#kain wisteria

[onedivinemisfit]

Lady and her lovers~

Haruto married Zakura six months after Kain died from a bullet to the heart. She hadn’t imagined domestic happiness existed until then

AnS (c) Akizuki Sorata

Art: Me

[randowwriter]

To Stay Still For Far Too Long (The Last Family Portrait)

Here's my last oneshot for ANS Platonic Week 2023! I hope you enjoy! <3 <3 <3

[wisteriaphyte]

Realizing that I haven't shared my reference sheet made by the talented @windupkaine (´,,•ω•,,)♡ This is Wisteria's 6.3 - 7.0 glam! The purples are a nod to FFIV's Kain with the dyes toned so that it doesn't clash too much with Wisteria's hair :)

[ans-incorrect-quotes]

Haruto: Kain, stop! You’re not acting yourself! You’re mad with power!

Kain: Well, of course I have!

Kain: Have you tried being mad without power?

Kain: It’s boring.

[akagami-no-rae]

someone: Kain

me:

[sabraeal]

The Only Adult in the Room, Part 2

[Read on AO3]

Before there was a Mother-sized hole left in the halls of Father’s mansion-- or rather, before Father tried to fill it with That Woman-- Izana’s place had been by his knee. If Father’s associates had thought it odd for a small child to be sorting shapes in the corner of a board meeting, they had valued their own jobs too much to say so. He’d seen profiles from those days, business magazines speculating about what Kain Wisteria’s parenting meant for the board room, whether CEO would become the new ABCs. The sort of journalism that business loved to see if only because it humanized them to the masses, turning a soulless conglomerate into a household name overnight. Cute, but naive.

Perhaps they would have taken a different angle now, knowing how easily he’d been replaced. Or maybe they’d see it the way his father did: a removal of a private failure from the public eye; a cunning leap from a sinking ship of an investment. After all, what else could a son from a failed marriage be but a failure himself?

No matter what they think-- or what Father does-- it can’t erase what he learned. They may say Kain Wisteria is a shark in a suit, but oh, they’ll have to make up a new predator for the splash he’ll make when it’s time. Father may be cunning, but Izana could think circles around him before he left primary school.

It’s only too bad he can’t seem to show it. “Garak-san,” he says, the edges of her name worn from repetition. “We have been over this before. I am not, by law, an adult.”

“Oh come on.” Magnanimity should only be seen as a whim from a position of power, Father had told him, otherwise it’s simply a weakness for lesser minds to exploit. With the way Garak fixes one of her eyes on him, sizing him up like a barracuda does a tuna, Izana is loath to admit he might be right. “You know no one would mind.”

In several cases, some might actively prefer him. However, he knows better than to say so; the last thing Garak needs is to be encouraged. “The headmistress is not paying you to run your errands during work hours.”

Garak flaps her hand at him, as if such concerns were beneath her. “Your mother won’t mind. It’ll just be a minute anyway. I bet if you read a book, I’d be back before story time even ended.”

His breath hisses through his nose. “That’s not the--”

“’Ni-chan?” A tiny hand tugs on his trouser. The girls here might say he’s made of ice, but he melts under Zen’s wide-eyed stare. “Did you say you were gonna read a story?”

“Ah...” More eyes peek up, drawn away from their contributions to modern art and fixing on him. “It was Garak-san who said--”

“That’s right!” Father had laughed when Mother hired Garak-- what use is a drop out?-- but she knows how to seize an opportunity better than any shark in the Wisteria board room. “Izana-kun is going to read story.”

He stiffens. “I didn’t--”

Zen’s always been a particularly adorable child, but it’s the hope in those big eyes that arrests him. “Can it be Sir Panda?”

“Nah!” Obi squawks, tumbling over one of the plastic chairs to get to him. “I wanna read Sentai Squad! Can we? Can we?”

“I...”

He glances up; not for guidance-- he knows better than to expect any help from Garak, unless it’s help making trouble-- but some sort of support, another mind that is not consumed with Saturday Morning Cartoons--

Only to find the space Garak filled empty, and her apron hung up on the door. His only solace is that she at least took Ryuu with her. Hopefully on purpose.

“All right,” he sighs, glancing down at the two dead-weights clinging to his legs. “Get the cushions out.”

Wars were won and lost with simpler logistics than those employed to pull off story time. Generals might issue orders to thousands of men on the field, but all of them took direction better than five children under five.

“Kiki,” he manages, keeping his voice as even as he would with a member of his father’s C-suite. “We all sit on our own pillow.”

 Her eyebrows knit over the sharp line of her nose, her mouth making its mirror beneath it. An expression that would be menacing were Mitsuhide’s cheeks not churning through a dozen different color reds behind it. “You just said to find a cushion. This one is fine.”

“This one,” he says, so calm, “is a person.”

“I-I duwnt mind,” Mitsuhide mutters behind her, resembling a cherry more than a child with every word. “If she’s comfowtibble.”

With extreme patience, Izana drags his attention over her shoulder. “Comfortable. And that’s not the point, it’s--”

“Haki-nee-sama!”

It’s not that Izana’s heart skips; that would be...foolish. Absurd, even. He sees Arleon every day, the sweep of her hair as familiar to him as the back of his hand. Which is only to be expected when he spends six hours a day staring at the back of it.

In class, of course, not for any...personal reasons. He’s not stupid.

It’s only that he stands so quickly. A skip, a pound, a stutter-- all just marks of the work needed to compensate for the blood rushing to his head. Nothing to do with the way the school’s tartan stretches over the swell of her hips, or how the swoop of her side part always sees to fall right over her eye, begging to be pushed behind an ear.

“Arleon.” It’s instinct to meet her eyes, but they flutter dangerously, fixed on where Zen clutches to her knee. His gaze drops, caught on the smooth curve of her lips, the one spreading wide even as she stares, and that’s-- that’s even worse. “Can I help you?”

That smile shutters as quick as a house before a storm. She shifts, a dull rattle following her, that he realizes the she’s carrying something. A large something, considering how much translucent plastic dominates her arms.

“No.” Her chin lifts, like maybe if it gains a few more centimeters, she might be able to look down her nose at him the way she likes. “I was only here to look for, um--” her attention fixes to the wall behind him-- “Shidnote-kun.”

“Shidnote?” He stares, watching the way she squirms in the silence. Well, relative silence, considering how Obi is already showing off the new sentai moves from the last episode. “He’s at practice today.”

And quite frankly, I didn’t know you even knew his name, he doesn’t say, because it’s none of his business, not at all. It’s just...new information. Shidnote might not be in the advanced class with the two of them, but he is the sort of boy girls like to whisper about. There’s always a gaggle of them at the chain link fence when he plays, giggling when he’s up to bat. Arleon had just never seemed like one of them.

“Oh.” If anything, she seems relieved. “That’s too bad.”

They stand there for a long moment before he offers, “You could wait for him, if you wanted. He’ll be here to pick up his brother--” the clock is behind him-- “sometime soon.”

At least, so he hopes. Shidnote might like to play at being too cool to be seen with his littler brother, but there’s an apron with his name on it with a reason.

“Oh no, that’s fine.” For someone searching for Shidnote, Arleon isn’t too concerned about finding him. Instead her gaze floats to the floor, fixing on the few children still sitting on it. “Are you watching the children all by yourself? Where’s Gazelt-san?”

“Out.” It comes out too terse for casual, which is how he prefers to be seen with Arleon around. Comfortable even. In control. “We were just sitting down to story time.”

Her brows raise. “By yourself?”

Ah, that’s right. Arleon has definitely been here for one of these before. Tore up his favorite-- ah, a very nice set of her stockings fishing Shirayuki out of the bushes.

“Of course,” he informs her, lofty. “The children are very well behaved--” mostly-- “it’s not as if it’s an issue.”

Her mouth rounds, a perfect ‘o.’ “I wasn’t trying to say-- eek!”

“Whatcha got there?” Obi must have picked up some skills from his shows; one minute he’s standing in the middle of the circle, the next he’s pawing up Arleon’s leg, struggling to get a look at her container. “Is it a snack?”

“Obi!” Izana’s never approved of Shidnote’s method of concussive discipline, but he’s starting to see the appeal of it now. With one swooping movement, he pries the offender off her, depositing him safely on the floor. “Please show some decorum.”

“De-cor...?” Obi blinks up at her, wide and wild like a cat. “Oh are they decorated? Like cookies?”

“Cookies?” Zen rests his chin on her thigh, eyes practically sparkling. “Haki-nee-san, I like cookies.”

“Oh?” Her eyelashes flutter, dark against the smooth porcelain of her cheek, a similar curve to the one pulling at her lips. “Well, I did just make some in Home Ec club. I was going to bring them home, but I suppose if you all would like some...”

It’s a scramble then, toddler climbing over toddler to follow her to the play mat. She kneels, giggling as Zen and Obi trip each other up to get to her, sprawling on the carpet. Izana’s half afraid there will be tears until she says, “Let’s all sit nicely, shall we?”

Father always said that women were a civilizing presence; if the board ever got to squabbling so bad the table shook, he’d buzz one of his personal assistants in with a fresh pot of coffee and watch the room remember itself. He’d claimed it was the reason he hired them exclusively for the position; one Izana believed right up until he married the last one. It’d always struck him as a bit ridiculous anyway-- Mother might be calm and composed, but Garak existed as well, and, well, she was anything but.

So it’s with something akin to annoyance that he watches every one of his wayward little dependents take their seat around her with the sort of reverent awe usually saved for fish tanks.

Mitsuhide is the one to snuggle close, fitting his small thigh right next to hers like two pieces of very different sized puzzles. “Don’t wowwy,” he hums, patting her stocking with one chubby hand. “I’ll pwotect you. I wun let anyone grab anyfing or nuffing.”

As far as Izana’s been able to puzzle out in his few months here, Arleon is the nice girl of this school, the one boys dream about bringing home to their families and then coaxing into their bed. A pretty face with a nice smile with a body straight out of a magazine, Shidnote told him once, grinning the whole time. Plus I heard she cooks as good as your mom.

That stymied him for a moment. My mother can’t cook.

Fine, Shidnote huffed. As good as everyone else’s mom. And she’s top spot for exams.

Or at least she had been, until he outscored her. He’d never had much cause to interact with her beyond the perfunctory niceties the children of long-time family friends were expected to perform, but oh, he did not get any sweet smiles after that. No, the Arleon he knew and the Haki-chan she showed to everyone else were worlds apart.

Which is why it’s so strange to see that polite mask melt into a smile bright enough to warm the room. “Oh, well,” she murmurs in a tone that would make his palms prickle, if he gave in to that sort of nonsense. “My hero must get the first cookie, mustn’t he?”

She opens the container with a flourish, pulling out a cookie that’s still so warm the chocolate smear against her fingertips. And Mitsuhide’s as he takes it, red cheeked and dazzled and sure to smear it everywhere, but even still, Izana’s attention is arrested on Arleon. Those slender fingers rise up to her mouth, pink tongue flashing out before she reaches for another--

“No.” Kiki glowers from her cushion, twisting her chin away. “I don’t want one.”

“O-oh?” Arleon blinks, her soft confidence evaporating under the force of Kiki’s disapproval. “Are you sure?”

Mitsuhide bites into his, cheeks puffed out as a chipmunk’s. “It’s sooooo good.”

If anything, Kiki grows icier. “Quite sure.”

“Well, if I suppose if you really--”

“ME NEXT!”

There’s no stopping it; Izana catches only the briefest glimmer of hunger in his wide eyes before Obi’s off like a bullet, tearing across the nursery with a speed even Shidnote might struggle to match. Every older brother instinct he has sends his hands out, and perhaps if it were Zen, too trustful and with the reflexes of a rather slow dog, he would be safely caught. As it is, Obi dodges around his grasp, barreling toward Arleon with a single-minded purpose.

And with all the grace of a three-year-old, his foot catches on the carpet. His fall can’t take more than a second, maybe two, but between one blink and the next, Izana has time to see his hands fly out before him, those cat eyes closing in faith and fear, hoping he’ll be caught. It’s no one’s fault, no one’s at all--

But that doesn’t stop him from landing palms-first on the most protruding bit of Arleon’s anatomy. Or from Shidnote rounding the corner, just in time to witness it.

“Oh!” Haki gasps, the sort of noise that makes his teeth clench down hard and hair stand on end with the same uninvited frisson he felt when he first saw where the pattern of her tights ended. “Oh my!”

Obi blinks down, his eyes flashing like a spun coin behind them. It’s speculation, not fear that weighs in them now, and it’s with mounting horror that Izana witnesses him squeeze.

“Hey!” There’s always been an unevenness to Obi’s mouth, one that always makes his smile into a smirk. It’s worse now, considering the circumstances. “These are way bigger than my mommy’s!”

There is a confluence of events, all at once:

First, Arleon’s cheeks flush, a tide that starts as a pretty bloom high on the apples and then quickly overflows its bounds, flooding up to the pale roots of her hair and down below her collar. That’s where his focus sticks for a second; he is only human, after all, and on skin so soft and smooth as hers, it’s only natural to wonder how far it might extend.

Second, Shidnote storms into the room, his palm already raised, “Obi!” echoing over the walls.

And thirdly, Kiki steps forward. Her small arm extends, and with a cacophonous crack, slaps Obi square across the nose.

He’s not ready for it; Izana hardly is, and he’s not even on the receiving end. Obi’s socked feet leave the floor-- strange, how he only notices now that they have little grips on the bottom, arranged like the pads of a cat-- and he lands hard, albeit on a bottom that is at least made for it.

An impressive show of strength; if Shishiyama-sensei were to witness it, there would most certainly be a level of hooting and hollering unbecoming of an adult. Probably ask Seiran-san if he’d ever considered putting her on a softball team with an arm like that. Even Izana’s gut instinct is to commend her, but the words hardly have time to gather on his tongue before Obi blinks-- once, twice-- and then bursts into tears.

With cool efficiency, Kiki turns to Shidnote, still frozen one step past the door, and informs him, “I handled it.”

This is, apparently, too much indignity for Obi. He struggles to his cat-padded feet and tears off to the play kitchen, taking refuge in one of the cabinets. Shidnote doesn’t give him more than a glance; instead he looks down at where Kiki stands and says, “Nice arm, kid.”

Seiran’s don’t beam-- such displays are frowned upon in the board room-- but Kiki does radiate with satisfaction, tromping straight up to Arleon and jutting out her hand. “I’ll take that cookie now.”

It’s here Arleon’s inexperience truly shines: she gives it to her.

Although out of sight, Obi is clearly not content to be out of mind. Holed up in a plastic cabinet he’s only just small enough to squeeze himself into, it does nothing to muffle the wailing and carrying on inside. Like all younger siblings, he was born with both the ability to shriek and the resolve to use it.

“I’m sorry,” Arleon says, or at least he thinks so; it’s hard to hear anything over Obi’s wails. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. And I certainly shouldn’t have reward Kiki for--”

“Nah.” Shidnote’s grin pulls lopsidedly across his face. “He deserved it. Trust me, not even mom will mind.”

Knowing Shidnote-sensei, she’d probably thank her for it. Maybe even give Kiki a gold star. And that’s before she heard any of his...commentary.

“I don’t know what to do.” Arleon’s slender hands clap to her face. “He seems really upset, should I--?”

“Is fine.” A small hand pats her own, and Shirayuki gives her the sunniest of smiles. Even with all the screeching, he can’t shake the feeling that it might all be just fine. Funny how a girl who can’t even put on her own shoes can make it feel that way. “I help.”

She holds her palm out, eyebrows taking an encouraging lift. Hesitantly, Arleon hands her a cookie, the chips all cooled to the proper shape. “You want...this?”

“Uh-huh.” She gives a big nod, enough that she nearly topples. “Tank yu, nee-chama!”

With a determined waddle, Shirayuki cross the room dropping down to hands and knees to get past the fridge doors, hanging open on their plastic hinges. She stops, mouth screwed up with concentration as she shuts them, softly, quietly, making sure not to spill any of their contents. It’s the sort of attention to detail Izana appreciates; no one else is going to painstakingly puts the food in its place when the day is done.

“O-bi?” she calls out when she finishes, pigtails shivering as she hops along on her knees. Right up to the cabinet door, where she knocks. “Ohhh-bi?”

The wailing stops. A second later, the door creaks open. “W-what?”

Shirayuki holds out the cookie, a beatific smile rounding her cheeks. “For you!”

The door trembles, and by inches, Obi’s face emerges from behind it, uncertainty and hunger all rolled into one.

“I dun...” He swallows hard, eyes never moving from where the cookie sits. “I dun want it.”

Her smile only pulls wider. “Yours!”

He stares at her, then at the cookie, paralyzed. It’s clear what he wants, but he’s too much like his brother, too filled with senseless pride to take it. “N--”

Shirayuki leans forward, shoving it into his mouth. “I help!” she tells him. “Yum yum!”

Left with nothing else to do, he bites into it. The cookie might not still be warm and melty, but sitting there, half in and out of the cabinet, with Shirayuki clapping as he chews, Obi is.

“Well,” Shidnote grunts, rubbing at the back of his head. “That’s gonna be a problem in a few years.”

“W-what?” Zen drops the cookie in his own hand, letting it crack to three pieces on the mat. “Me too!” he yells, getting to his feet. “Me too!”

“Now that--” Shidnote grins-- “is going to be even worse.”

“Next time we see Haki-chan, you’re gonna apologize,” Shidnote informs his brother, pinching his leg where it’s slung over his shoulder. “And you’re gonna mean it.”

“Fer what?” Obi folds his arms sullenly over Shidnote’s hair. “I didn do anyting wrong!”

“You touched her-- her boobies,” Zen hisses, so helpful, from Izana’s arms. “Dat’s not allowed.”

“You’re supposed to ask before touching another person’s body,” Izana corrects, cutting over Shidnote’s half-baked grumbling. He’s not a man that often wrangles with whys, and it shows. “Especially the personal parts.”

“But Kiki sits on me with her butt all the time!” His arms flail wildly, nearly topping him off. “And she never asks first!”

“That’s a little different--”

“It’s your fault,” Zen informs him, so calm. “You’re annoying!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am--” Obi squiggles, mouth folding into a pout-- “lemme down! I’ll show him who’s annoying!”

There’s a park on the way home, one with enough grass that the kids can tussle a little without hurting anything more permanently. Izana still worries, watching Obi tackle Zen to the turf, but if there’s anything he’s learned the past few months, it’s that sometimes it’s better just to let them get it out.

“The worst part,” Shidnote sighs, “is that I can’t even blame him.”

“Hm?” Izana blinks up. The boys have found a bit of goose poop, they’ll be shouting stinky at the top of their lungs for at least another ten minutes at least. “About being annoying?”

“What? No. I can blame him all I like for that.” He shrugs, his shoulders taking up too much space for someone their age. “I mean the thing with Haki-chan.”

“Oh.” Something about that-- about hearing Shidnote say her name like that, Haki-chan-- irritates him, like sand stuck in an oyster’s shell. The rest of the school might buy her act, but Shidnote-- Shidnote knows how she really is. He doesn’t need to be acting like she’s some sort of girl.

“Well, of course not,” he says instead, stamping out any sign of his annoyance. “It was an accident.

Shidnote huffs, too amused. “Are you kidding me, Wisteria? I don’t care about that. Have you seen the rack on her--” he mimes, so helpful-- “I’d squeeze ‘em too, if she gave me half a chance.”

Izana experiences...something. Something strange.

There’s a pounding in his head, like another heartbeat between his ears. His vision narrows too, growing more acute the louder that second heart pounds, and his chest--

“That’s no way to talk about her,” he manages through the ache, wishing he knew more about the symptoms of a heart attack. Nothing’s gone numb, but that feels like it’s only a matter of time. “May I remind you, Arleon-san is far more than just her cup size.”

He’s certain, after the words are said, that this will pass. Already the pounding grows less pronounced, and the sweat on his palms does not renew after he wipes them on his trousers. All in all, it’s as if it never happened, except--

Except Shidnote stares at him, leaning down as if he needs a closer look, and grins.

“Oh-ho,” he hums, at the precise pitch of a swing of an executioner’s blade, “so you do have a crush on her.”

[honeyfizzly]

All yttd character name meanings cause I haven't posted on here in forever, long post lolz

Most of this taken from wiki

Beware of spoilers lol, I'll add my own personal notes about the name

Sara-> Sa meaning "(silk) gauze; gossamer" and Ra means "good; pleasing; skilled".

The Hebrew meaning for Sara means "princess/noble women" which is pretty fitting as she has the highest winning rate

Chidouin-> Chi "one thousand", Dou "shrine hall" and In "institution"

Jou-> "length; height"

Note that nankidai said that Jou's name originated from the line "stand up Joe!" From the manga "Ashita no Joe"

Joe isn't really a westernized version of Jou in yttd as vgperson states that both names are used in the source material, the name Joe is used in a more causal manner.

Tazuna-> ta "rice field" zuna "rope; cable"

Kazumi-> Kazu "peace" Mi "oneself"

Mishima-> Mi "three" Shima "island"

I think the island mightve been possible referencing how Mishima would be the first protagonist of your time to shine island existence. Could be just a coincidence though

Kai-> Kai "precept"

Satou- Sa "assistant; help" and Tou "wisteria"

Note that Kai also means shellfish (hence the "kain you believe it" surrounded by shellfish in his laptop) but Kai's name uses different Kanji from the shellfish one.

Alice-> his name is most likely a reference to the band "Alice in chains", since he is a man named Alice who is in chains. The German name Alice means "noble"

Yabusame-> ya "eight", bu "currency" and same "rain"

Reko-> re "waterway" ko "child"

Yabusame-> Ya "eight" Bu "currency" and Same "rain"

Note that her name was spelled as "Reco" but since C isn't really pronounced in the Japanese language, it later on got canonized to be "Reko" and "Reco" was used for her stage name.

Nao-> na "greens" o "cord, thread"

Egokoro-> e "picture" gokoro "heart"

Kanna-> Kan "god; deity" Na "what"

Note that there's also a flower that shares the same name as her

Kizuchi-> Ki "tree" zu "ferry" chi "pond"

Shin-> shin "truth; genuiness"

Tsukimi-> tsuki "moon" mi "see" (aka moon watching or moon viewing)

Qtaro-> Taro "strong, heroic, masculine"

Note that his name is a reference to a Jojo episode where a character uses the name "qtaro kujo"

Burgerburg-> this name dosent really have a meaning.

Qtaro's initials spell out bbq (BurgerBerg Qtaro)

Sou-> sou "suddenly; smoothly"

Keiji-> kei "respect" Ji "two"

Shinogi-> shino "bamboo grass" gi "tree"

Gin-> Gin "silver"

(I couldn't find the meaning for his last name rip)

Note that Sou is also an anagram for the Japanese word for lie, Uso

Hiyori-> hi "sun" yori "harmony"

Note that it can also be read as sunny weather

Midori just means green

Ranmaru-> Ran "orchid" Maru "circle"

Kageyama-> Kage "shadow" Yama "mountain"

Anzu-> An "apricot" Zu "child"

Kinashi-> Ki "tree" Nashi "pear tree"

Shunsuke-> Shun "excellent; genius" Suke "involve oneself; shellfish"

Hayasaka-> Haya "early; fast" Saka "slope; incline"

Naomichi-> nao "direct" Michi "road; path; route"

Kurumada-> kuruma "car" da "rice field"

Mai-> Mai "dance"

Tsurugi-> tsuru "crane (bird)" gi "castle"

Hinako-> Hina "chick" ko "child"

Mishuku-> Mi "honorable; beautiful" shuku "inn"

All of the floormasters have pun names

Sue miley-> smiley

Hoemi-> small smile

Tia safalin-> tears are a fallin

Han'naki-> half crying

Rio ranger-> rearrange

Rio lazier-> realizer

Toto noeru-> to arrange

Koko roeru-> to gain a heart

[phoenix-blessed]

My Artfight collection so far

Artfight collection. Posting my artfight adventure is a bit late here lol

Eros Mythos: @asuraid

Skydra: for my old friend Kyra

Rùn and Almet: for some homies lol

Aine: @dragon-wisteria

Aelric: @jessiesketches

Minerva: @neojin

Kain: @kyrjaa

[mbruben-stein]

list of things I write and take requests for.

list of things I will write:

Scenarios.

Headcanons / HC (I only do four to seven characters.)

Boyfriend Scenarios.

Girlfriend Scenarios.

Dating would Include.

Match-up.

Soulmate.

Love stories

X Reader.

x pregnant character or reader.

Character X Character.

X They/Them reader.

X Male Reader

X Female Reader

Girl x Boy.

Boy x Boy.

Girl X Girl.

Yandere Alphabet

S/O Headcanons.

SFW Alphabet.

NSFW Alphabet 18+.

list of prompts writing request ideas and request:

Main Paige/list.

List of animes and characters that I write.

Snow White With Red Hair:

Zen Wisteria

Shirayuki

Kiki Seiran

Mitsuhide Louen

Obi

Mihaya

Kazuki

Ryuu

Raji Shenazard

Sakaki

Black Butler:

Sebastian Michaelis

Ciel Phantomhive

Mey-Rin

Grell Sutcliff

Undertaker

Finnian

Bardroy

Pluto

Lau

Soma Asman Kadar

William T. Spears

Agni

Ronald Knox

Alois Trancy

Claude Faustus

Hannah Annafellows

My Hero Academia:

Izuku Midoriya

Katsuki Bakugo

Momo Yaoyorozu

Shoto Todoroki

Fumikage Tokoyami

Mezo Shoji

Denki Kaminari

Hanta Sero

Kyoka Jiro

Dabi / Touya Todoroki

Mashirao Ojiro

Eijiro Kirishima

Ochaco Uraraka

Tsuyu Asui

Mina Ashido

Himiko Toga

Tenya Ida

Toru Hagakure

Mirio Togata

Tamaki Amajiki

Nejire Hado

Hitoshi Shinso

Melissa Shield

Hawks / Keigo Takami

Eraser Head / Shota Aizawa

All Might / Toshinori Yagi

Midnight / Nemuri Kayama

Mr. Principal / Nezu

Ingenium / Tensei Ida

Tomura Shigaraki

One piece:

Monkey D. Luffy

Roronoa Zoro

Nami

Nico Robin

Sanji

Shanks

Usopp

Trafalgar D. Water Law

Portgas D. Ace

Sabo

Dracule Mihawk

Inuyasha:

Inuyasha

Kagome

Koga

Sesshōmaru

Miroku

Sango

Kohaku

Shippo

The sacrificial princess and the king of beasts:

Sariphi

Leonhart

Ilya

Anubis

Death Note:

l lawliet

Light Yagami

Near

Touta Matsuda

Misa Amane

Ryuk

Vampire Knight:

Zero Kiryu

Hanabusa Aido

Yuki Cross

Kaname Kuran

Senri Shiki

Takuma Ichijo

Akatsuki Kain

Kaien Cross

Ruka Souen

Toga Yagari

Ichiru Kiryu

Rido Kuran

Attack On Titans:

Eren Yeager

Levi Ackerman

Mikasa Ackerman

Armin Arlert

Historia Reiss

Jean Kirschtein

Connie Springer

Hange zoe

Erwin Smith

Annie Leonhart

Sasha Braus

Moblit Berner

Reiner Braun

Marco Bodt

Bertolt Hoover

Ymir

Yu-Gi-Oh:

Yugi Muto

Seto Kaiba

Yami Yugi / Adam Moto

Téa Gardner

Joey Wheeler

Tristan Taylor

Mokuba Kaiba

Bakura

Avatar the Last Airbender. (Yes, I count this as an anime. This is because I really like it and love it. Sorry for the people who don't think it's an anime, but you can't change my mind.):

Aang

Zuko

Katara

Toph

Sokka

Ty Lee

Azula

Diabolical lovers:

Yui Komori

Reiji Sakamaki

Ayato Sakamaki

Laito Sakamaki

Subaru Sakamaki

Shu Sakamaki

Yui Komori

Kou Mukami

Ouran High School Host Club:

Tamaki Suoh

Kyoya Ootori

Kaoru Hitachiin

Hitachiin Hikaru

Haruhi Fujioka

Ritsu Kasanoda

Takashi Morinozuka

Violet Evergarden:

Gilbert Bougainvillea

Benedict Blue

violet Evergarden

Cattleya Baudelaire

Claudia Hodgins

Iris Cannary 

 The Ancient Magus’ Bride:

Chise Hatori

Elias Ainsworth

Lindel

Ruth

Silver

Assassination Classroom:

Nagisa Shiota

Karma Akabane

Hinano Kurahashi

Hinata Okano

Tadaomi Karasuma

Korosensei

Yuri on ice:

Yuuri Katsuki

Yuri Plisetsky

Victor Nikiforov

Mila Babicheva

Otabek Altin

Phichit Chulanont

Ben 10:

Ben

Gwen

Kevin

Rook Blonko

Ken

RWBY

Ruby Rose

Yang Xiao Long

Weiss Schnee

Blake Belladonna

Pyrrha Nikos

Lie Ren

Jaune Arc

Oscar Pine

Sun Wukong

Ozpin

Crow / Qrow Branwen

Tokyo Revengers:

Takemichi Hanagaki

Mikey/Manjiro Sano

Draken/Ken Ryūgūji

Takashi Mitsuya

Keisuke Baji

Chifuyu Matsuno

Hinata Tachibana

Kazutora Hanemiya

Akkun/Atsushi Sendo

Smiley/Nahoya Kawata

Angry/souya kawata

Emma Sano

Ran Haitani

Rindo Haitani

Shuji Hanma

Izana Kurokawa

list of movies and characters that I write.

Harry Potter:

Harry Potter

Hermione Granger

Ron Weasley

Luna Lovegood

Rubeus Hagrid

Neville Longbottom

Ginny Weasley

Remus Lupin

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Draco Malfoy

Charlie Weasley

Sirius Black

Twilight:

Edward Cullen

Bella Swan

Jacob Black

Alice Cullen

Jasper Hale

Carlisle Cullen

Emmett Cullen

Sam Uley

Embry Call

Hocus Pocus:

Thackery Binx

Max Dennison

Rise of the Guardians:

Jack Frost

Bunnymund

Nicholas St. North

Tooth Fairy

Pitch Black

The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings:

Bilbo Baggins

Thorin Oakenshield

Samwise Gamgee

Legolas

Fili

Kili

Thranduil

Frodo Baggins

list of Marvel movies / comics and characters that I write.

The Avengers:

Peter Parker / Spider-Man

Bruce Banner / Hulk

Tony Stark / Iron Man

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow

Thor

Clint Barton

Steve Rogers / Captain America

Loki

T'Challa / Black Panther

Miles Morales / Spinn Spider-Man / Kid-Arachnid

Guardians of the Galaxy:

Peter Quill / Star-Lord

Rocket Raccoon

Gamora

Yondu

Groot

Drax

list of DC movie / Comics and characters that I write.

DC: 

Bruce Wayne / Bat-Man

Clark Kent / Superman

Diana Prince / Wonder Woman

Dick Grayson / Nightwing

Jon Lane Kent

Selina Kyle / Catwoman

Zatanna Zatara

Tim Drake

Kara Zor-El / Supergirl

Suicide Squad:

Harley Quinn

Deadshot

Chato Santana

Tatsu Yamashiro

Teen Titans:

Damian Wayne / Robin

Raven

Koriand'r / Starfire

Victor Stone / Cyborg

Garfield Logan / Beast Boy

Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle

Terra

list of shows and characters that I write.

Secrets Of Unfortunate Events:

Violet Baudelaire

Klaus Baudelaire

Quigley Quagmire

Isadora Quagmire

Lemony Snicket

Fiona Widdershins

Duncan Quagmire

Gravity Falls:

Dipper

Mabel

Wendy

robbie

The owl house:

Luz Noceda

Edalyn Clawthorne/ the owl lady

Willow Park

Lilith Clawthorne

Gus Porter

Amity Blight

Emira Blight

Edric Blight

Hunter/ the golden guard

Milo Murphy's Law:

Milo Murphy

Melissa Chase

Zack Underwood

Sara Murphy

Amanda Lopez 

Dakota

Balthazar Cavendish

TMNT/ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012:

Leo/Leonardo

Raph/Raphael

Donnie/Donatello

Mikey/Michelangelo

Splinter/Hamato Yoshi

April O'nell

Cassey Jones

[pandemordia]

Pandemordia Intro!

Hello! This is SplendidMeeper’s blog Pandemordia (the name of the region this little hell hole takes place in)

Author: @splendidmeepers

- Symbol*: ✧

Co-Author: @minvt11

- Symbol: ✶

* Symbol indicates who the oc is owned by!! :)

TW: Angst, Violence, Swearing, Blood, etc. (throughout the posts these are possible <:3)

The names link to their reference sheet posts :)

There are three main guilds:

Horizon Guild - Leader: Payeol

Members:

Payeol ✧

Satauro ✧

Rouge ✧

Cybic ✧

Kage ✧

Kain ✧

Dr Wisteria (assistants: Chi, Che, Cha) ✧

Cotton ✧

Discipline Guild - Leader: Brahm

Members:

Brahm ✧

Ozwald ✧

Kallixtus ✧

Asterios ✧

Rohan ✧

Astoach ✧

Olitram ✧

Baptiste ✧

???

Python Guild - Leader: Viper

Members:

Viper ✧

Felt ✧

Enno ✧

Tasso ✧

Verrell ✧

Valerion ✧

Jack ✧

Haru ✶

And of course there’s the neutral characters here and there… anyway!

Crescent Guild - Leader: Sauyer

Members:

Sauyer ✶

RaKhur ✧

KoKo ✧

Ioh ✶

Yosuke ✧

Kotick ✶

Not Guild Affiliated:

Piiko ✧

Bīng ✧

Chōuyān ✧

HoneyDew ✧

Willow ✧

Embr-X ✧

Z ✧

ClockTower (loosely associated with Discipline Guild) ✧

ERoS ✧

Faye ✶

Bunny ✶

[Creadeus] ✧

Constant conflict between the Horizon Guild and Python Guild are kept in place by the Discipline Guild…

Who knows what'll happen if things go awry?

Ask here! ヽ(‘ ∇‘ )ノ

(Updating!)

[gladdyator18]

Art Finder

Here is a masterlist of all the art I’ve done over these past few months! Like my fanfiction post, this will be updated regularly as time goes on. Some names may have the same link and lead to the same or previous picture.

My Wattpad Fanfictions Masterlist My Tumblr Fanfictions Masterlist OC Charts & Tier Lists

Pokémon

Eragona

Eragona 2

Eragona 3

Eragona 4

Eragona and Libby

Eragona and Jet

Eragona and Kat

Eragona and Nina

Eragona and Boombox

Eragona’s House

Galarian Eragona

Eragona Redraw

Rain

Roman

Mantis

Gemma

Elsa

Younger Elsa

Lark

Nina

Nina and Eric

Nina Redesign

Anville

Celeste

Rhodney

Cedric

Iliana

Grandma Elise

Grandma Elise 2

Professor Cherry

Team Xenon Grunts

Team Xenon Commanders

Team Xenon Leader

Kat

Kat 2 and Older Kat

Happy Birthday Kat

Eric

Eric and Nina

Eric Redesign

Gym Badges

Pokémon Nursery

Charcoal and Jet

Axew Twins

Professor Willow

Aaron

Ezra

Raven

Darius

Jordan and Grayson

Dragon Slayer Hunter

Dragon Slayer Hunter Redesign

Original 4

Original 4- Kantonian Form

Rina

BlackTober2021 Day 11: Self-Insert (Me)

Happy Halloween Libby and Angel

Elsu

Elsu 2

Vincent (Vinny) | Original151

Jay

Jay and London

Callahan

Merry Christmas Libby and Angel

Georgia

Assistant Calista

Fluffo

Art Contest

Chusi

Chusi Redesign

Brook

Yelena

Yelena 2

Amora

Chairman Claude

Ezonia Map

Rachel

Arcanine and Trainer

Derek

Professor Wisteria

Ruby and Opal

Luke, Ava, and Isi

Saraya

Micheal

HP OC in Pokémon art style

Fancy Pokémon

Luna the Ninetales

Harry Potter

Saraline Dragonhawk

Saraline in Pokémon art style

Silas Dragonhawk

The Dragonhawk Siblings

Eleanor Dragonhawk

Hugo Dragonhawk

Faedra Lucan

Saraline and Ace

Luka Williams

Star Wars

Zelara June

IRL Friend’s Boyfriend

Winx Club

Avengers

Libelle Pendragon/Dragona

Jasmine Shiori | Shadow Phoenix

Dragona and Shadow Phoenix

Miraculous Ladybug

L’Arachel Crimea

L’Arachel and Luca

Nighthowler

Waya

Chi-Chi

Kirra

Shall We Date: Wizardess Heart+

Gladys Drake | redraw

Gladys the Violinist

Gladys in Armor

Gladys the Fighter

Casual Gladys

Home for Christmas

WH+ OCs; The 355

Gladys Drake (ask)

Spell-casting Gladys

MHA/BNHA

Koda Shiori

Koda Shiori 2

Koda and Todoroki

IRL Friend and Bakugou

IRL Friend and Denki

IRL Friend and Kirishima

IRL Friend and Aizawa

OC Redesign

IRL Friend and Bakugou 2

IRL Friend in MHA UA Uniform

Koda and Todoroki 2

Wings of Fire

Princess Allegra

Allegra and Nether

Allegra, Jericho, and Micha

Prince Jericho

Jericho and Micha

Jericho, Allegra, and Micha

Micha

Micha and Jericho

Micha, Jericho, and Allegra

Queen Luna

Nether

Atlantica

Anubis

Iceberg

JoJo’s Bizzare Adventures

Sharena Destiria/Golden Valkyrie

Takahara Kioshi/Crimson Prism

Baisho Sugimoto/Hellhound

Hiro Katsunan/Warlord

Natalina Beneviento/Acrylic

Riccardo Beneviento/Steampunk

Rosa de la Cruz/Debilitar

Theo Maximus/Animosity

Rokai Larksgale/Beta King

Courtney Larksgale/Meta Queen

Takahara and Natalina

Ale Yukage/Infinite Abyss

Lucas Kai/Alucard

Sharena and Ishani

Ishani Destiria-Sugimoto/Dragonfly

Hiro and Riccardo

Natalina and Riccardo

Baisho and Takahara

Kain Kioshi/Prodigy

Tristan Katsunan/Atlas Atmosphere

Sharena and Baisho

Hiro and Tōshirō

Olivia Maximus/Replica Spotlight

Baisho the Guitarist

Sharena and Natalina

Ava Yukage/Autumn Blaze

Jason Kai-Sugimoto/Oracle

Diego Cortez/Horoscope Prophecy

BlackTober2021 Day 8: Hobby (Kain)

Happy Birthday Kain Kioshi

Feliz Cumpleaños Rosa de la Cruz

Happy Birthday Jason Kai-Sugimoto

Happy Birthday Ale Yukage

Ishani Redesign

Happy Birthday Ava Yukage

Happy Birthday Natalina Beneviento

Happy Birthday Olivia Maximus

JJBA Kids (daughters)

JJBA Kids (sons)

Happy Birthday Riccardo Beneviento and Tristan Katsunan

Happy Birthday Courtney and Rokai Larksgale

Happy Birthday Diego Cortez

Happy Birthday Ishani Destiria-Sugimoto and my mother

Happy Birthday Hiro Katsunan

Happy Birthday Lucas Kai

Happy Birthday Baisho Sugimoto

My Little Pony

Princess Allegra Blue

Prince Icarus

Princess Silver Wave

The Imperial Family

DBZ

Kolra

Other OCs

Gladdy

Gacha Club Recreation + Genderbend

Sonic

Lexi the Wolf

Lexi the Wolf 2

Horseland

Gladia and Jericho

Katherine and Nivia

Horseland Horses (so far)

Monster High

Corrin Atlas

Sailor Moon

My Teacher, Sailor Luz

Minecraft

Krystal

Krystal Extras

Blake

Shane

Julia

Armored Up

The Overworld Dragons

Endra, the Ender Dragon

Magma, the Nether Dragon

Demon Slayer

Ryoko Nakano

Ryoko Nakano 2

Ryoko Nakano 3

Ririkku Aria

The Apex Guardians

Galilea Reinhardt

Acheron Vadakin

Laura Vega

Nishan Tate

Andy Sterling

Emmerell Vadakin

Landon Quartz

Erzaraph Seraphim-Draconequus

Lurana Paladin

Remi Orlem

Ray Calloway

Raziel Reizen

Renée Caldore

Fire Emblem

Gladiola von Hollister

Annabelle von Laurier

Justin Lorenz Laverre

Kent Lucius Laverre and Nella Opalescent Laverre

Jasper Augustus Pomefiore

Cedric Williams Lanister and Cecil Armond Lanister

Fiona Fairbrook Valencia

Claudia Windgates Goldstein

Kayden Niklaus Goldstein

Quinton Edric Lochan

Lilibeth Isabella Lochan and Rosalind Martinez Lochan

Emery Nirin Orcsguard

Heather Scarlett Orcsguard

Diego Isenloc Glaudrich | scarred eye

Julianna Fairgates Roltindine

Corrina Vlezio Auradeau

Issac Geneva Auradeau

Phoenix Alma Flodaria

Henry and Hunter Malachi Leiado

Cameron Xavier Caldore

Vincent Odalia Airitsed

Layla Arianna Reinhardt

Aubrey von Alastor

Rosalina Lee Fontaine

Lucas Alexander Isadora

Ashton Cromwell Galileus

Jezabelle and Jewelia von Aragoes

Johnathan Luke Callahan

Random Art

Library Run-In

Art Style Practice

Neon Bubbles

Black on Neon

Forehead Kiss

I Can Be Dominant Too

His Personal Assistant

For My Sisters

Signature Practice

Signature Practice 2

Art Style Edit

Forest Sunset + Signature Practice 3

Mysterious City

Bubbly Butterflies + Signature Practice 4

BlackTober2021 Day 19: Original Character

Christmas Themed Signature Practice (5)

Signature Practice 6

Simply Me

Simply Me 2

My OCs and Me

Saphie the Dragon

Christmas Saphie

You and Me

You and Me 2

For My IRL Friends

Doodle 4 Google

Choose + Poem

Cosmic Cat

Proverbs 31:31

Birthday Gift for @made-by-jade-222​

Art for Story

Mermay 2024

New pfp

Summer Fun

Sona Color Swap

Squiggs: @giggly-squiggily / @squiggilydrawsthings

Jett: @jettorii

Tama-chan: @lovelymessybubbly

Ryui: @vqler

[onedivinemisfit]

AnS Witcher!AU - the dead relatives

I drew these just, well, because none had formerly been colored, and maybe I can put together a full family tree at some point :3

Kain Wisteria - king of Temeria, given to bouts of madness (may or may not have been caused by elder blood) assassinated by Nilfgaard (fan-colored)

Haruto Wisteria - queen of Temeria, Kain’s wife. She was poisoned by an unknown assailant (semi-fan colored)

Kirika Seiran - wife of Lord Seiran, princess of Temeria, Kain’s younger sister. Died in childbirth (fan-designed and -named)

Shani Callerya - wife of Lord Haruka, mother of queen Sayaka. Died from prolonged lung illness (oc)

AnS (c) Akizuki Sorata

Art: Me

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

*cracks knuckles* Clearly I’m going straight for the Blackout. 

ENJOY, FRIENDS. FOR YOU, I THROW IT UNDER THE CUT

Under 1000 Words

take my burdens (and bury them deep) by @thelionshymnal​ Rated M Nothing makes me happier than a fic of my favorite BroTP, especially when Obi is offering to disappear Kiki’s dirty dealings. Content warning for attempted sexual assault and Obi doing what he does best: getting rid of the body.

A Fic That Got You Involved In Fandom

Seven Suitors for Shirayuki by @sabraeal​ Rated T Look. You all are just going to have to accept that there is a certain generation of this fandom that was dragged in, kicking and screaming, by this fic. I wanted to diversify by saying something else managed it, but no. It was the fact that this story was stuck on chapter five for MONTHS that made me vibrate until my own fic fell out. XD

Made You Laugh Out Loud

An Extra Rise Before Dawn by @sabraeal​ Rated G I don’t often worry that I am going to pee from laughing so hard when I’m reading something, but this one definitely does. In one spot in particular. You might be able to guess it. It is simultaneously an incredible sweet and incredibly funny fic that hits all the right notes for me.

Favorite Trope Reversal

Fussing with Firedrakes by @leewritingrecs​ Rated T 1) Dragons. 2) Damsel in distress is no damsel and she is NOT in distress thank you very much 3) Kiki is a DRAGON 4) Obi is cursed, and 5) DID I MENTION D R A G O N S ???

Fic That Made You Friends With the Author

The Wide Florida Bay by @sabraeal​ Rated E I had to think about this because while I read Seven Suitors first, this was the series that made me start sending anons and eventually made me join tumblr where I proceeded to endlessly play the ‘what if’ game with Jen. CLEARLY this is where our friendship was forged.

Action-Packed Fight Scene

Agent, Parts I, II, and III by @infinitelystrangemachinex​ Rated T Like Jen, I was positively torn, because both Andi and Sarah do fight scenes SO WELL, but Agent ultimately won out because there is just something so delightful about Shirayuki flailing and clinging to Obi like a cat that doesn’t want to go in the bath while arrows zip all around them

Edit: Screw it, I’m reccing them both

Republic of Tanbarun by @claudeng80​ Rated T An action adventure series where romance is involved but is by no means the focus. Zen and Obi adventures abound. Politics galore. And some masterfully done slow-motion to quick motion fight scenes that I L O V E D

Gen Fic

Fugue in Three by @infinitelystrangemachinex​ Rated G Ryuu casually destroys Obi and Shirayuki by breathing as they count down the days until he comes of age. Technically this fic has a romantic pairing, but it is by no means the focus of this fic. If you don’t agree, you are welcome to meet me under the Big Oak between the hours of 12 and 4 for a duel.

Missing Scene

Like Brothers Do by @claudeng80​ Rated G Obi is clearly Kiki’s annoying big brother and handles Mitsuhide’s rejection in the best way he knows how. Also read: Mitsuhide gets what’s coming to him. (ง'̀-'́)ง

Canon Divergent

We work at the mall by @kaedix​ Rated T With how many AUs we got floating around this fandom, I was hard pressed to choose a favorite. But there is just something so sweet and wholesome and American teenager about this. It just latches onto you and never lets go. (Also the gang all work at my favorite places in the mall when I was growing up. What’s not to love?)

Steamiest Kiss

Were Hearts Not An Unknown Country by @sabraeal​ Rated T LOOK. SOMEONE was going to have to go dig this out of the rubble of her compilation fics and it might as well be me. Also the birthplace of the much loved AnS fandom practice of solstice kissing.

Contains Your Favorite Headcanon

The road to Clarines is Gravel by @codango​ Rated E Not the focus of the fic as a whole, but like, Torou and Obi are siblings. GALAXY MIND EXPLOSION. I mean, I loved that so much that I wrote a pre-canon fic of this fic. Additional note totally not related to the bingo square: I will ALWAYS be here for positive sex worker representation in fics. Fair warning, though, this is the most unfair AU in existence because the brain screams that it SHOULDN’T WORK and yet by some sort of writerly sorcery, it DOES. PLEASE READ IT IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY.

Wept Real Tears

let it make you by @thelionshymnal​ Rated M It’s not every day that someone manages to write a fic that makes me stare numbly at the very first line for a solid 15 minutes, big fat tears rolling down my cheeks, but Hymn did it. And then she somehow managed to kiss it better. All in 1100 words.

Free Space

AnS Role Swap AU by @owlsshadows​ Rated M This series has it all. Shirayuki as an assassin. Obi as both a royal bastard and a pharmacist. A mysterious meeting out in the woods where it makes you question whether Nanaki and Obi are two different people or the same. Also Zen having some very conflicted feelings regarding his royal authority and how he can choose to handle rejection.

Edit: Since I’ve already doubled up once, let me double up again, I have so much love to give and not enough space to give it!

Blizzard by @nebluus​ Rated T This is one of the earliest fics I read in this fandom and it remains to date one of my absolute favorites. Obi gets hurt protecting his Miss and a blizzard rolls in. Thankfully they find a cabin where Obi, who is definitely on his death bed if no one finds them and SOON, proceeds to still fuss over his Miss. Best scene: When he warms her hands with his. Also the second chapter is all sorts of delightful domesticity I IMPLORE you to please read it and soon.

Favorite Fan-Made OC

All Pain Will Turn to Medicine by @sabraeal​ Rated M All y’all should’ve seen these coming from ten miles out. I fucking LOVE Herr Anda, the cantankerous little bastard. And Jen knows this because she designed him specifically with me in mind. Academic catnap >:|

AU That Made You Find the Source Material

All Knotted Up by @sabraeal​ Rated G Admittedly, there are a great many AUs out there that made me look up the source material, but this Tangled AU is the most recent because I finally got on Disney+. And yes, Mitsuhide is the horse. Ryuu may be Pascal a little bit, but Mitsuhide. He’s The Horse. XD

First AnS Fic You Read

Loyalty by Evelyn Fiedler Rated K+ (which is basically G on AO3) My one and only ff.net rec from my earliest days in the fandom when I was combing for absolutely any content I could find, begging the fandom to help me decide if I was down for Obiyuki and all that it implied and this author most assuredly delivered.

Favorite Minor Character

Undertow by @jhalya​ Rated E The fic itself is a space odyssey of sorts. One mission among many where humanity attempts to colonize Mars. However the real selling point here, if you didn’t know, is Lord Seiran. He is a delightfully eccentric billionaire who clearly always wanted a large family, judging from how easily he fills out the adoption paperwork.

WIP

Caulk dirty to me by @leewritingrecs​ Rated E Have I mentioned I love the sex worker trope? I. Love. The. Sex. Worker. Trope. Also Obi is clearly divine at all of his jobs. Shirayuki already got to experience his skills at one of them. I wait with BAITED BREATH for her to experience the other :3

Canon Compliant

Thicker than Blood by @infinitelystrangemachinex​ Rated G In the aftermath of the death of King Kain, Izana and Zen must decide on which path they will take moving forward. Amazing fic. Unfinished, but a wonderful look into the dynamics between the Wisteria brothers and their absent mother.

One-Shot

Worth his Weight in Rice by @claudeng80​ Rated T AU set in an Edo-adjacent Period where a disease has wiped killed off a significant portion of the male population. Resulting societal shifts occur. If you go into the comments, I have a couple of pages worth of reasons why I love this AU, but what I appreciate even more is how you have an absolutely perfect oneshot in this fic. It is a well-translated universe where we get a delightful clear, beginning, middle, and end, all in 5k. NOT an easy feat. Please enjoy.

Rare Pair

the fog pushing through my mind by @thelionshymnal​ Rated E Obi/Yuzuri, friends with benefits. Two pining idiots with some sore feelings decide to get stoned and take comfort in another warm body for the night. I just really enjoyed the casual intimacy of the encounter and how this is clearly neither of their first experiences with a one night stand. Neither of them are going to make it weird in the morning, they just need to take the edge off, ya know? Additional bonus for Obi being ready to stab the dumbasses who made Yuzuri feel like she was a weirdo in her past.

AU You Took a Chance On (And Now Love)

Lightning in a Bottle by @jhalya​ Rated M I mean, if Jules is gonna play dirty by making Obi the hot fish man running around without his shirt on 99% of the time, then of COURSE I’m going to enjoy Deep Blue Sea. It’s, like, one of my favorite movies now.

Favorite Trope

Moonshine Phantom by @leewritingrecs​ Rated T We got a murder muffin who ALSO used to be a sex worker? Sign me the fuck up, I am 1000% here for this. Also all the showgirls who clearly love their coworker and only want him and his adorable wife to have the best. They may have never heard of her before, but she looks sweet, and they all have a silent agreement between them that if she breaks his heart, they’ll cut her.

Fic That Gave You a New OTP

What the Heart Wants by @sabraeal​ Rated G Haruto/Mukaze. An attempted kidnapping and subsequent rescue makes Zen and Shirayuki painfully aware that their parents have had, at some point in their lives, sex. Izana may not be happy about someone banging his mom, but is HE rather pleased at having a new sister. >:3c

Pre-Canon

The Wolf in the Woods by @krispy-kream​ (YES I STILL HAVE THIS BOOKMARKED) Rated G Everyone knows that I have very delicate food feels and this ALMOST went under the Wept Real Tears category, but I like to spread out the crying as much as possible XD Shirayuki finds a boy at the edge of the wood and decides he needs something to eat. Filed under: Guaranteed to wreck me in 500 words or less.

[wisteriaphyte]

6.3 ready! Wisteria's DRG glam for the remaining of Endwalker ✨ A while back, I was looking at Kain's armor from FFIV and the Dissidia games to get some inspiration for Estinien. Instead I got inspiration for Wisteria, so I tinted her glam with gloom purple in honor of Kain! I went with a purple dye that wouldn't clash with her hair too much.

[ans-incorrect-quotes]

Kain: I’m back.

Haruto: What the- You can’t be here! How are you alive?! I literally saw you die years ago!

Kain: Death is but a social construct.

[sabraeal]

All That Remains, Chapter 10: The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure [Part 7]

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki Trope Madness 2022, Semifinal #2: I Will Find You

There is romance in the escape, is there not? Fear as well-- so much, enough to choke even you, though you are not the one running. To fly is to risk being caught, to chance a worse fate, to hold your heart in your hands and watch it crushed beneath the heady weight of your hopes.

A risk it may be, but for the greatest reward: freedom. You watch our girl run; you cheer for her to go faster, farther, to break free of the magic of this garden. The grass is greener on the other side, the water sweeter, the universe far more kind.

But that is but another illusion, a story we will tell ourselves again and again and never grow tired. We must believe it: there is a light at the end of the tunnel, an end to our suffering, a better place beyond this one.

Because without it, we will never leave.

Anger nips at Shirayuki’s heels, driving her feet faster and faster, until the portraits begin to blur. Not a hundred pairs of Wisteria blue reaching back into history, but a single gaze, heavy as a hand on her neck. Her slippers stumble beneath it, tumbling her to a stop.

A portrait glares down at her; a king who sits on his throne as if it were made of swords, his face half in shadow from the weight of his brow. Not one of the shining sun kings Clarines is known for, nor even a forefather of Izana’s frigid reputation. No, his is a brutal face, craggy as a mountainside, like the ones painted of the Northern lords of old.

Kain Wisteria, the plaque reads, Regnant. And the dates after it--

You read it, huh? It’s horrifying that he can smile over it, even now. That her Zen, a boy who shines as bright as the sun, can find joy in his own suffering. Because suffer he did; it’s all right here, in Garak’s too-familiar chick scratch. You should know, that’s all over and done with.

She does, she does; it sits stark in back and white, impersonal on the page. No hint of how this was done to a child, how he must have screamed and cried and called for someone, anyone to help him. Did you know about it?

Sure. He shrugs, so easy, like he didn’t court death on purpose. Like he didn’t look it in the eye and live, over and over. It’s about me, isn’t it?

That’s not what she wants to ask, what words are tearing at her throat to fly free. Why? she wants to say, she wants to scream. Why would you do this to yourself?

People do strange thing for fear, Garak tells her, later. Unprompted, a simple aside as she partitions out doses, taking an envelop in her own long fingers and holding it open for Shirayuki to fill. And they do even more unforgivable things for love--

Shirayuki’s hand reaches out, reaches up, stretching toward an unfamiliar brow, towards a king no courtier will speak of. Careful, Eisetsu had murmured once, his hand gentle on her back as she stepped into the carriage. Even the sun has to cast shade.

“Is that who you are?” she murmurs to the man she will never know. “Zen’s shadow?”

“Shirayuki!”

Her feet scuttle back, shuffling beneath her, prepared to break into a run. But there’s no need, not when the man who rounds the corner is nearly as tall as the knight’s armor in it. “Mitsuhide.”

“Please,” he pants, breath heaving as he approaches. “Wait a-- oh. You aren’t running.”

You’re not Zen. It’s on the tip of her tongue, but she cannot decide whether it is an observation or an accusation. “Is there a reason I should be?”

“N-no!” He flushes, not just from exertion. “I’m not going to bring you back. Not if you don’t want to.”

His tone makes it clear he’s hopeful she will. That he believes there is a reason good enough to explain away what’s been done. “I don’t.”

“I know that you--” he flounders beneath her steady gaze-- “you must be...hurt? That Zen didn’t tell you his reasons for stopping the search. But you have to see that--”

Her hand flies up between them, his excuses stuttering to a stop. “It’s not about his reasons.”

Mitsuhide blinks, a hound confused at an empty bowl. “It’s not?”

“No.” Her breath broadens the set of her shoulders; small she might be, but right now a lance could glance her shoulder, like they did at tourneys of old, and she wouldn’t sway an inch. “No reason is good enough for him to have abandoned Obi. I’m disappointed. That this is what he decided...and that all of you let him, like Obi...like he never mattered to you.”

He stumbles a whole step back, hand clutched to his chest as if she took her hand to him rather than her words. There’s a storm brewing on his brow as he rights himself, as foreign as a tornado tearing through hilltops. An expression that hardly belongs on a face so friendly as his.

“Of course Obi matters.” His hands fist at his side, cracking as he forces his fingers straight. “But I respect him as a fellow knight, and my...my friend. If he said--”

“Did he say?” Desperation turns her voice into a stranger. “Did he tell you he meant to go? That you couldn’t come after him, because he chose to...to...”

Mitsuhide is made of mercy; it’s no surprise he gives it to her, even now. “No,” he murmurs, so soft. “He didn’t. But I know how it feels to watch the person that you...”

His lips press together; even with the secret unleashed, running rampant through all their minds, he won’t give Obi up further. It’s frustrating to see so much loyalty, and yet have it be so misplaced.

“But would you have left her?” Shirayuki takes a step toward him, her fingers knotted down to the bone. “If Kiki had married Hisame, would you have left?”

His reply is faster than thought. “Never.”

“Never?”

“I have my duty.” His shoulders tense, torn by even the ghosts of what could have been. “But if she had married him, I could never have-- oh.”

Terrible realization dawns in his dark eyes, old shadows ushered out at the same time new ones roll in. “I never could have left, because I would have wanted to be there for her. Even if I couldn’t have her. That’s why I...”

Mitsuhide’s hands are broad, callused; the kind that seem strong even in repose. One of them rises now, wrapping around the horror his own mouth has unleashed. Right here, in the steady lamplight of Wistal’s halls, a man so big has never seemed so small.

“You see it now, don’t you?” She’s steely and soft all at once, a bludgeon wrapped in silk. “Why I can’t believe he wanted to go?”

“No.” It’s muffled by his hand, but the way slight way he stakes his head. “No...”

Her hand comes, resting gently on his arm, as warm and safe as it has ever been.

“I won’t stay mad forever, Mitsuhide, I know that. But I...” She licks her lips, letting the motion ground her. “But I don’t think I can stay here either. Not when he needs me.”

A story makes an escape trim and lean: an adventure with a clear end, a decision with a clear reason, a question with an easy answer. It is obvious, inevitable from the first doubt. It is unrelenting, a race from the the first step to the last. There is no room for guessing or for second thoughts, only the ceaseless beat of words upon the page, the rising crescendo of strings, tense and finite.

But flight is never a whim of the moment, a convenient suitcase at the door. No, the decision in itself is a journey, one full of stumbles, of pitfalls. Of dollars beneath a mattress, of a pack hidden in the depths of the closet. It is nights filled with tossing and turning, of wondering what comes next-- or more terrible, what comes after.

Jump, we say, knowing that there are pages more to go, that we can but skim to better times. Run, for there are miles to go before your tale is finished. Hope, because for you, happiness is only a finger’s width away.

That is what stories steal from these leave-takings: the unknowing.

Her clothes are cloying in the confines of her chambers.

The lace at her neck chafes, chewing angry marks onto her throat. Love bites, Obi laugh once, peeling the offending fabric from her skin, only you could get them the un-fun way, Miss.

Her fingers sneak between flesh and fabric, holding it away, giving herself room to breathe, to think. She can see her skirts pacing in the mirror, a susurration of silken whispers as she walks. Mitsuhide had let her go, but she imagines him just outside her door, wondering what secrets they would whisper to him--

She stills. In the silvered glass, a stranger looks out at her. Who is she, this woman in taffeta and lace? This woman who wears pearls as clasps and sees it as simple, as plain? Whose skin is only spotted by the imperceptible faults of silver.

It shouldn’t be her. She is not satin shoes and mother-of-pearl buttons, nor carnelian combs and perfect politesse. No, she is made of loam, a tall stalk waving in the wind; a tincture titrated in a lab, the soft burble of a beaker at boil, a seed wrapped in stone and left to shine.

You lack the practical knowledge of what you are asking. Her hand fists in the fabric, wrinkles tickling her palm. The title of princess is not just decoration.

And yet she had nearly become one, trying to be the woman expected of her. All it had taken was simple shift from implicit to explicit. Not a promise itself, but a promise of a promise.

Sacrifice should be expected of a lady, Mihoko creaked at her once, opinion as final as a slammed door. And a princess must be prepared to give all.

Haki had rolled her eyes, had given a subtle sigh when Her Ladyship’s back had been turned, but-- but--

It’s Mihoko who spoke rightly in the end. She had given up everything for this chance-- the pharmacy, the gardens, her life’s work; everything that had given her joy or purpose. And in the end, she had lost herself, lost even--

Her fingers clench again, but this time they tug, they tear, until eyes pop from their hooks, until taffeta and lace fall to the floor and all that is left is Shirayuki. Trembling, perhaps, but whole.

She will not lose one more thing. Not this time.

No flight begins from a stand still. Even the smallest sparrow creates their own lift from nothing, filling themselves with terrible potential before they take to the skies, free and safe. Quick to the eye, but to the body itself-- a cost, like any other.

Obi never taught her the trick of traveling between balconies.

Trying to steal my job already, Miss? he laughed, his smile crinkling his eyes, the way it did when she’d truly surprised him. It’ll only make it harder if I have to worry about you scurrying about the castle where folks can’t see.

But what if I need to see you? It was an innocent question, a worry she’d chewed over in the hours since Tanbarun. A concern that had only grown more pressing when Eisetsu had sent him off after the ball, all on his own, right into the arms of Bergatt.

It’s only now that she understands the rictus of his grin, the humor frozen in the corners of his mouth. But, Miss, he hummed, so warm it set her cheeks to burning, it’s my job to come to you.

Her boot slips on the rail, it’s tread worn thin through a dozen gardens, a hundred roads. It would take a single step to make it to Obi’s balcony, to avoid the potential princess being seen sneaking into the abandoned chambers of her half-tamed knight. It would take a more careless one for more than her hopes to be dashed on the ground below.

What if you can’t. She only ever saw his worse wounds after they healed, that scar from Sereg puffy and pink but speaking of careful-- and long term-- attention. What if--

Don’t worry, he said so easily, as if she could ever stop. I’ll always be at your side. What did I say? Wherever you go, I’ll follow.

“Liar.” The word sobs out on a breath, all her tears already shed. Still, she rubs at her eyes, knuckles coming away wet. “Liar.”

It’s not Obi’s skill she uses to traverse the gulf between, but her own; the ones she honed as a child climbing down the decorative trellis beneath her window, or shimmying up the forest’s trees. She stares down at the toes of her boots as they settle beneath her, straight like a knife buried in a block, and thinks of the blind faith she once had in herself, the trust she had that her small body would sling her between the wooden posts that crossed the reservoir. And when she takes her step--

She lands, right on Obi’s balcony.

So it is with little girls. They must prepare themselves, must take their small hops, their small flaps, must fill themselves with the terrible to fuel their flight. A kite needs a running start to ride the winds, and little girls--

Ah, well, there are two ways for them. Some only need a push.

Obi never taught her how to pick a lock either; at least, not with the ease he had. Obi could stroll up to a keyhole and convince it to open with the barest twist of his wrist, or cajole a set of french doors to swing wide with only a barest insinuation, but for Shirayuki-- even if she got to her knees, even if she used every pin in her hair, not a single tumbler would move.

A good thing, then, that the handle warms beneath her palm, turning with the gentlest twist.

Shirayuki stares, bone stark against polished brass. It’s open. Obi had left the door to his own personal chambers unlocked. Her stomach gives a sick lurch, a free fall towards her toes, just like it had at the tower. Only now, as she crosses the threshold, there is no one left to jump in after her.

Stale air chokes her; there’s no scent to it, nothing left to molder, but still it smells...undisturbed. Stifling almost; an attic in the dog days of summer, though with none of the heat. No, it’s cool in here, not even the dust the slightest bit scattered and it’s-- it’s--

It’s exactly as Obi left it. Bed made with the crispness of the castle’s staff, untouched. After all, it’s not as if he’d slept in it that night. Not when she’d told him--

Her eyes close, hand blindly gripping for his chair. There’s no point in thinking of that now. That his pens are still in their haphazard scatter across his desk, that his papers are all left so neatly, held down by a book he’d surely never used for anything but its weight--  no guards had been in here. For all of Zen’s assurances, he hadn’t even stretched himself this much.

Anger seethes in her veins, just beneath the thin cover of her skin, but she takes a breath, letting it cool. That’s why she’s here, after all. If this had all been done, if Zen had done as he promised-- well, perhaps more than this would be different. But instead she is on the precipice-- no, at the edge of a tower, wondering if she should jump.

After all, Zen’s knife was not the only message Obi left. Ryuu had his seed as well. Broken promises both, his failures in physical form. But for her--

Nothing. No apology, no acknowledgement. Only silence. Perhaps, after all these years, she deserved it.

But she doubts Obi would agree.

Shirayuki crouches, the parquet hard beneath her knees. The carpet by his bedside lays flat, not a single tassel out of place, but she knows better. Obi thought he was so clever, but she’d been an only child in an old house, a girl filled to the brim with stories of secret passages and hidey-holes. If he thinks a carpet kept her from knowing about his cache from the kitchen, or the bag he kept packed with them-- well, she saw no reason to tell him.

The board prises loose beneath the barest application of a finger to it’s edge, or it least it did to one that knew the trick of it. She sets it aside, heart in her throat, but--

But there’s nothing there. He took everything.

And other little girls...they must fall.

Tears sting her eyes as her finger brush the empty boards below, only dust rising to meet them. No, he didn’t take everything.

Her breath catches in her throat, the same way her fingers catch in a fist. He kept it.

Blood trickles down a breast; it soaks into cloth with each ragged gasp. That is where stories leave us between their lines: alone and bleeding, the sword beside us. When next it find us, all this will be far behind us, merely backstory for what happens after.

But that is not the important part is it? No, that would be the terrible breaths between. The moment in which one stares at the edge coated in their own life’s blood and wonder, shall I turn my back on it, or shall I put it back in?

A hand reaches out, trembling. What would it be like to choose neither? To instead take this weakness and wield it.

Fingers grip, pale against the hilt. Suffer not a weapon left in the enemy’s grasp.

The spathe flutters from her ankle as the little girl runs, hard stones pounding beneath the soles of her feet. Her gaze is fixed at the gate, and no matter how the path warps, or how the garden grows, she keeps running, one step after another. Endless, like swimming a river upstream, fighting a current she cannot see or feel until--

Until reality snaps back to sensibility, the gate but an arm’s reach away. What had from a distance looked solid, wrought of iron and impossible to break, is now a sad thing, rusted and hung crooked on its hinges. Fastened shut it may be, but when she raised a hand to its lock, it flakes away, staining her palms.

And older woman might wonder at that, might dwell on what it says that one is marred by their circumstance even in leaving them, but--

But our girl is too young for such things. When the gate swings open, she flees, the wide world opening around her.

It is so easy for children to take such chances.

No, it is easy for us to tell them to. Stick a toe in that pond, child, the water is only cold when you first get in. You’ll get used to it in time. It will be warm once it is familiar.

Eat that, it’s good for you. You have never seen it before, never tasted such a thing on your tongue, but trust will make it sweet. Watch me, child, let me go before you. Delicious. A flavor you will anticipate for days to come, all you need is to take your first bite.

Run, we say, there is something better waiting for you on the other side. All a little girl need to do is reach out, to grab it. There will be someone on the other side, waiting to catch her.

It would be practical to wait. No, it would be prudent to play princess for another day longer, maybe even two or three. Enough for suspicions to ease, for everyone to believe Shirayuki would keep on as she had. To convince themselves that when she had said, I won’t give up, it had been yet another promise she meant to break, an oath she had no intention to see through.

But no second thoughts, no cunning plans slow her hands. For she knows that with each moment she lingers, each hour she pretends to be content with her life within these shining walls is another that brings it closer to being truth. Her anger spurs her now, but should she let it cool, should she let the words of those she well-loves sing in her ears--

Well, she already turned her back on him once. To test herself again, to rely on her better judgement when it failed her so spectacularly-- unnecessary.

The last of her clothes packed-- the ones that would survival travel, the ones she came with only months ago, the only ones to her name-- she reaches blindly for the top drawer. There’s no reason for it; she knows that there’s nothing there, not for outside the palace, but still--

Her hands brush over a wooden box. Precious stones cut against her fingers, and even without opening it, she pictures the treasure inside. Mother of pearl, carved jade, gold and silver pieces wrought as thin as wire; a small fortune.

The edges dig into the flesh of her knuckles. Perhaps she is not quite done with this place after all.

The little girl has read all the tales: it is foolish to look back. But still, still-- she cannot shake the eyes on her back, nor the niggling idea that she has forgotten something most important, most precious.

She looks back once.

The consort is at dinner.

The moon is high in the sky, but Haki will be at her seat for hours more, conversing with those nobles that jockey to jostle royal elbows. At Tanbarun’s court, Raj’s father had barely stayed a few minutes past desert-- but there were few who were as diligent as Clarine’s king and queen. They wouldn’t leave until every dish was cleared and every concern aired, and when they returned--

Ah, well, Shirayuki had learned well enough that Haki did not always make it all the way back to her rooms. And with no consort to protect, there is only one drowsing guard on duty, one who is far more concerned about staying upright than the girl in the white coat scurrying past. He waves her on with a snort, only saying, “Leave it on the table.”

Her smile freezes on her lips. “I’ll only take a moment.”

A promise that is easy to keep; there’s no paper-wrapped parcel on the table now, but it is easy-- too easy-- to place her own there. The mother of pearl shines in the moonlight.

“Thank you,” she tells the empty room, an easier audience than for whom the message is meant, “but I won’t be needing these anymore.”

Her touch lingers, tracing the shimmering petals. They look nearly liquid in the moonlight, small glistening ponds carved out of the earth around them. “I think maybe...I never did.”

There is nothing behind her, nothing but a garden overgrown and gate rusting a pieces. A broken illusion, made all the sadder for the seeming. 

In front of her is a hill, not steep but treacherous at night, the sort filled with little hidey holes to turn a girl’s ankle. At least, if she wasn’t careful. This little girl might not have shown much of that lately, but now, now-- it’s different.

And yet, as she picks her way down the hillside, she cannot shake that feeling. That sense of something missing, that sense of something watching.

She looks back twice.

An arm bars her path when she takes the turn to the royal offices, but it’s a familiar smile that greets her. Kai’s eyes dance as he tells her, “He’s not there, my lady.”

“Ah...” A part of her is relieved; to explain this to Zen in person would take more anger than her body could hold, and she cannot waver, not again. But yet, an equal one is disappointed, still hoping that perhaps this was all just a misunderstanding, that only a few minutes’ honest conversation could set this all to right--

But the dagger had been sheathed so casually at his hip, as if it had never left. If she had not seen it, if she had allowed her eyes to glossy over it familiar shape--

Ah, it is not so simple as that. Nothing between them ever will be again. But hope is, as ever, the hardest thing to smother, even a flame as small as this. “He isn’t?”

Kai shakes his head, leaning in with a conspiratorial grin. “Sir Mitsuhide had him out of there not an hour past. Said that maybe a few hours sleep might set him all to rights.”

It’s an effort to suppress the urge to go to him, to hold his hands in hers and work through all this together. She clenches them inside, hiding them in the pockets of her skirt. “Is that so?”

“He musta gotten into it with Lady Kiki,” he tells her, as if all this were some joke, just one of their usual disagreements, destined to be solved by morning. “When I came on duty she flew out of there like the floor was made of coals, muttering all sorts of things, if you can believe it.”

She can’t, not with the way Kiki stood so silent, so still, just hours ago. How when she needed her most-- when Obi needed her most, she--

Shirayuki teeth clack into a smile. “You don’t say?”

Kai looks down at her, guileless, and asks, “Are you going to go see if you can catch him, my lady, or--?”

“No, no, I just...” Her fingers clench, knuckles knocking into cool metal. They unfurl, wrapping around rounded edge, each tick and tock matching the steady beat of her own heart. They had been that way too, once; in sync. “I just wanted to leave something here for him. For tomorrow.”

There’s not a hint of suspicion as he steps aside, waving her through. “Go right on ahead then, my lady. I’m sure it’ll make his day.”

She thumbs the crown, feeling it twist ever so slightly between her touch. “I certainly hope it will make him think of me.”

The door swings open easily beneath her hand, leading to the dark office beyond. By the time it shuts, she is trembling.

“Please, understand,” she whispers as she pulls out the drawer, arrowhead still in its glass case. The watch settles in beside it as if it were always made to be there, two betrayals framed side by side. “That’s all I want. For you all to understand.”

Scree scrabbles beneath her feet, and the little girl realizes: they are bare. Her precious red shoes are inside still, tucked beneath her bed. It’s too late to turn back, too late to have second thoughts or second chances, but--

She looks back a third time.

In Lilias, the pharmacy never closes. Just like the guard, pharmacists were expect to take the odd night shift, fielding the mortal and mundane in equal measure. But here in Wistal, its doors shut soon after the evening bell, herbalists roused from their own beds should there be a need in the early hours.

And yet still, light limns Ryuu’s door, the lamp burning bright from inside. A mind that never sleeps, Shidan had said once, a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth as Obi lifted Lilias’ smallest scholar, but the body must.

She half expects to find him beneath his desk, curled up as he had years ago, only the flutter of a curtain to betray him. But he’s too big for that now; taller than even Obi when he forgets to slouch. And so when she walks in, those pale eyes find her, blue as the Wisteria colors. A thought he’d hate, if he could hear her think it.

“Shirayuki,” he says, almost as if he can’t believe she’s there. “Why...?”

There’s nothing in her pockets for him; the hairpin he picked for is her lost now, taken from it’s place. But that-- that hardly matters. It’s not a promise she’s here to break, after all. Not when she already crushed so many in her carelessness.

“I’m leaving,” she tells him, and suddenly, it’s real. “I’m leaving.”

His mouth falls open, gaze scrabbling over the cut of her dress-- yes, for once, her dress; one with pockets and raised hems and fabric meant to be dirtied. “But...why...?”

“Obi left.” The words sting her lips as they leave them. “But I’m going after him. I wanted to-- to--”

Say goodbye.

“I’ll come with you.” There’s no hesitation, his eyes flickering over jars and books and samples. “Just give me an hour, no two, and I can--”

“No.” She shakes her head, tearing from the effort. “You have to stay here.”

“But--”

“You’re the Head Pharmacist now.” By the sudden slump of his shoulders, he hardly needs the reminder. “The people here need you.”

“So does Obi,” he insists, though it’s weaker, less sure. “So do you.”

“We do.” It’s easy to close the space between them, to wrap his too-large hands with her smaller ones, casting shadows over his papers. “I do. But that’s why you have to stay. There always has to be someone to come home to, doesn’t there?”

His eyes widen, and oh, he’s never looked more like a child than this moment. “You’ll come back?”

“When I find him,” she promises, though she can’t imagine it. There’s too many ifs between then and now, too many maybes, but this time, this time-- she means to keep her word. “When I find him, I’ll come back.”

We are not children, you and I. We know that we do not live stories; that life is more than crescendo to climax, from falling action to denouement. That when a door opens, there is no easy answer on the other side, no better life ready-made for a girl to slip into, like her favorite pair of red shoes.

No, there is nothing there that we do not make for ourselves, that is not the blood of our body and the sweat off our back and the tears from our own sorrow. What lays on the other side is the chance but to make it, our hands bleeding from the hard work of carving our own destiny.

But it is better than having stayed.

Obi never taught her to run away.

Not that Shirayuki ever needed help with that anyway. She knows full well the art of leaving everything behind, of abandoning all her worldly possessions with hardly more than a glance over her shoulder and regret knotted deep in her heart. To do it again is hard, harder than she ever imagined it could be, but-- at least this time, she doesn’t have a prince hot on her heels.

Yet. Hard to say how long that’ll last, though.

This time too, she has resources. Last time she wore out the soles of her boots walking, but this time, this time-- a horse nickers in its stall.

“C’mon, girl,” she whispers, brushing a quick hand over a silver flank. “Just stand still.”

Shirayuki isn’t fluid in horse, but she’s pretty sure it rolls its eyes. It certainly shies away from her, favoring her with a dubious snort.

She hefts up the saddle, staggering under its weight. “I just have to get this one you! So if you don’t move--”

“All these years with Obi,” an amused voice drawls from behind her. “And he’s never taught you how to steal a horse.”

Shirayuki spins on her heel, and across the straw, she meets Kiki’s amused gaze.

When the little girl slows to catch her breath, it’s the snowdrop that catches her eye, lingering out of season. An impossibility with the way the air cools around her, but still, still-- magic makes all things possible. And she is not too far from the sorceress and her guardian.

She approaches, wary. They are unobtrusive; in the garden they had been lost beneath the brighter, louder blooms, but they grew even still, undaunted by the crowd around them. Snowdrops are known to be hardy, these ones already firmly entrenched in the soil, though they can’t have been growing long. Stalwart, even with their fragile beauty.

The little girl has always liked them. In her village, to find one before the snow melt was a sign of luck, a blessing born from cold misfortune. Every year, it would be her that found the first bloom, hidden beneath her window or tucked against the stoop. The luckiest girl in the whole world, her neighbors would laugh.

At least they did, until she lost her boy.

“Ah...” Shirayuki shuffles back, putting more space between them. At least, until the wall rises to meet her back, and ah yes, she’s only trapped instead. “Obi doesn’t really like horses.”

Kiki sighs, detaching from the shadows with a roll of her eyes. She’s dressed in black, the way she never is, hands gloved and sword strapped to her side.

Her strong hands lift, taking the saddle from her, dropping it back to the rail. “Kiki--” 

Slowly, purposefully, Kiki plucks up a brush, skimming it over the mare’s back.

“You have to clean them first,” she says, stern. “And then you can worry about the tack.”

She’s not sure why the first thing she thinks to say is, “But I did.”

Kiki snorts. “You didn’t. I was watching you.”

There’s not much to say to that. Or rather there’s too much to say, too much between them to start, unless she means to be here all night.

“I can do it,” she says finally, holding out her hand for the brush.

“No.” Kiki doesn’t even bother to look as she moves, motions swift, efficient, and yet strangely gentle. “I know what I’m doing.”

Do you mean to bring me back? the little girl asks, barely more than a whisper. I will not let you.

I do not, the snowdrop sighs, I will not.

The little girl crouches, heart in her throat. Then do you know where my boy is? My precious one?

“Um...” Shirayuki casts about for something to say, for something to do besides watch Kiki calmly, methodically tack a horse. “What are you doing?”

She hesitates, arching a brow. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You...” Her mouth is dry, hope choking her harder than her anger ever did. “You can’t stop me from leaving.”

The snowdrop does not shy, does not wilt, but she does sway, the wind moving her in its grasp.

I do not, the snowdrop tells her, I am but one flower, and out of season. Even if I called to all my brothers, all my sisters, they would be sleeping beneath the earth.

Then why, the girl sobs, tears welling when they should be well spent, why have you come?

“I know.” Kiki’s face is placid, a lake the moment before the stone lands. “I don’t mean to try.”

“Oh.” She shuffles, boots scuffing against the wooden floor. “I...good.”

“There’s no point.” Kiki makes short work of the saddle, poking the mare’s belly as she says, “I’m coming with you.” 

I may be only one flower, the snow drops says, confident for such a small thing. But if you put me behind your ear, then we could go together.

I do not understand. She does, she does, but oh there is nothing more terrifying than hope.

If you but put me behind your ear, the snow drop says, shyly now, then you would not have to go out in this world alone.

Shirayuki stares. “What...?”

“A princess can’t be without her knight, can she? I may not be the one you’re used to--” her smile curls ruefully in the dark--“ but I promise, I’m far more competent.”

“But...” Her mouth works, trying to form a thought. Why is the only one that comes to mind, and even she is not innocent enough to believe Kiki would answer it. “I...”

Thank you, would be the polite response, the one that would have sprung from her first, before anything else. But even now she sees Kiki as she was in Zen’s office, silent and stoic, turning away when she sought support.

“I’ve always found,” she says, voice trembling, “that Obi has his advantages.”

Kiki’s smile breaks away into a grin. “Well, there’s no accounting for taste.”

The little girl plucks the snowdrop from its roots, weaving her stem into her hair. Petals tickle the shell of her ear, and for the first time she smiles. Will this not hurt you, to be taken from your ground?

Worry not, the little flower tell her. For just as sorceresses, little girls have magic all their own.

The girl nods, careful not to jostle her flower. Her grandmother had told her the same, long long ago, and she saw no cause to doubt it now. With hands on her hips, she stands tall, even as her toes curl with cold. The summer is gone and faded for the land; the colors now come from the trees, littering their leaves on the land.

Oh, how I have wasted my time, the little girl sighs with despair. It is autumn. I have no more time to rest.

Kiki boosts her up into the saddle, silver shying beneath her weight. “You understand, don’t you?” she murmurs into the flank of this horse. “What all this might cost when it’s over?”

Shirayuki blinks down, and for the first time, she notices the thick wool of Kiki’s jacket. The night presses in, cold against her cheeks. The last time she saw Obi, even muslin had felt stifling.

“Whatever it is,” she replies, barely able to lift her voice above a whisper, “losing Obi would be worse.”

Kiki stills, her hand pressed against the mare. “That’s not what I was asking,” she says slowly, carefully, “but I suppose that’s an answer in and of itself.”

“You still mean to come with me?”

Her hand moves, placing itself with a comforting heft just above her knee. In the dark, Kiki’s eyes shine, just as hard as the sapphires on Haki’s coronet. “I owe you that much.”

She steps away, a breath shuddering out of her. “And him too.”

For that is the truth of it, is it not? We must make our own destinies, carving them from our bodies like the most bloodiest births, but when we do--

Ah, when we learn to stand up for ourselves, that is when others learn to stand beside us too.