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the-blind-assassin-12 · 4 years ago

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Resol’nare - Part Eight

A/N: *posts this chapter and runs away before anyone realizes its a week late* oh... well that didn’t work. Anyway... sorry about last week y’all. I don’t know why an atheist married to a jewish man picked easter weekend to fall off the schedule but that’s life i suppose. we’re back! we are...back.

*this story will regularly be using words in Mando’a. for a good list of references click here.*

Summary: A trip to Corellia to offload their stolen speeders takes Navina and Firo through some of the shiftier parts of Coronet City before ending their trip with a visit to Firo’s family. Navina learns some shocking new information about her quest... and also misses something very important.

Warnings: Ummmmmm i think this one’s fine actually.

Word Count: 4.3k

Corellia.

Navina stuck close to Firo’s side as he expertly navigated the crowded streets of Coronet City. I hate it here. What remained of her armor after her encounter with the Mandalorian shifted in her bag as she walked, the pieces clanging together with each step. She noticed at least three pairs of eyes dart in her direction, the distinct metallic sound of beskar easily discernible to those who knew it’s exact value on the black market. Try it. Her grip tightened on the strap over her shoulder, her other hand casually hovering near the blaster on her thigh, conveniently concealed by her gray shawl.

Lucky for them, the shifty looking Twi’lek and the two heavily tattooed Czerialan women he was with didn’t start any trouble, presumably keeping their eyes peeled for softer targets. And they’ll find them. With a population in the billions, Corellia had gained quite the reputation for being overrun with pickpockets, thieves, smugglers and desperate people willing to do desperate things. Which is why we’re here but… She frowned, looking over at her friend. Next to her, Firo walked confidently, head held high and shoulders back, his stride deliberate and meaningful. I cannot believe he grew up here.

Technically, Firo and his brother Leph had grown up in a smaller town just outside the city limits, their parents wanting them to have room to run and find the kind of trouble that wasn’t looking for them first. Between the Black Sun and the White Worms, the city was becoming less and less of a desirable place to raise children, both organizations known for recruiting their scrumrats young. Their parents both worked in the city, though, so staying close enough for a reasonable commute was necessary. Their mother, a brilliant woman, worked as a translator at the welcome center in Diadem Square, and their father had been a test pilot for one of the only Corellian shipyards that had been able to resist being converted into a TIE Fighter factory during the Empire’s reign. It was because of him that Firo had learned to fly. The man would occasionally take Firo and Leph up for a spin once he’d deemed the ships safe and in good working order. Leph had always been more interested in the engineering that powered them, eventually getting a job at the same facility, but Firo had fallen in love with flight from the first time he took off.

Despite the fact that they had just turned the corner and crossed into Black Sun territory, Navina smiled to herself. She liked knowing things like that about Firo. Her own past wasn’t entirely without bright spots, but she found Firo’s anecdotes to be much warmer than most of her own. Aside from the memories she had of the few years she and her family were together on Yavin, her perception of what it was like to grow up in a domestic household had been built by her friend and his stories of having two parents and a bunk bed to share with his brother and a home that had a roof with four walls. She didn’t envy him, just enjoyed imagining what it might have been like to live that way.

The buildings in that sector of the city rose higher than those just a few blocks over, their shadows darkening the street level enough that artificial lighting was necessary even during the day, and the warm feeling she got from wrapping herself in Firo’s stories left, taking her smile with it. There were fewer people bustling about, but that only made Navina grow more alert, more aware of the ones that were. Like him. In the corner of her vision she noticed a tall Duros man leaning in a darkened doorway, his deep red eyes following her footsteps, a casual smirk on his gaunt purple cheeks. She narrowed her eyes, upper lip curling from the way being watched made her feel.

“Tell me again why we’re going this way instead of walking through the industrial sector?” Her grip tightened even further around the strap on her bag, until she could feel her fingernails digging into her palm.

Firo flinched, clenching his teeth before sucking a breath through them as he slung his arm around her shoulder. Oh, here we go. “Well, it’s kind of a long story, Nav.” It always is. “Suffice it to say that one thing led to another and I may or may not have,” -so, you did “made a bet that I had no business making, and I-”

Navina groaned. “Firo, you have no business making any bets, ever. You’re terrible at Sabacc, and-”

“Hey!” He dropped his arm and shot her a defensive glare. “I’m not terrible at Sabacc… I just...need practice.” He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair, the tips of his fingers disappearing into his unruly locks. “A lot of practice, and I’m not… ready for a rematch just yet.”

Navina was still aware of the Duros lurking in the shadows, his long fingers lifting a lit cigarra to his lipless mouth. The end of it glowed to match the color of his eyes as he inhaled. He hadn’t moved to follow them though, simply shifting his weight as he allowed the smoke to swirl around his face. She felt his gaze on her back as they continued down the street, but she shook it off and turned back to Firo. “How much practice is a lot of practice?”

Pausing at the corner as a line of land speeders barrelled through the intersection, he kicked the curb and inspected a loose thread at one of the seams in his gloves. “Um… ten or… eleven, something like that.”

She nudged his boot with her own, eyes going wide. “Ten or eleven… thousand? Firo...are you telling me that you owe some card shark in this kriffing city eleven thousand credits?” The last three words came out in a hiss.

The traffic signal flashed and they stepped off of the curb to cross. “Don’t worry, Nav, I’ve got it all figured out.” He waved a hand in front of him as they reached the opposite side of the street.

“Yeah,” Navina grumbled, “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Your plans are never any better than mine. She sighed. “How much more do you need to get them off your case?”

Firo cocked his head to the side, doing some quick arithmetic. “After what we just made selling those speeders…” He trailed off.

They had arranged a meeting with a buyer in a secluded hangar in Coronet spaceport before taking off from Nevarro. The individual was reluctant to give them their name, which wasn’t abnormal when it came to the type of transactions that they typically took part in. Usually they dealt with other smugglers and traders, people who wanted their name used as little as possible to avoid getting thrown in prison or hunted down and frozen in a cold slab of carbonite.

This buyer though, had another reason to maintain their anonymity. Rumors and whispers of Imperial remnants gathering strength and support had prompted the reemergence of rebel cells across the galaxy, and those militias needed munitions and vehicles and other supplies that Firo and Navina were happy to procure for them as it served a dual purpose: filling their pockets, and taking tools away from the enemy to put them in the hands of the good guys. Only once had one of their rebel customers complained, trying to guilt them into dropping their price for the good of the cause. The good of the cause won’t put fuel in my ship, Navina had answered with a shrug, letting the would-be haggler know that they were free to try their luck elsewhere and that there was no shortage of buyers that would pay double what they were asking. It was a bluff, of course, but the customer had not only begrudgingly agreed, but had become one of their most frequent buyers. It was who they had sold the stolen bikes to for a total of eight thousand credits, four thousand for each of them.

Firo finally finished his calculations as they turned another corner, the shadows lightening and the buildings becoming shorter again as they reached the perimeter of Black Sun territory. They were almost at the nearest mag-lev station, and Navina was eager to get on the train and out of the city. “Probably another three?” He shrugged.

Another three. And then what? He goes back into debt to pay for food and fuel? No. “Firo,” she let out a long huff and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You have to pay these guys off before you leave Corellia.”

Shooting him a sharp glance, she knew that he understood the subtext to what she was saying: take care of it before they come after you or your family. It had happened once before, not over gambling debt but over Leph clashing with one of the White Worm underlings when they tried to recruit the man’s daughter, Firo’s niece, for their organization. Leph had obviously refused, and when he couldn’t pay the gangster off, they had come after his family. Luckily, Navina and Firo had been making a trip back to Corellia at that time to see his mother, so they were there when the assassin had been sent. There was still a visible patch covering the round hole through the kitchen wall from where Navina had shot her blaster straight through it to eliminate the threat. But I can’t be there all the time and neither can you, Firo.

“Yeah,” he let out the word in a rush of air. “I know.” He frowned and scratched his nose.

As the mag-lev station came into view, Navina blew out another breath. “Okay. Sell the ship.”

The train rumbled along the tracks and pulled up to the platform, the two of them picking up their pace so they would have time to hop on before it left again. “What?” Navina didn’t need to look up at him to know that his face was scrunched into a scoff. “Nav, that’s supposed to be you-”

“My ship, yeah, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Sell it. Pay off the rest of the debt.” They climbed the few steps up to the platform, weaving through the crowd of passengers that had just gotten off of the train. A young boy, face smudged with dirt and grease, bumped Navina’s hip and crashed noisily into her bag. He apologized profusely and Navina waved him off, no harm done.

“But you need that ship to get back to Nevarro, that’s why we-”

Navina closed her eyes as she reached for the handle to step up onto the train. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she mumbled, words running together, “but I’ll…” she took a deep breath as though preparing herself for something truly unpleasant. “Dank farrik, I’ll take The Flare.”

Firo gave her back an incredulous look as he grabbed the handle and climbed up behind her. “Nav, you flew The Flare here and you complained the entire time. You hate that ship.”

“Yes, well that’s because it’s a rusted bucket of bolts and you know it, but if you sell the new ship- my ship- you can settle up and no one gets hurt… aside from my pride…”

Firo’s mouth dropped open as the two of them dropped into one of the train’s window seats. “Navina-”

She turned to cut him off as soon as her name was out of his mouth. “Okay, one, lose the full name nonsense. It’s weird coming from you. And two, don’t try to talk me out of it. Your family is my family, Firo, so your stupid debts are my stupid debts.” I have to teach him how to bluff better if he’s going to keep playing cards. Now, do I like flying The Flare? Not even a little bit. But that’s what I’m going to do...assuming it doesn’t spontaneously combust when I jump into hyperspace.”

He knew better than to argue with her at this point. They’d both learned by now when they’d lost. Instead, he bumped her with his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Harsa.”

She bumped him back. “Yeah, that makes two of us, Ottabok.” The train let out a long, loud blast of it’s whistle to let passengers know that they only had a few more seconds to board.

“Hey maybe your new Mando friend can help you out with some repairs for The Flare when you head back to Nevarro next week,” Firo suggested.

Navina laughed. “Yeah, doubtful.” She had told Firo everything about her encounter with the man encased in beskar, from fighting the reptavians with him to the way they traded off answering questions to the Mandalorian’s reaction to her pendant and its mysterious purple glow. “He’s… intense. Doesn’t strike me as the type to just offer to help with repairs, and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to ask him for another favor.” But I hope he made some headway on the first one. She chewed her bottom lip and sent out another silent wish that the man would return to her with information on her father. Even if it’s just… She swallowed. At this point, even the knowledge that he was no longer alive would be something more concrete than the floating hope of finding him. She shook those thoughts from her head and shifted her bag into her lap to cross her arms over the top of it. “Anyway, that’s next week’s news.” Hopefully. “Is Leph gonna be at your Mom’s tonight? I want him to take a look at this kriffing pauldron to see if he can tell me how to fix it where Mando decided to slice it from my shoulder.”

Firo gave her a quizzical look and scratched his head. “He...what? I thought you said he didn’t take you prisoner?”

Navina laughed again and shrugged, recalling the weight of the blade resting on her shoulder and the sound of his beskad carving through the thin durasteel plate. “I told you, he’s intense.”

Firo sat quietly for a few seconds just staring at the seat in front of him before he spoke again. Spit it out, Firo. “Do you really think he’ll be able to help you find your family, Nav? Or…” He frowned.

“Or what?” She turned in her seat and furrowed her brow.

“Or are you… do you want to meet with him to find out about your father and…” he shook his head, his hair flopping around his ears. “Or is this still about the Darksaber?”

There it is. Navina dropped her gaze to her lap and toyed with the end of her braid where it lay on her shoulder, the blue strands shining in the harsh overhead lighting of the train car. “Why can’t it be both?” She couldn’t lie to Firo, and she didn’t want to. He has to understand. “Until that thing is destroyed, Mandalorian families will be. Families like mine, and…”

She didn’t finish nor did she need to. “Okay.” Firo nodded and smoothed his hair back before fixing the strap of his bandolier which had fallen into the crook of his arm, and didn’t say another word about the Darksaber or the Mandalorian or Navina’s plan to meet with him.

Navina nodded, too, a faint smile playing on her lips. “Okay.” She didn’t know much about other people and their relationships, but she was fairly certain that her friendship with Firo was one of a kind. They weren’t afraid to speak their minds to one another. Certainly not. But they respected each other’s decisions and always did whatever they could to help make sure that those decisions, whatever they may be, didn’t come back to hurt them. She knew that friends like Firo didn’t just drop out of the sky.

The train began to pull out of the station and Navina switched the topic of conversation to the types of tools she was hoping that Leph would have on him to fix her armor with. Neither she nor Firo saw the dirty faced scrum rat that had collided with her on the platform speaking to the Duros that had been lurking in the shadows, the purple skinned bounty hunter slipping a few credits into the kid’s hand before shoving him away.

-- -- -- -- --

Staying with the Ottaboks was always something to look forward to for Navina. As much as she disliked Corellia and its cities in particular, she loved Firo’s family and they adored her, so she never truly minded when their travels brought them to the crowded, corrupt planet. She knew that there was at least one place there that was worth visiting. Millea, Leph’s six year old daughter, launched herself at Navina from the top of the stoop the second the girl saw her and Firo heading up the drive, her father right behind to clap a large hand on his brother’s arm before leaning in to kiss Navina’s cheek and untangle his child from her limbs. Ma waited near the door like she always did, waving a dish towel before slinging it over her shoulder to reach for Firo’s face and tell him how skinny he was getting. Navina took several mental snapshots and stuck them in the box in her memory with Firo’s stories, and followed the family inside.

After dinner, Ma finally content that everyone had eaten enough, Navina sat on the floor with Millea while Leph and Firo sat at the table with a couple bottles of ale, catching each other up on the past few months. Navina bit the inside of her cheek as she listened to her friend skate over all of the details that his family wouldn’t approve of, shooting Firo a smirk as he winked at her and took a swig of his drink.

“Navi, do the song you taught me last time!” Millea suddenly plopped into her lap, her small hands bracing on Navina’s shoulders.

She smiled as Ma continued to clean up the remains of dinner, packing leftovers in tins that would travel well for Navina’s journey back to Nevarro. “Which one, Mills? Three little loth-caths?”

“Uh uh,” she answered, swinging her head from side to side so that the braid she’d begged Navina to put in her hair smacked her cheeks. “The other one.”

“The other one?” Navina asked, still smiling at the girl but mind flashing back to the foundling that she sang the children’s rhyme to all those years ago. “You sure, Mills?”

“Yeah, Gramma helped me practice it since you were here last time so I know it- all the words!” She beamed with pride, cheeks going round as she showed off a grin, a gap small gap between her two front teeth just like the one her uncle had.

Navina caught Ma’s eye again, and the woman wiped her hands on her pants with an apologetic look. Firo’s mother was fluent in many languages from a life-long career as a galactic translator, and while Mando’a wasn’t one of them, the woman knew enough about the pronunciation to help her granddaughter work on whatever she remembered from Navina’s last visit. “Millea, don’t pester Nav now.”

“No, no,” Navina shook her head. She knew that she hadn’t hid the way that her emotion flashed in her eyes from Firo’s mother. She knows me almost as well as he does. “It’s fine, Ma.” She turned back to Millea and tapped her nose. “I’m impressed you remembered! It’s not an easy one. Alright, little one.” She swallowed down the lump in her throat as she used the same phrase she would have used with their little one, his enormous eyes watching her as she tried to teach him the Rhyme of the Resol’nare. He never followed along with the words himself, but he would clap his small hands and sway from side to side in a way that made Navina, even at 11 years old, think that he must’ve known what she was singing. “Let’s hear it.” Millea smiled again before launching into the rhyme, first in basic and then in Mando’a.

Education and armor,

Self-defense, our tribe,

Our language and our leader—

All help us survive.

Ba'jur bal beskar'gam,

Ara'nov, aliit,

Mando'a bal Mand'alor—

An vencuyan mhi.

She stumbled more than a few times on the second iteration, but Navina helped her through it, finishing the last line with her. LIke it did since she last saw her father and the little one, the last line made her chest ache. Our leader… the Mand’alor. Wielder of the Darksaber. The sword I’m trying to-

She pulled herself out of those thoughts though as Millea’s small arms wound around her neck in a giddy hug with Firo, Leph and Ma giving the girl a round of applause. Giving her a squeeze in return, she whispered “Good job, Mill’ika,” before Leph stood and announced that it was time for them to get back home. He offered Navina a few tools that she’s asked for from the kit in his speeder, reminding her of what he told her she’d need to do to repair her armor. And hopefully I’ll be able to use something here to open my pendant and see about that stone. Thanking him, she gave the man a hug and told them both that she hoped she’d see them soon.

Firo walked them out, and the moment that the door shut behind them, Ma spoke. “I need to tell you something, Nav.”

Navina took in the serious expression on the woman’s face and stood, immediately joining her at the table. “Sure,” she pulled out a chair and sunk into it, eyes still on the woman across from her. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh,” she waved one hand, curling her wrist fluidly. “Oh, yes. No, nothing’s wrong, but I… I overheard something at work the other day that I think you should know.”

What? She tilted her head. “What is it, Ma?” What could it… She didn’t look upset or worried or scared, simply… sincere.

She took a short breath and let it out through her nose. “Well, I know about your… mission. For your family, and for, well… Firo’s told me things and so have you so, I know that you’re…”

“Ma?” Navina reached across the table and placed her hand over the woman’s. “It’s okay, just tell me.”

She nodded. “Alright, well, you know I’m only passable with Mando’a. Huttese, Rodian, even Dathomiri and I’m-” she blew air through her lips. Yeah, I know. “But a few weeks back? Maybe… five or six now, I… well I heard two women speaking Mando’a in Diadem Square.” What? Ma shook her head. “And aside from you, Nav, I have never known Mando’a to be spoken on Corellia. Not in public, anyway.”

Navina hadn’t realized it, but she had leaned forward in her seat. “W-well, what… did they say?”

Ma shook her head. “I really… I only caught a few words that I know, so I’m not entirely sure, but I heard ‘aliit’ and then ‘Mudhorn’, a few words I couldn’t decipher, and then...then one that I knew and another in Basic.”

Navina’s eyes widened at the mention of the Mudhorn, the signet on the Mandalorian’s armor seeming to glow in her memory. “What words, Ma?”

The woman sighed. “I heard the word ‘Mand’alor’,” Navina stiffened, “and then I heard one of them say ‘Darksaber’.”

“What? Are...are you sure that’s what you heard?” Her heart pounded as the woman nodded. “Why are you telling me now?” Her eyes flicked to the door and she knew that Ma would understand her unasked question- why was she telling her while Firo was out of the room?

“I know Firo worries about you, Navi. Dank farrik so do I. I never had a daughter and I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to have you in my life but I am so, so glad that I do. You’re a good, fierce friend, Navina Harsa, and that is a rare thing in this life.” She felt her chest tighten, sending the same sentiment silently back. I’m the lucky one, Ma. The woman narrowed her eyes. “But I know that you need to do things for yourself. So I wanted you to know this.”

The door opened and Firo walked in, closing it behind him to make the world spin inside of Navina’s head. “Well I had to promise Mills that I’d pick her up from school tomorrow before she would agree to leave but-”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out in her mind as she thought about what she’d just learned. The Mandalorian. Clan Mudhorn, the Darksaber… the Mand’alor. She’d be leaving for Nevarro in two days, but suddenly with all the new questions that just cropped up, that felt like two lifetimes.

“Um,” she cleared her throat and pushed her chair back. “Um, I think I’m going to head upstairs and… and get cleaned up if that’s…” she trailed off questioningly and Ma assured her that it was fine, shushing Firo’s attempts to try to get Navina to have another ale with him first.

Thanking Ma and smacking Firo on the arm, she grabbed her bag from the bench by the front door, dropping the tools that Leph had lent her into it, and shouldered it to head for the staircase. She hadn’t seen the small device that the scrum rat working with that Duros in Coronet City had slipped in there when he bumped her.

It didn’t beep or blink, and it was small enough to become hidden in the fabric of the bag’s inner lining. And it was sending her location to its receiver, wherever- or more accurately, whoever that may be.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from the tags! :)

tags: @something-tofightfor @alraedesigns @pheedraws @valkblue @malionnes @gollyderek @fific7

#resol'nare #the mandalorian #the madalorian fic #din djarin #din djarin fic #mando fic #din djarin x oc #oc: navina harsa #mando x oc #mando x navina #oc: firostian ottabok #and his whole family too #mando'a #sw fic #star wars fic #pedro pascal characters #chapter eight is subtitled : the title is finally relevant

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agentrouka-blog · 4 years ago

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I suppose I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Sansa to be considerate of Jon's feelings because Sansa fans certainly expect Jon to be considerate of hers. There's been extensive talk about how mean it was of him to joke "don't tell Sansa" and how the whole family including Jon made her feel lonely and left out just because they didn't share her interests. He also gets loads of criticism for disagreeing with her about anything. And I don't see how it's unreasonable to expect family members

to just be considerate of each other, which includes Sansa being considerate of Jon's feelings and vice versa.

This is the last message I'll send since I'm sure I'm not your favourite person, but it is really something to see a Sansa fan say "Why should she have to prioritize someone else's feelings?" when they themselves frequently expect numerous other characters to prioritize and be considerate of Sansa's feelings at all times, regardless of the situation, and criticize them harshly when they don't.

This was a follow-up to this ask, and I apologize for the delay. My first week back was a little chaotic.

Hi anon!

Sansa is not inconsiderate of Jon’s feelings. Talking to her sister about the true fact that Jon - whose insult about the crown prince of the Seven Kingdoms Arya just brought up in polite company - is a bastard and likely jealous of said crown prince, is not inconsiderate of Jon’s feelings. She doesn’t bring it up out of where to shame him. She is reacting to Arya sharing his insult. Putting it into context. The conversation is not WITH Jon. It is with Arya. Nor is she being cruel or dismissive or haughty or a bully or whatever. Look at the actual text.

“Jon says he looks like a girl,” Arya said. Sansa sighed as she stitched. “Poor Jon,” she said. “He gets jealous because he’s a bastard.” “He’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly. Her voice cut through the afternoon quiet of the tower room. Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. “What are you talking about, children?” “Our half brother,” Sansa corrected, soft and precise. She smiled for the septa. “Arya and I were remarking on how pleased we were to have the princess with us today,” she said. (AGOT, Arya I)

She sighs. She expresses compassion. “Poor Jon.” Soft and precise.

Sansa is reminding Arya of the truth of their status differences. Which make Jon’s remarks pretty damn insolent if made public. Sansa is putting them into context for her little sister. Arya takes offense, because she prefers to ignore that reality. It is easy for her because she is the one with the privilege. Jon is not. Or at least not the kind of privilege trueborn nobles have. Arya and he commiserate about not getting what they want, which is completely justified, but Arya has a LOT more freedom to break the rules than Jon does. Sansa is aware of that fact because she is more well-adapted to their status-driven society in general. That is not a bad thing, because that IS their society.

And while Arya is offended that Sansa would make the distinction of half-brother, that doesn’t make it wrong or offensive in and of itself. Sansa acknowledging reality is not an insult, and not inconsiderate of Jon’s feelings. Reality is inconsiderate of Jon’s feelings.

I have made no mention of it being “mean” that he says “Don’t tell Sansa”. That is not my personal opinion.

(I don’t think it is mean-spirited, I think it’s mainly for Arya’s benefit, it is simply realistic advice for her if she wants to keep Needle, and he really should have told her the same thing about his remark on Joffrey. Arya likes to share, apparently. I also think it’s specifically there to foreshadow how keeping people in the dark is a theme. Ned doesn’t communicate with Sansa - bad results. Doran doesn’t communicate with Arianne - bad results. Jon or Arya will likely fall into the same trap again - with bad results.)

I am confused how Jon can get a lot of criticism for disagreeing with Sansa about anything when we have never seen them interact enough to disagree. We know of one interaction from Jon’s memory: her advice about calling a lady’s name pretty. And he seems to agree. That’s it. If you are talking about the show, then this is the wrong blog. I am all about the books.

Who are we expecting to prioritize Sansa’s feelings? If you are talking about her numerous abusers, who do a lot more than “not prioritize her feelings”, then… well, yeah. I kinda feel entitled to criticize would-be rapists or people who conspire to murder her family or force her into marriage or such things. Do I think Ned should have made SOME EFFORT to address Sansa’s feelings at any point? Yes. That would have been tremendously helpful in a very traumatizing situation. Other than that, you’ll have to take it up with the people who voiced that criticism.

So, that’d be my opinion on the subject.

#asoiaf #sansa stark #jon snow #Status differences #bastardy #asks #my posts

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songfell-ut · 5 years ago

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Chapter 5 already, huh

In which I personally feel sorry for Sans only a little bit, guess when

Oh, and @lostmypotatoes? My brother actually doesn’t have The Virus, which makes me feel even worse for randomly shouting at you about it just because I happened to have our conversation open when I saw the text from my mom. Sorry again! Official chaptery link found here.

Sans had gotten used to waking up in a luxurious, his-sized bed, and after a full week with the High Priestess, he felt he could handle being stuck in the humans' castle for twenty-three more days; it was amazing to sleep so soundly, and he could think of about a million worse fates than spending his waking hours with Frisk. What he could not handle was having a really wonderful dream like that, only to wake up wifeless, childless, and absolutely certain he'd remain that way for the rest of his unnatural life.

He tried not to blame Frisk for it, he really did, but as he emerged from his room, she was sitting at the worktable in her robe with another goddamn proposal in hand, as if to taunt him. "Good...morning," she said. "Are you all right?"

"F'fn m'rg," he muttered.

"I see. I didn't sleep well, either." When he didn't respond, the priestess shrugged and went back to her letter.

The boss monster sat down at the worktable and selected a book at random, trying to shake off the feeling of his dream-wife messing with his face. Less than five minutes later, someone knocked at the door; Sans started to sweep books and mixing tools aside to make room for breakfast, but Frisk shook her head as she got up. "It's Sunday, and I have matins in less than an hour. We won't get fed till afterwards. One minute, please!"

She was about halfway across the room when Sans sat bolt upright: the bar across the doors was lifting itself, and the double doors swung open from the outside. "Good morning," said a soft, scratchy voice.

"Er...good morning, Dr. Serif," Frisk said as the man walked in. "Please, have a seat."

"Thank you." Though the worktable had several chairs pushed beneath it at widely spaced intervals, the doctor sat down next to Sans, ignoring the skeleton's glare and addressing Frisk: "When I informed His Majesty that I would be coming here this morning, he asked me to tell you that he and the Prince will be attending matins. I've brought several men to escort you to the chapel as soon as you're ready."

The High Priestess blinked, and said, "I see." She picked up her veil and headdress from the edge of the worktable. "Please excuse me, then."

Sans waited for her to disappear into her dressing room before he rounded on the royal sorcerer, resisting the urge to grab him by the neck. "What the hell are you doin' here, ya creepy bastard? You steal my magic 'n make Frisk use it, ya come here without askin' and open doors all by yerself—and how come we need a bunch of extra guys to go t'church all of a sudden?"

"She needs them because you will be staying here," said Dr. Serif, unperturbed. "We have several things to discuss, many of which do not directly concern Her Eminence and needn't come to her attention. She already has enough responsibilities for three women."

Sans couldn't argue with that, but he could and did tell the guy, "Hell with you. I'm not interested in anythin' ya have to say."

The doctor shrugged. "Very well. I will only ask you to listen to one word." He reached into his robe and retrieved the end of a very long, thin golden chain hanging from his neck, twisted the chain once around his finger, and pulled—

His face blurred and his hand melted, the flesh sliding off like warm wax. Beneath his pale human features was a long, bone-white, masklike face with black slashes above and beneath his hollow eyes, lipless mouth curving into a grin. His now-bony hand rose in greeting, chain twined around his phalange, its end dangling through the hole in his palm. "Boo," whispered the skeleton.

The door to Frisk's dressing room cracked open. "Shall I wait for you two, Dr. Serif?" she called. "Or will you keep Sans here and deprive him of another hour in church?"

The doctor dropped the chain and was human again. "Indeed, my lady," he said. "I am sorry to disappoint our visitor, and those who will come to see him for themselves, but I understand that monsters employ methods of collecting magical energy that would benefit us greatly. I wish to hear it from the horse's mouth."

"That's probably for the best. He's told me the basics, but I'm not an expert in metallurgy or alchemy, so I'm afraid most of it is over my head." Frisk closed the door behind her, settling her veil in place. "If nothing else, Sans can have a break from me. I think we've been getting along fairly well, but he's probably tired of being lectured." She paused by the edge of the worktable, where Sans was frozen in place. "Well, Sans? Shall I get out of your hair now?"

He was still reeling from what he'd seen, and only vaguely aware that he had to say something leaving-related. "Yeah, bye," he muttered.

He didn't see her start, or how her head ducked as she turned and left. The moment the doors closed, the royal sorcerer removed the chain from around his neck, setting it on the table and scowling at Sans like a disappointed teacher. "You realize you've hurt her feelings very much?" The slashes above and below his right and left sockets creased in disapproval. "No. You don't, do you."

"Well, you're hurting my fuckin' brain, ya—ow!"

Something had immediately smacked Sans in the back of the skull. He whipped around to see a disembodied hand hovering in the air, wagging a skeletal finger in disapproval before it vanished. "I will not tolerate rudeness," the doctor said severely. "Is that clear, young skeleton?"

The boss monster felt as if someone had pulled the floor out from beneath him. "Yeah, I guess so. That's about the only thing I do get right now."

"Understandable. I will begin by asking this, Sans: do you recognize me?"

That was a good question. The longer Sans looked at him, the less certain he was. "You...honestly, it feels like I used ta have nightmares with you in 'em, but I've had so many others since then that ya can't keep up. Competition's pretty stiff in here." He tapped his skull.

The doctor chuckled. "I see. Does the name 'W. D. Gaster' sound familiar?"

Sans flinched, and he didn't know why. He just knew that he wanted to open his head up and scrub the insides till the name was gone. "Not...really," he managed. "'Zat you?"

"More or less." Gaster half turned in his chair and snapped his fingers. Two more hands appeared at the windows, unlatching them and pushing them open to let the chill morning air stream in. "This is an informal meeting, principally to get acquainted again. We can start with this." He picked up the golden chain and held it out for Sans' inspection. "To the best of my knowledge – and I pride myself on thoroughness – there are no similar devices in use by any other monster in this kingdom. You should not be surprised in this fashion again."

"I sure fu—flippin' hope not," Sans remarked. "Whaddya mean, 'get acquainted again'?"

"Ah, you caught that. Well done." Gaster's mouth curved again. "We've met before, but you were so young that I'm not surprised you don't remember. The next question: would you like to have a device of your own, and the ability to appear human?"

Sans prided himself on not being dumb, but this was way too much, too fast. Gaster must have seen it in his expression, because he raised his palmless hands in a conciliatory gesture. "My apologies. I have been looking forward to this meeting for a long, long time, and I may be overly enthusiastic. I'll ask an easier question—did you kill the man found in the gardens yesterday?"

The boss monster put a hand to his skull, as if he could manually collect his thoughts. "The guy jumped. Didn't the King tell ya?"

"His Majesty told me what he was told, yes. Did Her Eminence see the assassin jump rather than give himself up, or did you throw him out the window after you squeezed him eighty-percent to death?" Gaster raised a finger as Sans started to protest. "Don't waste my time or yours, boy. The gentleman may have landed in an unhealthy fashion, but that does not explain the uniformly horizontal bruising across his front and back, or how he struck face-first and still managed to crack most of his thoracic vertebrae. His injuries were consistent with a very large hand doing a very large amount of damage before his fall."

Sans wasn't sorry, and he saw no reason to either lie or volunteer more information. He stared at Gaster, daring him to say anything more, and the royal sorcerer shook his head. "No, I will not judge you for taking drastic measures to save the High Priestess. The man was carrying three large knives and two empty sheaths, which suggests he was very serious in his purpose. Nor do I intend to trouble His Majesty or Frisk with this information, unless perhaps I find out that you crushed the man to pulp right in front of her."

"Hell, no, I didn't," Sans snapped. "Ya think I wanted her ta feel any more messed up than she already was? I didn't even let the f—the guy scream on the way down. She didn't hear anything, an' she didn't see anythin' after I got him outta the room." He drummed his fingertips on his femur. "And don't use her name. 's weird."

Gaster's brow twitched. "That answers that. Thank you."

The boss monster felt like something had gone over his head, and he was about to demand more information when Gaster raised his finger again. "One moment. Do you hear that?"

Very faint choir music was coming through the open windows. "Yeah, I know," Sans said impatiently. "When they get sick of talkin', they do that instead. It all sucks."

"Not necessarily," murmured the doctor. "This particular hymn includes a solo, and with the King in attendance, they'll use their best performer. Listen."

Sans didn't get it till the hymn faded to almost nothing and it seemed as if the song was over. He was thinking of his next question when a single voice rose through the stillness and his head turned of its own volition. His feet made him get up and cram one shoulder out the window to follow the sound, heedless of the floor creaking underfoot.

Sure enough, it was a lone woman singing. The words were indistinct, but the sound sent prickles running over his skull and down his spine; her high notes were perfect, and while he could barely hear the lower tones, they were somehow even better. When the last note died away, he wanted to jump out and yell for whoever it was to keep going.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Gaster was leaning on the other window, arms folded on the sill, head propped up on a spare hand. "I've missed hearing her in the mornings."

Sans hurriedly scratched the corners of his sockets, which somehow felt itchy. "Yeah, I guess s'not bad for a human," he said, trying to sound careless, though he couldn't help adding, "Kinda wasted in a church."

The doctor chuckled again, stepping away from the windowsill. "An increasingly common opinion, as you are doubtless aware by now."

Before Sans could ask what the hell that meant, Gaster glanced meaningfully at the boss monster's face and hand. Sans followed his gaze and saw why: his phalanges were stained bright red. "Wha..." Had he hurt himself? Sans grabbed the corner of his sleeve and swiped at his eyes, pulling it away to reveal more streaks of red. "What the crap is this?"

Gaster was very quiet. Then he reached into his robe and produced a folded white square. "Here," he said. Sans looked at it blankly. "It's a handkerchief, my boy," the doctor explained. "For drying tears."

The walk back to her rooms after the service was more irritating than usual. Frisk was thirsty, her calf was beginning to cramp from walking at the four guards' pace, and there was no one to talk to—just like old times, she thought with a twinge of dismay. She was reconsidering the merits of Sans' magic when they reached the double doors and she could all but run inside.

"Greetings, my lady," said Dr. Serif, raising his head from a series of drawings scattered across the worktable. There were tiny words and numbers scribbled all over, and even at a glance, the notations were beyond her. "If you'll allow us a moment, we'll clear the table. Breakfast should be here any moment."

"Thank you," she said. "I'll be out as soon as I extricate myself." Dr. Serif gave his odd half-smile, while Sans didn't so much as look up.

Well, at least changing into a looser dress made her feel better, as did kicking off her slippers and enjoying the strange walking-in-pits feeling of removing heeled shoes. Technically, she knew she should keep her veil on, but the prospect made her want to eat the damn thing. It wasn't as if the royal sorcerer was going to tell on her, and she almost never wore it around Sans anymore—not that he cared either way.

...Good Lord. When was the last time she'd felt this crabby? He must be rubbing off on me, she thought wryly.

Dr. Serif had poured a tall glass of water for her. Frisk came out, seized it from his hand, and drank the whole thing at once, setting it down with a bang and a sigh. "Thank you very much, Doctor."

"I had a suspicion you wouldn't be allowed time to care for yourself after the service," he remarked. Sans was still looking at a sheet of paper, at least until the doctor plucked it out of his hand and set it on a stack of notes. "I hear something in the hall. Sans?"

The skeleton grumbled, but got up to open the doors as Frisk sat by the doctor. "It looks as though you've made some progress. In your opinion, are these ideas practiceable?"

"I believe so, yes," he replied. "Based on what Sans has told me, we could possibly convert some of our existing infrastructure for this purpose. We will need more detailed specifications, but I thank you for allowing me to borrow Sans and attain a starting point."

"And thank you for giving him a break," she said, drawing on all of her training to keep from sounding petulant.

It must not have worked, because the doctor sighed. "That was a very natural misunderstanding on your part, my lady. He and I had words while you were getting dressed, and it distracted him. I doubt that he genuinely wanted you gone. In fact, he's been checking the clock every ten minutes since you left."

Frisk felt herself flushing. "I didn't—"

"Watch out," said Sans, and as they sat back, the dishes flew off the trolley in a burst of red magic, settling neatly onto the table. "There. What's this about me 'n the clock?"

"Nothing whatsoever," the doctor said genially. "Her Eminence is back, by the way."

Sans glowered at him, and glanced at Frisk for the first time since she'd come in. "Yep. You can go now, Doc." He made a shooing gesture, then came back to the table, pulled over a random dish, and began shoveling the food in.

Dr. Serif looked ready to hit the skeleton upside the head. "You were marvelous, as always, Your Eminence," he said loudly. "It's been a long time since you performed at matins, hasn't it?"

Frisk paused mid-stab, rearranging her tomato slices into an angrier pattern. "You can hear the chapel from all the way up here?" Stab. "Would you like something to eat, Doctor?"

"Nothing for me, thank you. On a clear day with little wind, yes, the sound carries quite far."

The priestess couldn't help grimacing. "That's good to know." She got up for another drink. "I had to chat with His Majesty and Gaius for almost twenty minutes after the service. My throat is killing me," she said over her shoulder.

When Frisk turned around, Dr. Serif was not looking at her, but at Sans, who had slowly raised his head. "Hold on a sec," the skeleton said. He shifted to face her. "That was you?"

His obvious disbelief made her want to dunk her head in the water pitcher, and perhaps also throw it at him. "I...yes? It was my turn to take that solo," she said to her plate, and crammed a wad of egg into her mouth.

"Your turn, indeed." Dr. Serif raised his eyebrows at Sans. "Her Eminence is aggressively modest about her vocal talent. You won't hear her again until the Feast of All Souls in three days, and she will do her best to get out of it."

Frisk swallowed, coughed, and said sharply, "Doctor, please." What was he doing?

"Forgive me, my lady." He rested his head on his hand, dark eyes studying her. "Speaking of All Souls Day, I've discussed the matter with Sans in his capacity as your personal guard, but I also wanted to give you a direct word of caution. We may need to employ unorthodox methods to ensure your safety, as you will have an unavoidably public role in the ceremony. Will you agree to comply with whatever measures we may deem necessary?"

That sounded ominous, but Frisk had already been trying not to think of the upcoming holy day, or the dead assassin, or how the prospect of being murdered was no longer an abstract concept. "I'll leave it to you and Sans, Doctor. Thank you for your concern."

"Of course, Your Eminence. Now, with your permission, I'd like to briefly review what you've taught Sans thus far. St. Brigid's is unparalleled in its instructional quality, so I have no doubt as to your knowledge or capability. However—"

Sans banged his empty plate onto a tray, startling them both. "Thanks, Doc. Go away."

"Sans!" the priestess snapped. "What's gotten into you? Do I have to send you to your room?"

Dr. Serif raised his hands good-naturedly and got to his feet. "All right, you can have her to yourself again. But I would like to consult with both of you at least once every day. May I come here in the morning, or is the afternoon more convenient?"

"Either is fine now that I'm excused from most of the services," Frisk answered. She pinned Sans with a glare. "Do you have a preference?"

The skeleton grumble-shrugged. "Splendid," said Dr. Serif. "I will see you tomorrow morning after breakfast, then." He bowed slightly. "My lady."

Frisk rose to walk him out of the room and into the hall. To her surprise, Dr. Serif gestured for the guard to move away, and when the man was out of earshot, the royal sorcerer lowered his voice. "Forgive my asking, but when you spoke with the King, what did he say about Sans?"

The priestess crossed her arms at the waist, and uncrossed them. "He asked how Sans was behaving towards me. I told him I'm not in any danger, but I don't know if he believes it."

To her shock, the doctor laughed. "That was not what he meant, Your Eminence," he said. "I fully agree that Sans bears you no ill will. However, surely you have noticed that he is...we'll say, potentially unstable? I checked the potions you've recently made, and didn't sense his magic in any of them. Have you allowed him to infuse anything yet?"

At this point, Frisk couldn't even try to keep her emotions off her face. If nothing else, she thought bitterly, it'd save time.

"I see. Those who witnessed your initial encounter with him said you stopped him in his full attack without violence. I hate to put responsibility for his actions on your shoulders," the doctor continued, "but as you know, Sans is much too powerful to be allowed to lose control of himself again. There can be no peace between humans and monsters if your emissary destroys any human life or property while he is here, or if he evens frightens anyone too much."

"No, of course not." Frisk shifted her bare feet on the marble floor. "He's being difficult today, but as I said – or at least, I thought – we've been working together well enough. He's an excellent student, and he has a sense of humor. I'm certainly not afraid of him anymore."

"Hmm." The doctor was plainly skeptical. "You don't feel threatened by having such a large monster in your living space? Does he seem apprehensive about your barriers?"

"As a matter of fact, I trust him enough now to have taken down several of them. When I created one so that we could talk privately with the King, he handled it fairly well."

The doctor's eyes grew very wide. "You kept him inside a barrier, and he tolerated it?"

"I...told him it was all right, and I made a bad pun. It seemed to work."

For some reason, Dr. Serif muttered something curse-like under his breath, then said, "I beg your pardon, my lady, but that is extraordinary, especially considering he's been under your care for only a week. Monsters are absolutely terrified of barriers, no matter their size or strength, and he knows firsthand that he cannot break yours. Whatever you are doing to foster trust between you, by all means, continue to do so." He turned as if to go, and paused. "One more thing, Your Eminence. Has he told you how he became a boss monster? There should be none but their King and Queen."

Frisk shook her head. "I tried to ask about it, and he got upset."

"Indeed. Thank you very much for your time. I will see you tomorrow." He strode off down the hall, allowing the guard to return to his post.

Any hope of Sans behaving better with the doctor gone was dashed the moment she came back in. "How come ya don't like singin'?" The skeleton sounded almost accusing. "If I could do that, I'd never shut up."

"That's none of your business." The priestess busied herself collecting dirty dishes and loading them up.

Another cloud of red lifted the trays out of her hands and dumped them back on the trolley with an unholy clatter. The doors opened, the trolley rolled itself out to the hall, and the doors creaked shut. "There, all done. So does it take a lotta magic or somethin'? I noticed ya don't make as much noise around here now that there's not as many barriers ta keep up."

Noise? "Drop it, Sans. I'm not going to ask you again," she warned, coming to sit across from him.

Pause. Frisk could actually see him think about it and then decide to keep right on going. "I didn't think you were the shy type. Yer willin' t'stand up in front of a zillion people and tell 'em not to be scared of the big bad skeleton, you got me right where ya want me, and ya talk to th' most important guys in the kingdom like it's nothin', so how're—"

That did it. She was so furious that she had to fight the urge to throw a barrier in his face. Instead, she inhaled, stuck her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, and gave an ear-splitting whistle.

And that was how Frisk learned an interesting fact about skeletons: they didn't have ears, but when faced with a completely unexpected and shrill sound – not just being shouted at – they still instinctively tried to cover the sides of their head, and at least one of them also yelled, "What the fuckin' crap was that for?!"

"First, watch your language, and second, it was for being a giant hypocrite! I haven't made you tell me how you're a boss monster, and when I want you to stop asking me a personal question, I expect the same courtesy!"

"Are you seriously comparin' my life bein' ruined with yer stupid 'Wahh, I'm a perfect fairy-tale princess, don't listen to me'?"

"This is not a contest! I know what I've experienced and how I feel about it, and it has nothing to do with you!" She slammed her palms on the table, standing up so that she didn't have to keep craning her neck to look at him. "We may be familiar with one another by now, but that does not give you the right to say whatever you want to me! Do you understand?"

Sans was still rubbing his skull. "Not like it matters," he muttered. "Yer the boss, right?"

"Oh, please! Haven't you ever had a friend before, Sans? A real one? Have you ever learned to treat someone with basic respect?"

"Not a damn human!" The skeleton also sprang to his feet, towering over her with eyes aflame. "Excuse me if I hurt your widdle feewings askin' a stupid-ass question!"

"You hurt my feelings because you showed me that you don't care about them! Don't you dare blame this on my being human, Sans! You're wrong, and you damn well know it!"

He snarled, lowering his head until his jagged teeth and the blinding orange-red of his eyes were less than a foot from hers. The effect was terrifying, but Frisk was too angry to remember the doctor's warning about letting the boss monster lose control; the only thing that mattered was standing her ground. "Don't you give me that look!" He wanted to win by being bigger, did he? Frisk put one foot on her chair, stepped onto the table, and, as Sans blinked in confusion, reached down to jab a finger into his sternum. "What are you going to do? Bully me until I'm as afraid of you as every other human you've met? Think of another plan, because that's not going to work!"

The ferocious light went out like a candle. For just a moment, Sans looked as though a tree had sprouted in front of him full-grown and then fallen on his head. He stepped back, mumbled, "'Kay," and went into the bedroom, shutting the door.

Frisk stood in the middle of the table, her pulse racing, not sure whether to cry or step down and then cry. She swallowed several times, but it didn't help.

Damn him. The bedroom was an upset woman's native habitat, and he had stolen it. There was the couch, but it wasn't the same. Besides, even if she understood on a grown-up level that the assassin was gone, she was still afraid to open the office door without Sans there.

At a loss, Frisk sat on the edge of the table, letting her feet dangle as she surveyed her domain. The room had gotten even messier in the past week. If Sans had the power to put dishes away instantaneously, he'd have enough to put all these books and papers away for her, too. Maybe she could make him organize her proposals while he was at it.

Proposals. For the thousandth time, Frisk wondered if it was time to stop ignoring them and start making a list of men she might actually consider accepting. She hadn't told Sans how few positions in the Church were suitable for her current rank, or that the likeliest ones were all lifetime commitments, a fate more lonely and boring than death. She'd been so scared but so excited to become High Priestess, where she'd do so much good and be known and loved by so many people; no one had reminded her that being up on a pedestal meant being utterly alone, not to mention exposed to anyone below who wanted to push her off.

Maybe that was why she had imagined her resident boss monster being smitten with her, why she'd been so hurt by him trying to escape, and why she felt so awful now. Frisk knew he had no social skills whatsoever, and he'd probably thought he was complimenting her in some backhanded, childish fashion, but leave it to Sans to turn being "perfect" into an insult.

No, the choice between the Church and marriage wasn't much of a choice at all. She was very tired of her pedestal, and she wasn't going to trade it for one so high that she couldn't come down again. If she chose the right husband, she could do as much or more for people in need than she already was, and she wouldn't be doing it alone. Even if she and her future spouse were well-to-do and had busy schedules, she'd have company in the evenings, not to mention nights and mornings in bed, which there was no shame in looking forward to! Then there'd be children, a family of her own...

Frisk sighed, massaging her neck and turning it toward the window, then the door. For the briefest and most frustrated of moments, she contemplated sending the skeleton back to the Underground now, perhaps tomorrow morning. He'd learned enough and given the royal sorcerer enough information; surely she could get rid of him in good conscience, and he wouldn't have the chance to hurt her ag—

The child from her nightmares was sitting inches away from her on the edge of the table. It was smiling, eyes shining red, kitchen knife in hand and all its little teeth bared.

Every hair on Frisk's body stood straight up, and her breath came quick and shallow. She tried to push herself off the table, to yell at it to go away, but her muscles were locked in place. All she could do was watch as the child lifted the knife, pointing it straight at the bedroom door, eyes never leaving hers. The child slowly lowered the knife, turned the blade around in its hands, and held the handle out to her.

Frisk's hand twitched. A tiny part of her knew that if she tried, if she really wanted to, she could move enough to grab the knife. But...why?

Something bubbled up in the back of her mind, whispering that even a boss monster was no match for a determined human. She knew exactly what to do: shuffle into the room with her head down and her hands behind her back, creep in close to tell Sans how sorry she was, and bring him down in one swift crimson slash. It'd be so easy!

The child was still smiling, still holding out the knife. Frisk moved her hand, raising it slowly, and the child's grin somehow widened.

Frisk leaned forward. She reached up, and with every shred of determination she possessed, she turned her hand toward herself, jammed her fingers in her mouth, and whistled as hard as she could. The child only had time for one furious glare before it vanished.

The bedroom door banged open. "What the hell d'ya want now?" demanded the skeleton, stepping into the workroom. "I'm not a damn dog! If ya need something, just...oh, shit—" Sans dropped to one knee next to where she'd crumpled onto the floor, shaking, her hand pressed to her mouth. "Frisk! Hey!" He reached for her shoulder, thought better of it, and looked around, as if for help. "Come on, Frisk! Look, I'm sorry, a'right? I know, I shoulda listened to you! I'll shut up next time ya tell me, I swear! Just knock it off!"

Frisk shook her head, tried to speak, and couldn't suppress a sob. Sans considered her from a couple different angles, said, "Incoming," then carefully scooped her up and walked into the bedroom, setting her down on the edge of the bed and sitting on the floor. "I'm sorry," he said again, wincing as she turned her back to him and curled up with her face buried in the pillow. "'m sorry, okay? You were right. I wasn't thinkin' of how ya felt, just bein' a nosy prick. I really don't want ya to be scared of me. Ya don't hafta tell me anythin' if you don't want, I just..."

Something in his tone made her wipe one eye and raise her head far enough to look at him. He was staring at the bedpost. "'s not an excuse for how I acted, but..." Sans shrugged helplessly. "I really, really wish you liked ta sing."

Silence. Then, to his abject horror, Frisk clutched the pillow and began wailing incoherently into it, sobbing in earnest.

"Aw, fuck! I mean—Frisk—" The skeleton opened his mouth and shut it several times. He stood up, paced out of the room and back again, and sat down as the noise continued. "What'd I do now?!"

No answer. Sans tried to think of something, anything to make her stop. "Uh...can I get ya anything?" he asked lamely.

She quieted long enough to shake her head and kept right on crying. Sans scratched the back of his skull, glancing at the windows – still too small to jump out – and finally, against his better judgment, sat on the edge of the bed. "Hey. Ya know that explosion that killed all those people? Asriel, Chara, a bunch of humans, couple'a monsters?"

That got her attention. Frisk sat up, scrubbing her eyes on her sleeve. "What?" A protracted sniffle. "What about it?"

"That day, me 'n Papyrus came to the gala with Kris, and we were way at the back. For some reason, Kris took off into the crowd, an' I was smaller than Pap, so I went after the little bugger." Sans looked at his massive hand. "Next thing I knew, there was this big damn flash of light and I got knocked down. I don't know what happened after that—it hurt like hell, but I was thinkin' of Pap and wondering where Kris was, and then I woke up in the lab."

Frisk sniffled, but she was listening. Sans clicked his phalanges on the bedpost. "The best explanation Alphys and I came up with was that I was determined ta stay alive, but a monster's body can't handle too much determination. I mean, if we feel a lot of it, we literally melt like butter. Al's not sure if I held together because I absorbed little bits of human SOUL as they died, or if I somehow converted some of the ambient magic, or what. Nothin' really makes sense. It sure didn't happen to anyone else who was there. But me? I was on the way to becomin' my bee-yootiful new self." He gestured grandly, back still to her. "The end."

The priestess scooted closer, pillow tucked under one arm. "You said it ruined your life?"

"Hell yes, it did. I got too big to fit in my own damn house! I have to take a shortcut into the living room because I can't fit through the friggin' door!" Sans kicked at nothing. "The other monsters are scared of me 'cause I keep losin' my temper 'n I look scary as hell, Asgore treats me like I'm tryin' to take Toriel from 'im when all I wanna do is tell jokes with someone...oh, and ya know what?" He shifted around to nearly face her. "Remember what I said about monsters havin' kids with magic, and how it's always a pain in the butt?" She nodded, wiping her eyes again. "Well, lucky me, I'm too strong t'even try it. If I was a lady boss monster, I could handle someone else's magic and make a little Sans, no problem, but no. If I tried givin' anyone enough to get the job done, there's no guarantee I wouldn't overdo it and kill 'er." Shrug. "Boss monsters are supposed t'have kids with each other so they can transfer their life force and age naturally as the kid gets older. I'm just gonna live forever as a damn freak."

"You're not a freak. You're Sans." Frisk gave an unlovely snrk. "Thank you for telling me this, but you know you didn't have to."

"Yeah, I know." The skeleton turned around the rest of the way, crossing his legs on the bed. "I'm not tryin' to trade it for your pers'nal business, either."

She smiled a little, and his SOUL lifted a little higher. "My story's not nearly that interesting. My mother said something very cruel the first time I sang for her as a child, and no matter how many people since then have told me how wonderful I sound, there's no getting rid of that feeling that they're all wrong. That's all."

"Yikes. I wouldn't say it's 'all,' not if you were a kid an' you were trusting your own damn mom to not be an asshole. That crap really hurts. I shouldn'a said it was stupid."

"Agreed, but I accept your apology." Frisk sighed, tucking the pillow under her chin to rest her head on it. "I've been feeling sorry for myself because being High Priestess is so isolating, but at least I can get out of it. Isn't there anything you can do?"

"Nope! I can't get hitched and stop bein' a boss monster. We've tried a bunch of different things, and it's irreversible. We can't exactly replicate the accident to make me a lady friend, either."

"No..." The priestess yawned. "No, I expect not. I'm sorry."

"Not yet fault. Not anyone's, so far as we know."

Frisk curled up on her side with a sigh, facing him this time, cuddling the pillow. "I'm glad we had this talk, but I suppose we should get to work soon."

Sans had never wanted to be a pillow so badly. "Isn't it Sunday? Why not take the day off? I vote for a nap and then a game of chess or something."

"Mm." The priestess frowned at a rip in the silken bedsheet, probably caused from his toe catching it. "You know how to play chess?"

"Nope. You can teach me."

Frisk chuckled. "It's a deal." She couldn't help yawning again. "All right, you win. Escort me to my office, please, and I'll get to work on that nap. It's been about a year since I had one."

The boss monster paused, and said, "I feel bad takin' this thing up when yer crashin' on the couch like a houseguest. You take it. There's a lotta floor space fer me out there."

The priestess looked over the huge expanse of mattress, remembering the child and the knife, wondering when she'd feel safe again. On impulse, she hopped over the foot of the bed, landing in front of a cedar chest under the windows and opening it to rummage through the blankets. "I'm fine," Sans informed her. "It takes bein' out in the snow for a while 'fore I get cold."

"It's not for you," Frisk said cheerfully. "Come with me for a moment."

Bemused, the boss monster followed her to the office and the couch. At her instruction, he held out his arms for her to fill up with cushions. Then it was back to the bedroom, where she made him place the cushions on the side of the bed away from the door, holding them up so she could throw a large quilt over them. "There we are! You, sir, are sleeping on the bed. I am sleeping in a pillow fort. There's no impropriety whatsoever."

Sans had so many objections that they all tried to get out his mouth at once. By the time he could say, "I don' think that'd hold up in court," Frisk had already disappeared into her fort.

The mattress was not only wide, but so plush that he could have jumped on the bed without disturbing her arrangement. The skeleton tapped the light off, then lay down in his usual spot near the middle of the bed. He couldn't stretch his arm on that side now, but otherwise, there was still plenty of room. When she sniffled again – in a residual kind of way – Sans remembered the handkerchief, and wished he hadn't used so much of it. It was her fault, having that kind of voice out of nowhere.

Silence settled over them, but it was a comfortable one. Sans closed his eyes, tried to think of something else to say, and decided not to bother: judging by her breathing, Frisk was already asleep.

#songfell #it was actually a viral pneumonia

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yespoetry · 5 years ago

Text

A Selection of Sergei Yesenin Poems Translated by Anton Yakovlev

Translator’s Note: This selection contains a range of poems spanning his full literary career, from 1910 when he was 15 years old, to the last year of his life (1925).

As you will see, many of the poems are untitled, not unusually for Russian poems, and marked with standard three asterisks (and identified by first line in tables of contents, conversation or scholarship). I've included the years of composition under each poem since that might help add some historic context (which of course includes World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917).

* * *

High water has licked

The silt with smoke.

The moon has dropped

Its yellow reins.

Paddling a punt,

I bump into banks.

Red haystacks by the fence rails

Look like churches.

With mournful cawing

In the silence of marshes

The black grouse

Is calling for vespers.

In blue gloom the grove

Shrouds the destitution…

Secretly I will pray

For your future.

<1910>

* * *

Is it my fault that I’m a poet

Of heavy suffering and bitter fate?

After all, it wasn’t my choice—

It’s just the way I came into the world.

Is it my fault that I don’t cherish life,

That I love and simultaneously hate everyone,

And know things about myself I don’t yet see—

That is my gift from the muse.

I know there is no happiness in life,

Life is lunacy, the dream of a sick soul,

And I know my gloomy tunes bore everyone,

But it’s not my fault—that’s the kind of poet I am.

<1911—1912>

The Birch

The white birch

Under my window

Wrapped herself in snow

As though in silver.

Like snow borders

On fluffy branches,

White fringes of tassels

H ave blossomed.

And the birch stands

In listless silence,

And the snowflakes burn

In the golden fire.

And the dawn, lazily

Walking around,

Sprinkles t he branches

With new silver.

<1913>

* * *

Out came the Lord to test humanity’s love,

Walked out into a field in the guise of a beggar.

An old man sitting on a stump in an oak grove

Was chewing a dry crumpet with his toothless mouth.

The old man saw the beggar walking

Down the path with an iron cane

And thought, “What a poor, sick fellow—

I bet it’s hunger that’s making him teeter.”

The Lord walked up to him, hiding his sorrow and pain,

Thinking he couldn’t awaken anyone’s heart...

And the old man extended his hand,

“Here, chew on this... you’ll feel a little stronger.”

<1914>

* * *

In the land of yellow nettle

And dried-out wattle

Village huts, like orphans,

Cling to willows.

In the fields, behind the ravine’s blue thicket,

Among green lakes,

The sand road stretches up to

The Siberian Mountains.

Lost somewhere in Mordva and Chuda,

Russia knows no fear,

And the people, the people in shackles

Walk down that road.

All of them are murderers or thieves,

As ordained by fate.

I’ve fallen in love with their sad eyes

And their hollow cheeks.

There is so much evil and joy in killers.

Their hearts are simple.

But their blue mouths grin

On their blackened faces.

In secret, I cherish one dream:

That I’m pure of heart.

But I too will knife someone to death

One whistling autumn.

And on a windy route,

Perhaps on this very same sand,

They will lead me, rope on my neck,

To fall in love with anguish.

And when I smile, in passing,

Stretching my chest,

The bad weather will lick the road of my life

With its tongue.

<1915>

* * *

I’m tired of living in my native land,

Yearning for the vast fields of buckwheat.

I’ll leave my shack

To be a vagrant and a thief.

I’ll walk the white curls of the day

To look for some wretched lodging.

And, seeing me, my best friend

Will sharpen his boot knife.

The yellow road is entwined

With the spring and the meadow sun,

And the one whose name I cherish

Will chase me from her threshold.

Again I will come back to the house of my birth,

Console myself with someone else’s joy,

And, some green evening, hang myself

On my sleeve under the window.

The grizzled willows by the wicker fence

Will drop their heads a bit more tenderly.

They will bury me, unwashed,

To the sound of barking dogs.

And the moon will swim on and on,

Dropping its oars into lakes...

And Russia will go on living,

Dancing and weeping by the fence.

<1916>

* * *

Swimming in the blue dust,

The moon butts a cloud with its horn.

This night, no one will guess

Why the herons screamed.

This night, she ran through the reeds

To the green backwater.

Her white hand swept her tousled hair

Over her tunic.

She ran up, glanced at the quick spring

And sat down on the stump in pain.

In her eyes, the daisies wilted

The way a swamp light goes out.

At dawn, through the spiraling fog,

She swam away and vanished in the distance...

And the moon, swimming in the blue dust,

Nodded to her from behind the hill.

<1916> * * *

Your pensive sigh is calling me

To warm light, to my native threshold

Where grandmother and grandfather sit on the porch

Awaiting their spirited sunflower-aged grandson.

Their grandson is slim and white as a birch,

With honey hair and velvet hands.

Except, o my friend, I see from his blue eyes—

They’re only dreaming of his worldly life.

The bright Virgin in the icon corner

Beams joy into their darkness.

With a quiet smile on her thin lips

She holds their grandson in her arms.

<1917> * * *

Here it is, silly happiness

With white windows that look into the garden.

The sunset quietly swims

In the pond like a red swan.

Hello, golden quiet

With your shadow of a birch in the water.

A flock of crows on the roof

Holds vespers for a star.

Somewhere past the garden, timidly,

Out where the guelder-rose blooms,

A tender girl in white

Sings a tender song.

In a bluish fog, the night cool

Sweeps from the field.

Silly, sweet happiness.

Fresh blush of cheeks.

<1918>

* * *

Country, o my country!

Autumnal rainy tin.

The shivering streetlight reflects

Its lipless head in a black puddle.

No, it’s best not to look,

Or else I’ll see something worse.

I’ll just keep squinting my eyes

At all this rusted haze.

It’s warmer this way and less painful.

Look: between the skeletons of houses

A bell tower, like a miller, carries

The copper bagfuls of bells.

If you’re hungry, you will be nourished.

If you’re miserable, you’ll find joy.

Just don’t look at me too openly,

My unknown earthly brother.

As I thought, so I did. But alas!

It’s the same every time!

Looks like my body is too used to

Feeling this shivering cold.

Well, so what! There are many others,

I’m not the only one alive in the world!

As for the street light, one moment it blinks,

The next moment it laughs with its lipless head.

Only my heart, under shabby clothes,

Whispers to me, who has visited solid ground:

“My friend, my friend, the eyes that have seen

Can only be shut by death.”

<1921>

* * *

Don’t torment me with your icy demeanor

And don’t ask me how old I am.

I’ve got a severe falling sickness;

My soul is a yellow skeleton.

There was a time when, hailing from outskirts,

In a smoke of my boyish dreams,

I imagined riches and fame,

And being loved by all.

Yes! I’m rich, I’m rich beyond words.

I had a top hat; now I don’t.

All I’ve got left is one shirtfront

And a worn-out pair of fashionable shoes.

And my fame is no worse:

From Moscow to Paris

My name inspires horror

Like a loud swearword painted on a fence.

As to love—isn’t it funny?

You kiss me, but lips feel like tin.

I know, my feeling is overripe

And yours won’t be able to bloom.

Oh well, I’m too young to brood,

And if I’m sad—what of it?

Fresh grass that covers the hills

Rustles with more gold than your braids.

I’d love to go back to that place

Where, listening to rustling golden grass,

I could sink forever into oblivion

In the smoke of my boyish dreams.

But this time I’d dream of something new,

Something earth or grass can’t understand,

Something no heart can express in words

And no human being could name.

<1923>

* * *

A blue May. An eventide warmth.

The ring at the gate makes no sound.

Sticky smell wafts from the sagebrush.

The cherry tree sleeps in a white gown.

Through the wooden wings of the window,

The whimsical moon is weaving

The lace patterns of the fine curtains

And the window frames onto the floor.

Our living room might be small,

But it’s clean. I’m here at my leisure...

This night I’m enjoying my life

Like a pleasant thought of a friend.

The garden blazes like a frothy fire,

And the moon, straining all its powers,

Would like everyone to tremble

From the piercing word “darling.”

In this blossoming, in this smoothness,

Hearing the merry harmonica of May,

I’m the only one who wishes for nothing,

Who accepts everything as is.

I accept it—come and appear,

Everything that brings pain and relief...

Peace be with you, life that has rumbled by.

Peace be with you, light-blue chill.

<1925>

Born in Moscow, Russia, Anton Yakovlev studied filmmaking and poetry at Harvard University. He is the author of poetry chapbooks The Ghost of Grant Wood (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Neptune Court (The Operating System, 2015). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Prelude, Measure, The Best of The Raintown Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and elsewhere. His book of translations of poetry by Sergei Esenin is forthcoming from Sensitive Skin Books in 2017. He has also directed several short films.

One of the most important Russian poets of all time, Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925) was a founding member of the short-lived but influential Imaginist movement, which stood in contrast to Futurism and was related to Imagism in English. Originally from the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan Province, Yesenin spent most of his adult life in Petrograd (later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg), but most of his poetry continued to focus on nature and traditional rural life. In 1922 he married the American dancer Isadora Duncan, but their marriage was short-lived. Though he initially supported the Bolshevik regime, the poet became disenchanted with it, recognizing the encroaching and destructive effects of Soviet industrialization on the peasant population. According to the official account, on the night of December 27, 1925, he hanged himself after writing his final poem in his own blood, though many experts, relatives, and friends of the poet have disputed the official narrative.

#Anton Yakovlev #poetry #special feature #Sergei Yesenin

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cyberneticlagomorph · 5 years ago

Text

7×7

The darkness is all consuming.

Oppressive.

Cold.

Like deep, dark water that never ends. It renders the Warren, your home, alien. Your skin refuses to light, leaving you blind.

But it's not the smothering blackness that unsettles you, no, it's the harsh scream that echoes down hallways, once familiar.

Your feet move of their own accord, dragging you towards the sounds of wounded animals and feral beasts. The lights in the hallway gutter like a horror movie cliché, your security cameras hang limply from their wires.

The devices themselves have been reduced to twisted clumps of plastic and metal.

Beneath the inconsistent light, you find handprints and names scrawled in blood on the walls.

Someone is trying too hard to impress you.

To terrify you with overdone concepts that wouldn't spook a small child.

You've lived through worse, done worse.

As you come across your family, deranged and rabid, gnawing the flesh from each other's bones as they babble on about names and the number seven, you cannot find it in you to be afraid.

Not now, not this time.

As Jeanne looks up from the half eaten corpse of a child and snarls at you with her lipless grinning maw, you do not flinch. Even though you have no control here, and you couldn't run if you wanted to, this all plays out like some kind of contrived formality. Like some sort of mandatory presentation that you're being forced to sit through.

When the mutilated dream version of your wife sprints after you on all four grotesquely elongated limbs, screeching like an animal, you feel nothing.

Nothing but annoyance. A feeling that intensifies as your body moves against your will, taking a step back, only for the floor to drop out from beneath you.

Of course it does.

You plunge into an abandoned well full of cold, slimy, black water. Moss crawls along the wet stone walls as ferns spring up from the cracks. Black candles with green flames sit in little hollows where the oldest stones have gone missing, they melt into waxy stalactites and are your only illumination down here as you suddenly regain control over your body, fighting your way to the surface of the water. It smells like rotting flesh and old blood, bits of rot and mold cling to your wet skin, refusing to wash off as you feebly cling to the side of the well.

You shiver, cold and angry, gazing up towards the mouth of this watery hell earns you nothing but darkness. Growling, you cut your finger on your own teeth, writing Correspondence on your palm. It burns, burns like the stars that speak these symbols as their native tongue. You draw the symbol for "to beg for aid from a dear friend", and hold your scorched hand over the nearest candle.

It doesn't take Him long to respond, no.

As always, His entrance into your dreams is immaculate. It feels inexorable, like sunlight bearing pleasantly down on you, gentle claws prying your head open and filling you with a somnolent calm. The presence is sifting through you with deft ease, and unusual gentleness for a creature of such loud and large disposition. The Dream feels... realer, more solid with Him in it.

Again, you stare up, up into the once darkness of your watery prison. Mr Nights, merchant of dreams and candles, gazes down at you with glowing golden eyes. As He reaches down to help you up, the well becomes shallower, and soon he can scoop you up by the scruff like a wayward kitten. You open your mouth to thank him, but are torn from his grasp and sent plummeting back into the well before a sound can leave your lips.

Nights hisses, and seven times seven more serpentine sounds answer his fury. Rising from the black water is a septet of massive snake heads, they curl around you and speak in seven times seven tongues.

"How rude, how cruel. Who told you that you could bring a plus one to this private party?" whispers your captor. Trapped in this tangled mess of a beast, you are dragged ever deeper into the water.

"UNHAND HIM," Mr Nights spreads his glittering wings wide, he is a beautiful creature, something like a very very large white bat with horns, dressed in fine cloaks. The dream starts to warp around him, but the seven headed serpent seems unimpressed.

"Oh, I don't think I will, no, Jack and I need to have a little talk, now don't we?" it coils ever tighter around you, bones snap and cybernetics crunch beneath the force of it all. You weren't scared before, but you are now. The pain feels too real.

You wonder if you can die in this dream.

One head out of seven starts to circle you, your face is the only thing above water now.

"Hello again, Jack, I'd say it's been awhile but I've seen you every night this month now haven't I?" it gazes at you with empty eye sockets clotted with fruiting fungal bodies and bright flowers, vines and mushrooms spangle the length of its neck, probably terminating wherever it joins with the main body.

You couldn't respond if you wanted to, too busy trying not to drown. Mr Nights is trying to come to your rescue, but whatever He warps snaps right back like a rubber band. The serpent grows tired of Him and coils tight around Him too. You swear you hear something crack within those coils. The serpent says something snotty about how feeble Nights seems, especially after all the hype.

Your vision is obscured by water and snake, it stares you down as you choke on the filthy water. Forked tongues flick across your ears as whispered voices fill your aching skull,

"Hello, my sweet, stupid thing," it coos in a voice like a forest on fire, like sunlight filtering through leaves, like weeds swallowing a house left to rot, "Did you think that milk teeth and daydreams could keep me at bay forever?"

It sounds amused as it lifts you ever so slightly from the water. Blood and filth pour from your mouth and nose as you stare dazed at the creature, "Wh-- what do… you.. wa--want?" you words are a painful gurgle, the last breaths of a drowned thing.

You wonder if you will be devoured like He was…

Like She was.

"My name, what is my name. Who am I to you? Oh great and powerful Jack D'Arc, slayer of gods, unrepentant slut and biggest meddler in the multiverse." a hiss, you can taste the bitterness in those words, you can taste the knowingness behind them. There is something here that just doesn't add up.

But you know who this creature is.

You've known for years.

And it has known you for longer than either of you can readily remember.

It has visited your dreams, lived in your subconscious for decades.

You can remember when it was just one endless serpent with a head of flame, asking for its name in a ruined city.

You slump in its grasp, struggling to draw breath, "Y-you are the End-of-everything, the seven times seven named serpent," a pause, a swallow, the taste of death on your tongue, "I am supposed to fight you, imprison you inside inside myself to stop the destruction of the multiverse as we know it… you will be my Prisoner… and I your Warden."

Your secret is heavy, and it falls from your lips like a stone. The End seems dissatisfied. It turns fourteen eyes on you, eyes that burn or do not exist, eyes that are empty sockets, eyes that multiply ad infinitum.

"How crude, how fucking hamfisted is that to name me 'The End'? Has he truly run out of ideas so quickly?" the questions don't seem to be directed towards you so much as it's being spoken at you with the same disgruntled tone as a retail customer bitching about a problem that isn't half as bad as they think.

"No matter," the End says, to you this time, "soon you will learn the truth of this world, everyone will learn the truth of this world. Won't that be fun?"

All seven heads seem to smile at you as wax starts to pour into the well, burning you alive while you simultaneously drown in the scalding liquid.

You wax with a start, falling off of your sister's couch and onto the floor, scaring the shit out of her in the process.

"You good soft boy?" she asks, but you don't hear here, you're too busy crawling towards the bathroom.

Trembling, sore, and scared, you cling to the toilet bowl.

With your stomach emptied, you close the lid and rest your head on it. You flush without looking, why would you bother? It's the same thing you've thrown up night after night of having that nightmare.

Pitch black candle wax.

The same wax you drowned in, the same wax now dripping from your nose and caking your lips.

You won't try sleeping again, not now, not after that.

If a literal dream god like Mr Nights can't help you, then who can?

#ic #action post #blood #emetophobia #body horror #cannibalism #drowning #ask to tag

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mnemememory · 6 years ago

Text

bleeding bitter

Fjord and Yasha haven't had much of a chance to talk.

(or; a 2k conversation about feelings)

prompt fill for @theclockistickingwrite (prompt in ao3 notes)

“You’ve been awfully quiet, lately.”

Yasha doesn’t look up from where she’s sharpening her sword, the metal smooth and reflective underneath her fingertips. They’re all huddled together under the pale light of Caleb’s magical tent, shivering against the chill of stale sea-air that is locked in with them in the cabin.

They’re sleeping in shifts. The early night had caught them all off guard, exhaustion weighing anchor around their necks and eyes as the sun beat gold and bronze against the silk-smooth sea. There isn’t a window, down here, but Fjord can imagine it – painted, vivid. He’s been looking out at the empty sea for years and years. He’s somehow managed to regain the old, easy rhythm these past few days as Captain Tusktooth (holy shit he’s the Captain), salt in his lungs and the sun at his back. It’s at once brilliant and wretchedly horrifying.

“I haven’t had much to say,” Yasha says.

Jester and Beau are curled up in a tight knot off to the side, squishing up obnoxiously against an irate Caleb. Nott has latched herself onto Deuce’s fur, mask away, air whistling out sharply between her jagged teeth. Ghost words from thaumaturgy bleed through the air; Uk’otoa hisses out in dead white noise.

Fjord watches them and feels the impression of his falchion in his hands, feels an itch to the back of his neck. He doesn’t take his eyes away from the door.

“I’m worried about you,” Fjord says. “I know this isn’t what you had intended, meeting up with us again.”

Yasha doesn’t reply. The soft shing, shing, shing of her whetstone cuts through the air.

“And I’m worried about that eye,” he says. “And what it means.”

Yasha pauses briefly. Her eyes are latched onto the splinter-sharp edge of her sword. “You mean with Molly,” she says. It isn’t a question.

Fjord winces. He knows that Beau looks to him for…guidance…when it comes to matters of diplomacy, but he really isn’t the best choice. Well, generally – maybe he is with this group. And if that isn’t a horrifying thought, Fjord doesn’t know what is.

The point being, Fjord has never been good at talking to people. Worse, talking with Yasha one-on-one is like pulling teeth. Awkward, sweet teeth that could also turn around and stab you.

Fjord isn’t so great with metaphors, either.

“You said so yourself,” Fjord says, because if he is anything, he is persistent. “Molly had nine eye tattoos. I don’t think that they were quite like hers, but –”

“They weren’t,” Yasha says.

Fjord clears his throat. “I get the feeling,” he says, slowly. “That you’re angry with us.”

There it is.

Yasha’s pale chin jerks up, and something bright and furious flashes in her eyes for the split-second they lock vision. Then she’s ducking her head and pulling her shoulders up as high as they can go, hair swishing down to mask her face. The hand around the whetstone stiffens.

“I was not expecting,” she says, with less hesitation and more tightly controlled vernacular. “To see you again so soon.”

Fjord watches her closely. “’You’, as in the group?” he says. “Or ‘you’, as in, ‘me’.”

Yasha shakes her head and doesn’t answer.

The silence congeals between them, sour and uncomfortable. Fjord splits his attention between the door and Yasha, watching the way her features carve out shadow in the pale light of Caleb’s tent. She’s made of thick lines and sharp edges, teeth and bone.

(He’s seen her like this before.

Jester doesn’t remember – please, let Jester not remember – but Fjord does. Fjord remembers every second of every minute of every hour of every day they spent underground. He will never not remember, no matter how long he lives, for ever and ever.

He remembers Yasha, bleeding and angry and bright enough to hurt. She screamed, sometimes, but mostly she hadn’t said anything at all).

Ul’otoa, the walls whisper.

“I’m sorry I let us get taken,” Fjord says. The words feel bloody, raw. He’s been trying to find the right thing to say for so long, but no matter how he does it, it fumbles on the tip of his tongue. It’s a novel experience, being so intimately aware of a feeling but being unable to conceptualise it. Grief is close. Shame might fit better. “I’m sorry I let you get taken. I should have been better. Three of us, we should have seen them. I’m sorry you weren’t there –”

Yasha looks up, and it’s enough to silence him. She stares him dead in the eye, face blank, and says, “I don’t care.”

Fjord can’t breathe.

“The first time I met Molly,” she says. “He was basically dead. There wasn’t anything in him. He said – over and over and over. Empty. That was all.”

This is the most that Fjord has ever heard Yasha say.

“About a – a month, after, we dragged him. Into a town. He had a name, and a face to put on. And clothes. And someone was laughing at him.”

She isn’t looking at him, anymore – she’s staring sightless in front of her, eyes unfocused.

“And he was very rude. So I did my job, and he didn’t bother either of us again.”

“Yasha, I’m –”

“So that’s my job,” Yasha says. It comes out in a rush, like she’s afraid that he’s going to drop her. “That…was my hob. Make sure he didn’t do anything. Reckless. Keeping him – keeping him – alive.”

Fjord closes his eyes. His jaw aches, filed-down tusks rubbing uncomfortably against his cheeks.

“I don’t know anything. Anything. About his tattoos,” she says. There’s a catch in her throat, but Fjord isn’t going to say anything for the life of him. “Not the ones from before, or after. We were staying at. It’s not important. I left for a few weeks, and I came back to him covered in bandages. And those eyes…”

“I can’t help but wonder if they’re connected somehow,” Fjord says. “It’d be an awful strange coincidence.”

Yasha bares her teeth. “Wouldn’t matter even if he was here,” she says. “He doesn’t remember shit.”

The words hit Fjord like a cold punch to the stomach; he can’t breathe around it, for a second.

Funny. Funny, they’ve been so careful with Molly – softening his name, choking back conversations into dull, twisted things. It’s a shock, hearing Yasha talk about him without any of the weight.

“No,” Fjord says, once he’s regained the ability to speak. “I don’t suppose he did.”

“I don’t want to know,” she says. “Not if he didn’t. I don’t want to know anything about – about Molly that Molly didn’t know.”

They stay like that for a long time. Quiet, if less violent. Yasha puts her sword carefully at her feet and pulls out her book, the one with flowers pressed into the pages. It’s thick, and old. Well, compared to some of the books in Caleb’s luggage. The man hoarded like nobody’s business – in their brief period together, Caleb has managed to stuff the equivalent of a small-town library into Jester’s haversack. She’s started complaining about being a pack-mule.

“I’m not angry with you,” Yasha says. There’s a tight, awkward set to her shoulders that she can’t quite seem to straighten you. “It’s not your fault.”

“You certainly weren’t happy to see us,” Fjord says.

Yasha shakes her head. “I was happy,” she says, and does not elaborate.

Teeth, Fjord thinks with a sigh. He enjoys the time they spend together, but it’s not exactly an easy flow of conversation. Silence works best for them, he’s found.

But right now, Fjord doesn’t want silence.

“We were very happy to see you,” he says. “Jester and Nott, especially. They’ve really missed you. we all have.”

Yasha hunches so far forward she’s almost bent double over her book. “I was happy,” she repeats, like it’s being pulled out of her. “I was. You are all very…nice, to be around.”

“But?”

Yasha’s voice is small. “When you have dreams,” she says. “What does it feel like?”

Fjord frowns and sits back, trying not to be thrown off by the non-sequester. He can’t think of how that could be relevant, but doesn’t want to interrupt the flow of conversation. And this is important, he thinks.

“It depends on the dream,” he says, feeling the words out as he goes. He wouldn’t say this to anyone else, he thinks. Not even to Beau. “Most of the time, I don’t understand anything that’s going on. There’s something right outside of what I’m seeing, but I can’t quite make it out. The first time –” Fjord falters.

Yasha doesn’t say anything, just watches him with hawkish eyes and a flat mouth. Fjord struggles to get himself under control, which is ridiculous. This is ridiculous.

“The first time I drowned,” he says, as firm as he is able. “It feels a little like the first time I drowned.”

“In my visions,” Yasha says. “I’m – small. The smallest thing in the world. And everything around me is – is beautiful, and powerful. There’s so much of it.”

“I can imagine, just a little,” Fjord says.

“That’s what it felt like, when I saw you,” Yasha says. “Like that.”

“Yasha…”

“It’s not a bad feeling,” Yasha says. “But I wasn’t expecting it.”

Fjord glances over to their sleeping companions. Nott has wormed her way up from Deuce’s shoulder to be tucked up in his elbow, a content smile stretching over her lipless mouth. They both look obscenely adorable. Caleb has kicked his way out from under Jester and Beau and is stretched out next to them, peaceful. Predictably, Beau has succumbed to oxygen deprivation and is lying, limp, in Jester’s stronghold. And Jester –

Jester’s face is drawn into a half-smile, eyes closed, fangs peeking out from under her lips.

“I wasn’t exacting any of this,” he finds himself saying, not taking his eyes away from Jester. “It still doesn’t feel real, most of the time. I find myself waking up, and I think maybe I’m still asleep.”

“Is it a good dream, or a bad dream?”

Fjord shrugs. “It’s a dream.”

Yasha seems to understand. Her smile is small, almost invisible against the dramatic silhouette of her face. “This place is very dangerous.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Fjord says. “And you. I’ll take care of all of you. I mean, I’ll – I’ll try.”

“I know you will, Fjord,” Yasha says. She means it to come out as comforting, he can tell, but the words rub him the wrong way. He has to take a few steadying breaths against snapping back something at her. His temper has never been an easy thing to control, but here, especially with Yasha, he doesn’t want it to rear its ugly head.

“I promised Jester’s mother I’d try, at the very least,” he says.

Yasha’s eyebrow ticks up. There is less judgement to the expression than when worn on Beau’s face, but it’s still there all the same. “Meeting the family. That’s a big step.”

Fjord gapes at her.

“Not you as well,” he says, shocked by this unexpected betrayal. “Please, not you as well. I get enough of this from Beau.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yasha’s voice is very bland.

“You – you’re worse than she is,” Fjord says.

“Not you’re just being insulting.”

“Fjord?”

“Wha – Jester?”

“Are you okay?”

Fjord peels open his eyes and squints into the soft darkness. Jester is sitting next to him, eyes wide and bright as stars. He groans and leans so that he’s resting on his elbows, simultaneously exhausted and wide awake.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t think you’re okay,” Jester says.

Fjord looks around. Nott is off to the side, pretending to not be shamelessly eavesdropping. Everyone else looks asleep. It must be close to dawn – Jester and Nott had volunteered for the last shift on watch.

“I’m tired, Jester,” he says, closing his eyes. He lets his arms collapse underneath him, prepared to just pass out and be done with it. There’s salt in his lungs and seawater choking the back of his throat, and he can’t deal with being awake, not now. “Can’t we talk about this in the morning?”

Jester pokes his cheek. “Fjord. Fjord. Fjord.”

“Please don’t,” Fjord says.

Jester blows out a noisy sigh. Fjord is ninety-percent sure that the rest of the group is faking unconsciousness. Caleb’s eye keeps twitching.

“I just want you to know,” Jester says, voice loud enough that even if anyone had been asleep before, they wouldn’t be now. The too-peaceful expression on Beau’s face just confirms Fjord’s suspicions. “That we love and support you with whatever you think is best, and if that means that we take out the sexy pirate lady, we take out the sexy pirate lady.”

“Wait, no –”

“And if that means running away so she doesn’t throw you to be eaten up by the weird tentacle fish-god who keeps coming into your dreams –”

“Jester –”

“Then that is what we will do.”

Fjord gives up. “Thank you, Jester.”

Jester’s smile is blinding. “You’re welcome, Fjord.”

Something nudges at his boot. Fjord looks down in time to see Yasha giving him a subtle thumbs-up.

#critical role #critical role campaign 2 #fjord #yasha #fjorjester #jester #blink and you'll miss it romance #basically 2ks of conversation #nothing happens but feelings #and jester being cute #but let's be real when is jester not cute #fanfic #my writing #prompt fill #(prompt in ao3 notes)

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portalford · 6 years ago

Text

Suffice to Say that You’re Still Here

AO3

Being shot is not an experience that improves with repetition.

Ford wraps his singed arm with a strip torn from the bottom of his coat and catches the knot between his teeth, pulling it tight. Crude, but serviceable.

Besides, it's only a graze from one of those laser-type guns that fire an energy packet and cauterize the wound on impact. Certainly lethal if you hit the right spot, but much less effective if you’re hoping your target will leave a blood trail or get an infection.

A ridiculous design, really, but it looks cool when you fire it.

Ford draws his own equally cool, much more effective shock blaster from its holster at his hip. It fires electric pulses at varying strengths, neutralizing a target’s entire body and eliminating the whole lethal bleeding-and-screaming interlude you’d get with a laser gun.

He didn’t wake up this morning expecting to hide away in a supply closet while a horde of angry reptilians tears their own ship apart looking for him, but then he doesn’t really expect much of anything at this point.

It’s easier that way. Less disappointment, and less general confusion when Things (capital T; lowercase things are much easier to deal with) happen.

Judging from the volume and rapidity of the hissing, there’s a very heated argument going on right outside the door. Their language is simple enough that he hardly needs his translator to follow it anymore. Speaking it is a different story, but none of the beings he’s encountered on this ship seem especially interested in talking to him. They’re much more invested in eating him.

He tried explaining to one particularly tenacious group that he’s old and stringy and overall not good for eating, but they didn’t listen.

He wishes he could say that this will teach him to think before accepting a free ride off-planet, but it’s unlikely.

Of course, if he gets eaten he’ll stop taking poorly-intentioned handouts, but he won’t be around to learn from it, which is unacceptable. He has to learn one of these days, and he’d like to be alive to see it.

The hissing quiets and eventually stops altogether as his pursuers leave to search other areas of the ship. Ford counts to a hundred, then to the equivalent of a hundred on Kesslia 5 before daring to open the door and poke his head out.

He’s met with scaly grey skin and long sharp teeth, because this is one of those days that is determined not to improve no matter what he does.

“Kss ss,” the lizard says. Female, judging by the short cranial spines, and one of the largest he’s seen yet. She flicks her forked tongue over her lipless mouth. “Rest easy. I am help.”

She’s speaking a rough version of Kesslia 5′s common language – obviously not her native tongue – in what’s probably an attempt to soothe, and it just makes Ford more suspicious. He keeps the heavy metal door between his body and the potential threat and his gun in his hand.

“Yes, well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t thank you. I’ve already been tricked once by your shipmates today.”

His shoulder throbs. He ignores it.

The lizard hisses. She sounds irritated. “Young ones, always hungry. Wasting energy on hard prey, kss. They act like I don’t feed them at all.”

“You’re the cook?” Even less reason to trust her.

“I am. But not here to cook you.”

“Why not?”

A toss of her head that he suspects is the equivalent of a shrug. “Waste of energy, like I said. Not enough meat on you. Not worth the time it would take to kill you. You fight hard to live, and that’s admire-worthy."

Ford’s not entirely sure whether or not he’s just been complimented or insulted, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to eat him the moment he steps outside, so he does.

She doesn’t eat him. Progress.

“Come. I will hide you until we make port. They will not enter my cook-room while I am there.”

Ford trots at her heels, keeping an eye on the huge tail brushing a little too close to his ankles. “If we’re going to be spending time together, I don’t suppose I could get your name?”

“Bold, little drifter. You speak well, though. I am S’ves”

“S’ves.” Ford shakes his head; not sibilant enough. He licks his lips and tries again. “S’ves.”

Her hiss sounds amused, but not entirely condescending. “Not bad, for flat-tooth. What do you call yourself?”

A lot of things, actually, but now is not the time or place to be funny. “Ford.”

“Fford.” She somehow manages to pronounce his name like there are two F’s instead of one, but he’s heard worse. “Odd name. It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

She leads him into a tiny room made entirely of black chrome and points to a storage area hollowed out under the main counter, pushing various bins and bags out of the way. “Sit here. They will not see you when they come, and I will not tell.”

Ford does as she says, tucking his legs up underneath him. These beings are much taller than he is, averaging about seven feet when standing upright (not including the tail), so it’s actually quite comfortable, if he ignores the fact that he’s basically been in a sauna for the past four hours. Reptilian ships tend to be uncomfortable for warm-blooded species.

His rescuer (?) bustles around, pulling out what looks like several bins of dried insects and picking through them.

“Do you need any help with that?”

The noise she makes this time is definitely a laugh. “You? No, you sit still. Out of my way.”

“If you insist.” The best policy for being helped is simply to shut up and listen to every fickle whim your savior might have.

He hasn’t really learned to do that either, but lately he’s shown promise.

“Talk,” S’ves orders, testing him on the whim thing. “Where do you go?”

“This ship is going to Lottocron 9, so I suppose that’s where I’m going.”

S’ves hisses, head spines rattling. “Lottocron, gamblers and no-goods all. You sure you want to go there?”

“I don’t have much of a choice. Mostly I just go wherever I can.”

She stops her bug-sorting to look at him consideringly. “You look like a drifter, but you have manners. Were you person of consequence before you run?”

Now isn’t that a loaded question.

“…not really.” It’s not a lie, not in the context that she’s asking. “I wound up here on accident.” It was an accident, it was, Stan–

it was an accident.

“Hss, accident. Maybe one day you accident yourself back home.”

Ford squashes the little thing in his chest that hopes for that exact occurrence every day and changes the subject. “What about you? Why are you here?”

“Work. My hatchlings are grown and these young ones onboard need to feed and be guided. I help them.” She bares her teeth at him in what might be a smile. “I help you, too.”

Ford smiles back. It feels a little stiff around the edges, but that might just be from lack of practice. “And you have my thanks for that.”

The kitchen door slams open in a way that can mean nothing good, and Ford’s hand flies to his gun.

He’d really rather not destroy S’ves’ little sanctuary and workplace, but he will if he has to.

S’ves beats him to it, lashing tail upending her bin of bugs.

“What are you doing in my cook-room,” she snaps. Ford’s translator buzzes as she switches to the local vernacular. “I’ve told you all this is off limits! Get out!”

“We’re looking for a human,” one of the search party replies. He sounds cocky in the way people do when they’re bluffing. “It's wearing black clothes and carries a gun. It got away when we tried to catch it to eat. We were going to bring it to you, S’ves. A gift.”

“A gift? You were going to bring me one skinny human and call it a gift?” She sounds genuinely insulted. Ford is more worried about getting his neck broken by her tail, now swinging dangerously close to his head. “Do I not work hard enough for you? Slave away in here to make good food so you can live? Maybe not, because your brains seemed to have been starved right out of your thick skulls! I don’t want your human and I don’t want you in here distracting me. Get out!”

A minute more of mumbled hissing, some of it distinctly apologetic, and the search party flees through the kitchen door.

“Kss hss-ss. Ingrates, all of them.” S’ves' angular face suddenly blocks out the bright overhead light as she ducks down to look at him. “Good hatchlings, though,” she says, once again speaking the planet-wide language. “Just rough edges.”

“Most young people have them,” he offers. “Old ones, too.”

“True,” she says, starting to gather up her spilled insects. She stops, abrupt, and turns to him. “I have forgot to offer you food or drink, kss. And I say I take care of others.”

Ford folds his hands in his lap. “I’m fine, thank you.”

His shoulder is still aching. He’s still ignoring it.

He does end up accepting a glass of water before he leaves, but only because he’s lost a lot of fluid to the overly-warm temperature and it’s best to hydrate where he can. Certainly not because her repeated offers were making him feel guilty.

S’ves makes him wait a good hour after the crew disembarks before she escorts him off the ship.

“The dock will be empty now. Less security.”

“Less security is often a good thing where I’m concerned.”

“Yes.”

The station is indeed mostly empty. It seems to be night.

S’ves walks with him to the edge of the loading bay, then stops. “I will return to my cook-room now. There is a sleep-house nearby that ask no questions.” She presses a bag into his hands. It’s full of dried insects covered in some sort of spice.

“I don’t–”

“Take it,” she insists. “You eat. Stay alive.”

That is what he wants, right? “I will.” He tucks the bag into one of his pockets and folds his hands behind his back, taking a deep breath and mentally running through the words before he says them aloud. “S’ves, you have done me great service and will live in my memory forever.”

The words of her people’s formal acknowledgement are a little trickier in her native tongue, but he felt he had to try.

She laughs, but it sounds warmer than the ones he’s heard from her before. She reaches down to ruffle his hair, blunt claws scratching his scalp.

“Keep running, Fford. Don’t get eaten.”

He wants to fix his hair, but it’s a losing battle at the best of times and right now it just seems rude. “I’ll do my best.”

She bares her teeth in one last smile before turning to go.

Ford looks up at the deep purple sky of Lottocron 9 and slips under the shadow of an awning.

He’ll have to run eventually, but it’s safe to walk tonight.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #stanford pines #my writing #ur local space disaster man #i have not been feelin Anything i write recently but apparently that's not enough to stop me

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vaultsexteen · 6 years ago

Text

It was close to 5 in the morning right now, but it wasn’t like anyone could tell - Alaska was always dark as shit, doubly so when snowstorms blotted out the sky, and Skinny Dick’s eyes were so shot to hell that he had a tough time even when the sun was out. Which was why at Skinny Dick’s Inn, the lights always stayed on, 24/7; it was a beacon for any weary travelers going down the old highways leading up to Fairbanks, and it helped Dick not stumble into any of the stuffed animals when he wanted to go to the old outhouse to take a leak.

Now, as a bartender, he’d seen his fair share of folks who were down and out on their luck: mercs after a job gone bust, people with barely a cap to their name trying to stave off frostbite, that kind of thing. A lot of them came through Skinny Dick’s bar, and most of them got a room at the inn and went away by the next day, off to the next job - or the next bar, if they weren’t so lucky.

He’s been kind of wracking his brain with this latest one, though - a ghoul in a fancy brahmin-leather overcoat and gloves had come in, and she’d rented a room for a whole week. Usually, she’d go out, come back and buy a lot of the hard stuff, go to her room for the night, and return the bottles in the morning. After a few days, it looks like she opted to stay at the bar this time; in fact, she’d been at the bar all day, chatting up the other customers and even getting a bit friendly with a couple of them. Right now, as he was tidying up for the morning, she was sat at the far end of the bar nursing her sixth bottle of Skinny Dick’s Special Hooch, looking like she was gonna burn a hole in the cabin with nothing but her stare. He’d put a few plays on the jukebox, for his sake as much as hers - it was pretty hard to be sad to Let The Good Times Roll, after all.

Positioning himself behind the bar to take stock of whatever spirits he still had left, he figured that he might as well try to check up on the tenant. “Anything else I can get’cha?”

She shakes her head, and smirks. “Nah. You can take this one back,” she said, raising the now-empty bottle triumphantly.

A bottle of Special Hooch was enough to get a ghoul drunk, and six bottles were probably enough to give even a ghoul alcohol poisoning, but she’d gone through all of them like they were water and she didn’t seem any more wasted for it. Skinny Dick didn’t know whether to feel impressed, terrified, or just sad about that; he just nodded and took the bottle, then stashed it under the bar to take back to the still later.

Meanwhile, the tenant had taken out a small, colorful glass pipe and a lighter from her coat, and then lit the pipe. A smell that was something between rubbing alcohol and battery acid began to fill the air as she took a few puffs.

“What’s that, there?” he asked, mostly curious. No way in hell it could be tobacco, and if it was some kind of mutated strain of weed, it was really mutated.

The acid smoke formed a small cloud around her as she laughed. “Got the recipe from out west,” she says, “from a bunch of ghouls in… where was it?” She turns the pipe over, and smiles. “Mexico, I think. Yanks call it smooch.”

“Smells like an energy cell shit itself,” he chuckles. “Jesus, what’s in that?”

Her smile widens. “Hey, irradiated cave fungus and Abraxo can do wonders. You should try it for yourself,” she says, holding out the pipe.

Well, if Skinny Dick stands for anything, it’s that everything ought to be tried at least once. And if he drops dead, it’ll at least have been in the spirit of exploration - so he takes the pipe, takes a hit, and waits to become the first ghoul ever launched into space. It doesn’t happen, but he does feel a bit lighter, just like how he remembers how a reefer used to make him feel. Plenty impressive, he’ll give it that.

“Good, huh?” she says, looking the most at ease he’s ever seen her. “And there was only a drop of the stuff in that kindling. It’s plenty potent - so I wouldn’t recommend it for humans.” She takes the pipe back, and takes another puff. “Tends to turn ‘em into vegetables. Makes a killing in the ghoul market, though.”

He leans over the bar, the old wood creaking under his weight. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where anybody could get a dealer for that stuff, wouldja?” he whispers, though there’s no real need to. “A fella might be looking to buy some real soon.”

Her smile only grew bigger. “You lookin’ at ‘er.” She lets the pipe hang around her mouth as she extends a hand. “Chives Chen, independent trader, at your service.”

“Skinny Dick,” he says, taking her hand in his own, “owner and proprietor of Skinny Dick’s.”

“Committed to the brand.” Chives nods once. “I like that.” Pulling her hand away, she rests her elbows on the bar and cradles her head in her other hand. “Listen, Dick, can I talk to you on the level?”

He shrugs. “Shoot. We’re talkin’ now, right?”

“Right…” She sits up straight, and folds her hands like she’s playing poker, without the cards. “Listen, my company is interested in expanding our routes, see, and I heard from a little birdie that the Alaskan frontier might be in the market for some Brahma.”

“Y’ heard right. Always willing to trade for more meat around these parts.” He finds himself nodding along - so far, he likes the cut of her jib. “Not a lot of grazing ‘round here, see, and folks need all the grub they can get. Hard enough to keep everybody halfway fed in here, so I could use a steady line of beef.”

She raises her brows, then. “My good Dick,” she says, hint of a laugh tinting her voice, “I think you misunderstood me. I never said I was selling any meat.”

“What d’you got, then? Leather? Horns?” He pauses. “Glue...?”

“Keep going. Maybe you’ll even get it.”

“Don’t make me guess, ma’am,” he groans, throwing his hands up. “I feel like I’m on an episode of Red Tag, over here!” He can’t help but laugh at his own joke, even if there was no way in hell anyone would’ve cared about remembering old game shows.

She takes the pipe out of her mouth and takes a long drag - the smell of the weird smoke doesn’t really get any better with time, especially not when it was being blown in your face. “That was the one Johnny Collins hosted, right?”

“Right, right.” He takes out his own leather pouch of hand-rolled tobacco from his apron, and strikes a match. “Y’know, he’d say somethin’ like, ‘you’re it, America!’, and he’d ask people these fuckin’ impossible questions while they did these challenges…” He lights the cigarette, then takes a long, deep breath.

“Yeah, swimming through jello and trying to hit an apple on some guy’s head,” she adds, laughing. “You could win shit like, what, a voucher for one week’s worth of gas? A whole case of smokes?”

“If you were lucky, you could win a trip to Hawaii or something.” He takes an ashtray out from behind the bar, and taps some ash into it. “Say, you ever been there?”

Chives shakes her head. “Lots of places under the sun I ain’t been to yet, Dick, and that includes most of The Last Frontier.” She dumps out some acidic-smelling ash from her pipe onto the ashtray, and sighs. “I’ll cut right past the fat of it, man. I got a lot of people out in California who have a lot of jet to sell. You want in, or what?”

“...Oh,” he says, halfway into putting the cig near his lipless mouth, “oh, that was it.” He leans back, crossing his arms. “Yeah - nah. Not that I don’t like jet, but… look, you’re not gonna find much buyers for that ‘round here.” He takes a drag and adds, “Down south in Anchorage, though, I hear they eat jet for breakfast, so you might wanna take a look-see for your friends over there.” He taps his chin, then, as he struggles to remember something else. “Some other folks, too… damn, what was it called again? Psykerjet? Ah, I dunno exactly, but they like that shit.”

Chives doesn’t look disappointed by the news; in fact, there’s a new glint in her eye that would’ve been easy to miss, but he’s seen it before. “Alright. Thanks for the tip, Dick.” She puts her pipe back in her coat, pulls out a single cap, and she sets it on the bar as gently as can be. Then she gets up, and walks off in the direction of the rooms. “You’ve been a big help.”

“No prob,” he says, but she’s soon out of sight. He takes the time to inspect the cap she set down; an old, relatively unbent Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle-cap. He thought there was nothing special about it besides the fact that Sunset caps were pretty rare around these parts, until he turned it around - there, someone had painted a shiny, blue star in the middle.

When he came back from the outhouse to do his usual morning rounds at the rooms, he saw that the room Chives had rented was pretty tidy already. He takes a final look around - she hadn’t moved much stuff around or hid anything in the floorboards, which was fine and dandy with him. Skinny Dick supposed that she’d packed her bags and moved on to the next job - or the next bar, if it came down to that - but he found himself rooting for her all the same.

#fallout alaska #my fic #working title: people put their very misplaced faith in chives #i'm not particularly confident with skinny dick's voice as of yet but he's growing on me #chives chen

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years ago

Text

A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 9

<- Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 ->

Summary: Your POV on what you’ve been up to since the breakup

1,915 words

The first week you just cried, and slept.

I shouldn’t have said that, you thought the minute you reached the hospital parking garage. You started to shake as you sank into the driver’s seat. Did that really happen? Then the tears started coming, and didn’t stop.

You crawled into the massive bed that you and Frederick used to share, that had been too big and empty and cold for too long, pulled the covers over your head, cuddled into the spot that used to smell like him, and slept. You slept as though you hadn’t slept in years. You slept until the gnawing in your stomach became too painful to ignore and you had to eat.

There was a picture of you together up on a shelf near the kitchen. Frederick looked so handsome—the scar on his cheek was barely noticeable, and he had that fake, smarmy smile he always put on for cameras. Still, because you were standing next to him with your arm around his back, there was a genuine crinkle in the corners of his eyes that wasn’t there for press photos. You almost smashed it, but you carefully placed it back where it belonged, and smashed a vase instead. Then you lay back in bed again, and slept and cried some more.

You cried so hard you felt sick. Then you did get sick. Work called when you were late, and you said you had the flu, which they believed by the hoarse croak of your voice, though it was more like every toxic pound of stress you’d been holding in for the past month was pouring out of you as in some ancient blood-letting ritual. Your body had been operating beyond its limits, physically and emotionally, for too long, and now everything was crashing.

What would he do if you just didn’t leave? As you stubbornly lay there sweating feverishly and refusing to move, you wondered how long you had before he would even check. He didn’t give you a deadline, just an order to get out. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to kick you out of your own house, would he? Where were you supposed to go?

You opened your laptop and searched for housing in Baltimore, and your head spun. Tiny, ugly apartments that you could barely afford. Maybe you could take that promotion you’d been avoiding because it would require too much travel. Nothing was tying you here anymore—no reason not to travel halfway across the country for weeks at a time. You were free now.

You shut the computer and pulled the blanket back over your head, shaking.

Part of the reason you couldn’t get out of bed was the ocean of sadness you were crushed beneath, which made it difficult to breathe and impossible to want to do anything. The other part was that, in truth, you needed it. You’d been spending so many nights lying awake worrying about whether your fiancé was going to die, waking up so many mornings at the crack of dawn just to see him before work, then going straight from work to the hospital without a break, you’d been on the verge of collapse.

When you finally emerged from the bedroom after a solid week of sleep, your head was clear, and the dark circles living under your eyes had gone.

Finally, you could think straight enough to be truly angry.

Frederick said a lot of things that he didn’t truly mean—rude things, patronizing, demeaning, even cruel. Not just since being hospitalized. He always seemed to make up for it somehow, to the point where you saw it as a cute quirk, and you always forgave him, even when he didn’t say sorry. This may have been one of those times. But he didn’t call to apologize. He didn’t call to check on you. To see if you were OK.

If he didn’t mean it this time, then he didn’t care about you. And you wondered why you ever put up with his bullshit.

Another day went by, and you looked at the picture up on the shelf. How genuinely happy you looked standing next to him and his fake smile and perfect hair, because you saw something in him beyond what the rest of the world could see. You saw the tenderness he safeguarded beneath the pompous mask. The real smile beneath his fake one. Everyone thought he was a patronizing ass, and he could be, but he craved your affection desperately and would go farther than anyone you’d ever known just to show how much he cared.

Everything was different now. He had no way to pompously preen, stuck in hospital robes with nary a tie pin to be seen, and removing his means of vanity had also eviscerated the secret kindness that went with it. The Frederick you knew was gone, and he would ever come back. Not the same as he was. He was too scarred.

The psychological scars were far more frightening than the ones on the outside. Once he was healed and no longer in pain, you wouldn’t mind those. You imagined him wearing a fine suit looking dashingly sinister with his exposed teeth, like a Batman villain. It sent a flush of heat between your legs just picturing it. But apparently that made you a shitty person—you remembered Frederick’s accusations and crossed your arms over your chest, hugging yourself. He wouldn’t be happy until you turned your nose up at him in disgust! Except that would make him miserable, too!

Why the fuck hadn’t he at least called? You wondered if he really did mean it this time.

Days went by. You returned to work and found yourself much more productive than you had been with all the extra sleep, though your stress was getting worse by the day. He still hadn’t called. At this point, you figured he was waiting for you to do it, but you were so tired of being the bigger person. Your entire relationship, you had to be the bigger person. In three years, you could count on one hand the number of times the word “sorry” came out of his mouth. Maybe two hands.

He never said the words, but you would come home to find a gourmet meal being served to you by candlelight. Or rose petals in the bathtub. Sometimes it was just a slow, tender kiss with his thumb brushing against your cheek. Or he would tease every erogenous zone on your body with his feisty tongue until you were shaking with overstimulation.

Now that you thought about it, neither of you were particularly skilled at verbal affection. You were both abrasive and quick with insults, and when you first met, you were like dueling cats yowling and hissing around a trashcan.

How had you managed to win his prickly heart when most of your “conversations” had been arguments? Because you started fucking each other. From that moment, however outwardly you pretended to loathe each other, you were both so cuddly you could hardly bear being separated. No matter what stupid, infuriating jeers he made during the day, you always wanted to wake up in the morning tucked under his arm, your face buried in a chest full of soft brown hair, smelling his intoxicating musk and day-old cologne. Even when you gave up being nemeses, touch was your first love-language. Laying his head in your lap while you read a book. His hand on the small of your back keeping you close at a big event. Combing your fingers through his thick hair. For every sarcastic little snipe, there was a gentle kiss to set everything right.

You couldn’t touch him. For over a month, his skin was too raw to be touched, and for over a month, all you’d had for physical contact was the slightest pressure over thick gauze—and even that was enough to make him wince.

Frederick was changed forever, and he was an asshole. But things might not have been as hopeless or forever-altered as you feared. Not being able to touch (combined with excruciating pain and trauma) had thrown your relationship out of balance, and that was a temporary problem.

Fuck it. You’d be the goddamn bigger person. Considering how much he’d suffered in one lifetime, he could have a free pass on being a dick. You may have said a few… inconsiderate things yourself.

The only thing you were afraid of was that he really did want you out of his life forever. Though you’d made up your mind you were going to see him and try to put things back together, the dread that your visit would only confirm once and for all that things were over made you put off the trip for another two days.

***

Your feet knew every turn and corridor to get to Frederick’s room so well by now, they could bring you there by muscle memory alone, dodging around busy doctors and nurses on autopilot. You slowed down and hesitated as you approached the door to his recovery room, holding your chest to quell the throbbing.

He might not want to see you. If his eyes met you with a scowl, your heart would break in two right there.

Stealthily, you tip-toed up to the door so your shoes wouldn’t make audible approaching footsteps, and you peeked in the little rectangular window. A curly-haired nurse was helping him lift his arms, stretching upward as high as he could manage. He gasped out little curses of pain until she released, and he sighed with relief.

“Good job today, Fred. We’ll work on that a few times a day for now, and then we’ll build on it, OK?” She patted his shoulder.

Oh, she’s in trouble, you grinned with schadenfreude, waiting for him to go nuclear at her for calling him “Fred.” But the explosion never came.

“Thank you, Pamela,” he smiled.

Flipping over to press your back against the wall, you clutched your chest tighter. He knew her name? He didn’t even know the names of half the nurses on his own staff! He used to pretend to forget yours, long after it wasn’t funny.

Worst of all, he looked happy.

He was happy without you. The smile he gave her was brighter than you’d seen him look at you in ages. You thought he would be agonizing over the breakup, but he was doing better since you were gone. You calmed your breathing, and poked your head over the lip of the window again. Now she was leaning down, and he was hugging her. Your throat started to close, and the backs of your eyes burned. It felt like the time you were in first grade when you fell off the playground monkey bars and landed flat on your back. All the wind had been knocked out of your lungs and you couldn’t breathe—you lay on the woodchips in a daze of confusion, mouth gaping like a fish, unable to comprehend why you couldn’t draw in air, and certain you were going to die.

Before you broke down in the middle of the hall, you turned to go home. No, not home, you corrected yourself. Not anymore.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @da-po

#Frederick Chilton x reader #frederick chilton #Raúl Esparza #hannibal #post-canon #ANGST #I was going to make this one a little happier then I didn't #oopsie #Please lmk if you want to be on my tags list even tho tumblr doesn't notify you anyway half the time XD

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berry-cat7 · 7 years ago

Text

Treasure

@kurokolovesakashi

For AkaKuro Month! The prompt is Fairy tale AU, so I went with trapped in a tower with a dragon, but with my own twist.

Can be read on AO3 or Fanfiction.

Kuroko no Basuke

G Rating

Brief mention of nudity

2,032 Words

Characters: Akashi Seijurou, Kuroko Tetsuya, Momoi Satsuki (Ft. Aomine)

Summary: A new knight approaches Kuroko's tower. It goes better than expected.

"Oh dear." Kuroko remarks rather flatly.

His reaction is more appropriate for noting an impending rain, rather than the sight of another knight preparing to storm his tower. However, he feels mild annoyance towards both phenomena, so perhaps it is quite fitting. If they were a messenger, they wouldn't have been so heavily armored, and nobody lugs around a broadsword for fun.

This knight can't be too unreasonable if they decided to make their approach from the forest though. While it is filled with many dangerous creatures and the terrain quite treacherous in general, it does provide excellent cover from the dragon's fiery gaze. The last fool who thought to take the mountain path directly to the western face of his tower saw their death approaching long before they had a chance to even catch a glimpse of the 'damsel' himself. Admittedly his keeper was feeling rather agitated that day, since that was the fourth challenger that week; usually the dragon is charitable enough to at least let them approach his fence, and give him a chance to send them away with their lives.

Not that they ever listen.

Between their greed towards the ridiculous amounts of riches the dragon has amassed in this castle, their desire to slay a mighty beast, and the power they've attached to his name; many chose to ignore him and press on. This usually results in the forest fauna coming out for a midnight snack on the remains if the dragon is out of sight. Kuroko doesn't like it when the dragon chars his lawn to burn the bodies, and the dragon refuses to actually eat them, so what isn't scavenged, is scattered along his grounds in warning.

This knight is definitely promising though.

Rather than charging in blindly while the dragon is still out of sight, they slow their steed to a trot and carefully examine the area. Kuroko knows that his companion has taken to the skies, silently observing the situation. The knight is too far for Kuroko to read the insignia painted onto their shield, but the powder blue of their cloak, and the style of the horse's reigns match those of Teiko, his kingdom of origin. Despite their cautious pace, the knight approaches with absolute confidence. The vibrant red plume decorating their helmet wavers in the wind, and their cape billows artistically as they draw nearer. Honestly, Kuroko is rather impressed. Usually people don't have that kind of flair for dramatics anymore.

At this distance, the golden dragon insignia of Teiko is clear and just as they reach they the barrier around his tower, they pull their horse to a halt. The knight is silent for a moment, before they reach up to remove their helmet. Messy pink hair drawn up into a loose bun, and a feminine face. It seems to be another woman this time.

The knight's voice rings loud and true through the clearing. "Fair prince, I am Sir Momo! Momoi Satsuki! And I have heard tales of your beauty and virtue! They say you are held captive by a fearsome beast and I have arrive to rescue you, and offer my hand in marriage! Where is your captor?"

It's a pain to strain his voice, but Kuroko addresses the challenger from his window. "Fair knight, I thank you for coming all this way, but I fear your quest has been for naught! I am in no peril! And I am no prince! Nor am I looking to marry!"

Her eyes widen in surprise.

"...Then who are you? There are many tales of your royal status!"

"I was but a humble farmhand! I befriended the local dragon, and moved into this tower! People have come and gone, spinning ridiculous fables of increasing fantasy!" That's quite an over-simplification of the situation, but it's unwise to shout such a long and personal story out of a window to a potentially dangerous stranger.

Overall, he's not quite sure how things escalated to this point himself. At first a few travelers stumbled across his little abode and the dragon was content to watch from afar. But once he had almost been killed by a roving band of looters, he supposes some rumours had begun to spread once the survivors regaled their harrowing tales. The average wanderers stopped appearing, and the warriors and knights started flocking in for various reasons.

Kuroko is far from captive when he travels back into town every other week for supplies. Not that many can recognize him.

"I apologize that you have come all this way! I can only offer my regrets." The last time he had bribed away an intruder, the dragon had sulked for days, curling around the tower's treasures possessively until Kuroko polished quite a few in repentance.

The knight shifts on her saddle as she thinks over this new development. "...Are you sure you require no aid? Are you truly unthreatened by the dragon?"

"Not unless you offer repair services." All of the rain has been rather troublesome. His wood fence is starting to rot from all of the moisture.

"Unfortunately, my main craft is the blade. My apologies for the disturbance then. Though I do hope you won't mind if I return for a visit? Someone as lovely as you should at least have human company every now and then." Ironically, he gets plenty of human company, it's just that they're usually hostile while the dragon is a reprieve.

She's been polite, outwardly nonthreatening and respectful, patient. Kuroko is about to grant tentative permission when a distant roar echoes in warning. It seems the dragon has grown tired of their guest. Thankfully she's aware enough to understand this unsubtle warning herself. "It seems I've overstayed my welcome. I bid you farewell, and may our paths cross again." She says with a sweet smile and a wave. Quite the juxtaposition from the worn armor broadening her frame and the gleaming blade strapped to her back.

Although she intended to take her leave, it seems her horse has other ideas. It continues to graze on the lush grass of his property, regardless of its rider pulling at its reigns. "Oh come on! Dai-chan, you can eat later!" The horse takes its time chewing through one more mouthful before it finally heeds its master's cries. And once the knight disappears into the forest from whence she came, the dragon is quick to land.

Kuroko rolls his eyes to himself once he is safely out of sight, and heads to his front door in order to greet the dragon in person, taking the spare cloak with him. He really is a sight to behold, gleaming wine-coloured scales and magnificent wings. Large eyes focus on him, one cranberry red and the other daffodil gold, both scanning for a hair out of place even though the knight hadn't even unsheathed her weapon. It's ridiculous and over-protective, but he can't complain when it's done for his sake. The dragon sort of sighs out a puff of smoke and a flurry of embers, a sign that he is satisfied with what he sees and Kuroko is permitted to move.

"See? I'm fine. But thank you Seijurou."

The dragon's lipless mouth is unmoving, but a velvety smooth voice can still be heard. "I don't understand why you won't just leave with me, and be done with these vermin."

Kuroko puts a hand on the dragon's warm snout, each nostril almost half of his height and every exhale a visible heatwave. "As hot as you can keep the cave and as lavishly as you furnish it, I'd rather not actually live in a cave. Kagami-kun already claims that I'm so isolated I may as well live under a rock, the last thing he needs is validation."

The dragon releases a burst of hot air at the mention of one of his few friends. He's close enough that the twin jets of scalding steam billow out past him without harm, but it's still uncomfortably hot at this distance. He smacks the dragon with a frown in reprimand, but the gesture is more symbolic since he doubts it was really felt through such thick skin.

"I can be human too." Kuroko is sure it's supposed to sound ominous or maybe even vaguely threatening, but he's learned to associate that tone with a petulant child. He absently resumes running his hand against the dragon's face. The larger, shield-sized scales covering the rest of his body are mostly cold and sharp, but his face is covered with smooth snake-like soft-scaled skin.

He has to tread carefully, because the last thing he wants to do is offend. Inter-species relationships – romantic or otherwise – are always complicated. "...Yes, I know, but even I would like to see other faces every now and then. I'm not a jewel Seijurou, I need more than just safety."

He can feel scales heating beneath his palm, just shy of painful as the dragon shifts. He closes his eyes against the bright light but he can already feel a feverishly warm cheek resting in his hand. Two very human hands grab onto him. One rests overtop of his, while the other carefully grips his fragile wrist. It wouldn't take much to turn his joints into mush, break his legs and render him immobile – completely helpless and dependent. But the dragon is careful, his touch always almost annoyingly feather-light with his unspoken fear.

He opens his eyes to meet red and gold.

There is a possessive look in Seijurou's eyes as he speaks, low and reverently. "I know human's require a lot of care to remain in optimal condition, but I can't help but place your physical well-being before your happiness. It's fine if you hate me. As long as you are alive and within my sights, I don't care what you do if it's not detrimental to your health. Your life is short as it is. You are my most precious treasure." The dragon places a tender kiss over the pulse point of Kuroko's inner wrist, and the human flushes a bright red as he recalls Seijurou's bare state. Seijurou himself always stands proud, completely unbothered by his nudity because he only wears what Kuroko forces onto him.

Without context, that whole speech would be rather concerning, no doubt that knight would come sweeping back to rescue him had she heard some of the other things he's said. But Kuroko knows that the dragon would never treat him like that. An object to be hoarded in the dark. He's merely voicing his opinion, the disgruntled grumbling of the guard of a particularly troublesome treasure. Kuroko pulls Seijurou into an embrace, surrounding himself with the dragon's heat. He rests his chin over the other's shoulder. "I know. You're my most important person too."

In all of his years of life as a simple farmhand, Kuroko Tetsuya had never seen much value in his life. He considered it a good life, but like any peasant, he thought he wasn't worth more than the mud he toiled in. It was mere chance that he had stumbled across this abandoned structure filled with wealth, and perhaps some would call it misfortune that it turned out to belong to a dragon; but his restraint had been his saving grace, and once the dragon had located him further down the path the rest had become history.

It's another irony, one he thinks about every day, that a dragon – creatures notorious for their material greed – believes that his life is worth more than his weight in gold.

It's easy to slip out of Seijurou's hold, all hard muscles and soft grip. It's not as bad as it used to be, but he's still embarrassed that he was in the arms of a naked man out in the open. He carefully throws the cloak he brought over Seijurou's shoulders, one of the only articles of clothing he'll wear without a word of complain, and leads the dragon by the hand into his castle.

The lifeblood rushing through his veins, every breath he draws, every day for the rest of his days – all of it, Kuroko is more than happy to give him to cherish.

#AkaKuro #Kuroko Tetsuya #Akashi Seijurou #KnB #kuroko no basuke #Aomine being a horse is literally my favourite part #idk why it got so serious at the end this was supposed to be funny #sorry if it's a mess I just wanted to post on time for once #I might fill more prompt days #fic: Treasure

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daresmythe-blog · 7 years ago

Text

for science.

WHO: Blaine Anderson @darethewarblerblaine & Sebastian Smythe @daresmythe

WHERE. Dalton Academy Housing Campus

WHEN. December 3, 2017 - Early Evening

WHAT. A series of texts exchanged after a long day of classes & studying

WARNINGS. Some dirty talk, nothing explicit.

( text message → petit copain ) i can't do it. i cannot write another admissions essay, i will physically die.

( text message → 'bastian ) Dying is not allowed!

( text message → petit copain ) How about slipping into prolonged comas?

( text message → 'bastian ) How about a good nights sleep from an amazing orgasm?

( text message → petit copain ) How do you do that?

( text message → 'bastian ) Do what? ( text message → 'bastian ) Read your mind?

( text message → petit copain ) Yeah.That.

( text message → 'bastian ) Hmmm because I could definitely go for that too as it turns out? ( text message → 'bastian ) And I know when you get into panic mode this is a general good suggestion.

( text message → petit copain ) Blaine Devon.You are such a dreamboat, you know that?

( text message → 'bastian ) Me?

( text message → petit copain ) You.

( text message → 'bastian ) Says the guy even the het guys here would probably consider dating

( text message → petit copain ) You are ridiculous.

( text message → 'bastian ) I am ridiculously in love with you...yes. ( text message → 'bastian ) Ridiculously attracted to you.

( text message → petit copain ) How'd I get to be so lucky, huh?

( text message → 'bastian ) Hmmm I don’t know. ( text message → 'bastian ) You put in a lot of hard work for me. ( text message → 'bastian ) I don’t know how anyone can possibly top a secret admirer, mistletoe Christmas first kiss. ( text message → 'bastian ) Or bringing me back something from Paris because it made you realize how you really felt

( text message → petit copain ) Well, I was certainly an idiot back then, wasn't I?

( text message → 'bastian ) Or just in general loving me the way you do. ( text message → 'bastian ) No, not an idiot. ( text message → 'bastian ) Scared. ( text message → 'bastian ) Understandably so. ( text message → 'bastian ) I’m sorry I am and intense person

( text message → petit copain ) Are you now? I had no idea. ( text message → petit copain ) You are so adorable. ( text message → petit copain ) It seems like quite a long time ago, doesn't it?

( text message → 'bastian ) It does. ( text message → 'bastian ) Two years ago ( text message → 'bastian ) That’s half of highschool Seb. ( text message → 'bastian ) And now we’re Seniors and struggling with admission essays ( text message → 'bastian ) And doing a lot more than kissing.

( text message → petit copain ) Senior citizens is more like it.

( text message → 'bastian ) Well they say senior citizens are quite active now :p

( text message → petit copain ) When's the last time we skipped class to make out? ( text message → petit copain ) Or stayed up ALL night? ( text message → petit copain ) We're old, mon petit copain. ( text message → petit copain ) face the facts we're ancient

( text message → 'bastian ) Ugh probably the beginning of the school year. ( text message → 'bastian ) But between senior ap classes, Warblers, student council, yearbook, and that “spirit” squad I thought would be a good idea to begin and organize and lead my senior year when is there time to skip. ( text message → 'bastian ) Also orgasms make me sleepy... you know this. ( text message → 'bastian ) We are responsible my love. ( text message → 'bastian ) Are you terribly bored with me? With our life?

( text message → petit copain ) Freedom suddenly seems like more work than we previously imagined it would be. ( text message → petit copain ) However, being outside of this campus, with you. ( text message → petit copain ) That's exciting.

( text message → 'bastian ) True ( text message → 'bastian ) How about as a reward for getting these essays done you get three random classes to skip and make out in the senior Warbler commons and one night of staying up all night

( text message → petit copain ) I would, but in all honesty I can't really afford to skip any classes before the break. ( text message → petit copain ) But we should make out very soon.

( text message �� 'bastian ) After the break then. ( text message → 'bastian ) How about hmmm....now?

( text message → petit copain ) Now? Now would be highly appropriate.

( text message → 'bastian ) Good. ( text message → 'bastian ) Hey Sebastian? ( text message → 'bastian ) Keep your glasses on....

( text message → petit copain ) Blaine Warbler...you always did like the nerdier side of me.

( text message → 'bastian ) My Clark Kent Superman

( text message → petit copain ) You are such a geek.

( text message → 'bastian ) As long as you love me!

( text message → petit copain ) Hmm, only forever. That's as long as I'll love you for.

( text message → 'bastian ) Hmmm it’s been too long since I’ve just sat in your lap and kissed you.

( text message → petit copain ) It has. You feeling like a hearty make out session, my sweet?

( text message → 'bastian ) And yet forever doesn’t seem like long enough when it’s you and I. ( text message → 'bastian ) Mmmmm yes

( text message → petit copain ) I could really use some sweet kisses. ( text message → petit copain ) Lots of them.

( text message → 'bastian ) We can start sweet, slow even. ( text message → 'bastian ) Let me memorize every freckle on your beautiful face again

( text message → petit copain ) Yeah? Maybe a few nibbles under the mistletoe conveniently hung by the door.

( text message → 'bastian ) The way it looks like you have the Little Dipper on your left cheek ( text message → 'bastian ) Definitely we can start at the door ( text message → 'bastian ) A couple of chaste pecs to your lips as I stretch up on my top toes my very long legged boyfriend

( text message → petit copain ) How many times do you think we've kissed since that first time? ( text message → petit copain ) hundreds...thousands maybe...I still love kissing you, babe.

( text message → 'bastian ) Millions maybe billions. I will never tire of kissing you.

( text message → petit copain ) Good. Because there's millions and billions more to come, I'm sure. Unless my lips fall off in a freak accident.

( text message → 'bastian ) I’d still kiss you.

( text message → petit copain ) You, kissing my lipless face. How tragic. How romantic.

( text message → 'bastian ) Well there are a lot of other places I can kiss you too. ( text message → 'bastian ) But you are my love story babe.

( text message → petit copain ) We've got a pretty good one too.

( text message → 'bastian ) We do. ( text message → 'bastian ) I’d say can’t wait to see how it ends but I don’t want to waste a moment or wish it away.

( text message → petit copain ) I know how it ends. You, as my husband. With a bunch of foul mouthed, rambunctious, curly haired babies.

( text message → 'bastian ) A bunch huh? ( text message → 'bastian ) Where did these foul mouthed rambunctious kids coming from?

( text message → petit copain ) A stork?

( text message → 'bastian ) Lol ( text message → 'bastian ) I mean why are they foul-mouthed and rambunctious?

( text message → petit copain ) I'm foul-mouthed, and you, my dear are rambunctious. ( text message → petit copain ) Very much so.

( text message → 'bastian ) I will not let you corrupt our children Sebastian Smythe. :p ( text message → 'bastian ) I’m more enthusiastic than rambunctious

( text message → petit copain ) Oh really? Mr. Anderson-Smythe? ( text message → petit copain ) You are so enthusiastic. In all things. ( text message → petit copain ) It's very attractive.

( text message → 'bastian ) Yes Mr Anderson-Smythe. Now make it up to me with hundreds of kisses.

( text message → petit copain ) Hmm...I guess I could.

( text message → 'bastian ) I can be enthusiastic about kissing

( text message → petit copain ) Will you be counting? ( text message → petit copain ) How many kisses does a hickey count as?

( text message → 'bastian ) Ten maybe ( text message → 'bastian ) We might have to scientifically test it.

( text message → petit copain ) Are hickey's allowed in traditional make out sessions?

( text message → 'bastian ) How many kisses make a hickey? ( text message → 'bastian ) Definitely.

( text message → petit copain ) And how naked is acceptably naked for a make out session....scientifically.

( text message → 'bastian ) It is the hetero badge of honour ( text message → 'bastian ) Ohhh. That one is complicated. ( text message → 'bastian ) Location factors into this one i am afraid

( text message → petit copain ) And then there's the matter of groping. ( text message → petit copain ) What's the grope to kiss ratio? ( text message → petit copain ) this is very complicated business that we're going to have to experiment with for...hours...days possibly.for science of course

( text message → 'bastian ) Of course for science. ( text message → 'bastian ) Do you think this could count as extra credit? ( text message → 'bastian ) Be turned into our science fair project?

( text message → petit copain ) I guess that depends on the amount of groping ( text message → petit copain ) It would certainly be something we'd have to...document. For science, again.

( text message → 'bastian ) I think the correct groping ratio, in polite company is about 7 kisses to a grope. ( text message → 'bastian ) A family friendly grope.

( text message → petit copain ) So a firm ass grab.

( text message → 'bastian ) In a more private locale 2 kisses to 1 grope or even 1:1 is strongly encouraged. And family friendly doesn’t count.

( text message → petit copain ) Yes, well private locale would be more under the shirt nipple touching. ( text message → petit copain ) As the hets like to do. ( text message → petit copain ) Or, lesbians. I leave them out a lot, don't I?

( text message → 'bastian ) Which isn’t a complaint btw ( text message → 'bastian ) Lol when do we ever even see girls?

( text message → petit copain ) WHAT ARE GIRLS ( text message → petit copain ) That's a lie. It'd be...nice to have a daughter one day maybe. Don't you think?

( text message → 'bastian ) Private locale should include dick touching. Because it’s gay. ( text message → 'bastian ) Yes. And name her after your mother. ( text message → 'bastian ) You and your Dad will have to help her live up to her namesake.

( text message → petit copain ) You had me at dick touching. ( text message → petit copain ) I'm lying, you literally had me when you walked in the room. ( text message → petit copain ) How gay is that. ( text message → petit copain ) Celeste...God I wish she knew you. ( text message → petit copain ) You'd be one of her favorite people. ( text message → petit copain ) She would just...go crazy about you

( text message → 'bastian ) The gayest. ( text message → 'bastian ) Really Sebastian. ( text message → 'bastian ) Luckily I’m also gay.

( text message → petit copain ) Glad to know I still hold my title as the gayest gay.

( text message → 'bastian ) I wish I’d known her. ( text message → 'bastian ) I wish I could thank her for you.

( text message → petit copain ) I'll tell her the next time I talk to her.

( text message → 'bastian ) To tell her how much I love her son; how happy he makes me... and how I want to spend my life making him as happy.

( text message → petit copain ) I think she's...I don't know...here somehow. ( text message → petit copain ) She sees us.I know it's not rational.

( text message → 'bastian ) Hey shush

( text message → petit copain ) But someone like that, like her. I just can't find a way to believe she just stopped existing

( text message → 'bastian ) It’s ... I like that.

( text message → petit copain ) I love your very blind support of my crazy.

( text message → 'bastian ) And if that’s the case I hope you’re right and she likes me. ( text message → 'bastian ) Maybe... maybe she pushed us, or you? Hmm?

( text message → petit copain ) Something like that. ( text message → petit copain ) Did you think we'd get to here, Blaine? ( text message → petit copain ) Almost free of this place ( text message → petit copain ) Still together. ( text message → petit copain ) Always together

( text message → 'bastian ) Get to here ? ( text message → 'bastian ) I wanted us to. ( text message → 'bastian ) Almost free and still together? ( text message → 'bastian ) I really wanted us to be. ( text message → 'bastian ) I know my jealousy gets the better of me sometimes....a lot of times... but I wanted us here. ( text message → 'bastian ) I want an Always for us. ( text message → 'bastian ) No matter how hard.

( text message → petit copain ) I didn't expect to screw up quite as many times as I have...or maybe I did. But I never knew I could fight so hard for something ( text message → petit copain ) I didn't think I was strong

( text message → 'bastian ) We’ve both made mistakes babe but they only make us stronger. ( text message → 'bastian ) I never knew I could want something more than music tbh ( text message → 'bastian ) You’re so strong ‘Bas. ( text message → 'bastian ) No one gave you a chance to be anything but.

( text message → petit copain ) I love you, Blaine Warbler. ( text message → petit copain ) I may have learned your last name, but...you'll always be my Warbler.

( text message → 'bastian ) Lol. ( text message → 'bastian ) I love you. ( text message → 'bastian ) And i am thrilled to always be your Warbler

( text message → petit copain ) Ugh, my Prince.

( text message → 'bastian ) Le Petit Prince

( text message → petit copain ) I struck gold with you baby

( text message → 'bastian ) I love you so much.

( text message → petit copain ) And I love you. So very much.

( text message → 'bastian ) What are your plans for Christmas this year?

( text message → petit copain ) don't know. Paris maybe

( text message → 'bastian ) When?

( text message → petit copain ) I don't know I've been dreading calling my father ( text message → petit copain ) So I haven't booked a flight or anything yet. I was thinking of maybe just not going anywhere

( text message → 'bastian ) Cooper wants my parents and I to come to LA. ( text message → 'bastian ) He’s working on a project.

( text message → petit copain ) That'll be nice, baby ( text message → petit copain ) I'll send you off with a hug and sarcastic comment for him

( text message → 'bastian ) I... want you to come with us. If... you can. If you want.

( text message → petit copain ) You want me to come to LA? ( text message → petit copain ) With your family?

( text message → 'bastian ) You’ve spent time with us at the holiday before.

( text message → petit copain ) I know, but...the whole break, with you? With your family? That's a lot, are you sure about it?

( text message → 'bastian ) Sebastian...

( text message → petit copain ) Well I'm just saying, baby

( text message → 'bastian ) We’ve been sharing a room and a bed every night for the last almost 4 months.

( text message → petit copain ) I know, I know that. ( text message → petit copain ) But this is, your parents. ( text message → petit copain ) Cooper. ( text message → petit copain ) Christmas.In LA

( text message → 'bastian ) I know. ( text message → 'bastian ) I did ask you.

( text message → petit copain ) Yes I want to ( text message → petit copain ) I hate leaving you for weeks at a time. ( text message → petit copain ) But it does freak me out a bit.

( text message → 'bastian ) Because? ( text message → 'bastian ) It’s my family?

( text message → petit copain ) Yeah. ( text message → petit copain ) I only have so many chances to prove myself. ( text message → petit copain ) I'm the future father of their grandchildren ( text message → petit copain ) it's a lot a pressure!

( text message → 'bastian ) So uhm....

( text message → petit copain ) Also...there's the matter of the name tattooed on my BODY ( text message → petit copain ) and LA is hot

( text message → 'bastian ) If I said I cleared this with my parents and Cooper before I said anything to you. ( text message → 'bastian ) Would you be upset?

( text message → petit copain ) No. ( text message → petit copain ) I would be relieved. ( text message → petit copain ) But also in a rush to buy some temporary tattoo cover up

( text message → 'bastian ) Have you looked at my phone recently babe?

( text message → petit copain ) No, why?

( text message → 'bastian ) Before you rush out and do anything you might want to look at my lock screen.

( text message → petit copain ) THEY KNOW? ( text message → petit copain ) Oh my god. ( text message → petit copain ) They must hate me.

( text message → 'bastian ) No. ( text message → 'bastian ) I don’t think my mother would have replied “of course Sweetheart” if she hated you.

( text message → petit copain ) Well, maybe we should come up with a better story than, "We got in a huge fight and Sebastian's very logical response was to get my name tattooed on his skin permanently" ? ( text message → petit copain ) Something responsible and poetic ( text message → petit copain ) Like i would have died if he hadn't done it, it's a medical fact Sebastian physically saved my life by inking his skin ( text message → petit copain ) that's workable, right?

( text message → 'bastian ) ‘Bas.....Sweetheart.

( text message → petit copain ) I'm gonna bring my report card.

( text message → 'bastian ) Your moms tattoo is also viable on my lock screen. ( text message → 'bastian ) I said your tattoos are like my music. ( text message → 'bastian ) A way to honor important people in your life.

( text message → petit copain ) Maybe a few letters of recommendation from my peers and teachers. ( text message → petit copain ) A lot of people don't see tattoos quite like that.

( text message → 'bastian ) It’s not exactly wrong though. ( text message → 'bastian ) It’s very true in the case of your mothers’.

( text message → petit copain ) My tattoos are...How I remind myself of what's important.Because I'm thick headed and I need a permanent mark on my skin some days to get through to myself. ( text message → petit copain ) My mother. ( text message → petit copain ) You. ( text message → petit copain ) Love above all else. ( text message → petit copain ) Things I never ever want to forget. ( text message → petit copain ) Things I WANT leaving scars on my body that are impossible to remove or hide

( text message → 'bastian ) Then if anyone in my family says anything you say just that.

( text message → petit copain ) I love you so much. ( text message → petit copain ) As impulsive as it was. I can't believe I waited so long to ink your name on my skin.

( text message → 'bastian ) Really?

( text message → petit copain ) Oh yeah. ( text message → petit copain ) My world. ( text message → petit copain ) You know how much I love you, don't you?

( text message → 'bastian ) So when should you have put it on?

( text message → petit copain ) I think you know, because you love me the same way. ( text message → petit copain ) Hmm...in paris, that first summer.

( text message → 'bastian ) Yes I know how much and yes I do love you the same ( text message → 'bastian ) That... might have been awkward....

( text message → petit copain ) Now THAT would be quite the story

( text message → 'bastian ) What how Hunter decked you when he discovered my name on your chest?

( text message → petit copain ) Yep. Worth it. I still think about Trent's reaction to it everyday.Warms the cold corners of my heart.

( text message → 'bastian ) I don’t know if I should be offended that my description doesn’t get top reaction.

( text message → petit copain ) I didn't say it wasn't top ( text message → petit copain ) But trent's was so comical.

( text message → 'bastian ) I know ...

( text message → petit copain ) Sometimes I feel bad for how much we probably tortured the guy. ( text message → petit copain ) Sometimes.

( text message → 'bastian ) He tried so hard to be a good roommate. Although i much much prefer this year’s roommate.

( text message → petit copain ) He did put up with a lot of our shenanigans.

( text message → 'bastian ) He did but you also liked reminding him I was yours.

( text message → petit copain ) Constantly. But I did that with everyone.

( text message → 'bastian ) *do that

( text message → petit copain ) True. But I have...calmed a bit about it.

( text message → 'bastian ) You have but it’s no big secret who we are or that we are together. ( text message → 'bastian ) Guess we will see next year.

( text message → petit copain ) i did have to let the incoming freshmen know ( text message → petit copain ) oh next year...

( text message → 'bastian ) i think we'll probably both revisit that really jealous/possessive phase again... ( text message → 'bastian ) not that that phase didn't come without it's own...rewards

( text message → petit copain ) Lol ( text message → petit copain ) True

( text message → 'bastian ) Just remember I love you ( text message → 'bastian ) Even when cute baristas are flirting with you.

( text message → petit copain ) And I need the occasional kick in the ass.

( text message → 'bastian ) Or the occasional pin you up against the nearest flat surface and remind you are mine. ( text message → 'bastian ) That night.... I was so jealous.

( text message → petit copain ) I was so stupid.

( text message → 'bastian ) You were not stupid ( text message → 'bastian ) You like the attention , were used to it and not used to thinking about someone else

( text message → petit copain ) And you were patient, and understanding...most of the time

( text message → 'bastian ) Because you’re worth it ( text message → 'bastian ) We’re worth it

( text message → petit copain ) I truly hit the lottery with you, B. ( text message → petit copain ) You are so one in a million

( text message → 'bastian ) Only for you

( text message → petit copain ) Mine.

( text message → 'bastian ) Always and forever

( text message → petit copain ) I think this work on our scientific research should start really soon

#seblaine #seblaine rp #sebastian smythe rp #( thread. ) for science #( thread. ) 001

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petsansan-blog · 8 years ago

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Sansa’s introduction

This will be my very first entry in this blog. It’ll be about how the audience is introduced to Sansa and the assumptions regarding her character, whether the are biased or not.

We are first introduced to Sansa through Arya’s very first chapter in AGOT (chapter 7). Until this point, we have not had the opportunity to look into Sansa’s mind and that time won’t come until chapter 15. So all we learn of Sansa is through Arya at this point. (Well if we’re being entirely honest, Sansa gets mentioned on a few other POV’s chapters but only in a line or two so officially I see this chapter as her introduction)

Not even two lines in and Sansa already makes an appearance:

She frowned down at them with dismay and glanced over to where her sister Sansa sat among the other girls. Sansa's needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. "Sansa's work is as pretty as she is," Septa Mordane told their lady mother once. "She has such fine, delicate hands." When Lady Catelyn had asked about Arya, the septa had sniffed. "Arya has the hands of a blacksmith."

The first thing we learn about Sansa is that she she’s very skilled at needlework, pretty and has delicate hands. Furthermore it’s easy to conclude that Sansa might be the Septa Mordane’s favorite (as it is enforced later again)

Sansa’s social circle is established soon after.

She studied her own work again, looking for some way to salvage it, then sighed and put down the needle. She looked glumly at her sister. Sansa was chatting away happily as she worked. Beth Cassel, Ser Rodrik's little girl, was sitting by her feet, listening to every word she said, and Jeyne Poole was leaning over to whisper something in her ear.

Sansa is not only Septa Mordane’s favorite and is good at what she does but is also surrounded by other girls, while Arya seems to not be a part of their company.

"We were talking about the prince," Sansa said, her voice soft as a kiss. Arya knew which prince she meant: Jofftey, of course. The tall, handsome one. Sansa got to sit with him at the feast. Arya had to sit with the little fat one. Naturally.

Arya asks what they’re talking about and after making sure the Septa is busy with other things (Myrcella in this case), they tell her the topic of their chat. Again Sansa seems to be getting the better deal of the brothers. Sansa gets the handsome one while Arya gets that young and fat one.

It’s not hard to see that Sansa seemingly has everything a girl her age could want.

"Joffrey likes your sister," Jeyne whispered, proud as if she had something to do with it. She was the daughter of Winterfell's steward and Sansa's dearest friend. "He told her she was very beautiful."

"He's going to marry her," little Beth said dreamily, hugging herself. "Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm."

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily, Arya thought with dull resentment. "Beth, you shouldn't make up stories," Sansa corrected the younger girl, gently stroking her hair to take the harshness out of her words. She looked at Arya. "What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He's very gallant, don't you think?"

At this point Arya is faced with the possibility of Sansa also becoming Queen someday. Not only does Sansa do everything better than Arya and is prettier but she could also become a Queen some day. So naturally Arya’s resentment over her sister’s perceived perfection ends up coloring her opinion of her and how Arya feels Sansa perceives her.

But what other information do we get about Sansa from the above quote? That Sansa is rather modest. Now we finally get to learn something about Sansa’s personality as opposed to her appearance and skill. Modesty is ladylike.

"Jon says he looks like a girl," Arya said.

Sansa sighed as she stitched. "Poor Jon," she said. "He gets jealous because he's a bastard."

"He's our brother," Arya said, much too loudly. Her voice cut through the afternoon quiet of the tower room.

Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. It was frowning now. "What are you talking about, children?"

"Our half brother," Sansa corrected, soft and precise. She smiled for the septa. "Arya and I were remarking on how pleased we were to have the princess with us today," she said.

When Jon is mentioned, Arya’s and Sansa’s differences in personality become more apparent.

Arya ignores Jon’s status as a bastard or half-brother, but Sansa keeps correcting her. This reveals another facet of Sansa’s personality. Sansa’s stance might be a bit tricky to interpret. If taken negatively it paints Sansa as a bitch. Her comment then comes off as discriminatory and perhaps even malicious. If taken at face value it only paints her as a snob, so her comment comes off as only discriminatory.

It’s not difficult to form a somewhat negative opinion of Sansa at this point.

In the first case we might be more strongly biased against Sansa. In the second case she still doesn’t appear in quite a positive light but her stance is more understandable later on. Sansa simply happens to be more aware than Arya the importance of status and social standing in the Westerosi culture.

As a result, Sansa is indeed more snobby than Arya at the beginning of the books.

She draws clear lines between her and people of different social standings (both of lower and higher) and is more likely to act according to etiquette.

Septa Mordane nodded. "Indeed. A great honor for us all." Princess Myrcella smiled uncertainly at the compliment. "Arya, why aren't you at work?" the septa asked. She rose to her feet, starched skirts rustling as she started across the room. "Let me see your stitches."

Arya wanted to scream. It was just like Sansa to go and attract the septa's attention. "Here," she said, surrendering up her work.

It’s Arya who catches the septa’s attention not Sansa.

Sansa then replies to the septa with a white lie. She doesn’t tell her the real topic of their talk, instead she makes up another.

Arya though feels that Sansa deliberately brought attention to her person, despite it being herself initially. Arya’s perception in regards to Sansa’s intent, affects as a result the readers’ perception of Sansa. It makes Sansa appear as if she deliberately put her sister in the spotlight to bring attention to her bad needlework.

Sansa might just be dutiful and not consider the possibility of hurting her sister or embarrassing her.

Everyone was looking at her. It was too much. Sansa was too well bred to smile at her sister's disgrace, but Jeyne was smirking on her behalf. Even Princess Myrcella looked sorry for her. Arya felt tears filling her eyes. She pushed herself out of her chair and bolted for the door.

Arya’s bias towards her sister makes another appearance here. In Arya’s head Sansa wants to laugh, but because of her upbringing she does not.

Sansa might not necessarily want to embarrass or laugh at her sister, but her friends’ reaction to Arya and Arya’s established jealousy and resentment towards Sansa doesn’t allow her to see that possibility.

Arya glared at her. "I have to go shoe a horse," she said sweetly, taking a brief satisfaction in the shock on the septa's face. Then she whirled and made her exit, running down the steps as fast as her feet would take her.

What Arya does here is scandalous for both the septa and Sansa (and I would assume their mother Catelyn). Arya is unruly and ends up embarrassing them in front of the princess Myrcella. For reasons like those, not respecting the rules and refusing to conform or restrain herself, is why Sansa feels equal resentment towards Arya and has difficulty understanding her sister which will lead to quite a few quarrels later. But that is for when we get to Sansa’s POV.

It wasn't fair. Sansa had everything. Sansa was two years older; maybe by the time Arya had been born, there had been nothing left. Often it felt that way. Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells. Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother's fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys. Arya took after their lord father. Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn. Jeyne used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near. It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household. Sansa had never had much of a head for figures. If she did marry Prince Joff, Arya hoped for his sake that he had a good steward.

Arya’s jealousy towards her sister being firmly established.

To summarize. Sansa is introduced to us through Arya’s eyes and experiences. Arya considers Sansa perfect but also sees her in a negative light. Arya is a young girl who has difficulty fitting in and she lacks skillfulness in regards to the tasks she’s asked to perform (needlework in this case). She feels quite inferior to Sansa and she’s kind of an outsider to Sansa’s social circle. It also doesn’t do their relationships any favors when Arya makes fun of the things Sansa likes(namely Joffrey) and she excels at.

Sansa on the other hand can’t comprehend the difficulties Arya might be having with tasks such as needlework because her natural tendencies and talents allow her to excel at the tasks she’s supposed to perform. Sansa might be thinking that Arya does not put enough effort or that she doesn’t care about composure or needle work. That opinion is usually reinforced by Arya’s defiant and shocking behavior and her non-comformist personality. All very foreign concepts to Sansa who is modest, polite, pleasing and conforms to the norm. These differences will be the reason for many of their upcoming arguments.

#sansa stark #arya stark #a song of ice and fire #a game of thrones #character analysis #introduction #book

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writings-from-the-wolf-den · 8 years ago

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Dragonians

There was a chill in the air despite the warmth of the sun bathing the rocky ground. The damp that hung in the air clung to everything and everyone it touched which only increased the chill. The deep burgundy of the sky made it seem even later than it really was. Taela smiled to herself as she shook her head, casting off the dew that had gathered there in the midmorning sun and causing the carnation pink colored strands to curl when loosened from the wet grip. It truly was a lovely morning. It was a shame that she was supposedly going to her death.

The cart jolted suddenly causing Taela to squeak and fall a little onto her companion. The child glared at her from behind his gag and pushed back. His normally softly tousled strawberry blond curls were instead transformed into near-banana curls forming a crown around his scrunched face. His darkened skin had a red hue added to it showing just how upset he truly was. Taela tried not to speak to him considering the reason he was gagged was because she originally tried to talk to him. She was fairly sure he blamed her for their situation.

She admitted it probably was, up to a point. She had chosen to enter this particular world through a portal that Direng had warned her led to a hostile world but the world she had just come from was also considered hostile so there wasn't much of a choice. Also the people had sounded friendly enough! "At least we didn't get killed on sight!" Taela had told Direng which had ended with him bound and gagged much tighter than Taela herself. Direng was refusing to talk to her now (not that he really could anyway).

"Pardon me," Taela called politely, looking up past the tall front wall of the cart to where she could just see the scaly head of their driver, "but how much further is it? This cart is lovely and all but the stone is really starting to hurt to sit on." She had already scraped the back of her calved on the rough edges of the bench.

Milky irises met hers as their driver looked at her. A tongue flickered out to taste the air before disappearing back behind the spiked teeth hidden behind a lipless mouth. "Not much longer, elf." Was the only thing the creature said before it turned back around.

"That's good." Taela said and turned to Direng. "Not much longer." The glare she received from Direng could easily have been interpreted in two ways: "That's what they said last time" and "I am literally thinking of five ways to kill you." Taela assumed the first.

"I hope we get a chance to plead our case, at least." She continued to talk mostly because it was far too silent in this world and also to fill in the boredom. She wondered where the sound of life was but it seemed other than the Crocagators (Taela didn't know which they were so a fusing of the names was certainly in order for the dinosaur-sized creatures) pulling the cart and the Dragonians escorting them. "I mean, I'm not an elf and you're not an elf -as far as I know- so perhaps we can talk things out!" She turned a smile at Direng. Direng looked instead rather pale and hopelessly out the back of the open-ended cart at the Crocagator grinning at them. Its yellow eyes were rather unsettling and hadn't failed to move from Direng for the hour they'd been riding. Taela would've felt much better with her bow. She was sure Direng would feel much better if the enchanted rope binding his wrists didn't cut out his summoning magic.

"I also hope I have time to use a brush. I wouldn't want to meet any kind of royalty looking like this!" She nodded to herself. If it was one thing her mother drilled into her before she went off adventuring it was to look her best before meeting any sort of leader. She had to make a good impression, after all! "And people tended to usually leave others alive if they didn't look sketchy," Her mother had added looking rather nervous for her only daughter.

"That's a good point!" Taela had agreed with her mother's wisdom.

"Oh, but do your people even use brushes?" Taela gasped turning to her driver. "Oh goodness, that must have been rude of me!" She brought her hands to her mouth in mortification and glanced around apologetically. Dragonians didn't have hair!

"I'm not even sure what a brush is." Their guard muttered from atop the hungry Crocagator eying Direng.

"I had one in my bag when I first packed," Taela explained seeing as she had someone who could actually respond to her, "but I lost it somewhere three worlds back. I think it spontaneously combusted." She looked to Direng to help. The boy looked to the skies as if he expected a lightning bolt would strike him and was rather hoping for it. He was so silly. "My hair is, admittedly, rather a mess right now after all we've been through so I hope I don't look too offensive for wherever you're taking me!"

"Your head is about to be cut off. I doubt your fur would matter." The Dragonian replied blandly.

Taela rubbed her neck a bit grimacing. "W-well like I said! I hope we get to make an appeal first! We really aren't elves."

"The few of you that can talk all seem to try that trick. It gets repetitive."

Taela gave up and wiped her face of some of the moisture. Her nose was cold and her skin was chilled. The sun would warm her up right away if it could just manage to break past its peak and start setting. It didn't seem as if the sun followed the same time schedule here. Taela glanced down at her watch. It glittered with magic that caused its hands to come to life at her attention. They spun around the face of the watch until they landed on the time that corresponded to the time-keeping of her planet and what time it actually was on this particular world. She was wrong about it being midmorning. Instead it was creeping towards midnight. Well she supposed on this world midnight meant the sun was about midmorning.

That was one thing she never really expected to get used to was the time zone changes of each world. She was very thankful for her going-away present from her cousin. The watch had helped her be on time for various occasions.

The cart jerked to a stop suddenly throwing Taela against the front of the cart and Direng to topple straight onto her. Both of them groaned softly and tried to pick themselves up with what little movement they had. The bindings on Taela extended up to her elbows and locked around her body like a belt while poor Direng (after proven difficult) was practically cocooned in the enchanted ropes from neck to pelvis. Taela made sure to help him at least to his knees considering she had more mobility.

"Here we are." The driver announced as the two wiggled onto their feet with the help of each other. The Crocagator behind them snapped playfully (or so Taela hoped) at Direng causing the boy to yelp behind his gag and press against Taela for some form of protection. Taela moved herself between the beast and her friend. She was, quite frankly, very helpless without any weapons against the beast but Direng felt even more helpless without his powers available to him. Taela never had powers in the first place.

"Out you get, you nasty creatures." The Dragonian guard clawed hands easily wrapped around both of their torsos and carried them effortlessly while his mount followed behind. Direng struggled some and pulled his legs forward and away from the Crocagator. Taela marveled at the structure in front of her as they all entered through the gate into the courtyard. She'd never seen a castle so large before! Everything in it was so much larger than her! The stones were the color of fresh clay but looked as strong as steel. The plant life, it seemed, was abundant despite the rocky ground this world seemed to have. Perhaps the roots traveled very deep? Taela never really had a chance to explore it. The midnight sun cast strange shadows onto the wood and stone furniture in the garden of spiky plants they passed. There were a number of Dragonians milling about enjoying the heat from the sun and glistening with the moisture that kept their scaly skin from getting too dry. Not for the first time Taela wondered if they were related to geckos but had enough sense not to bring it up. She really didn't want to offend these dragons that stood as tall as her house.

"Oh, ugh, gross! Lagnar why are you bringing those rodents in here?!" One of the Dragonians cried. It sounded feminine but Taela hadn't exactly heard any pronouns used as of yet and she had learned her lesson from a previous world to not just assume. Direng hadn't exactly forgiven her yet over that. Just another offense added to his "Things to Kill Taela For" list.

"They speak. This one," the guard, Lagnar, shook Direng a little roughly and Taela made a sound of protest on his behalf, "wouldn't even shut up. Had powers and everything. Thought I'd show the Heir and amuse them before we chopped the heads off."

"Perhaps as pets instead?" One Dragonian mused as they scratched the Crocagator under its chin.

"That's disgusting! Those things toil in feces and filth, you know!" The first one replied, scandalized. Whatever else that had to be said was lost in their own language. Taela felt a little annoyed that they disregarded their presence so much that they would talk in their native tongue in front of them. Or maybe the elves also spoke it? Either way it was a little rude. She didn't have time to dwell as Lagnar led on.

Taela shivered a little in the cool grasp of the Dragonian. Their claws were digging somewhat into her sides so she shifted uncomfortably. "Stop wiggling!" The guard commanded while squeezing her a little tighter to hold her in place and Taela went limp to avoid any more damage. Her clothing was already catching uncomfortably on the person's scales and the scratch was bothering her. The scents of roasting meat made her stomach growl as she lifted her nose to catch another wisp. She sighed longingly. It had been a while since the two of them had eaten a good meal with meat.

The three of them approached a door easily the size of a three-story house and their guard called out something in their guttural language. Taela shared a look with Direng. The poor boy looked rather pale in the lighting of the sun as his eyes flicked back and forth. Taela's heart went out to him. He was much older than he looked but he was also, in a way, still a child. He certainly looked the part and all Taela wanted to do was hold him close and comfort him. She doubted he would appreciate it but maybe it would make him feel better and that's all that mattered. Being bound and gagged and carried like a sack by dragons probably didn't help either.

The door scraped open and Taela cringed at the sound hunching her shoulders to try to cover her ears. The dragons didn't even seem bothered by it. A blast of murky air -thick and humid rather than cool and clammy- caused her hair to stick to Taela's face as the meaty scent changed into one that distinctly smelled like a cage. It reminded her of damp cedar chips inside of the snake tank she'd had when she had been younger. She supposed that no matter what planet, reptiles would still have similar environments. Or maybe the Heir was really a snake? That would be interesting. Taela would need to write this down in her journal -if she made it out alive and with all body parts intact.

The long hallway was very dirty but in a stylized way. The dirt was organized near resting areas that seemed like stone beds and tables where various royals bathed themselves in the sunlight shining in. They all had beautiful colored scales and spikes and finery. Gold seemed to be the primary jewelry but also rubies and opals. Taela couldn't stop staring at one particular Dragonian with iridescent scales that shot rainbow beams straight into her eyes when the creature shifted. Through her watering eyes she marveled at how gorgeous the scales were. Even the rings on the webbed fingers -the rings cutting through the webbings like piercings- were nothing compared to the light of the sun reflecting off of it.

"My Heir." The guard greeted the Dragonian and Taela's jaw dropped to realize that this was the Heir. Well, she supposed, it would make much sense. She wasn't the only one staring at this lovely specimen of a Dragonian.

The Dragonian's eye opened and the nictitating membrane pulled back to reveal milky pink eyes that Taela was pleased to see matched her hair. It was a wonderful shade! The Heir disregarded her presence entirely to sit up. The complete underside of the Heir's body was covered in gold and silver coins as well as diamonds that occasionally dropped off of their form and to the stone. A servant always rushed over to reattach them. The long thin opalescent wings that had been expanded out behind the Heir curled inwards. "Why is it that you've brought this vermin to my chambers?" The Heir demanded.

"You're beautiful!" Taela exclaimed before the guard could speak and what little noise that had been in the chambers dropped off into a shocked silence. The Heir and everyone in the chambers visibly gaped at the small human. Whether it was because of Taela's audacity or because of her actually speaking she couldn't guess but really she couldn't resist complimenting this gorgeous being! Never mind that she was vermin in their eyes; she could never see them as vermin or even evil or disgusting.

"It...It talked..." The Heir said quietly, breaking the tense silence. The other Dragonians murmured nervously to each other. Elves weren't supposed to talk. What did a talking elf mean? Taela watched the colors dance off of the Heir's shoulders as the dragon shifted forward to get a better look. They reached over onto a nearby table and put on a pair of spectacles that Taela was fairly sure were made out of diamond instead of glass. Doubtless that everything here was priceless but she also doubted anybody would try to steal from creatures such as these. "How is such a thing possible?"

This was her chance to plead their case. She had managed to attract all of the beings' attentions and now it seemed she could speak openly. At least, the Dragonian guard hadn't tried to stop her yet. "I'm very sorry, your Heirship, but I'm afraid a mistake has occurred here." She started smiling with her teeth hidden. She wasn't sure if such creatures would find her showing her teeth -even to smile- amusing. Probably threatening. No, it would be best to keep any teeth hidden for the sakes of her and Direng's lives.

"A mistake?" The Heir asked with a narrowing of their eyes. If a reptile could look confused (and slightly suspicious) it was this one.

"My Heir, you are not really of thinking of conversing with-" One of the Dragonians that were dressed in finery and carrying what looked to be a platinum staff slid forward on its snake-like body. It had no legs other than the two winged arms that carried the staff.

"Quiet, Gunthor." The Heir demanded, their arm shooting out to hush Gunthor and their eyes never leaving Taela's face other than to glance briefly at Direng. They seemed to be considering something. Taela looked over at Direng as well. His silver eyes met hers and motioned with his head to continue. Taela nodded and faced the Heir once again. Her indrawn breath caught the Heir's attention a second time.

"Yes. You see, I am not an elf and neither is my companion." The Heir's eyes flicked to Taela's ears and looked doubtful. Taela chuckled a little and lifted her bound hands to rub at one of the pointed peaks. "Ah, yes. I look like it, don't I? I mean, I haven't seen what the elves of this planet look like but I really am not an elf! I come from the Plains of Thi-raben. Have you heard of it?"

"No, I haven't." The Heir said looking fascinated with their conversation. Perhaps it was that they were even having a conversation.

Taela was pleased to see the Heir was open to discussion at all. "I'm not surprised, really," she nodded, "it's in the farther planets of the Universe. It's rather difficult to come across when traveling as you need to cut through either Theronymerigate or Phalyxs." Beside her Direng snorted at the second name. For one so old he still found the strangest things funny. Penis jokes apparently being one of them. Taela huffed and turned to him. "Really, Direng!"

He shrugged unrepentantly, grinning a little lewdly around his gag.

She ignored him. The Heir looked between them with interest. "I have heard of Theronymerigate. My people do not travel between the realms -for obvious reasons," here they motioned at their people. Taela nodded in understanding. Other planets may be rather scared by the Dragonians, "so we keep much to ourselves. We have no need for trade, after all."

"I can see why! What little I saw of this world looks very lovely and bountiful! And your people look happy and healthy."

"You flatter us, elf."

"I'm being sincere! Oh, but your Heirship, I'm not an elf. Please, my name is Taela Falori and this is my friend Direng. I'm afraid we were captured by mistake in one of your...elf traps?" Taela wasn't sure what to call the machine that had shot their bindings at them. Honestly they had originally thought it was just a cave and they were scoping it out to possibly spend the night in when they had been trapped. "We would very much appreciate it if our heads weren't cut off." Direng nodded his head enthusiastically.

The Heir sat back on their haunches and considered. Taela took a moment again to admire the beauty of the being. If only they were the same size! Would it be inappropriate to become close to the Heir? No matter; it wasn't really a choice at this point. She dismissed the idea before it could settle in too deep. After a few more moments the Heir waved their clawed hand and the guard moved forward quickly to unbind both Taela and Direng. Direng gasped as his power rushed back into his body and he shook his head to clear it, his wild curls bouncing every which way. He yanked out his own gag and refused to let the Dragonians touch him again.

"Fuck." He muttered to himself. Taela clicked her tongue at him once but knew better than to scold him. He may look like a child but he was more than three times her age.

"Thank you very much!" Taela cried cheerfully instead as her bow, arrows, bag, and dagger were returned to her. The Dragonians probably didn't think the weapons would be able to hurt them. They were probably right.

"Are you hungry?" The Heir asked. "I would wish to hear of your world."

"Gladly!" Taela agreed. "Oh! But first, would you happen to have a brush?"

#Taela and Direng #Older work

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sere22world · 5 years ago

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