#jumping into the ocean he's deathly terrified of. that too.)

[kantpattanawat]

[ You've got a bad past and so does he. You're on par. ] First Kanaphan as Kant (The Heart Killers, 2024-2025)

[felswritingfire]

(Hades) Gods x Shade! Reader

No matter how much you try, mortality will always catch up to those who are not of gods. Even the most blinded of them learn this eventually. You take your death with grace, choosing to go and explore this new world as soon as Lord Hades permits you to go, impressed by how little you complain and demand. You are one of the brighter parts of his day (night?).

You drift along, catching certain snippets of other Shade’s conversations as you wander aimlessly. You notice a crack in the wall; deciding to muster up your courage, you slip through it to find yourself in the glowing green torches of Tartarus. With what little you have, you hold it close to your translucent body and push forward.

You’re quick to notice the large glowing ball with an oddly familiar symbol floating in the middle of it. You take your time circling it, feeling compelled to touch it. When you do, a beam of light comes slicing through the dreary air to reveal a mighty god who stares down at you at your shocked form...

Zues

Cause of Death: Lightning Strike

Zues is confused when he sees you. He’s even more confused when you start screaming at him, waving your hands about and threatening to fight him yourself.

“You fucker! You killed me!”

He raises a brow. “I think I’d remember if I killed you.” You flipped up your middle finger at him and his eyebrows drew into an angry v. “How rude! I am the God of Gods-”

“I don’t care!”

Zagreus had to high tail it to you before Zues tried to smite you (possibly a second time).

Suffice to say you hoped you’d never bump into that boon again. And you didn’t. No, the God of Gods and Lightning himself decided that he’d have to make a house call himself (Hades was not pleased when a bolt of lightning came crashing down and left a scorched black ring in the carpet).

He picks you out quickly and you try to zoom out of the lobby until he catches you by the back of your robe and then you’re swinging and yelling profanities at him. He’s kinda amused now instead of angry- you’re just so weak and tiny compared to him. It’s hysterical- ow! Did you just bite him?

After you and Zues finish your little “spitting match”- Hades kicks Zeus out and you're forced to hang out in Tartarus for a bit (“but I’m just a simple fisherfolk! I can’t fight anything!” You cry, Hades does not spare you a look as you're dragged out by Meg).

You think maybe that’s the end until you’re approached by a… a squirrel? You almost punt it when his voice spills out as he shoots into a long prattle about how much of a jerk Hades was and how he couldn’t handle someone as grandiose as him appearing before him. Threatened him as a god or something- you were busy trying to figure out how you were going to kill this guy and make sure he stayed dead.

Turns out, after the two of you chattered (argued) a bit about whether or not he actually killed you, Zeus had some neat stories about the gods.

While you were interested in his children’s and brothers’ and sisters’ stories, he was interested in your stories of the mundane. A simple fisherfolk? That was a word? You just fished and traded? Amazing! Tell him more!

After this particular interaction between the two of you, Zeus really ended liking you. Maybe a little too much, but, aw well, it wasn’t everyday a mortal soul had the balls to argue with him for something he doesn’t remember doing (he probably did. Probably. Most likely). He swore that he’d come and see you everyday as he sat on your shoulder as a squirrel, going on and on about how you should feel blessed to be praised by one such as he. You were about to throw him until a giant hand came out and grabbed him (seemed you drifted too close to Lord Hades’ desk), the hulking god flinging him out of a portal.

He continues to pop up and bother you and, to be honest, he’s kinda growing on you. Also, I’m gonna be frank and lay it out that, if he likes you enough, he’s probs gonna want to smash, especially if you lean more towards the feminine side (he’s fucking AWFUL). It’s up to you if you wanna indulge that or not, I don’t recommend it, but you can if you really want to.

We’re going with the option you don’t smash- he’ll be salty at you for a whole ass day before he comes back the one after that as a rat (Hades kept finding out his forms that he used to sneak in so it was an ever constant menagerie of appearances to keep up the disguise) and is like: “I thought you would miss me too much so I came back before you could even complain.”

Zag likes to watch the two of you interact because he finds it absolutely fascinating. It’s like watching… He doesn’t know what it’s like but he’s having a blast as you roast his uncle to bits. It really helps him out when he’s feeling a bit down after failing getting out one too many times.

When you first get Zeus an Ambrosia, he thinks it’s poison and then he gets all prideful because of course you would give him an offering, he was the strongest of all the gods! Him and him alone!

“Silly, mortal, you cannot poison me! I am a god.”

You squint your eyes at him before you huff and pull the bottle closer to you. “Fine, whatever, I’ll just give it to Zagreus- or better yet, Hades if you don’t want it.”

“No! No! I want it! Give it to me! It’s mine!”

During this time, he’s actually experiencing some purer emotions in life- he’s genuinely giddy that you got him the Ambrosia and asks how you got it. You hold up a makeshift fishing rod and grin at him, telling him you snatched it from some nasty shades before you wandered back down to Tartarus.

His gift to you is a little lightning pin that, when you're in danger, will send a nasty bolt of lightning down on your enemies. You wonder what good it’ll do since you’re dead already, but shrug and accept it, thinking that he looks years younger and friendler when his smile isn’t packed full of ego and pride.

Poseidon

Cause of Death: Drowning

Poseidon, Lord of the Oceans, Earthquakes, and many other things, is simply- how do you say? Amused? It’s the best way to describe it at least. Of course he was mostly surprised when he appeared expecting the Little Hades to be waiting for him just to meet a Little Shade in his place.

“Why, hello there, Little Shade! You wouldn’t happen to know where the Little Hades is, would you?”

You shake your head, he doesn’t miss the way you nervously play with your hands, drifting back as some of his droplets float close to you.

He laughs at your simple reply. “Shy one aren’t you?” He leans closer to you, squinting and running a hand through his beard while he hummed.

You fight the urge to take a step back, the smell of salt water making your stomach churn.

His eyes flutter shut as he takes a deep breath. He takes a moment before he opens his eyes again and a look of understanding flashes across his eyes. “You drowned. Didn’t you?”

You stare up at him, eyes round and glassy. You nod.

Before your conversation can go any further, Zagreus comes running through the window, surprised to see his Uncle talking to a Shade (you look so scared- he hopes that you aren’t being bullied). You’re quick to take your leave bowing to both and passing the boon to the Prince before you scurry away into the cover of the other Shades.

He hums to himself, a cryptid smile on his face as his eyes follow after you. Such a strange little thing you were- he wouldn’t mind seeing you again.

It takes a bit, but he does happen to see you again, by peaking through a fountain in a fountain room in the Underworld. He spies you trying to poke at the water that he happened to choose, but jumping back each time. You face scrunched up into one of pure frustration. He asks if you’re doing alright there, Little Shade? Causing you to flash out of existence for a moment before settling back down and looking into the pool with wide eyes. Posiedon almost busts a gut with how hard he’s laughing and you huff telling him that it wasn’t funny.

He says otherwise, but asks what you’re doing. When your face bursts into a large blush you mumble something that he doesn’t quite catch and he’s left with more questions than answers as you take the chance to phase out of the chamber when Zag walks in and steals his Uncle’s attention for a split second. He furrows his brow before asking his nephew about you, which Zag, surprisingly, supplies rather quickly, seeing as the two of you talk a lot: apparently you’re deathly afraid of water after you were thrown into the ocean by your supposed best friend. The memories of the waves crushing you deeper and deeper beneath them sticking with you even in death. So, you were trying to curb that phobia. Posiedon nods, letting the words sink in before he offers the Little Hades a thumbs up and says he’ll help with that.

The next time you see the god, he’s eager to call you over and explain that he’s figured out what you were doing last time and offers to let you mess with some of the drops of water that follow him wherever he goes. You stare at them, eyebrows furrowed and looking just as sick as a shade could look. Yet, you still nod your head and hold out a shaky hand. He smiles at you, praising you for your courage and flicks one towards you; it floats gently before it rests serenely on your palm, allowing you to feel the cool sensation of the droplet. You marvel at it, still shaking with an anxiety before you nod. He pulls it away, it shoots back to rest next to his head and you thank him for going out of his way to help you and ease your fears.

He remarks that you should fear the water out of respect: it’s unpredictable, terrifying in it’s own right- vast and, seemingly, never ending, what could possibly be more terrifying than the unknown, hm? He continues to say that you should also hold onto a bit of bravery at the very least, for untold treasures come from there for those who look.

After that conversation, Poseidon makes it a habit of having you hold onto his droplets of water, making them slightly bigger each time for you to get used to them.

By the time you’re able to touch them freely without experiencing crippling fear- the droplets are almost the size of you. Poseidon praises you the more you grow out of your fear.

You do eventually open up to him about how you died and he never tells you that he already knew. Just allows you to talk in a soft voice as you recall it. It’s a nice bonding experience for the both of you and Posideon decides that you’re his favorite Shade and he’ll treasure you for as long as you exist.

The first time you get him a bottle of Ambrosia, you come to him shivering and sopping wet. He’s confused and concerned as he hovers to you.

“What happened to you, Little Shade? Are you alright?”

It takes you a moment to be able to speak. “I- I found a bottle of Ambrosia. I thought-” you take a deep breath, holding out the bottle with both hands- “I thought you’d like it.”

It’s one of his prized possessions now, he takes little sips of it once in a while, but other than that it remains as one of his most precious memories. He’s very attached to you at this point and you’ll forever have his blessing. His gift to you, aside from the undying loyalty, is a shell necklace, if you ever need him- you only need to whisper his name to it and he’ll appear in an instant.

Athena

Cause of Death: Exhaustion

Athena had been prepared to meet with Zagreus- not a curious shade staring back up at her with all the relevance of one of her worshippers.

“What business do you have with me?”

She raises her brow at your gobsmacked expression, watching as you screw your face up before bowing. “Apologies, m’lady, I only happened to bump into your…” you look at where it glows, furrowing your eyebrow, “your orb?”

“Boon.”

You nod your head in understanding before bowing your head again. “Again, my sincerest apologies.”

Luckily, she didn’t smite you, instead asking the question of how you were even talking to her. Getting a shrug from you, you say that maybe it’s because you worshipped her (unofficially, you were never able to make it up to her shrine much to your disappointment) when you were alive- maybe a deeper bond is there compared to someone who had never prayed to her for her protection and guidance.

When she hears this, she’s very interested, pressing you to elaborate further when the Young Prince comes jogging out of the glowing window, waving to you. You slink away, passing the boon to him and bowing to her once again before you disappear into the mass of Shades that choose to wander their new home as well.

After the conversation, you had caught the Goddess’ attention, planting a desire in her to see you again. Even going as far as to write a letter to ask her uncle for a council with you after a week passed of her placing her boon in Tartarus so that maybe you would drift too close to it once again. But each time only the little prince would find them (which she was fine with, but it still left such an unflattering taste of defeat on her tongue each time it wasn’t you). She figured it would be a moot point to send the letter, but it was worth a try.

But she decided to place her boon down once more before she sent it out. Just to try. And this time it worked.

You were the one she saw and she was absolutely delighted- not that she showed it, choosing to keep her stoic and sharp expression. You greet her in a similar way before: awed before bowing your head to her. You continue to go on about how you're happy to see her again and, despite how little you had been buried with, you hoped that she would take this- a broken sword, despite the worn hilt and the deep scars the littered what was left of the flat of the balde; it was still polished (at least what was left of it)- as a proper offering to her for all she had done in your life- even if it truly wasn’t all her doings.

She takes the sword in her hand, holding it high, her eyes shining as she studies it: truly, it was a warrior’s blade. She watches as the history and memories flash in the smooth iron. She remarks that it is a remarkable offering, but she cannot accept it. It feels wrong taking a weapon of a warrior such as yourself.

You smile as her, shaking your head, urging her to take it, for you didn’t need that blade in this afterlife. You had already fought your battles, killing the man who you had been battling with and quelling the rage that had followed you since you were a child for revenge. Eventually, dying from the strain of the fight with a feeling of contentedness.

Athena raises her brow, remarking how that sounded more along the lines of Ares rather than her.

You nod, but say that you couldn’t help but desire her help for she was the goddess attached to your favorite animal. She had to fight the urge to laugh, a shaky smile slipping through as she nods at you. Such a silly thing you are. She decides that she’ll take the sword as a reminder of you, no matter where you should go now. She also decides that you were forming a rather soft cradle in her heart.

After this, she is quick to ask Zagreus about you every chance she gets- not that he minds too much, he tells her about how you’ve been helping him train and you’ve even told him about your life when you were alive (“a general, can you believe that? They’re so young!” Zagreus says as he shows her the new move you taught him). She’s only the slightest bit miffed at hearing that you and Achilles have begun to form a sweet friendship. She’s pleased to hear that his father has been trying to barter with you to get you into Elysium, though she’s a tad confused on the reason you refuse to.

She asks you about it one day and you say that it would take longer to see her and you would prefer to avoid that. It was the only time the goddess has ever had to fight down a blush.

When you get her a bottle of Ambrosia, she’s in pure awe at the huge bottle.

“How did you get one this big?”

You lean against the new sword you managed to get your hands on- something simple and obviously used- you offer her a lopsided grin. “Well, not just any Ambrosia would work, so I decided to try my luck with Lord Theseus and, The Great Bull, Asterius. Took me a couple of tries but I managed to beat them and snag it.”

Athena smiles warmly at it, telling you that she’ll treasure it and think of you every time she takes a drink of it. She realizes in that moment just how important you had become to her, never feeling this… soft for a mortal soul in her life. Her gift to you is a shield and a new sword: the shield bares her symbol of an owl while the sword was ornate with a divine glow. She promises that no matter what they’ll protect you and so will she, you only need to call out her name.

Aphrodite

Cause of Death: A Broken Heart

When the Goddess of Love first sees you- she thinks you’re absolutely gorgeous (of course not as gorgeous as her). The sad look in your eye and the slight frown that rests on your lips makes her almost fall in love right then and there.

“Hello, little one- do you know where the little godling is?”

You shake your head. “I’m sorry, Lady Aphrodite. I know not where he is.”

She raises her brows, a smile on her face. “How did you know I was Aphrodite, my dear?”

You look up at her, a sudden glint in your eyes has her yearning to see it once again. “No one else could be so breathtaking, my Lady.”

Oh. Oh, she likes you.

She chooses to chatter away with you- despite you mostly listening, adding little things here and there, she feels a strange sense of fullness, like she just ate a full and warm meal for the first time in a very long time, by the time Zagreus arrives. You bid your farewell and she can’t help but follow you with her gaze as your transparent form blends in with the other Shades.

Aphrodite is thrilled the next time she runs into you- or rather you run into her boon. She missed the melancholy look in your eyes, she also doesn’t miss the fact that you’ve come bearing gifts this time: an assortment of colorful flowers rests in your arms and you offer it to her. That glint coming and going like a shooting star as she accepts the offering, holding it up to her nose to take in their sweet scent. How sweet were you to hand her something so delicate.

She asks you where you got them and you remark that you made your way up to Elysium. She’s surprised to hear as such- you didn’t seem like the warrior type. You shake your head, your eyes sweeping low. You weren’t a warrior, far from it- a simple florist if anything. You just drifted until you made it up there and plucked some flowers to make bouquets. You mumble that maybe you’ll be more useful in death.

She tilts her head at the comment, beginning to ask until Zagreus is jogging up to the both of you and it was time for you to leave. She’s a tad annoyed, but reminds herself that the little godling didn’t know- simply trying to break out of this dreary place he calls home and see Olympus in all its glory. She’ll just ask next time.

You gave her another bouquet, this one more beautiful than the last, when she gets the chance to ask you her question. Your eyes pool with a mournful look as you gaze up at her, your hand resting over the place where your heart used to beat as you look to the ground. You explain that you were young when you were wed- just as you were young when you died. You were married off to someone you did not love- someone awful, vile, who beat you down daily just to build you back up so they could laugh when they toppled you over once again. You remark about how you could feel yourself dying little by little, your delicate heart bleeding as your want for life began to dwindle away. You grew sick and you would sit by the window day in and day out, staring out and wondering what your life could have been if you were married to someone you loved. A ghost of a smile blooms on your lips as you look up at her, that glint she oh-so loved twinkling in your eye as you say that you did not die in as much loneliness and pain as you could have; having been making a bouquet dedicated just to her love and sweetness: your Lady Aphrodite who you love, ever so much.

She’s shocked when she realizes the tears that drip down her cheeks, her hand coming to caress your cheek (really your head, she was hulking compared to your small form) with her fingertips. She comments that she would accept every bouquet you made and treasure each flower like it was the one you made for her with your last breaths in the living world.

After that interaction, she comes down a lot more, asking Zagreus if he could bring along her darling florist so that she could talk to you. He always obliges, loving to see the two of you chatter about (well, her chatter about, you usually just listened with a smile on your face as you used the flowers you had plucked into flower crowns for him and Lady Aphrodite). You two become a sort of comfort for him when he’s getting frustrated: seeing your usually melancholy demeanor light up as soon as the goddess appears and in turn the goddess becomes something less vain and more gentle as she speaks to you.

At some point, you’ll probably meet Ares himself- the two never that far from each other, also she adores you, so it only makes sense for you to meet him. He’s honestly a tad unimpressed when you first meet, but when he hears about the heart ache you faced he gains a sense of respect for you, remarking that love is a battle in and of itself and you fought valiantly to keep your ability to love freely (Aphrodite might convince you to have a threesome, I’m not gonna lie, she’s attracted to you on a deep level and she has her trysts with Ares- it’s perfect in her eyes. Though she won’t push you if you don’t desire it).

When you first get her Ambrosia, she’s flabbergasted before it turns into worry for how you got it and the potential danger you were in.

She takes the bottle of gold liquid and the flowers that you had so carefully arranged. Her attention, though, is focused on the said bottle of Ambrosia. “My Darling Florist, how did you get this?” Before you can answer she shoots into a flurry of questions. “Are you alright? Did anything catch you? Hurt you? You don’t seem hurt. Oooh-” she puffs her cheeks out, her gaze sharp- “why did you get me this? It’s dangerous!”

You wait for her to calm down. “I apologize for making you worry, but I simply snuck around and grabbed it from some witches- they didn’t even notice me. And I-” you tap your fingers together, a blush blooming across your face as you look away from the goddess and she decides that she craves seeing that expression on you again- “I thought that you deserved it. It’s a much better offering than my silly bouquets.”

Well, aside from the ‘silly bouquets’ comment (which she corrects you on very quickly), she’s absolutely flattered and it might be the final nail in the coffin that has her falling for you, the little shade in front of her. She decides that you hold a piece of her heart in your translucent hands, though she chooses to keep that information to herself.

Her gift to you is a hairpin that matches hers, though if you don’t have enough hair- she says, you can always pin it to your robe. It’s a blatant claim on her part, but it also helps ease the residual heartache that followed you into death. And, hopefully (a personal hope of her), each time you look at it, you’d fall deeper and deeper in love with her as well.

Artemis

Cause of Death: Arrow to the Heart

She’s confused when she sees you, quick to voice her confusion as well. Also depending on if you're more feminine or masculine (and I don’t mean woman or man, I just mean how you present yourself), she will treat you differently depending. So, for now, we’re gonna go with the more “feminine” option:

“Who’re you?”

You bow. “An honor to meet you, Lady Artemis, I seem to have bumped into that orb on accident. Wasn’t sure what it did and the curiosity got the better of me.”

She hums, she perks when she notices your bow. “You’re a hunter?”

You smile, holding it out to her. “Yes, indeed, my Lady- I prayed to you a lot.” You laughed, adding. “Hoped to join your hunters when I was young.”

She’s quite happy to hear that and begins to chatter along with you. For some reason feeling oddly at ease around you. It’s probably because you were a fellow hunter but she simply can’t help the way she grows an odd sort of… adoration? Something like that, she thinks- for you. She almost laments the fact when Zagreus comes to get the boon.

You nod to him, biding your farewell to the Goddess and passing the boon to the Prince. She doesn’t miss how Zagreus’ eyes shine as you walk away. She almost comments on it but bites her tongue, wanting to observe the prince and the dreamy look that drifts over his features, even as you disappear.

The next time the two of you meet, she asks if she can see you in action. You agree and search up ahead to find something to demonstrate your skills on. You’re quick to find a few Numbskulls. She watches as you take a deep breath, your eyes narrowing on your unassuming targets and your footsteps become silent as you skirt closer to them. You nock an arrow, never looking away. Her eyes gleam with thrumming adrenaline at the way the muscles in your arms tense as you draw the string back. The low groan of the wood barely above a whisper as you wait for them to line up. You hold your breath, releasing the arrow- it goes through all three of them, making them break into dust in a consecutive line, a harrowing scream being wretched from them as they fade from existence. You release the breath you were holding and stand, sending a smile to the young goddess whose eyes shine with stars.

She praises you for your amazing skill and sings of your prowess. You shake your head, looking down at the ground as you argued that you were but a simple bow folk in your living life. Nothing more, nothing less.

She begs to differ! That type of skill only belongs to those of her highest ranking huntresses! She continues to gush about you until Zag comes up and, once again, greets the both of you. That dreamy look coming over his face as he looks at you. She watches as you once again disappear into Tartarus, this time though, after you’re gone, she turns to her cousin and shoots into a tangent about why he had never told her about you before and where did you come from? She has to know!

He answers all of her questions to the best of his abilities but there are even some he doesn’t know about, for example: how you died.

Artemis accepts this and decides that she’ll just ask you the next time the two of you meet.

And, true to her word, she does. She asks you point blank and you can’t help but be slightly taken aback. You laugh softly, leaning on your bow as you begin to recount that you were traversing her forest, as you had done many times before, and noticed fresh foot prints of man. You decided that it would be a good idea to look and you found hunters trying to kill her Golden Stag. You had dove in as quickly as you could, shooting one- the arrow sailing in a clean arch through his wrist before he could let loose his arrow. But as you went to nock another arrow- a searing pain in your chest and heart. You looked down to see blood pooling around your robes, dying the olive green of your cloak a wine red. You remember the last thing you saw was the Golden Stag running away. You smiled telling her that you were happy he got away- you don’t know what you’d do if he had been captured despite your effort.

Artemis suddenly remembers that day: her stag rushing to her and urging her to follow him- he bounded through the forest, frantic and panicked. When they got to a clearing, she was quick to notice the blood and the drag marks of a body. Her stag pressed his nose to the ground sniffing at the pool of blood, his eyes watering and bulbous tears slid down his muzzle. It suddenly made sense. You were the one he was mourning for.

She couldn’t help but grab your hands, resting her forehead against the back of them; thanking you for protecting her stag when she couldn’t. You smile at her, bowing your head to her and thanking her for the countless hunts she went on with you. You pull your hands away from her and hold out your bow to her. She asks what you think you're doing in a watery voice and you say it’s an offering. You couldn’t give much when you were alive and you still can’t give much now, but, this bow- it shall treat her right.

She sniffles as she takes it, trying to hold in tears. She vows to treasure it for all of time as she admires the worn wood.

That day, the two of you became closer as comrades, she would actively come down to say hi to you (and encourage Zagreus to take the leap and court you after she learned of his growing affections for you). The two of you would talk about everything you could think of, explaining how your hunting styles differed or how you could set a trap easier. She had realized that she had never felt this carefree with anyone before. She felt like a child. It felt nice.

When you snag her a bottle of Ambrosia- she’s swaddled in a whirlwind of emotions.

“You… You got this for me?” She asks as she takes the bottle of golden liquid.

You nod, that gentle smiling spreading across your face. “Of course. You had helped me so many times- it is only fair, my Lady-”

“Artemis-” she sniffled, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles- “call me Artemis, my friend.”

She finds you to be a perfect friend- a breath of fresh air from home. She may not feel any romantic feelings towards you, but she still holds you in a dear place in her heart. Her gift to you is a new bow and quiver that will never run out of arrows. The bow is enchanted and you’ll never have to fear it breaking for it will protect you for as long as you exist- in this realm or another.

Ares

Cause of Death: Blood Loss

When Ares first sees you, he is… well- he’s impressed that you stumbled upon his boon, but at the same time… He’s a tad miffed? That you found it?

At the very least he’s condescending as all hell about it:

“What is this? A little lamb came to beg me for power? How foolish. No matter how hard you struggle you will never be much more than some little shade.”

“Ah, sorry, my Lord! Didn’t mean to bump into it!” You hold up the basket in your translucent arms, “I wanted to see if I could find some new ingredients to bake with! I do oh-so miss it, sir.”

Well, he wasn’t expecting that.

He ends up allowing you to chatter on with him despite his obvious judgement on your, what he calls, “soft mortal hobby” until Zagreus comes to do his daily try of breaking out from the Underworld.

As he watches you drift away (after passing the boon and giving words of good luck to the Prince, who happily takes it), he kinda hopes to see you again

And see you again he does! He literally sees you the next day- night? Whatever, he’s never sure when he drops a boon in there- it’s damn dark-

He’s presented with a basket of treats and your gleeful greeting as you chatter that you found ingredients to make some Baklava and you thought that, maybe, he’d like to try it?

He smiles- cruel and sharp- and asks if you truly think that this is a fit offering for a god such as himself?

You shrug, saying he doesn’t have to eat it if he doesn’t want to

He laughs and takes it and you two are off chattering again: him regaling you with his war stories and you of the ingredients you had (somehow) found down here until Zag shows up, once again, the boon is passed to him (this time along with a slice of the delicious, warm Baklava. Which, he’s confused on what it is but he finds out very quickly that it’s his favorite treat).

The two of you talk a lot, which Ares is pleasantly surprised about, usually he’s the scorn of everyone- not that he cares, it causes conflict and he likes that. But you’re so calm and sweet that he just can’t get a rise out of you. Which, on one hand, pisses him off to no end, but, on the other, it’s such a nice change of pace for him. He’s used to the bloodshed and animosity of battlefields- the iron tinged air that follows after the warriors that traverse those fields. And yet, here you are: a shade that always has a treat for him when you run into him and the smell of warm sweetness wafting after you.

So when he learned exactly how you died- he was absolutely floored.

“How did you die, little baker?” He asked one day, fiddling with his knife, tilting it discreetly so that your reflection was in it.

“Oh!” You smiled sheepishly, glancing away from him and placing the bag of flour (how did you even get that? He’d have to ask you next) back into your basket. “Well- you see, I bled out.”

He raised his eyebrow, suddenly very interested. “How? You’re so…” he tilted his head and flipped his knife so that the blade pointed at him and the hilt pointed at you, he poked your arm with said hilt. “Soft.”

“Well…”

You explain that you had a little brother who had a nasty habit of getting into trouble- he was a good person, just made foolish choices- and this time, it had cost you your life. He had pissed off the wrong person and, well, when the man had attempted to grab your brother when the two of you were out walking the stalls on your break- you did the only thing you could think of: you fought.

Of course it went horribly, you’ve never been in a fight before then and, despite all the work you did with dough, it didn’t help much when the man pulled out a knife and dug it straight into your gut. But, you don’t mind too much- your brother’s alive and well and, from what you understand from asking Lord Hades, he had started to be more aware of himself and who he angered. Which made you super happy and proud of him!

Ares can’t help but feel some sort of pity for you. So much life to be taken so quickly and placed in- wait. Why weren’t you in Elysium?

You’re incredibly confused when Ares suddenly disappears (Aphrodite appearing in his place in the blink of an eye- she greets you happily and asks if you have any of Baklava to share today. You do not but you do have some Loukoumades if she wanted some. She did). You’re even more confused when the Underworld shakes and angry yelling fills the entirety of it for a solid ten minutes before all goes back to normal.

You tell Ares about it the next day and he simply hums. Keeping it to himself that he made a whole scene about you not being in Elysium by popping up and butting heads with Hades, of course he got kicked out. That still doesn’t stop him from sending angry letters that can span anywhere from one word letters (usually containing a curse word) to a 30 page essay on why you should be in Elysium instead of milling about in such unkempt places.

The first time you go out of your way to get him a bottle of Ambrosia is the day that both scares the shit out of him and makes him hate you for giving him mushy feelings.

You came to him in, almost literal, tatters: your greenish, transparent form ripped in places, the few wisps of you following after your torn form like they were tied to a string. You had held it up to him in a basket, a plate of Baklava sitting next to it, along with some other treats. “Lady Aphrodite mentioned that she wanted to try my Baklava, so I made her some! Though the Ambrosia is just for you, my Lord!”

He blinked at you, taking the basket in a delicate hold. He turned it this way and that, his chest feeling… warm? He wanted to grimace at the soft warmth that thrummed through his veins, yet it was replaced with a smile as he held up the gold liquid. “Thank you, little Baker.”

It was the first time he felt something so unexplainably soft: so gentle and warm as it settled somewhere between the bottom of his ribcage and the top of his stomach. He listened as you told him how you had gotten it: with Zagreus’ help (you even got to meet Lord Hermes! It was so amazing! He had scoffed at that) he led you to a room with Ambrosia as the prize and, despite the young prince’s worry, you managed to beat the monsters and collect it, mostly, by yourself.

Ares was so flattered, but he couldn’t help the way that your tattered form made him feel a sort of worry. He waved his hands through the wisps of your body before he snapped his fingers and a small blade appeared: a beautifully constructed blade that was an exact replica of his (albeit much, much smaller). He handed it to you, telling you that you should have a proper weapon if you’re going to go out of your way to fight in his name.

Dionysus

Cause of Death: Alcohol Poisoning

Dionysus, unlike many, is incredibly excited to see you sitting there. He adores mortal souls and can’t help but look at them each time Zag chooses his boons and he has the chance to glimpse at their souls (despite his tendency to let them go completely after they die- he can’t help but wonder about them once in a while).

“Why, hello there! What’s a little thing like you doing strolling up to my boon, hm?”

He can’t help but notice the way your eyes are a tad dull, but he writes that off as the dark of Tartarus since it’s gone as fast as he noticed it. You smile up at him, absolutely beaming at the God of drink and madness. “Hello, Lord Dionysus!”

“Oho, you could tell it was me? What gave it away?”

The two of you laugh, diving into a conversation. He offers you a cup of wine and is put off with how long it takes you to decline it. He almost thought you looked absolutely ravenous as you peered into the deep red liquid. He shrugs it off and continues to chatter with you until his favorite Zagman stumbles upon the two of you. He’s quick to say hi to you and even leans down to ask you… something. Dionysus misses it, but still watches the way you stiffly nod before you pass the boon to the prince and scurry off.

He’s tempted to ask about it, but decides that he should probably ask you himself instead of trying to pry. Mortals didn’t take well to people snooping around their private lives, which he could respect.

The next time he sees you though, he relaxes you into a sort of peaceful lull as he chats with you before he drops the question.

You stare blankly at him, that dark look in your eye coming back and making his skin crawl. You suddenly laugh it off waving your hands as you tell him that a god shouldn’t worry about a little ol’ shade like you.

He doesn’t push for an answer but the question still swirls in his mind, even as you toddle off after his Zagman pops up. He decides that he’ll actually ask the Prince this time around.

He asks him point blank and Zag, despite him being hesitant at first, decides to spill how you died. You had been the black sheep of your family, never truly fitting into the carefully set path that they wanted you to follow- so you found solace in drinking from a young age. It had taken the edge off of everything, Zagreus recounted you telling him. It filled you with a warmth you had been missing all your life and you couldn’t help but indulge more and more in it until it slowly became your own personal poison. Dionysus grimaced, for once feeling a sort of queasiness in the pit of his stomach as Zagreus continued on with your story. So, one day, you had drunk yourself into a deep stupor after an awful argument with your parents. But, this time, you never woke up. Instead you woke up floating in the river of blood- the River of Styx.

Dionysus had nodded after the Prince finished the story, playing with the goblet in his hand and swirling the red wine that resides in it. He offers a bitter smile to Zag and bids his farewell (of course leaving a boon of his choice with the lad) popping off back to Olympus.

The next time he runs into you, he asks if you’re feeling alright- if you want to talk. You blink at him, confused at first until realization dawns you. You bite your lip, looking down. He’s quick to assure you that you didn’t have to talk about anything- you two could just have a good time like always. You tell him that you’d like that, not yet ready to face your past. He nods, immediately telling you about an embarrassing story about Ares and how much of a lightweight he was which had you letting out an ugly snort along with your loud cackles.

The god begins to take it upon himself to have you smiling more and maybe remedy those dark clouds that appear in your eyes once in a while. He’s pretty observant despite being piss drunk half the time, it also helps that he’s very intune to your emotions for some odd reason, so he’s quick to pick up on when you feel down or your having something the equivalent to a relapse. He has you drink just a little bit from his goblet since it’s better than quitting cold turkey. And that little bit is always enough to quench your thirst and calm you down. You’ve been needing less and less of it as the days (nights?) pass by.

The first time you get Dionysus Ambrosia is the same day that he almost swears that he’ll marry you. He’s quick to grow emotional with the sheer fact that you went out of your way to get something so special for him, his face almost splitting with how wide of a smile he has on his face.

“You got this for me, man?” He says, holding up the bottle in his hand and inspecting it like it’s a precious jewel. “You know this stuff is hard to come by, super hard.”

You nod, the clouds far from your eyes now. “I had to thank you some way and punching a couple of Shades to get my hands on that was worth it.”

“You punched people for me?”

“Of course.”

He fights the urge to squeal and pops the top off, summoning another cup and pouring some in it. “Here’s to us!” He says as he hands you the cup.

He’s honestly never had so much fun just existing with one person. After that he’s never far from you, one usually not seen without the other around- even despite the Underworld not being Dionysus’ favorite place, he can’t help but be willing to venture down there to see you in person (he’s been trying to convince his wonderful Uncle Hades to let you come up with him to Olympus for a little bit- he’s even got his dad and (other) Uncle in on it. Hades officially hates all of them). His gift to you is a matching goblet that will supply you any beverage of your choice. It also has the double power to protect you from all that wishes to harm you, but you’ll learn that in due time. It’ll be more fun that way, Dionysus muses.

Hermes

Cause of Death: Falling

Usually, Heremes wouldn’t have taken the time of day to chatter mindlessly with a shade. But, it was a different story when that shade summoned him through bumping into his boon- now it’s just interesting!

“Eh? Who’re you? It’s kinda strange for a shade to be here and not my Cos, huh? Did something happen to him? You his stand in or something? That’d be kinda funny because you don’t seem like his stand in- not buff enough or something like that.”

You blink slowly taking in the words of his mile a minute speech as he continues to prattle on. You take a seat in front of the quick mouthed god, getting yourself comfortable as he flutters about and chatters. Not like you minded- he filled in the places where you couldn’t with steady conversation. You nod to some of the quips he makes, just to show you were still listening.

He decides then and there that he likes you a lot and that you should meet Charon. As soon as Zagreus pops up to collect the boon- he grabs the back of your robes and goes zooming off with you in tow. You wave to the panicked prince, allowing yourself to be dragged around. He continues to chatter on and on, only taking a break when he reaches the Boatman (who was not expecting a Shade to be accompanying the God of Messengers). He sets you down, tries to introduce you two to each other- realizes he doesn’t know your name, so you end up telling them your name- and then is quick to say goodbye, after he gives a scroll to Charon, and shoots off.

You end up staying with Charon after learning a bit more about the quiet boatman and Hermes is quite pleased when he realizes that he’d be seeing you around a lot more. He’s quick to flutter about you and chatter for a few quick seconds before zipping off. You wave at him.

The process repeats for a while before he finally takes a moment to really sit with you, Charon having gone to pick up more souls and lead them down the River of Styx. He chatters on aimlessly, asking little questions here and there before he decides to ask the million dollar question: “How did you die?”

You blink slowly as him before murmuring that you fell from a very high place, you head cracking open on the rocks at the bottom and now here you are. He asks why you were messing about on a high place, as that seemed to be something most mortals avoided doing. You explained that there was a kitten stuck in an old root on the ledge and you couldn’t just leave her. So, you crawled onto the branch and put her back onto safe ground, but the root gave way and then you went tumbling to your doom.

Hermes is surprisingly quiet throughout the entire exchange until you reach the end and he says: “you’re a real bleeding heart under all that quiet, huh?” You nod solemnly and he laughs, pulling you into a side hug. How could something with such a fleeting life be so selfless with it? He squeezes you harder before he stands up and bids you farwell, shooting off once again. And, again, you wave as he goes.

He grows attached to you quickly afterwards, bringing you little things that might help make you more comfortable down in the Underworld. Of course Charon is there to keep you company which he’s happy about- and he voices that exact thought to the boatman, who just grumbles out a long: uuuuaagghhh as his reply. He pats his arm and says that he knew he’d get it.

When you manage to get your hands on a bottle of Ambrosia- he’s completely blind sided that he almost trips on his own feet. His face flushing a deep red as he takes the offered bottle.

“How’d- how’d you get this?” His speech is all jumbled and jumpy, though he tries to keep the giddy excitement bubbling in his stomach as bay.

“I saved up my coin,” you said, nodding to Charon who nods back. “And bought it from Charon. I would’ve fought for it, but I’m no warrior.”

A smile splits across his face and the wings on the side of his head flutter. He’s quick to scoop you up and hug you, floating up with you as he does.

Hermes is an absolute giddy mess with your offering, not sure if he should kiss you or simply remain holding you. He had a special place for you before but this just solidifies his adoration for you. His gift to you is a pair of boots with wings on the side of them- an exact replica of his (in your size! Somehow-). He promises that they’ll help you get anywhere you want quickly, also the two of you match! How cute is that?

[onewholikesthings]

Savior

Spencer Reid x Reader

Masterlist

Summary: An unsub catches the reader off guard and Spencer comes to save the day…with consequences.

!!TW: Mentions of rape & sexual assault, necrophilia, and gun violence!!

This might not have been exactly what you asked for but I liked it so I hope you do too :) @ocean-dream3r

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!

“The unsubs’ right around the corner then, if Reid’s color coded map is correct.” Morgan said to Hotch as he scanned the rest of your team.

You nudged Reid to look up from his map and justify his reasoning, “Uh-y-yeah. Yes I’m right.” Reid nodded to Hotch and Morgan as he said this, confidence beaming from his face.

Hotch grabbed his walkie and told the rest of the team to meet at the location Reid had found. He and Morgan promptly left the room, leaving you and Spencer by yourselves for a moment. You turned to face Reid and wrapped your arms around his neck while he placed his hands on your waist.

You sighed as you pulled away from the tight hug and brushed a piece of hair from Reid’s face. “Why are you so worried?” He cocked his head and you smiled. “Of course you know I’m worried, what gave it away?”

He kissed you gently and perked his eyebrows up, “You unknowingly chew your lip and pick at the skin on the thumb of your right hand. Also you leaned in my direction for the entirety of that briefing which indicates that you feel the need to get close to me and protect-“

Hotch opening the door to the small office you were in interrupted Reid’s rant and caused you two to jump back from each other. Hotch peered at the both of you, “Ready?” He asked, raising an eyebrow before exiting again.

Most of the team knew there was something going on between you two. No one knew if you were officially a couple, but it was definitely getting harder to hide as your love grew for each other.

“Yes sir.” Reid stuttered out as Hotch walked out of earshot and you hastily nodded. He gestured for you to walk ahead of him with a smile but grabbed your wrist before you fully passed him.

“I promise you don’t have to worry about me.” He murmured and kissed your cheek.

-----------------------------------------------------———

“1, 2, 3!” Morgan counted off before busting the door down to the unsubs’ house. The rest of the team filed in after him and scanned their surroundings with their guns pointed out in front of them. 

Heart pounding with adrenaline, you turned right off of the main hallway and stalked into what seemed to be the unsubs’ bedroom. All you could see was a closet, a messy bed, and a desk in the far corner. “Clear!” you yelled before putting your gun back into its holster and making your way to the desk.

You squinted at the papers on the desk to make out the messy handwriting strewn across them. You reached down to pick a paper up when you heard a click come from behind you. Your body stiffened as your hand then moved to the gun on your hip.

“Not so fast agent,” a hoarse voice spoke, “no one is allowed to touch my stuff and get away with it.” 

Dammit, you didn’t check the closet.

You heard his footsteps get farther until you heard the sound of the door being shut. Hot breath coated the back of your neck in seconds. You knew his gun was near your head, and you also knew he would shoot you if you screamed. “I know the rest of your buddies are gonna come in here shortly,” he whispered, “so im gonna make my last act count.”

You heard the sound of his belt being undone, “Im gonna enjoy this.” 

He is a necrophiliac, he will have to kill me before he rapes me.

“Aren’t I too alive for your preference?” You breathed out, trying to stall. He chuckled as you heard him pull down his boxers and you gagged as you realized what he was doing to himself, “Not enough time sweetheart.”

A tear rolled down your cheek as you shut your eyes tight. You’ve never experienced anything like this. This fear pulsing through you was new. Deathly terrifying. You felt helpless as his free hand began to roam your body.

His cold hand began to slip down the back of your jeans. You couldn’t scream. You were frozen with fear.

The sound of the bedroom door being opened caused you to open them and turn your face to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Reid standing in the doorway. True horror filled his face as he noticed what the unsub was doing behind you. 

You looked away, ashamed that you had let this happen as you felt the unsub being pulled away from you. You quickly turned to see Reid wrestling the unsub to the ground while you pulled your gun out. “Take the shot!” Reid yelled, but the unsub had a gun too. Reid managed to flip the unsub on top of him so you could fire.

You squeezed the trigger.

The room seemed to pause after the bullet was fired. The unsub lifted a hand to his wounded side and collapsed next to Reid, gun in hand. You dropped your weapon and rushed over to Spencer to hold him. The rest of the team was already inside of the room to handcuff the unsub and lead him out the building. 

“(Y/N), a-are you okay?” Reid flinched as he pulled away from your tight grasp. “Im fine are you?” You furrowed your brows as you examined his upper half. He turned his left shoulder away from you and got on his knees, “No you’re not fine he could have...he could’ve...” Reid shook his head at his lost train of thought and you saw the color drain from his face.

“Spencer? Spencer whats wrong?” you said as you grabbed the shoulder turned away from you. He gasped and you pulled your hand away to see blood covering it. “Shit Spencer you’re losing a lot of blood.”

You applied pressure to his shoulder and turned to see Emily behind you, already calling for medics. You held Spencer’s head in your lap, “Stay with me okay? Talk to me Reid.” You said as you saw his eyelids flutter.

“Reid what about your promise huh? Yeah you remember that?” He smiled at your words, “It’s just a graze.” He said through labored breathing. “Where the hell are the medics?” You yelled over your shoulder at Emily.

“They’re coming, move out of the way.” She said as she tried to pull you from Reid. “It’s gonna be okay I’ll come with you in the ambulance alright?” Reid could barely shake his head yes before you were completely pulled away by EMT’s.

They hadn’t let you ride in the ambulance with him, which was another stab to your heart. Morgan and Emily were accompanying the unsub to the hospital while JJ and Hotch informed the press. Leaving you and Rossi to follow Reid’s’ ambulance.

Heavy silence filled the car on your way to the hospital. It was only in the parking lot when Rossi spoke up, “Now before we go in there I need to make sure you’re in the right state of mind.” He said as he pulled the keys from the ignition.

“I’m fine we need to g-“ Rossi held a finger up to silence you, “We know what he did (Y/N), and I want you to know none of this is your fault. None of it.”

Tears filled your eyes and caused you to look down at your bloodstained hands. “You’re a strong girl, and we all know how much you care about the kid...”

You looked up at Rossi through your tears and saw understanding written across his face. “Don’t let this break you.”

Reid spent 4 hours on the table. He came out from surgery at around 2 in the morning with the entire team waiting for him. The doctor said he was asleep and advised you all to come back in the morning.

J.J. volunteered to drive you home and Emily asked to tag along. They all knew what happened and knew you shouldn’t be alone right now.

J.J. drove while you sat shotgun with Emily in the back. You bursted into tears as soon as you got in your seat which had Emily rubbing your shoulders soothingly behind you.

“Do you want to talk about it?” J.J. asked hesitantly. Emily paused as you wiped your nose on your sleeve and nodded, “I have to get it out someday.”

You described in detail to them the scarring events of the day. Emily sat there stunned and J.J. shook her head in disgust.

“Now Reid is in the hospital because I screwed up.” J.J. opened her mouth to protest but you stopped her, “I know I know it’s not my fault. Rossi gave me the speech already, but I don’t see who else’s fault it could be.”

The rest of the drive was silent.

The girls told you to get some rest, and Penelope even called to check on you. You told them you would but you never shut your eyes that night. You remember the way he felt behind you, how his breath hit your neck, you hated it.

You tossed your blood stained shirt in the trash and sat on your couch, unsure about what to do. Wishing you were there with Spencer.

You touched your neck to find the cold metal of the necklace Spencer gave you just a few days prior. It was a simple pendant with a heart carved into a smooth, flat stone. On the back were his initials.

You fingered the necklace and sighed, exhausted from crying you lied down on your couch and willed sleep to come, but it didn’t.

A few hours went by before you saw the sun start to peak through your curtains. You glanced at your watch and saw it was 6 already. Pushing yourself up, you went to grab a clean pair of clothes and brush your teeth.

Staring at yourself in the mirror was a bad idea. Your hair was tangled, makeup smeared, and your face lost some of its coloring. After splashing some water on your face you grabbed your phone and dialed for Hotch.

No surprise, he answered and asked if you were okay. “I’m...as okay as I can be.” You replied and rubbed your temples.

“No sleep I’m assuming?”

“No sir but I’m fine, trust me.”

Hotch seemed to consider your response before answering again.

“I know you’re going to ask me if you can go see Reid, and my answer is yes. I’ll let you take the day off.”

“I-thank you sir but I can report back in-“

“That’s an order, I know you need it.”

You chewed on your lower lip, contemplating.

“I understand. Thank you sir.”

“And (Y/N), we’re all here for you. I hope you know that.”

“Y-yes I do. Thank you.”

It was technically too early for visiting hours, but you flashed your badge to the lady at the counter and she didn’t say a word.

You remembered the room number the doctor had given you yesterday, and when you arrived to it you paused as your hand reached for the handle.

 “No one is allowed to touch my stuff and get away with it.” 

You shuddered at the memory and pulled your hand back, swallowing down your dry throat. You touched the door handle with your left hand instead and gently opened it.

The room was plain and sterile, no bright paintings or flowers like the patients’ rooms you visit on a case. You turned your attention to the bed, where Spencer was lying. You watched his chest peacefully rise and fall as you closed the door behind you.

You tried to quietly pull a chair from the corner of the room to his bedside but seemed to fail. His eyes slowly opened at the first scrape of the chair across the linoleum tile.

“Hey, hey honey.” You whispered as you sat and took his limp hand in yours. He fully opened his eyes and slightly squeezed your hand. “Sorry to wake you.”

“It’s alright, I’m glad to see you.” His voice was dry and croaky. “Here have some of this.” You said as you took a plastic cup with water sitting next to his bed and lifted it to his mouth. He gulped half of it and you placed it back on the table.

You mindlessly traced circles on his hand with your thumb, “How are you feeling?” You asked.

His face contorted as he tried to sit up more, “I’m doing okay. I noticed they haven’t given me pain meds.” You nodded, “I told the doctor last night when you first came in...I knew that’s what you would want.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly in understanding. “Thank you.” He murmured as he brought your hand to his mouth.

“I should be thanking you,” you started, “I don’t know what would have happened to me if...” you trailed off; unable to complete the horrid thought.

You noticed his hand tense around yours at your words. “I swear to God...I was about to kill him. No man should...no one should ever treat you or touch you that way.” He looked at you straight in the eyes as he said those last words.

You sighed a shaky breath and shook your head, “I love...I love you so, so much Spencer and if anything,” you began to choke up, tears clouding your vision, “if you had died because of me I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

Your eyes squeezed shut as you tried to blink the tears away. “Hey.” He said as he lifted his hand to cup your face. You put your hand on top of his as his thumb began to stroke your cheek, “I’m alive. I’m alright. That’s what matters. It’s not like I haven’t been shot before...it comes with the job.”

You laughed into his palm and kissed it, “I know I’m sorry for getting so emotional. It’s just...that was-“

“Traumatizing?” He finishes your thought, “To say the least, yeah.” You replied as he began to inch to the left side of his bed. “What are you doing?” You said as you stood to help him move.

“Come lay with me.” He said once he had moved as far as he could to the opposite side of the bed. You hesitated, “Are you sure? I don’t think I’m su-”

“Please?” He said as he gave you the puppy dog eyes that he knew you couldn’t resist.

You carefully climbed in next to him, your head under his chin and your arms around his waist. You heard him sigh contentedly as he stroked your hair with his good arm.

“As long as I live I’ll protect you. You’re everything to me, you know that?”

You craned your neck up to look at him and kiss his jawbone, “Yes...and you to me.” Reid smiled and planted a kiss on the top of your head.

“I love you.”

“I love you too protector.”

Morgan and Prentiss came by to check on you two an hour later to find you both asleep. You clutching Reid’s waist and his arm resting on your head.

Morgan’s eyes widened at the sight and he smiled, “I guess I owe Garcia ten bucks.”

“And I owe Rossi twenty.” Emily whispered as the pair softly closed the door behind them.

[un-official-artist]

Silver and Gold

Rdr2 werewolf AU

Takes place before Blackwater

Warnings: Angst, Gore

Ships: None

Parts: 1, 2, 3

The moon hung high in the sky and illuminated the forest floor of Tall Trees. Arthur sat near his camp fire, staring up at the sky and admiring the stars. It wasn’t often Arthur let his guard down, but the night was so peaceful and the sky was so beautiful, he relaxed himself and let the calmness consume him. The moonlight illuminated his ocean blue eyes, turning them silver and giving him an ethereal look.

He was distracted by the shimmering starlight and bright full moon, that he didn’t notice the large creature watching him from behind.

The creature began to crawl towards Arthur. It’s paws touched the ground silently, as if it wasn't even there. It started to quicken its crawl, turning into a fast walk, and eventually a run. Arthur’s head turned around to see the beast. It’s razor sharp teeth were bared in a slow, deep snarl. The kind of snarl that started in the back of your throat, and ended up in the throat of another.

Arthur screamed in fear at the top of his lungs and desperately attempted to run away from the creature, but it grabbed him by the leg with its fangs. Arthur yelled in agony as the creature’s teeth sunk deeper into his flesh. It felt like it was burning away his skin at the very touch. Arthur grabbed a gun from his belt and shot the thing in the head, causing it to let go and run off into the forest.

Arthur pulled his leg towards him and inspected the wound. A strange golden-like substance was left in the bite marks, as if that creature was venomous. Arthur whimpered and grabbed a bandage from his bag, then wrapped it around the wound in an attempt to keep the blood in. Tears rolled off of his cheeks and onto his lap. The pain was unbearable, like there were hot needles being buried into his leg, deeper and deeper. The blood poured out of the wound, and bled through the bandages. Arthur’s vision began to blur. “Oh god, oh god, I’m dyin’..” he cried to himself, “this is it, this is the end!” Tears streamed down his face harder. This wasn’t how he wanted to go, not bleeding out after being attacked by a savage beast. “I don’t wanna die...” He cried to himself, before falling back onto the ground and fainting.

The sun was what woke him up. It landed on his face, and got into his eyes as he opened them. He quickly sat up and looked around, panting heavily. He had been brought home to camp, where he was laying on his mattress in his wagon. Next to him say Mrs. Grimshaw, reading a book. “Mr. Morgan, you’re finally awake,” she spoke as she looked up, “you feelin’ alright?”

“I-I’m... I’m fine, yeah...” Arthur stuttered out. He felt dry tears and sweat beads roll down his cheeks. Was it all just a dream? He thought to himself. He shook his head and turned to Susan. “H-How’d I get home?”

“Mr. Smith found you. It was a week ago, actually. You were passed out by a tent with your leg bleeding,” Grimshaw explained. She set her book down and looked at him.

“A week?!” Arthur yelled one surprise, “I’ve been asleep for a goddamn week?!”

“No, you were awake sometimes at night. You didn’t move, but I’m surprised you don’t remember,” Mrs. Grimshaw laughed, “You were making a whole fuss! Talkin’, yellin’ nonsense. Swanson swears he heard you growl once! We were scared you’d gone insane!” Arthur’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Naw, I couldn’t have done that... I couldn’t have.

“How’d you even get that bite, Arthur?” Mrs. Grimshaw asked. She pointed at his injured leg. The bandages had been freshly replaced, but some blood still seeped through.

“I was attacked by... something.”

“What do you mean by something?”

“It was huge, Susan!” Arthur suddenly yelled, causing Grimshaw to jump a bit, “Bigger than a bear! It had razor sharp fangs and golden eyes and pitch black fur! I almost didn’t see it because it was so dark!”

Mrs. Grimshaw chuckled. “Bigger than a bear, huh? It might’ve been a werewolf!” She joked. Arthur felt himself relax, and he laughed with her.

“Naw, it couldn’t have been one of those. Everyone knows werewolves don’t live in the west,” he added onto her joke.

Susan laughed again. “You’re right, Arthur,” she smiled and got up, “You know, you should rest. I don’t think you’re gonna be able to move with a leg like that anytime soon.”

Arthur huffed and nodded. “You’re right...” he grumbled. He laid back down in bed, and decided to get some sleep.

He stayed in that bed for ages, being watched by various camp members. It was agony to him, being trapped like that. All he wanted was to move. To explore. To run. But, he wasn’t allowed up until they were sure he would be okay on his leg.

Then, about a month after the attack, he was finally free to leave camp. He grabbed onto his horse and began to run as fast as possible around the plains. Arthur had never felt this much energy before. It was felt as if he were stronger, faster, and more powerful than ever. He loved every second of it.

He ran from dawn to dusk, wearing poor Bodecia until she could no longer stand to go. “You did real good, girl,” Arthur reassured her, and leaned down to feed her a carrot, “We can head back to camp now. It’s gettin’ dark.” Arthur gently kicked Bocedia to jostle her towards home. He didn’t expect for her to bolt towards camp as fast as possible. Arthur laughed and held onto his hat as his mare slid into the camp, suddenly stopping at the hitching post. He climbed off of her and fed her a carrot, before walking back to his caravan to head to bed. The energy from earlier had suddenly worn off as he neared his bed, leaving Arthur tired and weak. He collapsed onto his mattress and quickly drifted off to sleep, not noticing the rising full moon behind him.

Arthur stood atop a giant hill, surrounded completely by a tranquil sea. Next to him, sat a wolf with its back faced towards him. Arthur slowly approached the creature, curious about why it was here with him. He leaned down and touched it slowly. The wolf shot around and snarled at him. It’s eyes were glowing silver, and it’s fangs were dripping with gold. Arthur backed up, trying to get away from it. The wolf grew as it approached him, changing appearance to be the size and shape of the creature he had seen that night. Arthur looked around frantically, trying to find a way off the island and away from the beast. But the hill turned into a mountain, and the ocean turned into a whirlpool beneath them, revealing giant spikes at the base of the hill. Arthur was trapped with a monster, and the only way to escape was to jump to his doom. The wolf suddenly pounced onto the man, pinning him to the hard ground and trapping him. Arthur struggled beneath its weight, and stared into its silver eyes. The creature opened it’s mouth to bite down, and...

Arthur suddenly bolted awake. His head was killing him, and the world felt fuzzy. He got up to try to walk off the pain, but the bite on his leg suddenly ignited with fiery pain. Arthur grabbed onto his wound and crumbled to the ground. He called out in agony as the fiery burning suddenly spread throughout his entire body. His head nearly bursted from the pain. “Dutch! Hosea! John! Anyone! I-I... I need help!” Arthur called out in a desperate attempt to alert someone of what was happening, “Oh god, please! Anyone! I need help!” Tears began to stream down his face. He grabbed his head and pulled it towards himself and nearly screamed in pain. It hurt more than any bullet he had ever been hit with, or ever will be hit with.

The camp awoke with Arthur’s cries for help. They ran out to find the man in a ball on the ground, crying and screaming in pain, begging for someone to help him. Dutch rushed to his side instantly. “We’re here, son, we’re here,” he reassured him, “what’s wrong? What’s wrong, Arthur?”

Arthur shook and cried, still whispering for someone to help him. It was almost as if he didn’t hear them, or couldn’t hear them.

“Maybe his wound got infected,” Hosea guessed, “Bad infections can damage the brain... He might be too far gone for us to help him, Dutch.”

Dutch frowned in sorrow. “Oh, Arthur, my boy...” He gently rested his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Suddenly, Arthur lifted his head up to meet Dutch’s face and snapped at him. Dutch gasped in fear, and quickly backed away from the man.

Arthur’s eyes had turned silver, and his teeth were sharp, like fangs. He looked wild, and dangerous. He fell back onto the floor and held his head in his arms, revealing that his nails had turned into sharp claws. His screams of pain became inhuman, and turned into howls and snarls. His bones shifted, broke, and grew, changing the size and shape of Arthur’s body. His hair turned silver, and fur started to sprout from the man’s skin, giving him a grey pelt.

“Everyone run and hide!” Dutch yelled. The gang scattered, climbing into trees and hiding in John and Dutch’s tents. They tied the door flaps shut, but left one notch open so they could see what was happening to their friend.

Arthur’s ears became pointed and moved to the top of his head, and his spine grew to resemble a tail. His teeth became the size of daggers, and they oozed a strange golden substance. It was terrifying to watch, but no one could look away. Abigail hid Jack behind her, keeping the young boy from seeing this monstrosity take place.

Arthur stopped moving. He lay on the grass floor, whimpering quietly. He was at least ten feet tall, and looked like he could kill a man with a single blow to his paw. The men, all hidden in different places, grabbed their guns and began to aim at the beast that lay in the center of camp.

Arthur slowly began to move, rising to stand on his back legs like a normal man. He fell forwards onto his front paws, then collapsed back onto the ground. The air was deathly silent, as the gang watched as Arthur began to walk, waiting for him to do something deadly. He slowly rose to his feet again, this time using his arms to help him stand. He sniffed the air, and slowly crawled towards John’s tent. Abigail began to gasp, but John covered her mouth before she could make a sound.

Arthur sniffed the curtain, trying to see who’s scent was on it. John studied him through the small crack, and saw that Arthur’s eyes were shut, almost like a newborn puppy’s.

The beast slowly moved away from John’s tent, and faced towards the exit of camp. He neared a shriveled tree that had been scorched by the desert heat, and laid underneath it to rest. Suddenly, a bullet rang throughout camp. Micah, was in the tree, and he had gotten too scared with Arthur around him.

“No, Micah, you fool!” Dutch yelled as he ran out of his tent. Arthur’s silver eyes shot open. He threw his head back to the moon and leg out a bone-chilling howl, that struck fear in the hearts of those for miles around. He looked up the tree and saw the man. Arthur snarled and bared his teeth, then leapt up the tree, grabbing the man with his claws and dragging him onto the ground. Micah screamed, and bullets flew from his first gun. Arthur took hold of his shirt collar and flung the man around like a rag doll, but never touched his skin. He slammed Micah onto the desert ground and bared his teeth. Golden ooze dripped from his fangs and onto the man’s red shirt. Suddenly, bullets began to fire from around the camp.

“Whatever you do, do not hit him! Arthur’s in there!” Dutch commanded. Arthur spun around in confusion as to where all the bullets were coming from. Why are there so many loud sounds? Where are they all coming from?! The beast though to him, Run, find shelter, run, run, run, run!

He began running towards Dutch’s tent in an attempt to hide from the storm of bullets. He dove through the tent flaps and looked around. Inside, he saw the women huddled together, all shaking from fear. They’re scared of the noises too! The wolf though, I can hide with them. We’ll protect each other.

Arthur slowly crawled to them. The woman began to panic as he approached, but he didn’t notice in time. The women suddenly scattered like a herd of started deer. They screamed and ran out of the tent, leaving Arthur all alone. He whimpered and ran out of the tent, trying to find a safe place to hide. He looked around frantically. The bullets continue to ring through the air. Arthur’s head began to spin again. He whimpered and fell to the floor, using his massive paws to cover his head. We can’t run. We have to fight. We have to live.

Arthur’s pupils turned to needle-thin slits. He suddenly got up and seemed to roar at the men, causing them to flinch in fear. He began to charge towards Dutch, teeth bared and oozing with golden venom. His silver eyes focused in on the older man, targeting him. He knew this was the pack leader. Take him out, and they’ll scatter, the wolf said. Arthur bowled over Dutch and used his paw to pin him to the ground. He leaned back, getting ready to go for the throat. He started to plunge his head forwards to take the deadly bite.

“Arthur, please!” Dutch yelled. Arthur froze. His eyes became more human, more whole. All his memories, all recollection of his human life, came flooding to the front of his mind. Arthur shook his head and looked around. He saw John, Hosea, Bill, Charles, Seàn, Javier, Lenny—His friends—with their guns focused on him. He saw Mary-Beth, Karen, Jenny, Tilly, Molly, Mrs. Grimshaw, Abigail, and Jack all cowering in fear and hiding from something. He slowly turned his head and looked at Dutch on the ground, begging for his life without even saying a word.

“Dutch, what?-“ Arthur tried to speak, but instead of words, his language came out in a bark. Arthur shook his head and looked down at his paw on Dutch’s chest, and then the one risen in the air, poised and ready to kill.

Arthur shook his head and began to back up. “Dutch I’m sorry I didn’t- I didn’t mean to- I don’t-“ Arthur whined and whimpered I’m a desperate attempt to apologize. He looked around at all the eyes focused on him. All the people whom he loved, terrified of him. Ready to shoot him at any moment. “I didn’t mean for this to happen! I didn’t! I don’t want to hurt anyone!” He cried, but all that fell on the gang’s ears were whimpers and barks.

“What are you all doing?! Shoot it!” Micah screamed as he stood up. He aimed his gun and let fly at Arthur. The bullet landed in his shoulder, causing Arthur to yelp in surprise, but not pain. He stumbled back and shook his head. He could feel control slipping away from him. He struggled to hold on, then looked to the west to the setting moon. “Please, just a little longer, please... please...” he begged himself. Tears began to stream from his face. Micah shot more, hitting him in the neck, back, leg, and arm. He yelled and cried out in pain. It wasn’t the pain of a physical injury, but the agony of slowly loosing himself. He was loosing this battle and the only thing he could do was fight. He was struggling to fight. Struggling to stay himself. Struggling to survive. Struggling. Struggling.

Suddenly, beams of the sun started to rise over the eastern horizon. Arthur laughed in sweet relief, feeling the battle fade away, and relaxing. But that relief was stopped by the intense feeling of burning spreading all over his body. The bullet wounds burned, the bite mark burned, everything burned. His bones began to relocate themselves, and his fur vanished back into his skin. Arthur’s vision began to blacken, and he fainted onto the ground.

[voidendron]

Deep Blue Sea: Ch. 17

Chapter 17: Just Like Them Subnautica/JSE Egos Crossover

Warnings:  Swearing, Mild Violence, Knives, Character Injury, Drowning Characters: Jackieboy Man, Chase Brody, Second Officer Keen, Antisepticeye POV: Jackieboy Man

They’d hiked back off the beach and toward the edge of the island to watch the ocean beyond. It was only when they saw their three comrades making their way away, back toward their own habitat, that Jackie and Chase glanced at each other, then headed off to find a way up to the third abandoned habitat.

When they found the stone bridge over the bay right in the island’s center, Jackie paused to look down at the island below.

“Hey…” he said, bare feet scraping through the dirt to copy the marks he already found there. A footprint—a footprint that dragged through the dirt. “Think I found where Keen threw his PDA from.”

“Holy shit…” Chase shook his head and leaned over the edge. “Y’know if he’d missed the beach, it would’ve sunk, right? I don’t know how deep the water under this place goes, but I do know I couldn’t see the bottom when we were under the island. It probably would’ve been lost forever.”

“Yeah. And taking that risk tells us he really wanted us outta here.”

“How bad could it be? All we’ve seen so far are those crab thingies.”

“Speaking of…” Jackie raised his “spear” when one of them lunged at him.

Both men were left gagging as he got it straight through the eye. Okay… Let’s not spear one of those things ever again. Yuck.

Chase had pulled out his scanner, and Jackie was left cringing away when he ran a scan over the thing’s mutilated eye that seemed to second as its body. “Cave Crawler,” he snorted. “Ever-creative with your names, huh scanner?”

“Oh, come on.” He grabbed Chase by the arm and dragged him onward.

Up, up, up the mountain. Around and round it, and then they paused, lunged across where the overgrown path had collapsed away, and continued their upward climb. This one was steeper than the other, Jackie noted. He could feel rocks tearing at the soles of his feet every time he slipped in the slightest, and they were both huffing by the time they got to the top.

There it was. The third habitat. What new horrific data would they find in there..?

A shake of the head. No. Don’t think that way.

Glancing at each other, they approached. The bulkhead was hanging off its hinges, and Jackie jumped when he tried to push it open farther, only for the heavy door to crash to the ground and nearly land on his toes. Well. That would’ve hurt.

They snooped around, gave the indoor garden a strange look. Weren’t those same things growing all over? Why keep them inside, too? Found another data log that Chase put into his PDA but didn’t press play on as he scanned the ground for any more.

They heard a thud, then Jackie felt himself pushed away from the ladder that would have taken them to the second story of the habitat.

Whatever shoved him had shouted, but the cry died in his throat as he lowered the branch he’d very nearly been ready to crack over the security guard’s head.

Jackie’s eyes widened and he could practically hear Chase’s grin in his giddy little shout of, “Keen!”

The second officer was battered, beaten, and the look in his eyes could only be described as “terrified.” But he was alive.

“…Did you find my PDA?” His voice was small and eyes kept darting toward the door.

Chase stepped up to Jackie’s side. “Yeah! We figured you needed hel—”

“I said to leave the island.” The sudden change in his tone startled Jackie. It had hardened, almost furious. “He’ll kill us as he killed the CTO.”

Jackie swallowed. “Yu’s dead..?”

“He?” Chase added. “Not—not it, or they, but he?! Who the hell would—?”

Another survivor? Had they had a fucking…murderer on board or something?!

Keen’s head snapped toward the door. He ducked low, branch held like it was a baseball bat. “He knows we’re here.”

“What?!”

“He heard us!”

Jackie tightened his grip on his spear. “Do I want to know what he did to Yu?”

A shake of the head—Keen wouldn’t tear his gaze away from the opening. “He slit her throat and threw her body in the water.”

“Why would he—”

Footsteps. They dragged over the dirt outside, slow and quiet. Heavy breathing was muffled—behind a mask? The figure was pacing.

Watching.

Waiting.

“Couldn’t we reason with him?” Chase hissed.

Another shake of the head. “That man has lost any and all humanity. The CTO attempted ot speak with him and died for it. We won’t make that same mistake.”

Baring his teeth and hefting his spear up, Jackie tucked himself beside the opening. He gave the other two a look, throwing his head toward it. “Well? Get running!” Before either could answer, he was bolting out and shoving the shaft of his spear against the killer’s chest, pushing him toward the cliff.

The first thing he noticed was that the man was in a weird suit. Ahh…hazmat diving suit, that’s what it was, right? The next was his voice—when he shouted something and pushed back against the weapon forcing him backward, it wasn’t English. Mongolian. Marvin had said…the survivors from ten years before them…were Mongolian…

The faded name badge at the man’s chest was barely legible. Bleached by the sun, scraped away with time, but there it was.

SEPSE.

Jackie hesitated, staring the name down, just long enough for one hard shove to send him sprawling on his back. He could hear the other two bolting down the mountain’s overgrown path, and when he looked up he could see the glint of a survival knife. In the slowly subsiding fog, it was almost eerie to look up and see the knife, to see the man’s eyes behind his mask. The blade was chipped and small from years of resharpening it as it grew dull again. It was stained green with the blood of the planet’s creatures.

Keen was right. There was no humanity left in those eyes. Just a wild light, confused, feral.

Furious.

He rolled away, heart thundering when the blade came down right where his neck had been a moment ago, and scrambled toward the path. He looked down the path, then down the mountain; he’d never make it going the way they’d come up and that side of the mountain was steep, but not deathly so.

He could hear Sepse behind him. He went for it, feeling the blade graze his shoulder as he started sliding. Down, down, down, he felt the ground tear into his thigh, his feet, his hands, heard his dive suit rip, felt sticks and stones stabbing him, scraping, shredding.

He hit the bottom and rolled, could hear Sepse growling something he couldn’t understand from the top. Jackie couldn’t see the other two, but they were calling for him from…somewhere. From the bridge. They were already at the bridge.

Footsteps. Sepse was…running down the path, despite Chase and Jackie’s trouble getting up there he was surefooted with every step like he’d taken that same path a thousand times. Maybe he had. Who was Jackie to know for sure?

Wincing, hissing between his teeth, Jackie dragged himself to his feet, grabbed his spear that he’d managed not to stab himself with on the way down that wonderful slide, and ran.

Shocks of pain shot through his feet, his leg as he ran. Every step hurt. Every step aggravated the wounds torn into his flesh from stones, the dirt made them sting even more.

Sepse was nearing the bottom. He was still shouting. What was he saying?!

The bridge! There it was. The question was, would he make it? He could hear the other man tearing through the brush—he was so much faster than Jackie, who was left limping.

He made it to the bridge. Sepse was right behind him—!

Jackie jumped.

The panic didn’t set in until he was already hitting the water. It stung, like a slap, and the salt burned the cuts and scrapes, his eyes stung, which way was up? He floundered for the surface, swallowed water, spluttered when there were arms around him to drag his head back above water.

They were saying something, but their voices were muffled by the water slowly draining from his ears.

“—need to go! Now!” Chase’s voice. He felt his oxygen tank and mask strapped on, grabbed blindly when one of the Seaglides was shoved into his hands. Chase mentioned that he’d go without one, that Keen needed it more since he’d lost his tank somewhere on the island, and Jackie felt a hand on his write to guide him under the island as he blinked the blurriness away.

When he could see clearly again, he realized it was Keen’s hand; the second officer was managing to keep his own Seaglide steady while also guiding Jackie’s. Chase was a short ways behind them when they finally broke the surface.

No sign of Sepse following them. Maybe he’d disappeared back to wherever he’d been hiding when they first arrived.

“Well, that was… Something?” Chase offered, pushing his mask up on his forehead.

“You disobeyed a direct order.”

“And you’re still alive ‘cause of it, aren’t you? Sorry man, but ranks are the last thing I’m gonna worry about out here. Priority One’s surviving.” Chase then gestured wildly at Jackie, grinning as he ignored the officer’s disgruntled scowl. “And you, holy shit, dude! You just… You rushed that guy head-on! And…you’re in pretty rough shape.” He chuckled, “What, fall off the mountain or somethin’?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Jackie coughed, spitting up the last of the water he’d swallowed, then shook his head. “That was the guy from the last recording we heard. The Antony guy.”

“Dude. That recording’s like, ten years old.”

“He’s right.” Keen’s eyes tracked back to the island—god, the poor guy looked exhausted. “Antony Sepse. He was a microbiologist for Torgal Corp. I’m…not sure how he’s survived so long.” He gestured to Chase, then. “You picked up a data log from that habitat. Have you listened yet?”

“Well, no. Soon as I had it, you tried to club Jackie, so haven’t really had the time. …Right. Playin’ it now.”

Jackie kept one hand on his Seaglide, the other reaching for his own PDA. He grimaced when he noticed that it was cracked. Probably from his impromptu not-so-slip-’n’-slide. It still worked when he checked for the voice logs, thankfully. There was a new one: The one Chase had grabbed. He didn’t bother listening and instead went straight for the text version.

ANTONY SEPSE: I buried Bart this morning. He didn’t make it. It’s a nice little spot, under all the trees he liked.

A harsh laugh that was really more a bard came from Chase’s PDA as he played the actual audio. It startled Jackie into nearly dropping his own device to the abyss below.

Now I’m alone. They’re all dead. What the hell were we thinking?

And…that was all there was. Jackie glared down at the text. Keen’s expression about matched.

He no longer had a PDA and had only listened to Chase’s audio.

…Did that mean he understood Sepse?

“Uh, hey, Keen?” Jackie closed out the file and clipped his PDA back to his hip. “You understood that?”

“Yes?”

“Then do you know what Sepse was shouting at us?”

Another glance toward the island. His brows furrowed. “He was saying we would poison him. He called us ‘diseased, just like them.’”

“That’s it?”

“He…kept repeating it, yes. Like a mantra.”

[its-r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s]

Call Me A Freak- Chapter 2: Mother Knows Best

Words: 1,870

Warnings: death threats, manipulation, physical and emotional abuse

Ch 1 | Ch 3

~ ~ ~

“You will go. You will find the Fairy Godmother. And you will bring me back her magic wand,” my mother snarled.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek. There had to be a way to convince her that this was a bad idea without just telling her that we didn’t want to go.

“The wand is pointless on the Isle. I don’t see why you’d even want it.”

She glared down at me from her throne. “It will work. After you break the barrier from Auradon.”

I felt my stomach drop. This was worse than I thought. This required too much responsibility on my end. Too much pressure. It was all too much.

She must have seen my unease, because she beckoned me closer. “Do you enjoy watching innocent people suffer?”

“Well, yeah,” I chuckled. “I mean, who doesn’t?”

“Well then, get me the wand!” she demanded before I had even finished. “With that wand and my septor, I will be able to bend both good and evil to my will!”

“Our will,” the Evil Queen added.

I could see my mother’s face drop in frustration, but she didn’t argue. “Our will,” she corrected herself. She had to put on a good face. If I knew my mother, she would just as soon get rid of her supposed “friends” and their children to seize power for herself.

She turned her stare back on me. “And if you refuse… you’re dead.”

I widened my eyes. “What? Mom-”

But she snapped her fingers in front of my face and silenced me. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She would do absolutely anything to get what she wanted, but was death just a threat? I was her last remaining child…

She leaned down to me and in a flash, her eyes had lit up with a sickly, emerald color.

My eyes reciprocated before I could stop them, caught in an intense staring contest with my mother. I was bound to lose. Her powers of persuasion were too strong, but I really didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to put my friends through something like this, when I knew they would get nothing in return.

My throat closed up. I was afraid. If I won this, she could simply kill me. Send me out back and have one of her guards crush my skull under his feet. I knew she wouldn’t even kill me herself.

“Fine,” I muttered, looking at the floor. I couldn’t let her see my face right now. It was too hard to veil my disappointment.

“I win,” she gloated.

There was a moment of tense silence. I don’t think anyone in the room had ever heard my mother threaten me with so much, especially not my friends, and they weren’t sure how to respond.

Most of the villains actually cared quite deeply for their kids. This did nothing to make them good parents, but they wouldn’t murder their children for disobediance. But Maleficent… she didn’t have a heart. She wasn’t just evil, she was unstoppable. And it terrified me.

“Evie!” the Evil Queen called behind me. Evie started to bounce over to her mother, as she continued, “My little evillette in training. You must find yourself a prince with a big castle.”

Evie’s face lit up. She worshipped her mother and her mother’s ideology. All Evie could have ever wanted from life was to sit on a throne, surrounded by servants, and riches, and reassurance that she was beautiful.

She giggled in excitement, but her mother shut her down immediately. “No laughing! Wrinkles!”

“Well, they’re not taking my Carlos, because I’d miss him too much,” Cruella cooed.

Carlos’ face morphed between confusion and hope. “Really mom?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Who would touch up my roots, fluff my fur, and scrap the bunyans off my feet?”

His face dropped at the sentiment. “Maybe a new school wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he grumbled, but she shut him down from that thought almost immediately.

“Carlos, they have dogs in Auradon.”

“Oh no, I’m not going!” he insisted.

“Well, Jay isn’t going either!” Jafar cried from the other side of the room. “I need him to stock the shelves in my store.” He then proceeded to shuffle through all the Jay had stolen on our endeavor today.

“What is wrong with you all?” my mother shouted, regaining my attention. She walked down to floor level with us, grabbing my arm as she went and shoving me down into the seat next to her. “For twenty years, I have searched for a way off this island. For twenty years, they have robbed us from our revenge!”

I couldn’t help curling into myself as she yelled and threw me around. I stared down at the table, trying to calm myself, while she continued.

“Revenge on Snow White and her horrible little men. Revenge on Aladdin and his bloated genie!”

“I will-” Jafar started, in a fit of anger, but Jay held him back.

“Revenge on every sneaking dalmation that escaped your clutches! And I, Maleficent, the evilest of them all, I will finally have revenge on Sleeping Beauty… and her relentless little prince,” she said mockingly.

“Villians!” she shouted. They all turned to her, awaiting her command. “Our day has come. E.Q.,” she turned to the queen, “give her the magic mirror.”

The Evil Queen handed her daughter a small object, about the size of Evie’s hand.

“This is your magic mirror?” she questioned.

“Well, it ain’t what it used to be,” her mother responded. “But it will help you find things.”

“My spellbook!” Maleficent remembered. “I need my…” she trailed off, in thought, so the Evil Queen nodded behind her.

My mother flipped around. “Aha! The safe!” She ran over to what was, essentially, a refrigerator, containing her most prized possession.

“Come, darling,” she beckoned me. As I approached, she pulled it out, running her fingers over the cover. “It doesn’t work here, but it will in Auradon.”

Not two seconds later, there was a honking outside, signalling the arrival of our ride. She shoved the book into my arms and guided me out to the balcony.

As I looked over the edge, down at the dirty, crowded streets, I realized I was leaving the Isle. Really leaving. Not just daydreaming about a different world, where there are fields and clean air, but actually going there. Or… somewhat going there.

Whenever I had dreamed of a better world before, it hadn’t been Auradon. I knew that if I were in Auradon, things wouldn’t be better. They would be cleaner, perhaps, but not better. I could never fit into a place like Auradon. It was full of royal people who have learned all their lives how to be proper and just and despise those like me. And if I were truly there, it would mean shunning the Isle. It would mean leaving behind all that I knew and possibly having it turn on me, too.

No, Auradon might have inspired this fake world, but this fantasy of mine was perfect. It was made specifically so that I could feel peace.

“The future of the free world rests on your shoulders,” my mother told me, her arm still wrapped around me, forcing me to look between the shaky apartments of my city and at the green hills of Auradon.

I could just make it out across the ocean. It truly looked like a paradise for all. But my friends and I didn’t deserve paradise. So, what was Auradon going to be for us? Some sort of trap? Punishment? Hell?

“Don’t blow it,” she added, gripping onto my arm, like a threat.

I made eye contact with her and she sent me a tense smile, which did nothing to make me feel better, then turned on her heel and began to walk downstairs.

I hesitated for just a moment, before following her.

Once I had grabbed my bag and made my way downstairs, I took in the car. Many on the streets were swarming it, throwing rocks or banging on the windows. It was obviously a very strong car, to be able to withstand the fury of the Isle.

I lifted my bag in front of my face, to avoid getting hit, but a few rocks still managed to pummel my arms and stomach.

The driver didn’t get out of the car. Probably a smart move on his part. As far as I could tell, he was the first person from Auradon to ever visit the Isle of the Lost and the people weren’t exactly jumping to give him a warm welcome.

I set my bag in the back, along with Evie’s, Jay’s, and Carlos’s. As I shut the trunk, my eyes drifted behind me, and I noticed my mother had made her way back up to the balcony to watch us go.

This unsettled me more, and I looked away quickly. I pushed through the crowd of people and slid into the car, where my friends were already waiting for me.

The minute I shut the door, there was silence among us, aside from the muted yelling outside.

The car started with a jolt, taking us away from our parents. It was just a little too much for all of us. Jay and Carlos slowly started to gorge on the mountains worth of candy they had laid out for us, but neither of them talked. Evie watched as we drifted away from the central part of the Isle, the groups of people watching us lessening as we got farther away. And I was staring at the floor, trying to concentrate. I had to make a plan, someway to get us out of Auradon as soon as possible. Once my mother had what she wanted, I would be off the hook.

The wall between us and the driver slowly descended a minute later. Evie turned around curiously, but all the excitement vanished from her face as she saw what was going on. “Look!”

Attached to the Isle was a bridge. Supposedly it was what had brought all the villains over twenty years ago, but there was no going over it now. It was demolished the minute every villain was off Auradon soil, stranding them there.

We approached this bridge now, no other path to turn on, no slowing down.

“It’s a trap!” Carlos screamed, and my eyes widened. There was no way they had asked for us, just to drive us into the ocean, right?

We all called out in fear, grabbing hold of one another. But the deathly fall we were expecting never came.

With a look around, I came to realize that the bridge had reappeared. Or, at least, a bridge had appeared.

It was gold and circled around us entirely, almost like a tunnel.

“What just happened?” Carlos questioned.

“It must be magic!” Evie giggled from beside me.

I slowly started to realize that we were well past the barrier at this point. This bridge, or tunnel, or whatever it was, seemed to have opened a way for us to safely leave the Isle. And just like that, we were the first villains to get off the Isle in twenty years.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 13: no seriously we are finally at the end of this Tenma Taro thing we finally are seeing the last of it.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

-

Isabella’s trial ends with her acquittal, and no indictment of another culprit. How could they? In the light of day, it’s that much harder to argue that the photos Athena has of scarred-up trees are evidence of a monster and not, say, a bear. (Apparently bears are pretty common out in the Vale and further north around Kurain Village. Who knew? Not Apollo, but Sebastian does, and he uses that fact.) They can argue it, and they do, and they succeed, but it’s a hell of an uphill slog with no real closure.

What could they do, anyway, to the real thief? Tenma Taro is trapped in a hollow iron statue inside a cavern warded with charms, and in a fae-induced coma. They can’t exactly bring it into court. And that’s even if a judge would let them. Maybe this one - a woman of indeterminate age, older than them and that’s all Apollo can guess, the way he couldn’t really at first place how old Iris was supposed to be, who looks like she was carved out of granite, stony and stern - would accept it. Maybe she wouldn’t. She gives no real indication either way through the trial, listening to all of their arguments with an impassive expression, and she asks sharp, cutting questions that throw both sides off-balance. If the judge who Apollo is used to generally trails behind the defense and prosecution, then this one is in line with them but a step to the side, considering a different angle. 

When court is dismissed, Isabella thanks them profusely in the lobby, cries some more, and hugs Athena. She's been terrified since they told her yes, they could personally confirm her suspicion was correct and Tenma Taro truly was the culprit, but with the most difficult parts behind them Apollo assures her she won't have to worry about the yokai running about the valley any longer. She stares at him wide-eyed, clutching at the wooden bead necklace she wears - surely another sort of lucky warding charm - and she tells him she believes him.

What does she think he is, he wonders, touching his eye. 

"I actually feel pretty good about what we've done these past two days," Athena says, flinging herself backwards into the lobby couch, slumping halfway off it like she's melting down to the floor.

"'Actually'?" Apollo echoes. 

"Well," she says, "considering what we made of it the first go-around, but we pulled it together okay. With help, and some bruises." She plucks at her tights and the material snaps back against her leg. "Ow."

"Maybe don't do that, then," Apollo says, vividly sure that some or another time he has had a conversation just like this with Trucy. Less and less coworkers and more the annoying younger sisters he's never had - was he this annoying to Nahyuta? He knows he wasn't, so this doesn't even make sense as karmic justice.

"Eh, it kinda hurts even when I don't do that," Athena says, sticking her legs out straight in front of her and bouncing her heels off the floor. "It's just the tightness of it, but what else am I gonna wear?"

"Slacks?" Apollo asks.

Athena snorts. "You know how hard it was to find a facsimile of a jacket, and skirts, in this color?" she asks, gesturing at her cropped jacket, which Apollo wasn't ever going to comment on to say that she looks like a high school student trying to shirk the dress code when Prosecutor Gavin still comes to court looking like that. "How am I getting slacks?"

"Mr Wright and I manage," Apollo says. "Try shopping in mens?"

"And just hem it, hm." Athena taps at her earring, sending it swinging back and forth. He hasn't ever yet seen her wearing an earring in the other ear, just that crescent, and he wonders whether the other hole closed itself up, she lost the matching piece, or it's a clip-on. "And there'd be pockets to start with, too! Magnifico!"

"You have pockets already," Apollo says. "I've seen you stash food in them."

"I sewed them in," she explains. "One of my - my best friend when I was young, before I moved away, her grandmother taught her how to sew practically from birth, and I picked it up from her, how to modify stuff. Haven't learned to make my own clothes, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. Just—" She reaches into her skirt pocket and pulls out a granola bar.

"Clever," Apollo says. "All I've learned from my best friend is tracking salt all across the apartment floor when you step in your own salt circle" - or really it's just a line across the threshold - "and a lot about constellations." And astrology, but that wasn't learned so much from Clay as it was learned to annoy Clay. Okay, maybe that's why these annoying younger sisters are happening as comeuppance, even though Clay is four months younger than Apollo (by the guesstimated birthday Datz picked out) and is generally much worse to Apollo on a regular basis. "Yours is more practical."

"Is the salt circles because he's trying to summon a demon or keep the demons away?" Athena asks. 

"The latter."

"Could we theoretically just have gotten a salt lick and tossed it at Tenma Taro?" Athena asks. She grins to herself, and Apollo rolls his eyes at the image. Like that would work. "Or a bowl of Eldoons? But I guess there's probably someone out there somewhere you can impress with space facts." Like Ema, the few times she and Clay have crossed paths, but Apollo watches the smile fall off Athena's face. He glances around the lobby, surprised to find that it's empty still, that no one has entered, that there's no apparent catalyst to why Widget's blue has darkened. "Someone who thinks it's neat and not - deathly cold and empty and lonely."

"The ol' existential dread hits hard when you think about infinity, huh?" And yet looking up is still less terrifying than even considering what it would be to look across to the Twilight Realm, glean what the world of the fae is like. He asked Klavier; he's sure he can say that it's just as cold, and just as lonely.

"Oh yeah," she says. "Something like that. I'd rather take the ocean; it's still a cold abyss you might die in but you get anglerfish and giant squid with it." Widget lights back up to neutral blue and a second later flashes past it to cheery green. "And penguins! Does outer space have penguins? Check and mate!" 

"I am not going to argue to the existence of space penguins, no," Apollo says. He doesn't know of any penguin constellations; off the top of his head, there's a swan, and an eagle, and one summer Nahyuta charted a warbaa'd that Apollo no longer remembers how to find.

"Man, what kind of a lawyer are you if you can't even do that?" 

Kay announces her arrival with the nonsense she's made herself known for. She proved herself a detective as competent as any other on the stand today, self-assured as she always is but with seriousness she didn't even muster in their life-or-death struggle against Tenma Taro. When called on a contradiction, she swings back with ferocity, without waiting for the prosecution to square it away himself. She forced Apollo to stay on his toes, kept the case moving, up until Sebastian had to make an explanation that didn’t quite mesh with what Kay had argued, and there Apollo drove the wedge to split open the case. They sit almost on the same wavelength and work well together, miles better than Fulbright and Blackquill or Ema and Klavier, but Kay can lunge forward impulsively and Sebastian hesitate to overthink; Apollo remembers being forced to object to one of Athena's conclusions and sympathizes with the way they fall out of sync.

But the trial is over, the verdict passed, and Kay is Kay, off-hours, Detective Faraday no longer.  "Yeah, yeah, we handed that one to you," she says with a sharp grin that suggests she might not be speaking seriously, if the red flash of light that frames her lips doesn't give Apollo that hint. "Next time, we'll kick your ass." Competitiveness lingers, though. "Next time, when we're all not partying it up with the actual monster behind the thing and getting con-cu-ussed!" Her voice pitches into a sing-song at the end as she points at herself with both thumbs. "No biggie, really. You got a job to do so you do it, y'know? Like I investigated a crime scene while concussed and amnesiac, once."

"You what?" Widget yelps, and Athena is too shocked to try and stifle it. Apollo lets that stand as the only response. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap his head around Kay, especially because he knows she’s not lying.

“It wasn’t even your job then,” Sebastian says. Apollo isn’t surprised by his arrival, only that he wasn’t immediately beside Kay when she came bounding in. “It wasn’t even her job then.” He directs his statement directly at Apollo and Athena now. “She was just tagging along with Prosecutor Edgeworth.”

“And I was born to investigate, my dudes,” Kay replies, tipping herself backwards onto the couch, next to Athena. “Though maybe not any more today. I’ve got a headache.”

“You’d better be planning on going home and taking a nap after this.” 

Apollo jumps; Kay flinches, sitting up forward, and so does Athena, who loses the last of her tenuous balance and slides to the floor. Apparently none of them had been warned that Phoenix would be in attendance. 

The surprise now passed, Kay sinks back into the couch. “Yeah yeah, sure thing, Dad.”

Phoenix sighs and presses a hand across his eyes. “I’d tell you someone should talk to you about your lack of professionalism, but I don’t think anyone we know could give that speech without being a hypocrite.”

Apollo thinks himself plenty professional, but the trouble is no one - not Trucy or Klavier or Kay - responds in kind. 

Kay gives Phoenix a thumbs-up. “I didn’t know you were planning to come, Boss,” Athena says. 

“It was more a whim than a plan, really.” Phoenix gives them a small smile. “Had to make sure you were all keeping up the good work in the courtroom, too.” Kay shoots him another thumbs up. Sebastian fidgets like he doesn’t know if he should take Phoenix seriously, if he really did doubt how the trial would go. Apollo wishes he had some advice about understanding Phoenix to offer. After nearly a year, he does not. 

“If it isn’t Phoenix Wright, the man of the hour.”

Apollo knows that voice only because he spent the last several hours hearing her speak: the judge, still with her gavel in hand, tapping it against her palm. Her black hair sits immaculately braided into a crown atop her head, and her layered white cloak flutters delicately for several seconds after she stops moving. “Hello, Judge Courtney,” Phoenix says. Of course he knows her by name too; doesn’t he know everyone in the legal world? “Long time, no see.”

“Indeed it has been,” Courtney agrees. “I expect to see you soon again behind the bench, yes? Having made your latest turnabout last year.”

“Is there anyone who hasn’t been told that I’m retaking the Bar?” Phoenix asks, turning his eyes and hands pleadingly ceilingward. 

“Oh yeah, that’s really soon, isn’t it?” Athena asks. “Next week? You should probably be panicking more.”

“If that’s your official analytical psychology-based advice…” Phoenix shrugs again. Athena frowns, apparently considering whether she wants that to be her actual stance on the matter. “Anyway, Courtney, can I assume that you were put on this trial for a reason?”

“You may assume whatever you like,” she replies. “Though I do wish to speak to you about this entire matter, if you have the time.”

“I do have to run pretty soon,” Phoenix says, “but if you’re heading out too, then yeah, sure.” He turns toward the door, stops, and adds, “Why do I have this horrible feeling of dread already?”

“That’s your problem, not mine,” Courtney says. Her next words are directed at Apollo and Athena. “Mr Justice, Ms Cykes, I’ve heard promising things of you both. Forgive me for brushing you off in this moment, and for not introducing myself properly. You may call me Justine Courtney.”

A part of Apollo that considers itself both weary and savvy thinks that he should have expected it. 

Outside of a trial he’s surely allowed to address a judge by name. He knows this. “It’s very nice to meet you, Your Honor,” he says. Nailed it, but has anyone ever had problems born of being too respectful of the fae?

(Actually, probably. He’ll ask Clay if he’s ever heard of that one.)

“Oh!” Athena jumps like someone just hit her in the ribs. “Nice to meet you!” She flashes a nervous smile, having now remembered basic manners. 

Courtney smiles. It’s almost imperceptible; Apollo wouldn’t consider the expression on her face a smile if he hadn’t just watched the corners of her mouth twitch upwards a minuscule amount. “Sebastian has told you of me, I see.”

“Huh?” Athena asks, her fearful grin still frozen in place. “Why would you think that?”

“Those expressions of terror on both your faces tell me you surely know something of me.” There, more obviously a smile. “I assure you, unless you commit a crime, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Athena’s shoulders sag with relief. “Oh,” Apollo says. “Um. Thanks.”

“Good day to you all.”

She has barely left with Phoenix when Athena rushes over to the lobby doors, putting her ear up to the crack between them. “What?” she asks Apollo’s glare. “They might have something interesting to say! This isn’t a crime!”

“Just horribly impolite,” Apollo says. And fae society is founded on a thin veneer of politeness, with terrible consequences for its breaking. He might have thrown some eighty percent of his self-preservation instincts to the wind with Tenma Taro, but Athena is extra ridiculous. 

A minute passes. Athena’s forehead creases, her eyes narrowing. “Well?” Kay asks. 

“They’re just talking about their kids,” Athena says, and her disappointment couldn’t be more obvious if both she and Widget screamed it. 

-

“And what’s John up to, then? Shit, how old is he now, even? Nineteen?”

“Twenty-one, actually.”

“Where’s the time even go?” Trucy turned sixteen early in the spring and since then he’s had the nagging feeling that the world is ending. Isn’t she still the baby in his locket? Sometimes he thinks about how that little girl in pink, her round face and the eyes too big for it, is the last memory Zak had of her; he never got to see her grow up. (Never bothered to.) And here’s Phoenix, the one who gets to, dreading it. Funny thing, fatherhood. 

“I have no idea,” Courtney replies. And they say it’s only in the Twilight Realm that time works differently. “He’s taking a bit of a hiatus, you could say, from acting, considering what he wishes to do next. He’s concerned if he doesn’t do something he’ll be typecast for life in kaiju movies as the one human who the monster finds fondness for.” With a chuckle and a shake of her head, she adds, “Though I suppose there is some art imitation of life in that.”

“I wasn’t gonna be the one to say that,” Phoenix says. Think it, certainly, but say it? No. “Though you’re up to maybe half a dozen humans now?”

She raises her eyebrows but smiles and accepts the joke for what it is - a joke, and not Phoenix counting up her family, acquaintances, and coworkers and deciding which she presumably likes enough to spare when she smashes up Los Tokyo, which Phoenix would swear is a city name he once heard in one of those movies when he and Trucy went. “Something close to that, perhaps.” She smacks her gavel into the center of her palm and her long nails, even now reminiscent of the claws Phoenix could see if he looked at her through different eyes, curl around it. “Now. Mr Wright.”

He’ll probably never get used to hearing his name from her lips; she’s like Mia in this regard, a creature of the Court so determined to perform humanity that she overcomes their cultural hangup on names - somewhat. Mia still tripped, and Courtney has her own particular patterns. It makes her sound like an extremely polite person, he’s come to notice: it’s Mr or Ms and a surname to everyone, first-name basis reserved only for John and Sebastian. 

“Why was I not informed of everything that was planned to deal with the monster Tenma Taro until after the fact?”

“Sebastian didn’t tell you?” Phoenix asks.

Courtney levels a cold stare at him. “Do not shift the blame. He did not, because, as he explained to me this morning, he was aware that I had dinner plans with John last night and thus he didn’t want to bother me. You, however, Mr Wright, have no such knowledge of my schedule but do have my contact information, and therefore, had no reason to not have kept me abreast of the entire situation.”

“That I think Sebastian is a competent kid who’s more than capable of handling this? Is that not a reason?”

Her expression darkens into a scowl, her fingers tightening a little more around her gavel. “If you think him so, then, pray tell, why you also called upon one of your... ‘friends’ to deal with the beast?”

Something got lost in the telling, but it’s a relief if this is all she wants to chew him out for. “No, I didn’t call on anyone, beyond, y’know, the kids - it was a decision they made, no input from me.” Trucy had said that she was glad for Iris’ help, though, and also that Iris was terrifying, and Edgeworth gripped the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles went white.

Courtney’s brow does not relax. “And that does not concern you? You may be content to place your child into the hands of one of Them, but do not expect me to be so nonchalant about mine.”

“I’d argue that Sebastian isn’t your child, but you have that look that says you would argue that on a technicality.”

“I in fact could,” she replies. “But you know as well as I that you are arguing on a technicality yourself, rather than address my concern.”

Phoenix glances back up the stairs. He doesn’t know how far Athena’s hearing ranges, but he does know that she’s damnably curious, and when it’s that easy to eavesdrop, he wouldn’t put it past her. “I’d need to fully grasp your concern to make an actual rebuttal. I mean, I understand in some capacity - they’re the royalty.” If he remembers the timeline, which he’s not sure he does, Courtney would have left the Court before Morgan’s incarceration. She would have known it as the nightmare it was under Elise’s absence and Morgan’s ambitions, and he can’t fault her for being wary of the next generation of women to rule over that den of vipers. 

“No,” she says. “That is not why. Mystics or no, I do not trust any of my kind who claim to love humans but then return to those frigid halls.”

How many stolen children had she known - disregarded, perhaps, back then - before John came into her care? She without a doubt knows what would have become of him had she raised him in the Twilight Realm. Thalassa and Klavier have gifts not worth the scars. Even a kindly fae guardian couldn’t protect a human child there. 

“I’d tend to disagree there, because they’re the Mystics,” Phoenix says. The courthouse doors swing closed behind them and they step into the bright sunlight and the noise. It’s easier to talk out on the street, their voices drowned out by the rest of the bustle. This is Los Angeles, crowded and noisy and the background radiation of Kurain, the fallout that drifted here, makes the city so damn weird that this conversation can’t be breaking the top ten of most bizarre conversations happening within this hour. “If they were just anyone, like you, I’d say yeah, leaving is best. But they’re at the top of the food chain - don’t they owe it to try and change things from up there?”

Had Elise and her fondness for humanity kept the throne, what then? Where would the Court be, anything or nothing changed? Or if Maya and Pearl left now, if Iris had kept to her self-exile, what would become of it? At the end of their bloodline, who would take their place as Mystics, on the throne, as Queen? How much worse can it get? (Better not to ask. Don’t tempt fate.)

“Would you tell Edgeworth to abandon the title of chief prosecutor because half the office is corrupt?” Phoenix adds. “That’s exactly why we need him there.”

On the sidewalk, Courtney stops to face him. “And I find that a very imperfect analogy,” she says.

“It’s an analogy - if it were perfect, it would be—”

She holds a finger up to her lips. Sometimes Phoenix would swear it’s more than just intimidation in that motion and that she puts magic behind it to make him or anyone trip over his tongue when she has a point she wants to make. “We need a justice system; we need prosecutors. We need to reform, to shine light on the shadows, for all our sakes. We do not need the Winter Court.”

“So you’re an advocate of fae anarchy?” Now there’s a sentence he didn’t expect to say. While he, and even Maya and Iris and Pearl, use it also to mean fae society as a whole, “the Winter Court” should, pedantically, refer only to their governance. He doesn’t know which Courtney means: that the fae hierarchy is unnecessary, or that they are.

“I am an advocate of us intermingling with humanity enough that we fade away entirely.”

The latter, then. “You might get that wish,” Phoenix says. He’s heard from Maya that they kill each other faster than they have children, and then those children that do happen get swapped for human ones, and every decision is one of impulse, a whim in the moment, no forethought, no concern for the repercussions, the inevitable societal collapse. And Maya has never sounded grieved by this. It’s a simple fact. Their dynasty will end with a whimper: that is their prophecy, and a self-inflicted one.

“I look forward to it. In the meantime, though, I must as of your ‘friends’ - do they think change is needed in the Court? Do they understand what it is that is so wrong there, or do they humor you and our morality as one would humor a child or a favorite pet?”

“If it’s getting a cat that makes you get rid of the toxic waste in your backyard, that’s still a good thing, right?” he asks irritably. If it ends at the same damn place— “You aren’t something different from them either, you know.”

“Of course I know.” She straightens her back, drawing herself up even straighter, and her cloak rustles, its movements continuing independently of her body, belying the two pairs of wings that under glamour pretend to be a garment. So far as he knows she can’t support herself to fly with those wings. They’re an aesthetic, part of her self-styled position as an avenging archangel of the Goddess of Law. “But that means I know how they are, as I once was. A question for you, Mr Wright, that I mean in the kindest way possible.” Part of him doubts that. “Do you believe, truly, that you have made enough of an impact on them that when you are gone, they will continue to respect the morality that you currently ask them to live by?”

“I—”

Iris would. Pearl - might. But he hasn’t seen Maya in years because he was afraid that even with him present, here, alive, she would go against his wishes and enact bloody vengeance on Kristoph. She offered it as a gift for free, like a cat would turn up a dead mouse on the doorstep. He can answer half the question, that he’s made an impact. She loves him. That isn’t what Courtney wants to know.

“We’re a bit off-track from your main concern, aren’t we?” A feeble redirect, but she doesn’t look smug so much as sad that she’s tripped him up here. “You wouldn’t trust them yourself, fine, but the question of what happens when I’m gone doesn’t have that much in common with you currently being angry that Sebastian was around them, now, when I’m still in the proximity.”

“I am what they are, of the fae. Sebastian is a witch - is my witch, you might say. In the Court, we hardwire ourselves into a particular way of thinking, whether we mean it or not. To survive, you learn that all others are threats, now or soon to be in the future, and if you cannot get at the threat itself right away, you wage a proxy war and strike against their resources, their tools, and their humans - who you would consider within the first two categories.”

Implication: obvious. Sort of. Part of it. “Why would they see you as a threat, though? You exiled yourself. You’ve said yourself you’re never going back.”

“It’s an instinct. Even I struggle with it.” Courtney steps closer to him, allow the sidewalk traffic to flow around them. Maybe they should start walking again, get out of the courthouse vicinity before the kids catch up. “Seeing another of my kind, or a changed child - my first impulse is to lash out. I find it incredibly unfortunate, not to mention distracting. I presided over a case the other day that Prosecutor Gavin was in charge of, and I believe we both found that profoundly uncomfortable, no matter how we reasonably know that we are very removed from that life.”

Profoundly uncomfortable is a decent way to describe how Phoenix feels at this thought, too. “Oh,” he says. “I see.”

“Yes. You understand, then, my concern that Sebastian will come to harm? You friends may protect your daughter and your proteges, because they are yours. But Sebastian…”

Those two are Edgeworth’s, not mine. He said it himself, shifted responsibility for their lives, because he’s already failing to convince himself that Athena and Apollo aren’t his responsibility, aren’t his kids. Didn’t he tell Iris they were, or at least implied it?

(And then Iris implied that Kay was right, that she and Sebastian were Phoenix’s too, by saying that Kay had decided for him. Of all that happened last night, that’s an inconsequential piece, and he remembers it vividly.)

(Which, actually, even if Iris hadn’t agreed, there’s still another question raised.)

“Yeah,” Phoenix agrees. “But, they know Edgeworth. My friends, I mean. They know he’s my friend. And they know who his - his people are, Kay, Sebastian, whoever else. That he wouldn’t be happy if anything happened to them, and I wouldn’t either.”

“Believe me, I do like to hear that,” Courtney says with a tiny smile. “But that is a chain too long for me to fully place my trust in. Understand where my concern comes from, and tell me in advance whenever you need the assistance of Sebastian the witch as much or more as Sebastian the prosecutor. Can we agree to that?”

“Absolutely,” Phoenix says. He could’ve agreed to it without the passive-aggressive shaming but - well, she probably thought she needed to do that to properly make her point. To make him understand, she would have thought it best to make him doubt first. How could she trust his fae when he isn’t certain that he himself does? Courtney’s won every hand this round. Probably time to step away from the table.

She smiles. “Good. Best of luck to you; I hope the Bar goes well.”

“Oh,” he says. “Uh, thanks.”

And then he winces, and she raises her eyebrows. The whole damn conversation, he was reminded, he was extra aware, of what she is, and then he slipped anyway. One of the first bits of advice Mia gave him, to never say thank you to Them. It’s an admission of owing a debt, however slight, and thank you does not fulfill a debt. “I hope you haven’t lost your touch,” Courtney adds, and it means double now. “I’ve wanted to someday see you in court, given how highly the chief prosecutor has spoken of you all these years.”

Implication: she can’t believe that the man Edgeworth so highly respects is the man standing before her. (Or maybe she does, and the one here who doesn’t believe such is Phoenix.)

“Well,” Phoenix says, “if you aren’t the judge on my first case back” - presumptuous to say he’ll be back, but confidence is a key point, though he’s pretty damn confident that Courtney wouldn’t be the judge, because he thinks he probably sealed some sort of accidental exclusivity pact with the one judge a long time ago - “you can come watch. I’ll let you know when. Or Edgeworth will.” Edgeworth might make a damn party out of it if Phoenix isn’t careful.

“I will look forward to it.” Courtney nods at him, one last acknowledgement. “Until next time.” She spins on her heel and weaves her way through the people on the sidewalk, a most mundane exit. Phoenix turns his eyes from her back, stares up at the courthouse behind them. Always something new to ponder, always another issue.

But dragging Sebastian out anywhere isn’t in future plans, so most of what he needs to concern himself with vis-à-vis Courtney is to extend to Trucy her offer that, if Trucy is interested in performing on the big screen and not the stage, Courtney will smack John into being in a good enough mood to accept any inquiries Trucy might have. 

Small mercies, that among everything else, Phoenix’s teenager has never been a moody teenager. He’s not sure how he would handle that.

-

Trucy arrives at the office after school, beaming once they tell her of their victory, and promising them that they are becoming the go-to law firm for the people of Nine-Tails Vale and Tenma Town. How is one supposed to feel when told that he might be the lawyer on retainer for a haunted valley? Word-of-mouth advertising is just about all the Wright Anything Agency has, and Apollo decides he’s going to skip thinking about this unless it becomes a problem again.

In a way that’s becoming a habit, the girls tear out of the office when the clock strikes five like their horses are going to turn into rodents again. “I’m too busy on weekends,” Trucy says, and she is, often, as a real magician trying to reintroduce stage magic to a city culturally wary of both, “but I’ve gotta show Athena all the coolest places around town as soon as possible!” 

“Didn’t you grow up here?” Apollo asks her, and Athena shrugs, and she and Trucy clamber into her car and honk and wave at him and are gone from the lot before Apollo has even unlocked his bike from the rack. 

Takes some getting used to, still, the new routine. Trucy going home with Athena even though Athena’s found somewhere to live that isn’t the Wright family couch. Since Christmas, Apollo and Trucy would bike part of the way home together - she had gotten hers as a present from “Uncle Miles - er, Mr Edgeworth, he’s awkward about me calling him that in front of people that he works with, I think it’s like a professionalism thing?” - but now—

Well, he can’t resent Trucy if she’d rather hang out with another girl her own age, and Athena’s a nice kid herself, and he doesn’t know where this thought is headed. Athena had offered to give him a lift, too, but accepting a ride from his coworker five years his junior, for more than heading to a crime scene, definitely feels undignified. What little dignity he has left.

Trucy never bothers to lock up her bike when she leaves it here, saying that Mia would make sure it wasn’t stolen. And it hasn’t ever been, yet - the only thing ever stolen from this office, far as Apollo knows, were Trucy’s magic panties; maybe Mia shares Apollo’s disdain for those things. But Apollo would rather trust something solid, and he still meticulously locks up his bike, and he still locks the office door behind him when he’s the last to leave.

About ready to go, sliding his lock into his backpack, someone behind him speaks. “Little dragon.”

Apollo whirls around, reflexively raising the lock in his hand like a weapon, letting his bicycle clatter to the ground. Iris flinches away, her hands coming up to protect her face, as though she couldn’t flatten him without touching him if she really wanted. Would she look more or less frightening if it was in the light of day that he saw her charcoal skin and red eyes? Kristoph under the clinical lights of the courtroom simply was.

“Why are you here?” Apollo asks, slowly lowering the lock, because it’s steel, not iron, and is not going to be of use. Hell, even iron doesn’t feel like enough, right now, not when he almost asked what do you want, a question that could surely be extorted into wrenching something away from him. What do you want, inches from, what can I give you, and the fae, tangling the lines.

“I have a piece of advice to offer,” Iris says. 

Apollo leans down to lift his bike from the ground, not breaking eye contact with her. Not enough eye contact is probably an offense. Too much is also probably an offense. The winning move is to not play and it’s far too late for that. “Am I allowed to refuse it?” he asks, and then he wants to stick his entire foot in his mouth, because advice doesn’t imply something binding, and he could disregard it without telling her that. Because this definitely is an offense, and Iris’ dark eyes narrow. He’d swear they flashed in the light, not red, but a white shine. He curls his hand around the handlebars and squeezes until he can feel the iron ring digging into his finger. 

“Yes, but I don’t believe you are so selfish, are you?” She scrutinizes him with a hard stare, wide eyes and a slack, blank face. 

“Er,” Apollo says. If he wants to ignore advice from dubious sources and gets ruined for it then that’s his problem, no one else’s. “Selfish?”

“Perhaps ‘advice’ is not the way to term it,” Iris says. She leans on the bike rack and her nails when they hit it make the soft tink of metal on metal. “An assurance, perhaps? And not only for you.”

“O...kay?” Do the fae enjoy being cryptic, or is it not on purpose and simply an impulse hardwired, a manner of speaking they think nothing of? Or is it for the sake of dramatics - it would explain a lot about Klavier if needless dramatics are a key cultural aspect of living among the fae. “For who, then?” If it was for anyone else - Trucy or Kay or Sebastian - she could have just said it last night, when they were all together. Why just ambush Apollo?

“Your friend,” she answers. That means nothing despite Apollo’s very limited number of friends. “The changed child, the lost boy. He is far from mad, I assure you - he is not twisted only in his own head, and he is not the only one who have ever seen through a looking glass a life that could have been.”

“Oh,” Apollo says. He hadn’t lent much credence to Klavier’s thought that his visions were just a psychological coping mechanism, honestly, but if Iris has insight then he won’t pass up the chance to learn more. “So, who else, then, has had that happen? If you can say,” he adds hastily. Maybe she can’t, or won’t, the way Klavier clams up.

“Little dragon,” she says, and Apollo doesn’t know if she’s teasing him or scolding him with that tone; it’s something almost in between, and a strange uncomfortable familiarity. “You have an eye for the Truth and a brick for a brain.”

“Eh?” Definitely not the best objection he could make to refute that. Even yelling “Objection!” might have been better. 

“Dense,” she says. “It’s me.”

“It’s - ah.” Right. Should he have guessed that? She knows about Klavier without - surely she hasn’t met him? She knows about something he only ever told Apollo. If she knows that, she might know anything, and she could be talking about anyone. “Why - why’s that happen, then? To you and Prosecutor Gavin but not - not—”

Not me, when I could very easily have lived several lives unfathomably different from each other? 

(Not that he wants to see it. Not that he envies Klavier at all. He doesn’t know if his heart would hold together at a glimpse of a life beside his brother.)

“I cannot say with total certainty, but he and I share something,” Iris says. “A complex, unfortunate entanglement with the name and life of another. His twin stole his life and name, while I borrowed both from mine.”

He feels like an echo in this conversation, adding nothing, just standing here in bewilderment asking for constant clarification. “His twin?” Apollo repeats. That’s - one way of putting it. Technically they are the same age, or supposed to be.

Iris nods solemnly, lowering her eyes, her lids heavy and hiding them entirely. “It is not quite the same. My sister was as fae as I am - we were born together, she the last red rays of a setting sun, and I the shadow of the horizon when the light sank away.” She pushes herself up off the bike rack, no longer leaning in toward Apollo but withdrawing into herself. “And I was indeed her shadow. We were not the daughters our mother wanted - my sister was powerful but not malleable, and I was weak and loved her more than I ever would our mother. She cast us aside and my sister set her sights on power among humans, not within the Court. I followed, because I was sure I would not live without her.”

My sister was, she said. Was. And that’s enough to know before Iris continues, lifting her chin and shaking her hair back out of her eyes. “But she is dead and I am still here, because her cruelest deeds caught up to her and I, all she had for a heart, could not shield her. All she knew was how to shed more blood, and she meant to, and instead I asked her, would she please not dirty her hands further, would she let me try to fix this my way; she allowed me to, and for the better part of a year our places were switched. Our name was Dahlia Hawthorne.” She tilts her head, studying Apollo intensely again, like she’s checking to see if the name means something to him. He isn’t sure that it doesn’t. 

“And I failed,” Iris continues, “and she acted her own way as she had wished to from the start - and then she failed, was judged and sentenced and taken from me and then from the world of the living, and I was left behind an echo. For years after that, I saw - not quite like your friend, not the one simple life that would have been, but many. A diamond, and its every facet a different alternative. A different possible life for Dahlia.” 

She lifts up a hand, her palm facing the sky, her fingers curled just slightly around a beveled gem that appears in her hand. Its clear body sparkles in the sunlight and Apollo sees flashes of movement inside of it, colors and shapes and people. “In one lifetime,” Iris says, and the gem, the diamond, floats in the air a few inches above her hand, “I never was her at all. I stepped aside and let my twin do what she would and never cared about the darkness we damned the legal system to languish in.” She twists her wrist and the diamond turns with it. “In another, I was Dahlia and after I did what I meant to I stayed, and then my sister killed him anyway because she could not bear for me to love anyone but her.”

“So your sister was a monster too,” Apollo blurts. He hopes she realizes the “too” refers to Kristoph, not to Iris. 

“Oh yes,” Iris says. “She was a demon; she was selfish and cruel and manipulative and she would have been an archetypal fae queen had she decided to fight for the throne. From the day we were born until the day she was executed, she cared about no one but herself. And from the day we were born, I have loved her, and until I die I will love her still. She is my sister and she is me and I was her - it’s a knotted mess, is it not, when there is someone else who is and isn’t you, and a name that is and isn’t yours.”

Apollo nods mutely. Did your sister care about you? he doesn’t ask, because while Iris has been open so far about her life story, and it’s a valid question given the way she talks about herself and her sister being one person, there’s got to be a line somewhere and he doesn’t want to meander across it. 

“I never did see a life where I did what I meant to and escaped without incurring an unpayable debt, nor did my sister ever choose a way to hide damning evidence that was not pawning it off on a naive boy who has since willed his heart to turn to stone because he loves so strongly that time and again it breaks.” Iris snaps her palm closed into a fist and the diamond vanishes, but her eyes hold a far-away look softer than the sharp movement. “It’s hard to believe in destiny when I’ve seen so many disparate possibilities, but I suppose it must exist in some form, and he always destined or damned to cross paths with the faes of Kurain.”

She isn’t talking about Phoenix, is she? “Do you still have visions?” Apollo asks instead. “Or how did you stop them?”

“For myself,” she says, and that sounds like a veiled warning that this isn’t going to help Klavier, that this is all subjective guesswork, and the fae’s prying eyes don’t have much help, “I needed a certain amount of closure. To see again the man I had most wronged, to tell him the truth, and that to see in spite of myself and my twin, he had survived and found people who loved him better than I ever could.”

He can’t not ask. The question is going to eat him otherwise. “So, erm, is this Mr Wright you’re referring to?” 

Iris stares at him with lifeless eyes. Apollo rubs the back of his head and decides that the best way to play is this is to make a plea deal by naming his co-conspirators. “And we were wondering, uh, me and Trucy and - and Athena, and Detective Faraday and Prosecutor Debeste - we were wondering, are you in love with Mr Wright?”

“No,” she says curtly.

“Oh.” He’d still sort of believe that single word, sharp and clipped as it was, to be a lie if she wasn’t fae. (And if he couldn’t see when humans are lying, sometimes. Most of the time. Whenever Blackquill isn’t involved.)

“Why did you think so?” she asks, studying him, her head tilting back and forth. Apollo regrets everything that brought him here, his bad choices and his friends who are bad choices themselves. “A moon rabbit heard something she thought was that?”

That has to mean Athena, “rabbit” an epithet commenting on her ears, though why “moon rabbit” in particular? (Apollo knows that some Asian cultures call it a rabbit in the moon, not because it was a Khura’inese story too - it’s not - and definitely not because he and Clay spent all of middle school and half of high school intensely into Sailor Moon - they definitely, totally didn’t.) What’s that got to do with Athena? Trucy a firebird, Apollo a dragon - what does Iris think she knows about Athena?

“No,” Apollo says. “It was just a kinda vibe that all of us felt?” He expends too much effort stopping his voice from cracking into a fearful squeak. “Can we forget that I asked that and just move on?”

“No,” Iris answers. Apollo’s heart sinks. “If I agreed, little dragon, that would be a deal, and a debt you owe to me.”

Shit. He’s done it again, said something wrong to her again, and he’s lucky that she’s - kind? Has a steep debt or her own and sympathizes? Or is she hoarding his missteps even while she points them out, waiting until there’s something she can get from him? 

“Didn’t your father teach you to better watch your words?”

Apollo tries very, very hard to pretend it’s just random that she said father over mother or parents - tries to pretend past the sticky dryness in his throat that she’s not fae, not of a habit of knowing things she has no way to know and not of a disposition to select every word with intricate care. And he tries to pretend that the most he learned from his father wasn’t the shapes of magatamas and mitamahs, an edict to hold his soul close, but that the people he loves are going to let him down sooner or later, or later. 

(Kristoph and Phoenix just reemphasized that one.)

“Entirely different question,” Apollo says. Better to move on. “Why did you tell me all this and not Prosecutor Gavin when he’s the one who actually…”

Actually is living with it and isn’t just Apollo, on the sidelines, the one who knows so many secrets, about Klavier, about Trucy and the Gramaryes, and now about Iris. (One of the fae, and he knows something so - so - about her.)

“And just how much do you suppose a man who was so stolen and changed wants to hear, unsolicited, anything from a royal creature of the Court that did this to him?”

Royalty, monsters, and Iris’ twin, the monster, who would have been the classic image of a queen. What’s their relation to Mia? How many are part of this royal family, and does Phoenix know all of them?

“Ah,” Apollo says. “Right. But I don’t really think he’s going to be much more receptive to me coming up to him and telling him what I’ve heard from one of the fae who impossibly knows things about him that she’s got know way of knowing!”

“Everyone you meet who’s magic brushes something off on you,” Iris explains. “Distinct traces, and one can learn a lot about someone else if she knows how to read it. And I am very familiar with your friend’s particular problem to recognize it.”

(If she sees all this about Klavier, could she tell Apollo what Dhurke is? And Nahyuta? If he wants information from her, what payment would she demand in return? Does he even want to know this?)

“It’s still creepy,” Apollo says. “And I’m not—” Not what? Equipped to handle any of this bugfuckery? Responsible for Klavier in any way? He’d like to be able to help him, sure, but this is - how much would it actually help?

Iris waits for him to finish the thought. 

“We’re barely friends,” Apollo adds, because she really looks like she’s going to stand there silently until he can stumble though some more words. “What am I supposed to do? Say ‘hey, I have it on good authority from one of the Fair Folk that you haven’t lost your mind, no she couldn’t tell you how to stop it, said some vague thing about getting closure’—”

“Come to think of it,” Iris muses, and dread coils up again in Apollo’s chest, “another factor in my visons ceasing may have been that at the same time of my gaining closure, or immediately after, I spent several years locked up in the iron hell that is prison, as an accomplice to covering up an act of voluntary manslaughter.”

“I - I’m sorry, you what?” 

With a tight, pursed-lip smile, Iris shakes her head. “That one is not a story that needs telling now.”

So her experiences are even less applicable to Klavier’s situation, then. Fantastic. “Why are you even telling me anything?” he asks. “I know you said it’s reassurance, for peace of mind, but, why?”

Why does she care?

“I believe that last night I assured Feenie that I would look after his children, yes? That I would not let them come to harm?” She sweeps her hair away from her face, back over her shoulder. “I am doing so.”

“I’m not - Prosecutor Gavin definitely isn’t - I don’t think that’s what Mr Wright meant.”

Her black eyes fix on him, stare straight through him. He’s pretty sure he knows what she’s saying. Do you think I don’t know that? 

But he’d rather think that she’s misunderstanding than consider the prospect that one of the fae has taken a kind of maternal interest in them. She’s still fae. Their families don’t function well, do they? She’s got to be expecting something in return, see something useful in them.

And Apollo’s not going to be anyone’s human weapon. 

“At any rate,” she says, finally ending that chilling silence that can’t have been more than ten seconds but also felt like it lasted about a thousand years, “you have more information now. Use it if you see the opportunity, as you judge fit and deem best. You know him better than I do.”

That can’t be hard, and doesn’t mean much. Apollo still doesn’t know how he’s supposed to say anything. It would be nice to give Klavier some reassurance that he isn’t cracked in the head more than any man who makes those deliberate aesthetic choices has to be, but this would probably just make him more paranoid. It’s making Apollo more paranoid, to begin to know the scope of what the fae can know, like he wasn’t freaked the hell out and has been ever since Iris called him a dragon. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

“I regret that I know no better way to help than to put this on you,” she says. “That I ask you to be so responsible for someone else’s pain.” At least she acknowledges it. “You have enough troubles of your own to be concerned with.”

Coming from one of the fae, that is the single most ominous statement Apollo has ever heard. He decides like so much else, he’s going to ignore it. “It’s fine,” he says. Not the trouble part, but Klavier. It’s sort of like Phoenix asking him every so often - less frequently as the months pass and October is further away - if he’s heard from Prosecutor Gavin lately, how he’s doing. It’s the same concept, just with more mad fae magic. 

Iris scrutinizes him again. He doubts her eyes could be any more piercing when they’re glowing red. “It’s a difficult thing, to care so much for someone who has the same face as someone who so hurt you,” she says. “And a harder thing to see in a mirror.” Again, she sweeps her hair back out of her face, and the glossy red that hides in it the black catches the light. “I suppose I probably will see you again sooner or later, little dragon. Best of luck to you in the meantime - and if there could be any words that he might accept from a faery monster such as myself, I hope one day he will hurt less than I do.”

She’s fae. If she says it, it has to be the truth, in some way or another, but this one seems plain. 

Iris scuffs at the sidewalk with her sandal. “I wonder,” she says, “if one of my cousins purposely cracked this so circular.”

And without glancing at Apollo again, she vanishes instantly. None of the pomp of leaving the manor, no flowers left behind. Nothing but a gust of cold air. 

-

Apollo has been home for half an hour when he realizes something else he did wrong. Like a note that would have been left in the margins of one of his clunky middle school essays, reminding him to watch his tenses. What he should have asked Iris was, have you at any point been in love with Mr Wright? 

[samingtonwilson]

Comforting Kisses

continuation of first (and second) kisses but can be read on its own.

next part: morning kisses

Summary: comforting kisses prompt- B takes A’s hands first, kissing their knuckles and palms. Then B reaches up to hold A’s face, pressing soft kisses around their cheeks, their lips, murmuring “it’s okay” and “you’re alright” and “I’m here” in between.

Pairing: bucky x reader

Warnings: language, slightly angsty, slightly fluff, sad bucky

A/N: that gif has nothing to do with the fic but he’s sad in it and he’s sad in this fic so. it works. also i love him in that gif bye. ALSO this is likely my favorite fic i’ve ever written n if it doesn’t do numbers i’ll be angry. im sorry if the read more break is acting up, but it’s on there.

The clear plastic binder sat open in your lap, laminated script pages barely readable in the dim lighting of your bedroom. Only the six-foot tall standing lamp beside the velvet loveseat upon which you sat and the far-too-expensive Jo Malone lime basil and mandarin candles constituted your sources of light, the soft chimy music you’d asked FRIDAY to play pouring through the overhead speakers as the only sounds aside from the calming voice you spoke in.

The air smelled divine and you were tempted to stop your scripted speech to tell Sam as such, though you were still unsure as to if the candles were worth their hefty price tag. But you stayed on-book— Sam needed the guided meditation and you promised to deliver.

“Now focus on your breathing. Notice each breath but only observe. Do not try to change your breathing in any way.”

You looked up at Sam when you paused. Smiling at the slow rising and falling of his chest as he sat perched in the center of your unnecessarily plush and large bed, you took a deep breath of your own before continuing. “If any thoughts arise, acknowledge them and let them go softly and calmly. Return your attention to your breathing.”

You did this for one another often. Sometimes Sam would sit in the exact place you were with a similar script, ocean soundscapes emitting from the speakers as he read and you focused on your breathing, on imagining the mist of waves sprinkling across your skin soothingly, on the wind and salt tangling your hair and making your eyelashes dewy.

Other times, such as this very moment, you would read lines to Sam with the intention of doing away his anxiety. You would tell him to focus on his breathing, on the feeling of the wind washing over him as if he were flying— but without the carbon fiber wings, without the red-tinted goggles and the itchy tactical trousers. Without the pressure of a mission, without the tension of a mission, without the voices and grunts and screams shaking his eardrums as they droned from the comms.

Of course, the two of you never told the others. Though you knew it was far from likely that any of the universe’s mightiest heroes would poke fun, something about your deepest insecurities being broadcasted to a large set of super-people, even super-people that would understand, burrowed itself under your skin and made you feel itchy.

After all, as an Avenger, you were expected to behave a certain way, look a certain way, feel a certain way— and while each of you deviated from that media-enforced norm, you kept up the image. For your own sanity’s sake and for everyone else’s, you weren’t going to be the reason Steve Rogers lost his hair after a hundred years and Natasha Romanoff lost her cool for the first time in thirty.

You’d known Sam a while, however. You knew about Riley, about the nightmares that sometimes still kept him up at night, about the heartbreak he repeatedly experienced at the VA— he knew he couldn’t save everyone as the Falcon or Sam Wilson, but somehow he still expected himself to. He knew about your demons as well, about the scars that lay scattered over and under your skin, and was the only person for which you’d allowed such a thing.

He’d told you countless times to allow Bucky the same courtesy, especially now that the two of you were… whatever you were. He assured you that Bucky cared for you just as you cared for him, that Bucky would want to hear what you had to say, that Bucky would want to help you in any way he could.

But he never pressured you. He knew Bucky was busy working past the shackles that may have no longer physically restrained him but were still digging sharply into every one of his cells, and he couldn’t imagine what it must have taken Bucky to allow you to come so close. Obviously he was not knowledgeable on the finite details of your… whatever you were with Bucky, but he had an inkling of the limits each of you had set from just knowing both parties. Both stubborn as fuck, scared as fuck, touch-starved as fuck but terrified of the outcome of trying to change that parties.

You thought Bucky’s hands and lips alone almost broke the dam— and the inclusion of anything else, of having him literally bury himself inside you, would desecrate it. You knew once you’d crossed that line once, it would never be enough. But you also knew that, for him, it likely would be. After all, he looked pained enough after every single soft kiss. You couldn’t imagine his agony, his fear, his utter misery at even the prospect of anything more.

It was when you seamlessly flowed into the lines about soaring through a perfect night sky with stars and glittering far-off planets that a scream cut through the calm atmosphere.

After a brief and painful squeeze, your heartbeat immediately picked up so the tired organ slammed against your ribs hard enough to make your bones shake. You swallowed over a dry throat and narrowed your eyes at the pages.

You didn’t speak for some time as another scream was torn the floor above you. You found yourself unable to read the pages— blurriness occluded your vision and you were unable to blink or will it away.

Sam said your name softly and you jumped, eyes wide as they met his. He offered you a small smile that glowed even in the limited lighting. “Go.”

Staring at him for a moment only led to shaking your head. You cleared your throat and squinted at the pages. “The, um— The stars surround— The—”

“FRIDAY, lights, please. Dim,” he requested gently. As the lights came up slowly, he tilted his head and he inspected your expression. “Baby girl, go upstairs. He needs you.”

Incredulously, you shook your head. “He doesn’t want me there.”

“He doesn’t wan—” Sam scoffed. “He wants you there, he wants you wherever he is.”

“He recoils when I touch him, Sam. That first kiss is all I’ve gotten out of him that’s made me feel remotely wanted.”

Sam offered you a disbelieving, dry look of his own. “Trick, get your ass upstairs.”

Your laugh was borne of a gasp, your smile easy as you shut the binder and climbed off the loveseat. “Blow the candles out and put them away before you leave.”

You heard him hum curtly and saw him wave a dismissive hand as you walked out of the room, socks sliding across sealed concrete floors to the stairs.

You nodded once in greeting at a visibly shaken Wanda, her emerald eyes wide as if she’d given into temptation and looked for even a millisecond into Bucky’s mind as he whimpered from behind the door she stood beside, the screams done and over but the heartbreak of the softer sounds not any less.

You set your hand on her shoulder and winced to yourself when she jumped. “Wan, angel, I can handle it from here.”

Glistening eyes, still disoriented, met yours and she nodded stiffly. “He’s— There’s so much.”

“I know there is, I know.” When she leant into your touch, you wrapped her in a hug, running a smooth hand over her back. “Will you be okay?”

She nodded a little more fluidly. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just— Take care.”

You smiled at her retreating figure. “I will.”

A steadying breath filled your lungs and you pushed Bucky’s door open, limited compound ground lights streaming through thin, gauzy drapes and bleeding across his sweat-soaked skin.

He sat, shoulders hunched, in his bed with the blankets pooled at his waist and his legs outstretched before him. You could remember Steve telling you something about Bucky’s internal thermostat. Though his temperature ran warmer than the norm, he always felt too cold— as if still trapped in the nightmare of cryofreeze— so he rolled himself in a few blankets and the comforter when he tried to sleep.

You shut the door behind you and Bucky looked up from the hands in which he’d dropped his head. His features were grief and fear stricken, a weight you couldn’t imagine pulling at the corners of his bitten lips and it seemed to only grow heavier as you neared him cautiously.

You sat at the edge of the bed, folding one leg atop the mattress and saying quietly, “Bucky, —”

Something inside of him seemed to break at the mere sound of his name on your tongue, features crumpling and eyes leaving yours only to find you again as tears fell and rolled down his cheeks.

As he lifted his flesh hand to reach for you, you reflexively moved to kneel beside him and took both his hands instead. Your thumbs brushed across vibranium and his skin as you brought them to your lips, lightly kissing his knuckles and palms.

You knew the kisses you pressed to the metal wouldn’t feel the same for him, you knew he could only perceive the pressure and the relative temperature, yet his heart seemed to break even more at the gesture.

This was the person he’d been pushing away, the person he’d been deathly afraid to show his heart to, the person, that in all honesty, his battered heart belonged to. And because you held whatever power there was to wield, it was overwhelming that you were using that power, that influence and dynamism to express warmth. It made his mind grapple with his previous definition of power, of influence that was only used to torture, to pick apart his senses and toy with them like he was disposable. His tears came quicker, it made him fall back to Earth.

He occupied his body now, that disembodied existence subsiding for a single, addictive minute. Still, a broken voice asked, “You’re here, right? I’m— I’m here, with you?”

You nodded quickly. “Yes. Yeah, you are.”

Reluctantly, he let go of your hands and fisted either side of your shirt to pull you closer, coaxing you to straddle his lap so his arms could wind tightly enough around you to make your breathing difficult. But you didn’t seem to mind, hands holding his face to brush your thumbs against his skin again.

You then leant forward to press soft kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, his temples, whispering placatingly, “It’s okay, Bucky. You’re okay, you’re alright.”

His arms tightened further as a result, an almost bruising strength in the fingers that sat below your ribs. You thought fleetingly that if he needed a reminder of your presence, of his own, you could show him the marks.

“I’m here,” you continued between each kiss, feather-light kisses now pressed to his lips. “You’re okay.”

Your fingers combed through his long hair and nails lightly scraped his scalp— it seemed to help him relax in your arms. You sighed out almost inaudibly as he turned to bury his face into the crook of your neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said against your skin after what felt like hours but was likely a few handfuls of minutes, hands adjusting your legs to wrap around his waist so you sat more comfortably and as close as possible. “I’m sorry.”

Your fingers stopped and Bucky winced to himself. “Why are you— There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

He let you sit back so you could look at him and he could look at you. Slate blue eyes with a degree of weakness you wished you could alleviate stared at you openly, the hands on you in stark contrast to anything you’d experienced with Bucky over the last few weeks.

You took his hands in yours again, lacing your fingers through his so your palms sat against his. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’ve been so—” he took a breath. “You’ve been so patient with me.”

Shrugging a shoulder, you frowned in consideration briefly. “You’re worth that.”

There was a renewed tightness in his throat as he looked at you. A groan rumbled in his chest as he surged forward, catching you from losing your balance with his palms at your back as he claimed your lips with his. He seemed to want to pull you closer, to assimilate you even more as you tongue tangled with his and you crossed your ankles behind him.

His lips stayed upon your skin even as you broke the kiss to fill your lungs, kisses pressed to your cheek and jaw before his teeth, tongue, and lips marked the skin you would have tattooed his traces onto if he ever needed proof again.

Tongue against your pulsepoint, he felt your fluttering heartbeat and thought he might have imagined your quick breathing that matched his.

Part of him wanted to flip the two of you over so you were beneath him, tear the t-shirt and leggings from your skin after doing away with his own shirt and boxers so heated skin was pressed to heated skin. He wanted to taste every inch of you, hear every reaction from you, see you as you came undone.

But he knew this wasn’t the time.

Now was a time for him to hold you and for you to hold him, to ground him in the moment, to anchor him to Earth.

Now was a time for him to feel blanketed and to wrap you in that warmth as well, still turning both of you so you lay facing each other.

Now was a time for him to throw a protective arm made of vibranium over your waist, to pull you into his chest and rest his chin atop your head.

Now was a time for him to love you, but to hide just how much.

[mbakusthrone]

Fever: Pt. 15 [M’Baku x Reader]

Summary: The reader, M’Baku, T’Challa, Okoye and Shuri engage in the final battle in the Forest of Red Trees

@lovelynervouschaos @mottergirl99 @palmsofgranate @therevolution-willbelive @part-time-patronus @roman-reigns-princess @muse-of-mbaku @thiccdaddy-mbaku @mermaidchansons @kreolemami @imagine-mbaku @killmongersaidheyauntie @killmoncoochie @melaninmarvel @zuzuspanda @maliadestiny

You told M’Baku everything. Everything. The dreams, The Girl In Black, your mother. It was like you couldn’t hold anything in anymore. After almost losing him, almost losing yourself, it didn’t seem like it mattered to keep any secrets. M’Baku walked silently as he listened, his face unmoving and his eyes straight ahead. His hand fully enveloped yours, his grip almost too tight on your wrist. T’Challa, Okoye, and Shuri followed close behind, still shivering from your unexpected blast of ice.

You were headed to the Forest of Red Trees, what M’Baku was planning to do once he got there you did not know. He seemingly read your mind as he stopped in his tracks, interrupting you in mid sentence.

It was quiet for a few seconds. The type of quiet that you can only get from light snowfall. A sort of reverent stillness that made your heart ache. On your first night living in the Jabari lands, it was this quiet peace that made you think, possibly, that everything would be alright.

“What? Why did we stop?” Shuri shivered.

M’Baku looked down at you, his grip on your wrist tightened. You almost thought you saw tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

“M’Baku..” You barely whispered.

“Whatever may happen,” M’Baku breathed, his eyes staring straight into yours, “We fight together.”

“All of us.” You said, taking a hand to palm your stomach. T’Challa put a heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Let us get a move on,” T’Challa said, “I think we may have found what we are looking for.” T’Challa pointed to a clearing just within sight. The trees there were stained red. You nodded your head and took a step forward.

Your foot landed in a warm puddle of water. Startled, you staggered back, only to realize that you were ankle deep in water. You looked up to M’Baku, but he wasn’t there, no one was there. It was only you.

Another vision.

You swung around, looking for your mother. Colossal trees covered in moss and vines towered over you. The chirping sounds of critters and other animals created a harmony of nature, so loud it was buzzing in your ears. The air felt warm and moist, sweat already rolling down your face. You were in a swamp.

“Mother!” You called. You began trudging through the water, the thick mud and grass making it hard for you to walk. “Mother!” It was almost as if the water was grabbing on to you, the grass tangling between your toes and almost yanking you down. You realized the water was now up to your shins. Your heart thudded in your chest as you remembered your dream of drowning in an ocean of blood. You ran faster, your muscles painfully straining to pull from the muck. The cloudy, green water was already up to your stomach. The water suddenly started moving, like a stream. It was trying to push you over, topple you into the water. “No!! Mother! Help!” You screamed. You looked down into the water, down into your reflection. It wasn’t you. Your face was the same, sort of. It was more angled, and softer. Your lips were fuller and your eyes wider. Your fro was larger, fuller. Decorated by a large yellow crown.

Oshun.

The water began rushing faster, sweeping across your chest. The vines and greens of the swamp wrapping around your legs and pulling you down. Staring at your reflection, you took a deep breath and dove into the water.

“Y/N!!?” M’Baku shook you by your shoulders. Your eyes were misted over with a deathly gray color.

“M’Baku stop!” Shuri cried “There’s no use in that. You can only wait until she wakes up.”

“Listen to her!” Okoye hissed. “We might as well keep going.”

M’Baku stared at you in his hands. If it weren’t for your breathing, he would have thought you were dead. M’Baku took off his furs and wrapped them around you. Tying you to his chest, he nodded to T’Challa and Okoye.

“Let’s go.” He grunted.

You waded calmly in the water, holding your breath as hard as you could. Reflections of sunlight danced within the green waters, you caught glimpses of fish swimming below you. Your chest started to hurt. If this was where Oshun wanted you to be, she would have to communicate with you soon before you ran out of air. You turned to start swimming, and almost collided with a large black fish. Startled, you flew black and gasped.

Wait. Gasped?

You took a shaky breath. Then another. You could breathe down here.

“Interesting, is it not?” A voice echoed. You yelped and whirled around. It was you...almost. A more beautiful you. The reflection that stared back at you in the water. She was covered in jewelry, varying shades of gold and white. Flowing, gold robes covered her, waving with the currents. Her crown gleamed with the reflection of the sunlight. She saw your look of bewilderment and laughed.

“Is it really you?” Your voice echoed.

“It really is you.” She responded. You frowned.

“I’m confused.” She swam towards you, or rather, moved. She didn’t have to swim, the water pushed her towards you.

“You know, I am glad that I chose someone as strong as you as my vessel.”

“Strong?”

“Yes, do you not think so?”

You considered it. T’Challa was a powerhouse of fighting skills. Okoye was a fierce warrior. There was no questions of M’Baku’s strength. Even Shuri’s strength was her massive intellect. What did you have? A cane?

“Those things do not matter.” Oshun said simply. You were taken aback.

“Can you….”

“I AM your mind, Y/N. That’s why I know the strength that lies within you. You are powerful beyond your wildest imagination, the only question is, will you let your fear and emotions block that power?”

“I want to be brave, but I’m too scared.”

“Brave... scared, these are the same things, Y/N. You cannot have one without the other.”

Oshun took both of your hands in hers. They were the same, exact size and shape. Your hands were rougher than hers.

“If you let them win, it will destroy all of Wakanda. It will destroy the whole world. You are the key.”

“How can I be? I can’t fight with a baby and a possessive husband.”

“The fact that your husband and child are in danger SHOULD be the reason you fight.”

Everyone jumped back at the sound of you gasping back to reality. Quickly untying you, M’Baku steadied you on your feet. Your eyes unclouded back to normal, and you looked at your husband with determined eyes.

“We’re here.” You breathed. Looking up, you noticed the grass before you was green and flourished, completely untouched by the snow. In fact, the entire clearing seemed like a simulation of a perfect spring day. Birds were chirping, yet there were no birds in sight. The sky was clear blue, but with a grayish tint. The trees and grass were moving with the wind, but there was no breeze. Something was definitely off.

Letting go of your husband’s hands, you slowly walked into the clearing.

“Y/N…” M’Baku warned. You ignored him, looking up into the trees, lined with bright, sparkly red leaves and vines that wrapped around the trunk. It was unnatural. But there was something that irked you even more. You closed your eyes and tried to listen, there was a soft beat, seemingly coming from everywhere. You bent down and pressed your hand to the ground. It was almost like…..

“A pulse.” T’Challa finished. His Panther Claw was fixed into the ground. “The forest has a heartbeat.”

“Y/N…” A voice called out from the forest. The hairs on the back of M’Baku’s neck stood straight up, M’Baku stood in front of you, his spear ready. A chill went down your spine as you recognized the voice from your blood dream. You stared hard at a red shadow within the trees, it was if it was calling to you. You squinted. You could almost make out a-

A thick, veined vine shot from the shadow within the trees, headed right towards you. M’Baku grabbed you and rolled out of the way. Before you could blink, three more vines attacked from beyond the clearing. T’Challa pushed Shuri back and barely dodged a vine. Okoye jumped and slashed a vine with her spear. You ducked under M’Baku as he blocked the attack with his shield.

For a few seconds, it was dead silent. No fake birds, false wind. M’Baku peered over at his shield. It was steaming with sparkled red liquid.

“The vines! They’re poisoned!” M’Baku called out. Shuri groaned.

“Of course they are!”

“Well damn,” A deep, blood curdling voice vibrated through the forest. “It’s been a while hasn’t it cousin?”

T’Challa stood up, a angry fear rushing through him.

“N’JADAKA!!” He screamed. A red vine whipped around the trunk of a tree, then another. Vines were stabbing into the ground and moving forward as if...they were walking.

You all watched in horror, as a heavily scarred figure, accompanied by disgusting, veined red vines that acted as limbs, climbed into view.

Killmonger.

Half of his face was his, the other half a terrifying mask of red vines. A half head of dreads poked from his head, a half smile lined with gold teeth. The smile widened.

“Ya’ll missed me?” He joked.

Okoye wasted no time throwing her spear directly at the monster. Killmonger’s vine caught the spear and broke it in half, throwing the remnants into the forest. “I sho didn’t miss yo ass.”

Okoye ducked and rolled behind T’Challa as one of Killmonger’s limbs almost shot right through her.

“Why are you doing this?” T’Challa yelled.

Killmonger leaned back and let out a gagged chortle. It was almost laughter.

“Well it looks like W’Kabi wasn’t the only one who wanted to join the Killmonger stan club. A whole flock of em wanted to worship me. Me! Once my man Mandarin found me and made me what I am, it was almost too easy. Help him defeat the Avengers, I get Wakanda. Easy.”

“Look at yourself, N’Jadaka. You’re a monster!” T’Challa removed his mask.

“I’M ALREADY WHAT YOU THOUGHT I WAS!” The trees shook with Killmonger’s scream. Your eyes widened. Killmonger wasn’t just a part of the forest. He WAS the forest. Throughout the clearing, a mass of warriors appeared beyond the trees. “But it’s okay though, this all be over soon.”

You stepped from behind M’Baku’s shield, revealing yourself. A vine rose and pointed at your forehead. M’Baku quickly stood up, you held a hand up to stop him.

“You.” Killmonger said, his word shaking the ground under you.

“What is your quarrel with me?” You said confidently.

“I remember you, in the water, right before I was reborn. You tried to drown me. Told me you would never let me win. You was a lot finer in the water tho.” Killmonger half smirked. Your heart thudded in your chest. Oshun. A vine whipped towards you at impossible speed. Without thinking, your arm reacted and sliced through the vine. The dismembered limb fell to the ground and withered up into a black twig. You looked at your arm in awe, it was covered in a thick layer of ice, an almost dagger like sword shaped on you. Killmonger looked down in fury. “AYE!” He called. A tall, black haired man stepped into the clearing. The Mandarin. “KILL THESE NIGGAS!”

T’Challa whipped into action.

“Okoye, Shuri, M’Baku! Handle the warriors! I’ll take him.” T’Challa pointed to The Mandarin.

Shuri pulled out her Panther Blasters. Okoye whipped out another spear from her armor. M’Baku was already charging. You heart beat in your ears. It was battle. Real battle. Something each of them had been trained for. For maybe their whole lives. You were trained for nothing.

“Y/N!!” Your husband called to you. He whipped several knives out of the air and stabbed a white robed person in their chest. “FIGHT!!”

That was all you needed. Several vines shot through the air. You ran, slicing through any vines that threatened your life.

“You the only thing that’s in my way, little girl.” Killmonger seethed, sparkled red liquid dripping from his golden fangs. Your breath was caught in your chest and you were already heaving. You weren’t cut out for this. You spun and cut as many vines as you could. They were coming faster than you could cut them. “That won’t be for long though.”

Running into the trees, you stopped behind a tree and folded yourself as small as possible.

“Y/N…..” Killmonger called in a sinister sing song voice. “Where you aaaaaat.”

You put your head in your arms to quiet your breathing. You couldn’t do this. You were in over your head. If only your powers had been given to Okoye, or M’Baku. A tear fell down your cheek. You were too weak. The sound of rippling water made you look up. It was a puddle, right beside you. You crawled over and looked down into it. Ohsun didn’t stare back at you. It was your regular self, dirt covered face and grass sprinkled fro. Red eyes and frowned eyebrows. But...it was you. You were still there. There was no denying that. You had done some crazy, stupid, scary things to get there. Scary things. Brave things. There was no difference. You stared down at your hands. You were scared AND brave. “THERE YOU ARE.” Killmonger growled in your ear. You jumped back and willed the puddle into your hands as a spear. You thrust the spear with all your strength into Killmonger’s scarred eye. Killmonger screamed in painful anguish. You scrambled to your feet and sprinted back to the clearing. You watched as your husband whipped his spear, his massive frame completely engulfed in combat. He turned to you, almost sensing your presence. Your heart filled with ache and you ran to him, desperate to be close to him.

A vine shot out from behind you hurtling towards M’Baku. Your heart stopped as you turned and sliced through the vine. You fell to your knees, looking for your husband.

It was too late.

You watched as the vine, stabbed completely into M’Baku, wither to black.

No. No.

“NO!” You screamed, falling onto his chest. You watched as his armor filled with his blood, mixing with sparkled red poison. M’Baku coughed, sparkled blood dripping from his mouth. Your chest cracked and shattered into a million pieces. Your hands shook as you wavered over his wound, unsure of what to do. “M’Baku no, you can’t. Please. Please! Please!” You begged to no one. Your tears fell onto your bloodied hands. M’Baku’s eyes rolled over to you, his eyes already brimming with poison. He put a weak hand on your stomach.

“I...love you both.” He choked out, his eyes rolled back and he sighed into silence.

He was dead.

“Awww. My bad. Did I do that?” Killmonger’s voice vibrated behind you. You balled your hands into fists on M’Baku’s armor. You started to shake, anguish, fury, and mourning setting in your blood and rushing through your core. Tears fell down your face as your eyes clouded over a misty white. Your body began to levitate into the air, your fury climbing by the second. The blue sky darkened, the sounds of thunder in the distance.

T’Challa dodged a swing from The Mandarin and kicked him in his chest. Before he could attack again, a dark shadow passed over the clearing. He looked up to see black clouds looming over the trees. A wind was picking up, a real wind, a strong wind. T’Challa picked up a familiar scent. It was Earthy, and salty. It smelled like, the ocean. T’Challa saw you in the air, your eyes a terrifying glowing white, your arms and legs formed an open stance. Your face was full of tears and anger. The ground began to shake, he could feel something coming.

“Look!” Okoye called out. The warriors began to scream and run. Behind your figure was a greyish white wave, as tall as a skyscraper, headed right for the clearing. Right before the wave hit, T’Challa tackled Shuri and covered her.

You challenged water to bend at your will. You willed the wave to spin itself, around and around, until it became a Whirlwind Spear, pointed directly at your husband’s murderer. Killmonger’s limbs tried to whip out and lash at you, but the water sliced it away. Killmonger looked up at you with astonished fear. You stared down at him and pointed a finger at him. Killmonger stared back, and bared his teeth at you.

“You think I’m scared of a fuckin puddle? Bitch Imma KILL YOU!!” Killmonger launched himself at you, his vines poised for attack. Black spots started to cloud your vision. With one last scream, you rushed your Whirlwind Spear, impaling Killmonger in the chest. The World went to black.

[raptorginger]

I Will Follow You Into the Dark: Chapter One

Here’s the Late 1800s/Outer Banks/Childhood friends/Coming of Age/Scavenger Rey/Is Ben a  pirate? AU no one asked for :O)

The sand was cold and coarse beneath the girl’s small bare feet.  Her wool skirts were heavy from the damp, and she clutched at them in a desperate attempt to keep them from touching the water.  The smell of salt was so thick in the air, the girl could taste it on her tongue.  There was no light, there never was, except the light of the moon and the glowing sea life that skimmed the surface of the ocean water.  Sky and sea were an endless void of blue black, the glowing creatures mirroring the stars in the sky.  It was disorienting for a lot of people.  Rey dared not venture too close to the water’s edge, lest she get dragged away in a rip tide.  She’d seen it happen before and had no desire to become victim to the sea.  Plutt had taught her to respect the sea, since it had no respect for her.  

So far, her scavenging tonight had been fruitless.  Plutt had been out earlier with his horse and lantern, but the girl Rey found nothing to indicate he’d managed to lure a ship in.  She sighed.  He would not be happy in the morning.  The little girl was about to give up and head back to the shanty she called home when a dark lump in the distance caught her eye.  Rey bunched up her skirts and scampered hastily towards the spot, tripping and sliding in the wet sand.  She hoped it was something good.  She had been helping Plutt for four years, scavenging the beaches around Nags Head for him, which was roughly half her life, if she had her math right.  Plutt had taught her basic numbers, and how to read after she’d been orphaned and he found her picking through the sand one night, but numbers weren’t his strong suit, so Rey had no idea truly.  Plutt picked the day he found her to call her birthday and decided she was four, since she hadn’t remembered, and the seasons had cycled four times since then.  Rey was pretty sure half of eight was four.  He wasn’t a mean man, exactly.  He gave Rey food, gave her a little money, and let her keep the things he didn’t want.  Sometimes she’d sell them, sometimes she’d keep them.  She tried not to think too hard about how she came by her things, like her favorite doll.  He’d helped her build up the little shanty she lived in by the beach so it could withstand some of the more extreme weather that got thrown at the Outer Banks.

She hoped whatever the lump was wasn’t too heavy.  She didn’t have to bring the large stuff to Plutt’s house in town, but she did have to drag it to one of their secret hiding places on the beach so his other helpers could get it later.  She reached the lump, finding a small wooden crate.  She gave a squeal of excitement.  Plutt would be happy.  Things he liked usually came in wooden crates.  She tugged the crowbar she always kept with her on these scavenging trips from the tie of her apron and wedged it beneath the crate’s lid.  She gave a little jump, pushing all her weight down onto the bar, pleased to hear the creaking of the nails coming loose.  She gave it another go, popping the lid off entirely.  She hooked the crowbar back into her apron strings and squinted into the box.  It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like bottles.  Rey gave the crate a jiggle, hearing glass clink.  Definitely bottles.  She reached in and pulled one out, giving it a shake.  It was heavy, and something sloshed around inside.  That was a good sign.  She felt around the neck of the bottle, checking to make sure it was still sealed.  Finding no break in the wax, she placed it carefully back into the box.  She pawed around, counting twelve bottles, all intact.  Plutt would be very happy.

Rey tugged her dragging net from her large front pocket, laying it carefully in front of the box.  After several minutes of maneuvering, she managed to wiggle the box and tug the net underneath it.  She threw the extra length of the net back over the box, grabbing all four corners and began to drag her prize away from the surf.  Luckily she wasn’t too far from one of their secret dune pits, and she managed to reach it after an hour or so.  She uncovered the pit door, feeling around for the raised number so she’d know what to tell Plutt in the morning.  She reached into the pocket of her skirt for the key, fumbling in the dark with the lock.  Throwing the heavy wooden door back against the dune, she pushed the box inside, tugging her net free.  She closed and locked the door, pocketing her key.  She wiped the sweat and sand from her brow with the linen of her shirt sleeve.  Her hair was limp and plastered against face and neck.  Her arms and legs were tired, and she turned for home.  A crate of something in bottles would be good enough.  She gave the beach one last scan and was surprised to see another lump a bit further down the beach than the box had been.  She sighed.  She might as well take a look.  If it was small, it wasn’t too far from this pit, and if it was big, well, she’d let some other scavenger find it.  Plutt didn’t need to know.

She made her way slowly to the lump, her heart sinking as it got bigger and bigger.  It was definitely bigger than the box.  She was about five feet away when her brow furrowed and she squinted.  The lump was a weird shape, one she didn’t recognize.  Things she found were usually in barrels or crates.  This almost looked like…

Rey gave a terrified squeak as she realized she was looking at a body.  She tugged her crowbar free and approached slowly, cautiously.  Plutt had always told her to run the opposite direction if she ever found a body, but something about this one told her not to.  Whoever it was was face down in the sand, their arms outstretched, like they had pulled themselves from the sea.  It was too dark to tell if it was a man or woman without flipping the body over, but they were tall, whoever they were.  Rey assumed it was a man, since the body had a pair of black pants on and what was probably once a white shirt.  Rey poked the form in the back gently with her crowbar, jumping back in case it moved.  It didn’t.  She approached and poked again.  Nothing.  She stowed her crowbar and went slowly down on her knees, pushing against the body’s side with all her might to flip it over.  With some effort and grunting, she turned the body, falling back onto her rear as it fell on its back.  

Rey crawled forward, reaching out a small hand to brush the sand and hair from the form’s face.  It was a man, but a young one she guessed.  Rey felt a large mouth and nose, sharp cheekbones.  His hair was somewhat long and caked with sand.  In the moonlight Rey caught the shimmer of blood along one side of his face down to his chest.  He’d been cut there, and not too long ago if it hadn’t healed yet.  She held her fingers under his nose and waited.  She felt her cold fingers warm slightly.  She squeaked again.  He was still alive.  She pressed her ear to his chest, listening for a heart beat.  Sure enough, one came, strong but slow.  Rey raised her head and looked around the beach, looking for, something.  She didn’t really know.  Something that indicated there’d been a shipwreck or a lifeboat or a raft or just, something.  Something that told her where this boy had come from.  It really did appear like he’d dragged himself out of the sea.

Rey huffed.  He wouldn’t last out here.  The night was cold, and he was cold from the ocean water.  She made up her mind, tired as she was.  She tugged her net out again and twisted it into a makeshift rope.  She looped it around the boy’s ankles, above his bare feet, and secured it with a special knot Plutt had showed her.  Then, she began to tug and drag the boy back to her little house.  It was hard; he was much heavier than anything she’d ever had to drag around for Plutt.  But, she gritted her teeth and soldiered on.  She was determined to save this boy.  

The gentle lavender light of dawn was just beginning to creep out from the horizon when Rey reached home.  Dragging the boy into the darkness of the shanty as close to the hearth as she dared, Rey untied his ankles and went about lighting a fire in the grate with wood from the box nearby.  The blaze flared quickly to life, as the wood was quite dry.  Rey recalled hearing that a person in such a state should have their clothing removed, so she grabbed her knife from the table and cut the boy’s shirt off, tugging it away and using it to further wipe sand from his face.  Some of the sand was in his cut, and Rey winced.  He’d carry that wound for the rest of his life.  She couldn’t bring herself to remove his trousers.  Standing on a stool, she tugged a few heavy woolen blankets down from a nearby shelf, rolling one and placing it under the boy’s head, and wrapping the other around him as best she could, tucking the edges underneath him.  She grabbed a cup from her small table and ran outside, filling it with fresh water.  She poured half over his cut, and set the cup beside him for when he woke up.  Rey hoped he would wake up.

Satisfied that she’d done what she could for the boy, she skittered up the ladder past her sleeping bunk to the top where she kept a few things that she didn’t want near the ground in case of water or vermin, clutching her knife to her chest.  She hid behind a sack of flour and waited, never taking her eyes off the boy on the floor.  His skin was deathly pale, his hair jet black.  His lips were an unhealthy purple blue color.  His cut was like a river of crimson across his pale skin.  Rey shivered.  Something about him made her uneasy, but she fought the feeling away.  He was just a boy, and he needed her help.

Try as she might to fight it, her eyes began to flutter closed.  Exhausted from her efforts, the little girl Rey collapsed against the sack of flour, her knife falling from her fingers to the floor with barely a sound, and drifted off into a deep sleep.  She might have slept through the whole morning if the sound of terrified screaming and shouts hadn’t woken her.

[fumbliesthots]

So, I’m a scuba diver now

Successfully completed my PADI Open Water Diver course in Phuket, and didn’t die! Hooray.

It wasn’t easy for both Az and I, since we were both deathly terrified of drowning. In fact before the trip I was (jokingly) bidding farewells to people in case I didn’t make it *touch wood*.

The course spanned over 3 days, and weeks before that we had to watch a long-ass series of training videos to acquaint ourselves with the techniques of diving, and complete a rather long and technical MCQ test.

Day 1

On the first morning of our lesson, we met our instructor, Andre, at the dive school. He went through our test sheets and patiently explained the principles and techniques behind each questions, especially the ones we didn’t get right. (I was super confused on questions about no-stop dives and calculating safety stops)

After that, we were driven to the pool, a short distance away, to have our basic swimming and underwater techniques training and test. Az and I were asked to first swim 10 short laps across the pool without goggles. Then we went through the lesson on preparing our gear and equipment checks. There were many details to remember but we were assured that once we do them a few times it would be easy enough.

The entire afternoon was then spent in the pool, learning the techniques of managing our equipment underwater, moving through the water, buoyancy and how to deal with emergency situations. Some of the exercises that I thought were quite challenging were removing our masks underwater and swimming without them, and then replacing them back on; and removing our heavy equipment underwater and putting them back on again.

I must say that was quite an intense training, trying to train our bodies to breathe and move in a new way that we were not used to. It was a hot day, and we didn’t even get a lunch break! So by the time we finished and went back to the dive shop for our final theory exam, Az and I were blurry-eyed and exhausted. We were quite anxious about how the next lesson in the actual sea dive would be like. (And whether we would die??)

Day 2

We were picked up by the driver from the dive school at sunrise to be driven the pier, where we met up with the other divers and our instructor. There, we board ferry which would bring us to our first dive site. The only thing memorable about the boat ride out was the lady boat captain(?) who made boat safety sound like we were in a military camp. She would fit right in with the Ma’ams in our NCC days so long time ago.

Fortunately the weather was pretty nice that day – overcast and not too hot. As soon as the boat started on its way, Instructor Andre got us up to the deck to start preparing our equipment. With wind whipping in our faces, and trying our best to gain our balance on the bumpy boat ride, we tried as best as we could to remember what to do from our practice in the previous day’s training.

Just look at our nervous faces, lol.

After our equipment check, we moved back into the cabin where Andre started giving us a long pep talk to prepare ourselves for our first actual dive. But I remember not hearing a word of it because I was getting a little bit seasick in the cabin. 

Some fresh air from the top deck, (and several Moana soundtrack karaoke) later, we finally reached the first dive site at Koh Racha Yai.

We put on our wetsuits and equipment with the help of the boat crew, and stepped to the edge of the boat. We hadn’t done this jump in the previous day’s lesson and I was terrified suddenly. Andre went in, followed by Az. 

So the giant stride technique is, holding on to your weight belts, and pressing your mask and regulator in your face, you put both feet to the edge of the boat and take a big step out into the water. 

All I remember from this first jump was,

Put my hands where?  Step where? Huh? 3, 2, 1... uhh wait.. hold on.  Okay, 3, 2, 1, go!  Ahhhhhh! Bloop bloop bloop... cough cough cough!

Turns out I forgot to press my mask to my face, and it flew right up. The shock made me gasp and drank a bit of sea water.

But after a few coughs, it was no big deal. We followed Andre’s instructions and did some surface exercises, before slowly descending into the water, as we held on to a mooring rope to the bottom.

It was pretty terrifying trying to descend correctly at first, taking precautions that we equalised our ears as often as we can.

To be honest, I didn’t remember much of the first dive except that at one point I accidentally floated up to the surface by myself. There was a sense of helplessness when there is nothing to grab onto to stop the ascend upwards. Andre had to send up with emergency float for me to hold on to descend with again as he and Az waited at the bottom.

Once below again, he handed me an extra weight to better control my buoyancy. We explored the bottom for a bit, and I was still so nervous that I couldn’t really enjoy the view. 

After lunch back at the boat, we went for our second dive.

Buoyancy control was still a challenge, and this time it was Az that kept floating up. The emergency float was released again. We tried to hold our hands to stabilise ourselves as we moved to prevent one of us from uncontrollably floating up again.

Andre tried to get us to do some exercises at the bottom but found that we were having difficulties trying to balance ourselves and moving properly. I for one, kept tilting off to the side, unable to stabilise myself at rest. And once I tilted off, I would flail my arms to try and regain my balance but apparently that’s the wrong move to do so. 

Once back on the boat again, Andre recapped to us about our performance so far. We managed to do most of the exercises correctly but buoyancy and balance control was still a weakness. At this rate, we couldn’t pass for Open Water yet, as he’s still not confident we could be independent diving by ourselves, but assured us that we were already eligible for the Scuba Diver cert.

Side note: on the boat ride back to land, this happened. 

Kids, the lesson here is – never to put your hands on the ledge of a door, even to steady yourself on a boat. Nope.

Day 3

Last day of the course to prove ourselves worthy of the Open Water Diver title, something unfortunate happened for Az. Her red tide came, shit. We googled whether it was safe for one to dive on a period and the results were not encouraging. Surprisingly not because of possible shark attacks, but more of higher risk in getting decompression sickness.

The weather that day was not in our favour as well. A storm was brewing, causing the sea to get super choppy on our boat ride out. I took 2 seasickness pill and hoped for the best. 

Seeing how ill I was sitting in the cabin trying not to puke, Andre took pity on me and helped me prepare my equipment. He made a deal with me that on the 2nd dive once we are on calmer waters again, I would do it on my own.

This time without Az diving with me I was a bit more nervous. But Andre was incredibly patient and tried to instruct me step-by-step of what I need to do once in water. 

Az helped take some pictures of the pre-dive. This was me waddling toward the waters with all the heavy load on me. 

The first dive was fine, with better weight distribution around my waist, I was able to control my balance better this time, but the same problem of buoyancy control persisted. I started floating upwards very fast as we neared the surface. Andre figured that perhaps the problem was of my BCD self-inflating for some reason, and suggested that I used another for the next dive. Another problem was I was too anxious to fix any small problems too quickly. So while I was breathing out to deflate my lungs so I would sink lower, my next breath was too big, making me float right up again. Patience and mindfulness is key. 

With all the lessons learnt from the previous dives cumulated in my mind, I had one last dive to prove myself. 

This time I would hold my hose high to let all the air escape my BCD properly. This time I would distribute my weight evenly.  This time I would not kick around. This time I would observe my breathing. This time I would be patient. This time I would go slow.

We slowly sank down to the bottom without a moor line this time. After observing that I was able to keep my balance and buoyancy fairly well, Andre led me to deeper waters to explore the reefs and get closer to the underwater creatures. And we even got to an amazing shipwreck site 19m down, where I high-fived another dive team who were surprised we managed to get there.

We did some more mandatory diving exercises like the removing my mask underwater and swimming without it. I was anxious about this exercise before but was actually quite surprised when I managed to do it without problems. I even managed opened my eyes a little bit, in salt water! Shocking, I know! I think this was all thanks to Andre’s constant encouragement that made this easy.

And that concluded my last dive where I finally passed all my tests to become a PADI Open Water Scuba Diver. Oceans of the world, here I come! *  *Footnote: With a licensed professional divemaster as a guide at all times, preferably.

Btw, here’s us with our amazing dive instructor, Andre Jensen. 

[thebrunettewriter]

Saving Aqualad

Summary: A nice day playing in the water turns into a rescue mission to save a rather handsome, dark skinned, stranger! Word Count: 2,938 Arthur’s Note: I wish I had more inspiration for this one to write more... Requests Open!

   The brunette giggles as she jumps off the high pile of rocks and slips into the water with a gentle splash, a wonderful dive. She was always a water person, knowing how to swim before she could walk. While other girls were called ‘princess’ or ‘angel’ the brunette was always called a fish. Not even something cute, like ‘angel fish’, simply fish. But the girl didn’t mind. She was far more comfortable in a swimsuit and shorts than anything with frills or lace so she’d never really felt that such cute nicknames would fit anyway.

  Arms toned with ages of swimming, and legs powerful enough to kick through brick, the woman glides effortlessly through the water even when others would be battered and thrown about by the waves.

    Having been raised on an island, the woman knew the waves well and how the water behaved. It was more a home to her than the land her house rested on.

    When she’d moved to the main land for ten years, the poor girl had felt like…well, a fish out of water, so when the young woman had the chance to move back to Guam, the largest island of the Mariana Islands, she left her home and moved back to the beautiful strip of land.

    The brunette flips onto her back and sighs as she lets the water hold and rock her, pulling her goggles up to her forehead and closing her eyes. She was at peace in the water; comfortable. She didn’t have to deal with the stress of the city or the stagnant life style of the country. Island life was the best in her mind.

    It didn’t hurt that super villains hardly ever attacked islands. In the last place she’d lived, Metropolis, she’d run into traffic and delays almost non-stop with the constant work that had to be done on the city after villains decided to make it their playgrounds. Unlike most, she didn’t blame the heroes for any damage they’d caused. They were trying their best and it’s not like anyone else was stepping up to the plate!

    But she’d always been raised around military, so she was of a different mindset and understanding than most. She saw the cost of freedom, and how ungrateful some people were when they wouldn’t step up to the plate and do anything, cowering behind whatever boisterous words they could.

    Still, it was nice to get away from all of that and enjoy the wonderful feel of the island. Opening her eyes, she smiles and pulls her goggles back down before flipping back over and starting to swim swiftly through the salty water.

     Having been on the island for about a month now, she was fairly settled, mostly unpacked, and her car—a jeep—had finally arrived after many delays. She’s gotten into a routine now, driving down to a less known beach by the name of Gab Gab—silly name but lovely beach—and swimming for hours on end while no one was around as she was now. She was fairly far from shore, and happily swimming in the slight rough surf of the ocean.

    Spotting a black and yellow fish, the woman grins and begins to follow it. She hums into the water as she does, easily keeping up with the fish’s sharp turns and seemingly random route.

  Bump.

    The woman starts when something runs into her side. Figuring it’s a shark again, she starts to move out of the creature’s way but stops dead when she sees what bumped her.

  A handle? She thinks as she picks up the floating piece of metal. It’s so light, she’s surprised she’d though it was a shark. It’s curved, with an opening at the top and intricate grooves along the handle, it looks rather like a sword’s hilt. Pulling her head out of the water, the woman treads water as she pulls off her goggles. Squinting a little in curiosity and confusion, the woman looks the object over in her hands, using the light of the sun to examine it better.

     “It still looks like a sword hilt…” She mutters to herself before looking around on the surface, spinning around easily in the water.   “I wonder if the rest of it is around here somewhere!” A little excited by this find, she grins as she looks around. She’s about to pull her goggles on and dive down to go look for it when she spots something moving towards her. Squinting to get a better look, the woman frowns when she sees the black tipped dorsal fin moving in a slow circle not far from her. Blinking the sunlight from her eyes, she notices that there’s actually three that she can see from where she is.

    Pulling on her goggles, the woman sticks her head into the water and looks in the directions of the sharks. With the clarity of the water, she can see that the sharks are circling around a particular bit of reef, but their movements were sharper than usual, more panicked. She swims a little closer to the sharks and her frown deepens. Black tipped reef sharks—as these sharks were—are normally rather timid and are rather far out for usually shore based fish. Inching a little closer—as the woman is unafraid of the rather docile sharks—the woman sees a break in the beautiful coral some fourteen feet below the sharks, almost like something smashed into the sea trees.

   Tucking the metal object into the strap of her suit, she swims closer, looking into the hole.

     She nearly takes in water when she gasps at the sight of what’s in the hole. Popping her head out of the water, she hyperventilates three times—a trick she learned when she was learning to dive—and sucks in a deep breath before diving down. She’s fast as she descends, plugging her nose and clearing her ears when the pressure gets to be too much. Reaching the hole with still plenty of breath, she grips the edges of the coral and pulls herself closer, staring wide eyed at the young man inside of the coral. He’s cut up and bleeding, obviously unconscious, and his leg appears to be caught in the dense coral.   Smaller than the large black man—who appeared to be about her age—the woman manages to slip into the hole with him, though the coral easily slices the skin of her arms and legs as she wiggles down towards the man’s ankle. Grabbing the man’s ankle, she does her best to try and free it from the coral pinning it but the stubborn sea life does not want to move. Without hesitating—though it does cause her to rip her legs up more—the woman reaches for the dive knife attached to her inner calf and pulls it out with ease. She grunts a little as she drives the knife into the coral next to the man’s foot. It only takes a hand full of swings for the coral to break off. Placing her bare feet on the coral, the brunette moves to face the man again, wrapping her arm around his waist. She keeps her knife in hand—incase the blood now turning in the water frenzies the sharks above them—and slowly guides him out of the hole before kicking off the coral with powerful legs and shooting towards the surface.

     Gasp!

    The woman inhales a deep gasp of breath when she breaks the surface and swiftly surveys the area around her. Oddly…the sharks were gone… Confused, but deciding to not waste time, the woman swiftly swims behind the man and wraps her arm around his torso under his arms again. Thanking the heavens for her training as a diver and lifeguard, the woman’s narrow eyes focus on the shore as she swims backwards with her recently rescued charge, her legs and free—except for the knife—hand pulling the both of them towards land.

     “M-Mmmm…” To the woman’s surprise, her charge starts to stir just a little even before they’re halfway to shore. She continues to swim as fast as her powerful legs can carry them, but looks at the back of the man’s head as she continues.

     “Don’t panic. I have you.” The woman assures, really not wanting to have to deal with a terrified man who’s much bigger, and by the feel of the muscles she’s touching, probably much stronger, which is saying something. Particularly not without her dive equipment.   “You might be in pain. Please don-AH!” In the middle of the woman’s words of comfort to the half-awake man, something grabs her leg in a nearly deathly grip and yanks her towards the depths. Releasing the man, before he gets pulled under the water with her, the woman stares at the…creature that has a strong grip on her leg. With huge eyes and bigger teeth, it looks like a deep-sea creature from the depths of the Mariana trench but it’s…oddly humanoid. The creature hisses at her and, with amazing speed, moves to attack her with it’s sharp knife sized teeth.   “Mn!” The woman grunts as her hand snaps out just as fast as the creature and she manages get to it’s mouth before it could take a chunk out of her leg as it was obviously intending. Though the sharp teeth dig deep into her hand, the woman’s knife, currently gripped in that particular hand, drives it’s point into the creature’s cheek and it howls, releasing her hand and jerking away before turning sharply and trying a side assault.

    Having grown up in the water, the woman was extremely nimble in the water, a fact that seemed to surprise the creature when she swiftly dodges the creature’s attack and lashes out at the same time, stabbing the thing in the large eye.

    The shriek it lets out almost makes the girl drop her weapon, but luckily the creature jerks away again and cradles it’s injured eye as it retreats as quickly as it appeared.

    Watching the retreating figure for a moment, the woman glances down at her hand when she realizes that it’s gone numb. Switching her knife to the other hand, the woman glances around and spots her charge, floating just below the surface, unconscious again it seems, and quickly breaks the surface before swimming to him quickly.

  Breathing heavily from her extended—and rather eventful—stay under the water, she slips her knife back into the holster and simply reaches into the water, grabbing the man up under his arms again with her uninjured hand. Determined—even more so now than before—the woman pushes her body towards the shore with the added weight, even as her wounds scream at her and she can no longer use her arm. She’s honestly not sure whether to thank or curse the salt in the water. For one thing, it stings worse than anything she’d felt before as it seeps into her wounds. On the other hand, it is probably cleaning them out—so long as plant life and microbs are invading the wound as well—on top of the fact that the buoyancy of the salt is making her larger charge easier to carry and pull along than it would be in a fresh water body of water.

    She gets to standing height in record time and stands, stumbling a little over the coral—something she can normally handle effortlessly—and grabs the man by the back of the strange wet suit he wears, using one hand and the buoyancy of the salt water to drag the man towards the surface. The minute her charge hits sand and the friction kicks in, the woman drops, panting heavily and shaking slightly in pain—her right hand limp at her side. She hurries to the man’s side on her knees and leans her head over his heart, pressing her ear to it.

    A pulse.

    Sighing in relief, she moves her ear to his lips, holding her dripping hair to the side as she listens for breath. Oddly, he’s breathing. Not a whisper of a breath, just breathing.

     Frowning, confused, the woman leans over him and looks him over. He’s tall, well muscled and very masculine. He has nice, medium toned, brown skin and a full head of—currently soaking—dark brown hair.

    And gils…

    The woman’s eyes go wide at the sight of the gils on the side of the man’s neck, and she gasps sharply, flinching back from the man. Apparently the sound of her gasp rouses the man and his eyes snap open. They glow with a bright blue light along with the tattoos along the man’s arms—one of which suddenly snaps out with blinding speed and catches the woman by the back of her neck.

     The brunette’s entire body goes ridged at the strong grip on the back of her neck and she gasps sharply when she feels something sharp touch her throat.   “What did you do to me?” The man growls, though his voice is clearly groggy and disoriented. This must be an instinctual reaction; a flight or fight sort of situation.   “Saved you from a hole in the coral about fifteen feet below the surface.” She explains as calmly as she can. The man blinks a few times before the glowing blue starts to fade and he slowly releases her. Sighing softly, the woman leans back a little—ignoring the pain in doing so.   “A hole…How did I-?” He grunts in pain in the middle of his sentence as he tries to move. The woman places a gentle hand on his chest, avoiding any wounds, and pushes him back.   “I don’t know how you got there but you were ripped up by the coral. Let me get go grab my kit. Don’t move.” She stands, stumbling a bit, before taking off for her jeep, luckily parked near the shore. She ignores the pain the racks her body and the steadily growing numbness in her arm as she digs in the back of her truck, swiftly pulling the first aid kit out and hurrying back to the man. Hurrying back onto shore, she finds the man has not kept his word, now sitting up with one leg pulled toward him, leaning heavily on the appendage even as he sits. The woman sets the kit beside him and walks to his side.

     “Alright. If you’re going to insist on moving, lets get you to my car so we can get you patched up.” She offers the man her left hand, which he takes without looking up. Luckily still very strong, the woman hauls the man up and pulls his arm over her shoulders. She releases him just long enough to grab the kit again and put it between her teeth—as her other arm is useless—before wrapping her arm around his waist and holding him up. She easily leads him back towards her jeep—despite the pain it causes them both.

    She releases him again to open the door to the trunk before guiding him to sit in it. Pulling the kit from her teeth, she sets it beside him again.

     “What hurts the most? Anything internal?” She asks sternly, watching the man shift and adjust as if testing what, in fact, does hurt the most.   “Chest. External.” He answers simply as he looks up at her finally. His eyes go a little wide at the sight of her.   “Shit! Why are you worrying about me?” He pulls himself to his feet, not even seeming to notice the pain in his body as he grabs her arm—where it’s not ripped up by the coral—and pulls her close. She winces at the feeling, the pain and exhaustion throbbing through her body as the adrenaline slowly starts to wear off.

    “I wasn’t the one pinned under coral and unconscious.” She mutter indignantly as she starts to get a little worried at the lack of feeling in her right arm up to her bicep now. Using her working arm, she pushes on the man’s chest to get him to sit again.    “Sit. We need to treat those wounds.” The man doesn’t budge though, easily ignoring her pushing. She squeaks in surprise and slight pain as the man suddenly picks her up with an arm around her waist and spins her around, setting her down in the trunk instead and grabbing the kit from beside her.

  “You’re right. Those look pretty bad.” He says as he opens the kit. Too exhausting to argue any more, the woman just holds her right shoulder and looks at her knees for a moment before looking up at him instead.

     “You with Aquaman?”  The woman asks, to which the man just hums an affirmative, pulling out disinfectant and a roll of gauze.

    “Gimme your arm.” He holds out his hand as he says that, the one closest to her right arm and she frowns, looking down at the appendage. It’s scratched up all along the bicep and forearm from the coral, but the wound in her hand is deep and ugly, still bleeding heavily. That must be why she’s dizzy.

    “Can’t.” She mutters, and he frowns.

     “What do you mean?” He asks urgently. She looks up at him now.

    “I mean I can’t. The man-thing that bit me…it made my arm go numb.” The black man’s jaw clenches and he grabs her arm gently—an action the woman can’t feel at all.

    “Trenchers.” The man mutters, just loud enough that the woman hears him.

    “Is that what that thing’s called?”

[shaojuzeagoth]

Nautilus Judgment

This is a blast from the past. Old League of Legends fan-made judgment (back when League did judgment pieces on the champions) that I made for Nautilus waaayyyy back when he was released. It’s shit and I know it but might as well put it up in its unchanged form so I can look back to the good old days, right?

The heavy footsteps echoed in the halls of the League. Evidence of his trek manifested itself in the form of wet boot-prints and puddles of black ooze in his wake. The onlookers maintained an uneasy silence, not wanting to interfere with this titanic beast, but they looked on with awe and fear. Nautilus knew that these beings judged him in their minds, but he disregarded them. “My goals do not concern you,” he whispered in a grave voice to himself. And they never will, he decided. Nautilus lumbered through the pristine and clean halls, leaving his traces on the polished marble floor. At last the titanic doors confronted him. He stared intently at the inscription on the panel adjacent to the doors. "The truest opponent lies within" it read. He did not move for what seemed ages to him. Within... There is no opponent within, he felt. There is nothing but a dark abyss within my heart. The doors slowly opened, beckoning him to enter the maw. Nautilus shouldered his anchor and slowly entered. Nautilus reached the center of the massive chamber, before a small glimmering pool. Two blood-red eyes scanned the surroundings of the chamber. He felt no fear but he did not trust what was around him. He trusted nothing. Betrayal does that to people... "Welcome, Nautilus." A woman presented herself and she stepped forth toward the pool. Nautilus turned to the figure in the robe. Only half his height, she spoke to the titan with no traces of fear or judgment. "I shall be administering your judgment for entry into the League,” she declared. "Judgment?" Nautilus whispered in his watery and hollow voice. He knew of the judgments in the League, but he could not let go of the sting of being "judged". It was like a terrible pain that one prepared all his life for, but which one would not be able to handle when it actually occurred. Nautilus lost control of his actions. "You!" He lifted his anchor and drove the hook into the floor that shattered with a foul crack. "You dare judge me?!" The titan began his rasp breathing. Labored. Painful. His anger had gotten hold of him. However, he could not help it. The woman merely gazed at where the anchor had merged with the floor. "Your anger is hurting you. You might believe it is strength, but you are sorely mistaken," she said, with an almost clinical tone. "You know nothing of my pain, of my torture!" Nautilus harshly growled back. "You dare attempt to judge me, a victim of betrayal. I have been condemned." He made an attempt to take hold of his beloved anchor when suddenly his breathing became clear. To this, Nautilus quickly gasped clean and soft into his lungs. He felt lighter and a strange sensation that he hadn���t felt in what seemed like an eternity: warmth. He blinked and saw his wife. How beautiful she was. He lost all sense of dread. No anger. No pain. No hatred. He ran his fingers through her hair. She bore a love-filled smile. "Oh, my sweet Maria," he whispered gently. His voice wasn’t watery nor was it full of agony. His voice sounded like that of a normal man in love with his beautiful mermaid. Maria’s smile quickly disappeared. She buried her face in his chest and held him close to her, as if at any moment he would disappear from her sight. "Nathaniel… Please, don't go today," she begged. He knew exactly why she was crying. Today is the day. "Maria, today is an exceptional one for the Institute. They received word of an unknown entity in the ocean and this could be a great discovery. This is important to me," He held her against him with all of his infinite love. His heartbeats always soothed her soul and put her at the sweetest of ease. However, it couldn’t stop her mind from being flooded by the torrent of terror and worry. "I worry about you. I am afraid of what might happen to you out there. They always send you and the crew into the unknown. Why can't they go look themselves, those bastards!" she cried as tears flowed and moistened Nathaniel's shirt. "Maria," he spoke softly. He took her head in his hands and looked into her watery eyes full of pain. Her beautiful turquoise eyes never failed to make him fall in love with her constantly. Every time he reminded her of this, her blush threatened to lure him closer and hold her. "I will return. I promise," He smiled with his own tears revealing themselves. "Have I ever broken a promise to you?" "Never..." she whispered. She passionately kissed her husband. He never lied to her. He was always true to her. He will come back. She assured herself of this, however difficult it was to accept it. They broke their passionate embrace and Nathaniel took one last look at the love of his life before departing their home. Nathaniel suddenly found himself smelling the sea and tasting the salty air. The rocking of the ship soothed him in a way a mother rocking a crib for her child lulls the child to sleep. The sea, he felt, was his true home. Being on land was strange, unnatural to him. The flat ground never seemed welcoming and the dry smell of the earth never held his heart. When he first met the sea, his heart was instantly captivated and lured to her beauty. The grandness of her, the cool touch of her water, and the clean innocent scent of her body left their impressions in his soul. He knew that day that the sea was where he truly belonged. He would construct a ship with a little home in it for him and his wife. Their child would be born out at sea, a child of the sea. But, that would be in due time. The blare of the ship's horn awakened him from his day dream. Trouble arrived. "Captain!" one of the crew cried in a panicked tone. "Captain! What the hell is this?" Nathaniel bolted to the side of the ship. He knew his crew. What worried them was what worried him. And it was black. All black. A coat of darkness was gripping onto the skin of the sea. Nathaniel studied the darkness, scavenging his knowledge of his home. This was nothing he had ever seen before, in all of his years. The Institute had to be notified of this. "We are to report this to the Institute at once!" he declared to his nervous crew. He walked to his quarters and jotted down the coordinates and description of the material. Whatever this was, it had no right to cling onto the sea. This was his beautiful sea. He must protect it. "Captain!" another panicked cry. Nathaniel quickly ran to the sailor. He stopped in terror at what the sailor was pointing to. The black ooze was slowly grabbing hold of the ship with almost predatory motions. Nathaniel ordered the ship to move. The ship jerked forward and ripped the tendrils off the hull with snaps like tree branches breaking off in an empty forest. Nathaniel ordered the ship to halt. The black ooze that fell onto the deck soon did not move, but a faint breathing sound could be heard from it, as if the ooze were dying. "We cannot leave this alone here. Suit up, we are going to explore it!" Nathaniel ordered. The crew members mumbled their protests. Such cowards, Nathaniel thought to himself, willing to leave such a threat out at sea for others to encounter. He, alone, would discover the source of this. He knew the risks, but he had been through much worse things, diving even into bellies of monsters to save crew members. Nathaniel donned the hulking diver suit with no fear in his heart. He made his way to the edge of the ship and waited for the diving cable to be hooked to him. There is no use in exploring the unknown if one can’t find his way back. All of a sudden, the nightmare began. Inky tendrils snapped at his suit and took a violent grip. Nathaniel's heart jumped. All he could see was the sky as he was pulled back. "Captain!" Nathaniel grabbed onto the railing of the ship with a deathly grip. Fear leaked into his soul and he cried for help. The ooze did not relent. His struggle only fueled its strength as it pulled harder and harder. "Help me!" he cried out as loudly as could. The ship started to slowly tilt. The diver suit allowed enhanced strength in the wearer and allowed Nathaniel to maintain his grip. In their minds... If he held on too long... The ship... "Please!" he cried again, hoping that his crew might do something to help him. The ship threatened to capsize. The crew made a hasty decision. It was a decision no one should be forced to make. It was a decision Nathaniel never wanted. They forced his grip free. The suit plunged into the muck. Terrified eyes inside the visor were swallowed by the darkness. An open hand begging for help was swallowed. Nothing but darkness could be seen. His hand still searching, he grabbed onto the anchor. It, too, offered no help as it was detached from the ship. It sank with him. Both were condemned to the murky liquid. He felt himself drift. His mind raced. Then her face entered his troubled thoughts. He would never see her again. He could never get out. "Mariaaa!" Nathaniel screamed in his prison, a cry only he would hear. "Mariaaa!" Nautilus cried in his deep voice. He fell to his knees, staring at the marble floor and rubble that his anchor gave birth to. The robed woman could only look at this hulking figure, now in a weakened pose. His breathing became strained and hoarser, as if taking his last painful breaths. "They... took everything from me..." he tearfully whispered. “She has been taken from me. I made a promise to her... And I never kept it". Nautilus grabbed his helmet and moaned in agony. "Dear god, why?! Why me?!" he cried to no one. Nautilus quivered with absolute hatred. "You have been betrayed, Nautilus. But this betrayal was made out of fear. They did not know what to do. Their instinct for survival made them act that way. Can you forgive them?" the woman asked. Nautilus was silent. He thought back to his wife. They were going to have their first child together after the journey. He would name the baby girl Pearl or the boy Morgan. They would live so happily as a family. He would teach his child the ways of the sea, the love of the sea and how to love her back. He had imagined himself as an old man, playing his baby’s child. He wanted to have his ashes be one with his beautiful sea, to have his own baby place them in the crystal waters of his love. He never wanted to leave Maria. He didn’t even know what happened to her. Nautilus shed tears. He whimpered and slammed his armored fist into the floor with a loud clang. He knew his answer. He could not forgive them. They stole his life. They denied him a family. He doesn't exist. "Never..." he harshly whispered. "Then that is your answer. However, to forgive is to allow your heart to heal, Nautilus. Please know that." Nautilus remained silent. He can't let go. He knows that and the woman knows that. It is impossible to not feel the desire for revenge, as far as Nautilus was concerned. "I cannot. My heart is an abyss. I do not feel happiness," he warned. "Trust is non-existent to me. I fight to have my revenge. I want my life back, more than anything else. But, that will not happen. I offer my service to the League. I have no other purpose beyond vengeance." With that statement, he grabbed the handle of the anchor and lifted it up like it could be the lightest object in existence. The anchor was now perched on his shoulder again, ready to serve Nautilus. "How does it feel, exposing your mind?" the woman asked. She did sound slightly disappointed. No doubt she did. She had hoped that he would allow his heart to recover and try to start a new life, however difficult it would be. But, it was out of her jurisdiction to make him change his mind. "My entire life and story both belong to the sea. If you want the details, you may take your own dive. What you have seen is my previous life. This new life... Is yours to behold now." The woman nodded. "With your dedicated service to the League, we will reward you. We can help you begin a new life, Nautilus. The prison you wear, the anger you suffer from, and the happiness you want. We can assist you in addressing those. Please keep that in mind.” She turned and walked into the darkness Nautilus stood his ground, alone. Again. Alone. He wondered what she meant. He did not trust her or the League but he had no choice. He could only hope to end this nightmare and move on. If what she promised was true, he could have a life. The League was famous for granting many things. Doors opened to his final destination. He slowly entered the League, with the smallest glimmer of hope in his aching heart.