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angstalottle · 5 years ago

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Lana On The Case

Part 3

Lana knew she shouldn’t have been expecting much, especially after spending the last week lying in bed stewing in her own filth and misery.

That didn’t change the fact that her current appearance still shocked her.

Her skin had gained an ashen quality about it and dark circles under her eyes.

She was sure is Red hadn’t practically force fed her she was have lost much more weight then she already had.

She felt drained and heavy, like her life was sucked out from her when Hannah left her…

Keith showing up had given her a small glimmer of excitement perhaps even hope but as soon as he was gone and she was left alone to her thoughts they turned right back to the fact that her best friend was gone from her life forever.

That thought hurt even more than knowing her sweet wonderful Hannah killed people.

Job offer or not Lana likely would have spent the rest of her life lying in her bed if her aunties hadn’t decided to do something about it.

One moment she's dozing staring into space, the next Blue has pulled her covers away while Re dumped a bucket of warm soapy water over her.

The two manhandled her out of bed and into some clean clothes before giving her two options.

One was to stay cooped up inside and suffer through them inviting every nosey friend they could think of over to omard her with questions and pinched cheeks followed by of course the dreaded relationship advice that everyone over a certain age believed they knew.

Or go down to the police station and actually do something with her life/

Though neither option was particularly fun in the end Lana chose to go out mainly because Red had also made a swinging joke which of course practically sent her bolting through the door.

The police station like everything else in the village was only a short walk away from the Altea estate, you could get pretty much anywhere by cutting through the large gardens that have unfortunately fallen into a state of disrepair.

The lady of the manor had died when Lana was away and since then the place hadn’t been the same, like some of the beauty of the world left when she did.

As far as she knew the only daughter of the family Allura was away for school or something while her father worked in London.

Lana had fond memories of Allura, being a few years younger then the girl and quite a bit poorer, she always seemed like this fairy princess that could have anything or do anything.

Looks like not even princesses could escape tragedy.

Lana hiked up her skirt as she climbed over the thick mess of weeds and flowers careful not to disturb anything as she passed through.

Even if everyone took the shortcut it was an unsaid rule that you were not to disturb the gardens or ever go close to the house.

Of course when Lance got her foot caught in a bramble and fell face first into the ground she broke that rule by flattening at least a dozen flowers beneath her.

“Oh dear are you alright?” A woman wearing a veil and long white gloves asked as she hurried over from the main house.

Odd appearance aside what really caught Lana’s attention was her snow white hair. A characteristic that was common amongst the Altean family.

Going off her build she could have been anywhere between 20-30 but without the face or hands it really was impossible to tell.

Lana felt her cheeks burn as she pulled herself up and dusted herself down frowning at the rip that now worked its way up her blue skirt.

The woman put her hands on her dress and examined the rip tutting softly “we really must get the gardener back in this place really has fallen to ruin.”

Now that she was closer Lana could smell the sweet scent of roses coming off her in such a large volume it would almost be suffocating if they weren't outside.

“Do you work here?” Lana asked trying to swallow her embarrassment while this strange woman kept hold of her skirt.

One strong breeze and she would see next weeks washing.

The woman chuckled “not exactly. I used to live here I never actually planned on returning but in light of my father's disappearance I suppose I didn’t have much choice.”

Lana couldn’t help but flinch, since what Hannah did came to light any case of men running off in the middle of the night or simply not returning after a day out is now considered suspect.

Their still digging up all the bodies and people have been flocking from all over in search of their missing husbands, fathers and brothers.

Lana then realised something very important.

Mainly that if Alfor was missing and this woman was his daughter then it must have been Allura!

“Allura?”

Lana couldn’t see her face but she imagined a smile on those pretty pink painted lips she used to know very well.

“That’s me, im sorry but who are you?”

Lana had her suspicions of course that this was all a scam, someone swooping in to steal the Altean family fortune, but she wasn’t really in the mood for any other mysteries right now.

That and according to Keith she was pretty forgettable.

“Oh im Lana… I used to play with you in the garden as a kid.”

“Oh my i'm so sorry Lana, im afraid my memory hasn’t been that good since the accident. She gestured to her veil and gloves “I got caught up in the Blitz and i'm afraid my appearance paid a higher price then by mind.”

Lana felt guilt crawl into her stomach, well at least she didn’t outright accuse her of being a con artist. Besides Coran was a dear friend of the family, there's no way someone would be able to just take over Allura’s life without him noticing.

“Im sorry, I didn’t realise.”

Allura waved her off finally letting go of her skirt “don’t worry about it, ive made my peace with my situation, it is a tad lonely though, people aren't exactly eager to visit the manor these days.” She sounded so sincerely sad that Lana couldn’t help but feel for her.

She knew what it was like to lose everything because of a situation out of her control, the war had stolen many things from them, Lana was lucky to keep her beauty at least.

“Well then I suppose I have no choice but to come round for tea, I would invite you to my aunts cottage but they tend to get too excited around anyone they used to know.”

Lana gave her the best smile she could manage and was rewarded by Allura taking her hands and kissing them.

Once again her face turned an interesting shade of red.

“That sounds simply wonderful Lana, how about Thursday at 8 o'clock?”

Lana had lost her ability to form words so simply nodded earning her a small chuckle in response.

“I don’t want to keep you if your busy so ill just see you Thursday?” Allura asked startling Lana out of her stupor.

“Yes I should go, but i'll erm see you then I promise.”

Lana stuttered deciding it was best to continue on her way before she made an even bigger fool of herself so mustered up what grace she had to give an awkward curtsy realising that was dumb halfway through and instead turned and hurried on her way hitting herself muttering “stupid stupid stupid” over and over again until she finally arrived at the police station.

As expected of a small town the police station was fairly quiet this time of day home only to the drunks that were picked up the night before and only now being released to go back to their family or in some cases the church.

Of course one would expect it to be much busier with the number of bodies being dug up but unfortunately since Hannah left and it became national news the investigation had been taken over by some fancy out of state law enforcement that walk around in nice suits and a stuck up attitude to match their overall pompous appearance.

Going off the sour atmosphere in the station no one was too pleased to have the villages first ever big case stolen from under them.

Lana did her best to smile politely as she made her way to reception preparing herself for awkward small talk with someone she really hoped wouldn't recognise her.

“Hello im here-”

“If you got a crime to report fill out the form if not get lost.”

The woman behind the desk looked too young to be working, her slight frame and big doe eyes making her seem like she couldn't be much older than 15 but then again looks can be deceiving. Like the fact that despite wearing big round glasses and squinting at a book in front of her the glass within the frame appeared to be purely decorative and not actually serve any function.

Lana cleared her throat “no actually i'm here about the job. Im expected.”

This time she at least bothered to look up from her book and glanced Lana up and down “what they replacing me with some tramp, i've worked here ten years and they bring in some totty to take my job”

Lana quickly held up her hands feeling actually pretty threatened by this tiny angry lady “no! No i'm the new consultant im supposed to be working with Keith and-”

“Oi Keith! Some broad here says shes your new partner!” She yelled and just like that, all eyes were on her.

Lana smiled awkwardly at them really wishing a hole would appear beneath her and swallow her up whole so she could escape this situation.

However the only thing the universe sent her was a very flustered keith running in from the back.

He was carrying a stack of papers and had that god awful mullet tied back in a ponytail that honestly didn't look half bad on him.

“Thanks Katie i can take her from here.” Keith dropped the papers on her desk “Also Griffin needs you to file these for him.”

“He could do it himself” Katie grumbled grabbing the papers and flicking through them “he didn't even bother filling some of these out!”

Keith quietly grabbed Lana’s arm and pulled her towards him as Katie got distracted with her angry mutterings “Sorry about her, she's just pissed that her dad lost his job to a hot shot whos dad just happens to be a governor.”

“Ah where would be be without nepotism” Lana chuckled letting Keith led her back into a small office where five other people were sat. She assumed the cells were behind one of the closed doors and perhaps the archive room behind another.

It had been a long time since she had been back here, it was certainly before the war was even a possibility and she had broken the wrong persons window and ended up having to wait for her mother by Corans desk.

People tend to say that places from your youth always seem so much smaller when you visit them again. Until now Lana wasn't really sure she bought into that nostalgia fueled nonsense.

But seeing the row of chairs her feet used to dangel off while she prepared an excuse for her behaviour for her furious mother now looked like they would fall apart if she just got too close let alone sat on one.

At least not all the changes were bad. Coran really did deserve that nice office and the title Detective neatly painted above his name.

“You know I was starting to think you wouldn't be coming” Keith said as they came to what Lana assumed was his desk. It was a little away from the others and scattered with paper work in various states of finished. It lacked much personality beyond a couple of knives and oh boy keith standing next to an incredibly attractive man that Lana realised fairly quickly must have been his older brother.

“To be honest i wasn't sure either, my life kinda went to hell but Aunt Blue and Red practically shoved me out of the door.”

Keith chuckled in response as her perched on the edge of his desk “that sounds about right. Though I hate to say it but you've kind of come on boring day. Everyones so desperate for something to do that their even taking the grunt work from me.”

“So what your just sitting around all day?” Lana asked right as a hand collided with her behind.

Lana likes to think herself an understanding woman. Or at least she tries to ever since the instadent where what she thought was a gropper on a train turned out to be a blind man having dropped his cain. So rather then turning around and grabbing the arm of whoever just did that to break over her knee she calmly turned to them.

She came face to face with a tall man that she unfortunately recognised.

James Griffin top of the class when they went to school together and by far the most arrogant man she ever met. And that was before he got a cushy job thanks to his dad.

Lana glared up at him giving him a chance to apologize or say he had mistaken her for his girlfriend that was into that kind of thing.

Instead he just smirked “wow Keith how did you find yourself this hot piece of ass.”

Ok she was going to break his nose now.

Unfortunately before she got the chance keith stepped in front of her “don't talk to her like that Griffin, Coran hired her himself as a consultant and i'm sure he wouldn't take that kind of behaviour.’

James rolled his eyes but did visibly tense as he shot a glance at the closed office door. “Whatever. This whole thing is just for press, whoever heard of a woman police officer. Their far too emotional.”

“Last I checked you were the one that cried when i kicked you in the nuts as kids.” Lana huffed crossing her arms.

“Ah buck teeth Lana! My my you did fill out nicely. How about after work I take you out?” Jame smiled looking her up and down in a way that made her skin crawl.

“How about I tell your mother that you slap my ass, if i remember right she was a reasonable woman.”

Oh how quickly his attitude changed. He swallowed whatever response he had ready and scurried off to his office next to Corans.

“What a creep.”

“Yeah but a rich one.” Keith sighed “you ok?”

“Yeah just kinda pissed i didn't get to make that jerk squeal like in highschool.” Lana noticed a small smirk appear at the corner of keiths lips at that and decided to take it as a win even if she could still feel his disgusting hand on her.

Unfortunately the next few hours were not as exciting.

Lana pulled up a chair across from Keith and kept herself busy by flicking pieces of paper at him, an activity that he avoided joining in with for exactly ten minutes.

They were so wrapped up in their game that they didn't notice coran standing next to the desk until after Keith made the winning shot and jumped up to let out a victory cry.

“It's nice to see you've found a way to keep miss Mclain here entertained during our slow day.” Coran chuckled as Keith startled and quickly cleared his throat trying to hide the blush quickly creeping up his face.

“Detective i can explain”

Coran held his hand up quickly cutting him off “no need, I understand the importance of a bit of fun to avoid dying of boredom. The time for that has now sadly passed im sending you to look into a missing persons cases.”

Keith and lana exchanged a look, while lana’s was excitement Keiths was confusion.

“Sir while im happy for a case why not give it to someone else? Im sure all the others would kill for a case right now.”

Coran simply chuckled to himself handing over a case file “because Kogane your the only officer here I trust not to get side tracked while investigating. That and i'm sure Lana here will make sure your eyes don't wander too far.”

Lana wasn't really sure what he meant by that until they got to the scene of the crime.

Or as everyone else calls it the ‘Galra Gentlemens Club’.

When the club first opened it was met with outcry from the church and the school boards and well anyone with too much time on their hands.

Now after being open for more than a decade, those same people have become the most lucrative clientele, who know stuck up prudes could have such deep pockets for the sinful arts.

Keith had kindly offered to give Lana a ride on the handlebars of his bike since the club was located uphill from the station and there was no way the poor old police car would make it up the whole way. Apparently a replacement was on its way but they had been promising it since before the war.

Lana had of course told Keith that while she appreciate the offer she would find the very idea outlandishly improper, so of course made him ride the handle bars while she put her years of missing the bus and not wanting to be late training to good use.

After a quick check with her compact and a nod to Keith they entered the club.

Lana was no stranger to Gentlemens clubs, she had been to more than a few during the war to meet with people who were usually a lot more willing to give up information when they had a few drinks in them.

This club was no different, everything was a sickening deep purple as if the colour alone could make it classy or hide the disturbingly prominent wet patches on the couches.

Lana tried her very best not to stare at the men already here this early on a weekday morning and instead focused on following Keith back to see the manger.

“Just let me do the talking, guys like this aren't always that nice to women” Keith whispered as he knocked on the door and it swung open to not show a greasy man but instead a very tall muscular woman with short black hair wearing a suit.

Lana felt her mouth go dry just looking at her.

“A-are you the manager here?” Keith asked clearly feeling equally intimidated and aroused as Lana was.

“Yeah i am, who wants to know?” She asked leaning against the doorway and looking down at him. Her gaze however moved quickly from keith to Lana and a smile spread across her face.

“Usually we don't hire new talent outside of auditions but for a beautiful girl like you im willing to make an exception.”

“I” Lana squeaked finding herself speechless for the first time in a long time.

Thankfully Keith came to her rescue before she could actually contemplate working for this greek god of a woman.

“Actually we came from the police station. You called about one of the dancers going missing?”

The woman nodded and stepped back into the room hurrying them inside before closing the door.

“Yeah my best girl Ezor, she was seen leaving the club last week but no one has seen her since.”

“Does she often disappear like this? Perhaps to visit a gentleman caller miss...?” Keith asked pulling out a notebook while Lana looked around the office.

“Zethrid…. And trust me she's not the sorts to make house calls.”

It was fairly empty save for a punching bag in the corner and a few pictures on the walls. Most of them were group shots of all the dancers in costumes. But those actually on the desk seemed only to contain Zethrid and a slim woman with pink hair tied in a high ponytail. It was just the two of them over and over again smiling like they didn't have a care in the world.

“Is this Ezor here?” Lana asked picking up one picture showing the two in the park, judging from the bunting and celebrating in the background it was the day the allie ‘won’ the war.

Zethrid nodded “yeah that's her… we actually live together and yeah she disappears sometimes but never for this long and never without contacting me.”

“Is it possible she ran off with a sweetheart?” Keith asked taking the picture.

“She wouldn't. I know she's been taken its the only explanation.”

Something told Lana that this relationship was deeper than friendship “The last night she was seen, was there anything unusual happening?”

Zethrid thought for a moment “now that you mention it there was a black car parked outside the club all day. I didn't give it much mind incase it was a customer trying to work up the nerve to come in but it left right after she did.”

“Did you happen to catch the plates?” Keith asked hopefully only to let out a disappointed sigh when she shook her head no.

“But the car was old looking with a dent in the drivers side door.”

Keith noted it down “thanks we will be in touch.”

He led the way out but Zethrid grabbed Lana by the arm before she could leave “please i can't imagine life without her… she's my best friend.”

Lana knew what it was like to lose one of those. So she smiled and put a hand over hers “I promise ill do everything I can to find her.”

Once they were safely outside keith let out a groan “you should promise people anything, it just means you'll get attached to the case.”

“Isn't that the job of a detective though? How can i love a case if i don't care about it?” Lana huffed hitching up her skirt and getting on the bike.

“I'm just saying that it will end up hurting you more if we find her dead in a ditch somewhere.”

Lana rolled her eyes “ever the optimist huh Mullet. Besides we have a lead how many people in town have old black cars?”

“Excluding the police cruiser i'd say seven.” Keith noticed the sceptical look Lana was giving him and rolled his eyes.

“My brother owns the mechanics remember, i help out sometimes and not many people really have cars round here.”

Lana sighed “maybe we should get a second opinion from your dreamy brother.” she batted her eyelashes playfully at him as he climbed onto the handle bars.

“Shut up and pedal we've got a lot of groundwork to do.”

Five hours!

It took five hours to find all the cars, to check for dents and alibis.

In that time Lana fell into two ditches, got attacked by a chicken and the rip in her dress traveled up to past her knee.

As her mother would say she's only some red lipstick away from looking like a whore.

Lana wished she could say that time was well spent and while watching Keith getting chased by an angry family of pigeons that had taken resident in one of the old cars they ultimately ended up on a dead end.

So while the light began to fade and the two slowly walked up to the station the mood was sour.

“It could always have been someone from out of town?” Lana suggested holding the split in her dress to try and keep it from travelling any higher.

“No they would have been too noticeable. If someone from out of town drove through here everyone would know about it by now. We must have missed something.”

Lana shivered in the cool air and was surprised when Keith handed over his jacket without taking his eyes off the path.

The red really did suit him better but the warmth from his body made her feel better.

“We should check surrounding houses tomorrow, maybe one of the cars was taken without the owner realising.”

“And what they dented it and then undented it?’ Keith snorted “no if the dent was fixed it would have had to come through the shop. Shiro may be able to help.”

“I'll try to hide my disappointment” Lana laughed earning her a playful push from Keith which she returned.

The two were laughing and having a moment of fun that when cold hard reality finally came crashing down Lana felt like she had been punched in the face.

Just as they walked in the car they were looking for pulled in behind them.

Old, black and with a large dent on the side.

The only problem was that it was Coran driving it.

#langst #fem lance #1940s detective au #klance #allurance #pidge #Coran #james griffin

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ma-lemons · 5 years ago

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the interrupting goat (the arcana)

okay so plot: my apprentice, Aisha is going on a date with Nadia but ghost Lucio interrupts, causing their date to not go as planned. also, Lucio isn’t a bad guy here he’s just Nadia’s annoying dead ex-husband.

extra note: this is been in my drafts for a while and I decided—hey let’s NOT edit this and post it??? so here we go.

—————

“We’re going on a date today!” Aisha decided loudly, right then and there, at the breakfast table.

Nadia, and the other servants, looked quite bewildered. Embarrassed, the apprentice took her seat and focused on her poached eggs instead.

“Aisha,” Nadia said gently, resting her hand on her arm. The apprentice swore the hairs on her arm were rising with the brief action. “Are you alright?”

Aisha looked into the Countess’ eyes. She was weary, Aisha could tell. She was smiling and pretending she was alright, but there was a reason why she said she needed a break. She was clearly stressed.

The apprentice shook her head, deciding to be truthful. “You’ve overworked yourself. I think we should take a day to ourselves. My treat,” she said firmly.

Nadia raised an eyebrow. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be treating you. Besides, I feel fine. I’m not stressed.”

Aisha rolled her eyes. She wasn’t going to let her wiggle her way out of this. “We’re going on a date. You and me.”

“Is there a reason why you’re so insistent on this date? If you wanted me to relax, why didn’t you just ask me to stay in bed?” Nadia asked, a smile playing at her lips.

Aisha knew her cheeks were getting redder by the second. Of course, she wanted Nadia to relax, but another part of her just wanted some time alone with the Countess. Aisha met Portia’s eyes. The woman gave her a sly smile and Aisha knew that everyone around them knew as well.

“Fine,” she huffed, blowing air out of her mouth. “I wanted to spend some time with you, okay?” Aisha muttered.

“You didn’t have to say it,” Nadia beamed. “I already knew.”

——————————————————————————-

Hours later, Aisha pulled Nadia along the bramble and leave, through the statue garden. After a lot of bickering and suggestions from Portia, the two decided they would stay close to home.

While Nadia went to go get her shawl, Aisha asked Portia to bring them some of Nadia’s favorites.

“Right away, m’lady!” Portia smiled.

“Okay, Portia, we’re friends. Please, for the millionth time, call me Aisha,” the apprentice insisted.

“You’re the Countess’ beloved,” Portia said, shaking her head. “It’s the right thing to say.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Aisha sighed, returning the smile.

Now the two were taking their semi-private date in the garden.

“Aisha, you didn’t have to do this,” Nadia sighed.

“Yes, I did.”

The two had stopped at a stone table that had two chairs on either side. Atop the white tablecloth were candles and a bouquet of flowers as a centerpiece.

Aisha grinned at the sight of Nadia turning shades darker. The Countess put her hands to her cheeks. “I’m so warm—I’m touched, really, dear. Thank you.” The Countess went behind Aisha and wrapped her arms around her, before nestling her head in the crook of the apprentice’s neck.

“I’m feeling less stressed already,” Nadia whispered into her ear. Aisha leaped, her heart beating faster than it should have.

“Ack—why?” Aisha asked.

“Because I love the way you get flustered. You act so bold, but every time I do that. . .” the Countess laughed. A genuine laugh.

“Well, I’m glad that I could be your source of laugher for evening,” Aisha pouted. She hurried over to one of the chairs and struggled to pull it out for the Countess.

Aisha felt soft lips upon her cheek. She looked up at the Countess, who looked happier than ever. She nodded her thanks and sat down. Aisha took the seat across from her.

“Thank you for this, Aisha. I’ve been trying to remain calm but the courtiers have been so reckless lately. Vlastomil and Volta... don’t get me started on those two. It’s like dealing with a bunch of children!” The Countess exclaimed, exasperated.

Aisha desperately wish she could take Nadia’s worries away with the flick of her hand. There was probably a spell for that, but she wasn’t going to try to that. Memory loss was a possible symptom of it.

“I’m sorry, Nadia,” Aisha murmured. “It must be so hard—I wish I could help you. In fact, I should be helping you!”

Nadia chuckled, and placed her hands over Aisha’s. “Well, I’d love your help, if you’re up to the task. Vesuvia has two countesses now,” she grinned. Aisha’s skin grew warm as she realized the words coming out of the Countess’ mouth. Aisha felt as if she could stare into her ruby eyes for eternity.

“Dinner has arrived!” Portia exclaimed, appearing in the shrubbery. The lovebirds jumped back.

“Portia! That was surpisring!” Nadia exclaimed, eyes wide. Portia only gave a wink and set done two silver platters of steaming spiced swordfish. Nadia’s eyes lit up in delight.

“Oh... Aisha, you didn’t have to!”

“But I did!” Aisha smiled and looked over to Portia.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Thank you, Portia!” The Countess exclaimed. Portia grinned. “Oh, wait, I almost forgot!” Portia rummaged into her pockets and pulled out two wine glasses that Aisha wasn’t sure could physically fit in her pockets. At Aisha’s stare, Portia giggled.

“Asra gave me a spell last time he was here.”

Aisha nodded, and decided to keep her mouth closed. Asra, as elusive as he was, was also a bit of a playful showoff.

Portia then proceeded to take a large bottle of white wine from her pocket and poured it into the glasses.

“That... is a very handy tool you have there, Portia,” Nadia chuckled.

“Oh, most definitely, ma’am.”

After Portia’s departure, the two were alone again under the cool glow of the moon.

“This is certainly romantic,” Nadia noted, taking a bite of the swordfish. “Oh... it tastes just like home,” she murmured a bit to herself.

“I’m glad”, Aisha replied, relieved. The apprentice held up her glass of wine and proposed a toast. “To us!”

Nadia shook her head, but reluctantly held her own glass up. “To us!”

The two clinked their glasses together before taking a long sip.

“Sooooo you had dinner without me, Noddy?” a quite familiar and quite annoying voice complained. Aisha sighed. He was back too soon.

Nadia stopped drinking and set down her glass. She shut her eyes, in hopes that the annoying presence would disappear on its own.

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice steely.

“I mean, I dunno why you’re drinking without me! Drinking was our favorite pastime! I mean, we had other pastimes, you know, more intimate ones—“

“Are you quite finished?” Aisha snapped at the ghostly apparition.

The ghost, the one-armed goat-man who was formerly Count Lucio turned around slowly, as if he was just realizing who Nadia was drinking with.

“And you are?”

Aisha rolled her eyes. “I’m Aisha, Asra’s apprentice. We’ve met many times!”

“Unfortunately,” Lucio murmured under his breath. He returned his gaze to Nadia, who had resorted to stabbing the swordfish with her fork.

“Noddy, why haven’t you thrown another party in my honor? It’s been ages—“

“Lucio, if you haven’t noticed, you’re a dead goat-man, and we’re not together anymore!” Nadia seethed.

“We never officially seperated. I know you still harbor feelings for me, because a, I’m wonderful, and b, I see you walk past my room sometimes.”

Nadia eyed Aisha, who didn’t care for the conversation. “I walk by your room sometimes because I want to know if you’re there or not! I thought this palace was rid of your presence, but apparently, you’re still here!” she cried, exasperated. Aisha could smell the aggravation off of her. She was getting riled up again, which was not part of the plan.

“Lucio, we’re on a date. Leave us alone and go weep somewhere. Find other people to bother,” Aisha glared.

“A date! A date? Noddy, you’re telling me all you could manage to find was this... this... peasant? This is in poor taste, dear, especially since you still hold feelings for me and all,” Lucio said a matter-of-factly.

Nadia stood up, her fork in her hand. She knew the fork would do nothing, but Aisha was sure the utensil was keeping the Countess from digging her nails into her palms.

“I will not have Aisha ridiculed like that from a dead goat. I do not love you and I will never love you, Lucio. Get away from me, and get away from Aisha. You’re giving me a terrible headache.”

“I don’t know what I’m hearing! It sounds like you’re saying you like this peasant, Noddy,” the count whined.

Nadia narrowed her eyes. “No, I’m saying I love her. And also, she is not a peasant. She is my queen.”

Oh, wait until Asra heard about this. Aisha felt all giddy inside and looked into Lucio’s eyes for any reaction.

Lucio said nothing, just silently fumed and disappeared. Nadia dropped the fork from her shaking hand and collapsed into the chair.

“How many more? How many more times is going to show up?” Nadia sighed, rubbing her temples. Aisha smiled a little and joined the Countess’ side.

“This is only the fourth date he’s ruined. But with the way you told him off tonight, he’s probably going to skip over the next one,” the apprentice grinned.

“Thank you for being so optimistic, dear—but he ruined our date. He ruined everything and the fact that he doesn’t understand we’re together is very, very, annoying.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.”

“How are you so calm about this?”

“Well, when Lucio pisses me off, I just imagine his reaction to our wedding day. It brings me joy. He’s very harmless, even as a ghost. Sure, he could hurt someone, but he’d have to use up a lot of energy. He just misses the attention, I guess,” Aisha reassured her, patting her arm.

“Do you think if I offer for him to be the palace jester, he’ll take the spot? He’s so idiotic, he was born for the role,” Nadia laughed bitterly.

“I think the courtiers do a perfect job with that, don’t you think?” Aisha giggled.

Nadia sighed. “Well, if it’s any comfort to you, I did enjoy our evening together, despite that little interruption.”

Aisha breathed a little sigh of relief. She would probably put some protective wards around the garden and maybe, threaten Lucio the next time she saw him. She wasn’t quite sure how she would yet, but she would find a way.

Nadia twisted around in her chair, and took the young woman’s hands in hers. “From the bottom of my heart, I owe so much to you. Thank you.” The Countess brushed her lips against Aisha’s cheek, which caused her to tense up, but in a good way.

She pulled away. “I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to worry about Lucio, or the courtiers, or the kingdom, because I’m here with you. Your worried are mine. I’ll share everything with you, if you share everything with me. And I swear, I’ll never let anything hurt you.” A promise.

Nadia did one of this rare half smiles she only did when she was really touched, like when she had gotten a letter from Muriel wishing her a happy birthday (she was sure Asra had forced him, however, it was very thoughtful regardless).

“I love you, Aisha. With all my heart.” And she pressed her forehead against Aisha’s, taking in the smell of the burning wax and the spices of the swordfish. She was okay, for now. The little things she had that made her happy were right here, right now.

And no one could take it away from her.

————————

*cringes* please forgive me I deleted the arcana and I forgot so many relevant facts and I want to cry right now so please have mercy okay???

#apprentice aisha #my OCs #nadia satrinava #the arcana #nadia #the arcana nadia #the arcana game #countess nadia #im bored dont let this flop #jkjkjk

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mergatroid-jones-blog · 6 years ago

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Twin Mickey

(A short story)

* 1 *

I don't have a name. That's because there's nobody to give me one. There's nobody to call me by it either, due to the nature of my particular birth defect. I'm three eighths of one inch tall. Not only that, I don't have my own body. Not exactly. I live in my brother's head. We're twins I guess. Some kind of conjoined twins--only instead of being conjoined on the outside, I live inside his head. He doesn't know I exist. Nobody does.

For all I know I'm a very common medical phenomenon. Micky's never had a brain scan-- maybe I wouldn't even show up. That's my brother's name: Micky Van Buskirk. It's sort of my name too, since I don't have one. I stole a little piece of my brother's name. I steal a little piece of everything he has. I'm a parasite. That's what I've decided. Or maybe I'm cancer. I certainly don't do anything to help him. All I can do is sit around his head and complain. He can't hear me, no matter how loud I shout. You aren't designed to hear from the inside. I figured that out.

But that doesn't matter. I still scream about everything. What else do I have? It's like I'm chained to the floor in front of the worst TV show, and I can't reach the remote. Forever. My brother really might be king of the idiots. Like all the best idiots, he's just clever enough to convince himself that he's being awfully rational in any given situation. He's convinced himself that everything he's ever done was absolutely the only thing he could have done. He probably thinks he's had a really hard time of it. He hasn't.

I know literally everything about him, but his motives are a mystery to me. Like when he stole Jacob Yockey's jacket in high school. It was sitting there, all lime green and fake-leather, and he just put it in his backpack like he'd been planning it all along. He didn't need the jacket, and he wasn't some kind of kleptomaniac. That was the only time he did something like that. He put it in the back of his closet and there it sat. He didn't wear it, and he didn't have anything against Jacob Yockey either. Jacob Yockey never hurt anybody. One day, Jacob mentioned that his jacket was lost, and my brother was there. Micky laughed, and he said “Soggy pickles.” What the hell is that??

That night, he actually put the jacket on for the first and only time. He was still wet and naked from the shower. He posed and made faces at himself for at least three minutes. My brother is barely five feet tall, quite fat, and covered in thick, curly, black hair. He's not physically attractive. I heard Jacob Yockey lives in Toronto now, and he's gay and breeds expensive dogs. Good for Jacob Yockey I guess. He sure was funny looking in high school.

* 2 *

You would think that self-loathing and egotism would contradict one another, but they make surprisingly genial bedfellows. My brother will be convinced that he is worth less than the scum under a pretty girl's fingernail. Then in the same hour, he'll realize once again that the world is almost entirely idiots, and that he miraculously isn't one. If they'd just ask the non-idiots, the world would get along better. Again, these sentiments seem like a contradiction, but my brother has never noticed the inconstancy. Most people don't seem to notice inconsistencies like that.

Perhaps they would notice if they spent a day as a pimple. That's how I think of myself: a brain-pimple. Like when you get a pimple on the inside of your nose, but deeper. My brother is always picking his nose, and he's not subtle about it. He used to eat his boogers, and he didn't stop until he was sixteen. He really is a disgusting shit. One time when we were about seven, he took off his pants, crawled under the bed, and peed into the carpet. For no reason. What reason could he have possibly had? He just did it to test his body? To test the carpet? That carpet is still there by the way, and I doubt anybody has ever shampooed it. I think I really hate him.

If I had to live in somebody's head, it didn't have to be such a boring nincompoop. Mickey Van Buskirk has never done anything I would care to watch. Weird stuff sure. Gross stuff, definitely. But nothing good. Once he spent a whole day sorta following around this old man who carried a trombone. I guess he thought the guy was a creep, but who's the creep when you're stalking some old guy all day? Weird stuff, he does. Gross stuff he does. I've seen him lick a banister after a pretty girl touched it at least nine different times. Nasty.

* 3 *

What a miserable little shit. Here's what happens every time: he gets a shitty job and he hates it. And he hates it more and more for a whole year. Then he throws a fit, quits, and gets a new shitty job. He's like clockwork. After high school, he told our mom he was going to be a pharmacist. Whatever happened to that? He was never going to be a pharmacist and he probably knew it. I'm sure Mom wasn't fooled. She's not stupid like Mickey.

My brother has only ever had one girlfriend that lasted, and that's because she's an even bigger idiot than he is. Angela is her name. They've broken up four times. They broke up again last week. He made out with her sister Kara. She did it to piss Angela off. He just did it because it was on offer. Fucking idiot. The thing was Angela wasn't actually all that mad about it. Kara was getting revenge for previous transgressions. But it brought up all this drama, and everybody hates each other now.

Good riddance. I hope I never see those two again. Talk about entitled. Not one of the three of them can form a cogent thought. Angela literally sets fires and puts them out for fun. But Mickey can't find words to voice this legitimate concern other than “You're a psycho-bitch.” That doesn't tend to help. But who cares? She walked out and maybe it'll stick. Mickey got good and drunk after that. He got high on pills too. Good. I can share in that. Then he looked at a bunch of “furry” porn. Disgusting. I really hate him.

* 4 *

He had hated his job at the print shop for almost a year, so I wasn't surprised when he threw a tantrum at work. My brother has always been able to throw a tantrum for what seems like no reason. I think he must plan it in advance. The printer was being crap, and Annie was blaming him for it as usual. So he started throwing boxes everywhere and screaming “It's fucking bullshit, and I can't fucking bullshit!” He said the word “bullshit” twenty-seven times in total. I counted. He ripped off his Clayborn Printing shirt, threw it at Annie, and walked out. She didn't say a word. I don't know if she was angry or amused. At least she had to deal with the printer herself. Horrible woman.

Then what did he do? He called Angela crying and babbling incomprehensibly. I was surprised she hung up on him. Good for her. Then his classic pity party. I've seen it a thousand times. He buys a fifth of Wild Turkey and gets some pills. Angela is kind of a pill head and he's kinda one too when he's with her. Then he rolls down the windows (even if it's winter) and blares Linkin Park at full volume all the way to Foy Point in the national forest. It's isolated. It's also incidentally where he lost his virginity to Sarah Spiller who later turned out to be somehow related to us. Good going.

He did what he normally does. He drank as much of the fifth as he physically could. He smoked every cigarette he had. He used his lighter to blow a fireball with the bourbon, then he threw the bottle (still one third full) into a tree. All that was normal. Then he went for the pills, and I noticed he had brought every bottle that Angela had stored at his house. Most of them were almost empty, but it was quite an array. He dumped them all out into a Halloween candy-pile on the picnic table. He was going to kill himself! I screamed at him “YES! Do it! Finally, I'm done with you! I'm fucking done, you piece of living shit-fucking shit!” I really was excited.

* 5 *

He looked at all the pills, and he shuffled them around. There would have been enough to kill ten Mickey Van Buskirks and a thousand brain-pimple brothers. Then he arranged them by color. Then he shuffled them again. Then he took a little yellow one. Then he took a handful. No good. He couldn't swallow them all. He didn't have any water, and the bourbon was all over a tree. He puked. Now there were two Halloween candy-piles.

Foy point overlooks a creek, and it's not all that far down if you go through the brambly parts. Mickey did. He really wanted to die. I was proud of him. He took a Styrofoam cup from Frosty Time, and filled it in the creek. The brambles cut him up, but he was too drunk to care. He took two handfuls of random pills, and swallowed them with creek water. Then he screamed “I did it!”

He had. I've never wanted anything more than to die. I would have been jumping up and down if I had legs. But then, Mickey Van Buskirk had an attack of cowardice. He was too much of a coward even to take the coward's way out. He clutched at his uvula for dear life, and life it gave him. He made himself puke. Then again. Then again. More candy-piles. It was horrible to watch. He was covered in it. If he had waited just five minutes, I bet he would have been too far gone. What a failure.

* 6 *

He woke up the next day, sunburned and thirsty. He was covered in little cuts, and vomit, and Wild Turkey. I woke up too. Alive. I really hate him. Before he drove home (well below the speed limit) he produced his pocket knife. It always makes a satisfying click when he takes out the blade. A lot of things were carved into the picnic table. A crude owl. A penis. A fancy heart. One message said “Be happy.” Another said “Smoke a fat blunt biotch 420!” Another said ambiguously “Is waterlogged and so am I.”

It was important for Mickey to carve something into that table. It must have been important for him to stare at it so long. Something big had happened there, and he needed to commemorate it. He needed to write a message of his own: to speak and be heard. After at least three minutes of staring, he carved his statement on the table very large above the owl. Here's what it says:

“Fuck”

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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13x05 watching notes

I’m not used to getting what I want.

Expectations: holy crap am I excited to see Billie again. Yeah yeah Cas or whatever, we know he's back and would be coming back from the moment he died, and all the rest is just flavour text... BILLIE is an utter treat and given A: how she died (not just dead reaper killed off for man pain as a minor thematic antagonist, but also woman of colour on the show which was a bummer and at least she alters their post-death appearances dismal stats even if she isn't back-back as her full and healthy self a la Cas as a worst case scenario >.>) and B: the themes she embodied, and C: that Cas just got punted back OUT of the Empty, well, I am ridiculously pumped to have her (or the image of her >.>) around again, because of the utterly fascinating thematic conundrum she'll represent and because Billie was the most freakin awesome character ever, and Lisa Berry just exudes this raw calm power, and I went and watched Shadowhunters over hiatus 90% because she was on it in like 3 episodes and lo and behold she was a powerhouse in her scenes there too :P

Of course I have a personal stake too and as a meta writer it's not quite so obvious, as a shitposter you might have caught me endlessly referring to it, and as me personally inside my head, I know that I introduced Billie to Terrible Coffee AU to be a side character to the drama, meaning to embroil her in it as a voice of amused-warning-to-later-friend for Cas, and began constructing an entire narrative to explore cosmic consequences in as if post-death the show's Billie had wandered over to my silly AU and was using her extreme disappointment in them all to add another level of irony to the characterisation (listen: imagining what face the canon character would make at their role in your AU is a great way to characterise and people think I'm good at it, so free writing tip :P) and I had to make Billie proud about what I wrought.

I failed to actually write that section in time for this episode, had no idea there WAS an expiry date and that Billie would come back, but here we are and I've accidentally over-thought Billie to an absolutely astronomically disproportionate degree to probably most people around these parts for the sake of having her tease Cas about Dean from the deck of a boat while they were sipping cocktails together. :P

I can and will mentally insert a cocktail into Billie's hand in her scene(s).

OH AND THEN THROW IN THAT THIS IS A YOCKEY EPISODE. Of all the current writers, he's the one who makes me lose my chill completely. He's got an incredible way with character and emotion which I absolutely adore, so I find it pretty hard to worry about all the nervous little things I worry about aside from how much the grand scheme of things will let Billie back. And season 13 seems to be going pretty in my favour as a viewer and meta writer so. Super sublime chill.

Oh boy the recap people are trying to put us out of a job.

Superimposing Dean's speech to Patience over Sam crying over Dean nearly dying in 2x01 and ghost!Dean lurking behind him, which of all the reminders that they die a lot is a... lot of a thing. Because John etc. Season 2 theeemes everywhere. And then of course them getting shot as ghosts in 4x15 aka time to save Tessa. And Dean wasn't having an easier time in that episode, hell-damaged and talking to Tessa about how he wished he'd gone with her. Could just be subtle reaper reminders because the next shot is Sam detoxing demon blood in 4x21, nudging us into new territory for Jack theeemes. But that's part of the "pain" in his speech, "horror" is Dean hilariously dying in 3x11 when hit by a car, which, well, wasn't hilarious at all for Sam or the rest of that episode for us once the dying montage was over, and just reminds us how much they're dicked around with by the universe... And then "Death." Over. Death's hand.

Look, I am a simple person with simple wants. I would have been satisfied to just have this about Billie but now you're making me want to see DEATH again and see what the heck happened with him. I mean I've always sort of wanted to see him back again because if Billie would be pissed at them... :P But I could accept she was his stand in from now on. That she WAS the new Death all along, even, for our wild spec. Now I am MADLY excited about how they're going to utilise all this stuff because oh hi have you met me the reapers and death stuff is my absolute favourite stuff on the show. I was always hoping this wasn't going to be a cop out with the tasty sounding title, and it seems like they want us to really be on the ball about the themes here, to whatever end.

(Just having paused it to squeal here, it could be a fake out about Death because the first shot of him in his killer intro montage was his hand with his ring because in season 5 that was the cue we needed to know that was the ring we needed and that Death was who he was supposed to be... Logic dictates the ring crumbled in 10x23 but if they wanted to invoke Death without bringing Julian back...)

Weeeeeeeehheeheheheheeee Death's "affront to the balance of the universe" speech in 6x11 where he was resentfully giving Sam's soul back on one condition... The same thing Billie was pissed about in 11x02 onwards. Is he here to cover for her reappearance and make this seem like it's all just a big cosmic theme? Because something tells me this episode is about their deaths somehow or another, either temporary, threatened, or big picture :P

Or it's confirming that Billie is Death, there's always that because the next transition is Dean killing Death to Billie LITERALLY CONTINUING DEATH'S SENTENCE FROM 6x11 - "you cause disruption on a global scale -- so next time you die and your brother bite it, we're going to toss you out into the Empty."

"And *nothing* comes back from that" *stab*

Leaving it there with Cas - no cutting to him back alive in the bramble patch. Instead the last note, the only one ABOUT the Winchesters in season 13 aside from Dean's 13x03 speech being used - is Dean saying Sam needs to keep the faith for him, which was the comment only answered in dramatic irony by Cas's return. No comment on the dominoes of Cas stabbing Billie, getting stabbed himself, going to the Empty, and coming back from that. No comment on the deal. This is all stuff we're either meant to know already or isn't strictly relevant right now... But we'll see :P

Sort of scared to play the cold open because eye horror in the promo pics and I don't wanna see the doctor drill some random person of the week through the eyeball :P

Oh no, it's kids. I think they're still alive because of the promo where they refer to talking to some kids. Or one of them with the implication both made it out the house although I assume their time is numbered regardless.

They're visiting a house which used to be a mental health clinic, which has weird overlap to last episode and the fact the guys went to a fully functioning house with a modern day therapist in it. Mel pointed out the Asylum direct visual reference in one of the props we see in the fast promo so I suppose that's a good season 1 reference to keep in the back of your head.

The floppy haired kid with the backpack (aka the Jack mirror?) is more uncertain about doing this but encouraged by his friend to go along with it. His friend is a dick.

I hope someone's had a good look at the stained glass window because I can't tell if we've seen it before or not. This may or may not be set re-use >.>

You can tell the boys apart because one is half battery (the dick) and one has full battery still (our sympathetic guy)

Don't touch the plague masks!!!!

Literally that was your entire fault and at least the one we were rooting for legged it with a minor wound. I think even some other ghosts were yelling at them for waking up the doctor (I HOPE that's not a parallel to The Empty and Cas waking him up)

But yet... sam and dean seem to have visited both? Was it only "minor" brain drilling and the other kid comes back home slightly altered? Mel also made promo shot comparisons to Naomi and her drilling... Brrrr.

Anyway Dean is making himself PB&J so I don't have time for you all. Ouch.

Did Sam literally just compliment Dean for making himself a sandwich?

is it a recovery sandwich?

I get the feeling if we're seeing this and the promo was a lil later on and some investigating further into the episode then maybe we're basically seeing Dean's breaking point for being babied through his grief by Sam's attempts to cheer him up.

Makes you wonder why they picked that instead of this, but this could be a relatively dull opener and Sam trying to talk Dean into going to a strip club was too funny to resist, because it kind of was :P

Sam has been on screen 6 seconds and he's annoyingly peppy

I love Sam btw, like, you are not allowed to judge me for how I may talk about Sam in the coming stretch of episode because I get the sense he's in full on cheer up mode, which turns anyone into the most irritating person on the planet and then you throw in Sam's eyebrows and basically I can't with him :P It's not a judgement on his character, I know he's trying to help Dean because of what Dean told him, but Dean just wants to operate a shell of himself for a while and Sam's trying to dig him out of it because it's painful to see him like that and he doesn't know that Cas is reconnecting with them soon, and if not today then next week and also probably by the second half of the season Mary will be back with them.

Anyway Dean just carries on stoically making his sandwich and we all talk a lot about the symbolism... I think in this context perhaps it's loosely linked to Kevin operating as a ghost out of this kitchen after dying halfway through his PB&J and coming back for the crusts as unfinished business. He was mourning his mom while he was alive but then it turned out she was alive but too late he was dead.

The PB&J is also symbolic of humanity so idk. He could just be making it because it's sweet and he has a sweet tooth, it's vaguely reminiscent of pie filling but not enough to be traumatic and it's Dean's "I'm doing 1 good thing for myself today" personal quiet method of getting better in the long slow aftermath that Sam wants to rush.

"GET THIS" Sam is on full on Sam-ing

Awww Jack's watching DVDs. I assume Sam HAVING a stash of DVDs is stuff he's collected as an adult with a Bunker to go on a nostalgia kick. I assume they have a PO Box pretty much for Sam's Amazon deliveries. Like, he hasn't been lugging DVDs around with him since the start of the show and before that they had a bunch of VHS tapes in the back of the car or something :P They grew up dependant on what was on motel TVs and picked what they liked to come back to as adults with a settled address.

Also: the clouds part and bestow on us: a thing Sam likes!!!! That's like at least 4 songs, a couple of movies including Star Wars stuff, HP Lovecraft, and now liking old bad fantasy movies that even Dean judges him for.

Or, I assume, Dean has watched and may or may not reference if the opportunity came up but he needs to box something off as Sam's weird nerd shit that makes him unappealing to the ladies, while Dean, obviously, has never liked anything nerdy, and has had lots of straight edge manly sex with women and all comments about Zorro masks are stricken from the record.

Sam, being in a magnanimous, my brother is grieving, mood, just literally takes the hit and keeps going. Jesus Christ Sammy.

I would swear he's worn his worst plaid today just to give Dean something else to judge him for :P

Oh uh anyway point is Jack is being stashed in the Bunker just like Sam once stashed Cas with his netflix. Sam's being responsible for the pop culture education of 2 generations. At least Netflix lets you pick whatever you want once Sam's not trying to be helpful, and in 11x06 Dean related to Cas to switching to bad TV, rather than watching Sam's picks of the good stuff you're meant to watch.

Less chance of Jack going on a complete rampage through trash TV, but still if nothing else Dean's hands-off approach to the kid means that Sam is being allowed to mould him however he likes :P

I just went back and watched again just because I realised the credits were ALREADY over after 5 names. It was like, J2, Misha (yay!) and 2 people I hadn't heard of who I assume are too important named characters in this episode to skip but also not reoccurring characters. I wonder what the slippery slope is when you don't put Lisa Berry's name in the credits of an episode you've advertised she's in. Even people who've checked on TV guides will know... But I guess you treat the episode as internally self-spoiling and ignore what everyone knows for the sake of the person who buys the DVDs and watches through without even reading the descriptions in the sleeve or whatever. Anyway glad she wasn't spoiled but it does make me like *itchy teeth* about Death being in the recap, because naaah. Naaaaaaah. NAAAAAAAH. they wouldn't. they're not. it isn't. She's making like, a hallucinatory cameo for theeeemes and I got to stick with that until the episode proves me wrong, never mind bringing Death back :P

As a fan of Death and the reapers (probably already a band name) I'm like... so on edge right now :P

Oh wait also Dean said "what about Jack" - he's using his name even to Sam now. Not teasing him about the anti-christ

Ya know, based on how beer for breakfast (name of my band) went over and letting Dean be Agent Page (oh the promo is so the breaking point - Dean already is calling him out on all this IN THE TEXT, using his words to point out the weirdness) I am actually thinking that Dean would have actually quite liked to go on another job with Jack. That he was starting to see the use of him and to warm up to him ever so slightly as a person since he showed effort and did a good job and saved Sam and dug the graves for them. I don't think Dean would ASK out loud but if Sam had said, "Jack comes and that's final" Dean would have done that face shrug expression and let it happen without much complaint.

Sam is bending to Dean's apparent desires and being like, well Dean doesn't like Jack, this could be a chance to get Dean out of the bunker without Jack and let him forget all his troubles for a bit...

Like, I don't wanna worry you Sam, but last time you decided you needed to cheer Dean up from his extra super special worries about Cas, you took him out into the woods for a fun werewolf hunt, got shot and strangled and had to kill literally every single werewolf in the episode with your bare hands while bleeding profusely from your stomach, while Dean had a random encounter with Billie in the depths of utter despair that he'd lost everyone he ever loved and the world was now going to end without you all.

Dean's a drama queen about a lot of stuff but when he tells Jack your plans don't usually work out, this is the sort of shit he's referring to :P

*Sam looks so freakin smug with himself walking off after the badge exchange and Dean's like... what. What?*

Poor kid with his great big bandage on his forehead.

He "can't even talk" because the trauma was so bad and we cut to him apparently drawing in his room, which makes me think right back to 1x03.

Omg lol of course Dean walks in the door alone to chat to him. And sees him drawing repeatedly the MotW. We bonding over trauma so bad we can't even talk about it again?

OH there's 3 boys. Shaun/Sean (I'm gonna pick Shaun because this is America and I assume you all don't spell stuff proper - FYI to Americans reading this, please remember to read this all in a shrill British accent, what what) and Evan who was presumably the one who died in the cold open, and Mike is the third, who they're inseparable from but was NOT there in the house with them that night, and by nightfall at the promo scene they had not spoke to him yet.

What a frikkin rug pull though, to have 2 boys in the open, so you think they're a duo of best friends, and it's like NO WAIT THEY COME IN THREES... Bahahahaha

Dean back upstairs with Shaun, and he's sat down to talk to him with a "you know" and at this point I am pausing and getting a stuffed toy because he's either gonna open up to a kid who won't squeal about it because he can’t talk, or say something completely awful because he's in an awful place and either way I don't need Emotional Honesty Hour from Dean Winchester at 9:30 in the morning without a friend :P

On no, Dean talking about knowing what it's like to be scared of monsters, but then trying to reassure the kid that he can at least make it go away PHYSICALLY even if the horrific psychological trauma can't be erased. Comforting!!

Promo sceeene!

Which we already picked over but aw yeah so Shaun didn't tell Dean anything after all, except for the plague doctor drawings (and he didn't show he had the mask with him? Really?? Did he drop it earlier?) so Dean really did just open up to the kid about understanding his pain but being the thing monsters are scared of... A better Dean pep talk than Patience got at least, since Shaun was a regular victim and Patience might have been angling to join the life... and it mostly just served to make him say that :P

Since I've been barrelling through all the Wayward Sisters old episodes this month, I am reminded that I spent a good long while wallowing in Yockey vs Sam knowing Dean's porn habits and outing them to Jody in 12x06...

I think Sam trying to make the sacrifice to go to a strip club with Dean (and I can't believe this is the third time I'm putting myself through watching this exchange because omg second hand awfulness and yet I went back and watched it twice it was so good) probably fits under this characterisation umbrella.

Of Sam vs performing Dean, as much as the callbacks to season 1 and Dean vs Sam's Jess grief that I was talking about last night thanks to an anon nudge. And parallels to 12x16 and their chat about the swimming pool outside a similar hotel set (although this one is infinitely lower rate :P) - the writers playing with the knowledge that Sam and Dean have grown up completely latched onto each other like this and Sam's been dragged to strip clubs by Dean almost certainly and they just kinda know more than they want to about the other's personal habits, and they have low, bad boundaries. 12x16 was asserting some back, letting them have separate rooms, and showing Sam grossed out by the thought of Dean skinny dipping which, I mean, fair (if you're Sam anyway :P) but they don't really GET those boundaries.

So there's some re-poking season 12 specific themes here as well, just in that Sam, who has historically had his own walls up about Dean's porn and interest in strip clubs (because they're extremely not his thing) is willing to cross a line for Dean and just go with Dean to a strip club and buy him a lap dance from a place with a decent online review. Which also shows low bad boundaries that he would try and manipulate Dean back to happiness this way, just like in 1x19 especially, Sam had to angrily re-assert his boundaries about Dean constantly trying to set him up with Sarah, and Dean had to point out he has a stake in Sam's sex life too, even if it's just having to put up with Sam being cranky and miserable. Historically, Sam having to put up with Dean's sex life is considerably more on the "ugh, TMI" range for him :P

... sorry, yelling "promo scene!!" usually means I stop analysing for a moment and just watch, because I already went over this ground last night, but I guess there's more untapped depths :P

Holy shit, though in the reaction shots for Dean after talking about the Clam Diver, he's standing with his back to some stuff that on my screen makes a beautiful bi flag. What the hell. I was thinking how colourful the backdrop was last night but...

I mean that's the blurry background to his close ups on this.

I THINK it's just the road lit up behind him but oh gosh getting it in the background of the shot for THIS conversation about the Clam Diver? GUYS what are you DOING.

Who directed this??

I overshot and landed on "how you ever got laid" "heh, tell me about it" I can't BELIEVE, STILL that Sam just gave him that win. For some reason it reminds me of Swap Meat where he judges Gary for being a virgin based on the Star Wars stuff, even though Sam is an established Star Wars nerd of more than the general audience variety, and mostly likely read the old tie in novels :P Sam owning that his nerdy interests as a teen didn't exactly make him very sexy is probably the most frank thing he's ever admitted to Dean and he's just trying to help Dean.

(Tbh, again, it may have helped Dean more if Sam just reacted all prickly and got wound up, which is generally what someone teasing wants - a reaction, not rolling over and showing your tummy. Anyway more on the pile of Yockey probing their sex lives in relation to how they see each other, with Sam letting Dean be the one with the more manly sexy interests and letting the performing Dean layer that all comes from win, and then trying to pander to it some more by looking up places to make Dean feel even more manly and in control)

And holy crap I'm glad I have no yoga today because Yockey's got me talking in loops and I've been back to this conversation in the kitchen 3 times and it's nearly 10am and I've made such bad progress. Mental contortions instead :P

Ooooh directed by John Showalter. I'm pretty sure he's been around for aaaages and contributed more than his fair share of nonsense... :P

I just looked him up on the superwiki, saw he directed the episode with HP Lovecraft (and that ridiculous "I was busy having sex with women" or whatever line about Dean not reading the novels) and basically I am gonna hit the brakes on this thought and just watch the episode or I'm going down a rabbit hole I don't come back from until 11am :P

Oh but the thing I was trying to confirm was... Not that I knew I was looking for it except in the most abstract sense that I was thinking of it in one hand and thinking maybe there was something by this director in the other without realising it was the same hand... the blue & red light falling on Dean in 10x16 which looks an awful lot like the bi flag and shortly preceded Dean confessing all that delicious confessional stuff?

Yeah guess which director according to Superwiki.

Now i'm done.

I want to know what metric The Clam Diver got "four and a half" of on whatever site Sam was reading about it.

That's in Sam's browser history.

"Is it my birthday? Did I win a bet that I don't know about??"

"I'm just trying to be nice."

"W h y."

"Because..... you know why."

"I'm f i n e."

Sam, back off, he's gonna stab you :P

I got to ask... is the automatic door not working an improv because the door broke, or thematically relevant, because that's the sort of random thematically relevant detail I could have a nerdgasm about for absolutely hours of typing while Sam is harassing Dean into the building talking about him not believing in anything. The higher powers aren't doing shit for Dean even when he waves at where he thinks the sensor should be, so he gives up and just opens the damn door himself.

The door has a sticker that says, quite clearly, "warning automatic door" and at the very least for the shortsighted is a great big yellow warning sticker on it, so I'm gonna have to go that they're signposting that it's supposed to open, so this is something either scripted or added with full intent to metaphor and my brain hurts.

Sam is trying to understand this massive great big VOID of misunderstanding and it's... frankly awful. He's babbling about his understanding about Dean and his confusion

"You're not, Dean. you said you don't believe in anything, and that's not true! you-you-you do believe in things, you believe in people, that's who you *are*, that's what you DO. I know you're in a dark place and I just want to *help*"

This is telling us a lot more about how Sam sees Dean than Dean's faith arc. Of course Dean believes in people and saving people and that the planet is worth saving. That's a baseline assumption around here. Dean and *faith* though, in believing in things, in how the universe treats them... it doesn't even open automatic doors for them. Cas is DEAD. Cas is where Dean's belief arc centred in the last minute of 4x01 and Cas is where it has freakin' remained for the next 9 years. Cas lost faith in God and Dean chucked away the amulet because he lost faith in everything - Cas and Sam and himself and their ability to save the world that didn’t want to be saved. Cas became God and Dean lost all hope he may have had left. Cas came BACK to Dean and his faith was restored but in THEM. GOD came back and Dean and Cas had similar and unchanging positions on it right down to Chuck basically telling Dean not to confuse him with his own father, but the ridiculous superimposing over John over Chuck and Chuck as Cas's failed father who Cas now just ignores outright and Dean lashes out on his behalf because he knows Cas doesn't believe. That Chuck broke Cas back in 5x16 and... Yeah. Cas is gone now and what does Dean even have left in his personal faith? Chuck didn't answer, the automatic door won't open even when he waves at it...

Sam sees Dean as having no faith in God (while Sam has had the much more complicated journey there with his personal faith, and feeling it in a religious way) but instead he tries to get a read on Dean's personal compass, and god dammit Yockey *takes a shot* in Wendigo of course Dean sits down with Sam and tells him HIS personal philosophy on why he does what he does: saving people, hunting things, the family business. The thing is, Dean has already in this episode reached out to Shaun and described himself and Sam as the people who know about the monsters, the ones who can't erase the trauma but they can erase the monster, and help what little they can there... Save *other people* from it - yeah it's a message full of regret and defeat that Shaun already got hurt and that's probably why Dean couldn't get him to open up because he didn't come in bubbling with wide-eyed optimism about saving the day, but heavy eyes that had seen this too much. But oh does he still care about the people, and saving them. He just doesn’t trust what HE can do, what they can do against the tide of awful. It's not in his speech to Patience, because it's not the motivation to be a superhero any more - he is just a guy doing a job. And he's lost his heart in many ways. But he will still fight to protect and help people because baseline, Sam is right, that IS Dean and even damaged like this he'll go on hunts and protect people. Take Jack into the Bunker with them in 13x01 expecting it to be a self-destruct thing where base case scenario they can take Jack out with them or something and contain the blast...

But yeah. 13x04 expressly ended linking Dean's lack of faith, via dramatic cast-iron irony, to Cas coming back as Dean voices what losing Cas has done to him.

And then Dean gets to say his bit -

"We've been down this road before, and I've fought my way back and I'll fight my way back again" which HONESTLY echoes Cas in the Empty telling his depression to stuff it and that he'll fight and fight for eternity if he has to.

Dean is trying to get better, he made himself a PB&J, he's just taking this all at his own pace, and Sam's starting to smother him.

"How?"

"Same way I always do: bullets, bacon and booze." Dean regrets his no bumper sticker policy because that and the "whole bottle of Jack" comment from last episode are both iconic Dean talking about his coping methods out loud way.

Also throws back to 10x11 and how Dean did that list of 3 things which he was getting back to when he lost the Mark and left a blank space which should have been "babes" or something and just put more booze into it. The swap of sex for food happens a LOT with Dean. For some reason the Dean vs cake explanation I wrote recently was floating around tumblr again last night, in which the middle of season 10 conveyed clearly that cake was stuff Dean hadn't tried yet (and 10x16's confession tied it all together - we're really delving deep into the stuff that was explored back then and I've thankfully been in fandom for so have the language down really well but I hope I don't have to explain this entire complicated web over and over later :P) and pie was coping methods heterosexual sex with women - tying what Dean wanted in 10x07 in the hook up he didn't get, to pie in 10x13 via that gross dating app... All this with the cake, croissookies, and that comment in 10x11 where Dean was trying to detox and eating egg white omlettes (hi 12x18) and cutting out booze.

And, of course, there's the whole bacon = bisexual experimentation thing from 8x13, 9x13, 11x21, and I guess now :P Cass had a much more thorough bacon masterpost somewhere out there which I may have to dig out and reblog with a knowing look...

And Dean slams his hand down on the bell to punctuate this statement and hopefully bring an end to the conversation by summoning a hotel receptionist.

Cue screaming kid having nightmares about what he's seen.

His mom kisses him on his forehead where the doctor drilled him, and leaves the door open so she can be concerned about him.

Oh no, his backpack DOES have the mask in it. Dr Monsterface used it to get to him :<

(Oh wait hi yes that thing Jody said about the Dr Sexy leviathan in 7x02 is still fresh in my mind. Leviathans as a depression metaphor in a way The Empty rapidly escalated.)

I saw/maybe reblogged a post about how Jack might have Kelly used against him and 13x04 was the nice version, but he's going around carrying his grief about her in a backpack. We have to hope like hell Mia gave him catharsis enough or he might carry that grief with him and things can use her image to get into his head.

(That and the 2x "shoot him!" order about Dean from Miriam and Buddy to the sheriff and Mia, 2 people who wanted to help, are causing foreshadowing concerns)

I love the cuts between the doctor coming for Shaun, though - the bell ending one conversation to Shaun waking up screaming, and then he gets up and pretty much goes to confront the doctor head on rather than cower - but cut to an empty bed.

Dean's empty bed, but he seems to have left the keys?

Ah, he went and had some, uh, catharsis somewhere. I swear to god those are probably the sunglasses from 1x19 dug up again and stuck on his head just to haunt Sam.

The fact his tie is tied around his head makes me feel like he was probably blindfolded at some point in all that... Hehehe. I doubt his tie is tied so nicely around his head with a pretty bow because he did it to look cool :P It would just be the same knot but on his head in that way.

Sam's like "oh great" but doesn't kick Dean awake? Like on a normal day when dumping a glass of water on his face and telling him to suck it up would be the correct thing, Sam's like, "Sam's got this!" goes and gets dressed, takes the keys, and leaves Dean passed out on the floor. In 1x19 he hit the horn to wake Dean up because serves you right.

(if he only went to a strip club he may have just made off with someone's underwear thrown on him for being a good tipper rather than actually having sex with anyone... I kinda doubt if he was THAT drunk he'd be more than a very generous customer they don't mind kicking him out at closing with a bra still on his head :P)

(I'm gonna assume Dean did not actually have sex but just went out and had some very drunk miserable fun and made a friend last night and now he's gonna be dependant on Sam for cash for a while until he can scrounge some back up :P)

Also, um, what is he holding when he rolls over? Is that a fun kinky times toy whip? Exactly what sort of place did he find last night, and please, for the love of god, tell me it was not the place Sam was diligently reading the reviews for between his fingers yesterday, apparently.

Listen say whatever you want about the fact he walked home holding it, if that boy had his tie tied around his eyes he was not the one holding it while he was having fun :P

I like Mike. He's a burly farm worker hefting hay outdoors in the sun, which makes him like 3 different directions of Cas parallel (the strong one in the dynamic, sun, hay), and also he was sensible enough not to be running around in a haunted house for youtube hits.

...

Look, at some point Cas hefted a bunch of hay out of the back of his truck and onto the side of the road and that happened in canon and no one ever mentioned it

thank you Yockey for acknowledging off-screen hay hefting.

Aw no he's lying because he's scared and Sam makes him tell the truth and it's that he WAS scared and he thinks not going to the house was cowardly, but now his friends are missing and hurt (so far as they know because Shaun getting killed overnight might not have made it to them yet)... He does tell the truth in the end. He's also in DEEP denial about their deaths.

Is that enough bacon, Dean.

No, no it is not.

Sam, you're gonna kill him if you give him more beer right now. Is he smuggling local ales to Dean?

I don't think I can actually watch Dean eat this entire pile of bacon with Dean's bad mood eating habits. This pause is just to procrastinate dealing with that.

Wait also the friend is called "Mike" which, uh... Michael? is a thing we should be more worried about? What happened to that guy anyway?

Man, we're 16 minutes in and where's Billie?

I feel like Dean being hung over for the rest of this case is probably not going to help with him getting caught and threatened with a drill by a regular old ghostie.

I'm snooping Sam's tablet before he delivers the cliff notes exposition, and aside from the creepy images at the top, including an old school newspaper article in the top image results that is illegibly small, but seems to have photos of the doc alive, the first and only legible article mentions a woman with depression who goes to the doc because she had depression because her son drowned... Which makes 2 son drowning deaths in 2 episodes, with the kid in 13x04 who killed his mom in the car. Also reminds me of 7x14 where when Dean confronts the guy behind all the nightmares, it's because his little brother drowned in the sea and he could never let go of that guilt.

I think drowning is the metaphor for depression here - people losing a part of themselves metaphoric to small son, who is overwhelmed in the water... Dean related to that loss and used it against the Plucky's guy, and that was in the slight turn around section of season 7 - the part where he began confronting the loss of Cas through mirrors because of course Cas was coming back. In season 13 the plan has been set in stone and can be done briefly and with HEAVY dramatic irony that we're all aware of because we only actually have 1 episode without Cas so far, even if 1 was his death and one was his waking up, he's surrounding Dean's grief in a layer of dramatic irony. Dean may be overwhelmed and drowning. We may have SEEN the memory of Cas drowning in the Empty, but it's all done with dramatic irony, that Cas is not lost to Dean but presumably finding his way back.

Dean had better not puke at the grieving mother's house after all that bacon and beer for breakfast after a hard night out.

I love the cut between Sam asking what happened in one scene and the woman saying "I don't know" in the next - there's some good thematic transitions I've noticed already, especially this way of skipping exposition here, but I liked Dean ringing the bell for the hotel and Shaun waking up screaming, because Dean was about to go out on his grief metaphor night out and for all I know get the sexy kind of drilled while Shaun was getting the unsexy kind... and then the cut to Dean's empty bed, because this is how bad his grief was hurting him.

(Also after Sam tried to control and placate Dean's grief, he resisted Sam's attempts to smother him but he still has been accepting the offers, and did eventually go out and get wasted and Sam had encouraged it - just Dean did it on his terms and without Sam, just his tacit approval that Sam wouldn't bitch about it.)

ALSO WOW AFTER 13 YEARS YOCKEY FINDS A WAY TO SUBTLY WORK IN THE COLD SPOTS FOR GHOSTS.

LOOK HOW INTELLIGENT THAT MAKES OUR BOYS LOOK WHEN THEY READ THE SUBTEXT OF A SCENE FROM A SURFACE READ OF SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT GHOSTS BUT IDENTIFIED THE SIGNS AND THE PEOPLE WHO KNEW WHAT TO LOOK FOR COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING WITHOUT HER SAYING IT AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING JUST FROM INFERRING IT

WOW

Night time and they go to the house and we're at 18 minutes in. I mean we have time for a jump scare, some bad shit to happen, and then the ad break before pt.2 of the episode.

Buzz buzz

"What's up, doc?"

*ad break*

*back to Dean getting drilled*

Sam saves him and on with pt.2 of the episode.

All the masks are back in place.

Oops, don't touch the masks. *horrible screaming from elsewhere in the house*

Well, except to burn them. Sensible to stay in the room, defend their turf, and get to the burning asap instead of poking around or investigating the screaming any more. 13 years and they have learned a fair amount about ghosts and I am admiring how competent they are. Sam especially has the lead here, probs because Dean is off his game by an enormous degree to him.

Ahahah and Sam did a round circle at the door so we see the doc get partway through the door, realise there's salt, and have to awkwardly back out of it to have a second go and honestly that is the funniest shit a ghost has ever done on this show even though it's also terrifying :P

*burn burn burn*

So rescue Shaun?

What can possibly happen next with nearly 20 minutes left

LIGHTS BLOWING DOWN A HALLL

Now they dealt with the advertised ghost I'm just waiting for Billie to show up, because they're about to be mobbed by a ton of ghosts and she can save their asses, or else... well idk I have to watch, but I'm just laughing because of lights blowing down a hall - 3 times already this season, for Jack, for Patience at least with them flickering rather than exploding like this...

These are all the whispers about the doctor which we heard in the cold open

I love the Winchesters running around shouting sensible ideas about what the ghosts are doing though.

Is this going to be Dean's torch everything solution?

YIKES, no, it's 4x15/11x17. BAD IDEA, DEAN. i can't believe he even carries a pre-prepared take me to the veil kit. Like, that's the reckless nothing to live for might as well die trying to do something dramatic toolkit. We also get shades of 11x16 with him doing that in a super haunted house.

You can NOT pass into the veil in a super haunted house with just your brother to watch over you and stop these 1000s of ghosts killing you.

Jesus Christ Dean.

Wait is he literally doing this

Sam is like FFUCKING HELL RIGHT HERE WITHOUT EVEN A SALT RING? ON THE FUCKING STAIRS UNDER THIS SYMBOLIC STAINED GLASS WINDOW THAT LIZZY DIDN'T ANALYSE EARLIER?

DEAAAAN

And yeah this is 2x01 all over again with Dean walking down the stairs trying to get the attention of a ghost.

Wait back up new reaper with a customer service calm grief counsellor voice, but what did she say her name was? :P

"Hello, my name is JESSICA and I'm here to lead you to your next life"

... well I hope she survives the episode just because I always root for the reapers and she's clearly just a random obstacle to Dean who is doing her job, a regular old part of the natural order, but that is not a name you use at random :P

I'm just sitting here running my hands through my hair trying to deal with this right now. Gonna play a few rounds of Pokemon shuffle because I sort of knew this was coming since they showed 5x15 and 2x01 in the opening recap, but the way Dean did it and then walking immediately into a Jessica? Yeah I need a mo.

Dean maybe never told Sam what he did in 11x17 because he didn't at the end of the episode and idk if that's one of those things you don't just bring up at the breakfast table.

JESSICA.

"Hi, I'm the spectre of the loss of the most important romantically loved loved one in your life, do you feel like moving on from them to the next thing"

"sorry I can't come to the phone"

YOCKEY I AM DISTRESSED.

Accidents don't happen accidentally.

"Oh god."

She knows what she's got herself into.

Sam takes 20 seconds to set his waych and sdakdfjgkl hang on who cares about Sam

WE'RE IN REAPER HQ

"Dean Winchester is the the veil!"

Please say this whole thing goes to red alert.

Where's his file. It it like 5000 times the size of all these little ones?

Sam put down enough salt for Dean but not himself.

I don't think that's ghosts blowing lights any more, I think that's emergency lightning from the cosmos.

SHAUN! Oh no, you're dead :(

At least he's talking again.

Generally the freshest ghosts are the more talkative ones, and as Bobby showed us back in 7x19 which I generally try not to remember or rely on for ghost lore, because the older ones are fading and falling into patterns and the fresher ones still have a stronger sense of self and their old life.

OH NO Shaun got possessed because of course that's how he got back here with the mask. I think we saw a smaller ghost in a t-shirt in some of the promo stuff, but I thought it was a kid, not a teenager.

"I miss my mom" he's on the other side of the grief from Jack, who misses his mom because he's alive and she's dead. The doc said he'd feel better and he froze and let him kill him. Also Kevin parallels just of a kid whose most important relationship is his mom and now he's dead.

Dean's thinking clearly for the first time in a while because he's not in his body. All soaked in alcohol and grief. He realises he let Shaun down by not being there to protect him. Which may have all happened this way in another episode, but that PB&J, man. It was a Kevin thing all along. (I SAID it was a Kevin thing and you all were like blah blah Cas blah blah Jack, look, don't doubt me on my Kevin knowledge, guys, I am still RAW about his death and it was 4 years ago :P) Dean's remembering in the middle of grief that it's "saving people hunting things" after he let Patience down with that speech. Or so I hope. They used Dean's speech over the open of the episode like in a season 1 episode they'd usually layer the more optimistic and simplistic "saving people hunting things" from Dean's like, second day on the job, not where he's all messed up and old.

Anyway Shaun is an emergency Kevin patched into his life to make him feel bad about failing people, and I guess that puts Dean at similar crossroads to the middle of season 9. Hopefully to a different end, just like this should be subverting 11x17 for why he just abruptly decided to cross into the veil, because Jessica is not having a good day :P

DEAN GOING INTO THE VEIL TO HELP LOST PEOPLE is doubling up the job of a reaper. Reapers CAN'T COMMUNICATE across the veil to the living, and don't wanna solve the cases. They come to move on the one person with a ticket upstairs in a house full of hundreds of ghosts and just ignore them... Dean actively dives into their turf to solve the case and find out how to move the souls on. He SAYS he wants to help move the souls on.

I have such a huge love of Dean blurring the lines with being Death, and being a reaper. It's just such a symbolic thing. Their job is moving people on, basically handing souls to the reapers to carry on the job, when it's ghost cases. They're the human agents of the reapers breaking the ties that hold ghosts to the earth so that the whole process can carry on and the world doesn't fill up with ghosts - like it did when the veil was broken. (or is it still? Again, the whole Kevin thing not quiiiite answered, although maybe/maybe not that was a sign Chuck was fixing the thing... But then there were a whole bunch of souls Billie for for them out of the veil like 2 episodes later...)

Reaper lore is fucked up on this show :P But Reaper HQ just in the first glimpse looked aaaawfuully empty adjacent...

I'm guessing even though Dean's got back with the info he needs, and Sam's about to wake him up because the clock ran out, the reapers are going to intervene...

WAKEY WAKEY DEAN

Oh look Billie's back.

"Hey Dean"

I haven't been this happy in about 1000 years. Like seriously Cas getting back was great and all but HOLY SHIT have you seen Billie? I would set this as my desktop immediately but my mum and Cat are both gonna have to watch this episode with me and probably see my desktop in the process, so... Saving a screencap for later ;)

This is literally the best thing.

LOOK AT HER.

LOOK AT THAT SCYTHE. HOLY SHIIIT THAT SCYTHE.

Billie's understated attitude is just *clenches fist*

She just shows up!! LOoking LIKE THIS!!!!

I don't even wanna hit play, I don't wanna move past this point, I just want to bask in this one image forever.

THE COAT. NO one has shown up in a floor length leather coat in the entire show so far, because no one has been good enough for it.

"We need to talk" Yeah no shit babe.

LOL getting right to it - Dean like, Cas killed you. Billie like, "how's that working out for him?" - does she know? Either way, she's rubbing it in. Because of course she has eeeevery right to be pissed. :P

UTTER GLEE.

I have a sudden feeling... Billie says, "certain rules - after you kill one "incarnation" of Death" (Hey 1000 points to trisscar) "another one takes its place" and dude.

Death died and within 10 seconds Billie was singing "o Death" and following the Winchesters around, annoying them, making deals with them, making ultimatums with them... Like, the reapers aren't exactly itching to kill EACH OTHER and promote someone, and I guess just one biting the bullet and taking one for the team doesn't work... But this suddenly explains EVERYTHING about Billie getting all up in the business of the people who basically fuck up every deal and ally they make and hanging out with them... doesn't give you much of a life span.

Back in 12x06, Billie taunted Dean, made fun of him for not getting what he wants, and said she wanted something from him. Came to Mary and said she was there to reap her when she was ready. She LET Dean make another deal, a deal where one of his family would have to die, or he himself do it. In a car full of Winchesters, one of them is gonna take one for the team, or ruin everything and kill the reaper who's been bothering them, holds so much over them...

I'm thinking very hard about changes of state right now - that Billie and Cas had mirrored deaths, and Billie came back improved, and Cas... Well, we don't know how he came back except he's been put on a better path, for his character narrative, in confronting and overcoming the symbolic depression, and he has a better coat. Not much to go on yet, and I haven't been participating in the wild flailing about all the ways he MAY have come back different, but this makes a veeery interesting mirror about returns and changes of state, upgrades after death. Now I'm interested in what may have happened to Cas.

But, like, to a magnitude of difference to how utterly delighted I am that Billie won the game :P

But yeah this is a bit of a lore fudge but who caaaares because it brings Billie back and powers her up and makes her into THE BEST CHARACTER ON THE SHOW IN A TOTALLY INARGUABLE WAY.

I love her new ring :P

"This universe can be so many things, and sometimes it is poetic."

Hell yeah it is Billie. I've been saying so for ages, but this really puts it in such a beautiful way. This is Dabb's entire job. He makes this universe *rhyme* with itself. This is what his mirrors and parallels and character repeats have been doing. I even compared scene transitions in 13x03 to the way poetry ends each line in a verse. It's something all the writers have been doing - making the story rhyme.

Gaaaaah. THIS is Dabb's writer meta commentary, perhaps. I think I can trust Yockey to spell it out this way :D

She took him to Reaper HQ!!! Like Cas he's passing through states - I assume he'll be back in time to finish the hunt, but in the mean time... He's got to work through some shit, just like Cas did last episode. Rhyming with each other.

Dean is wearing a black and grey plaid with thin red lines, and a black jacket. He's bringing like the only colour here to all the blackness.

yeah, Billie, keep the scythe away from him.

I love she set her desk up in the W section because even though it's not the middle of the alphabet, she's keeping a CLOSE FREAKING EYE on the Winchesters.

Ooh she knows Dean went to the AU... She's interested in Jack. Dean's chance to protect him!!!???

Billie looks INCREDIBLE how did I ever let myself talk myself into doubting she was here to run the game?

wait shit Dean's doing epic character stuff. Not bargaining with his life, or asking for Mary or Cas back. He just wants to complete the job and free the ghosts because freakin sshdfkjsjlks PB&J brought him back to his senses and he needs to save Kevin-stand-in rather than let him wallow in the veil for 3 seasons again

THAT is one heck of a thing, Dean. I love you so much

not as much as billie but it was a beautiful character moment

Billie is STUNNED.

Jessica gets to take all the ghosts back. She thought this was going to be a terrible day and it actually worked out.

Again, with like 10 minutes left of the episode so this isn't how it ends.

Now Dean's talking about trust, and Billie brings up how they keep breaking cosmic bargains. I think he may be stalling - even planning to NOT give up Jack even though Billie went first... Or he's gonna tell her but... Natural order? She can't just go... kill him...

If Dean's still uncertain about Jack he could always make a query about IF she could kill him, but not give away enough, or have her as the weapon in his back pocket should Jack be a problem... something for him to regret later, maybe?

This is stressful

Dean spills. "Lucifer's son. Jack. When he was born it created a little rip."

What does Billie know about the AU?

Well she knows how the multiverse works, and she knows a "big dumb Winchester" is fairly statistically likely to be the one to knock it all down.

The warning not to try and get Mary back? Now Cas is back? The consequences may still be on Mary, however she's returned to them, intentionally or not, she could topple it?

Ugh I hate spec but all these lines are so leading :P The comment that Sam's plans don't work out, in this light, for example, is realllly nerve-wracking. And we know from spoilers the AU is going to become a more immediate problem at some point...

"That does sound like us."

"You've changed." Billie reading Dean deeply and now we get to the character part of this where she's just... analysing him.

"The Dean I know and love" look I'm die hard Destiel to the bone but Dean x Death is something I've always thought the dynamic for was absolutely stunning since their first meeting, and I hate to say it but making Death into Billie is making it aaawfully tempting to ship :P

Please show him his massive folders.

She's currently just calling him out on how bad he feels. Pure awful character exposition.

"I don't matter." OH DEAN NO.

He and Cas totally rhyming with each other about their passing through these dark other worlds...

Dean couldn't save mom, he couldn't save Cas, he can't even save this kid... But he already saved the kid with that bargain with Billie, and Cas is... out there somewhere. And Mary is a whole other problem and the one he can't solve right now. If she's alive, she's on the other side of a wobbling house of cards he can't touch. But the difference in the way he gets finality on Mary vs the finality on Cas? 13x01 vs this episode as Dean slides from dealing with Cas to dealing with Mary? Getting this blunt exposition from Billie about it...

I think Billie would have thought it was funny to show Dean his file, but then realised because he's changed she needs a different approach to intimidate and interrogate him. She sees that he doesn't feel like a hero any more, not the guy who saves the world. All his crushing losses have made him feel like he's still utterly helpless to make anything good happen in his own life.

And Dean can't work through it, won't work through it, and he knows it - this is the thing that has broken him hardest... That at this point there will be NO recovery except the story handing back Cas to him, and even then that's one hell of a shake to what he believes he can accomplish... If they wanted to scare him back down from "i kill gods" Dean who then went and killed Death too, to show him the universe his huge, and keeps on ticking and his actions have put Billie in charge and the natural order keeps on ticking... But he still can't get mom and Cas back...

I am literally sitting in that room in Alice in Wonderland where she's floating around on her tears.

I mean in my head, anyway :P

My heart is broken.

Billie's "don't you?" though when Dean says he doesn't matter... I wonder what she knows that Dean doesn't :P

But Dean starts ranting to her about how Sam's been trying to help and he's useless... :(

"You really believe that. You want to die." Well, yeah the universe has become a crushing hard place where no one makes sense and Dean doesn't even believe in the blaze of glory death, doing something HEROIC now, let alone not believing in it because he thinks he deserves better and a happy ending at the end of this all...

Lowest point, unlocked! \o/

Oh, ALL those notebooks are his individual deaths... How he dies. "heart attack. burned by a red-haired witch" HEY ROWENA

Are they potential deaths or ones still looming over him, disappearing as he passes those marks? Or are they his entire history of deaths not died?

"Unfortunately, none of these books say you die today"

....

So are they potential future deaths or what?

I mean, Billie just introduced hope to his life.

"I stand witness to a much larger picture" they could not have picked a better character to be Death. She has such DEPTH and WEIGHT to the way she speaks, and such an amazing calm, powerful aura of energy. I just love her so so much.

OH GOSH this camera angle with the scythe in the background behind Dean's face... Gotta save and remember to add that to this, because after telling him all the ways he dies, Billie moves onto his big picture cosmic weight. That he's important. And Dean has the scythe symbolically pointing at him as she talks, telling him he's at those crossroads of life and death but not today... Is this going to be a burden like the one Chuck laid on him, or Billie reminding him that a heroic life is not such a bad thing?

I really think this is one of the best episodes of the show and I got a few minutes left of it and don't know how this resolves :P

SHE IS LITERALLY giving him the 4x01 Cas speech - "you have work to do" and telling him he's important, telling him he deserves to live... Kinda still like I hate you but you're important, and setting aside past grudges. There's more for him to do.

"And trust me, having my eyes opened to the importance of any humans, especially Winchesters, is not a thrill." HA. yeah, she's an anti-Cas but she and Cas are literally bouncing off each other in the story anyway since he stabbed her and then got stabbed himself in turn.

Rhymes. Rules. Reason. Billie is the best character on the show and I love her.

"So, you wanna die, but I say, keep living." "Hmm."

This is NOT the same as what happened with Cas - but he may not remember it - but it works in sort of mirrored ways. Cas utterly defeats the Empty with his will to live, may not remember it, and may have to piece his newfound will to live together himself in this new hopeful return to life. I hope. Dean has no will to live, and orders of work and purpose are just the way his life goes, the orders endlessly being placed on his head by every cosmically powerful figure... God, Death that time in 6x11, Billie now, JOHN every day of his life from aged 4 to 27 and then one final order to haunt Dean to his first grave...

"I need to know. My mom" *wakey wakey*

Oh, and there's the so far missing hope. She can't lie to him and say Mary's dead, so she cuts him off in indecision and uncertainty, and THAT, unfortunately, is a massive step up from where he was in total despair that there is no one he can save...

And Cas may very well be back in his life to give him the hope that it can be done again by the end of this episode... Aaaaaaaaaaaah.

Anyway Dean goes wakey wakey at last and the house seems to be wrapped up, yay.

there's exactly 5 minutes left, which is always the omen. :P

Sam comforts Shaun's mom, and wanders through the scene, looking small in the chaos, to rejoin Dean at the car.

And like in 11x17 Dean lies again.

Sam is too smart for that, chases it up when Dean tries to brush it off as luck, and says that when Dean says they talk about it later, it means they won't talk about it and it's Dean's way of shutting off a conversation from ever happening...

Sam calling out their communication issues? I am LIVING

Dean glances at the mom, and is reminded that they do this job for a reason, that he bargained to save the souls of the children... Sold out the info about Jack for it...

"I saw Death. The Death."

*Sam does the eyebrows*

"He's dead"

"No she's not"

*EYEBROWS*

"it's billie"

And Dean goes on to even say that she wanted intel, and does Sam pick up on it?

... no he doesn't. He doens't ask or guess what it was...

Dean repeats the line about work to do, which is also, especially in the context of Sam and Dean talking, what they say in instances like for example 2x22 when Dean had just sold his soul for Sam, when they're about to go back to work with their regular job. The open the trunk of the car and look at their gear and announce they're going to go kick ass phrase. (Which, of course, in 4x01, Cas was subverting the context by saying it to Dean away from Sam, putting the burden on him - Billie at least made it about Sam and Dean both but that she was talking to Dean)

But they're sitting on the back of the car, keeping the trunk closed... Not moving on

And Dean starts talking about how he's not okay.

And how he always believed in what they did - saving people hunting things - that losing John or Bobby or people they cared about was a hit he could take for the higher purpose. Billie has just REMINDED him that he is bound to a higher purpose. But he's so lost, and he's lost people who he CAN'T lose. Mary and Cas at once is just TOO MUCH. It makes the universe cruel not poetic...

(I say, having it paused here but knowing Misha's in the credits again as an awful TEASE :P)

He just needs a WIN.

And he may just get one because he told 90% of the truth to Sam, conveyed exactly what was going on behind that line about not believing in anything from last episode, the power of which narratively brought back Cas because that was a huge step in his grief arc, to admit it. Now he's explaining it, telling Sam how badly it's all got to him...

Oh god where is Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

They're driving off and there's music, which... agh.

drive drive drive sexy car

Omg we're going back to the house... More grief on the mom for her son... Just really WALLOWING in how much loss hurts everyone, and even when the soul has moved on, that Dean got a win for their knowledge of the afterlife, that they know ghosts can go to a better place, the mom doesn't, she has lost Shaun and that's it for her. No closure, just pain.

drive drive drive

Billie reading Dean's book

I think Billie really has a huge interest in Dean... :P

drive drive drive... Okay so Yockey is the new Robbie montage guy.

Also Sam is asleep while Dean drives - this seems to parallel 12x20 where he was asleep and Dean checked his messages from Mary...

Bring bring?

BRING BRING.

Called that like a boss :3

WHAT, NO "HELLO DEAN" ON THE PHONE?

FUCK YOU YOCKEY I TAKE IT ALL BACK I HATE THIS ENTIRE EPISODE

I mean there probably was one under the music if that was Cas...

Well this alley has that cross from 11x06, aka the start of Cas's depression arc, the one where Metatron was teasing him about a real life angel on camera...

drive drive drive

Cross reflected in the car

Hey, bison sign

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Has he just been waiting at that phonebox for hours.

I'll just wait here then... I'll wait for you...

Well that got fucking tied up with a fucking bow, from all the left over crap Robbie left lying around.

God I don't even have anything to say... Cas waited. For Dean. Like the love ballad warned he would. Because he's Dean's real life angel, and Dean's win. It was FOR Dean. Dean's arc narratively brought Cas back into his life, but on Cas's side of the story they fully fleshed out the end of his depression arc and made Cas bring himself back on his own terms so it doesn't shove Cas into a subheading for Dean even when the bigger story is handing Cas on a plate back to Dean...

And that, my friends, was one hell of a fun game :P

#13x05 #season 13 spoilers #suicide mention cw #yockey fanclub #holy shit this episode was wish fulfilment of the highest order #Sometimes it is poetic #my stuff

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shardclan · 7 years ago

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The Sundial Brewery was different after Cassis left, but not half so much as it was after Shiraz had descended to take his place. While Cassis had been a jolly crooner that brightened the mood, Shiraz was an idol that could bring out a frenetic, edgy energy in the patrons of the Brewery. Both of them were natural born entertainers, but it was very obvious why Shiraz occasionally did concerts at Bramble Step while Cassis had been content to play soulful yet light-hearted music by the riverbend.

Carnelian and Arcanus sat with their backs to the bar, sipping thougtfully in the company of the equally bemused owners. Cloudwhyte and Alchemilla weren't used to this sort of energy. As far as they were concerned, they ran a quiet bar that happened to keep musicians on hand for mood music, but the vibe had suddenly become that of a concert hall. Shiraz was strutting and stomping and wailing all up and down a range that was bafflingly powerful at every note. Even considering he was a nocturne didn't make it less astonishing. Shiraz had taken his natural talent for mimicry and made something amazing out of it. The crowd around him seemed to lean back every time he released more of his voice, literally being blown away by it, and with every pause for breath they rushed back in for more.

And though Shiraz' performance was technically a Trickmurk event (for those who didn't have the fortitude for the kind of celebrations Bramble Step was having), right at the front was Stellaria, flushed, bright-eyed and dazzled in a way she usually only was after she'd gotten in a fight. Verbena and young Rebis were bouncing along to the music beside her on one side while on the other Xandina was showing a surprising lack of bodily coordination for a hunter. Eos had come with them, despite being totally out of their element. Shiraz' style was too much for their already high-strung and nervous baseline state and rather than join the thrashing crowd, they'd opted for a single glass of wine that had overpowered them in a very different way.

Carnelian leaned back and shouted over his shoulder to the owners. "Where's Merlot?"

"She's taken Cassis leaving pretty hard," Cloudwhyte answered with a shrug. "New partners are hard for skydancers. If she doesn't like what she feels from Shiraz or the energy he generates when they work together, she won't sing with him."

Carnelian glanced thoughtfully at Shiraz, and a moth-eaten memory of a very different musician arose. "How'd she get on with Rime?"

"Rime had nothing on Shiraz," Alchemilla balked. "Rime was a mad scientist hiding in a musician's body!"

"Doesn't answer my question."

"What? Oh, I dunno, they got on okay, I guess? Rime was a screamer and Merlot's voice sounds the way top shelf brandy tastes so it's not like they ever sang together."

Carnelian hummed into his glass and nudged Arcanus. "You'll bore a hole through her if you keep staring."

Arcanus ignored the jibe and kept his eyes on his niece. "I understand the two of you had a talk."

Carnelian pressed his lips together, and patiently reasoned to himself that Arcanus hadn't asked about Atsushi at all and that was behavior that should be rewarded. "We did. Ironed some things out."

"I gather. She looks happy." He smiled faintly. "You know Ashes is jealous."

"Of what?!" Carnelian snorted. "I'm not her dad!"

"When did I mention anything about her being your daughter?" Arcanus asked innocently, just barely hiding a smirk. "She knows who and where her dad is--it's not a hole that needs filling." He dipped his head over toward the snugly sleeping figure of Eos. "But she's been very fond you since the event with the pearlcatcher scroll."

"Fuck off, that girl doesn't love anybody as much as she loves her Uncle Arcanus."

"She relies on you," Arcanus pressed smoothly. "And that's something that Ashes can't say. He's great for an inquiry about magic, but no honest person would call him reliable."

Carnelian stared at his friend with a curled lip and a tight fist. He couldn't get a rise out of him tonight and it was starting to piss him off. Even though he smiled and talked and phrased his words in just the right way to pick at Carnelian's nerves, Arcanus was poorly concealing an unusual anxiety.

"You're killing my mood," he accused. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure."

Carnelian drained the rest of his drink with a mutter curse before dragging Arcanus out of the bar onto the open streets of Noon Point. The crowds of celebrating shadow dragons were dying down for the day, migrating to Bramble Step where they could cut loose and cut throat if it came to that. The queen was likely around somewhere with Bestialcian in tow, but Trickmurk was the one elemental holiday she didn't offer any kind of official celebratory address. They didn't hatch shadow eggs either--the last one had been Ilkilides and that had been more than enough to let them know that Aphaster was on poor terms with the Binder.

To keep out of the way of the milling crowd, Carnelian pulled them into the mouth of an alley where they could speak in private. "Did something happen between you and...?"

"No."

Carnelian squinted at the way Arcanus very noticeably didn't turn red. "Holy shit, did you actually get over her--ah, wait, no, there it is, you're blushing. False alarm."

"There are other things I concern myself with!" Arcanus insisted with what remaining dignity he had.

Carnelian shrugged and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. "To me they don't exist until you tell me what they are."

Arcanus crossed his arms. "I don't know yet. I would express it to you if I could, Carnelian, as my confidante."

"Easy on the flattery,” he mumbled over the cigarette. “So you just got a bad feeling?"

"An uneasiness, yes. An agitation I cant soothe with will or distraction."

"Spring is coming." He held his hands up peaceably to fend off the weary glare Arcanus shot him. "I'm not joking. Spring gets weird when you care about someone."

Something about the way he said it left Arcanus faintly wondering when Ismene was born. He had never asked. He probably never would. "I don't think that's it," he murmured. "Lately everything seems..." His brow creased with the strain of finding the right word, but to no avail. "I'm unsure. All I know is that I feel relief seeing that both you and my family are settled."

"Okay, whats your best guess why that might be?"

Arcanus looked around while he thought, which was in itself a tell. Sure, he'd loosened up a lot since they became close, but he was still a knight. His day job was to be a menacing presence at the queen’s back while showing little to no sign of personal emotion about the politics.

Carnelian wondered, not for the first time, if Arcanus' emotional trouble wasn't just a side effect of boredom. The Isles were unpredictable, you could lose a charge permanently during a simple walk in the woods or forget entirely that you had one because of a bad storm near the Liminal Band. He probably never had the time to have a bad feeling over something that didn't make itself known within the next few hours.

"I dont want to say it," the guardian finally admitted. "I don’t want to speak it."

Carnelian bobbed his head. "Something that bad you don’t want to give the universe ideas? I get that."

"You should remember that the universe will get ideas whether you speak them or not."

Carnelian leaned out with a snarl on his lips and a curse on his tongue, and both fizzled when he saw the distinctive match of a water emblem over Arcane eyes. Kiele was perhaps the rarest seen of all the witches of the Starwood coven. Being water-touched and a choosing to live as a witch had left her in a similar position to Tungsten, but while Tungsten had to use carefully applied ice magic, Kiele had Faded. She could never know when a vision might suddenly strike, but she had eons worth of Faded's magic laced as delicate as frost over her mind. Neither of them had known much about her to begin with, but like all young dragons who became witches, she wasn't the same dragon she had been before. It was hard to miss the family resemblance she shared with Kea, but that was about all they had in common.

"I'm pretty sure eavesdropping during Trickmurk is considered sacrilege," Carnelian muttered, leaning back into the shadows.

"...I'm clairvoyant," she deadpanned. "I don't think I was ever gonna win any points with shadowlings." She tossed her chin at Arcanus. "Besides, the knight's right."

"Is he now." The flicker of a match momentarily lit Carnelian's dour expression. "Some more business with the spirits?"

"There is plenty on this plane to make a keen man wary. The boy agrees with me."

Carnelian and Arcanus both exchanged a look of confusion, and leaned out together to find Apokathisto idling in one of the charming little nooks in the cafe’s facade with a half-demolished slice of aggressively violet black woods cake. He had the look of someone who was deeply embarrassed but was trying to pretend otherwise--which, combined with the smear of blackberry preserves on his chin, only made him look more guilty.

"How long have you been there?"

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered. "I was just trying to eat my cake..."

"How long. Have you been there."

"...The whole time."

Both men glared accusingly at each other in a furious but silent exchange. Carnelian was a detective, he stalked people all the time, he should have noticed a gawky adolescent hanging around; and Arcanus was supposed to be aware of his surroundings, he was the queen's knight after all. But it was a holiday and they were both a little drunk, so they made peace with a sigh.

"I thought it was odd to not see you around with Rebis here," Arcanus admitted. "Why aren't you in there with them?"

Apokathisto wilted and pushed sullenly at his cake. "There's no boys my age and I don't like the music."

It was hard not to sympathize with an answer like that. Even when they lived in the Isles, the clan had always had an unusually high number of female hatchlings, and that hadn't changed. Phage, Foster, Katiyana, and Lamium were the closest Apokathisto had to same-sex peers and they were, in order, a terrible influence, infamously shy, disinterested in dragons that weren't Zo or his relatives, and friendly but troubled. It shed a very lonely light on the situation.

Arcanus cleared his throat as subtly as he could, and Carnelian took the hint with a raised brow but nothing else. There was a short shriek as he threw Kiele under his arm and stalked off with her as though she were a just an unruly bag of potatoes, but it was quickly muffled by Shiraz' performance and the natural noise of the thoroughfare.

Not long ago, Apokathisto would have held Arcanus' hand as they walked, but he was getting to be that age where he felt such a thing was childish. It was often forgotten but Arcanus had been the caretaker and protector of dozens of hatchlings and watched over several into their adulthood. The behaviors of fledglings were no mystery to him, and the basic ability to respect their turbulent, often contradictory feelings made him very popular among adolescents. It was just rare anyone got to see it. But sure enough, as soon as they had passed beyond Noon Point and were alone on the walkways through the Summerlands, Apokathisto began walking a lot closer to him.

"You've been uneasy too?" the boy asked.

"I have," Arcanus answered honestly. "But I'm old and I've seen a lot and I have to wrestle with that myself. Children shouldn't be so troubled. What's wrong?"

Apokathisto grabbed a dried out stalk and snapped pieces from it as they walked. "I don't want to speak it."

"Has anyone harmed you?"

Snap. "No."

"Has anyone made you feel threatened?"

Snap. "No."

"Do you feel that you're in danger in any way?"

Snap.

Snap. "I don't know."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Apokathisto threw the last of the stalk away. "I don’t know."

Arcanus stopped them both, and knelt to look into Apokathisto's eyes. The boy always wore difficult expressions, but he usually wore them openly--now he seemed evasive, as if he didn't want it to show that something weighed on him. "I won't press you. But if you think of anything I can do, I hope you'll tell me."

At that, the boy did meet his eyes. They were striking as always--with their blue-white streaks like shooting stars, and the intensity of them was enough to catch even Arcanus off guard. There was anger in him; confusion and fear. "Is something going to happen to me?"

"Something like what?"

"I don't know...!" he cried pitifully.

The boy's face was going red. Again, Arcanus felt a poignant sympathy for the boy. If he was dealing with the same worrying unease that Arcanus was, it wasn't a wonder he was so upset. He was already so wary by nature, and he didn't seem to have anyone to confide in. He was frustrated and frightened, and in that moment Arcanus knew what it felt like to be Hart--to want nothing more than to be at Apokathisto's side and reassure him that he was safe. But to promise that would have been to lie in the boy's face in his moment of vulnerability.

"You know that my charge must come first," he said apologetically. "I cannot vow to protect you from all things at all times. But I can swear to you that I would never ignore it if I so much as suspected anything was going to happen to you."

It wasn't the most reassuring answer, but it was the truth. For a boy like Apokathisto, that was far more important. Though he wasn't crying, Arcanus turned his back and let the boy have a moment to collect himself and rebuild his idea of a mature demeanor before they continued along the quiet footpath.

At some point, Apokathisto quietly took Arcanus' hand and didn't let go.

#C: Apokathisto #c: arcanus #C: Carnelian #Aphaster Stories #Stars Rising #Flight Rising

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andinewton · 7 years ago

Text

Second Chances - Avengers Redemption Series - Part One Chapter 69

Characters: Loki, Maia Tomson (OFC), Sigyn, pretty much everyone from the MCU appears at some point, including some special appearances by members of the X-Men!

Pairings: Loki x Maia Tomson, Loki x Sigyn,

Warnings: Smut, so much smut, violence, swearing; listen, it’s NSFW and 18+, just bear that in mind!

Word Count: 179105

Summary: Loki has been handed over to The Avengers to pay penance for his past crimes, underpowered and underwhelmed by his post he is assigned a new ‘guide to Midgard’ by his superiors and is more than a little surprised when a petite freckled, redhead is waiting in the conference room, not at all like the previous handlers he has been assigned, who quit after a very short time with the snarky god. Maia Tomson is a trained literature teacher and counsellor, maybe not someone you would have picked out to be a guide to the God of Mischief but her mentor, Charles Xavier, knows she likes a challenge, and when The Avengers ask him to recommend someone she is top of his list. Surprised by the assignment, Maia takes it on, promising to do her best, but was not counting on a mutual attraction with her charge.

Join Loki on a journey to discover that his heart is not as frozen as he believes it to be, an adventure spanning almost a millennia of love gained and lost and rediscovered in the most unlikely of places…

Master List

A/N: I can’t do it! I can’t leave you on a cliffhanger!!!!

Chapter 69

Summary: Sigyn makes her escape, Loki finds himself in the mirror realm, fake-Loki in pursuit, reunited and Sig is super pissed at Loki.

Sigyn had broken the manacle but she wasn’t convinced she hadn’t also broken her wrist in the process. As a result she was currently crying as she made her way to the kitchen to try and find anything she could use firstly as a weapon and secondly as a bandage. The knife was easy to find, she checked a couple that were evidently meant for cooking for weight and sharpness, picking the one that would be easiest to heft left handed. As she found no first aid supplies of any kind she went to the cabinet whoever the fake Loki was had got her dress from. She was more than grateful when she found a leather belt she was able to bind her wrist with, lining it first with a rag. The pain as she drew it as tight as she could was almost blinding, her tears uncontrollable, but she did it all the same. Finally she went to the window nearest the bed, seeing if she could see any movement. She knew going out that one was the least likely, besides the one on the front of the building, simply because of the likelihood of the Anti-Loki coming back to the door. Seeing nothing she went to each of the other windows, checking for any sign of movement and finding none. The window behind the table and chairs looked the most likely. There were two smaller wooden buildings she could seek cover behind before she reached the tree line. She pushed at the locks and they slid out easily, but she didn’t yet open them. She took one last look around the room and her eyes fell on the mirror.

In the dream the real Loki had been trapped in a mirror, but he wasn’t here, she would have seen him by now. But, if there was no mirror, there was no chance of him getting stuck in it. Seven years bad luck was worth it to keep him safe, even if he had been such an ass to her. So, she carefully picked up the chair.

Loki turned as he found himself in a log cabin of some sort, coming to face what looked like a mirror and he sighed, realising where he was. Of course he was inside, looking out, the room held concave edges and as he approached he sensed movement. He sidestepped and saw a chair being hurled at him, badly, and fell back away from it, in time to see Sigyn had been the one throwing it. ‘Sig!’ He managed but it was too late, she didn’t see him and the mirror smashed. The shards fell outward but not to release him, and he could no longer see into the real room from his reflection. ‘Damn.’ Sigyn swore she heard her name. Afraid it might be the other Loki returning she rushed to the unlocked window and climbed carefully onto the remaining chair, clambering outside and dropping down onto her bare feet on grass. It was still dark but she couldn’t do anything about that, there were no portable light sources in the cabin, so she stayed close to the smaller buildings until she could make a break for the trees. The ground was rough under her feet, broken branches, brambles and damp leaves making her flinch often, but she carried on, not daring to stop. Loki looked around, trying to work out what to do. He couldn’t disenchant the spell from inside the mirror lest he remained trapped, but perhaps he could move between reflections. He went to the nearest window and pressed both hands against it. Stepping forward with a small nudge of power he felt himself slipping from the room and to the two dimensional surface of the window. He could now see outside, a dark clearing surrounded by trees. All he needed next was another reflection to aim for. Sigyn was sure she was being followed. Fear had a fierce grip on her and she was terrified of being caught. She was certain her feet were cut to shreds from the pain they caused her, and her wrist continued to ache, throbbing heavily and she had to loosen the belt due to swelling twice. If she wasn’t so concerned with escaping and not getting recaptured she would have worried about having some sort of permanent damage. The sun began to peek over the horizon, giving a soft light to everything but eerie movement to the shadows which had her jumping at things that weren’t there. She leant heavily on a felled tree, trying to slow her breathing but she knew her heart was hammering too fast to make much of a difference, pain and fear fuelling the adrenaline that kept both so high they threatened to choke her. She rested her rear on the log, the knife beside her, and held her sore wrist to her breast with the other hand, just hoping for a moment of relief. The pain was starting to make her feel queasy and that was not a good thing. She took a moment to examine her feet too, dirty and cut as she had expected, which made them hurt all the more. She wished she hadn’t bothered, and this stupid dress wasn’t helping matters. She really, really hated strapless, let alone being braless entirely despite the corset’s built in support, and it snagged on everything. She had no idea where she was, or what she was running into, or who from, just that she wanted to get away. She had never found herself in a situation like this, even as Sigyn she always had the rest of the warriors with her; Loki was always by her side; but now she was alone, with depleted power, in pain and no clue where to go. She pushed back tears again, wondering why she even bothered trying her hand at something else. She should have just put up and shut up at Xavier’s. She had a stable job, very little action, friends and a family. Now she had pretty much nothing but a broken heart and a wrist to match. She growled at herself, for letting her emotions get the better of her in such a desperate situation. ‘Come on, Maia, or Sigyn, either of you. We can do this. We’re going to get home, resume teaching and put all this behind us. Screw Loki, screw The Avengers, screw powers, we don’t need any of this.’ She knew it was untrue but she needed the right motivation and this was the best she was going to get. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to think past it all, concentrate, when she heard her name being yelled. ‘Sigyn! Sigyn, come back!’ It was Loki’s voice but she would have expected him to sound frustrated, she definitely wasn’t ready for the anger that came through in the tone from whoever this was. It did work to spur her on though and she swung her legs over the log then picked up the knife, detangling her dress and carrying on. She marked the position of the sun as best she could and tried to make sure she kept it in line with whatever she was able, but she only knew the sun rising and setting rules for earth, and as she had no idea where she was she had to assume it might not even be her sun. All she could do was hope for the best and carry on. As the sun rose there were more reflective surfaces for Loki to utilise; an axe in a log pile, a small window in an outbuilding, even dew on the leaves of the trees, and he was able to make progress, hoping to get as far as he could before the dew began to evaporate. He was wherever Sigyn was and he knew that was on Asgard yet cloaked. If he could get far enough away he might appear in Heimdall’s field of vision, and he would be very grateful of the fact. He was no use to anyone as a reflection. He could travel quickly through the dew, high in the branches as he could see more that way, even if his view were petite and convex, it still gave him a perspective and wider view, but when he found himself looking down at…himself, he was more than a little surprised, even though he had half expected it. So this was his double that had scared his sweet Sigyn from her dream? If he could reach him now he would have slit his throat, but that could wait. If he was heading this way it was hopefully towards her and as though to prove it the figure below called her name, it echoed around his dewdrop like the memory of his own voice. So, he was on the right path. He redoubled his efforts, travelling faster despite how tiring it was with his reduced powers, darting from side to side to maximise the area he checked, and he didn’t have far to go. He found her on her knees at the edge of a stream, holding her right hand to her chest, her left rested on a large kitchen knife. The closer he drew he realised her shoulders shook as though she were trying not to sob out loud, and as he reached a leaf directly above her he saw her feet were dirty and bloody. ‘Oh, Sig love.’ He murmured and gave a supreme effort to step into the stream itself, appearing just beyond her but moving close enough he could see her eyes closed, tears dripping from them onto the bank. Her wrist was a horrific shade of burgundy with darker shades interspersed, and so very swollen he could only imagine what she had done, a belt cinched around it making him think it may be broken. ‘Sig.’ He said, hoping she would hear him, and she froze, knowing she had heard something, but where from or how close she was unsure, the sound like an echo. ‘Shit.’ She muttered as her hand gripped the knife again. ‘Sig, down here.’ He said again and her eyes darted around first then fell on him in the water, where her own reflection should be. She jumped and slashed out with the knife, disrupting the surface, and Loki’s vision swam for a moment but he tried to talk through it. ‘Sig, love, it’s me, I promise.’ He said but she was apparently trying to push herself to her feet. ‘Sunbeam, stop, it’s me. This is what you needed the enchantment for, I’m in the reflection, the Mirror Realm.’ She leant back on her heels, having not succeeded in rising, and pointed at the stream as it cleared again with the knife. ‘How do I know it’s you?’ She whispered. ‘And not some trick?’ ‘I could fit my teeth to the perfect imprints along your spine, if you’d like.’ He shrugged as he came back into focus completely. ‘You arrogant shit!’ She pushed herself up with some effort. ‘Give me one good reason why I should get you out!’ ‘Because together we have a better chance of getting away from whoever the Hel that is doing a second rate impersonation of me.’ He explained, then his expression softened. ‘You’re hurt, love, let me help you.’ ‘You kicked me out! Or did you forget that?’ She hissed. ‘I was deluded, useless and dismissed, remember?’ ‘I…’ He sighed. ‘We do not have time to argue, but if you release me I will aid you and then give you the explanation you deserve.’ ‘I am so tempted to tell you to go fuck yourself.’ She swallowed hard, knowing she was going to do it anyway. ‘It would serve you right!’ ‘It would, entirely, if I only had the option to fuck myself for the rest of my life. Darcy’s after my balls anyway, so even that might not be an option.’ He said, as she laid the knife by her feet and started murmuring the disenchantment he had taught her. ‘Good girl.’ He said quietly as she went through the spell word for word, pushing a little with her magic, before finally dropping her hand to the water, falling to one knee as she reached for him. The surface of his reflection shimmered and he pressed his hand against hers, lacing their fingers and pulling himself free, stepping out of the stream as though it were a sidewalk that angled weirdly and he collapsed to his knees beside her, pulling her to him. ‘I am so sorry, beloved, so, so sorry.’ ‘Get off me, you bastard!’ She shoved at him but he was far too strong and not letting go. ‘You’re here to help me, not to wheedle your way back into my favour!’ ‘Sigyn!’ The other voice came from so much closer behind them and Loki tensed, reaching for the knife but she beat him to it. ‘That’s mine!’ She snapped as he instead got them to their feet. ‘And are you able to wield it, left handed, when you can barely stand?’ She waved the knife at his throat. ‘Fuck off.’ ‘Goodness, your tongue can scald.’ He smiled at her. ‘We need to move.’ ‘Where the Hel to? It's not like we have a map.’ He led her across the stream, the water relieving yet stinging her feet at the same time, but his arm around her waist took some of the weight from them, helping her along. ‘We are on Asgard, sweet. If we travel far enough in one direction we should reach the edge of whatever magical cloak keeps us from Heimdall’s view, and then we can expect Thor, Sif and The Warriors Three to the rescue.’ ‘And in the meantime?’ ‘We try and put enough distance between us and him.’ ‘Enough distance for what?’ ‘For you to see if you can remove this cuff.’ She glared at him. ‘If this is some ruse…’ ‘No ruse, sunbeam, we need some sort of protection, and what better way than…’ ‘Than to power you. No.’ 'I am trying to save you.' 'You're trying to save yourself, as usual.' 'Can we talk less and hurry more?' He suggested. 'You may berate and abuse me once we are safe.' 'Sounds perfect.' She grumbled insincerely. He helped her on through the trees without another word, refusing to let her go despite her attempts to pull away. The trees began to thin out, the terrain became more rocky, which did nothing for her sore feet, but for Loki this meant a better chance of cover. He stopped them, despite her trying to continue, and looked around. ‘Small direction change, pet.’ He said as he all but lifted her sideways from the direction they had been following. Sigyn didn’t answer, she was quietly seething but she needed him to get out, she just wished him being here didn’t hurt so much. She tried not to watch him as he knocked on several of the giant tree trunks, finally finding one that was hollow. ‘Wait, we’re hiding in a tree?’ She asked as he helped her around the trunk to find the side chewed away by something that must have had large teeth, the gap big enough for them to crawl into easily, and Loki allowed her in first, checking they were not seen before following her. ‘The tree is the perfect place to hide because no one in their right mind would hide in it.’ He whispered as he reached for her ankle to examine her wounds but she drew her legs up to her chest and away from him. She looked around while a little more memory came back. ‘This is the hole of a giant wolf!’ She hissed. ‘If it comes back…’ ‘It’s abandoned, the lichen at the entrance is a sign of that.’ He reminded her. ‘Let me see your wounds, sunbeam.’ She waved the knife at him angrily. ‘Don’t call me that! I will cut you!’ He tried not to smile but couldn’t quite help it. ‘Sorry.’ ‘Stop. Smirking.’ She said through gritted teeth. ‘Just relieved you’re alright.’ ‘No thanks to you.’ ‘Is that what this doppelgänger dressed you in?’ He nodded towards the dress which was now dirty and torn around the ankles. She nodded. ‘Fool, doesn’t he know you hate strapless?’ She glared at him. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want him sitting in front of her, smiling as though nothing had happened. She swallowed hard enough that it hurt, knowing that with the adrenaline and pain more tears weren’t far away but she didn’t want him to know how much she hurt, and not just physically. He didn’t deserve that power over her. He watched her war with herself, could almost see it in her eyes, that she wanted to stay angry, and strong, but she was hurting in so many ways, and it was all his fault. ‘Sig, please, let me help you.’ He said quietly but she shook her head, not trusting her voice. He went to his knees and moved closer to her, but was careful not to touch. ‘I know I hurt you, but right now we need to think logically. If you remove my cuff I can heal you and replace all the magical energy you use, I can give you a better fighting chance. I will replace your clothes with something more suitable, but there is no point until you are healed.’ ‘And if I remove the cuff, what’s to stop you from just leaving me here?’ She whispered but he was unsure whether her voice was low from fear of being caught or emotion. ‘I promise you, I will not leave you behind.’ Her bottom lip quivered and a lone tear escaped, betraying her. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He closed his eyes and swallowed. He had hurt her so much, his sweet Sigyn who meant more to him than anyone in the nine realms, he had to tell her the truth but they were on borrowed time. ‘Sig, please, you have to listen to me.’ She didn’t interrupt and as he looked back up at her his expression was one of regret, but she couldn’t be sure if it was truth or lie. ‘I am so very sorry. My deceit fills me with such regret I cannot even begin to apologise for it. I didn't lie to you when I promised you nothing but truth, but I did when I said you meant nothing to me, I just did what I thought was right. I pushed you away to try and save you from this very thing, but all I succeeded in doing was putting you in more danger, hurting you. Remorse numbs me, and I could never expect your forgiveness for the promise I broke, for the words I said, but please, trust me when I say I am sorry, that you can trust me in this, and once we are free, if you never want to see me again, I understand, but for now let me help. This is our only chance.’ Sigyn cleared her throat. ‘You’re a liar, I can’t trust anything you say.’ She sighed. ‘But I don’t see I have a lot of choice.’ She laid the knife down between them. ‘I’ll try.’ He nodded, unable to answer without more apologies she only thought insincere. ‘What happened to your wrist?’ He asked quietly. ‘Like it matters.’ She held her trembling left hand out to him and after a moment he held out his arm with the cuff. He had hoped she would take his apology, but she was so scared, angry and in pain she probably couldn’t see past it. He may have lost her forever, a second time, but if he could ensure her safety, return her home, he would be satisfied. Sigyn placed her hand over the cuff, refusing to make eye contact with him. She knew there was a chance she would wake up alone, or returned to her incarceration, but neither one could hurt as much as having to sit with Loki while he pretended to be sorry for all he had said to get his own way. Her chest burned with the urge to cry and she tried to swallow it, but it came out as a choking sob, and as she called up a burst of energy she hoped would destroy the cuff the tears began to flow. ‘I hate you.’ She whispered, knowing it was a lie. She loved him, she had never loved anyone as much as she did him, but she would never let anyone have that control over her again. ‘I know.’ He murmured and felt her magic rise, a sudden burst of power that pushed him back against the trunk of the tree. The cuff cracked then fell away in pieces, dropping to the mossy floor between them as she fell forward, her eyes closing as unconsciousness beckoned.

Chapter 70

#loki #loki fanfiction #Loki/Sigyn #Loki/OFC #loki x sigyn #loki x ofc #Avengers #Avengers Redemption #reincarnation

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magnoliasandbeardedtooth · 8 years ago

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you should talk about your ocs! please... tell me about them...

hooh boy you don’t know what you just started

rubs hands together

Oliver, Julian, and Lucus are part of a kind-of-real-life universe that my friend made up for his elsen oc’s (I made them specifically for that new universe, out I also rly rly love elsen so they have OFF versions too) These are my main ones, the ones I think about daily, the ones I will cherish forever

I had literal paragraphs for these guys but I cut them down cause it was a fuckin book

Oliver is my top #1 oc, I love him so much. He’s really fuckin tall, and is the softest nicest person ever. He’s that one guy that is terrifying when he’s angry because he rarely ever is. He wears nothing but sweater and will die of heatstroke before he takes one off. His favorite color is pink. He doesn’t get enough sleep and works 2 full time jobs, at a hardware store in the mornings and at an arcade evenings. When the fair comes around in summer, he works weekends there too. He’s bad at cooking cause he only has time for coffee, microwave diners, and his girlfriend (who is teaching him how to cook).In OFF, he’s a carnival worker in Zone 2, and is dead insideHe was created specifically for my friend’s oc, Eli, who is his girlfriend and they love each other so gosh dang much. He is also Lucus’s and Julian’s kind-of-father-figure (and used to be their cushion, until Eli told him she wasn’t comfortable with seeing them so physically intimate without her, and he respected her and asked them to stop, which they did)

Lucus is Loud Boy. He has severe ADHD and is Gay As Fuck. He is almost always smiling and laughing. He’s the one who always gets in trouble, but everyone loves him cause he’s super nice and rambunctious. He’s the one who goes to Pride almost naked. He’s even worse at cooking than Oliver. Like, most people who are bad at cooking get the reaction “Oh whatever, it’s a mess, but it’s mostly edible.” His is “God jesus please don’t let him touch anything in the kitchen, please lord.” He works as a mailman, but only the guy who takes the package and puts it next to the door, cause he can’t drive, even he knows it’s a bad idea for him to try. He also can’t remember if his name is actually Lucas or Lucus, but he’s been writing “Lucus” for as long as he could remember, and no one corrected him, so he just rode with it.In OFF, he’s one of the postal workers in Zone 1, and he opens letters, reads them, throws them out, and steals from his coworkers’ quotas.

Julian is Sour Boy. He’s quiet, anxious, depressed, bitter, and guarded. He’s not mean, but he’s very scared of people as has become bitter as a sort of defense for when people dislike him, which he thinks is often. He’s very quietly polite, though, and though he has a lot of trouble being close to someone, and once he does he’s very warm. He’s also very witty and has insane clap backs, like he’s the one that destroys people (Lucus fucking loves it). He rly loves hanging things like mobiles, and his ceiling is covered with them. He works at a butcher’s shop, but because of how cheap and terrible his boss is, he cuts himself on the bad equipment a lot, so his arms are covered in small scars (not from self harm though).In OFF, he works as one of those people who take the metal from the cow halves, which is where he cuts his hands. When he finds a piece he rly likes, he’ll take it and hang it up in his home.

Julian and Lucus are qpp, they’re so fucking tight. They met in college, and have been roommates ever since, but soon after they got an apartment, they started sleeping in the same bed. Lucus used to have a crazy crush on Julian, but Julian is ace aro, and Lucus respected his boundaries and values him too much to be away from him. In turn, Julian respects when Lucus rly needs sexual attention and goes to pick someone up. Julian supports Lucus, and Lucus encourages Julian, to the point where they save each other’s lives. I like to say that Julian keep Lucus from burning alive, and Lucus keep Julian from freezing to death.

I could write a WHOLE LOT MORE about them but that’d be nutsALRIGHT then there’s also Jamie and Annie, who are a couple that met online, and now either visit each other often, or have moved in together, I can’t rly decide which.

Jamie is a trans boy, and started transitioning back in middle school. He’s fully transitioned now, with top and bottom surgery, with strong support from his mother, who is dead now. He LOVES anything nautical, absolutely loves it. He sings sea shanties to himself, he has tattoos, he’s saving up for his own boat, the works. He especially loves pirates, and reads anything he can on them. He’s kind of condescending, especially at first glance, but he’s strongly supportive of Annie.

Annie is a very very shy girl, and super insecure. She rly doesn’t like herself, especially her body. Like at all. She only wears baggy clothing, and is constantly doubting if she’s worth Jamie. She’s also an amputee with one of her legs, though I don’t know to what extent, from the knee at the highest I think. Back when she was a kid, her father moved to alaska and brought her with, cause he was super into shit like alaskan reality TV and Call of the Wild and stuff. He prepared as much as he could, even lived with a local for a while to get the hang of it. But one time, when Annie was out hunting, a blizzard came in and trapped her way away from their home. She nearly died and ended up losing some of her leg. That’s what made her father decide that it wasn’t worth it, and moved them back.

Jamie super admired her courage, not only in that, but in her surviving day to day, and Annie really admires Jamie’s confidence and ambition. They also both greatly appreciate the love they give each other, since they both feel super alone.

Amour is a poly girl who just wants to find the loves of her life. Her name isn’t legally Amour, but that’s the one she likes using (I can’t remember which legal name I decided for her) She’s also socially anxious, kind of like Annie, but not because of self loathing. She’s more scared of outside opinion than herself. She’s also a sort of sex worker who caters especially to those with a “fat kink,” though she’s also a fan of doing lingerie and other stuff that I haven’t decided. She’s a very new oc, so there’s not much about her yet, but I know she runs an nsfw blog with at least a few other people, one of which being a girl she looks up to highly.

I also have a Starbound oc whose name I can’t quite remember. She’s a novakid and she’s awesome. She’s all cheery and silly until she kicks ass. She loves her crew and thinks they’re all awesome.

Whisper was created for my by a friend, he’s based on the will-o-the-wisps. He’s a teeny little being made out of like plasma, and he wears a hooded cloak and has a crescent moon shaped mask that covers all but one eye. He leads humans deep into the forest to feed… other things. He loves shiny things and LOVES soda, and can create minor illusions.

Whisper’s friend is the same species as him, but she hates humans hates being around them, hates hearing about them. They only thing they’re good for is feeding… other things. And also using certain body parts for spells n shit. She’s a very angry little witch. She has long spiky twigs coming out of her head, and she can make and control brambles. She wears a lil witchy cloak and a big hat, and a scrap of cloth covering one eye that’s snagged on some of her head twigs. I’ve been calling her Bramble Witch, but she still needs an actual name.

Rei’orin was created to rp with a friend of mine, but he’s kind of grown into a universe of his own. He was originally a djinn in the rp, but has since become a strong magical mass with highly destructive tendencies. His power can be compared to that of our sun, but beings who are more like the size of Rigel decided he was too much of an asshole and trapped him on earth, just when it was being formed. He was so pissed, he delayed the cooling of the crust and formation of the first cells by a fuckin while. When he calmed down, he participated in whatever life popped up, especially human civilization. Then humans discovered him and found out he was being held there against his will, and used it to develop trapping mechanisms of their own, which they used to trap other djinns/star beings on earth for their own purposes. When they thoroughly understood how to do it, they trapped him not just on earth, but a teeny little object that they could manipulate him with as well. Also he’s genderfluid!! As far as human identities go

Bois is a demon who’s job it is to corrupt souls and bring them to hell. Most demons have a different methods, and Bois’s is to pose as a potential victim of the person’s worst desires and have them take it out on him. Once they do, he’s able to take their newly corrupted souls to hell. He’s a very sassy boy, and doesn’t get along with one demon in particular, whose abilities I can’t quite remember.

I also used to have a mer oc named Ahti that lived in a mangrove forest, befriended a young pheonix girl, and traveled around with her after another, older, more powerful pheonix lady gave him legs and turned him into a wizard. He grows old and after the pheonix girl dies and is reborn, he continues to travel with her despite the loss of her memories, and kind of raises her. This happens multiple times, until he grows old and dies. I don’t rly rp with him anymore tho…

ALRIGHT AND THIS IS THE BIG DOOZYThese next ones are all for the universe I’ve been developing for a while. I can’t say much about them cause to do that I would need to explain the rest of the world along with them

FIRST is the cyclops lady (wth 6 arms), who is a seer and STILL after all this time, doesn’t have a name. She used to just be a regular old cyclops lady who got married to someone of another species (he was a big boy). Soon after they got married, however, one of the divine forces of their world bestowed her with an eye that could see the future. All was fine for a while and she was learning to deal with it with her husband’s support, until a few years later when they were caught in a fire. Something took over her, kind of like a divine instinct, and forced her to sacrifice half of her body and her husband to keep her eye undamaged. She completely lost the use of 3 of her arms, and partially on the other 3, and she can only really do stuff with her top right arm. She also keeps the femur bone of her husband as a keepsake, and uses it as a cane (it’s still a bit too big for her). Now she works as the seer for the royal council of the 5 other nations, as well as owning a magical items shop. She also sells potions (which are very dangerous and outlawed) on the black market

One of the Royal Council members is a queen called The Silenced. She is very very intimidating. She wears a mask and doesn’t speak a word. Before she became queen by herself, she used to rule with her husband, but bad shit happened and she ended up getting exposed to divine magic. Unlike the cyclops seer, she wasn’t given the ability to deal with it, and instead was severely wounded. Her face was disfigured and she mentally lost the ability to speak.

Another of the Royal council is the Bramble King, who is a partial floating skeleton with an animal skull, spiral horns, field grass growing out of his skull, and a big ol cloak. He looks intimidating but he is just the friendly grandpa.

Another of the Royal council is Loch Raven, who is a beast covered in feather, with a raven’s head and 6 arms, though she walks quadrupedal. Despite being a bird thing, she sends the vast majority of her time in the water, and is only comfortable in the swamp that is most of her kingdom. She is always wet, and never dry ever. Like you could try and dry her off and she would never be dry. Her kingdom’s leadership is based on a tournament style overtaking every few years or so. Someone who wants to be ruler challenges the current ruler and they fight to the death. Whoever wins gets to be ruler from then until someone challenges them. Loch Raven has the 2nd or 3rd longest lasting rule so far, lasting a could decades.

A recent addition to the royal council is a pair of twin magitech robots (kind-of object heads) Their kingdom was previously ruled by a dictator who would not be let into the council, and has recently gone through a civil war that has left most of their land a wasteland. Once the resistance won, the twins, who had been strong leaders in the war, took over and asked to be part of the council.

The last member is a friend’s oc, a big fuckin mantis whose kingdom is on the other side of nearly impenetrable mountains.

All the monarchs get to bring two advisors to the council, and no one else.

there was another old character that I included in this universe, that used to be the guardian of an unknown forest somewhere, without knowing who made them or why they were created, only that their purpose was to defend the forest. Since then, I’ve moved them to this universe, where they defend the forest that was where life first began on the planet. They’re this big thing, like at least 20 ft. They have a face made out of wood and long straight black hair, and two long feathers on their forehead, kind of like antenna that point backward. They don’t have a body, but a big sheet of moss, leaves, vines, etc swoop down like a cloak from where their shoulders should be.

WELL THAT’S ALL MY MAJOR CHARACTERS I THINK

gosh I love oc’s, they’re so rad

I rly rly appreciate you asking about them, thank you so much 💖💖💖

#speaks #oc's #asks #gosh I've been writing for so long I hope it's not too late #Anonymous #I have been waiting YEARS for someone to ask about oc's

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