#i wont be doing this forever but i do have a solid beginning - middle - end in mind. a little mini arc. i appreciate the asks i love u

[colorful-horses]

For Florid: what aspect of your artworks, or which sculpture itself, do you feel best represents your spirit?

[nikkigrand]

Prompt: Fairy prince Kakashi and lost human Sakura in a top that says "heartbreaker" "Do you humans often wear your titles proudly upon your chest?" 'A breaker of hearts' what an absurd thing to be."

Hi! Thank you for the prompt! I hope you like this! <3 @thatbabefiona

Sakura tripped over an overgrown root with a curse, a giggle, and a hiccup. Oh man, she was drunk—very drunk. She stumbled a bit before righting herself with a deep breath.

“Okay, bitch,” she mumbled to herself, sniffing as she tugged on the hem of her favorite low-cut top then pulled on the sleeves of Kiba’s flannel, “Pull yourself together. You’ve gotta win this thing.”

Placing her hands on her hips, Sakura casted a look around to gain her bearings. She stood in a nice little clearing in the middle of the woods, the sounds of emerging nocturnal critters filling the silence. The sun was setting and she knew without a doubt that if she dawdled for just a second more, she’d be absolutely and positively fucked.

In all honesty, Sakura felt that, at 25, she and her group of friends were getting too old to be doing their annual scavenger hunt. It had been fun when they were teens and even in their early twenties, but now they were just running out of ideas and it was getting to be a bit tedious and boring.

This year, they had placed Naruto in charge and Sakura thought that their group of friends would know by now that one could never trust Naruto with anything. He was just so unpredictable, and things always had a way of going wrong when he was at the helm; and to make matters worse, he had made Kiba his “second in command.”

Kiba was like a second Naruto but with facial hair.

Which led to her current predicament: standing alone in the middle of the woods looking for some silly object.

The night had started the same as every other year: they met at the hosts house, had some drinks, then commenced their hunt. This year Shikamaru was the host due to pulling the longest stick twelve years ago.

The Naras had a nice house—it was situated at the border of Konoha’s hiking trails and preserves—and normally Sakura would have loved to hang out on their backyard patio, swinging on Shikamaru’s hammock and enjoying the nice end of summer breeze; but this year that luxury was squashed by Dumb and Dumber’s announcement that their scavenger hunt was in the woods.

Now don’t get Sakura wrong—she had no problems with Konoha’s preserves and trails…during the day. But at night, whenever she was unfortunate enough to linger in the area, it always gave her the heebie-jeebies. There was something just not right with the place. She always felt like she was being watched, like something was following her, or like there was a secret she wasn’t privy too.

In short, she didn’t like being in there after dark.

Which is why, when Kiba announced their arena for the night, Sakura started taking shots of Fireball as if it could magically give her actual balls of fire. In hindsight, it was a bad idea. If maybe she had been a bit more sober, she wouldn’t be in her current predicament.

Sakura was lost.

Wait. She squinted at the base of a tree, making her way towards a small patch of mushrooms she was sure she’d passed on her way into the deeper parts of the woods.

Ah, nope. I’m lost.

Now you must surely be wondering how she’d be lost on her own if she had been with a group of people, and Sakura will gladly tell you how this came to be.

As kids, their game had first started with twelve people, which was great because that was an even number for three teams of four.

But then they (as teenagers were wont to do) discovered hormones and started pairing off. And that was fine because her friends were finding love with each other so that led to solid teams; and some of her friends were single so it wasn’t awkward for those who weren’t all kissy-kissy with their boyfriends and girlfriends.

That was until those who were single started dating people outside their usual group of friends and bringing them to the scavenger hunt. It was always a pain trying to make adjustments to their dynamic and adding them to teams—trying to fit a stranger who didn’t know how things worked.

Flings came and went until they were left with serious relationships. So, in the end, their number went from twelve to eighteen this year.

Or so Sakura thought.

She’d had a bit of a thing with one of her friends for a little over a year, beginning last year ironically during a scavenger hunt. She’d always had a crush on Sasuke, how could she not?

He was everything her little teenage angsty girl heart could ever want. He was like a angry surly cat she wanted to tame and bring home and love forever and ever.

But reality kind of sucks and Sasuke wasn’t a cat—surly and angry, but not a cat—and in the end, things didn’t work out, so they cut it off a little over two months ago. They were still friends—Sakura wouldn’t lie and say she didn’t care for him—but good sex wasn’t enough to make her stay.

Especially not when he admitted to her face that he didn’t think he had the emotional capabilities to “do” relationships.

So, imagine her surprise when he showed up to Shikamaru and Temari’s house with Naruto’s cousin on his arm. Sakura didn’t have a problem with Karin, in fact, she actually quite liked the fiery red head. It just hurt to see him moving on so soon and made her question all the things he’d said to her.

Because of Karin’s presence, the teams went from three groups of six to two groups of six and one group of seven.

In the end, Sakura ended up as the nineteenth wheel. She was the odd man out and the whole thing chafed, so she finished the entire bottle of Fireball Whiskey by herself and tried not to think about the couple exchanging soft words by the coolers.

She was placed on Ino’s team because the blonde, bless her heart, took an instant disliking to Karin on Sakura’s behalf.

“Well, if you won’t hate her, I will,” she’d said haughtily as she started writing their team name down on name tags. “Who does that hussy think she is? Everyone knows you and Sasuke were supposed to end up together, that’s why Lee finally gave up and got himself a girlfriend!”

Ino’s lips had pursed in irritation. “And now look—now we have uneven teams. Sasuke is such a dick.”

Ino had a point, Sasuke was a dick, but not for including Karin.

By the time they had broken off into their teams (theirs being the Heartbreakers), Sakura was too drunk to care about Ol’ Duck Butt and his Ketchup bottle girlfriend. In fact, when they’d started the hunt, she was having a great time! She wasn’t even thinking about how she was the seventh wheel and the only single person in her group of friends.

That was until their team had bumped into Naruto’s team and both sunshine blondes of her life started going at each other’s throats about winning the $475 pool. As soon as they parted ways, things went left.

“Alright!” Ino had stomped her foot, teeth gritting and eyes flashing dangerously, “There is no way we’re losing to that blockhead! We only have four things left. So that means we’re splitting up! Everyone grab a partner, pick a thing, and let’s get moving!”

The couples were quick to take hold of each other’s hands, announce their item and go in different directions—which left Sakura standing awkwardly by herself, alone in the creepy woods she hated being in in the first place.

She’d stood there for a moment, swaying a bit on her feet, before clearing her throat and starting to walk, huffing along as she went, “This is fine. We’re fine. I’m fine.”

Which leads us to where she is now, looking for a green glass bottle to match the color of her eyes.

And no, she wasn’t being vain, that was literally what the list said in Naruto’s photo copied block letters: “Green glass bottle that looks like Sakura’s eyes.”

The sun was setting quicker than she thought possible and even as drunk and uncaring as she was, it still served to make her feel uneasy. Sakura started feeling that sensation of being watched and it made her swallow nervously. But of course, they don’t call alcohol liquid courage without reason, so she trudged on in search of a glass bottle.

She pulled out her phone to check the time and saw a text message from Ino. Swiping her thumb across the screen, she squinted her eyes and tried to make out what in the hell the blonde was trying to say.

•

Peppa-Pig: Hry thr hell up 5 hed! We got our shiiiiizzzz! w8n on u! Wher r u?!

•

She’d just gone to reply when her screen went dark, indicating a dead battery. Sakura cursed at the block of technology in her hand, shaking it as if it would make it turn back on. As such, she didn’t notice the body in front of her until it was too late.

She bumped into what felt like a brick wall and was saved from falling on her butt only by virtue of being steadied by two large hands. Even still, she cursed as she cradled her throbbing nose, tears springing to her eyes and a pounding headache quickly taking the place of that nice cottony buzz she had going on.

“Ow!” She cried. “What the hell?!”

In between her rapid blinking, she could make out a man standing in front of her, tall as hell and super sparkly.

She tried blinking the tears away. Nope, still sparkly. She wiped her eyes, smearing what little bit of makeup she had on, and her jaw slackened.

In front of her stood the most gorgeous man she had ever had the pleasure of setting her eyes upon. Wherever the sun touched his skin, it sparkled like the finest marble. Green eyes drank in his face like a woman starved and by the way she was staring at him, you’d think she’d never seen a man before in her life.

Well, a man like this, at least. Which she sure hasn’t. Not at all.

His eyes shone like they were cut from granite and were framed by a set of finely shaped brows. They stared at her with open curiosity and maybe even a bit of contempt. Sakura’s eyes immediately wandered to his hair, spun out of what could only be pure moonlight. In it sat a crown of ivy and gold, and he only wore a pair of green pants slung low on his hips. No shoes, no shirt.

Sakura shut her mouth with an audible click.

Then she started giggling. Uncontrollably.

“Holy shit, girl,” she gasped in between hysterics, “How much did you drink?! You’re hallucinating! You’re seeing fairies and crap!”

She bent over as full belly giggles took over, her pastel hair falling in curtains around her face, and when she straightened she was alone in the creepy forest of doom once more. Sakura shook her head; that was the absolute last time she was ever drinking Fireball Whiskey.

As soon as she got back to Shikamaru’s house, she was going to find out which one of those assholes slipped something into her drink and make them eat her fist.

“Do you humans often wear your titles proudly upon your chest?”

Sakura screeched, tilting her head back to see the same man from before standing on a branch above her.

“A ‘breaker of hearts,’ what an absurd thing to be,” he scoffed as he crossed his arms.

“Holy shit!” Sakura cried as she openly gaped up at him then scrambled back as he stepped off the branch to gracefully land in front of her like it were totally normal for men to fall out of trees.

He stepped towards her, completely invading her space, eyes narrowed and focused on her chest intently.

So, Sakura did what any woman in her position would do.

She slapped him.

The man reared back in shock and Sakura quickly covered her chest, her finger catching on the name tag Ino had stuck on there.

The man cradled his cheek as he stared back in disbelief.

“You struck me!” He exclaimed, eyes blazing as he took a threatening step towards her.

“You were being a pervert!” Sakura snapped, hands curling into fists.

“What?!”

“You were staring at my chest!”

The man gestured wildly at her torso, his little gold leaf crown sitting askew in his hair. “Only because you proclaim yourself to be a breaker of hearts!”

Sakura’s eyes narrowed in confusion before her lips rounded as she realized he was talking about her team’s name. Then her eyebrow shot to her hairline. Okay, this guy was weird.

“It’s a nickname,” she informed slowly because clearly this guy was missing a few screws. “Nothing special about it.”

The man’s arms crossed over his well sculpted chest, his crown still sitting lopsided in his hair, and Sakura wanted so badly to fix it because it was driving her crazy and he looked absolutely ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous….

“Sir—”

“Prince Kakashi.”

Sakura rolled her eyes, deciding to humor him for now.

“Okay, Prince Kakashi,” she saw him grit his teeth at her mocking tone. “Do you not know about nicknames? Why are you wearing a costume?”

Kakashi stared at her blankly to the point she was worried he’d gone brain dead and catatonic right before her eyes.

“A costume?” He repeated, head tilting to the side in a way reminiscent of a puppy. “This is royal attire.”

Sakura’s other eyebrow joined its sister at her hairline. Okay, so the guy was extremely hot, but he was also extremely weird. Now the question was, was he hot enough to overlook the weirdness?

He reached up to finally straighten his tilted crown and Sakura nearly swooned at the sight of his rippling muscles. Okay, so yes, he was hot enough and she was drunk enough.

So, because she hadn’t gotten laid in a while, Sakura took a step towards him and felt a bit of a thrill when he didn’t step back.

“Do you want to know why they call me a ‘Heartbreaker,’ Kakashi?” She teased, hands held tightly behind her back.

Kakashi’s eyes widened then narrowed suspiciously.

“Prince Kakashi,” he corrected, and Sakura nodded her head placatingly.

“Yes, yes, Prince Kakashi,” she cooed. “Do you want to know why?”

He took a closer step towards her and Sakura would be a filthy liar if she said it didn’t exhilarate her to be doing something so unlike her and bold.

His voice was a growl, husky and as electrifying as his eyes as he looked down at her, “Yes.”

“Then kiss me and find out.”

She only had a second to doubt and wonder about her actions before he, surprisingly gentle, curled his hands around her face and lowered his pillow soft lips onto her own.

Immediately, Sakura knew that this kiss would ruin her life. By the way he slanted his lips across her own, quickly taking control and sweeping his tongue along her lower lip and then teasing her tongue, she knew that she’d been kissing amateurs her whole life.

This was a kiss. This was mind blowing and the stuff of dreams.

And she wasn’t saying that because she was drunk.

Kakashi wrapped a corded arm around her waist, bringing her closer to him and pressing her to his chest. The angle made it so that he was too tall to reach, so they parted for a second only so that he could back her into a tree to hoist her up. Sakura’s legs wrapped around him as he buried his hands in her thick locks of hair, tugging on them gently so he could trail kisses down her neck.

Sakura had a fleeting thought that this was escalating quickly and that Hinata would surely be disappointed in her for kissing strange men in darkened woods. But Ino would be cackling madly and would probably be proud of her.

It’s that thought that makes her grind her hips into Kakashi, legs tightening desperately around him. She could feel him and wondered if she had it in her to have sex against this tree with a stranger.

Ino would have, if she were in her shoes and didn’t have Sai.

Kakashi moaned low in his throat as the kiss deepened further, Sakura raking her nails down his back and digging her feet into his lower back to bring him closer to where she wanted him most.

She could hear Ino now: calling her name and cheering her on.

Wait, that was Ino calling her name.

“Sakura!” She heard Ino call from the distance, then some more of her friends. “Where are you!?”

Sakura pulled back from Kakashi’s lips and rested her forehead on his shoulder with a groan, unwrapping her legs from around him and sliding slowly down his body.

He chuckled. “You are certainly a breaker of hearts.”

Fixing up her mussed hair, Sakura couldn’t help but laugh.

“I could say the same about you…” then as an afterthought, she added cheekily, “Prince Kakashi.”

Rolling his eyes, Kakashi adjusted himself before stepping away from her, the marks from her nails glaringly bright against his pale skin. Sakura felt bad but found that she liked that she left her mark on him.

She fidgeted a bit. Now that they weren’t on top of each other and she was sobering up, she had no idea what to say.

“Um—”

“I will find you again, worry not.”

Her shoulders sagged in relief. Kakashi tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers trailing gently over the soft skin of her cheek. She could hear her friends’ footsteps and voices as they got closer to finding her and she sighed. He leaned down to press a soft kiss to her forehead and then her mouth.

“I will visit you soon,” he murmured against her lips as her eyes slipped shut, savoring the moment with this gorgeous and enticing stranger.

“I will see you soon, Heartbreaker.”

And when she opened her eyes, she gasped as she saw him disappear into a tree. Not behind, but inside the tree! He gave her a cheeky wink and then he was gone, vines wrapping around the tree and flowers growing in the space he once stood. And with him went the feeling of being watched and followed.

Sakura felt a tickle near her ear just as Ino came up behind her with an exasperated cry of “Sakura! Where have you been?!”

Reaching up to touch the cherry blossom sprig tucked in her hair, Sakura only had one thought in her head.

Holy crap, I just made out with a fairy prince.

[kayteewritessteve]

Love and War - 1/16

Description: In a harsh and cruel medieval world, you set out alongside your sister on a perilous quest to find your foolish missing brother. A quest that will lead you onto a forbidden and unforgiving land, a land ruled and controlled by a ruthless Warlord King. One who does not look favourably upon trespassers of any kind, and punishes all with a iron fist. Will you be able to find your brother in time, will you be able to not only rescue him but also keep yourself out of harm's way? Or will you be captured, in more ways than one? Only time will tell. But what you do know is you will forever be altered by this journey. You will never be the same once it’s finished. And that knowledge is what truly terrifies you the most.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 3,420 ish.

Pairing: Medieval!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: PG for now. May become 18+ later.

Warnings: Violence. Curse words. Mentions of fears and potentially brutal medieval tactics. Most likely more to come down the road. Please don’t let these warnings scare you too much, give the story a try before you judge it.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

I JUST WANT TO APOLOGIZE TO EVERYONE NOW, THE READ MORE LINKS AREN’T WORKING FOR ME LATELY. SO I CAN’T SHORTEN THIS POST AT ALL. DANGIT! PLEASE DON’T HATE ME!!! 😩😩😩♥️♥️♥️

“You will marry him, Y/N,” Athos sternly told you, “there is no escaping this union. It is already set.”

“How dare you,” you seethed from your place standing in the middle of the large room, directly in front of his enormous throne. “King or not, you can not make me! I wont do it. I would rather die!”

“You know that isn’t possible,” he mumbled and shook his head, as if he were exasperated with you, as if you were some silly child throwing a pointless tantrum. Instead of a woman refusing to wed a man she loathed, entirely. “And the deal has already been made.”

“Can I at least know the reasons for why you are forcing this?” You crossed your arms, “why you have thoughtlessly given my hand to that man?” You spat the last part in disgust, as if the words were a vulgar curse. Hepha was not a man, far from it actually, he was more of a pompous coward. At least in your eyes anyways.

The King sighed deeply, his large presence shrinking and deflating just a little. Just enough to show you how tired he truly was. But you pretended not to notice that, refusing to let it interfere with your outrage towards all of this. He locked eyes with you, “it wasn’t thoughtlessly, Y/N. He trapped Hypatia in a ploy for revenge, we tried to free her but our plans were foiled. You must see, child, there was no other way, he refused to release her unless I betrothed you to him.”

“We both know that isn’t the only reason,” you scoffed, narrowing your eyes at him.

“It is the only reason that matters!” he snapped back, “did you not hear me, Y/N, he had the Queen. Regardless of my personal opinions of you, or of your affairs, this was entirely to save her. Your previous transgressions played no hand in any of this.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“And I do not care what you believe, you will marry him. You won’t be escaping this union.”

You hesitated, only one question bouncing around in your mind now, “does Alarick know?”

“He does not, and he will not learn of it until it’s all finalized and finished.”

“Then I will tell him myself. He is going to be furious with you,” you threatened as you turned away from him and went to storm out. You were not going to stand by and allow this. And you knew Ari wouldn’t either. He’d be able to find a way to fix this, to end all of this ridiculousness. And most importantly he’d be able to save you from this greatly unwanted marriage.

“You do not walk away from me!” the King bellowed, his deep commanding voice freezing your steps, and causing you to slowly turn back around to face him. “You will show me the respect I am owed. And as for your threat, you will not find him. I have sent him and Harlin away to deal with more important matters. They are not to return until after the wedding,” he informed you, his words instantly leaving you feeling entirely trapped and utterly hopeless. “Now, with my permission, you may leave my throne room. But do not forget, you have a wedding to attend tomorrow morning. Get some rest and do not be late.”

“Fine, I will leave, but I will not be attending that wedding. You can not force me,” you turned on your heel, going to storm out but Athos deep voice halts your actions once more.

“You have no say in this, child. And do not forget who you are speaking to, I do not want to have to punish you for your stubborn insolence.”

“You already are, this wedding is a punishment,” you snapped back then stormed out of the room. Ignoring his hollers for you to halt, you refused to go through with this. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t. You’d just have to find another way out of it, you’d just have to save yourself this time.

Some time later, in a land far, far away.

“Are you sure this is the way he went?” You whisper skeptically as you are crouched down behind a thicket of brambles.

“I am,” Wanda whispers back from her place crouched down beside you, “I know he came this way, I can feel it.”

“Oh great,” you sigh deeply, then mumble, “let’s just continue to risk our necks for your ‘feelings’.”

“You and I both know my ‘feelings’ are always right,” Wanda glares at you.

“So far, yes,” you cross your arms and glare back at her, “but it’s only a matter of time before you get it wrong, and we both end up dead because of it.”

“So you don’t want to make sure Pietro is okay?” She raises a brow at you, challenging you. And you narrow your eyes at her, of course you want to make sure he is okay, but you’d prefer if it wasn’t at the potential cost of your own life.

She smirks smugly at your silence, “that’s what I thought. You care about him just as much as I do, don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Of course I do, he’s my bro—“ you begin to whisper harshly at her but are abruptly cut off when you hear a twig snapping, off in the distance.

Your eyes instantly flick towards where the noise came from, seeing two insanely large figures about 50 yards away. Clearly they are patrolling his land for trespassers, such as yourself and Wanda, as you both are currently far too deep into the King’s land. Much further in then you’d have ever liked, or imagined you’d be.

It was common knowledge in your small, coastal town that it was heavily against the rules to so much as look towards the King’s land, let alone ever step foot on it. And anyone foolish enough to ever do the latter, was never seen or heard from again.

The King was a secretive man, not much was known of him, his territory or his people, but the rumours and whisperings were the things of childhood nightmares—most adult nightmares as well—At least all the ones you’d heard so far about him were.

He was a warlord, a bloodthirsty beast who ruled with an iron fist and gave no mercy to his foes. He barely ever even left his own land, at least not long enough for you or any other commoner to actually set eyes upon him. He only left his domain for war, and once he won—because he always won—he would retreat back to his castle, and not be heard of again until the next battle would arise.

But never having laid eyes on him was a good thing, a great thing actually, as those who did never lived long enough to tell the tales. No one could even give a solid answer as to what he was truly like, let alone how he looked, or how old he was. But of course many made up stories of encounters with the Warlord King, though you couldn’t actually take any of them seriously. But they made for both horrifying and intriguing stories, to be sure.

One such story you’d heard in passing was that he was larger than any man to ever walk the earth, so large it was believed he was a descendant of Giants. Large beings that no longer walked the earth, but had many, many centuries ago.

Another rumour was that he was a mad King, that he’d gone insane when his wife was kidnapped and killed by his enemies—as he had a great many of those—and the loss of her had sent him well and truly over the edge. Had made him became an angry, vengeful King who sought to kill all those involved in the Queens kidnap and murder. And then once he had a taste for blood and power he just couldn’t stop. Even after he had successfully exacted his revenge on all those involved.

Though there was one story about him that intrigued you, more than terrified you. It was said his lineage could be tied to the ancient Gods of old. The tale was vague at best, no one really knew the full facts, but supposedly his lineage was linked to the King of Gods himself, somehow. That somewhere along the line a child, a son, was born. That child then grew to be a great and noble warrior who conquered this land, and built his empire upon it, becoming the first King of Winterbourne.

But believing that an actual God had come down to produce a child with a human, was far fetched at best. You strongly believe this tale only came about in an attempt to quell your towns immense fear of the ruthless King. Something slightly romanticized to help smooth everyone’s unease, as your town was one of only a couple that directly bordered his land. Being so close to him and his territory made most in your townsfolk restless, at best.

But that was really the only intriguing tale that you’d heard. The rest were all—well, to put it lightly, they all terrified you to your very core.

And the most horrific of them all, was the tale that he had tricked a powerful sorceress into believing he loved her, so that she would build him a half breed army, and then once she had, he had her executed. The half breed army was stronger than any other in the realm and that was why the King never lost a battle. By day the army was man, but by night they were beast. Monsters so large they rivalled the size of even the largest of bovines. Fearsome, bloodthirsty creatures who could smell your fear from 100 yards away, and kill you before you ever saw it coming.

You shutter at the thought as you clench your eyes shut and try to envision being back in your cosy little room, sitting at your desk, drawing all the things you dreamed about. As was your favourite pastime, since you always seemed to have such very vivid and overly realistic dreams, ones that you could never make any sense of. But that you also didn’t want to ever forget.

“Once they are out of sight we will continue on,” Wanda whispers from beside you, nearly causing you to jump in surprise as you had been so lost in your own mind, you’d forgotten she was beside you, and where you were, for a moment.

You snap your eyes back open and watch as one of the two guards raises his head slightly, then glances around. The motion sending another unpleasant shutter through you. But then to your utter joy, they both start to move away from you, and your hiding place. Though this entire moment leaves you completely aware that you really shouldn’t be here. You do not want to find out, first hand, which of those disturbing stories are true. The half breed army being the least favourable one, to be sure.

“Wands,” you turn to look at your adopted sister, “we really shouldn’t be here,” you stress.

“I know,” she sighs and looks to you, “but we can’t just leave Pietro out here,” she takes your hand in hers and gives it a squeeze, “he’d come for us.”

You nod slowly as you turn to see how far away the guards are now, “you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just scared.”

“I am too, but I’ll do everything in my power to keep us both safe, I promise,” she vows with another hand squeeze as if to reassure you that her words are true. “It appears they are gone, we should continue,” she says as she stands from her hiding spot, pulling you up with her.

You both take a moment to stretch out your aching legs, having been stuck crouching for much longer than your bodies are used to. Then you both adjust your skirts and cloaks, detaching any bramble branches that currently cling to the thick, coarse wool materials.

You each do a final glance around and then step out from behind the bushes, ready to continue on. Wanda glances up at the sky, the overcast clouds blocking out most of the direct sunlight. “I believe it’s about mid day now,” she says as she looks back to you, “we only have a few more hours of daylight so we need to find Pietro quickly.”

You nod, not being very good at Sun Tracking yourself, so you’d just take her word for it. You both quickly but quietly make your way forward, using the natural foliage to hide your small forms. While keeping both your eyes and ears alert to anything, and everything, around you, wanting to notice anyone nearby long before they notice you.

You hear the sounds of a lazy river off to your left and make your way towards it, needing to refill your canteens as you’d both been on the King’s land since the wee hours of the morning. You’d decided to set out shortly before dawn, using the blanket of night to cross his border, as it was the most heavily guarded spot. Knowing that once you were deep enough onto his territory, you’d encounter less guards as the border patrols would normally catch any trespassers long before they got anywhere near the castle walls.

Guards were far less frequent throughout the interior of the territory as, honestly, no one was stupid enough to even think about entering his land uninvited—well besides Pietro. And, I guess Wanda and yourself now, though you were only here because Pietro had been foolish enough to enter the King’s domain first.

He had left 7 days ago to hunt, normally he’d stick to your own towns territory, but this time he had stupidly decided to hunt on the King’s land. However in his defence, this area did have the best game, to be sure. All the animals just seemed to grow larger on the King’s lands, as opposed to anywhere else. So if Pietro was successful in tracking, hunting and extricating a wild deer from here, you’d be set for meat all winter. One deer here equaled about 4 from your territory. But hunting this land was not allowed, it was strictly forbidden actually, and if caught doing so, the punishment was death.

But Pietro was always too cocky, he believed he could outrun anyone, including the King’s guards. And even though he was faster than any man you’d ever known, he didn’t know this land like the guards did. This was entirely unfamiliar terrain for all of you.

So when Pietro hadn’t returned by the 5th day, which was usually the maximum day for his hunts, you and Wanda began to worry. Though you tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and just continued to wait out his return. But by the 7th day of him being gone, you both knew something had happened to him. And then Wanda formulated this ridiculous plan to enter the King’s land and find him.

You had been reluctant at first, not wanting to get your neck cut, but eventually you agreed to her insane suicide mission, as you knew Pietro would have come for either of you, if the roles were reversed. And honestly, Pietro was the provider for you and Wanda. He’d taken you in with open arms and had basically adopted you as a sister. Though everyone in town was told you were his actual blood sister, and had just been living with a distant relative for most of your life.

However, that was just a story you’d all fabricated. Where you’d really come from, or who you were actually related to, was unknown to any of you. They’d found you just about a year ago, aimlessly wandering in the woods near their town, confused and disorientated. You had no memory of where you’d come from or where you’d been. And they took pity on you, bringing you home with them and cleaning you up then offering you a warm, dry, safe place to live.

Though you don’t remember them finding you, the first thing you do remember is waking up in a bed in their home. Confused and weak. They nursed you back to full health and you’ve been with them ever since. Living as if they were actually your long lost siblings, you’d dream often of learning that they were, in fact, your blood family. That you did in fact belong with them. But then you’d wake and the truth would come back to you. The truth that you tried so desperately to ignore.

You didn’t actually know who you were. You didn’t know where you belonged. You didn’t know where you’d come from, or where you’d been trying to get to. But what you did know, was that something was missing. Something always just felt off, like you needed to find something very important to you. However, you didn’t have the foggiest of ideas as to what that something was. You just knew it was out there, somewhere, waiting for you.

“Here, give me your canteen,” Wanda’s words pull you back into the real world, noticing her hand outstretched towards you now.

You quickly detach it from under your cloak, where it has been tied onto a belt around your waist and hand it to her. She bends down and refills it in the stream, then hands it back to you as she steps off the river stone, the one she’d used to reach the water’s edge without getting her skirts wet. “We will follow the river for as long as we can. Knowing Pietro, he would have done the same. If he hasn’t been captured, we will find him somewhere along it.”

“Okay,” you reply quietly as you both start to walk again. You were always envious of Pietro and Wanda’s skills when it came to tracking and hunting, you’d clearly not come from a background where that was ever needed. Or maybe you had, and you just couldn’t remember? Either way, you always felt slightly useless in comparison to the both of them.

You had no notable skills to speak of, unless you count your ability to draw as a skill. To some, maybe it was, but to you, it was a rather useless talent. You couldn’t make a living off of it, nor did it protect you from the world. It was just a hobby, something to help you pass the time until Wanda could finally unlock your memories.

How was she planning to do that? Well, Wanda is a witch, though she isn’t part of a coven, nor has she ever been formally trained through one, but she is capable of a few minor spells. And is slowly learning the extent of her powers, and just what she is able to do.

She had been very young when her powers were made known, and she’d almost been caught when she casted a spell by mistake in front of a few towns children. Pietro had freaked out, and managed to cover it up but he was worried the townsfolk would figure out her secret and burn her at the stake. So in the middle of the night he packed them up and moved them far, far away. Living in the woods for a few years, just until Wanda could control her power and learn to hide it.

Once she had a handle on it, they moved into the town of Triskelion, and have lived there ever since. The town with which you now also call home. It wasn’t a huge place, the population consisting of around 300 people and located right on the coast. With the sea on one side and the King’s land on the other, both prevented the town from growing any larger. But it was a stunning little place, most of the townsfolk were friendly enough, though the three of you kept mainly to yourselves. Just for fear of either Wanda’s secret or yours getting out.

Pietro made a decent living as a blacksmith, and was able to provide for both Wanda and you rather well. You owe him so much, which is exactly why you now find yourself a few hours into this unfamiliar and unwelcoming land. Illegally searching for your foolish brother, with your magical sister by your side—

Another branch snapping behind you startles you out of your thoughts as you whip around to see what caused the noise. Wanda doing the same as you both come face to face with two massive guards. Ones who do not look friendly, nor happy, at all.

“Well, well, well,” the larger of the two starts, “and what do we have here?”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So there it is! The first part! I can’t wait to hear what you all think of it so far, it’s starts off a little slow. Just building the setting and backgrounds. But it will pick up soon! As for posting, I’m not sure of a schedule for that just yet, most likely every few days I’ll put a mew chapter up! At least 2 at weeks, for sure!

Also if you want to be removed or added to the tags list, just comment, message or send an ask! I can make both happen! ;)

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[ii-thiscat-ii]

GUESS WHAT’S DONE GUYS.

Part two of ‘Incandescence’ ended up becoming part two and three, and this is part three. Enjoy.

Part one. Part two.

On Ao3

Time passed.

Reports were written. The operation had gone off perfectly. Most of the people from the facility were willing to testify for the promise of a lighter sentence. They were still most of them likely to be put away for a long time, gross breaches of sapient rights being only one of numerous infractions made.

Incandescence slept on a couch in the local base. She wanted to stay close to Oskar, and after a thorough medical examination showed that there was nothing wrong with her that they would be more capable of curing in a hospital than anywhere else, no one had the heart to refuse her. She shone, even through a thick layer of self-hate and a slowly failing body. She was hard not to love.

The reports were succinct and plain, doing little more than getting the facts down for now. There was still much to do, and the larger operation was not even close to finished. Over the next week, a number of similar raids were executed, narrowing down the locations of the heads of the criminal enterprise, gathering large amounts of evidence and cutting off their escape routes. It was a lot of work, but it was vastly rewarding. Opportunities like this arose maybe once a decade, and they were not about to let it go to waste.

They learned very quickly that Incandescence would rather go hungry than eat solid food, as she loathed the sensation of it. They worked around it. She did not like drinking either, but would if she had to. They also learned that the only thing she would ingest voluntarily and with enthusiasm was coffee, preferably black and very strong. She liked the effects of caffeine. After someone introduced her to it the second day after her rescue, she tried to stop sleeping as well.

“I’m not supposed to dream,” she said, voice breaking slightly, when they tried to take it away from her. “Your minds are made to be torn apart and reorganized every night, but mine’s not. It feels like I’m tied up and pulled away at the same time, and it hurts. I lose more of myself every time.”

After that, and the subsequent breakdown over the coffee maker in the cafeteria, they let her keep her broken sleep schedule. If nothing else, it really was true that she was more coherent when sleep deprived than she was in the hours right after waking up.

Every day there was a new raid, maybe two, a new infiltration mission, a new drug-production facility, person trafficking locale, or money laundering business to crash. Every day they found and took down more atrocious operations, and every day they went back to base, tired but grimly content, to find Incandescence smiling at them over another coffee cup.

And Incandescence was dying.

They never said it out loud, but she was. They all knew it. She knew it best of all, maybe.

She smiled, she spoke, she hogged the coffee machine and she remembered all their names. Full names, always, from beginning to end, no matter what they went by with friends. It took Oskar three days to understand exactly how important it had been that he asked her for her name that first time they met, and that he gave her his own.

She spoke to each of them. She remembered their names, and the names of their families and pets, and she loved to listen to them talk, about nothing and everything. And she was dying.

Every day, she had less energy than the last. Every time she slept, she was pulled under for longer. Every time her resolve broke and she spoke of her own family, her own home, instead of just listening to them endlessly speaking of theirs, her sobs were just a little more hopeless.

She tried not to, they knew. It was obvious that she wanted to avoid thinking about her family, the brothers and sisters, and the Master she spoke of with such deep, sincere love. A part of her still believed in him, and that hurt to listen to almost as much as the part that was slowly giving up.

If her master really had abandoned her, they thought but did not say aloud unless they were completely sure she could not hear them, he had a lot to answer for, demon or no.

She fell apart, piece by piece, slowly losing even the ability to stay upright without help.

The doctors could only say that it had to be a side effect of what was done to her. Her exact symptoms had most in common with severe soul damage, but even that did not fit perfectly. There was nothing they could do, and they were reasonably sure there would be nothing they could do even if they had known what the actual problem was.

That was not to say they did not try, but with a time limit of somewhere between another week and a month at the most before there was nothing left of her, and the only source of knowledge as to what had actually happened being a group of people who had no idea why it went as it did, there was very little they could even attempt to do.

So they kept her company. They let her make her coffee, they told her their stories of themselves and their loved ones, they threw themselves into their work with a vengeance, thoroughly and effectively dismantling an old and powerful criminal empire, and they wrote their reports. Short, to the point, and emotionless reports, mentioning no names save the essential ones, and no details that did not need to be there.

She snuck her way into their hearts, and then she fell apart in front of them. It hurt them, but it hurt her more, so they kept quiet, smiled when she did, offered whatever comfort they could when she needed it, and threw themselves into their work.

Then the work was over. Every raid had been completed, and only the clean-up was left. The reports now required more detail, more information, so that the evidence could be made as solid as possible, and so they wrote more detailed reports.

Eight days after Incandescence was rescued from the underground facility, almost three weeks since she was pulled down to be confined in her flesh prison, a slightly more detailed draft for a report was finalized, attached to an e-mail, and sent off for review. It was the first time Incandescence’s name had been mentioned in digital correspondence. It did not go undetected.

On its way through the tubes, the report draft went through a very simple, nonintrusive text recognition program. It was slowed down by only a fraction of a second, but the program found what it was looking for, saved a copy, and sent a ping back to its source.

The source of the small program read the saved file considerably more slowly, as there is a large difference between truly reading something and just searching through it for a specific word. It still only took him a few seconds before his variable counters associated with success and reward spiked, and he scrambled to double-check his conclusions, a process that took him approximately five minutes and involved hacking into seven cell phones and getting access to a closed-circuit military security system.

Then he took what he learned, wrapped it with a ribbon, and set off to find his dad.

---

Mizar tapped away at her computer, trying to show off her latest stick-figure animation. It was a thing she had been playing with recently, and it was just starting to look somewhat fluid.

She had actually gotten a lot better since the last time Dipper had seen, which was about three weeks ago. She was very excited to show him everything she had done since then, so he sat obediently on a chair by the kitchen table and let her show him.

This was only the second time in three weeks he had sat down and tried to focus on something else than searching through options he had already been through in a futile attempt at something he was suspecting was truly too late.

His knee bounced and his hands folded and unfolded themselves in his lap, even as he kept his eyes on the screen and his mind on complimenting Mizar on her work. He should be out there. He needed to be out there, doing… something. Three weeks was close to the limit for what was survivable if something had gone really wrong. It was how long it would take her to starve to death. He needed to be out there, but there was nothing he could do that he had not already done a hundred times. If he kept looking without rest forever, he would drive himself insane, and… at some point, he had to stop.

But the time ticked away as a physical thing in his mind, and he wanted to go out there again, to search and see if there was some trace so faint he had missed it before, that he maybe might be able to find this one time…

A break. He was taking a break. He was not giving up, he was not stopping, not just yet, he was just taking a break and refuelling a bit, so that he could have his mind with him and maybe a new perspective when he went searching again.

“Hey, you okay?” Mizar asked.

The first time he had come down and tried to focus on something else, the day before this one, he had ended up crying on her shoulder.

He shook his head to clear his mind. “I’m fine. What were you going to show me?”

She grinned and turned back to her computer. “Okay, so, this one is really cool. It took me ages to get that giant wasp animation going, uh…”

Before she could even click on the thing she was trying to show off, the screen went blank and an animated figure, more cartoonish than her stick figures could ever hope to be, appeared in the middle of it.  

Dipper was standing upright with his claws buried an inch into the table before he even had the time to register Mizar’s surprise. Behind him, the chair fell to the ground.

There was a small, yellow speech bubble on the screen.

[Dad!] it said.

[I found her!]

---

Oskar glanced at Incandescence on the couch. She was sleeping again.

All of the five other people in the room kept their voices down, trying to let her sleep even as they were wondering if they should wake her up.

She looked peaceful when she slept. She relaxed and disappeared into herself, as people were wont to. Sometimes she would twitch in her sleep like a cat, but otherwise she was entirely still, serene like a fairy tale princess.

He gritted his teeth and looked away. The serenity was temporary, he knew. She would be confused and distressed when she woke up, mind stuck in a heavy haze that muddled her mind and hindered her movement. A haze that would stay for hours before she could really smile again.

The only reason they let her sleep was that they had no reason this far to believe the amount of sleep made any difference, only that it was there, so when she did succumb to it, they tried to make sure she got as much as she could. For her body’s sake, if nothing else.

She never thanked them. They did not expect it. They did not want it, not for this.

Oskar made himself focus on the hushed conversation instead. The team was on break now, though a break from collating evidence and sorting out paperwork, not from deathly important raids or preparing for those, so the breaks were more necessary, and more frequent, than usual.

Case in point, Marilynn and Dor were both spending the break cleaning their weapons on the table.

Hell, even Oskar kind of wanted to do that, if only to get away from the endless reports, and he was hardly in a position where his gun was a large part of his life, even if he did like carrying one at all times. He did like properly organized information, really, but the sheer amount of it that was needed after a large-scale operation like this was too much even for him.

“Anyways, she said she could do all my lists for me if I’d take her situational summaries, so I got that out of the way earlier than I thought I would,” Andrea said, taking a sip of her coffee. Black, like Incandescence made it. That was usually what was in the machine these days, so they had all kind of fallen into the habit.

Oskar nodded and was just about to ask if she thought Marilynn would take his lists too if he asked, when there was a change in the air.

It felt like a ‘pop’, a small pressure change, something weird, something you noticed, but not more than that. Still, it was peculiar enough to have them all quiet for a moment and look around curiously. Dor rubbed at an ear.

Andrea gave a small, confused laugh. “What was that? Did you see-”

Darkness fell suddenly. By the time his eyes adapted to- actually, there was no change in the light, but they obviously adapted to something because it took a moment before he could see again, the ‘pop’ had turned into something very dangerously different.

The pressure change was obvious now, a tangible weight added to their limbs. Right in the middle of the group, there was another figure standing, and the sight of it sent spikes of fear through Oskar’s heart.

He had his gun ready in his hands within a moment, not raised only because he would not risk pointing it at one of his teammates on the other side. The rest of them seemed to have the same instinct, with Marilynn being the only one not with their gun at the ready, and then only because her gun was in pieces on the table.

Oskar recognized him, of course. Everyone recognized him. Most children over the age of eight knew how to recognize the Dreambender himself.

Alcor. The single most dangerous creature the world had to offer. Who had torn three buildings apart in quick succession and killed over a dozen people latest last Wednesday. Whose reaction to being shot by any of their guns would likely be the same as if they tried throwing crumpled napkins at him. Whose fingers were blackened claws, whose wings were large and moving behind him in unrest, and whose face…

His face was twisted in some emotion Oskar could not identify. It was intense, teeth half-bared, and eyes wide, flitting from one of them to another without his head moving more than a smidge.

Taking all of this in had taken Oskar maybe a second at the most.

Alcor shifted, stood back on his heels and raised his head. He was slightly less poised to attack, and Oskar felt himself react in turn, claw of fear around his heart pulling him back into a similar position, even as it lightened its grip slightly.

Gard spoke first, always conscious of his duty to the team. He tried to keep his voice steady, but the apprehension still shone through clearly. “What do you want here?”

Alcor bared his teeth further and let out a growl that was cut off so quickly Oskar suspected it was unintentional. It still sent a bolt of ice down his spine.

“I am looking for someone,” Alcor said. His voice was teeth and sharp edges, rough as desperation, deep as dreams. The sound of it made Oskar flinch even as the words chilled him to the bone.

“Looking for who? And why?”

Oskar had always admired Gard as a leader, admired the backbone it took to have his position, do what he did as effectively as he did. Now, as Alcor’s eyes narrowed, as the demon seemed to wonder if Gard was going to stand between him and whoever he was looking for, Oskar was scared he might see that steel spine snapped as a twig.

The next sound he heard was possibly even scarier. There was a table between Alcor and the couch, and until now, Incandescence had stayed out of view. Now, the sound of a blanket falling to the floor signalized her waking up.

Oskar cursed, thoroughly and creatively, in his mind. The last thing she deserved was to draw the ire of a demon. They had not been able to protect her from anything, and now they were failing to protect her from this.

He took a breath, clenched his teeth together and tightened his grasp on the gun. Slowly, dizzily, she sat up, and he barely refrained from shouting at her to stay down. Instead, he moved a couple steps toward her, futilely trying to put himself between her and the demon. He was not the only one to do so.

They stood together, rather hopelessly, staring down the undisputed champion of all demons, and Alcor…

Alcor dropped from the air, shoes making an audible ‘click’ against the floor. His eyes widened until they could see black all the way around the golden slits that were his irises. His mouth opened in astonishment, and his wings stilled behind him.

Oskar had his back to Incandescence, but the room was silent as death beside the thudding of his own heart, so he heard her voice clearly. Her broken, whispered, confused morning-voice.

“Master?”

Surprise was the next thing to send a shock through him. Before he could even think to turn to look at her, Alcor had passed him, moving past their guard as if it was nothing. The guns instinctively raised in response were less than nothing for all he reacted to them.

The table disappeared. Not thrown aside, not moved, just disappeared as if it had never been, letting the pieces of Marilynn’s gun clatter on the floor, to make room for him as he sank to his knees beside the couch.

It was a bizarre sight. Incandescence sat upright as far as she could, which was not much, staring at him with such horrifyingly empty eyes, only the faintest glimmer of hope in them. He sat sprawled on the floor, looking up at her even so, with his wings flat against the ground and his face open in disbelief, with joy and horror fighting for a place in his expression.

He reached his hands up towards his face, and she barely reacted, only blinked.

“Incandescence,” he whispered. “What have they done to you?”

“We don’t know,” someone said. Andrea, maybe. “She’s been getting worse all the time.”

“She’s starving to death in there,” he said, trailing off into a breath. It might have been a reply, it might not. He looked like he was talking to the air as much as any of them.

“…Really?” someone asked.

He turned towards them, then, for just a moment. He was doing something with his hands, gathering light between his palms. It did not seem to take up much of his focus, for he did not look at it, just at them, and at her. There were tear tracks down his face. The world’s most powerful demon sat in a heap on their break room floor, sobbing.

Oskar hoped to god that they were tears of joy. From his face, it could go either way.

“Bodies take energy from their souls,” he continued, just as absently as before. “She isn’t a soul. She can’t protect herself. She needs sustenance she can’t get, locked up there. She’s been wasting away.”

Looking at Incandescence, eyes still hazy and confused from destructive sleep, that was far too easy to believe.

Then, Alcor apparently judged the light between his palms bright enough, because he pushed it forward, phased it into her chest, and she convulsed. She drew a sudden breath and shot up so fast she almost tipped over onto her face, but in the blink of an eye he was there to catch her, and she clung to him.

Incandescence gave a loud “Hah!” and shook her head, looking more alert than they had ever seen her before. Then she looked up at Alcor, and her face was overtaken by joy.

“Master!” she said, disbelief giving way to delight almost immediately. “Master, you came for me! I almost, almost didn’t think you would.”

“Of course I came for you.” He put an arm loosely around her back. His other hand touched the side of her face, fingers through her hair and thumb running over her skin. He stared at her with desperate hope. “I’ll always come for you. Always. I’m so, so sorry I’m so late.”

Oskar glanced at Andrea by his side. She looked back and gave a small, hesitant shrug, looking just as bewildered as he felt.

On the couch, Alcor was starting to ramble.

“I looked everywhere I could think of, and then everywhere else, and I just couldn’t find you. If I’d known, if I’d had even the faintest inkling, I would’ve burst in to get you in an instant, but there was nothing, and oh god, it’s so late and you’ve been left alone for so long and I am so sorry. I thought you were dead. I was honestly starting to think there was nothing to find, and I didn’t know what to do, and I wmmph-”

Suddenly, Incandescence leaned in and pressed her lips to his, apparently on reflex and maybe to shut him up. He looked startled.

They broke apart, just a fraction, and looked at each other. She was still delirious with happiness, now with a hint of hopeful nervousness. He was surprised.

Then he leaned back in and they were kissing with a fervour that suited the aftermath of a weeks-long life-or-death situation. It was deep and urgent and blithely oblivious to the handful soldiers with guns still half-raised towards them.

“Oh, okay then,” Oskar heard Andrea mutter to herself.

He had to agree. The spectacle on the couch was unexpected to say the least. With a silent sigh, he holstered his gun. Several of his teammates followed his que, somewhat sheepishly. Pointing guns at the Dreambender was a textbook example of futility.

The two on the couch finally broke apart, falling into a tight embrace.

“Thank you,” Incandescence whispered.

“Always,” Alcor answered. “Any time you want, for the rest of forever, as long as it means I know you’re safe.”

“Does that mean I can go home?” she asked. Her face was hidden in the crook of Alcor’s neck, but Oskar could hear the happiness in that.

Alcor pushed at her, creating just enough space between them that he could look her in the eye and smile at her. “Of course. We just need to get you out of this,” he said, gesturing at her body. Then he drove a clawed hand into her chest.

Oskar felt as if the ground had disappeared from under him.

He grabbed at his gun again, and someone beside him shouted in alarm.

Incandescence fell slack into the waiting grip of Alcor’s wings. The hand that was not impaling her chest sank its claws into her head. Throughout it all, Alcor kept looking at her with what seemed so very much like love.

“What the fuck!?”

Marilynn must have put her gun back together sometime in the last minute, because she was pointing it at the demon with shaking hands.

Alcor did not pay them mind, just slowly pulled his hands back and pushed the body to fall lifelessly on the floor. It ignited as it fell, burning with a bright blue flame that touched nothing else and devoured the body unnaturally quickly.

He did not spare a glance for the burning body, his only focus being at his hands, which, oh. Of course. That made sense.

His hands were devoid of blood, but in them, something else was dripping. Something bright in a frenzy of colour, twisting over and around itself in an effort to put itself back together and expand to its true size. Something beautiful. Something incandescent.

“Oh. Sorry,” Marilynn said, lowering her gun again.

Alcor opened his hands and the light flew, bounced off two walls and skidded to a stop around where the table had been. It quickly stopped being an amorphous blob, running through a plethora of shapes involving any kinds of limbs and anatomies imaginable, mundane, unusual and bizarre, but beautiful. Always strangely beautiful. Then she settled in the shape of a sheep, four cloven hooves on the floor, two bright, intelligent eyes, and every part of her lit up from within in all the colours she should have had but had not been given in the passing weeks.

She tested her legs, tapping her hooves on the floor and giving a little jump and a kick in glee. Then she laughed, and ran in a little circle.

Her voice was nothing like it had been. It was clean and clear like glass bells, ringing through the air with an almost painful purity. It suited her.

“Better?” Alcor asked.

Incandescence laughed again. “A million times!” she said, and she grinned at him.

Oskar actually flinched. Her teeth were long and sharp as razorblades, almost a match for her master’s.

Alcor took notice as well, apparently, because he cocked his head to the side and said, “New teeth?”

She paused and ran her tongue over them. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Hate, I think. I don’t know if I like them or not.”

“I see,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Some time back home will probably help you figure it out. Ready to go?”

“Almost,” she said. “I would just like to say goodbye to these people first.” With that, she turned towards them. “Thank you so much for rescuing me.”

“It was our genuine pleasure,” Oskar said, automatically. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”

The others made noises of assent around him.

“You did enough,” Incandescence said. It was bizarre to watch her now-familiar smile on a face this inhuman. “So thank you.”

Then Alcor stood before them, a little more composed, but still with tear tracks down his face. Incandescence walked closer and he tangled a hand in her wool. “It seems I owe you one hell of a favour,” he said.

“A- ah, that’s not necessary,” Gard said.

“No?”

“We’re, uh, not supposed to deal with demons.”

“This isn’t a deal,” Alcor said. “You’ve already given me anything I could ask for. This is…” He waved it away with a hand. “Repayment. Anything you ask, no cost at all, I swear.”

They exchanged some dubious looks. Gard visibly considered his options before he spoke again.

“In that case…” he said. “The people responsible for this thing in the first place, what were you going to do to them?”

There was a long moment before Alcor answered. “…Kill them. I would paint the walls with their blood and let the feel it dry before they died. Why?”

Gard took a deep breath to compose himself. “If you want to do us a favour, then please, don’t do that.”

“Why?” Alcor asked. There was an undertone of danger to his voice.

Gard spoke quickly. “If suspects in our custody are killed by a demon, it gives the opposition a hell of a lot of leverage on us. Never mind that we lose their potential testimony, if their lawyers are good, and we know they are, that could discredit half our case. After everything we’ve done to get here, we can’t afford that. This is likely the only chance we’ll get. I’m not saying you can’t get revenge, no one is saying that, just… please. Don’t mess this up for us.”

There was another long moment, and then Alcor huffed. “I understand,” he said. “No killing and no maiming, then, but I can’t promise they’ll ever have a good night’s sleep again. If I can’t have it, Incandescence’s flockmates will want their piece. Would that be acceptable?”

Oskar risked a glance at Incandescence. She was grinning, all her sharp new teeth on display.

“That’s fine,” Gard said.

Alcor nodded. “Anything else?”

“Will we ever get to see her again?” Oskar asked.

“I can come visit!” Incandescence said. “Right?” She looked up at Alcor.

“Not alone,” he said. “I don’t think anyone will want to leave you alone again for a long time, but if you don’t mind introducing them to your flockmates, that’s fine.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll come visit.”

Alcor ruffled her wool and she leaned into his touch. “Home?” he asked.

“Please,” she said.

And then they were gone.

The air actually un-popped at their exit. It was almost as weird as the initial pop had been.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Marilynn said.

“Screw the coffee,” Andrea added. “Do we have whiskey?”

The table re-materialized half a foot in the air and crashed to the floor. Oskar carefully put his coffee cup down on it and went to help her find the whiskey.

They all needed it.

---

The Master’s pastures smelled like home. He still had his hand reassuringly on her wool, and it was her wool again, her legs, her skin and bones, her eyes and ears and nose.

She was different now than she had been when she was taken. Her new teeth were testament to that. The memories were there, and they were part of her as much as any other part of her, as much as the love and terror that made her up, but she was her again, so it scarcely mattered.

They were not all bad memories either. Coffee had been good. Oskar Rasmussen had been good, and his flockmates too. And the Master’s lips on her borrowed ones, impulsive as that had been, was good even filtered through the muddled senses of that body.

But now…

She dropped to the ground and rolled around in the grass. It smelled like home, home, home, and it was sweet and free and real and there.

And then the Flock was upon her, dozens and dozens of gleeful faces, pressing up to greet her, to welcome her home, to touch her just to make sure she was truly there, and the Master dropped to the ground with them and laughed and cried and laughed.

And all was good.

[hellagaymccree]

Des•pa•cito

mcreyes day four - m u s i c

This is practically a sneakpeek of one of my two stripper au fics I have plan. Looks like days one and two took all the fluff i had in me, but i hope to make the next days fluffy (except tattoo, i know already that wont be fluffy)

Based on a modern setting so of course i had to put them dancing to the catchiest song that has been playing on every radio station here for the past five months. Wrote this pretty quickly so I’m sorry if it’s not the best, if i do end up writing the full fic I will fix it. Not completely NSFW. No nudity nor sex, just dancing.

----

Gabriel walks between the dancing bodies. Some look at him, trying to lure him with their tempting stares and enticing hips moving from side to side to the music. His heart thumps to the beats coming from the song. Some hands brush his arms or his chest over his tight v-neck shirt, trying to seduce, to get him to join on the dancing.

He feels older than he is, surrounded by so many young spirits. He feels like his hips will snap if he even tries to move like them. His muscles feel stiff, like an ancient statue taking up space and gathering dust. Gabriel wouldn’t consider himself completely out of it. He knows the hit songs, he dresses casually, without really trying. He keeps up with what’s going on in the world through his phone like most people now a days. Yet he’s already tired from seeing the crowd around him.

They’re vibrant, decorated with neon lights and paint. A few are dressed like him: jeans and a shirt. Others are way over the top. He can tell a few men dressed as women, and women dressed as men. Everyone’s having the time of their life; like the world’s going to end by morning. Like they will be young forever. They hold on to their partners for dear life, wanting to spend the dark hours after midnight with that person—whether they return home with them or don’t remember their names tomorrow. Meanwhile, Gabriel stands in the middle of the colorful chaos, out of his element, out of his mind. On his own.

Reyes shakes his head before turning around. He’s sure he can get lost in the crowd and sneak out before McCree notices. But is like the younger man can smell insecurity. Jesse McCree, his cowboy mentor for the next couple of months, appears out of nowhere and grabs his wrist.

“We just got here, sweetheart,” Jesse looks like a devil, smirking under the shadow of his cowboy hat and the radiant lights around the rest of his body.

Gabriel swallows and looks away from the man as he tries to hide his blush.

Suddenly, Jesse spins him around and pulls him against his chest, peaking through the opened buttons of his tight flannel shirt. Jesse’s big hands set on Gabriel’s waist and he can feel the cowboy trying to move them, but they remain solid.

“You gotta loosen yer hips, sugar.” Jesse’s voice comes over Gabriel’s shoulder, breath brushing his ear. “This pretty little waist of yours was made to show it off.”

Gabriel swallows again as his body grows hotter. He allows Jesse to take more control of his hips and he can feel the cowboy also swaying his own behind Gabriel. First is from side to side, short movements that Gabriel slowly catches up to. Then Jesse starts moving forward and back. He feels like soothing waves crashing against Gabriel, not too strong, yet enough to stiffen Gabriel again.

“You were doin’ so good, darlin’,” Jesse says, still close to his ear. “Unless you like it rough, I suggest you start movin’ ‘em again.” Gabriel can hear the wicked smirk on Jesse’s lips, teasing him, threatening him.

Gabriel’s body starts obeying Jesse before his mind can discipline it. His hips move back and ford, out of rhythm with the music and Jesse’s at first, but Jesse tightening his grip on his skin, tempting to bruise. Their hips starts circling against each other and moving faster. A new song begins, a guitar on its own. Their hips move in sync with each other but not with the music, at first. Gabriel can feel the young man’s bulge against his ass and maybe it’s not the best time to remember both are wearing tight jeans. Gabriel’s wearing Jack’s favorite pair, per Jesse’s own requests after he saw them on Gabriel. They’re close enough to be one person. Jesse grabs Gabriel’s hand and spin him around so they meet, chest to chest. Jesse’s prosthetic arm wraps around Gabriel’s waist and makes pressure, flushing their bodies even closer. Jesse leans forward as he smirks and Gabriel follows, dipping his head and upper body back and up to be against Jesse’s chest again.

“Very good,” Jesse says.

Jesse spins Gabriel around once more. Suddenly, the song becomes too familiar to Gabriel’s ears. The sudden Latin hit that plays on every radio station he changes to. The song he has used many times when he cleans around the house.

Sabes que llevo un rato mirándote

Tengo que bailar contigo hoy

Jesse starts moving his hips from side to side while he stares into Gabriel’s eyes. This time, the older man follows on his own. Jesse starts lowering his body without stopping the movement of his bones. Gabriel hesitates, but follows when Jesse drags him down, arm once again around his body. They sway back up and down once more. Gabriel goes faster than Jess, which causes the cowboy to pull him closer, like at an invisible leash.

“Esto hay que tomarlo sin ningún apuro,” Jesse tells Gabriel to slow down as he sings along to the song.

Des-pa-cito

Jesse spins Gabriel around and dips him. Reyes’ breath catches in his throat and he gasps when he’s brought back, close to Jesse’s face. The devil never stops smiling, Gabriel can almost see his teeth and even feel a laugh vibrating inside Jesse’s chest. Jesse’s left hand presses on Gabriel’s lower back, pinning him in place. Jesse moves his hips faster as he spins them both around. Gabriel holds his breath when their groins rub too close. He knows this is just dancing, but he was not ready for this closeness. He thought Jesse would let him look around, study other dancers, maybe find someone else to dance with. But Jesse was practically manhandling him in the middle of a club. And though, no one was paying any attention to them, it also felt like the whole world was watching Gabriel at the moment.

Quiero ver bailar tu pelo

Quiero ser tu ritmo

Que le enseñes a mi boca

Tus lugares favoritos

Gabriel shivers when the thin fabric of his shirt is not enough to block the trail of Jesse’s finger going up his spine. Gabriel starts sweating, his vision is almost a blur as his brain tumbles in his skull. He hasn’t had one drop of alcohol, yet he feels drunk on Jesse’s aroma of cardamom, smoky vanilla and warm cedar. He feels like a wreck already. Meanwhile Jesse still looks brand new, smell right out of a warm shower, fresh cologne and clothes almost intact.

Gabriel bites his bottom lip as he dares to finally use his hands and tangle his fingers up Jesse’s hair. It’s a little moist from sweat, but Gabriel wishes to pull from it just the same.

Déjame sobrepasar tus zonas de peligro

Hasta provocar tus gritos

Y que olvides tu apellido

Jesse’s finger travelled back down, sneaking under the edge of Gabriel’s shirt, teasing at the hem of his jeans. And, man, was Gabriel forgetting his own name. His body was obeying Jesse’s following his hips, while his mind had abandoned him. Too pure for the sinful way Jesse dances. If they asked Gabriel his backstory, he would say he didn’t have one until now. Jesse was making him feel young again. He was back in his abuela’s backyard, celebrating one of his cousin’s birthday while the smell of BBQ moved in the wind around him. He was dancing with his neighbor, not bad, but not the best. Still she smiled bright like the summer sun. Suddenly it’s one of those hot summer days, and his growing thirsty for a cold drink. Any kind, cold water to throw over his blazing body, or a cold glass of whiskey to lure the beast in him free.

Jesse spin him around once more, Gabriel already lost count of them. His ass pins against Jesse’s bulge and Jesse pushes his left hand between his shoulder blades. Gabriel bends fast, obeying like a good boy. But the way up is lethargic, torturous, with Jesse pulling him slowly by his shoulder and making short trusts from behind.

Ven prueba de mi boca para ver cómo te sabe

Quiero, quiero, quiero ver cuánto amor a ti te cabe

Yo no tengo prisa, yo me quiero dar el viaje

Empecemos lento, después salvaje

Gabriel shoulder blades rest against Jesse’s chest when he’s finally led back up completely.

“Ya gun’ let me do all the work, here, dulcito?” His voice is velvet, a smoky whisper just for Gabriel. “As much as I’m enjoyin’ this, I’m crazy to know what you can do.”

Gabriel can’t speak. His mouth and throat being too dry and his mind to foggy to form a sentence. Jesse doesn’t seem to mind much and keeps smiling as he keeps leading the way. Gabriel starts noticing his hips have loosen, but his pants feel tighter than when he walked in. He can barely feel his shirt, being too thin and lose against Jesse’s thicker fabric. Jesse’s traveling hands don’t help, sneaking brushes under the clothing, finding that spot that will cause Gabriel to snap.

Gabriel can hear Jack’s voice in his mind, pushing him to fight back, to not let Jesse win. Jack would encourage Gabriel to step out of his shell into this new life his ex has gotten into—more like a mess. But it’s a vivid mess that will make life boring if it went away now.

Gabriel starts moving faster, more on rhythm with the song. Jesse smirks approvingly and lets himself be led. They spin together again, hips bumping against one another. It’s a dance and a battle to dominate the other, for the student to surpass the master.

Gabriel waits for the next beat.

Des-pa-cito

He picks Jesse up, the cowboy’s eyes widen and he shows vulnerability for the first time since Gabriel met him. With his thighs around Gabriel’s hips, the older man thrust upwards, in sync with the beats of the song. He drops Jesse and they fall into the routine quickly. Jesse laughs and bites his bottom lip, as if he had just been challenged.

Jesse’s roam all over Gabriel’s chest, stomach and sides, as he dips lower into the floor. Gabriel’s stiffens for a moment when Jesse maps Gabriel prosthetic leg, but his fear disappears when Gabriel comes back up without losing track of the song as he dances and teases Gabriel. He never touches Gabriel between his legs. Gabriel thinks is because of professionalism, but the cowboy’s smirks tells him otherwise. This is a game for him now. One Gabriel is learning the cheat sheets to.

Gabriel grabs Jesse’s right hand, tangling their fingers together as his left hand rests against Jesse’s back. Their foreheads touch, eyelids heavy with lust and adrenaline. Jesse’s body crashes like ocean waves against Gabriel and their breaths comes together between them. Gabriel licks his lips and he’s sure he felt the tip of Jesse’s top lip.

Jesse seems like he’s about to speak, to call Gabriel a sweet name, but Gabriel turns him around, and pulls him against his chest, like Jesse has done before. Gabriel moves his hips against Jesse’s ass and the younger man looks over his shoulder, pupils blown and bottom lip between his teeth. Gabriel’s hand travels over Jesse’s sides, feeling his muscles over his plaid shirt, ignoring the exposed chest. Jesse neck looks shiny, inviting to take a bite, but Gabriel restrains himself from doing so. He would love to take the salt drink off Jesse’s body, explore every curvy the younger man has to offer.

Des-pa-cito

Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito

Deja que te diga cosas al oído

Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo

The world used to be watching him, but now they’re both alone in the club. With the song fading in the background. It almost feels like they don’t need music to move like this. It’s kind of messy, sometimes they lose track of the other, but catch up before they step too far apart. It’s obscene and spicy. He can feel Jesse’s fever passing on to him. He traces the cowboy’s parted lips with his gaze, wondering is drinking from them will keep him young. If he can drain the cowboy’s powers and energy to go on all night. While Gabriel’s thighs start trembling, he feels Jesse moving faster, begging for Gabriel to keep up.

Seems Jesse has enough and he faces Gabriel, with fire in his eyes. His arms wrap around Gabriel’s neck and his hips snap forward, assaulting Gabriel’s solid body. Bang-bang. A growl is caged in Gabriel’s chest as he starts stepping forward, obligating Jesse to let himself be pushed. Is like the crowd can feel the heat between them without even looking. The other costumer make way for the couple as they keep dancing, not giving them attention. Gabriel traps Jesse in the darkness of a corner, between his hands against the wall as Jesse leans against it. He looks satisfied, almost tired, but there’s still some intensity in him. For now, he just watches Gabriel as the man moves against him, as he grind one knee against his crotch. Gabriel almost loses his footing when he can feel Jesse’s full length down his leg. He doesn’t dwell much on it, wanting to keep his own excitement from Jesse’s attention.

After what seems hours, the song is reaching his end. Gabriel’s hips slow down with it and Jesse’s hands rest on them, holding him, keeping him close. The older man’s eyes are almost full black when they fall on Jesse. The cowboy also bears onyxes in his gaze. They’re like two demons that lure each other into a never ending curse, a deal that’s just about to be sealed with a kiss.

Gabriel feels like he’s about to collapse out of air loss against Jesse. He doesn’t wanna look at himself on any reflection, he just wants a cold shower and to hide under the covers to the next week. He’s panting, almost at the same time as McCree. It tempts Gabriel more to want to kiss him, to steal his breath away after the ride Jesse made him go on.

Gabriel looks away when he starts gaining consciousness. When he starts realizing what he just did and the fierce thoughts in his mind. But Jesse grabs his chin and guides him to look back at him.

“This is just the beginning, darlin’.”

[24heavven]

When was the last time you didn’t have a single thought in your head? When you weren’t worried about running here, or calling so and so, or replaying a conversation you had earlier in the day over in your head. Presence is the enemy of your mind. The more you absorb yourself in the moment, the further your brain gets from the concept of time. Anxiety over the future, regret over the past. Constantly stuck in a pendulum swing from one end of misery to the other. If you’ve ever meditated, you know this process can be reversed and even stopped all together. The process of emptying your mind allows for you to differentiate between the voice inside your head and your true self. Ever hear the expression, “i think, therefore i am”? That was Descartes, and to this day many people still believe this. But to be defined by your mind and thought cages you. How could you ever believe in an afterlife if the only thing that defines your existence is your thoughts? In the last 30 seconds of someones life, their brain will go through a series of events, ending in just the pure “self”. The same feeling you get when you’re meditating.

“OUR SENSE OF SELF, OUR SENSE OF HUMOUR, OUR ABILITY TO THINK AHEAD — THAT STUFF ALL GOES WITHIN THE FIRST 10 TO 20 SECONDS. THEN, AS THE WAVE OF BLOOD-STARVED BRAIN CELLS SPREAD OUT, OUR MEMORIES AND LANGUAGE CENTRES SHORT OUT, UNTIL WE’RE LEFT WITH JUST A CORE.” says Shaw.  

I myself have had plenty of incredibly rewarding experiences meditating. After you get good enough at it, you feel a distinct slip between reality and pure consciousness. Its more like “I am, therefore i think”. You are the watcher of your thoughts, and your emotions represent how you truly feel about them. By not identifying with “the voice in your head” and identifying as the observer of them instead you can begin to let go of anxiety and depression. Eckhart Tolle really said it best - “Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.” The mind is the strongest tool of all and it’s a pity less people aren’t using it to its fullest potential. 

Everyone knows that Nietzsche popularized nihilism in philosophy. This is the concept that life is inherently meaningless and none of what we do matters because we’re going to wind up dead in the Earths inevitable heat death anyway. There is no heaven, there is no hell. There only is what we’re experiencing right here and there is no grander plan outside of what we can see plainly. This could be likened to a darker version of realism, where morals don’t matter and you’re skeptical about everything. Although there are many versions of nihilism like existential nihilism and moral nihilism, this is the “gist” so to speak.

But what if we are actually living in a truly meaningless world? Would it be beneficial to submit ourselves to this mindset? To abandon hope and reject the prospect of a brighter tomorrow? If the world is truly a dark cold place, the only thing you can do is light up the darkness. If nothing you do maters, why not do better? We may be small, but the difference between 0 and 1 is the same as the difference between 1 and infinity. The universe is incomprehensibly huge and it is likely that our whole history as humans wont mean much to the grand scheme of things. When you look at life in this way, your own interpersonal problems look silly. We are here for a very, very short time. Too many people get wrapped up in day to day trivialities. You only get one chance as yourself and to waste time that could be used to bettering your future is a tragedy. At the end of the day, we are all humans. At it’s core, our experience here on Earth is the same and life is such a miracle to begin with. You’re here on Earth at the same time as the people around you that mean so much, doesn't that, if nothing else, give your life meaning? The chance of that happening was infinitely minuscule and yet it still happened. 

This is called Anti-Nihilism and it can be found in many forms of media if you’re looking for it. It’s the characters out there who bravely give their lives up to a greater cause. They recognize we’re all doomed, and give away all they have to make the world a better place for everyone surrounding them, even if that means dying for it. Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Madoka from Madoka Magica, Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid, Ralph and Piggy from Lord Of The Flies. This idea that nothing matters, but order is important nonetheless is present everywhere. The world would devolve into anarchy and violence if everyone abandoned their hope. Hope is really the only thing in this world propelling any of us forward. 

This strikes the middle ground between classic organized religion where youre promised the gates of heaven and eternal bliss, or being an atheist where you go in a box in the ground and its blackness forever. It’s acceptance of the grey area. Life is not black or white, yes or no, on or off. Life is not binary. Many people who have been to the depths of depression and self hatred cling tightly to this. When you’re surrounded by darkness, the light becomes hard to find. But once you see a flicker you do anything to keep it. Accepting life simply for what it is - is freeing. The minute you accept your dissatisfaction with a situation you transmute that dissatisfaction into peace. People walk around everyday searching for their purpose when it’s been under their nose all along, giving your life meaning is the meaning of life. I staunchly believe you are brought into this world to have an amazing time. Your circumstances can be what you rise from or succumb to. 

Esther and Jerry Hicks have written many self-help books. At the time of their writing careers inception, they claimed to have had a spirit called Abraham contact them through meditation. Weather or not that bit is factual - they have a message that rings so true it is hard not to believe they are accessing the “other side”. Through Abraham, they have changed lives and inspired many people to be deliberate thinkers. What they mean by deliberate thinker is someone who consciously chooses better thoughts as they see them happening in their mind. The vibrational power of your thoughts is that which shapes your world around you, and whatever you are looking for you will surely find. The mind is a tool of creation, and not a file cabinet. They speak of manifesting whatever you desire through the power of your mind - and that life can be blissful if only we should choose every day to believe it is. The quintessence of their teachings is emptying your mind through meditation. 

At the other end of the spectrum, we have people like Mitchell Heisman. He was a 35 year old Harvard student who made news back in 2010 for taking his own life as a grand act of destroying self preservation. Beforehand, he had written a 1,900 page document detailing his journey to this conclusion, aptly titled “Suicide Note”. His outlook on life - or rather death - is peppered with religious and political inquisition and the nature of man. Heisman speaks heavily about nihilism. That it is simply in the nature of mankind to want to survive and choose life, a Darwinist knee jerk behavior. That this day in age, the question can be posed - “is choosing death irrational? and for what reason?” Maybe choosing to die is freedom, liberation, the next grand adventure. He goes into detail about his “Me Theory” at the end of his manifesto. His want to know his own nature so greatly overcame him, he began looking at his life experience in abstracts. Mitchell questioned everything so much so, i believe, he became depressed. He states “Disillusioned of belief in my own subjective experiences, at rock bottom, I turned to completely destroy myself. If life itself is without ultimate meaning, and is not fundamentally rationally superior to death, then perhaps the test of the worth of life is found in willing death and self-destruction.” He references Neitzche multiple times, citing that in his journey to self discovery, he can no longer believe anything. The text reads as the ramblings of a madman philosopher on the verge of an epiphany. This is the epitome of a cluttered mind. Heisman thought his way into and out of madness, ending in a bang, taking his own life. 

Our world is one of at least 10 trillion planetary systems in our known universe. A mere grain of sand on the beach of the cosmos. Yet here, on our Earth, we have seen triumph and we have faced heartache as a species. Does our insignificance in size, make our existence insignificant? The short answer is no, just because we are an infinitely small part in the grand blueprint which is the universe does not invalidate us. Much like us humans can see and study and understand ants and yet ants cannot grasp human existence, their conscious experience here does not lack meaning. Paramahansa Yogananda was the first person to come to the West and popularize freedom from the concept of the “self”. Before his coming here we did not even have the language to describe the spiritual teachings he had already mastered. His impact on American society was so profound people began to fear and vilify him as a cult leader or a criminal. He forced physicists to expand the language of physics as they were, introducing consciousness into the equation of matter and energy. He feared that without a radical internal shift towards love and selflessness, we would not survive the atomic age as a species. A concern being brought up every so poignantly again today with nuclear war not far off on the horizon. In the dark landscape set before us today, all we can do is come back to the very basics of whats important here, love. 

Self help literature, Movies, Music, Television, Spirituality, Philosophy. Anti-Nihilism can be found everywhere. Use the space between where you are and where you want to be inspire you, give you hope and excitement. Don’t become a victim to the uncertainty of the unknown. Letting your mind control your life is akin to the tail wagging the dog. The mind is a mechanism, a tool of creation and power. If used improperly, it becomes a cage, a nightmare. Life truly is, what you make of it. “For this is your world. Its the form of realty you perceive.”(Anno, Ep 26)