#i love her very much ignore my blog title

[anonymocha]

Part 1/3 | Lucy PV Screenshots

[diagonal-queen]

Your blog is very safe, me thinks. Very comfort, if that makes sense lol. I have a request, feel free to ignore this but I can't help but to wonder what a few BSD men would be like with a very mature/maternal and responsible s/o who tends to put themsleves last and burn themselves out (preferably fem, as I am an older sister who has taken on the role of caregiver and project HEAVILY) I'd like to see Fyodor, Poe, Ranpo and Jouno. (You can throw in anyone else if you want)

BSD boys with a self-sacrificing girlfriend

♡ pairing: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, Ranpo Edogawa, Saigiku Jouno x fem!Reader

♡ synopsis: How are they with a caring and self-sacrificing girlfriend?

♡ cw: Swearing, use of fem titles, she/her pronouns, mentions of stress and burnout.

note: Thank you for the sweet message anon <3 it's truly a shame that you and i are the exact same person who have experienced the exact same burden of raising children we didn't choose to have. but i've moved out now so i'm free!! come live with me queen tf we're besties now. apologies for errors and I hope you enjoy x

Fyodor:

Fyodor is a trad man. I'm sure he has some weird beliefs about how women are supposed to have some normalised feminine traits, but this is too much even for him.

It really pains him to see you be so selfless, truly. Though he admires your kindness and patience, he just wants you to be content. He wants you to be comfortable.

Does he enjoy having what is basically a personal maid around? Yes, yes he does. Does he feel guilty for feeling that? No. But does he recognise that your current self-sacrificing routine is unhealthy? YES HE DOES.

So...he simply does not make you do anything at all. If you want to do something for him that's on you.

If you want to do something for someone *else*, he probably won't really let you. Unless it's like family or something, then he understands, but no, you're not helping that random child get their kite unstuck from that tree no matter how much you want to, myshka.

Fyodor absolutely doesn't involve you in his work. He knows that'll only stress you out more, and that's the last thing you need. As such he keeps you away from his coworkers (especially Mykola. Sorry Mykola lovers)

He comes to value his time spent relaxing with you, because he also acknowledges that he could use a break every now and then as well. There's nothing quite as comforting to him as lounging around alongside you- you don't have to be talking or even doing the same thing, as long as you're there together.

Listen, Fyodor does care about you, and he values your health and wants you to be relaxed and uncaring as much as is possible. But if you, his sweet woman, wants to make him a cup of tea, who is he to turn you down?

Poe:

I don't know exactly how to explain Poe here. Just hear me out

He is genuinely so like stressed and anguished about your lack of self-preservation in favour of caring about others. He constantly thinks about it and writes tragic poems about it and shit

Like he's like 'my love......she does not see herself as i do, as a beautiful star....with every act of kindness her light dims ever so slightly...until she's reduced to nothing.........the irony of the good deeds of man..............;-;'

HE'S SO SAD OKAY HE LOVES YOU SO MUCH AND WANTS TO SEE YOU RELAX FOR ONCE

He will go all out in his attempts to make you feel calm and comfortable and happy. Oh he will buy you SO many presents it's disgusting. He will rent out whole restaurants and like even theme parks and shit if that's your thing. He'll stop at no lengths to give you some respite, and it's honestly quite sweet

All that being said, he does love that you're so attentive and caring about Karl. He's definitely watched you play with him and then started blushing super hard because the word 'parents' suddenly crossed his mind and now he's thinking about children and aaaaaa

ABSOLUTELY writes a scenario in which you can relax. Whatever you want- an empty beach, a forest, a liminal space, he'll write it all for you, and gift you the book so you can go there whenever you want :>

He's basically a sugar daddy, except you're in an actual relationship and it's not all about the money. Your boyfriend just happens to be loaded as fuck

At the end of the day, Poe is such a hypocrite because he himself is such a workaholic that he practically lets it consume him, too!

You're both absolute messes. Drink some water and sleep for god's sake. And for the love of all things good take care of each other.

Ranpo:

Bro knows exactly what's up. Sorry, he's got you all figured out fr

That doesn't mean he won't let you baby him though. At first. He'll just let you, along with everyone else, clean up after him and buy him shit

BUT soon, soon he realises that this behaviour is rather detrimental to your health. He sees the circles under your eyes, he notices these things. And he's like '...oh shit'

Ranpo doesn't have any shame or reservations. He straight up confronts you about it. 'Why don't you ever take care of yourself?' And he's not playing around this time

And no matter what your excuse is, he's like 'not good enough. We're going to get ice cream RIGHT NOW and you're going to talk to me about this. Now lead me to the ice cream parlour immediately'

(I may or may not be paraphrasing this particular quote)

The point is that he presents you an avenue to open up about your struggles, stress and psyche. And he really does want to help- the fact that he gets ice cream out of this is just a bonus

From here on out he'll keep an eye out for you. Every time you find yourself getting overworked or burning out he'll make you take a break. This could be a nap or sending you home or a surprise outing- anything to get your mind off work and people.

Ranpo is a stickler for the rules, sure, but he's also lazy as shit. Any time he doesn't feel like working, you're now not allowed to work either. You have to hang out with him or else (he'll be a little sad)

He doesn't necessarily introduce any...permanent solutions to your predicament, but he does have you looking forward to your couples-down time each day, and that's something!

Over time, you do learn to balance yourself and external responsibilities. And he will absolutely be taking credit for it lmao

Jouno:

Jouno is very...self-important, we'll say. Not like, completely selfish or anything, but very much tends to prioritise his own opinions and time and such.

You make him do a complete reassessment and breakdown of all of his thoughts and beliefs he's built up over the course of his lifetime

/j but really, you're unbelievably different from him. You're both willing to put yourself in danger or wear yourselves down, but *you* don't have anatomical medical adjustments that practically make you invincible.

Jouno wants to protect you- and he's not willing to negotiate. He's not letting anyone hurt you, even if on accident. He's especially not willing to let anybody take advantage of your generous nature, which is probably more likely anyway.

He's such a scary dog actually (lol get it?? get it cause he's one of the Hunting Dogs? DO YOU GET IT-) he'll accompany you anywhere if you ask him to.

When he wants to do something for you, he will do it. You're not lifting a finger miss girl

Like he really will take care of you! When he's off work, of course. His job is kind of important, but you best believe you're getting pampered when Jouno is off the clock.

My mans is romantic as FUCK: cooking you nice dinners, reading to you before bed, massages, cuddles- as well as engaging in your interests alongside you of course

He just thinks it's so cute to see you engrossed in something that YOU enjoy, and will encourage your down time

Jouno is gonna make sure that you take care of yourself too, because when he's not around, who better to look after anybody than you? That's the most important thing to him.

taglist~ ♡ @gettinshiggywithit, @fyodorhatr, @flower-of-darkness, @bejeweledgirl, @kokoenjiandco, @pinkiipeachiikeen

[maboroshi-no]

Hamefura LN14 SS (Satoru Yamaguchi's blog)

Series: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Story Title: The Foundation Anniversary Party ~Geordo ~ Source: Satoru Yamaguchi’s Blog Synopsis: Geordo's POV of the party in Chapter 1. Translation: maboroshi-no

The Foundation Anniversary Party ~Geordo~

Katarina: Prince Geordo, Happy 9th birthday!

With a whole-face smile, my fiancée Katarina Claes handed me a present.

It had always been the servants who told me "Happy Birthday" and gave me presents from my family, so it was the first time someone had happily handed me a present with such a whole-face smile.

I was bewildered by that strange tingling feeling I had never experienced before and could not respond immediately. In front of me, Katarina happily started speaking.

Katarina: This is a cake from that recently popular confectionary shop, and this is…

Looking at her explaining the presents that she apparently couldn't narrow down to one, I could tell she put all her thoughts into each of them.

Katarina gave me delicious recommended dishes as presents, which was very much like her who liked eating. In front of her many presents, I said…

Geordo: Thank you very much.

After I had sorted my feelings and replied this,

Katarina: Since there are a lot of them, I think you will surely find something you like.

Katarina made a fist and said this with a smile.

Then, just as she said, I found something that I apparently liked, and before long, Katarina would frequently bring it to me.

After having this very nostalgic and happy dream, I woke up.

Today, the Sorcier Foundation Anniversary Party would be held at the castle. Many visitors from inside and outside the country were scheduled to come.

Without any time to bask in that dream, I got ready and perfectly conducted myself as a member of the royal family.

There were many foreign visitors, so the greeting queue was considerably longer than usual. Even so, I put on a smile, looked sideways at my younger twin brother Alan showing a tired face, and interacted with people the same way as always.

After the long greetings ended and my family split up and moved separately, I was immediately surrounded by ladies.

The foreign visiting noble ladies were more assertive than the Sorcier ones, and they really didn't know when to give up.

I wanted to go to my fiancée quickly and was gradually getting more and more irritated even if I didn't show it in my attitude. But then, I saw coming towards me the figure I had eagerly been waiting for. 

I ignored the ladies surrounding me and immediately started walking towards her.

Geordo: Katarina

Now that I had called her, I would smoothly escort her.

Geordo: Since my fiancée has arrived, I shall end our conversation here. 

Taking advantage of the situation, I showed a fabricated smile to the ladies gathered around me.

The usual Sorcier ladies would have pulled back here, but today, there was a tenacious one.

Foreign Lady: Even if she is your fiancée, it is just a political engagement, right? In my country, it is now commonplace to love outside of political marriage and marry after finding true love.

The lady uttered this of all things and stepped forward. While I felt like snickering, I put on the usual smile and told her,

Geordo: Is that so? While there may be some political aspects, I truly love Katarina here from the bottom of my heart, so there should be no problem, right?

When I declared this, as could be expected, no one raised further objection.

Despite declaring so many times that I loved Katarina, many people to this day still uttered such foolish things. I wished those foolish people would understand a little after this statement, but this might be too much to ask of them. 

For some reason, women of this kind only believed whatever suited them. This was how they were, I guess. I could not hold the faintest interest in them.

Geordo: Well then, ladies, I will now excuse myself.

I declared this with a smile and started escorting Katarina away.

Since I had been yearning to see her, escorting Katarina like this would have normally put me in an elated mood, but that was not the case right now.

Because a scene I had seen earlier while greeting the foreign visitors crossed my mind.

At today's party, as a royal, I entered the venue separately from the other nobles and thus moved separately from Katarina.

But despite the large venue, I had an idea where Katarina could be.

Katarina loved to eat, so she was probably heading to the buffet.

When I cast my eyes there, I really spotted her figure relishing food at the buffet and I naturally let out a smile at her delighted face. 

But right after, Katarina was called out by Prince Cezar of Ethenell and I witnessed the two of them talking.

Prince Cezar of Ethenell was most likely interested in Katarina. But as always, Katarina did not notice this sort of thing at all.

I had many rivals to this day because of this charmer Katarina, but Prince Cezar of Ethenell… His composed attitude and political skills gave me the feeling that if he ever became serious, I might be no match for him. 

Just recently, because I was deceived by Jeffrey, my jealousy made me lose control and I kissed Katarina (what's more, passionately) right in front of Prince Cezar, then threatened him.

After that, I came to my senses and felt embarrassed by my mistake. I was feeling awkward during today's greetings but unlike me, Prince Cezar greeted me with no sign of anything dwelling on his mind.

His composure flustered me again.

When we arrived at a room serving as a resting room, I turned to Katarina and immediately started speaking.

Geordo: Earlier, what were you talking about with the Ethenell prince?

Katarina did not answer immediately as she seemed to be thinking of something. While it was not such a long pause, I felt impatient and…

Geordo: Katarina.

After I called her name,

Katarina: Umm, we talked a little about things like how I was feeling. Then, Prince Cezar immediately left to call Keith for me.

…She replied that.

For now, I was relieved by her answer.

Geordo: …I see. I thought he approached her again.

Because I had inadvertently muttered this,

Katarina: Could it be because you were worried about it that you looked different from usual during the greetings?

Katarina asked me this.

I was surprised. I should have been doing it perfectly like always.

Geordo: I… looked different?

Katarina: Yes. Like, you were tired, or not feeling well.

Geordo: I see… I thought I was doing it the same way as always, though.

Katarina: It's okay. The other people didn't seem to have noticed. I could only tell because I have been with you for a long time. I think it is the same with our childhood friends.

Despite what Katarina said, I had been able to put on such a good act that my family, and even my servants since childhood, could not tell when I was unwell. And yet, Katarina, only Katarina always could.

Geordo: I think only you can tell so well.

Katarina: No, that's not…

As Katarina was about to deny it, I raised my index in front of her mouth.

Geordo: Yes, it is. Whenever I am weakened, you always tell me the words I need and come to my side. It is because you are here that I can do my best. That’s why I want you to stay by my side forever, Katarina.　

After I had said this, a blush tinted Katarina's cheeks. This fact made me so happy that I felt like jumping with joy.

While she was my fiancée and I kept telling her my feelings, for some reason, the person herself would not notice them (take them seriously). After spending long years in this strange situation, my feelings had finally reached her, but… she was still barely conscious of me and there were times when she thought she did not have enough charm.

But after reaching so far, she had finally come to blush at my words like this. I felt like my long one-sided love was rewarded just a little.

And that was why I would not…No, could not be satisfied with this. I wanted to have you.

I softly extended my hand to her red-colored cheeks and approached my face.

As I set my aim on her full red lips and moved closer, Katarina seemed to hit upon a realization and put her palm on my forehead. Then,

Katarina: It's hot?! Wait, Prince Geordo, you are extremely hot. You definitely have a fever!

She said this in a loud voice.

Crap. She found out about my fever… And I thought this time for sure, I could fool her into believing it was just a little fatigue. I got careless because Katarina was too cute.

Yes. It was true that I had a fever since morning. But I had been able to do everything with willpower.

I was confident I could get through it without anyone noticing, like always.

Geordo: It is fine.

After I had said this, Katarina…

Katarina: No, this fever is not “fine” at all! You've been like this since the greetings, haven't you? You knew it and you still pushed yourself!

…She pressed me.

Anyhow, I could not deceive her anymore since she had figured so much, so…

Geordo: I was out of sorts a little while ago but I had been like this since I woke up this morning. Still, if it is only this much, I can manage without anyone noticing, so there is no problem.

I said this, but immediately after…

Katarina: There is a problem.

She said it like that. There, I too became just a little bit pissed.

Geordo: I will not cause trouble, so it is fine.

Katarina: No, it is not.

Geordo: I can properly do my work.

I prided myself on having been able to properly do my work until now, and when I asserted this, Katarina's eyebrows shot up.

Katarina: Geez, this is not about work! You're pushing yourself while you're in such a bad state and I can’t help worrying about you!

Katarina's unexpected words left me stunned and speechless.

Katarina: Now, please wait here a little, Prince Geordo. I will contact a suitable party.

Still dumbfounded, I obediently sat on the furnished sofa just as Katarina pressed me to, and then she left the room.

Now left alone, my head finally started to work.

I knew Katarina was worried about me, but after seeing it so clearly on her face and hearing her say it to me like that, I felt a somewhat tingling feeling.

"I would take care of myself by myself." Even though, I had followed this thought and led my life so no one would notice it whenever I was out of sorts… I really had completely changed because of Katarina.

While I was overwhelmed by this tingling feeling, Katarina came back, bringing Jeffrey with her.

Jeffrey: I heard the situation from Lady Katarina. Please don't overwork yourself so much. You have dependable brothers, so you can depend on us as much as you like.、

Because Jeffrey had said this with the face of an older brother, the tingling feelings swelled even more, and…

Geordo: I am not that sick.

When I shortly replied this, Katarina quickly came towards me and touched my forehead again.

Katarina: It is still hot. It is not “fine” at all. You will stop this tough act right now.

Having said this, Katarina now extended her hand to my head.

Katarina: Prince Geordo, your job is now to rest. I will not accept any objection. You must stop being unreasonable and rest properly.

While saying this, she lightly tapped my head.

Geordo: …"unreasonable"…

This was something no one had ever said to me… Somehow, her older person act made me feel complicated feelings.

Jeffrey: That’s right, you will stop being unreasonable and rest like a good boy.

Riding on Katarina's words, Jeffrey said this and grabbed my shoulders.

Jeffrey: Alright, your room is ready so let's go.

Then he dragged me along.

If it were like always, I would absolutely resist but the will to resist didn't rise in me, maybe because of my poor condition, or maybe because of that very indescribable tingling feeling swirling in my chest.

While dragged by Jeffrey, I saw Katarina watching me worriedly, so…

Geordo: Thank you very much.

…I muttered in a low voice.

Because of this complicated feeling where I was somewhat embarrassed and yet happy, I felt my already hot face getting even hotter. 

Katarina: Please have plenty of rest and get well soon!

I could hear from behind Katarina's voice saying this.

Somehow, my face became even hotter.

[phantomtwitch]

Masterpost

PhantomTwitch | 30-something | she/her

Hi! Welcome to my blog! It's only taken me over a decade to finally do this. I love cartoons and writing and all kinds of other things, and I have the kind of lame sense of humor that makes three year olds laugh hysterically and anyone older than ten roll their eyes most of the time.

This place is a disorganized disaster (kind of like my brain), with this post probably the closest thing to any sense of order I've tried to impose on it. Below are links to my various writings, as Tumblr's search bar sucks and most of you are probably members of the phandom that stumbled across one of my works somewhere and came looking for more.

(Though whether that's the case or not, you're welcome either way!)

I write a lot and genuinely love it. The only part of writing I actually hate is coming up with titles and summaries. Sometimes I get a decent flash of inspiration for a title, other times? Ehhhhh.

I'm happy to answer any asks and will, like many, happily ramble on endlessly about my fics.

I rarely post WIPs, so unless noted, all of the works below are completed as of this time and on AO3.

Danny Phantom Fanfics

Echoes

There was something wrong with Danny Fenton.

Nearly eighteen months after a lab accident left him hospitalized, his friends and family assumed he was still recovering from the side effects of his near-death experience. But after witnessing Danny do something ghostly, they begin to suspect something much more sinister is afoot and set out to save their friend from the clutches of the evil ghost possessing him.

As The Ice Begins to Crack

Little by little, as the public’s perception of him changed, Danny’s ghost form continued to reflect it. He looked more human every day, more confident, and more like the superheroes from the comics they used to read on the floor of Danny’s room as kids. As the months passed there was a moment when Tucker began to forget, to wonder if what he saw when Danny first stepped out of the portal that day was nothing more than a nightmare.

Inspired by this post on tumblr from paenling

Doubt Comes In

For InvisoBang 2023.

When Danny Fenton returns on the first day of spring after being kidnapped by the Fright Knight, something is off. His teeth are too sharp, his skin is too pale, and when he’s angry, the lights flicker as a harsh chill and the scent of ozone permeates the air as if heralding an approaching storm. There are moments when he is impossibly still, more statue than flesh, more ghost than human, and little by little everyone wonders if the child sitting in their midst is truly still Danny at all.

Scars He Hides

For Ecto-implosion 2023.

The portal accident left Danny with scars that glow whether he's Fenton or Phantom. He's done his best to hide them, but it's only a matter of time before someone finds out his secret.

Beyond the Grave

For Ecto-implosion 2023.

At the start of his freshman year, Danny Fenton disappeared. But much as Dash didn’t care and preferred to focus on football, it’s hard to avoid thinking about it after seeing Fenton dig himself out from an unmarked grave in the woods.

What We Have Been is What We Are

Based on this tumblr prompt from MadameTamma here

Maddie has a near death experience when an invention blows up on her in the lab. Her spirit is suddenly thrust from her body, and Clockwork appears to guide her down the Path, presenting her with a chance to learn from her past as her life flashes before her eyes. Little by little there are signs that she's missed something, that there's something off with Danny, and she finds herself risking her very existence to learn the truth.

So You Have Wished It

Something is wrong. Something has changed.

The signs start off so small, so easy to dismiss, but little by little it begins to spiral until Sam can't ignore it anymore and she's forced to face reality once again.

(This is a one-shot from part of a bigger AU I am working on currently)

My Body Is a Cage

For Angst Fest 2023

His friends aren't sure how much longer they can keep this a secret. Every time a ghost appears, Danny dies again. And every time Danny dies, they bring him back.

It doesn't help that no matter how much they try to explain to Danny what's happening, the truth never sticks.

Unnamed Electric Core OneShot

Currently on Tumblr only, now a bigger WIP, but this can still be read on its own. Another No One Knows AU with the ghosts being creepier than in canon.

Unnamed WIP

Currently on Tumblr only, this was inspired by yet another MadameTamma prompt where Danny does not remember being human. Body Horror fic and currently a WIP.

[littlemissmentallyunstable]

why’d you only call me when you’re high

🤍 100 follower event 🤍

hey I’m bella!! if you’re new my intro post is here

I genuinely cannot believe I’m at 100 followers, it’s literally mental!! like sorry, how on earth did that happen?? anyways I want to thank each and every one of you for following me, for all the support and comments and likes, just basically for everything. so many people have just been so so sweet, making my days for a while now!! I didn’t even expect to have 10 followers when I started this blog, let alone 100 so THANK YOU 🤍🤍

if you have requested a fic, it will probably be put on hold or take longer due to this event!! sorry for the inconvenience but I will get around to writing them all I promise

followers:

potion approaching // oh, but if we're gonna escape though, we really ought to think it through

I’ll write a short one-shot of your request (nothing weird and be specific please)

teddy picker // let’s have a game on the teddy picker, not quick enough can I have it quicker, already thick and you're getting thicker

I’ll give you an arctic monkeys song based on your blog

do I wanna know? // do I wanna know, if this feeling flows both ways

ask me something and I’ll answer (nothing too invasive please)

I bet that you look good on the dance floor // I don't know if you're looking for romance or, I don't know what you're looking for

I’ll give you a fantasy-like ballgown based on your blog

fake tales of san francisco // yeah, but his bird said it's amazing though, so all that's left, is the proof that love's not only blind, but deaf

I will try, notice how I said try and give you a good book recommendation based on things you love (please be specific with genre or mention a title that you want to find something like)

fluorescent adolescent // like her gentleman not to be gentle, is it a Mecca dauber or a betting pencil

I’ll ship you with a fictional character I think you’re most compatible with (please tell me your type, personality, sexuality and any other facts you want me to know, if you’re comfortable with that)

pretty visitors // all the pretty visitors came and waved their arms, and cast the shadow of a snake pit on the wall

I’ll write down the first word that comes to mind when looking at your blog aesthetic

do me a favour // and do me a favor, and ask, if you need some help she said, do me a favor, and stop flattering yourself

I’ll give you a sweet treat based on your blog

moots only:

this house is a circus // this house is a circus berserk as f*ck, we tend to see that as a perk

a moodboard and headcannons of what we’d do if we met up in real life

knee socks // well, you cured my January blues, yeah you made it all alright, I've got a feelin' I might have lit the very fuse, that you were tryin' not to light

I’ll tell you my favourite thing about you

old yellow bricks // she said, "I want to sleep in the city that never wakes up and revel in nostalgia"

I will write a one shot for you about whatever you want and specify with your name (if you want that)

D is for dangerous // you should know you're his favourite worst nightmare

I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me

R U mine? // I go crazy 'cause here isn't where I wanna be, and satisfaction feels like a distant memory, and I can't help myself, all I wanna ever say is, "are you mine?"

a paragraph describing you how much I love you

rules:

one request or ask per day

only followers and moots please

I might not be able to get loads and loads done in one day so please be patient with me

ends on 3rd of september

if you send an ask/request that is rude or weird or I feel uncomfortable with, it will be ignored

tagging:

@wish-i-were-heather

@heartwithsimplenotes

@never-enough-novels

@tornqdowarnings

@maybxlle

@inmyheaddd

@arias-archive

@nqds

@lxvebelle

@whatsamongus

@emelia07

@jkriordanverse

I know I don’t know some of my moots that well but hopefully I can’t get to know you more through this 🤭🤭

[prmssm]

hello! i know you haven't posted here in a while, but new stevetony dynamic just dropped!

idk if you've heard of the new ultimate universe (mostly unrelated to the original one), but ultimates #1 (the avengers-aligned title) came out yesterday, and it features a teenage tony with daddy issues, a freshly-defrosted steve with a revolutionary streak, and a bit of longing/envy for earth-616 as "what they could've/should've been"

it's a very new universe (there's been less than 20 cumulative issue published so far), so you can easily read everything (i have a reading order here), but if you only want steve and tony's story, it's just ultimate invasion #1-4 > ultimate universe #1 > the ultimates #1 > the second story in 'free comic book day 2024: ultimate universe/spider-man' (though this one was more of a sneak peek and might be set after/during a later ultimates issue, it's the obligatory confusing one lol)

Thank you so much for the rec and reading orders! 💕 I am in fact back on my superhero bullshit since Free Comic Book Day (though for me that's mostly just involved acquiring an armful of completely random issues of various things, and rewatching Avengers Assemble episodes). I probably even saw that ultimate comic at my local comic shop on that day, but ignored it due to my unwarranted bias against anything related to the Ultimates 😅 But maybe I'll go back and give it a fairer shake.

My heart absolutely yearns to revive this blog, but I still feel like I don't have anything worthy of posting yet. But I did spend the other day shaking @ahsokaisawesome by the shoulders and frantically detailing a AA/MCU crossover fic treatment at her, so I know the embers of my multiverse love are still smouldering.

But anyway. Thanks again!

[suguwu]

lover be good to me: part four

You meet Kita Shinsuke on a rainy summer day, with a sea of hydrangeas swirling at your feet. You know him instantly, as only a soulmate can. He seems like a good man. Like a good soulmate.

But it’s your wedding day.

masterlist

minors and ageless blogs do not interact

pairings: kita shinsuke x f!reader, oc x f!reader

notes: we are finally at the end. thank you so much for coming along on this ride with me. this fic truly is dear to me and i can't believe it's finally done.

as always, massive thanks to my beta for both the edits and the endless support throughout the process, especially when i thought writing this fic would never end.

title and part title are from hozier’s “be”

tags for this part (contains spoilers for fic): soulmate au (first words), this is a very reader-centric story, slow burn, pining, hurt/comfort, reader and kita are implied to be around their 30s, food consumption, non-graphic partner death (not kita), grief/mourning, healing, love as a choice.

wc: 12k

You settle into the farmhouse. 

It’s easier than you thought. Maybe it’s the way Yoshida is brusque but kind; she’s not careful with you. It’s a refreshing change of pace. 

You find yourself at her side most nights, chopping vegetables or marinating tofu as she tells you about growing up in the country. She spins stories like thread, weaving them together like the expert seamstress she is. Her son joins in some nights too.

You still get lost sometimes, though.

The early mornings are the worst. 

The birds sing you to wakefulness, their song high and trilling, and you press your face into the pillow with a groan. “Loud. Shut the window, Aoshi,” you mumble, shoving out at him. Your hand hits empty space and your brow scrunches. You push to your elbows and find a room that’s not your own, though you blearily recognize the suitcase tucked into the closet. 

You shift on the bed and realize it’s too small. A twin.

It all comes pouring back in. 

“Fuck,” you say, low and quiet. The tears pool in your eyes, burning hot, and you try to blink them back to no avail. You curl in on yourself like a fiddlehead as you lie back down. 

You do not move for a very long time.

The world has gone blue when there’s a knock on your door, twilight settling in like the ocean tide, easing its way across the sky. You don’t answer. Another knock comes and then there’s Kita’s voice murmuring your name.

You almost ignore him. But there’s something in his voice you can’t resist, a melancholy thread woven in through the syllables of your name. You get to your feet and open the door.

Kita studies you for a moment. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s go.”

You blink. “Go where?”

“My place. I’m cookin’.” 

“Shinsuke—”

“I know.”

You bite at your lower lip. Kita meets your gaze steadily, his amber eyes darkened to a deep, sweet brown by the dim lighting. There’s a promise in them too. 

“Okay,” you say at last. “Let me get dressed.”

He waits downstairs as you throw on some clothes. You can hear him talking quietly to Yoshida. He gives you a little smile when you join him at the genkan. 

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

It’s true autumn now and the slight chill in the air proves it. The rice stalks are spun gold, swaying in the wind as the truck trundles down the road to Kita’s farm. You watch a stork wade carefully through the fields. It dips down with its long, elegant neck and disappears from sight. 

The radio is playing quietly. Kita hums along with it sometimes, mostly at the old, crooning ballads. You watch the countryside roll by, the farmhouses little ships in the night, their lit windows a beacon as dusk falls. 

He bundles you into the farmhouse when you arrive, handing you a pair of house slippers that have little radishes on them. You can’t help your smile. 

You follow him into the living room and settle at the kotatsu when he points you there. It’s close enough that you can see into the kitchen through the open archway; he rolls up his sleeves and starts gathering ingredients from the fridge and the pantry.

“Can I help?” you ask after a few minutes, getting to your feet and joining him.

“Sure,” he says, handing you a freshly-washed daikon. “Slice that real thin, please.”

You make a cut. “This thin enough?”

He peers over. “A little thinner,” he says. “Can I?”

You nod and he takes your hands briefly, guiding them to the thinness he wants and pressing down. His hands are warm, his fingers and palm rough with calluses that catch lightly against your skin. He curls his fingers around yours, his tendons going taut, and pushes down. The knife slides through the daikon and stops against the cutting board. 

“There,” he says. “Like that.” 

“Okay.”

He nods and heads back to his cutting board which is laden down with a bright medley of varying vegetables. “What’re you doin’ tomorrow?'' he asks.

“Nothing,” you say. “Why?”

You sound more defensive than you mean to. He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, a sharp flicker of amber, but says nothing. 

“Was thinking you could come out to the fields with me.”

“I don’t know,” you say.

“It’d be good for you to get outside,” he says mildly. “Rather than being up in yer room all day.” 

Your knife thunks against the cutting board. Kita is unperturbed, only glancing your way briefly to make sure you’re not injured. He goes back to peeling carrots, his lean, strong hands moving quickly and with steady confidence. 

You study him for a moment, taking in the set of his lips and the soft furrow of his brow. You sigh.

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll come.”

He flashes you a tiny quirk of his lips, a smile that’s as fleeting as a summer storm and just as warm. 

“Good.” 

He keeps cooking as he talks, pulling you from your thoughts when you get lost in them, when the fog starts to roll back in like a marine layer. It’s uncanny, how well he can tell when you’ve been set adrift. He’s a mooring you didn’t know you needed. 

Kita hums his thanks as you give him the daikon. He slips them into a pickling mix before handing you a cucumber. 

“Peel and cut thin?” you ask.

“Yup.” 

As you peel, you can’t help but watch as he moves about the kitchen. He moves as efficiently as ever, no wasted movement, but there’s something soft to it too. You can’t quite pin it down. 

“Yer staring.”

“Am I?”

“You know you are.” 

You shrug, starting to cut up the cucumber. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing important,” you say, waving him off. “Tell me how Aran is doing, he and I haven’t talked for a while.” 

The rest of the cooking goes by quickly as you talk and soon you’re both settled at the kotatsu. It’s radiating warmth. You snuggle deeper into it; with the sun fully set, it’s grown even more chilly outside despite the heat of the day. Winter is still a ways off, but you can feel the first touch of it hidden in the autumn breeze that leaks in through the window Kita had left cracked to keep the kitchen from overheating. 

You glance over the food. Kita’s kept it simple but hearty. There’s steam curling through the air in little smoky wisps. You watch as it dissipates and then take the plate that Kita hands you with a small thank you.

It’s a good meal. The two of you talk through it with ease, never missing a beat and rarely with an awkward pause. When you lapse into silence, it’s comfortable. 

“I should go,” you say eventually, glancing at the clock. “I don’t want to wake Yoshida when I come in.”

“Alright.” 

He drives you home, the headlights of his truck cutting through the night. The moon is out now; it bathes the fields with light until they practically shimmer. The crickets are calling, their song audible even over the low purr of the truck’s engine. 

When you pull up to Yoshida’s, there’s a light still on at the engawa, a soft glow to lead you home. It warms something in you.

Kita walks you to the door. 

“How early do I have to get up tomorrow?” you ask. “Do I even want to know?”

He laughs quietly. “Ya don’t need to keep my schedule,” he says. “I’ll come get you after lunch.” 

“Okay.”

He looks at you. His usual stoicness has faded into something warm and open; you take a deep breath. You bid him a quiet goodnight that he returns just as quietly, his amber eyes knowing. 

You go to sleep with your hand wrapped around your wedding rings. 

***

“Sunscreen,” Kita says, holding out the tube to you. 

“I know, I know,” you grouse, taking it from him. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“You forgot last time.”

“Point taken.” 

You apply the sunscreen as he gathers what he needs. He’s still rustling around when you finish. You turn your face up to the sun, letting the rays brush over your skin like a lover, a sweet kiss of heat. 

When you open your eyes again, Kita is watching you with a tiny smile, a crescent moon of a thing. Something in you pangs. 

You glance away from him and look to the rolling fields instead. In the bright sunlight, they’re Midas-touched, scorched gold with a hint of green at the bottom of each stem. It’s a sea of rice, rippling in the breeze like kelp caught in the ocean’s current, and it’s beautiful in a way that makes you feel small. 

Kita comes up beside you and gazes at his farm.

“It’s pretty,” you tell him.

“It’s gotta get cut,” he says.

“I know.”

He glances at you. You blink as he reaches out and smudges his thumb against your cheek. It’s gentle, his touch careful despite the rough calluses on the pad of his thumb. “Ya missed some sunscreen,” he says, rubbing it in with a light sweep. He lingers for a moment before pulling away.

“Oh. Thanks,” you say, biting at your lower lip as he turns away.

“C’mon,” Kita says. 

You follow him deep into the field, to a swath of already cleared land. The two of you settle at the edge of it. You watch as he lays out a woven bag with a label stamped on the front of it. He crouches down by the nearest stems of uncut rice and runs a hand over them, thumbing at the panicles with a deft movement. 

You don’t think he knows he’s smiling. 

“What do you want me to do?” you ask.

He glances back at you. “Can you lay out the bags? One at each pole should do.” 

You nod and set to work. He starts cutting at the rice. He makes it look easy, slicing through the stems as if they’re butter. The rice stalks start to pile up beside him as you make your way down the field with the bags. 

He’s made a significant dent by the time you’re back. He leans back on his heels as you approach again, wiping off his forehead with the back of his hand. His hair is clinging to him, dark with sweat, deepening the color to slate gray, like the winter sea. He smiles at you. 

“Can I try again?”

He’d taught you how to cut last time after you asked, citing the fact that you’ve been coming to the field with him for almost two weeks without trying. 

“Sure,” he says. He hands you a pair of gloves; you slip them on. “D’ya remember how to hold it?”

You kneel next to him, wrapping your fingers around a handful of stems. “Like this, yeah?”

“Thumb pointing up,” he says, reaching out and adjusting your grip. “And tighter.” 

He tightens his grip around your hand to show you, his strong fingers flexing. You copy him and he lets go when he’s satisfied with your grip. He hands you the knife—curved with a wicked edge—and sits back on his heels again.

“15 centimeters, yeah?” you ask, setting the edge of the knife against the stalks there.

“That’ll work.” 

You slice in a downward angle; the stalks part beneath the blade like silk. You hand off the rice to him to add to the pile. You keep working, feeling the sweat start to gather on your back, a few droplets rolling down before getting absorbed by your shirt.

“Good,” he says.

He lets you do a few more handfuls before he takes the knife back. You watch him work. He’s much quicker than you, moving with an easy grace.

“Why don’t ya head back to the truck,” he says, slicing through another handful of stalks. “I’m almost done.” 

You listen to him, heading back to the truck and settling in the bed of it, swinging your feet off the edge. You lay back and turn your gaze up to the sky, watching as a flock of birds goes soaring past, their wings dark against the deep blue of the sky. 

Kita joins you after a bit. You’ve been watching a hawk circle, riding the current high above you, and you don’t bother to sit up when you hear him approaching. 

He climbs up into the truck bed. He settles next to you and then lays down beside you, staring up at the sky with you. 

The two of you are quiet. You watch as the hawk wheels and wheels overhead before it dives down, dropping like a shooting star through the sky. 

You turn towards him; he’s already looking at you. His amber eyes are soft and you suck in a breath, your stomach flipping. 

“Shinsuke,” you say gently. “You know I can’t give you what you want, right?”

“I’m not askin’ you for anything,” he says, just as gently.

“I know. I just—I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, with Aoshi gone.”

He studies you for a moment. Then he smiles, warm and sweet and a little bit sad. 

“It’s always what you’re willing to give,” he says. “Nothing more and nothing less. That’s the only idea I have.”

You suck in a breath, fidgeting with your sleeve.

“Okay,” you say. “Okay.”

You both go quiet again. 

Kita pushes up to his elbows; you peer up at him.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get going.”

“‘Kay.” 

He hops down from the truck bed gracefully before holding out a hand to help you down. You hesitate. He waits patiently, looking up at you. You take his hand without a word, his calluses rough against your palm.

You’re both quiet on the drive back to Yoshida’s. You spend the time looking out the window, watching the fields roll by. There are other farmers still hard at work, their blades flashing in the last dregs of the sunlight, like a dance. It’s a sight you never tire of. 

The sun has almost set by the time Kita drops you off. You toe off your shoes in the genkan and find Yoshida in the kitchen, scrubbing down the counter. There’s something savory in the air, rich and thick, and you spot a pot bubbling away on the stovetop, steam curling up from it like smoke. 

She eyes you for a moment. You don’t know what she sees in your face, but she gestures you into a seat.

“The fields are doing ya some good,” she says, her eyes still on the soapy counter.

“Are they?”

She nods decisively. “Yer different. You’re coming back to the world.”

You bite at your lip, worrying the flesh between your teeth. It doesn’t feel like it to you; some days you think you’ll never be in step with the world again, destined to always be just a few paces behind. 

“It’s hard to see it in yerself,” Yoshida says. “But it’s there.” 

“If you say so.”

“I do.” 

You can’t help the smile. A smile blooms on her lips too, small but sure. 

“I need to weed tomorrow. Could use your help, unless Shin-chan is going to steal you away again.”

“I’ll help,” you say, ignoring the last bit.

She studies you with keen eyes, opening her mouth to say something, but the front door opens and her son calls out a greeting. 

The rest of the night is quiet and morning comes before you know it.

You stare up at the ceiling as the sun rises, watery light leaking in through the sheer curtains. For a moment, you consider rolling over and going back to bed, but you can hear Yoshida shuffling around in her room. You resign yourself to getting up for the day.

A light breakfast later, you’re on your knees in the garden. The soil is still wet with morning dew and it sticks to your skin. The scent of wet loam rises around you, like the earth is welcoming you home. You let it fill your lungs.

The garden is a beautiful one, lush with autumn vegetables. You weed around the fat, sunshine yellow squashes, each one brighter than the last. The carrots are just peeking above the soil, little suns creeping up over the horizon. Their greens sway gently in the breeze. 

You’ve forgone gardening gloves despite Yoshida’s offer. It feels good to sink your fingers into the dirt, to pinch the weeds’ roots and pull them up gently. 

You’re still working when Kita’s truck trundles up the driveway. You sit back on your haunches and wipe the sweat from your brow as he gets out and comes your way.

“Hi,” he says with a little smile. “Hard at work, I see.”

“Gotta earn my keep,” you say, earning a snort from Yoshida who is working just a garden bed over.

“You have time for a break?”

“Depends,” you say, glancing at the bag he’s carrying. “Are those snacks?”

“Yup.” 

“Then I do,” you say, pushing to your feet. “Let me go wash my hands.” 

You eat together on the engawa, gazing out into the farmland. The wind chimes rustle above you, clinking lightly, a crystalline symphony just for the two of you. You sit back on your hands as Kita unpacks what he’s brought. 

It’s onigiri. They’re still warm, steam curling up from them when you break one open. A little bit of the filling spills out but you’re quick to catch it on your thumb, popping it into your mouth. 

“Thank you,” you say, giving him a nudge with your elbow. “They’re good.”

“Yer welcome.” 

“You take care of me so well,” you say with a little laugh. 

“I try,” he says, utterly serious. 

You flinch. It’s tiny, but from the way his gaze finds you, a firefly flicker, he notices. But he doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to take another bite of his onigiri. 

“Shin-chan,” Yoshida calls. “Come help an old woman with the watering.” 

You glance up to see that she’s heaving a full bucket of water towards the garden. Kita pushes to his feet immediately, crossing to her in a few easy strides. He takes the bucket without even pausing, lifting it with a single hand. 

“Granny,” he chides. “Ya could’ve gotten hurt.” 

She shrugs. He follows her to the garden beds, glancing back to send you a little smile. You watch him as he carefully waters the garden under Yoshida’s rigid instructions. The sun catches in his hair, bronzes his tanned skin. That same smile he’d flashed you lives on his lips, a quiet contentment tucked up secret into the corner of his mouth.

Kita comes back to you when he’s finished watering, settling at your side on the engawa once more. He eats the rest of his onigiri quickly. 

“I’ve gotta get back to the fields,” he tells you. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you say. “Go do your job.”

He smiles at you, his eyes crinkling with it.

He leaves soon after. You watch him go, until all you can see of his truck is the cloud of dust being kicked up behind it, until the horizon swallows him. 

Yoshida stands next to you on the engawa, shading her eyes as she watches him go too. 

“He’s a good man,” she says casually.

You glance at her. 

“He is.” 

“You could do much worse in a man.”

“It’s not like that.”

She raises a brow.

“It’s not. It’s just…complicated,” you say, winding your fingers through your necklace’s chain. Your rings clink against each other softly, the sound lost in the myriad of wind chimes surrounding you. For a moment you drift, tears pricking at your eyes before you blink them away.

“‘Course it is,” she says. “Most things are. But ah, pay no mind to an old lady. Let’s go harvest some of the squash.” 

You spend the rest of the day in the garden, harvesting away. The first frost isn’t too far off and you need to make sure you don’t lose any of the vegetables to it. Yoshida tells you exactly what to pick and what to leave. 

Night falls and you cook the first of the squash, painting it with a sweetened miso glaze that gleams stickily as you serve it. Yoshida makes a few side dishes too, putting them in pretty kobachi dishes. They’re delicate things, the soft silver of the moon, and you find yourself thinking of Kita. 

You shake yourself free of the thought before it fully forms. Yoshida’s son pulls you into a conversation and you chatter the night away, until you’re yawning between sentences. You finally trudge up to your room. 

The window lets in the faintest hint of gossamer moonlight. You gaze out into the night, into the endless countryside. You can just barely make out the next farmhouse, a lighthouse in the sea of darkness, its lights glittering on the very edge of the horizon. 

It looks lonely. You think of Kita again, of the little island of his farmhouse, how it’s tucked between the paddies with no other home in sight. You think of him alone at the kotatsu, reading glasses perched on his nose, and feel something in your chest clench.

You pull the curtains shut and go to bed.

***

The rest of the week rolls by and so does the next. It grows colder each day, winter’s first kiss. The leaves are going orange, as if little fires are catching the edges. It sets the trees ablaze with color. You hop from leaf to leaf as you and Kita walk along the road, delighting in each little crunch. 

“Having fun?” he calls out.

You turn around to face him, shading your eyes with one hand. His more sedate pace has left him lagging, but he’s quickly catching up now that you’ve stopped. “Can’t you tell?”

His breath mists in the air, a marine layer, and his lips quirk up into a little smile. “I can,” he says. “Just be careful, yeah? There’s still some frost lingering.”

You hum an acknowledgement and stomp on your next leaf. He chuckles quietly and you fall back to walk with him, shoving your hands into your pockets to ward off the cold. 

“Hey,” you say softly. “You know my sabbatical is almost over, right?”

He nods. “I know.”

“I think I’m gonna go home midweek next week,” you say. “Just to give myself some time to settle before I have to go back to work.” 

“Makes sense,” he says. “Let me know the details and I’ll get you to the station.” 

The two of you keep walking, huddling into each other slightly when the wind picks up. Some of his hair wisps across your face, the touch like silk against your skin. You shiver with it and return your gaze to the countryside, to the rolling hills and the shorn paddies. 

One or two of the trees are already fully bare; they reach towards the sky with long-fingered branches. There’s a murmur of swallows nestled in the nearest one, so numerous it’s as if the tree has leaves again. As you watch, they take to the skies, undulating through the soft gray-blue of it. 

“I’ll miss it,” you say softly.

“Bein’ here?”

“Yeah.” 

“Ya can come back anytime, y’know. There’s always a place for you.” 

You glance at him. His stoic face has softened and you think of the thaw of a spring day. How the quiet warmth of it melts the chill away. 

“Thanks, Shinsuke.”

“Mhm.” 

The two of you walk together quietly before turning around to head back to Kita’s farm when the chilly breeze becomes a whistling wind. It whips through the fields to cut through your clothing and you press into Kita without thinking, seeking the warmth of his solid form. He unwinds his scarf and drapes it around your neck; you don’t bother to protest. He’s immovable about things like this. Instead, you burrow into the warmth of it. 

You all but tumble into the genkan of the farmhouse. Kita follows you at a more sedate pace. You toe off your shoes and slip on your usual pair of house slippers. He does the same and you watch as he puts his shoes away carefully, arranging them perfectly within the cubby. 

You both settle at the kotatsu, huddling under the thick down of the blanket. You trace a finger over one of the origami cranes patterned into it. They’re perfect, so different from the clumsy paper cranes you’d both made with some of the local children the other day. 

Kita turns on the kotatsu. It starts to warm almost immediately and you sink into the heat of it with a quiet sigh.

“What’re you smiling about?” you ask him.

“You,” he says simply. 

You roll your eyes. “Okay,” you say. 

“D’ya want tea?” 

“Sure.”

He slips out from under the kotatsu and heads into the kitchen. You turn enough that you can still see him; you like watching him make tea. He’s careful and respectful of the process from beginning to end, but you like how it loosens his shoulders, how he unfurls, a night-blooming flower.

He rejoins you at the kotatsu once the tea is made, handing you a steaming cup. The scent of it billows through the air. When you sip at the tea, it settles warm in your chest, pushing out the autumn chill. 

“You’ll have to teach me how to make tea like this,” you tell Kita. 

He smiles into his cup. “It’s not hard.”

“Says you.”

“Might not have time to teach you before you go,” he says with a frown. “The farm—”

“You can teach me when you visit.” You pause. “You will visit, right?” 

“Of course.”

“Good,” you say, letting out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. “You can teach me then.”

He agrees and the conversation flows until it’s late. You peer out into the darkness and see the moon—full-bellied with light—is beginning to set, sinking through the dark ocean of the sky like an anchor. 

“Shit,” you say. “I didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“S’fine,” Kita says. “I don’t mind.”

“I know, I know. Ugh, I’m gonna wake up Yoshida when I get in.”

“You can stay, y’know.” 

You glance at him. He meets your gaze steadily.

“I have a guest room,” he reminds you. 

“Okay,” you say after a moment. “Okay.”

“You’ll have to get up early, though.”

“That’s fine.” 

He smiles softly. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s finish cleaning up.”

You clean up the kotatsu quickly; despite the late hour, Kita still takes the time to wash the dishes. He washes them with careful concentration and something in your chest pangs. 

“Go ahead to the guest room,” he says. “‘M almost done here. I’ll see if I can find you somethin’ to sleep in.” 

“It’s fine,” you tell him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm.”

“Alright.”

The guest room is homey, with a handmade quilt patterned with rice plants that almost look like they’re rippling in the wind. You trace a finger over one of them as you glance around the rest of the room, taking in the way the stark cleanliness is offset by the items scattered about: the fan patterned with cherry blossoms hanging on the wall; the plant at the window, lush despite the season; a paperweight on the desk, glass swirled through with blue and white, the ocean roiling within it. It’s not quite Kita, but you can sense him in it all the same. 

Kita knocks on the door frame. You turn to look at him. “Here,” he says, holding out a toothbrush and toothpaste. “Thought you might need these.”

“Thanks,” you say, sending him a little smile. “Appreciate it.”

“‘Course.” 

“Night, Shinsuke.”

“G’night,” he says. “I’ll wake you in the morning.”

“Sounds good.”

He disappears into his room.

You get ready for bed and slide under the covers. The quilt is heavy and warmth builds quickly under it, like a banked fire. You turn your face into the pillow to hide from the moonlight slanting in through the window. The pillowcase smells vaguely like Kita and the simple detergent he uses. 

Sleep comes easily.

So easily that it feels like you’ve only been asleep for a second when Kita’s knocking on the guest room door to rouse you for the day. Blearily, you slip on your clothing before trudging into the kitchen. 

Kita glances up as you enter. His hair is still damp from the shower; it glistens like the gray winter sea beneath a bleak sun. 

“Mornin’,” he says.

“Hi,” you grumble.

He breathes out a quiet laugh. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you home.” 

You drowse on the ride back to Yoshida’s, just aware enough to hear the quiet hum of the radio as it fills the truck’s cab. The sun is starting to rise, the first fingers of light painting the horizon orange, like embers just beginning to catch. You turn away from it, curling into yourself in the front seat. 

The truck rumbling to a halt wakes you. You grouse and Kita laughs again. He doesn’t bother to dodge when you swat at him.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” you say with a yawn, one hand on the car door’s handle, already looking forward to crawling back into bed. 

“‘Course,” he says. “You always have a place with me.”

You pause. 

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I know.”

His eyes crinkle with his smile. 

“Go to work,” you tell him.

“Yes ma’am.”

You hop out and head to the genkan. You hear the truck rumble to life behind you, the engine practically purring. By the time you make it to the genkan and look back, Kita is already down the road.

You watch until he’s gone from view.

***

This early, the train station is quiet.

The sun is still rising, casting pale golden rays across the parking lot. It haloes Kita in light as he pulls your suitcase from the truck bed, his muscles flexing with the movement. You take it from him and the two of you head towards the platform together.

“Travel safe, alright?” he says when you come to a halt just before the doors. 

“Shinsuke,” you say, “thank you for everything.” 

“Anytime.” 

“You’ll visit?”

“I’ll visit,” he confirms. “You?”

“I’ll come back,” you say. 

“Good.”

He smiles at you, a slow, sweet thing that makes you think of the sun’s rise. It’s steady and sure, unshakeable. 

You throw your arms around him in a hug. He stumbles for a second, caught off guard, but he catches himself quickly and wraps his arms around you. He holds you tightly. You bury your face in his shoulder. He smells like plain soap, fresh and clean, with the faintest kiss of lemon, a touch of sour citronella that you know he uses for the fields. 

When you pull away, the tips of his ears are pink. 

“Bye, Shinsuke,” you say.

“Bye,” he says softly. 

You head inside the station. When you glance back, you can just make out the silhouette of him, lean and strong. He must be able to see you, because he gives a little wave before he turns away. 

The train is almost empty when you board it and you settle in a window seat. You close your eyes and turn your face towards the sun, the gentle rays just barely starting to warm as they brush against your skin. 

You open your eyes when the train starts to move, peering out of the window as the countryside speeds by. The rice fields are shorn short now but the gold of them hasn’t faded. The remains of the stalks reach towards the great blue sky, two expanses meeting. Beyond the fields, even the hills are going golden, though they’re slower, with green patches scattered across them like lily pads in a pond. 

You think you might be leaving a part of yourself in the expanse of the country. That the fields have swallowed up some part of you, like the earth swallows a seed. It makes something in you pang.

Soon enough, the countryside melts away into the suburbs. Then come the neon lights of the city, streaking by like fireflies, little blips of color that blink to life here and there. 

You hadn’t realized how much you missed it. 

The house is quiet when you step into the genkan; only the musical clink of your keys fills the space. The greeting is on the tip of your tongue, but you catch it behind your teeth and swallow it back down. You take in a deep breath and set your suitcase down before brushing by the photos in the entryway, most of them facedown. 

It takes time to unpack. Most of your clothes are clean, but you run a load of laundry anyway, listening to the way the water swishes and spins, the low rumble of it filling the house. You text Kita to let him know you’ve arrived safely and then collapse onto your couch, staring up at the ceiling. 

You don’t know how long you lie there before you hear the door to the house open. Muffled bickering floats to you from the genkan and you push yourself up just as Abe comes barreling around the corner. 

She skids to a stop just before the couch and grins down at you. 

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” you reply. “Did you break in?”

“No,” Yoshikawa says, appearing from around the corner. She twirls something around her finger; it glints in the light. “Used the spare.”

“It’s funny,” you say. “I don’t remember inviting either of you over.”

She shrugs elegantly, her long hair swaying like kelp in a current. “Did you really think we were going to miss you coming home?”

“No,” you say with a little laugh. “I didn’t.”

“Good.” 

You exchange hugs with both of them, holding them tightly and yelping when Abe spins you in a circle. Yoshikawa is more sedate but her hug is strong and warm. You blink away the tears before they can fall.

The three of you settle into the living room. You catch up with each other easily, swapping stories and laughing together, the sound billowing through the room to fill even the darkest corners with joy. Your heart aches as Abe throws back her head and laughs, her dark hair shimmering in the light, her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.

“You’re too easily entertained,” Yoshikawa informs her, but there’s a smile playing at her lips too, downy-soft and deeply pleased.

“Shut up,” Abe says, still giggling. 

For a moment, you just watch them, taking in their features, their smiles, the sound of them. You want to commit them to memory, parts of them that you’ve taken into yourself to treasure, to keep. Pieces never to be lost.

“Hey,” Yoshikawa says. “What’s wrong?”

You realize that your cheeks are hot and wet. You scrub a hand over your face as more tears fall. 

“Nothing,” you say. “I just really missed you.”

She hums, but doesn’t push you on it, sending Abe a look when she opens her mouth. “We missed you too,” she says. “Do you want us to spend the night?”

“Yeah,” you say softly, thinking of how empty the house was before they filled it. “That would be great.”

“Okay.” 

The conversation picks up again, only pausing when you order takeout as night falls. Though you’ve spoken consistently with them while you were in the country, there are still stories to tell. The three of you talk and talk, full of laughter and love, and it only feels a little bittersweet.

As the night deepens, Yoshikawa and Abe go to the genkan and grab the bags they’ve brought, much to your embarrassment. Abe pats you on the shoulder as you bury your face in your hands. Neither of them comment.

You tumble into bed with them in a mess of limbs. When the dust settles, you’re curled up on your side of the bed, almost pushed off the edge by Abe’s starfished limbs. You poke her in the stomach and she curls up with a groan. You reclaim the space quickly.

“Rude,” she tells you. 

“You were taking up the whole bed!”

She grumbles but doesn’t bother to argue. 

Quiet falls, only the gentle sound of breathing filling the room. You snuggle down into your comforter, pushing closer to Abe and relishing her warmth.

“I invited Shinsuke to visit,” you breathe.

Yoshikawa pushes up to her elbows behind Abe, peering down at you with her dark, knowing eyes. 

“Here?” she asks.

You nod, the pillowcase crinkling against your cheek.

She hums, low and sweet, a honeyed thunder. “You’ll let him stay at the house?”

“I don’t know,” you say, thinking of Takao, the way he’d been flayed open when he asked you to not bring Kita to the house. “Aoshi—”

“Isn’t here,” Yoshikawa says gently. “You don’t have to hold on to that promise if you don’t want to.”

You blink against the tears as they swell up, beading on your eyelashes like little diamonds. Abe reaches out and cups your cheek. 

“You’ll figure it out,” she says softly. “You don’t need to know now.” 

You close your eyes, a few more tears trickling down. The pillowcase is damp beneath your cheek. “Yeah,” you say quietly. “You’re right.” 

“I always am,” she says, and then yelps when Yoshikawa pinches her. “Ow, Yocchan!”

Yoshikawa ignores her, settling back down onto the bed with a yawn.

It’s contagious; you find yourself yawning as well and snuggle down deeper into the comforter once more. Abe shifts closer, seeking heat.

You fall asleep with her pressed tight against your side.

It feels like coming home.

***

Fall fades away.

The trees lose their leaves entirely, leaving branches that reach into the sky with scraggly fingers. Frost creeps over the windows in icy whorls, a cobweb of winter, fanning out in intricate patterns that melt when you breathe on them. The winter sun glows in the softened blue of the sky, only to be replaced with gray clouds.

The first snow is falling when you go to pick up Kita.

The flakes are fat and fluffy, perfectly crystalline. They flutter through the air like butterflies, spinning in great, lazy arcs as they drift to the ground. They melt as soon as they hit the pavement. 

They catch in Kita’s hair as the two of you head into the house, little dew drops that make his gray hair shine. He’s cherry-cheeked with the cold, his face half-buried in his scarf. It’s cute. Something in you pangs when he sends you a little smile, only discernible by the way his eyes crinkle at the edges. 

The two of you peel off your outer layers in the genkan. Kita puts his away carefully, at odds with your slightly haphazard method of kicking your boots away to find later. 

“It’s future me’s problem,” you tell him and he just shakes his head, a small smile caught in the corner of his lips. 

You show him to the guest room, freshly made up for his visit, and linger in the hallway as he stores his suitcase. 

“Dinner?” you ask as he steps out into the hall again.

“That’d be great.”

“C’mon, I’ve got some things ready in the kitchen.” 

“Sounds good.”

He follows you into the kitchen and insists on helping. You direct him to the plates as you check on what you’ve made. There’s colorful tsukemono, each pickled vegetable bright in its own way, stained to watercolors by the pickling liquid. The curry is thick and bubbling, with chunks of heavily marbled meat and vegetables coated in the sauce. The rice is steaming lightly and so are the nikuman, each bun pinched shut perfectly. 

“Ya didn’t need to go to all this trouble,” Kita says, eyeing the food as he sets the table. 

“Too late,” you say cheerfully. “Eat.” 

He smiles softly, shaking his head, but sits down when you gesture. You join him and the two of you start to fill your plates. 

You talk quietly as you eat, all easy chatter. Part of you can’t help but think of the beginning, when everything with him was stilted and careful. That’s changed through the years but it’s even easier now, the conversation flowing like a river, calm and unchanging. 

When you’re done eating, Kita collects the plates and brings them to the sink. He rolls up his sleeves and turns the water on. You sigh but don’t bother to say anything. Instead, you settle in next to him with a dish towel in your hand. 

He’s radiating a soft, gentle heat. It takes conscious effort to not lean into him. 

He washes and you dry, falling into an effortless rhythm. 

“Are you seeing Aran while you’re here?” you ask.

“He’s away trainin’,” Kita says, handing you another dish. “So’s Atsumu. I’ll see Osamu, but you know I’m here to see you, right?”

Your cheeks heat. “I know,” you say. “But two birds, one stone, y’know?”

He hums, rinsing off the final dish and drying his hands. He leaves his sleeves rolled up, exposing his forearms. For a moment, you watch the play of his muscles, the way they coil beneath his tanned skin as he picks up the dry dishes and brings them back to the cabinet. You look away when you realize what you’re doing.

You both go to bed early that night; Kita’s tired from his usual early wake-up and the travel. You try not to laugh as he bids you goodnight. It’s cute, the way he blinks sleepily, his amber eyes softened to a honeyed brown. 

You can hear him as you get ready for bed, the quiet little noises of another person’s presence. It soothes something in you. 

You glance at your wedding rings, ensconced in a little jewelry dish on your nightstand. They gleam in the light. You run your fingers over them, tracing the cool metal gently. 

You put them away in a drawer before you go to sleep.

***

The snowstorm hits on the last day of Kita’s visit. 

The wind whips between buildings, catching the snowflakes and tossing them about like ships on a stormy sea. The snow piles up into thick drifts, the silken white of it gone yellow beneath the glow of the street lights, like a melting pat of butter. 

You and Kita watch the storm from where you’re tucked under the kotatsu. You’d pulled it out when you’d heard the forecast, the two of you working together to get it set up. It still works, luckily, and the two of you sit next to each other and bask in the soothing warmth. 

The wind slows; you gaze at the snowflakes as they slow, drifting like dancers across the stage, each puffy flake a part of its own ballet. Everything has gone quiet, muffled at the edges. It’s like the world is waiting to take its next breath. 

“What are you thinking?” Kita asks softly.

When you glance at him, he’s already looking at you.

“I don’t know,” you say, your voice just as soft as his. “All sorts of things.”

He hums quietly.

The wind picks up again; the windows rattle with it. You shiver, snuggling further under the kotatsu. Kita shifts. His leg presses against yours, a line of warmth even under the heat of the kotatsu. 

You glance at him. He’s watching the storm. It reflects in his eyes, lightening them, taking them from amber to gold. You think of the rice fields at their peak, when they’re treasured gold, and can’t help the small smile that curls around your lips.

Perhaps he feels your gaze, because Kita turns to face you. In the low light, he’s softened at the edges, a watercolor being. His eyes are aglow, like sunlight pooling. He gives you a small smile. 

“What is it?”

“I’m so lucky to have you,” you say quietly, the words pouring from you like a waterfall, something unstoppable. 

He goes still for a breath, a statue of old. Then he softens again.

“You’ll always have me,” he says, and you used to hate how true it is. Now, though—now it feels different. Just a bit. 

“Thank you, Shinsuke,” you say. 

Something flickers over his face like heat lightning, too quick for you to comprehend. You think you might have disappointed him. 

You turn your gaze away. It lands on a picture frame placed face-down. You suck in a deep breath. Before you can stop them, the tears are burning behind your eyes, starting to trickle down your cheeks. You scrub at them with one hand.

“Sorry,” you say to Kita.

“S’alright,” he says. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say, even as another tear trickles down to pool salty on your tongue.

He reaches out, his hand hovering in the space between the two of you. He waits.

You nod.

He cups your cheek and sweeps his thumb under your eye. His touch has the same aching tenderness of a fresh, swollen bruise. You lean into his palm, keeping your eyes on his, your cheeks hot as he smiles at you sadly. 

He wipes away the tears before pulling back. You can see the gleam of them on his thumb. 

“Thanks,” you say softly.

“Course.”

You scrub away the remains of the tears and then blow out a big breath. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

Kita studies you for a moment. You don’t know what he sees in your face, but he nods, giving you a soft smile. “Sure.”

“Great,” you say, pushing to your feet. “You choose.”

“If you want,” he says, standing as well and heading towards the living room. “No complaining, though.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be there in a minute,” you call after him, leaning down to turn off the kotatsu. You tuck the comforter in, tidying it up lightly. You nod to yourself. When you turn around, you pause for a moment, your gaze settling on the face-down picture frame.

It’s a photo you know well, one of you and Takao on the beach, the ocean a vast expanse behind you, glittering with the searing blue of the tropics. You’re caught mid-laugh as Takao plants a kiss on your cheek. It’s always been a favorite.

Before you leave the room, you stand the picture frame back up. 

***

You drop Kita off at the train station early the next day. You breathe him in as you hug him goodbye, burying your face in the crook of his neck. He tightens his grip around you with a little laugh. 

“I’ll come to the farm in spring,” you tell him. “I promise.” 

“Good.”

You wave goodbye as he enters the train station; he glances back right before he disappears through the doors. Something warm blooms in you. It settles in your stomach and flutters there.

When you’ve made it home, you pull out your phone. You settle onto the edge of the couch as it rings, your shoulders stiff. 

It rings until the voicemail clicks on and Takao’s voice floods your ears. You close your eyes as his voicemail message plays, letting his voice wash over you like a summer storm, a warm, sweet rain. You listen to Takao talk, relearning the cadence of his voice, the way it rises and falls, the way his tongue curls around words. You hadn’t realized how much of it you’d forgotten. 

“Hi,” you say when the tone beeps. “I miss you.”

You’re quiet for a moment; the line carries on, reflecting you breathing back to yourself.

“Shinsuke just left,” you say. “Aoshi—I think I like him. More than I ever thought I could. Is that alright?”

The line is silent.

“I didn’t mean to like him,” you say. “I really didn’t. But he’s good, Aoshi. He’s so good.” 

You sniffle.

“I don’t know what to do,” you murmur. “I don’t know how to leave you behind. But I think—I think he’s okay with that. I just—it feels like giving in. Like our choice, the one we made over and over again, was for nothing.” 

You take in a deep, steadying breath. 

“I know that’s not true. I know that our choice was for everything. That it never really was a choice in the first place, not for me.”

“I just—I really think I like him, Aoshi. Is that alright? Please tell me it’s alright.” 

The voicemail beeps; you’ve hit the end of the time you can record. You hang up and bury your face in your hands. 

“Fuck. Fuck!”

You lay back on the couch, rubbing at your eyes with the heels of your hands. You curl in on yourself. 

You grab your phone and dial again.

“Hi.”

“Natsumi.”

“Oh, shit, no nickname, that’s not a good sign.” 

“I think I like Shinsuke.” 

She pauses. “Is that a bad thing?” she asks gently. 

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“It just—”

“Feels like giving in?”

“...Yeah. Was this always going to happen?” 

“Maybe,” she says. “But maybe not. You don’t have to be with him, you know. If you don’t want to, that is.” 

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I think you do,” she says gently.

“I don’t, Nat-chan.” 

“Okay. Okay. Let me put it this way: is your only issue with Kita the fact that he’s your soulmate?”

“He’s not Aoshi.”

“No one is going to be Aoshi. You know that.”

“I do.”

“Liking Kita isn’t giving up on Aoshi. It’s not leaving him behind. It’s just moving forward. You’ll bring him with you no matter what, no matter how far forward you move,” she says, and you bite at your bottom lip until you can taste blood.

“I don’t want to be with my soulmate just because they’re my soulmate.”

“Do you really think you might like Kita just because he’s your soulmate?”

“...No.” 

“It’s not bad to like him,” she says, not unkindly. “You’re not bad for liking him because of who he is.” 

“I don’t even know if I really like him.”

“Sweetheart,” Abe says, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you didn’t.” 

You go quiet. As her words settle in, you glance out the window. The snow on the ground is still pristine; it glimmers under the bleak winter sunlight. The neighborhood children are starting to stomp through it. They’re bundled up tight, practically waddling as they play. You take a deep breath.

“Maybe you’re right,” you say. 

“I don’t know how many times I have to say that I always am before you believe me.”

“You’re wrong way too much for me to believe that.” 

“Don’t be mean!”

You smile. “Thanks, Nat-chan,” you say softly.

“Any time,” she says. “You’ll figure it out.”

As you hang up, you know that you will. 

***

Winter melts into spring.

The snow gives way to crocuses, which bloom like bruises, deep purple with stamen peeking shyly out of the center. The trees come to life, budding quickly, little specks of green dotted along the branches like stars. 

And on the farm, there are ducklings, tiny and fluffy, their down pollen-yellow. 

“Oh, Shin,” you say as he hands you one, dropping it carefully into your hands. It peeps its protest before snuggling up in your palm like a tiny sun. “I love them.”

He chuckles softly, the sound low and rich. “I thought you might. Do you wanna name ‘em?”

“Really? You’ll let me?”

“Course.” 

“I’ll have to think of good ones,” you say. “Can I have a few days?”

“Take as much time as you need,” he says. “They’re not going anywhere.”

You nuzzle up against the one in your hand; it peeps again, as if grumbling at you. When you glance at Kita, he has a fond smile playing on his lips.

He takes you around on some of his other chores. There are seedlings in the garden, tiny little things just barely poking out of the ground, a promise of green growth. You water them carefully, wary of their thin, delicate stems.

Finally, you find yourself back in Kita’s genkan. Your boots—a pair of his, really, laced tightly to keep them on—are muddy, so you stop just inside the door. You’re leaning down to untie the boots when Kita kneels before you. 

“Shin…” you say and he glances back up at you with mischief in his smile. You decide it’s not worth it to try and stop him. 

He makes quick work of the laces with his deft fingers. You watch his bent head quietly, taking in the thunderstorm gray of it, edged with blackened clouds. You catch yourself before you run your fingers through it. 

“Up,” he says. You steady yourself with a hand on his shoulder as you step out of first boot; he wraps his hand around your wrist. 

It’s not long before both boots are off. Before you can even start to move, Kita has your house slippers in hand. He takes your ankle in his big hand, waiting for you to lift your foot so he can slip on the first slipper.

You almost balk. But he looks up at you with his keen amber eyes and you can’t help yourself. You lift your foot and he slides the slipper into place. He does the same thing with the second slipper. 

“Thanks,” you say, cheeks hot.

He nods. He pushes to his feet, a graceful ripple of motion, and tilts his head at you. “Lunch?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” you say. “That sounds good.” 

You cook together with ease. You know his kitchen by heart now, able to pull pans from their place without looking, knowing which of his fresh herbs to clip without double-checking with him. 

It makes something in you ache. 

Kita returns to the fields after lunch. You choose to not go with him, deciding instead to curl up on the engawa with a book. You settle into place with your book on your lap and stare out into the countryside. 

It’s just beginning to go green with the flooded paddies glinting in the sun, a false ocean. The water glimmers with movement as the breeze rolls over you. A stork prowls through the paddies, long and elegant, moving with slow precision. Its beak flashes as it darts down to snap up some little creature. It takes off after that, spreading its wings wide and soaring into the blue expanse of the sky. You watch until it’s no more than a dot in the vastness. 

You curl up and start reading and don’t notice when evening starts to fall. That’s where Kita finds you when he comes home from the fields. You hadn’t even noticed his truck trundling up the driveway. 

“Hi,” you say as he comes up on the engawa, marking your place and getting to your feet.

“Hi,” he replies. “Have you been here all afternoon?”

“How’d you know?”

“Just a guess.” 

You eye him, trying to figure out what’s given you away. Kita stays stoic, as if carved from stone, and you huff. 

You follow him inside, kicking off your outside shoes before he can even try to kneel, and hop up from the genkan. As usual he goes to shower, ready to rinse off the fields. You keep reading.

He comes padding back into the kitchen a while later with a towel wound around his neck. His hair is still damp and you can see a cowlick curling at the back of his head. His tan skin glistens. 

“Dinner?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “What do you want to make?”

You discuss your options in front of the fridge, crowded in next to each other to see what he has. He’s still warm from the shower. You press closer to him and see him glance at you from the corner of his eye. He smiles, soft and sweet, and turns his attention back to the fridge. 

Eventually, you finally decide. Kita hands you a handful of carrots and you start to julienne them thinly, your knife—perfectly sharp, the most well-maintained kitchen knife you’ve ever seen—flashing in the light. 

He starts halving baby bok choy, little gems of green and white. The pan hisses when he drops them in, giving it a good toss before he moves on to his next task. 

“Is it really okay for me to be here during such a busy season?” you ask.

He glances at you. “I wouldn’t invite ya if it wasn’t a good time.” 

“True.”

“Besides, I told you there was always a place here for you, and I meant it.” 

Your cheeks heat. “I know.” 

“Good.”

Quiet falls, broken only by the sound of your knife against the board and the hiss of the pan as Kita stirs it again. It’s comfortable, though, and you feel no need to fill the air. The two of you cook away, moving around each other easily in his small kitchen, as if it’s a dance you’ve always known. 

It’s comforting in a way you’d almost forgotten.

You take a deep breath, your stomach churning a bit, and Kita glances over at you.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Just tired.”

He smiles softly. “If you wanna go to bed early, I don’t mind.” 

“We’ll see,” you tell him. “Now finish up, I’m hungry.” 

He laughs, but the two of you are done cooking not long after. You settle down to eat. You tell him some ideas you’ve had to name the ducks (“Duck is a perfectly good name, Shin!” “If ya say so.”) and he tells you about his day. It’s peaceful. Easy. 

You’ve just finished eating when you reach out and cover Kita’s hand with your own. “Shin,” you say. “Thank you.”

“Fer what?”

You shrug, unable to put the jumble inside you into words.

He turns his hand over under yours and laces your fingers together. You don’t pull away.

“Yer always thankin’ me,” he says softly. “You don’t need to.” 

“I do, though.”

“You don’t.” 

You look at him. He meets your gaze easily, amber eyes gone whiskey-dark. He gives your hand a little squeeze. 

“You don’t need to thank me for anything,” he says.

You squeeze back. “I will, though.” 

He sighs but doesn’t argue. 

For another moment, you both sit there, hands intertwined. You watch each other. You can feel the strength in his fingers and the hint of sweat on his palm. It’s warm and solid and real. Something in your chest stirs. 

You’re the one that pulls back first, letting out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Kita lets you go without a word. 

The rest of dinner is quiet; you both go to your rooms early, influenced by Kita’s schedule. You murmur a soft goodnight in the hallway. You can still hear him when you’re in the guest room, listening to him rustling around before it all goes silent.

You gaze out the guest room window, taking in the rising moon. It’s waxing, almost full-bellied with light, pouring over the fields. It reflects off the water of the flooded paddies, a distorted mirror of itself. Under the moonlight, the fields go silvery, delicate and gossamer as they start to come to life. It’s beautiful in a foreign way. 

You curl up on the bed with your book, texting Yoshikawa and Abe here and there as your phone lights up. When the moon is high in the sky, you finally get ready for bed. 

You fall asleep thinking about the weight of Kita’s hand in your own. 

***

Something shifts between you.

It’s slow like a dune in the wind, the sand taking on a new shape, but neither of you have mentioned it. Maybe you don’t need to. Maybe it’s all said in each fleeting glance, a language written in the amber of Kita’s gaze. 

The days pass in a flicker of quiet moments. You spend a morning naming the ducklings, tucked in close to Kita’s side so he can see which one you’re pointing to. You repeat yourself as he takes them in, his brow furrowed as he notes the name for each nearly-identical duckling. 

Some days you join him in the fields, kneeling down into the muck to sow a shoot into place. He guides you with careful hands, his warm fingers wrapped firmly around yours. You eat lunch in the bed of his truck, mud flaking off of your boots, and bask in the spring sun. 

It’s easy. It’s terrifying. 

You think of the taste of ozone, how it crackles on your tongue. The slow, sharp bite of it. 

You know something will give. That the storm will break over you and change everything in its path. 

You think you might finally be ready for it. 

***

You come awake with a jolt. 

The sheets stick to you, caught in the layer of sweat accumulating on you. You sit up and press a hand to your heart, thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. 

Once you’ve regained your breath, you stumble over to the window and pull it open. The countryside breeze billows inside. It still carries the sharp bite of winter, but it’s mellowed under spring’s tender bloom. You close your eyes and let it flow over you. 

The breeze cools you, your sweat going tacky before it dries down completely. The dream rolls over you again and you shudder.

You find yourself padding down the hallway without realizing it. You stop just in front of the door. You tug at your lower lip with your teeth before taking a deep breath.

You knock gently on the door and then open it. 

“Shin?” you whisper.

The lump on the bed stirs. Kita pushes up onto his elbows. He’s bathed in moonlight, his hair haloed silver, the dark tips a moon’s eclipse. He’s bleary-eyed but he focuses on you instantly.

“You alright?” he asks.

“Bad dream.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

You hesitate. 

“That bad?”

You shake your head. “I just…can I lay with you for a bit? Is that okay?” you ask, heart in your throat. You need to know he’s still here. That he’s real. 

His eyes widen before they go soft. He pulls back the covers and scoots over to give you more room. You’re across the room in an instant, slipping onto the futon. It’s still warm with his body heat and you shiver, goosebumps dancing across your skin. 

You keep a small distance between you when you lay down, but you let your head turn towards him. He’s still up on one elbow, the muscles in his bicep bunched with it, and he’s studying you carefully. 

He’s handsome, you realize, not for the first time. He’s sleep-rumpled, his hair messy and ruffled and his shirt wrinkled and bunched up just enough to show off a silver of his paler belly. The moonlight plays over him like a lover, lingering on the arch of his cheekbones and the dusting of freckles sprayed over his nose. His thick lashes flutter as he blinks, showcasing eyes gone golden, and you almost sigh.

He lies back down when you don’t move. The space between the two of you is small but it feels massive, a gulf between your two bodies, separating the shores of you. 

“You okay?” he asks again.

You shake your head. 

He reaches out and hesitates halfway, his big hand hovering in the air. In the moonlight, the constellation of his scars is more visible, little nicks and cuts that gleam bone-white in the light. 

“Can I?” he asks.

Your nod is tiny; the sheets crinkle with it.

He cups your cheek. His palm is rough against your skin but he’s careful with it, touches you as if you’re made of glass. It’s almost reverent. He sweeps his thumb across the apple of your cheek.

“What did you dream of?” he breathes.

“You.”

“Me?”

“I couldn’t find you,” you murmur, leaning into his touch. “I looked and looked, but you weren’t there.”

“I’m here now.”

You hum.

“I’m here now,” he says again and it sounds like a promise.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “You are.” 

You shift on the futon. The sheets smell of him, of the faintest hint of the salt of his skin and his soap, and you close your eyes to let it envelop you. You nestle down into the pillow with a little yawn. 

“Go back to bed,” Kita murmurs, caressing your cheek with careful fingers. “You’ll be tired in the morning.”

You stir under his touch, opening one eye. He’s watching you, his amber eyes unbearably fond, and something in you pangs. You press closer to him; he radiates a gentle warmth and you relax into it.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” you ask quietly. “Please?” 

You pretend to not hear the way his breath catches. 

“You sure?” he asks.

You press closer, burying your face in the crook of his neck.

“Yes.”

“You’re gonna regret it when my alarm goes off at dawn,” Kita says, a smile written in his sleep-rough voice. 

“I won’t,” you say. “Promise.”

He hums skeptically.

“Maybe you’ll regret it,” you whisper into the salt of his skin. “You might.”

He stills, and then he’s coaxing you up to look at him. His eyes gleam in the dim, a flash of amber, of the richness of the earth. He leans forward and presses his forehead to yours. 

“No,” he says. “I could never regret you.”

He always hears what you can’t quite bring yourself to say. 

“Never?” 

He nudges his nose against yours.

“Never.”

His breath stirs against your lips, and you take it in, make it your own. You sway closer, undulating like kelp, half-dizzy with it, and then you sway closer still.

He waits for you.

(He always has.)

When you kiss him, it’s simple. It feels right. 

Kita sighs into it, one big hand coming up to cup your face, his rough palm reverent against your skin. There’s no urgency to him; he’s honey-slow with it, melting into you under the cover of night. 

You kiss him again, and again, like the tide against the shore, lapping at the edges of him until you’re etched into his skin. He meets you each time, sweet and steady. 

You kiss him until he is all you know, and then you kiss him once more. 

You don’t even realize that you’re crying until he sweeps his thumb over your cheekbone.

You part your lips, and he presses a little kiss against them before he pulls back. In the dim, his amber eyes have gone whiskey-dark, deep and heady. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to explain.” 

You press your face into the warm crook of his neck again. He smells of plain soap and a lingering hint of citronella from the fields, sweet and stinging. You breathe him in, let the scent of him settle into you, a part of him to carry always. 

Kita curls a gentle arm around you. 

“Go to sleep,” he breathes, and you pull back to look at him. He watches you, his vulpine eyes unbearably fond, and he smiles against your lips when you kiss him again.

He cups your cheek and pulls you into a deeper kiss before he backs away. He sweeps his lips against yours in a chaste peck and says again, “Go to sleep.”

“Fine,” you murmur. You curl up into him as his breath starts to even out. You listen to the tide of it, the ebb and flow, a balm against a bruise you’ll always have, and close your eyes knowing that he’s right there.

You wake to the quiet beep of his alarm clock. He rises from bed with quicksilver ease, the thick muscles of his back rippling under his sleep shirt. It’s barely dawn; wan light filters in through the curtains like an azure sea, outlining him faintly as he moves around the room. He looks like something out of a painting, sketched out in broad strokes of soft shadows.

He looks too good to be true. 

“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs as you shift on the futon. His sheets are well-worn, the type of broken in that comes with years of use and careful care. “It’s early.”

Instead, you get up with him, slipping out from beneath the warmth of the comforter with a soft sigh. Kita gives you a little smile, a crescent moon tilt of his lips, and your cheeks heat. You glance away and hear him huff out a laugh.

He disappears into the bathroom, and you make up the futon, smoothing your hands over the wrinkles until they disappear. 

By the time he pads into the kitchen, the old coffeemaker is hissing and gurgling, spitting out a steady drip of liquid. He brushes by you to get a mug, his hand warm on your lower back as he sidles past. The heat of him lingers. 

The two of you eat breakfast in a comfortable silence. He slides his portion of your favorite onto your plate without a word; you push your share of pickled daikon into one of his small kobachi dishes. He says nothing,, but his lips quirk at the edges, the faintest hint of a sweet smile. 

He gets up when you’re both finished, pushing to his feet in one fluid movement. His muscles coil with it, going taut beneath his tanned skin. It’s more distracting than you thought it would be.

You peer at him from the corner of your eyes as he starts to clear the table. He moves with careful intent, his big hands steady against the delicate porcelain. 

You want to kiss him again.

Instead, you get to your feet and finish clearing the table, handing him dishes when he gestures for them. You wash the dishes together. Over the whisper of the running water, you talk about your upcoming day, trying to decide if you’ll be able to eat lunch together as well. You can’t quite keep the smile from your lips. 

When the dishes are put away, you walk with him onto the engawa. He cups your cheek, sweeping his thumb over the arch of your cheekbone, and smiles. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he says. 

“I’ll be here,” you say, soft and full of promise, and his eyes crinkle with his smile.

You watch from the engawa as he disappears into the distance, into the paddies, swallowed up by the verdant world he’s created with his own hands. He glances back at you once, just before he disappears from sight. 

You raise your face to the gentle warmth of the rising sun.

It’s a new day.

[buildarocketboys]

Crimson Peak notes @tumbleclub

So I took notes throughout my rewatch so under the cut is basically a live blog of my thoughts and feelings - spoilers for Crimson Peak throughout since I refer to what happens later in the movie from the start.

The main things I want to say about this movie though are 1. It's such a masterpiece of gothic horror. The aesthetic, the story, the characters, the relationships, the SYMBOLISM...all so on point that it almost feels TOO on the nose at times (except it doesn't because I love it. It's perfect, mwah). And 2. I love all the characters. They're all so compelling, they're all, in some ways, sympathetic (yes even Lucille...god forbid women do anything etc etc). I just love watching these fucked up (and less fucked up, shout-out to Alan, you the real MVP) relationships play out, it's so *chef kiss*

Anyway, here's my play by play thoughts. Warnings for incest, murder, horror and gore (although I don't actually talk about the gore much, it's a fairly gory movie when it comes to the murder/attempted murder and such though)

- 'a parasite with a title' go off Edith

- also she'd prefer to be Mary Shelley because she died a widow. She's so metal

- her relationship with her dad is so cute. Shame he dies

- Thomas coming in dressed in black from head to toe...

- also immediately clocking Edith and flirting with her...he knows what he's doing

- the red clay is fucking genius

- London... Edinburgh... Milan 👀

- her dad sees right through him from the start...we have to stan

- For being who are only trying to help Edith, they sure are scary

- LUCILLE!

- THE NOT QUITE LIP KISS

- He really is pushing all Edith's boundaries (and society's boundaries) from the very beginning huh

- "I don't want to close my eyes. I want to keep them open." is an interesting character quote for Edith

- Love Alan indulging her ghost obsession.. besties. But also him mentioning ghosts being minerals in the earth... very interesting..

- from my fiancée @judasisgayriot - "love that this is supposed to be a sunny day but the colour palette is so washed out and dull"

- Lucille ultimate goth queen. Feeding the butterfly to the ants... (Also just noticed that on the DVD cover a butterfly is sitting on Edith's hand...we love symbolism)

- "it's mine I want it back" about the ring. Because she took it from their mother when she killed her but also because SHE'S Thomas's wife

- Dad sees RIGHT through him

- "thoroughly break her heart" and then he comes for her writing. God. Yeah. Fuck him. But he clearly means it "perfection has no place in love" which makes it hurt all the more

- Love that the obvious way to kill him is to either use the razor or drown him in the sink, but no, Lucille fucking bashes his head in on the sink. Kind of badass ngl

- The thing about Edith is she really WANTS to be a protagonist in a ghost story, which is probably why she ignores alllll those red flags

- That said, I DO think she should have picked up on some of them, Jesus girl

- "you've been married a while" + one of the previous wife's dog as soon as they arrive...

- This house is a fucking wreck Thomas!! This would not pass health and safety regulations!! Girl run!

- He really has to stop himself from kissing Lucille. Then definitely smells her

- The bloody pipes... honestly you could be forgiven for thinking it's too on point. Not me though, I love it. The more obvious symbolism the better

- I love the fact that Thomas chose her BECAUSE he actually fell in love with her. Which Lucille CAN'T know (and TBF idk if Thomas even knows himself completely yet. He's playing a role but also he's not)

- GREEN GDT BATHROOM!! One of the jankiest ones, but it's still (crimson) peak!

- I love the bloody mist effect on the ghosts, like they're still bleeding but they're in gaseous form now so so is their blood

- Lucille creeping through the keyhole...

- Edith's fantasy of their childhood vs their Flowers in the Attic reality

- "I don't want her to miss a single thing we do" STAN LUCILLE

- Love her trying to get the lowdown on whether Edith and Thomas have fucked yet

- The huge moths thriving as opposed to the butterflies being eaten...

- Thomas like "You're not like other girls"

- Thomas's workshop and inventions are nice and make him more sympathetic. Definition of poor little miaow miaow. Terrible but also sad and pathetic

- Also these ghosts are fucked up, they definitely didn't just die of being poisoned or whatever.

- Surprised her father's ghost doesn't make an appearance...all the ghosts are women (except for Thomas right at the end)

- Edith: "Has anyone died in this house." Thomas: "Duh, it's a really old house. Americans 🙄"

- Oop...crimson peak mention...too late for poor Edith

- Ohhh shit she's coughing up blood (gdi Lucille giving her poisoned tea)

- I love that she tries to commune with the honestly pretty fucking scary ghosts. She's such a horror girlie

- Oh this one took a cleaver or something to the head

- I'd just stay in the post office and refuse to leave tbh. It looks cosy

- Love that Edith is a writer girlie too

- She's SOOOOOO fucking mad that she slept with him, she almost brains Edith with a fucking saucepan

- Ooooooh the bloody footprints from the clay

- Also Edith doing her little detective bit, stealing the keys

- The basement with the clay vats is so creepy. I mean so is the entire house but yeah. God. Perfect place to hide a body

- She's so mad that he wants Edith to see it

- Lucille DOES love to trauma dump on Edith lol

- Love that this is the first time Thomas explicitly acknowledged the poison tea and tells her not to drink it

- "We stay together. Never apart." "Never apart."

- "You couldn't leave me. You wouldn't." "I can't."

- ALANNN

- Also love that they're talking about the murders, sure, but also the incest. This is a conversation they've had multiple times. And in this one thing, Lucille sees it clearly. Thomas doesn't, or doesn't want to, wants to believe that he can make this work with all three of them, somehow (boy you're dreaming)

- Oop here we go with the sibling fucking!!

- Lucille is so possessive and victorious lmao

- Love that Edith immediately jumps to "you're not his sister" because incest does not compute

- Alan knows her so well so he knows what she means by her mother and crimson peak

- Yassss Thomas stab him non-fatally! King shit (lmao)

- Wow burning the book...cold

- "None of them ever fucked Thomas"

- Poor incest baby 👶

- THE HORROR WAS FOR LOVE

- This speech is everything to me.

- IT IS A MONSTROUS LOVE AND IT MAKES MONSTERS OF US

- "You should have seen him as a child. He was perfect." (Vs perfection has no place in love 👀👀)

- They're so sad honestly. I can't help but feel sorry for them. Even Lucille

- "you lied to me" "I did" "you poisoned me" "I did" "you told me you loved me" "I do" AGGHHHH SO GOOD

- The fact that he thinks they can all start a new life together. Oh honey.

- Interesting that ghost Thomas is white to match the snow instead of red or black like the other ghosts

- She literally heard you the first time Lucille! God! (Badass of her actually)

- Edith's speech with Lucille's ghost playing piano at the end...so good

[the-ellia-west]

WIP OVERVIEW

For @supercimi - (By order of Most Prominent and most worked on to least)

The Cursed One's Throne (TCOT) - Is my in-progress book series. It's Low fantasy, with high action, high sass, and some nice fluffy romance, but yeah... there's Violence. Quite a bit. No swearing, though! Hell or Damn is the worst it gets. (And yes, that is an accomplishment compared to my other 3 main WIPs)

See more TCOT here

Next is Jakkon & Rose (J&R - Has no actual title) - A High fantasy Plot-less story centered around the characters. Mostly around Jakkon (Jak) and Roselia (Rose) My favorite characters, who are not actually supposed to be the main characters. I'm just obsessed with them. It is WAY darker and more fucked up than TCOT. (LOTS of swears) I Have a Whole Side Blog for it @jakkon-and-rose-topic

If the @ link doesn't work here's the pinned post

Then Stereotypical Fantasy (StF) [ignore the shitty acronym, StF was better than SF] - Basically a Little kids show 'take down the evil overlord mr. chosen hero' but with excessive amounts of whump and violence. (Also light swearing) themes of trauma, just like TCOT and J&R) High Fantasy

Oh shit I'm noticing a theme with the trauma... um... no link for StF, but I've written some stuff for it

Then Finally, Cowboy Drama (C4) - Starring a travelling Performer thief (dancer and singer), A priest's daughter, and an orphan Violinist who are all trying to chase each other down to get answers - Historical Fiction

No link for this either.

Since there's no link for StF and C4 I'll give you An overview of the characters here

StF

Mennel - Protagonist - Chosen Hero - Basically a Fire/Lava Genasi - Sassy teenager who's been trained under a wise old mentor his whole life - 16

Evellias - Supporting Character - Mentor #1 - An Old human - Wise level-headed mentor who has acted as Mennel's father figure his whole life - about 88

Raavas - Antagonist - Villain's Right hand - An extremely temperamental Harpy - A spiteful angry former apprentice of Evellias who is now gunning for him and Mennel - About 27-29

Oirwyn - Secondary character - Supporter and Team Business guy - A kind and understanding working class guy who owns an inn - About 36

Euania - Secondary Character - Supporter and team Caretaker - An extremely kind and caring yet feisty working class woman from a second country (Oirwyn's Younger sister) - About 34

Alkain - Primary Character - Mentor #2 - Extremely tired previous advisor to the dead king of Mennel's country, now slave to the queen of this new country who just wants to go to bed. He's mean as fuck. And I love him - About 35

(There's more but they're not as important)

C4

Vix - Main Character - Thief - A traveling performer thief and hothead with a prideful streak, who has lightly questionable morals (Male) - About 26

Emurra - Primary Character - Priest's Daughter - An energetic young woman who has never left her hometown and wants desperately to go on an adventure - About 23

Azenis - Primary Character- Orphan Violinist - A bright and observant but timid boy who nobody seems to like very much, bur who has a tendency to keep himself into trouble - About 17

[b1adie]

Hi there Adri, I hope you have a good day!

So I saw that total cutie Blade on tiktok and looked up his lore on Wikipedia but it's completely confusing to me, I know basics of hsr lore like mara or aeons cause my roommate rambles about it 24/7 but I don't play this game yet and roommate doesn't care about Blade so they ignore all his voicelines etc...

Came to tumblr to find out more and I saw your blog in tag + in your faq you stated you don't mind lore questions...

So please ignore it if you don't want to answear but could you explain to me Blade's lore more or less?

I'm so sorry if I came out as pushy, I know it's probably a complicated lore and a lot to write about but even watching cutscenes on yt didn't make anything clearer while I feel like this guy could make me play hsr... Sorry for anon, I'm a bit shy.

no prob, i’ll try and explain his story as simply as possible!! and.. add a tldr cuz i know im gonna yap

im sorry the tldr got long too. here.

TLDR was TL, DR: craftsman/blacksmith human named yingxing that became cursed with immortality while participating in a fucked up resurrection ritual for one of his friends. was killed thousands of times til he became mara struck and forgot his past human life. got picked up by the stellaron hunters cuz their leader apparently knows a way to permanently kill him and he wants to die so bad. he didnt know his name but he has a cool sword so they call him bladie. he’s old and he apparently has a valid drivers license and obeys traffic laws but he cant play video games because he keeps stabbing himself in the hand.

iffff you have any further questions you can ask ^_^

TLDR; he was. regular human who was taken to the xianzhou as a child after abominations of abundance destroyed his home world. he picked the name yingxing there. he grew up to be a master craftsman and was incredibly skilled and confident, even considered arrogant. since he was a short life species on a ship of people who would live like 700 years longer than him on avg, they found him lame and annoying, but he was better than all of them at making shit so they had to give him the title of Furnace Master cuz he won it. then at some point he became a member of the high cloud quintet, made up of him and 4 friends (jing yuan, jingliu, dan heng’s past incarnation dan feng, and a foxian girl named baiheng). they fought abominations together and were considered legendary and told about in stories. but, baiheng was killed in battle, and dan feng wanted to revive her. he asked yingxing to help him. the revival went wrong and turned baiheng’s remains into a fucked up beast and also cursed yingxing with immortality. jingliu had to put the baiheng monster down, but she loved baiheng so much and having to be the one to kill her mutated corpse like this drove her to become mara struck. she killed yingxing with the sword he made for her, and then again, and again, killing him thousands of times, until he too became mara struck and forgot his life as yingxing entirely. then the stellaron hunters found his miserable ass in the woods somewhwre and said hey grandpa come with us and we’ll kill you for good. and he was like damn okay if you promise. he didnt know his own name and said he would be more use to them as a weapon than a Person, so kafka started calling him bladie and he didnt object so now he’s called blade. he doesn’t think of that as his name though, he still refers to himself as “the unnamed.” but like, he’ll answer to it out of convenience i guess.

OKAY NOT SHORTENED VERSON.

he was born a regular human on a planet that was soon taken over by the borisin (basically immortal space wolves that brutally kill humans). he was the only survivor of his family and sitll a child. he was taken to the xianzhou zhuming and taken under the wing of their arbiter general, huaiyan. (so like, basically the jing yuan of that ship). he took on the name Yingxing there. he became an apprentice craftsman because the xianzhou is very well known for its forging and craftsmanship. he was always generally overlooked or sneered at due to being a short-life species, which of course meant he could never accomplish as much as any of the long-lived xianzhou people. he was wildly ambitious, though, often described as proud and arrogant, mentioned to have stayed awake for days at a time engrossed in his work. xianzhou natives attempted to sabotage his work by deliberately giving him defective or poor-quality material, but it never held him back. despite all the adversity, he became the Furnace Master, the highest title a craftsman can hold on a xianzhou ship.

when he was still a young kid, he’d met a foxian girl named baiheng. they met again some years later, along with jingliu, the champion swordmaster on the luofu, jing yuan, a young cloud knight and her apprentice, and dan feng, the high elder of the luofu vidyadhada. they all hit it off and became very close friends. yingxing forged special weapons for each of them, and the five fought against the abominations of abundance. they became known as the high cloud quintet.

they had a great time for many years, but the rest of them were all going to outlive him by centuries. they Should have, at least. baiheng was killed in battle, having done so protecting them in some way (distracting the enemy or interrupting them i believe?). dan feng decided they should take her remains along with some cursed abundance flesh and try to resurrect her. he convinced yingxing to join him in his wacky little plan. yingxing was like 70 by then hauling his old ass to go do some scary ritual.

they tried to resurrect her and did bad. instead of baiheng, they created a cursed dragon beast that started wreaking havoc and killing people. jingliu arrived in time to put the beast down. but. she was very, very close with baiheng. like obviously its not outright spoken canon, but they were basically married. so killing the mutated beast made from her wife’s corpse caused her to become mara struck. she killed yingxing as he stood in front of dan feng.

but! due to him fucking with that cursed abundance flesh during the resurrection, he came back to life. (and also got like 40 years younger apparently). jingliu took him with her somewhere and used the sword he made for her to kill him thousands of times, until he too became mara struck and forgot all memories of his life as yingxing.

then she kind of just dumped him in the wilderness somewhere or he escaped and went to the wilderness somewhere. he didnt know his name or anything, just that every part of him was constantly in agonizing pain and he could not die, despite badly wanting to die so the pain would end.

one day while he was out there, kafka and samfly showed up and tried to get him to join the stellaron hunters. he was mara stricken and batshit crazy thought so kafka had to shoot him to death and have samfly hold him down while she used her ability to calm his mara. she told him their leader knew a way to kill him permanently, and would help him reach this goal if he joined them. and he was like oh well in that case sure. she asked him his name, and he said he didn’t have one. (even in his internal monologue, he only ever refers to himself as ‘the unnamed.’) he told her he was more of a weapon than a person, so she was like. ummm.. okay. i’m calling you bladie. and he just let her do that and now everyone calls him blade

[pengychan]

[Baldur’s Gate III] Hell to Pay, Ch. 11

Illustration by @raphaels-little-beast

Title: Hell to Pay Summary: Assassinating an archdevil is a daunting task, even for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Some inside help from ‘the devil they know’ would be good, if not for the detail their last meeting ended with said devil dead in his own home. Or did it? Characters: Raphael, the Dark Urge, Astarion, Haarlep, Halsin, Karlach, Wyll. Rating: M Status: In progress

All chapters will be tagged as ‘hell to pay’ on my blog. Also on Ao3.

*** I honestly don't know what Raphael was expecting his first audience with Mephistopheles to be like, but the answer is still probably 'Not This'. ***

Despite Avernus being-- well, Avernus, Karlach had recently found it had a few features that made it… not too unbearable, all things considered.

First thing first, it didn’t make the engine in her chest overheat to the point of explosion, which was a plus. Until that tin can had started overheating in the Material Plane, Karlach hadn’t even thought she could count ‘my heart isn’t threatening to literally explode’ as a blessing, but there she was. Secondly, while being pretty much the definition of a hellish landscape and a near-infinite battlefield where demons or devils or both could show up any second, it had a surprising amount of deep, easily defensible cave systems where they could set up camp in relative - very relative - safety after clearing out of their occupants, which were generally either imps or hellsboar. The latter were pretty tasty roasted on a spit, too. 

And third, of course, there was the company. She loved-- well. Most of the company.

The devil tagging along - who may not be a devil anymore on a sheer technicality but was still a fucking devil as far as she was concerned, the monster who’d tricked and trapped and tormented all the souls she’d spent the past weeks with and who of course tortured Hope for no damn reason but his own amusement - had been a surprise. And not a pleasant one. 

If they really needed him she could bear his presence like she’d been able to bear Mizora’s at their camp half a year earlier… but that didn’t mean she had to like it. When her turn came to stand guard at the entrance and she walked up to him, she had to really struggle to ignore the urge to grab her greataxe and give him… just a little tap on the top of the skull with the blunt edge. But, as her greataxe actually did not have a blunt edge, she didn’t. 

Instead she stopped a few feet from him, tilting her head to see what he was even doing. The box she’d thrown to his hea-- given him was open on the ground, the letter he’d been reading earlier folded and placed back inside. Next to it was the Spider’s Lyre, but the strings were gone and Raphael was tinkering with the black lyre that had been in the box. Karlach frowned, and stepped closer.

“The fuck are you doing?”

The only response she got at first was a scoff. Raphael didn’t even look up, still working on the lyre. “I may be consuming the souls of the innocent, or stringing a lyre. I’ll let your intellectual prowess lead you to the answer.”

Ah, the bastard. Good thing she was there to take his place watching out, because the idiot would probably get them all killed. Half an army of Orthons could walk past him while he was focused on the stupid lyre. “You’re supposed to be watching out for dangers.”

“I cast a glyph of warding on the ground just outside. If anything steps on it, it will trigger.”

Karlach rolled her eyes, and went to sit at the entrance as well. “Oh, great. I’m sure fucking glad wings are not commonplace here,” she muttered. “Does it trigger when flown over?”

“Do feel free to launch yourself outside and find out.”

“Don’t tempt me into launching you out.”

“Perish the thought. I’d hate to tempt anyone.” Raphael sneered, like he hadn’t tempted countless into far worse fates, still not looking up. This time, Karlach’s hands really itched to grab her weapon; still, she only glared… and saw something glinting at his neck. She recognized it immediately: the locket with the star-and-spire motif on it, the one with the miniature portrait. She sneered right back. 

“Kinda brazen, isn’t it?” she muttered. “Wearing a portrait of your first kill.”

Raphael’s hands stilled for a moment, still holding onto the string he was fastening, and his features twisted… but then they smoothed over again and, with another scoff, he resumed stringing the lyre. Something about his calm demeanor pissed her off even more. Just earlier that day, she’d watched souls - people - she’d learned to know flee deep into the House, cowering as far away as they could from the foyer. They all trembled, some stuttered pleas to be left alone - any peace they had managed to painfully regain ripped away by Raphael’s mere presence.

His sadness, Hope had called the box, but he didn’t seem nearly sad enough, nowhere near as sad as he’d made countless souls over godsdamned millennia. Nowhere as hurt as the souls in the House of Hope had been, as Hope herself had been… as a kid called Enver Flymm must have been, not too long ago, trapped in Raphael’s own slice of Hell.

This bastard fucked him over, and Gortash fucked others over in turn. Fucked me over sure enough, sold me to a damn devil like he was. Maybe none of this would have happened if Raphael never bought him. He’d have never grown up in Avernus, never met Zariel, never sold me to her. I’d still have my own heart and I wouldn’t be here now. But he did and here I am, and this bastard was the start of it all. Gortash is dead but the devil is still here.

Unaware of her thoughts, and probably uncaring either way, Raphael just spoke again. “As you’re so familiar with the fate that befalls any mortal mother of a cambion,” he said, voice even, “you’ll no doubt know I had no awareness of what was happening, and certainly no intention--”

“What does it matter? The plague doesn’t mean to kill anyone, but it’s still the fucking plague.”

It was a cruel remark; heartless, some might say, and very fittingly in her case. This time, she hit a nerve. Raphael winced as though struck, and the string he was securing to the lyre cut deep into his hand, near the base of his fingers. He hissed, and let go of the lyre to grasp the injured hand. Blood dripped on his trousers, on the lyre; Raphael stared at his bleeding hand for a few moments before breathing out, somewhat shakily. 

Karlach expected some kind of response - a temper tantrum, maybe, or a show of indifference again - but at first there was none. He wiped blood off the lyre as well as he could with a sleeve, put everything back in the box with one hand before he picked it up, awkwardly, and stood. 

“I’ll leave you to be our guard dog for the night. I trust Zariel has trained well enough for that at least,” he finally ground out, and turned away without another word, back inside the cave, a trail of blood in his wake. Fitting, that. 

She found herself staring at that blood for a few moments, and sneered… or tried to. She had wanted to get a rise out of him, but now the smile felt forced on her lips. Much like when she’d taken down Gortash, it didn’t taste like triumph. It didn’t taste like anything. She’d hit the mark and made him bleed, and he’d deserved it, yet it gave her no joy whatsoever.

Karlach sighed and turned her gaze to the burning skies outside, wondering if beheading Zariel with her own hands might, at last, do the trick.

***

“You’re wounded.”

“How very observant.”

“If you need healing--”

“Vis medicatrix.”

Ah, of course he could heal himself; Halsin had almost forgotten about it. He watched the cut on Raphael’s hand close up, and held out a clean towel when he began looking around for something to wipe off the blood. 

“Here,” he said. He kept his voice low enough not to awaken the others, who were asleep a few paces away from the fire where he sat. He was not quite tired enough to sleep yet, and had been whittling away until Raphael had come to sit by the fire too. When he replied, his voice was almost as quiet.

“... At least it’s passably clean.” He took the towel somewhat stiffly, and used it to wipe his hands before he opened his box and wiped the lyre clean as well. Half the new strings were on, the rest yet to be put in place; it was easy to tell now how the wound had come to be. The lyre cleaned, Raphael turned his attention to the blood on his trousers and sleeve, nose wrinkling in distaste.

“Cold water,” Halsin, who was rather certain the devil did not know the first thing about laundry, spoke.

“... Excuse me?”

“To get those stains out. You’ll want to use cold water and soap, before the blood can clot.”

A pause, a small sound that may even, with some effort, pass off as a chuckle. “And here I thought a druid would be more inclined to use stains as an excuse to do away with clothing entirely.”

“I will not deny I find clothing restrictive, but--”

“I know someone you might just get along with.”

“--You do learn how to take stains out of clothes when looking after a few dozen children.” 

“A worse torture than I ever could have engineered, and you do it voluntarily?”

Halsin chuckled. “I spent time untold wishing I had a chance to become a father. I am grateful to be one to so many, now.” A pause. “... I could help, if you’d like. With the blazer. Change into your camp clothes before the blood dries and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Suspiciously helpful.”

“If you’re wondering if it’s an excuse to get you to strip, no. I’d be far more direct, believe me,” Halsin quipped, and this time Raphael’s lips actually curled into a faint smile before he nodded and went to his tent to change.

It wasn’t too bad, really: the blood was still fresh enough that some cold water, soap, and a good rubbing did the trick. After putting the blazer to dry, Halsin was satisfied to see he got all the blood out. He sat back next to Raphael, and resumed whittling. “It’ll be fine to wear come morning. If… we can tell when it’s morning. Does the sky outside always look like this?”

“Yes.”

“And the natural the cycle of day and night--”

“No such thing.”

Halsin frowned.  No surprise, he thought, that Karlach had missed the stars so much. “That sounds dreadful.”

“Some would even venture to say it’s hellish,” Raphael commented. He’d resumed stringing the lyre and, by the looks of it, he was almost done. “You do get used to it, though. Or it drives you insane, I suppose. But I believe our vampiric friend,” he added, tilting his head towards where Astarion lay, head resting on Durge’s shoulder, “has reason to prefer this to daylight, at least in his current state.”

“... He does miss sunlight. I can understand. I spent years as a-- guest in the Underdark.”

“I’m going to assume you were a guest the same way Karlach was a guest in Avernus.”

“More or less. I was not forced to fight, but--” Halsin paused, and cleared his throat. “Well. I’ll never forget the moment I stepped into the sun again. I hope Astarion can feel it again soon.”

“I’d focus on getting out of here alive in the first place.”

“Heh. Fair enough,” Halsin chuckled, and said nothing more. For a time, everything was quiet again except for the crackling of fire and the steady breathing of their sleeping companions, Wyll sleeping with his rapier close at hand and Durge and Astarion sharing a bedroll. Halsin was halfway through whittling yet another duck when he saw Raphael put the lyre aside, clearly having decided to wait until morning, or what passed as morning, to tune it properly.

“You should have some soup. There is just enough left.”

“I am not particularly hungry.”

“Your body needs nourishment,” Halsin pointed out. He took the last ladle’s worth of soup out of the pot, and into a bowl. He pushed it in Raphael’s hands without waiting for a reply. “Do pretend I’m a decent cook. I’ll consider this your thanks for getting blood out of your blazer.”

“... Mph. Worse deals have been made, I suppose,” was the response, and he did drink it down, slowly, staring into the fire as though he could see something in it that Halsin could not. Halsin resumed whittling and they stayed like that for another while, without speaking, each lost in their own thoughts. 

Until Halsin looked up from his work to see that Raphael had fallen asleep, back against a boulder, the healed hand holding onto a locket he wore around his neck. In the open box, next to the newly stringed lyre, there was a folded letter with some dark splotches on it, as though something had dripped on the ink.

And it was not, Halsin could tell, blood.

***

Dearest Israfel,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you’ll forgive me for using the name I’ve always known you by: it is the name your mother chose for you, with her last breath. I feel I’d do her wrong by not using it. 

I hope the Hells are the home I know you always wished they would be to you, and that you never have reason to look back in regret. I wish there was advice I could give you, more than what little I could impart to you, but I am no devil and I am under now delusion that I may even begin to understand the workings of the Hells. But I do know you learn fast, and I trust you’ll do what needs doing to thrive.

I also hope that you did not take the few words I spoke when you left for coldness. There was more I wished to tell you, yet words failed me as they often do. There is a reason why you could talk circles around me since you were a boy of ten, after all. I had known the day would come that you’d be taken to your father’s court, and it still caught me unprepared. Until you can visit us, then, this letter will have to suffice.

There is much I hope you can find in yourself to forgive me for. Our time together was always meant to be short; I am but a human in his twilight years, and you are an immortal being barely at the beginning of life. However, I was foolish enough to shorten it further. Ten years you lived under my roof before I so much acknowledged you. It should not have taken me that long - should not have taken your mother’s features in your human form - to truly see you.

I’d have seen Dalah in you much earlier if I had. The penchant for rhymes, a sweet tooth, the way you scrunch your nose when angry. (I know it annoys you, when it’s brought up; you’re doing it right now, I am sure. For this, too, I hope you’ll forgive me.) 

I saw her first, and only then did I finally see you. It was my failing, not yours. It was out of grief and guilt, never hatred, but it was a grievous failing nonetheless. In a different world, I would have been proud to call you my son. I am sorry this is no such world. 

I hope I could teach you something of use in the few years we did have; for the rest, I hope you know Nan, and everyone else, loved you greatly even when I could not. They still do, and we all hope to see you again soon.

I took the liberty to send you a few things I thought you’d like to have - your mother’s lyre and her favorite book, and a locket with her portrait. Only once you’d gone I realized I never showed you a portrait of her, or even so much talked about her. Again, my grief bound my tongue, but it is no excuse. I did you wrong, and I hope I may yet have the chance to rectify that mistake. When you visit, we will talk about your mother. 

Until then, I hope you are safe, and happy.

With deepest affection,

Rahirek.

***

By the time he stepped before the high doors leading to Lord Mephistopheles’ throne room, Raphael was certain of two things: he was not ready, and he was about to throw up. 

“Lord Mephistopheles demands your presence,” he’d been told, and that was it. Five words to answer a plea he’d repeated almost daily for… weeks? Months? It was hard to tell, with each day exactly like the last and a perpetual snowstorm hiding the skies outside. The preceptor had taken him there and left , telling him he’d be allowed inside shortly.

“If he can even understand what you’re saying, with that dreadful pronunciation,” he’d muttered on his way out. “Speak clearly, or he may make a meal out of you. He does not suffer fools gladly.”

For his sanity, Raphael had decided to take that warning as an exaggeration, and gathered up the courage to walk closer to the doors behind which his father sat on a throne of ice. All that waiting, all that yearning, and here he was. He should have been elated. Instead, he was terrified.

The towering pit fiend suddenly stepping before the intricately carved doors with a mace in hand and eyes glowing like fire did not help, either. His voice was a gravelly growl, and he had fangs easily as long as Raphael’s forearm. It took him an effort to look away from those formidable teeth and into the fiend’s eyes. They were not a much more reassuring sight; knowing who he was did little to help.

“Who goes there?” he asked, eyes narrowing. 

Raphael cleared his throat, hoping fervently that words would come out right, and bowed. “Duke Hutijin,” he spoke carefully, praying whoever or whatever could hear him now that he hadn’t mispronounced his name. “It is a privilege to meet you. My name is Raphael. I have been summoned by Lord Mephistopheles.”

A few moments of silence, but that mace did not come down on him, and Raphael supposed it was something. Another gravelly sound he identified as a chuckle, and he dared look up. Duke Hutijin had lowered the mace, and was leaning over to better look at him. 

“Ah, the new one. Let me have a look at you.” A huge hand with a dagger-sharp claw lifted his chin, and the pit fiend laughed when he saw him swallow. “Fear not, I’d never spill my liege’s blood unless he ordered me to himself. And no such order has been given today.” A pause, a tilt of his head. Those flaming eyes stared, but whatever he thought of what he saw, he did not say. “Well then, go meet your father. Do try not to piss yourself, little duke. You’ll find him in a fair enough mood.”

Raphael wanted to protest at the insult, say that he was not that scared, but he could tell that talking back to what was probably the most powerful pit fiend in Cania - and lying to him to boot - would probably not be a clever course of action. So he lowered his eyes, nodded, and went to the doors. A touch on the surface - ice cold, despite the warmth inside the citadel - and slowly, they opened. 

The throne room was so vast it may have felt as though he’d stepped outside if not for the domed ceiling above and the columns on both sides - each of intricately carved ice, and ice was the floor, the ceiling. Two pits opened up in the floor on either side of the throne; from one rose a column of roaring fire, and from the other a stream of swirling green wisps that, he’d learned, were mortal souls. They rose up to the ceiling and fell back down into the pit, slowly, endlessly.

And on the throne at the back of the room, beneath a banner bearing the sigil of a three-pronged ranseur piercing a halo of flames, sat Mephistopheles.

He was tall, more than any mortal Raphael had ever met, and of most devils too. Even if he did not tower the way Duke Hutijin did, Raphael knew this was but one of the forms he could take. This form of his was reminiscent of the portraits he’d seen of the Cold Lord, with deep blue skin so dark it almost looked black near the base of his four ram-like horns. The horns curled backward, golden rings around each. His hair was so black and so long it was hard to tell where it ended and where the void-black cape he wore began. 

And there were the eyes, pale blue, fixed on him.

For a moment, Raphael forgot how to breathe. He’d imagined meeting his father since he could understand what a father was, and why he did not seem to have one. When he was very young, he’d imagined that a stranger would approach him one day at a crossroads - it was always crossroads, in the stories - to reveal himself as his father, tell him he’d come to take him home. Until recently he’d had no notion that his sire may be an Archdevil, and that meeting him would need to wait until he could find the time for an audience.

Now he had that audience, and his tongue was coated with lead. For a few moments he could only stare, heart in his throat, feeling like an utter fool.

He does not suffer fools gladly.

Panic reared its head, and still Raphael stood frozen on the spot. For a few moments Mephistopheles’ features remained still, his face expressionless… then, slowly, his lips curled upwards and he let out a low, rumbling chuckle. Maybe Duke Hutijin was right, and he was in a fair mood after all. 

“You asked to see me with such insistence my own Consort requested I grant you an audience, yet you seem to have misplaced your tongue,” he said, his voice a pleasant baritone. “Am I not as you imagined?”

The calm tone was balm to Raphael’s nerves, and he finally managed to regain his speech. He bowed quickly, and deep. “My liege,” he said, and this time Infernal slid off his tongue with practiced ease. “It is an honor to stand in your presence. I deeply apologize if my earlier insistence caused annoyance.”

A hum. It sounded neither pleased, nor displeased. “You did not answer my question.”

Raphael looked up, and swallowed. He could feel the weight of that gaze, even as no true emotion showed on his sire’s face. “I have seen portraits, my lord, of this form and others.”

“Ah, of course you’d have seen those. Were you hoping to be met with the visage that most resembles your own?”

“I wouldn’t presume it’s my place to make such requests, my lord.”

Lord Mephistopheles tilted his head, just slightly, in what may have been an approving nod. “No, it is not,” he agreed, and lifted a hand to beckon him closer. Raphael did step towards the throne on somewhat shaky legs, gaze respectfully low, until his sire’s voice rang out again. “That’s close enough.”

Standing between the column of fire and the column of souls, Raphael dared look up again. Lord Mephistopheles was looking down at him, eyes narrowed. When he spoke again it was still in that calm, even tone. “You’ll have to remind me - where and when was it I sired you?”

“In Tethyr, sir, just over thirteen years ago. My mother’s name--” he began, only to be silenced with a chuckle and another wave of that hand, as though to chase a fly away.

“You can’t possibly expect me to remember the name of every mortal who received my seed,” Mephistopheles said, obviously amused. Like the mortal who’d received his seed hadn’t also borne his son, and died for it. “But where you were born matters not, as now you’re just where you ought to be. I have been told you have a proclivity for music and poetry. Is that so?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Hm. Songs of praise are always welcome here, but I do have a High Cantor and more than enough musicians, so that skill of yours is of no use to me.” A vague gesture of his hand, that unnerving gaze still fixed on him. “So tell me…” a pause, a chuckle. “Ah, but I forgot. What is your name again, boy?”

Something sank in Raphael’s chest, cold as the ice around them. 

You named me, he wanted to cry out. You took away the name my mother gave me to impose another, and still you can’t recall it?

Still, he knew better than that. He swallowed the ache, and tried to keep his voice as firm as possible. “You named me Raphael, my lord.”

“Very well, Raphael. What else can you offer to serve me?”

For a moment, Raphael found himself speechless, raking his mind for a response and finding none. What could he offer? He was well-read and learned fast; he had a good memory and, back home, people always said he could have sold ice cubes to Auril herself if he wanted. But with his sire’s gaze on him, he struggled to think of a way he could put those skills to use. 

I can use hellfire, he thought, but he hesitated to speak those words too. Antilia’s voice rang in his head, the warning as dire as it had sounded when she’d uttered it. 

Until you are certain of your affinity with hellfire, do not speak of it. Don’t ever tell them you used it entirely by accident. Go boasting about it, and you’ll be seen as too much a threat.

It seemed almost absurd to think, that Mephistopheles could consider him a threat… but Raphael had already heard tales, whispers, of how he’d destroyed far lesser devil for little to no reason but-- well, the word they used for it was caution,  but the tone made the meaning clear enough - paranoia . Lord Mephistopheles could undo him with a word and, he saw it now, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

Maybe Lady Antilia lied, part of him thought. Maybe he would be pleased to know I can wield hellfire. She did tell me I shouldn’t trust her either. But to what end?

“Come boy, speak,” Mephistopheles spoke up, his voice now curt, and colder. “Surely, you would not have insisted on being in my presence without something to offer.” 

The underlying threat was unmistakable, and Raphael swallowed before forcing himself to speak again. He could keep his voice from shaking, at least, and spoke in fluent enough Infernal as he lowered his head. “As of now, my liege, all I have to offer is my utter loyalty,” he said. “But I’ve been studying as much as I can, so I can find a way to serve you.”

“Mmh.” A pause, and he rubbed his chin. Again, he sounded neither pleased nor displeased; he was simply considering . “I see. I can extend you some grace, on account of you having but thirteen winters behind you. Still, my patience is not endless.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Many of my blood possess an innate talent for arcane magic. Do you?”

Raphael looked up. “Yes, my liege. I have been able to cast spells since I was--”

He had no time to finish the sentence. Mephistopheles gave a smile that did not reach his eyes, and lifted a hand. “Show me,” was all he said, and he snapped his fingers.

With a drum-shattering shriek, two imps leaped out of the column of fire, fangs bared and yellow eyes glowing with malice. One swung a clawed hand, and Raphael scrambled back just on time for the claws to miss his flesh and only tear clothes. He fell back with a cry, landing hard on the ice, head spinning.

He’s never been in a real fight before and, aside from the encounter with perytons not too long ago, he’d never struck anything but some targets the master-at-arms back home had set up for practice, when it had become clear he wasn’t meant to hold a sword. He’d been getting good at hitting those, but they were just that - targets. Static, and very much not trying to claw his eyes out.

With another shriek, one of the imps threw itself at him. Raphael cried out and instinctively held up his hands, grasping the being’s head to keep him away. Claws still sank into his arms, tearing clothes and skin, and… and…

Flames erupted from his hands and the imp’s head was all but gone, all burning flesh, scorched bone and brain matter as it fell back motionless on the floor. Raphael choked back a cry and tried to stand up, but he slipped on the ice and fell back with a grunt. Above him, there was a furious shriek. The other imp had lifted itself up in the air on tattered wings and dove down on him, fags bared, claws out, stinger dripping venom. 

What came next was, again, pure instinct: he rolled to the side and, when the imp landed with a crack on the spot where he’d been until an instant earlier, he threw out a hand. 

“Gela!”

In retrospect, it was a mistake: he was too close to his target, and the result was predictable. The ice knife hit the imp square in the chest and exploded in shards, knocking them in opposite directions. Raphael could hear the imp shrieking over his own cry of pain, shards of ice cutting into his arm, his shoulder, his face. He ground his teeth, tried to ignore the smears of blood his hand left on the floor, and lifted himself on one knee before looking up.

The imp was wounded, ice shards through its chest, but still alive. It writhed on the floor, features twisted in a snarl, glaring at him but unable to stand, to fly, to attack. It was defeated. It was helpless. It was weak, and Raphael had never hated anything more. He stood with a snarl, and again he acted without much thought at all. He lifted a hand and so did the imp, in a last futile attempt at a defense. It was an easy mark, now. One Raphael would not miss.

The splash of acid hit true, and the imp screamed. It was a cry of agony, and short-lived; it had been barely clinging to life, and the acid did the rest. The creature fell back, sizzling, and moved no more. The acrid smell of flesh melting away filled Raphael’s nostrils, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from the corpse. His wounds hurt and his heart pounded in his chest; still, he smiled. The things that hurt him were dead, and it felt good. He wished he could bring them back and kill them again and again and again, hear those screams over and over. He wished--

A chuckle snapped Raphael from his thoughts, reminding him where he was, and with whom. He looked up to see his sire was leaning his chin on his hand. “I would say that was adequate enough, for a halfbreed just plucked out of the Material Plane,” he conceded, then, “was it your first kill?”

Raphael looked up, still breathing heavily. When he spoke again his voice was rougher, honorifics entirely forgotten. “No. I killed a peryton, once.”

Mephistopheles raised an eyebrow. “A peryton? That is indeed a greater feat than defeating a pair of lowly imps. Perhaps I should have given you more of a challenge.” His lips quirked upwards, barely. “How did you kill it?”

Do not speak of it, Antilia’s voice rang in his head, and he didn’t. Not all of it. “Fire. I burned it.”

“And how did it make you feel?”

Raphael closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall. He hadn't truly realized he'd killed the creature until the screams died down, until he saw the corpse. Until that moment there had only been his stepfather’s heartbeat against his ear, the protective embrace that seemed to last forever. He swallowed. “Good,” he whispered. “It felt good.”

“And this?” A gesture towards the half-melted, charred corpses on the ground. Raphael looked at it for a few, long moments. 

“It feels good,” he replied again, and it was no lie this time either.  I wish they screamed more, he thought.

He expected another question, but there was none: just a nod again. It gave Raphael the distinct feeling he had passed a test of some kind; not with flying colors, perhaps, but he'd passed it all the same. 

“I see. If you find no other way of serving me, you may serve well in the Blood War.”

The Blood War. Raphael had learned of it, of this endless war spilling rivers of blood, from devils and demons alike, every single day in Avernus. His preceptor had made a point to let him know many halfbreeds would go on to become cannon fodder in it. For all the pleasure Raphael had taken in this kill, the prospect of being sent to the front lines was enough to make him balk. “I-- my lord, I--”

“You’re wounded,” Lord Mephistopheles cut him off, and gestured towards the slow streams of souls, which floated up to the ceiling and then back down in the pit. “You may consume a soul, if you wish.”

Raphael stared at the souls, stepped closer, and held out a hand. They were incorporeal, of course; faintly glowing wisps, all that remained of mortal beings. There was a faint warmth to them as they weaved through his fingers - each of them once a mortal life, swayed or tricked into becoming this, the most sought-after resource in all of the Nine Hells.

“Souls,” Raphael whispered, and finally looked up. “I can-- I will get you souls, my lord. I know mortals, I know how they think. I can learn all I need to learn about contracts. This is how I can serve you.”

A nod. “Ah, yes. Your kind often has a queer attraction towards mortals. It places you well to procure souls, if you’re clever enough.”

They said I could sell ice to Auril herself, Raphael thought. I am clever enough. I can be of use. I can make you proud. 

His path forward now clear, Raphael breathed more easily. He turned his attention back on the souls dancing around his palm, focused on one, and willed it to come to him. No one had ever instructed him as to how to consume a soul, but it came as naturally as magic ever did. He breathed in deeply through his mouth and it flooded him, cool and soothing and electrifying at the same time - healing his wounds, feeding his powers, amplifying his senses. When he tore out the last shard of ice from his shoulder, Raphael felt no pain. There was only that sense of euphoria, the clarity that comes with finally seeing a path ahead after wandering blind for so long. 

Above him, unseen, the Lord of the Eighth bared his teeth in a smile.

***

“In my world there is order, he said!”

“I specified I was talking about my--”

Raphael’s protest was cut off by Karlach’s cry as she swung her axe, cutting a spinagon in half and sending its blood and guts to spray across the ground and, well, across Astarion. Who, as a response, only yelled louder, just as he drew his bowstring to put another arrow through an imp. “WE BRING THE CHAOS OF OUR WORLD IN HIS, HE SAID!”

“I WAS TALKING ABOUT MY HOUSE!”

“YOU ARE NEVER GETTING TO-- ah, nice shot, love, thank you-- NEVER WHINE ABOUT CHAOS IN THE MATERIAL PLANE AGAIN, DEVIL!”

Raphael snorted, and cast a cloud of daggers that annihilated a pair of nupperibos before they could so much as attempt an attack at Halsin’s unprotected back. The only surviving nupperibo of the trio was promptly blasted back by Wyll, into a pit of boiling tar, and didn’t resurface again.

“This entire layer is a battlefield and I would have stopped all this with the crown, spawn!” Raphael snapped, glaring at Astarion and entirely missing the spinagon trying to dive on him from above. 

Durge groaned, and dispatched it with a ray of frost before speaking. “I don’t think this is the moment to air grievances--”

“This is your doing and I’ll air all the grievances I please!”

“Oh please, let me cut him in two.”

“No, Karlach," Durge muttered, and to their relief she went to cut an imp in two instead. 

All things considered, they had to run into devils or demons sooner or later; it had been a small miracle that they’d been able to go from the House of Hope to the cave they’d chosen to rest the previous night without meeting anything but a couple of hellsboars. Raphael was right when he described Avernus as one huge battlefield, and running into foes soon after setting out for the day's march was perhaps inevitable.

Luckily, they were all rather weak. Unfortunately, there was a swarm of them. 

“We’ve been pretty lucky we didn’t run into these while next to that lake of lava!” Wyll yelled over the screams of a couple of spinagons trapped within the blackness of a Hunger of Hadar spell. “That would have made a dismal battlefield.”

“Oh, how lucky that we’ve met them in the middle of these delightful pits or tar and quicksand instead!” Astarion yelled, and drew his bowstring again. The arrow found its target in the throat of yet another spinagon just as Durge’s frost breath downed a couple of imps. “What were you planning to turn this spot into, Raphael? An archdevil resort?”

Raphael scoffed, downing another imp with an admittedly well-placed ice knife spell. “I’ll have you know that before the Blood War, this layer was the most wondrous thing you’d ever set your eyes on!”

Astarion laughed, almost dancing under an imp’s swing of a scimitar before gutting it with a single, swift strike of a knife. “Gods, are you that old?”

“It is a well known fact for anyone with even a modicum amount of knowledge, and I’d have restored its former glo--”

“FIREBALL!”

Halsin’s warning cut through the sulfur-saturated air, through the shrieks and clangs of the battle. Durge looked up to see that indeed, one of the fireballs that were ever streaking Avernus’ sky had taken a sharp turn downwards and was coming… directly at them. 

“Shit-- we got to take cover!”

“I’ve got this - get over here, everyone!” Durge called out, and lifted a hand. “Veni et iuva me!”

The Globe of Invulnerability shimmered into being around them, and Astarion immediately leaped in. Raphael and Halsin were quick to follow, though Halsin took a  moment to create a gust of wind to knock back the spinagons trying to follow. 

“Oh that’s a handy one!” Karlach laughed, nearly barrelling right through the globe and skidding to a halt just inside it. “Both the globe and the fireball, I mean! There was this one time we were in deep shit, fuckers everywhere, but then this fireball came down and fried them. Remember, Wy-- Wyll?”

With a sense of dawning horror, they all looked back to see that Wyll was some distance away from the globe, one leg stuck in quicksand up to his knee, struggling to pull free while the fireball plummeted down towards the ground. 

“Shit! No! Wyll!” Karlach cried out, and tried to run out towards him. Tried to, because they all could tell there was no way she could get to him and back on time, even if she could pluck him out from the quicksand at the first try. If she went, the fireball would strike both. Durge, Halsin and Astarion held onto her as one, and even then they struggled to hold her back. 

“Karlach, wait!”

“Karlach, no!” Wyll cried out. “Stay back! Please, keep her back!”

A scream, holding all the anguish in the world. “No, no, no! Let me go! Wyll! WY--”

“MOVE ASIDE!” 

Raphael’s voice was a roar, loud enough to drown out Karlach’s own screams. He stepped forward, almost to the edge of the globe, taking the lyre off his back to play a few notes on it, eyes fixed on Wyll. And gods, it worked: the next moment Wyll, with a grunt of effort, was able to free his leg from the quicksand. He stood, and lifted his hands to cast; Durge could recognize the gesture to cast a Dimension Door, and it was the last thing they could see at all before the fireball became too close, its light too bright, and they had to close their eyes. 

“Quod dico face!” Wyll cried out, then for a time Durge could hear nothing else: the explosion was loud enough to cancel out all other noise. Around them, the world shook, stone shattered, enemies burned. Even within the globe they were thrown to the ground, trying to cover mouths and noses to keep out dust and debris with varying degrees of success. 

When the dust finally began to settle and they could blink their eyes open they were still beneath the globe in the middle of a smoldering crater, faces and clothes black with dust but still all in one piece.

And among them, grinning widely, half-drowned in Karlach’s embrace as he made no attempt to pull away, was Wyll. 

“Wyll! Are you all right? Are you wounded?”

“I’m good, really! Only thing that’s wounded is my pride.”

With a sigh of relief, Karlach pulled back. “Oh, thank the gods.”

Another laugh. “Afraid I’ve got to thank the devil for this one, don’t I?” He turned to look over at Raphael, who was still coughing while Astarion helped him back on his feet. “That was bardic inspiration, then? Never been on the receiving end of it before. Not bad at all.”

Another cough, and Raphael rasped out, “I told you I have no need to wield a toothpick in battle, did I not?”

Durge had no idea what that was about, but it made Wyll laugh. “Ah, I suppose you really don’t. Your spells do serve you well enough, point very much taken. Thank you for saving my skin.”

“Yeah, that was-- good thinking,” Karlach muttered, crossing her arms and looking awkwardly to the side. Her compliment, half-hearted as it was, seemed to give Raphael pause, but in the end he scoffed and said nothing. 

“Well!” Astarion spoke up, clapping his hands once to break the sudden silence. “Here we are! All in one piece, enemies vanquished, ready to celebrate before we get going again. And I think we could all use a shower right about now. Halsin, if you please?”

Rainfall in Avernus had to be a rare thing indeed - a never event, most likely - and Durge enjoyed every second of it. As they glanced to the side they noticed that so did Raphael, eyes shut and face tilted upwards, palms up as though to welcome the rain.

*** [Back to Chapter 10]

[On to Chapter 12]

[Back to Start]

[clatoera]

For the choose violence ask game - 1, 12, 18, 19, 22, 23

oh bestie you did not come to PLAY with this list okay okay okay I dont even know what i'm about to get myself into but okay!

The character everyone gets wrong and why?

I mean..we all know i have really strong opinions on the baby careers from the 74th, but a lot of that is based on extrapolation. So, instead, I'm going to go with my queen Enobaria. Yes. She has her little shark teeth. Yes she is a D2 victor. But she also is the only one left. Enobaria, we can assume, loses all of her friends either in the games or in the war. Of course people like to see her as crazy and blood thirsty, and yes I truly believe she could have won the Quarter Quell. That being said..when we see her in the end of Mockingjay she is the only Career left. period. And when she votes yes to the games it's like..not this over enthused yes because she loves the hunger games..it's let them know how it feels. Let the Capitol know how it feels to train and die and watch the children you mentor die and the friends you've made die and be abused and it's not about the glory of the games. It's about let everyone know how to feels to be the victor, to be the mentor, to be the person who watches someone they knew even briefly die. I love you Enobaria you will always be famous.

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I have written 200k words on unpopular characters that people should like more so this one doesn't seem like i'll do much difference in answering but I'm going to go with Glimmer. Glimmer is a teenage girl who is immediately represented as a sex object. That is how she is presented; sexy. She's a teenager, literally no older than 18. Yeah we can hate her for whatever reason we want (which we don't really have a reason to) but I think it's important to recognize why she exists within the story and what I think the bigger point of her is and it's to represent how the capitol views them. She is, to me, very clearly a parallel to Cashmere who we know was a full fledged sex trafficking victim by snow. That is VERY Clearly what he fate would have been. She was a child being sold as a sex object so she could possibly survive, baby girl they could NEVER make me hate you!

18. It's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on..

Enobaria, period.

19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

I have absolutely no shame/horror/etc over the fact I like anyone, I quite literally run a blog titled "mother of all careers apologists". We know who I like. We know I like Cato and Clove and Glimmer and Marvel. This is not news. I am not ashamed. It is my entire brand at this point.

22. Your favorite part of canon everyone else ignores?

I actually answered this one yesterday right here, it's the fact Peeta and Katniss come out of the arena with physical impairments and that Peeta is an amputee and that largely influences his story in Catching Fire in the arena!

23. Ship you've unwillingly come around to?

Again...I don't really think I came around to anything unwillingly. I run a Clato blog. I wrote Cashbaria into my stories. I consider myself a pioneer of Glimmer/Marvel shipping territory. If anything I think I make other people come around to ships against their will. Welcome to the fun house of career x career shipping that crosses district lines and weasels into everyone's hearts.

Thank you friend!!!

[dreamsinmytotebag]

Poetic references in pop culture

After having discussed poetry and songs and lyric poetry, we can see how certain poetic elements have seemed to find their way in pop culture. The target audiences for poetry and pop culture might have been considered to be different in earlier times but now they tend to overlap. What earlier used to be limited to the field of literature is now, often used as an aesthetic in films, music, etc. I also feel that, while it expands poetry as a domain and exposes new people to it, it also, in some ways, loses its value when it is brought down to stand as a mere aesthetic that people use as captions for their social media posts. Nonetheless, we get to see poetry making its cameo in pop culture many a times.

Starting with something very closely linked to poetry- songs and lyrics. Many artists and songwriters tend to have a poetic style of writing. Now, of course, not all lyrics and songs can amount to being termed as poetry, but some can. Hozier would be my first prime example for this. His deep and poetic lyrics tend to reflect a strong sense of writing, which at the same time also get entangled with the aesthetic of pop culture. The deep complexities and metaphors, and euphemisms in his lyrics may not be understood by all which can make the listeners interpret their meaning in some other way. Songs like “Cherry Wine” and “Eat Your Young” talk about social issues but due to their interpretation in pop culture, their meanings have come down to revolve around the subject of love and relationships. While, at the same time, there is no denying that Hozier also makes love songs. However, a song like “Eat Your Young”, which serves as, what some might say, a “protest song”, based on political greed and the exploitation of younger generations, should not be reduced to merely having a sexual connotation to it. The song also references the classic Anglo-Irish writer, Jonathan Swift and his essay, “A Modest Proposal”, a famous protest against the British treatment of Ireland. This shows how poetry can get lost while serving to the whims and the fancies of pop culture. I also happened to stumble across this one blog on Tumblr, which adds more to this Hozier argument. I’ll attach a link for a clearer understanding.

Taking up a few more examples from music, particularly pop music, only recently we saw Taylor Swift release her 11th studio album, titled "The Tortured Poets Department”. Now the name in itself carries the essence of poetry. As a fan, of course my opinion would differ from the critiques or someone who’s not a fan, nonetheless, I enjoyed the album while also being aware of its different aspects that I did not enjoy as much. Particularly talking about “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” I clearly saw more of the poetic edge to the album here, rather than on the standard version. Swift is inarguably one of the best songwriters of all time and there have been instances where she has written actual poems, or has poems turned into songs. Her other albums, particularly, “folklore” and “evermore” also carry the poetic side of Swift. Lyrics like,

“Now you hang from my lips, like the gardens of Babylon.

With your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con”

-Ivy, evermore

Or

“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong, but my beloved neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like the perfect place to cry

I’m signing off but not without my muse, no, not without you”

-The Lakes, folklore

…carry a heavy whiff of poetry and a poetic style of writing. When songs with such lyrics are consumed by a wide audience, the audience naturally looks into its deeper meanings. In reference to Taylor Swift and her widely spread fanbase, Swifties, who are known to speculate her work with full intensity and dedication, will of course be opened to a whole new world of poets and poetry through their consumption of pop culture. Taylor Swift also has quite a few self-written poems, namely, “Why She Disappeared”, and “If you’re anything like me”.

Speaking of pop artists and their poetry, we can not move on without mentioning Lana Del Rey. Apart from her complex lyricism, Lana, also has a poetry book called "Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass”. Lana Del Rey is not only celebrated as an artist, but has developed a whole aesthetic around her, which her poetic footprints follow. She has a huge impact on pop culture and is known to bring in a whole Sylvia Plath vibe to her work. People usually draw comparisons between the two. One of my favorite poems by Lana Del Rey, would have to be “Sportcruiser”:

“All of this circumnavigating the earth

Was to get back to my life

Six trips to the moon for my poetry to arise

I'm not a captain

I'm not a pilot

I write

I write”

Apart from music, poetry has been reflected in films as well. For an example, I would like to mention my favourite movie of all time, “Dead Poet’s Society”. From a dark academia aesthetic to Walt Whitman references, and the famous “Oh Captain! My Captain!” line, draws in interest from poetry and literature enthusiasts. I personally, started exploring Walt Whitman after I watched the movie. Shows such as “Dickinson” which revolves around the life of the famous poet, Emily Dickinson, also bring poetry to pop culture. Such shows also help bring out the sides of poets and their work which could not be revealed back in their times due to the society’s conservative nature.

Apart from movies centred around poetic or literature themes, many shows or films reference poems or poets in dialogues, arising the viewer’s curiosity. The movie “Maurice” has a dialogue, “I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.” which references the famous poet/author, Oscar Wilde, particularly dealing with the theme of homosexuality. Adaptations of classics, such as “Pride and Prejudice”, or “Little Women” also finds literature being introduced to pop culture. However, at the same time, such adaptations can also sometimes misrepresent these classics, which is usually called out by the literature enthusiasts, showing an interaction between two crowds and an integration of literature into pop culture. One of the recent examples, we can find is when Netflix announced the adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. (my favorite book of all time) Like many other, I, too, was disappointed to find out about the queer erasure done by Netflix by establishing a familial relationship between two characters: Dorian and Basil, who clearly have a romantic one in the original story, in the book.

Moreover, ever since social media came into the picture, poetry has been widely spread across pop culture. With poets like, Rupi Kaur, making their debut on talk shows like, “The Tonight Show With, Jimmy Fallon” and going on tours and various poetry related social media accounts taking over, the extent of integration of poetry with pop culture has been quite large and has changed the way people consume and create poetry, with specific emphasis on spoken poetry. What’s most interesting to note here is that the impact of this integration has not been one sided. Pop culture too has been shaped immensely through the introduction of poetry and other literature related themes, especially in the way it references, creates, and presents its content.

[taralen]

Announcement? Other things!

Hey, everyone, so besides commissions and all my SPECIL SALESMAN art, I would also like to share more things (like original art) and draw fanart for other things. Spamton G. Spamton is a mainstay on my blog. He is very important to me, and if you don't like him, then too bad!

My range of interests is absolutely massive, and as one fan/friend of mine said to me years ago, "You're like a mystery box of surprises!"

Here is what I plan to make art and possible theories or analyses for:

[[please note that a lot of my interests are 17-18+, but anything uploaded here will be kept SFW or cropped. All NSFW stuff will go to my Pixiv account. I highly recommend to NOT look up the origin if you are a minor or sensitive to explicit content.]]

Queen's Blade Franchise (17+) - I really want to make more art of my favorite character, Alleyne the Elven Fighting Master, and possibly her apprentice, Nowa!

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (17+ GORE HORROR. Do not look up if you are sensitive.) - Recently fell in love with this series. I consider the original anime from the 2000s to be a masterpiece. I want to draw my favorite character, Takano!

Taimanin universe (17-18+. Seriously don't look it up if you're a minor lol.) - I really love some of the characters of this series, like my waifu Ingrid. I've drawn her before, and I want to draw her again. Funny enough, one of my pieces is featured in the mobile game Action Taimanin as a poster on the wall for a level. Sometimes, I see people use my art as an icon. It's very flattering!

Dragon Half (15+) - One of my all-time favorite mangas ever made from the 1980s. I think it's long overdue I make a fanart for it.

Winx Club - I have numerous unfinished fanarts for this series. I love it so much, even though Sailor Moon is superior lmfao.

Shoujo Tsubaki (18+. BANNED WORLDWIDE. DO NOT LOOK IT UP if you are sensitive or if you are a minor) - I watched this two nights ago, and it's so sad... I plan to do an analysis of it. I honestly don't think it's the worst thing ever, but I can see why people find it offensive, as it touches upon A LOT OF taboo topics.

Psychonauts - This game series man... So good. I want to draw something of my favorite character, Helmut, and his husband, Bobby. I just absolutely adore them. 😭

Touhou Project - It's been a long time since I've drawn proper fanart for this series. I have A LOT on my DeviantArt account, but I'd like to draw my favorite girls again.

Super Mario Bros - Peach is my original waifu. I've tried drawing her many times in my style, but I've kind of failed. I also really like Princess Daisy's N64 version and want to draw her again. Rosalina/Rosetta, I will also think about it.

The Legend of Zelda - This one is a little... Difficult for me. This is one of my favorite game series ever, but I really struggle to make art for it. I want to since it heavily inspired my work, but damn is it hard... Hopefully, I can break out of my shell for this.

Various other Eroge titles (18+) - Eroge are any games with erotic elements that originate from Japan. There are so many I like that range from simply being romantic to utterly insane. If you're a minor, do not look up anything.

Runescape - How I love thee. It's been a while since I've drawn fanart for it. I love the Elves haha!

Creepypasta or ghost legends/stories - I've been listening to a lot of these lately and I feel a bit inspired to draw some of the things that pop up in my imagination.

That's all for the non-original stuff. I'm still hesitant to post OCs here because they got 100% ignored last time. xD

Stuff of mine I won't ever upload to this blog:

18+ NSFW. Obvious. Do you want me to get banned?? I can draw fanart for something adult without it being NSFW.

Fetish stuff. I know I get commissioned a lot to draw fetish art, but all this will remain on DeviantArt.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now.

[bite-me-bite-me]

Mandatory pinned post!

I'm a freak that goes by the name Juli

She/They/He, 22 year freak with various flavors of neurodivergency and silliness in her brain. Monsters rotate in my mind 24/7

This blog is not safe for minors !!! Please be aware of that when interacting or following me (I will block you if I don't see your age somewhere on your blog) !!!

Current tags that I'm using / will be using:

#monsterfucker - this one is pretty self explanatory, but probably good 90% of the time those will be NSFW posts

#my writing - self explanatory as well

#orz ouchie - thoughts, posts, art, poetry and other various things that just make me go "ouchie" internally

#juli rambles - I just can't shut up sometimes but I am a yapper with a permit so you have to deal with it <3

DMs and asks are more than welcome!!! Yap to me about your interests!!! I love listening to things I have no idea about but people are passionate about :]

My AO3: Bite_me_bite_me

Things/info that might interest fellow monsterfuckers / adults before interacting or following:

I am a sapphic that is kinda ignoring her gender, because it's simply too confusing. In other words: all titles (dude, girl, bro, king, queen, girlie etc.) are fair game as long as you don't start using parental titles (Dad/Mom or any other variation). Keep that stuff away from me, please and thank you.

I would love to make friends on here but I will block you on the spot if you take even one step towards romantic/horny flirting with me <3

I do not care if you or your partner are fine with you flirting with other people, I am very much taken and you will either respect that or get blocked immediately.

Like I mentioned before, I am a monster enjoyer and a monsterfucker. In my humble opinion, if it's a monster, it can purr if I want it to.

[the-cameo-blog]

Hiiii!! <3

I'm Laska, and I've decided to make a blog together with the 2 most important people in my life: my girlfriend Azari and my best friend Valen!! Introductions will be under the cut.

For some reason, tumblr keeps glitching and showing 2 other people's posts on this account too, but ignore that.

Can't wait to get to know people!!

Soo, here's a pic of me, Laska!! She/her, btw. I'm currently studying to become a nurse. And, in case you couldn't tell, I love the others on this blog very much <3

I'll be tagging my posts with #the loveless flame, after my favorite Death Omen song!!

I'm Valerien Sartorius, pleasure to meet you. I'm afraid I won't be very active on this account, as I have more important things to take care of, like my job. I'm an accountant, for those who wish to know. My pronouns are he and him.

Apparently I need to choose a "tag"... Fine, it will be #vines without roots.

Hey freaks of the internet! Call me Azari. She/they or I'll find out where you live and I'll cover every inch of your home in bright red paint. Now that that's out of the way, who wants to hang out tonight?

Oh, and I've decided my tag will be #because I can #I've been ghosting. Wha- hey! Why can't I change it back? What the actual fuck...

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My name is Narcisse, I go by they/ve/she, and I have plans for these three. Just sit back and watch the story unfold...

You'll recognize me by my tag #ascensionisms.

Hey! I'm Pat, and I'm just happy to be here. Technically a mailman, but my other job is much more important, to me at least. It's honestly the best job I could ever imagine. Also I'm slowly rotting from the inside out lol, don't mind that. Please use he/him unless you're Narcisse!

My tag will be #the loyal acolyte, if I ever get to make a post.

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

OOC:

Hello, @crowfromfoggyforest here! Tackling a big project with this one - aka a tma au of 2 fantasy-ish projects of mine mashed together. So yeah, unlike on my other rp blogs, there will actually be a plot! Whohoo!

The blog is called the cameo blog because i originally only wanted these characters to appear as cameos on another blog, and also because i might play around with tma versions of other ocs here sooner or later. And also just because cameo is a neat word.

Half of the tags (and also the blog title) are song/lyric references, whoever gets all of them gets a virtual forehead kiss ^-^

Do send asks and interact with my dumb children! ^-^