#is it your subtle way of telling me that 'begone as far away as this star'

[incorrectdiru]

☆

It must be Die the star

[dreamrecorder]

Unique Strength

Genshin men with an amputee significant other who uses their vision as a prosthetic!!

Includes: Venti | Diluc | Kaeya | Albedo | Zhongli | Xiao | Baizhu | Childe

Reader can either be geo, cryo, or dendro- it' up to you- but why these three??? I just have an hc in my head that with solid geo or cryo you can control that stuff as artificial limb- and so can dendro!!! Althouuugh dendro is a bit of a special case- dendro, like you have to apply branches on your limb and those branches will grow and get their nourishment from your blood BUT ITS ALL FLUFF DONT WORRY

Venti

The moment he saw you play your string instrument- he fell in love

But when he saw your hands made of branches and littered with leaves- he fell for you even more so!!

Venti just loves how youre so dedicated to your craft- to the point of using your vision for artificial limbs!!!

When the two of you perform- he always makes sure that you get the spotlight bcos---

HelllllOoooO that's his s/o over there overcoming a disability!!!!!!!!!!

Diluc

He may be lowkey but Diluc worries for you Every Second-

Even if he knows you're not fragile- he cant help but worry

Whenever youre around in the mansion he will always make sure to have the fireplace out or else your cryo prosthetic might melt

Out for a stroll? Begone!!! Pyro slimes and those pyro flowers!! (I forgot the names of those flowers lmao)

In a battle? Diluc makes sure to end the battle swiftly without the use of his flames

Out on an adventure with the Traveler? He ABSOLUTELY forbids you taking any commissions relating to pyro

Ascension materials??? NAME DONT YOU DARE GO TO THAT PYRO REGISVINE OR ELSE-

Please please just beat up the cryo regisvine and not the pyro one or else diluc will have a heart attack

Kaeya

This man will always always! Brag about you!!!

Because who would have thought that a disabled person like you will make it to Cavalry Captain?!?!

Respect

Whenever he sees you teaching the recruits- his heart swells with pride

He can also tell how you also inspire those recruits bcos heck

The way they look at you with awe and respect

And when training is done- expect him to be at your side to check if any of your muscles are straining

And then and then he will give you a kiss to the forehead and say how amazing you are~

Albedo

Being an alchemist, of course he's familiar with the human anatomy and medications

But never once he encountered a person using their own vision for a prosthetic

Medicine!!! Orthotics!!!

This man will always look out for you partly bcos he wants to research about this too

He's not subtle about it- but you appreciate it nonetheless

Albedo will always remind you to put your padding before putting on your prosthetic

He will always be by your side whenever you're about to stand up just to make sure you dont fall

Then at the end of the day- when your prosthetic's off

He will always massage your amputated limb to make sure your blood flows well <3 also expect a small kiss on the limb after the massage <3

Zhongli

Mortals never fail to surprise me, Zhongli mused

He was just visiting Qingce village when he met you the first time

When he was given tea, he cant help but relish how soothing it is against his taste buds

It was perfectly brewed and he asked who was behind this masterful brew

You were then brought to him and his eyes instantly laid on your arms made out of geo

When introductions were done- the two of you went into smooth conversation about tea- and of course he does not miss to compliment your brew

When evening came- you told him it was time for you tend to the glaze lillies and this piques his curiosity all the more

Geo- it was a rough and sturdy element

But the way you handled that most fragile of flowers proved him wrong

He observed and admired how you caress the flowers so gently

You were so oblivious that your Archon fell in love with you that night <3

Xiao

Deep inside xiao is awed and inspired by your strength

Even if fate decided to have your limb cut off- you just flipped off destiny away and made your own prosthetic

You were just a mortal- but you denied your disability to control your life!!!

From his balcony- he can see you work fluidly through the customers of the inn-as if you're not disabled in the first place

With his keen sense of hearing, he can hear the awe and praise offered to your way about how you overcame your disability

In his heart- a small bud of pride blooms

That's my s/o

Baizhu

He didn't like the look in your face whenever you gaze sadly at the people walking freely in the harbor

At first he was hesitant, but if it will make you smile, he would do it

So- he did some research about prosthetics- even as far as requesting medical information from all over Teyvat

He did his research day and night he was so determined to have you smile again

The day came he told you his plans for your prosthetic

Oh how your smile returned to you melted his heart

He cannot fail this operation and failure is NOT an option

Operation SUCCESS!!!

The braches he made from his vision are now your prosthetics!!

Come rehabilitation- he will never fail you to give words of encouragement as you learned to walk each day

And Archons

Each day, your smile kept growing and growing until finally- you are walking

Childe

Similarly to the cryo husbando--

Childe will also !brag! about you!!!

The two of you know that you dont want to be pitied for your missing limb

And guess what did the recruits of the fatui do???

They snickered mocked pitied and laughed at you

Deep inside- Childe was seething

But!! He let you be with those fools

Hoo boy those recruits dont know whats coming

You offered them a battle, hand to hand combat, all against one

Next thing those newbies knew they were beaten thoroughly to a pulp by yours truly- you made sure to utilize your vision plus prosthetic against them thoroughly

Oh how Childe's also itching for a fight but your health comes first

As he observes for any muscle strain- Childe will not fail to give you words of praise bcos heck u deserve them

A/N: this prosthetic made from vision idea was bothering me for days now i had to write smth about it lmao

[i-am-bitterly-jittery]

What’s In A Name (momceit fic)

Rating: teen

Word count: 4863

Pairings: all platonic (except for one bit at the end that you can ignore if you want)

Warnings: Remus typical stuff, graphic threats against animals (that he takes back later), minor body horror (? He gives himself an extra finger, I don’t know if that counts), one (1) sexual innuendo. Roman being a bit of an asshole

——Start——

Well this is an interesting development, Logic thinks to himself as he watches Creativity stalk around the room, inspecting every nook and cranny as if the Dark Sides are going to be lurking in between the books in the bookcase.

This morning — five minutes ago to be precise — Logic, Morality, and Creativity awoke on the couch in the Dark Side’s common room. To make matters worse, the three of them had been transformed into cats. Creativity was a pure white Persian, Morality was a soft gray Scottish Fold, and Logic himself was a Siamese.

There hadn’t been any sign of any Dark Sides lurking nearby, nor any indication as to how the three Light Sides had ended up here as cats, but Creativity still insisted on inspecting their surroundings. Logic was fine with letting him, and instead preferred to make his observations from the relative safety of the couch before expanding out to the room beyond. Morality, it seemed, was not too concerned about anything other than the fact that he was a cat, preferring to groom himself and bouncing around the couch cushions excitedly.

“My brother is behind this! I know he is! This foul trick has his name written all over it!” Creativity hisses. Interestingly enough, Logic can understand him perfectly despite the fact that Creativity is speaking in cat language, and Logic had not known cat language before this point.

And Logic has to disagree with his hypothesis that The Duke is behind this. The Duke may be chaotic and impulsive, but this ‘prank’ is far too harmless to be his style. They are not in any immediate danger despite being in unfamiliar territory, there is no trace of gore, nothing R-rated about any of this really. It’s Logic’s opinion that the perpetrator of this predicament is not Creativity’s ‘twin’.

But Logic isn’t about to tell Creativity that. Creativity will get there on his own, given time.

“Isn’t this cool, Logic?” Morality bounces. “We’re adorable, and so cuddly! Do you want to cuddle, Logic?”

“This is not fun, Morality!” Creativity chides from his position inspecting the coffee table. “We are in enemy territory! We could be attacked at any minute!”

“What’s going to attack cats as cute as us?” Morality asks, innocently.

A subtle clicking — somewhat reminiscent of someone walking in heels, but not quite — comes from the top of the stairs and Morality’s question seems to be answered as something comes their way.

Creativity strikes a protective stance against whatever is coming down the stairs. Logic, too, feels a bit of apprehension about whatever is coming their way as it clearly isn’t something walking on human legs, though it does sound like it is something that is walking down the stairs.

Morality clearly does not share his companions’ concerns as he skips past Creativity and bounds towards the stairs to greet whatever is coming down. Creativity hisses a warning at him, but it falls on deaf ears.

Morality makes it to the stairs and looks up to greet the thing coming down, but as soon as he sets eyes on it, his posture changes from excited to terrified.

“SPIDER!” He squeaks as he shoots back past Creativity and scrambles under the couch.

Spider? Logic thinks. How can a spider make such a loud noise?

His questions are answered a second later as a rather large, rather spidery form reaches the bottom of the stairs.

“Kitty?” It asks.

A second glance proves that it is not, in fact, a giant spider, but rather a young boy - maybe about five - that happens to have four rather large spider legs protruding from his back that he seems to be able to walk with. On his spider legs, the boy’s human legs dangle about a foot and a half off the ground, making his total height around five feet, shorter than any of them are in their regular forms, but significantly taller than them as cats.

Other than the four spider legs, and the six smaller black spider eyes underneath his regular human eyes, the boy looks about the same as Thomas did at that age, with a few differences here and there that every Side has, such as the fact that his hair is purple, and has heterochromia, making one eye green, and the other inhumanly purple. Either way, it’s clear that this boy is a Side. And a rather new Side at that.

Logic doesn’t remember another Side forming, but he supposes that if this Side started out in the Dark Side, Deceit likely wouldn’t have informed them of his existence.

“Kitty?” The boy asks again. He looks around the room and seems to catch sight of Logic and Creativity for the first time. “Thwee kitties!”

Despite the obvious excitement in his face, the boy’s voice stays calm and quiet, as if he’s making a conscious effort not to scare them. Interesting behavior for a child.

“Begone foul creature!” Creativity hisses at the new Side even though the boy can’t understand him.

Logic just watches him curiously. They don’t know who he is or what function he serves, but as he’s just a child, it’s unlikely that he is of any threat to the three of them, even in cat form.

The boy looks startled by Creativity’s hostilities, and seems to realize for the first time that he’s standing on four long spider legs rather than his two human ones.

“Sowwy,” he says softly as he slowly lowers himself onto his human legs and folds his spider legs up against his back. For a second, Logic thinks the legs will just rest against his back, but the legs actually fade all together, and a moment later, the extra eyes do too.

Curious. Logic knows that Deceit has snake scales that cover a large area of his skin, and The Duke has tentacles that can solidify into arms and legs when he wants to, but he doesn’t know of either of them being able to hide their animal traits completely. Perhaps it is unique to this Side.

Creativity continues to take an aggressive stance, so the boy carefully gives him a wide berth as he makes his way over to the couch.

“Stay away from them!” Creativity growls as the boy slowly peaks under the couch.

“I’m sowwy I scawed you, kitty,” the Side apologizes to Morality. “Cweativity says my spidew wegs are cweepy, and I know not evewyone wikes cweepy.”

“I have never seen this Side in my life!” Creativity huffs dramatically.

“I believe he means your brother,” Logic sighs. It comes out as an audible meow, drawing the boy’s attention to Logic, the only cat that doesn’t seem disturbed by his presence.

“Hewwo,” the boy says to Logic. The boy blinks once, slowly “I love you.”

Logic’s brain stutters at the admission. The boy had, of course, probably just learned somewhere that that was how to show affection to a cat, and didn’t not mean to say that he loved Logic, but still…

Logic returns the gesture. “I love you.”

“LOGIC!” Creativity yowls.

The boy ignores him in favor of extending his hand towards Logic. Logic flinches a little and the boy stops moving his hand. The hand is a few inches from Logic, palm down, close enough that Logic could easily stretch his head out to touch it, but far enough away to not be in his personal space.

After a moment, Logic stretches his neck out in order to sniff the proffered hand. The boy stays perfectly still, watching Logic carefully, hope shining in his eyes. Instincts take over and Logic licks the boy’s fingers before nuzzling his head against the hand. “I trust you.”

The boy gasps, delighted.

“LOGIC!” Creativity yowls again, and again, he is ignored.

“You’we a nice kitty, awen’t you?” The boy asks as he starts moving his fingers to scratch at Logic’s head.

Logic can’t help but move his head, trying to maximize the pleasant contact. “Please never stop petting me.”

Being a cat must be different than being a Side. Usually, Logic isn’t overly affectionate, and is often uncomfortable with the casual contact Morality and Creativity often initiate, but as a cat, Logic can’t seem to get enough contact.

“Oh!” The boy exclaims in shock, his fingers stutter over Logic’s head for a moment before returning to their previous rhythm. “Hewwo.”

Logic opens his eyes to find that Morality has left the protection of the bottom side of the couch in favor of sitting directly in the boy’s lap. The boy offers his free hand to Morality the same way he had with Logic, but Morality skips sniffing it and goes straight for headbutting his hand.

“I’m sorry I was scared of you, kiddo, you’re not scary.”

“Morality! Not you too!” Creativity laments. Logic honestly can’t see what issue Creativity could possibly have with the young Side. He gave fantastic scratchies, why would anyone have a problem with him?

Vaguely, Logic registers the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs, but he’s much too preoccupied with the boy petting him to really care.

“Halt foul snake!” Creativity hisses.

Logic flinches as he finally registers that a second Dark Side has entered the common room, but is quickly calmed and distracted by the boy continuing to pet him.

“Anxiety,” Deceit says, sounding a mixture of amused and concerned. “Where did you find these cats?”

“Mama! They was in the wiving woom when I came down!” The boy - Anxiety? - says happily. “These two is nice! That one’s mean. Can we keep them?”

Creativity huffs indignantly. “We’re not pets!”

Deceit chuckles. “You even want to keep the mean one?”

Anxiety nods seriously. “He’s theiw fwiend.” He says, as if that is reason enough to keep a cat that clearly doesn’t like him.

Deceit chuckles again, and somewhere in the back of Logic’s mind he realizes that he’s never seen Deceit be this genuinely nice to anyone, even The Duke.

“We can’t keep them until we try to find their owners, my little spiderling.” Anxiety’s face drops in disappointment.

“They have ownews?” He asks quietly, hands stilling.

“No, no, we’re all yours!” Morality purrs, headbutting Anxiety’s hand so he’ll continue petting them.

“MORALITY!” Creativity hisses. He’s moved fully under the coffee table in order to best protect himself against the two Dark Sides.

“They might,” Deceit answers gently, pulling one glove off and holding his naked hand up seriously. “I’ll go ask the neighbors after breakfast, but if the cats aren’t theirs then I promise you can keep them.”

“Yay!” Anxiety yells loudly, startling Logic for a moment. Morality doesn’t seem at all perturbed as he continues to push into Anxiety’s hand.

“What’s the shortstack cheering about?” The Duke asks as he suddenly appears by the television. “Did my brother bite the dust? Or maybe Thomas has finally decided to go to Walmart wearing nothing but a speedo!”

Creativity hisses at him.

“CATS!” The Duke gasps. “Ooh we can peel their skin off to see their muscles and internal organs and just peel them apart piece by piece until they’re just a kitty cat skeleton!”

Morality flinches at the idea.

“NOOOOO!” Anxiety screeches, suddenly pulling Logic and Morality as close to his chest as he can. “NONONONONONO!”

It takes Logic perhaps a little too long to realize that Anxiety, true to his name, is having an anxiety attack, but his air is rather restricted at the moment so you can’t really blame him.

Anxiety’s breathing is shallow, and labored as he inhales and exhales around his screams; black tears run down his face, and a few drip onto Logic’s head, probably staining his cream fur gray; and he’s shaking violently and uncontrollably. And being in his death grip, Logic is quite uncomfortable, and Morality seems to be panicking almost as much as Anxiety is.

“NONONONONONONO!”

“Fix this!” Deceit hisses at Dark Creativity.

Dark Creativity seems to stumble over himself for a second before deciding on a course of action. He slides to the ground in front of Anxiety, which only causes the young Side to grip the cats tighter.

“Hey, uh, Anxy?” He asks, uncharacteristically soft for him. “I was just joking, I’m not gonna hurt the cats, I swear.”

“You’re- you’re not?” Anxiety sniffles, tears never slowing, but his breathing evens out a little bit.

“I’m not,” The Duke promises.

“Pink pwomise?” Anxiety asks, tears finally stopping.

“Double pinky promise!” The Duke declares, holding out his hand that seems to have two pinky fingers on it. Logic’s pretty sure the hand only had one pinky finger a moment ago.

Anxiety giggles and lets go of Logic so that he can wrap one of his pinkies around both of The Duke’s. “No take backs.”

“None at all, else penalty of death!” The Duke crows happily. “So do the cats have names?”

“He can’t name the cats until we figure out where they came from!” Deceit scolds from the kitchen where he’s preparing breakfast. “We don’t want him to get too attached!”

“Of course not!” The Duke yells back before dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But do they have names?”

Anxiety giggles and answers just as quietly. “This one is Wogan!” He says, running a hand from Logic’s head all the way down his body.

Logic blinks slowly, then closes his eyes and pushes his head into Anxiety’s hand. “This is acceptable.”

“This one is Patton!”

“I love it, kiddo!” Morality — Patton — purrs even harder than he already had been.

“And that one's Woman!” The Duke turns to look at the Persian cat underneath the coffee table. Creativity hisses as soon as The Duke makes eye contact.

“Not very friendly is he?” The Duke asks. “I’m not allowed to hurt him either?”

“Nope!” Anxiety declares happily.

“Breakfast!” Deceit calls from the kitchen. “Don’t bring the cats to the table!”

Anxiety pouts, but he does as the older Side instructs and leaves Patton and Logan on the couch. “I’ll be wight back.”

“Take your time, kiddo! Eating a healthy breakfast is important!” Patton meows after him.

“Are you two insane!?” Roman hisses as soon as Anxiety and The Duke are gone. “We aren’t pets! We can’t just live here as his cats forever!”

“I believe Roman is right,” Logan concedes. “We cannot fulfill our functions in this manor, which would be very detrimental to Thomas.”

“But Anxiety loves us,” Patton pouts at the same time Roman hisses “that’s not my name!”

“Regardless of Anxiety’s feelings, we must put Thomas’s well-being first. It is our job, after all,” Even as Logan says it, a funny feeling fills his stomach. He hypothesizes the source to be guilt over taking away the cats that Anxiety so clearly loves, but there’s nothing he can do. They are Sides, not cats, and they have functions they must maintain to keep Thomas alive and happy, and Thomas is always their first priority.

“But Anxiety will be so sad if we just disappear,” Patton continues to protest, but Logan can see in his eyes that he knows Logan is right.

“Who cares what Anxiety thinks?” Roman snorts. “He’s not our friend! He is one of them, a bad guy. He may be a child now, but anxiety is a bad thing. It ruins creative whimsy, prevents people from going after opportunities, and is an all around bummer! We shouldn’t be nice to the source of misery!”

Patton begins to cry in earnest now, loud pathetic mewls leaving his mouth as he does.

“-I’ll go check.” Someone says from the dining room.

“Someone is coming,” Logan warns, causing Roman to tense, but Patton doesn’t stop crying.

“What’s wrong, kitty?” Deceit walks into the room, crouching carefully in front of the couch.

Roman hisses and darts back under the coffee table.

“Is he mean to you?” Deceit rubs a gloved finger against Patton’s head comfortingly. “Where did you come from, hmm? The imagination? Surely you’re not Creativity’s creations, but maybe the other Creativity? Or do the Light Sides keep cats now?”

Deceit continues to rub at Patton’s head, and eventually, the moral Side relaxes into the touch.

“I’ll have to give you back, won’t I? The Light Sides hate us enough without us stealing their cats… Anxiety is going to be so disappointed.” Deceit sighs, pushing himself up into standing position. “It can totally be helped, I suppose. I can definitely conjure convincingly lifelike cats, and Creativity has a knack for creating… child-friendly creatures.”

Deceit continues to mutter to himself as he makes his way back to the breakfast table with the other Dark Sides.

“At least he’s taking us back to our side,” Roman grumbles as Deceit walks away.

“There is still the problem that when he goes to the Light Side, he will not find anyone,” Logan points out as he begins grooming himself, stopping a moment later to ponder that instinct.

“I don’t want to go!” Patton whines.

“I am sorry, Patton,” Logan apologizes. He decides to just give into his instincts and begins grooming Patton instead. “But the best thing for Thomas is for us to be back in our proper place, in our proper forms.”

“Can I go wiff you to the Wight Side?” Anxiety asks, alerting the Light Sides to the approaching Dark Sides.

“I’m sorry, Anxiety,” Deceit says. “But I would prefer you not meet them yet.”

“Why?” Anxiety asks. He returns to his previous seat by the couch, and absentmindedly starts petting Patton when the Moral Side climbs back into his lap.

“Because the neighbors can be…” Deceit pauses to consider his next words.

Logan finds himself very curious to see what Deceit thinks of them. He’s never thought about it before. He views Deceit as a necessary attribute, but as a Side, Logan finds him to be overly dramatic and difficult to deal with. He views The Duke as a harmless nuisance as the Side has no real control over Thomas’s actions, only some thoughts, but he knows that Patton and Roman view him much more harshly. He’s never stopped to consider how the Dark Sides view them in return.

“...mean,” Deceit finally says.

Patton visibly deflates, no doubt hurt that he hasn’t been as nice to the Dark Sides as he could have been.

“SLANDER!” Roman hisses.

“Oh,” Anxiety says quietly. He stares at Patton, still seated in his lap, before turning back to the older Side. “Then why awe we giving them theiw cats back?”

“Don’t poke sleeping bears,” is all Deceit says.

“Always poke sleeping bears!” The Duke insists. “They get super mad and try to bite your hand off! It’s fun!”

Anxiety stares at The Duke with a mixture of fear and nausea.

“Thank you, Creativity,” Deceit drawls. “That was very helpful.”

“Do the Wight Sides bite?” Anxiety demands nervously, looking frantically between the two older Sides.

“Only when they’re being k-”

Deceit snaps and one of The Dukes hands flies up to cover his mouth, effectively cutting off whatever he was about to say.

“No, darling,” he sits on the ground and opens his arms. Anxiety considers the offer for a moment before removing Patton from his lap and snuggling up as close to Deceit as he can. “It was a figure of speech. The Light Sides do not bite.”

“But they’we mean,” Anxiety says quietly.

Deceit suddenly has four more arms that he wraps around Anxiety.

Logan startles. He hadn’t realized that Deceit had six arms. Perhaps he should try spending more time with the Dark Sides as there were clearly several things about them that he was unaware of.

“So am I,” Deceit hums. Personally, Logan isn’t sure how that is supposed to be reassuring, but Anxiety seems to think it is.

“You’ww be back?”

“Of course, spiderling.”

“Okay,” Anxiety whispers. He pulls away from the hug and immediately runs upstairs, never looking back at the cats.

Deceit watches him go with a sigh. “Why did you have to come here?” He asks the cats rhetorically.

“Sorry,” Patton tries to say, but Deceit only hears a meow.

Deceit sighs again before scooping Patton up with one pair of hands. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

He grabs Logan with a second pair of hands, and finally grabs Roman with the third pair. Roman struggles, but Deceit keeps a tight grip on him.

Logan is smarter than Roman. While Roman struggles and ensures that Deceit has a tight grip on him, Logan fully allows Deceit to carry him, lulling the lying Side into a false sense of security. As soon as Deceit enters the Light Side of the Mindscape, Logan makes his move.

With his cat agility and flexibility, he pushes off of Deceits chest, easily breaking the unsuspecting Dark Side’s hold, and darts towards the stairs as quickly as he can, making it to the top before Deceit finally registers what had just happened and starts yelling after him.

“What the- GET BACK HERE!”

Logan ignores him as he runs for his room, theorizing that he’ll be able to change himself back into his own domain.

The door gives him slight pause as he realizes that he’s unable to open it — only mentally though, physically, he’s still running straight towards it. Luckily, the door responds to him, and a cat-flap that he’s quite sure has never been there before opens allowing him entrance.

Almost immediately, Logan is back in his proper form, necktie and all. Just as I suspected.

After a quick look in the mirror to make sure that he is fully presentable, Logan sinks out to the common room where he can still hear Deceit yelling after him.

“Deceit,” Logan appears behind Deceit, causing the lying Side to startle, and involuntary hiss escaping his lips as he quickly spins to face the newcomer.

Logan makes sure to give him a suitably surprised yet reserved look, as if he had been unaware that Deceit was in the common room.

Roman takes advantage of Deceit’s shock to escape his grasp as Logan had earlier. Roman runs for the stairs, but this time, Deceit just lets him, choosing to focus on Logan instead.

The Dark Side is quick to retract his extra arms, and mask his surprise with indifference, and Logan politely doesn’t mention either.

“We didn’t find these on our Side and we weren’t wondering if they were yours,” Deceit sneers, holding Patton out towards Logan as if the cat disgusted him, though Logan is well aware of the lie.

“They are, thank you,” Logan says, accepting Patton from Deceit. “Creativity and Morality have been searching for them in the imagination all day.”

Patton squirms in Logan’s arms until Logan allows him to climb onto his shoulder.

Deceit’s eyes narrow, and Logan realizes, a little too late, that Deceit can tell when someone’s lying. “There should have been three cats.”

“The third cat didn’t run away as soon as we got here, and isn’t lurking around here somewhere,” Deceit answers, mercifully letting the lie go

“Well thank you for returning them, Deceit, it was very decent of you,” Logan says. He thinks the comment is innocuous, but Deceit immediately goes on the defensive.

“Right, because the bessst we can do is desssssscent,” he hisses, his snake features becoming more pronounced with his aggravation. “Heaven forbid we ever do anything nisssssce.”

“I did not mean-”

“Goodbye, Logic. It’sss been sssso much fun.” Deceit sinks out before Logan can respond.

“I suppose that that did not go as well as I had hoped,” Logan says to Patton.

Patton meows and licks Logan’s nose.

Logan blinks. “You are aware that I know that you are not a cat, correct?”

Patton meows again.

“Is he gone?” Roman calls as he comes bounding down the stairs, back to his normal self.

“Yes, Roman, Deceit has left.”

“Okay, first of all Teach, just because Anxiety called me that doesn’t mean it’s my name. Second of all…”

Patton jumps off Logan's shoulder and makes his way to his room, at a slower pace than either of the others had gone.

He has so much to do.

~~~

Deceit does his best to school his features before returning to the Dark Sides’ common room. It would do no good for Anxiety to see him upset. He doesn’t want Anxiety to be afraid of the Light Sides, doesn’t want them to have that power over him already.

Once he’s got his face under control, he enters the common room. He’s greeted by the sight of Creativity sitting criss cross on the couch, Anxiety in his lap. Both of them are clearly waiting for him.

Anxiety’s eyes fill with tears as soon as he sees Deceit some back without the cats. Creativity frowns.

“They belonged to the boring Sides?” Creativity asks with a pout.

Deceit nods. He makes his way over to the couch to pick up the now sobbing Anxiety from Creativity’s lap.

“I’m sorry, spiderling.” Deceit says, wrapping all six arms around the child.

Anxiety wraps his arms around Deceits neck, and seconds later, four spider legs wrap around the rest of him.

Hours later, after Anxiety has finally settled down for his nap, and Creativity has gone to the imagination to vent his anger at hapless figments, there’s a knock at the door.

Deceit stares at the door for a moment in shock. No one’s ever knocked before. No one visits them. The Light Sides hate them, and even if they did want to visit, they’d never deign to knock.

Another knock.

Deceit shakes himself out of his thoughts to answer the door.

It’s Morality. He gives Deceit a wide and genuine grin, while hiding something behind his back.

“Hi Deceit!” He greets, bouncing on his toes with barely contained excitement.

“Morality, I was definitely expecting you.” Deceit says, feinting nonchalantness.

“I wanted to thank you for bringing the cats back! So I made you something!”

“Yes I obviously require payment for being nice, thank you.” Deceit rolls his eyes, he doesn’t need anything from them, and honestly, he doesn’t want anything from them. He’d prefer to just move on from this debacle and never think about it again.

“It’s not payment,” Morality grins like Deceit had been telling a joke. “It’s a gift! For you! Because you’re paw-sitively purrrrr-fect!”

Morality shoves a cat-shaped pillow in Deceit’s face, and all he can do is blink at it stupidly.

“I made you three!” Morality continues. “One for each cat!”

Deceit takes the proffered pillow — gray with bright blue eyes, like the nice cat — and Morality pulls out two more pillows that resemble the other two cats.

“That’s- um…” For once, Deceit’s silver tongue is failing him. He has no idea what to say.

“Mama?”

Not now, Deceit begs internally. Why does Anxiety have to choose now to wake up?

Anxiety approaches normally, but Deceit can tell the second he sees Morality, because he quickly ducks behind Deceit’s legs.

“Hey, kiddo,” Morality says gently as he lowers himself to his knees so that he’s level with the young Side. “I just wanted to thank your mama for returning my cats earlier. I cat tell you how happy I was to have them back, so as a thank you, I made these purr-fect pillows, would you like one?”

“That’s the same joke twice,” Deceit mutters, but Morality ignores him.

Morality holds out the Siamese pillow to Anxiety. Anxiety looks up at Deceit, and Deceit — unable to see how this could possibly be a trap — nods.

Anxiety quickly snatches the pillow from Morality and hugs it close to his chest.

“Thank you,” he mumbles.

Morality smiles. “No problem, kiddo. It’s the fleece I can do.”

Anxiety lets out a giggle, and Morality’s grin grows

“A fan of jokes I see! Well then, why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Why?” Anxiety asks quietly, voice muffled slightly by the pillow.

“To get to the other Sides!” Anxiety stares blankly at him, and Deceit smirks at the failed joke. “No? How about, what’s a ghost’s favorite fruit?”

“What?”

“Boo-berries!”

That one gets another giggle

Morality grins and holds out the third pillow. “You can have this one, too, if you want it.”

Anxiety doesn’t even look at Deceit for approval this time before he grabs pillow from Morality and attempts to hold both as close to his chest as possible.

“Anxiety,” Deceit says as Morality straightens up. “Why don’t you go show Creativity your new pillows?”

“Okay!” The kid cheers, taking off without another word, two cat pillows in tow.

“Thank you, Morality,” Deceit says once Anxiety is gone. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t have to,” Morality smiles. “I wanted to! So I did.”

“I will admit, I’m not sure what to do when receiving a gift,” Deceit admits, surprised at his own honestly.

“Well I’ll just have to fix that, won’t I?” Morality says brightly. He pulls Deceit into a tight hug, but lets go before he can even begin to process that. “Bye Dee! I’ll see you later!”

And then he’s gone. Leaving Deceit standing in the doorway clutching a soft gray cat pillow.

Fuck, I’m GAY!

——End——

Taglist (if you voted B then you’re tagged)

@queen-of-all-things-snuggly

@pixelated-pineapple

@selenechris

@angelofthedark2005

@remus-sanders-is-amazing

@quietmob

@the-bones-fall

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Take Two (part 2)

(Another time travel fic)

Summary: Ghost Arthur travels back in time and saves Lewis. A fix-it if you squint.

Part 1, Part 3: here

“Arthur!” 

The Lewis he’s holding calls in distress, twisting around to try and get a look up at the cliff he’s just fallen from. He’s not calling for him, ghost Arthur. No, he’s calling from the friend who just pushed him to his death. 

Younger Arthur’s cries are faint now, growing weaker. There is a lot of loud growling and snarling echoing from the direction of the rock shelf and upper tunnel. Form this angle it’s far too high, half obscured by the stone ledge, to see what’s happening. That does not stop Lewis from frantically spasming around, trying to reach the younger him, in complete disregard for his current precarious position.

Current Arthur, still wreathed in circlets of static, is too preoccupied with having a bunch of puzzle pieces shoved suddenly in front of him to notice Lewis’s distress. A lot of uncomfortable realisations are clicking into place awfully fast, filling in all those black spaces and memory gaps with horrifying implications.

The other, younger, Arthur had just pushed Lewis of the cliff, meaning he had also pushed his Lewis of the cliff. Except, when he had done it, there had been no second, ghost, Arthur to break his fall. Lewis had dropped straight down unimpeded.

Below him, the pointed stalagmites glint dangerously. When lit by the bright yellow flashes given off by his hair and ghost form, they are almost mockingly sharp.

That made him a murderer. Lewis’s murder. Which meant that his own murder by Lewis’s hands hadn't been some misunderstanding it had been revenge. 

Sudden ice sweeps through his limbs and chest like he’s been dunked into ice water and is drowning slowly. He didn’t think it possible to feel more numb then he already was, but he’s wrong. The dancing lightning covering his form, which until then had been a bright orange-yellow, turns a biting, frosted white. Is it possible for a ghost to die again? That’s what this feels like. Like he’s been dropped from a great height all over. Another silent death, alone at the bottom of the cliff, with only questions and regrets.

A sudden jolt from a still flailing Lewis forces him to bench his distress, leaving it for a later date. He doesn’t have time to dwell upon his new horrifying reality because he’s still holding the currently living Lewis up a good ten feet in the air, and it is becoming increasingly difficult when the other man is squirming about, trying desperately to save his own Arthur.

The screams of his younger self are abruptly silenced. Now all that’s audible are the softer grows of Mystery, continuing to echo about the cavern.  

“Please, you have to take me up there or put me down,” Lewis has given up struggling and is waving to catch his attention, “My friend needs help.”

He is about to respond but is distracted by Vivi who comes skidding out of a side tunnel, putting her on the cavern floor.

“Arthur! Where are you!?” She yells frantically, and stops, expression of acute alarm creasing her face, while she quickly glances around. Another terrible puzzle piece clicks into place. Vivi had probably found Lewis’s dying, impaled body. For the first time, he thinks that maybe it was better that she didn’t remember anything. Around him the static lightning has taken on a distressed, spiky appearance, jutting out in angry points.

Vivi gasps in audible surprise, having spotted himself and Lewis hovering mid-air. Momentary wonder briefly overtakes her expression of worry.

“Vivi!” Lewis calls to her, ignoring him now, “He’s on the cliff. Arthur’s on the cliff! You have to get to him”

“Wha…” Vivi starts to respond, but he has finally found the motivation needed to move. Quickly he swoops down to the cave floor, weaving through the stalagmites so he can awkwardly dump Lewis into Vivi’s unprepared arms. Arthur makes sure to keep hold of Lewis’s purple vest, even as he drops the other to the ground. He’s going to need it shortly.

“oomph…ouch”  Vivi is crushed under the larger man’s form. Whoops. He winces, pausing just long enough to ensure Vivi and Lewis are okay and he hasn’t inadvertently caused grievous harm. Again.

“Sorry,” he mumbles even as he’s flying up into the air again.  Is that his voice? It’s all metallic, reminding him a bit of the scratchy records his uncle played while working in the shop.

Once again, he turns to lightning, crossing the space in an instantaneous snap.  

Up on the cliff, the gruesome scene he's met with isn’t any better being viewed from a third-person perspective than it had been when living it. Young Arthur is clocked out, lying in a slowly spreading pool of his own blood. His shoulder and arm are shredded unevenly, and he winces, clutching at his own metallic arm instinctively. After losing his arm, Arthur had accumulated a vast array of knowledge on prosthetics, the nervous system and amputation. He knows that this is about as far from a clean limb removal as you can get and that Arthur needs medical attention and a hospital or he’s going to be dead very soon from either blood loss or shock. When he moves to help his way is blocked. 

Suddenly, Mystery is there, tails fanned out behind him, glowing a dangerous red. He flinches away, and the Kitsune stalks forward, growing, head lowered. A subtle pressure begins to build, causing the air around them to gain an unnatural weight. All his ghost instincts- which he apparently has now – are telling him that Mystery is BAD NEWS and he should most definitely run away.

“I’m helping,” he bites, backing up to circle Mystery wearily. The static jumping around his shoulders crackles, betraying his nervousness and he tries to reel it in and make himself seem pathetic and unthreatening.

/Begone spirit. You are not welcome here/

“If you don’t let me help your…friend…is going to bleed out,” he tries. 

Mystery is now poised, almost motionless, eyes tracking him. His tails remind him of a scorpion preparing to strike.  

“Look, Lewis is fine; he gave me his jacket. See. Because I need to stop that bleeding,”

Mystery’s eyes narrow in suspicion when he draws attention to the vest.

/Your words do not fool me, spirit/

“For god’s sake,” Arthur mutters.

He clutches at the vest then glances down at the weakly beating heart affixed to his chest. It appears to be a bit worse for wear, the jagged crack down its centre has almost doubled in size, branching into a web of smaller fractures. Even now his instincts are telling him to cover the fragile thing up and protect it from Mystery.

When had he ever followed his sense of self-preservation?

He curls his hand into a fist, clutching it around the heart, which sparks with electricity. Then he rips it away, ignoring the small pang on unease the action inspires.

“Here,” he thrusts the heart out towards Mystery, “You can hold this if it makes you feel better,”

Mystery pauses and the pressure in the air dissipates. Angrily swaying tails become still and lower ever so slightly. If there was ever a time he had seen Mystery confused this would be it. Slowly, very slowly, Mystery stalks forward, eyes locked onto his.

Carefully, Mystery gingerly accepts the faintly beating heart between his teeth. It is an odd sensation which Arthur has no time to dwell upon because he’s already hovering next to younger Arthur. He rips the purple vest in half-sorry Lewis-applying one side of it to the wound as best he could, pressing down. The blood quickly soaks the makeshift bandage.

“Well, are you going to help?” he says to Mystery, who is holding his heart, standing off to the side, still unsure. Well, as uncertain as a tailed fox of legend can look anyway.

“I need you to apply pressure on this while I tie this off,” he instructs. Mystery inches forward a paw creeping out to cover a section of Young Arthur’s bleeding shoulder. Tourniquets are usually only used in severe situations, which this definitely was. It would also have the bonus effect of keeping the wrappings in place. While he is tying off the shoulder, a new, metaphysical pressure descends upon the wound, forcing the pieces of the ripped vest to affix in place. The bleeding doesn’t seem to be soaking through quite as fast now. Arthur wracks his memory, trying to remember how far away the van is. Mystery, tails now cured into a shield-like structure, heart beating in his jaws, is eyeing him thoughtfully. There are sounds from behind, and Mystery’s ears swivel in the direction.

Lewis and Vivi finally come busting through the tunnel.

Note: I have no self-control with this sort of stuff. Anyway, here is the part two that I never planned to write. Hope people enjoy it. Guess I can graduate this fic out of the ‘dabble’ classification. They grow up so fast. (edit: also there is a part 3 now)

[moczothe1st]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 26: The Julius Formerly Known as Prince

Part 25

Welcome back to Fire Emblem IV! Last week we had started our invasion of Grannvale, coming up to it through the southern Miletos district, and in so doing got to smack the crap out of Tinni’s crazy aunt, who unfortunately managed to get away.  These things happen.  This week, we have to start off by opening the gates that will allow us to proceed north to Miletos itself.  

I’m just gonna say, if you guys wanna stop now, I’m down for that. How about we just move in to Hilda’s old torture castle and set up there? Do we really need to beat the Empire?

Yes?

Shit.  

Ah, well.

Well, to start, we need to take Rados castle, which is thankfully unoccupied after we killed all its inhabitants last week. It’s cool, they were gross people.  Though first, I have Ced grab the village right north of it…

Behind the Times: Not so long ago, from what I hear, Emperor Arvis himself forbade ‘em. What the devil could’ve changed his mind? Please, I’m begging you, you’ve gotta save our children! Here, this magic ring oughta help you out.

Niiiiiiiiiiice. This pushes Ced’s magic above the 30-point cap, leaving him even more of a killing machine that he already is.  Dude doesn’t even have a holy weapon, he’s just raw badass. Cairpre also continues his path to minor godhood.  

This kid was level one on the last map, and he’s going to be promoted and breaking skulls right along with the rest of the kids next map. I’m so proud of him.  

Seliph, take the castle and set the story going, my man!

(Yeah, but he had to be a man named Morrigan, so who really suffered the most?)

Seliph: How could they… how could anyone be so savage…?

Lewyn: And that’s why we’ve got to fight this war to the end, Seliph. This is something you’ve got to understand.

(OKAY WE GET IT JEEZ STOP PESTERING ME DAD)

Lewyn: This is the way of the Loptyr Empire. There’s no place at all for the good-hearted… Now, it shouldn’t be too long before the gate to Miletos opens for us.  

(…. Why…?)

Lewyn: What’s your next move, Seliph?

Seliph: Needless to say, we must march on Miletos. We can’t afford to rest while those children are still at risk. Or Julia, for that matter.

Lewyn: Good. And after that, Grannvale awaits!

(OH FUCK IT’S ISHTAR)

(Oh, and also Arvis. Man, you have not aged well, buddy. I’d feel bad for you, but you know… the rape and murder and stuff.)

Arvis: Listen, Ishtar. Release the captive children.  I know you care no more for these foul deeds than I do.

Ishtar: My apologies, sir, but I’m on Prince Julius’s-

Arvis: Pay Julius no mind. I’ll be having a word with him soon.

(Funny story, bro, he said the same thing about you last week, and I’m a bit more scared of him at this point.)

Ishtar: But…

Arvis: This is an order from your emperor, Ishtar! Has Julius bent you such that you will no longer listen to the word of your liege?!

Ishtar: N-no. Never, your majesty…

(Speak of the [Literal?] Devil.)

Arvis: Julius! How dare you-

Julius: Why, Father, it almost sounds as if you still don’t know any better! Old age must be dulling that once-brilliant mind of yours. Why not retire before it grows still feebler? Unless… ohohohoho! Don’t tell me you still seriously believe that you can banish me?

Arvis:  … No. I know better than to try something so futile again. I… have no further objection.

Julius: That’s better. Now, then. Begone! Return to your post and haunt my sight no more. Defending Chalphy is crucial, so don’t fail me for once in your sorry life, Father.  

(Daaaaaaaaaaaamn, son, you just got burned.  Or should that be Julienned?)

Arvis: Y-yes, Julius. At once…

(God, it’s like every creeper left in the game is all gathering in this one castle to see who can be most sleazy. If Hilda shows up, I’m going to need to stop to take a shower.)

Manfroy: Never would you think this wretch, now clinging only to the ghost of a crown, was once the most powerful man in Jugdral.  

Julius: Ah, Manfroy. Where’s Julia? Have you restored her memory yet?

Manfroy: Your dear little sister is in Chalphy, burdened once more by her old memories. Never have I seen such horror as when she recalled how you, her own brother, almost killed her! Or how her dearly departed mother spirited her clear of the castle and your clutches…

Julius: Indeed… near everyone puts up some defiance to death by my hand, yet Deirdre never so much as flinched in the end. She accepted her own demise, all to save Julia with what little strength she still had.  But Julia possesses the foul powers of that ghoul, Naga, just as Deirdre once did. Nothing is more crucial than killing her now, Manfroy, lest we lose the chance.

(………. Then… why did you need to restore her memories…?)

Manfroy: You overestimate her threat, milord. After all, the Book of Naga remains under the strictest lock and key in Belhalla. Without it, Naga’s soul could never come to dwell within that girl…

Julius: How many times must I explain, Manfroy?! Every last one of the avatars of Naga, the heirs of Heim, must be purged!

Manfroy: Understood, milord. I’ll have my men see to it that Julia is dead by sundown.

Julius: Do not fail me, Manfroy. Now, then, I suppose I’m needed in the capital.

Manfroy: I shall ensure that holding the Miletos territory is the Order’s highest priority. Before the week is done, Your Majesty, the corpse of Seliph shall lie before you.

Julius: Seliph? … Ah, of course. The one the peasants call ‘the scion of light’.  Just as they call me the ‘scion of darkness’.  The alleged eldest son of Deirdre and the alleged true heir to my throne. A fairy tale, told to inspire hope amongst fools.

Manfroy: He is still a threat, milord. The sooner we dispose of him, the better.                      

Julius: Surely he doesn’t truly bear the power of the Crusader Baldur. He couldn’t possibly. I don’t care about him, Manfroy, but you’re welcome to do with him as you will.  

Manfroy: Very good, milord.

Julius: … Actually, I have a better idea. I want to play a game.  

Julius: Rumor has it that a small army of fresh sacrifices are headed our way. Let’s see who can claim the life of a rebel first.

Ishtar: Yes, Lord Julius. I’d love to!

(Sympathetic anti-villain~)

And then the newly arrived enemies start screwing with me, thus ruining the drama of the moment. Anyhow. The army arrayed against us is arguably the worst in the entire game thus far, given they are almost all dark mages. Dark magic still has no disadvantages to anything in the weapon triangle, and a lot of them have status effect staves to fuck our advance over hard. And of course, standing near the castle…

At first glance, Ishtar actually looks worse than Obvious Final Boss Julius. She’s bulked up considerably since we last met her; her Magic has gone up by six points, speed by one, and resistance by a whopping twelve with the addition of a Barrier Ring to her inventory.  He, in contrast, has generally good stats at everything (and is a damn stone wall with 25 defense and 35 resistance) but he’s slower than her and his Loptyr tome is heavier than her Mjolnir.  Beyond being a stone wall, he appears to be less dangerous than her.

This is a filthy lie.

You see, Ishtar is stronger than her last fight with us, but we’ve leveled up far more than she has since then. She’s certainly still very dangerous thanks to her combo of Mjolnir and the Vantage ability meaning if you don’t kill her in one shot she’ll wreck your ass on all further battles, but that’s nothing new. It just means we’re playing the same damn game of Nuclear Rocket Tag that we were last time, and Arthur is carrying a much bigger nuke than before. Maybe he still only has like a 60% chance of pulling it off, but I honestly can’t believe I did it at all last time.  

And as for that heavy Loptyr tome? It has a little extra trick to it that you’ll quickly come to despise.  

See that little note, ‘cuts foe’s atk’ down in the bottom left corner? See, more specifically, it cuts the attack of anyone who gets into battle with Julius by a whopping 50%. So before hitting Julius’s again, stone-wall defenses, anyone who takes a swing at him will first have their attack cut in half, at which point he will swing right back with a Holy Weapon that has no weapon triangle disadvantage to anything and is backed up by his maxed out magic stat.  And in his ability list, he has Pursuit and Accost for maximum possible double-attacking potential to go with his very high natural speed, and Wrath to cause his critical hit rate to skyrocket if you do eventually get his HP down below half.  

His 80 HP.  

So yeah, this is the game’s subtle way of telling you ‘DON’T FIGHT JULIUS’. Indeed, the easiest thing to do here would be to let him or Ishtar kill one of our soldiers and then have Cairpre revive them with the Valkyria staff, because they will both leave if one of them manages to win their ‘game.’  Which, I mean, if I get really desperate, maybe, but for the sake of my pride I’d prefer to beat one of them, causing both to retreat. And by ‘one of them,’ I mean Ishtar. And by ‘beat’ I mean, ‘Arthur, it’s time to play another round of Holy Weapon Nuclear Death Tag with your cousin, please try to survive.’  

Oh, and just for fun:

That’s Julius’s Holy Blood screen. Just in case you didn’t have enough unhappiness in your life.

Now then. First thing we need to do is clear out at least some of the enemies in play here. There’s a whole mess of Dark Mages with some melee fighters scattered among them, and they’re operating with a variety of tools, but the worst, as poor Altena found out, are the ones with Sleep staves. Status effect staves in this game are the worst; they have perfect accuracy as long as the one using them has higher Magic than the target has Resistance. In our hands, they’re balanced by only having 2-3 charges before they break. In the enemy’s hands, they have infinite charges because Fuck You, that’s why. Sleep + Hel + Any Hit of Anything is a very bad situation.  So first step is to work out where they are:

There, we have a basic cross-reference of where only high-resistance units should go. The dark mages have 16 Magic each, which isn’t much for the purposes of combat but for the purposes of Sleep Staves it might as well be a trillion. Maybe a quarter of our army can go into that crossfire zone without being zapped, and one of them is Cairpre, who can’t fight. On the other hand, he’s also the only person who can wake people up, so his staying awake forever is useful, in its own way.

Back to full power! And now, we clear out the vanguard and move the team up, making sure to keep most people firmly to the east.  

There we go. First wave down; the only people in the current batch who can lure out enemies without getting a forced nap are Ares, Fee, Ced, Tinni and Cairpre; Seliph will be able to when he actually reaches the army, but he, Nanna, and Ulster are a bit further back. He had to take the castle and they needed to do some weapon repairs.

End turn!

Ah, yes, some of them have siege tomes too. Because, again, fuck you, that’s why.

Cairpre, you’re just getting silly.  But in any event, we’ve now gotten a situation where the only people in the Sleep range are people who cannot be Sleeped, and they should also be drawing in some of the enemies from the west so we can clear out at least one or two of the staff wielders and give us some more movement range. There’s two to the west, and two to the north; the western ones should start moving on this turn now that we’ve cleared out the enemies closer to us. With luck, I can kill them both right away. End turn…

Okay, not bad. With the positioning of the enemies, I thiiiiiiiiink three of the sleep staffs can be taken out this turn without much issue.  Let’s see…

That’s one!

And that’s two, and also all we’re going to get. But the remaining two are going to put some people to sleep, but they won’t be able to get anyone killed.  That’s worth Ares getting a shit level, I guess. What remains is to clear out the final village-burning bandit of the map…

And killing off this sniper so he can’t kill Fee and ruin everything.

Good times. All right, dark mages! Please don’t kill anyone. End turn.

Lame, but tolerable. We will be able to kill one more staff guy this turn; but the second one is being… troublesome.  

He’s one of those charming robed figures firmly in Julius’s combat range. That is not a fight I want to pick.  Instead, we’ll take this other dude with the physic staff…

And pull back, trying to lure them out further. Cairpre wakes up Lester to let him do the same, and gets his like seventieth level.

To the south, we need to clear a path without letting Patty get put to sleep preferably. So I have Tinni try to clear a path, which will let Ced get through to the third Sleep user.

….

She misses. On a 90% chance. Dammit. Seliph, please?

That’s why we’re putting you on the throne later, buddy.  And now Ced can get through and remove one more stumbling block.

Beautiful. Only one staff jackass left, and the only people in his range are Tinni and Seliph.  He’ll have to move, and with any luck at all he’ll do so out of Julius’s combat range where someone can take a swing at his dumb face. End turn!

Heeeeeeeeeey buuuuuuuddy.

Niiiiice. With that, there’s only seven enemies left total; one guy with a normal tome, three siege tomes, the boss in the castle, and the two far more dangerous bosses waiting for us to get all up in their business. This will be… tricky. But for the moment, we’re safe, so I have Seliph drop in to have a conversation with Tinni.

(In all this mess, you may have forgotten Lewyn is her dad. He certainly hasn’t been very fatherly.)

Seliph: If you need anything from me, I’ll be waiting over there.

(You see what I mean about her having a character arc, now? Imagine the Tinni we first recruited saying that. She was so broken down she was going to fight us just because she was too afraid not to. And look at her now, electrocuting her aunt! I’m so proud.)

Lewyn: She didn’t treat you well, did she?

(“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA…. Oh, you’re serious…? Wow. No. No.”)

Tinni: Day after day, again and again, she would beat and abuse us. She kept on accusing Mother of being a traitor…

Lewyn: Your mother… Taillte…

Tinni: Yes… after the Battle of Belhalla, she and my brother, Arthur, fled to Silesse. I was born there soon after. I never knew my father. I think he must have died long ago…

Lewyn: I see. Then you went to Alster, right?

Tinni: King Blume and his minions came to Silesse, one night. They dragged us away to Alster… Mother never left there alive…

Lewyn: I… you’ve had such a hard life…

Tinni: Mm… Hilda hated Mother so much. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mother coped with so much, trying to protect me from Hilda. She was always in tears, right till the end…

Lewyn: She… she did…?

Tinni: Lord Lewyn? Is… is everything okay, sir?

Lewyn: … Yeah. Why do you ask?

Tinni: It’s your eyes, sir. Are those… tears?

Lewyn: I… no, it’s nothing. This is just a bit of sweat. I’m fine… I… I’m okay…

I like this conversation for a few reasons. First, it gives Tinni a ridiculous +5 magic, which is wonderful for these conversation bonuses and pushes her to her magic cap of 27. But on a story front, you’ve probably noticed that Lewyn has become kind of a douche in the years since the first generation.  This is one of the very few moments where that attitude breaks and he really shows you just how much he’s hurting beneath it all. He manages to hold up the Jerk Attitude for most of his other daughter conversations (he can have one with Fee, Lene, or Tinni if he’s their dad) but this is the only one he breaks down on. Learning your wife was essentially tortured to death will do that, and it probably only hurts more because Tinni isn’t trying to guilt him over it. Just innocently sharing how awful her life has been.

It’s a good, solid, quiet little character moment. I really like those when they’re done well, and I think this one was.

End turn.

Way to kill the emotion, jerk.

After murdering that buzzkill, I have to consider the situation.  Ishtar is by far the weaker of the two enemies, but she’s not weak by any means. And unfortunately, anywhere that she can go, Julius can go too, thanks to the Leg Ring in his inventory. Getting them separate is hard.  So what I’m going to do is have Ares, with the Mystletainn in hand, stand on a forest tile in Julius’s range. I will also put Nanna, Seliph, and Dermott near him; with boosts from two Charisma skills, Seliph’s leadership stars, and a forest, he gets something like a 45% boost to his dodging, which even Julius should have some trouble with. And even if he takes one hit, his Resistance is high enough that he should be able to survive.  And from there, I have all of them run past him with Arthur, giving him a similar bonus to his offense and offsetting Julius’s own five leadership stars when he fights Ishtar. With luck, which I seem to be having lately with these big annoying bosses, Arthur will nuke the crap out of his cousin once again.

This might work. Maybe! Or I might die. End turn!

Gotta admit, the man makes an impression! Ares takes the hit, but survives with 21 HP left, and Ishtar runs up behind Julius, but can’t reach anyone to blast. But we can reach her.  Deep breath. Moment of truth.  Everyone, get her! NUCLEAR ROCKET TAG GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I’m hoping you don’t notice how many of my problems I have been solving with Forseti.  Like… all of them. Seriously, of the three hardest bosses in the game so far, Ishtar, Arion, and Ishtar again, Arthur has killed all three of them on his first move, doing the exact same thing.  I have dealt with every serious challenge the game has to offer by nuking it with a wind god.  

If this is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.  

Oh, and hey, why not.

This kid is going places. 

Now then, not much left on the map to deal with.  I have Lene dance Cairpre, so he can grab one of the two remaining villages.  

Captain… Nay, GENERAL Obvious: Just a single glance into those eyes of his and you’re gone. You lose yourself. So many of my friends and people my age have all left for Belhalla to serve him… I’ve heard nothing from any of ‘em since.

Oh-ho.  So, does this mean Julius can literally warp the minds of others? It can’t be limitless, mind you, since otherwise he could just mind-rape our army into joining him, but some ability to sway the weak-minded to his side would fit with how so few Imperial citizens are actually protesting the whole… you know. Hunting of children.

On the enemy phase, there isn’t a whole lot left. We have only three enemies left outside the boss, and they’re all carrying siege tomes.

And hahaha, they’re not super great at picking targets. That was fun.  Now, let’s destroy them!

Not bad at all! One guy remaining, we can get him on the next turn before Seliph takes that castle. Altena grabs the last village, as well.

Extremely Morbid Info Master: Hate t’say it, but sometimes, yeh need t’make sacrifices if yeh wanna keep going…

See, kids, this is why you don’t fuck with Info Master. He is willing to make those sacrifices.  End turn!

Dick.

… They can’t all be great, Cairpre. You’ve still grown far beyond anything I ever expected. Now, nothing left to do but send the team up north, preparing to go where the story will dictate after we take the next castle. Seliph, care to set things up?

Lewyn: I hate to admit it, but I doubt we could’ve gotten here soon enough either way. Now, then. It sounds like they’re just finishing up repairs on the Miletos Strait bridge. Ready to move in on Chalphy?

Seliph: Chalphy…. My father’s homeland….

Lewyn: So it is. I’m betting the citizens there will be even happier to see you than usual.  Let’s not make them wait any longer!

Seliph: Indeed! Everyone, move out! Onward, to Chalphy!  

(“We’re not forgetting anything, right? Eh, I’m sure Julia would remind us if we were.”)  

Well. There isn’t a whole lot of this chapter left, but it can take quite a bit of time to successfully pull off, so I do think I’ll stop here. See y’all next week when we head back home to Chalphy! The very first castle we ever had in the game, and now we get to go take it back from another blast to the past, good old Arvis! I sure did miss him.

But my aim is improving.  

See y’all next week!