#i spent all day grinding in alchemy

[loafbud]

I.... I DID IT?????

I ESCAPED FROM BOOK 6 CH 66-67 HELL!!!!!

I CAN FINALLY SLEEP OMG IM NEVER REVISITING THOSE CHAPTERS AGAIN

[dashofmonsters]

Bonds of Blood & Delight- Prologue

Male Fae x F!Reader

"A bard? They'll let anyone in here these days," the gate guard scoffs as he tosses your order badge back at you.

The badge nearly slips out of your hand but you manage to grasp it and refasten it to your cloak. You hate when people call you a bard, even if they're not exactly wrong. You're a mage of the Order of Delight. Yes, a lot of entertainers have come from it but there are serious mages who take their skills beyond just illusions and spell crafted songs.

"I've taken the aptitude test like everyone else and sent in my qualifying spells. I've been accepted because I meet the standards," you frown at the guard as he checks your name.

"Whatever makes you feel better. You'll take a left once the gate opens and go towards the west tower where all the first years go," He sniffles and opens the gate.

You collect yourself and walk forward, trying not to feel too ruffled by the bard comment any longer. You've made it this far on your own with your own brand of spells. You're the first mage in your order to invent new spells in over two hundred years as well as the first to get accepted into the High Tower of magic research and development.

Here you'll be able to make a difference, here you'll be able to learn real magic and create more spells for your order. That, and hopefully learn more about the alchemists that reside here.

You grind your teeth just thinking about them. Alchemy has earned high regards in the world of magical research as of late due to the metal refining and greedy nobles. But it's demanding and requires a lot of blood. Not just normal blood, but blood with mana. There are many black market back alley alchemists who've take to kidnapping anyone with magic in their blood. You're late twin brother perished at the hands of a noble's alchemist and you'd have been next if it wasn't for his newly hired mage. Hendrick was a mage of the Order of Delight hired to entertain but his real job was a search and rescue. Unfortunately, you were the only one left to rescue out of the dozens of orphans that were kidnapped, drained and killed.

If Hendrick hadn't saved you when he did, you'd have followed your brother into an early grave. You recall how he took you in, practically adopted you and taught you everything he knew and then some. He was loud and boisterous with a stage presence that put many seasoned performers to shame. Nobody would ever guess that he was actually a mercenary.

It's funny to think that the least suspecting mage order has the most mercenaries and assassins than any other. Or maybe it makes perfect sense, no one would suspect the killing blow to come from the pretty man playing the flute.

The Order of Delight's underground sect known as The Dirge. It's small with only thirty members and you've been tasked with infiltrating the High Tower. You've spent the last five years crafting new spells that would allow me to qualify to study here, I created a persona that would be unassuming yet stereotypical. No one will know why you're here, least of all those fucking alchemists.

Feeling a bit more resolved you set your nerves aside. This mission is incredibly important in bringing down the alchemy rings and kidnappings once and for all and you'd be lying if you said that you weren't nerve wracked.

Biting your cheek you continue on to the West Tower and up the long winding staircase. The air is heavy with magic and a strange scent of salt water and incense. A guard stops you once you reach the halfway point and asks for your name and order badge. He doesn't give you any grief about what order you're from, in fact he seems to not really care about anything at all.

You decide to start making note of the guards first then since they seem pretty relaxed.

He points to a door to his left where all first years are sorted one by one in an interview given by the head of the West Tower. You've heard very little about this mage save for the fact that they tend to favor those from their own base order. A Daybreaker mage, probably the most logical and pragmatic of anyone here.

You enter the waiting room and see several young mages sitting around a fire rune. You instantly recognize one of them, a childhood friend of yours before you and your brother were kidnapped.

"By the light of the moon!" He stands up and holds out his arms as he rushes to you.

"Luan, it's good to see you," you hug him as he picks you up off the ground.

He swings you back and forth before setting you down, "I know you said in your last letter that you were coming to the capital soon but I never imagined that you meant you'd be coming here."

"And what about you? When were you going to tell me that you got accepted to High Tower?" you playfully shove him.

"It was meant to be a surprise for when you got here," He grins.

You laugh and shake your head, "I can't believe we'll both be studying here."

Luan nods and his sweet smile slowly fades, "Yes, well and then there's that."

You raise a brow and before you can ask him what he's talking about an elderly mage calls for him for his interview.

"That'd be me, we'll talk about it later," Luan smiles and waves you goodbye.

Though it was brief, seeing Luan has eased your nerves a great deal. You two became mages around the same time. You were both rescued by Hendrick however Luan had a knack for shadow and dark magic so he joined the newly reformed Order of Night. The both of you kept in close contact when you were separated and always sent each other gifts for birthdays and holidays.

He'll probably be the only one here who won't laugh at the fact that you're from the Order of Delight.

You roll your eyes and take his place in the circle around the fire rune. The other mages there eye you with a mix of suspicion and curiosity.

"So...," one of them speaks up, a girl with a badge from the Order of Despair. "A bard? How the hell did you get accepted?"

Here we go, you sigh.

"I have a knack for illusion magic and spell song craft like most bards but I got tired of the old spells that didn't have much practical or everyday use so I invented new ones. The elders here heard about what I was doing and had me test in," you explain.

To be honest it's a half truth, the Order of Delight has a hidden book of spells that The Dirge has full access to. All the spells in it are unregistered so no one would be able to track them back to another mage. You were told to use three or four from the book for your qualifying spells but instead of taking credit you took inspiration. You invented thirty new spells but only sent in seven. Thirty would be too suspicious.

"Sounds like you should have tried for the Daybreak order, practicality is their specialty," another mage chimes in.

"I would have but my family wouldn't let me," you shrug. An easy excuse, most mage families like to stick to the same order.

"Ugh I get that," the girl from the Order of Despair groans. "My folks were the same way, I have light magic and know a few healing spells but no, I had to honor tradition learn mind speak and dream bending. Gods I hate traditionalist. My names Ruya by the way."

You introduce yourself and tell her your fabricated backstory, one that's a bit more cheerful and normal.

A couple other mages open up to you, both from the Order of Bones, Tarek and Ilta... Twins. They both wore the standard skull tattoos on their faces though it looked more menacing on Tarek. They both wanted to join the Order of Delight since they're strong in illusion magic but of course their clan refused them. You knew there was an issue with traditionalist but you had no idea that it was that bad.

"Tarek Falswith," the elderly mage calls to one of your new acquaintances.

He stands tall and stretches, his short black hair shining in the light of the fire rune making his skull tattoo all the more wicked. He glances down at you and smiles, "See ya later bard."

His sister laughs as he walks away, "Just ignore him, he's a stupid flirt. Got himself in trouble time and time again back at our Order."

"Noted," you laugh. "Not looking for love here anyways."

"Not the best place to find it honestly," Ruya adds.

"Our older sister is a third year here and oh the stories she could tell you," Ilta begins. You and Ruya listen to the tales of the twins' sister Asra and her encounters with the opposite sex.

And as she spins her tales, one by one the young male mages are called off to interview until there's only the three of you. Ruya gets called while Ilta is recounting the time her sister wore a deer skull for a month even while she slept and ate to freak out a few of her admirers.

"She sounds crazy," you laugh.

"Oh yes, most say she should have gone into the Order of Twilight with how chaotic she is. But alas-"

"Tradition," both of you say then laugh.

"Ilta Falswith," the elderly mage calls.

Ilta mimics her brother, adding in a wink and the both of you giggle.

"See ya later bard," Ilta mocks her brother again but her voice sounds just like his.

You can't help but to be amazed and amused all at once and laugh as she walks away.

And then it's just you, or so you though.

"Good evening Thaneswell," an elderly voice rumbles your last name.

From the center of the fire run circle a figure slowly appears. An elderly man seated on a simple wooden stool. He's wearing a worn greyish blue cloak with a silver badge from the Order of Daybreak. His eyes are a milky white and his boney fingers tap gently on his lap.

Realizing who he is, you quickly stand up and bow your head.

"None of that now, none of that," He waves a hand and the fire rune dissipates. Ever so slowly he stands up, circling his hand in the air until a staff appears and falls into his hand.

"There is no need to bow amongst kin," he smiles.

You thought it was odd that you and one of the highest mages of the Order of Daybreak shared the same last name, it had to be a coincidence right?

"I did my own digging, my late brother was your maternal grandfather. He was a mage of the same order you belong to, and the same sect as well," He straightens as he starts circling you.

Your nerves reignite and you feel your gut sink.

"The family Thaneswell is not traditional and has members across every order there is. You of course wouldn't know this as your mother passed before you and your late brother were of age. This was," He waves his hand to another door that slowly opens on its own.

"Then my acceptance?" you ask.

"By your own skill, I'm not apart of the qualifying department. I put young mages where they need to be. Skilled and bright mages come here all the time to break from tradition and free themselves from bonds of a family or order. You met three such mages today did you not?" He asks as he lights up the room with a flick of his wrist.

The small room is filled with light crystals and fairy bobbles that produce a soft warm glow. Nic knacks of all sorts both mundane and magical line the shelves and a fat horned cat stretches across the large oak desk.

"Have a seat wherever you can find one," he chuckles as he lowers himself into a puffy armchair.

You turn and look for a chair but you only see mounds of books, small side tables and a taxidermy deer. Small side table it is.

Grabbing a table you pull it up close to the side of the desk as the front is occupied by an old dire wolf laying on a large pillow.

"Now then, let's get down to business. First off within close quarters you may call me uncle, I'd prefer it since we're family. You are after all the only closest living relative I have now," He sighs.

"Wait but you said our family has members in every order," you recall.

"Yes and because of that most of us have become estranged. My brother and his kept close but as the years went by, they were picked off one by one. I only learned of your existence after Hendrick rescued you. I'm so sorry about your brother... had I known... Why your mother never said anything..." he pauses and you see the grief on his face.

"She kept us close to the forest border, in one of the dump villages," you tell him.

His wrinkled face crumples and cringes, "By the gods why would she do that?"

"Hendrick said that the likelihood of us getting kidnapped at a dump village would be slim since the sick and dying are rarely ever kidnapped," you shrug.

"I'm so sorry, there must be more to this... I just know it but at least you're as well as well as can be," He sighs. "Now then, you're a member of The Dirge sect. Very few high mages know of it and I'm only privy of your mission as I'm the one who hired a mage to carry it out. It must have been Hendrick who threw your name in for it."

You blink once, twice and your mouth gapes wide open, "You're the one who- Wait a moment, you know why I'm here then and-"

"The alchemist rings are more corrupt than you can imagine. Both registered and unregistered, back alley and black market. If things continue on as is our nation will have the largest human trafficking outbreak in history. The Western Empire is already calling on our king to put an end to it since citizens of the empire have gone missing in the past few years. They've been putting more and more pressure on his majesty by raising taxes on goods and banning travel between our countries," he taps the desk before slamming his hand down.

"And the laws he made banning unregistered alchemy have been nothing more than a joke, I know. The Dirge has brought down at least fifty rings in the last few years but there seems to be no end to them. What in gods name are they after?" you lean forward, hoping your uncle will have some sort of answer.

"The same foolish thing the registered alchemists are after, immortality. Or at the very least, the next best thing. Long and youthful life, like that of a fae," he waves his hand and a book flings off the shelf and flies right to you.

"The War of Iron and Blood, a history book?" you start to pry the book open but it flings itself to a page near the very end.

"The book leaves out the most important part until the end. A fae specializing in Blood magic was caught and arrested. He is immune to iron and is able to heal himself if he wishes. Since those days long long ago, he has been held here, has been studied, has been bled for research with no real end in sight. I can only imagine what little hope he has if any," the high mage looks up towards the door.

A soft knock rasps the old wooden door, "Mage Thaneswell, it's Dargan, you called for me?"

"Yes yes, come in," your uncle flicks his finger and the door opens.

A tall and lanky mage shuffles in and slowly removes his hood. His skull tattoo looks rather odd on his face with how sunken in his eyes are and how gaunt he is.

"As you'll need to be focusing on your upcoming graduation I've decided to pass off your job to this first year. As you know all fourth years are to hand off their jobs to the new students. I've already given her a history lesson, the rest is up to you Dargan. Oh and once you're done, you'll be allowed a three week respite to recover," the high mage looks to you and nods towards the other mage.

Dargan bows a few times to your uncle and thanks him over and over before he grasps your shoulders, "Of course, yes, I'll get them up to speed and have them trained before then end of the day! Leave everything to me Mage Thaneswell."

"Yes and oh, once you're done could you give my niece a tour of the grounds? I'd do it myself but these old bones don't move like they used to," he smiles.

The Bone mage looks at you and then at the high mage, "Niece? Oh uh yes, yes of course."

Your uncle smiles and waves you off, "I'll be calling you back for a visit soon but please come and see me of your own accord when you can."

Dargan shuffles you out of the office and the door closes behind the both of you. His wide eyes look down at you as he continues to rush you out of the waiting room and down the tower stairs.

"What a horrible thing to do," he shakes his head. "To his own flesh and blood."

"Wait what are you talking about?" you ask.

Dargan stops and grabs your wrist, "This way, not here."

He pulls you aside and leads you down a path that takes you to the North Tower. It hikes up the wall and into a breezeway. The Bone mage looks around and when he's sure no one is in sight he has the two of you sit on the stone cold floor.

"Tell me truly, is High Mage Thaneswell really your uncle?" he asks.

"Great uncle but I fear we're missing the point here so-"

"You're from The Dirge then?" Dargan asks.

Your eyes widen and you grit your teeth but nod.

Dargan lifts his sleeve and reveals a scythe, "The Order of Bones has a similar sect."

"Reapers, I've heard of them," you nod.

"Mage Thaneswell has been hiring from all mercenary sects to take care of the alchemist rings. Myself and four others have been slowly cleaning up the High Tower these last few years, it hasn't been easy." Dargan stars and lays his head against the wall. "I suppose I should begin with what will be expected of you."

The Bone mage details your upcoming job and schedule, the grim nature of it all unsettling you the more he speaks. You're to become the jailor to the captured blood fae. You are to feed him, check his vitals, and collect his blood. You are not to speak to him, not to listen to him if he utters a single word, and you are not allowed to let him bleed unless collecting his blood.

Fear coils in your belly as Dargan tells you all the horrid things the fae could do if he was allowed to bleed out. Slice you up with his blood, set his cell on fire, undo the runes cast upon his chains or turn his blood into weapons and massacre the entire Tower. High Mage Thaneswell doesn't want that, he just wants him to take down the alchemists.

"Your uncle believes if we can find a way to free him that he'll be in our debt and will by the laws of the fae carry out the bounty against the alchemists," Dargan sighs. "Quite the pipe dream huh?"

"Very much so, but fae are keener on magic and can track down different users way better than mage hounds. Plus, he'll have a personal vendetta against them so he might be all for it," you agree and lay your head back as well.

"Still kinda fucked up that he's making his niece take on this job though," Dargan puffs. "But he must have his reasons."

"It's probably because I'll work closely with the Tower's alchemist ring. The more eyes on them the better," you note.

"True, but I rarely spoke with them and even if I showed any interest they kept me mostly in the dark. Get the blood, hand over the blood, and leave. That was the preferred sequence of things," he shrugs.

"Well, fuck..." you groan as you sag against the wall.

Dargan laughs and fishes something out of his pocket, "Here, it's a pass to the Tower. You'll need this to get in, get to the third level and to the cell."

You take the pass and grimace as the blood red runes carved into the small black iron tablet. You could feel the magic resonating off of it, feel it draining a tiny bit of your life essence. You quickly wrap it in your cloak.

"Disgusting, isn't it? They say the pass doubles to strengthen the runes on the Blood Fae's cell. I've tried my best not to over handle it but sometime the alchemists will examine the pass and if there's not enough life in it, they'll make you hold it all day. This job is super fucked up," Dargan snarls and slowly stands then offers his hand.

"Thanks for the heads up I guess," you allow him to help you up then stretch. "Anything else that I should be worried about?"

Dargan shrugs, "Not really, well that's a lie. I'd worry about you dorm placement. Mage Thaneswell pulled some strings and had me bunking with other mercs but I'm not sure how many he's hired this time around."

You nod knowing that it costs a lot to keep up this kind mission. You don't know if he's being funded by the King or if this is his own personal project but hiring you alone costs over three thousand gold.

"I'll introduce you to the alchemists and show you where the cell is real quick before I show you the grounds. Since it's hardly midday we have some time before your sorting," he beckons you to follow and leads you back out of the breezeway.

He takes you back down the wall path and towards the Central Tower, a massive and ancient mage tower built over a thousand years ago before the great culling of the Order of Night.

You feel the magic rolling off in droves with every step you take. The different auras confusing your senses and causing your gut to roil. Dargan places a supporting hand on your shoulder and holds up a hand before chanting a spell that shields the both of you from the onslaught of magic.

"Overwhelming isn't it? Someone here will cast a longer lasting shield on you once you start working. Try not to throw up on the stairs if you feel the shield fading, not only will they make you clean it up but they'll have you manually clean to toilets too," Dargan cringes.

"Sounds like you've been through a lot of hell here," you grimace.

"Hell would be nice in comparison. There's no graces here, no mercy nor kindness to be found. The Central Tower is where mages are truly tested, young and old. Are you certain you can handle this?" Dargan takes a step back and looks at you.

There's real concern on his face, something you feel like you haven't seen in ages. His dull dark red eyes search your face for hesitance and close once he realizes that there's none.

"I have my own reasons for being here, personal and sad as they are," you shrug. "But things can't continue on like they have been."

He nods his head and continues up the stairs, "Fair enough, well then, welcome to the Central Tower." Dargan flourishes his hand and bows. Turning on his heals he points to a bulky guard leaning against the wall, "And this good fellow is Max."

Dargan exchanges introductions between the two of you and has you show the pass. Max opens the barred door to the tower where you're ushered up a series of staircases till you reach the third floor. You're introduced to another guard, Gildred, who you show your pass to. Before you're able to say farewell, Dargan leads you into the third floor lab and quickly shuts the door.

You try and catch your breath but the Bone mage drags you along and takes you down a hall that leads you to a circular room. Several mages clad in maroon cloak turn and glare at you.

"Dargan... has it really been four years?" One of them asks.

"Yes high mage Cragsith. This is my replacement, young mage Thaneswell," he introduces you.

"A Thaneswell? And of.... The Order of Delight? How... Amusing," High mage Cragsith chuckles. "Very well, I assume she's been educated?"

"Yes high mage, of course," Dargan bows his head.

"Good, then you may leave. Estan will show her to the cell, you should hurry and take your respite. I know exams will be starting next month," He waves Dargan off with a limp hand.

Dargan bows and exits with haste, leaving you alone with the High Tower's alchemists.

"You've caught us at an excellent time, we're needing a fresh batch of blood. Estan will take you down and show you the ropes," Cragsith beckons to a hunched figure.

"Follow me," Estan orders and shuffles towards the middle of the room. He places his hand on the central supporting pillar and a door appears shortly after. It opens to reveal a lift that will take you down to the Tower's prison.

Estan tells you that all vials are kept in a desk outside the fae's cell and on a normal day that you'll receive a slip with how many you are to fill.

"He's basically docile at this point. Hasn't been an incident in over two hundred years. It's an easy job, just taxing as I'm sure Dargan has mentioned," Estan says in an oddly comforting way.

Once you're down under the tower and exit the lift, Estan leads you to the fae's cell. He pulls out nine vials from a drawer in the desk and checks them for cleanliness, "Don't want anything but his blood in these."

After his inspection he has you place the pass in a slot on the wall next to the cell. You fell just the faintest bit of your life force slip as the locks turn and door opens ever so slightly.

There's a dank smell that wafts in your nose and the sudden charge in the air has every hair standing on edge.

Estan hands you eight of the vials to hold as he escorts you in. You fear that you might find a horrid and fiendish fae as Dargan lead you to believe but instead all you see is a sad one, bound in chains and leathers with living runes.

What was probably once lovely long flowing black hair is now matted and tangled in several areas. His eyes and mouth are covered with greyish leather that have ancient magic imbued in them. His skin is sickly pale and nails are curled from neglect.

The fear and nerves you felt entering this place disappear and are quickly replaced with pity and then something else. A deep need to free him settles into you and it's one that's beyond your mission or any ethical reason. You feel sicked and in pain at seeing him like this.

"It's just a quick prick right here, same spot every time," Estan interrupts your thoughts as he points to a tattoo of a circle on the fae's arm. As he goes to poke it you quickly ask if you can.

"I learn better by doing is all, that and I want to do well with this job," you say with full fake determination.

Estan chuckles and hands his vial and needle over to you, "I get it, I was the same when I was a student here. Not going to lie, but you're the first Cragsith has really acknowledged this fast, well aside from myself. Maybe he sees some promise in you."

Or maybe he's warry of me being a Thaneswell, you think.

Not wanting to drop your facade, you go and draw the fae's blood.

Bile quickly threatens your throat but you do well in holding back the vomit.

This feels so wrong that it's hard to stomach, is this a curse that the fae has in place? Why didn't Dargan tell you? Maybe you'll ask your uncle later... But first, to fill the other eight vials.

It takes all your strength and will power not to throw up while extracting the fae's blood but you somehow manage. After Estan takes you back up to the third floor and sings praises about your enthusiasm do you ask to be shown to the bathroom.

Once your stomach is empty you resolve to find and beat Dargan black and blue for leaving out the part about wanting to blow chunks when extracting blood.

You stomp your way out of the central tower and down the path to the east but quickly stop in your tracks when a notice echoes through the grounds.

"All first years to the North Tower for dorm sorting. I repeat all first years to the North Tower for dorm sorting," the voice rang.

And before you could take another step you found yourself being lifted for a moment, cold dark air rushing around you, and then you were set back down amongst a crowd right outside the North Tower.

A few others look around in confusion but for the most part people just shrug it off as typical tower magic.

"Hey, over here," you here a familiar voice.

You turn and see Ruya with Ilta, Tarek, and Luan. Quite the odd ball group but you're about to make it weirder, being a bard and all.

"I heard you got to go to central tower, how was it?" Tarek asks.

"And who'd you hear that from?" you raise a brow at him and he grins.

"From a senior of my sect, Dargan," he smiles and shows his reaper mark.

Before you can ask, Ruya, Ilta, and even Luan all flash their arms with the subsect marks on them. They all tell you how they each ran into their seniors here and took on jobs close to or in the central tower. The twins have jobs in the library near the central tower, Ruya brings meals up for the alchemists, and Luan is set to clean the equipment for the central tower.

"Dargan said there's a high chance that we'll get bunked with other subsect members as the Dorm Matron works directly with high mage Thaneswell," Tarek smiles and looks at Luan, "No weird shadowy shit."

"Then I hope you'll keep your knives and bones on your side of the dorm," Luan smiles.

Ilta smacks her brother's arm and Ruya rolls her eyes.

You can feel this group's dynamic setting in place already.

"All first years, dorm mothers will be coming around with dorm assignments. These assignments are final and we expect no complaints. Once you have you receive your dorm and room token you will be teleported there. Potions for teleportation sickness are on the stands outside the rooms if needed," another announcement rings.

Your group looks around for dorm mothers, all middle aged or elderly mages wearing light blue cloaks with yellow ribbons. You've heard many stories about the dorm mothers here and how even the highest mages offer their respects to them. They're truly a force to be reckoned with.

"Here you are... Thaneswell's bunch," A dorm mother approaches your group and looks everyone up and down before turning to Tarek and Luan. "The two of you will go to Mother Margo's dorm, you'll be bunking in room eleven. Here are your tokens."

The two of them reach out their hands with slight hesitation but once they touch the tokens, they vanish.

"I have to say, that's gotta be the second fastest I've seen my brother disappear," Ilta smiles.

"What was the fastest then?" Ruya asks.

"When he found out he broke up with the head Reaper's daughter," Ilta laughs.

"You three," the dorm mother glares at us and then at Ilta, "I expect you to be prompt, never out past curfew, and not a meal skipped. I am your dorm mother, Mother Beatrice. You'll each have your own rooms, connecting. Seven, eight, and nine."

You look at the girls but before either can say anything, Ruya reaches out for her token and vanishes. Ilta smiles at you and shrugs before taking hers. Taking a deep breath in you reach for room token nine and feel yourself being flung around.

Left and right, right then right again. You feel as if you're passing through sheets like a child running through laundry on a sunny day. Warm and cold air take turns at slapping your body before you suddenly snap to a stop and your body slams right into a door with a hard thud.

"Ow," you moan as you peel yourself off the door. Your face stings where it met the hard wood.

You look around and see Ruya doubled over holding an empty potion bottle with Ilta rubbing her back.

"Going to be alright over there?" you ask.

Ruya nods but stays down.

"She was slung into her stand and it knocked the wind out of her," Ilta winces.

"This is why I hate teleportation, too volatile and under studied. Now I know why the fae rarely use it themselves," you cringe at the thought of being teleported again anytime soon.

After the three of you check yourselves over for any wounds and sickness you part to your own rooms.

Your room is cozy and well furnished. A few wooden boxes lay on your bed with a few notes. The first note is a greeting from the towers and what to expect in the coming days. The second is from Mother Beatrice with a list of rules and a meal schedule. The third is from the central tower... A letter just for you.

"Good evening young Thaneswell,

We welcome you to the central tower and have high hopes for you. Estan spoke highly of you and your eagerness, a most welcomed delight, as Dargan was most melancholic. Estan will continue to escort you to the cell for the next ten days as he trains you. We look forward to having a mage with your enthusiasm."

You feel your stomach churn as you finish reading the letter. You quickly crumple it up and toss it in the waste bin.

Something about being on their good side this quickly unsettles you but you'll do your best to turn it around and use it to your advantage. You can't let this continue, too many innocent lives are at stake and you're not sure how much longer your great uncle can keep funding missions like this.

With that resolve you go through the boxes next, supplies and a uniform. Papers, books, ink, and pens. A first year's dark brown cloak and knee high boots with metal plates on the toes and knees. There's a map with local shops and a post office where mages who come to study can send letters and receive parcels.

Next you notice a small wooden box with a stamp from the West tower. You open the lid and see a small mirror, a pouch, a dagger, and a note. You quickly unfold the note and it has instructions on how to use the mirror.

"Use the dagger to prick your finger and sign this rune with your blood. I will be alerted that you wish to speak with me. Only use this in your room or in dire emergencies."

You have a gut feeling that he wants you to try it out know so you prick your finger and write out the rune on the mirror. Within seconds it lights up and an image of your uncle shoots up from it.

"I'm glad my gift has found you. Though I wish we could chat longer I have the head Matron of the dorms coming up to see me. I'll keep this short, get the fae to speak. Get him to talk, get him to listen, and get him on our side," your uncle orders.

You nod but feel sick as you do, "Understood, but I must ask, is there a curse on him?"

The high mage's brows knit in confusion, "Why do you ask?"

"I...I took his blood and I felt sick and there was this wrongness. Like I couldn't stand that I was hurting him, it was odd," you mention.

Your uncle's eyes widen but he says nothing for a few moments too long, "No, no curse. Keep me updated on these, odd feelings. I must go now."

The image of your uncle vanishes and instead of getting an answer to your question, you feel like you've gained a long list of inquiries that will be left in the box.

"What have I gotten myself into," you groan as you flick your wrist and move your things off the bed so you can fling yourself onto it.

At least I'm not alone, you think as you curl up and slowly pass out.

[ginjones]

Alchemy of Sleep WIP

Every sound that passes through the weathered spindles of his mind is a harsh peal of muffled fuzz which resonates in a ring of white noise. The tinned screech of a toddler teething. The chittering of the table opposite and every entrance and exit marked by the mocking chime of the bell above the New Inn’s door. He’s going to rip it from its fucking bracket. 16 hours. Only 16 hours of sleep this week, and all of them snatched in fitful hours spent staring at digital numbers that count down to another day in cold, uncaring green.

It is Sunday. It is 5.30pm and Dream is staring at him with a look of supreme annoyance.

“I have asked you a question, Hob.” Dream’s voice, sonorous and indignant cuts through the liminal space he has found himself in.

“Yes,” Hob agrees slowly, “you have.” Although for the life of him he can’t recall what. He stares through his partner; eyes attempting to focus on an individual feature and failing. Dream is a watercolour of washed-out hues. A Monet in monochrome. His sable hair and ivory skin smearing into grey in a double-visioned gyre.

“How many hours?”

“…Hum?”

“How many hours of sleep have you had?” And yes. That was the question. How little has Hob been held in the embrace of that conduit to dreams? What percentage of this week has been spent, instead on futile attempts to reach that land?

“16 hours…give or take?”

“What?”

“17 maybe. If you count zoning out while standing up. I did that a couple of times on the tube.”

“I do not count that.”

“Well…” He concludes, trailing off and yes, well indeed. The thought peters out and is replaced instead by the all-encompassing sense of his own heartbeat which pounds its war drum in his chest and pours caffeinated blood onto every frayed nerve.

None of this, of course, was intentional. Given the choice, Hob would bolt the door to the waking world at midnight and follow the gentle pull of sleep downwards, presenting himself punctually, at the base of Dream’s throne.Their relationship had ripened last summer, when the university year was over, and the last dissertations had been marked and sent away. In celebration, Hob had spent a full weekend in slumber, entering the Dreaming to find each one of his spectral limbs spread and held firmly in place by the thick, sliding grace of some indeterminate form. Bereft of true sight, he had focused instead on the vibrational pull of his partner’s tones. A humming top, low and rolling that allowed his body to open in pliant acceptance. Those thick, gleaming pulsations had entered with ease and twisted upwards, pulling the entirety of his being into a taut line of aching want. A bowstring fashioned to obey its function in the hands of its gracious master.

He had woken, sweat-slicked, two days later and spent that Monday in a dreamlike fugue- the   tendrils of the sense-memory coaxing and guiding his body to repeat the process with motorised efficiency; spurting and grinding his way through multiple orgasms in a bed made ripe with musk and seed.

And yet eagerly, always, he is pulled back towards the waking world in all its painful, tiring, resplendent glory. And he pours himself back into mortal life with its essays to mark and its trips to plan, its upcoming deadlines looming. Upstairs, at his desk sits the manuscript of Chapbooks in the age of reason and he has only to write the preface and it’s over. Two more hours of concentrated effort and he can send it to Sophie at Oxford University Press and a year from now he will hold up the champagne flute and know he has passed some Herculean trial he alone, has set himself. A published author. With his name stamped sans serif on the spine. Hob has never been above assiduous pride.

“I will give you a choice,” Dream continues smoothly, his voice a satin ribbon that winds itself around his chest and tightens slowly, instructing him to listen. “You may stand up yourself and let me direct you upstairs, or I shall forcibly lift you,” an animal whine escapes Hob in a mewl of descent, “yes, within full view of mortals who will no doubt startle at the impossibility of that configuration. Either way, you shall be taken to bed. You shall be under my care, and I shall personally terminate this self-destructive behaviour. What will it be?”

Blue eyes meet his and remain locked there, unblinking and in some facet of his selfhood, he wants to be petulant. To stamp his feet and scowl with indignity. The spectral thought must escape him because Dream performs one slow shake of his head, and a smirk begins to play at the corner of his lips. The black outlines of his pupils begin to expand outwards; a pooling ink that suffuses the blue of his iris and the white of his sclera; a shift into serpentine stillness. The creature pins him there and waits silently. Seconds pass and static builds and Hob’s animal instinct to sleep sends out a pleading wave of exhaustion to every spent limb. Dream watches, gently amused as Hob’s eyes begin to flutter shut. His shoulders roll forward and he brings his forehead to rest on the coolness of the wooden table, a groan escaping his lips.

With one triumphant attempt at dignified acquiescence, Hob straightens up, lets out an exasperated huff and rises from the table, manoeuvring himself around the booth to join Dream. The bastard is smiling, and Hob would protest if it weren’t for the way Dream brings him in closer to rest his weight against the marble column of his body. Hob sways slightly, his perception of balance momentarily blinking out, and cool arms press him further into the soft, giving fabric of Dream’s jumper. Merino wool, he recalls being told vaguely. The jumper is knitted from the dreams of a Kiwi farmer who, in slumber, visits each star in Ursa Minor.

“My clever partner”, Dream murmurs into the crease of his ear, his eyes returning to their usual bright blue. “You make a wise choice. Follow me.”

He goes where he is bidden, following Dream as he weaves self-assuredly through the seated groups of Uni students, young professionals and families pouring over the pre-theatre menu. The sun has dipped below the skyline and pours through the stained glassed embellishments on the high arched windows, casting rays of golden light over the well-worn curves of the mahogany booths. Like a cathedral, Hob thinks hazily and a memory of falling asleep on his knees at a pew is thrown into sharp relief.

They make their way to the back of the dining area, and Hob follows Dream through the wooden ‘staff only’ doors that open to the dimly lit corridor and the set of oakwood stairs that lead to Hob’s apartment. It may be the New Inn, but the original staircase and beams are over 200 years old. The stairway is narrow and tightly enclosed, so they must walk in single file and Dream leads the way, extending a hand downwards for Hob to hold. He grasps tightly and lets his partner pull him upwards, the pleasant creak of wood guiding their steps. That sound is a trinket, Hob thinks. And it alights on some ancient part of him that remembers sinking into sleep beside the warm bodies of countrymen. The day’s work completed with the setting of the sun. The horses watered and barley tied, walking back to the bere-croft by starlight. In bleary weariness, Hob fishes for the keys and opens the door.

What is most surprising then perhaps, is how unhurried Dream seems in that moment. Hob had accepted his fate, gone willingly even, and now they are alone there is nothing stopping his partner from haranguing him into bed immediately like a badly behaved schoolboy, making him recite some rote to sleep on his way. What Dream does instead is carefully take off his coat and hang it on its allocated hook by the door. As casually as if Hob’s body where his own, he brings two delicate hands to pull at the fabric of Hob’s jumper and lifts it gently over his head. The momentarily submission of his autonomy is disorientating, and it takes Hob a moment to realise that Dream is staring fondly at the way the static from the garment has made a bird’s nest of his hair. Dream’s eyes fix on him intently and Hob is under no illusion that his daydreams, however fragmented, are being analysed. That stratospheric mind of his calculating multiple solutions to Hob’s insomnia, assessing each component part for flaws in the design.

“Take your shoes off and join me in your bedroom.” Hob watches as Dream makes his way over across the hall, the physical structure of his boots dissolving in a light plume of grey smoke which dissipates into the air around him

[toreii]

✨Book 6 chapters 66-67 tips✨

I keep seeing people worried about this portion of the episode with book 6 coming soon. So, this is how I did it with the bare minimum of effort. Of course, there are better methods out there than my own. But, I went in blindly not knowing what was to come. I realized I had a problem, so what was I to do? Grind. A lot. Every two and a half hours, three rounds of lessons, every day.

Spoilers below the cut!

These are my three teams for chapter 66. I really should have put more thought into the characters I picked. When I realized my mistake, I decided this would be the hill I would die on. Boy, did I suffer. That said, I realized a few things as I was grinding, and then running off to lose against the Titans.

For chapter 66, your cards should at least be around lv 40. As you can see, I didn’t give Azul or Floyd much love, and I definitely ditched Trey after this chapter. But, at the bare minimum, I had my cards in their 30s.

The Titan for tower 3 likes to inflict fire damage to your life during your standbys, so bring someone that can heal. Preferably on all your teams, but definitely on the Riddle/Azul team.

Duo magic✨ Obviously, having SSRs will be a life saver. But, you can also be like me with Leona and use an R card.😂 I tried having at least an SSR that I could duo magic with to deal extra blows.

Max buddy levels. Make sure your buddy levels are as high as they can be. I will say this, Alchemy lessons will be your life if you are unprepared. So, while you grind for those books and notepads, get your buddy levels up.

The most important tip: magic levels need to be at lv5!! Again, you want to deal those extra blows. The sooner, the better.

Groovy all your cards. Even the R cards if you use them. This needs no explanation. You want that extra ATK and HP boost.

Study the phantom titans attack patterns. I eventually caught on as to how each Titan attacked, and it helped tremendously at picking the right attack against them. If you make a mistake, that’s fine. Try to keep it at one. Messing up twice is a bit too much, but still doable. Three, you might want to restart the battle.

I was mostly saying this to amuse myself, but survive. Survive during this chapter, and you will make it through.💖

For chapter 67, I mostly kept the teams the same. As I mentioned before, I dropped Trey and brought Idia on my Azul/Riddle team hoping to make a difference. Ahahaha….no.🥲 The tips for chapter 67 are basically the same. In this round, however, your card levels should at least be between levels 50-55. Preferably in the 60s.

As you can see, I eventually leveled up Silver to 62. I pushed Vil at level 72 at the time because I kind of grew a little desperate.😆 However, Vil only became useful to me when I unlocked his water magic at level 5. This is why I say it’s important that you do this. Aside from these two, you can see who my main twst team is. They were already in their 60s.

I spent a lot of saved resources. Books, notepads, starshards, gems, honeys, waffles, cupcakes, etc. Overall, this took me about two months to beat. It was basically trial and error, but it is doable so long as you put in work. There’s plenty of time before this part of the story comes. So, think about the cards you’d like to use, and work on them.

Remember! You can change your mind about which characters you will use, but if you make any changes in the midst of going through the towers, you will have to start all over again from the beginning. So, pick your characters wisely!!

I hope these tips bring you a little peace of mind. But, you know, twst recently came out with those reset tickets to make things easier. I haven’t used any yet. Maybe because I already beat book 6, so I can’t use them right now. I don’t know if the EN team will implement this feature soon. If they do, you have that option, as well.

Happy reading and good luck!💖

[kobabeach]

gayme update

here's the games i played this past week while i was logging off for my mental health. you're gonna read this bc ur gay and autistic and stinky and so am i

Star Ocean

I went to Astral to get the Emblem, got Phia, also passed by the Tatroi Arena to get T'nique (I really don't like how he speaks like Yoda when he's very Chinese coded, but I think that may have been in JP as well?) and passed by Kraat to get Pericci, did the Muah Emblem sequence, got the Bunny Whistle, and I've spent the past day and a half just grinding a lot, working on Item Creation etc etc. In terms of Customize weapons, I've managed to get Roddick's Aura Blade, Ilia's Kaiser Knuckle (made by Ronyx), Pericci's Q Power Punch☆, Millie's Charm (for Roddick), and Cyuss's Cyuss Special. I've had to quote unquote "spark" the Originality talent on all of them though (Ilia exempted ofc, she has no need for Customize) with the help of Pericci using Violin 2. I'm not going for all talents on everyone because that is an ordeal and it'd be wasting a lot of time I could be using on actual gameplay, but I may just add Originality to the two fuckers I need to Customize shit for. Now, I've also been using the weapon duplication exploit in the arena, you basically enter with no weapon equipped (this may work with armor, I need to look it up and cross-reference it with a few fansites and guides) and when you enter the ranked matches, you equip the weapon you want to clone. When you lose a Ranked Match or win that Rank's entire roster, you get tossed out of the arena, but regardless of whether you lose or win, the weapon you have equipped does not decrement from the ones in your inventory. I've done this for Ilia's Metal Fang for the Kaiser Knuckle as well as Cyuss's Silver Sword, Pericci's Cat Fang☆, and Roddick's Sylvance. Sparking the Originality Talent otherwise is a fool's errand and I advise anyone playing the SNES version to use this exploit if you're going for the ultimate weapons. I've also got Tri-emblems on Roddick (one Tri, one Charm), Cyuss, Ilia and Pericci (the former three having two), and I'll try to get more people with double Tri-emblems, as well as Dream Crowns (Roddick, Cyuss, Millie, Pericci already have that). As for the other Abilities, Millie has her Alchemy maxed out, this way she can make Orichalcum for a few ultimate weapons. I've revealed the Favorite Dishes of my entire party in the status screen, I probably won't be using them much, the Art skill is pretty good for Ronyx and Roddick, their copying skills are good enough, especially since I can buy Magic Colors without hurting my wallet much. Authoring is also fine, I need to get T'nique and Phia's skills that they can learn from books up to level 7 as well, and for Smithing I think it's alright too, Millie can handle that one, though I may also work on that on Pericci since she has the Talent for it. Compounding and Crafting are good as is, Crafting takes a few attempts, but I can copy Rainbow Diamonds all I want, and that's basically all I need for Dream Crowns. I'm gonna keep levelling the stat affecting skills for the people who haven't maxed them out yet, though, just to see how broken I can make my party, that's what's keeping me going right now. I'll try to do the Arena with everyone to the best of my abilities, and later on I'll try to figure out how to do the Gabriel fight before wrapping up the main game. Unlocking all music compositions... Maybe? I won't really use them. Cat-Fu♪ and Pa Kwa Zhang obtained (PKZ on both Ilia and T'nique), as well as the 7-Star skill for Roddick. I still have to get all items available on the Familiar skill, too. The Ethereal Queen's dungeon is a definite. Oh and I also need to build up T'nique and Phia a bit, they're at 20 and 17. Their time will come soon, it'll just take like 10 or 20 more in-game hours. I'm using fast forwards.

Clash at Demonhead

The face I was making in sheer disbelief when I beat this game (good ending)

Super interesting game, has a lot of good ideas, but doesn't stick the landing a lot due to its sheer jank. Literally everything in this game is jank.

But it's a fun enough proto-metroidvania. I'm a fan of how everything has its internal logic, the game acts a lot like an adaptation of some property, its jokes are characteristically shounen gag anime.

I'd recommend this to most people if you can stomach the messy gameplay, it's one of the most interesting NES games in my book, and I love characteristic NES 'nihonjank'. On top of that it's hilariously unhinged. I guess you could compare it to Undertale?

The Undertale of Dark Soles...

Super Mario Sunshine

Okay so I was binging Scott the Woz the other day for fun and he mentioned how this has "the tightest controls Mario's ever had" or something, and I think Nitro Rad said the same and I'd like to ask these people what fucked up personalized version were they playing?

Maybe it's because I'm a keyboard man (lion) but the controls feel so squirrely and loose. They're fine with FLUDD (Flash Liquidizing Ultra Dousing Device) but in the bonus stages where you're naked, it's pretty bad, a lot of overshooting and lack of air control on top of those stages' camera which make it hard to distinguish the distance of each floating platform. Hate those, even if I'm getting better.

Either way, 45 Shines and 63 Blue Coins. I was wrapping up Gelato before doing Pinna and I got three blue coins while getting the 100 coin Shine. Got Yoshi, finished Pinna and decided to get some blue coins earlier.

Bianco and Ricco are super cleared, I used some savestates on Gelato 8 because it's dogshit. I could probably do it without it, I didn't savescum too much, but I'm almost 30 and I don't want this in my life.

The most unhinged this was, was how having the camera face Mario from a birds-eye view actually helped the most in the Orange Yoshi secret Reds, fucked up.

They should have made it so what matters to get to Corona was like, the amount of Shines you get, if you could like do almost any shine at any time like in 64, while still being able to dip in and out of worlds while also being able to rely on blue coins for filler Shines so you didn't have to do the more annoying missions, I think non-believers would enjoy this game more.

Sonic Adventure DX (BetterSADX on)

Very nostalgic game of my youth. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are done, around 28 emblems are obtained. I'm gonna do Amy, Big then Gamma, then Super Sonic, do the Trials and Mission Mode, and then lastly just grind out Chao in the backburner.

Sorry I don't have much to say.

Zillion

Super good Impossible Mission clone. I'm almost done with the cyan section of the Norsa HQ, Room D5. Currently have 7 ID cards and one of the five floppies I need to take down the main computer.

Fun game to do kinda blind. Having fun just tanking some of the laser barriers to amass as many ID cards as I can. Fuck God And All Living Creatures

If you like weird old 8-bit games, please consider this one on the Master System. Good stuff.

Cu-On-Pa SFC (Endorfun)

Made it to from Stage 2-2 to 5-1 on Normal (World 2 to World 5 in other words). Really enjoying the maps that rely more on chaining Color and Thunder Panels to access unreachable Life Panels, but the game in general is super good. I'd like to try out the PC original sometime. Good stuff, I'm glad T&E Soft's SNES port made me aware of it! And so kinda did StrangebuttsPHD's old YouTube Poops. The PC version has a lot of strange sound bytes that are used as "positive reinforcement subliminal messaging"? Very weird but at least they're trying to encourage positive thinking, especially on younger kids, which is nice ofc. And it's also kind of my sort of vibe, I adore feelings of unreality. Watching footage of the original PC version is such a trip, for better or for worse... Seems like Normal/Easy and Puzzle both have 10 worlds of 10 stages. I'll do my best to clear them as blind as I can. I can't really find many guides online... But the game doesn't seem to be overly complex, Puzzle Mode may make me retract that statement though.

VIP and Wall and Alaska Mix 4 (VIP Mario 4)

This actually isn't my favorite VIP, that one's 5. Though this one is kinda fine-ish. Super cleared the first world, all VIP Coins obtained, I had to use the occasional savestate though. I'm getting too old, even with unlimited lives.

Sonic Heroes

"Marriage?!?!?!?!? no way!!!!!" - sonic "buddha" the hedgehog

Having a ton of fun with this game, I already beat Team Rose sometime ago, so I'm doing Sonic now. I'm at Frog Forest right now, Rail Canyon and Bullet Station are terrible, the rails are way too jank for what they want you to do in them.

Biggest problem is how they fucked up Adventure 1&2's physics to make it faster by cranking up the acceleration according to something I once heard years ago on Sonic Retro. Deranged.

Did you know this game was gonna have an even bigger roster of characters? Like parties made of like Mighty/Ray/Metal Sonic, Bean/Bark/Fang (the gift of prophesy..), Chaos/Gamma/Big, Amy/Cream/Rouge?

The SA1 team (CGB) was the biggest issue apparently, people in staff had a problem with bringing back Chaos and Gamma like that. Someone suggested that Chaos didn't really pass on to the afterlife in Sonic Adventure, he just went up into the sky, and someone replied with like. "That's just sophism!!!!!!" It's so fucking funny and I think it speaks of how deranged Sonic Team kind of is.

Anyway they still brought back Shadow so make of that what you will.

Fire Emblem 1

Okay so, full disclaimer, I am using savestates on this to cut back on iteration times from just straight up resetting. Even if this is like The One That Purposefully Gives You A Billion Units Each Map.

I took the time to level up people a bit in Chapter 8 due to its arena. Got people only up to level 8 for now, don't wanna break the game. Roger and Bantu were good enough to stonewall the fuckton of Knights and reinforcements in that chapter, but I think me picking Bantu for this map may have been a bit of a fluke?

Or not, I may have remembered that Manaketes are just super strong. Level 8 should be good enough for the midgame. Next arenas are Chapter 11 and 16, so I'll try to get more people up to speed there.

I did savescum a bit for Roshea's grind but the way Cavaliers' arena rosters are set up are different from how most others have it, the power scaling isn't as linear. I had more luck going for the Cavalier early on then going for the Mage while making sure it misses at least once than risking it with the Mercenary at the bottom tier.

Everyone is properly leveled up, Gordon is at Lv7 because his Arena got really tough for the poor guy. I'll let him pick away at normal on map units for now. People who need to be leveled up a bit are Castor, Merric, Wendell, maybe Rickard and Julian?, Vyland, Sedgar, Cord, Darros, Draug and I guess Jagen, just in case I need back up.

It's kind of fun trying to learn how best to handle the maps, but I'm gonna be real these maps are pretty ass. I'm just way into turn based strategy sadly. Should play that Vyland Emblem hack, apparently it has edgy homophobic jokes.

Also I was perusing FE Wiki and the way I went into Basilio's page and the way my eyes just made a beeline for his toes. I love being sick in the head.

Gdleen

Just exploring Edona after catching up on the story thanks to a Japanese streamer's archives, after this it's back on the money grind for equipment.

This game's lore is fantastic and I love how weirdly everyone talks, even the save is called like. Pot of Souls or something? But apparently this game doesn't fully portray the Gdleen books, just a bit of 1 and 3. The game's story isn't the most obviously told thing as there isn't that much of an intro, it kinda starts in media res without much explanation, this isn't much of a good thing either.

I do want to see if I can pirate Yuto Ramon's original books after this and Digan no Maseki on PC98 and read them on my own time with a dictionary and OCR to help with my subpar Japanese knowledge. The gameplay is pretty subpar, there's a few options for battle, but they're really not very useful, you can mostly coast by through sticking to the bread and butter Attack, Defend, Item and Run. I do dislike how easy it is for you to die in this game.

I feel like the Stamina counter below HP and MP has an effect on that, like the Vitality and Life Points on Beyond the Beyond. I'll see if I can find scans of the manual to know more about this mechanic.

RPG Maker 2003

Okay so I got gifted this and 2000 in like December, and I sometimes just open it up to do unhinged shit. I'm Kind Of a programmer so I just have fun programming shit. And now I'm seeing if I can make an ATB system closer to FF4-6, just for fun?

Was just reading up on programming custom systems on Yadot's site, while also taking notes from other RPGs I've played and how their systems work.

Currently have to figure out text displaying through pictures, the on in the image is static, make a simple attack menu (attack, magic, special, item), figure out a row system. Item and magic submenus, I don't have to go to in detail I think? I'm not sure I'll figure out scrolling menus for now. And get started on the ATB gauge system.

I'll try to code attacks and make a basic game with this whenever. I'd like to make some custom characters for it.... Maybe bara.

. . .

And that's it. Why'd you read this.

[apompkwrites]

reader impact || first meeting

series masterlist characters: xiao, albedo genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: have i read a few genshin impact x game character reader stories and impulsively decided to make one too? maybe. you can't prove anything. i don't know if this will be a series but we'll see :D

xiao's playthrough -

xiao, named as alatus on his streaming platform, has made himself known as a gaming streamer with an awkward personality and blunt words.

he's the type of streamer who wouldn't have a set type of game and would, instead, play whatever his viewers recommended.

valorant? sure, he'll try it out.

hitman? why not?

animal crossing? it's a complete 180 from the other games, but sure.

when one of his viewers recommended genshin impact, he was quick to say yes and search for the game.

once the game finishes downloading, he quickly begins the game.

once the opening cutscene passes, he compliments the overall aesthetic of the game, pointing out the smaller details such as the footprints made by his character and the sound their clothes make when they move.

as always, his expressions are quite monotone to a point where it seems nothing draws his attention towards the game.

one of his mods, however, knows xiao well enough to where he knows which character he would like.

they convince xiao that the game is worth sticking with towards the second half of chapter 1, act 1.

he doesn't understand but he trusts his mods so he promises to continue.

it takes a few hours, especially because of the grinding, but a few streams later he's finally made it.

after fighting a one-sided argument with cloud retainer, he immediately begins his trek to the wangshu inn. and yes, trek, he enjoys walking/gliding through the world of teyvat rather than fast traveling everywhere.

he walks up the stairs to the top floor of the inn, resting his hands in his lap as the cutscene begins.

"to the blind, everything may not be as it appears..."

xiao is normally stoic during games, even ones with scenes made to fluster the player and catch them off guard.

but not this time.

once xiao's character is faced with yours, he just stops. his chat is spamming messages, asking if he's okay and if he's actually emoting for once.

he just stares at your character for a good five minutes.

and trust me, at least half of his viewers clipped that.

"... who are they?"

that was his only question after those minutes of silence. never before had he been attached to a character within the first few minutes of meeting them. his mind is racing and all he can think about is how amazing your character design is and how nice your voice is and how cool your character is and--

oh right, he's streaming right now...

anyway, the more your conversation goes on, the more he loves your character.

you're just so sassy and snappy but he loves you either way.

once you turn away with your back towards the camera, he just stares.

he stares at the intricate tattoo on your exposed arm and the mask hanging off of your belt.

and then you're gone.

his face drops so quickly and his viewers are very quick to point it out. he grimaces once paimon starts talking and he's very tempted to just speed through her dialogue.

he just wants to see you again.

once he hears from verr goldet that you've never smiled (at least around her), he immediately turns to the camera and says, "we better make them smile in this game."

once he finds out about your favorite food, he's already asking his viewers if he's able to get the recipe for it.

the next time he gets to talk to you, his face just lights up once he sees your character standing on the balcony.

however, once his characters tell you about rex lapis's death, his heart sinks when he hears how sad your voice becomes, even if your tone is still as harsh as before.

he gets all sad again when the quest ends and he has to wait to unlock the next archon quest.

he ends the game there and decides to spend the last few minutes talking to his viewers.

"i'll stream genshin again soon."

his viewers all know it's only because he met you.

albedo's playthrough -

albedo often does art streams and the occasional science-y stream.

if he does games, he mainly uses them to admire the art/mechanics of the gameplay.

genshin impact was one of those games he decided to play on his own solely because of the beautiful scenary.

(and the opportunity to draw more characters).

he's definitely the player that cares about elemental reactions above all else. pretty much every character he uses is built for elemental damage instead of physical.

most of his genshin streams are him walking around teyvat and pointing out the scenary.

he was definitely excited for the dragonspine event because that meant a better view of teyvat!

what he wasn't prepared for, however, was the reveal of a new character: you.

he isn't too into looking at the updates for genshin on his own, so he didn't find out about who you were until his stream asked about it.

he decided to react to the newest updates live since his chat seemed excited to hear his input.

once he pulled up the latest update details, he spent a few minutes talking about the new subzero mechanic.

but once he scrolled down to the characters... OH BOY

he's able to keep his composure but he definitely spends longer talking about you.

he almost gasped when he saw you were the chief alchemist of mondstadt.

combine that with the fact that you rely on elemental damage instead of physical...

your honor, he's fallen hard.

he'll put a countdown on stream to when your character and event drops, even on his non-genshin streams.

speaking of those streams, on the week just before your event, his streams will all be based around you and the information he's seen on you.

his art streams will consist of you and how he thinks your attacks will work just based on the description (he purposely avoided all pictures of your attacks for this stream).

his science-y streams would probably be based on your element.

once your event drops, that's the only thing he'll stream until it's over.

your assistant used to be his favorite character to play as but they just never clicked. it's not like he hates your assistant, it's just he didn't immediately fall in love with them.

his party definitely has your assistant in it, though.

he would have normally taken his time to look around dragonspine and admire the new scenery, but he couldn't help but speed through it until he finally gets to see you onscreen.

once the cutscene officially introduces you in front of a canvas, he's internally panicking.

you like art too?! and science?! how perfect can you be?!?!?!

he will genuinely feel bad when he scares the hilichurls because he knows that that's what you were sketching.

"who are you? why did you alarm them?"

NOW HE FEELS EVEN WORSE

even when you tell him you've finished sketching, he wants to make it up to you :((

if he were able to, he would've lured more hilichurls to let you sketch more.

some people in his chat would probably spam him to skip your dialogue because it's so wordy, but that's the exact reason why he listens to it all.

he likes listening to your character ramble on, especially because you have a soothing voice.

anytime your character does their idle animation where you give life to something, he will always let it play. even if your dialogue is finished before the animation, he would not progress until it's completed.

once your character asks for help, he would immediately agree before you finished your sentence.

man just wants to spend more time with you.

he likes staring at the tattoo on your neck whenever the camera is close to you. he just thinks it's really pretty on you.

once your other nonplayable assistant begins talking, he'll skip through the dialogue. he doesn't care if it goes more in depth into this world's alchemy, he just wants to hear it from you.

"hmm, looks like the potion's ready. i'll try a little first."

"please don't..."

he doesn't want you to try it just in case it hurts you :(

anytime he is allowed to walk freely with you around, he'd definitely put his traveler character next to you for a few minutes and just let you two stare at each other.

someone asks him why he spends a few minutes doodling on his desk when you talk.

he shows them the notebook that he had been writing notes in. it's filled with little doodles of you and some more information you give on the world of alchemy.

for future streams the involve you, he'd set up another camera to show the notes and doodles he's making about you.

sometimes he'll spend a few minutes on a single section where the camera is focused on you just to recreate the picture in the notebook.

he absolutely loves whoever planned out the camera angles because of how cute you look in every one of them.

he definitely gets a bad vibe from rosaria when she hints at the fact that you may be using alchemy against him.

he will defend you and alchemy to his grave!

that one scene where you create a flower in front of you is one he will always treasure.

he makes sure someone clipped that moment just so he can draw that, make it a print, and put it on his wall.

since most of his viewers most likely consist of artists, he will encourage them to draw you and send him fanart. he will put them all on a wall and dedicate every picture that goes there to you.

"if i one day lose control... destroy mondstadt... as well as everything around it..."

"huh?"

"will you be there to stop me?"

"wait... no."

if people were only listening to that portion, they would still be able to hear the pout on his face.

he'll end the game there but change his stream into an impromptu art stream.

he will only be drawing you in nice situations to distract himself from the fact that there is something going on with you.

"hm? what do you mean something's wrong with (name)? i have no idea what you're talking about."

poor boy's in denial...

[lostjulys]

okay not have huge brainrot on main (who am i kidding i dont even have sideblogs lmao) BUT. cranboo likes to grind and shit right? it wouldnt be outlandish to think he knows alchemy and stuff pretty well right? what im saying is he makes creams and meds for both tommy and tubbo. for skin, for joints. maybe like. smelling stuff that isnt really meds but helps with panic for tommy for example (when he hurts and it reminds him too much of dying) anyways i am going to be thinking about this for days

OH......... yes yes yes i love this so fucking much. good. good soup. like if he's spent that long grinding & making perfectly enchanted armor and potions and stuff it entirely makes sense that he'd be good at alchemy too. gd that's so good... he can't understand what they've gone through, but he can do his best to make things gentle for them from now on.......

thinking abt nlm cbeeduo & cranboo is slightly worried all the time abt ctubbo because he sees the empty potions bottles and how often he's out of it n stumbles sometimes & he goes in for the intervention but ctubbo is just like. "boss man sorry that's what happens when you chug six healing potions a day so you can do executive business without fucking collapsing lol." and ranboo doesn't know what the hell happened that he needs that, but he knows that that's worryingly unhealthy, and even if he's a kinda shit minutes man he's a good alchemist and he finds tubbo one day & goes "ok this one is safe to take daily, don't you dare chug it or you'll astral project into the end, this one can help you sleep too if you have problems with that?-sorry if thats rude you just have like pretty big eye bags- this is a scar cream? it's like a topical analgesic-" etc.

also i think. ctommy n ranboo definitely have a Lot of shared experiences irt 2 chronic pain n stuff? they both have Achy Bones n Bad Joints and have a small, ongoing war over who gets which heated blanket. & also uh shared trauma irt to sudden & violent panic attacks & flashbacks. so they fuckin. they get eachother. n they help each other and stuff. yeah. they. loyalduo ;--; also HELLO i have so fucking many thoughts all of the time abt ctommy being afraid of pain & panicking when he's hurt and shit.........like that. that really fucking sucks. holy shit. thats gotta interfere with ur life on a very fundamental level.

[emperor-of-blood]

I want to take a slight detour form my normal character classpecting to talk about something that’s always sort of bugged me: Knight and Page pairing.

The fandom sometimes pairs them based on a passive/active relationship and I’ve voiced my lack of satisfaction with the active/passive business before. But here I want to talk about two better pairings for Knights:

Knight and Witch & Knight and Prince

The Knight and Witch pairing may seem odd at first glance but hear me out. At least by my definitions, Knights exploit [aspect]/protect with [aspect] and Witches manipulate [aspect]. I’ve explained these before so I’ll gloss over why I think that for now. The comparison between manipulating your aspect vs exploiting it is... kind of blurry if you think about it. They both can be summed up as manipulating the aspect so it sort of calls into question the definitions I use, but there’s still distinct differences. 

Just look at Jade and Dave: One of the obstacles Dave encounters is Caledfwlch. It’s a legendary sword in the stone, something vital to his session. But he can’t pull it out. So instead he breaks it and rewinds Time for it back to when it was whole. This solves a bunch of his problems at once: needs a strong weapon, needs this weapon, he gets a, practically speaking, unbreakable weapon, and he doesn’t need to derail John from the important shit he has going on to pull it. And this is all done with a minor, but clever use of his powers. It’s nowhere near the scale we see Jade use her powers, shrinking entire planets, moving the ship at near-light speed, etc. Most of Dave’s journey went something like this, where he really worked his ass off to get the most out of what he had. Dave sprite spent months grinding the same enemies to farm grist. He really worked for all he got, found clever solutions, and made things work. 

Jade on the other hand, just kind of plays the game and just gets her powers. Not to diminish her importance or the work she did, but her powers came very naturally to her through just playing the game, rather than fucking with shit to squeeze out every last drop that she could. But at the end of the day, both master and manipulate their aspects, just in very different ways. 

How might a Witch of Time approach the Caledfwlch situation instead? Maybe by just being able to pull it in the first place or not needing the sword at all and finding another solution with their mastery over Time. With more obviously powerful Time powers maybe they just don’t need the sword. Maybe they just pull some Time stop Dio knife storm bullshit and that cuts the mustard until they manipulate a ‘real’ hero like John over to pull the sword out when it’s actually needed. Or how would a Knight of Space approach a comparable Caledfwlch situation? Same three problems: Needs a strong weapon, needs this specific weapon, and doesn’t spend too many resources on this (+ squeezing out any bonuses they can get from this). Maybe they could recreate the sword from alchemy? It has a code after all so they either just figure out what they have to combine to reach that or maybe they just ghost image the thing and make a fake version. Or maybe they realize why the sword is important in the first place and pull out the actually important bit. Like, is it the actual sword itself? Ehhh kinda, more it’s the magic cue ball inside it really. Which is why Jade has Dave combine the Cue Ball with the Broken Royal Deringer. They needed a strong weapon capable of harming Lord English, something they could only do by using a weapon related to him. Could the Knight of Space just make Doc Scratch’s magic cue ball and combine it with another weapon? Maybe they give it to another member of their party more suited to fighting Lord English and, now that they have the cue ball, they give that to another party member to help them out. Or hell maybe they make a bunch of weapons capable of hurting the big man, so even if they specifically have to deliver the final blow cuz of fate bullshit, the other party members can still actually participate. Imagine if during the fight John had a cue ball hammer that Lord English couldn’t eat? Or if Rose had cue ball - Quills of Echidna? That’s also only limiting the alchemy to weapons, maybe a cue ball, I dunno, belt or some shit comes out useful? It’s not like it has to only give Lord English-harming powers or omniscient clairvoyance, whose to say what sort of whacky things come out of some experimental alchemy with it?

Now Prince vs Knight, because I haven’t rambled enough apparently. Specifically, I want to talk about them as foils. So Princes destroys [aspect]/destroy using [aspect]. Again there’s the manipulation thing going on here where destroying with the aspect is a specific kind of manipulation, but I more want to focus on the second part of the Knight class: protect with [aspect]. I’ll keep this part shorter and skip the lengthy speculation. There’s also the whole ‘Lack of [aspect]’ both classes have going on. For Knights it’s in their session but for Princes it’s in themselves. Not much Time in Dave’s session while Dirk is heartless. Funnily enough, we do actually get to see the Prince/Knight pair in these two. And they really are very similar while also acting as great foils to one another. 

Idk that’s about it. Stream of consciousness over.

[hi-5-sunflower]

Saeed's intro

I did a post recently of the book's first chapter, which is Laura's introduction. However, since our other main protagonist, Saeed, doesn't come in until chapter seven, I'm jumping ahead to his intro to let the people of writeblr get to know this alchemist buddy a little bit 🙂

Length: 1,300 words

Summary: Saeed works on a potion to compete with his best friend for a permanent job as an alchemist.

Content warnings: Mention of illness. None others that I'm aware of (but please let me know if you think any need to be added!)

Saeed Azhari hardly saw where he was going as he made his way upstairs to the alchemy lab, his mind working like a colony of ants.

Stripewood bark has some anti-inflammatory properties, he thought, running a hand through his shaggy, overgrown hair. Might be a good addition to the sunleaf mixture.

The tiny lab was quiet when he arrived, and he took his preferred spot in the rear corner, close to the supply cupboard. He flipped open his pack to retrieve a stack of scribbled notes from inside before letting it drop at the foot of his stool.

A gray tabby cat leapt onto the long table to greet him, staring at him with huge green eyes.

“Hi, Quicksilver,” said Saeed.

He stroked the top of her head, and she responded with a purr, spinning around leisurely. Then he spent a few minutes absently gathering supplies for the day, considering the herb ratios for his potion. As he returned to his seat, the door swung open.

Tavi’s face was lit up in a broad grin as she strolled in. “Morning, Sai.”

“Hey. You’re in a good mood today.”

“Of course I am,” she said. “You do know what today is, don’t you?”

Saeed considered it, half panicking for a second that he’d forgotten her birthday. But no, that had been a few months ago. “Uh...sweetbread day in the dining hall?”

“No, silly.” She flopped her bag down onto her end of the table. “Today marks exactly one month until Emberhawk officially hires me.”

“Oh yeah,” said Saeed, his own lips quirking up. “Except I think you meant to say, until Emberhawk gives you the boot.”

“Ha!” Tavi casually tossed her burgundy braid back over her shoulder. “Honestly, you might want to spend today packing your bags. This thing is as good as done.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She was right about one thing anyway: the end of their year-long apprenticeship with Emberhawk Alchemy was rapidly approaching. At its end awaited a permanent, well-paying alchemist position with the company—but only one. Both of them had impressive achievements under their belts. The remaining question was which of them would come out on top.

Saeed pored over his notes for a few minutes as Tavi got settled. He’d been thinking about his current project—a cough remedy—nonstop, and he had some new ideas to try out.

Maybe a little more sunleaf this time. He shredded the herb by hand, staining his tawny fingers a yellowish green, and piled the foliage into his alembic. Fragrant vapors issued from the device as the mix simmered.

Most days, he and Tavi worked as lab assistants, running errands for the alchemy team, taking inventory, and performing repetitious production tasks. Today, however, was what they called a “free day”—a day off from their scheduled assignments, usually granted once or twice a week, in which they got to utilize this cramped little lab to conduct their own projects.

Simply put, these were the days that really counted. Here was the space in which they could prove their personal worth in potioncraft.

“How’s it going with the endurance tonic?” Saeed asked, his cheek resting on his palm while he waited for his concoction to distill.

“Could be better, actually,” said Tavi. “I had to scrap the recipe I was working on. We’re all out of lion blossom.” She rolled her eyes.

Saeed sympathized with that. Their limited access to materials was the one big stumbling block of the apprenticeship. Particularly with more expensive ingredients, they were allotted minimal amounts to work with, if any, so they had to ration carefully.

In fact, that was the primary challenge of his cough remedy project. Lyusk root was well-known to be highly effective for respiratory ailments—particularly this new, stubborn one, to which Saeed’s own brother had recently fallen victim—but there was never any of the root in their supply cupboard.

He’d just have to find an alternative.

And he would. One way or another.

Tavi stripped the husks off some chiba stalks, leaving green stains on her long fingers to match the ones on Saeed’s shorter human ones. As a member of the Jirian race, Tavi had a physique naturally built for arboreal life: remarkably long fingers and toes, effective for branch-gripping, and a prehensile simian tail. Their skin came in an array of grays, and Tavi’s complexion was a pale shade reminiscent of a dawn sky. Her burgundy hair was bound, like most days, into a single plait hanging down her back.

Saeed returned his attention to his notes for another quick review, then stood up and made for the supply cupboard again.

The shelves of the narrow closet were lined with jars and sacks of herbs, minerals, and brightly colored concentrates. Just standing in here, breathing in the cacophony of herbal scents, sent a thrill through his veins. Despite their complaints about the limits upon them, they still had a good variety of ingredients to experiment with.

Now, to find that stripewood. The S’s were on the lower shelves, which was convenient, as Saeed was rather short. There you are. He plucked a jar off the shelf. Curls of shredded brown bark filled it halfway, and Saeed unscrewed the lid, gingerly extracting a few pieces.

He closed his palm around them, focusing. In this dead and dried form, there was only a trace of its original life energy left within it, but it was there, and he could feel it if he really concentrated. He let his mind go quiet, let the little shavings tell him what their purpose was.

Its essence, once brought out, would provide a mild soothing effect, but without numbing. Just what I need. He sent a wave of gratitude to the bark before heading back to the table to put it to use.

In his peripheral vision, Tavi was scribbling away, making that face she always did when she was deep in her tasks, with her eyebrows furrowed and the end of her tongue sticking out. He set to work, smiling to himself.

Starting with their first alchemy lesson when they were just eleven years old, the two of them had shared a fascination for potion making, matched only by their drive to outdo one another every step of the way. They had something of a code between them: no cheating, no sabotage, and no being a sore loser. Even as teens, they’d adhered to that code strictly.

Most of the time, anyway.

Saeed used a mortar and pestle to grind the stripewood bark into a coarse powder before stirring it into the sunleaf mixture. Then he shuffled through his notes again, resenting the fact that he could barely read his own handwriting.

“Sai,” said Tavi, nodding toward his equipment, “let me borrow that quarterspoon really quick.”

He slid the little measuring scoop down the table to her.

“Thanks.”

They spoke little over the course of the next few hours, and Tavi wrapped up her day by transferring her potion-in-progress into a brass storage urn. Saeed did the same with his own product. Soon he’d need to find time to run safety testing on the potion, but he felt good about what he’d come up with today. He hummed a little tune as he set to putting away supplies.

“I see that cocky look on your face,” said Tavi, smirking as she came up beside him.

Saeed shot her a look of feigned indignance. “Who, me?”

“Yes, you.” Tavi gave him a playful shove. “Don’t you worry, I’ve still got some good ideas to try out.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Saeed. They walked back to the table together, and as Saeed prepared to pack up, he noticed a few greenish potion droplets on his notes. The ink smudged as he tried to wipe it dry.

We’ll see.

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

Thanks for reading! And as usual, here's the tumblr link to the book's full intro for anybody new to the story!

You can also buy a copy for 99 cents (USD)!

Tag list: @thelaughingstag @a-completely-normal-writer

[ruakichan]

State of Roo Gaming conglomopost:

Alchemy Stars (summer event):

120 pulls no Fleur. I has sad. Got trolled by two 6* in the same element even.  Outlook bleak. This is gacha life. Game took a look at my A3 water team and said I didn’t need him. Game doesn’t understand thirst. : ( I need him.

That said, I am here for the energy of Fleur and Brock as Those Two Guys, even more so as Those Two Guys Who Absolutely Should Not Be Left Alone Unsupervised.

Summer story’s pretty interesting, though I did get bored with a lot of the beach-life stuff as I do in every gacha that does summer events sans GBF.  I don’t particularly feel anything toward Beryl, unlike Eve; she’s very passive so we haven’t seen any of her personal thoughts or feelings about much.  Hell, half the reason I’m so salty about Fleur is cause he actually got more development than Beryl did so far, which made me like him more than just a pretty face!

Humor beats are still pretty spot on though. And at least this game really knows how to make events feel like events.

3 more days and I’ll be done with Stage 4 for Regal, THANK GOD. The dispatches are such an annoying time-gate. I have a ton of energy packs saved up so I should be able to clear out Stage 5 much more quickly. Looking forward to getting my first Eternal Silent Hunter!

I ran out of characters I feel like A3ing so now I’m just grinding to level up equipment.

I don’t know if I should get Barton (who I do not have) or Nemesis (who I need one more copy of to max breakthrough and thus have her skill set to pre-emptive) from the free ticket they give. This is one of the few times where both would technically be dick picks, but one would be useful for meta (Nemesis is one of my core Thunder units) while the other I don’t have but would like to. DECISIONS!  At least the ticket doesn’t expire. i’ll end up forgetting about it most likely

GBF (lotto drama):

Man that lotto drama whaoooo.  I’m mostly retired/seasonal in GBF these days (and my loss of reliable/fast internet in a week will just compound that due to ping/racing/refresh) so I don’t really care, but just whao.

That said, I think with this being people’s last straw shows that some people really don’t know how to give things up on their own and don’t realize it’s okay to fall out of love with something you once enjoyed or spent a lot of time/effort/money in.  I saw a lot of complaints about X or Y no longer having magic/fun etc for them any more, and they still stick around cause they keep hoping that it’ll come back, and I can tell you—it rarely ever does if you stick around.  It’s okay to move on. That sunk-cost fallacy just does harm until only bitter feelings are left.

As for me, I did come out with a T3. Picked Nehan cause I always go dick picks in gacha and I was clamoring for a Nehan unit back during SoR’s original run. Used the second one to go meta with G.Narm though since there was nothing left for me to really get, but I dislike Narmaya so she can just sit there in my inventory with all her other versions CAUSE SHE WON’T LEAVE ME ALONE I guess.

Did literally nothing else though; just no real time to play grindblue lately.

Exos Heroes (director’s notes):

Hahaha, the devs noted they were nervous about how people would react to the first Memorial Saga and I BET IT WAS DUE TO THE TWIST LOL but anyone who has used Rachel or came from Exos Saga weren’t gonna be shocked. Regardless, the translation referred to the story as from “Ramge and Rachel’s youth” and I laughed cause IT TOOK PLACE A WEEK BEFORE THE MAIN GAME’S STORY????

Hope the 2nd MS ends up actually giving rewards for side quests.

Thank god though that they are going to implement a give up section for tag battles. I no longer have to set up [my absolute most hated character in this game] as a sacrificial character any more and can set up some more proper teams.

Infinity Core is still shit but at least now they will be showing what you’ll be facing the entire week instead of day-by-day reveals. Half of the issue is playing a guessing game on what FCs you need to hoard in case their theme comes up and thus purposely limit yourself from actually achieving higher stages.  Still wish they’d just allow you to keep the stage you’re on if you already cleared it in a previous week. Why the hell do I have to redo the stage(s) every week if I already passed it? At least quick battle will be implemented to a limited degree.

Glad they acknowledged the biggest problem in the game: inability for new players to catch up.  The gap between vets and newer players never ever narrows due to all the time-gating elements this game has.  I’ve been around the block in a lot of games and the ones who have this gap never has good player retention and ends up shrinking just to a core base of cliques until the game dies. Too bad no solutions offered.

I was disappointed Blue Kaya doesn’t buff HP for support units, then remembered HP is the biggest problem in PVP so yeah, no, nevermind, good on them for realizing that. Didn’t roll for her since I went ham on the summer banners and defense scales poorly in this game due to the HP inflation.

... oh man, I got momentarily excited when I saw Saint West was getting SF3. Then remembered Rachel, while from Saint West, is the heir to Saint West’s throne, and is basically labeled as Saint West in everything else in the game, is actually the general for Lenombe. Fuck me. When will they buff him. I’m tired of facing SF3 nations and seeing my nation’s gimmick being told to pound sand cause they refuse to buff his nation even though he’s fallen way off the meta a long time ago. i think i will literally blow a fuse if greenland gets sf3 before lenombe

In non director’s notes news, I linked up Shadowbane to Lenombe. Luna and Garlond are pretty fun to use and I hope to eventually slap them onto my WR team for tag week to see how that works out, but they worked really well in Infinity Core. Glad I finally have a viable Frost unit I can use since who is Bathory? She doesn’t know me.

Dunno who I’d put in Rudley’s spot since I use him so that my Lenombe team has at least more than one chance to kill these tanky SF3 nations. Zeon is just useless now due to the prevalence of Misty and I tried out Misty and she’s okay, but she’s not the best synergy with Lenombe. I wish A.Zeon would get his FC already so I can pair him with Schmid to get the Vagabond SF bonuses... (but I’m thinking the outcry against the genderbends pushed that back RIP...)

AND FINALLY. FINALLY!!! YOU CAN GET R1 GEAR AT YORM SHOP. OH MY GOD. I CAN FINALLY GEAR MY CHARACTERS. NO MORE HATING MY LUCK. /bloodtears

[rise-of-the-fullmetal-alchemist]

Icarus

         “Merciful God, please hear my prayer.

         Casey kneeled before the altar, the mantra practically embedded in her DNA after the countless hours spent in prayer. She clasped her hands tightly, almost painfully like she did yesterday, and the day before, and the days preceding that- looking up to the God she worshipped on that stood tall in his stone mould.

         “Please bring them back”

          A low whistle echoed through the cathedral,and Casey spun around to face the aisle.

         “Wow, they sure spent the town budget on this place, huh?”  

         The interruption came in the form of a group of colour-coordinated turtle Yokai. The purple banded member seemed to be the one who made the loud interruption, which was incredibly rude of him, but Casey could tolerate his actions because it was a compliment to the architecture of the cathedral. He loudly clacked his feet against the marble tiles as he entered the hall, properly making his presence heard as if whistling wasn't enough. A tall red turtle looking awfully shy for someone his size followed in, accompanied by a blue banded turtle, who were silently following the loud purple one. The group was completed with a fourth who wore a whole suit of armour in contrast to the others dress code, ironically wearing the smallest orange mask on his already masked face. They seemed to be travellers, unlike most of the people who came to the cathedral, packing light despite the heavy-looking armour that one guy was in. The purple yokai took the lead of the group, strutting around the hall without much care.

       “You aren’t from around here are you? I don’t think I've seen you four before.” Casey sat up slowly, her legs wobbled a bit as her nerves roused. “You’re here to learn about Letoism?”         “Pass,” he dismissed with a wave, ”we aren’t exactly the religious type.”          She was a little annoyed at how quickly he had shut him down but remained civil.         "To know God is to know hope, that's what Father Harold always says. If i had it my way, I'd be screaming my lungs about the glory of our God, but it's a sin to be a public nuisance. Since discovering and believing in the divine grace, impossible has become possible."          Casey scans them quickly, and finds herself questioning just how possible these strangers’ salvation could be.          The red banded one- it was a mouthful to think, he needed a new name. “Big Red” would do - Big Red folded his arms, his expression thoughtful before he spoke."So whaddya think about bringing back the dead? Ya think that's possible?"          “Yes, I do,” came the easy reply. It had to be true, Father Harold had been proven to be capable of so much. He promised that he would bring back Casey’s family, she just had to be patient. She had faith that he would carry it out. Lying was a sin, and Father Harold wouldn't lie.          The purple banded yokai, which she nicknamed, “Eyebrows”, sighed and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a small worn notebook, flipping to a bookmarked page.          “Water: 35 litres. Carbon: 20 kg. Ammonia: 4 litres. Lime: 1.5 kg-”           Great, he’s speaking in tongues.

          “-And various other trace elements.”            He snapped the book shut loudly.           “That list represents the complete chemical makeup for the body of an average adult,” his gaze turned back to her, “it’s been calculated to the last microgram, but modern science has failed to produce any reported cases of creating a human or yokai life.”              He rolled his eyes- no, eye- she realised upon further inspection.

           “But yeah, I’m sure just praying is gonna make it happen,” Eyebrows’ voice dripped with sarcasm.             This boy stepped into God's home to insult His power, and Casey’s anger was starting to boil over. Her fists clenched at her sides as she resisted the urge to glare, schooling her expressions to look somewhat neutral. "Don't underestimate Leto’s power! So long as we have faith, He will answer our prayers!" Casey was ignored as Eyebrows continues to drone on as if she never spoke at all.            “Oh, and those ingredients? Mere pocket change,a child could get it from the corner store.” Eyebrows smirked, seemingly as if he had won. “Turns out people are made pretty cheap.”             Casey’s arms strained with tension as she was starting to lose against the rage that was taking over her mind, her balled fists turning white and painful. She couldn't help but glare as she ground out the next sentence, "That's blasphem-"            “Alchemists are scientists, we don't believe in unprovable concepts like creators or God.” Eyebrows looked up from the floor he had been looking at for the past few seconds, his line of sight moving up until his gaze connected with hers. She felt attacked. He came into the cathedral just to mock her religion she so whole-heartedly believed in for some sort of petty self satisfaction. He paused for a moment, having a minor staring contest with her, which ticked her off immensely. He lingered before his gaze travelled up again, this time to look at the statue of Leto behind the altar, watching down on all of them. It was rude to stare at God like that. They were His children, not his challengers or equals.          “We observe the physical laws that govern this world to try to learn the truth. It's funny, really.” He closed his eyes, as they reached God's face, as if pondering what he could achieve with his oh-so powerful alchemy he spoke of. "Through the application of science, we have in many ways been given the power to play gods ourselves…” 

          The audacity of this bitch.

          “So you’re putting yourself on the same level as God? Do you even hear yourself when you speak?”            Instead of answering the question, Big Red spoke in his friend’s place. "Ya know, back where we came from, there's an old myth about some guy- a hero who flew with wax wings." Red paused again, seemed like this band of Atheists could join a play, they'd be able to pull off the prose with all the dramatic pausing-or maybe a circus would fit these clowns better. He gestured his hands a little, looking down to try to find the right words, sighing before he continued with the story. "He thought he could touch the sun, but when he got too close..." He trailed off, making her anticipate the next part of the story.           "The wax melted right off. His wings? Gone- all that work for nothing. And he came crashing back down to earth," he finished grimly.            His expression felt rueful, more like he was recalling a memory rather than a myth. Eyebrows shared a look with Red, their gaze communicated some form of assurance that only made her question what exactly the quartet had come there for. They seemed to forget her existence for just a moment, stuck in their own bubble of reality.            Casey felt awkward, like she was intruding, yet they were the ones who were coming into the Lord's house, not the other way round. The silence stretched for a few moments longer, and she was beginning to wonder whether she should say something, but then again she didn't know what she could say.            Thankfully, the blue one- Stripes- stepped forward to save her from the tense silence.            “Sorry for the trouble, this is hard for me to ask.” Stripes glared at his friends, a subtle message to get their asses out of their moping session, before looking back to her in a sheepishly apologetic manner. ”But do you think your Father Harold could save even a couple of arrogant scientists like ourselves?”             Casey perks up at that,at least one of them was willing to consider, this conversation wasn't wasted getting pissed off at inconsiderate assholes after all. "If anyone can make you see the error in your ways, he can!"

           The boys looked to each other as she turned back, grinding her teeth knowing that she could finally punch something to take out her anger, just as soon as she wasn’t on consecrated ground. 

[aeondeug]

I like the things. I just need Very Particular Kinds Of Worlds to be free in. HZD I just really like the aesthetic, it has combat I really love, and the progression makes my brain make the happy sounds. Also LOTS OF PLOT and I like LOTS OF PLOT and LOTS OF LORE. And Aloy Pretty Girl.

Kenshi is just Grinding: Prepare to Not Die Even Though You Want To Edition. It is ALL progression systems and cruelty. You are free to go where you want and do what you want, but the world will fucking tear you to shreds and shout at you to keep going. You’re strong than that. Be stronger than that.

Morrowind has just my actual favorite lore delivery system I have ever been provided, a non-leveled world, and progression systems up the ass. It’s also got one of the most broken magic and alchemy systems in the entire world. It’s got a lot of broken systems really. The delights of Morrowind are half enjoying the world as intended and half breaking the game over your knee like a twig. Not even Vivec can stop me in my quest to fuck with things.

Daggerfall puts like. A bizarre level of detail into little things about living in a fantasy world. You can’t just carry endless amounts of money. So you can open bank accounts. But like...Your bank accounts aren’t like universal. Different areas have different banks. And if you want to transfer money between banks, you need to pay a transfer fee. There’s little things like this that I love. It’s one of the few games I’ve played where I felt like I was living the life of someone in a Thieve’s Guild. Like not a fancy person. Just a normal ass thief. I got spotted breaking into a house, ran through it in a panic, found what I was looking for, swiped it, ran out the house while guards were chasing me, climbed up the wall of the house, and leaped across roof tops until I jumped out of the city gates. And then I ran and ran and ran until I could finally head back to home base. I never went to that town again. Also I spent like three days stuck in one dungeon only to learn I literally couldn’t get through it right then and had to then figure out how to fucking leave.

[feyoransilverleaf]

“So they threw them out?” 

Dr. Tau Lin winced. “No, they were requisitioned.” 

“So,” Feyoran demanded, “Where are they?”

“An accident. Someone hadn’t cleaned out the mortar well enough after processing Firebloom, and when my assistant went to grind Fel Lotus - well, you know. He’s recovering well.” 

Feyoran winced. No wonder there was a new set of crude furniture in the small room the two of them had shared. 

“There’s more,” the doctor said, flumphing down on the bed. “Commander Valorfist has decided that the housing has to be limited to the full time enlisted.” Feyoran couldn’t help the small, disgruntled noise. Tau caught it, and gave a half shrug. “It does make sense. We’re busier than we were after the damn Siege, and you know as well as I do how hard it is to get public service. .” 

“Hmm. So I’m thrown out as well as my poor alchemy equipment.” She’d meant for the words to come out lighter than they did. “Well, we always knew that one day that damn paladin would drive me out of the city all together.” 

“You two did get on like a cat and a lake,” Tau said, and Feyoran smiled at the mistranslated Darnassian adage. “Really, though, Fey, I’m sorry. I’ll miss having you as a roommate.” 

“I barely spent time in here, Tau. It was a place to store my belongings.” 

“I know,” the human said cheerfully. “That’s what made you such a good roommate.” She rifled under her pillowcase for a second, then withdrew a small but thick envelope. “Calling cards. Some asked for you specifically, some needed a specialist in interdisciplinary work. There’s the date and one or two notes on the back. More than enough to start up your private practice again.” 

Feyoran hesitated a moment, struck by her colleague’s generosity. “Thank you, Tau.”

The shorter woman smiled up at her, kicking her legs a little. “No problem, my friend. Did you have time to catch up, maybe some coffee-?” 

The Gnomish pager on Tau’s desk chose that moment to let out a shrill beep, and both of them winced. “I guess not,” Tau said with a sigh, and shuffled to the door to put on her shoes again. “Maybe later, drop me a note.” 

“I will,” Feyoran said softly, turning the envelope over in her hands slowly, and in a moment the human was gone, and she was left alone in the room that she hadn’t realized meant anything at all to her.

Outside, the Stormwind bells chimed noon, and she left with a sigh, slipping out a side door to avoid any other doctors. The bank would hold her supplies well enough; she needed to leave soon to get to Shadowforge on time. 

[hellsbovnd-archive]

LF RP — LEONNAUX ALTOIX

For all practical purposes a ghost, this Elezen only appears on public records as far back as three summers ago. It’s likely, then, that he’s chosen to live under an assumed name. He tends to use his appearance to his advantage, passing himself off as a Wildwood whenever it suits his interests—which, given the discrimination that Duskwights face, is more often than not.

He first stepped into the public’s eye as a small-time journalist—and, unbeknownst to all but those closest to him, the proprietor of The Cloak & Dagger (under the alias “Crow”). He is passionate about magicks and has a demonstrated talent for alchemy beyond what one may expect of a man who’s only twenty and one summers old. Shortly after founding The Cloak & Dagger, he retired from journalism to pursue academia full-time.

In Character

Profession(s): Academic — Director of Alizarine Research & Reclamation ( @alizarinefc ). Information Broker — Proprietor of The Cloak & Dagger, and current self-proclaimed leader of the Ebonguard ( @ebonguardls ). Formerly — Mythril Eye beat journalist.

Alignment: Generally neutral. Loyal to the Eorzean Alliance, but not particularly interested in being a law-abiding citizen.

Professional Talents: Magic — Arcanima and other rune-based arcane arts. Alchemy. Warding and minor enchantment. Illusions. Bartending/mixology.

Current Residence: The Goblet, Sultana’s Breath.

Likely Haunts: Ul��dah and Thanalan, primarily. Bookstores. Antique Shops. Magic Shops. Bars and Taverns. Gambling Establishments.

Hobbies: Gambling, primarily poker and other card games. Magic tricks, primarily sleight of hand. Reading, anything he cant get his hands on. Occasionally writes poetry. Music. Fashion.

Abbreviated Bio: Leonnaux is a Shroud-born Duskwight. He is obsessively studious and somewhat selfish in nature, though simultaneously surprisingly laid-back. Those who can make it past his strictly-business demeanor might note a heart of gold, despite the kind of work he’s often involved in via The Cloak & Dagger.

Having run away from home and come to Ul’dah, he quickly had to find a way to make money, which led him to dip his toes into the criminal underworld... and after he took the plunge, he never looked back, using his position as a journalist as leverage over his contacts. He took advantage of his new-found freedom (both in person and, to an extent, in finances) to continue his studies into the flow of aether and alchemy.

MORE INFORMATION: Full Bio | Tag

Out of Character

Hi there! I’m Mid and I use they/them pronouns! I’m generally most active during NA Evenings and Late Nights. I play on Balmung, but I'm open to RP connections from across the Crystal datacenter.

You can find detailed information about my hopes and expectations for RP on my dossier, here. The quick and dirty version:

OOC Communication > All

I am a med/heavy lore-strict RPer. I prefer medium-to-low power levels in RP and character- and plot-driven scenes. I won’t RP with any player under the age of 18 but as long as you’re not making it weird/creepy, I don’t have a problem with underage characters.

I run an FC and an LS, so I can be pretty busy OOC because I have to run a lot of stuff related to that.

I do not RP on Discord, but I have always been smitten with Tumblr RP as a longform format, so if in-game RP is impossible for some reason, I’m happy to write starters.

In terms of things I’m looking for:

Casual acquaintances and friends!

Business contacts!

Long-term plot-focused RP connections!

Recommendations for events to attend? (And company to drag me along since I hate flying solo.)

Discord and Linkshell communities! Leonnaux is a Shroud-born Duskwight, a criminal, and a mage, so any Discords and Linkshells catering to that would be great for forging connections, though I'm fairly shy. u.u

In relation to some character development, I would love to find a mentor for Leonnaux!

Detailed RP Hooks Under the Cut!

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in playing with me then please feel free to send me a message or make a note of it in the tags or comments on this post. My Discord is available for OOC arrangements and chatter upon request! If I’m slow please bear with me; I have a habit of getting absolutely swamped with stuff at more or less complete random, and my energy levels vary wildly from day to day and week to week.

RP Hooks

1. The Academic/Scholarly Community.

While the majority of Leonnaux’s academic career has been spent in seclusion, teaching himself the skills he’s learned, he eventually came out of his shell. He’s always looking to expand his horizons, and has an extensive personal collection (although it’s doubtful that he’s read every book cover-to-cover).

Leonnaux is very interested in alchemy and, as he practices a mixture of arcanima-rooted rune-based magic and component-based magic resembling alchemy, he’s always itching to learn more about other schools of thought regarding the art. He’s taken a shine to Ul’dahn alchemy since moving to Ul’dah, but he himself heavily utilizes traditionally Duskwight methods. 

Despite his talent for alchemy, he also doesn’t always have the time or knowledge to go out and collect his own reagents and materials, so he relies heavily on outside help, be they merchants in Ul’dah or independent suppliers.

He is also the director of Alizarine Research & Reclamation, a company focused on such academic pursuits as well as the study and acquisition of artifacts, regardless of whether their significance lays in their history or their properties.

2. The Criminal Element

For a long time, Leonnaux’s primary source of income was selling information. He’s always had somewhat of a disdain for law and authority, viewing such things necessary only insofar as they serve his ends. 

He sells secrets and whispers under the guise of a somewhat ostentatious man known as “Crow,” using his “messenger” (really a cover to ensure that he was taken seriously in his work, and to protect his identity/safety if things went awry) as an intermediary between himself and business contacts as a means of protecting his identity due to the nature of his work. He is also not above thievery and is knowledgeable about underground trade networks.

“Crow” is also known to be the leader of a loose criminal network that he calls “the Ebonguard” and is the proprietor of an establishment known as The Cloak & Dagger, a restaurant meant to be a sort of ‘neutral ground’ for criminals and n’er-do-wells to do business and have a good bite to eat.

Leonnaux is known to gamble his money in seedy places. More than happy to sit for a game of cards or a cigarette, one might notice that he can get an uncanny winning streak going under the right conditions. The keenest might be able to connect the dots to the pronounced talent for sleight of hand and other magic tricks that he seems to possess.

In the criminal underground as Crow, he’s earned a reputation for declining the use of force except where absolutely necessary, instead preferring to use blackmail and public humiliation as his primary source of leverage over his contacts and clients. However as he’s given up his job as a journalist, he lacks that leverage and his position is far more precarious. Past clients or contacts with an axe to grind are 100% welcome as pre-established contacts, as long as we talk about it first! 

3. Contract Work.

Leonnaux is more than willing to take contract work, although he has his boundaries. This is in its own heading because he’s willing to take work to research things or track down artifacts as he is to sell information or organize heists to steal valuables. His only hard line is that he won’t kill on contract and he will not aid in any plot involving human trafficking.

Note though that Leonnaux is comfortable enough financially that he may not take every job that’s pitched to him. High risk jobs that offer little reward are likely to be declined, but if the pot is sweet enough then he can be convinced to do anything that doesn’t cross one of his hard lines.

(Note that RPing contracts in the east will be difficult, as I don’t generally play with IC teleportation due to playing on the lower end of the power spectrum.)

4. Mentor + Apprentice

Leonnaux is primarily a self-taught mage, though recently he’s been shown that while it’s an impressive accomplishment, he’s nowhere near as skilled as his peers. His casting is sloppy and reliant upon prerequisite components, which means that he’s not great in situations where he has to improvise. In general he lacks discipline, and he can’t take a hit to save his life. He would love to get stronger, but is unsure of how to go about it.

(Note: This is an extremely long-term plot hook, so I won’t pursue it with anyone I’m not comfortable with. If you’re interested in exploring a mentor/apprentice dynamic with Leonnaux as the apprentice, then feel free to reach out to me and we’ll get talking; I’d like to get to know you via unrelated interactions and general shitposting/chatter first! Forgive me for being awkward, though, I’m very bad at keeping up with people. orz)

Leonnaux is also open to passing on his knowledge of alchemy to others, given that he practices an unusual form of it and would like to see the Duskwight practices preserved outside of Duskwight communities.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Thought That Counts By K.J. Parker

Issue #250, Special Double-Issue

, April 26, 2018

AUDIO PODCAST

EBOOK

“...wanted me to marry Logo the tanner. He’s got a beautiful home, she said, and you soon get used to the smell. Mother, I said, I don’t want to get used to the smell. I don’t ever want to be the sort of person who doesn’t notice the stink of sheep’s brains. She just looked at me. That’s when I knew I had to leave.”

I decided I didn’t like her mother. Priorities all wrong. Egging her on to marry defenceless tanners when she should have been teaching her not to talk to strange men in stagecoaches. Which raises the incidental question; am I a strange man? I guess, on balance, yes. Decide for yourself.

“So I went home, slung all the stuff I needed into a bag, and here I am, on my way to the big city. My name’s Sinneva, by the way.”

“Constantius,” I lied. “Pleased to meet you.”

Another lie, but she smiled. “Are you a priest?”

Two reasons why a man might be wearing ecclesiastical vestments in a coach on the four-way to Sempa Sacona. One, he’s a priest. Or two, the lock on the vestment cupboard at the Blue Light monastery is so pathetic a blind man could open it with a sprig of damp heather. “Yes,” I said. “Sort of.”

“Are you going to Sempa?”

“Stopping off,” I said. “On my way somewhere else.”

“It’ll be my first time in the big city,” she said, “I’m looking forward to it so much. All my life I’ve wanted to go there. Is it really as wonderful as they say it is?”

“Depends on what you like,” I said.

“I’m going to be an artist,” she said. “Somewhere like Sempa, you can make a living as an artist. I do portraits. I’m not terribly good at it.”

That would explain the bag full of little pottery jars nestling between her feet. I’d sort of looked at them sideways when she first got on the coach. Worth money to somebody, but rather a specialised market. Besides, I’m through with all that sort of thing.

“Funny you should say that,” I said. “I’m interested in paint.”

“Painting.”

“Paint,” I said. “I dabble a bit in alchemy, and I reckon it might be possible to make synthetic blue. Instead of having to grind up ruinously expensive lapis lazulae in a pestle and mortar.” She didn’t say anything, so I went on: “There’s definitely a demand for it. A genuine deep royal blue at a fraction of the price. A man could make a nice little bit of money that way.”

“I’ve never used blue.”

“Too expensive?”

She nodded. “That’s why I started doing portraits, you don’t have to have any sky.”

“There you are, then,” I said. “When I’ve perfected my synthetic blue, you can do portraits of people outdoors. You could corner the market.”

She looked at me. Strange man, she was thinking. At this point, her mother’s awful warning should have leapt into her mind and shut her up like a vault, but no such luck. “People like to be painted in their houses,” she said, “surrounded by all their possessions. It’s the convention. That way, you can see how rich and powerful they are, and what exquisite taste they have. Outdoors, they could be anybody.”

“Ah,” I said gravely. “I see.”

“Not that I want to be constrained by conventions,” she said, looking out of the window. “I want to paint what I really see. Does that make any sense to you?”

“As opposed to what other people see? Or what’s actually there?”

I was starting to get on her nerves. Well; it had taken long enough. “What I see,” she said. “Which may not be the same thing as what you see.”

“Because I’m not particularly observant, and may have missed something.”

“Because I see the world as it could be.”

“Ah.” I pulled a couple of walnuts out of my pocket and cracked them together in my palm. I have very strong hands. “In that case, maybe you should consider religious subjects. The spiritual dimension.”

“Women aren’t allowed to paint icons. You should know that, being a priest.”

“Sort of a priest. And I didn’t specify icons.”

“If it’s a portrait and religious, it’s an icon. So I can’t do those, it’s illegal.”

“I read somewhere,” I said, quoting myself—well, I sometimes read my own books, when all else fails— “that the object of portraiture is to capture the soul of the sitter.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

Thank you, I nearly said. “I reckon you’d have to know a lot about human nature. Do you?”

“Everybody does, don’t they? Like fish know about water.”

And still thirty miles to go until we reached Sempa. But you don’t get to choose your travelling companions on the public coach. Next time, if there’s any justice, I’ll get a couple of rich tallow-chandlers who think they’re good at playing cards for money.

Actually, I was telling the truth about blue paint. I came across the tantalising possibility a few years back, when I was making my living as a fraudulent alchemist, and I dream of the day when I can settle down and do the thing properly, in peace and quiet, not always having to jump out of windows in the middle of the night to avoid creditors, disillusioned investors, or the Watch. It’s a sad thing to say about yourself, but I’m not the most honest, upright citizen you’re ever likely to meet—which Sinneva the would-be portrait painter should’ve noticed at first glance if she was in any way suited to her chosen profession. I won’t tell you my name, because you’d recognise it immediately; and either you’d say, My God, it’s him, or, Oh God, it’s him, depending on the context in which you’ve heard of me. But you will have heard of me. Everybody has.

The reason I’d come to Sempa was to see the Polyglypton brothers. If you know Sempa, you’ll know their stall; it’s under the lime tree in the old Bird Market, and you’ve probably spent far more money there than you care to admit. They have their warehouse and scriptorium (rather a grand name for a long, draughty shed) out back of the stockyards, where the air is always heavy with the stench of blood. You get used to it, so they tell me, but I can’t imagine how.

As I walked there across the Victory Bridge I amused myself with the thought of Sinneva the aspiring artist; suppose she managed to land the job of her dreams, doing the illustrations for the extra-special-deluxe editions (no, not those ones, they don’t let women work on those). She’d turn up for her first day at work, and the smell would hit her like a hammer—a tannery is roses and lavender compared to what the breeze wafts down from the slaughteryards—and someone would grin at her and say, it’s all right, you get used to it. I stopped at the outer gate and splashed a fat blob of attar of violets onto the lapels of my coat. It helped, but not very much.

Sivia and Massimo Polyglypton receive visitors in their office, which is more a sort of hayloft over the warehouse; you climb up a ladder, for crying out loud. I’d never met them before. Sivia is tall and thin, Massimo looks like the sort of man they hire to throw undesirables out of brothels. They told me to sit down and offered me ginger tea.

“We liked it,” Massimo said, “very much. But—”

“But?”

They looked at each other. “I mean, it’s very clever,” Sivia said. “Well argued and very well written. It’s just—”

“What?”

Awkward pause. “I think,” Massimo said, “the word we’re looking for is ‘derivative’.”

Derivative. Good word; not one you’d expect to hear in a loft downwind of an abbatoir. “Derivative of what?”

Massimo pursed his lips. “You’ve read the Metaphysics, obviously.”

The book he mentioned wasn’t called that. I’ve changed the name. Why shouldn’t I? I wrote the damn thing. “Well, yes.”

“And Reflections on the Abyss and Sunrise.”

“Oh yes.”

“That’s what we’re getting at,” Sivia said apologetically. “Frankly, if He’d written this, we’d be all over it like ants on a dead donkey. Coming from you, though—”

“Someone nobody’s ever heard of,” Massimo added.

“It’s a question of authority,” Sivia said. “Credibility. To get away with the sort of thing you’re saying here, you need to be—well, someone like Him. You think all this is very startling and original, but if He says it, obviously there must be something to it. No disrespect, but you don’t carry that weight. You haven’t earned that right to be listened to. It’s not the same.”

Annoying, because the Him they were talking about was, of course, me; universally respected as one of the greatest philosophers of my generation but wanted in all the major jurisdictions for every crime in the book short of actual murder. “I see your point,” I said. “So, you don’t want it.”

They looked at each other. “We didn’t say that.”

“Ah. So what are you saying?”

They said it, and then we haggled a bit, and the upshot was, I settled for thirty angels instead of the seventy-five we’d originally agreed. Annoying, because I needed the money, but thirty angels was twenty-nine angels ninety kreuzer more than I had in the whole world at that time (that’s putting the value of one set of stolen ecclesiastical vestments at ten kreuzer), so I was, of course, pleased to accept.

Not, I reflected as I scrambled back down that ridiculous ladder, that I had much to complain about. Writing the wretched thing had kept me mildly amused through the long dreary months I’d spent holed up in a half-derelict sawmill in the hill country north of Copis City, waiting for the fuss to die down after one of my more misguided indiscretions; the parchment and ink had cost me maybe two kreuzer, so nobody could pretend I wasn’t well ahead of the game. Even so. To be fined forty-five angels for not being me when I really am me is a bit hard. And since being me is such a wretched, troublesome business at the best of times, it sort of rubs salt into the wound, if you see what I mean.

But never mind. There I was in Sempa Secona, a place where there were no outstanding warrants for my arrest and no extradition treaties with either the Eastern or Western empire, with thirty gold angels in my pocket. For once in my life, I could walk down the street without looking for places to run to if I heard someone yell my name. That set me thinking: artificial blue paint. Well, a man has to have a dream. The fact that mine is so utterly prosaic is neither here nor there.

I hired a shed not far from the bone mills, for thirty kreuzer a week. One unfortunate by-product of alchemy is the smell (you get used to it, but...); my neighbours at the bone works would be in no position to get stroppy about a few noxious fumes, except on the grounds of breach of monopoly. I managed to buy the glassware ridiculously cheap from someone’s gullible widow, with enough left over to keep me in stale bread and no-longer-perfectly-fresh salt fish for several months, by which time I was absolutely certain I’d have cracked the last few remaining problems. A life of honest endeavour; well, why not? Everyone ought to try it at least once before he dies.

I won’t bore you with the results of my researches. Suffice it to say, I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that making artificial blue paint using certain specific ingredients and a certain method, which I won’t specify here, is absolutely impossible. As a scientist, I was pleased to have added to the sum of human knowledge. As a moral philosopher, I was able to conclude that living a pure and upright life doesn’t of itself lead to happiness or even peace of mind. The day before the money finally ran out, I did come across a tantalising possibility which, one of these days, I really must get around to following up, since it might just be the missing ingredient that would make all the difference; but of course I was in no position to do anything about it at that time, so I sold the glassware for even less than I paid for it and wandered into the centre of town, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

A number of rather unpleasant things have happened to me over the years in and around law courts, so I really can’t tell you what possessed me to drift across Haymarket and down the Snailshell into the Forum of Justice. But I did, and sure enough, it being a week-day in Middle Term, the court was sitting. I guess the novelty of the situation—a court of law in session, and me not being the unwilling centre of attention—piqued my interest; anyhow, I sat down on an empty seat in the back row, next to couple of fat rich women eating apples, to watch the show. It was a fairly slow day, interlocutories in disputes over shipping manifests and bills of lading, and I was just about to leave when the magistrate banged his little hammer and four grim-looking gaolers led out, in chains, my annoying young friend from the coach; yes, her, the would-be portrait artist.

Four gaolers; in my prime I only ever merited three, and I was pretty hot stuff, though I do say so myself. True, she was taller than average and no willow-wand, but four kettlehats, for crying out loud. What could she possibly have done? And, come to that, was it something so awful that the authorities might be interested in her known associates? I kept perfectly still and started paying attention.

It was a simple short-form arraignment, rather than the actual trial. The prisoner Sinneva was accused of treason, attempted murder, and grievous bodily harm. She had entered a plea of Not Guilty, and the prosecutor was asking the magistrates to commit her for immediate trial.

The magistrate asked if the prisoner had a lawyer. The prosecutor didn’t actually grin; none of the accredited public defenders were prepared to represent her. And therefore -

Remind me, when I’ve got five minutes, to have my legs cut off. They’ve come in useful over the years—running away, they’re really good at that—but on this occasion they got me into serious trouble, and I can’t risk them doing it again. They stood me up—I swear, I had nothing to do with it—and there I was, on my feet and listening in horror to my own voice, asking permission to approach the bench.

The magistrate looked at me, took in the ecclesiastical gown, and nodded. So, feeling incredibly bewildered and stupid, I waddled slowly down the main aisle until I was practically nose to nose with the magistrate, a small, red-faced man with thick wavy white hair. I cleared my throat. “This woman,” I said, “has no representation.”

“That’s right.”

“On a capital charge.”

He peered at me. “I don’t know you,” he said.

“I’m from out of town. Is this how you do things in Sempa?”

He sniggered. “No, not in the normal course of things. Are you a lawyer?”

“Yes,” I said—truthfully, as it happens; at least, I have four degrees in civil and criminal law, though most of my experience has been on the other side of the fence, so to speak. “Constantius of Beloisa. I have diplomas from the Studium, the Imperial Institute in Mavortis, the Purple Chamber in Scona—”

“Mphm.” He was impressed. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this, trust me.”

I gave him a polite scowl. “I make formal application to defend this prisoner.”

“Don’t you want to know what she’s done?”

“Is alleged to have done. No, not particularly.”

A gentle sigh. “All right, mister Out-of-Town, and on your own head be it. Duly accredited.” He looked at me. “Give your address to the clerk, you’ll be notified.”

I hesitated. “The fee,” I said.

“Ah.” He looked at me again, taking in the frayed cuffs of the robe, the sweatstains inside the collar. “Standard rates, one angel twenty a day. Want me to cross you off the docket?”

“It’s not about the money,” I said.

“Of course not. Dismissed.”

Naturally, I asked around. Information wasn’t hard to come by; it was the scandal of the month. This weird female had blown into town, nobody knew where she’d come from, and set up a stall in the market; your portrait painted, one angel. No takers, naturally; so she started doing portraits for free, and actually they were really rather good; you know how crazy fashions suddenly spring up out of nowhere, suddenly she was the new big thing. You had to have your portrait painted by the little peasant girl, or you were nobody. Soon she had a waiting list long as your arm.

Naturally, the best people wanted to jump the queue, started offering her good money. She refused; one angel, no more, no less. Now an angel is a tidy sum in some contexts; you could buy the farm I was raised on for three angels, including the live and dead stock, the standing crops, and my kid brother. In Sempa, you could live elegantly on one angel for a month, or any-bloody-fashion for a year. But the high class portrait artists, who were suddenly finding themselves with time on their hands ever since Sinneva showed up, routinely charged fifty angels for a cameo, three times that for a regular canvas. This curious reluctance on her part to make out like a bandit had been duly noted as significant, in the light of what followed.

The first case was Governor Scaevola, just back from three years in one of the northern provinces. There’s a saying in revenue circles; the good shepherd shears his sheep, he doesn’t skin them. Scaevola flayed his sheep alive, and was therefore nicely set up for life when he came home. He was one of her first high-class commissions; and three days after his portrait was delivered—he was delighted with it, by all accounts, and so was his wife—they found him in his study late one night, sitting in the dark, not moving at all, staring at the wall.

After that, Senator Juppito, the Friend of the Poor; the Lady Iphianassa, patroness of the arts and Sempra’s leading society hostess; Genseric, the banker; Mediobarzanes, the playwright; Massimo Polyglypton the bookseller (oh dear, I thought, never mind), and half a dozen others—all the same, struck dumb and motionless, empty-eyed and living-dead, soon after the little peasant girl had painted their portraits.

Sempa is a rational, secular sort of place. They repealed their witchcraft laws about seventy years ago, and people only go to Temple to be seen in their new clothes. Be that as it may. There’s only so much weird stuff people can take before they start jumping to conclusions. Poor little Sinneva was arrested and slung in jail, while they tried to figure out what to charge her with.

First, they had a go with administering a noxious substance, arguing that she must have poisoned their drinks. But she always painted her subjects at their houses—she didn’t seem to have a studio or anything like that, and she lived in a nasty little garret over a fishmonger’s, where presumably she was in the process of getting used to the smell when they took her away. They examined her paints and solvents, but all they found was the usual stuff that every artist uses; besides, if it was something she was using that had done the damage, surely she’d have poisoned herself in the process. The debate moved up to the Senate, where Juppito’s mob, the Optimates, tried to ram through a new witchcraft law, applicable retroactively. But the Popular Tendency talked it out of time, simply because it was the Optimates who’d proposed it, and so nothing could be achieved that way. Meanwhile, the families of the victims were howling for something to be done, and the attorney general was up for re-election. He resolved to charge her with treason, attempted murder, and grievous bodily harm, on the strict understanding that anyone who defended her would never work in Sempa again, and trusted in Justice to run its ineluctable course.

As accredited counsel for the defence, I had the right to make certain investigations. So there I was, with two kettlehats making me nervous, climbing the stairs to Sinneva’s rotten little lodgings and wishing, really wishing, I’d never got involved.

The kettlehats were along to make sure I didn’t touch anything or interfere with evidence. They had a really quiet morning. It was a tiny little room under the eaves; bed, chair, second-best dress hanging behind the door, plain plank table with half a loaf of stale bread and a pitcher of badly gone-off milk, and a copy of Human, All Too Human open at the bit about the immortality of the soul (which nearly made me smile; I remember writing it, with a murderous hangover and the rain dripping through the roof), and that was it, nothing else whatsoever. Evidentially neutral; no hit list or subversive literature, correspondence with fellow-conspirators, jars of poisonous chemicals; no evidence that the stupid girl had been spending her new-found wealth on anything nice, which is what any normal, innocent person in her circumstances would surely have done. No money, come to that. Her known commissions must have netted her at least forty angels; the rent on the garret was three kreuzer a week—she was robbed, if you ask me—and bread and milk, ten kreuzers a month, tops. Where was the rest of it? In a bank? Or was she sending it home to her poor impoverished parents? Unlikely, I thought, given the terms on which she’d parted from them, but I wasn’t going to tell the prosecutors that. Even so; I felt like I’d been dealt a piss-poor hand with which to defend the stupid child. Served me right, I suppose, for sticking my nose in.

It was what wasn’t there, of course, that interested me. For that, I could see no alternative but to visit my client, something I really didn’t want to do. Also, if the hypothesis I’d formed about five seconds after hearing the facts in the case was true, there was nothing she could tell me that would be any use to me in getting her neck out of the noose. No, the hell with that. I was going to have to wing it, make it up as I went along. So happens I’m good at that—very good indeed, which is how come I’m still alive and writing this. Actually, I told myself, I’d had so little experience with positive favourable evidence (because I’ve always been guilty as charged), probably this wouldn’t be a good time to start trying to learn how to use it. Stick with what you know, is my motto.

I took a deep breath. “Your honour,” I said, “I’ve listened with great interest to the facts in this case, so ably presented by my learned friend. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when he stopped where he did. I was expecting so much more. I was waiting patiently for evidence—hard evidence—connecting my client in any way to the tragic events we’ve just had described to us. Surely, I said to myself, there must be something. But apparently not. My learned friend has just told you that he rests his case. Being a fair-minded man, I would like to give him one last chance to add to what he’s just said. No? Sure? Very well. But please, don’t say I didn’t give you every opportunity.

“Let’s consider the facts. My client, an innocent country girl, comes to this great city to fulfil her lifelong ambition. She is a naturally talented, I may say quite brilliant, artist; entirely self-taught, I might add, she’s never had the benefit of any formal education—unless my learned friend would care to tell us about it, the schools she’s studied at, the masters she’s been apprenticed to. No? Are you absolutely sure? Very well. No formal education whatsoever. She grew up milking cows, churning butter, sweeping floors, and dreaming of a better life.

“After only a week or so in this uniquely cultured and appreciative city, her talents were recognised. Despite her disadvantages of class and gender, this plucky and determined young woman starts to make a name for herself. Clients besiege her door with commissions. My learned friend has tried to make her refusal to gouge her clientele for large sums of money into something sinister. I see it as evidence of the purity and integrity of her artistic nature. This poor innocent child, living only for her art, wasn’t interested in money, or status, or any of the glittering distractions of the world. All she wanted to do was the one thing she’d always wanted to do. What, I ask you, could be more natural?

“And so she painted portraits, at least forty of them that we know about. And of these forty clients, a dozen have—most unfortunately—fallen ill. I feel sure that nobody has more sympathy for them and their families than my client. But what the prosecutor has signally failed to do—because it’s impossible—is establish any faint thread of a connection between these misfortunes and my client. Unless and until he can do so, I honestly believe there’s no case to answer.

“Consider the so-called victims. All of them are in late middle age or older. All of them—how can I put it delicately?—have enjoyed to the full the delights of the table and the wine cellar. All of them are men and women of great spirit and passion, with a tendency—a perfectly natural, indeed laudable tendency—to express themselves fully, to take matters to heart, to get excited and passionate about things they feel strongly about.

“In my hand, I have a copy of the standard work on diseases of the heart and brain, written by no less an authority than—” Well, modesty forbids. “In the passage in front of me, the distinguished author describes the causes, symptoms, and effects of a stroke. I won’t take up the court’s time by reading it aloud, the matter is common knowledge. A stroke is an affliction of the brain, caused by an interruption of the blood supply. It leaves the victim paralysed, unable to speak or move. It is caused by excessive eating and drinking, combined with violent exertion of the body, mind, or spirit.

“Consider what you know about the alleged victims in this case, all prominent members of society. They all ate and drank to excess; they all were involved in public life, in politics, government or the arts; they lived passionate, stressful lives. They were, in short, prime candidates for the terrible illness I’ve just told you about. That this scourge should have come upon them, cutting them down in their prime, depriving us of their talents and their usefulness to our society, is to be deeply regretted. For once, the word ‘tragedy’ would scarcely be an overstatement. But to ascribe these disasters to my poor young client—on what grounds? I have heard none today, and once again, I call on my learned friend to enlighten me. Nothing more? Nothing at all? Well, then.

“Just in case you still aren’t convinced, let me point out a few more relevant details. This comprehensive and universally respected book in my hand contains no mention of any poison, drug, or artificial stimulant capable of deliberately causing a stroke. Leave aside the fact that no chemical apparatus was found in my client’s possession; ask yourself this: could this simple country girl have discovered or invented such a poison, on her own, uneducated, brought up among the cows and goats? I think not. As it happens, I know a little about alchemy. It would take a genius a lifetime of research to come up with such a complex toxin. My client is nineteen years old. Draw what conclusions you wish.

“As I’ve already mentioned; as the prosecutor himself admits; my client has painted at least forty portraits, almost certainly more. Twelve from forty leaves twenty-eight. If my learned friend’s allegations have any substance at all, there should be at least twenty-eight other helpless victims in this city, sitting in chairs, staring helplessly at the wall. If so, we haven’t heard about them, and their existence is therefore not admissible in evidence. In fact—I’ve made my own enquiries, since the prosecutor seems to have neglected to do so—all twenty-eight are in perfect health. Among them, please note, are senators, members of the aristocracy, leading figures in commerce, business, and the arts.

“My learned friend made a perfunctory effort to connect the status of the alleged victims to their dreadful fate, as though my client had sought to strike down the flowers of our society. The fact is, all her customers came to her clamouring to be painted; she didn’t choose them, they chose her. Twenty-eight rich, famous, influential, talented men and women were painted by my client and have suffered no ill-effects. Once again, the facts don’t simply speak for themselves, they shout at the tops of their voices.

“Recently, the wise and distinguished Senate of this city ruled unambiguously that there is no such thing as witchcraft or sorcery. But witchcraft and sorcery, I put it to you, are precisely what my client is accused of; tacitly, because to say so openly would be to invite ridicule. Therefore, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, I call on this rational, truth-loving court to dismiss these ridiculous charges and let my poor, long-suffering client go free. I rest my case.”

God, I’m good, though I do say so myself. The magistrate shook his head, blinked a couple of times like a dazzled rabbit, and said the magic words: case dismissed. You could have heard a pin drop.

I left, quickly.

Having done what I’d set out to do, I rushed off down West Street, through Absolution Square, short-cut through the Shambles, up Pin Street. I’d known from the outset that the wretched girl had to have a studio somewhere, or where else did she keep her paints, her easel and her money? I’m good at ferreting out stuff like that, so it hadn’t taken me long to discover where it was. I hadn’t gone there, because—well, like I said, nothing helpful to my case to be learned there. Now that I’d won, however, I had no such compunction. I wanted, make that needed, to know.

Stupid cheap lock, I don’t know why anyone bothers with them. Inside, I saw a chair, facing a shuttered window; two shelves lined with little pottery jars; two easels, on which rested two portraits of the same man, almost but not quite identical; a cheap earthenware plate; a pestle and a mortar; a tinderbox.

Oh God, I said to myself. Here we go again.

I thought; this time, I’m not involved. Nothing to do with me. True, I stuck my oar in, but even so, none of this is my responsibility, my job, my fault. I can just go a long way away and be free and clear. Above all, I owe no duty of care to the truth—me, of all people, perish the thought.

More to the point; if I interfere, what can I possibly achieve? Nothing.

I walked down to the Flawless Diamonds, where the stagecoaches leave for Mezentia and all points west. I had just enough money for the fare. The stage pulled in. Mezentia is lovely in the spring, when the cherry trees are in blossom. All aboard, they called out. It left without me.

Truth is, despite ferocious competition for the job, I am and always have been my own worst enemy.

Let me take you back a few years; I won’t specify how many, because I don’t suppose you’ll believe me. I was a student at what was at that time the finest university in the world, though it’s gone downhill a lot since then. I wasn’t the smartest kid in my year, not by a mile. I did my best to make up for my shortcomings through diligence and determined effort. You have faith in stuff like that, when you’re young.

I don’t know when I first noticed her. She wasn’t a student (no women at the university in my day) but she wasn’t a local’s daughter. She hung around in the square and the library forecourt, sketching in inks or charcoal; she wore a big straw hat which shaded out her face, and there never seemed to be anybody chaperoning her or keeping an eye on her, which was odd enough in itself. I can’t say I remember any of my fellow students making any sort of play for her whatsoever, which was stranger still. It was almost as though she was invisible and only I could see her. Now there’s a thought.

I have my faults, but chivvying unattached females isn’t one of them. Besides, in those days I was desperately earnest, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life: graduate, join a respectable Order, teach, research, write papers, win a chair, tenured professor by the time I was thirty-five. It was all I’d ever wanted.

But things weren’t going all that well. I was smart but not quite smart enough. I could feel the boundaries of my abilities, and I knew that what I wanted to achieve was just the other side of the rope. I could picture myself getting stuck somewhere in the middle, like a man stranded halfway up a mountain, unable to go further up or turn back. I could see myself scraping a doctorate; then what? Fine if I had private means; I could spend the rest of my life floating around the university, taking twenty years to write a modest paper on some peripheral issue, adding a footnote to the great book of human knowledge. But I had a living to earn, and for that I would have to be good enough, not just quite good, and there were so many better men than me. So, in due course, the scholarship money would run out and then it’d be back on the coach, back home, to the farm, or else a job as a clerk or a tutor to some rich man’s loathsome son. It’s a dreadful thing to be twenty-one and realise that you have no future after all.

Which may go some way to explain what I was doing on the bridge (not the famous one; the other one, about half a mile downstream), one foot on the parapet, staring down into the water. Whether I was thinking about jumping, or using the thought of jumping to force things back into perspective, I really don’t know; anyway, I was too preoccupied to notice someone walk up behind me until I eventually took a step back and trod on someone’s toe.

“It’s quite all right,” she said, grinning at me. “I’m just glad you decided not to.”

I looked at her. “That obvious?”

She had the enormous hat pushed back on her head, so I could see her face. Not beautiful exactly but striking. “You’d be amazed how many boys your age come and stand on this bridge, thinking what you were just thinking. Hardly any of them actually do it. What’s the matter? Debts, exams, girl trouble?”

You know how easy, how fatally easy, it is to tell things to a stranger you wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else. Also, unlike anyone I’d ever met in my entire life, she sounded interested. So I told her, the whole story, everything. She didn’t interrupt, and when I finally ran dry, she smiled at me. “Is that all?” she said.

I pulled a face. “I know,” I said, “it does all sound a bit stupid when you say it out loud. And of course there’s millions of people in the world far worse off than me—”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “You have a real problem, a very serious one. I’d be suicidal too, in your shoes, if there wasn’t a perfectly simple way out.”

She’d lost me. “What?”

And then she’d linked her arm through mine, and we were walking side by side, down the broad steps to the towpath. “You come here a lot,” she said.

“My lodgings are just down there,” I said, pointing vaguely. Poor Town. Well, she’d probably guessed that from the deplorable state of my shoes, if she was even remotely observant. “I take the short cut through Long Meadow to the Schools.” I stopped. She grinned.

“I’ve noticed you,” she said. Curious way of putting it, I thought at the time. “You’ve got an interesting face.”

Of course, she was an artist. “Interesting,” I said. “That’s not actually a compliment.”

“It’s a statement of fact.”

“Ah,” I said. “One of those.”

When I left my room that morning, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do with the day; either a short drop and a splash, or go to the library and read Psammetichus on essential transfiguration. What I hadn’t anticipated, one little bit, was a stroll along the riverbank with a girl in a straw hat. “What perfectly simple way out?” I asked her.

“I’ll tell you, if you’re good,” she said. “Later,” she added. “Right, here we are. Now stand under that willow-tree over there and look thoughtful.”

Out with the slate, the sheet of paper, and the stick of charcoal. Ah, I thought.

“You’re going to be Parthenius,” she explained, “and the river’s the Aurus, and somewhere over there out back of the charcoal sheds is presumably violet-crowned Olessa, though of course that won’t be in the picture. No, keep still, you’re no use to me if you keep moving about.”

Keeping still isn’t one of my strong points, as various law officers have discovered the hard way over the years. But I tried my best, and eventually she said, “All right, you can breathe now.”

My left foot had gone to sleep. “Can I see?”

She turned the slate to her chest. “It’s only a sketch.”

“What on earth is the point of a picture if people can’t look at it?”

“It’s not terribly good,” she said. “Now turn that way, and look melancholy. No, that’s not melancholy, it’s heartburn. That’s better. Hold it exactly like that.”

We ended up spending the rest of the day together, and the next day, and the day after that, but still she hadn’t told me the perfectly simple way out. I tried reminding her tactfully, but she changed the subject. Besides, I’d sort of figured it out for myself by that point. The simple way out of my frustration and despair was to fall in love with a wonderful girl, which apparently I’d now done. Silly me for not having thought of it earlier.

“What would you like,” she asked me, at some point, “most of all in the whole world?”

We were watching the swans on the river. Apparently they mate for life. “That’s a good question,” I said.

“Pretend I’m a goddess or a witch and I can grant wishes. Money?”

“Money isn’t everything,” I said. “No, what I’d like is to be clever.”

She pulled her poor-baby face. “You are clever.”

“I wish I was the cleverest, wisest man who ever lived.”

“Mphm.” She nodded. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather have the money instead?”

“The wisest man who ever lived would never be short of money,” I said. “But a lot of rich men are idiots.”

“All right, then,” she said, and threw a crust for the ducks.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

She frowned at me. At that precise moment I was being Teudra dividing the upper and lower heavens, which is a confoundedly tricky pose to hold for more than ten minutes. “What?”

“It’s a very personal question. You may not want to—”

“Keep still. What?”

I couldn’t draw a deep breath without wobbling, so I just made myself say it. “Where does all the money come from?”

“Oh, that.” What had she been expecting me to ask? “I’ve got a rich uncle in Permia. I’m all he’s got, and he wants me to enjoy myself. What do you want to do most in the whole world, he said, and I told him, this. So here I am.”

“Ah.”

“Talking of which.” She appeared to be peering past my ear, looking intently at something that wasn’t there. Painters do that. “What do you want, most in the whole world?”

“Right now? To itch my nose.”

“Tough. What else?”

“To stay here like this, with you, forever.” Well, it seemed the thing to say at the time.

“I see,” she said clinically. “So as far as you’re concerned, this is the perfect moment.”

“Apart from the itch. Look, do you think I could just—?”

“No.” She took a step back and looked at me, or at the god creating the firmament through me his temporary proxy. “I once read that if there’s a moment so perfect that it couldn’t possibly be improved upon, it could never ever be any better than this in any respect whatsoever, then Time would stop still, everything would be trapped motionless like a fly in amber, and that would be the end of the world.” She squidged the end of her brush between her fingers. “That’s what made me want to paint.”

“To bring about the end of the world? A bit antisocial.”

“The perfect moment, captured for ever,” she said. “A painter can do that. No more old age, no more death. In a painting, you can be forever young, beautiful and happy. There would be no later, no decay, no decline, no consequences.”

“I don’t see a future in it.”

She clicked her tongue to acknowledge the wordplay. “All right, relax, before you fall over. Take the weight off your feet, I’ll make us some tea.”

She made the most wonderful tea, full of obscure, delicate scents and flavours. I sat on a chair, massaging the calves of my legs. She perched in the window-seat, with the light behind her.

“And that’s not all I can do,” she went on. “I can make people what they want to be. I can make old women look young, poor men look rich, sad people look happy.”

“Stupid into clever?”

“Piece of cake.” She turned the easel slightly. “See for yourself.”

She really was very good. Teudra, not only as the Creator, but in his aspect of bringer of wisdom; perfectly represented, a whole college of theologians couldn’t have found fault with it. And yet it still looked just like me; weird.

“Anyway,” she said, turning the easel back. “How are you getting on with Induiomarus?”

“Going through it like a knife through butter,” I said cheerfully, and it was true. Ever since I’d met her, the standard of my work had improved dramatically; all my tutors had commented on it. Hence Induiomarus; we weren’t supposed to get on to him until third year, but there I was, soaring through the notoriously obscure and elliptical Shadow Analects like an eagle. “Actually, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“Is that right?”

I nodded. “He says everything in this really cryptic, mystical, up-himself way, but actually what he’s saying is pretty obvious. And I think I’ve caught him out in a false premise.”

“Ooh,” she squeaked. She was alarmingly well-read. “Which bit?”

“Book seven, the clockmaker analogy. I don’t think it works, because if the clock is found lying on the seashore—”

“How’s it supposed to have got there? Yes, I wondered about that, too.”

I gazed at her. Talk about your perfect moment. “I’m so glad I met you,” I said.

She was excited. She’d gotten a commission to paint a portrait of the Professor of Alchemical Theory. I was stunned. As far as I was concerned, the man was a god. “How on earth did you manage that?” I asked.

“Through my uncle,” she said. “He knows all sorts of people.”

“All the best portrait artists do it,” she explained. “Move, you’re in my light.”

She was sitting in her studio, with her back to the window. Before her were two easels, on which stood two almost but not quite exactly identical paintings of an old man with a bald head and whiskers. “You paint two pictures,” she said, “precisely the same. But one of them will be perfect.”

“The one on the left,” I said.

“You see? It works. It’s an old trick. I read about it in a book somewhere.”

“Twice the work,” I said.

“That’s why the best artists get paid ridiculous sums of money.”

I studied the painting for a moment. “I’ve never met him,” I said. “But I feel like I’ve known him all my life.”

“Euphronius says the job of the artist is to capture the soul of the sitter.”

I smiled. “Well, you’ve done that all right,” I said.

“I’ll make us some tea.”

Three days later, the Professor suffered a devastating stroke. He was found in his study, surrounded by his books, mouth lolling open, eyes fixed on the wall. He never moved again.

“Just as well I got cash on delivery,” she said. “For the painting.”

That struck me as a bit insensitive. “At least his family will be able to remember him as he was,” I said. “Thanks to you.”

“When he was perfect.” She smiled at me. “That’s the point,” she said.

She went to bed early. I sat up finishing an essay. As I sprinkled it with sand to blot the ink, I remembered that she’d left the lamp lit in her studio. That would never do; smoke from a guttering wick, with all that drying paint. I went in to put it out.

There was a distinct smell of burning; not just the lamp. I noticed a little brass stove, the sort that elegant people use for making omelettes at the table. There was something in it, smouldering. I investigated. The charred ends of splintered limewood board, the stuff she used to paint on. I looked round and saw the two easels. On one of them was a finished portrait. I recognised it at once; my tutor, Lacasta, the most amazing likeness. The other easel was empty.

Three days later, Lacasta had a stroke.

(I only found out how she did it years later, in a digression in a book about witchcraft among the Permian nomads. To steal someone’s soul, apparently, you paint a picture of the victim, burn it and grind the ashes up fine, into dust, which you seal in a small pottery jar. When you want to consume the soul, thereby adding its wisdom, force of character and other virtues to your own, you mix the dust with certain herbs and make an infusion; a bit like tea. All complete nonsense, of course, said the book I read; there’s no such thing as sympathetic magic, and probably just as well.)

I was out of there like a shot, as you can imagine. I ran up the street in my nightshirt, hammered on the door of a good-natured friend, borrowed a change of clothes and two angels, and caught the night mail to Solitene. From there I wrote to my supervisor explaining that for urgent personal reasons I could no longer continue my studies at the university; however, I would be eternally grateful if he would write me a letter of recommendation to the faculty at the Golden Hook. The letter arrived by return, and it must have said something nice because the Dean of the Hook gave me a place on the spot. A year later I graduated top of the class, was awarded a fellowship, assistant professor eighteen months later, all the rest of it. Some bad stuff happened after that, but it’s not relevant to this story.

She was in her studio when I got there. She looked different. She reminded me a lot of someone I used to know. “Hello, you,” she said.

“You again,” I said.

She smiled at me. “I’ve missed you,” she said.

Behind her, the shelves were empty. On the floor, about a dozen little pottery jars, with their lids off. She had a little brass stove, on which sat a silver kettle. She’d just made a pot of tea.

“It wasn’t a coincidence, was it?” I said. “You being on that coach.”

“It was awfully sweet of you to defend me,” she said. “Did you know it was me?”

“No.”

“Fibber. Of course, they couldn’t have hurt me. Nobody can hurt me, physically. Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“I made it for you.”

I stood there rooted to the spot. “How did you find me?”

“Very easily,” she said. “I only started looking recently. You see, I was very much in love with you back then, and when you ran away I was heartbroken, but then I met someone else and we were very happy together for a very long time. And then he ran away too, and I remembered you. Sure you don’t want some? It’s good for you.”

I felt sick. “You ruined my life,” I said.

“Rubbish.” She had a nice smile. “I asked you what you wanted, and you said, to be the wisest, cleverest man who ever lived. And you said money wasn’t everything, and you’d always be able to get some from somewhere. I gave you what you wanted, because I loved you.”

I managed not to scream at her. “You made me a thief,” I said. “A con man. Some days I wake up and even I can’t remember which name I’m using.”

“You can be anyone you want to be. That’s another special gift.”

I looked at her. “I don’t think I’ve got anything more to say to you,” I told her. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t come near me. Just leave me alone.”

She shrugged. “You don’t mean that.”

“Trust me.”

A little sigh. “You won’t know it’s me, the next time, and the time after that.”

“Yes,” I said. “I will.”

“You didn’t in Blemya.”

Oh God, I thought. But she’d died, surely. “Keep away from me,” I said. “Do you understand?”

She didn’t say a word, just carried on smiling like an angel. I reached the door.

“Cobalt,” she said. “It’s what you’ve been missing. For the blue paint. I love you,” she said.

“See you in Hell,” I said, and slammed the door.

Knowing her, I probably will. One day I’ll be sitting there, burning quietly, up to my manacled ankles in molten sulphur, and there she’ll be, smiling, holding a bunch of keys and a teabowl.

Draw your own conclusions about the doctrine of the perfect moment. For me, the world ended a long time ago.

[lovelylogans]

daisy dukes

shoutout to @warnadudenexttime​‘s roman edit, here, which was on loop the whole time i was writing this. i’m really uncertain about writing from roman pov so this was an interesting experiment, lmk how it turned out!

warnings: irresponsible underage drinking, self-hate and self-deprecation, occasional swearing, angst

pairings: royality if you want. could also be platonic i left it open for interpretation

words: 4,374

read on ao3

It had been a bad week.

Nothing had particularly caused it. No bad grade, or snide words, or upsetting news. Just a week full of Roman feeling like he wanted to rip off his own skin out of sheer boredom, the cursor blinking menacingly at him from the pages of a word document, and the only notifications on his phone from people trying to maintain some kind of social media milestone. Just a week full of awkward small talk, an absent roommate, and music filling up the silence of his dorm room. Just his melodrama deciding to act up again, just his brain throwing a hissy fit when it didn’t have to do so.

Patton would tell him to reach out, to talk to someone. 

The thought of Patton—sweet, kind, wonderful Patton—dropping whatever Friday night plans he surely had, just to sit and listen to Roman whine about how he was feeling sad, and lonely, and miserable, actually made Roman want to break something, so he wasn’t going to do that. It wasn’t Patton’s fault that he’d picked a tiny college two states and five hours away, good for Patton’s future career, while Roman had stayed in their home state. It wasn’t Patton’s fault that Roman hadn’t been able to talk to anyone. It wasn’t Patton’s responsibility, and it wasn’t Patton’s problem, and he would not have Patton—pitying him.

He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it.

Roman slipped his headphones around his neck, grabbed his key, and slouched out into the hallway, down the stairs, to the vending machine nestled in the basement. He passed by two girls toting makeup bags, chattering loudly about something at a Greek organization, a string of foreign syllables strung together that had graced Roman’s ears often enough in the past few months. 

He fed a dollar into the vending machine. He got some orange flavored soda. He fed another dollar into the machine, and got another one. He slouched back to his room. He dropped to his knees in front of his bed, and pulled out the black safe his parents had gotten him in a midst of theft concerns that Roman had used for only one thing. He fished the key out of its hiding face, and knelt again, opening it.

He pulled out the bottle of vodka, and rose to his feet. 

He picked up the plastic cup he’d stolen from the dining hall weeks ago and began to mix his drink. Alchemy, he thought to himself. The only kind of chemistry he could ever understand.

He’s working on draining the cup for the third time before he thought, fuzzily, about the Greek party the two girls mentioned. He looked at his cup. He measured the weight of the glass vodka bottle in his hands, heavier than expected.

Greek party meant free booze. Free booze meant not draining what little supply he had. Greek party also meant people barring him from the party unless he knew people, which, fucking clearly, he didn’t.

Unless he was creative about it.

And, past week aside, Roman knows how to be creative. It’s one of his only redeeming qualities.

He looks at the vodka bottle, his plastic cup, and grins at it a little.

Going to frat parties alone is dangerous, Roman, a voice that sounds remarkably like Patton’s echoes in his ears. It’s irresponsible.

Maybe I want dangerous, he thought next, and abruptly cut off that line of thought before it could go anywhere... bad. 

College years are all about irresponsible, right?

He drained his plastic cup, and turned to his closet. If he was going to do this, he had to look and act the part.

He got ready in his room, smoothing over his hair with his hand, because he didn’t want to make the trek down the hall to the bathrooms, and also mirrors weren’t all that appealing at the moment, and picked out the best outfit he could. He scrolled through social media for about fifteen minutes, before he straightened his shirt and strode out of his room, out of his dorm, and into the cold wintry night. He shuddered, tucked his hands under his armpits, bent his head, and speedwalked to the frat house—still took ten minutes. He slowed as he heard the bass thumping, and surveyed the house. 

It was ridiculous—pillars and a grand doorway and a walkway lined with dead, unflowering bushes—and Roman circled the house, once, twice.

There were boys guarding the doors. He saw clusters of women get waved in, and stray men get waved away. Roman frowned, and pinched at his shirt, and thought. 

He didn’t have to think very long.

“Hey!” Someone called, and Roman felt someone clap their hand on his shoulder. He jolted, and turned.

“I didn’t know you were in a frat,” the girl said. Roman could place her face—she was in his intro to acting course—but not her name. Roman hesitated, looking to the house, and back to her. There was a cluster of her friends behind her.

“I’m not,” Roman said, and decided to be honest. “I just want to get drunk, and I don’t have a fake. So.” He gestured weakly to the house. For a moment, everything was still.

Then she threw her head back and laughed, and slung an arm around his shoulders. “How ‘bout I help with that?”

Roman blinked. “Really?”

“Really,” she said, and with some gesture to the group, the cluster of girls clouded around them, and she frogmarched him forwards, not letting her arm leave his shoulders.

The boy at the door was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, open over his bare chest. He frowned at Roman.

“He’s with us,” the girl piped up, and smiled at the boy. “He’s in a different chapter. He’s from UCLA.”

The boy drew back, looking at Roman, previous scowl gone. “Oh, sick. Sup, dude?”

“Sup,” Roman agreed, and bumped fists with him as the boy waved their whole group in, and Roman looked at the girl. In. He didn’t even have to try to think of a solution.

“I owe you,” he said.

She waved him off, and just as suddenly as she’d appeared, she and her group vanished into the crush of people. 

Roman squashed down the feeling of disappointment. She didn’t have any obligation to talk to you, he scolded himself. 

The frat party was just like any other frat party: the only light was from the funky bulbs some poor rushing freshman probably had spent the whole day screwing in, throwing everyone’s faces into odd shadows. The talking was loud, but the music was louder. It was crowded, and people were bobbing to the beat. It’s a frat party; nothing fancy, nothing too out of the ordinary. Just rap music, and drunk people, and cheap alcohol mixed with cheaper soda. 

He knew what to expect. A tiny basement with some kind of pole that the drunkest would try to dance on. People grinding like there was no tomorrow. The ground sticky with spilled drinks. People making out in corners. Pockets and clusters of dancing people. 

Roman closed his eyes for a second. Breathe in, breathe out.

He opened his eyes, and let a charming smile stick itself upon his face as he gently shoved his way through the crowd, heading for the booze.

The people manning the bar seem a little overwhelmed, or a bit too preoccupied with the girls leaning heavily on the counter, batting her eyelashes. So Roman takes two red solo cups, and fills them to their brims before sweeping his way out onto the dance floor, already working on transferring its contents into his body as quickly as possible.

He didn’t want to think. So he had to drink, and fast, so his thoughts got to that enjoyably floaty stage, where he couldn’t hang onto a thought if he tried, ideas and realizations and impressions floating through his fingers like smoke, never to be seen again. 

It turned out, downing two red solo cups filled up with vodka and just enough soda to make it so that he didn’t gag at the taste within five minutes of each other did that pretty handily.

He went back and drank two more. Just to be really sure.

Then a song starts playing, and something about the slow bass beat burrows its way into his bones, and he nudges his way closer to the center of the dance floor.

He could do this, too. He knew he could.

It was like the song was moving him, the song a current or an ocean wave, and Roman was doing all he could to stay afloat, to move with it. His eyes slid shut, and he let himself crest and fall with it; his hips swayed, his arms curled, his torso twisted. 

He was aware of the people surrounding him, the room heating to ridiculous degrees, though that might have been the booze, too. It’s the sea of anonymous bodies, pressing in on him, closing him in, like he was amongst their ranks. They surge and eddy with the wave, with the beat, guided by the same bass, the same warmth in their stomachs, all of them a single entity of motion and sensation.

Colored lights exploded behind his eyelids. All that mattered was the beat. All that mattered was the music, the lyrics, the beat, the drums and synthetic rhythm. He didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was sad, he was here, and that was what mattered. He wasn’t going to think. Roman danced harder, like if he moved well enough, if he was graceful enough and suave enough and good enough, he wouldn’t be so fucking sad anymore, like all his problems would be fixed.

He went to get some more drinks. The exact number of how many he’d had was starting to get blurry. He went back to the dance floor.

He could smell sweat and vodka and an edge of something that was either perfume or cologne. The vodka was puckering his mouth, the obnoxious sweetness of the soda clung to his tongue. He didn’t want these things. He didn’t want to feel them. He wanted to be—he didn’t even know what he wanted to be. Some kind of organism, its only thought of functioning in this noisy current of this ocean of bodies. Like his body could only express rhythm and sensuality, his place in this bizarre ecosystem.

And he doesn’t know if it’s the vodka hitting him at last, or the fact that the song has changed to things he recognized—but, gloriously, it started to work.

The music matched his heartbeat, and he could feel his heartbeat thundering away in his chest. He moved, faster faster faster, almost clumsy with it, but feeling so eager and bright for once, bouncing and swaying and swinging as the beat declares, and he’s so familiar with the cresting waves now, practically surfing them. The atmosphere’s infectious, and as he got into the flow of it, Roman realized he hadn’t even been focusing on keeping a smile on his face; and yet, his cheeks were hurting anyways. 

He loved this. He loved it so much. It was like he was shaking all of the bad out of his body, sweating it out, stomping it underfoot, letting the beat whisk it all away. Dancing almost felt more intoxicating than the vodka, at this point, and he was just—lost in it. He was dancing for himself, lost in it. 

Something hedonistic and joyous was building up inside of him, and he laughed with it, the sheer energy inside of him, and then he opened his eyes.

There was no one with him.

The smile slipped, fell, crashed off of his face. The laugh faded abruptly.

It felt like the stupidest realization in the world. Roman had come alone. He had had passing conversations, at best, with the other people here. 

He’d come to forget. Mission fucking accomplished. He hadn’t anticipated the pain of remembering. 

It was like someone had flipped a switch inside of him. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted out, now. He wanted to be plastered and stupid and alone. 

He pivoted sharply, and started to shove his way towards the bar. People barely paid him any mind, too busy talking and laughing with their friends, and God, Roman was the freak who’d come to a party, alone, and danced, alone, and expected people to like him for it.

What a fucking joke.

He didn’t matter to these people. He was such a small, forgettable blip on their radar that they weren’t even bothering expending the energy of forming an opinion of him.  And... and maybe they shouldn’t.

The bar had been mostly abandoned. Roman calmly went behind, dug around, and came out with a travel mug the size of his head. And then another red solo cup. Just because.

Roman shouldered his way up the stairs, ignoring the “hey!” of a girl, and fled the building.

He started to walk.

He kept on walking. He occasionally found his feet to be a bit cumbersome, and he would pause to take deep gulps of his drink, before he kept going. He didn’t know where he was going. He just knew he didn’t want to go back to an empty room.

Surprisingly, there were still people wandering campus at this hour. A few people seemed to be just as intoxicated as he was; others just seemed like night owls. Roman surveyed them all, and wondered if his desperation was quite as obvious from the outside.

Finally, he managed to crash onto the quad, and took solace, sitting on the ground, leaning his back against a pedestal that held some weird modern art sculpture, shuddering from the sensation of cold stone up against his back.

Something buzzed against his ass. Roman frowned, and dug his phone out of his pocket, squinting at the screen.

message from dadshine

Roman swallowed, drew his knees up close to his chest, and took a deep breath before he unlocked his phone, fumblingly clicking his way over to the messages app.

dadshine: hey ro!! sorry i haven’t been texting this week, project had me swamped!! but i just saw that disney made this recipe and i thought of you <3 hope you’re doing well!

There was a link to Disney’s facebook page. Roman didn’t bother to click it yet.

princey: misd u patoon

Less than thirty seconds passed before the phone buzzed again. Within that thirty seconds, Roman had taken five gulps from the travel mug.

dadshine: i miss you too!! we have to organize a facetime movie session soon!! princey: yah princey: csn it be didney? dadshine: ??? you okay, ro?? princey: webt yo a oarty princey: kinda drubk princey: lov u lots

The travel mug was much lighter. It took him a few seconds to realize that “I Am The Walrus” was coming from his phone, not from a distant passing car.

“Lo,” he mumbled. 

“I love you too, Roman,” Patton said, and Roman huddled up tight, a hand coming up to his forehead, because even as much as the phone distorted his voice, this was still Patton, his best friend in the whole wide world.

“Were you busy?” Roman asked, and his tongue felt much more difficult to operate than usual. “M’sorry. You should get back to—“

“No, I was just watching 101 Dalmatians,” Patton said, voice soothing. 

“You love that movie,” Roman whispered into the phone. His breath was making smoky curlicues in the air. “Y’should. Get back to it.”

“How much have you had?” Patton pressed, and Roman’s eyes squeezed shut. Because he knew how this would go: Roman would tell him that he couldn’t remember, and Patton would be quietly upset about it, and he’d be so gentle with Roman that it would feel like Roman could shatter from it. 

“Lot,” he said quietly, examining how red his fingers had gotten. That was normal in the cold, right?

And, yes, there it was: the soft, worried sigh that made Roman feel like he was about two feet tall. 

“Are you still at the party?”

“No.” Roman whispered.

“Are you home?”

Roman looked out at the quad, and then went back to examining the backs of his eyelids. “No.”

“Do you... do you have someone there with you?”

Roman’s eyes squeezed shut tighter, and his fingers pressed, near-painful, into his forehead. He could never lie to Patton. “No.”

“What about the people you went with?! Did they just—leave you alone—?”

“I went alone,” Roman choked out.

There was a pregnant silence. Roman could hear Patton’s breaths, careful and measured.

“Please don’t ask it,” Roman managed to say.

“Roman,” Patton murmured. “I just—“

“Don’t, okay? I went to a party, alone, with my only intention to get really, truly fucked up, I’m sitting outside in the middle of February, freezing my ass off, because I didn’t want to go back. You and I both know the answer before you even ask it.”

A pause, then:

“Do you have a coat, at least?” Patton asked meekly.

“For fuck’s sake,” Roman said, and started to laugh, not cruelly, but the kind of laughter that came when he was trying really hard not to cry. 

Patton let his laughter die down before he said, “You should get back to your dorm, Roman, it’s freezing where you are.”

Like that, any sense of laughter withered up and died in his chest.

“It’s,” he began, but the words stuck in his throat. “I don’t want to,” he said, and he realized he sounded petulant, like a child, and Patton was just trying to help, but—

But he just didn’t want to.

“I know,” Patton said, and Roman blinked, looking up and out before realizing there was no one else, and, again, the sound was coming from his phone.

“You are doing something.” Roman said, straining his ears, trying to deduce what it was. But he was just so, so drunk.

“Nothing important, just fidgeting, go back to your dorm, Roman,” Patton said.

“I—“ Roman began, and huffed. “I don’t—“

“Why not?” Patton asked, and oh no, his voice had taken on that gently shattering edge again, and Roman shivered, not entirely from the cold.

“Lonely,” he forced out between his teeth.

Whatever Patton was doing hushed. Then it resumed again at double time.

“Well,” Patton said, keeping his voice light, “Good thing you’re on the phone with me, then.”

“No, it’s not—“ Roman began, and huffed again, eyes squeezing shut. “I’m—alone.”

Another pause. “You’ve got me.”

Roman snorted, scuffed his shoe over the stone. 

“You do,” Patton said, forceful. “Now get up and go to your dorm, or I’ll—I’ll start playing the Shrek soundtrack!”

“You wouldn’t,” Roman scoffed.

“I absolutely would,” Patton said. “Do you want me to start singing All Star? I will.”

Roman didn’t doubt it for a second. “Okay,” Roman sighed. “Okay, I’m getting up, fine.”

“Good,” Patton said, firmly.

The walk from the quad to his dorm seemed much shorter with Patton chattering away in his ear. If Roman didn’t know Patton, he wouldn’t have noticed the undercurrent of worry in his voice. But Roman did know Patton, so he couldn’t help but hyperfixate on it.

“I’m in my dorm,” he told Patton when he’d managed to unlock his door, and for a moment, Roman was terrified of Patton hanging up with him.

“Good,” Patton said. “You should drink some water.”

Roman shuddered with relief. Patton wouldn’t hang up on him. Not now. Not when Patton knows Roman is sad and drunk off his ass.

Roman drank his water, and then drank some more, and got ready for bed with Patton’s gentle urging. He washed his face, and brushed his teeth, and changed into pajamas. The whole time, Patton kept up a soothingly brainless stream of chatter for Roman to sink into, letting him hmm and oh his way through the conversation. 

Roman laid down in his bed when Patton told him to, and put his phone on speaker, setting it on his bedside table before he laid his head down on his pillow.

“You’re all tucked in?” Patton checked.

“Mmhmm.”

“Snug as a bug in a rug?”

Roman hummed. “As a bug in a rug. You should read me to sleep, or somethin’.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Patton said, softly. 

“Yeah?” Roman asked, already on that edge between sleep and waking.

“Once upon a time, there was a very handsome prince named Roman.” Patton began. “He loved to sing, and dance, and act. The whole kingdom would gather around to watch him perform, for he was very talented, and it was his favorite thing in the world, so it made their prince very happy. And the kingdom loved to see their prince happy.”

Roman’s fists curled into his blankets, and his eyes slid lazily shut.

“Prince Roman was very close friends with a... jester? Let’s go with jester. The court’s jester, Patton, who loved to see Prince Roman happy. They grew to be very close friends, very good friends, and it made the jester very happy to spend time with the prince.”

He was very warm. Patton’s voice was soothing, the babbling rush of a brook, a voice Roman had been familiar with for almost all of his life.

“But the prince and the jester both grew to be of age, and both were sent away on quests. They were both sent away to study their crafts, to form new allies for the kingdom, and to slay a couple of dragons, while they were away. The jester cried the night before leaving for his quest, because he wasn’t sure how he would be able to see the world without the prince by his side.”

Roman’s eyes popped open. Patton hadn’t told him that. He was about to ask, but Patton was rushing ahead. 

“But the prince would face a large and dangerous dragon, one he had never had to struggle with, because he had always had the jester beside him. This dragon was also magic—a dragon witch, if you will. She was cunning, and dastardly, and had it out for the prince, because she was jealous of how happy and talented the prince was. The dragon witch saw that the prince and the jester were apart, and decided to make her move.

“The prince had been having trouble before, but when the dragon witch struck, the prince found himself wounded, cursed, and unable to call for help. The curse left him feeling a kind of sadness that he had never known before, a kind of loneliness he had never faced. Fortunately for the prince, however, a letter from the jester arrived, just in time, and the prince realized how to defeat the curse. So he composed a letter as quickly as he could, and the jester dropped everything he was doing, so they could slay the dragon witch together, once and for all...”

Roman was slip, slip, slipping, and Patton’s voice faded away.

Roman awoke to the repeated and desperate sound of someone trying to knock their knuckles off on his door.

Roman groaned, and checked the time. Oh, great, four hours of sleep. Of all the times for his roommate to randomly pop back in—

“Coming,” Roman creaked at the door, staggering to his feet and clapping a hand to his head as his vision swam. The knocking did not cease.

“All right, I said I’m coming,” Roman snapped at the door, and opened it.

He didn’t have the time to look at who it was before he was almost knocked over.

Patton. Patton was here.

He had his face buried in Roman’s shoulder, arms wrapped around him tight, like he was trying to squeeze the life out of Roman, and Roman only hesitated for a second before sweeping Patton into his arms, trying to hold him as close as possible. There is something in his chest, growing, warm and bright.

When they separated, Roman’s mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were maybe a little wetter than they were before. He didn’t let go of Patton’s shoulder’s—it almost felt like if he’d let go, Patton would fade.

“Patton,” Roman breathed. “I—you—“

“You’re not alone,” Patton said, stubborn. “Okay? You’re not alone.”

“I—did you just drive all the way here?”

Patton hesitated, and said, “You were feeling sad.”

“Oh, my God, Patton,” Roman said, trying not to laugh, and instead tugged Patton in for another, shorter hug, the thing in his chest not decreased at all. “How long has it been since you slept?”

“Like,” Patton said, and scrunched his nose, trying to think.

“If it takes you that long to come up with a number, it’s been too long,” Roman said decisively, and shut the door behind him. “C’mon, we’re both exhausted. We can snuggle.”

“Snuggling sounds good,” Patton said, and Roman sat on his bed as Patton rustled through his bag, tugging out his pajamas, and Roman felt the fondness swell up in his throat, dangerous and overwhelming.

They were Winnie-the-Pooh themed. Patton had packed Disney pajamas to stay with Roman.

“D’you wanna be big spoon or little spoon?” Paton asked, folding up his glasses and handing them to Roman, so he could set them on the nightstand. 

Roman paused, considering, and said at last, “Little spoon.”

"Spoon-purb,” Patton teased, and Roman groaned, even as he was tugging back the blankets so they could both get under them.

“Awful,” Roman said, but he was grinning too wide to really make it look like he meant it.

“Yeah, you missed me,” Patton said, clambering in beside Roman as they both laid down on their sides.

Roman smiled, feeling the comforting weight and warmth of Patton against his back.

“Yeah, I really did,” he said, soft.

Patton pressed a soft, chaste kiss to the back of his head, and nuzzled into the back of his neck. “Go back to sleep, Roman.”

“Love you,” Roman murmured, and he felt Patton’s smile against his skin.

“I love you too, Ro.”

taglist: @somewhatsanders @tommysandypantsisasolarnymph @erlenmeyertrash