#if they are not in any of the above they're probably swimming in the toilet bowl lake waiting for the flush button to be pressed

[akemiiya]

something i learned over the past two weeks of scouring ao3 is that it's not an isat fic if it doesn't come with at least one content warning. and if it doesn't have any content warnings it is too good to be true and you should at least expect a plot twist or unhappy ending

[littlebird-99]

Dreams Into Reality

Thorin X Tay

Warnings: Thorin being sweet, injured Kili

Summary: Tay lets Thorin in on her feelings and more about her world.

Masterlist

We reached Bard's house, much to the dwarves' complaints about having to swim in the water and appear in Bard's home through his toilet, but we were protected from the people of Lake Town, or more so, their 'king.' I could feel Thorin's diamond-like eyes on me the whole trip, almost as if he was scared I would vanish again, at least that's what I kept telling myself he was thinking, that, or my mind went dark and he was probably hoping I would disappear again. 

"I don't think I'll be able to eat fish the rest of my life," I hear Ori say as we get dried off and comfortable, I let out a small laugh, shaking my head as I pat his back gently, "I think you'll be able to, Ori, maybe in a few weeks time, but you will," I spoke softly before feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turn seeing Bards youngest daughter behind me holding up a pair of clothes, "oh, thank you, sweet girl," I give her a small smile, "they belonged to my mother, da thinks they should fit you." I take the clothes gently, "thank you, Tilda," I nod softly, before finding somewhere to change privately. I stand in front of a mirror, glancing at my form, my pale eyes, and the scars lining my arms as I pull the shirt off my body, "could one look any more broken and torn down?" the question formed on my lips, before I pull the new clothes on, running my fingers through my hair, braiding pieces so they're out of my face. 

Just as I was walking back I hear voices around the corner, "No, we are not together!" 'Thorin' I thought to myself as I press myself against the wall, my head telling me that I shouldn't be listening, but my interest was peaked now, and my heart really wanted to know, "at least... not yet." "What do you mean not yet? It seems to me that you two are together," 'Bard' I thought, "I must have read you both wrong, I do apologize about that," 'He definitely didn't, at least from my side..'

"Kili Durin, if I have to strap you down to the table so you'll rest, we will have problems. Lay down and stop moving. I need to check the wound," I speak softly, trying my hardest to forget the conversation I had listened to, moving to tend to Kili as well as possible, trying to get him comfortable while randomly glancing back to Thorin and Bard, my mind going back to his words. "When did you get back?" Kili speaks up from above me as I tend to his knee, "Tay?" I glance up at him quickly, "hmm?" "I asked when you got back..." His voice hinting at joking behind it, and I look back down at his knee. "Tay?" I shake my head gently before sitting by him, "I got back shortly after Legolas and Tauriel took you guys in... Bilbo found me shortly after. Thankfully all the spiders were gone, and I didn't have to deal with them... I wouldn't have made it back if they were alive."

"I like to think you would have, those spiders ain't got nothing compared to ya, you're a warrior, and ya know that, Lass," I look up at Dwalin as he speaks. "Ya know how to hold yourself, and we've each seen it for ourselves; that and the fact ya smacked Thorin across the face shows you're a warrior." 

"Nice try, Dwalin... But we all know the only reason I smacked Thorin was due to the adrenaline from fighting the Trolls, and he was quite pissing me off at that moment..." I let out a small laugh until Dwalin shook his head and give me a small smile, "nice try, little bird, but we know you're a warrior..." he said, "no one is that brave to smack Thorin, not even myself Lass.. therefore, ya are brave," "aye lass!" I turn to look at Bofur, before rolling my eyes, "You're all quite stupid, I have yet to fight anything, you all took care of the trolls, I just let the ponies free. I'm not a warrior..." I look up at Fili who just shakes his head, a soft smile playing on his face as he nods to look behind me. I turn and see Thorin. His head moved, gesturing towards a different room; after making checking that Kili was okay, I stand and move towards the room, taking a deep breath before walking into where Thorin was.

"Thorin," I started as I moved further into the room, he moves and closes the door before turning to face me, holding his hand up causing me to stop speaking.

"Let me speak first, please..." he started, "I'm sorry about what happened the last time we talked. I shouldn't have tried to force you-"

"Force me?" I questioned, I started to pace slightly, keeping my feet moving, "No, Thorin, you weren't forcing me; you weren't doing anything wrong. I was scared of the possibility of leaving you, terrified that you'd get sick of me one day... But I shouldn't have been scared. Well, that will always plague me, Thorin, I'll always be scared you'll soon find me annoying, find the things that I do annoying... or you find me annoying as everyone else has.." I speak quietly, looking at my hands, fiddling with my thumbs, chewing at my cheek gently until I taste metallic in my mouth. "Thorin, I.. I think I love you.” my voice carried through the room as I continued looking at my hands.

"You think?" I glare at him, my brows furrowed as I finally just shake my head, "I... Tay you deserve better than me," his words caused my heart to crack, the pain causing me to look away from the dwarf, "that's what you don't get," I whisper, picking at a hang nail on my thumb, "I don't care if I deserve better, because I want you." I hear his breathing get heavier, "you may think that I deserve better but to me, there is nothing better than you." I could hear him getting closer so I backed up with each step he took until he finally just stopped walking. "I think... I think in a way I've always been in love with you. Since seeing Gandalf pulling you from behind him, to you disappearing from my sight and having you come back to me." I feel a smile grow on my face and play with the sleeves on my shirt, until he stops me, pulling them up, his eyes glazed with water.

“What... What happened when you returned to your world?” my eyes shot to where he was looking, I shook my head gently, giving him a soft smile as I pulled my arm away from him, “Nothing important Thorin...” I speak softly, moving to go towards the door. "Tay... Please, I need to know." I stop walking and look at the ground, chewing at my cheek and thinking about how to respond, before turning back to face him, glancing up at him through the hair that had fallen over my eyes.

"It was like I wasn't even gone, Thorin, like, no one knew I had disappeared. It... It makes me that that it's easier for people when I'm not around. It hurt to realize that no matter what happens to me, people will go on living like I wasn't there, to begin with. I love that man from my world, more than words can explain, but it... it's tearing apart my soul when he acts like I'm not even there, he hardly holds me, never kisses me, and if I try to kiss him, he acts like I taking time from his day for it. I... Mahal, I need to stop talking... Nothing happened while on my earth while I was there."

"Please talk about it, if you let this hurt you, you're letting them win. You're letting the people who are dimensions away from you hurt you, you don't have to find the perfect words, just tell me what you're feeling. I'm here to listen." I feel his hands grab mine and pull me closer, I look up at him, my eyes searching his sapphire ones, trying to decide on what to tell him. "Why do you want to know, Thorin? About my earth?" "Because your earth causes you pain, I wish to know how I can help you while you live here. You don't have to carry it all, you know. Humans aren't made to be solidarity creatures. I want to help." It was different, hearing Thorin speak like this, the only time I had heard him like this, was at the end of Battle of the Five Armies, and I refuse to watch the end of that.

Pulling my hands from his, I move to play with the bracelet on his wrist, "I don't wish to speak of my world, please? It just makes me hurt, thinking that despite my missing, they don't have a clue, they don't know I'm gone. But at the same time, I guess... I guess I'm relieved?" I ask more as a question, questioning even myself as I talk, before I feel my head shaking, moving my hands to his again, "I belong with you, Thorin. I belong in Middle Earth with everyone, Bilbo, Bofur, Dwalin... I belong here."

I look at our hands as I feel his thumbs run across my knuckles, before I look back up, seeing the wheels turning in his head before he removes his hands from mine before I feel his lips crush into mine with a force, causing my hands to grip his shirt, his hands moving up my shirt, palms pressed flat against my back holding me close, the warmth of his hands on my skin causing my body to heat up. I feel the tears streaking down my face as I finally kiss him back, holding him close against me until he pulls away,  his hands moving to my face, gently wiping the tears away, I keep my eyes closed, in fear that this is all a dream and I was back on my earth. "Please, please never leave me again," his voice is just above a whisper, finally opening my eyes I meet his oceanic ones, "Please never leave me again, I thought I had lost you for good, and I... I can't go through that pain again. I couldn't bear it. I truly... I care for you"

I sit in silence, looking up at him as tears fill my eyes, trying to find the words to say but my mind is still on that kiss, it wasn't anything like the first one, this one, I could feel everything that Thorin felt, I felt his love, his pain, I felt it all. 

"Tay... say something, please," His voice broke me out of my thoughts and I blinked quickly before crashing my lips back against his, eyes fluttering closed once more as I kiss him again, standing on my toes, I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him close. After a bit, I break away from the kiss, sighing softly, "You're stuck with me, Thorin, I don't plan on leaving. You deserve to know... it's you. It's always been you Thorin."

"You have to stop doing that."

My brows furrow as I look up at Thorin, "I... Doing what?" I question the king in front of me, watching his eyes as they gleam with happiness.

"Saying things that make me wish to kiss you more, Amrâlimê."

[isaacathom]

because ive drawn naielle in a naval coat im now struck with imagining how she and florian and zimri actually fare in a navy.

and like, i already know how naielle would fare. she's faring. she generally obeys orders, keeps to her spot, would work her way up slowly over time. she's fine. in canon she has a nominal captaincy but im not sure that, in a "proper" situation, she would get that. i think she'd be a perpetual lieutenant type, only afforded captaincy over prizes, which i guess is technically what happened, so it works out!

floooorian. floor ryan. big issue off the bat - canonically hates boats. very much not a fan. its not that he cant swim - he demonstrably can. It's the distance from the shore bit. A river, okay, fine. the ocean? fuck me. so he's ill disposed for the navy as a base. that thusly ignored, how he ends up factoring into a naval hierarchy depends on when we're talking.

florian c. the start of the campaign? ???? seamen, leading seamen at BEST. he's just doing the hard work, he's grumpy as fuck about the entire thing, he's rough. he's not a commander of any kind, so being 'lead' would be by dint of longevity of service at that point.

florian v. now?? 1.5 years in? well. he's got potential? he'd be the sort of guy that maybe is respected by the crew, and DEFINITELY not by his superiors, because the mans actual knowledge is low, book learning in the toilet, but he's solidly reliable. he knows the bits that 'matter', for a given definition. he's got a decent tactical head on his shoulders. he performs well under pressure (unlike, say, Naielle). im not sure he'd get up into warrant ranks, and i think his lack of book knowledge would prevent him getting above midshipman. i dont think he'd mind. At his best, he'd be the guy who gets well commended for his work during a boarding, but flunked the lieutenants exam so horrifically (despite demonstrable effort) that promotion isnt even Considered. acting, at best.

Ziiiimri! zimri! i think that zimri would be the one to get highest in rank. competent, cool under pressure, intelligent - zimri could get high in the ranks. but only if they wanted to. which is the difference. the only way you get Zimri to step up and take initiative is to make that the only damn option. They're otherwise pretty content to be lead, to operate within orders. so, yknow, kill their captain and first lieutenant and zimri will make an effort to step up. another failing of zimri is a general... low empathy? which isn't a bad thing per se, serves them well in the thick of battle because they don't get stopped in their tracks by tragedy, but in the aftermath they come off cold and uncaring. not their fault - they just don't express it well. but i feel like that'd sit poorly with crew.

its all very loosey. now if you put them all on the SAME boat, fuck. how messy that gets depends entirely on when each of them joins on. for instance if Naielle joins first, she can safely and quietly ascend to lieutenant without worry. ditto for Zimri. really, the key here is florian, because florians attitude could impact either of them.

florian would probably be annoyed to serve under naielle and content to serve under zimri, because the latter is i think base line more competent, and their no-nonsense nature suits florian perfectly fine. Naielle's big bleeding heart and worrying would probably be insufferable for him (zimri wouldn't care), and the two would probably end up butting heads. it wouldnt escalate to a usurpation or anything - naielle is competent enough to prove WHY she has the position, so given the opportunity she would show that, and florian would have to begrudgingly respect it. the alternative way she gets him to shut the fuck up is if she actually pushes back on any of his shit, instead of just hiding behind pulling rank. like instead of going 'thanks for your input, mr de kasimir, i didn't ask' going 'mr de kasimir, im sorry, but youre fucking wrong.' THAT he'd have to respect.

zimri would very much be just like. off side. going :) fascinating.

im basically imagining like, zimri and naielle are both lieutenants under some other person (zimri probably the higher ranked lieutenant because of Reasons), and this entire matter with Florian just becomes a thorn in naielle's side. theres a whole plot spooling out there. 90% of it arises from the fact that most of naielle's strengths are things that happen behind doors - navigation charts and the like. plenty of time for florian to bristle under her style of leadership, to try and go behind her back to talk to Zimri, who is utterly uninterested in the matter and tells him to drop it. and then so it goes. im not going to get too deep into this but it would be funny.

i just think imagining my various ocs together is fun. naielle and florian absolutely do not get along At All. Florian is infinitely capable of coming to respect Naielle (both in this au navy context and like, In general), and Naielle as well, but Naielle would not like Florian. they simply do not vibe. She's too polite and emotional and whatever, and he's a kinda surly jackass. the command relationship would work out fine enough, i think they could work together okay, but like. personally? no, right.

especially doesnt help that neither are ever quite completely emotionally honest, both dealing with some Backstory Situations they refuse to elaborate on, so theres like. no way to build that connection. canon, anyway. though in a navy context both of them would Appear To Have run away to join the navy, and the fact they HAVE that shared backstory element and DO NOT use it to form a connection? thats comedy.

[ambiguouspuzuma]

It turns out that someone died.

Not the woman who screamed. I don't even know if you can scream with your throat cut open, which is what happened to the dead guy. It looks horrible, if I'm being honest. I wanted to offer my scarf to put around him, so that the woman didn't have to see it any more - she was sitting in the seat across - but I worried it might mess up the forensics. The last thing I want is my DNA all over the wound.

She thinks it must have happened when the lights went out. She hadn't noticed anything wrong before, then there was a brief panic with the blackout - it was the same as for me in the toilet, complete darkness for a minute or two - and when they came out of the tunnel she was mostly glued to the window. It took my approach for her to look around, and there he was. Or there he had been.

I'm the same with the tunnel, by the way. I remember the first time I took the Eurostar I was obsessed with it, terrified at the prospect of going under the sea, and couldn't pull my eyes away. I thought it would be like in an aquarium, where you walk under a glass ceiling and watch the sharks swim above your head, or like that scene in Prince of Egypt where Moses parts the red sea. I guess the murder was a red sea parting of its own.

There was a lot of blood. At least now they’ve made us all move carriage, so we don’t have to look, but I've got a feeling that image is going to be stuck in my head for a while. I don't know if someone fetched the guard, or if he heard the scream himself, but they've sent us all next-door whilst the train staff secure the scene. They didn't need to tell us twice. Well, they did, but only because we were all so flustered.

I think they basically just want us out of the way whilst they figure out what to do; whatever it is, I bet this isn't covered in their training. I worried about leaving my luggage behind - we left through the other door, into Carriage I, which meant I had to walk past the body! - but they said we could come back and use this one when we arrive in Paris. We just couldn’t be here unsupervised in the meantime, which suits me just fine. 

I hope they don't open my bag. It's full of cans of beans and stuff, which might look suspicious, although I could explain if they give me the chance. They're for my girlfriend. She's had to spend some time in France for work, so I smuggle her some rations of baked beans, English mustard, stuff you can't get over there - the weirdest things she ends up missing from home.

We miss each other too, of course. I find the travel each way really tough on my anxiety, but I bear it as a sort of grand romantic gesture, and because I know how much she loves her beans on toast. Chivalry may be dead, but I do the little that I can! She gives me French snacks in return, exotic biscuits with hazelnut pieces and chocolate swirls you'd never get across the channel, and probably for the best (personally, I think you can't improve upon the humble custard cream) so the deal just about works out.

It's not actually smuggling, I don't think. I'm always worried when I go through customs, but I'm sure you only have to declare food if it's fresh. Thank God for whatever preservatives they put in all this stuff. The main problem is that my travel case is super heavy on the way out - a real beast to lug up and down the escalators and squeeze onto the late night Tube - and I end up sweating by the time I reach the train, even before the anxiety kicks in.

Worst of all is the pressure of hefting it onto the luggage rack, but luckily when I arrived at Carriage J there was a tall guy already there - putting his own bag on the row below - who offered me a hand. Of course, he then got stuck helping other people too, like when you try to keep a door open for one person and suddenly you're stuck as Atlas holding up the heavens for the world, so by the end of it he looked ready to blow a fuse.

My seat was right in front of the rack - I always choose it deliberately, so I can keep an eye on things, otherwise I start to worry - so I got to watch the whole thing, although of course I pretended to be looking out the window, headphones serving as my disguise. I got to see everyone else walk past me, and the poor guy was one of the last to finally get to take his seat, right down the front of the carriage.

We’re all together now. Carriage I is just as empty, so we've all been able to sit in one group at the rear end, which is where I'd have booked my ticket anyway. It's almost nice, in an unexpected way. We need the company, the distraction, someone to talk about the shock with. I've taken my headphones out - Midnight Show had started, which felt in slightly bad taste - so I can try to join the conversation.

I’m getting to put some names to those faces. The woman with the dark hair and high-pitched scream is Anne-Marie, although I can't quite tell if she has a French accent. The tall guy is Mark. He’s still trying to help people, bless him, this time by sharing the stuff in his backpack: he got to take our hand-luggage in our exile, if we had it with us in our seats, but not everybody had the essentials on them, so he's offering around a bottle of water, phone charger, whatever we might need for the rest of the journey.

Nobody’s told us anything, but we’re having our own chats about what happened. It’s pretty obvious that the guy was killed, but not at all obvious how. It had to have happened in the blackout: we're all agreed there. Anne-Marie says that she'd have noticed if it happened before, but she was looking out of the window when we went through the tunnel and someone could have snuck past in the gloom.

"Oh, so it was dark in the carriage too," I realised. "I thought it might have just been in the loo. Any ideas what caused it?"

"This is my first time," ventured a girl called Louise. She couldn't have been long out of sixth form. I wonder how old you actually have to be to ride this thing. "Does it not normally go dark in the tunnel?"

"The lights are meant to stay on," that was Jean, from a few rows in front: a definite Frenchman, no doubts over the accent there. He seemed a straightforward sort, though, the kind of guy to call a spade a bêche. "Even when it's dark outside. Especially when it's dark outside."

"What if there was a power cut?"

"What do you think train runs on?"

I could do with a charger, actually. All that talk about electricity, and typing out these updates on my phone is no good for the battery life. I think it would rather have been sleeping for the trip, but I needed the distraction, to help with my anxiety. Still, I'm surrounded by rather too much distraction now, so I suppose I'll let it rest for a little bit - you know, and try to be sociable.

It's good they have these sockets in between the seats, although you've really got to fumble around to find them, and I'm usually too embarrassed, especially when you've got somebody sitting next to you. They don't warn you about that, despite all the signs in French and English telling you to use them. Anyway, we're all facing out into the aisle now, so there's no-one there for me to disturb - I'll ask Mark if I can borrow the plug, and then update you in a little bit. See you then.

Death under the Channel

Wow. What a start to a holiday. If you’d asked me how I’d like to arrive in France... well, I don’t really know what I might have told you, but it wouldn’t have been this. Crouched over a public toilet, desperately mopping the seat with paper towels, cleaning all traces of my accident away. Breathing in the fumes of whatever corrosively citrus cleaning product they use, a perfume so aggressive that I’d almost prefer the alternative.

I’m not even sure you can call it an accident. It’s not my fault the lights went out, really, is it? I guess that was us going under the tunnel, and I’ve had a text from Vodafone that usually heralds the crossing of a border, but I didn’t think it went black in the toilets as well. Obviously the windows do, but surely the lights should still work? I wondered if they’ve replaced them with solar powered ones, but then what do they do at night?

Anyway, here I am, dabbing away. A brief jaunt under the sea, and everything is left soaking wet. Not my fault, but try explaining that to the person who comes in after me. Carriage J don’t seem a friendly bunch. Imagine if the girl across from me comes in, and then we have to sit the rest of the way, not looking at each other? Or there’s that couple a few rows up, and one is bound to whisper something to the other, and then maybe the whole carriage will hear.

I’m just glad I’m near the back, so they don’t all watch me returning to my seat, having spent twice as long as a healthy person should in here. That’s not my fault either. The towels don’t come out cleanly, so you end up with a fistful of tattered paper, and then you have to do a couple of flushes before they disappear. I could leave them all to the end, but I don’t want to block the pipes now either, do I?

I know I’m not the biggest fan of trains, but is it too much to ask for a smooth journey? I don’t like having to do this at the best of times, and adding an extra layer of stress for the second half doesn’t exactly help. If my anxiety does kick in, I’ll probably be the next back in here, so perhaps I needn’t bother with all this, but at least a good wipe up of the evidence might help me rest a bit more easily. Besides, my fault or not, it’s the right thing to do.

I’ll let you know if anybody does look. Wish me luck!