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windblooms · 4 years ago

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topaz devices | ch. 01

if zhongli isn’t a the brightest individual blessed by the archons, then he’s socially inept, and spends his days stuck behind a desk as the heir of wangsheng incorporated. frustrated by seeing his best friend burn through his days like paper over a bonfire, childe decides that if there’s one thing worse than a permeant desk job, it’s being converted into a corporate machine in one’s mid-twenties. and he’s not going to let that happen to zhongli.

gender-neutral reader x sugar daddy!zhongli. modern au, slow burn. chapter 1/?. 2213 words.

as usual, zhongli awakens a minute before his morning alarm goes off.

and as he lays on the daybed, adjusting to the faint lighting of the moon that floats through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, the first thing he does is reach for his phone. but when he pats down the area beside him, then above his head, and feels nothing, he begrudgingly props himself up on his elbows, and blinks the final bits of sleep out of his eyes.

this isn’t the first time he’s fallen asleep at the office. admittedly, it’s probably over his hundredth, since he’s found it more practical to crash near his workspace than drag himself three floors up to his room. but, oh, where did he leave his phone? zhongli glances around, eyes no longer bleary; it’s not on the coffee table next to him, nor on the floor between it and the daybed, and for a split second he believes he left his phone at the tea station across the hall.

and then it chimes with his alarm on the marble floor just before his work desk.

“ah,” he sighs to himself, voice still somewhat choked from the morning. as the tone plays, he runs both of his hands through his hair, pulling back his bangs before letting them fall to the sides of his face, and takes a glance around his office: he vaguely remembers staying up until four in the morning to finish scanning over a forwarded contract, and the three empty cups of caffeinated tea that surround his desktop computer can attest to his commitment; there are reference binders on his desk that zhongli hadn’t put away after using, likely too engrossed in the project to tidy up as he worked, and the most damning evidence of his corporate devotion is easily the fact that, well –

“conference in one hour,” his phone alarm is interrupted by the sound of its virtual assistant voice. “conference with,” it continues in robotic fashion, “mrs. ningguang at seven-thirty-a.m.”

– he had scheduled an impromptu meeting after he finished reading said document. as in, he intended to follow through with a meeting arrangement on less than four hours of sleep. as in, arranged a meeting when it was three in the morning.

as in, he also expected others to attend the conference on a four hour’s notice.

such is the way of wangsheng incorporated, an institution where everyone involved is asked to sell their soul to the matriarch, all for the prosperity of her company. the matriarch in this case being, of course, zhongli’s mother.

“conference with,” his virtual assistant repeats, and zhongli hauls himself up from the daybed and onto his feet, padding over to his phone before swiping over the screen to silence all of his notifications. “mrs. ninggua – ” beep.

he inhales, stretches his arms, and then gazes out to the liyuen skyline.

the horizon is still dark, with only hints of warmth leaking onto the expansive blanket of night. below, however, the streets are illuminated by commuting vehicles and establishments opening for the day. from his place on the higher floors of the company building, zhongli can only imagine the hum of life – he’s much too far up to actually hear anything.

it’s at this moment he realizes that the last time he’s actually stepped foot out of the building was over a week ago – and a grimace becomes his first expression of the day. archons, he didn’t think he was that busy, but begins mentally count the days regardless. yeah, 9 days. zhongli’s frown deepens; knowing himself, it’s probably also been 9 days since he’s left his floor on the building.

as much as he would like to leave, though, the company is more important to him. until there’s a convenient time for him to take a break, he’ll keep working. it’s what he’s always done – it’s what he’s good at.

so he inhales once more, as the skyline is washed with violet. exhales.

the clock reads six thirty-three.

. . .

it’s around four in the morning when childe decides that zhongli is officially insane.

who the fuck arranges a meeting in the dead middle of the night? granted, he’s only zhongli’s secretary, so it’s not like he has to take part in it – the gripe here is that he’s the one who manages zhongli’s entire schedule. so when zhongli goes out on his own, arranging things without telling him first, that’s when the issues start.

childe receives the conference notice just as the other executives do (while on a comfortable date with his bed); reading zhongli’s attached note with gunk wedged in his eyes and a screen flashing blue light directly into his irises makes him think –

there’s no way zhongli’s in the right state of mind. and after three whole years of working with him, others would think that childe’s used to his mercurial behavior by now. but he would give himself more credit, insisting that he’s not that deep into the corporate mentality to put business before rationale – but maybe it’s the luxury that comes along with being a secretary and not anyone more important.

now, where was he? oh, yeah. plotting exactly which words to tell his boss when it’s an acceptable time in the morning.

that means grumbling obscenities until he falls back asleep, brain power exhausted. that means waking up at an appropriate time (read: six), rolling out of bed, then heading to the tea bar, and concluding that, well, this is just how zhongli operates.

as in, he can’t be angry at his best friend for long.

ceramic cup in hand and bedhead as thick as a haystack, childe recalls two things that were previously clouded by his indignance: one, that the business life is all zhongli’s ever known, even when he was a kid (that much was made obvious when he couldn’t even list out how many hobbies he had the first time they met). two, the fact that, when asked, zhongli didn’t know which would be worse between losing stock investments or entire contact with the outside world.

sheltered is probably the closest word childe can think of, but zhongli isn’t stupid either. maybe socially inept is the better way to describe him – not like it cripples his personality entirely though. he’s got some redeeming qualities – childe tells himself to think positively of zhongli for the entirety of his stroll down the hall towards his office – but stops short once he opens the door and realizes that, well,

“three,” childe mouths incredulously, nearly dropping the ceramic in his hand. “three cups of tea from last night alone?”

“good morning to you too.”

childe doesn’t have much time to gawk. he would drag his face down with his fingers if his hands weren’t occupied, but knowing zhongli, he wouldn’t even make note of his dramatics. absorbed into his work first thing in the morning – and childe, looking down at himself, isn’t even dressed properly. just a dress shirt and pants, while zhongli has already decked himself out in a full-piece suit.

that’s what happens when zhongli decides that his office is where he’s going to live.

“you know,” childe starts, sighing for good measure. the ginger makes his way over to zhongli’s desk, replacing the three cups with one of fresh tea. glaze lily tea, to zhongli’s preference. “staying up late isn’t good for your health. especially when you’re high on caffeine six days a week.”

well, duh. the words come out dumber than he intended, but it gets the point across. it’s not childe’s job to sound intelligent, only that he knows how to manage someone else’s schedule.

it takes a few seconds for zhongli to respond, as his fingers are busy typing away at the keyboard. drafting another email, most likely. in that time, childe hooks his fingers through the handles of the three cups zhongli had downed the previous night, preparing to carry them out. “i do what i need to get things done,” the workaholic counters. his eyes don’t leave the monitor for a second, and childe has half the mind to think that he’s a robot. “we’ve talked about this before.”

zhongli’s not wrong, but childe’s face sours nonetheless. “i can’t have the heir of the company sabotaged by his own toxic work ethic, and insist that you take a nap whenever possible, my liege.”

his dramatics doesn’t earn him any points. he worries briefly that zhongli’s already gone into his own world, only able to be hauled back to the surface once the sun is far gone, and his eyebrows furrow. but now bent on getting a constructive response from zhongli, he refuses to budge from his spot across the desk.

almost as if he’s uncomfortable, zhongli looks up. childe knows he’s not actually peeved, and that the brunette is just thinking of what to say. three years of working for him taught him as much. “if i have time to, then i will.” the young heir averts his eyes towards the screen before meeting childe’s again. “thanks for your concern.”

if childe were any other person, he would believe zhongli. zhongli speaks without a falter in his voice – as if it weren’t already as smooth as velvet – and his eyes are resolute when locked onto his. but he’s not someone else, and the closest individual to a friend that zhongli has. it would be a disservice, both as a friend and coworker, to leave zhongli to his devices. so childe doesn’t relent. it’s his turn to be stubborn and set in his ways.

he places the cups back onto the desk, and the other man looks up curiously, just in time to see childe’s eyes narrow. “i mean it, zhongs.”

and, with just as much performative sincerity as before, zhongli says the same thing he always does, with a straight face and empty eyes. “i do, too.”

“no, you don’t.” childe’s scowl is as deep as his concern. he wasn’t joking earlier when he said that zhongli would be murdered by his own obsession with work – “responsibility,” as the younger of the two would insist, but he’s blind to his own persistence, and time has made that blatantly obvious. “i know you have a meeting soon, so i won’t stay long. i don’t care if we’ve talked about this before,” he rushes his words, determined to get them in before zhongli quips, “it doesn’t make it any less important.”

a pause. zhongli’s typing has halted and is instead replaced by silence. hell, he even folds his fingers together on top of the keyboard, as if telling childe that he finally has his full attention. but the void in his eyes hasn’t changed: amber, clouded with vermillion, and burning in coals.

childe assesses him sternly, extending the stillness of the moment, before proceeding. “i’m going to block out your schedule tonight after eight, and we’re going to have a talk.”

zhongli tries not to look fazed. to his credit, he really, really tries, but his posture bristles just enough to cue the secretary in on his client’s displeasure. “no, i’m not going to watch over you for the rest of the night to make sure you sleep,” he reassures just as swiftly, half-teasing and half-serious, “but we are going to make some plans.”

both of childe’s hands are flat on the desk as the two of them regard each other. although zhongli is the taller of the two, his position in the office chair gives childe the height advantage in the current situation. “after you get enough rest this week, i’m going to get you out of this building,” childe vows to zhongli. neither of them blink. “you’re going to walk on the streets and breathe fresh air. you’re going to spend time with people your age and eat at a restaurant. you’re going to have fun.”

it is at that moment, when zhongli’s face falters as if he’s being spoken to in python when his input is java, that childe realizes that he has no strategy, and that he’s just saying the things that he wants for zhongli: he refuses to believe that zhongli will continue to regard this room, conditioned with with frigid air and tailored to each tile on the floor, is his only future, and instead wants his 25 year-old boss to have some semblance of life in his days instead of bleeding through each, only to tear through the next.

childe had the choice to dream towards the life he currently lives. on the other hand, zhongli never did. inheriting a multi-million dollar company, especially being the son of the ceo, outwardly sounds like the opportunity only the archons could bestow. childe would have thought the same too.

until he realized that predestination sucks, and that zhongli is too good to wither his youth away behind a desk.

childe has exactly thirteen hours to come up with a plan. from the thoughts floating in his head, it can turn out in one of two ways:

one: zhongli is integrated back into society and lives a happier, more animated life than what he currently has.

two: childe loses his job.

#genshin impact #zhongli x reader #zhongli scenarios #zhongli headcanons #modern au #sugar daddy au #slow burn #eventual smut #how to tag :')

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deckerswheeler · 4 years ago

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let’s break this down, shall we?

**disclaimer!! this is not meant to be an attack on this person! i am only going to be counterclaiming their points or explaining why they are incorrect. i do not mean any harm in this post**

1. “mike/el and mike/will do not parallel each other” this is incorrect. mileven and byler have been paralleled throughout the seasons. for example, when el is stuck in the void and the upside down, the camera zooms in on her and pans out as she screams for mike. the same thing happens when will is in the upside down on halloween after the bullies push him over. it has the same camera angles, same type of music, and the same idea. they both call for mike.

2. byler has groundwork. from season one episode one they have been seen as closer than the other boys. they spent almost the entirety of season two together. the crazy together scene, hand holding scene, and shed scene alone should set their relationship apart from their relationships with the other members of the party. neither mike nor will act that way with dustin, max, or lucas. mike literally said asking will to be his friend was the best thing he’s ever done. if their season two relationship doesn’t show you how much groundwork they have, i don’t know what else will.

3. how are byler shippers “blindly ignorant to how writing works”?? sorry, but last time i checked, stranger things isn’t just a base level “you get what you see” type of show. the duffers have clarified many times that they don’t write at the surface level. everything they do has a purpose. that means minute details that seem like meaningless, second-long clips, could be symbols or easter eggs. many mileven shippers, (not all but a lot), only tend to see what is put in front of them. when in reality, that’s not what stranger things is. if you aren’t reading between the lines or taking note of small details while watching, key aspects of the show could fly over your head.

4. this one is almost laughable. mileven has most definitely NOT been set up as romantic since episode one. first of all, mike and el didn’t even properly meet until episode two. and even then, mike was ready and willing to report her to social services! the only reason why he kept her for so long was because once he found out about her powers, he knew there was a chance of finding will again. he called her a weapon halfway through the first season, i don’t think that’s very romantic. yes, they became close friends early on, but there was not ANY romantic coding until the episode with their first kiss!! obviously mike developed a crush on el, she’s the first girl that ever gave him attention. not only that, but he was living through the trauma of maybe losing his closest friend forever! he was projecting those feelings onto el, while el literally thought they would be like siblings until mike kissed her-- she had no clue it was even romantic.

5. saying mike and will have zero romantic subtext is just plain bullshit. i stated a lot of it in point 2, but there is so much more. in season 3 for example, mike basically outs will during their fight. (some people like to claim that mike was referring to will’s immaturity, but there are so many other ways they could’ve phrased that. like i already stated, the duffers claim nothing they do is accidental, so why would they make that line so vague? it was referring to will being gay. along with all of will’s other gay coding throughout the series, i.e. lonnie calling him the f slur, troy and his friends calling him q***r and a fairy as well as making fun of him for being gay, hopper acting grossed out by will being gay and asking joyce “is he?”) then, mike tries to apologize and travels all around hawkins in the pouring rain!! just to find will. and don’t even get me started on the “not possible” scene... if y’all don’t see the CLEAR flirting in that scene,,,,,, i got news for you lol

6. saying that byler shippers just like “fetishizing handsome white boys” is absolutely disgusting and a gross generalization. i assure you that that is NOT the reason why we ship byler. it’s more or less because we are sick of seeing solely straight couples rushed into a relationship on little to no foundation or build-up and honestly makes no sense when you think about it (cough cough mileven), when there is a relationship with 10x more development right there that isn’t canon simply because it is not heterosexual. we also ship byler because it is a breath of fresh air to see young gay/bi characters and a healthy mlm relationship, if byler became canon it would make thousands of kids so happy who just want to see themselves on the screen! aside from that, we ship byler because of the countless hints, coding, potential, etc, the show has provided.

7. finally, telling us we need to “use a brain cell,” calling us delusional, saying we’re “bending the narrative,” is just mean. there was no reason to make personal attacks towards the people who ship byler. i see people shipping mileven every day and i am not calling them delusional or stupid because they choose to ship it. people are free to interpret the show however they like and ship whatever they want. if anything, you’re the one who is denying canon by acting like mike and will have no foundation or meaningful relationship. also, we’re not “pretending it’s inevitable”??? no one knows how the duffers are going to write the show. mileven could be canon now, and break up later. byler could happen in season 4-5, and it might not. no one knows, so the fact that you felt the need to bash byler shippers for their own opinion and interpretation of the show is pretty sad.

**again... i respect all ships, and i am not trying to attack this person. if i seem harsh it’s because they were SOOO disrespectful in their post towards byler shippers. i know not all mileven shippers are like this, but i wanted to clear up some of this one’s points and share my point of view. i also don’t agree with their behavior and how they addressed people with a different view than them, so i couldn’t let it go.**

#mileven #anti mileven #anti byler #byler #mike wheeler #el hopper #will byers #stranger things #stranger things discourse

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tenspontaneite · 4 years ago

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The Ceracurist (Chapter 3/?)

Even after these past months, she wasn’t yet used to it. Another Full Moon spent alone.

(Chapter length: 10.4k. ao3 link)

---

“Did you go to the game night?” Was Ethari’s first question when she called him the next day.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, Ethari.”

He looked delighted. “Did you make friends?”

She hesitated, thinking about it. “…Well, I did beat them all at Antiquitora,” she said eventually. “And you were right, they did appreciate that.” She paused, and added “I’m probably going back, I think.”

She spent the next ten minutes having details pried out of her so warmly and kindly it hardly felt like an interrogation at all. Ethari was good at that. Finally she secured her escape via the need to leave for training, and was farewelled with considerably less fretting than usual. When the call dropped, she was about to shut down the Sunbeam module entirely, but then-

New Contact Requests, said the alert in the corner. Rayla blinked, nonplussed, and opened it, already having a decent idea of what she’d find. Sure enough, there were three new requests from codes she recognised: Kazi, Nihatasi, and Callum. She lingered there for a while, feeling bizarrely overwhelmed, then finally accepted all three of them.

She didn’t linger by the computer, after that – she had training to get to. Rayla paused at the door to perform a final once-over of her armour, then grabbed her swords and left.

---

Rayla stumbled back into her room in late afternoon, covered in about three different kinds of mud and her body aching all-over in the aftermath of prolonged exertion. She spent the next two hours with rigid discipline: cleaning herself, cleaning her armour, checking her weapons. She cooked unenthusiastically and ate, then finally felt justified in utter collapse. She landed face-first into her bed and fell asleep immediately.

Three hours later, she woke to a stirring of magic in her veins, prickling over her skin, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open, and pushed herself up; every hint of soreness from training was completely gone. She turned her eyes to the window, staring at the Moon rising full and resplendent past the horizon. Something deep and instinctive in her delighted at the sight of it. But something else twisted, sharp with the pang of homesickness.

Even after these past months, she wasn’t yet used to it. Another Full Moon spent alone. She sighed, and tried not to think of the festivities that would surely be beginning back home. It was moonrise; Ethari and Runaan would be at the Circle by now. Had the dancing already started? With the Moon this high, it must have.

She stared unblinkingly out of the window, turning thoughts over and over in her head. It wasn’t right to be alone at Full Moon. It wasn’t right to spend it all indoors, either. She couldn’t do much about the first thing, but the second…

Silent, Rayla slipped outside. A few of her wingmates were out in the common room, chattering drunkenly with each other near the table. She blinked, slowly, and exhaled. When she passed, they didn’t see her; only started with surprise at the open and close of the door. She crept through the streets like a ghost, visiting each of the parks and training grounds in turn until she finally found one unoccupied: a small stand of well-kept trees, and a fountain that reflected the full body of the Moon in its burbling waters. It would do.

It was no Circle. There were no runes in the ground – nothing here that awaited the careful precision of the lunar dances, nothing that would light up at her passing. But it was better than nothing. Rayla pulled at the moonlight until she was nothing but shadows flickering in the shadows of the trees, and danced.

There were plenty of moondances that could be done alone, and she circled the fountain with all of them, one by one. A tracery of magic hummed in the air at her passing, whispers of light following her; magic summoned by her motions, without the guidance of a Circle’s shaping. Even formless and aimless, it was beautiful. So, for the pleasure of it, she spun through those motes of moonlight and held them flickering in the shadows of her skin; light and dark woven together.

When she was done, she felt…not joyous, maybe, or exhilarated, as a celebration back home might have left her. But she was satisfied. Calm, and a little less sad. With the Full Moon still high above her, its magic brimming in her veins, Rayla headed home once more.

She didn’t bother to hide herself this time, and when she came through the door and passed by the remaining wingmates still up and awake, they saw her perfectly well: skin night-dark, eyes glowing, the edges of her form blurring into the shadows. They were all of them Sunfire and Skywing, and went a little quiet as she went by them; she wondered if they’d ever seen one of her kind at Full Moon before. Somehow, she doubted it.

Finally, Rayla arrived at her door, disarmed its security, and closed it behind her. She sighed, standing for a moment in the moonlight through her window, and considered it. Sleep would be a lost cause for another few hours, probably. So, somewhat inevitably, she ended up checking the computer. Browsing the mageskein was probably the best way to kill a few hours, and it wasn’t like she had anything else to do, this time of night.

Except: her Sunbeam module was still on, humming inside its casing, and…when she looked, it had projected a few message alerts onto the screen. Hesitantly, she checked them.

One was from Ethari, wishing her a good Moon, and entreating her once again to visit a Circle for it. Somewhat belated, that. One was from Kazi, confirming the time of their rematch tomorrow, as well as the address. Nihatasi had sent another, packed with effusive praise for her gaming excellence, insistence that she return, and an offer to come by the house whenever she wanted. Rayla shook her head at that, reluctantly amused. It wasn’t as though she’d met many nomads before – not in a social setting, anyway – but so far, Nihatasi more than matched their reputation for being aggressively sociable.

The last message was from Callum, and she steadfastly pretended that she wasn’t any more interested in it than the rest. He’d cheerfully thanked her for coming to the game night, said he hoped she’d come again, and then made an inquiry about her gaming tastes. Did she play computer games? If so, which were her favourites?

With the slow, halting uncertainty of the socially awkward, Rayla responded to all of them except Ethari’s. Kazi’s was easy enough, she just had to say ‘thanks’ and ‘see you tomorrow’. The other two took more doing. To Nihatasi, she expressed her thanks, and her assurances that she intended to come to a game night again. She said nothing about the house visit. To Callum, she reiterated her intentions to return, and admitted that, yes, she did like computer games, but hadn’t had the opportunity to play many of them, for lack of the necessary modules or a computer with the right specifications.

Given the hour, she certainly didn’t expect any response, so she switched active modules to the mageskein to start browsing. News headlines on the home site vied for her attention: something about the outcome of the latest Katolis-Evenere expedition into the wastelands; the most recent public appearance of the Dragon Prince with his esteemed parents; a gossip piece about some Katolian royal’s birthday. She checked the second one for images, and sure enough, there he was: the young prince Azymondias, still tiny in comparison to his queen mother…and, in the background, a few Dragonguard standing at the ready. Rayla spotted her parents and smiled. She clicked to transfer the picture through its Sunbeam link and waited.

The other module hummed, her computer making distressed noises as it attempted juggling the inputs of Sunbeam and Mageskein at once. The unit at home wouldn’t have had any trouble, but this one…she sighed, and waited, and was eventually rewarded when her Sunbeam successfully imported the image and displayed it full-fidelity, with all the depth and nuance of lighting that a flat picture could never convey. She filed it away, and was about to switch back, when she saw the alert.

A new message. At this hour? It had to be at least two in the morning by now, surely. She checked her clock to be sure, and, yep. 2:14am. She eyed the icon with consternation, then opened it.

Callum had responded. She stared, brow furrowing as she read. Hey, glad to hear back from you! He opened, cheerfully failing to acknowledge the fact that it was currently stupidly late. The rest of it was perfectly normal too; commiserating about her lack of access to proper computing, commenting that yeah, I didn’t get to play any EX games until I moved here, and you know what WX graphics are like, and which ones did you get to play? Any I’d know about?

Rayla reread its entirety several times, mildly flummoxed. At Full Moon her emotions were all closer to the surface than usual, so there was an undeniable thread of glee in her chest about this unexpected late-night contact, but…well, she was curious. In her limited experience with the ways of other students, the only reasons a non-Moonshadow would be up this late would be ‘partying’ or ‘insomnia’. Or ‘last-minute coursework’, but that was unlikely to apply when term was already over. So: You’re up late, she wrote, without thinking about it, and sent it back without responding to any of his actual questions. She’d begun composing a belated second message, but apparently Callum was a lot speedier with typing than she was.

Haha, yeah, I kind of lost track of time. Gaming, incidentally. She thought he must be used to significantly faster systems and transfer times than she was, because that was the entirety of that message, and then he sent another one: What about you? What are you doing up?

Rayla blinked, then settled herself a little more comfortably in her chair, since it seemed like, well. Like there might be a conversation happening, here. She brought the keyboard further forward. It’s Full Moon, she responded to him, a little dryly. Her computer took its sweet time about sending the message, as usual.

Oh. It is? After a pause, during which he presumably looked out of a window or something, he said Huh. So it is. Does it keep you awake?

She paused. Kind of, she wrote, slowly, and then wasn’t quite sure how much more to divulge. Eventually, she wrote It’s kind of hard to sleep through when it’s still high. I’ll be okay in a couple hours.

That must be so cool, he answered, which seemed a weird thing to say to a statement of Moon-induced insomnia. I’ve used artefacts to cast moon-magic before, but it must feel totally different when you’ve got the arcanum. What’s it like?

Rayla stared at her screen. She recalled the implications of him being a mage student, and was suddenly brimming with curiosity. I don’t know, I’m not a mage, she wrote, and then paused. Do you cast a lot of artefact magic, or was that a one-time thing?

She probably should have just outright asked about the mage student thing, rather than trying to be cagey about it. He probably wouldn’t have minded. Except, that turned out to be unnecessary, because the next thing he wrote, as if it were perfectly natural and unsurprising, was Well, I’m doing a thaumaturgy / thaumatology masters, so I definitely cast a lot of magic, yeah. Then, while she was still gawping at that, he followed it up with Listen, do you want to call?

What? She sent back, astonished, still in the middle of trying to process the concept of a human thaumaturgy student. She couldn’t quite get her head around it. How did that even work?

It’s okay if you don’t, he clarified. But your Sunbeam seems to have kind of a lot of connection lag, so it’d probably be faster to talk, you know?

Rayla was, in fact, using a fairly old edition of the Sunbeam module, which did have to establish a new connection for every individual message it sent and received. It was what was cheapest, and the lag was just…an unavoidable side-effect. She called more often than she messaged anyway, so it was rarely relevant. Except, apparently, now. It’s two in the morning, Callum, she sent to him, bewildered.

And we’re both awake, he pointed out, as if it was perfectly reasonable to call someone you’d only met twice before in the middle of the night.

Her first instinct, fuelled by bemusement and social anxiety, was to say no. Her second instinct was quick to the scene, with some very definite opinions about interacting with Callum, even at as weird an hour as this. She hesitated, wavering.

In the end, it was a glance at the Moon through the window that decided her. Rayla was emphatically not a mystical person, but even so, there were things that were deeply culturally ingrained. And one of those things was Full Moon is community time. Family, or friends, or a wider community – it didn’t really matter, but you weren’t supposed to be alone. This…probably counted.

Yeah, okay, she typed in the end, foot tapping under the desk with a frisson of tension. But only for a bit.

He didn’t waste any time about it, just sent the call request. Rayla took a quick moment to check she hadn’t made a mess of herself dancing, realised it was something of a moot point when everything attached to her was veiled in shadows, and finally accepted the call.

Callum’s room was startlingly brightly-lit when it appeared in the monitor, and it hurt her eyes a bit. She blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to squint, and glimpsed what looked like a well-appointed loft room with an unexpectedly dense population of easels. She could see at least three of them, most of which occupied by some sort of paper or canvas. She blinked, nonplussed, then steadfastly did not react when his face came into view. It moved around jarringly as he adjusted the lightcatcher, then finally settled.

He grinned at the screen, looking sleepy but in good enough humour, and said “Hey! Wow your room is dark.”

Rayla opened her mouth, closed it, then blinked. “Oh, right, your eyes,” she said, embarrassed. She generally only ever called her family, whose night vision was perfectly equal to hers. Humans, as well as most other elf races, were not nearly as well-suited for the dark. “Can you even see anything?”

“I can see your eyes,” he volunteered helpfully, looking amused. “They’re glowing. Really brightly, actually.”

“Yeah, that’s the Full Moon,” Rayla told him, already standing to go for the switch of the wall lamp over her desk. She’d never actually had cause to use it before, other than testing it when she first moved in, so the soft blue light it produced was almost wholly unfamiliar. “Is that better?” She asked, moving back to her chair.

“Well, I can actually see your room now, so-“ he started, then cut off abruptly as she settled back down in front of the lightcatcher. “Oh, wow,” he said instead as he stared at her, eyes wide.

Rayla ignored the self-conscious twinge in her stomach and frowned at him, folding her arms. “What?” she demanded.

He startled, as if only just realising what he’d said. “Oh. Um, sorry?” he attempted, weakly. “It’s just – I’ve never seen a Moonshadow elf all, er…” he waved expressively at her, contrite. “You know, Full Moon-ish?”

Oh. She eyed him, determined that he wasn’t messing with her, and relaxed a little. “What, not even in the Honour Games?” She asked, after a moment.

“Well, I mean, sometimes. But that’s usually in broad daylight, you know, and from a distance, and broadcasted.” He shrugged, a light dusting of pink rising in his cheeks, like he was embarrassed. “Kind of different to…” he nodded to her via the lightcatcher, smiling sheepishly.

“Suppose it is a tad different to a close-up Sunbeam call,” she conceded, lips twitching.

“I should’ve expected it, really, considering it’s full moon and everything,” he said ruefully. “Sorry, I’m not exactly at my brightest at two in the morning.”

Oh, that was right. It was the middle of the night. She squinted at him. “Then shouldn’t you be sleeping, instead of sunbeaming random Moonshadow elves?”

“Well, you’re up,” he said, as if this was a perfectly logical reason for him to be awake too. “And it’s not like I have to be up early.”

Lucky for him. She thought of the training and the Antiquitora rematch she had scheduled for the day, and suppressed a sigh. It was sometimes truly inconvenient to live in a mixed-race city that didn’t automatically expect the day after Full Moon (and the day of and before New Moon, of course) to be a rest day. “Wish I could say the same.”

He winced sympathetically. “Can you not cancel whatever it is?”

She opened her mouth to say no, stopped, and frowned. She hadn’t yet missed training even once. But…it wasn’t like attending every session was compulsory. And she did train three other times a week…and besides, a Sunday morning short session had never fallen on Full Moon recovery day before. “Probably, honestly,” she admitted. “My – uncle wouldn’t even tell me off for it. Moonshadow elves aren’t supposed to work the day after a Full Moon.”

“Because none of you can get to sleep the whole night?” He asked with interest, as if the cultural habits of her kind were genuinely intriguing to him. “Makes sense, I guess.”

Rayla huffed and shook her head. “Kinda. Mostly it’s because, traditionally, we’re supposed to spend moonrise to moonset with – family, or the community, or whatever. And we’re not much good for anything except collapsing once the Moon’s gone. So we all take the next day off.”

He blinked at her curiously, but if he wondered why she wasn’t currently out spending the Moon with her rightful community, he was tactful enough not to ask. “You should skip your thing, then. Whatever it is,” he determined, after a moment. “Get some actual sleep.”

“Says you,” Rayla said, wry. “You don’t even have a stupid magical reason to be up this late.”

“Does a technomantic game count as a stupid magical reason?” He grinned at her, his smile lopsided and full of humour. Her stomach did a weird flip-flop. “I mean. It is magical.”

Despite herself, she snorted. “And it is stupid,” she allowed, lips twitching. “As far as reasons to be sleep-deprived go, anyway.”

“Worth it,” he claimed, cheerfully. “I don’t have work till the afternoon anyway, so I’m fine.”

Rayla nodded at that, then a moment later actually recalled what his job was, and practically felt her face heating. Thank the Moon – literally – for her skin currently being too dark to show it.

He noticed some sort of reaction, though. Maybe her shoulders had hunched a bit. He tilted his head at her, a little rueful, and said “Yeah, er, about that. I wanted to apologise, for the others talking about it, yesterday? Couldn’t have been super comfortable.”

Abruptly hyper-aware of the weight and presence of her horns, Rayla did her best not to sink into the chair. “…It’s fine,” she muttered, embarrassed. “It’s not like you told them about it, they just guessed.”

“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t tell them about who my customers were unless my customers said something about it first,” he assured her. “Not really professional, you know? We’re supposed to be confidential about it.” Suddenly, he smiled again. “Then again, it’s not like I usually end up meeting my customers at game night, so that part tends to be easier to manage.”

“Usually?” she asked dryly, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to lift her hands and hide her face behind them.

“No, yeah, you’re definitely the first time that’s happened,” he admitted. “It was kind of a surprise.”

She thought about how she’d reacted to seeing him appear through that door yesterday. “Just a tad.”

“A good one, though!” he claimed, cheerful. “It was nice to meet you properly.”

Rayla was tempted to say something along the lines of you know, where I come from, touching up someone’s horns is considerably more than a ‘proper’ meeting, but that was too mortifying to express, and he probably knew it anyway. She couldn’t imagine anyone becoming an experienced ceracurist without learning all the assorted implications that sort of thing had. “Even though I kicked your Archdragon across the board?” She questioned eventually, when she found her voice again.

“Even though you totally kicked my butt, yeah,” he agreed readily, looking far too pleased about it. “It was a great match. You’re crazy good at that game.”

An involuntary smile pulled at her lips. “Well, Kazi’s better,” she said, pleased despite herself. “They’d have had me easily, if they weren’t playing Ocean.”

He didn’t argue with her. Clearly, he understood the game plenty well enough to know the truth of that. “Still the second-best player I’ve met,” he insisted staunchly. “Is Antiquitora one of the computer games you said you did play? You must’ve put in some serious practice time.”

Rayla snorted. “I wish. No, the only games I ever actually got to play were on a gameship, just the one time, when I was…” she frowned, trying to remember. “Thirteen, maybe? Good long while ago.”

He perked up, expression brightening. “I love gameships,” he enthused. “There’s one that comes by Gullcrest twice a year, and I swear, all the students in the entire engineering department just disappear on board until it leaves. It’s crazy.” After a moment, he admitted “Well, to be fair, I disappear on board too, so, you know. It’s not like I can judge.”

She blinked, and leaned forwards. “What clan is the ship?” She asked, with considerable interest.

“It’s a joint management. Serat-Demani,” he said, watching her knowingly.

“Moon above,” she swore, and he grinned.

“Right?” Looking exceedingly pleased with her reaction, he took that as his cue to go into extensive, exacting detail about the wonders that a fully-stocked, state-of-the-art Demani entertainment airship had to offer. She listened raptly the entire time, interjecting with questions about the rates, the facilities, the games. If it was a Demani ship, it had to have Skycrawler, surely? What was it like? Was the gameplay everything it was said to be?

In the end, Rayla didn’t think she could really be blamed for losing track of time.

Callum was in the middle of enthusiastically praising Scion of Shadow, with particular attention to its unusually enjoyable stealth mechanics, when out of nowhere a yawn cracked through his sentence. He seemed fully ready to keep on talking once it was done, but Rayla sat up a little straighter, and for the first time in a while remembered that it was the middle of the night. She consulted her Moon-sense, and then the clock, and then buried her face in her hands.

He cut off mid-sentence, inquisitive. “What?”

“Callum, it’s nearly four in the morning,” she informed him, lowering her hands to stare at the clock, consumed with a baleful sense of having been betrayed by the passage of time. “The sun’s probably not even far off rising.”

He blinked, looked to the side, then blinked again. “…Huh,” he observed, a little sheepish. “Yeah, that’s…later than I usually stay up.”

“It’s later than I usually stay up, even on Full Moons.” Technically true, for the ones she’d spent at university. At home, though…moonset was, after all, later than sunrise in summer. Full Moon celebrations usually concluded once everyone’s skin was back to normal, but not always.

Callum shot her a weird look, long and appraising, before he spoke. “You’re still all…Moon-shadowy, though.”

“That won’t stop for a while yet,” she informed him, and shook her head. “I can probably get to sleep by now, anyway. Or another hour off, at most. You…” For a moment, she inspected him, spotting the signs of tiredness in his bearing. “You won’t have that problem, I think. You look knackered.”

He offered a rueful smile. “I’ll probably pass out the second I lay down, yeah,” he admitted. “I kind of lost track of time. Again.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well, I’ll just go now, then, so you can’t get distracted again.”

Hastily, he sat bolt upright. “But there was something I wanted to-“

“Tomorrow,” she told him, firmly. “Or…today, technically. Later, anyway. Whatever it is can wait.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then smiled sleepily at her. It looked far more endearing than it had any right to. “Well, okay then.”

Rayla nodded to him, said “Thanks,” then leaned in and shut the call down without a further word. Sunbeam’s active connection died down, Callum’s face disappearing from the screen, and she leaned back in her chair to fix the ceiling with a long-suffering stare.

On one hand, Ethari would’ve probably been delighted to hear she’d spent a couple hours of her Full Moon socialising, as a proper Moonshadow elf ought to. But on the other….Ethari could absolutely never, ever find out about this. If he knew she’d been up chatting with someone, losing track of time, for actual hours…she’d never hear the end of it. To say nothing of how he’d react if he got wind that she – that she might sort of-

“Ugh,” Rayla grumbled to herself, wiping a hand over her face.

She stared at the ceiling for a good long while, experiencing a variety of emotions that she wasn’t keen on thinking about too hard. She also spent a not inconsiderable amount of time thinking about the conversation, running it over in her head, thoughts stubbornly fixed on Callum. This was how she ended up realising that she’d never actually asked about the mage-student-thing, and she still had no idea how that worked.

“Ugh,” she said again, more emphatically, and finally left her chair. She left her room to perform some necessary ablutions in the bathroom she shared with the next room over, then returned to draw the curtains. Without the direct moonlight through her window, the magic in her skin started to stutter a little. In ten minutes or so, she’d be back to normal again…and, with luck, she might be asleep by then.

Begrudgingly, Rayla peeled herself out of her clothes and threw them haphazardly onto the floor, not even bothering to watch the magic desert them, and climbed into bed. A suboptimal amount of time later, she was asleep.

---

“Goodness, you look tired,” said Kazi, welcoming Rayla in. Rayla, for her part, was a little too exhausted to feel particularly awkward, which was nice. “Was the Full Moon particularly trying?”

Rayla’s lips twitched. At least this one knew when Full Moon was. “No more than usual,” she said dryly, bending to remove her shoes when Kazi made noises about it. “Just, you know, getting enough sleep is kind of a lost cause.”

“Oh, I know the feeling. Or at least somewhat,” they commiserated, leading her through to a small and cosy-looking living room lined with bookshelves, and then through to a somewhat larger dining room, whose table was…occupied. Very thoroughly occupied. Rayla tried not to look at it too closely until she had a chance to inspect it properly. “There was a solar flare a few years ago, and of course I and the other Sunfire elves couldn’t sleep for days. It was quite the experience! And I’m sure you know how the Skywing elves get when there’s a particularly powerful storm abound.”

She had, in fact, had occasion to see what Skywing elves looked like when they were storm-drunk. It had been funny, up until it got annoying. “Probably more of a pain for them and you, really, since none of you take anything like moondust,” she volunteered after a moment, mouth turning up with wry sympathy. She’d hate to be a Skywing and be subject to random, unpredictable bouts of their equivalent of being moonstruck. “You all get the full effect of it.”

Kazi looked a little curious at that, but didn’t ask. “Yes, I suppose so. We should be thankful our magical overload is not so consistent as it is for you. In any case-“ they gestured towards the table. “Please take a seat wherever you prefer! Would you like any stimulants?”

Rayla blinked. “…Could you repeat that?”

“Tea,” they clarified, eyes merry with humour. “Or perhaps reveillant, or coffee, by your preference. I have all three, in some measure.”

For a moment she’d wondered if she was being offered something illegal, which…looking at Kazi, she was quite sure had been on purpose. She shook her head, reluctantly amused, and said “I could try some reveillant? I’ve only had it once.”

“It is not especially common, in a Skywing city like this,” Kazi allowed, already heading in the direction of one of the doorways. They kept speaking as they disappeared through it, still perfectly audible to her ears. “But I always keep a supply. It’s the only one that tastes particularly good cold, after all, unless you are very creative with your teas.” There was the sound of a cupboard opening, and then a good bit of rummaging.

During the wait, Rayla cautiously selected a seat at the table and settled there, finally letting her increasingly wide eyes rove over the board set up across it. She was still gawping conspicuously when Kazi returned, brandishing three brown paper packets of what she assumed to be reveillant.

“Do you prefer unflavoured, citrus, or mixed berry varieties?” they inquired mildly, hiding a smile when they saw her inspecting the board.

“Er, berry?” Rayla offered, only half paying attention. She was too busy looking at the intricate detail on the hand-carved and probably hideously valuable Antiquitora board. There were no pieces on it yet, but even just the tiles…it was astonishing. All of the terrain had been dyed and varnished in different colours, with careful attention to the different biomes. It all gleamed. The ocean tiles had even been coated in some kind of resin, making them look wet. The artisan had even mimicked the effect of the edge of an underwater continental shelf seen from above, with an area of lighter ‘water’ closer to the ‘coastline’.

“Berry it is,” Kazi said, sounding quite smug. Rayla didn’t have the chance to see what their face looked like, because they’d already disappeared back into what she assumed was the kitchen. She spent the next five minutes of beverage preparation time inspecting the game board with undisguised admiration. Rayla wasn’t one to usually pay much attention to art, but…this was game related art. It was different.

“The set you brought to the game night wasn’t your one set, then,” Rayla finally commented, when Kazi reappeared. She accepted her cup with exacting care, not wanting to risk a drink spillage near a board like this. She was honestly surprised Kazi allowed drinks so close to this thing.

Kazi smiled, disproportionately small for the amount of self-satisfaction in it. “Yes, it’s my more portable set,” they said pleasantly, and took a seat across the table from her, setting down their own glass. “This one…well, I certainly do not take it out of the house.”

“I can imagine,” she expressed, uncertain whether to be jealous of the board or just plain impressed. She wouldn’t even want something this pricey. She’d constantly be worrying about damaging it somehow. But, even so…the hint of avarice remained. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“The various tile-pieces and figures are quite a sight themselves, I think,” they said, evidently extremely pleased with themself. Rayla wondered how many people they invited round for Antiquitora for the express purpose of showing off this set. “Have you decided your faction for today? Once we have that settled, we can begin setting up.”

Rayla snorted, lips turning up into a half-smirk. “Depends what you’re playing as.”

Kazi beamed back. “Do you have a preference? I am perfectly open to suggestions.”

She considered it. Allegedly, Kazi was most beastly when playing Earth or Sun. Rayla herself was best at Moon and Sky…and Sky was exceptionally poorly matched against Earth. Sun’s best counters were Earth and Ocean. Moon wasn’t great against Sun, but not terrible either. “Take Sun,” she decided, eventually. “I’ll do Moon. I want to see for myself how much you wipe the board with everyone when you get to play properly.”

If Kazi had been smiling before, they looked positively frightening now. Not that their smile had widened, or anything; they just seemed to have a way of looking disconcertingly menacing while beaming pleasantly at you. “I will do my best to arrange that,” they said, and reached for three boxes: Moon, Sun, and the tiles and dice and cards.

Setting up would have gone more quickly if not for Rayla’s interest in inspecting the various gamepieces, and Kazi’s interest in flaunting them. Most of the units, from citizens to mages, were all carved in beautifully varnished wood. The Hero and Archdragon figures, though… “Is that gemstone inlay?” Rayla asked with disbelief, inspecting her Lunar Archdragon and turning it this way and that.

“The Lunar Archdragon has mother-of-pearl inlay, in fact,” Kazi said pleasantly. “And, yes, some very small gemstones for the eyes.”

She shook her head at that, half-impressed, half in disbelief. “Where did you even get this?”

“It’s an heirloom,” they elaborated, which made sense. The only other way for someone to have a set like this would be by being ridiculously rich, or by knowing an insanely skilled craftself. “Hence why it has the standardised continent shape. It does need fairly careful maintenance, though. I paid to have some of the varnishing redone recently, for example. But for me, the joy of owning a set like this is well-worth the upkeep.”

Rayla nodded. It wasn’t her sort of thing, personally, but she understood well enough. “I bet you try to get people over to play you every chance you get,” she said, amused. “With a board like this…”

“It would be quite a shame otherwise, yes,” they agreed. “I must thank you for obliging me! This board so rarely sees a high-level game.”

She huffed, amused, and kept unpacking the gamepieces one-by-one. Kazi had to know that they were the better player. If she’d barely beaten them when they were playing Ocean and underestimating her for most of the game, she certainly wasn’t going to win now. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Eventually, when everything was set up, they rolled the starting conditions and began playing. Kazi very obviously knew what they were doing with the primary advantages of the Sun faction – agriculture, population, and military might – but Rayla was perfectly well acquainted with a proper Moon playstyle as well. She leaned into the espionage and intrigue skillset as heavily as she could manage, wreaking political strife in Kazi’s territory wherever she found an opening. When Kazi could find them, her units died; but that certainly wasn’t always.

Even so, the outcome was something of a foregone conclusion. The game lasted a while, because Rayla knew that her main defence against the Sun armies was if they couldn’t find the Moon cities, and planned accordingly…but Rayla hadn’t succeeded in assassinating the Archdragon, and hadn’t managed to get the Sun citizenry to demand a leadership duel either. So, unsurprisingly, Kazi eventually managed to field an assault that broke through the illusory barriers protecting Rayla’s stronghold, striking at her Archdragon precisely on the turn before New Moon. It died of its injuries the turn later.

Rayla considered the board carefully after that. Her best chances of winning against Sun would be crop poisoning, Archdragon assassinating, leadership disputes, or revolution. She’d managed the first and had been making decent headway on the latter two, but, in the end…it wasn’t close enough. She smiled ruefully, and said “Moon concedes.”

They nodded, having expected that, and smiled beatifically. “It was a marvellous game,” they said warmly, already reaching over to begin clearing the pieces. “Thank you very much for it.”

“I don’t know, it was a pretty solid victory for you.” Her voice was dry as she reached out to help, handling each of the intricately-carved figures with care. “You’re obviously the better player, here.”

“Yes,” they agreed, neither modestly nor boastfully, simply as the fact it was. “But nonetheless, you are certainly the best player I’ve encountered in-person in a very long time. Certainly the only one I didn’t arrange to meet with beforehand. It was a good game, no matter that you lost it.”

Rayla dipped her head, smiling a little. It wasn’t like she enjoyed losing…but she’d appreciated the challenge enough to make up for it. She’d ceased finding any sort of challenge back home a long, long time ago. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad.”

Kazi reached for another piece, paused, then eyed her consideringly. “Would you…like to discuss it?” they asked, tilting their head, watching her.

She glanced up, surprised. It was hardly an unfamiliar concept. She’d watched enough matches broadcast on Sunbeam to know how it went; when two top-tier players concluded a match, they talked about it afterwards. They discussed each other’s plays and strategies, pointed out mistakes, considered where there was room for improvement…

The only after-game discussions she’d ever had had been at Runaan’s knee, when she was still small and didn’t know the game nearly as well. It was weirdly flattering to be invited to do it now.

“…Yeah,” Rayla said, eventually, and sat back down. “I’d like that.”

Kazi beamed like the Sun they’d just used to trounce her. “Very good.”

The next half hour involved more talking than Rayla thought she’d done at a time in months…or, well, she would’ve said so, if not for last night. It was certainly a good second-place contender though, and by the end her voice was feeling a little tired from overuse. They concluded the discussion, packed away the gamepieces and board, and then were done.

“But of course, you must stay for another drink,” Kazi said, and whisked her empty glass of reveillant away. “You liked the berry infusion, yes? Excellent, I will get you another.” Good to their word, they did precisely that, and returned in short order.

Rayla did feel a little more awake, on that second glass of the reveillant. It was effective stuff; as much or more so than coffee, with (in her opinion) a considerably better taste. She was debating the merits of asking Kazi where they got it when they spoke up first.

“You’ll be returning, I hope?” they said, and it took Rayla a moment to think of what they meant.

“….Here?” she guessed. “For a rematch?”

“Well, yes, naturally.” Kazi pushed their glasses up, smiling a little. “I had assumed as much. But, no, I was referring to the game society. You’d be an excellent fit, I think.”

Rayla blinked. “Oh.” She thought of the previous night, and hunched down a little in embarrassment.

“I know it was only a very small group when you visited, but I have the impression you prefer that, anyway,” they said, neatly demonstrating that they were as unnervingly good at reading her as she’d sort of inferred. “It can get rowdier in term time – at least at the official meetings. The meet-ups at our houses are much calmer – usually just the core group.”

“Which is?” Rayla asked, a little reserved now, if only to disguise the fact that she really didn’t need convincing. She might have, after just the Friday. But after this…after yesterday…

“Myself, Callum, Nihatasi. Usually Pava, but often he spends the whole time tinkering instead of playing.” They shook their head, amused. “In term time – well, usually I’d say to expect Evairas, but he is spectacularly busy these days, so perhaps not.”

“…They sent messages,” she commented, after a moment. “Callum and Nihatasi, I mean. Pava didn’t.”

“Pava tends to forget Sunbeam exists for weeks at a time, don’t mind him,” Kazi assured her. “Nihatasi and Callum though, I’m not at all surprised. Nihatasi adores new people, and Callum…” they eyed her, just a little speculatively. “Well, I think you impressed him. Has he invited you to Tuesday, yet?”

Rayla blinked with consternation. “Invited me to what on Tuesday?”

“Game meeting, at the house,” they clarified. “It’s hardly an official thing, but it’s often Callum’s house that has everyone over. He hasn’t invited you over, yet? Well, he will. I am quite sure of it.”

For a long moment, she looked into her glass and the dark red liquid therein, pondering it as if it held all the answers for how she was supposed to respond. “If you say so,” she said, finally, and lifted her glass to drink.

“I do,” Kazi claimed serenely, and gracefully changed the topic to (naturally) more about Antiquitora. By the time Rayla finished her drink, she’d learned that Kazi played broadcast games online fairly regularly, under a handle that she recognised; she’d watched a good few of their games before.

“Is there a story behind that skein-name?” she asked, undeniably curious now that she was acquainted with the elf behind it. “’Finguistician’.”

Kazi laughed, like she’d surprised them. “Oh, that,” they said, mirthfully. “It’s something of an in-joke. You see, I have my doctorate in Linguistics – specifically, in non-verbal linguistics. Various sign languages, Draconic Corpus, and so on. I made a joke once, when I was still an undergraduate in a sign-language module, that the course should be called finguistics, given, well,” they waggled their fingers at her.

She snorted, amused. “Did it catch on?”

“Sadly, no. But I do call my sign language classes for the public ‘finguistics’, and no one can stop me, because I am the teacher.” They giggled a little to themself. “Perhaps in time it will become a more widely-used term. I would like that; it would be very amusing. In any case, that is where the handle comes from.”

Rayla thought, for a moment, about a moment from the game night: Kazi and Callum had used some sort of sign language with each other for a second, hadn’t they? She considered asking about it, wondering what his background in that was. Did he take any of Kazi’s lessons, or had he learned some other way?

In the end, she bit her tongue and said nothing. After a little more idle conversation, she eventually made her leave, farewelled at the door by her cheerful host. Without the game to bolster her, she swiftly began to really feel her exhaustion. Stimulants or not, she was so tired that a headache was starting to pound luridly behind her eyes, almost enough to make them water.

She headed home intending to collapse back into bed and nap – if the lingering effects of the drinks allowed her to, anyway. Which was why she was considerably displeased to arrive back to find her wing busy and full of noise and various elves milling about. The halls were crowded. She was about to say “What the fuck”, or perhaps “Shut up, do you know how bad my headache is right now”, but before she had the chance one of the closest elves (some wingmate she didn’t know the name of) spotted her and shouted down the hall “It’s her, she’s here, she’s not dead!”

All eyes went to her, and an immediate chattering started up. Rayla stared, utterly nonplussed, fighting the urge to pull on the Moon and take advantage of a state of near-invisibility to just retreat to her nice, privacy-sealed bedroom. The noise cancellation ought to take care of this racket.

After a few seconds, a face she actually had a name for pushed forwards. It was Stavian, a Skywing elf from her bellatorium, still in armour from training. “Rayla,” he said, sounding very relieved. “Thank goodness, we were about to call for an official search!”

Rayla had no idea what was happening. “What in Xadia’s name is going on here?” she demanded, finally, and her irate tone seemed to remind him that he (for some reason) customarily seemed to be quite intimidated by her. He shrank back a little, and as he did, a few of the rest of the Honour Games team started to appear.

“You didn’t show up for training!” he said, defensively. “And from anyone else that wouldn’t be much of a big deal, but you’ve never missed a day before. And then when we went to check on you afterwards you weren’t here.”

“And none of your wingmates knew where you were,” added one of her teammates: Fiera, a particularly tiny Skywing mage with hair and feathers dyed a distinctive lilac colour.

Rayla stared for a few more seconds, then wiped a hand over her face. “It was Full Moon,” she said, very slowly, her patience already somewhere on level with the floor. “I didn’t get to sleep till around five; of course I wasn’t going to go to morning training.” She ignored the fact that, if not for Callum, she absolutely would have. He’d been right; it was completely reasonable to miss training on a Full Moon rest day, and if they had a problem with that they could bite her.

The vast collective of people assembled in the halls all looked very embarrassed, suddenly. And honestly, they should be. Moonshadow elves were definitely uncommon in Gullcrest, but surely someone should have known it was Full Moon, and made the obvious conclusions. “Oh,” said Fiera, weakly. Her wings drooped a little. “That…makes sense.”

Now looking very abashed, Stavian echoed “Oh.” The crowd of assorted wingmates and guests, probably attracted by the initial hubbub, started to grumble and dissipate.

Rayla sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, attempting to scrounge some sort of positive emotion from beneath her absolute crankiness at being confronted with a noisy group of people when she was this sleep-deprived. “Look,” she attempted, tiredly, “It’s…nice you were worried. I didn’t realise anyone would be looking for me.” She searched for something appropriate to say. “I’ll…put a note on my door, if something like this comes up again?”

Her teammates, four of whom had shown up, nodded contritely. “Sorry for bothering you on a rest day,” offered another of them, starting to shove the others towards the door. “We’ll see you for training tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Rayla looked longingly down the hallway, where her bed awaited. “I don’t exactly make a habit of missing training, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re very – dedicated,” Fiera said, in the tones of someone trying to be diplomatic, still being ushered doorwards. “Have a good rest day!” she called, right before the rest of them filed out and the wing became something approaching quiet again.

Too tired and too grumpy to have much emotional response to the whole thing, Rayla turned and headed down her hallway without a further word. The wing was still bustling, and it was more of a relief than usual to close her door on it; the privacy runes hummed lethargically as they activated, but the noise level outside cut off sharply enough that for once she didn’t mind their quality too much. They mostly did their job, and that was all she really needed.

It turned out that the effect of the reveillant couldn’t really complete with post-Full-Moon sleep deprivation; Rayla crawled into bed and fell asleep more or less instantly.

She woke some hours later, stirring at the sound of some computer module or other humming as it reactivated from idling. It wasn’t loud by any means, but she was quite sensitive to new or changing sounds in her vicinity, so it was enough. She blinked her eyes open, rubbing grit from their edges, and stumbled out of bed with a glance at the clock along the way. Moon-sense said it was late afternoon; the clock was a bit more specific about it, and said 6.33pm. The sky outside was still blue and light, but in that summer-evening way, where the sun had fallen low enough to cast long shadows between the city buildings. It was still bright enough to make her tired to look at.

There were new messages on her Sunbeam.

Rayla dropped into her desk chair and eyed the icon tiredly, uncertain if she was awake or rested enough to deal with any further social contact today. In the end she decided there probably wasn’t any harm in checking them, so…she looked. Kazi had thanked her for the game, and sent her some sort of invitation to make an account on…what looked to be the skeinsite that hosted the high-level Antiquitora broadcasts. She wasn’t sure what the purpose of that was, and didn’t have her head on sufficiently to figure it out, so she left it for later. Ethari had asked how her Full Moon had been. And…

She sighed, not sure whether to be pleased or embarrassed, because: Callum had left messages, too. Fairly recently, actually.

They read Hope you got to sleep okay, and how are you feeling? There was no mention of whatever he’d supposedly wanted to mention before the call ended, so he’d probably forgotten, or…something.

She debated whether or not to reply now. She found she was a little wary of…something. She wasn’t quite sure what. Making a fool of herself, maybe? She’d already spent nearly two very late-night hours sunbeaming him, and…that was already…well.

In the end, Rayla spent about five minutes trying to wrestle some semblance of reason past her sleep-mired brain, finally concluding that she was probably unlikely to come across as an infatuated idiot by responding to a couple of messages. Then, slowly, she picked at the keys to write back: Kind of knackered, but okay. While that one was processing, she hesitantly sent another: Just woke up from a nap. I think it helped?

She left the computer to visit the bathroom, tidying up her hair and washing her face with cold water. It did little to make her feel more alert, or to remove the weird muggy haze of exhaustion from her head, but it was better than nothing. She contemplated getting something to eat, but knew she wasn’t going to be up to cooking tonight. She went for one of her bottles of emergency moonberry elixir instead, which were so full of nutrients they probably counted as some kind of soup.

That in hand, she returned to her computer….and, somehow, wasn’t surprised to find that Callum had already replied. Was he just constantly glued to his computer, or what?

Well, at least it’s apparently traditional to be tired after full moon, I guess? He’d written, light-heartedly. At least you got a nap! Although it’s kind of late. Won’t you have trouble getting to sleep later?

Rayla shuffled forwards in her chair to respond. Nah. There’s a neat trick you can use to get to sleep at night if you’re a Moonshadow elf, and if it’s not Full Moon. Just need to shine a bright light in my face and I’ll be good. She hadn’t had to use it in a while, but she knew where the thing was: on her windowsill, to soak up sunlight during the day. It’d do the job just fine.

The pause in response seemed to be longer than connection lag would account for. That’s so weird, and cool, he marvelled, eventually. I just looked it up. They call them sun lamps?

Yep. Flash of sunlight in a dark place gets us sleepy pretty much every time. Moonshadow elves tended to be mostly diurnal by practice, but naturally, they all had the wiring for a nocturnal lifestyle. Bright sunlight in the eyes after being in the dark would usually trigger tiredness, even in elves perfectly used to going about in the daytime. Sun lamps were extraordinarily simple as far as enchanted objects went, but extraordinarily useful for Moonshadow elves with weird schedules.

What about if someone turns a light on in a dark room? He asked, apparently fascinated.

Nah. Has to be sunlight. It’s pretty specific.

That’s so cool, he reiterated, from that bizarre well of enthusiasm he seemed to have for banal magical elements of everyday life. Rayla waited to see if he’d write anything more, and after a moment, realised she’d started smiling. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Eventually, he did send something else: I’d ask if you wanted to call again, but you should probably, you know, be getting actual sleep.

What Rayla intended to write then was something along the lines of, ‘yes, you’re entirely correct, I need to sleep for like twelve hours if I’m not going to be a useless wreck for training tomorrow’.

Instead, what she ending up sending was keep it half an hour or less, and you’re probably fine.

I’ll set a timer :) he typed, complete with smiley, which was something she’d never actually encountered outside of the mageskein before. And then he called her.

“How’s the light level?” she asked him, when the call resolved. It wasn’t yet far into sunset, so she thought there ought to be sufficient lighting in her room to see by, but who really knew with humans. She certainly didn’t know how bad their eyes were.

In his own room, Callum was bathed in the warm glow of the light through his windows, shaded the same pink-orange that she was. He was smiling, even as he pretended to squint exaggeratedly at her room. “Yeah, I can just about see,” he said, obviously teasing. “It’s not dark yet.” A pause, and he took a moment to look her over a little more directly. He was a little more concerned when he added “Are you sure it’s okay to be calling? You really do look tired.”

“I think I’ll survive half an hour, Callum,” she told him wryly, and one corner of his lips twitched upwards.

“Yeah, fair enough.” He hesitated for a moment, like he was summoning his nerve for something. “Listen – I wanted to ask before, yesterday, but – there’s going to be a sort of casual gaming night? At my house? On Tuesday. The others will be there. And my housemates, er, obviously.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry if it’s short notice, but – do you want to come?”

Rayla stared at him, half bemused by the offer itself, half at his apparent nervousness. “Kazi said you were going to invite me,” she said, a little too nonplussed to offer any more intelligent response. “I guess they were right.”

He blinked. “You’ve been talking to Kazi?” A pause. “No, wait, what am I saying, of course you’ve been talking to Kazi. There’s no way they’d let someone who beat them at Antiquitora get away.”

“We had a rematch today, actually,” Rayla admitted, lips twitching. “I let them take Sun. Naturally they destroyed me.”

“Ow,” Callum said, with feeling. “I’ve been on the receiving end of Kazi playing Sun before. It’s…” he searched for the words. “Really something.”

She smiled, remembering it. With a few hours separating her from the game, she realised she’d enjoyed the experience more than she’d anticipated. The discussion in particular had been welcome. “I’m just glad to be able to play someone new, honestly,” she confided. “Though it’d be nice to do it again when I’ve actually slept.” A second later, she remembered he’d had an almost equally dubious bedtime, and inspected him critically. He looked surprisingly okay, actually. A little tired, but not like he’d been up most of the night. “Did you sleep in late, or what?” She asked then, a little amused. “You don’t actually look tired.”

He laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, I didn’t wake up till around lunchtime,” he admitted. “I had to go to work after that, though.”

Rayla paused, still very unsure of how to respond to mentions of his work. “And…was that okay?” She asked at last, uncertainly.

“Yeah, actually. I had a pattern etching appointment, and those are some of my favourites,” he said, brightening. “This one wanted one of my new designs, too. It turned out great!”

She’d seen something about that on the posters in the waiting room, she thought. “That’d be the…buzzing patterns into the horns?” She asked, faintly.

“Mmhm. I use sort of a really small thin version of an electric buffer, and work the etching in that way,” he agreed. “I draw the design on first and follow the lines, and then after you can either just polish it up and leave it, or like, fill with metal or something. It takes a while, but, you know, that’s kind of just how art works.” He shrugged. “It looks great, anyway.”

Rayla thought of her looming appointment, maybe a week or so away, and found she was entirely unprepared for thinking about that. “You…seem to kind of do the art thing a lot?” she hazarded, as a distraction, nodding to the nearest easel. “Painting?”

He turned to look, then grinned back at her. “Yeah! I mean, art is…well, I probably draw more than I game, and that’s really saying something. I do all sorts, kinda. I’ll have to show you some of my sketchbooks sometime.” That seemed to remind him of the question she still hadn’t answered, and he abruptly looked nervous again. “So. Er. Um. About Tuesday…?”

She tried, very hard, to keep an even expression. “Er,” she managed, and then finally: “…Yeah. Sounds good? I’ll…be there.” Wherever ‘there’ was. She did have the address written down, but hadn’t actually tried to figure out where it was in the city yet.

Callum straightened up, brightening. “Really? That’s great!” A second later, he amended “It’ll be really nice to have someone new over! We’ll have food and stuff, too.”

She paused at that. “Should I bring anything?” Hospitality expectations tended to be very different depending on culture, so it merited the question.

“Nah. Well, if you want, you can bring snacks or food, but you don’t need to. We have loads.” A second later, he added ruefully “Kassa has some…pretty strong opinions about how fully-stocked a kitchen should be.”

“That’s one of your housemates?” she remembered.

“Yeah! Actually, I lived with Kassa and her mom for a few years before. They sort of hosted me, when I was…well, when I first came to Gullcrest.” He amended his sentence half-way through, as if realising he was about to say too much. She was intensely curious about that. “This house is her family property, too, so we don’t have to pay much on it. We moved in when Kassa started her undergrad.”

She blinked, filing that information away. This had something to do with the mystery of him doing a mage’s masters at the age of eighteen, she was sure of it, but… “What about your other housemates?”

“Nihatasi moved in because we had room and she was a friend,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Soren…” he hesitated. “Well, he’s a childhood friend of mine,” he settled on eventually. “So he came to study here, and he took the last spare room.”

Rayla eyed him, but didn’t question him on the obvious secrets clamouring behind his words. “Looks a lot roomier than usual student wings, at least,” she commented finally. “These rooms are pretty cramped. And the runework is pretty worn-down. My door makes this horrible droning noise every time the wards come on.”

He made an ‘oof’ sound. “I’ve visited student wings before. They’re…well, they’re okay. Definitely prefer this house though.” He eyed her curiously. “Is yours at least one of the ones where you get one bathroom between two people? Because I knew someone who only had one bathroom for twelve, and it was terrible.”

“That sounds disgusting,” she said, making a face. She could hardly imagine how terrible that would be, with how some of her wingmates were. “I’m so glad that’s not me.”

“So glad,” he agreed, and before she knew it, they were off on a weirdly engrossing conversation about the merits of student living compared to home life. He was pretty evasive about it, but she got the impression he’d been used to a fairly fancy home before he came to Gullcrest, and he’d been astonished at what student wings were like.

Rayla was in the middle of describing how chaotic move-in day had been, with so many elves hauling all their boxes of things in at once, when a shrill ringing started up from over Callum’s voicecatcher. He reached hastily to the side and disabled some sort of egg timer that had gone off, settling back into view with a sheepish smile.

“That was the timer,” he said, apologetically.

Half an hour, already. It was a little disconcerting how quickly it’d gone by. “I’d better try to turn in for an early night, then,” she offered, weirdly reluctant to hang up.

He hesitated a fair bit, too. “Probably a good idea,” he agreed, wry. “We can talk again later?” His tone went questioning, at that. A little hopeful.

Rayla resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. “…Yeah, sure,” she sighed, more and more exasperated with herself for just how much she wanted to talk to him.

Callum smiled again, the edges of him lit up from the light of the falling sun. “Later, then,” he said, and hesitated once again. Then he reached out, and the call disconnected. Sunbeam minimised to its idling overlay around the edges of her screen, the background of Silvergrove scenery back to the fore.

She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. Ruefully, she spend a while reflecting on exactly how in trouble she was. Then she did as a responsible elf on their Full Moon rest day ought, and went to attempt an early night.

She managed it almost as soon as it was dark enough for her magic rune-rock to work. Thank Xadia for sun lamps, honestly.

---

End chapter.

Yeah so this is basically completely unbetaed, even by me, because I’ve been frantically trying to churn out a complete chapter this week in time for the Modern AU day of rayllum month. There will be typos, there will be clunky sentences, that’s just what you get for a rush job. I’ll return to it and do some editing in the morning.

Re: the Antiquitora. ‘Would you like to discuss the game’ *hikago fandom origins vibes intensify*

Worldbuilding notes for this chapter:

Moondances: specific ritual dances made to react with the runic Circles that Moonshadow elves use. The dancing is used as a form of spellcraft, to cast enchantments or strengthen the magic of a community. The Full Moon dances in Silvergrove for example are integral for keeping its magical defences running. (piaj)

EX and WX: East Xadian and West Xadia. A more modern and correct term for the human and elf/dragon sides of the continent, respectively.

Artefact magic: primal magic cast with a power source other than your own arcanum. E.g. a primal stone, a moon opal.

Thaumaturgy: the practice of magic casting.

Thaumatology: the study of magic.

Lightcatcher: magic camera, basically.

Voicecatcher: magic microphone, basically.

Honour Games: a fun sport :) more on this later.

Technomancy/technomantic: alternate proper term for magical engineering.

Antiquitora notes: while the game has been steadily gaining complexity over time, the game at its fundamentals is very old, and quite traditional. It’s considered a respectable strategy game, and Runaan certainly would have approved of Rayla showing an interest in it when she was younger. Modern variants tend to adopt features and ‘house rules’ that don’t strictly conform to traditional standards, though.

East Xadian computer games: though boasting dramatically better visuals and audio than human technology is currently capable of, the limitations of elven computing mean that computer games are extremely expensive, and difficult to integrate into lesser systems. Most elves will never be able to run the best gaming modules at home.

Nomad Gameships: Brevili nomads are well known for their magical engineering, and produce some of the most advanced technomantic games there are. Owing to the limited number of elves who can actually afford to buy them, they get creative with the marketing: many clans field airships whose sole purpose is travelling around as a sort of mobile arcade, landing at various destinations for a set amount of time, during which customers can pay for access to the many assorted games they have on offer. Demani, as the clan that (a good long while ago) invented the airship in the first place, boasts the most impressive facilities on their ships.

Skycrawler: a game so advanced and finicky that its developers haven’t yet figured out how to get it to run on less advanced systems than the gameships’ computers. There are a handful like these, usually the newest and most technomantically complex titles, and their release on gameships usually serves as something of a ‘beta’ build while they refine the technology for more accessible use. Imunaviga was one of these, and was very recently released for public purchase.

Imunaviga: as several commenters guessed, this is indeed a Subnautica expy. Rayla is not at all keen on the idea of playing it. I spent probably too much time working out the worldbuilding and plot for the elf AU version of this game. It was a lot of fun though.

Scion of Shadow: a well-regarded game with a Moonshadow elf protagonist, involving a lot of stealth gameplay, a highly-lauded storyline, and in-setting ‘fantasy’ elements; i.e. they’d be considered fantasy in this fantasy setting.

Magical overload states: Natural events that cause high levels of ambient primal magic can induce some very unusual effects in beings with the relevant arcana. Terms include ‘moonstruck’ for Moonshadow elves, ‘sunstruck’ for Sunfire, and ‘storm-drunk’ for Skywing. (piaj)

Moondust: a magic-dampening drug taken in different dosages based on the phase of the moon, to dampen the effect of the lunar cycle on Moonshadow elves’ bodies and minds. Not all Moonshadow elves take it, but most do. (piaj)

Reveillant: Sunfire elf beverage made from the dried berries of a shrub with stimulant properties. Some preparations are very strong and are restricted, but preparations from the berries are mild and very popular. (piaj)

Draconic Corpus: a sort of full-body sign language spoken by dragons incapable of complex vocal speech. Given this accounts for the majority of dragons, it’s generally useful to understand some of, even if bipeds are generally incapable of speaking it properly. (piaj)

#rayllum #rayllummonth #tdp callum #tdp rayla #college AU #modern AU #the ceracurist

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ka-writes · 3 years ago

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Notes: READ WARNINGS!!

Please I really want you to be safe.. anyways, this is mainly a set up for the next chapter.. it has a shit ton of angst prepare yourself.

Also am very sorry it is late!! ‘‘Twas very hard for me to start writing it, btw I started another AU please go check it out, thank you <3

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Warning: Torture I go into detail, gore, cussing manipulation, characters lose sense of reality.

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In case you missed:

Chapter 1:

Chapter 6:

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Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

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Ao3 link for this work:

And my other AU:

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Change 7: This is a dream… right?

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He was back where he started this whole thing.

In a cage.

One cage over from the door and now in the middle of the room. It felt empty and bare, yet full of an uncomfortable sense of dread and fear, though he would never admit that aloud.

This time there was only one other cage in sight. The room had changed as well. It was no longer covered in grime, or smelled of blood. Instead it was a sickly white and smelled of rubbing alcohol. Which caused his nose to burn with the overwhelming scent of the cleaning supplies, making the entirety of the room feel more and more like one of those horror stories in hospitals, the only difference being that this one was real.

The thing that replaced the other cages and humans was an operating table with vials and tools that Tommy couldn’t identify.

There were no lights currently, except for the same small door window, which was the only thing that really stayed the same.

It was cold, it felt empty. There was no description fit for the amount of dread Tommy felt. It was built up after laying in the dark for so long. It burned his gut and made his head swirl with thoughts of what would happen next.

He wouldn’t ever admit he was scared, but the situation kinda explained itself.

Without warning the door swung open. No squeaks like last time, just a smooth motion allowing the room to be basked in yellow light from the hall.

Then the lights turned on, immediately causing Tommy to shut his eyes. His head started throbbing and every fiber in his body screamed at him to run. The lights turned into blurry blinding blobs that lit everything in a white fire, making it apparent that the room was indeed scrubbed of any stains or blood. Once his eyes finally adjusted, his migraine caught up to him, making the entire thing unbearable.

“Hello there!” An alien stepped in the room. Their features were outlined in white and their skin wasn’t even recognized, simply because it looked like a shadow. They had claw-like hands and wore glasses over their white to red eyes. They had a black doctor’s coat and wore black pants with white knee high boots. They had a devilish tail along with devil horns and a floating white halo. Their fangs poked out from a blinding white mouth, which was curved into a practiced smile.

“My name is BadBoyHalo, but you will refer to me as Dr. Halo.” They finished with a sickly sweet tone and a side smile, “My pronouns are he/him, and I will be taking care of what happens while you’re here.. not that you will ever leave of course.”

His mind was racing. Everything told him this was real, but he couldn’t help but pray that it was all a sick dream.

“Now we will start off easy and move onto the harder stuff later! Please refrain from trying to run, we have a shock function attached to your translators.” This caught him off guard. Why was he using plural tenses?

He looked towards the other cage, that’s when he noticed the strange bee alien also wearing a petrified expression. His eyes didn’t wander to the other cage, only watching Dr. Halo.

“Now who do we start with?” The doctor asked, even though he clearly already knew. A twisted smile shone on his face letting the light catch the awfully amused glint in his eyes, “Let’s start with the droneling!”

——————

There was no explanation for where the two went.

They simply vanished. No traces to follow or reasons to run.

The only logical explanation was Dream catching them. Which meant Techno would have to ask around for where the ship was harboring. The only problem being, he was awful at talking to people.

“So what do you wanna know?” A tall Wollylock person asked, she was the only known person to know anything about Dream, being his mother and all.

“Er- information on the Dream Team Ship.” Techno stated rather awkwardly.

“Why?” The captain asked, impatience clearly visible with her expression.

“They took two starlings from my crew.” At that the captain practically fumed with furry.

“I will help. After all, that boy needs to learn some manners.” The captain stated, her determination was infectious. “What is your craft’s name?”

“The SBI Craft, piloted by captain Philza.” He said robotically.

“Course it has to be Phil. That man has what, four kids he claimed to his crew..”

“Technically, I am not a kid, neither is Wil- Er our scientist, so really he’s only harboring three kids, now one since two were taken..” Techno decided that was the best explanation he could come up with, though there was really no point.

The captain chuckled and brushed off the other’s attempts at defending the crew. “Just send me the ship’s cords and your captain’s contact and I will be in touch.” With that the captain slid a communicator over the table and walked out of the sketchy bar.

Techno made his way back to the ship and delivered his captain the news. He tried to ignore the gut feeling that everything was wrong…

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(The next section has graphics depictions of torture and gore, please skip this section if it could or will trigger you in any way, there is a summary at the end. Thank you <3)

The world moved unbearably slow. The cage opened ever so smoothly, making him want to throw up. It was the sign that everything was going to go to hell.

That’s what this has to be right? A hellish nightmare that wasn’t real..

No that wasn’t right..

Did it matter?

A hand yanked his wrist out of the cage and into the blinding white room, that felt like fire surrounding him as he stepped to the operating table.

Needles and scalpels were set neatly on a silver tray. The restraints were heavy and felt like they burned his wrists and ankles. He was pushed onto the table as the ‘doctor’ slapped on gloves. More restraints were clipped over his waist and thighs.

Then something pinched his leg. He felt the blood rushing it’s way down to the cut, as a scalpel carved out a rectangle. He could hear scissors cutting something, and distant screams… were they from him?

He didn’t know at this point. More agonizing cuts on his legs along with a couple of needle pin marks.. a couple snaps of an illusion disk and a bit of writing, on both his skin and paper..

He couldn’t really feel anything after the first one, only simply knowing that his body was reacting to the pain yet his brain hadn’t quite caught up with reality.

It was like he wasn’t exactly controlling his body, just simply existing in the dream-like state. Time didn’t exist there, neither did recognition of the pain. Emotions ran wild. Turning all of his thoughts sour as he attempted to remember what happened.

It wasn’t until the doctor un-clipped him and put him back into the cage that he noticed the other.

That’s who did this to him. That’s the person that pushed him through pain.

The human wore a terrified expression as the doctor took him out for his turn.

He couldn’t help but smile at the other’s pain. The other deserved it..

Right?

(If you skipped this, Tubbo got tortured and blamed Tommy for the situation.)

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“IT’S BEEN A FUCKING MONTH! And you still haven’t found your son’s damn ship?!” The man on the other line was furious, and rightfully so.

Puffy undoubtedly understood the anger the man had. I mean she had been in the situation before when her youngest was kidnapped by another crew of pirates. The only difference in this situation was she was fighting against her son, her duckling… when did her duckling turn sour?

“You’re right about that, Phil. I can assure you Niki is doing everything in her power to track them down, along with Jack.” Jack joined the team after Puffy met Niki.

She must admit that having someone working in the ISF had its perks. Though no one could fully trust him. For good reason of course.

“Ponk is ‘talking’ to Sam, he sure as hell ain’t cracking yet.” She finished bitterly, “Like I said Quakity is waiting for his monthly letter from his fiancé, which would hopefully give us a clue at where to look.”

“I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it’s been a month.. Wilbur said the humans barely last a full week if they aren’t treated..” The worry was lining his face and causing the bags under his eyes to look more like nasty black eyes. His face was sullen making it apparent the man hadn’t been eating properly. His wings ruffled at every noise and he seemed to be running purely on coffee. Puffy wanted nothing more than to return the man’s unofficial sons back to him.

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Everything was great!

The plan worked perfectly, and Sam hadn’t cracked yet.

Meaning he could easily start on the next faze. The only issue would be he’d have to gain both of the starling’s trust.

Even if the present was a bitter reality lined with things that would annoy him, the end result would be worth it.

Having a human and a nuke expert by his side would allow him to have everything he ever wanted.

Power.

Not just power, but all the things that came with it. He wouldn’t be questioned again, and everything and anything he said would be the final word.

It would be hell for those who crossed him, and even worse for those who abandoned him.

Wilbur, Sam, Ant, Quackity, Foolish, and even mother dearest, Puffy. They would all pay for their disloyalty. Once this is all over, they would never cross him again.

I mean he did give up everything to gain this life.

There was nothing to lose and everything to win, and he’d be damned if he didn’t win.

I mean he sold his soul for this!

It was all worth it.. right?

Of course it is. Stop doubting me child.

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28 days of torture, and now they were sitting with their captors playing house.

It was wrong. So utterly wrong.

“Eat your food Tommy.” The captain commanded.

Tommy complied not wanting to go back in the cage. Every day he woke up there, more things were shoved into him and more pain was given.

“You too Tubbo.” The command was given and the other complied, the same fear visibly shown.

“Reports.” Dream stated sternly, the rest of the crew compiled without hesitation.

It was a bunch of regular reports of how no one knew where they were, what supplies needed to be restocked, the current condition of the ship, and any developments with the news. A bunch of boring bullshit. He bit back any sarcastic remarks that threatened to spill, but refrained in fear of what they would do to him.

The crew was dismissed leaving Tubbo, Tommy, and Dream alone.

“I want both of you to listen.” Dream started his tone raising all hairs on the back of Tommy’s neck, “Phil and his crew led you to us. They didn’t comply the first time and poisoned your minds. We did the right thing, and fixed you. Now, there are some rules you have to follow. You may not wander the ship, only go anywhere with one of the crew members. You will both share a room and follow the same schedule. Anything you do that is not an order deserves a punishment, for it is proof of what the other crew poisoned you with. Now! Go to your room, it has a black door.” With that the man finished and the pair headed towards their room.

The speech sounded right, yet felt wrong. But everything was justified, therefore it was fine. Plus the worrying was just a problem for future Tommy, maybe that’s what Dream meant by the other crew poisoning him.

The other said nothing as they entered the room, only fixing Tommy with a bitter gaze which turned into something of confusion. Neither one slept, they couldn’t bring it in themselves to sleep, especially since Dream hadn’t told them to.

Instead both of them settled into a silence as they lay on their bed, only getting up when the man told them too. This was all they could really do as they faced their new reality. Slowly but surely their brains began to believe every word of the speech. Finally when the man asked to join him, a bubbly sickly joy gave them the grace to finally help their rescuer.

Six months after the initial capture, one month of torture and five months of vigorous training, consisting of fighting, weapon design, and hours of studying blueprints, they were finally able to go on their first mission with their rescuer, not questioning anything any of the crew said at this point. Sick months of training and they became living weapons ready for whatever the cruel world threw at them…

This is a dream.. right?

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Chapter 7- End

Words: 2221

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Notes:

Hahahaha I am in pain from writing this... please bare with me.. ;-;

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Dream is being a manipulative bastard... I mean the character. More specifically my take on Dream’s character in this situation... ahhhhh

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I hope you’re staying safe, don’t forget to take care of yourself!! <3 also likes are appreciated but reblogs are always better! <3

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biwenqing · 4 years ago

Note

Lwj getting married into the jiang sect is just a lot of him having to get used to his husband and brother in law acting like children. They WILL throw each other into the water at least once a day, no they often don't have a reason. Prank wars, lwj learnt to stay out of it when his robes turned hot pink an hour before an important meeting. Food wars to de stress. He hears various versions of I WILL BREAK YOUR FUCKING LEGS at least 7 times a day. Jiang yanli is his only saving grace.

I can't tell you how much I love all of this! I ran to open a document and um, this happened. The title of this could probably be "three times Sect Leader Jiang was (righteously) dunked in the waters off Lotus Pier". Also included some of our favorite Wens because I need them to be safe and happy :D

Lan Wangji had finished his morning meditation and was brewing some tea so it would be ready when his husband awoke. Wei Wuxian was sleeping deeply, the sounds of the river coming in their window like a lullaby. Lan Wangji found he enjoyed the sounds as much as Wei Wuxian seemed to, and was getting used to his new home. There were many lovely things about living on Lotus Pier.

There were a few things that Lan Wangji was... not so fond of, however. One of these let himself in with barely a knock on the door as Lan Wangji carefully added the tea leaves to the hot water.

Jiang Cheng barely glanced Lan Wangji's way, giving a grunt of maybe acknowledgment before going into the bedroom. He returned with Wei Wuxian tossed over his shoulder. Wei Wuxian was protesting loudly at such interruption to his sleep as Jiang Cheng left through the still open front door.

Lan Wangji would have been alarmed if this was the first occurrence of his husband being abducted. Now he just continued to make the tea and listened to the distant splash and swearing the followed. A second splash soon came and he thought he caught a shout of, "I'll break your legs for this!"

Lan Wangji had figured out several things since joining the Jiang family. The most important was that Wei Wuxian and his brother expressed their affection... differently than he was used to. Maybe it was the fact that they had all grown up a little too fast with the war. The fact was that Jiang Cheng, while a sect leader, was still a young man who wanted to goof off with his older brother. Wei Wuxian was more than happy to indulge him in this.

Wei Wuxian appeared, dripping wet but smiling as he shut the door. Lan Wangji had set the table for their breakfast in the time it took him to get out of the water. He went and dried off, returning with a smile still in place. He held one hand behind his back as he leaned down to kiss Lan Wangji's cheek.

"Good morning love. I have something for you," he murmured with another kiss, settling close to Lan Wangji's side.

"Good morning," Lan Wangji said back, feeling a smile tug on his lips. It grew as Wei Wuxian presented him with a beautiful lotus flower, a lovely light purple like a summer sunset. "It is beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you," Wei Wuxian said back, completely earnest as he always was in his complements and Lan Wangji felt his ears warm. Wei Wuxian reached out a hand to tuck his hair back, exposing an ear and kissing it before turning his focus to breakfast.

They ate in contented silence as if Jiang Cheng's interruption never happened.

[...]

When the Wen's joined Lotus Pier, things in this area didn't get better, nor did they get worse. Lan Wangji quite liked both Wen Qing and Wen Ning; they were pleasant, intelligent people and both clearly cared a great deal for Wei Wuxian. But what this did add was poor Wen Ning was often dragged into whatever current prank war Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng were engaged in.

That day, Lan Wangji was settled in quiet study, accompanied by Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing. He had borrowed some books from the Cloud Recesses library the last time he had visited his brother. In addition to the texts he needed to continue his study of musical cultivation, he had brought back some tomes on politics (for Jiang Yanli) and medicine (for Wen Qing). Both women were ideal companions for study. They would sometimes engage in soft debate with each other on matters of sect politics and law, welcoming any input Lan Wangji might have, but not expecting it.

That was the current state of things when the high pitched laughing shriek of little Wen Yuan echoed their way before the boy burst through the door. He went straight for Lan Wangji, crawling onto his lap. Though the boy was wet and muddy, Lan Wangji wrapped his arms around him as Yuan buried his face into Lan Wangji's chest. The boy was giggling, so he wasn't in any type of true distress.

Wei Wuxian was the next one through the door and went to "hide" behind Lan Wangji, looking around his shoulder at the door. His husband as equally muddy. "Lan Zhan, you must protect us!"

Wen Ning appeared third, glancing awkwardly around before carefully taking off his shoes and going to sit beside (and slightly behind) his sister.

"What seems to be the matter?" Lan Wangji asked, raising a brow as he tried to look behind himself. He caught Jiang Yanli's eyes as she hid her laughter behind a sleeve.

"Well, Wen Ning and a-Yuan were helping me in my project to draw all the different kinds of frogs that live with the lotuses," Wei Wuxian explained.

"I catched three frogs!" Yuan reported, holding up three fingers.

"You did! You're so good at counting and frog catching." Wei Wuxian reached around Lan Wangji so he could ruffle Yuan's hair. The boy beamed, and Lan Wangji felt his heart squeeze in a way that was becoming more and more common when he was around both his husband and the little boy. "Anyway, Jiang Cheng showed up and he scared all the frogs away."

Speaking of Jiang Cheng, he was the final one to burst through the door. Jiang Yanli was laughing out right now, as Wen Qing sighed in annoyance. "If you scare my brother, I will end you," she said flatly before Jiang Cheng could come in any further.

"He's not so innocent in this!" Jiang Cheng protested, even as the flush on his face turned into more of a blush. Wei Wuxian stifled a laugh against Lan Wangji's shoulder.

"Excuse me, do I need to remind you of the time he saved your life?" Wen Qing asked, standing. Wen Ning stayed seated and peaked around her legs.

"I repaid that debt!"

"No, your siblings did." Wen Qing stepped forward. Not even bothering to slip on her shoes, she grabbed Jiang Cheng by the ear and dragged him out of the room.

The yelp and splash that came next weren't followed by the usual curses and threats. Or maybe it was, but Lan Wangji couldn't hear over the sound of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli's laugher. Wei Wuxian fell over in his mirth, and Yuan took that as a cue to leave the safety of Lan Wangji's lap to crawl all over Wei Wuxian.

"You both need a bath," Lan Wangji said, closing his books and rerolling scrolls. Standing, he scooped up Yuan and offered a hand to Wei Wuxian.

His husband took it, springing to his feet and pressing a kiss to Lan Wangji's cheek. "Come on, a-Yuan! Bath time. Then we can have lunch!"

"Yay!" Yuan cheered, loud in Lan Wangji's ear. Much louder than would be permitted in the Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji found he was glad that he didn't need to ask the little boy to quiet his joy.

[...]

The Lotus Pier was hosting a meeting between the sects and Lan Wangji found himself feeling almost jealous of Wen Qing and Wen Ning, who were to hide during the entirety of the event. This was certainly unfair of him to think because the reason that the Wen siblings had to hide was due to the great injustice inflicted upon their people. However, Lan Wangji couldn't help the petty thought.

Instead, he was on his way to change into his finest white robe. As he approached the rooms he shared with Wei Wuxian, he could hear the sounds of an argument from within. The front door was open, so Lan Wangji entered his home to find Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian in debate.

"I didn't mean to!" Jiang Cheng was protesting.

"You tell Lan Zhan that!" Wei Wuxian said back.

"Tell me what?" Lan Wangji said, using his most intimidating voice.

"I washed our robes!" Wei Wuxian said, turning with a smile. "Well, I tried to. Someone-" Wei Wuxian shoved Jiang Cheng's shoulder. "-tried to prank me."

"I didn't know Lan Wangji's clothes would be there!" Jiang Cheng said though he wouldn't look Lan Wangji in the eye, glaring instead at the floor.

Lan Wangji had a sinking feeling in his stomach. "What happened to my robes?"

Wei Wuxian vanished into the bedroom, to come out carrying two pairs of Lan Wangji's best robes. The robes that were supposed to be white as the snow in Gusu and were now as pink as a lotus bud. Lan Wangji took a moment to process this, then to mourn the fact that it was far too late to get a message to his brother and ask him to bring replacements.

Lan Wangji turned to Wei Wuxian and asked, "How long until the guests arrive?"

"We probably still have until afternoon," Wei Wuxian said, his expression turning from amused to curious.

"Good." Plenty of time to get ready still. Lan Wangji crossed the room and grabbed Jiang Cheng's arm. Jiang Cheng was already dressed in his elaborate robes and Lan Wangji didn't even try not to wrinkle them.

"Hey, wait!" Jiang Cheng said as Lan Wangji tugged the man out of his house. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Be quiet," Lan Wangji ordered, using the tone he used to when he caught other disciples breaking the rules. He marched them to a suitable location, Jiang Cheng still protesting, threatening him, and halfheartedly apologizing. Letting Jiang Cheng go, Lan Wangji gave him a cold look and then pushed.

The shock on Jiang Cheng's face when he realized a second too late what was happening was more than worth whatever trouble he might get in for pushing a sect leader into the water. As was Wei Wuxian's full-body laugh that had him leaning against Lan Wangji in order to stay standing.

#wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #wen qing #wen ning #lan yuan #i made a tag for this au now:#lwj on lotus pier #my fic #a talks #a answers #yunmeng-shuangjie #jiang sibs #wen sibs #wuxian's sibling collection #wen sibs and wei wuxian

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godkilller · 4 years ago

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@shirenui144

A more sombre question, but had me wondering... Has Gin ever cried / what would it take to make him cry? I imagine it would be verse dependent, but could a man this guarded ever visibly show such emotional hurt?

out of character. Why must you hurt me.

But it’s an excellent question, and as you say too -- Gin has become such a guarded, numbed, and twisted man. He has, for lack of better wording, killed off that part of himself long ago. He is also one of the topmost guarded characters in Bleach, even Ichigo’s little trick of ‘reading his opponent’s heart’ during battle did not work on Gin. Gin was empty. Gin wasn’t even ‘looking at Ichigo’ with his heart when fighting. They did not reach each other. Gin is so utterly closed off from others and himself that there’s an eerie absence of self present in him, a swallowing abyss, intimidating and oppressive. Gin has also spent his entire existence isolated, he joined Aizen extremely young and thus his centuries-long otherness began. He cannot show emotions akin to Toshiro, who is often used in ways alongside Gin to show what happens if one shows emotions and weakness to Aizen Sousuke via childhood friends. Renji and Rukia, too, are used in ways that contrast Gin and Rangiku subtly in the background. Gin’s interactions with Rukia about Renji, and his interactions with Toshiro about Momo are to make Gin more of an other. He is removed, unlike them.

So Gin does not despair openly like they do. He doesn’t shout or cry for the audience to see. He’s a villainous cold-hearted bastard.

This is on top of the potent sense of cultural toxic masculinity and military way of avoiding / “dealing with” emotionally charged moments, not speaking of trauma, and the whole nine yards of suppression which channels into self-worth issues and a tendency for violence. Most characters in Bleach, and especially male characters, aren’t allowed to really stop and think about what they’re feeling, doing -- Ichigo being able to do a decent amount of that, yes, with his protagonist badge, but even then ? It’s pathetically insufficient, barely a taste of what Ichigo actually should be experiencing, and no other characters are allowed to mourn losses or suffer long-lasting consequences for their actions, for injuries, for mistakes, for harmful words or acts. It’s an action / fighting series, the audience is here for big flashy swordfights and cool abilities, not emotions. Certainly not darker topics of PTSD and the like.

You can slice it any which way, but Gin grew up as a child soldier. It can be contrasted by the fact that the majority of the Gotei 13 / Shinigami characters are shown, in flashbacks, as entering the Academy whilst in adulthood, becoming Shinigami once adults, with the exception of people like Toshiro, Momo, Hiyori, who all look / are perpetually young.

Gin is a little older than Toshiro, for context, by the way -- and he is younger than Byakuya. Because Tite doesn’t know how the ages of his own characters work, it can be argued that Gin and Hiyori are possibly within the same ballpark in terms of ages. But like. Look at her. What the fuck. ANYWAYS, the point is ? Gin’s young, and his trauma is fairly fresh. From the Winter War -- and then 110 years into the past to the Turn Back the Pendulum arc -- Gin spends the majority of his childhood either playing caretaker for Rangiku, who is actually a little older than him, and then killing; first, the three Shinigami that attacked Rangiku, then the Third Seat of the Fifth Division, and then many more likely during his career of observing failed projects at Aizen’s side, witnessing horrific Hollowification experimentations, and many more things. The crucial period of development for things like higher level empathy ( Gin showcases it by sharing his food with Rangiku, a stranger, and then we see the absolute absence of it from then on ) and Gin swiftly enters into the midst of Erikson’s industry vs. inferiority stage of development; what does he have to offer the world ? What can he become ? Will he be good enough ? This is the stage in which Gin makes the connection as well as makes peace with becoming a monster; this is what I’m offering, this is what I’m becoming, this will be good enough.

He flipped a switch. It’s questionable whether or not Gin has the ability to cry once he’s an established Third Seat. It’s gone, it’s been swallowed down a hole so deep and dark Gin doesn’t want to go searching for it. He doesn’t want to cry. Gin already has a negative connotation connected to crying given his quote “I’m gonna become a Shinigami, change things for ya, so that you don’t have to cry anymore, Rangiku.” Not crying = good. Not crying means better. Rangiku crying over what was done to her was what embedded into Gin that he needed to be stronger. No crying allowed. None. In his mind, obviously, Gin doesn’t actually make that connection that ‘because Rangiku did this, I’ll do this’ no, he’s not so meticulously aware yet, but there’s certainly an imprint left on him from those earlier years in the Rukongai, dreading her tears, hating them, hating those men, and so crying = murderous intent. Crying = anger.

If Gin cried as a child, he didn’t realize he was doing so. I can see him crying in his sleep from a dream, a nightmare, a jam-packed series of emotions hitting him whilst vulnerable, whilst unable to smile and swallow it all down. I can see him waking from it and wiping at his face, feeling utter detachment like an ache in his chest, an otherness, like that wasn’t even him crying, that wasn’t him. Gin wouldn’t think more of it, he wouldn’t dare linger on the thoughts. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.mp4 and all that jazz.

Gin is more likely to lash out in anger than let himself cry. I have a headcanon / drabble somewhere of Gin screaming into his inner world, clutching at his hair, feeling so terribly close to crying but he can’t, it literally will not happen. He’s too bottled up and frustrated from that that when he actually has an opportunity to cry and it doesn’t naturally happen because he’s become so suppressed, it just outright angers him. Because he has latched everything up, lock and key, by the time Gin’s an adult -- if he were to cry as an adult, it’d be during a flurry of explosive emotions. He cannot just casually let loose, no, that door’s jammed shut, it’s been coiled tight in him. A pit of despair by the time the Winter War rolls by. Gin admits to feeling anxiety, dread, during that conflict -- a sign of slowly coming undone, no longer able to keep himself from hesitance, doubt, insecurity, and anticipation hovering around him like a dark cloud. Gin cannot cry, though, not now. Not when he’s so close to making all the pain worth something...

So it’s no surprise that Gin really only starts getting the actual opening to properly cry in my canon divergent verses. But the catch !!!! Gin has failed so thoroughly and so brutally that he feels he doesn’t deserve to weep about it. That this is merely a fraction of the karma he deserves. He experiences suicidal ideation, daydreaming of how it’d simply be easier if he hadn’t survived at all. He feels too hollow to cry, then, at the start. He feels too heavy, too much, it’s too much to cry about. He ruined himself and Rangiku for nothing. He did all of this for nothing. And now Rangiku wants answers, still waiting, watching him, and he can’t cry in front of her. IT’S STILL INGRAINED IN HIM FROM CHILDHOOD: she’s the one who cries and he’s the one who comforts. The audacity of him to cry in front of her after everything he put her through, as though he were the victim and her the one needing to comfort him. Gin may be morally gray, but at times he truly sees the world in black and white. No moderation, no give and take.

It’d hit him later, when he’s learning to become more vulnerable. When he’s trying to open up to Rangiku about something he has to rip from himself, his heart holding onto this sorrow for so long Gin has to surgically remove the truth from himself. AS A CHILD, WITNESSING WHAT HAPPENED TO RANGIKU COUNTS AS A TRAUMATIC EVENT. Not talking about it for 110+ years does a number or two on you when you at last, FINALLY, tell her the fucking scoop. Gin repressed what happened to Rangiku because he recognized that Rangiku did not fully and properly remember, recollect, what happened to her. He knew. Gin saw.

Compartmentalizing her trauma on top of his own, as though a keeper of it, a sin-eater, Gin would feel absolute despairing relief at finally telling her. Despairing because he’ll be inflicting upon her something he’s been holding back, holding that door shut, for the entirety of their knowing of one another, and to finally let go of the door and let that beast of trauma go charging at her undeterred ? There’s immense guilt attached to this entire affair. Gin feels childlike guilt; why her, and not me ? I wish it could’ve been me, we could’ve traded places and I’d be fine, I’d live, we could live happy together. Akin to survivor’s guilt, Gin wishes those men had found him and taken a piece of his soul rather than Rangiku’s. The ‘why’ of it haunts him. Why her. Why didn’t I stop them. Why didn’t I show up sooner. I could’ve bitten at them, kicked and hit, we could have escaped together -- or at least you could have. Gin also feels guilt at a base adult level: why am I keeping this from her ? No, it’s too late to tell her, she’s happier now, there will never be a good time to tell her.

There are so many things, feelings, thoughts, that Gin has never shared with Rangiku due to it all being tied to the unspoken secret he’s let fester inside of him.

SO WHEN GIN FINALLY TELLS RANGIKU WHY HE JOINED AIZEN, WHY HE TRIED TO KILL AIZEN, WHY HE SAID THOSE WORDS TO HER DURING THAT BLIZZARD AND BECAME A SHINIGAMI ... GIN’S GOING TO BREAK DOWN.

The truth is tied to vulnerability in Gin’s mind. Telling it means ripping himself apart at the seams. Everything he crafted himself out to be was made around this secret. It’s going to be bloody, it’s going to hit him like a fucking train. Gin’s going to feel it coming, rumbling on the tracks, he’ll hear it even, that approaching storm, he’ll know by the prickle at his eyes and the closing of his throat, but still nothing’s ever prepared him for the absolute choked finality of the truth, and he’s going to do his best to hold it back -- it’s instinctive, it’s in his blood by now to mask it, stop it, divert and drawl his way out of it. But this time he can’t just stop halfway and distract her, talk about something else. No, Gin’s cornered himself and it’s high time Rangiku got the truth from him, he can’t run away any more. He’ll have to grit his teeth and talk through it, swallow it back just enough to speak, to tell her what he’s done to them both and for what, for why, it’s the worst possible conversation they could ever have, but one they need. And Gin’s going to find himself incapable of holding back a sob the more he discloses, the more that slips out and escapes him the more the emotions tied to that sunken anchor come up too. He will feel simultaneously lighter and heavier for it.

There are numerous ways Gin’s thought about wording it. He’s thought about the numbed approach, MISSION REPORT style: Aizen Sousuke harvested souls from the 64th Rukongai District, they took a piece from you. Perhaps not, no, not like that. Maybe... back when y’were a kid, there were three Shinigami assigned to the 64th District to collect souls to fuel Aizen Sousuke’s Hogyoku. They took somethin’ from you. I saw it. I saw them hoverin’ over you, I saw it in their hands. I saw’em offer it up to Aizen in the forest, collectin’ firewood. I saw him.

WHY DIDN’T I STOP HIM, WHY DIDN’T I ATTACK THOSE THREE MEN THEN AND THERE IN BROAD DAYLIGHT WITH YOUR COLLAPSED FORM A FEW FEET AWAY, MAYBE I COULD HAVE TAKEN THEM ON AFTER ALL. I COULD HAVE CRUSHED A SKULL IN WITH STONE, I COULD’VE STOLEN HIS SWORD BEFORE THE LIFE FULLY FADED FROM HIM AND MADE IT VANISH, I COULD’VE CARVED THROUGH THE SECOND, SLICE THE TENDON AT THE THIRD’S ANKLE AS HE ATTEMPTED TO FLEE, WARN OTHERS. SLIT HIS THROAT AS HE CRAWLED AWAY. YOU’D HEAR IT, OFF TO THE SIDE. YOU’D SEE ME COME UP TO YOU WITH BLOOD SPLATTERS. YOU’D SEE ME LEAN OVER YOU WITH NOT A PERSIMMON OFFERED, NO, YOUR OWN FUCKING SOUL THEY PLUCKED FROM YOU. SHAKY HAND. BLOODIED HAND. TAKE IT, TAKE IT BACK. I FIXED IT --

Just tell her. JUST TELL HER.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE DAY WE MET, RANGIKU ... ?

#[ headcanon ] fresh snowfall; fading footprints mark his path #[ verse: redemption ] i am healing by mistake; rome is also built on ruins #me: i wanna cover more but also i. oof.

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fatefulfaerie · 4 years ago

Text

Memory

Link couldn’t see any of the castle from where he sat, his feet dangling over the ledge of the large rock and his hands planted behind him in his comfortable lounge. From Tarrey Town, the Akkala Citadel Ruins and descending sharp peaks and valleys of Death Mountain’s lower sections covered up the castle in its entirety.

In places such as this, it was easy for Link to forget his responsibility, at least for the moment. But for the blue Sheikah tower rising above the citadel and Vah Rudania’s red stream of light aimed at an angle towards a castle he couldn’t see, it was places like this that surely allowed the people of Hyrule to forget about what Daruk called “that swirling swine”.

There was a peace and a resounding apathy they had that he simply couldn’t submit to. After all, a hundred years was a long time. People had survived the Calamity, had given life to children and grandchildren in a world Link saw as ruined. This was their normal, as thus Hyrule was, for the most part, complacent.

But he couldn’t be.

As relaxing as the sunset was upon Akkala, he couldn’t rest within it. Call it his inner courage, that pushed him into battle with a confidence unbefitting of an amnesia-ridden warrior. Call it his sense of justice, that looked at Hyrule and its state of ruin and felt pulled to correct it by some instinct he couldn’t explain. Call it something else entirely, something that burned and ached within him whenever he heard her voice or saw her face.

Link was restless in a world that rested upon chaos, and there were so many reasons to explain why.

“I was wondering where you wandered off to.”

Link looked behind him, his eyes following Hudson as he sat next to him. It wasn’t long after Hudson settled that Link’s gaze went back to the sunset.

“I wanted to thank you,” Hudson started. “For everything you did to bring this town together, for even introducing me to my wife because of that. Really, I can’t thank you enough. You really are amazing.”

Link shook his head as he looked out at the distance.

“You’d be surprised,” he muttered.

“Maybe,” Hudson said with a slight chuckle. “But I do know that it’s hard to find someone in Hyrule who will drop everything for someone else. It’s an admirable trait, and so is your humility.”

Link took a pause. He was in this conversation now, whether he wanted to be or not. And he could tell from his tone of voice that Hudson wanted from him what Link knew he could do the least.

Explain himself. And make conversation.

“I think I just…” He tried before exhaling a breath. “...needed some busy work...I’m nervous about something.”

Hudson nodded.

“That was me this morning,” he said. “Before the nuptials I was so nervous. I needed to make sure every little thing was perfect, prepare myself in every possible way, for every possible circumstance, almost training myself to be ready.”

“Seems kind of obsessive,” Link said, knowing he was projecting, knowing that for the past three months he had gone to every shrine, explored every corner of Hyrule, fought any malicious monster that would put up a fight. He was fueled by the pure fear of failing Hyrule again, failing her again.

“How did you get out of it?” Link asked.

“Trusted myself,” he said. “That I was ready, that in a way, I’ve always been ready, that when it comes down to it, there’s only so much I can do.”

Link nodded in understanding. It was time. It felt like time. In fact, it had felt that way for a while now. Link had felt the desire to right the wrongs of his failure ever since he first paraglided onto the soil of Hyrule.

And yet the more he ventured through it, the more he learned of his weaknesses, the more he learned of the champions’ death, the destruction of the Hyrule he was supposed to save, his fall at Blatchery Plains, the more he doubted he was worthy of the Princess’ confidence. He could smell the way his blood ached in his nose, he could feel the Princess’ hands as she clutched onto him, the tug on his heart as he inwardly insisted upon staying alive for her, his neck pulling the weight of his head to ensure that if he were to see one last thing before he died, it would be her.

That was his failure, dying at Hyrule’s greatest hour of need, but his recompense for that was surviving, given the opportunity to become stronger by perhaps the goddesses themselves, the opportunity to save her. And thus, his determination to not fail her again consumed him with a near obsession of self-improvement.

“What about you, huh?” Hudson asked, completely interrupting Link’s train of thought. “Got someone special?”

“No...no…” Link said with a bashful chuckle and a bowed head, as if averting his glance from the sunset.

“Oh come on,” Hudson insisted, not believing Link in the slightest. “Strapping young lad like you, there’s got to be someone.”

Green eyes shone in his mind like emeralds in the moonlight, but even brighter was the smile he liked to imagine her wearing, that made his heart burst at the seams. He thought of her blonde hair billowing in the wind as the breeze shifted upon him, rocking his own strands of light brown hair.

“Maybe once, but…” Link said. “We’re kind of...separated.”

“Bad break up?” Hudson asked.

“Something like that,” Link said, trying not to laugh at the fact that he was fairly certain they were never ‘together’ in the first place. They never got the chance. The term ‘separated’ was a bit more literal.

“Do you still love her?” Hudson asked.

Link looked up, looking in the direction of the castle, his blue eyes extending beyond this conversation.

“Yes,” Link said with a piercing vulnerability and a breathlessness, as if it was the first time he said it out loud.

“Then that’s all that matters,” Hudson said. “Go to her and show her your love. I’m sure she’ll take you back in a heartbeat.”

That wasn’t the problem. Well, it was a problem, whether her love for him lasted a hundred years or not, and after that, all that foreign relationship stuff, but that was something to suss out much, much later. The problem now was his readiness to save her and not fail.

“Y-yeah totally,” Link said in reply before out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Hudson standing up.

“I’ll leave you to your pondering,” he said. “I bet Rhondson is looking for me anyway. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Yeah,” Link said, turning his head to force a small smile.

“And be sure to invite us to the wedding,” Hudson said as he walked off. Link didn’t have the energy to correct him, to chase after him and insist upon the ridiculousness of that concept. Technically, they were still only seventeen and Hudson didn’t know he was talking about a princess, or that Link was nervous about something much more perilous.

Link shook his head as his gaze returned to look at the sunset, imagining the castle bathed in that same light behind the citadel.

“Trusting myself,” Link whispered.

He purposefully fell to his back with an exasperated sigh. His fingers interlocked and his hands resting on his forehead.

Could he really do this? Was he really ready to face Calamity Ganon? All this extra time, was he ready earlier? Stressing too much over being perfect? He just needed to win once, to defeat Calamity Ganon once. Maybe it wasn’t about feeling ready, one moment he didn’t know he was waiting for where everything clicks into place. Maybe it was just about getting up the courage to try.

He closed his eyes slowly with his next inhale, searching for the motivation and finding it quickly.

You’re going to be just fine.

Her voice was soft, like an angel as his mind replayed the memory. With what seemed a great effort his glance shifted to her. His head rested on her shoulder and he could feel the love in his heart as he looked at her, but he also felt himself fading.

What he saw of her was always an image that faded, lasting mere seconds. If he had the choice, he could look upon her for thousands of seconds and it still wouldn’t be enough time. He tried to stay here, in this moment, holding on to it for dear life, coaxing himself to focus on her and by sheer willpower ignore his fatal injuries. A breath escaped him quickly after.

Darkness.

Open your eyes.

Link did just that, to an Akkalan sunset, clouds reaching and spreading, like smears of white upon an orange canvas.

He felt his breathing, the one reanimated by the Shrine of Resurrection all those months ago, the way it coupled with the wind and the wild.

To anyone else in Hyrule, this moment would be peaceful and serene, perfect. But when it came down to it, at the end of the day, after all the rigorous training and perfectionism, the worries, the overzealous anxiety about failing at his role…

No matter what he feared, he knew one thing for certain.

He wanted to see her, know her, feel her, love her as more than just a memory.

He wanted her beside him.

#botw #zelink #link #zelda #hyrule #breath of the wild #tloz #the legend of zelda #tarrey town

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kyberphilosopher · 5 years ago

Text

𝐀𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐚

The both of them were searching for someone whose demons would mirror their own.

Word Count: 5489

a·kra·sia/əˈkrāZH(ē)ə/ noun

“akrasia: the state of mind in which someone acts against their better judgment through weakness of will.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi had always been far too versed in the light side of the force for your taste. It was annoying, to say the least. The way the Jedi walked around like they’re better than everybody else, and then denying it. The narrow minded point of view. The ridiculous robes. It was all very exhausting to deal with.

The Jedi Order had no recollection of you. There was nothing to suggest you had ever been a part of them, or even ever fallen under the power of the Republic. Therefor, nobody knew where you came from.

Anakin and Master Kenobi simply encountered you one day as a General for the Separatist forces. You were also a Sith of some kind- they weren’t sure on the details. The very first fight ended with you nearly killing Anakin, Obi-Wan having to bandage his knee, and you receiving a scar from your left collarbone to your shoulder. Another time, you and Kenobi went head to head. You would’ve killed him, had Anakin not intervened.

So, Anakin didn’t like you very much. Fine with you.

The real prize was Obi-Wan.

As stated above, Kenobi was far too attached to the light for your liking. As far as you could tell, the man wasn’t tempted by the darkness in the slightest. This fact baffled you. You had seen what Kenobi’s life would be like if he became a Sith. He would’ve been far powerful than many of his fellow Jedi. You would've even been willing to venture that his skills would come close to your own! But, the man was inexplicably, irrationally, and annoyingly selfless.

Similarly, Obi-Wan had taken note of your own fatuous traits.

Obi-Wan, through all his goodness, had never thought you to be selfish. There were times where he saw you make selfish decisions, or act selfishly- but you were not selfish by nature. Obi-Wan knew, somewhere deep down, that you felt guilt at your bad deeds. Unfortunately, that distant guilt was not enough to stop you from being ruthless and cunning in battle. And for that, Obi-Wan felt that he had somehow failed you, even though he didn’t know anything about your previous life.

So, if Obi-Wan had to describe you, it could be summed up in a few words. Lethal. Intelligent. Devious. Unnerving. Powerful. Dealing with you was something that Obi-Wan never looked forward to, unlike Anakin, who was secretly rooting for it.

However, despite all your flaws, Kenobi shared something incredibly disturbing with you.

You were the one that had started it. The night of your first encounter, you couldn’t stop thinking about the man. He was just so... good. The way he fought used the third form of lightsaber combat- the one that focused more on defense than offense. So he wasn’t aiming to kill you, and he probably never would be. Baffling. You could sense that he wasn’t excessively good with the use of the force, but well enough. Kenobi was in no way attracted to power or stepping on others. This, in it’s entirety, is what made you decide to try a bit of psychological warfare.

You appeared to him in the night. Projecting yourself across the galaxy, across the moon and the stars, you let him see you. He couldn’t see where you were or where you were going to be, only you. Dressed in black robes and your hair tied back casually, you wore the little scratch Kenobi had given your cheek with pride.

While you were proud of this feat, Kenobi was caught off guard. He had just finished a conversation with Anakin about the young man was seriously skirting the line with the council, ending in Anakin walking away with thin lips. Obi-Wan sighed, glancing at the ground and leaning against the wall in deep thought.

He couldn’t explain what happened next. One blink, and it was the other half of the archive room. The walls glowed blue with technology and magic. The floor was a clean and sterile white. But then, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even really the archive room anymore. In the next blink, Kenobi was looking at the other half of a gray, blockish room. It reminded him very much of a Venator, especially with the giant window that gave a view of the trillions of stars against the ink black heavens.

And, of course, you were there in the middle.

Obi-Wan perked up in shock. His blue eyes widened, his shoulder coming off the wall as his lips parted. You stayed still, your hands clasped behind your back as a smirk danced across the corners of your mouth.

“Hello, my dear Obi-Wan,” you greeted slyly. “What’s the matter? Did you miss me already?”

Obi-Wan took only a second to understand the situation. He wasn’t sure how you were doing this, or a certainty as to why. Still, he was a smart man, and he saw that if this was how the night would go, then so be it.

“Oh, of course,” he answered with equal tone. His own lips were curling up into a smile, the way they did when Ventress tried to pull dialogue like this with him. The only difference was that he truly preferred you doing this instead of her. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about me.”

“How could I forget the man with such a clean technique?” you quipped back. Your right hand raised up to gesture at the dark red injury on your face.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow smugly. The retort he had thought of was not even a true one, but he knew how this banter would go. “I suppose any technique would appear clean to you, Y/N.”

Yes. There it was. That little twitch in your lips that revealed the Jedi had struck a nerve. “Oh, and here I was believing Ventress when she told me you were a gentleman.”

“Did she? Why don’t you tell me where she’s going to be next so I can talk to her about it myself?”

“Does it matter?” you questioned. Step one of throwing him off was complete. Now it was time for step two- sowing doubts. “You’ve already lost the war. You’re going to lose the battle, too.”

“That’s bold talk from you,” Obi-Wan challenged.

“I’d call it truthful gossip,” you mused. “And in case you’d forgotten, I almost killed your precious padawan today.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but take a sharp, defensive step forward. “Anakin is more than capable of holding his own.”

“But you care about him,” you ventured. Your grin was becoming more and more poisonous as you began to waltz around the area. You knew exactly what you were doing, and Obi-Wan knew that. “What’s going to happen when you’re forced to kill him? Ah, I can only wonder.”

Kenobi was at a loss for words. His eyes were flitting back and forth between your own, trying to make sense of your statements. Were you lying to him? Was this part of the obvious ploy to upset him? If so, it was working. He cared for Anakin. He couldn’t imagine harming the man he called his brother.

“Oh, how I wonder,” you smirked finally. Then you turned away from Obi-Wan, and he was left alone in the Archive room again, as if you were never even there.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

The next time you had come to him, things ended differently.

It was days before your third encounter, and your second fight. The last time you’d seen him, he’d only caught a glimpse of you smirking before disappearing into the depths of the ship and most likely the escape pods. But this time, Kenobi and Cody had hatched a brilliant plan to intercept you outside Christophsis. During the battle to attempt to slow your troops, Anakin and Obi-Wan would infiltrate your ship and attempt to subdue you. There was no way you could reach the escape pods this time- a new confrontation was inevitable.

While Obi-Wan leaned over the holotable, studying the battle plans and maps, he stroked his beard thoughtfully. His blue eyes glinted in the glow of the room, sparkling like two little planets. Even you had to admit, the General had a beautiful, analytical brain that everyone could take a few lessons from. This only spurred you on more in your endeavor to ruin him, however.

“What’re you looking at?” you mused.

Obi-Wan stiffened upright, focusing on your voice. He knew you hadn’t somehow sneaked your way onto the ship at least, which left the second most likely scenario more realistic.

“I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure that out,” he said. Obi-Wan turned around, careful to leave one hand looming over the button that turned the table back to simple planets. In a swirl, the maps and plans were gone, replaced with artificial stars and systems projected into the air. The ocean light of the room fell over your features faintly, which confused the Jedi for a second. The only colors he had ever seen as shadows with you were the deep red from your lightsabers. Usually, they were so angry and stark that you looked menacing.

Make no mistake- you were menacing. Obi-Wan would never be foolish enough to think that you weren’t. But in the sapphire light, you reminded him of a Jedi. You looked- dare he say it?- pretty. Softer. Is that what you could’ve been at one point? A Jedi? Soft, and pretty?

“You flatter me,” you purred as you dipped your head. “I almost really believed you weren’t a gentleman.” You gave Obi-Wan the moment to respond, but he did not take the possibility. In fact, you could see that he was clearly raking his eyes over your face in search of some kind of answer. Perhaps you should do the same.

“Tell me,” you continued. “How does the gentleman intend to capture the lady tomorrow?”

You took note of the faint wrinkles under his eyes. They weren’t from age or ailment, but lack of sleep and too much experience. There were few marks on his face, but still noticeable. No, they didn’t make him appear unattractive or undesirable, but instead gave him a sort of character. Did he have scars along his body? Was there ever a foe who marked him forever? Sure, you had scratched the Jedi with your lightsaber not too long ago, but it was nothing that wouldn’t eventually fade. Even then, it wasn’t like he hadn’t done the same to you. Your cheek was still streaked with a thin, pink gash that had begun to heal as a part of your flesh from what Kenobi had done to you.

“Perhaps the gentleman would rather avoid conflict all together?” Kenobi mused. Ever the polite one, this man. “Perhaps you could turn yourself in now and save yourself the troops?”

You scoffed audibly. It was close to a laugh, but not quite. Did Sith’s laugh? “You are easily mistaken if you believe I care for the lives of a few clankers.”

“Clankers? Spending some time with the Clones, are we?”

“I’ve had enough of them in my detention cells to know what kind of language they use,” you said with a promise. In truth, you had captured a few Clone troopers, but that wasn’t how you had picked up the term ‘clanker’. You had gathered it after hearing some Clone describe it while listening in on transmissions. Finding it catchy and somewhat clever, you adopted it yourself.

“Is that something you enjoy?” Obi-Wan quizzed. He took a step forward, his hands coming together with bent arms to hide each other in the length of his sleeves.

No, actually. It wasn’t. You’d never cared much for torture. Sure, you had used it when you had to, but it had never been your first resort. You had no explanation for this. It just didn’t seem high up on your priorities list.

“Now, who doesn’t love a good torture chamber?” you quipped.

Unfortunately for you, it was too late for that kind of response. Obi-Wan had somehow seen the fault in your face. Maybe he saw your brow twitch, or your eyes dull, or your throat catch- you couldn’t say. But he had seen it.

Obi-Wan nodded once, his lips still upturned at the stimulation from the interaction. “I don’t believe you.”

You weren’t sure where to go now. Your cocky and sarcastic features were beginning to fade away, replaced with a slow and diminishing frown.

“Give up this fight,” Kenobi ventured. “If you turn yourself in now, you’ll avoid bloodshed. We both know that’s what you want.”

You swallowed dryly. Did you want that? To avoid bloodshed? You hadn’t minded it in the past, but there were times when you found enough of it distasteful. Could tomorrow’s battle be one of those times?

“A Sith does not negotiate with the weak,” you finally answered. Once more, your face hardened back to it’s original expression. Menacing.

Obi-Wan wondered if he should’ve said the next words. He played them over in his mind several times in the next second, before finally deciding on giving them a try. “Then perhaps, you are not a Sith.”

Your eyes widened at the statement. It struck a million things inside of you- anger, frustration, wonder, longing, embarrassment, astonishment, fear- everything. Your lungs tightened so much in your chest, they felt sore. From the sheer impact of Kenobi’s words, you took a step back defensively.

Then you disappeared again.

Obi-Wan stumbled backwards, hand reaching to clutch his heart. A dull headache had immediately begun forming in his temples, thrumming around like a growing drill. His lungs felt like they had had all the air kicked from them. His right cheek stung in the shape of a straight, thin line. Struggling to catch his breath, the Jedi reached his free hand back to grip onto the edge of the holotable for support.

Mirroring the man, you jolted back as his form vanished. Your feet slipped from under you, and one of your knees was now angrily demanding your attention. Your bottom hit the floor flatly as your chest heaved up and down, gasping for the breath you had somehow lost. A bead of sweat had singularly formed on the side of your face in something like terror and shock.

Neither you, nor Obi-Wan could explain this.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

By the third... ‘projection’ between you and Obi-Wan, you had met eachother on the battlefield six times, and Anakin five. The scar Kenobi had given you from your first encounter had softened significantly. Even so, it would remain forever. As much as you hated it, you had spent several nights awake thinking of how it was like a kind of mark he had made on you. Not quite something that ‘claimed’ you, per say, but a type of signature. A permanent autograph or stain that was made by the person who bothered you the most.

Ventress, who was probably the closest thing you had to a friend, had told you it was awfully seductive in her overly sweet voice. While her hand caressed your cheekbone, the heaviness of your heart only briefly softened before falling back.

But the third projection was different. You were not the one who initiated it. In fact, after your second meeting, you were perfectly happy to never interact with Kenobi again, unless you were fighting. During those combative moments, you could put your deep thoughts aside in order to accomplish your mission.

But this time was not a combative moment. And yet, you were having some trouble accomplishing your mission.

“Go on,” your master commanded in his low voice. “Execute the younglings.”

Your lightsabers were in your hands, crossed over each other. When you would pull them apart, the sabers would slice out, and heads would roll. That’s what was bothering you. The heads reminded you very much of your young nephew, who had turned six not too long ago.

You couldn’t remember why you had to do this. All you could remember was that Count Dooku was telling you to do it, and his patience would not last forever. You didn’t want to. You didn’t want to kill younglings. They hadn’t done anything wrong, and they had no place in the war.

And thus, this was why you were hesitating. Every time you thought you had the surge of energy to do the deed, your heart pounded so hard your arms stayed stiff.

“Is it really so hard?” Count Dooku said tautly. His eyes narrowed in disappointment at you, frown deepening.

And then, Kenobi’s voice called out to you. Like an angel, or a kind of conscious, you could see him so clearly in front of you, it was like you were actually speaking to him.

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows were furrowed together in concern as he looked you up and down. He could see your stance, and the force surrounding you so intensely. He could analyze the sweat forming, your heart rate that matched his own. Your expression was laced with anguish and conflict, and he just knew you were about to do something you didn’t want to do. Obi-Wan understood that you were about to kill.

“Where are you?” he asked.

You couldn’t answer. You would’ve looked like you were talking to yourself, and how horrible would that have been in front of Master Dooku? Instead, you only open and closed your chapped lips softly. Your eyebrows twitched.

“What are you waiting for?” Dooku boomed at you.

Obi-Wan leaned back and widened his eyes at the recognition of the voice. “Y/N, whatever you’re about to do, don’t.”

“If you’re unable to do this, my young apprentice, I will have to find someone more suitable.”

You squeezed your eyes tight.

“Don’t!” Obi-Wan called.

You didn’t stop yourself. You so desperately wanted to. But you didn’t.

Your arms sliced apart. The searing hum buzzed through the air crisply, followed by multiple thumps against the ground.

“Very good,” your master praised coolly from behind you. Even with your eyes shut tight, you could tell he had a cold smirk of relief resting on his face. “Meet me back at my ship.”

You opened your eyes slowly. Your skin felt sticky with sweat, and every muscle in your body was tightened up. Your shoulders and neck felt sore, and even your eyelashes felt heavy. The familiar weight of guilt sunk into your stomach so much more solid than ever before. Maybe it was because you had just committed something so terrible in front of one of the most noble people in the galaxy. Maybe it was just the sheer and straight anxiety that came with doing something you knew was against your better judgement.

Obi-Wan looked at you silently. He knew what you had done. He knew the irreversible, evil and disproportionate thing that you had done.

But now, he also knew that you needed help. You looked at him with pure fear and shame, and he could see how vulnerable and inhumanly human you were. He could tell, for a fact, that you would never be a real Sith. Did you have fear? Anger? Hate? Were you suffering? Yes. But you were not evil. Obi-Wan might’ve even dared to say that you were incapable of being so.

You tore yourself away when Count Dooku called your name from the ship. Eyes darting between his blue orbs. The first step you took away from him, you evaporated into thin air, and Obi-Wan was alone in his ship once more.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

The fourth time was the one that changed everything.

You had only faced Obi-Wan and Anakin one time since he saw you kill the younglings, and unfortunately, Obi-Wan had also noticed you had a split second to kill him during the fight. Obviously, you hadn’t taken it.

Your hands balled and unballed themselves against your knees. Palms sweaty, your whole abdomen had begun feeling like shaky jelly. Ever since the day with the younglings, you had begun to lose weight. You felt weaker, even though the darkness inside of you told you to feel so good. The circles under your eyes had darkened and deepened, and several lines had appeared on your face to make you look far more detached.

You look unhealthy and unhinged, to be frank.

Luckily, Ventress was there to tell you you still appeared inherently ‘handsome’.

Your lungs pierced themselves and screamed with every breath.

A hand reached out to touch your own, your left.

You only allowed yourself a few moments to look it over. You observed the veins through it, the strength and width. It was a man’s, and a rather wise man’s at that. You could see little divots and callouses from work with a lightsaber, and clean nails that showed the owner had no time to bite at them anxiously. Despite how much you hated touching, you felt yourself sinking into the simple touch from the hand. It was, to be direct, the most comforting thing that had ever happened to you.

Still, you gripped a hold of your heart, and shot your hand away. Your head raised to meet the owners eyes.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, though you hated to admit it, had the eyes that you found yourself looking for often. Whether it was to avoid him, or find a comfort deep down, you did it. They were dapper and blue and deep, and changed in the shades of the sunlight. In contrast to his strawberry blonde hair, they shown and glimmered like an ocean.

Obi-Wan felt the same about your own. Your eyes were conflicted and obviously conveyed several emotions, but also held a history that captivated him. He felt that they deserved everyone’s captivation. He wanted to study them like he would an ancient story, and memorize every changing detail within them. Even with the tired darkness underneath, he felt that they were uniquely beautiful in their own way.

“Why are you here?” you seethed lowly.

Obi-Wan glanced down, and then back up honestly. “I heard you calling out.” Before you could scoff, Obi-Wan quickly added, “I felt it.”

You shook your head. “I wasn’t calling out. I would never call out for you.”

The man swallowed, determining the best approach. “I know that you are angry, but I’m here to help you.”

Kenobi’s tone was sincere, but you wouldn’t- couldn’t- believe it. “Help me?” you scoff. “I don’t need help.”

The Jedi tilted his head at you, looking deeply into your eyes. His orbs were piercing and infinite, it seemed. “You know that’s not true.”

At that, your anger washed away. A frown came down over you. Your eyebrows knitted themselves together in pain. Your eyes became rimmed with simultaneously hot and cold tears. Cheeks grew pink enough to totally disguise Obi-Wan’s signature.

The way he was looking at you was just so intimate and understanding. Never, not in your whole life, had somebody done this. It seemed, in fact, that Kenobi could see right through you. He could feel you. He could feel your heart, your ribs, your tendons, and your pain. He could feel the soreness in your muscles, how tired your head felt. He wanted, more than anything, for you to have a rest. The Dark Side had done everything it was ever going to do for you. You didn’t need this weight any longer. Obi-Wan wanted to know how you would look when you laughed.

Your head hung down as your first sob came out. Your fists balled even tighter together, both returning to your knees.

Feeling his respect for you, mixed with your sadness, Obi-Wan reached his hand out again. His palm ran over your right fist for the second time, and this time you did not rip away. Instead, your own fingers unraveled and relaxed. The Jedi ran his thumb over your angry knuckles and your cunning fingers, silently keeping you close, even though you were far, far away.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

You did not see Obi-Wan in projections again.

Some weeks later, you had however, seen him in his entirety.

Your ship was on fire. Some stupid clanker had miscalculated and allowed your fleet to settle right into General Skywalker’s attack. With every jolt, you stumbled and struggled to maintain balance. Your internal conflict had been continuing to cause you to lose weight in the worst way, and it had recently gotten hard enough to keep yourself upright.

Finally reaching the hanger, you heaved in exertion. Somewhere, Obi-Wan was outside, either flying around or searching for you aboard. You found, to your nightmare, you had missed him terribly in this exact moment.

The igniting hum of a lightsaber made you raise your brows. In the middle of the hanger, with sparks falling from above, was that young Togruta girl. The Skywalker padawan. What was her name again? Aheka? Aurora? Ahsoka? Yeah, Ahsoka.

She glares at you angrily. Her face is scrunched in determination, something that reminds you so much of Anakin himself. Both her sabers were at the ready, and her stance was that of one about to pounce.

Yes, Ahsoka was trained by someone powerful. This, however, did not mean that she was a match for you. If you fought this one without restraint, you would undoubtedly kill her. You did not want to do that.

“Hello, General,” she taunted. Definitely Anakin’s padawan. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Despite your exhaustion and the sharp pain in your ribs, you answered her sincerely. “Please,” you called out. “Please, move aside. I don’t want to fight you.”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrow at you. “You’re under custody of the Galactic Republic now. If you won’t fight, you’ll be detained.”

You shook your head, exhausted and defeated. “I can’t go with you. I won’t fight you, but I won’t go with you.”

Darkly, the Togruta replied to you. “Then I will make you.”

She launched forward from the balls of her feet. In a flash, you managed to take out one of your sabers and switch it on. The red clashed against the green in defense, making you lean back before pushing forward.

No. You would not kill Ahsoka Tano.

You are very strict about playing offense in the next minute. The only time you ever actually strike the young one is when your blades catch each other.

Not so far away, a voice yells, “Snips!”

Ahsoka Tano looks at her master. You identify Anakin quickly enough, and seize the opportunity. Your leg snaps up against the Togruta’s stomach. She crumples on herself with a gasp, and you push her to the ground before moving past her.

As you sprint as fast as you can, you can hear Skywalker scream, “Ahsoka!”

You move down the hallway as fast as you can. You have to get to the escape pods. The hanger is no longer an option. Either that, or find Obi-Wan.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

It doesn’t take you long to find him. You stand at the opposing side of the bridge, your breathing rapid as your headache tortures your temples. There was so much pain inside of you, falling off your robes and your skin like steam. You just wanted this all to end. You wanted to be free. At this point, you didn’t care if it was from the Dark Side, or the Light Side.

And Obi-Wan knew that.

As he finished analyzing you to make sure that, no, you wouldn’t hurt him, he took a tentative step forward.

You looked terrible. Kenobi wanted to fix that.

“Y/N,” he called calmly. “I am here to help you.”

You nodded your head, suddenly feeling very hot. “I know,” you confess. Your lip quivers under the weight of everything- the pain, the anger, the frustration, the conflict, the admiration for Kenobi. He looked so handsome now, even with the ever growing danger surrounding the both of you. “I need help,” you admit, voice breaking. “P-please help me.”

Obi-Wan walked quickly to you, sensing your weakness. He knew that at any moment, you were going to collapse both outside and in. Your turmoil had bubbled over, your Akrasia breaking whatever spirit you had left. He knew that you were too tired to feel darkness now. You had nothing left to fear, anger, hate, or suffer over.

“Obi-Wan,” you said shakily. Your hands came up to rub your arms as if you were cold. “I love you.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi knew how selfish it was to replay the words over in his head at the moment. He just couldn’t help it.

You had always been radiating. You had always been strong and worthy of admiration. When you struggled with your guilt, you struggled with your deeds, and that gave Obi-Wan hope. You had restored his faith all on your own, and he had already known that it was worthy of being expelled from the Order. But this was you. This was the woman he had grown to care for, like a mold to fit into, and had come to understand. The Jedi felt hungry for that. He felt hungry to know you. To analyze you. To help you.

“I know,” the man said, sincerely and slowly. Against his better judgement, and the rocking of the falling ship, his right hand reached out to cup your face. Your skin was warm. Slightly sticky from the sweat, but Obi-Wan didn’t mind. “I know.”

His other hand opened up. His calloused and strong palm revealed itself to you, drawing your attention, and reminding you of the night that he had held your own inside. “Y/N, I need to know if you will follow me.” Obi-Wan paused, looking into your eyes. This was his confession. His begging, his pleading, his longing, was a confession for the love he felt for you. “I need you to come with me. You must leave this behind.” Then Obi-Wan swallowed. “Come with me. Please.”

The both of you were betraying your Orders.

Your right hand came to meet his. Palms against palms, skin against skin, you connected. You could feel Obi-Wan’s need and frustration, and he could feel your longing and fear.

“Yes,” you said, tiredly. “Yes. I’ll go with you.”

And, in that moment, you could see a life with Obi-Wan.

He would not leave the Jedi. You knew that for sure. But you would go back to Scarif, where you were born. On a shore, near the crystal blue waters, Obi-Wan would build you a house. He could visit when he had the time, holding you in your sleep to protect you from the oncoming nightmares, and you could kiss the scars on his back. Every time he would leave, your heart would break, but he would always bring you something small to apologize. Perhaps you could start to draw again? Obi-Wan would’ve loved to draw with you. He could teach you how to meditate, and clear your thoughts. Somewhere deep in the ground, you’d bury your lightsabers and never touch them again. On top of that ground, Obi-Wan would hold your form tightly as his skin moved against your own. Everything would be like a song, and maybe one day, you could give him a new verse. You could give him a child. You could have peace. Not fake peace, but real peace. The kind of peace that follows the storm, and lingers til the end of your days.

A choke escapes your throat.

You feel your lungs quiver in weakness, then refuse to allow any more air in. Obi-Wan watches your face change from sorrowful, to shocked. Your mouth agape, eyes wide, you suddenly go very, very pale. He feels you still yourself upright, and he tells himself the blue blade in your chest isn’t real.

Anakin pulls the lightsaber out of you. Your pupils dilate as the blood begins to drip from your nose thinly. You can’t think, you can’t even move. You cripple to the ground without choice.

Obi-Wan Kenobi keeps you close to him as you die. He has nothing to say to either Anakin or yourself, and he knows there is nothing he can do to heal you. He watches you watch him, your vision fading in and out as you try to memorize every detail of Kenobi’s face for the last time. Your vision of a life with him becomes nothing more than a distant memory and a sad dream, and you don’t know when it ended.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

Obi-Wan burned and buried you in secret.

The Jedi had loved you, and he had known you enough to see that you deserved respect. You were not to be shipped off into the ground like any old Sith. You were to be cared for, and cradled until the end. Even in death, he wanted to help you.

And perhaps, simply that statement alone, was his greatest form of Akrasia.

✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*

Taglist: @omg-we-really-doo @chokemeanakin @typicalfanlife

This is the version that was requested. Please let me know how you feel and if you noticed any errors! I wrote this while I was very tired, and I may want to tweak some things.

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sarcastic-bubble · 5 years ago

Text

Even Jedi Get Nervous

Paring: Obi-wan Kenobi x Reader

Word Count: 2.2K

Request: heya! Could you do an obi wan fic where before the clone wars obi wan meets a painter on the side of the street and falls head over heals, stuttering and blushing - Anon

A/N: This was fun to write! Like just imagine the crap Obi-wan had to put up with while Anakin was still young. (Also I hit triple digits on my follower count and I feel loved so thank you!)

Masterlist

You dipped your brush into the paint and smeared the light blue pigment over the entirety of the blank canvas. You weren’t quite sure what to paint just yet, but you had learned early in your career that sometimes putting down that first stroke was the hardest. You looked around you for some inspiration. You currently sat on a stool surrounded by your various works of art. Some were hung on the walls of the small stall you rented out others were stacked against each other inside various sized boxes. You looked out a little further, despite the clean and peaceful manner you attempted to keep your stall in the rest of your surroundings had the usual characteristics of a rather seedy flea market. Off in the distance, you could see someone being arrested, most likely for stealing. That was a very big problem among these parts after all and sadly not a great inspiration for a painting. You couldn’t wait for the day you managed to save enough to save credits to move out of this hellhole and buy a proper studio in the nicer part of Coruscant. Of course, that was a far-off dream at the moment. It was hard to find clients in a place like this, but it was even harder still to afford the rent anywhere nicer.

You dipped your paintbrush into a small pot of paint having come to the conclusion that you paint the Coruscant skyline; it was lovely after all. But before you could start something caught your attention. You rarely saw new faces. The market had a very loyal set of regulars and others rarely ventured in. The two newcomers had to be Jedi judging by their outfits. It struck you as odd until you remember that one of the local crime lords and been making things very difficult for the Senate. You watched the Jedi for a moment, trying to take in as much of their appearances as you could in the short amount of time you had. Both appeared to be young, far from the wrinkly old master you usually pictured when someone mentioned the order. The younger of the two was a small boy, you imagined he was no more than eleven. He had short blonde hair and a single long braid. He had to be a padawan then. You turned your attention to the older one; he was quite handsome you noted. His features were strong, but his expression was still soft as he spoke to the child next to him. You forgot your original plan of painting the Coruscant Skyline and instead picked up your stylus and began to sketch his features; you worked quickly not knowing how long he’d been within your sight.

You were quite engrossed in your work when the voice a child asked for your attention. You set the brush down on your palette careful not to let it roll off and looked to the boy; it was the Padawan you had been observing earlier. “Can I help you?” you ask with a friendly smile.

He pointed a finger at one of your larger paintings, “What kind of starship is that? I’ve never seen one before.”

You shrugged before gently placing the canvas you were previously working on onto the table. “I don’t really know, actually. I just paint and draw things as I see them. Do you want to see more? Maybe you can tell me about some of the starships in my sketchbook?” You weren’t entirely sure why you offered the kid to come see more of your work. After all, you had paintings to finish and future clients to chase down but you had always had a soft spot for children and the way he grinned at your offer warmed your heart in the most wonderful way.

You pulled up a stool for the young boy and riffled through your bag until you came to one of your paint covered sketchbooks. It looked like it had gone through hell and back. The bindings were coming apart and the leather cover was peeling in far too many places, it had been well used and loved to say the least. You took a seat back on your stool and opened the sketchbook to the first page. It was a watercolour painting of a cruiser half-submerged in a lake; you had come across it during your travels. You looked to the young boy, “I don’t believe I got your name.”

“Anakin.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Anakin. I’m (Y/N)”

-------

You weren’t sure how long you and Anakin talked but it was nice to have some company. You told him about the places you had travelled to before decided to settle down in one spot and he told you all about the ships in your many paintings. You had started working on the painting of his master again. You had assured Anakin that you were really enjoying his company but that the paint was drying so you had to work and listen at the same time.

It didn’t take long for Anakin to become curious about your current project. “Are you painting my master?” he asked tilting his head to the side trying to get a better view.

“I suppose I am,” you replied with a laugh, “but why don’t we keep it to ourselves? I’ve found some people don’t react well when they find out I’ve been painting them without their permission.”

Anakin’s smile turned into a wide grin, “Obi-wan isn’t like that. I bet he’d love it! You should show him!”

You couldn’t help but laugh the kid’s enthusiasm and confidence. “Oh, I really don’t want to disturb him, I’m sure he has important work to do.”

“I don’t think it’s too important. I mean he’s coming over here anyway,” he said gesturing towards his master who was, in fact, approaching your stall. You were quick to tuck the painting away.

When the other Jedi arrived, he wasn’t paying any attention to you and you were just fine with that. His focus was purely on his Padawan. “What have I told you about running off Anakin? I’m sure this lovely lady has lots of work to do and no time to answer all your questions.”

You couldn’t let Anakin take all the blame for this; you had been the one to offer to show him your paintings. “He’s actually been great company, Master…” you trailed off at the end, realizing you didn’t know his last name.

“Kenobi,” he replied quickly giving his young Padawan another scolding look. “I really am sorry though; he tends to get…” His words caught in his throat when his eyes met yours. Maker, but you were gorgeous. He stood quiet for a moment trying to get his body under control. There was no way he could effectively scold Anakin if he was blushing like an idiot. He opened his mouth as if to say something to you but then closed it again. He grabbed Anakin’s hand and looked back at the boy; finding it far easier to speak when he wasn’t looking at you. “Let’s go Anakin.”

Before he could pull the boy away you grabbed the sketchbook you had been showing him and quickly slipped it into his free hand. You held a finger up to lips indicating to him that this was supposed to be a secret. As you watched the boy get pulled away you couldn’t help but smile to yourself. He was such a kind kid and well you didn’t know much about his Master, but he was certainly something to look at. You went back to your painting of Master Kenobi, wanting to get as much done while his features were still fresh in your mind.

-------

That evening Anakin found himself sitting in his master’s quarters as he flipped through the book you had given him. He went from page to page telling a rather distracted Obi-wan all the stories you had told him earlier. He was quite excited to share all his new knowledge with his master.

“She visited Tatooine once, you know. It’s too bad we didn’t know each then, it would have been fun if she had visited. I could have shown her all the best places to paint.” Said Anakin as he admired a painting of a desert with a single bantha standing in the distance.

“Who visited Tatooine?” asked Obi-wan. He wasn’t very interested in the answer but if he didn’t show any interest Anakin would get bored with talking and most likely find some trouble to get into.

“(Y/N)”

“Who?”

“(Y/N). The painter in the market,” answered Anakin turning to the next page in the sketchbook.

“Is that where you got that book from?” asked Obi-wan looking over his shoulder at his padawan.

“Yep! She’s really nice! She told me all about the planrts she’s visited but we didn’t have time to look at the whole book, so she gave it to me! We talked a lot about starships too!” replied the young boy. He was obviously very excited about the new friend he’d made that day. “I want to go back and thank her tomorrow.”

“Well I, I suppose that would be appropriate. We’ll go first thing in the morning,” stated Obi-wan, if Anakin didn’t know him any better, he would have missed the slight blush and hint of nervousness in his voice.

“You think she’s pretty; don’t you Master?”

Obi-wan scoffed. Of course, he had thought you were pretty, you were easily one of the most beautiful women he had ever laid eye on but his young padawan didn’t need to know that. “Go to bed Anakin.”

“So you do think she’s pretty?”

“Go to bed,” he repeated this time voice firmer.

-------

Obi-wan and Anakin arrived at the market just as it opened the next morning. “Now Anakin,” started Obi-wan, “you’re just here to say thank you. Please don’t take to long. Now go on, I’ll wait here.” He waived his young padawan off and turned his gaze to you. He admired the way you happily turned to greet the young boy. He would have loved to go up and talk to you himself, but he was afraid that if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to get many words out. Admiring from afar was much easier anyway, he didn’t have to worry about embarrassing himself. He watched you give Anakin a gentle hug and then look up at him. When your eyes met, he tried to look anywhere else but you. He didn’t want you to know that he had been staring.

Once he had determined it safe to look again, he found you kneeling by Anakin laughing about something. He couldn’t hear your laugh over the noise of the market, but he could only imagine it being as beautiful as you. He had decided he really was quite content just watching you when Anakin waved him over. Had something happened? He couldn’t just ignore his padawan, so he approached with his eyes focused on the ground ahead of him.

“Master! (Y/N) invited me for tea and we wanted to know if you’d like to come too!” said Anakin with a wide grin.

Obi-wan looked from his padawan to your smiling face. “I.. I would, um…” He tried so hard to answer. Of course, he wanted to go for tea, after listening to Anakin spend the better part of the day before and the evening talking about how wonderful you were he wanted nothing more but his mouth just wouldn’t form the words. Maybe it was the way you smiled at him or the way your gentle eyes reflected the sunlight.

“Is everything all right Master Kenobi,” you ask kindly.

“He’s fine. He’s just nervous cause he thinks you’re pretty,” states Anakin very matter-of-factly.

Obi-wan’s heart stopped and he was ready to drag Anakin away to keep him for embarrassing him anymore. He glared at the young boy while trying to suppress the heat he could feel rising on his cheeks. Your laugh pulled his gaze back to you. He had been right in assuming it would be beautiful. It was absolutely magical if he was being honest with himself, if he could hear that sound again every day for the rest of his life he would count himself a lucky man.

“Well,” you said holding Obi-wan’s gaze with you own, “Tell your Master that I think he’s incredibly handsome and my offer for tea still stands.”

Obi-wan didn’t have any words, he just stood and stared at you as you spoke. There was no doubt in his mind that he was blushing, but you were now too. It was much less embarrassing when he wasn’t the only one. “I’d like that very much,” he replied in an even and gentle tone as he could manage.

Anakin couldn’t help but make a disgusted noise at the way the two adults were looking at each other. At least his master was happy.

Tag List: @psionicsnow @in-the-frap-of-the-gods @glitchnovax

#obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan x reader #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #obi-wan kenobi #anakin skywalker

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nezumiismissing · 5 years ago

Text

Overcoming Similarities and Fear of the Self: A Lesson in Socialization

Ok so I'd like to start out by saying that this isn't going to be nearly as pretentious and academic as the title makes it sound, but I couldn't let go of how good it sounded (and since it’s me it’s at least a little pretentious and academic), so here we are. But anyways, onto the topic at hand.

Like most stories, No.6 focuses immensely on fundamental differences between people and places, and how those differences lead to conflict that either brings those groups together or destroys one or both of them. On a large scale, No.6 tells the story of the conflict between the West Block and lower classes of citizens, and the institution of No.6 itself as created by the city's elites. On a small scale, we see this larger issue of sociopolitical conflict reflected in Nezumi and Shion and their relationship as it develops throughout the story. This individual conflict is mostly philosophical, with each character having their own experiences with No.6 and therefore differing opinions as to what, if anything, needs to be done about it. However, these differences in experiences, and how Nezumi and Shion were taught to view the world, function not only as a reflection of larger scale issues, but also reveal how they form their opinions about both the world, and especially in Nezumi's case, each other.

Right from the beginning of the story, we are shown, and expected to accept, that Nezumi and Shion are fundamentally different, that their experiences are so drastically different from each other that outside of a certain level of compromise, they will never philosophically align with one another. But I think there’s more to it than that. Because even though this difference is what drives the entirety of the plot forward, acting as a micro level version of the wider sociopolitical conflict, one of the overarching themes of the story, that humans are fundamentally the same, or at least equal, no matter their experiences and beliefs, directly contradicts what is otherwise a story of dichotomies, creating not a grey area open to interpretation, but a single truth that must be accepted in order to accept the events of the story.

And here is where we get to the part where I ramble on about the complexity of Nezumi’s character and how it informs not only his actions, but his emotions as well. Specifically, Nezumi’s “fear” of Shion that develops throughout the story on the surface appears to be based on the fact that not only have they had vastly different experiences, and therefore view No.6 and its issues significantly differently, but also that because of these differences Nezumi is, for the first time, recognizing that there are things about the world and other people that he does not fully understand. By defying Nezumi’s expectations of what a citizen of No.6 should be like, and demonstrating his individuality and ability to defend himself, Shion proves that people are more complex than they often first appear, have motives outside of basic survival or corruption, and can behave in ways that to an outsider seem completely irrational. Looking at it this way, Nezumi’s discomfort with and eventual fear of Shion make perfect sense, as he appears to Nezumi to be someone who is now completely unknowable and irrational. However, Shion’s insistence on that theme, that humans are fundamentally the same, highlights a completely different idea: Nezumi is not afraid of Shion only because of their differences, or because he is an unknown entity, but also because through his interactions with Shion, Nezumi is forced to face the fact that perhaps they are actually quite similar, and that the one who was unknown all along was himself.

Throughout the story, we get very few, if any, chances to see Nezumi do any kind of self reflection. He has already figured himself out, he knows how the world works and what kind of people inhabit it, and no matter what may happen, he is able to approach it calmly and make completely rational choices. Except when it comes to Shion. From the beginning, Shion is so drastically different from what Nezumi is used to that there is no rational approach to take other than to simply observe him and try to decipher what he may be thinking at any given moment. Unfortunately for Nezumi, this is a task that remains impossible for him until he recognizes that there is a crucial part of his understanding of the world that he is missing, and why it is that he does not have it. This lack of understanding ties into many of Nezumi’s actions that to Shion, and us as the audience, appear irrational, specifically relating to why he leaves at the end of the story, as well as why he spends the majority of the story constantly contradicting himself and acting in ways that go directly against what he preaches earlier on to Shion.

This is especially apparent as we approach the end of the end of the story, when Nezumi’s focus on Shion shifts away from teaching him to survive, and instead towards preventing him from becoming too much like Nezumi. Part of this is of course, as the story points out, because to a certain extent Nezumi still sees Shion as an outsider, one who should not be enacting violence and should instead be protected. This is obviously uh, not a good and healthy way to think about another person that is supposed to be equal to you, but I think it also speaks to how Nezumi has grown through the process of self-reflection, even though this process remains unfinished even after the events in Beyond. Because I don’t think that Nezumi’s insistence on keeping Shion the same as he’s always been (which obviously also shows a lack of understanding of Shion as a person, and just people in general) is just about his desire to protect him, but rather a fear that if Shion becomes too much like him, then Nezumi’s actions and beliefs will have become externalized and projected in a way that forces him to face himself and all that he has done in his life. By this point in the story Nezumi has realized that some part of who Shion is as a person is also a part of himself, and Shion’s actions have shown that the reverse may also be true. Thus the possibility that further similarities will arise becomes likely, and out of fear that he does not actually fully understand himself, as well as an inability to self-reflect in a constructive way, this fear is taken out on Shion in the form of attempting to prevent him from changing in any way, in the hope that it will prevent the revealing of any more similarities, and therefore the further deconstruction of Nezumi’s sense of self. In other words, Nezumi’s desire to see Shion not change in the Correctional Facility is less an attempt to protect Shion from “reality” (which yes he does also want to do), and more a coping mechanism for Nezumi as he struggles with his own identity.

Now this is not to say that Nezumi and Shion are exactly the same, or that they should be interpreted as such, or that they will ever become exactly alike. Rather, it is more about the idea that all humans (with some exceptions of course) have the same or similar capacity for certain emotions/understandings of the world, and that what differentiates us from each other is not some innate difference that can never be overcome, but instead a result of socialization that, while not entirely able to be reversed, can be in many cases overwritten and changed through a continued process. In this specific case, for example, we see that Nezumi and Shion are both capable of strong feelings of empathy for other people. However, whereas Shion is entirely comfortable with processing this emotion, because of the way he was socialized (raised) by both the old woman and Rou, as well as a result of severe trauma, Nezumi has no real foundation for understanding human empathy, and so when he does experience it, his immediate reaction is to reject and rationalize it rather than attempt to process it, which would result in him having to fundamentally change his world views. Nezumi’s socialization also forms his conceptualization of the unknown as something to be feared, as the environments he was raised in required things that were unknown (such as No.6) to be seen as a threat rather than an opportunity to learn and develop. Thus the appearance of Shion, as well as his “strange” behavior brought over from No.6, serves as both a deep fascination for Nezumi as something that questions his construction of “humanity”, as well as something to be feared due to its existence outside of this construction.

Just to tie it all together, this is a huge part of why Nezumi ultimately has to leave at the end of the story. Just like every other person who has written about the ending has stated, Nezumi needs time to reflect and heal from his trauma, and that is something that is fundamentally impossible for him to do in the presence of either Shion or the remnants of No.6. After spending the majority of his life crushed under the weight of (and then forced to question) something that is both unknown and the source of his suffering, what he needs is the comfort of an unknown that fundamentally still fits into his preexisting world views while still leaving room for exploration that is free from the influence of others. Most of his life has been spent under the strict influence of those who raised him, who taught him that the world is ultimately a place of suffering, violence, and tragedy, that his trauma was justified, but normal, and nothing would ever fundamentally change about that world. The short period he did spend alone was time when he was too young to really be able to question that idea, and it instead became cemented in his mind as the “reality” he presents to Shion. Shion, on the other hand, so significantly disrupts this pattern that Nezumi is unable to rationally respond, and instead of taking the new information into account, resists it in self defense, not wanting to recognize that what he thought was reality only really existed in his mind. He needs an in-between place, a place where he can be alone with his thoughts and reflect on his life without the interference of people who he feels strongly connected to, who might influence his processing. He needs a place where he can not only recover from his trauma, but also the fear his socialization has resulted in that ultimately ended up only being the fear of his own humanity.

#no.6 #no. 6 #no.6 meta #this ended up being a bit shorter than I wanted #but it's still 1800 words so...#for being out of my comfort zone it turned out ok #nezumi just has a lot of interesting layers going on #and i want him to be able to figure himself out eventually

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murdersexual · 4 years ago

Note

So about that part II to that LeoPika fic? 👀👀👀

WTF, BOI THIS IS TRASH! Stop torturing me, my writing is t r a s h.

🚨Warning!🚨

-Rated MA.

-Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling and Gun Violence.

-NOT PROOFREAD! (Like I write shit on a tired 3am brain...)

-NICKNAMES: Koi Fish/Fishie/Fishy: Leorio. Smol Ram or whatever else I used: Kurapika.

-Sorry for any potential OOC bullshit- 🤣🤣🤣

-Sorry but not sorry for Melody- 👀😤🤣

Part II: The Whims of Fate:

Melody didn’t know how to feel, her eyes grew to the size of saucers as she saw how fast Leorio was moving. She backed away, now hanging her phone up, she tries to make her escape via the glass door elevator. Her tiny chubby hand desperately clicks onto the up button. Her own heart played a melody of guilt and fear. But that’s what you get when you snitch.

‘I-I gotta get outta here!’

“MELODY!”

The way Leorio’s voice projected echoed across the entirety of the sixth floor. Hearing him yell like that shook her to her core in more than just one way. She drew a shaky breath and her eyes flicker to the angry hazel eyed hunter and back to the elevator that seems to be moving in slow motion.

“Come on... C-Come on!”

Impatience coats her voice as she now stands directly in front of the door.

“I KNOW YOU HEAR ME!! HOW CAN’T YOU?!”

His voice boomed once more, his soft hair now waving over one of his eyes only for him to use his left hand to push it out of the way. Now he’s even more pissed... Why?

Because she ruined his ‘SURPRISE MOTHAFUCKAH’—in other words, his grand entrance.

Yet because she absolutely is f o n d of Kurapika, she’d do anything to protect him. How adorable. Maybe there’s something else that lingers in her actions...

“Why are you here, Leorio?!”

Finally, she projects her voice even though that nervousness is still present. Just as she asks that, Leorio steps in front of her. The elevator clicks open and he takes her by her collar and shoves her into it.

“WHY?!”

Obviously, she avoided the question. He KNEW she knew why he was there otherwise she would’ve given him a friendly greeting and not snitch. Her onyx orbs bore into his icy gaze. She could hear the anger emitting from his heart and she ended up closing her ears and shutting her eyes.

“Be-Because you shouldn’t be here!”

Her answer made him wonder... Yet, he didn’t release her collar. His hold can be compared to that of a death grip.

“Urgh! That ain’t tellin’ me shit! I oughta throw your ass in the fucking fountain for snitching!”

Leorio’s hands are rated E for Everybody. Meaning he WILL absolutely drop a woman off if necessary.

“I... I-! My lips are sealed! Now unhand me!”

The infamous saying that typically gets passed about when classified information is detailed to anyone that’s within a Mafia. Upon hearing that, he roughly shoves her away, the back of her head slightly bouncing off of the elevator railing.

“Ow...”

A hiss of pain left Melody, a glare is given to him as she now reaches inside her tuxedo jacket for her brand new revolver but she stops just as she places her hand on the handle.

“Do it if you’re bad...”

The entire scenario played in her head had she shot him. Her eyes blinked multiple times—seeing her death being played out in several different perspectives. Lowering her head in defeat, she adjusts her fedora and finally tells him...

“8th floor, Roulette Table number 403.”

Huh, does that number ring a damn bell?

Pressing the fancy gold button with the bold number 8 on it, a scoff emits from the fish as he now stands to the side with his eyes forward. Putting his hands in his pockets and standing coolly, he sighs while tapping his foot impatiently.

“Hmph... Ya could’ve just told me that shit from the beginning and I wouldn’t have to damn near rough you up.”

Staring at her shiny black small heeled Oxford tux shoes, she blinks while taking a second to realise that there’s always an easier way to do things. Why didn’t she play it cool? Could she have lied about this? Did her feelings cloud her judgment?

“And that I could’ve but had the circumstances been different? Then by all means. You really... REALLY shouldn’t be here...”

Nothing annoyed him more than to hear those words without no fucking why to follow. Deep down, he believes she’s probably the only one concerned about the type of trouble he’d get himself in. That or maybe there’s a hint of jealousy?

“I will only say this for the simple fact that your heart reflects impatience and curiosity: It’s for your own good. If you get mixed with any of the other families? Who will be there to save you? Nobody.”

A smirk curves onto his face, now recalling how he’s caused a lot of inconvenience on the second floor all the way up. He softly chuckles, his head dropping for a second. The doors chime and open as they reach the eighth floor. Walking out first and turning to face Melody, he gives a shrug before backing away.

“Who’s to say that I haven’t already stirred the whims of fate~?”

Melody’s breath hitches in her throat, her eyes widening only for her to smirk and watch him with softened eyes.

“You’re dressed like a really handsome Devil tonight, that told me enough, Mr. Leorio~”

Looking over his shoulder briefly, he waves his hand.

“Just call me Leorio! But don’t think I’m gonna forget that you’ve snitched! I’m letting you off easy because I gotta conserve energy for this fucker!”

Momentarily, she found herself chasing after that Angel in Disguise. Shaking her head quickly with a soft blush, she clicks the number six and heads back to her post.

‘I always find myself attracted to those with charisma that’s relative to that of the Devil himself~ I must say, had my looks never been deformed, I’m sure I’d play him a melody that even he would have a hard time forgetting.’

The doors closed and she was gone.

Finding himself standing just before the entrance. His hazel gaze softened as he felt some feminine hands reach up to his shoulders.

“Welcome~ Shall I take your coat sire~?”

Glancing behind him, he sees a ginger bunny babe with the sweetest of smiles. He took out his favourite pocketknife and placed it in his blazer’s inner breast-pocket. He already has his wallet and keys in his pants pocket. Slipping out of his heavy winter coat, he carefully hands it to her.

“Hello there~ And why I thank you. You’re too sweet~”

She winks now sauntering away. His eyes instantly found those well rounded and pale ass cheeks of her’s. He gave a nod of approval while reaching for a cup of vodka topped with cranberry. He sips it and stuffs his freehand in his pocket.

‘Hmm...’

“Where should I start~?”

Mischief rang as he asked himself aloud. Proceeding to walk forward, he sees the blue and violet ambience, the music is A1–fun and enticing. Hell, everything all the way down to the alcohol is excellent. His eyes found the slots and just as he did on the second floor, he walks on over and leans over an older man with salt and pepper hair. He appears concentrated...

“Say, excuse me, fine sir?”

Looking to the tall youngster, he tilts his head while taking out his fancy Cuban cigar.

“What is it, Young Buck?”

With a pleasant smile he gently leans down, taking his hand out of his pocket he points to the slot screen.

“Watch the last two reels... Those move faster than the middle ones... Why do you think it’s so hard to hit the jackpot?”

With a smile, the man nods and daps him up. He adjusts his suspenders and pulls the lever.

“Thank you, son! How can I ever repay ya?”

Shaking his head no, Leorio stands straight and chuckles.

“Oh no, there’s no need, it’s what I love to do, especially as a birthday gift to myself.”

Raising both brows at his benevolence, the old man pulls out a wad of cash and calls over some of the Bunnies.

“Well I’ll be damned! Happy Birthday my boy! Ladies! Treat this young man to the finest of drinks, on me, Don Magnifico!”

Two of the girls hook around each of Leorio’s arms, his eyes instantly finding their perked up breasts, he smiles and looks back at him.

“I won’t forget your kindness, Don Magnifico!”

Don Marcelo Magnifico, age 52, standing at 6’2, still maintaining his muscle, he is one of the many Mafia Leaders who aren’t fond of other families. He’s widely known within the Underground community for his foreign cuisine and weapons import. The man has literally built a ‘Little Italy’ within Yorknew. He sees something within Leorio and he hopes to potentially get to him. Maybe he can find him a spot amongst his ranks?

From the sidelines, there are a familiar set of eyes that’s seen the entire exchange. With a dreaded sigh, the usually lax blondie found himself making tracks to the bar. Was his mind truly prepared to deal with the aggro fish?

Partially...

He gives a few taps to one of the ladies, he whispers for her to take his place momentarily at the Roulette Table. With a nod of confidence, she hopples over to take his place. Now Kurapika’s off to meet Leorio at the bar. Caution bells tolled in his head the closer he came and just as their eyes met?

The cheery and flustered face of Leorio’s instantly darkened. His lips wore that angry pout. He took one of the shots down without never taking his eyes off of him. Nearly stopping for a second, those light grey eyes momentarily averted. He could sense that rage...

“Well, well, well... Look what the cat dragged in...”

That came out so dark...

Sitting beside the angry fish is a quietly sighing Kurapika. He leans into his left hand and uses his right to snag a shot glass only to trace the rim of it.

“So what’s the fucking excuse this time? Huh?”

“There are none...”

Taken back by his honesty, those hazel eyes searched around as he hums for he’s in thought.

“Oh that’s fucking funny because I could’ve sworn you were gonna say that ol’ excuse you always say! I was expecting that shit! Did you purposely fucking forget or what?”

The idea of being chewed out never sat well with Kurapika. Most of the time, his words were hitting him in the side of his head. Finally taking that shot down and turning to face him, he scoots closer to the edge of his seat.

“Well, go on...”

He was setting himself up to actually get hit this time around. Perhaps he genuinely saw how hurt Leorio is. Why not give him what he’s always wanted right?

“I would never forget any special occasions and I would never miss anything important... I’m honestly tired. I’m sick of the lies, I’m sick of being the one trying to hold on, I’m sick of fucking trying to be the good fucking friend... At this point, I think I’m being taken for fucking granted and I ain’t got time. I’m here to tell your punk ass that you wanna do shit alone? You wanna be okay on your own? Fine. Fine. FINE! I’m done caring...”

Hearing these words made Kurapika wonder... Is he saying this out of complete anger? Or does he truly mean it? Either way, guilt was going to eat at him. Before he could combat his words, Leorio shook his head no.

“Save your petty fucking apologies... I don’t want them. I don’t need to put up with this shit. I know it’s gonna sound bad but how the fuck are Gon and Killua better fucking friends and their younger than the both of us? Fucking children. Ya hear me? Both of them called me and told me happy birthday and they’re always checking up on me... And what the fuck are you doing? Pretending that none of us exist! So you might as well lose my fucking number. This is the last time I’m gonna ever see that pathetically sheepish face of yours.”

At the moment, the fact that any of this is being said kept anything from conjuring—thoughts, retorts and anything else. That usually stoic face started to finally falter. One of his fears was this happening but he would never come to say it.

“Oh yeah? Don’t think I won’t pass up the opportunity to knock your ass into next week!”

Cracking his knuckles then drawing back his arm, he quickly cocks it, totally not caring that he may get shot, he will land that punch.

Or so he thought...

His fist was caught! Those ombré nails instantly dug into Leorio’s soft flesh. The slightest of hisses had emitted.

“At first I felt bad, but the fact that you had the absolute audacity to question my loyalty made me retract that privilege. All you do is bitch and I don’t want to hear it. You ask too many questions... Questions that if I answer may or may not put you in danger. So sorry if I’m choosing to be distant but given my position, I don’t particularly have as much free will like you do. Am I making excuses? No, I don’t make any and never will... I hate explaining myself... but because you obviously need a frequent fucking reminder, it can’t be helped.”

Leorio felt his eye twitch. He can’t find himself agitated!

“Let me—!”

Holding a finger up with his free hand, those light grey eyes had a faint red glint. But never did they leave those icy hazel ones.

“No, you’ve had your time to speak. One thing that always irritates me is how you up and assume that I don’t fucking care... When I do! So answer me this...”

Those nails pressed further and further into his skin, he even started to bend that fist of his back. Leorio did his best not to flinch.

“What time is it? Because on my watch I have... 10:21...”

Finally releasing his fist and blinking his gaze closed for a second to recenter himself, he leans back into his left hand before slowly looking to him. Leorio saw the claw marks and he couldn’t believe he was bleeding.

“...Meaning that your birthday isn’t over yet... But since you’re here, there’s no need to text nor call... So... Happy Birthday.”

That icy gaze of his warmed up instantly. He looks away for a second, his eyes appearing to search for the words he wanted to say.

“Ahem... I... One thing I’ve hated about your ass is how you gotta explain shit to me like I’m not detail oriented! But it still sounds like you’re making excuses... I don’t care what you say! Despite you didn’t apologise, you’re still giving yourself a fucking gateway to do the same old goofy shit. Time and time again, you don’t know how frustrating it is... Hence why... I just don’t care anymore. Sure, you’ve given me the words I wanted to hear, but it only takes less than a minute to fucking text. And no, I don’t give a fuck about you’re little ‘position’.”

Downing a shot before sliding over his birthday drink in front of him. Leorio rolls his eyes dismissively, now stirring his straw before sipping it.

“Hell I could be Prime Minister for all I give a fuck and it wouldn’t stop me from checking on my friends... Buuuuuttttt I guess I’m the only one who feels like that huh? Oh correction: ‘who FELT like that’...”

In all honesty, what could Kurapika say? Was Leorio really about to give up?

Recognising his silence, that hazel gaze narrows at him. His lip turns up, a look of unimpression decorates his face. He shakes his head in pity.

“Thought so...”

Facing the still upset fishy, the blondie sees his face and wonders how will he cope without seeing or hearing from him again? Slipping out of his chair, he softly chews on his bottom lip while thinking of something that he could do or say... These kinds of situations aren't his strong suit, obviously.

“Before you leave and never come back, there is something I’d like to show you... It’s not that impressive but hopefully it’ll show you that I don’t turn a blind eye to any of your advances.”

Raising an eyebrow, Leorio saw what he thought he’d never see and that’s...

That he’s genuinely afraid of losing him.

🚨🚨🚨

Okay so that’s it for part II. 😞😞😞 I really such at writing. But it’s an escape for my creativity. Hope you guys find it slightly entertaining! Thanks for reading and remember to stay hydrated and wonderful! 🥰

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brokenjardaantech · 4 years ago

Text

rk1700 december day 15: snow

written for @rk1700december. day 15: snow

rhea is female connor. cronos is rk900.

also on ao3

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Cronos comes back from training one day to Rhea shaking a… thing. With a mansion inside of the clear impenetrable sphere and the suspended white particles, a scan tells him that it is something called a ‘snow globe’ except that it is shaped like a lamp. He sits on the floor behind Rhea and pulls her into the space between his legs, adding a kiss onto her cheek when she is close enough, and he knows the snow globe really has her attention when she doesn’t turn around to return the kiss as usual. He presses their cheeks together, and their skin at the points of contact retracts automatically for an interface. Where did you get this? he asks. Aren’t you cold watching it?

Rhea frowns. I don’t… it cuts off from there. Can you turn off the lights?

Their quarters plunge into darkness with a thought from Cronos, and he watches Rhea slide her pinky underneath the bottom of the lamp and turn it on with a click of a switch. Light spills out of the mansion’s windows, reflecting off the flakes which start spinning automatically propelled by the invisible swirl of the liquid in the globe and shrouding the room in a warm, mesmerising shade of yellow. When the raw brightness of the lamp becomes too much, they both look up at the same time just to see the swirling spots of brightness on the ceiling, on the wall, on each other’s face. It should not be this warm, this magical - mansions of that style are empty, remnants of a time long passed; snow means cold, cold means heat loss, heat loss means… means death to Rhea. Does Rhea know this, or are facts and logic ignored in the face of a beautiful sight? Why does he, advanced as he himself is, also feel the same despite having the ability to pre-construct - in great detail, nonetheless - how they would slowly waste away if left out in the open, how he would have to give up on maintaining Rhea’s system so that she could die before him and live her whole life knowing that she was loved?

Anchor won’t let that happen, Rhea’s voice pulls him out of his downward spiral. She’s brave enough to protect us from our creator. She won’t… she won’t… her uncertainty grows. I think…

Cronos shushes her. There is no use speculating, he feels hypocritical when he says it. We have other things to worry about.

Such as?

My training. The conflict that Anchor still refuses to tell us about. Your condition.

Very true.

Rhea wriggles in his arms. They both stand, he lets her drag him towards their bed, and she places the snow globe lamp on the bedside table before flopping down onto the bed, bringing Cronos with her. They cuddle close together without compromising their view on the light show, and although Rhea falls asleep not long after, thoughts do not stop swirling in Cronos’ head like the flakes in the snow globe.

A few days later, he still hasn’t figured out where the snow globe came from. Neither the item itself nor the box it came from bear enough evidence for him to reconstruct the events of its arrival into the room as if it materialised out of nowhere. Again the grey backdrop of his reconstruction software, he watches the yellow outline of Rhea’s figure wake up from her nap, see the box on the floor and, instead of pinging him to check if it is anything explosive or harmful, open the cover and slide the block of shock-absorbing material out of the container. The material comes off soon afterwards, and he sees Rhea’s reconstruction stare at the particles suspended in the globe for a few minutes until - presumably - most of the snow has fallen, after which she picks it up and switches it on just to drop it onto the shock-absorbing material; even without a face, Cronos can sense Rhea’s shock and panic as she carefully takes the lamp in hand once more before assuming the posture he found her in. He blinks, colour returning to his vision, and he immediately sends a report to Anchor. A few hours pass during which she forwards updates from site security regularly to him, Cronos preparing his mind for an upcoming wing-wide sweep which will remove him - and Rhea, by extension - from their quarters for at least half a day as all the reports return inconclusive, but it isn’t until a full day afterwards that the human brings two armed escorts with her and orders them to not only bring the androids to another room but also stay with them at all times. When he asks her about it, he can feel her eyes scanning the room and landing on the origin of their troubles, and her gaze does not soften even as it sweeps over Rhea who flinches and hides behind Cronos.

‘Someone managed to sneak an unauthorised item deep into this facility without being detected,’ a biotic field so weak that it is barely detectable fizzles and expands from her body until it fills the entire room. ‘This is a security breach and I’m not risking your safety.’

‘Then why didn’t you come earlier?’ he puts an arm around Rhea and guides her towards the door even as he says so. ‘Why now?’

‘Use your processors, Cronos.’

The door slides shut behind them, and the click that follows and the change in the colour of the hologram signify the lock engaging. They are locked out of their own quarters. Next to him, Rhea shivers, making Cronos realise that they don’t even have the time to grab her jacket.

‘C’mon,’ one of their escorts says and gestures towards the direction they should go with their gun. The uniform and helmet are designed to hide as many identifiers as possible, and now Cronos can’t even scan them to know if they’re human or android. ‘This way. We’ve got your new place stocked up.’

Their new, hopefully-temporary quarters is no different from their old one apart from the standard-issue bed which now feels a bit narrow, but since it also means more cuddling and snuggling with Rhea underneath layers of covers, he isn’t complaining about his current situation despite the lack of answers on Anchor’s part.

Who did answer his questions, on the other hand, is Elijah.

Cronos, the email reads, it’s nice to hear from you. For the sake of keeping things pleasant, I have decided to ignore the fact that the snow globe you mentioned seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and to answer your first question: yes, I do have experience with snow. A lot of it, in fact, as my childhood home is quite famous for being cold and harsh in winter, and our winters remain long despite the influence of climate change. Since the environment I grew up in was not exactly… child-friendly, it had always been better for me to focus on the unique patterns of snowflakes than the death and lifelessness it symbolises - easier on my poor young brain, and one needed all the hope and discovery they could find in the cold land far up north.

As for your second question about the warmth you feel when you look at the snow globe: I have always found it ironic that winter coincides with traditions and customs that, under more pleasant circumstances, should provide warmth and support to a person, be it familial love or that between friends and/or lovers, and I must apologise for not being able to provide a more substantial answer as my personal experience with said traditions and customs are sparse and in between. Those I did experience, however, I remember clearly to this day. I will not discuss the details here as it will pose a security risk and be a breach of Alliance protocol, but should you wish to pursue the matter further, feel free to ask Anchor about it. Councillor’s approval. Signed, Reed

Cronos wonders if Elijah knows that Anchor would probably kill him if he tried to talk to her right now but sends him a reply anyway to thank him for his input and direction. Their skins receding at their points of contact, he interfaces with Rhea and plays the recording of the snow globe’s projection in their original quarters on a loop until it puts both of them to sleep so that he doesn’t have to think.

Their return to their quarters comes as suddenly as their departure. Anchor, as usual, provides little to no explanation apart from a simple ‘the situation has been handled,’ and therefore as Cronos watches Rhea crawl all over her original home to examine whether everything is in place - even the snow globe is, in fact, and Cronos has to ask about it - he decides that a visit to the human is needed, one way or another. Rhea has already turned on the lamp and is ready to switch off the lights as well when he asks her if she wants to follow him to find Anchor, but she willingly goes with him under the condition that she is allowed to bring the lamp with her (and of course he lets her; he rationalises that if Anchor allowed the lamp to remain, it means the lamp is safe). Finding the human in a large facility is, however, another can of worms in its entirety; it is after fifteen long minutes of wandering around and probably annoying the brains out of site personnel by asking them about Anchor’s whereabouts that they stand in front of a locked door leading to the observation deck. Taking a breath he doesn’t necessarily need physically, he holds Rhea’s hand tight in his grasp and knocks with his other one. A few seconds of silence. He feels Anchor’s biotics sneaking up from the minuscule gap underneath the door and gives him a poke. The lock disengages with a click.

‘Come in.’

Cronos interfaces with the touchpad to open the door. Rhea lets go of him and barrels in, stopping next to the human only when she realises that Anchor, who is sitting on the floor parallel to the floor-length windows, doesn’t seem to be interested in her and is staring at the floodlight-illuminated barren landscape outside. She kneels to place the lamp in front of the human, and that is when the latter turns and nudges the lamp towards the android. ‘Keep it,’ she says, her eyes not leaving the view once. She sounds… tired. ‘You seem to like it.’

As usual, Rhea turns towards Cronos to indicate that she wants him to answer for her. ‘She does,’ he replies. ‘Is that why you left it in our quarters?’

Anchor lays her gaze on him. ‘Ripping an object a person is attached to without said person’s consent has been proved to be traumatic. My orders are to take care of the two of you, and that means no unnecessary harm from me.’ She leans forward to place the lamp in Rhea’s arms properly. ‘I might agree with the Administrator in a lot of things, but this is not one of them.’ A cock of her head as the rings of her eyes seem to glow brighter, but it can be a trick of the floodlights outside. ‘Why are you here anyway?’

‘Do you know where or whom did the lamp come from?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we want to know?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

Anchor shrugs, her face carefully blank. ‘There’s a fight out there. No use dragging you into all that.’

‘What fight?’

‘None of your business. Hopefully, at least. Any more questions?’

‘Yes, actually,’ he sees Rhea shaking the globe again. ‘When we turned on the lamp, it… snows in the globe. Logically, snow is associated with winter, and Rhea and I should have felt cold when looking at the artificial snowfall. However, both the scene and its projection brought us a warmth that should not be associated with snowfall. Is it a normal reaction? Elijah suggested asking you about this strange phenomenon.’

The human looks at Rhea and watches her entertain herself with the snow globe, and for a few seconds there is silence. Then, gesturing to the space in front of herself, ‘Sit down.’

Cronos mirrors her posture and sits down leaning against the glass with his legs outstretched. Seeing that her - what exactly is his relationship with Rhea anyway? - successor is on the floor, Rhea crawls underneath his arm without being prompted and snuggles close with the lamp balanced in her lap, a small smile on her face as she lays her head on his shoulder and continues looking at the particles in the snow globe softly like it both contains all the answers and is the most lovely thing in the universe.

‘One way to explain it without breaching my vows is that a… holiday where people celebrate together coincides with winter in the northern hemisphere of earth,’ Anchor’s line of sight turns towards the landscape outside once more. ‘Some places snow, some places don’t, but if we’re talking about stereotypes, yes, it snows while everyone stays indoors to enjoy their time with their loved ones. Snow-blanketed outdoors, fire-warmed and brightly-lit indoors; good, warm food, companionship, a chance to meet with one another - these are just a few images and expectations of the holiday.’

‘And to you?’

‘Sort of similar to this. Food, people I wanted to be with, warm on the inside, cold on the outside. Sometimes we exchanged presents, sometimes we didn’t, some were even worse.’

‘“Worse?”’

‘Try running away from an incompetent father and a bitch of a mother with your sibling even though you know a blizzard is coming. Worst winter ever, but that was also the last one we had to suffer through with our parents, and it got substantially better afterwards.’

‘Do I want to know the details?’

‘No.’

‘Understandable?’ he can’t imagine two humans surviving the cold, but then again humans are not supposed to be able to control dark energy either, and here they are. ‘Then what were the other winters like?’

‘I just described it to you.’

‘Yes but…’ Cronos struggles to convey that he wants to know more without sounding too eager, ‘I want more details.’

‘Details, huh?’ Anchor’s voice now matches the blankness of her face. ‘You sure you want to hear about earth? There isn’t much worth reminiscing.’

‘They will all be new to me.’

‘Fine,’ the human straightens herself. Her eyes turn glassy. ‘There was no snow the first time I truly celebrated the holiday, but it rained starting from the afternoon and continued well into the night. I wanted to study for my exam and had been doing so since the beginning of the holiday, so I thought… I could spare a day with my sibling. He busted arse for the past ten years of his life trying to raise a kid even when he was just a kid himself as well and getting a high school diploma and earning extra cash to feed the two of us because we ate so damned much thanks for unexplained space magic, and that was the first winter he didn’t have to worry about our heat cutting off in the middle of the night and giving us hypothermia.’ A pause. ‘I sneaked downstairs the night before to put the present for him next to that tiny-arse tree since it was so small that there wasn’t enough space underneath to shove that box into. He wants an actual holiday, I wanted to give him one, so I even got the damned book wrapped in recycled paper. It was just a sodding book I had seen him eye when we had walked past bookstores, and he cried - legit cried - because I gave him a damned book he wanted and wrapped it up nice and tidy with no tape. I learnt on that day that people can actually cry and look so happy at the same time. Then we had brunch, he watched me play some video games before going for a nap, he woke up, we had dinner, we watched the movie version of a book associated with the holiday as he sipped on hot chocolate, and we went to bed. All without being scared once that we would need to brave the chill to get some last-minute groceries - supplies - or that we wouldn't have enough money to keep ourselves full the week after.’

She ends it there, and Cronos gives himself a few minutes to let that sink in. ‘Sounds like you love each other a lot and celebrated it through the holiday.’

A dull thud. Cronos draws his eyes away from the lamp falling out of Rhea’s limp hands and follows Anchor’s gaze just to see clunks of ice slightly larger than the nail on his thumb hitting the ground, turning into smoke before they can hit the floodlights, shattering on the reinforced glass of the observation deck and subliming under the heat, and soon the ground is covered in a thin layer of broken pieces of dry ice. Mars’ own version of snow.

‘Is this normal?’ Cronos asks.

A small smile appears on Anchor’s lips. ‘Every single summer.’

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the snow globe/lamp in the fic:

#rk17cember #rk1700 #dbh connor #dbh rk900 #oc: anchor/anna #detroit: become human #groom lake aftermath

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