#in a very doomed to be close yet so far away sort

[guangshi-091305]

Is it me or ObaMitsu are a very Wangxian coded couple?

[grudgecollector]

God Help The Fool

Pairing: Bo Sinclair / Reader

Summary: Even as a long time residence of Ambrose, you could have barely prepared yourself for what would happen tonight. Your curiosity pulling you closer and closer to the front door, to your doom.

Words: 827

Tags/Warnings: Blood, attempted murder, light descriptions of gore, descriptions of stabbing, Bo's anger

A/N: Um hello... It's been quite a while since I've written any sort of fan fiction in like two years probably, so I apologize if this isn't very good LOL

I have recently been hit with inspiration to write again. I've realized I really miss it.

In the future some of my fics may be a little more centered around Creep and Josef, but I did rewatch House of Wax for the first time in a while last night and it just makes me AGH

I'm not entirely sure how active I will be, but I'm hoping to revitalize this blog and make it into a home for me and anyone who has similar interests once again.

Your ears ring, fingers tightening around the handle as you dig the knife deeper into the flesh of your sudden victim. Your eyes burn, tears threatening to drip down your bruised cheek. A cloudy puff of air comes from your parted lips, the cold winter wind biting into your skin. 

Dark green eyes were staring into your own with both rage and fear, his hands closing harder around your neck as he continued to try and strangle you. The air was being snuffed from your lungs, a fire building up in your chest as you struggled under his strength. 

It felt as if your neck would snap, the way the heel of his hand dug into your windpipe. 

You twisted the knife further into his torso, making him groan in pain. Whatever strength you had left you used, attempting to wiggle the knife around like a joystick on a jammed arcade machine. 

In this moment you felt like you could accept death. Whatever sins you have committed in your life have finally caught up in one foul game of cat and mouse. No matter how hard you tried to fight him off he stayed glued in his place, bloody spit coming to his lips before dripping onto your nose, down to your cheek. 

You heard a warped voice yell above you, it sounded so close yet so far away.

There was a sudden release of pressure around your throat, a harsh breath of cold air filling your burning lungs. You let out a wheezing cough, clutching your chest with a bloody hand as you attempt to suck in more air. 

The ringing in your ears never stopped, your head was spinning, you felt like you would throw up any second. 

Bright white dots blurred your vision, making it impossible to know which way you crawled.

In some way you believed you would be safe from the chaos that occasionally reigned through the quiet, empty town of Ambrose. No matter how much you have seen or heard during your time living here. 

It was tonight that your naivety finally caught up to you. A simple look out the front door ending in you almost dying. 

You should have listened to Bo when you told you to stay upstairs, you should have listened to Vincent when he told you not to move from the closet minutes later, and most of all you should have listened to Lester when he told you to not let curiosity get the best of you. 

There was a tingling sensation on the side of your face, numbness prickling your skin. 

Slowly, your eyes open to see Bo’s fiery ones, his forehead creasing in worry as he lightly caresses the skin around your throat. 

You knew he was angry with you, you could feel it radiating off of him as he stared down at you, chest heaving.

He grabbed your tired arms and hauled you to your feet, making you stumble forward into his chest, where you clutched onto his black button-up weakly. 

“I-” You attempted to choke out an apology, but your throat felt like sandpaper, forcing a cough from you once again. 

“Not now.” Was all he managed to say, his rage bubbling as he glanced over towards the now mangled corpse of the man. 

Bo could barely contain his blood lust in normal circumstances, but when he saw you on the ground like that? It was like something else entirely took him over. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the dominance inside him, watching as some stranger hurt what belonged to him, or if deep down it was the fear of losing something he loves. 

Either way, the younger man did not stand a chance against a seasoned killer such as Bo Sinclair. The wrench the older man wielded now lodged into the broken skull of your attacker, a now unusable body for Vincent’s evergrowing gallery of wax figures. 

Bo could not find it in him to care though, he knew a replacement would be lured in eventually. 

He slammed open the front door of the house, making his way to the kitchen towards his twin who had probably just come out from his studio. 

“Vincent! Take her, there’s still another out there somewhere.” Bo practically shoved you into his twin’s arms, “And do not let her out of your fucking sight.” His darkened eyes glared at you, something vulnerable swirling deep inside. 

You didn’t take his harsh tone to heart, having been with Bo for as long as you have, you have dealt with his outbursts before.

This felt different, though, while his anger was evident, the thing that stuck out to you more was the wetness in his eyes. 

His eyes did not linger on you for very long, his heavy boots stomping back towards the front door. The harsh closure of the door made the walls rattle, some small things falling from the shelves hung up on the walls. 

[mrsmaxwelllord]

Summer Storm — Chapter II

Pairing: Harwin Strong x Martell Lady!Reader

Summary: The curse ignites a fire in Harrenhal.

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: Arranged Marriage. Mediumship. Fire. Burn Injury. Medical Inaccuracies. Annoyng man and (A LOT OF) gossip.

A/N: Enjoy!

AO3.

Harwin didn’t tell you half of the history, but the conversation you had after agreeing to a partnership of sorts — as if you were not married already — was full of meaning. You didn't expect him to blindly throw everything at you, yet it was strange to receive so little information about the events that doomed your marriage.

Nevertheless, you got a better understanding of him and his reasons. 

You heard what he confided in you with grace and patience you did not know you had. When he finished, you gave him your honest opinion: if he truly wanted to leave the past behind and protect the princes, he could never go back to the Red Keep or contact them again. It was harsh and very painful, you knew, but it was the truth and he knew it too. He promised he’d not do anything to compromise you or the House, not willingly, but you didn’t trust him just enough to believe him in this.

When this matter was settled, he asked about you again and insisted he wanted an honest answer this time. You refused. It was late and you were tired, exhausted really. But promised him you'd have all the time in the world to talk in the future. 

To keep the farce, he even made a small cut in his hand to stain the bed sheet. You watched the blood drain from him with a strange satisfaction, it was as if you were sealing the pact with blood. 

He guided you to your own chamber after wrapping you in one of his coats.  Once alone, you allow yourself to reflect on the events that lead you to this new life. You knew of the marriage a month before it happened, being the middle child of House Martell you were expected to have a good marriage, but not a great one - by marrying Harwin you had accomplished just enough success to be forgotten from your father's mind, he did his job to you and now was free to go on with his life. Your mother died years ago and was of no consequence. Your brothers and sisters were never really close, although they promised to write letters and keep contact — which you weren’t entirely sure would happen.

 You had come to Harrenghall with a sworn knight to protect and look after you, but he was a stranger, and all friends you had made so far are in Dorne worried about their own future. Long ago, when you weren't of age yet, you had a truly loyal friend, one you could no longer talk to but who had teached all you could possibly need in life. All that was behind now. You were to learn how to live in this strange land far away from everything you once knew.

Harwin wasn’t what you expected of him, he proved to be honest and fair — as far as you could tell — and, although his words burned deeply, you knew this was twice better than most husbands in Westero. Before leaving Dorne, you were worried he'd be violent and unfair, mistreated or humiliate you. A man as strong as he was rumored to be would have no difficulty to do so and, with his prestige and high place in society, no one would bat an eye to your suffering.

 You were ready to make herself unbothered by any of his rules, you would pray in the Sept for a tranquil life and not get into his way. Yet... hidden in your belongings, you had the most curious herb, one that could be turned into a tea. You wouldn’t hesitate to give it to him if he proved himself to be beyond endurance. 

However, this new routine seemed… simple. Easy to follow. 

He told you he wished to have a peaceful life too, that he would listen to you and all decisions would be made together, as future Lady and Lord of Harrenhal.

You didn’t fully trust him just yet, but you could try it. You shall do it. Your past costumes could be tamed and subdued. 

 You could be the perfect Lady Strong.

...

Not long after falling asleep, a voice calling your name woke you.

It was a feminine voice, but deep as a man’s who smoked his whole life, commanding and assertive like the Maester you had as a child, and it called for you. You could feel the vexation in its tone, but most of all its urgency, a terrible urgency that made you sit up quickly and worried. You blinked your eyes to get used to the eerie light that came from the woman calling you.

 The corpulent woman was leaning over you, the candle mere centimeters away from your face, making it impossible to clearly see her own face under the thick white veil she wore, she was head to toe covered with clothes in various shades of white. You didn’t recognize her from the early party nor was she dressed as a maid, yet she commanded you to follow her. Her voice alone obliged you to do so.

 You followed her to the wall beside the biggest window in the chamber and after pressing a very peculiar brick, the wall moved aside displaying a narrow hallway and a stone stair leading down. She led you through the hallway without difficulty, even though you had to follow sideways to accompany her rhythm. After a short while, the stone walls started to heat up and get warmer and warmer; you were wearing only your chemise and your forearms burned when touching the stones, yet you followed her silently, drowsy.

 She made a stop at the very end of the hallway, where there was no window and no light except for the candle she held. She pushed what looked a lot like a mirror and it opened like a door to a room almost entirely consumed by flames. The lady walked through the flames to a door at the opposite wall and turned around, not muttering a single word, looking at you as if waiting for you to go to her. You woke from your dreamlike state then, realizing it was not one of your dreams, but the woman stayed there.

 You knew what she wanted. You had no choice but to do it.

 You made your way through the fire, going around the bed in the center of the room, avoiding the curtains and tapestry burning. When you finally got to her, you saw the body laid by her feet, broken pieces of a wooden pillar covering its back, all burning low — a terrible sense of dread came to you. It was Ser Harwin Strong, your husband. Unconscious. You couldn’t even tell if he was dead or alive. 

 “Save him” the voice told you. “He still lives. I will guide your hand.”

 There was no time to question the White Lady, so you kneeled beside Harwin and pushed the log away from his body, the Lady’s hand covering yours every time you reached the burning pieces. In no time he was free and you found a weak pulse in his neck, but upon the momentary relief came more distress: the simple linen shirt he had on was burnt and so was most of his back.

 You got a hold of both of his arms and pulled him, still belly down, back to the door on the wall and down the hallway. It was harder to go through the narrow walls with the additional weight, but the Lady followed you back to your chamber and when you were about to enter the room she told you to keep going to the other end of the hallway. You didn’t question her.

 After a few meters you passed another mirror-looking-door but upon looking at the room inside you saw only more flames, it was in a worse state than Harwin’s chambers but you could see a body laid in the burning bed.

 “He is already gone” the voice whispered for the first time, you had half a mind to question her then. You saved Harwin, why not try to save… “There is not much time left. Get to the end of this corridor and ask for help. You’ll not survive much more smoke.”

 As if in a cue, just then you realize how dark the hallway was where the candlelight couldn’t reach. Only it was not simply the dark of night; from ceiling to floor the hallway was enveloped in black smoke. You finally felt suffocated and trapped, the wall still burned your arms and Ser Harwin was almost unbearably heavy. 

 The Lady’s hand touched yours again.

 “Stay strong just a little bit longer, dove. Then you may rest.”

 You kept on the uneven pace until you got to the end of the hallway, where there was another door. The Lady opened it to a room without the flames, but with no less smoke, the man in the bed arose from his sleep with the cracking of hinges and started coughing. 

 “Help us!” you cried and he looked your way.

 “Who is there?” he couldn’t see you through the dark smoke that surrounded the room. 

 “It is me: Lady Strong” you answered him, all strength from you body leaving you, you fell to your knees. “And my Lord Husband, Ser Harwin.”

 You heard the swaying and rustling of the bed covers, then fell on the floor beside the unconscious body of Harwin. You felt the touch of the man that came to help you, he reached you first but upon seeing the state of Harwin left you to your own devices, it did not matter because now you could only focus on the face hovering the ceiling. You could finally see her face properly: a dark, scarred thing. Her eye sockets empty and dark, her mouth open in a silent scream. Yet her voice remained the same as before.

 “Sleep now, dove. The morrow shall come but for you only darkness the day will bring.”

 You fell unconscious then, the smoke surrounding you. 

...

Your senses only returned to you by the twilight of the next day, when all the fire was already gone and the dead piled in the courtyard. You were in a ward you haven't been before, a large room full of mattresses — all of them occupied with injured people.

 You wake up to a killing headache, feeling dizzy and disoriented. It is confusing to wake to crying and, for a second, you believe it was one of your nightmares again. However, the crying turned to screaming and you realised there was actually something wrong.

 Harwin, laid in the bed beside yours, woke not much earlier with the Maesters changing the bandage of his wounds. It was time to take off the remains of the shirt burned into his skin, otherwise it would infect and a fever would begin. It was a painful process, perhaps as hurtful as the burning itself — even the highest doses of Milk of Poppy had little effect on this case. However, if neglected, that would surely kill him shortly. Infection had a mysterious way of working.

 It was torturous to watch the process, definitely not for the weak of mind: the screaming was always soul cutting. It didn't get easier with time, by the end of it the patient was already begging for a knife in the neck.

 You had the misfortune to wake up in the beginning of Harwin’s treatment. He was gripping the mattress tightly, his face buried in the bed, there were five men holding him down, two Maesters working to finish it quicker. He was the one screaming, you realised, terrified.

 You had no real concept of Riverland’s medical practice, it being so brutal and different from Dorne. Before you could soothe yourself and think through it, you were already standing, going to the man closest to you and pushing him away.

 “What is the meaning of this?” you yelled. “Get away from him! He is hurting. Do you not see?”

 Your advances worked and the man let go of Harwin's arm, but only momentarily. He had tripped over his own feet when you pushed him, your sudden strength took him by surprise and he fell before he could even turn around. Yet, the men that weren't holding Harwin went to you promptly and restrained you.

 One of the Maesters, the one closer to you, complained about your behaviour:

 “I should be the one asking ‘what is the meaning of this’, Lady Strong” he had a stern expression. “This is not the moment for savagery. Stop at once.”

“It is you who should stop. He screams in pain, do you not hear it?” you question, struggling to escape from the guard’s strong hold. “Is this how you treat your people here in the Riverlands? No better than a cruel butcher?”

For the first time ever, you heard the sound of your husband laugh. It was low, weak, and between sharp tears,  but it was undoubtedly a laugh and it stopped you. His face turned to you.

“Aye, what a devoted dove I got myself. So fierce in her advances to protect her husband. We will get along just fine if you continue to prove yourself so courageous, Wife” he said with a rough tone, then looked at the man standing beside his bed. “If I didn't believe the stories you told about her before, I believe them now. Let go of her.”

“What is the meaning of this?” you asked out of breath, not so sure anymore. The distress had worn out and a sudden sickness made itself known then: the world seemed to turn around you, your head throbbed with pain, and you felt in the verse of fainting. You tried to hold your ground, but ended up falling to the bed.

“My Lady!” the maester called, going to you. “You stood too quickly! You are still recovering from all that smoke you breathed.”

“I’m fine,” you whispered. “Explain what has happened.”

They runned out of words to tell you then. The room turned somber as the Maester helped you to sit up. No one dared to answer or look at you, as if muttering any word would bring the fire back in the room. 

It was Harwin who spoke first.

“There was a fire, as you may remember” was all he said.

You wanted to question him further, but the mourning expression on each one of their faces told you enough. Instead, you returned to a more pressing matter. 

“Aye. That does not explain the butchery on your back.”

“I am no butcher!” the maester exclaimed. “This is the only treatment for burns, m’lady. We shall clean the wound before applying the ointment ”

“Must it be so….” you looked for words, but each one you thought of seemed to be insulting to your lord husband.

“Worry not, Lady Wife” Harwin told you, laying his head back on the mattress. “This shall end soon enough. Then we'll have a much needed conversation.”

…

You stayed by Harwin's side, with his head carefully laid on your lap, while the Maesters worked on his back. You tried to comfort him and take his mind off the pain, massaging his hair or just holding his hand at times, but it was all futile, the screaming didn't stop until the job was done. When the Maesters set the last utensil down, it was suggested that he drank Milk of the Poppy, to cease the pain. 

It would certainly help with the pain but also make him groggy and just a tad delirious, considering the amount that was offered. So the conversation was postponed to another time, to when he comes to his senses. 

You took it in your own hands to better understand what had happened the night before and asked about it to the Maesters. They were, however, of no help.

“Worry not, Lady” was said, no one truly bothering to listen to you. “Once Lord Strong awakens he will let you know of the damage. For now, you should try to rest.”

You looked for your swoon knight next, to see if he was still alive, and were pleased to find that he, along all the maids from Dorne, survived the fire without trouble. They readily told you all they knew.

The Knight, Ser Allyrion, had a good idea of the damage, he helped the men control the fire when the worst of it burned the Tower, he also helped bring Lyonel's body down from the main chambers. He told you it began suddenly and spread fast, that it would've been much worse had the Maester not alerted the guards about the fire.

He asked you how you managed to escape your chambers and also get to Harwin's, he tried to get to you once he learnt of the fire but to no avail. The lock was broken and the door was too dense to break in, he didn't believe you would make it and was about to go get help when the castle's knights appeared to break the doors. They explained you were safe downstairs and were there only to get to Lyonel's chambers, to which he helped with.

Ser Allyrion told you that his room was also locked, and Lyonel's body was laying on the bed when they finally got to him. So was Harwin's and the Maester’s. Allyrion told you it was most likely that you and Harwin wouldn't survive if you stayed in the room for even a bit longer; if not the fire, the smoke would have suffocated you. He questioned how could you know of the secret passage, you haven't been in the castle long enough to know of all its hallways and rooms.

You didn't know what to tell him. You wanted to trust him and be honest, perhaps he could understand and explain it all to you. However, the truth may get you in more trouble than a lie and you really didn't want to let anyone know of your endeavors with the White Lady. It wouldn't be the first time you encountered the dead and since you had always managed to deal with it by yourself, you decided to keep it a secret.

So you made up a story. Told him that one of the castle’s maids had assured you that, should you need her in the night, you could send for her and she would come by the servants stairway. You made sure to keep the history simple and not focus on the said maid, Ser Allyrion, bless his heart,  seemed to believe you right away and didn't question you further. Instead, he congratulated you on how brave it was to get into a room on fire to save Lord Strong.

You left him to find your own maids then and found them either helping the Maesters with the wounded or in the kitchen preparing supper. You didn't want to keep them from aiding the staff, so you decided to approach only one of them. Hallie was the face you were most familiar with, she helped you dress when you arrived in Harrenghall and had an outgoing personality, talking to you cheerfully about the castle.

You asked her to accompany you into a walk around the castle to see the damage and she promptly followed you. Walking around the castle was a ruse to talk to her more freely than you could surrounded by the servants of the House, of course, but it didn't mean you couldn't assert the damage caused by the fire and the reason it began. Talk spread fast and there wasn't a better place to know rumor than the kitchen, people liked to talk while working and you knew Hallie would be of service.

However, first you would need to find a quiet place. She followed you around and commented idly on the whole situation: where she spent the night, what she was doing when the fire began and what she did to escape it. You listen to her carefully, leading her through the hallways and chambers. There wasn't sign of the fire anywhere in the lower part of the castle; the room where the party was held the night before was intact, as were most of the stairs leading to the Tower. The real damage began there, the furniture and tapestry were burnt in the ground, the walls dark with smoke, the doors broken or locked still.

The highest you rose, less people there was. The fire was gone by now, but its warm was still there.

Hallie stopped talking when she realised you weren't listening anymore and carefully linked her arm to yours.

“What are people talking about in the kitchen, Hallie?” you asked, deciding to go for a more direct approach.

“Well, my lady, they didn't talk so freely with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm your maid.”

You were quick to understand her meaning. You were being blamed for the fire. But why?

“I see. They were afraid you would tell me what you heard.”

“Exactly, my lady. But that didn't stop them to gossip around when they thought I wasn't listening.”

In that moment you turned a corner and passed by two knights carrying a body, you couldn't even tell its gender, the fire burned most of their skin. It was chilling to think that could've been you. Hallie and you let them pass without muttering a word, each one of you doing a quiet prayer.

Only after they passed by you, Hallie resumed the conversation.

“They didn't talk directly to me, of course, however they did speak between themselves.”

“And what have you heard?”

“Well, at first they seemed sure it was Harrenhal's curse. It wouldn't be the first time the lord ruling died here by unnatural cause.”

“Yes, I’ve heard rumors in the past. I don’t see what could possibly happen to change their minds. Lyonel and Harwin’s death would bring me no benefit at all. My position here is safe. In no time I could've become Lady Strong of Harrenghall!”

“My Lady…” Hallie  said hesitantly. “You are Lady Strong of Harrenghall.”

You stopped right then, her words finally making the reality of the situation sink into you.

“When Lyonel died, the title of lord ruling passed to his heir — Ser Harwin” she explained. You still haven't moved, too shocked to really process her words. “That's the reason you're being blamed for, my lady. They believe you did it to become the lady of the house… sooner.”

After a pause, you found your voice again.

“That still doesn't make sense. Harwin almost died, had he gone too I'd have nothing.”

“But he didn't die, did he? That's the point. You saved him, but couldn't save Lord Lyonel in the room beside him. Forgive me, my lady, but that is too much of a coincidence that not only did you find the servant stairway in a room you've never been before but also found Harwin's chamber just in time to save him. The talk is that you hired us to do your wrongdoings, conspired to kill both Lyonel and Harwin and now plan to marry Larys.”

“Excuse me?”

“The last part is more complicated, I reckon” she smiled at you. “They were not interested in finding the reason why you planned to marry Larys' and still saved his older brother.”

“Hallie, that makes no sense at all. I don't understand…” you interrupt the walking at the end of a hallway, there's only a ceiling to floor window here and no way out but following back from where you came.

 “Frankly, my lady, it is gossip and there's no need for a complicated explanation. They talk because they don't have anything better to do and, of course, because someone needs to be responsible for the tragedy. They blamed you because it was easy, because...” she hesitated and you could tell she was considering if she should tell you something or not.

“Tell me.”

“Well. There may be a reason for you to conspire against Harwin, after all.”

You turned around and held her hands between yours, it was no time for hesitation. Not only yours but perhaps the lives of the girls and Ser Allyrion would be in danger if you don't properly deal with this situation. A lie is a dangerous thing, to have them believe you're the assassin of their lord is to put you in the gallows rope. You have to know every detail of the gossip.

“You need to tell me everything.”

“Forgive my frankness then, my lady” she looked back at the hallway to make sure no one was listening. “Is it just that everyone at the Court knows how close Ser Harwin and Princess Rhaenyra were. And there is resemblance between him and the…”

“Are all the uproar about this? Do they not know late Queen Aemma was an Arryn before marrying King Viserys? They are known for having…”

“As I said before, my lady. They don't look for a deep explanation. However, that's not all. Harwin has an explosive personality, it would be complicated to live with him. Larys is known for being more… malleable, it would be easier to rule Harrenhal.”

“Why are they so certain I want to rule Harrenhal?”

“Well, my lady, we are from Dorne. There is suspicion involved, they always distrust what they don't know.”

You took a deep breath then, holding on to the walls to not collapse. It was all too much to take in, you suddenly felt faint.

“My lady, are you not feeling well?” asked Hallie by your side, holding your arms carefully with the bandages. 

“I'm fine, Ally. Thank you. Let's just go back.”

“Did the Maesters not treat you, my lady?” 

“They were too busy, there were people in a much worse situation than I'm.”

“That doesn't mean you should be let aside. Let's go back to the kitchen, my lady, I'll help you there.”

[dykedvonte]

I find the line "I have to believe our worst moments don't make us monsters." Fascinating because it comes from Anya, and I feel she really proves it the best.

For obvious reasons most people are in the "Anya did nothing wrong" camp and for good reason but there is a single action that I don't think she did well and it was her suicide. Specifically her method.

Realizing that Anya took Curly's painkillers was horrifying to me. As a Nurse I have no doubt that she'd know how terrible dying from overdose is. She had access to a gun which is well known for having a far more instant and far less painful death. And despite everything falling apart around her, knowing how bad Jimmy was, she still left Curly alive.

I don't think I thought about it much like that at first but the longer this game has sat with me the more horrified I am by the action. Curly is man who has been horribly disabled and is completely unable to help himself and he is very much a human being who does not deserve to be anywhere close to that amount of pain. Those painkillers were one that the few things that could give him any amount of relief and Anya took them.

She could have shot herself and left the painkillers for whoever was left to help Curly. She could've shot Curly and then taken the painkillers. She could've shot them both and quickly put an end to their misery, yet she didn't. Anya had a great amount of her agency stripped away from her, to the point that she didn't deem life to be worth it anymore and ended it, right next to a man who couldn't make that choice for himself even if he wanted to.

It is easily her most horrific choice and yet, she's still an angel.

(Please don't take this as Anya slander, I genuinely love her so much. I just find this to be an incredibly interesting thing)

I do subscribe to the idea that Anya realized that Jimmy was hitting Curly when giving him his medicine but didn’t intervene. I also don’t think her taking the pills from Curly as monstrous mainly because (while she knew he suffered worse with out them) she likely also knew they were basically bandaids on a bullet wound.

I have this sort of belief that that statement can only really apply to Jimmy in the inverse. Like some statements in the games aren’t meant to apply to all characters and not in every context of every action they do. It’s the idea that no one should be responsible for Jimmy’s actions but himself but they are forced to by him or the environment. Everyone is experiencing their worst moments but no one is a monster outside of Jimmy due to his inability to take responsibility and how he escalates the severity of the situation through his bad choices. Even then it’s not one moment that makes Jimmy a monster it’s the culmination of every moment that prove his inability to be anything but in this scenario.

With Anya you must remember she did have the code to the gun. Yeah, she could’ve broken it open but who’s to say how easy or how long it would’ve taken. Not to mention, there’s this misconception that she wanted the gun to kill Jimmy which isn’t true. She wanted the gun to defend herself in the case he got aggressive which is an important note of Anya being the only proactive person on the ship vs reactive. Locking the door, knowing there was no way in was likely a duel mercy for them both. A person in his state would die relatively soon without constant care and she has ample time to pass. It’s a hard decision to make for herself and someone else but it was the easiest even if it caused more damage than it was ever meant to cause.

It’s a sort of parallel to how Curly made choices he thought would help Anya and everyone but ultimately doomed them all further. Jimmy got what he wanted in both scenarios of crashing the ship and wanting Anya gone. What happened on the Tulpar will go down as a tragedy if they are ever found, a mystery if not but certainly not in a way that Jimmy wanted. Anya and the pregnancy are effectively gone but he’s still facing the repercussions for it.

There’s this idea that it’s controversial to say that Anya was anything but perfect and while I don’t think she did anything wrong, she certainly didn’t make the best choice in telling Jimmy but that again was because of the situation and environment she was in. We don’t know why she didn’t wait on Curly after their conversation in the cockpit, we know that was the plan and we know Jimmy finding out through her alone was the catalyst to the crash within like the next hour, yet you can’t really blame her. We don’t know why Jimmy came to medical nor what anyone else was doing. It can be considered her one mistake but then again we can’t blame a reasonable action on someone’s unreasonable response.

I think that’s a big aspect a lot of people look over in the characters actions. Most of them are normal, reasonable, human. But the systematic responses to them and Jimmy’s are unreasonably harsh and punishing.

This has gone off in a tangent from what you originally posed but I genuinely think of what might do happened if that confrontation happened with Curly there and away from the cock pit. I assume it’d happen in medical or even utility, hell, an area away from anything sensitive but what if? If the ability to do something awful wasn’t at Jimmy’s finger tips, if there was more than one voice in Curly’s head during that moment, what would’ve changed?

When I look at Anya I see her as having the best responses to anything happening during the events of the game but the environment, systems against her and even the other crew mates to an extent made it so it would inevitably backfire on them and mostly her hard.

[elizabeth-holland24]

The Beast Within - Chapter 3

Jake stormed through the shadowed hallways of his castle, the very walls seeming to shrink back from his anger. Each heavy footfall sent a dull echo reverberating through the stone corridors, disturbing the silence that cloaked the place in perpetual twilight. Objects quivered as he passed, chairs skittering out of his path and curtains fluttering in his wake, as if even they felt his barely restrained fury. Why did she have to be so difficult?

He clenched his fists, frustration crackling through him like fire. Yes, deep down, he knew he was in the wrong. But that didn’t mean he had the luxury of time. There’s barely time left, he reminded himself grimly. He was on a schedule, a desperate, unrelenting countdown he felt press down on him with every moment. Formalities couldn’t be his priority. And yet…

Without thinking, he strode to the elaborate mirror on the far wall, its ornate frame twisting with ancient, intricate designs. He grasped it firmly, his claws digging into the gold filigree as he drew a deep, rattling breath, then muttered, “Show me… Mausi.”

The glass shimmered, rippling as if it held the surface of a pool rather than a reflection. Gradually, an image appeared, hazy at first, but then as clear as if she were standing before him. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the heavy wooden door of her room, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tightly around herself. The expression on her face—pained, tired, and so heartbreakingly vulnerable—struck him with a pang he couldn’t place.

His hardened expression softened, and before he could stop himself, he whispered, “Oh, Mausi… if only you hadn’t gotten tangled up in my mess again.”

The words left his lips before he realized it, tinged with a touch of nostalgia and something else he couldn’t name. He searched her face in the reflection, as though hoping to catch a flicker of recognition. She looked so familiar, even now—her face lined with defiance, her jaw set in that way he remembered…

He shook his head, gripping the mirror tighter as the image faded, and he was left staring at his own monstrous reflection. Sharp, unyielding features glared back at him, each line of his face distorted and fearsome. This is who I am now, he thought bitterly. A cursed creature, doomed to watch from afar as life slipped through his grasp. A beast, he reminded himself, as another petal from the enchanted rose dropped, drifting through the air before settling on the table below, its edges curling as it died.

The entire castle shuddered, a reminder of how little time he had left. His gaze lingered on the fallen petal, heart sinking as the weight of his failures settled heavily over him.

Meanwhile, in her room, Mausi secured the last knot of her makeshift rope, her hands trembling. Just as she finished tying it, a knock sounded on the door.

“I told you to go away,” she called out, expecting it to be him, her voice tight and wary.

“Don’t worry, dear. It’s only me—Penny,” came the gentle, familiar voice from the other side.

Mausi paused, dropping her rope as a tiny warmth unfurled in her chest. She hadn’t seen much of Penny, but the teapot’s soft voice had an unmistakable air of comfort, like a cherished memory she couldn’t place. The door opened, and Penny bustled in, her blue and white porcelain gleaming softly under the room’s dim light, her spout tilted in a motherly sort of way.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Penny said with a gentle clink as she settled on the table near Mausi. “It’s truly a pleasure to finally see you up close. It’s been a long journey for you, I’m sure.”

A smaller figure hopped in behind Penny—Amelia, a little porcelain teacup, her tiny handle quivering with excitement. Balancing carefully on her saucer, she tilted toward Mausi in a shy greeting. Penny poured a stream of fragrant tea into Amelia, her spout wobbling slightly as if with emotion.

Mausi accepted the teacup, feeling the warmth of it seep through her fingers. She inhaled the gentle floral scent, a peculiar sense of familiarity prickling at her memory. “This tea… it smells… familiar,” she murmured, the words escaping before she realized it.

A glint of hope brightened Penny’s eyes, and she cast a quick, furtive look at Amelia. The little teacup bounced in place, her voice bright with excitement. “Oh! She remembers, Mum! She remembers us! Mausi will save us!”

“Amelia,” Penny scolded gently, her voice carrying both love and a hint of warning. But the hope didn’t leave her gaze, and she turned back to Mausi with an almost wistful smile. “Don’t mind her, dear. Amelia has always had a very active imagination.”

Mausi frowned, her heart tugging at something she couldn’t name. “Save you?” she asked slowly, the words feeling strange on her tongue. “Have we… met before?”

Penny paused, her porcelain form shimmering slightly in the candlelight. For a moment, her spout and handle seemed to droop, and then she gently shook her head, letting out a soft chuckle. “No, my dear. I’m only a teapot—part of the castle’s humble staff. But,” she continued, her tone growing tender, “it was a brave thing you did for your father. We all think so.”

Mausi felt a weight settle in her chest at the mention of her father, her grip tightening on Amelia. “I’m just worried about him. He’s never been on his own for this long.” She looked down, her shoulders slumping as she murmured, “I only hope he’s all right.”

Penny’s spout rested gently against her arm in a comforting gesture. “Cheer up, my child. Things have a way of turning out in the end. You’ll see,” she said softly. “And I do think you’ll feel much better after a nice dinner.”

Mausi glanced up, skeptical. “I thought… he said if I didn’t join him, I wouldn’t eat at all.”

Penny’s laugh was soft, like the sound of china chiming. “People say many things in anger, dear.” She tilted her head toward the door. “Come, let me take you to the dining room. There’s something special waiting for you.”

Curiosity sparked, Mausi followed Penny and Amelia through the winding corridors. Her eyes wandered over the tapestries and paintings that adorned the walls, intricate images of lives long past and stories she could almost feel she knew. They were familiar in a way that both comforted and unsettled her, each piece tugging faintly at her heart as they passed.

Penny led her to a large set of heavy oak doors. “Just through here, dear.���

The doors creaked open, and Mausi’s breath caught at the sight before her. The grand dining hall was illuminated by a massive crystal chandelier, its light casting a warm, inviting glow over the enormous table draped in fine linens. Platters and dishes filled with rich foods lined the table, accompanied by flickering candles that bathed the room in a soft, golden glow. Around the table, enchanted objects like Penny and Amelia had gathered, each face turned eagerly toward her, anticipation sparkling in their porcelain eyes and brass fittings.

Mausi felt a strange warmth settle over her, a feeling almost like… home. She shook it off, attributing it to the comforting glow of the room, but the sensation lingered, deep and persistent, as if it were a memory she had yet to fully remember.

Word Count: 1236

A/N: Hello, I'm back, I'm so sorry for the delay and the short chapter, but I wanted to publish something. It has been quite hectic since the last time I've posted, personal life is really shitty plus my computer breakdown, so I couldn't exactly write. Anyway hopefully, after my exam tomorrow ill be able to write and post chapter 4, things are starting to be more interesting. I've left some clues into this chapter. Anyway, hope you like it and yeah. Don't forget to like, comment and reblog, so I know you are enjoying it.

[giorno-plays-piano]

Unsteady

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x mage!reader

Warnings: allusion to yandere, canon-typical violence, mentions of murder, exhausted and crying Aemond, hurt/comfort.

Words: 2k

Summary: Quiet, you stand together, leaning on the balcony and watching the dead sea, each left to your own thoughts. The silence between you is not strained but comforting, an indication of peace and, perhaps, some sort of unity. In the end, you are on his side.

P.S. Well, here we are! Hope you enjoy my first HOTD story!

___________

Your continous lack of sleep is slowly making you delirious. Tossing and turning in bed for hours, you can almost imagine stealing the sword of your guard and going on a rampage inside the Red Keep: this is how hopelessly tired you feel.

You take a breath. When you close your eyes, you are back home. You see the blinding light shine through the vast windows, the ancient walls made of sand and magic, and so many embroidered red and yellow pillows on the floor they nearly cover it all. Young girls and boys sing incantations that sound like music in the courtyard. If you turn your head to the east wing, you can smell barley bread baked in the kitchen along with sweet date cookies that will be served tonight as they have been for centuries.

But when you open your eyes, you see only the darkness of the room that isn't yours; a foreign castle where it's so painfully hard to breathe, to think; a gloomy, hostile world you are being held as a prisoner. Nothing here reminds you of home. You are a stranger to these lands, these people.

Nevertheless, you can't leave. Not yet. Not until the new King is crowned and your promise is fulfilled.

You stumbled upon this world by mistake, the new spell taking you in a completely different direction from where you were supposed to land. You were awaited in Turas, a place with the densest population of witches and warlocks, but you landed here, in this godforsaken little world with almost no magic left in it sans some dragons and a very few ancient priestesses who are impossible to locate. Without a great source of magic, you can't travel between dimensions, your coiffers empty from your last attempt. And although there is some great force in the dragon's fire, you need permission of its owner to have their pet shooting flames at you. Enraging Vhagar and having her blow fire at you for a minute or two doesn't work since she does it for far too short, and the spell needs more time. You tried.

But Otto Hightower will sooner stuff his mouth with glass than let you go and miss an opportunity to have you aid the Greens.

So you stay. You pretend to be the Queen's niece, a daughter of her older cousin, eager to come to court and serve the Crown. You do almost exactly that, to be precise: hunt down the spies like Talia and a few other maids, force information out of people with the help of your spells, and sometimes murder someone who's notoriously hard to kill.

Not Rhaenyra, though. Alicent forbids.

You hate it here with all your being. This realm is a cage. There are no good sides in the court - neither green nor black. Regardless of who wins, people will suffer. This place is doomed, and you ache to get as far from it as you can, back to the ancient Tower of Babylon on the crossroads of the worlds, the only place you call home. Every single day spent in Westeros, you miss it along with your people.

Finally, you realize you can't sleep. Laying on this ridiculously uncomfortable bed, albeit quite lavish, in hopes of falling asleep is silly, and you stand up, searching for your dress. Perhaps it is worth taking a stroll before returning to bed. Maybe the chilling air will clear your head and your heart.

Slipping away from your room without guards noticing is as easy as taking a candy from a child, your magic clouding their mind, lulling them in the false sense of security. You can't make people do what you want directly, or frankly, you wouldn't be here, but your spells are most helpful to obscure the mind and blur the vision, and you luckily evade a few servants and more guards on your way as you unlock the door to one of the numerous balconies, usually deserted both during the day and at night.

But you're not alone. You walk in only to stare at the sharp features of Aemond who looks like he wants to skewer an intruder on his sword, his expression both painful and enraged.

When he recognizes your face, he softens, though.

"Cousin," you smile at him anxiously, playing brave as you stroll closer, pretending you are glad to see him.

He relaxes his tightly clenched, thin lips, and you see how tired and utterly exhausted he seems, his eye bloodshot as he stands in his full day attire as if he didn't event attempt to go to bed, knowing he won't sleep. Perhaps Aemond seems malicious and fiery to others, standing tall among other Targaryen siblings, but to you, he is only a boy. A mutilated, desperate to survive youngest son with no one but his mother on his side. Otto molds his abused grandchild into the perfect dragon warrior and a vicious protector of the Greens, expecting him to be there when Aegon is made king, and it makes you sick to keep watching them.

Still, it is not your story. Not your place to change things, however wrong they are. You will be gone soon, and you should leave these people to their fate.

"You don't have to call me that when we're alone," he mutters, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Would you prefer my Prince?" You let out a snicker in hopes to get him to smile wider, but he doesn't, turning back to face the darkness above the sea, his hands on the stone rails.

He doesn't look good. The shadow beneath his eye intensify, eyelid droopy, and his lips are cracked and dry, but it is his expression that worries you most of all. Aemond looks like he is barely holding on, slowly being buried under the pressure of Otto's expectations and Alicent's maniac fear for his life. He lives on a knife-edge, and you wouldn't want to trade places with him even under a promise to rule the whole Westeros.

Quiet, you stand together, leaning on the balcony and watching the dead sea, each left to your own thoughts. The silence between you is not strained but comforting, an indication of peace and, perhaps, some sort of unity. In the end, you are on his side. Despite how much you dislike being entangled in the intrigues of the court, you have compassion towards Alicent and her children. You wish you could take them away from this place and let them discover what a true life behind the castle walls is.

Besides, over the course of many months spent here, you grow surprisingly fond of Aemond. You are unsure if it is his spirit, perhaps, or his passion that draws you towards him, but he is fascinating, one of a kind. The only one who keeps trying over and over again; who keeps pushing forward, paving the road for his mother and siblings despite the unfair treatment. It is attractive, isn't it?

If only people stop messing with his head.

Suddenly, Aemond winces, and the spell is broken between the two of you when you stare at him, anxious again. Unsurprisingly, he turns away, but this time, you are too concerned to leave him alone.

"Aemond, what is it?" You ask, planting your hands on his shoulders to stop him from moving away from you.

Stubborn, he turns his head, nonetheless, and doesn't speak a word like he's a kid all over again, pretending everything is fine. You catch a glimpse of his swollen eye, the veins in it so red you realize he is hurt.

"Are you in pain?"

He says nothing at all until you grab his face between your hands and make him look at you, forcing him to bend over to you because he certainly has blood of the giants in his veins. Looking him straight in the eye, you feel him trembling in your hands, panic surging through you. What is it? Did he get hurt during one of his endless trainings? Is it something else? A slow poison? An old wound?

"It can't hurt in there," he whispers angrily, tears rolling down his cheek as he looks to the side, hopelessly trying to evade your eyes. "I don't even have it anymore."

It takes you a second to realize what he means. He is talking about his other eye.

Letting go of his face, you bit your lips, wishing you could do anything at all to fix it. Were you there the night he was mutilated, you could have saved the eye, make Aemond whole again, but it's far too late. You aren't capable of recreating limbs or any other body parts out of thin air.

"We call it phantom pain."

Swallowing, you raise your hand to his eyepatch, and he flinches, refusing to let you lift it. You voice softens as you take him by the hand. "I promise, I won't take it off."

Aemond looks like he'd rather have you put a red-hot poker in his mouth, but he stills, tears still streaming down his chin while you murmur incantations, your palm covering his eyepatch. Perhaps your voice soothes him, or perhaps the spell works swiftly, but he quiets down fast, unmoving as you numb his pain. It is one of a few things you can do just for him, not because you are serving the Greens, and you wish he'd tell you when he's hurt. You wish he'd seek your help.

It's been several minutes: the spell should have fully kicked in, you believe. Slowly taking your palm away from his eyepatch, you observe your prince carefully, watching for any signs of discomfort to patch him up further, if needed. As you take his face in your hands and ask him to please let you examine him, make sure he feels better, Aemond suddenly sniffs again, his shoulders shaking violently.

You pull him into your embrace without even recognizing what you are doing. It is a reflex of sorts, a simple reaction to someone's distress. Back at home, your teachers would always tease you for your relentless desire to comfort people, calling you a wannabe therapist. But that was back there, in a safe, kind place where people don't fight for the thrones, power, and money. This world and its inhabitants are painfully different.

Maybe not in everything, though. Because the next thing you know, Aemond is bending over to lean on you, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, his hands around your back. He shakes like a leaf, like a child who had known no comfort, no safety. It is the first time you see him like that, so defenseless and bare, because Aemond is fearsome even in private with his family, and he made you nervous on numerous occasions with his intense stare or a strained, disturbing smile. It feels almost unreal to have him here, in your hands, crying like a human being.

But he is real, and he is human.

"You'll get better," you promise him, gently whispering words of comfort in his ear, suddenly thankful he doesn't see you tearing up yourself. "I'll make the pain go away."

Those are hollow words: you can only treat him again and again, not make the pain disappear forever, but it should suffice for now, and he will be able to sleep.

How many nights did he spend here, standing and trying to overcome pain in something that can't heal? He would never tell his mother not to antagonize her again about not protecting her child. Otto, undoubtedly, would simply say something along the "deal with it" lines, you think, feeling distressed. This must have been going on for years since Aemond was a child. You can't possibly leave him alone with his pain.

Clinging to you, he shudders silently, not a sound coming from him as if he learned how to cry noiselessly over the years on a balcony. When you try to move a little, he presses himself to you even tighter, not letting you go, but you don't plan on pushing him away. In this moment, you are ready to give him anything he asks.

You don't know the sort of emotion it awakens in him when he feels it, too.

[leohtttbriar]

the way the camera lingers on jadzia for so long after this moment, how so deeply pleased kira is with the memory of her mother at the beginning of the episode and how deeply pleased jadzia is with kira's pleasure, got me thinking about how i really wanted them to have a parallel conversation at the end of this episode, given how open jadzia is as a person and how frustrated she gets with absolutist ethics and how open they are with each other. i just think there was one single missing conversation in this episode and jadzia would've worked in that position, provided kira with something that maybe sisko couldn't, as a creature mostly focused on what is "interesting" and "fun" and pleasurable.

so i wrote it of course and decided the intimacy i most wanted to see from them in such a scene is the sort of intimacy of two people who have been each others' companions for a very long time. which made me think about how the dax symbiont is jadzia's lifelong companion and how dax and kira and the symbiont all have a specific attitude about the body and how jadzia was the only voice speaking for kira's ownership of hers...that's love, is what i mean. said "missing scene" below:

jove's doom is void (ao3 link)

There was an observation window near one of the radiation labs, curving against the plated wall of the Station like a forgotten eye on the back of one’s head. In such an uncomfortable little corner of Deep Space 9, few people stopped and worked and noticed. But Kira noticed. 

She sat in front of the window on the floor, straining in the relative darkness to see as far as she could into the depths of the universe, because what else was she supposed to do? If she closed her eyes, all she saw was her mother’s face and all she felt was the rough line of her mother’s scar under the pads of her fingers and all she could smell was food. 

“You’re going to have to talk to me eventually,” said Jadzia. She had been silent for much longer than Kira expected her to be, after finding her by the window and plopping down by her side. She’d been busy tracing the lines on Kira’s left hand and wrist, astutely sensing that that was all the touch Kira could yet handle. 

“I’ve already talked,” said Kira, keeping her eyes on the darkness. 

“You told me what happened,” countered Jadzia, her fingers still strong on Kira’s skin. “Not how you feel about it.”

“No, I’m sure I mentioned that.”

Jadzia huffed, always amused, but she didn’t let Kira get away with it. “You said you told Benjamin about all this, too,” she prompted. “What did he have to say?”

“Something wise.”

“Hmmm,” said Jadzia, tapping her chin with her free hand. “Doesn’t sound like him…”

Kira looked over at her, at the tilt of her mouth and the attention of her eyes, and sighed. “He said,” she glancing down at her hand in Jadzia’s lap. “He said that she did make a hard choice—that she chose to protect us in the best way she knew how.”

Jadzia was quiet again and Kira let her gaze blur, curling her hand slightly to keep Jadzia’s fingers still. 

She couldn’t shake the feel of her mother’s hair or the sound of her breathless voice as she ran to the table piled with dinner. A desperate, pathetic thing—no more or less like the little girl she had shaken hands with, her own young self, starving in a cave and still trusting her parents to eventually save her from it. To innocently hide a scar on one’s face, to exclaim over fresh fruit, to find relief in a new dress…Kira found none was the behavior of a woman so often described as brave.

“Not really a choice, though.”

Kira’s fog briefly cracked open at Jadzia’s tone. She turned to look at Jadzia’s face, who was pressing her lips together and avoiding her eyes and smiling straight-on, the way she did when she wanted to keep presenting as amicable because she didn’t quite want to express her true thoughts. 

“What?” Kira asked. 

“Nothing,” said Jadzia, tightening her smile. She squeezed Kira’s hand gently. “Ignore me. I just want to be here for you.”

“But what did you mean?” Kira pushed.

Jadzia took a deep breath in and then said, “Benjamin was tiny bit mistaken.” She shrugged awkwardly. “I wouldn’t call it a choice.”

Kira removed her hand from Jadzia’s grasp and turned to face her, sliding back on the floor until her back hit the wall just beneath the observation window, her eyes falling over the strange refracted light on Jadzia’s face from distant stars—shining behind and around the wormhole. 

“You think she was coerced?” asked Kira, watching Jadzia’s expression carefully. 

Jadzia looked past Kira’s shoulder and said slowly, “I think…well, maybe. That’s one way to put it...” She trailed off. 

“Jadzia,” Kira snapped. She leaned forward and their knees brushed briefly. “Just say what you’re thinking.”

Jadzia’s eyes met hers and she said in a steadier voice

“Choices within the doctrine of an uncaged will must meet a threshold of circumstantial liberty. For instance, if, within the circumstances of two choices where one of those choices is death, then no real choice can be said to actually exist.”

Kira blinked. Jadzia blinked back. 

“Sorry,” Jadzia said, slumping a little. “Lela…she was a lawyer, you remember?”

This wasn’t news to Kira who was at this point always anticipating at least one moment a day where Jadzia’s personality seemed to morph or to add-together briefly into something just slightly off-center. She had such a serene presence most of the time that most people just dismissed this as being a quirk of Jadzia, fun-loving and curious and impulsive Jadzia. But Kira knew where the boundaries were. She could tell when the creatures Jadzia carried around and cared for within her body were given a small hold on the reins—normally she could, that is. In this moment, something was blurred. 

“So you’re saying,” said Kira, tipping her head, studying Jadzia’s closed-off face, “That Dukat  threatened to kill my mother and that’s why she stayed with him?”

“No, not…” Jadzia pinched the fabric of her pants, frowning. “Well, yes. No.”

Kira just stared at her and waited. 

“Nerys,” said Jadzia, leaning back on her hands, slumping further into herself even as her voice solidified. “What was the life expectancy of workers in the processing center here? Back then?”

“Um,” said Kira, confused. “Why?”

“What was it?”

“Not long, I suppose,” said Kira. “The Cardassians didn’t exactly encourage a healthy work environment. No such thing as weekends. Or healthcare.”

“Right, and what about the labor camps on planet?”

“Same situation. Probably worse. Why?”

“And what was the typical reaction from Cardassians when a Bajoran resisted?”

“Oh they loved it. They gave us medals and cake.”

Jadzia narrowed her eyes. Kira rolled her eyes. “You know it was violence, Jadzia.”

“So, given all that.” Jadzia waved a hand. “What were your mother’s choices?”

Kira looked down at her hands, which were clenched. 

“I know what you’re trying to say,” said Kira. “But I was there, too. I had the same choices. I don’t hate her, you know?” she caught Jadzia’s wide eyes, almost desperately. “I don’t hate her. I just wish…”

“She’d been more like you?” asked Jadzia softly. “Been as brave as you?”

Kira’s eyes filled for the millionth time that evening, and she dropped her face into her palms. Jadzia still didn’t touch her, for which she was almost insanely grateful. 

“Do you wish she’d had to suffer like you did? Be as strong as you’ve had to be?”

“Jadzia,” choked Kira. “I really can’t. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Jadzia was quiet, her breaths deep and centering, while Kira wrapped her grief up with a barbed iron cord. Then she spoke again, softer and with less conviction, like she started all her meandering stories. 

“You know,” she said. “It took a while for us to recognize the symbionts as conscious creatures.” Kira glanced up at her. Her face was turned up to the window, awash in starlight. She really did love her. “There was a super-volcano eruption a couple million years ago and our biological ancestors had to retreat underground or else be suffocated in the ash and the poisonous atmosphere. And the cold. It was warm underground. And while there wasn’t any sunlight, it was safer. They subsisted for awhile by hunting the creatures who were still able to venture above the surface—fishing in the cavern rivers—eating the roots that dipped low enough for us to scavenge. But they were growing weaker and weaker. Their skin was turning paler and paler.” 

She smiled—a real one, this time, hiding nothing. 

“And then they met the symbionts. These little grubs swimming around in the extensive underground river systems. The symbionts collected nutrients and radiation all from sources under the surface of the earth. The proto-Trill followed them and studied them. They learned from them. They learned to survive. And some of them learned to speak to them—briefly. The Trill skin had grown so thin and almost transparent that the symbionts could communicate just through touch. They would return the Trill’s thoughts back to them—they would remind them where to go for food at certain times of the year—they would remind them of how to cook it—they would remind them of their lives…”

Kira found herself relaxing from inside out, listening to Jadzia speak. Something of the horror of her day (of her history) faded into a small white noise.

“For thousands of years, the Trill used the symbionts as record-keepers, as pets, as tools. Ancient lords would wear the symbionts around their necks, refreshing them with fluids only once a day. And only the lords were allowed to touch one, to keep one, but symbionts so outnumbered Trill at that time that Lords ended up having many—keeping them locked away from each other and companion touch until the day they would be used. And this was the status quo. Until one day, a Trill lord went too far—and ate a symbiont.”

One of Jadzia’s hands slid over her stomach, over the small lump that was always there, always moving and twisting and living with her. Kira watched her long fingers trace over Dax’s outline. 

“And,” Jadzia continued, “As I’ve heard, as it’s been passed down from generation to generation, every symbiont in the world that day went quiet. And then they sent lightning—super-charges originating from their neural-structures—raining down upon the caves and on their hosts. They killed every lord who happened to be in contact with a symbiont at the time. But in the process they nearly wiped themselves out.”

Jadzia sat back up, her other hand going to her stomach, her gaze dropping from the stars to her middle. Her face went slightly shaky, as if she was remembering something not even she was old enough to remember. 

“I don’t understand,” said Kira, thickly. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Lela wrote a paper about Trill legal history in law school,” said Jadzia, smiling sadly up at her. Her eyes were wet and Kira ached but she also couldn’t bear the idea of reaching out. “All Trill law comes down to this one moment in history. Nothing has been written since that isn’t based on this.”

“On the symbionts almost going extinct?”

“On the fact that the symbionts felt they had no way out.”

Kira looked at her, breathed, and then threw herself to her feet. She tried to stomp away, then turned back, then turned around again, saw Jadzia’s watching and infuriating face, turned away again, all while Jadzia just continued to sit on the floor in silence. Kira got halfway down the hall, abruptly turned on her heel, marched back and then lent against the window, pointed her finger down at Jadzia’s upturned nose, and said, “Are you ever going to explain what you mean?”

Jadzia just looked up her. 

“I know you’re not the ‘type’ to have convictions,” said Kira, feeling herself get nasty. “But you could at least explain your weird academic nonsense before I go insane.”

“‘Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt,’” said Jadzia, clearly quoting something.

“What does that mean.”

“It’s a decision that Trills made a long time ago. We decided that symbionts had personhood. That their bodies were to be cherished and respected as any Trill. And to demonstrate that, we would no longer wear symbionts as accessories to power. We would take them unto ourselves and keep them like the caves of their home did—until we died.”

Jadzia rose to her feet and stepped just a little closer to Kira. 

“We decided that--because bodies are sacred,” she said. “We decided that because choosing to share your body is sacred. And can never, ever be abused. Lela remembers one early legal scholar at the time when joinings were becoming the standard wrote: ‘At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of conscious life.’ Anything that might impugn that…” Jadzia’s eyes drifted down to her symbiont again. “Well that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Kira tilted her head back against the window and folded her arms tightly across her chest. 

“I know you would have chosen death, Nerys,” said Jadzia, and Kira could tell she was truly crying now, that if she looked at her dear face she would see the evidence of her hurt—all of if for Kira—like she deserved it. “I know you have chosen death over and over, as the only option you thought you could bear. I know that even if it breaks my heart a thousand times over to think of it.”

“I’m not your damn worm, Dax,” said Kira, her throat strained thought she had barely spoken. 

“You’re not your mother, either. You’d rather die than be abused. Than be occupied or attacked or owned.”

Kira closed her eyes hard, feeling sick. 

“Except for all the times that you didn’t,” said Jadzia. “You took on months of mid-to-late term pregnancy for a friend. You handed over you body pretty quickly for that, even with the enormous physical toll not just of pregnancy but of an alien living inside you for months. An alien that ultimately was not yours to hold.”

She pressed a hand to her heart. "You took on part of me, when I wanted to meet Lela, do you remember? You let her--me--live in your body, even if for only a moment."

Shaking her head, Kira whispered, “Stop.”

“You gave your body to another alien,” continued Jadzia. “To your gods—which would have destroyed you had Kai Winn not saved your life.”

And suddenly the thing blurring in Jadzia—in her tone, in her presentation, normally so easy to read for Kira—become clear. Jadzia was angry with her. 

She looked at her, at the lines of her smile still trying to hide, and she said, breathlessly, “I thought you understood why I did that.”

“I do understand.”

Kira shook her head again, narrowing her gaze, fixing it on the corners of Jadzia’s eyes, which were pinched in a way they typically weren’t. 

“You’re…disappointed in me.”

Jadzia held out for one more second before ugly honesty reared. She took a step back and crossed her own arms. 

“You just handed off your body and life like it was nothing,” said Jadzia, simply. “You didn’t even say goodbye. And then Odo said you would’ve wanted it. Odo said that to me, as if I'm not intimately familiar with all the things that you think you want because of what you believe.”

“Yes, well, I would’ve wanted it,” said Kira, feeling off-kilter. “I did. I'm not pretending."

"That doesn't mean you felt like you had a choice."

"As if you wouldn't have done the same," responded Kira, bitterly. "As if I haven't watched you walk willingly to your own death to save everyone else from it.”

Jadzia ignored this. “The wormhole alien called you a vessel," she said, her whole body twisting as she said the word, a curse.

“You call yourself a vessel all the time! You and your symbiont! Like the woman I love is just a home for a worm--like the caves you were just talking about."

“So what precisely do you think the right answer is?” shouted Jadzia, eyes flaming up. "What are you trying to say?"

Jadzia was so rarely angry and even more rarely loud in her anger. She kept her deepest convictions close to her chest and she kept her honest righteousness shielded behind a distant intelligence and friendly demeanor. But for all that she performed the curious and impulsive scientist, just there to stare at comets and have a fun time, Jadzia understood commitment in a way Kira had seen in very few people before. Beneath her jokes was a sort of iron jaw that had her stepping to Klingons or captaining ships into battle. For some reason, she appeared to be clenching that jaw now. 

“I’m not looking for a right answer,” said Kira. 

“Yes, you are,” said Jadzia, unhesitating, somewhat merciless. “You told Winn there was a right answer when all she did was save yours and Jake’s lives.”

“I stand by that! We don’t know what will happen with the evil one out there now! We don’t know and it wasn’t her choice.”

“There is no choice when the other option is death!”

“So you think I’ll be happier believing my mother was just doing what she had to to save her life?” Kira’s hands were in her hair, tugging desperately. “That it’ll make me feel better to think she didn’t actually care for Dukat at all? That she was just violated over and over and—” Kira cut off on half a sob, which she swallowed.

There was quiet.

“No, Nerys,” said Jadzia, the fire gone from her voice. She stepped closer again. “I don’t think anything will make you feel better. I’ve expressed this all wrong. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She held out a hand which Kira grabbed onto so quickly she nearly tripped in the effort. Jadzia pulled her slowly and gently closer until Kira could tuck herself under her long, spotted neck. Arms wrapped lightly around Kira’s shoulders and back, light until Kira squeezed Jadzia’s waist hard and Jadzia returned the pressure. 

“The only thing I meant to say, before this all got away from me,” said Jadzia into Kira’s hair. “Was that I think your mother was brave. I think it's okay to think she's brave.”

Kira sobbed once, then twice, into Jadzia’s uniform collar. Then she held her breath until the sobs dissolved in her chest. She tightened her grip on her. Between them, she could feel the Dax symbiont moving on her stomach. 

“I think you’re brave, Jadzia,” she said, stuffy nosed and devastated and ridiculous and sad. 

“Most people call it reckless,” laughed Jadzia in a whisper.

“You’re as sturdy as a rock,” said Kira. She smiled, just slightly, as she felt Jadzia press a kiss to her forehead, just under her hairline. 

“Such flattery,” said Jadzia, obviously grinning, obviously trying to hide how actually flattered she was. 

“Just don’t move,” said Kira, pressing her face closer against Jadzia’s shoulder.

Beneath her feet, she could feel the faint tremors of the Station twisting around her space, the many people moving around in its halls and rooms, and she thought of how fragile the whole of it all was, the Station and its parts, floating in such a cold place as the vacuum, yet also how such a body had held so much already, including her mother, including herself and Jadzia, standing together, in each others’ arms. 

“I’m here,” said Jadzia. “Not planning on going anywhere.”

[voidbeau]

!!!🌹Thorn and Mr. Flower🌿 tiiime!!!

And boy I will never not be so so enthusiastic about these guyz <333

I touched on the dynamics of their relationship in a previous post on my last account before it was terminated. But seeing as that post is lost at sea now, I'll do a bit of recap on that.

Just to have everything neatly in one post.

And then I gotta remember to save this post in a separate document or something in case something happens to this account...

Anyway, the boyz 🌹🌿

---

So, as I've mentioned previously, I've always pictured Mr. Flower and Thorn's relationship to have extremely rocky beginnings.

We're talking, tons of baggage on both sides.

Trust issues from one end and desperate clinging on the other in the form of big promises and what may or may not be tons of lip service.

Not to mention all the potential secret guarding.

Thorn has some form of charm, sure.

Enough that in the beginning he was able to garner interest from Mr. Flower.

"Sure, maybe we'll see where this goes..."

But as I've said before, my take on Mr. Flower is that he's a very closed off individual.

Getting him to open up is like trying to pry open iron doors with nothing but a couple of toothpicks.

Most people aren't likely to have known anything other than an idealized version of himself. The Mr. Flower he wants you to see.

And that version of Mr. Flower can certainly seem pleasant and easy to talk to, but when exposed to it long enough, it becomes obvious how very surface level it all is, but to Mr. Flower, it's preferable to how he knows he can be.

And if you manage to speak with him with his mask off, then you might find yourself wondering if maybe you prefer the performative version of Mr. Flower.

But that was the idea of course.

Give people a better, more palatable alternative.

There have been very few people who have found the real Mr. Flower tolerable to be around and as such, there have been very few people who have found any reason to stick around.

And that's sort of the expected outcome Mr. Flower has of any potential relationship he gets involved in, whether romantic or platonic or whatever else!

He's learned over the years that it's much easier to just to keep his expectations low and others an arm's length away.

And if anyone gets too close, it's best to retreat before things are liable to become painful.

And if for whatever reason, someone tries to persist when pulling away, it's good to remind that person why they thought to keep a distance in the first place, in whatever manner seems necessary in the moment.

Even if feelings are hurt.

Even if it ends the relationship in that moment.

Better to leave than to be left behind yet again.

"It was doomed to fail anyway..."

This man is walled in on all sides.

And yet despite this, Mr. Flower is plagued by the thinnest rays of troubling thoughts and emotions.

Hopefulness and desire for genuine, lasting companionship appear as annoying cracks in the walls Mr. Flower so carefully built up over the years, and despite the constant reminders why it's best not to leave his miserable fortress of self preservation, he often finds himself with one foot out the front gates far too often.

And that was exactly where Thorn found Mr. Flower, hovering just beyond his gates. Open enough to the world that he began his journey with Mr. Flower with a mask half off.

With a glimpse of a real person behind a carefully crafted persona.

Not enough to tell the whole story, but enough to want to uncover that story. To get the full picture.

How desperately Mr. Flower has tried to slip that mask of his back on as soon as he realizes whats been done.

Unfortunately...

"You should know better sweetheart, your tricks don't work on me."

Because Thorn's already gotten a glimpse, so what on earth is this funny little act you're putting on, Mr. Flower? This isn't the you I remember meeting on that rainy evening.

And while this has ignited the tiny embers of hope in Mr. Flower into a small flame, it's also bewildered and frustrated him.

Because Thorn insists on tugging on the edges of Mr. Flower's mask and unraveling his disguise thread by nervous thread. And it would seem that no amount of pulling away or lashing out is doing anything to dissuade this baffling rose man.

Not for long, at least.

And sure, they get into fights- frustrated back and fourths over each other's characters, and despite Mr. Flower thinking,

"This is it. This time for sure, it has to be. This time he's gone for good..."

Thorn always surprises Mr. Flower when he's the one to come back with an apology. When Thorn assumes he's done something to deserve Mr. Flower's ire. When Thorn goes on to admire those things Mr. Flower tries so hard to keep buried.

"I like that part of you. The real you, and how unapologetically you it is." He says through a toothy grin and an airy chuckle.

And Mr. Flower's stomach twists into knots.

"I love how fiery you are when you're not holding yourself back and I admire the honesty, even if it's a little hard to hear sometimes." Says Thorn.

"And though I wish you'd be just a bit more gentle, I also understand the world hasn't exactly been the most gentle with you."

And as Thorn reaches out to gingerly grab at Mr. Flower's hands, all Mr. Flower can do is swallow back the lump in his throat and watch while Thorn plants a soft kiss on those tense hands of his.

"I wouldn't change a thing about you." He says.

He insists.

"I don't understand you..." Says Mr. Flower, quiet and deadpan as he looks up, searching those half lidded, spiral eyes.

Thorn chuckles again, finding amusement over the concern and confusion on Mr. Flower's face, yet never missing the detail of those fanned out ear petals and how they twitch so enthusiastically every so often.

"It's easier to see the details close up." Thorn says, his thumbs caressing Mr. Flower's hands now. "Let me in and I promise it'll make sense."

A simple request, barely above a whisper and it sends Mr. Flower's heart racing and his mind screaming.

He's flooded with thoughts and emotions pulling him in every which direction.

Does he just let that happen? Or does he run as far and fast as his legs can take him?

He isn't sure, and he's frozen in place while Thorn waits patiently for an answer, until he realizes he may not get one in the moment.

"But-... if you're not ready that's okay. I can wait." Says Thorn now, gently letting those hands go as he takes a step back.

And Mr. Flower has to stamp out that desire to close the gap again.

The problem here is that Thorn is all Mr. Flower has left with in the moment.

Perhaps its not so much a problem as it is a solution?

But the idea of relying so heavily on someone is terrifying to Mr. Flower, especially when he knows so little about them.

And while Thorn continues to insist things will be okay and strives to convince Mr. Flower he can be trusted with the monumental task of getting to really know Mr. Flower.

Some things come up.

Something always comes up.

Time goes on and everytime Mr. Flower is at the threshold of his decision, something new comes to light about Thorn that leaves Mr. Flower second guessing everytime.

And everytime he considers that it might be best to leave this one in the dust with all the others, Thorn tugs Mr. Flower back into the same confusing cycle.

"C'mon, babe. It's not like that!"

"I promise it'll make sense, love just give it time."

"I know it sounds crazy, but..."

"I want to tell you, but...

And Mr. Flower is getting tired.

Tired of the secrets, the excuses the half truths. Tired of being talked up and let down every. single. time.

"You keep telling me to open up when I'm not even sure I've ever known who you are!"

And indeed, how can any man be expected to trust a stranger and to love someone you've hardly met?

And yet Mr. Flower is caught in the thickest part of a thorny bramble patch, unable to leave either by his own indecisiveness or because Thorn simply won't let him.

Because despite all the turmoil and uncertainty, there have been very real moments of that genuine connection Mr. Flower craved for so long.

Or at least, he thought there had been.

It's hard to say, and while Thorn insists that yes, of course they were genuine, it's difficult to take him at his word when he's constantly sneaking off late at night, constantly preoccupied with an old flame and always going off about these grand claims he swears are true, in place of the answers Mr. Flower so consistently pleads for.

"I don't understand you..."

"I know, sweetheart I know. Please give it some more time.

I promise it will all make sense."

A few things are for certain about Thorn that Mr. Flower has come to learn.

One is that he is a very busy and singularly minded man, and two is that there are very few things in the world that will come between Thorn and his many mysterious plans.

And the third, it would seem, is that Mr. Flower is not among the exceptions, no matter how much Thorn insists how important Mr. Flower is to him.

There are things that absolutely need changing, and while there are ways in which I could see the two working things out, they are not Without their trials.

Physically, mentally, emotionally, nobody is coming out unscathed. But sometimes you need to tear things apart in order to build anew.

A lot of Thorn's secretiveness is for valid reasons, though I won't go into too much detail cause I have fics planned- even if they take me YEARS to finish.

I will say, he is genuinely in love with Mr. Flower, and while he's not in the greatest place for him to be able to express it like he wants to, I've always imagined that Mr. Flower has a way of grounding Thorn when he gets all caught up in all his mystery work.

And boy howdy is it work.

But it's all worth it if it means securing a future where he can live in peace with his beloved Mr. Flower.

So long as they can weather the current storm.

The way I've seen it is that Thorn showed up around the time Mr. Flower and Mr. Plant began drifting, and since Mr. Flower doesn't have a lot of actual friends, losing the only one he felt he had was surprisingly hard for Mr. Flower to navigate.

He's been alone so long he thought he'd be fine. But thats the issue, Mr. Flower has been alone so long that he's not equipped with the proper tools for maintaining and fixing proper relationships.

Thorn has been a real conundrum for Mr. Flower on top of it all.

He's been as much of a learning experience in the department of communication as he has been a source of stress.

He's been an unlikely steadying hand and also another reason for Mr. Flower to be cautious.

He's heard and learned more about Thorn from others than he's ever learned from Thorn himself, except that Thorn is one large, walking, frustrating mystery to Mr. Flower.

There is definitely more to Thorn than meets the eye and as things progress and Mr. Flower is faced with terrifying revelations about Mr. Plant, Mr. Flower becomes more and more terrified about the things Thorn could actively be hiding.

They are just two performers on separate stages.

And they need to start learning how to get their act together because there's a lot more uncertainty and terrors on the horizon for these two.

----

And also @thatgirlwithasquid since you said you'd be interested in the read. ; v;

[morphinemilkshake]

About two years ago, I made a set of leprechauns for a Lord of Space. I'm not very happy with how it turned out back then, so I redesigned them :-} Info about them under the cut:

LOONIE ABILITY: Whenever LOONIE would receive any bodily harm, he instead teleports away unharmed, the distance being proportional to the damage he would have taken. For instance, teleporting away from a slap to the face will place him somewhere else in the same room, whereas an attempt to punch him in the gut would displace him somewhere in the same house or general area. Teleporting away from fatal damage, for example a bullet to the head, will place him extremely far away, potentially even on a different continent. CONCEPT: A “LOONIE” is a slang term for a 1$ Canadian coin depicting a common loon.

SWAN ABILITY: SWAN can instantly swap places with any other being. This ability has no limit to the distance it can be performed over. CONCEPT: The number 2 looks like a SWAN, and the word “SWAN” is very close to the word “swap”.

MOUSTACHE ABILITY: MOUSTACHE is an excellent housemaid, performing tasks efficiently and quickly. He is also tied to a JUJU: a silver bell which can be used to instantly summon MOUSTACHE to any location in space. He must at the very least attempt whatever he is tasked with when the JUJU is used. CONCEPT: The number 3 looks like a MOUSTACHE. The sort of butler-ey aesthetic comes bundled in with it.

MANNY ABILITY: MANNY can multiply the amount of himself by two, creating an exponentially growing army of clones. These clones commune through a shared subconscious, and their memories are absorbed by other living instances when one dies. MANNY can also divide the amount of himself by two, manually absorbing other instances of himself. CONCEPT: 4 is the smallest squared prime number, which is thematically appropriate because of MANNY’s ability to endlessly multiply.

MARSHALL ABILITY: MARSHALL can ATTRACT and REPEL things, kind of like a more limited telekinesis. This allows him to nab objects from a distance, pull foes towards him or, inversely, away from him, and even force bullets to stop in the air before they reach him. CONCEPT: Stars, especially five-pointed ones, are often used in military ranks. Stars, the actual celestial bodies, have strong gravitational properties.

RUBIK ABILITY: RUBIK can create PERFECTLY GENERIC OBJECTS. CONCEPT: A cube has six faces, and one of the most famous cubes is the RUBIK’s cube.

SUNDAY ABILITY: SUNDAY has passive reality-bending properties, which mostly manifest as an extension of his general disinterest and laziness. Hallways become shorter as he passes through them, bullets curve away because he can’t be bothered to duck in time, items appear in his pockets because he doesn’t want to look for them, and so on. CONCEPT: SUNDAY is the 7th day of the week. People don’t usually work or want to work on Sundays.

CYCLES ABILITY: Some catastrophic event keeps CYCLES trapped in an infinite Groundhog Day loop. This unknown terminus sends CYCLES back again and again to iterate in doomed offshoots over and over, stuck trying to understand its nature and find a solution to overcome it. This predicament has allowed him to accumulate an immense amount of prescient knowledge through first-hand experience, so much so that he is almost never caught off-guard. CONCEPT: The number 8 can be turned sideways to form the symbol of infinity.

GARRY ABILITY: GARRY is in possession of a powerful and mysterious JUJU called the ARCHITECH CALIBER. Using the ARCHITECH CALIBER one may WELD THINGS TOGETHER, PAINT OBJECTS, DELETE OBJECTS or even CREATE BALLOONS and ROPE out of NOTHING. Naturally, the creative use of this JUJU could have disastrous consequences. That is why only GARRY is allowed to have it, as he is yet to demonstrate the capacity for creative thought. CONCEPT: The number 9 looks like the letter g. The JUJU is the toolgun from Garry’s Mod, obviously. You’ll never guess why the guy is named Garry.

PIXIE ABILITY: PIXIE can grow and shrink at will. He can also do a lot of other inconsequential magical bullshit, like summoning forest critters and changing the color of objects, among other things. His elvish magics are governed by incomprehensible rules he refuses to share with anybody. CONCEPT: Dixie is the slang term for a Canadian 10$ bill, and it sounds very close to PIXIE. His nature is a reference to Fae-folk, of which pixies are a member.

POLES ABILITY: POLES wears a suspiciously POLES-shaped JUJU that looks like a spacesuit. It allows POLES to control how gravity affects him. He can reduce the pull he experiences to jump higher and descend slower, levitate in zero-gravity, or even change the direction of gravity for himself, walking on walls and ceilings. CONCEPT: Apollo 11 was perhaps the most famous space mission; it was during it that man first took steps on the surface of the moon. Poles’ aesthetic references that. 11 also looks like two poles next to each other.

LOADER ABILITY: LOADER can shrink and un-shrink things for easier, compact storage. He is also pretty strong, able to lift things most others can’t. CONCEPT: Loaders unload crates and boxes; cuboids have 12 edges. He unloads stuff, also.

FANGS ABILITY: FANGS can enter THE FOURTH DIMENSION. As it is extraneous to three-dimensional normal-Space, he is not only untouchable within it, but can also cover great distances and reach normally unreachable areas before re-emerging into normal-Space. Using this ability, FANGS can travel faster and more efficiently, as well as stalk victims, waiting for the perfect time to ambush them. The limitation to emerging in and out of THE FOURTH DIMENSION is that FANGS has to enter and exit it unseen, as he is quantum-locked in normal-Space when observed. CONCEPT: Ophiuchus, the snake bearer constellation to which Caliborn owes his symbol, is the unofficial 13th constellation. FANGS has elements stylized after the cherubs, like his swirly cheeks, and has general snake-like characteristics. His behavior as an ambush predator is also snake-like.

CASTLE ABILITIES: CASTLE contains a POCKET DIMENSION inside of himself: a 14x14x14 green room. He can transform his body into a gateway leading inside this POCKET DIMENSION, allowing himself to become a portable source of storage or protection. If CASTLE so chooses, the gateway can violently suck in everything in front of him. Everything caught within the POCKET DIMENSION will be trapped there, until CASTLE opens the gateway to it. CONCEPT: A fortnight is a period of fourteen days. Forts and castles are both fortified structures.

COMMODORE ABILITY: COMMODORE, or just ‘DORE for short, can PUNCH THROUGH TOPOLOGY creating temporary holes in the fabric of Space itself. These can connect impossibly vast distances as two-way portals, but heal over time and cannot exceed the boundaries of a Universe. Punching through the exterior of a Universe would be pretty irresponsible. CONCEPT: COMMODORE is a cockney term for a 15-pounder bill. It is also a navy title, in reference to which COMMODORE dons his sailor hat. ‘DORE also sounds like “door”, which references his ability to create temporary gateways a little bit.

[nearly-wonderland]

人造エネミー Jinzou Enemy - Jin - English Translyrics 

「 A song that turns away eyes. 」

"Living a life only doomed to repeat,  When your dreams all fall away, there's no point in remaining the same." Words you paint in lies so they won't fade. One and the same, we crave for a world that’s too far out of reach  Your fingertips that say this to me; Yet your silent voice is all the truth that I need.

The nameless figures you've hidden away,  And yet even then, how you beg for them to stay A love like that, you know there's no way they could feel the same.

Still, that's the way that it goes, so bring one and two more days to a close Bite down your fear like we're still alive* Just close your eyes and sleep ‘til you're fine.

"Ah, how it's all mundane," you scoff again, averting your gaze Even though you know your eyes could never look away... Hey, since it's all ignored, and you won't let those feelings arise Are you going to spend another day glaring, tired empty eyes staring at this lonely me through the screen?

You know this kind of life isn’t what you should do That hurting turning to all you knew To sort through truth and root out all the lies, it’s all hidden far away deeper than you can find

Is this whole world just lying to crumble beneath?** Since you don’t see it, hey, why don’t we Just run away from this broken place, to a non-reality made for you and me?

So why continue with your carrying on when this world is doing nothing but hate and scorn you? Just say 「 Goodbye 」 to it all, and only lie your eyes upon me.

"Ah, truly wonderful," you say, and clap your hands with glee But the lies you weave are slowly flooding down the streets. Hey, if you’ve grown so cold to a point where it’s more than you can bear Tell me why your tired eyes are still glaring, boring through me comparing me to all the lies that you see?

You know this kind of life isn't what you should do Why can't you see that you're breaking too? When all is gone and you're all that remains, close your eyes and turn away from the world that you find Stuck in a darkened room without kindness or light And soon, one day, when the sun will rise You'll hear my cries and resounding within as I break apart and fall out of existence 

"No, please, this just can't be! Please, I don't understand!" You stare coldly as I cry, and say, "I'm done with this toy that can only talk, so just leave, I've gotten sick of it all." 

———————————————————————— *The lyrics in Japanese don't explicitly mention death, but rather pretending to live, so I took liberties here to convey the story a bit better. For series like Kagerou Project and Shuuen no Shiori, I'm much more likely to take artistic liberties in the lyrics due to my familiarity with the source material in every form it's been adapted. **"Lying" is used throughout the lyrics intentionally, both in its meaning as a non-truth and as in 'laying' in another tense. The repetition of the term I felt fit the nature of this song very well, which is also why you'll find some repetitive terms and mid-line rhymes throughout the entire song.

[It's a concrete plan for me to eventually translate every Kagepro song! This has been my goal since I started writing lyrics several years ago~]

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 34: A Different Dance

As always, I shamelessly spoil anything and everything in these posts so you really shouldn't read them unless you're up for that.

We continue with the Wheel icon as Perrin's personal destiny takes shape.

He was too busy wondering if the black-haired girl knew what yellow eyes meant.

Perrin's paranoia about this is quite cute. Yes, Perrin, the gal was checking you out from across the room because of your hard-to-notice-at-that-distance eye color and not because you're a strapping young lad. Wish Mat and Rand were here, why don't you?

“There is another false Dragon, innkeeper? In Ghealdan?” The hood of her cloak still hid her face, but she sounded shaken to her toes.

Moiraine has clearly figured out through her spy network that Taim and the other guy fell almost immediately after Rand's proclamation, so the idea of another false Dragon is very scary. It would mean that Rand isn't the real deal at all.

“I only know what I hear, Master Andra. ’Tis said the fellow has a stare can pin you where you stand, and he talks all sorts of rubbish about the Dragon coming to save us, and we all have to follow, and even the beasts will fight for the Dragon. I don’t know whether they’ve arrested him yet or not. ’Tis likely; the Ghealdanin would not put up long with that kind of talk.”

It's great how the plotline of doom haunts us even in these early books. Moiraine and Lan would have done the world quite a favor if they'd just knifed Masema in his sleep.

“Only with those who displease her,” Lan said blandly. “Her bite is far worse than her bark.”

Talking blandly instead of darkly or outright growling is how you know Lan is downright jubilant.

Perrin, you will not believe it! My bed is sung wood! Why, it must be well over a thousand years old. No Treesinger has sung a piece so large in at least that long. I myself would not care to try it, and I have the talent more strongly than most, now.

I really want to know what's led to the mega-decline of the Ogier. It makes sense that between the Breaking and the Longing they can't do everything they used to, it isn't unreasonable that they can't build cities of old anymore because they're not being asked to do, just maintain them, but humanity lost its gifts because of the Taint. There's not really an Ogier equivalent, and a lot done to preserve the Ogier way of life. Did they just burn through all the real old-growth trees?

It was no use telling himself the adults would certainly have told him to go on about his business, that he was a stranger in Remen and the Aiel was none of his concern.

There we go Perrin, there's some sensible thinking. You just bitched that reality can't be the way it is because it wouldn't be just and *you* cared more than that. So whatcha gonna do?

No answers came to him, so he went back to the beginning and patiently worked through it once more, then again, and again. Still he found nothing except regret for what he had not done.

Dear lord why do I do this at work when I can't drink away the pain?

Moiraine pulled the pale blue robe that hung from her shoulders around herself. “You wish something?” she asked coolly.

Poor Moiraine, the one time Perrin comes to her of his own free will it's with so little respect that she can't help but go "Please get the fuck out while I'm changing."

“I could almost suspect he had learned to Travel,” Moiraine said with a small frown, “except that if he had, he would have gone straight to Tear. No, he has the blood of long walkers and strong runners in him. But we may take the river anyway. If I cannot catch him, I will be in Tear close behind him. Or waiting for him.”

Moiraine's a great bullshitter when she doesn't have an answer. Rand might be running off Aiel energy (you'd half-expect someone in-setting to claim they have extra leg muscles what with history always repeating itself), but he's also not stopping to sleep anywhere near as much as the main party, which buys him a lot of extra hours on net.

She could not help with Min’s viewing, not beyond telling him what he already knew, that it was important. And he did not want to tell her what Min had seen. Or that Min had seen anything, for that matter.

Ironically, if Perrin had said, "Min told me an Aielman in a cage is important to me, I'm gonna go rescue him," Moiraine probably would have sent Lan with him. Purely because of the Min aspect of things, of course; if Perrin ever had ideas of his own that weren't Pattern-approved Moiraine would instead have Lan tie him to a horse or four. I lament a lot of the lack of communication between our good guys but and I diss Perrin's intellect way more often than I thought I'd be doing but our boy is 100% not wrong not to want to trust her here, even though he also is very much wrong.

The common room was full as it could be, with every chair taken, and stools and benches brought in, and those who had nowhere to sit standing along the walls.

Lord Orban might not be a Gleeman, but he does have a very recent war story to share, so it checks out that everyone is desperate to hear more.

He felt a little ashamed; just because he did not like the man was no reason to suppose the Hunter would take his boasting that far.

Dammit Perrin, your gut is so rarely right you should go with it when it is.

He still had the feel of being watched, but he still saw nothing. He listened, and heard nothing. He smelled chimney smoke and cooking from the houses, and man-sweat and old blood from the man in the cage. There was no fear scent from him.

It's destiny watching Perrin, or maybe the shadow. Also it's funny, I think I've seen "man-sweat" a couple of times and it's an odd thing to specify since most (all?) animals don't sweat and no one would assume Gaul had "woman-sweat". Perhaps the wolfs are rubbing off on Perrin more than he wants to acknowledge.

“You are strong, wetlander.” The Aiel did not move beyond working his shoulders. “It took three men to hoist me up there. And now you bring me down. Why?”

Perrin is an exceptional guy in so many ways that he keeps forgetting about the different ways someone might think him exceptional as he tries to cover up the big ones.

I am Gaul, of the Imran sept of the Shaarad Aiel, wetlander. I am Shae’en M’taal, a Stone Dog.

Hi Gaul! Sadly we don't learn much about the Imran sept or where in the Waste it might be, though it's probably close to the Dragonwall because the Shaarad are one of the four clans that fought the Aiel War. The Stone Dogs are an odd society for the scouting going on at present though - they're really more the rear guard of the Aiel forces.

“Well, I am Perrin Aybara. Of the Two Rivers. I’m a blacksmith.”

Perrin's upset that he has servant's quarters and has no idea that he's just introduced himself to someone who considers his profession borderline sacred.

“Three days ago, I watched a girl sporting in a huge pool of water. It must have been twenty paces across. She . . . pulled herself out into it.” He made an awkward swimming gesture with one hand.

You'd think that the Aiel War and the river crossings necessary to wage it would have made the Aiel a little less frightened of water, but here we are.

“It is too late to run,” Gaul said, and a deep voice shouted, “The savage is lose!”

Perrin, why don't your super senses ever do anything useful? Gaul should not have known these guys were here before you!

For an instant they were caught by surprise, but an instant was apparently all the Aiel needed. He kicked the sword out of the grip of the first to reach him, then his stiffened hand struck like a dagger at the Whitecloak’s throat, and he slid around the soldier as he fell. The next man’s arm made a loud snap as Gaul broke it. He pushed that man under the feet of a third, and kicked a fourth in the face.

The real secret of Aiel combat is that their intense dedication to honor means that anyone else who might be fighting them has to be doing so in a dishonorable enough way to qualify as a ninja, and once you're a ninja, the law of inverse ninjitsu is as much a part of the Pattren as gravity.

Perrin had only an amazed moment himself, for not all the Whitecloaks had put their attentions on the Aiel. Barely in time, he gripped the axe haft with both hands to block a sword thrust, swung . . . and wanted to cry out as the half-moon blade tore the man’s throat.

Perrin could really do with a therapist, huh? Dude doesn't like violence even though he's really, really good at it.

Some of the men groaned; others lay silent and still. Gaul stood among them, still veiled, still empty-handed. Most of the men down were his work. Perrin wished they all were, and felt ashamed.

One wonders if ANY of the unconscious are among Perrin's victims or if it's just the dead.

Sarien and I were careless, being so long in these soft lands, and the wind was from the wrong direction, so we smelled nothing. We walked into them before we knew it. Well, Sarien is dead, and I was caged like a fool, so perhaps we paid enough.

Frankly I'm still surprised they managed to kill even one Aiel, the hunters being the losers they are. Musta been Faile's work somehow.

Perrin started to run, too, then realized he had a bloody axe in his hands.

I'm glad that Perrin is just barely smart enough to remember not to run with scissors. It's a low bar, but an important one.

“Is this your work, blacksmith? The Light burn me! Is there anyone who can connect it to you?”

Lan really thought that with Rand on the loose and Mat about as far away as possible that he wouldn't have anywhere near the level of headaches he did back in book one and Perrin just outdid every single one of Mat's shenanigans in the space of half an hour.

I saw a girl running, but I thought. . . .

No, I really wanna know what your first instinct to "girl running away from Perrin" is, Lan. But since I'll never get an answer, my headcanon is that he assumes Perrin tried to flirt with her and that was more than enough to scare her.

Next time: Faile joins the party!

[idiotwithanipad]

Kinda maybe sort of a part 2 to the Plague Ghosts and Robin thing🫢 I couldn't resist. Self indulgence won yet again...

(Trigger warning: Death, sickness, description of a full plague pit, child sickness, sores, pus)

Don't worry, this times there's SOME cute stuff with Robin... Or maybe that's just sad, but let's pretend it's cute😂

Agnes watched solemnly as the heavy sheet was wrapped tightly around Maude's newly deceased body. Her face frozen in one of peace and rest, thankfully; after all the pain, discomfort and suffering, Maude finally closed her eyes for the final time that morning. After turning her face away from an unseen guest whom she'd grown used to. Jeff took Agnes by the shoulders as John and Walter bowed their heads for a moment, clasping their hands about their middles and biting their chapped lips.

"Perhaps we'd better do it sooner rather than later?..." Nigel suggested softly to their left. The village nodded in agreement, never taking their damp eyes from Maude's form beneath the sheet.

"Yeah. Before more rats come..." Mick's lips quivered and his jagged teeth chattered together like castanets as he slowly rose his head to look up at the sky, his attempt at willing away his tears.

"Yeah, but- be gentle with 'er. She was a good friend to us all, really" Agnes spoke, forcing a weak smile as Jeff rubbed her shoulders, nodding slowly. The whole village erupted into a series of hushed agreements and nods, they too forced themselves to smile.

John and Walter positioned themselves at Maude's shoulders and feet, each taking an end of the sheet, lifting Maude from the grass and slowly carrying her over to a deep pit, a few hundred yards away from the houses.

"Gently, boys..." Jeff reminded them, wiping a tear from his eye with his newly discoloured finger. With a final nod and a weak smile, John and Walter lowered their friend down into the pit. It had been getting shallower recently, since the plague hit, since the figure was seen. Bodies of the recently deceased began to line the bottom of the soil pit, every day, a new body was added, another old friend mourned.

An upthrust of foul air was forced out of the pit as Maude's body landed quite roughly atop one of the other's beneath her. John and Walter reeled back as a barrage of flies flocked around them. The two men quickly covering their mouths with their sleeves and turning their heads away so they wouldn't catch wind of that awful stench. They took a few steps back and caught their breaths, their eyes remained on the quickly growing mound of lost friends and neighbours.

Not one of the villagers could muster any words, only grimaces of loss and sickness, a sickness of the heart and body, for they were all doomed to this pit. They knew it.

Not far away from them, a tiny sound broke the silence. A soft lilting of words, sweet words, words from an innocent who hadn't yet grown wise to the situation, and one who the village folk wouldn't let anywhere near the pit.

"If you tell them you're sorry, they'll feel better" Jemima suggested. She stood idly, her poorly thatched straw doll clasped in her arms. She looked up at nothing, she spoke to nothing, and she reacted to nothing.

"You're nice to me. Are you bad to others?... Then why are we sick?...I don't know either...are you sick too?"

Mick was the first to notice the small girl standing alone, speaking to an unseen guest. His snaggled jaw cracked open slightly as he fought off another phlegm firing cough and picked at the oozing rash on his brow.

"Don't be sad, I didn't mean to make you sad... I'm sure you didn't mean to make us all sick... Please don't cry"

His eyes frozen on Jemima and his jaw now slack, his eyes bulging from their sockets like boiled eggs, Mick reached back towards the others and clasped onto the first thing he could feel.

"OI! Watch me 'air!" Nigel grunted, rubbing at his scalp and swooping his very tangled and greasy locks over his shoulder away from Mick's prying fingers. Mick could only stutter and squeak as he pointed towards Jemima, the others soon noticing the strange sight.

"Maybe if I sing to you, you'll feel better? My Ma told me this song..."

The girl began humming her 'merry' tune, now holding the doll by its hand and skipping around in a circle around nothing, still looking up at nothing, and smiling at nothing.

All of them, Mick, Nigel, John, Walter, Jeff and Agnes shared concerned glances at each other briefly, mumbling quietly about what could cause her to behave this way. Hunger, thirst, delusion, sickness?... Loneliness?

Agnes stepped forward, followed by Jeff and the others. She put on a brave face, pretending like she hadn't just witnessed her dear friend be tossed to the dreaded pit.

"Jemi?... You okay? Doin' your little song?" Agnes crouched slightly to reach the girl's level, Jeff's hand remained against her shoulder.

Jemima nodded slowly and pointed towards the nothing that she spoke to.

"He felt sad so I cheered him up"

Agnes followed Jemima's pointed finger and her eyes saw nothing. Agnes took both of Jemima's hands in her own and turned the girl to face her.

"Swee'heart, there's nothin' there. You might be tired, why don't you come for a lie down, yeah?" Agnes's voice cracked slightly as she gave Jemima a sincere smile. The girl's brow creased in confusion.

"Yes there is. There. The man with fur and big fluffy hair. He sounds like he just learned to talk, maybe he never got told how to?" Agnes's blood ran cold, Jemima's description of the figure thawing out the frozen memory of Maude's last night alive. The description matching, to a point, the one given by her late friend.

Agnes, frozen in place, sweat prickling at her scalp, looked towards the empty space behind Jemima. Seeing nothing. She instinctively inched the child closer and clasped her shoulders now.

"And, he's there- now?"

"Yeah he is, he's right the-...oh. He's gone now..."

Later that evening, after being given a nightly kiss on the brow from Agnes and Jeff, Jemima kissed her doll on it's 'head' and settled onto the straw pillow, coughing and spluttering. She remained this way for countless minutes, the sound of the crickets outside being the only sound to fill the deathly silence.

The child lie still, entranced, watching the flickering flame of a candle at her bedside, when she heard the voice.

"You sicker?" The figure returned.

Jemima sat up slowly, trying not to cough. She clasped the doll to her chest and stared at the creature.

"I think so. Why did you go away earlier? I thought you liked my song" Jemima looked almost betrayed as she lowered her eyes away from the figure and focused on her doll, stroking it's arm to 'soothe' it.

"No. Did. Just- not want see-..." The strange man-thing bent forward away from the wall where it stood, slowly making its way over to Jemima's bed. It's lips twitched and contorted themselves, as though trying to form a word which up until now had been unfathomable.

"... Pit. Drop. Dead family-.." A sullen shadow crossed the creature's face as it sat on the bed by Jemima's feet.

"Wish, could help. You child, you young. Should not be death yet for you" The creature's eyes flicked down towards the earthy floor, shining dimly in the flickering candle light like distant lanterns inside the evening fog.

Jemima clutched her doll closer and her eyes twitched in discomfort, dread. The creature seemed to notice and ceased it's explanation. It could barely look her in the eye without starting to choke up.

"I don't believe what aunty Maude said. If you brought the sickness here, you'd be mean to me, not nice" Jemima assured, placing the doll back against the pillow behind her as she sat up in the bed and crossed her legs.

The creature had no response, it just gave a single nod, it's nostrils and lips twitched briefly and it once again, turned it's face away back towards the darkness. It's almost human claw came up to brush against its unkempt fur. The other claw reaching higher. Towards it's face.

Jemima tugged her sleeve into the palm of her hand, crawling over to the twisted creature, reaching up her covered palm.

"Here... Let me. There's no need to cry~"

[seldaryne]

10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 for durge~

10. What motivates your Dark Urge to either embrace or resist the tadpole?

Pragmatic though Velrith may be, consuming more tadpoles & utilizing their abilities seems to be a more favourable route. In her mind, there's obviously some sort of reason that she hasn't undergone the transformation yet--some sort of protection that's keeping the effects at bay. The tadpole itself is a parasite, and it does need her at least semi-alive as its host. There's also an element of wanting to know more about her current situation, and part of that desire means that someone has to be a guinea pig. Particularly in Act 1, her feelings about herself are pretty nebulous. She's not overly concerned for her personal safety, and actually finds it reassuring that she's surrounded by people both willing & capable of putting her down if she starts to turn into a mindflayer, so she thinks of it as a calculated risk. Also, interactions with the Cult of the Absolute go considerably smoother when she's not operating from a place of total darkness.

Basically, once she weighed the options, there were more benefits to be found from tapping into the tadpole over ignoring it entirely. The Astral Tadpole is a different story. At that point, she's started to lose trust in the Emperor (though she's still fine with working towards his goals, at least until she feels like she has a better grasp of the entire situation. Like the tadpole, he clearly needs her alive for something. It's a truce, for now), and she's more interested in keeping ownership over herself. The Astral Tadpole seems a step too far away from that desire, and she refuses to budge on that.

11. What motivates your Dark Urge to either embrace or resist the Urge?

Answered here.

12. How does your Dark Urge feel about being a bhaalspawn?

In a word?

Despair.

It's a very unique feeling of helplessness, of knowing that she was always more or less doomed to fail. Her own desires didn't matter. She was never expected to develop her own path. She's not even sure what the point of allowing her developmental years to be comparatively 'normal,' unless it was to perhaps cultivate resentment & make her eventual indoctrination more spiteful. She doesn't remember feeling any of that, though; just emptiness. A void where her core should have been, distant from the very idea of what it meant to be truly alive.

Now, since she was a child, she'd always been interested in finding out the way things worked. What makes the clock tick? How do the wheels of a carriage know how to turn? Even if she's not as obvious about it later on, she still retains the curiosity. As Bhaal's chosen, it manifests in a less-than-acceptable fashion. More detached than she'd ever been, she started cutting into bodies to see if they had something tangible that she didn't. Externally, they were the same. Bhaal hadn't made something physically deviant, at least. So maybe there was something inside, tucked away behind the ribs and lungs, threaded in amongst the viscera & woven around the nerves.

Her abhorrent butler was delighted, naturally, and assumed the dissection-turned-vivisection was motivated by torturous desires. She never bothered to mention how part of her longed to crawl inside the open chest cavities, wrapping herself up in the wet warmth, hoping she could somehow absorb a patchwork version of her ideal self in that way.

She understands, in retrospect, why she was doing this. But she doesn't know whether to be more angry at herself for seeing the habit as something both justified and necessary, or being put in a position where she ever had the opportunity to discover it in the first place.

15. What is your Dark Urge’s greatest fear?

To slip again, to lose herself to the Urge, to die as an animal lost to its instincts rather than herself.

She knows she's technically rejected it, but the fear lingers. She can't rest until she makes those in close proximity to her swear that they're willing to prevent her from hurting anyone, and it's one of the few topics you can see cracks of real, honest anxiety in her face & hear it in her voice. It's not so much the fear of hurting the people she's come to care about (that's definitely a portion of it, though), it's losing everything she's worked so hard for in the process.

When she finished Orin off and was subsequently punished for rejecting Bhaal (her father--creator, really) she knew she was dying. She didn't want to die, and resisted as much as she was physically capable of doing, but she knew it was happening anyway. Her vision flickered, fading in time with the numbness spreading from her chest. Someone may have been yelling in the distance, muffled and far, far away. Or maybe that was the sound of her own screaming. It was hard to tell.

Yet, she was somehow happy to do it.

She was dying, but she was aware of it, and it was her, not some abomination of Bhaal. Those last moments of fleeting consciousness belonged wholly and entirely to her, to Velrith, and all of the decisions she made that led to that point. And Bhaal could take her life, but he couldn't take away that fierce shock of pride at it being hers.

Should she fall, it has to be on her own terms. She's not eager to embrace death, but she has that requirement of it when it comes.

16. What is your Dark Urge’s greatest desire?

It's selfish, and she's not convinced she deserves it. But she wants to live.

She's been given a second chance when she knows she likely deserves no less than execution for her past actions. She's found a small group of people who care for her despite all evidence prior dictating she should be shunned at the absolute minimum. From that, she's even found what she recognizes to be happiness in a romantic partnership (she still finds confusing fascination in how quickly Astarion was able to accept her, and doesn't know if she'll ever understand--but she's endlessly grateful). There are strangers whose faces she doesn't recognize who see her as a hero, as someone they can trust to help with their problems.

She is happy. More dangerously, she is content. And it feels so unfair, somehow, that she can sit there, basking in all this warmth when her body has been the instrument of so much destruction. Why should her hands be held gently, when they were made & used for tearing apart soft flesh & crushing bones? She should be, at the very least, generally hated & scorned if she's allowed to walk free after that.

But she isn't. It doesn't seem to happen (at least, not in anyone she's encountered yet).

She wants to keep living like this. She won't let herself put down the burden of her past. It seems an added cruelty that she can't make herself participate in. But even carrying that, it doesn't change the fact that's she wants to live.

17. What is your Dark Urge’s greatest regret?

Is it perhaps too dramatic to say it might just be her entire creation?

Velrith has never really been able to properly make peace with her past. It's not something you can ask either, since there's no way anyone would have a proper frame of reference. Well, you weren't as bad as Orin. You weren't as bad as Gortash. Do those statements even carry meaning? What good is being the lesser of two evils when the scale is that vast to begin with? (Besides, she can't even say with any degree of certainty that she wasn't worse. Evidence seems to point in the other direction.)

She's done good things. She's helped people. She knows this; she's even seen some of it firsthand.

And yet, the couple who selflessly took her in would still be alive.

And yet, the blood of so many innocents who just happened to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time wouldn't have been spilled.

And yet, the city of Baldur's Gate likely wouldn't have been under this current threat if not for her past actions.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

So perhaps, on the whole, everyone would have been better off had she never been here in the first place.

durge asks.

[7ban-sama]

What would it take to drive Amane to eat Nene?

*gets a wistful expression, like I'm about to make a wish on a dandelion* Ahh... I wonder...

By now, it's clear that consumption is some sort of... consummation, in this manga, so it would be a major milestone for hananene to reach "that point." Since their relationship is relatively new (a handful of months old) I think we're still watching them build up to something that "extreme". So far, we've been mostly in the throes of Amane resisting his urges and possessiveness around her. With mixed results, of course. But still. Some ways to go, before he was at that breaking point...

(Not fair though, because AidaIro sure aren't afraid to tease us about it.

Diabolical of them...)

That being said, I always get the impression that Amane harbors more predatory feelings for Nene than we've been fully shown. This moment where he says this in the Severance is meant to torment Akane, but it really haunts me. He's not lying, after all; we see the kaii clamoring for Aoi, once she is left unattended.

Isn't this incriminating for Amane, given that he has his own kannagi?? But, in this circumstance, Amane is assuming the Severance will be perpetuated, and he will never have to see Nene again. In a moment like this, I guess there's no reason to obfuscate this — especially when talking to Teru and Akane, of all people. Ugh, but my head spins, if I have to think about Nene's soul being something especially desirable to Amane...!! He's already hidden so much, so this could very well be another layer to it all.

Between this, and Amane's possessiveness, and his history with Tsukasa... I feel like Nene is some sort of boxtrap designed to make Amane go insane. An irresistible set up of a lonely girl who no one will have, with no future... someone who would be easy to entrap into servitude. Yet, the very limit of her life is going to make Amane feel panicked with the urge to take control of it. The clock is ticking! If he doesn't do something, then she'll be gone! Extending her life is, perhaps, the most benevolent way of trying to cope with the impending doom of her life coming to a close... but I wonder if that kind of anxiety was spurred by, ahh. Perhaps trying to keep other demons at bay. The side of you that perhaps, can't help but think, If she's going to die anyways, I might as well... Agh! No!! It's happening again!!! I feel like an authority on an entire person's life-!!!

*waves hand* I juggle various HCs, so I sometimes contemplate alternate truths, but currently it is my favorite is: Amane has already felt the urge to kill/consume Nene, and events like PP and Severance are him trying to run away from his nature. Unsuccessfully, of course, but as crazy as he gets, these instances are still him holding back something...

It is impossible to make peace with, because he earnestly wishes to protect her as well. He wants to be her dashing savior, her hero. He cherishes and loves her. Why, then, does he want to harm her? Well, I think these are all the same conflicting feelings he had over Tsukasa, and it's why he struggles with the reality of what he did. Having been so defined as 'big brother', I feel like Amane had a whoole complex about needing to care and protect Tsukasa. But how did it all culminate in a stab to the heart...? It's all so contradictory. You can almost understand how all Amane can conclude is that he was insane and now perpetually lives as some, twisted monster, a remnant of that action.

So with all that laid out... I think he's still the same as ever, deep down, and could be driven to snap. Even if he digs his heels in and resists. What hasn't changed is he still craves to enact this sort of desire onto a body. Take you, have you, consume you.

Most romantically, I'd just love for all of Nene's encouragement and acceptance of Amane's past to make him feel eroded — like he just can't keep holding back, if she's offering herself to him so earnestly. She was willing to stay with him on the Far Shore... and I think that was too much for Amane, which is why he was cruel about it. But if Nene had the resolve, the patience, to not get worn down by his defensiveness about it, to... simply insist, that she would do anything, endure anything, to stay with him... ah... That shaky grip on his sanity could finally falter.

Moments like this are when Nene is most bewitching, I think. Girl on her knees, curtained by her hair... Exhibiting something akin to reverence. If she could speak with certainty about what she wanted from him, then I think it'd finally give Amane no choice, haha. Though I feel bad, it's a lot to ask of a girl... a lot is on Nene's shoulders, as the protagonist. 9.9

Through less direct means, I feel as though Nene could also tempt fate by being in enough circumstances where Amane has to fear losing control of her life. With threats from Teru to end it, and Kou to prolong it, things like that... You could spur Amane to have to act. Just out of fear of anyone getting there first. I don't think he could stand the thought... It'd really be like, sighs, eyes lid. I must do it. I've lost the battle.

I could go on and on but also this is painful for my little Amane brain to interface with directly. *closes eyes* It's like dreaming of confessing to her, or something. Like, god, I wish. *traces circles on window* Someday...

Silver lining of this all, is that Amane has been capable of it in other worlds.

He has this inside of him, I'm certain!

[orchdaries]

to @wvthering with ♡

     taesung has a very strong love and hate relationship with social events. even when he much preferred being in a great hall and interacting with people while being served expensive wine and even more expensive food over being on the battlefield, his years in the military not being the fondest memories in his repertoire of recollections of his moments in life, there were still a couple of aspects of such social events that he still wasn't overly fond of and surprisingly it isn't the sometimes dreadful small talk that he'd engage with certain nobles.

     considering the kind of life that he has had so far and how much he had to fight with tooth and nail to get any sort of recognition, it feels rather rewarding that now, with the position that he holds, the nobles who once scrunched their noses at him and doubted his ability were now subtly fighting over to get his favor. it's satisfying to watch them trying to rub elbows with him as if they weren't whispering about his inescapable doom and how he'd drag house seok with him if his parents weren't careful enough. taesung would never consider himself much of a petty person — even if some of his close friends would argue that he in fact is —, however he doesn't see the harm in having his ego fed like this and even though the topic of conversations were rather dull, it was still somewhat bearable.

     even more so when taesung never gave them anything unless they had something to offer that indeed worth of his time yet he was never discourteous enough that they were able to call him out on his behavior, watching them brew in their concealed frustration being yet another source of endless amusement to him.

     the only thing that could make taesung run away from a conversation was when the topic of marriage (and more specific his marriage) was brought up, the minister receiving so many unsolicited subtle proposals that he doesn't bother to remember names nor to keep track of them. but hopefully he isn't the only one that dreads certain topics of small talk and he can already see the one person he always seeks whenever he's running away from certain interactions making her way to him. " good evening , lady choi . " he greets her friendly enough, trying to hold back his amused smile by taking a sip of his wine. " isn't it a little too early to be running away ? the evening has barely started . "

[postalninja]

For the romance writing meme: Auron/Lulu, sharing long term dreams, goals and aspirations with one another

They lay on the forest floor in the Macalania Wood, Lulu's head tucked under Auron's chin as he held her close against him. With every breath, he inhaled the scent of her hair, a fragrant mix of sweet, spicy, and floral notes. He breathed in deeply, committing to memory not only her scent but the warmth of her body as it curved into his, her back pressed flush against his chest. Auron's arms tightened around her - these intimate moments were regrettably fleeting, and far too few on the road to Zanarkand. After putting their clothes back on and making themselves presentable, the two couldn't help but linger before covertly rejoining their companions as if they had never sneaked away. Auron doubted that their repeated absences had altogether gone unnoticed, but as long as the two of them were given space and privacy he found that he didn't care. Let the others wonder and whisper - he and Lulu would continue to indulge themselves whenever the opportunity struck regardless. He idly stroked his fingertips along Lulu's shoulder, caressing the smooth curve of skin just above the fur trim of her dress. She shivered lightly, and sighed, content. "Do you ever think about the Calm?" she asked out of nowhere, her often authoritative tone softened to a near purr by relaxation and comfort. "The one to come should we succeed, I mean." Auron almost stiffened at the question, but fought the instinct. "No," he answered truthfully, his fingers continuing to trail along Lulu's exposed skin. "I prefer to focus on the here and now." He felt her nod in response, heard her utter a quiet Mmm under her breath. "I would have answered the same, until recently," she told him, "but of late I've noticed my thoughts often turning to the future." "Oh?" he gently replied. "What prompted the change?" He skated his fingers idly up the side of her neck, then back down to her shoulder, eliciting a breathy sigh from her lips. "This," she answered bluntly. "Us." Auron's heart sank. He'd been afraid she would answer something of the sort. But he wouldn't burden her with the truth. Not yet. Perhaps he could allow himself to pretend, only for a time, that there was a future for them. "And what do you think about when you imagine the Calm?" he found himself asking. Lulu drew in a long breath, seemingly pensive for a moment before she answered. "I suppose I've imagined many things," she admitted. "I've been a guardian for long enough that the thought of doing anything else seems a bit overwhelming. There are so many possibilities, so many opportunities that I might choose to pursue during those ten years... It's hard to decide where to start." Auron said nothing for a long moment. The last thing he wanted was to shatter her hopes... but if her plans involved him, was it really fair of him to encourage them? Still, lying here with her cradled in his arms in the wake of their lovemaking and lost in his affection for her, he couldn't help but allow Lulu to dream. She had suffered more than her fair share in her time, a woman young enough to yet be full of the vigor of life, but having instead survived an enduring tempest of loss and death. She was always so pragmatic, so rational... she deserved the chance to recapture the fleeting fancies of youth, even if she was ultimately doomed to disappointment. He tried not to let that last part sour the moment. "I wish good things for you," he offered softly, "I hope that life will be kind to you after all this. That you find happiness and peace."

Lulu reached up to squeeze his hand in her own. He could hear the smile in her voice when she answered, "I wish the same for you. And that, perhaps, we might find that peace together." He held back a sigh, and his eyes stung as he dropped a silent kiss onto the top of Lulu's head. If only that could be. How he wished it could be. Auron squeezed Lulu tightly in his arms and tried very, very hard not to think about the future.