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on-a-lucky-tide · 3 years ago

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A/N: Jaskier stumbles across an amusing log in the back of Lambert's journal detailing their sexual encounters.

In many ways, travelling with Lambert was much like travelling with Geralt. Their journey compromised of an endless series of stops at settlements in search of work, with plenty of eulogising and wild camping in between. The key difference, really, was that Lambert didn’t have the penchant for suffering that Geralt had.

Lambert didn’t go without if he could help it, didn’t suffer fools and certainly didn’t disguise his opinions behind dry, discreet witticisms. If an alderman was foolish enough to inconvenience Lambert, he was very fastidious in communicating his displeasure, usually with plenty of creative insults and expletives peppered throughout his diatribe.

Some might disregard Lambert as blunt and crass; an itinerant asshole without depth, finesse or merit. Jaskier knew differently, of course.

He had observed Lambert’s skill and intelligence firsthand on more occasions than he could count. Not to mention his inestimable emotional intelligence. He could read a room or take the measure of a man in a single glance, and he was potentially the funniest person Jaskier had ever met. It was no surprise then that when Lambert propositioned Jaskier brazenly after a bawdy evening setlist, Jaskier fell into bed with him without a second thought.

And then continued to fall into many different beds in varying different positions for several months afterwards.

They fell into a very easy companionship, sharing food, beds and saddlebags in addition to each other’s bodies. It was as Jaskier packed one morning that he saw Lambert’s journal. He knew its content, of course. Sketches of monsters, shopping lists, notes about towns and sometimes stickmen with big dicks and tits.

Lambert had worked for an hour the previous evening on a sketch of a large leshen he had killed the day before (for which he was currently collecting the payment). Jaskier flicked open at the bookmark to admire the witcher’s work, slim fingers tracing the outline of the creature and then tapping the stick figure with a huge member in the corner.

He didn’t intend to pry, but as he flicked the journal closed, he saw a title that made him pause. In the space of a heartbeat, he opened the back cover again.

‘Sex Log’.

He should… really put the journal back. But he couldn’t look away.

‘02/09 Reverse knight, had to stop due to dick pain. Finished off with hand. J.S. 6/10.’

Jaskier snorted into his palm. This was about them. This was their sex life. He remembered Lambert slipping out and then Jaskier had accidentally sat on his prick at a bad angle. They had laughed about it at the time and Lambert had insisted on giving him a happy ending. Oh, this was… he… no, he had to see more. He kept reading.

‘05/09 Gave blowjob, likes balls tugged, but teeth a no. Sensitive. Doesn’t want me to cover my face J.S. 7/10.’

There was a little gap in dates. Jaskier recalled that they had parted ways for a few weeks around that time.

‘06/10 Used toy, really loosened him up. Fist next time? J.S. 8/10.’

‘15/10 Screamed. Snot everywhere. Used the last of the lube. J.S. 11/10.’

‘23/10 Stable floor. Got backache, but angle was good - upright, leg at shoulder. J.S. 7/10.’

‘27/10 Against the wall. Commented on beard rash. Get cream in next town. J.S. 8/10’.

Jaskier was so engrossed in the journal that he missed the drum of heavy boots on the stairs and the door clicking open. “Freya’s sagging tits, I thought that pissant would never stop talking, I…” Lambert paused mid-stride and his gaze dropped to the journal in Jaskier’s grasp. “Are you seriously reading my fucking diary right now?”

“Lambert, I…” Jaskier’s cheeks hurt from how broadly he had been smiling and tears prickled at the corners of his eyes. “You keep a log of our sexual encounters?” He had never seen Lambert look flustered, but his neck was flushed, his cat-like pupils narrowed, and Jaskier leapt back as Lambert lurched for the journal. “Ah ah! The cat is out of the bag, my dear friend.”

“Don’t be a cunt, give it back.”

“I haven’t finished yet.” Jaskier scrambled over the bed, but Lambert was too quick. Before he could wriggle free, Jaskier was hauled beneath Lambert’s body and pinned to the lumpy pallaise by the bulk of his muscular companion. He stretched his arms above his head, but Lambert flattened him and snatched the journal from his hands.

“It, you… why were you snooping through my shit?” Lambert growled, sitting on the edge of the bed with the journal clamped tightly shut on his lap.

“It wasn’t deliberate, Lambert, oh, it’s - … why on Melitele’s green earth, do you log our sex life? It’s certainly not for masturbatory material. It reads like a ship’s weather log!” Jaskier couldn’t help the titter of amusement and Lambert elbowed him with another warning growl.

“It’s… you, stop fucking laughing or I’ll set it on fire and throw you down the well outside.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, it’s just so very…” Jaskier turned his hands over in the air before his chest but couldn’t find the words through the bubble of amusement threatening to burst from his mouth.

“At Kaer Morhen, they teach us to keep a log early on so we can… so, uh, so we can improve the service,” Lambert mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his short-cropped hair.

“So you can improve the service,” Jaskier repeated, enunciating every word because he couldn’t quite believe they had fallen out of Lambert’s mouth in that precise order. He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed, exasperated or sad that Lambert had applied the same ordered intelligence he used for his profession to their relationship. “Lambert. You think you’re doing me a service?”

“No, that’s… stop putting words in my mouth.”

“That exact word actually came out of it.”

Lambert grunted and bashed the journal into his forehead. “I’ve not had a… a steady partner for a while, alright? I need to make sure I’m keeping it interesting, spicy, that you’re enjoying it, or you’ll fuck off, won’t you?”

“Oh,” Jaskier sighed, his mirth dissipating like spilt water on a summer’s day. Ahh, yes, the intergenerational trauma that was so endemic amongst the witcher population. Lambert feared abandonment as much as Geralt did; he worried about being good enough to keep Jaskier around. “Lambert, I wouldn’t leave you for being unimaginative in bed. My dear, I would see it as an opportunity. Why, inexperienced partners, obviously of mature age, are something of a… um, interest of mine.”

“I’m not inexperienced.”

“I never said you were.”

“Really? Because that exact word actually--.”

“Alright, alright,” Jaskier nudged Lambert with his shoulder, “but you don’t need to concern yourself with keeping track. I’m quite satisfied, more than satisfied, in fact. I do have one question.”

“Hm?” Lambert raised an eyebrow, still a little tense in the shoulders.

“What does J.S. stand for?”

Lambert went a little red in the ears but hid it by scratching at his beard as he stood. “S’the Jaskier Scale. One means you hated it, ten means you really liked it.”

“Oh,” Jaskier exclaimed, allowing a little humour to creep back into his tone. “And how do you reach your measurement?”

“You’re a prick.”

“I know, but you want to tell me, I can tell.”

“Noise, mess and shakes,” Lambert listed them off with a finger each, “the louder you are, the more you shake, the amount of mess you make, the more you enjoyed it.” He turned to their bags, mostly packed but for a few stray items, and began to lash them closed with more force than strictly necessary to tighten a strap. "Noise is swearing, poetry, moans and everything in between. You squeaked once, I wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing so erred on the side of caution. And you are a messy fuck, like, everywhere... you get fucking everywhere. I'm not complaining, it's hot as fuck honestly. And you shake uncontrollably when you orgasm, and you have this.. this look..." Lambert trailed off.

Jaskier’s mouth opened and closed several times. He wasn’t sure where to start. That would explain why Lambert had noted the volume of snot after their experiment with his fist. “Is that a scientifically accredited method, or…? Oh, stop scowling at me. Lambert, I’m flattered.” He slid from the bed and wrapped his arms carefully around Lambert’s waist; there was still enough room for the witcher to wriggle away if he needed a little space to sulk, but he didn’t.

“Yeah?” A tentative question.

“Of course,” Jaskier pressed his nose into Lambert’s hair, his lips just shy of the soft fluff above the collar of his gambeson, and breathed in a deep, contented sigh. “I can’t think of any other lover that has ever been so concerned with my enjoyment. All my previous encounters have been very… one-sided. Alas, to foster a reputation like mine, you must be a giver, not a taker, and most are quite content for it to be that way.”

Lambert turned in Jaskier’s arms and squinted at him. “You have shit taste in fuck buddies.”

Jaskier sucked air through his teeth in mock apology. “I’m afraid so.”

“Lucky for me really.”

“Quite.”

Lambert studied Jaskier’s face carefully and then glanced at the bed. Jaskier felt the embarrassed tension dissipate in his arms, Lambert’s body relaxing into its usual insolent slouch as he got comfortable in Jaskier’s embrace. “I haven’t made an entry this week.”

“You’ve been rather busy hunting that leshen,” Jaskier nodded sagely, “but it would be a shame to leave such a glaring gap in your log. Incomplete data, very sloppy science.”

“Very. Would really put a dent in my progress.” Jaskier only caught a glimpse of Lambert’s smirk before their lips were pressed together. He cradled Lambert’s bearded chin in his palms as they staggered towards the bed, Lambert pawing open the complicated ties of his doublet and hose with passionate hunger.

Their session scored a definite ten on the Jaskier Scale.

#rawrkinwrites #Jaskier #Lambert #Jaskier x Lambert #Jaskier/Lambert #Lambskier #the witcher #cw mention of sex #Bombard

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Note

"The Untamed", but Jiggy has a white cat whom he tells everything.- May or may not be sentient or 'spiritual' like Fairy in the book. (From an idea I've thrown around with my friend @yraelviii)

ao3

He found the cat in Qinghe.

“What are you doing here?” Meng Yao said, crouching down to try to scoop out the little handful of white fluff underneath his cabinet only for it to bare its infantile fangs and him and hiss, moving its butt around as if it thought his fingers ought to be running in fear from its fearsome pounce. “How did you even get in here?”

The cat – a kitten, really, small and scrawny, dirty and covered in ashes as if it had just run out of a forge, but no less passionate for it – squirmed in his hand as he picked it up.

“Who owns you?” Meng Yao asked, and the cat hissed viciously as if to shout no one owns me!

Something about that echoed in Meng Yao’s heart – no one owns me, he thought – and so he fished up some extra meat from his plate, filled a small platter with water, and used the sleeve of an old outfit that needed to be taken to be laundered anyway to wipe the grey ash off of the cat’s white fur while it was distracted by sniffing suspiciously at the food and water that it ultimately declined to consume.

“Just this once,” he told it.

Doing good work will often only bring you more work, Meng Yao reflected, and so it was with the cat as much as with anything else. He still didn’t know how the cat managed to get into his rooms, and he sometimes dwelled on paranoid suspicions that there were hiding-holes in his chambers designed to allow others to spy on him, just as there had been in certain rooms in the brothel – though even at his worst moment of uncertainty and doubt he didn’t really think so. He knew that it wasn’t Nie Mingjue’s style even if Meng Yao had been someone important enough to care about, and anyway he didn’t question his own ability to discovery such a thing if it had really existed. He’d checked.

At any rate, however it kept getting into his rooms, the cat was now a regular presence there, lurking around.

It didn’t want to be petted and greeted all attempts to feed it with utter disdain, but despite its general standoffishness it seemed to like being in the same vicinity as Meng Yao, enjoying nothing more than to settle haughtily by the window in his room and watch over Meng Yao as if it thought he might get lost without its supervision.

Meng Yao thought it was probably someone’s pet gotten lost, or maybe even just a feral cat from outside (Qinghe had a fair number of them) that had figured out that it could access the good life by going inside, but it was very hard to sincerely worry over the ill-intentions of a cat, and he was already very busy.

If he didn’t need to care for it, then it wasn’t adding to his troubles. Let the cat sit where it liked!

Meng Yao had found that life in Qinghe was both different and similar to life in Yunping, the only life he had to compare it to, and it amused him to think of the great and righteous Nie sect as an overly large brothel, with the main difference being that they sold their strength where women sold their bodies. In both places there needed to be order, someone to sort things out and tell people where to put things and what to do; in both places Meng Yao, with his quick mind and excellent memory, his sense of understanding people and anticipating their needs, was utterly invaluable in arranging such things.

He had, admittedly, expected it to take a little more time to climb up to the top – the only person he couldn’t understand in this place was Nie Mingjue, who was far too easy to deceive and smiled at him like he really thought they were friends instead of just being master and servant, who appreciated his talents and told him so, who shrugged off his mistakes and had faith that he would do better, who ignored his status instead of lording it over him the way Meng Yao had expected him to. Even when he was angry, when he shouted and slammed his hands against things, Nie Mingjue never once mentioned Meng Yao’s background, and the only things he seemed to hold against him were his own mistakes.

Meng Yao still didn’t know why Nie Mingjue would act so rashly as to promote someone he had just met to a position as high as viceroy, much less actually trust him, but it didn’t really matter. However quixotic his method of reaching a place of power, he was here and his next task was to keep his place until he’d made a reputation for himself.

Part of that he did through his work, good critical work that people needed and which had always won him gratitude even if not respect, but the other part of it was in cultivation. That was the way in which the Nie sect was not like a brothel: you couldn’t just be clever, you couldn’t even just be beautiful - to be respected, you had to cultivate.

Not that wanting to cultivate was a problem for Meng Yao.

He’d always had a memory like a sponge and a body that obeyed his every wish, his childhood of mimicking the beautiful dances of his mother and her ‘sisters’ serving him well in transitioning to learning the sword even if he was years behind everyone else; his mother had bought a thousand fake cultivation manuals for him and he’d learned them all, each one of them more useless than the next, and now that he was here in the cultivation world at long last, he was finally, finally, finally able to cultivate for real.

Using Nie sect methods, of course, even if that wasn’t what he really wanted.

He’d started as soon as he could when he arrived, endlessly grateful that the Nie sect provided training sabers without cost, and he’d snuck one away back to his room so that he could practice on his own time, knowing it would take a long time to form his golden core. He’d debated with himself for a long time as to whether or not it was worth it to invest in a real one – if the training sabers were free, then real proper Nie sabers were somehow three times as expensive as the swords you could buy in the marketplace, and you could only put in a deposit without any notion of when you’d actually get the saber, apparently subject to the contrary dispositions of the spiritual weaponsmiths that made them.

In the end he decided to go for it more or less on a whim, emptying out his hard-built savings to place the order, even though he knew he would one day need to discard whatever they made for him in favor of a sword.

The Jin sect would accept him one day. He would make them.

(If the Nie sect cultivation style was good for one thing, he thought as he went through endless drills of slashing and thrusting, it was that you could work out your anger while you were doing it. There was nothing quite like imagining the face of someone you hated and then bringing down the practice saber in a vicious slash, and oh, but Meng Yao hated so very many people.)

The cat liked watching him train most of all, although Meng Yao suspected it was because seeing him jump around panting was funnier than watching him sit at his desk and gracefully write out letters. It would occasionally start purring, a sound a little like a crackling fire, and eventually Meng Yao got into the habit of going to run his fingers through its fur as a reward for himself when he successfully completed a training sequence.

After a while, he started talking to it, too.

“That commander,” Meng Yao said as he brought the training saber down. His real saber was still on the order, probably stalled purposefully; the smith assigned the task was probably one of the people that thought they were too good to deal with him because of who his mother was, and it’d all been a waste of money in the end. Completely a waste, even if Nie Mingjue had smiled so happily at him when he’d heard about Meng Yao placing the order, his eyes warm and soft and how had that man survived so long in this wretched world of politics and pain, didn’t he know he would always be deceived and betrayed?

Why should he be the exception to the rule, when everyone else had to suffer?

Meng Yao threw away the unhelpful thoughts and thrust the saber forward, as if piercing his invisible opponent straight through the chest.

“That commander.” He minutely corrected his form and stabbed again, this time as if piercing through the belly: a gut wound, a slow and awful way to die. “He’ll regret what he said to me.”

The cat’s purring intensified.

Meng Yao briefly had the wild thought that it approved.

“I just –” Another thrust. “– need to figure out –” An overhead slash. “– how.”

Meng Yao ended up taking the cat with him when he left Qinghe.

It probably was someone’s pet and he was opening himself up to a charge of stealing, a charge he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against now that he no longer had Nie Mingjue’s protection –

(Nie Mingjue who had wept tears and blood at what Meng Yao had done, betrayed at last after having finally encountered a deception he could not swallow, who had banished him from the Unclean Realm even after everything Meng Yao had done for him – who had, despite it all, still hidden an entire bag of gold and Meng Yao’s favorite Qinghe snacks in Meng Yao’s things with a short note claiming that it was for unpaid wages. As if Meng Yao had ever let a single pay period go by without claiming exactly what he was due. As if Nie Mingjue still cared despite throwing him out, as if he worried about how Meng Yao might live, as if he hadn’t given up the privilege of caring about things like that – )

He didn’t really care.

He wanted the cat, so he took it. It was the least Qinghe could do for him.

The cat spent all its time in his new rooms in the hotels he stayed out as he traveled: in his bedroom and study, the little gardens that, when available, he liked to use to train in the mornings and evenings. It would even follow him when he took a bath (although that was with great reluctance on the part of the cat, and only if Meng Yao were taking an especially long time in the bath and the cat was worried he’d drowned, yowling angrily as if it could revive him through the power of its voice). If it had once belonged to someone else, it now belonged to Meng Yao, and Meng Yao didn’t give away anything that was his.

“I’ve made worse mistakes,” he said defiantly to the cat, which blinked at him from its side of the carriage he’d used some of the gold to rent. “It’s only that I don’t want to review them in order to think of which ones those might be.”

The cat got up, stretched its back, and walked over to butt its head against Meng Yao’s hand before turning and going back to its spot by the window.

Meng Yao wasn’t sure if that was a sign of agreement or if the cat just thought there was a treat in his hand. Not that the cat had ever accepted treats from his hand.

He still wasn’t sure what the cat ate, actually, but he was sure the cat would make its feelings known now that they weren’t somewhere with a dependable kitchen, though he supposed there was always the possibility that it would start picking up hunting.

“Wen Chao said that they’d aimed at the Cloud Recesses,” Meng Yao said, deciding not to dwell on the things of the past. There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do about Nie Mingjue’s betrayed eyes or the snacks he hadn’t even known Nie Mingjue had known he’d liked, about the hand-me-down guans and trinkets that Nie Huaisang had insisted were part of his wardrobe when he’d helped him pack even though he knew Nie Huaisang still wore them sometimes, about the fact that he should have been ordered to take the Nie sect’s braids out of his hair when he passed by the gates for the final time since he didn’t deserve them anymore but the two disciples there had just nodded at him and let him pass without a word – nothing to do about the saber he’d ordered, still on the list to be made, and maybe if he made something of himself out in the world alone he would one day come back to claim it at last. “That’s where we’re going now. Lan Xichen might be in danger. I have to help him.”

The cat made a sound like it was considering hacking up a hairball.

“He was kind to me,” Meng Yao said, feeling defensive. “The only one who never judged me –”

Since he’d decided to forget about Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, wiping it out of his mind as if it had never been, that was even true.

“– and he’s a proper gentleman, a good man. I’ll help him.”

That Lan Xichen was also a powerful man was something he wished he didn’t think of, but he couldn’t help the way he was.

“After I help him, I’ll figure out what to do next,” Meng Yao said, like a liar, and the cat looked at him like he was stupid – which he was being, because of course he’d already planned out what to do next, figured out his next move, and there was no point in lying to a cat about it. Meng Yao had skills that were only useful in management, not labor, and the only thing he left to sell was information about the sect from which he’d just been ejected. “No one owns me, right? Let it be the Wen sect.”

The cat did not purr, but it didn’t condemn him, either.

That would have to do.

It was a good thing that Meng Yao’s cat was self-sufficient, he thought, because he had neither the time nor the stomach to feed it during his time at the Wen sect.

If he had thought he had worked hard at the Nie sect, he now knew differently: at least there the worst he had faced from his colleagues had been disdain and not outright murder attempts, back-stabbing and undercutting to try to show off to Wen Ruohan, and all the while the man himself demanded more and more from him without the slightest care for his own well-being. He was grist to the mill for Wen Ruohan, no matter how much the Chief Cultivator enjoyed having another man’s prized deputy as his own – Wen Ruohan might had been very nearly driven insane by the Yin Metal, but he still remembered old grudges – and it was night and day away from Nie Mingjue’s reliance on him that was based on trust, rather than reluctantly satisfied suspicion and paranoia.

Meng Yao had hidden the cat as best as he could from the start, thinking rightfully that people would try to use it against him, and to his relief it seemed that no one else had yet laid eyes on it and identified it as his own, despite its white fur standing out like a beacon to his sight. Unfortunately there were some people that had managed to figure out that he had a cat, even if they didn’t lay eyes on it themselves, and he’d had more than a few incidents in which someone had left poisoned meat out on the floor by his room in order to catch it.

The cat seemed as unimpressed with that as anything else.

Instead, the cat seemed to have taken up hunting as its pastime. It brought back the corpses of small birds, the Yin Metal-infused little spies, full of resentful energy, that Wen Ruohan had developed for his sons to use. At first Meng Yao worried about the cat getting somehow poisoned by them, but time went on and it seemed to be fine, even thriving. It had grown into a proper cat now, no longer a kitten, and it enjoyed licking its white and shining fur until it was gleaming.

It didn’t like Meng Yao’s training sessions as much – he trained with a sword now, two-faced just like him, and in a dozen different styles, Wen and Jiang and Jin, always Jin – so sometimes Meng Yao would go back to doing the old Nie sect style again, knowing the cat would recognize the familiar movements, and it was a surefire way to get the cat to purr.

The Nie sect style was also still the best for getting out anger, all aggression and sharp movements, and Meng Yao still had a lot of anger inside of him. He was starting to think he always would.

At least here in the Nightless City he could kill the people he hated, as long as he did so in low and dirty ways that didn’t trouble Wen Ruohan or interfere with his plans, and yet every time he did it, he felt no relief, only a vile and wretched stickiness that came, perhaps, from that awful Yin Metal that he had schemed over yet couldn’t seem to escape.

The cat didn’t like the Yin Metal one bit. It hissed and scratched, and in one notable incident seemed like it was going to pounce on it directly if Meng Yao hadn’t caught it mid-leap and shoved it into his sleeve before anyone had noticed it.

“You’re going to get me into trouble,” Meng Yao told the cat next time he trained, using the soft sword he’d hidden away for a time of need to hack and slash in the Nie way, which didn’t work with a soft sword at all but which made him feel strangely better. He was currently imagining Wen Ruohan’s head underneath a saber, his head and the heads of all those corpse puppets he’d created. “I will cut you loose if you do that.”

The cat rolled onto its back and showed its soft and fluffy belly, which only the truly unwise would seek to lay a hand on – Meng Yao still had scars – and Meng Yao rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “No one owns you, not even me. But do me a favor and don’t screw this up for me. Not when I’m so close.”

Lan Xichen had been accepting his letters and feeding them to Nie Mingjue, who trusted as blindly as he ever did. Meng Yao wished sometimes that he didn’t, that he would learn, that he would put some defenses up on that stupid reckless heart of his, but on the other hand it suited his plans very well that he didn’t.

Soon, he thought. Soon.

Soon he’d know what he needed to do.

“Now he chooses not to trust people,” Meng Yao complained to his cat. “Now. Now!”

The cat purred.

It wasn’t that Meng Yao (damnit, Jin Guangyao, he had a new name, he was Jin Guangyao now) couldn’t understand Nie Mingjue’s reluctance to trust him – fool me once, fool me twice, but three times seemed to be the other man’s breaking point – and in some ways he understood it more than ever now that he had been accepted back by the Jin sect, clothed in the gold he’d always deserved to wear.

Jin Guangshan hadn’t lost much in the war, not like the other sects, and the second it was over he was already scheming. Meng Yao – Jin Guangyao – was pulled right into the thick of it at once, less for his spying capability than for his sheer disposability, the fact that Jin Guangshan wasn’t willing to burden his pure and righteous heir with black matters that he was more than happy to taint the son of his whore with. With Nie Mingjue, general and hero of the Sunshot Campaign, representing the only real threat to the Jin sect’s domination, even if he didn’t want to be, Jin Guangyao was bound to be in opposition to him.

It made sense for Nie Mingjue not to trust him.

It irritated him regardless.

Still, lack of trust or no, Nie Mingjue had succumbed to Lan Xichen’s impassioned arguments and had agreed to swear brotherhood with him, even if Jin Guangyao suspected that Nie Mingjue’s primary motivation was to keep a better eye on him and scold him the way he did Nie Huaisang. It would be politically beneficial to Jin Guangyao to be tied in such a way to Nie Mingjue – it would suit his own desires as well, though that was less important – and so he had of course agreed as well, and he was planning on going to their oath ceremony in the outfit he had chosen for himself, gold from neck to foot, a sword he’d taken from the treasury since no one would order him one of his own, and a hat on his head like the ones his mother so admired to make up for his lack of height and to hide the Nie sect braids he still habitually wore underneath.

An old habit, and one he really ought to break, really. Ideally before Nie Mingjue figured it out and told him to cut it out.

There was a knock on the door, a familiar pounding, and the cat looked up, intrigued, even as Jin Guangyao sighed voicelessly to himself. Perhaps he had waited too long.

Perhaps it would be better to make a clean cut in this way, too.

He opened the door.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he greeted, thinking to himself that it would only be a few more hours before he was entitled to call the man da-ge as if they were nearly equals and how strange that would be. “Can this humble one help you?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked gruffly, his eyes lingering on Jin Guangyao’s uncovered and Nie-braided hair, just as he might have expected. Had expected.

Jin Guangyao nodded and stepped back, allowing him in, and closed the door behind him. “Could I get the sect leader some refreshments?” he asked politely, but Nie Mingjue seemed to have come to a stop right in the entranceway, surprise written all over his features. “Sect Leader Nie?”

Nie Mingjue was staring at Jin Guangyao’s cat.

“…Sect Leader Nie?”

Did Nie Mingjue not like cats? There were an endless number of feral cats in Qinghe, so it seemed implausible, and yet, here Nie Mingjue was, looking at the cat like he’d never seen such a thing before in its life.

Of course, at that exact moment, Jin Guangyao’s cat, the traitor, hopped off its pillow and went straight to rub itself against Nie Mingjue’s leg, purring like a little maniac.

Jin Guangyao stared at it, feeling thoroughly betrayed by what he would have previously said was his thoroughly unsociable cat, who had taken years to warm up to him enough to give him half the attention it was now bestowing freely on Nie Mingjue. Was this the heavens deciding to mock him for his earlier betrayals?

Alternatively, Nie Mingjue might just be very good with cats, which Jin Guangyao could believe. Perhaps he even carried in his pockets some of the Qinghe vine that cats were said to be so enamored of, although certainly Meng Yao’s cat had never once before shown an interest in such things before.

“…what’s its name?” Nie Mingjue croaked, voice hoarse. He was still staring fixedly at the cat, looking as though his entire world had shattered around him. He hadn’t even looked so unsettled when Jin Guangyao had so viciously mocked him at the Nightless City, and at the time he’d thought he was going to die and be turned into a corpse puppet to murder all his loved ones.

Jin Guangyao was tempted to say something rude or facetious, something like ‘I just call it Cat, why, do you name random cats?’, but the cat had been a good companion of his for a long time now and he couldn’t do that to it, even if he was currently planning on taking an extra long bath to force the cat to miserably linger by the door to the bathing room, screeching in unhappiness at the wet, but bravely (if grumpily) supervising him to make sure he didn’t drown.

“Hensheng,” he said, because that was in fact what he’d named it – it meant hatred for life, which was not exactly an auspicious name but which had stuck from the very moment he had thought it up – and waited to hear Nie Mingjue’s judgment. “It’s not normally quite so sticky,” he added in an attempt to save some face. “With most people.”

“Well, it’s me, that’s different,” Nie Mingjue said, and maybe the man really was just the human incarnation of the plant cats liked so much. Meng Yao really wouldn’t put it past him. “You...you cultivate in the Nie sect style? Still?”

Jin Guangyao blinked, surprised by the change in subject.

“Yes,” he said, a little hesitantly. He cultivated many styles now, although it was always the Jin sect style when he was in public. But he still had all the anger in his belly to vent – even more so now than before, anger at his father, anger at Madame Jin, anger at his brother born to a blessed life, anger at all those disciples that sneered at him even after he’d been legitimized, anger, anger, anger – and the Nie sect style had always been the best for that.

And anyway, it made the cat purr.

“Is that a problem, Sect Leader Nie?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Nie Mingjue said, and when he turned to look at him his eyes were warm and soft the way they’d been all the way before the fiasco with Xue Yang, shimmering with tears of joy and a smile that seemed to come straight from his heart, the foolish easily deceived man. It was so unexpected that Jin Guangyao actually took a full two steps back, his jaw dropping a little. “I’m happy for you. Very happy.”

He actually wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, dashing away the tears.

“You should come back to the Unclean Realm to pick it up when the brotherhood ceremony is done,” he added nonsensically. “I can’t imagine how long it’s been waiting for you.”

“…what?” Jin Guangyao said. “Pick up what?”

“Hensheng,” Nie Mingjue said, which – what? “Your saber. Hensheng.”

His saber?

The saber he’d never gotten, having been banished from the Unclean Realm before the order was finished, the one he’d spent all his savings on just in putting in the deposit, the one he’d never actually finished paying off? He remembered it, of course, and sometimes it still itched under his skin that he’d never gotten what he was owed because everything that was owed to him he deserved to get in the end. But…

“Hensheng is my cat,” he said.

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “That’s not a cat,” he said. “That’s a saber spirit.”

Jin Guangyao’s gaze dropped down to the cat.

The cat that never seemed to eat anything or drink anything, that never once fell for the poisoned meat or accepted his offers of treats, that no one in the Nightless City had ever seen with their own eyes; the cat that could consistently get into his rooms despite there being no holes for it to enter, as if it had simply passed through the walls like a ghost.

Like a spirit.

The cat, which purred whenever Jin Guangyao practiced the Nie sect forms, swinging a saber with rage in his heart.

The cat to which he had confessed all his anger, all his frustration, all his rage, all the feelings he never gave to any human being around him – the sabers of the Nie sect thrived on such emotions, those feelings that encouraged them and strengthened them, developing the saber spirits that made each one of them a spiritual weapon unlike any other, with power and rage infused into the very blade.

Saber spirits, which only those born into the Nie sect or adopted early, raised in their ways, one of them, could form.

“A saber spirit?” Jin Guangyao said weakly, and his knees suddenly didn’t seem strong enough to hold him; he swayed and Nie Mingjue stepped forward quickly, catching him by the shoulders to steady him. “I cultivated a saber spirit?”

“The saber is back in the Unclean Realm,” Nie Mingjue said, not without kindness. “It was only ever waiting for you to pick it up once you developed the spirit, so that you could introduce the two.”

“It hasn’t been – I would have thought it would have been thrown away, or repurposed –”

“It’s a Nie saber, Meng Yao. It won’t obey anyone else ever again, not in this life; it is yours, yours alone. When one day you die, it will be buried with honor in our saber halls, just like all the others.”

The cat looked up at him and purred.

No one owns me, Jin Guangyao thought – the first thing the cat had said to him, and he’d always had a good understanding of what the cat wanted from the very first. No one had owned that wild spirit then, but it had stayed by his side, at first from curiosity and later from habit, and it was his now.

His, and no one else’s.

“Will you come pick it up?” Nie Mingjue asked, hope in his eyes. “Will you come home, if only for a little while?”

“Yes,” Jin Guangyao said. “Yes, I will.”

Later, Jin Guangshan told his son to kill Nie Mingjue, that fool who trusted too much and didn’t know when he was being deceived, finding him in his rigidity and righteousness too much of a burden on the power he planned to wield.

Jin Guangyao bowed as deep as he could, a smile on his lips, saying nothing, and the next day, when Jin Guangshan went to the brothel as he always did, drinking tea served by his son the way he always did, he never did figure out why his heart had stopped.

(The saber Jin Guangyao began to wear openly after the funeral – a gift from his sworn brother, he said with a smile, in remembrance of his time at the Nie sect – purred in pure satisfaction.)

#mdzs #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #unawakened #prompter I have no idea what you were looking for #and it's probably not this #but this is what came to mind #omgpurplefattie

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bondsmagii · 3 years ago

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im sorry WHAT are you reading that's horny for stalin

it's a historical fiction novel called Sashenka, by Simon Sebag Montefiore. this man writes incredible non-fiction (I've read both his non-fiction books on Stalin and his history of the Romanovs), it's fascinating and thoroughly researched and a lot of fun, but he suffers from the historian's curse of being a little too enthusiastic about his favourite historical figure. he's clearly fascinated by Stalin, definitely a little obsessed; it might be difficult to understand for non-historians, but it's very possible to love a historical figure, and to admire them, but still not support the crazy shit they did -- it's a fascination for the person and the thrill of the research. unfortunately for Montefiore, he... kind of goes one step further and it really does make him seem genuinely horny for Stalin. like, the amount of times, even in his non-fiction, that I've seen Stalin described as "feline" or "cat-like", or seen his eyes described in a way that's straight out of fanfiction... now by all accounts Stalin did have a fascinating eye colour (practically yellow and gold, this is verified fact), but JEEZ.

even more unfortunately... Montefiore cannot, and I mean CANNOT, write fiction. his plots are compelling and he knows his shit, and he's not afraid to use real historical figures rather than obvious original knock-offs, but his narration and language and characterisation is very immature and the way he writes women... oh god. oh, my god. it is VOMITOUS. every woman has her boobs described. the boobs seem to be a virtue signal: nice pert large badoinkadoinks and she's a Good Character You Can Root For; saggy long droopy dohechafuckalongas and she is a Bad Nasty Character You Can Dislike. the main female character is always a schoolgirl of 16-18 years (or begins the plot that way) and her hunganungasmackahedrons are of course the bounciest and most beautiful of all (but she is insecure about them :(). everyone is in love with her. he once had a character lose her virginity and come into school the next day and notice all the boys looking at her differently, because apparently boys can smell sex and just Knew she was now A Woman. it is unbelievable and I cannot believe this man has a wife. I think it's a lie actually and he has never spoken to a human woman in his life, because what the fuck.

anyway Stalin is also a character in this book, so as well as all of the endless descriptions of people's hoheckachunkafuckaslaparoos, I have to put up with Stalin's catlike poses and flashing honey eyes. I'm going insane.

#anon #asks

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deathbidean · 4 years ago

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my destiel fic recs pt.3

no one asked for this but I am determined to force my favourite fics on y’all

And This, Your Living Kiss - opal_bullets : Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen.Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen. holy shit. this. THIS. it’s amazing. it’s so beautiful. your heart will break for poor Dean. this is definetly a favourite of mine!!

Andrew Lloyd Webber Gets a Pass - delicious-irony, opal_bullets : In which Castiel's manner is vague and aloof, Dean Winchester doesn't care for a cuddle, and there's no doing anything about it.Or, Dean and Castiel attempt to survive rehearsals for a new production of Cats, and each other. I’M TELLING YOU NOW. IF YOU FAINT FOR ENEMIES TO LOVERS,,, THIS WILL KILL YOU. y’all,, honestly this fic ended me it’s so goddamn good

15x14 coda : it’s a date - contemplativepancakes : “So… How was your date?” “Really, Dean? That’s what you're concerned about? After we all almost died?” Dean waggles his eyebrows. “Well, yeah. Just looking out for my little brother.” The bunker door clangs open, and Sam shoves Dean towards it. “Maybe worry about yourself.”Sam and Eileen had a date, so it's only fair that Dean and Cas do, too, right? so so sweet. just pure tooth-rotting fluff that will make your heart ache

Starstruck - peanutbutterjelly-pie (Aleakim) : From the outside Castiel Novak looks like a regular guy: a good job, two teenage kids, a nice house and a crappy car he’s way too attached to.But there’s one thing no one knows about him: that, over twenty years ago, he used to live next to none other than Dean Winchester – back then a brash and loud-mouthed boy and nowadays a huge movie star and Hollywood’s sweetheart.Castiel never bothered to tell anyone about his childhood friend because frankly, who would believe him? Probably even Dean himself already forgot about his former awkward and weird neighbor, so Castiel seriously doesn’t see any point in mentioning the whole thing ever.But then an interview on national TV happens where Dean reveals way more about his past than ever before … and Castiel - as well as the rest of the world - suddenly realizes that he left a much bigger impact on Dean’s life than he originally thought. y’all,,,,, this is still being updated and when I tell you i’m living for each one,,,,,,,, it’s so goddamn good!!! and sweet!!! and just ughhhhh!!! highly recommend!!

Shot Through The Heart - peanutbutterjelly-pie (Aleakim) : Dean is a hunter. Castiel is a Man of Letters. And even though they have to work together on a regular basis, there is not much sympathy between them. Castiel thinks Dean too brash and reckless while Dean in return sees nothing more in the other man than a rude asshole with an obsessive love for books and a truly terrible fashion sense. But fate clearly has a funny way of throwing those two together over and over again. And somewhere along the way feelings change into something neither of them would have expected. nah nah, y’all don’t understand,,, this fic is amazing!! again; ENEMIES TO LOVERS!!!! it doesn’t get better than that, am i right?

ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find - xylodemon : Sam brings it up as they're driving back from the steakhouse in Mankato.Dean cuts him a sharp, sideways glance. "You think I should what?""I think you should try journaling.""Why the hell would I wanna do that?" very sad and very beautifully written grieving Dean. just exactly what i needed after the finale and very much patched up the hole in my heart

Be My Boyfriend : Dean and Cas keep having to pretend to be dating to discourage other potential suitors. Things get a little out of hand. i actually read this first on tumblr and loved it so much i had to find it on ao3!! it’s such sweet and silly fluff!!!!

Holiday Homies - tricia_16 : Best friends Dean and Cas are sick and tired of the stress the holidays put on anybody not already in a relationship. The endless plus one invitations to fill for New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day (and this year, Sam and Jess's wedding on top of everything else) never freaking stop. So on Halloween night, Dean and Cas come up with a plan to be each other's plus ones from Thanksgiving to the 4th Of July. They'll fake a relationship, get their parents off of their backs, actually enjoy the holidays for once... and maybe wring a few orgasms out of each other while they’re at it.What could go wrong? you want two dumbasses in love?? you want friends with benefits who are very much in love with each other?? you want to cry in frustration over their idiocy?? this is the fic for you

fifteen flares - microcomets : When Dean finally comes home, the knots in his shoulders aching and his skin still layered in dust, he finds Cas waiting up for him at the kitchen table. Without a word, Cas nudges the vacant chair out with his foot, sliding an unopened beer across the counter in a silent invitation. (post-13.06 coda.) y’all this is so sweet and cute and just wholesome. i absolutely adore confession pre-canon and this is no exceptiion

Wanna Bet? - bendingsignpost : “I bet you... that I can get laid tonight before you can get a single kiss. We pick each other’s targets.”Dean bites his lip in the vain attempt to not burst out laughing. “Uh-huh,” he says. “Sure, Sammy. Someone single and actually attractive, sure.”“Deal?” Sam says. “A kiss on the mouth, no cheating.”Still pushing down a laugh, Dean offers his hand across the table. They shake. “Deal. Okay, who am I going for?”Sam smiles wider than the devil that once possessed him, and answers: “Cas.” pure Dean dumbassery and intervening Sam AND IT’S SO SO GOOD!! my heart aches

Four Letter Word for Intercourse - bendingsignpost : As a grease monkey turned college freshman, Dean's constantly three seconds away from being stressed out of his mind. It hardly helps that he's finally figuring out his sexuality in his thirties. What might help with that stress is a little phone number (and a big credit card bill). If he can't figure out how to be bisexual in person, he can at least give it a go over the phone, right? (It's probably a bad idea, but he really can't help himself.) okay,,, so,,, this fic may have awakened certain things in me,,,,,,, but GOD DAMN!!!! genuinely,,,, one of the best fics i’ve read; it’s just so goddamn good! i don’t think i can adequately express how much i love this fic!!

and on that note, i shall end your suffering for the time being. but seriously, these fics are genuinely well written, well thought out and executed!! they deserve to be read by everyone who will enjoy them!!

pt.1 , pt.2

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years ago

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IOTA Reviews: Lies

You guys ready for almost twenty straight minutes of Angstdrien Depreste? Neither am I.

Let's get into the third (chronologically the second) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Lies (Oh, I get what they did there).

We open with Marinette struggling to decipher the grimoire she inherited from Fu, before two of the Kwamis screw around and play a video about Adrien.

Jesus Christ... it hasn't even been an episode since she broke up with Luka, and the writers are already back to making her simp over Adrien again. And this part of the episode takes place during “Truth”, where she's still dating Luka. This is supposedly meant to show her conflicting feelings regarding both Adrien and Luka, but it just comes across as yet another joke about Marinette simping over Adrien because the writers have forgotten she has other interests outside of her hero life.

And here we go. The writers are going to go out of their way to make the audience feel bad for Adrien in this episode by showing how tough his life is. What do we see him do that is allegedly so exhausting? He models for another statue, goes to a photoshoot, and then goes to some drama class where he repeats some phrase (I think it's supposed to be a warmup, but it's never explained why he's there in the first place). That's it. This is his definition of an “endless day”? Oh yeah, his life must be soooooooo hard.

Adrien is a rich white boy who is the son of one of the biggest names in fashion across the world, has legions of fans, an honest education, and is also one of the most beloved superheroes in the city while not having to struggle with the same responsibility his partner has. But no, Adrien's life is much harder than anyone else who has suffered this past year. It's yet another trick the writers are pulling to make people feel bad for Adrien instead of criticizing his behavior. I'm sorry, but I find it a little hard to relate to someone whose biggest problems amount his diamond shoes being too tight.

Good lord, I'm not even a minute in...

So Adrien transforms into Cat Noir and heads off to patrol. Keep in mind that the first part of this episode takes place during the events of “Truth”, so we see how he reacts to Ladybug not showing up for patrol. He waits for a while before he starts, but not before leaving a message for his partner.

Now, this moment honestly could have worked. What doesn't make it work is the air quotes Cat Noir starts off with. If he had said something like that honestly and kept his feelings a secret, it could have shown he understands the burden Ladybug has to bear now that she's the Guardian, but doesn't want to worry her. The problem is that the way he phrased the first sentence coupled with the air quotes make it seem like he doesn't care about what Ladybug has to deal with now, and only wants her to spend time with him.

You think I'm being overdramatic or I'm just jumping to conclusions? In the very next scene, Cat Noir actually tries to see if Mr. Ramier is emotional enough to get akumatized into Mr. Pigeon again just so he can see Ladybug.

This is just... why? Why would any of the writers expect the audience to feel bad for Cat Noir here? It's one thing for him to miss Ladybug's company, which is natural considering how much time they spend together, but wanting to start a life-threatening situation just to see Ladybug just isn't cool. What makes this any different from Chloe causing a subway to go out of control so she can save it herself, or Lila intentionally akumatizing herself and working with Hawkmoth just because she hates Ladybug? If you can find a reason other than “because the plot says so”, I'll want to hear an explanation.

So Cat Noir goes to Le Grand Paris to drown his sorrows in alcohol with his favorite drink, a White Russian without the vodka and coffee liqueur. Also, instead of cream, it's skim milk. And speaking of Chloe, we see her get into a brief squabble with Sabrina over missing a bag she has underneath her shoulder, and Cat Noir gets excited again at the prospect of getting to fight an Akuma, but thankfully, the situation is resolved fairly quickly.

Ignoring how unheroic this makes this supposed “superhero” look, I have a quick question. SHOULDN'T CHLOE BE IN PRISON RIGHT NOW? She essentially committed treason against her country by willingly conspiring with a terrorist. I get that everyone in Paris was paralyzed at the time, but did Ladybug not tell anyone what happened? How is she not in trouble? Did her father pardon her or something? Is she not even going to do any community service? You would think given how much Astruc hates her, Chloe would be forced to face more consequences for her actions other than losing her Miraculous permanently. Hopefully, “Queen Banana” will shed some light on Chloe's situation, but I'm not exactly holding my breath on that.

But yeah, Cat Noir actually gets excited at the prospect at fighting an akumatized Sabrina, while ignoring how cruel Chloe's being to her, because I guess it's a day that ends with a “Y”. Remember when Adrien actually called out Lila and compromised with her in order to get Marinette back into school? Good times.

Cat Noir keeps calling and leaving messages for Ladybug, but changes his mind as soon as he sees Kagami, because he has the attention span of a puppy looking for someone to play with. Adrien stares at his phone's wallpaper of Ladybug, implying he still has feelings for her, and is then informed by Nathalie that his fencing class with Kagami was moved back by an hour. In reality, it was a trick by Kagami to get the two to spend some quality time together.

They choose to hang out in the art room because, get this, Kagami has always had a passion for drawing. Of course! That explains why it's never been mentioned in any earlier episodes, not even the one where she attended the premiere of an animated movie, which is a similar form of art. It's almost like the writers wanted to have Kagami do something that doesn't involve swinging a sword around. It's a good reason, mind you, but maybe if it was foreshadowed more, I would be more open to it.

Kagami says that she loves drawing because “art never lies”. Because it's not like someone can draw something completely inaccurate to what's actually being depicted, much like a certain character who likes to make up stories of people she knows to get others to like her, right? Kagami also says that her mother doesn't let her draw because she doesn't think her art isn't good, even though she's blind. Because when it comes to parents in Miraculous Ladybug, they're either amazing people who love their children, or they're emotionally abusive pieces of garbage who make you wonder why they even had kids in the first place. There is literally no middle ground. Maybe some of the writers have daddy issues?

So Kagami decides to draw a picture of Adrien, but wants him to give her a more “natural” pose instead of the standard model poses he usually gives.

Okay, this scene is raising so many red flags, the dialogue might as well be in semaphore. Where the hell did this side of Kagami come from? Why is she so controlling and forceful all of a sudden? In fact, why is she so obsessed with Adrien being “perfect”? The two made jokes before in the past (Desperada), and even spent half of the Season 3 finale playing around with Marinette? Why is she now Little Miss Serious?

Also, Kagami is really overstepping boundaries with Adrien here. Like, to a seriously uncomfortable degree. I get she isn't good with social cues, but how can she not see how anxious Adrien looks while she forces him into a pose, all while saying how wrong he is for doing what he sees as “natural”? This is not what a healthy relationship looks like, and spoiler alert, this isn't exactly why they even break up at the end of the episode.

Before the two can kiss while they're actually at fencing practice, Adrien is forced to leave Kagami to help Ladybug fight Mr. Pigeon (which means the narrative basically gave him what he wanted for no reason), leading to the same scene where Ladybug almost kills him, while he jokes about how he likes how angry she gets, and she apologizes for something that wasn't her fault. Just remember, he flirts with Ladybug right after he left his girlfriend to join her for an Akuma battle. The same montage from “Truth” happens, only it's Adrien missing opportunities to be close with Kagami, culminating with the little Kitty Section concert that happened right before Luka got akumatized.

While the two wait for their rides, Adrien accidentally drops the charm Marinette gave him all the way back in “Gamer”, which Kagami picks up. When he sees an Akuma flying, Adrien soon heads off to fight him, saving Ladybug from blowing her cover. After the events of “Truth”, Adrien apparently heads to Prince Ali's birthday party (yet Rose isn't there for some reason), meaning the second half of this episode takes place immediately after the previous one, even though it's been established that Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth needs time to recharge.

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After Cat Noir flirts a little with Ladybug again, he heads off to the party to meet up with Kagami. When he had to leave to fight Truth, Adrien claimed that he left something on the Liberty, which Adrien later claims was the charm Marinette gave him. Kagami soon realizes he's lying about something, and doesn't take it well.

There's a good performance from Kagami's voice actress here, and it's a nice parallel to Luka, who also feels a sense of betrayal when Marinette can't be honest with him. But this scene does tie into the problem with Adrien and Kagami in this episode, and I'll get into it towards the end.

Kagami storms off, and is immediately akumatized by Shadowmoth, turning her into Lies.

Like Truth, the design here is really forgettable. The design is all white and gives Kagami a haircut that looks like it belongs in The Jetsons, but that's it. The one thing I like about her is the way her powers work. Instead of going from victim to victim, Lies creates an energy dome that slowly grows and paralyzes anyone has lied before in the past, which is basically everyone who comes into contact with it. It's a pretty interesting idea, and it means that Ladybug and Cat Noir have to rely more on strategy while avoiding any contact with the dome.

Adrien transforms into Cat Noir and charges into action, with Jagged Stone offering to help out.

I don't think you can say the same for your family, can you, Jagged?

Cat Noir tells Jagged to get to a safe place, but much like his one night stand with Anarka, he refuses to pull out, so he gets paralyzed by the dome, along with everyone in the building.

Ladybug meets up with Cat Noir and immediately summons her Lucky Charm, a remote control drone. Since it hasn't lied, it can go into the dome and be used as surveillance while Cat Noir distracts Lies. While it seems like nobody inside the dome can touch Lies, Ladybug realizes that Fang, Jagged Stone's pet crocodile, hasn't lied either, so she uses the drone to lure him out of the building.

Cat Noir thinks of a way to distract Lies by doing what he always does to increase the tension.

You know, I thought of a little game we could play. Why don't we count how many times Cat Noir sacrifices himself this season? So far, the Cat Noir Self-Kill Counter is at 1, but I'm guessing it will be higher the longer this season goes on.

So while Lies is distracted by Cat Noir's unconscious body, Fang runs over and breaks her corrupted object, Marinette's charm. So after using Miraculous Ladybug, Ladybug runs over and, for good reason, I may add, scolds Cat Noir for recklessly sacrificing himself yet again.

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You know if this plan failed, not only would Shadowmoth get your Miraculous, but Ladybug would be all alone, you idiot! And we're supposed to find this reckless endangerment funny!? Seriously, Ladybug smiles at Cat Noir's stupid little quip as he still flirts with her right after he got into a fight with his girlfriend.

The next day, Adrien apologizes to Kagami, but she says she can't trust him, not as a boyfriend, and not as a friend either. And here is the problem with the Adrigami breakup. Like with the Lukanette breakup, it chooses to focus on one detail instead of the other, and glaringly obvious detail. The episode is trying to say that the whole reason Kagami and Adrien can't work as a couple is because of Adrien keeping his life as Cat Noir a secret. In reality, both of them have problems that they need to work on before they consider dating. Kagami has shown herself to be a massive control freak in this episode because of her own vision of what Adrien is like, showing she doesn't respect his boundaries or beliefs.

And Adrien? Where do I begin?

Adrien clearly shows several signs that he hasn't moved on from Ladybug with how much he flirts with her, even before he and Kagami got together, and there's the fact that unlike Marinette who realizes how she can't have a love life, it doesn't feel like Adrien actually learned that lesson.

We are supposed to see Adrien focusing on his secret life as Cat Noir as the responsible thing to do, and that like Ladybug, he needs to prioritize being Cat Noir over dating. The thing is that this episode has only showed how he doesn't take any of the hero stuff seriously. Throughout the episode, he treats being Cat Noir as a fun pasttime, when it comes to craving Ladybug's attention to the point where he's just short of causing an Akuma attack out of desperation until he sees someone else to spend time with, constantly flirts with Ladybug despite how annoyed she can come across, doesn't understand any of the stuff she has to deal with now that she's Guardian, and will sacrifice himself all so Ladybug can do all the work for him. He doesn't care about anything unless he gains something in return. It doesn't matter if lives are in danger, he thinks his personal feelings are more important because his civilian life is sO hAaArRd.

At one point when we were all kids, we all wanted to be superheroes because we all thought the idea of having superpowers and the freedom to do whatever we wanted sounded awesome. But that's not what being a hero is. We never thought about the responsibility that comes with being a superhero. One of the main themes of superhero media that we all watched growing up was that they would help us to learn right from wrong, and that sometimes, personal sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and our feelings just aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. Whether we learned this lesson from Superman, Spider-Man, Sailor Moon, the Power Rangers, or even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, what matters is that by the time we reached the age of these heroes, we would have a similar moral compass so we would understand why these heroes would make some of the choices they did, and we would be able to make similar choices if we encountered situations like the ones they went through.

Part of growing up is realizing that being a superhero isn't all fun and games. Sometimes, you need to put your own personal desires aside to make sure nobody gets hurt because of something you did or didn't do. We are currently in the fourth season of this show, and after 82 episodes, Cat Noir has still failed to learn that lesson. He doesn't understand that even if his “true self” is clowning around, that's not how a hero acts. You don't see Batman or Captain America acting this way, and you don't see real life soldiers or emergency workers acting this way either.

And that's not even getting into the fact that this is the same problem the Lukanette breakup had. Even though Marinette had a valid reason to break things off with Luka because she realized being Guardian was more important, the narrative framed it like she was still into Adrien, no matter if she was making an effort to get over him. Likewise, even though both Adrien and Kagami have issues the narrative refuses to actually acknowledge, they frame it as Adrien's hero life was ruining their relationship, when in reality, the reasons for both the Adrigami breakup and the Lukanette breakup should have been flipped. “Truth” should have been about Marinette coming to terms with her new responsibilities as the Guardian, and “Lies” should have been about Adrien realizing he needs to work on his own personal issues before he considers his feelings for Kagami or Ladybug.

So the episode just ends with Ladybug and Cat Noir saying that even if they have to keep secrets about their identities, they can still trust each other. Also, before Kagami dumped him, Adrien reaffirmed his feelings for Ladybug (the only time they were actually referenced outside of flirting and his phone's wallpaper), which implies that Adrien is going to continue to pursue Ladybug, having learned nothing from this whole episode.

You know, after watching both this episode and “Truth”, and seeing how it undid two of the major changes from the Season 3 finale, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all? Does it almost feel like you've been here before? How am I gonna be a optimist about this? Hell if I know, this episode's honestly worse than “Truth” was.

Put aside your feelings on the Adrigami breakup, the pacing here was awful. Because the writers thought it would be interesting to have some continuity for once by having it take place right after “Truth”, the timeline is incredibly confusing. Can Shadowmoth just create more Akumas at once without having to recharge? And shouldn't Ladybug and Cat Noir be exhausted from having to fight two Akumas and a Sentimonster in one day?

Even then, about half of the episode was spent following Adrien as he whined about how hard he supposedly has it, proving despite what Astruc continues to state, he is far from perfect, and like what he loves to say about Chloe, refuses to change. Wow, that's so interesting. And we're supposed to feel bad for Cat Noir and be mad at Ladybug for missing their patrol, forgetting everything she's been going through in the last week, considering how Gabriel just fixed the Peacock Miraculous, suggesting that the events of “Truth” and “Lies” happened not too long after “Miracle Queen”. Even the Akuma fight wasn't that interesting because it was crammed into about five minutes thanks to everything else going on in this episode.

In an attempt to make the audience sympathize with him, this episode only made me loathe the way Adrien is portrayed even more. Seriously, he reaches “Frozer” levels of unlikability in this episode. Maybe he'll get some much needed character development, but given how much Astruc will put him on a pedestal and ignore his flaws, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

But I still don't see the point of spending so much time building up this relationship for two seasons just to end it as soon as they hook up. At the end of the day, all Lukanette and Adrigami amounted to was filler. It was a way to get in some romantic scenes for the fans while the writers continue to drag out the Love Square drama like a taffy puller. And now that Luka and Kagami have served their purpose, watch as Astruc and the other writers start to slowly remove them from the narrative until they appear about as often as Nino does now.

After all, why care about anything in this show that isn’t related to the Love Square? It’s clear none of the writers do.

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tallstars-rewrite · 3 years ago

Text

Chapter 24

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Tallpaw was instructed to remain in camp for several days, and regularly check into the medicine den. Miraculously, none of his bones were broken, but the nasty gashes across his back were still at risk of infection and nearly every part of him was horribly bruised. It was torment having to remain still. Dawnstripe came to see him regularly to bring him food, and he wished her presence brought him the comfort it used to. For the most part he couldn’t help just feeling bad that she was having to deal with him at all. Her first apprentice that she’d been so excited for had become such a mess.

Briarpaw was in and out of the den. Hawkheart, providing his apprentice more sympathy than he offered anyone else, did not give him duties. Tallpaw wasn’t sure where Briarpaw had been going the rest of the day. He didn’t speak much when he came in save for the same pleasantries. “How are you feeling? Is the pain manageable? I’ll get you some wet moss to drink from.” The words were caring but his voice was stiff, like the life had been drained out of it. Sometimes he just sat in the dark corner of the den and stared at his paws. Tallpaw wondered if he still saw his mother's blood on them, or if any amount of grooming would make them feel clean. He was too ashamed and afraid to reach out. Briarpaw might see him as responsible for his mother’s death like Shrewpaw did; someone Tallpaw gratefully had not seen at all.

Tallpaw's relationship with him had always been a bit precarious, the easy affection he and Briarpaw had--or at least used to have--was never Shrewpaw’s strength. They had been as much friends as rivals could be, but Tallpaw sensed that night, in the hate in his eyes, that something had broken in him as well, and their unstable foundation crumbled.

Woollycloud was around him the most, just as subject to bed rest as Tallpaw. He offered him friendly chatter which Tallpaw rarely reciprocated, but Woollycloud graciously pretended not to notice. He had a nasty cut on his head where a rock had struck him, but unlike Tallpaw, his legs and movement were fine and he was able to be more active. In between the comforting talk Tallpaw had to endure, there was nothing to do but sleep. And he really did not want to sleep. When he closed his eyes, the rumbling of the earth and world collapsing on top of him returned, along with his father's voice calling out from far off. But it was only when he was asleep that he didn’t have to suffer the pity and concern from his clanmates. Or worse, their uncomfortable silence. As if a frightening air surrounded him, a discomfort that remained since the formerly well mannered and quiet apprentice’s violent outburst against the rogue. The rogue the rest of the clan apparently cared for more than Tallpaw and his father. The fear in his dreams was, marginally, still preferable to facing others.

After nearly a full day of not speaking, Tallpaw was staring absentmindedly up at the stars. Each star a warrior of the past, so he’d been told. Brackenwing would be among them. But a horrible thought nagged at his mind the longer he stared at those stars. So at last he dared to speak to Woollycloud.

“What about Sandstone, Woollycloud?” He could barely manage more than a whisper. “If we couldn’t lay his body out, how will he be free? How can the wind carry his spirit if it can’t find him? He’s trapped. He’s trapped down there alone, isn’t he?”

Woollycloud curled his tail behind Tallpaw.

“Don’t worry, Sandstone will not be lost. There is something we can do for him, but the tunnelers want to wait.”

“What for?”

“For you, of course. You should be there. StarClan knows to welcome him, and we will help his spirit how we can. I’ll show you as soon as we’re strong enough to.”

Tallpaw nodded quietly and lay his head back down.

Woollycloud continued, “You and your mother will have closure. Did Palebird not tell you about the tunnelers tradition?”

“I... have not seen my mother.” Tallpaw said. He didn’t want to think about her. Of all the cats whose presence filled him with a deep set guilt, Palebird was among the worst.

“You haven’t? I...I see.” Woollycloud sat up and hummed in concern. Tallpaw wished he wouldn’t do that. “I haven’t seen her myself...I should look for her.”

“You don’t have to.” Tallpaw said quickly. “Really.” The last thing he wanted was for any cat to pressure his mother into seeing him. Before Woollycloud could argue, he continued, “do you think I’m strong enough yet? I know the third sunrise hasn’t passed, but the herbs have been working and I...I really want to do something.”

Woollycloud sniffed at his shoulder, “Perhaps we could ask Hawkheart. I understand why you don’t want to wait. In the meantime, I’ll see if Mistmouse can find Palebird. She must be grieving heavily, and I know she’ll want to come.”

Tallpaw had a hard time imagining his mother wanted to do anything. But with Hawkheart’s begrudging blessing, and a small lie about not feeling any pain anymore, Woollycloud led him to the camp entrance. Mistmouse had told the other tunnelers it was time, and they were waiting for them. To Tallpaw’s surprise, even the retired tunnelers Fennelpelt and Whitetooth were waiting.

Woollycloud gazed at Whitetooth with a slight trace of worry. “You’ll be alright making the journey? I hope the pain in your legs has eased some.”

Whitetooth sniffed proudly. “I won’t let anything stop me from doing this for Sandstone. He always spoke up for us and didn’t let anything stop him. I’ll be fine.”

Fennelpelt nodded “It’s only right for us to give the proper send off in the place his body rests, or as close as we can get. I know StarClan can find him wherever he is, but...this has sadly become a new tradition, the more we lose to the tunnels. I always hope the present one may be the last.”

Woollycloud nodded sadly, “StarClan willing it be true this time.”

Hazelnose turned to Mistmouse “So...did you find Palebird?”

Mistmouse shuffled her paws “No, but Lilywhisker told me she has an idea where she might be.”

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning,” Crowfur said with a displeased flick of his ears. “She can’t mean to miss her own mates’ remembrance.”

“She doesn’t want to, perhaps they will meet us there," Mistmouse said quickly.

Tallpaw couldn’t help sharing Crowfur’s frustration. Palebird was so rarely where he wanted her to be. It was one thing to avoid him, but she shouldn’t avoid Sandstone at a time like this. Unless...it was because he was there? It was hard for him to ignore how out of place he felt here. Once he had assumed these cats would be his closest companions, but that was before his apprenticeship. He’d never been able to figure out if they were as disappointed in his choices as Sandstone was. They ought to be, he thought bitterly Because if I had made the right choice...maybe I would have known how to save him. Maybe I could have gotten to him faster.

The patrol made the trek quietly, as the last light of the sun started to vanish and the sky turned from orange to cool dark blue. Tallpaw had some difficulty keeping pace, even Whitetooth walked faster than him, but he forced himself not to wince. He wished his muscles didn’t still ache from the bruising all over his back. That restless feeling of being somewhere he didn’t feel he had a right to belong still gnawed at him. Unfortunately Woollycloud, in all his endless sympathy, padded behind with him. I wish you wouldn’t waste your energy worrying about me, Tallpaw wanted to say.

Instead he asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Right now, we are going to collect every strong smelling moor plant we can find. I’ll explain when we arrive.” Woollycloud replied.

Tallpaw couldn’t pretend he wasn’t nervous about returning to the place where he’d nearly been buried twice, and where his father had disappeared forever. But he wouldn’t let that apprehension stop him now. Some of the patrol split off on the way, returning with herbs and plants plucked from the ground, smelling of new-leaf growth. Woollycloud gestured for Tallpaw to take his heather flowers as he picked additional sprigs of sage. Tallpaw hadn’t a clue what they were doing, but he followed obediently.

When he finally caught his mother's scent, he almost thought he was imagining it. But as they approached the hill that led down to the soft earth where the old rabbit burrow tunnels used to be, he saw her approaching the group. Lilywhisker was with her, and carried some brightly colored flowers in her jaws that she passed off to the small white molly, but as she watched Palebird come to join them, the former-tunneler did not follow. Palebird padded soundlessly into the muddy clearing, placing a rather large bundle of marigold on the ground. “I wanted to find the best flowers I could,” she said quickly, as if expecting someone to ask for an explanation. Her voice sounded weak and cracked. “I apologize it took so long.”

“We are here now,” Woollycloud replied gently, “that is all that matters.”

No cat asked why Lilywhisker had not joined them. Perhaps it was because she’d left tunneling behind so long ago. It made Tallpaw wonder even more if he deserved to be here himself. Because he was family was surely the reason, but Sandstone saw his tunnelers as better family than he ever was. None of them know how Sandstone really felt about me… he realized miserably.

Tallpaw felt incredibly on edge to finally be in his mother’s presence. He could feel her gaze drift toward him. She at last padded over to him, and gave the scar on his ear a soft lick. He looked up at her timidly. He hadn’t noticed before how awful she looked. Her eyes were dull and tired. She looked smaller and thinner. Palebird had been a frail, skinny cat for as long as Tallpaw could remember, but now he could more clearly see the bones in her back. Her fur was messy with bits of dust clinging to her legs, showing she hadn’t been grooming much.

She offered him a weak smile “I’m glad you’re doing better, Tallpaw.”

Her voice carried that familiar hollowness he remembered from when he was a kit. When she told him things would be ok in that empty way. Even back then her words felt practiced and obligatory, with little feeling behind them. As empty as her eyes. She seemed to be looking through him. He quietly nodded in response.

Woollycloud padded closer and leaned forward to touch her nose in greeting, which she stiffly reciprocated.

“We were worried when we couldn’t find you earlier,” he said “Where have you been?” He looked at her with deep concern in his soft orange eyes, surely noticing her disheveled appearance as well, but not wanting to comment on it directly.

“I’ve...been sleeping in my own den. Not far from camp. I just wanted some air. I’m sorry, I really didn’t realize I had been gone so long. Time just slipped away from me.”

Woollycloud didn’t look fully content with that answer, but he didn’t want to push it. The tunnelers had placed down what they carried and gathered around the collapsed entrance of the tunnel. It was hard to discern where the hole had been, as the mud around it filled in the cracks. Slowly and meticulously, they began to dig.

Tallpaw looked to Woollycloud “What are they doing? I thought...I thought we already tried to dig through to the tunnels.

“We did. Believe me, Plumclaw especially was out for ages digging holes above and below. We will not dig into the tunnel anymore. Only a shallow ring around the entrance. Come with me, and I’ll tell you.”

He led him to the muddy ground, and together scooped out small pawfuls of earth. Tallpaw suppressed a shudder from the feel of the cold dirt seeping into his paws, and he tried not to remember how it felt to sink into the ground while it buried it from above and below. He focused on Woollycloud’s voice.

"In the rare cases where we have no body to lay in our sacred place, we will go as close as we can to where we know the body is and lay a separate grave, as we do in the Sleeping Glade's burial grounds. We’ll collect every strong smelling moor plant we can find. The familiar scent of the open air will guide the lost spirit out.”

“How will he sense anything trapped underground?” Tallpaw asked quietly.

“He will. Trust me.” Woollycloud said firmly, “The Wind Runner never abandons her children, wherever they are, she will find them again. Her son knows the earth and hidden places of the moor. It may be a harder journey, but Sandstone will hear him and find his way to our ancestors.”

“But...how long will it take? How long will he be trapped?”

“Worry not, young one,” Whitetooth croaked. He was doing his best to dig, making slow progress, but there was a sureness and prescivion to his movements that spoke of his experienced seasons in the tunnels, even despite the stiffness in his joints. “Your father wore the tunnels like a second pelt. He will not be afraid.”

Tallpaw struggled to imagine anything alive in the ground. Well, not alive exactly. But he’d only ever felt hostile eyes on him down there, the kind belonging to monsters that frightened him as a kit. Could there be anything else? He felt his fur tingle as he struggled to pull one last pawful out of the earth. He imagined Sandstone watching him with that cold disapproving glare at how much clumsy effort it took to do this small task. It felt like the ground wanted to suck him down, just waiting for him to put his weight on an unstable patch. He backed up from the hole, but luckily it seemed the other tunnelers had decided they dug far enough. All around the burrows entrance, they weaved the flowers and herbs in a ring bordering the shallow dip. When they had finished, all the cats sat around their work, and were silent. Tallpaw was silent with them, but he didn’t expect to feel any peace wash over him. All he felt was empty and sad. In that stillness, Tallpaw could only dwell on what he really lost.

His father had not loved him for some time, not really. Perhaps Tallpaw would not have to fearfully creep around camp anymore, or carefully check over each rise on the moor to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally run into him on a bad day. But Sandstone being gone also meant that the cat that had loved him once, the cat Tallpaw dutifully waited for everyday in the nursery, the cat who made him his entire world for those often lonely cold moons...that cat was gone too. Some part of Tallpaw, even at his most frustrated and scared, still held onto hope that maybe someday they could figure things out between them. Sandstone could at last let his guard down when the clan wasn’t facing so many outside threats, and he wasn’t putting himself under so much pressure. There was still a small chance that Tallpaw could have that old father back, and this wouldn’t last forever. Sandstone would tell him he didn’t really mean what he said before, and he was only harsh because of all the troubles weighing on him. But no. Those words could never come. There was only one last cold glare of disdain, and now that was all there ever would be.

After what felt like a lifetime, Whitetooth stood, bony shoulders weighed down by grief. “May StarClan welcome you as you find your way to them,” he rasped.

One by one the other tunnelers bowed their heads and left. A solemn Plumclaw followed Mistmouse away, and Hazelnose and Crowfur offered to walk back with the elders. Woollycloud, Tallpaw, and Palebird sat there alone. Woollycloud was surely waiting for them, but Tallpaw felt like his paws had rooted to the soil as he stared into the shallow hole. How could he feel like those he lost were still with them, when the air around him felt so dead and still? What good was their presence if he couldn’t really speak to them, couldn’t see them, couldn’t show them that he could be better than he was when they left? It was one thing to imagine they were far away in the stars, but even here, even in the earth, he couldn’t feel anything. There was no solace here.

“Woollycloud?” he whispered “do you really believe that there are spirits on the moor that watch over us?”

Woollycloud was quiet for a moment.

“I do. I feel them with me often. Our moors are so close to the sky that on the right nights, StarClan can touch the ground and walk alongside us, even in the darkest places. WindClan’s guardian spirits are not only with us when we hunt,” Woollycloud looked a bit wistful. “I believe they led me to save you that night.”

Tallpaw stared blankly into the earth. “But why would the spirits make the tunnel collapse in the first place?”

Woollycloud grimaced “I don’t believe they did. I think...These tunnels were our own doing. And perhaps it was only a matter of time. Not every cat can be saved. But it was not your fate to die that day. And I’m glad of it.” Woollycloud touched his nose to Tallpaw’s head “You’re father will always be with you Tallpaw.”

Those words were clearly meant to comfort him, but they didn’t. Not at all. Woollycloud didn’t know how disappointed Sandstone was before he died. Even if he was here in some way, all he would see was his son's continued failure, continued hesitance and fear. It should have been you buried here, the shallow burrow seemed to growl, perhaps Woollycloud could have saved Sandstone instead. He’d do more good for the clan than you.

Sandstone died angry. He died resentful. What if he couldn’t find peace? A frightful chill was working its way up Tallpaw’s spine. He was too afraid to ask.

Woollycloud pressed softly to Palebird for a moment, and said he’d be waiting for them at camp. He wanted to give Sandstone’s family time to grieve, and Tallpaw didn’t want to tell him how uncomfortable it was to be with his mother.

He couldn’t remember the last time they were alone together. The few times he’d spoken to her...Brackenwing was usually there. He never really realized until now how she rarely left his mother's side. When Palebird wasn’t with Sandstone or Woollycloud, as she was less and less often, it was Brackenwing fetching her prey, taking her on walks through the moor, Brackenwing who knew her pain from the kitten she’d lost moons ago and who remembered her grief when the rest of the clan hardly knew the kit existed. It was Brackenwing who would encourage them both.

But Brackenwing wasn’t here anymore. And neither was Sandstone. Instead, it was just Palebird and Tallpaw. They were both there together, and they were completely alone.

The silence between them hung thick in the air.

“Are you going to be alright, Palebird?” Tallpaw asked. He had to know.

Palebird took in a small breath. “I am…” her sentence trailed off. “...I am alive.”

She sounded so far away. It wasn’t really an answer so much as it was a statement. Yes, they were both still alive. For whatever that was worth.

Tallpaw shifted. “...Where were you really? Before, I mean?”

“Not far. Mostly I was walking where she used to take me...I didn’t realize I had just been wandering the same short trail for so long. I should have been back sooner.”

She didn’t have to say it for him to know she was thinking of Brackenwing.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said, and he meant it. He didn’t want her to feel worse.

“I should have been there…” she whispered, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear it.

“Where?”

“The patrol. She really wanted me to go. But I was…” she sunk to the ground and lay her head on her paws. “I shouldn’t have left her side.”

Tallpaw felt his heart twist in a knot. I wouldn’t have left her like you did, he imagined her saying. It was surely what she wanted to say. Then at least, Brackenwing would be here to comfort her for Sandstone. Yet another death he was present for, and couldn’t stop. He wanted to ask her if she blamed him. If she resented him. If she had ever stopped thinking of that kit she lost so long ago, and if she wondered if Finchkit would have been strong enough to save the ones she loved, in a way that Tallpaw wasn’t. If she never wanted him to speak to her again, he would honor that. He wished he was brave enough to just ask, so he didn’t have to wonder anymore. But he wasn’t.

“Palebird?” he whispered.

“Yes, Tallpaw?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For... everything.”

Palebird’s expression was unreadable as she stared into the earth. “I’m sorry too.”

Tallpaw wasn’t sure if either really knew what specific thing they were referring to. Sorry for Brackenwing. Sorry for Sandstone. Sorry they were in so much grief. Or worse, like Sandstone, sorry that he turned out the way he had. He didn’t expect her to elaborate, and she did not.

All Tallpaw’s life he had simply had to guess what went through his mother's head. He’d long since given up on her telling him. She had cared for him just as much as was physically necessary, and all the while he felt like a stranger to her, like there was a wall of brambles between them that perhaps had always been there. But right then, he felt like he understood her a little. The emptiness in her voice. The hollowness in her eyes. She was quiet and drowning in her grief, in a hole no one could see. But he saw it now. How much easier it must be to simply feel yourself be swallowed up by that hole. He used to wonder when it was exactly that she had started sinking, what had first set the seed for the thorny wall separating them. She wasn’t always like this, his father's voice echoed. But she had been at least as long as Tallpaw had known her. Perhaps it really was as simple as that. Still, he was not brave enough to ask.

But now he felt certain that he had no parents anymore, all in one terrible fell swoop. Palebird did not speak after that. Her mouth hung open and empty. She didn't even have any practiced phrases of comfort left to offer.

After that night, Tallpaw would not hear her voice again for a very long time.

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#cw depression #cw self loathing #FRU24 #chapter 24

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anonniemousefics · 4 years ago

Text

All Kinds Of New Friends

Fandom: Six of Crows | Kaz + Inej (ft. all the other Crows)

Word Count: 4,700

Rating: Teen and Up

TW: contains mentions of sexual assault

Cross-posted to AO3

Synopsis: The gang has a run in with a couple of unscrupulous characters from Inej's past, and Kaz says a few things in the middle of a rage he wasn't supposed to say yet.

Author’s Note: This fic is dedicated to AO3 user puppy cat, who was such a supportive, lovely fan from the very first chapter of "My Dearest Inej" all the way to the end. They requested a fic based around a particular idea involving the gang at a restaurant and someone harassing Inej and Kaz losing his shit in a very specific way (being intentionally vague here to avoid too many spoilers lol). If you like this au, there's more of it in my recent fic "Samples". :)

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Nothing brought Kaz Brekker life quite like being paid to argue. And he was good at it, which was why he could charge these student athletes afraid of losing their scholarships two hundred bucks an essay without even flinching. If a more delightful way to make money existed, he had not found it yet.

He was spending his Saturday the way he usually spent Saturdays: rounding out a conclusion to a paper arguing for the death penalty, for a pre-law class he’d never take and a trust-fund upperclassman he’d hopefully never meet. In a few hours, he could drop the doc in a secure server and wait for the Venmo alert that he’d been paid. Nothing was sweeter.

Well. One thing was sweeter.

Inej was in the beat-up old recliner beside him in his and Jesper’s little living room of their third-floor off-campus apartment. This was the best way to spend a Saturday. She was sitting cross-legged and practically drowning in oversized sweats, her raven-black hair piled on top of her head while she hunched over her MacBook. And she was wearing those thick-rimmed, blue-blocker glasses Matthias Helvar had convinced her she needed (which, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that he was being paid to promote them on his stupid Instagram, that douchebag). Kaz had cringed both internally and externally when she’d told him she’d bought a pair, but now he was seeing the merit, because, dear God, was she adorable in glasses. They were awakening strange and powerful urges every time he glanced over at her. If she held them in between her teeth while undoing her hair, he was going to have to leave the room.

Because the terrible reality was that Inej had had a rough go of it her freshman year at Ketterdam University. And even though they were sort of together now (Kaz was pretty sure they were?), the last thing Inej needed right now was to be over-sexualized – for anything. Including those really fucking cute glasses.

“I’m starving,” Jesper declared from his prone position on the floor. He had been propped up on a bunch of faded pillows between them, engrossed in shooting undead things on their Xbox. His boyfriend Wylan had spent most of the afternoon napping against his shoulder, but was now blinking awake like a blue-eyed baby owl at Jesper’s sudden announcement.

“I could eat,” Wylan yawned with a lazy stretch.

“Inej? You?” Jesper reached up to tug on Inej’s sock.

“Hm?” Inej looked up from her laptop like she was emerging from a cave while she gnawed on one of the strings of her sweatshirt. It had been like this since The Incident – Jesper and Nina often took turns making sure she would eat. (Kaz had it covered, but that was all right. The back-up couldn’t hurt.)

“Food? Are you hungry?” Jesper repeated, the unspoken question floating in the air: Have you eaten today?

Inej blinked a few times as she thought, her dark eyes flitting back and forth between Jesper and her laptop screen. Kaz knew this internal war well – the age-old taking care of one’s needs versus the siren-song of wreaking endless revenge.

Inej had come to Ketterdam University on a gymnastics scholarship, but that had fallen by the wayside – ever since The Incident. The night everything changed.

Kaz didn’t know Inej Ghafa all that well before it happened – had taken a few classes with her, studied for an exam with her once. She’d been eternally sunshiney, the kind of girl he knew wouldn’t waste her time on dark things like him.

But then she’d started missing classes.

And then showing up to class visibly drowning beneath the weight of sleeplessness and oversized clothes.

And he didn’t really know her but it had bothered him all the same. It was like watching a star collapsing in on itself.

And that’s when the story of The Incident hit the news cycle. From the moment he read the first headline, Kaz couldn’t stop scrolling, growing sicker and sicker in the pit of his stomach.

She’d gone to a party at a frat house with a new friend. (Kaz had even been there before, maybe even the night it happened. Frat parties were veritable breeding grounds for potential clients – full of rich, connected kids too drunk or stoned to be bothered by classwork and crooked enough to pay someone else to do it.) It was suspected that someone had slipped something in her drink, and it was known that the friend who’d brought her there had been entirely useless. Inej had woken up the next morning, half-naked on the lawn, crude drawings in Sharpie all over her, and no knowledge of what had transpired that had left her there.

It should have ended there – that was bad enough. But then the frat boys had started posting the videos of what had happened that night. How she had been used. How she had been touched.

If Inej’s parents were going to have their way, someone was going to jail. If Kaz was going to have his way, someone was going to suffer all the way there.

After he’d learned the news, he’d found her the next day before class started, where she was at the back of the room, hunched over her desk with her hood up. She’d shot daggers at him with her eyes when he approached. He’d liked that.

“I’d like to help you ruin them,” he’d told her. Inej’s glare didn’t relent as she sized up him – his black attire, the leather gloves that clenched his gleaming cane. He usually made a point of looking like the sort of person who ruined things. Nobody bullied a boy with a cane if it looked like that same boy could take your head off with said cane.

Inej seemed to agree that he looked like he could fit the bill. And they began to plot – how to expose her abusers, how to alert every girl they ever came into contact with, how to ruin every single party they would ever throw.

And somewhere along the way, it had turned into…something. Kaz wasn’t sure what to call it. But he couldn’t call it nothing – not when Inej regularly stayed the night in their apartment and did soft things like run her hand over his chest if she liked the jacket he was wearing or blush and smile if she caught him looking at her. He’d even really gone out on a limb one night and told her he liked her, and she’d said it back. He wasn’t sure where that left them at this point. Somewhere, he guessed, with something.

“I’ll eat,” Inej was agreeing, albeit with a bit of reluctance to leave her laptop. She was elbows-deep in a catfishing scheme Kaz had concocted for their latest victim.

“Nina wants us to meet up with her and Matthias at The Sweet Shop,” Wylan said, who was catching up on the texts he’d missed while napping on Jesper.

“I swear, Nina could lure a polar bear into the jungle,” Jesper sighed next to him, because it was a little miraculous to think Matthias Helvar, fitspo Instagram model and purveyor of all things organic and natural, had somehow been corralled into a bakery cafe. Kaz was surprised that Matthias even looked at carbs, let alone consumed them.

And, even though he was pressed for time on the illicit essay he was writing, Kaz needed food, too. He and Inej both could use the time away from their questionable dealings online.

The Sweet Shop was within walking distance, but it had begun to rain, cold and foggy, over Ketterdam. So, the four of them piled into Kaz’s beat up black Chevy and rolled into town behind the rhythmic beating of the windshield wipers.

“Over here!” Nina waved to them, beaded bracelets rattling in a stack on her wrist, from the far corner as the bakery’s front door swung closed behind them, tripping a jingling brass bell pinned to the doorframe.

The Sweet Shop was a popular spot for the more bookish crowds to crash on the weekends, load up on starchy foods and coffee while rattling out papers on their laptops or flirting under the guise of study groups. Kaz wouldn’t go so far as to call them his type of people, but he was certainly more at home here than the drunken soirees where he spent his evenings fleecing the debauched children of alumni. Here, there were people crowded over old tables with their books, and well-worn leather sofas and faded overstuffed chairs in the corner lined with secondhand books and used board games that were almost always missing pieces. The air smelled like espresso and cupcakes and old pages, and if Matthias Helvar was going to sulk about the lack of kale on the menu, Kaz might have to punch him in the face.

Matthias was already nursing a colorful smoothie while Nina sat next to him on the old leather sofa, her long, shapely legs draped over his and a stack of sugared waffles on the coffee table in front of her.

“Took you long enough!” Nina was scolding as the four of them weaved through tables to the corner of sofas and chairs. “Do none of you check your phones on weekends?”

“A technology fast is very cleansing for our auras,” Matthias countered, with a sage look – Matthias, the self-proclaimed Instagram influencer. Kaz rolled his eyes.

“That almost sounded like real words, Matthias – good job,” Jesper smirked, as he perched on the arm of the chair where Wylan had flopped down. Matthias opened his mouth to retort something, but --

“I was just distracted, sorry,” Inej intervened with an apology to Nina and a sheepish look. (She thankfully was no longer wearing her blue-blockers or it might have been too sweet even for a place called The Sweet Shop.)

“And I was just ignoring you,” Kaz said with a shrug. Inej gave him an exasperated whack in the arm as he sat next to her on an old loveseat, resting his cane against one side, and Nina let out a put-out huff.

“Wylan’s the only considerate one among you,” she complained.

“Yes, that is true,” Jesper agreed, and Wylan grinned widely with his chin propped up on his fist.

“We wanted you here because,” And Nina drew out the because like she had something grand to follow it, “Matthias landed a sweet sponsorship yesterday, and he wants to buy us all lunch!”

Kaz and Jesper groaned in unison, loud enough it couldn’t quite be drowned out by Inej and Wylan’s congratulations. Matthias got particularly insufferable after new sponsorships – there would be strings attached to this.

“That’s very nice of you, Matthias,” Inej said, pointedly, glaring at Kaz.

“It is very nice of you, Matthias, to offer to buy us all strawberry ice cream smoothies like yours,” Kaz said, with an evil glint in his eye as he nodded to the large pink cup in Matthias’ hand.

Matthias gave an uneasy laugh.

“There’s no ice cream in this,” he said, then paused when he noticed Nina’s tight-lipped, icy stare boring into Kaz’s skull. Then his brow cinched up and looked down at his cup. “There isn’t ice cream in this, right, babe?”

“It’s not going to kill you,” Nina replied with an eye roll.

“Babe! You know I can’t do dairy right now! Tomorrow’s Six-Pack Sunday!”

There was no point in trying to stop it: a laugh in the form of a long snort rolled out of Kaz while Jesper and Wylan dissolved into a fit of giggles. Now Kaz remembered -- this is why they kept Matthias around.

“You don’t understand,” Matthias was trying to say. “It can take a whole week to detox and lose the bloat.”

“I’ll finish it for you, you big baby,” said Nina, and snatched the smoothie away from a panicked Matthias.

“I should start running laps now,” he was fretting.

“Make some food runs for us – that’s a start,” Jesper supplied, looking helpful.

“Good call,” Matthias nodded, and hopped to his feet, nearly dumping Nina onto the floor in the process. “Orders? Orders?” He looked to each of them, ready to leap into action and start fighting off the bloat.

He’d gathered up their orders and made a beeline for the counter when Nina turned to Inej.

“You had me worried, you know.” Nina leaned out a little over her knees toward her roommate. “You were just distracted?”

Kaz glanced in Inej’s direction in time to see how she swallowed hard. She’d stuffed her hands deep in her hoodie pockets. Kaz knew the reaction all too well -- what it was like to withdraw and fight to make yourself untouchable, even to those who loved you.

“Just a lot of work lately,” Inej said. And Nina slid a suspicious glance toward Kaz, as if waiting for him to explain himself and what he was getting the two of them into now.

But it had always been Inej’s decision, how she wanted to handle her own revenge. Kaz was only providing tools. He hadn’t answered for her yet, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Nina sighed.

“I just don’t want to see anyone hurt anymore,” she said. The brass bell over the front door jingled again.

“That’s not--”

But Inej stopped short when she glanced toward the sound of the bell. She barely moved, but Kaz could sense her growing rigid next to him. And something about it made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

He followed her gaze to two boys who were now slouching toward the front counter. Kaz had seen them both before; he was pretty sure he’d written a biology research paper for the one with the pug-nose. They were both tall and conventionally good-looking – the sort you probably didn’t think twice about. Well-muscled, expensive haircuts, brand name sneakers.

Beside him, Inej had started breathing weird.

“Fuck.” Nina had noticed her staring, too, and suddenly all pairs of eyes in the corner were watching the newcomers at the front of The Sweet Shop with murder in their hearts.

Because these two bastards had been there the night of The Incident.

Kaz found himself wondering which one he could make cry first. Probably the bulkier one -- he looked soft and dumb around the edges. His mom probably still did his laundry on the weekends and called his professors when he didn’t get good grades. Kaz wanted to see him cry until snot dribbled down his sweaty face and –

“We should go,” Inej said, abruptly. She was looking pale and shaky, and her eyes darted around as if she needed to gather belongings, even though she’d brought none. Kaz had started to grip the head of his cane, tighter, tighter, tighter.

“Fuck no.” Nina was adamant and fiery, bless her. “We got here first – they can leave.” And then a little louder. “They should be in jail, frankly!”

“Nina!” Inej hissed, and her hand flew to curl against the side of her face when the boys looked their direction. Her eyes were wide and terrified when she looked over to Kaz.

“I want to go,” she told him, and that was all she needed to say. He pushed his weight onto his cane, hoisting himself to his feet.

“Don’t worry, girl – we got you,” Jesper was confirming, and, without even needing to consult each other, he and Wylan and Nina had Inej surrounded from sight on their walk to the door, Kaz at the front.

And it almost worked, too.

“Brekker!” Until one of the boys recognized him and gave him with a jovial grin. Shit. “Hey, it’s Brekker!” The stupid kid with the pug nose gave Kaz a hearty slap on his shoulder, and it took every ounce of restraint in him to not break the dude’s wrist.

“This kid got me an B+ on my bio term paper,” the kid was telling his bulky friend, and then with a shady-ass side smirk, he added: “Wasn’t totally the A I’d paid for, but that was still awesome, bro.”

“With your GPA, an A would have been too suspicious.” Why was Kaz even defending himself to this turd? He made to shove past, to head for the door.

But that kid was still gripping his shoulder. Like he wanted Kaz to remove it from its socket. Like maybe he was just asking for it. Kaz ground his teeth, trying to maintain his resolve. He wasn’t going to do this in front of Inej. He was going to be better than this for her.

“Bro,” the human pile of excrement still touching him was saying, “I’ve been meaning to text you. I have this world religions class this semester that is just killer, and I--”

“Your next words had better be how you’re doing your own damn work from now on.”

A simple “No” would have sufficed, Kaz realized, but his girl was in some kind of state because of this waste of carbon and his patience had never been plentiful to begin with.

Besides, the kid didn’t strike him as the type who understood simple “No”s. He was going to have to make it really fucking clear for this idiot.

Sure enough, the kid blinked hard, like he’d been slapped.

“I paid you, bro,” he said, dumbly.

“Oh, he did not just--” Nina started from the back of their bunch.

“Call me ‘bro’ one more time,” Kaz dared him, his eyes narrowing.

“What the hell, man?” said the thoroughly confused bulky friend.

“Kaz, just leave it,” Inej said, softly, and she slipped her fingers into the crook of Kaz’s elbow. “Let’s just go.”

A wave of recognition spread over the pug-nosed douchebag’s face at the sight of her. It was sickening, the surprised rise of his eyebrows, the smug, amused smirk on his lips. Kaz wanted to rip them right off his face.

“Oh, I see how it is,” the dick was saying. “You’re with this bitch--”

That’s when Kaz felt something snap. Oh, he was dead now.

“Kaz!” Inej shouted a warning, but it was already too late. With the cane between his two gloved hands, Kaz rammed his weight into this dead man walking. He threw the kid against the front door, the brass bell jingling as the shades on the window rattled in the scuffle.

“That’s my girlfriend, dipshit,” Kaz snarled.

Kaz was vaguely aware that there was a rising commotion around him, a crescendo of clashing panic and rage. His hand had found its way to the dude’s collar, throttling him; Nina was shouting something at Matthias somewhere behind him; chairs were scuffling about against the floor. But Kaz’s sole focus now was on making this heinous little fucker wet his pants.

“Kaz. The door.” Jesper’s clear-headed voice cut through the blinding wrath, and Kaz was somehow thinking clearly enough to gather his meaning and wrenched the kid away from the front door just long enough for Jesper to shove an arm through and open it.

And Kaz threw the pug-nose brat out into the rain ahead of them. The kid hit the pavement, hard, and scrambled back.

“Dude, you’ve got it all wrong if you think she’s the victim here,” the useless piece of flesh was sniveling. His nose was bleeding – pathetic, Kaz had barely hit him.

“I really think I don’t,” Kaz disagreed, thoughtfully.

“We could have you arrested!” the bulky child was screeching. Kaz turned just in time to see Matthias literally chuck the kid out after them, red-face and snarling. And Kaz had to hand it to him – even with his dairy intolerance, Matthias Helvar could toss frat kids with the best of them.

“Oh, please file a police report about this,” Kaz sneered at them. The wind and the rain were beating back his dark hair and flapping the collar of his black jacket, but he didn’t care. “I would absolutely love to know how you plan on explaining why you called my girlfriend a bitch.”

“Man, it is not my fault your girl can’t handle her liquor.”

CRACK. Kaz barely had time to blink, and Matthias had straight up decked the kid right in his jaw. Nina was rolling up her sleeves, ready to destroy the other one in the pelting rain.

“Hey!” The teenager in a green apron who’d been running the cash register was running out after them, holding a phone over her head. “I’m gonna call the cops if you don’t clear out!”

And when Kaz looked back at Inej, there were tears welling in her eyes even though her jaw was set firm. From the looks on the faces of the rest of his friends, they’d all noticed, too.

So, it fizzled out before it even really began.

The frat boys had slunk off in the rain, and the six of them regrouped and sauntered back to Kaz’s car in silence. Jesper, Nina, and Matthias piled into the back seat, while Inej and Wylan squeezed into the front. And then an uncomfortable stillness descended.

Inej had pulled her hood up again when Kaz turned the key in the ignition, her arms tight in her sleeves. Every once and awhile, she’d sniffle as quietly as she could as the car ride seemed to drag on – but Kaz knew. Everyone knew. That had been awful. And it still felt awful. Kaz’s head was starting to swirl, his wracked nerves still buzzing. He shouldn’t have done it. He hadn’t wanted to do it, not really. And she’d told him she wanted to leave – she’d said it clear as day. And he’d said…oh God, what had he said? What had he done?

Kaz’s stomach was starting to lurch. He’d said a lot of things. Way too many fucking things. Things they hadn’t discussed yet. Things he’d clearly just assumed. What had he done?

“We really should cleanse this negative energy.” Goddamn Matthias was the first one to break the pervasive silence, and he was choosing to break it with this nonsense. Kaz’s glare drifted to the rear view mirror. “I have some sound healing bowls back at my place that are--”

“I swear to God, Helvar,” Kaz snapped, “if you break out even one sound healing bowl, I will make you wear it like a helmet and then drop kick you into the sun.”

In the rear view mirror, Kaz could see Matthias’ nostrils flaring.

“You are such an unbalanced piece of shit sometimes, you know that--?” But Matthias stopped short because Inej had let out a surprising chuckle. Kaz slowly let himself glance her direction – so did everyone else.

She was smirking up at Kaz.

“I just think it’s thoughtful of you to make sure his head is protected before you launch him into space,” she shrugged. Wylan barked out a laugh.

“I just think they should kiss already,” Nina added, waggling an eyebrow at a brooding Matthias, and then Jesper started to laugh, too, which really was the most infectious of laughs. Even Kaz was smiling after a moment – just a little.

Though that faded entirely when they pulled up to Kaz and Jesper’s apartment and Inej asked to speak with him alone in the car first.

Shit, he thought. Shit. Here it is. He’d royally fucked it up now.

They waited in silence with the rain pouring over the car while the rest of their friends darted into the old Victorian home where Kaz and Jesper lived on the third floor. With each passing second, his stomach sunk lower into his guts. He wasn’t even sure he could form words in his brain, let alone with his mouth. He had no rational explanation for what had come over him back at The Sweet Shop, other than Here it is, Inej, I’m kind of a fucking disaster.

“So, that was…” Inej started, slowly. She was staring out the front window. Kaz felt like crumpling, and he hated it, hated how weak he felt. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I know, I know…” he muttered. He didn’t really, but he just wanted this to be over. If she never wanted to see him again, he needed her to rip the bandaid off quick.

“So, I’m your girlfriend now?”

Kaz couldn’t decipher her tone, and he couldn’t even look at her. He was just going to stare at the steering wheel until this was over.

But then Inej said: “I just would like to have known before the guys my parents are having investigated, that’s all.”

Kaz looked to her then, lifting his dark eyebrows slightly. She’d let her hair down from its knot before they’d left for the café – she’d braided it loose over her shoulder like he liked. She was twirling the ends now, a tired smile on her pink lips.

“If you want,” he said with a soft shrug. It wasn’t at all like the heroic way he thought she deserved to be swept off her feet. But she was still smiling all the same. It made him feel braver.

Funny – how throwing his weight around against perverts was as easy as breathing, but looking at her like this tore him apart.

“If you’ll have me,” he offered, even softer now.

And Inej reached across the distance between them. Laced her fingers over his, atop his knee.

“I will have you, Kaz Brekker,” she said, tenderly. It took him aback a bit. Made his breath catch. Made his throat sting.

“If I shouldn’t have--” he started to say of the row back at The Sweet Shop. But Inej cut him off instantly, shaking her head. Squeezing his fingers.

“You absolutely should have,” she said, firmly. “And you should show me how, too.”

Kaz really raised his eyebrows at that. Inej smiled a little wider. His heart was lifting, lifting up and out of the certain doom he was sure it was about to face.

“Come on.” Inej tugged at his hand. “We’d better head up before Matthias starts culture appropriating all over your apartment.”

“You have to admit – he threw one hell of a punch, though,” Kaz pointed out, as he opened his door, and then wanted to punch himself for it. What the hell – was he defending Matthias Helvar now? This whole day was upside down.

Thankfully, there was a different kind of embarrassing going down in apartment number three when they finally made their way up. Kaz could hear it before he even made it to the top of the stairs – the loud, thumping bass, the voices shouting at the tops of their lungs.

Oh, their neighbors were going to love this. They were just making all kinds of new friends today.

When Inej opened the door, all four of their friends were dancing to Cardi B’s I Like It, blasting through Jesper’s bluetooth speaker. It took everything in Kaz to not physically recoil at the assault on his senses.

“Emergency dance party!” Jesper explained, yelling from behind Wylan.

“We’re clearing out the negative energy!” Nina shouted over the noise, her hands in the air. Matthias was jumping around behind her like an absolute madman. “But like in an acceptable way!”

“I think it’s working!” Wylan shouted at her in agreement, with Jesper’s hands on his hips.

They were all smiling.

And beside him, Inej burst out laughing – a wild, fluttery sound he’d heard only a few times before. It caught him right in the heart each time he had, and he knew he’d do anything to hear it as often as he could. He looked down at her and wondered, not for the first time, how she did it. How she managed to wring joy out of even the most dismal of circumstances.

It was something he needed more of – as long as she’d allow him to have it.

“Come on!” she was shouting to him as she took him by the hand. “You heard the man! Emergency dance party!”

And Kaz followed her in, shutting the door behind him.

---------------------------

Tagging: @annejulianneh111, @loveyatopluto, @ireallyshouldsleeprn, @whosanxiety, @raging-bisexual-alert,

#kanej #kanej fanfic #kanej fluff #six of crows #modern au #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #matthias helvar #nina zenik #college au #reader requested

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deputy-videogamer · 5 years ago

Text

Demon in Disguised | Part 1 |

Paring: Geralt x Reader

Warning: Minor Blood

Notes: Don't worry there will be a part two and it will have smut in it. But for now enjoy the small cliffhanger.

Part 2

Ahh humans~

So frail, so paranoid, so deliriously fearful. Especially if the humans are just vulnerable to things they can't explain, take your for example. You have an appearance of a human, but in reality you are nothing more than a demon. More specifically one of the Seven Demons of Hell, your brothers and sisters just love taking pleasure of bringing their sins into the lives of humans.

A man having an affair with his wife? You can blame Asmodeus for that. A person who kills another person out of jealousy? Blame Beelzebub for that. A bloodly fight that was out of anger or revenge? Blame yourself for that. You once enjoy these misfortunes that you laid upon the humans, but now it has been.....well boring for you.

You wanted something more than just making people suffer. You wanted to have an adventure, the thrill, the excitement of your adrenaline pumping in your veins. Sitting on your throne watching people suffer is not what you no longer call fun but instead an endless suffering. No pun intended. That's when it had hit you, why stay here watching people suffer, when you can have fun up there up there. The place where plenty of people live instead of just waiting for the next victim to die and judge what have sins they have done to bring down here.

Which brings you here. Drinking at a pub in a village where the men slammed their drinks on the tables as waitresses went by table to table. For the past couple of years you have made quite the living of being a traveler who tells a person's 'future' for a couple of coins to buy some items. Not like it matter to you materialistic things never interested you in the first place.

All of sudden the pub had gotten quite, you broke your gaze from the book you were reading from to see what had stop the ruckus. At the doorway of the pub was a man with long white hair that was tied into a ponytail with intriguing golden cat like eyes.

"What's a freak doing here."

If you recall correctly this 'freak' was called a 'Witcher' from the books you have read. People with supernatural abilities that was similar to the Mages here, but of course with a few differences. Apparently these Witchers slay monsters for money and they aren't really welcome to most people because of their actions. Such hubris these humans possess judging one's abilities and actions instead of taking the time for knowing them.

You eyed the man as he walked to a table that had a man drinking away his problems because of an incident. From what you heard lost some supplies and men to something in the woods nearby. Not that you care about someone's misfortune, you went back reading your book when something caught your interest in the man's and Witcher's conversation.

"The monster you are describing sounds like a demon, but not any demon that I may know of."

A smirk slowly appeared on your face when you heard this. If a Witcher who is suppose to identify all types of monster can't even identify this demon then it must be from Hell. Perhaps this day won't be just you sitting around reading afterall.

Closing your book, you went up their table with your cane. The cane is just part of your disguise to make you look cripple and helpless. There are occasional times where some robbers and bandits tried to steal from you but that only led you to use some 'magic' on them.

"May I ask you what did this Demon looked like?" Both men looked at you when you appeared. You took a quick glance at the Witcher's medallion hoping it wont react to you. You leaned on your cane as the client explained what he saw.

"It's skin completely green and there something on it's head like some kind of octopus. On it's back was spider like legs and it appeared to have some green light around it." You automatically knew what it was.

"Ah! The demon you are describing to me is a Timor Daemonium or a Fear Demon. It's a good thing you ran for your life, crafty bastards can summon lesser demons to help them fight."

"You seems like you know this demon." You turned your head towards the Witcher and gave him a small smile.

"Yes, I happen to came across these demons a few times." That was a lie. These types Demons where created from Lucifer; where there is fear there is pride.

It seems like siblings want to return to Hell if they are sending their creations to find you.

"Mr. Witcher, may I tag along on your hunt. You can keep the reward I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested is the demon." The Witcher looked at you suspiciously, but soon agreed.

With the agreement settled, the two of you were out your way to find the Fear Demon. You were perhaps a good distance from the village for you to drop the act. You swung your cane onto your shoulders and started to walk naturally. This caught the Witcher's attention.

"The cripple act is something you always do?"

You looked up to the white hair male and gave him a sly smile. "Something like that. In this age men or women wouldn't want to have sex with someone who is cant walk properly know can they?"

"Not if you have your chest out like that." He mumble but you heard it just fine afterall advance hearing is part of the Demon charm.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

The road to the location was silent for quite away, but you decide to break the ice once more.

"The name's (Y/N) and you are Mr. Witcher?"

"Geralt of rivia. Rather be called by my name than Mr. Witcher. You seem to know your demonology quite well."

"It's my pride and joy the only thing I can actually do than just reading one's 'future'." You air quote the word 'future's.

Geralt raised an eyebrow when you said this. He was about to ask you what you just meant when you stopped him with your cane. You raised a finger to your lips to silence him as he listen to whatever you were trying find.

It was then he realized why you stopped them, a green like fog floated in a small part of the forest that most likely was hiding the Demon.

Using your cane to grabbed his necklace you brought Geralt closer to whisper in his ear.

"They are vulnerable to lightening. Can you cast anything like that?"

"I can cast Aard will that work?" You gently removed your cane from his necklace and took a step forward.

"That will have to do. I'll distract for a bit once you have a clear shot cast your spell and I'll do the rest." You raised your cane in front of you then announcing a name.

"Talon, I might need some help." A black smoke started to come out of your cane then a panther came out of the fog. Turning back to Geralt you told him hide while you faced the Demon.

Unaware to you is that when you summon your 'familiar' Geralt's medallion started to vibrate. If he question you now then they will lose the Demon, but if he question you later then you might not even answer his question at all. But with no other option he did what you ordered.

Talon had pounced on the Fear Demon giving you time to remove your blade out it's sheathed and started to attack it. If you remember correctly from what Lucifer said they are vulnerable to any type of lightning attacks, even though Aard is not a lightning base attack it should do the trick.

You caught off one of it's spider like appendages that were trying to attack you. It's blood seeped out of it limb, but one it's limb managed to hit your side. You grunted as the rising pain to your side, but manage to pull through.

You dodged an incoming slice from the Demon before it ripped off Talon off it's back. You scanned the area to see where did Geralt hid, your search ended quickly when Geralt had appeared behind the Demon then attacking with Aard. With a stroke of your arm a black smoke appeared around you changing your (h/c) hair to a silver color with the tattoos that was scatter on your arm suddenly glowed.

"Alliges Duplicia (Bind)." The tattoos on your arms were removed and sent flying towards the demon, binding him.

You were amused as it tried to struggled it's way out of the bonds.

"Cur auxilium eius? (Why are you helping him?)." The Demon sneered at you. Luckily Geralt can't understand what it's trying to say, but that doesn't mean he already knows something's up with you.

"Cause why not?"

"Plurimum autem periculosissima et daemonem. Et auxiliatus sum tibi haec ... homine isto? (You are the most powerful and most dangerous demon. And yet you help this...this human!)."

"First of all, this human is name Geralt. Second of all you mean former. I step down remember?"

"Inferos non inveni novum irae. Tu tantum potior esse irae. (Hell has not found a new Wrath. You are only one best suited to be Wrath.)"

"Well, you better find a replacement soon or..." You took a quick glance at Geralt who gave you a raised eyebrow. Seems like he is slowly starting to put the pieces in it's place. "Or else Hell will release it's demons and the Dammned soon."

"Talon, return him to Lucifer." You called out to your familiar . The panther compiled with it's order grabbing the Demon by it's hair it disappeared into a cloud of black smoke.

You sighed. It seems like your siblings won't be stopping their attacks anytime soon as long as you stay here on Tameria.

"You have a lot of explaining to do." Oh yeah that's right. Geralt can't understand what the Demon just said.

"Depends how much they are paying you." You swiped your hair back as the once silver color return back to it's natural hair color.

"25 crowns."

"Shit. Fine 10 questions you can ask me, but first camp." Geralt notice how it was already dark so he'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

Once the fire was going, the two of you sit on opposite directions for safety reasons. Which was fine by you, you still needed to to patch up the nasty wound on your side. When you finished you rummaged through your satchel to pull out the same book you were reading earlier.

"First question go." You said. Geralt would've thought you were getting impatient, but considering how you were kicking back and reading a book said otherwise.

What a strange person you were. If you are consider you a person.

"Don't know what that demon was saying, but base on how it called you a daemonem or a demon just like how you translated back at the tavern. You are just like it aren't? A demon?"

You finger stopped at the tip of your page that you were about to turn. The gesture meant that Geralt was right you aren't human.

"You aren't wrong." You turn the page and set your book down to the side to get up and slowly walked towards. "But it's my turn Witcher do you want to know really want to know what my Demon name is?"

When you went to his side if the fire you were already up to his face. With a a smirk on your face waiting for his answer.

"Ire. What does it mean?"

"I'll give you a hint. When a person sees you; a Witcher. What is there reaction?" Geralt was slowly starting to see what you might be, but had to be sure to confirm it.

"They look at me with disgust, hatred, and..." For some reason couldn't finish the last part of his sentence as he gazed into your eyes. He wonders if you were actually a succubus or incubus or even a demon who can hypnotize people.

"Go on." You encourage him to finish it. "Unless you want me to say it for you, Geralt of Rivia."

God. Just hearing his name from your tongue makes him want to take you here an now.

"They look at me with..."

"Anger." The two of you finished at the same time.

"Oh fuck it." Geralt pulled your head closer to his giving you a heated lip session. If he was going to die at least he was going to die from a sexy sin demon.

Taglist

@jessevans @mystrie @midnattsorg

#geralt imagine #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt of rivia #geralt #geralt x reader #fanfiction #witcher #the witcher #witcher x reader #the witcher x y/n #the witcher imagine #witcher imagine #witcher x y/n #geralt x y/n #geralt of rivia imagine #geralt of rivia x y/n #the witcher x reader

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years ago

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Kira Vol 2 (3)

The Mistress

CHAPTER 3: Is This Jealousy

Loki x fem!Reader (Kira)

Series: A new chapter begins in Kira’s life. Old secrets, new confessions, surprising allies and unexpected meetings. All of them have one name in common. Loki.

Chapter content: soft feels

Warnings: a teeny weenie bit of jealousy

Word count: my cousin is awesome. She is such a pure soul and I am so protective of her that I will beat the hell out of anyone who tries to hurt my little- but tall- baby.

MASTERLIST & Taglist in bio, my love

The bubble of slumber has barely found Loki when a ripple of scream shreds every ounce of peace this house knows. The silence of the autumn suddenly sounds like a Hallow's Eve blood bath when Loki's body dashes towards the source of the voice. He does not even think for a second, his body already charging itself towards the stone-y path, his son outrunning him on his fours to come to a skidding halt at the foot of her bed. "Kira," he calls out with a contrasting tone compared to the rigorous beating of his heart.

But she does not hear. Her eyes are wide open, looking at the window in her room while her cries wear her lungs out. All she screeches are the words 'no' and 'stop' repeatedly while looking at the empty space. What disturbs Loki, even more, is that she is numb to the blood oozing out from where the needles were once sticking into her are ripping her skin apart. The duvet that covers her is being used as a shield against whatever she is afraid of while the blood smears the fabric with a new hue wherever it comes in touch with it. There is fear in his eyes for what he plans to do, but the fear of watching her writhing in pain like this far outranks it. And so he takes the first lunge by sitting down next to her and slowly taking her trembling hand into his. She yelps and jolts away from his cold touch. "It's me. Kira, look," he calls out to her while switching on the bed lamp close to him, "It's Loki." Her shivering figure cowering away from him takes its time to hear his voice while he patiently waits by the edge. He knows he has to let her come to him. Or he might lose her again. And it would already be one too many times. "Loki?" She has no idea what her frail voice does to that man's being. He can feel an electric current drive from his head to toe and all he can do is sit there nodding his head. "Yes, I'm here." That man has barely finished his sentence to breathe when he feels heated arms being thrown around his torso while her head wants to hide in his chest. "There's someone out there. There's someone out there, Loki." Silence. What is he supposed to feel right now? The otherwordly elation on the touch of her arms, whose heat seeps through the soft cotton and is absorbed by his thirst-ridden skin? Or should he feel sad for the suffering that does not seem to leave her even when she heals? In the swift moment, his rational brain scolds itself for having not having any intelligible actions ready like it usually does; for being useful during the one time it should be working at one hundred per cent capacity. "Please," a whimper comes from his chest, "make it stop." Like a flip of a switch in a cornered animal, Loki's pupils go wide while his arms come around her back with a life of their own. The cold palms hold the sweaty shirt on either side, making a barrier around her. "Come here," he whispers, pulling her closer to him, letting her rest her head in the dip of his shoulder while his body seeks all the unnecessary heat from her untethered figure. "Nothing can hurt you, I promise. Okay? No one can hurt you. I'm here." The wails dilute to sobs under the rhythmic soft pats of Loki's palm on her head in between soothing strokes through her hair. "I'm here." The sobs reduce to loud inhales and exhales, trying to find the resting point of her lungs. The patting continues into the dead of the night when unexpected rain showers wash away whatever bad lurks in the beautiful dark night outside, making her eyelids heavy and her body heavier on Loki's chest. Finding the strength inside him, Loki takes her head in his palm and carefully drags her down the bed to let her head rest on the pillow. The tightened nerves inside him relax when they hear her light snores, convincing him she is finally asleep. It is not easy to drag himself away from that angelic face resting so tranquilly but he puts his foot down on the floor- ready to let her rest- only to find a strong tug on his shirt by her fisted hand, pulling that loosely woven pure threadwork closer towards herself with wrinkles in between her brows. "Kira." That man is now suddenly a little boy standing outside the study of his father, from where a mellow golden light flows out into a river at the end of which he stands with a unicorn in his tiny hands, his green eyes twinkling with the dance of both shadows and light as he tries to look inside through whatever space the barely open door allows him. Little Loki witnesses his father carry his brother in his arms, telling him stories of kings and princes that conquered lands and brought peace by defeating all evil; narrating his love for the golden boy and boasting to the air in that room how he will be the next man to take care of the empire that his father built for him. Outside, the raven-haired boy stands patiently before turning away to walk through the endless corridors to his room where the nanny is already waiting for him anxiously. "Loki! Where were you? Now is not the time to sneak out." The little one does not bother explaining for he goes straight to bed under his covers, his eyes towards the ceiling to look at the stars put up on there by the servants for his musings. "Mother says stars walk alone," Loki stated out of nowhere for the nanny to hear as she tucks him into the bed, "because they burn bright for everyone. She also says I am a star. A really bright one." "Of course you are," the woman smiles at him while wondering where this talk was coming from. "I don't think she knows that I know stars can burn whatever comes near to them. It is not even practical to be a star without dying a cold death." Margeret has to gasp. "Relax Margeret. It is the work of gases. You would not understand." And saying that, he turns to face the other way. "I don't want to be a star," he mumbles, wishing upon those bogus stars a wish that crumbles with every passing breath in his life till there remains no evidence of these ashes that were ultimately tagged as hollow hopes. Hopes that seem to be reborn without so much as a warning when Loki finds himself lying down next to her and she- without even a conscious effort- pulls herself upon his arm, burying her head in his chest, facing away from the world. A jolt of shiver runs through her body, immediately bringing Loki's arm over her shoulder, overworking his already imbalanced heart. But the calm finds him in her presence just as it finds her in his arms. The night outside, fresh out from nature's bath feels the need to notice its presence not acknowledged by the two souls that used to let their demons roam in her robe. Now, those very souls rest them in each other's arms, devoid of the exhaustion that once haunted them in their loneliness.

"Okay, I'm already putting this out there so no judgments are made later on...I just learned how to drive. You don't get to say how bad I am. If you are scared to sit next to me hold on to your seat. If the car stops in the middle of the road do not rush me, I know I am bad with shifting gears and the accelerator right now. Oh, and at no time will you offer to drive instead. Okay?" Loki's eyes take in your body on alert in the driver's seat of your dad's borrowed Suzuki. You adjust the rearview mirror and look at the controls, mumbling some things to yourself before double-checking the seat belt and starting the engine. He cannot help but stare at your elation with heart eyes when the car starts without any trouble. What churns up the lights inside him is that crazy giggling smile stuck on your face. "I'm driving a car," you squeak at a really low volume while your neck disappears and your shoulders go up in tender excitement. By the Norns, who made her this cute, he truly has to wonder without realising a goofy smile has invited itself on his lips and has been sitting there even for Heimdall to see outside the gate when you exit. "That good a breakfast, huh?" He teases his boss, who is quick to hide any evidence of joy on his face. Sadly the master strategist and deceiver can't hide it from his eyes. "Did you get all the work done," Loki does not even move his brow when talking to the Watcher. "I had a nice breakfast too, thanks for asking," he is quick to acknowledge that cold stare, "and yes it's done. So, where are you guys headed?" You scoff, raising your hands from the steering wheel. "At least act surprised to see me driving even if you know it already." Heimdall chuckles. "I'm taking Loki to show around my town. Wanna c-" "Oh good, Lord!" Loki blurts out of nowhere, making you jump where you sit, "turn the car, Kira! There's a cat about to walk under it!" "What?" "Turn it out of the driveway!" "But-" "Let's go! Before it tries to climb the wheel!" You are hastily shifting the gear to drive. "They do that?" "Now! Now!"

This is his first time. And he still cannot believe it is happening. Well, shame on me for thinking only Odin had the finest colonial lands. Trees line up both sides of the roads that are cleaner than the supposedly progressive concrete jungle that you two left behind for a while. The patience all the drivers have on the road with their cars in a smooth drive is really impressing the man, besides putting him at ease considering his heart has taken the wheel. There are people out and about on the sidewalks. And there are people exploiting the cycling tracks to get their blood pumping in this cold weather. Kindergarten kids, school kids, college kids- there are clusters of them coming and going; some sad to leave their parents, while others are running and skipping towards theirs. This city is coloured in every hue imaginable even in the coldest of days. And unlike the iron world, he sits atop, this one seems like it takes out time to look around. The car is parked in a spot right outside a local city museum and unlike you, someone notices the line of expensive rides next to yours while their owners are huddled together over one with beer cans and cigarettes. Every one of the five men standing on the other corner wear brands that equal your one month's salary. "Let's start with this place," you bring Loki out of the calculating trance he is in since the second he laid eyes on the men that has been staring this way, "so we can get out and enjoy something much better if you get bored of this place." Loki smiles at you and makes it a point to walk towards your side to place his hand on your back, mellifluously ask, "shall we?" and walk away with you with the energy that marks the five feet around you as a zone not to be stepped in.

Well, it is hard to get bored of your face no matter how long he looks at it because he is certain he has memorised every little scar on it till he watches you fascinated by the medieval art displays. Your eyes have the deepest ocean of y/e/c ever seen that goes shallow for that black endless void that widens on seeing something that curates to its curiosity. Your lips. Damn those lips that have been blessed by the Gods themselves. They turn and pout in question, are tormented by the teeth when something does not sit right and are touch in a peculiar fashion by your fingers that Loki forgets he has to breathe at one point. He envies the fallen eyelash that sits on your cheek; envies that it gets to touch you and be prayed upon for a wish or desire while he stands to praise nature's work from a distance. But he does not let that bother him for he cannot recall any other time when he has been this content with his life.

"Point at anything in here and you will love it." "Really?" "Mm-hmm. They are really good at everything they make." "Oh...that's-wait. Is this the place that serves that pasta you keep comparing to everyone else's?" Your face is already breaking into the smile and Loki's heart cannot help but whisper 'stop' while running a marathon. "Yup." "Okay, so I'll have a-" "Kira?" Loki turns around before you to see who recognizes you and if it is a threat. "Henry?" The marathon comes to a pause for there is a little prick that is felt right in the chest. You recognise this man with a decent scruff, wide eyes and a bubbly smile. He has already been read head to toe by Loki. He does not seem like a threat. "Hey!" greets Henry before swooping you in his arms and giving one tight hug which leads to your alleged date to grind his teeth. How dare he. "How are you?" "I'm good. What about you?" You don't have to ask him that. He looks fine for someone who just got up from his sleep and drove here. "Fantastic now that we meet." Right. As if you were miserable before. "Where are you these days?! I've met CJ and Kat but never you." "She's with me," Loki declares. And that is when you notice the shift in the energy around you. "Henry, this is my boss, Loki. Loki, this is my school friend, Henry." You watch as Henry brings his hand forward for Loki. "Nice to meet you, man." Loki reciprocates but you can tell by that sharp cut of his jaw that something bothers him even though he isn't being vocal about it like he usually is. "Wait-" Henry's narrowed eyes are already telling Loki something he is tired of hearing- "Loki as in Loki the guy from Sun Corp. The Loki who went missing for two years before-" "So I heard from Kat you're opening a rest-" you try to divert the conversation. "Yes," Loki affirms much to your surprise, "that very Loki." And a smile. "Damn," Henry whispers. "Well, I'll leave you to it then. And you two are invited to my restaurant's soft launch today. Kat will give you the deets and you have to bring Loki." "Oh." You are a little dazed by the incomprehensible smoothness of this conversation. "Uhh..." You feel the brush of Loki's arm with yours when he closes the distance with the two of you. "We will be there," he concludes with his smiling eyes while you are wondering all the reasons you could be feeling this sudden gush of warmth in your cheeks. Nothing escapes Henry's eyes and that bubbly smile. You two have never been close which is why you are wondering why this guy is so excited to meet you. It hits you after a few seconds that the reason you were noticed might not have been because of you but your company. You are still thinking about it when you and Loki settle down in the corner seat looking out the bakery shop. "You don't have to go if you don't want to," you stress, reaching out for the bill in Loki's hand that he has already paid for. But that sly man is already pulling the receipt away from your grip. "I'll go if you go. And considering you are a textbook people-pleaser around your friends, you will be going tonight." All he reflects for your slightly unhinged and offended jaw is his smirk that has a tendency to stir something up inside your gut. "Correct me if I'm wrong." "I am not a textbook people plea-" "You went out to visit Kat even when your leg wasn't healed because she said you had not met her in a while." You scoff. "W-It was true! I hadn't met her in a while and I-" "And because CJ said she was mad at you because you hadn't answered her texts and calls." You do open your mouth to contradict but nothing comes out except a defeated sigh. "You could have told her about your health." Loki tilts his head and melting eyes that have their full attention on you. And you are feeling the goosebumps all over your body from that dedicated stare. Did he always look at me that way? The sensible voice in your head clears her throat and wonders...He could look that way to anyone. But your inner voice is already dancing. Look at the face, woman. Drown me in shallow waters if he isn't head over heels for you. "I...have used my health as an excuse for multiple occasions so I don't think it'll cut for them anymore." There is a slight crinkle in between his brows that does not seem to get as much attention as his tongue that darts out to wet his lips. Why is that even legal? Your inner voice is angry while it involuntarily purrs. "It is your health, Kira. I am pretty sure your friend will understand. Would you not rather that your friends tell you they are not fine instead of hearing about it when it all gets worse someday?" You turn your toes to internally curse yourself on realising he has a point; a very good one. "I'll talk to her," you agree and thank the waiter who brings you your lemon and mint iced tea and Loki's cold brew. "Okay," you sing with crackling judgment humming in your voice as your eyes are stuck on Loki's dark drink, "since when are you into coffee? I haven't been gone that long." "My existence will disagree," he mutters without so much of a thought as he lets his lips touch the straw in great anticipation while his eyes look up at the blank bump of an expression stuck on your face. Heart thumping to the beats of embarrassment, your brain shuts down, pulls away the glass of cold brew and pushes your iced tea towards him. "Just have the tea, you monster." You try really hard to keep up that frown on your face while your insides want to come out and confirm the words he just said. "Me? A monster?" If you did not know any better, Loki would seem flabbergasted right this second. You narrow your eyes and let sarcasm drip just from your expression. "I have seen you murder your employees without even having to raise a weapon when you aren't in a good mood. Trust your assistant, Mr Loki, coffee is not your friend." "Are you sure?" He narrows his eyes at you and crinkles his nose. "Do you see anyone else being worried about you?" you direct at the surrounding with your hand. There is a tilt of his head and crossed arms come to rest on the table. "So, you are worried about me?" Your eyes pause any movement to stare into his for a moment so long he can feel his soul bare in front of you. "Someone has to..." He is left numb with that look on your face. "Because I am too tired to find another job." Numb from the heart attack he just had till he feels his senses coming back to let him wack in the back of his head and let him know how he got played. What is better than those microscopic jolts of relief he is feeling on your skin is your wide-toothed laughter then nearly pinches your eyes close. Whoever is watching him right now can without a strain of doubt point out at the man in love, looking at his life shine brighter than anyone in the room while he pauses all that he is doing- even breathing- to look at you like it is his first and last time doing so. Whoever is watching him is suddenly craving for a longing look like that; whoever is watching you envies what you can do to that beautiful man putting a good number of insecure humans to shame. "Oh my Gosh-" you suddenly break out of your laugh with a sudden realisation- "I almost forgot about him." Loki, the stoic-as-ever man- who is nearly bending over the table ready to dissolve- furrows his brows at the thought of you remembering someone other than him! "Who?" he asks with a surly taste in his mouth. "Fenrir! How is he?" "Oh." You are somewhat puzzled at that flawless face going from a simmering stare of potential judgment to an innocuous reflection of understanding. "He is as fine as he can be," he shrugs and scratches something on the nape of his neck, making your eyes dart at the bit of exposed skin under the maroon that is royally screwing up with your head with pictures you do not want to be imagining in public right now. "So, he is being a bitch," you summarise for him. He nods in agreement, bringing back his hand and leaving that exposed microscopic yards of his shoulder and neck to be devoured by your stare so hard even the devil would blush. And unbeknownst to you, the devil hath blushed multiple times. "I think he misses his roommate," Loki throws the statement nonchalantly, pulling your iced-tea back to him. "Aw," you squeak a little putting your face in your palms and glittering eyes, "I miss him too." "Then get back to work, Miss Kira," Loki's flat and stern tone softly plays on his tongue, "you have had more than enough of vacation time." "Excuse me?" "What." "I got my bones broken for my company." Loki shrugs and sips your tea. "I nearly died for mine. Big deal." "Wow," you exhale. "Fine. I need a raise." "Okay." "..." "What."

"Just like that?" "You nearly died for the company. The company wants to thank you for your unwavering loyalty." You don't really know what to say next. You never planned this far, thanks to your impulse. That is till the socialist in you finds a silver lining. "Cool," you tilt your head in your palms, "then you can cut my salary for a few more vacation days." Concluding it with a wink. And Loki feels his insides sigh. Never in a million years could he have imagined a soft face like hers would hold the ultimate power to melt his insides like this.

Nature watches again. Through the windows and winds that enter at the opening and closing of the door. Two souls more than just content in their hearts to be in the presence of the unexplainable they thought they lacked. That little boy inside Loki is sitting at that table looking at you with all the innocence and love he can feel in his little heart; all that he wants to give to you. Little Loki knows who the star is and what it is like to be in its presence. And he would not have it any other way. The bakery plays a lofi mix of Just Want To Be The One You Love as these two closeted lovers bickered and enjoyed their much deserved time together, never knowing the company far away clicking pictures of their private time together before disappearing into the crowds and cars on the road outside.

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legobiwan · 4 years ago

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Whumptober #4

“buried alive”

Notes: This one does get a little existential, so TW for contemplation of death. Also, I guess this is my attempt at a ghost story? Kind of???

General Whumptober tag

Whumptober 2020 #1

Whumptober 2020 #2

Whumptober 2020 #3

~~~~~~

There was once a young girl. Now, there have been many young girls in the history of the galaxy - some good, some bad. Some extraordinary, others quite ordinary. You may ask, what about this girl? What was her moral character? What accomplishments did she bring to this galaxy? Was she a princess or a servant? Was she kind to loth cats, did she listen to her parents, do well in school?

We do not know.

And so this girl’s existence should seem of no particular import.

One day, this young girl was walking with her mother by the long grey sea, which watched with infinite eyes, its wet vision stretched long beyond the horizon until it seemed to curve back up again, threatening to swallow the girl whole.

The girl shivered and pulled her silken, brown robe closer to her shoulders.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, laying a bony, frail hand on her shoulder.

“I’m cold, mother,” she whimpered, hugging her small arms around her waist.

“Then take my cloak,” her mother answered, wrapping the young girl in a wooly, brown fabric that seemed to eat up her from head to toe. “And let us go to the city where it is warmer.”

And so the young girl and her mother traveled to the city, skyscrapers rising high into the faraway, busy latticework of speeders and hovertrains, their shadows cast long and dark on the pavement below.

The girl held a hand to her chest, panting. The wooly cloak tightening its embrace of her small body.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, face half-shrouded in dirty shadow.

“Mother, I cannot breathe,” she gasped, feeling as if the buildings themselves were leaning forward, looming high in the night sky, suffocating the stars and the moon, the light poles and illumination banks. They tilted with silent malice, meaning to trod over the girl’s stomach, her legs, her chest.

“Then let us stop at the store and buy satchel of healing plant,” her mother answered sweetly, unbothered by the malignant angle of the Galactic Bank, or sinister void staring from the unlit windows of the planetary library, her dark-veined hand rubbing against the girl’s back.

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the store, tall, skinny silhouettes of metal and duracrete trailing their every step.

As the girl munched on the sticky, wet leaves of a yurma healing plant, she wrinkled her nose.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, head turned towards the long line of empty vendors, their wicker baskets boasting air and shadow and absence, tables empty but for the folded, wrinkled signs written in messy Aurebesh. “Nothing for sale. One hundred credits, O.B.O.”

“Mother, this block smells of decay and rot.”

The girl’s mother spoke, her head still turned towards the empty alley. “Then let us find something to eat, so your tongue may overwhelm your nose.”

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the diner, windows thick with greasy curlicues which seemed to bend on forever.

“Mother, this food tastes of dirt and slime!” the girl exclaimed, her fork clattering on the surface of the table, her vegetables, a pile of sickly brown and green misshapen lumps, forgotten.

“Then let us go to the park and listen to the band, so your ears may settle your tongue,” her mother answered from behind, her shadow stretching long and dark over the girl so she could not see small, pearly maggots burrowing their way through the stretched skin of her broccoli, mouths wet and hungry.

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the park, laying on the damp, cool grass as the band raised their instruments, the conductor’s hammer coming down with a thud as metal bows screeched against metal strings, as flutes of bone and sinew pierced the veil of the night, as drums stitched from the skins of a hundred species beat out a heartbeat long since stopped.

The girl covered her ears with her hands.

“Mother, I cannot hear the band!”

But there was no answer from mother, no words of comfort to be heard over the roar inside the girl’s head.

“Mother, I cannot see you, I cannot see anything!”

For there was only the darkness, the crushing weight of shadow and earth and moisture leaking into her bones and silvery worms crawling up her nose burrowing into her mouth and she reached out her hand to grasp at her mother’s - at Death’s black heart, a thousand cerulean eyes staring back at her, long-fingered veins reaching forward -

“That’s, at least, how the story was relayed to me, Jenza, by the people of Nodoari,” Dooku explained to the phantom of his sister. “You might find it amusing - or perhaps morbid - that they bury their dead, but not quite at the moment of death. Rather, they inter their elderly, their sick, their injured at the brink of existence and non-existence.”

Dooku tried to give a tight smile, his chest heaving in rapid undulations, tongue wrapped around dirt and moss and decay. It wouldn’t be long now, he knew. “The thinking goes,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “at least as I understood it, that the being will experience their best memories - or worst memories - revisit their loved ones and enemies as per their actions in life until death’s shadow greets them from the soil, their final moment preordained in its endless sight.”

Reality began to wrap inside Dooku’s mind, a flurry of bright lightsabers arcing in every direction against the imposing backdrop of Serenno’s snow-crested mountains. Soon, he thought. Dooku did not believe in an afterlife, had never wholly believed in the Order’s teachings that they, as Jedi, would become one with the Force.

No, the darkness he experienced now would be his eternity.

Alone as ever.

And yet…

“I would hope now, Jenza, stuck beneath the earth as I am, that you would be the hand to pull me into the next realm of existence, if there were such a thing, that I would not suffer here alone - “

But the thought was left unfinished as light breached the tomb, a violent invasion of life, of existence tethered at the end of a familiar hand.

~~~~~~

“Come, Master,” Qui-gon rumbled, wrapping an arm around Dooku’s mud-stained waist. Dooku allowed himself to lean against his student’s shoulder, allowed himself to be guided to the nearby speeder where Qui-gon gently deposited his Master into the passenger seat.

Still breathing heavy, Dooku lolled his head to the side, regarding Qui-gon from the corner of his eye, his student’s long air flowing in the breeze and they drove back to the capital.

…and death’s shadow took me by the hand.

Qui-gon peered to the side, frowning. After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezed his hand around Dooku’s.

…as the solid grasp of fate’s long fingers, wrapped around my own

Dooku glanced down at his and Qui-gon’s conjoined hands, shuddering.

“Are you alright, Master?”

…eyes glittering with ancient constellations

“I…” For a moment Qui-gon’s eyes multiplied, two then four then eight, until they covered his entire face, trailing down his neck, a thousand pupils staring back at him unblinking as the long veins of Qui-gon’s twisted forward.

…the immovable moment of my death writ in an invisible script of element and earth and dust and soil made human.

“I…yes, Padawan,” Dooku muttered, patting Qui-gon’s hand as he straightened his shoulders. “I’m fine.”

Qui-gon regarded his Master with open worry, eyebrows raised, his bright cerulean irises large. Dooku peered into his student’s face, searching for his epitaph etched in pigmented stroma and epithelial cells.

Dooku shook his head. No. He was master of his own fate, as his student would learn to be, as well. The future was not yet written, and Dooku’s death would be his own design.

Adjusting his soiled tunic with a series of familiar gestures that seemed to calm Qui-gon’s concern, Dooku gave a small, polite cough, breaking the tension. “Yes, Padawan,” he said, his voice regaining its usual deep authority, “I am fine, although I must thank you for the timely intervention. Now, let us return to the palace and rid ourselves of this filth. It would not do to confront the Rataraan royal family about their deception in such ragged adornments.”

Qui-gon placed a hand on Dooku’s shoulder, smiling as he steered the speeder towards the city.

As they wound their way through the countryside, through forest and hamlet, Dooku stared to the west, at the long, deep grey sea.

And death’s shadow took me by the hand…

#whumptober #whumptober 4 #yan dooku #count dooku #qui gon jinn #jenza #(mention)#well this got...weird #essentially qui gon signs dooku's death warrant when he takes anakin years later #so i was going for that #anyway #perfect timing i have to go to work #more later tumblr!#writing #the eternal struggle

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myfriendscallmecoelophysis · 4 years ago

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The Fears of a Goddess

Part 1 of my Dark! Ianite fic

Part 2

Enjoy and as always

Find me on Ao3:

Selenejessabelle12626 for the tame stuff

Lady-Spieroles for the less tame stuff ;)

It wasn’t often that Tom felt like warnings of any sort were worth heeding. People often overreacted. ‘Don’t touch that’ ‘Don’t climb that high’ ‘Don’t challenge him to a fight’ ‘Don’t taste that weird green goo’, blah blah blah, always so boring. No one was willing to have any fun. But the warnings he did at least give a bit of consideration to were the ones from his God. Dianite may not really care about Tom but as long as Tom was useful, Dianite had to have some sort of interest in his continued survival. So when the book was left for him saying that Ianite may not be all that she appeared, Tom actually took it into consideration.

But really? Ianite? Jordan’s dodgy eyed, bubbly Goddess? Evil? Sure the Ianite of Ruxomar had caused the taint and destroyed the entire city of Dagrun with it and all that but she’d been chill whenever Tom had spoken with her. He didn’t admittedly have much experience with the Ianite they’d saved in their first lives either, really just causing a bit of mischief whenever she showed her face. Though there was that one time she took the sword Dianite had given him and killed him with it.

Eh, he’d go with Dianite for now. No harm in pretending to join her side and just using it as an excuse to spend more time with Jordan.

It was when Mianite warned them, all of them, of some sort of evil shadowy force that could be in any one of them that Tom gave Dianite’s worries a second thought. Maybe this was what he’d been thinking of? Maybe this evil had gotten it’s grip into Ianite? Should he say something to Jordan?

“Karl?”

“Yeah?”

“Did Mianite, say anything else to you about this evil thing that he didn’t tell us?”

They were sailing together back to their islands after the Mianite Games. Sparklez had flown ahead already, he stashed his elytra in that stupid ender chest and brought it along instead of leaving it behind like they’d been told.

Karl took a moment to reply, a moment too long for his words to be anything but suspicious. “No. Just what he told all of us.”

“Nothing about, Ianite or anything?”

“What do you mean? Why would he talk to me in secret about Jordan’s God?”

Tom frowned, turning back towards the front of the boat. “Nevermind, forget I said anything.”

His suspicions don’t fade, but he hid them well enough, he’d always been a pretty good liar when it actually mattered. Dianite had said nothing to him since before the Trial. He’d said he needed time to figure out what was happening and while Tom did feel a bit abandoned, he didn’t fault the God. He knew his own sister better than Tom did, he would know if she was acting off. So he played his part, gave Ianite the pearls she wanted, knelt before her and pretended to swear his loyalty despite Jordan frowning down at him from her side. For the foreseeable future he wouldn’t destroy anything or kill anyone or cause unnecessary chaos. There were greater things at work that he didn’t know about. Dianite would come back when it was time.

“Jordan, you trust me don’t you?” Ianite asked him out of the blue one day. She was sitting on the stairs in his tower, watching as he rummaged and crafted. Hunter, the stray cat that Ianite had adopted (despite it living in Jordan’s home), sat in her lap purring as she stroked it.

“Of course.” Jordan said without looking up from what he was working on.

“I think my brothers are plotting against me.” He paused, pulling back the ingredients he’d been about to mix at his brewing stand.

He turned around to look at her and asked “What do you mean?” confused by why she would say such a thing.

“They’ve stopped speaking to me. But I see them speaking to each other.” Jordan felt a twinge of pity for her, he knew what it felt like to be left out of conversations. Tom and Karl did it often enough, swapping secrets and inside jokes.

“I’m sure it’s nothing milady. They’re your little brothers, little brothers do things like that sometimes. Or so I’ve been told.”

“I’m scared of what they may be planning.” At her admittance, the pity he felt doubled. He set aside the potion and moved to sit on the stairs next to her. “I’m scared of what is to come if they come into their powers.”

He’d told her of the theory he and Tom shared. That they’d come backwards in time to a point where the Gods they would know as powerful had not yet grown into their abilities. She’d asked him endless questions about that life and he’d told her, once she’d shared that she knew some of it already. The Ianite of Ruxomar had told him what would happen when she scattered her quintessence, that she would become one with all her lives across all dimensions and realities. It made sense that this version of her might have glimpses of those other lives. She knew that for Dianite to be defeated in the far-flung future, his evil ended once and for all, she would have to rot in a crystal prison cell for millenia unknown. He would steal her heart and hide it away, leaving her weak and broken, a shell of a Goddess and of herself. It was no wonder that she was worried.

In all likelihood Dianite had already gotten a similar story from Tom about the future where they’d come from and knowing Tom, it did not paint Ianite or Mianite in a very kind way.

“It’ll be alright. The fact that I’m here is proof that it will be. I saved you then and I will do it again. Over and over as many times as I must, in this dimension and all others. You have my word. I swear it to you as your Champion.” He was not often one for physical contact, but hazarded a chance to take one of her hands in his, giving what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.

She smiled and squeezed it back. “I know you will. You always have. I see the other mortals and I wonder how I got so lucky to have a Champion as loyal as you. I’ve seen into those other worlds, in my dreams. I’ve seen the world where she loved you, where I loved you, well not you but another you.” “Spark. He was called Spark.” he chuckled, explaining to save her the confusion.

“But in that world I saw what became of her after he was gone. The destruction she caused without him by her side. But then she met you, this you. You did so much for her, for us. The others were so cruel to you but you only did what you felt was best and best for her.” He looked away from her then, but did not let go of her hand. He was ashamed of some of the choices he’d made in the name of balance. Cruel, foolish, selfish choices justified by claiming they were for the greater good. “And I was wrong. She-” He swallowed, closing his eyes “-she died. Because I couldn’t help her. Because I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Jordan.” She sighed, looking to him with empathy in her eyes. “It’s not your fault. Such things are bigger than any one man. You did everything you could to help her and keep her safe and happy until it was her time and still even after. But there was nothing more you could have done. It is the nature of fate. We all have our destinies to face. Be they discorporating or spending a thousand years in chains. There is nothing we can do to change them.”

He knew she was right, that they had to simply accept what was to come. He and Tom had discussed it soon after coming to the understanding that they were in the past. They could not tamper too much. Who knew what might happen if they accidentally changed the timeline? But now Jordan was realizing something.

When he arrived on that Island of ‘Mianite’ where Tom and Tucker had decided to create their land, Mianite and Dianite both had been alive and well. Ianite had been the one languishing in a prison at Dianite’s hand, her heart stolen and hidden away. Ianite’s followers had been the ones to die under Furia’s attacks. Ianite’s temple and holy city had been what had burned. Ianite was the one who’d been neglected and forgotten by the brother that was supposed to be the ‘Good Guy’. How in any way was it considered balanced for the Goddess of Balance to undergo such trauma while her brothers went about their lives with leisure? And even in Ruxomar, it had been Ianite who’d sacrificed herself to return the balance to the realm after Mianite and Dianite had sent it into flux. Why was she the one who must always suffer?

“But what if,” Jordan said slowly, the words already tasting treasonous on his tongue, “we changed yours?”

When she was a young girl, Ianite had a dream of a crystal castle in the sky. She dreamed of the castle often, of its beautiful impenetrable walls and decoratively barred windows. To a girl it seemed enormous, an endless maze of hallways and corridors. But try as she might, she could never find the door. As she got older the castle in her dreams grew smaller and smaller until it began to feel not like a palace, but a prison. Burning shackles began appearing on her wrists each night, searing and branding scars upon her skin as she struggled to escape. What had once been a dream became a recurring nightmare.

Mother, despite having never heard Ianite’s dreams, told her bedtime stories of a woman who was locked away in a crystal tower, awaiting rescue from a hero. He would come and it was with only his help that she would come into her own and reach her truest potential. It didn’t take long for Ianite to put the pieces together. This was not a fairy tale, but one of Mother’s visions. It would be her fate to see that dungeon and it was only by surviving that she would grow to become the Goddess she was destined to be.

From that moment on Ianite vowed that she would subvert her fate. She would never lay eyes on that place, not if she had anything to say about it. She may not have access to the fullest extent of her powers but she was still a fledgling Goddess. She would fight tooth and nail to reach the potential that was promised to her, with or without the hero.

Her own visions began after Mother was gone. They were not prophetic, not like Mother’s had been. It took Ianite some time to realize that she was seeing glimpses into other realities. She was always herself, that much she knew, but in every reality things changed. In some she was a Goddess, in others a human, in yet others still she was neither. One of these visions was different from all the others, so much so she was not sure it was the same thing at all.

She was in a cavern lit only by scant torchlight. Before her was a hooded figure, sat at a writing desk. She heard the scratching of a quill on parchment then the tap of the quill being set aside. “I wondered when I might see you.” A man’s voice greeted. He stood and stepped away from the desk, turning to face her. His face was shrouded in darkness in the depth of the hood but still she felt as though she could not break his gaze. “I’m so pleased that you have begun to come into your powers, my daughter.”

“Father?” She’d never known her father. Mother had never spoken of him aside from passing references twisted within her prophecies. She did know enough to know he was powerful, far stronger than she or her brothers. Mother had claimed it was their destiny to defeat him and rid his darkness from the world but only after they reached their fullest potential and strength. A task which could not be accomplished without the help of a mortal hero. Something Ianite was trying to avoid, seeing as it required her to be imprisoned for Gods knew how long.

“You are unhappy with your destiny.” He stated. She said nothing, frightened into silence. She could feel the sheer force of power that radiated from him, dark and roiling like a deep turbulent sea. “No need to speak my child. I know what you seek. It’s why you have come to me. You, a daughter of creation, are scared of a lifetime of suffering and pain. Scared of relying upon another to free you from what would otherwise be an eternal prison.” he turned away, back towards the desk. She saw now that upon it lay a book bound in crimson leather, the ink within still shiny and fresh. “I’m not surprised by your fear, young one. Your Mother, while she possessed a great many qualities, tact was never one of them. But it is no matter. I am able to offer you what you wish. In fact, you could not have arrived at a more opportune time. I have just finished crafting the only spell you will require.”

Wariness filled Ianite, she’d paid attention well in her lessons despite working against her future. She knew that no magic, particularly magic this strong came without a price. If her feelings were correct, this price would be a costly one. But if this were to be her only option, what choice did she have? She watched as he closed the book then turned it so the spine rested upon the desk. He lifted a candle the color of the deep black void from its holder, tipping it so that wax dripped upon the fore edge and both covers, sealing it shut. He pressed a seal into the cooling wax then laid it back on the desk.

“But, I fear, you are not yet ready for it. A pity, truly.”

“I’m ready.” She’d found her voice but the words did not hold the conviction she had hoped, coming out wavering with nerves.

He didn’t even entertain the thought, scoffing in disappointment. “You are weak. You and your brothers both. I could kill you with a thought. But I will refrain, simply out of interest to see if one day you might be strong enough to tame my magic.” He turned back to her and raised a hand. “We will meet again one day my daughter, and perhaps then you shall impress me.” He flicked a finger and then she was waking up back in her bed.

She had a path now. A goal to strive towards. She would find that book and learn the spell. She would not allow her destiny to come to pass. No matter what it cost.

When the mortals arrived many many years later Ianite was just as surprised as her brothers. Her visions in the days leading up to their arrival had been filled with images of a man who changed little from reality to reality. In one he was her husband, in another her caretaker, her knight, her son, her servant, her confidant, many things but always close and always trusted beyond measure. When she opened her eyes in that temple, he was before her and suddenly she understood what the visions had been trying to show her. He was the hero from Mother’s prophecies. He was the one who was destined to save her from that crystal prison. He was not just her hero in that time but in all times, he was her Champion. Her one true follower.

She got to know him over the next weeks. He was clever, shy, funny, strong, quiet, patient, driven, level headed. She enjoyed simply speaking with him of everything and nothing. It was during one of their conversations that she learned of the life he’d lived before this one, of the world of far advanced magic and technology. It fascinated her to hear the details from a world she’d only seen glimpses of, but this led him to admit that that world had not been the first. That was when the theory he and the Zombie shared came to light. She understood then, he came from the future Mother had prophesied. A future where Ianite had been unable to accomplish her goals. They’d not yet figured out why they’d come back in time but it was then that Ianite’s plan became clear.

It was with his help that she would finally accomplish what she’d worked for almost her entire life. She’d felt her strength growing with each day she spent with him, with him at her side she would return to her Father’s temple and find the spell that would free her from her destiny once and for all.

She got her first peek of what potential her Champion had when the Zombie renounced Dianite. Jordan didn’t entertain even a scrap of belief that it was the truth, his cleverness turning calculating in a single moment. She felt his anger when she gave Syndicate a chance, saw the building fury in his eyes when she insinuated her faith may be placed in the newcomer. Yes, her Captain, while clearly a kind and good man at heart, had the potential to be the knight and warrior she needed him to be.

Her reassurances that his loyalty to her was not misplaced and that he would always be her favored champion were enough to calm his frustration with her but did nothing to temper his suspicions towards Syndicate. He stood at her side with his sword drawn as she formally accepted Dianite’s Fallen Champion, ice in his eyes. He was not happy about this, not at all. For what it was worth, she wasn’t either. It had been far too abrupt a shift to be anything but on purpose. Dianite had something in the works.

She’d heard nothing from either brother for weeks, since before the mortals had arrived. She was under no impression that they did not both have plans of their own. She doubted they had the conviction she did however. They had very little to avoid in their futures, perhaps Dianite may fear giving into his chaotic nature but Mianite had nothing to be concerned about. She was the only one of the three with such high stakes. Which was why she was the one who must be the strongest. If either of them were able to over power her they would put a stop to her plans. If she changed the future for herself it would most certainly change it for them as well. She had to contain and surpass them before they could do the same to her. She did not think they knew exactly what her goal was, did not know of the existence of Father’s spell, but she had no way to know for sure. It was the reason she’d accepted Syndicate’s fealty. Let Dianite think he had her fooled, a man who thought his actions were going to plan was a man who let his guard down.

She did learn another important lesson about her hero during this endeavor. Even in his anger, he remained far too good a man to willingly go against his friends or the other Gods. She had his loyalty but how far would that last if she asked him to take up arms against the others? No, if everything she’d heard of his past dealings with the other versions of herself was true, asking him outright to do anything of that nature would go against his sensibilities. She had to approach this a different way. Slowly, patiently, carefully she would get him more used to who she was in this time. She was not the scorned woman she was destined to become, nor was she the desperate pivot of balance in a world crumbling to ruin. She, this younger version of herself aiming to change the future, was the Goddess of all facets of Balance. She was a Goddess of Justice and of Vengeance. Justice for herself and the suffering she was fated to endure. Vengeance against the brother who would lock her in that cage and the brother who would do nothing while she faced millenia of torment. For in her Captain’s timeline, such a thing had already occurred. That was reason enough to get her revenge.

His loyalty to her would be the factor that led to her triumph. The lives he’d lived prior to this would be all she needed to convince him to see her side. Surely a loyal man such as him would not want to see her suffer. Surely he would not want to send her to that fate when he knew even more of what had happened than she herself currently did. The guilt he felt for ‘failing’ the last Ianite he had served would only aid her now. A man presented with a chance for penance would almost always seize it. She just had to get him to agree.

“But what if,” Jordan said slowly, tentatively, well aware that what he was saying was not what he should be suggesting , “we changed yours?”

“Jordan, what are you saying?” Ianite asked, pouring sweet and sickly innocence onto her voice. “We can’t change the future. It’s not right.”

“Neither was Dianite locking you in that prison for who even knows how long.” His voice was gaining certainty as he looked up from his hands and to her. “We have a chance to keep you from living through that. What if that was why I was sent back to this time? To prevent that from ever happening?”

“None of the others will allow it. My brothers want that future. They want a future where they are strong.” “But why do you have to suffer so they have the chance?” There is was, the spark of anger in his eyes when faced with injustice. She’d seen it for more mild matters before but it was exactly what she’d hoped to bring forth. Weeks of subtle manipulation and reinforcing her own views of balance were coming to fruition. “Who decided that you were the one who had to lose so that they could win?”

“It’s no one’s choice. It simply is. My Mother’s prophecy saw what must happen. The three of you heroes are to lead us to our fates and our truest strength, for my brothers it occurs now, for me it is once you return my heart to me.”

His eyes narrowed in determination and he squeezed her hand again, getting to his feet.

“Good thing I’ve never put much stake in prophecies.”

#Mianite #Mianite fanfiction #mianite is back yall #mianitian isles #syndicate #Captain Sparklez #ianite #dianite #dark!Ianite #my writing #part 1 #part 2 coming soon #words words words

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pythosart · 5 years ago

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A big ol 2019 end of the year update

I felt somewhat compelled to write my end of the year/decade thoughts, but a warning before you read: This one’s going to be heavy, intensely personal, and long. If you don’t feel up to reading that, it may be best to skip it. I promise I’ll go back to shutting up and posting art afterwards. I’m profoundly incapable of being concise, ever, so apologies for the length of this.

2019 was a nightmare.

Some background: In mid 2016, my mother was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer. She was given a few months to live. She was given weeks or months to live multiple times, for almost three years. In that time my mom was in and out of the hospital, but spent all her good days living life to the fullest, starting and finishing dream projects, and keeping all of us going despite her own situation. Even when she was bedridden, hooked up to tubes and bags and god knows what, she found time to prop up her loved ones and pursue her hobbies. She even managed to develop new hobbies and interests while otherwise imprisoned by her physical state, something I struggle to do at the best of times even in my young and relatively healthy form. If there’s anything I can make of this experience, it’s that I hope to grow into even half the woman my mother was.

I ended 2018 with my final quarter at SCAD. I spent the entire quarter terrified my mom was going to die while I was away from home. It was horrific, I barely scraped by my last few classes (bless my professors’ endless patience), and immediately left Savannah for home as soon as the quarter was up. I never had room to celebrate finishing college. Any other year it would be a huge milestone, but I barely even care.

This past May, my mother passed away, after three years of petrifying suspense. It happened in the dead middle of the night, while my best friend was visiting for a con, and it still feels like a bad dream. It’s also one of the only vivid memories I even have of this year.

I wish I had more to say on that, but I genuinely think the drawn out suffering and fracturing of my whole world left me unable to fully unpack everything that’s happened. It’s hard to even think about for long, and at times I even half-forget she’s gone. I think of things I want to show her, or tell her, or cook with her. Just the other day I kept thinking I’d tell her how much I liked endive after she showed me how to make it. I found a historical Italian cooking channel that, every time I see it, I just think of how much she’d love it. I knew she’d love Hot Fuzz but never got to show her. Little, stupid things that shouldn’t matter, but they do. They just do.

My mother and I were close, much closer than I am with my dad. Especially towards the end of her life, we had gotten closer, and I felt like I was only just really getting to know her as an equal. I still want to share my life with her, but that chance is gone.

This holiday season has been especially rough in her absence, because not only was my mom the motivational and creative force behind a lot of holiday activities here, it’s the first everything without her. We had Thanksgiving with friends and a catered dinner, instead of spending several days cooking and polishing family silver and setting the table. I won’t be making handmade tortellini with her for Christmas like we did every year. It’s the little things like that.

We’re a tiny family, with over half of us in Italy and lacking much communication due to the language barrier. Family holidays were always small, but there’s just a huge hole how, much greater than the cold numeric value of “one fewer participant.” My mom was always a driving force and a keystone in our support networks, not to mention the main line of contact with the Italian-speaking side of the family, so now the family feels so much more scattered and isolated than ever.

My girlfriend was close to my mother too, and as she’s been living with me for years now and is practically part of the family, I think she took it just as hard as anyone. Cel saw everything I did, and dealt with many of the same uncertainties and traumatic experiences I did.

A month after I lost my mother, I lost my cat too. Galileo was twelve years old, a spry old man who yelled instead of meowed, and just a wonderful cat. I got him when I was in 7th grade, after begging my parents for years to get me a cat. It was my mom who eventually overrode my dad’s hesitations, and from then on Leo was part of the family. He went through a very sudden decline over the course of a week or two, and we learned it was cancer. Feline lymphoma, I think. I had to make the call to put him to sleep, and it ripped what was left of my heart out.

Not that it needs stating, but fuck cancer.

A few too-short months later, I cut ties with a “friend,” which despite how fucking much it hurt, was really for the best. At a certain point one simply can no longer afford to waste energy on a certain kind of person. Unfortunately I’m a persistently optimistic idiot, and it took me too long to cut my losses before deep damage was done. Done to me, my close friends, and even barely involved acquaintances this “friend” dumped on relentlessly and tried to harass into spying on me. Really, if any part of this is unforgivable, it’s that.

All this was, however, a valuable reminder that it’s no good to have any tolerance for habitually dishonest people, even if they think they’re doing it to look “nice.” Chronic liars will gaslight you whether they know it or not, and trying to navigate that in an already damaged mental state is inadvisable. It was an important lesson in picking one’s battles, albeit one learned too late. I’m still holding out hope I can find it in my heart to forgive this person, if only for my own selfish sake so I can move on. I have a lot of experience living on spite, and I don’t want to make a further habit of it.

Naturally all of the above did little to curb my already inflamed pessimism about the state of my country and the world at large, but I need not expand on that, I imagine.

I suppose it would be unfair of me to leave it all at that and only mention the negative, though admittedly positivity is hard to muster these days. A few bright spots of note:

Graduated from SCAD with my BFA in Sequential Art (technically last year, but I did the ceremonial bit this year)

Tabled at Animazement with Woods. We barely broke even, but it was a great time and I plan on doing it again in the new year.

Spent literally an entire month hanging out with my two best friends, which was amazing and exactly the kind of healing experience I needed around that time of year.

Properly did Halloween for the first time in years. I made a costume I’m proud of and we went out on the town… for like an hour, because it promptly started pouring. But fun nevertheless

Started therapy. As of writing this, I’ve only had an introductory session, but it’s a start. Should have started six months ago, but didn’t for reasons to be addressed...in therapy

Started volunteering at the local natural history museum, where I spent like half my childhood. I’ll be doing data entry in collections, but that’s still cool as hell

Got a start on figuring out what I want to do with my life. It’ll involve going back to school for science within the next five-ish years, but it’s nice to have a goal. More of a goal than I’ve ever had, in fact.

Played some extremely good video games (shout out to The Blackout Club and Control)

Made a shitload of unnecessary yet endlessly fun and good AUs with my friends and my one (1) OC

Got an iPad Pro and started learning Procreate, which has gotten me drawing more

Learned a bit of needle felting

2019 was a year of getting much closer to my two best friends, and I genuinely owe them my life at this point. I don’t know where I’d be without them. Nowhere good, certainly.

Woods and Dross kept me talking to people, kept me creating, told me when I was being unreasonable or needed to cool it, heard me out when I needed it but always kept me honest. They helped me keep some creative juices flowing when otherwise I’d have been at a frustrated loss and might have given up for good. If it seems like I’ve kept up my usual art output at all, and if you’ve enjoyed the Lou content (or not, whoops... apologies to everyone who followed me for monster content) you have both of them to thank.

Even moreso, I owe my girlfriend a great deal for being there for me through all of this while she herself was suffering similarly. She and I have had our ups and downs, and been through a lot in the five-ish years we’ve been together. We aren’t the most outspoken couple, but I think our mutual understanding and pain mitigated a lot of the damage this year has done. I don’t think I could have handled it alone.

Furthermore, I really need to thank a lot of other friends and acquaintances I’m not quite as close with, but still talk to. These people especially were willing to call me on my bullshit when necessary, or just talk to me at all, about anything. Even if these acquaintances didn’t know it at the time, there’s a good chance they were dragging me out of one of my frequent existential despair spirals.

I also, weirdly, owe a lot to helping my hen Julia recover from her dog attack. That was around the time that my mom’s health was in its final decline, when I felt the most helpless and despairing. I think having even some tiny something I could do to help was like, the only feeling of control I had in life for a bit there. Julia’s fine, by the way. Still queen of the yard, top chicken boss bitch, etc. Julia was always a kind of kindred spirit with my mom, in a way. Little but not to be underestimated, gray, big personality and commanding presence… Not to mention, she was one of the first in our flock and was always my mom’s favorite.

It would be too much to say I have high hopes or plans of any kind for the upcoming year, but I do have a list of things I want to try and do. Some of which will involve art, and the posting thereof.

Big if on this one, but I’ve also recently started therapy (only took me half a year to work up to making a phone call after the first failed attempt took all the wind out of my sails) and I have…maybe not high hopes, but hopes, for that doing something to help. I should have started therapy two years ago, but the second best time is now, etc etc.

I have a lot of New Year’s resolutions, beyond the usual “get in shape, drink less coffee, blah blah” that I’ll try and write up a little list of separately. Most of them are art-related, so you all will be there to watch me swing and miss I PROMISED I’D TRY TO BE LESS NEGATIVE. New Year’s resolution #1: Maybe don’t make so many self-deprecating jokes.

Anyway, I don’t know how to end any wall of text, be it an OC worldbuilding screed or something serious like this, so... I guess, love yourself, cherish your friends, know when to put your own needs first and when to put your friends’ needs firster. One of the things my mom taught me in this past year or so is that relationships are what you make of them, and that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes. Be generous, be genuine, don’t be a doormat and don’t lie to people you care about, even if it seems kinder in the moment. Savor the time you have with those close to you, and spend time doing things you love. Cliché, maybe, but cliché can still be true. Happy new year, everyone. I sincerely hope it will treat us all better. 2020 may just be an imaginary change of numbers, but I like to think it really does wipe the slate in a way, and make room for all of us to do what we can to be better. Speaking of which, vote. For the love of all that is good, vote.

A little bullet list of New Year’s resolutions, because it’s nicer to look at

Try to get back in shape (of course) - That 30 days of strength thing was good while it lasted, despite my joints hating me

Learn some new recipes, preferably with fewer carbs, you Italian ass

Keep a physical calendar and stick with it for at least a few months

Learn at least one new skill by the middle of the year, whether it’s art-related or something else

Start writing more. Don’t have to share it, but try. Write down ideas somewhere other than Discord where they’re easy to lose

Either reopen Patreon or figure out how ko-fi works. Even if it’s for no money, just to have structure and goals.

Do Animazement again and try out some new product types

Go to SCAD career fair with a decent portfolio

Get better about spending, by whatever method works

Attend some art classes at the local collectives, doesn’t matter what

Play more video games. I swear I only played like three new things this year

Read more classic literature and nonfiction, at least one book per month. I’ve been really enjoying Agatha Christie’s works and am about to start Guns, Germs, and Steel

Read more comics. Basically just consume more media

Do Halloween again, better this time

See friends in person more

Practice accepting whatever shitty thoughts show up and then letting them go, rather than dwelling on them

#not art #text post #death cw

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rowanfoster · 4 years ago

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{ odeya rush ♔ twenty-three ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t rowan foster running around peach hollow. legend has it, she comes from tangerine towers and has lived here her entire life. if you’re wondering what she’s been up to, i hear she’s a make up artist / freelance musician for a living. she has been known to be impulsive yet insightful. a word of advice to her, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching.

why yes, it is i, admin kim, with another character that should’ve been kept in the drafts of my mind. if you’ve not met daysia or serenity, here’s a lil low down on me. i’m 26, i use she/her pronouns, and live on the east coast. i thrive on writing angst and my animal crossing villagers being happy. also caffeine. i luv chris klemens. most likely to have a mental breakdown on twitter. meet rowan! trigger warnings for mental illness, bipolar disorder specifically, and inpatient treatment

have a playlist and a pinterest board dedicated to her

rowan celeste foster was born may 27th, 1996. she’s the oldest of two, a baby sister coming to the scene in 1999.

her family is extremely close. they’ve been in peach hollow their whole lives. she grew up in a crowded house on blueberry boulevard, crammed in with her mother, father, sister, maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. rowan never knew peace or privacy growing up – it just wasn’t possible with that many people which has really contributed to her somewhat isolated adulthood

her mother is a charge nurse at peach hollow general, working on the emergency room floor. her father is a retired car salesman. her grandparents moved into the house when her sister was born in order to help take care of the girls while their parents worked full time. rowan is especially grateful for their care, because she feels like she’d be a little more sour had she been raised by absent parents.

growing up, she shared a room with her younger sister. they told each other everything because they had no choice not to. they both developed an interest in make up and music at very young ages, but rowan particularly took to those things while maci took more interest in sports. when rowan was gifted her first ukulele at age 6, maci got her first basketball. they are polar opposites, but maci was the only person rowan really confided in as a child and an adolescent.

she’d always been rather moody. tantrums and fits were nearly unavoidable. her self esteem lacked before she even had a chance to develop any confidence. she was always the try hard, the girl who stood out because she was just a little different, the emotional one, the one the other kids didn’t want to mess with, not because she’d fight back, but because she would absolutely lose it. there were countless times where rowan ended up in the guidance counselor’s office, waiting on her grandmother to show up and bring her home. that was the beginning of their problems.

her mental health really started to decline in her mid teenage years. she spent hours upon hours in her room, writing songs, playing guitar, practicing make up looks – she’d go days without sleeping and snap at anyone who crossed her path. she got into screaming matches with everyone in the house, only to find herself crying in her bed for the next few days. she started missing days at a time from school, while her artistry thrive, the rest of her crumbled. her grades, all of it.

eventually, this resulted in her parents yanking her out of peach hollow high and putting her in counseling, which lead her to a psychiatrist and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at the age of 17. while it made sense, she dreaded taking the medications. they numbed everything. her writing suffered, and while her moods weren’t swinging from the trees anymore, she feared that this empty feeling was worse.

she finished her high school diploma in homeschooling with her grandmother while maci went on to thrive in school. the attention shifted to her, and rowan couldn’t really blame them. she turned 18 and started performing in clubs, bars, and anywhere she could get in. ps her voice is a mix of bishop briggs & mary lambert. the thrill of performing to small crowds sucked her in. she began to gain an even smaller following on social media, mainly the locals following her. every once in a while she’ll book a show in atlanta and she’ll make the long drive just to sing in front of a bit of a larger crowd. she’ll gain a few followers from those shows, but this still isn’t her main source of income.

most of her money comes from the make up artistry she does through pop of peach. she doesn’t go in every day, but when someone has an event scheduled or needs their make up done for a dance or something, she’s there. she tries to spread things out bc she’s always late lmao and finds it hard to stick to a schedule

she was doing so well for a few years, even moved out of her parents’ house and into an apartment at the towers. that’s where she really found herself, made some real friends and built relationships that were good for her. however, she missed a few doctor’s appointments and was discharged from her psychiatrist’s office. she went off meds, and for a few weeks it was fine. when she ran out of meds, the next few weeks were okay as well. it was when every single drop of medication had drained from her body that things got bad.

rowan was missing appointments she scheduled at pop of peach. she was spending far too much time out at nights, giving in to alcohol for the most part. she tried not to touch any drugs, but drinking became a nightly thing. she’d perform, then spend the rest of the night partying with whoever she could find at the venue.

one night in atlanta after a particularly shaky performance, rowan found herself in a dark place and simply went into the women’s bathroom to calm down, but police say they found her laying flat on the ground, refusing to respond to anyone. she vaguely remembers the end of the manic episode, but it did land her in the emergency room for a change in mental status.

much to her chagrin, they admitted her overnight before transporting her to skyland trail, a mental health facility in atlanta. she spend about two and a half months there getting medications regulated and learning new coping mechanisms. she was discharged about two weeks ago and finally made it back to peach hollow and her apartment.

she’d lead everyone other than her family and maybe one or two other people that she was away on a musician’s retreat, but really, was in inpatient treatment.

she’s currently working full time as a make up artist at pop of peach and performing when she can, but doesn’t really go outside of peach hollow

fun facts & personality

rowan despises small talk. conversations about the weather or political climate don’t stimulate her and she gets snarky pretty easily. it isn’t that she wants to come off rude or unapproachable, but nine times out of ten, small talk is fake and she feels as though she doesn’t have the time or energy to indulge in it. ask her about the sky or some shit. she won’t shut up

she has a tendency to overshare, aside from what’s been going on in the past few months. her lips are sealed tight about that. however, she’s open to talking about her mental health and is a big advocate for erasing the stigma. this makes rowan a very good listener and a huge supportive presence for anyone struggling. she’s the mom friend, and no matter what time of day or night, if someone says they need an ear, she’ll go to them. she knows what it’s like to be alone.

despite her past and her demons, rowan finds a way to put on a smile. it might often be snarky or sarcastic, but rarely is it insincere. she’s an empath and feels everything so very deeply, but can easily put it away when necessarily.

her apartment is her safe haven. she rarely has company. it isn’t really her thing. she prefers to go to other people’s places. she has her record collection proudly displayed on her living room wall, all the plants you can imagine, incense burning whenever she’s home, and a scottish fold munchkin cat named loonette after her favorite childhood tv show, the big comfy couch. she has hopes to get another cat named molly to match. you know, because we’re all clowns !

she takes great pride in her instagram. it sounds superficial, but often times, rowan will post a good picture and then link to her next show in hopes that somebody will come based on that. while she does have a passion for make up and a second instagram for it, ultimately, she’d like for there to come a time where she can live solely on the money she makes through music

catch her driving her old ass ford focus blaring 00s alternative, mainly fuckin paramore bc she’s heart eyes for hayley williams

wanted connections if ya made it this far!!!!

childhood friends – those who she’s known since elementary school. they’ve most likely watched her go through her many trials and tribulations in class. these could be acquaintances, close friends, or even a ride or die or two.

bullies – people who fucked with her through school. it’s essential that they’re on bad terms currently, but perhaps an enemy turned friend or romantic could be fun??

group therapy pal – this would be super fun and might entail the person finding out about her secret…. msg me for deets

exes – there will be a couple of these, gender does not matter. i’d like to find one that she was dating when she went into treatment and maybe hasn’t seen/spoken to them since they’ve been back, first love, high school sweetheart?? omg possibilities are endless

flirtationship – self explanatory, gender doesn’t matter she’s pan

any other ideas literally lmk!! thanks for reading ♥

#ok.... one more time kngrdjsnh

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