#is there a disciple at all? the graphic tell me so only that the disciple and the person who I thought was him are apparently different peo

[castagneespade]

There's a person I follow which happen to be a SVSSS fan. I have never read it and I thought I had half an idea of what it was. I genuinely thought it was a teacher/disciple bl, up until this morning, when this person started to share a bunch of "SVSSS in context" content on their profile, and the more of those post they share the least I understand about the relationships and dynamics and things become a little bit more fucked up at every new half sentence.

[its-jaytothemee]

Until I Met You - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Familiar Faces

Pairings: Halsin x Tav

Word count: 5,514

Rating: Currently M, will be Explicit in later chapters.

Read on AO3

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Summary: Tav and the gang work to free up the tiefling prisoners from Moonrise. When they finally return to Last Light, someone new is there waiting. Part 27 of the slow burn fic. Tav and Halsin POVs.

Tags: Slow burn, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual love confessions, eventual smut, angst, implied past rape/non-con and abuse, graphic description of injuries, brief suicidal thoughts.

A/N: Bit of a longer chapter but it'll be worth it! So thankful for everyone who has continued reading and supporting <3

Tav wiped the sweat from her brow as she examined the small group of dead guards at their feet. The overwhelming odor of death and decay sat in a thick haze around them, stinging her eyes and nostrils. 

Karlach had immediately started a fight with the guards at the bottom of the stairs when a scrying eye startled her and she slammed it into the nearest wall.

“What’s the point of having a safe word if you’re going to dash ahead of us anyway, darling?” Astarion scolded Karlach in a low whisper as he wiped his daggers clean on one of the cultist’s robes.

“Sorry, there’s just something about the way those scrying eyes feel when I throw them against the wall. I got excited.” She yanked her sword out of the chest of the mage she had killed.

Tav kept a wary eye on the doorway in front of them. If any other guards had heard their little kerfuffle, they were being remarkably quiet about it.

“Let’s move the bodies out of view and keep moving.”

They were able to stash the bodies in a side room before moving into the main prison area. Blood and gods only know what else clung to every inch of the place. With each step, her boots stuck to the ground ever so slightly, making a light popping noise each time she picked up her foot. She took note of the two guards patrolling the large chamber containing a row of prison cells with a large central tower overlooking the room.

And another scrying eye.

“Chk. I do not like these humming purple orbs that seem to be prevalent among this cult,” Lae’zel hissed behind her. “I can feel their gaze following me no matter where I turn.”

“We’ll need to take care of both of them before we can get any prisoners out,” Tav whispered, “otherwise they’ll cry for reinforcements and then we’ll be well and truly fucked.” To her side, she saw Karlach’s hands twitch.

“Not yet, Karlach. We need to find the prisoners first,” She kept her voice low as they approached the cells.

To Tav’s relief, one of the first cells they passed held a few familiar faces. Multiple tieflings sat in the cell, two of them were leaning on the bars at the front.

No Zevlor or Mol though.

As they continued her stroll through the dungeon, she spotted another cell, filled with gnomes. She started to approach them, but one of the True Souls stopped her.

“You! True Soul! These prisoners are for Disciple Balthazar’s attention only.” She glared at their small adventuring party.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m a loyal assistant to him, isn’t it?” Tav snapped back. “He sent me back from the Thorm mausoleum to question these prisoners on his behalf. Shall I make the long trek all the way through the shadows to tell him why you stopped me from following his orders?”

“A-apologies, I wasn’t aware.” Tav’s sudden outburst seemed to startle the guard. “Please, carry on, and do pass on my apologies to Balthazar.” She gave a quick, nervous bow before hurrying away.

The True Soul continued her patrolling of the prison. Tav could feel the eyes of the prisoners on her as she studied the guard’s path, trying to make sure the mess from their previous encounter wasn’t discovered. Satisfied, she approached the cell holding the gnomes.

“I’m looking for someone named Wulbren,” Tav kept her voice soft, “is he still alive?”

“You bet your sorry ass I’m still alive, you cultist freak,” he shot back at her.

Tav smirked. “I’m not with the cult, someone named Barcus Wroot sent me to find you.”

“Barcus…” The suspicion in his eyes started to fade. “But you ordered that guard about as if you were the godsdamned Absolute herself. Why would a True Soul want to help us?”

“I’m not really a True Soul,” Tav looked around, keeping an eye out for the guards to return, “I’m here to get you–”

She was cut off by a guard returning.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his questioning eyes scanned their small group.

“I’ll handle this one.” Astarion took a few graceful strides up to the True Soul.

“Dreadfully sorry, these prisoners are being so stubborn. Nothing for you to worry yourself over, my brother under the Absolute.” He flashed a dazzling smile at the guard, Tav just groaned.

“Disciple Balthazar never gave orders for these prisoners to be questioned. They’re to be taken below once his research is completed.” He ignored Astarion’s reassurances with ease.

“Oh, fuck it,” Astarion rolled his eyes, “Karlach, darling?”

She perked up next to Tav, the temperature around them began to rise with the heat from her skin.

“I think this guard needs a healthy dose of whizbangs.”

“Fuck yes.” She grinned as she swung her sword up high over her head before bringing it down into the soft flesh where his neck met his shoulder. Just for good measure, Lae’zel drove her own sword into his abdomen.

He fell to the ground, the muscles on his face frozen in a look of shock. His blood seeped from the gaping wounds to add its crimson to the stained floor.

“And that’s how we handle that.” Karlach brushed her hands together and gave a proud nod.

An ear-piercing wail rang through the dungeon. 

Tav whipped around to see the other scrying eye had joined them. The reverberation from its cries bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the rooms.

The other guard on patrol whipped around to face them.

“Shit…Karlach, now would be a good time to crush that scrying eye against the wall before it calls this whole fucking tower down,” Tav growled as she launched an arrow into the shoulder of the advancing guard.

“Right!” She made a frantic lunge at the purple orb, but it swerved away at the last second, sending Karlach tumbling to the ground.

Lae’zel started making arcing swipes at the guard as they closed in, catching them in the side and slicing through their armor. Astarion finished them off with a frighteningly quick stab of a dagger in their throat.

Yet another scrying eye let out a blood-curdling screech.

“Anytime you’d like to take care of those scrying eyes, Karlach, it would be most appreciated!” Shadowheart bellowed as a bolt of radiant energy flew right past it.

“How many of these fuckers do they have?!” Tav yelled as she fired an arrow at one of them. It bounced off the orb without even leaving a scratch.

Gale spun around to focus his attention on the closest one. A loud crack of thunder sounded in the room, leaving a small crater where he had cast the spell, and a pile of dust that used to be a scrying eye.

“C’mere you little shit!” Karlach snarled as she chased down the other one.

Just the one scrying eye left, so far so–

“What in the nine hells is going on out here?!”

The fighting came to a screeching halt at the newcomer’s voice.

Another True Soul came marching out from the tower that stood tall in the middle of the room. Her ornate robes and intimidating presence made Tav guess that this was the Warden of the prison.

Tav stood poised with an arrow on her bowstring, Karlach next to her palming a scrying eye, arm cocked back and ready to throw it against the nearest wall.

They shared a brief look with one another before Tav shook off the shock of the new addition and fired an arrow into the Warden’s leg. She recoiled with a groan but kept her balance.

With her movement, the rest of her friends resumed their attacks.

Karlach turned and hurled the scrying eye into the Warden’s chest. The orb cracked against her breastplate before landing on the ground in fragmented chunks.

Thank the gods those are gone.

Gale’s and Wyll’s hands came alive with magic. Lines of fire and pure force shot from their fingertips at their new opponent.

The Warden had recovered from their initial attacks and aimed her crossbow at Karlach. The bolt soared through the air to hit her bicep, causing her grip to falter on her sword.

Astarion had dashed ahead of them, evading multiple shots from her crossbow before reaching her side and driving a dagger into her shoulder. She stumbled, but once again recovered quickly.

Karlach scrambled to pick her weapon off the floor. Blood poured from the wound in her arm in pulsing streams as she ripped the arrow out. Tav stashed her bow and ran to her side.

“Cover us!” she yelled at the others as she started a quick healing spell. It was enough to stop the bleeding, but not enough to close the wound all the way.

Astarion continued dancing around the Warden, slicing at her limbs and dodging attacks as they came.

Lae’zel charged in behind him, making the most of his distraction. The Warden was only able to get one more shot off before the greatsword pierced her throat, causing her to fall to the ground with a gurgling gasp.

“Fucking hells…” one of the tieflings yelled from their cell.

“Shadowheart! I need your help,” Tav called out. She came running over to Karlach and took over the healing. Between the two of them, they were able to get her wound mended.

“Ah, look at this,” Astarion flashed a small key ring in his fingers, “the perfect ingredients for a jailbreak.”

Tav walked up to the tieflings’ cell to get a better look at the people being held there. She counted only four prisoners.

“It’s you! You were the one who saved us at the grove!” one of the tieflings shouted from the back of the cell.

“Do you know where the rest of your kin are?” she asked, craning her neck to see around the corners.

“We’re the only ones here, friend.” The tiefling that spoke up was Lia, if she remembered correctly. She had convinced her and her two brothers to stay in the grove after the goblin attack.

“You haven’t seen Zevlor? Or Mol?”

“Mol wasn’t with us, and Zevlor can suffer below in every layer of the hells for all I care,” Lia snapped back.

Okay, we don’t have time to learn what that was all about right now.

“What about Arabella’s parents?”

“Komira and Locke? They weren’t captured with us, I saw them running away,” another tiefling answered.

This is all that’s left?

Tav shook the grief away, forcing herself to focus back on the task at hand.

“Okay, now in the nine hells are we going to get everyone out of here?” she asked, out of breath.

“I might just have a little solution to that problem,” Wulbren shouted from his cell down the way. Tav jogged over to speak with him.

“I need tools before I can do anything. If we can break through this wall, I’m almost certain there’s a dock nearby that we can use to escape. Should we be fortunate enough to find a boat, that is.”

“We’ll look around, if they confiscated your belongings, I’m sure they’re here somewhere. Sit tight.”

Tav scoured the central tower, grabbing anything useful. Gale seemed particularly enamored with an amulet they found. She snatched a few of the maps and letters scattered about, hoping they could provide some additional information about the cult’s plans. Multiple weapons and backpacks had been stored in a large chest labeled ‘Evidence,’ she assumed they belonged to the prisoners.

Satisfied with their looting, she led her companions back out to the row of prison cells.

“I assume this is yours?” Tav held up a small, well-crafted hammer in front of the gnomes’ cell.

“I’ll be damned, your feet fly fast, friend. This should have us out of here in no time.” He snagged the weapon from her hands. “If my assessments are correct, and they always are, there should be a dock somewhere behind this prison.”

“I’ll grab the tieflings and we’ll get out of here,” Karlach offered as she ran off with the Warden’s keys.

Wulbren started hammering away at the crumbling wall at the back of the cell. After a few minutes, they had created a hole large enough for everyone to crawl through.

With all prisoners accounted for and no further reinforcements rushing in to intercept them, Tav waved the rest of her party to follow them through the wall. Wulbren had been correct, there was indeed a small, secluded dock. A single boat bobbed on the water with metal chains anchoring it to the dock’s posts. She helped the gnomes and tieflings get situated as the others watched their backs for any additional guards.

“My plan is to hide out on the water for now, unless you have another solution you’d like to share?” Wulbren asked, out of breath.

“You won’t last long out there among the shadows. We’ll come with you, we know a safe haven. A place called Last Light Inn.” Tav motioned for everyone to get on the boat as she broke the chains holding it to the dock.

Their sail across the lake would have been silent if not for the sound of oars slapping against the dark water. Luckily, it wasn’t long before the shining moon shield came into view.

Tav pulled their boat close to the dock of Last Light. As the tieflings and gnomes unloaded, an agitated Harper came running down to greet them.

“Have you gone mad?!” He yelled as he panted to catch his breath. “You can’t just show up here and start unloading strangers, there are protocols damn it!”

“These people need sanctuary. I’m sure you can still go through your precious protocols on the dock. At least give them the dignity of standing on solid ground to do so.” Tav whipped around to glare at him.

“Fine, but no one goes inside until they pass the test. We can’t chance another infected infiltrating our ranks.” He gave Tav an apologetic look. “Erm, present company excluded I suppose.”

“What test? What is he talking about?” Wulbren stormed up next to Tav. The grim, weary expressions around her shifted to panic.

“He just wants to make sure you’re not infected. It’s safe and painless, I promise.”

“Okay everyone, line up against the wall there, we’ll have this over in no time.” The Harper pulled out a jar with an illithid parasite and began his tests.

Tav and her companions made their way back up to the inn. Everyone else went to mingle and trade while she reported to Jaheira.

The High Harper sat at the same table where they had their conversation the day prior. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she poured over the maps and books sprawled over the table’s surface. A glass of wine sat to the side, her fingertips idly strumming along the base, another glass sat across from her.

“So, what did you decide to slip into my glass today?”

“Nothing but the finest swill I could scrounge up from the basement,” she shot back without looking up from her book.

Tav couldn’t fight back the smile her quip drew forth.

No wonder Tev liked her so much.

“We made it into Moonrise.” Tav sat down with a grunt, just now realizing how badly her legs ached. “Ketheric was there to greet us. A goblin threw a halberd into his chest, and he plucked it out like it was a splinter.” She took a large swig of the wine in front of her. It was a bold and dry red with a slight spice that warmed her entire chest.

“A gruesome sight, no?” Jaheira looked up at her. “What have you learned?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. But we were able to keep our True Soul identity intact while we were there, at least for now.”

“You are afraid you will have that cover no longer?”

“Well, we did just free all of their prisoners from the dungeon,” Tav admitted. “They’re being tested down at the docks.”

“How many witnessed this?”

“We left no witnesses, but there were tthree scrying eyes. We took care of those too, but we still have no clue who is monitoring them,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Good girl.” Jaheira smiled at her. “Is there anything you learned that could help us?”

“Ketheric is calling himself a ‘Chosen of the Absolute’ now.”

“Our paladin is not picky it would seem,” Jaheira scoffed. “Another True Soul in this Absolute army?”

“That’s the thing,” Tav drummed her fingers along the surface of the table, “he wasn’t infected with a tadpole.”

She thought back to her attempt to penetrate his mind like she had done so many times before on other members of the cult.

“Are you sure?” Jaheira seemed surprised by this revelation.

“Certain. I tried to influence his mind using mine but there was no response.”

“So, he’s aligned himself with mind flayers willingly, abandoning Shar in the process? What does he stand to gain from this?” Jaheira’s mind was visibly racing as she considered this new information. “Was there anything else?”

“We were asked to check on one of Thorm’s trusted advisors. Apparently, they lost contact with him after they went to retrieve something from the mausoleum on his behalf.” Tav swung her bag around to grab the items she nabbed from the dungeon. “Also, we stole a few invasion maps and letters that I figured could be useful.” She added them to the small stack in front of Jaheira.

“I see you have not forgotten your training, little ranger. The tiefling prisoners have been released, and this advisor seems like a promising lead, the best one we have had in some time.” She paused to take a sip of her wine. “So why do you look so downtrodden?”

Tav pursed her lips. “There was still no sign of Zevlor or Mol, Arabella’s parents are still missing. We learned nothing of Duke Ravengard. And we still don’t know the source of Ketheric’s invulnerability.”

Jaheira looked around the inn, checking to see if anyone was within earshot.

“Tav’ahria, do not do this to yourself.”

“Do what?”

“Do not take on the weight of guilt that does not belong to you. We Harpers have more than enough to go around, those of us with longer lives have even more so.”

“I’m not a Harper anymore, Jaheira.”

She smirked. “If you say so.”

A commotion off to her side stopped her from responding. The Flaming Fists that had stayed behind when Counselor Florrick left for Baldur’s Gate were gathered in a nearby room.

“What’s happening over there?” She craned her neck to try and see past the small crowd.

“Supposedly they found someone out wandering in the shadows. They believe him to be one of their ranks.”

“Could this be another trick?” Tav’s mind wandered back to Marcus, the Fist that had attacked the inn on Ketheric’s orders.

“They tested him, he is not infected,” she assured her. “But he did seem rather nonsensical. Feel free to visit with him if you wish, you never know what could link back to this accursed cult.”

“Thank you, High Harper. We’ll keep you updated on our progress.” She took one more sip of her wine before standing up.

“You’ve done the people here a great service, Tav. Do not be so hard on yourself.” Jaheira’s words were more of a command than a suggestion.

“I’ll try.”

Tav wandered through the crowd, catching bits of information here and there.

“…lost his mind he has…”

“…Cullagh…Duke Eltan…”

Duke Eltan?

Grand Duke Eltan had been the duke and leader of the Flaming Fist while she still lived in Baldur’s Gate. But that was over one hundred years ago, he couldn’t still be alive.

As her mind began to race with questions, she tried to strain her ears to catch more of the conversations around her. At the edge of the room, a young man laid unconscious in a bed. He was singing.

“Mm, mm, Thaniel and me are…are climb, climbing up a tree.” His melodic mumbles were almost lost in the loud bustle of the room.

Did he say…Thaniel?

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!” Tav bellowed to stop the constant chatter around her. It at least seemed to startle everyone into silence, but she did receive some glares when they realized she wasn’t a ranking officer giving them orders.

She knelt next to the bed, listening intently to his song.

“Thaniel and me…climb, climb, climbing a tree.”

“Can you hear me? Did you say you know Thaniel?” Tav spoke in a low, hushed tone, not wanting to scare the man.

“We found him out in the shadows, just…wandering. Nothing survives out there for long, I don’t know how he made it here. We haven’t had any luck in waking him up.” Another Flaming Fist stood on the opposite side of the bed.

“I know that name he’s singing, Thaniel. I’ve heard it from a friend of mine.”

Halsin…

She snapped her attention back to the present. Regardless of her awkward encounter this morning, he would want to know that she had found something.

“You have? Do you think you could bring him here? Maybe he could help tell us what’s wrong,” the Fist asked, her voice hopeful.

Tav reached out to touch the man’s forehead. He had a thin layer of sweat and grime coating his skin, his dark, curly hair was a tangled mess. But there was an aura about him that she couldn’t quite place, something cold and dark. Whatever plagued him was no physical ailment.

Halsin seemed to think Thaniel had been imprisoned in the Shadowfell. If this man had met Thaniel, then he had likely been trapped there too.

“Yes, I’ll bring him back here. We’ll see what we can do to wake him up.” Tav stood up and looked the man over.

“Here, we found this on his person.” The Fist produced an envelope and handed it over to her.

“It looks like he was at the House of Healing.” She scanned the assignment letter in her hands, it was indeed signed by Grand Duke Eltan. The unconscious man’s name appeared to be Art Cullagh.

And it would seem he was here one hundred years ago when the shadows were unleashed.

“Tav! There you are.” Karlach came barreling through the room. “Some of the others already went back to camp. What’s all this?”

Tav couldn’t form the words. She could hardly believe it. She may have just found the solution to the shadows, to the curse.

“Come on, I’ll explain on the way. We need to get back to Halsin now.”

***

Halsin had begun to pace around the plot where he had set up his tent. Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion had returned an hour or so ago, but the others had not followed yet. Part of him worried that he had scared Tav off, that she was taking her time at Last Light to avoid him after this morning. Another bout of guilt ripped through him. In their short time together, he had come to cherish her company, her friendship.

What if she kept her distance from now on? What if she stopped seeking his company early in the morning before the others woke? What if he closed the door on them being something more in the future?

Another, much more bitter thought crossed his mind.

What if she no longer wants to help lift the curse?

He shook it away as quickly as it came. How could he even begin to think so little of her? She had proven her selflessness time and time again, she would not doom an entire land to eternal darkness over having her advances rejected.

As his pulse began to quicken with his rising anxiety, he heard voices approaching the camp. Tav jogged up to the campfire and started talking to the others who had returned earlier. Her hands gestured excitedly with a piece of parchment clutched in one of them. Astarion pointed back at Halsin and Tav’s head whipped around to where he paced in front of his tent.

The movement caused his breath to catch and his heart to skip a beat. Those pesky wisps of silver hair that had escaped her signature braid fluttered in the wind behind her like tiny ribbons as she trotted toward him. He fought the urge to open his arms to her, letting her run into them so he could hold her there for the rest of the night.

No, you’ve gotten her hopes high enough as is.

He waited patiently for her to approach him, his arms stiff at his sides as he forced his desires deep down once again.

“Halsin!” she yelled. She didn’t sound upset to his surprise – and relief.

“Hello, Tav.” He flexed his hands by his hips as they itched to rest on her arms.

She took a moment to catch her breath, bending over so she could rest her hands on her knees. Judging by the light gasping noises she was making, she had run all the way here from Last Light.

“Are you alright?” He started to reach out to her, but hesitated. “You’re absolutely covered in blood.” 

“Yeah, yeah it’s fine, it’s not mine.” She stood back up as she waved a dismissive hand, blowing the runaway hairs out of her face. “I had to run back here to tell you…I found something.”

Tav held out the piece of crumpled parchment in her hands. It looked to be a letter of some kind.

“Who is Art Cullagh?” Halsin’s confusion must have been plain on his face as his eyes scanned it.

“He’s a Flaming Fist currently in a magical sleep at Last Light. They found him out wandering the shadows. Halsin…” She paused to take another deep breath. “He keeps singing a nonsensical song that mentions Thaniel.”

He snapped his attention back to her.

“What did you say?”

“He keeps muttering something about him in his sleep. He’s completely delirious, but he definitely said ‘Thaniel.’ I can’t say for sure, but I think he’s been trapped in the Shadowfell.”

Halsin stood with his mouth agape. She did it, she actually did it. Unable to help himself, he closed the gap between them and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“You’re sure? You heard him say this yourself?”

“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “The other Flaming Fists are watching over him at Last Light.”

“Then I must speak with him.” Hope swelled within him. It took all his willpower not to give her a back-breaking hug.

“Nonsensical or not, he knows something. I need to leave at once, you should join me when you can.” He tried to turn and walk away, but Tav caught his arm.

“We’ll go with you. I’m as curious as you are to see what he has to say.”

“Surely you’re all exhausted after today.” Her offer caught him off guard, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t want her to accompany him.

“I’m sure we can catch our breath there for a bit if needed. Besides, I’m not letting you go wandering off in the shadows alone. We don’t need to take everyone, just a few so we can get there safely.”

“That’s…that’s very kind of you, thank you.”

“Of course. And um…” she started tugging on her braid, “about this morning…”

“Tav, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He felt the familiar stab of shame in his gut as he spoke.

“It’s okay, I uh, I just wanted to say that I hope I didn’t ruin our friendship. I’ve come to enjoy your company a great deal, and I’d hate to think I did something to damage it.” She cleared her throat as she finished speaking. The faintest hint of tears shone in the corners of her eyes.

“Of course not.” His hands made their way back to grip her shoulders. “I already consider you a very dear friend and as long as you’ll have me, I’ll remain that friend to you as well.”

She nodded as she let out a long sigh.

“Let me gather some of my things, then we can leave. Oak Father willing, we could see these shadows banished soon, my friend.” He squeezed her shoulders before letting his hands drop to his side again.

When he looked up at the others, Karlach stood with her arms crossed, glaring at him. He assumed she knew of their conversation that morning.

Tav waited outside of his tent for him before leading him back to the others. Gale, Astarion, and Karlach agreed to accompany them back to Last Light. He felt a bit silly traveling such a short distance with a convoy, but it obviously made Tav feel better, so he wouldn’t complain.

“Ready?” She turned to face him with a smile.

“After you.” He placed a hand on her shoulder but heard a small huff from Karlach.

His first lead in one hundred years. Not just a distant echo or whisper, but a living witness. Someone else who had met Thaniel.

He recited the ritual in his mind once more. The words he had kept close to his heart for decades. They caused him to bristle with anticipation as they started the short walk to Last Light Inn. A grin came over his face as he followed Tav out of camp.

Her ivory braid swayed from side to side as she set a brisk pace in front of him. The mesmerizing movement calmed his anxiety and reminded him how close he was to seeing Thaniel again, how close he was to fulfilling his promise.

How close he was to being free from his duty.

***

During their short time among the shadow curse, Tav and her companions had already become accustomed to tense walks in the dark woods. She would have thought by now that they would be used to wraiths and shadows jumping out of every corner, but it still caught them off guard more often than not.

“I do appreciate the escort, my friend, but it really was unnecessary. It’s quite a short walk and I know these woods well, even in this darkness.” Halsin was walking next to her, the two of them just a few steps in front of their other companions.

“Oh, please. How would you react if I said I was going for a walk, alone, in the woods while we’re here?” She rolled her eyes.

“Fair enough. I would highly advise against such an action,” he chuckled and bumped his shoulder into hers.

Right on cue, Tav heard a rustling in the bushes ahead of them. She drew her bow, signaling everyone else to stop.

Here we go again.

Crouched low, she started creeping forward. Once she was close enough, she realized that it was just a light breeze blowing through the leaves. She let out a relieved sigh as she stood back up. Little tendrils of shadow swirled around her ankles, taunting her.

“You seem a little tense, Tav. Is everything okay?” Halsin stepped up behind her.

“Of course. This whole place just sets my nerves on–” She was cut off midsentence by several shadows and shadow cursed corpses approaching their position from behind.

“Fucking hells! Can we not go on one godsdamned walk without these unnatural fucks bothering us?!” she yelled as she fired an arrow through one of the shadows.

“Remind me why we left our cleric in camp again? We could use a bit of radiant light right about now,” Astarion snarled as he barely dodged a swipe from the massive wraith that had appeared.

“Because we thought we were just going for a pleasant stroll through the woods!” Tav conjured a large circle of thorny vines on the ground, trying to deter the shadows from advancing.

“It’s never that simple though, is it darling?” Astarion drove a dagger into the neck of one of the animated corpses.

Halsin had wild shaped into a bear and was taking furious swipes with his paws between the enemies. As the corpses made their way through the vines, she saw that it was another group of cursed Harpers. Seeing so many of them constantly reminded her of–

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the Harpers grabbed hold of her arm. She spun around and yanked it away. Once free, she kicked the corpse’s legs, knocking it to the ground. Tav grabbed her sword from her belt and moved to drive it into the Harper’s chest. But as soon as she saw the face, she froze.

The eyes were twisted beyond recognition, a mix of churning necrotic energy and shadows. His skin was a sickly color, the face cracked and lined with dark magic, warped by a century in darkness. But the hair…the hair may have been matted and dirty, but the unmistakable white curls fell in a familiar pattern over his face.

“Tev’aron?” she whispered.

[panthera-dei]

Trigger/content warning: mentions of suicide & self-harm; mentions of generational trauma; mentions of mental & physical illness

This is long. TL;DR: Never give up, never surrender. This is my story.

"I'm participating in a Discord photo challenge right now. Actually, it was my idea to start the competition in the first place, when I saw the original challenge graphic posted on the Rethink Church page on Instagram.

I tend to be an overthinker and a planner, at least to a degree, so early on I brainstormed what I would share for each day. Today's prompt was Disciple. I planned to share a picture of a book I had read about the prophet Elijah and his struggles with depression. To tell the truth, I've been half-assing this challenge and all my friends know it, since I questioned the ethics of participation as the host. So I probably wasn't even going to post a caption.

Then tonight, I suddenly felt the need to share a little more. I don't particularly want to. I'm anxious and worried about being judged. I feel like I'm attention-seeking or being too vulnerable. But I also think if more people shared their stories, their real stories, maybe the world would be a kinder place. So I guess here I go.

Three years ago, I wanted to take my own life. Or at the very least, I wanted it to end somehow. I had suffered relatively minor bouts of depression before, and since. But three years ago, I was at my lowest.

I was living through a pandemic with 2 family members with contamination OCD: 1 moderate, and 1 extreme. I believed myself ineffective at my career, with anxiety over working in a new job and with imposter syndrome over the things I did right. I was suffering from menorrhagia which caused some pretty severe bleeding, and it was brought on by PCOS, which is a chronic endocrine condition that affects almost every part of my life. I was struggling with being neurodivergent, and with the fact that no one in my family believed I was struggling. I was struggling with being queer and non-binary in the rural Bible Belted South, and wondering how a place I love so much could fail to love me back. I struggled with being asexual amid fears of never finding someone to share my life with. I struggled with being called - truly called - to what most people today would call paganism and witchcraft (which are terms that I mainly use out of convenience if I'm being honest). And I was resentful of being the eldest daughter and oldest sibling, and thus being not only my brother's keeper but also bearing the burden of my family's intergenerational trauma on all sides.

It wasn't fair and I knew it, and I didn't see a way out of it. I resented my suffering, both real and perceived. I felt hatred and shame at myself for having a mind and a body that did not work and would never be "normal." I hated feeling weak and felt the hopelessness of knowing that I would never be strong - and at the same time, I hated the fact that I had to be strong because weakness was a privilege I couldn't afford. I hated feeling masculine because I believed that it was wrong and I hated being in the wrong body, and yet I also hated feeling feminine because it felt too much like being weak and soft and exploitable.

And I never shared most of this with anyone. I hid as much of it as possible from as many people as I could, for as long as I could. I didn't believe that I deserved help and I didn't believe that I even wanted it since I was only planning to be alive for maybe 5 more years tops.

And throughout it all, I was so angry. I always get angry when I'm depressed, but for the first time in my life, I was angry at God.

I've been a Christian my entire life. Not a cultural Christian, but someone who truly believes what Jesus preached and tries - and usually fails - to walk the way He walked. I grew up with a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. I bounced between a Catholic church and a Methodist church for the first decade of my life. I remember (vaguely) my first Communion. I remember early Easters. I remember the first time I felt the Holy Spirit. I remember the first time I realized a prayer had been answered. And I still remember a "conversion experience" moment which I, to this day, have never spoken of to anyone and probably never will. My faith had been questioned, researched, studied, defended, and explored… But until the year 2020, it had never been tested.

That year, I was so angry with God. I began to relate, for the first time, to Bono's words: "Wake up, dead man, I'm alone in the world, and a fucked up world it is too."

I would cry to God in the middle of the night knowing that no one would hear me. I would ask Him why He made me so broken with no hope of being fixed. I would ask Him why I had to go through so much despite knowing that many others suffered more than I did. I asked Him why He made me so unlovable when all I craved was to be loved. I would beg Him for healing, for mercy, for love, for forgiveness, for death. Throughout it all, it seemed that I never received an answer except "Wait." And I got so tired of waiting.

I didn't want to wait. I wanted to die. I wanted to, in my words, "go home."

Well, obviously I didn't die. I haven't yet "gone home." I waited. Not patiently and not happily. But I waited.

And little by little, I received some answers. I didn't get them all at once, and there are some answers that I haven't received even now. But I'm starting to see why I am who I am and why things unfolded the way they have.

My mother has always told me the story of Queen Esther. It was one of my favorites since childhood, and one quote has become a shorthand for the two of us: "For such a time as this."

Whenever life gets hard or a difficult circumstance comes, she would always say that. No matter how hard it gets, there's a purpose in everything, and maybe you were meant to be here to help… For such a time as this.

Three years later, I understand. There are queer children who are coming out to me and asking me to be a safe space for them when no one else knows. There are depressed children and children with trauma who come to me for help and advice because they trust me to help them. There are neurodivergent kids who are struggling and don't have anyone else who understands their unique needs and mindsets. And I do. I have friends who need help and mentorship, and other wonderful people in my life and online who sometimes look to me for support. And I can do that because of what I learned from my own journey of struggle and recovery. I've learned how to be a beacon for Christians and pagans and everything in between, because my struggles have made me open-minded and empathetic.

I've learned how to appreciate and respect my body and my mind, and to remember that while I'm not perfect, I am in fact wonderfully made and God did not make a mistake with my soft, curvy, ungraceful body or my unique, quirky mind.

I've found love and friendship in the most unexpected places. From humans, animals, plants, and beyond. I appreciate the beauty of each day - even the hard ones - more than I ever would have before I forgot how nice it is to really exist and be alive.

And all I can say is, if I had ended my life three years ago, or two years ago, or one, I would have missed out on all of this. I would have missed love and plants and pet fish and sunsets. I would have missed snails and snakes and the Beach Boys and new coworkers and new friends and old friends. I would have missed cards and shopping trips and dogs and video games and the random offers to buy my car.

And I would have missed out on helping people and loving people.

I was angry at God only because I didn't understand what God knew all along: that I was born "for such a time as this." I came out of those fights with depression stronger than before, and with the ability to let myself be soft. I let myself be open and flawed and real - or at least I try to. And while my faith was tested, it's never been broken. I still love God. I still follow Christ. I still walk with the Holy Spirit. And I still proclaim the Good News.

I am a disciple."

[ramblingmoon]

@masked-and-doomed

I'm taking this as promision to go on a long winded rant about these games.

KOTOR is the best form of Star Wars media out there. Objectively this is not an opinion it is a cold stone fact. Letting the character choose between the Light Side with a smexy ass character or Dark Side with a smexy ass character but with Halloween makeup on.

KOTOR 1 is more straightforward with the story with clear, a plot twist that doesn't take 5 years to understand, and a lesbian lover cat girl!

No, I shit you not. For a game that came out in 2003 it was pretty ballzy to have something ✨gay✨

Like I need you to imagine you are me. You're like 12 or 13 at the time. You have spent months trying to beat this game cuz you a noob. You want to romance the hot republic soldier that lost his wife in his arms. You think you are straight. You are at the end of the game at a fucking beach world and this

Tells you she loves you and you ain't even that mad but very confused.

MC: as a friend?

Cat Girl: 🍑

Like damn, I didn't know about gay people at that time as I was a homeschooled Catholic. A girl and another girl... Wut?!? Amazing, iconic, did make me question myself and realize the power of the pussy.

But this wasn't a rant about kitty cat girl but the KOTOR 2.

So KOTOR 1 was a massive success so much so that they rushed the sequel out in less than a year which was widely considered not a bop. Personally I love the second one way more as it improves the fighting, raised the level cap from 20 to 50, and delt with more abstract storytelling. Also way less running backwards and forwards through empty voids of nothingness. This is why Jedi speed is the most important spell in forever I don't care what that one modder said you can pry it from my cold dead hands but a Sith never died so suck my

Beep

Yes these games you can be idioticly good or cartoonly evil. In the first game you have to be careful to pick to what side you want doing every damn side quests so you can get max points. But in 2 you can call the Jedi council a bunch of dumb fucks that wouldn't know their heads from some shit on the floor even if it bit them on the appendix and still get a shower of light goodness.

Light Side, Dark Side is for noobs the only true way to play is Gray Side because YOU GEat THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! Heal your party in one hand and and lighting your enemies in the other. Suck my dick monsters there is a new daddy sheriff in town.

There is a lot of choices you can make. Like one you can host a reunion party with all your old besties or murder them for being fake friends.

Also Disciple and Atton whom are the two biggest simps for the woman exile that I have ever sign. You could literally set on this horny dogs and they would thank you which is why Bao-dur would have been a romantic option.

There is so much missing shit from this games. Like image Fear and Hunger 2 but now imagine it without the orphanage that's about the same level we are talking about here.

There is some bad shit in those games that even my inch thick nostalgic glasses can't cover up.

One of these characters is 14 years old.

There is the child model or hour glass model that would make the winks club cry with them curves.

The best this about these games is that it makes you question what is really good and your actions have consequences. And it was definitely very influential on me.

I'd love see these games remade with better graphics, complete content, and more time with companies and interactions between them.

Also heard the lady that made the new Star wars TV wanted to make the games into a show and considering she had the balls to talk about Jedi police brutality she has my vote of confidence. Although I do refuse to watch her show because I refuse to give Disney anymore money. It's fucking weird how they want to own my whole childhood.

Also dilfs

Now you know everything about KOTOR, you're welcome

Look y'all I need to warn you.

I'm replaying KOTOR 2 and my life has become this game.

Just fyi you will be seeing a lot more post about this old ass game

[blossom-hwa]

Time and Time Again - CHANGBIN

I cannot believe this is finished??? I feel like I say this every time but genuinely I didn’t think this would get done until maybe bin’s birthday in August but I somehow finished it the second day of January?? Anyway, I really loved this (the concept LITERALLY came to me in a dream), and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it :)

(The idea that prompted this response to a @quillstarters​ challenge is the same one that inspired this story :D)

Pairing: Changbin x gender neutral!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, reincarnation!au, soulmate!au

Triggers: death, mentions of suicide, blood (nothing graphic)

Word Count: 10.8k

A vengeful god curses one hundred lifetimes of your love.

SKZ Masterlist

In your first life, the life that starts it all, your mother knows magic.

She’s a healer, one whose patients come from all walks of life, all over the world. From that first lifetime, you remember the heavy, comforting smell of dried herbs, the softness of her hair tickling your face, the shimmers of magic emanating from her practiced fingers into bubbling pots.

You sort of remember a father, hazy memories of a smiling man who wasn’t home very often but when he was, liked to pick you up and swing you around the room. He isn’t around by the time you’re six, maybe seven, though.

You know not to ask about it. The first time you did, your mother’s face just turned sad, an awful sort of sad that looked more like regret and repentance and anger and desolation. It takes a few more slip ups, but eventually you learn to ignore your curiosities. For though your mother never outright dismisses them, they upset her, and you never get a straight response.

Until the god arrives.

They appear in a shower of blinding light. Cold, white sparks burst into brilliant rainbows that fade in the air. You watch, mesmerized, even as your mother drags you away.

The god is beautiful. Fine, androgynous features, red eyes as soulful as song, lush locks of hair that tumble around their shoulders. But it is the severity in their face, as well as the bloodred bow and the bone-tipped arrow nocked in their hands that tell you who they are.

“You hid yourself well, disciple of Hekate.” Cupid’s beautiful lips curl in a mocking smile that doesn’t even attempt to disguise the anger in their eyes. “Eight years. I applaud you.”

Three slow, ominous claps echo loudly in the room.

You look up at your mother, heart about to leap out of your chest. Her face has gone pale, devoid of color. It only scares you more.

Cupid’s eyes flicker to you, clutching your mother’s skirts like a toddler. They freeze you in place. “So she never told you.”

Told me what?

“You never wondered where your father was, child?”

All the breath stops in your throat.

My father?

The god shakes his head disapprovingly. “It’s the least you could have done, sorceress.”

“What would you have me do?” Your mother’s voice brims with desperation and anger – though aimed at whom, you aren’t sure. “How could a child ever understand?”

“You should never have made the mistake in the first place.”

Understood what? Your eyes flit between the god and your mother. “Mother?” you whisper, tugging at her sleeve. “Mother, what do they mean?”

The story spills out in broken fragments. Your father had a liaison with your mother and she found she was pregnant with you. She loved him, but he didn’t want to stay. So she dabbled in forbidden magic. Gave a love potion to a man who did not care for her.

You were born. He realized, eventually, what she had done. Then he left, leaving you without a father.

You can’t even try to speak when the story is over. It feels as though you can’t breathe, can’t feel, can’t see anything beyond the god’s blood red eyes. Fingers cling to your mother’s skirts numbly as you attempt to process the flow of words that just passed through your ears.

Dimly, you register your mother pulling free from your hands to kneel on the floor. “Do with me as you see fit,” she whispers.

“With you?” Cupid laughs. The sound tears at the silence in the room. “What use would that be? No, I think your child will pay for your crimes.” They pin you under their gaze. “Yes, I see many lifetimes of pain in these eyes that would suffice.”

You don’t understand. You can’t understand. What does the god want with you? What have you done to anger them? It was your mother who committed the error, not you. Why must you pay for it? Your heart pounds faster and faster as their eyes refuse to waver.

“Yes.” They nod, finally satisfied. “A heart broken one hundred times will pay for your crime.” Cupid lifts their bow and arrow, aiming at your heart.

Your mother’s head snaps up. “You would condemn my child’s love to centuries of turmoil?” Her voice shakes with barely controlled anger. “You would punish my child for my mistakes? Take me instead!”

Cupid’s cruel eyes flicker between you and her. “Love is hardly fair, as you should well know,” they snarl. “By meddling in my affairs, you have secured your child’s fate.”

Their gaze fixes on you with the intensity of a thousand suns. You shrink under their glare, even as their eyes gain some semblance of softness. For a moment, it seems as though the god will take pity on you.

Then the arrow sinks into your chest, exploding into a shower of the god’s cold sparks. No blood flows but your chest throbs.

Through a dim haze of pain, as though they speak through water, you hear the god speak their final words.

“A hundred lifetimes will pass before I will allow your love to rest.”

. . . . .

It takes years, really, for the information to sink in. You don’t fault your mother entirely for her actions – raising a child alone is hard, you come to know as you grow older. But at the same time, you can’t find respect for a man who would abandon a woman he had a relationship with over the birth of a child. You can’t understand why your mother would love such a person, can’t quite understand love in general. You know you love your mother, of course, but what does such an emotion really mean?

You learn the meaning at age twenty in your first life when you meet Seo Changbin.

Your mother rushes into the house that day, almost collapsing under his unconscious weight. You immediately zero in on the huge gash on his leg that’s still leaking blood, despite the makeshift bandage, and start pulling down the necessary salves and potions.

He doesn’t wake up for a week. Other patients filter in and out of the little hut as the days go by and you dutifully do your best to treat them all, gently treating scrapes and brewing tonics. There’s something about the man lying unconscious and feverish at the back of the hut, though, that draws you in like a moth to a flame. Day by day, you sit by him when you can, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with cool cloths, forcing brews down his throat and dabbing creams onto his leg to fight the infection.

He doesn’t look like one of the gentlemen that sometimes come to town. He doesn’t seem like he has the stately grace of Hwang Hyunjin, the lord’s heir, nor does he exude the cold elegance of Choi Chanhee, the magistrate’s son.

So this man is probably a commoner, if your deductions are correct. But you know almost everyone in the village – they’ve all come to the healer’s hut at some point and met you – and this boy’s face is new. You don’t recognize him, not at all.

You wake up to a soft crash in the middle of the night, then the sound of a loud curse. For a moment, you lie back down on your pillow. Probably Mother.

Then you sit bolt upright. That was a man’s voice. Not your mother’s.

Thieves?

Then you realize.

He’s woken up!

Large, terrified eyes glow in the flickering light of your candle when you enter the healing ward, carefully holding your hands in a purposeful gesture of surrender. “Hello,” you say, trying not to fixate on the beauty of the boy’s eyes. “My name is Y/N. My mother found you in the forest with an infected wound and brought you to our home for treatment.”

He glares at you, still distrustful, but speaks. “How long have I been here?”

“Almost a week.”

The boy visibly tenses. “One week?”

“Yes.” You step forward. “And I would advise you not to leave for at least another two, given the condition of your leg. Wherever you’re going, if you go now, the infection will kill you before you get far.”

“How long will I have?” he asks.

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you suicidal?”

For several tense seconds, you stare at each other, neither backing down. Finally, the boy lowers his gaze. “Fine,” he says, the fight leaving his voice. He smiles a little, apologetically. “I’ll stay. Thank you for treating me.”

“You’re welcome.” You help him back onto the cot. “Now try to sleep. I’ll come back to check on you in the morning.”

Just before you fall asleep, you think of large, brown eyes and petulant lips. For some reason, they make you smile.

. . .

His name is Changbin, you come to learn after several days of pained grunts, spilled salve, and muted conversation. He won’t tell you where he comes from, but a name is far better than nothing. At least you have confirmation that he isn’t a local, and he smiles too much for you to suspect him as a murderer.

That would be unpleasant.

And Changbin is the opposite of unpleasant. He has this smile, a smile that no matter how small, is bright enough to light up the room. He’s so smart when it comes to life but he’s also a little dumb, really, telling bad jokes that make you roll your eyes but laugh anyway. He snorts when you tell your own stupid stories and insulting jokes and as a result, you think of more and more for him, more tall tales and bad puns just so you can hear that beautiful laugh that sounds like a cross between wedding bells and a pig’s snort.

He stays for your recommended two weeks, then another, and another. Your mother doesn’t mind, only smiles at him like he was her own son. Changbin isn’t useless, after all – he helps you tend to the herb garden, chops wood for the fire, and is receptive to the eventual lessons you give him on the basics of healing.

(And if you stare at his muscles when he lifts heavy pots over the fire, what of it?)

The boy your mother found so many weeks ago in the woods lights up your life in a way you’ve never experienced before. Even though it makes you feel guilty, sometimes you’re glad that Changbin injured himself in the forest. Otherwise, you might never have met the boy who sits with you shoulder to shoulder on the bank of the river that runs through the woods, laughs ringing through the trees.

“Y/N,” he says on one of those quiet days by the river. When you look up from your feet dangling feet in the swift current and when you look up, you find Changbin staring at you with something so soft, so deep in his gaze that you can’t decipher it.

(It makes your heart thump.)

“Hm?” You pull your feet out of the water, feeling almost shy as you meet his eyes.

“Have you ever been kissed?”

When Changbin kisses you that afternoon under a green canopy of leaves, golden light showering his dark hair and tanned skin, you can’t think. There are no thoughts of anything in your head (and certainly none of Cupid’s curse) except the euphoria of his lips against yours. With his mouth pressed softly to yours, you feel like you’re flying, drifting on the breeze without a care in the world. It’s bliss, pure bliss.

Your mother knows when you walk back into the hut, suppressing an uncontrollable smile. Her gaze remains carefully neutral for the rest of the day, but when Changbin has gone outside to chop wood, she speaks. “You know about the curse.”

Dread mixes with the bliss in your heart. Your head hangs over the herbs you’re grinding. “Yes, Mother.”

“Darling, look at me.” She turns you around, and you see the tears building in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

There’s bitterness in your chest and mouth, tingeing the tip of your tongue, but this is your mother, the woman who bore you and cared for you alone for so much of your life. Though angry words rise in your throat, they never make it past your lips.

“It’s okay, Mother.” You brush the tears away, valiantly holding your own back. “I can’t blame you for a mistake you made in the name of love.” Blind, blind hope rises in your chest. “Maybe the god forgot. Maybe they will have mercy.”

Your mother just looks at you with dreadful eyes, eyes haunted by the knowledge that your words will prove false. But Changbin’s already coming back inside and the fluttering happiness in your heart from seeing him expels all negative thoughts from your mind.

One year passes in domestic bliss. Your mother never brings up the curse again, and you push any thought of it to the back of your mind. Changbin’s kisses do much to dispel any worries of yours, anyway.

Late one night, curled in a blanket next to the fire, Changbin tells you the reason he came. “I left because of a family dispute,” he says, almost ashamedly, staring into the flickering flames. “I had a falling out with my father, and he told me to leave. Even though I knew he really didn’t mean it, even though my mother pleaded with me to stay, I… I left anyway.”

You hold him closer under the blanket, comforting him with your warmth. In the light of the fire, his eyes look ghostly against the dark.

“I’m telling you this now because I want to go back.”

Your heart freezes.

Back? He wants to go back to his village, go back home… and leave you behind?

But Changbin’s smiling now, slightly. It settles your heart a little – he couldn’t speak of leaving you forever and smile in the same sentence, could he? You look at him, eyes pleading with him to continue.

“I want to go back to apologize,” he says, squeezing your hand. “I want to go back to make amends. But I’ll come back to the home I have here.”

“Can I come with you?” you can’t help but ask, even though you’re sure you know the answer.

He shakes his head, and your heart sinks. “No, I think this is something I have to do myself. But I won’t stay, I promise you that. I’ll come back home.”

“Promise?” you ask, voice barely a whisper over the crackling flames. Your fingers clutch his desperately. He has to come back, or you’ll go with him.

“I promise.” He lifts a thin silver chain from his neck, a necklace he’s never taken off since he arrived, and loops it around your throat. “That’s my promise, all right? I’m leaving this with you because I know I’ll return. And when I do…” He sweeps one of your hands out of the blanket and places a gentle kiss on it. “I’m going to marry you.” A note of uncertainty enters his gaze. “Unless you… uh, unless you don’t want to?”

You tug your hand out of his and punch him in the arm. “Are you stupid, Seo Changbin?” you ask over his yelps of mock pain. Eyes turning shy, you smile. “Of course I do.”

Your heart explodes in bliss when he kisses you, the fire’s warmth dancing on his lips.

. . .

“No more than two months,” he promises you the day he leaves. “I’ll come home.”

He keeps looking back and you keep waving as he starts out into the forest, green leaves beginning to shroud his path. The last you see of him is his bright smile as he disappears between the trees, the gentle pressure of his lips still a memory against yours.

One month passes, then two. You wait outside the hut eagerly every day, waiting for a sign of his returns.

Then another month goes by. And another. Winter settles in, heavy snow coating the forest in cold, white blankets.

“Perhaps he was held up,” your mother says, guiding your shivering body back inside the house. “He couldn’t travel in the winter, so he’s probably staying somewhere for the time being.”

You want to believe her. You really do, with all your heart and soul. But Cupid’s curse remains in the back of your mind, twisting and turning in its depths, whispering to you that Changbin is gone, that he will never return.

Winter has passed and a month of spring gone by before you decide to find Changbin’s family yourself. It takes several months because really, you don’t have any guide other than the name of his old village, but eventually, exhausted and almost losing hope, you find them.

A stooped woman answers the door with a confused smile on her lips. “Hello.”

“Um, hello.” You swallow. “Is this the Seo residence?”

“Yes, can I help you with anything?”

You pull the necklace from under the collar of your shirt. “Did Changbin come visit some months ago?”

For a single moment charged with hope, you see the widening of the woman’s eyes and believe that she will say yes, that Changbin came and is just having a hard time returning.

Then she shakes her head, and the world begins to crumble at the edges.

. . .

You stay just long enough to tell Changbin’s family who you are and what he set out to do, then flee back home as fast as you can. Tears stain the forest floor and when your mother opens the door to the hut so many months later, it only takes one look for her to fold you into her arms as you begin to cry on her shoulder.

He could be alive, you desperately hope. He could be somewhere, lost, unable to find his way back home. You know your Changbin would never break a promise to you, not if he could help it.

One year. Two years. Then three. The months pass with no sign of his return.

And you know, dead or not, he isn’t coming back.

It hurts. Everything reminds you of him, of Changbin, of what could have been and what should have been. You curse Cupid, cry for the god to come down so you can scream obscenities at them face to face, but they never answer your pleas.

The silver chain Changbin left you burns around your neck, but you can’t bring yourself to take it off. It’s the last thing you have of him, the only thing you have of him. You clutch it on your worst days, imprinting the tiny chain links into your palm when you fall sick, wasting away without a desire to live.

This is what it feels like, you think, delirious with fever, to have lost your entire world.

Your crying mother stays by your side as you wither, sponging your forehead, feeding you soup, whispering apologies into the blankets she covers you with. In moments of lucidity, you clutch her hand and tell her it’s not her fault. That you understand, now, what it means to love someone with the force of the universe.

Weeks pass in a feverish daze until winter seizes control of the earth. Numb with cold and sweating with warmth, you pray to the heavens above to release you from this pain.

The day you drift away is bitterly cold. You’re wrapped in at least five blankets, your mother shivering beside you as she grips your hands, trying desperately to warm them.

There is one brief moment of absolute clarity. You sit up, eyes wide, and cup your mother’s cheeks between cold, cold hands. “I love you, Mother.”

She kisses your forehead. “I love you too, my darling child.”

Her tears drip onto your cheeks. You don’t remember anything more.

In your first life, in the dead of winter, you die of a broken heart.

. . . . .

Your second life begins in a poor family, though happy. Sixteen years of life pass in ignorant bliss, with no knowledge of soulmates or vengeful gods. A week after your birthday, hope filling every step, you set off for the nearby village to try your skills at sewing. Luck paves your path and you find a kind mistress who values your quick fingers and eye for color. The village is bright and cheerful, you’re making money to send back to your family, and life is peaceful.

Then the dreams come.

The first vision is barely there, just a quick glimpse of green trees and a disappearing smile wedged between the scenes of your mind’s musings. You wake up, an uneasy feeling in your chest, but the image is already fading. You shake the discomfort away and get to work.

The second dream is longer, more vivid. You hear a voice, feel a gentle touch, see a mop of dark hair and a pair of gleaming eyes. In the moment, you feel happy, so happy in a way you’ve never felt before. It’s pure, this happiness, something so deep that your entire body feels warm when you wake, even as a chilling breeze seeps in through a crack in the window.

The dreams continue for several days, and each morning, you only grow more curious about the strange man who keeps wandering into your mind. Who is this man? you wonder as you sew, poking your fingers with the needle more times than you’d like to admit. Who is he, and why does he make me so happy?

Why does it feel like I should know him?

After a week of lovely, warm, but deeply unsettling dreams, it hits you all at once.

Needle in hand, you’re about to push the sliver of metal through a silk shirt, ready to begin embroidering the next leaf on a flowering vine. Taking a second glance at the embroidery you’ve already done, you blink in confusion.

This kind of vine doesn’t exist in your little village. In fact, you’ve never seen it before. But each leaf, each flower is so perfectly stitched that it doesn’t seem possible that you just made this up on the spot.

Oh.

Green leaves, sturdy trunks, water rushing down a river. Firm muscle, a flowering vine curled into a crown, fingers placing the circlet upon your head. A brilliant smile, bright as the sun, and a peal of snorting laughter that sounds like wedding bells.

One name hurtles through your mind, the name of the dark-haired, lovely-eyed boy who, by now, is a frequent visitor in your dreams.

Seo Changbin.

The needle embeds itself in your palm.

. . .

It’s hard to explain away your frazzled state when your mistress comes into the room to see you staring at the embroidered silk, palm dripping blood onto your clothes. Voice trembling only slightly (and you’re proud of yourself for that), you tell her that you just made a mistake, really.

Never mind the fact that the needle stuck itself far enough into your hand that you really have to pull it out, releasing a small spurt of blood that raises your mistress’s eyebrows so far they look like they’re about to jump off her forehead.

Shakily, you get back to work. Years of practice have steadied your fingers so that the stitches remain even, but as you sew, your mind races with memories. Memories of a trembling mother, a red-eyed god, a gaping leg wound festering on an apothecary table. Memories of boys you’ve never met in this life, a Hwang Hyunjin and a Choi Chanhee, but most importantly, a strong young man with sweet lips and a raspy, whining voice named Seo Changbin.

“Seo Changbin,” you murmur, testing the words between your lips. Just saying his name sends a rush of warmth through your chest and brings a small smile to your face.

The smile disappears, though, when you remember how the story ends.

Night brings dreams again, full, vivid scenes that begin with joy and happiness and warmth. You see your mother from another life, smell the comforting scent of herbs wafting through the air in the hut. You see your love, Changbin, feel his arms wrapped around your body, see the flush in his cheeks when you press your lips to his in a kiss.

The day he leaves is vivid, too. Sharp greens against a bright blue sky devoid of clouds, his smile disappearing into the forest as he begins his journey home.

A journey that you know he will never finish.

You know what will happen next and you don’t want to see it. You beg yourself to wake up, to stop these visions before your heart breaks, but sleep pins down your limbs and forces you to watch, to experience, to live the turmoil of emotions that flooded your heart those last few years of your life.

The next morning, you look so ill that your mistress forces you to take the day off, despite your pleas that you can work, you really can. The last thing you need is more sleep, after all, more time for vengeful gods to replay past lives for their leisure.

So after sixteen years of blissful ignorance, you know. You know of your love, you know of the curse, you know of the life that began it all. Sick emotions mix in your heart, syrupy and viscous and heavy, hope for a love as deep as your life before and terror for the heartbreak that will inevitably come.

And this time, you don’t have a loving mother who knows of your predicament.

You imagine Cupid laughing in the heavens as you face his wrath once more.

. . .

It happens by chance, purely by chance. On your days off, you sometimes like to visit the marketplace, see if you can find some fun trinket to send back to your family or to keep for yourself. Today is no exception.

Something makes you pause in front of a jewelry stand, a stand you don’t usually visit because your apprentice’s pay, though enough to support your family, doesn’t allow for expenses on jewels. However, a thin chain necklace catches your eye as you walk past.

It’s silver, shiny, not a hint of rust on the metal. A small black stone hangs as a pendant and you’ve never seen it before, but you can’t shake the suspicion that this is a necklace you wore in a past life.

A necklace Changbin gave you in a past life.

Uneasiness grows in your mind the longer you look at the chain. How did the jeweler even get this chain? Who took it away? You’re pretty sure you wore it until your death, and you don’t believe your previous mother, based on your dreams, would have taken it away.

You think you want it back.

Pointing at the chain, you look up at the jeweler. “How much is this?”

“Eight gold pieces.”

Your heart sinks. A day’s work gives you five silver pieces, and there are twenty silvers to a gold. Most of your money goes back home, leaving you with only a little pocket money of your own – certainly not enough for a piece of jewelry worth eight golds. Lips pressed thinly together, you nod before beginning to walk away.

A voice stops you, a familiar voice you’ve never heard before. Not in this life, at least.

“Wait!”

You turn around, slowly, slowly, as Changbin’s voice asks the jeweler, “Eight gold pieces, you said?”

It’s him, you think faintly. It’s really him. Different hair, skin a shade lighter, but his eyes… his eyes are the same. The absolute same.

He doesn’t look at you with any recognition, though, and he’s dressed in silk, indicating high status – at least, higher than yours. So you politely avert your gaze, trying to calm the pounding in your heart.

Eight golds appear on the counter, exchanged for a small silk pouch with the necklace inside. You’re about to walk away – why did Changbin stop you, anyway? There’s not a single chance he would give it to you – when the pouch appears in your line of vision, held by a familiar hand.

You blink once, twice, then look up from the pouch to the man holding it in his palm.

Only one thought runs through your mind.

There is no way, in two consecutive lives, that Seo Changbin would offer me the same necklace.

Your confusion must show, because he laughs. “It’s for you,” he says (and oh, gods, his voice makes you want to just sit and listen to it forever). “It looked like you wanted it, no?”

Thankfully, your vocal cords remember how to speak, even if your mind doesn’t. “I couldn’t possibly take such a gift, sir,” you say, stepping backward slightly. “You paid for it – it’s yours.”

“Then it is also mine to give. And I believe you would appreciate this much more than I.” He unstrings the pouch, slips the chain into his fingers. “May I?”

For any other person, you would have said a polite no before speed walking into the crowd, hoping to disappear between the stalls. Now, though, you stay in place, rooted to the ground under Changbin’s steady gaze.

You nod.

His hands are gentle in their feather-light touch against your skin, clasping the chain around your neck. The pendant hangs at the base of your throat, cold at first, but slowly warming with the afternoon sun.

It feels right.

“Thank you,” you whisper when he’s finished, sinking into a low bow. “Thank you so much.”

Changbin smiles, loosely taking your hand. He drops a butterfly kiss to your knuckles and you physically have to restrain yourself from gasping too loudly, because – oh, because –

The spot where his lips touch your skin sends warmth spreading throughout your body.

“It was my pleasure,” he says, still smiling. “My name is Changbin.”

I know.

“May I know yours?”

“Oh.” You smile, hoping your lips don’t tremble too much. “I’m Y/N.”

His smile widens at your words, making your heart flutter in shy embarrassment. “I hope to see you around once more, Y/N,” he says.

A sudden burst of courage turns your smile a little teasing. “Just once?”

Changbin’s laugh – it’s shy, it’s a shy laugh, your heart can’t take it – makes you want to melt into the ground. “Maybe not,” he finally says, ears red. “Maybe many times more.”

. . .

He keeps his promise of many times more, appearing again on your next day off, then again, and again. If possible, you seem to fall in love with him even more than you did in your previous life, his laughs tickling your heart, his smiles like sunshine against your skin.

Deep down, you know this won’t last. If Cupid took your love away so harshly in your last life, he won���t hesitate to do it again, possibly with even more malice. But Changbin is intoxicating, pulling you toward him like a leaf on the wind, forever fluttering in the breeze, only resting when the air does.

It’s not even just Cupid. At least before, you and Changbin were on equal footing – one a healer, the other a poor runaway. There was no status difference. Now, though, Changbin wears silk while you clothe yourself in homespun fabric, finer perhaps than a peasant’s, but homespun nonetheless. No matter how daintily you embroider the cloth with leftover threads from your work, it will never match up to the rich, gorgeous clothing of the nobles with whom Changbin must walk.

Such differences inevitably drive a wedge into a love that could have been.

It starts after you go to the market once, twice, three times, and Changbin doesn’t meet you at any of the stalls. It feels empty, walking around with no one by your side, and you’re just wondering if something’s happened when you receive a note written in your love’s handwriting, asking you to meet him at midnight where you first met.

He arrives a bit later than you, footsteps softly padding across the empty market. For a moment, you only stare at each other, faces lit just barely by the light of the moon.

Changbin breaks the silence. “I’m getting married.”

The words send a knife into your heart, but you try to ignore the pain. It was expected, you tell yourself, expected of someone with Changbin’s high status. The two of you could never end up together, not a sewing apprentice and a member of nobility. “I see,” is all you say.

For the first time since you’ve met, Changbin looks broken. It hurts your heart and you want nothing more than to hold him close until that expression disappears, but you can’t. You’ve barely even touched – you don’t have a right to hold him the way you’d like.

“I don’t want to be,” he says.

Your hands shake slightly with your reply. “Why?”

“Because…” Changbin’s voice almost fades into the silence. “I think I love you.”

His words should make you feel happy, should make fireworks burst in your heart the way they did when Changbin kissed you in your past life. And yes, a small part of you jumps for joy. But a larger part withers with disappointment, with pain, with the knowledge that none of this will come to good.

“Y/N.” His voice turns insistent. “Don’t you… don’t you feel the same?”

You swallow. Take a breath. “I do.”

A lovely brightness enters Changbin’s eyes, hope filling his face. You hate yourself for having to crush it. “But you have a duty to your family.”

“We can run away,” Changbin says, taking your hand. You want to melt yourself into his touch, rest in his warmth forever. “We can run, Y/N. We don’t have to stay.”

Only the greatest force of will allows you to pull your hand away. “I have a family, Changbin,” you say, trying not to focus on the light that’s fading out of his face with every second. “I have to support them. And you… you have a duty to the village.” You swallow. “We can’t run. It’s too selfish.”

He doesn’t blame you, you know. He understands what you’re saying, has probably already thought of it himself. Still, it doesn’t stop pain from breaking the glass in his eyes, gaze becoming fragmented as he nods once, twice. “I know. I just thought…”

Changbin never finishes his sentence. In fact, you never speak again. He walks you back to your mistress’s house that night, squeezes your hand once under the moonlight, then disappears back into the darkness.

And with that disappearance, he leaves your life forever.

Over the years, you hear stories of Changbin’s lovely partner, her flowing hair and vibrant face and pretty smile. You hear stories of how much they love each other, the children they have, how well they watch over the village together.

It doesn’t matter how much your heart hurts, you tell yourself every time you hear one of those stories. It doesn’t matter at all, not even when his wife commissions a dress from the shop you now own, years later. It doesn’t matter when Changbin comes with her and stands in the main room silently as you take her for fitting, and it doesn’t matter when his eyes linger slightly on you when you lead her back out.

You exchange no words that day, but you’re certain Changbin sees the black gemstone still resting at the base of your throat. He makes no obvious expression, but when his eyes flicker over it, their light dims the slightest bit.

In this life, there are no kisses, no hugs, none of the passion you shared in your first life. Instead, you love through vivid conversations, knowing smiles, and in the end, the barest brush of his hand against yours before he leads his wife out of your shop.

In the end, you never marry. Instead, you spend the rest of your life sewing until your eyes go blind, leaving you all too much time to contemplate everything you’ve lost.

Which is worse, you wonder, losing your love to death or to societal pressures and another woman? Which is worse, never knowing how Changbin suffered as he died, or knowing that he’s doing well without you?

Which is worse, having your love die in a land unknown, or having him live so close, yet so far away?

. . . . .

It continues, over and over again, endless cycles of living, remembering, loving. He’s a thief and you’re a merchant. You’re a shop owner and he’s a soldier. Both of you are orphans, living on the street. None of it matters, not gender, not occupation, not social status – no matter what, you end up apart.

With every lifetime, the dreams grow more vivid, as though to make sure you don’t forget a single instant of the love you experienced, the love you could never see to the end. You’d think that the lines between each life would grow blurred as each one passes, but they only grow sharper, more defined. It’s impossible to forget how many lives you’ve lived, not when Cupid forces each one to remain in your mind, endlessly playing in your dreams time and time again.

On your twenty-ninth reincarnation, you experience a month’s worth of dreams in your silken bed, the bed of a noble heir who can have nothing to do with the boy who stays by their side day and night as a bodyguard and nothing more. You wake up every night stifling screams resulting from twenty-eight lifetimes of broken hearts, muffled cries and tears that bring Changbin running into your room, asking if you’re all right, reminding you that you’re safe.

Physically, you agree. You trust Changbin entirely – he’s proven more than capable of protecting you after multiple attempts on your life – but mentally? Emotionally?

How can he protect you from a god’s wrath, a wrath he doesn’t know of, when you can’t even protect yourself from that same wrath you’ve known of for twenty-eight, soon to be twenty-nine lifetimes?

You try to harden your heart, speak to Changbin a little less, spend more time focused on your lesson books and less on Changbin’s lovely face, but it’s impossible, you find after several months of this forced silence. It’s impossible to ignore the allure of your guard’s lips, his entrancing eyes, impossible to ignore the gentleness of his strong, roughened hands guiding you through life.

But with every chaste kiss, with every stolen hug or brush of skin, you know, deep in your heart, that something will befall your love. Something will tear you two apart.

When he dies, stabbed in the chest by a traitor to your family, rage drives you to take the knife that fell out of your love’s hand and shove the blade into the attacker’s heart. It drives you to cry, to weep, to wail to the sky as Changbin’s skin grows cold, the remnants of his last “I love you” still hanging on his lips.

Watching your love die in front of you, you decide, is the worst punishment of all. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be worse than this, knowing that Changbin died because of you, for you, without a singular doubt in his mind as he did it because he knew you would do the same for him.

Moonlight streams through the windows, illuminating Changbin’s blank face and the blood on his chest. As people begin entering the room, pausing at the carnage next to your bed, you raise your head, tears still flowing down your face.

“YOU SELFISH GOD!” you scream at the cold moon, resisting the arms tugging you away from the body of your love. “YOU SELFISH GOD! I GAVE YOU TWENTY-EIGHT LIFETIMES OF MY LOVE, AND YOU WANT MORE?”

Someone’s speaking, trying to make you hear their words over the raging of your voice. You don’t care, violently wrenching yourself out of their grip to stay thrown over Changbin’s body, tears mixing with his blood. “COME DOWN AND FACE ME!” you gasp. “COME DOWN AND TAKE MY LIFE, DO ANYTHING, I DON'T CARE! FACE ME, YOU COWARD!”

Strong hands, too strong, containing none of the gentility Changbin used to show you, begin pulling you away. You thrash in their grip, still staring at the moon. “I WISH HE NEVER MET ME!” you scream as they drag you out of the room. Blood stains your nightclothes, sticky against your skin. “I WISH HE NEVER MET ME, NEVER DIED FOR ME, DO YOU HEAR?”

. . . . .

The god grants your wish.

. . .

You regret it more than anything in all of your now-thirty lives.

. . .

To know of your love, but to never experience any semblance of it in your entire life? To know of a certain Seo Changbin, but to never meet him, never know how he is, never see him once in over fifty years of living?

Torture.

. . .

From your sixteenth birthday, when you begin having the dreams, until your death well into your fifties, there’s only pain, endless pain, marred by a piece of disgusting hope that rests in your chest, a piece of hope that keeps you praying that you will see him just once in this lifetime, that you’ll know his face and he’ll know yours.

. . .

It becomes so clear as you grow older that you will never know the Changbin of this lifetime, if he even exists. You will never touch his skin, see his smile, bathe in the glory of his laugh. You’ll never kiss, never experience even the briefest joy of seeing his face.

But your heart hopes, anyway, even though your mind sees reason. It prays, refuses to accept the truth.

. . .

Hope, you decide, is a weapon. A weapon far deadlier than the sharpest sword or the heaviest club, a weapon wielded by only the most intelligent of tyrants.

. . .

Apparently, you go mad towards the end of this life. You can’t blame those who eventually put you in an institution, over fifty years old and withering away. They don’t know who Changbin is. They never will.

You never will.

. . .

You blame the dreams. If you didn’t know of your previous lives, if you didn’t know Changbin existed, you might have lived happily – well, maybe not happily, but you’d be content, at least. You wouldn’t be wishing you were dead every minute of your existence.

. . .

You die in that institution, supposedly of a wasting disease, but more accurately of a broken heart, a heart even more broken than the one Changbin left behind that first life when he never came back.

. . . . .

Your forty-sixth life is first one in which you end the love with death, not Changbin. Looking back, it was probably better for you, you suppose, because you didn’t have to feel the pain of losing your love. Maybe this was Cupid’s laughable attempt at some sort of mercy.

You loathe it anyway, loathe it almost as much as the lives – yes, plural by now, which automatically cancel anything Cupid tries to do to make up for it (if the god is even trying) – where you dreamt of certain sparkling eyes and a lovely smile but never met them face to face. It’s not quite as horrible, but nearly.

To know that your love had to deal with any measure of the pain you’ve felt for so long, the pain you wouldn’t impart on even your worst enemy, is unimaginable.

It’s ironic, too, considering your occupations in life. You’re a healer on the battlefield, wearing the strip of blue silk on your arm that denotes your immunity to the opposite forces. He’s a soldier on the same side, though he has no protection other than his skill from enemy swords.

You are sworn to heal. He is sworn to kill.

Isn’t it strange, then, that fate wills you to die first while forcing Changbin to live?

You weren’t supposed to be killed in war. Your healer status, that piece of blue silk tied around your arm, was supposed to protect you from enemy blades. But some unsuspecting enemy soldier, perhaps not seeing the blue amidst the dust of the battlefield or genuinely just not caring for the rules of war, drove their blade into your back as you knelt over a fallen man of your side.

Within minutes, you had succumbed to darkness. The pain of dying, the blade in your back wasn’t even the worst part.

All you could think, after all, as you lay there gasping, was that he would have to learn of your death from finding your body, that you wouldn’t even get to say a proper goodbye.

. . . . .

It’s a pitiful, desolate figure who sits on a clifftop fifteen lifetimes later, blankly staring at an expanse of open ocean, waves crashing against the rocks below, contemplating every single one of the sixty-one lives you’ve lived so far.

You married Changbin in this one, this sixty-first life. You married him for the first time in sixty-one lives, made your vows with him, kissed him under a shower of flower petals.

It didn’t change your fate, not even when, unable to have a baby of your own, you adopted your first, then your second child. It didn’t change anything, not when Changbin had a duty to this village that you couldn’t interfere with. It didn’t change anything, not when pirates came ashore and massacred the village population, killing your two children and half of the rest of your family.

Changbin threw himself from this very cliff, you remember, threw himself to a watery death rather than die at the hands of the pirates who came to raid the town so many years ago. He was brave to the last, fending off invaders even when countless others had thrown down their swords, and he never lived to see the defeat of the pirates whom he died fighting.

You hug your shoulders tightly, staring down at the waves crashing against the rocks. With all that’s happened to you over sixty-one lifetimes, who would blame you for tipping off the edge the same way Changbin died, albeit much less heroically? Who would blame you for giving up in this life, giving up in every life if you knew just how badly it would end every time?

“You’re right,” a rich voice sounds behind you, a voice that you once heard in person, many centuries ago. “Who would blame you? Not even I would.”

Your eyes slam shut, refusing to gaze into blood red. You don’t speak.

A sigh passes from the god’s lips, breath puffing softly. Where the air hits your neck, you feel your skin curdle with disgust.

“It’s no use not speaking,” he continues, a hint of amusement tinging his voice that makes your hands curl into fists. “I can hear your thoughts.”

A snarl twists your lips. “They must be very loud,” you snap, words dripping acid.

More silence.

“You hate me,” he finally says.

You breathe in, out, in, out. Calm, you tell yourself.

“Why wouldn’t I.”

A pause.

“Perhaps you can elaborate.”

For the first time since they appeared, you turn around, eyes blazing, to stare into the red gaze of the wrathful god who cursed you. “I would rather throw myself off this cliff,” you seethe, “than relive my lifetimes in front of you.”

Is it remorse that glitters in ruby eyes, pity that rests in their shadows? Whatever it is, it makes you smirk without mirth, lips curling without cheer as you turn back around to watch gray waves crash against the cliff. It doesn’t matter how a vengeful god feels after lifetimes of revenge. Apologies from the curser mean nothing to the spite of the cursed.

“I made mistakes,” the god says simply. “I acted rashly. I should not have taken my anger out on you, and certainly not with so harsh a punishment.”

You want to snort. “I am ever grateful you realize after sixty-one lifetimes of wrath,” you say, acid practically burning a hole in your tongue. “Now quit with the blather.” You don’t care that you’re staring at a god who could smite you down a thousand times over with a single flick of their finger – they’ve already hurt you too much for it to matter anymore. “After so many years of never answering my calls, you finally come, unbidden. Tell me why you’re here, or I will jump off this cliff.”

“I’ve come to offer an exchange,” they say. “It is impossible to erase a curse, but I can impart it on someone else.”

In a flash, you’re standing, staring the god dead in the center of their bright red eyes. “You said you could read my thoughts,” you snarl. “Tell me, God of Love, what I’m thinking right now.”

They raise an eyebrow. “You don’t want it,” they say calmly, though surprise coats their words. “You have no one, then, on whom you would impart this curse?”

“When I tell you,” you snap, “that I would not wish this curse on my worst enemy in all of my sixty-one lives, I do not lie. That –” you take a breath – “that is how much you have hurt me.”

Astonishment shows itself in the god’s gaze. “I don’t understand,” they say, for the first time looking bemused. “I have given you everything, dying first, dying last, watching him die in front of you, never seeing him in a lifetime –”

“You don’t need to remind me,” you cut him off. “I know it very well.”

“Then you would not even give this curse to me?” they ask. “Not to the god who has shown you so much pain?”

That almost gets you, almost. The desire for revenge claws its way through your chest, begging to be released in a monstrous cry of pain, but you rein it in with a scoff. “For a god of love,” you say, turning back around, “you really understand nothing of it.”

More silence.

“I will leave you with two gifts,” the god finally says. “Two gifts to try and make up for what you have lost.”

You suppress another snort.

“Your love will remember you on your one hundred and first lifetime,” they continue. “When the curse is over, your love will remember you, will know how you have lived one hundred lifetimes without him.”

The words, acerbic with derision, fall from your lips without missing a beat. “Will I remember him, then, or will you take that away from me too?”

A short pause. The air seems to grow slightly warmer, as though the god has been angered, but it cools quickly. “You will remember him,” they reply, voice thinner with a tinge of frustration.

You smirk.

They clear their throat. “The second gift you will find when you return home.”

You give no response to that, only stare resolutely at gray waves, feeling the ocean spray tickle your skin. The god must disappear at some point, because when you finally turn around to return home, they’re gone. But once you enter your empty house, there’s something on your table, something that sparkles in the last glimmers of sunlight peeking through the window.

You pick it up, eyes narrowed, and almost immediately drop it.

A thin silver necklace, polished to shine, with a small black gem as the pendant.

Though there’s no way to prove it, you’re sure this is the very same piece of jewelry that Changbin gifted you so many centuries ago, two lifetimes in a row.

The chain trembles on your shaking fingers as you place it back down, carefully, so carefully, like it’ll explode any second. You go to bed that night wondering if the necklace will have disappeared by morning, but when you wake up after a fitful rest, it’s still there, glittering on the table.

You wear it for the rest of this lifetime, hiding it beneath your clothing so no questions are asked. And when you feel you will die soon, you carefully place the chain in a small box and bury it just outside your home.

You’ll find it in your next life. You’ll find it in the next, then the next, time and time again until the end of your hundred-lifetime punishment.

It’s a small comfort, that simple silver chain with the little black jewel, but it’s a comfort nonetheless, a piece of your love to carry with you until the end of your times. Even if it was given back by the god who cursed you.

. . . . .

Years trudge along, years of waiting and waiting and more waiting for the torture to end. More death, more illness, more societal pressure to drive you two apart. In five lifetimes, you die first. In the others, Changbin either leaves you to face the world on your own, or you never know him at all.

It seems that even though Cupid may have felt some remorse for your curse, that didn’t stop the god from finding new ways to hurt you.

At some point, the lives finally begin to blur together. There have just been too many. If you tried, you could probably piece them all together, work out the details of how the two of you lived and how you were ripped apart, but after seventy, then eighty, then finally ninety lifetimes of broken hearts, it becomes too painful to relive.

(As you near the ninetieth lifetime, if you’re lucky enough to be born to a family who cares, someone always comes running in for months to the tears that stain your cheeks through dream-filled nights. You must have helped send so many people to an early grave with the endless screaming they would wake up to on the nights you dreamed of particularly painful lives.)

There are two saving graces to this pain, and as much as you hate to admit it, they came from Cupid. The god never deigns to meet you again (something you’re grateful for), but their gifts keep you from losing all hope as you near the end, the blissful end of your punishment.

One, the necklace. In every lifetime, no matter how painful, no matter whether or not you find Changbin, you find the thin silver necklace from your previous life. And no matter how rusty the chain gets, how dull the jewel becomes after years of wear, it shows up shiny and polished the next time you find it.

Two, the knowledge that Changbin will recognize you that first lifetime your punishment is over. You don’t have to keep track of your lifetimes, don’t have to count them until the hundredth has come and gone, don’t have to live any unnecessary lives with the fear that Changbin will be taken away from you suddenly and horribly.

As much as you loathe saying it, these gifts give you the slightest bit of hope that keeps you going.

So you trudge through lives, living as a tailor falling for a shoemaker, a nurse who comes to love a bedridden patient, a rich socialite who wants to marry the son of your family’s sworn enemy (this one’s interesting, quite like Romeo and Juliet, really. In your next life, when you dream of it, you wonder if Cupid met Shakespeare after the playwright’s death and decided to have a sick laugh at your expense). Seventy passes at some point, then eighty, then ninety.

By your hundredth life, you aren’t entirely sure what number you’re on. You think it must be ending soon, what with all the dreams your seventeen-year-old self had to suffer through, but it hurts too much to pick them apart and count. When Changbin doesn’t recognize you, though, a student at the same university as you, you resign yourself to several more lifetimes of heartbreak. It’s too much to hope for at this point, too much to hope that you’re on your last cycle of punishment, that the next time you live, you will be able to love Changbin wildly, freely, without a care in the world.

The dreams come once more in your hundredth and first life. It makes you despair that your punishment isn’t over, not even now (because though you don’t dare to freely pray, hope still buries itself deep in your chest, allowing Cupid to wield it like the monster he is).

Cupid assured you on his second and last visit that you would remember Changbin when you met him, though. You don’t like it, but hope only grows when you recall his words. Blind, blind hope.

It’s a cold morning, bitterly cold, when you roll out of bed to go to work. Eyes blinking blearily, you fumble around the cabinets for a package of coffee before remembering you ran out yesterday.

Just my luck, you think, scribbling “coffee” onto the grocery list on your refrigerator. You shove the piece of paper into your pocket, hoping you remember to go shopping later for whatever’s on the list. Your roommates are out of town, so you can’t rely on them to get anything this time.

Bitter wind slashes at your face as you walk to the small café just down the street for your daily fix of caffeine. By the time you’ve reached the shop, your nose is already stiff with cold, and the steaming cup of coffee the barista presses into your chilled hands only briefly warms your skin before you have to step back into the cold.

The bus will be coming soon, you note, checking your phone for the time. Steps quickening, you bend your head into the wind and set off for the stop.

So focused on your destination are you that you don’t notice the person until it’s too late. You smack right into them, sending them lurching into a nearby pole. They fall to the sidewalk as you spew apologies from freezing lips, holding out a hand to help them up.

They take your hand, squeezing with a grip that seems a little too familiar to be coincidental. A familiar sensation of warmth, a lovely, dreadful warmth, spreads through your body, emanating from where the stranger’s hand touches yours.

You freeze, eyes hardly daring to look up and gaze into someone who might be Changbin, who might be the love of one hundred of your lifetimes. You don’t even know whether to hope it is him, because if it is, will he finally recognize you after so many cycles of pain? Or will this just be another love that ends in heartbreak?

Slowly, slowly, your gazes meet.

It’s him.

It’s him.

It’s him.

Lovely brown eyes, eyes that throughout twenty, fifty, ninety years of pain, have remain unchanged in their depth and gentleness, stare into yours. Your breath catches. The coffee in your hand drops to the ground.  

It’s really him.

Belatedly, you realize he’s still on the ground and give a quick yank to pull him up. You try to apologize, both for hitting him and for the coffee that’s spattered onto his shoes, but your vocal cords won’t work. All you can do right now is stare.

He doesn’t recognize you. He hasn’t reacted to your touch, hasn’t given any indication that this is anything more than a chance meeting, an everyday occurrence where a stranger bumps into him (albeit a little harder than normal). You’re about to retract your hand, to force your vocal cords into giving an apology for smacking into him, but then he opens his mouth and speaks words you never dared to believe you would hear.

“It’s you,” he breathes, gripping your hand even more tightly, almost involuntarily, like he’s trying to keep himself grounded to the earth. His eyes, now wide with confusion and awe, search your face greedily. For what, you don’t know, but you’re doing the same, even though you’ve seen his face millions of times by now over a hundred lifetimes.

“It’s you,” he repeats once more, raspy voice breathless with emotion. “It’s really you.”

Finally, your throat manages to choke something out. “Changbin?” you try, words small and soft, conveying all of your disbelief in that one single word, that one single name. “Changbin?”

He says your name, then, says it once, twice, as he keeps staring into your eyes. It sounds like honey on his lips, sweet in a way that makes you heady with bliss, and only the biting wind keeps you rooted to the present, reminding you that this is real, this is not a dream, that this is real, completely real.

Slowly, naturally, one of your arms curls around his waist, just as his hands rise to cup your cheek. His fingers are cold against your bare skin but you lean into his touch, pulling him closer, closer, until your faces are only inches apart.

“It’s you,” Changbin murmurs, still as though he can barely believe it. “It’s really you.”

A strangled sound escapes your throat, something between a sob and a laugh all at once. “You remember,” you choke, eyes beginning to fill with warm, salty tears. “You remember, Changbin.”

He cups your cheek with an ungloved hand, cold skin brushing against yours with a gentleness that makes you want to melt. “I do,” he replies, voice almost cracking with emotion. “I’m only sorry I didn’t remember before.”

In your previous lives, time and time again, you kissed Changbin’s lips. It was always lovely, absolutely lovely, lovely in a way that made it feel like a field of flowers blooming in your chest, butterflies fluttering in your stomach. But there was always a lingering desolation on your part, a despair born of the knowledge that this love would not last, that Cupid would not allow you to see it to its natural end.

Today, Changbin’s lips taste of sunshine and honey, dew on green grass on a summer morning, the excitement of a first snow, nothing reminding you of a lingering heartbreak to come. You can’t even feel the bitter wind with him pressed so closely to you, lips molding against yours as his hands cup your cheeks.

The last walls on your heart crack down, walls formed with the knowledge of your hundred lifetimes of punishment. From the broken walls springs a new warmth, a sparkling warmth that you can’t even find the words to explain, a warmth that spills through your body and makes you feel full, happy, joyous in a way you’ve never felt, not once before in your hundred lifetimes of heartbroken love.

When you break away, tears are streaking down your cheeks. Changbin’s eyes glitter, too, but the smile on his face is radiant as he gazes at you.

Cupid’s punishment was cruel, you know, crueler than it had to be. It was harsh, evil, almost wicked in the pain he inflicted on you. But even though the vestiges of that pain still line the edges of your heart, it’s easy to ignore it in favor of staring at your love standing in front of you as a wobbly smile of the purest joy finally begins to curve your lips.

Is this real? you wonder to yourself. Is this truly real, your punishment finally ending, Changbin remembering who you are and the lifetimes you’ve shared? This bliss, this love, this warmth… it all seems too good to be true.

As though he can read your thoughts (and perhaps he can – a hundred lifetimes of love have probably given him a window into your soul, the same way it’s given you one into his), Changbin grins, vibrant, radiant, warm even in the bitter cold. “This is real,” he says, lovely lips curved into a brilliant smile.

“It is?” you ask, soft, wondrous, childlike, hardly daring to believe.

He brushes away a tear on your face, his thumb stroking your cheek with the gentlest touch. “It is,” he whispers. “As real as your love for me, and mine for you.”

Time and time again, you burned your heart for Changbin, burned it with the love you felt for him over one hundred lifetimes of a curse. Time and time again, you swore at love, swore at the god who inflicted the curse on you without so much as an afterthought until sixty-one lives had passed.

But now, as you crush Changbin close, fitting your lips to his once more, you push those thoughts to the back of your mind and lose yourself in a kiss finally free of pain.

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 slap in the face for Cupid fuck them)

[scintillasofbeomgyu]

winter in itaewon || Choi Beomgyu

Pairing: Choi Beomgyu x gamer!fem!reader

Genre/s: Fluff; Angst; Humor (if you squint)

Word count: 5,0k

Warning/s: it is implied that reader was subject to violence (once); although it says the reader is a gamer, there are not that many references towards to actual gaming lmao; this was proofread like once (😭)

Hyunjin and Jeongin take Beomgyu out to the PC Room in Itaewon for his birthday; a year after their last visit. As he reminisces the events of the year before, every corner of his mind is revisited by her — as if he were capable of forgetting her anyway.

a/n: happy beomgyu day!!💞 the inspiration to write this hit me in the middle of the night, coming from these kickass headcannons by sumi, and it's completely different to the initial idea i shared with amie sksjsjs alsothislowkeysucks. nevertheless, i hope you all enjoy!!

12 March 2021, 23:30

Despite being embraced by his thick padded coat, the freezing air still managed to disrupt the warmth in annoying, sharp gusts every time the wind blew. Itaewon was always more alive while the rest of Seoul slept soundly, and tonight was no exception. The streets were aglow with the lambent signage of the many stalls and establishments which lined it’s pavements, and were filled with clusters of people who either visited the stores, window-shopped or were simply enjoying the night-life.

Beomgyu wasn’t very enthusiastic about joining Hyunjin and Jeongin when they had initially posed the idea. He’d been spending much of his time in the studio and practice room, so the plan was to get some sleep when he had some free time. His conscience eventually got the better of him, though – he hadn’t been able to meet up with his friends in months due to work and the pandemic, and his scheduled birthday live thwarted the possibility of holding it off until the following day.

“Are you good?” Jeongin asked, pulling Beomgyu out of his thoughts, arching a brow at his dazed friend. He noticed that he had been lagging behind the two of them, and that their features were now etched with concern. Beomgyu pushed the bangs out of his face before waving them off, mumbling that he’s okay.

There was a look in their eyes that Beomgyu couldn’t quite decipher, but pushed it off as nothing when Jeongin draped an arm over his shoulder and lead him further down the street. His feet stopped squarely when they made it to the PC Room, cementing themselves before the front door. Jeongin looked at Beomgyu and smiled.

“Are you coming in?”

It wasn’t that Beomgyu didn’t want to respond, he simply couldn’t. Sure, it may have seemed like a trivial thing to answer, the words just wouldn’t formulate coherent sentences – his mind didn’t have the capacity to make them. Her. That was the only thing it could manifest. Her. 

The pressure of a years-worth of his bottled emotions had finally blew it’s top – thoughts, images and memories which had been ingrained into his subconscious coming forth to hit him like a train.

“We’ll wait for you inside, then.”

31 December 2019, 22:00

Laughter ringing through the air, Hyunjin, Jeongin and Beomgyu pushed open the door to the PC Room. Beomgyu stopped at the door while the other two signed in, arms rubbing away the remnants of snow on the arms of his black coat. Removing his mask, he smiled into the warmth of the heated building. Their schedules after debut had left no space for any recreation, so it was liberating to spend New Years Eve with his friends, doing what he does best.

“Ready to have your butts kicked?” Beomgyu cackled, with his whole chest, as they took their seats next to one another in the isle, earning him much-deserved glares. As soon as he’s logged on and the headset is donned however, his usually playful demeanour is replaced by one of a much calmer nature – studying the map, observing enemy tactics and carefully directing his support as his fingers glide skilfully across the keyboard.

Hyunjin groaned after the umpteenth attempt to beat him, dropping the headset onto the desk as Jeongin whined into his hands. A smirk rolled onto Beomgyu’s lips as he leaned back into the swivel chair, flashing his brows at them. “I refuse to believe this is possible, it’s got to be rigged!”

“Ah, after all this time I’ve still got it,” Beomgyu retorted, chuffed with himself for doing as well as he knew he would. Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ranked first with the amount of times I kicked ass on this server.”

Jeongin, who had taken it upon himself to do the fact-checking, smirked at the screen before calling the two of them over. “Actually–”

Beomgyu screamed in frustration, tossing the headset onto the desk before pushing against it, sending him flying across the floor in the chair. No matter how hard he tried, no matter the strategy he just couldn’t beat the player in first place. The commotion startled the other two, who had fallen asleep waiting for Beomgyu to finish up, the satisfaction of witnessing his losses long past.

“Just one more game, I swear!” he whined as they dragged him away from the PC screen.

Hyunjin seethed, “that’s what you said three hours ago! No, we’re leaving. Jeongin’s parents have been waiting up for us.”

Beomgyu huffed at the front counter. While the older took care of the bill, he found that the room was completely empty – almost. The light emanating from a desk directly across from where he stood, lit up the face of a young-looking girl. She seemed to be in high school (that’s what the uniform she wore indicated atleast) and the big, round, metal-framed glasses settled on the bridge of her nose, mirrored the computer screen. The sight pacified Beomgyu, for a reason he couldn’t quite explain, a smile stretching across his face.

He sauntered closer, eyes searching around for nothing in particular, trying not to look like a creep as he approached you. His smile only grew when he found her eyebrows knitted together, teeth biting down on her bottom lip in concentration. And then he saw it. The graphics reflecting from her glasses seeming all to familiar to him, he rushed around the desk, eyes darting to the top corner of the screen.

ID: winter996

12 January 2020, 22:30

Beomgyu’s foot tapped impatiently as he waited at the desk closest to the entrance, checking his watch every few minutes, before running a frustrated hand through his soft silvery locks. He had finally gotten the chance to visit the PC room again, most of his time having gone into practice and rehearsals for award show season, and he wasn’t leaving until he saw you again.

He ran out of the practice room as soon as he heard that they would have the following day off; he was exhausted and had been waiting for almost two hours – but he refused to leave until he saw you again.

The owner noticed the boy sitting at the desk he usually reserved for you, lips curling at the sight of the fidgety youth. He had visited on three prior occasions; once with his friends, and the remaining times himself, sitting in exactly the same spot he was now sitting. Instead of chasing him away as he did everyone else, he simply waited to see how this turn of events would unfold.

You pushed open the glass doors with a huff, adjusting the strap of your backpack on your shoulder before blowing the stray hairs from your face. Keeping your eyes fixed on the ground beneath you, you nod to the owner and he returns the gesture with a smile, although he knows you won’t see it.

Beomgyu, who had almost surrendered himself to the fatigue, sat up straight when you pulled back the chair next to him. He watched as you scrunched up your nose in attempt to push your glasses up the bridge of your nose before putting the headset on, and chuckled softly.

He watched in awe as you cleared level after level, climbing the ranks as you went along, with seemingly no effort whatsoever. You kept the mic off and communicated with your group though the chat, which was probably why he never realised you were a girl. Your strategy seemed way too complex for him to understand, and his amazement never faltered for even a second, as you dominated each and every position you played.

It was a little over an hour before you decided to take a break, wondering where the owner was since he usually brought your snacks around that time. Pushing the headset around your neck, you stretched upward to see where he was, only to find yourself roughly pushed back down and turned toward a strange boy whom you’ve never seen before.

His eyes, sparkling with absolute wonder, coaxed your surprise and made your heart race with a feeling as unfamiliar as he was.

“You have to tell me how you do that! Teach me, please, Winter996!”

25 January 2020, 22:30

“Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?” you voice rang from the speaker of Beomgyu’s phone. He never questioned your reasons for not turning your mic on during the game, but insisted that you speak directly to him instead. “On your left, be careful.”

“I know, I see them. And yes, but I have some time before the next session starts.” After much pestering, about something having to do with ‘senseis’ and ‘disciples’, you agreed to let Beomgyu play with you. He was rather beside himself when you told him you never really used any strategy, though; you ‘just did what felt right’.

An adorable smile had tugged at your lips during his three hundred-and-fifty paged slideshow about the importance of strategy and observation, one he would not soon forget.

“You could just wait until Itaewon.”

“Is it my fault you only go when your rank drops?”

Soobin’s dark head of hair popped into the studio, and he glared upon finding Beomgyu tapping away at his laptop on the sofa. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! The break as been over ages ago–”

“(Y/n), (Y/n), go, go! I’ll cover you!”

“Beomgyu, I think–”

“You’re playing again?! With a girl?!”

5 February 2020, 22:00

You’re quieter than usual and Beomgyu noticed right away. Over the phone, you never had any qualms in conversating with him– when you were playing the game, atleast. The thought that it was because of him does cross his mind, but he catches the frown you’re desperately trying to hide, by biting the inside of your cheek.

A thick scarf is wrapped around your neck, your chin buried into the red woolly folds, and your hair frames your face,  but he sees the light swelling on the side of your face and around your eyes that you’re trying to hide. The feeling in the pit of his stomach makes his nails press crescents into the palms of his hands, but he fights the urge to ask.

“Beomgyu! What are you doing! They’re coming!” you yell, pulling him back to reality, hearing the sound of your voice at long last calming him a tad.

“Right, sorry.”

You played together straight through into the early hours of the morning, sharing victory after victory, with him right by your side. You froze up when he instinctively pulled you into a hug upon your last win, gulping as he slowly removed his arms, laughing it off as his adrenaline high peaked higher.

The van’s horn blared outside, catching you both off guard. Beomgyu quickly grabbed his coat before making his way back up the way he came, but paused before he opened the door. Craning his head back to look at you once more, he smiled.

“I’ll text you later.”

12 February 2020, 23:30

Beomgyu’s hands move quickly across the controls, your voice shouting orders to him through the headset as the current game hit it’s climax. Playing with Beomgyu all the time had made you a lot more comfortable with engaging with the other members of your group, so although you were still pretty anxious at first, you made the decision to turn on your mic.

“We did it!” Beomgyu cheered as your team cleared yet another level.

Gaming was something mundane to you and winning was easy; but sneaking out to the PC Room from time to time helped alleviate the pressures of your personal life. The life which you would rather die than share with Beomgyu. But after being swayed by his nonsensical attempts at convincing you, logging onto the server had become your favorite thing to do.

Every victory felt extraordinary when shared with him, and you could have sworn that at that very moment, you could see the way the ends of his eyes creased as the edges of his lips pushed up his cheeks. The way his arms would be stretched up in happiness, as his intoxicating laugher filled the air.

On the other end, Beomgyu leaned back into his desk chair, smiling into the darkness, envisioning the way you’d be pretending it was no big deal whilst your eyes sparkled with happiness and a smile dug into your rosey cheeks.

“Hey, (Y/n)?”

You hummed into the mic, your head rested on the desk and your eyes closed, just listening to his voice, savoring every second of it.

“Do you...have a Valentine or something?”

14 February 2020, 18:00

From the moment the car pulled up down the street, Beomgyu was unable to take his eyes off from you. His eyes travelled up from the scuffed white sneakers which tapped against the pavement nervously, to the washed out jeans, to the oversized cardigan, which bunched up around the wrists of your hands, which shifted between nervously tucking your hair behind your ears, to pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose, to straightening out your outfit.

You were going to be the death of him.

He hurried toward you as soon as he saw you shiver. The sound of his soles against the wet concrete caught your attention and you turned in his direction, the look in your eyes nearly resulting in a fatal blow – the way they bewitched nearly had him hitting his head against the sidewalk.

Your hands tightened around the strap of the bag slung around your shoulder as you watched the dark-haired boy make his way down the street to you, a stupidly giddy-looking expression plastered across his face. You couldn’t stop yourself from feeling the way you did about Beomgyu – even though you knew you shouldn’t.

You were never really interested in fan culture, but some of the girls in your cram school were very invested. When you heard them gushing about a group called ‘Tomorrow X Together’ and it’s members the previous afternoon, a knot formed in your stomach. The first thing you did when you got home, was do research. You decided to listen to all of their albums and watch all of their music videos, interviews and content videos. Unsure what to do with all the new-found information and conflicting emotions, you pulled the covers over your head and tried to sleep instead. But you couldn’t.

Beomgyu flicked the side of your head, bringing you back to the present, and your cheeks flushed upon realization of his proximity. He smirked, wrapping his brown scarf around your neck. “It’s still winter you know, Winter. You should dress warmly.”

You clicked your tongue and pouted at his teasing use of your in-game alias, and marched off without him. He trailed behind you, laughing and relieved that you were no longer frowning as you were before. You froze when he caught up with you, feeling the warmth of his hand as it slipped into yours, tucking it into his coat pocket. Burying your face into his scarf, which smelled just like him, you smiled giddily, letting him pull you along with him.

He took you to dinner and the amusement park after that. He was thrilled to know you liked rollercoasters as much as he did and embarrassed to know he couldn’t even beat you at the kid’s games. He ended up going home with a truckload of new plushies, and you, with ever-increasing feelings that you had no idea what to do with.

28 February 2020, 23:42

Beomgyu burst through the doors of the PC Room no longer than 10 minutes after receiving a call from the owner. He still wore his sleepwear, over which his coat was thrown, his hair was disheveled and his bare left foot was stuffed halfway into a sneaker, while his sock-wearing right foot was slipped into a black slipper.

The owner, with worry painted across his features, cocked his head to the desk where the two of you usually sat. His heart ached at the sight of your curled up figure beneath it. Your bloodshot eyes widened when you realized his presence, the surprise enabling him a few seconds to examine you up and down before you turned away from him. Your bottom lip was cut and bruised, your cheek was swollen and bruises were littered across your face and the length of your arms and neck, your hair as messy as his was.

You insisted that you’re okay, even though he took you into his arms without asking anything at all. You insisted that you’re okay, but as his warmth enveloped you, tears began streaming down your face. He felt the way your body trembled in his arms, so he begins rocking you back and forth slowly, pressing soft kisses into your hair, whispering a single phrase over and over again.

“I’m here.”

4 March 2020, 19:00

Due to the pandemic, one of the award show ceremonies the boys were supposed to attend had been cancelled and moved to a later date. Worried that they’d feel disheartened about their performance, you decided to host a little award ceremony of your own. His friends were as welcoming as he was, so you quickly got along- even more so since Beomgyu stuck even closer to you since that day.

“The first award of the evening,” you announced, clearing your throat in the middle of the living room. The boys, who were cheering your on from their seats on the dorm sofa, quieted down as Yeonjun hushed them, gesturing for you to continue, “goes to a very versatile young man. The winner of the ‘Fourth Generation It Boy – In Everything Except Braincells’ Daesang, goes too, you guessed it, Choi Yeonjun!”

The rest erupted in laughter as an exasperated Yeonjun made his way to where you stood, empty wrappers crackling under his feet. He threw a glare at the boys before he bowed before you in the most formal way possible, and you handed him the pretty mediocre, handmade certificate, before enamored laughter spilled from his lips.

Soobin received an award for being the ‘Best Leader of the Greatest Global Shookies’, to which he sighed. Taehyun received the Grand Award ‘The Best Son, Our King, Vocalist Kang’, which the rest labelled unfair and favoritism. Kai received the ‘Gotta Hit That High Note Like-’ award, which he proudly accepted with absolutely no complaints, beaming at the poorly made certificate.

“And last, but not least,” you started, peaking at Beomgyu from the corner of you eyes, determination almost faltering at the sight of his anticipating countenance. Peering down at the clipboard in your hands, you frowned, “well, I guess that’s all we have for tonight, folks-”

The sound of their hearty laughter filled the dorm once again, Yeonjun nearly toppling over the armrest of the sofa. Beomgyu nodded, tongue in cheek, clearly bothered by the whole ordeal. You joined in on the laughter, before glancing back to the clipboard, your heart rate picking up a little.

“Oh, what’s this?” you feigned surprise, “We have two more awards left! To Choi Beomgyu,” you said, pausing to steady your breath, refusing to make eye contact with him, “goes the award for ‘The Most Annoying Amateur Gamer-” laughter once more, Beomgyu joining in this time, “Best Friend and Utterly Talented All-rounder’. And lastly, to Tomorrow X Together for ‘Best Group of All Time’!” you cheered, relieved that they all got up and cheered as well, without teasing you.

Beomgyu took your hand and slipped the certificate from the board. You may have been embarrassed at the self-proclaimed ‘lousy’ attempt at decorating his certificate, but within seconds, that sheet of colored board became the most important thing to him in the world - his most prized possession. He pulled you into a bone-crushing hug, and the rest all joined in without a second to spare, endlessly praising you and expressing their affection as you giggled in response.

Later on that evening, after you left and the others were fast asleep, he laid on his bed, limbs splayed across the comforter. He sighed dreamily up at the ceiling, bringing his hands up to cover the bashful grin playing on his lips. He turned his head ever-so slightly, and peeked through the spaces between his fingers at the certificate perched on his night-stand and sighed again.

What was he going to do with you.

13 March 2020, 20:00

You pushed aside everything that had been happening in your life to be happy on your best friend’s birthday. You were convinced it was the least you could do in return for everything he did for you. Deciding to host something small at the PC Room, the owner was pretty enthusiastic to make a contribution to the happiness of his ‘favourite patrons’, you invited his members and some of his closest friends.

Although Beomgyu would have loved to spend the day with just you, he was extremely grateful to know efforts you had made to make him enjoy his day. You had been chattering away with the owner at the front desk, but somewhere amidst conversation with Taehyun, he had lost sight of you. He frowned, apologizing to Taehyun before excusing himself.

Ready to grab his coat and leave, he stopped in his tracks when the lights were shut off. Slowly, the room was illuminated once more, by the flickering flames atop birthday candles, and the enormous smile across your face as you sang, “happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,...”

The cake, in the shape of a bear and embellished with chocolate decorations of every variety, was placed on the table in front of where the rest had seated him. Eyes not once leaving you, absolutely entranced by your beauty, Beomgyu gulps, his heart racing a million miles an hour.

“Make a wish, before the wax gets onto the cake, Dummy.”

He pulls his lip between his teeth and flicks the top of your head gently, chuckling softly, before clasping his hands together and closing his eyes. For a reason unknown to him, Beomgyu couldn’t think of something to wish for. No, rather, he knew exactly why he had no idea what to wish for. He opened his eyes once more, and grinned at your anticipating face, the pining in his chest only running deeper and deeper.

He blew out the candles.

“What did you wish for-”

Beomgyu grabbed your hand and pulled you with him as he ran out onto the wet Itaewon streets. You didn’t run too far, before he pulled you into one of the alleyways. Completely lost for words and a little out of breath, you stood there, staring at him. The same puzzled look you had given him when you first met is etched into your face and his lips curl upward. Your breathing hitches as he takes a step closer to you and he pushes the rain-soaked hair from your face, eyes flitting to your lips before meeting your eyes again.

He pulled your chest flush against his and it was quiet for a moment. Quiet, save for the sound of the rain pitter-pattering across the rooftops and the alley floor; quiet, save for the sound of your thumping hearts.

“I love you.”

He feels you tense up, so he tightens his embrace. There is a silence again, and it is a lot less pleasant than the first. The sound of your sniffling alarms him, so he brings your face to meet his, his heart aching at the tears dripping down your face. You start making attempts to break free of his hold, shaking your head and him, whimpers escaping your lips every time you tried to speak.

Tears now streamed down his face too, a piece of him torn away each time you pushed him away. Beomgyu fought desperately to keep you in his arms, but before he knew it, you had slipped right through his fingers.

“I’m sorry.” was the last thing he heard you say through persisting sobs, before you disappeared down the street, without a trace.

30 June 2020

Beomgyu smiled before the cameras and press, laughing along with interviewers and staff members like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

You had been missing for over three months. You blocked his number. You didn’t log onto the game, someone else had long taken your position on the leader board. After composing himself that day, he had bolted after you, but it was as if you had vanished off the face of the earth. Beomgyu stopped by the PC Room as much as he could in the following days, his condition only worsening each time he did, but due to the growing numbers of positive cases and the increasing amount of work scheduled for him, the time he spent there was limited.

When he did go, he sat in your chair, staring at the front door until he had to leave. The owner, who had been watching him in sympathy, called him up to the desk one day before he left – the last day the owner saw him. He looked sleep-deprived and downcast, the same pained expression drawn into his features every time he left.

“She... came here a lot. I think her first visit was around the time she was in middle school. She never spoke much, and never seemed to have any friends,” The owner told him, looking out to the isles of computers in front of him, before turning back to Beomgyu. “The first time I saw her talk- no, the first time I saw her smile, was with you. She liked you...alot.”

Beomgyu sighed, with a short, hollow chuckle.

“I know.”

12 March 2021, 23:55

The room was empty and dark when Beomgyu finally walked in, eyebrows knitted together as he tried to see through the darkness. He tried calling out for Hyunjin and Jeongin, but the only replies he received was the wind rattling the window-blinds.  

The flickering of candles illuminate the room, just like they did many months ago, and Beomgyu’s heart stopped. He tried to not look disappointed when it turned out to be his members with Hyunjin and Jeongin carrying the cake, singing happy birthday to him with the most excited expressions on their faces, but his throbbing chest betrayed him.

They brought the cake up until where he stood and Yeonjun arched a brow, a knowing smirk rolling onto his lips. “You really do have a wild imagination, don’t you? Ow!” he cried, when Beomgyu hit his arm. “Ugh, just make a wish already.”

Beomgyu clasped his hands tightly before him and squeezed his eyes shut, just as he did before. Only this time, he knew exactly what he wanted. The subject of his pining, worry, and love. Her. He would give anything to see her, just one last time.

And when he opened his eyes, that was exactly what he found in front of him.

“Happy Birthday, Choi Beomgyu.”

The lights went back on, and Beomgyu blinked repeatedly, making sure that it wasn’t just his mind playing tricks on him. But there you were, with tears brimming your eyes, in all your glory, the love of his life. 

He takes in all the little changes, like your trimmed hair, and that fact that you seemed to have lost weight – which made him frown. And then there was that smile, that dazzling smile, which only seemed to shine brighter now than it did before.

Your hands tremor a bit, the way he just stares at you making your heart leap. “I-I’m sor-”

The cake hit the floor with a plop, eliciting laughter from the others as he wraps his arms around your figure and he reels you into his arms in one swift movement. You feel his tears soak into your blouse, and you hold onto him tighter, your eyes already wet from your own tears. You were finally with him – you were finally home.

The owner gathered everyone together for a photo towards the end of the celebration, Beomgyu following suit wherever you went, refusing to let go of your hand for even a second. You offered him a loving smile when Hyunjin teased him for it, and placed a soft kiss to the back of his hand.

Beomgyu lead you up to the rooftop to see the sunrise, momentarily letting go of your hand to flush your back against his chest, before grabbing hold of it, and the other hand, again. The bright orange and yellow rays peeked from behind the mountain in the distance, and you had never felt more at peace.

You recalled the way your chest tightened and the way tears burned at the corners of your eyes upon receiving his confession a year ago. You had been so happy. So, so happy. But you knew you could not accept him. At the time, you knew that you were in no place to be with someone like him. He was, and is, too wonderful for someone as messed up as you are. You didn’t want burden him with your issues, not when his career had just taken off.

“Beomgyu?” he hummed from where his head against yours, “I love you.”

You stepped away from his embrace, giggling when you noticed the way he pouted. Your turned to face him properly, before attaching your arms around his waist. “Back then... I was in a really bad space. It’s not excuse, and I certainly shouldn’t have run away from you. I...have gotten help ever since, and I want to tell you my story. Would you like to hear it?”

He leaned back and thought for a moment. He then cupped the side of your face with his hand and ran his thumb across your cheek, before pulling you in to press a gentle, lingering kiss to your forehead.

“Whatever you’re willing to share, I will listen to and accept with open arms. I love you for who you are; and that includes everything that has shaped, and will shape you into the amazing person I already know you are.”

“That includes the way you absolutely kick my ass at gaming.”

[yournameyn]

Feeling Deeply Chapter 5

Genre: Arranged Marriage Fic. Fluff turning into angst?

Pairing: Namjoon x OC

Summary: The story of two deeply feeling nerds who find themselves in an arranged marriage. (Details here). Our OC is called Brishti. It’s a Bengali name meaning rain. Namjoon calls her Rim (short for her pet name, RimJhim which means the pitter-patter of rain). She calls him Joon.

Warnings: NOT THE NAMJOON OF OUR DREAMS. Argument. Fight over tiny discrepancies that turn out to be a huge problem. Domestic violence. Not a happy chapter.

A/N: Have you ever felt this, reader? When you watch something and realise exactly what you need to realise in that moment? I’ve had that so many times - seeing my feelings mirrored in a show. That’s something that I’ve tried to have Brishti feel here. Also, this is how I see the natural progression of this Namjoon, the one who obliged to duty rather than his dreams. It took me a long time to write this but I love what’s come out. Let me know what you think!

Current Chapter: London, late 1963. Love fully blooms between Namjoon and Brishti. And yet, something’s not right. A visit to the ballet and a conversation brings forth realisations. The inklings that Brishti was trying to avoid transform into writing on the wall.

Previously in Feeling Deeply: Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The magic about new love isn’t really in romance or even in true intimacy. It’s in how violent new love is… and just how much time it takes us to feel it’s impact.

In the new love between Namjoon and Brishti, everything had been roses and honey, overflowing, swaying in a gentle breeze. They spent every second possible in each other’s arms. They had to tear themselves away from each other when they had to leave home. And even then, it hurt as though they were part of the same cloth.

Brishti had thought about how they had become woven, their souls an ornate tapestry. Namjoon had told her then about a Japanese tradition of weaving that was a sort of meditation and a kind of worship to a god called ‘Musubi’. The disciples say it is like being part of the cosmic tapestry. Being tied to each other.

“Just like we are… I felt a pull toward you and I followed it. I was scared… so full of doubts about who you were and how this was all going to go… I had promised myself that I would fulfil my duty… whatever happened ” Namjoon had said, petting Brishti’s hand gently, “And I… I still can’t believe it… It… you make me feel like I can… trust myself.” Brishti had looked at her genius then and wondered what a strange world it must be that made a man like Namjoon doubt himself, “Always, always trust yourself, Namjoon-ah.” and settled into the crook of his neck.

It was indeed a strange world that caused Namjoon to build an armour around himself. Because ‘London’ and ‘Lonely’ sounded just the same to him. His years alone in this strange place had been unkind, unrelenting. Brishti had been the only softness he had felt in a long long time. Armours built over years can break in an instant, though. For him, it was the moment when he and his wife had crossed the threshold to becoming lovers. High on the magic of new love, he had not realised it.

Sitting across from each other after that fateful evening, Namjoon and Brishti were both wide awake in the early hours of the next morning. Brishti buttoned up the shirt they never fully took off. Namjoon had tickled her with his toes. They propped their feet against the other’s to see just how vast the difference was (he melted seeing how small her feet were and hadn’t stopped playing with them since). Caressing each toe, he remembered something he wanted to ask -

“How did you know what Saranghae is?”

“Mm…” she stretched her arms, “I know what it means…” Brishti said.

“I know you know… from the way you… after I said it… You asked Yoongi about it?” Namjoon cautiously asked about the only other Korean Brishti knew. To his surprise, she nodded no, still denying him any information. Namjoon had to tickle her foot for the answer.

“Okay! Okay! Wait! Pleeeease!” Namjoon stopped and Brishti bent down to the bureau next to her bed and pulled out a textbook - LEARN HANGUL THROUGH ENGLISH. Namjoon looked more shocked than she had expected. “I asked Yoongi about the book-”

“You don’t need to Rim… I’m not learning Bangla, am I?” Namjoon said. He was touched but he didn’t want his love to do anything he couldn’t reciprocate.

“I would have asked you to learn it… if I wrote poetry in my mothertongue...” Brishti said. Namjoon was shocked. She went on, “You really think I didn’t know?”

Namjoon blushed and smiled and flopped over in Brishti’s lap. She brushed his hair as she explained, “You light up at the mention of lyrics and poetry, you keep a notebook by your side at all times, you’re moved by the things that people usually don’t pay attention to… I know you’re a poet, Joonie.”

Namjoon looked up at her and said, “No one has ever called me that…”

Brishti leaned down and kissed her gorgeous husband. “You are... From what I know, I bet all my books that you are a great one... And… I… I would love nothing more than to be part of your world of words, Joonie… It must be strange… to be understood but in a foreign language. If you would let me, I want to understand you in your language… Do you think that’s something maybe--”

He got up and all but jumped on Brishti, pinning her down to the bed with the cutest puppy-yell she had ever heard. “Yes! Of course, yes!”

They both understood that this was a proposal. The truest kind - a gentle request to explore Namjoon’s universe. They would later joke about how she proposed to him after a month of being married. Namjoon was completely delighted by this person with him, his person… one who really saw him.

He pulled her to him saying, “You’re the best part of my world, Rim...” and kissed her.

Each moment of love flowed through the next. When they had to be separated, they couldn’t wait for the next one, their moment again. On weekends they would visit museums and find their favourite paintings and sculpture or their favourite prehistoric relic and animal. Brishti hated the fact that Namjoon had to work overtime to compensate for these weekends and she often voiced how unfair it was.

In response Namjoon would just give her a peck and say, “As long as I have you, I’m happy.” This pricked her but she was too taken by the man before her to pay heed to it.

Namjoon was just about able to keep a straight face at work but everyone around Brishti was acutely aware of how much she loved Namjoon.

At one point, her colleague and best friend, Min Yoongi had yelled at her, “Yhaaaaa! Stop blushing?! It’s just a clock… what could be romantic about a clock?!” Sayuri-san, and she were hanging around Yoongi’s table when Brishti looked at his new flip clock and started blushing.

Brishti laughed along with everyone else but explained, “It’s involuntary… that’s what happens when you’re married to a poet.”

Sayuri-san corrected, “I know too many wives of poets to know that’s not necessarily true… It is true though, when you’re in love with a poet… Go on… tell us how exactly poet Namjoon makes you blush about a clock...”

Brishti blushed even more at that. Yoongi rubbed his arms and demanded, “Tell us because there’s some really weird things coming to my mind… like you guys have an exact time when...”

Brishti stopped his imagination, “No no no… it’s nothing like that… he loves digital clocks... because he loves to watch the time turn to 00:00… zero o’clock he calls it… and on days he feels sad, it’s like zero o’clock is always there to comfort him… like it’s a point when the whole world holds its breath and he can feel happy again… but these days… with me… he said he wants the clock to keep going after 23:59… he wishes time would stretch on… beyond 24:01…”

Yoongi sighed and sat back down, “You’re making me fall in love with Namjoon… ahhh that is beautiful. He should be published...”

“Imagine him saying this directly to you and you might know how I feel… I can’t stop talking about him...”

“Oh, we know. But honestly none of us care… your poet-librarian romance is getting us through our single-ness.” Yoongi reassured her.

The three of them continued to talk about the ways in which Brishti could repay Namjoon’s wordsmithing in graphic ways.

It was that evening, wasn’t it, when Namjoon had enveloped her back in the warmest hug as soon as he’d entered their flat. Brishti was in the kitchen when she heard him enter but hadn’t expected this. He kissed her neck while telling her the good news, “We got our first Korean client today… because of me… Mmmm… Why do you always smell so amazing?”

Brishti turned around and hugged him again, “That’s amazing! Namjoon-ssi! I’m so proud of you!”

“He’s from a wealthy family… so he can actually afford our firm… its not exactly the work I wanted to do--”

“It is a step toward that idea, right? It’s still good work, fighting for justice?” Brishti asked, stopping him from undermining his own work.

Namjoon nodded, “Yeah… He’s a dancer… Park Jimin. All the posh types know him as one of the best dancers in the Royal Ballet. They call him Jim… as if it’s too difficult to say Jimin?” Namjoon shook his head in disapproval. He began helping Brishti with the chopping and continued, “He was born in the UK and trained since he was 5... He got into the Royal Ballet but he’s been passed up to be a principal over and over even though everyone who has seen him dance apparently knows that he’s far far better… So recently he spoke to the director there... and of course the director made a racist slur and asked not to bother him with this again. He can’t even quit and work at another company because of the contract they have him on. There’s a non compete clause… meaning he won’t be able to dance with any other company. That’s all he wants… to be able to get out of that contract… I’m hoping to convince him to press charges on racial discrimination too. We’re not in the 20s anymore.”

When Brishti didn’t respond, Namjoon looked up at her. “That’s horrible… I’m so so glad you’re taking up the case. But please tell me what you ate when you were alone?” He looked down at the carrot he’d been failing to cut.

Namjoon scrunched his nose and admitted, “Canned food mostly.”

Brishti said, “I’m really really glad you’re getting to do work that you are passionate about, Joonie, you deserve it. Now, you should know how to cut a carrot.”

Namjoon pressed up against Brishti’s back. She reached back up to the nape of his neck and made him moan into her. Then… then Namjoon made her forget how to cut carrots.

He had these ways… Namjoon, with his touch, his voice, his languages both spoken and soundless. He was lighting new paths into her self. She loved learning him. Paths she didn’t know existed, that she’d been longing for.

The scars of the loneliness, emptiness that Namjoon had experienced had turned his longings into a kind of starvation. He needed to be nourished and also devoured. Brishti was just the creature to do it. He could feel her warm fingers trace rows of pleasure onto his skin. He felt them bear down and singe when the two of them had to move away from each other. He felt those ropes tug at him as the end of his workday neared. Namjoon closed his eyes each night at her touch, the feeling and fragrance of her body. He felt blooms of intimacy spring up like seedlings out of the soil of his skin. And deeper. In the earth of his soul. So he did the only thing he could. Reciprocate. Namjoon sowed his love, his desire, his need onto her, into her every night.

There were times, though, when she would feel his absence in the middle of the night and see him working in the dim light of a lamp. She knew he had to work hard to do what he wanted but she also saw he had to continually prove himself to people who weren’t even paying attention. The reason they weren’t paying attention was painfully clear to Brishti but she was yet to experience it’s full stab.

Namjoon wanted to shield her from it. He was counting on an armour that didn’t exist anymore to protect himself and his wife… the reason he liked his life again. Whenever she came out and switched on a brighter light, reprimanding him for straining his gorgeous eyes, he saw that it did prick her - this world and the unfairness he had to endure. She would say something small, an almost-complaint that alerted him… against her for some strange reason. She would say something that would be easy to ignore and yet would prick him, like - “I don’t know why they haven’t promoted you yet.” or “Why haven’t they taken up Jimin’s case yet? You’ve worked so hard on it.” Everytime she did that, he would have to pacify himself.

‘I’ve told her so much about the Jimin case… she’s just really invested’ Namjoon thought to himself. Just so he would avoid thinking, ‘I shouldn’t have told her.’

He would have to calm himself, give her a peck and try to convince her to stop worrying. “As long as I have you, I’m happy.” Namjoon would always say.

Then, Brishti smiled as she always did. While trying to understand why that sentence bothered her so much. After almost five months of exploring this wonderful man, some part of him still felt unfamiliar… like it didn’t fit in with the rest. Still, these things take time, she had heard from so many women over the years. Besides, she was blessed with a man far far above the norms. So, how could she prod? These are things Brishti had told herself - until the night she couldn’t stay silent.

The couple was coming up on their fifth month together and Park Jimin had gifted Namjoon a ticket to the final show of the season as a token of gratitude, for having heard his story.

Brishti was nervous about going to this kind of a gathering and had told her husband to meet her there.

She had enlisted the help of Sayuri-san to look appropriate for the event. Her slightly longer hair was clipped and her eyes were kohled. She wore a burgundy knee length fringe-ended dress that she had received from her gracious host, stylist and make-up artist - an inheritance of her brilliant life tucked into the black pearl beading and deco design. It was a big departure from the usual tie-die or band tees and jeans with her baggy coat. She had carried the coat but felt this strange sort of compulsion to stand in the cold air in the noodle strap dress, for him to see her.

She felt butterflies in her stomach and kept fiddling with the coat she had draped over her arm. It was electric when she saw him.

Namjoon looked gorgeous in a tux. All of Brishti’s nerves were soothed just by looking at him. He had brushed his hair back. Tall and dashing - better than any heathcliffe could ever be. And with his reading glasses, he looked like the lead of a romance novella that would make all the women swoon. Indeed she was swooning. Brishti was suddenly warm in the chilly, windy night. And when Namjoon saw her, blood rushed to her cheeks. Everything inside her was running helter skelter in a panic. Brishti felt everything drop in the few moments it took for Namjoon to reach the top of the stairs. Dolled up like this, outside of her element, she felt like an imposter. Some angel needed to be standing in her place. For the first time, feigning beauty, Brishti felt like she wasn’t worthy of her husband.

She was finally able to keep her feelings aside when he reached her.

Namjoon kissed her palm like a gentleman and whispered in her ear, “Let’s go home… I need a private kind of dance…” Brishti blushed. Namjoon put his arm around her and felt the chill that had settled on her skin. “Aren’t you cold? Why didn’t you wear the coat?” Namjoon asked. Brishti just shook her head no and the two of them walked in.

Brishti assumed that the ballet would be a welcome distraction from the storm that brewed within her. She had read up about the show, the piece they were going to perform -

Tchaikovsky’s venerated Swan Lake. The story of a young girl who falls in love with a prince who promises to save her but fails. Ofcourse there were finer nuances to the story but this was the basic plot. As the lights dimmed, Brishti felt pulled in by the music, the eerie beauty of it’s melody played in perfectly with the questions that were swirling around in Brishti’s mind -

Why do I feel wrong?

Is this what Yoongi was talking about? Anxiety…?

Why does Namjoon look so... different?

Why is he so quiet, so… distant…It’s like he’s keeping himself away from me despite being right next to me, arm in arm, like the true Namjoon is somewhere in a glass case? Deep deep beneath whatever this creature is who is next to me?

I’m thinking too much. No. What is this? Why am I feeling this way?

It’s the music… no its not just the music… something is fucking wrong because all I feel like doing is breaking that glass case that’s locked away My Namjoon and presented this fucking imposter. What the hell is going on?!

Brishti barely managed to keep it together. She kept her eyes on stage…

It was like seeing a moving painting being created by invisible hands and the music was the sound of the brushstrokes, amplified. Park Jimin was playing Rothbart, the owl-like magician who curses Odette into a swan until she finds someone who would promise to love her forever. The questions in her mind and the power of the spectacle before her forced her tears to keep flowing.

Namjoon saw Brishti cry and held on to her. But the more he tried to comfort her, the more uneasy she became, the more she coudln’t contain the tears in her eyes.

The curtain fell at the end of Act three when the prince realises he has been tricked. Brishti, somehow, mirrored his grief. The prince was cheated by Rothbart into believing that his daughter, Odile, was Odette. Rothbart relished his plan so despicably it made Brishti’s stomach turn. The prince had already declared to the ballroom full of people his vow to love and marry the maiden by his side - Odile, not Odette. Park Jimin played Rothbart so skillfully, so beautifully that despite being the villain, despite being covered from head to toe, he was the star. Rothbart giggled delightfully as he revealed to the prince that the girl in his arms wasn’t Odette at all. That Odette was waiting for her prince by the lake. The curtain fell as the prince felt the stab of betrayal and rushed to Odette.

Brishti rushed to where she did not know. She wanted to get away from Namjoon, from this feeling that she couldn’t understand, couldn’t explain. She was angry. She wanted to break something. Tears still flowing down her face, she found a corner that was hidden away in darkness. She went in. Brishti sat on the couch there, for what seemed like eternity, breathing heavily. Nothing made sense. It felt like her insides were twisting into each other. Suddenly, though, a door creaked open and out came an angel. A man, glowing, having just freshened up. He saw her, saw her fear and instead of pulling back in shock, approached with a strange kindness. He held her wrist and stayed silent for a moment.

His beauty was also a kindness to her. In that moment, Brishti could breathe a little bit better. He sat down by her knees, on the floor and when he spoke, his voice flowed like a tonic, “First time at the ballet? It’s overwhelming… I know. You’re okay. You are safe. Rothbart is not here. Talk to me… what are you feeling?”

The tears kept flowing. This man was different, she knew he understood what she was feeling like. She felt safe, but not as if she was with a saviour, rather as though she was with another victim.

“What are you feeling…” Park Jimin repeated. The pieces were falling into place in her head. This is Park Jimin, the man who danced as Rothbart. The man who should have danced the Prince. Who should have played Odette and Odile.

“I feel… rage.” Brishti trembled as she spoke. She could breathe again.

“Yes… Rothbart is… evil… I’m sorry-”

Brishti nodded her head no. “At the prince.”

Jimin was surprised. “Let it out. You can scream in here and no one would know.”

Brishti didn’t need another invitation, but her rage wasn’t a scream, it was a whisper - “I want to hit the prince. How could he not now? He couldn’t see that that girl was not Odette? Is he blind? The way she moved, the way she danced… which only means… it means that the prince knew… somewhere he felt doubt but he… He couldn’t fucking trust himself enough?! I don’t know why this is breaking my heart… Why can’t people trust in themselves?! It’s a pathetic fucking excuse and I can’t buy it… I just can’t. Why did the prince...” Her hands covered her face as she wiped her tears. She composed herself.

Jimin pulled out a kerchief. “May I?” Brishti nodded and he dabbed her face with care.

“The prince trusted his sight more than his soul. And now, Odette will die because of it. As always, the woman pays the price.”

“He dies too, you know.”

“What a waste…”

Jimin smiled, “Thank you… for watching the show, for feeling it so much.”

Brishti managed a weak smile, “Thank you.” Jimin stepped away and sat next to her, at a respectable distance. “I’m being lied to.”

Jimin nodded, “I know what that’s like. I feel that rage against the prince too. And still, we must be kind to our liars.”

Brishti clenched her teeth, “Why? Where’s the fairness in that?”

Jimin moves away, in a dejected kind of daze and pours himself a drink, “That’s the biggest lie, fairness. Cruel joke.”

Brishti walked toward the door. “I should go… Thank you.”

Jimin raised his glass to her.

Brishti wore her coat and walked toward the exit. She found Namjoon in a panic and suddenly felt like she could reach him. He looked so relieved to see her. She couldn’t help but feel awash with love as he crashed into her in the warmest hug. It was as if he was the one who was lost.

“Are you okay? Why were you crying?” Namjoon asked her as he stroked her head and held her in the hug for as long as she needed.

“I need to ask you something.” Brishti whispered as she pulled away. They began walking down the stairs of the theatre.

“Änything.” Namjoon replied.

“Your firm… they refused the Jimin case, right?”

Namjoon froze. His jaw locked up. “Let’s go home.”

The rest of the way, neither of them spoke a word. They entered their home in a cold silence. They washed the night off themselves and entered their bedroom, which was completely devoid of the heat and desire that usually filled it right up to the ceiling. What used to feel like an ocean, now felt like a vacuum.

When Namjoon walked in, Brishti reminded him, as kindly as she could,“I said I need to ask you something. You said, ‘anything’.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it.” Namjoon was cold again. Unfeeling. Unreachable.

Brishti tried her best to be calm… “When would you want to talk about it?”

Namjoon breathed in - “Why? Am I answerable to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we disagree. I don’t think I am answerable to you. What would you have done if I wouldn’t have told you about it in the first place?”

“I would still be feeling what I’m feeling… I would be even more furious though.”

“Fu- why would you be furious? I have to work there, I lost the account. I’m feeling hurt and disappointed in myself and instead of helping me, you’re angry?! What the hell could you be angry at?!”

“I’m being lied to. I’m being tricked.”

“What?!” the contempt on Namjoon’s face made her head throb. He was angry now.

“There are two Namjoons here. I’m being told there’s only one and--”

“That is some philosophical trash that you learned from one of your books. Real life doesn’t work that way. But how would you know?! You don’t have a real job. You have a hobby. A hobby of stacking books in order. You’re just plain lucky that someone is paying you for your hobby. That’s not a job. You of all people cannot tell me about the things I have to do to keep my job. I have tried my best to be as honest as I can be--”

“As honest as you can --”

“Listen to me!” Namjoon thundered. His loud voice might as well have been a punch. It rang through her body and rattled her bones. She had tears in her eyes but clenched them down as Namjoon continued yelling, “Enough… enough with the fucking tears. What the fuck are you so sad about?! I don’t need you to pity me. I don’t need anyone to feel sad for me. I have tried to be a good man - do you even know how much other men don’t even mention to their wives?! I told you everything. EVERYTHING. And now I’m being punished for it. Time and time again I tried to console you… even though I was the one hurting… I tried to be there for you and tell you… as long as I have --”

Brishti couldn’t take it anymore “Don’t. Say that.” She didn’t yell. Her voice was just above a whisper and yet it sent a chill down Namjoon’s spine. She wiped her tears. “I didn’t ask to be consoled. I was just… curious. If a few questions from me hurt so much maybe you should ask yourself why. I’m not lucky that someone decided to pay me for my hobby. It’s nice to know what you really think of my job. But whatever you think, I created my job. I created my life. I fought to come to london. I fought for the right to earn--”

“Oh please... spare me the feminist lecture...” scoffed Namjoon.

“Sure. Take up Jimin’s case.”

Namjoon felt the burn of white hot rage. He wanted to strangle her. He was so used to touching her… and she was his… in this bedroom, he had made her his. He wasn’t thinking. Namjoon strode toward her and held one massive palm over her mouth and the other on her neck and pinned her to the wall. “YOU WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THAT IF I DIDN’T TELL YOU.”

It took him a few moments to realise what he was doing. Brishti was shocked and tried to scream but no voice came out. She was trying to get him out of his daze when he finally saw her, saw his Rim, horrified… by him. Namjoon pulled his hands back instantly. He saw a red bruise bloom where his hands were - on her face and on her neck.

“This is how you make your conscience shut up?” Brishti’s voice was hoarse. “You think this has nothing to do with your conscience? With the best part of you? The part that you made me fall in love with? Are you really telling me you don’t know that this is why you can’t write the way you used to… You’re killing my Joon and asking me to stay silent. I can’t.”

The searing anger still hadn’t died and it burst out of him, “Why are we fighting like this… over Jimin… why don’t you take up his case if you fucking love him so much?”

“What do you think I’m doing right now?”

“You… Why are you fighting for him against me?!” It was here that Namjoon realised his armour was gone. The idea of who he is... suddenly vanished. And the one thing that had made him feel safe, like his true self, was slipping away. “You’re saying… just tell me… you’re saying what I think you’re saying.”

Brishti did him the only kindness she had left in her, she explained, “Jimin wants to leave but can’t. He stays because he needs to dance. He stays because he cannot get out of his contract. You say you want to help people like Jimin, you roll your eyes at white people who can’t pronounce our names, you feel guilty for asians who have much less than we do… but then you also don’t raise an issue when your boss holds meetings in clubs where people of other races and dogs and women are not allowed. You work overtime for the privilege of weekends… You say you are trying but… as far as I know… you don’t have a non-compete clause in your contract, Namjoon.”

That hit him like an iceberg. Namjoon’s legs gave way and he just sat on the bed.

He watched as Brishti put on her coat and left, covering her bruises with a scarf.

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Chapter 6 - to be posted.

[katieaki]

A family can be just a grieving wife, a lesbian husband who is definitely over her own childhood trauma, and a child who was raised by wolves.

For the last couple of months, I have been in the process of making up a new character who I am simply just *obsessed* with, now. In the last month, I’ve been writing her backstory. So while you all will not get to see her in her final form for a while, please look upon her extremely humble beginnings. I expect that this is about halfway finished, though I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be this long, so who knows! Expect at least one more update on this saga.

I need to include a huge CW for this & please feel free to contact me if you want any more detailed info. CW for EXTREME child abuse/neglect, and cannibalism (all fairly non-graphic but pretty upsetting), and starvation & child death, child trauma.

This character has gone through some pretty rough stuff at a very young age and is dealing with the fallout of it throughout the narrative. You don’t see any of it from her point of view, just a fairly summarized recollection of events from a child’s hazy point of view. In my opinion, the most explicitly discussed stuff is themes of starvation & dealing with that & the symptoms of her trauma, again, not through her eyes but through Hero’s. You can also rest assured that she is on the road to recovery with a new kind of mom n dad who are going to do everything in their power to care for her! And we WILL be seeing her again, as an adult.

I am going to put a (less-triggery?) summary in a spoilered image below so you can still get the gist of the situation even if you don’t want to read all that. read the whole thing, for free on my patreon!

Five or six years after the end of Bloodied on Arrival, Nuisance is at her job at the Knife Church monastery when there is an all-hands-on-deck style commotion. In the abbot’s office, there is a little girl going absolutely feral. She’s biting people and destroying the office because she wants to be admitted to Knife Church as an assassin and they’ve told her no & that they would take her to a Listening Church convent where she can grow up a bit first. No one knows what to do about her, but Nuisance, who has had her own traumatic childhood and also joined the church way too early, can’t bear to see that happen to anyone else. She tells the girl that, if she agrees to live with her for a while, she will spend that time training her to be an assassin.

The girl, whose name is Artie, looks too skinny to be alive. Her hair is in mats and she has a bad case of lice. She’s prone to fits of uncontrollable violence and anxiety attacks. It’s hard to know her age because she has obviously been malnourished for a long time and her behaviors are often those of a much younger child. She doesn't really know the difference between fantasy and reality and her own memories are an upsetting mix of the two. There are glimpses of a sweet and normal little girl, but something terrible has obviously happened to her. She won’t say what (only that she was “raised by wolves”) and Nuisance refuses to make her. 

Nuisance and Hero are trying their best to be good parents. Hero kind of always thought she’d be a mom and she suspects that taking care of Artie, while incredibly difficult, is providing a lot of catharsis for Nuisance, who is being, like, a really great dad. She organizes a barn-raising-type-event, enlisting the help of a bunch of her churchmates (several of whom who are Hero’s former lovers from her well-deserved slut era) to build Artie her own room. Artie LOVES being around all these Knives disciples and she loves her new and beautiful bedroom, but as soon as everyone leaves and the door shuts on her, leaving her alone in her room, she begins to destroy it. When a shard of broken ceramic lamp cuts Hero’s cheek, Nuisance finally loses her temper in a serious way. In a move she's immediately ashamed of, Nuisance drags Artie, who is crying and begging for her life, out into the desert for a talk. 

When she returns with a sleeping Artie on piggy-back, she reports what Artie told her to Hero. Artie was the seventh of seven daughters (Prudence, Chivalry, Valor, Deliverance and Wisdom, who were twins, Virtue, and her, Reckoning) and she had been hungry for as long as she could remember. The family did not have enough to eat, so she spent a lot of her time eating non-food items like paper and bugs. Eventually (as she told it) because she was bad and wouldn't stop crying, her parents locked her and the three other youngest sisters in one bedroom for increasingly long periods of time, eventually only letting them out once a day to use the bathroom. The three older sisters were responsible for bringing them their food, what little of it there was, and would often sneak them extras if they could. One day, the older sisters stopped coming in and the four youngest girls realize they've been boarded into the house alone. There is little food and when one of the twins dies, the other insists the three remaining girls have to eat her to survive until their parents come back. It doesn't do them much good, in the end, as Artie's two remaining sisters also succumb to starvation. She tucks them all into a big bed and lays down with them to die, too, but she wakes up. And when she does, she realizes that her parents are not coming back for them. In fact, they left them there to die. Using every last ounce of strength she has, she escapes the house, finds her mother, and kills her. Her dad and her other three sisters are still alive somewhere, she assumes. The next thing she can really remember is Nuisance picking her up by the armpits that day at the monastery. 

They renovate Artie's bedroom to include two sets of big glass doors to alleviate her understandable claustrophobia and continue to try to build (and re-build) trust with Artie. One day, Hero wakes up to Nuisance having left. This is not a rare occurrence, but she soon receives a letter from her instructing her to take Artie to her sister's house and wait for Nuisance there. Hero has no idea what's going on, but she doesn't want to upset Artie (who has difficulty with changes in routine and has had more than one traumatic forced march through the desert) who still can't read with great fluency, so she decides to break her vow of silence for a minute to let her know what's going on. Artie just barely escapes having another meltdown, and the girlies decide to have a little sleepover time while dad is away. 

And that's basically where we leave off, here! Please stay tuned for more Artie content, as I love her and am obsessed with her. 

um…. girls?? ladies???

[dear-yandere]

[ terror eyes ]

yandere! risotto nero x reader. commissioned.

› word count: 2.8k. › warnings: consensual kidnapping, delusions, dependency, implied familial abuse, graphic gore and murder. › art credit: 39805470.

“Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.” — Kait Rokowski, Alight

he didn’t expect to feel this way. he didn’t expect to lose himself in you.

it’s the way your eyes shine when you look at him — the fleeting glances, the lasting smiles. it’s the way you say his name — the unexpected tenderness, the excitement on your face. it’s the way his heart beats wildly in your presence, the way he’s reminded of its existence. it’s the way you remind him that he is human, not the monster he’s made himself out to be. 

when he looks in the mirror, he sees a void, a blackness so thick he’s afraid it will devour him whole. of all the things risotto nero does not fear, he fears himself most. and yet, when you look at him, there is hope, light, the very opposite of what stares at him from the mirror. you look at him like there’s something worth adoring, something worth loving — emotions he never imagined could be directed at him. it’s a foreign feeling, something he hasn’t felt in years. nothing short of a nuisance at first, the way your gaze would pin to him like a fan adores their idol or a disciple worships their god. being the source of admiration is nothing new to him — many a man look up to him with a mixture of awe and fear, some groveling for mercy and others joining his cause. risotto nero is accustomed to being watched, to having eyes on him from every angle and direction: from diavolo, who both trusts and distrusts him; from the capos, who look at him with awe and scorn, and from his own underlings, who both fear and revere him. risotto nero is a force to be reckoned with, and yet, the way you look at him like a lover is enough to unravel his layers, as if there was nothing to fear at all.

it’s hard not to feel naked around you, to not feel vulnerable, as if you’ll figure out his deepest desires and worst fears if you so much as tried. vulnerability is not to be shown in his line of work, even you understand this much. despite the way you look at him with such ardor, you keep distance. whether it’s out of fear or respect, he doesn’t want to find out. it’s better this way, to keep you at arm’s length; you aren’t supposed to be alive. that thought rings true in the recesses of his mind, a reminder of who you truly are, who he truly is, of how this relationship was fated for end from the start. but even he isn’t immune to selfishness and desire.

“welcome home!” 

your voice holds the universe together, its stars and planets localized entirely to the house you both call home. there isn’t this urgent need to be careful around him — to feign happiness, to pretend your heart hasn’t been shattered so many times you’ve lost track of its pieces. there isn’t this urgent need to put your guard up around him, ensure it’s airtight, ensure it can take another beating. there isn’t this urgent need to be afraid around him. not anymore.

you don’t wait for a response, you never do. he never speaks without purpose, and you’ve grown accustomed to the way he wears silence like a mask. bounding up to him with a skip in your step, you attach yourself to his arm and lead him to the living room, the same conversation on your tongue as yesterday, the day before, and every day before that. 

“how was work?”

a trivial question, considering his occupation; work is never good nor bad, because to him, taking life is neither good nor bad. it’s normal, it comes as easy as breathing. but for a moment, he feels the normality of it all wash over him. the catharsis that an ordinary life brings, one where he is married to a loving spouse, someone who greets him when he arrives home, someone who dotes on him at his highest and comforts him at his lowest. for a moment, you are his home, and for a moment, this is normal.

but moments are fleeting.

his heartbeat reminds him that this is real, that you are real. but there’s an ache in his chest and a longing for something else — for something more. he wonders if this happiness isn’t enough for him. if he was good, would he be capable of love? if he was good, would he be worthy of love? of your love?

how foolish... murderers aren’t meant to dream.

“i was so lonely without you, even the little metallica got bored...” you rub the smooth head of the stand, a little part of his soul perched atop your shoulder. a means to keep track of you, but you insist on treating it like a friend. as much as he pretends to find disinterest in your affection, he feels your touch vicariously through the little being and silently revels in it. “you didn’t get hurt did you?” your eyes scan his chest, searching for any visible wounds. when you find none, you look up at him with a smile that reaches your eyes. “i know you have a high pain tolerance, but i know basic first aid, and...”, you hesitate, heat dusting your cheeks like stardust. should you finish that thought? it’d not like he particularly cares for what you have to say, or so he lets on.

“and i want to be of use to you.”

he stares at you, a sense of affection flickering through his gaze. his heartbeat quickens and he searches your eyes only to find that same brilliance, that same hope worn proudly like armor. a reminder that you are blameless in all this. there are still things you don’t understand, things you couldn’t possibly understand. the true nature of his job, the truth about his past, all parts of him remain shrouded with uncertainty, parts of him that will forever remain a mystery. never does he speak of the thoughts weighing him down. you wish you could understand and he wishes he could let you, but his heart does not allow it. you are better off in the light.

“aha, forget i said anything. i was just joking...” your laugh is sardonic and forced, and yet it is still music to his ears. “but rely on me if you need anything, okay?” the question is rhetorical, you don’t expect an answer nor do you expect him to ever need your help, but you offer yourself on a silver platter nonetheless. it’s the least you can do for the man who saved you.

risotto laughs through his nose and corrects that earlier thought: you may belong in the light, but you’re better off here. he tells himself that anyways, convinces himself that what he did was for purely for your benefit. and even then that sentiment feels foreign, his behavior like a man possessed. who is he? that day he saw you, that day he killed your parents, who did he become? he’s heard that some change when they meet a lover, that they become someone else. a sick yet romantic concept, to change into someone else entirely as easily as changing clothes, as if love is enough to change the depravity of humans. tragedy and hatred was never foreign to him, the better part of his adult years spent wallowing in contempt and resentment; a shameful part of him, one he looks back on with disgust. how he used to wish that were true, that the scum who killed his cousin would seek forgiveness and repentance. but life is no fairy tale. and yet, when he met you, he became someone different, someone better.

and it still isn’t enough to make him worthy of you.

you are not red. when he met you, you were pure, untouched, unsullied by the red that surrounded you. unaffected by the red of your parents who hurt you, by the red of your family who let them, by the red of your friends who left you. despite the sea of blood you used to live in, you were anything but. anything but that wretched color, anything but the color of blood. you were his realization, his epiphany: his world has been dyed red for so long, he’d forgotten the beauty underneath.

you make him feel alive again.

“you’ll tell me if something’s wrong, won’t you?” there is no need for words, but you speak in hopes of giving assurance. you want to be his shoulder to lean on and to cry in, even if that offer will forever go untouched. but he can’t. as much as he longs for that companionship, to fall apart in your arms and let you the collect the pieces, he can’t. he doesn’t know what he needs. he doesn’t even know if he needs you.

but you need him. “if it concerns you.” his reply is blithe, far too scathing a response for a lover’s concern, but you show no signs of quarrel. this isn’t the first time he’s brushed you off, especially when this false game of house has become commonplace: go to work, come home, be greeted a woman who’d happily be your wife if you asked, rinse and repeat. “i can take care of myself.”

you nod like you always do, but he knows you’ll fuss over him come his return from work tomorrow. a familiar smile is directed at him — a display which still feels foreign — and the gentle musings of a woman smitten with love follow as you guide him to the couch with the promise of dinner being ready soon. as he seats himself, the worries of the day roll from his shoulders like rain. how you fell for a man like him is beyond his understanding. even if he did save you from a far worse fate, from a family who would sooner be your undoing than the catalyst of your betterment, he is undeserving of your love. what he sees when he looks at you is hope and misguided truth — you’re too bright for him.

“we’re running low on groceries,” you call out from the kitchen, broaching the topic carefully, scared he’ll think you’re eager to leave. in this situation, you suppose most would assume that much, but you... you want to stay here. you want to be with him, to be around him more, not just when he returns from work. you want him, and you know he wants you too if only he’d let himself indulge. “i... i know you usually pick it up yourself, but i want to come with you,” you try to explain, confidence melting away like ice under his gaze. will your words get through to him? “n...next time, i mean, if that’s okay...” you meekly clarify.

if you didn’t admire him, the way he looks at you now would make your legs buckle. his eyes have never scared you, not like he expected they would, but there’s a certain terror they inflict when he looks at you as a nuisance rather than a lover. piercing red on black, the eyes of a demon rather than a human. and yet, he is your guardian angel, the only man who’s ever saved you. you know you’re safe with him, he wouldn’t hurt you like they did. the thought has flitted through your mind from time to time, memories of your abusers’ bodies mangled and torn apart from the inside. explanations don’t come easy to risotto, so you’re still left in the dark about your own parent’s deaths. not that you cared much for their passing, you were more concerned with the nature in which they died. tiny slits had opened on all corners of their body, as if they’d been instantaneously cut from the inside. you still remember their screams, guttural like the dying wails of animals, infused with the intense smell of iron permeating the air. you want to learn more about him, to understand him, and this... this power is the best place to start. why did he save you? why does he keep you? will there come a day where he leaves you too?

“it’s dangerous.” his eyes peel away from yours and you allow yourself the luxury of relaxation. “passione is still looking for you. your parents had an outstanding debt that your disappearance alone isn’t enough to tide over.” he notices the way your shoulders slump in his peripherals. if his lies weren’t for your own good, he might have felt some semblance of regret. “things will settle down, it’s pointless to keep asking,” he adds with a tone of finality. he’s never been one for consolation, so he doesn’t dwell on the sadness that permeates your being. you’re safer here, even you realize that; you don’t put up a fight.

“i see...” you turn away, hands busying themselves with a nearly-finished dinner. the smell of a home-cooked meal imbues the air with warmth, a reminder of his childhood. how long has it been since he’s enjoyed the presence of another, a meal made by someone who loves him? even when he treats you harshly, keeping you in the dark about your own safety and the reality of your situation, it’s never held against him. the love you pour into his meals is palpable, carrying a certain sweetness even where the dish has no place for it. if he’s being honest, it’s... addicting. to feel normal again.

his earlier reasoning isn’t a complete lie, more of a... half-truth. upon learning of your home life, of how much abuse you endured at the negligent hands of parents who refuse to let you leave, he’d intended to kill you too. put you out of your misery. leaving the children of hits alive is problematic for a number of reasons, the biggest being that grief drives people to extremes. risotto has always been keen on finishing jobs thoroughly, but even he could see that something inside of you was... broken. the way you watched your parents being ripped apart, mauled by something you can’t see nor begin to comprehend... amidst the guts and gore, he wasn’t able to place an emotion to it at the time, only that it was visceral, animalistic. realization only came later: the look on your face was one of pure happiness. surrounded by the blood of your own family, you were happy, relieved, hopeful. to see them finally suffer as much as you had, to see them finally gone from your life; you were so much like him, and yet so far removed all the same.

regret is lost on him. he doesn’t regret ‘saving’ you. your parents had it coming; their presence in the underbelly of naples had become troublesome for passione, the pair even going so far as to try to escape their debt to the mafia. a last-ditch attempt akin to the behavior of animals who’ve been cornered, risotto almost felt pity upon learning of your existence. the onus of repaying their debt would have fallen on you, a tactic even he didn’t quite agree with. but passione was never known for their lenience; this was the life risotto had chosen, after all. a life of crime and of murder, a life befitting a monstrous stand like his. at some point, he’d lost all sense of sympathy for his hits, their faces replaced by that of the drunk driver who killed his cousin. that scum’s sentence was far too lenient, and risotto has seen first-hand the trouble leniency can bring.

but he felt sorry for you. coming to terms with the sudden onslaught of pity was nauseating enough, but he’d offered to hide you until things settle down. the don was enraged that you’d ‘escaped’ before risotto could finish you off, but it was easy enough to let it go: you’ll ‘turn up’ eventually, and the debt your parents owed is the back burner for the time being. and, whether or not you preferred to die at the hands of your savior, you still followed him without quarrel when he took you. under normal circumstances, perhaps it’s better to say he kidnapped you, but you’ve always insisted that he did just the opposite; he freed you. for the first time in his life, he saved someone. where he couldn't save his cousin, he could save you.

“i’ll stop asking, but... maybe we can go together one day?” you pipe up, already setting a fresh plate of food before him. a model housewife, if this had been under normal circumstances. despite your attempts to hide any sadness, you wear a blissful expression when you glance up at him, head curiously tilted with the weight of your admiration for him. when you speak, he feels your love for him in every word; when you speak, he feels like he can love again. “as a couple,” you suggest, your smile genuine.

no, he doesn’t deserve you. not in the slightest.

“...i’d like that.”

but maybe one day he will.

dear-yandere, all rights reserved. 

[coffintownkids]

The past week was an absolute slog for me, but I finally did get to finish Ch.35.

It’s time for “Cooking with Wèi Wúxiàn!”

Just a quick edit to add in a Read More cut. Saw this on mobile and realized this was looooong!

Lemme tell ya, the dinginess of the kitchen in the show’s got nothing on the book description.

Lán Sīzhuī followed Wèi Wúxiàn back into the kitchen. As soon as he entered, he was assaulted by a foul stench wafting towards him. Lán Sīzhuī had never smelled anything so terrible in his life and was dizzy for a moment, but he made himself endure and didn’t rush back out. Jīn Líng had also followed after them and jumped back as soon as he was in the doorway, desperately fanning himself, “What the hell is that smell!!! Why are you in here and not thinking of a way to cure the poison!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Huh? You’re just in time. How did you know I was going to call you over? Help us out.”

Jīn Líng said, “I didn’t come here to help out! Gah! Did they kill somebody in here and forget to bury them?!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Little Miss Jīn, are you coming or not? Just come in and help us out. If not, go sit back down and ask somebody else to come over.”

Jīn Líng was instantly furious, “Who is Little Miss Jīn? Be careful with what you say to me!” He pinched his nose for a while to regain his composure, then finally groaned, “I just want to see what the hell you’re actually up to.” He then angrily lifted his robes and charged in. Who knew that Wèi Wúxiàn would open a container with a clang and the precise stench would be coming from inside it. The case had pig haunches and a single chicken sealed up inside it. The red meat had gone green and had given birth to little white maggots writhing around in the green.

It also forced Jīn Líng out of the room. Wèi Wúxiàn lifted the container and handed it over to him, “Throw it away. It doesn’t matter where you toss it, just take it somewhere where we won’t be able to smell it.”

*pukes*

Kinda glad they didn’t show that more graphically on TV! I also do love tsundere!JL.

Jīn Líng said, “What are you cleaning the stove for? It’s not like we need to eat.”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Who said we don’t? Eating is precisely what you need to do. Come sweep away the dust and get the spiderwebs off the surface, too.”

He said it in such a righteous and self-assured way, as if it was so matter-of-fact, that Jīn Líng inexplicable found a dustpan stuffed into his hands and he did as instructed while in a daze. The more he swept, the more he got the sense that something wasn’t right. He was just about to check the broom at Wèi Wúxiàn’s head when Wèi Wúxiàn opened up another container. The dismay of it had him dashing outside. Fortunately, they were not assaulted by any stench this time.

WWX continues to roll high charisma stats and keeps bamboozling people into doing what he wants.

Jīn Líng said, “You’re making congee?”

Wèi Wúxiàn, “Yup.”

Jīn Líng threw a dishrag. Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Look at you. You work for a while and then get mad. Now look at Sīzhuī. He’s been working as hard as he can and hasn’t said a word about it. What’s so bad about congee?”

Jīn Líng said, “What’s so good about congee? It’s so bland! That’s not it… You think I’m mad because congee isn’t good?!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “It’s also not for you anyway.”

Jīn Líng got even angrier, “What did you say? I did all this and I don’t get my share?!”

Lán Sīzhuī said, “Mò-gōngzǐ, is it possible for congee to cure corpse poisoning?”

LSZ remains a good boy and JL remains a tsundere.

Quite a bit of plotty dialogue and worldbuilding happens that is way too long to post, but this line’s right in the middle of it.

Wèi Wúxiàn used a spatula while mixing the contents of various of bottles and jars into the pot of congee

Uh oh! LOL

Meanwhile, Lán Sīzhuī was crouched down on the ground fanning the firewood while glancing up, “Mò-qiánbèi, the congee seems to be done cooking?”

Wèi Wúxiàn returned to his senses, stopped stirring his spatula, and took a taste from the bowl that Lán Sīzhuī had just washed, “Okay. Go carry it out and give a bowlful to each of the poisoned people to eat.”

Notice something different? LSZ changes how he addresses WWX from Mò-gōngzǐ to Mò-qiánbèi in the middle of this conversation! He’s acknowledging that he’s sees him as not just a another cultivator, but as a more knowledgeable peer for him to learn from. In terms some of you may be more familiar with, it’s kinda like changing from “san” to “senpai.”

However, after it was brought out and having only eaten one mouthful, Lán Jǐngyí sprayed it out, “What is this, more poison?!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “What poison? That’s the antidote! It’s sticky rice congee.”

Lán Jǐngyí said, “Why congee is the antidote is not what I’m talking about right now. I’ve never eaten such spicy congee before!”

One by one, all the other people that had tasted it nodded along with watery-looking eyes. Wèi Wúxiàn stroked his chin. He had grown up in Yúnmèng and the people of Yúnmèng were very capable when it came to eating spicy food. Wèi Wúxiàn preferred it to be as hot as possible. But whenever he was given the chance, he would always make it so unbearably spicy that Jiāng Chéng would throw his bowl down and curse at him for making it inedible. He was also eternally incapable of adding ingredients to a pot spoonful by spoonful. It seemed he hadn’t managed to stop himself just now, either. Out of curiosity, Lán Sīzhuī picked up a bowl with both hands and took a sip. His entire face flushed as he choked and tried to keep himself from spraying it. His eyes were red as he thought to himself, This taste is…Actually so horrible that it gives me bit of déjà vu…

LJY continues to be the most un-Lán ever. I love him! And not even fellow Yúnmèng native JC could put up with WWX’s cooking. WWX is the dude that reads a recipe calling for jalapeños and adds Carolina ghost reapers. Meanwhile, LSZ can’t figure out why it’s so horrifyingly familiar...

All the young disciples all went “blech” one after the other to express their disbelief, but they still drank down all their congee with miserable expressions. During the ensuing time, all of their faces glowed red from ear to ear and their brows were beaded with sweat. Every one of them was enduring torment worse than death. Wèi Wúxiàn couldn’t help saying, “Are you kidding me? Hánguāng-Jūn is also a Gūsū native and he’s still rather capable at handling spicy food. Why are all of you like this then?”

Lán Sīzhuī covered his mouth with his hand, “He doesn’t, qianbei. Hánguāng-Jūn prefers really light fare. He never eats spicy food…”

Wèi Wúxiàn was dumbfounded, “Is that right?”

But he remembered, after he rebelled against the Jiāng Sect of Yúnmèng in his previous life, he had still encountered Lán Wàngjī once while in Yílíng. During that time, although Wèi Wúxiàn had been the subject of considerable criticism, it still hadn’t gotten to the point that they were chasing him down. So he had cheekily demanded for Lán Wàngjī to have a meal with him and reminisce about the good old days. Lán Wàngjī had ordered spicy cuisine featuring all sorts of dishes with Sì​chuān peppers, so he had always assumed Lán Wàngjī’s tastes ran rather similar to his own.

Now that he thought about it, he actually couldn’t remember whether or not Lán Wàngjī had reached for those dishes with his chopsticks. Only that before the meal, he had said he would treat him to the meal and that after he ate, he was able to forget about that completely and Lán Wàngjī still paid the bill. It was natural for him to still not remember such details now.

He didn’t know why he suddenly, in the middle of this, strongly and deeply wanted to see Lán Wàngjī’s face.

Gahhhhhh. LWJ wanting to spoil WWX and ordering all his favorite foods! WWX and his spotty memory and not realizing why LWJ would order spicy food if he didn’t like it. ;_;

Also, I can’t imagine why WWX would want to see him so badly all of a sudden.

[childrenofmeyneth]

Mother Dearest

Oydis sits back, a smile on her face as she turns to Miqol. “Well, they’re ready for life, now.”

“Indeed,” Miqol chuckles in reply, running his hand through the hair of the children. “What shall we name them, then? They’re going to need names if they’re to have life.”

“True,” Oydis hums, placing the wrench she was holding down on a nearby bench. “How about Egil and Vanea? I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think those are my favorites.”

“Those are wonderful names,” Miqol nods. “I’m sure Lady Meyneth would agree.”

Fic written about what if Egil and Vanea had a Mama. Note the tags for Major Character Death and Graphic Depictions of Violence

Ao3 Link

Oydis sits back, a smile on her face as she turns to Miqol. “Well, they’re ready for life, now.”

“Indeed,” Miqol chuckles in reply, running his hand through the hair of the children. “What shall we name them, then? They’re going to need names if they’re to have life.”

“True,” Oydis hums, placing the wrench she was holding down on a nearby bench. “How about Egil and Vanea? I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think those are my favorites.”

“Those are wonderful names,” Miqol nods. “I’m sure Lady Meyneth would agree.”

“Indeed,” Oydis leans a bit closer to Miqol. “But no need to butter me up. I already agreed to use my old parts to help build you some children, Miqol!”

“Well, they’re your children too,” he points out.

“You’re dodging my statement, Miqol.” She accuses, poking him uselessly in the side.

Miqol lets out a hearty laugh. “Some may say dodging statements and questions is what I do best.”

“Let’s hope our kids don’t pick up on that from you, then,” she makes a face. “I want my children to be honest and forward.”

“I want that, too, that’s why you’re the mother,” Miqol replies. “Gives them a chance to take after you.”

“Once again trying to butter me up,” she clicks her tongue, putting each child’s pod under her arms. “Come on, enough of that. We have children to welcome to the world.”

--

“Egil won’t stop crying,” Oydis holds him on her lap, frowning. “Any idea what’s wrong?”

Miqol is currently holding Vanea, trying to stop her little wails that started in reply to her brother’s. “Not a clue, I’m afraid. Too bad he’s not old enough to talk yet, he could just tell us.”

“Babies don’t work that way and you know that,” Oydis clicks her tongue and bounces him a bit. “Do we have any Spicy Banana? It might be teething.”

“How would Spicy Banana help with that?” Miqol asks, brow furrowing.

“Shyves used to lather that on Linada’s gums and she’d calm down,” Oydis explains. “Doesn’t hurt to try, right?”

Miqol nods. “I suppose not, let me go see. Come on then, Vanea.”

Miqol moves his chair towards their supplies and looks through the cupboards. Spicy Banana… They should have a few, right? Every family on Mechonis kept a supply of any naturally occurring fruit or flower, in case they needed it for a medication or a ritual…

But then it hits Miqol. Isn’t Egil a little young to be teething already? He knows he started early as well, but that was how he ended up like this. Growing too fast and unable to stop, even when he should have. Becoming large enough his Growth Module had to be outright removed or he wouldn’t have been able to support his own internal systems.

Egil’s may have been malfunctioning in the same way his had. He didn’t like the idea, but he supposes that’s something to bring up to Oydis later. Maybe ask Meyneth for guidance on what to do… Maybe an early removal of the module, before he’s more than a young adult? Maybe an assurance it’s not as bad as Miqol’s had been…

Aha, Spicy Banana! Miqol pulls it from the cupboard and moves back towards Oydis. “One should be enough, yes?”

“Plenty,” Oydis takes it from him and places it on the nearby table, smashing it with one fist brought down upon it.

She takes some on her finger and gently spreads it across Egil’s gums, the baby still wailing and sobbing in her arms. Soon enough, it's in place, and shortly after that Egil lulls himself to sleep with coos. Looks like it was indeed his gums, then.

Good to know what it was, not-so-fun to know he may have inherited Miqol’s growth malfunction.

Vanea calms down too, no longer upset by the sounds of her brother’s crying. She falls asleep in her father’s arms and soon the parents are placing them back in their pods, closing them gently.

“Good,” Oydis smiles a bit. “I was worried we’d be up all night.”

“We’ve had plenty of sleepless nights because of these children already, hm?” Miqol chuckles as he and Oydis take the children back to their room. “They’re quite the handful.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she smiles. “Lady Meyneth says struggle helps make success all the sweeter.”

“I suppose she’s right, as she often is,” Miqol nods in agreement. “Let’s just hope they can start telling us what’s wrong, soon.”

“We’ve still got a hundred years or so before that, Miqol, don’t get your hopes up.”

--

Vanea is six hundred when her mother takes her out of her pod to brush her hair. It feels nice, as it's starting to get longer and gets so tangled in her pod, but… She cannot help but feel so awkward. She loves her mother, she really does, but the attention is so weird to her.

“Your hair is so nice, Vanea,” Mother says. “We should do things like this more often.”

“Why?” Vanea asks, a bit confused. “Father is always so busy, how are you not?”

Mother works at the Shrine, she speaks to Lady Meyneth often. She’s even taken Egil and Vanea before, and Vanea noticed she had a lot to do. More than a lot, actually, if you ask Vanea. Speaking directly to their Lady was a lot of work!

But here she is, taking the time to take Vanea out of her pod to brush her hair. Hair that almost no one would see, given the fact she’s always in that pod. Vanea just doesn’t get it --Father never does that. He’s honest about how busy he is.

“I have an important job, but my kids are even more important,” Mother replies with a hum. “Your father… he leads us, so maybe he can’t take as much time off as I do, but that’s okay, right?”

“Mmm,” she nods as Mother continues to brush out her hair. She still doesn’t quite get it, but she guesses it’s because she’s so young.

(She just wishes Father would make time too, if Mother wasn’t lying about children being more important than work).

“Relax, dear,” Mother speaks again with a laugh. “I have plenty of time to spend time with you and your brother! I’m not ignoring work to do this, I promise.”

“I believe you,” Vanea says, lying a bit.

“Good,” Mother places a kiss on her cheek. “You’re always such a good girl!”

“Thank you,” she says softly, wishing she felt like she had actually done something to earn the praise.

--

“An important part of being a disciple of Lady Meyneth is understanding not only her words but also what we can do for her,” Mother speaks to Egil as he kneels next to her at the shrine. “She tells us what she will do and what she needs from us, but we must understand there is more than what she says that we can do.”

Egil nods, having just recently moved from his pod, earlier than most. Mother is teaching him the basics of what is expected of an adult, which is more than he could ever expect. He listens and nods, a bit surprised.

Lady Meyneth, the soul of their Titan and the goddess of them all… Sometimes, there were things the Machina could do for her, things she did not even guide them to do? It leaves him a bit in awe, realizing there was more he could do.

“Wow,” he manages to breathe out. “Disciples of Lady Meyneth are amazing, Mother… You’re amazing.”

She laughs a bit and pinches his cheek. “Trying to soften us up to get into the group, are you?”

“No!” Egil responds, his cheeks flushing a deep grey. “I really think that.”

“I know,” she pulls her hand away. “I was just trying to tease you, darling.”

He rubs his cheek. “How does Father let you get away with that?”

Probably had something to do with what a doormat his father could be, but… He wouldn’t say that. He knew Mother would be disappointed in him if he did, and would insist they should try and get along. Egil just didn’t feel like they could, though. They were like oil and water, no matter how hard they tried.

Vanea enjoyed her time with Father, anyway, wasn’t that enough? The two of them were basically two halves of one child, so it was fine if only one of them liked him.

Though Vanea herself may not agree with that. It seemed the ladies in his family were both the type to nag him about his relationship (or lack thereof) with his father. What was with that, anyway?

“Your father teases just as much,” she points out with a smile. “That’s part of what you don’t like about him.”

“It’s annoying,” he weakly defends, looking up at the shrine. “I prefer things like this, anyway…”

--

Egil could see the blood, see the innards of his people spread out around him. He could see the beasts, Telethia Arglas once called them, swooping down and destroying them. Sucking the ether from them.

He could see the way they fall, the way their heads are snapped off without an issue. The way the claws tear into their sturdy chests as if they are made of Bionis flesh.Could see as their cores are torn out.

He could see the oily blood on his hand as he pressed his hand to his mother’s side. As he tried to keep her organs from spilling out of the wound a Telethia had left on her. Tried to keep her in one piece as her side gaps open.

“Egil,” her voice is weak as she reaches out. “I’ve always been so proud of you. You and Vanea.”

“Mother,” his voice shakes. “Don’t talk like that. Lady Meyneth will save us, and then… then Linada can patch you up. It’s going to be fine…”

Her hand touches the side of his face and she smiles. She smiles and her breath rattles out in a way it shouldn’t . It’s full of pain and struggle, and Egil wants to beg her to save her energy. If she doesn’t. If she doesn’t…

She’ll die.

“Mother, please…” His voice cracks as she gives him one last smile.

“I love you, Egil. You’ll always be my little boy…”

Her hand drops from his face and hits the floor of the building with a thud. He stares, things not registering. She couldn’t be dead… No, she couldn’t be… He refuses to believe it. He just needs to put the blood back, and she’ll be fine.

Put it back… put it back…

“Egil,” Vanea’s footsteps and voice break him from his daze as she comes to a stop next to him, kneeling. “Mother…!”

She lets out a sob, hand covering her mouth. It hits him fully then, when his little sister sees the truth. Sees that their mother died in this attack, died to Zanza and his plans. Died to someone Egil thought he could trust.

His hands are covered in her blood as he lets out a wail that mixes with the screams of his people.

--

Vanea’s hands shake as she goes through Egil’s belongings, knowing how wrong it is. She shouldn’t be doing this… Anything he’s stored away, he’s done so for a reason, hadn’t he? She has no reason to dig things up…

But he’s been changing so much, he’d let everyone leave him. Everyone but her… She would never, could never, do that to him. She couldn’t imagine it, especially not after what happened during the attack.

She pulls away so many things from life before. Things that once brought him so much happiness… How had things changed so much, she wonders? How can all this hurt him now? She wishes she understood.

Finally, she gets to the last item… She picks it up and feels herself just about crying. Of all the things he could no longer look at, she had not thought of the image of their family she hadn’t seen in years.

There they are, before either had finished their headpieces. They were smiling, arms around each other’s shoulders and grins on their faces. Father looks so happy and proud, likely in the middle of a laugh. And Mother… Mother looked so alive, just as proud as Father.

Tears prick at her eyes as she places it back, unable to look at it any longer. She supposes that is her answer. How these things can hurt him, how they can bring no happiness anymore.

Sometimes, she realizes, the past is better left in the past.

She just wishes Egil had left more of it behind.

[angeltrapz]

oosdkk dude im sorry ur mood dropped too.. i hope u feel better soon <3 but like i wld love 2 hear more abt ur thoughts on Art in general bc Boy Is He Interesting, and also a lil more abt Daniel coming out as nonbinary to his dad (whether he knows Eric is trans or not at that moment skjdfhdskf)! + if ur feelin it just more abt Mallick in general ESP cuz we agree that Brit doesn't make it thru V

djhfjdks thank u sm <3

okay Art first. I genuinely wonder abt him so much, something in specific I think abt is that aside frm Amanda (+ Eric, obviously, but talkin abt disciples) Art is one of the only trap victims EVER 2 be tested twice and it’s like... what’s that abt? Why? as u’ve said b4 it rly depends on how you personally view his character: whether he’s a disciple or not. fr me, both options are equally plausible, n honestly I don’t rly confine myself to either; it sorta depends on what I’m feeling/writing. if we’re talking abt art being a disciple, then the Spinecutter not going off (one of my BIGGEST questions) makes total sense, as Hoffman’s side of the trap was never set up to work either, + Jigsaw disciples have a history (aside from Lawrence) of appearing as victims in other tests/traps. if he were not just another pawn and was in fact a disciple himself, then the Spinecutter was never meant to go off - it was there just to make Eric think it COULD go off/make it look convincing to outsiders. which brings me to ANOTHER question: what does Art know abt Eric? does he know anything? what does he think of Eric?

(lil side note: if Art is a disciple, then I kinda wonder if it’s a lil bit of a Hoffman + Lawrence situation where Hoffman didn’t know abt Art either? just bc he looks so shocked when he sees Art’s face fully fr the first time... that could’ve just been acting on Hoffman’s part but IDK. food fr thought)

personally, I feel like Art probably does know a lil bit abt Eric - at the very least, he’d know tht Eric had been previously tested + failed by John’s rules, but then I feel that he wld also know Eric didn’t rly have a chance in his second test. that is why Art trying so fucking hard to keep Eric alive is interesting 2 me: what is his motivation 2 do that? like he’s been told Eric’s basically just there to get Rigg to participate, he doesn’t have any personal obligation or anything like that. sure, the aim is to keep Eric alive + see if Rigg can pass his “test,” but nobody said anything about grabbing a man you barely know around his ankles to keep him frm hanging himself w a noose made of chains. nobody said anything abt speaking to him so softly, not even raising your voice beyond saying “hey,” and asking him do you understand? when you tell him to keep still and prevent him frm killing his counterpart (which, if Art is a disciple, he knows it won’t, but he still speaks to Eric so softly, so compassionately, doesn’t he?)

nobody said anything abt grabbing him around the waist and steadying him again after being punched by said man. but Art does that. he stabilizes Eric’s feet on the ice as best he can and he keeps his hips straight and he basically says “look, we’re all stuck here, you need to keep it together ‘til that clock counts down if you want us to live, but I’m giving you a choice,” and he presses the gun w the single bullet into Eric’s hands and tells him it’s up to him. nobody said Art had to care but he does, I think, and it’s just like. he really didn’t have to keep Eric alive over the course of Rigg’s test. he didn’t. but he did and I just,, where does it come from? why does he care? this is even going beyond the fact that we’ve talked abt them being together after their test in a scenario where they both survive - I just think that Art at his core is a very stubborn but very compassionate person, whether he wants 2 be or not. like he HAS to know that kind of involvement cld prove to be extremely detrimental but he cares. I feel like that says a lot abt him (even if he does call Eric an asshole a couple times while doing it,,).

plus I also just. I think his reason for being tested (as it seems to be in most cases) is extremely flimsy. he was doing his job. he’s a LAWYER. often times it has nothing 2 do w personal feelings; they’re there to do their job and sometimes, unfortunately, that is defending possibly reprehensible people (in cases like Rex’s & Ivan’s). + John was already upset w him regarding their argument abt the urban renewal group so like it just feels So Very Petty, y’know?? even in the scenario where he IS a disciple, testing him twice seems entirely like John having a personal vendetta against him. Amanda is the only other person to be tested twice aside from Eric, so like. what. is that abt Mr. Kramer.

like I’ve said b4 in dms one could argue that Art is grey morally, bc we never rly see anything of him outside of flashbacks + acting as a test controller in IV, esp given that he... rly doesn’t seem too bothered abt it all? which is fair. but I also feel like the concern he shows towards Eric is smth to be considered as well.

-

+ YESS NONBINARY DANIEL I know I’ve mentioned it b4 but for reference, I read Daniel as masc nonbinary (he/they)! so I feel like Daniel wld b pretty comfortable w his identity, he’s never rly had a reason not to be (it’s rly anyone’s guess here tho bc we never see Eric + Daniel + Kate... as a family unit, for obvious reasons), so I feel like he’s vry chill abt it? and in the scenario where Eric survives n is dating Adam, I feel like Daniel wld talk 2 him abt it first (Adam is an adult they quickly come to trust + he’s vocal abt being trans himself so there’s that added layer of understanding - other than his mom maybe Adam might b the first person they come out 2). they’re just kinda like “so I wanna tell my dad I’m nonbinary but like I’ve literally never thought abt coming out what do I do” and Adam’s just like. Aha. bc he knows Eric is Also Trans so like, he doesn’t tell Daniel that bc it’s not his info to share, but he’s definitely like “oh it’ll totally be fine. trust me you have no reason to worry” so Daniel’s just like Okay. I Got This

+ I know I mentioned this in dms but Daniel wld absolutely wear those floral ripped hem skirts over jeans, so I feel like on one of his visits to his dad’s, he just. wears that combined w a completely random niche graphic tee he bought when shopping w Adam (I adore this hc n I am Holding Onto It) n is just like. not super open abt it bc he doesn’t know what to expect? he just kinda waits fr Eric to comment on it but when he doesn’t, Daniel gets nervous n is like “do I look okay?” and Eric’s rly chill abt it, like “yeah! it looks vry cool, vry alternative.” n like Daniel is relieved, of course, but also he’s just like God Pls Say Something so he just comes out w it like “okay this is not working. I’m nonbinary.”

and he’s COMPLETELY SHOCKED when Eric is just like “oh why didn’t u say so? do u have a different name u wanna go by? is Daniel still okay?” bc he wasn’t sure how much Eric knew, so he’s just like “uh no Daniel is still good, he/they pronouns though” and Eric’s just like alright cool but internally Daniel’s just like ??????

n THAT is when Eric asks him 2 come sit out on th front steps w him n is just like. “I don’t think I ever told u this but I’m trans. I transitioned during training in my early 20s” n Daniel is nodding while internally he’s like Adam I’m gonna throttle u. he worked himself up fr NOTHING. he just kinda laughs abt it and Eric is like “are u good?” ‘cause he’s a lil worried but then Daniel just smiles and is like “yeah I’m fine! just realizing I had nothing 2 be worried abt” and it’s a rly good moment fr them. they sit out there together talking abt their experiences for quite a while n at some point Adam steps outside 2 find them deep in conversation + he just smiles n goes back inside bc he cares abt them both so much and seeing them talk like that makes him so 💞💞 (Eric is SO PROUD u can see it on his face)

-

ohhh gosh Mallick,,, I spend a lot of time thinking abt him actually. he’s just one of those characters I feel vry connected to (me 🤝 Mallick: Ambiguous Disorder 💕) n one I got surprisingly attached to? hello (he IS one of my f/os)

I feel like Mallick is a very lonely person at his core. the way he sort of clings to Brit (w out the whole like. adrenaline of being in very very real danger w ppl trying to kill u SEVERAL TIMES) somewhat confirms this fr me. this is someone who has no reason to look out fr him, no reason to keep protecting him when their fellow captives hit him over th head w a club or attempt to push him into a bathtub to ELECTROCUTE him, but she keeps doing it and he’s just. in awe of it a little bit? ‘cause she could just let Charles knock him tf out or let Luba push him in but she fights for him, some1 she has no obligation to n met fr the first time literally when they woke up.

the moment they share b4 they stick their arms into the saws to activate the 10 Pints of Sacrifice is so very vulnerable and maybe even a little tender. yes he calls her a monster, yes she calls him one back, neither of them deny it. it’s an admission and an acceptance. they’re monsters, sure, fine, okay. but they are monsters and they are in this together. Brit tells Mallick it’s okay when he says he can’t do this alone. she says okay, okay, it’s okay, we’ll go together. and they help each other secure their tourniquets and they stick their hands in together bc it’s the two of them, literally hand in hand, fighting for their lives n for each other n they’re in so so much pain but they are doing it TOGETHER. I lose it thinking abt it!!! they even have a head bonk moment!!! I very much feel like it has some cinematic parallels to Adam & Lawrence’s moment in SAW 2004!!!!

+ as u mentioned, we both share the thought that Brit likely died since she wasn’t present at Bobby’s meetings, and. I want to touch on how fucking despondent and lost Mallick looks when we see him again in 3D. lights on but no one’s home. I feel like for Mallick, losing Brit was losing the first chance at a real connection he’s had in god knows how long - and for him, that’s just very shattering. he’s been thru hell, he’s watched three people die right in front of him, he sawed his ARM IN HALF, n the person he went through all of that with didn’t make it. but he did. and I feel like for Mallick that’s just like... he doesn’t understand it. but he feels even lonelier than he ever has b4 because the One Person who was there w him thru it all, the one person who could ever possibly understand what happened that night, is gone.

the Mallick we see in V would NEVER sit down n willingly listen to Bobby Dagen’s bullshit abt loving yr scars n taking pride in the fact u survived. he wld hate that man with a passion n I am very much sure of this. the fact that he’s sitting in that chair looking numb and glassy-eyed and silent? Mallick is trying to find some1 to connect to, find a place where maybe he belongs. trying to fill that hole that losing Brit made. why else wld he be sitting there, listening to someone he would ordinarily tell to shove his self-love bullshit up his ass? he’s lost. he’s just trying to keep his head above water and find a way to shore even though everything in him is fighting not to. he’s adrift without her.

+ ALTERNATIVELY, bc the reality of that is just. crushing n maybe not where I needed 2 go, in the scenario where Brit survived + just doesn’t want to put up w Bobby’s bullshit, I imagine them to actually move in together after a lil bit of time getting 2 know each other better w out the pressure of “oh god we’re gonna die.” she kinda helps him build up a sense of self-worth bc GOD it’s practically non-existent n thinking abt possible reasons why makes me sad. she’s definitely just like “no, you do deserve to be cared for and you deserve help when you need it, you deserve good things n to be happy.” she just kinds shuts it down while still making sure to talk 2 him abt WHY he feels that way (she’s not dismissing, but she’s trying to nip it in th bud) n Mallick is just like. huh. bc no one’s really done that fr him before. but it rly does end up helping in the long run, even if it is a very slow pace toward actually getting 2 a place where he recognizes his own worth + realizes he deserves all the things he wants Brit 2 have too. they’re there for each other thru thick n thin and if they made it thru their game, they can make it thru anything.

[gusu-emilu]

Follow Your Arrow (Part 2): Jiang Cheng / Wen Ning

(Cloud Recesses Era, G, 2.6k, CW: non-graphic bird hunting, read on AO3)

Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning accidentally go to the same spot in the Cloud Recesses to practice archery.

< Part 1 (although this part can stand alone too)

* * *

Shooting at rocks in a waterfall is not Jiang Cheng’s ideal form of an archery competition. Wen Ning is closer to the waterfall, which doesn’t necessarily put Jiang Cheng at a disadvantage, but it does mean that Jiang Cheng has to see Wen Ning in the corner of his eyes every time he tries to aim. It's irksome. Jiang Cheng has always competed better when he doesn’t have to watch his opponent.

Not that watching Wen Ning affects his performance. Sure, Wen Ning is a decent shot. When he’s relaxed and his hands aren’t fidgeting, his archery skills might even be called impressive. The rocks blown to bits by his arrows seem to testify as much. But he's not that good.

Another rock shatters with the impact of Wen Ning’s shot. Jiang Cheng is still adjusting his aim when the periphery of his vision is filled with Wen Ning grinning to himself, and inadvertently his eyes wander over to the sight.

Yes, that’s enough shooting at waterfalls.

“Stop here,” Jiang Cheng says, lowering his bow. He straightens his posture once Wen Ning looks over in confusion.

“H-Have we finished the competition?” Wen Ning asks, leaning to the side slightly as if he needs to look around some barrier to see Jiang Cheng, even though the length of riverbank between them is unobstructed. Somehow that makes Jiang Cheng feel exposed, that Wen Ning is paying such careful attention to him.

“No,” Jiang Cheng says. “We’re not finished. Haven’t started, actually.”

All Wen Ning returns are wide eyes and a soft little “oh?”

“That was the warmup.” Avoiding Wen Ning’s gaze, Jiang Cheng slings his quiver over his shoulder and strides toward the woods lining the riverbank. “For the competition, we’re going to hunt birds.”

After a few moments, there’s a shuffling sound and scurrying footsteps behind him. Wen Ning catches up to Jiang Cheng just as they enter the forest, sidling up next to him. Jiang Cheng picks up his pace.

“Hunting birds?”

“You have a problem with that?”

Wen Ning stumbles as he tries to keep up with Jiang Cheng’s ever-quickening pace, but he regains his balance and appears back at Jiang Cheng’s side. “No. I just don’t usually shoot animals.”

Wen Ning's hurried steps beside Jiang Cheng keep him in the corner of his vision again. It’s irritating. Like a ghost Jiang Cheng knows is there but can’t fully capture in his sight. He stops abruptly and turns to face Wen Ning head-on so he can at least see the nuisance in his entirety. Wen Ning trips again, steadies himself, then clutches his bow in front of his stomach, his hands close enough together for him to nervously rub his thumb over one of his knuckles.

Jiang Cheng studies his scrunched posture, his pouty face, his long fingers curling around the bow. “Then it’ll be all the more of a challenge. You wanted help getting over competition anxiety, didn’t you?”

“I—y-yes, I suppose so.”

“Okay. Anywhere in this section of the forest is fair game.” Jiang Cheng gestures at the shady expanse of forest in front of them. “Meet back at the river. Whoever catches more birds wins.”

Wen Ning nods a little too eagerly, still staring at him.

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “Go already.”

“Oh—oh.” Wen Ning hesitates for a few seconds, then bolts away.

Jiang Cheng scoffs. Weirdo. No wonder he gets along with Wei Wuxian.

That thought bites. Wei Wuxian has been fluttering from disciple to disciple nonstop since they arrived in the Cloud Recesses, gravitating farther from Jiang Cheng and revolving in tighter circles around people from other clans, like Nie Huaisang, who—if Jiang Cheng is honest—he doesn’t mind that much. But Wei Wuxian has also attached himself to this strange one Wen Ning, who of course also happens to be from an enemy clan. And Wei Wuxian has been clinging most of all to that insufferable Lan Wangji…

Anyway. Bird-hunting.

This choice of competition was intentional. First, it’ll let Jiang Cheng get Wen Ning out of the corners of his vision. Completely out of his sight. Wen Ning’s absence feels much better already. Second, he’ll be able to show off the birds he catches to Wei Wuxian and maybe squeeze out a few compliments for hunting an extra dinner for them, as well as get a rise out of Nie Huaisang for turning cousins of his prized avian pets into prey.

Following the calls of birds, he stalks through the forest, scanning the canopy of trees. A flash of wings on a branch to the left. He creeps closer, stringing an arrow and drawing it back. He sets his aim, gets the tension just right—

The bird plops to the forest floor.

Jiang Cheng’s arrow hasn’t left his bow.

His brow furrowed, he steps forward to stand over the bird and inspect it. Wen Ning arrives at the same time, holding his bow up guiltily. His arrow has been shot.

“What way to play is this?” Jiang Cheng shouts. “You have the entire forest! You can’t hunt the same birds as me!”

“S-Sorry…” Wen Ning looks down at the creature, his eyes downcast.

“Just, hunt somewhere farther from me! Okay?” Jiang Cheng says, trying to soften his voice and not succeeding at it.

Wen Ning is quiet for so long that Jiang Cheng’s throat begins to itch.

“Well, it’s just that…” Wen Ning finally says, only to trail off.

“What?”

“W-Well, if I want to become better at competing without feeling nervous,” he meets Jiang Cheng’s eyes, “won’t I get the most competition if I steal your shots?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyebrows shoot up. He reigns his facial expression back in immediately, but not soon enough, because Wen Ning is staring right at him when a traitorous heat flushes across his cheeks. “I’m not helping you that much! Go somewhere else!”

Wen Ning nods sullenly and walks away.

Steal my shots! The nerve! He shakes his head. These Wens are unbearable.

Wen Ning’s idea makes sense, of course, and his gut twists at the realization of how seriously Wen Ning is working to get an advantage over him. He didn’t expect he’d have to be on his guard this much.

Is Wen Ning only trying this hard because he wants to overcome his fears?

Most likely.

Jiang Cheng thinks that incident will be the first and last time Wen Ning shoots down a bird before he even has the chance to set his aim.

It happens a second time.

“Wen Qionglin!” He stomps over to where Wen Ning is hiding behind a tree and grabs him by the collar of his robes. “I told you to hunt birds somewhere else! Do you want me to shoot at you instead?”

“S-S-Sorry—”

Somehow, without noticing, he’s pulled Wen Ning closer. Or he's stepped closer himself. He lets go of Wen Ning’s robes with a shove, turns around and storms away because this time he is not letting the heat in his cheeks be seen. Especially since it shouldn’t even be there.

What is he so embarrassed about? That Wen Ning has been following him and timing his shots to land right before his own, at the exact time that would frustrate him most?

The answer rises into his mind unbidden.

He is embarrassed about that.

Dang it.

The next bird he targets, he resists the tingle in his fingers that urges him to rush through the shot and strike the bird before Wen Ning has the chance. Instead, he positions himself for the shot, slows his breath, steadies his arms, and drops his gaze away to scan the shadows in the forest surrounding him. The pest is bound to be around here somewhere.

His gaze settles on a dark spot in the bushes that seems especially unwieldy. Was that a pair of eyes blinking back at him?

He adjusts his fingers on the bow and arrow, builds up pressure in his back muscles. He'll change directions at the last second. Fire an arrow toward Wen Ning and give him a scare.

He draws—

Shing!

His head jerks up to follow an arrow that whirs past his hair ornament and lodges into a tree trunk behind him. His own arrow releases into the dirt at his feet.

Wen Ning shot at him first?!

"Wen Qionglin!" he bellows.

"I'm s-sorry! I didn't m-mean to—aaaah!" Wen Ning drops his bow in the grass and sprints away, because Jiang Cheng is chasing after him and Jiang Cheng is going to catch him.

All those times he chased down Wei Wuxian have proven useful. A matter of seconds and he's close enough to grab Wen Ning's arm and yank him to a stop. Unfortunately, Wen Ning is heavier than he expected. He loses his balance. Overshoots a bit. Falls to the ground and pulls Wen Ning on top of him.

"J-Jiang-gongzi!"

"Get off me!"

"Jiang-gongzi, I didn't mean to—"

Jiang Cheng is sick of being at a disadvantage, so sick of it. He pushes Wen Ning off, slams him into the ground beside him. He climbs on top and pushes Wen Ning's shoulders down, flattening the weeds underneath his shoulder blades.

"First you shoot at my birds, then you shoot at me?!"

"I-I didn't—that was an accident—"

"Oh, wonderful! Please tell me how that could possibly be an accident!"

Wen Ning stares wide-eyed at one of the hands Jiang Cheng is digging into his shoulder. A few locks of his hair, too soft, are tangled between Jiang Cheng's fingers. Wen Ning meets his eyes, looks down at his chest for longer than is comfortable, and back up to his eyes. Heat rises to Jiang Cheng's face again. This time he has nowhere to hide.

"I...I..." Wen Ning says quietly.

"You what?" Jiang Cheng's voice cracks on the word what, jumping to a pitch much too high, as if he hasn't already been humiliated enough today.

"I was..."

"Spit it out!" He shoves Wen Ning's shoulders down harder for good measure, but that only makes him blush more fiercely. He freezes, fearful that one more motion, one more twitch of muscle, and his face would light on fire.

"I was aiming at the b-bird above you and then..." Wen Ning tries to look away. But there's a person on top of him. Anywhere his eyes go is somewhere on Jiang Cheng's body, and that definitely does not make Jiang Cheng shiver.

"But then I was w-watching you instead of the bird, so my arrow..."

The rush of understanding is like a punch in the gut. Had the wind been knocked out of Jiang Cheng before this moment? Or is it just now?

Wen Ning was staring at me so much he ended up aiming at me.

What the heck.

What the heck.

He wrenches himself away from Wen Ning and plops onto his backside in the grass next to him, resting his arms on top of his bent knees, his mind fuzzy.

"Why?" As soon as the words come out, Jiang Cheng bites his lower lip and presses his mouth closed, clenches his jaw, but he's already asked. He hadn't wanted to ask that.

"Umm." Wen Ning sits up a bit, propping himself up on his forearms, still lying on the forest floor. His feet splay outward from each other. His fingers dig into the grass. "What are you asking?"

Jiang Cheng would sooner plunge one of his arrows into his own chest than explain what he meant.

"W-Well..." Wen Ning sits up fully now, positioning himself cross-legged in front of Jiang Cheng, like they're about to have a meditation session together. His hands are a little jittery and he stutters his words, but overall he looks gentle and calm, which should be impossible given what just happened. If Jiang Cheng didn't know better, he'd be jealous.

"I guess I just," Wen Ning continues, his eyes fixed down in the dirt, then lifting to graze over Jiang Cheng's face, "think you're p-pretty."

An arrow does plunge into Jiang Cheng's chest.

His heart races. Fights against the tightness constricting his windpipe. His whole body is going to burn up.

He really had to choose this word? Pretty?

Jiang Yanli is pretty. Wen Qing is pretty. Even Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji are pretty. Hell, Wen Ning is pretty.

But Jiang Cheng?

Whatever mortified expression he's making right now, he can't wipe it off his face, and it's definitely not pretty.

He jumps to his feet. "That's—that's dumb."

Wen Ning gapes up at him. "It is?"

He just stands there with his fists clenched like an idiot.

Gods, why can't you just say something properly? Something nice. Why are you acting like this?

"You can't go around shooting arrows at people and telling them it's because they're pretty!" he says, trying to swallow the words back down his throat, but they come out anyway. "Who does that?" You do! You were going to aim your bow at him yourself!

"Oh," Wen Ning says, still sitting on the ground. He's started fidgeting with his hands. "Jiang-gongzi...should we finish the competition?"

"It's finished!" Jiang Cheng shouts. "You've already won, haven't you?"

"I have?"

Jiang Cheng sucks in a breath and turns his face away. "Clearly!"

Wen Ning stands up. He takes a step toward Jiang Cheng, then wavers and returns to stillness. "So what happens now?"

Jiang Cheng glares at him. "I'll...I'll..."

I guess I just think you're pretty.

It's humiliating. So much worse than when Jiang Yanli tells him that he's handsome. From Wen Ning it feels so genuine and awkward and nice and makes his skin boil and his body sink into the ground.

And Wen Ning really did perform well in their competition. During the "warmup" he was already nailing every two or three shots, and during the hunt in the forest—Jiang Cheng hates to admit it—he put up a challenge. For someone so outwardly meek, Wen Ning is plucky. After all, only one of them had caught any birds. If Wen Ning had been trying to impress him...it had worked. Ironic, embarrassing, that was, because Jiang Cheng had been the one trying to impress him.

"I'll treat you."

Wen Ning raises his hands and shakes away the offer. "Oh, no, n-no need to trouble yourself. I don't want anything."

"What?" Jiang Cheng scoffs. "Don't want my company?"

"That's not what I meant."

Jiang Cheng is ready to leave. He's ready to get out of the forest and far away from the aftermath of this cursed competition. They need to settle this now, because he's ready to leave, and absolutely not because his heart is fluttering.

"Wei Wuxian is bringing Emperor's Smile to our room tonight." He jerks the strap of his quiver over his shoulder and grips down hard on his bow, straightening his posture and raising his chin. "Either show up, or don't."

Wen Ning gives a small smile. "I-I'd like that, Jiang-gongzi. But...my sister says I shouldn't drink too much."

"Then don't drink anything. What do I care?"

""Okay." Wen Ning's smile grows a little bigger, and Jiang Cheng just about dies inside. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jiang Cheng says, the words catching in his mouth a bit. He turns around before his face can betray him again. "You better show up."

Jiang Cheng heads up the trail to the center of the Cloud Recesses, his face burning, his archery skills insulted, and his lips quirking into a smile.

* * *

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, you can be a supportive sibling like Jiang Yanli by visiting me on AO3!

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And if you have your own ideas...my ask box is always open 👀

[hitodama3]

The Nie Sect Matriarch

My OC x Nie Mingjue.

Character death but it's Wen Xu so who cares. I don't know if this is graphic or not. I say blood and grey matter but not much else. Be warned anyway.

Please excuse the grammer.

Lan Xichen was pleased for the opportunity to excuse himself from Wen Xu's "company" upon noticing the entrance of the Nie Sect members.

Lan Xichen smiled at the sight of the newly declared Nie Sect Leader and his sworn brother Nie Mingjue. Nie Mingjue's face was drawn into it's habitual scowl his eyes staring resolutely forward before locking with Lan Xichen's. Lan Xichen could guess the new Sect Leader's nerves by how white his knuckles were clutched around the reins.

After all that is why they were here. To have the current chief Cultivator acknowledge the new head of the Nie Sect. Unfortunately the chief cultivator was the much revered and heavily feared sun god, Wen Ruohan. Thankfully this was all a formality and the chief cultivator had no say in who would become the next head.

But that didn't stop him from exercising his power to force them all into his domain, and do his bidding. It was supposedly a feast to honor the new Sect Leader with a tournament to entertain. But everyone here knew what it was really meant for.

Hours had past and tense pleasantries had been exchanged. Bland smiles and subtle politics passed back and forth like candy between children's hands when Lan Xichen remembered the Nie Sect's new matriarch.

It always startled him how little presence the new matriarch had in comparison to their husband. Lan Xichen knew the couple had been matched young. Some kind of coming of age competition the Nie Sect held, but little else. He had never bothered much with them as his sworn brother never spoke of them much just occasionally asking to be reminded to pick something up for them and Nie Huaisang, his little brother, after a night hunt. Nie Mingjue seemed content with the arrangement, and never spoke ill of having an arranged partner no matter how much Lan Xichen and Meng Yao prodded, just a quirk of the lips occasionally and a vague reference to Nie Sect customs.

With the sudden death of Nie Mingjue's parents the betrothed couple had gotten married quickly and with little fuss. Definitely not the marriage most thought would occur for a Sect Leader. No one outside of the Nie had been invited and the cultivation world assumed they would have another public ceremony once matters settled down.

The Nie Matriarch was very beautiful, but in an androgynous way so that the beholder could not tell their gender. Lan Xichen had never heard their name either, Nie Mingjue always referred to them as his betrothed and Nie Huaisang called them by a nickname, so Lan Xichen could not even guess. They faded seamlessly into the background and we're very calm and soft spoken. Though they also would not suffer fools lightly either. Easily taking the reins and directing disciples as needed without raising their voice once. When the Nie Matriarch spoke you listened.

It wouldn't be till the following day that Lan Xichen would get to truly see them when they truly lost their temper, and why they fit so well at the side of Lan Xichen's fierce sworn brother.

Though the Lans rose earlier then most clans, and Lan Xichen had long been awake he still wanted to sigh that it was to early for this.

Wen Xu was once again making a fool of himself running his mouth infront of the new Nie Sect Leaders. Though Lan Xichen had been startled at first to notice the Matriarch as they seemed to blend in with Nie Mingjue's shadow.

Wen Xu was digging into the wound about the open secret that Wen Ruohan was the cause of Nie Mingjue's father's death. Wen Xu was probably trying to goad Nie Mingjue into throwing the first punch so that Wen Xu could punish him for breaking hospitality.

Lan Xichen was stepping forward to try and defuse or divert Wen Xu's attention else where when a Nie Sect token hit Wen Xu squarely in the chest. Wen Xu sputtered before picking it up.

"Thank you for accepting my request to duel. You're disparaging comments upon our honor could no longer be tolerated." The Nie Matriarch stepped smoothly between the two men.

Wen Xu stumbled back still clutching the token flicking his eyes between the Matriarch and the item. Before he could speak they began again, "After all the heir of the Wen Sect would know when they were presented with a token for a duel, and wouldn't just pick it up unknowingly showing a clear lack of education, would they?" Though each word was said calmly the Matriarch's smiled dripped saccharine sweet.

"Of course not.", A voice boomed over the whispering crowd full of thinly veiled menace. "My son is vigorous in his studies and only wanted to start today's tournament off with some excitement. Hence why he accepted your duel. Though it is a bit early to begin, though I am a magnanimous host, and would be willing to start monetarily. You just didn't allow me to explain the rules. To avoid permanent injury all participants will wear qi sealing cuffs, and the first to draw blood will be the winner. I'm sure the Nie Matriarch will be accommodating since they were so eager to fight?" At this Wen Ruohan paused staring straight into the Matriarch's eyes a smile plastered on his face but only emptiness behind his eyes.

The Matriarch nodded without issue as Wen disciples stepped forward placing the cuffs on their wrists. "Your son has been quite rude and ignored propriety. If I wished to make this duel a duel to the death---What do your rules say about that?" The Matriarch's voice was still perfectly even, but was cold as steel.

Wen Ruohan's face didn't even twitch at the outright threat. "The winner will be called after first blood is drawn." Here he paused smile pulling at the edges to become closer to a smirk. "Regardless of what the injury maybe." The threat was clear.

Especially when both combatants stepped onto the platform that had been prepared for the tournament, Lan Xichen saw Wen Xu's qi suppressing handcuffs spark before deactivating allowing him the full use of his qi in a match against the sealed Matriarch.

Lan Xichen turned to Nie Mingjue to warn him that they intended to cripple or maim his marriage partner, but Nie Mingjue was already looking at him before slowing shaking his head and turn back towards the ring.

Wen Ruohan settled into his throne, relaxing into a sprawl showing his inattention and confidence, high above the platform to act as "mediator" and solemnly called, "Begin."

Wen Xu puffed out his chest pointing his sword towards the Matriarch, "If you apologize now I'll only scar that pretty face of yours! Accidents happen all the time in competitions we'd hate if you got run threw before first blood could be called!"

The Matriarch pulled out a fan, one Lan Xichen knew had been gifted by Nie Huaisang, and settled into a fighting stance fan pointed towards Wen Xu. "If the Wen Sect has such "training" accidents often they must have terrible teachers. The Nie Sect would be willing to provide pointers if you are having such troubles."

Wen Xu's face twisted in rage before charging them, visible qi infusing his sword. Nie Mingjue grabbed Lan Xichen's arm when he tried to move forward towards the ring.

The angry sound of metal tearing through metal made the nearby observers flinch back as Wen Xu's sword tore through the apparently 'metal' fan. But the Matriarch only needed for the stupid boy to get close...

The sword now immobilized within the fan was used as leverage to yank him further forward and towards the Matriarch's grasping hand. The Matriarch seemed to unfurl becoming larger though they truly gained no height only presence. Lan Xichen never really noticed but they always thought the Matriarch was smaller then him.

The Matriarch towered over Wen Xu easily as tall or taller than Nie Mingjue. Hand clasped firmly around the flailing boy's face as he was dragged kicking into the air with only one of the Matriarch's hands.

Wen Xu dropped his sword desperately yanking at the hand as it tightened around his face shivering as blood lust filled the arena strong enough to drive many to their knees. He thinks he heard his father attempt to call the match, but was rebuked by the monster in front of him.

"Didn't you say the match would not be called until first blood was drawn, regardless of how bad the injury." The voice was still as cool and calm as it had been earlier when they'd challenged him to a duel, but he couldn't breath past the blood lust filling his lungs and looking into eyes with pupils the size of pin pricks staring unblinkingly into his. Wen Xu's head was screaming in agony and fingers tightened around his temples. His ears wear starting to buzz he couldn't hear anything anymore. What was going...?

'Crack'

With a resounding crack Wen Xu's skull shattered under the force of the Matriarch's fingers the body unattached now falling limply to the tournament's platform blood and grey matter spilling everywhere.

The Matriarch turned calmly towards Wen Ruohan flicking their fingers in an attempt to clear them of gore. "I believe you can call first blood now. I'll be retiring to my room after this to rest after all this excitement. Of course," They paused for a moment, "only after your disciples release me from the qi blocking cuffs."

That's right! Lan Xichen's eyes widened in both horror and awe. The Matriarch had functioning qi suppressing cuffs on and had just shattered a man's skull with only their fingertips. He turned towards his sworn brother to observe the unholy amusement and arousal in Nie Mingjue's eyes. Lan Xichen could see why the calm Matriarch worked so well with his angry sworn brother. He would need to be more watchful of any Nie Sect traditions.

[drwcn]

Hi anon!! :) I’m so thrilled to get a btsf ask because my brain has been on discordance waves for the past week. It really has motivated me to write more for btsf. It’s turning into a such a complex plot that I’m feeling a little daunted. I’ve got a lot of stuff written, bits and pieces... just not....chapter two >___>

Wen Qing and Meng Yao do not necessarily work together. For the most part, they are two independent spies existing simultaneously, each with their own agenda. Below cut is a little snippet of Wen Qing. 

Warning: SPOILERS & graphic displays of violence. 

Wen Qing doesn’t burn. No Wen ever does. 

Still, she winces when the tea touches her tongue, a degree left of too hot, ruining the flavour. Hissing in more annoyance than pain, she flashes a cold side glare towards the underling who brought her the drink. The boy lowers his head immediately, curling into a deep, embarrassed bow. His name is Wen Tinglu, and he’s even younger than her A-Ning.

She frightens him. 

Wen Qing sets the ceramic cup down on the table with one hand, the dismissal in her gesture clear. It lands louder than necessary, eliciting a round of half-suppressed flinches from the Wen soldiers - disciples, a reminding voice whispers - waiting at her beck and call. 

She frightens all of them. 

Good. 

Wen Qing inspects her nails, drawing out the suspense she knows is eating up those around her. They’re painted a nice dark red, a Wen red, and long too, not too long to be inconvenient, but longer than she would’ve had them in the past. She has no use for short, sensible nails these days. Nails that short were meant to prevent injury when she bandaged patients, to not get caught on sutures when she stitched together wounds. 

These hands do heal anyone anymore.  

Across the room, her victim shivers on the rack. Winter rain in the south is a wretched ordeal. The poor thing is soaked through, dragged from the muddy ruins of their latest battlefield. 

Wen Qing approaches him silently, letting her fingers gently caress the row of instruments she has ordered to be prepared and laid out neatly in clean, wooden trays. They’re thoroughly washed and soaked in alcohol daily, and in the flickers of firelight illuminating this dingy little countryside hut, the metal shines and glistens. 

She sees the man’s gaze follow her movement, his eyes though drooping from exhaustion remained focused, unblinking. She sees him swallow and his body tremble. This time, she knows it’s not because of the rain. 

From the colour of his tattered robes, she realizes he’s one of Nie Mingjue’s men. From experience, she knows they’re hard to break. 

No matter, Wen Qing always gets what she wants in the end. 

She picks up a scalpel and puts it underneath his chin. The press of her hands is gentle as she lifts his face so he can meet her smile. “Tell me, brave soldier, what’s your name?” 

He spits in her face. A drop lands in her eye. 

“Demoness!”

Her disciples lurch forward to defend her, but Wen Qing waves them off with a nonchalant flick of her wrist. 

Dabbing her face with the edge of her sleeve, Wen Qing laughs. “You make your Nie-zongzhu proud, I must admit. I’m sure he won’t blame you for all that you’re about to tell me.”

“I will tell you nothing!”

Wen Qing flashes him her best and brightest smile. He is stunned momentarily, the full force of Wen Qing’s beauty giving him mental whiplashes. It must be disconcerting, she muses - fully aware of her appearance and its effect on the people around her - to see such a lovely smile on a such an abhorrent face, too beautiful surely to belong to a woman promising the most terrifying of ends. 

“We’ll see.” 

The scalpel cuts down the prisoner’s sternum before he could speak another word, one long stroke from nape to navel. The cut is shallow, just a thin red ribbon rippling in its trail. 

The man does not die, but he does scream. 

From the corner of her eyes, Wen Qing spots the boy who ruined her tea sway from where he stands, probably imagining himself in this poor sod’s place. To her satisfaction, he’s not the only one who appears mildly green around the gills. 

Wen Qing twists on her heels, swirling around almost dance-like. “Would anyone like to try?” She holds out the bloodied blade towards her disciples, waving it in a welcoming gesture at the myriad of other instruments available. 

No one takes her up on her offer. She doesn’t expect any of them to. Back in the early days when Wen Ruohan gave her free rein to form a team, she had chosen her men and women carefully. She picked the loyal, the humble, the competent, and even the brave, but she had searched into their eyes and made sure she could not detect any trace of blood-lust. Those, she argued, should be kept on the front line where the enemies are. The disciples at her side need to be efficient, obedient and nothing more. That, is paramount. 

“Useless!” Her expression darkens, and her friendly, teasing tone vanishes in a heartbeat. “Why does His Excellency even bother keeping you lot around? Get out.” 

Her Wen disciples do not need to be told twice. 

“You,” she stops Wen Tinglu. “Bring me another cup of tea when I’m done. Try not the ruin it this time.” 

“Yes, Wen-guniang.” The boy bows repeatedly, backing out of the room and nearly tripping on his feet in the process. 

Once she is left alone to do her work, she turns back to the Nie disciple. He has closed his eyes, trying, she imagine, to retreat somewhere deep in his mind where there is no pain. He will not have much luck with that. 

She steps up close to him, so close she can smell the sweet metallic tang of his blood. “It would be easier if you told me your name. I’ll keep you in mind, as I keep all of them in mind.” 

“Go fuck yourself, Wen Qing!” 

Wen Qing takes out a small vial from her robes. She let the darkness slip from her disguise just a fraction. “I’m sorry I have to do this, but this will help. You’ll be with your family soon I promise.” 

The prisoner’s brows furrow, and he struggles in vain as Wen Qing forces the liquid into his mouth and makes him swallow it. 

“What did you just give me,” he pants, retching at the vile taste of the potion. 

Wen Qing does not answer. She closes her hand over one of his and whispers against his ear.

“The Sunshot Campaign thanks you for your service. Now, don’t forget to scream.” 

And he does. 

Half a shichen later, when the screaming and begging quiets, Wen Tinglu returns with a fresh cup of pu’er. Wen Qing looks up from the meticulous washing of her hands as he enters, jittering and quivering, his presence announced by the cacophonous tune of the chinas clinking against each other in his tray. 

The boy meets her eyes, then steals glance over her shoulder to the flayed carcass left on the rack. He’s only just able to set the tea down on the table before doubling over and throwing up onto the dirt floor 

Maybe the pig’s intestine was too much...thinks Wen Qing, rubbing her arm where she has also made a cut into herself. 

Each clan has their own collection of forbidden practices, some more than others. Wen Mao’s rise to power was not entirely achieved by following the path of righteousness. One does not, after all, defeat an enemy like Xue Chonghai without a deeper understanding of the other side. This kind of cultivation is bordering on the occult, and it demands a heavy price.

Wen Qing is completely depleted; she hopes it does not show. Her spiritual core has never been cultivated to be strained in such a way. She can’t go on like this forever, she knows, but the war is far from over, and the path she has embarked on stretches endlessly ahead. 

“Burn him. I want a clean finish,” she says to Tinglu and takes a seat. She drinks her tea and closes her eyes. 

The boy does as he’s told, but he barely has enough gumption to grasp the torch and light the Nie disciple’s body aflame. It is no wonder then that he does not notice the protection talisman carved into the prisoner’s back. 

[ibijau]

Burn it down AU // on AO3 // extras on AO3

Things do not go as planned in Nightless City. Lan Wangji worries. Nie Huaisang plots.

warning for some violence (canon typical levels I’d say?)

Nightless City had never been Lan Wangji’s favourite place to travel to, but after years of abandonment, it had become truly ghoulish. In certain places, the lingering resentment was so strong it became nearly impossible to breathe. In the bitter wind, Lan Wangji thought he could still hear the shrill notes of Chenqing playing a deadly melody. In every shadow, he half saw the shape of Wei Wuxian, fractured by too many losses, on the verge of shattering beyond repair, taking hundreds down with him.

Lan Wangji could have happily lived to immortality and never set foot again in this cursed city. It must have shown. Several times, Nie Huaisang tried to order him away, saying he was perfectly capable of handling his brother’s body, even if Nie Mingjue really had turned into a fierce corpse and needed to be subdued.

“I’m not much of a cultivator, but even I can take care of a fierce corpse,” he boasted again and again with an empty smile. “Go wait for me in the nearest town, Wangji. It’s a family problem anyway, and I’ve made you help enough already.”

“We’re family,” Lan Wangji said at last, when he grew tired of his husband trying to send him away.

After this, Nie Huaisang grew quiet and stopped insisting that he could do this alone. 

It wasn’t until they arrived to the spot marked on the map that Lan Wangji understood where, exactly, his brother-in-law’s remains had been hidden. He felt nauseous at being once more in front of Wen Ruohan’s palace, where the remains of the Wen siblings had been scattered to the winds, Wei Wuxian’s last friends, the last people he had cared about.

The place where the entire cultivation had united together, just as tightly as they had during the Sunshot Campaign, and announced that they had decided who their next enemy would be. The place where Wei Wuxian’s death had been decided, where he had lost what little he still had and snapped over the bloodied corpse of his sister. The place where…

“Hey, stay with me,” Nie Huaisang called to him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling lightly, the way A-Yuan did sometimes. “So, this is the right place, uh? Heavens, it looks even worse than in my memories. Remember that archery contest, at that last conference the Wens held? Damn, I remember the party after, it was so awful. The alcohol was so cheap. Talk about disrespecting your guests! Ah, not that it’d matter to you, of course. I wonder how the tea was?”

“Bad,” Lan Wangji managed to answer, taking one shaky breath after another. “Cheap.”

“I knew it! And the food was awful as well. There was that weird dessert… did you have any of the desserts?”

Lan Wangji dived under more recents memories and tried to remember that conference. It felt a lifetime ago. It was, in a way. They had all been different before the war. Sometimes, it all felt like a dream. And in that dream, he could not remember whether he’d eaten the dreadful desserts Nie Huaisang apparently recalled with such clarity. Thinking about it helped a little, though, forcing him to focus on something other than his last visit to Nightless City.

“No desserts,” he still said, since that seemed likely. He took a deep breath. Now was not the moment to break. He could do that later, when they had recovered Nie Mingue’s body and Nie Huaisang no longer needed his help. “Give me a moment. Then I will see if his soul can be reached.”

“Should I be silent, or keep talking?”

“Hm. Tell me more about the desserts,” Lan Wangji ordered, looking around for a place where he might sit without covering himself in filth.

With Nie Huaisang still clinging to his sleeve, he found a spot at last, not far from where his brother and the other sect leaders had stood to… but no. Lan Wangji pushed away that memory, and forced himself to listen to Nie Huaisang’s graphic description of what he claimed were the worst tanghulu he’d ever eaten in his life. The mindless chatter only stopped when he took out his guqin and played a few notes, bringing him if not peace, then at least clarity. 

"I will try Inquiry," he announced. 

"You think it will work on Da-ge?" 

"No," Lan Wangji admitted, and immediately something crumbled in Nie Huaisang. "There are other spirits lingering here. One might help." 

Lan Wangji played the notes that commanded souls to come talk to him. In an instant he found himself surrounded with the screams and rage of all those who had perished in this cursed city. Several ceremonies had been performed to put them to rest, but with so many having died, and in such a violent manner, it had not yet been enough to calm them. 

In vain, Lan Wangji tried to call forth the soul of Nie Mingjue. All that brought him was a dissonant mass of spirits trying to seize his guqin, either praising or cursing his brother-in-law for his actions in Nightless City. Lan Wangji played a few more notes to calm them before trying a different question. Had they seen Jin Guangyao come to this place in the past year? 

Less spirits rushed to him this time, and Lan Wangji was able to select the strongest one among them to answer, one single word. 

Yes. 

The spirit, a fallen Nie disciple, had trained alongside Jin Guangyao during his time in Qinghe Nie and thus knew him very well. He had no doubt that it was him, having caught a glimpse of his face. After further interrogation, it revealed that Jin Guangyao had come there to bury something, and it was able to give the precise location, hidden under a large paving stone. Lan Wangji thanked the spirit, promised to see what could be done about another calming ceremony, and turned to his husband to share the news. 

"Let me guess, he hid Da-ge's body under the spot where they took the oath, didn't he?" 

"Hm." 

"Theatrical bastard," Nie Huaisang hissed. "Wangji, if you want, I'll handle the rest alone. I can manage." 

Lan Wangji shook his head. 

"A fierce corpse is not a person. What we find might attack you."

"But still…" 

"I won't let A-Yuan be orphaned again." 

That cut short to all of Nie Huaisang’s protests, as Lan Wangji expected it would. 

Together, and with both of them equally uneasy though for different reasons, they went to the spot indicated by the spirit. It was barely visible if one did not look for it, but among the paving stones there was one that appeared to have been unsealed. 

Without saying it, Lan Wangji knew that Nie Huaisang and him were thinking the same thing: that stone did not look large enough to cover a body, let alone that of a man as tall as Nie Mingjue. Still they knelt on the ground and got to work, carefully lifting the stone, then digging the soil under until they found a box. 

That box itself was nothing special. It was made of black wood and carried no particular mark. And yet powerful dark energies surrounded it, barely contained by a great number of peculiar talismans drawn in blood. 

"I've never seen those talismans before," Nie Huaisang commented in a weak voice, clearly trying to ignore the more glaring issue. That box that was little more than the length of Lan Wangji's arm. 

"I have," Lan Wangji announced, though he could not quite remember where he might have seen them. "It will come to me." 

Nie Huaisang nodded weakly. He brought one hand toward the box, as if to brush his fingers against the wood, but stopped short of touching it. 

"Wangji… That box… It's really too small, isn't it?" he whispered. “Do you think… do you think he cremated him?”

“Hm.”

It was a likely possibility. It would have eliminated any traces of the crime, and made it far more difficult to summon Nie Mingjue’s soul to testify regarding his own death. 

It would definitely have required an accomplice though, because the fierce corpse of such a man would not have allowed itself to be destroyed so easily, and Jin Guangyao’s cultivation was what it was. Besides, the talismans on the box did not look like ordinary ones. There were few methods that called for the characters to be drawn in blood, and currently the most famous one was Wei Wuxian’s demonic path. Considering that Lanling Jin had been the one to get its hands on most of Wei Wuxian’s notes, that they had infamously hired a person such as Xue Yang to make sense of those…

“That talisman, isn’t it different from the others?” Nie Huaisang suddenly pointed out. “Look, it has one stroke less than the others.”

Before Lan Wangji could stop him, Nie Huaisang reached for the faulty talisman. As soon as he touched the paper it consumed itself, allowing an intense burst of resentful energy to be released from the box. Nie Huaisang cried out in surprise or pain, while Lan Wangji, acting on sheer instinct, jumped to his feet and drew his sword. Before Bichen was fully out of its sheath, the box’s lid was shattered as a lone arm burst out of its confinement.

In the split second it took Lan Wangji to comprehend what was happening, the arm launched itself at Nie Huaisang’s throat since he was closest, and alternated between trying to strangle him and clawing at his skin. It did not stop its assault until Lan Wangji slashed at it with his sword, distracting it from its victim. For a moment the arm, as if enraged, tried to attack Lan Wangji, blindly clawing in his direction and narrowly avoiding being cut to pieces by Bichen. Quickly though, it lost interest in that fight. Twice Lan Wangji managed to stop it, but in the end the arm avoided his attacks and returned to assault Nie Huaisang who was still kneeling on the ground, trying to stop the gashes on his throat from bleeding out.

Nie Huaisang screamed in terror and pain when that ghoulish arm seized his own, digging its claws into his flesh. 

The arm was not merely tearing at him now, but instead dug its fingers into the skin of Nie Huaisang as if it sought to get under it. With each passing second, the poor man fought a little more weakly, his skin growing paler until Lan Wangji took his guqin again and hurriedly played a song to calm the arm. It took effort, and a few tries, but after a few minutes he managed to pacify the arm. It fell to the ground, as did Nie Huaisang, pale and whimpering in pain but still alive.

Keeping an eye on the now immobile arm, Lan Wangji hurried to Nie Huaisang’s side and used every bit of spiritual energy he could spare to stop the bleeding. Even when he was done, Nie Huaisang would not stop trembling and crying.

When his eyes fell on the arm, he screamed in rage and horror, the noises resonating in those vast, empty spaces. 

“I have to get him back,” Nie Huaisang hissed in a broken voice when he calmed down. “And then I’m killing every single Jin in Lanling.”

“You won’t.”

“I certainly want to! They butchered him! No, not even butchered,” He corrected with a hysterical laugh. “Butchering, that calls for skill. I could cut a body better than that and I will when I get my hands on Guangyao! I’ll dig up his mother and father and show him how it’s done, I will...”

“Huaisang, calm down.”

“My brother! They took my brother and did this to him, and you want me to calm down? If it were Xichen, if it were A-Yuan, would you be calm? I’ll make them pay! Every single one of them, I’ll make them pay!”

Unsure what to do when faced with such desperate rage, Lan Wangji forced himself to put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, hoping to provide some comfort. His hand was slapped away. Nie Huaisang had too little strength left at the moment for it to sting, but the message was clear. Comfort, for now, was not welcome.

Instead, Lan Wangji turned his attention back to the box and, having seen its content, he realised where he had seen those talismans before. They were eerily similar to those Wei Wuxian had used to contain Wen Ning before his conscience was returned to him. They were not quite as neat as the ones he had seen during his brief visit to the Burial Mounds, and if anything, they seemed to have been traced by someone who had only the vaguest idea of the proper way to write characters, but they were still the same ones.

“Demonic cultivation,” he announced to Nie Huaisang, hoping to distract him from his rage. “To contain and conceal.”

Nie Huaisang did not answer, his eyes fixed on the arm. He reached out for it and, with some hesitation, picked it up to hold it against his chest, cradling it as if it were a child.

“We can try the spell again,” Lan Wangji offered. “We might find the rest of him. Even if we do not, this is proof something evil was done to him.”

“He got rid of Xue Yang,” Nie Huaisang mumbled, tightening his hold on his brother’s arm.

“Hm?”

“Guangyao. He got rid of Xue Yang. You say this is demonic cultivation, and Xue Yang was the only person they’d found who was able to make sense of Wei Wuxian’s work. He wasn’t purging his sect and starting anew, he was getting rid of witnesses.”

“It is still proof.”

Nie Huaisang laughed. “Proof of what? The spell we used to find it is a secret Nie technique, it’d be easy to say we lied about its effects, or that I tricked you and used you for my nefarious plans. This arm could be anyone’s. I know it is my brother’s, I know it, but it’ll be my word against Guangyao’s. People don’t like him, but I think they like me even less.”

An unfair statement, in Lan Wangji’s opinion. Lan Xichen believed and trusted them. Jiang Wanying probably had more sympathy for and trust in Nie Huaisang than in his brother-in-law’s half brother who had just usurped his nephew’s inheritance. The older Madam Jin might share that sentiment.

But all that, of course, was on a personal level. Lan Wangji was starting to accept that natural inclination, and things as unquantifiable as honesty and truth, did not matter as much as his sect’s rules had led him to believe.

“We find the rest of his body,” Lan Wangji insisted. “When we are away from this place, I will try Inquiry again. We will find proof.”

Nie Huaisang appeared unconvinced by that promise, for which Lan Wangji could not blame him. After a shock such as this, hope would have been difficult to muster even for a man not already as close to despair as Nie Huaisang was.

--

They left Nightless City after carefully replacing the paving stone where it belonged and taking great pains to hide that it had been moved. The box they took with them, so they could inspect it later at their leisure to look for clues. The arm, of course, came as well. 

It took Lan Wangji great efforts to persuade Nie Huaisang to put the arm back in its box, and to put that box in a qiankun bag so it would be easier to transport. Even then, Nie Huaisang insisted to be the one to carry it, clinging to it as tightly as he had done with the arm itself.

Nie Huaisang did not speak on their way out of the city. He did not speak when they stopped for the night at a small, struggling inn that still survived on the outskirts of Nightless City. He did not speak when Lan Wangji used the different Nie spells he had been taught in a fruitless attempt to locate the rest of the body. The rest of Nie Mingjue must have been better sealed. If not for that mistake with one of the talismans, it was likely that they would never have found even this much.

As promised, Lan Wangji attempted to play Inquiry for the arm. It was all in vain, and Nie Huaisang remained eerily silent. The only sound he made all evening happened when the arm, which had stood perfectly still so far, started moving its fingers of its own accord and appeared to point in his direction. Nie Huaisang cried out and nearly fell down in fear, but before anything could happen Lan Wangji quickly calmed the arm once more, this time putting more power into it so that hopefully it would not trouble them again until the next evening.

When Nie Huaisang went to bed, he took with him the qiankun bag, as if scared that someone might take his brother from him again. In the morning, he looked somehow more tired than when he had gone to sleep, and remained uncharacteristically quiet.

That silence remained as they made their way to the Cloud Recesses where they needed to see Lan Xichen and announce that their plan was not going quite as smoothly as they had all expected. It was unsettling to see Nie Huaisang so quiet when Lan Wangji had never known him as anything but loud and animated both at the heights of his joy and in the depths of his pain. And yet, Lan Wangji did not know how to comfort his friend. All he could do was offer his presence, and be ready to help, should it be asked.

--

When they arrived in the Cloud Recesses, their first stop was to pick up their son. There was no shyness this time, but a lot of tears as A-Yuan left Hou Tianjian's side and ran into his father’s arms. He wrapped his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck nearly tight enough to choke him. It was good, after those difficult weeks, to be home and have his son with him again. Nightless City had reminded him bitterly of his errors, but at least A-Yuan was proof that he had not entirely failed Wei Wuxian.

When A-Yuan noticed that Nie Huaisang was there as well, he made it clear that he wanted to be in the other man’s arms now. Nie Huaisang indulged him but made a great show of complaining and lamenting that the little boy was starting to get too heavy for him. A-Yuan appeared very amused by those protests, but grew serious when his eyes fell on Nie Huaisang’s neck where he still bore marks of the arm's attack.

“Nie-ge is hurt?”

Nie Huaisang laughed awkwardly, and balanced A-Yuan against his hip so he could free one hand and pull his collar tighter against his skin.

“That's nothing,” he said with a too wide smile. “Your Nie-ge is clumsy and fell into some bushes. Let's not talk about it, right? It's very embarrassing for poor Nie-ge.”

“Does it hurt?” A-Yuan insisted, reaching out towards some of the scabs that couldn't quite be covered by the fabric. Nie Huaisang grasped his wrist and stopped him before he could touch.

“The worst wound is to my pride,” he replied with false assurance. “A-Yuan, I love you but you're too heavy. Go back with your dad now.”

“Nie-ge looks tired,” A-Yuan commented as he was handed back to Lan Wangji. “Did Nie-ge and Father work a lot?”

What little cheerfulness Nie Huaisang had managed to muster thus far appeared on the verge of collapsing, and so Lan Wangji took it upon himself to come to his rescue.

“We were busy,” he explained. “We flew from very far and for many days. It can be tiring.”

None of it was a lie, even if it was far from the entire truth. It seemed to satisfy A-Yuan who even took it as his chance to ask whether he too would soon learn to fly on his sword. Lan Wangji thanked Hou Tianjian for her help, gave in to her request that Lan Jingyi come play in the Jingshi someday, and then the three of them left together. The rest of the day passed not unpleasantly, with A-Yuan detailing everything he had done since Lan Wangji had last seen him. It was painful to know that he had missed several weeks of his son's life, but A-Yuan did not appear to resent his absence too much this time. Somehow, that made it worse, as if the child had just grown to accept that it was normal for him to be left behind.

As the bell of curfew rang, there was a knock on the Jingshi's door. Lan Wangji, after checking that A-Yuan had truly fallen asleep, went to welcome his visitor. It was no surprise to find his brother on his doorstep. In truth, they probably should have gone to see him as soon as they had arrived in Cloud Recesses, but without ever saying it, Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji had agreed that being with A-Yuan was more important. Their quest had met little success, but their son needed to know they hadn't abandoned him.

Lan Xichen took one look at the both of them, and his face hardened.

“I gather that things did not go as we had hoped?”

Nie Huaisang, who had been sitting at the table, a fan in one hand and a book in the other, flinched at the question. He dropped the book and immediately grasped to the qiakun bag that he still refused to be parted from, except for when Lan Wangji was forced to calm the resentful arm it contained.

“The situation is more complicated than expected,” Lan Wangji stated, inviting his brother to sit before launching himself into a short explanation of what had happened, wanting to spare Nie Huaisang from having to recount those events. Even just hearing an account of what had happened seemed nearly too much for his husband who grew paler and more closed off as the explanation reached its end.

Lan Xichen hardly fared any better.

“I cannot believe Jin Guangyao would go so far,” he whispered in a trembling voice. “Doing something so horrific to a man he once called his brother...”

Sitting next to him, Lan Wangji patted his brother's shoulder. After days of dealing with Nie Huaisang's worsening mood, it was almost shocking when the comforting gesture was not rejected.

“Maybe we can act even with this alone,” Lan Xichen suggested with a sigh. “It is not the strongest case we could be making, but...”

“I am not taking risks,” Nie Huaisang hissed, grasping his fan tightly. “This isn't enough proof. I cannot... I will not take the risk of accusing him now. He'll just find some new lies to throw around and look for ways to destroy the rest of Da-ge's body and then he'll have won. I can let him gloat a little longer with his perfect sect, his perfect wife and his perfect son. I'm patient. I'll find my brother's body, and that will be proof, and then nothing will stop me from avenging Da-ge.”

“Huaisang, it might take a long time,” Lan Xichen objected. “And you will have to interact with him frequently. Can you manage that?”

“Of course. Er-ge should know better than anyone that I'm quite good at not showing when things affect me.”

There was something nearly cruel to Nie Huaisang's smile as he said that, and he appeared to enjoy the way Lan Xichen tensed at the veiled accusation.

“We must use that other corpse finding spell,” Lan Wangji intervened to ease the tension and get them back on track. “If Huaisang is willing to teach me, I will go to Qinghe with A-Yuan and...”

“That won't be necessary,” Nie Huaisang cut him. “Not yet, anyway. That last spell is... cumbersome, it requires a lot of preparation and certain... elements to be gathered.” He snickered. “Actually, that spell is almost outright demonic cultivation, if I'm honest. I'd rather you not be there as I get it started, although I will need your high cultivation to really get it going when the time comes. But until then, I'd prefer if you stayed in the Cloud Recesses. It's A-Yuan's home, and yours as well.”

“You should not be left alone,” Lan Wangji objected.

Nie Huaisang shrugged, but did not try to deny that statement. That only served to worry Lan Wangji even further and judging by the look on his face, Lan Xichen felt similarly.

“Huaisang, we are on your side,” he said softly, reaching out to take his brother-in-law's hand. “Let us help you.”

Lan Xichen's hand was slapped away.

“This isn't your problem. Da-ge was my brother, my family, my responsibility,” Nie Huaisang snapped, before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to smile as he fanned himself. “I hope that didn't sound ungrateful. I am so, so thankful for your help, especially Wangji. But I have asked so much already, and this spell... it really is too much, considering Lan rules. I'd rather not bother you with the details, since they would displease you. Honestly, they displease me as well, and I know Da-ge disliked this spell, as did our father. But sometimes, there is no choice, is there?” Nie Huaisang chuckled lightly, his smile turning vicious again. “It's not like I can grab San-ge or Xue Yang and shake them until they tell me what they did to my brother.”

“Some of the purged demonic cultivators have been exiled, not killed,” Lan Xichen remarked. “Perhaps one of them might know something. Mo Xuanyu lives not far from Gusu, I could visit him.”

Nie Huaisang appeared to give that idea some thought, his fan stilling in his hand.

“Anyone who knew anything useful will have been killed,” he eventually remarked, hiding behind his fan. “And San-ge always said Mo Xuanyu was an idiot, so I'd be surprised if he had really dealt with any demonic cultivation. More likely, it's just a convenient excuse to get rid of another candidate to leadership of Lanling Jin. I'm ready to bet that stupid kid has been accused of every crime under the sun in Carp Tower. It is useless for Er-ge to go meet him, he will not have anything interesting to tell us. No, the spell is our only chance. It will find Da-ge... in time.”

Lan Xichen nodded, but appeared disappointed that his attempt to help had been so quickly rejected. Considering how little else he could do due to his position and the guilt he held regarding his part in the murder, Lan Wangji imagined his brother would have been glad to do anything to help in any way. Ultimately though, Nie Huaisang was right: Nie Mingjue had been his brother, and it was his duty to avenge him. They could offer their help, but he had to accept it.

Besides, although Lan Wangji was asked to continue living in the Cloud Recesses, so far Nie Huaisang had said nothing against visiting Qinghe. Even if he later objected to the idea, Lan Wangji would simply ignore him and go anyway. A-Yuan would surely start missing his Nie-ge too much otherwise, and Nie Huaisang loved the boy so much that he would not be able to protest once they were there.

Lan Wangji had made mistakes in the past, but he would not allow another friend of his to self destroy in the name of righteousness.