turned to face Gertrude.  “I’m Snow,” she offered.

           “Gertrude, love,” she responded.

           The two lapsed into silence for a few moments.  “So,” Gertrude said finally, “what is a doctor like you doing in the arena?  Can’t imagine that works well with your oath.”

           “Trying to keep people alive,” Snow said, something hard in her voice.

           “Easy.  Wasn’t trying to push any buttons.”  A pause.  “Still, can’t imagine that’s easy, considering the nature of the games.”

           Snow seemed to sag. “It’s not,” she agreed quietly. With a sigh, she tilted her head back. “Sixteen are already gone.”

           “Stopped to try and save any of them?”

           Snow didn’t answer.

           Gertrude stretched. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.  Fewer tributes means a better chance for you to win, yeah?”  When Snow still didn’t answer, Gertrude released a slow breath. “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much.  I’ve worked with a few of the survivors.  They seem like they’ve got good heads on their shoulders.  One approached me for a temporary alliance two days in a row, if you can believe it.  Kid seems to be jumping around from group to group.  Seems like he’s figuring he can just work with others until there are too few left to do so.”

           “Couldn’t that backfire, though?”

           “So could trying to save people in the arena.”  Gertrude’s eyes flicked to the girl.  “Worked with any tributes yourself, love?���

           “Not much,” she admitted quietly.  “I spent last night with another tribute—Begonia, his name was.  He—he seemed nice enough.”

           Gertrude laughed.  “Well, wouldn’t you know!  Worked with him today, too.”

           A ghost of a smile flickered across Snow’s face.  “I wonder—” She broke off, then shook her head when Gertrude glanced at her.  “No. It’s nothing.”

           Gertrude eyed her a few moments, then released a frustrated sigh.  “Get some rest, love,” she said, asking herself silently, Why am I doing this?  “I’m sure we’ll need all our energy come morning.”

                                                               ~*~

             The world returned in scattered bits of color and vague, indistinct sounds.  Is this…is this supposed to be Heaven? Aiden wondered. I thought it’d look different than the real world.  He tried to sit up, and pain flared back along his side.  He gasped, curling in on himself again.  Okay, not Heaven.  Then: How…how am I alive?  Gingerly he fingered his wound.

           His fingers caught around the ragged hole in his shirt and brushed against dried blood, but his skin was untouched.

           He jerked upwards again, ignoring the phantom pain.  He ran his hand over the space, eyes wide.  I was shot.  I know I was.  How the hell did—did my magic work?  It sparked, unruly, underneath his skin.

           Someone shifted behind him, and he jerked towards them, hands already lifted defensively.

           She lifted her hands. “Relax,” she said.  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

           A part of him wasn’t sure he believed her.  But she could’ve killed you while you were sleeping, he argued with himself.  And—geez, I should be dead now.  How am I alive?

           The idea hit him all at once, and he blurted, “Are you the one who healed me?”

           A smile flickered across her face.  “Yes. My name is Guin.  Leanda brought you to me.”

           “Lea—is she the one who—” He broke off, his side twinging and the taste of blood filling his mouth.  He shoved the memory roughly aside.  Don’t think about it.

           Guin seemed to understand the question, though, because a faint frown stretched her lips.  “I’m not sure,” she admitted.  “She and I are part of an alliance, along with a few others.”

           “Alliance?”

           The smile returned. “To get everyone out of the arena.”

[incognito-lionbeast]

The Right Kind of Idiot, Ch. 1-5

[part one]: tl;dr Lio & Galo have a heart to heart, Galo does most of the talking [part two]: tl;dr Aina appears & tries to enforce [Galo’s] bedtime [part three]: t;dr Aina tries convincing a suspicious Lio to let her join him in his trek to meet up with Gueira & Meis [part four, read more]: tl;dr Aina & Lio meet up with his lieutenants, it’s a little awkward

Right, thanks for the vote of confidence, guys. Really helps. Well, one of them was being more genuinely helpful than the rest, passing off the colourful box of sweets to the round, coveting eyes of a few children. Survivors, elated by the gift of something they probably hadn’t had in far too long. She crouched, rifling through her own collection of things and sorting them into lots. A rescuer’s work was never really done, was it?

Her smile was one of reserved confidence, although privately entertained by how the other two slowly had their personal space fully invaded by some of the smaller children. Burnish, Aina assumed. Why else would they be so comfortable? It was cute; she was thankful. She wouldn’t stop being thankful for their patience--for Gueira and Meis, for Lio. So, sitting on her heels, she greeted in soft tones, “My name’s Aina. I’m from the third Burning Rescue unit, and I’ll be spending the night with you, if that’s okay?”

Several sets of eyes were on her, including those of her helpers. Really, Aina had never felt more out of place in her life, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear--for once wishing, maybe, she’d brought Galo with her. He was an idiot, but he had the sort of charisma that no one was immune to for long. Yet, it couldn’t be helped. Galo was sleeping--hopefully--and she was here now. Alone. She could do this. “I brought food and supplies enough for everyone, so try not to fill up on candy too much. I’ll never hear the end of it if the others find out I gave you all tummy aches.”

Quiet. This was going well. Scanning over the faces of their little flock, at least no one looked injured. Without examining them, she couldn’t be totally certain, but Aina’s trust was with the two Lieutenants; they would have told her. For now, she offered water, food, and the warmth of a few blankets--distributed with the hesitant acceptance of a homeowner feeding stray cats until, eventually, Aina was satisfied that they’d been cared for. They were cared about. How many of them had homes, parents to return to?

Aina, forced out of her thoughts by a crudely folded slip of paper jabbing her in the side, yipped in surprise. Gueira. Temporarily untangled from his kin, he’d produced it from a jacket pocket moments prior. After all, what better way to do as he’d been told than make a small spectacle of it? Maybe lighten the mood a little, because God knew they could all use it. He flashed his teeth, “We got as many names as we could. You said that’d help, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Thank you,” she stammered, unfolding the--it was the guest sign in sheet from reception, nice--paperwork to quickly skim over its contents. Huh. It was more than just names. Ages, a few hastily written descriptions, possible family, and a handful of other small details--not for all of them, but the effort wouldn’t go unappreciated. Even if they had to interview everyone again individually come morning, it helped to have something to reference later. Who knows, they could’ve been more open around someone less Official.

“I'm really grateful for your help,” Aina added, tucking their notes away someplace safe. Then, offering the best totally-not-exhausted smile she could muster, “--all of you. I know I said it earlier, but I don’t want you to start thinking that I don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Gueira waved off. He didn’t what else to do with the praise or if he trusted it completely, but a truce was a truce. And, looking back over to his spot--now overrun in his absence, shit--he plopped himself down right where he was. Could be worse. Could be better, but Aina was one of the more tolerable firefighters by his estimate. “We don’t need convincing.”

So he said, worried that she’d keep piling it on otherwise. They weren’t doing anything they wouldn’t have done otherwise--their application and a few of the faces were just a little different. No one was getting left stranded on their watch. No one was getting captured, either. That was what had taken the most effort to convince him, Meis, and, hell, probably even Lio of--the Burnish leader sitting not more than ten feet away, knuckles buried in his cheek and wrapped in one of the donated blankets.

It was all quite the scene.

“Alright, alright.. any more and I’ll probably start sounding like Galo, anyway.” Aina stretched, tugging her hair out of its ponytail to run her fingers through.The following pause, interspersed with the sound children who would soon wind down to sleep, made her thoughtful. Once tomorrow came, the survivors would be evacuated somewhere safe, and their day would begin again something like how it had been the past several hours. Yet, what about after that? So focused on her work, Aina hadn’t really stopped to consider what happened to ones leftover.

The ones who didn’t need saving. Her eyes met Lio’s, “What will you do when this is over? I’m sure Galo wants you to stay, but... I know things are more complicated than the desires of one man.”

She only enforced his presence for as long as the recovery effort needed them, and even that was more of a heartfelt suggestion than a demand. Lio’s knuckles left an imprint where he’d been leaning; he’d been thinking about it, too, and while he couldn’t admit it around all of these people... Lio needed to be strong in the face of uncertainty. Some of them would want to return to normal lives, and he wouldn’t begrudge them that. Rather, for them and for all of the Burnish, he knew Galo was right. They had to keep fighting. It was the how and where he wasn’t sure of yet. Or if the Powers That Be would allow them peace. Especially him.

Saving the world didn’t always matter when it came to politics.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Meis answered. He’d take the bullet if he had to, idly flipping his hair over one shoulder. “--firefighter. No offense, but it’s better for us if you don’t.”

Wind taken out of her sails, Aina sighed, although the faux melancholy didn’t last long. It was her turn to leave knuckle-marks on her cheek, leaning forward cross-legged and eyebrows raised with playful incredulity. Meis was the recipient of a single, lopsided shrug. “You’re probably right.. I wasn’t planning to tell anyone, but I definitely can’t tell what I don’t know.”

“--fire starter.” All three of them, but Meis and Gueira especially-so. Yet, somehow, Aina found herself slowly becoming endeared to them. Suppose working together--and working well together--did that to you, if Lio and Galo were any example. Meis didn’t even argue, because, well, she wasn’t wrong. Hell yeah, they were fire starters. They had to be on the same page about something, right?

Lio was thankful. If this was the worst they behaved together, then perhaps he could rest. Yet, there was follow-up that begged asking, “What about you? What will the Burning Rescue become without the Promare?”

“Er,” Aina straightened some. “I guess we’ll go back to being regular firemen. It’ll take some adapting... in our unit, Ignis is the only one old enough to remember the world without Burnish fires. Though, I feel like Galo’s the most prepared for this.”

She shook her head, chuckling quietly to herself. Sorry if you didn’t want a story, guys, but she had one. And she was tired uninhibited enough to launch into it with little provocation other than simple sentimentality. “You should have seen him on his first day. No mecha, no real world experience. Just a homemade Matoi and the stubbornness to not take no for an answer. He shouldn’t have even come with, but Galo somehow convinced the chief to let him spectate from the sidelines.”

“He’s an idiot.” Both of Lio’s lieutenants nodded. Made sense. They were fine with story time if that was the premise. Although, the reality of Aina’s story hadn’t dawned on her yet. “There was a woman trapped in the building. I don’t know how we missed her, but we’re a small team. We've got our hands full with the other survivors, so what does Galo do?”

A pause for effect. Rhetorical question. “He launches himself into the building with no protection other a thick coat of extinguishing gel. We all thought he was crazy! He IS crazy, and I don’t know how he did it--but he saved her. At least...”

This time the pause wasn’t for effect, blinking, glancing between Gueira and Meis as if she’d just had the revelation of the century. Aina covered her mouth, briefly, unable to decide what she wanted to say. Yet, she sure needed to say it, waving one hand for all the room to see. “--that was you two, wasn’t it? You took her.”

“How didn’t I realise this until now?” Her words blended together in quick succession, incredulous and mostly at her own embarrassing lack of awareness. Her face was red. They shrugged. Now that she mentioned it, the situation sounded familiar. She was familiar, but they hadn’t stuck around that long. Remembering who or which firefighters they’d been messing with that day was never a priority.

“You caught us,” Gueira guffawed to the dismay of the few sleeping around him. “Guess we’ve known each other a while. Does that change your opinion of us, missy?”

This was the first time Lio heard about it. It was before his time, he mused, quietly connecting the loose threads for himself. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been so surprising, given all that had happened, that they were so interconnected. If it really was that day. If it was the same Her Aina was talking about. Thyma. The one neither of them saved in the end. He would ask Galo, but later. He wasn’t here, and he didn’t want to interrupt what was happening already.

“Er, well--no. Not really.” Aina tried smiling, but it was crooked and sheepish. Some way to be put on the spot, huh. “I’ll probably never approve of everything you’ve done, but that’s... okay. I don’t think you’re bad people.”

[spiritsdw]

{Letters} - Sent at Stroneth Port

The Right Honorable The Earl of Carneath, Clarence Temple

Dear Lord Temple, 

I have never been a man prone to drinking, but right now I think I could definitely lock my cabin door and spend the rest of the day nursing a few stiff drinks. 

We are still in Nibiru. I aim to post this before we leave tomorrow morning. 

I fear today is going to be a long one, and it is only half done. I pray to the winds to give me strength, even as I write this. I am so tired, and I wish

Did you know, every time I set sail from the Yielden Docks, I tell myself this will be the last time. Don’t laugh. It is hard to leave for so long. It is hard to leave you behind. There’s nothing for me at home -- except, perhaps, to be a glorified clerk to Illiam. Gone are the days where I could serve as Sebastian’s aide without trouble. 

Now he has court-appointed ones to do it for him. 

Each time we set sail, I wonder if I shouldn’t retire. But I am too young, and I will get too bored. Even if I find some quiet cabin where I can be alone to work on my inventions. I wouldn’t dare to ask you to cut yourself off from everyone else, just because I am stodgy like that. So the thought passes quickly from my mind, because there are too few rewards for so high a cost as to give this all up. 

But even so, I wonder each time. 

I did not write to you to complain. I am here to follow up in regards to the troubling letter I sent last. 

I tried to distract myself with the repairs to the ship instead of thinking about the drow twins, or the possibilities of what would happen to those I (unknowingly) let go with them. It only worked in as much as I did not have the energy to dwell on them. 

They have started to return -- Natalya and Ulutka have made their way back to the ship first, while they mentioned that the others were going to return a map (not the one of the fort, though at this point, I have little need for it). 

There was some half-hearted explanation, as the pair of them both seemed very distracted in their conversation with me. There were yellow flowers that had some connection to the undead, there had been some violence, and in the end, there had been no real answers. 

Natalya handed me a vial of clear yellow liquid -- bright enough to make citrine look like amber. She said it was from the woman’s desk, the color similar to the flowers that they found across the fort. “It might be worth pursuing,” she added 

Now, I will confess, the scientist part of me is fascinated by this. I have no notes at the time of writing this, but still I thought ‘What if I were to investigate this further?’ To keep a sample of it for myself to experiment with, and send the rest back to Noah and her team. What is the nature of this liquid? What could I do with it -- indeed, what would I be able to do with this woman’s notes, should I ever get them? 

It is a line of thought I am now ashamed to have considered. 

Ulutka mentioned hesitations that reflected my own when it comes to violence. I am glad to know that the crew does not question my actions -- “As representatives of this ship,” he had said, “we should know better than to leave corpses wherever we go.” 

He is a young man with a soft heart. His place aboard this ship is a strange one, but I am constantly thankful for his calm, level-headed approach to situations such as these. 

It is Natalya who worried me though. 

“I did try to diffuse the situation,” she said to me, and I knew immediately what that entailed. 

I did not know how to ask her what she meant by that -- what had she done, to whom had she made the attempt on. All I could think of was Pasha’s rage, boiling beneath a schooled expression. 

All I could think of was Tazyrr and Trielae, and what they are capable of when pushed. 

You understand now why I worry, don’t you? 

Conflict not just among outside forces -- perhaps my non-action stance has made them too passive when it comes to situations. Perhaps it is because I am trying to reconcile my memories of the war, of what it meant to serve on the front line, with what I am being asked to do now. I present them a disjointed front, telling them one thing and then asking of them another, that this conflict comes in from between their ranks.

Of course, the twins did not help the matter. They are a completely unstable element in the structure of my crew. They do not know how to handle these sorts of situations, and I thought they would do well enough together without my guidance, or that of Arculf or Grissa. 

Again, again, again -- Natalya. What must be going through her mind? What sort of process did she follow to ask this of me? 

She acknowledges that the woman they confronted had control of the undead, though I could tell from this conversation alone it was not through necromancy, but through science. Arcane magic is a thing of the past, and those who wish to follow old traditions must find new means. However Natalya asked to be involved in further research of this substance. “It seems like the sort of science that could improve the function of Albion’s military, prevent the loss of soldiers.” 

I cannot… Clarence, even now, my hand shakes with the anger and the frustration at that naive question. And I realized how foolish I was to think that I could keep a sample of this substance on my boat to investigate in my own way. I cannot tell you the anger I felt at her line of inquiry, the revulsion I felt towards myself for my own failings at keeping an eye on her. 

Why would she even suggest this? A girl so young, who lost her father to the war of politicking -- why would she even want to think of the eventuality of another war so close to the end of the first? 

I remember our fallen comrades, I remember standing there and seeing His Majesty Rupert struck down. Would I have wanted a way to save them? More than anything -- to save Sebastian the grief of trying to save his uncle, blood on his hands. More than anything -- to have them here with us again, that we could look back on this and remember those situations with a detached fondness. 

What this woman could do, I have no doubt, is not bring a person back to life. It is the science of Necromancy. It is the science of thralldom, it is nothing more than a puppet on a string and she would dare to ask if we could use it. 

That would make us no better than those who would force their subjects into service of a master who did not care for them -- of blind devotion to a higher power. 

What I do know of Nibiran culture, those who serve the sister goddesses do so willingly. They are not raised from the dead because she requires a warrior. They are a part of a ritual, and they do so because their goddess speaks to them in a way that I cannot understand. 

I retreated at that moment -- I would not say I ran from the conversation, as I had the presence of mind to dismiss them first, but it did feel a little as if I was running. I don’t know how to approach this. 

Again, she seems unconcerned with her ability to ‘diffuse’ situations (by creating new ones, it seems), and in this situation, Ulutka did not seem overly concerned about this. Indeed, his focus was on the overall tension of their group, of which there are undoubtedly many factors. 

I plan on penning a letter to Her Majesty and posting once it is safe to do so. It is not that I think those in Nibiru will read my mail, it is that I do not think they understand the haste with which this needs to be delivered. 

I have found a spare lockbox in a quick search of my cabin, and I plan on locking the vial away in it with the letter to Noah. 

For a moment, I considered pitching it overboard. Let the ocean take the damned thing. But I couldn’t risk some other hapless individual finding it once it washed up. I shall have to hide it, I think, because a part of me fears that if anyone who is interested in this knows of where I have stored it, they will come looking for it. 

I want to trust the crew, I do. I have no reason not to. But I have not survived through five years of war, despite throwing my caution to the wind and hiding from family, to simply ignore my instincts. 

Perhaps Grissa will be fit for the job. He has a favor with Ydir, and anything that has to do with undead (even in a scientific vein), I would prefer in the hands of a cleric. That he is a half-orc and larger than anyone on the crew certainly helps. I do plan on sending it as soon as we dock in Aelem. Yes, I think he will be best. 

I have yet to talk to the others. I have a long day ahead of me, I fear. 

~*~

Spirits of the air, I wish I had you here beside me. I need someone to talk some sense into me, before I start to think that something is beyond my control. I need your steady hand and your calm, level head. I do not know how I do this. It is going to be a very long rotation. 

I spoke to the twins. I passed the box to Grissa. I do not know... No, that is a lie. I know my next course of action. I must speak to Pasha. 

But first, the twins. Tazyrr and Trielae. 

They returned to the ship, practically arm in arm with Adi and Pasha. I do not know how I feel to know that these are the four that have bonded, but I know that they are both very dependent pairs of people. I suppose it is only natural for them to know how the other feels in this sort of situation. 

Surprisingly, the twins came when I told them I needed to speak to them. I showed them the letter--

Ah, shit, I never mentioned the letter, did I? 

See, this is how my train of thought has been lately. 

You remember the child I mentioned in my previous letter who was looking for her elder siblings? How Pasha, in his lingering anger, scared the child, how I found the twins on my ship clearly hiding, holding a stolen map of a fort? 

Not but three days after this (or two days ago, at the time of the writing of this letter), Arculf found some miscreant tacking a letter to the side of my ship using an ornate dagger. They were scared off, but the letter and dagger were left behind. 

In a scrawling hand, jagged letters forming a script that I can barely speak much less alone read, I could only stare at the letter which must have been a threat. I took it to the dock master, who translated it for me with something between a laugh and a prayer for my well being. 

Surprisingly enough, not a threat to myself, or to my crew. Well, not strictly speaking my crew. 

It was a request from a crew of local bandits, indicating that they were not too pleased with the actions of a pair of drow twins, who they know stole a map. It continues by demanding that I hand them over to their leader -- who graciously returned the female twin's dagger as a sign of good faith. (To me? To Trielae? I am uncertain.)  

I have no reason to decide either way, truth be told. Like I mentioned, I do not feel for them one way or another, but I did promise them that they would be a part of my crew so long as they acted in service of my request -- which, at the time of sending them to Fort Ptallo, involved ensuring none of the signed crew came to any harm. 

Now. 

I revealed the letter and the dagger to them, asked for a good reason why I should not hand them over, and Tazyrr had the gall to say that I would be acting predictably as 'the right hand man of the empire'. Perhaps he grossly overestimates my role in all of this. Perhaps he thinks I have Sebastian in my pocket, as opposed to my posting aboard the Titan being a favor repaid from Sebastian. Who knows. 

I also do not think I presented myself in the best possible light at that moment. I did not have the energy to get truly angry, because I knew the task that lay ahead of me. I confessed that I was surprised they even returned to the ship at all, and that I valued the fact that my crew was able to return on their own two feet (well, Pasha relied heavily on the support of Trielae's shoulder, but I suspect that was because he was drunk, not injured). 

So I tried again: "What happened in Agartha, and tell me why I should let you remain on my ship knowing your history?" 

My words sound vicious in retrospect, a tired man who desperately wants a reason to be rid of a potential liability. In truth, I wanted a valid reason to know that I could trust them. I have history with them, I know better than to give them free run of the ship, of my crew. 

But I wanted to put that behind us. I so desperately want to put the war behind me, but it seems at every turn I am reminded of my actions during that time -- of the consequences of those actions. 

The twins dance around the subject like professionals in a theater. It is tiring talking to them, without feeling like you are talking yourself in circles. And they desire the upper hand in every situation, knowing exactly how to game it so they know (or at least they think) they are getting the better end of the conversation -- that they are the smartest ones in the room. 

I asked again why they were on my ship, now that they knew I remembered who they were -- now that I knew they remembered who I was. Out of any ship, why mine? (The irony is that they truly picked mine at random.) 

Tazyrr says words that I feared: Asks if the type of people the empire hires now are those who would negotiate with people who treat other people like forms of currency. If he would not obey my command (as Captain? As the 'right hand of the empire'?) would I have that, and I quote "high-society girl force us near helplessly into submission again?" 

Again. 

Again.

"I tried to diffuse the situation," she had said, and I had reason to fear. 

"Would you have that girl force us into submission again?" he said, and I knew my fears were valid. 

It was a tremendous effort to keep my expression under control (and honestly, I do not think I did a very good job), but I could not hide the exhaustion. 

"If you decide to throw us to the wolves, will she eviscerate our autonomy and leave us like raw meat to hungry mouths a second time?" 

The twins made themselves clear on what would happen should it happen again -- I know the voracity of their threats holds real and dangerous weight. They would not hesitate. And, as Tazyrr put it, they would act with finality. 

So no, Trielae, this is not something I allow among my crew. The fact that it has happened three times, twice on allies, is unforgivable. I would have let it slide if it was merely towards the gnome pirate captain, or towards this woman they are calling a necromancer (she is a scientist first, I’m sure, and a magician second, if at all). I might have shown leniency if she showed remorse. 

But she has not, and so I cannot. 

I will arrange to speak to her. Possibly once we reach Aelem, so that I can ensure the others are off the ship. I do not wish to have to take drastic measures, but… 

She has deliberately placed charms and manipulations upon my crew, and by extent, the citizens of Albion and Antilla. I will give her a warning, as a sign of respect to her late father. But I do not want to have to have my worries compounded -- the mental and physical safety of my crew, both at Natalya’s whims and those of the twins, hinges on her ceasing this behavior. 

I have offered the twins a place on the ship, their payment to Aelem being their recounting of what happened the last five days. I might regret this -- no, I am certain I do regret this. They wanted to be dead. They will not be able to hide while on the Titan, so I am surprised that they remain on board. 

Tazyrr attempted to taunt me several times, but I have seen the way that a frightened hunter approaches those he thinks of as prey. “They’ve seen enough imperialism and don’t wish you well,” he said about my presence here in Nibiru, as if I have not made this rotation for nearly ten years. As if I do not know the history of Nibiru, or the weight that our flag carries. 

They have a limit to their patience, yes, and I know the extent of it. Soon, even the kingdom’s gold will lose its worth in their minds if I continue to berth here much longer, but again, I plan on being off in the morning. Do not take me for a fool, Tazyrr. I have seen much -- not nearly as much as you, I am sure, not nearly as much. But I have learned. And I understand. 

The twins did not seem to hear my words when I offered them an ultimatum, stay and work for me, or get off here or in Aelem. They went on with an explanation in that confounding, rapid way of theirs. Confirmed what I had suspected. They at least seem fond of Pasha, and for that I am glad. Well, only of the fact that Pasha can open up to more people, though I regret that it would have to be either of them. Of those he has been consorting with, however, the choice is the twins (who do not hide how they feel about you) or Natalya (who has now manipulated him, or attempted so, twice). 

They have made their dislike and distrust of both Natalya and, surprisingly, Ulutka quite clear. They did not like the way Ulutka tried to reason with the group of bandits -- though I suppose if they had just let him do as was his wont, I would not have found a dagger pinning a threat to my ship. 

I cannot cave to them, and let them do as they are wont to do, because that often entails violence for the sake of it being the quickest route to an answer. 

When finally they finished their explanation (the important facts about the woman at the fort and the flowers lining up with what Natalya and Ulutka told me), I asked if they found what they wanted to look for. 

In answer, Tazyrr handed me a worn leather journal. “Not really. It’s all nonsensical to me, a lot of big words. We don’t want it.” 

Now, admittedly, it has been over twenty years since we first met these two. And I have not interacted with them much since they found their way onto my ship. But I do not see him as the type to grab something that does not seem interesting to him, and make the effort of carrying it back. 

He would have left it for one of the others to grab if they thought that I needed it. 

I have not spent much time reading the journal -- just glancing through it before setting it aside. I will be revising my letter to Noah shortly, probably before I go to talk to Pasha and Adi. 

I do not trust his disinterest in the item. 

What’s more, he… 

Well, I have nothing to prove it. But I have been working on that alarm enchantment. I thought, perhaps, I could modify the alarm. A change in my surroundings that I do not authorize, as opposed to an interloper I do not permit. 

It went off as they were leaving. A small jolt in my mind. 

I have locked the door after them, and scoured for what might have changed in my glyph. I had thought to use it originally to warn me if anyone was coming while I worked (it would have been fairly handy in Agartha, before I joined Sebastian -- would have saved me many close calls). 

I do not know what it is, but it is the size of a small pearl. It is enchanted. How, I do not know. It is not the same sort of energies that I use, so it will take me awhile to undo this. 

He takes me for a fool. 

So I shall continue to play one, until I know what exactly he is up to. 

It is a dangerous game that I will be forced to play, and the board is my ship, and the other pieces are my crew. 

What am I doing, Clarence? Is it the right thing? 

I wonder. 

And I doubt. 

And I worry. 

~*~

I have spoken to Pasha and Adi and… it is mostly as I feared. I tried to apologize on behalf of Natalya, but I’m afraid it felt too shallow for the truth of the matter. 

Even though Pasha is aware, to an extent, of what I am able to do, Adi does not. And Pasha would not completely understand where my concerns and confusion come from, because Buyan is a place of technology. It always has been, and it was never steeped in arcane tradition the way other places have been. 

Where other continents have recovered and managed this past century, Buyan has thrived for it. 

Adi said that the twins showed more loyalty and concern for the crew than their own mechanic, but she doesn’t know. How fleeting that loyalty is, and how it only runs deep for each other. These are things I cannot say. 

I don’t wish to color their opinion, not so soon after Adi and Pasha have found solace. Perhaps, spirits willing, they will be a good influence on the twins in some way. 

But I apologized, for what it was worth, because I knew I had to. I knew I took a responsibility for her actions both as her guardian (of a sorts) and as her captain. It did, at least, mollify Pasha. 

To the point where he presented to me a gem, wrapped in cloth. 

At first, I did not know why he was handing this to me. Except for when he unwrapped it, holding it in the palm of his hand, I could recognize it instantly. That yellow -- it was unmistakably the source of the liquid in the vial that Grissa now keeps. 

I had not thought… That someone would bring the actual catalyst back with them. Were there others? Did, perhaps, the twins get their hands on one of their own, and should I continue to fear? They have no reason to trust me, nor to pass over their finds, as I did not ask them when I let them go (not that I think they would have obeyed that request anyway). This is also why I am hesitant to accept the gift of the doctor’s notes without questioning them. 

Pasha does not know about the notebook that Tazyrr passed off to me. But again I was asked if someone on my crew could use this to reverse engineer its effects. His request, while of a different bend than Natalya’s, still reeked of the same fear. His is a request born out of vengeance, I am certain, and that is just as dangerous. More, perhaps. 

I cannot deny that investigating the liquid or the crystal further was a line of inquiry I wish I could indulge. I myself had the same thought without even knowing what it could truly do, and now that I know… 

There would be no way to test it safely, not without asking someone to be a test subject. That is not something I can allow in such a setting.

How I wanted to take that stone and destroy it in that moment. 

Science be damned, I thought. I would not allow this to exist, had I an iron fist that would resolve to do so. But I am lenient when it comes to Pasha, because I see a bit of myself in him -- that brilliant spark, the knowledge that he could be something great if only given the proper chance. 

I left the crystal on his desk. I told him no. I think, perhaps, both Pasha and Adi are dissatisfied with my answer, but I cannot figure out why. 

That I denied them? Or that I would not allow this pursuit of vengeance? 

Clarence, did I do the right thing? 

What’s more, Adi seemed convinced that the group of bandits who had the map stolen from them, and knifed an ultimatum to the side of my ship, would pursue us if we left. I did not know how to console her beyond stating the obvious: They would not follow us. 

This seemed to annoy her as well, I think. Again, perhaps because I gave a firm ‘no’ when it came to an unasked question of how to finish what they had apparently started. 

Pasha had to kill one of their number, and I regret that he had to have been put in that position. Adi insisted that we would “pay the price sooner rather than later.'' 

That we would create “an unnecessary enemy”.

I think these bandits thought they could scare a small number of my crew into handing over what they wanted. I think the threat they delivered was empty once they saw the flag we flew, but had to follow through for show. 

I have been through these waters many times. I have begun to understand the way of port-side bandits and small-time criminals. We will not be followed. It is something, perhaps, she will learn through experience. 

What I would give, though, to keep them from having to learn such truths. 

What I would give to keep them safe. 

All my love,  Ean

~*~

May it please Your Majesty, 

I am writing of an occurrence that I believe deserves the attention of Your Majesty. 

I have recently come into possession of some disturbing information, and I will do my best to convey it to His and Her Majesty as truthfully as possible. 

As part of The Arcadian Titan’s quest across Assalia, we had reason to make berth in Stroneth Port in Nibiru. Please refer to the letter sent earlier for the details on how this came to be. 

One of the situations that has arisen, as I mentioned previously, is the return of the drow twins Tazyrr and Trielae, whom we have made a brief and tumultuous acquaintance with some twenty-odd years ago in Agartha when they made an attempt on His Majesty’s life. I did not think they recognized me at the time, and they have since claimed ignorance of the banner that the Titan flies, so please take that information with a grain of salt. 

They left with members of my crew to investigate rumours of undead at the abandoned Fort Ptallo, two or so day’s journey to the west. All six have recently returned, and they have brought with them troubling news. 

In the box that this letter was sent in there is a vial of bright yellow liquid, which I have come to learn is distilled from a yellow musk flower. It is not common here in Nibiru, but it seems to have flourished in Fort Ptallo. 

Also included is a journal belonging to the late Myrranda Segus, a scientist investigating the properties of the yellow musk flower and its mind control abilities. 

I have learned all of this second-hand, but I trust those who conveyed the information to me. I thought it best to send both vial and journal to Your Majesty with all due haste, so that you may investigate it with those far more qualified than I, and with far better resources than what I have aboard the Titan. 

Take heed, however: I was given the journal by Tazyrr. He passed it over with an air of indifference, but I think, perhaps, there is something untoward about the journal. I have reason to believe that he would not willingly carry something that he thought useless all the way back to hand to me, when he has vocally admitted to his distrust of both crown and general authority. 

I could not see immediately what was off with the journal, more than what I feel on instinct and my own knowledge of scientific and alchemical formulae. Please, when investigating the contents of the vial and journal, take heed. I would not normally ask this of you, but I do not know who else is more qualified than you and your team. 

With luck (and Ydir’s blessing, courtesy of Grissa), we will reach Carneath on schedule, and any updates may be posted there as planned. I will write immediately to inform the court should anything change. 

I have the honour to remain, Madam, Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant.

Yours in Service, ever and always,  Lord Ean de Gillis Captain of The Arcadian Titan