#it’d be such a grim fate for them

[softer-ua]

What would happen if someone with a mutation quirk got hit by a quirk canceling bullet?

Like when Ojiro’s tail start suffering from necrosis as his body is no longer able to produce the signals required to tell his cells to reproduce?

Would he still be able to move it, like the neural pathways already exist, but i guess they’d get weaker as his nerons died off?

Unlike Mirio there’s no waiting around hoping for a cure, best case scenario is Eri rewinding the damage so he’s at peak health for when they’d have to amputate it

What about Tokoyami, how much bird is he? Would he just stop producing feathers, and if they amputate his beak would he be okay? Like his teeth and tongue are in rooted in his beak but maybe there’s enough of a clear divide that with early intervention they could give him a false beak and he can keep his teeth?

Is Dark Shadow intertwined with his inner organs, and what happens to Dark Shadow, he just ceases existing?

Accepting Dark Shadows existence just as it is is one thing, but trying to conceptualize the loss of your conjoined twin/pet thing that never truly held corporal form is another

Koda, Shoji, and Tsu would definitely go into total organ failure as their bodies fall apart completely, like Eri and Recovery Girl would have try to restore them every few hours just to keep alive

Especially Tsu, she’s got a neruo toxin flowing through her that her body can no longer neutralize on top of everything else

[mooishbeam]

『♡』 Rises the Moon

♡ featuring: dan heng IL x f!reader

♡ summary: you help dan heng work through his heat cycle wc: 3.1k+

♡ cw/tw: canon-divergent, breeding, praise, kinda sad but wholesome, monster-fucking, heat cycle, blowjob, cunnilingus, mentions of blood, biting

notes: super canon divergent ik vidyadhara can't have kids but ahhh dan heng breed brainrot :P ruahh I need that lc

Cracked from a shimmering pearl into the cold deception of a ship no longer home, that damned his ill-fated legacy. A lonely forgone dragon wanders a lifetime in purgatory, searching for hands to follow, for he was reborn into the dead silence of solitude. He stretched his inhuman heart as far as it could reach, enough for anyone to hold. But it twisted and tangled in thorns, cradled by serpents' eyes that prayed for his ruin. In brief moments of rest, his visions were suffocated with catastrophic destruction unbeknownst to the reincarnate. When he was eventually released, no one turned for him; a trail of fire he would have to walk alone, bleeding for repentance until his sin was permanently consumed by the collapsing universe.  

A race cursed to live forever rarely knew joy or love to its full extent, as all things mortal would return to the ground beneath them. It wasn’t worth the attachment, nor the deserved doom of a man denied salvation. 

Your arrival at the space station upturned his perception. He wasn’t sure why he yearned to be near you, why his senses craved your smell and sight. He had to distance himself from you as much as possible, but the melody of your pure voice stored a rhythm in his core that could not be removed. He lamented the blooming affection in his discernment. Often lying awake at night, struggling to satiate the urges. 

To you, he was Dan Heng. The solemn, headstrong friend that seldom spoke in your presence. Your favorite pastime was playful banter; he rarely smiled, but it pulled at your heartstrings when the corners of his lips slightly lifted. When he picked at his food, you went out of your way to find out what he preferred and arranged your meals around his. You spent almost all of your time on the parlor car. That isn’t to say you weren’t interested in adventuring, you frequently noted the prettiest gems March showed you during their trips. You asked Dan about the stuff he enjoyed, but it’d usually amount to “I was too focused on staying alive to take in the scenery.” You recall entering your room after their return and noticed an iron scrap flower sitting on your windowsill. Dan nonchalantly admitted to the act, mentioning how he overheard your liking for metallic constructs. You originally thought this was simply an extension of your friendship, but the burning ache in your body spoke otherwise. The little things he did, such as bringing small gifts or ingredients for you to experiment with made you seek that numbed heart, imprisoned in ice. 

Himeko joked about your sour mood whenever Dan Heng was gone. You read while she stared at you, amused by the pout on your face. “Hmm, your boy toy is missing. Feeling down?” Your head shot up, ears hot from the assumption.  

“W-what? No, of course not. We’re friends, Himeko.” you panicked. She softly giggled. 

“Don’t worry. They’re coming back soon.” You peeked up from the pages. 

“...When?” you mumbled. “A few days. Now you can stop being so sad.” 

You were ecstatic when they arrived, ready to hear about their grueling journey, and more so happy to see Dan Heng. As March relived her storytelling, you observed him. He seemed to be in a trance. His expression was the same as always, but he felt disconnected from you, like he discerned a grim future. He didn’t come to dinner and went to sleep. When you asked March if something happened, she shifted uncomfortably but finally spoke.  

“Dan Heng...he changed on the Xianzhou Luofu.” She’d conveniently left out most of the story. 

“What do you mean ‘changed’?” you questioned, finding it hard to mask your worries. “He had horns and... It was all really new. I kinda wanna forget about it, too.” You didn’t pressure her for more information, and she went to her room shortly after.  You tossed in your sleep, wondering what he must’ve gone through, and what you could do to help him. 

You awoke in an inky blue void, the stars cascading a brilliant aura across the night. There were no other planets visible; only the vast moon, a divinely warm glow, alluring and protective in your gaze. Heavenly bodies carried infinitely above, shaping the moon in its godlike image. You stood in a comparatively small pool of iridescent liquid that waterfalled off each side. It marbled from refracted shimmers, cool to the touch. Somehow life emerged in the barren quiet, white lotus’ decorating most of the area. They never spilled down the stream, as if they'd been waiting. In said pool, was a man with elvish ears and gleaming horns, kneeling turned away from you. His pale arms were shackled behind him, and his delicate hair cascaded down his naked back. If you listened closely, you could hear the faint sobs he tried to stifle. You wanted to comfort him, to calm his nerves. You took a step, and he stopped. He didn’t acknowledge you. You took another step, your hand wishing to touch him. Before you could, you phased out of your dream.  

For the next two weeks, he didn’t leave his room. Not when you were around. At the same time, this reoccurring dream was plaguing your thoughts. It ended the same way each time. March aimed to console you, but you felt she knew more than she led on. Fatigued from your restless mind, you decide to talk to Himeko instead. She stirs her drink while Welt reads the paper. 

“Good morning, (Y/N).” said Welt. 

“Good...morning.” you yawned, rubbing your worsening eyebags. 

“You don’t seem okay. Is everything alright?” Himeko asks, motioning for you to sit beside her. 

“Something is wrong with Dan Heng and March isn’t telling me everything. I was hoping you would.” Welt clears his throat, sets the paper on the table and walks away. Himeko puts her hand on your knee. 

“He’s feeling unwell right now. It’s best we don’t disturb him.” 

“I’ve been having this weird dream, of a guy with horns. He’s crying. And I can’t save him. What does this mean? Why is everyone keeping this from me?” Alarm flashes in her expression, but she composes herself. She sucks in a deep breath. “Do you know what a Vidyadhara is?”  

“No.” 

“Vidyadhara descended from dragons, and they’re very powerful. Dan Heng is a special case of Vidyadhara, so we must treat him as such.” 

“So why can’t I see him?”  

“It’s important that we avoid him while he’s in the process of...getting through this.” 

“But someone has to check on him, right? I could be the one to do it-” 

“(Y/N). Dan Heng requested specifically, that I don’t allow you to see him.” You felt your heart pierce. You believed you were friends with him, so why was he forcing you away? “Oh. Okay.” you said meekly. You went back to your room to contemplate. 

 You were a ghost throughout the day, serving food in silence. When the crew went to bed you prepared a hearty soup to soothe whatever illness he had. He’d probably reject it, but the selfish side wanted to know why he was upset with you. Even if he didn’t have an answer, perhaps his voice would be adequate. Arriving at his door, you knock twice gently. 

“I have some soup for you. Himeko said you were feeling ill. I won’t disrupt you, just want to make sure you’re eating.” He said nothing. “If you’re not hungry, let me know and I can store it for tomorrow. You can’t get better on an empty stomach.” You hear rustling inside, but he still said nothing. 

“Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry if I did.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, but I need you to go away.” His voice is feeble, and it scares you. 

“Can I please leave this on your desk? I’ll go away right after, I promise.” You 're practically begging, but you need to see him and know he’s okay. Dan Heng’s weakening mindset rationalizes his risky judgement, and he allows you to come in. He should be able to defend you from himself with the strength he has left; there’s no other choice. “Okay.” 

When you open the door, you’re horrified at the state. Books and precious documents were strewn across the floor or shredded, along with most of the blankets. He’s hunched over on the futon clenching his abdomen, strands of hair sticking to his shiny forehead and puffy lips. He was in a form you've never seen, dressed in elegance in contrast to his shaking figure. The clothes were disheveled, however, the window on his top ripped down the middle, exposing the muscular torso underneath with his pants pulled just under his v-line. He's flushed and sweating, a look in his eyes that both terrifies and excites you. What was most shocking were the pointy ears and horns protruding from his head. The same ones from your dream. He tracks you as you walk to his desk. He’s undoubtedly weak, and yet you feel hunted. You set the soup down. 

“Shouldn’t you ask Bailu about this?” 

“I did already. There’s nothing she can do. I have to wait.” You get on your knees next to him, and he recoils from your proximity. 

“Wait for what?” 

“I'm hot all over, all the time. Nothing I do works, even when I feel good it’s not enough.” he rasps. His eyes are shut in an attempt to null the intense sensation blazing in his veins. You ultimately realize what he means and regret your cluelessness. Still, you don’t leave, deconstructing his resolve. Suddenly, Dan Heng feels the tender press of your palm to his forehead; the touch of someone he could recognize in different timelines and different bodies. The scent of morning dew at early sunrise, the light in its darkness, bitter and sweet and persistent. He punished the thought of ravaging you, but the incessant thump of his member was staggering. He grabs your wrist tight, a guilty look in his eyes. 

“I can’t control myself. Go. Now” he shouts. His anger doesn’t scare you, and your other hand caresses his cheek. 

“Does it hurt? I can help you.” Dan Heng’s frozen as your fingers travel down his Adam's apple, then his chest, to the hem of his bottoms. He’s on his back taking deep labored breaths, the print growing from your airy brushes. 

“I don’t want you to be in pain anymore.” 

You spring his cock free, and it bounces into your hand. It’s thick and almost twelve inches, a rosy-brown gradient to the mushroom tip. His veins dance around the rounded spikes lining up his shaft on both sides. A frustrated sigh leaves him, beads of pre come dripping down his balls. You lubricate your hands with his slick and start to slowly pump him. His head is spinning, the intoxicating ecstasy makes him rut his hips and bite his blushed lips. You fondle his balls with one hand while massaging the tip with the other. Whimpers echo pleasantly in your ears, and he can’t stop watching you, drinking up your shy glances. It twitches in your hold; you can feel how close he is. He’s falling apart because of you and your dampened underwear accepts it. You push your thumb in his mouth and part it to reveal excessive drool and sharp canines.  

“Do you like it?” you tease. He makes noise resembling an “uh huh” through teary eyes. 

“You wanna come?” He quivers from the question. He can only manage a moan. You move to his base, and you slaver at the daunting size before running your tongue along the urethra and taking him in your mouth. He throws his head back but tries to restrain himself from bucking into you. You can barely get it halfway as his cockhead kisses the back of your throat. You hollow your cheeks and start bobbing your head, he trembles from unconstrained pleasure.  

“Please, I’ll do anything please let me come” he whines, tears spilling down his cheeks. You move your hands with the suction along his gradually noisy whimpers, the occasional gag from sloppy grinding. 

“Ah, ‘m gonna come-” he chokes, his chest hitched rapidly, spurting ropes that flood your throat. He rides the wave against you until you pull up. When you meet with him again, his demeanor changes. He instantly snatches you into his arms and smothers his nose in your stomach. He tears your clothes off impatiently, just to taste your bare skin. “Dan-” 

“You smell so good. Aeons, why do you smell so good.” He gazes at you darkly, littering wet kisses across your stomach and chest. His slender hands grope and explore anything they can reach. It was like he had a burst of energy; he nearly lifts you off his lap. You notice his horns get progressively longer, a dim radiance outlining them. His nails grew too, they dragged light scratches over your breasts to your hips. He pulls you to him, lips barely hovering before they collide into a deep, passionate exchange. Unspoken words allow teeth and tongue to mix, and you moan into each other. The pheromones hugging his consciousness are addictive, he needs more of it. He promptly flips you on your back, his eyes look down on you with a starving glint. 

“I’m hungry now.” 

“Oh sure, I can warm up the-” 

“No. Let me eat you.” His statement was more of a demand than a request, as he mangles your panties down your legs. He forces your thighs back and appreciates the glistening sticky folds. “Stunning” he purrs. He licks a flat strip to your clit and laps up your juices, then envelops his mouth in your heat. His firm squeeze prevents you from escaping the determined pink muscle, swirling and twisting around you. He switches between French kisses to your vulva and merciless sucking on the erect bud. He’d rather drown in you than catch his breath, your essence covers his jaw and chin. You card your fingers through his scalp and accidentally sweep his horns; he shudders. You rub the pad of your thumb on it, earning a strangled whimper. His tongue sinks into your passage and begins to move at a brutal pace. You tease the sensitivity in his horns, flicking and circling them. The vibrations from his moans rock against your walls and your hips stutter. “Ah- I’m close” you plead. He stimulates your clit, and you pulse around him before your back arches, and you unwind. His mouth is stitched to you as you try to wriggle out of his grasp. He continues to devour your climax. He hoists your lower half off the ground, savoring your honeyed desire, laughing from your overstimulated cries. You’re spasming and feel your heart racing in your ears. He stops at the approaching precipice and lays you down. Balmy kisses dot your knees. 

“Please Dan Heng, more” you beg. 

“(Y/N), I don’t want to hurt you.” He's throbbing, and he straightens your legs to roll his hips between your thighs. The plush fat cuddles his cock and he pants. You grab his hand. 

“It’s okay, I’m yours. I know you don’t mean to hurt me.” 

“But-” 

“I love you” you blurt out. “Please, I want to have this with you. I can handle it, I promise.” Your vulnerability surprises you, and he stops. 

“You...love me?” he questions. For a split second, you see sadness and despair. No one stood to consider an exile incapable of love, but you did. No one bothered to defrost the drifting hollow, but you did. The undying weeps. 

“I love you. I would destroy every star and planet in your name. Carve your worth into the cosmos so that even Fuli could worship your memory. I am yours in its entirety, and I’ll only live for you.” You wipe the tears as they come down and kiss his troubles away. 

“I want you inside me” you whisper. He stands and scoops you up, his hands on your ass and your arms around his neck. He aligns his tip with your sex and lowers you into the plunge. The stretching blaze of your walls accommodating his girth is excruciating.  

“Is this okay?” 

“Yes.” You give him a reassuring smile. He’s stuffing you full, the spikes knead your inner walls the deeper he goes. He bottoms out and stays there for a while. 

“Tell me when to move” he soothes. 

“Go ahead.” He starts an unrelenting tempo, and you grip him like a vice, your arousal drenching his balls. The thundering sound of desperate huffs and squelching, smacking flesh is almost embarrassing; you both don’t care, indulging each other. You could’ve sworn you saw something similar to a dragon's tail swaying behind him, or maybe your mind played tricks on you. Strings of saliva connect his fangs, eyes cloudy with carnal impulse and cock twitching from the friction. He can see the bulge snapping in and out of your stomach and groans.  

“Deeper.” He pulls out and lays you on the futon before positioning you in a mating press. In one swoop he jackhammers your cunt, balls swinging and ragged breath on your ear. His hair blankets you and you soak in his sweating physique, his needy appearance. 

“Gonna breed this pretty pussy” he moans. Eyeing the unoccupied space on your neck, he salivates. You guide his lips to your neck, encouraging him, and he takes the bait. He ruptures the skin with sharp teeth; harsh puncture wounds remain. He licks the blood away, adamant on claiming you. The spikes massage your g-spot, and your eyes loll back, pleasure and pain blurring. Dan Heng loses his composure, frenetic thrusting as he chases his release. 

“I’m gonna come!” 

“That’s it, come with me, my love” he groans. You see black as tremors overtake you and a stream of squirt coats you both. Your wails flow into the halls. Your contracting vulva sends him over the edge, and he finally comes undone, painting your insides to the hilt. You milk every last drop of his gushing seed, and he jerks a few times until limp. The creamy, swelling base pushes your folds to capacity. It's barbed wire in your gut. He strokes and kisses your face. 

“I'm sorry, it’ll go down soon.” With your legs wrapped around him and his head snug against your cheek, you weren’t sure if you wanted it to go down. 

His curse may not be lifted through your embrace. But in your arms, his shackles don't feel as heavy. 

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Wait could you do something for Yandere!Rook when he stays over at Ramshackle with the SDC crew? I feel like if you showed him affection he'd take a mile. Like if you sheepishly told him you liked him; the next morning he's broken into your room and happily cuddling you (his prey) in your bed. I just want to see how a lovesick Rook would behave at Ramshackle during the VDC. (How long can he keep paying Grim off with tuna?)

Congratulations! You've acquired a second shadow.

The Devotion of the Rook | Yandere Rook Hunt

He absolutely would but you don’t need to be especially nice

All it takes is just one compliment

He’s so used to the sarcastic and teasing of typical NRC

But then there’s you smiling without any other intention then just being happy

“I love your hat!”

“Why thank you, beau filou! Now what can I help with!”

Thus begins a whole new extensive photo album of all things you

He was probably already curious because of your entrance to NRC but now he’s officially obsessed

It feels like fate when Crowley and Vil dedicate you to help with the SDC crew 

Now he has access to you so much easier

So when you do return to your room during a dance break and he’s in there

You shouldn’t mind him, he only misplaced a feather from his hat

Or how he can eagerly offer to do your laundry with the liberty of taking whatever the dirtiest object in there is without alerting you 

And the pictures

Oh the pictures

he screws up his sleep schedule and risks scolding by Vil because he’s having a hard time limiting himself

And he’ll find that’s how it always is with you

“Oh Rook if you’ll excuse I’ve got to get past to the bathroom.”

“Ah~<3”

“Uh are you okay?”

“Oui! I just was surprised by how soft your touch was.”

“Hey don’t be weird.”

It only worsens after you survive Vil’s overblot with him

So brave!

You joined him when you sensed Vil’s killed intent

So oblivious!

You just casually called possibly the most dangerous creature alive by a cute nickname and got him to smile

So supportive!

The way you cheered them on despite your little twitch everytime one of them messed up

It’s invigorating

Almost more than he has with Neige

But it’d be wrong to quantify his love for the beauties in his life

Hence why he won’t keep track of how many times he ends up following you more than he does Vil

Or how the ceiling he’d reserved for Neige is filled with pictures of you

Or how often he ends up shooting arrows in the direction of troublesome students who can’t seem to stay away from you

Or how he’s willing to continue spending his allowance to pay for tuna that keeps Grim from telling you of his growing scent in the Ramshackle dorm

“Wow thanks for helping me out Rook, I didn’t know you were into building stuff.”

“I’m happy to help you mon filou! Besides seeing you work up a sweat really does something for me. I love to help you and Grim rest in beautiful luxury.”

“Aw thanks! Ace and Deuce said they’d help too but something came up.”

“I see. A shame they’re missing all the fun probably wondering how they got locked in a room with Floyd. You can trust I’ll always come when you call! In truth one may even say I am your biggest fan!”

[noncrush]

☀︎☁︎ — MILES MILLER: druxy

(“It's winter. You ask me about love and I tell you about violence. I'm sorry. I thought that that's what love was.” — Katie Maria, ‘I used to be a hole in the ground’.)

miles miller x reader | 8k | mentions of death&guns, angst, fluff, yearning, very introspective, lots of backstory, MDNI 18+.

⤷ desc. when you get hired at the el royale, you don’t imagine you’ll be staying there long. you don’t imagine you’ll find the love of your life, either. as it turns out, you’re wrong two for two.

here is my submission for “quiet winter nights” with miles miller in @lewmagoo’s wonderful holiday celebration!!! enjoy this monster (that i blacked out for most of! this is perhaps not the best prompt fulfillment lol) tis the season of yearning everybody :)

Druxy — (adj.) something whole on the outside, but rotten inside; of timber, having decay in the heartwood.

i.

Working at the El Royale used to be easy. When you were still starry-eyed and bright, not yet overtaken by the suffocating, roiling waves of that horrid hotel.

“This job is just a stepping stone, that’s all,” you’d told Miles after your first rough week. He eyed you wearily then, knowing the grim unreality of those words—he’d done the very same, just happy to have a job at all after discharge… before quickly succumbing, a noxious fate he wouldn’t wish on a single soul. But he couldn’t warn you either, not when you started on the Californian bar: forced to deliver rounds of bronze booze and burnt sienna spirits with your piercing steel shaker until the end of the night. There were so many things Miles lost the chance to say, and later he’ll tell you he hates himself for it; later, you’ll hold him close and tell him you could never hate him for it.

You used to pray that promise beneath your breath, just a stepping stone, while staring up at the swelling water damage of your popcorn ceiling. It was a kind of foreshadowing in the tapestry of your life, telling you the longer you worked the harder it’d be to keep your head wading above water. Those early days at the hotel had you reluctantly settling into a seedy dingbat shoebox a few blocks away, the dip of your chin already beginning to sink into high tide. It’s odd to think of that part of your life in retrospect when you were first starting at the El Royale living all by your lonesome-- familiar head of tawny chestnut locks not yet lying beside your own at night. 

That hopeful, almost manifest, mantra was repeated again and again: in quiet hallways, collecting the pieces of your shattered morale off the wooden epoxy bar top, after a customer yelled at you for giving him too little ice. In a dank backroom corridor, after you caught Miles stumbling around with a heavy Vidicon tripod.

“What do you actually do here?” 

“I… I can’t tell you. N-not before you’ve been here for longer than a year. It’s standard procedure, and- and Management doesn’t trust part-timers.” 

Panicked circles paced into the carpet at your discovery, his burdened shoulders growing ever heavier; some sudden shimmer of pity overtaking your words, “Miles-- Miles, it's okay. Just a stepping stone, remember? You… don’t need to tell me, and I promise I won’t tell anyone.” 

After you parsed Miles' calendar at the clerk's desk and caught a glimpse of the date. The frustrated heel of your palm digging into the nasal bone: “It’s November, Miles, it’s been-- god, this was supposed to be a stepping stone, something temporary…” Suddenly realizing your life still hasn’t picked up the slack; stranded, your job inquiries left unreplied, buried beneath the unsavoury status of your currentemployment. 

“I have an address. I-- have an entire year's worth of paystubs. I have everything they could possibly ask for.”

“Did--did you tell them you worked here? B’cause… the El Royale’s been losing its prestige day by day, and—Management’s sayin’ we’re lucky we still get our cheques.”

Finally, letting “just a stepping stone” die on your tongue when rent was jacked up, and the thin string of normalcy in your life went frayed. You made little as a bartender at an understaffed hotel, just enough to pay the current rate, and the increase would quickly make your wallet grow ugly and barren. Suddenly, you had found yourself forced to choose between the hotel or your apartment block’s curb; meagre belongings packed up and trailing behind, head growing dizzy with smothering waves of shame clawing up your throat. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to ask, but I--“ Shoulders wilt. Head hung low. The hotel lobby light flickers above you; once, twice, a spark cinders. “I have nowhere to go.”

His mouth, slightly ajar. What could crawl out of there, you wonder: a laugh, an apology, an insult? “California is full, and- er, Nevada’s under renovation.” 

A rejection. Beads of sweat trickled down your trembling spine. Heart sinking into the pit of your stomach; nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nowhere to exist—

“B-but I have a room. In the back. If… if y’don’t mind sharing.” 

Kindness, in a place as consuming as this. You thought every dreg of it had long since been digested, surrendering to the dreary structure of the ogee pattern walls. The fact it existed in the heart of Miles, however minuscule, made your own flicker with light. Hope stirring, unafraid despite how brutally it was beaten down; it was always so stubborn, ceaseless, almost Sisyphean.

However, uncovering Miles’ poor living conditions while shuffling into that one untouched room in the entire hotel made your lips pull into a tight line. You were left completely aghast, as you realized he had not simply been leaving early before you could say goodbye, but had been ducking behind doors and slinking into his closet home. Esteem quickly overtook you: for that shy man, who was awkward, but just as well sensitive, gentle and compassionate to the very bone. Who offered his room up for you, sacrificing a part of his life for the hundredth time without remorse, because it was kind. 

You lay elbow to elbow with Miles that first night, not looking at each other but just speaking, letting the low timbre of tones fill the air. A figurative ball dance: persuading information out of one another and testing the boundaries–akin only to seeing how low you’d let him drag his palm against your back in that imaginary hall, how tight to ischemia he’d let your hand squeeze his own. 

Him, warning you of the worst aspects of the job; giving you an out, because taping others in the privacy of their rooms weighed like lead. “It’s a sinful thing,” said Miles, the words mumbled and scraped off the backs of his teeth, stuck to the enamel like taffy shame. “To reveal other people like this, even if they’re helpless. Even when my meddlin’ realizes the worst consequences.” Consumed with fear his soul would only grow darker by tainting your own. “Those tapes… those tapes are never pretty. Sometimes they’re downright… ugly.”

You, knowing for a fact it was dirty and invasive— but also that you were really very small and very poor, a wretch whose dreams would be out of reach for eternity. A wide-eyed housekeep and a listless bartender having to band together to maintain the El Royale’s realm of order after the other staff left sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. However, choice was a privilege you no longer possessed–you were there entirely out of necessity: “Who else will hire me? Certainly nobody in this town, nor the next one over.”

Two sets of drooping eyes drifting across his clean ceiling, so unlike the swelling, waterlogged one back in your apartment. There's something here, you thought then, something to be said about having an odd heart-to-heart with the man you’ve had less than five full conversations with in an entire year. All the while feeling an odd comfort at the faint cracks littering his ceiling tiles—like pockmarks had existed, once upon a time, but were cared for and repaired with a familiar gentle precision.

Alas, duty continued, and Management swiftly utilized you—now trusted, for you were thought to be living and breathing the El Royale just as Miles did. But being implicated in the true nature of the hotel's existence, via the increase of sordid dignitaries — fortuitous in their decision to stay at the hotel, but brusque and oddly knowing in such a way you knew the El Royales’ name was being recommended in dangerous places — made the job so very hard. You became thoroughly equipped with the all-consuming fear you could spend another lifetime being good, scrubbing yourself clean of the hotel, and still have your fingers stomped on trying to reach the pearly gates. 

As though you could spend mere hours in there and come out thinking a decade had gone by, time in that decrepit hotel served as a mere suggestion. Perhaps, that’s why moving into the hotel seemed to make so much time alone with Miles. It seemed more impossible for a connection not to foster: that quiet night sent your relationship journeying from an acquaintance, to coworker, to dear friend. Shyly circling one another’s empty orbits before growing inseparable. A lifetime of affinity condensed into years, compacted by common sin and mutual memory. A bond that grew ever proximate, stunned by having someone just like you, right there—just as tormented, just as unfulfilled. 

A friendship of comforting one another in the dark: Miles tenderly coaxing you out like a feral animal unused to attention that didn’t quickly follow with a beating, or your attentive fingers gently working the self-imposed restraint out of his muscles, unthreading traumatic memories from beneath his skin. (“You don’t have to say sorry, Miles—I know you don’t have a mean bone in your body.” “Shh, shh, just listen to the sound of my voice. The thunderstorm’s din has nothing on me.” “When you have a nightmare, tell me—I don’t mind, promise.”) Understanding the fear that gripped you at the sensitive scruff, why you woke up floundering beside him in the middle of the night like the weight of your unfulfilled life was pressing itself on the nape of your neck. Uncovering Miles' extent, and what set him off—what made him dig his fingernails into the bed of his palm or bite his sharp canine into his lower lip. Settling your head onto Miles’ left pillow at bed— your pillow, finding that you knew his heart betterthan your own. Fondly remembering the time spent winding the words out of him until your palm recognized him like it did scars marring your skin. 

Naturally, you grew protective of him. How Miles’ remained so tender is a mystery – it felt impossible to live there for so long and not come out the other end worse off; chewed up, spat out, torn into two and put back together all wrong – but that very kindness had invited you into his home, and you worked to protect it like nothing else. Only ever manning the bar when the need was immediate, more content to linger close behind Miles when he checked in customers. Learning to bare your teeth, going from, “My complete apologies for any offence I’ve caused,” to “The El Royale provides poor patience toward guests who threaten the welfare of our establishment.” 

Slowly, the thought bleeding through the air, you began to worry your love for Miles would die in this black hole. Extinguished in the very same place it was first lit, unable to survive the hotel’s suffocation. Nondescript was your relationship, blurred lines wavering between romantic and platonic at every turn��but love nonetheless. For days on end did a familiar chill wrack your spine: some primal, precognitive feeling of guilt, of dread, that something bad was going to happen and you would never be free of it. How your ears pounded, blood rushing because it felt like if you didn’t leave now you’d rot in that hotel’s hollow, refrained to the point of murder or madness. 

You desperately tried to quell that feeling, chalking it up to years spent with your guard up. Thought you’d merely turned spiked and jagged; rough around the edges, making others jerk away at the gentlest touch. The way a Venus flytrap withers and dies, because nobody is brave enough to care for something so biting. Several severe years turned you into the serrated rim of a broken carafe glass—like the chipped Blendo one Miles kept in his room for safekeeping, after you sold off all the other expensive china just to keep the hotel lights on for another exhausting day. Just… paranoid, your fear of losing Miles — and being completely alone again as a result — merely growing insistent and anxious. 

But the last straw was in December of ‘68; a frigid winter, practically turning the hotel subnivean with its wet and heavy blizzards; snowing the place in deep. A night at the El Royale and a quiet night in general, the kind with long, exhaustive hours– a shift that never seemed to end, despite the small number of customers (a group of skiers on the Nevadan side and a family on the Californian) before finally resigning away from the clerk desk at a bleak four in the morning. You’d long since shooed Miles off, “You first, or I’ll take all the blankets in my sleep,” content to man the place on his behalf. He’d gone so long without support, persevering through fatigue and illness with no choice, it was the least you could do,--and you would always rather he woke up with light eyebags. 

You were locking up, stashing the bell in the desk cavity with your neck craned low—when you felt the trained gaze of another over you. You pressed back up to meet eyes with a customer, his horn-rimmed glasses decorated with slow melting flurries: “If you would be so kind to check me out for a back-cabin along tha’ trails, that’d just about make my night, kid.”

“Unfortunately, sir, the bungalows are unserviced and unavailable in the off-season. Our frontward facing lodges, however, are wholly available—“

“You mean to tell me they’re off limits? Why, I jus’ saw someone leavin’ one of those cabins.”

A shiver traipsed down the column of your vertebrae. No door was open to let in a draft, and no winter winds hit your form; it was pure intuition making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The week before last, Management thrust a sudden assignment onto you two— Nevada room 7, tenured professor travelling across state lines for a conference, democratic and incredibly vocal about it— and Miles’ was supposed to develop the tape yesterday, mail it off this morning. But Miles didn’t develop the tape yesterday, no, there’d been a burst pipe in the casino bar instead, and the two of you spent lunch till early dawn fixing it. 

The man shot you a discomfiting smile. Stretched wide across his plain, glib face. “Say,” and he leaned in just as your heel planted you an inch back, gesturing to the photographs of celebrities strewn around, “September ‘63. Sinatra owned this place, and let politicians mingle with Hollywood’s leading ladies. You know anythin’ ‘bout that?”

Anxiety dragged upon your skin. Where was he going with this? “I didn’t-- work here in 1963, sir. Suffice to say I didn’t know much at all about the comings and goings of the El Royale yet.”

He studied carefully; mandible still tilted into that barren smile, but eyes set and stony behind the thin frame of glasses you weren’t even sure were real. The customer set his suitcase down with one hand and his briefcase down with the other, before patting down the wrinkled fabric of his suit—intentionally, or unintentionally, flashing the hilt of a Black Eagle Ruger slung low on a belt holster. It wasn’t uncommon for customers to be sporting some kind of self-defence, especially in dark hotels such as these–but still.  “Your associate, then?” 

“What?” Your blood ran cold, freezing into thin slivers like icicles hanging from the roof outside; like the one that pricked you in the shoulder, and made Miles aid and soothe the wound. 

Miles entered through the front door of the lobby, hair silken with powder-soft snow, murmuring to himself as he dragged his work-issue loafers in. The man jutted his thumb unceremoniously toward him, a calculating sheen lighting his green eyes. 

“Hey, you—“ and he waved Miles over like he were cattle or a dog, “d’you remember any blonde Hollywood Ingenue’s rooming here in September ‘63? You’d know her—hell, she’d have you stumblin’ over so bad you couldn’t just forget her.”

The look on Miles’ face — wide-eyed and perturbed, tired steps creaking to a stuttered stop at the digestion of the man’s words — made the pit of your gut swelter: how cruel to make him flounder, for Miles was skittish. You’d learned to slow your movements and keep steady to ease him, but this would surely frighten him. “Sir? I-I don’t know what you’re…”

You swallowed thickly. “He didn’t— he didn’t work here yet either. Alright? I mean, look at him—he’d barely be out of school.”

The customer’s stubborn smile dropped into thin-lipped obscurity. “Well, it was wortha’ try. Made a bet with some of my buds who heard I was stayin’ here– those sonsabitches thought some kinda tape existed.” He regarded you suddenly with a plain look: acknowledging, bored, seeking your professionalism rather than your conversation.

His look sobered you, making the tremouring buzz of your thoughts (get miles get out of here something bad is going to happen) go quiet. You snapped back into smooth, managerial tones, swiftly checking the man in and handing him the logbook. He hoisted his luggage and left just as suddenly as he’d arrived, leaving you in possession of one odd Laramie Seymour Sullivan signature in cursive. There was something… off about that salesman—be it the thin, almost prescription-less distortion of his lenses, or his odd accented twang of no particular origin—and you hoped his stay in the Nevada room was short-lived.

“Miles?” your gaze snapped up from the logbook you were inspecting to find Miles gone. Fortunately, not out into the thick pillowy avenues of snow from which he came, but forwards: his thin loafers tracking wet stains onto the floor. You set a mental reminder to mop that melt before morning, but Miles’ panic took precedence. He had the habit of scampering away in the face of danger, like a rabbit through dry autumn leaves–and you would never let him deal with it alone.

Finally, you traced your dear friend's prints to the maintenance room you shared; slightly ajar, warm lamp light filling the room, his soaked shoes haphazardly strewn by the doorway. There, you saw him crumpled upon the threadbare cot: on his knees lying down, almost in prayer with his silver rosary wrapped tight around the dry skin of his knuckles. It shone like the glimmer of the sun under that incandescent bulb, and you could hear a panicked recital of scripture along his tongue.

“Hey, hey,” you slide past the door gently, descending onto all fours so as not to box him in or raise the height of his fight-or-flight response. “C’mere, hold my hand,” you crawled over and laced his free fingers into yours, settling into a criss-cross apple-sauce position; knee bumping into the ankle that never healed right after he sprained it gardening last summer.

“Just listen to my voice, okay? Remember what we were doing last winter? Remember when every customer had left two evenings before to make it home in time for Christmas? We were sitting here, reading a book together. You told me the print company made a mistake after you saw a thread pop out of the inner hinge’s book bind. I was massaging your crown, then… I miss your long hair sometimes. The radio was playing, too–an auditory rerun of that musical you like so much. “A Christmas Carol” for "Shower of Stars", was it…”

You were fully equipped to spend the rest of the night coaxing Miles’ out of his panic, soothing tones drowning out the tantamount alarm running circles in his mind–but then, he lifted his head from the clothed caps of his knees and brought your intertwined fingers up to his warm cheek. “That man.. the-the- tape, he was talking about a ta-tape with- with…”

Your hand squeezed his in time with the patterned buzz of his pulse, pressed along your own wrist; thump-squeeze, thump-thump-squeeze… “It’s just you and me, Miles. Take your time.”

A shaky breath. Then another; better, easier. “The tape he’s talking about. It’s, it-t’s real. B-but nobody was ever-- supposed’t know it exists-- how did he know about it, how?”

“Miles… a tape? He knows about what you sent to management?”

“No, no, I never sent it! I never did, I kept it… I kept it because he was kind, and-- and…” And Miles is letting go of your palm, instead wrapping his lanky arms around the circumference of your waist, collapsing in your lap. He’s murmuring still, mere vibrations lost to the human capacity of Hertz, as your mind spun: once upon a time, Miles confessed to you a certain 60s starlet coupled up in Nevada 5 with one of the most influential and married politicians of that decade, before their deaths in– 

That was the tape?

Your heart hammered in your ears. Miles’ sobs simmered down into stammering breaths; his ever-softening palms gripping the fabric of your shirt between his fingers in some sort of self-soothing measure. Has your heart swapped with your brain? Is that why you’re so suddenly remembering how cruel it'd been for Miles: how he’d been at the El Royale so much longer than you, been beaten down so much smaller, was much closer to the edge? That Miles was crumpling atop you now with the rumblings of great, inescapable despair because the weight of these corrupt secrets was toppling him over?

It was then that you pet him, the man your heart swelled far past capacity for, fingernails tracing over the splattering of freckles along his neck–and then, that your survival instincts overtook.

“Miles, Miles, it’s okay. Don’t say sorry, s’not a problem. We can… well, we can… leave. Take the tape with us; burn it, destroy it, whatever you want. But we leave.” Deciding at last that enough was enough because you could either leave now or suffocate in silence forevermore. Curl into yourselves, like far neglected flora, until one of you dies and the other quickly follows.

In the hours before dawn, you’d suddenly pieced together a jilted, desperate plan of escape. You’d head an innocuous journey from the El Royale to Reno, wandering eccentrically so as not to leave a tangible trail. In that tawdry tourist town, you’d gather yourselves and map another path out again: to a smaller, quieter place, like Waterford, or Dunsmuir, where you could build yourselves a life anew. It would be hard, and frightening, and cold, and unkind—but above all it would be worth it.

Above all, this chapter would draw a close, and you could have the rest of the pages in your life to be selfish. The thought made your stomach flutter and clench with the foggiest of dreams, fluffy fox-tailed feelings beginning to run through the dim corridors of your heart: ideas of being free, of coming into your own, of maintaining a gentle realm together without the enduring pressure of the hotel. Of being able to sleep in and graze over the bony ridges of Miles' spine like you were allowed to—like you were supposed to, and would never be struck down for it.

That glassy night in late December of ‘68 was your final one in the hotel. You barely remember it: just the important stuff, the why and the how and the coaxing of two lonely souls who occupied the El Royale like ghosts from out of the shadows. You can’t remember the few days after very well either, not with the fear still so deeply imprinted on your souls– and certainly not with the anxious hush that fell over you: a silly vow of silence, to keep yourselves from revealing too much to potentially dangerous strangers. Words were chalk in the mouth then; you barely got them out before you were coughing, gasping, heaving for soothed breath-- then quieting, swallowing, holding back your voice in the crevice of your cords.

You did, however, remember the generous days that came after the fleeing and the hiding… and, understandably so: why allow your memory to remain preoccupied with the same dread you’d digested for years when you could keep space for the rest of your life to arrive? 

You sat atop that beat mattress in Miles’ drab room with him in your arms, halfway through dreaming up the rest of your life away from the hotel… and soon, sooner than you could’ve ever thought, you blinked and opened your eyes to find yourself living that merciful existence. Like the colour television channels Miles’ would always call you over to watch: you got a sparse glimpse once a year, the kind of magic you always swore you’d catch up to, but were always so busy with the bar (and the gardening and the kitchen and the–) to see. The hotel had the all-consuming quality to draw you away from any fulfilling aspects of life: friends, a better career, happiness, and like some sick inside joke, colour television.

Now, you were living the sweet life NTSC colour system shows portrayed—and were able to watch colour television whenever your heart damn well pleased. 

No longer did you let the days twist and swell around you without recognition, no– you allowed yourself the selfish possibility of listening to the day's whistle by, drinking in every peaking pitch: the dull flutter of Miles’ steps along your oak floor, your kitchen laminate, your soft bathroom rugs. The wispy rustle of crinkled grocery lists, checking through them in your kitchen on an early Sunday—shopping right when the supermarket opened, because the both of you cringed at the sight of busy aisles and overworked lanes. (The raspy, sniffled laughter of the elderly lady who ran the store, remarking, “Still in the honeymoon phase, huh?” as she checked you out. The squeak in Miles’ throat when you played along, pressing a peck to his cheek in mock confirmation.)

The stream of water from the creaky yard hose, sometimes pressurized to the point of injuring Miles’ poor petunias, and other times so frail you had to lug out his otter-shaped turret sprinkler to keep them healthy instead. The howling wind against your house walls on autumn nights, bouncing along the window sills as though ghosts roamed your halls. (Having to build a fort in the living room with Miles, after a “ghost” had spooked him on his nightly tread for a glass of water. He refused to brave the hallway to your bedroom again, and you refused to leave him there.)

The gentle snip-snap of scissors along Miles’ delicate head, telling him, “I’m not going as short as last time, even if you ask me to, ‘cause you’ll get cold and snag my earmuffs again.”  The sleepy purr of Miles’ in the morning, wrapping a lithe arm around your waist and greedily tugging you back to bed; grown spoiled with the days that go by so sweetly, used to having you all to himself. 

Drinking in these little moments, appreciating the mundanity of it all. How you simper, when doing laundry with Miles, sorting whites from colours as you regale him on the time you mixed in a blue sock by accident; is that why my button-up turned blue? When gardening side by side in the spring, Miles cooing to perennial flora as he packs down healthy fertilizer nearby; grazing a gentle finger over an unfurling petal and promising, you’ll grow up nice and strong when m’done with you. When sitting on the counter and watching Miles bustle about, trying to perfect his Tunnel of Fudge in time for the holidays and handing you the battered whisk; honey, you know I don’t care that there’s raw egg. 

Going through the motions of this post-hotel life, practically epilogic, with the relationship’s lines of platonic and romantic ever wavering. Ever thinning. Warbled by the merciful existences you reap: why focus on the status of your relationship when you could focus on the love itself, focus on your now-uninhibited freedom to love? 

But a rubber band snaps eventually. The lack of labels stretched wide and narrow around your intimate forms; never relieved, never named—never agreed upon, therefore just as well never reciprocated. Years after the hotel faded into a mere memory, just a faint speckle among the colourful mosaic of your existence, you wake with a pit drowning in your gut. Love burns in the bottom of your belly: no longer that comfortable love that rested so sweetly in the smiling swell of your cheeks, but more so a love that swallowed you whole—sudden, voracious, terrifying. You loved Miles, and you had for years… but just now did you realize you were in love with him. 

The distinction makes your heart hammer against its cage, starving for any kind of answer. The two of you never acknowledged it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there—it was always there, always lingering, providing the very allowance to be so intimate, be so loving. You’ve slept in one another’s bed for more than half a decade, for Christ's sake: tenderness is all you’ve ever known of each other. A deathly nerve deep within your gut strikes, begging for either reciprocation or rejection, not this limbo you’ve been living in. Imploring a tangible answer, an exacting label you can build the rest of your life upon.

Because the thought of staying trapped like this forever? Never fully friends and never fully lovers? That mortified you. It could all fall between the gaps of your fingers, even after decades, because none of it had ever been said aloud. 

The realization of being in love, and not just loving was kept under tightly wound wraps as best as you could. But Miles notices the little things over time: how you draw away easier, hugs growing brisk and polite rather than long and hearty. The tension in your shoulders, and how you no longer accept his tender offers to massage familiar knots out—even when you both know he can map out your problem areas just like that. Brushing off touchier advances, resolve greatly disturbed by Miles’ ever-constant need to hold hands, cling to your hip, hang onto you at all. He’s funny about that kind of thing: somewhere along the way, between the farm he grew up on, Vietnam, and the El Royale, to now, he picked up the miraculous ability to tune into moods at the drop of a hat. 

It gets worse as the week goes on, however. Not that you’d been very inconspicuous about your gloom—you sat up the fourth day quietly strained, trudging to the bathroom like a wet t-shirt that’d been wrung out and hung to dry in all the wrong ways. Misshapen, wrinkled, too burdened for the clothesline to hold up; the briefest of winter winds trickles past the window Miles forgot to close last night, and makes you shiver as you step in. But he doesn’t get the chance to intervene, not when you were heading off to work (there were so many things Miles lost the chance to say, and later he’ll tell you he hates himself for it–), and the two of you only see each other again when you’re back home. 

His first instinct when he sees you, mumbling your arrival in the frostbitten doorway, is to take your coat and set it on the wooden hanger; shuffle your fur-lined boots onto the shoe rack beside his own tassel loafers; dust the flurries off your clothes. Clean and take care of you, because that’s what he knows best. You half expect him to extend his arm out and point down either side of the hall, “Warmth and sunshine to the west, or hope and opportunity to the east,” on the tip of his tongue.

“Hi,” mumbles Miles, lip quivering as some semblance of a nervous smile inches across his face. “Um, welcome home.” 

That man is far too sweet for his own good. His greeting is the product of an offhand comment all those years ago, “It’s always the sweetest thing when the husband comes home and his wife welcomes him back.” Winter nights in the hotel when there were so few customers, management would skimp on paying the bills, and you’d huddle chest to chest with Miles to conserve heat. Breath visible, palms splayed beneath one another’s shirts to extinguish the chill racking through you. A random channel on his old RCA Victor Sportable playing a Brigitte Bardot special, if just to distract yourself from the very real, very harrowing possibility that you could fall asleep and never wake up.

“Miles,” out comes a dull whisper, scratchy and unreal in your own throat. You’ve tried all week to make a habit out of biting back too-sweet words, letting your blatant adoration die in your lungs. Speaking to him should be an activity gone stale, lest you forget yourself and allow you two to fall back headfirst into that exhausting will-they-won’t-they purgatory. 

But then you notice his clothes–an old cream cable knit and dress trousers, his Sunday best for weekly visits and the obligatory holiday ones–and his hair, neatly coiffed along the smooth crown of his head. You raise a brow–it’s incredibly unlike the pajamas and chestnut bedhead he usually sports; mussed and ruffled with the telltale stylistic edge of blankets and cotton pillowcases. Had he gone out, or is he going out now? 

That thought makes your heart thump and clench in its cavity: of Miles being swept off his feet by someone other than yourself and having to accept it with a choked nod, because you’re dancing around asking him “What are we?”, in paralyzing fear that you are the only one truly head over heels. You resign yourself to asking, “Going somewhere?” whilst gesturing to his unusually formal state of dress.

His rounded cheeks flush. Cobalts widen in tune with the sandy brows along his forehead rising. Your gaze hasn’t made it there yet, but you can bet his lips have slid ajar into a tiny “O” shape-- and there it is. His delicate expression of surprise is the same as it has been for years (and you fear how easily you predict it. You know him too well, and it’s never the one who knows another too well whose heart remains unbroken. But then again: between Miles’ delicate heart and your own… you’d rather you devastated.)

“Yes, well-- I’m going out with someone.”

“You’re going on a—“ How interesting. “…O-kay.”

Your offset okay has the tips of Miles’ lips twinging upward into a tiny, knowing smile. Smug, almost, if you pretended it wasn’t how Miles simply looked when content. It makes you frown instead. “Oh,” you mumbled, wincing as you brushed past him, hearing just how monotone; crestfallen; stupid you sounded. “Have fun, then.”

Your own cheeks burn, your harried footsteps clattering against hallway hickory wood: he was taking someone out? Miles’ had been venturing out on his own more often — your heart preened prideful praise at this, as he’d downright avoided public outings like the plague since his discharge all those years ago — so you knew it wasn’t at all unlikely he’d caught someone’s wandering eye. Miles was rather handsome, too (even downright pretty, which he rarely let you say aloud, since it made steam practically fume out of his ears) with the gentle brush of his blond lashes, framing the brilliant sheen of blue eyes, and that captivating curve of his nose, sloping high and elegant. 

But for however proud you were, the hurt still made your throat swell in its tender column. Suddenly, you realize it’s never going to be you who accompanies Miles in that way: because you are slow and cowardly. You are the decay that would make Miles’ heartwood go druxy– and for his sake, it cannot be you that accompanies him. Like understanding a language but never being taught to speak it, you can spot love easily even when it’s unspoken and barely there, but you cannot replicate it aloud. I love you is an unintelligible language twisted wryly on your tongue; you miss accents and mess up grammar, and before you know it those words as old as myth have gone sour. 

You’ll hurt him worse than rejection hurts you. But rejection, any kind of it, is still a quiet, burning thing that overtakes you like the wash of high tide. Digging its claws into the rapid flesh of your palpitating heart, you can’t help but desperately seek isolation. The balls of your feet practically jump over the threshold where the hall and your shared room meet… but he’s quick to follow.

Miles’ sock-swaddled thumping is slow at first, before speeding up and careening to a stop at the door of the bedroom. His fingers (originally rough with domestic work but grown soft in the simple life you’ve built around each other) cling shyly to the side jamb: “Are…” and his words warble at a pitchy high, like they’re curling around a pitiful lump balling up in his throat, “are you mad at me?”

“Of course not,” your reassurance is fast, uttered quicker than you can think or blink or even turn. But because your back still faces him, he asks again, are you mad at me? Murmurs, I’m sorry, a moment later, polyester-padded steps inching over the sill. Miles continues closer, appearing in the background of your mirror while you shed your outside clothes off; practically undergoing chrysalis into your pyjamas.

His words are childish, almost, and you have half a mind to shoo him out of the room for privacy–but you know Miles. Though his words are uttered gingerly, the nervous apology of a scolded child, he isn’t any less desperate, any less earnest; he’s genuine, and that genuinity has no bounds. 

The bed creaks behind you, and your mind buries the consuming temptation to look. Desire calls out your name, supplying imaginary images of cranberry Christmas sheets straining beneath Miles’ pretty, slow crawl. And the apology is part way through stumbling out of Miles’ mouth yet again when you finally turn to meet him: slim torso folded along the long edge of the bed, knees planted on the hardwood. Looking up at you with an impossible expression that pleads, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Are you mad at me? Please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m– 

His sweet head buries itself into the clothed cushion, and you can hear him sniffle; holding back a worried sob, are you mad at me? filling the ridges of his tongue. It’s so hard to seek solitude, to want to soothe yourself at all, when Miles is falling apart in front of you; fingers curling possessively into the sheets like he usually would your clothes. 

The tear that escapes the corner of Miles' eye dribbles into your bed. It makes your obstinacy waver. And then, you’re descending onto the bed too, scooping his weeping form into your arms, gently soothing him with shapes drawn into his cheek. Coaxing the tears away with a low hum cooed into the shell of his ear, shh, shh. M’not mad, just surprised. Just tired. 

Cries that finally dwindle into stuttered sniffles and tiny pecks along your inner wrist. The drag of his bottom lip on the ulna bone makes a ribbon of warmth run through you, and you cringe—you should be normal about this kind of thing because he’s perpetually starved for touch. This intimacy is nothing special, and you just happen to always be there. But it starts to feel less than normal: kisses growing hungry and adventurous, desperate to litter your skin with his presence… eventually reaching up to the top of your shoulder, just so gaining the confidence to sink his canines into your skin…

“Miles!” You yelp, squeezing at the nape of his neck and peeling his rebellious teeth from your side like you would a puppy. You bring him face to face, grip sliding to the mandible; his eyes half-lidded, lips wet with a doggish, slobbery sheen of saliva, brows knitted tensely in the middle. You meant to comfort him, rid the alarm from muscles that held memory so tightly. Instead, an entirely different neediness is roused out of him: he’s crawled halfway up your body, rigid knees subconsciously brushing between your thighs, pressing you to the mattress with the thick weight of his utterly relaxed lower body. 

He begins to slowly blink, as if coming out of a feverish daze, going ever-scarlet in realization. “Sorry, I– didn’t mean to…ah, just missed you so much, that’s all—” squirming to hide and bury his face into the pillows again, whining when you stop him with another squeeze of his cherubic cheeks.  

“What,” You’re breathless, and you reckon your pulse is beating as fast as Miles' is beneath your fingertips: rapid, floundering, like a marathon has been run four times over. “What was that, sweetheart?”

The nickname makes Miles shiver atop you; his head swivelling low to rest upon you, his everything pinning you down. Your huff of gentle (confused, frustrated, coy) air breezes along his brow bone, and he looks up to peer puppyish up at you. 

“Wanted to make you feel better,” he supplies, head tilting to rest the side of his face upon your skin too. “You-- you've been t-tense—and don’t lie, I can tell. So, so I was tryin’ to ask you on a date in the doorway… but then y-you stormed off on me! I thought you— I thought, maybe you don’t want thatkinda relief, so… so…”

“Oh, Miles.” you melt, hand cradling his face gently, thumb brushing against his lower lip, crooking the bed of your palm closer when he turns in to provide a chaste kiss. “I… didn’t realize you were trying to ask me on a date,” and your gaze darts away shyly, voice dropping to a ginger murmur, “in all honesty, I thought you were going out on one.”

“Me?” he asks, head tilting again in pure confusion. Cobalt blue eyes glistening with a disbelieving curiosity–like he couldn’t entertain the prospect logically in his mind long enough for it to make sense. “Who would I be going on a date with but you?”

Who would he be going on a date with but you? 

The silence of the room rings swirls in the junction of your ear. You think you hear a pin drop, but it might very well be your heart; trudging up the shaky interior of your ribcage, softly parsing through the meaning of his words… and finding it to be completely genuine. No sarcasm, and nothing of rhetoric: a true, confused question, uttered from those gentle lips. Who would I be going on a date with but you?as if the very notion was impossible. Like you just told him you’d reached up and plucked the sun for his garden. Like you just said, I miss the hotel.

For some odd, unknown reason, that is what makes your heart roar to life again. Makes your stomach churn with the familiar achings of hope. Those simple words, that glaring confusion, twist your entireviewpoint. How blatantly he says it: that there's nobody on this planet Miles’ would rather be with but you. This may not be very clear right now, but the path to it is, and one thing remains certain: you’ll be loving each other, no matter which way.

A small laugh tumbles out of your mouth, transforming your solemn features into something of silly belief. How foolish were you to think otherwise? That this gentle man, who offered his tiny room to you all those years ago, would suddenly let you slip out from his fingers at the prospect of someone else? Just as there's never been anyone else for you, there's never been anyone else at all for him but you.

How slow your realization was, too: you had been shying from Miles for days, worrying deep in your gut that he’d eventually disappear at the drop of the hat. Whereas, he had been entertaining big dreams of spending the rest of his life curled into your corner; cheering you on for all the world to see. Completely understanding that nobody better could be found; could be loved, could be known than you. 

Your laugh seems to make Miles’ smile twitch up too, and you can’t help but snicker a little louder when you catch his murmur: what are we laughing about now? Because that’s the kind of man Miles is, and always has been: a gentle lover, but fiercely loyal, tender to the very bone; happy to ask the silly, stupid questions when you don’t want to. 

“Nothing,” you shush him, letting your cold, fresh-from-work feet dip beneath the edge of Miles’ soft trousers, toe trailing along his bare Achilles and making him wince. 

“Y’cold,” he whines but doesn’t push you away. Miles doesn’t think he could ever push you away; even through a bout of worrying, self-imposed distance that made panic rise in his heart this week, because Miles’ knows you better than that. You know one another far better than that—and one thing you taught him, bits and pieces of philosophical advice littered into your early conversations, rings true now. Never stop trying. You never stopped trying to fulfill yourself at that trepid, consuming hotel– and you came out the other side with the love of your life tucked gently into your side. So Miles learned never to stop trying for anything at all– and certainly not for you. 

“Sorry,” you whisper. But you’re not for very long, especially when he sidles up real close to you, ducking his head right into your Plender gap and breathing you in.

You don’t know where the years went, but love peeled the layers back from Miles so quickly: paring away his skittish demeanour from back then, when he’d been afraid to leave any mess at all, afraid to give into his mild intrigue of you, to even stir the air with the gentlest inhale of his breath. Continuing to unravel him, until he was the greedy man caging you in now, unabashedly needy and unafraid to stake claim on what’s his. Wanting you by his side has never changed, and never will. 

Slowly, the two of you shift, roll, twitch and tug until the sheets are furrowed, comforter wrapped oddly around your legs-- but also until you’re comfortably in one another's arms, foreheads grazing every time one of you breathes. It gives you the most explicit look of his face, into those cobalt blues, through the brush of lashes you so admiringly yawp about when he puts lotion on his face — to the point Miles has to shut the bathroom door on you in the bedroom, just to continue his bedtime routine without melting out into a stammering pile of goop — and of the faint dustings of freckles you noted all that time ago.

Barely noticing the window Miles’ has the terribly endearing habit of keeping open—even on this quiet winter night—because in the summer it coaxed you to sleep and you thanked him for it the next morning. Eyes resting as you focused on the comforting murmur of Miles’ familiar breathing pattern, wrapped in silence so thick it was almost palpable—making you two feel like the only real things in the entire world.

You may have thought your love was nondescript and barely there — imperceptible if not for the top notes of intimacy and adoration lingering on the pulse points of your skin like perfumed oil — but it’s always been noticeable. Always been rich and heady, forever dabbled on the dip of your neck where he lies his head; a fervent scent of pure love blooming, caught on the hem of yourself like you sprayed a pump too much. And nothing, not even Miles’ cries or your own misunderstanding, would ever change that. 

[trulybetty]

secret santa.

pairing: tim x cagney (f!reader) word count: 2,108 warnings: none, just tim being tim - set in the tim x cagney universe, somewhere before they become a thing for the first time, but you don't have to read any of that to get this estimated reading time: 10 minutes summary: secret santa at the lapd, for the first time tim is participating. ao3: linked

A/N: forgot to add a little note yesterday in my rush to post! This is for @bluestar22x's Christmas Writing Challenge - I recommend you check it out! Also thank you as always to the lovely @gnpwdrandsnshine for providing feedback and ideas and for always being the best to shout about characters and ideas with! 😘

The LAPD precinct was hardly the kind of place to muster any kind of Christmas spirit. The walls were a dull beige, the air reeked faintly of stale, over-brewed coffee, and the fluorescent lights flickered in a way that might make you question your sanity. But that night, the detectives, officers and support staff had transformed it—twinkling lights hung precariously from any high enough hook, a tree stood proudly (if slightly lopsided) in the corner, and the air buzzed with a rare, warm cheer.

Tim leaned against his desk, arms crossed, scowling at the garish tinsel someone had brazenly strewn around his office while he was out. He didn’t do office parties. He didn’t do tinsel. And he certainly didn’t do Secret Santa.

Except this year, he did.

When the sign-up sheet had been passed around, Tim had ignored it. But when you had casually mentioned how excited you were to participate—how the fact that the precinct had invited the assistant DA to join meant so much to you—he’d swiftly hunted down Betty in Operations, who was arranging the whole thing, to scrawl his name down on the list.

However, he didn’t trust fate to do its job. He’d called in a small favour with Betty—an exchange of the kind of mundane paperwork no one wanted to touch—and suddenly he had the only name he cared about.

You wouldn’t know. He’d swear up and down it was destiny if found out.

Paper snowflakes clung to windows, and the smell of mulled cider filled the bullpen. You were standing next to a crowded, multicultural-filled table laden with an array of foods. The warmth of the party tugged a reluctant smile to your face. It wasn’t every day that the grim halls of the LAPD felt this festive.

Your name echoed from somewhere across the room, “Hey, Cagney, come take a look at this tree! I think it’s leaning more than you do after three drinks.”

Detective Rivera waved you over, you rolled your eyes but laughed anyway. The nickname had stuck after Tim—in irritation of course—had called you Cagney after the two of you had argued over a case. He’d meant it as a pointed opinion that you had overstepped your boundaries as ADA. You were too stubborn and very much relentless—it was why you were so good at your job. But it’d firmly stuck when it’d been overheard by Rivera—though he’d remarked that naming you 'Elizabeth' would be more apt given Tim’s last name. The reference had flown over your head at the time. Tim had shut Rivera down with a withering look that had caused Rivera to laugh even harder when you had asked what was so funny.

Regardless, the name stuck and caught on faster than wildfire across both the precinct and the courthouse. You’d leant into it, mostly in defiance of Tim, fully cementing it when you’d dressed up as the detective one Halloween, and then promptly pulled into court. And thanks to an amused Judge the name and outfit reference were recorded in the case transcript courtesy of the court's stenographer.

Still, you didn’t mind it. It made you feel like one of them—an honorary member of the squad, a role that the actual DA, Connor Wallace, struggled with.

“Hey, at least it’s standing up better than you do under cross-examination,” you countered back receiving a chorus of ‘Oooo’s’ from the pen and Rivera’s signature cackle. “Anyway,” you said as you inspected the artificial tree’s crooked branches, “it looks like someone threw a bunch of ornaments on and hoped for the best.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Rivera remarked, flicking a branch, no one knew how old it was but it had been determined it predated even the oldest of them, “I’d say Tim had been involved.”

You laughed as you looked around the room for the detective, “Speaking of, where is he? I thought he was supposed to be a part of this.”

Rivera took a sip of his cider as he nodded to the other side of the room behind you, “Speak of the devil.”

Tim strode into the bullpen, his mere presence demanding the attention and respect of the room. He had left his jacket behind, dressed in his standard uniform of dark slacks, a white pressed shirt with its sleeves carefully rolled up to his forearms. His signature holster over his shoulders, and as always, one of the three ties you knew he owned hung loose around his neck—a minor display of defiance of having to wear one.

Turning around you just caught the softening of his face as he saw the sight of the wide grin you threw him, “There he is, Mr. Christmas himself.”

For just a second, his shoulders seemed to relax, which made your smile a little brighter. But then, as if catching himself in the moment, he looked away, his expression smoothing back into something neutral.

The gift exchange started with the usual mix of chuckles and groans—cheap mugs, joke gifts, lottery tickets that might pay off someone’s bar tab if they were lucky. You perched on the edge of one of the desks, absently sipping cider, when your name was called.

Placing your cider down you stepped forward, catching a few good-natured jeers about ‘lawyers stealing all the good presents, taking all the credit’, and plucked the neatly wrapped package with your name scrawled on it. The wrapping paper was a deep navy blue, tiny gold stars adorned the thick luxury paper and topped off with a velvet red bow. It was too thoughtful for this crowd. You felt a twinge of curiosity and you looked around the crowd gathered trying to figure out who would have been so thoughtful. Carefully, you opened the present with a reverence that felt almost out of place in the boisterous atmosphere.

You swallowed the gasp, curiosity giving away to something else, something softer, when you pulled back the paper to reveal your gift.

It was perfect. Your kind of perfect.

Nestled in a second layer of delicate tissue paper was a cardboard box, its familiar blue red and white colours standing out to you already. You didn’t need to pull back the paper to know what this was. This was a 6 Transistor Tape Recorder made by North American. Your breath caught. This wasn’t a generic Secret Santa gift, not the kind of gift you’d get someone who didn’t know you. This was personal.

You lifted the box to look inside—it was pristine, in so much better condition than the one you had tried bidding on over the summer. There were maybe a handful of people—if that—you had told about listening to your grandfather dictate his case notes in his study. He had so many devices, but this one had been his favourite.

You turned it over in your hands, a warmth spreading from your chest spreading to your cheeks. “Okay,” you said, raising it slightly for everyone to see, “This is amazing. Whoever my Secret Santa is—you have some explaining to do.”

The room quickly erupted into good-natured whistles, laughter and the odd question of confusion, but quickly enough moved on to the next Secret Santa participant. But one person caught your attention.

Tim.

He was leaning against one of the desks, arms crossed casually sipping from a chipped LAPD coffee mug. He looked like he did most days—stoic, brooding, and completely uninterested in anything remotely festive. You couldn’t help but feel though that he’d been watching every nuance of your reaction to your gift. That was, except for the briefest flicker in his eyes when he caught you looking at him, he raised his mug in a silent cheers and you could feel an unspoken acknowledgement between the two of you.

The office party had thinned out, most of the partygoers had dispersed, off home or to late-night patrols. It left the precinct quieter but still glowing under the soft multicoloured lights strung everywhere.

You knew where to find him—Tim. Picking up your belongings, you headed towards the far end of the bullpen, pushing through the swinging gate and heading back into the warren of offices that served as detectives’ domains and interrogation rooms. You didn’t have to double-check; you’d probably spent more time in his office than he had.

He didn’t hear you approach, his office door wide open, he was sitting behind his desk, swirling whatever was left in his mug.

“Detective Rockford,” you said, announcing your presence as you leant against the door frame, “you really are not much for festivities are you?”

He cleared his throat, his usual mask of indifference firmly in place, “Not really my thing.”

As he spoke, his knuckles tightened slightly around the mug’s handle, and you caught the way his gaze flicked from your face to the gift under your arm before he forced himself to look away.

You pulled your gift out from under your arm, “This is something, though. Pretty big coincidence, don’t you think detective?”

He shrugged, a little too casually—for such a hardened detective, his poker face needed some work, “Could’ve been anyone.”

“Could it?” You asked, tilting your head, and narrowing your eyes. “Because I’m thinking…” you tapped your finger against your bottom lip, “it’s not a coincidence. There’s less than a handful of people I told about this, and only one of them is in this precinct.”

You saw him stiffen slightly, still not wanting to admit his part in the gift, “Don’t know what you’re talking about Cagney. There’s a handful of competent detectives around here and half of them were in on this too, they could have figured it out.”

“You sure?” you stepped closer, placing your gift down, you placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward lowering your voice, “because either you’re my Secret Santa, or you’ve been sharing my secrets with someone else.”

The space between you seemed to shrink, the air thickening. You watched the muscles in his jaw tense, his eyes flick down to your hands on his desk. The idea of him gossiping was absurd, and you both knew it.

This is what finally cracked him, he pushed back in his chair and his lips twitched—barely, but enough for you to catch it.

He rounded his desk, avoiding the self-satisfying smirk on your lips. You opened your mouth to revel in your detective prowess, even if it was an open and shut case, when you glanced up. There, just above you and Tim was a small sprig of green tied with a neat red bow dangling from the ceiling.

“Huh,” you said, your voice full of mock innocence, “would you look at that? Mistletoe.”

His eyes followed yours, his posture stiffened and you could see a flush creeping up his neck, “That’s Rivera’s idea of a joke.”

“Sure,” you nodded, looking up at him, “but you know, the rules.”

“The rules?” he asked, swallowing hard.

“Uh huh, and we all know how you’re a stickler for the rules.”

For a moment, you weren’t sure if he’d move. His jaw tightened, and his gaze locked on yours. The air between you crackled, growing heavier, warmer. He didn’t pull away when you stepped closer, close enough to see the flicker of something uncertain in his eyes.

You were close enough to catch the faint scent of his aftershave, to see the tight line of his shoulders, as if he were deciding which way to move. Neither of you had mentioned the almost kiss in his car almost two months ago now—when you’d been taking part in the compulsory ride-along, he’d pulled strings then too. Then he had made the first move, this time it seemed like he was debating the value of the moment.

So you made the first move.

You leaned in and kissed him, soft and brief, but enough to feel his breath catch against yours. It was shorter than you’d like, but if you were going to kiss this man, and kiss him properly, it wasn’t going to be in his office with half the department outside the door. When you pulled back, his eyes stayed on yours, dark and unreadable, but his lips parted as if he wanted to say something.

You smiled, a genuinely warm one, feeling your heart pound against your ribs. “Merry Christmas, Tim.”

For the first time since you’d entered his office, his mask cracked, and he gave you the faintest, most genuine smile you’d ever seen, realization dawning on him. “Merry Christmas Cagney.”

[a-kinda-boring-writer]

@troutfur

I was hit with an awesome bout of insomnia, so I decided to do something with the time and write this... proof of concept, I guess? 'Cause your enthusiasm for the idea was greatly encouraging.

Hope this is a nice breakfast! We're jumping straight into the deep end, tho :3

<3

He was frantic.

When he'd woken up, the moss of his nest was soaked in blood, clumps of his dear daughter’s black fur were scattered amidst the crimson.

Lionblaze tore down every decoration, and shredded and upturned every nest, and dug along every wall. He didn’t stop until he’d checked every corner of the nursery.

Nothing.

His daughter had been taken. 

He began pacing around the nursery. Thinking, thinking. It’d never been his forte, unfortunately. But his daughter needed him!

Who could have done it? A vicious fox? Some opportunistic rats? No… oh, those foxhearts! It must have been ShadowClan! He was going to walk straight into their camp and start ripping out throats until someone confessed. And to them, an even worse fate would befall.

How could anyone have done it? The nursery was supposed to be the safest den of their camp! Had every clanmate of his stood idly by and let it happen?

More importantly, when had it happen? He never left the nursery, always kept her by his side. Hollykit was his life’s mission. The one kit he’d made correctly. She’d been there with him, nursing from his belly, and then he blinked and she was gone! He just… he was so lost…

Where was his daughter?

The other two followed him around as he searched, wailing and calling, ‘Papa! Papa! We’re cold! We’re hungry!’. A growl clawed its way out of his throat. Selfish, wretched things! Couldn’t they see that their sister was missing? Hollykit, the only one of their litter who mattered.

The worst, however, was when they asked ‘Where did you take Hollykit?’. How could they joke about that!? Oh, it angered him terribly. And he realized they'd been with her too when it happened. Why hadn’t they defended their sister? Didn’t they understand how important she was to him?

He planted his paws, whirled around, pulling back his lips into a snarl. Fernkit and Sorrelkit froze, eyes going wide. As he took a step towards them, claws sliding ominously out of their sheathes, they stared at him with confusion and curiosity, rather than fear. 

Before he could lunge at them, a horrified gasp caught his attention. He wrenched his gaze away from his worthless kits and looked over to the entrance, where Leafpool now stood. She was bristling in alarm, stiff as a branch, staring mouth agape at his blood-stained nest.

“Mom! Thanks StarClan you’re here!” Lionblaze called, padding up to her.

Leafpool flinched as she finally registered his presence. She flattened her ears, lowered her head, backpedaled a few pawsteps, and for a heartbeat, she looked ready to bolt away from there. Thankfully, she didn’t. He really needed her.

“Oh, Lionblaze…” She meowed. She… lamented?

Though it looked like it required great effort on her part to take each pawstep, Leafpool reentered the nursery and padded forward, met him midway. She pressed against him comfortingly, nudging him closer to the wall, then her paws wrapped around his neck, and she pulled him down into a warm hug. It was welcomingly soothing. Some of his distress melted away as he pushed his muzzle into the fur of her shoulders.

“Mom. Hollykit disappeared. I think ShadowClan took her. We gotta…!”

“Shhhh” Leafpool gently silenced him. She patted softly on the back of his head with a paw, and slowly ran her tail up and down his back “Calm down, my son. Everything…” She had to pause as a shudder ran through her “...everything will be alright”

Lionblaze heard pawsteps. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a bunch of cats, all doing stuff, all keeping their distance. Dustpelt and Ferncloud were inspecting Lionblaze’s ruined nest, a grim expression upon their faces. Daisy was herding Fernkit and Sorrelkit out and away from the nursery. Foxleap and Rosepetal were crouching near the entrance, watching him intently, as if they were ready to lunge at him at any moment.

He tried to get a better look, but the paw behind his head pressed firmer, pushing his face further into his mother’s fur. 

“This is all my fault” Leafpool meowed “I’m the senior medicine cat. I should’ve seen the signs. I should’ve done something” Her voice seemed to crack with every word. She sounded almost like she was choking “My dear Lionblaze. Oh, my sweet son. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” Leafpool wasn’t making any sense. Frankly, she was only wasting precious time. He put a paw to her chest and pushed her away enough to glare into her eyes “Leafpool, I don’t know what cryptic Starclan shit you’re trying to spout right now, but I don’t care for it. My daughter is missing!” He growled, watching with confusion as fear flashed across her mother’s eyes “Tell Bramblestar to form a patrol. I will lead it into ShadowClan myself!”

“Lionblaze…”

“No, I do not care that I’m a queen. I can still fight! And Daisy can look after Fernkit and Sorrelkit. That’s her whole deal, isn’t it?”

“ShadowClan didn’t take Hollykit, Lionblaze”

“Then who di-…?” He trailed off as he noticed a red stain on her mother’s shoulder. That… that hadn’t been there, had it? He hadn’t noticed it, at least.

Leafpool followed his gaze up to her shoulder, then her eyes traced it back to his muzzle.

Immediately, he raised a paw to his muzzle and ran his toes along his jaw, just below his lips. It felt sticky to the touch, and when he pulled back, his paw was stained red as well. He looked down as a knot began forming in his stomach, and found himself in a most gruesome state, as if he’d just returned from a bitter battle. His neck, his chest, his paws, all stained in blood. All red, red, red.

Except for a few little black clumps of fur stuck between his claws.

Dread crashed into him like a wave, washing away his strength and anger. He stumbled back and fell onto his haunches, feeling sick, although not really understanding why, only that something profoundly ghastly had taken place in this nursery. Something in his mind was doing its damndest to not let him comprehend what exactly.

“Leafpool?” Lionblaze meowed. His voice cracked “Mom?” He sounded tiny. He felt tiny.

“I’m here, son” Leafpool pressed her fur against his again, and he was pulled into a hug shortly after “It wasn’t your fault. Ok?  It wasn’t” She insisted “Take a deep breath. That's it. Very good. Why don’t we go to the medicine den? You can lie down on my nest and rest a little. I’ll bring you some water and we’ll clean up your fur. Does that sound good?”

Lionblaze shook his head. 

“What happened to Hollykit?” He wasn’t moving until he got an answer “Mom, what… wh-what did I... did I-I do to her?”

Leafpool hugged him tighter.

[moonlight-coffeebean-147]

Practice Headshots and New Characters ✨

So I wanted to test out colors for some of my twst ocs as well as introduce some new ones.

First: The Fearsome Five Gang

I honestly love how they all turned out. Castella loos like a dork (as he should). Jax has heterochromia. Tino my precious flower boy… mind the Venus flytrap though, that thing’s alive. Beck looks ho *gets smacked*. And Sterling…. Scares the shit out of me 💀 But yea really like how they turned out

I’ll put reminders for who they’re supposed to be

Castella Sparkvolt - Megavolt

Tino Rosebush - Bushroot

Jax Harlequin - Quackerjack

Beck Loman - The Liquidator

Sterling Doppelt - Negaduck

Next is the Ramshackle Gang (Minus Grim 💀)

…I did not intend for them to all have black hair but I think it’s funny. Of course we have the one and only Usagi. We got Jim.. who to be honest, I might change his age to be older (late twenties, maybe early thirties), because thinking more about his story… this mf in my opinion would not be in his early twenties. Maurice…. Anyways, Clancy’s hat was a nightmare to figure out but I think I like how it turned out. Also, new boi! His name is Jules Allis, based on Julius from the Runaway Brain short with a hint of Julius the Cat from the Alice Comedies.

He’s an experiment that escaped from his creator and would find his way to Night Raven College. I feel like while bunking at Ramshackle he was disguised in makeup around the others to look more “alive”, because Jules is absolutely terrified of being sent back to his creator. He’s overall a big cuddle gentle giant… with an equally big appetite, take that how you will ; )

Usagi Yoshinari - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Jim Percival - Peg-Leg Pete

Maurice Slicker - Mortimer Mouse

Clancy Wolfram - The Big Bad Wolf

Jules Allis - Julius

Miscellaneous & 3 More Newbies

I intentionally made front-facing Alex look uncanny because this man can’t human lol. It’s also the reason he has two differently designed eyes, .Giffard stares into your soul.. it comforts him to know you’re still here : ). And now… three more because 12 twst ocs wasn’t enough 💀 Camille, Cedar, and Reynard

Camille Dreadfox is based on Don Karnage from Talespin… I love him dearly. Camille is Hispanic (like meeee lol) , because that’s what his 2017 Ducktales iteration leaned towards, but like his Talespin counterpart, Camille’s got some French and Italian in him. He’s just as egotistical as Don Karnage… and as much as a goof as him too lol. He’s also got bushy ass eyebrows (He just like me fr 😭😭😭)

Cedar Goodwyn is based on Mr. Cedric from Sofia the First. He’s been held back and is put under a lot of stress by his family. To the point where he actually started getting grey hairs. Like this man is 20 yet he looks like he’s 40 😭. He’s a lot more cocky than he lets on and being put in Diasomnia was his worst nightmare incarnate. (Because yes put the one who messes up his spells frequently in the same dorm as one of the most powerful mages 💀💀💀)

Reynard Raposa’s based on Foxy Loxy from the 2005 Chicken Little…. Yes really. It was a part of my life growing up and it’s a guilty pleasure movie of mine. Reynard being sorted into Pomefiore is a play on Foxy Loxy’s fate in the movie. Plus I thought it’d be super funny if Reynard was the type to constantly get on Vil’s nerves since he (Reynard) is not afraid to openly show a slight rebellion to Pomefiore’s ways. Him being a more chill, nice bully came from Foxy Loxy’s promotional video, how Foxy feels about Chicken Little is the same as how Reynard feels toward Usagi/The MC. To quote one of her lines but to fit Reynard “Bless their heart they’re such a loser that you just love em, okay? It’s a big zero but I put a one ahead of it so I give em a ten~” Like, he’ll tease you but it’s all in good fun and he won’t really go too far with it. Also… don’t talk to him about his braces.

Alex Goldeye - Bill Cipher

.GIFfard Heartcable - .GIFfany

Camille Dreadfox - Don Karnage

Cedar Goodwyn - Mr Cedric

Reynard Raposa - Foxy Loxy

And finally

Headshots of @twistedtummies2 ‘s ocs.

He was actually the one who helped me settle on Reynard’s last name since I was dissatisfied with the old one. Once again dude ty so much ^^. Now this… is actually practice for a bigger project I’m working on, I’ll keep that to myself for now ; )

As for the characters.

Nakoda’s always fun to draw, and now I think I’ve finally settled on how I draw his face scales. Billy is also, as usual, a joy to draw. Elias… I’ve drawn him so many times that I can do it in my sleep 😂. The perks of being the favorite. I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DRAW RENO’S HAIR HOLY SHIT 😭🎊 I am not kidding, that’s how not used to drawing short hair I am 💀 James is finally in something normal for once since the two times I’ve featured him was for a meme and a shitpost 😭. Now he can look like his regular handsome self. Smitty is adorable and I care him very much ^^. Maelstrom was a character where I felt intimidated to draw him but slowly got the hand of. I think it was the hair but it was mostly the combed back bangs or whatever that style’s called. Theodore is another case where the two times I’ve drawn him… were for silly stuff 😭, figured to draw him in his natural glory before he curses my ass lol…. Grit… that look I drew him with, idk how I pulled it off but I really like it

That’s to for now, hope you guys enjoyed

- Moon

[bymooniemoonsims]

Harper and Alden haven’t slept a wink. The weight of everything presses down on them, making rest impossible.

Harper exhales sharply. “Queenie isn’t answering my texts.” Her voice is small, laced with exhaustion and guilt. “She must hate me.”

“She doesn’t, Red.”

“Can Queenie really blame us?”

“But yesterday you said—”

“I know what I said. And I still think it. I don’t want to rip apart what they have, and I don’t think we should be the ones deciding his fate. But if he’s the answer to all our problems… he has to know.”

Harper watches him, her heart heavy. “And what if knowing changes everything for him?”

Alden exhales. “It already has. I don’t think he’s not gonna start asking questions.”

“Watcher, this is so messed up… Do you think Hex knows?”

“He doesn’t.”

Harper furrows her brow. “Alden?”

He hesitates, then finally says, “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“What?”

Alden shifts uncomfortably. “I went to search for Grim the night before our wedding.”

Harper freezes. “You did 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵?!”

“I needed to know if there was something I could—”

“I cannot believe you!” she cuts him off, her voice sharp with disbelief. “You lost your mind when you found out I didn’t tell you about him stalking Raven, and now you’re telling me you went to him behind my back?!”

“Harper, I—”

“𝘕𝘰,” she interrupts. “You don’t get to justify this.”

“What if something had happened to you?!” Harper snaps, her voice shaking with anger. “What the hell were you actually thinking?”

Alden’s frustration is boiling over. “What do you think I was thinking, Harper? I was trying to fix this mess!”

“Would you have struck a deal with him?”

“Of course I would! I’d do anything for Raven to not end up as the fucking Grim Reaper. Do me a favor and let’s not pretend you wouldn’t do the same, please? Because I know you way too well for that. And honestly? It’d be embarrassing if you tried to deny it.”

“Be angry if you want, I don’t care. I don’t regret what I did.”

“You could at least regret hiding it,” she mumbles.

“I’m sorry, okay? I really am, Red. But I kinda didn’t want to risk you not marrying me.”

Harper scoffs. “We really need to stop doing this.”

“Yeah, we do.”

[bookwyrminspiration]

Shattered Upside Down

A kotlc wings au: masterpost here

Chapter 45: Epilogue (One Year Later)

word count: 10.6k

chapter summary: After freeing Olivia from Phoenix's clutches and (mostly) successfully defeating them and the Neverseen, what have the winged kotlcrew been up to in the past year?

warnings: death (non-violent, not mc)

taglist: @axels-corner @cadence-talle @ahecktonoffandomsinoneblog @loverofallthingssmart @cowboypossume @shellyseashell @imaramennoodle @dragonwinnie-kotlc @solreefs @fintan-pyren @jazzanddaydreams @xanadaus @valentinerose529

-> ao3 link here or read below one last time :)

The light had begun to turn a warm honey orange by the time Sophie Foster glitched into the grass fields of New Havenfield. All her friends should be inside by now, ready to enjoy the feast her parents had promised to prepare--partly in celebration of one year free, partly for personal reasons.

And this time they truly were free.

No more secret defeats or enemies crawling to the shadows to regroup. They’d actually done it this time--well, as far as they knew. If there turned out to be another resurgence they had to defeat again…Sophie was going to have some choice words with whoever was in charge of the universe.

Sophie’s wings buzzed lightly at her back as she surveyed the pastures, her vigilance a new habit she’d never break.

Grass shifted ever so slightly beneath the meandering air, and everywhere she looked she saw evidence of life bouncing back.

The gates had been reattached to their fences, new trees planted where they’d been torn that fateful day what felt like a lifetime ago. All the disturbed earth and rubble had been smoothed away, leaving clear paths to the house and pastures.

And there were animals in them.

Not as many as there’d once been, but anything at all was a huge improvement from the complete desolation that’d lasted months. Until, in a burst of inspiration, Sophie had dragged a dragon here.

It’d moved out long before Grady and Edaline had moved back in--it’d taken a while to rebuild the house, after all. Their faces had been grim when she’d first brought them for a brief visit and they’d seen the damage for the first time--the destroyed stairs, crumbling walls, the empty fields that’d once been teeming with life.

But even so, determination had steadily broken through.

Edaline’d even said she’d wanted to replace the stairs for years, but hadn’t had a good enough reason.

Sophie’d wanted to strangle her with a hug right then and there, but had settled for squeezing her hand as they’d continued along.

Sophie was mostly useless when it came to construction, and she had so many other new responsibilities to learn to balance, but she’d tried to check in on the house’s progress as much as she could.

Even though she didn’t have a bedroom there anymore.

It’d stung at first, even though it’d been her idea; and it wasn’t like there wasn’t space for her to visit--she still stayed over all the time.

It’d been bittersweet, a finality to all the rapid changes in her life. One more chapter of it closed.

Because as much as she loved her parents, it didn’t feel the same; something in her itched to keep moving, her mind desperate for the thoughts and colors and sounds it’d grown used to in the forest.

The monsters.

Even before their mission-gone-awry, Sophie’d already known what it was like to be different--and not in the way people liked. So now that she’d--mostly--gotten past her fears, she couldn’t help sympathizing with the things.

That didn’t mean there weren’t occasionally close calls, but they’d become fewer and farther between since Sophie had started working closer with Echo. Ever since the glitching not-cat had trusted her enough to show her the different pockets of monsters and things living in a sort-of-truce, she’d been spending more and more of her time with them, just like she used to wander the pastures at Havenfield.

Her parents weren’t necessarily happy about that--and a few of her friends had some reservations, even as far as they’d all come. But she had to. She couldn’t explain the feeling--plenty of her friends were successfully not spending ridiculous amounts of time around wild, potentially dangerous animals as they all worked to right the world. And yet.

Grass swished as Sophie started up the path towards the house, hoisting her spoils beneath her arm to get a better grip.

She’d known she had incredibly talented friends, but they’d somehow risen above and beyond even that in the past year.

Wylie and Fitz had formed a duo of sorts, Tam occasionally a third member, serving as valiant ambassadors between the surface and the Underground. The elves couldn’t stay down there forever, afterall--the dwarves’ patience could only tolerate so much.

But they also couldn’t jump right back into their old lives, even with the Neverseen and Phoenix gone--at least as gone as they could be. There were still…complications, of course.

Several elven houses had actually survived the apocalypse intact, given how isolated they’d been--and the fact they weren’t animal preserves. That really hadn’t worked in the Ruewen’s favor.

Biana and Maruca were helping coordinate moving those who still had houses back into them--their charming personalities were a huge help when dealing with so many haughty elves, but both of their abilities to detect and understand monsters made them invaluable when scouting out the surrounding areas to determine if they actually were safe to live in again.

Of course there were still thousands of displaced elves--those who had lived in Atlantis, or who hadn’t been so lucky with their homes--who needed a place to live. Last she’d heard of that, Dex had been deep in conversation with some dwarves, goblins, and council members about the logistics behind building temporary housing. Their plan sounded a lot like what she’d known as apartments back when she’d lived with humans.

She was sure people would have a lot to say about the smaller quarters and having to live near each other--but they’d also been doing that for over a year already, and underground at that. They’d be ridiculous not to recognize just how much of an improvement it would be to actually get some sunshine again. She was no physician, but everyone’s vitamin D levels had to be seriously hurting.

She could ask Elwin the next time she saw him. He’d probably tease her, again, about when she’d first come back.

~

“You know, it’s a miracle this flimsy piece of crystal was enough of a defense to keep this place safe,” Fitz observed, screwing the thing back in place after everyone had filed inside. He had one leg hooked over a new, stronger ladder--Sophie had broken the original--and the shiny new prototype of his knee brace clanked against the metal.

“I think Ro mentioned a couple times that she rigged it up with some bacteria, so anything that tried to get close learned the hard way that that was a bad idea,” Sophie offered as Olivia slipped her hand back into hers--they’d had to let go for the brief climb.

The little girl’s other arm was resolutely wrapped around Bee, holding the black and blue stuffed bumblebee tight to her chest; when she’d seen Sophie’s house last night after the campfire, she’d gasped so loud Sophie’d feared something had broken in, but she’d just rushed to the bed and grabbed the thing from where it’d been left next to Ella.

And Sophie suddenly remembered a note in the back of a diary and the hasty doodle next to it--a doodle Olivia had drawn. Of a little bee.

“Is that yours?” she’d asked, but the way she’d held it tight and trembling was all the answer she needed; maybe it was only a small toy in the grand scheme of things, but with what Olivia had been through? Any comfort was monumental.

She hadn’t set it down since, not even as they got ready to visit the Underground--all of them. And no one had said a thing about it.

Her friends, so far, had mostly been leaving Olivia to her. They weren’t ignoring her, but what were you supposed to do when someone added a very traumatized 8 or 9-ish year old to the group who had spent the last several months of her life witnessing and perpetuating horrific violence and mind games? And who had just witnessed two very influential people in her life die right in front of her--after watching her parents die not even a year before that?

Keefe kept making jokes and Fitz kept smiling encouragingly, and Linh was always so gentle, but some things just needed time.

She didn’t know why Olivia had chosen to stick to her side over everyone else’s, but she was going to do everything she could to be supportive and helpful…whatever that actually meant.

For now, it meant holding her hand as they climbed down the stairs into the Underground full of so many eagerly waiting people Sophie thought her brain might explode trying to list them all, even with her photographic memory.

All the parents who hadn’t seen their monstrous kids since they’d run away desperate to get their hands on them, bodyguards, Black Swan members, and maybe more; Sophie fell to the back of the group with Olivia so that when they finally crested the bottom, they wouldn’t be in the center of the chaos.

Just because she’d said she’d come didn’t mean she was ready for something as emotionally intense as this--especially with strangers. Sophie was barely more than a stranger herself.

“Dex!” Juline cried as she could only assume he reached the bottom, followed by what sounded a lot like him getting tackled.

She could hear Alden sobbing as he held tight to Fitz and Biana, and Tiergan’s soft voice as he spoke with Wylie under his breath--he was trying to keep it between the two of them, but unfortunately for him, all ten of them could hear it.

“Sophie?” Edaline’s voice called, nervous. Sophie still hadn’t shown her face; she and Olivia were a spiral up.

Tam reassured her mom. “Don’t worry, she’s here. She just…needs a minute.”

“Why?” Grady asked, and she smiled as she imagined the furrow in his brow.

Sophie looked down at Olivia. “Are you ready? I promise everyone will be very nice.” Well, Ro might make some stupid jokes, but we can deal with that when we get to it.

“Miss Foster truly has a knack for suspense,” Mr. Forkle said, a voice she hadn’t heard in so long she couldn’t help the way her eyes widened as she glanced toward the edge.

When she looked back at Olivia, something inscrutable had changed in her face. “Okay.”

Sophie took a breath and led the way down the stairs.

~

“You’d think erasing them would be the hardest part, not giving them back,” Fitz groaned from where he lay sprawled on the ground. There were plenty of chairs he could’ve chosen, but apparently the siren call of the hard earth was irresistible.

Elwin had chosen a chair, and now rubbed at his temples with his eyes firmly shut.

Adjusting to the influx of memories they’d poured back into his head.

Well, they’d already been in his head, just wildly out of place. They’d put everything back properly--and while some of the memories had found their place on their own, several had wandered aimless.

Meaning Sophie and Fitz had had to manually find where they went.

It’d be too soon if she never had to do anything so meticulous ever again.

“That’s the consequence of improper washing technique,” Tiergan told them, but his stern demeanor had been unusually softened since they’d come back--she suspected Wylie and the twins had something to do with that.

Sophie made a noise from where she’d collapsed in another chair, Olivia crossed legged on the floor beside her. “I’ll make sure to consult you next time we run away and need to hide our location from you and the Council.”

“Better idea,” Grady jumped in. “What if you don’t run away at all?”

Even though they were in one of the biggest rooms in the Underground, it still didn’t feel like nearly enough space for the number of people crammed into it.

All of her friends, all of their parents, Mr. Forkle, plus Sandor, Grizel, and Ro, Livvy to check up on Elwin, and Elwin himself. And there was little Olivia in the corner, but she was making herself so small she might as well not have counted.

Everyone had been incredibly nice to her, just as Sophie had promised, but it was still a lot of people.

And there had been a lot of confusion.

~

“Soph--oh?” Edaline had paused midway to her, head tilting to the side as her mouth dropped open. But she shook herself off as Sophie kept moving forward.

Edaline carefully closed the space between them, wrapping her arms around her.

“Hi, Mom,” she whispered into her ear, wrapping her free arm around her tight in response. She felt Grady’s join a moment later.

“It sounds like you have quite the story to tell us,” her mom said with a meaningful look as she pulled back, hands resting on Sophie’s shoulders.

Olivia’s face went carefully blank and tense, aware they were talking about her.

“Are you going to introduce us?” Grady asked, and Sophie realized it was more than just her parents Olivia was worried about. The whole room had gone silent, waiting in anticipation as they caught sight of her fiery red hair. Of someone new.

“Everyone, this is Olivia,” she said. “Olivia, this is everyone. She was…well, it’s a long story, but let’s just say she needed some better role models.”

Mr. Forkle raised a brow at that. “I do hope you plan to tell it, Miss Foster.” He watched Olivia with curiosity, a far-away look creeping around the edges like he was remembering something long past.

“Hang on, are you saying you think you all are role models?” Ro snorted, shaking her head and making the vivid purple of her pigtails sway.

“Hey, we may not be perfect--well, most of us, since I clearly am--but we’re definitely better than Murad and his creepy half-elf Phoenix people,” Keefe shot back.

Did you have to use every single buzzword possible? Sophie asked him, sighing as questions broke out; overlapping each other and rising in volume, she couldn’t even make out one question from another.

What? he asked, grinning and totally aware of what he was doing. It’s easier this way! Now everything’s out there.

Now I can’t even hear myself think, Tam put in, reaching up to tug on his bangs where he leaned against a wall near Linh, Wylie, and Tiergan, who was pinching the bridge of his nose and contributing to the noise.

“Don’t worry,” Sophie told Olivia, who had drawn back even further. “They do this all the time. It’s normal--and no one’s mad, I promise. And definitely not mad at you,” she said, guessing at where her reaction came from. “They’re just really confused…we kind of ran away from home a while ago, and everything has been chaos ever since. If they’re mad at anyone, it’s as us.” She gestured to herself and her friends. “We do stupid things a lot, and they’re kind of fed up with it.”

“Are you alright?” Edaline asked Olivia, brow crinkled. “I know you don’t know me, but we can fix that. I’m Edaline--Sophie’s mom. And if Sophie likes you, I’m sure I’m going to, too. She has great taste--don’t you agree, Grady?” she elbowed her husband lightly, drawing his attention away from the insistent inquisition her friends were undergoing.

Mostly it was them being asked any number of questions and going “you should ask Sophie about that” and “you’ll understand once Sophie tells the story” and “Sophie will explain.” Great. Really supportive of them.

“Hmm? Well, she does have some good friends, but there is that b--hey!” Edaline had elbowed him harder, and he seemed to actually be paying attention this time. And to realize there was a very overwhelmed little girl right in front of him. “Oh. Oh. Yes--Olivia, was it, kiddo? I like your little bee friend; it looks very soft. How’d you get wrapped up in all this mess?”

Olivia looked wide eyed between Grady and Sophie, and she wasn’t sure where this was heading or what she should do about it when Olivia opened her mouth.

The room had quieted by then, the adults getting nowhere with their questions and resorting to hugging their children again.

They’d overheard Grady’s question, however, and now watched with curious anticipation.

Olivia hesitated for a moment, then said. “You should ask Sophie about that, she’ll explain.”

Keefe cracked up.

~

“I think they’re going to explode if you make them wait any longer for that story,” Elwin said as he slipped his spectacles on and picked up her wrists. The leftover salve back at the village had helped some, but not enough. “So how about I take care of these while you start talking.”

Sure enough, when Sophie glanced back, it was to a room full of very tense, very expectant faces.

They’d sat patiently through Fitz and Sophie returning Elwin’s memories--and she couldn’t explain just how profoundly the relief had washed over her when she’d first seen him. Standing, full of color, wearing a ridiculous shirt covered in unicorns. Just himself.

She knew Livvy was good, but she hadn’t really believed he was okay until she’d seen the grin that’d split his face and he’d said, “There’s my thief!”, wrapping her up in an enormous hug.

But they’d stalled as long as they could.

Olivia was still curled up beside the chair, intensely aware of the attention she’d drawn as she nibbled on a puffed dessert. Kesler had offered it, promising there was nothing slipped into it to turn her green or anything--though she didn’t really understand the joke.

“Fine--but can you guys promise not to interrupt us with a million questions? We’ll be up all night if we do that.”

“I seem to recall you kids made a similar promise once--and were terrible at it.” Mr. Forkle smiled, silently settling into a nearby chair anyway.

“Hang on--us?” Keefe cut in. “You’re making us help, too?”

“Well obviously. Did you really think that ‘let’s make Sophie do all the talking’ thing was gonna fly?”

“Well…” Dex said, with a pointed look at her wings.

They buzzed under the intention--and from the tickle of Elwin’s fingers as he spread something over her burns. “That’s not what I--maybe I will tell the whole story myself then, if you’re all going to be so ridiculous.”

“I can help,” Linh offered, raising her hand ever so slightly.

“I told you, this is why she’s my favorite of you two,” Sophie directed at Tam, who only rolled his eyes.

“I’m beginning to wonder how we ever accomplished anything,” Tiergan rubbed at his temples.

“Simple. We’re the best!” Biana chimed in, appearing next to Sophie and startling her so hard she shrieked.

“You are,” Della agreed with a smile, but she continued. “Now about that story? Grady and Edaline already shared what you, Linh, and Sophie told them on your earlier visit. But it seems there’s been…some developments?”

Olivia sat very still as several people glanced at her again.

Fortunately for her, Fitz chose that moment to fluff his wings, knocking a glass off the table behind him with a loud clatter--he jumped at the sound as all eyes turned to him, but she could’ve sworn a hint of satisfaction flashed through the mindbubble as Olivia blinked.

“If everyone’s done, I’d be happy to tell you what’s going on--it’s great news,” she saw a few shoulders relax--even though everyone had seemed to pick up on their light, playful moods already. “But if you’d rather mess around…”

Biana appeared at her brother’s side to clamp a hand over his mouth as he opened it to protest, smiling sweetly.

“Alright,” she said as the room fell silent, expectant. “You already know some of the story, but there’s a lot we haven’t shared. Do you remember how Dex found that tag on the mushroom that broke into the Underground forever ago? The one that had a broken chain on it?”

~

“There has got to be a better way to carry that,” Maruca shook her head, re-securing her locs back as she watched Keefe stumble by.

Sophie followed her line of sight, a snort-like laugh bursting painfully from her nose as she saw what Maruca was talking about.

Keefe had a beanbag chair in his arms, but had apparently decided that the best way to hold it was to pile it atop himself in such a way his head was nearly completely covered, holding desperately tight for purchase as he walked unsteadily onward. She was seriously concerned he’d walk right out of the village and plummet to his death, even with the new railings.

Strung with vine-braided rope and peppered with flower buds waiting to bloom, they were a recent restoration project. There’d been railings when the village had first been built, evidenced by Olivia’s account and the leftover remnants they could sometimes find around the place.

But with time, storms, and tragedy they’d almost all fallen apart. None of her friends had bothered making railings when they’d started restringing some bridges and clearing out rubble, but that was because none of them needed them. If they fell--though it would take an idiot to fall in the first place--they could just fly back up.

That wasn’t true for everyone here anymore, though.

There was Olivia to think of, who had chosen to temporarily stay in the village with them because she couldn’t bear to be underground again--and because her monster wouldn’t be able to come underground with her.

Their parents hadn’t been thrilled at the thought of leaving several impulsive teenagers in charge of a young child, so they hadn’t.

On top of Olivia’s safety, their parents were frequent visitors; Grady and Edaline had already been to the surface before, and apparently so had Della and Mr. Forkle, so they were adamant that they should come over as often as they could to…she wasn’t actually sure.

Just to be there and start making up for the several months they’d been torn apart.

“AAH!” Keefe shouted, cutting her musings short as he nearly lost his balance on one of the rope bridges.

“You have telekinesis!” Fitz admonished from somewhere far in the distance--so far Sophie couldn’t even see where he was. “Use it, you idiot!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER HOW AWESOMELY THIS IS WORKING!” Keefe called back, though it was muffled since half of his face was pressed into the beanbag as he continued his stagger.

“What are you even doing?” Sophie called after him, barely containing her laughter, broom in her hand long forgotten.

“OLIVIA NEEDS SOMEPLACE COMFY TO READ HER NERD BOOKS!” he called back, and she realized that was, in fact, the direction he was heading.

With Olivia in the village--frequently visited by much more qualified role models than the ten of them--she’d chosen her own house.

She’d picked one nearby Sophie’s, though she hadn’t explained why. She couldn’t help suspecting it didn’t actually have anything to do with her; sure, Sophie had been the one to promise to get her out, but they’d all helped with that.

And they’d only spoken briefly when she’d been kidnapped, not long enough for them to form a strong connection. At first Sophie had just been the most familiar face, that was all.

Living in the village for the past month, she’d inevitably gotten to know the rest of Sophie’s friends, too. She’d taken a shining to Linh, both for the Hydrokinetic’s kindness and her dragons. Olivia had also started spending more and more time with Maruca, though she wasn’t sure what drew the two of them together.

Maruca sighed as they watched Keefe go, turning back around to get back to work; they were all having another cleaning day--and this time there wasn’t any horrible news burning the back of Sophie’s throat ready to throw it all to a halt.

They actually had even more help this time.

“Is he trying to fall?” Grady asked, returning from his trip to get more rope from the storage shed. He was helping Maruca with that--and originally Sophie had been part of it, but after a few too many close-calls, they decided she should sweep instead to preserve her fingers.

“AW, I THINK GRADY-O’S ACTUALLY WORRIED ABOUT ME!” Keefe yelled, even louder since he was further away and had a death wish.

Grady ruffled Sophie hair as he stood beside her, shaking his head. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave him in that creepy abandoned facility?”

None of them were willing to bring anyone else to the facility, since they didn’t know how it would respond to someone non-monstrous, but they’d told them all about it. And Keefe and Dex had been going back multiple times a week after Marella had showed them how to get there. They claimed it was because the Black Swan wanted to know what other valuable intel was hidden there--Dex’s first visit had been brief and under significant stress, after all--but Sophie was certain Keefe would’ve been there just as often even without the excuse. Dex was just covering for him.

Just because their families knew they had wings and some…interesting side effects from their first mission gone wrong didn’t mean they knew the whole story yet.

Even with minimal interruptions and half of the story already told, Sophie had spent practically the whole day recounting the last few months when they’d all gone back. Her friends had, of course, helped; they hadn’t really meant to make her do it all, but there still were some parts of the story only she could tell.

Like how she’d been kidnapped, and what she’d found in different monster’s minds.

There were other parts of the story only others’ could tell, but that didn’t mean they did.

Keefe had chosen not to tell anyone about what the being was to him, and none of the rest of them were quite sure either.

Biana hadn’t talked about the colors she saw with anyone but the ten of them--eleven if Olivia overhearing counted.

Maruca hadn’t mentioned what she’d done to keep them all safe.

Marella hadn’t talked about how she’d met her dragons.

Linh, however, was more than happy to share details about her own.

They’d been relegated to the forest floor when they had visitors--Elwin may have been fine getting jumped by a baby dragon, but they were starting to get bigger, and she didn’t think many others would take it as well as he did.

Even though Grady and Edaline used to work with animals. And even though they were slowly getting Olivia to open up more about her monster, Goldie.

They were taking it much better than she would’ve expected, given what had happened at Havenfield when the apocalypse first started and everything since.

She didn’t know if it was a testament to the strength of their natural courage, or if the need to comfort a traumatized little kid was enough to overpower any reservations they may have had, but she was grateful either way.

“You still with me, kiddo?”

Sophie shook herself off and smiled. “Always.”

~

Standing before Havenfield’s new door of crystalline wood, she hesitated before raising her hand to knock.

The gesture made her feel ridiculous and hope no one was watching, but she didn’t live here anymore. It didn’t seem right to just barge on in, even if she visited all the time.

Her knuckles were still against the wood when the door swung open and Tam’s face peeked out.

“Took your sweet time getting here.” He stepped back to let her pass, eyes reflecting the waning light. “I should’ve guessed,” he snorted as he saw what she carried.

“Am I the last one?” she asked, though she already knew the answer was yes.

“Sophie? Is that you?” Edaline’s voice called from the dining room, raising it to be heard over the lively chatter from dozens of people all in one space.

Sophie trailed behind Tam as she joined the group. “Sorry I’m late, Mom.” She used her free arm to wrap it around her mother, who had rushed her the moment she’d seen her to press her close; her wings gave a fond buzz.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming at all! What kept you?” Edaline pulled back, brushing a stray strand of hair off Sophie’s forehead; it was constantly sticking out every which way since she’d cut it, but it was infinitely better than all the tangles she’d dealt with from flying. Now she didn’t even have to think about tying it back before taking off, and she’d gotten all that weight off her neck.

“Is that for me?” Olivia asked, appearing beside them and pointing to Sophie’s arms.

“Sophie!” Fitz admonished from across the table where he sat between Keefe and Alden, wings relaxed and draping to the floor. “I thought we agreed stealing was wrong!”

“Stealing is great, actually, Golden Boy,” Marella answered for her, leaning back in her chair at a dangerous tilt that had Wylie frowning next to her.

“You’ve never even stolen anything before!” Tam protested, re-taking his seat between Linh and Maruca.

Sophie turned away from the debate that broke out to refocus on Olivia, who still looked expectantly at her with those wide bright eyes, arms folded over her chest. Her hair had been braided back, though a few curls were escaping and frazzled, matching the dirt stains on the knees of her overalls. She must’ve spent the day running through Havenfields pastures--maybe chasing Goldie.

“Yes, these are for you,” she answered her earlier question, and handed over her spoils.

A DVD of Labyrinth and a chapter book she’d swiped on a quick visit to the Forbidden Cities.

When she wasn’t with Goldie, Olivia liked to spend her down time reading or obsessively rewatching the same human movies over and over again, listening to the languages of her childhood.

Labyrinth had been one of Sophie’s childhood staples, and when she’d seen it she couldn’t help grabbing it to pass the classic on.

“You’re going to run out of space to keep all those at this rate,” Grady teased as he emerged from the adjoined kitchen with platters of pastries in each hand. His apron said “KISS THE COOK”, which Sophie had grabbed for him on a different Forbidden Cities run; it was becoming quite the habit of hers.

“I’ll keep them in your office when that happens,” Olivia decided, darting off with her goods; footsteps pounded up the stairs as she raced to her room to deposit them.

A bittersweet pang coursed through Sophie.

She’d worried about leaving her parents alone when she’d decided she preferred to stay in the village; she couldn’t bear to be so far from Echo and all the creatures, and visits weren’t enough.

Even going back every single day, the distance grew as she stayed at Havenfield to help with the rebuilding efforts. Even though the most she could do was carry things sometimes. Construction really wasn’t her thing.

But they weren’t the same people she’d moved in with who were lost and grieving and needed someone to guide them back to living, and they weren’t the same parents she’d left in the Underground who needed reassurance she was still alive.

Grady’d definitely shed a few tears, but all his arguments had been half-hearted when she’d told them.

And she wasn’t leaving them alone.

There was Olivia now.

Sophie didn’t have a bedroom here anymore, but Olivia did.

There wasn’t a single moment she could pinpoint where Olivia had started melding into the family. No one had meant for it to happen; it’d simply been the result of a series of decisions trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

Grady and Edaline weren’t the only ones who had been kind to Olivia, who had visited the village and brought her gifts and been willing to put in the time to get past the thick shell Murad had put around her.

Not that that could be resolved in just a year--or ever; she’d bear the scars for the rest of her life, but they’d made significant progress in earning her trust.

But even with so many people offering her a peace she’d nearly forgotten, Sophie’s own parents had stood out above the rest.

Olivia trusted Goldie, her giant gold-threaded midnight bear, more than she trusted herself.

And Grady and Edaline had a way with animals.

As soon as they’d earned Goldie’s trust, it was like this arrangement was inevitable.

Of course she’d stay with the elves who literally worked an animal preserve; of course they’d look after an experimental little girl thrust into a new world without any family left to remember her--they already had experience with that, after all.

The only blip in the process had been the rest of the half-elves.

There was no simple solution to what to do about or with them, and they still didn’t have everything worked out.

With the help of information Dex had retrieved from the abandoned facility, the bits of intel recoverable from the burnt husk of the main facility, and the scraps of knowledge Olivia had from experience, they’d started searching for survivors of the facility fire.

And, with time, they’d found some.

There was no way to anticipate how any one person would react.

Some of them vehemently believed in Murad’s cause and had been indoctrinated by his revenge since birth, spewing vitriol against anyone who came near.

Some hadn’t even been a part of the experiments and plots, they’d just lived there because there was nowhere else in the world they could find a population of people like themselves. They’d been born into it and didn’t know anything else.

Some didn’t know what to think when Sophie found them and asked to talk.

And neither did the elves.

Originally the councillors had wanted to keep this knowledge to themselves, but there was no way Sophie was going to let them stay quiet about it; she’d understood why they’d kept quiet about Lady Vespera’s Nightfall--but she wasn’t going to sit by a second time.

They must’ve seen something in her expression that made them realize there was no keeping this quiet, so they’d elected to spread the news gradually themselves, and their world had never been the same.

Especially not after the Council had asked to meet with any half-elves willing.

The burden of arranging that meeting had fallen to Sophie and her friends, since they were the ones actually going out to find former Phoenix members.

It’d taken months, but with their combined efforts they got a dozen of the half-elves they’d found to agree to represent their people before the Council.

That wasn’t to say everyone was happy with the arrangement--the half-elves they’d found had only been the tip of the iceberg, hundreds more having survived, escaped, and reconvened around the globe.

And they were just as divided about the issue as the elven world.

Their main advantage had been surprise, as virtually no-one had been aware of their existence--not even the few elves who’d been alive when the banishing decree had been issued. It was too long ago; their ancient minds hadn’t held onto the memories, especially with the washers deployed throughout the Lost Cities and the rewritten history books replacing the gaps.

But now they’d been discovered, and they were far fewer in number and power than the rest of the Lost Cities.

So despite intense debate, they agreed to the meeting.

A meeting that had grown to include all the intelligent species.

When the meeting had started, there were only six intelligent species.

When it ended, there were seven.

Of course Sophie’s attendance had been requested to represent her friends, given just how wrapped up they were in the whole mess--because describing it as anything less than was just wishful thinking.

There’d been arguments both ways--saying that half-elves should fall under the designation of elves and didn’t need their own classifications (of course with some arguments they should be classified with humans instead). Others that they were too different from both species to be anything but their own category.

Regardless of what everyone else thought of them, the half-elves refused to align themselves with the elves given their history. And with that solemn reminder, the Council voted in favor of their own classification and broke the tie.

It was the least they could do, a first step, though they were a long way from making up for the mistakes of the past. If they ever could be.

The other species had left that meeting concerned that if half-elf/half-humans--who referred to themselves with which word depended on the person--could be considered an intelligent species, what did that mean for humans? Was it the elven-half that made them eligible? Or if the title was something that they could hand out based on a vote, whose to say humans weren’t intelligent after all? The thought had darkened and perplexed many faces, but it wasn’t what had screwed up Sophie’s--she already knew humans deserved to be considered intelligent, she just also knew that battle would be a long one, and wasn’t quite ready to take it on.

She was more worried about Olivia.

If the half-elves were establishing themselves again, would Olivia want to go back to them? She’d lived her entire live with them, after all. Spoken their languages, participated in their traditions; their faces were far more familiar than Sophie and her friends’.

Would they want her back?

Surely they knew about her--she’d been Murad’s favorite project.

But they hadn’t asked about her at all. Not until she’d broached the subject herself, the worry unbearable until she ripped off the bandaid.

They’d gone still.

“She’s alive?”

One of the half-elves from the meeting had pulled her aside, grip tight on her arm and desperately searching her face, brown eyes meeting brown. “Olivia’s alive?”

She’d stammered out some sort of affirmative, too caught off guard by their intensity to do anything else.

“Take me to her, please.”

It had taken a few days for security purposes, but when she’d brought them--Saya, she’d learned--back to New Havenfield, she’d never seen anyone so nervous.

Saya kept pushing back their dark curls, fiddling with the edges in anxiety, so different from the collected calm they’d displayed in the meetings as they waited in the pastures.

And then Grady, Edaline, and Sandor had walked out with Olivia behind them, and the unease on their face turned to bittersweet heartache at her small gasp.

Saya hadn’t said a word as they’d dropped to their knees, arms holding Olivia tight as she crashed into them and gripped them tight.

They switched to a human language Sophie didn’t recognize but still understood, and her eyes burned badly enough she had to look away--so did her parents, even though they couldn’t understand what they said.

But the love in the words was unmistakable.

“You’re alright? They’ve treated you well? When I heard--”

Olivia nodded. “They’ve--they’re nice. Where did you go?”

“I never went anywhere, honey. But when you left, I never thought I’d see you again. I thought something horrible had happened. But you promise you’re okay?”

“It’s better now since…since…” she trailed off, glancing at Sophie. “You’re not going to leave again, right?”

“Never again. I promised your parents I’d look after you, remember? I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to find you. I had no idea where to start looking--but now I’ve found you, and I intend to keep my promise.” Saya tucked a curl behind Olivia’s ear, searching her eyes before pulling her close again.

They steeled themself then, remembering they had an audience, and switched back to the Enlightened Language.

“Sophie tells me you’ve been looking after her. Thank you,” they said, carefully even.

Edaline blinked. “Of course--Saya, right?” Saya nodded. “It’s the least we can do; no one deserves what she’s been through.”

“How do you know Olivia?” Grady asked, tightening his hold on Edaline.

Saya stayed on the ground, eyes on Olivia as they spoke. “Her parents and I were close, though they were far more involved than I was.” They didn’t say with what, but they didn’t need to. Involved with Murad and his experiments. “I promised I’d look after her if anything happened to them--though I didn’t know until recently--” they inclined their head to Sophie “--that she was still alive. I thought she’d died with Murad and Fintan in the fire.”

Olivia flinched at the names--nearly imperceptible, but there; Sophie swore she could hear a growl from a distant pasture.

“What are your intentions now?” Sandor squeaked out, squinting suspiciously at Saya. He’d taken to guarding Olivia instead of Sophie, and seemed glad to have someone to protect again.

Saya’s expression hardened, and they stood, a hand on Olivia’s shoulder; she looked anxiously up between the two of them.

“I intend to keep my promise.”

“How?” Sophie cut in, acutely aware of the rising tension.

“Thank you for looking out for her, but she belongs with her people. How would you like to come home with me?” they asked, looking down at Olivia and softening their tone.

Olivia stayed quiet, frozen--and this time there was no mistaking Goldie’s agitation as the growl sounded again, heavy footsteps approaching.

Sophie tried again. “Where are you staying?”

Saya glanced at her, debating with themself for a moment before answering; they’d worked alongside Sophie long enough not to immediately write her off. Saya had been the first to agree to the meeting, after all. And they’d stayed near Sophie throughout the whole ordeal.

“Murad established a number of unmapped bunkers in the event something went seriously wrong.”

Olivia wrapped her arms around herself tight and Goldie’s thundering form crested around a corner with all its hair on end.

“Underground?” Olivia asked faintly.

“Hey, kiddo, remember the breathing exercises we went over?” Grady said before Saya had a chance to answer. “Slow and steady, that’s it. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut tight as she listened, body lightly swaying with the rhythm.

They stayed quiet as she regulated herself, only broken by Grady and Saya’s gentle encouragement.

Goldie stalked up beside Sophie, fur laying smooth over its body--but eyes fixed intently on Olivia.

Sophie reached a hand out to brush against it; she hoped the soft strokes would travel through whatever mental link the two shared and help calm Olivia down.

When Olivia opened her eyes again, it was to Saya crouched in front of her, seeing her with new eyes.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you, honey? A lot I don’t know about. Yes, the bunkers are underground. Would that be a problem?”

Olivia didn’t answer, but turned anxious eyes towards Goldie, who stared back.

“She doesn’t like being underground,” Sophie explained quietly, wings buzzing. “It reminds her of…everything. Since your facilities were underground.”

Saya stayed quiet for a few moments, brow furrowed. “Well, that’s a problem.”

They looked around then, surveying the pastures and the peaceful animals they’d been slowly accumulating, Goldie at Sophie’s side, her parents and Sandor tensely watching over the exchange, the new house of crystal and wood.

“Do you like it here?” Saya asked, switching away from the Enlightened language; Edaline, Grady, and Sandor’s expressions pinched.

Slowly, Olivia nodded. “Everyone’s very nice, and Goldie likes it here. There’s lots of space for it. And I have my own room--I even have some of the movies we used to watch!” She pushed up a little in a bounce of excitement. “We could--we could watch them together.”

Saya smiled. “I’d love to watch a movie with you. Do you like the people?”

Olivia wasn’t blind to what was happening. “I miss you. It’s…scary, sometimes, meeting so many new people. But Sophie promised me they’d all be nice, and that I didn’t have to meet anyone I don’t want to. And she keeps her promises.” Goldie shifted. “You could…you could stay here with me.”

Sandor’s face screwed up with impatience as Sophie’s eyebrows lifted.

“I wish I could, honey. And before we watch that movie, I have a very important question for you.” They waited for Olivia to nod. “Do you want to stay here? I know I don’t have a place for us aboveground, but just say the word and I’ll figure something out.”

Olivia took a moment, looking around at the new Havenfield just like Saya had, really considering her answer. She met Goldie’s eye, looked and Grady and Edaline, at Sandor, at the fields she’d started to play in and help with. “I like it here.”

“But do you want to stay? I promise I won’t be upset if you do, I just want to know what you think, okay?”

Something loosened in Olivia’s face and she nodded. “I like it here. Are you sure you can’t stay with me?” Her voice was near pleading, holding tight to Saya.

Saya’s face softened, and they pressed a kiss to Olivia’s forehead. “I can’t, honey. But I promise I’ll visit as much as I can. Every single day, even.”

They switched back to the Enlightened language. “You understood all that, I presume?” That part was directed at Sophie, and she nodded.

“Care to fill the rest of us in?” Edaline asked--polite, but strained.

“If Olive doesn’t want to be underground, I don’t have anywhere I can take her right now. And with what she’s been through…I’m not going to force her to leave.” Saya appraised Grady, Edaline, and Sandor as though they’d never seen them before. “She likes you, and she likes it here. If she’s finally found some stability, I won’t take it from her.”

“But you’re not going, right?” Olivia cut in, even though Saya had already promised to visit.

“I told you I’d be here as much as possible, didn’t I?” they said, squeezing her shoulder. They turned back to Grady and Edaline. “And in that case, I believe a proper introduction is in order, since we’ll be seeing a lot of each other--assuming you have no problem with that?” They raised a brow expectantly, almost in a challenge.

A smile broke across Grady’s face. “Of course not--if that’s what Olivia wants, we have no problem with it. Grady, Grady Ruewen,” he said, stepping forward to offer Saya his hand for a firm shake.

Edaline bent over to wrap Olivia in a tight hug, whispering, “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart. I promise, Saya can stay over as much as they want, okay? Whatever you want. And if one day you want to leave and stay with them instead, that’s okay too. We just hope you’ll visit sometimes.”

Olivia’s answering smile could’ve lit the world on fire.

~

“Was that all you grabbed?” Saya asked from their seat in the corner; they sat alone. Just because they were at Havenfield even more than Sophie these days didn’t mean they knew or liked everyone the Ruewen’s had invited. Sophie wasn’t sure they’d even met Alden before.

“Almost everything,” Sophie shook her head, reaching into her pocket to pull out a pack of mints and tossing them to Saya, who caught it with ease.

“And that’s why you’re my favorite elf,” they grinned, tearing off the plastic and popping one into their mouth.

Marella made a noise of protest, and Fitz opened his mouth to respond to Marella, but Biana kicked both of them under the table. “We are not having this debate again! Not at the table at least! Go fight it out outside if you need to, you animals.”

Tam had to cover his mouth with his hand to smother his laughter, and he wasn’t the only one.

“If you’re handing out presents, please tell me you got something for the rest of us,” Keefe begged, making puppy-dog eyes at her. Even though he knew the answer. It’d become a small tradition for her to bring Olivia a little something back whenever she visited the Forbidden Cities, and occasionally she grabbed something for Saya, too.

But the three of their’s connection to the Forbidden Cities--raised by humans and half-humans--was something they mostly kept between the three of them.

That wouldn’t stop Keefe from asking for treats and favors, though.

“Unbelievable. You save the world and this is the thanks you get?” Keefe complained with a small smile, because he knew he was about to start even more debate and arguments.

Sure enough, Maruca snorted, “You saved the world? Were the rest of us on vacation or something?”

Sophie tuned them out as Olivia came racing back down the stairs, giving Sophie a quick nod before she skirted around the chairs and mingling bodies to find Saya.

They smiled at her, running a fond hand over her head and fingering the braids Grady had done that morning.

“Saya’s taken the news well,” Edaline murmured next to Sophie, and she realized they’d both been watching them.

“Well, they said they were more ambivalent about Murad and his revenge dreams. Some of the others are probably taking it harder.”

Even after all the months spent working together, re-establishing the elven and half-elven worlds--sitting through meetings, traveling the world, and learning more about construction coordination than she ever thought possible--and even after all the progress they’d made, there was still one detail that bothered her.

A desperate, scared, lonely boy with eyes that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be blue or green standing alone in an evacuating village as his elven mother turned from him, never to return.

The defining moment of Murad’s life, the one that had sparked him to form Phoenix and shaped his vitriol against elves into what it had been.

But why?

Why had she walked away?

Murad had raved about how she’d chosen elves over him, but…she’d looked so devastated in that memory.

Sophie had so many responsibilities to balance, but the image of Murad’s mother’s bracing face burned against her eyelids every time she closed them, and she couldn’t stop asking why why why why why?

So she’d found herself before Councillors Bronte and Oralie, asking if they had any idea where to start looking for a vanishing elf.

Because there wasn’t any record of her in the Registry Files; Sophie’d thought that if she’d renounced her half-elven son and human lover, she’d have rejoined polite elven society and there’d be something to find.

But it was like she’d never existed.

Bronte and Oralie couldn’t say much to help--but they reminded her that elves don’t die, at least not naturally.

The elves from that time were still alive, even if their memories had been altered.

And so on the side, Sophie’d began the long and tedious process of identifying the few Ancients who were ancient enough to remember, of visiting them, getting permission to search for their washed memories--some were more willing than others.

There were those who didn’t want anyone rooting around in their head ever again, even if it meant they never got their old memories back--they’d been fine this long without them, after all, so what did it matter?

There were those nervous and distrustful about the process--especially if she kept her wings out for the meeting, so she’d taken to keeping them under a cape during her visits just to make it easier to talk to them.

And then there were those who were her favorite to work with: the ones eager to have their memories returned, who practically begged the Moonlark to find what had been stolen and set things right. They were few and far between.

All that didn’t even take into account how temperamental Ancients could be with how old and crowded their minds had become, nor how isolated they generally liked to stay. The majority of Ancients old enough to remember never responded to her initial contact.

Suffice to say, she’d had her work cut out for her--though Fitz had been sweet enough to help as much as he possibly could, and given the wide range of reactions to their varying levels of success, she was immensely grateful she didn’t have to suffer it alone.

Especially when, against all odds, they’d actually found something.

She’d been nearly ready to call the search off that day; she’d been here before, the infinite darkness in the outskirts of a mind that meant whatever memories there’d once been had been swallowed and lost.

The few flickers of ancient, ancient memories they’d already found were better than the complete emptiness they found in most minds.

But this particular ancient seemed so eager--desperate--to find something, that she nearly couldn’t bear the thought of telling them there wasn’t anything left.

She’d opened her eyes and looked into their imploringly blue eyes, that she found herself transmitting to Fitz, One more try.

The tug of exhaustion pulled at his mind, but he didn’t complain. Just rallied the little energy he had left to pool between them and squeezed her hand tight.

“One more try,” she repeated out loud for their benefit, and they nodded and closed their eyes, bracing themself in the chair. Their fingers dug so deeply into the wood she worried it’d crack.

With a final shove, they sliced through the fudgy edges of their consciousness as they shouted MURAD again, and Sophie sent a tiny bit of the power stored beneath her ribs in an attempt to get something to happen.

Maybe they aimed in the right place. Maybe it was her stored power. Maybe it just finally clicked into place.

Whatever it was, Fitz whispered, Oh fuck, before his mind immediately recoiled from its own vulgarity as a crackled memory surged forward. It buoyed them out of the recesses of this ancient’s subconscious with a startling instancy as they watched.

Even through the distortion Sophie could make out her face, pretty dark curls to her waist and deep blue elven eyes, dark skin, and a pinched expression overflowing with tears.

~

She burst into the room, not bothering to knock and sending them jumping to their feet.

“Nai--” they started, but she wasn’t listening.

“They won’t listen. They can’t see reason--they’re too afraid, and I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered, gripping her hair tight and frazzling it as she paced the living room.

“Slow down--what are you talking about?”

Murad’s mother stopped, turning to face them. “The council. Y--said they’d talk to them to appeal the decision, but he couldn’t make it. He messaged me, begging me to take his place. Because someone has to make them see how--how--how stupid this is. They can’t erase them, I’m not letting them take my family from me.”

“You met with the council?”

“If you can even call it that. He told me I had to go immediately, since they were already preparing to wipe their barbaric decision from their memories! Can you believe it?” she whirled to face them. “They know, they know it’s wrong--that’s why they erased it. Because they’re a bunch of cowards who can’t face the fact they’re doing this because they’re afraid--ruining thousands of lives over it.”

They struggled to keep up with her, heart pounding as they watched her pace back and forth and back and forth.

“I showed up and half of them didn’t even know what I was talking about!” she burst out, hands curling into fists. “I left Murad in--” she cut out, tension riddling her body as horror flashed across her face.

They stilled. “With Hati?”

Murad’s mother whirled, punching the wall and sending photos crashing to the floor. “I’m an idiot. How could I--I need to go back. I left him alone because I thought--what was I thinking!”

“You left him alone?” They could only helplessly repeat back what she said, could only try and understand bits and pieces of this whirlwind.

She darted back to the door, still ajar from when she’d burst in; she fumbled a starstone from her pocket and held it up to the light, not even bothering to look.

Instead her eyes were on the ground, but far far away and furious as she held a hand to her mouth and tried to brush away the tears.

They’d never forget the terrified sorrow on her face as the light started to pull her away.

Or the soft, “No,” she breathed as she faded from sight, muscles going limp and eyes wide as she realized all too late her carelessness.

And all they could do was reach towards their sister and watch her disappear.

~

Sophie opened her eyes to tears streaming down their ancient face, and as she opened her mouth to say something--anything--she tasted salt on her own lips, too.

“I’m so sorry,” Fitz said, hollow and automatic as their hands dropped from their temples.

They’d seemed too stunned to say anything in response for a long minute, and then they turned away.

Their bright blue eyes fogged over, and they hugged their arms close.

“I have always felt,” they began, pressing a palm to their chest over their heart, “that I was missing something. When I still spoke to my old companions, they told me it was the product of an old mind. Things slip through the cracks. It’s only natural. And I tried to believe them, that this space in my life was nothing more than an Ancient mind collapsing on itself. But some part of me never did, and when I heard that the two of you were searching the minds of those willing, I couldn’t resist. I had to know.”

They paused and took a breath. “And now I do.”

Sophie blinked hard. “I’m sorry,” was all she could manage. What else could she possibly say?

They continued like she hadn’t spoken. “I remember now…she was so passionate. If anyone could’ve convinced the council to revoke their decision it would’ve been her. That must’ve been why she risked it.” Their eyes fixed on her. “The general population doesn’t know the specifics of what our world went through, and us recluses even less so. But we all heard of the meetings between the species, and that there were half-elves there. Murad…I know it’s unlikely, but did you ever learn anything of him?”

Sophie’s breath caught, and Fitz’s wings ruffled behind them in surprise.

Their brow furrowed, anxiously looking between them and reading their reaction.

“You have?”

She couldn’t get her mouth to work, couldn’t figure out how to tell them that Murad had been responsible for their world falling apart, couldn’t figure out how to soften the blow.

Fitz beat her to it. “We did. He…he didn’t make it out.”

Their minds still held hands from their probe, and she felt his thoughts racing frantically past as he tried to school his expression and give this Ancient any peace he could.

They closed their bright blue eyes, as though they’d been expecting it. “Thank you; now leave me, please.”

They’d complied, numb. Fitz’s hand tight in hers as she drew them through the void and back to the village.

Neither of them moved or even said a word, simply standing there, until Wylie crossed their paths.

One look at them and he was calling a family meeting and gently pushing them into chairs beside the campfire; their fingers were still intertwined.

It’d taken a little bit to gather everyone, as busy as they all were with their different projects these days. Linh’s dragon had finally woken, and she’d been helping re-acclimate it to being awake and taking care of its no-longer-so-little ones. Marella had moved hers out of Havenfield, though Sophie wasn’t up to date on where it was now. It took Tam some time to get away from wherever it was he kept slipping off to--she saw him with Fitz a lot, and heard them say something about “knocking some sense into everyone.”.

But everyone trickled in, one by one, until the ten of them were silent around faux purple, yellow, white, and black flames and the questions became more and more worried.

When they’d mentioned calling Elwin, Sophie and Fitz had sent the memory through the mindbubble and watched it ripple into their heads, whispers falling silent as they watched.

Wylie and Biana, their resident experts on light, confirmed what they’d already suspected.

Murad’s mother, who’s name they hadn’t fully caught, had been too distraught and distracted as she’d held up the starstone.

They couldn’t see the specifics of the light, but Wylie and Biana said there was an impassive hunger to it, visible in the patterns it pulled her body apart in.

Never to reform.

She’d faded.

Murad had been wrong. She hadn’t abandoned him in that village to choose pure-bred elves over her family, her son.

She’d left desperate to keep him, and had died trying to get back to him.

His hurt, his motivation, his entire cause was built on something that wasn’t even true.

Millennium of work in retribution, months of chaos and torment, and this entire time she had chosen him.

Chosen him so entirely that it had torn her apart.

~

None of them had known what to do with the information, so Sophie’d told Saya the next time they crossed paths at Havenfield; it hadn’t taken long, they both visited as often as they could.

They’d gone quiet, then sought out Olivia to hug her close and apologize because they couldn’t stay.

Amidst Olivia’s disappointment, they silently pulled a starstone from their pocket and faded into the light; Sophie couldn’t help a pang of worry, remembering Murad’s mother being pulled so gracefully, so silently into its eternal light.

Edaline and Grady had come out then, just in time to watch them twinkle away.

They’d looked at Sophie in confusion. Did something happen? We thought they were staying the night.

So Sophie had silently pulled them inside to tell them what she and Fitz had found; something that changed everything and nothing at all.

That had been a little under a week ago, and she hadn’t seen Saya since.

But they’d shown up today, grinning at Olivia and exchanging polite conversation with all the guests they didn’t know.

Edaline and Grady had decided it’d been entirely too long since everyone had gotten together, and they all deserved an evening of fun and relaxation with how hard they were all working. For months Sophie’s days had been so crammed she could barely tell them apart. Between all the meetings the council wanted her sitting in on, helping Echo manage the forests and creatures, her Murad project, the reconstruction efforts, visiting Havenfield, and helping her friends with their equally busy schedules, she wasn’t sure she’d been this busy when the Neverseen and Phoenix had been at large.

And, another reason to celebrate, it’d been almost an entire year since they’d finally won.

But she set all of that from her mind, wings buzzing with excitement in their loose tailored shirts as she slipped into a seat beside Dex, nudging him affectionately with her shoulder.

He grinned back at her from his animated conversation with Elwin about something she didn’t understand, passing her one of the pastries Grady had baked.

As she bit into it, a small Brrr echoed through the room.

When she looked down, she found herself staring directly into Echo’s eyes as it perched in her lap.

She swore she could hear Tam muttering something that sounded a lot like weirdo as she pet it, trying not to sprinkle powdered sugar over it.

Linh flicked water at her brother, giving Echo a longing look from across the table.

Tam grumbled under his breath, and Keefe laughed at him with wings flashing white. They ruffled, bumping into Fitz, who’s own wings shot out and hit Biana.

She shrieked in indignation, laughing as she pushed out of her chair--Maruca reaching out to pull her back down as Wylie shook his head. Sophie saw Dex’s hand slip into his pocket, and she feared what he’d pull out of it--but that wasn’t nearly as wicked as Marella’s expression; she only ever looked like that when she knew something good was about to go down.

“Everything alright over there?” Grady called from where he’d returned to the kitchen, and Sophie couldn’t help grinning as she finished off her pastry, watching her family. Her ridiculous, weirdo family.

“Never been better.”

[verdantglow]

As previously mentioned here, in my trafficstuck AU, the players are all adult trolls in the present day. Given how troll society functions, they can’t stay on Alternia & at various times, they all take off in various spaceships to wander the universe. I have spent way too much time thinking about how this would be arranged, so here’s the first two of six ships to leave Alternia. (Note: The crews have a tendency to shuffle around as time goes on; this is just how they are arranged after they take off but before Last Life.)

Ship 1

The first to take off, this ship carries Lizzie & Joel. Lizzie is a fuchsia blood & spent most of her life focused on the point when Her Imperious Condescension would decide Lizzie was old enough to be too much a threat to leave alive. Then, they would have their epic showdown that would, almost inevitably, end with Lizzie losing the fight & her life.

Joel was very much not down with this plan. Lizzie stubbornly insisted that she had to at least try to win, to take The Condesce down, but eventually Joel convinced her that, at very least, she deserved a more even playing field & to have the fight on her own terms. They decided the best way to do this was, well before their cohort was meant to take off, they would hack Lizzie’s battle ship & escape off planet, buying some time as they went into hiding.

Few of the players knew that Lizzie & Joel had this plan until a while after it went down. Joel first confided in Griann that they needed a grub that could get into the battleship’s systems. Griann suggested Joel reach out to Tangoh, who had grown the game grub for 3rd Life & who Grian insisted would be sympathetic to their cause & not rat them out. After a lot of dithering, Joel contacted Tangoh & Tangoh happily grew & coded a grub for them that could hack into a ship system & basically nuke any tracking that might be on it. In exchange, of course, Lizzie used her position to acquire some extremely rare & expensive tech bits for Tangoh. No questions were asked by either side.

Joel & Lizzie made a slightly rocky, but successful, escape on the hacked battleship, along with hefty amount of supplies. Big down side of their ship is that it can’t sustain FTL very long, as it’s so huge it’d really require psionics to maintain that kind of velocity. But really. They’re not in a rush to get anywhere, just wandering the more distant, empty parts of the universe for long stretches & making port extremely rarely at extremely secluded planets.

Ship 2

Troll life sucks. It sucks for kids, it sucks for adults, & it sucks more the lower on the hemospectrum you are. It especially sucks if you are a gold blood with psionics, given you can pretty much expect to get shoved in some high blood’s ship as an engine. It was that or get culled. So yeah, Impuls had a pretty grim fate to look forward to. Luckily, his moirail, Skizzl, would never let that happen.

With the help of their friend, Tangoh (& the parts Lizzie helped Tangoh acquire), they built a ship & the three of them took off together several perigees after Joel & Lizzie. Since then, they’ve been on the move for the most part, avoiding other Alternian ships as best they can. When they can’t avoid run ins with other trolls, Tangoh does all the talking, which makes sense because, as an indigo blood, he has the most social standing & unless they run into high bloods or royalty, he can generally talk &/or intimidate their way out of trouble. Impuls tries his best not to be around for such things, to minimize risk of being caught. If they’re taken off guard though, they will generally put up the pretense that he & Skizzl are in Tangoh’s “employ,” which usually works well as most troll’s don’t look too closely at a blue blood keeping a couple of low bloods around to take care of things for them. (The moment they’re alone again, though, Skizzl & Impuls gives Tangoh so much shit for using high blood vernacular & acting ‘all proper & shit.’ The poking of fun sometimes lasts days if Tangoh said something they deem particularly ridiculous.)

Fun fact: since they built their ship themselves, it is designed to have two operating modes: 1. It can self-propel & be steered using a navigation panel or 2. It can be controlled, entirely or partially, by Impuls. He & Tangoh teamed up to invent a, uh, less brutal method for hooking Impuls into the system, allowing him to use his psionics to take over various functions without literally being permanently melded with the ship. Given how most space travel is just ‘get a boost in a direction & coast,’ Impuls will often just jump in to set a course & let physics do the rest of the work. If they want to go really fast, like faster than light, he has to be fully controlling things as there really is no replacement for his batshit psionics in those cases. But really, his job as the ship’s helmsman is far more laid back than a psionic gold blood could hope for & he finds he quite likes it this way.

[ferstofus]

Space Job

Frolicking above the stars On a night diminutive Was the planet lone and captive Licking comets just beyond Gravitational its pull On a very starry night Dancing rubble with delight Seasonal around the orbit

It was never a coincidence How the shiny eloquence Of the boulders’ breaking dance Lit celestials with the sounds Of another silent rumble Shards of space rocks flying by From trajectories awry If they ever had one any

Darting through the shooting ship Shooting through the space across Voyage’s time had nothing loss Parting from unknown the origin Hull’s a-shoving floating obstacles Trip presented its amenables Alongside the inconceivables Lulls of anything at all

Passengers aside withheld In convenience they were stored Cryosleeping so not bored Rangers of the vast beyond Unsuspecting of the creature Lurking somewhere in the ship Cables tearing in a snip Making proper hidden nest

Sorting mucus as did best Multilegged little scuttler Building structures like were butter Snorting here and now and then As the crew erected selves For a day just like tomorrow No time for no bliss or sorrow Was the company commandment

They propelled for the mess hall Groggy lazy and the like Juna, Hazy, Mark and Mike Say another grayish day Juna had her morning coffee Mike was reading through the news None commenting on own blues Gonna spoil established mood

When a rattle and a crackle Was enough for promptly startle No one was expecting battle Then at time of tasty breakfast Scurry scurry through the duct Comrades chilling shared a stare Almost too much thought to bear Flurry of four kinds of grim

Mike heaved baseball bat distressed Hazy charged their trusty laser Juna Mark each took a taser Hike of searching there ahead Over doors and rooms untidy Shadows lighted and through rummage Frantic at this day and age Hover heads that wanted purge

Screech above escaping tail Terrified the members present Who just started to resent Itch of space job for the money Gathering the tools and weapons Next they ventured deep inside Passage’s mystery to hide Thing they knew no thing about

Front them eggs and webs displayed Planted trepidation seeds Run and arm big were their needs Stunt in time could save their lives When a claws in face attack Whole frame of small creature slashing Vicious thrashing then a dashing Man was Mike fell shredded throat

Juna screaming witnessed horror Catching glimpse of monster left The deceased in tears she’d heft A surprise of deadly nightmare Others shockingly uniting Cocked their weapons sternly banding Sudden the grief notwithstanding Theirs the hunt to kill the beast

They proceeded after trail Of the blood of fallen mate Tracking lest it’d be too late Way of following the animal Finding it stopped on a corner Creep appendages chelicerae High alerting all the three Readying for execution

When a pounce the speed of lightning Targeted a helpless Hazy Whose shots missed while hurting crazy From spikes digging through the skin Juna reached close with the taser Trying to catch in chaotic Swirl of friend high and spasmodic Area where she could burn

The demoniac foul insect Still defiling moving struggling Over Hazy undermining Free of capture or relief Till a shock shook carapace Trembling creature stopping motion A relief from the commotion Still it stayed on ground unmoving

And a rest came so without An expected explanation For abrupt finalization Hand to lay on ground with body Hazy Juna and too Mark Unresponsive ruminating Hazy too their wounds was tending Hazy way for resolution

When a-jarring came a noise Trio jerked in desperation Weren’t ready new vexation Then to promise a demise Yet nevertheless they moved In their sanity’s last stretch Strained so hard by fate’s last fetch That could someone comprehend

Weary midst the pipes advanced In a jungle so confusing Of materials were using Really them for something (really) Up until a sight presenting Self for vision theirs relenting As the meaning coalescing Wrap around another one

Both of them turned on the taser Hazy aimed at with the blaster If they just could kill it faster… Of two sides to stand against Them now facing ‘nother species One who managed end a brother Retribution was no kinder When one sends it for a life

Shot and ended little critter So the humans there at ease Were much thankful for a cease At the stressful fight o’ violence They turned off their fearful weapons Watching stiffening the husk Of the battle’s ending dusk Day of darkest vile survival

And a turning for way back They bore they depressing faces For a member in last laces Strand of Mike the best the last And advancing through the tubing Past the jungle towards quarters They regretted prior orders Brand of space job was dismay

[noah-moth-cursed-chaos]

One thing you learn quickly in a monster hunting family, is souls look different for different types of creatures.

Human souls were round, hardy things, usually some tail or growth sprouting off that was reminiscent of the type of person it’d once belonged to. Angel souls took the form of their haloes, it must have been a horrible process to fall, her father had a video of it happening to an angel. The wings went all black and then the halo went, like fake leather flaking off an old jacket. It took hours. He didn’t have the compassion she did for their anguish. The compassion she shouldn’t. This is what she was raised for, this type of cruelty. Demons technically were their souls, they were comprised entirely of magic, and their physical form was just a projection of the type of magic that formed them. It made them remarkable spell-casters. Werewolf and vampire souls were the same as humans, after all it was mostly misfortune that separated them. Elves had been extinct for centuries, but it was said their souls looked like plants sprouting up out of nothing. Anything from a dandelion to a towering tree. She wondered how the grim reaper came to collect such a thing, did he have to pluck them or cut them down first?

What she didn’t know however, was what a fae soul looked like.

She imagined it’d look like the strange, likely enchanted, decorations on her father’s corkboard. Still fluttering or skittering insects, mostly butterflies. They were strangely beautiful. But she couldn’t bear to watch them. It looked painful.

Currently she was wedged firmly between two of the cabinets shoved into his closet’s office. Staring at the floor so she didn’t have to see that dreadful board through the slots in the door. She was waiting. Any moment now…

The door opened, her father stepped through, followed by a strange looking man, his eyes were slightly too big, his fingers slightly too long, his skin didn’t reflect the light quite properly. She swore his ears were pointed. Fae. He had to have been fae. But why was her dad meeting with him? Why had he been meeting with similar people on a regular basis for as long as she’d been alive? She’d seen this same man in her house once or twice a month since she was six. One time she’d given him a cookie. The next time he came he brought her a gift, her father told her not to touch it, and not to thank him. The gift sat on the table untouched and unclaimed for months until it mysteriously vanished.

“Warden, I have followed for orders for years.”

“Barely.”

“But I still have, which it should be noted often go against my own morals and nature, but I cannot do this. I will not do it. I refuse to put another fae in my predicament for you.”

“Need I remind you of the power I have over you, peacock?”

“No, I assure you the pin sticking through it has me very aware.” What..? “But that is exactly why I will not subject one of my own to such a fate.”

The conversation went on as she sat in that closet, her eyes now locked onto the corkboard she usually avoided. She quietly stared at the peacock butterfly, and realized the thing was going nuts. Fluttering and flapping like it was trying to get away from something-or maybe… or maybe to something. A knot grew in her stomach as the exchange between her father and this man became a blur she wasn’t truly comprehending, what was it that man had called him? Warden?

Later that day her father would announce he was going on a hunting trip, he was already packed and gone within the hour. She couldn’t help but notice that horseshoe on his hip as she hugged him goodbye.

She waited until she was sure he was gone to go back to the office, he didn’t know the door’s lock could be defeated with a simple gift card she’d gotten for Christmas two months before. Or maybe he did, and didn’t believe fae could carry gift cards with them?

Regardless it wasn’t the fae he should worry about today. Or maybe it would be, after she was done. She opened the window, pushed the screen up, and started with the less terrifying looking insects first, moths, butterflies, fireflies, they all shot off the board like a bat out of hell, desperate to get somewhere. She then worked her way through all of them, dragonflies, beetles, roaches, things she’d never even seen before. Once she board stood clear and the last of them had exited through the window, she once more pushed down the screen, closed it, and locked it for good measure. She wasn’t the one who’d done this, but she was that man’s daughter, and she didn’t want to know what his victims would do to her if they got inside.

Sadly it seemed locks didn’t apply to them, as when she walked into the living room she saw a truly magnificent, if a bit terrifying, creature. With wings behind it like a peacock butterfly. It grinned when it saw her, and she noted that nothing really needed that many teeth. She took a step back.

“You’re a brave one, aren’t you?” He asked, with the voice of that man from earlier, although this was even more certainly no human man.

“… I just did what I thought was right.”

“Which, for a monster hunter’s daughter, is certainly not what your father would have wanted.”

“I don’t much care for what he wants if I’m being honest. I. I love him but, he’s not a good man.” She wondered if she should be telling him this? Probably not. But the words had been said and she couldn’t really take them back.

“That he is not.” The fae stated, “You have done a great service to myself and quite a number of my kind.”

“I wouldn’t want a part of me pinned up in an office.” She shrugged, “I also wouldn’t want someone who hates my kind to have power over me.”

“This type of kindness would generally be returned in some way.”

“… This isn’t a type of gift I could politely refuse, is it?” She asked quietly. One thing she did know of the fae, is even in good intentions they could harm you. Fae and humans are very different creatures, and something that to them sounds helpful or charming could lead to a human’s demise.

“No, I do not believe it is.”

Deep Water Prompt #3020

The butterflies pinned to the board in my father’s office flutter sometimes. Strange men that must be fae visit often, calling him Warden, and I realize it’s not a decoration. It’s a jail.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

The fire pillar from demon slayer meeting Exsotica as she heading to a lord house to entertain them but the run to a carrange probably and they both happen to meet

Meeting someone other worldly and kind would be something

Exotica | Meeting the Flame Hashira

Well first and foremost this would never happen cannon storyline

By the time you show up in this universe it's almost a year or two before Kyojuro is fated to die

But with the tidbit dropped in the Art headcannon it’d seem that Kagaya would eventually summon you to the estate

But that couldn’t be the case because you never can’t leave the Yukaku District

Daki and Gyutarou have been ordered to hold you there 

And of course, the Red light district suddenly becoming more famous for your existence would sooner send the art of you than sending you on your own

They’d risk losing you to bandits, obsessed fans, demons

It would just be too much for the Red District to lose their favorite cash cow

Not to mention if Kyojuro ever stepped foot near any of the houses

There’s no way that both sides would remain clueless

Kyojuro’s too adept for that Daki and Gyutarou would never let this fly on account of That Man’s orders 

The conditions for this meet would rely on the luck Exotica does not have, and it can’t be too far from the Yukaku District:

“HELLO THERE FAIR MAIDEN!”

You were by the river taking a rest from your travels and from the carriage that housed Warabihime. You didn’t mind spending extended hours in Daki’s disguise, in fact, you preferred it. Her clinginess was kept to a minimum and she’s in a much better mood; usually too distracted by you to badger her own staff. But you were able to excuse yourself heading into the sunlight to relieve yourself as well as get a look at the majestic scenery you could only read about in manga/only fawn over in anime. Either way, you sent a smile and greeted the demon slayer. 

You recognized him immediately—who wouldn’t, but you refrained from expressing any sorrow. Instead offering to give him food. You had plenty in abundance having done the Edo equivalent of a celebrities tour. And you happily sat with the Hashira as he munched on his provided meal.

“YUM! YUM! DELICIOUS!”

You let yourself giggle, drawing the fiery eyes of the Hashira as he tilted his head into confusion. 

“I don’t mean to sound like I’m making fun of you. I’m just curious as to why your so vocal while eating?”

The hashira finished his bite giving you his glowing smile. 

“I BELIEVE IT’S BEST TO VOICE EVERYTHING YOUR HEART! ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT CHANCE MIGHT BE TAKEN FROM YOU!”

“Wow, it sounds as though…your speaking from experience.”

He gave a hearty laugh before continuing to eat befor cleating his mouth once again. 

“ON THAT NOTE, I’D LIKE TO SAY YOU’RE ABSOULUTELY BEWITCHING! MARRY ME!” 

“Haha Rengoku-san, you’re very funny but I don’t think I can.”

“HAHA PERSISTENCE IS A VIRTUE TOO MANY LOSE HEART THAT WAY! MARRY ME!” 

He would repeat the same declaration all throughout your break before one of the young maidens called you on behalf of the oiran. When the time came you bowed to him, encouraging the hashira on his way. Before you depart he grabs your hand, and with a grim theme to his expression he gave you a promise.

“I WASN’T JESTING WHEN I PROPOSED THIS TO YOU. ONCE MY MISSION IS COMPLETE I WILL FIND YOU AND MARRY YOU. SAFE TRAVELS MY FLAME.”

Releasing you to begin his jovial trek to whatever mission he was on. Standing still in genuine stupor you were broken out by Warabihime’s calls. Returning to the carriage you urged the demon’s worried cries as well as your own. 

‘What was that and why did it feel so…true?’

[carewyncromwell]

“Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around.”

x~x~x~x

HPHM Cardverse developed by @ariparri​​​ ❤️

x~x~x~x

When Carewyn Cromwell started her first year of university in the Kingdom of Hearts, it took a while before she made any friends. When she was young, she’d always stayed rather close to home, preferring the company of her brother and mother over just about anyone else. The few close friends Carewyn had made outside of her own family when she was young she stayed in touch with through letters, since they all lived in the Land of Clubs or the Diamond Empire. As fate would have it, however, the two closest friends Carewyn made at the university of Hearts ended up being two of her most faithful courtiers, once she became Queen of Hearts. The first of these was the future Ace of Hearts, Barnaby Lee.

By all accounts, Barnaby Lee shouldn’t have made it into such an illustrious university. His academic record was hardly promising. But what Barnaby lacked in scholarly knowledge he made up for in both physical and emotional strength -- his talent for horseback riding, as well as multiple types of combat, had managed to secure him a full scholarship from the previous Ace of Hearts, with the thought that he could excel as part of the military. Barnaby’s family all having been respected, but fearsome military men themselves didn’t hurt either.

When Barnaby made it to university, though, he found himself a bit out of place. Having been raised largely at home by his neglectful parents and grandmother, he really had very little experience making friends. Everyone seemed to expect that he’d be just like the rest of his family, and so either kept their distance out of fear or encouraged him to join all the university’s sports teams and challenge all of his fellow classmates to duels. Barnaby himself didn’t mind this too much, since truthfully he did love competing against admirable opponents and he really liked being praised when he won...but it was still kind of lonely after class and practice everyday, having to eat meals alone.

It was in mid-October that Carewyn and Barnaby first collided. Barnaby had just finished up with a duel with a much older student and was feeling pretty pleased with himself -- his lip was bleeding and his shoulder was bruised, but it’d been an invigorating duel, and just about everyone was cheering for him after the fact. Even as he walked off across the grounds by himself, there was a slight pep to his step.

Around lunchtime, Barnaby would often go to the orchard just north of the university grounds to pick some apples. He would then bring a bag of them back with him to school so he could feed the land and winged horses kept in the university’s stable.

Barnaby had just about made it to the stable when he caught sight of a familiar white shape beside the back stairs of the library. One of the horse racing team’s steeds was standing next to a young lady sitting primly on the stairs. She was dressed kind of austerely in a high-necked white shirt and a long corseted black skirt -- even the hair ribbon in her ginger ponytail was black. The lack of color was grim and strange, compared to how most people at school dressed. Similarly strange was what was at her side -- a rather beat-up looking metal box decorated with chipped green paint, out of which she’d fetched what looked like a canteen, a teabag, and some sugar cubes.

Something stirred in Barnaby’s memory. Didn’t he hear people talking about an exchange student from the Country of Spades? Cromwell, Barnaby thought they called her. He remembered some of the girls who came to watch him at the most recent Abraxan Derby meet claimed she was such a snob that she never attended any parties -- probably because her entire wardrobe was made up of ugly black dresses that made her look like a spinster.

Seems a bit mean of them to say, Barnaby couldn’t help but think as the young woman offered some sugar cubes to the white horse. She doesn’t look that snobby to me.

With a broad smile, he strode right up to her.

“It looks like Snowball likes you!”

Carewyn looked up, startled. Her eyes darted from the horse to back up at the muscled young man.

“Snowball...then he’s yours,” she surmised.

Her gaze lingered critically on his cut lip.

“Not really,” said Barnaby. “I mean, yeah, I ride him during horse races. The stable’s staff named him Champion, but I’d started calling him Snowball long before finding that out, so I’ve just kept doing it. He seems to like it a lot better than ‘Champion’ -- ”

Indeed, Snowball the horse had trotted right over to Barnaby, pressing his nose affectionately into his cheek. The muscled man laughed as he clapped the horse gently on the flank.

“Hey, buddy!” he said brightly.

The horse immediately set about sniffing at Barnaby’s shirt and pockets, shoving up against him roughly. Barnaby only proceeded to laugh harder, even as Snowball nipped at his clothes.

“Hey, hey! Don’t worry, I didn’t forget...”

He fumbled with the bag on his back, reaching into it to fetch out an apple. Snowball snatched it up in his teeth and gobbled it up eagerly. Carewyn’s expression softened noticeably as she watched.

“He’s a beautiful horse,” she said admiringly.

Barnaby grinned. “Yeah, he is. He’s actually the youngest, you know -- barely five years old. But he’s a natural on the race course, if you can convince him to let you ride him...”

He cocked his head a bit to the left like a curious dog.

“I’m...kind of surprised he let you feed him,” he admitted sheepishly. “Snowball’s always been a little wary of strangers.”

“I noticed,” said Carewyn. “It took me some time to get close to him, when I found him grazing in the garden just outside the library.”

Barnaby blinked. “Outside the library?”

“Yes -- I suppose whoever was in the stable last must’ve left the door unlatched or something and he took the chance to escape.”

Barnaby considered this, before his lips upturned in a smile. “Yeah, suppose so...it’s a good thing you knew how to handle him!”

Carewyn shook her head modestly. “It wasn’t that hard. I had to calm down a lost Abraxan once before...and all any animal really needs is some kindness.”

Her eyes flickered back down to Barnaby’s cut lip again.

“...You’re bleeding,” she said after a moment.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Barnaby said with a smile. “I was in a duel -- swords at first, but he got a good hit on me with his fist after I disarmed him. Don’t worry, though -- I got him pretty good too, even if I lost!”

Carewyn didn’t look the least bit reassured by that. Her lips came together in a thin line. Then, after what looked like a moment of thought, her jaw set determinedly and she plunged a hand into her ugly metal lunchbox. She fetched out a knitted napkin and immediately unscrewed her canteen, pouring some of the hot water onto the white cloth.

“Here.”

Barnaby blinked in surprise as the smaller girl immediately set about cleaning the injury.

“Oh -- ah -- you really don’t have to do that!” he said. “It doesn’t hurt...”

“It may not hurt, but you are hurt,” Carewyn shut him down very firmly. “And no one should have to walk around with blood on their face. It should at least be cleaned, if not properly bandaged.”

Barnaby watched her work, faintly stunned, even as she refused to look him in the eye. Instead she kept her eyes locked on her wet napkin cleaning his chin.

“What were you even doing dueling anyone in the first place?” she muttered, sounding very disapproving. “You could’ve been hurt far worse -- that other person could’ve been hurt far worse too...”

Barnaby suddenly felt incredibly sheepish. “Well, uh...we were just dueling, you know? He challenged me after class because one of our classmates was talking to me and he didn’t want me talking to her...reckon he was just trying to impress her or something, but I like dueling with swords, so I thought it’d be fun...”

“Fun?” Carewyn recurred sharply. “How is it fun to cause others pain? How is it fun, to gamble your life away in the name of showing off? How is it fun to play at war like it’s all just some silly little game?”

Her brows were knit tightly over her eyes as she withdrew her hand at last, tucking the soiled napkin away in her lunchbox.

“You could’ve both been seriously hurt,” she said, her voice becoming much quieter and more solemn.

Barnaby tilted his head curiously as he trailed a hand along Snowball’s flank.

“You really don’t like fighting, do you, Carewyn?”

Carewyn was startled when Barnaby called her by name, since she hadn’t given it formally to him. She recovered quickly, though.

“No, I don’t,” she said lowly.

“Why?”

Carewyn looked up at him. Rather than challenging, his voice and face came across as oddly innocent -- sincerely curious.

“Well...” she said slowly, as Barnaby slowly lowered himself down onto the step next to her, “back home...in the Country of Spades...things aren’t as stable as they are here.”

“Because your king was assassinated?” asked Barnaby. He’d heard his uncle Cecil talk about it once.

Carewyn folded her hands in her lap, her gaze falling down to them rather than up at Barnaby.

“Right. Since King Coby’s death, the Country of Spades has been run by our Ace, Patricia Rakepick. She leads the army of Spades. And there are those in the army that...well...are very interested in the prospect of war. Or at least, they’re interested in the industry of it -- the financial boom the production of weapons could provide, however temporary. They’re interested in lining their own pockets and chasing glory for themselves, rather than protecting the innocent or dealing with any of the consequences.”

Her blue eyes grew darker.

“Fighting and war aren’t a game there,” she said softly. “They’re a nightmare -- one many of us pray won’t come to life.”

With a soft murr, Snowball brought his nose up beside Carewyn’s cheek -- she gently stroked his mane to soothe him. Barnaby’s face grew sadder as his gaze fell down to his feet.

“It sounds like it must’ve been scary to live there,” he murmured.

Carewyn glanced up at him out the side of her eye. After a moment, she offered him a brave smile.

“Maybe right now...but it won’t always be. Once my family joins me here in the Kingdom of Hearts and I graduate, I plan to change things. Laws might be different from land to land, but there are ordinances that apply to all of Cinderhaven. Once I’ve learned everything I can, I want to help those people back home get to safety too...do it so legally that no one can make them worry about retaliation.”

Barnaby’s eyes brightened a bit hearing this. “Really? Wow -- that’s awesome!”

Carewyn couldn’t bite back a smile despite herself. The encouragement, however boyish and uninformed, was vindicating.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said firmly. “And well...I want to be happy -- my family to be happy. I don’t want us to look over our shoulders our whole lives, forever in fear. No one else should have to, either.”

Barnaby nodded. “Yeah! I mean, no, they shouldn’t.”

His face spread into a slightly wider, but softer smile.

“You know...it’s really wrong, what people say about you. You’re not snobby at all -- you’re nice, really nice. And smart, too.”

His green eyes sparkled as he took hold of her shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re here with us, and not back there. Now we can protect you! And if the Ace of Spades tries to take you or your family away, well...now you’re one of us! So if she wants you, she’ll have to contend with all of us first!”

Carewyn blinked, taken aback by the earnest smile on the other boy’s face. Her eyes fell down to his hand on her shoulder uncomfortably.

“Thank you,” she said with a weak smile. “But I don’t want anyone fighting for me -- I’m hardly worth that, and I don’t want anyone hurt on my account.”

Barnaby, however, looked unfazed. “Hey, captains never stand by and let innocent people get hurt! And I know I’ll be a captain one day -- everyone says so.”

He grinned at her. “So if anyone tries to take a swipe at you, it’ll be up to Future-Captain Barnaby Lee to protect you!”

Snowball gave a loud snort.

“Oh, yeah -- and Lieutenant Snowball, of course!” added Barnaby brightly.

Carewyn bit her lip to try to hold in a laugh. “Well, thank you, Captain. But I don’t intend to sit demurely to the side -- if you aim to protect me, I’m going to look after you too.”

She reached into her dress pocket and fetched out some black thread with a needle poked through the spool.

“To start with, I’m going to fix that rip in the back of your shirt. You should ice up that bruise on your shoulder too, when you get home...”

~*~

Several years later, Carewyn was appointed as the new Queen of Hearts. Not long after that, on Carewyn’s recommendation, Barnaby was appointed the new Ace of Hearts and leader of the Kingdom’s army. As Ace, Barnaby was vigilant and passionate in his protection of his King and Queen, and Diego and Carewyn in return expressed a lot of fondness and support for Barnaby. This didn’t mean that whenever Barnaby threw himself in front of Carewyn to protect her that she didn’t fuss over him like a mother duck every single time.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Carewyn murmured, her voice betraying some anxiety despite the stoicism of her face, “he could’ve hurt you -- ”

“But...but he was trying to threaten you, Carewyn ,” Barnaby said, his earnest, boyish face scrunched up in righteous anger. “He pulled a knife out of his belt -- I’m pretty sure he wanted to point it at your neck -- ”

“I’m not afraid of cowards like Shiratori,” Carewyn said coldly.

Barnaby smiled slightly. “I know, but...well, he’s gonna go crawling on back to the Queen of Spades, isn’t he? I don’t want Rakepick thinking that I’m going to let any of her people hurt the Queen of Hearts on my watch!”

“Nor do I,” said Diego with an approving nod. The King of Hearts glanced at his counterpart a bit more solemnly. “Do you think challenging the Queen of Spades’s courage in front of her ‘messenger’ might persuade her to come talk to us in person?”

“That was the goal,” conceded Carewyn, “but I’m not holding out much hope it’ll work. However proud of a person Rakepick is, she’s not hot-blooded. She’s far too calculating to just barrel in to protect her own pride.”

She sighed tiredly.

“I’ll have to continue my ‘negotiations’ through the written word,” she said begrudgingly. “If I’m able to coax Rakepick to meet with us on neutral ground, though, I’d like you to be our escort, Barnaby.”

Barnaby grinned, his hand resting over his chest as he bowed. “I’ll be right beside you, Majesties!”

[mehmetminded]

Hoo boy, this one for sure got away from me. Hope it makes sense. Sorry in advance!

To your first point, I don’t know if I’d characterize Oz as being particularly upbeat or lighthearted, though I do recall Suriel saying he had a “grim” sense of humor or something similar. What I would say is that he’s always been a drama queen.

Oz was dramatic in the way that Shadow the Hedgehog is dramatic vs Eithan’s mysterious, dubiously queer, mentor thing he’s got going on.

I think there’s a mid point in there we don’t get to see much. We don’t know much about Eithan’s time with Tiberian, but the few glimpses we get show us a much more serious Eithan than we ever see in the series proper. That all changes after Shen.

When he gets his family killed he just gives up. This is where I’d say he hits “full burn out”. He has no real plan after that and is kinda just power-leveling Lindon and co. because he can at first. Like yeah sure it’d be nice if they could ascend, but that’s not really on his mind when he takes them in. He’s bored. Bored because with his skill level, underlord noble in the ass end of “desert wasteland continent” is for sure phoning it in.

My man could likely have been a sage at any point during the series and leveraged that into enough power to put down the dreadgods. If Shen could almost do it then Eithan absolutely could have. He could have started his search for apprentices over again (he was nominally looking for his “reapers” after all), but he doesn’t. He spends six years in the Blackflame Empire just kinda spinning his wheels.

Eithan only goes to the Transcendent Ruins because he feels Suriel messing with Fate over in that direction and has nothing better to do. He takes in Lindon and Yerin because they’re interesting and gives them a bunch of sacred arts exploits because being an aristocrat is a bore. It’s only after they start showing real potential that he gets invested and is forced to start taking down some of his walls and really work on himself.

TL;DR: I don’t think he really “burnt out” until after Shen. Before that I think he was trying to fix his rapidly destabilizing support structure before it came crashing down around him.

Turns out I’m not done with Eithan. This has probably been said better by smarter, more sober people, BUT!!!

Eithan is the ultimate burnt-out-former-gifted-kid.

All his life Ozmanthus was the best. He was the smartest, strongest, coolest, most badass dude to ever do it, and he could never be anything less. When he was a kid this was great! All the adults said he was super smart and that was super cool! Sure he left his friends behind, but he’d make other friends at some point! Just as soon as he gets this whole “cultivation” thing figured out…

Can’t be too long…

Any day now…

Fuck…

Now he’s a monarch who focused on being the most efficient cultivator alive and he has a reputation as a cold, friendless, genius that no one really likes and that everyone is super afraid of. Not exactly prime friend material.

“Oh well” says Ozmanthus, “This place fucking sucks and you’re all a bunch of bitches. Later!”

[one ascension later]

“Hey look! A bunch of heavenly people who don’t think I’m a friendless weirdo! I should go talk to them!”

[mass casualties]

“Okay, friends weren’t that important to me! Guess I’ll go back to the ol’ standby of self-imposed isolation and cultivation!”

Oz kept this up until he solved Heaven and became the Grim Reaper. Shockingly, this did not make him any friends and oh look: we’re right back where we were on Cradle with a reputation as a cold, friendless genius that no one really likes and that everyone is super afraid of.

That lasts a couple thousand years before he has a bit of a breakdown and does the judge equivalent of moving into his parents basement.

He goes and tries to fix some “small” problems and finally clean up that pesky hunger madra problem this shithole has. He fucks it up completely, burns down the house, and has to move in with his weird relatives in another state, where he finally makes some friends in the form of a baby gym bro and a knife girl.

I cannot emphasize enough how literally just having friends changed this man’s life. He went from brooding, cynical, anti-hero to goofy, comedic relief/mentor figure in like 3 years.

All it took was numerous life or death struggles, the death of a significant portion of his family, an entire hero’s journey, and a clash for the fate of the multiverse!

The moral of the story is, find someone to match your vibe or you might oops your way into being Death? I guess? Idk I lost track of this one a while ago…

[thelazyhermits]

In this post, I wanna talk about my version of Beans Day since I recently watched videos of the event, and I wanted to cover how it’d go with my Yuu.

First off, I wanna say that Yuu would be excited about Beans Day because it’s basically one big game which is something she never got to indulge in during her childhood, so she can’t help but want to take advantage of this opportunity to have the kind of fun she never got to enjoy as a child.

She also loves that there’s no magic involved and that athletic prowess is needed since that’s where she excels. While she’s not star athlete by no means, she’s got great stamina and impressive dodging skills which make her a tough opponent in this kind of game.

More than anything, Yuu just wants to take advantage of this opportunity to go wild. Normally, she’s the calm/reserved/mature one of her friend group because someone has to be when she’s friends with guys like Ace/Deuce/Grim. 

While she doesn’t necessarily hate her role, she does wish that she could go wild for a change and have fun without having to worry about what anyone else will say or her usual responsibilities. 

And Beans Day is the perfect chance for that since she has no obligations other than to fulfill her role as a farmer and not get knocked out of the game too early since she doesn’t want to deal with Vargas’s muscle training.

So, basically, Beans Day is an excuse for Yuu to cut loose and do whatever she pleases as long as she abides by the rules of the game lol

That said, Yuu still plans on being strategic about this game, because she’s playing not just to have fun but to win. Even though it doesn’t seem like it, Yuu can be pretty competitive at times, and this is definitely the kind of thing she would want to win since the whole “no magic, physical/strategic skills only” is in her lane of expertise. It’d honestly hurt her pride if she didn’t do well in this kind of event.

That’s why, after she learns about Beans Day and her role on the farmer team, Yuu immediately begins strategizing.

Her first thought is to consult Leona since he’s an expert at strategizing, and since he’s been around NRC for a while, he should have plenty of experience with this game. 

Of course, she also knows that it’s likely he won’t share that information for free, even if she happens to be on the same team as him, so she’ll have to think of a way to bribe him, which is normally how she gets things from him lol

Just as she’s wondering what kind of bribe to offer for this occasion, Yuu’s Quirk activates, showing her a vision of what will happen to Leona during Beans Day aka his capture at Azul/Jack’s hands.

Aside from learning about Leona’s unfortunate fate, Yuu also discovers that Leona & Ruggie will be working together despite being on different teams, which doesn’t really surprise her since that seems like something they would do, so it doesn’t bother her, especially when she figures that Leona’s only using Ruggie to avoid getting knocked out of the game too early rather than to actually win the game.

After her vision ends, Yuu realizes that she now has information she can use for a bribe since she’s sure Leona would be willing to make a deal with her if it means escaping a humiliating defeat at Azul’s hands.

Rather than immediately go see Leona, however, Yuu first heads for Sam’s shop because, now that she knows that Jack is on the monster team, Yuu realizes that she’ll need to take certain measures to ensure he doesn’t get the better of her.

Thanks to that vision, Yuu knows that Azul & Jack are the ones to watch out for. She would’ve already been worried about dealing with them regardless, but she sees them as even more of a threat now that she knows they’ll be working together during the game.

Which is why she goes to Sam’s shop to see if he has something that can mask her scent so she won’t have to worry about Jack sniffing her out with his keen sense of smell.

Thankfully, Sam, as always, has exactly what she needs, so she buys some perfume that will perfectly hide her scent once she puts it on.

(Even if she hadn’t had that vision, Yuu had planned on getting something like this anyway since she knows so many people with sharp senses of smell, and she wants to ensure they can’t use those sharp senses to get the better of her.)

After that, she pays Leona a visit, and like she hoped, Leona is willing to share some wisdom in exchange for the information she provides. 

For the sake of getting back at Azul and because he’s got a soft spot for her, Leona also points out that Azul will likely be gunning for her because of her Quirk which can put her at an advantage if it decides to show her more useful visions like it did earlier. 

Yuu figured as much, so she knows she needs to be on the lookout for Azul the whole time if she wants to stand a chance against him.

On the bright side, Yuu realizes that Azul will be gunning for Jade just as much because dorm leaders and vice dorm leaders are always on opposite teams, and Jade is an opponent any sane person should be wary of.

This makes Yuu want to team up with Jade since a teammate like him will increase her chances of victory. It would also increase her chances of getting targeted, but she thinks this is a risk she should take.

Jade apparently seems to feel the same way since he ends up contacting her later that day, asking if she’d like to form an alliance with him since they both have being Azul’s prime targets in common and he thinks she’d be a great ally.

(What he doesn’t say is that he knows this kind of alliance would give Azul heart palpitations, but he doesn’t need to because at this point Yuu already knows how much Jade enjoys messing with Azul and that he’s going to have his fill of fun at Azul’s expense during this event lol)

And that’s how the great Yuu & Jade Alliance was formed, much to Azul’s future great distress lol

During their chat, Yuu & Jade decide that it would be best if they’re not seen together by people who could report to Azul. This way they can keep Azul guessing as to whether or not they’re actually in cahoots.

(This was Jade’s idea because he just wants to fuel Azul’s paranoia lol)

That’s why they decide on a meeting point ahead of time since calling/texting is prohibited during the game. 

Aside from Yuu forming this alliance, making snacks, which she carries in the bag she brings along to keep Grim’s bottomless pit in check, and making Grim practice throwing things with her so they’ll be ready for Beans Day, things proceed like in canon with Yuu starting off with Cater and Deuce, only for Deuce to have to run off when Ace & Sebek ambush him.

Yuu knew exactly what Cater was doing, but she didn’t intervene. When Grim questions her about this, she explains that she can’t protect her children forever. Her sons need to be able to leave the nest and learn how to fend for themselves in this big, bad world.

Ergo, despite her usual motherly/protective personality, she has no intention to help out her sons during Beans Day unless it actually benefits her lol 😂

Another reason Yuu allowed things to happen like in canon with Deuce is because subterfuge is not his specialty and she didn’t want to risk him revealing to others that she’s working with Jade.

Which is why she doesn’t bring up her alliance with Jade until after Deuce is gone since she wants to bring Cater into their team, and she knows she can trust him to keep a secret.

This is also the first time Grim hears of this alliance since he’s not the best at keeping secrets either, but Yuu knew she needed to tell him eventually lol

Cater is all for joining this alliance since he knows that teams are needed to win this game, and Yuu/Jade are definitely good teammates to have.

Once this is decided, Yuu asks Cater to refrain from making any posts to his Magicam during the game since there’s a chance that whoever on the monster team that follows him could use the pictures he posts to find their team, something that Cater hadn’t considered until she brought it up.

While it pains him to do it, Cater agrees to hold off on his Magicam posts until the end of the game. To make him feel better, Yuu says they can still take plenty of selfies. He just needs to wait to post them lol

Once that’s settled and they’ve put on the equipment they acquired from the supply point they found, Yuu’s group heads for the meeting spot she and Jade decided on, which Jade will head for after he acquires one of his icicle mushrooms from the botanical garden which he’ll need to get his sniper bean shooter from Sam’s shop.

Because they’re heading for the meeting place rather than the coliseum like in canon, Yuu’s group is able to avoid the large group of monsters that led to Jade coming to their aid in the game.

They still end up encountering some NPC monsters along the way, but they’re able to deal with them since they’re not in large groups.

Unfortunately, their good luck eventually runs out when they cross paths with the newly formed Azul & Jack team which had been on the search for Yuu at Azul’s insistence. 

Because Yuu had wanted to save her scent masking perfume since she wasn’t able to get a big bottle of it, she’s not currently wearing it, so Jack was able to follow her scent, making her wonder if being too cautious will be her downfall. 

To their credit, Yuu/Cater/Grim do a good job of dodging Jack/Azul’s attempts to “capture” them. Because of that, the two groups are at a bit of an impasse, although Jack definitely has the advantage due to his superior athletic skills.

What also helps is that Yuu decides to incorporate some psychological warfare by revealing why she’s so excited about Beansday. When she mentions how she’s happy to go wild for once and how she won’t show mercy to anyone not even her beloved boss and son, everyone, even her own teammates, are lowkey scared cause she’s got this unhinged look. 

Azul makes a comment about how it’s like having another Leech at NRC 😂

Thanks to this and Yuu making it seem like she’s steadily making everyone fall into place, as if this is all according to her grand plan, Azul is even more wary than before since this makes him wonder just how much of today’s events she has seen thanks to her Quirk. 

While she could be bluffing, Azul is still wary since there really is no telling what Yuu will do when she’s in her current unbridled state.

In the end, Yuu’s group gets lucky because the Malleus vs Lilia battle happens to be near where their two groups are, so her group is able to use that as a distraction to make their escape.

(Unbeknownst to Yuu, Leona plays a role in keeping Azul off her trail after her group escapes since, while he still doesn’t care about playing the game, he does want to make Azul’s life miserable as payback for what happened in her vision even though Azul technically hasn’t done anything to him cause that’s just the kind of guy Leona is lol 

Plus, Leona finds it entertaining seeing the usually well-behaved Yuu going off the rails, so he doesn’t want anyone to take her out early into the game haha

In the end, Leona still gets out, but he stays in the game longer than he does in canon. And while he’s in the game, he uses the SC farmers that he enlists the help of to keep Azul/Jack distracted so they can’t pursue Yuu.

Eventually, Azul decides to turn his focus to Jade which leads to the events at Sam’s shop that happen in the game.)

From there, Yuu’s group heads for the meeting place where they find Jade waiting for them, having just finished his trip to the botanical garden.

While he could’ve just headed straight for Sam’s shop after visiting the garden, Jade first wanted to meet up with Yuu’s group to see who she had accompanying her, so he could include that information in his future strategy calculations. 

Plus, he just wanted to see if she was still in the game at this point lol

During this meeting, everyone exchanges information which leads to Jade revealing that Rook & Trey appear to be working together as a team since he had seen them earlier. 

Upon learning this information, Yuu gets an idea to set a trap for the monster pair since she recognizes how dangerous Rook is as an opponent, and Trey isn’t one to underestimate either.

The trap will entail Cater using his Magicam account to lead Rook/Trey to the Seven Great statues like what happened in the game, except this time it’s done on purpose.

Meanwhile, Jade will head for Sam’s shop to get the sniper bean shooter that he wants before meeting back up with Yuu’s group at the Seven Great Statues, which will be their next meeting place.

While he approves of this plan, Jade suggests sparing Rook so he can report back to Azul about Jade who intends to use his new sniper bean shooter against him. This way Azul will hear about Jade’s sniper bean shooter and will be forced to take action in order to ensure Jade can’t snipe what’s left of the monster team from a safe distance. 

With that decided, Jade hurries to Sam’s shop while Cater starts gradually posting his saved selfies to Magicam. In order to provide an excuse for why he went so long without posting, Cater makes a post where he says he’s so glad he can start posting to Magicam again after having gone a long period of time dealing with back-to-back monster team encounters. 

Along the way, they find a supply point so they can get some more beans since they don’t have many left thanks to Azul/Jack. 

Once they’re at the Seven Great statues, Yuu uses the perfume she bought to mask her scent since she knows Rook’s senses are sharp like a Beastman’s.

She then finds a perch in a tree that gives her a good view of the area and will keep her location hidden. Meanwhile, Cater & Grim will remain out in the open and act like they’re waiting for Yuu. Cater even takes a selfie with Grim, saying that they’re waiting for their princess to return before they storm the “castle” lol

Just as they hoped, Rook & Trey take the bait and engage in battle with Cater & Grim. While they’re distracted, Yuu makes her move and manages to take out a surprised Trey in one hit, leaving Rook, who had noticed her presence at the last minute, on his own.

Seeing that the odds are against him, Rook decides to retreat, just barely missing getting hit by the bean that Jade, who has acquired his sniper bean shooter, shot at him.

For the sake of keeping up appearances, Yuu/Grim/Cater try to throw some beans at Rook to make it seem like they really are trying to get him out when in truth they want him to report back to Azul.

Once Rook leaves and Jade reunites with them, their group storms the coliseum with the plan they used in the game, with one exception. Rather than have both Yuu & Grim sneak up on Jack & Rook, Yuu suggests that Grim head straight for the harp.

The reason she makes that suggestion is because she is fully aware of how athletic Jack is. That’s why she’s not confident that she can hit him. No matter how she runs the simulation in her head, she just can’t see herself beating a powerhouse like Jack.

(While Cater has also seen Jack in action earlier, he thought that even Jack wouldn’t be able to stop a point blank attack, but Yuu isn’t so sure.)

That’s why she thinks it’s best that one member of their team goes after the harp right from the get go, just in case. 

Since the guys agree with her idea, Yuu uses what’s left of the scent masking perfume on herself and on Grim to ensure Jack won’t be able to smell them while they’re tiny thanks to the shrinking potion they’ll be drinking and after she and Grim return to normal size.

Yuu’s really glad that she didn’t use the perfume at the start of the game since her patience really did pay off in the end. 

Once that’s done, things proceed like in canon until the shrinking potion wears off revealing just Yuu behind Jack and Rook. She quickly uses her beans to take out Rook before throwing the rest of her beans at Jack who proceeds to dodge her attacks just like she predicted.

It’s only after he finishes dodging that Jack realizes that he can’t smell Yuu’s scent which catches him by surprise. Being the smart guy that he is, he quickly realizes that this fact combined with the fact that he can’t see/smell Grim spells trouble for his team. 

Unfortunately for him, by the time he comes to that realization, it’s too late since Grim has gotten his paws on the harp, successfully putting an end to the game and giving the farmer team the win. 

(I had debated on whether or not to keep things canon since I did feel bad for poor Azul, but considering how close the match was and how well Yuu knows Jack, it just makes sense that someone as cautious as her would have a backup plan if she failed to stop Jack which she was expecting would happen.)

(Also, the reason I didn’t include any more visions was because I didn’t want to give Yuu an unfair advantage. Plus, her Quirk doesn’t always work out so conveniently for her, so this is just proof of that. 

It also helps that she didn’t want to see any visions that would give her an unfair advantage. While she can’t control when she has a vision, she unconsciously has control of what she sees, so that’s another reason why she didn’t have any visions on Beans Day.)

Yuu is naturally very ecstatic about winning and is giving Grim lots of praise as he boasts about bringing victory to the team. Meanwhile, Cater is whipping out his phone, so he can take celebratory selfies for Magicam, which Jade is naturally pulled into once he reunites with their group.

In regards to the MVPs for the farmer team, I think Vargas would make Jade & Yuu/Grim the MVPs since Yuu/Jade were basically the masterminds behind everything and Grim was the one who grabbed the harp.

Since Yuu/Grim are technically one student, they both get the extra credit since it seems like their grades are all averaged together.

After it’s all over, Grim is quick to start demanding the feast Yuu promised him if they won, and that leads to Cater & Jade wanting to join them. Floyd, who was one of the last remaining farmers like in canon, also invites himself over and says they should eat shawarma cause he and Jade are craving it thanks to Kalim and Jamil’s antics from the event lol

While the feast was originally meant just for Yuu & Grim, pretty much everyone gets involved especially once Kalim hears about it because he’s all about throwing a party. Tthankfully, he provides all the food that will be needed for everyone who invites themselves over to Ramshackle after they go to their dorms to clean up.

Even the monster team members join the party, even though it’s originally meant for the farmer team, but in exchange, all the experienced chefs on the monster team have to help with the cooking.

Lilia tries to get involved with the cooking, but Yuu distracts him by asking him to find Malleus to extend an invitation to the party since Malleus has gone off on his own again and she doesn’t want him to miss out on the fun. Thus, saving everyone from Lilia’s cooking lol

All in all, Beans Day was a total blast for Yuu, and she can only hope that she’ll get to celebrate it again next year.