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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Quinn, Demacia's Wings build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Katie "TeaTime" De Sousa. Made for Riot Games.)

lol who gives a shit about Quinn?

I do. I do Riot. :(

Honestly while I haven’t played Quinn in awhile I still think she’s an extremely fun champion, and not just because you get to bully the enemy top laner with discount Vayne. Quinn has a very unique playstyle that’s so different from every other champ in the game which makes her real refreshing to play after sticking to other champs for an extended period of time.

But let’s be real the main reason I’m making a Quinn build is so I can have a cheat day. I mean she’s obviously just a Beastmaster Ranger, right?

GOALS

Valor, to me! - Burd up! I really wish that Quinn was called “Quinn and Valor” in game.

Stick to the plan, Val - When the going gets tough it helps to be a swift scout, dashing around the enemy and vaulting off them if they get too close.

I'd keep my head down if I were you - While it’s perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind Quinn is known for letting down a volley of arrows when she first engages with Valor on her back.

RACE

League of humans, at least until I go back to Ionia to make more furries. Regardless we’ll be switching it up a bit with a Mark of Finding Dragonmark from Eberron! You get a +2 to Dexterity and +1 to an ability score of your choice: I went for Charisma because “League of Legends female body types.”

You get an early set of boots with the Mark of Finding, since Courier’s Speed increases your base movement speed to 35 feet. And to help with backflips Intuitive Motion will let you add a d4 to your Acrobatics checks (or your Land Vehicle checks, but I’d perhaps discuss with your DM to change that to Air Vehicles instead?) But most importantly you get Magical Passage for a one-time use of Misty Step, for Flash!

IF DRAGONMARKS AREN’T ALLOWED: A Variant Human works fine. Take a +1 to Dexterity and Charisma and the Crossbow Expert feat a little earlier than usual.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Dexterity is tied to shooting and back flips, both of which you’ll be doing a lot of.

14; WISDOM - You have a bird’s eye view; the best advantage.

13; CHARISMA - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing.

12; CONSTITUTION - Demacians are no easy prey, and spending so much time behind enemy lines has made you sturdier than most.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Intelligence is tied to military tactics among other things.

8; STRENGTH - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing because we don’t need it over the other stats.

Feel free to swap Wisdom and Constitution if you want worse skill checks but better durability.

BACKGROUND

We’ll be going for Faction Agent not because it fits best but because it has the abilities that make the most sense. I’m sure you could refer to the Demacian Scouts as a faction after all. Regardless you get proficiency in Insight along with one WIS, INT, or CHA skill of your choice: I opted for Perception for that bird’s eye view. You also get proficiency in two languages so once again pick your poison.

The main reason we opted for Faction Agent was for access to a Safe Haven behind enemy lines. You can always find insiders to give you a place to hide, or to give you information. Not that Val needs any help finding people. "Sometimes I swear that bird is just showing off."

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue for the skill proficiencies primarily. Acrobatics and Stealth are the two main ones we want but I’d also recommend Investigation and Intimidation. (Persuasion may be more useful in the average campaign but it doesn’t fit Quinn well feel free to build the character however you want but I focus on making the character as lore accurate and gameplay accurate as possible.) Anyways as a Rogue you also get Expertise in two skills: I’d recommend buffing your Perception right out the gate, as well as your Stealth because... it’ll be useful as a Rogue I assure you.

Rogues can chat with spies and infiltrators behind enemy lines thanks to Thieves’ Cant, a mixture of words and phrases that don’t actually mean what they sound like. But of course what we’re really here for as a Rogue is good ol’ Sneak Attack, for a d6 if you sneak attack an enemy (duh) or if Val (or another ally) is distracting them.

I’m going to briefly mention what weapons you’re probably going to want to start out with: a Hand Crossbow is an obvious must but until about level 6 or so you can honestly just stick to a Light Crossbow to do more damage at a better range early on.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues can further abuse their range thanks to Cunning Action, letting them Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. Play around bushes to get the jump on your Harrier marks.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 1

Seeing as Bards are good at everything we’ll be taking some Bard levels. As a Bard you get proficiency in one skill as well as a musical instrument: pick whatever instrument you prefer and I’d of course take Animal Handling to take care of Valor.

You also get Bardic Inspiration to tell your allies of information you scouted ahead with your bonus action, letting them add an extra d6 to skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that they know are coming. You have a number of inspirations equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all expended inspiration die at the end of a long rest.

But of course the main boon from being a Bard is access to Spellcasting! You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Light will let you see with your dumb human eyes, and Message will let you chat with your team behind enemy lines. You also get four first level spells from the Bard list: Animal Friendship is kinda an obvious one, as is Speak with Animals. Other than that Heroism will help you (or your allies) keep their cool behind enemy lines, and Color Spray (ty Tasha’s) will let Valor blind your foes so you can get away!

LEVEL 4 - BARD 2

Second level Bards get Jack of All Trades, letting you flex into whatever role your party may need. You also get Song of Rest to heal for an extra d6 of health during short rests to patch yourself up after getting into a scrap. And finally Tasha’s gave you Magical Inspiration, letting your allies with Bardic Inspiration add a roll on their inspiration die to the damage or healing of a spell.

You also learn another first level spell like Feather Fall, in case Valor needs to drop you.

LEVEL 5 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: Acrobatics proficiency is a requirement for backflips, and Animal Handling would be good to handle Valor. (But more realistically expertise in Insight or Investigation would be more useful.)

But more importantly we can finally get some combat ability out of the Bard! The College of Swords gives you proficiency with medium armor and shields, neither of which we really need. It also gives you a Fighting Style you won’t use with a Hand Crossbow, but Dueling is probably better for your purposes.

What we’re mainly here for is Blade Flourish, which despite the name works on ranged attacks! When you take the attack action on your turn Harrier will increase your movement speed by 10 feet, and once per turn you can use one of the following Blade Flourishes:

Defensive Flourish increases the damage of the shot by a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and let you add the number to your AC as Valor makes it harder for the enemy to hit you.

Slashing Flourish will let you pick up a Runaan's Hurricane to deal extra damage to the target and everyone within 5 feet of them.

Mobile Flourish lets you vault off an enemy, dealing extra damage equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and pushing them back a number of feet equal to 5 plus whatever you rolled on your Bardic Inspiration. If you want you can then use your reaction to run up to them, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that.

Basically no matter what your Blade Flourish does extra damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration, and you can choose to either make yourself harder to hit, do AoE damage, or push the enemy away. Oh and you can now learn second level spells like Animal Messenger so Val can get important information back to Demacia.

(Artwork by Michelle Hoefener. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - BARD 4

4th level Bards get the first of many Ability Score Improvements but we’re actually going to take a Feat: the Crossbow Expert feat will let you ignore the Loading property of crossbows to attack more than once on your turn, attack in melee range without disadvantage, but most importantly if you attack with your hand crossbow you can make one more attack with your bonus action!

You also learn another spell, and another cantrip! For your cantrip Minor Illusion is great to make a distraction, and for your leveled spell Locate Object will help if you need to find an important artifact belonging to the enemy. Are there more useful spells? Yes, but I’m building what would make the most sense for Quinn as a character. Feel free to take Heat Metal or Lesser Restoration as you’re allowed to change my builds however you want.

LEVEL 7 - BARD 5

Grabbing the 5th level of Bard for Font of Inspiration, letting your Bardic Inspiration (and Blade Flourishes!) come back after a Short Rest. Which is good because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8!

You can also learn third level spells like Leomund’s Tiny Hut for a safe place to rest after a long combat.

LEVEL 8 - BARD 6

But of course the 6th level of Bard wouldn’t hurt, as you’d now get an Extra Attack from the College of Swords! You can also learn another third level spell like Sending to send information more directly. Again: feel free to take spells that you feel are more practical if you wish.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - ROGUE 3

Going back to Rogue to get our Scouting badge, specifically with the Scout subclass! You get to officially be classified as a Skirmisher, and can move half your movement speed if an enemy ends their turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks either, so I’d flavor it as you vaulting off the foe to safety.

You’re also a natural Survivalist, with Expertise in the Nature and Survival skills. That’s why we didn’t get Survival proficiency earlier! And to top it off your Sneak Attack increases to 2d6.

LEVEL 10 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and we’ve been sitting on an uneven Dexterity score for awhile now. So the Piercer feat will let you increase your Dexterity by 1 while also augmenting your skills with a Light Crossbow, allowing you to reroll the damage die of one of your attacks and deal triple damage if you crit!

I’d discuss with your DM if your Blade Flourishes count as “weapon damage die” for the sake of Piercer, because if they do you’ll likely get a lot more value out of this feat. If not well... it’s still useful regardless!

(Artwork by bekkomi on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 11 - BARD 7

Quickly going back to Bard for some 4th level spell slots to cast spells like Dimension Door to quickly get out of danger.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 8

But of course the 8th level of Bard will get you some more Ability Score Improvements: more Dexterity will mean deadlier shots and more AC. And you can learn another 4th level spell like Freedom of Movement to get out of sticky situations.

LEVEL 13 - BARD 9

9th level Bards get to pretend that a d8 Song of Rest die by total level 14 is valuable. You do at least get 5th level spells like Rary's Telepathic Bond to keep communication up with your team.

LEVEL 14 - BARD 10

But what we’re mainly here for is the 10th level of Bard. To start off you get Expertise in two more skills: Insight and Investigation would both be the most practical choices. Your Bardic Inspiration also increases to a d10, which means that your Blade Flourishes increase to a d10 as well!

But far more importantly you get Magical Secrets, and hey look by total level 15 we finally got Valor! Summon Beast will let you summon a beast of land, sea, or (most realistically) air to fight alongside you! The flying beast has a 60 foot flying speed, Flyby (which lets it avoid attacks of opportunity), and can attack using your spell attack modifier to deal damage equal to a d8 + 4 + the level of the spell slot you used to cast this spell. It’s only a second level spell but it gets quite strong when upcast, so you can choose how strong you want Valor to be!

Alternatively if you want to fly Behind Enemy Lines, look no further than Fly! It gives you a 60 foot flying speed, plain and simple! And if you upcast it Valor can even bring a friend, or several friends!

You can also learn another cantrip like Mending, because it’s good to keep your armor in check as well as your falconer’s glove.

LEVEL 15 - BARD 11

Seeing as we got Valor we may as well grab a few more small things from Bard. 11th level Bards get 6th level spells like Find the Path, to find the path to the objective. Again: feel free to take more practical spells I am merely taking what makes sense for Quinn.

LEVEL 16 - BARD 12

12th level Bards don’t get new spells but they do get Ability Score Improvements. I’ll leave you with a choice: more Charisma will increase your Bard saving throw DCs (and Valor’s hit chance) as well as give you more Blade Floruishes, but the Sharpshooter feat will let you consistently add more damage to your shots while also ignoring range limitations and cover.

(Artwork by Ina Wong and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - BARD 13

Grabbing 7th level spells from the 13th level of Bard like Teleport, to recall back to base when needed. You also get to pretend that a d10 Song of Rest die by total level 18 is majorly impactful.

LEVEL 18 - BARD 14

14th level Swords Bards get the Master’s Flourish, letting you make a Blade Flourish every turn without spending a Bardic Inspiration, as long as you make your Blade Flourish a d6 instead.

But you also get two more Magical Secrets! To call down a Skystrike try Steel Wind Strike, which will damage up to 5 creates in the area and also let you teleport to one of them after using it. Your other spell doesn’t really matter much so... I dunno. Blindness / Deafness so Valor can make a Blinding Assault? Again feel free to make your own choices to customize the build.

LEVEL 19 - BARD 15

We’ll be stopping at the 15th level of Bard for a d12 Bardic Inspiration, as well as an 8th level spell like Feeblemind to weaken an enemy beyond any capability of fighting.

LEVEL 20 - BARD 16

But we may as well grab one more Bard level for one last Ability Score Improvement. Again up to you if you want to cap out that Charisma modifier or take Sharpshooter for some more damage.

Now that that’s done it’s time for some Ranger levels! Oh wait...

WHY NO RANGER LEVELS? - Put simply it would’ve been very hard to get Quinn’s unique skill set without some weird multiclassing shenanigans or a Bard investment. The three things I needed for Quinn were the following:

* Bird companion (Ranger or Druid)

* Flight (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Artificer, or some weird stretches of logic like “be a Druid and turn into a bird to fly lol.”)

* Skystrike (either Conjure Barrage [bad] on Ranger or Battle Smith Artificer, or Steel Wind Strike on [high level] Ranger or Wizard)

Put simply there was no combination of subclasses that wouldn’t result in weird mix of classes other than Bard. Add in the fact that I really wanted Scout Rogue levels as well as Crossbow Expert (both of which would conflict with Beast Master Ranger) and Bard seemed like the most logical course of action.

The sad truth is that in all honesty Quinn doesn’t even use Valor that much in her kit is kinda the main thing. I wanted to prioritize the crossbow shooting of Quinn more than anything. If you want a more traditional Quinn build that prioritizes the Bird then Scout Rogue 8 / Beastmaster 12 (using Tasha’s Beastmaster companions) will give you more bird and just about everything that this build did minus the flight. (If you build like this I’d also recommend dropping Crossbow Expert and simply opting for a Longbow, or seeing if you can get an Artificer teammate to make you a Repeating Heavy Crossbow.)

If you really want flight and are willing to stretch your imagination then Scout 4 / Drake Warden (UA) 16 gets Perfected Bond by Ranger level 15, allowing you to ride the flying mount. Yes you’ll have a Fireproof Valor but you can just call that Phoenix Quinn.

Of course all of this can be avoided if your DM either gives you a magic item that provides Flight or lets you put Fly on the Ranger spell list. The golden rule is to always discuss with your DM if you have a particular vision in mind, or else accept the sacrifices you’ll have to make for practicality.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Just like hunting thresher geese - 3 hand crossbow attacks per round with a 3d6 Sneak Attack and a d6 (or d12) Blade Flourish adds up to some pretty decent damage per round overall, and that isn’t even considering Sharpshooter.

I'll follow your lead, Valor - Most of your spellcasting is utility based, meaning that you don’t need to worry about your spellcasting modifier. And hey: we got Valor without having to go for Beastmaster Ranger!

Buy me some time - Mixing Bard and Rogue together means that you have proficiency in quite a lot of skills! Expertise in 8 total skills, proficiency in one more, and Jack of All Trades for the remaining skills. You can fill any role that the party may need!

CONS

Look Val; snacks - It takes us quite awhile to get Valor; some would argue too long. Put simply there’s very little way for us to get the very specific spell list required for Quinn (Summon Beast, Fly, Steel Wind Strike) without doing some weird multiclassing shenanigans. You could go Lore Bard if you want to get access to Summon Beast and Fly faster (Scout 3 / Lore 6 = basically everything to play Quinn by total level 9) but then you’d miss out on Extra Attack among other things.

Still heart, steady aim - Low Constitution along with a d8 hit die really doesn’t do you any favors. You’ll likely have a little over 100 health, which means that it won’t take much effort to put you in Power Word Kill range.

Who's there? Jarvan who? - Honestly our Charisma is low for a Bard, and while most of the spells we took are utility based it still sucks to only have two Blade Flourishes. Feel free to use Point Buy instead for some better starting stats and less in those fairly pointless stats like Intelligence. (8 / 15 / 12 / 8 / 13 / 15 would be my recommendation to have the best Charisma you can get while still having decent Wisdom to boot.)

But your job is to scout: any kills you pick up on the way are a nice bonus. Soften the enemies up with Valor by your side and do what needs to be done to win the war without the enemy knowing you’re there. Fight differently, fight dirty, and remember that no matter what at least you’re not playing Vayne top.

(Artwork by Xu “Crow God” Cheng. Made for Riot Games.)

#DnD 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd #League of Legends #League of Legends Quinn #League of Legends Valor #League of Legends Quinn and Valor #Quinn #Valor #Quinn & Valor #dnd rogue #dnd bard #dnd ranger?#bird up

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dragon-grunkle · 4 years

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impearl

So uh. This is the Jedi dragon story I keep mentioning. It’s uh, large. If anyone reads this the whole way through, I’ll probably cry, or something.

What do you need to know about Star Wars to understand this? Not a whole lot. If you know who the Jedi are you’re already halfway there. Get a quick synopsis of Order 66 and you should be set. There’s a lot of pearlcatcher lore worked into this, on the Flight Rising side of stuff.

Content Warnings: General Star Wars levels of violence, Order 66-related deaths, panic attacks, and repeated use of imagery relating to throwing up.

Final Word Count: 10,651

A snippet to hopefully catch interest:

She drifts.

Her dreams are chaotic and fragmented. She drowns in black tar, sinks in it, all the way up to her neck, all the way until her feet no longer touch the bottom, all the way until she's pulled under and it's like she's swimming in a sea of memories.

Her own memories. Those of others. Memories that have yet to be had.

Someone calls her name. No - not her name, Her name. Lightweaver.

She remembers things she'd thought lost. Sornieth. Sore-nee-eth. Her homeworld. Was that it? No, she...elsewhere. Flashes of light. Flashes of flight. Pearls...pearl-something. Pearl-eater? No. Pearlescent. Pearlite. Pearlize. Impearl.

Imperial.

She wakes.

For the past few months, she's heard whisperings around the temple. More and more apprentices are being knighted, and she thinks she might be next.

She's not ready. She's certain of it, but everyone else seems to think otherwise. Some of the newer knights - those she used to train with as younglings - clasp her on the shoulder as they pass by, a moment of solidarity in the tumbling chaos of war. But their eyes always hold something else within them, something that tastes like a warning. Even her master looks at her differently now, with eyes tinged with sadness, like every time he looks at her might be the very last time he sees her. It's unsettling, not the least of which because he has never seemed so attached to her before.

Many years ago he'd been preparing to become a temple guard. Something changed between then and now that ended with him at the rank of master rather than sentinel, but he'd never lost the sense of ultimate detachment he learned in those years. For as long as she'd known him, he held her at arm's length. She respected him, and he her in return, but she had always known he was not one to turn to for comfort. For that she could talk to fellow padawans and other masters, and he knew about this, but direct involvement in personal affairs was not his way, and so he stayed at a distance and kept it that way for as long as she'd been his apprentice.

It's never strained their relationship as master and padawan until now.

Now he's starting to say things like "I have nothing more to teach you," and "You have done well," and worst of all, "I am proud of you," and it's confusing her, it's getting in her head and she's certain he can feel it boiling off her but he won't say anything, never has and never will, but she can feel his sense of sorrow-regret-fear and she shouldn't, shouldn't be able to feel that from him not because she's incapable of sensing the emotions of others through the Force but because he has never made himself open to her like that, and it's scaring her and she hates it. The more she worries about it, the more often she wakes to little dribbles of blackened spit on her chin and tiny shards of glass in her pillow, so she takes to avoiding him, because she knows what's coming and she doesn't want to hear it, even if she doesn't want to know why she doesn't want to other than that it’s stressing her out and she's afraid that one day she won't wake up and they'll find her with midnight-colored gunk clogging her airway. But that's not the real reason and she knows it. It's about why she doesn't feel ready when she's trained for this her entire life, when there are younger knights than her running around right now saving the galaxy, why she feels incapable when -

She's not. She's not incapable. She knows that. She knows. Doesn’t she?

So why is she so afraid?

---

Everything changes on the eve of her twentieth birthday - or hatchday, as it were.

She feels her master reach out to her through the Force and hears him whisper, It is time, and a deep thread of panic needles its way through her gut, because she knows it's not time and she knows she's not ready and this isn't right.

At that exact moment, a great swell of horror-despair-pain lances through the Force, so overwhelming in its power that it causes her to double over and retch, oily black ooze crawling its way up her throat as it always does in moments like these. For a half second she thinks it's her own fear doing this. Then the static in her ears dissipates and she hears the sirens - and the screams.

Her head pounds and her jaw aches from how hard she's clenching it, and she needs to clean her face off or the substance will crystallize and she'll never be able to get it off, but she ignores all of it and forces herself up off her bunk and through the corridors, her feet taking her where she needs to go.

This morning she expected to be called to the High Council Chamber to be knighted. This is not that. As much as she's dreaded being knighted, she knows that this is much, much worse - whatever ‘this’ is. The closer she gets, the stronger the sense of dread becomes, until it feels like something is physically reaching inside of her and rending her organs by hand, and she has to stop and lean up against a wall to steady herself.

It's a good thing she does. A moment later a tidal wave of unfiltered terror comes crashing down on her and she sinks to her knees, wanting to mash her head into the wall beside her just to make it stop. But it's not her head - it's her heart that's twisting, and she can do nothing to stop it except grit her teeth harder, until she swears her fangs must be nothing but blunt little nubs, and that's when she sees him.

Up ahead around the bend - not far, but far enough that he doesn't see her - the Chamber doors slide open and a figure wrapped in black steps out. She feels acid in her throat at the sight of him, and at the despicable things she knows that blisteringly blue saber of his has done, and at the horror that this day has become. Suddenly she can't breathe, she's choking, this is it, her nightmare has come true and she's coughing up more black than she's ever seen before, black black black until it consumes her vision and -

Her arms fail her. They can no longer hold the weight of her body and her mind and her heart breaking all at once, and she collapses in a puddle of ink. The temple burns around her, but she wakes for none of it, feeling too much of everything for any physical sensation to reach her.

---

Sometime later she wakes, and night has fallen on Coruscant. It's as close to dark as this planet can approximate, which isn't very dark at all.

Her unease is so infinite that the pit of her stomach feels like it's fallen out from beneath her. She works her jaw and finds it sticky. If she doesn't get this gunk off soon her mouth will be sealed shut forever, and then she won't be able to ask what happened and she'll starve to death - if she isn't killed before then. The clones or the fire will reach her at some point, and she suspects it'll be the latter first, based on how warm it is in here and how cloying the smell of smoke is even now, after the worst of the flames have burnt out. Her hands are difficult to peel off the floor. From the consistency of the sludge coating them, she surmises she's been laying here for quite some time. A few hours, at least. The sleeves of her robes aren't clean at this point, but they're better than nothing, so she uses them to clean as much black off her mouth as she can. It's not great, but it'll do for now.

She's stalling and she knows it. Finally she forces herself to redirect her eyes from the cracked and burnt window she's been staring out of and back into the corridor where she'd collapsed, and swallows quietly, pinching her eyes shut almost as soon as they land.

There are bodies scattered around the chamber doors.

Masters, apprentices, younglings alike - all of them slain with the same brutal efficiency. She hopes that, if their deaths were inevitable, then they were at least quick.

She can't process it. All this loss - the sadness, the pure and unabating anguish that now taints the very temple itself - it's too much for her. She wants to go back to sleep, to wake up as if this were some horrific nightmare, but the slick burn of tar crawling up her throat forces her to acknowledge that it is not, that this is real and she cannot stay here, lest she would like to join the others with this hallway as her final resting place.

She considers it for a moment. Resting forever sounds nice.

It sounds like giving in.

She gets up.

---

She hadn't noticed it before, but somewhere along the way she must've twisted or sprained or even broken her ankle. It forces her to limp now, and maybe that's a good thing because it makes her move slow and cautious when all she wants to do is run, run, run until she can't anymore, but she needs to be careful if she wants to get out of here alive.

She's still considering if that's what she wants - to be alive. Is it worth it, now? Is it worth it at this point, with so many lost forever? Half of her thinks that she should let this place become her tomb, like it has for so many others. Her other half - the half from the waist down - disagrees, if the way her legs keep moving in spite of her mind and her pain is any indication.

She makes it two thirds of the way to the hangar bay before she comes across a single clone. He seems strangely mindless, wandering about bumping into walls like a headless tip-yip, and she knocks him out without hesitation, slamming him with a quick and judicious Force push. For a moment he hangs there, up against the wall, and she considers keeping him there just a little longer, just until his airway constricts and the light in him gives out, just to make sure he really won’t be coming back -

A bone-deep chill runs through her. It's not a physical sensation. Though it's something she's only experienced a few times before, the memory of what it does to a person is enough to shake her out of it and make her let go. A thin line of black spit drips onto the cool marble floor, and she pushes onward.

There are a few more clones patrolling the area, more awake than their wayward brother, but these too she dispatches with ease - except she doesn't manage to get the last one before he comms in for backup. She's surprised at how little resistance she's encountered so far, but she supposes the rest of them must've moved on, gone to find more Jedi to kill, and they'd left only a few to guard this now-forsaken place. They must've missed her in the thick of things, seen her lying prone on the ground and counted her among the dead.

It's the last turn before the hangar now, and she hears the uniform click-clack-clicking of trooper boots on their way.

A day ago, the sound wouldn’t have been anything worth noticing. It might even have been comforting - familiar, if nothing else. Now it signals her doom.

She slips out into the hangar and hides behind a metal support structure, counting the seconds until the troopers arrive. Her fingers brush against the hilt of her lightsaber hanging at her belt. The Force is in such disarray around her that she fears she may not be able to wield it effectively now.

Before, when she reached out with the Force, the temple blazed with life. When she does so now, all she feels is emptiness. There is still life if she reaches out beyond the temple walls, of course, but the Force doesn't flow with them as it does the Jedi. If the Force is as a river then the citizens of Coruscant are like stones sitting at the bottom: it flows through them, guides them, yes, but they have no say in the matter, and many never realize it is even happening. But inside the temple, the Force always eddied and twisted in different ways, creating subtly different currents with each individual Jedi. Now there is nothing. It's as if...no, the river is still there, it hasn't dried up. It feels stagnant, a polluted feeling clinging to its depths, but at the same time it is roiling under the surface, uneven with no one left to guide it.

Except her.

Except her, and the twenty or more clone troopers headed directly for her.

Their presence in the Force is muted at the best of times, as it is with all those who are not Force-sensitive. Doubly so for clones, who leave a signature so faint as to be almost unnoticeable when not actively sought out. Now the rock analogy is more fitting than ever; she can barely sense them at all, despite stretching her awareness as far as it'll go. It's hard to tell exactly how many are approaching like this, but it's a lot.

Twenty is more than she was expecting, and that's being optimistic. She can't take them all, and she curses herself for not moving further from the door when she had the chance. All the ships in the hangar are either gone or too badly ruined to be of use to her, but she could've at least used the opportunity to get a little further away. Except she didn't, and now the troopers are almost upon her. She doesn't need the Force to be able to locate them now; they're so close that she can hear them talking to one another.

She doesn't think about it. She knows this is going to give her position away, but she does it regardless, hoping that it might buy her some time. The golden blade of her lightsaber springs from its hilt. Immediately, the clones' chatter increases and their footsteps pick up, but only one blaster bolt makes it through the doorway before it slides shut, the mechanisms that hold it open failing. It won't be long before they blast through, though, so she wrenches the blade from the ruined access panel and begins to climb.

She has never flown under her own power before. Her wings are useless for full-on flight, but they're perfect for helping her climb up this support beam. A few pushes here and there help keep weight off her injured ankle, and occasionally she even hooks her thumb-claws into the beam and uses her wings to pull herself up. It looks frantic and uncoordinated, but it's efficient, and soon she's pulling herself up onto the catwalk. The ladder to this section has already been blown out, so the clones can't get to her here unless they climb. In theory, with the advantage of the high ground, she might be able to stop them before they ever reach her by cutting off their access point - but that’s in theory. The clones are far, far smarter than most people think. They're inventive, and will no doubt find a way to either get themselves up or get her down. They also almost certainly have backup, and she can't stay here for long. Whatever and whoever they send to catch her will no doubt be worse than clone troopers.

She races across the platform to where it connects to another, higher catwalk and begins to climb that too. There's a ladder this time, which she's grateful for in her ascent, but it can't stay. She takes the time to slash with her lightsaber before moving on.

And just in time, too - the clones have arrived. Had she not ignited her blade when she did, she might not have been able to deflect the first few bolts. Even with their minds numbed over like this, the clones are still terrifyingly accurate. As hard as she tries, she can't deflect all of them. A few of her redirects land solid hits, but eventually a lucky bolt catches her in the wing, scoring a hole straight through the membrane. She cries out and stumbles backwards, tripping over her own tail and landing directly on her injured foot. It crunches. If it wasn't broken before, it is now. Her lightsaber flies out of her hand too, tumbling off the catwalk onto the ground below, and a harsh jolt courses through her upon its landing. She can feel the crystal inside dislodge from its matrix. Even if she were to summon it back, it would be useless, and she doesn't have time to fix the alignment.

The clones are still shooting at her. Somehow, aside from the initial shot to the wing, she hasn't been struck yet, but that won't last forever. In fact, if she strains her ears - over the sound of blaster bolts screaming past, over her own breathing - she can hear the beeping of a detonator. She risks a look over the edge of the catwalk. Keeping herself as flat to the grating as possible isn't enough to prevent a stray bolt from singing her hair, but a quick glance is all she needs to confirm where they've planted the bomb: on the pillar directly below her.

---

It's a bad idea.

It's a horrible, idiotic, stupid idea, but what choice does she have?

When that beam blows out - and it will, she doesn't doubt that, it won't take much more than one good hit - she'll go crashing down with it. If the fall doesn't kill her, or the explosion doesn't catch her, the clones will. There's no guarantee that this won't kill her either, but it's the best chance she's got, and it'll at least take out a few troopers with her.

There's only a split second left before the detonator's timer runs out. A split second is all she needs. She pulls through the Force and slides her lightsaber over, right next to the pillar that she knows is about to explode.

The bomb goes off. The platform lurches and begins to lilt forward. Heat seeps upward through the corrugated metal grating she's sitting on, which becomes unbearably hot. Then the fireball abruptly turns inward on itself, and she knows what's coming. It worked. Her satisfaction is grim with the knowledge that this will be her downfall too.

It's difficult to stand on her one working foot, what with the way the platform is leaning, but she pushes herself up and braces. The explosion leaps out again, concentrated and amplified by the kyber crystal in her saber until it's a pure white wave of blistering heat that catches all the troopers below within its circumference.

It's more than she hoped for - and it's rushing towards her too.

---

Fly.

The voice startles her into action. Without hesitation, she snaps open her wings and leaps off the edge. For one horrible moment she sinks, feeling the air catch on that stupid new hole in her wing, and she wonders why he told her to jump. She wonders why she listened.

Then a scorching updraft catches her and rockets her forward and up, up and over the wreckage below. The speed is too much for her. At the last second, she manages to angle herself towards one of the open landing platforms, narrowly avoiding the wall. At first she thinks this is where she's going to have to land, but as she passes the threshold and shoots out into the open air, she realizes her momentum is too great and if she tries to angle herself down now, she'll crash and break even more bones than she already has. Her shoulders scream as she pulls against the wind, angling her wings so that the air catches under them more and sends her careening upward. She's used her wings to glide many times before, but never like this. Never so fast, so freely, so urgently. They are always a last resort, but never like this.

There's a whistling coming from her right. It's the hole in her wing. It's still searing with pain, especially now with the tension in her wings pulling it wider, but it'll hold. Probably, anyway. It's not as bad as her foot, at least, and it's not as bad as she thinks her back might be tomorrow - if she lives that long.

She risks one last glance behind her as she glides away from the temple, and her heart skips at the sight of it up in smoke. There is a distinct lack of speeders flying by. Were the citizens told to stay away, or did they feel it too? Did they feel the cold radiating off this structure even as it burned? Did they feel the pain, the terror, the rage and the suffering? Even someone as Force-sensitive as a rock must've felt something, she thinks, if it was strong enough to put her out like that.

Her glance turns into a look turns into staring, and it takes her a moment to realize the sensation of her stomach hollowing out isn't just because she feels like her soul has left her body but because she is quite literally falling, her left wing dipping down and her right angling up after spending too long looking behind her instead of watching where she's going. The wind no longer catches under her wings, and she's pitching down while panic rises in her throat, and she's about to fall into an active speeder lane and she has no idea what to do and -

Her body moves ahead of her sluggish, lagging, overtaxed mind. Her wings beat hard, either of their own accord or perhaps by instinct, at first frantic and trying too hard to compensate for her utter lack of a brain, and then too little as her thoughts catch up and she overcorrects. Finally she figures it out - exactly how often she needs to push her wings down in order to keep flying - flying, not gliding, flying - at the same height she is now. Every time she sinks far enough she gives a swift downstroke and levels out again. Counting the seconds between strokes gives her something to focus her mind on and she sinks into the rhythm of it, feeling down two three four five push and down two three... It's sloppy and she has no finer control over where she's going but oh - she never imagined her wings would take her anywhere but down.

It'd be exhilarating if not for the ominous sense of being watched that keeps her moving forward.

She's leveled out enough now that she thinks she can glide for a few minutes without having to use her wings again, but she's too exposed here, so she leans carefully to the left and pitches into a controlled turn that brings her wingtip less than a foot from the building beside her. Flying may be new to her, but gliding is not, and as long as she doesn't move her wings the controls are the same, so slipping under the cover of the building is easy for her. Fewer speeders can see her here, and well - how often do the drivers look where they're going anyway? How often do they expect to see a person flying alone, under their own power, passing silently above them? Never, that's how often. A few police speeders pass by, lights and sirens on. She holds her breath, but they don't see her either, obscured by the shadows of the night and the building's overhang.

By now the temple has disappeared into the distance, obscured by thick smog and endless highrises, and though she still sees the temple's image on billboards throughout the city, these don't make her start heaving midair like the sight of the real thing would do. Images are comfortably null in the Force, if still unpleasant to look at with the knowledge of what they represent.

She knows she can't count on it now, and soon the events of today are going to catch up to her and she'll probably break down and come back with black oil gumming up her maw, but for now she's starting to feel a glimmer of hope. For now, she lets her mind drift, feeling more than thinking what she needs to do to keep aloft. For now, she is safe.

---

It's not until she wakes up that she realizes she ever fell asleep.

And that she fell asleep while flying.

She doesn't remember if she crashed or if she glided to safety. Is she safe? Her brain registers information in pieces, and the last ones it picks up are what her senses tell her about the location. White. Sterile. Her nose catches bacta. Her ears sense monitors beeping. A droid, softly clicking and whirring. She's laying down in...a bed? Medbay. Hospital.

Hopefully they don't know who she is. News coverage of the event was scattered from what she could glean off the holoscreens she flew by, so she doesn't have a solid grasp on what the citizens of Coruscant do or don't know regarding the attack. If her identity, her chain code was scanned, then it could easily be looked up by - the Republic. The Republic could look her up and track her here and she'd be dead.

It's getting hard to breathe, and she does what she can to keep from coughing tar up onto the sheets until she sees the trash receptacle next to her bed. Her movements are clumsy and jerk at the line inserted at her elbow, which she hadn't even noticed before now, but she manages to grab the bin before her mouth inevitably opens and gunk spews out of her. Someone had wiped her face off before this, and she's undoing all their hard work. Pity.

It's a long minute before she stops, and the sides of the can are completely coated in sludge by the end of it. Her breaths come uneven and ragged. It's only after she lifts her head that she begins to notice other details about the room: the way the walls aren't perfectly white but have dirt and grime settled into the corners, the way the screen displaying her vitals fritzes out every few seconds, and the way the dented medical droid's wheel creaks every third turn as it approaches her.

"Are you alright?" it asks, pausing at the foot of the bed. It's carrying a tray with what she assumes is water and some ration bars.

No, she wants to say. I just watched my entire society burn, felt every single one of them die, betrayed by those we trusted, and I am being hunted. I am the furthest thing from alright.

She doesn't say it. "I'm better," she says instead, which seems true enough. Her back and shoulders are sore, as expected, but her foot doesn't feel like it's about to explode and her wing feels alright too. "Who are you?"

"I am PT-2901," the droid titters in response, dipping its head. She notes the slight bobble in its movement, like the axle there hasn't been greased for a long time. "You may call me Peetee." It wheels over to her and sets the tray down on the table beside her.

"Thanks...Peetee."

"You are welcome. May I ask who you are?"

Her jaw locks up. Her fingers tighten on the trash can, threatening to tear the plastic liner. How much do they already know?

She must be taking too long, because Peetee speaks up first, its voice a rough approximation of soothing. "That's alright. We don't need your true name. At least an alias, so that we have something to call you." It pauses. "And pronouns, please."

She relaxes slightly. That's...reassuring, maybe. Polite droids mean...well. It could mean anything. She's probably not in police custody, anyway. The few times she's come across them, police droids have been business-like and efficient, verging on rude, and leave no room for pleasantries. She's never met a police medical droid before, but she can imagine it'd be much the same with those as well; she's pretty sure they wouldn't ask for her pronouns.

She racks her brain, trying to think of an alias she can use that won't link her back to the Jedi. For a moment she considers using her master's name, but the second it gets entered in any system, they'll know who she is.

Unbidden, a moment returns to her.

---

She sat on her father's lap, huddled into his tunic. A loud boom echoed through the sky and shook the windows of their house. She shrieked and burrowed further into his clothes.

"Shhh, it's alright," he soothed. "Don't worry. The gods will protect us."

"Who are they?" she asked between sobs, too afraid to open her eyes.

"They are the Eleven. They watch over our world and protect it from all manner of evil."

"Eleven? That's so many."

"I know. Would you like to hear about just one for now?"

"Will it help?"

"I hope so."

"Okay."

Father began his tale. He told her of the Beginning, the First Age, and the nothing that was Before. He told her how the gods came to be, briefly touching on the names of the other ten before telling her about the one they serve - the one who granted them yellow eyes like the color of the sky at dawn, and magic like glistening sunlight.

He told her of the god's brilliant light, of Her shining courage in battle, of Her splendor and Her beauty. He told her about the Shade - not enough to frighten her, but enough to color the story - and likened the storm to it. Then he told her that after every storm, an arc holding every shade of Her light burst across the heavens, to remind them that She is still with them and watching over. He told her that Light always reigns supreme over the Darkness, and to always look for it even when all hope seems lost.

"Look," he said, and at first she thought he was still telling a story. Then he nudged her shoulder, and she turned to look out the window. The sky was still dark, but not as much as before, and the rain and thunder was abating. It was less frightening like this, especially now that she knew about Her.

At that very moment, things changed. Golden skies burst from behind gray clouds, revealing the sun in shades of orange and yellow, and just as Father said, a beam of light containing every color imaginable sprung forth, reaching from one end of the sky to the other.

She gasped and turned to face him. "Papa - it's Her! Just like you said, it's Her!"

He chuckled and nuzzled her fondly. "I know. Beautiful, isn't it? Just like you.

"My little Lightweaver..."

---

It's been a long time since she thought about this memory, one from before the temple. How many years has it been since she last thought of her father and the planet she came from? She doesn't remember its name now, if she ever knew it, and had never known his. He was always just Father to her. She barely even remembers what he looked like, just that he looked like her. She thinks he might have had golden hair, but she's not certain. It doesn't matter. What she does remember is the story, and it's enough to give her what she needs.

The name doesn’t translate well into Basic, so she does her best to approximate. "Sunspinner," she decides. "And uh. She and her, please."

Peetee dips its head again and wheels backwards towards the door. "Thank you. I will inform Kaaduu that you are awake. Please wait here, ma'am."

She doesn't get a chance to ask who Kaaduu is before it rolls out the exit. She'd assume a doctor, but why leave out the title if that's the case? Whoever it is, hopefully they'll let her go without trouble. As nice as it is that they've patched her up, she needs to be on the move again soon, and fighting her way out isn't an appealing prospect. Her bones itch beneath her skin, both from lingering pain and general unease. She reaches for the water and takes a sip. It helps with the acidic feeling biting at her throat, and then she registers that she's hungry too, so she eats one of the ration bars. It's as bland as it looks and a little stale, so she sips more water to help soften it. It still doesn't taste very good, but it does help, and by the time she's done she feels a little more settled.

There's a knocking at the door frame. It's open - was never closed to begin with - but the person waiting there waits for her to look at them before entering.

It's a trandoshan, with patterned orange scales and a simple white tunic. "Greetings, Sunspinner. I'm Kaaduu. They and them."

"Are you a doctor?"

Kaaduu shakes their head. "No. But I am a healer." As if sensing her next question before she says it, they add, "You're in our clinic on Level 4302."

Her eyes bug out. That...was almost a thousand levels down. How had she gotten here? Had she fallen this whole way? How had she survived? Had she been taken? What happened?

Out of nowhere, Kaaduu is at her side and gripping her hands, counting and telling her to breathe. She must've lost a few seconds. Black threatens to crawl up her throat again, and she fumbles for the bin. Predicting her needs, Kaaduu hands it to her. Though she doesn't hack anything up, the feeling still takes a minute to go away.

"Easy there. What happened, if you don't mind me asking? What level are you from?"

She weighs her options. If she gives away something Kaaduu doesn't already know, she could be turned over. They seem kind, but she can't afford to trust freely. "Farther up," she decides. "How did you find me?"

Kaaduu shakes their head. "I didn't. My assistant did. I sent him out to bring back supplies and he came back with you. He said he saw someone carrying you, but they disappeared. I can't make sense of it."

"...Can I speak to him? Your assistant."

Kaaduu nods and taps a button on their wrist gauntlet. A light flashes. Moments later, a young human boy, probably around thirteen or so, sticks his head around the corner. "You needed me?" he asks, holding up his wrist to show the matching light on his gauntlet.

"Yes. Vestan, this is Sunspinner. She was hoping to ask you some questions about how she got here."

"Oh. I...don't know how much help I'll be," he says, rubbing the back of his neck as he steps fully into the room. "I just...I turned a corner and there you were. There was...a figure. Almost glowing, kinda transparent. It's like they weren't really there. I blinked and they were gone. You looked hurt and you didn't wake up so I…" He motions with his arms, indicating that he'd picked her up and placed her on something - a transport cart. She could piece together the rest.

"Sorry. That's all there is to tell."

"Is that enough?" Kaaduu asks her. She nods and they dismiss the boy, who offers a sheepish grin and disappears around the corner again.

"So? Anything useful?"

Her silence is enough of an answer for Kaaduu. They press a button on their gauntlet and the door slides shut. She tenses momentarily, eyes automatically scanning for escape routes, but there are none.

"You're from - you're one of them, right? I can help you get out of here. Vestan still needs to pick up supplies tomorrow. There'll be a cargo ship leaving from the dockyards that you can slip aboard."

Startled, she furrows her brows. Kaaduu knows, and they're...helping her? She gapes at them. "Why?"

The trandoshan's eyes flick towards the door. "The boy. He's like you."

She reaches out - and immediately pulls back when she feels her presence brush up on another's. It's true. "But - why wasn't he…?"

They offer a wan smile. "The galaxy is large. Your Order is few. There are trillions of beings on this planet alone - is it really so unbelievable that one small child would slip past them?"

Elsewhere, maybe. On Coruscant, the very home of the Jedi, not so much. She tells them this. Kaaduu only shakes their head.

"It's my understanding that there are certain...requirements a child must meet to be trained as a Jedi," they say. "Age and ability, mostly, from what I've heard. Vestan...didn't meet those standards."

She can only look away. She remembers this from when the Jedi came for her. They tested her ability to lift a few stones, then told her to say goodbye to her father. Her response to that had been measured too. That was the last she ever saw of him, and the pain of leaving faded along with her memory of him.

Reminding herself to unclench her jaw, she looks at them. "How did you know?"

"Well, Vestan could tell, but he's a bit dense sometimes. I don't think he's realized exactly why it is he was drawn to you. As for me…" They gesture to her robes, which she belatedly realizes have been folded at the foot of her bed this entire time. Well - folded is a generous word for it. The nacre-coated sleeves are calcified and stiff to the point of being unbending; it's no wonder they took them off her. Instead she's dressed in a white cotton shirt and soft pants, not unlike what Kaaduu themself wears, which makes her think the clothes might belong to them. Special slits have been cut into the sides of the shirt for her wings - a courtesy she hadn’t been expecting.

"That and the whole…you know." They point to a spot by their cheek. Her hands trace a path to the corresponding spot on her own face. Fingers land in the fur lining her cheeks - and her padawan braid. Heat floods her face. How had she missed that? At least Kaaduu can't see her blushing, since her scales give nothing away.

They give her a warm smile and a light clap on the shoulder. She tenses again at the touch, but relaxes quicker this time, which Kaaduu seems to appreciate. "It's late. You should rest," they say. "There's a sink here if you need it. Fresher across the hall, but try not to get up if you can avoid it. You're quite dehydrated and we'd like to keep that drip in you if we can. Tap this button if you need help. Peetee will check on you through the night, but he won't wake you."

The door opens and closes, and then she's alone in the dark. To no one in particular, she says, "Thank you."

---

She drifts.

Her own memories. Those of others. Memories that have yet to be had.

Someone calls her name. No - not her name, Her name. Lightweaver.

Imperial.

She wakes.

---

The room is dim. She takes in long, gasping breaths, trying to remember what her master taught her about meditation and failing terribly. She thinks of Kaaduu and their technique, and fails at this too. She reaches for the water by her side, but her shaking hand hits the call button instead and knocks the glass over too, spilling water across the floor. It's enough to snap her out of it.

She's cursing her incompetence when the door opens, but it's not Kaaduu who enters. Vestan steps in instead.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" he asks. Concern broadcasts off him like a generator. She clamps down on her connection to the Force, because she knows he doesn't realize he's even doing this and if she doesn't do something to stop feeling it so much it'll overwhelm her. To have this boy, this stranger feel so deeply concerned over her well-being - it's a lot, right now.

"I'm fine. Just hit the button on accident. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so," he says, unconvinced. He checks the monitor just long enough to know that her vitals are still okay, then moves to step out of the room, but he pauses in the entryway.

He crosses over to her in a few quick steps, places something soft in her lap, and backs off again. In the dark, she can't quite make out what it is. A plush toy, of a sort, but what creature it represents she can't tell.

"It's a bantha," Vestan says. "They're from Tatooine."

Maybe he's younger than she thought, if he still has one of these and carries it with him out of bed. It's clear that giving it to her was unplanned: an afterthought, but not one he regrets. Or maybe he just doesn't care what others his age would say about it. He's not embarrassed. In fact, he's very certain this will help her.

"Thank you," she says, unsure of what she's supposed to say to that.

"You're welcome," he says, and then disappears with the hallway light.

---

Somehow, the stuffed bantha helps. She wakes several more times throughout the night, plagued by disjointed dreams and visions, but every time she does she remembers the toy and clutches it until the lingering memories peter off and she can rest again. Each time, she's able to fall asleep again quicker. Sometimes Peetee is there when she wakes, sometimes not, but true to Kaaduu's word, he never interacts with her, and, crucially, he never mentions the toy either.

It's not very Jedi of her to allow a physical object to calm her like this. She should meditate or center herself or use any one of the multitude of techniques she's learned over the years to ground herself. Without fail, however, the Jedi methods don't work and she resorts to the bantha every time.

As long as she doesn't think about why that is, it's fine. She can allow herself one night of lapsing. If it helps her sleep and recover, it's fine.

It's fine. It's not, but it's fine.

At some point, she wakes and doesn't fall back asleep. She stares into the darkness, fingers falling into the repetitive motion of stroking the bantha's synthetic fur, until she registers that the room is gradually getting brighter. Simulated sunrise, she thinks. Does it match with the actual time on Coruscant, or is it the middle of the night on the surface? Down here, without any viewscreens of the surface, she'd never know, and it wouldn't matter. Coruscant never sleeps; there's always someone awake.

After some time of doing this - sitting and watching the lights turn on - Peetee rolls in and announces that it is oh-six hundred hours. He informs her that Kaaduu will be by shortly, and that she and Vestan will need to leave at seven if she wants to catch that cargo ship. Maybe it is morning after all. He gives her a tray with fresh water and a nutrient packet this time, instead of the ration bars, and then retreats, allowing her to eat in private.

The nutrient packet is somewhat better than the ration bars. At least the soupy mash inside isn't dry, and it tastes like something too, even if that something is only the vaguest hint of imitation meiloorun. It's still disgusting though, and she chases it down with water.

After, Kaaduu enters, holding a cloth bag. "This is for you. It's got some ration bars and extra clothes, plus a few other things. Toiletries, for the most part." They pause and glance to the door. It seems they don't want Vestan listening in. They continue in a quieter voice. "There's a blaster at the bottom. It's not very powerful and it doesn't have many charges, but it should get you out of a tight spot. There's a knife too just in case."

In spite of the fact that she just drank a full glass of water, her mouth runs dry. This is too much kindness. "How can I repay you?" she asks, knowing full well that she has nothing to offer.

"You don't need to. Just stay safe. You'll be off in a few minutes. Stay sharp," they say.

---

She could just untie it.

She could wet it down, comb it out with her fingers and make it lie somewhat flat with the rest of her hair. That would be easier, she thinks, than getting rid of it entirely. But she digs the knife out of the bag anyway and holds it as close to her cheek as she dares. It's going to look uneven, but it's for the best. This way, she won't be tempted to rebraid it, and no one will see the telltale signs of where it had been either. True, she could braid another section, after she's safe, but she won't. It wouldn't be right. Not that this is either - she hasn't been knighted, still doesn't feel ready to be, but her master is dead along with everyone else, and that's reason enough for her to do this. There's no one left to knight her even if that's what she wanted - which it isn't. She just can't bear the thought of being a padawan still. Not after everything.

Before she can doubt herself any further, she yanks. The knife slides through her hair like bantha butter, and the braid rests in her hand.

She shoves it into the trash receptacle, the sides of which are now encrusted with shimmering opalescence, and drowns it under a fresh layer of tar.

---

She takes the pistol out of the bag before they leave and tucks it inside her robes, which remain at the end of the bed.

It's hard for her to leave the clothing behind, but she has to do it in order to retain her anonymity. Giving up parts of her Jedi identity is a necessity at this point, like removing the braid. That, at least, is easy to rationalize, even if her doubts about the way she went about doing it are resurfacing.

The blaster causes much less internal strife. Although she appreciates the thought, it isn't something she's willing to compromise on. With no lightsaber and only a knife to defend herself, it would be a good idea to take it, but... she's already given up enough of herself today.

Renouncing the Jedi entirely is not something she intends to do.

The weapon stays at the clinic on Level 4302.

---

It’s a long way up to the docking bay. A lift takes them most of the way there, and when they arrive, it’s nearly empty. No one asks why the tiny medical clinic a thousand levels down has an extra helper today. Vestan tells her that they do this fairly often - find strangers in need of a way out, take them in, and send them on their way in the back of a cargo freighter. He says they never get caught, youthful idealism making him certain, but he has no way of knowing what happens once the ships leave. She tries not to let it bother her.

They enter and exit several times with various supply crates, and on the last trip she just...doesn't come back out. Vestan is long gone by the time the ramp closes, and no one bothered to interact with them earlier, so the crew is none the wiser that she didn't leave with him. She hides behind some other crates, but no one comes to check.

She has no idea where this freighter is headed and she doesn't care so long as it's not here. After a long while, the ship lurches and moves into orbit, awaiting permission to leave. It's as if nothing has happened for these people - which she supposes is true. Like Kaaduu said, the Jedi numbered in the mere thousands compared to the trillions who inhabit this planet alone, and the chances that the events of yesterday have affected this cargo pilot in any tangible way are slim. Another indeterminate period of time passes - shorter than the first, but still long enough to set her on edge - and then the world lurches, the telltale jerk of a ship entering hyperspace.

At last.

At last she's on her way out of this nightmare.

At last her memories catch up to her mind, and she breaks.

She keeps her sobbing as quiet as she can. It's a good thing she's had practice. Occasionally a sound slips out, but it's always masked by the sound of crates shifting in the hull, and isn't enough to draw anyone out of the crew compartment.

She's crying and she can't stop. There's no stuffed bantha to sink her fingers in. Kaaduu isn't here to steady her breathing. Her master can't distract her with training exercises. There's no end in sight. Not to her tears, not to her sorrow, not to this horrible awful insane sequence of events. It's still happening and she can do nothing, has no say in any of it, and she has never felt more incapable in her life.

Feeling incapable is nothing new to her. Feeling it to this degree is - unusual.

If she was faster, she could've protected the younglings. If she'd paid more attention, she could've reached her master, wherever he was. If she was smarter, she could've thought of a better way out of the Temple. If she was better, she could've stopped herself from even thinking about choking that clone to death. If she was stronger, she could've…

Could've what?

Done something. Done anything.

She's weak. She's incapable. She'll get caught. She'll be turned in for the bounty she knows is on her head and that of every other Jedi who escaped. She'll be tortured and imprisoned and killed and there'll be nothing she can do because she's a slow, absentminded, stupid little wretch.

No wonder her master never told her he was proud of her. Why would he be? He must've been embarrassed to have such a terrible padawan. Except for that one time that he did say he was proud of her, which must've been a mistake.

To think - Master Kanda Ibora, bastion of Jedi non-attachment principles, who walked the line between sentinel and soldier, and his disappointing little padawan who let physical items soothe her to sleep. She cries harder at that, at the thought that she's letting him down and breaking all of his expectations. All the lessons, the training, the wisdom he'd impressed upon her - wasted on her worthless, incompetent brain.

Her throat burns.

A sharp wedge of anxiety drives itself into her stomach. If she leaks black sludge now, it will get everywhere. The pilots and workers will see when they land and look for the cause. They’ll be able to track her. She thinks about getting up and finding someplace to dump it - an empty crate, perhaps - but her legs are too weak to stand and she's too scared to leave her hiding place. She considers the bag. It's cloth. It will leak, and the rest of her things, the very nice things she was gifted, will be ruined. There's nowhere else. She's out of options and out of time.

She tries to swallow it down, as she has many times before, knowing that it won't work, that it has never worked before, and yet still hoping that it will this time.

The oil recedes. Her head spins. She's never been able to swallow it before. Why now? She pants hard. Her head spins. The ship spins. Are they spinning? No. Her eyes. Her eyes are spinning in their sockets. Her head spins.

She closes her eyes.

---

Okeli.

Master?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

What for?

Everything.

Why?

I wasn't enough.

Then I am the one who is sorry.

But...why?

Because it was never my intention to make you feel that you are not enough.

No - no you didn't, you didn't, it's me, it's my fault, you didn't -

But I did.

Not on purpose!

No. Never. But I did, and I am sorry.

No, no no no no, it's not - you shouldn't - I can't -

Be at ease, young one. You did exactly as you were supposed to. What more could any of us have done?

Something. Anything.

You survived. That is enough.

I lost my lightsaber. I lost you. I lost - everything.

As did we all. But you gained something as well. You flew.

I...yes. I did.

So fly now, and make your own way.

I don't want to forget what you taught me.

You will not. But...my apprentice, some of what I taught you...some of it was not right.

You taught me to be a Jedi.

I did. But I also taught you that you could not rely on me. That you were inadequate, that you were unprepared, that you were too sentimental. Intentionally or not, that is what I taught you: if not through lessons, then through my words and actions. If anything, padawan, it is I who was not enough.

You were, though. Enough, I mean.

And I am proud of you.

You mean that?

Always.

Thank you, Master.

And thank you, apprentice, for teaching me as well.

Me? What could I have taught you?

…

Master?

…

...Master…?

---

The ship exits hyperspace, and she wakes.

The world around her shifts from the strange weightless not-weightless moving not-moving half-state of hyperspace to the sudden realness of actual space. Traveling through the inertia of not-quite-reality always makes her feel off-kilter. She doesn't remember the dream encounter at first; having to adjust muddles her already fatigued mind, and as she wakes, splinters of a conversation start to return.

Master -

...but survive...

So fly now...

...own way - enough -

She rubs at her aching skull, at a pressure point just behind her eyes. Remembering is...difficult, but not impossible. It just takes time. It will come to her, as it always does, but not right away.

They're still flying, approaching orbit. That means there should be plenty of time to adjust and prepare for her escape before they descend into the atmosphere. She reaches over to double-check her bag and stops with her hand hovering over the strap.

Force visions always end with her waking in a puddle of sticky black dribble. One as intense as that should've left a veritable ocean of mire beneath her, coating every nearby surface and all her limbs. But her fingers aren't stained with black - there's not a hint of it anywhere. Her matte brown scales are as clean as ever. With her other hand, she reaches up and feels at her face. Nothing there either, not even a little bit speckling her mouth.

A second realization hits her. Usually she has trouble breathing afterwards, a thick syrupy feeling preventing her from getting enough air. There's a prickling sensation at the back of her throat, but it's dry as bone, and breathing is easy.

The prickling increases as she focuses on it. Something - something is stuck there, lodged in her windpipe like a bad piece of food, like a - a croaker in her throat, where had she heard that expression before? Not the Jedi. Not Coruscant. Nowhere she's familiar with - anymore, at least. The prickling turns into stinging turns into biting and tearing and stabbing. Her throat feels like it's being ripped apart from the inside out. Whatever it is that's stuck there, she needs to get it out now, it hurts so much. It's burning, it's burning and she wants to cough, but if she does she'll alert the crew.

Her heart races. Tears obscure her vision. As quietly as she can, she tries clearing her throat, and the object inside her moves the tiniest bit. The pain abates just a pinch. Little by little, bit by bit, she repeats the process. Over and over again she flexes her throat and coughs into her hand and huffs and pants and it's exhausting her, but she has to do it to get it out. It's almost loose, almost unstuck.

One final push and it's free. Her throat feels raw but it's done. It rests on her tongue now, a tiny sharp object she estimates is just over two inches long. She's careful to breathe through her nose so she doesn't inhale it by accident and start the whole thing over again. Its edges are uneven and the ends of it sharp enough to draw blood when she probes it with her tongue. She's shaking still, and afraid to draw it out of her mouth.

What is it? How did it end up in her throat? She'd trusted Kaaduu, hadn't noticed anything unusual in the ration bars, but what if they'd slipped something in her while she was asleep? No, impossible. She feels guilty for thinking it. And anyway, this item is rough and definitely not man-made. Her best guess is that it's a piece of debris she swallowed somehow - maybe when she fell from the sky.

It's not debris. Whatever it is, it's more significant than that. She tries to convince herself otherwise and, as usual, fails.

Her curiosity overcomes her trepidation. She reaches up and takes the item from her mouth.

---

In her hand rests a crystal.

A thousand pastel colors dance inside the vaguely oblong, opaque white stone as she turns it over in her hand, letting its edges catch the low light of the cargo hold. It is beautiful, but she knows what it is. Something cold and dreadful sinks into her gut.

It's not just that it's the same material the black gunk she hacks up hardens into. Worse is the fact that it sings to her.

It calls to her through the Force, a million moments of her life sealed within the gemstone before her. How long has it been in her throat, incubating like some sort of memory parasite? Except it's not that, it's not a parasite, it's her and it's the Force and it's everything she's ever known or will know. It's the culmination of all her knowledge and experiences, up to and beyond the events of the last twenty-four hours. It resonates with her in a way that her previous kyber crystal never did, like it's a part of her very soul.

Maybe it is.

Her whole life, she's never known what the stuff her body produces after intense emotions is. Multiple doctors have looked into it, both Force-sensitive and not, and none of them had any insight on the matter. Without knowing more about her species, they couldn't be certain if this was a defect or something typical for all of them. Some theorized it was a defense mechanism. Others said it was a holdover from those days long past, in which her species might’ve built nests by hand. Whatever the case, they all concluded that she produced it naturally, and that it wasn't harmful outside of some mild discomfort and the mess it made. Officially, it was entered as a chronic condition in her medical files, so that whoever treated her knew what to expect.

Her whole life, she's simply dealt with it, preferring to ignore it where she can and move past it when she can't. Sometimes she goes months without incident, if she's lucky, but it always comes back and she always wipes it up and moves on.

This time is different. This isn't something she can just pretend doesn't exist. She doesn't want it, but she can't get rid of it either. She sighs and slips it into her pocket for safekeeping.

It's over. All she can do now is wait for the ship to land.

---

Getting out is simple compared to the way the last few days have gone. It's almost too easy to slip past the dockworkers and crewmen, but she's not about to look a gift fathier in the mouth. Some other catastrophe will come her way soon, she's sure of it, so she'll take what little reprieve she can get.

The area is bustling, and going unnoticed among the crowd is easy too. A civilian transport lands at the same time as the freighter, so all she has to do is pretend to be awestruck and she fits right in. It isn't hard - from what she sees already, the planet is breathtaking. Two celestial objects hung overhead when she emerged from the dim interior of the ship; the smaller of the two is setting now, casting odd double-angled shadows drenched in orange and pink across the shipyards. She learns from listening to chatter that this system is called Ubasi III, that it is a popular tourist destination in the winter, and that the second object is a moon rather than a sun, as most of the tourists assume. It catches the light of the real star so strongly that its name in the native tongue of this world means 'little sun'. It reminds her of what her father used to call her - his Little Lightweaver.

Acting on impulse, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the crystal. Pulling it out in the middle of a crowd feels almost sacrilegious, now that the overwhelming wrongness of the initial discovery has faded and she understands a little better what this is. She doesn’t dwell on it. Overall she feels better, lighter, and that extends to this strange little gemstone she's somehow created. That feeling won't last, she knows - she's expecting ups and downs, but for now she can honestly say she's doing alright.

She holds it up to the sky, so that it reflects and refracts the golden light of the little sun as it sets. Infinite colors spring from the crystal's heart, a miniature self-contained prism. It's just like he said: after every storm, a rainbow.

A devaronian man approaches her, interrupting her musings. Ornate silver rings encircle his hand-shaped horns, matching the delicate filigree interwoven between the fibers of his silken robes. "That gemstone is exquisite," he marvels, "How much for it, miss?"

She laughs. "For this? You could never afford it."

The sharpness of the words leaving her mouth startle her, but it's true. Nothing could convince her to hand this over - not wealth or weapons or worlds. He's affronted, looking her up and down and scowling at her peasant's clothing. All it does is make her laugh harder, until she's almost doubled over and interrupting the foot traffic around them. The man scoffs and moves on, muttering something in another language that she's pretty sure is meant to insult her intelligence.

It's not funny. It isn't. But the idea of someone offering her riches in exchange for something she coughed up after a panic attack and a conversation with a ghost, something that is all but worthless to anyone who isn't her - it's funny. After everything, she needs this.

Breathing comes easier than it has in months - years - after she finishes laughing. She can't remember the last time she found something this amusing.

Her back still aches. Her ankle still twinges with every step she takes. She can feel a strange breeze that wasn't there before through the new hole in her wing. She's still hollow inside, but she feels less lost - less like she's stumbling.

She flexes her wings. Feels the warmth of the sunlight, breathes the freshness of unfiltered air. It smells - well, terrible, but real. She feels real.

Finally, she feels ready.

#flight rising #star wars #fr lore #my writing #flight rising lore #rip i had to go back and add all the italics by hand because they didn't transfer over #uhhhhh guess i'm establishing a writing tag now uhhhh i'll make it uhhhhh #stanley writes stuff #stanley's lore #stan clan #okeli #PLEASE if you have questions abt anything going on here ask me i will talk your ear off about this #again if anyone even so much as reads the first paragraph i will be happy. if you read it all i will be supremely honored #i PROMISE you this is cool and interesting please to the three people who look at my star wars brainrot posts. you should read this #please excuse the boring title i could not for the life of me think of anything fitting so #also i'll mirror this to ao3 in case it's easier to read on that site but i have to wait for an invite to get signed up n whatnot #OKAY okay. i will stop talking now

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spookybreadstick · 3 years

Note

hi hi !!

i said i was going to send my letters every once in a while but every few hours is practically the same thing, is it not? i just find it very fun to send these-

i've heard of the 'babysitter's club' but i haven't read it. it sounds great though, i'll definitely add it to my list of books i want to read.

to change the size and color of the text you just select the text and a box will pop up for you to change the color !! its weird coloring the text in my letters, i don't know which words to change into red sometimes- i usually change the colors of the words that can be the paragraph's main topic, if that makes sense.

i'm glad you feel better !! it's good you can open up your mouth without any pain- speaking of physical pain, i've had some too !! and it's not that serious don't worry. i just haven't eaten enough foods with potassium so my calf muscles are all tense and sore from my whole day work out today- has that ever happened to you?

vanilla is so good !! people always say chocolate when they're younger, like when kids say juice or milk instead of water- but when you get older i swear you start loving water and vanilla ice cream more. but my favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip !!

of course i like your writing !! it's very refreshing from the serious tone or dark themes i come across when i read stuff on here- creepypasta in itself is very unsettling and disturbing, but you definitely know how to make it so sweet and just bring the characters to life !! i swear, every time i read any of your headcanons or scenarios i agree with what you write and just enjoy it- i've definitely laughed and gone on a trip down memory lane finding your account.

here are more questions to keep our fun conversation going !! have you ever visited another country or state? what was it like there if you have? what other fandoms are you in? are there any that you don't like the fandom itself? i definitely have one. the my hero community can be so toxic sometimes, it's upsetting. especially when it ruins people's image on the fandom as a whole.

anyways- i hope you have a good day breadstick !! hydrate and rest of course !!

-MC

hi MC!!

<<check under the cut for my long-ass reply lol>>

i loved reading the Babysitter's Club growing up! There are 131 books in the classic series, but there's also a bunch of other books that aren't considered a part of the classic series like the BSC Mysteries (36 books), the BSC Super-Specials (15 books), and the BSC Super-Mysteries (4 books). Then there's two spin-off series, the Babysitter's Club: Friends Forever (14 books) and Babysitters Little Sister (122 books), a 'portrait collection' of each of the sitters (I think 9 books in total), a babysitting guide book "written" by the sitters, and a prequel to the very first ever BSC book, called The Summer Before.

As you can see, there'a TON of Babysitters Club-verse books and I am really into all the lore, too. I am filled with fun facts about the book series and the characters. In fact, a while back, I considered making a Babysitters Club themed blog! This was before this blog was even running. I considered it, but at the same time, the Babysitters Club is a children’s book series at the end of the day, and they’re also from the eighties and nineties. Not a lot of people would be interested in a BSC blog. I also go through phases of hyperfixation, and my fixation on the BSC has left me at the moment. I usually cycle through hyperfixation though, so it’ll probably come around again at some point. I’ve never really talked about my hyperfixations before though, I think I mentioned them like once on this blog, but it’s weird for me because in my real life I don’t ever speak about my hyperfixations because I’m embarrassed of it...

Anyway, I’m feeling so much better today!! Like, almost back to normal, if you can believe it?? My mouth still hurts when I open it too wide, and I can’t chew things that are really crunchy or tough, but my face is only a tiny bit puffy now and my mouth doesn’t hurt when I’m just resting/doing nothing anymore! (Also, back when I did dance lessons, the calf thing used to happen to me too!)

My mom’s favorite is mint chocolate chip! And one of my brother’s favorites is chocolate, he loves everything chocolate. Funnily enough, my other brother is intolerant to chocolate! I had never heard of that before though, somebody being intolerant to chocolate (it’s not the dairy in the chocolate, like I’m Lactose Intolerant, but he can have dairy products so long as it’s not chocolate).

and like !!!! i love it when people compliment my work so much. i swear, it makes my whole day!! i’m really self-conscious about what i write to be honest, and it took me a while to get the confidence to start this blog.

to answer your questions:

I have been to a couple of other states, technically. My family once road-tripped to Disney World in Florida, but we didn’t actually stop in any of the states (unless it was to get food or gas or use a rest stop). And then we’ve obviously been to Florida for Disney World (we’re lucky enough to have gone a couple of times). I went on a class trip to Washington D.C. once, and we also stopped in Pennsylvania to see the Liberty Bell. And then I’ve also been to my neighboring states, because when you live in the states you’re definitely going to visit your neighboring states at least once. I have never been outside the country, however.

Visiting my neighboring states is totally fine, there’s really no difference from my actual state. Visiting Florida was pretty different though, at least when we went in the winter one year. Where I’m from, we’re used to the cold weather, especially during the winter. But in Florida, they are obviously not used to the cold weather. When we went, they were experiencing cold weather by their standards, which was probably 50 degrees (I think that’s 10 degrees Celsius?) You could definitely tell who was from Florida, because everyone was wearing big coats (I saw somebody wearing a hat and mittens!) but the people who were from places used to the cold (like my family) were all wearing shorts, T-shirts, and bringing along a light jacket just in case! This was nice weather for us! Also, while driving to Florida one time, my family was pulled over for doing something that is totally legal in my state but was apparently illegal in the state we were in! The police officer was very nice though, we explained that this isn’t our state and we didn’t known it wasn’t legal, so he let us go and just told us not to do it again. It’s funny though because I once told that story to somebody who is not American, and they couldn’t believe that different states can have different laws when driving. I also had a really weird experience in one of the Carolinas (I forget which one though), but that’s a longer story lol!

My other fandoms? Marvel, The Hobbit, Gravity Falls, the Babysitters Club, and Disney. I’m also interested in Adventure Time, Manifest, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), the Phantom of the Opera, and Stranger Things, although I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily a part of those fandoms (although I have been a part of the TMNT & POTO fandoms before).

I feel like fandom in general can either be a blessing or a curse, and in reality, it’s usually a bit of both. There’s no one fandom that I’ve ever been a part of that I can say has been a really “terrible” fandom, each one has their own flaws and their own really good points as well. Even with creepypasta. I’ve seen so many blogs that I’ve loved and so much of the fandom is really awesome, but I’ve also seen blogs that just rub me the wrong way and I’ve seen parts of the fandom that just made me go WTF? It all depends, really. And I agree with you on certain parts of fandoms ruining the image. People do the same stuff for creepypasta sometimes and it gives all a bad name, which really stinks :/

Thank you for explaining how to do the text & color changes! And thank you for this lovely letter, I very much enjoyed answering it!

- breadstick 🥖

#MC #letters from MC #anon #asks #🥖#breadstick speaks #breadstick 🥖#spookybreadstick

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sternbagel · 3 years

Text

Inspired by the wonderful OC lore that @charlotte-balfours-garden wrote and posted, I decided to finish this piece that’s been sitting in my drafts for months about my own RDR OC, visual references here!

Note: This takes place in canon, Chapter 3, and while everyone calls her Alberta Taylor at this point, it’s not her real name, just something she’s been going by for years because of something in her past. Professionally, she’s a bounty hunter, but has dabbled in other things.

Read This First

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

Well, at least the one thing today that hasn’t been surprising is Arthur finding Al has dragged a chair over to his tent to read, one leg propped up on the chest at the end of his cot. Sometimes she’ll set up there to get ample shade from the sun, and according to her, the chest is the perfect foot rest height.

“Afternoon, Arthur,” she greets lazily as she turns the page.

“Miss Taylor. Comfortable?”

“Sure.” She cuts her eyes up at him from under the brim of her hat, seemingly just to give him a greeting glance and smile, but when she spots the shiny new accessory pinned to his vest, her head raises higher. “You steal that off a dead lawman or somethin’?”

And it begins, Arthur thinks with a snort. “No, Dutch—” he waves an arm in the direction he came from, though Dutch has long ago left that area—“got us ingratiated with the local sheriff, so now we’re honorary deputies.”

“Was Sheriff Gray drunk?”

That’s surprising. They only met the sheriff yesterday, and he’s not sure the full story of their encounter has been relayed to the rest of camp, just the orders not to cause any trouble. “How’d you know his name?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he realizes that most likely, it was Hosea. Those two are close.

She answers with a cavalier shrug before he can say anything. “I’ve been here before. Once. Didn’t stay long.”

Arthur takes the bait she leaves out. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s Lemoyne. I don’t spend very long here if I can help it. But first time I got to Rhodes lookin’ for bounty posters, Sheriff Gray was puking in the bushes. Somehow he managed to get out that they do all the bounty hunting themselves. No reason to go back.”

“Well, that’s pretty much how I found him when I went lookin’ for Dutch and Bill.”

“Figures,” she laughs, shaking her head. “Not that I really care, but where is Bill? Didn’t see him come back with y’all. Still with the Sheriff, ingratiating himself?” She looks thoughtful for a moment. “I didn’t get that impression off him, but I wasn—”

Arthur holds up a hand and shakes his own head with a smirk. “No, no, the Grays around here don’t seem… his type. Matter of fact, I should probably warn Bill to just play it cool—“

“What, drunk, dumb, and ignorant ain’t Bill’s type? What about that guy we saw him chattin’ up at that saloon in Armadillo?”

“That ain’t what I mean,” he snorts.

“I know.” Al flashes a playful smirk. “I’m just messin’.”

“Well, anyway, no, he’s off hidin’ some wagon full o’ moonshine we stole off some bootleggers under the Sheriff’s orders. Hosea’ll know what to do with it.”

“Moonshine?” This seems to pique her interest, again to Arthur’s surprise. “You know who you stole it off of?”

“Yes…” Arthur’s eyebrows knit together. He slowly lumbers over to his table, laying down the deputy badge and watching her carefully. Al’s expression is calm, but it’s a thin enough veneer that he sees the curiosity building by the second. “What’s it to you?”

“Curious.”

“Yeah.”

The book in her lap finally closes. “I used to run with some moonshiners not too long ago.”

“Alberta Taylor. Well, I never took you for a bootlegger.”

She throws an arm over the back of her chair and lets her head fall back, exposing more of her neck. It’s then that Arthur notices she’s not wearing her usual green neckerchief. Or her green jacket. She must be really burning up to be in just her workshirt and jeans. “Not every professional bounty hunter is a staunch upholder of the law, Arthur Morgan,” she says matter-of-factly with a lift of her brow.

“I never said that. Didn’t mean it neither. I mean, look who you fell in with, I know better. I just ain’t seen you drink much moonshine.”

“Sure. Always been more of a beer and tequila woman.”

He plops down on his cot and lights a cigarette. “Then what you doin’ runnin’ with moonshiners?”

“Tell me who you stole the liquor off of first, cowboy.”

Arthur concedes. Al is stubborn. “The Braithwaites. And those fellers that run around here with those yellow bandanas. Sadie and I ran into ‘em a few days ago. Uh—”

“Lemoyne Raiders?” She sneers. “I’d hoped someone had snuffed ‘em out by now. Hijo de putas.”

He takes a long drag of the cigarette before answering. “Yeah, that’s them. You’ve had some run-ins with ‘em, huh?”

“Like I said, just the once. Three of them stopped me on my way into Rhodes. Brought ‘em into town, dead, which is when I met Sheriff Gray. They didn’t have any bounties on ‘em, so all I got outta one of his deputies was five dollars. I know they weren’t even worth that much, but he coulda paid me more,” she grumbles. Her light Cuban accent comes out more the lower her voice goes.

“Sounds about right. Least ya got paid somethin’.”

“I guess.” She picks at the spine of her book for a moment. “Wasn’t long after that I met a… moonshiner legend, so to say, through a mutual friend. Though friend seems to be pushing it.”

He gets the sense she’s not fully sour on the “friend,” so his shoulders shake in amusement.

“He was a lot like Uncle, actually.”

“Lord.” Arthur snickers, smoke billowing out of his mouth.

“Yeah. Not as lazy. Probably younger, but who knows.”

“I reckon Uncle ain’t as old as he wants folks to think. Besides just bein’ too lazy, it’s probably why he don’t trim his beard.”

Al laughs, rougher than usual until she coughs and clears it up. “Damn humidity.”

“Tell me about it,” Arthur agrees, leaning forward and propping one elbow up on his knee. “So, this… moonshiner legend.”

“Ever heard the name Maggie Fike?”

The name isn’t familiar, but it isn’t unfamiliar either. “Don’t think so,” he settles on.

“Well, she’s been mostly out this way rather than out where y’all been running around. Revenue Agents caught up to her a couple years back, tried burning her alive. Didn’t work, but gave her a nasty scar and bad eye. Almost puts Marston to shame. Almost,” she adds with a grin as he walks between Arthur and Strauss’ tents.

“Take a look in the mirror, Miss Taylor,” he grumbles back. Then he chucks a cigarette butt at a chuckling Arthur. “You too, Morgan.”

John disappears around the side of the tent as Arthur brushes off the butt. “Cranky cause he ain’t had his midday nap.”

“Pick better material.”

Al chuckles and presses the palm of her hand on her hat, affixing it more securely to her head. “Anyway…”

“Anyway…” Arthur sighs lightly. “You said she survived?”

“Yeah, went into hiding for a while. Somehow got a hold of my ‘friend’, who then asked me for help gettin’ her business back on its feet. Easy work at first. Finding a good location for the shack, gettin’ her some supplies, that stuff.” She waves a hand around. “Most folks don’t pay much mind to a bounty hunter buyin’ supplies in bulk like I was or destroying illegal stills. Sometimes I brought in the other moonshiners to the local town to collect on a bounty. Made for a better cover for what I was really doing.”

“Takin’ out the competition.” Arthur chuckles.

“Exactly. Then came—”

“What the hell are you two talkin’ about anyway?”

Al puts her hand back on her hat before tipping her head back, almost touching the back of the chair, and looks at John, upside down. Arthur leans forward more to get his own look and the rangy outlaw, who’s circled back around to the other side of his wagon.

“And what the hell is that?” John asks. He’s looking directly at the badge on Arthur’s table, disgust etched into his features. As if it’s some rotting, maggot infested carcass Arthur’s using for decoration.

Arthur sighs and briefly explains again.

“So this is just another excuse for you to play dress-up, eh? Guess I need to tell Hosea you’re itchin’ to go scammin’ with him again.”

“You do that, it’ll be your pecker in the stew pot next meal.”

Al’s crossed her arms over her chest and is watching them with barely contained amusement. “Playing dress-up? I don’t think I’ve seen that side of you yet, Arthur.”

“And you won’t,” he growls. “Only reason Hosea takes me on those jobs is because he knows I hate it. Just once I’d like him to take Marston instead.”

“You sure about that?” Al studies John as if she’s a talent agent in the big city. “Doesn’t he like to avoid mayhem on those jobs?”

John snorts indignantly. “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you try and follow Hosea’s lead. I swear even he don’t know what he’s doin’ half the time.”

“But it works.” Her eyebrows raise pointedly.

“But it works,” John concedes.

“Well, next time you go, let me know. I’d love to watch y’all work.”

“Whatever,” John grumbles as he waves her off and saunters away. Apparently he’s given up on butting into their conversation.

“I ain’t pullin’ that type of job with Hosea again. What we had set up in Blackwater, sure, but not...” Arthur wags a finger in the air, then unfurls the rest of his fingers and waves his hand once before letting it fall back in his lap. “Not that. The girls and Trelawny are much better’n me anyway. Safer that way.”

Al shrugs. “I won’t argue that.”

“So, back to what you was sayin’?” Arthur’s not willing to let the moonshiner story drop. It’s not often she lets down her walls and tells stories of her past that don’t directly involve some bounty she’s nabbed. He knows what happened to her family, but that had been a moment he wasn’t meant to see, and neither of them have ever brought it up again.

“So after we get a shack set up, she gets word of where this old buddy of hers is, go rescue him so he can make our moonshine. Not long after that, her nephew’s gettin’ moved from Sisika, so I go rescue him.”

Arthur pulls the cigarette from his lips and folds his arms across his chest, leaning back against the wagon. “Just you against a bunch of lawmen?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Morgan,” she drawls, lolling her head to the side.

“Suppose I shouldn’t be,” he chuckles.

“No, actually, I had a couple friends with me, cashed in on some favors. I’m not stupid or reckless enough to take on an armed prison transport.”

Arthur just shrugs. “Woulda believed you either way.”

“You’re too trusting,” she remarks. There’s a teasing lilt to her voice, but her eyes sparkle with something else.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Well, we bring them back to the shack, get the business up and running. Enact some revenge on a rival of hers in the meantime, I get to kill the agent who tried to burn her. Spent about a year with them. I didn’t do a lot of the actual running of moonshine, one of those friends who helped me break out Maggie’s nephew, Lem, did most of that. I focused on taking out the competition, clearing out Revenue Agent roadblocks when we were sure we couldn’t sneak past them. The real dirty work. But I didn’t mind, kept me moving, out of the government’s crosshairs enough that I could keep killin’ those damn agents.”

Arthur cocks his head curiously. But she isn’t done talking, so he lets her continue, holding onto his question for now.

“Couple months before I ran into y’all, I told them I’d have to leave. I’d spent so much time in this area, couldn’t… Needed to get out and go back out west. See some old friends, see some open country. They reckoned they’d be fine without me, but threw them the name of another friend I knew’d be able to help them, pick up my slack.”

“So… you think they’re still runnin’ that shine?”

“No reason not to. Never heard anything about her being captured. Got a letter from them while I was in Blackwater, actually. They’re doin’ well.” She gives a fond, reminiscent smile. “That friend is working with Maggie now, too. Dunno how she stands him, but…”

“Good. Since we’re over this way, you plannin’ on seein’ ‘em?”

“They’re north, Roanoke Ridge territory. Might, if I feel safe leavin’ you fools by yourself for more than a week.”

Arthur chuckles and shakes his head. “I reckon we can survive without ya for that long.”

“With all the trouble you been causing lately? I don’t think so, Mr. Morgan.” Al fans herself with her book, smirking at Arthur pointedly.

“I actually got another question for ya,” he diverts.

“Shoot.”

“I been thinkin’ about this since you got here, but now, knowin’ how much you seem to hate the Revenue Agents, how come you’re a bounty hunter, takin’ payouts from the government, but runnin’ with a bunch’a outlaws? After a year of runnin’ shine, that is.”

A simple shrug is her reply, and the pause is so long Arthur isn’t sure she’ll actually give him an explanation, until, “You have your code, I have mine.”

“Huh,” he grunts. They watch each other casually for a long moment, then he asks, “You gonna explain?”

He can see her weigh her options, and eventually she relents. “You know…” Her expression immediately tells him what she means: her past, what happened to her.

“Yeah,” he offers quietly.

“Well, nobody’s born a seasoned gunslinger. When I first started bounty hunting, I had to take the easier targets. Most big pay days, or the jobs that are good start for those of us that’re green, they’re people who rob banks with a pen, rich people doing rich people crimes. They’re soft, easy, and all it really takes to catch them is knowing the land better and being tougher than city folk. Which ain’t hard at all. So, until I could stand on my own, those were the only kinds I took. Then I started goin’ after the bastards I really wanted to. People like the Johnson Brothers.”

She nearly spits the name. Arthur feels the sting in her soul.

“I never take those soft bounties anymore,” she continues after a deep breath, seeming more like herself again with every word. “Unless I need a break. But it’s been a while since I have.”

“Been a while since you took a bounty at all.”

She must notice the question in his voice. Not judgement, but question. “No. You’ve been kicking up too much fuss. Wouldn’t be smart for me to be seen around town here more than once or twice.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. While it is mostly true, it’s about all he’s going to get out of her, but he knows the real reason why. Even if she won’t admit it to herself. “Got me there, Al.”

“Not hard to do, Arthur.”

#also we're going with the bill is gay theory. but like. half the gang is gay so she's not making fun of that.#she hates bill. so she's making fun of HIM directly.#hope that comes across lol.#also i hope it's okay to tag you in this!!! I can fix it if not #rdr #alma tejada #my fics #i guess that's gonna be a tag. i mostly just share this shit with friends and post my much bigger projects elsewhere

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mcl-pauly · 4 years

Note

What are your takes and feelings about each Vampire and Eloise so far Pauly ? Sorry is someone asked this already :3

Oh I’ve never shared my opinions about ML in details before haven’t I?

I like Eloise! I find her hilarious and I like that she stands up for herself. Most of her reactions makes sense to me from what I can remember right now, the most annoying thing about her that I can think of is when she’s being jealous of another female character, because it doesn’t feel nice to play a character that’s insecure, but so far this is the only thing that bothers me about her character. And I actually like the way she’s dressed lolol wish they had kept her hair black though.

Vladimir was at the bottom of my ranking when the game was released... and he stayed there once I finished his route. I got sick of his mood swings by chapter 5 I think? He has his cute moments but him and Eloise are always arguing in his route. She is also always the one making efforts to make him come out of his shell, then 10 seconds later he’d become cold again.. it was just tiring. His neutral ending actually kind of redeemed him for me (not that I wanted him to die lol) because... I... like tragic characters I guess? I dunno, it kinda made me wanna go back to try and understand his character a bit more, at a moment where I was just sick of him. I wish they had focused on his depression more.

I wanted to drop Beliath’s route when I finished his first chapter. I was uncomfortable (I swear, who was it at Beemoov who decided the Crush would assault Eloise in the first chapter) and I had to spoil myself (which I hadn’t planned on doing when I started the game) up to chapter 3 to motivate myself to continue. And it was the BEST DECISION EVER. By the end of chapter 5, Beliath became my fav vampire. The Don Juan act can be off-putting in the beginning but I SWEAR it gets 100% better the more you progress into his route. His major default is that he’s a bit secretive but once his secret his revealed, it’s just... amazing. He’s so nice and playful, he’s respectful of Eloise and considers her as his equal. It’s the only route so far where the Crush acknowledges that the Chalice bond sucks (when on the other hand, Vladimir says that he “owns” Eloise up until chapter 9)... He’s just really good. I love him. And he’s also so nice when you’re not on his route. When Beliath says that he’s the best choice... maybe you should trust him.

When they revealed Ivan’s portrait back when the game was in development I thought he would be one of my fav... but when the game actually came out... well... let’s say that he wasn’t one. It’s not even because of the fact that he’s responsible for Eloise’s death... I don’t know, I guess the chemicals in my brain changed by the time the game came out lol. Anyway, he was kinda in the middle in my ranking, but he dropped hard once I started his route. He has his cute moments just like Vladimir, but he is... really bad-tempered. His relationship with Eloise is not healthy (they argue a lot too) and maybe it’ll get better but we’re already at chapter 6 and I don’t see any signs of the plot actually addressing the problems they had in the first chapters. I don’t like this weird dead lover trope they’re using for his route, Eloise is always either blaming herself or Constance for Ivan’s behavior and it’s just URGH girl, drop him and go get dicked down by Beliath already would you now. I’m actually enjoying his character more if I just ignore the romance parts (yeah, I’m invested in the Constance-Loic-Ivan drama, sue me).

I don’t really have much to say about Aaron right now. He’s in the middle in my ranking and I actually got more interested in his character after the game came out. He’s been nice so far and he can be really playful I think. I hope his bluntness will help us avoid spending entire chapters on secrets and stuff. Oh and I hope his route will give us lotssss of lore, considering Aaron is the oldest vampire in the manor.

Raphael is really nice and kind. Unfortunately, I have this very specific brain rot that makes me unable to like decent fictional men. Bottom of my ranking you go. It doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in his character though, I actually find it hilarious that he’ll gladly answer Eloise if she asks him about personal infos on the other vampires, but flatly refuse to say anything about himself if Eloise dares to ask. What are you so mysterious for, Jester boy. If ur kindness was genuine you wouldn’t be hiding things from me, Jester boy. Maybe if I bully him enough, I’ll love him by the time his route is released.

Ethan is an asshole. Unfortunately, I have this very specific brain rot that makes me like fictional bad boyz. It’s noticeable that he cares despite the layers and layers of snarks and I think that’s sweet. Now, I adore him in Beliath’s route, but I despise him in Ivan’s. I hate the way he’s behaving in it or the way he’s talking to Eloise, it just goes too far! In Bel’s route, he’s provocative but playful but in Ivan’s he’s straight up unsufferable. On another note, he’s also a character that will flatly refuse to say anything about himself if Eloise dares to ask so I can’t wait to learn more about his past.

#ask #moonlight lovers #spoilers #mmmh i think ive said most of the things i wanted to say #but maybe i should refresh my memory soon on some of the stuff that happened in this game lol

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drowningbydegrees · 4 years

Text

Once Written in the Stars Pt. 1

I think this might be the first fandom I’ve been in that really reads fic here, so I’m trying to be better about posting it. It’s also on AO3 It’s only when Geralt sheaths his sword that he realizes his medallion is still humming, perhaps even more than it was before. He squints through the trees, and sees nothing beyond the blanket of buttercups carpeting the forest floor. There’s a lark somewhere in the distance, but nothing near him moves. Buttercups. He circles back to that, to the bright spring flowers that stretch out into the forest as far as he can see. It’s the end of summer though, where the world goes brown and dry as it waits for relief from the heat to tumble into fall. There’s not something in the woods making the medallion vibrate against his skin Geralt realizes too late. It’s the woods themselves, and perhaps the keepers of it. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself, hoping he hasn’t gone so far astray that there isn’t a way back.

So, Geralt walks back in the direction he’s certain he came from, searching for where the flowers fade back into the dirt and twigs he should be finding under his feet. The medallion only thrums more urgently, for so long that it’s eventually just a background sensation as Geralt tries to find his way.

He passes an old, moss covered tree for what he’s certain is the fourth time and makes himself stop, as if pausing will help him regain his bearings. It doesn’t of course, but somewhere nearby, someone is singing.

Somewhere in between the moss and the stone

The wind and the wood became my home

I layed myself down upon the green

when the ivy overgrew I could never leave

Something in the darkness pulled me deeper

Something in the madness eased my mind

Was I awake or was I dreaming

Cut the strings that bind me to mankind

Geralt bristles, starting to reach for his sword, but it’s a stuttered, aborted motion as the melody sinks in. The song is beautiful, he realizes, subtly easing the wariness with which he regards the woods. Perhaps he’ll just listen for a moment, because it’s ever so soothing. When his feet begin to carry him closer, Geralt doesn’t notice. Nothing good lives in a fae forest, something far away in him whispers. He grasps for the truth of that, because it might be important, but it’s so very far away from him now. The sentiment slips uselessly through his fingers like the pleasant spring breeze that ruffles his hair as it blows through the trees. Caution flits somewhere at the periphery, but he can’t pin it down and it’s… unnecessary. There’s no need for caution here, not when the calm sinks right down to his bones. It lulls him until the witcher wants nothing more than to wrap himself up in the music, the world beyond the woods be damned.

The trees pass by as Geralt ventures deeper into the woods, never catching sight of the mist that swathes him. If anything, it is a caress, an embrace, something that softens the sharp edges of him and blots out the things that keep him up at night. There is a peace here he never knew he wanted, but he yearns for it, to be allowed to keep this thing as he steps into a glade where the sunlight comes through in soft, slanted bars.

It is there that he sees it, though the creature is tangled up in the shadows where the trees begin again. The claws are the first thing to catch Geralt’s eye, razor sharp and curved like scythes. They’re lost as they fade into sinewy arms, rough and ashen like tree bark on something long since dead. Its limbs come together like twisted vines and branches, framing around its dessicated belly where the thin flesh that stretches across is sunken in.

This is the thing singing him lullabies, he realizes. The sense of danger claws its way closer to the forefront of his mind, but every inch is a struggle as he tries to remember why this should frighten anyone. Shaking something loose, he slowly cobbles together the sense to draw his sword.

“Silver? You can’t hurt me with that.” The music has stopped, but the voice is lyrical all the same, pulling Geralt’s gaze upward where the creature looms a bit over him. He hadn’t seen its face before, but it’s no more pleasant than the rest of it. Teeth like long daggers fill up its mouth, pulling it into a sort of rictus grin. Geralt can see patches of ashen skin underneath, crowded in by branches that fan out at grotesque angles, a mockery of antlers. A short ways beneath them, a pair of blue, blue eyes zero in on Geralt, unnaturally luminous. He’s never seen a damned thing like it.

“I don’t think it’ll tickle,” he grouses, adjusting his stance. It spoke to him though, clearly more than the beast it appears to be, so he doesn’t attack right away.

“You were lost.” It’s not a question, and Geralt isn’t sure if it’s that or the creature’s utter lack of concern about his weapon that puts him on edge.

“I wasn’t until you lured me here,” Geralt growls, because if this is going to end up in a fight, he’d just as soon get on with it.

The creature regards him with a wider smile, probably meant to convey mirth, but mostly only pulling it’s mouth into something more grotesque. It shakes its head, horns catching in the leaves overhead. Worse, the creature laughs. “I watched you all afternoon.”

Had it been so long? There is rumor that time moves differently in places like this, but surely it can’t have been hours he’s been here. For the first time, Geralt notices the sunlight has taken on the drippy gold sheen it wears just before dusk begins to settle in, and he curses under his breath.

“What do you want?” Geralt braces himself, sure he’s not going to like the answer.

At first, the creature is quiet, it’s expression so twisted that it’s impossible to glean any sense of intention. “No one is meant to survive this place, but....”

The response covers the obvious, Geralt thinks but does not say. “If you’re waiting for me to beg for my life, you’re going to be very disappointed.”

“What? No, no, of course not. I want to help you.” Geralt had expected some sort of formality in conversation with the kinds of things that live in a forest like this, not unlike the way conversations go with nobles. The cadence this one keeps to is like an old friend though, casual, friendly even, and it’s all Geralt can do not to be swayed again despite what’s looking at him. Almost too late, Geralt realizes it’s making eye contact, but he cannot look away.

“Don’t do that,” he grits out, and perhaps he’s caught the creature in a good mood because the tug at his emotions and sense of reason dissipates until it has faded to nothing. All at once, Geralt is entirely his own again.

“Of course,” it agrees, stepping through the glade, strangely graceful. Where Geralt expects a lumbering gait, the creature moves like a dancer, eerie in the way it glides to where the witcher stands and then right on past him. “Come along then.”

“Just like that?” Geralt arches an eyebrow, recognizing following the creature through the woods for the terrible idea it is now that his mind is no longer clouded. Granted, there aren’t a great many options. Besides, it could have forced him or killed him or just left him in the woods, and it had done none of those things. Heaving a sigh and cursing under his breath, Geralt follows.

The creature leads the way, absently dragging its fingers along bark and branches. Geralt isn’t sure if it’s his imagination, but he swears everywhere it touches brightens, as if this monstrous thing is luring the foliage to flourish the way it lured Geralt to stand before it. It must be a fairy, he realizes, its distorted visage the truth that lurks beneath the pretty picture fae paint for men.

“Do you always hunt monsters? Is it exciting? Do you travel?” the questions come rapidfire, and for something dredged up from someone’s nightmare, it’s shockingly amiable. Chatty too, much to Geralt’s chagrin. The fairy doesn’t actually wait for an answer to any of the things it asks though, before sort of interrupting itself. “I’m being rude. I didn’t even ask. What’s your name?”

Fairies aren’t really monsters, and they mostly keep to themselves, so Geralt isn’t as well versed in their ways as might be useful, but this part he knows. There’s power in a name, and it’s not something he’s keen on handing over to any sort of fae, no matter how friendly it seems. There’s… something about being very careful not to be rude though, he thinks, so Geralt gives it something, a useless moniker as a standup. “You can call me witcher.”

“You really are a monster hunter, then.” If the fairy is put off by Geralt’s answer, it doesn’t show. Quite the contrary. Its mouth pulls wide into the unnatural, sharp edged smile that Geralt is starting to realize is just the fairy’s face and not some kind of threat. And then, perhaps because the name thing doesn’t work in reverse, or because Geralt has misremembered the lore entirely, it replies, “Well, hello then, witcher. I’m Dandelion.”

“Dandelion.” Geralt dubiously repeats, drawing the word out as his gaze sweeps over the fairy from head to toe. If said fairy recognizes that Dandelion is terribly incongruous with his nightmarish countenance, he gives no indication, instead chattering on about something else entirely. He pays little mind when Geralt mostly doesn’t answer, as if the witcher were just an accessory to the fairy’s one sided conversation.

Geralt feels the change before he sees it, when the muggy summer air begins crowding into the woods’ perpetual spring. By the time the treeline comes into view, the sun has nearly sunk below the horizon, the first stars peeking out where the sky has already gone dark. A tension Geralt hadn’t realized he’d been holding finally eases, as he reaches safety once more.

“Thank-” Geralt begins, but the look on Dandelion’s face stops him. His face is always somewhat twisted, but even still, there’s no mistaking the anger in the way the fairy’s eyes narrow at him.

“Don’t. You. Dare.” It comes out far more forcefully than Geralt can imagine there being any call for, and Dandelion punctuates each word with a sharp poke of one clawed finger against the armor in the center of his chest. “Have you no manners at all?”

Belatedly, Geralt thinks he might remember some such thing about thanking fae being rude. Maybe? He can’t really recall because it had never been important, but he holds up his hands placatingly. “I only wanted to convey that I appreciate your help.”

Dandelion lets out an affronted little hmph, but the fairy’s eyes soften around the edges. Geralt can’t help but think he’s narrowly sidestepped something awful. He’s never met another fairy, but he’s heard stories, and never got the impression they were easy to mollify.

“Why wouldn’t I help? Okay, maybe the others wouldn’t have, but that’s hardly the point. It’s not like you deserved to be stuck there,” Dandelion mutters, clawed hand falling loosely back to his side, leaving Geralt to wonder what metric the fairy was judging that by.

Eager to put some distance between himself and those cursed woods, Geralt chooses not to give the fairy an opportunity to drag him into further conversation. He offers up a hasty goodbye and turns on his heel to leave. He doesn’t wait for a response, and Dandelion moves so quietly, it’s only the continued thrum of his medallion that gives the fairy away. Bracing himself for what he assumes are going to be far too many words, he looks at Dandelion, “You’re following me. Why?”

“Oh! I can’t go back,” Dandelion says a little too brightly, waving a spindly arm at the meadow stretched out in front of them. “Seems like as good a direction as any.”

“Why can’t you go back?” Geralt hears himself ask, even though he really doesn’t want to know, even though he’s very aware that he’s going to feel obligated to do something once he does know.

Dandelion’s shoulders lift and fall in what Geralt can only assume is an approximation of a shrug. “You break the rules. You leave. Or you die. Really, it happens so rarely I don’t think anyone remembers one way or another, so probably best to decide for them and be on my way.”

Geralt stops then, because Dandelion appears pretty determined to follow and given how difficult a time he has with humans already, the fairy’s appearance would only make it worse. Dandelion's earlier assertion that no one was meant to survive the woods takes on an entirely different connotation now. It had never been the threat he’d assumed it to be at all. “Why did you help me, then?”

“You were lost.” Under other circumstances, the naive simplicity of that might be endearing. No qualifiers. No caveats. Either Dandelion is terribly manipulative or terribly kind-hearted, and Geralt has an incredibly irritating suspicion that it’s the latter.

“I’d have found my way.”

Dandelion’s features don’t change much, but the glow of his eyes shifts, taking on a softer cast. “You really wouldn’t have. No one does. That’s the point.”

Geralt wants to argue, but they probably both know better when it comes down to it. Resigning himself to having company at least for the trip into town, Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. “Have you ever even been out here?”

“Nope.” Dandelion’s tone is far too untroubled for someone who’s just tossed aside their entire life, but the fairy glances away, and for just a moment, Geralt spots the sorrow underneath, no more than one last longing look at the trees behind them.

“Fuck,” Geralt mutters to himself, already knowing he’s not going to abandon Dandelion out here. Resigned, Geralt gestures at Dandelion’s looming form. “Well, you can’t walk into town like that.”

“Like what?” Dandelion’s head cocks to the side like a curious puppy. A very large, very nightmarish puppy.

“I’m not sure if you’ve if you’ve seen yourself, but-” That’s as far as Geralt gets before it becomes clear that Dandelion has grasped the issue. Geralt had been looking up at the fairy’s face, so the abrupt disappearance as Dandelion shifts into some hopefully less imposing form throws him off.

Geralt’s gaze drags downward until he catches the top of a mop of brown hair framing the high cheekbones and soft curves of a startlingly human face. Only Dandelion’s eyes give him away, and even then, only because Geralt knows the blue of them is a touch too vibrant to be normal. Dandelion’s newly human looking mouth turns up pleasantly, a far cry from the jagged teeth from before. Even his clothes are convincing in that they’re bright and eye catching and recognizably human. “Better?”

“...Better,” Geralt is forced to concede. Pretty, even, if he’s being honest. At least Dandelion hadn’t decided to model this new form after him. Where any of this came from is a revelation Geralt is very, very sure he doesn’t want to partake in.

“Wonderful!” Dandelion claps his very human looking hands together once and sets off in the direction Geralt had been walking.

And it’s fine, really. He’ll get Dandelion to civilization, where he’s sure the curious fairy will find something other than Geralt to occupy his time. That’ll be the end of it, Geralt decides. It has to be because there’s no place for a fairy at the side of a witcher.

While he might prod Dandelion for his thoughts on the matter, the fairy is already incessantly chattering about practically everything else. The stars are so bright without the trees in the way. The grass is scratchier out here. Do you ever wear anything other than black? It’s so warm. How does anyone stand it? What’s that, anyway?

The last in the barrage of commentary and questions is punctuated by slender fingers reaching out to brush over the medallion around Geralt’s neck. Instinctively, his hand shoots up to curl around Dandelion’s wrist and pull it away. “Do not.”

“Touchy,” Dandelion complains, rubbing at his wrist when Geralt releases it. The witcher might feel bad if he wasn’t quite certain that the only thing he could possibly have injured is Dandelion’s pride.

There are a few moments of blessed silence where Dandelion is either sufficiently chastised or maybe just grumpy enough not to keep talking. They’re almost to the road when Geralt realizes another issue and very, very reluctantly speaks up. “What are you going to call yourself?”

“I have a name.” Apparently all is forgiven, because Dandelion’s frown dissipates in favor of open curiosity.

“You can not go around calling yourself Dandelion if you’re trying to pass yourself off as human.” Before Dandelion can argue, Geralt adds, “And you are passing yourself off as human.”

“Fine.” A frown creases Dandelion’s lips again as he shuffles along beside Geralt. The fairy is blessedly quiet as they reach the road. The village is too far away to see in dark, even for Geralt, but it’s close enough to promise an end to all this nonsense. Geralt doesn’t see the way Dandelion abruptly brightens up, but he hears it. “Buttercup?”

Why did he think this was going to be anything other than thoroughly exasperating? Geralt glances over at Dandelion who, oddly enough, seems very invested in his approval. “That’s not better.”

“Daffodil? Oh, I don’t like that one. Maybe Peony?” And Dandelion is off again, prattling on about crocuses and tulips and bluebells and…

“Not a flower.” Geralt finally cuts in when he can’t tune Dandelion out any longer.

That quiets Dandelion for the space of a single breath before he’s pressing, “Why not?”

“Because humans would never name someone after most of those,” Geralt forces himself to explain very slowly and very calmly and very much not beginning to lose his temper. It’s only as he realizes Dandelion probably doesn’t have enough context that something like sympathy creeps in around the edges of his irritable mood. “Just pick something else.”

The fairy protests that if he’s giving up the last thing tying him to his old life, he should at least replace it with something good, and Geralt supposes there’s not much to argue with on that front. They go back and forth a great deal before Dandelion finally suggests something that isn’t a flower. “Jaskier?”

“Fine.” Geralt agrees with an exasperated sigh. He’s so grateful that the fairy has finally suggested something that isn’t completely ridiculous that he almost misses the toothy little smile Dandelion… Jaskier gives him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jaskier sing songs, looking very much like he’s won some game Geralt didn’t even know they were playing. “Nothing at all.”

****

The further they get from the forest, the more aware Dandelion (Jaskier, he reminds himself) is of how horribly uncomfortable it is. The air is too warm and too thick, like tree sap where it sticks to his skin. How does anyone live out here?

He supposes he’s going to find out if he’s meant to make a life beyond the woods, which is fine, really. It’s… fine. It has to be. The only home he’s ever known is no great loss, with the promise of endless adventure stretched out in front of him. It’s what Jaskier tells himself, at least, and he refuses to look back lest the fragile belief crumble.

After all, if he’s going to follow the witcher, there’s a whole world out there to explore. The man doesn’t appear all that interested in having Jaskier’s company, but that’s not exactly a new experience for the fairy, odd by even fae standards. That will all change, he thinks, when the witcher sees how useful it is to have someone around with magic at their fingertips. Surely, there must be something the witcher wants, if Jaskier can just learn what it is.

So, he follows at the witcher’s heels, unsure he particularly likes the wide dirt path humans have cut through the wilderness around them. Grass and flowers sprawl as far as the eye can see to either side, but the ground underneath them is hard, even through the soles of his boots. There’s a reason for it, probably, but the sentiment remains all the same.

Losing interest in the road, Jaskier watches the witcher, silently walking just a bit ahead. He isn’t much of a conversationalist, Jaskier quickly discovers. The fairy tries valiantly, but it’s not until he asks about why the man carries two swords that Jaskier gets more than a vague grunt in response.

“Silver for monsters. Steel for men.” It’s abrupt and to the point, and then the witcher is silent.

That seems… extreme. Jaskier has never actually met a human, mind you, but he’s seen a couple from afar. They looked quite fragile in the grand scheme of things, but if someone like the witcher has a weapon dedicated to them, perhaps he’s miscalculated. “Are humans really so dangerous?”

“You can decide that for yourself.” The witcher gestures ahead as they top a hill. Beyond the crest of it lays what must be a human community of some sort. It’s a collection of buildings silhouetted in the dark, yellow light glowing from within some of them.

Jaskier had somehow expected something more grand. He thinks to ask if all the places humans live are like this, but there’s the slightest dip to the way the witcher carries himself. From everything else he’s seen, it strikes Jaskier that even this very slight show of vulnerability is more than the witcher has allowed, as if there’s just too much exhaustion at this point to hold it all in. So, Jaskier tries to keep his questions to a minimum after that, humming softly as they make their way towards the buildings.

It’s louder here, though not by much. Somewhere off to Jaskier’s right, there’s the din of a number of conversations happening at the same time, but the witcher keeps walking and so the fairy does too. The road is mostly empty, but there are a couple of people out and about. Jaskier does his best not to stare too openly, but he sees enough to decide none of them are individually that interesting. They’re quiet and plain. Even their clothes are muted.

By the time Jaskier stops trying to make sense of their surroundings and thinks to break his attempt at silence to ask where they’re going, the witcher has stopped in front of a door. It’s the grandest building Jaskier has seen yet, which really isn’t saying much. All that sets it apart from the rest is some pretty filigree carved around the doors and windows.

“Don’t say a word,” the witcher insists as he raps his knuckles against the door. Of course, that just brings more questions. Don’t talk to the witcher or to whoever is on the other side of that door? Is this knocking thing some tradition before you walk into a building? Before he can ask anything, the door swings open.

The man that greets them is nothing at all like the witcher. He’s unpleasant to look at with his beady eyes and beaked nose, and even before he speaks, Jaskier knows his voice will be equally unpleasant. It’s the way he looks at the witcher though, that gets the fairy’s hackles up. He doesn’t know humans, not really, but he knows disdain when he sees it, and that won’t do at all.

“Witcher,” the man greets, and the tone of it has sealed his fate as far as Jaskier is concerned. Oh sure, the witcher is gruff and not very friendly, but he’s good. Jaskier knows that much, even if it’s hard to explain why in words. He’s done nothing to deserve this man speaking to him like they’re less than equals, and yet the witcher wordlessly bears it.

Is it always like this? Jaskier wonders only briefly before deciding that if it is, it won’t be anymore. Maybe that is the thing he can do to sway the witcher into allowing him to keep following.

The door opens more widely, and the man hardly spares Jaskier a glance, clearly taking him at face value. That, or he’s too busy watching the witcher’s every move. As if he hasn’t even noticed, the witcher steps past the threshold into the building, Jaskier close behind him.

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geralt of rivia #Jaskier #fae!jaskier #my fic

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astrogone · 4 years

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❝ @ mutuals, send me a 🍓 and I’ll compliment you! ❞ / pt. 4

🍓 @glrchmp: Zacharie, you and your blog are absolutely? Phenomenal?! I honestly have not got into the playthrough of Shield / Sword yet while I do not have Switch, but of course, Leon has my heart instantly, and seeing someone so so passionate of him makes me very delighted. I absolutely adore what you have thought of him and written with him so far, and I always highly look forward to read and learn more about your Leon. It was such a wonderful moment going through your blog and seeing how would you portray Leon. Everything about him is so well thought and detailed, it is just incredible. To be honest, even if I haven’t got into the game yet, I already had a thought that Nintendo could not ever do Leon justice like how you would portray him. I hope you have at least some pride in your work because, seriously, what you touch turns into a wonderful art, and I am so grateful that I had stumbled across your blog. Anyone should, actually. You are a gem as you are a lovely person to have on my dash. I do hope we can interact more soon and have you shove me into more of the Pokéworld ( because I will admit, I’m not too hot with the lores and whatnot, and I’d love to get Deep with it, if ya get me there ) but if you are busy or anything, I’m more than okay to wait. Give you the time and space you need. For now, just seeing you on my dash makes me happy— as long as you are content, I am too. <3

🍓 @mtchstck: Alex, first of all [makes over 100 fire / hot puns such as how your blog is hot, your writing is spicy—]. Second of all, my goodness, please know that you and Livvy are out of the world, like we truly do not deserve you two. Your developments, writings, graphics, artworks— everything that you would come up with are incredible, and just... The time and effort you would put in these delightful creations... There is so much passion in your work and I just do not know how you would come up with any of these stuff. Livvy is such an interesting and fun character to learn about, and you probably get this a lot, but I do want to tell you how much I love that you write her with life in her. In a roleplay forum I was in for most of my roleplay life, I had seen so many young muses around her age being written with these traits that were just slapped onto them or given them a tragic background for the sake of it with bare to no developments and meaningful thoughts behind them. Yet with Livvy, everything about her feels natural because you care, and it just makes me so happy to see that there are people out there like you who would hold a lot care for their muse’s characterizations. You are just so talented in everything you do and I highly admire you. Honestly, what a spark of delight and inspiration you are to have on my dash. <3

🍓 @arsonbeast: MJ, we haven’t done much together yet, but, my gosh, you! Are so cool! Honestly. I still remember our conversation during around the Fourth of July and recalling about it makes me think that you’re such a very fun and hilarious person to interact with ( and I would love to interact with you more but I’m so Fucking Slow, but... you know ). I don’t know how to explain it, but I can really sense your energy from your texts alone and I get so delighted whenever I see your posts on here / text messages. You just have a really chill vibe that makes me feel comfortable, which says a lot with me having anxiety, welp, but... Just know that you have my heart and soul. Also, I highly adore your writings with MJ— the way you would word your sentences, MJ’s dialogues, etcetera, it really captures the personality of him and it’s so much fun and exciting to read them! And his faceclaim? Epic choice, my dude, I love that a lot. I can not truly wait to see more work with him, and once I finally fucking figure out who to write / plot with him, it’ll be Over for you, so you better watch out for my dumb ass coming at your way with that, lmfao... You’re awesome as Hell, dude. <3

🍓 @fatedriven: Neo, at the moment, we are just silently supporting each other from our tiny corners ( I am too slow and often chaotically losing my energy to reach out but! I will! Get to you soon, I Swear ), but I do want you know that I am! So so! EXCITED to interact with you more! And I ADORE all of your muses and everything in your blogs dearly MUCH! I swear, everything about your blog and creations and so forth are downright gorgeous. Stepping into your blogs for the first time was like having my eyes blessed with the sacred lights, no kidding at all!... Your muses are so unique and different from each other, it takes my breath away to see how much passion you have for all of them. Also seeing your writings? Truly poetic, oh my gosh. Your blogs are just so so delightful to go through. I love your ideas, your portrayals, and everything, like. You’re already one of my inspirations as seeing your work makes me feel motivated to work and develop on my creations, so thank you for taking the time and effort in sharing your creations on this Hellsite. They are truly amazing and I just can not wait to see more from you, as well as, again, interacting with you more. <3

🍓 @destructiveglitch: Myers, where to even start... I do not ever believe words would be enough, but as it is what I can offer, please, despite anything and what anyone would say to you, try to remember that whatever you create, your creations will always bring light to this universe! Every edges and corners and the insides of your creations from your muses to artworks and headcanons and writings and so forth? So well done. So so good to get into anytime, any day. And seeing your art improvement with the “silence, bottom” artworks? Incredible. It truly does show much you had improved from years of creating, and while you may experience feeling negative about your creations, I do want to give you a gentle reminder that this world is truly blessed to even look at your work. Just... the passion and dedication you have in your creations make me feel beyond delighted, and I love whatever you would post on my dash, even it’s just a silly thought. If you ever end up writing a novel or make a comic or whatever, you better let me know and I will pay to even read about it. Your creativity is too good for us. I am beyond grateful to have stumbled across your blog. You are just so sweet and fun and cool to have around, and I can not wait to make more fun memories with you. <3

🍓 @forcefuried: Tian, you are extremely delightful to interact with and have on my dash and Discord. Just. Every time I would see your post or text message, I get so giddy and hope you are doing okay. You deserve all of the goods out there. You hold nothing but kindness and even when we have recently interacted, you make me feel at home already, and it’s... a rare thing when I have anxiety, so, I just love how open and honest and sweet you are to not just me but others as well. I have said this before, but i will not hesitate to say this once more that I am beyond grateful that you decided to check up my blog and gave me a follow because, otherwise, I would probably not get to see the absolute beauty you have in your blog. The passion in everything you create is amazing and with every thoughts, headcanons, writings, and such that you would come up with? Always a breathtaking moment. There is so much details and dedication in everything, and how you would take the time to research and pour your soul out is so admiring. You are the reason I should get into the rest of the old S.tar W.ars films as I had watched only one of the old ones, honestly, lmfao, but yeah, you are so sweet and creative, and, gosh, this world just can not get enough of you. <3 🍓 @gloryshound: Nee, wow, honestly, what did I do to deserve you? While we are starting to interact more, I must say that I truly am in love with your writings. The details, the wordings, everything about them are so great. It just catches my emotions, make me feel and think for these muses, and it really amazes me to see how you would give each muse their own voice in your writings, and I personally believe it is not that easy to do that, especially when you have a lot of muses to write at once. I find it so interesting just reading what are the themes / main focuses each of your muse have, and it makes me think how determined and willing you are in exploring more of these themes / main focuses with their respective muses, and I think that’s really neat. I love when people actually take a step back to see the potentials in the characters and use them to make more of they are given from the media. It shows that they care, and I do love when people take the time and effort in placing so many thoughts and developments in a character. You are one of those people and I hope you know that your creations are highly inspiring to many people, including myself. I am so happy that we got to meet and I highly look forward to interact with you and all of your lovely muses more. It is gonna be so amazing! <3

#( happy happyyyy belated strawberryday everyone!!! love you all so so much!!! <333 )#˚* ੈ✧ ‧ ( ooc . ) i am alive ; i am awake #glrchmp #mtchstck #arsonbeast #fatedriven #destructiveglitch #forcefuried #gloryshound

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cloudbatcave · 4 years

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Cloud Plays White: Finale

This is a long one, folks, since I realized I had a bit in my notes I had forgotten about and only found after I posted this, lol, so I have now edited it in.

when we last left off I was criticizing Alder for being useless in apprehending Ghetsis and Iris for not just taking me to Drayden’s house herself when it is Right Fucking There.

So I’m still futzing around Opelucid here.

“No way, without pokemon, I’ll be lonely and sad! …but am I just using my pokemon, then?”

wow, seems there’s some brain cells there after all. you keep exercising those, brah.

I run into a guy who thinks that it’s okay for team plasma to take pokemon from weak trainers, even though he considers himself one and feels bad for the people they rob.

There’s another dude in the same room who used to be part of team plasma but left because it was weird for him that everyone thought the same way.

See, I appreciate this part of the game’s writing - I wish there was more stuff like this, people who are conflicted and their viewpoints being front and center instead of the simplistic garbage we’re fed by Iris and Alder and company.

Though there’s an absolute nut job who says that despite the years he’s trained with his pokemon he’ll let it go if it makes it a perfect being and I am just not even gonna unpack all the lunacy there.

There’s a kid who thinks that just because N has the legendary pokemon, he must be the hero.

I am very concerned about everyone in Unova being so gullible.

“Your Scrafty looks like it can try a little harder.”

WELL FUCK YOU TOO RANDOM LADY??? LAD DOES HIS BEST AND I WILL NOT HAVE HIM SLANDERED THIS WAY

I finally go to Drayden’s and get told how the original dragon performed mitosis and now we have two dragons and also they once destroyed the region with fire and lightning but it’s chill.

“People may hurt pokemon even more by imposing their selfish thoughts on them. But no matter what, Pokemon and people believe in each other, need each other, and will continue to live together…”

Drayden is smarter and more nuanced than like, anyone else, why is he not a main character.

Iris chips in about how much she can’t forgive Plasma and Drayden mentions they don’t know how to wake up Zekrom.

Well, to be fair, I’d be very surprised if they did.

Off to the gym, this’ll be interesting since I have no ice or dragon moves on my team.

I get through the trainers okay, now time to fight Daffodil.

Her Haxorus was a bit tricky but nothing I couldn’t handle, and when I walk out Juniper shows up.

And somehow she knows how to resurrect Zekrom. Cool!

She blahs about how it’ll wake up when it deems someone worthy and talks about how much I’ve changed and shows me to the gate where the route to the pokemon league is.

“Chirae? Do you regret setting out on your pokemon journey?”

UH.

MAYBE?

mmm, that’s not fair to my pokemon though - nigh everyone around me may be looney tunes or incompetent, but they’ve been good pals.

So I hit “no” after all.

and she gives me a master ball. dope.

I make it to the gates of victory road and I honestly really like the bit where each section of them is themed after the badges! That’s a nice touch, I think that was only also done in the FRLG remakes if I recall correctly. It makes it feel a lot more ceremonious and important.

Ah here come my two idiots.

Bianca asks Cheren to smile and he’d probably implode if he did. He finally isn’t an asshole though, good for him.

The bug badge guard tells me to “fight valiantly like an insect” which is funny but I guess does make sense. Ants can fuck some stuff up, man.

Honestly I want to be a badge gate guard, seems like a fun job.

Also, I caught an excadrill in a raid the day I wrote this, and caught an excadrill in this game. Their pokedex entry includes this gem:

“Their tunnels can be destructive to subway systems”

Given the battle subway exists in this game, their insurance payments must be obscene. Imagine getting your match interrupted by a giant mole with metal fists that doesn’t give a fuck.

I named her Beans. She looks like a Beans.

I also caught a Deino. The Irate Pokémon that can’t see and tackles people to learn about its surroundings. I feel a kinship with this creature.

I named him Mezzo for laughs.

And I managed to get myself back to the beginning of victory road. Good job, cloud.

Okay I think I’ve found the right path, found a new dude to beat up which is a good sign. Apparently he’s lost too.

Love when a trainer switches out to a Pokémon mine doesn’t have a type advantage against and it gets wiped in two hits anyway. Death is inevitable.

“I’ve thought about what I can do to help my Pokémon win and I finally figured out the answer!”

Is it git gud?

Flame charge raises my speed, opponent’s klang uses automotize to prove it can do that too, dies because it’s too busy trying to go fast.

Then I get nailed by a flare blitz. Darmanitan is toxic to gen 5 nuzlocke runs, I swear. Especially since I have no one on my hodgepodge team resistant to fire. At least my unfezant is faster.

“Read what your opponent wants to do. Your opponent is human and may change plans from moment to moment. Be careful!”

There’s some meta joke to be made there but I’m not thinking of anything witty. Something something AI having a point even if not in this context.

Back to the beginning again but I think I know what I need to do now.

I looked at a walkthrough to check, tho, lmfao. Was tired of climbing up there only to fall down the wrong spot.

“There’s an item at the bottom! Do you want to slide all the way down?”

You’re the devil talking and you tempt me but I will ignore your silver tongue for now.

So I’m at the league and I thought Cheran would pop out of the bushes before I got here. That’s weird. I could swear he fights me one last time before I challenge the elite four.

NO CHERAN. OKAY. WHAT. IS MY GAME GLITCHED??

I guess not! Huh.

All right then. Time to try and see if I can win with my very unbalanced team.

Lmfao yeah my first attempt against the ghost trainer crashed and burned. Literally, thanks to her Chandelure. Very glad I saved on the outside. TIME TO GO TRAIN MORE.

No Marty, you may not learn wild charge, this is a no recoil moves household, self harm is bad.

Some grinding later, I am ready to try again.

Shauntal gave me a little trouble but was much more manageable. Grimsley was easy, only his Krookodile gave me issues.

I really like the elite four battle areas in this gen, I do admit. Very aesthetic.

Ah shit I know that Musharna is coming.

Never mind, that pink and purple snoozeball went down easy. I didn’t have a single Pokémon faint.

Unless Marshal breaks the trend the fights have actually gotten easier as I went.

He actually was a bit tricky, gave me a good show.

Hello endless stairs, hello N and Alder, hello giant random castle that just explodes out of the ground somehow.

“What has just appeared is team plasma’s castle”

Thanks mate, never would’ve figured that out without you. Why do you need a castle.

Oh wow, the gym leaders finally decided to be useful and fight the sages for me instead of letting extremists wander around unchecked.

Thanks y’all! Trying not being pointless more often!

“Ignoring team plasma...that would be a terrible thing for us gym leaders to do.”

You all already did that, Elena. I watched as Clay and Iris let these assholes go. We could have avoided this whole plot if literally any of you had done more earlier.

So the game says the castle was built by the Pokémon team plasma took but how the fuck did they like...work underground...you know what I’m not gonna even think about it too hard because it makes no sense and I know that. I must make my peace.

I also like how the castle is nonsensical and yet there’s a line of dialogue about how they’ll liberate the Pokémon in PCs too for their Master Plan(TM), which is surprisingly thoughtful. This game is so inconsistent with how much sense its lore makes. It’ll come up with something clever and then wear its underwear on its head the next minute.

“Will you go the Pokémon league?”

Hey what - WHY DID YOU TELEPORT ME HOW CAN YOU DO THAT. DO YOU HAVE AN ABRA OR WHAT

THAT WAS RANDOM

Well at least there’s someone there to randomly teleport me back too.

WHEEEEEE

Hi Reshiram, convenient how that mini fire tornado you made didn’t burn me or N.

Hi Zekrom, convenient how your lightning didn’t hurt us either, you’re a considerate chap

Aight, let’s see if I can catch this bastard

...I did and it only took me like five balls. Okay then.

N gave me a good fight, so there’s that.

Love how Ghetsis’s bouffalant kills itself via recoil from its own move and my scrafty’s rocky helmet.

He gave me a good fight too though.

I do like the ending, despite my issues with how the game presents its message. N is a great character and I appreciate what Nintendo was trying to do with the game’s plot, they just...didn’t really delve into it like they should have.

I’m glad I replayed it. I still have my issues with gen 5 but I see a lot more of its positives now.

We’ll see if I do any post-game content, I have gotten kind of attached to my grump-ass trainersona and his weird team.

#Chirae the mistrustful teen and his pokemon #cloud plays white

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krizaland · 5 years

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Zim x Reader/Dib x Reader Chapter 9

First Chapter Previous

Thank you all so much for waiting! I know it took me quite a while to write this chapter! Never the less, when I saw Frozen 2 I was hit by a flurry of inspiration!

Now there’s even more lore and more drama!

Hope you enjoy!

Here’s the song I used btw

“Y/N? Did you get all that?”

Dib’s voice woke you from your thoughts.

“Uh….”

“Really?! Don’t tell me you weren’t paying attention all this time!” Dib whined as he dragged a hand down his face.

“Well, I can’t say I blame them. Your voice is annoying! I don’t want to listen to your rambling either!” Tak’s ship huffed.

“Sorry, Dib. I got a lot on my mind right now. I-I need to go home. I’ll get back to you soon. I promise. I just…need a minute to process things.” You confessed as you slowly got up.

“What?! Y/N, you can’t leave just yet! We have to come up with a plan and-”

“I know, Dib. We will come up with something but….I just need to clear my head. I promise we can keep planning tomorrow!”

And with that, you ran home as fast as your legs could take you.

You could’ve sworn you heard Dib call out after you but you were to far away to hear it.

When you made it home, your parents were still at work. What luck! This meant you’d have the house to yourself for quite sometime!

You zipped upstairs and took a long, warm shower. You scrubbed and scrubbed until your skin turned pink. You had to make sure there wasn’t a single trace of those courtship pheromones left behind.

Once you felt that you were truly clean, you hopped out of the shower and threw on your favorite PJs.

You scooped up Jimmy and held him tight as you plopped down onto your bed.

Just the feeling of holding Jimmy in your arms was enough to make you feel safe and secure.

As you cradled Jimmy in your arms, your anxious mind went on autopilot.

You soon found yourself singing an old lullaby your grandmother used to sing to you.

“Where the north wind meets the sea, there’s a river. Full of memory” You sang softly as you stroked Jimmy’s antennas.

“Sleep my darling, safe and sound. For in this river, all is found.” You gently kissed the top of Jimmy’s head.

“All is found. When all is lost then all is found…” You let out a yawn as you slowly lied down.

“In her waters, deep and true. Lie the answers and a path for you.” You fluffed up your pillow and pulled up your blankets.

“Dive down deep into her sound but not too far or you’ll be drowned…” You snuggled deep into your blankets.

You let out one final yawn as your heavy eyelids closed.

When your eyes opened you were standing before a large river. You peered deeply into the river but your reflection was distorted by the river’s waves.

“She will sing to those who hear and in her song, all magic flows…” You sang as you continued to watch the waves dance across your face.

“But can you brave what you most fear?” The longer you stared at it, the more distorted your reflection became.

“Can you face what the river knows?” The water rippled as your once human reflection morphed into your Irken self!

You let out a yelp as you stumbled away from the river.

POP!

Your Irken self burst out from the river and shook away the excess water.

“Who are you?!” You shrieked as you jumped to your feet.

“I’m you! From the past!” Your Irken self replied as they snapped a finger in your direction.

You let out another scream as you backed away.

You didn’t know what sacred you more: The alien popping out of a river claiming to be you or the fact that they had your voice.

“I know. I know. It’s a lot to take in but I swear I mean you no harm!” Your Irken self insisted as they held up their hands defensively.

“What are you talking about?! How are you me?! I’m me!” You yelped as you gestured to your human self.

“Like I said, I was you. A long long time ago that is.” Your Irken self explained as they crossed their arms.

“But- How?! How could you and I be the same person?! It doesn’t make any sense!” You wailed as you grabbed the sides of your head.

“Well…I’m just as confused as you are to be honest. I guess it’s got something to with reincarnation or something…I don’t know.”Your Irken self scratched their head before regaining their composure, “Look, that doesn’t matter right now! What matters now is I have something important to tell you”

“What? That I’m going insane?!”

“No! I’m here to tell you about Zim! He’s not evil like that Dib boy says! He’s just misunderstood! Honest! I know it sounds crazy but…Please don’t break Zim’s heart! You-”

“Oh, now I understand what’s going on here!” You interjected as you stroked your chin.

“You do?”

“You’re probably just one of Zim’s alien tricks! You’re just trying to stop me from exposing him! Well I’ve got news for you: you’re little plan isn’t gonna work! So just go back to your master and leave me alone!” You huffed as you gestured for your Irken self to leave.

“That’s not true at all! Zim doesn’t even know that you and I are the same person! As far as he’s concerned you’re just some random human!” Your Irken self countered as they tugged on their antennas.

“Prove it.”

“What?” Your Irken self blinked in surprise

“If you and I really are the same person, then prove it! Do something only the real me could do!” You commanded as you folded your arms.

“Fine! But if I prove myself you must promise to hear me out, got it?” Your Irken self pouted.

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Just get on with it already!” You griped as you tapped your foot.

Your Irken self took in a deep breath.

“Until the river’s finally crossed, you’ll never feel the solid ground…”

Your eyes widened in shock as your Irken self continued the lullaby.

“You have to get a little lost, on your way…”

“To being found.” You couldn’t help but join in as you felt your walls melt away.

“Where the north wind, meets the sea. There’s a river full of memory.” You sang as a smile tugged at your face.

“Come, my darling homeward bound. Where all is lost…” You Irken self gently held your hands.

“Then all is found.” You felt like a weight had been lifted off your chest as you sang along with your Irken self.

“All is found. All is found….” A few tears down your cheeks as you and your Irken self finished the lullaby.

“Wow, I guess we really are the same person huh?” You sniffled as you dried your tears.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Now will you listen to what I have to say?” Your Irken self asked as they put their hands on their hips.

You simply nodded and sat down.

“Good. Now, as I was saying, Just because Zim has chosen you to be his life mate doesn’t mean you have to love him in return.” Your Irken self explained as they sat down in front of you.

“I don’t?”

“Not really. If you really want to back out, then just trick Zim into helping you find The River of Hope on planet Cryothana. Once there, all you’ll need to do is dive into the water with him. The water will wipe out your memories of Zim as well as his memories of you. Then you guys can live your lives like none of this ever happened.” Your Irken self explained.

“Erase my memories? I don’t know if I like the sound of that…”

“It’ll just erase your memories of Zim. That’s it. The river won’t wipe out any of your other memories as long as you don’t jump in with any sentimental items on you.” Your Irken self reassured.

“Oh, well in that case, I guess it’s worth a shot. I’m pretty sure I can probably convince Dib to let me take his ship to Cryothana.” You said as you sat up a bit straighter.

“Just make sure Dib doesn’t jump into the river with you. Otherwise you’ll lose your memories of him as well…” Your Irken self warned as they started to fade away.

#Invader zim #Invader Zim x reader #dib x reader

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anotheruserwithnoname · 5 years

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Picard trailer: first reaction

The first full trailer for the upcoming Picard series has been released at San Diego Comic Con. Here it is if you want to check it out but beware some major character spoilers (though the fact they’re in the trailer means they’ll probably be part of the promotion of the series anyway).

My own reactions follow the spoiler break. The tl;dr - now this is more like it.

I’ve given up on Star Trek Discovery, for a number of reasons. I have no intention of watching the third season.

Picard, on the other hand, not only looks great, it looks like a major course correction after Discovery. Now, I must give a bit of a caveat with that statement as I was very optimistic when I saw the first Discovery trailers. And then the series itself aired and I was very disappointed.

Picard is a different animal. First, it’s a miniseries. I know there’s talk of it running for more than one season, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It is also the first truly forward-looking Trek production since Nemesis came out in 2002; everything since has either been a prequel or a set in the TOS era’s alternate reality (other than one minisode of Discovery set 1000 years in the future and a couple of flashback scenes involving Spock and Nero in the 2009 Star Trek; oh and one Temporal Cold War-related scene in an early Enterprise episode, I guess). This means Picard has an advantage right away over Enterprise, Discovery and the Abramsverse films - it is not beholden to established canon anymore. Of course it is in terms of things that have happened in the past (they can’t turn around and retcon Kirk out of existence and Praxis better still be a pile of rubble). But we’re in the future of the Trek universe now, so any tech, ships, uniforms, aliens - they no longer have to align with any “future canon”. In that regard, the show is free. In my opinion, that’s a win right there.

Second thing going for it is Michael Chabon is involved. The noted novelist wrote Calypso, one of the “Short Treks” minisodes released between S1 and S2 of Discovery - and one of only two episodes of Discovery I both really liked and felt like rewatching (and indeed have), the other being the sequel to The Cage that aired in S2.

But there are other things that I like about the Picard trailer:

* Seven of Nine is back! Arguably Voyager’s most interesting character (and no, not because they had her dressing sexy and all that - her character was legitimately the most interesting, second maybe to the holographic Doctor). I look forward to seeing what she’s been up to in 20 years (one clue is she seems to be fully emotional now - she even swears a little). As Voyager ended, Seven was in an Eleventh Hour relationship with Chakotay. Does that mean we may see Robert Beltran again? Or will we find out that the OTP of Seven and the Doctor finally happened, bringing back Robert Picardo?

* Data is back! Or maybe it’s Lore. Why people are surprised at this is puzzling as Data was to TNG what Spock was to TOS, and you can’t really have a show based on TNG without him in some way. Again, it will be interesting to see how he works into the plot. I bet Brent Spiner never expected to play him again!

* The new supporting characters are intriguing and I can already say I find a few of them more interesting than anyone in Discovery, including several Vulcan or Romulan characters. There’s one who I wonder might be an older Saavik. I think they’re probably Romulans because they act a bit more human. Considering Trek 2009 established that the Romulan homeworld was destroyed, it makes sense that Romulans may have integrated with Federation worlds in the years since.

* When Picard says it’s been 20 years since the events of Nemesis, I realized that by the time the new series airs in 2020, it will have been 18 years since Nemesis. Or, put another way, the same length of time (1987-2005) that the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT series were on TV. It’ll have been that long since we’d properly visited the post-TOS era.

* I got a chill hearing Picard say “engage”.

*A couple of scenes show people in TNG-era uniforms, which is interesting. Flashback?

*My only concern at the moment is they’ve got another young “saviour of the universe”-style character who is described as the most important person ever. Which would be fine if they hadn’t just spent the first two seasons playing out the same tropes with Michael Burnham on Discovery. I’m hoping for something a bit more original with this new character.

Anyway, Picard - based on the trailer - looks good right now. Whether I feel the same once I’ve watched a few episodes, we’ll see. Picard doesn’t come out till 2020 which is later than expected as it had been reported as fall 2019 before. There was a report of the showrunner changing midway through production, so that might have sparked a delay. Or they might want to tie in with the broadcast of Discovery S3 (especially if speculation of a crossover bears fruit). So there’s still plenty of time to learn more (the good and the not-so-good) about Picard.

As for Lower Decks, the animated series? I haven’t seen any trailer or footage yet, but the one image I saw posted makes it look like something out of a Family Guy cutaway gag. Not necessarily a good first impression, but I’m reserving my decision on whether I’m going to seek it out when it airs until I see a trailer.

#star trek: picard

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sam-lives-story · 6 years

Text

#SamLives - Chapter 11

“Presenting Tonight’s Cast of Characters”

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Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

Thwack!

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, Nerf gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ He snatched the Nerf gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the Nerf gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use you fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the Nerf gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“Here lies Jack Just blame his friend Whose Nerf gun brought Their bitter end.”

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent out the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to Robin and Kathryn for editing, though only after doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them along. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re sure we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you honestly think the police are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ genius!”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what that means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know why he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Robin? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that because he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t tell him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and maybe Robin know about Anti.”

“And Matt too now, sort of.”

“And Matt,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there anybody else who knows anything else, just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else. Don’t think so anyway,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”Mark looked like he might explode

“WHAT?!”

“Oh my god!” Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my fucking god your face! That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - Haha! - f-fuckin’ believed–” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - heh - I probably...haha...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that Nerf scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, and that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was pleasantly quiet for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“Nah. It’s...just Robin.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

“Jack?”

“Hey Robin,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see the way Jack started fidgeting the moment he heard Robin’s voice, saw his fingers tugging at the edges of his hoodie and saw the way his knee started bouncing rapidly. Like he had too much nervous energy, like it was trying to get out however it could.

“Hey! I just wanted to...you know. Check in,” Robin continued, a half-smile in his voice. “I got the videos from Mark. Why didn’t you tell me he was planning on visiting the UK?”

“That’s his fault,” Jack muttered, and a small smile made its way onto his face. “He didn’t fuckin’ tell me he was stoppin’ by until he was on my doorstep. So blame him.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Robin’s words were a touch humorous for a moment. “Anyway...how’s everything going? How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Robin, I wish you could see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

“Is that Mark?” Robin asked. “Am I on speaker?”

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

“No, it’s fine!” Robin laughed a little too. “Hey Mark!”

“Hey Robin!”

“How are you doing though, Jack?” Robin’s tone had turned concerned, more strained than before. “And what the hell is going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing? I mean - I saw the stream. That–” A sigh crackled through the speaker. “I know for a fact I didn’t edit that, and it looked…Jack, it looked way too real. What the hell was that? Are you okay?”

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since they had talked at the cafe, and while Jack had texted Robin back and forth a few times since then (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time Robin asked about it Jack evaded his questions and changed the subject, or didn’t respond at all. He had been half-ghosting his friend and he knew it.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though Robin couldn’t see it. “I’m fine.” He answered only half of the question. “A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos now so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

“Seán.”

And there it was, the gentle scolding that reminded Jack too much of his older brothers. Robin usually pulled that one out when Jack was working himself too hard or he hadn’t sent Robin his finished recordings yet. How Robin managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time he used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. Jack sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I promise I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Robin,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to talk to him, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole week . The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for him to figure it out on his own. Or, worse, he’ll be hurt that you’re still keeping things from him. He already told you yesterday, people have been sending him tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t he tell you that some people wanted to know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell him the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Sleepover Party Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Sleepover…

“Only you would see it as a “sleepover” opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a fully-fledged man-child.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to talk about what had happened yet? Would Robin even believe him? Would he freak out, or take it all in stride like he had with Sam? Jack didn’t want to cause a panic and he didn’t want to make this a bigger deal than it already was. He didn’t want to push into painful and uncomfortable territory but...it seemed a little unavoidable at this point. He had known that, eventually, he would have no choice but to tell Robin - but he’d been trying to delay the inevitable. He’d been hoping beyond hope that this whole thing would blow over as though it had never happened and he wouldn’t have to even think about the livestream or its implications or Anti’s “haunting” his videos ever again.

But Mark was right. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Robin hear them again.

“Hey Robin,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

“Still here, Jack.” The usual friendly patience was in his voice, colored with a touch of concern for his friend

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

“Really?” Robin asked, sounding brighter. “You’re actually going to tell me this time?”

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Robin snickering on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a mom.”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

“Hey...Jack?”

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask...you tried to tell me before. Anti is real, right?”

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

“Did…” Robin’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like he had taken a breath. “So...did he really hurt you? On the stream.”

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

“I told you I was getting messages and asks,” Robin told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like he was pacing. “And I turned them off for now, because Mark said I should wait until you told me what was going on. Which I can respect. But...some of the messages – people are really worried about you, Jack. And I am too. I couldn’t help it. I kept going back to watch the end of the stream, and – damn. That entire thing - it was so intense. It...it looked like Anti was trying to…I mean, when he was...” Robin trailed off.

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“When he was holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

“...yeah.” Robin took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again his voice was low and hoarse. Concerned. “He – Jack, he was hurting you. Actually hurting you, not just - play-fighting, or acting for the camera. Wasn’t he?”

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “Yeah. It...he left bruises.”

Robin swore quietly on the other end of the line.

“Jack–”

But whatever Robin had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Robin’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Robin?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Robin...listen...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..." Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp. "W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried away from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, shit...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

“Go away!”

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

“Leave him alone, you meanie!” Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. “You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–” Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. “–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ ne͑e̓d̐ed f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ s͌a̝y y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the fuck do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - ngh - aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch...͛mùch᷆ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k.”

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit...fuck…

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the Nerf gun - Chase’s Nerf gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready.

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,᷄ Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the Nerf gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ n᷄er̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the Nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically his gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his Nerf gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “...do you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ fa̯ir̤, Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙.͝ Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n da̢r͍k a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

“I’m not here for him, you know.”

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

“Face-to-face, at long last,” Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. “And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from your mind, Mark.”

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

“Tim doesn’t have to see me,” Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. “I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…” His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. “...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ̝ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

“You didn’t make me.” Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. “You destroyed me - destroyed us. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. This was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely suffocating.

“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,” Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. “In a way, you...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

“A friend asked for a favor.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I merely agreed.”

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

A friend asked for a favor.

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

“Jack!”

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

Get out...get out!

“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

Please don’t. They don’t deserve this.

“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did William.”

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - ngh - wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not that Mark! I–”

“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,” Dark sneered. “Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”

Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed the Nerf gun at his chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna kill him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ ķill̔ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ ṱh͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h᷾, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefo᷾r̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark do that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark had said. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The Nerf gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled thump against the carpet.

“No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ.”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

Click.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

[A/N] - Woot! It's done! ^^ And ending on a cliffhanger too? Shocking! :0c

This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

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#SamLives #Jacksepticeye #Antisepticeye #Markiplier #Darkiplier #Sam Lives #JSE #JSE FanFic #Jacksepticeye FanFic #Sam Septiceye #Sam #Jack #Mark #Dark #Anti #Nerf Gun #Chapters #11 #Presenting Tonight's Cast Of Characters

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