#is to practice thinking for yourself and drawing your own conclusions

[ookaookaooka]

one of the things that really pisses me off about the conservatives in power right now is how they're coopting left-wing language and twisting it against us. instead of "alternative facts" now it's "leftist misinformation campaigns" "fact-checking" "community verified information" to mean their baseless unscientific horseshit. from their point of view, if an authority tells you something, it's true, and they're using our language which *to us* (and to outsiders) means "this is information gathered from multiple sources who are in touch with reality and have cross-checked among themselves to make sure the information matches and supports the same conclusions." "alternative facts" was easy to see through and laugh at. this shit is not. to someone who is unfamiliar with how conservatives work—for example, people who didn't start caring about politics until recently—it's basically impossible to tell the difference between conservative dogma and what's actually proven to be true.

[ghoulsgraveyard]

Animal Instincts

a/n: this gets freaky y'all. I wrote this when I was higher than a mf. so if it's written weird, that's why. content warnings: PISS KINK (it's the basis of this fic. it is unavoidable), daddy kink, claiming/marking, possessive dialogue, kind of ownership kink. no y/n because I don't like it. Reader has a vagina but is completely gender neutral. word count: 2k

“Animal instincts are so weird” It was a lazy Saturday morning, neither of you had work that day “Yeah I would imagine that, getting pissed when i'm eating and someone walks in or hating anyone who goes near my, like, mate? Or whatever?” You look him up and down “then again I don't have to imagine that one” Logan smiled and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Yeah the territorial one is absolutely real. Drives ya to some pretty wild ideas about that person” he winks “oh yeah? Like what?” you egg him on “like right now i'm thinking about how I need to ‘secure the nest’ and how I should piss on you to stake my claim, and how I should remain on lookout in case of predators” 

“Hold on, what did you just say?” you turn to face him “I should remain on lookout in case of predators” he replies “no, before that” Logan’s mouth cocks into a smirk “I need to secure the nest” you roll your eyes “after that”  he grins at his ability to irritate you “what about it?” you huff out an annoyed sigh “Logan, what did you say?” a short pause hangs in the air, “my current instinct is to piss on you.” he starts to move off the bed towards the bathroom, presumably to relieve himself “Why, you looking for some new ideas?” his voice lilts up playfully.

  You do not feel playful. You feel aroused? Your eyes dilate at the thought. On your knees, body bare to him as he stands towering over you, his impressive frame practically eclipsing your view marks you in such a- you cut off your own line of thought. It was disgusting, it was degrading, it was so. Fucking. Hot. 

“Hey, you spaced out for a second, you good?” you regained focus onto him, your face flushed with heat. You nod feeling breathless “yeah, yeah I’m fine” voice a little shaky. It was suddenly a lot harder to ignore the consequences of sleeping naked. Skin to skin contact was something you both craved, but subsequently often made it hard to get out of bed.

Logan raises his eyebrow at this, he caught a scent in the air at the same time he noticed your widened eyes, the conclusion he draws is one that shocks, pleases, and excites him; you are. His brow cocks as his mouth splits into a grin. “Something you’re thinking about” he pulls you closer to him you now feel his hardened cock rubbing onto you, he leans into your ear and whispers “something you’re wanting?” he rolls his hips against you. You stifle a moan at the feeling. “It doesn't seem like a horrible idea” you murmur, gaze averted in embarrassment. Logan growls upon hearing your confession, he wanted to push you a little more he decided. “What was that you said? Speak up honey I can’t hear you” he coos with condescension. “I just. I dunno, maybe it’s not such a bad idea” you pause, finally able to regain eye contact, but Logan looks at you expectantly, beckoning your expansion “you know, you doing that to-” he cuts you off “Doing what?” his eyes have darkened, he needs you to say the words. You flounder at the intensity, feeling shame at your desire.

 Logan cocks an eyebrow, you drop your gaze, and surprisingly he doesn't ask you to lift it, he allows you this reprieve in such a depraved request. “The, you and um you” you sputter trying to force the words out of your mouth “you peeing on me, marking your territory, it doesn’t uh, it doesn’t sound like a bad thing to try- to do, I mean.” you catch yourself “it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to do at all.” Logan's chest rumbles as he speaks “doesn’t seem too bad to me either” you both look at each other, eyes expecting and bodies awaiting. 

Logan grinds harder against your hip “I can't do that for you right now sweetheart, I’m too hard” he rocks his hips and chuckles at the pout that had formed on your face. “That’s okay though I’m sure we can think of some ways to fix that” he bites your lip and drags it out. You groan both at the feel of the liquid that was beginning to trickle down his tip and at his poor attempt at a joke. “Lo- Logan” you breathe out, he pinches your skin lightly “Daddy” you correct “you could fuck me” you suggest shyly “Logan smirks “that what you want?” you nod “you want daddy to fuck you till he cums, just so he can piss on you?” you mewl at his words, and tremble beneath him as you raise you slowly raise one knee up to his thigh. He grabs roughly at it and your other knee, moving to position your legs spread and presented for him. He pulls back to lean down and spit on your clit rubbing it in, the depraved action and animalistic intent flooded you with desire. 

He taps the uncut head of his cock against your clit, pulling back the skin to reveal a flushed deep red tip shiny with pre. He positioned himself and applied pressure to your hole, not enough force to give way to being filled with him. “You’re a filthy little slut” you practically sob from the teasing, your cunt clenches as if to pull him in. “But you’re my little slut” he pushed into you, you gasp sharply at the stretch, the burn stung. He pouted down at you with a light mock “what’s the matter baby?” you feel him slowly start to drag out “there’s, so much” he preened as he slowly inched back in, now a bit further “I know baby I know. Y’get stuffed too full.” he drags back once more “but you can take it right baby?” he forces another inch and rubs a tear from your face you hadn't noticed forming. You nodded slowly, drunk on touch you dropped into a whole new space. “Yeah. you can take it all” he buries his hips into you, bullying your insides into submission.you practically felt him in the back of your throat. He swirls his hips, wiry hairs rubbing on your clit. “Feels so good,” you moan. He grabs at your knees, pulling them up, he rubs right into the spot that makes your eyes cross. “So, what made you want this?” you breathe out “i’m not the only filthy slut here, you’re the one who started it” you teased,scratching his arms  he- ever the masochist- twitches at the pain “y’really wanna know?” you nod breathlessly 

“I want this because I want to own you” his hips snap “any other animal can smell it, can smell and know you’re mine” he lowers his head to lick and bite at your neck “I defile you like this and I own you, I spoil you for everyone else” he continues to pound into you, “everyone’ll know this is my chew toy, claimed’ em and everything” he mumbles working himself into a fit as he folds you into a mating press, one hand holding himself up while the other grips your chest. The wet clapping noise of his hips meeting yours filled the room. Your eyes roll back and you moan loudly “ya like that? You like daddy ruining you? Pissing all over you so no one else will take you? Treating you like an animal, like - fuck - like an object? I own you so I can do whatever I want, right?” you nod along “right?” his hips pick up speed “right! Yes! Please, feels so good. N I want it daddy, want it so bad. Need you to fuck me so hard, need you to fill me up claim my cunt for your own, then-” you’re cut off by the moan that rips through you “need you to piss on me. Treat me like a human object, your slut, your tool to pleasure. Corrupt me, ruin me, vandalize me with your claim” 

The repeated thumping of his wild hair at your clit leave you tightening around him “m’close daddy m’close” “I know, me too” “can we cum together” the plap of his balls meeting your ass gained intensity “y’want me to cum in you huh?” his hand moves to hold your neck “pissin on you aint enough you want some of me in ya too.” You keen and writhe around him “I can’t stop it” Logan licks a long wide stripe on your neck “Then don’t.” he digs his teeth into the spot where your shoulder met your neck. The pain caused the fireworks in your belly to go off, legs shaking and tears welling in your eyes. Your cunt clamps down on the wolverine’s cock he saws in three long hard thrusts and buries himself as deep into you as he can and releases rope after rope of  hot, thick, cum that floods your cunt. He gives a few slow thrusts, pushing himself in as far as he can. 

A few moments later he slides out of you, and rises to stand in front of you. Usually you’d whine about the loss of him inside you, but now you were humming with excitement.  He was a sight to behold; 6’2, broad shouldered, and about 300 pounds of pure muscle and metal, standing before your prone form. He lazily palms at his cock “y’sure you want this” “please” you whisper. Logan closes his eyes, and thanks god for finally getting that reward for all the shit he’s put up with for all these years, and he releases. The hot golden liquid lands across your chest, and you gasp at the sensation of it. “Y’like that baby?” he aims higher at your hairline “you like being showered in daddy’s piss? Fuck you’ll take anything I give you. So good.” he smiles, then aims to spray your cunt with his piss “two claims on that cute little pussy in one day, what a reward for you” he sighs, his stream dribbling off the a close. You were panting, exhausted and thoroughly satisfied. 

“That was. So good.” you pant out.  Logan smiles down at you, sweaty, disheveled, covered in pee and still the most beautiful creature he could even imagine. “glad it was good for you too bub, c’mon, lets go get cleaned up” You take Logan's hand and he guides you to the bathroom. you start the water in the shower, allowing it to heat up while Logan stripped the bed. 

When Logan joins you in the shower you have just finished rinsing out your hair. He drapes himself over your back, arms meeting each other in front of you, he kisses your neck. “How do you feel” you smile at how Logan always checks in on you as soon as he can “I feel like I just had the nastiest fuck this building has ever seen.” you say as you switch places so he is under the water “but for real, I feel great, a few aches, but regular aches.” You pause, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.  “You make me feel good Logan” you place a hand to his face, which he immediately presses into. His whole life he’s had to be rough, tender is a trait that will get you killed, he has only ever been a tool used to hurt and kill. He is learning how to be soft, he is practicing how to be gentle, sometimes he needs to hear that his hands have done good.

You wash him reverently, massaging soap into the wide expanse of his chest, following the hair down to groin. There was no sexual undertone to how you cleaned him, only a tender domestic intimacy.

After you had both dressed, you assessed the damage to the -frankly already sweat stained- mattress. Logan looks at you with faux solemnity “I think I just heard it wish for death.” You laugh at his joke, helping him move the bulky shape. 

You manage to bring in down to the ground where Logan then lifts the thing into the dumpster with ease. You smile as he returns to you “Do you know what this means?” he kisses you before telling you no, “it means we spend the whole day mattress shopping.” You kiss him with a smile. Logan groans in a false display of displeasure at the idea of a day with you building your home together. 

“Damm” tags: @mistyorchid @meiwes-eat-flesh

part 2

[munsonsmixtapes]

Say Don't Go

Evan "Buck" Buckley x fem!reader

summary: tensions rise between you and Buck as you find out that he works for you uncle and he learns you're Bobby's niece, forcing the two of you to make a decision on where your relationship stands

word count: 3k

part one part three part four part five part six

Buck could not believe it. The first woman he was attracted to in months was Bobby’s niece? He really was always getting dealt a shit hand. He was going to ask you out on an official date and bring you flowers and shower you with compliments and make stupid jokes to make the both of you less nervous. He supposed now that it was only a pipe dream. And all because you were related to his boss. 

“Bobby, I didn’t know you had a niece,” Buck spoke up, trying to seem nonchalant, as if he didn’t feel like he was going to throw up. And he did, the idea of running to the restroom sounding real inviting. 

“She’s my sister’s kid,” Bobby replied, pulling you into his side in a protective manner then pointed at the man. “Don’t get any ideas, Buck,” he said with a wink, but the threat seemed very serious. Too bad the ship had already sailed and was on the verge of sinking. 

You eyed Buck and shook your head as if to tell him to not come any closer. You wanted to speak to him about the whole situation, but you couldn’t without everyone noticing that the two of you had disappeared and jumped to their own conclusions. You were going to have to meet on your own time to avoid suspicions. Especially Bobby’s. 

The man had become very protective of you since the day you were born and would continue to do so until he took his last breath. Since your father was never in the picture, he felt the need to step up and be exactly what you needed. He was there for everything: your first steps, helping you ride a bike without training wheels, your first date. Yes, he sat in the back row of the movie theater, watching the two of you like a hawk, making sure the kid didn’t try anything. 

Bobby would not have been happy if he found out that Buck had even looked at you in a flirty manner let alone slept with you. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that Buck wasn’t fit to be your boyfriend, but more like any man wasn’t fit for the role. 

You eyed Buck practically the entire time but tried not to draw attention to yourself as you did it. Tension was rising and you really hoped that no one else could see it. Especially since you were the guest of honor and couldn’t fade into the background like you desperately wanted to. 

“Everyone,” Bobby stood behind you, resting his hands on your shoulders. “This is my niece, y/n. And I expect you all to welcome her as an honorary member of the 118. She’s going to be here for a while. Y/n, this is Hen and her wife Karen,” he pointed to the Black woman who was standing next to Buck. She gave you a hug and you were quick to return it. “And Buck and his sister, Maddie.” You looked at Buck and didn’t miss the look on his face as your eyes glanced at him to look at his sister. His face was white. Almost as if he had seen a ghost. You ignored it for the moment and tried your best to listen to Bobby’s introductions of his team. “And that’s Chimney,” Bobby gestured to the Asian man who was on Buck’s other side. Oh, you so had to hear the backstory about that nickname. “And Eddie and his son, Christopher.” You turned your attention to one of the most beautiful men you had ever seen and a young boy who was using crutches. 

Hugs were all passed around as you were introduced and you all mingled as you sipped on your drinks, waiting for dinner to be ready. You got into a conversation with Maddie about nursing, but you couldn’t help but let your eyes wander to her brother who had been in what looked a deep conversation with Eddie. You couldn’t help but feel like word about your night together was somehow going to get to your uncle and you didn’t even know why you cared so much. You were an adult now and really had no reason to hide to from Bobby. Maybe he’d be a little upset at first, but he’d come around. 

“So, that’s the girl you hooked up with the other night?” Eddie asked, holding back a laugh. It was just too good, almost like the plot of a telanovela he’d watched with Christopher. Of course something like that would have happened to Buck. That sounded exactly like something that would have happened to him. 

“Yes,” Buck nodded. 

“And she’s Bobby’s niece?” All Buck could do was glare at Eddie. It was almost as if he wasn't listening at all. And for once, this was a very serious matter. His life was doomed as he knew it and Eddie was just laughing it off as if it was all just a big joke. And Buck supposed that maybe it was.

“Yes. Weren’t you listening?” He was now on edge, for whatever reason, feeling paranoid that Bobby had been listening even though the man was all the way across the room joking around with Michael.

“Hey, relax," Eddie pat his friend's shoulder. Sometimes Buck just really needed to relax. "I’m just making sure I’m getting the facts right. I can't believe that out of all of the people in Los Angeles that you slept with Bobby's niece. Oh, Chim is gonna get a kick out of this."

Eddie burst into laughter, really getting a kick out of his friend's pain, but he couldn't help it. It was all just too funny to not laugh a little at the unfortunate events of his friend's life. He was just happy that he wasn't in Buck's shoes.

“But you're not gonna tell Chim," he gave Eddie a warning look. "This secret dies with us. And I swear if you tell Bobby-" Both of the men knew that whatever threat came out of Buck's mouth would be empty, but Eddie wanted to know what would have been in store for him if he had broken his promise.

“You’ll do what, Buck?” He crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head to the side in curiosity.

“I don’t know, but It’ll be bad.”

“Sure, whatever you say, buddy." Eddie gave his shoulder a pat as Bobby had everyone gather around before they all sat down to eat.

“Alright, everyone dinner is served and before we sit, I’d to make a toast,” Bobby spoke up and you could see his eyes getting misty already. “The moment I held you after you were born, I knew that you’d be destined for greatness,” he started and you knew that his speech was going to be a tear jerker just like always. 

“I remember when you were three and insisted on fixing my “wounds” with your little doctor’s kit that I had gotten you for Christmas. You told me that you were going to be a nurse and save lives and look at you now. You graduated nursing school and got a job at your first choice hospital. I’m so proud of you, kiddo. So, if everyone would raise their glasses.” Everyone did as they asked as Bobby raised his own that was filled with soda. “To y/n,” he said. 

“To y/n,” everyone repeated and they all clinked their glasses together before cheering, giving you a round of applause. After the excitement died down, everyone sat down at the table, the only spot available being the one to the left of you that Buck was reluctant to occupy. 

“Oh-“ he said, cutting himself off and everyone was quick to turn to him. To them, it was just the only available seat. To you and Buck, though, it was more than that. If he sat next to you, the awkward tension would only rise and Buck really didn’t want to make it all about him when this was your party. 

“You can sit there, Buck,” Bobby told him. “Y/n doesn’t bite.” Buck’s mind immediately flashed to a couple of nights ago when you had done just that. When you had actually bitten him and been the cause of the healing hickey on his neck. 

“Yeah, Buck,” youpulled the chair out for him to take a seat. “I don’t bite,” you winked, a joke just between the two of you. Buck hesitantly sat next to you, being very obvious unlike you. He might as well have just told the entire table that the two of you had slept together while he was at it. 

“So, y/n,” Hen spoke up. “What’s your position at the hospital?” 

“Labor and delivery,” you told her. You always loved the idea of bringing new life into the world and after doing a few residencies and following nurses around who did just that, you knew that was the career for you. 

“That’s so admirable,” Hen smiled warmly. Just from what Bobby had told her about you, she was sure that you were going to do really well in the medical field. That you were a hard worker and never took no for an answer. “I’m sure you’re going to do great.” 

“Well, thank you. And thank you, Robert, for this amazing celebration,” you gestured to the all of the nurse themed decorations all over the main level of the house and even out on the patio where you were all sitting. 

“That was actually all Athena,” Bobby corrected, feeling like he should’ve let his wife take the credit for all the hard work she put in to make the house look nice. 

“Well, thank you, Athena,” you turned to the woman she nodded enthusiastically, wanting you to know just how much she enjoyed planning the entire thing for you, knowing that it meant a lot to Bobby because of how close he was to you. 

“Of course,” she replied. “It was my absolute pleasure.” 

You looked around at everyone sitting at the table and despite not knowing most of them, you felt but nothing but loved sitting at that table, discussing everything and nothing as you all ate the meal that Bobby prepared for you all. You had felt alone your entire life, only having Scarlett, your mom, and Bobby as your family and now all of the people he had been closest to were welcoming you into their world with open arms, and you couldn’t help but feel more lucky. 

You hesitantly turned to Buck and noticing him picking around his plate, the dish almost full signifying that he hadn’t really eaten anything. And you didn’t blame him. You hadn’t much of an appetite either considering the whole situation and for a second there, you completely had forgotten about him. It seemed that neither of you had the best luck in the dating apartment, so of course, as fate would have it, you couldn’t be together. Or more like shouldn’t considering the whole situation. It would have just been weird and awkward and maybe it would have just been for the best if you just left it at a one night stand. 

Dinner came to a close and by the end of it, you were all sharing funny stories from your careers and just from the one meal you had with them, you knew you were going to enjoy spending more time with them. Maybe if you asked Bobby, you all could have had more meals together like you had heard they did at the 118. You would have really enjoyed that. You were really looking forward to having a real family. 

The members of the 118 all lingered at the door like usual, all hesitant to go back to their homes. All except Buck. He was getting antsy to get the hell out of there and to probably never speak to you again. He could run into a burning building without batting an eye, but when it came to his personal life, all he wanted to do was run away. He absolutely hated confrontation and was going to avoid the inevitable as long as possible.

He looked at you, watching you laugh with his sister and could easily see the three of you getting together for dinner. You'd sit next to him and his hand would reach for yours and you'd give him a warm smile as Maddie looked at the both of you, so happy that her brother had finally real, true love.

The dream quickly faded away as Buck accepted that he was going to let you slip through his fingers. The whole thing was just too complicated and he wasn't going to put you through all of that, especially since you were just getting started with your career. You already had too much on your plate and he didn't think there was enough room for him.

"Right, Buck?" Bobby asked, giving his shoulder a pat and Buck turned to the man in confusion, not even aware that he was even being spoken to.

"I'm sorry, what?" You were still swirling around in his mind even though he was trying hard to focus on what Bobby had been saying.

"You're coming in on time tomorrow, right?" He had still been teasing about him being late a couple of days ago and Buck just rolled his eyes. Now he didn't have a reason to be late anymore and he kind of hated it.

"Yes sir," Buck nodded. "Good night, Bobby."

"Good night, Buck." Bobby gave his shoulder a squeeze and Buck gave you one last look before turning on his heel to head to his jeep.

You watched Buck walk to his vehicle, wondering why he had said goodbye to everyone but you. What, so he found out that you were Bobby's niece and now he was giving you the silent treatment? How was that fair? Maybe everything that happened that night was all part of an act and now he was just showing you his true self.

So maybe that night wasn't as special to you as it was to him. You had even considered asking him out, but now you guessed you had just dogged a bullet. He was just like the other's and at least this one saved you the headache by ghosting you instead of pursuing you only to show no interest in you the entire duration the relationship. You supposed it saved you some tissues knowing who he was from the get go.

One week later

You pulled up to the fire station, feeling anger course through you as you put Scarlett's car in park. You had tried to reach out to Buck multiple times since the party only to be met by nothing but silence. Even if nothing happened between the two of you, you felt like you at least deserved an explanation. Didn't your feelings matter too? Apparently not to him.

So, you decided to show up the one place he couldn't run from so you could have a conversation with him. You weren't sure how you were going to do that with all those people around, but you'd figure things out. You always did.

You marched into the station, scanning the place for Buck and noticed that everyone was surrounding the engine, wiping it down or cleaning the interior. Eddie was the first to spot you and he pointed wordlessly to the other side of the engine, assuming that you were there for Buck.

You rounded the back of the engine and made a beeline for the man, grabbing onto his arm, pulling him somewhere more private, deciding that right by the bathrooms was really the only spot that was as out of sight as you could get. You stopped there and Buck could practically see the flames forming in your eyes because of how angry you were. Women had been mad at him more times than he could count, but never like that. If looks could kill, he definitely would have been dead.

"You're an asshole," you told him, trying your best not to yell. For once, Buck was very aware of the hurt he had caused. And now he was paying for it. With the way you were balling your fists, you looked like you were going to punch him, and for the first time, he was going to take it because he felt like he deserved it.

"Am I?" He asked, cocking his head to the side. Buck didn't know why he was being such a dick, but now he felt like he had stick with it since he had already committed to the role. He honestly wasn't expecting you to show up. The most he ever got was an angry phone call. Perhaps you showing up was a sign that you weren't willing to give up on him like everyone else.

"Yes!" Your voice was a little loud, but you couldn't have cared less. He deserved to know just how angry you were and for once, you didn't care about embarrassing him. That was the least he deserved.

"I had a really nice time with you. You made me feel special. I hadn't slept with anyone in a long time and I trusted you. I trusted you, Evan. And then you find out that Bobby's my uncle and you run? If you didn't want to see me again, the least you could have done was told me. But no, you're nothing but a coward."

Bobby stood on the other side of the wall, listening to the entire thing. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but he had left the restroom just as you and Buck went to block the exit and he couldn't have passed without revealing that he had heard everything and he couldn't have that. At least, not yet. Tension was already high and he didn't want to make it worse.

Bobby didn't know what was worse, hearing that you had slept with Buck, or the fact that he made you cry. So not only did the guy sleep with you, but he also completely ghosted you and hurt your feelings. That was three strikes so Buck was out. At least, for the near future. Just as you were leaving, the sirens went off, signaling that there was a call.

Buck tried to follow you, but Eddie stopped him and Buck watched you leave from over Eddie's shoulder. Eddie turned him around and pushed Buck towards the engine, but Bobby stopped him.

"I'm benching you today, Buck." Maybe it was wrong of him to bring his personal life into work, but nobody was allowed to hurt his little girl. Not even Buck. Especially not Buck.

"Why?" Buck didn't like the assumption his brain was coming to and he really didn't like being benched after being yelled at by a girl he really liked.

"I'm the captain and what I say goes. The dishes really need to be done, so could you take care of that?" With that, Bobby got into the engine and both it and the truck pulled out of the station, leaving Buck with nothing but his thoughts and a sink full of dishes that needed to be done.

[dragon-ascent]

Hello, how are you ? Since you have open request I’d like to ask something : How do you think our favorite dragon Zhongli will react to his wife being accused of lying because they have corrected an historian on a false fact about Morax ?

Since English isn’t my first language I’m afraid this is not clear, I’m sorry.

Ooh, I like it, here's what I've come up with <3

-----

The tension is palpable and certainly not what you were hoping to land yourself in when you accepted Zhongli's request to be his plus-one aboard the Pearl Galley.

"Forgive me, Mr. Changying, but that's where I'll have to correct you," you tell the stocky man before you. The food and drinks on the table are long-untouched. "Rex Lapis didn't take on such a grand ten-headed and eight-armed form to exterminate those sea creatures. In fact, he personally went door to door to trap them in little Geo contraptions, even having a bit of trouble with the.... particularly wrigglier ones."

Changying's eyes practically roll into the back of his head. "Do you truly believe that rubbish just because that is what's commonly peddled? That the Geo archon, who could raise the mountains and calm the tides without breaking a sweat, found the task of getting rid of tiny sea creatures tedious and challenging?"

Sighing, you say, "Even the gods are subject to being less-than-perfect in their methods. And besides, the damn things were inside people's houses - brute strength would not have been handy at all. Rex Lapis needed to be careful and meticulous so that none of his people were harmed. Hence the Geo cages."

Despite how neatly you'd presented your counterpoint, Changying merely scoffs as he adjusts his glasses. He jabs a finger at you accusingly. "You're lying, just like everyone else," he growls, "and you clearly have no respect for our late archon! Do you even like him?"

Your breath nearly hitches in your throat as you gaze up at him in shock. "Ex...excuse me?"

The man pulls no punches as he continues his rant against you. "How can you so blindly believe what the masses think? Maybe if you were a real Rex Lapis follower like me, you would learn some critical thinking skills and draw more accurate conclusions!"

"I'm afraid I am on the side of my partner here, Mr. Changying," cuts in Zhongli, placing an arm on your shoulder. Relief floods your veins as you let out the breath you'd been holding. "They are correct in explaining that Rex Lapis had to go the simplistic route when dealing with Liyue's sea creature infestation."

Changying's eyes grow wide. "Forgive me, Mr. Zhongli," he murmurs, and you're not ignorant to the way his tone mellows out and becomes more respectful as he continues to speak. "I didn't know you were also in agreement of that story. But let me explain why he likely-"

"It is alright for you to have your own interpretations of events, especially for a being with an expansive history that is always being debated over," says Zhongli calmly, poised as always, "but when these interpretations are unrealistic and you still try to present them as fact...while belittling other people, no less...the line must be drawn somewhere, yes?"

Changying blanches, stammering, "Er, but don't you think Rex Lapis would appreciate deviating thought processes more, especially when..."

Zhongli's eyes narrow ever so slightly, his visage still calm as a pond. "Perhaps so, but what he would not appreciate is his people trying to one-up others in an attempt to prove they are his most loyal followers." Your husband glances at you. "I know my partner well, and they love Rex Lapis dearly. Not only do you accuse them of lying, you also undermine the love they hold for the deity."

His hand brushes against yours and he interlaces his fingers with you, giving a gentle, reassuring squeeze. You smile softly.

Changying scrambles for words, useless excuses and explanations that hardly justify him being on his high horse.

Zhongli, unamused, fires his parting shot. "Far be it for an ordinary man like myself to tell you what to do, but here is some advice: gather reliable citations for your claims, provide succinct evidence, and be respectful of those with opposing views, and perhaps then Rex Lapis would consider you a favorite of his."

With that, Zhongli escorts you away from the scene, knowing full well you will always be his favorite by far - the approving smile he gives you conveys that perfectly.

[thinkingofausername]

Mutual Misunderstanding (Astarion x Tav)

Summary: Tav has doubts after sleeping with Astarion and leaves him to wake up alone. He draws the worst conclusion.

A/N: This was my first attempt at writing a fanfic and MAN do I have even more respect for fic writers than I already did. This is based on a request/prompt of mine that I posted some time ago.

CW: mention of sex, insecurity, mental health issues, PTSD, mention of noncon, mention of vomiting, bad coping mechanisms, miscommunication, it all ends well though

Tav woke up with the bright heat of the morning sun on their face. They rubbed their eyes and stretched with a pleased sigh before looking at their surrounding. When their gaze fell on Astarion, something in them tightened their chest and pulled the corners of their lips into a small, giddy smile.

For a person doomed to have the sun as his enemy, he looked divine in its glow. His soft curls looked even whiter than usual, his face uncommonly peaceful. No smirk, no snark, just his features, so soft and off guard it caused a fondness to bloom in their chest.

His shirtless chest rose and fell calmly, though he needn't take any breaths at all. Some phantom need, or habit, perhaps. Though his skin was like marble, practically golden in the light, it arose no heat within them. They simply found him beautiful.

They recalled the previous night like a warm, panting, thrilling rush of glimpses. Though filled with passion led by quite an experienced person, they found themselves seeing it as quite... genuine. Astarion knew they haven't had many experiences in the sheets and that they found themselves at a loss at what to do. He gently took the reigns and they had felt genuine safety and care.

Like the sudden feeling of grass beneath their naked back as grogginess gives way for clarity, some overthinking, insecure voice reared its head and paved the way for regret.

All the caresses felt smooth as silk, how many others felt them? All the whispers and rumbles of his voice toyed with their heartbeats, how many others can recall that? All the promises of pleasure and consent reassured them, how many others have had their doubts quelled in such ways?

All that had felt so true and blissful was rapidly becoming nauseating. With all the countless "dances" of his, how can one know spontaneous steps from practiced ones? How could they be sure they were pleasurable enough, appealing enough, exciting enough? They felt a new chapter turning for the two of them, a genuine and loyal one. Now they weren't sure of anything. Now they felt foolish, naïve, played. Gods forgive them, they cared for Astarion so much, but that damned elven, bastardly, precious vampire had them feeling like a cheap one-night-stand. They couldn't blame him but they couldn't think either.

As quickly and quietly as possible, they got dressed and rushed back towards the camp.

When Astarion woke up, he turned on his side towards Tav's smell which still lingered and reached out. His eyes sprang open as his hand met only air and ground. It took him a second to gather himself, remember where he was and what he had been doing. He couldn't even think of the fact he had slept without a nightmare in gods know how long, or that last night was a rarity during which he was fully and gladly present. Any good feelings got thrust into the background as an all too familiar one washed over him.

He couldn't even tell if it was his voice or Cazador's ringing in his head. "You were weak. You put your guard down. You enjoyed yourself. You are a fool. You are a dirty, cheap body to be gripped and groped and thrown away. You are a temporary pleasure with no face and no voice."

If he had a mortal body, he surely would've vomited.

A too complicated clashing of reasonings overwhelmed him. "They used you, but of course they did. Why are you even surprised? You approached them for your own gain, why would you expect a transaction to turn into anything real? Just swallow your trivial feelings and move on." And yet on the other hand - he had felt it was becoming real. It never should've, he never planned for it, but it happened. He subconsciously gave it a chance and look where it got him. Feeling like a naïve fool.

He got dressed, doing it mechanically through memories of filth, bruises, a ringing in his ears and a painful and shameful throbbing between his legs. He walked back to camp, readying his charm on the way.

When he approached them in camp, it felt like a play. Like last night was an episode and they were now back on track.

"Hello, darling", he purred, "Was the walk here terribly difficult? I imagine after last night's... performance, your legs would be quite shaky."

"I'm... fine."

"Well... that's good to hear. We wouldn't want our precious leader experiencing any unwanted effects after sleeping with the nasty, suspicious vampire, now would we?"

Something felt so terribly wrong and regretful. They found no humor in his smirk, no charm in his expertly seductive voice. They just saw... hurt. Poorly disguised at that.

"Wait, Star, I feel like there's a misunderstanding here. Can we just-"

"Oh, so it's 'Star' now, is it? See that's funny, I thought nicknames and other such mushy things were reserved for couples, not late night trysts. But what would I know, after all I have bedded many a person but not one have I greeted in the morning, so don't take my word for anything."

It felt like everything was falling apart with no prior warning, like last night was a crucial moment and they missed out on some defining que.

"Astarion, can we please talk? Something's gone wrong here."

"Whatever do you mean, darling? Nothing's wrong. We had fun last night, lots of fun I might add, and now it is the next day, simple as that. There's nothing to talk about. Now, let's leave this dramatic business behind us and move on, shall we?"

"Astarion, I-"

"Darling, I think we've used our mouths more than enough last night, let's give them a break, yes?"

As he sauntered off, the sinking feeling rattled. In a matter of hours, it seems whatever they had built has managed to fall apart and put them back at the start.

Astarion had quite a talent for ignoring a person while giving them attention. It was the most ironic, painful thing they had witnessed in a long while. He responded, but they felt it would've hurt less if he had stayed quiet. He kept charming, and they yearned for every uncovered softness they had managed to receive from him.

Whenever they attempted to talk to him, either another companion needed them, or Astarion went on a hunt, or they needed to get moving. A few days passed when they got desperate.

"Astarion, we have to talk."

That was it, he thought. He was finally getting thrown away. He tried pretending everything was fine, but he knew that couldn't be the case. They had tasted the only valuable thing about him and they needed nothing else from him.

"Hello, my sweet." His voice almost shook. Gods, he can feel his throat getting tighter. "Do you need something?"

They were still struggling to understand what exactly happened between them, but all they knew at the moment was that Astarion seemed strangely nervous. Afraid, even.

"Easy, Star. I really just want to clear some things up."

"Well... did something happen?"

"Something did, I would just like to know what."

"Whatever could you mean, darling? Things have been perfectly fine."

"Star, please. There's been enough of this. We've been growing more and more distant after a night when we were closer than ever, it really doesn't make sense."

"Darling, if we were to get any closer than we were that night, we would become conjoined", he said with a strained chuckle.

"Okay...", they sighed, "I know that whatever we did some nights ago was a dance very familiar to you and so it likely meant nothing special to you, but it did to me. I'm sorry if I have managed to ruin things between us, but I just couldn't digest the thought of it meaning so little when it felt like so much."

"Oh no, no, no. Wait a gods damned minute, darling. I feel you might have mixed up our lines somehow. 'Likely meant nothing to me'? You're the one who was conveniently absent the following morning, or has the worm messed with my memory?"

He seemed shocked, a bit angry and against all his effort and hesitation, hopeful.

"I...", they huffed a sigh of realization with a small, self-deprecating smile. "It seems I misread your intentions. I'm sorry, Star, I really never meant to hurt you."

His relief was very apparent.

"It's alright, my sweet. I might've also, perhaps, let my dark thoughts get the better of me. It seems old habits truly do die hard. But just to be sure - that night... did mean something, to the both of us?"

"It certainly seems so."

"Well. That is good to know. I'm not sure where this leaves us though."

"Me neither. I've never really done things like this before."

"Reassuring news, truly. I was about to start feeling a bit... lacking, in the area."

"Then we can lack together."

"That doesn't sound so bad", he said with a chuckle and a softness in his eyes they had missed so much.

"Then let's raise an imaginary toast to figuring things out", they said with their hand raised as if holding a glass.

"You're positively ridiculous, my sweet. But yes", he said raising his own "glass", "and also to not leaving me to wake up alone on the dirt as if I had been robbed and knocked unconscious."

"That too. I really am sorry, Star."

"Oh, it's quite alright. Just don't do it again."

"Pinky promise?"

"Now you're overdoing it."

They chuckled as they finally felt the heaviness in the air between them dissipate.

[trianglesimpfordpines]

ok so like 2 people said they wanted to see the "ford is the most realistic genius" post and that's all the encouragement i need. i'm probably gonna sound pretty full-of-myself on this post but that's just how it be like sometimes.

a lot of the time, "intelligence" is assumed to mean "knows more things." fictional characters who are supposed to be geniuses typically just...miraculously Know information they have no real way of acquiring, anticipate events that cannot reasonably anticipated, or every other character just suddenly gets stupid when the genius character is around so that the "genius" character just doing the logical thing comes off as particularly smart.

so you have a character who supposedly has a really high iq, but in practice they may as well be psychic.

as someone who actually has an iq of 147 (bear with me, because this isn't a flexing post), being "really intelligent" does not mean Just Knowing Things. what it means is that someone who's "smart" (in the traditional sense) can process more information, draw more conclusions, and do so faster than most people. it also usually means being really good at rationalizing things. so if you're someone who's well-adjusted and well-informed, that can definitely look like knowing all the right answers...but if you're someone who's not well-adjusted or well-informed, it can, if anything, make you even wronger. you get better at rationalizing your mistakes and digging yourself in deeper. and heaven help you if you have paranoid tendencies, because it's that much harder to convince someone they're being irrational when they're on a whole 'nother level of finding information to back up their irrationality.

ford is a genius. he learns incredibly fast and thoroughly. but he's also constrained by the information he has available to him, and by his own biases and past trauma and people issues.

that one writing advice post that made the rounds saying that a character's biggest flaw is usually their biggest strength in the wrong situation is very true of people who are very intelligent. it's why, for example, you'll sometimes see doctors, academics, experts buy into conspiracy theories. it's not because they're stupid; it's because they're smart enough to recontextualize all their knowledge to support their biases and beliefs.

and so many people do not understand this because they still think of "intelligence" as "knowing & being right about everything." so you get people arguing that ford isn't really a genius, because he was wrong and he made mistakes. but in my opinion, the mistakes he makes make perfect sense because he's a genius. that kind of recklessness is exactly what you get when you combine abnormally high iq with ford's myriad of personal issues. you get someone who's great at rationalizing, great at taking in information, and great at finding surprisingly well-thought-out reasons why their paranoia and antisocial tendencies are totally just the rational response.

think of it this way; the smartest people alive in the medieval era believed in the miasma theory. they weren't too stupid to understand what bacteria and viruses are; they just didn't have the tools needed to observe them. so they came up with a theory based on the information they did know, wrote essays and papers about it, made medical practices based on it...and it was completely incorrect, because genius without correct information leads to spectacular and very well-thought-out mistakes.

anyway, all this to say, as someone who could nominally be considered a "genius" but has been hella wrong about a lot of things in my life, i think ford is an incredibly realistic take on what most "geniuses" are really like. impressive in the right situations, not so much in the wrong ones, and very much not magical beings capable of mysteriously knowing all the correct information because they're Just That Smart. and very much not immune to emotional and personal issues getting in the way.

thanks for coming to my "i-just-slept-for-20-hours-and-my-brain-is-a-bit-scrambled-right-now" ted talk

[his-tamine]

Okey Dokey, so no more tiptoeing around the issue, with many people's helpful private opinions, I've come to the conclusion it does need to be addressed.

AI "art." From here on out, anyone I see posting it is getting blocked. I'm not arguing with anyone about this, that's not what I'm here for, but I've seen it too much as of late, and I feel I should at least say something about it, especially as an artist myself. There's never an excuse for it.

- Need a visual/reference of what your oc(s) would look like, but don't think highly of your own artistic abilities? Surprise! There are still plenty of ways to obtain one, without using AI. The amount of incredibly talented artists in this community, some of whom are in need of commissions. The incredibly talented artists who sometimes draw for free, out of hobby or perhaps need for practice. And then even if neither of those work for you, try some of the character customization mediums we've all used before, that have existed on the internet for years now. (Think Gacha, Picrew, etc. Even if it's seen as "cringe" by some people, it's better than this.) Or hey, try drawing it yourself. "Bad" art is allowed, and everyone starts somewhere. Even if you don't like how what you're drawing looks at first, you will eventually if you keep trying, I promise you. Watch speedpaints, animatics, cartoons, study the way things look through your human eyes, and apply them to your process. Learn. Grow.

- Ignorance? There is no way that you've dipped your toes in AI generated images, without knowing what needs to occur for an AI to generate said images. It does not come from thin air. These robots use real people's faces to produce images of people, real animals to produce images of animals. So, in the case of "art," that's right, they're using a real artist's artwork to produce it. In short, stealing. If you've not heard about this by now, and have still been using AI generators to generate "art," then I'd have to assume you've been doing it blindfolded.

- Just for fun - or worse - for fet? ...Let's be serious. As I've explained above, there's no reason to be using it at all, but especially here on fucking SNZBLR of all places! Like... Guys, this is a sneezing kink/fetish community. And you're really knowingly using a robot - which grotesquely melds together other people's work - to generate fetish content? Do we... not realize how gross that is?

I'm not coming after anyone specifically, because I've seen more than just one person doing this, but if the shoe fits, wear it. And that's all I'm saying about this. I'm really tired of seeing it, so if those of you doing it won't change, I will. Though considering the blatant disregard some of you have for human artists, one blocking you shouldn't bother you too much, right? ♥

Anyways, sorry if I freaked anyone out with my cryptic ass posts from before, I was hesitant to say anything, because I didn't wanna start shit, but sometimes it's just not worth it to bite your tongue. If the snzblr art community can (rightfully) come down on tracers, then we should be doing the same with AI "art."

[aihaitahm]

having a crush on streamer ! roommate ! blade

cw: suggestive, not proof read sorry.

probably streams something like valorant or league (sorry.) or he streams himself drawing ! he enjoys streaming but he also just does it for extra money… he knows he’s attractive. doesn’t talk/commentate that much but he has some dry humor that makes people intrigue especially for how he is. when he gets annoyed at whatever he’s playing, he would cuss a lot but not like… throwing his keyboard across the room.

would stream with silverwolf and gets a bit annoyed whenever she beats his ass whenever they play together. sometimes they meet up and also play horror games together. blade has a straight face but is actually terrified that he screams “fuck!?!!?” while silverwolf stares at him with a straightface like it wasnt even that scary -_-

anyways, moving in and discovering he was your roommate was interesting. he wasnt really shy… just awkward, and may come off a bit condescending and mean but if only you could see his red ears whenever he interacts with you. at first you were wary of him whether or not he would do his own share of chores so you nag at him multiple times. spoiler alert: he does do his part<3 this is where you both start interacting more by playfully being sarcastic at each other.

“tsk you know i do chores when youre not around… you gotta trust me more will ya?”

“okay sorry…”

it was a rough start getting to know him as a roommate since he is always in his room when youre around or when he goes out a lot whether to the gym (which you find yourself staring at his figure or analyzing it behind his baggy shirt) or to hang out with his friends, he comes home late. but a sweet gesture he does is when you wake up in the morning, you see a bunch of food or take out on the counter as a thank you for cooking and leaving some for him.

he finallt brought his friends around (silverwolf and kafka!) and they introduce themselves to you while they nudge blade teasingly. like how could he hide his precious roommate from them. thats when they started asking you questions while blade’s ears are perked.

“so dear are you single? what do you like and dislike? to think bladie wouldnt even talk to his dear roommate… dont make them feel lonely blade ‘kay?”

“yea… i am whyd you ask? and i like ___ and dislike ___. and oh im fine!”

“whats your type! do you like games? can we play ? we can play with blade too if you want!”

“stop with the questions you two. and excuse me i talk to them… kinda.”

“sure you do.”

after that interaction, blade is a bit more talkative to you now but still a bit closed off. thats when you questioned him about the noise he makes and asks if he streams. he embarrassingly said yes while he continues to answer your questions begrudgingly.

you tend to text to your friends about him and march 7th starts teasing you to no end. dan heng kinda warns you about him but would support you to no end… just dont get in blade’s bad side. stelle or caelus would purposely create scenarios where you have to talk to blade since they have a lot of classes with him.

one time you were going home after seeing your friends until you came home to see he was making a meal for himself, shirtless. in which he blushes deep red but shrugs it off as he smirks. you were surprised and actually squeaked, telling him to put a shirt on.

“put some clothes on damn it.”

“well stop looking its really that simple.”

since your friends, you, blade and his friends came to the conclusion you both like each other, do you actually confess? no but obviously you both are stubborn and would rather deal with the sexual loving tension. roommates who decided to do grocery shopping together one day. to go out and maybe look for a pet. roommates who sometimes rant to each other about deep personal stuff. working out together. following each other on social medias. wt this point march 7th and kafka is practically screaming at u and blade’s face to confess.

that was until you were knocking at his door and he wasnt there since you already brought him his food. you came in his room for the first time to see his stream was on and people were wondering who are you. looking around his space, you found some of the little gifts you gave him and saw his phone glow up to a silly cute picture of you that you sent. making you feel flustered bc goddamn it you just needed to hand him his food.

‘alhaithamscatboy: ohmygod are u blade’s partner?!?!!? the one silverwolf was teasing blade about!

eimikofanpage69: theyre so fine!!!! oh my god !!!! wdym yall are just roommates?

KAZUSCARAFAN: UR LYING WHEN U SAY UR JUST ROOMMATES. ‘

“(name) whyre you here? oh you brought me food. thank you. uh sorry about my chat.”

“ah yes actually theyre my lovely partner.“ blade said as he pecks you on the cheek and the chat goes crazy. literally making it viral.

after the stream, you confronted him and freaked out. asking him if he just did it for the views or if he actually liked you that way. which makes him infuriated because how could he ever do that to someone he loves and respects.

“i like you okay? i… love you a lot more than i can ever express and i would never do shit like that for views. i had my eyes on you ever since you moved in. i just didnt know if you do. im sorry if i made you uncomfortable.”

“you didnt. and i-i love you too… now you should like, kiss me better bladie.”

“call me yingxing or ren instead.” he whispered as he kissed you on the lips passionately.

[lazyyogi]

Visualizing and meditating upon your own death is an incredibly powerful practice. It puts a great deal into perspective on a visceral level. Wise application of this method will cut through laziness, indifference, pettiness, restlessness, and ambivalence.

What follows here is a guided meditation of sorts. The point of this practice isn’t to live this little story but to allow yourself to experience it safely from a position of mindfulness in the present moment. Examine the feelings that arise without rejecting or analyzing.

Drop the contemplation from time to time and just rest in open awareness. Then return to it.

If at any point this becomes distressing or overwhelming, drop the practice and go do something else.

Sit for a few moments in silent, present moment mindfulness. Then contemplate the following:

You are laying in a hospital bed, knowing it is your last day alive. The light of the midday sun gleams through the window to your left.

The room is empty and quiet. You gaze out of the window and watch the lazy puffs of clouds traverse the big blue sky. All of the familiar features from your daily life seem so far away.

From the things you looked forward to every day to the inconveniences you tried to evade.

You take a shallow but mindful breath in and then release it. You aren’t in pain. But you know this is the end of your life. It is the end of all that you have known since the moment of your birth.

You think back on the last time you had been angry and upset. It doesn’t seem all that important anymore. What a waste of time that was.

You remember the last person you helped. You smile. So many important things from before feel meaningless now. But the kindness of that interaction still glows gently in your chest. You wonder why you didn’t do that more often. It wouldn’t have been so difficult.

You wonder what will happen after you die.

Conclude by resting in open awareness.

Refrain from drawing conclusions or indulging any particular emotion. Just let the alchemy of this practice effect its change upon your heart.

Much love to you all ❤️

LY

[raxistaicho]

Analyzing Hubert and Byleth's A support

Hey all, been a while since I had the idea to do an analysis post, but I finally had a good idea!

So everyone's familiar with Byleth and Hubert's A support, right? That's the one where Byleth is just minding their own business when Hubert suddenly bursts onto the scene and tells them he'll kill them for being a Nabatean.

Wait, wait, that doesn't sound right, I think we should start over from the beginning.

Now, the way it actually begins is with Byleth standing in the ruined cathedral at Garreg Mach, when Hubert emerges and begins monologueing, as only he can.

Nice place, isn't it, Professor? Standing here, you can almost feel the goddess's absence. Discounting what dwells within you, of course.

I do want to draw attention to something here. The last line there calls back to a line from their B support:

I see something of Lord Arundel in you… When I look at you, I feel I can almost see a second self lurking beneath the surface. It is as if you are in constant dialogue with something inside your heart—something with desires very different from your own. Does that description feel familiar to you at all?

After everything that's happened to Byleth and all their choices, Hubert's made peace with the fact that Byleth is different in a way he can't fully understand, and in a manner that reminds him of the goddess. It's also an acknowledgement that Byleth is both similar and yet different to the children of the goddess and the deity they've foisted upon the people of Fodlan. Because, let's not forget, the goddess Sothis is quite different from Byleth's beloved head gremlin.

But I digress,

Do you think some punishment would rain down from the sky if this monastery were to be destroyed? Of course not. Even if the so-called Immaculate One came back here for revenge… That would only be a result of this war, not the work of a deity.

This is more of the same; the goddess has no agency. Any act, however apparently divine, is simply the actions of Rhea and her kin attempting to appear godly. Because that really is the true nature of the Church of Seiros: very powerful otherworldly beings using their innate gifts to mislead the people of Fodlan into believing an all-powerful goddess is watching over them.

Again, Sothis, the primordial god, is dead, and by now she's forfeited any chance to return to the land of the living. The goddess truly no longer exists in any way that matters.

Byleth then asks whether Hubert hates the goddess, to which he replies,

If it is between love and hate, then I would choose the latter. The goddess failed to properly govern this world. That is why it is necessary for Lady Edelgard to become the supreme leader of Fódlan.

Basically, he's saying that the gods have failed so spectacularly that the only way to fix Fodlan now is through an act of continental war. And really... Rhea has failed. Fodlan was so thoroughly broken that the events leading up to 1180 is a string of calamities even before you get to the Agarthans' direct conduct. Even her own church is falling apart at the seams, with the southern branch extinct after trying to influence Imperial politics, the central and western branches openly in conflict, and the central branch privately scorns the eastern branch for being too even-handed.

Hubert closes this thought with,

Those with power must use it wisely. Is that not a teaching of the Church of Seiros? It's absurd to preach to others what you cannot practice yourself.

This is why I get frustrated seeing people just cutting everything up until this point and focusing only on the soundbit parts of the supports; they're excising the crucial context, that Hubert despises the Fodlan divinity because it arrogantly claims and authority its proven itself unworthy of.

Anyways, Byleth then has two choices as to how to reply, with both reaching the same conclusion,

Hubert then goes on to say,

That is not the case for inhuman creatures with lifespans well beyond our own. We must fight to preserve what makes us human.

This is what lies at the heart of his disdain for the Church of Seiros, and the whole reason he and Edelgard are doing what they have to do: the gods have failed to be godly, so humanity has to rise and govern themselves instead.

Gods are supposed to be wise, perfect, and eternal, and yet Rhea and the Church of Seiros, the true avatars of the supposed goddess, are not; they must make the same flawed hypocrisies as the humans beneath them do, so what right have they to presume they know which path humanity should take?

Anyways, continuing on,

You are the one closest to the enemy. I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

Now, to understand what he really means by "human", it needs to be contrasted against what he's previously been discussing: the failures of the gods. "Humanity" in most instances it's mentioned by Edelgard and Hubert is in contrast to Rhea and her kin as gods, not as a species.

Edelgard's conflict with the godess of Fodlan and her church is in the way she and they have failed to govern Fodlan, not her distaste for their green hair and pointy ears. She's always clear where she takes issue; their belief that they know what's best for mortals despite being no better than them.

And make no mistake, Rhea does think she knows what's best for Fodlan in Sothis's absence, despite all evidence showing she doesn't,

For another example of Fire Emblem using "human" in a way other than to speak of them as a race, look to Engage,

Celine obviously wouldn't saying that dragons are inhuman, unfriendly monsters. Describing Alear as "human" is a way of expressing that they're humble and personable, which Alear absolutely is, if nothing else.

"Human", in this instance, just as in 3H, is contrasted against the idea of gods as otherworldly, unknowable, and aloof. Naga would be a great example of the latter, while still being a fundamentally benevolent character.

When Hubert speaks of Byleth "losing their humanity", he means losing their connection to other people and becoming distant, the way Rhea did. Dorothea expresses similar fears in chapter 11,

This is directly after Byleth fused with Sothis.

Dorothea worrying now implies that Byleth's unusual behavior is different from their ordinary stoicism.

Edelgard also brings up something similar in her own A support with Byleth, expressing concern that she's grown detached from ordinary people, and while she thought of Byleth as a kindred spirit in that regard, she's also relieved that they can express feelings like jealousy.

Of course, most of the Nabateans aren't quite as detached as Hubert and Edelgard seem to expect; Flayn and Seteth certainly aren't, but their focus is almost exclusively upon Rhea, who certainly is rather detached from ordinary people. That said, we can't fault characters for not having access to every scrap of information that the reader is privileged to have.

Anyways, in response to Hubert's fear, Byleth can implicitly give him permission to kill them;

I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

If I'm unable to…

Does that mean you know I will do what must be done? You must trust me a great deal.

While this might seem like an "that escalated real fast!" moment, it's in truth an evolution of their C support, in which Hubert threatens to kill Byleth if they appear to present a threat to Edelgard, and their B support, in which Hubert grows more certain Byleth will be a threat to her.

My family, House Vestra, has been sworn to House Hresvelg for generations. Since the dawn of the Empire, we have worked to protect the emperor by any means necessary— both in the open and in the shadows. If you incur our wrath, you will see just what I mean.

With this groundwork in mind, we're meant to read Byleth's vague line as giving Hubert permission to kill them. The game's backstory is steeped in examples of characters gaining and abusing their power, for intentions both good and bad, Nemesis, Rhea, the Fodlan nobility, and Byleth by now would be keenly aware of the corruptive influence power represents, and Byleth at this point is already one of the most powerful individuals in Fodlan.

In contrast, should Byleth express confidence that they won't fail the way Rhea did, he'll accept it almost in stride, a response unthinkable for the man he used to be,

I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

Of course I will.

You make it sound easy. I find myself trusting you. Even with my life.

I've seen people analyze this support as a sign that Hubert still doesn't trust Byleth, but if anything it's the opposite: after the decisions Byleth has made, and after the way he's opened up more to them, Byleth and Hubert have come to trust each other a great deal. Byleth entrusts Hubert with their life, while Hubert entrusts Byleth with his secret plans for the future.

They've become conspirators in ensuring the success of Edelgard's plans, and it's why they their relationship is one of my favorites in all of Three Houses, if not Fire Emblem as a series.

It's incredible seeing where they begin and where they end. So yeah, I hope anyone who's made it this far found that to be an interesting read of an oft-misunderstood support :)

[blkchxrryblyss]

Witness Protection - Landlord (2)

izuku x ghoul!blk fem!reader x katsuki

synopsis - Thinking you finally escaped your dark, utterly fucked up past, things come at you full force making you as equally as paranoid as the police and pro heroes. When two pro heroes just barge their way into your apartment, you begin to learn that your paranoia is warranted. In order to ensure your safety, you are pushed to witness protection....In-home witness protection…....In-home witness protection with two pro heroes.........Let's see how things go!

warnings - will vary among each chapter

I do not own MHA, MHA Characters or anything associated with the brand. I do not own the art, all images were obtained through google. If you know the artist, please tag them.

@blkchxrryblyss 2022

Ch. 1 - Ghoul

Ch. 2 - Landlord

warnings - cussing, near-death experiences, death threats, bakudeku cute moment

w.c - 3.8K

You were very disturbed by the fact that two heroes decided it would be fine and dandy to come into your apartment and just rummage around. It's giving very much police vibes and you certainly were not a fan. 

You heard one rummaging around in your bedroom while you fit yourself in a small space behind your dresser where luckily you had your shotgun. On your full moon days, you had to keep yourself protected and since you couldn’t reach your dual katanas, you had to settle for something a bit quicker to kill. You’ve been doing good at staying silent so far so you watched him for a little to try to get an understanding of what he was here for. Seeing him rummage through your mail drawer made you draw the conclusion that they were probably looking for you. But why? You’re practically dead to the system and to the Red Family. You hope. 

“Dear Stormy?”, you heard him whisper. Now he was getting a little too nosey. 

You quickly and very quietly grabbed your shotgun, stealthily moving out of your hiding place. Your feet moved light like a feather as you aimed the shotgun at the back of his head.

“It’s not nice to snoop through a lady’s drawers. How about you move out the way before your brains are splattered over my nice panties?” You smirked as he growled, most likely disappointed that he didn’t hear you or look well enough around the room. 

He turned around and saw someone that you did not expect.

“Huh? Pro hero Dynamight snooping around an innocent civilian’s panty drawer? Such a shame”, you teased at him. He gave you a glare and occasionally glanced to see if he could use something against you, “Sweetheart, you may be fast, but I know you can’t dodge a 12 gauge slug that is pointed directly at your chest. Now, cooperate or I won’t hesitate to kill you and whoever the fuck else is in my living room. Turn around and walk. No funny shit.”

To his surprise, he cooperated. He didn’t want to, but he could feel that she was very true to her word. Plus, he knew Deku would never forgive himself if his partner was killed while he was only about 10 feet away. So he kept his mouth shut and walked out of the room with the gun handler in tow. Leading into the living room quietly, they saw Izuku’s back turned reading through one of the books on her shelf. He seemed to be focused and before you could make your and his partner’s presence known, he turned himself around and saw the situation. You weren’t shocked to see it was the boyfriend of pro-hero Dynamight, pro-hero Deku. It made the situation better for you.

“Cooperate or I'll blow Mr. Dynamight’s fucking brains out in front of his boyfriend.”

You knew he would listen because who wants to see their loved one’s brains plastered over the walls? You pushed Dynamight in his back with the head of the gun to push him more into the living room so they could be standing side by side with their hands up. 

“Sit on the couch, please. We’re gonna talk,” you stated. Dynamight rolled his eyes taking a seat alongside his boyfriend.

“What makes you think we’re gonna answer any of your bullshit?” He growled making you smirk.

“Ooooooh, you gotta smart ass mouth, don’t you?” you cocked the shotgun and blew a warning shot right in between their heads making them duck and cover their ears, “Now stop fucking around and tell me what the hell y’all were doing snooping around in my shit?”

Both men were actually nervous now. They didn’t show it, but you were serious and by releasing that first shot, they knew that you would release another and gladly would not miss. Dynamight didn’t want to tell you anything. For all they know, you probably weren’t the missing girl and then the whole case would be disposed to a random civilian. But on one hand a lot of the stuff you had was suspicious and pointed to you having something to do with the Red Family. 

Deku was thinking differently. It was you. You’re the girl they are looking for. The bookcase was more than enough to connect you to knowing and being involved with the Red Family. He was confident of that. He wasn’t confident that you would cooperate with them and the police. You ran away for reason, so why would you come back? It didn’t hurt to try though.

“Red Family,” His boyfriend gave him the deadliest glare but Izuku kept going, “We have some indications that you maybe be the person we’re looking for.”

Your face was stoic, showing no emotion toward what he just told you. The Red Family was behind you. They haven’t shown any interest in looking for a dead girl, so you feel they have nothing to worry about. But that little voice in the back of your mind is nagging you.

“What makes you think it’s me?” your voice was leveled, not showing any reaction. Katsuki glared at you, disliking you already. 

“Deku shut the fuck up —” Dynamight was quickly cut off by you.

“No, you shut up! His next answer might save your pathetic fucking life. Now answer the question.” 

Deku let out a shaky sigh, thinking of how he was going to word himself. Any way he put it his answer sounded far-fetched and highly unbelievable. So he decided to bring up something that could potentially trigger you, but hopefully could make you see the strong connections.

“We connected you to the missing child of the shooting that happened 16 years ago. Then we connected you to the Watanabe diamond heist that happened 10 years after. Months after that we saw the CCTV footage of you getting beaten to so-called death—”

“Which was a load of shit because ghouls can’t fucking die like that.” Dynamight scoffed, glaring at you. You clenched your jaw, averting the barrel of your gun to his chest instead of Deku’s.

“DYNAMIGHT!!”

“Ghoul? You better watch your mouth and not speak on shit you don’t know anything about.” You seethed, stepping closer to him. He rolled his eyes glancing at the gun before making eye contact with you.

“Fucking liar. A daughter of a full-blooded ghoul is bound to become one, Parker,” your eyes widened, “Yeah, daughter of Kaine Parker, who was murdered 16 years ago. The 5-year-old daughter was never to be found at the scene. Yeah, I know some shit.”

The silence set in between all three bodies while reality set in for you. They knew about you, but they don’t know about you. They were still tense since it seemed like you were getting angrier by the second. You pressed the gun harder into Dynamight’s chest, while also leaning in closer to his face until they were nose to nose. Deku was glaring at you while Dynamight clenched his jaw giving the same glare.

“What the fuck do you want from me?”

“I don’t want shit from you, but the Red Family might. They are looking for something and the moment they find out you’re alive, you’re gonna look like a fucking idiot.” he sneered, not breaking the eye contact.

The Red Family hasn’t been on your radar in a long time and quite frankly, you felt like you were getting a bit comfortable. They aren’t stupid people, far from it actually, so you know sooner or later they would find out that you are very much alive and well. The problem is not only the Red Family but also the Heroes. You didn’t trust anyone besides Mr. Tsubaki since he knew about your “eating habits”. Heroes were not people who you looked up to because Ghouls and Heroes always had a bad history. Even when the Ghouls showed no harm to Heroes, they were still treated like shit because of the eating habits of the Ghouls. It's not like they could control it. Heroes were also the textbook definition of a poser. They act as if they care, but they don’t. They care about ranks, the status quo, and their image, and all the saves they do are just for show. So you were iffy towards the Heroes no matter how good they showed to be themselves on camera.

“Don’t call me an idiot, bitch. I’ve survived this long, I can survive again….but I’ll hear you out. What’s in it for me? I don’t help no one without a guaranteed price.” You compromised, stepping back from the men and pointing the gun down away from them.

Deku slightly relaxed when the gun was removed from his boyfriend’s chest. Dynamight was still tense because the shotgun was still in your hand. You raised your eyebrow at both of them waiting for an answer.

“You’ll have to come with us to the Commissioner. He’ll tell you what you need to do and what you’ll get if you do it.” Deku explained putting his arms down. 

You nodded and before you could relax you gripped your gun again, getting a gut feeling that something was wrong.

“Who let you in here?” you questioned eyeing the door.

“Your landlord…he cooperated with-” you cut off Deku with a glare.

“He? My landlord isn’t a man.” You scoffed, aiming your gun to your front and shooting it, shocking both of them men. 

You rushed out your door looking both ways down your hallway catching a glimpse of an escaping figure. Shaking your head, you walked back into your place glaring at the two heroes who managed to ruin your entire evening. Crossing your arms over your chest, you glared at the men.

“Well, it seems they found me. Now I really don’t have a choice,” You moved past them and grabbed the most important books and documents that you needed. Quickly stepping into some sweats you made your way back to the heroes, “Well? Come on, let's go.”

“We can’t go out the front entrance dipshit. Just follow us.” You almost agreed, but then you remembered it’s till a full moon out.

“WAIT,” you yelled out making both men turn to look back at you, “Ummm……I-I can’t.”

Dynamite glared at you while Deku just looked flat-out confused. You’re a ghoul, you have the ability to be just as fast as them.

“What the fuck do you mean you can’t?” The blonde man seethed, quite tired of you already. You looked down while gripping the items in your hand.

“I- just not at this moment, so one of yall gon’ have to carry me.” you sassed.

“You just fucking shot at us and threatened to blow our brains out. You really expect us to carry you like you’re some fucking damsel in distress? Be serious right now.” He deadpanned while rolling his eyes.

Just as you were about to argue with your now new nemesis, a strong hand gripped your forearm and slung you around to land on a firm back. 

“Both of you just shut up. Hold on tight and don’t fall behind.” the green-haired man sighed. Surprisingly, Dynamight didn’t rebuttal, just growled lowly and followed behind his boyfriend.

-

After the very cold and windy flight to the police station, the men lead you to a special interrogation room where quirk abilities were useless due to special technology. The heroes just did not believe that you were at a disadvantage at this moment. So there you were handcuffed to the steel table while the Commissioner, Dynamite, Deku, and Aizawa were behind the two-sided mirror.

“So that’s her? Hmm, I was expecting something different,” the Commissioner murmured giving you a curious look, “So Deku, you had to carry Parker here? Because she couldn’t use her abilities ‘at that moment.”

Deku nodded, “Something must be up with her quirk. She used a shotgun on us rather than her quirk. It would've made more sense and that's what we would've been prepared for if her landlord wasn’t a fake.”

The Commissioner eyes widened, “What do you mean?”

“Her landlord wasn’t a man. She’s a lady. He had to be working with the Red Family. After she shot at him and he ran off, she said that they know where she is so being with us is her only option. They must have been watching her for weeks, but they didn’t make a move on her.” Dynamight explained.

The Commissioner was just as confused as the younger heroes. They were able to switch out the landlord weeks in advance to trick the agency but failed to take you away back to the Red Family. It didn’t make sense. 

On the other side of the glass, you sat patiently. You never would have thought that you would be sitting here, with a room full of cops and heroes on the other side watching your moves. They see you as a threat, no matter how “human” you look. They just see a bloodthirsty, flesh-eating, mutant with no self-discipline. You were always told by the Red Family that heroes and cops were just posers. People trying to keep up a good image and get the public to kiss their asses. For a long time, you believed that. You still do believe that. Not because the Red Family told you, but because of the shit that you’ve seen firsthand. All the meetings you were a part of, where you saw heroes and cops that spoke to the public with such grace and promise, those same heroes and cops sat in front of your so-called family and spoke so violently and selfishly about the same public they serve. It disgusted you. Made you distrust everyone. If they couldn’t be loyal to their citizens, then how could they be loyal to you? A snake is a snake and it will forever be a snake.

So, why are you here? Why are you here willingly at that? 

You don’t know why. You don’t trust them, but you don’t get that same eerie feeling as you do everyone else. Plus it wouldn’t hurt to hear what they could offer you to compensate for two good-looking heroes breaking into your apartment. The sound of the door shutting, broke you out of your thoughts, causing you to look up and see the famous Eraserhead. His eyes trained on your form, being cautious of any of your movements. After a few moments of silence, you grew tired of it.

“What do you need from me, Eraserhead?” You questioned firmly.

“Information,” He stated before setting a picture down between the two of you, “Does this look familiar.”

You looked down to see a green jadeite necklace. A necklace that you’ve seen before but wondered why it was important.

“Yeah, what about it?” You shrugged. 

“Well the Red Family has a hold of it and we want to know if you know what they plan to do or even an idea.” The tired man explained slowly. In the back of your mind, you know that they already have an idea of what the Red Family is doing. You haven’t seen them since you “died” at 16, how were you supposed to know what the hell they were doing?

You sighed and looked at the necklace before looking back at Eraserhead, “I’m not telling any of you shit until I am compensated with something. I don’t work or give information for free. Here’s a quick idea: money.”

You crossed your arms, leaning back in your chair waiting for a deal with a smirk on your face. They always have deals. Sometimes they're shitty, but sometimes they're really good deals. 

“If we give you money, you’ll run.” He concluded.

“Then I suggest you better offer me something that’ll keep me here.” You smiled brightly. Eraserhead sighed and looked to the side, thinking.

“Protection.”

“I can protect myself just fine.”

“Didn’t seem like it when you opted to not use your quirk against two of the biggest heroes in the country,” He deadpanned, “A powerful quirk like that could’ve helped you easily escape, yet you didn’t use it. Why is that?”

“We’re discussing a deal, not my quirk.” You scoffed.

“You’ll get your deal when you tell me something useful. If not, well we can just starve you out. We know the appetite of a Ghoul and we do know that your source of food isn’t the easiest to get. So unless you want to go to jail for cannibalism, falsifying your death, and mass murder, I suggest you start talking.” He shrugged as if he didn’t just threaten to pin two charges on you that you never did. 

You glared at the man in front of you. Smug bastard, you thought. As much as you want to tell him that starving a Ghoul out is actually not the best idea, you bit your tongue. They’ll find out the hard way. Rolling your eyes, you averted your attention to the necklace again.

“I’m assuming you gon need me for the whole case y’all got on them,” he nodded and you mimicked that action.

“Alright, I’m gonna need Witness Protection, a pay of 1.35 million yen, and my special kind of food. Preferably warm and bloody,” You didn’t check to see if he agreed, still looking at the necklace, “Now, this necklace is useless. Whatever they’re trying to do with this, is going to lead them to a dead end.”

“How do you know?” He crossed his arms, suddenly interested.

“Tell me we have a deal and what they plan to do with this so-called necklace and I’ll answer your question.” You smiled as he rolled his eyes.

“We’ll get you in Witness Protection, along with the money and your special food. As for the Red Family, they seemed to have a plan to open a realm of some sort. This necklace is supposed to be the key.” He explained. You nodded and looked at the one-way mirror, knowing two certain heroes were on the other side, listening in.

“The necklace was my father’s. He gave it to me, but he tampered with it. It used to hold a substantial amount of power, but he stripped it of its power and stored it somewhere else. Now as to where he stored the power, I don’t know, nor do I know what the real necklace looks like. But I’ll help. Not for you, but for my father. He stripped that necklace of power for a reason and I’d like to keep it that way,” Eraserhead nodded in agreement and stuck his hand out to solidify the deal, but one more request came into your mind.

“Oh and before we shake hands, I’d like In-Home Witness Protection because if you think you’re gonna stick me into regular WP you can kiss me goodbye. And my protectors have to be those top heroes standing on the other side of that mirror. Gotta have the best protection, am I right?” You grinned as you shook his now limp hand.

-

“IN-HOME WITNESS PROTECTION?!?”

The yell from Katsuki could be heard throughout the entire building. His frustration spoke for both himself and Izuku. 

“W-why in-home? There are plenty of witness housing for her to stay in-”

“She’ll walk. Says she is sure the Red Family will find her if she’s placed in one of those houses and she’s our only lead that will cooperate. So she stays with you.” Aizawa states in a tone that is not meant to be argued.

Katsuki lets out a frustrated sigh while Izuku stands quietly. They both know this was the best way to get you to cooperate with them and for you not to tuck tail and hide. You were a valuable asset to the case and they both knew that if this were to not happen they both would get chewed out for losing you as a witness. With that thinking, Izuku nodded his head to get Aizawa and the commissioner to leave, which they kindly obliged to, and turned to his partner who was fuming with anger. 

“We’re gonna have to stay at the house if we do this.” Katsuki’s eyes widened before he turned to Izuku.

“What the fuck?! NO! We built that fucking house to live in for when we got fucking married and you want to turn it into a goddamn shelter for ghoul bitches?!” He yelled out in frustration.

Izuku understood his boyfriend’s frustrations. At the moment they lived in a nice-sized condo that they both decided would be a good starter home for them straight out of their 3rd year. After living together for a solid year, Izuku surprised his boyfriend for their 4th year anniversary with an abandoned house with lots of potentials. 

“‘Zuku, what the fuck is this? Why did you bring me to an old shack? Tryna kill your lover already and take the number one spot from me, eh?”

“No, you imbecile! It’s ours!”

“What?”

“I thought that whenever we get married we could stay in an actual house. So I bought this old girl right here and figured we fix her up, make her all pretty, and make her our own. Have our own memories”, the green-haired boy expressed happily while looking at his lover, “So what do you think?”

Katsuki just stared at the old run-down house with a blank expression. To any other person, they would’ve taken this as a sign of hesitance, but Izuku knew Katsuki was just processing.

“You wanna get married?” Katsuki mumbled, still having his attention on the house.

“Of course! I wanna spend the rest of my life with Kacchan.”

The statement turned the blonde-haired man’s face red.

“YOU'RE BLUSHING!”

“SHUT UP AND SHOW ME THE GODDAMN FLOOR PLANS FOR THE PIECE OF SHIT YOU BOUGHT!”

Katsuki didn’t want to use the house. It was their house. Unfinished, but it was theirs. Having to give up their first memories of their house to a stranger was something that Katsuki did not want to do.

“No.”

“Bu-”

“No. I don’t care, we’ll rent a house for the bitch. So find a vacant home in the outskirts of the city and place us there. Now hurry up with the terms and conditions, so we can sign the shit and get it the fuck going.” Katsuki finalized before walking out of the office with Izuku following behind, muttering apologies to his partner for upsetting him.

-

Meanwhile…

“You’re telling me a whole lot of nothing, you babbling idiot. Get the fuck on with something valuable before I deem your life invaluable.”

“Sh-she ran off with them! Like she w-was considering w-working with heroes! That's all I was able to get before she b-blew a hole through the d-door.”

“So she is alive and kicking after all, but I wasn’t expecting her to actually do to the arms of heroes. Father would be greatly displeased. Saran?”

“Y-yes sir?”

“Get out.”

part 3

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[notapaladin]

wishes and horses and all the king's men

Lieutenant Malavai Quinn had once been foolish enough to believe in heroes. That was before he was trapped on Balmorra for ten years, where the Resistance undermines his Empire, his superiors are more interested in lining their own pockets than doing their jobs, and any hopes for the future are ground into dust before they can take wing. And then Lord Baras's new apprentice walks into his life.

or, quinn experiences the results of meeting the LS sith warrior (confusion, doubt, renewed sense of hope/purpose, falling at least a little in love, etc)

Also on AO3!

-

“If that’s your best, you’re useless to me. I can shoot you dead with a clear conscience. Is that what you want?”

“N-no, sir, sorry, sir—”

“Then focus, Jillins. Dismissed.”

Lieutenant Malavai Quinn has not been having a good day. Quite frankly, he has not been having a good decade, not since Druckenwell and Broysc and being relegated to this absolute shiteheap of a planet. He would not consider himself a particularly violent man, but this latest—incompetence of Corporal Jillins has pushed him dangerously close to the edge. His fellow officers are already useless at best and actively a hindrance at worse—he’d suspect some of them of treason, except he’s not sure even the Resistance deserves them—and now this? This? On the day Darth Baras’s new apprentice is set to arrive? She will be here any minute, and hardly anything is prepared—he’s going to offend a Sith—

He doesn’t put a hand on his blaster, but he is sorely, sorely tempted. Right, he thinks. Breathe. Ignore the pounding in your temples, the ache in your back that never goes away because the bunks here are apparently made of ferrocrete, the way you can feel yourself shrinking, rotting with each new dawn on this fucking planet. Breathe.

With the effort he’s spending reeling in his temper, he barely registers the approaching footsteps—low-heeled boots, plenty of traction, a light and easy tread. (In the years to come, he will be embarrassed by this.) He does, however, notice the voice. Low, feminine, a little husky—and hesitant, as though its owner thinks he’s going to snap at them, too.

“...I am not sure I particularly want to know what he did.”

He has an audience, and he’s already been rude. He exhales sharply, draws himself up, and turns to face the speaker. He represents the Empire and Lord Baras in all things. He will be professional.

His mind immediately divides into two. The cool, analytical part notes the physical features of the woman standing before him and extrapolates conclusions. Human, roughly 1.6 meters tall, medium-dark brown skin, impractically long white hair put up in a bun that makes it practical again. Scarring on throat and jaw consistent with strangulation, possibly responsible for the roughness in her voice. Twin lightsabers at her hips, ornate gold handguards gleaming. Pale yellow eyes. This, then, must be Baras’s new apprentice. Lady Yaellia, only child of House Ivros, twenty-two years old and recently graduated from the Korriban academy. At her age, he’d thought he’d had the world at his feet too. Of course, she’s probably going to turn out to be right, if she doesn’t turn out dead instead. At least she will have had glory first. It doesn’t matter; she is Sith, and his role is to serve.

The rest of it feels as though it’s been punched, because Lady Yaellia is stunning. He is no blushing virgin; he’s met his fair share of attractive people. (Not many, since Druckenwell. Poor lieutenants are not attractive prospects. Still.) But the red-and-white synthleather suit she’s wearing does not leave very much of her figure to the imagination, even if the only actual exposed skin is her collarbones. She has the muscles of a gymnast and the sort of thighs he is quite certain he could die happily between. Her mouth is almost distractingly full, moreso because she’s clearly forgone the elaborate makeup many Sith favor. There are tiny gold hoops in her ears and eyebrows that glitter as they catch the light, but they aren’t as bright as the eyes now locked on his.

Normally, eye contact would be near-painful—metaphorically if not literally, for among Sith it’s generally taken as a challenge. Normally, he focuses on peoples’ ears or eyebrows or interesting things just over their shoulders. But he holds her gaze for longer than two heartbeats and doesn’t want to look away. He’s as Force-sensitive as a brick, but her lips are parted and there’s a faint flush on her cheeks and he doesn’t need the Force to realize—

To realize it’s been a millisecond too long, and bow deeply before this can get awkward. More awkward. “I—apologize for the delay, my lord. Lieutenant Malavai Quinn. I’m to be your liaison here on Balmorra.”

She smiles. Or at least makes an expression that passes for a smile. “Apprentice Yaellia. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I hope to leave you in a better mood than that unfortunate young man back there.”

“Well, as long as you don’t piss in his cereal...” mutters the Twi’lek lounging against the doorway.

Malavai’s gaze snaps to her. Lord Baras’s communique had mentioned a slave, but no other identifying details. Looking at this alien, he can’t see any signs of servitude. She is tall and rangy and blue-skinned and notably not wearing a collar, though there are faint scars around her neck where one once lay. Her clothes are serviceable browns and tans with plenty of pockets, but he spots a name brand belonging to a high-end Kaas City sporting goods store. She is also wearing a headband in what he’s always privately thought to be the ugliest shade of chartreuse imaginable. Most importantly, she is carrying two blasters and dares to speak to a Sith as an equal. He grinds his teeth.

Lady Yaellia flushes harder and huffs, “Vette! Unhelpful!” And then she turns back to Malavai, clearing her throat with a faint wince. “Lieutenant Quinn, this...is Vette. My friend. Anything you have to say to me can be passed on to her as well.”

It is a decidedly odd exchange. He pushes it aside to be examined later at his leisure. “Understood, my lord. Lord Baras will brief you personally, but I’m to acquaint you with the climate here on Balmorra first.”

“By all means, go ahead. Ah—one moment—” He’s so unprepared for the sight that it takes him a moment to register the sight of her, not the alien, pulling out a datapad and stylus in clear preparation to take notes before flashing him a quick, encouraging smile that does something very strange to his chest. “I’m waiting.”

He tells her. It is...strange. Certainly not bad, but strange. He’s never had a Sith listen so intently and yet so politely. She asks clarifying questions and once or twice requests that he repeat things “a little more slowly, please, I—ah,” and a vague gesture at her ears that has him wondering if she has hearing problems even as his mind reels at hearing a Sith say please. She is either genuinely enthusiastic about this mission or a very, very good actress. She does not once make eye contact.

And then Lord Baras calls. He is excused. Whatever the details of the Sith’s true mission, it’s not for him to know.

But he stands just on the other side of the door, ears tuned to the sound of her voice—yes, my lord, of course, my lord, as you wish, my lord, meek and deferential as is proper—and his stomach drops as he remembers the briefing he’s read. She’ll be taking out the satellite control tower in the Markaran Plains, a veritable deathtrap of mechanical security. She is Sith, but...she is one woman. He doubts his aid will make a difference in her chances of survival.

Regardless, he must do his duty. He gathers his equipment before he is summoned back into the room, and this time he does not look at her face. She’s almost certainly going to die anyway. “My lord, I've prepared what you need for your assault. In order to destroy the mainframe, you'll mount this charge to the base and activate it. Then contact me for detonation.”

She studies the explosive charge he’s given her. He’d thought it was fairly small, but it takes both hands for her to hold it properly. “If it can be detonated remotely, couldn’t I do it? I’m sure you have more interesting things to do.”

He really doesn’t. More to the point, he’s quick to explain, “It would be safer if you were as far away as possible, my lord. There will be very little time to flee once it is armed.”

She hums thoughtfully, still looking at the charge and not at him. “I am very fast. But you are right. And...um. It is good of you to consider my safety, Lieutenant.”

His face goes hot. “Think nothing of it, my lord. It is my duty. Will you be leaving immediately?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve been requested to liaise with a Lieutenant Davrill regarding another operation. I’ll be around for a short while.” And then she half-turns to go, before pausing to focus her gaze on him. Well, on the Imperial flag behind his desk, but roughly in his direction. “One more question, if you don’t mind. Do you know an intelligence officer by the name of...Breerden?”

“Breerdin,” the Twi’lek corrects.

Yaellia coughs. “Yes. Him.”

He tries to keep his face impassive, but his lip curls anyway. “I have heard of him, my lord. Might I ask why?”

Immediately, he realizes he probably shouldn’t have asked that question. Not when it makes her eyes narrow and her back stiffen as she says crisply—coldly—“He wanted me to hush up the accidental death of a Chiss delegate by an Imperial officer. He offered to pay me to keep quiet about it. I want to know who to file a complaint with.”

For a moment, all he can do is blink at her. Sith do not file complaints. Not when they have lightsabers and the Force to do it for them. And they certainly have never lowered themselves to care about the rampant corruption and flouting of duties that is par for the course here on Balmorra. Particularly not when that corruption could be presented as necessary for Imperial interests—and he has no doubt Breerdin, the swine, did exactly that. “Uh,” he says finally. “That would be Major Bessiker, my lord. But there is no reason to trouble yourself; I can file the necessary datawork for you.”

She shakes her head firmly. “I’ll do it. He will listen to me.”

He won’t listen to you, Malavai hears. It’s the truth, but it still stings. “...Understood, my lord. Will that be all?”

Strangely, there’s color in her cheeks again. “Um. Yes. Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

Only when she’s well and truly out of his office, with the door shut behind her—and he keeps his gaze firmly on the back of her head while she leaves, thank you very much—does he let himself fall out of parade rest and into his chair. For thirty-two seconds, he sits there and thinks.

This, then, is his lord’s apprentice. What a strange Sith.

&

(Quite unbeknownst to him, that strange Sith steps into the hallway and immediately grabs Vette’s arm, her eyes wide. “Vette.”

Vette raises an eyebrow, lekku curling warily. “Yeah?”

She takes a deep breath and blurts out, all in a rush, “Please, please tell me I sounded normal in there.”

The Twi’lek rolls her eyes. “You sounded fine. Why?”

Seemingly at a loss for words, Yaellia gestures back at Lieutenant Quinn’s closed door and makes a frustrated grumbling noise before finally spitting out, “Do you see him?! He looked at me with—with those eyes, and I forgot how words worked!”

Vette blinks slowly. “I’m sorry, him? The guy who looks like he’s stepped in bantha shit? The stick up that man’s ass probably has a stick up its ass.”

She turns immediately red. “You,” she sniffs, “have absolutely no concept of Imperial decorum. That man epitomizes it. It is extremely attractive.”

“So what’s the problem? You’re Sith. Imps practically worship you people. He’d probably be flattered if you hauled him into a supply closet.”

Yaellia chokes. (A stylus falls off Malavai’s desk.) “I’m fairly sure he prefers women who can—who can make eye contact and string together coherent sentences at the same time!”

Vette winces. Yeah, Yaellia’s always been shit at that in the weeks they’ve known each other. There’s only so much polite averting of gazes you can do before people realize it’s not just politeness. She reaches out and pats her friend/former master’s (for about five minutes) shoulder. “You’ll get your chance.”

Yaellia deflates. “I hope so,” she mutters. “Come on. Let us find Major Bessiker and perhaps a food cart. I am famished.”)

&

Malavai does not hear from Lady Yaellia for the rest of the day. This is fine.

He does, however, hear that II Officer Breerdin has been officially reprimanded and a full investigation into the death of a Chiss delegate on Imperial soil has been launched. It’s enough to lift his spirits, even if only slightly. There are standards to maintain, no matter what II says.

He works. He takes precisely twenty minutes for dinner in the officers’ mess, counting the time it takes him to walk there from his office. There’s no need for him to linger; it’s not as though he has friends to catch up with. Even if he did, what would he say? “I’ve met Lord Baras’s new apprentice,” invites distasteful gossip regarding the particulars, and he will not speculate on his superiors’ personal traits.

He chews on a roast nerf sandwich that not even Kaasian purple curry sauce can save and reflects that it is, after all, quite a long way to the Markaran Plains even in a very fast speeder. She might have only just arrived, and she will undoubtedly be busy. He must be ready to back her up.

The other denizens of the mess hall keep talking amongst themselves—idiot chatter about Huttball scores and relationships and mission gossip—and he’s suddenly sure that if he hears one more unauthorized sound he’ll shoot something. His sandwich isn’t worth finishing.

As he rises to dispose of it, he realizes that Lieutenant Davrill is eyeing him. Pointedly, he turns away.

Too late. Davrill is approaching. “Quinn.”

“Davrill.”

“What have you heard about that new apprentice of Lord Baras’s? You’ve met her, right?”

He stiffens, and now he makes eye contact. “I have, yes. Why?”

Davrill frowns. “Captain Rigel’s set her on Operation Breaking Point, down in Gorinth Canyon. She told us she’s working with you on some mission of her lord’s. I felt it appropriate to consider combining our efforts.”

He doesn’t know the particulars of Operation Breaking Point, but he knows enough. He’s suddenly regretting that sandwich. Baras would not take just any Sith as an apprentice, but the last report he’d received on rebel activity in Gorinth Canyon had used words like army and overwhelming force and too bloody many droids.

On the other hand, if she cannot triumph against overwhelming force, she is no Sith, and Lord Baras will have a new apprentice. One who will not, Emperor willing, cause even a whisper of inappropriate thoughts to cross his mind.

“...I trust she will be in contact with you if your aid is required,” he says, and steps out onto the pavement.

Sobrik is never quiet. As soon as he leaves the building, his ears are assaulted with speeder engines, pedestrians chatting, pedestrians arguing, and the horrible discovery that someone down the block has either been raised by gundarks or has never heard of the existence of headphones because they are very loudly blasting an InstaComm video. But outside doesn’t contain buzzing fluorescent lights or a humming HVAC system, so it’s almost worth it.

He exhales and rolls his shoulders, gazing up at the flat gray of the night sky. He wishes he had a cigarette, never mind that finances had forced him to quit years ago. The cold wind revives him like a slap.

Back to work, then. He has suspected Resistance comms to slice.

&

It is 2000 and he is about to go off-duty for the night when his comm chimes. Lady Yaellia’s frequency, audio-only. He all but lunges for it.

“Yes, my lord?”

She sounds tense. No, distressed. “What’s the comm frequency for a medevac? There’s an injured soldier here, and we don’t have enough kolto to patch him up!”

“I can still fight!” a distant male voice huffs.

“You can not,” she snaps. “You shouldn’t even be standing—I can see bone! I want you off your feet, Lieutenant! Vette, make him sit down!” With a huff, she turns her focus back to Malavai. “Lieutenant Rutau is the only survivor of—what did you say it was? Second Battalion, Besh Company, First Platoon? The droids in here are ruthless. I will be completing his mission for him, but I am not going to leave him here alone and injured.”

There’s a somewhat closer protest of, “My lord, you really don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” Yaellia says firmly. “Without good, brave Imperials like you, the Empire is nothing. You are who we fight for.”

Malavai blinks mutely at the wall, heart suddenly pounding. She sounds like—like something out of a storybook. His mother had read him stories when he was very young, before his brother was born; most of them featured heroic Sith, valiant and noble warriors who had been protective of the Imperials under their command, who had valued their lives as more than just blaster fodder. Who had believed in the Empire and everything it stood for, not just their own ambitions. He’d dreamed once of serving under a Sith like that, but as he’d grown older and wiser he’d realized there were no Sith like that. Maybe there were, during the Great War or the Long Flight—in the days of Naga Sadow or Odile Vaiken—but there are none now.

It seems Yaellia of House Ivros hasn’t gotten the memo. She’s still talking to Lieutenant Rutau, reassuring him that help is coming, that the mission will not fail, that he will be safe. That he’s been very brave.

He thinks, suddenly and abruptly, of the now-Lord Venditor, back when he had been Private Venditor under his command. Before Druckenwell, before the man had panicked and thrown a speeder at a Pub with his mind and been shipped off to Korriban. He’d been idealistic too. Kind. He’d spent a great deal of time worrying about his family’s tuk’ata-breeding business on Dromund Fels.

It hadn’t lasted. He’d been younger then than Lady Yaellia is now, but he’d adjusted quickly. Thrived, even. The last time Malavai had seen him, he had been the perfect Sith.

(The perfect modern Sith, not like this figure from the most fanciful myths.)

Slowly, his heart rate calms. She is young. Life has been kind to her. She will learn. Give it five or ten years, especially under Baras’s tutelage, and she’ll be as cruel as the rest of them.

In the meantime, she’s asked him a question, and he quickly pulls up her coordinates. “My lord?”

“Oh—yes?”

“I have your location and am calling in a medical transport from the nearest outpost now. It will arrive within the hour. For future reference, I am sending the medevac frequency to your datapad.”

“Oh, thank you!” Then, while he’s reeling from being thanked by a Sith, she turns to Rutau and says softly, “See? You’ll be fine. Now, do call me when they pick you up, alright? If I come back to nothing but a blood trail I shall worry.”

The Lieutenant mumbles something. Malavai’s not paying attention, because Yaellia’s speaking to him again. “I regret to say we might not get to the satellite control tower until tomorrow morning, but it shall be our first priority. You’ve been a great help so far, and I hope we’re not keeping you from your own rest.”

He swallows. “Ah—no, my lord. There is no need to concern yourself with me.”

She lets out a low hum. “...As you say,” she murmurs. “Well. Um. Good evening, Lieutenant.”

“Ah. Good evening, my lord.”

The call ends.

He stares at the wall for a long time, replaying his mother’s voice in his mind. The memories are thirty years old, but they might as well be yesterday.

“Long, long ago, when tuk’ata had fur...”

He shakes his head. He is overtired. It is time to call it a day.

&

Malavai Quinn’s mornings look like this:

At 0605, he rises. While cursing himself for oversleeping, he trudges to his closet-sized fresher to wash his face and wage the next battle in the never-ending war against his own beard, knowing it’ll be stubble again by the afternoon. If he’s not doing PT that day, this is also when he showers; otherwise, he puts it off until after his workout. Ablutions complete, he dons his uniform quickly and efficiently. Breakfast is tea and toast made on a range older than he is. There’s no commute to worry about; much of the military housing is concentrated near the spaceport. He has no lovers or pets or potted plants, and all his underlings know not to contact him unless the city is actively on fire. By 0700, he is in his office and starting his workday. After ten years, he has his morning routine down to a science.

Except today, at 0630, his work comm chimes. Since he is taking a sip of tea at the time this is nearly fatal, and he has ample time to reflect on how stupid and undignified a death it would have been as he clears his airways.

The comm is still chiming. Wheezing, he picks it up. No holo; he’s just gotten tea down his front and he’ll have to change his shirt before anyone is allowed to see him, no matter what the emergency is.

“Good morning, Lieutenant!”

He blinks slowly, a lapse he will blame on not having finished his tea yet. Lady Yaellia is astonishingly chipper. He wonders if this is the power of the Dark Side fueling her at an hour where the non-gifted are typically consumed with hatred for all life. “Uh. Good morning...? My lord,” he hastily adds.

“Apologies for the early call. I just wanted to tell you that we are setting out towards the satellite control center now, and expect to arrive within—Vette, map? Two hours.”

There is a distant groan within comm range. “You fly, I’m taking a nap...”

Irritation is a wonderful source of energy. Disgraceful. What kind of servant—she’d called the Twi’lek a friend, but surely there can be no friendship worth having with a lowly alien, one with a Republic accent that can peel paint—disrespects a Sith like that? And what kind of master allows it? He takes a deep breath and deliberately sets his anger aside until later, when it can serve him. “I will be ready, my lord.”

She hums happily. “Good. I’ll talk to you later.”

And then she ends the call. Still feeling slightly poleaxed, he downs the rest of his tea in a single swallow and goes to change his shirt. He’ll clearly have a long day ahead of him.

She isn’t the only operative he’s monitoring—he has a small squadron scouting the outskirts of the Balmorran Arms Factory, and another embedded deep in the Windswept Plateau tracking a Republic investigator’s movements—but none of them are Sith. Regardless of her feelings on the matter, she is the most important one. He sips tea from a thermos and watches dots on a half-dozen screens, marking time until he sees the dot that is Lady Yaellia approaching the satellite center. From there, it’s a simple matter to slice the security cams and watch her on holo. As he types in the command, he wonders how far she’ll get.

The holocam buzzes to life. For a moment, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Republic soldiers and Republic droids, both tense. The flickering of a laser fence just offscreen.

And then blaster shots ring out, and as the first droid falls there is a blur, and Lady Yaellia strikes the survivors like a thunderbolt.

Slowly, he sets his tea down. His mouth is dry, but he doesn’t think he can risk looking away. He can’t miss a second of her in motion.

He has seen more skilled Sith in action. He has seen Sith who were more powerful, more brutal. But Yaellia is a fine-tuned mixture of speed and grace, as agile as the best gymnasts. Her brilliant crimson sabers, red as blood, move so fast they leave afterimages when he dares to blink. She parries blaster bolts with ease, dancing around nearly every return blow; when she’s not quite fast enough, she snarls like a beast and he swears he can see the air ripple as she draws on her pain to fuel her strikes. As she advances through the station, Vette lays down cover fire, shooting into melee with the air of a woman who’s used to her partner’s fighting style.

And where they strike, Republic scum falls. Laser-cut metal and severed limbs litter the ground. The air is filled with the silence of the dead. It is glorious.

As Yaellia stops to arm the charges—panting raggedly, her hair falling out of her bun, her eyes sun-bright—he tells himself it is only patriotic fervor he feels. That his only desire in this moment is to be the one in Vette’s place, backing her up. That if he is breathing hard, fists white-knuckled on the edge of his desk, it’s only because of the rollercoaster that is watching her in combat.

And then Lord Baras calls, and he curses out loud before sucking in a breath that scorches his lungs and answering—with only a slight waver in his voice—“My lord?”

“Quinn,” Baras rumbles. “How fares my apprentice?”

He makes himself breathe evenly. “Very well, my lord. She is arming the charges at the satellite control center as we speak.”

“Good, good.” Baras hums thoughtfully, and then orders, “Put her on the line. It is time I gave her her next orders. You will find a holomail with details pertinent to you.”

He nods. “At once, my lord.”

When he calls Yaellia, she answers at the first ring. “Lieutenant?” she pants.

He swallows hard. “My lord, I mark your progress, and see that the charge is armed. I will detonate once you are at a safe distance. But first, I have Darth Baras on holo for you. I will retreat and leave the line secure.”

She huffs out an affirmative noise. He sets his comm down and turns to his holomail, which indeed does contain a short message from Lord Baras. It’s not much: a name, a location. He starts to wonder why in the Emperor’s name Baras is so concerned about an ensign, but decides he’s better off not knowing.

Baras ends the call, and he picks up. It’s still on holo, and he’s glad that the quality and scaling will mean it’s harder for him to give anything away. Not that there is anything for him to give away. Really. His mind is not at all replaying the arch of her back as she spun out of the way of a blaster bolt or the way her teeth bared in a snarl as she whirled to slice a droid in half.

She pushes her hair back from her face and almost smiles at him. Fuck.

He exhales sharply. Best to jump into it. “My lord, Ensign Durmat is being detained in the brig of the Republic crater outpost in Gorinth, awaiting questioning by the investigator Baras has me tracking. I will alert you if she appears to be heading there; I assume you wish to get to Durmat before she does.”

“Emperor willing,” she agrees easily. “What can you tell me about her?”

There is frustratingly little to tell. Wherever the Jedi found this investigator, she’s proof that they are capable of subtlety. “...She appears to be tailing one of the Republic's own—a Commander Rylon. I'm instructed to keep close tabs but stay out of her way.”

She nods, the holo bobbing up and down as she starts trotting back the way she came. “Good. We’ll be heading to the crater outpost now. Do you—do you want to stay on the line?”

“Do I want to—” He blinks at her. “Forgive me, my lord, I’m not sure why you’re asking?”

It’s Vette who answers, leaning into holoview with a smirk. “Boss lady figured you’d wanna watch this place get blown sky-high.”

Yaellia clears her throat. “Yes. That.”

He blinks again, and then feels his lips curve. “It would be my pleasure, my lord.”

So he stays on holo while the women jog back through the station, up an elevator (Yaellia demands, out loud, why nobody has ever heard of guard rails—“a rhetorical question, Lieutenant”), through hallways full of gore and shattered metal, and out into the shattered landscape of the Markaran Plains.

And then he detonates the charges. The eruption of metal and masonry in a ball of flame more than makes up for the assault on his eardrums, and when Yaellia lets out a victory whoop he finds himself grinning. The unused muscles ache.

“That was glorious!” Yaellia whoops, catching Vette in a sideways hug. “Well done, Lieutenant!”

Well done. A hot flush races over his skin, and it is briefly hard to catch his breath. His collar is too tight. Well done.

But there is still a job to do. He tears himself away from the sight of the destruction he’s wreaked and back to his console, where he quickly inserts a remote spike into the Republic crater outpost’s mainframe. It’s almost trivially easy; their backdoors are wide open for a slicer of his caliber. Getting into the actual security is somewhat more time-consuming, but eventually he manages it.

“I've managed to slice the security you'll need to breach the crater outpost,” he says finally. “Transmitting it now.”

Yaellia scrabbles at her belt for her datapad, smiling when she sees it. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Vette, I’m forwarding this to you.”

His part is over for now. He can breathe easily. Well, as easily as he has been so far, watching her. “Good luck on your mission, my lord,” he murmurs, and means it. “I'll be here if you need anything.”

Then, finally, he ends the call.

&

Hours pass like a kidney stone. He regrets having left Lady Yaellia to her own devices almost immediately; it’s a long way to Gorinth from where she is, and the Republic presence there is more heavily entrenched. But she survived whatever she was doing there for Operation Breaking Point, so she’ll probably be fine. He takes advantage of the lull to check in with his teams on the Plateau and the Arms Factory, relieved when they report that they’re following his orders not to engage. He supposes Jillins isn’t completely useless.

He’s about to eat lunch at his desk—a nutrient bar and more tea—when Lady Yaellia calls him again.

“Lieutenant Quinn?”

Even though she can’t see him, he sits up straighter. “Yes, my lord?”

“We’ve arrived at the crater outpost.” A pause. “...Do you...uh. Have a map of the area? It’s a bit...”

Vette interjects, “When they said it was a crater, they’re not kidding. It’s a kriffin’ nightmare down here.”

He clears his throat and pulls up the map he’s generated from sliced floor plans and aerial surveillance. Truthfully, he can understand the request; the crater is a warren of different levels and buildings, densely packed and heavily defended. “...I am forwarding it to your datapad now.”

“Oh, thank you!” Yaellia chirps. “You’re a blessing.”

He inhales so sharply he nearly chokes on his own spit. Bloody hell, why does she keep saying things like that?!

It’s only when he hears blaster fire at the other end of the comm that he realizes Yaellia has forgotten to turn it off. His mind spins. He should hang up. That would be the right thing to do. But he’s meant to be observing her, and she had asked him to be in touch in case she needs him...

He stays on the line. He keeps listening, though he does turn the volume down before the cacophony makes him lose his mind.

He notices immediately when the fighting stops and Yaellia’s footsteps slow, though he has to increase the volume again to catch the sound of two men speaking from what seems to be the next room.

“Pipe down, Durmat. There's something going on outside. I'm trying to listen.”

“Come on, Zixx, throw me a bone. Who's this agent that's comin' to interrogate me? At least answer that, will ya?” There’s a pause. Some muttering he can’t catch.

And then, in tones of anguish, “All right, all right, I ain't proud, I give! My dad's an Imperial agent!”

“Commander Rylon?!”

Ice fills Malavai’s veins. He thought he’d known all of Lord Baras’s assets stationed on this planet. It wouldn’t do to kill one of his allies by mistake, after all. He won’t give Lord Baras any reason to question either his loyalty or his usefulness. Rylon must have slipped in telling his son; surely that’s why Yaellia has been sent after the boy. But the man’s been a thorn in the Empire’s side for years—decades—and he’s never pulled a punch. He must have been a flawless spy.

And now Baras is having his son killed. Rylon will almost certainly be next. That makes no sense, unless this investigator on his tail is close to exposing him...

Or Rylon has outlived his usefulness.

Malavai’s hands go numb. Dimly, he registers a faint squeaking noise, and then realizes he’s shaking so hard that his chair is rattling. It doesn’t feel like a thing that’s happening to him.

No. He is loyal. He has always been loyal. He is no threat. He would die before he betrayed Lord Baras, and Lord Baras knows this.

(It wouldn’t be enough to save him. He knows this, too.)

Rushing footsteps knock him back to reality, back into his own body. He almost misses Yaellia’s pained-sounding “Really?!”

Zixx is gloating. “Take a look, Sith. That’s what two squads of the Republic’s finest look like.”

Yaellia sucks in a noisy breath. “Drop your weapons and stand aside,” she snaps. “Or die.”

Malavai blinks at the screen in front of him. That had sounded disturbingly like she was offering them a choice. A trick, surely. She’s trying to induce them to lower their guard before she strikes. She can’t possibly mean that. He can’t square it with the woman who had fretted—yes, fretted—over the Lieutenant Rutau now recuperating at the Markaran outpost.

It doesn’t work, anyway. The ensuing combat is remarkably short. So much for the Republic’s finest, he thinks with a scoff.

And then the stupid ensign is babbling, pleading for his life. Malavai does his best to ignore it, aided by the priority holomail he’s just gotten from his Plateau squad requesting backup against Pub war droids. By the time he arranges it, the ensign has finished up with, “Uh...I’m not exactly sure where I was goin’ with that. Please don’t kill me!”

You fool, Malavai thinks. She may be uncommonly...considerate of her underlings, but Lady Yaellia is a Sith. She would never dream of sparing Republic scum. And she certainly wouldn’t disobey her Master’s direct order.

And yet she says, “I’m willing to consider alternatives. Is there another solution?”

He’s honestly not sure he’s heard her correctly. But as he listens further, he realizes he has. He finds himself grateful to already be sitting down.

Durmat does, in fact, have a solution. The Republic has developed a memory-altering drug that leaves its victims a blank slate. Evidently, this was not the intended use, and it’s been slated for destruction because the Republic are idiots. He can think of half a dozen things he could use it for without blinking.

“...I’ll overdose and not know nothin’ no more. That way my dad’s secret identity is safe!”

Yaellia is silent for a long moment. Malavai tenses. Any moment, he expects to hear the hum of a saber igniting.

Finally, she replies, “Good idea. Where is it?”

The idiot ensign babbles some more, but Malavai’s barely listening even though he knows he should—a memory-wiping drug of such magnitude could be a great boon to the Empire. This is...insane. Bizarre. Such—mercy, such compassion, for an enemy? For the Republic? He isn’t sure what the tight, bilious feeling in his chest is. He knows hatred and jealousy, they are old bedfellows, but this sickens him. He doesn’t think he’s felt like this since Broysc. His hands hurt, and he realizes he’s been clenching his fists hard enough to leave half-moon indents in his palms.

He comes back to himself when he realizes Yaellia is speaking to Vette.

“The Republic talk about their moral superiority, and they create this? Hypocrites! We should burn this place to the ground and salt the ashes!” There’s a sharp thud, as though she’s punched a wall.

“...I dunno. Shit like this? Could be useful. Or at least, y’know, lucrative. I can think of a few memories I’d rather forget.”

A pause. Then, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it, “...As can I. Come, let’s bring this back to him. Oh, and a change of trousers.”

He’s getting another call—from the Arms Factory, this time—so he listens with half an ear to the sounds of the two womens’ footsteps and whatever short, asinine conversation they’re having with Ensign Durmat as the drug is administered while the rest of his focus splits between uploading an uncorrupted version of the data spike his team needs and the nauseous fury constricting his throat.

“Who are you?” the ensign asks hesitantly.

Yaellia’s voice goes...strange. Soft. Gentle, he realizes, though his mind is almost numb to the further shock of it. “That doesn’t matter. Who are you?”

Now the ensign sounds nervous. “I don’t—I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. Can...can you tell me?”

Malavai can just make out the creak of synthleather. He wonders if Yaellia has knelt in front of the boy’s cell, hand outstretched to soothe him like a frightened animal. His stomach clenches.

“Don’t let anyone tell you who you are,” she murmurs. “You have to figure that out for yourself. Be brave, and walk in strength and in joy.”

The two women walk away. He’s aware that they’re talking quietly between themselves, but he suddenly can’t bear to listen. It’s all too much.

So he mutes them, knowing the risk he’s taking but figuring he will be contacted if he’s really needed, and just stares into space. His hands are shaking again.

She disobeyed Lord Baras. That is...that is treason. But our lord did not specifically say to kill the boy...and he has been silenced...

And her voice, soft and firm all at once, resolute as a fairytale heroine facing down a wounded krayt dragon. He’s never heard a Sith sound like that. He hadn’t imagined they could. It hurts something deep inside him.

He is jolted out of his reverie by a sharp buzz on his comm and Yaellia’s crisp, “Lieutenant Quinn, are you there?”

He’s tongue-tied for a heartstopping moment, and then forces out, “Affirmative. How can I be of assistance, my lord?”

She lets out an amused huff. “I just wanted to let you know that the mission was a success. Vette and I are on our way back to Sobrik now. Please consider yourself off-duty until then.”

He swallows. “Understood, my lord. I will—I will see you upon your return?” Stars, he sounds pathetic. He shouldn’t have made it a question. Now she’ll know he’s rattled.

She chuckles. It seems she doesn’t, or at least isn’t mentioning it. “Count on it, Lieutenant!”

And then she hangs up, and he isn’t sure what to do with his hands. He is not off-duty; he still has troops to monitor. He should get back to that.

Instead he rises, goes to his desk in the adjacent room—it serves as both a private office for more delicate conversations and a makeshift sleeping chamber on long shifts—and pours himself half a glass of wine from his emergency stash. It’s terrible wine, halfway to vinegar and not in a good way, but it will stop him from trembling through the next six hours of his shift like a tooka that’s heard the cleaning droids. Maybe it will even help him make sense of what he’s heard.

One thing is for sure: Lady Yaellia is nothing like what he’d expected. He’s tempted to write it all down, get it out of his head, but he stops himself. Text files can be incriminating. His own mind will have to do.

Slowly, he lays out the facts. On the one hand, Lady Yaellia is greatly skilled in combat and perfectly willing to slay enemies of the Empire. She displays bravery, honor, and compassion towards Imperial soldiers, all exemplary qualities. On the other, she also extends those same qualities towards members of the Republic, which is quite frankly insane. They hate us, he wants to scream. They wouldn’t hesitate to wipe us from existence, to finish the job Pultimo started. And you let them live?!

He slams his fist on the table. Now he has sore knuckles and an aching heart. Deep breaths help the latter. He closes his eyes, willing himself to focus. To think about this logically. Perhaps it is...he will call it tactically unsound, it doesn’t do to consider a Sith a few currants short of a plum pudding, but the mission was unquestionably a success. Moreover, her actions showed an impressive willingness to think outside the box and adapt to new information. He doesn’t have to like it to understand the reasoning. As for her motive...well, perhaps she was moved to pity. Stranger things have happened. Mostly in folktales, but they have. He vaguely remembers one about a tuk’ata pup with a cactus spine in its paw that seems applicable.

“Be brave, and walk in strength and in joy.”

He sets his empty glass down and returns to his main office. He has work to do, no matter how much Lady Yaellia’s words tug at his mind.

He writes up a report for Lord Baras and doesn’t realize until he’s halfway through the holomail that he has no idea what to say. He cannot lie to Lord Baras, of course. He’ll be found out immediately. And Lady Yaellia has disobeyed their master; he should be made aware of that. It would please him and raise his estimation of Malavai.

But Malavai has seen what happens to Sith who displease their masters. He’s seen plenty of smoking corpses, seen Lord Venditor’s fresh scars. And with a sense of nostalgia bordering on pain he remembers the myth of Lord Umbraline, brought down in her prime by a beloved, treacherous underling for the sake of their own advancement. That underling’s fate makes for a moral lesson to all baby Imperials never to betray their superiors. He doubts Yaellia would weep over his severed head.

So he puts down, The mission was a success. Ensign Durmat has been permanently silenced, and leaves it at that. It’s nothing but the truth.

&

Approximately five hours and forty-five minutes after Lady Yaellia’s last contact with him, he realizes he has been a fool—or at the very least, he’s committed the crime of drawing conclusions with grossly incomplete information. He’ll have to apologize when she returns. Normally, such a thought would tie his stomach in knots, but he rather doubts she’ll react with summary execution.

Still, when she walks in the door six hours and fifteen minutes after her last call, he is glad that the parade rest he slips into hides his faint tremor.

“My lord.” His voice is even. He’s proud of himself for that.

It’s been nearly two days since he’s seen her, and the battles she’s fought have left their mark. There’s a rip in her catsuit at the shoulder, showing the white lining, and her hair shows all the marks of having been hastily scooped into an approximation of her previous bun. Dirt has been ground into the seams of her gloves and the knees of her trousers. She’s taken out her piercings at some point, so there is nothing to distract him from her bright eyes. He barely even notices Vette trailing her.

Especially when she says, “Lieutenant Quinn. I hope you’ve been well?”

He nods. “Yes, my lord. Thank you. Ah. Permission to speak freely?”

She visibly swallows, shifting her weight. Were she not a Sith, he would say she was awkward. “Of course.”

He inhales. “I must be honest. Your success at the satellite listening center and Republic outpost has...surprised me, my lord. I computed the likelihood of success as nearly negligible. In my assessment, however, I only considered the capabilities of a typical Sith.”

He fixes his gaze somewhere around her left ear and continues, “Clearly, you are not a typical Sith. I will adjust future calibrations to account for your...unprecedented abilities.” Creative thinking. Mercy. Compassion. You act like a warrior from legend, my lord, and I wonder where it will take you.

She looks stricken, a dark blush spreading across her cheekbones. And then she grins, an expression of such pure delight he has to look away. “Lieutenant Quinn, you know just what to say!”

“...I’m not too proud to acknowledge when I’m mistaken,” he mutters, feeling his own face burn. He wishes it was just shame at his miscalculation; he is far too old to be blushing like a schoolboy because a pretty girl’s smiled at him, for the Emperor’s sake.

Vette coughs. “So, didja tell Baras all about how awesome we are yet?”

He meets her eyes deliberately. “Lord Baras has been informed, yes. I will alert Lady Yaellia at once when I receive a response.”

More annoyingly, she doesn’t even seem fazed. She actually has the nerve to roll her eyes. “Good to hear it. Hopefully it won’t be ‘till tomorrow, we need our beauty sleep.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve stayed up all night,” Yaellia says simply.

Vette gives her a very pointed stare. “Ya-ell-i-a.”

She heaves an exaggerated sigh. “Ugh, you’re right. Lieutenant, I’m sorry I cannot stay longer, but someone insists I eat three meals a day and sleep in a real bed, and I wouldn’t want to impose on your personal time.”

“’Sides, we haven’t even seen any of Sobrik yet!” Vette adds, seeming to cheer up as soon as she’s told she won’t need to actually do her job for a while. As she slings an arm around Yaellia’s shoulders, she continues, “C’mon, I heard the Sunken Sarlaac is fun. Maybe we’ll see you there, LT!”

He could have died happily without ever hearing her call him LT. He takes a deep breath, lets it out through his nose, and says firmly, “Thank you, but no. I have work to finish up.”

It’s not a lie. And it certainly has nothing to do with any parts of his mind that may or may not be wondering what Lady Yaellia would look like during a night out—how she might wear her hair, if she prefers dresses or suits, if she would wear ever more elaborate jewelry—never mind that she fixes her gaze on the flag behind him and says briskly, “Of course, Lieutenant Quinn. I’ll leave you to it.”

He doesn’t normally work out at night, but as she leaves he decides he will make time to visit the base’s gym for an hour. The movement and exertion will settle his mind. So will the shower afterwards.

The very cold shower.

&

The next day, he wakes to a sore shoulder and a priority holomail and has very possibly never dressed so quickly in his life. He doesn’t even bother shaving. The hour between when he sees Lord Baras’s reply and when Lady Yaellia steps into his office passes in a blur. It’s slightly cheering to notice that she doesn’t have any of the signs of a woman who’s spent the night partying, unlike her visibly half-asleep companion.

After the initial exchange of pleasantries, he jumps right into it. “Lord Baras is pleased. He says it's time to zero in on your prime directive, and he awaits your contact. My office is yours; the line is secure.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

As she and Vette walk into the next room, he sits down at his console to go over the information he has about their target. There’s a lot to sift through, but much of it just needs to be collated and bulleted. Though he wishes he’d known the plan ahead of time, he’s always been good at making quick decisions. The surveillance and reconnaissance team he’s set on the Jedi’s investigator is highly skilled; thanks to the bugs they’ve placed, there isn’t a move she makes that he isn’t aware of.

Finally, he nods to himself. This will do. Anything else can be adjusted on the fly. Lady Yaellia has proven herself exceptionally skilled at that.

“...summoned Lieutenant Quinn. He’ll prepare you for your final task.”

That’s his cue. As Baras’s holo fades from view, Malavai steps in, fighting the urge to smooth down his hair. “Your final target is the Balmorran Arms Factory, recently captured by resistance forces. An incursion into the Factory will be a monumental feat. I’m excited by the prospect of you laying waste to that place.”

Vette elbows her and Yaellia perks up, face flushed and eyes gleaming. “...Oh, I excite you?”

Belatedly, he realizes his words could potentially be interpreted in a shockingly inappropriate way. If a subordinate spoke like that to him, he’d have them flogged. He all but stumbles over his next words, praying they spare him further humiliation. “W-well, what I meant was...when I imagine all the ways you will shape the galaxy, it is—very exciting, yes.”

Is it his imagination, or does she look disappointed? But there’s still that smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “You’re all red, though.”

Red? He probably looks like a prize Kaasian tomato. “Your question was—a bit surprising, my lord. I assure you that my mind is on the task at hand.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Was it? Surprising, I mean. Here I thought you wouldn’t let anything cross you by surprise.”

“Very few things do,” he mutters. “You...seem to have a knack for it.” That’s putting it mildly. He feels better about the shock of yesterday for having slept on it, but he’s always hated the unexpected. It so rarely works out for him.

She blushes again, dropping her gaze. He’s never before been tempted to call a Sith cute. Once again, professionalism will save him. He clears his throat and asks, “May I continue to brief you on the Balmorran Arms Factory, my lord?”

”Please,” she mutters.

He continues the briefing. Again, she takes notes. But when he gets to his description of Rylon’s personal guard, she comments, “You sound like you admire them.”

There’s no judgment in her tone or in her eyes, but there doesn’t need to be. He feels ill. “Only their tactical exploits, my lord. It will be a bright day on Balmorra when they are eliminated.”

That, apparently, is that. As she nods and goes to put her datapad away, he clears his throat. “One final thing, my lord. The investigator the Jedi sent has been concentrating her activity in the area. I have her under minute-by-minute surveillance and will contact you at once if she becomes a problem.”

She smiles at him. “Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

She keeps thanking him, just for doing his duty. His gut is a hot, squirming thing. “No need to thank me, my lord. I will be here to salute you when the Balmorran Arms Factory is a smoking husk.”

“I know you will.” She turns to go, only to immediately arrest her movement and ask, “Lieutenant?”

Vette groans. Both of them ignore her. “Yes, my lord?”

She glances back at him and reaches up to fiddle with her earrings. She’s put her gold hoops back in. “I do apologize for my curiosity, but I couldn’t help but notice...that is...you have a great deal of Sith opera recordings in here. Do you have a favorite?”

The question is so unexpected that he can’t bite back an honest reply. “I think you might have done as well to ask me if I’ve a favorite limb, but I’ve always been partial to Shkai’ven Shasôt—”

Yaellia lets out a little gasp and whirls to stare at him, eyes wide. “I’ve seen that! The 400th anniversary run, at the Grand Kaas Opera House—Taral’s aria, I don’t think there was a dry eye—” She’s gesturing as she talks, presumably the cause of several datapads sliding around on his desk.

Emperor preserve him. She likes opera. In a flash of insight, he realizes why her words from the previous day had been so familiar; they’re a direct translation from the famous Soldiers’ Chorus in the second act. His parade rest has become a medical necessity, because otherwise he’d have to find a chair. “I could not be in the city for the 400th anniversary,”—he’d been here, cursing his life—“but I was fortunate enough to witness Janrit Haskerl’s first performance as countertenor for that role, and even then I can assure you there was not.” The memory brings an old pang with it; he’d been so young. His father had been alive and on leave, and not even his baby brother kicking the back of his seat had dimmed the wonder of watching the curtain go up.

She’s gazing at him with open fascination. “That must have been incredible! I can’t imagine it—you must tell me everything. Oh, but what did you think of Tev Ralon’s early years; I thought their voice has improved with age, but you know what recordings are like, it’s just not the same.”

He can’t remember the last time anyone’s asked for his opinion on any personal interests. He can’t remember the last time anyone suggested he might have personal interests. It takes him a moment to find words. “I—must agree, my lord. At first, I judged them to be rather weak and reedy, not powerful or commanding enough to sing Lord Tanari’s part with the gravitas it deserves, but I find myself glad that they were given the chance to grow into it. I suppose you never can tell.”

“Exactly!” Stars, she’s so animated it hurts to look at her. The datapads hitting the floor are a problem for later. “I haven’t been able to go to the opera since before I was sent to Korriban; I’m dying to see how it’s changed. I hear they’ve recently finished some lovely new renovations for better acoustics—and gotten rid of those dreadful jade green curtains, what were they thinking—and they’ve shuffled the stage crew around so more of them will be able to handle the Force effects. Their new conductor is no Van Chkristi, but he comes highly recommended from the Ziosti Gardens. You should go there next time you have leave!”

His ears burn. He doesn’t get that much leave, and even if he did his pay won’t stretch to the cost of a ticket anymore. Not if he also wants to buy groceries that week. But she’s so enthusiastic, so happy, he decides not to say any of that. “I will certainly consider it, my lord.”

Vette clears her throat. “Boss, maybe you wanna let him consider it while we get moving? It’s a long way to this outpost we gotta be at.”

Malavai could strangle her.

Even more so when Yaellia deflates and mutters, “Ah. Yes. Thank you for reminding me.” She shoots him a hopeful glance. “We must make time to continue this discussion later.”

Later. How long has it been since he’s had something to look forward to? The thought makes an unfamiliar bubbly feeling rise in his chest.

“It would be my pleasure,” he says, and means it with all his heart.

(Opera. He supposes that goes some way towards explaining her idealism, but somehow he cannot fault her. When he was young, he’d been inspired even by the tragedies.)

&

The data spike he’s had planted in the Jedi investigator’s comm network is showing increased activity. Frowning, he traces it. Near the Arms Factory, and getting closer. Should he warn Lady Yaellia? No, he thinks after a moment. She’ll be at the Sundari Outpost by now, and he doesn’t want to distract her. He’s been informed there’s a new Darth in residence.

As if summoned by the mere thought of her, his comm chimes. “Lieutenant Quinn?”

He isn’t sure he likes the wary tone in Yaellia’s voice. “Yes, my lord?”

“Have you ever heard of a Darth Lachris? The—the new planetary governor.”

He’s not surprised the old one is dead—the man was never competent—but there’s a twist in his gut at the way she says it. It must have been extremely recent. “I have, my lord. She studied under Darth Marr and is a veteran of the sacking of Coruscant.”

There’s nothing but the low rumble of a speeder engine; she must be in the air. “I see,” she says eventually.

“Might I inquire as to why you’re asking?”

There’s a definite intake of breath. “Oh, I’ve just...met her, that’s all. I was curious. She wants me to—to take down Grand Marshall Jacketta—”

“—Cheketta!” Vette calls.

“—You know my auditory processing is utter pants, Vette!—so killing Commander Rylon might take a trifle longer than expected.”

He nearly suggests texting or holomail if that would be easier for her, but bites his tongue. If she hasn’t requested accommodations, it’s hardly his place. “I have every faith you will succeed, my lord.”

She lets out a sharp huff. “You honor me. I’ll be in touch.”

“I await your word, my lord.”

She hangs up first. He turns his focus to the incoming calls from his away teams, grinding his teeth. No, they are not to engage unless discovered, no matter how tempting it is. Their goal is stealth. He is relieved to find that at least they’re tracking the targets he’s sent them after. The Jedi investigator has a codename—Sunshrike—but it doesn’t match to any encrypted strings in his database. The spike they’ve uploaded is picking up her increasingly irritated comments regarding an incursion into the Arms Factory. Lady Yaellia, he thinks, and exhales. He digs deeper, hunting for more information. His tea thermos goes colder and emptier.

Where are you? Who are you?

He’s starting to develop a headache by midafternoon—he’s worked straight through lunch—but having a puzzle to unravel at least keeps his mind off of honorable Sith with a passion for opera and an unusual sense of mercy. He welcomes it. The security systems of the Arms Factory itself prove frustrating to break into, but when he finally taps into Sunshrike’s personal network he is rewarded with quiet breaths and the echos of her typing, interspersed with the occasional Republic-accented, “Damn.”

He smirks to himself. Victory.

And then Yaellia calls him, her voice shaking. “Quinn?”

His heart seizes. He doesn’t want to know what could unsettle a Sith. But he must remain calm, for her sake. “Yes, my lord?”

She gulps. “We have very—very explicit confirmation of Republic involvement. I just fought a Jedi. And where there’s one, there will likely be more.”

A Jedi. He exhales sharply, wondering if they had fought in the last war. If they’d borne his father’s blood on their hands. “I suspected as much. Your confirmation is appreciated, my lord.” He almost asks if she’s well, but he’s afraid of what he might do if she says no.

“Right,” she says, and takes a deep breath. “Right. We will continue our assault, then, and contact you when the factory falls.”

There’s a click as she hangs up. He returns to Sunshrike, digging through her personal files. It takes a while, and he’s only peripherally aware of the news crackling in from the Arms Factory as he works. Republic ships are being violently decommissioned. The Resistance is in disarray. Something about a swarm of Colicoids. The Resistance Grand Marshall is dead—no, he’s only in custody. The man’s publicly denouncing the Republic and they didn’t even have to torture him first. The Balmorran “governor,” Vol Argen, is definitely dead.

At any other time, he’d celebrate. A name. Give me a name.

He doesn’t get a name. As the sun lowers outside his office he gets a tinny burst of secondhand static, and then the sound of a man speaking. Sunshrike whispers, “Finally,” to herself.

“What do we know of the enemy?” the man says, and then snaps, “I can see that, Captain. Shut up. Sith, I know why you're here. Be aware that these are the finest troops I've commanded in all my decades of duty.”

Indistinct speech. The man snorts. “My men and I would be disappointed if you did. Captain Eligyn, engage at will and hold the line. I'm coming with reinforcements. Rylon out.”

Malavai makes himself breathe evenly. After everything he’s seen Lady Yaellia do, she’ll be fine. More importantly, Sunshrike is moving. He fires off a call to his nearest squad leader. “Target is en route. Do not lose her.”

There’s a chorus of affirmatives, but he barely registers them. Sunshrike has live audio on what is almost certainly Yaellia’s confrontation with the Republic forces, and for long minutes all he can hear is the hum of sabers and the crack of blaster fire. It grows steadily louder, suggesting Rylon really is coming—alone. There is only the one set of footsteps. When the fighting dies down and the man snaps, “Enough of this. Just put him out of his misery, Sith,” Malavai tenses.

“Confess to him first,” Yaellia says flatly. “He deserves the truth.”

Shit. The worst part of it is, he’s not even surprised. Disappointed, yes—this is quite frankly the worst time her bizarre storybook-heroine tendencies could have come to the fore—but after what he’s seen of her so far he was practically expecting it. More importantly, the investigator’s position is converging on his troops. Almost there...almost...

A blaster shot rings out, and Commander Rylon sighs heavily. “It's unfortunate they were on the wrong side. They were excellent soldiers, and exceptional men. It was difficult betraying them—you can't bleed with a man and not form a bond—yet with their defeat, the Empire's cause is advanced.”

“You should have recruited them,” Yaellia says coldly.

“...I followed Baras's orders to the letter,” he mutters. “Recruitment was never my purpose here. I served for the glory of the Empire.” With a sigh, he continues, “But the life of a spy is a slippery one. In essence, I had to become a Republic soldier, and I've done things against the Empire that have sickened me.”

Yaellia takes a slow breath. “For the greater good.”

“Lieutenant!” Jillins on holo, frantic. His voice comes slightly doubled from the tap he’s put on Sunshrike. “She’s here—she has a lightsaber—”

“Delay her,” he growls.

“But she’s—she’s a Jedi—”

He could punch the man. If they weren’t separated by hundreds of kilometers, he might. Some of his rage must show on his face, because the man flinches. “Did I stutter, Jillins? You don’t need to kill her, but she must not be allowed to reach her allies!”

There’s already blaster fire in the background. Jillins whirls to return fire, barely stammering out an, “Of course, sir—” before dropping the call.

Not that it matters. He isolates that channel from the tap and amplifies the one on Rylon. He almost regrets it, because Rylon’s not dead yet.

At least his voice sounds labored. Agonized. Malavai can only hope his death is swift; he deserves that, at least. “Tell Lord Baras...it has been my great honor to serve him.”

He can’t hear Yaellia’s response, but he suspects he knows what it is. The hum of her saber is confirmation enough.

He should call her. Warn her.

But it will have to wait, because he has soldiers to direct. He hopes they remain competent under duress; their orders are very simple, but he’s learned not to underestimate the depths of their stupidity. He curses every second of comm latency as he watches the Jedi’s location draw closer.

It takes nearly half an hour before he can send a holocall to Lady Yaellia. She is bloodstained and beautiful even in the middle of some nondescript factory hallway, but he can think about that later. “My lord, we've got trouble. I heard your entire conversation with Commander Rylon.”

She draws back, frowning down at him. A lock of hair falls in her face. “Have you been spying on me, Lieutenant?”

His face burns. “No, my lord!” Not intentionally, at any rate. “As I told you, I've been surveilling the Jedi investigator—”

“...Oh,” she mutters, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Never mind, then. What’s the matter?”

He takes a breath. “She bugged Rylon's quarters. She knows everything, my lord.”

“Well, fuck,” Vette comments. He hates that he agrees.

Yaellia falls silent, staring at him. Her eyebrows knit together as she lets out a very quiet, heartfelt, “Bugger.” At a normal volume, she continues, “And now so do you. You’re in grave danger, Lieutenant.”

It doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds like concern. He lets out a breath. “Yes, but I pose no risk to Lord Baras. If she gets away, she'll expose everything. She was heading to her ship, but I had my men cut her off from the Republic landing bay.” He’s just gotten the report that they were successful, with only one casualty. Not Jillins, sadly. “I am systematically blocking her avenues of transmission and escape, herding that Republic scum to her only hope—the spaceport at Sobrik.”

“Sobrik?!” she demands. “That’s ours! How does she think she’s going to survive?”

“My men report that she's wielding a lightsaber, my lord. It is very likely that she is a Jedi Knight.”

If the comm wasn’t floating in midair, Yaellia would have dropped it. She jerks, eyes wide. “No.”

“Yes. Unless you stop her, she's more than capable of fighting her way through the spaceport and commandeering a ship. I'll be able to delay the Jedi long enough for you to engage, but—”

“Don’t you dare,” she snaps.

He blinks at her. “My lord?”

“Don’t even think about putting yourself in the way of that Jedi! She’ll kill you, Lieutenant. I can’t—I refuse to let that happen. Put roadblocks, keep the civilians out of the way, do not make direct contact. We have to protect the people of Sobrik!”

He swallows, recognizing the emotion coursing through him as shame. A storybook warrior. She is what Sith should be. “...I...see your point, my lord. I will gather my remaining men and meet you at the spaceport.”

She exhales. “Yes. Do that. And don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll be there as soon as I can. You have my word.”

&

It is one thing to simply put a military base on high alert for approaching hostiles. That is easy. Turning that military base into a trap for a lone Jedi while also ensuring that the civilian population is safe, and that no actual Imperial soldiers are put in harm’s way? Somewhat more difficult. The roadblocks are simple, but having the base put under lockdown requires him to stand in front of Major Pirell and play the recording of his men under attack before the order finally goes out, and by then he’s lost hours.

The only saving grace is that he’s successfully delayed the Jedi. He has time.

During a brief lull in the chaos, his comm buzzes. Outgoing transmission, reads the spike still active on the Jedi’s comm. He doesn’t hesitate before rerouting it to his own and hitting “play.”

The Jedi turns out to be a human woman, her hood half-hiding her face. Through the layer of digital noise left over from decryption, he makes out, “This is Jedi Knight Mashallon. Nomen Karr’s Padawan was correct. We have traitors in our ranks.”

He’s never even heard of Nomen Karr; individual Jedi tend to blend together in a sort of sanctimonious brown-beige haze. But if they’re a Jedi of any importance, there will be a dossier. He spends a few minutes searching until one comes up, frowning as he skims through the Jedi master’s long career. A career, he notices, that seems particularly focused on opposing Lord Baras. This could be a problem.

“Uh. Sir?”

He takes a deep breath before addressing Jillins, who’s appeared by his side on top of his lookout post when he wasn’t looking. “Report. And it had better be important.”

Jillins gulps, staring somewhere past him. “You said to alert you when Lady Yaellia or—or that Jedi gets here, and um. The Jedi’s been spotted.”

“Good. You have your orders.” He sends a quick text to confirm—yes, the barricades have been placed and the civilians are off the streets with guards stationed at regular intervals. Yaellia will be pleased.

Jillins nods stiffly. “R-right.”

They stare through their binoculars into the darkening street as the lights come on, both straining for the sight of a glowing lightsaber. Malavai squints, trying to figure out if that flicker in the far distance is a faulty streetlight. When his comm doesn’t flash with mission updates, he decides it probably is.

Jillins mutters, “I hope Lady Yaellia catches up soon. She’s amazing.”

“Have you met her, or are you drawing yet another conclusion based on secondhand information?”

Jillins flushes and stares at his feet. “Well, I haven’t met her, sir, but—she wiped out an entire rebel base by herself! And took down that Grand Marshall! That’s—that’s pretty amazing, right...?”

There’s a steady light in the distance. He raises his binoculars and spots flowing robes and a lit saber. Jedi. “You aren’t wrong,” he mutters. Stars, he’s agreeing with the boy. His life really has changed.

They wait. Mashallon’s been divested of her speeder at some point, so she creeps from shadow to shadow on foot. It’s eerie. Where any normal person in a similar situation would startle at every movement, she only glances disinterestedly when rustlings in dumpsters turn out to be rakkons. Can Jedi see through stealth generators? Sense his troops somehow? If he gives into the temptation to pull the trigger, will they all be slaughtered in an instant?

Next to him, Jillins is practically vibrating. He hisses, “Hold, Corporal.” He won’t risk it.

Mashallon crosses the empty square unimpeded. She steps into the spaceport, where she’ll find a maze of barricades and droids to slow her down. Long minutes drag by.

His datapad lets him know he has a text. Without looking, he hits the button that translates it to speech and sends it directly into his earpiece.

The electronic voice reads: “From: vette (piratequeen@kci.net). To: m.quinn@imp.mil. Subject: We’re here, exclamation point. Text body: N/A. End message.”

He wonders why his team hasn’t informed him, but quickly realizes it’s something of a moot point. Yaellia Ivros is barreling down the street and through the square on a speeder that looks like it’s been the victim of a direct orbital strike, Vette hanging on for dear life behind her. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he can barely make them out in the afterimages left by the rear lights. The rest of his soldiers have probably been similarly blinded.

He shakes his head to clear it and lifts his comm. “All hands, move out.”

Keeping a slow, measured pace is not the hardest thing he has ever done in his life, but it certainly deserves a spot on the list. Though they obviously won’t overtake Yaellia at the speed she’s moving, they can’t afford to be too late. As skilled as she is, she graduated Korriban a month ago and this is a fully-fledged Jedi Knight. She might need backup. Every instinct screams at him to run.

He walks.

&

The spaceport, when he reaches it, bears every hallmark of a Jedi passing through in a hurry. His team has to step, scramble, and sometimes climb over droid parts. Heavy barricades have been chopped in half. One of the locked hangar elevators has been sliced.

As he steps out of the elevator with a handful of his best men, he knows he’s precisely on time.

The Jedi’s hood has fallen back and there’s a blaster wound in her shoulder, but she’s holding her own against Yaellia’s swift strikes. Vette is crouched behind a speeder deploying a kolto spray drone, patching up Yaellia’s wounds even as they’re inflicted. As he watches, Yaellia surges forward, twists, and sends the Jedi’s blade skittering out of her hand and across the floor.

“Yield,” she growls, setting one saber at the Jedi’s throat.

Mashallon closes her eyes. “Your victory means nothing,” she murmurs. “The damage has been done. The proof has been transmitted. So, deal the deathblow, Sith. I am at peace knowing that the greater good has been served.”

In this moment, Malavai loves his job. “I hate to burst your bubble, Jedi.” He doesn’t even bother trying to stop his slow, cruel smirk. “No, that’s a lie. I’m reveling in it.”

Yaellia turns to stare at him over her shoulder, and the Jedi gasps. He could laugh. “I intercepted your transmission. You’ve been monitored and screened this entire time. The Jedi know nothing.”

Yaellia’s mouth drops open. For a split-second she just blinks at him—and then she gasps, “Lieutenant Quinn, I could kiss you!”

She doesn’t mean it. Face burning, he averts his eyes and mutters, “I was only doing my job, my lord.”

Mashallon takes a final breath, her gaze sweeping the assembled Imperials defiantly. “Gloat all you like, it means nothing. I remain at peace. And you will still fail.”

Yaellia turns back to her, her voice even. Pleasant. As though she’s asking about the weather. “The name of Nomen Karr’s padawan, if you please.”

Mashallon’s eyes narrow. “No.”

She sighs, shaking her head. “...I want you to remember I asked politely.” The saber burns a thin line in the skin of the Jedi’s neck.

The Jedi doesn’t even flinch. Her empty hands flex and then relax, her shoulders settling. “Unlike you, the Force and the Jedi way give me a sense of something larger than myself. I am resigned. Strike me down, I offer no further resistance.”

Yaellia draws in a slow breath, chest heaving. Malavai knows that the next sight he’ll see will be the Jedi’s head rolling on the floor.

And then, impossibly, she lowers her saber. “No,” she says coolly. “It would be a waste.”

What. None of Malavai’s men move. Malavai himself isn’t sure he can move. His legs have enough to do just keeping him upright. If the Republic are their enemies, the Jedi are...the Jedi are nightmares. The Great War was a thousand years ago, but none of them have forgotten the burning of libraries, the wholesale bombing of their greatest cities, the slaughter of millions. Had it not been for the element of surprise, they surely would have repeated their atrocities in the last war. Lady Yaellia would have been a child when the Treaty of Coruscant was signed, but he’s seen her files. He knows she took top marks in Sith history. She knows what the Jedi have done, what they will do again if given the chance. And yet she lets this one live?

It makes no sense. He can barely breathe.

Absurdly, he remembers a libretto he once discovered on the HoloNet. It had purported to be the text of an opera banned for centuries for un-Imperial sentiment. The central couple, and conflict, had been about a Sith sparing a Jedi’s life and the Jedi spending years trying to “bring them to the Light” in exchange. Though they’d fallen in love, it had ended in tragedy when the Sith killed them rather than lose what made them who they were, only to launch into a stirring final aria wherein they vowed to join the Jedi in memory of their lost lover. He’d given the address to the censors later, of course, but it had stuck with him. The last time he’d checked, the website had still been up.

He steps forward, resolute. “...I will take her into custody, my lord.” Surrounding the Jedi and wrapping Force-suppressant cuffs around her wrists is a simple matter, one he can do on autopilot. He’s glad for it, because while his hands and mouth move he doesn’t have to think about what he’s doing. “Your lightsaber, if you will, Jedi. Men, escort her to her new home in the main prison.”

“And treat her well,” Yaellia adds firmly, extinuishing her sabers. “Torture is notoriously unreliable, and I am under the impression that the Imperial armed forces is made of sentients, not beasts.”

Vette snorts. “Good luck with that,” she mutters.

The Jedi is marched away. Malavai remains behind. His men have this in hand, and he cannot leave until he has answers. Until he understands. When he draws close to Yaellia, she smells like smoke. He follows her gaze to his troops and murmurs, “I am sure you know what you’re doing, my lord. But sparing the Jedi is...” Insane. “A curious choice.”

She stiffens. He braces himself—has she sensed how much he’s truly questioning her? But her sabers remain unlit, and oxygen still moves through his lungs. When she turns to him, her eyes are hard as gold. He knows he’s being unfathomably rude, but he can’t tear his gaze away.

Her chin lifts. She’s challenging him as well. “The Jedi think we are monsters, Lieutenant Quinn. I refuse to prove them right.”

He almost argues. Of course the Sith are monsters. The Sith are their monsters. Carnage is her birthright, slaughter her crown. Her very creed promises strength and victory. What does she care if a Jedi judges her for knowing passion—for knowing life? For protecting her people with everything she has? But there’s a faint tremor in her shoulders, and he remembers the way she’d soothed Lieutenant Rutau and that Republic ensign alike. The way she’d granted Rylon an honorable death.

He remembers stories.

“I see,” he mutters, and looks away.

&

“...It's not my place, Lord Baras. I leave that for your apprentice to convey.”

It’s nearly midnight. Putting the city to rights and cleaning up the spaceport to an even semi-usable state had taken hours. He’s pretty sure the slaves and droids are still working on it. The Jedi has been placed in the most secure wing they could find. The guards had asked him when to schedule the inquisitor; he’d swallowed his gorge, been reminded of the Imperial armed forces is made of sentients, not beasts and told them it could wait a while. That he’s still upright and talking to Baras—who had demanded a report immediately—is solely due to his decades of military experience.

Yaellia’s near-emotionless voice from the doorway saves him. “I am here, master.”

She looks half dead on her feet; most likely the adrenaline crash. Vette follows her like a second shadow, positioned in such a way as to unobtrusively offer physical support.

As they enter, he stands a little straighter. She shoots him a quick glance, squares her shoulders, and does the same before bowing to Baras as deeply as she probably can without falling over.

“Nice of you to join us,” Baras snorts. “Quinn refuses to update me, insisting the privilege be yours. I assume the Jedi investigator has been stopped?”

She stares straight past him. “...She is no longer a concern, master.”

Baras grumbles, “I had hoped to avoid confronting her, but our hand was forced. What matters most is that Rylon can no longer be exposed.”

That’s right, Malavai thinks. And it’s all because of her. You have a rare find in your apprentice, my lord. And then, traitorously, You had better appreciate her.

“And how would you assess Lieutenant Quinn’s contribution?”

His parade rest is suddenly a statue’s pose. His hands clench into fists behind his back. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she dismisses him. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she doesn’t.

But the question seems to have the same effect on Lady Yaellia as an intravenous line of pure caffeine straight to the heart, because she jolts a little on her feet and blurts out, “Lieutenant Quinn? He’s an exceptional officer! Really, the best support I could’ve hoped for. I couldn't have done it without him! If you ask me, master, he is wasted in a place like Balmorra.”

His heart skips a beat. Baras tilts his head, studying him from behind his mask. “High praise indeed,” he says finally. “Quinn, I believe you have sufficiently repaid the debt owed to me. I'm putting you up for a captaincy and transmitting an executive order allowing you to station wherever you choose. You are dismissed.”

He can feel his mouth moving and knows words must be coming out, knows he’s thanking Lord Baras and expressing his sincere gratitude. His mind is a thousand light-years away. A captaincy. Freedom. I’ll never need to step foot on this blasted rock again. I could go anywhere—could make a real difference for the Empire—I could go home—

Lady Yaellia is looking at him. Heart hammering in his chest, he bows to her. “My lord, before I depart, it's been my extreme honor to serve you.” Swallowing hard, he adds, “You are...you are the epitome of everything the Empire stands for.”

It’s not a lie. It’s not even an exaggeration. Honor. Strength. Order. As odd as some of her decisions have been, she displays every Imperial virtue. More than that, she inspires other people to follow her example—or at the very least, she should. He can’t imagine the sort of person who would purposely disappoint her when she holds even her own actions to such high standards.

And she flushes dark at his words. He can’t bear it. “The honor has been mine.” She pauses, and a tired smile breaks across her face. “Captain Quinn. I shall miss you.”

“Maybe our paths will cross once more, my lord,” he murmurs. He can’t look at her face anymore.

As he leaves, Vette turns to call over her shoulder, “We’ll probably be off this rock by tomorrow afternoon!”

So there’s a time limit. And then she will be gone, and he’ll probably never see her again. The thought is a knife to his heart.

He walks home, the wind ruffling his hair and stinging his nose. He doesn’t smell smoke anymore. When he reaches his street, the whole building is dark and quiet, and his apartment feels like a tomb. He stands in the doorway and thinks that he should be overjoyed at this unexpected good fortune. He should be celebrating. At the very least, he should make himself a cup of tea; he doubts he’ll be getting much sleep anyway.

Instead he sits at his kitchen table and stares out the window. There’s a light on in the apartment across the way. He wonders what they’re doing, if they were on duty tonight. If they’ve had their life irrevocably changed by any young, idealistic Sith lately.

“The honor has been mine.”

He wants it to be insincere. A lie, a trick, something. Who says that? No, he rephrases, what kind of Sith says that? He knows he shouldn’t trust it. If he was as intelligent as he likes to think he is, he’d be glad to see the back of her. Honor never lasts, no matter what the stories say. Fiction is fiction for a reason; the greatest Sith, those who made the galaxy quake at their whims, cared nothing for the lives of ants like him.

But.

But when he closes his eyes, he sees her tired smile. Hears the way she gushed about him to Baras, her eyes shining. Remembers the desperation in her voice when she’d told him not to risk himself against the Jedi. “I refuse to let that happen,” she’d said. As though he matters. As though he, Malavai Quinn, thirty-seven years old and a disgraced lieutenant on one of the most backwater rocks in Imperial space, with no status or influential allies or access to any particularly juicy blackmail, is important. Not because of what he can do for her or who he is connected to, but because he is a person.

He is suddenly furious. Where were you ten years ago, twenty years ago?! Where were you when I was new? How dare you come to me now, Yaellia Ivros? But even as he balls his hands into fists to stop them shaking, he imagines how that would have went. Twenty-seven year old Malavai had been going through the worst year of his life—his father’s death, Druckenwell, the war’s unceremonious end—and he wouldn’t have appreciated being reminded that such things as hope and decency existed in the galaxy. Seventeen-year-old Malavai frankly doesn’t bear thinking about; he’d been an insufferable teenager, and she probably would have stabbed him. He can’t say he would have complained. It would have been normal.

Then again, normal isn’t a word he can truthfully use to describe her. Despite the incredible results she gets, he knows her methods won’t make her popular. He can’t imagine even Baras approving. Then again, he also can’t imagine her letting his disapproval change anything. His heart is racing, and he’s not sure whether it’s terror or something else. She really could change the galaxy. If she lives.

If.

His heart sinks. Sith politics will eat her alive. Stars, if Baras finds out how she interprets his orders he’ll probably eat her alive. He tries to imagine a galaxy without her, without her lightning-fast sabers and strange sense of compassion and the sheer joy she takes in opera. Without the change she effects everywhere she goes just by existing. It should be easy; he’s only known her for a few days, and they’ve barely spoken. They are nearly strangers.

He wants to change that. He can change that; he’s a captain now, he can take any posting he wishes. He can find her ship, join her crew, serve at her side. For the first time in a decade, he can do anything.

By the time he wakes the next morning, he has made his decision.

&

Everything he owns fits into two suitcases. He could probably narrow it down to one, but he remembers sparkling gold eyes and decides to pack every music-related disc he has. He showers and shaves with particular care; after a brief internal debate over whether he should wear his dress uniform, he settles for his best everyday one instead. Too formal and he’ll appear ridiculous instead of sincere, and he can’t bear for her to think he’s not taking this seriously. He makes himself a cup of decaf tea before he leaves.

Afternoon, Vette had said, but he has no idea what a Twi’lek considers afternoon and he barely slept last night out of fear of somehow missing their departure entirely. It’s 1100 on the dot when he makes his way into the hangar at a brisk walk, looking for the ship registered under Yaellia’s name.

Fortunately, it’s impossible to miss. The Zhasanai’s Grace is a sleek Fury-class Interceptor, a very common model, but instead of the standard gray she’s been painted bright red with jagged black lines reminiscent of traditional Zabrak tattoos. Zhasanai, he recalls, is also a Zabrak name. He wonders who Yaellia named her ship for, and if she’d tell him if he asked. He suspects she would. As he approaches, his attention is caught by droids loading pallets of supplies into her cargo hold, followed by a chauffeur steering a cherry-red four-door Manta Landspeeder the size of a Cartel skiff in with them. Last night’s death trap was clearly the first thing she could grab; this is the sort of speeder he would have expected Yaellia to fly.

None of the workers pay him any mind. He stands at a loose parade rest and waits next to his suitcases.

And waits. After a while, he finds himself fighting the urge to scroll through his datapad. He hasn’t had time to catch up with the news in a while, and this is around the time of year when the drafts start for cricket season. But if Lady Yaellia sees him acting so frivolously in public, the sheer embarrassment will probably kill him before any of her enemies get the chance.

He’s started to lose track of how long he’s been waiting by the time the elevator opens to reveal her standing inside it. She’s got one arm looped through the handle of a Sobrik Spaceport gift bag and the other through Vette’s; at first he can’t make out what they’re talking about, but then he realizes she’s supplementing her side of the conversation with ISL when words fail her and upgrades his mental portfolio of her to include has exceedingly strong opinions on spaceport food. His mouth does something so unfamiliar he has to pause to recognize it as a smile.

When she sees him, the ISL stops and her face lights up. “Captain Quinn! Did you come to see us off?”

He bows as deeply to her as he would to Lord Baras. “My lord,” he murmurs. “I hope you don't find my appearance here obtrusive. I beg an audience.”

She blinks, and then nods. “Of course.”

He takes a deep breath. He should have practiced this speech, but even now that it’s happening part of his brain can’t believe it. “My reassignment is an evolution I've longed for, but I assumed it would never come. Aiding you on this planet—it has reawakened the ambition I began my career with, to make the most profound impact possible for the Empire.”

Before he can second-guess himself, he drops to one knee and bows his head. Yaellia chokes. “Captain Quinn!”

The spaceport floor is freezing through the thin fabric of his uniform trousers and badly in need of a power-washing. Someone’s dropped used chewing gum not half a meter away. Yaellia’s boots need polishing, and one of Vette’s is coming untied. He notices all of this only because his heart is pounding like an artillery bombardment and if he looks up he thinks he might faint. That would certainly not help his case.

Breathe. In for three, hold, out for five. Hating the tremor in his voice, he continues, “I cannot think of a more glorious and honorable way to make a difference in the galaxy than to serve you.”

She makes a noise like a dying gundark. He risks a brief glance upwards and finds her with both hands clasped to her mouth, her face absolutely scarlet. She seems to be beyond words.

His mouth goes dry. He has to make her see. “I'm here to pledge myself to you. I'm ready and willing to serve in—in whatever capacity you see fit.”

“Whatever capacity?” It is very close to a squeak. “That’s—really?”

“Oh, stars,” Vette mutters. “And I thought you two flirting over snooty musicals was bad—”

Yaellia kicks her sharply in the ankle. It would be funny if it wasn’t also mortifying.

He’s talking more quickly now. He knows he sounds desperate—undignified—but he can’t stop. He’s so close, he knows it. “My lord, if given the chance, I know I will prove myself to you. I'm a top-notch pilot, military strategist and a deadly shot. I can fly this ship, plan your battles, assess your enemies and kill them. You won't find a more tireless and loyal subject. I will dedicate every ounce of my strength to your cause.” Please. That Twi’lek can’t protect you alone, not from the kinds of threats you’ll be facing. You need me.

She’s still staring at him as though she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. “...Captain Quinn,” she says carefully. “Are you sure about this?”

A voice, gentle yet firm. Words straight from myth. Nobility he’s only ever dreamed about. The absolute certainty that all of that stands balanced on a razor’s edge, and she will need all the help he can give if she’s not going to be sliced to ribbons.

He can only answer honestly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, my lord.”

Her chest swells with her deep breath, and it’s not his imagination that has her back straightening. She is noble in more than just her actions, after all. Fealty is her birthright. “Then I accept your service.” Her serious tone is utterly at odds with the grin that spreads across her face as she adds, “Besides, who else would I talk about opera with? I haven’t forgotten.”

He actually had. “Um,” he starts, dropping his gaze. “It would be an honor—”

A hand appears in his field of vision. It takes him a moment of confusion to realize Yaellia is offering to help him to his feet. “Now, do get up off the floor. I don’t want to think what it’s doing to your knees.”

He has a split second to think This is inappropriate, I mustn’t before his hand comes up entirely of its own accord to wrap around hers. It’s warm even through their respective gloves, and she only has to take half a step backwards to haul him to his feet. If he’d been shorter, it would be effortless. There’s a moment before he fully straightens where his eyes meet hers, and the expression in them is one he cannot bear to name.

But neither can he look away. She has yet to let go of his hand, and it’s frozen him in place like a tractor beam. “My lord,” he starts. You’ve given me my life back. You’ve given me hope. How else can I repay you?

“My captain,” she murmurs. Her voice wasn’t even this soft with Lieutenant Rutau, and that man had nearly lost a foot. Malavai just has a mildly sore knee.

Vette chooses this exact moment to ask, “Is this all your stuff?”

He jerks away from Yaellia like he’s been burnt, turning the full force of his glare on the Twi’lek. “Indeed.”

Yaellia looks over his suitcases with a judgmental eye, but when she turns back to him she’s smiling again. “We’ll get you set up right away, never fear. I can’t wait to give you a tour of the ship.” She pauses. “Ah, do feel free to make any adjustments to the cockpit you want. It might be a bit cramped in there otherwise.”

This time, he knows he’s smiling back. “...Thank you for giving me this opportunity, my lord. I will submit my reassignment papers as we depart.”

And he steps onto the Zhasanai’s Grace, ready to begin his new life.

-

Worldbuilding/headcanon notes:

- Quinn's love of opera comes from the fact that one of the Imperial Memorabilia gifts you can give him (his favorite type of gift) is a Sith Opera Collection. (The fact that another gift in that category is Banned Imperial History Document says a few things...) - Quinn & Yael are both super autistic. Quinn does not know this about himself. Boy You Gon' Learn. - His baby brother, Zeiran, is ~8 years younger than him and an Imperial Intelligence agent. They have not spoken since Druckenwell. - I am at least 95% sure I read the timeline right and Druckenwell/the battle of Rhen Var (Col. Rymar Quinn's death)/the Treaty of Coruscant happened in the same year. Please nobody tell me if I'm wrong. - Lord Venditor is my friend's OC! Unbeknownst to Quinn, he is a sad wet dog of a man.

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Turn It Up When You're Gone (2/2)

The conclusion... Or is it? Posting these has got my thots going again, so I may need to write another installment. UPDATE: I did it. Also, this chapter has one of my favorite lines I've ever written. Guess which one?

Rating: Mature/18+/Minors DNI

Pairing: Sev x Fem!Reader

Wordcount: 2.4k

Summary: Delta Squad is back on board your Star Destroyer, and Sev is determined to make up for lost time. Reader is about to learn that commandos do it better.

Warnings: SMUT; voice kink, praise kink, body worship, facef*cking (but not like you expect)

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Delta squad is back on the Guarlara two days later. You know this because they stroll casually into the mess while you’re eating breakfast. You almost stab yourself in the face with your fork when the one with the blood-red paint turns and looks right at you. Your eyes widen, and you can feel the heat rush to your cheeks.

“Girl, you good?” Jeelee asks, noticing your agitation.

“Yeah, I just—uh, I realized I need to—I forgot, um—” you stammer.

You can practically see Sev’s smirk behind his helmet. 

Cocky bastard.

“I need to stop by the, uh, med bay before my shift starts,” you finish lamely.

“Are you all right?” Drinna asks, concern evident in their wide eyes.

“Yeah,” you say. “Just, uh, lady problems.”

“What kind of lady problems?” Draa asks, confused.

Jeelee and Drinna send pitying glances at the clone trooper. 

“Sorry, was that too nosy?” the clone asks with a sheepish expression. “I just don’t have much experience, is all.”

“That’s okay, Draa,” you reassure him. “You should ask the medic to explain it.”

You excuse yourself and make a beeline out of the mess. You’ve listened to Sev’s recording more times than you care to admit, and you aren’t quite prepared to face him in front of an audience of dozens of clones—not to mention the coworkers who already know about your crush.

When you reach your workstation, your message indicator light is blinking.

“Tactical, this RC-1207. Any trouble with those feeds?”

You record a response. “No trouble, 1207. Everything came through loud and clear. If you want to run another diagnostic, be sure to do it after 2100 hours when the feeds update.”

There. That ought to do it. Subtle enough not to raise any eyebrows if anyone overhears, and obvious enough for him to figure it out.

---

When you return to your quarters promptly at 2100 hours, Sev is already waiting for you, helmet and gloves removed and resting on the floor. He stands up from his seat on the edge of your bunk as the door slides open to admit you. You step inside quickly and close the door.

“Hi,” you say. You sound nervous, even to yourself.

“Hi,” he replies.

You’ve had all day to think about this. For hours, your mind has tormented you with erotic fantasies, heating your skin and leaving you drenched and slippery. You have imagined Sev’s large hands touching you everywhere, his talented mouth drifting over your body as he tells you all the filthy, delicious things he wants to do to you, the fullness of his cock as he stretches you out.

But now that he’s here, in the flesh, in your space, you feel awkward. He’s a big man, even bigger in his armor, and the small room feels crowded with both of you inside. You aren’t sure what to say, or what to do with your hands. They’ve taken on a mind of their own, fluttering in front of you, fidgeting with your cuffs, and finally wrapping around your waist in a self-soothing embrace. Sev also seems unsure what to do, and it occurs to you that you’ve invited a total stranger into your bunk. 

“I’m Sev,” he says.

“I know,” you nod. “I heard on the feeds.”

“Should I just call you ‘tactical’?” he asks. “I want to make sure I’m yelling the right name all night.”

You laugh and tell him your name.

“Can I touch you?” he asks.

“Yes, please,” you whisper.

You expect him to go straight for the goods, so it’s a surprise when he takes your hand and draws it away from your body. He strokes his thumb across your skin, across your fingers, across your wrist.

“I knew you’d be soft. Even softer than I imagined,” he says with satisfaction. He presses his fingers to the pulse point on your wrist. “Your heart is racing, little one. Are you sure you want this?”

“I’m sure,” you say. You raise your free hand to trace the lines of his face, and he leans into the contact, closing his eyes. You wonder if he’s ever felt a gentle touch before. You brush your fingers over his skin. Intellectually, you have always known what he would look like, but now you take in all the small details that make him unique from his fellow clones. The scars, the faint lines around his eyes, the slightly longer-than-regulation hair, the prickly scruff of a beard that hasn’t been shaved in three cycles. Deep circles under his eyes betray his exhaustion, and you feel a momentary twinge of guilt at keeping him awake after a mission.

“Do—do you?” you ask. 

His mouth twists in a half smile. “It’s all I’ve thought about for the last three rotations. I want this.”

He presses his lips to your palm, and then he reaches for you, pulling you into his strong arms, capturing your mouth in a kiss. His duraplast armor is hard and cool against you, and you scramble for purchase against it. 

“You taste amazing,” he says against your lips. His tongue brushes against you, and you part your lips to let him in.

Oh, damn, he’s good. He kisses you with an intense, single-minded focus, as though you—your mouth, your lips, your tongue, your pleasure—are the only thing in the galaxy. There’s no awkward, over-enthusiastic tongue thrusting; just slow, skillful movement that pulls you in and steals your breath. His kiss leaves you lightheaded and unsteady, and you’re grateful for the way he cradles your body in his arms, keeping you from melting into a quivering heap at his feet.

“Kriff me, did they teach you to kiss like that in commando school?” you breathe.

“Yeah, we learned it after hostage extraction and before demolitions,” he says, deadpan.

You laugh again, and he looks very pleased with himself.

“They also taught us how to take off our armor in under a minute,” he says. “Want to see a demonstration?”

“Will you do a sexy dance while you show me?” you ask.

“That might slow me down,” he replies.

“In that case, skip the dance,” you say. “What’s your personal best time?”

“Thirty-nine seconds. I was motivated,” he says.

“And are you motivated now?” you ask.

“Time me and find out,” he suggests.

“I’d rather enjoy the show,” you say.

“Don’t blink,” he says with a smirk.

He strips off his armor. He works efficiently, and you watch with interest. You’ve never seen a clone go through the process before. He starts with his vambraces, works his way up his arms, then removes the cuirass and proceeds down his torso and legs. Each piece is stacked neatly as he removes it, and you suspect the habit is so ingrained in him that he couldn’t leave the duraplast in a messy pile if he tried.

“I think I shaved a couple seconds off my best time,” he says once he’s stripped down to his body glove.

You remember the way he tallies his kills on each mission.

“You’re very competitive, aren’t you?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “How many times did you make yourself come to that recording?”

Your skin heats, and you aren't sure if you're embarrassed, aroused, or both. “Why do you want to know?”

“Professional curiosity. Also, I want to know how many to aim for tonight.”

“Uh, six,” you confess.

“That’s only two per day,” he says. “I’ll have to do better with my next recording.”

“It was actually three the first night and only one on the second. I was tired,” you explain, a little defensively.

“I hope you’re rested up,” he says, tugging you into another searing kiss.

You slide your hands up his back, feeling the hard muscles shift beneath the black fabric of his body glove. The man is massive, built like a tank, and if the bulge you feel pressing against your belly is what you think it is, he is proportionate all the way down. You grind your pelvis against him experimentally, and in response, he crowds you against the wall, growling into your mouth. 

Actually growling. Maker save you.

His hands settle on your hips as he pulls you against him. Yep, definitely proportionate, you think.

His kisses are hot and frantic now, and his hands roam possessively over your body. He moves his mouth along your jaw, down your neck, next to your ear. His warm breath whispers across your skin, leaving a thrill of arousal in its wake.

“Do you know how hard it is to stay focused on the mission when all I can think about is you, fucking yourself to my voice?”

“Tell me,” you gasp, needing to hear those obscene words from him.

“Almost got nailed by a vulture droid ‘cause I was thinking about these tits.” He slides his hand up the rough wool of your uniform to palm your breast. “Oh, kark, that’s good. So fuckin’ good. Let me see you.”

You start to unzip your uniform jacket, but Sev is impatient. He yanks the zipper down and shoves the jacket off your arms.

“How many kriffing layers are you wearing?” he demands.

“Only three more,” you laugh. “Let me help.”

You unbutton and remove your uniform blouse, then slip your undershirt off over your head and unclasp your bra as Sev unzips your trousers and tugs them down.

“Finally,” he says when you are fully bare. “Stars, look at you. Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He trails his hands reverently across your skin. His fingertips are rough and calloused, but they touch you with an aching tenderness that leaves you breathless. He drops to his knees, bringing his head level with your chest, and draws you to his mouth. The sensation is overwhelming. His busy hands touch you everywhere: fondling your breasts, sliding up the inside of your thigh to squeeze your ass, brushing across your clitoris to feel the dampness gathering there.

“Sev,” you breathe as he sucks your nipple into his mouth. His lips tug insistently as his tongue swirls over you again and again, and your body thrums in response.

“Fucking perfect tits,” he mumbles against you. “Even better than I thought. So soft. You look so good in my hands.”

You look down to see his large, brown hand on your breast, your flesh spilling out between his fingers as he squeezes you gently.

“You can be rougher with me,” you whisper, “if you want.”

His dark eyes snap to yours, and he pinches your nipple experimentally. Pleasure shoots through you, and you gasp, your head dropping backward to lean against the cold durasteel walls.

“Like this?” he asks, sucking your nipple into his mouth and grazing it with his teeth.

“Yes!” you hiss. “Harder!”

He groans and does as you order, finally giving you the intense stimulation you crave.

“Oh fuck, yes, just like that, don’t stop, keep going,” you chant.

His clever mouth is doing unspeakable things to you. Kissing, sucking, biting, teasing, worshiping. You are stunned to feel your orgasm building, and you wonder if it is possible for you to come like this. The tension draws tighter and tighter, but you need more. 

Sev releases your breast and kisses down your belly. He pauses when he reaches your hip, working over you with excruciating thoroughness. 

“Kark, I’ve been wanting to do this for weeks,” he says, his voice even deeper than usual. “I wanted you the first time I saw you.” He presses a hard, open-mouth kiss onto your hip bone, and his tongue flicks across your skin. “Jerked my cock to you every time I took a shower. I made myself come so many times imagining this beautiful little cunt.” 

He is still playing with your breast with one hand, squeezing and pinching and rolling your nipple between his fingers. His other hand grasps your ass roughly, digging his fingers into your flesh. His kisses are brutal, hovering on the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain, leaving a stinging trail as he makes his way slowly—so agonizingly slowly—across your pelvis.

And gods, it’s so much. It’s too much, and you can’t stand it any more. You grab his head and shove him against your pussy, and his tongue flicks out to slide between your labia and swirl over your clitoris, and fuck that’s it right there just like that—fuck! Your orgasm takes you by surprise, slamming into you, wrenching his name from your throat in a ragged cry. Your hips buck against Sev’s face, and you would feel bad for using him like this, but he’s grunting with pleasure, and his mouth is on you and his tongue is inside you, and he’s grabbing your ass to pull you even harder against him as you fuck his face, and then your legs give out, and he catches you, supporting your weight with his strong arms as he sucks your clit into his mouth until he wrings out the last tremors of your orgasm, and then he eases you down the durasteel wall to rest on his thighs.

Your lungs heave for oxygen, and your forehead drops to rest on his shoulder. He’s still wearing his body glove, and the fabric is soft against your face. He wraps his arms around you, stroking the back of your head as he whispers the sweetest words in your ear: so good for me, so beautiful, taste so sweet, so pretty when you come, love to watch you lose control, so fucking sexy.

You roll your head to face him, burying yourself against his neck. He smells like salt and skin and battlefield smoke and bacta, and your tongue darts out to taste him, drawing a rumble of pleasure from his chest.

“Did I hurt you?” you ask.

He lets out a single, short laugh. “No, babygirl. You could fuck me into the ground, and I’d thank you for giving me a warrior’s death.”

You can feel his erection pressing against you, and you slide your hand down his body to stroke his length through the thin fabric of his body glove.

“In that case, I should probably take care of this,” you murmur. “Can’t fuck all night if we don’t start early.”

---

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Tagging: @blueink-bluesoul

[midwestbramble]

Trance States for Spirit Flight

Trance states are used in a lot of witchcraft practices, but especially those for spirit flight. This post will look at how these states translate in brain waves and what we are trying to achieve in our brains to accomplish our goal of spirit flight. Once we have an understanding of the feeling we are looking for it will be easier to use our techniques to get ourselves there.

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Content:

Brain Waves for Trance States

Tips for ADHD

Conclusion

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Brain Waves for Trance States

According to Introduction to EEG- and Speech-Based Emotion Recogintion, brain waves are "oscillating electrical voltages in the brain measuring just a few millionths of a volt." It goes on to say that the brain can give off more than one type of brain wave at a time and that each individual brain has different patterns that the five brain wave states could appear at. So one persons wave pattern for gamma would be different to another persons wave pattern for gamma.

The five brain wave states are:

Gamma (32 - 100 Hz)

The state in which concentration and problem-solving are achieved. It is associated with enlightenment as some Tibetan monks and Indian Yogi's are able to display it while meditating (Auryn, pg. 15). It happens during creative expression and our brain processes and recalls incredible amounts of information while in gamma (Orapello, Pg. 205-206).

Beta (16 - 31 Hz)

When we have a busy or active mind. This is the most common brain wave state, all others are considered trance states. This occurs when we are awake, alert, and concentrating (Auryn, pg. 15).

Alpha (8 - 15 Hz)

When our mind is at rest and reflective. This can happen when we are meditating, visualizing, or learning. It has access to the subconscious mind and is most associated with psychic ability as well as being linked to hypnosis (Auryn, pg. 15). Some believe this is the proper state for magic; and ritual, dancing, chanting, and grounding and centering happen to be perfect catalysts for inducing it. Alpha also improves our memory, which allows inspiration and clarity of thought (Orapello, pg. 61).

Theta (4 - 7 Hz)

When we are drowsy and close to sleep. It is also associated with light sleep, deep meditation, deep dreaming, vivid imagery, and high levels of inner awareness. We become completely unware of the external world while in this state (Auryn, pg. 15). In theta, we have one foot on either side of consciousness and are ripe for possession or aspecting (such as drawing down the goddess) (Orapello, pg. 204). This is the state we want to access for spirit flight.

Delta (0 - 3 Hz)

This occurs during deep dreamless sleep and the deepest states of meditation. During this time our bodies and minds do most of their healing and regeneration (Auryn, pg. 15). This occurs just before REM sleep.

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Tips for ADHD

I myself have ADHD so these tips will come from my own experience, though I have some links that may be helpful in my references found below. Also keep in mind, I am currently unmedicated due to personal issues. Mileage may vary.

The main goal we are trying to achieve is extreme relaxation. So lucky for us, ADHDers is that we aren't looking to concentrate necessarily. Yes we have a goal we are trying to achieve, but the more we TRY the harder it will be to actually achieve. We need to practice mentally letting go.

Meditation

For me, a basic meditation practice has helped tremendously. This was suggested to me by a therapist I was seeing in college. This isn't guided though I've found using apps that have timed meditations helps me properly gauge timing without having to think about it, they have a nice little chime at the end too. A meditation that has you simply separate yourself from your thoughts, observe them, and then let them pass by can be difficult for those with ADHD... at first. I struggled with letting a thought pass by without going down several different paths of thought. But with practice, and being kind to myself when I would catch it, eventually exercised my brain muscle to the point it became easier and easier. I would do this for 10 minutes a day (life has been crazy, I should make time for this again I can tell the difference).

Movement and Music

For those of us that don't just have a hyper mind but also a hyper body, swaying gently and creating a sensation of being rocked by waves can help keep the jitters away. Doing some physical activity before hand such as running can keep away the bigger bursts or energy, or dancing is a great way to enter a relaxed and exhausted trance state if that's something you enjoy doing. In fact, lyric-less music can be a great way to keep your focus. I personally, find music with lyrics to be distracting. I end up getting taken away with the story of the song rather then paying attention to my goal. There are many instrumental playlists on Spotify and YouTube that can fit with a witchy aesthetic (which can help keep from getting distracted). Movements tend to stop once the spirit has left the body, though a light sway may continue.

Visual Distractions

If you're not using the dance method, keeping your eyes closed while using the techniques in posts to follow can help to avoid visual distractions. Our minds tend to be louder in the dark, so the meditation advice above could be useful as an exercise to help with that. Or if you have a therapist you can brainstorm other ways to quiet the mind with them as well. If you're into art or tarot/oracle cards, there are also some interesting techniques allowing you to travel through the cards imagery (I suggest the book "A Broom at Midnight" by Roger J. Horne for more details). Though this technique may only work for those who have these as a hyperfocus or have already trained their brain to quiet.

Stims

Stims tend to be more associated with autism (and thus these tips may work for them as well), though I find that ADHD can provide some as well. If you tend to vocal stim, try chanting or intoning. It doesn't have to be words if you find that too distracting. If you have a common vocal stim, you can add that into a rhythmic chant or tone. If there's something you do with your hands, try to make a rhythmic display with it by flicking it out at certain intervals or adding it to part of a swaying sensation. Whatever makes sense for your personal stim. Just as with the movement section above, this may stop once the spirit has left the body. If you find that you bring yourself back too soon once you have left the body due to a stim, be kind to yourself first. It's ok. Stims can happen due to stress and overstimulation (good or bad) and I consider it a way of my body continuing to protect me. Something happened (good or bad) that I should process. If you left in the middle of a conversation with a spirit, you can give an offering to that spirit if you feel it is appropriate.

If I missed anything you struggle with due to ADHD, feel free to reach out. I'm not an expert but I could also be missing something here that I've experienced as well. If I don't have an answer, I will try to help you find one.

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Conclusion

Our brains are constantly cycling through trance stats every day. Learning to control which state we are in can help us with our magic and our spirit flight. But not all brains are the same. Hopefully these tips help those who are struggling, and understanding what we are trying to achieve helps those who don't know what to look for.

References:

Psychic Witch by Mat Auryn

Besom, Stang, and Sword by Christopher Orapello and Tara Love Maguire

Clinical Application of Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation: A Preliminary Study in Children with ADHD

How to Focus With ADHD

The Influence of Music on Concentration in individuals with ADHD

[be-co-me]

Trigonometry Trouble

Bokuto Koutarou

A/N: There's some confusing math involved, but I hope I explained it well!

2.2k Words

Summary: The out of your league volleyball captain needs your help with math, and in exchange, teaches you a thing or two in return.

...

You tended to stick to yourself in classes, only talking to others when it was necessary for a group project or whatever you had to do. So it came as a surprise when the hotshot of the volleyball team wanted to talk to you. You didn't dislike him, in fact, he seemed like a very happy-go-lucky person that didn't have a problem with the world. Except for trigonometry that is...

"Hey, smarty." you heard, not thinking you were being talked to.

"Smarty. Hey." he repeated. You felt a nudge on your shoulder with what felt like the eraser of a pencil coming from the left of you. You looked up and met eyes with him.

"You understand this stuff right? I'm so bad at math." he confessed, brushing his hand through his hair and laughing nervously. You kinda felt bad for the guy. In order to stay in sports, your grades had to be immaculate. You couldn't really afford to get a bad grade in any class.

"Yeah. Trigonometry is honestly my best subject in math. Why? Are you having trouble understanding?" you asked, leaning over to peer at his paper. Not one answer or equation was written out, but only remnants of the messed-up equations were faded into the paper.

It was practically a free period where you could finish your homework in class, so you decided you would help him with his paper as you were almost done anyways. You scooted your desk closer to his so it was easier to see what he was doing.

"Okay. Let me draw a model for you. It might make it easier to visualize what's happening." you said, drawing a triangle on the corner of his paper and labeling the different sides and angles.

"So the way I learned it the easiest was in forensic science. Like crime scene stuff you know?" you asked him. He nodded in response.

"What part of it?" he asked.

"The blood part. Blood spatter analysis. It's essentially taking the angles of each drop of blood and seeing where they meet together to find the point of impact. So let's say a person gets shot right here," you said, pointing to a corner of the room, his sight following yours. "There would be spatters of blood right?" you asked. He nodded once again.

"So you have to measure all of those to see where the victim and where the perpetrator was when the victim was shot, which can uncover quite a lot about a crime scene, but that's not the point. We're just pretending to measure the spatters." you said.

He paid attention closely as you explained how to measure blood spatter using a right triangle and trigonometry. He seemed to be understanding okay. You then took the first problem on the paper and drew it out as if it was a blood spatter. 

"Okay, so the way I would explain this since we are finding the height, your angle is 60º, right? And the drop was found 14 feet away from the source. Find the height that the blood drop fell from. Remember the height is the opposite, and the feet is the adjacent, so the tangent of 60º equals the opposite over 14 feet." you said. He nodded, slowly but surely, getting to work.

After a couple of minutes, he looked up, excited he possibly even came to a conclusion on the answer. You viewed his answer and your eyes widened slightly at seeing it was correct. You truly didn't think that explaining it in the way you did would make it any easier on him but it did.

"Sooooo... Break the news. Did I get it right?" he asked. You looked back up at him and he nervously awaited your answer. You analyzed the work he did one more time and nodded.

"Yeah! Great job! Now just take the rest of the problems and put them into the equation like that. Makes it a lot easier to find. You must be a visual learner." you said, turning to finish the last problem on your own paper.

"Yes! I wish more people could understand that." he said. You continued on with class, pulling out a book to read on while the time passed. Once the bell rang, signaling your school day was over with, you gathered your belongings preparing to leave.

"Hey, smartie pants." you heard Bokuto say. You looked up at him, curious as to what he needed. "Do you have any plans right now?" he asked. You shook your head. You had already finished your homework for your classes and just planned to watch TV the rest of the evening.

"Nope. Nothing that comes to mind." you replied, shrugging your shoulders.

"Well, it's my off day from practice and... if you don't care to, I really need some more help with homework. Would you care to tutor me for a little bit?" he asked. Your heart fluttered with excitement. Out of all the people he could ask, he asked you. Maybe the rest of his volleyball friends sucked at math too and couldn't help... Or you could help them too...

"Yeah! I don't mind. But in exchange for tutoring you, I would like to learn a little bit about playing volleyball. All I do after classes is sit in my dorm and watch TV so I've been wanting to join a club, especially since I used to play sports I thought it would be nice to do something different." you said. 

"Sounds like a plan! Now how's the cafeteria sound? We could get some coffee and hopefully, I won't fail this exam." he responded.

"You won't fail if I'm the one teaching you and you work hard." you said. You made your way to the cafeteria and ordered some coffees. He was nice enough to pay for yours as well. It kind of made you feel bad. People didn't buy things for you and you were used to paying for your own things, but he insisted.

For the next few hours, you taught him about not only trigonometry, but some of the other subjects he said he was having trouble in. The sun had already set. This was probably the most fun you had in a while. You didn't have a roommate in your dorm and not too many friends, so even if this was a one-time thing, it was still a good break from the usual.

"Well, thanks for all your help! Now it's my turn to teach you about volleyball!" he said. His homework was now finished for all of his classes and you honestly wanted to find a good excuse to keep on hanging out with him. 

You weren't wearing the most ideal clothing to play volleyball in, but you weren't about to turn his offer down.

"Can we play with only two people?" you asked.

"We can practice some beginner stuff, but if you really wanna play and see how it's done. I might be able to gather some people to play last minute." he said, muttering about how they don't have lives anyways. He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed a number, putting the phone to his ear. He paused for a second.

"Hey Akaashi, whatcha doing? Are you down for some volleyball tonight? The guys too? I've got a noob that wants to learn how to play." he said, throwing a smile your way. You smiled back, a little embarrassed. You knew the school's team was good. Especially Bokuto as one of the top ace positions in the nation. It felt surreal to be studying and goofing around with him.

"Alright. They said they wouldn't mind playing some tonight! The more practice the better." he said. He stood, throwing his bag over his shoulder. "You ready?" he asked. You nodded in response.

You made your way to the gym and once you walked inside, you looked around in awe. You never realized how big this gym actually was. It looked quite small from the outside. You followed him and set your bag and jacket down next to his own. He grabbed a volleyball and began explaining some basics to you. Then he began passing the ball to you. How to receive it, set it, spike it. Even serving. 

You stood behind the line, ready to try and hit a serve over the net. You opted for the underhand serve as that's what seemed would get the ball over the net for you personally. You didn't think you would have the strength to get an overhand serve over.

"Remember what I showed you and just go for it!" he said. You nodded, taking a deep breath and getting into position, then hitting the ball. He made it look so easy. You watched nervously and it barely went over the net but made it. You turned around to him, jumping and smiling. He high-fived you at your success.

"Wanna try and set the ball to me now?" he asked. You nodded eagerly. This was a lot of fun and you never wanted this day to end, so of course you did. You weren't great at first but began getting the movement correct. You finally set the ball close to perfectly and watching him spike it felt like one of the most amazing things you had ever witnessed. Sure, you'd seen them play games a couple of times, but seeing it up close, it was like nothing could compare.

"That was amazing!!" he shouted, jumping around in victory for your correct set. You smiled, laughing a little bit.

You heard the gym door creak open and looked over. A group of unfamiliar faces walked in, and you realized it was some of his teammates. He introduced you to the small group and you began trying to play with them. They were all really good and even then you could tell they were taking it easier on you since you were new.

"How about a three on three? We've got enough people." Bokuto offered. You nodded along with the others. They were all warmed up now. You were on a team with Bokuto and his friend Akaashi. You started off in the back, receiving and you assumed Bokuto was going to be the spiker and Akaashi the setter.

The other team started off serving and you got ready for it. You needed the ball to go to Akaashi. The ball bounced off your forearms, making its way to Akaashi's general direction. It wasn't great, but hey, you were a beginner. It was good enough for you and definitely good enough for them to recover. 

You sat back for a second and watched Akaashi set the ball to Bokuto and then he spiked it down. It looked surreal. It was now your turn to serve. Maybe you could pull off another one like you had done earlier. You made your way behind the back line of the court, standing right off of it, remembering everything Bokuto had taught you. You held your breath, then let it out.

"Get a good serve (Y/N)!" Bokuto shouted. You smiled, nodding.

You then hit the ball, watching it in hopes that it would go over the net. It hit the top of the net, then tipped over. You cheered, coming back onto the court. This was amazing. You were actually doing decently. You loved it.

This continued on until your team beat the other. Of course with one of the best setter/spiker duos in the nation, you weren't surprised. Everyone began packing their things, sitting for a second to cool down. 

"Want me to walk you to your dorm?" Bokuto questioned.

"You don't have to. You've already done so much." you replied. He really had. This totally beat sitting at home and watching TV all afternoon. 

"Nah. I'll walk you there. It's dark outside." he responded. You smiled and nodded, grabbing your packed belongings and making your way there. You wouldn't turn down hanging out with him longer if he insisted on it.

Once you arrived, you didn't know what to say. You had so much fun and never wanted it to end.

"Soooo... I wanna do this again. Today was really fun. You made math tolerable. No! School in general." he said. He ran his hand through his hair again, laughing. He must do that when he's nervous.

"Me too! How about next week?" you asked, hopeful you could play again soon.

"That sounds perfect." he responded, his hand coming back to his side.

"Let me give you my number. Gotta have a way to communicate." you said. He took his phone out of his pocket, handing it to you. You typed in your number and gave the phone back to him. He smiled, putting it into his pocket.

"I'll text you when I get home." he said, a big smile across his face. You couldn't help but to also smile. 

"Well, till trigonometry next week." you said. He nodded, turning with a wave. You waved back, opening your door and going inside. You did a little victory dance. He was amazing.

Who would have known a simple trigonometry question could blossom into a friendship? (And possibly more...)

[nonbinarydeity]

"Why isn't it manifesting?"

I want to start off by saying that this is a 100% valid question, and asking it can be a part of the process for many people. It does NOT hinder your progress, it's only natural to doubt and question things 💙

Instant results, the "gold standard"

If you've been in this community for a while, you've probably come across a few success stories, especially the ones where people got their results "overnight" or "in the blink of an eye". While this is more than possible to do on the first try, there's most likely a whole lot more to their story than just their success. Each of these people likely faced a lot of challenges along the way, before they finally found what worked for them. They manifested instantly, but they had an entire journey beforehand, and that's the part you don't usually see. It can be extremely discouraging to watch someone get their results instantly while you don't have yours, and that's perfectly natural. Just remember that they started off where you are now, and you can get there too! All you need is a little practice.

The main reason I "failed"

A lot of people in this community have the idea that if you say you failed, then you're ruining the process and have to start over. I believed this for quite a while, but doubting is natural, and it's okay to think you failed but to try again. Failure is not a bad thing, it is merely providing you with insight on what works for you and what doesn't.

Insight is the key word here. It's extremely easy to get so caught up in other people's opinions that you forget to have your own, and this was my biggest downfall. I was practicing manifestation, but every time I "failed," I would give up and look to others for a new method. If this sounds like you, read what I'm going to say next very carefully:

All of the answers you seek are within you

It sounds odd, but your mind contains all of the knowledge you need to get through this journey on your own, without any help from strangers on the internet. All you need are the basics (you create your reality in any way you desire, everything is possible), and you can form your own methods and draw your own conclusions from there. There's nothing wrong with wanting to understand what you're doing, but only you can provide yourself a fulfilling explanation of what manifestation is, because you shape the rules to your liking.

Practice makes perfect

I want you to try a few tests for me. On your own, manifest seeing a butterfly, a specific color, and a specific word. When you're manifesting things that you perceive as easy, you tend to stray from all the methods presented in this community, and instead do your own thing. This is the basis for making your own methods. You have to do what is natural for you, not what everyone else says. The moment you start straying from what's comfortable you you, you've already stopped making progress towards your goals.

This process can take some time to learn, which means that you have to practice to get it to the point where you can do it instantly. Go through your day and manifest whatever you'd like, but sprinkle in some easier manifestations to help reaffirm that you CAN do this, it's easy, and it's natural. The more you practice, the more you'll believe, and the easier every single manifestation will become. Each manifestation is as easy as the other, but desaturating your mind from your old beliefs can be difficult, and so it's important to build up your trust in yourself.

Persisting is the key to success

When I talk about persisting, I'm referring specifically to persisting in your practice. This process can be instant, and you can train yourself to manifest instantly if you put in the work and practice. You have to keep building up trust in your abilities, to the point that things that once seemed impossible seem possible to you. You have to learn to put yourself above the reality around you, because your reality can and will change from you 💙