#life is too short and chaotic and overwhelming to feel bad about writing indulgent fics for myself and anyone who wants to read them

[midnight-coffee94]

Last 5 Songs

Was tagged by @transprincecaspian - I think the goal was to list 5 songs you connect with your characters?? XD Anyway, if not that's what I'm making it now huehuehue. Thank you so much for the tag, this was so fun!!!

I tag: @albino-pony, @zundely, and @geologyofthedas! No pressure, but I'd love to learn more about your OCs! :D

This is for Kieran Lavellan, my mage Inquisitor who features in my fics (most of these were blessed to me by @beastofmoss)-

Overgrown Garden by Beetlebug

The thorns grew tighter every day / 'Round your ankles dripping red / You placed a crown of marigolds on my head / And then you said / As you tried to pull your bloody hands away / "I'm never gonna leave you behind someday / In the daisies and the bluebells / Weeping by the way / Because I love you / And I would do anything / I would do anything / Anything at all"

Bugbear by Chloe Moriondo

But it just sucks to try and explain / Why I feel like this everyday / My brain is surrounded by school kids / Who all got their valedictorian course / While I couldn't care enough about my 3.8 / No matter how hard I try / I'm still not trying hard enough to be great

Warm Regards by Penelope Scott

There's always something more that I could do / It doesn't even matter 'cause I don't wanna go / To college or to heaven or to anywhere alone / Nothing really matters from my point of view

My Throat is an Open Grave (Resurrected)

Fractured, broken, paralyzed / I need some space / Tear me open, analyze / "This isn't me," I used to say / All the love was so gone / It feels good to be alive / I've been dead for so long

I Hear a Symphony by Cody Fry

With simple songs I wanted more / Perfection is so quick to bore / You are more beautiful by far / Our flaws are who we really are

(I mainly post about Kieran, my fics, Dragon Age and going feral about Solas on my side blog: @fenharel-apologist94, in case you want to give me a follow there! :D)

[masterjedilenawrites]

Golden Linings: Chapter 1

Cal Kestis x reader

Series Summary: You and several of your friends have been captured for unknown reasons. After being rescued by a rag-tag trio on the hunt for Force-sensitives, you all strike a deal to aid in their quest while searching for a way back home... though your own priorities threaten to shift as you grow ever-closer to the sweet redhead Jedi called Cal.

Chapter Content: Some fighting and creepers being creeps

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

A/N: I don't really know where this story will go but I've been wanting to write a multi-chapter fic again (don't worry, I'm still working on my Thrawn & Eli one too!) and I wanted to do something with our precious Jedi cinnamon roll, especially after writing this post, which may or may not be woven in later, we'll see. I'm striving for a gender-neutral reader but may update to fem! since this is very self-indulgent I'm so sorry, sometimes you gotta write for yourself ya know?

Chapter 1: Fight and Flight

You were scared.

Terrified.

There almost seemed to be a disconnect between your body and your mind. The one was on auto-pilot, unable to stay still, taking you through street after street as if it actually knew where it was going. The other was shutting down, incapable of processing anything around you in a clear or productive way. Your eyes scanned buildings and faces and signs, but not a single one registered to you.

You were lost.

Scared.

Alone.

It had been a normal day at the start, the kind of normal that wouldn't have planted itself in your memory had it remained a normal day. It would've been indistinguishable from all the other normal days you'd had just like it in your life, and you would've continued on to live even more of them without a single care about it. That's how it should have been.

But now, now that you had been unexpectedly ripped from that sense of normalcy, thrown into this strange place with no options or even an explanation as to how any of this could have been possible, you were forced to accept your life was not as it should be, and that you had to do something about it.

Your feet halted at the thought. You had to do something. All this walking and wandering wasn't doing something... if anything, it was only a distraction, a way to postpone the inevitable acceptance of the situation for what it truly was. A scary, terrifying situation you wanted nothing to do with but had absolutely no choice. A lonely and confusing situation that was going to challenge your strength in a way you wished you didn't have to face, but secretly suspected you needed to. That's why bad things happened to good people, right? To test just how good they really were?

You had stopped at a street corner, one of the quieter intersections in this new town. Instinctually, you'd been trying to get away from the overwhelming hustle and bustle you'd initially found yourself in. Though, now that you were finally letting yourself process your surroundings, you realized that instinct, while good in intention, had actually led you to a not-so-great part of town that was starting to make your skin crawl.

There was litter in the gutters and grease on the walls of the buildings around you. A burst pipe was spewing from somewhere close by, and though it was open daylight, the amount of shadows seemed to have grown. You gulped nervously, not sure if you'd be able to come up with a plan here, or if you'd fare better back to the crowded parts you'd came from.

A whistle came from behind and your spine tingled unpleasantly. You knew what it meant but whirled to face it anyway. A couple of hunkered, wrinkly creatures seemed to be sliding toward you, their humanoid eyes narrowed but openly scanning your body.

"Lost, pretty thing?" one of them almost seemed to hiss.

You responded the way you'd done earlier, when you'd woken up in that dungeon of a room and realized your day had changed from normal to scary... you ran.

Your feet pounded the ground beneath you, sending jolts of pressure painfully up through your tired body. You didn't dare look behind to see if you were being pursued. You didn't hear anything, no further taunts or laughter, but that didn't mean you were completely free. And now you were running deeper into the more desolate parts of this unknown city. If you stopped, you may just find even worse threats waiting. That's what your stressed mind reasoned, anyway.

On and on you ran, one foot in front of the other, until your chest felt on the brink of bursting. You didn't want to, but you let yourself slow back to a stop, and as soon as you did, your legs immediately gave out beneath you. Your knees slammed on the ground and you'd probably feel the sting in them for a while, but you didn't care. Not when you couldn't catch your breath and that nagging sense you were being watched from the shadows sat uncomfortably in your thoughts.

The buildings were taller here, towering so high they blocked out most of the sky and gave the impression it was much later in the evening than you knew it to be. But everything was boarded up. Not a soul was in sight. What even was this place? Was it truly abandoned, or only made to seem so?

You were right to be suspicious. Your paranoia bubbled within you like a sixth sense, turning your head in the proper direction before you were aware of what you were doing. Just on the other side of the street before you stood a tall, glowering man dressed all in blank, flanked by IG droids. The man you didn't recognize, but there had been IG droids guarding that room you'd escaped from. You knew they weren't a common model of droid, so what were the odds they weren't the same as the ones you'd slipped past earlier?

"There you are," the man growled, confirming your suspicion. But what surprised you next was the glowing red light that suddenly jutted out from an object in his hand. It hummed menacingly, threateningly. You knew there was a word for it but couldn't quite call it to mind at the moment. All you knew was it was a weapon, and if you could summon back your breath, you should definitely start running again.

A blaster shot fired out of nowhere and you saw the man raise his stick of light up to block himself from it. How had he known to do that? You didn't have time to fathom it, instead watching as a couple additional figures rushed out of the shadows and toward the man and his droids. One of them hung slightly back, a blaster raised and firing at the droids. The second went straight for the man, producing a beam of light of his own, and clashing enthusiastically against his opponent.

You took the opportunity to put some distance between yourself and whatever this fight was about. You crawled down the street, pushing your back up against a wall you deemed safe enough, though on what criteria you weren't really sure. At least it provided a sense of stability in this otherwise chaotic situation. You didn't know who any of these people were; who the man was and why he was after you, who your rescuers were and whether they were actually friendly or merely enemies of an enemy. Heck, you were still trying to figure out who had captured you earlier that day and why. This fight of lights and lasers was mesmerizing, but incredibly overwhelming.

"So eager to prove yourself," you caught the man growling out. His red light had paused in its assault against the blue one, in favor of taunting the boy who held it instead.

"Oh, this is just good practice," the boy said, matching the man's pacing with his own.

His comment earned a gravely laugh. "Your eagerness makes you sloppy, and your over-confidence makes you weak. This is what happens to students without masters."

It was odd, but though the boy was several feet away from you, half-obscured in shadow and definitely hard to discern through your labored breathing and confused state of mind, you could still somehow tell the man's words upset him. But maybe you were just projecting. You'd be pretty pissed if someone called you weak, too.

Whether the boy would've snapped and resumed the fight or not, you'd never know. What little sliver of sky still remained above was then blocked out by the mass of a ship. It lowered itself as far into the narrow street as it could and sent bursts of wind of hurtling down, your hair whipping about in protest. You braced a hand in front of your eyes, peering through your fingers to see a ramp had been lowered, waiting.

The other figure, who'd made short work of the IG droids, was running toward you now. The man with the red light was temporarily stunned by the sudden arrival of the ship but quickly recovered. He swung his light at the boy and their fight recommenced. Your observation of it was interrupted, though, by the arrival of the woman who'd now reached you.

"Come on, dear, we gotta get out of here!"

She grabbed hold of your shoulder, prepared to help you stand, but you immediately flinched and tried to crawl away. You didn't know her, you didn't know anybody out here. How could you possibly decide whether you should follow her or not?

"Please," she implored, not chasing after you, but holding out her hand and urging you to take it. "We don't have much time. We can get you to safety."

You glanced over at the boy who continued to hold his own against the man who'd been after you, despite having been labeled as sloppy and weak. Surely these people were good, right? At the least, the blue color of his weapon seemed kinder than the red of the other.

The woman was right, there wasn't much time. And you didn't have much choice. You shook yourself, as if trying to physically dispel your own doubt, and stood. You took hold of the woman's hand and let her lead you toward the ship's ramp.

"Cal!" she called back toward her friend as the two of you ran.

If the boy heard he didn't seem to mind, continuing his fight with a determination you still weren't sure how you could detect from such a distance.

The woman jumped effortlessly onto the ramp and turned to hold her hand back out to you. You jumped as you reached for it, but your frazzled nerves must have gotten the better of your strength, as you weren't quite able to hold on for long. You teetered dangerously on the ledge of the ramp where your feet had only barely connected but couldn't quite get enough traction. One part of your mind was bracing itself for the impact of your inevitable tumble backward; the other part had the gumption to ignore the fear and think only of how embarrassing this would be.

And then something warm and solid pressed into your back, and an arm was wrapping around your middle, practically sweeping you away from the edge and up the ramp. You only barely registered a streak of ginger hair next to you as you allowed yourself to be helped into the ship. The ramp closed behind, sealing out the harsh sounds beyond and all the dangers it represented. Your ears seemed to ring from the sudden cut off, but you could hardly shake yourself free of it while you fought to stay balanced as the ship maneuvered itself upward and onward. It was a fleeting fight; you immediately stumbled toward the floor and slid back against the ship wall.

You were safe now. At least that's what you told yourself as you surrendered to your slouched position on the floor of this strange ship, and finally let yourself breathe.