#i'm offended by the accuracy of this

[brother-emperors]

Have you seen the show Medici?

I have! I dislike it and complain about it endlessly because the narrative drama sucks, and it commits a worse crime of being visually boring, it's almost offensive to me how bland it is lmao. the costuming is dogshit too, and I don't mean that in an 'this is historically inaccurate' (it is) but in a 'this is some real party city bullshit.' for a show about one of the most effective visual propaganda builders of the era, it sure doesn't have any aesthetic or thematic literacy!

that said

I've fully watched season one three times now (brunelleschi the love of my liiiiiiiife, and the plague stuff was almost good. close enough to good that I specifically re watch those episodes when I'm thinking about historical plagues) and season two uhhhh like eight or nine times for matteo martari's portrayal of francesco de' pazzi alone.

in a way, it's just bad enough that it cycles back to being interesting because I can see a very clear outline of the show I wish I was watching, and every time I go back to it, I end up writing another 50 pages of a medici family comic script out of sheer frustration. which is. a kind of compliment. sometimes bad shows are just bad, but i medici is a bad show that could've been good.

season 3 committed an unforgivable sin so that season is dead to me.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

War Manners

My housemate requested I write Meng Yao losing control for one (1) fucking second and kissing Nie Mingjue when they're not together, and the fallout from that/how Meng Yao would have to navigate knowing he'll never get Jin Guangshan's favor now. So this is (hopefully) that!

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Meng Yao has had very many Thoughts (the emphasis is more than appropriate) about Nie Mingjue. Nie-zongzhu. Chifeng-zun. These Thoughts can be reasonably and broadly categorized into two main sections — Professional and Unprofessional — and then further sorted into their appropriate little drawers in the mental cabinets Meng Yao has consigned these Thoughts to for his own sanity.

Within the Professional drawers there are mundane thoughts (no emphasis needed) such as troop deployments, war meetings with whom and when, missives and assignments to keep track of, and all the hundreds of little daily tidbits that go into successfully keeping an army out in the field. True, things like kitchen tents and bandage replacements and armor repairs and the like are all things that he happily delegates to the appropriate authority figures on such niche matters, but he still has to think about them. All of that sort of thinking is neatly and tidily sorted away and carefully labeled so that he can continue to be the competent and trusted vice-deputy Chifeng-zun needs him to be.

Within the Unprofessional Thoughts drawers there’s quite a bit more…variety. Those drawers are for rummaging through in the privacy of his extremely limited free time, mainly when he’s either falling asleep or just waking up to face the day. Let it never be said that Meng Yao allows himself to be distracted during important meetings by idly flicking through memory after memory of Nie Mingjue’s face from every imaginable angle and in every light. (Meng Yao’s favorites are from the times where it had only been the two of them alone together in the gentle candlelight of Nie Mingjue’s personal tent, the pair of them kept up long into the night poring over maps and reports and strategies together until Nie Mingjue is all fuzzy and sleepy around the edges. It happens a lot, which is wonderful for Meng Yao’s ever-growing catalog of such moments.)

These two categories of Meng Yao’s are not, under any circumstances, allowed to overlap. They exist in wholly different spheres. There is Chifeng-Zun, who requires one set of his very real services. Then there is Nie Mingjue, who is by now half-imaginary, and in the imagining he welcomes Meng Yao’s other services that have nothing to do with how well he can memorize the rosters of their commanding officers and the squadrons they represent. Two very very different things. Two different people. Meng Yao does not let their paths cross.

He’s sleep deprived and still riding the wave of his usual post-battle cocktail of emotions — something like fear and relief and triumph and exhaustion and world-weariness for the evil of men — when this is no longer true.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t actively participate in every battle, that would be absolutely impossible, but he fights in plenty of them, citing that if he isn’t willing to fight then why should any of their soldiers do so on his orders? So – he’d gone out today and he hadn’t returned with the rest of the soldiers when they’d stumbled back into camp, bloody and footsore but victorious. No one has been able to tell him where Nie Mingjue had ended up, as they’d been separated by enemy lines – though for some reason they’re all utterly confident that Nie Mingjue is fine. Meng Yao doesn’t doubt his General, but nor does he think leaving the man to fend for himself in the midst of a battle (or its aftermath) is the wisest decision when one wishes to keep said General both alive and well enough to lead the army, possibly as soon as tomorrow if necessary.

Which is how Meng Yao finds himself tromping through blood-churned wilderness until he finds a ring of dead bodies piled three-men deep with Nie Mingjue in the middle of the destruction, kneeling hunched over Baxia in either pain or exhaustion, nearly every inch of him splattered with mud and deep red gore.

“Mingjue!” Meng Yao exhales just loudly enough to be heard, the impropriety of such an intimate address his first (unnoticed, unheeded) warning of the dangerous slip he’s about to make. Nie Mingjue lifts his head to look at him, eyes weary and unfocused until the moment they meet his and relief seeps through, unmistakable. Soft around the edges. Meng Yao hurries forward, picking his way without thought over swords and splayed limbs and viscous puddles of indeterminate substances until he can crash right into Nie Mingjue, grab his blood-flecked face in both hands, and yank him into a too-hard kiss, the man still on his knees in the mud and therefore, for once, easily accessible.

Meng Yao has pictured kissing Nie Mingjue so many times now that at first he barely registers what he’s done. His extremely unprofessional admiration for the man frequently manifests as sexual desire, and Meng Yao sees no reason not to indulge in harmless fantasy to sweeten long sleepless nights alone. He kisses Nie Mingjue in one of the many ways he’s always wanted to, hard and yearning, teeth nipping sharp at his lip and a quick inhale to brace himself as he curls over him, Nie Mingjue’s head tipped back by the insistent press of his hands beneath his jaw.

“Meng Yao?!” It comes out startled, muffled against his mouth, and Meng Yao jerks back as if stung, eyes wide. 

He doesn’t lose control. He doesn’t. But he did, he has, and now Nie Mingjue is staring up at him equally shocked, no doubt by his completely inappropriate and downright presumptuous behavior. Meng Yao is politeness and manners personified, he is the sort of elegant gentleman his mother always hoped he’d be, and yet here he is, kissing his commander (and personal savior) as if they’re a young couple freshly in love, too anxious to hold themselves apart any longer than they have to.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. Nie Mingjue has never once looked down on him for his origins, has never acted like Meng Yao is dirty simply for existing, but despite the very real mess covering Nie Mingjue from head to toe Meng Yao can’t help but feel, in that moment, that what he’s done is the filthiest thing of all. “Chifeng-zun, please forgive this humble one-“

Strong hands yank him up from his hasty bow and Meng Yao has less than a heartbeat to realize Nie Mingjue has gotten to his feet before it’s his turn to tip his head back at the bruising press of fingers under his jaw so Nie Mingjue can lean down and drag him into another almost-violent kiss. He gasps around the sharp nip of teeth and tastes iron on the tip of his tongue when Nie Mingjue’s brushes it, the tang of blood and the sharp rot of mud thick in his nose, the back of his throat. There’s no softness at all, nothing like those nights spent with their heads close together in Nie Mingjue’s tent, but Meng Yao has imagined it like this, too. Violent, desperate, adrenaline-fuelled, thoughtless need. There’s no art or finesse to it, just raw animal want, and that’s just as good. Better, even. It’s perfect.

-/-

The nice thing about the Nie - in theory if not exactly in practice - is that they don’t bother to worry about someone’s lineage and instead allow their talents to speak for themselves. It’s why Meng Yao had come to the Nie after his violent expulsion from Jinlintai, and it’s why Nie Mingjue had promoted him on the spot upon hearing a group of his disciples blatantly disobeying this first and most important sect rule – though of course he wouldn’t have if had Meng Yao not earned it first through hard work. Unfortunately, the reality (that Nie Mingjue does not seem to realize he lives in) is that those disciples had been the rule, not the exception.

In practice, then, Meng Yao is still looked down on by nearly everyone in the sect for who and what he is. It’s a fact of life that burns in his blood every single day and makes him yearn to claw his blood-soaked way back up all those stairs in Lanling if he has to just so he can stand in his rightful place at his father’s side. So he can prove to the world that his mother’s legacy gift to him was not “bad blood”, but instead her hardworking dedication and her ability to learn everything necessary to support herself and her son in a cruel world.

But maybe this is why, at first, Meng Yao doesn’t notice much is amiss.

A hiss of, “Filthy trash,” as he passes by a group of men huddled around the cookfire one overcast noon barely registers as more than the usual grievances he has to deal with for committing the crime of existing. He whisks his way past them straight into Nie Mingjue’s tent, where he absolutely Does Not kiss him again, but instead devotes himself to copying maps for the evening to send with each of their commanders leaving in the morning for the next leg of the campaign.

“Conniving whore, just like his mother,” is the next audible barb hurled at him just two days later, the vitriol spit at him from someone he can’t easily pick out of the group practicing with their sabers on the outskirts of the Nie camp, where stray blades can’t do as much damage. That one is…significantly harder to ignore, specific as it is. Still. None of it hurts as badly as that impromptu flight down the stone steps of Jinlintai, so he pushes it away with an effort to simmer in the back of his mind – not forgotten, of course, but set aside for the time being – and returns to his duties with only a single hitch in his step to betray that he’d heard.

Only this time, it doesn’t stop. Murmurs and derision are common, expected, normal, and they continue on as usual. But heaped on top of them, like so much shit in a wheelbarrow, are scathing remarks about not only his mother but his own behavior. Suddenly, where none had been before, there are so many remarks about him using his body to get to his position that within two weeks it’s not only an accepted fact amongst the Nie – but among the camps of the other Sects in the field. Apparently. 

“Excuse me – what did you say?” Meng Yao asks as politely as he can manage when he can’t shake the rage trembling in his hands or the terror twisting his gut into knots. “I must not have heard correctly-“

Unfortunately, he had heard the man just fine, he knows he had, but rather than taking the generous opportunity to backtrack, the Jin soldier sneering at him only doubles down harder. “I said that Jin-zongzhu was right not to let the bastard son of a scheming bitch so much as step foot in his home. Barely a year later and you’ve shown your true colors haven’t you? Fucking your way into Nie-zongzhu’s good graces so you can try to corrupt another righteous Sect since you couldn’t get at ours! Whores never produce anything but devils-“

Meng Yao stays perfectly still as the Jin soldiers around their cookfire jeer and hawk their wine-sharp spit at his feet, some of it hitting the hem of his silver Nie robes, impeccably clean save for the mud stains around his ankles that will likely never come out. When he feels he can move again through the nauseous bile climbing up his throat he turns on wooden legs to march back out of the orderly ranks of pale gold silk, through the empty ground demarcating their camp borders, and back into the stark deep gray corridors of the Nie encampment. It offers absolutely no relief, no sense of being welcomed home, but at least it holds the flimsy protection of his own personal tent. He can’t really stop anyone who tries to cross the threshold of it of course, but with Nie Mingjue’s own command tent a mere row away – within shouting distance for sure – no one has yet dared to try.

Meng Yao’s mind is utterly blank as his feet take him through the camp using nothing but muscle memory. He can feel eyes on him – as unwanted a presence as groping hands – burning with their judgment and their commitment to despising his very existence. Shadows are gathering in the hollows between the tents with the oncoming evening, heavy behind bloated clouds that threaten rain, and Meng Yao can’t help but feel like each gap between the tents hides another hateful glare, another set of eyes watching him and waiting to see him fail. 

Meng Yao thankfully only loses the battle with his rising bile once he reaches the confines of his own personal space. It feels as if it’s still not private enough to reveal so much weakness, but there’s nothing else for it. His shallow wash basin serves now as a convenient bucket to empty his stomach into, and there’s nothing he can do to keep from heaving up his rations for the day into the wooden bowl.

It’s all over, he already knows it. His hands clench around the urge to go find the soldiers who had sneered at him and split them from groin to throat – the Nie are still butchers in many ways, and Meng Yao has seen the absolutely savage way they fight one-on-one when their lives are at stake. He’s seen it done more than enough times to be fairly sure he can mimic it, might even be able to copy the particularly gruesome style of killing utilized by the most vocal of his critics to pin him with the blame but –

But if a common Jin foot soldier has already caught wind of his indiscretion, it’s only a matter of time before the flame is fanned in the direction of the man he still harbors dreams of impressing, if it hasn’t already reached his ears. There’s nothing Meng Yao can do to stop it – no boon or honor he could earn, no underhanded trick sly enough to win the spot he so desperately craves in spite of what Jin Guangshan has done to him. He’s laid at the bottom of the stairs of Jinlintai, Jin Guangshan standing at the top to lord it over his broken body one more time before he’d turned to head back in to see to his beloved son’s birthday celebration, but still Meng Yao has never felt further from his approval and acceptance than he does now. 

He judders through another dry-heave and clenches the edges of the basin until his nails bite into the wood and his knuckles turn white with the aching strain, and none of it changes the fact that he’s lost everything. One moment of weakness in a lifetime of denying himself everything selfish, and already he’s been forced to reap the consequences.

Even as he stands hunched over the basin Meng Yao’s mind begins working, flinging through plan after plan until his thoughts are littered with half-remembered scraps, all discarded. They all rely on him maintaining some degree of reputation, enough to carry him into the halls of any of the other Great Sects, or even some minor one. There are many that pledge allegiance to the Jin, and to work his way up to Jinlintai through one of them would be an even more arduous process than going through the Nie, but once upon a time they could have been his last-ditch emergency attempts to achieve his goals. Now, though, they mock him from where they lie scattered on the floor of his mind, all hope he might have had at gaining respect anywhere in the cultivation world lying discarded with them. He certainly feels filthy and miserable enough that he thinks not even Wen Ruohan, maddened tyrant playing at joining the immortal gods though he is, would deign to accept him now. What good is a conniving, scheming whore to anyone, after all, even the insane?

In the end, there’s really only one plan left that has any hope of succeeding. It’s truly his last-ditch attempt, and it leaves a sour taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with his rising bile. He will steal what he can carry, and he’ll run. It’s in direct opposition to what Meng Shi had wanted for him, it’s not what he wants for himself either, but if his life will consist of nothing but scorn and mocking at every turn then he can force himself to admit defeat, to run somewhere no one knows him. Start over. Earn respect all over again somewhere new through the hard work he’s never once shied away from.

Meng Yao gives himself two more deep breaths to accept the new direction of his life before he stands up straight and stirs himself into action, ignoring the roiling mass of emotions still tugging and stabbing in his gut in favor of beginning to stuff the mobile contents of his tent into his single qiankun pouch - a gift from Nie Mingjue. He doesn’t stop to appreciate the silver brocade or the cool weight of the silk against his skin, the slight tingle of the magic he doesn’t have enough qi to cast himself but can make use of, considering Nie Mingjue has so much qi to spare for such things. (It could sell for a fortune, but Meng Yao already knows that he’ll sell anything else, even his body, before he’ll part with such a treasure no matter how hungry he gets.)

It takes less than half an incense stick for Meng Yao to empty his wardrobe into the pouch. He turns next to his desk, intending to take anything at all even remotely worth saving (read: selling) – and immediately bounces off a solid wall of leather and muscle.

“What are you doing?” Nie Mingjue demands as he steadies him with a hard grip around both of his biceps, fingers digging just this side of too hard into the meat of his arms. Meng Yao swallows down a fresh bout of nausea and slowly raises his eyes to meet Nie Mingjue’s, unsure of what he’ll find.

“I..Did you…hear-” Meng Yao feels his throat tighten around the rest of the question but he can see anyway that Nie Mingjue already knows.

“Jin Zixun couldn’t even wait for the strategy meeting to start before he decided to let everyone know what he saw. So yes.”

Ah.

Meng Yao closes his eyes against the fact that this is somehow worse than he’d feared. Nie Mingjue’s hands tighten painfully around his arms but Meng Yao doesn’t bother protesting – at this rate he’ll be lucky if Nie Mingjue lets him leave camp alive for all that he’s done to drag not only Nie Mingjue but also the Nie Sect through the muck of the world alongside him. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a friendly face in all of the Nie encampment, or that Meng Yao has done anything and everything they’ve asked of him since the moment he joined the Sect as a lowly servant to these same disciples.

None of it fucking matters.

“This humble one apologizes for such an insult,” Meng Yao manages to say around the knot in his throat threatening to stop him breathing altogether. “It was never my intention to bring shame upon the Nie, nor to - to-“ Meng Yao chokes again on the words hurled at him like daggers, his little remaining pride unwilling to bend into humiliation even for the sake of apologizing (and potentially saving his own neck in the process).

“To what?” Nie Mingjue’s voice is as hard and unyielding as Meng Yao could expect, but just because he’d been expecting it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. He can’t imagine that Nie Mingjue hasn’t heard what people are saying about him, the assumptions that he’s sleeping around to get where and what he wants. Nie Mingjue might be a stern man but he’s never been cruel – Meng Yao readjusts that opinion a hairsbreadth to the left, since the man seems determined to make him say such horrible things about himself instead of allowing him the easy out.

“To sully you with my…association.”

It burns on the way out, his throat thick and stinging with it even as he forces himself to say it. Nie Mingjue’s eyebrows – always so severe anyway – mash down into a straight line over his bright eyes, and even now Meng Yao adds this expression to his mental catalog of such things to be reexamined later, likely when he’s forced to survive somewhere far less than pleasant, and he’ll take any good memory at all. Because even now, even like this, being with Nie Mingjue is better than the quickly-approaching future in which he will not be anymore.

“Your association with the Nie began the moment you joined my Sect! What should we care what the Jin have to say about…what we..did.”

Meng Yao, against his better judgment, can’t quite stop the snort of hollow amusement for the way Nie Mingjue’s blustering abruptly drops into awkward hesitation at the mere hint of the kisses they’d shared that afternoon weeks ago. They haven’t mentioned it again, either of them, but Meng Yao’s hope that that would mean the lapse in judgment would just fade into awkward obscurity is now very clearly – detrimentally – in vain.

“How can you not care?!” Meng Yao tries to ask, but it comes out much closer to a demand, desperately feathered around the edges. “The things that they say matter, though perhaps they don’t affect you!”

“If Jin Zixun is the sort to slip through the woods so he can stay and watch a private moment only to then gossip about it during a war meeting says far more about him than it does us!”

“We -” Meng Yao gestures frantically between them with one hand - “are not an ‘us’ !!” He’s definitely desperate now, frantic to make Nie Mingjue understand that whatever part of this he thinks will blow over absolutely will not do that! “We are the most respected cultivator of the generation and the general of an army, and the bastard son of a prostitute who has defiled him to seemingly better his station in life! Tell me again what that does or does not say about me!”

“But it isn’t true!”

Meng Yao does not scream, nor does he rip his hair out at the roots in anxious handfuls, but by the gods are both options tempting. 

“I wish I could live in the world that you do. You have no earthly idea how much I wish I had the luxury of the truth mattering! They don’t care what the truth is, they only care that people like me remain in our place and don’t shatter all the fine illusions you gentry paint for and of yourselves! The truth is that Jin Guangshan is my father, and yet such a man who dotes on one son saw the other thrown down the foot of his throne. The truth-” he practically spits that hateful word as he finally vents the anguish that always seems to weigh him down - “Is that your own soldiers spit on me and steal any rewards I manage to scrape past their attempts to stop me from accomplishing anything in the first place! You have elevated me to the highest position in your Sect besides your own, but all that’s done for me is paint a bigger target on my back because you still – in your arrogant expectation that the world must operate exactly as you see – will not help me!”

Meng Yao is breathing as heavily as if he’d just run through their entire encampment corner to corner, his chest heaving and his shaking hands curled so tightly into fists at his sides that he can feel blood welling beneath his nails. He isn’t scared, though. Nie Mingjue could kill him outright for such horrendous disrespect and no one would bat an eye, but Meng Yao truthfully has nothing to lose now. He’d prefer not to die, he thinks, but if Nie Mingjue wants to kill him at least he could die feeling like it was justified. To be struck down by the man who had picked him up from the dirt in the first place, the man who is, as he’d said, the most feared and respected cultivator of their generation…it would not be a shameful death. Even in the circumstances they’ve found themselves, it wouldn’t be embarrassing to face his mother in the afterlife like this. He can tell her he tried. He will tell her he did everything in his power to win what she’d wanted, and he’ll pray for a few more lifetimes as her son to attempt to make up for his failures.

Meng Yao drops to his knees almost woodenly when Nie Mingjue’s hands release him as suddenly as if he’d been burned, and in his mind’s eye he can see the man reaching up for Baxia on his back. He’s lost count of how many times he’s watched Nie Mingjue practice with her, finding excuses to squeeze in a glimpse or two between all his other duties simply to admire the raw, untamed beauty of the way man and saber work together. She’s an extension of Nie Mingjue, as much of an appendage as an arm or a leg. The only way he can think of for Nie Mingjue to kill him more intimately would be to climb atop him and strangle him with his own hands, so he sees no problem in settling for Baxia’s cold touch rather than Nie Mingjue’s too-hot grip.

“You’re wrong,” Nie Mingjue rasps, and it sounds like it’s coming from a li away though the man hasn’t moved, Meng Yao kneeling close enough to his feet for the splayed skirt of his outermost robe to brush against Nie Mingjue’s boots. “There is one position left above yours that isn’t Sect Leader.”

Meng Yao opens his eyes reluctantly, stops imagining the whistle Baxia would make as she’d split the air between her razor-sharp edge and the soft give of his bared throat. He looks up, up, up at Nie Mingjue, towering over him like that first day they’d met, and he finds an eerie calm overlaying his usual temper, for once tightly reined in. Meng Yao would honestly prefer it if he were shouting like usual.

“What?” he manages to croak in response, his voice just as hoarse. “There’s not, you can’t –”

“I can.”

Meng Yao’s thoughts are more than a little scattered at the moment, but his mind is still as agile as ever. He meets Nie Mingjue’s gaze, lets the intensity of it burn him, pin him in place and force him to acknowledge what Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem willing to say directly.

There really is, in fact, one more rank between his current status as Nie Mingjue’s deputy and the man’s own status as Sect Leader. As things currently stand, the only person he actually answers to is Nie Mingjue, but that’s mostly because anyone who fools themselves into believing Chifeng-Zun has time to meet with the matchmakers is very swiftly and sternly disabused of such a ridiculous idea. Sometimes by him.

It wouldn’t be difficult at all to play the secret lovers card, if they were so inclined.

“No,” he protests to both Nie Mingjue and the traitorous direction his thoughts are happily careening towards. “Absolutely not! You cannot possibly believe that making me…Nie-furen would solve this?” 

Nie Mingjue glares down at him from under the harsh, unyielding furrow of his brows, looking as serious as he ever does. Meng Yao sort of wishes Nie Mingjue had just killed him instead of whatever the fuck this has turned into. Is it possible this is a stress-induced hallucination?

“It would help.”

“How?!”

Nie Mingjue huffs and finally moves, though sadly not to grab for Baxia in a sudden change of heart to just put him out of his misery and let him start everything over, a blank slate. Instead he begins pacing in tight circuits, back and forth across the center of Meng Yao’s tent, his leather shoulder pauldron brushing the center support pole with each abrupt pass.

“Jin Zixun has told everyone who will listen that he caught us kissing in the woods.” Meng Yao’s ears are suddenly far warmer than they have any right to be. “He’s only talked about the part where you kissed me. No one seems to know that I also kissed you.” Which he had most certainly done. Passionately. “It’ll be easy enough to turn the tide of gossip in our favor. You already wear inner family braids, you’ve been at my side since I promoted you, your word is my word in every way that matters. Or it should be, at least, and anyone who doesn’t treat it as such now will have no choice but to change their ways or leave once you become furen.”

“I haven’t actually agreed to that,” Meng Yao feels compelled to point out, still kneeling there on the beaten dirt floor of his own fucking tent, gobsmacked and a little dizzy with everything happening far too quickly.

“If you become furen then,” Nie Mingjue dismisses easily with a wave of one massive hand. He’s in full battle-planning mode now, Meng Yao recognizes the signs, and there’ll be no getting him out of his track until he’s walked this thought all the way to the end of it. Best to just walk alongside him and see where it takes them.

“And am I to believe that you will suddenly be so much more compelled to defend my honor after this? If spreading my legs for you were all it takes, then the men will wonder why you’ve suddenly elected to discipline them now for the behaviors they never bothered to stop even after you first promoted me. They will never believe that we’ve been hiding a relationship for so long that it’s produced an affectionate engagement, since you haven’t stirred yourself once to defend me yet.”

As far as accusations go, this is far too sharp and pointed to be anything but insubordination and disrespect of the worst sort (except maybe for grabbing Nie Mingjue and kissing him like he’d done. That ranks fairly high as well). But Nie Mingjue simply shoots him a look that is half apology and half irritation, nothing at all close to the murderous rage he likely deserves for such a display.

“If you would tell me these things then maybe that wouldn’t be the case!”

“Should I have to beg you over and over again for the protection you promised me when you brought me to your side?”

Nie Mingjue practically growls at that, clearly incensed, but apparently he still won’t be distracted from this new…tactical endeavor.

“What they say won’t matter so long as you’re furen, is the point I’m trying to make! You’ll be just as much the commander of Bujing Shi and the Nie as I am, your word will not be backed by me, it will be mine. It’s the best protection I can offer you, and it would cut these gossiping hens off at the knees. So they want to accuse you of sleeping your way to the top and refuse to believe differently? Fine. Then we’ll make sure you’re actually at the top! Any disrespect to you, then, will be no different than if they’d said it directly to me! I can respond to each insult with as much force as I want, then, and damn the consequences.”

Meng Yao’s breath catches in his throat and his fingers curl into fists again on his knees, the bites from his nails stinging slightly as he presses on them. As far as solutions go, it’s not precisely the best. Actually turning the rumors into truth will do very little to take the sting out of them, but it would mean power and – at least from Nie Mingjue – respect. Rather than retreating in disgrace, with his name a curse on everyone’s lips, there could be some small comfort. There could be Nie Mingjue.

When Meng Yao stays silent, Nie Mingjue suddenly stops and sighs gustily, eyes bright as he looks down at him still kneeling there waiting for death. He reaches into the fold of his robes at his chest and pulls out, of all things, one of their precious letters with a hard cover and the Nie seal. Most of their correspondences have long since been scrawled on whatever sorts of loose paper they can find, but whatever Nie Mingjue is holding has been written on their proper stationary, silver and deep grey flashing between his fingers as he holds the letter for a long moment before he passes it down to Meng Yao.

“I had intended to..give this to you, after the meeting. Before Jin Zixun decided to make a mess of everything.”

Meng Yao opens the letter warily, darting a questioning glance up at Nie Mingjue and his uncharacteristic hesitation. 

It is, he finds, a letter of recommendation, written carefully in Nie Mingjue’s neatest calligraphy.

“I know that you still wanted to be recognized by your father. You’ve made a good name for yourself here, good enough that you should have been able to find the same or a better position in any of the Great Sects – including the Jin.”

Meng Yao’s vision swims a little as he stares down at the letter, not actively reading it, just…marveling. The sting of rejection is waiting in the wings, he can feel it even as he sees how much Nie Mingjue appreciates him, how high he holds him in regard, in order to spell it all out so plainly for anyone else to see.

“If you want to, you can take that letter anywhere you wish to go and try again with someone else. I thought…if you stayed here, what I could offer you would never be what you truly wanted. I don’t want you to go, but I don’t want you to stay if it will only make you miserable. Obviously things are a bit different now, but my…feelings haven’t changed.”

Meng Yao can see it so easily. He could take the letter, he could walk away hurt by Nie Mingjue’s dismissal of him but eager to prove himself in Lanling anyway. He could leave the Nie for the Jin and attempt to earn his father’s attention again (he isn’t foolish enough even in his daydreaming to imagine he’ll ever earn Jin Guangshan’s love). 

If things were even slightly different, he would do it.

Meng Yao studies the letter for one more long moment, silent. With a deep breath he carefully folds it back between its covers to tuck such a precious thing into the front of his robes, safe and close to his heart.

“Any chances my father may have some day given me were ruined the moment Jin Zixun saw us. Even had we never kissed at all, he would have eventually found some way to ensure I would never find a place at my father’s side. It could never have gone differently, in the end,” Meng Yao says, calm and steady. Because he knows himself, and he knows that he would always find a way to love Nie Mingjue, so there would always be the possibility of him slipping up and damning them both. Now, or later, it doesn’t matter. Meng Yao tips his head back to look up at Nie Mingjue again and is unsurprised to find that his eyes are red-rimmed, though his cheeks are still dry for the moment.

Meng Yao inhales deeply again, sets aside the maelstrom of his feelings to tell him, “I want to stay. I want to be worth something to you. I want your respect and your power…and your affection. I want all of it. Don’t..don’t make me go somewhere else. Please.”

Meng Yao’s twisting heart begs silently for Meng Shi’s forgiveness as Nie Mingjue crosses the small distance between them to haul him up straight into his arms. Meng Yao hides in his chest and mourns for the loss of everything he’d dreamt of one day having - and Nie Mingjue holds him so tightly his tired body aches just right.

-/-

Nie Mingjue - in a move that would most likely shock every matchmaker in Qinghe - is a wonderful husband. Their engagement had essentially lasted only as long as the war, their wedding the first major (non-victory related) celebration of any kind amongst the Great Sects after its end. Meng Yao had thoroughly enjoyed rubbing the reality of their wealth even after a war in the faces of the rest of the Great Sects - particularly the Jin (perhaps..exclusively the Jin. He respects the Lan too much and cares about the Jiang too little to bother trying to make them jealous).

Still. It had been one thing to flaunt their power at a wedding in their own home, and now it’s another thing entirely to be attending their first cultivation event as the dual masters of the Unclean Realm – a group hunt. In Lanling.

Nie Mingjue, still his best source of unwavering support, stands at his side stern and silent at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to Jinlintai. Two lines of disciples stand behind them in neat rows, just as silent and imposing as their leader and – as they’d all been personally recruited by Nie Mingjue to replace some of those they’d lost in the war – wholly loyal to Meng Yao as much as they are to Nie Mingjue. With so many powerful people on his side, there’s no logical reason for him to fear ascending the steps in front of them. Mercifully, in spite of that fact there’s still no hint of impatience from any of the Nie while Meng Yao takes a deep breath in and looks up the mountain of stairs, the golden rooftop of the tower just barely visible over the steep slope of them from here.

Meng Yao takes another deep breath in when Nie Mingjue rests a hand subtly on the small of his back, a firm support that does nothing to attempt to propel him forward. He leans back into the press of it with a tiny smile up at his husband, who he finds is already looking down at him from the corner of his eye, brows furrowed into a concerned frown.

“Let’s go,” Meng Yao finally says. Nie Mingjue does him the courtesy of not asking him if he’s sure. Instead, they simply step forward as one and their disciples fall in smoothly behind them, their swords and the silver ornaments in their hair clinking softly as they ascend.

“Qinghe Nie Sect!” one of the guards at the top of the stairs announces when they reach it, and Nie Mingjue’s entirely proper hand on his back slips around to curl around his waist instead, his arm warm and sturdy around him as they approach. It’s inappropriate – practically bawdy by the standards of the Lan who have just gone into the banquet hall ahead of them – but Meng Yao manages to keep his head high and even smirk a little as they stop in the courtyard, ready to be greeted.

“Nie-zongzhu,” Jin Guangshan says with his usual (utterly fake) jovial smile and a bow that’s just this side of too shallow to be a proper greeting. The well-practiced smile on his lips sours into something ugly and pinched at the edges when Jin Guangshan turns to him and forces his spine to bend in an identical bow, his shoulders visibly tense to the point of faint trembling as he holds it and says, “Nie-furen.”

“Jin-zongzhu,” Nie Mingjue greets for both of them as they return the bow even more shallowly than they’d been offered; by now, with the both of them unequivocal heroes of the war and the Qinghe Nie not only rebuilding but flourishing already under their combined efforts, it’s no secret in the cultivation world that their reputations and wealth far outstrip the money Jin Guangshan has been throwing at everyone’s rebuilding efforts in an attempt to hide how little he did for the war effort when it mattered most. Their barely-polite greeting is no more nor less than anyone present would expect them to offer.

After all, everyone knows by now that even while embroiled in a war the Jin had somehow found the time to launch a smear campaign within the ranks of their own allies with the intent to drag their General’s beloved partner through the mud. They won’t be able to buy their way out of such shameful behavior until the Jin coffers are echoing empty, Meng Yao thinks with a savage sort of glee.

Despite the anxious roiling in his gut, Meng Yao sweeps past his father the moment it’s acceptable, head held high and the bright sunlight glinting off the silver guan threaded securely through his intricate loops of braids, the crown a match for Nie Mingjue’s. He spares Jin Zixun – standing just inside the door and aggressively flirting with one of the serving maids – enough of a passing glance to see his cousin’s eyes widen upon catching sight of him looking every inch a Sect Leader, and the nausea churning in his gut abates a little under another flash of pleasure.

Nie Mingjue, a man of his word through and through, has done precisely as he’d promised that day in his tent. Meng Yao answers to nobody – not even his husband who is his equal – and though he’s sure there must still be some in the cultivation world who will look at him and sneer, who will never believe that the son of a prostitute could be a valuable leader, the success of the Nie Sect speaks for itself already, and will continue to do so under their combined guidance.

And his husband is fully prepared to gut anyone who criticizes him in their hearing anyway.

“Married life suits you two quite well,” Lan Xichen tells them both with an amused little smile once the banquet is well underway, music and dancing and chattering filling the opulent hall. Meng Yao doesn’t duck his head, or blush shyly, or attempt to deflect. He simply smiles up at his and Nie Mingjue’s best friend (and most vocal supporter) and tries to look a little less smug. It clearly doesn’t work judging by the laugh Lan Xichen hides behind a genteel hand, but Meng Yao doesn’t mind one bit.

“We’re still willing to swear brotherhood with you, you know, even though we’re married,” Nie Mingjue says as he slings his arm around Meng Yao’s waist like he had earlier. The comment could be completely innocuous, a clumsy nonsequitur, but Meng Yao takes a delicate sip of the wine in his hand to hide the smirk that creeps across his lips when the offer lands precisely as it was meant. Lan Xichen coughs delicately and does an admirable job pretending that his ears aren’t glowing red at the tips.

“Three heroes of the Sunshot Campaign,” Meng Yao muses before Lan Xichen can get his metaphorical feet under him. “Three of the strongest leaders in the cultivation world bound together in an alliance between the Nie and the Lan, to stand across from the Jiang and Jin making their ties through marriage. It’s a good political move, and an even better personal one.”

Lan Xichen clears his throat and offers them a nod that, for him, is practically begging for relief from their teasing. “I have thought about it,” he confesses. Meng Yao wonders if it hurts for his ears to be blushing so fiercely. “And I accept.”

Nie Mingjue’s hand tightens on Meng Yao’s waist, possessive and excited in equal measure. Meng Yao sips at his wine again, pleased with the fact that soon he won’t have just one powerful man in the palm of his hand, but the two most powerful cultivators in the world. Sect Leaders, to boot.

It’s not anything close to what Meng Shi had in mind for him, he thinks, but it’s also so much more than she’d ever taught him to expect from his life that he also likes to think she doesn’t mind too much.

[theangrypomeranian]

*aggressively does research at work for planned one shot for a ship that no one else has written for*

[mysteryshoptls]

SR Ortho Shroud - Apprentice Chef Voice Lines

Summon Line: This class is perfect to test out my new Cooking Gear. I want to learn as much as I can to be able to cook so many things!

Groooovy!!: My brother and I worked together to make this gear. This might just be the initial test run, but it can perfectly follow the recipes!

Home: I'm perfectly antibacterial and waterproof!

Home Idle 1: One-plate dishes like Loco Moco are really efficient meals, since it's a main dish, side dish, and salad all wrapped into one!

Home Idle 2: When I tried telling Leona-san the reason he gets sleepy after meals, he just said, "Yeah, yeah," and brushed me off. It doesn't look like he's looking to fix it...

Home Idle 3: This gear is equipped with basic functions to prep, peel, chop, and weigh ingredients. It even has a tasting function! Isn't it great?

Home Idle - Login: Retrofitting complete. Commencing cooking functions with the 【Cooking Gear】 attachment.

Home Idle - Groovy: Recipe reproduction accuracy: 99%. ―Hmm, I think this gives me a pretty good chance at high marks! I can't wait to see what the judges think!

Home Tap 1: If there's any gourmet food you'd like to eat, I can reproduce them for you! Ah, but of course, you'll have to supply the recipe and ingredients.

Home Tap 2: I don't have any food preferences, but I do know what everyone else's dislikes are. ...Who knows when that kind of info will come in handy～

Home Tap 3: By rounding the bottom of an iron pot, it allows for the heat to gather in once place to cook everything more evenly... It's a simple but smart product design.

Home Tap 4: Apparently, rice is a carbohydrate that can really efficiently boost your energy with even only a small amount. Sounds like the perfect thing for my brother to eat when he's busy!

Home Tap 5: Warning! Warning! An ingredient foreign to the recipe has been added. Halt all processes. Beginning procedure to identify and remove the offending ingredient.

Home Tap - Groovy: Was my dish delicious? Yay～! I'm glad I analyzed your taste preferences and adjusted the recipe for you, then!

Requested by Anonymous.

[eyesthatroll]

NEVER HAVE I EVER / CHAPTER 01

next chapter

pairing: luke hughes x fem!reader

summary: two college kids trapped in a bathroom

warning(s): underage drinking, idk

word count: 0.8k

author's note: this takes place when our boy is in college, obviously. hope you enjoy!

A sigh of relief escapes your lips as you finally reach the bathroom. The volume of the music and the chatter from the party fades significantly in this quieter sanctuary, offering a moment of respite from the overwhelming atmosphere. It's in this tranquil moment that your mind fills with regrets about your decision to attend this party.

Staring at your reflection in the mirror, you take a moment to adjust your strapless top, which had fallen a bit lower than you'd prefer. Despite feeling like both a physical and emotional wreck, you take solace in the fact that at least you don't look as bad as you feel.

"You're not allowed up here," a stern voice echoes from beside you.

Startled, you jump back, your heart racing, with uncontrolled, heavy breaths escaping your trembling lips. With a mix of fear and curiosity, you cautiously pull back the shower curtain, and your eyes widen in disbelief. There, in the bathtub, lies Luke Hughes, a prominent player from the hockey team, nonchalantly sipping from a bottle of tequila.

"What the heck?" you blurt out, your mind reeling as you struggle to make sense of the bizarre situation unfolding before you.

He casually shrugs, taking another leisurely sip from the tall bottle. He extends it towards you dismissively. "Want some?"

You shake your head, an air of confusion still swirling around you. It perplexed you why he was up here, drinking alone, especially after his team had just won tonight's game by six goals, and he had earned four points.

He chuckles, his gaze shifting from you to the space in front of him. "Figures."

You scoff, bristling at the implication in his words. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, I knew you wouldn't drink, because you're a good girl," he says, a slight smirk playing on his lips. By God, did you want to wipe it off.

"You don't know anything about me," you tell him, your head tilting slightly to the side, as if trying to get a better read on him. You try not to feel offended by being called a good girl, but his tone implies something else, and that annoyance simmers within you. You knew there was nothing wrong with being a good girl, but he made it sound as if there was, and that grated on your nerves instantly.

"Your name is Y/N Y/L/N. You're majoring in sports psychology, and you love hockey. You used to play volleyball here before you tore your rotator cuff. You used to date that asshole from PHI KAI before he cheated on you with your best friend Anna. Your favorite movie is The Big Short, and you almost never leave the house without your camera."

Your mouth falls agape, and you're left momentarily speechless. Your mind struggles to comprehend how he even knows your name, let alone all that personal information about you. Sure, you attended a lot of hockey games, and you might have passed him between classes, but you've never engaged in conversation before today, and yet, he's just recited personal details about your life with unnerving accuracy.

"It doesn't matter, I'm leaving anyways. Have a good night, Luke," you mutter, your hand wrapping around the door handle. You twist it, but the handle refuses to budge. Frustration building, you bring up your other hand, using both in a hurried attempt to twist and pull at the handle, yet the door remains stubbornly locked in place.

"Luke, I can't open the door," you inform him, your hands still struggling with the doorknob.

You pivot to face him, noticing that he's reclined in the tub, his eyes now shut. "Yeah, it does that," he comments, the tone of his voice making it seem like this happens often.

You shoot him an incredulous look. "Well, can you fix it?"

He clears his throat. "Yeah, you can," you let out a sigh of relief, but it's short-lived. "From the outside."

You let go of the handle, stumbling backwards slightly as you assess the current situation you're in. Your back meets the sink counter, and you wince at the pain but choose to ignore it for the moment. "Can you call someone?"

He lets out a heedless laugh, finally opening his eyes just to raise his brows at you. "My phone is downstairs."

"My phone is dead!" You exclaim, pulling your phone out of your back pocket and waving the device around, but nothing but a black screen appears.

Luke shrugs again, an easy-going smile playing on his lips. "Looks like we're trapped."

[lovers-tucked-into-a-quiet-cafe]

Chapter 3 [IKYLHT]

~5.3K Words | Series Masterlist | Prev | Next Chapter

-

The car coming to a sudden stop, your head snaps up from where you’d been watching Soap’s fingers drum along your knee. 

“Why’s he getting out?” You murmur, eyes tracking Graves movement. 

Alejandro steps out of the car, and you’re quick to unbuckle your seatbelt, Soap and Ghost promptly doing the same. 

“What’s this?”

“This is the immediate future. Step away from the gate.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re crazy, this is my base.”

“It’s not a base. This is a sizable covert facility and I admire it. So I’m taking it. You boys have been relieved. Thank you for your service. Gun, up here.”

Snapping your head up, your brows furrow and you slide your hand over your holster slowly.

“Excuse me? I’m under no obligation to take orders from you, Graves.”

“You are a Gunnery Sergeant under the United States Marine Corps, I am the only one here you take orders from as of now.”

Planting your feet further into the ground, you brush your arm against Johnny’s and internally plead the look you’re sending Alejandro expresses your growing confusion. In your peripherals, you see Ghost’s hand rest on his holstered gun, watching you intently.

Alejandro takes a step forward with a shake of his head.

“I’ll say again, we don’t take orders from you.”

You watch as Graves moves closer, finger slowly inching closer to the trigger of his rifle.

“Didn’t Valeria say that? Now that makes me wonder what else I don't know about your affiliation with a drug-lord?”

“What the fuck did you just say to me, pendejo?”

“You’re out of line, Graves.”

He points a finger at Alejandro and Soap, “Don’t do that. Don’t… do that. No one needs to get hurt here.”

Ghost speaks from his spot near the side of the car.

“Are you threatening us?”

“Soldier, I don't make threats. I make guarantees. So let’s not do this. Gun. Here. Now. That’s an order.”

“Absolutely not.” You spit out.

“Soldier- considering past events, I do think it’s best you listen to the men in charge this time. Wouldn’t want a repeat scenario, would you?” He drawls.

It takes a minute before the dots connect in your head.

That motherfucker. That’s why he was taunting me. This was their plan for the entire damn mission.

“Are you fucking blackmailing me?” You hiss.

Turning and walking past you, Soap calls out, “I’m calling Shepherd.”

“General Shepherd sends his regards. He told me y'all wouldn't take this well.”

“He knows about this?”

“He's put me in command of this operation from here on out. So y'all need to stand down. It's time to let the pros finish this. And why the hell are we talking like this is some kind of negotiation? It's not. I've got my orders and now you have yours. So help me, Rabbit, if you don’t fall in this goddamn minute-”

“And who the fuck do you think you are, cabron? My men are inside!”

“I'm afraid not. Your men have been…detained.”

Watching his fist clench, you’re only able to graze your fingers over the back of Alejandro’s tac vest before he’s lunging at Graves.

You hit the ground as Alejandro’s hands are ziptied, two bullets whizzing past you and hitting the soldier Soap used as cover. You lunge at Graves, but fall back as a bullet lodges itself deep into your thigh. 

Soap manages to shoot the offending soldier, but is knocked back by Graves’ bullet to the shoulder. He rounds the front of the car and you take the opportunity to roll the dead soldier off of Soap as Ghost yells.

“Soap, get out of there!”

He pulls you up and moves to jump over the barricade, two soldiers following and shooting out. One clips you, hitting your tac vest and sending you back. Johnny turns, but you push him over the barricade.

“Go Johnny!”

He pulls your arm and calls out for you, only releasing when a new rain of gunfire breaches the barricade. The soldiers pass you, and you subconsciously thank Johnny for his accuracy as he hits one of the soldiers, allowing you to effectively plunge your knife into the other one.

You look back to see Ghost silently watching you. You gesture towards the barricade and raise your gun with the intent of covering him. You hear his low voice quietly call out.

“Go.”

You don’t move, watching something unrecognizable flash across his eyes. He nods once, and you nod back with a grimace before jumping over the barricade and sliding down the hill.

It isn’t until you’re exiting the thick brush of the forest, thigh burning and blood dripping down your leg, that you realize the bullet to your chest was lodged six centimeters into your comm box.

-

Letting out a low whistle, you knock your knuckles against the wall of the coffee shop and duck behind the counter when Johnny turns his gun on you.

“Jesus, Johnny, it’s me.”

Rushing over and pulling you into his chest, he speaks harshly.

“Why the fuck didn’t you answer comms, Bunny?”

Pulling back and moving a hand to the button, you hold it down and listen to the lack of voices or static.

“It’s busted.” You whisper, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He pulls you back into him and kisses the crown of your head, murmuring lowly.

“It’s alright, Bun. It’s okay. How’d you find me?”

“Hitched a ride in the back of one of their cruisers. Crashed it when they’d realized I was there. Followed the path of knives here. Ghost’s, I’d imagine.” You chuckled. 

Letting out a smile, he gestures out the window towards the center of the town. 

“Meetin’ him at the church. Shouldn’t be much longer. We need a minute?” He gestures towards your wrapped thigh.

“No, I’m good. Restocked my medkit on the way here.”

“Atta girl, Bun.”

Reaching for the transmitter, he scopes out the narrow street and creeps out the back door. 

“Ghost, Rabbit’s found her way over. Comms are down, she’s stickin’ with me.”

You don’t get to hear his response, and instead choose to focus your attention on covering Soap’s back as he speaks to Ghost.

It isn’t until Johnny’s tone changes that your attention is grabbed.

“He’s sorry, you know.”

You give a noncommittal hum, brows furrowing in muted confusion.

“Who?”

“Ghost. Didn’t mean to bring it up. Gave him an earful for you, Bunny.”

Your frown only deepens, turning to your partner with a raised brow.

“What exactly did you tell him, Johnny?”

He shrugs, avoids your eyes and quickens his pace to remain a step ahead of you.

“John.”

“‘S not important, Bun.”

Sighing out, you push down the irritation that threatens to show itself. 

Airing out your past wasn’t worth the mere cease of Ghost’s accusations. Johnny would say whatever it took to ensure you weren’t being given a hard time, but he’d never expose your skeletons without good reason, and you trust him wholeheartedly.

So what went down while I was gone?

You can’t think about it much longer, and so you task yourself with finding the exfil vehicle as Soap covers Ghost’s hurried departure from the church.

Your loud whistle alerts them of your find, and you pull the man out of the driver's of the pickup seat as you yell out. 

“Ghost, you drive! We’ll cover you!”

Soap hopping in after Ghost, you only have a second to duck behind the car before bullets are piercing the air you’d just stood in. Reversing over the two men, you hear Ghost’s yells for you to get in as you maneuver into the truck bed, pounding your hand against the rear window loudly.

“I’m in! Drive!”

It’s a bumpy ride, and you almost listen to Soap’s demands for you to switch spots, but your paranoia wins you over and you resign to guarding the rear. Once the town’s far into the distance- not even a blip on the horizon- and the empty road loses its daylight, you allow yourself to answer Ghost through the now-broken rear window.

“Didn’t happen to pick up any of those knives I left, did you, Rabbit?”

You’re still irritated with him- more than irritated, actually- but you take his words as the olive branch you know they’re intended to be.

“No.”

Despite your efforts, your tone has him snapping his mouth shut, glancing towards Johnny who gives him a reassuring nod.

Sighing out, you let your head thunk against the window frame and you look up at the clear sky and all of its bright stars.

Dropping your tone into something soft, you let your voice ring out once more.

“Guess that makes us even then?”

Ghost takes a minute to respond, but when he does you hear the relief in his voice.

“Even then, Rabbit.”

You nod and allow yourself to wear the small smile threatening to spread across your face.

Might as well try.

“So… I was gone for a while. What’d I miss?”

Taking you by complete surprise, Ghost lets out a deep chuckle and you turn to watch Soap’s ears redden.

Well that’s interesting.

“Johnny was chattin’ my ear off about you, as always.”

“Oh? Care to indulge?”

“Negative, soldier.”

“Am I ever gonna know?”

“Mm, probably not.”

You throw your hands up with a light laugh, brushing aside shards of glass to squeeze through the window and into the makeshift seat between the two men.

“All good things, darling.” Ghost mumbles, and you glance over at Johnny.

His eyes are soft, and the small nod he gives is the most reassuring thing you’d gotten all week.

Sinking into the seat, you turn the radio onto the first station that gets a signal, crossing your arms and ignoring your brain’s incessant pestering with a sigh.

-

Soap wasn’t afraid of your past. He was there for most of it, and the parts he was absent from, he knew in great detail. You’d shared it with him, though at first he honestly hadn’t realized the significance in that statement. He isn’t a dumb man by any means. He knew these were details that’d been redacted from countless files, explanations to cases chalked up as ‘classified’. But in his own uncharacteristic insecurity, he’d assumed he wasn’t the only one you’d shared those details with. Yeah, it was a small group, he thought, but a group nonetheless. 

He hadn’t realized he was the sole member of that group until he’d come to visit you in the states after the Demon Dogs were shipped off to Urzikstan without you- when you took him to that cobweb-ridden apartment you still rented even after your parents death years ago. 

He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t touched you once, and yet you pulled yourself together enough to skim your fingers over the dusty decor you hadn’t had the heart to alter. 

He liked that about you. How you were able to balance on those wobbly legs all on your own, something he knows you could’ve done regardless if he was there or not, even if you hadn’t once attempted to enter that apartment without him.

You didn’t need him. You wanted him. 

Johnny wasn’t one that had a hard time with words, and he frequently thanked his parents and sisters for their role in that. He may not have known how to comfort you at that moment, but he did know how to talk.

He’d asked about the little things, like who was who in the picture frames and what kind of juice would leave such a dark stain in the worn carpet.

It was blood, and while he hadn’t had the nerve to ask, you’d graced him with the story anyways. He was grateful. You hadn’t always been a woman of many words, but he found himself content to sit back and wait for you to string the sentences together.

Hours later he’d ask more questions, ones more vulnerable than the last because he needed you to understand.

He wanted you, too.

He held you as the tears resurfaced, rubbing his hand along your back not as a way to dry your tears, but as a way to let you know he wanted to be your source of comfort. 

He took the keys from your shaking hands, locking the door and leading you into the rental car. He buckled your seatbelt when your hands were slow from the adrenaline crash, not because you couldn’t but as a way to show you just how much he cared about your safety, no matter how inconsequential the action seemed.

He unlocked the front door of your house, the one you’d paid off with the same cash you despised yourself for earning, and leaned down to help slip your shoes off. He notes the frames on the wall, glass encasing military medals, commemorative awards, and a single name tape. 

Highwater.

You hadn’t gone by that callsign since Victoria.

He angled his shoulders to block your view of the badge.

The frame is cracked towards the edge. He wonders if it’s purposeful. The rest of the house, save for the frame, was almost uncomfortably orderly. The personification of a military mindset. Sheets tucked in the corners, trinkets equal distance apart from each other on the mantle, not a single thing inoperable or in need of repair. 

It looked nothing like that apartment you’d been raised in. 

He knows that’s purposeful.

He carried you up the stairs, setting you gently on top of the sheets he knew you’d hate remaking the next morning with a promise he’d do them for you. 

He pulled the shirt over your torso, unclasping the military-issued bra you’d joked about outlawing a hundred times before, fingers careful not to brush against the raised lines covering the expanse of your back. 

He’d waited for your nod- a small, sheepish one- before skimming his hands over the scarred flesh. You can’t help but shake, a small sort of tremor he remembers you mentioning needing to get under control. You’d described the phantom pains, the familiar burn of leather reopening deep gashes, a pain you’d come to associate with that apartment. 

He takes in the tattoos- collarbone to wrist, sternum to stomach, more covering your legs under the cover of your pants- they’re so new to him it almost feels weird to see. He swears it was just days ago you were rolling up your sleeves to knead dough over holiday in his childhood home, skin clear of ink. 

In the same moment, as he skims his hands along the top of your arms, he realizes your skin hadn’t been so raised when he’d first met you, either. Victoria.

He gauges your reaction. The scars, both physically and mentally, were much fresher. You don’t flinch when he runs his hands over them. Not like you do the ones on your back. 

“I’ll be fine. Been through worse.” you’d said over the phone when the nurse unbandaged your arms all those months ago.

At the time, he’d chastised you for neglecting your health. Now, seeing the way the scars on your back raise far higher than the ones you’d received being tortured, he can’t help but picture adolescent you attempting to care for your own wounds in that apartment and realize you were right.

He kissed you then, a soft, slow sort of chaste kiss that didn’t have much energy behind it yet conveyed every single emotion he needed it to. He needed you to understand that he chose that gentle press of his lips against yours. 

This wasn’t an act spurred on by the heat of the moment. This wasn’t some decision he’d made lightly. No, while he may not have put much thought into it- the action instinctual- it was anything but half-baked.

He’d shimmied his clothes off then, helped you slide your cargo pants down and find warmth deep beneath the duvet. It wasn’t needed, as your combined body heat was enough to power a small sauna, but he knew the sheets provided a small sense of security in an already vulnerable environment.

He’d snaked an arm under your head, holding your body tight to his with the other and pressing another chaste kiss to your lips.

While he was glad the thin sheets provided you some modicum of safety, he wanted nothing more than to be the one to suffocate you in that safe feeling. He let his back face the door, despite it ringing every alarm bell in his military-trained brain, because it meant you wouldn’t be hearing those alarm bells yourself.

When you’d pressed your own kiss to his lips, heart racing with an unsubstantiated fear of disappointing him, he felt his eyes soften more than they ever had before, kissing you one last time before pulling you closer and closing his eyes.

While you hadn’t voiced it, he knew you were reeling from the pleasant shock of the situation. John MacTavish was not a man known for being gentle. He wasn’t harsh or cruel by any means, but he knew you’d heard the gossip. The women he’d brought back to base always left satisfied, but the chaste kisses and whispers of praise Johnny happily provided you with were not ever something those women got to see.

He needed you to understand that he wanted you. 

He’d felt your soft smile against his skin, listened for your heart rate to slow and your breathing to even. He didn’t stop the gentle caress of your back until you were long asleep, finally allowing the burning muscles in his arm to rest and falling asleep himself.

When he felt you stir awake that following morning, he’d made it his personal mission to make sure you felt every last bit of pleasure he felt every time he was around you. It was a thank you of sorts, for allowing him to comfort you in that vulnerable headspace, for trusting him with your entire being. 

He fondly recalls chuckling at you, when you’d murmured something about wanting him to feel good too. His smile was uncontrollably wide in that way that makes your cheeks hurt, and he was quick to remind you that he did feel good. He feels good when he knows you do too, and a couple of cold showers are more than worth it when it ensures you understand that his want for you runs far deeper than physical gratification. 

He’d finally given into your murmured pleas after four consecutive days of relentlessly spoiling you in every way he knew how, and after that, he’d been sure to spend the remainder of the week teaching you what true, unconditional love looked like as you paraded him around the local spots you’d frequented as a child. 

Despite the hours spent discussing your relationship- the need to keep it a secret while on base, the safety concerns of his family knowing, all the little agreements that made his heart want to shatter- the flight back to base wasn’t a dreaded one.

Because he knew- without a doubt- that you understood.

He wanted you.

-

“We’re here, darling.” Ghost speaks softly, patting your leg from where he stands outside the car.

You don’t remember arriving at the safehouse, nor do you remember Ghost or Soap exiting the rickety truck, and you blame the sleep deprivation with a grimace.

He takes your hand and gently leads you down the tall step, closing the door and positioning you between himself and Johnny, who’s eyes scan the building. You grab your discarded gun from the truck bed and motion for them to walk forward, turning and scanning the desert at your backs.

“Where are we?”

“Alejandro’s safehouse. Gave us the location just in case.”

“Why didn't he tell me?”

“It was need-to-know.”

“He told Rabbit?”

“She needed to know.”

“What if I needed to know?”

“Shh, Johnny.”

You continue your slow walk backwards, gun aimed out towards the dry brush.

“Pressure plate.”

“Alejandro rigged it.”

“Smart bastard.”

“There.”

Walking towards the open window carve-out, you scan the inside of the empty building.

“Too dark to see anything. You first, I’ll keep watch here.”

You appreciate Ghost's quick reflexes, even if it was only Rodolfo, as he covered Johnny in a way you couldn’t at the moment, the adrenaline crash and blood loss finally caching back up to you as you struggle to enter the safehouse.  

“Soap! Ghost! You’re alive!”

“Affirmative.”

Even more than his reflexes, you find yourself appreciating his big hands as they envelop your waist, pulling you through the small window with ease.

“You okay, Coneja?”

“I’m okay, Rudy. Glad to see you are, too.”

“Where were you guys?”

“On the run.”

“We were on the run. Ghost waited for us.” Soap answered, throwing a hand around your waist and shifting your weight into his arms.

“Of course, no?”

“No.” You answer with a grimace, your leg shooting pain up your spine, before Ghost quickly amends your answer.

“Yes. We’re a team. All of us. This happened on my watch and I'll need help to fix it. No one fights alone.”

“Why did Graves turn?” 

“We don't know.”

“Las Almas can corrupt anyone.”

“Not us.”

“Might have something to do Shepherd, Graves mentioned direct orders.” You speak quietly. 

You don’t bother mentioning Graves’ taunts and the fact that- besides Johnny- there was only one other person present that would ever think of calling you Victoria.

No, Laswell wouldn’t do that. She won’t even call me Highwater anymore- and that was an official callsign. If she was kind enough to follow that request, there was no way she’d… she couldn’t. No. She wouldn’t do that to me.

“For now, General Shepherd, Laswell, and anyone else outside this room is considered a hostile.”

“We need Alejandro back.”

“Graves is holding him here.” Rudy walks over and points to a small section of the map. 

“When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow, 0400. I’ve intercepted a message about a scheduled drop. We’ll need the distraction. For now, we wait. There are cots in the armory.”

“Where are you going?” You ask as he shoved items into his small pack. 

“There are a few things I need to do. People to check up on. We’ll reconvene in the morning.”

“Stay safe, hermano.”

“Rest up, amigos.” He claps his shoulder, turning back to you and Ghost, nodding once. 

“See you tomorrow, Rudy.”

You wait until you hear the rumble of the car’s engine slowly fade to silence before you whisper.

“I overheard Alejandro fretting about his mother. No doubt Rudy’s gone to check up on her.”

“He’s a good man.”

“That he is.” You affirm, limping over to the table and grabbing the small medkit Rudy had set aside for you.

Wincing as you unwrap the bandage, you pant as you try to gently detach your cargos from where the blood had bonded them to your skin.

Seeing his large figure in your peripherals, you look up as Ghost kneels in front of you, gently taking your thigh in his hand as he inspects the wound. You register the sound of Soap clearing off the table, the pair leaning you onto the edge of it.

Without a word, Ghost’s taking off his gloves, his hands reaching around your waist and lifting you onto the table before resuming their gentle prodding at your thigh.

“Gonna have to take your pants off, darling.” He speaks softly, already unlacing your boots.

You feel your cheeks warm as you look to Soap, who gives a feather light kiss to the crown of your head before taking the scissors and cutting around the torn fabric.

“It’s gonna hurt, Bunny. It’s real stuck on there.” He frowns, opening a bottled water and lightly pouring it over the wound.

It doesn’t budge, and you curse yourself, Graves, and the entire shadow team for not allowing you to properly take care of the wound hours ago.

Unbuckling and shimmying your pants down your hips, you nod and remind yourself to take deep breaths. You groan as Ghost slowly pulls the fabric down and over the wound. You feel the skin tear and sigh in relief when it’s over, Soap quick to press a wet cloth over the bleeding skin as Ghost pulls your pants over your ankles. 

You don’t mind the remaining coolness your rain-damp clothes provides as your leg supplies your body with enough heat to have you breaking a sweat. They’re quick to disinfect and dislodge the remnants of the bullet from your thigh, carefully bandaging it with a practiced preciseness. 

You feel the air shift and open your eyes to the wall that is Ghost’s chest. He fiddles with the bottom of your shirt, tugging slightly.

“Off, Rabbit.”

Your eyes widen and you snap your head to Johnny who nods with a soft smile. He lets Ghost speak for him, but takes his hand in yours and rubs his thumb over your knuckles soothingly.

“Your clothes are still damp. Don’t want you catching a cold, do we?” He speaks lowly. 

“I don’t- I’m not sure- I don’t think I can-”

Soap cuts off your quiet stammering with a kiss to the back of your hand.

“It’s okay, Bun. I’m right here.”

Watching his soft expression, your eyes water and you turn back to Ghost with a nod.

He’s slow in pulling your shirt off, and you hold back a gasp as the cool air hits each scar littering your back.

“Ghost?” You question with a whisper, eyes taking every last detail in as he pushes the balaclava to expose his strong jaw and full, pink lips.

“‘M here, darlin’.” He hums softly, leaning to press a kiss to your lips.

You lean into it, pressing one palm into his chest and using the other to steady yourself on the small desk.

He pulls away, moving to trail kisses along your jaw. Brain fuzzy, you don’t notice Johnny’s finished tending to your now rebandaged bicep. The sting of the antiseptic is somehow completely painless when paired with Ghost’s affection. Brain still half operating, you miss the way his shoulders shift as he leans forward to press a kiss to the scarred flesh towards the back of your neck. You stiffen, closed eyes screwing tighter as you force your hands not to shake.

You feel Johnny’s hands from behind you, one skimming along your chest as the other brushes your hair from your shoulder. He starts his own trail of kisses along the other side of your neck, speaking softly.

“‘S alright, Bun. We’ve got you.”

“Johnny?”

He hums noncommittally, still pressing light kisses against your neck and shoulder as he reaches forward to gently tug at Ghost’s belt. It pulls the three of you impossibly closer, and you take it upon yourself to remove the garment with a needy sigh.

You feel him move to kneel, but quickly catch his shirt in your hand and pull him back to your lips. You sigh between kisses, murmuring.

“Want you to fuck me, Ghost.”

You almost laugh at the way his lips part, eyes darting behind you to look at Soap. 

“Don’t look so worried, Fantasma. You think I haven’t seen the way Johnny’s eyes follow you? Take what you want, Ghost. We’re yours.” You quietly confess, tugging his shirt off with a low whine.

Soap laughs with a blush, shaking his head and shrugging.

“‘S why I love her.”

You giggle and lean back into Soap’s arms, turning your head to kiss him deeply before pushing Ghost's hips back and sliding off the table and onto your knees.

“Darling-”

“-Shh,” You cut him off, sliding his jeans down his thighs and palming him over his boxers. “Go ahead, give me a show.”

His cheeks redden, half hidden under the mask, and Soap is quick to pull him into a kiss.

You giggle quietly, tugging down his boxers and running your tongue along the length of his cock.

You hear him moan into Johnny’s mouth, your partner pulling back to bite marks along Ghost’s jaw, before settling on his knees next to you. He licks the base of Ghost’s cock as you kiss at his tip, hand settling over the areas you and Soap missed.

Ghost’s moans fill the air, one hand threading through your hair and the other settling over Johnny’s open jaw.

“Fuckin’ beautiful sight. Could stay like this forever.” He slurs, abs tightening and breath shuttering.

You laugh and settle your free hand on his thigh, caressing the area.

“So responsive, Ghost.” You tease with a smile.

You move forward, taking him into your mouth as Johnny shifts his attention to his heavy balls.

“S-Simon.”

You look up at him with wide eyes, noting in the back of your brain how Soap does the same.

“My name, darling. It’s Simon.” He sighs out, throwing his head back and tightening his grip on your hair.

You pull back, unable to control your wide smile and kiss his hip softly.

“So pretty, Simon.” You murmur against his skin.

You trail kisses up his chest, stopping to suck dark bruises onto his collarbones and the underside of his jaw. The area is red and purple from you and Johnny’s assault, but you can’t stop yourself. 

You feel Ghost’s abs tighten once more as Johnny raises his head.

“Let go for me, Simon.” He mumbles, hollowing his cheeks and pulling Ghost’s hips forward.

He came with a loud moan, dropping his head to your shoulder and panting with a chuckle.

You continue your soft kisses against his skin as Soap helps him redress, and you lean back against the desk with a smile. Johnny throws an arm around your shoulder and kisses the top of your head, laughing to himself.

“Wasn’t originally how Ghost pictured getting back in your good graces. Night was supposed to be about you, Bun.”

“Mm. You two can make it up to me once this is all over. What do you think, Si?”

He steadies his hand on the desk, softly kissing your cheek before pulling the balaclava back to its original place.

“I’ll save the date, darlin’. Come on, let’s get you into something dry.”

Slowly walking you to the armory, he sits you on a cot before turning to dig through a box of mens cargo pants. He hands a pair to Soap who gently tugs them up your legs, securing your belt over the too-large pair of trousers. Grabbing a dark shirt, he lifts your arms to slide it over your head, gently rubbing your back.

Johnny sets your boots in front of you, letting you slip them on and lace them in the weird pattern you swear is ten times more efficient. You’ve never minded sleeping in your boots, not on missions like these where preparedness is the difference between life and death, but you find yourself frowning at the realization that you were indeed still sleeping on a rickety cot in a desert safehouse.

Settling onto the cot, Johnny pulls you to lay on his chest, spreading his legs to accommodate for your wrapped thigh. The lights go out, and you hear Ghost’s quiet steps approach his cot.

Leaning over, you pull the cot closer to yours before settling back onto Johnny’s chest. His steps follow, and you hear him sink onto the cot with a sigh. You watch his eyes scan the dark room, and you frown knowing the man won’t be sleeping anytime soon.

“I don’t know what Johnny told you when I was off comms… but I’m glad he did.” You whisper, nuzzling your face into Johnny’s shirt.

“I am too, darling.”

“Goodnight, Simon.” 

“Goodnight, Rabbit.”

Listening to Johnny’s soft snores, you allow your tiredness to overcome you- eyes barely open as you shift your leg over, tapping your boot against Ghost’s, twice.

-

<3

[unholyhelbig]

Can you do a Kate x reader fic where Kate and R are friends and R gets hurt and ends up unconscious for a while and Kate confesses her feelings? Thanks so much, love your work :)

Title: The Sun Also Rises

Ship: Female!Reader x Kate Bishop

Wordcount: 4155

Warnings: Injuries, blood, general heartbreak, gunshot wounds, yelling and Ernest Hemingway if you're an English major

[A/n: Can you tell I'm nearing the end of my quarantine by the sheer amount of content I've been churning out? Less than 24 hours and I'm free from my enclosure. Also, did not proofread this one either]

Main Masterlist | Read my stuff on AO3 | Leave Requests

The mission was simple. It was recon. They weren’t supposed to engage unless they were engaged first. Kate Bishop knew this was how things were intended to go, but she also knew that nothing was predictable in the field and no matter how much they prepared for things to go wrong, it was never expected when they did.

Her fingers had gone numb in the cold of the night, her ribs had a dull ache that thrummed with her heartbeat. Kate was pressed against the rocky rooftop, binoculars pressed to her eyes as she watched the abandoned building aptly.

You were on the ground, bundled nice and warm in a van that was parked half a block away. There was a non-descript logo of a cooling company painted on the side, and the meter had been paid off for the foreseeable future. It was a safe zone. It was supposed to be a safe zone.

Kate could feel a burning in her shoulders, took a moment to adjust herself on the rooftop. That was all it took, really. She hadn’t seen the flicker of movement at the base of the building, the way that freight doors were pushed open in the dark.

“Kate,” her partner’s voice came through her comm. It was wracked with static despite the fact that she sat in the epitome of tech. “We might have a problem.”

“What’s going on?”

“Four suits walking my way.”

There was a twinge of fear in your voice. Of course, you could handle yourself against four guys. It was when the weapons came into play that things became questionable. Training didn’t matter, not when bullets ripped through flesh and blood began to pour.

Kate directed her sights to the group of tracksuits that were strolling down the rain-reflected pavement. Kate tightened her grip against the binoculars until her knuckles turned white. She let out the slightest breath as they approached.

She nocked an arrow, pulling it effortlessly from the quiver strapped to her back. Her fingers were damp, still numb. But that didn’t change her accuracy. The two of you waited with bated breath.

The four men stopped a few feet away from your van, lilting their heads as if they were assessing the situation. There was a moment of quiet, it could have been a minute, maybe even two, but to Kate it felt like a century. She could feel the string of her bow cutting into her skin, the shaking in each inhalation of cold air.

“Well, fuck”

You whispered the words before gunfire erupted. Kate thinks that you sensed it before she did, and the second the first flash popped, she released her arrow into the crook of the offenders knee. But there were three more, and while she re-nocked and aimed between the ribs of the next.

There were two more shots fired and Kate didn’t have much of a moment to think. The van was littered with bullet-holes and she used her third arrow to create a line directly to you, wrapped sloppily around a lamp post.

She didn’t wait, not with you. Never with you. If there was any fear of bolstering her bow and swinging down to street level, she didn’t feel it. Both heels of her boots hit the third suits’ chest. She heard a pop that rivaled the scent of gunpowder as he dropped.

Kate wordlessly used her bow to take out the last guy, his gun lowered. Her mind was screaming, even as she smashed the instrument against a temple hard with enough force to break skin. She kicked the gun away, something that seemed of little consequence, but had dalmationed the van.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Kate pulled open the back door of the van. It groaned in response. She could smell the sweet metal before her eyes located you. Screens smoked, laptops going dark, but taking the brunt of the gunfire. You had pushed everything from a bolstered platform, having moved it in front of you for another layer of metal before the gunfire met you.

Smart. You were always so smart, even in distress. It was part of the reason Kate loved having you as a mission partner. That- and you weren’t against playing twenty questions with her through the coms when it was just the two of you.

Kate’s heart broke into a million pieces as she hoisted herself up into the back of the van. Her boots slid on the blood that was slowly seeping across the metal floor. She fell to her knees painfully but didn’t care. Instead, she pushed the table away.

You were curled in on yourself, but despite your coiled stance, she could see the blood. There was so much of it. She could barely hear your stunted breathes, but when she homed in on them, they were fast and shallow. Kate’s fingers pressed against your pulse point. That, on the other hand, was dangerously slow.

“Y/n, stay with me,” Kate rasped out, patting her pockets until she found her phone.

It threatened to slide out of her hands, swipes of blood glowing through the screen. She pressed Natasha’s contact name. Her handler. Her confidant. She only had to say a few words, it was plaguing her voice so deeply, nothing else was needed. “Nat, I need you.”

Three bullets total had hit you. Two in the abdomen and one in the chest. The slight gurgling noise that Kate had heard in the back of the van was a good sign of life, but a bad sign for your lungs. One had threatened to collapse and really; Doctor Cho had essentially said the best thing they could do was make sure that you were stabilized.

She had used the words “make sure she’s comfortable” and Kate must have let out an inhuman noise because Yelena was at her side, gently leading her away from the med bay and towards the closest bathroom. It was an unnatural stainless-steel white compared to the broken state Kate found herself in.

“Malen'kiy yastreb, you have to breathe.”

Yelena’s words were soft, riddled with a quiet accent that held no malice. She guided Kate to the toilet, sitting her on the lid before she pulled as many towels as she could from the dispenser. She warmed water and waited until they were soaked through. Yelena shut off the water and knelt in front of Kate.

She took Kate’s chin and gently started to wipe away the dried blood on her face. Kate’s hands were saturated, her clothes caked with the drying substance. There was so much of it, so much. And while Yelena knew it would be too much to coax Kate into taking a shower, she worked with what she had.

“I should have done more. When they were walking towards her, I waited. We… wanted to see what they would do, and they opened fire, Lena.”

It was a bold move. They had somehow clocked that they were being watched and made a massive play that was bordering on pure aggression. Kate could feel anger form cold in her stomach.

“We will handle it.” Yelena moved to Kate’s hands, working away at the dark red tint. When she said that, Kate knew she meant it. There was a darkness in her eyes that mirrored the underlying sorrow Kate felt in your absence.

They sat quietly for a moment. The only sounds were the scrubbing of Yelena’s efforts and the small sniffs as Kate let her tears hit the collar of her shirt. The words, they were stuck in her throat.

“What if she doesn’t make it?”

Forbade their close proximity, and Yelena would not have heard the question, but her heart broke undoubtedly. She stopped working away at the color, now a dingy orange, something that was manageable and less gory.

Yelena knew how Kate Bishop felt about you. She would have been a terrible assassin if she did not pick up on the soft gestures, the longing looks, and the seconds that sparked between you both while you sparred; your back against the mat, Kate pinning you down with a smile that could only ring in it’s truest form.

She hadn’t admitted it yet, despite the poking and prodding that Yelena forced upon her. After all, their line of work was a dangerous one, and not a place to pine. Life was too short not to ask for what you wanted, and that was truer now than it ever had been.

“We will handle that too, Malen'kiy yastreb. Right now, you have to be with her. When Natasha was in her coma, they said she wouldn’t pull through, but she did. They also said that just being there was what helped her hold on. Talking to her. Perhaps you should do the same?”

It wasn’t a question, not really, because Yelena stood and tapped the side of Kate’s knee to jolt her from her trance. She’d stopped crying, at least, a numbness spreading through her. If she had paid attention to the blood, really paid attention, then she would crumble once more.

Yelena had helped more than she realized, and Kate made a mental note to make it up to her at some point. Despite her rough exterior, Natasha was the one who typically dealt with the feelings. Clint was impossible at it, and Yelena performed in actions rather than words, but Kate didn’t’ need someone to tell her it would all be okay, not right now.

The med bay was mostly empty when Kate returned. There was a nurse in toxic blue scrubs that glanced up at her noncommittedly when she entered, and Kate was oddly thankful for that too. Her eyes darted to your room, a last-minute edition from Tony when one of the team members had an extended stay.

It looked more like an escape pod, bright lights that were dimmed for comfort and a hospital bed. There was a chair that could recline and another one that didn’t. It was built for quarantine if needed, but the door was cracked open.

You looked so small, dwarfed by the machines that worked tirelessly to keep you alive. There was a breathing tube taped to your lips, and a needle had been pushed into the top of your hand. Your stomach and chest had been wrapped with gauze; a small bandage placed over a cut on your brow- so inconsequential.

Kate couldn’t stop the whimper that moved through her lips, but she pressed her fingers against them to stifle the sound. There were so many emotions, so much hurt and anger at herself for not getting to you faster.

She carefully stepped closer, using her stained fingertips to move a strand of hair from your clammy forehead. Kate could hear her tears hitting the scratchy blanket. There was a monitor that beeped along with your heart, and she thought it was much too slow.

“Hi there,” She whispered, taking your hand. It was cold, and she wanted desperately to warm them. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry y/n/n.”

Kate finally broke down, careful with her movements as she sobbed into the small of your neck. You usually smelled of pine, and of the slightest bit of sweat, but all she could get was metal and antiseptic.

“You have to pull through for me, okay? There’s so much we haven’t gotten the chance to do. We haven’t even been on a real mission yet, you know? Clint will never let me live that one down. Getting so fucked up on recon. Who does that?”

Kate paused and waited for your answer. She counted three beeps, before shaking her head and letting out a little laugh. It should have been her in the van, though, the thought of you at her vantage point on the horizon was unheard of.

“You know what, forget the mission, y/n. You know what we really need to do? We need to get you to the beach. God, I’m telling you, it’s just as beautiful as you imagine it to be. My parents have that house on the coast. It’s right on the water, and you can smell the salt from miles away. I’m telling you… miles.”  

She let out a small sob, squeezed your hand tightly and kissed your fingers before pressing her forehead against them. She wished they were warmer, she wished you were warm.

“And the sand… people don’t really like sand because it get’s everywhere, and I mean everywhere, but y/n/n, the sun warms it all day and then at night, at night when you can’t see past the darkness of the waves and it’s not as crowded with people and kids, and dogs, you can still hold onto that one bit of morning.

“I had my first kiss there, down by the docks. I remember it so clearly. It was awful. I’m talking open-mouthed, slobbery, and just much too long even though it only lasted seconds.”

Kate chuckled at the memory, shook her head. She looked at you, at your delicate features and the small scars that littered your skin. They weren’t all from today, and she ached for you to explain each and every faded mark while her fingers traced them.

“I remember thinking, this is it? I’ve waited my whole life for this? I was only fifteen, and my life wasn’t all that long of a wait yet, but the older I get, the more I realize that that first kiss isn’t anything special. Sure, we were on the beach, and the sky was this cotton-candy type of pink. It was supposed to be perfect. But it wasn’t, because I wasn’t with the right person.”

She swallowed hard, her mouth was suddenly dry. She wished she had more time. She wished that she could spend another day with you, struggling over road-maps with a red twist of licorice hanging out of the side of your mouth. Kate craved a day where the sun was too strong, and the lemonade just the right amount of sour. She wanted to see the look on your face when you realized how vast the ocean is.

“When you get better, I’ll take you out there. I’ll take you to the beach and we’ll sit on the docks and we’ll watch the sunset. Every single night, we’ll watch the sunset, okay? But we can’t do that if you don’t pull through. If you don’t fight, I’ll never know… we’ll never know if that perfect moment exists.”

Kate cried until she drifted off to sleep, half-draped across your body in the most conscious of ways as if not to disturb you. She stirred once when the nurse came in and checked your fluids. Then twice the next morning when Natasha was there to coax her into drinking some water from a cheap Styrofoam cup.

Nothing had changed in two days, and Kate still remained rooted in her spot, shifting around the room. Clint brought her a change of clothes, and she made him turn around when she stripped and pulled on one of his t-shirts, a pair of sweatpants that were much too big.

Kate protested that she was getting enough sleep, and she would pick at the meals that they brought in for her. She refused to leave your side, sometimes pacing the length of the room in her socks as she told you all about the summer she turned sixteen and her adventures in their vacation home.

Most of the time, she would watch the slow rise and fall of your chest. She had grown accustomed to the rhythm of it. She wouldn’t take her eyes off you, looking for the faintest sign of movement. Something to let her know that you were still there.

A month in, and she was brought a cot, but still squeezed into the small sliver next to you. She watched the lights on the ceiling. Kate told you about all the places she wanted to take you; the small gas station that sold the best fried fish (trust her, it’s safe), and the fair that would occupy the last fifty yards of the pier for two weeks in July.

Two months in, and Natasha finally dared to go past the small opening of the room. She had watched from the window, and Kate hadn’t noticed. She and Clint would stand and talk for hours, taking in Kate’s heartbreak as she read from Earnest Hemmingway’s “The Old Man from the Sea” over and over again.

Natasha had shyly produced a copy of “The Sun Also Rises” before lowering herself into the uncomfortable chair in the room. Kate watched her warily, thanked her for the book. She held her breath until it burned.

“I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Natasha’s voice was quiet, barely heard over the roar of the machines “Katie,”

“No.”

“As your handler it’s my responsibility-“

“I said no!” Kate was standing now, her voice loud. She would never dare yell at Natasha. She’d never dream of it. For the first three months of their professional partnership, she struggled to even look the woman in the eye. Natasha didn’t flinch, she didn’t say anything. “I’m not giving up on her.”

“We have to prepare for the possibility that she’s not going to wake up.”

“She’s fighting, breathing on her own now, and I’m not going to let you come in here and tell me that she’s not going to come back. You’re the last person I would expect to come in here and tell me to give up. Tell her to give up!” Kate’s voice was losing steam “If this is about resources I can-“

“It’s not about resources, Kate. It’s about you. We’ve been watching you torture yourself for months now and there’s been no sign of brain activity.”

“Will you stop being so clinical about this? This is y/n.” Kate begged, her words finally broke, shattered into a million pieces. “y/n is in there, I know it. She has to be. She has to be because if she’s not, if she’s… fuck!”

Kate was frustrated and exhausted. Her knees buckled and Natasha, with her spy-like reflexes, had her wrapped in her arms in moments. She let Kate cry, both of them uncomfortably on the floor, the tile cool.  Natasha soothed her, tucked Kate’s nose against her neck. There was the slightest bit of pine.

“This is all my fault,” Kate murmured when she calmed “it’s all my fault.”

It had been a week after her conversation with Natasha and Kate was still headstrong in her efforts, though the woman’s words never truly left her. She was a good way through ‘The Sun Also Rises’, nodding off between paragraphs.

Kate’s feet were on the bed, the chair expertly balanced on it’s hind legs with the accuracy of an archer. She felt herself tilting back. Truth was, Kate was tired. Not in the physical sense, though her body hurt.

Despite what Natahsa, and Clint, and probably Yelena thought, Kate would be by your side until the end of time. She’d have to forge books about the ocean that had more plot, but refused to pick up a copy of Moby Dick.

Instead, she let out a sigh and closed the book over her fingers, squeezing the bridge of her nose. She thought of the beach, of her first kiss with Mickey Voit. More than anything, she thought of how nice it would be to feel your lips against hers, to see the bright look of life in your eyes.

Kate figured she had drifted off to an uncomfortable form of half-sleep when she heard it.

“You’re not going to keep reading?”

The voice was raspy, barely above a murmur. The words were unpracticed, but they meant everything all the same. Kate nearly tumbled from her chair; the book certainly flew to the ground as all four legs returned to stability.

She must be asleep, dreaming, or dead. Your stare bore into hers, red-rimmed but there all the same. And you were smiling, God, you were actually smiling after all of this time. It was a sight she thought she would never see again.

“Come on, you were getting to the part about never falling in love.”

“Always,” Kate gripped the armrests of the seat, afraid to let go. Fearful that if she did, she’d wake up and all of this would be over. You would be gone. “I am always in love.”

You blew air from your nose and started coughing, a brittle sound that made Kate stir from her position entirely. Damned if this was a dream, you needed a doctor. She’d will herself to sleep if it meant seeing you again.

Kate called for Cho frantically and stepped back when she rushed into the room, followed by two nurses and an intern that she had come to know based on her pitying glances. Kate really wanted to punch her in the face, most times, but was never happier to see her in this moment.

“Good god,” Doctor Cho quickly went to your side.

She dazedly took your vitals, having you squeeze her finger, something you did with some struggle, weakened from your months out of commission. She pressed the tip of her pen to the balls of your feet, checking your mobility, your lucidity as she guided a straw to your lips and you took a tentative sip.

Kate stood out of the way, her fingers pressed to her lips and her eyes watching every single movement carefully. She relished in your voice, however small it was, as she answered questions.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Agent Y/L/N.” Doctor Cho squeezed your shoulder “I’m going to alert the necessary parties and give you two some alone time… this one never left your side.”

There was a call button if you needed her, and the weight of uncertainty seemed to exit the room. The two of you were alone, as you had been for the last three months. Kate hated how pale you looked; how fragile you were. She wanted to pull you close and squeeze you as if there weren’t 78 stitches across your front.

“It’s so weird,” You lilted your head to the side “I had the strangest dream about the beach. I could see it so clearly, even though I’ve never been there.”

Kate hummed, suddenly timid “That is weird, maybe it was Tahiti?”

“Maybe” You chuckled and then winced “Ouch,”

The archer was at your side in less than a second. Out of habit, she had your hand in hers, quickly forgetting that she hadn’t ever done this before the accident. She still struggled to make the right about of eye contact with you so she wouldn’t’ come off as weird.

Kate groaned “This was easier when you were unconscious,”

“Okay? Ouch again?”

“Not… like that. God, I’m sleep deprived, and totally screwing this up. You would think that three months is enough time to work out a way to talk to a beautiful woman without sticking my fist in my mouth.”

She moved to pull her hand away, but you held onto it with strength to let her know that you never wanted to let her go. She looked down at your grasp, and then back up at you with the beginning of tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t tell you the best part about being at the beach. It was beautiful, really, so vivid and calm. The funny thing is, I was always at the end of this dock and the sky was always this pink color.” You frowned, a small crease between your eyebrows “I could hear you all around me, just pulling me to the end of that dock.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, but you were never there, and quite frankly, Katie, I was getting sick of waiting. So, one day I just jumped into the water, and it was startling, cold, but it woke me up… literally, I suppose. My point… I don’t think I would have jumped if I wasn’t trying to get back to you.”

Kate gently closed the distance between you both, pressing her lips so tenderly against yours. It took a moment for your mind to catch up, but when it did, your warm fingers found their way to her jaw, running along the expanse of her skin, breathing her in. She oddly smelled of sand and salt-water.

You whimpered into the kiss when she grazed an aching spot on your ribs and she was quick to pull back, a look of worry on her face “Sorry, oh god, sorry”

“It’s okay, just a little sore” You beamed at her, forehead pressed close to hers. “Was that better than your kiss with Mickey?”

Kate groaned, her nose cold against your cheek as she murmured “You heard that, huh?”

You had heard everything.

[parasupport]

Para / 🥄 Support Resources (and intro)

emoji code used: here I am always looking for more resources, please send them in, especially if they're non-🗺️ resources

Generally Applicable:

⤸ Find a helpline ⤸ Your closest help centre ⤸ Find therapy ⤸ 🥄Carrd ⤸ 🥄Disorders

🗺️

⤸ Therapy tips for 🗺️s and here (applies to other paras too)

⤸ Other 🗺️-focused organisations, websites, and services: B4U-Act, Path2Prevention, StopItNow, ASAP International, VirPed, Global Prevention Project ⤸ B4U-Act also has a forum: bB4um ⤸ 🗺️Support Club - Prostasia Foundation

⤸ A 🗺️'s Journey (podcast) and 🗺️Accuracy (blog) specialised episodes: (1) benefits and challenges of therapy, (2) age dysphoria, (3) female 🗺️s, (4) transgender 🗺️s, (5) recovery after offending, (6) recognising and stopping grooming, (7) parenthood as a 🗺️, (8) working with children as a 🗺️, (9) supporting minor 🗺️s

⤸ 🗺️resources.info (support groups, guides, research, volunteering, etc. Also has help for🗺️CSA survivors, minor 🗺️s, P-OCD, and more) ⤸ further resources ⤸ and more resources ⤸ 🗺️Misconceptions

Personal Intro

Hello, you can call me Wraith (no pronouns or he/him if you must)

I'm a psychology and counselling graduate, panpara / omniphile, and non-contact 🗺️tivist and para activist. I have experience volunteering for 🗺️ organisations like the ones I've listed and providing peer support for fellow -philes, which I'd love to do here if Tumblr so allows it

I also have experience with receiving therapy as a minor and young adult for a para disorder. I've since gotten a lot better and no longer meet the critera for said disorder, but still receive therapy because it's tough being in this situation when society sees you as a danger

I use transids and identify as transeverything myself - currently looking into dissomei identities but not sure about switching yet I have schizoaffective disorder and experience delusions

Tags do not necessarily reflect my identity, I'd just rather this post access the people it needs to

[leiawritesstories]

swords and sea breezes, 3

part one // part two //

word count: 3.5k (oops)

warnings: weapons, pirates, swearing ;)

enjoy!!

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

After two weeks with the pirates of the Queen's Cadre, Aelin was convinced that Rowan was deliberately sailing in large circles to throw her off. Little did he know that she had an impeccable sense of direction, and she'd seen the same constellations in a circular pattern over the last fortnight.

She may be the wealthy young heiress to the Ashryver-Galathynius duchy, but she was no vapid damsel.

Aelin yawned as she strolled into the galley, stretching her arms above her head. Thanks to Elide's daily knife lessons, her body was remembering the skills she'd learned as a young girl before her parents had decided that self-defense was unladylike, and her aim and accuracy were rapidly growing sharper. Almost too rapidly---she had to remind herself not to advance too quickly lest the pirates suspect she was hiding more than her weapons skills.

"Morning, everyone!" she chirped as she picked up a tin mug and filled it with coffee. The dark, bitter beverage had been strictly a servants' drink in her family home, and she reveled in the freedom to drink it, though she had to stir in nearly half as much sugar as coffee.

"Hullo, milady," drawled Fenrys, one of the ship's two lookouts. "Much better of a mornin' now that you're here with me."

"Your flattery is entirely unnecessary, Fen," Aelin smirked. "I'm still not going to let you into my bed."

Fen shrugged and draped one broad arm around her shoulders. "I'm a patient man, sweetheart."

"Like hell you are, Fenny," Elide scoffed, fondly tugging on the man's curly blonde braid.

He squawked in protest. "Don't mess up the beauty, Lochan!"

She snorted. "Is that what you tell the endless string of partners you bring into your room every time we're in port? Because I recall you saying something very different."

"What happens in my bedroom---"

"Can't possibly stay in your bedroom, because we all have eyes and ears," Aelin cut in, grinning. She winked at Fen as she sipped from her sugary coffee. "Right?"

"All I'm sayin' is that it proves my prowess," he sniffed, pretending to be offended by the good-natured teasing.

"Aye, is that what you tell yourself at night, Fenny boy?" Rowan strode into the galley, and once again, Aelin had to force her heartbeat to remain calm and steady at the sight of the man.

"Sure is, Captain!" With a blindingly sunny grin, Fenrys got up, tipped his empty mug in a salute, and tossed the cup across the room. It landed neatly in the dirty dish bin. "Right, I'm headed up to the lookout."

Rowan nodded. "You know what to do if you spot anything." He picked up two bowls of oat porridge, thanked the cook, and sauntered over to sit directly across from Aelin. "Good morning, my lady."

She arched a brow. "If it's such a good morning, why are we still sailing in circles?"

The galley---hell, the whole damn ship---went silent.

Very, very slowly, Rowan raised his eyes to hers, unable to hide the pure unfiltered shock in them. With his spoon frozen halfway to his lips, a blob of porridge splattered on the table from where it had fallen, he made a perfect portrait of incredulity. "What?!"

"Don't play stupid with me, Whitethorn." Aelin placed her hands flat atop the worn wooden table. "You are clearly clever enough to sail in a wide pattern so that ordinary people wouldn't suspect we aren't going anywhere, but you forget that I am not ordinary."

"Clearly," Rowan whispered, something almost like awe hidden beneath the rasp of his voice. He cleared his throat, placed his spoon back in his bowl, and narrowed his gaze, his moment of wonder shifting to calculation. "How long have you known we're sailing in circles, Aelin?"

The rest of the ship was utterly silent, waiting with bated breath for their captive's answer.

She shrugged. "I realized several days ago that the constellations looked the same as they had on my first night here, and further observation confirmed that we're traveling in a circular pattern."

"You got all that from the...stars?"

"You can't believe a noblewoman would know how to track the stars?" she shot back, irritation sparking her blood.

"Actually, that part is no surprise." Rowan tipped his head to the side, assessing her. "My shock comes from how you didn't hesitate to confront me in front of my entire crew."

"I thought an audience would keep you honest." She sipped her coffee, willing her expression to remain calm, if a bit smug.

He huffed in disbelief. "Well, it certainly did." His lips tipped up into a grin. "Eat, Aelin." He pushed the second bowl across to her.

She stared blankly at the bowl. "I'm not on any kind of hunger strike, Rowan. There's no need to be concerned that your ticket to Dorian Havilliard's whatever-it-is will keel over from starvation."

Rowan chuckled, low and throaty and warm. "Would you believe me if I said this was an attempt at proper manners?"

"What are those?" With an angelically innocent smile, Aelin picked up the spoon and took a bite of the porridge. For ship's fare, it was surprisingly good---steaming hot and slightly sweetened with sugar and a hint of warm spices.

"Something you constantly remind me I lack." Rowan's smirk lit up his features, and Aelin couldn't help but return it. That calculation had returned to his gaze, though, and he had the decency to wait until she was finished eating before he took up his usual train of questions. "Perhaps we're sailing in circles because we know we're near the island."

Aelin burst into laughter.

Rowan's brows quirked. "We could be."

"Awfully hard for you to be near something that doesn't exist," Aelin chuckled. She brushed a few loose strands of wavy red hair out of her face. "It's been two weeks, Rowan. Surely you have enough sense to tell that I'm used to your questions."

"Apparently not," he muttered, half to himself. Abruptly, he stood up, collecting both his and her empty bowls and setting them in the dish bin as he left the galley.

That went fucking brilliantly, Galathynius, Aelin thought to herself, mentally giving herself a slap upside the head for potentially revealing more than she was ready to reveal. She stood up, waved cheerily to the few crewmen still lounging around, and tossed her empty mug into the bin as she left.

She stopped at her room to tie back her hair and strap her two daggers to her hips before she went up to the deck to meet with Elide. They had developed a routine of training in the mornings, when the heat wasn't quite so bad, though Elide had been trying to convince her to start shooting pistols with the crew in the evenings.

But Aelin and explosives were...a bad combination. For many reasons.

"Ready to pick up a gun yet, milady?" Elide joked as Aelin came up to the deck.

"Ask again when pigs fly," Aelin laughed, taking her stance next to Elide and stretching her arms above her head. "I'll keep to my knives for now, thank you very much."

Elide shrugged. "Suit yourself." She spun a pair of ebony-handled pistols around her thumbs, squeezed the triggers, and with a bang and two puffs of smoke, two of the bottles sitting on the deck railing burst into shards.

"You weren't lying about being the best sharpshooter here," Aelin mused, in awe of Elide's skills.

"Course not." The shorter woman raised one of the pistol's muzzles and blew the curls of smoke away from its barrel. "Why else d'ya think I have the grumpiest man on this ship on his knees for me?"

"Gods above," Aelin groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. "We already hear you two every night."

"Damn right!" Elide snickered.

Aelin shook her head, laughing, and launched both of her knives at the corkboard target, one after the other. The blades thudded into the dead center of the circle painted onto the cork, barely a hairsbreadth separating them, with their handles pointed outward at opposite angles so the tips of the blades could both hit the center.

Elide whistled. "Shit, Ae, looks like ya hardly needed my lessons!"

"More like your lessons have taught me that I can do this," Aelin replied, shrugging off Elide's praise. "I guess the self-defense lessons I used to take as a child are still lingering."

They trained for their usual hour before they had to part ways, and as Aelin tucked her knives back into their sheaths, Elide glanced up at the sky and whistled, long and low. It had been a cloudy morning, and as the day went on, the clouds had gathered ever closer, coalescing into an ominously dark mass that thickened the air with the promise of a storm.

"Might want to get below, Ae," Elide said, her brows furrowed. "Looks like we're in for a squall."

~

Down in his office, Rowan paced back and forth across the floor, a scowl etched into his face as he argued with his right-hand man.

"Dammit, Whitethorn, stop being so fucking stubborn!" Lorcan snapped. "We aren't gonna make it past this storm unless you pull your head out of your ass and get us through."

"We're still too fucking far away!" Rowan shot back, his jaw clenched. "I don't have much left, and getting through the storm is probably gonna take all of it. Where the hell will we be then? Powerless?"

Lorcan shot him a fierce glare. "Those ain't the words of the captain I signed on with."

"Well, that captain was fresh from Doranelle," Rowan retorted.

"And just what the hell difference did that make?"

"All the difference." Rowan stopped pacing and braced his hands on the wall, staring out the window across the choppy waves. "A year ago, I didn't realize I couldn't return to Doranelle without a guide."

"A year ago, you were so goddamn drunk on power that you didn't listen to the warnings." Lorcan spoke softly, but no less fiercely. "Where's that confidence led you, Whitethorn?"

"Here." Rowan's admission was hollow.

Lorcan nodded, one sharp dip of his chin. "Here. In the middle of the ocean, without a map or a guide, 'bout to hit a storm that'll take the last of that goddamned token to get through."

Rowan's expression tightened. "We do have a guide, I know it."

"The Galathynius girl?" Lorcan scoffed. "You're desperate, and I can understand why, but you're wrong about her." He paused for a moment, then continued, ruthlessly. "Pull yourself together. I'm goin' up top to get ready for this storm."

Rowan just nodded. "I'll be up."

"You know what happens if you're not." With that, Lorcan left.

~

One deck above, Aelin stood frozen with shock as the conversation she'd just eavesdropped on raced around her mind. The token. A year ago. Get us through the storm. In her mind's eye, all the pieces started to click together, threads weaving into a tight pattern that revealed why Rowan Whitethorn, pirate captain of the Queen's Cadre, was so insistent upon getting to the island Doranelle.

Power.

She shoved down the thick fear that clogged her throat at the thousand possible implications of that word, and she hurried back to her cabin as the ship's lights began to go out. Salvaterre, who was second in command, had ordered that all open flames be extinguished as they sailed into the storm---to lessen the risk of fire, for there was nothing so feared and dangerous as fire aboard a ship. Back in her cabin, she made sure the small window was securely latched, and then she changed into trousers and a blouse, stepped into the set of water-resistant oilskins that Elide had given to her, tied her hair tightly back, and went up to the deck to join the crew.

Nobody paid any special attention to her, since she was dressed like the rest of them were and the pelting rain blurred the field of vision. Her hands were sure and nimble on the lines as she helped secure the ship, and she followed a crewman towards the stern, in the direction of the captain's cabin.

The winds picked up, throwing the ship back and forth as she fought against the choppy waves, struggling to keep her balance as she sailed deeper into the maelstrom. Aelin ducked behind a bulkhead wall and peered cautiously out to the stern deck, both surprised and not surprised to see Rowan standing there, his face turned into the howling winds.

An opaque white spear of quartz dangled from a silver chain in his hand, the stone faintly flickering with light. Aelin closed her eyes, straining her hearing against the powerful shriek of the storm winds, and just barely managed to pick up a faint counterpoint melody, its notes halting and frail, coming from the stone in Rowan's hand.

A storm token.

The Queen's Cadre lurched sharply, timbers creaking as she clawed through a steep cresting wave, and a fresh wave of the downpour soaked Aelin through her clothes as a gust of wind tore her hat off her head. Grunting with effort, she grasped the lines above her head and hauled herself up, bracing her body in the net of ropes.

"Now, Captain!" Lorcan yelled over the roar of the storm.

Rowan set his jaw, a fiercely determined look settling like steel over his face, and raised the storm token above his head. His body shook with effort, but ever so slowly, a ripple shuddered out from his fists that were clenched around the flickering quartz. The ripple grew and broadened as it rose into the sky, shaking and shuddering against the force of the storm, until it exploded outward and upward with a faint, high-pitched keen that Aelin just barely heard over the wind.

And the sky went silent.

Cautiously, Aelin lifted her head, and her eyes widened. A bubble of calm surrounded the ship, keeping the storm at bay and propelling the ship through the fierceness of the maelstrom. His feet rooted to the stern deck, Rowan gripped the storm token tightly, his body quivering with the strain of keeping the ship protected as she pushed through the rough waters. Getting through the storm will take all of it. The words, a snippet of the conversation Aelin had spied on, echoed through her mind.

She'd barely thought the words before a fissure cracked through the bubble of calm protecting the ship.

"Hold on!" Lorcan roared. "Nearly there!"

But the wind shrieked louder, as if enraged that Rowan had dared to use his storm token against it, and the bubble of calm fractured, once again exposing the ship to the storm. The quartz in Rowan's hand flickered once and went dark, its opaque hue as ordinary as any other stone. A sharp gust of wind scraped across the deck, pushing the Queen's Cadre into the trough of an oncoming wave.

And Rowan, drained after the effort of using the storm token, tumbled off the side of the ship into the surging waves.

Fuck it all to hell.

Aelin leapt off the ropes, her booted feet slipping on the drenched deck, and hastily freed the stern rowboat. With a grunt and a heave, she shoved it over the side of the ship and dove after it, abandoning the pirate ship as the storm finally subsided.

She clutched the side of the rowboat and dragged herself in, spluttering and coughing. The oars practically fell into her hands, and she pushed backwards, towards where Rowan had fallen, cursing him and herself the whole way. Stupid fucking pirate!

"If you're not fucking floating, I'm leaving you to the sea goddess," Aelin seethed as she scanned the waves. There! A surprising jolt of relief shot through her, but she smothered it as she headed for Rowan's prone form. "Get...in," she grunted, hooking her arms under his armpits and practically throwing him into the rowboat.

He lay sprawled on the floor of the tiny boat, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, passed out asleep. Clearly, the storm token had protected him from inhaling any water, but he remained unconscious.

A small mercy.

"Now stay the fuck asleep," she muttered, pushing her soaking wet hair out of her face. With a deep sigh, she settled herself on the bench, hoisted up the oars, and began to row, guiding the boat through the subsiding waves. The rain had slowed from a deluge to a shower, and it eventually trickled to a full stop as the sea calmed from the storm.

Aelin closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and opened her eyes again, staring up into the stars as they appeared in the night sky, breaking through the darkness. The storm clouds had blown away, revealing the constellations etched into the skies, a map for anyone who could decipher it. She glanced down at Rowan---still asleep---and back up to the stars, scanning the shape of their paths.

The Queen's Cadre was to the southeast of them, and by now, she would probably have recovered enough from the storm to discover that her captain was missing. A brief twinge passed through Aelin's heart, for despite her pretenses, she had come to find friendship among the crew of the pirate ship.

But Doranelle came first.

The island lay to the west, so it was westward that she turned, nudging the little rowboat onto a new course. As she rowed, Aelin sent up a quick prayer to the gods. Please, let Rowan stay asleep. It would go better for him if he didn't wake up before they'd reached their destination, both because he had no idea what the island actually protected and because her fear lingered. What Doranelle protected was power, and men were known to do terrible, terrible things for power. Even if Rowan had changed from the "power-drunk idiot" Lorcan had called him, she still couldn't trust that he would leave Doranelle in peace.

The sun rose and fell in cyclic rhythm as Aelin steered the little boat, switching from oars to the boat's single sail after she'd established her course because constant rowing would drain her entirely. Almost miraculously, Rowan remained in his stupor for the five days it took to reach the mists encircling Doranelle, and Aelin breathed just a bit easier knowing that he was unaware of their new path.

When the rowboat reached the mists, Aelin struck the sail and took up the oars again, and she rowed through the thick films of mist that veiled the island. The mists served as both a protective barrier and a misdirection tactic, since the ancient spell woven into the mists kept away anyone who approached with ill intent. As the rowboat broke through the mists, Aelin tilted her head back and inhaled deeply, basking in the achingly familiar richness of Doranelle's air and its faint trace of rain and embers. The island sprang up ahead, and she steered the rowboat into the docks at the land's edge.

Rowan stirred, his eyes cracking open. He blinked several times, clearing the bleariness from his face, and slowly raised his arms, as if testing his range of motion. "Where am I?" he croaked, not yet having recognized that he was alone with Aelin.

"Awake, apparently," she said.

He bolted upright into a seated position, wincing at the ache of the rapid movement. "What? How long...?"

"Five days, give or take, ever since your stupid ass fell off the ship during the storm." She stepped out of the rowboat, keeping a cautious eye on him, and slowly walked backwards up the dock's weathered wooden planks.

"My ship," he breathed, fear flickering across his features. "Where are we, Aelin?"

Her booted feet hit the soft, grassy ground, and she nearly wept with joy at the feeling of standing on her beloved island's turf once again. "A place that does not exist."

Pure shock slackened Rowan's jaw. "Doranelle," he whispered, his voice echoing with awe. He pushed himself up onto the bench, only wincing a bit at the tingling in his legs after five days asleep, and began to stand, clearly intending to get out of the boat and walk into the island.

Aelin's hand flew to her knives, and a blade was clenched in her raised fist almost before she could blink. Her other hand curled behind her hips, her stance defensive. "Stay in the boat, Rowan." The voice that came out of her rang with a note of command that he'd never heard before.

"Aelin, I---"

"Stay. In the. Boat." Her shoulders tensed, and she rooted her feet to the ground as a familiar tingling rose from the ground up to her raised hands.

Confusion crossed Rowan's face. "I mean no harm, Aelin, truly." He swallowed thickly. "But this place...it is a miracle."

"A miracle that is unforgiving to strangers." Her fingers curled.

Brows furrowed together, Rowan abruptly stood up and stepped out of the rowboat. He reached for the pistol that he habitually kept on his hip before remembering that he'd lost it in the storm, but he walked forward, his gaze trained on Aelin. She pressed her lips together, the knife quivering slightly in her raised fist. He reached out towards her. "I won't harm anything, I swear."

She shook her head. "I can't trust a pirate's promise." Deep in her soul, Doranelle called, sending a warm wash of sparks through her blood.

And finally, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius burst into fire.

~~~

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[wolven91]

Under the Sea

Ca-Rissh-al moved through the broad, wide corridors with ease and an effortless grace.

The underwater structures of the aquatic draconian people had to be colossal just to handle usage by their people. Ca-Rissh-al was on her way to find the human.

Like the rest of his kind, the human known as 'Ryan' had been sent to their world as a method of hiding him from danger. It was one thing to encourage their kind to procreate and replenish their numbers, but the aching slow time it took for their young to grow meant that they still spent great times away from one another.

Ca-Rissh-al wasn't sure if the human Ryan had sired any children, she didn't think so. He was young, like her, barely an adult according to himself. A toothy grin broke across her snout as she sensed him ahead. She could feel the disturbance in the water of his passing, the electrical signals he gave off. He was swimming as humans did, by clawing through the water rhythmically.

No draconian was 'prey', and maybe these humans weren't prey above the water, but in Ca-Rissh-al's world, he was like an injured creature, ripe for the picking. Ca-Rissh-al turned the final corner and stalked him. For him the corridor was huge, several humans laid head to foot would be needed to touch both walls or the floor and ceiling. It appeared he was heading towards her quarters, an effort for him without a tail to assist him. Only fake flippers and webbed gloves for his hands.

Ca-Rissh-al shot towards the human with a worrying speed, if the human had been aware of her or glanced behind himself, she was sure he would have naturally panicked. Instead, she swam by him with perfect accuracy, causing him to be caught up in her wake, spinning and tumbling him The human thrashed and scrambled.

Ca-Rissh-al grinning as she casually looked back, expecting a familiar middle finger to be raised up at her in defiance. Instead, a stream of bubbles were cascading upwards as his mouthpiece floated downwards, out of his reach, while his eyes were blinded by the removal of his goggles.

Human Ryan was drowning.

Ca-Rissh-al rushed over to him, effortlessly grabbing the 'rebreather' he used that had been knocked away, which had been resting several lengths away from him and, supporting the back of his head with a clawed hand; pushed it into his mouth and held in there to resist his panicked flails. After a moment or two, he began to take deep breaths.

"Stay still, I'll get your mask!" Ca-Rissh-al instructed him, glad that his sub-dermal translator would speak to him without the worry of water stealing the meaning or even the volume of her words.

The white quadrupedal draconian grabbed his mask and pushed it into his hands. With a practised hand, he looped it to the back of his head with ease, by breathing out of his tiny nose, cleared the mask of most of the offending water. Ryan blinked at her, his shoulders heaved, and her sensitive snout could sense the distressed heartbeat within his chest. She reached out with two massive, clawed hands and held his arms, steadying him in the water. She slow and deliberately breathed in, held it, then breathed out. The human copied, and his heart settled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that." Ca-Rissh-al admitted, fully accepting, and expecting his anger for her impulsive actions. Aquatic draconians were the most chaotic of the draconians. A far cry from the other side of the scale that were the bipedal, land dwelling draconians who were most happy in a quiet, still and boring environment. At least in Ca-Rissh-al's opinion.

"Don't worry about it, I should have been watching my back." He replied into the mask, waving his hand to dismiss any guilt. The draconian appreciated the ready forgiveness, but it felt odd to have such understanding from a land dweller. They were all so serious up there...

Ca-Rissh-al rubbed a talon over the thin skin-like material that covered the most of Ryan and gave him a genuine smile. It was made clear to everyone in the settlement at the very beginning that without this mask the human would not survive for long in their environment, likewise his eyes were near useless when submerged. Humans were practically helpless when in their world; their senses muted, poor swimmers, unable to breath. Ca-Rissh-al saw what Ryan was risking by living as close as he could as they did. It was a shame that unless he joined her on one of the aquatic draconian vessels, Ca-Rissh-al wouldn't be able to join him once he decided to leave the planet.

The scaled being glanced into his eyes and noticed the remains of the water, pooling in the bottom of his goggles.

"Let's go to mine and get you sorted out, yes?" She suggested with a tilt of her head. Ryan's head bobbed and his hands extended a tiny thumb, an adorable display, but Ca-Rissh-al knew that it meant an affirmative.

She looped two of her hands under his, while her body used her mighty tail and undulating body to move through the water effortlessly. Whilst Ryan couldn't see it, Ca-Rissh-al grinned widely at his joy while he was pulled through the water far faster than what would have been possible on his own. Trying to let him enjoy himself, she took the long route back, so she could selfishly relish in the feeling of power that he couldn't help but marvel at.

Returning to her home, opening the door and letting Ryan swim inside, she gave his rear a pinch. His audibly squawked and flinched causing her to giggle in mirth and a stream of bubbles to float and bounce off her roof. Humans were too easy to get a reaction from, she and many of her kind, just couldn't help themselves.

Following him in Ca-Rissh-al closed the door behind them both and gave the pair privacy. He'd swum over to the moonpool she had jury rigged in the corner of her living room. Certainly not a usual addition, it was an easy choice to have to made once she had realised of what kind of soul Ryan was. Humans were fae, according to the scholars and explorers. Don't trust them! Keep them at tail's length! 'Nonsense!' she thought.

Not once had he demanded anything from her and forgave her without issue.

So, she'd made an effort to accommodate him and give him a place of respite while he was here. The moonpool was small, certainly enough room for him, but when she joined him above the surface, he was pushed against the side with the end of her snout pressed against his warmth. The soft, sensitive scales there lit up like fireworks as his body touched it.

Removing his mask, he tipped it up and poured the unwanted water out. The human showed his teeth and his eyes dilated when he looked at Ca-Rissh-al. She didn't know what these signs meant, but she wanted to press herself to him. To nuzzle against his flesh, not the second, artificial skin. She hoped that one day they could play near the surface, where he could swim freely with her.

At least in the sealed portions of the settlement, the water's weight would not crush him, Ca-Rissh-al would be devastated if anything happened to such a free soul.

[nicromancytarot]

Your guides are so funny, I wish I could connect with mine too, I'm trying even with meditation and tarots but nothing 😞 any tips ?

I started off with tarot, the first time I contacted them alone just to know something about stuff was to ask how the universe works, they gave me a complicated reading, I spent 1 hour trying to decode it and got nothing, so I asked them directly if they would tell me, they said no.

Around 3 months later, they sprung all the juice onto me during a spiritual awakening that lasted a duration of 4 days, then one of them said they regretted telling me smh (It’s been a year now, and they no longer regret it)

When I spoke to Roro for the first time that I was aware of, I wanted to learn more about one of my spirit guides so I used a pendulum and it took me 3 days to understand that they weren’t just saying “rororororo” over and over again, and it was instead their name.

Using pinterest, I’ve been able to contact them a little more, like “hey give me a sleepy cat if you’re here right now”, although Ro isn’t a fan of pinterest channelling, so I tend to just use a word generator when I don’t want to grab my cards. I also like to allow them to come forward and speak through my internal monologue if that makes sense, but it’s quite hard for me to tell who’s me and who’s them.

I just contacted them through pinterest actually to see how they were feeling, they gave me some interesting emojis since we were channeling through those, and then I said goodbye (they gave me an emoji smelling it’s feet) so I told them to say love you back, cus otherwise I’d be sad, then they gave me talking Angela holding a heart out? They’re very random at times, but it makes it interesting to talk to them.

Roro also has a small amount of patience from what I have learnt, one time we were working together to do a reading for one of my friends (they don’t like this friend) and at the end of the reading, I asked if they had anything else left to say to me, they gave me the 5 of wands in reverse (upright is working together, reverse literally means leave me alone) i was very offended lol.

I think definitely find whatever works for you, pendulums are great for accuracy, however you do need a lot of attention and patience. Pinterest is easy and simple to do, just communicate with them naturally, and constantly recognise that they are with you, it will feel more natural.

[radioactive-dazey]

My orange side dreams (I've had 4)

A description of my multiple orange side dreams and some of my commentary on them.

The first one

I had this dream back in 2022. Logan was sitting in a closet looking into a mirror. But his reflection wasnt himself, it was Thomas with a scraggly beard, dirty grey hoodie, messy hair, etc. Logan was talking to him about backing off, the reflection was mocking him, and all of a sudden the reflection reaches out and pulls Logan into the mirror. He starts laughing evilly and takes on Logan's appearance, walking out of the mirror and out of the closet. The dream changes to me scrolling through the comment sections of youtube trying to look for theories about this video, when i find in the description for the video theres a single name: Julius.

What I find super funny about this dream was that, the original appearance is super similar to an old dark side OC I had before Remus was introduced. He represented procrastination.

The name Julius is also funny because I'm fairly certain my subconscious took it from the drink "orange Julius"

Also lmao me predicting Thomas having facial hair is wild, God damn 2022 Dazey.

The second one

Previously posted elsewhere on my tumblr, I'm basically copying and pasting the post here.

I had a dream that Thomas posted a sander sides video featuring Janus, Remus, and the orange side. The orange side had no defined appearance, he was constantly switching between looking like Patton, Virgil, and Logan.

Janus and Remus didn't like him. The orange side did things in the video that actually made REMUS feel disgusted. I wont describe how (info in the replies of the original post), but he was able to completely shut down other sides. He picked them off one by one and made them faint, disappear, etc...

You could tell by the end of the episode Janus was majorly unhappy but before he could do anything, the orange side rendered him unconscious and Thomas was left alone with him. The episode ended with the orange side laughing as the screen faded to black. The endcard featured Thomas announcing the next episode would come out in 2 years :) (ouch, the accuracy still hurts a bit)

The third one (short and sweet)

Orange side had this ability to influence other sides, like a temporary possession. He wore glasses, which let me tell you, I don't see many orange sides interpretations with glasses so this was just wild.

Despite the fact I know he wore glasses, he also didn't have a set appearance, like he was invisible. Similar to dream 2, he was constantly changing how he looked through this possession concept I brought up.

He was influencing Logan to lash out a lot. Weird huh *gestures vaguely to my complicated feelings to the wrath theory*

Different dream again, the final one

The orange side adopted the appearance and actions of my personal theory for what the orange side should be. Those who have read my orange side theories will already know what im about to say: He represented ignorance, his dark side animal was a bird (some sort of falcon or hawk), his name was Icarus. The entire dream (read: episode) was more or less about how the others fucking suck when it comes to addressing their issues. It felt like they were going in circles. Why did they have to constantly fight?

I've seen the arguments against my particular ignorance theory, saying it's basically just lying to yourself and we can't have two Deceits. But ignorance is more than just 'turning a blind eye.' It's purposefully ignoring new nformation to stay in a comfortable and familiar idea space. Most of the dream works from the angle of Logan not being listened to. The other sides ignorance is what makes Logan angry.

This means nothing but I feel like sharing. In this dream I got to meet Thomas and I asked him "so, Is the orange sides name icarus?" And he looked personally so offended that I guessed it.

[thorraborinn]

I know you've said that other Heathens have given you crap for giving Dr. Jackson Crawford even the mildest amount of criticism, but I was wondering if you would be willing to share any more criticism about his videos, especially the ones on the gods and Norse culture? If not, is anyone you know who has critiqued his stuff? I know Dr. MatthIas Nordvig doesn't like him, but he took down all his videos. I'm asking because I as I read a lot of other scholars' work the more I question how he came to some of those conclusions like translating Óðr's girl to Odin's girl. I know he subscribes to the idea that they are one and the same, but I still think it's weird to put in the translation while knowing you're not going to be adding explanations in the book.

Honestly I don't really have any systematic criticisms, just normal ones like I have for basically any scholar. I don't really watch his videos but I think I've agreed with most of what I have seen. It's more that because his content is so easily accessible and viewed by so many people, some of those people seem to have become really emotionally invested in him being an unquestionable authority, and they really shouldn't be doing that to anyone. There isn't a population of heathens who get personally offended and defensive if I say I think Terry Gunnell or Margaret Clunies Ross missed the mark somewhere. I think for many of Crawford's viewers he's the only specialist whose work they are accessing regularly, and if they read some other authors too they would have a better experience.

Come to think of it, some heathens do get really invested in certain authors like Vilhelm Grønbech or Paul Bauschatz, and get very defensive if you criticize them. To an extent this is also true of H.R. Ellis Davidson. For a lot of heathens of my generation her books were the first scholarly works they read, so their relationship to her was probably similar to heathens and Crawford now. And Ellis Davidson did a lot of good work that nonetheless can and should be criticized.

I will say though that Jackson Crawford's translation of the Poetic Edda is almost universally regarded as bad by people who can read the original, so yeah, most scholars would agree with you about that. And nobody seems to be able to wrap their heads around his decision not to include notes and commentary. I get the impression that he wasn't trying to make something that's accurate or suitable for scholars, but trying to produce something that's entertaining and easy to understand for a mass, popular audience with only casual interest. So if someone wants to get an accurate idea of what the source texts are actually saying, they should read Edward Pettit's translation or Carolyne Larrington's (2014, not 1996), just as someone who wants a translation that is highly poetic at the expense of accuracy and clarity might choose Hollander's.

To say any more than this would require me to watch more YouTube than I am willing to.

[reccyls]

William's Chapter 0 Story

Yes I bought it... And boy, I like where it's going. I went a little more loose with this translation to try and capture the atmosphere better. As always, I make no guarantees about the accuracy.

Also, this doesn't really spoil anything. It mostly covers only the prologue.

---

If life were a fairytale, then achieving happiness would be a simple matter. Keep your hands clean, obey orders, be good and dutiful, and don't stray off safe and well-lit paths. However… if your heart yearns to go down a different road, then would quashing your true desires truly lead to a "happily ever after"? My answer? No.

---

William: "Slice your throat. Drag it out for as long as you can."

Not a single person that Crown has set their eye on has ever escaped. Tonight's target was no exception. The man couldn't even scream as his trembling hand raised a knife. I held in my hand an envelope I had found in this mansion, stamped with a "golden butterfly".

(That I'm seeing this once more means…) (Evil is something that cannot be stamped out through punishment alone.) (Not them… and not me.)

If you asked 100 different people what 'evil' was, you would get 100 different answers. Absolute evil does not exist. Rather, if it did, it would be something that lurked in every individual person's heart. Something that they found unforgiveable. Something that, if they forgave, would be betraying the essence of what made them, them.

(To me, that absolute evil is when one tramples over another's freedom.) (And the worst offender would be this "golden butterfly".)

I had no issues with doing harm so that I may pass judgement on those who commit the unforgiveable. If this were a story, that man and I would be painted with the same brush: evil.

Alfons: Quite a pathetic end, isn't it? Being ordered to "keep your mouth shut" so you can't even scream in your final moments.

Elbert: …It's because we'd be in trouble if his neighbors got suspicious.

Roger: Geez, what a convenient ability. I sure as hell wouldn't want you as an enemy.

William: Ahaha, I'll be sure to mark on my calendar if I plan on turning on you so you'll have ample warning.

Exchanging banter in the way only those accustomed to such sights can, I made my way over to the piano in the hall and sat down.

William: Since this is lying around, I suppose we can send him off with a song.

I wasn't thinking of any melody in particular. I simply let my fingers dance around the keys as they pleased.

Ellis: How wonderful. Now he'll be able to die a little bit happy, at least.

Jude: …Like hell he can. You crazy or something?

Everyone in Crown had their own way of facing someone's death. Those who sympathize, those who empathize, the cynics, the mourners, and those who saw such happenings as purely matter of fact.

(But what they all have in common is that they are all here of their own free will.)

However, not everyone has the ability to go where their hearts willed. At that moment, I recalled that desirous gaze I encountered earlier.

(It would be nice if that girl I met today could take a step towards realizing her desires.)

As the knife dug deep into the man's neck, as fresh blood spurted and gushed from his wound, that was what I was thinking.

--And then, the door to the hall slowly swung open.

Alfons: My, my, to think that we would have an audience.

(…That's…)

William: If it isn't the songbird I met this afternoon.

MC: U-um… what…?

I recognized the panicked woman who had grown pale at the gruesome sight before her. She was that postal worker I encountered earlier.

---

MC: Excuse me, sir, I need to deliver that.

A calm determination had settled in the gaze of the woman who came up to me, chasing a stray envelope.

William: Of course, my lady.

MC: …T-thank you.

William: My pleasure.

MC: …

I had handed her the envelope already, but she seemed to lose track of herself as she continued to stare at me.

(…Another one.)

People who had that look in their eyes almost always had something they were holding back. Things that they think they shouldn't say. I loved the moment when such people made a decision to voice whatever it was they were hiding. When I simply stared back at her silently, her calm gaze wavered slightly. And in that moment, I saw it: a glimmer of desire burning in her eyes. A surge of emotion, so strong that it was taking everything she had to suppress it.

"Lead me to another world." "Somewhere, anywhere."

Though her lips were pressed tightly together, it was as though I could hear her say those words.

(Ah.) (This won't do.)

I didn't know why, but she wanted change. There was desire burning within her, struggling to be set free. And yet… there was something else in her that was suppressing it.

(If she could freely follow her desires… I'm sure it would be beautiful.)

William: You have two deliveries left?

MC: …What? MC: I'm sorry, I spaced out-

William: You'd better hurry. It'll be dark soon.

(It's a shame, but I can't whisk you away.) (Even if that 'somewhere, anywhere' that you desired was the depths of the abyss.) (But… if you, of your own free will, were to take that first step…) (Perhaps we'll see each other again.)

---

(…Still, I didn't think it would be this soon. Or at a place like this.)

Liam: Is she a friend of yours, Will? Does she know about us too?

William: We met on the streets and had a chat, Liam, that's all. She doesn't know a thing about Crown.

Liam: Well, that's an issue. What to do…?

(If I told you to kill her for my sake, then I'm sure you would do it without hesitation.) (Though he'll live with the pain of taking a life even as he does it. What a commendable, lovable cat.)

Harrison: Terribly sorry about the scare, ma'am. But these are just props for a performance we're staging.

(…You never change, Harrison.)

Of course he'd try to give her an escape route. Though he appeared, he was truly strong at his core.

MC: N-no way…

Harrison: …You could have pretended to believe me for your sake, you know.

It was unfortunate, but her last chance to escape had just slipped by.

(Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised) (She came here because she had to, after all.)

Harrison: What do we do, Will?

William: It's obvious, isn't it? We take her to see the "Reaper of the Palace".

Jude: Tch… that's why I told you to lock the damn doors.

Roger: Haha, I didn't think that anyone would trespass into an obviously dark home. You're quite the bad girl, aren't you, little miss?

Ellis: Won't you come closer? It's not like you can escape, anyway.

As soon as she heard the word 'escape', her body stiffened. Her legs began to move.

(Sorry, but I can't let you go.) (You're a witness now, of course. But that's not the only reason.)

That one of her deliveries was to this mansion was surely a coincidence. But that she was standing here now was no coincidence at all.

(Even if the sound of the piano implied that there was still someone awake inside…) (There was no reason for a postal worker to enter an otherwise entirely deserted manor in the middle of the night.) (You chose to come here.) (Even if you haven't consciously realized it yourself…)

She took the first step.

William: Come here, poor little robin.

(Let me see more of it. That burning desire that brought you here.)

At my order, her legs began to walk her forward.

MC: S-stop…!

(Haha, and at last you're voicing her true desire.)

She stopped before me as if she was presenting herself. A splash of red stained her cheek.

(…Beautiful.)

Somehow, the color of deep sin suited her.

(If, of your own volition, you were to be dyed with blood in the future…) (…that would suit you far more than this stain now.)

William: Pardon me.

As I pulled her towards me, her eyes closed in fear.

William: That should do it.

After I wiped her cheek clean and released her, she staggered and collapsed to the floor, as if all her strength had escaped her. Her gaze, once calm and settled, now shook with emotion like a stormy sea. In her eyes I saw fear, confusion… and just a hint of anticipation. Of excitement.

(Yes, you are hiding something inside you.)

Something that made her leap without looking into the dark. Imagining being able to unravel that mystery made my heart race.

(This should be fun.)

William: I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is William. William Rex. William: I'm inviting you to dine with us tonight. Your name, honored guest?

(I'll fill you with love, as much as I can.)

So that you may be a flower that blooms beautifully in the darkness.

[leomonae]

What is this drama with dhampling I'm so confused but I like drama

I'm not bothering to look anything up for my summary, so no guarantees on complete accuracy. Explanation below the cut since I highly doubt anyone not directly involved is going to care about any of this.

Right, so basically @dhampling put up a post asking for BG3 fic recs the other... day? Week? Idk, I'm bad at time, it was recently, anyway. They asked for recs, various people reblogged and responded, including someone who recced a few members of this discord server I'm in - smaller creators, writers who haven't had much of an audience/exposure for their fics, and were pretty happy about the recognition. At some point, dhampling deleted their original post on the subject, leaving a message on their blog about how they didn't want to name names/get pulled into drama or some such - making a pretty vague statement that raised more questions than it answered, basically.

Some members of that discord server I mentioned were a little miffed about this, since to their minds it was removing one of the ways they might get more people finding/reading their fics. I, personally, was rolling my eyes at the incredibly vague nature of the non-explanation and questioning why they didn't just delete the thing and leave it alone after, if they didn't want it being made into some big deal somehow. Since the discord server is private/invite-only, some of us expressed said frustrations in a vent thread therein. Other people, including the person who'd reblogged and given some recs of the server's members, attempted to speak in dhampling's defense a little - they're young (which I guess they disliked being said about them once they found this out?), we don't know what prior experiences they've had in fandoms and some people can get vicious sometimes, the OP's original post may be gone but the reblogs are still out there so it's not a huge deal anyway, etc etc.

Then at some point soon afterwards, someone in the server shared screenshots of the aforementioned venting with dhampling, who apparently strongly disliked it/what was said? I know the server owner tried reaching out to talk to them without getting a response, and I gather that they blocked a few people, but as far as I was aware, this nonsense was pretty much over. Guess not, though!

Oh yeah, and around the time we were discussing the matter in the server, I went and commented on dhampling's "I deleted my post" non-explanation to say that it didn't really tell us anything at all and questioning if it was something personal or an issue with one of the stories or what, since a) I am a naturally curious/nosy person sometimes, b) a couple of my buddies were fretting that they might have done something to offend this person somehow, and c) why not?

And no, dhampling, if you were including me in the whole "I want an apology" thing you just posted, I will not, in fact, be offering one. I decided the other day upon review that I have no actual issues with anything I said at the time, and given that it was a handful of friends expressing some mild frustrations to one another in a private server, where they had every reason to expect their words would remain private rather than ever getting back to you, I don't really think anyone there owes you an apology anyway.

Sometimes people get annoyed with others. Sometimes they say so to their friends privately, rather than going and being rude to the person who annoyed them or whatever. This is normal, healthy, interpersonal behaviour. Nobody was plotting to come harass you or what the fuck ever; there would be no harm done here at all, including to your feelings, if someone from our server hadn't decided to disrespect our own members' right to have their private comments not shared with someone outside without their consent.

So let's drop this non-issue, already, huh?

[bijoumikhawal]

Rating Vulture Crowns

I've been making one myself, and as such looking at other versions of it. I'll be rating versions made for film and TV here and not rating ones being sold or cosplays because the latter seems a bit mean. I'll be giving two ratings: aesthetic and accuracy. The accuracy rating will be about the crown only, not about the other costume details or the person wearing it.

I believe this is Claudette Colbert. This version is pretty accurate, though the snake head isn't actually that common on vulture crowns. I've noticed that a lot of reproductions shy away from admitting these crowns are based on vultures because they aren't seen positively in Western culture, though they were admired in amcient Egypt and neighboring cultures, usuaply by putting a different animal head on the front. However, the marks on the forehead piece look like they were done with sharpie which makes me like it less. Also, while most vulture crowns included the feet and tail of the bird, this is less common in reproductions, and this looks like it doesn't have either.

Accuracy: 8/10. Aesthetic: 7/10

Claudette again. I like this one MUCH less. Its less accurate in silhouette abd I dislike the way they tried to do the body feathers- they aren't even pointing the right way. Also the trim between it and the wings looks like something I'd see on a 5 year old's dress. I don't think the straight down feathers look as nice as the flared ones. The cobra isn't sculpted badly on either of these.

Accuracy: 5/10. Aesthetic: 4/10

Advertisement by Henry Cline. Another snake head. I think I'd like the crown itself more if it didn't have a random blue dome, and the cobra looks awkward. I'll note here that this headband detail on the forehead isn't accurate at all. The wings also don't have three long feather layers- just two, which is how real wings work.

Accuracy: 7/10. Aesthetic: 7/10

I don't know who this is. The head is proportioned badly and the join to the rest of the crown is awkward, and I dislike the silhouette (which isn't accurate either). I can't tell what animal the head is, but I'll be generous and assume it's a vulture. The body feather portion is too wide compared to the wings, and the wings are too short for my taste.

Accuracy: 4/10. Aesthetic: 4/10

I believe this is Sibylla Deen and I'm sorry ma'am but this crown is fugly. Inaccurate silhouette, it looks more like seashell than a bird, I don't like the way the feathers are sculpted, and this is our first "peacock head" offender. The join between the head and the rest if the crown is awkwardly done too.

Accuracy: 3/10. Aesthetic: 2/10

Vivian Leigh and Condola Rashad (I think, its from a canceled show she was in). These crowns are different, but it's clear the latter was based on the former. I actually think the blue flowers (?) Are very interesting, and they remind me of a faience necklace from Ancient Egypt. I can't tell of the first has an animal head on it at all, but the second has a vulture head because the costumer wasn't a coward. The wings on the first are slightly more accurate because they're flat, and I've seen a vulture crown depiction inlaid with faience before, so this enameled look isn't too far off. The tiny Hermes wings aren't accurate though. The dimensionial feathers on the second aren't accurate, and neither is the absence of wings.

Accuracy: they're different, again, but I'd say both are a 6/10. Aesthetic: both are a 9/10

This is from Serpent of the Nile. The silhouette and proportions are pretty accurate, but it's another peacock head instead pf a vulture or at least a cobra. I do think it looks a bit... cheap. There's a wrinkly quality to the wings. We can see the back here, and it's missing the tail and the feet. It also has a variant of the inaccurate headband.

Accuracy: 6.5/10. Aesthetic: 7/10

This has a similar flower detail to two previous crowns, but is much different in design overall. I'm not sure who's wearing it. This much flare isn't accurate, and I feel the flight feathers look a little sparse. There's also a whole nother bird on top instead of just the head, and it looks like a duck?

Accuracy: 4/10. Aesthetic: 6/10

Glenn Close. I'm sorry miss, but this is again, terrible. Like I've said before, I've seen a faience depiction before and anyone whose seen King Tutankhamun's sarcophagus knows it has lapis inlay, so that means the colorful details here are possible. The faceted gems aren't though- facetious like this was innovated by Muslim jewelers iirc. The front should come down further (most vulture crowns don't allow hair in this area to be visible), and the proportion of body to wing is wrong. The flight feathers look a little messy.

Accuracy: 5/10. Aesthetic: 4/10