#i hope ill have some lore for her??? but for now shes just. poison loving hairy sapphic who got scratched by a bear <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

anime-grimmy-art · 4 years ago

Photo

What do you do when there’s not much to an AU? You make up your own stuff, ofc. And as is per usual when I make Character Designs, I make up a shit ton of lore too.

The ramblings under the cut, but what I’m really interested in, is what you guys think. Do you guys have any headcanons/ideas for this AU? Let me hear them! Also, if you don’t wanna read on tumblr, here’s the Google Docs link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/151yshHxnb_--P6eMKkwkI2dee9xC_Llb/view?usp=sharing

Before I get into the characters’ roles, here’s some general facts and backstory of their town:

- Basically, it’s Undertale meets Harvest Moon / Stardew Valley. Well, kinda. I at least used that approach for coming up for the jobs for the characters. You know, how there’s always a general store, a doctor, a smithy, etc.

- The usual story of a HM game is that you come to a town that’s way past its glory days and you, as the player/farmer, help them get back to that. The “backstory” of the town is that that already kinda happened. I’ll get into it more in the character description, but basically when Asgore was still mayor, the town got really popular. Then yadda yadda, a certain tragedy happened, two kids died, and the town suddenly got very bad publicity. There was a lot of stuff going on back then, bad reputation being spread and also a lot of law stuff, cos, you know, supposed child murder ‘n all, so Asgore made the decision to shut off the town to ppl from outside. This was in the interest of most monsters living there, because as fun as it is to have a lot of people coming there, most just wanted to live a quiet life. Not everyone was happy with that though, so many moved away from town and some others are trying to get the town back on its feet. But more on that later.

On to the characters:

I’m just gonna start with the skelebros, cos it’s their fault in the first place I got so invested.

Basically, they are what the player is in hm/sdv. They just showed up one day, took over the abandoned farmhouse and began their life there. The two came to town way after it was “closed” and since then a new mayor has opened the possibility for new residents to move in. Their farm helps the economy of the town a lot and the mayor, like usually in hm games, is trying to use that to make the town more known again. The skelebros aren’t really working towards that goal however.

So, now a bit more detail on them individually.

Papyrus:

- The design is mostly based on what’s “canon” in this au.

- He works mostly on the fields and is in charge of the crops. Their fields aren’t spectacularly big, but still big enough to plant a few dozen rows of veggies.

- Paps also helps out a lot in town when he has the time. He helps Asgore with his plants, he goes fishing with Undyne, helps Toriel carry crates around and so on. This is inspired by the part-time job mechanic in HM ToT.

- Unbelievably, in this AU Pap is not an absolutely awful cook. Since he helps out at Muffet’s and Grillby’s a lot, they tend to show him some tricks to cooking. Even though Pap’s not a big fan of the greasy or overly sweet cooking those two do, he picks up a lot.

Sans:

- Again, design mostly based on the “canon” look. Maybe a bit more baggy.

- This is finally an AU this dude gets to rest. Since there are no resets and he doesn’t have to see his bro die again and again, for once in his life, he’s not a sad ball of depression. He’s just a chill and lazy dude that loves to make puns. Though, since he’s not too experienced with the feelings of loss, helplessness or grieving, he still tends to hide behind puns and fakes smiles if he does feel bad.

- Sans is in charge of the animals on the farm. Papyrus begrudgingly gave him that role since Pap’s loud demeanour and hectic movements usually scare the animals. Sans’ relaxed attitude draws the animals to him naturally and even if Pap mostly finds him sleep against a tree, in a stack of hay or on one of the sheep, the animals are always fed, healthy and relaxed, so Sans seems to be doing his job.

- Sans always has a small chic sit inside his hoodie or hat. Is it always the same one? Who knows, maybe.

- Sans also, somehow, can produce eggs out of thin air. Grab into his hoodie pocket, in his pants pocket, in his hat, in his slipper, there’s suddenly always an egg there. On good days he can even make butter or cheese appear.

Gaster:

- He’s literally just a scarecrow in this. Though, if you ask any of the bros why they designed their scarecrow that way, they won’t have an answer.

Frisk&Toriel:

- Frisk is mostly based on what I wore myself as a kid in summer. Just a loose shirt with a cappy. Toriel basically has her ut gown, just with an apron on top.

- Frisk just appeared outside the “magical” forest one day. Napstablook and his cousin found them and brought them to Toriel, who has been taking care of them since.

- Toriel runs the general store in town, but also often takes care of the few kids that still live there.

- Frisk usually helps out in Toriels store, plays with the other kids or sits around at Asgore’s. They’re notorious for nabbing small snacks, mostly from Asgore’s plants. You’ll always find them munching on something.

- Frisk was in town before the skelebros. Since they’d moved in, Frisk often went to spy on their farm. After a small incident with angry chicken, Frisk got to know the two better and now they see them as something between brothers and uncles.

- But Frisk honestly gets along with everyone. Just like in UT, they’ve not only been adopted by Toriel but literally everyone.

- Toriel and Asgore’s relationship is not as bad as in the main game, since, you know, Asgore didn’t kill literal children, but there’s still tension between them. Back when Asriel and Chara died and the whole thing with the bad rep for the town began, Toriel felt betrayed by Asgore focusing more on the town than giving their deceased kids the grieving they deserved. They’re not divorced, but Toriel still moved out and said needed space to think. Now that Frisk is in the picture though, the both of them are slowly coming to even ground and may even be able to talk things out and clear up the uncertainty of their decisions.

Asgore:

-Asgore has his UT Ending / Deltarune clothes, just with a gardener’s belt.

- He’s the previous mayor of the town, but after all the crap that happened, he stepped down from the position. Now he has his own little shop and sells seeds, saplings, homegrown veggies and fertilizer. So, basically what e.g. the Marimba Farm is in HM AP

- His main customer is Papyrus and they’re on friendly terms. Asgore is worried about how much and how hard Pap works, so he often gives him a discount.

- Since his family’s past tragedy, Asgore is kind of nervous around kids. So, when he first met Frisk, he hoped they’d not visit him too often. But to his chagrin, Frisk took an instant liking to him and spends a lot of time at his shop (and steals eats the fresh grown veggies). Now, he’s really grateful for that, because for one, he loves Frisk as dearly as he had his own children, and also because now the tension and mistrust between him and Toriel seem to grow smaller day by day.

Undyne&Alphys:

- I gave Undyne a pretty basic fisher’s outfit. Alphys basically has Elli from HM’s outfit, just a bit more doctory stuff added. She still has her canon lab coat too.

- In essence, Undyne and Alphys have 2 completely different jobs. Alphys is the resident doctor and Undyne runs the fish market.

Two things. Yes, I know Alphys is more a mechanic than a doctor, she fits the aesthetic though, so she’s the doc now. And no, Undyne being a fisherwoman is not cannibalism, think of it more as a shark hunting smaller fish.

- The reason I lump them together is because they act as the local “smithy”. Alphys is still really tech savvy in this (I mean, Mettaton is still part of this AU), so she takes on most problems with electronics and stuff. For Undyne, I didn’t want to lose her Royal Guard’s Captain image, so she’s really good at handling tools (and weapons, but Al doesn’t let her make them anymore). So basically, if there’s a broken tool, you can be sure that either Undyne or Alphys can fix it.

- As for relationships, those two are still an item. Alphys is still really shy and a shut-off, but since Undyne and Pap become best friends, she gets to know the skelebros better. She and Sans especially get along well, since most of the time Undyne and Papyrus are let loose, they sit back and talk about science-y stuff. (no, Sans doesn’t have a background in science but he’s still into sci-fi)

- Alphys has a bit of a strained relationship with both Asgore and Mettaton.

Back when Chara and Asriel died, it was because of “illness” (maybe poisoning?). Alphys feels awful because with her back then limited knowledge on medicine she couldn’t help the two. Asgore doesn’t hold anything against her but Alphys can’t help but feel guilty.

Alphys still built Mettaton’s body in this one. The two had a really big disagreement, because Mettaton hated the fact the town was going to close, and he couldn’t understand how Alphys could feel otherwise, even more so endorse the idea.

Mettaton, Napstablook, Mad Dummy/Mew Mew:

- Napsta and Dummy are pretty self-explanatory, they got straw hats. Mettaton’s outfit is a bit of a joke cos it’s a play on “work at the top and party at the bottom”. The tie has two different sides, one with the yellow red pattern, the other completely red. His “top part” is the business part, because when he’s on tv or in the mayors’ office, you don’t usually see his feet. The bottom is his party/dance part, cos his dancing/entertainment channels mostly feature his legs.

- Mettaton, still a robot, Napstablook and Mad Dummy are all still cousins in this AU.

- Originally, they all lived and worked at the Blook Farm, the Animal Farm of this AU. Mettaton, however, despised that simple live and after befriending Alphys and her building him a body, he left the Farm to pursue bigger things.

- Mettaton runs the local tv network. From weather to game shows, he does it all. He also runs the tailor shop in town that sells his designer clothes and merchandise. After Asgore stepped down, Mettaton also took over the role of town’s mayor and now works towards making the place more known again. Not everybody is happy with him doing that though.

- One of those people is the Mad Dummy. He can’t stand people anyways and he always claims that history would just repeat itself.

- Since the whole family is made of ghosts, they have different dummies and scarecrows they can use to take care of the animals. To mock Mettaton and kinda get back at Alphys for giving MTT such an opportunity, Mad Dummy found the blueprints for the Mew Mew robot and now modelled one of their scarecrows after it.

- Napstablook isn’t fond of taking over obejcts like his cousins do, so he mostly takes care of the snails. Somehow, he can interact with them even when incorporeal.

Muffet&Grillby:

- The two of them run the Inn together. Muffet cooks in the daytime and makes desserts, Grillby manages the bar in the evening.

- The two still can’t really stand each other but working together like this benefits them both because their rivalry just spurs them on more.

- Even though Grillby is a patient person, somehow Muffet is the only person who riles him up enough to retaliate. (Well, maybe except for Sans, he’s a strong second).

So, basically everything between those two is a challenge in some way. Even if Papyrus doesn’t notice, even his cooking lessons are a challenge for them.

- Even though they’re constantly bickering, after working together for so many years, there’s a strange level of respect and trust between them. Even if back when they first started this business, they’d pour salt into an already open wound, nowadays they’d know better and just take a step back from the other or even comfort the other (on very rare occasions only).

Asriel&Chara:

- They be dead. Kinda.

Some Characters that’d live in that town too but that I haven’t made designs for:

- Gerson is the original smithy of the town. He’d grown up in a family of smiths, but he’d always had an appreciation for the sea. That’s why, when the town became more deserted and Undyne had a good enough skill level as smith, he took up the Captains hat and now mostly spends his days out on sea. He also ferries people to places if they need him to. Oh, and just like in canon, Undyne learned most of her skills from him.

- Burgerpants is a poor dude Mettaton basically kidnapped when he was trying to get fame in the city. Now Burgerpants works wherever MTT needs him to, be that as cameraman for the tv shows, cashier in his tailor shop or his slave secretary in the mayor’s office.

- MK is Frisk’s best kid friend. MK’s parents are in charge of shipping the goods out of town and paying the individual people. MK’s the one that usually collects the goods at the end of the day.

- Other than that, there are only a few people in town. I’d imagine the older folks or the really young families stayed in town after it was closed. I think the librarby dude would still run the library. Some Snowdin residents like the stone family or the dogs also might still live there.

4K notes · View notes

that-house · 4 years ago

Text

Viego Rant (villainy and character design and tragedy and all that jazz)

Introduction The more I think about Viego, League of Legends’ newest character, the more enamored I am with him as a villain (unrelated to his general sexiness, though that does tie in with what makes him such a good villain).

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about his design. The Ruined King, one of the greatest threats in Runeterra, the progenitor of the Shadow Isles, the lord of the undead, is finally released as a playable champion and he looks like this:

People were expecting another Mordekaiser (who is similarly an undead king with a ghost army), a lich-tyrant clad in iron, decayed flesh peeling from an aged face. What we got was an angsty anime prettyboy, and it was infinitely better than the alternatives.

Lore Viego isn’t a conquering king. While his combat abilities are indeed badass, his personality is far from it. He’s a whiny brat and that’s incredible. He isn’t bent on world domination. His character arc revolves around just how human, how fallible he really is. For those unfamiliar with his lore, I’ll paraphrase it here:

Viego was the second son of a great king. Overshadowed by his brother and with no expectations upon him and near-limitless wealth, he wandered around being an idiot fuckboy for the vast majority of his formative years. Disaster struck when his brother died in an accident, and Viego took the throne with no training, no experience, and no desire to be king. He was a shitty king. The worst king. Just all-around apathetic. Gave zero shits. Can you blame him? It’s a lot of responsibility to be thrust upon someone who isn’t much more than a child, and with no preparation. He didn’t care about anything, that is, until he met Isolde. She was a poor seamstress, but he fell in love with her upon their first meeting. Together they ruled the country but it was really just them staring longingly into each others’ eyes. His allies were kinda fucking pissed about that, and one day an assassin came from Viego. The assassin fucked up and stabbed Isolde instead, and the poison on the blade made her fall gravely ill. As she lay in her bed, slowly dying, Viego went mad seeking a cure. He ravaged the land seeking any knowledge that might help, pouring all of his money into finding an antidote. He failed. As a last resort, he brought Isolde’s body to the Blessed Isles, a place rumored to be able to resurrect the dead. It worked, to an extent. Isolde’s wraith, confused, afraid, and angry at being ripped from the peace of death, unthinkingly stabbed Viego in the chest with his own magic sword, creating basically a magic nuke that turned the Blessed Isles into the domain of the undead. Viego resurrected as the king of the Shadow Isles some time later, having totally forgotten that Isolde killed him. He controls a big-ass ghost army, could probably beat up any living thing in a fight, and has evil ghost magic. Now this stupid simp wants his wife back and if he has to kill every living thing on Runeterra, well, anything for his queen. He’s even a tier 3 sub to her Twitch.

Music His musical theme isn’t some heavy metal anthem or intense cinematic piece (unlike the Pentakill song named after his sword, Blade of the Ruined King). It’s mostly sad and slow, almost sinister, with a piano and a music box. It has its loud moments featuring violins and choral bits like any villainous music, but the song is mostly subtle. It is a banger though.

youtube

In the comments section of this video, someone pointed out that the music reflects his story from beginning to end:

Everything about this champion is so well done. Riot Games really outdid themselves on this one. Bravo, encore please.

Motivation While the Mordekaiser circlejerkers on r/LeagueofLegends won’t shut the fuck up about how powerful Mordekaiser is, Viego is the better villain. Mordekaiser may be a bigger threat to all life on Runeterra, but Viego is a better character. (There’s a guy on my League discord server who won’t shut up about Mordekaiser so forgive me for being pissed at Morde stans).

Mordekaiser is motivated by a desire for control, to rule the world. Viego is motivated by obsession and misplaced love. There aren’t a lot of Mordekaisers on Earth. Supervillains are rare in real life. But Viego’s motivations are a lot closer to home. People in positions of power that they don’t deserve can do a lot of harm (for example: Trump).

He’s a grieving husband who was never prepared to deal with anything more difficult than choosing what wine to drink with dinner, who is trying to get his wife back because the world had always complied to his every whim. He’s a funky mix between a truly hopeless romantic and a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum.

Obsession is scary. It’s a real-world emotional state that’s been the cause of a lot of murders over mankind’s history. In contrast, Mordekaiser’s cartoonish Genghis Khan XXL schtick isn’t something that we encounter often. Of course a superpowered ultradictator would be worse for the world, but if you give ultimate power to a random person, you’re more likely to get someone like Tighten from Megamind. Or, more relevantly, Viego.

Design His design is sexy and stupid, just like him. He wears an open shirt into battle and wields his sword like an idiot (I’ve seen all the rants about how that’s not how that sword is meant to be used) because he was never really a warrior. Even at his most violent, right before the end of his mortal life, he didn’t do much combat himself, leaving his military endeavors to his underlings. Even now that he’s essentially a god, he still has a colossal wraith army that causes far more devastation than he ever could personally.

Despite his slim build (by League of Legends standards), he easily wields his colossal sword because of the strength of his state of undeath. Like his political power when he was alive, his posthumous magical and physical powers were never something he sought out, they were just given to him by circumstance.

The big cool-ass triangle hole in his chest where Isolde stabbed him is the source of the Black Mist, which is evil ghost mist that ebbs and flows from the Shadow Isles, bringing with it hordes of the undead. The sadder Viego is, the more Mist he creates. Poetically, his invasion of the world is inspired by his sorrow at his wife’s death and enabled by his wife’s reluctance to return to him. His story is perfectly reflected by his design.

Isolde Isolde’s spirit took up residence inside a young Senna (who’s another League champion, not particularly important here). This led to some Black Mist-related shenanigans and at least for the time being, Senna uses Isolde’s power to fight off the servants of Viego which threaten all life on Runeterra.

It seems pretty clear that whatever love Isolde felt for Viego is gone by now. Whether or not she ever loved him or was just unable to say no to the king is up for debate, but I’d like to believe there was something there. In my opinion, Viego’s story hits harder if they really were a great couple at first, torn apart by circumstance and obsession.

Much like the Maiden of the Woods in that one comic that circulates around here, to whom the knight gave his heart and she was like “yo what the fuck i literally never asked you to do this,” Viego went a little too far in trying to save her. They may have once been happy, but the Ruined King ruined his own life, too.

Unless Isolde is a lot less morally decent than we’ve been led to believe, I doubt she can forgive all the massacring that her husband’s been doing lately. In the recent cinematic, she was shown to be pretty anti-Viego. Maybe she’ll get a bastardization arc, but it certainly seems unlikely.

All of Season 2021 is based around Viego, Isolde, and the Shadow Isles, so we’ll just have to see what comes next. It’s possible that we’ll get Isolde as a playable champion, which should clear a lot of things up.

Final Thoughts Unlike so many villains, he’s not fueled by rage or hatred, but rather by sorrow. He’s stuck in his past, unable to move on. He regrets the actions of his life but is set on his course now. The sunk-cost fallacy comes into play here; he’s put so much time and effort and blood into bringing back Isolde, that turning away from it would feel to him like an insult, not only to her but to the innocent lives he’s taken in her name.

His tale is a tragedy, a love story gone horrifically wrong. Viego has suffered throughout his thousand-year life. Despite this, he’s undoubtedly the villain. His permanent death would be a net positive for the world. In has rage and grief he’s destroyed multiple civilizations, and will burn down the world to get Isolde back.

His heart may be in the wrong place, but it’s in a very human place. I don’t think he’ll get the ending he’s looking for, but I hope he finds some closure in the end.

#League of Legends #viego #i swear no one's gonna read this #even if you dont care about League i tried to make this interesting #even if you don't like League as a game the lore is pretty fucking solid

92 notes · View notes

darkspellmaster · 5 years ago

Text

Sex and the Castlevania series

So you may have all heard by now that the new seasons of Castlevania will have more gore and sex involved in the series. And for me at least this is a bit of a surprise. Not because Castlevania has not had sex as part of its storyline, (how else are the Belmonts going to be born), nor that nudity would be shown (see the Succubus for example) but in how it’s going to be used.

As a player of the games, one thing has always stood out to me about the Castlevania series and the idea of fan service and sexuality and sex itself, it’s never used as a means of just titillation. There’s always a meaning behind it. And the reviews have me wondering if this is going to still be the case with the show, or is it going to be used as an “Oooh look how edgy we’re being this season.” because that’s not what sex in Castlevania is about.

Sex, or the idea of intimacy between two romantic partners, has always been at the heart of the backstory of the Castlevania series. From the outset there’s has always been a sense of family and love and devotion in Castlevania. Even with the Arcade edition of Haunted Castle in 1988, the addition to the story of Simon was that he was newly married to his bride Selena, who was taken by Dracula. Years later Selena and the Mysterious Woman in Simon’s Quest II were mixed to create Linda Entwhistle who was Simon’s girlfriend in the book series based on the games.

Years later during the more story-driven games that came out, sexuality and intimacy became part of the game in how it was presented. Namely the use of sex as a way to pull the innocents to the darkness ala the Vampire Brides in the original Dracula, and the loss of innocence (as with Lucy in the novel) and the idea of devotional love that conquers that darkness and temptation.

In this sense, we’re seeing the use of the deadly sin of Lust acting as a temptation to the heroes as a means of making them be killed for their wanton desires. Yet love and intimacy also plays a huge part in fixing issues in the story and leading to tragic and happy endings.

So with that in mind, I want to do a quick walkthrough of the way sex and love is used in these games and discuss why the idea of sex and violence shouldn’t be on the table with Castlevania as a metaphor as much.

Let’s start with the timeline, rather than the game order because it makes more sense that way.

The story of the Belmont Clan and Dracula are intertwined for all time, this is just a fact of the matter and not just some random accident. And Love plays a huge part in this story as the cannon story stands right now. Prior to this, Castlevania was a fun romp through the idea of beating up Old Universal Monster Movie characters (every one of the main bosses in the first game was tied to some form of Universal Horror Monster and it even has some Hammer Horror connections as well). But with the growth of the franchise, it was clear that a story needed to be told, so over the years, that story had evolved until in the early 2000s we got the very first story in the Belmont vs Dracula timeline in the form of Lament of Innocence.

Now Lament isn’t just a story about the loss for Leon and his world view that there is nothing lurking in the dark. It’s the loss of friendship and of love, but also it’s the reinstatement of belief of the good of people and that there are those that can and will stand up to the darkness and that even as one loses everything, you don’t have to lose your soul in the processes.

But let me start from the beginning in this case. Leon Belmont was a knight templar in the crusade. He was best friends with and cared deeply about his fellow Crusader Mathias Cronqvist. Now Mathias was a man of science and of learning and of a lot of things, he wasn’t a fighter the same way Leon was, so he was more into spells and magics, something that his family kept mostly from the Church at the time.

Both Mathias and Leon were in love and devoted to the women that they felt deeply for, that being Leon’s fiance Sara Trantoul, and Mathias’s wife Elisabetha. Leon’s devotion to Sara was known by everyone, especially Mathias and this is very important since it’s Leon’s Love of Sara that drives him to abandon his cause with the Crusades and pretty much take up Vampire Killing for the rest of his life, training his children and their descendants, on how to defeat the man that took that love from him.

Mathias, on the other hand, was emotionally devoted to Elisabetha, and, given the way he speaks of her, it’s clear that the devotion and love was returned. So much so that his love for her basically poisoned his mind and made him into the monster that would later come to regret his actions. As it was, Elisabetha died due to illness and Mathias abandoned the Crusades, became ill, and holed up in his home unable to be reached by any of his friends, Leon and Sara. It’s only when he learned that Sara was in danger from Walter Bernhard that he was able to get out of bed and warn his friend Leon of the danger, but, by then, it was too late and Sara was captured and taken to Walter’s castle.

Now one of the huge parts of the story of Lament is is that it deals with devotion, honor, and the choices we make based on love. So while Leon is trying to save Sara he meets up with an alchemist, Rinaldo, who had lost his daughter Justine to Walter and was unable to save her.

Leon renounces everything; his baron title, his home, his lands just so he can cast off his duty to go and save Sara. His love for her runs that deep that he’s willing to go into the Castle of Walter with just a sword and prayer and god save anyone that gets in his way. Rinaldo is far more of a pragmatic person and in this way juxtaposes Leon’s love of Sara. Whereas Leon is far more optimistic about his chances against Walter, Rinaldo knows the bitter truth, that Sara has no hope of making it out of the castle and not becoming a vampire in the process.

This becomes an important part of Leon’s story as he traverses the castle to try to locate Sara and comes across a number of characters that play a part in the story and the idea of love. Medusa, though not a sexualized being in this one, mentions that the whip he’s using is far more powerful than that of the version that Rinaldo used to save his daughter.

Now, why is that? One could speculate that Rinaldo lacked the will to save his child, or that he knew the truth and couldn’t bear to have to take his daughter’s life. His feelings, however, whatever they lacked, caused the Whip to fail in what it needed to do, and thus he was forced to kill his own daughter. Leon on the other side of things has nothing but the will and drive to save Sara, and his love for her and desire to bring her home urges him on. This love, this need to help her, is what makes that whip work. That need for protecting something, it’s why Trevor needed to find Sypha and Alucard to eventually come to a reason why the Vampire Killer came to him.

Joachim is an interesting one in regard to love in this game and how it is presented. Walter seduced the young man with the idea of immortality and when Joachim gained his Vampire state he realized that Walter was above him and rebelled. This lead to Walter putting him in captivity and driving him mad, for his own amusement. But how is this love? It’s a very dangerous and bad form of it, as Joachim both loathes Walter but also seems obsessed with him. He hates him with all he is, and at the same time wants to overpower and control him. This same sort of hate and love is what drives Mathias as well in his story.

Then there’s the Succubus, the one character that really hammers in the idea of desire/Sex and love in this game and the differences between them. So the Succubus in Lament is an actual boss, vs. just being an enemy. She has no name, but her role is critical in understanding what’s going on in Walter’s castle. This succubus had previously disguised herself as Justine for Rinaldo, allowing him to lower his guard and possibly may have harmed him in the process. His rejection of this form of his daughter may have to lead him to make some critical mistakes. Mistakes that Leon doesn’t seem to make. Namely, after a bit, he sees through the Succubus using Sara’s form to trick him.

Leon recognizes that the woman isn’t Sara based on her actions and way of moving, showing that though his connection with Sara he can’t be tricked and lured in by kind words from a monster. This is the opposite of what happened to Mathias.

As I said there’s a tragedy to the love and sex in this game and the use of it. Walter luring Justine away with his beauty and her desire for him lead to her downfall, which leads us into Mathias. (We will circle back to Leon, I promise.) For Mathias Elisabetha was his whole world and when she died while he was away it leads him to reject all of his desires for hope and love and feelings. He lost his way and decided to renounce God and live as an immortal as revenge for God taking away his beloved wife. In order to get what he needed, he made a deal with Death, and the two decided to use Sara as bait for Walter and Leon was to be his sword. Mathias’s own devotion to Leon, and some of his humanity as well, shows up later in the story where he sympathizes and connects with Leon in regard to his own loss. Showing that they’re the same and that Leon should join him, which Leon rejects.

This moment in the game is interesting because by this point in the story Leon has learned about how to defeat Walter and that Sara was bitten. In a lot of Vampire lore, biting is used as a way to indicate, in some cases, a sexual desire or a need that is fulfilled in a more intimate way. After all the neck is a body part that is known for being very much something that can be used for erotic aspects of lovemaking or showing desire. Which brings us back to the fact that Sara didn’t want to be turned. This wasn’t a choice on her part, unlike Joachim, and it leads to her rejecting the idea of wanting to remain a vampire. She desires death over having to be a monster and leads to Leon, at first vehemently rejecting Rinaldo’s order to kill her, and then accepting Sara’s desires to become one with the whip.

It’s an important moment because it shows that Leon is willing to ignore his own desires for that of Sara’s, again showing his selflessness in putting what she wants ahead of his own, showing his love and devotion in a more adult and complex way. Sara’s own love is what fuels that whip and her need to protect Leon are the quintessential factors of Love (Leon) to the opposing one of Lust (Walter) and in this case.

Trevor and Sypha come next in regard to the issue of love and sex and while the show is clearly going to be showing more of their romantic escapades, it should be noted that the game doesn’t really make much mention of it at first, as Sypha in the game has a bit of a love triangle going on with Grant and Trevor as the main choices, although it seems like she only had eyes for Trevor. We know the two eventually had children but Sex, or lust, in the game never was a thing. Their devotion to each other in the show is telling, and in other games, both do pair up frequently, even in Judgement there’s an underlying tension between them.

It’s of interest that in the show, we get to see the two of them acting as a couple, much like how Lisa and Dracula were shown acting like a couple. But actual sexual acts are, as with Lisa and Dracula, put on the side and in the case of Trevor and Sypha it’s only hinted at and not a full on display. Which falls into the same idea that most Castlevania games seem to have, the hero’s love interest typically is not shown engaging in sexual activity, or rather, only after bad things happen.

I’ll jump to Richter and Annette, because that seems to be the next one in regard to how sexuality is used heavily in Castlevania. So in Rondo of blood, Dracula has Shaft take Annette since she is engaged to Richter Belmont. In a scene with him during the game, Annette threatens to take her own life rather than have relations with Dracula who intends to drink her and turn her into his bride. For the original version there’s a dramatic moment where Annette is talking to Dracula and he tries to lure her into becoming immortal to stay with him. She says she will not fall in such a cheap manner, the implications there are more along the lines of sex and him taking her physically from her fiance Richter. In the PSP game, if you take too long or go the wrong route you get the bad end where Annette has been transformed into a vampire and is placed in an overtly sexual outfit, down to a thong and bodice. Her hair goes down rather than the updo she has when she’s not turned and she very certainly is meant to be a temptress and a signal that Richter failed to save her from the deviousness of the vampire.

This idea of sex, or the sexual, being used as a temptation and a devious thing in Castlevania has been around for a long time. However for every moment of some devious succubus being in the way of the hero, there’s always a moment of love that shows the positive side of it’s nature vs. the lustful side. Again, looking at Annette and Richter we get a moment when he frees her of her embracing him and happy that he’s there to be with her. That she knew he would come and that everything will be okay.

Sexuality plays a heavy role in tempting Gabriel Belmont in his game, Lords of Shadow. During the game, as he tries to get to see his dead wife with a specialized mask. During the game he meets the Vampire Carmilla who offers to him a chance to become a vampire and enjoy the idea of a lustful existence. Every inch of her in the game is designed to pretty much be a temptress and lure Gabriel from his path to finding a way to see his dead wife. Yet it’s in this moment that we get to see how deeply his affection for his wife runs as Gabriel rejects this offer even more violently than with other Lords of Shadow that he’s faced. It’s a pretty strong moment for him as a character, and shows a deeper feeling in regard to his connection to his late wife.

The reason I bring all these moments up is because even in the games where there’s hints of the sexual, as Vampires now are associated with Lust and temptation, the show uses sex as a means of connecting it with violence and some pretty dark ideas. Which contradicts the idea of how Love is the most powerful thing to defeat the darkness in Castlevania.

Take Hector’s story right now. In the show we have his sexual encounter with Lenore which is contrasted with Isaac’s battle with Legion. The idea here is to show that both Isaac and Hector are being used, one being brought to his knees via false affection and entrapment by a woman who doesn’t love him and is using him as her own pet, who later slips the ring on him to collar him as she would a dog or cat. While the Isaac, even though he’s doing a good thing in defeating Legion (and i’m still damn sure that woman is Death in a false form) was used to destroy the wizard in the tower, releasing the village. In both cases manipulation was used in order for the opposing party to achieve their goal.

For Lenore it was to get Hector to trust her enough to trap him and use him in her own way and for her own needs. She controls him now, making it impossible for him to escape from them, or so we are told to believe. On the other hand you have Isaac who, while used, acknowledges that he was so, accepts it, but is free to move on as the use of him wasn’t against his will, nor was it something changing him down. Rather the manipulation was used to not only stop something terrible, but also show him that there were others out there that were worth saving. Thus, in the poster, we have Lenore holding onto a bound and trapped Hector, and Isaac not quiet twisted up in thorns.

The use of violence that we see shows that there’s a thin line in this world causing people to become entrapped by their own desires. For Isaac it was his revenge, for Hector it was his need to feel human again. Which brings us to the point where Rosaly comes into play in regard to Hector’s story. In Hector’s game Curse of Darkness, we see how his life drastically changed when he and she connect. From where he was in the story she brought the idea of hope and light to him, vs the darker aspects in the game that hint at someone who was cursed to believe he is a monster. In this way, I hope that if they bring in Rosaly we can see the opposition to Lenore’s way of using him for gratification and chaining him to her.

On the other side of things, and something a bit easier to get at, is the idea of trauma through the use of sex as shown in Alucard’s story. In the show we get to see Trevor and Sypha in bed, but it’s clear what’s happened there and the idea is that it’s less about their sexual encounters with one another than about their growth as a couple and how they interact outside of the bedroom and how they show love for one another. We see also they have a sense of betrayal when dealing with the Judge and the idea of Sypha’s world going from it just being fun and doing the right thing, to realizing the world is not black and white, and that not all people are good.

In Alucard’s case we see the idea of the twins (I’m using the term as it’s easier for me to call them this, it doesn’t mean I’m saying they are twins just that they look alike) as filling a void and clearly being a representation of Trevor and Sypha (They even share the first initial of their names) that Alucard is looking for. Through their interactions we see that Alucard is, like Sypha in the other town, trusting them regardless of how many red flags they raise. The whole issue comes to a head when, after sharing a lot of things with them, Alucard is seduced by the two while trying to sleep. During the scene, as with Hector and Isaac, we see the sex as being connected to the violence of the battle that Sypha, Trevor and Germain get into. The twins end up wrapping Alucard in iron rings, much like Hector is imprisoned by Lenore with the ring, so to is Alucard. We see then that like Hector he’s betrayed and harmed by the emotional aspect of the betrayal. But unlike Hector who feels trapped, Alucard now feels anger at those that hurt him.

The sexual act leads into the idea of him no longer trusting humans, especially with his heart. This of course is being used to drive Alucard to decide to lock himself back to sleep until the time of Richter and Maria (the warrior and the Mage), three hundred years later. The idea here is that the physical act of it is being used to show people being harmed in vulnerable states, and that sex is used as a tool to harm or destroy others just as certain acts of violence can.

Yet, part of the story line of Alucard is that Maria chooses to go after him even after he says he’s cursed. Again, like Hector and Rosaly, showing that love is more of a counter to the anger and hate that seem to embolden those that would do bad in the world of Castlevania. So then, I must ask, why is the sex in the show being used not as it should be, showing how love can change someone, but rather as a connector to the violence. That wasn’t the idea of Castlevania, so I have to wonder what Warren is driving at here.

#Castlevania #alucard castlevania #alucard #adrian fahrenheit tepes #adrian tepes #castlevania season 3 #hector #castlevania isaac #rosaly #castlevania hector #netflix castlevania #maria renard #leon belmont #dracula #elisabetha #trevor belmont #sypha belnades

178 notes · View notes

leafy-wings · 4 years ago

Note

Hey. Wanna talk about your ocs?

yes 🥺

i always want to talk abt my ocs so if you see anyone specific and want me to talk about them more. i am always here

ive conveniently marked which characters are for roleplays because i have my fingers in so many pies. some of these were used for multiple rps like aglais and petrichor. heres short summaries of all of them under the cut bc its long

- AGLAIS is being used for that skywing roleplay im never in Oops! I got lost. but i love algais a lot! theyre a silk/skywing who was raised underground with out wind so their wings are all fucked up! they have light flamesilk, and are obsessed with resolving conflict and making sure everyones happy. a sunny type character yknow.

- BRISK was a character for sundown-falls on dA, idk if its active or not! im not there at least, ever. ive never used her!! idk her personality really, i liked imagining her as manic and cheerful

- BUCKTHORN and skipping a few characters HAWTHORN [and seer/sear] were for an arc 3 rewrite i had planned but probably scrapped because uhh things hard. its an au where clearsight has more leafwing partners than silkwing so there are thornwings instead of hivewings. itd be focusing more on the societal implications of a silkwing oppressive society, ft the headcanon that the hivewing mind control was a nightwing power. hawthorn has it too, previously shes very faithful to her society up until shes almost murdered for trying to investigate a case of silkwing puppetry and assassination. ah!! it follows her adventures within the underbelly of pantala, and then the second book wouldve been about buckthorn, who was always anxious, because he has a lil bit of mindreading, and he has firey palms. he goes to pyrrhia to try and ask for help, and turns into a suicide bomber. its very half baked i just wanted to make dragons

- REDACTED for DRIFT SPOILERS

- HARLEQUIN is just jewels dad. hes fucked up bro!!

- HARUSPEX was for moonborn!! i never really got into him, i love his concept, but i dont like rp where characters know each other before starting. the conceit of moonborn is three of a handful of dragons were going to fly up to the moons and no one knows what happens to them then, so hes terrified of socializing or getting close to anyone because of that. hes like.. protective and helpful but isolated. quiet.

- JEWEL!!!! might be my favorite character!!!!!!! like sometimes i forget about him or languish about writing him so so bad but seriously im so nostalgic for him and love him so much. he was for the destined, his father harlequin was a doomsday prepper [yknow like, bunkers ‘ the worlds ending soon’] before the burning and is vindicated when the world does start ending, lol. hed been training jewel to take up the mantle as fucking insane doomsday person, i really wanted to get him more of a hypochondriac and survivalist but more often than not he just was timid and friendly.. at the start of the rp!! he made good friends with wisteria and hexapod :) and then people started fighting 24/7 and fucking dying and so jewel becomes a cannibal because hes terrified of being weak and dying, he wants to prove himself worthy of being there + a sprinkling of harlequins “eat people to absorb their powers/cannibalism isnt bad” mentality. jewels kind of unhinged for the rest of the rp but still holds his friendship with wisteria and hexapod close <3 i dont think he ever did anything important or useful. but he was there!

- ORIUS was for PPAU on dA, im not active on it anymore lol! orius is FUCKING BUFF AS HELL!! shes just a huge lady and her shtick is that she is dumb as rocks and suffocatingly selfless, she loves doing work for other dragons. her parents were neglectful so she just goes into towns and does busywork for random dragons, getting super buff because she has nothing better to do and she hopes it makes people treat her better, she just loves helping others because its.. all she knows how to do to get any affection. she busts a drug smuggling ring and gets enrolled into a big cool school :]

- PETRICHOR was for dawning rain and i am hoping to reuse him for animus academy!! theyre a dramatic actor rainwing, i remember when i submitted them i added aside from their app that says theyre naive and stupid that they are literally just lying and actually pretty smart and malicious. theyre like acting childish and silly and daft as a way to get what they want and a smoke screen to commit crimes. in dawning rain they got kidnapped for 4 days and no one noticed and they were bitter about it for fucking ever. they made gay with a nightwing, tranquility, but the writer had their stuff taken away :[ petriquil 4life.

- POISON IVY was for PPAU also! they have evil fucked up leafspeak that kills plants, and theyre a paid assassin. they used to steal to survive and kill people he had beef with so he was like wait a minute. i can do both. so he affiliates with good dragons to kill bad dragons while pursuing his hobby in baking :) hes very aloof, a lil flirty, just friendly and casual.

- lets just toss puddle, nimbus, crow, and caiman into one category; this was for my roleplay, the royal division! the conceit being that the skywing and mudwings had affiliated with the other tribes [aka; took them over with force] so now the tribe is split in two, except for a collection of dragons specially chosen by a nightwing prophet. all she knows is that youve got to deal with it, and deal with it they do! ill not give details about the twist; it might just be reused for something special coming up soon... oh yeah, rouge was there too! but rouge isnt a trd character;

- ROUGE is one of my oldest characters, for my FIRST wof roleplay, refuge and rogues, run in 2018!! rouge is a skywing animus, abandoned to KISMET and WEED [kismet is my oldest wof oc! her first name was chameleon because it was before i read escaping peril], kismet and weed are part of a problem solving group called refuge where they go around the continent fixing things for dragons. or taking in eggs if you dont want them, i guess. rouge is a BAD BOY!!! hes like a rebellious teen so he splits off and makes his own version of refuge but its EVIL and for BAD BOYS LIKE HIM!! well, theyre not evil- they still help people, but CHAOTICALLY! like with CRIME! if someone took something of yours refuge would barter with them to get it back; rogues would just steal it.

- WEISS and SUPERNOVA were for the PLANNED but currently UNPLANNED sequel to the royal division, titled the rising occult! WEISS is actually not a wof oc- hes a different version of one of my mains, still named weiss! with the last word in the title you could just guess what its about. but, hey, dawning rain crowd, i had the rising occult planned in 2019 so IM the first wof cult person, HA!

- WHIRLWIND was for THE LEGENDS, i never participated just because i felt like i did not belong. but whirlwind was going to be a petrichor type character, but genuinely incompetent. theyre a rainwing who pretends to be other tribes to get things, mostly love. very silly and stupid! they have rot in their brain.

UNLISTED: is CADDIS for shattered seas, who was a cowboy pirate!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seawing/rainwing, when he was young he hung out with the wrong crowd and owed a debt with his dearest friend- the fucking weirdos who he owned the debt to had them pay in BLOOD! one of them had to die. caddis’ friend wouldnt kill him, no, but they snapped his horns off and took his eye off and pretended that caddis had died. so caddis spends his days HUNTING HIS FRIEND DOWN! and refusing to let anyone else get so close to him. i never got to unveil that in rp, instead caddis appeared, had sex, and then presumably died as the rp ended

and extras;

these are characters for my old rp, the animus code, which is currently on hiatus! they and a lot of the setting and lore will be lifted and reused for animus academy!

5 notes · View notes

funkzpiel · 5 years ago

Text

Smother

The Witcher (Netflix) Yennefer/Geralt/Jaskier Hurt/Comfort, Hanahaki

Also available on AO3.

When witchers die, it’s usually by sword or claw or fang. But the natural death of a witcher doesn’t always include aging. It includes pain. It includes choking slowly. And flowers.

(This is all hot garbage. it was supposed to be short, you guys. SHORT.)

“When do witchers retire?” Jaskier asked, a question littered in a dozen of babbling attempts at conversation as he tuned his lute, eyes on the task at hand. Like conversation was more a habit than an act of intention for the man.

Geralt sighed as he saw to it that Roach was properly taken care of. She pushed her head into his chest, and for a moment he fancied she was urging him to answer. So despite himself, he did. Mostly.

“When they get too slow,” he said, letting the words speak for themselves as to what that retirement involved; namely death. And in a way, it was correct. Only… they often did not slow from age. Or at least, not from age alone. Not that the bard needed to know that. It sufficed to admit that a witcher’s life ended in agony.

Nothing wove a more enticing story than sacrifice, after all. Even the witcher knew that. And that’s all the bard was after, Geralt reminded himself.

A story.

The answer appeared to appease the bard. He chatted on about how a song to improve the man’s legacy was needed now more than ever, then, if the only peace he’d ever know would be that which the coin of townsfolk and nobles might provide him for a job well done. Jaskier rambled at Geralt eagerly, testing lyrics between subtle twists of knobs and strings, all the while mentioning that everyone loved a tragic hero. That his songs would make the man beloved, immortal – or at the very least tolerated instead of driven out of town.

Geralt hummed as he stoked the fire. No need to give Jaskier more then. That half-truth was more than enough to at least get the bard to stop asking his damnable questions.

No need to tell him that witchers only retired when slow if they were lucky.

No… no need for that at all.

— • —

There was no knowing when it might start. Witchers, for all their lore and bestiaries and research, had very little to say about this: the way in which they naturally died. Geralt had looked once, asked once. He received little more than uncomfortable stares about the subject. Not that it mattered. It sufficed to know only what needed to be known. That all living things died, including witchers. It mattered little if it was by a monster’s claws or a beast’s fangs or a mortal’s sword or the slow, gradual suffocation of his own body.

He would die. It didn’t matter how. Regardless, it was inevitable. Regardless, it did not change who he was or what he did or how he did it. Geralt of Rivia was a witcher, and he would hunt until Death took him.

When he was younger, it had been easier to ignore those thoughts. To push them somewhere deep down where they only whispered from time to time. Now?

Seemingly out of nowhere, he found himself wondering more and more about the way witchers passed.

And every time, it left a strangely cold and heavy feeling in his gut. Unidentifiable and uncomfortable. Geralt wondered what that was.

— • —

The first time it happened, Geralt was alone. Not alone as he once had been. Not alone because he chose to be alone. Alone, because no one would have a man who used ill-gotten wishes and spewed nothing but poisonous barbs from their mouth when you tried to comfort him. Alone, in a tub of water to scald the ache from his muscles, he wondered why it did little to relieve the pain. Why still he ached. Why it coalesced around his lungs like a thorn bush.

And then the coughing started.

Small, innocent. More like a hiccup than a fit. But he felt something dislodge from his chest, work its way up onto his tongue, and when next he coughed he felt it land in his palm.

He didn’t quite put it all together. How was a witcher to feel, after all, when they’re supposed to feel nothing at all? He stared at the little blue petal in his hand, fingers trembling, the petal itself framed by a droplet of blood or two.

How was a witcher to feel of death when it stared him in the face? Nothing, he had always assumed. It would be no different than staring down a griffin or any other thing that meant him harm.

Only… this he could not fight.

That stone in his stomach grew heavier, colder. He could avoid putting a name to it all day, but like Fate, it would appear. Death would not be ignored either. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about his child surprise. The thought brought a rough, rasping bubble of laughter up through his chest; still sore from the petal it had expelled.

His hand fell beneath the water. He watched the petal float, small and delicate, then sink, as all things did eventually.

— • —

The coughing started light and infrequent. Purple and blue petals tumbled from his lips now and then. It didn’t stop him from hunting or fighting. It did not slow him. But Death dogged him, always trailing just behind him, just out of sight.

Perhaps he had escaped Fate after all, he thought one night when the fire was high and yet did nothing to warm the ache from his bones. He threw the petal that he coughed up onto the flames. Thought, just for a moment, that he could smell something familiar when he did.

It passed.

It did not slow him until suddenly, it did. Until a bite from some hell-be-damned creature left him feverish in the back of a kind man’s cart. He dreamt of many things. He dreamt of his mother, who left him. Who saved him. Who said… something about him dying, maybe… He tried to remember.

Large eyes, a mother’s eyes, and yet so foreign to him. Her mouth pulled into a pained twist as she wiped something from the corner of his mouth. He could barely focus enough to see such fine details, but he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. A petal, either purple or blue. He wondered what sort of flower it would be, to have both blue and purple petals.

“I can calm your fever,” she said softly, her hands cold against his brow, “And I can save you from this death,” her fingers trailed over the bite, “But what ails you otherwise… is much more complicated.”

Complicated.

He hadn’t understood or remembered the words at the time. Hadn’t had time, distracted as something indescribable had drawn him from the back of the cart and into the forest. All thought of blossom petals and complications had fled at the sight of her: Ciri, drowning in her overgrown blue coat. Eyes so big they could make up the sky. She had launched herself into his arms, and something strange and unidentifiable – and yet something that had been burning so disturbingly often in his breast these days – alit inside him. Something warm. And if he traced it, it led like a thred right back to her. To her, and out – splitting in two – out and out and…

It was complicated.

— • —

Sometimes the girl cried, often in her sleep. Often when she thought Geralt was sleeping. At first he tried to ignore it. He was not the girl’s father.

But more and more, he felt a thread pull him closer and closer to her. Her soft sobs, muffled bravely into her little fist lest the witcher see and think less of her, softening him more and more each day. How could he ignore those sounds, when they reminded him of her cherub like smile? Reminded him of the fact that children should not have had to suffer as she had suffered?

Finally one night, he sighed – and in doing so, heard her suddenly silence and stiffen, but for one or two errant sniffles. He sat up, ran one hand through his hair, before stoking the fire enough to heat the tin kettle he kept in his pack. With it, he scooped a small amount of tea leaves from his increasingly sparse stash, stowed them into a fine mesh pocket, and dropped the little bundle into the kettle with water. All the while, he felt the girl’s wet eyes on him. Waiting.

“It’s okay to mourn, Ciri,” he finally said, aware of the words to say even after Kaer Morhen beat them out of him. Mourning meant nothing to him, he need not mourn. The boons of witchery. But he recognized a human’s need to express pain. Especially that of a child’s.

And for a time, she did. As the water heat, she wept into her fist. Awkwardly, Geralt let her, unsure of what else to do. Focused, instead, on the task at hand while trying to give her space, as he might an adult. Did children require space? Or less space?

Eventually her weeping lessened to whimpers. Then, to sniffles.

When those too stopped, she shuffled up beside him and pressed close to his flank. He allowed it, due to the chill and the chill alone. Refused to acknowledge that little warm flicker in his chest that had little to do with the fire.

“What are you making?” She asked softly from beside him, staring at the fire as if the heat alone might sear any evidence of tears away.

“Lavender tea,” he groused, pouring the water into a mug lest the girl burn herself with impatience. “To help you sleep.”

She thought that over for a moment, then said, “Thank you.” “Hmm.”

“You don’t say much, do you, Geralt?”

He didn’t answer, hoping that would be answer enough. But like Jaskier, the girl had a knack for filling a conversation by herself. The reminder of him panged, ever so slightly. His chest itched.

“That’s alright,” Ciri said. “Grandmother always says…” She paused. Swallowed heavily, but pressed through it, “Said… a man’s word is nothing compared to his actions. You say a lot, Geralt, even if you don’t actually say a lot.”

He didn’t really know what to think about that. Instead he let her babble until the tea, slowly but surely, lured her back to sleep.

He tried not to think of how little he had left of that lavender tea. It was easier to rest, after all, once the girl had settled and fallen back asleep against his thigh, drooling on his trousers. He tried not to think about the warmth in his chest that flickered every time he looked at her. Fate drawn taut between them.

Tried not to think about what would happen, if he didn’t get her to Kaer Morhen in time.

— • —

Standing before a cheap inn room mirror, he realized he was thinning. Not much, but enough to require him to dig a new hole in one of his belts. He’d have to be cautious, he thought as he dragged a shirt on to hide what he already knew. Cautious not to skip too many more meals. One or two did no harm, and he hadn’t thought he let it get so bad. Lose much more weight and his armor wouldn’t fit right. Ill-fitting armor got men killed.

He tried to eat more, but it was hard to swallow these days. What with the petals coming two at a time these days.

He turned, eyed Ciri still curled like a mouse in the middle of the inn bed. Wearing her clothes and her traveling cloak beneath the blankets because it was a cold night even with the fire. Looking so small. She was his to protect now, by Fate and whatever else.

And yet, even as Fate forced him to her, Death continued to dig into him as well. He wondered if the two ever bothered to communicate. Because only one of them would win at this rate – and he worried what would happen to Ciri when Death won.

All the more reason to get to Kaer Morhen.

All the more reason not to get attached.

He took the chair beside the bed, dug his bare feet beneath the blankets just enough to warm the worst of the chill from his toes, and took back to reading. For once, insomnia aided him. No point in trying to sleep. He’d just wake up coughing petals and scare the girl.

He’d read instead. About beasts, about lore, about myths. The instinct of a witcher to keep their mind sharp and attuned to all that they hunt still prevalent even as he was dying.

— • —

Halfway to Kaer Morhen, Ciri saw the petals for the first time. They came in threes now. He didn’t answer when she asked about it. It was easy enough to distract her with something else she dogged him for relentlessly – knife lessons or stories.

Anything to avoid admitting he was dying.

— • —

Insomnia turned suddenly into a need for sleep so great, it startled him. He found himself taking Ciri to more and more inns, because when he slept, sound did little to wake him these days – and that wasn never a good habit for a witcher or a child in the woods.

He slept like a rock, sometimes only for a little while, sometimes until morning or nearly mid-day. And every time, he dreamed.

He woke with songs in his head and familiar scents – fine courtly oils and perfumes, and lilacs and gooseberries. The sharp smell of a man and the soft, round scent of a woman. He woke, mistaking each time that they would be there beside him and they weren’t.

Again, Ciri asked about the flower petals on Geralt’s pillow, in his hair, at the corner of his mouth. Again, she asked about Yennefer. About Jaskier.

Again, he didn’t answer.

They must ride, now more than ever, for Kaer Morhen. It would seem that Fate’s plan for him was this and this alone. Get the child to the safety of his kind. Train her as he can while they ride. Prepare her as much as possible.

And by the gods, whichever gods there may or may not be, ensure Vesemir promised that the trials of transmutation never come within an inch of Ciri’s life.

— • —

“You were talking in your sleep again.”

He leaned up on an elbow to hack into his hand. What landed there felt more solid than a petal or two, but he didn’t bother to look. Not yet. He kept his hand closed, resting on his stomach as the fit passed, and sighed as he finally met Ciri’s gaze.

“And what did I say this time?” He asked, because she’d tell him regardless.

“Their names. Jaskier and Yennefer. Sometimes dandelion, something about gooseberries... I'm not sure... But... you did say that you were sorry.”

She had stopped asking who they were these days. Instead she just glared at him pointedly, as if he were being obstinately obtuse about something. Like a horse run too thin that wouldn’t drink, even when led to water.

Perhaps that’s what he was.

He cleared his throat, felt another petal come to his tongue. Spat it aside, too weary to be more hygienic or secretive than that. Ciri wrinkled her little button nose.

“Careful. Your face will get stuck like that,” he said, baiting her.

“Will not!”

And just like that, he twisted the conversation away again. If only it had been that easy with Jaskier or Yennefer. Maybe then, things wouldn’t have ended up the way they did.

She stomped off, growling something about food, and Geralt made certain only to smile when her back was to him. It felt… strange, to realize he was not going to die alone. Selfish and yet… appeasing. It made the petals a little easier to cough up.

He opened his hand as soon as he was certain she had well and truly left to find them food from the inn kitchen.

That strange feeling in his gut twisted sharply as he took in the sight of two full flowers – a lilac and a forget-me-not. Purple and blue, spattered with spittle and blood, but no less delicate or stunning. He had never known a witcher to vomit two blossoms before. Of course, trust him to be the lucky one to try it.

And yet, even knowing they were killing him, he couldn’t find it in him to crush them.

— • —

“If you miss them so much, why haven’t you gone off to find them?”

“I don’t miss them,” he groused on reflex. She just glowered at him. Evidently some of Geralt was rubbing off on her. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but regardless he tried not to think about how that made something in his chest twinge.

When she would not stop asking, he found himself begrudgingly answering with a petal-rough, “It’s complicated.”

“I don’t see what’s so complicated about it,” she huffed, crossing her arms and avoiding his gaze.

She was concerned for him, he realized. She seemed to think finding them would help, somehow. Perhaps take one last regret off his death bed. Well… two.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” he found himself saying. She glared and refused to speak with him after that. Uncomfortable, but less so than acknowledging the fact that finding Yennefer or Jaskier to apologize was not, in fact, complicated.

And yet, they continued on to Kaer Morhen. As they did, he thought that perhaps he would find them once Ciri was safe. If, of course, he made it that long.

— • —

Ciri began to slip away from the inns while he slept. Never for long. Just a moment… or perhaps longer? He wondered, how long had he slept? He tried not to think about it, because he didn’t quite want to know how bad it had gotten. Plus, Ciri found him alone in the woods that fateful day. She had survived without him once before, and she’d need to be able to live without him once again, when he passed. It was not necessarily a bad thing that she was beginning to take initiative for herself when he slept. Merely disconcerting to find the evidence of lost time.

He asked once what she had been up to.

She lied to him, so sweet and innocently, and Geralt felt a little less worried for her, for when he’d be gone. And as for proud, well… Best not to get attached.

— • —

There was talk of notes appearing in the towns, taverns and inns that led to Kaer Morhen. Slips of paper pierced to trees, left with inn keepers and barmen. But never stuck on job boards.

One note simply said:

Dandelion, Gooseberry, please come. We are headed home. He needs help, I think.

And another:

Come swiftly, he won’t listen to me.

And another still:

Gooseberry, Dandelion… he sleeps too much. He calls your names. I think he is dying of missing you. I’m afraid.

It has been months since they left for Kaer Morhen. Perhaps a month now, that these notes have begun appearing in the towns they’ve stopped in. Some picked up and mocked by drunks. Others, blown away by the wind.

And it was one such note that Fate clings to. It drifted on the changing winds, slipping past trees and dogging the heels of horse hooves without being trampled. It went on a journey, much like Geralt and Ciri’s – a journey home.

A woman with inky hair snatched the little page from the air.

Purple painted nails stood a stark contrast against the torn, weathered page and young handwriting.

Lilac colored eyes read it over thrice, then thrice more.

Then Yennefer of Vengerberg looked out over the field she had been riding through, as though by will alone she might spot Geralt and his child surprise through miles of trees and towns and creatures. A sour wound ached inside her to think of him. It brought a bitter taste to her mouth.

I’m afraid, the child had written.

And the child in Yennefer who had been sold sympathized with that.

Fates be damned, but she did.

— • —

The bard found the note quite by chance. A note, brought to banquet by a noble who found it more a game than a plea – as though the note were some grand riddle for the banquet. Jaskier read the note as it passed around, and instead of adding in to the nobles’ very many stipulations and guesses, he found himself slipping away.

He bartered for a horse, lost himself a rather lovely flask given to him as a lover’s gift, as well as much of his purse and a trinket or too. But he hit the road not long after reading the note. He needed to know if the man was alive. Needed to know what had become of him.

Perhaps there’d be another song in it for him, he convinced himself, smothering his worry beneath that lie.

— • —

He started to expel as many as two or three blossoms throughout the day, even more at night when sleep left him powerless to obstinately smother them. He woke one night gasping, the flowers larger now. Suffocating, as though caught in a drowner’s clammy grip. Ciri pounded on his back. The relief of those thick flowers tumbling from his mouth quickly erased by the pain – howling like a banshee in his chest. He felt full, stuffed to the brim with flowers. So overwhelmed by them, he couldn’t move – couldn’t even begin to fathom how to express it.

And he realized suddenly, as he wiped petals and blood from his mouth as calmly as he could for Ciri’s sake, that this was not the first time he felt smothered. Out of control. Helpless.

He had felt it before – just as painful and cloying – the moment he drove each of them away.

— • —

Inevitably, they found each other on the road. Barbed and falsely polite greetings turned into delicately shaped hedging conversations until finally, they could ignore it no further.

“So what dangerous and thinly veiled lie are you weaving now? Do you ride to the location of your next mark? Eager to ensnare another knight to make king of some backwater, nowhere land?” Jaskier pried, curiously buried beneath distaste and distrust. He remembered still the fight that had brought Geralt to the brink. He had often wondered, on his lonelier nights, if it had been that fight that had drove Geralt to those painful words… or if it truly had been him. It was easier to blame Yennefer.

“Cute, bard. Why yes, I am currently on my way to my next morsel,” she lied easily, grinning with all her teeth as she asked, “And what of you? Looking for a new ‘tall, dark and handsome’ to hide the fact that you are not the hero of yours or anyone’s story? That’s why you only sing of others, yes?”

Jaskier whistled, the sound itself lyrical as they rode along, still in the same direction.

“Wow. What did he see in you?” Jaskier asked, unable to help himself.

“The better question is what did you see in him?” Jennefer shot back, “Are you so spineless a dog that you would let any handsome face beat you?”

“He did not beat me!”

“Not with his hands, no.”

Jaskier scowled, a storm passing over his face. He broke first in their petty silence that followed.

“He asked for me, if you must know.”

“Oh he did?” She purred, eyes twinkling darkly, “How amusing. He asked for me as well.”

“Because you bewitched him, no doubt.”

Yennefer sighed, eyes rolling as she quickly grew bored of him.

“Yes, because a bard has so much to offer an ailing witcher. No matter, we’ll see who he asked for when we get there. Separately, of course. Good luck, bard. I look forward to seeing if you make it,” she said before she urged horse on, leaving Jaskier to scowl behind her.

— • —

Geralt dreamt of younger days.

He dreamt of Kaer Morhen. Of Vesemir.

Of a witcher, no older than thirty, being carried in on a stretcher. Evidently, he had died not far from home, just a town or two over, and had paid to have his body returned to Kaer Morhen. Not as though he needed the money anyway. What was more surprising was that the townsfolk had actually done it.

He arrived, pale and thin. In the crook of his neck and in the halo of his hair Geralt could remember seeing blossoms. Lilies. Beautiful and white against the body, making the corpse look not so much pale in death as ashen.

“This is the fate of witchers,” he remembered Vesemir telling him later by the fire. “We die by the sword, or by the fang… or else, Fate comes for us herself.”

“Why?” Geralt asked.

“There are many theories. No one bothered with any of them. It doesn’t matter, there is no cure. It comes for some of us early. Some, later. There’s no telling. Perhaps it is compensation for the gifts of a witcher… it comes for all of us, boy.”

“And always lilies?”

“…no. The flowers tend to differ.”

— • —

They met again, at an inn this time.

Seeing her there, framed by besotted men and women alike, Jaskier could hold back his ire no longer.

“Why are you going? I heard your little spat, there’s no love lost between you,” Jaskier asked.

When one of her men stood to address him, she easily waved him off, to Jaskier’s surprise. She waited until her gathering left her before she answered. Leaving her with a table of wine and food that made Jaskier’s stomach cramp in jealousy.

“Oh? And I heard yours as well, bard. Have you forgiven him?” Yennefer replied. Voice like spooled silk even as her eyes twinkled cleverly.

“Well, no, but…”

“Exactly.”

“…but would you? If he asked?” Jaskier pried.

A pause.

“Would you?”

Words surprisingly soft for a mage that had cleared a battlefield by sheer will alone.

“I don’t know, I… Yes. I think I would.”

“Why?”

Why… Jaskier thought that over. Why? He found himself thinking of what he had said to Geralt atop that mountain, before the witcher had banished him from his life. I’m just trying to figure out what makes me happy.

“Because I think I know what I want now… Now that I’ve lived without it.”

“Poetic,” Yennefer snorted.

“You’re avoiding the question, Yennefer.”

Something cold stole across her face. A quiet contempt that rivalled anything Geralt had ever directed his way.

“It’s never bade well for any man who’s tried to force me to do anything, Jaskier. You’d do well to heed that lesson while I offer it free of charge.”

“Is that why he’s called for us? Did you curse him?” Jaskier said, words tumbling from his mouth in a rage despite her warning.

“I will say this once and only once, bard. I did not bring harm down upon the witcher for what he did—”

“—and what did he do, Yennefer? Do you even know?” Jaskier exclaimed, nights of dread and overthinking boiling over inside his body.

She rose, and when the barkeep moved to break them up, it was a simple spell to persuade him they were doing nothing wrong at all. The inn collectively looked away from them. Suddenly, Jaskier felt far more like a mouse between a cat’s paws than a man on equal footing with his opponent. Even so, he held his chin up as high as he could manage.

“He wished my fate tied to his,” she snarled, “He stole my choice.”

“Because you had not stolen his? Forced him to terrorize a town?” Jaskier snapped, “Right? And the way I saw things go down, he saved your life!”

“I. Didn’t. Ask.” She said lowly, darkly, each word punctuated by a wealth of frustrations and experience that went far deeper than one argument. Far deeper than one witcher.

The tableware began to tremble.

“Yeah, well, show me your fucking shackles and I’ll see your way of things. Go on. Where are they? What has he demand you do?”

She clenched her jaw, but around her, the tableware stilled.

“You think you’re so clever, bard, and yet here you are – alone. Perhaps he was right to banish you as he did.”

Jaskier stepped back at that, felt each word pierce his chest. But even as he knew she won, he could not help but part with one last thing.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, “But without a doubt he was fortunate that you lost your mind before you destroyed him with your venomous heart.”

He turned and left. Too awake to sleep, too wounded to eat. No need to rest. He might not be Yennefer of Vengerberg, he may not be helpful to Geralt in his hour of need. But he’d be damned if he let that woman beat him there.

— • —

Daydreams began to cling to him, as though sleeping were not enough. Sometimes he thought he could hear the bard trailing his horse, strumming his lute or chattering idly. Sometimes, he’d even respond. Ciri always clung a little tighter to him, then.

He smelled lilacs and gooseberries always. Always, always, always. It crept up on him with the wind, with Ciri’s shifting in the saddle, whenever a blossom slipped past his lips. Even with Ciri’s concern, and her attempts to distract them both with childish questions and wonder and energy, the world felt entirely too silent. Silent like a grave, he thought once, chuckling feverishly – hadn’t this been what he wanted?

His heart panged.

He hummed a ditty Jaskier had once strummed about the tales of witchers and their lack of emotions.

Curious was the dice Fate cast,

the heart she made for witchers.

Aye, they say love comes to them last,

their hearts too cold and withered.

“Ha, but we know better, don’t we, you gentle giant?” Jaskier teased, breaking off his impromptu song. Geralt remembered hands in his hair, oil rubbed into his back. Kindness, where he only had barbs and broken conversations to offer in return.

Kindness, and the sensation of suffocating – drawing breath, in and out, and yet unable to breathe so long as the bard looked at him that way, touched him like that…

“Hmm.”

“What are you grunting about now, Geralt?” Ciri asked, her head heavy when she pushed it back against his chest to look at him, behind her in the saddle as he was.

“…Nothing.”

“Hmm,” she mirrored back.

— • —

“Another letter, song bird,” Yennefer said, riding up beside him on the rode from seemingly nowhere. Jaskier rolled his eyes to the heavens, forcing his face into a pleasant mask as she finally reached him.

“I have a name, you know,” the bard snapped behind a polite smile.

Yennefer chuckled at that, a mirthful twinkle in her eye that made Jaskier on edge – and yet, the more he ran into her, the more and more he understood how addictive trading clever remarks with her could be.

“Yes. Evidently your name is Dandelion,” she purred, leaning toward him.

“Ah, yes, let’s play that game. Because gooseberry is so much better!” He played along, just to see her rise to the occasion.

“Hush, do you want to read it or not?”

Their game came to a surprising halt, surprising enough for him to drop his antics and focus on the note instead. He read it over. Flipping it, in case there was any more on the back. Frowned.

Gooseberry, Dandelion… he sleeps too much. He calls your names. I think he is dying of missing you. I’m afraid.

He held the note between his fingers before he looked up to catch her gaze, their horses having come to a halt flank to flank.

“Why are you showing me this?”

She watched his face for a long moment, searching for something that made the bard shiver.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Partially I want to see how useful you might be. Partially because our prior spat revealed some… motivations for me. So perhaps it is also a token of gratitude, call it what you will.”

“Gratitude?” Jaskier gaped.

“Yes. I rode to Kaer Morhen before out of a debt for the life he saved that night with the Djinn, whether I asked for it or not. To bring closure to all of… that. But now I’ve realized I cannot let the witcher die until I have some answers. So I suppose if we both must save the witcher – well not both, gods know what you think you’ll do – we might as well ride together instead of annoyingly surprising one another along the way. If you can muzzle your own fangs long enough to travel civilly.”

“Generous of you,” Jaskier snorted.

“I thought so, too,” Yennefer smiled, and again Jaskier was struck by the sudden understanding of how men so easily became ensnared by this woman.

And yet, despite their mutual loathing, the continued on in the same direction and did not part again.

— • —

One night, as he sat by a fire wrapping the gashes a stray griffin had managed to land on him when a coughing fit had made him - for just a moment - stagger. In the end, it hadn't mattered. The griffin had fallen all the same. But even so, the wound stung. A reminder of his words with Jaskier. When do witchers retire? When they slow.

He startled from his thoughts with a grunt when Ciri suddenly slipped from her bedroll, coming over and silently pressing against his flank. He had no more lavender tea to offer. Hadn't, for some time. But still she came to sit with him some nights. Sometimes she spoke, sometimes she didn't. Regardless, this time began to grow on him. More and more, he found it bordering on... pleasant.

"You scared me," she finally whispered, eyes on his hands as he worked the bandage around his forearm. He hummed at that. Felt the warmth in his chest flicker and constrict strangely.

"Griffins are intimidating, but I doubt we'll see another on our way to Kaer Morhen," he said, trying to soothe her.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

And he did. He did. He finished with the bandage before finally stretching out, warming his feet near the fire.

"I don't want to watch anyone else die because of me," she whispered. He could feel her tremble against his side. Knew it wasn't because of the cold. "I don't want to lose anyone else."

Despite every instinct of his training that screamed for him to keep distance, to no get attached, he gently brought an arm around Ciri's shoulders and said, "I know..."

And not for the first time, he wished he had something better to say.

— • —

Despite Geralt's cruel words, even now Jaskier could not tolerate endless silence. He traded barbs with his traveling companion, or at least, it started that way. But slowly barbs turned into idle chatter. Idle chatter drew out into passionate judging of various courtly men and ladies. Stories of parties gone wrong, banquets gone strange, wild nights. And even, eventually, tales about themselves.

As days passed, Jaskier found that jagged edge of contempt for Yennefer softening inside him. Steadily, like a grind stone, each day peeling another layer from him. He sang songs to cheer her up. Listened as slowly Yennefer offered small bits of herself to him one piece at a time. Tiny, fragile bits that slowly began to make a picture the more of him he collected.

And likewise, he exposed himself as well. Not all at once, not knowingly. But one day they rode and Jaskier realized that they had not once said something venomous to one another. Sharp, cutting sarcasm - sure. But nothing more. The more he knew of her, the more he understood what had driven Geralt and Yennefer apart. What had terrified the woman so dearly as to flee him like that.

At night, they shifted from a fire between them to resting flank to flank. To seeking refuge in another warm body. The sought comfort and warmth at night and during the day, they made a marry match wringing coin from inns along the way - just enough to eat and be on their way. At first it was nothing more than that.

Until a man laid hand on him at a tavern kitchen just as he was going to order food and drink for them both.

"Don't I know you from somewhere, boy?" The beast of a man asked, towering over Jaskier enough to make him gulp. He flashed the man a nervous smile.

"No, I don't think I've had the pleasure," he stammered, trying to free his hand without making a scene. "Just passing through, you see."

The man didn't let him free. Instead he loomed forward, squinting at him, cheeks rosy with drink. Breath hot and sour.

"But you've had the pleasure of my wife now, haven't you?"

"No," Jaskier wheezed, but it was too late. The man, regardless of its truth, had fastened to the assumption like a dog with a bone.

"Aye! She described you. Scrawny boy of a man! You piece of shit, you--" he drew his hand back, high over his shoulder. His fist was balled up more like a mallet than any human hand, in Jaskier's humble opinion. He closed his eyes and tried to shield himself as best he could, one hand still caught in the meaty vice of the other's grip. He waited for the blow to land.

But it never did.

"You'll let my traveling companion go," Yennefer said, appearing from behind the large man, a strange glow to her hands and her eyes - subtle, yet dangerous. "You'll hand us your purse as a token of humility for ruining our peaceful rest here at this establishment. And then you'll go home to your wife and ask her why she let another man lay with her. I promise you'll find it enlightening."

"A-aye," the man said, releasing Jaskier's bruised wrist to relieve himself of his purse - eyes dull and movements slow. Jaskier watched numbly as the man did as he was bid and disappeared.

"Incredible," Jaskier mumbled, then - eyes flitting to Yennefer to ask her why she had helped - he felt time slow as a man drew up beside her. He had a knife in his hand. He'd obviously not taken well to the open display of magic, and while most of the patrons had been content to look away and let sleeping dogs lie, this man evidently couldn't resist the opportunity to avenge his friend.

Jaskier grabbed the neck of his lute as he called to her. Watched as she spun to see the man coming, hands rising, but not before Jaskier had his lute up and swinging through the air. It arced above her, it's wooden body crashing against the man's skull. It made an awful racket. He heard a telling crunch. And then Yennefer took the man's surprise to send a force of will against him, throwing him across the inn and through a table.

Jaskier's chest heaved. His hand trembled around the neck of his lute, the strings cutting into his palms. He could feel that several had come loose.

"We should go, I think," he said, voice shaky, high off the thrill of the fight.

"Indeed," she said, and when she turned back to him, her eyes were alight in a curiously beautiful way.

They didn't stay in that town, but they left it with a heavier coin purse. And as they rode off, Jaskier lamented the death of his lute - it's barreled body cracked and warped.

"A noble death for a noble lute," he crowed dramatically, "Rest well, my sweet friend."

Yennefer eyed him and the lute curiously, something masked in the gesture, before she finally asked, "Would you like for me to fix it?"

His gaze shot up, skeptical and yet...

"Would you?"

She watched him a moment, then nodded.

"When we stop for the night, I shall fix it."

"I... thank you."

She hummed. "For the lute or for saving your ass?"

"The lute, well, both I guess, I -- why did you save my ass, by the way?"

She shrugged.

"No one touches my bard," she said. He grinned at that, something that had been dull in his chest for so long flickering weakly. "Plus, if you can fight like that, I see why Geralt called for you. I can't simply show up alone, can I? He called for us both."

"The girl called for us both," he clarified, still unsure of how Geralt would react when he saw them. "But I... I'm honestly not sure how I'll help. I can hardly swing my lute at every problem."

"Oh? Your lute saved Geralt from his reputation. Saved me from a knife, though I'd likely have stopped it," she grinned, eyes twinkling as she looked at him. "I think you're a lot more useful than you give yourself credit for these days, dandelion."

Jaskier smiled as they fell into an easy banter, eagerly joining Yennefer in her biting comments about the men who had tried to attack them and no doubt their size of their manhoods. It reminded him of the joy of traveling with another.

He wondered what it might be like in a group of four. The thought awoke a sleepy, distant hope in his chest.

— • —

Geralt barely made it to Kaer Morhen.

The estate had just began to creep up from over the hill and tree line when he felt his throat swell once more, worse than before. Thick and bulging. He could feel them in his neck, clogged and demanding release. He wheezed. In the saddle before him Ciri stirred from her nap – twisting just in time to see Geralt fall from the saddle with a loud thump and nothing more.

She scrambled from the horse. Babbled fearfully to Roach, her hands tiny and cold against him as she beat his back, tried to force him breathe.

He vomited a handful of blossoms onto the road that led home. Three full retches of lilacs and forget-me-nots and blood. When the last blossom left his lips, he sucked in a ragged breath of air. It agitated his lungs, and when he coughed next, petals and blood followed.

He could hear Ciri crying, and a roaring of blood and dread in his ears.

The edges of his vision grew ashen and blurry.

He never apologized, he realized. He never saw either of them again. Yennefer. Jaskier.

The blossoms crowding his lungs shivered like reeds in a stiff wind.

He barely saw Roach nibbling and pulling at Ciri’s collar. Leading her away.

He barely saw the road when it rushed up to greet his face.

— • —

Two travelers stopped their horses just outside the touring outline of Kaer Morhen. The anxious stomping of their mares’ hooves cast the little pile of blood dappled flowers that caught their attention to drift idly in the middle of the road.

“Lilacs and forget-me-nots... A shrine, you think?” Jaskier asked.

“In the middle of the road? Unlikely.”

Jaskier followed her gaze to the towering estate ahead.

“Is that Kaer Morhen?” He asked.

“Hmm… yes, Dandelion. It is.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” He asked. Even as he knew.

Yennefer was searching inside herself for that thread of Fate she was certain Geralt had cursed her with. Searching constantly for the answer to one question – was this her will or the will of a witcher’s wish?

Whatever answer she found, it must have been enough to push her forward. When she urged her horse along, Jaskier did not comment. He merely followed, grateful that she had.

Whatever was wrong with Geralt, it was unlikely that Jaskier would be able to fix it. As much as he was flattered to have been included in the note, he knew it was Yennefer that mattered.

He knew that had he not come, he would have easily been forgot.

— • —

Geralt woke in the middle of hurried orders and frantic hands. He was shuffled and rolled from a stretcher to a bed. The room was warm, covered in shelves and cabinets, all glimmering with bottles and herbs and tinctures. He knew this room. He’d been here before.

A weathered hand brushed the hair from his sweaty brow, then plucked a blossom from the corner of his mouth. Geralt’s breath whistled harshly as people scattered, all with their individual orders from Vesemir.

“The girl?” Geralt croaked.

“Safe. She’s safe.”

Three words. Three words, and he let self-control – what little he had of it – slip from him like the strings of a puppet suddenly cut. What strength he had left fled him. He melted into the mattress, keen to enjoy that simple comfort now that his task was done. He waited for Fate to release its hold on him. To feel that final tether cut, his body free of this place.

He waited. And waited. And must have muttered something confused and pained about it, because Vesemir merely placed a damp cloth to his forehead and said, “Not yet, lad. Not yet.”

— • —

Vesemir sat at Geralt’s bedside, twirling the stems of two flowers between thumb and forefinger: a lilac and a forget-me-not. He watched them dance, drying out now from the heat of the room. And then, he finally set them aside to look at the man that occupied Kaer Morhen’s sickbed.

The white wolf, while still towering and broad, looked so small in that bed. Even as his feet did not quite get spared from hanging over its end, he looked small. Young. Like a boy again, almost. Or perhaps that was just the wistfulness in Vesemir.

He had never seen a witcher expel two blossoms before.

Trust Geralt of Rivia to surprise him.

— • —

A small girl stood at the gate to Kaer Morhen as though she alone could protect every soul inside. Her little hands were fisted at her sides, tears in her eyes. She appeared ready to scream, of all things.

“Is that… a little girl? I thought they only took boys here?”

“Yes, Dandelion, your powers of observation continue to astound.”

Hostility melted from the girl like snow thawing. Her hands unclenched. Her teary eyes, if possible, seemed to glimmer with further moisture.

“Dandelion? Gooseberry?” She asked, voice warbling despite how she tried to be brave.

“Aye, child.”

“You found my letters.”

“Letters is a bit of a strong word—ow!” Jaskier snapped, cradling the arm Yennefer had pinched.

“Where is he?” Yennefer asked.

Ciri didn’t say another word. She took off running. And despite their courtly demeanors, Yennefer and Jaskier followed – running.

— • —

“What did this to him?” Yennefer asked, watching Geralt hack deliriously as Vesemir eased him toward the side of the bed where the blood, petals and blossoms might fall harmlessly. He looked thin. Like a starved wolf.

“Nothing,” Vesemir said once the fit had passed, easing the feverish man back into the pillows, eyes already closed. “This is the way of witchers. We die to the blade, or the fang, or this.”

“No, that’s… no,” Jaskier stumbled, searching for any line to hang onto. “Surely there’s a cure?”

“A cure I simply haven’t given him yet?” Vesemir asked dryly, brow raised.

“How has word of this never spread?” Yennefer asked instead. “Have you sought council anywhere?”

“Very few care enough for witchers to be concerned for how they die,” Vesemir said. Jaskier and Yennefer both grew quiet, unable to call it a lie. Not when the bard had spent so long trying to fix that very reputation. Not when Yennefer knew first hand it was true. They’d both been to more than one town affixed with signs warning witchers not to pass through.

“What do we do?” Jaskier croaked.

Vesemir quietly got up to leave, then as he passed brought a hand up to Jaskier’s shoulder, squeezed it, then left.

— • —

He dreamt of a bed that had Yennefer and Jaskier both in it. He dreamt of them at either side of him. Yennefer’s fingers tracing his face, his scars. Jaskier’s hands in his hair, rubbing the aches from his shoulders, his back. Sometimes a small hand found his and held it firmly, as if it alone could lead him home.

Everything smelled of lilacs, gooseberries and forget-me-nots.

And occasionally, of Ciri.

— • —

“We could find another Djinn. Wish him better. Or wish him to be human!”

Yennefer spun on him and were Geralt not cradled so weakly in the bard’s arms, her glare might have been more furious. She growled, “No Djinn.”

“Sensitive,” the bard muttered. She thought about hurting him. He was lucky Geralt was in his lap.

“Then what… there’s nothing?”

“There’s never nothing,” Yennefer murmured, returning to her pacing, fingers flipping through one of many books she had taken from Kaer Morhen’s shelf to no avail. “Merely the unexplored, the unexplained.”

“His nails are blue, Yennefer,” Jaskier said weakly.

“I’m aware,” she snapped.

And when the bard didn’t rise to the bait, instead focused on fussing over the limp witcher in his lap – then, worry bled into fear. Then, Yennefer felt helpless.

— • —

Geralt called for them in his sleep.

It made the bard ache to hear his name said like that. Jaskier whined like the puppy he was, eager to return to his master even after he was struck. It made Yennefer sick to watch, knowing what the man had said to the bard. She scowled, that sour taste back in her mouth.

He called for her, too.

It made Yennefer furious. What right had he to mourn her name after what he did? And yet, she could not make herself leave. Not when she still didn’t know if Fate had forced her life to this point or not. Not when she still didn’t know what he had wished…

And yet still she came to him when he called for her. For reasons she could not explain, she soothed him as best she could. Perhaps she was no better than the bard. Perhaps they both wanted nothing more than an easy excuse to forgive, before it was too late.

— • —

Yennefer left. To do what, she had barely tried to describe and Jaskier had barely tried to understand. He stroked limp hair from Geralt’s brow. Ran a cloth over the worst of the man’s fever.

“Sorry this is the best that I can offer right now. A rag is nothing compared to Yennefer's gifts, but I can’t very well go writing songs about this, Geralt,” he said as cheerfully as he could muster, as though nothing were wrong. As if Geralt only had a cold. As if the man weren’t dying. “Not unless you have a happily-ever-after planned. Otherwise, I’ll get run out of any bar I sing at.”

He waited for the grunt he had gotten used to, even after so long without the man. Waited for a baleful glare, anything. Geralt just kept wheezing, the sound getting threadier and threadier.

The silence drew his false bravado to an exhausted halt. Stirred an ancient ache in the face of more of Geralt’s famous silence.

“I should hate you,” Jaskier whispered. “I want to hate you so much. You know, I thought this would go a lot differently. I used to sit up at night thinking about what I’d say when I saw you again. Had a lot clever words for you too. Now I can’t use them, you bed-ridden bastard. Hardly sporting…”

He pinched Geralt, just to see if he would wake, then immediately felt guilty for it.

“I should hate you,” he mumbled, fingers tracing a scar near the skin he had pinkened with his pinch. “The things you said to me… and I did, for a long time, I think. I did hate you. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt bad for you, Geralt. Everyone says witchers can’t feel, but… I think you can. I think you can, and even you lot fell for that wives’ tale, and now you just don’t know what to do with it all. Bit like a child,” Jaskier laughed weakly. “An overgrown, dual-sword wielding child… I haven’t forgiven you. Not yet. And I won’t, if you die, I won’t. I demand a proper apology. So you better fucking get better, Geralt of Rivia, or I’ll…”

Jaskier blew out a breath, suddenly tired, the fight fleeing him. He took Geralt’s hand, gaze caught where his thumb stroked calloused skin.

“You just better,” he whispered lamely, at a loss for words.

Geralt didn’t answer, so Jaskier filled the silence as best he could. He sang, hoping it lead the witcher home. He'd take a snide comment relating his music to filling-less pie any day if it meant Geralt would live. So he sang. He filled the silence as best he could and waited for Yennefer, feeling helpless all the while.

"Curious was the dice Fate cast,

the heart she made for witchers.

Aye, they say love comes to them last,

their hearts too cold and withered.

But alas, I saw a witcher love,

when he thought no one was looking.

Spared a smile for naught but just his horse,

and whispered kindness when she whickered."

— • —

“How much time do we have?”

“It’s hard to say,” Vesemir admitted. “…not long.”

The words hurt more than Yennefer thought they would. Far more, in fact. For if her fate were tied to his, or her heart relentlessly forced to love him, she should feel relief that his suffering would soon be over. Peace, maybe. Sadness, of course, but not the bitter sort she had lodged up in her chest. It was nothing like the mourning of besotted widowers. No. It was an ugly, cold, twisted sort of sadness. The bitter remnants of a relationship that could have been, but went unfulfilled. And there, beneath it, hatred for ever having wished for something that would tie the two of them together. Hatred, when he knew the life she had led, had tried to escape from. If she were forced to love him, would she be able to feel that hate? Should it even be possible?

What had he wished for?

Soon, she’d never know. Unless she asked.

— • —

It was a simple spell to lure Dandelion asleep. Simpler still to use a collection of herbs from the witchers’ pantry to wake Geralt, if only for a moment. She had never seen a witcher’s eyes so hazy. He appeared barely able to recognize her.

“Yen?” he croaked, sounding as if he expected her to be a mirage rather than a flesh and blood woman. Something in her panged at that. There were petals at the corner of his mouth again. Lilacs.

“What did you wish for, Geralt?”

His brow furrowed, then warped into something she had not expected to see – regret.

“I’m sorry, Yennefer,” he rasped, the words ruined by hacking that echoed in his chest, ugly and painful.

“Geralt, please,” she said, grabbing his face to focus him as the fit passed, “I must know.”

“I couldn’t let you go,” he whispered madly, eyes distant as she rubbed his face, tilted his gaze to her, did anything to keep him with her.

“You bound me,” she repeated, urging him to confirm her fears, her anger, “Tied my fate to yours.”

Would she die if he did, she wondered? Would the flowers come for her, too? They should, were their fates tied, and yet… she was fine.

“Couldn’t let you die.”

There was something urgent in the amber of his eyes as he said that. Something unidentifiable and yet so familiar. It drew her breath to a pause; the intimacy of it frightening.

“What did you wish for, Geralt?” She repeated.

He chuckled, eyes rolling weakly, tiredly. She urged his attention back to her with her hands, the softness of her fingers, a hint of magic.

“Geralt.”

“I wished,” Geralt babbled weakly, easily lost in each word, “I wished…”

As his head lolled in her hands, a voice startled Yennefer like a loud noise might make a cat arch its back. She twisted to look behind her, surprised to find Ciri there in the doorway, watching them, as she said, “He wished Fate give you a second chance.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed at the little girl. She eased Geralt back into the pillows and asked, “He told you this?”

“He talks in his sleep.”

A second chance…

“A second chance at what?”

“I don’t know… life?” Ciri asked, shrugging.

A second chance at life. A second chance to live her life, a life where the Djinn hadn’t killed her. It would mean their encounters had been by chance, their feelings by chance, their… Their fight by chance. Why had he not said? Why not merely say what his wish had been?

Because… a wish uttered again after having been asked was no longer a wish. How many children refused to tell their wishes due to that fear? A childish fear perhaps made all too real by the risk if it were true. And, unable to tell her the truth, would she have believed him had he denied tying their fates together without admitting the truth?

“You moron,” she snarled beneath her breath, unsure as to who it was for. Him? Herself?

Why would a witcher who hated Fate ever wish to tie her to himself? Why would a witcher who had no choice in his own occupation, his own life, ever steal that from another? Ever steal that from her, a woman who spent her life making up for the decisions that had been taken from her?

She stood suddenly, moving for the door.

“Where are you going?” Ciri asked, startled. And yet, surprisingly, she didn’t move from the doorway. Blocking it, as slight as she was, like a bulldog.

Yennefer considered her question, considered her bravery, and despite her ire at being held up, found a certain fondness spreading in her for Geralt’s child surprise. For the child he had gotten, but she could never have.

“To try and find a cure.”

Her little mouth pursed at that, conflicted. She balled up her fists.

“You better come back,” she finally said.

“I will,” she promised.

“He’s worse when he misses you two,” Ciri explained, as though Yennefer didn’t understand the stakes.

“I will be back before he wakes,” she said, without regard as to whether or not that was possible.

Ciri just nodded at that and stepped aside. As Yennefer passed, she found herself pausing, looking down on the pale little head that had become the witcher’s shadow.

“Take care of him for me while I’m gone, won’t you?”

She glared up at her at that, mouth twisted as she said, “I have been!”

Yennefer just smiled, more and more smitten with this little firecracker of a girl.

Thank Fate Geralt had her with him. Otherwise…

Yennefer refused to dwell on it.

— • —

She showed the two blossoms to many people. Anyone she dared share audience with and a few, even, she should not have. Witchers kept their secrets well, it would seem. No affluent mage she knew of had an answer. Deals and bargains and lies, plenty – but no truthful cure.

She stood on a cliffside overlooking the sea, salt air whipping her hair, as she tried to come to terms with the knowledge that she was too late. Too late to find a cure. Too late in realizing Geralt was an emotionally constipated man-baby prone to fretful wives’ tales and childish beliefs about wishes. Too late in understanding that she had wasted her chance to spend his wish with him.

“Yennefer of Vengerberg?”

She turned slowly, exhausted and hollowed out, to see a woman standing behind her on the bluffs. A plain looking woman, no doubt a humble village witch. Simple, barely talented. It took only one look to see that she was more kind than she was skilled.

“Who asks?”

“Maria,” she said gently, then smiled softly as she said, “Fate bid me finish sending you on your way.”

She stilled at that. Were it not for the honest kindness in the woman’s eyes, she might have thought it a threat. Still did, in a way.

“Send me where?”

“Home,” she said, “To your second chance.”

— • —

Jaskier felt he might vomit as he watched the witcher convulse, mouth full of flowers. He did as Vesemir had taught him and eased the man onto his side so the flowers pose less a risk of choking him. He didn’t realize he was crying as he babbled to soothe the witcher, to soothe himself. Anything to smother the terrible sound of Geralt’s wheezing.

“It’s okay,” he said, over and over, “Yennefer will figure it out. We’ve got you. It’s okay.”

A hot hand grabbed his forearm, so weak for the man Jaskier once saw split a creature clean in half with one slash of his sword. He could feel the heat of Geralt’s fever through his shirt.

“Jaskier,” Geralt croaked, voice so ragged now that to call it a whisper would have been generous.

“Yes? Geralt?” Jaskier asked, eager for his friend to be awake after so long feverish and asleep. “Do you need something?”

“Not a dream?” Geralt rasped.

“No, Geralt. It’s not a dream.”

“You’re here?”

His confusion drew Jaskier’s gut to a tight knot.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Need to… tell you….”

Geralt grew still and limp, asleep once more, hand still clutching Jaskier’s forearm. The bard pat that hand, then reached to grab the cool rag. He ignored the way his hand shook. Vesemir watched from the doorway. Silent and as close to mournful as witchers ever tended to look.

— • —

Yennefer ran her horse ragged, once again cursing the barriers that prevented her from teleporting into Kaer Morhen. Her horse’s breath sent large, hot plumes out into the cold night. It beat a steady thrum into the ground.

She willed Fate get her there in time. Willed Geralt hold on.

— • —

She found him canted over the side of the bed, Vesemir and Jaskier both holding him up as he purged flowers onto the ground, adding to a little heap already there and growing – fresh, splattered with little drops of red.

His arm shook fiercely where it braced itself on the bed. There was no cognizance in his eyes, just suffering – feverish, confused and pained. Ciri cried, curled in the corner, too afraid to move, too attached to leave.

She knelt beside his flowers, hands cradling his face even as Vesemir bade her leave him be. That he might choke. His throat bulged with regret and pining. Flowers tumbled from his lips. But when she called his name, forcing will into the word, he opened his eyes to look at her. Glazed, aching. Wanting relief in any form – be it cure or death.

She wiped a petal from the corner of his mouth.

“You wished for a second chance for me,” she said. Something akin to clarity cut into his eyes.

“Yennef—” another plume of lilacs spilled from his mouth. His body shook with the effort of purging the blossoms, now fully flowers. She could count his ribs, less than his scars and yet nearly more striking.

“So you cannot die,” she said fiercely, forcing him to look at her, “Because I’ve decided I want you to be part of my second chance, Geralt of Rivia. You are mine. Ours,” she said, looking pointedly at the bard.

“Yennefer, now is not the—“Jaskier started, but Vesemir cut him off with a hand over the bard’s mouth, eyes wide as he said, “You found your answers.”

Yennefer did not answer him. There was no time.

“I love you, Geralt of Rivia,” she said, and then she kissed him. His lips were chapped, his skin hot and clammy. She could feel petals on her lips. He reeked of flowers and death. And yet, in her hands, his jaw ceased some of its shaking. She pulled back to find some cognition return to his eyes.

“Yenn—” He began, relief somewhere in the words before forget-me-nots took their place, landing in her lap harmlessly.

“Jaskier,” she said, drawing the bard’s attention, “Our conversation from before… Have you forgiven him or not?”

“I have, but I’m no magician, Yen, I can’t—”

“You can. In fact, only you can.”

He stared at her with owlish eyes, then scrambled to action all at once, limbs thin and lanky as he twisted himself uncomfortably to reach Geralt’s face. He brushed petals and blood from the corners of the man’s mouth and took in the face of the man who had been, for so long, larger than life. This man who had wounded him with words and blame and barbs.

“I need… to tell you…”

Geralt had never finished… but he didn’t need to. Not yet, at least.

“I love you,” Jaskier said, eyes caught on feverish amber ones. “I have always loved you.”

A second kiss. In Yennefer’s lap and in the pile beside her, one by one the flowers turned to dust. In the bed, in Geralt’s hair, in his cloths. All of them faded – disappearing as though they had never been.

As Jaskier pulled away, Geralt let out a soft, relieved sigh, finally free of his wheezing. It was his first clear breath in weeks. And with it, his eyes closed – not in weariness or pain, but relief. He melted into the bard’s arms, startling the man before Yennefer could calm him.

“He’s fine, Dandelion,” she said, her hand seeking Geralt’s from beside the bed. “He’ll be fine.”

“How did you…?” Vesemir trailed off, shocked. Ciri slipped past him, worming her way onto the bed to clutch at Geralt, curl into him, hide her face.

“We need to have a talk about your clan’s opinion of feelings, Master Witcher,” Yennefer said politely, words professional even as her eyes howled. “And how it’s killing you all. But we’ll do that all in good time.”

And then she made room for herself on the crowded bed, needing to touch her witcher, her bard, her child-surprise. Because anything that was Geralt’s was now hers, and she felt in her marrow those strings of Fate fettering them all together. The strings she had chosen; anchoring and taut.

— • —

Death of the Pining Flowers, Hanahaki, the Pining Petals, the disease of the lonely… it had many names and yet, few stories and fewer cures. The result of love not returned. Rare but for those who could not move on, and even then, it rarely took hold. But for witchers, born and bred and raised to ignore their emotions, it was a breeding ground for suffering. The more they smothered what they could not understand, the more they buried, the more it grew and festered until it made gardens of their bodies – their hearts, assumed to be hollow by the training and trials that made them, filled with the proof that witchers could, in fact, feel. Petals upon petals of proof.

So full of feelings, in fact, that it killed them.

Cured only when those feelings were returned.

To think, they had almost lost their witcher to petals.

Once he woke, they didn’t let him leave his bed for days. They fed him slowly but surely. Comforted him, nursed him. And Geralt, bewildered all the while, wasn’t quite strong enough to do much about it.

— • —

“You came,” he said to Yennefer, his hands curled in her hair as she lay beside him.

“Hmm.”

She did it to prove a point, and he found it both amusing and frustrating.

“Yen,” Jaskier said from Geralt’s other side, “Be nice, the man just spent months coughing up flowers, he loved you so much.”

She hummed at that again, her gaze moving from Jaskier to Geralt as she said, “Yes, I came.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” She asked.

“Yes.”

She leaned back into the pillows at that, eyes lifting to count the beams in the ceiling.

“I hated you… but that didn’t mean I could just sit back and watch you die, either. At first, that was enough, but… I already admitted my love to you, Geralt, how often are you going to demand I reaffirm it? Ask your bard, he’ll sing it for you, I bet.”

Geralt grunted, something close to a chuckle, as he turned to Jaskier.

“And you… why did you come?”

“The gooseberry nailed it, Geralt.”

“Call me gooseberry again and I’ll remove one of your gooseberries, bard.”

Jaskier continued on as if she hadn’t just threatened his manhood. Their familiarity stunned Geralt. Jaskier had not paled at all at the threat. If anything, he smiled.

“But for me, I guess… I never hated you, Geralt. Hated what you said, how you treated me? Yes. But you? …how could I stay away?” Jaskier finally said.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, as if just remembering, “I need to tell you. I…”

He stuttered. His guts coiled, his instincts screaming. Feelings got you killed. He’d miss something, he’d get killed, get them all killed, he’d—

Jaskier waited. Strangely patient.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt said, the words just as choking as the flowers had been, making him shudder even as he felt relief for finally having said it. Like finally cleaning the grit from an old wound, sore but finally healing.

“Well that certainly took a lot out of you,” Jaskier said dryly, one brow arched.

Geralt hung his head, torn between instinct and his lame apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said more firmly. “I… the things I said, none of it was true. You didn’t ruin my life. I did. When I pushed both of you away.”

“Good boy,” Yennefer purred from beside him, patting his shoulder. Making Geralt scowl ever so slightly as Jaskier chuckled, pecking the corner of his mouth.

“Stale, but oddly generous, for a witcher. That’s practically a speech in witcher, isn’t it, Yen?”

“As close to as one we’ll get, I think.” She chuckled.

“You’re both insufferable,” Geralt groused with no real heat.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better, then,” Jaskier grinned.

“Though I’d prefer a little more better,” Yennefer said, her chin on Geralt’s chest as she looked between them all, “So we might all feel better together.”

Geralt grunted, caught between two grinning foxes. Suddenly not alone, suddenly caught with two lovers.

“The girl’s asleep in the chair,” he cautioned, both grateful and mournful about it.

“As I said, when you’re more better,” Yennefer pointed out. “It can wait. We’ve got nothing but time, after all.”

Fate thrummed in the threads that connected them all together, strong and soothing. And for once, Geralt found comfort in that.

For once, he found peace.

#the witcher #geralt #jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #yennefer/geralt/jaskier #OT3 #hanahaki #hurt/comfort #witcher writing

116 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 4 years ago

Text

Justice League Spectacular #1 (1992)

Just off-panel: Bibbo's ice cream truck.

I probably shouldn't be reading this or Justice League Quarterly before I read the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League but what can I do? That's the order they were placed in the short box! It would be a different story if free will were not an illusion but since it is, my hands are tied. It's either read this or, um, I don't know. Die from a temporal paradox? I won't risk it! I was looking through a bunch of my old writing and art last week and discovered a bunch of the kind of sentimental and sort of intellectual crap young people write. It's the kind of stuff you hide away and never show anybody ever and hope that when you die, it'll just get tossed in a dumpster with your old porn and Magic the Gathering cards. But it got me thinking about how brave I am! So brave! The kind of brave you wouldn't hesitate to call some jerk who signed up for the military because he couldn't live as a civilian. No, no. More braver than that! And being this super brave kind of person, I thought that maybe I should share some of this old poetry with everybody! But not yet! You have to work up to being truly brave! So instead, I'll share this piece of artwork I did that was supposed to be the first in a lengthy and disgusting series. It's of Lord Fondlerot, a character I created for the Dwarflover online comic I used to do. He was really into fucking things and I thought, "Hey! I should do a series of drawings where he fucks every creature in the monster manual!" But instead of doing an entire series, I drew one picture and grew either bored or disgusted with the concept. So here's that one picture:

Lord Fondlerot fucking an Axebeak.

Now you're probably wondering just how terrible my poetry must be if I'm opening with that! Well, you'll see soon enough! This issue begins with Sue Dibny still alive and visiting a Florida theme park with her husband, The Elasticated Man. Wow, remember when Sue Dibny was killed and all the heroes freaked out about their secret identities and considered doing intense brain damage to every single person who ever knew any of their identities until they found out that The Atom's ex-wife Jean Loring had gone cuckoo for Atom's cocoa puffs? She wanted them back so bad that she began threatening and murdering the loved ones of all the super heroes. It was the kind of story DC sometimes does where you read it and think, "Well, the twist at the end of that mystery was definitely worth the destruction of the most stable marriage in the DC Universe and also the death of Firestorm and Captain Boomerang! So good!" I mean it doesn't make you think that. It makes you think the exact opposite. Tom King would eventually do pretty much the same thing in Heroes in Crisis but instead of Jean Loring fucking up by accidentally killing Sue Dibny and murdering more people to cover her tracks, Wally West fucks up and kills Poison Ivy and some others and then tries to cover his tracks. But at least Tom King's had all of those entertaining scenes where the heroes are doing therapy and we get to see how much they're all suffering from PTSD. That's always a fun aspect of super heroes we never get to read enough about. Dammit! I keep doing it. I meant it was the opposite of fun! Although I still liked it because sometimes I just like seeing other people in pain. Not in a sick perverse way where I pop a boner or something! Just in that way where you sit around all day thinking, "My life is terrible and everything is wrong and I hate my parents for bringing me into this wretched existence and the only thing that might make me feel better is to learn that Superman sometimes feels the same way." Oh, remember when Tom King was writing Batman and he had that two issue Booster Gold arc where we got to see how fucking insane Booster Gold was from living through all of those horrible, wretched, dark alternate timelines? And the only way he can deal with the trauma and the PTSD is by making a joke out of everything? I'll have to think of that as the canon Booster Gold when I'm reading Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League. Maybe it'll make all of Booster and Beetle's inappropriate joking more appropriate. Back to the story, Sue Dibny, alive and well, and her husband Ralph "The Elasticated Man" Dibny are busy showing a bunch of European diplomats around the non-Disney World theme park.

See? You can tell they're European because they're all smart and shit.

The first stop in the park is to Alice's Wonderland where the diplomats are attacked by the Royal Flush Gang. They are a gang whose theme is playing cards and not expensive toilets. Their powers are the ability to ride on gigantic cards and to make poker puns.

If looking good in tight fitting costumes is also a power, it's my new answer to the question of which super power would I choose..

Ten's outfit reminds me of the days when nipples were allowed to show through tops without being erased away through some kind of editing software. The 70s were a wild decade! Sure, there were also nips on television in the 80s but the 80s, generally speaking, sucked and were a huge contribution to the downfall of America.

The King of Spades mansplaining their entire concept to the Queen of Spades.

It's true that the royal flush beats any other poker hand but I doubt Superman is going to surrender after this concept is explained to him because, in the end, they're not fucking playing poker. It turns out Maxwell Lord paid the Royal Flush Gang to make a little trouble so the Justice League could beat them up and get some media attention. But the Justice League has apparently broken up and The Elasticated Man just isn't hero enough to save the European delegates all by himself. He might have been if the Royal Flush Gang had done what they were told and not really fight back. But why would they do that?! Wouldn't they still be in trouble with federal agents?! Booster Gold finds Blue Beetle busy pouting in the old Justice League cave headquarters. Booster has decided to try to cheer his old buddy up although why wouldn't Booster just travel to a timeline where Ted Kord is already cheered up? Is that how time travel works in the DCU? Or did Booster already try that, it went horribly sideways, and now he's a little more fucked up in the head when he returns to the "real" timeline?

For some reason, Ice and Fire have also come down to the cave. Probably to accidentally go on a double date with Booster and Beetle. Booster and Fire and Beetle and Ice hear a news report about the Royal Flush Gang and decide to go save Ralph. Superman also hears about the situation and heads to Florida where he's almost immediately defeated by The Royal Flush Gang. Not because they're dangerous and competent super villains but because some mysterious benefactor has give them weapons capable of knocking out Superman's powers. Maxwell Lord is not that benefactor so who could have done it? Certainly not Guy Gardner, right?! What would he want with getting the Justice League back together. Isn't he busy being Warrior or something by this point? Power Girl, Metamorpho, and Guy Gardner all join in on the fight. The guy behind it all is that Weapons Master dude who is desperate to get a new weapon for his arsenal: a Green Lantern ring. The attack on the Royal Flush Gang fails to get him the ring so he decides to attack directly. But not in this issue! He has to wait for a regular series issue. Ice uses Guy's ring to contact Hal Jordan because somebody finally decided this Justice League wasn't really a big league Justice League. Everybody reading it knew it for years. But I guess Dan Jurgens was assigned the task to get a new, more believably powerful League together. So Hal Jordan flies around to pick up some new members to save the day. He chooses The Flash and Aquaman which seems about right. But he also chooses Crimson Fox which seems like sliding backwards into goofy Justice League territory. Not that I totally approve of Aquaman but I have to admit he's a "serious" choice for the League.

Doctor Light also joins the party. Although why she'd keep the name of a pedo, I couldn't guess. Just become Lightwoman or something. But no! Once some jerk earns their doctorate, they just have to demand to be called Doctor.

I'm sorry. I was too distracted pointing out that Doctor Light joined the fight and how her namesake was a pervert to comment on Metamorpho acting like a huge fucking pig. Crimson Fox beats up some guys dressed as cards and admits that she's a boring idiot whose favorite part of the game is shuffling the cards. I understand the need to think up some kind of goofy one-liner when you go into battle but shouldn't you at least try to think up one that doesn't make yourself sound like a pathetic asshole? Weapons Master's plan failed but he figures he has enough information to get Green Lantern's ring next time. He'll then sell it to a Dominator for a few bucks and maybe some slaves. The big hitters talk it over and decide they should start a new Justice League without the approval of the United Nations. Yeah! Who needs some stupid Earthly authority when you've got an invulnerable Kryptonian, an all powerful space cop, and the king of the seven seas! All they need is a Greek Goddess and a mentally ill furry with a long history of violent behavior and they'll have the big team back together! Booyah! I mean, without that stupid Booyah shit because Cyborg is basically a toaster at this point. Maybe. I don't know! What am I, Johnni DC, Continuity Cop?! The heroes make one more decision: split the group into two Leagues. So once again, they're forming Justice League America and Justice League Europe. How come I don't remember this shit?! Did the comics get canceled in '92 and then immediately fired back up? I don't seem to remember two different incarnations of these teams. Maybe I should have stored my comic books in chronological order so it would all make sense. Justice League Spectacular #1 Rating: C. I just read the letters pages and it looks like this comic book takes place between JLA #60 and JLA #61! So editorial decided the teams needed to be shaken up and the best way to do it was to disband the League in the regular series, have a special one-shot comic that gets them back together but with a different roster, and then send them back to work in the next issue of the regular series. I guess I should just shove this comic book into the middle of the regular series so when I reread it all again in my 80s, it'll make more sense! Let's close with the worst drawing of Aquaman I've ever seen:

Actually, he looks a little bit like Grunion Guy.

#Justice League Spectacular #Justice League #DC COmics #DC #Dan Jurgens #Gerard Jones

4 notes · View notes

oswednesday · 5 years ago

Text

sees the team they gave opal,

anyway

(i dont have any big changes in mind for opals gym it was pretty perfect, if it was Real Life bede would not be in the running cause id smash that whole thing up, opal would NOT be able to resist my level of pink, if anything its just a little plot changes, stuff i was already uuugh about)

(long before her mom retired, opal was a Scientist, but before that she had tried to break into acting ; despite at the time being just a young teenager she was turned away from auditions and even guilds for looking too old, defeated she gave into her mother's pressure and attended a college, she ended up being at the forefront of the verging bio-technology field)

(ability: insomnia, moves: Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Dazzling Gleam, Synchronoise)

(you obvi wont be seeing this one again! or any of them for the cup!)

(she took over the gym when her mother retired as per tradition but didnt really put much interest in it beyond the barest minimum, between the gym and her work she didnt have much room for a social life, and not to use the word interest again, but she wasnt particularly interested in settling down with a family, she had one of Those moms who are like oooh i had to give up a careeer to haaave you, despite like, having a whole entire gym, after some horrible science gone wrong tho opal was happy to retire from all that nasty business,she taught for a while and for a short time bellonlea was a bustling college town)

( i think ill have the gym challenge be in parts like a sit down before hand before the practical, i had gotten really excited about the build up thinking we were going to see a gameified bubble test ffggfd,,,,wow,,,anyway, if you get one wrong youll get shocked! one of your pkmn have a 50/50 chance of getting paralyzed, you can cheat with your rotom phone? if it was a game and not a comic there’d be a mechanic for that, if you get caught you get kicked out but opal will let you try again, cause cheating is pink but its not pink that you got caught but it IS pink that youd come back like nothing happened, like, super pink)

(ability: healer, moves: heal pulse, aromatherapy, draining kiss, toxic)

(another shiny! also, a note, this was another design i didnt appreciate at first but now i really do, i was hoping like many others that it was going to get creepy but theres a really like mature restrain in this design, still conveying a plague doctor while also being french aura’d really a 10/10 design)

(on stage hot air is in effect! i think you should have to dress up before hand like from opals costume room? you get stat boosts when she likes your clothes pick and stat lowering when she doesnt, youre getting points based on the move like a beauty contest and not a battle so you cant just attack mash your way through)

(ability: cute charm, moves: sing, perish song, wake-up slap, disarming voice)

(once youre done with that, its gym battle time! the astroturf is like grandma carpetting but like, extra plush, theres glowing mushrooms and moss and a Strange Fragrance in the air, this is a kind of fairy terrain!)

(ability: rattled, moves: ice fang, outrage, crunch, lick)

(this is one of my fave pkmn and i think its silly that its not fairy fighting! i could just chance it in the emulator, live my dreams,,)

(all fairy types have a less likely chance of taking status effects and have a chance of recovering from them without the aid of an item, or waiting multiple turns, all pkmn sp attk or sp def might be raised or lowered at random, theres a chance non-fairy type pkmn might not want to battle at all similar to the effects attract has so youll miss a turn (certain abilities make a pkmn immune to this probs stuff like pkmn with intimidate, pressure, ect)

(ability: normalize, moves: sleep talk, copycat, assist, foresight)

(the fragrant air has a 30% chance of putting non-fairy type pkmn to sleep, for normal and dragon pkmn its a 50% chance! its like at the start of your turn thing, poison type attacks can do less damage, but enough poison can turn the air noxious! like in any battles, and that deals poison damage, ill figure all the air stuff out later, i think adding another way the field can be effected would be fun :> )

(using her considerable resources, she launched a luxury fashion and beauty brand using her past research to develop make ups, lotions, textiles and the like, so when she finally fully retired from academia she had a Nice nest egg to sit on while putting her focus fully on her gym)

(call her professor poplar and she will ignore you)

(already in her 70s when the chairman was elected to the position by the league's board, she was v set in her ways and didnt adapt to dynamaxing right away, she eventually gave in tho, her gym and the city is far less razzle dazzle than you'd expect from someone like opal, in part because she refuses outside sponsorship and "makes due" with simply being a modest millionaire)

(ability: aroma veil, moves: acid armor,topsy-turvy ,me first, stored power)

( this thing is ruby swirl with love bows! i originally did love sweets but i think she’d like that pop of purple!)

(this is the one she dynamaxs of course! she’ll wait as long as she can to use it tho, youll get some ominous old lady warning, some vague lore, she’ll us g-max finale and youll end up facing her whole team again! it totes means allies on the field but that makes it waay too niche for a big finale monster attack!)

(would it just wild to change opals name? like i could use poplar but like whyd they give everyone plant names anyway?? they seem so random too, then the english names are sooo different? at the same time,, its kinda neat to have these plant names that im interperting as rustic charm, omg i think i might go with poppy,its her name in italian; that has actual ties to fairy stuff, like poppy poplar, omg and like with poplar i wanted to give her a medical background? plus the fairy stuff like! shes kinda,,weirdly medicinal themed on her own? maybe its a “joke” about her being old fddgdf)

#wednesday plans a nuzlocke

2 notes · View notes

mydarlinclementine · 5 years ago

Text

u n s e e i n g e y e s f o l l o w a p p r o a c h i n g f o o t s t e p s . . .

“ hope you’re not try’na be a sneak. it’s unbecoming. ”

a warning laced with poison. she stands by the window. no cane. no fear.

friend or foe, they’ve got one thing she’s after.

“ got a light ? ”

( jodie comer, gorgon, she/her & cisfemale ) is that ( bad reputation ) by joan jett & the blackhearts ) playing? (clementine cornelia carmichael ) must be nearby! heard folks say the ( one hundred fifty ) year old ( ex-mercenary ) was at the thanksgiving fair, ( lightin’ a cigarette by the kiddie play pen ) when chaos ensued. during the glitch, ( she dropped her cane while jumped by some no-good, possessed werecreatures, ‘til a mystery someone swooped her off to safety ).

b a c k g r o u n d .

clementine cornelia carmichael was the second of two daughters born to the carmichael family in georgia... and the disappointment starts there. her parents had been vying for a son, but alas –– with one x chromosome too many, they had no choice but to amend their planned wills. their family fortune, derived from plantation money, would go to the first daughter to marry, and her husband.

the catch. clementine didn’t know about this policy. only her older sister ( wanted connection ) was aware. so when clementine married her first husband, jeb, at 16, her older sister began brainstorming ways to sabotage their marriage to get the inheritance back in her name. it began with petty things. flubbing house parties. planting rumors. attempting to seduce jeb. eventually, it became clear this love was strong and she wouldn’t break it alone.

and then her lucky break struck. jeb and clementine’s efforts to have a child grew more desperate in the third year of their marriage. by 19, clementine had two miscarriages and narrowly escaped with her life. little did she know, getting so close to death activated a dormant gene in her...

all carmichael women are gorgons. her older sister knew about the family lore but clementine had never bothered to listen to her mother’s old tales of men turned to stone. it was only folk tales, old wive’s tales designed to scare both daughters into staying prim, proper, and well-behaved.

imagine her shock when, while they were making love, jeb turned to stone. talk about yikes. clementine flipped. her older sister came to the rescue –– with a pick axe and a sledgehammer. the two women pulverized the stone and buried it in an urn in the back yard of the young couple’s yard. widowed, clementine was reduced to nothing. no joys in life presented to her. the kicker? gorgons can reverse their own stone-turnings. and her sister? the bitch bloody lied to get her hands back on the inheritance.

a year and a half later, gorgon hunters stormed the house and mistook clementine for her sister. they kidnapped her and planned to kill her, until the quick-witted lady pitched an offer they couldn’t pass up: she’d provide them with mercenary services in exchange for her life. all of a sudden, their hunting jobs got ten times easier.

clem before jeb’s death was gentle. docile. calm waters, soothing breezes, dog-eared pages come morning. now? she whipped at the world with a vengeance. why deny what she was? why fight her essence?

clem later turned her captors to stone and privatized her mercenary jobs. her body count rose and rose, with no evidence left over for incrimination. but... by the late 1960′s, she grew tired of running. tired of hunting. with fresh dust on her hands, she finished her last kill, collected her hefty bill, and used the money to relocate to tiny letum falls, oklahoma.

there, she began to help out at the garden emporium, adding to its statue collection from pure boredom. she’d go to the bars, sleep around, repeat.

in the 70′s, she met manny otero, and the two have danced around one another ever since –– fuck buddies. she’ll never admit she actually might have feelings for the man.

in september, descendants of the hunters clem worked with and killed arrived in letum falls, searching for a blonde gorgon –– they found what they were lookin’ for, but not exactly who. again, mistaken for her sister, clem was attacked and left for dead in an abandoned house by the woods. dumb asses. didn’t know a gorgon can’t die unless you behead her.

clem awoke from the incident bloodied and blind. she can make out light and some loose peripheral shadows, but the blows to her head damaged her optical nerves enough to render her legally blind. she begrudgingly carries a cane when absolutely necessary, but she’ll more often than not defy using it by just... struggling her way through things. it’s messy. inelegant. but she’d rather stumble and trip than admit she needs assistance.

unlike other people, who might view tragedy as a way to make amends and realign with the world, clem’s attack just fueled her fire. she’s agitated. bristly. ready to snap at anyone who gets too close. it’s a miracle she hasn’t done a number on manny yet, or xander. ( she’s got a bit of a soft spot for the guy. )

t h e f a i r .

she went ‘cause everyone expected her not to. idiots. of course she was going to prove assholes wrong. of course she was going to light up a few cigs near the kiddie play pen. who do you think she is ? a changed woman ?

like clockwork, the first screams rang out when clem finally heard her lighter catch. so she took her time. lit the cigarette, took a looooooong drag. then came the footsteps. the snarls. the corner of her lips turned up in the teeniest of smirks.

she smelled it before she felt it. the blood. but just as soon as the pain blossomed ‘round her right forearm and shoulder, she was being pulled in the opposite direction. practically carried.

yeah. someone saved her ass. and she’s pissed about it.

c u r r e n t l y .

spends her time drinking, smoking, ‘n adding to brooks baker’s gray clouds over at the bakery. when she’s not there, you can find her sitting in her favorite diner booth sipping her umpteenth black coffee or tearin’ into a big fat slice of key lime pie.

aw. you scared ? you think some big bad glitch is gonna come back to take you, too ? cry her a river, hun. this ain’t nothing.

the local bartenders already know to pour her a double whiskey, straight as soon as she walks in the door. clem’s got this presence about her –– she turns heads and makes ‘em want to turn away all in one go.

c u r r e n t c o n n e c t i o n s .

fuck buddy / savior – manny otero. she’s got him right where she wants him... in bed. these two ooze libido and become a show almost anywhere they go. sometimes she’ll let him buy her a drink. other times, it’s just easier to cut to the chase. since becoming blind, things with manny haven’t changed much, and clem’s thankful for that. little does she know, he’s the asshole who saved her life at the fair.

unlikely ally – xander chapell. these two share late night cigs after clem gets some and, xander, well... does not, due to a variety of freak and unfortunate incidents. often clem barging in pre-bang. they have a special trust between them. xander opened up to clem about losing bez the night after the glitch. and she opened up to him, a little, about her past. it’s uncanny. but their bond works.

w a n t e d c o n n e c t i o n s .

enemies. give me people who really rub clem the wrong way. it ain’t hard to do.

her older sister. their relationship is dysfunctional. deceptive. manipulative. you’d think they were the heads of opposing armies, not borne from the same flesh and blood. surprise surprise, clem has since uncovered a gorgon’s ability to reverse their changes. needless to say, she’s wanting to seek some kind of comeuppance. the issue? her older sister has been the only person to succeed in forcing help on her after losing her sight. and killing her own caretaker? that’d look pretty gnarly, from the outside lookin’ in.

drinking crew. they’re not close, but they share a dark sense of humor and a penchant for dullin’ the senses.

garden emporium customers. i would love to have a connection whose relative / dog / etc. were turned to stone and showed up at the emporium the very same week they decided to snag some kind of lawn ornament to complement their new landscaping... let’s make it crunchy, and awkward, and terrible.

hookups / past flings. she’s been here a while. been around the world for a while. so i reckon while her body count for kills is high, her body count for beddin’ gives it a run for its money.

mentor / mentee type of thing. someone’s looking to learn from her. why ? who knows. but she’ll offer ill-founded advice and bitter philosophies. doesn’t have a good reason not to.

#othqintro #intro.#death tw #blood tw #miscarriage tw #this sucks but yeet

1 note · View note

loretranscripts · 6 years ago

Text

Lore Episode 11: Black Stockings (Transcript) - 25th July 2015

tw: violence, death by fire, medical details, ableism, child abuse, torture, unsanitary procedures

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Before we begin, I want to share something exciting with you. My newest novel, Grave Suspicion, is finally here. In fact, today is release day, and like every other type of release, the first day is always the most important. The novel is a supernatural thriller. If you like the unexplainable, the odd, and the mysterious then you’ll love this book. It’s available in paperback as well as a number of digital formats from eBook stores, and it would mean the world to me if you’d consider buying a copy today. You can go to amazon.com and search “Grave Suspicion Aaron Mahnke”, or visit aaronmahnke.com and find links to your other favourite formats. And thanks in advance for an incredible release day for this book, and know I couldn’t have done it without you. And now, on with the show.

Most of us have had the joy of being sick once or twice in our lives. It’s a part of the human experience, I suppose – we get sick, and then we get better. At least, that’s how its supposed to work. One thing I’m constantly thankful for is the fact that we live in such a modern, enlightened age of medicine. We no longer use urine as an antiseptic and we don’t diagnose illness based on our astrological signs, but that wasn’t always the case. Gone are the days of bleeding ourselves with leeches or trying to balance our humours to make sure our sanguine fluids aren’t overpowering our melancholic fluids, and I’m probably not the only one who’s happy that we no longer treat sick people with enemas administered with metal syringes filled with boar bile. Yes, bile from a boar. I could not make this stuff up. Our ancestors didn’t know why certain things happened, but they sure did their best their best to try. Stories were created, myths were told, and superstitions took root. All of them were designed to explain why things happened, and these reasons, even if they were pure fabrications, somehow helped people deal with the realities of life. Why was my child born deformed? Why did my husband’s personality change overnight? Why did my entire family die from a plague last year? These questions haunted people in ways we can’t understand today, and they grasped for anything that would help them cope. They found answers in their common folklore. Among the countless tales and stories told, there’s one superstition from Ireland that saw more usage than most. You see, when something didn’t seem right, when things went wrong, and people suffered, there was only one explanation in the minds of the Irish that covered it all: they blamed it on changelings. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

A changeling, according to the folklore of Europe, is a kind of fairy. Stories of them can be found in Germany, Ireland, England, Scandinavia, Spain, and many other European countries. In all those cultures, changelings have the same methodology: they are a substitute for a kidnapped human being. Either out of jealousy or great need, fairies were said to enter our world and make a trade without our knowledge. They would leave one of their own behind and return to the fairy realm, where the kidnapped human would live a happy, joyful life in paradise. We have a great summary of changelings thanks to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. “They steal children”, he wrote, “and leave a withered fairy, 1000, or maybe 2000, years old instead. At times, full-grown men and women have been taken. Near the village of Colonie lives an old woman who was taken in her youth. When she came back, at the end of seven years, she had no toes, for she had danced them all off”. Changelings, according to the legends, can actually take one of three forms. The first is the kind Yeats wrote about: the senile and ancient fairy, who is disguised as a child. Another kind of changeling was an actual fairy child, and the third type was simply an inanimate object, such as a block of wood or a carved log. This third type is sometimes known as a “stock”. The logic, at least to someone in medieval Europe, was simple. If a child was born with birth defects, was sickly or ill-tempered, they were often thought to be the fairy substitute, left behind when their real child was taken from their home. If an adult went missing, or was later found mysteriously dead, people would often assume that the body was really a bundle of sticks that had merely been enchanted to resemble their loved one. Folklore blossomed on the subject. Wives’ tales and legend taught new generations how to spot a changeling, instantly providing them with both one more reason to fear every little change in a person’s life, but also some safety and hope that they could cling to.

Even the overall wellbeing of a family could hinge on these creatures. Changelings, you see, were said to drain all the luck away from a home, and by doing so, they would leave a family cursed to struggle with poverty and misfortune, all while trying to care for a child they saw as a curse more and more, every day. When the stories focused on men and women who had been swapped out for a fairy, the symptoms were more psychological in nature. Signs of an adult changeling included mood swings, becoming argumentative, and losing interest in friends and family. Changelings were said to have enormous appetites, eating everything they were given and then asking for more. It was said that if your infant preferred food from the larder rather than being nursed, there was a chance they weren’t really your child at all. While most changeling infants died in early childhood, those that survived were said to become dim-witted adults. Men and women who survived this long were sometimes called “uffa”, which is where we get the word “oaf”. Thankfully, though, there were ways to test people to see if they were, in fact, a changeling. One method involved putting a shoe in a bowl of soup. If the baby saw this and laughed, it was seen as proof that the child was a changeling. Another method involved making a tiny loaf of bread inside half an eggshell, again meant to make the fairy laugh. And once discovered, a fairy changeling could be driven from the house in a variety of ways, in which case the kidnapped human child or adult would be returned unharmed. One trick involved holding the suspected child over a fire, while another recommended forcing the suspect to drink tea brewed with foxglove, a poisonous flower. It was thought that as the person’s body expelled the toxin through vomiting and diarrhoea, the changeling would be forced to return to the fairy realm. It sounds crazy to think that people would believe such stories, even centuries ago. Surely no one actually performed these tests, or administered these treatments, especially to their own family, right? Unfortunately, history teaches us that desperate people are capable of just about anything.

In July of 1826, a woman named Anne Roche from Tralee, Country Kerry in South-West Ireland, was caring for a four-year-old boy named Michael Leahy. According to her own testimony, the boy was unable to walk, stand or speak. Convinced that he was, in fact, a fairy changeling, she bathed him in icy waters three times to force the fairy out. The boy drowned. She was tried by court, and they found her not guilty. In 1845, a woman suspected of being a changeling was placed in a large basket filled with wood shavings, and then hung over the kitchen fire until the contents of the basket ignited. In 1851, a man in Ireland literally roasted his child to death, because he believed the boy to be a fairy. Three children were suspected of being fairies in 1857 – they were bathed on a solution of foxglove, and then forced to drink it. Sometimes babies were left in or near bodies of water as a way of forcing the changelings to leave. In 1869, an exorcism was attempted by dipping a child three times in a lake in Ireland. Another woman actually left her infant on the shore of a lake, and walked away, expecting the fairies to come and make the swap. Thankfully, she returned later to reclaim her child. Sometimes neighbours stepped in when the parents of an obvious changeling would did nothing. In 1884, while the mother of three-year-old Philip Dillon was out of the house, Ellen Cushion and Anastasia Rourke snuck inside. Philip, you see, could not use his arms and legs, and these neighbours saw that as proof enough of his condition. One of the neighbours stripped the boy naked while the other stoked a fire. Then, when everything was ready, they placed him on a large shovel and held it over the flames. Little Philip survived, but he was severely burnt by the incident. We hate what we fear, you see, but rather than fade away as the 19th century moved on, the fears and superstitions around changelings only seemed to grow in Ireland, and as hard as it might be to believe, things were about to get worse.

In the late 19th century, one of the governing bodies in Ireland was the Board of Guardians in each district. They were tasked with dispensing public aid, and one of the ways they did that was by building labourer cottages, homes built to provide housing for rural agricultural workers. Many workers had lost their land in the recent famine, and this was one way of helping alleviate some of the homelessness and poverty that had become so common in the country. One cottage was constructed in Ballyvadlea, a small community of just nine homes and 31 people, in County Tipperary. The family who was awarded the cottage moved in, but there was a problem. It seems that the house had been built on a rath, a low, earthen ring, and while archaeologists know them to simply be remnants of an Iron Age fort, some of the Irish still thought of them as “fairy rings”, portals into another realm. After the family moved in, odd things began to happen. Cries in the night, noises that couldn’t be identified, and a feeling of dread. Almost as soon as the tenants had moved in, they were leaving. In their stead, the cottage was given to an old, retired labourer named Patrick Boland, who moved in with his adult daughter and her husband. His daughter, Bridget, was unusual. In 1895, it was the men who controlled the family, they were the breadwinner and sole provider. But even though her husband, Michael, did well as a cooper, someone who makes and repairs barrels, a business that has always done well in Ireland, Bridget wasn’t dependent on him. She had her own business making dresses and keeping hens, and the income from those jobs was more than enough to meet her needs. She was also said to be clever, flirtatious, and highly independent. You can imagine how she must have annoyed her husband and caught the ire of the neighbours, and then there were the rumours of the affair she was having with another man. Bridget Cleary was a self-made, self-possessed woman, and everyone else was bothered by that. I tell you all that because stories have layers. There’s the meaning you glean from the initial telling, and then there’s the rest of the story. The deeper you dive, the more things begin to make sense, and believe me when I tell you there’s a lot about this story that fails to make sense. On March 4th, 1895, Bridget left home on an errand. She had eggs to deliver to the house of her father’s cousin, Jack Donne. It was a short enough distance that she decided to walk, but the weather turned sour while she was out. She spent the next day in bed, complaining of a raging pain in her head. She had chills and shivered constantly. Donne came by the little college to visit a few days later and found Bridget still in bed. He took one look at her, and declared, “That’s not Bridget”. According to him, she was a changeling. Thankfully, no one believed him. Yet.

On March 9th, five days after Bridget’s walk in the cold, her father walked four miles to the nearest doctor and asked him to come help. Two days later, there was still no sign of the doctor, and so her husband, Michael, made the journey. After yet two more days of waiting, the doctor had still not come, and so Michael went again, this time making sure that he brought along the summons from the local health authority. While her husband was out looking for the doctor, the doctor arrived unexpectedly. He did his typical house call check-up, prescribed some medicine, and then left. Still frustrated, the family called upon a priest to come by and give her last rights, just in case. Things weren’t looking up for Bridget Cleary. This was March 13th, a full nine days since taking ill, and so later that evening neighbours and relatives gathered at the cottage to help administer fairy medicine in the form of herbs. Bridget refused the treatment, and they held a red-hot poker in her face until she complied. Things got worse the following day. Cousin Jack Donne had begun to spread word that Bridget had been taken by the fairies and replaced by a changeling. At his urging, a man named Denis Ganey was called to the house. Ganey was known in the community as a fairy doctor and was well-versed in treating cases such as these. His treatments wouldn’t necessarily fit into modern medical textbooks, mind you. They included the use of the hot poker, forcing the changeling to drink first milk from a cow that had just given birth, dousing the person in urine and exposing them to flames. Bridget was slapped and held in front of the fireplace, while her husband demanded that she state, before God and family, that she was indeed Bridget Cleary. Even though she answered yes, the gathered crowd didn’t believe her.

Now, before I continue, there’s something you need to understand about Michael Cleary’s state of mind. While his mother had died when he was young, his father had just passed away hours before. He and Bridget were childless, and they lived with her father in a spare room in the 19th century equivalent of public housing. His own wife was rumoured to be cheating on him, and she didn’t even need him to support her. Michael Cleary was adrift, he had come undone, and maybe that’s what drove him to the edge of sanity. The treatments continued late into the night. Friends and family began to ask to leave, but Michael was said to have yelled that no one was leaving until Bridget came home. He locked the door and placed the key in his pocket. If they could just get this right, he told them, if they could just drive the fairy out and be done with it, his Bridget would come home. Again, she was asked to declare her identity, and Bridget refused. Now, historians don’t know why. Maybe she was just afraid, maybe her independent, stubborn nature prevented her from handing over authority to her husband. Whatever the reason, her silence infuriated Michael. He stripped her to her undergarments and pushed her to the floor. “Come home Bridget, in the name of God”, someone was said to have cried as she lay near the fire. “She’s not my wife”, Michael replied, “you’ll soon see her go up the chimney”. And with that, he doused her with lamp oil, and grabbed a log from the burning fireplace, which he used to ignite the oil. Bridget Cleary burnt to death on the hearth of her own kitchen fireplace, in front of her husband and father, cousins and friends. She was 26 years old.

We haven’t always known as much about the world as we do now. Compared to the centuries before our own, we live in a veritable golden age of knowledge and understanding. Science has eradicated much of the ignorance that once plagued us, and while I’m a fan of mystery and unanswered questions, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Ignorance has been used as a justification for the barbaric, inhumane treatment of other people, to fuel our hatred of those who aren’t like us. That kind of fear often becomes the agent of a dark transformation. Under the influence of fear, humans have a history of mutation, of changing into something grotesque and dangerous. We become monsters. Fear drove Michael Cleary and the others to kill his wife - fear of illness and disease, of mental and medical mysteries, the fear of the loss that seems to be creeping ever closer to his household, and blinded by that fear, Michael Cleary lashed out with the only tool he had: superstition. In many ways, it’s beyond ironic that his fear turned him into someone else. In the end, perhaps, he was the changeling. After forcing one of Bridget’s cousins by knifepoint to help wrap her body in a sheet, he carried her to a nearby field, and buried her in a shallow grave. A short time later, some of the neighbours told the local priest that Bridget Cleary had gone missing. They said, in whispered tones, that it had been a fairy exorcism. When the priest found Michael Cleary praying in the church the next day, he brought up the man’s wife. “Is your wife alright?” the priest asked. “I heard she’d been sick”. “I had a very bad night, father”, Michael told him, a wild look in his eye. “When I woke up, my wife was gone. I think the fairies have taken her”. He was convinced she would return. He had plans to visit a nearby fairy ring and wait for her. She would arrive, he said, in a white gown on a pale horse, and he would cut her bindings with a blackened knife. His Bridget would come home. The priest, to his credit, didn’t believe a single word. He called the police, and a massive search was undertaken. On March 22nd, two constables found her body in the shallow grave her husband had dug just days before. She had been badly burnt, and lay in the foetal position, her knees against her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. Because her face had escaped the fire, a cloth sack had been placed over her head. All that remained of the little clothing she had been wearing was a pair of black stockings. Bridget Cleary would never come home.

This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can learn more about me and this show over at lorepodcast.com, and be sure to follow along on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, @lorepodcast. This episode of Lore was made possible by you, the most thoughtful and knowledgeable listeners around. [Insert sponsor break]. Let me take a moment to say thank you. Because of you, Lore has been a runaway success, and truth be told, I couldn’t have done any of that without you, and I’m thankful to each and every one of you. Now, many of you have asked me to step it up and produce this show weekly, and I’ll be honest – I would love to do that. But to get there, I need your help. So, do this for me: visit my sponsor websites and sign up for their free trials, that helps so much in the long-term success of this show. Pitch in over at Patreon, leave an iTunes review, buy some of my novels, every little bit helps me get closer to being able to take Lore to a full-time, weekly schedule. You can find links and info on how to do all of that over at lorepodcast.com/support. As always, thanks for listening.

Notes

Literally no Celticist with any level of proficiency would use Yeats as a source for “Celtic mythology”.

I can’t find any source for this word “uffa”, but the etymology of “oaf” apparently does trace back to the Old Norse alfr, meaning elf.

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #changelings #bridget cleary #fairies #ireland #folklore #transcripts #11

9 notes · View notes