#it's not an infection it's just because they had to remove bone from the jaw to get the bottom tooth out. there are stitches

[theharlotofferelden]

Honestly I don’t even care if there’s more context for this quote because even posing this as a serious question worthy of discussion is disingenuous at best and fucking stupid at worst.

When our representatives aren’t working in our best interests, you can only hold your boot on someone’s neck before they decide enough is enough. That isn’t a radical statement; that’s just reality.

I joke on my blog about how “adulting” leads to you making a billion phone calls per day, but the fact of the matter is that 99% of the phone calls I’ve made this year have been to providers and my insurance company. I haven’t gone a single month this year without speaking with a provider, mainly because I was denied coverage for a procedure that I’ve been told by several insurance reps is covered under my insurance.

As I type this, my insurance company is stalling on giving me antibiotics I need to treat an ailment that was caused by the lack of coverage for the procedure I needed (and still need) months ago.

I’m sure having some nuance and perspective on the loss of life regarding the death of a CEO — a person who is among an elite of people who get to decide on who deserves life saving medical treatment — is something that‘s warranted in this situation; I’ve just been unable to see anyone give me a good reason or argument as to why this perspective deserves time and energy engaging with when my medical issues have routinely treated with the same level of attention and care this fucking discussion has.

But by all means, keep clutching those pearls.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Wanna be horrified with me?

I had to watch a document about white colonizers in Canada for class and there was a throwaway line about a young woman travelling out to the "Northwest" (basically the prairie provinces of Canada) to get married and having ALL HER TEETH PULLED and replaced with dentures before the move.

Take me out behind the barn and shoot me first. That made me cringe so hard.

I just looked this up to see if it was a Thing. Big mistake.

No pictures, thank god, but anecdotal evidence that it has been a Thing on and off, in various cultures- especially in Acadia, which checks out here -into the 1970s in some cases. IE people saying "oh yeah, my great-grandma had that!" It seems to have mostly been isolated, not mainstream. Not that that's stopped myth-makers from claiming that ALL VICTORIAN BRIDES HAD THEIR TEETH REMOVED!!!! I hardly need to say that I've found no evidence of this- indeed, I've never read anything about an adult woman with healthy teeth having needless extractions in the 19th century until today (primarily reading publications and letters from urban or suburban areas of the US and UK, and sometimes France). And plenty of married or simply older women discussing tooth problems- one letter I read from 1820s Boston had a married fortysomething lady complaining about a toothache, for example

Actually, I'm finding more early-mid 20th century sources about it, now I really poke around. Interesting. I almost wonder if it didn't gain in popularity as infection became less of an issue, rather than being an older practice.

The idea, apparently, was that you couldn't have tooth problems if you didn't have teeth. Which is. Interesting and highly flawed logic, because now you have Got All My Teeth Extracted In A Pre-Antibiotics Era problems. Plus potential bone loss in your jaw, over time, which causes other issues.

Yeesh. I need to go brush and floss 15 times, brb

[starseneyes]

Today I Bit into an Apple (for the first time in 25 years)

Back Story: Rachel was born genetically missing a tooth. Just... nada. Nothing. Not even bone to support the damn thing. No tooth!

My first orthodontist wanted to avoid jaw surgery, so he did a bunch of stuff that royally fucked me up and led to me eventually having three surgeries in the span of six months at the age of 40 when I could've had one at the age of 16.

Now, I've been cleared from the surgeries since December 31 (I literally hopped from recovery from one, to subsequent five-month infection into the next surgery, to the last surgery... June 20-December 31 I was "in recovery" or under the knife), but I had not yet tried biting into an apple.

My first orthodontist dislodged all my teeth from the bone and opened a hole where the tooth was missing. It's all about aesthetics for these assholes, I've learned.

Even the first orthodontist I consulted when I started this adult jaw surgery journey said, "Why would you do that? You're aesthetically pleasing!"

Yeah, but I can't eat on one side of my mouth, I'm literally losing teeth because they're in the wrong position, and my gums are worn to nothing.

*ahem*

I had a flipper (removable fake tooth) until I finished University, at which point my Graduation Gift (thanks?) was a Maryland Bridge (fake tooth linked to two surrounding teeth). You can't bite into an apple with any of those.

Then, the Maryland Bridge was removed by my (amazing) orthodontist when we started braces two years ago, and so on, and so on.

Now, let me tell you the true miracle—one of my teeth was at a 90% chance of loss when the Bridge was removed... and it stayed. It was super wiggly. It was still high-risk. But after only six months of braces, all my teeth dislodged by my first orthodontist moved back into their original bones.

I still couldn't bite into an apple. But after waiting five months since being cleared from recovery... I decided it was time.

It was a timid bite. A slow bite. And I tried not to cry because I did it. For the first time in 25 years, I bit into an apple.

There are some things in this life I fear we take for granted.

So let my story be a reminder to you that the little joys in life matter. Take pleasure in them. Let yourself savor them!

Life is too short to ignore every tiny joy. Collect them. Hold them close. And treasure them so long as they're yours.

[amaiguri]

Fantasy Ecology (Worldbuilding of Yssaia)

Buckle in, folks -- I got fantasy creatures AND etymology for you <3

While I'm not the biggest ecology/spec evo person, my friend Jay is. She's figured out how the grasses evolved and why there aren't rodents in Yssaia and she's commissioned SO MUCH art on my behalf, I just 🥺🥺🥺

So, today, I'm going to showcase some of the plants and creatures she has made or influenced throughout Yssaia, since I def don't have time to do it all. But if you want to know more (and you don't mind that my website's images don't work) you can always visit tinyurl.com/Yssaia and read basically everything.

Plants — South vs. North

Euthalia's Flower Pamphlet gives you a pretty good idea of the humid, temperate environment of the Isle of Telethens and the North Coast of the Aftokratoria. The plants, overall, can spread out their leaves and blooms to absorb the sun without worry about freezing. Meanwhile, Vivinne's Pamphlet of Northern Plants paints a pretty stark contrast of gothy black plants whose pigment is designed to absorb light waves closer to infrared and ultraviolet because there is simply not a lot of that direct, white sunlight under the Upper Continent. Notice that the plants can't be as water-filled -- they'd just freeze in the eternal snows. Since Ysse magic is a thing, I'd like to think Northern plants have evolved shapes that increases the heat around them, making them ideal for shelter-creation too.

Rumateurs, the "Llamas"

Rumateurs are llama-like (and less alpaca-like) creatures with ossicones (like giraffes!) instead of horns! Think like 300+ lbs, thick muscle, smarter cuz they're pack animals (not herd animals) and need their toes clipped cuz they grow continuously. Their big noses evolved to heat the air with their body heat before it enters the rest of their system in their cold climate. They have split toes to make it easier to climb. Northerners rely on them for transportation in the craigy valleys and for their wool, meat, milk, hooves, and bones. FUN FACT: Only one of the rumateurs in my game will let you pet it, and other one will spit on you because it hates rich people.

Flavoneite, the Void Beasts

Flavoneite are six-legged, cat-sized, slug-like parasites who feed primarily on blood and Ysse crystals. Due to their jaw-shape and circulatory system, when they bite you, you lose the ability to perceive them -- as they manipulate your Ysse and thus, your central nervous system. Flavoneite hosts can last weeks or even months before disease and infection overtake, but will quickly become irritable or even hostile if you try to remove the Flavoneite. Talented mages can draw a Rune of Opening on the back of the Flavoneite to remove it but given the difficulty of getting close to the hostile hosts, sometimes it's simply easier to kill the Flavoneite before the host dies and its needs a new one. Entire villages have had to be burned to try to be rid of these things. Without a blood supply, however, Flavoneite can survive on Ysse crystals alone for up to six months -- they are extremely difficult to get rid of, once they are around.

Nonetheless, Senator Diacaius Praefori keeps a pet Flavoneite. He promises she doesn't bite. Much. And for some reason, he can still see it just fine...

Sandworms

The Sandworms of the desert, related to the Flavoneite, Eleftegos, Maret, and Shagbeasts also on this list, have evolved alongside the Sha Hir'za. The Sha Hir'za have bred them for companionship, protection, hunting, transportation, and terraforming. They all have ivory shells that guard their back and heads, though the exact size and shape varies by the specific breed. Note the purple hue on their bellies -- this is a special cell that helps sustain the Sandworm with photosynthesis when they don't have a lot of food. They primarily filter feed on microbes in the sand, but they can eat basically anything if it's small enough -- from insects to seeds to salt crystals.

Notably, Sandworms are not the local equivalent of Kosher.

Dageos, the Houndlets

The Dageos is a fast, pack predator with lop rabbit-like ears, fangs, and an extremely lithe body -- maybe weighing around 80 lbs at the biggest. They fill a similar niche to foxes and some Svanihk villages let them roam around openly. Dageos will sometimes hunt lone eleftegos but generally prefer to scavenge other meals or hunt smaller prey.

Eleftegos, the Ivory Beast

Eleftegos are omnivore filter-feeders with eat algae, plants, and small fish if they're able. Humans have never domesticated them, but they're so docile and intelligent that a well-meaning human can teach them to carry them around. While some Tsars might just traumatize their companions into subservience, most Tsars and Witches revere and love their livelong companions -- and while no one can talk to them, the assumption is that Eleftegos think humans are really really human and like to carry them around places (much like you would carry your own fluffy companion everywhere, if you could!)

Eleftegos actually means "Ivory Beast" because the Telethenians who named them traded Ivory before they had the creature, and then just named the creature after that. (You can harvest the Ivory without hurting the beast! They seem to be cool with this, once they realize it doesn't hurt.) The Svanhik folk have their own name for them that has nothing to do with their ability to produce Ivory.

Maret, the Slugbunny

Marets -- named so by the Svanihk folk for their six legs or six eyes (Ok, I just realized that makes no sense to you but roll with it lol) -- fill the ecological niche of ocelots. They hunt small animals, like voles and smaller lagomorphs, and fish, but end up as prey to larger predators. In the wild, their slimey pelts(?) are usually brown and gray with a couple of bright spots on their underbellies to impress their mates and to seem poisonous, but humans have bred them to be more different and bright colors.

Also, Arlasaire's seeing-maret, Fuafua, is purple for a very specific reason that I won't get into because it's spoilers. But, you gotta trust me. BUT ALSO, Fuafua is purple because my favorite color is purple and she's the mascot of Yssaia! Every franchise needs a cute animal mascot, right? Fuafua is perfect <3 <3 <3

Meuu and Meuu'otes, the Bunnygoats and Goat-bunnies

Okay, lemme tell you the story that Jay told me: On some island in the Mediterranean, there were a bajillion rabbits. Then, the ice age happened and goats came to the island. Well, after the ice age ended, the goats outcompeted the rabbits... but then, they started looking more and more like rabbits.

Thus, meet the Meuu (pronounced "Mew") -- the goats of Telethens. They're Bunnygoats. That being said, since Telethens haven't had rabbits for millennia probably, the word for "bunny" is "little goat", basically.

Telethenian Natural Philosophers note that, around the world, there is a tendency for everything to evolve back into a rabbit. (You know, like how carcinization says everything is evolving into a crab!) This may have something to do with how Ysse impacts the creatures of Yssaia.

Dandelion Fields on the Upper Continent

The Upper Continent is home to fields and fields of dandelions, as the grasses haven't arrived up here to outcompete them yet. These dandelions are frequently considered to be a symbol of human desire, hopes, and rebirth -- and they're a welcome backup food source wherever they grow.

Shagbeasts

Maybe TW: Arachnophobia but no spiders, Shagbeasts are fucking horrible.

Shagbeasts are the primary grazers inhabiting North Chrysig. They feed by raking their beak-like mouths across the ground to shovel the topsoil into enormous throat pouches before filtering the dirt out by shaking it through numerous pores in the throat.

They may seem docile and sweet from a distance. But, as they filter feed, their pores become clogged. They ooze a thick yellow mucus that coats the obstruction until it hardens and becomes smooth enough to be passed.

This mucus has an unbearable stench that shagbeasts are always coated in a pestilent aura that can sicken any unaccustomed to the smell. But these hardened pearls of shagbeast mucus have quickly become a valuable alchemical ingredient -- akin to whale ambergris.

But even more monstrous are their winged offspring: The Vampyrlings. The Vampyrlings are flighted, juvenile shagbeasts. They roost by hanging upside down from the shoulder-antlers of their parents. Unable to produce milk, shagbeasts feed their young by allowing the brood to parasitize their own flesh.

Without crucial hormones found in the blood of a host shagbeast, vampyrlings are unable to mature, and so, despite being able to fly, they are unable to venture from North Chrysig to colonize South Chrysig or the Lower Continent.

Vampyrlings will also violently swarm any creature that ventures too close to their host, and unless half or more of their number are killed, the swarm will not abate. But when it does, they will choose the easiest source of food yet: their fallen siblings.

The alleged "Land of the Gods" has done nothing to burn away the monstrousness from these beasts.

That's all for now folks!

Something that's important to remember, with the names of all my creatures (and yours) is that... language has power. If you have a conlang/fantasy name, which culture got to name the creature? I've tried to give all my creatures Englishy names so that you don't feel like one of my cultures' languages is more important than another (although there's many cases where I've just named them in only one language because I am LAZY lolol) but it's just something to consider.

BTW Idk if I've mentioned it elsewhere yet but all my work is available under the Creative Commons 4.0 license, meaning it's irrevokably okay to borrow and/or steal, as long as you credit us! I'm a big proponent of the free spread of ideas so if you want, you can use any of this in your own work -- even if it's commercial! Let me know if you do <3 <3 <3

[hongjoongscafe]

Cancer awareness.

So last time someone asked me whether we celebrate Diwali or not I replied that we won't be this year since my uncle (my mother's brother) is on a ventilator. This was 11th November. On 13th November, my uncle passed away due to cancer.

Nobody knew he had cancer before. So let me take you on a journey of about four and a half months of cancer.

–July 2023.

So my uncle had a “wound” around his wisdom tooth. He was in pain and consulted a dentist 1. This dentist has done all the dental stuff in our family/relatives. A really good one. He said that it was an ulcer and it would be fine and gave some painkillers and other medicine to help it heal.

However, that did not work out and the pain only got worse. My uncle changed the doctor and went to the dentist 2. Now, this dentist is a well-known doctor and works in a very expensive hospital. And he has a clinic of his own. He said that they needed to extract the wisdom teeth. And after that, it will heal. So they did that.

The pain did not stop but it only got worse for even worse.

–August 2023.

When he did not get any relief, my uncle went to another hospital (which is one of the top hospitals in India). They did the scanning and we found out that he had stage 1 cancer in his mouth.

The doctors recommended he should get it operated and removed. So they did that. It was a shock for doctors that when they were operating on him, they found that it was not only in his mouth but in his throat as well. It looked like it started in the throat and its roots went towards his mouth.

They declared that it was not the first stage but the fifth stage of cancer.

Then his chemotherapy and radiation began. He was getting weaker quite faster since his upper jaw was operated on and he was on a liquid diet.

The treatment went on. He was fine at the beginning. Doing minor chores or taking himself to appointments. That did not last long.

–October 2023.

His health got worse and he was completely in bed. His breath would shorten even if went to the toilet which was just one step from his side. It would take minutes on minutes to get his breath at a normal rate.

It was around 14th October. We were there. My aunt helped my uncle bathe but things were not good. His breath was way too short and you could see his stomach getting sucked in when he was trying to breathe.

The next day was the day he was hospitalized.

The doctors said that his lungs were filled with water because of some infection which, to date, is not known.

They started taking out the water. They would fill many bottles every day. It was abnormal, to say the least, that there was that much water in his lungs.

–November 2023.

During that time, they took his bone marrow and tested it. Just to find out the cancer has spread in his bones as well. The doctors did another test whose results took almost a week to come back. The doctors said that if this test was positive, they can do another treatment which was basically the last thing they could do to save his life.

The test came out to be positive. And they prepared the injection. They took him to the ICU in order to keep him under observation for 24 hours according to the protocol of that injection.

This injection was supposed to extend his life by 2 years (maximum). This was an expensive injection costing ₹2,00,000 and this was to be given every three weeks.

Things didn't turn out well.

His health deteriorated. He already had a kidney problem for a long. His kidney doctors had asked him to buy a plot just in case they needed to perform a kidney transplant.

His creatinine increased dangerously and doctors suggested dylasis. They did that too. However, nothing worked and finally after two days, on 13th November, he took his last breath.

.

I made this post to share something that happened to us recently. Never have any of us thought this would happen to our close relatives/family. Cancer is a tricky thing.

The main fault was of Dentist 2 that he pulled his tooth out. Cancer attacks faster when it is touched. He should have taken cautionary steps while treating.

What's done is done. He can't come back and we hope he finds peace.

I just want to share this so you are aware of it. Always get proper tests done. Never take things lightly. Even if you see minor symptoms of anything, get it checked. I don't know what to say right now. But at least let's stay healthy and cautious.

Cancer is a sneaky nightmare. It took someone so close to us within a few months. It was a horrible and haunting thing.

I hope nothing like this happens to any of you. I love you guys so please let's stay healthy. Look after your friends, family, and yourself. Life is too short for regrets❤️.

[sigmarette]

So I called my school about some clerical error about my financial aid... Got the updated info, yay... but other things got cleared up that I had no idea about.

Apparently I'm a fucking honors-level student?????????????????

But because I tanked my grades when I was dealing with the massive double jaw infection last year, and nearly died from an allergic reaction to a prescribed opiate painkiller. I wasn't told about my honors status. I was just given the information to apply for grade forgiveness for the classes I flunked (because I was sick and on a lot of hospital drugs). and the honors status will go through... I'm being given an "Academic Comeback" award for literally pulling myself out of hell.

I'm crying, but not because I'm happy.

I'm crying because I just realized how fucking broken I am. I've been pulling off grades like THESE the moment I got surgery to remove my infected teeth & bone... all while calling myself stupid, mediocre, "I'm not doing enough. I need to do more. More. More. I'll never make it if I dont give everything I have. And then some. If i had never gotten sick, we wouldn't deserve this punishment. It's for our own good. Work Harder. No, don't sleep- finish this assignment."

I DON'T want to be an honors student... I just want to be fucking happy. I have no fucking clue how to feel. I no longer have a reward response. "Congratulations, Siggy!" Congratulations for what? For killing myself to succeed? "It shows you care a LOT about your work!" But it also shows I value it over my own wellbeing. I should have been taught how to value myself as well as my accomplishments. Instead I was only taught how to admonish myself for my failures, for the things I didn't do right. They always took precedence over my successes. I was taught how to hate myself.

My grad speech isn't going to be bright or cheery. I want this with all of my soul, every fiber of my being... but it doesn't mean I'm not deeply exhausted, and terribly depressed about everything I put myself through.

...I do this for you, little me... Sitting in your bedroom in 2008 crying over your math homework because you don't understand numbers. Look at what we're doing now.

[ashton-ryder]

"Do you?" Because that doesn't feel like love. Nothing she's told him about them felt like it was about love, it felt like it was about control. A question with just enough doubt uttered caressing over the surface hooking onto a crack in her foundation of the declaration thrown back at him.

tw: choking, self induced vomiting, abuse

That was all he could say before his jaw was held and his mouth was forced open, thrashing about what he could to pull away from what she was about to infect him with. His tongue did what it could to block the passageway from the liquid going down his throat, effectively blocking his own airway as long as he could while he continued to resist. But with her aiding to cover his mouth and airway, there was only so much he could hold his breath and hold back.

The moment she called for his release, Ashton fell over to his knees, spitting out whatever he managed to keep out from swallowing, sticking his fingers as far into his throat as possible to induce some way to get it all back out. He retched and gagged but there was virtually nothing in his system to even throw up. The panic settling into his bones at the very reality she forced upon him. He's faced death so many times before they probably were friends at this point, but to face death this way? He rather she just kill him now. His gaze was widened but distant, when he realized trying to throw it all back up was not working, he simply stays kneeled on all fours, until the coughing fits reduced to wheezes and panicked heaves.

Ashton refused to look up from his tear-stricken gaze boring into the floor, Sada once again listing her demands, more cruel than before. He will not control whether Jeremiah would ever touch him or talk to him or look at him. And there it was again. The toxic control masked as sickening love, the gross gloat that he was hers, Ashton hasn't forgotten the way she once called him her plaything. Even if she brought up Ruth's name, it was an immediate flinch of Sada even dare dragging her name into it as his bloody and bruised hands curled into fists. But Ash said nothing, throat raw from bile trying to vomit back out the infection of liquid death, because, he knew he had some kind of upper hand. Someone, somewhere with power over Sada wanted him alive. There could only be one - that was enough of a comfort. She wasn't going to kill him right now, not if he had anything to say about it, and there's a tiny flicker of warmth in knowing that Jer did.

And even if she did kill him, like she said before, no one would care, right? So what if he died, people's lives would still move on without him, so why was he trying to hard to stay alive? It'd be so much easier if he was dead. Jeremiah wouldn't need to waste his energy on him and he'd have one less problem in his life, Ruth wouldn't be crying over an outcome she couldn't choose. Charlie and JP don't need one more thorn in their side when he'd only make them feel guilty for choosing others over him. Death didn't seem that bad when he looked at it that way, remove himself from people's lives if all he does is cause them pain.

And so he will not comply. He refused to beg. He'd rather gamble with the reaper than say the things he'd never follow through with. He's said it multiple times before and accepted it in his core since he was a marine - he was ready to die. Doesn't mean he wants to. Doesn't mean he wasn't scared. But he was ready. "-fuck you."

Her insides bristled at his declaration, a dark pallor falling over her her as she watched her two henchmen struggle to hold him down, the pair seemingly knowing enough to get rougher afterward. Perhaps reading the danger in her expression. The murder in her eyes.

Nails tapping on the glass of the vial as she made her way over, Sada popped the cork and gave it a little swirl as she came over to bring her lips once more to Ashton's ear, tone low like the warning rumble of a broiling volcano. "Guess what... I love him, too." Leaning back just enough to see what she was doing, Sada took a hold of his jaw once more with a nails in grip and with the help of James, yanked his mouth open.

"Say ahh..." Tilting the vial over with a little 'oop' she watched as the contents of the infected wine tumbled over and down his throat, her hand pressing over his mouth to stop him from spitting it out. "Let him go." Speaking once she was sure he'd swallowed it back, the trio released his bonds and stood back, the two men staying on either side to prevent attack, while Sada turned and headed for the syringe.

"Now. Let's try this again." Vaccine in hand, tantalizingly out of his reach, she watched him with a smile that said she felt that she'd won. "You will never let Jeremiah touch you, ever again. You will not look at him, or speak to him, or I will let you turn into one of those things... and I'll sick you on your friend. Doctor Ruth? Say it, and I'll give you the vaccine, right now. Say it, that he's mine and that you will never try and rise up against me. Then top it all off with: 'I'm sorry, Sada'."

[thebibliosphere]

Been following you for years and am very, very glad you're not only still here but are in fact continuing to recover! Loved Phangs, can't wait for book 2!

No pressure to answer but did your awful dental situation get resolved yet? Did you have all those poisonous fillings removed, or is that still on the list? I'm guessing your other health crises took priority, and then the whole pandemic thing?

Much love and appreciation, and pets for Holly Mop :)

Aw, thank you. That's very kind of you to say.

Magic Dentist Man managed to remove enough of my contaminated fillings for me to heal and recover from the mercury poisoning/major jaw bone infection, and my mouth is now much better. My last x-ray even showed that most of my jawbone has regrown, so all those painful surgeries were worth it.

I still have two fillings that need to be replaced, but they are not contaminated. (I'm just mildly allergic to them, lol.) I had to take a break from a lot of the procedures we were doing because my overall health became too unstable in 2018-2019, and I was too weak to undergo any more procedures. We also found out that due to my MCAS/EDS, I'm not a good candidate for metal braces, which was the initial plan to try and correct my unstable jaw. My dentist was looking into whether I'd be a good candidate for Invisalign when the pandemic hit, and all my non-essential care ground to a halt.

I've been back for a couple of cleanings since then. I was petrified of what they might find because before the pandemic, I was getting my teeth cleaned every 2-3 months to keep on top of the bone infection(s)/gum problems I'd been having from all the procedures, but my mouth is pretty much healed! There are none of the infection or high inflammation markers I had before, and my mouth and jaw are mostly pain-free these days :)

The nerve damage that makes it hard for me to swallow is still there, but that's life.

We're still hoping to try and stabilize my jaw and fix some of the gaps in my smile that I was left with, but I can afford to wait, which is nice. It's nice not to be throwing 10+k a year at the dentist to stay alive!

[phoenixyfriend]

Sugar, Spice, and a Heart to Entice

AKA: Jango Fett speedruns a romance with someone who should be his enemy. (It's okay. We know he makes bad choices.)

Note: Ahsoka uses the pseudonym "Ashla" in this fic. Warnings: slavery, references to drug use, crude sex jokes, undressing of an unconscious person (for medical reasons)

----

The girl that they shove into the chains next to him is... worrying.

(Well, probably a girl--he'll adjust later if it turns out he's wrong.)

She's not that much younger than him, he thinks. It's hard to tell, with the way her skin is taut over muscle and bone, too little water and too little sleep, and probably not enough food for whatever labor she's been doing. He's also, admittedly, not great at gauging ages in the first place, and certainly not for Togruta. Still, he thinks it's safe to say that they're close in age, and that she's probably younger than him.

She's lucky, by some measure. The spice ship is terrible, but it's probably better than the fate tog girls are usually subject to in this industry. They're hazardous conditions, and violent ones, but Jango's yet to see a slave here stripped of their clothing for anything other than a whipping.

He thinks it's probably a matter of money. That kind of violation lowers the profit margins, he imagines. Spice is more lucrative than anything, and pain is a better motivator than... well.

So she's lucky, by that measure, and that measure alone.

They clap her in bindings before he even sees her, even though she's unconscious, and bring her sometime in the night cycle. Jango doesn't have a lot of pity left in him, but some goes out to her. He won't say she's too young for this, because nobody is ever old enough for slavery, nor do slavers have any compunctions about selling babes in arms, but Jango would wager she's already led a hard life.

She's fairly covered, but what little is visible shows enough old battle wounds that he can't imagine she's stayed off of battlefields. He knows how to read a Togruta's markings for stress history, too, and hers tell a story. Her facial marks are thin and delicate, and he'd say they're certainly more complex than the average; the striation on her lekku and montrals is thin and jagged, like marble. It's pretty enough, but it's also a sign of the fact that her life has likely been anything but easy. Some of it might be genetics, and he hopes it is, but with the scars he can see... he doubts it's much.

"Keep that one alive," the overseer orders, eyes on Jango and hand gesturing at the tog girl.

He leaves.

Jango isn't sure what they're hoping to get out of putting her with him. The room is built for four, yes, but they usually don't try to have anyone share with Jango. Maybe they ran out of room, or just assumed Jango was the most likely to know field medicine, or just figured there wouldn't be any trouble until she woke.

As he gets closer, his confusion grows. The tog's got burns all over, ugly ones that aren't going to heal cleanly without bacta. They're going to get infected, as likely as not. He hasn't got much besides water in here, but the overseer's left behind a box of what looks like bandages. If he's lucky, there's burn cream in there.

(He's not lucky.)

He works slowly, careful of every movement. He builds up a story in his head as he does, based on the wounds he finds and what he starts to notice of the clothing. He can't see all the details, not in what little light he has, but there's plenty to notice.

He hadn't realized, with how dim it is, but most of what she's got on as an outer layer is hardened leather, real leather, not synth. There are attachment points for armor at the shoulders and hips, and he thinks he sees signs of wear for vambraces and greaves. She's no Mando'verde, not with how he can see that the fabric at her torso and upper legs is intended to stay light and flexible and uncovered, but the crafting of the leather layers is familiar. He thinks she might have contacts among Mando armorers.

She might even wear beskar, if she's impressed the right person.

The wounds are recent, and unfamiliar, and he thinks she was probably fought into chains, rather than bought in them. She's a captive, not a purchase, or maybe... maybe they just found an unconscious woman, and decided that she was worth keeping.

He thinks she lost a fight, or won but with great injuries, and just... stumbled off and collapsed. He gets the feeling no one on board the ship could have fought this woman, except for himself. It's not based on much, not until he can see her move, but he's got good instincts for that sort of thing.

Jango keeps his assessment of her torso quick and clinical, not even bothering to mentally apologize for stripping her bare. This is medical, and he's not a doctor, not even a field medic, but he's professional nonetheless. Even though there's nothing in the box but bandages, not even the burn cream he'd hoped for, he'd still rather know if there's a broken rib to worry about. He doesn't want to wait for her to wake up and then find out she's got a punctured lung, even if he can't do anything about it. He finds bruising, but... he thinks that if anything is broken, it's hairline at most.

Lucky, he thinks again, in the unluckiest situations.

She doesn't wake that cycle. It's all he can do to get some water in her, dripped into her mouth in a trickle, but it's something.

----

When the Togruta girl wakes up, it's sudden. Jango is wiping down her lekku with a wet cloth in hopes of staving off a fever, kneeling next to the bunk. She opens her eyes, stiffens with a sharp breath, and then twists off the bed. Before he's fully processed this, her legs are up and around his neck, and then he's being wrenched to the side and onto the filthy ground, cheek grinding down into the grit. He feels a bony knee press into his spine, and the growl of a predator.

"Where am I?" the tog girl demands.

"Spice ship," he says, and oh but this place has ruined him for fights; he's having trouble breathing from whatever she's done to him, and she doesn't even have the use of her hands. "Deep space. You're in the slave cells. Don't mess with the collar, it'll explode if you try to remove it."

"Spice refinery?" she repeats, sounding completely baffled. He gives her a second to process, but she blindsides him. "Someone got me in their hands and they went for spice slavery?"

"As opposed to..." he really hopes she gets off soon.

She doesn't answer him immediately, and he can't get a look at her face. He gets his arms out to the sides, plants them to the floor, and shoves back. She doesn't fall off, but she does slide to the side to sit on the floor.

The expression she's got is best described as 'shell-shocked,' he thinks.

"You don't know me," she says, faint and confused. He shakes his head; he's pretty sure he'd have recognized her if he'd known her at all, given the time he's spent cleaning her wounds and trying to keep her alive. She laughs, breathless and a tad hysterical. "You don't--fuck. You don't know me. That's... great. Okay. Okay, I can work with that. Don't know how they missed it, but okay."

"Bounty on your head?" he guesses.

She smiles, thin and unpleasant. "Something like that."

"Thought as much. You're built like a fighter." He intends it as a compliment, but he doesn't think she takes it as one.

"I've never had a choice otherwise," she says, and when she next looks around, it's to find a place to sit. She pushes herself up to the thin mattress of the cot behind her, and Jango mirrors her on the cot across the room. It's not his bed, technically, but it's not like there's anyone to complain. She frowns at him; it's not a rude look, he thinks, but an attempt to put something unfamiliar in place. "What legion were you with?"

He blinks at her. He's been part of an army, but never one that big. "Legion?"

"Were you with special forces?" she tries again. "Or--wait, did you even get off Kamino before--"

"I'm not whoever you think I am," he tells her. "None of that means anything to me. I know what a legion is, but I've never had reason to be part of one."

"But you're..." she trails off, brow furrowed. "I guess just a similar face, then."

"To who?"

"The clones?" she hazards, as if that clears anything at all up. "I have no idea where we are; maybe the war holos never made it out far enough for you to know what they looked like..."

"Which war?" he asks, because he feels like he'd probably have heard of a war that used clones, especially one that had enough holos spread around for this woman to expect him to know what the clones in question look like.

"The... the clone war," she says hesitantly. "With the Separatists?"

None of that means anything to him.

It must show in his face, because her brow furrows, and her eyes go wide in a way he doesn't like. He can't tell if her skin's losing color or anything, but he's pretty sure the curl at the tip of one lek is a sign of anxiety. He's not sure how to help, but part of him already decided he liked this woman, just on the suspicion that she was friendly to Mandalorians.

(It's been a solid year and a half since Jango has had anything approaching a friend. He may be, subconsciously, a little desperate.)

"What's your name?" she asks, voice pitching in discomfort, and tight as a garotte.

"Jango Fett."

She closes her eyes, clenches her jaw, and... he can't see, can't know if she's trembling, but he thinks she is. She lets her head fall back against the wall, and breathes in sharply. It's a shaky breath, and he doesn't like that much, either.

"Fuck," she repeats. "No wonder--fuck."

He gives her a few seconds, but she doesn't elaborate. He asks another question instead. "Do I get to know your name?"

Her eyes crack open, and then she sits up straight and looks him over. Her lips purse, and she comes to some decision, though he's at a loss for what. "Call me Ashla. She/her, if you'd rather stick to Basic."

Fake name. Alright. She mentioned a bounty, so it's probably about that.

"Well met, Ashla."

She laughs, empty and painful. She swears in a mix of Huttese and Mando'a, and a few languages he doesn't even recognize. The Core accent on her Mando'a is strong, but he thinks whoever taught her might have been from Concord Dawn.

"How old are you, if you don't--"

"I'm twenty-one," she says. He was right; she's only two years younger than him. "At least... fuck, okay. What's the date?"

He tells her, and she screws up her brow and mouths something to herself. He's not entirely sure what.

"How long ago was..." she trails off.

"Was what?"

She presses a hand over her eyes. "I don't know what year it is."

Ah. Well, he can help with that much. He tells her that, too.

Ashla drops her hand. She visibly mulls it over, eyes on the underside of the bunk above her. He has no idea what she's thinking.

"Why aren't there other people in this room?"

"Weak ones couldn't sleep because I'm 'too intimidating,' and the rest kept trying to throw their weight around." He shrugs at the look she points his way. "I'm not dumb enough to start a fight with a bomb around my neck, but I'm not letting someone knock me around so they can earn a reputation."

She purses her lips, but lets it lie. "You let me take you down, then?"

"You had the advantage of surprise," he says, and doesn't bother to list every other advantage. She's better fed than he is, has spent less time in spice-suffused air, was unconscious and resting while he was awake to keep an eye on her fever. He's got the feeling she already knows.

When she speaks again, it's low and in fluent Mando'a, heavily accented though it may be.

"You'd get out of here eventually," she tells him, eyes half shut. "But you'll get out faster with my help, Mand'alor."

His stomach twists.

----

"They are either very stupid, or very cheap," Ashla mutters a day later, when he's supposedly helping her change some bandages. It gives him the excuse of leaning in close.

"Probably the former," he says.

She grins, and then stiffens and hisses out a low breath as he pours some of the stolen whiskey over one of the burns. It's not a real disinfectant, but it's the best they've got at the moment. Jango still isn't sure how she managed to get it from the overseers without them noticing, but he's quickly gotten the gist that she's a fair shot sneakier than he is.

"What did they do?" he asks, and she huffs out a laugh.

"I need you to promise you won't try to kill me," she says, and he stills.

She seems to be waiting on his response. Great. "That's not an auspicious start, Ashla."

"Eh, I've survived more than my fair share of people trying to kill me. No offense, bro, but I could take you," she says.

She's probably right in their current circumstances. "Let's hear it."

"I left the Jedi Order when I was seventeen."

The whiskey bottle slips from his fingers.

An invisible hand catches it, and it settles quietly on the floor of their cell. No guards will come running. It's a damning sight, for him.

A Jedi.

A Jedi who--who left.

Jedi committed Galidraan, but she left three years before that, but she was--was--

She has her back to him, trusting.

Or just arrogant.

She phrased it that way on purpose, phrased it so he'd know she left before he--before--

"I was framed by my friend for a terrorist attack," she says, and he can't find his voice to tell her to stop talking. "And sentenced to death by a non-Jedi military tribunal for it. By the time they figured out I wasn't guilty, I'd already been kicked out."

He forces his hands to his knees, grips at the bones that are too close to the skin, and orders himself to breathe.

Ashla turns on the spot, blinks at him. "I'm telling you this because it's how we're going to get out."

"Your people killed mine."

"I wasn't a Jedi when Galidraan happened," she says. There's more she wants to say, he's sure, but she keeps the words locked behind her teeth. That might be a good thing.

"And I'm just supposed to trust you?"

"Only for long enough to get out of here," she tells him. She shrugs, easy as anything. She's done this before, maybe. "Trust me, I have plenty of reasons to hate you, too, but I'm a little more concerned about getting this ship taken into custody, and having all the slaves freed."

"And you can just... make that happen."

"I told you, they're either stupid or skint," she says, with that same disarming grin. "I had lightsabers on me, and they kept them on the ship. They haven't drugged me since I woke up. They put me in normal cuffs, Jango."

He hates the way his name sounds on her tongue.

He hates the fact that he sees her plan already.

"You don't even need me," he points out, resisting the urge to try to kill her here and now. He doesn't have his armor. He doesn't have weapons. He's good, but she's got the Force and thighs that can crush a bantha skull.

"I'm not exactly... legit," she admits with a grimace. "Once you're back in Mandalorian space, you at least have an identity. People that will give you a place to stay. A chain code."

"And you don't."

She smiles, brittle. "Give me a week to scope out what I need and get us out of here, and maybe I'll explain."

A week. Fine.

And once they're out of here, and he has a blaster and a meal and a good night's sleep, he'll handle her.

----

He hates the fact that he likes her, still. People had already noticed, even just one day in. The first time someone notices he's giving Ashla the cold shoulder in the workroom, they joke at him about her not putting out. He's known her one day, and they think--

He stops the thought in its tracks.

Jango doesn't start fights here, but he is tempted.

"Oh, he wouldn't dare," Ashla simpers, sweet as spun sugar. "I bite."

She smiles, every pearly white tooth on display. The fangs near glint in the light. She eyes the speaker, squeezes the tool in her hand. Her tendons strain, but the metal bends with a creak.

The overseer shouts for them to get back to work.

Jango steps closer to her, lets his elbows brush against hers, and glares off anyone that tries to get too close.

"I don't need protection," she mutters to him from the corner of her mouth.

"I keep my word," he replies, hating himself for it.

He said he'd have her back. He may hate what she is, but... she left the Order. She's not a Jedi anymore. If he thinks it enough, he can believe it.

----

There's always a camaraderie in shared suffering. Jango is aware of this, and he feels his fondness for Ashla grow against his better judgment. They're both slaves on a spice ship, and he can't change that. It makes him tolerate her more than he sensibly should.

She acts like a Mando soldier, sometimes. She's not at all like Haat Mando'ade, but she knows some of the jokes that Mandalorians grow up with. She walks like a woman used to beskar'gam. She knows a drinking song or two.

(They don't waste the whiskey. It's for injuries, not intoxication.)

"I had brothers, once," she tells him, late at night. "A lot of them. They had a Mandalorian parent, sort of, but he'd never seen fit to really... let them have the culture. I lost them all, mostly to slave chips, and a few to just normal deaths, but... I learned what I could about Mandalore, after, for their sake. In their memory."

It's not a terrible reason, he thinks.

"Irony for you to end up in chains, then," he mumbles, and she barks out a sharp laugh.

"Tradition, more like," she says, and explains before he can ask for her to keep talking. "My... teacher was born a slave, and I... have a suspicion he ended up back in chains after we lost contact. His teacher was enslaved at least twice that I know of."

"Shitty tradition," he says, because there's nothing else he can think of.

"Could be worse," she tells him. This time, she doesn't elaborate.

----

He likes her more than he should.

----

He likes her so, so, so much more than he should.

----

She steals datachips when nobody's looking, using the Force instead of her fingers. She wraps dismissal around her like a cloak to access computer terminals without anyone but Jango noticing. She slips spice into the drinks held by guards and overseers.

She moves through the ship like smoke, in the dim lights of the false night.

Someone notices. Someone always notices, in Jango's experience, but they have no idea who's doing it. They lock down the cells for the sleep cycle, turn down the temperature, leave all the slaves shivering in their beds.

He pulls Ashla into his cot without hesitation, fits their bodies together to conserve heat, and ignores the rest. They're both soldiers; there's no shame in survival for those like them. The lekku at her back drapes over his neck like a scarf, and he almost wants to laugh.

He's pathetic. His men would be so damn disappointed in him, sharing bunk with a Jedi.

"You're thinking too loud," she mumbles, shifting somehow closer. The chill clings, creeping in through the thin clothes and thinner blanket, but he feels like it's bearable with Ashla here.

----

When they enact the plan, it's so much quieter than Jango would have run it. Ashla holds his hands in the early morning, before anyone is awake, and smiles. When she closes her eyes, sinking into a light meditation, the collar around her neck just... comes apart. Nuts and bolts and curves of metal float about her like a wretched parody of the mobile hanging above an infant's crib, and then land quietly on the nearest cot. When she opens her eyes, hazy and distant, she looks at his throat, and frees him with a thought.

It's a heady thing, freedom.

"Come along, Fett," she goads, almost crooning the words, backing out of the cell with his hands in hers. Nobody is awake yet, or at least they shouldn't be. Her words curl in the air like something cloyingly too-sweet, and he's sure it's her way of trying to piss him off. It's only working a little. "We've work to do."

Said work involves slipping past guards with a Jedi's timing, commanding them to sleep with a whisper and a poke to the forehead, and drugging the ones that she claims are resistant to Jedi tricks. The work is, as such, mostly hers to do. They hide the bodies, but the alarm goes off by the time they get to the weapons locker.

That's fine, because the weapons locker is where they were headed.

"Oh, hell yes," she hisses through a grit-tooth grin, and a matched pair of lightsabers float to her. Jango turns off the energy field by the time they reach her, and she hooks them onto her belt. Beskar plating follows, exactly the pieces that Jango had guessed from wear and tear. It's real beskar, too, not even an alloy, and Jango doesn't ask the questions on the tip of his tongue. She straps it on in practiced movements, without hesitation and almost without thought.

"See anything better than what you got off the guards?" she asks him. "Or did they all take the best blasters for themselves?"

"The latter," he says.

(His eyes trace over the armor she wears, and while she does wear it well... he's jealous.)

(He misses his armor.)

(Envy is unbecoming of anyone, but he thinks he can be afforded a little leeway.)

There are people in the hall by the time they exit, a dozen blasters at the ready.

The people in the hall are... not a problem.

Ashla had called it the Sword and Shield maneuver, when walking him through her experiences working in a Mando/Jetii team. He'd laughed, because the saber was the shield. She'd smiled at him, and he'd cursed himself for it.

If he'd had his armor, they'd have been able to move forward as a pair of unstoppable monsters. As it stands, they're... still doing that, really, just a tad slower.

"You're a Jedi!" one of them shouts. "You're supposed to be diplomats! You're not supposed to kill!"

Jango could laugh at that horrible, horrible lie.

"I am no Jedi," Ashla says, and the words cut through the air like something she's said a million times, and will say a million more.

Jango could do a lot with that line, tucked away in his memories for later.

There's a moment, though, where they're stuck at one end of a hallway, and the door to the bridge is just on the other side, and Ashla grins at him, a challenge in every inch of her body, and asks, "You wanna see something cool?"

He can't help it.

"You planning to show off, Jedi?" He can say the word without flinching, and it's... absurd. It's absurd. What in all the hells is she doing to him?

(He's been told that war makes for strange bedfellows, but he's long known that trauma does the same.)

He takes cover when she moves, and oh, does she move.

Ashla's a whirlwind, dangerous as anything and beautiful in her careful, precise violence. She knocks people out, more often than not, but there's more then one dead body left in her wake. It appeals to something in him. She flips and twists and throws people with the Force. She slices and kicks, and smacks people across the face with the blasters she lifts of their comrades. She headbutts at least two people, and then jumps to bounce off the ceiling and back down so she can land feet first on an enemy.

He hopes he'll get his common sense back when he's had time to put himself together, because the sight of those sabers doesn't make him flinch. After all he's been through, after all his nightmares, it really should. The sound alone should have him shivery and shooting.

Maybe there's just too much spice in the air.

A head drops to the floor in a different direction from the body it had previously been attached to. Jango's throat goes dry in response.

When Ashla stands at the end of the hall, a saber in each hand and the floor behind her littered in both bodies breathing and bodies bereft of life, she looks back at him over her shoulder. She deactivates her swords, and smirks. She's smug, and she makes smug look very, very good.

"So," she says. "Verdict?"

Fuck.

----

The bridge is easy enough to handle. They land the ship on a Republic planet, one with relevant authorities and at least some reputation for actually handling things with a degree of kindness and transparency. Ashla does the talking, letting Jango lurk behind her. She lies.

"Half-truths," she later tells him, in a low voice. The smile she wears is amused and self-assured, just a twist at the corner, and the slightest of pouts. He can't see it, when she leans in to murmur in his ear. "I certainly used to be a Jedi. They don't need to know this wasn't an officially-sanctioned infiltration."

Her breath hits lightly against his ear, and he wants--he wants--

"Have a comm code for any old friends?" Ashla asks, stepping away. Her face twists unpleasantly. Frustration, he's sure. "I've got credits, but no contacts."

He eyes the little pack she's got around her waist. "Stole that from the slavers?"

"We'll consider it payment for services rendered," she tells him, with an impish grin Jango wants to kiss off of her face, because apparently he's kriffing suicidal and wants to bed a Jedi. "I'll give you most of it, if you want. Call it the two years of backpay they owed you."

He snorts before he can stop himself. "Just one year, sorry."

"Oh, it's hazard pay," she insists, blinking innocently. "Dangerous conditions having been what they were, of course."

She presses a comm--probably also stolen--and a few credits into his hand, then loops her arm through his. She sets off at a lazy walk, ignoring the people who stare at them with distaste and disgust. "We'll find a hotel. We'll shower, with real water, and fancy soaps, and a little sonic just for the clothes. I'll run out and get you a basic outfit, and then we can go shopping, and once that's done, and you've had a chance to comm a companion, we can reunite you with your buddies, and you can go hunting for your armor, and I'll split and--"

"Stay."

She tilts her head at him, though she doesn't stop walking, and he feels his face burn. He hopes it's not visible. She hums lowly. He can't learn anything from it. "You hate Jedi, though, and I might not really be one anymore, but I'm still more Jedi than not."

"You wear beskar and speak Mando'a," he says. "You helped the Mand'alor. You're halfway to being one of mine already."

"One of yours, huh?" she mutters, eyes somewhere distant. He doesn't know what it is that she's seeing, but he's gotten used to it. "Alright, let's have this conversation again after you've had some sleep and clothes and a good meal, yeah?"

He can take that compromise.

----

"What do you mean, you're from the future?!"

[meangan-thee-lesbian]

Also, lemme paint a picture for you, of maybe the lowest moment of my life, due entirely to the robodebt scheme, since I'm so good at 'fun creative writing' lmao

It's been raining all week. The roof of the car that I live in is leaking right on my pillow, but there's not much I can do about that except put a takeaway container that I found outside in the gutter on my pillow and empty it every fifteen minutes. I've just come from the doctor where I spent my last $50 getting a large skin cancer surgically removed from my shoulder. The doctor, who had his nose wrinkled the whole time, because I hadn't showered in a whole week, told me to 'try and keep the wound clean'.

I drive to the backstreet behind my work, where I have to be at 6am the next morning. As I turn into the street, my car stops. I wrap a plastic bag around my twelve stitches and get out in the rain to push the car off the road. After half an hour of tinkering, I figure out the fuel pump has shit itself. Thank god for my 6.6GPA science degree, I know exactly how to fix it. So I call up the nearest mechanic (a two hour walk away) and reserve the part for when my paycheck comes in next week. By this point I've busted open three of those stitches. But it's not like I can go anywhere and do anything about it, so I just try and thread them back together as best I can (yes, it does hurt, a lot) then I smother it in antiseptic and hope for the best.

I get ready for bed, by constructing a gutter out of plastic bags to divert the water from the leaking roof off my damp pillow. I'm pretty exhausted at this point, so despite being wet from the rain and sticky from several days of unwashed sweat, I fall right asleep. I'm occasionally woken up by hoons screeching by, slamming on the horn when they see a car with foggy windows and screaming 'wake up' as they go by. I'm sort of used to this frequent nightly reminder of society's active disdain for the less fortunate.

I go into work the next day at 6am. I work most shifts alone, but at swap over my co-workers make sure to let me know I look and smell like shit. They know I'm homeless. They don't care. No one does. Well, that is except for the dog walker who calls the cops on Day Three of me being stuck in the same spot. The cops give me a move on order. Thanks to my first class legal honours degree I know I have 24 hours to comply before they can do anything. My paycheck comes in at midnight, so I'm hoping to have my car back on the road the next day.

I eat some white rice, take a leak in an ice cream container, and go to sleep under my makeshift gutter. I wake up in the morning to absolutely excruciating pain in my jaw. I dunno what it is, but it's the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. There doesn't appear to be anything immediately wrong, other than swelling in my gums, so I just down half a packet of pain killers and make a note to swing by the pharmacy for something stronger on my two hour walk to the mechanic today. It would later turn out I had developed bone cancer in my jaw from the abscess an untreated wisdom tooth had created.

Anyway, five hours and about 20km of walking with a 10kg fuel pump hanging off my one good shoulder later and I'm back at my broken down home. I have about three hours to get out of here before the cops show up to fine and/or arrest me for 'camping illegally' on a city street. Usually replacing a fuel pump would take me half hour, max, but I'm in significant pain. The painkillers the pharmacist gave me are helping, but I'm still borderline delirious. I spend a long time just laying under the car, the greasy city rainwater in the gutter running directly into my now infected surgical wound, just clutching my face, trying to make the pain in my jaw stop. I kind of want to cry, but I ain't cried since I was a kid and I just don't really know how to physically do that anymore. I lay under my car, not really knowing how much time had passed, but pretty anxious the police would show up any minute.

In my semi-delirious state I think about how it wasn't supposed to be like this. I'd worked so hard at my education for nearly a decade for it to not be like this. And yet the Australian government had swooped in and destroyed that burgeoning career for no other reason than wanton malice. I was supposed to be sitting at a nice dry desk, on the upper floors of some top tier law firm's CBD office tower. But I couldn't be admitted as a lawyer with a welfare debt to my name, even if it was obviously fabricated. My greatest discomfort should have been the squelch of rain in my nice shoes when I accidentally stepped into a puddle on the city street. It should have been beyond my comprehension to be laying in a gutter, not even worried about the dirty water in my busted open surgical wound, because of the overwhelming pain of some as yet unknown malady in my jaw. I would never have to know how many people (mainly men) will go out of their way to make a homeless person's life just a bit worse. I would never have to know how little it would take for friends and family to abandon me. I would never have to know that 'unconditional love' doesn't really exist, not when the government says people like me, people with welfare 'debts', don't deserve anything at all. And even back then I knew my 'debt' wasn't a real debt, but no one would believe me. Still not many do, but back then there was no class action, there was no royal commission, there was just the government's propaganda machine against dirty dole bludgers like me.

Anyway, I got the fuel pump in and, while I probably shouldn't have been driving in my state, I drove to the nearest doctor, the one who had originally done the cancer excision. I don't remember too much, due to the pain, but I do remember him saying things like 'what drugs did you take' and 'I'm not sure there's much of a point in me cleaning this up if you're going to not take care of it'. Such is life, I suppose.

I was fairly new to being homeless at that point. I'd only been on the streets a couple months. I've learned and toughened up a lot since then. I still have days and weeks and months where everything goes wrong, but I'm more prepared for it. For example, I try and keep antibiotics and prescription painkillers on hand, even if I have to lie to get a renewed prescription. I've upgraded to a good van and I voluntarily spend my days under it, learning everything I can, fixing and maintaining everything I can. I keep a close eye on the weather. I stay out of populated areas, even if that means staying unemployed, because in the long run, I'll save more money not paying the fines I get from nosy cityslickers than I would in a job. Also I taught myself how to hunt and forage, which reduces my grocery bill significantly. I've basically just accepted survival as the only option.

So I'm sorry if I come off a bit feral to anyone sitting pretty in their nice little house, with their nice little shower, and nice little toilet, and nice little $20 steak they bought at the supermarket, and their nice little as yet unchallenged fantasy land where they have more in common with politicians on $900 000 a year salaries than with the homeless, and their nice little government-sponsored ideas about how anyone the government says is a bad person is in fact a bad person, and their nice little personalities where it's apparently acceptable to have a dig at the traumatic experiences of people who have endured a hell that is so unimaginable, it must be a lie, no matter how fucking watertight the evidence is.

Actually lemme fact-check a little here, because turns out I'm not sorry for being feral. Actually I think the real ferals are the people who choose to ignore the factual, legally-proven, federal court-backed, royal commission-backed experiences of robodebt victims, and instead choose to dismiss, harass and abuse some of the most vulnerable members of society who have endured wrongs and horrors most people can scarcely imagine. I can't even begin to understand the mentality, the lack of basic human decency, that would be required to stoop so low. I could not possibly look on anyone, even my worst enemy, in such a situation and think to open my mouth and tell them 'lol you're lying get therapy uwu'. I just don't understand what has to be fundamentally wrong with a person for them to act this way. But I see it so much, most people are apparently of this calibre, and I'm apparently one of very few people able to see what tf is wrong with it. So I guess that's just another reason I'm better off being a feral out in the bush. I'll take torrential rain, the blistering heat, brown snakes, red backs, shitty dirt roads and plagues of rats over humanity any day.

[charnelhouse]

I'm absolutely feral over the idea of Val and reader having that convo about what sex with Heimdall is like. It turning into an encounter instead? "Should I just show you? So you can experience what brought our gatekeeper to his knees?" And then AND THEN "He can see us. If you call out-- just like that, so sweetly. Let's draw his attention, see if he won't join us." Heimdall deserves more love.

A/N: Valkyrie x F!Reader. Val x Heimdall. F/F Smut. Squirting. Non-Canon compliant.

It happens like this. Val is just trying to cheer you up because she kind of feels some weird sort of kinship with you.

After Hela, you’d gone all sparked out - used every last bit of your power to blast that demon bitch into what was left of the palace.

It still didn’t work, Val.

It did something.

Val knows a lot about defeat and she knows even more about defeat by Hela. Her name still breaks Val’s head open with image after bloody image: sisters falling like confetti - the spray of viscera and the crack of bone and all those shards of black ripping open Asgard’s finest. The silence afterward had been the worst. Odin had demanded that she stay - honor them - honor them - and Val had felt like honor had been peeled from her skin.

She’d sat in her armor for a month - collecting blood and infection and when she finally tried to remove it, it stuck to her like glue. She left after that - ran for the edge of the galaxy and stayed there to die drunk.

“We basically won,” she points out as you blankly stare at the floor. Thor and Loki are treading quietly around you - expressions slack with concern. It’s like you’re a piece of glass and they’re much too clumsy.

“I can’t feel my feet,” you whisper before you walk away from them - disappearing into some spare bedroom and shutting the door.

“Should we do something?” Loki asks just as Thor’s about to yank at the door handle when Val stops him.

��I’ll talk to her.”

***

It takes about a week. You stay bed-ridden and Val visits you at least twice a day just to check. Mostly because Thor is bewildered and anxious and half-distraught and won’t stop bothering her about it.

“Is she okay? How’d she look?”

“She’s fine. She’s healing. She used up most of her energy during the battle.”

“Should we call a doctor?”

“From where? The stars?”

“Bruce!”

“He’s a doctor?”

“Of many things.”

“No - she’s alright. Stop yammering like that - you’re spitting in my ear.”

***

Val lounges on the bed - watching you watch her. You’re really quite pretty - in a sort of shiny-silky princess way. Like froth and foam and scented oils.

But you were more than that. Val had seen you go near-nuclear as you slammed a force field of purple energy into Hela’s face. She’d tuck the memory away for late nights when she was alone.

You twist on your side - pressing your cheek into your palm as you regard her with interest. You’d managed to walk around the ship - join the weekly meetings to discuss the supplies and the journey to Midgard.

You were much better and yet Val kept stopping by your room. She found herself missing your conversation and she didn’t know what to do with that.

“So,” you say - tracing a pattern in blue sheets - branding the space between them. “You going to tell me about Heimdall?”

Val chuckles. “Curious are we?”

“Completely.”

And then Val pauses - finding herself a little caught off guard as you smile up at her. There’s something gleaming behind your expression - bright and mischievous and wanting. Val could have read all the signs incorrectly - she could be misstepping here, but she figures she can take a chance.

She gently reaches for your face - cradling your jaw and you lean into it - lips parted and the pink dart of your tongue.

Bullseye.

“Shall I show you then?”

“Please.”

***

You taste like power. Val digs her nails into your thighs as she presses the flat of her tongue from your fluttering hole to the bud of your sex. She drinks your essence with strategized precision. She’d had thousands of years of practice - of eating pussy and sucking cock. Your hips move beneath her chin - bucking up as she curls her fingers - massaging that sensitive patch of flesh that’s deep.

“C’mon - princess,” she teases. “Let go - just cum - I can feel that pretty cunt squeezing my fingers.”

You’re moaning and whimpering - hands wrapped firmly around the headboard as Val practically swallows you whole.

How’d he fuck?

Well - I fucked him - rode him until he just had to shut those eyes from the pleasure of it.

And then?

And then I let him turn me on my belly and screw me from behind.

Val had remembered it well. The thick blunt pressure of Heimdall’s magnificent cock breaching her folds - the tight channel of her sex. He’d ripped at her hair and bruised her hips and they’d made such sounds. Obscene. Desperate. Heimdall and his very low, feral grunts to match her own.

“Val,” you sob as she suckles the hard peak of your clit - as she begins to plunge her fingers to the knuckle - back and forth and back and forth - until it all gets very wet and your cunt starts squelching like it’s ready to gush and she doesn’t let up. She just keeps going as you writhe and plant your heels into the sheets and she can feel you clamp around her - hole blinking open and closed and your lower muscles bearing down hard upon her and then you go liquid - you spurt all over Val’s chin and she licks you through it.

It tastes a little salty and even a tad sweet - like the musk of flesh after a fight.

She idly wonders if Thor or Loki can hear you - wonders if they’d be fully scandalized by a Valkyrie tongue-fucking their sweet darling until she’d flooded Val’s mouth.

It’s pleasure. It’s a gift. It’s something they can share.

You’re shaking and trembling and still tugging at her hair as she soothes you through the sharp aftershocks of one very violent orgasm.

“No wonder you bagged Heimdall,” you mutter - slightly awed.

She nips your inner thigh before she slides up your body. Your chest is heaving - your lips parted as she kisses you sloppy. “Call out to him,” she whispers. “He’ll watch us.”

You blink at her - your skin burning hot beneath her touch. “Would - would he want to?”

“Yes,” Val says. “Maybe - he’ll even join.”

You grab Val hard by the hips before you flip her onto her back. She’s a little surprised - a little shocked as you smirk down at her like you’d somehow won something. Maybe - you had? Val hadn’t felt this desperate for someone in a very long time. She can feel your wet, puffy cunt drag across her thigh - your nimble fingers sliding through the seam of her wanting pussy.

“Heimdall,” you murmur against Val’s open mouth. “We’re waiting.”

[horsesarecreatures]

Book review: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

The is a work of nonfiction that tells the story of women who worked at two radium dial plants in the early 1900s painting the watches. The first plant was located in Orange, NJ, and the second plant was located in Ottawa, Illinois. During World War One, this was one of the most prestigious jobs women could get. They were paid three times the average factory floor worker, and were ranked in the top 5% of female wage earners, often taking home more than their husbands. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it was known among scientists that radium was dangerous, the mass public was not aware, and since it was used to combat cancer cells, radium was even promoted to the women as healthful. 

Because the radium-laced paint they used for the watches often dried on the brushes, the women were instructed to “lip point” by putting the brush in the mouths to shape the brush and remove old paint. The founders of the companies knew perfectly well that this was dangerous, but encouraged the practice because it wasted less paint than dipping the brushes in water or using pens instead.

The women who worked at the plants started falling ill at various rates. Because it had opened first, the workers from the US Radium Corporation in Orange were the first victims. Since radium operates similarly to calcium by settling in the bones, the first symptoms the women had were usually teeth falling out. The spots where the teeth fell out never healed and became open, infected sores. More teeth would fall out, and then the women's jaws would then disintegrate. Other bones started deteriorating, and some women also developed bone sarcomas. They all died agonizing deaths eventually. In the beginning, the doctors and dentists involved had no idea what was going on, for they had never heard of radium poisoning. With the amount of young women from the same plant dying, however, eventually they pieced together that the mystery illnesses were related to the women's occupation.

I’ve read a lot of books about industrial poisoning, and this was truly one of the most egregious cases. The companies fired women who started showing symptoms to prevent the other workers from catching on. They never helped pay their medical bills. The Ottawa company’s doctor got rid of a corpse before the family’s doctor could do an autopsy on it. Once the Ottowa company got wind of the lawsuits that were happening in NJ, they had their company doctor examine all the women. The doctor found that over 50% of them were radioactive, but the girls were never given the test results and were told they were healthy. The companies never did anything to prevent lip pointing. The Orange company hired a fake doctor to publish reports that radium was beneficial. The crimes go on and on.

After years of litigation, lawyers in both Orange and Ottawa were able to get justice, but for many of the women it was too late. However, the press their cases received did eventually lead to stricter laws regarding safety precautions around radium being passed, just in time for World War II when the demand for it skyrocketed again.

This book was extremely well researched. Emotionally it was very hard to read, however. The book took a very personal look into the lives of all the women and their families, and photographs of many were included. Additionally, the town I grew up in is extremely close to Orange, NJ, and also has a superfund fund site from radium. Radium breaks down into radon, which is a known cause of lung cancer. I tested my father’s house 3 times for radon. All three times it was below the EPA’s cutoff level, but once it was borderline with the World Health Organizations stricter cutoff. Can't help but wonder if radon was a cause of his death. Going after modern day companies similar to the US Radium Corp is my career goal in becoming an environmental lawyer, though who the hell knows if there will be any broken environmental regulations left by the time the Supreme Court is done disemboweling the EPA. 

[starseneyes]

My Fandom Loves - Apologies for Meta Pauses

Those in the Chenford and Spapel fandoms know I used to be on a roll with weekly Metas. I had so much fun writing them.

But they literally took 8 hours a week to do a single meta, and I always tried to post within 48 hours of an episode airing.

Obviously, I had to pause during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes. I joined AFTRA back in '01 prior to the merge, and I'm a staunch supporter of the WGA. I was already strained with life, so the pause felt natural.

But 2024 was tough. I started January with an emergency brain MRI. My husband was in and out of doctor's offices. My daughter was mysteriously ill off and on, missing almost enough school to hold her back a grade despite her straight A's.

And in June I had my first of 3 surgeries in a 6 month period—the first where my jaw was broken in six pieces and reset with cadaver bone and metal plates and screws.

One of the plates became loose and the bone on that side was infected with three different strains of bacteria. I was on antibiotics—which I'm mostly allergic to—for months to keep me from going systemic because they couldn't remove the plate in a second surgery until the bone was fully set.

It was one of the worst seasons of my life... and I still worked full time and took my kids on a trip to the UK because I wasn't going to let my illness impede their lives.

Yes, I'm insane. But I'm a chronic illness girlie. I don't know what a pain-free day looks like.

The first half of 2025, I've been trying to get my life back on track. My writing withered to almost nothing. My health has been coming back, but only with great effort on my part.

So, I haven't gotten back into full-time, weekly fandom. It's just too much for me right now. And I am so very sorry to let y'all down.

Will I get back at it? I hope so. But as my children know, I'm never one to promise something if I'm not certain I can deliver.

But I did want to acknowledge all of y'all who have made writing Metas so much damn fun! It's just something silly I do, but it always brings me joy. And that some of y'all would read and comment and repost floored me week after week.

I remain grateful for each and every one of you. Thanks for your patience, your presence, and your grace. Truly.

[cogitohazard]

Got any trivia to share about the cambrian crew?? :O

If not, anything about Wolfram? You could do both, or either one, I'd really like to hear about any OC trivia regardless of who it is! :D -🍉

YOUR BACK

ok here we go

The Cambrian Crew, through some means were brought to life from fossils and maybe some weird energon tampering.

Because of that, when their frames are scanned for age, all of them show up as over 500 million years old.

They're also all gay with each other lol

Pip doesn't have a mouth, and his visor can't be removed. He eats through an intake port like Tailgate and Co. do

Opal and Amore can both see through the extra eyes of their alt mode. So Opal has 7 eyes in bot form and Amore has 6

Amore's arms are really weird theyre like loops and hollow in the middle.

As Halo only has two digits per hand, they use their tentacles for extra dexterity.

Halo's colors were picked from a Kurzgesagt video about black holes, and their aesthetic overall is alien/space themed because of how weird the Hallucigenia looked

Wishbone looks like an empurata victim but was just "forged" that way. The top and lower halvea of their face resemble jaws, and can bite down. It's weird

Pip's jelly looking bits are translucent, and the white streaks are bone.

Wolfram was in a relationship with Ambulon (that relationship became long -distance after Wolfram left Delphi) before both of them had terrible things happen to them.

Wolfram being infected with a vampire parasite and being turned into a half-transformed werewolf vampire with the ability to make bot's energon explode out of them in crystal spears, and Ambulon being..sawed in half

Wolfram ( known as Lycan-3 after the transformation) finds out about Ambulon's death when she re-gains her memories and self awareness ( I think her mind would grow more clear the closer she was to death, the parasite was draining her life and would eventually kill her). But she's too late, and Pharma is already dead.

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

That last bthb piece you wrote was just *chef's kiss* perfection, magnifique, I want more!!!

Thank you for the ask, I am so glad you liked it!

One Month Part 2

Part 1

Warnings: jealousy, forced sedation mention, fear of being drugged, pills (tylenol), low-grade fever, angry character, being kicked out, wound imagery, broken bones, infection

~

Hero paced as he waited for Supervillain to wake up again. He was mad, angry, even to the point of ferocity. That sick, slimey bastard had been captivating his girlfriend's attention for days. Not that he consciously did it, and that was the reason Hero inwardly chastised himself for those inappropriate feelings. It wasn't Supervillain's fault, but someone had to take the blame.

So he waited impatiently for the supervillain's eyes to open, so he would be conscious of the way he was changing Civilian. Not that they were major changes, or changes in appearance or personality- she was still breathtakingly gorgeous and so full of love and compassion, deeply imbedded in that grouchy attitude. In all honesty the only way she so-called "changed" was because her undivided attention was completely and utterly focused on one being the house that was not Hero.

Was he selfish? Absolutely. Was it wrong? Was it wrong to feel this way towards someone who saved the girl he cared so much about? Definitely, but it couldn't be stopped. Anger and rage were settled, and so now it was time for revenge.

Supervillain blinked open his eyes in the middle of one of Hero's passes in front of his bed. The hero bounded over, pressed his fist into the wall, and hovered over Supervillain's awakening figure.

Slowly, the sleep-filled eyes cleared and became more aware of their surroundings as the grogginess melted away. They looked around, green irises taking in every feature of the bedroom as if they had never viewed such a place before- which they had, each and every time Supervillain pushed through unconsciousness. But of course, he never remembered, for these brief moments of loopy consciousness didn't have absorbent qualities.

Soon, those same foresty eyes met Hero's face. He smiled, imagining the fear that Supervillain was feeling. Though, it wasn't for certain, the subtle clenches of his jaw signalized those emotions.

"How are you feeling bud?" Hero asked, assuming a kind tone. Supervillain gave a wobbly smile as he gaze fell downcast. Hero's heart, the last bits of sympathy for the man, dropped.

Supervillain obviously was in pain and the fact that he was laying on his backside probably did not help.

Hero picked Supervillain up, flipped him over, and dropped him roughly on the bed. Supervillain bounced one, coughing and groaning as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Hero's arrogant smirk faded for a moment before upturning again. He traced his fingers over the festering wound and dug his fingers in.

Supervillain screamed, but Hero was quickly able to cover his mouth with his hand. He tried to ignore Supervillain's teeth and tongue as they desperately tried to remove the humanoid gag.

"This is for turning my girlfriend into your personal maid," Hero growled like he was the villain in the story, not Supervillain. Oh was this so wrong, but the unreleased rage overcame those thoughts of humane empathy.

Supervillain whimpered even louder as Hero's fingers met with the cracked bones. He kicked out with his legs, arms punching into the mattress.

"Yeah, how you like that huh?" Hero taunted, grabbing Supervillain's ear and pulling it down. Supervillain's whole head went with it and a loud crack echoed throughout the room. Supervillain quit writhing for a moment, stunned slightly.

Hero didn't care. He just kept on torturing Supervillain until a horrified voice interrupted him.

"What are you doing?!"

Hero spun around, meeting the gaze of his mortified girlfriend.

"What are you doing?!" She exclaimed again, crouching down to look in Supervillain's dull eyes. They were without any emotion as they blankly stared at Civilian.

Hero felt that anger in his chest, but it was nullified by the horrific dawning of his deeds. He kicked a man when he was already down.

Never do that. That was the first rule in the Hero's Code, even before not engaging in any villainous parties or organizations unless otherwise stated by the Agency.

He broke the code.

But didn't he before? Taking in Supervillain?

Civilian stood up abruptly, grabbing the collar of Hero's shirt and pushing him back, fire in her eyes.

"Why would you do that?" She snarled, pushing him out the door and into the hallway. Hero was practically rendered helpless by shock and the reality of his wrongdoings.

"You-you," Hero tried to defend himself in the most futile manner. "He took you away from me!"

But still, his defenses were weak.

"How?" Civilian asked, thrusting both hands against Hero's chest. "How in the world did he take me away from you? He hasn't spoken a word to me! Or even actually looked at me."

"You have been coddling him for days," Hero replied, rushed.

Civilian gaped, throwing her hands in the air. "Okay Wicked Witch of the West-"

"Hey!"

Civilian smirked. "He saved my life and now I am trying to save his. I am sorry I haven't given you your required twenty-four hours of hugs and kisses."

Hero was silent, but a sudden pull on his shirt ended the split moment of awkward silence.

"What are you doing?" He asked, digging his heals into the ground, but Civilian grabbed his arm and yanked him towards the frontdoor.

"This is my house and I can't clearly trust you with my patient. Get." She pushed Hero out the door and slammed it in his face.

Hero slid down the door, hand trailing down the smooth material. Tears spiked at his eyes as he landed on the doorstep in a sobbing heap.

《~~》

Civilian walked over to the bed and checked on the wound. It was bleeding- just a small trickle of crimson liquid. He was unconscious again, head pressed into the downy pillow.

She refrained from rubbing his head like she would do for her boyfriend. Hero's actions were unjustifiable and utterly cruel, but that did not mean that she would betray him.

But still, tender loving care was the only way for him to actually heal.

She grabbed some numbing ointment and rubbed it around the reddened, tender skin surrounding the wound. Then she lathered the interior, avoiding the exposed ribs, and placed an icebag around the whole thing.

Supervillain didn't wake, his face remaimed placid and relaxed as he slept. Civilian with hands of professional talent, gently opened his mouth and placed a thermometer under his tongue. It beeped, reading a prime number of 101.9. It wasn't too bad, but likely wasn't fun either.

"Wake up," Civilian jostled Supervillain's shoulder until his green eyes broke open lethargically. He looked around, squinting, until they fell on Civilian's face.

"Get away," he growled, hugging himself protectively. His teeth bared, jaw clenched as he angrily stared Civilian down. She looked away, sighing.

"Listen," she said. "I'm not going to hurt you. Do you even recognize me?"

Supervillain observed Civilian for a while before nodded slowly. "You're Civilian," he mumbled.

"Mhm," Civilian hummed as she put a couple pills in his hands. He looked at them skeptically before throwing them half-way across the room.

Civilian frowned, looking at the discarded, white tablets. "You need those," she said.

"You're going to drug me," the supervillain accused, fear radiant in his gaze.

"It's tylenol," Civilian sighed, giving him a couple more. He stared at them, calculating, before shoving them into his mouth- not even bothering with water.

"Just don't hurt me when I'm out again, please," he begged before closing his eyes, asleep.

Civilian smiled. The pills truly were Tylenol, but he was just so exhausted and tired that he gave up. Poor guy.

Tentatively, she pulled the covers over his bare shoulders and went to the kitchen to make some soup.

[oliverwxod]

Falling again (Geralt Imagine)

Pairing: Geralt x reader

Warnings: implied smut, swearing

Summary: Y/n used to travel with Geralt, the perfect partners in crime to monsters and creatures down. But years ago she left, feeling she didn’t fit into Geralt’s destiny and realising she was in love with a man who would never love her back.

The town was eerily dark, silence deafening as Y/n could barely make out the shapes of tall wooden houses the caged her in. She was on high alert, her ears picking up the smallest of scuttles from rats and mice across the dusty lanes. She had been tracking these creatures for months now and they had lead her to this small brooding community. 

A shuffle of feet and a cloud of dust could be seen in the distance, light from dying fire embers inside a nearby house reflecting a shadow of movement onto the wall opposite the one Y/n was hiding against. Her hand was held on the top of her sword, removing it from where it rested, ready to strike at any given time. She tiptoed silently, back still pressed against the stone wall as she neared the corner of bricks that hid the open courtyard of several houses. 

Another shadow passed, taller and bigger, closer to her. Taking in a deep breath she stepped out of the darkness into the slither of light, revealing herself into open vulnerable air, a growl ripping from the chest of the beast in front of her. She moved quickly, light on her feet, circling the monster as it did the same to her. 

“You’ve been quite the challenge” she scoffed at it. The creature looked at her in annoyance before pouncing, claws outstretched and catching the sleeve of her arm, ripping through the material and the flesh.

Y/n grunted, glaring at her arm and then the creature before ducking under the heavy weight of it, sliding so she was behind it. The creature may have had a lot over her when it came to strength but she was quicker and smaller, tackling it from behind where it was vulnerable. Slashing her sword straight through the back of its neck, before pulling it from the rancid flesh, flinching at the sound of blood splattering onto the floor. 

A noise from behind her directed her attention, disregarding her sword to the side and opting to use the bow and arrows that rested on her back, she was better and more accurate with them, growing up in the Forrests came in helpful sometimes, hunting was a natural instinct. 

She knew she was being watched, her estimate for the past months was that there was more than one beast. She had calculated through footprints and tracking that there were at least three of them. Three hideous beasts wrecking havoc throughout poor communities, Y/n had seen the aftermath of these creatures pathways and the destruction and pain they brought.

Spinning around without even looking she shot a single arrow, a grunt and a snort coming from the impact of it hitting a second beast. A loud echoing thump of the body hitting the solid ground, crashing into a crate of wooden buckets, a trail of rotting apples rolling onto the brick work. 

She could sense more eyes on her, burning into her back, without checking once again she fired an arrow, this time watching it meet the shoulder of the beast, it charged towards her angrily, feet thumping and shaking the earth beneath her, before it reached her she sent an arrow flying thorough the air, landing it straight between the beasts eyes, killing it instantly. 

She admired her work, frustration leaving her body as she had finally finished the job she was sent on, ready to cash in for the money. She couldn’t relax yet though, the feeling of another set of eyes on her made her wary, hesitating to move. This was not the eyes of one of the beasts. 

“I see you can still handle yourself then” a familiar voice broke through the silence, husky and deep as always.

Y/n never got scared but the voice made her jump, he the last person she expected to be standing in front of her.

“Geralt” she acknowledged, her posture stiffening as she turned to face him. “what are you doing here?” 

He was leaning against a wall having moved out of the shadows, his signature glare on his face as always. The side of his lips tugged into a smirk at her hostility towards him. 

“Apparently the same thing as you, Princess.” he spoke, the words making her shiver. She had always hated him for calling her that. That damned nickname that she could never shake off around him. It frustrated her, it frustrated her because it made her feel.

“I’ve told you before. Do not call me that” she glared at him, eyes staring daggers at his face. He hadn’t changed a bit. After all those years he still looked the same, his hair white, pure as snow, his cheeks bones and jaw as chiselled as ever. She hated how he knew how handsome he was. He was always using it for his benefit, sauntering around knowing he always had every womens attention.

“Whatever you say... princess” he spoke softly, almost so quiet that she couldn’t hear him. She watched him stare straight back at her, her eyes narrowing as he moved closer to her. 

Y/n could feel her breath catching in her throat, it had been a while since Geralt had been this close to her, she was scared, scared she would give into him like she always used to, she had no self control when it came to him. He made her nervous. 

She flinched as Geralt took her hand in his, moving it gently up so her arm was stretched out in front of him. She didn’t know what he was doing, what his intentions were so she ripped her arm out of his grip aggressively, shooting daggers at him. 

He rolled his eyes, letting out a grunt at the unexpected force. y/n had forgotten about the inch deep scratches on her arm, hissing in pain.

“You’re hurt” he spoke sternly, talking down to her, it wasn’t mean’t to be patronising but the way Geralt spoke to most people was. He didn’t really care. “You need to get this treated before it gets infected” 

“Why do you care” she spoke, she knew she was being petty and she should just let him help her, but she wanted to push him away, be hostile so he would turn around and leave her. 

He raised his eyebrows in response but kept quiet. Reaching for her hand again and bringing it up gently, he ripped away the tattered bloody fabric from her cloak, discarding it on the floor as his rough fingertips glided up her arm until it reached the area surrounding the wound. 

Y/n held back a shiver, she would not let him see how he still managed to effected her after all this time. 

“Come with me” he grunted, his hand still wrapped lightly around her arm, tugging gently in the direction of a nearby house. 

“No” she huffed, protesting, but with one single look from Geralt she followed silently through a back alley and through the backdoor of a dark house. 

He treated the wound carefully, Y/n watching his every move with a guarded expression, pulling her body away from any unnecessary touches. It confused him but he didn’t mention it. There was a time where she would relish in any form of touch from Geralt, a hand on the waist, a brush of skin on skin, a squeeze on the shoulder. But now the thought of it made her sad. She didn’t want a reminder of it, a reminder of what she had been running away from. 

He finished bandaging up her arm before taking place standing across from her, his arms folded as he leaned against a makeshift kitchen counter. His eyes burning into her as he watched her with intent.

“Where have you been?” he eventually spoke, his voice seemingly uninterested- fitting with the whole emotionless tone he always radiated. Thats why people often left him alone and he liked it that way. 

“around” she shrugged not daring to look at him. She couldn’t fall under his spell once again. Every time she was around him she always found herself falling again. And everyone knows what they say about witchers, they're emotionally unavailable. They don’t know love and they can’t love. 

That’s why she left. She was done meaning nothing to him, done with waiting for him in bed while he spent it in another. Done with sleepless nights that mean’t more to her than it ever would to him. 

“Why did you leave?” He asked a similar question. It had been playing on his mind ever since the day he had woken up and she was gone, disappeared without a trace, he had thought about her whereabouts for years now. 

She scoffed in annoyance. “I didn’t fit in with your destiny” 

Geralt took a deep breath, grunting “hmm, yet here you are” 

She met his eyes for a fleeting second before looking away, face falling from a frown into a confused expression. 

“I should go” she spoke, standing up quickly and bolting for the door. 

“Fuck” Geralt cursed, taking another deep breath in before following her pathway to the door, he pushed her gently against it before she could reach it, stopping her in her tracks. 

She tried to fight back but the pain in her arm stopped her strength from pushing him away. 

“Why are you so intent on running away from me?” he spoke in a voice softer than what she thought he was capable of.

“Let me go” she spoke bluntly, avoiding eye contact with him. She didn’t want to give in, but he made it so easy. She could feel his body pressed against hers, the hard lines of his moulding to her own. 

“Please” she whispered but weaker this time.  

His large hand caught her chin, forcing her to stare directly at him. Her breath caught in her throat, his eyes golden, staring straight through her. 

“Geralt” 

He stared silently, his intentions still unclear to her. With him this close to her and with the way he was staring at her she had no chance of not falling again. 

“shhhh” he whispered, breath fanning across her face, y/n couldn’t hold back the shiver this time, goosebumps arising on her skin at his closeness. His eyes flickered elegantly down to stare at her lips, the lips he had kissed a hundred times before, familiar and inviting. 

HIs hand traced the side of her cheek, past her jaw and down her neck, caressing the skin at the back before pulling her head up slightly towards his own, his lips landing on hers in a soft kiss before pulling away. His eyes closed briefly before opening, meeting hers directly and seeing the scared look that had overcome her. His hand still rested at the nape of her neck moving upwards so it covered the whole of the back of her head, pulling her in closer and kissing her again, this time with more strength behind it.

“Don’t run again” he whispered against her lips.