#like a choose your own adventure book where I went with all the wrong paths and now im never going to get to work in the animation industry

[miiiwu]

Tbh I don’t think I ever mentally recovered from the pandemic. I’m still. Idk. Floating thru life with no real routine. Shit sucks

[ethankyou]

A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.

Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!

So how did it go?

Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.

But there are a lot of rules.

I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.

I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!

Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.

Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."

Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.

The character sheet in question. 3 pages!

There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.

Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)

Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.

Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!

There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.

But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.

And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?

I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.

I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.

As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.

The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?

There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.

The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.

Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.

In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.

Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!

I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.

So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).

See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!

[whatsjenniupto]

Morning in Monserrate

Question 1: What did I want to see at Pena Palace? The outside of the castle with the brilliant colors, a bit of the Moorish architecture.  

Question 2: Can I see those things if I just buy a park and grounds ticket for half the price? No.  

Hmmm.

Fact 1: You hate overcrowded places.  

Fact 2: You have no patience for selfie takers.  

Fact 3: You barely survived Quinta da Regaleira and it's not the main reason people come to Sintra. If you hadn't had the empty paths through the hills, you would have stormed out in burning boot fashion. You will not survive Pena. Let's be real.  

Original Sintra Day 2 Plan: Pena Palace and Moorish Castle 

New Sintra Day 2 Plan: Monserrate  

It wasn't on my radar, but if it had Moorish architecture, choose your own adventure grounds, and fewer people, it seemed the much, much better choice for me.  

Ticket booked, off I went in the 100% humidity of morning in Sintra to catch the first bus up to Monserrate. The second my ticket was scanned and I started down the path to the villa, I knew I had made the best decision. This. Was. Amazing.  

I strolled down paths, over waterfalls, around fountains, through the lush foliage of Monserrate. I had purchased the audio guide for an extra euro and used it to navigate my way through the forest to the villa.

While the audio guide was beneficial when walking the grounds, I was a bit disappointed to find it was exactly the same as the information on the displays in the villa. I could read it myself or wait for the guide to load and the narrator to read it at a much slower pace. I read and it was fascinating. The people who have stayed at the villa, the photos of former owners enjoying the grounds, all enjoyed with only a few other small groups of people shuffling around with me.

As I made the rounds around the villa, I found a paper map of the grounds on a table – unfortunately it was all in French, but with the pictures and the rudimentary amount of French words I can get my brain to remember, I was able to locate all the spots I had missed on my descent to the villa.  

Like the false ruin chapel. (Sure, if you're building something where something similar used to be, building ruins makes sense. I think.)

And the ornamental lakes with gigantic pine cones. I was incredibly disappointed there weren't any lying around. How big is a 10kg pine cone?

I had planned on skipping the Mexican Garden. I live in Phoenix. These are my plants -- but I ended up on the path and I could not have been more wrong. They were my plants on steroids. Just like the 10kg pine cones, everything in Sintra was bigger than I had ever seen. That plant below on the left? Easily 7ft tall. Like, if I found a leaf on the ground, I could lay in it.

It was mind-blowing. I had never seen these plants this big. I almost felt like I had been shrunk. I walked back to the lawn for a final picture.

And then it was time to head back to the street to locate a bus to Sintra. I had snagged a public bus up to Monserrate for 2,60€. There were a couple options, but that was the first one that left from the bus stop. I was following the same concept to get back to Sintra. Take the first bus that comes along. A Scotturb bus came along and two other groups of people flung out their arm like I did. I lined up at the door in between the two groups, noting that the 435 number wasn't displayed, but it was the bus company, so I went with it.

Long conversation in Portuguese, showing the driver a slip of paper, and shaking heads. First group stepped back, annoyed. I hopped on, said I wanted to go to Sintra, and got charged 4€ (saving 10 cents because he didn't have correct change). Uh, what?! Oh, right. I do remember Scotturb having ridiculous prices when I researched this bus line. Ugh, oh well. This at least gets me back to Sintra for lunch before I head out to Ericeira. Second group stepped up and had the same interaction that the first group did. They too stepped back, annoyed. Another woman joined the line and had a long conversation about prices, but she paid and away the two of us went back to Sintra.

No idea what sort of bus I was on, but pretty sure it wasn't the 435 Scotturb that I'm guessing the other two groups purchased round trip passes on. And I'm quite certain I saved at least a euro by taking the public bus instead of buying a round trip ticket on Scotturb. Really would have been nice if a public bus was the first one by on the way back too.

[oonajaeadira]

Long Fall Into Oblivion (Ezra x reader)

(header by sirtadcooper - check out the whole beautiful set here.)

Rating: Mature. 

Pairing: Ezra (post-Prospect film) x f!reader

Warnings: Non-explicit sex. Some swears maybe (think there’s a f*ck in there somewhere, my GOODNESS). A lot of gooey, syrupy, soft fluffety fluff. Author attempts at writing Ezra dialogue. A lot of chewy prose.

A/N: I can’t believe I’m posting this, but here goes. I love Ezra. He is a man of questionable morality and an insufferable tongue and I really shouldn’t. But I really do. I just wanted to give him a try. I’ve softened him up here, putting a few years on him so maybe he’s fluffed up some since the events in the film. Also I just ignored the fade or assumed that aurelac mining was still happening because scarcity/demand. Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to go exploring.

Summary: You take a job as an aurelac prospecting trainee and Ezra shows you the ropes. You’re gonna fall in love with him. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

TAGLIST: you can always request to be on the taglist for this or any of my work. If you’d like to be on taglists for upcoming fic, please sign up here –> TAGLIST

MASTERLIST

________________

Bakhroma is one of the smallest gas giants in the sector, but as you stand on the surface of the Green Moon, it dominates the entire horizon, pulling your focus, threatening to engulf everything around it. You almost feel sorry for the lush moon as you walk through its undergrowth, so gentle and full of beauty, destined many years after you’re gone to give its life to her.

A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?

There’s a painful, sour ache in your heart as you walk back to the camp in twilight, watching the back of Ezra’s helmet bob along in front of you. You’d spent two days digging that claim only to find the weakest aurelac nest you’ve seen yet, only three viable nodes. You’d dug through one of them by accident and completely melted another like an incompetent fool. Kevva’s ass, you were such a disappointment. Three months in the Green and you still can’t cut a blister out properly. Not even once.

Ezra’s shoulders are wide and tense, his one hand splayed out as he walks, running over the tops of the tall ferns, catching one every now and then only to rip the top away, twirl it between his gloved fingers and toss it impatiently aside.

The other two members of your team headed out on a sling this morning, another two will be arriving in a few days. And you wonder if Ez regrets just not cutting his losses and leaving with them, or at least sending you back in exchange for another kip.

You think about shifting through the comm channels, hoping that he’s chattering away in one of them, switched without your knowledge, but it’s a lost cause. You can hear him breathing on the channel between you. It’s not often Ezra has nothing to say.

________________

You thought your father was leaving you an inheritance. It’s not the reason you took care of him through his illness, but you’d dropped everything to be back home with him through his final months. In a way, it was a blessing, a reason to quit the Dasha factory and the terrible working conditions there, come back home and focus on your dad, relive good memories, just spend time. The reconnection lifted your heart, but his death sank it low again. When you learned he had nothing to leave you but a small house and some old vehicles, you sold what you could and traded in the rest.

Then you had nothing. No family, no job, little savings, questionable future. It almost broke your spirit. But the last few months with your father rekindled your love of him as he told you about his years in the Fringe, mining and prospecting. And your heart had said, “what the hell, let’s try that.” So you listened.

It took some time to track down the right inroads, but you were able to find some ads for prospecting teams, in particular those who were willing to take on members in training for a re-distributed cut. With all provisions included--other than suit and gear, which your father’s inheritance neatly covered--it seemed like just as good of a deal as any, and an adventure to boot.

But the reality was, every team you met with was full of hardened men, and while you were not a soft Central woman, you also weren’t overly versed in weaponry and didn’t know if you could defend yourself out in the Fringe against attack if things got crusty.

You were just about ready to admit defeat when you walked into yet another conference bunker and found your match. The first thing you noticed was that he was standing when you arrived, waiting for you politely rather than manspread at the table. Second were his eyes. Deep, brown, and sad. Maybe sad was the wrong word, certainly it seemed by the lines in his face, possibly by the missing arm, that he’d seen enough sadness, but toward you, it read more as concern. You wouldn’t know it until later when he confessed his feelings about this first meeting, but he was worried you wouldn’t choose him. Ezra had a hell of a time hiring partners. He may have been one of the longest-working aurelac diggers out there, but young kippers saw his greying beard and seasoned diggers saw his lacking arm and they all tended to turn around and walk out before he even said hello. So he’d tried to put himself out there as a trainer, show that he had something more to offer.

It didn’t hurt his feelings when you admitted to him later that those qualities were exactly why you chose him. He seemed the opposite of threatening. And his eyes were bright when he smiled at you. With his thrumming baritone and his Fringe twang and his mixed deck of mosaic words, he had a way of speaking that felt like a fluffy blanket curling around you, your brain vibrating with comfort at every new monologue. He was eccentric and perhaps a little jarringly rough in his humor at times, but there was something about him that you trusted immediately, even though you’d come to learn later you probably shouldn’t have if you were being overly cautious.

Not that your judgement ever came to detriment. Not that he ever proved you wrong that way. Not when it came to you. But the man was dangerous when he had to be in a way you hadn’t initially picked up on.

________________

You hadn’t been out in the Green two weeks before you looked up from the bottom of a dig hole to see Ezra standing over you with a thrower.

“You get down and you stay down, understand?”

“Ez? What--”

“I said stay down! Do not make me waste words on mere repetition!” The fuzzy blanket of his voice replaced suddenly by a snarling, snapping brush wolf, a quick change hitting you like a slap in the ear.

There’d been pops and whizzes as shots rang through and you did as your trainer said, face down, the view of your visor giving you nothing but dirt. Your helmet was a chorus of quick breathing from both of you and sweat rolled down your neck as you begged the eyes of Kevva to look down upon your partner. When the crossfire faded, you’d heard Ezra stalk away. Then there were a couple more shots. Then more footsteps returning.

“You are permitted to stand, trinket. All is well as it can be for us. But not so much for our dearly departed friends.” These words were as soothing as much as his previous ones had burned, and he simply went back to working at the dig at hand as if he’d just come back from taking a leak. It wasn’t until you left the site that evening that you tramped past two rotting raiders, gaudily outfitted with broken face shields, left to let the Green take them.

Ezra whistled as he stepped over them, stopping only to harvest their filters and munition rods, which he tossed your way to stow in your pack, and then continued lazily down the path toward camp. Just another day on the job. 

He may be a little peculiar and not someone to trifle with, he may have just killed two people without remorse or further comment, but his lack of reassuring words told you that this was just part of the deal. You wear the suit, you use the air scrubber in the tent, you follow the landing pod instructions as written, and you defend yourself against those who wish to harm you. Survival by any and all means is paramount, mundane, and something he has no qualms with on any level.

There was something deep down inside of you that instinctually pulled you to follow him, not just down the literal path before you, but whatever path Ezra chose to wander.

________________

Before you’d left the station with him, he’d taken you to a thrower range to gauge your skill which was decent in theory, but dismal compared with what he could do. No matter, he still patiently taught you how to properly clean and charge a weapon and the best way to breathe and pull the trigger; “like you’re taking hold of a man’s...well... Just go easy and firm.” He suggested you should come and practice every day before lift off and then hope to Kevva that you didn’t have to rely too heavily on it.

“If I find myself in a coffin of my own suit, then feel free to defend yourself as a final means of preservation. Otherwise, when it comes down to shots fired, best to let me do the dirty work. Might as well keep the blood where the blood has been.”

You’d been a little nervous about sharing a freighter pod alone with him, but Ezra was...well, not so much a gentleman as just a comfortable soul. 

He always waited until you were hungry to eat, thinking it rude to eat alone in front of you. He never moved around the pod while you were sleeping, content to keep still with a book in his cot. And if you couldn’t sleep, he was always willing to read to you from whatever impossibly dense old world classic he was digging through for the umpteenth time, letting his voice come up from the deeps and pull you gently under. If you asked permission to turn on the radio, he’d ask you “why Isn’t it on yet, woman,” quietly tolerating your taste in harsh and gleeful babblecore pshcyopop. In the later days of the journey, he’d even come to dance with you from time to time, although both of you were dismal at it and ended up with you in a fit of giggles. It was a sure-fire way to cure a case of the pouts you carried through from the morning fitness sessions when he beat you at pushups. Again.

When it came to privacy in the tight space, he had a habit of turning away without having to be asked or stopping his stream of talk when you went to change clothes, just happily chattering away until you called the all clear. Although he was not squeamish about his own state of undress, should you happen to catch it by accident. While he was respectful of your privacy, he seemed to need none of his own, but neither did he flaunt anything. You might look up from studying the flight manual to notice he was changing into a fresh pair of compression pants, tugging them on haphazardly with one hand, more concerned with telling you the overwhelmingly disgusting manufacturing process of Bits Bars than his own ass hanging out where you might see it. At least he always changed facing away from you which was a kindness.

Until it wasn’t.

After you realized you’d fallen quietly in love with him--a sudden, soft moment on the Green--then you’d admit only privately to yourself that you wouldn’t mind if you accidentally saw a little more than the occasional shirtless attire he might wear around the tent.

But in the pod, the only part of him that had caught your curiosity was his stump, and you’d known Ezra intensely enough over the past couple of weeks where you knew he wouldn’t take offense. Especially if you asked him the right way.

“Will you tell me a story, Ezra?”

“I feel that it is my duty to do so whether you ask me to or not. Shall I choose, or is there something in particular you would like to hear?”

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, propped up against his cot, going through his kit, cleaning his gear. You waited until he noticed your lack of answer and looked up to meet your eyes. When he saw that you had put your manual down and were focusing all your quiet attention on him, he stopped his busy work. 

When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute. When he knows you seriously need something from him, that becomes his immediate main priority and all else can wait. It’s only gotten more intense since that day, but there is a trust that resides between you when you look into his eyes, gathering your words as he waits patiently every time to hear whatever you’re going to request of him. There’s always hope there in his big browns, always something specific he’s waiting for you to ask, and every day you get a little bit closer to understanding what it might be. But until then, any question is a welcome one, any query is met with his wish to provide.

“Will you tell me how you lost your arm?”

At first you thought you may have gone too far, that maybe you insulted him, as his eyebrows peaked together and he looked down at his hand. But then, “That is a tale that may cause you some consternation, trinket. The Green is dangerous and unforgiving, and there were times I may not have been a man worthy of fair opinion.”

“My father was a prospector, you know. I’ve heard stories. Have you ever killed anyone?”

He clicked his tongue and screwed up an eye, causing the thin white scar on his cheek to twist. Then he sighed and returned to your locked gaze. “To be honest, I have. Though I have never done so with pleasure, I have killed in defense and out of desperation, and it was out of dispatching a man in this way that I came to lose the second favorite of all my appendages.”

“Second favorite?”

“Well, it depends what you classify as a limb.” He huffed a small laugh, a spark in his eye, trying to diffuse the harsh subject in his own way.

His leaning into baseness never bothered you. There was something earthy about it, gritty and rough, but never lewd. You rewarded his crassness with a smile. “Do you plan on killing me out in the Green?”

“I would hope my murdering days are behind me, and if they are not, you would see me aim a thrower at everyone but you in the course of my spree. You are under my tutelage, and for that, I owe you a duty of care. That is my word by Kevva.”

“Then tell me the story. I like your stories. I promise not to judge now-Ezra by then-Ezra.”

A dimple formed on his cheek, a punctuation mark framing the approaching anecdote on his lips. “Then I will declare myself absolved of any sin heretofore and regale you with a clean and grateful heart.”

________________

You can see the tent through the trees and you realize with some horror that it’s just you and Ezra for the next few nights. If he’s angry with you, and this is how he is when he’s upset, the silence will be unbearable.

Even that little girl he helped out here years ago was probably more capable than you. You feel so lost in this moment, and it’s only made worse by his silence. You fumble with your communicator and hit the mute just in time to choke on a sob.

This isn’t like you. You’re not one to cry when things get rough. You hardly shed a tear when your father died. But the thought of that just brings another sob and as acting as your own psychologist you realize that you are experiencing some displaced sorrow, the odd need to please the leading male in your life, the one that’s walking ahead of you, away from you. If he’d just turn around and throw you his worn weary smile, if he’d just start up a conversation you’d know that there was hope for you, you’d know you didn’t give up everything to be here in a job you couldn’t hack.

You gotta stop this. Or it’s going to be an uncomfortable night.

Shake it off.

Once you enter the tent, the usual dance happens. Ezra reaches up to turn on the air scrubber and you unhook his filter tube from his helmet. When he turns to you, you pull open the zipper cover on his suit and start his zip for him before lifting his helmet up and off. He can pull the zip the rest of the way, but you generally pull the left collar down for him so he can get his arm out. He’s on his own from there as you turn to fuss with your own gear. 

________________

You remember it starting easily enough. He was telling you a story about the breeding habits of the Tokovian Musk Owl and you could see he was having trouble with his suit zipper, yanking at it and trying to look down at it even though it was under his chin and his helmet. Without another hand to keep the fabric taut, the zip didn’t want to release, so you simply batted his hand away and started it for him. He didn’t even stop his yammering, just threw in a “thank you” somewhere in between “could hear them screeching” and “for a fuck.” He’d right out asked you the day before if you wouldn’t mind disengaging the filter tube just because it was delicate and he didn’t want to mangle the expensive part trying to pop it out one-handed day after day. And while he could manage the helmet fine enough, his prominent nose thanked you for a smoother removal for sure. 

It wasn’t the only routine dance you’d concocted. 

There was the harness dance.

While dig days were excruciating, you always looked forward to helping him attach the harness for his prosthesis--a kind of rigid pole attached to a shovel so you didn’t have to do all the hard digging alone. There were a couple of straps that came around his torso with multiple latches and you’d come to really enjoy wrapping your arms around him to fit the straps on. Sure, you could do the job just as easily from behind, but if you embraced him at the front, he’d usually raise his arm and let it come to rest around your shoulders while you worked. If you let yourself dream, it would be easy to imagine that he might be pressing you into him just a little bit.

And there was the harvesting dance.

On a dig, you were the one to mix the fazer and Ezra did the pour. He fished the sack, you cut the cord. You sliced the outer casing and held it open while he did the extraction. And with the flesh-covered stone, he told you every time to “hold it like you love it” so he could cut away the slippery blister before cleaning the gemstone.

It was a beautiful harmony. And the only way it worked. Because once on every dig he urged you to do a solo extraction, and on every dig, you pierced the blister and lost that stone. And on every dig, he squeezed your shoulder and told you it was a wondrous try, that he was proud of you, and there would always be another turn. There was no sarcasm, no pity, just a warm smile and ceaseless optimism even though you just lost both of you thousands in pay.

These were the first touches, these shoulder squeezes that ran down your arm on the let-go. Sometimes he would just reach out and grab onto you like a pole to help himself up, or he might stumble off balance on uneven ground and without the counterweight of his right arm he’d throw his hand out onto you to steady himself. He wasn’t beyond lightly touching the small of your back to encourage you down a path or to take your next try at a gem pull. 

This was all part of something you’ve secretly named the left-handed-lover’s dance. Basically, that you keep on his left whenever you can in case he needs your help or has the inclination to reach for you. It started out as just trying to be a good partner. Then it became a passing hope that it was more than just a friendly bond. But you were both here to do a job. He was here to teach you to be an independent prospector and you were here to assist and learn. That was evident at the end of the day; once you were both in the tent and out of the suits he never touched you, never so much as bumped into you or grazed your hand in passing an item or clapped you on the arm after a good joke. 

But out in the field all zipped in and helmets on, there was nothing more natural than his gentle hand guiding you or reaching for your assistance, including the day you realized you loved him.

________________

Before you can turn away to strip off your own coverings, Ezra catches your arm, spinning your face into the light. You try to shake him off, not wanting him to catch your eyes puffy from crying and your cheeks still streaked with tears, but his grip is not so gentle now and he yanks you back around to his stormy glare, chin up, brows low. His intensity paralyzes you, rendering you unable to continue your struggle when he catches your eyes with his.

When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute.

His gaze travels back and forth between your eyes, waiting for an explanation, a minute so stringent it breaks you down, dissolves you into the tears you’d tried so hard to hide.

“I’m sorry, Ezra. I really am trying... I don’t know why I’m such a scuffer at this and I know it would only be right to release you from the contract and tell you to send me back but I don’t want you to, I really wanna stay, I really wanna learn and I’m so, so sorry.”

Your words have an immediate effect, softening him, pulling his glare into concern and wonder, his lips parting just the tiniest bit in surprise.

“This is the reason for your heavy mood? You think I am provoked by your proficiency in the field?” 

“I crusted up good today and it seems like you’re not happy about it. Just...know that it means so much to me that...I don’t wanna let you down.”

“Oh, trinket, no.” An incredulous huff jumps out of him and his grip on your arm loosens, becomes a splayed warm support behind your shoulder, moving in soothing patterns and you’re instantly relieved that your assumptions were wrong. “You have done no harm in my book. It is not an easy thing to deliver a gem of this ilk into the world unscathed. Your opportunities have been few and scattered and it takes many sticks before a lover becomes a lothario.” He knows the crass humor will make you laugh, knows what to say to lighten your heart, to get you to soften, and bring you into his intimate, conspiratorial mood. “To be perfectly honest, I am selfish to an unrighteous degree, for every gem you burn keeps me in value to you. A worthy sacrifice to guarantee you mightn’t be so quick in your need to fly away from me until your training’s complete.”

This causes a hitch in your breath as you see the welcome turn the conversation he’s taking and you follow the path he’s making for you. “I don’t want to leave you, Ez.”

A smile creeps up one side of his mouth. “Well then I am a happy man. A bargain is struck! Partners it is.”

“Partners it is.”

A moment hangs between you as he rubs his thumb in slow circles on your shoulder. There’s that look in his eye again, the one where he’s waiting for you to ask the question he wants to hear from you. So close now.

Still, you’re unsure. “I guess I’m lucky I found the one person who wants an incompetent partner.”

“No, I do not, nor is it what I have and I must express my objection to your self-debasement. This work is not for the shiny, and you have not once complained about taking on the meat of the digging or the crawl of my schedule.”  His hand comes to your helmet shield and he rakes his thumb across it as if he ached to wipe away one of your staleing tears. “Those bright eyes of yours got a penchant for spotting deposits more skillfully than I could ever manage and that’s not something that can be taught; that’s talent, girl. The blistering?” He shrugs. “Even I can’t manage that without the steady help of your fine hands. You may think that your blunders in education are causing us some financial ruin, but our fortunes are creamy. I assure you, we can afford it.”

That look is still there. He’s waiting. “There’s some ‘us’ and ‘we’ in there, Ez.” Your hands drift to his sides, taking fistfuls of his compression suit top, willing him closer.

The edges of his eyes take on the crinkle you’ve come to find so much comfort in. “So there is.”

You’re almost there. You know what he wants. “Why were you so quiet on the walk back?” 

“Because for the next few days we are alone here and I have a mind full of questions I do not know how to ask you.”

“Then let me go first.” A yearning happiness settles in his brown eyes; finally. Finally you’ve found out what it is he needs you to request of him. “If I take this helmet off, are you going to kiss me, Ez?”

His eyes close in contentment and he nods, “Yes. Yes, little jewel. Yes I am, that and more. I hope I have inferred correctly that it is your wish that I do so, because I am in free fall. I feel my orbit ending and my pull to you is complete.”

_______________

“A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?”

Speculating days were some of your favorite times, just wading through the brush and looking for the telltale signs and shoots of an underlying deposit. Sometimes you came upon nests of strange groundling insects or flowers that only grew in secret. There were treasures underfoot on this poisonous moon, but if you remembered to look up as well, you might find some dangerous beauties there too. 

On that day--the one where you finally understood your heart--you’d looked up to find that you were on a cliffside overlooking a valley, the canopy a million different hues of green, the gas giant looming over half the sky in a big pink and orange semi-circle. There was a fallen log that served as a perfect seat for the perfect view and you knew Ezra wouldn’t mind if you stole a few moments to sit and to take it in. It’s just the kind of thing he’d appreciate. And you were proven right when he came up behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder to steady himself as he swung one leg then the other over the log, finding a perch next to you, spouting pretty words through the channel link--soft and low--about moons and orbits and obilvions.

“That glowing beauty is Bakhroma. She is quiet and fierce, made up of the unfathomable and the unknowable, always within sight, but out of reach and untouchable unless one would trade the honor with great sacrifice. She reflects the light that is given to her with a patience that is heretofore untold. And the Green Moon upon which we ride follows where she goes like a lovesick fool, spinning around her in a heady kind of adoration, full of secret treasures buried deep down that will ultimately one day belong to her, falling incrementally over eons until he finally loses himself in her, all his glories gladly forfeit to her welcome and inevitable embrace. Alone but together, seemingly eternal, pulled as one by the laws of a mysterious universe.”

The void that came after those words was filled with the beating of your heart, and you were sure he could hear it through the channel.

When he’d landed there beside you, you’d registered how his hand slid off your shoulder, diagonally down across your back, coming to rest at your waist, his arm draped lightly around you. Natural. Easy. Everything was warm--the colors of the sky, the care with which he kept you close as if to better hear the honey sweetness in his prose, the fire burning in your lungs and neck.

Ezra probably didn’t know that you spoke a little Vayok.

Bakh being the Vayok word for adornment. Ornament, Gem. Roma was a modifier, a diminutive. Small. Dear.

Bakhroma. Sentimental bauble. A little jewel.

In other words, a trinket.

All you wanted to do was sit down to take in the view of an entire world for a few moments, but by the time Ezra took your hand and helped you to your feet, all you saw was him.

________________

The helmet is barely off before his lips are sealed to yours in a press of greed. Even if he can’t form words when he kisses you, he can’t help but express his deep relief in a heartbreaking moan. It’s a fight to release yourself from the suit when he keeps pulling you against him and every time you try to get some space between you to work the zipper, he chuckles into your mouth, enjoying the tease and the struggle. It’s simultaneously frustrating and thrilling and you give in for a few moments just to give him what he seems to want so desperately right now.

Ezra kisses like a man starved for air, long, hard, and full of need, peeling his lips away only to come back for another breath of you until his initial want is slaked and he slows, allows for more time between his taking, his mouth starting to mumble against yours, praising you with pet names, telling you how perfect you are to him, how long he’s “fought against my more dubious natures to respect your womanly virtues and take them only when you could see in me a man worth bestowing them on.”

You’re able to use his weakness for monologuing to turn around in his vice-like embrace, finally freeing yourself of the suit and he takes the opportunity to drawl more pretty words in your ear, warning you that “I’m afraid I have been enamored of you overly long and may be extra eager in my attentions. So you just say the word if you need a slow down, gentle one, and I will do my best to comply. Although I will admit it will be a difficult endeavor indeed as I feel I am entering your atmosphere and nothing might quell this burn but finding some drowning place to land.”

Your first impression of him was of a man whose age and temperament and body would not be able to overpower you.

Your first impression was wrong.

Of course, it helps that you are willing.

It doesn’t take long for him to strip you down, and then himself. To kiss you down onto the floor. To find exactly where you like to be touched most and how long it takes for you to break from it. He has so many words for you, so many praises to sing about every part of you that is round or soft or wet, comparing you to things that are sweet and plush or celestial and holy. And when you take his favorite limb in hand--as wondrous as the rest of his body--and guide it to its fit, he plunders and harvests all you have to give him, filing you with himself, for as long as you call for it, as long as you let him. He loves you like he speaks to you: rough and drawn out, full of beautiful tangents and meandering plotlines, but in the end it is beautiful and fulfilling; you may be just a little bit confused how you got to the ending, but you’re completely in awe.

When you lay breathing heavy, staring but not seeing the ceiling of the tent, your consciousness seemingly lifted to see through it to the stars, to the glowing face of Bakhroma, you run hands through rough-chopped hair on a head laying on your chest. He’s listening to your heartbeat, waiting for it to slow down so he can start again. The air is thick--even the air scrubber can’t keep up with all your humidity--and there’s a halo around each bulb of the string lights just barely illuminating the darkness.

“How long, Ez?”

“Hm?”

“How long have you been waiting for that.”

“Most likely since the day you walked into my interview. I am a man of simple wants and you had all the right parts for my preferences.”

“For real, Ez.”

He tipped his head up to find you. “What you ask has many true answers, and I stand by the first. I have no qualms telling you of my weakness for a pretty succulence and a kind smile the likes of which you possess. But if you are asking when I knew I would have it, well, that may have been the first day you danced. Or when you asked me to read you to sleep. Or when I understood I wouldn’t let those bastard raiders get near enough to take their turn at your qualities when I had not had them myself. Or when you finally saw me as a viable person to drape your affections on; maybe it was that day too.”

“When I finally saw you as....”

“I have read many tomes and verses but none so full of beautiful passages as your face that day on the cliff. There is a difference of knowing and being. I knew the feel of your pull that day, but found I’d been in orbit all along.”

How he can live this way, twist everything into a tossed away poem...it should be exhausting. Yet you feed off it. You breathe it like air.

After another long cycle of frenzied entanglement and violent euphoria, you ask Ezra if he’d like to move to a cot, maybe get some sleep. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk to the dig tomorrow morning,” you confess.

“No need to worry about tomorrow,” he says, wapping his arm around you and dragging you back to him, grumbling into your ear. “We are the only prospectors in this sector and the aurelac will wait. Until our new compatriots arrive, we are officially on hiatus. Recreational mining only. Restricted to the confines of this tent. By order of your supervisor. In the interest of more precious treasures. And I intend to strike it rich.”

“Well. I’m here to assist. And learn.”

“When it comes to this dig, trinket, you are more than competent. I am no longer your trainer. Partners it is.”

“Partners it is.”

The new contract is struck, signed and sealed in kissing and in touch and a long, slow fall into inevitable oblivion.

[thelostguardianau]

The Lost Guardian- Chapter Eight

“Heed the Silenced”

(Authors note: aha.. yknow I should probably stop making promises for this fic. Months later, w/ a chapter that doesn’t have Thomas in it, three different outlines down and i’m really just at the mercy of this fic at this point xD considering midway through writing this chapter I had to cut and rewrite an entire scene i’d spent a month on bc I’d decided that Dee had a chance at redemtion that added an actual direction and a tangable end goal to this story. So. Yeah. And!! A loud Thank You!! to @bumblebeekitten for helping me bounce ideas back & forth for this au and being my beta for this chapter!!)

Character Info & Art:

Patton | Logan | Roman | Virgil | Remy | Deceit | ??? | ???

Chapter Seven | Chapter Nine

Fandom: Thomas Sanders Sides

Pairings: Eventual Polyamsanders (LAMPR/CALMR-a.k.a LAMP/CALM + Remy ‘Sleep’ Sanders)

Warnings: THIS CHAPTER IS KINDA DIALOG HEAVY!(sorry) Currently depicted as morally grey Deceit(subject to change in future chapters), though the side of Deceit from his first appearance doesnt make an appearance in this chapter and it is explained why, mentions of past betrayal and dark descriptions of bodily concepts, curses, limitations, and changes only really explained as possible through the lore of this au. Deceit speaks in riddles because he has to, ominous warnings. Virgil still isn’t okay mentally. Mentions of indifference to death, lack of selfworth or self preservation. (Let me know if I need to add anything!)

[[MORE]]

Brown eyes flutter open at the chilly breeze of a fan, and the ravenette’s mind comes to realize that he’s been moved from resting on his stomach to laying on his back. Groggy from his much too short nap, it takes a few moments to realize there are no warm bodies near him or under him, no breathing or chatter of familiar voices to sooth him.

The room, he realizes, is empty.

The room itself is, in fact, not Remy’s bedroom at all.

Shooting straight up, Virgil’s first clear thought is that he’s back at home. At his apartment, this time in his hoodie yet still roughed up from his latest ‘adventure’. The scene is eerily familiar, and yet he knows this time that work is not where he needs to be. It’s already daylight and his mind now knows this familiar scene, he should feel alone. Yet, this time he can hear the sound of honking cars and people, his loud neighbor from upstairs stomping around.

It doesn’t make sense as he walks to his window and peers out to see vague cars and people, he can’t even seem to make out any individual faces. It’s grey and raining outside, but there is no pattering sound against the foggy window. ‘What’s happening?’ Virgil wonders.

“Life seemed so simple a week ago, even months ago, did it not..?” A familiar voice drifts from behind him. Ice cold fear shoots down the ravenette’s spine as he recognizes the voice.

“I can hardly believe you were able to leave it, your routine. It was your everything, back when you came to terms with what you had left. Am I wrong, Virgil?” Whirling around to face the voice, Virgil finds the terrifying ex-Guardian sitting on his couch looking quite at home, if a little sheepish.

“What do you care?” He spat back, stepping back against his window.

“I am only looking out for you, you know. I have been protecting you all your life. Of all people I think I would know what is best for you, don't you think? We are connected after all, you and I.” The man sighed, making a surrendering motion with his hands.

“Why would I trust you?! You tried to kill me yesterday!” Virgil growled. “Why--h-how are you even here!?”

“False, my dear Virgil. I tried to warn you. Sure,” The guardian rolled his hand as he spoke, “I am forced to have a round-about way of speaking my truths, it is just part of my consequences it seems. But how else was I going to get you to listen to me after the others fed you lies about me? I do sincerely apologize for my other half being rough, though. I cannot quite.. Control.. Him.” The guardian tilted his bowler hat down to guiltily hide his eyes, regret briefly twisting his expression.

Finally the Guardian stood, dusting himself off as if his immaculate attire had acquired dust from just existing in his apartment. “I needed my physical body to reach yours and make our soul connection strong again, so that my soul could reach yours. However.. The pain I caused you was far from my intention. I am deeply regretful that it came down to.. That awful encounter.

“To answer your question though, Virgil, I am here because I created ‘here’. A realm made to form this illusion of being home, sweet home, just on the corner of the little street you had come to live on for the past year. It is all my doing. Where you stand is simply an illusion only you and I can access, a manipulation of your dreams and memories. The only place where the real me can talk to you mostly unhindered.” The guardian gestured to his surroundings.

“It takes only one person to flip your life on it’s head, a matter of hours to make the decision of a lifetime, and a matter of days to have completely changed your life’s direction,” He turned to Virgil, and looked him straight in the eyes, feeling distant and lost.

“And only a matter of years to succumb to the depression of the lonely consequences..”

Virgil blinked at that. The sad, longing tone had him thrown for a loop; it almost felt like the Guardian wasn't even quite talking to Virgil. “I-What..? I.. I don’t understand.”

The Guardian shook his head, snapping out of it and refocusing himself. "Nevermind that. It is time I talked to you for real, if you will have me?" The Guardian held out a hand politely, though there was no real expectation for Virgil to take it.

After a pause, Virgil gave a slight nod, still suspicious of the other's intent. The Guardian returned the nod, and his hand fell to his side.

“I am limited to the time that you rest and for now I will not be able to explain myself thoroughly, so, I ask you to understand that I do not expect you to trust me when I am done. I honestly do not expect you to ever trust me. With the mistakes I have made, I firmly believe I would not deserve it.”

Virgil blinked in surprise, not having expected his captor to admit to his faults straight off the bat.

“Okay.. Well, we’re here, might as well hear your side of the story. So.. Shoot.” Virgil said lightly, distrust and suspicion still evident in his tone and stance.

“I would assume at this point you are well aware of how the story you have been told paints me as the villain, a mastermind seeking power, immortality, and revenge? At least, that is what I am led to believe is still the story, it has been many years since I have heard the tale first hand… And... Well. Would that not be so lovely?” Virgil made a face, eyes narrowing in confusion.

“I am serious. Life would be so much easier if it was all black and white, true or false, good and bad, would it not? If those who meant well knew everything and those malicious few could not corrupt anything?” The Guardian frowned a bit, frustrated with his words that couldn’t seem to cooperate with him.

“Would it not be lovely if I could talk to you without fighting to keep from turning every honest thought into a question or theoretical statement just to let it be said? That my words could hold a meaning not forcibly disguised in the forms of fables and riddles?” The Guardian looked down lamely, his words tapering off in agitation. For a moment, Virgil waited as the Guardian was silent, contemplative. Then, the next moment the Guardian’s face scrunched up in sadness and his words were soft as he placed a hand over his golden wrist markings.

“My story is complicated, and twisted with shades of grey. One could say what I did was an attempt to keep you safe, another could say that what I did was outlandish and impulsive, and stupid. But no one will be able to tell you that what I did went according to the plan I had... at first. No one will tell you that my intention was to save you, to keep your fate safe. No one will tell you that my plan was ruined. Because there is no longer anyone who remembers what happened that night except for me,”

The Guardian’s eyes flicked up to meet the ravenette’s, a hurt look passing over his face as he continued. His steady voice now just barely trembled with uncertainty as he continued.

“No one but me and the soul who wants so desperately for everyone to forget. The soul who ripped my own in two to bury the secret, and ruin you and I both.”

“My final warning is this: Beware of the man who carries the world on his shoulders unflinchingly, he will be watching you closely. You have immunity to his power thanks to our connection, you might use this knowledge well to find the truth that lies in plain sight. However, your fate lies in the decisions you chose to make with this knowledge, I can only warn you of what might come.” The Guardian nodded solemnly, choosing to finish his cryptic warning there.

Virgil stood there, reeling with the information. Sure, he definitely wasn’t completely convinced he could trust this cryptic stranger, Guardian? Foe? Friend? Virgil wasn’t really sure what to call him anymore. But damn, his life was already so fucking crazy, this was all just fucking crazy! He could just be dreaming for all he knew.

But… Deep inside, he was hoping he wasn’t.

This was, well. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear when facing the man whose, er, body? Had originally tried to strangle him? Now he’d heard his sob story and, well, Virgil wasn’t that easy to fool, but he’d also been told that it wasn’t expected that he’d trust the guy even in the end and he didn’t really want to.

He’d been on the path to death for so long, and then just two days ago everything had changed. So much was happening, it was frankly exhausting. What the fuck was he, some book protagonist? Couldn’t he get a little time to think about all this before he went crazy?

Still, something under all his incredulity begged to hear the guardian out. He vaguely wondered how Stockholm Syndrome worked before he gave in a little. What difference did a little more crazy make in his life at this point?

“Fine, I’ll heed your warning, or whatever the fuck. But only if you can tell me what you mean when you said that this guy ripped your, uh, soul? In two.” Virgil huffed, partially relaxing. It was odd how comforting he found it to be, floating in this weird feeling imaginary world, where he could interact with objects that weren’t real. It felt like he was really standing in his home, and yet it was just built from memory.

The guardian’s solemn expression formed into a grim smile, eyes distant once more before nodding. “I will do the best that my words will allow.” Virgil nodded, and waited for the now very familiar stranger to gather his words and take a breath. Then he began, his markings lightly flashing gold.

“You find yourself whole one day, as you have always been. To be whole of body, whole of mind, both human and guardian in nature. To have conscious thought and control over your whole physical being and soul..

“You find that yourself and others of the winged variety are capable of separating your soul from your being, though only the most Elite can do it well. You find out the family you made would soon be in danger. You then find yourself lost and alone when you once had a home to call your own.

“You find yourself knowing a truth, a perilous truth. Your home is in shambles now that you are gone, yet they do not know it. This truth is at fault, but the blame is not fully your own in a world built on lies.

“The source of truth tucks itself into blankets of grey, drawing itself further from discovery with each passing day. Now only you know the truth. The source of the truth finds you, it seeks to hide you too.

“You find yourself split one day, as you have never been before. Forced apart from the body, trapped within the mind. Guardian in nature, to have conscious thought and your dying soul trapped within, a false mind piloting the puppeteered confines of a broken body with a blind goal.”

“You find you cannot control what you used to, you are a prisoner to a body that is no longer your own, mostly unconscious to the world around it. Crazed by the false emotions that fuel it.”

“The you that used to be is no longer, and has not been for over a hundred years. The world that knew you knows not of what you’ve become. Knows not of the shackles that bind you.

“The you that used to be is no longer, and will never be again.” The Guardian finished, hesitant yellow eyes meeting Virgil’s carefully. Phantom goosebumps trail down Virgil's arms as the final sentence strikes a cord in him.

Virgil found he really wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, the rawness in the other’s tone spoke volumes of the sore spot they’d reached.

“Your body rests, but your mind also needs time to process today. I shall see you when you next rest, though only if you wish to seek me. Rest well knowing that you will not be scooped from your safety once more, as I hope I’m never to do so again. And...” The guardian paused, considering their next words very carefully.

“I know it is selfish to ask... but, I hope and wish that Thomas is alright, after all this time... Do take care of him, would you?”

Virgil paused and stared, finding only concern and longing in the guardian’s expression. And, well, fuck. What a way to pull at a guy’s heartstrings.

“Er, yes. Yeah. I’ll try my best.” Virgil gave his signature mock salute, the Guardian tipping his hat in return.

“Trying is all I could ever ask of you, Virgil. Rest well, you will need it.” And with that final sentence, the world around Virgil gently grew dark, and he sunk into the comforting arms of sleep.

Despite it all, Virgil still found his mind vaguely conscious. Sluggish at best, but awake nonetheless.

He figured it was likely some lingering effect from the Guardian’s dream realm, but didn’t dwell on it. His life had way too much else going on to be debating the side effects gained from Guardian powers.

First, he’d been pretty damn convinced two days ago that he was going to be a goner by the end of the month. Completely resigned to die believing that his very existence was scorned by the world he’d been unwillingly born into.

Then Patton had stumbled onto his shitty apartment’s roof, found him in all of his resigned and depressed glory, and changed his life forever.

They’d mostly skipped the whole ‘Human nature is a series of life, death, and rebirth’ spiel that guardians were known to give in these situations because... Well, It wasn’t like they’d really had time to address it before the truth about his soul had come out. That he wasn’t exactly human to begin with.

Virgil didn’t think that Guardians had ever had a situation like his before. There wasn’t a protocol for comforting a kidnapped guardian soul. It’d never been a possibility before!

So it wasn’t surprising then, that Virgil didn’t have any better of a time processing it.

His whole life, all that he’d known to be true, all that he’d believed in? Everything had been uprooted and turned on its head. He’d apparently been living a life that was not supposed to be.

Perhaps for the first time in two days, Virgil realized that the thought of his death at the end of the month had not been consistently worming into his brain. It had once been something he could never seem to stop thinking about.

The death indicated by his soul timer was now perhaps the farthest thing from his mind.

Perhaps the strangest thing so far was that he wasn’t alone anymore. He’d possibly had more physical contact with other people in the short two(three?) days since this adventure started then he’d had in the past 16 years.

And wasn’t it just the cherry on top that he’d also gotten nearly choked out by the very guardian accused of kidnapping his soul in the first place? And now he was considering trusting the damn guy.

Virgil hollowly wondered why he even cared.

Why did he care about staying alive now when he’s spent his whole life believing he never would? Up until two days ago, that belief had still been true. But now? Avoiding death was the goal, Logan had stated as much.

Really, would Virgil lose anything by trusting the banished guardian? Even if the guardian was trying to trick Virgil and got him killed, what difference would it make? That’d always been the goal before. What did he, Virgil, really have to lose?

If it happened that Virgil lived past his twentieth birthday, if he became a guardian like he was supposed to be in the first place. Would he want that? Did he want that?

He wasn’t sure. Didn’t know if he ever had been.

His life had been built on resignation to the inevitable. Nothing seemed to motivate him towards liking or hating that possibility. He was just that.

Indifferent.

And wasn’t that just the greatest revelation of the night? Finding out that you’re indifferent to living or dying.

Once this was all over, if Virgil lived that long, he would make a note to see a therapist. He knew very well that this kind of mindset was unhealthy to keep. It just couldn’t be helped that the nineteen years he’d lived with this particular affliction couldn’t be fixed by a few extra hugs and comforting words.

Even if he didn’t like the fact that death sounded like the more peaceful option.

His thoughts paused, mentally sighing at the downward spiral he’d caught himself in. It was tiring, and going nowhere.

‘For now,’ he decided, ‘I’m just going to see how this plays out. The Guardian said that none of the others remember the truth, or whatever. So, It’s a ‘he said-they said’ situation right now...’

‘I’ll have to keep an eye out for the guy that he warned me about, then. Who knows if he's as dangerous as The Guardian made him out to be. It’s hard to tell with the weird way he has to talk..’

Virgil paused again, a realization striking him. If he could have groaned, he would have. Not once had he been given or even remembered to ask for the name of said Guardian. What was he supposed to call the rogue Guardian now? He couldn’t just keep calling him The Guardian!

Amidst the disbelief of such a slip up, a foreign yet familiar feeling prodded questioningly at his conscious mind. Adding confusion into the mix of emotions, he returned the feeling with a questioning thought of his own.

He briefly heard the Guardian’s whispy voice once more, now acting with permission.

“You may call me Janus”

Then all at once, Virgil woke up.

.

.

.

Chapter Nine

[oswildin]

Mowgli {Dhawan!Doctor x Reader}

~ I couldn’t resist. I just can’t get enough Dhawan!Doctor ya’ll send help. I will probably do a part 2. ~

Summary: You work in a book shop, dreaming about the adventure of a lifetime... Then you meet a man.

PART 2 - https://oswildin.tumblr.com/post/621388859740209152/a-story-of-stars-dhawandoctor-x-reader-part-2

You sighed to yourself as you stood behind the counter at work. There was the faint sound of music playing over the radio, along with the ticking of the grandfather clock that was almost mocking you. It hadn’t even been 2 hours into your shift and you were bored stiff.

Although you were surrounded by books, full of adventures, you couldn’t help but crave your own. You couldn’t help but feel that human life was so mundane and quite frankly boring. The most excitement you got was waiting for your favourite show to start, or deciding to order pizza for dinner.

You weren’t really a party animal, or one for weekly social gatherings. You much preferred spending a night in watching telly, eating chips and reading a book. You couldn’t help but envy those who had the motivation to socialise.

Your manager had gone for the week, leaving you in charge. The little book shop you worked in was just a stepping stone. At least that’s what you told yourself to make yourself feel better. You wanted to believe you were destined for more. Not that there was anything wrong with working a stable income job in retail. It just wasn’t for you.

It often remained quiet most days, with a regular often coming in every now and again to purchase a new book. You decided to grab the book you were currently reading, The Jungle Book. It was slightly childish you admitted, but in every children’s story held a message. You leant on the counter as you began to read.

About 20 minutes later the bell above the door dinged as you peered up, pulling your gaze from the pages as you saw a new face. It was a man who appeared to be in his early thirties, wearing a faded blue shirt with a dark blue tweed jacket. The first thing you noticed was his eyes, scanning the place, as if he was searching for something. Finally his eyes landed on you as you gave him a friendly smile.

“Hi!” You called, standing up straight from the counter. “You looking for something in particular?” You asked, raising a brow as you walked round the counter, approaching him. He returned the smile, although halfway.

“Erm, yes!” He nodded. “I was wondering if you had any works by Amelia Williams?” He asked, his eyes looking into your own. You had to admit, they were very pretty brown eyes.

“Let’s have a look.” You gave him a small smile before walking towards the section of authors that began with ‘A’. You narrowed your eyes, searching along the shelf before finally landing on one book by the author. “Ah ha.” You said, grabbing the book, pulling it out from the others as you looked down at it. “The Girl Who Waited.” You read the title aloud as you held it out for him to take. The man waltzed towards you, a reminiscent look on his face as he grabbed the book gently from your hands. “Good author?” You asked, raising a brow as he smiled at the book.

“The best.” He said, a hint of sadness in his voice. He opened the book, turning to the last page. “For the mad man in the blue box.” He read, smiling slightly as you pursed your lips.

“That’s an odd dedication.” You laughed lightly. “I suppose only that person would know it was for them. It’s very specific.” You commented as he peered up finally to glance at you.

“Yes... I suppose they would.” He hummed, nodding slightly.

“Would you like to buy it?” You asked, heading back towards the counter to the till. You looked over, seeing the man awkwardly following as he placed the book down.

“Ah yes... Erm...” He began tapping down his jacket as he reached into one of his pockets, pulling out a weird pen looking device, along with a library card with a random old man on it, a miniature barbie doll, a pair of sun glasses and a packet of bubble gum. You stood confused and amazed at how much he had managed to fit into one pocket.

“Are you some sort of magician?” You joked, laughing lightly. He looked back up at you, a small smile on his lips.

“Something like that.” He muttered, before sighing. “I don’t have money.” He admitted, looking defeated.

“Forgot your wallet?” You asked, looking down at the various items on the counter.

“Again, something like that.” He began to pick up the items and place them back inside his pocket. You couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. Something about him felt genuine.

“Look, why don’t we make a deal?” You sighed. “How about I give you the book for free today, if you come back tomorrow and bring me a cup of tea?” The mans eyes shot back up.

“You don’t have to do that.” He shook his head, as you rolled your eyes and shoved the book into his hands.

“This book obviously means a lot to you.” You told him kindly. “It’s fine. I won’t tell if you don’t.” You smirked as he looked at you like a puppy who had just been given a bone.

“Tea! Tomorrow!” He exclaimed. “It’s a date!” He cried, twirling on his heel, before twirling back, furrowing his brows. “I mean, it’s not a date. It’s a deal. I mean, not that I wouldn’t want to go on a date, there’s nothing wrong with you- I just mean- I-“ You laughed lightly.

“Calm down.” You held your hands up. “It’s just a business deal.” You reassured him as he puffed out some air, nodding before turning once more, dashing out of the shop. You shook your head at the strange man, returning back to your book.

The next day arrived. And for once you were excited to go to work. You watched the door, all morning, waiting for the man to return, whilst trying to read as much of your book as you could.

Eventually, you heard the ding of the bell, as you reacted a bit too quickly, smiling as you looked up to see the stranger from the day before. He seemed to be holding... A teapot? And two cups? You furrowed your brows at the man as he went to the seating area, placing the pot and cups down on the coffee table. You walked around from the counter, staring in disbelief at the man.

“I brought tea!” He grinned, gesturing to the table.

“I can see that!” You laughed. “Is that a tea pot?” You pointed at it as you moved to sit down, as he followed your cue.

“Yes!” He exclaimed. “Borrowed it from an old friend. Well, I say borrowed.” He shrugged. “More like stole now that I think about it.” He seemed to drift off as you laughed.

“You stole someone’s tea pot?” You asked, shaking your head at his antics. “Is that a common occurrence?”

“No!” He frowned. “I’m not some serial tea pot stealer.” He pouted, as he reached for the handle, pouring some tea into the cups. “Milk?” He asked as you nodded. He reached into his inside pocket, pulling out a small bottle of milk. You looked at him in shock. “Sugar?” You nodded once more, gawping as he reached in once more, pulling out a bag of sugar and a spoon.

“Okay, how are you doing that?” You asked, furrowing your brows.

“What?” He asked confused, before looking down at the spoon in his hand. “Oh this!” He realised. “Bigger on the inside pockets.” He said casually as you blinked at him.

“Right....” You nodded slowly, reaching out to grab the milk, surprised that it was still cold. “Has anyone told you you’re a bit weird?” You asked, raising a brow as he smiled.

“All the time.” He smirked. “And a little bit socially awkward.” He added.

“I feel that one.” You smiled, reaching for the sugar. “So, what’s your name?” You asked.

“The Doctor.” He smiled, as you nodded. “You? Got a name?”

“(Y/N).” You told him, as he offered you the spoon. You took it and began stirring your tea.

“Well, (Y/N), cheers.” He held out his cup as you clunk yours against his, gently enough that the tea didn’t spill.

“Cheers.” You repeated, taking a sip. “That is some good tea.” You complimented as he took his own sip, however, he seemed to disagree as he pulled a disgusted face, before placing the cup back down. “Don’t like tea?”

“Don’t like a lot of things.” He responded. “Still getting used to this body. New tastebuds.” He commented as you didn’t know what to say. “I saw you reading. What book is it?”

“The Jungle Book.” You smiled, placing your cup down. “I know, it’s a bit childish.” You laughed as he frowned.

“No such thing!” He exclaimed. “You can never be too childish.” He sat back in his chair.

“Was your favourite book Peter Pan growing up by any chance?” You raised a brow, smirking.

“No, The Little Dalek.” He answered casually as you furrowed your brow.

“Never heard of that one. Popular where you’re from?” You asked.

“Not really.” He paused. “Now that I think about it, I’m not convinced it was entirely true.” He seemed to be in thought as you watched him intently. “Anyway!” He suddenly came back to reality. “The Jungle Book! Terrific story.” He grinned.

“Yeah! I’m enjoying it so far. I love reading in between the lines.” You smiled. “For kids it’s a fun story about a boy who grew up with animals, but for adults I suppose it’s about having to choose a path in life.” The Doctor narrowed his eyes, smirking slightly at you.

“What makes you think that?” He asked, curious.

“Well, I mean, Mowgli has a choice to make, doesn’t he?” You raised a brow. “Choose to stay in the jungle, or choose to go home. Like he’s at a crossroad.” You told him as he nodded at your words.

“And you resonate with that?” You thought about his question, pausing as you shrugged.

“I guess so.” You forced a tight smile.

“I don’t think many people think of the story that way.” He told you, but still kept the smile on his lips, and a wonder in his eye.

“I guess not.” You smiled.

“Why a book shop?” He asked next, leaning forwards in his chair. You pondered the question.

“I suppose... Subconsciously it’s because I enjoy reading. I enjoy the escapism... The wonder of the adventures within the pages.” You gave a small smile. “Isn’t that what books are about?” You reached for your tea.

“So you crave adventure?” He raised a brow. You laughed, almost scoffing.

“Doesn’t everyone?” You fired back. “I mean, we get up, get dressed, go to work, eat, sleep... A few get to live their dreams whilst the rest of us settle for something less, because at the end of the day, we’re human. Nothing better than comfortability.”

The Doctor stared at you in wonder. Humans never ceased to amaze him. He quickly stood up, grabbing your hand as he pulled you from your seat.

“What are you doing?” You laughed, placing your cup down whilst you had the chance.

“Come with me.” He grinned, dragging you along behind him.

“I can’t leave! I’m working!” You exclaimed, but fighting against him was useless. He continued to pull you along, rushing out of the shop as he ran towards an old telephone box. “Doctor!” You tried, but he ignored you, stopping outside the door, turning back to face you, excitement in his eyes.

“Okay... I’m about to show you something.” He grinned. You raised a brow.

“Excuse me?” You sounded worried, confused at what this strange man was doing.

“Trust me.” He said confidently as he reached into his pocket, grabbing a key. You narrowed your eyes as he let go of your hand, twisting the key in the lock.

“What are you doing? This is police property. See.” You pointed at the sign on the door stating ‘police public call box’. He laughed lightly.

“Actually, i think you’ll find it’s Gallifreyan property.” He retorted as you furrowed your brows in confusion. Eventually he opened the door, as it squeaked. He stood, grinning at you as you looked confused at him. “Go on. Take a look.” He nodded to the entrance of the box.

“It’s... a box?” You sounded unsure.

“No... it’s really not.” He smirked, grabbing your shoulders and pushing you inside. You yelped as you tripped over the bottom of the box, expecting the fall into a wall when you felt nothing hit your face, but managed to grab onto something that felt like a railing. You opened your eyes, not realising you had closed them incase of impact. You heard the whirring first, before the light hit your eyes. Your mouth flew open in shock, seeing a whole room inside. You had forgot about the Doctor for a moment as you took it all in. It was... beautiful. It was... massive.

“H-How are you doing this?” You asked quietly, as the man reappeared in front of you, a smug grin on his lips. “This is...” You immediately turned on your heel, rushing back outside as you rounded the box, making sure there was nothing on the other side. You felt the wood, as you pushed on it, making sure it was real. You were going mad. This was it. You quickly rushed back inside.

“Go on. Say it. They all do.” He smirked, folding his arms as he stood against the console. You blinked before shaking your head.

“You’re a real magician aren’t you?” You breathed out as the smile slowly faded from his face.

“Well, they don’t normally say that.” He sounded disappointed. “And no! I’m not a magician! Got kicked out of the secret circle centuries ago.” He waved you off.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” You cried. “This isn’t remotely possible!”

“On Earth maybe.” He smirked. “But where I’m from this is the norm.” He clapped his hands together. “Shut the door will you, you’re letting in a draft!” You licked your lips before turning and closing the door behind you, walking up the steps to where he was standing.

“What do you mean on Earth? Where you’re from?” You asked, your voice slightly frantic.

“Well, I’m an alien.” He stated as if it was obvious. “Look at me. I look nothing like you.”

“Yes you do.” You argued.

“No you look like me. Big difference.” He retorted turning to the console, pressing some buttons.

“You’re talking rubbish!” You laughed nervously before suddenly stopping. “Oh god.” You realised, looking at him wide eyed. “You drugged me.” The Doctor stopped, furrowing his brows as he looked confused. “The tea! You put something in my tea! I’m tripping!” You began to panic as he shook his head frantically.

“No no no no!” He insisted. “I promise I didn’t drug you! This is real!” He exclaimed. You looked at him, scared for a moment, before reaching out and slapping him across the face. “Ow!” He yelled, rubbing his cheek. “What was that for?!” He exclaimed, staring down at you.

“I don’t know!” You cried. “I wanted to check you were real!” You covered your mouth, trying not to laugh at his face. He looked like a disgruntled toddler.

“There are other ways of checking!” He exclaimed before reaching out and pinching your arm as you yelped, recoiling back.

“Ow!” You yelled as you flared at him.

“See! It’s not nice is it!” He frowned, pouting like a child. “You want proof?” He asked, before turning back, pulling a lever as the ground began to shake. Your eyes widened once again as you held onto the console for dear life.

“What’s happening?!” You cried, watching him as he grinned.

“We’re flying!” He replied. Eventually the floor shopped shaking as everything came to a halt. Your knuckles were white from how hard you had been gripping onto the console. “Well come on then! Don’t just stand there!” You turned to see the Doctor stood at the doors, both of them wide open. You reluctantly let go of the console as you slowly walked to where he was stood. As you got nearer, you realised you were...

“In space...” You muttered. “Those are stars... That’s a planet...” You whispered, a slightly traumatised look on your features as the Doctor smiled gently.

“It is indeed.” He nodded slowly. “What do you think?” You gawped, trying find the words.

“If anyone is robbing the book store, I’m going to kill you.” You said as he rolled his eyes.

“I can have you back right after we left.” He told you. “It’s also a time machine. Did I forget to mention that part?” He furrowed his brows as you looked up at him.

“Who are you?” You asked softly. He gave you a small smile.

“I’m the Doctor. I’m a Timelord. And this is my ship. The TARDIS.” He told you.

“A blue box?” You laughed lightly. “The blue box?” You referred to the afterword in Amelia William’s book. He nodded. “So you’re a mad man?” You raised a brow.

“The good kind.” He insisted as you narrowed your eyes. “Now, (Y/N), you have a choice to make...” He learnt against the frame of the door. “All of time and space or a book store?” He paused.

“Wanna have some adventures of your own?”

~

Taglist: @drapetxmaniia @dannighost @imagine-whatever @the-sweet-space-bi @blamerogertaylor @koschei-taylor @koschei-studies @lostshadow12 @hannahlilyyx @wonders-of-the-multiverse @ettorah @nikey-no-likey @imthedoctorlove @twentysomethingloser92 @sometimes-i-feel-like-falling @hellothedoctorisreal @tragic-and-tried @kind-sober-fullydressed @chiswicknoble @sherly-not-obsessed @astudyoftimeywimeystuff @psychobitchtess

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hi, so anyway you are good at fleshing out things, so could you explain how the record player song fits sophie?

oh, thank you so much! I do try to be thorough in all the asks I answer, mostly to overcompensate because I often think I've not properly explained myself, but that's very nice of you to say ahh <33

there are currently two version of the record player song out that I know of, both the original from 2014 and the one that was recently released in collaboration with AJR in august of this year, so i'll focus mainly on the original one but i'll likely touch on the AJR one a little too!

original:

so we start of this song and one of the very first lyrics that jumps out to me is "i pretend I scraped them climbing in the trees," and specifically the use of the word pretend. The whole vibe of that line is this sense of disbelief and creating a life more interesting and full of life than your own, instead of having the smooth skin you have now, you are marked with the tales of your adventures and the mistakes you've made and this event that you have experienced because you're the kind of person who would climb about messily in the trees. relating this to sophie, it reminds me of her childhood filled with books just like ours, the ways she probably imagined herself just like those characters, leading a life much bigger and more grandiose than the one where she couldn't control anything and everyday hurt.

this next line follows immediately after: "sometimes all I think i'm ever doing is / trying to convince myself I'm alive," but despite it's placement I find it to connect best to a much later point in her life, when her parents had been taken. she went through a kind of numb period, not reacting to things and moving through life like a zombie. she needed to convince everyone else around her she was fine (she was not), but she also needed to convince herself that things would be okay and to get herself out of that rut and come back into her own body, to come back to life in a sense. we could also relate this to a more pervasive theme of not belonging to herself, not really being her own person. being someone else's creation gives her life meaning to them, but she needs to learn for herself and remind herself that she's a person outside of them and that she can make her own choices.

and then all of verse two gives me sophie vibes, so I'll try to be brief about this and just highlight a few lines. "someone look me up and define me" feels like her relationship to the Black Swan, how there was always a label with a meaning that she never fully knows. she knows that people have expectations for her, like a definition of who they want her to be, but she doesn't know what that is. there's a set path for her, whether she chooses to follow it or not won't change the fact it exists. then "I'm always winning the wrong game" feels like her attitude towards their fight with the Neverseen, how their victories always feel like they've lost more than they gained, that their enemies are still just a step too far ahead of them. she never seems satisfied with their progress aside from a brief relief that everyone is alive (for now), just thinking of the next thing to do to try and find that right game to end things. there are more lines like "I don't remember my real name" and "please remind me who I'm supposed to be around you" that I can also relate to her, but i don't want this to get too long and I haven't gotten to the other song yet so!! moving on!!

Collaboration with AJR:

this song has a lot of the original lyrics, but a few new verses that i'll draw from. the line "I spent forever with my feet on the ground / but not now" reminds me of her shift in Unlocked, which I think I've discussed at least a little before. the way she's taking off and taking back her individuality, at least partially. she's been stuck staring at these goals way above her head (defeating the neverseen) and finally changed her approach and her feet are leaving the ground, finally bringing her closer. this isn't the exact context of the original song, but the words themselves I've reinterpreted their meaning in a way that better fits her.

the line "guess I gotta go and get famous for doing nothin'" reminds me of the thing I talked about with her not being satisfied with her progress. she's so well known, literally across the entire elven world and in exiliium, yet her goal hasn't been achieved. she hasn't done what she wanted yet. all this attention and nothing has even happened in her eyes. there's that resigned attitude too, just this acceptance that this is how things are right now so she has to deal with it as she works towards that thing she wants.

i'll round this off with "can you see it in my eyes? am I finally awake?" which I also relate to the ending of Unlocked. in the way she has taken off, she has also woken up. she saw a lot of people she trusted in a new light very suddenly, leaving her questioning those people and their relations and their dedication. for a lot of us I know it was like a breath of fresh air to see her stand up for herself like that, like she was finally coming into herself and taking control of her actions and her life, like she was finally awake.

there are so many more lines I could relate to her, these are just a few that stood out the most!! both versions of the song fit her so well, so thank you for the suggestion!! it was also nice to get to read through the lyrics because I've listened to the songs countless times and somehow still didn't know what they said

I am running out of time but!! excellent song choice!!

[viltrumitesuperboy]

I Couldn’t Love You (Merlin x Male Reader)

Someone wanted hanahaki disease with Merlin so here you go merry crisis. Merlin has it. Tried something different with this one.

Word count: 2928

I couldn't love you because you were my friend.

Merlin had never been one to let his emotions get to him, or so he hoped. When Arthur told him he was sensitive, he denied it. He then noticed how different of a person he was compared to every other man in the castle and realised that, yes, he was an emotional man. Arthur never really minded (just teased him), and Gaius told him that it was a good thing for a sorcerer like him. It made him different from those who used their magic to hurt.

You were a servant for Knight Leon, so Merlin saw you sometimes. Arthur had to take a few knights with him on a trip, and told Merlin to stay for once. As they rode off, you moved closer to Merlin.

"What's Prince Arthur like? I'll tell you that Sir Leon is a bit daft and definitely stupid but that's because he can read and chooses not to."

"To put it bluntly, Arthur's a prat. I will serve him for as long as I live but he is seriously an idiot."

You laughed and turned to look at Merlin.

"May I join you while they're gone? I don't really have much to do when Leon isn't around."

He smiled and beckoned for you to follow him to the side door where Gaius was working on some medicine. He told you that you could choose any book to read, and a strange looking one caught your eye. You pulled it from the shelf and began reading it.

"Hey, this is about magic. Is this allowed?" you asked Gaius.

Merlin rushed to his side and looked as if he was about to spit out some excuse, but Gaius gave him a stern look.

"As you know, Uther's law against magic has led to dozens of problems from magic users. I keep books in case another magic-related incident happens," Gaius explained smoothly.

"Of course. It's unfair, isn't it? That he's so against magic. Most of the people I know don't even care about what magic users do because most of them aren't actively trying to hurt anyone else. Since the king is against it, sorcerers come out of hiding to try and hurt him. It's obvious, but he doesn't realise it," you nonchalantly replied, then looked down to read the book in silence.

Merlin looked at Gaius with shock on his face, but the reaction was not returned. On Gaius' lips was a small grin, and he turned away to continue his work. Merlin looked back at you, where you had been flipping randomly in the book in interest of all the knowledge you could get. He pulled out another book, covering his spellbook in his lap with it. Occasionally you would show Gaius a word and ask what it meant, since you never had many chances to read. He explained it so easily and your smile showed your gratitude every time.

When he looked up at you and smiled, you smiled back. His heart fluttered.

I couldn't love you because I loved someone else.

Freya was the first magic user Merlin had met his age who he could connect to, and he wanted to protect her as long as she was in Camelot. When he started to sneak food, you weren't dumb enough to know that he was hiding things in that scarf of his. You yanked him to the side of a corridor.

"What's with the food? If you wanted to steal something, you could always ask me, you know?"

You waved him to follow you to the kitchens, but he stopped before you entered.

"Wait! I'll get in trouble. They don't like when I cause problems for them in there," Merlin mumbled.

"Trust me," you said.

He followed you into the kitchen, and you grabbed two entire trays — one of bread and one with meat.

"Just bringing these to the knights!" you shouted.

In their commotion of cooking, the cooks shouted back their approval and you walked right out with the bread in a basket and the meat in a bowl.

"Here, take some of each. I'll bring these to the knights. Go do whatever it is you have to."

Merlin thanked you and hid the bread and meat in a separate basket, wrapped in a cloth you'd taken from the kitchen. He smiled and rushed away, with you carrying out your duties. On the way, he started to cough, and covered his mouth with his scarf. For a second, he thought something fell out of his mouth, and he panicked when he thought his magic was acting up. The breeze blew the object up and into the forest, and he rushed towards Freya's hiding place.

He trusted you enough, so when Freya died, he came to you and Gaius with bloodshot eyes. You helped him take her body to the lake deep in the forest. He threw a stick with fire into the boat, bursting it into flames. For a second, you wondered where the fire had come from and if it had even reached the boat (Merlin had the upper body strength of a small bird), but when you saw the tears on his face, you put your arm around him. You rubbed his back as he began coughing, and when he pulled away from you, a small blue flower lay in his hands.

"Did you forget to put that one in?" you asked. "You can place it on the water. I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

He hiccuped and tossed it on the water, and you both watched it float away. The look of shock on his face remained even as you both walked away, and you wondered just how much Freya meant to him.

I couldn't love you because I had a destiny.

Morgana had managed to get Guinevere accused of sorcery. Of course Merlin had to fix the problem as he always did, and risked looking like a complete loon in the aftermath. Gaius gave him an idea, and he followed through. But when he said the spell to change himself back, it wasn't working. He was hobbling around the castle in an old man's body, wondering what the hell his life had come to.

Once he bumped into you, and you yelled, almost falling backwards. Your eyes narrowed at the sight of his bright blue ones.

"Do I know you?" you asked. "I mean, I don't think I've seen you before here, but something about your eyes..."

"Goodbye," said Merlin in his old man voice, and he rushed away.

When the guards started to draw closer, he stepped into a small hallway, repeating the spell once more to no avail. Then you stepped out of a door in the hallway, a basket of clothing in your arms and a small vial in hand.

"Come on, take it. I ran to Gaius and he told me that it was you. I'll take your clothing so it doesn't look suspicious," you quickly explained.

He downed the potion quickly, pulling off the robe as soon as he did. You handed him the scarf he always wore. You both stepped into the main hallway just as the guards and Arthur caught up to you.

"Have you seen the sorcerer?" Arthur panted.

"There's a sorcerer?" you asked, alarmed. "Well, that's illegal, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's why we're- Look, he's old, he can't have gone far and he definitely went through this path," Arthur exclaimed.

"We haven't seen anyone. Merlin's been helping me with the washing."

Arthur huffed and motioned for the guards to follow him as they continued on their search.

"You really saved me there," Merlin laughed breathlessly.

"Well, you are the sorcerer meant to protect the once and future king, aren't you?" you teased, pulling him through the door in the hallway. "You should tell me more. No one's doing the washing right now except for me."

Merlin smiled, following you with a strange pressure on his chest. He began to cough, as he had been in the last few weeks. A flower dropped into his scarf, which he dumbly decided to cough into. The blood could barely be hidden by the scarf, but up close he could see that the scarf was a little wet. He bunched it up quickly when you turned to look at him.

"That's your own. You wash that," you scolded. "And then go to Gaius to do something about that cough. You've had it for a few days now."

He gave you a faint smile and nodded as he placed it into a bucket, vanishing the flower with his magic. He then turned to you and told you all about his adventures as much as he could, your expressions of awe and excitement driving his storytelling. Being the showoff he was, he used his magic to dump all the clothing in your bucket into the large tub. The smile on your face was worth it.

True to his word, he went to see Gaius, who wasn't there at the moment. He skimmed through endless books for flowers, but nothing came up until he realised what he had been doing wrong. He began to look at the books on magic that Gaius kept hidden. When he came across the one you were reading the first time you read a book there, he finally found it. It was a disease that was so rare it was believed to be a myth. The person with the disease would cough up blood and flowers if they were in love with someone and the love was not returned. Unless they returned the feelings or it was removed by magic, the victim would surely die. The same would result if they waited too long.

Merlin knew that there was no way he could tell you, but he needed to be alive to serve Arthur. He had a destiny, and the threat of death would not stop him from fulfilling it.

I couldn't love you because it was wrong.

The number of sorcerers and criminals that the king executed was significantly higher than the people found in same sex relations. Actually, there were no executed homosexuals. Uther would claim that they were under the influence of dark magic and therefore had to be killed before it spread. Fortunately, Arthur did not adopt that mindset. Unfortunately, he still thought it to be wrong. Merlin tended to ramble to Arthur and Gaius about his problems, but he told nobody about you. Gaius only knew that he was in love and that it may kill him, but was prepared to perform the spell if he needed to, as Merlin instructed him to. His destiny came before love.

Merlin's condition worsened over time, and he started to slow in his tasks. Arthur masked his concern with complaints, telling him to see Gaius. Gwen would berate Arthur for picking on his own friend. She gave Merlin sympathetic smiles when she caught him coughing or holding a piece of cloth to his mouth. The flowers increased in number, going from one every week to multiple every day. He had to keep a bucket by his bed.

"Merlin, this isn't good for you," Gaius had told him one day.

He sat on the chair beside Merlin's bed.

"There is always a solution. You will not die if you are rejected, but if you wait, it will kill you either way. Take a chance."

"I couldn't. It's... It's wrong, Gaius," Merlin croaked out. "The one I love is a man."

"And who says it should be wrong? A few others with this disease have died because they were afraid it was wrong. One of the most tragic tales came from two women who loved each other dearly, and both died of the same disease. This is hurting me as much as it hurts you. I have a feeling I know this man you speak of, and I think he feels the same. There is no one more worthy of his love than you, and no one more worthy of your love than he."

With that, Gaius tapped his leg as if to drill the wisdom into Merlin, and stood slowly to leave. Seconds after he had gone back to brewing something, you had burst through the door, shouting a quick greeting to Gaius and dashing to the bookshelves.

"(Y/N)! Be careful!" Gaius exclaimed.

"Sorry, busy!" Merlin heard you say.

You pulled a book out of the shelf and dashed to Merlin's room. You sat in the chair Gaius was just in moments ago and flipped through the pages. It was the same book you had chosen the first time.

"I was thinking I remembered that flower I saw from you over the last few weeks. At first, I thought you were planning to give them to someone, but I remembered seeing one in your hand at the lake. It's a disease!" you said with enthusiasm.

"I know," Merlin said, "and I will die."

Gaius was back again, standing just outside the door frame. You looked at him sadly as you placed the book down, the pages falling open to the wretched flower.

"Can't you do anything? Any magic that wouldn't remove your feelings or memories?"

"No. This ends in one of three ways," Gaius said.

"I don't intend to tell anyone except for Gaius about my condition, and I can't- don't want to die," Merlin caught himself, then turned the other way to choke out a flower into the bucket next to him.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, leaning over to place your hand on his.

"I'm sorry, too."

Merlin was quite literally on his deathbed. He once nearly died on the same bed he was in currently. He had collapsed onto the closest surface after doing some cleaning in Arthur's and Gwen's room, and it just so happened to be the one Gaius used to treat patients. He grabbed his bucket that he had conveniently brought down from his room to clean earlier that day  and coughed into it painfully.

Flower petals and blood. That was all he could think about these days.

Gaius walked in, placing his herbs down and going about his work until he noticed Merlin on the bed.

"Merlin!" Gaius exclaimed.

"Gaius, please get him," Merlin whispered.

Gaius gave him a disapproving look and walked over, pulling the sheets on top of Merlin. He took the book he needed and placed it on the table close to Merlin's head. Then he left without another word. In minutes, you, Arthur, and Gwen all ran inside, with Gaius' voice in the distance telling them not to disturb anything.

"Merlin!" you shouted, running over to him and kneeling by his bed. "You're dying, aren't you?"

"Am I spitting blood or what?" he snarkily replied, and promptly lurched over the bucket.

"Stop it! You know this hurts all of us!" Gwen cried.

Arthur put his arms around her in a hug as she leaned into him, tears beginning to collect in her eyes.

"Merlin, if we can find the person you love, you can tell them. If they reject you, then there's that thing Gaius can do, right? Some herbal paste thing?" Arthur asked desperately.

"Yes, that," Gaius mumbled.

He looked to you, and you nodded, a silent sign that you had lied to keep them safe.

"Thank you for... everything," Merlin said, his eyes trained on you. "You're all my best friends and I'm so lucky to have you all, but I think I have to get those... herbs that Arthur mentioned."

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Gwen whispered. "You love... him."

Her head turned fully to you, as did Arthur's.

"If he's not complaining about me, he's talking about you," Arthur added.

He didn't dare look at you, afraid to see the hate or disgust on your face. He choked once again on a sudden attack of flowers from his mouth, and you instantly reached over to rub his back.

"You're so stupid. You're so, so stupid," you whispered. "I should have known, should have said something earlier."

"What are you talking about?" Merlin rasped.

"I'm saying I love you too, you daft clotpole."

"That's my insult."

You took the cloth Gaius offered you and wiped his face, pressing your lips to his forehead.

"You're really so stupid."

Merlin smiled back, and he felt the weight that he hadn't even noticed on his insides removing themselves, like the curse was being physically lifted from his body. And as he thought that, a light left his body and the bucket, anywhere with flowers or blood, and disappeared into the air.

"I think that worked," he said, voice much stronger.

Everyone else gave a cheer of joy, and Gwen kissed Arthur right on the lips. Obviously he whined right after that they should only be doing that in private.

"Merlin will need his rest. (Y/N) can stay but the two of you will have to leave. I'm sure you both have matters to discuss. The love of two men, correct?"

"You're right, Gaius," Arthur smiled.

"Maybe you could look into that magic issue too, while you're at it. It could have saved Merlin," you suggested.

"As if!" Arthur scoffed.

Gwen hit his chest and they both left after hugging Merlin. Merlin turned back to you, and he barely noticed Gaius leaving to his room.

"That's some curse," he laughed, bringing you close. "But never steal my insults again."

I couldn't love you... or maybe I could.

[veinsandknuckles]

Long hard road, pt 2

So, this is a new part 2, making what used to be part 2 part 3. Makes total sense, right?

Vimes/f!Reader Slow burn AU where Vimes isn’t married. Will definitely become hard R down the line. Content warnings: none Read part 1 here, part 3 here One sunny day about two weeks after Stone’s arrival, you found him lurking in a shady corner of the courtyard, leaning against a crate with an amused expression on his face. Today you were shirking so you followed his gaze to see what he was seeing.

It was Conrad and one of the local boys, around thirteen or so, engaged in a mock battle with a stick each for a sword. They weren’t playing, either. Conrad stopped every other minute to give minute advice with an air of great authority. Stone nodded to you when you joined him. “He’s always fancied himself a bit of a strongman, I think,” you said by way of a greeting. Conrad did have endless stories about his adventures, and it was fun to keep track of the details he got wrong with each retelling. “He’s got the posture down, I’ll give him that.”  It really was the kind of form you’d see in an instructional engraving; shoulders drawn back, chin in the air and his free hand behind his back. The boy caught him a blow on the outside of the thigh and Conrad loudly discounted it as unsportsmanlike. It was hard to tell if the kid was actually holding on to his every word, or just playing along for the excuse to beat a grown man and get away with it.

“Could you do better?”

Stone looked over at you with a suspicious frown. Then he shook his head. “You can’t bait me that easily.”

You nodded to the sword at his side. He never left the inn without it, and as plain as it was, it couldn’t be because he worried about it going missing. “So, what, you just carry that thing to impress the ladies?”

“Good grief.” But he must be in a good mood because then he smiled with a faraway look in his eye. “You know, I did try that for a time in my youth. When things grew desperate.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure where that idea came from in the first place.” Conrad had backed the kid up against a wall with the point of the stick at his chest and looked a little too pleased about his victory. “In my experience, any excited talk between women about a big sword and the like is usually intended as a humorous metaphor.”

“You give men too much credit if you think we can tell the difference.” Stone still smiled, but you knew his words were a little too true for comfort. It was interesting that he could join in with this kind of talk so easily as long as it remained impersonal.

When Conrad turned his back to return to his starting position, the kid whacked him with his full strength across the leg. Conrad howled and nearly lost his balance. You couldn’t help laughing and the two knights in training finally discovered their audience. The boy bolted, Conrad scowled and limped off towards the kitchen, throwing the stick to the ground as he went.

“Show’s over,” said Stone and stood up straight. “Suppose I’d better get my own exercise in while there’s some daylight left.”

“Want some company?”

He sighed with an expression that was half amused, half irritated. “Do I have a choice?”

Of course he did, but if you said so he’d feel obligated to turn you down. He had to be able to tell himself he was being befriended against his will. After all, if he really wanted to avoid you, you knew he was more than capable of being impolite enough to say so. “What do you think?”

“Fine. A short walk, then.” Stone gestured for you to choose a direction and you headed out through the gates with him beside you, falling quickly into his leisurely pace.

The thaw had gotten an early start this year and everyone was fooled by it into hoping it would last, despite years of experience to the contrary. Every winter it was the same way - half a week of mild, sunny weather and not even the born locals could help thinking that this time it might be different, this time spring might arrive a month before it was due. Perhaps it was just human nature to talk big about expecting the worst and getting suckered despite of it.

Stone seemed a wonderful exception to this rule. There didn’t seem to be a silence thick enough to tempt him into speaking of the weather. He walked beside you, occupied with his own thoughts, completely at his ease.

“How long do you think you’ll be staying with us, mr Stone?”

He snorted. “Not a moment longer than I have to.”

The road you followed clung to the side of the mountain and bordered on the other side to dense pine forest growing from almost vertical ground. The little buildings of the inn huddled together on one of the wider plateaus and marked the edge of real vegetation before the path continued up towards the pass. You had just reached a bend in the road, a perfect vantage point to take in the stunning view of the mountain range to the side and the valleys below. On such a clear day, you could see the wide river even from here, snaking through the landscape like a silver inlay.

“How is it possible to tire of all this?”

Stone raised his eyebrows and regarded it dispassionately. “It’s just nature.”

You laughed. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“Since when are you so in love with the place? Thought you were bored to tears.”

“I’m not,” you conceded and tore yourself away from the view. “Just making the best of it.”

Stone took the lead now and followed the next trail leading in between the trees.

“Why not leave?”

“And go where? To do what?”

“I don’t know,” Stone shrugged. “You must want more than this, surely. You could settle down, start a family...” His ears caught up with his mouth and you saw him screw his eyes shut and shake his head.

Because of course the height of every woman’s ambition is a husband and children. You laughed and elbowed him in the side. “Mr Stone, are you offering to take me away from all of this?”

“Hah!” For once, he looked more amused than uncomfortable with the suggestion. “That’s me, walking model of fairy tale prince.”

“I’d say you’re more like the dangerous, good-for-nothing rogues that my mother should have warned me about. I’m sure you’ve left a few broken hearts in your wake.”

Stone snorted. “Right. You’ve really got me pegged.”

You bit your lip and kept watching him, but he was resolutely focused on the trail ahead. It didn’t seem like false modesty; he really did seem completely ignorant of his own charms. How could he not be, if he mistook every kind of flirtation for a joke?

Perhaps you weren’t his type. It happened. Not every man was ready to pounce on every opportunity that presented itself. Perhaps he didn’t want to pounce on anything in the first place.

But if that were the case, surely he would say so, instead of sarcastically playing along or pretending to misunderstand you. Whatever other obstacles may present themselves, the first and largest was that he wouldn’t believe you.

“Oh well,” you said. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“No, I suppose I can’t,” he said, as if wishing he could. “But I can judge you for having poor taste.”

That was exactly the kind of comment you could hardly interpret as anything other than encouragement for you to continue.

“Are you asking to be complimented?”

Stone half turned towards you with a look of startled dread. “Absolutely not.”

Exasperated, you rolled your eyes and decided to drop it for the time being. “Fine. You pick a subject, then.”

For a moment, it seemed as if Stone couldn’t pull himself back together. The silence was thick and uncomfortable and you could have sworn you saw him, out of the corner of your eye, looking at you with some earnestness.

“Do you... er. Have you lived here long?”

“A few years.” The poor man really was ready to scrape the bottom of the barrel, but you felt like you owed him a little help in steering back into safer waters. “You’re from Ankh-Morpork, aren’t you?”

The little path forked up ahead and Stone chose the path that looped around to the other side of the inn. He really had explored his surroundings. “I suppose that’s not much of a secret.”

“The accent is pretty strong.”

“Huh.” He sniffed. “Your Morporkian is, er... it’s very good.”

“Thank you.”

“Must be from reading all those books.” He’d seen you read once, but apparently that was enough to set you down as a confirmed book worm.

For a while, you walked together in silence and slowly his ruffled feathers seemed to settle down. It was beautiful out here, every shadow in the snow a rich blue, every dapple of sunshine glowing peach and gold as the afternoon wore on. Your footfalls made a pleasant, hypnotising creaking sound with each step you took.

Before you could think it through, you asked a question that had been weighing on you for some time. “Is it safe for you to be here?”

There was a pause. “...for me or for you?”

Oh gods. “Either, I suppose.”

Stone thought this through. He looked very weary.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

You tried to smile. “I guess I wasn’t too far off with the ‘dangerous rogue’ thing, then.”

“Well, you knew that already.”

“Yeah... next time you should have a backstory and name picked out before you introduce yourself.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he replied drily.

Despite everything he’d said (and failed to say) and despite how incredibly intimidating he could be, it was impossible for you to view Stone as a threat. If he had tried to make himself likeable or if he’d tried harder to bullshit an excuse for being here in the first place, it would have been another thing altogether. He didn’t seem as if he wanted anyone to like him very much and that indifference was predictably irresistible.

He was just so... self-contained. He seemed perfectly content on his own and perfectly careless of his reputation. His attitude towards whatever danger he was in seemed to consist mostly of boredom, as if he was just waiting to get it over with and wasn’t all that invested in the outcome. In many ways, he was untouchable, and of course that only made you more desperate to try. It was also very difficult to believe he didn’t have to fight people off with a stick.

You should really know better. So far everything had gone his way, which meant he could afford to be a gentleman, but who knew what desperation could drive him to do? When his reality caught up with him, you might all be acceptable casualties - to him as well as to whoever, or whatever, was chasing him. Somehow, all these facts were trumped by a strong gut feeling in his favour and here you were, walking beside him feeling as safe as if you’d known him for years.

The inn was coming back into view. Stone was deep in thought, but when the climb to get back onto the road got a little steep, he scaled it ahead of you, turned and offered his hand to help pull you up.

It was big, rough and warm - you felt the heat of his skin even through your mittens - and yours seemed almost to disappear into his grip. With a slowly creeping flush you realised that your attraction to him had grown much quicker than you had intended it to. Soon, if he kept deflecting your advances, you might find yourself too shy to continue them or, if you were very careless, growing lovesick.

“Thank you,” you said as you stepped onto the road and he immediately let go. You worried that you might have sounded a little too breathless and sincere.

“Course.” Stone cleared his throat and walked briskly towards the stables. “And, er. Thank you for the company. Although,” and he shot you a glance, “it shouldn’t become a habit. Seems all people do round here is gossip.”

“Of course.” You couldn’t deny it even if you wanted to, but it was very sweet of him to care about your reputation. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think you were a loose man.”

The shadow of the house crossed your path and Stone immediately seemed more at ease when he stepped into it. You could sense that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts now and so you forced a little smile and waved him off. A curt nod, and then he slunk in among the buildings, off to do whatever mysterious things usually filled his time.

[razieltwelve]

Own Your Mistakes

It is the easiest thing in the world to own your successes. When everything is going right, it’s easy to accept responsibility and the praise that goes with it. It is far harder but often far more important to own your mistakes. Why? Because until you own your mistakes, you can’t learn from them.

Consider a typical situation that a writer might confront. They write a book. It sells terribly, and the reviews all consistently criticise the plot of the story as a major weak point. It would be very, very easy for the author to simply ignore the reviews and the bad sales. They didn’t do anything wrong. Clearly, it’s the readers who are wrong. They just didn’t understand the book. If they had, they would have liked it.

Someone with this kind of attitude is not going to improve because they cannot accept that they have not only made a mistake but also that the mistake they’ve made is their fault, not someone else’s. If you blame others for your mistakes, then you never have to take responsibility for what goes wrong. If what goes wrong isn’t your responsibility, then there’s no incentive to improve because what happened was outside your control. It was someone else’s fault.

Now, I understand how attractive it can be to avoid owning your mistakes. I’ve done. We’ve all done it. It allows us to avoid feeling bad because making mistakes rarely feels good. But you know what feels worse? Making the same mistake over and over again and failing over and over again. Accepting that you made a mistake and that it was your fault something went wrong might hurt at the time, but it is the first step to improving and avoiding such mistakes in the future.

You cannot control what other people do. You can, however, control what you do and how you respond to other people. When you accept responsibility for your mistakes, when you own those mistakes, you’re taking control. You’re saying that, yes, I screwed up, but I can do better next time because you can’t improve until you identify where you went wrong.

Writing can be intensely personal. When something doesn’t work out or when a story isn’t liked the way we’d hoped, it can hurt. It really can. But you have to be able to look at your own work and see where you went wrong. It might hurt to know that the plot or characters weren’t as good as you’d like, but acknowledging that is the only way you’ll improve. Yes, you made a mistake, and that’s not ideal. But by owning that mistake, you’re committing to improvement because the only way you’ll improve is to admit that there are areas you need to work on.

It doesn’t make sense to own only your successes while disowning your failures. How likely is it that everything good about a story is because of you while everything bad about it isn’t your fault? It’s just not very likely at all. One of the biggest steps in my development as both a writer and a person was learning to accept a simple truth: if you’re going to claim credit for your wins, then you need to accept blame for your losses too. As confronting as that realisation can be, it can also be empowering. If you are responsible for both winning and losing, then you really are in control of your own destiny. Hard work or laziness, success or failure, you can choose what path you take.

No matter how far you run, you can never run from the face you see in the mirror every morning. It is important to own not only your successes but also your mistakes because they’re part of who you are and only by accepting them can you begin to improve. Constantly blaming others for your mistakes might feel good at the time, but it won’t help you to get better, and at the end of the day, you’ll keep making those same mistakes over and over again. If you want to get better at writing – or anything – then you need to be honest with the face your see in the mirror every morning, and that means owning your mistakes as well as your successes.

Take control. Winning or losing is up to you. You can either ignore your mistakes, or you can accept them and work hard to improve. Victory doesn’t always come easily, but it’s the hard-fought wins, the ones where all the improvements we’ve worked so hard to achieve come to the fore, that are the sweetest.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here. I’ve recently released two stories, Attempted Adventuring and Surviving Quarantine, as well as two audiobooks, Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Army of Golems and Two Necromancers, a Dragon, and a Vampire. If you like humour, action, and adventure, be sure to check them out.

[pickybearcub]

Getting to know Spiderboy: Chapter 17

Pairing: Peter Parker x OC Genre: Friendship/ Adventure/ Family Warnings: Flashback chapter

Story  Summary:  Ten minutes. Ten minutes was all it took. She found his backpack in the alley and left before he got there. Now, before Peter knows it, Ned thinks he has a secret girlfriend and Spider-man has to be her kibble runner.

Catch up here

1932 - Kamar-Taj

After that… After she'd shown the Ancient One a glimpse of the future. Of the coming Titan… The Sorcerer Supreme disappeared for several days.

That had terrified Renny more than anything. Had she unintentionally turned away the only person who could possibly help her?

She panicked when the Ancient One didn't return four days later. The whirl of her emotions made her control slip and she became practically useless with spells. To stave off the feeling of helplessness, she pored her time going over the books in the library again. Maybe she had missed something…

It was on the eighth day when she jolted awake on a library desk that she turned to see the Ancient One looking at her, a hand on her shoulder. Renny didn't know what to say. She wanted to apologize, but the woman spoke before she could.

"You showed me barely a glimpse of your knowledge, and already it has proved a burden on my mind." The Ancient One was no stranger to seeing terrible futures. She stopped many of them, after all. But she had not seen the level of loss and destruction like what Renny had shown her. It was also beyond what she knew to be her demise. "I can only imagine what weight you must feel crushing your shoulders." The woman's eyes seemed tired, but she showed no other outward indication. She sighed, standing straighter, pulling her shoulders back and talking with the authority and power that Renny was used to hearing.

"I will give you access to the Book, but only under my supervision. It will not leave the library. Whatever notes you make, you can store them only in your mind. None of it will be written down." Renny could only nod while sparks revealed a hidden doorway in the wall. As she followed after the Ancient One's trailing robes, she prayed that her memory and her grasp of the mystic arts were good enough to master the spells that she needed. She was no Stephen Strange, after all. She didn't have his incredible intelligence or his photographic memory.

Access to the Book of the Vishanti did give Renny the spells she needed, however, she still needed to learn them properly. Not being able to take down notes made things incredibly slow going. Yes, she could practice as much as she wanted to on her own, but she could only correct herself if something went wrong when the Sorcerer Supreme corrected her, or when she had the chance to look through the book again.

It took several more months for her to grasp the major spells, and many more to modify and perfect them for her specific use.

All in all, she had spent almost eight years in Kamar-Taj preparing and learning what she could before she requested her leave.

The Ancient One nodded, putting her hands once more on Renny's shoulders.

"You will need to search for a proper place to construct your own sanctum. In this endeavor, I cannot help you. My place is here, in Kamar-Taj." The woman then turned and looked out to the horizon where the sun was just beginning to rise.

"Thank you." Renny's voice shook. The Ancient One was more than a teacher to her. In a world where she had lost everything and everyone she knew, the woman had become a sort of grandmother to her. "I would never have been able to get this far without you. God knows I would have probably died a long time ago if you didn't help me." The girl's smile was watery, but she dared not turn to the Sorcerer Supreme, only keeping her eyes forward as well.

"You are most welcome. I thank you as well for what warnings you were able to give. There will be many dark times to come, but knowing that you will be doing what you can to protect those who will stop it, it brings me peace." The woman let out a slow breath, Renny thought it was meant more to calm her than the Ancient One. "You have come far, but there is still so much further to go… so much to do, and you may not even see the end. Take care, little one." The woman's pale eyes flicked to the girl for a moment before tracing the mountain range again. "Kamar-Taj will always be open to you. Just so you know… Try to visit at least once… before the end."

Renny choked on a sob and felt the tears gather at the corners of her eyes, ready to spill. She didn't have the heart to even comment on the nickname this time. "Of course I will…" She managed to whisper hoarsely before moving to unclasp the vambraces on her arms. She'd gained enough control without the artifacts over the more recent years, even if her spells were incredibly taxing without them. It would be difficult, but not impossible. She would manage. 

"Keep them." The Sorcerer Supreme said simply. "You are aware, they would have never worked if they did not choose you in the first place. They are yours. To help you in your quest."

A quick nod and Renny conjured a portal to New York and stepped through before her tears could slip down her face. She knew that a moment longer standing beside the woman who she considered a grandmother, even a mother-figure, she might not build the courage to leave again for a long time. The girl could not stop herself from looking back though.

The smile on the Ancient One's thin lips was wistful. When the portal dissipated a second later, Renny collapsed onto her knees and sobbed, letting her tears flow.

She couldn't deny the feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her that that could be the last time she and the Sorcerer Supreme would see each other.

1943 - Belgium

"Think she's comin', Steve?" Bucky said, loading his rifle.

"Can't see why not. If she showed up all the way at the HYDRA base for you, of course, she'll be at the raid." Steve answered, strapping his shield to his back.

"Who you talkin' about there, Cap?" Gabe Jones piped up.

Steve and Bucky shared a look and a sly smile.

"Just a friend." They answered.

It had been over eight years since they first saw her… Well, since Steve first saw her anyway. Bucky swears that he'd seen her somewhere before.

The girl who showed up like a fairytale. Because what other word could there be for her? A girl who'd barely aged the whole time they knew her. She always looked to be nineteen, maybe twenty or so. The way she appeared and disappeared in a blur or flash of sparks...

1936 - Brooklyn

When Steve was being bullied, seeing her face or the glint of her wide bronze bangles at the corner of the alley meant that help was coming. She would lead Bucky to him, or some other adult who would chase away the bullies.

When Bucky and Steve went on a double date and Bucky would spend too much on his dame, they would see glimpses of her as they walked home, their path completely safe.

The two young men spent quite some time keeping quiet about the girl they both thought was part of their imagination until they both came to the revelation that they both saw the same girl.

Bucky was flipping through one of Steve's sketchbooks when he noticed a recurring sketch of a familiar figure.

"You've seen this dame around town, Steve?" Bucky asked innocently, wondering if maybe the girl flitting through his peripherals was based on some girl he had seen in passing.

"Uhhhh…" Steve scratched his head. "Not really. I just made her up... I think…" He added belatedly.

"Does she wear these bracelets on her arms?" Bucky asked intently, hoping to God that he wasn't being crazy.

"Like wide bronze bangles?" Steve asked, eyes widening.

There was a moment before Bucky continued. "Brown hair?"

"Grey eyes?" The blond confirmed.

"Well… I always thought they were a little more blue." Bucky chuckled.

"Gosh… I thought I was crazy." Steve breathed.

"You and me both, buddy."

Bucky ran a hand through his hair and Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, both relieved.

When the two had come to terms with the existence of the strange girl, they began to see her more often… rather, they noticed her presence more. Among the faces of a crowd, in their classes and the library, in the reflection of a shop's glass window, or the glint of the wide bronze bands on her forearms disappearing around a corner.

They never saw more than extended glimpses of her, sometimes the occasional pause and smile before she disappeared again.

Oh, the two knew for sure she was there. There was always a tiny doubt niggling at the back of their minds though. They could never come close to her.

The night after Sarah Rogers funeral was the night that rule was broken. Steve had refused Bucky's offer to stay at his house. So they both stayed at Steve's for that night instead. The blond had been so caught up in mourning, who could blame him, he had missed paying his bills. Sometime in the middle of the night, the heat went out.

Renny had been watching them, knowing that grief sometimes made people do stupid or irrational things. She appeared in the dark apartment where the two had fallen asleep talking in the living room. She draped blankets over them, but when she felt just how cold the air was and saw Steve shiver in his sleep, she sighed.

"Silly boys…" She muttered, before casting a spell over the living room to make it warm. Again, she pulled the blankets to the two young men's chins, smiling fondly. "You're lucky you two have each other." After tucking the blankets securely around each of them, she walked around and checked that the windows were all secure for the night.

The magic for the heating spell she used would need her energy to continue to produce warmth, so she had to stay in the apartment. She still didn't have a handle on casting remote spells or letting them absorb latent energy and magic instead. Already, she was feeling tired.

Long term spells

Remote activation

Modifying spells to be powered by latent magic

Her list of things to practice was getting a bit long, even if she did spend quite a while training. Well... the best way to find out exactly what she needed was through personal experience, right?

Extending the warming spell to the kitchen, she sat on the chair by the dining table. She'd leave before they woke up tomorrow.

Feeling the steady trickle of her magic, she rested her head on her folded arms, soon closing her eyes.

"Oh gosh! It's her Buck! Wow… It's really her…"

"Shhh, Steve. You'll wake her. Maybe I should bring her to your room? That doesn't look comfortable…"

…

"My room's freezing. It's weird, only the living room and the kitchen are warm. I think the heat went out."

"How can it be warm then? Think she did it?"

Renny felt herself being lifted into the air but felt too tired and lazy to open her eyes. The new position was much more comfortable and she snuggled into her pillow.

"Oh, okay… wow… the dame's really warm."

"Like a fever?" The voice sounded concerned.

"No, she looks fine. She's just… really warm." The hold on her shifted slightly and she snuggled further into her pillow. "Ow! Hey!"

"Bucky!"

Renny's eyes fluttered, and when she stretched and huffed, her feet were slowly and gently set on the ground. When her eyes finally opened and her vision cleared from the fog of sleep, she was met with the sight of the two young men she had been watching for the past year. They both stood with their hands up. Steve almost looked as scared as he was cautious, like a deer caught in headlights. Meanwhile, Bucky tried his best to look at ease and assuring, a hesitant smile on his face. She tilted her head as she looked at them. Her mind was a bit slow this morning.

"Uhmmm…" Steve was at a loss for words.

Bucky said the first thing that came to mind. "Uh… Morning, Sunshine?"

Suddenly, it occurred to her that they were looking right at her… that they were talking to her… That wasn't exactly part of the plan.

With a small squeak, she stepped back through a portal to the fire escape outside and snapped it shut the moment she was through.

"Wait!"

"Please!"

She heard the two boys scuffle inside.

"You scared her off!"

"I scared her off?!"

"You didn't have to whack me on the dang head!"

"Language!"

Renny immediately had to portal away before she ended up giving away her position with the laugh that was forcing its way out her throat.

"Well, that proved for sure that we're not crazy…"

"Yeah…"

Bucky and Steve agreed as they both lay on the floor of Steve's apartment after their little tussle over their argument.

"Do you think she'll come back?"

"Now that she knows we've really seen her?" Bucky shrugged. "I don't know Steve. But if she's stuck with us this long… maybe. It's nice knowing we have a guardian angel watching our backs."

"Guardian angel, huh? Think that will help me enlist?" Steve smiled at his best friend.

Bucky chuckled, nudging Steve's arm with his elbow. "Let's go to Goldie's gym for a week or two. That'll help you enlist."

---

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[jeremy-ken-anderson]

One Bad Mechanic

Casper, 1997, for the Sega Dreamcast, was a terrible game.

As a kid I was both aware of this at the time - to the point that I returned it and never attempted to finish it after the first level - and conscious enough of its enjoyable bits to be annoyed by how it had all been destroyed by a single bad decision.

It had a timer. Like, it just counted down to 0 and if you didn’t reach Kat in the time limit the game’s like, “Whoops, you can’t tell the story right because you didn’t reach the garden before time ran out, Game Over!”

This fails on every level:

Fidelity: This doesn’t have the excuse some games have (one I personally don’t tend to accept as a reason for bad gameplay, but I at least recognize it as something people might accept) of doing the dumb thing to be like the movie. Kat and Casper don’t meet in a garden, in the film.

Theme: Casper is a ghost in his own home, and the general feel of the game is one of exploration, growing more familiar with the terrain and learning about the ways you can use new “A Boy and His Blob” style powers to traverse the terrain in different ways. Casper isn’t the kind of ghost story where the ghost only has a bit of time before he dissipates or is forcibly moved on, either. He’s been here decades - maybe a century - and he’s more or less comfortable in his new way of being. Having a time limit on this just feels wrong. It’s a bad fit.

Logic: Casper has literally all the time in the world to meet Kat. She just moved into his house. The idea that he misses his chance to meet her if you take too long poking around inside - again - your own home, is silly and dumb.

Mechanical: Honestly looking back on the experience of playing Casper reminds me of a more recent game I tried. It was a choose-your-own-adventure game in the “also do some dice rolling in the game” style of the Super Endless Quest books, but it was SO BAD. When I took some time and dissected it I found that the game killed you at the end if you didn’t have the three true keys to the chest. The first of these keys you would get if, at the beginning of the game, you went right instead of left (there was no indication that this was a more correct path), defeated the ice guardian (you could very well die, as the combat system was very random and somewhat weighted against you), and then successfully opened the chest it was guarding (If you failed your first attempt to open the chest, you gave up, at which point your run was doomed but you could not possibly know that unless you cheated and looked at both the “success” option and the end of the game, so you’d be wasting another 30 minutes of going through this maze only to die horribly after potentially a seeming victory). The idea here - one the designer of the dungeon even stated openly - was that the player was expected to master the dungeon. To play through several times, dying often for arbitrary reasons, until they knew it by heart and could win by having memorized all the correct answers (and then also happened to get lucky with their die rolls). At a glance, one can tell that this designer grossly overestimated how invested the player would be in his game. It’s kind of a classic newbie designer mistake, assuming that the player is as invested in this thing you’ve made as you are. Of course the designer feels invested. This is their baby. But to a random player who happened to pick up this magazine (Or, to get back to it, Casper)? It’s just a bland title with bad conveyance, an incomprehensible maze you get lost in and then lose for no clear reason. The inclusion of this mechanic seems to suggest that the expected play cycle for Casper, like the designer of this horrible dungeon, was to play level 1, lose, try again, maybe this time you’ve memorized enough of the level design and succeed, and you get to move on to level 2. This ends up with the same problem: The actual response it elicits is not curiosity but boredom and contempt. Because the gameplay experience it provides is boring and contemptible.

I’ve been quietly mad about this stupid mechanic for 23 years. If you’re designing an exploration game and you’re considering adding in a mechanic where the exploration is timed...I’m not going to say it can’t be done well, but be very careful. People who are in a game for exploration are far more likely to be looking for a chance to relax, a chill experience. It’s worth considering what the expectations and desires of your players are likely to be, so that you are only subverting those expectations with intention and clear purpose.

[an-avid-reader]

The Sun is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

my rating: 3.5/5

Natasha is an undocumented citizen, her family moved from Jamica to America when she was a little girl. For the most part, her family has laid low and stayed out of trouble until one day, her father receives a DUI, which means that they have been discovered. Natasha and her family have less than a day to leave the US, before they get in more trouble. Daniel is Korean-American. His immigrant parents want the best for their sons, that means going to school and living a better life. But Daniel’s interests lie elsewhere—both in career and what it means to fall in love. When Daniel and Natasha cross paths, their differences may seem incompatible...but after all, don’t opposites attract?

Link to Goodreads || Spoiler-free review below

Let me start off by saying that I’m still unsure about my rating; I’m slightly conflicted with my opinions on this book. I will say that in terms of the development of the story, I prefer it to Everything, Everything, which is Yoon’s debut novel. Both are love stories in very extreme/unique situations and diverse characters. Yoon’s writing is easy to read and eloquent, in my opinion--I can definitely see that it improved in The Sun is Also a Star. Bonus: love the title and the cover of the book.

This book is supposedly written from the point of view of the universe, which probably explains why we switch from first person to third person. For the most part, I didn’t really notice it, and I could distinguish Daniel and Natasha’s chapters (most of the book is from their point of view). However, there was one ‘chapter’ where it was just super confusing, unfortunately I don’t remember which one it was! I found that to be interesting though--and I wonder how different the book would be if we had it all in third person as opposed to switching back and forth.

For the characters, I love the diversity we see, and how there was inspiration from Yoon’s own relationship. I agree with her reasoning--there needs to be more portrayal of POC in books, movies, shows, etc. That being said, I found that there were A LOT of stereotypes. Don’t get me wrong, stereotypes exist because they are a version of someone’s story (as stated by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), but there were some that made me dislike Natasha’s character. It wasn’t really the racial stereotypes that bothered me, but rather the science stereotype. At one point, Natasha and Daniel get on the topic of religion and god, and she plays the “science is all we need” card. My issue is that science and religion can coexist (as a current biochem student who went to a catholic school with amazing and unbiased science teachers, I can attest that they can indeed coexist!). The thing is religion is based on belief--that belief can stem from comfort, a reason to be alive/to be good, something to confine in, morals, etc. Science is based on facts and evidence. You don’t believe in science, it’s factual, but you can choose to believe (or not believe) in religion--either is fine, regardless of religion. I’ve realized that the whole science vs religion story is not for me, it just makes me angry. There was a good chunk of the middle part of the book where Natasha is less “extreme” about her views, but then she hit me with that “science is all we need” and I just became annoyed. 

Daniel was more reasonable in my opinion. I personally haven’t met anyone that follows his story; where he wants to pursue a creative career but his parents want him to become a doctor (as an immigrant myself, this isn’t something that I can relate to either). Again Natasha comes in and says that he’ll be a starving artist, which just annoyed me again! Yes, we need scientists and engineers, but creative people--authors, film directors, actors, etc. are necessary to keep our society sane. Furthermore, some careers require the cooperation of the arts and the sciences, like architecture. So once again, let’s stop pinning science against the arts when we need them both (also lowkey organic chemistry and biochemistry are arts but that’s just my opinion). Actually maybe we need to stop putting science on this pedestal from time to time *sips tea*.

Okay so stereotypes and annoyances aside, I loved the progression of their love story. I also love that the questions to “fall in love” were consistent throughout the whole story. I appreciated that Yoon mentioned when people were staring at them, as an interracial couple. I think that there is still a lot of racism embedded in our society, not just white people against other races, but other situations like this where it was Korean vs Jamaican. I also liked that Charlie, Daniel’s brother, actually rejected his culture--I think that was his version of coping with an identity crisis, and I believe that there are others like him who do this in order to fit it, which actually saddens me a little bit. I think these small, but important details capture the reality of being a non-“natural” citizen/immigrant/not being white. I can’t say I’ve read many books like this, so it definitely stands out against other coming of age books, and YA romance books.

I really liked the sprinkle of knowledge along the way. For example, at one point, the universe explains to us the multiverse (which is a pretty simple explanation that is accurate and easy to follow). One thing that sort of surprised me was the juxtaposition between the tone of the book (which I guess in some ways is a little dark) and the cover, and then there’s one character that has suicidal thoughts. It literally came out of nowhere. And then there’s the progression of the language that progresses. I would never expect to read "...graduates summa cum laude..." in such a colourful book, but here we are. I’ve never heard that phrase until last year in university, and now it seems that it pops up everywhere (o.O)

The book takes place over the course of a few hours, yet it didn’t seem to drag on. We hop from one adventure to another and we get to see Natasha and Daniel’s love story develop, even though their love is set up to be doomed from the beginning. Yet, they bump into each other and end up finding each other in the big city of NYC. This book was super interesting from a story-telling point of view, even if I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the characters. I think that’s why, at the end of the day, I’m sort of distraught by my rating because the story itself wasn’t super cringey to me and I can clearly see that Yoon’s writing developed from one book to another, but the stuff I didn’t like are prominent and crucial to the story...well except maybe the epilogue which I felt was just thrown in there to try to satiate the book but it felt unnecessary.

If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear what are your thoughts--did you enjoy this book or was it overhyped? (and if you’ve seen the adaptation, is it worth it?) 

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you are having a pleasant day, wherever you are in the world!

~ Cassandra / an-avid-reader

[lov3nerdstuff]

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 3.2}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student (however no underage romance), blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 5.3k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

The thing about making promises as someone who's inherently loyal is, unfortunately, that you leave yourself no choice but to keep them.

Seeing as Robin had assured Professor Snape that she wouldn't study in the hallways anymore, she found herself highly uncomfortable in the common room once again on Monday night. Her divination homework was spread out in front of her on the table, while simultaneously some other students used the same piece of furniture to store their disgustingly sticky sweets and some kind of soda. Of course it had to go wrong. How else would she be reminded of why she dreaded this place in the evenings. The disaster unfolded, the soda was knocked over and emptied its entire contents all over the table, and all over Robin's homework essay. At least she had been graced with fast reflexes, which allowed her to save her textbook and quill at least and jump out of the way before the inevitable wave of sparkling pink fluid with a swirling dash of black ink swept over the edge of the table. Her essay, however, was lost in the floods.

A small apology was all she got in return, along with a few confused whispers once Robin tried to undo the damage by using the spell she'd learned from Snape's book during the last winter break. It indeed turned the water into a fine mist at first, then dissolved it completely, but unfortunately it also dissolved the ink on Robin's parchment, and instead left behind all the sticky sweetness that hadn't dissolved with the water. Right… this just worked with natural substances.

"How did you do that?!" An astonished first year asked Robin with wide eyes directed at where the water had been sloshing around mere seconds ago. "Will I be learning that too?"

"Unlikely." Robin mumbled in annoyance, not at the kid, but the overall situation. Now that the three pages of her essay were basically blank parchment again, and she currently held everything else she'd brought neatly in her hands, she saw no reason in cleaning the rest of the mess up herself. With the intention to at least not make enemies in the grades below her as well, she turned to the kid once more. "Just be nice to your professors and they might show you something handy like that." Then, without another word, she made her way out of the common room and into her dorm. If she'd have to rewrite the entire goddamn essay tomorrow after classes in addition to her usual work, she seriously needed to get some sleep.

Tuesday turned out to be just the way Monday had ended. Robin overslept (which literally never happened), upon which she had to skip breakfast to make it to class, and then ran from one subject to the next for the entire day, only to spend all remaining time until the evening by trying to get as much minor homework done as she possibly could. By the time she walked into the great hall for dinner, she felt so on edge that her stomach protested even at the prospect of eating a single pea. But she'd already missed breakfast and then skipped lunch to finish up a chapter in her book before afternoon classes… She at least had to try to eat something, or she might just collapse like her carefully constructed composure had done hours ago.

"Hey jay, what's all that talk about that you used some bloody weird spell last night?" A boy in her grade, who was sitting a few spaces over at the Slytherin table, asked immediately once Robin took a seat in one of the only empty spots. Being fashionably late, even if by fortune rather than favor, came at the price of having no say about bench neighbors. "Did you make up something new to impress the teachers?" A few people chuckled at the boy's comment and turned to Robin expectantly for an answer.

"Shut up David." She snapped at him with a glare, while her stomach reminded her that it strictly refused to take any more stress tonight. Really, Robin already felt very much like just imploding and ceasing to exist at a moment's notice today. And out of all the times her classmates could have chosen to pick on her this week, of course it had to be today, the one day she really couldn't be bothered with any more annoyances.

Within the next fifteen minutes Robin got exactly one piece of bread down, before she simply gave up on dinner and its inherent company altogether. As subtly as she could, she rose to her feet and made for a quick exit to head back to her dorm way before dinner ended. That at least gave her a good twenty minutes all to herself, before at last the other girls returned to the shared bedroom and thus inevitably made it impossible for Robin to do her work in the same space. With a sigh that bordered between resignation and desperation, she stuffed her trusty leather backpack with all things needed for today's assignments, as well as a bar of Twirls for the unlikely case that her appetite should return at any point in the next couple hours.

Then she made her way back into the common room with the utmost determination to make it work tonight. And at first it seriously looked like it actually could. It was rather empty in comparison to other nights, more or less quiet as well, almost possible to focus… Then however dinner time was officially over, and people entered the room like a flash flood. Or rather… a flesh flood.

The book in Robin's lap shook with the nervous jittering of her right leg, and her mind went in and out of focus as her eyes lifted on their own account to scan each new person entering the room. She tried directly facing the wall to make herself stop after half an hour of her eyes skipping from the page to the door. That however led Robin to a rawly-anxious state of mind where every loud or sudden noise made her jump, and her fingers dig into the spine of her book until her knuckles turned white. The tension that coiled her muscles into knots every time she startled never quite left her body, and after a while she started to shift in her seat in restless discomfort. The frown that had long ago set on her face almost made her eyes water in its attempt to help her to focus by merely squeezing her eyebrows together, but it only served to give her a headache. Indeed, the more she had to focus on staying calm, the more she realized that her mission to make this work was failing. And just like that, slowly, the thudding of her heart and the adrenaline in her blood drove her painfully insane. Just breathe, bloody idiot! This is a complete overreaction… more than likely just some stupid puberty thing. Ridiculous…

She wanted to yell at everything and everyone to just shut up and stop overwhelming her senses like that. Wasn't that something people supposedly did when they were (almost) 14? Not that Robin would know… her parents used to joke how she'd just jumped from childhood straight to adulthood without the awkward teenage phase. Well, maybe this entire lack-of-basic-functioning was just teenage-hood finally catching up with her.

She managed another forty minutes of restless reading, until she reached the end of the chapter only to realize that she could not remember a single word her eyes had traveled over. What book was she even reading?! Oh god… she would never finish this essay! A sharp tug in her chest and a new wave of nauseous heat accompanied the thought. She would fail this essay, and then the entire class, and then she'd be expelled. Bloody hell, she will end up cast out of both the muggle and the wizarding world! No, she had to do something, anything, she needed to get out of here… now.

The air seemed to be sucked out of the room as Robin threw her book into her backpack and her backpack over her shoulders. She didn't care that she felt dizzy. She didn't care that people were watching her abrupt exit like she had gone mad. All she felt was the painful thudding in her chest, the shame, and the tears stinging in her eyes. Before she could fathom to stop or even just slow down for a moment, she was hurrying through the pitch black hallways as if she could simply get rid of the dreadful feeling by going into a blind run. Outrunning her emotions. Just a minute in the courtyard, a minute under the stars or in the darkness of the night and she would be fine, she could just-...

A surging whiplash of electricity hit her body as she blindly ran into a solid surface that made her trip over her own feet and land on her butt, startling her enough to lose control over her unshed tears at last. For a second she blinked up at the blurry figure she'd run into, before being forced back onto her feet by a new wave of adrenaline released into her veins and the still persisting urge to run.

"Not. So. Fast…" The all-too familiar voice of her favorite professor sent a shiver down Robin's spine, but she also couldn't help the impulsive decision to simply walk on. Her body currently held her rational mind hostage, just as she was held in place by a firm grip on both her shoulders before she could bolt.

No no no… he had to let her move on or she would explode into a wailing heap of tears and misery. Or worse, she might yell at him. He would hate her. Even more than he already did anyway. Everyone hated her. She didn't want him to hate her… But she couldn't tell him that, she couldn't even voice any of her thoughts as they remained in their painful ambivalence of tumbling over one another and yet staying completely absent. She just wanted to be left alone… to die already and be rid of this torture.

"Breathe, Robin…" The sound of calmness, of darkness. "Count to six while you breathe in and count to six while you breathe out. You will be alright."

As if her body was trained to obey his solemn command, to ultimately trust his every word, she complied and closed her eyes. One… two… three… four… five… six… She was drowning, literally drowning. Six… five… four… three… two… one… Breathing hurt. It was painful, but getting better. One… two… three… four… five… six… Why wasn't he mad at her?! He was Snape… he was always mad when she did something ridiculous. Six… five… four… three… two… one… He still had his hands placed on her shoulders. She found that she didn't mind. Not the least bit, actually. One… two… three… four… five… six… She felt like her body actually started obeying her mind once again. The painful tension was fading away, the ringing in her ears died down and only her heart was still beating too fast. She could deal with that. Six… five… four… three… two… one… Robin opened her eyes, and despite the thick darkness, she was met with almost black ones in return. Another shiver ran over her skin.

"I'm sorry…" She finally managed to speak in merely a whisper, and a second later an overwhelming wave of guilt closed up her throat altogether. This really was a whole new level of being a bother. He had to hate her now… Wait, had he really used her first name a minute ago? It was all a bit of a blur in her mind…

"Don't." Snape merely said, and let go of one of her shoulders at last to pull her along through the corridors and into the empty potions classroom. As the door closed behind them, he finally turned towards her once more with a mixed expression. "Care to explain?"

"I will, just… give me a moment, please." She brought out, then carefully dropped her backpack on the floor and slowly walked from one end of the classroom to the other, pacing back and forth while Snape sat down on the edge of his desk and watched her in silence. Finally she felt enough like herself once more to talk to him, even if she wasn't entirely sure what he expected to hear. So that's where she started. "I don't know what to say…"

"Is this a usual occurrence? You running through the hallways in blind panic?"

"No…" Robin finally stopped in her avoidant movements, but still looked everywhere other than at the potions professor. "I mean… yes. But no. Ever since the start of term, I… it's…" Robin sighed, then sat down in her usual seat in the second row and put her head in her hands for a moment to collect her thoughts, while Snape waited patiently for her to go on. Finally she took a breath and lifted her eyes to look up at him. "I really shouldn't have told you that I wouldn't study in the hallways anymore… it's the only place I can bear to be at certain times. Ever since the start of term I've had trouble being around people. Not generally, I mean, just… working there, in the common room. I can't focus on my work, no matter what I do, and it always ends with me feeling like I'm going to die. Then I run and hide in the hallway. It's just… what I do to-... to cope without bothering anyone." She shrugged, more so to herself than to him. "I know it's probably just some pathetic teenager thing. It's nothing, really, and I already feel embarrassed enough by how stupid that all sounds… And I should probably stop talking."

"You should have told me."

"What?" Robin blinked at him in irritation. This is not the response she had expected. Mocking, yes. Scolding, even more likely. But not… something that sounded an unlikely lot like understanding. Remorse even! Surely she was misinterpreting that.

"You should have told me on Sunday what you told me now, and matters would not have come this far." He replied reproachfully, which was already way more likely on the scale of his normal subtones, and moved away from his desk towards the door.

"Well, it's not something you simply tell people! At least not without a darn good reason…" Robin defended herself quietly while avoiding his eye once more. He already knew quite enough, he didn't need to see her blushing over it like a damn idiot as well. "And no offense, professor, but I doubt that there is much you can do about it anyway. It's probably just… nature, or… something." She cringed as the words left her lips, but she would only embarrass herself even more if she spoke on in an attempt to make it any better.

"You may have failed to notice that you are sitting at a desk in a decently lit classroom right now instead of cowering on the ground in a dark hallway."

"Actually I was quite aware of that." A small smile accompanied the frown on Robin's face now as she turned around to face him standing by the door. "But… you seem to be making a different point with that statement and I… don't get it."

"Would you like me to spell it out for you?!" He rolled his eyes, looking equally annoyed and uncomfortable. The kind of uncomfortable he always wore when he got caught doing something nice.

"I'd actually appreciate that a lot, sir." She replied with an insecure half smile, even though she knew that his comment had been mere sarcasm. "This… thing, in the common room, has left me a bit… slow, for the moment. Sorry… I guess I'm back to being a dunderhead for the moment."

"Do you remember the advanced spell to lock and unlock doors which I taught you in your first year?"

"Yes, of course."

"It is commonly used to lock the classrooms. All classrooms, to be exact, in the entire school. However I would prefer if you made use of that knowledge solely on the doors to my own classrooms, should you find yourself in need of a… suitable study space again." He gave her a pointed look, then disappeared out into the hallway without another word.

Robin stared at the now closed door for another moment, and listened to her own heartbeat and the silence it was filling. He trusted her enough to allow her to study here, and even come and go at will. That… wow. Robin felt honored, in a way, and definitely privileged. She'd felt proud to be allowed to break curfew, but this was a step further into what honestly started to look like trust. Severus Snape trusted her, even if only ever so slightly. Hadn't she been so emotionally exhausted from the events of today overall and tonight in particular, she would have smiled brighter than the sun. She felt like smiling brighter than the sun, actually… but all her body allowed for now was a small but grateful smile. Yeah, she'd happily write a thousand labels for him as a thank you for this… and a couple more as an apology for making him do something nice. For now however she still had an essay to write for divination, and she would make sure that it turned out even better than the first.

… … …

About an hour later, Professor Snape returned to the classroom in the same silence he had left with. Robin looked up from her work as her ears picked up on the movement, and she followed him with her eyes as he sat down behind his desk with a stack of paperwork. For a moment, he returned the gaze with the same calm expression he had worn in the lab two days ago, and Robin wondered what he might possibly be thinking. Then he focused on his own work, and Robin did the same.

For two more hours they sat in silence like this, each working on their respective tasks in the dim light of the few lit candles in the room. Robin hadn't been able to work this well for this long ever since the start of term, maybe even longer than that, and she couldn't quite believe just how lucky she was to have ended up here now. Lucky, and grateful. Just sitting in Snape's classroom with him, way past curfew and in comfortable silence, she felt like she was able to relax for the first time in over twenty four hours. In addition to that, her essay was turning out to be amazing. This might not beat last Sunday night, with all the amazing wonders the lab had to offer, but it was a pretty close second.

Once the essay was done and packed up to be handed in tomorrow, Robin made the pleasant discovery that the Twirl she had packed was still unharmed and not entirely smashed after how she'd thrown her book into the backpack earlier. Pleased with herself for packing the candy in the first place, she grabbed it out of her backpack along with the book she intended to read next.

"You brought chocolate to Hogwarts?" Snape raised an eyebrow at her in what almost looked like amusement, and Robin had to smile at the fact that this was what finally had led him to disrupt the silence. "Isn't the insufferable amount of sweets served here quite enough?"

"It's not nearly the same, actually." Robin replied neutrally, then took one of the chocolate bars out of the package to place it on her desk before looking back at Snape. "Do you… uh, would you like one? I mean… I'd be happy to share. Still haven't gotten used to having two chocolates in one package…"

"And what exactly would be the use of that for you?"

"Eating chocolate or sharing? Actually-... Well, I guess it doesn't matter, actually… both tend to be quite delightful." Robin shrugged as she rose to her feet and walked over to his desk to place the second piece of chocolate in front of him. Seeing as he still looked doubtful, Robin rolled her eyes even though she knew she shouldn't. "I'm not going to poison you! I'm… just trying to be nice. And hoping you won't yell at me."

While Snape continued to frown at her, then at the chocolate on his desk, Robin sat back down at her own desk with a sigh and went to enjoy her treat. Why couldn't he simply accept a kind gesture without being all weird about it? It made Robin feel weird in return… but she also refused to let that stop her from being nice to him. He probably didn't believe that anyone would be kind to him for the same reason he found it so hard to believe that Robin didn't mind, and even appreciated his company. Well, in case she or anyone on this planet hadn't noticed before now… her potions professor was different. Not different from anything in particular, just different. Yet she couldn't help wondering… had he ever tried muggle candy before? Chances were ridiculously high that he didn't even-...

"There indeed is nothing like Twirls in Hogwarts… I had no idea they sold them as twin bars these days though." He mused after a moment, then snatched the piece of chocolate off his desk to eat while resuming his work as if nothing had interrupted him in the first place.

Robin felt baffled for a moment… he actually knew that they hadn't always come packaged like this?! Most of the kids in her house didn't even know what a TV was… leave alone a random brand of sweets. How come he knew? But Robin knew that it wasn't her place to ask... She'd already stretched her luck quite enough by offering him chocolate in the first place. But in terms of being kind, it really was an improvement to having the house elves bringing him cake, just like her using his classrooms as a study space was an improvement in terms of trust. Somehow, Robin felt like they were making progress. But she didn't yet know which goal they were trying to reach.

… … …

After Tuesday night, Robin declared the potions classroom to be her personal sanctuary. Thus it was no surprise that on Wednesday night she was back in front of the door, only to find it locked. However seeing as Snape had been rather direct about her being allowed and expected to let herself in, she didn't hesitate to make good use of the spell she'd learned in her first year. From some time after dinner until way after midnight, Robin was alone in the classroom, working and reading and simply enjoying the fact that she was entirely on her own. Solitude was hard to come by around here… so she treasured every second she had to herself, before at last she made her way back to her dorm. She didn't run into a single person that night, and it was absolutely blissful.

On Thursday night Robin had to let herself into the room yet again, but after an hour of being alone, Professor Snape burst into the room like a black whirlwind or a thundercloud, which in return caused Robin to jump with a yelp. He stared at her in surprise for a second, frozen in his spot in the middle of the room now after the dramatic entrance, but then his entire demeanour slowly changed from threatening tension to calm neutrality and he moved on into his office, only to come back with a stack of notebooks a moment later. Still without saying a single word, he sat down at his desk in the front of the classroom and started to work. Whatever he had been upset about a moment ago, to Robin it seemed to have faded for now. Or he'd just gotten better at hiding it. However Robin had also gotten better at reading his barely-existent expressions and tiny tells, and thus it was more than likely that he felt calmer now for real. The thought made Robin smile as she turned back to her work. Perhaps this sanctuary wasn't only hers to escape to after all.

On Friday night, Robin found herself with a surprising lack of assignments for the next week, which left only her private studies to delve into. However due to exactly that reason, she decided to take a walk down to the lake after dinner, before curfew would limit her to the castle grounds alone. It was still surprisingly warm for the beginning of October, and thus she strolled along the shore until the time of night forced her to return to the castle. Once back inside, she made her direct way to the potions classroom without even bothering to return to her dorm first, seeing as she carried her backpack with her anyway, and thus all of the books she could possibly read. To her surprise, the door was unlocked already, but she stepped into the room to find it empty and in darkness. Well, the back of the room where Robin was currently situated was dark. The door leading to Snape's office however stood wide open, and the faint light radiating out of the office dimly illuminated the very front of the classroom.

Without wasting any more time standing in the dark like an idiot, Robin closed the door behind herself, lit the candles with a single word and then sat down in her usual spot. Somehow it only now appeared to her that up until this week, Snape had always been working in his office whenever she had seen him working in the evenings, and not once in the classroom. Had he started working here to keep an eye on her? No, she'd been alone here all of Wednesday, and multiple hours over the other two days. Huh… how curious. Robin then settled for the explanation that he also didn't mind some company at times. And the desk here in the classroom seemed a whole lot larger than the one in his office.

"Miss Mitchell…" His voice stopped her before she even had the chance to unpack any of her books from her backpack.

"Good evening, professor." She replied in a hint of surprise at actually being talked to after the enduring silence of the previous night, and meanwhile followed him with her eyes as he made his way out of the office with a book in his hands that might as well be older than the castle. "Is… is everything alright?"

"Indeed. However I… would like to ask for your assistance." His voice didn't let on anything at all once more, and Robin didn't know if she should feel nervous or excited. Her heartbeat sped up anyway.

"My-... My assistance?" She frowned a little, but snapped out of her insecurity in a second. This was her chance to help him another time, and she would take it no matter what. "I mean… of course, I'd be glad to. What is it you need my help with?"

He placed the book on his desk and motioned for Robin to come over as well, which she did while he explained. "I was in the fortunate position to acquire this unique piece of literature over the summer, but it appears to be missing one single page, which however I suspect to be of crucial importance to fully understanding everything else. Since the page was not simply torn out of the book, it also cannot simply be restored either."

Robin stood next to Snape at his desk and carefully inspected the heavy tome for a moment. It was bound in shabby but decently restored leather, with the barest hint of a gold inscription on the spine that however had long before rubbed off. Not much to go by… what kind of literature was this even? After a moment she looked up from the book to meet her professor's eyes. "How could I be of any help with that? I mean, I absolutely would help you if I could, but I very much doubt that there's anything I can do if even you didn't know a suitable spell. Maybe you could ask Professor Flitwick, or Professor McGonagall, or…"

"I asked for your assistance, did I not?"

Robin nodded, but the frown stayed on her face nonetheless. "Yes, sir… but I'm afraid I'll only disappoint you even if I tried. I have no idea how to restore the page as it is."

"I would not be so certain about that. You are in the possession of something that could very well be of vital assistance right now." He gave her a moment to think, and the gears in Robin's mind jumped into full action. Did she, really? But what-...

"The book about literature spells!" Her eyes widened at her own conclusion, and her lips remained agape with the realization. So that's why he had asked her! But how had he remembered that? It's been ages since she'd mentioned it…

"Is it still in your possession?"

"Of course!" The smile was on her face before she could help herself. In an instant she was back at her own desk and digging through her backpack with her right arm almost disappearing in the small bag up to her shoulder. Snape watched her with a risen eyebrow, and Robin felt the need to explain herself rising up with the heat on her cheeks. "Uh, I… carry a lot of books usually, so I used an extension charm I had previously researched for-… You know what, nevermind."

Snape looked so extremely unimpressed by her words that Robin had enough reason to assume that he actually was actually –at least partially– impressed by her spellwork. Really, it was another odd thing about him that she'd discovered recently, the nearly indistinguishable difference between unimpressed, and 'unimpressed but actually quite impressed'. She hid her smile in her bag for a moment, until she came to the conclusion that the book in question wasn't in there. Thus she dropped the bag on her desk as she rose to her feet, and then turned back to Snape.

"The book is in my dorm room, since I hardly ever use it these days… But I'll go get it right now, so, uh, I'll be right back." With that she made for the door and left without waiting for a reply. Ten minutes later she walked back into the classroom at the same pace she had left with, eyes already fixed on the book as she flipped through the pages. "I'm afraid I only ever really studied half of it, seeing as the second half was pretty much useless for me at the time, but-..."

"Jay?! What the hell are you doing here? Must've gotten yourself into detention as well, huh?" The snarling voice of David –who certainly had been a more than qualified replacement for Alexander in terms of bullying, ever since the duelling incident– made Robin look up from her book so fast and in so much surprise that she almost ran into the corner of a desk. In equal shock and incredulity she stared at David for a second, then at Professor Snape who had taken a seat behind his desk.

"You've got to be joking…"

______________________________

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[karinrumi]

Gambler of Feelings - Chapter 19

With trembling hands, she opened the blue box that belonged to her mom to look into what's inside. Pretty stationery was sticking out. 

Multiple letters.  

Some of them were empty, some of them were scribbled all over with her mom's favourite black pen. But that meant the note Boruto found three months ago was real. Sarada couldn't deny evidence she held in her hands. No, she should calm down. It's not like she knows what's written in them, right? For all, she knows the rumours she heard could be baseless, and her mom is a friend of Boruto's father. Their parents seemed to know each other for some reason. All of that could be just her being unnecessarily paranoid.

Dear Naruto

Meet me today at our usual place. Don't let Hinata or anybody know about it, you know what I mean, right? Anyway, I'm counting on you!

Sakura Uchiha

Sarada recognised the words written in the first letter she took out. That was the same one Boruto pulled out three months ago and based their bet on it. She decided to ignore Boruto was peeking out from behind her shoulder since he was an involved party just like her. 

 Dear Sakura 

Got it! I will promise to arrive on time, believe it! Are you sure you're alright without Sasuke around? I can always call him to come back for you, ya know. 

 Naruto 

  "Call back for dad? What for?" Sarada wondered out aloud.

"Maybe my dad, your mom and dad formed the love triangle in the past? Wouldn't surprise me, really." Boruto chimed in jokingly. 

"Shush. There's more," she said, curious to see the entire exchange. 

 Dear Naruto 

I am sorry Hinata heard those stupid rumours. I went to explain to her everything personally.  I cannot blame her for that considering all three of us were in an open-relationship before because I wanted to make my current husband jealous. We all made stupid things when we were teenagers, right?

Thank you for keeping your promise. And no. You don't need to call Sasuke. We're not teenagers anymore focus on your family, okay? 

Sakura

"I was right, ya know! In some way. The love triangle part happened with your mom and my parents. Isn't that awkward?" 

Sarada was too shocked by obtaining this information behind her mom's back. She expected many things. That maybe her mom had a secret romance with Boruto's father, that maybe there's the hidden reason why she's so upset when she hears about the dream Sarada and her grandma shared. Not that Boruto's parents and her mom were in the poly-relationship as teenagers! 

"It is awkward," she responded, still shocked by the things she recently learned about her mother. 

Sarada felt incredibly bad for not asking her mom about everything in person and snooping around her stuff. But who could blame her? It wasn't Sarada's fault that her mom had a bad habit of hiding the family past.  

It hurt she always needed to discover events hidden from her by herself.  Sarada hated her family was so-secretive sometimes. Both mama and papa supposedly did it to spare her feelings, but it had an opposite effect. 

 Dear Sakura 

Guilt-tripping again, eh? We all did stupid things as a teenagers, but I don't think the whole experience was negative. We are where we are because of it, right? Besides, it looks like my son is getting along with your daughter well. Both you and Hinata should meet up and explain everything to each other. I have a feeling we all meet soon considering our children are friends, ya know? We can talk about granny death in detail in person later, got it? I feel bad hiding our small letter exchange from Hinata. I don't want to make her angry.

Naruto

Sarada slid the letters to their respective envelopes and looked at Boruto to relax. "Let's stop reading these letters. I am feeling bad about reading our parents' private correspondence." 

"I am shocked about some things written in here too. Mom never mentioned to me anything she did as a teenager, even if I asked her a few times." Boruto added still staring at her small collection of books

"Are you interested in borrowing a book from me?" she questioned him.

"Ahh, no. I just like how neatly those books are put." That was the weakest excuse Sarada heard coming from Boruto. Something was up, and she never had a chance to ask what was bothering him. Consumed by her own feelings, she decided to move that subject for later. However,  they were alone in her room now, so that's her only chance to ask him what's up straight up. 

"Hey, what's wrong? You space out a lot lately. Are you feeling alright?" She didn't try to sound incredibly worried, but lack-of-communication with other people for so long made it an impossible task.  

"It's nothing serious," he paused and directed his gaze at her. "Sarada, you have something you want to do in the future, right? Why you want to pursue that dream?"  

"To make my grandma's wish come true. It's the only thing that was left to me after she died. You can think it's stupid, but I've never moved on after her death. I feel like making our dream come true can give me a sense of closure." Granny death has shaken her pretty hard. When Sarada thought about this, it was around that time she stopped talking to other people besides Chō-Chō.  She only spoke with her club members and teachers afterwards. Rest of the students were afraid of her, or just not noticed she exist.  

"That's an awesome dream, ya know! Personally, I don't know what to do in the future, or with myself after I graduate. All the talks about plans for the future just makes me feel pressured, and in the end, I am unable to choose the path I want to walk on. The whole too-cool-for school act just paints me as a popular troublemaker, " he sighed, sharing his worries with her as if it was the most natural thing to do.

Sarada wanted to embrace him, tell him it's alright, and she'll help him find the dream he wanted to pursue. That people will stop seeing him as a troublemaker sooner or later. Like she did and has fallen in love with him.

Would he like to hear it from her? Boruto was popular at school, a lot of girls confessed to him daily. There's no way she could compare to them. Although, he's kind Boruto was way out of her league. 

"There's some time for you to think before we graduate, or you can always accept the position of my future assistant! I need a lot of help if I want to pursue my dream too," she said. It wasn't what she really wanted to do, but Sarada hoped her words cheered him up. Just like he always did it for her, even without knowing about it. 

"Thank you, Sarada," his smile came back, and she drowned in his beautiful blue eyes again. She needed to redo the Uchiha family training from the scratch. Staying composed around Boruto was starting to get harder for her as of lately.  

・・・・★・・・・★ ・・・・  

Boruto felt like a heavy burden left him. He spent so much on creating his 'cool'  persona, so he rarely talked about his worries. Most of the time, people didn't take him for the type that would be serious about the future.  That's why being near Sarada was like the breath of the fresh air. 

"Glad to help you," Sarada said, the concern still visible on her face. It's probably the first time he was cheered up by a person that wasn't his family member nowadays. 

"By the way... Are you sure it's okay for me to be in your room for so long?"  Boruto pointed out, feeling suddenly self-conscious of what he was implying. 

"Yes? Is there something wrong with my room?" she tilted her head in the way she always did when he said something that was confusing to her.  

Sarada was the type of girl that interacted more with books than people. He shouldn't be surprised she didn't catch on his implications, or that he enjoyed teasing her to see how dense she can be.  Her reddening cheeks every time he called her 'Lady, Meow, Meow'  were adorable to see.   

"Not at all, ya know! I like how neatly you lined up the books, but I think I've told you that already?"  He needed to distract her somehow and just have fun. Having a fun time with Sarada helped him a lot recently. 

"Oh, no, no, no, no! This is a disaster!" she shouted, pointing at the box where the letters they read were inside. They weren't allowed to take this box, not to mention see the content inside.  

"Don't panic, Sarada! I have a great idea about what to do with this small issue. You don't have to worry about anything, ya know," he reassured her. His idea wasn't that dangerous.   

"I don't like how smug you look right now. I think you came up with the idea I won't like."   

"Where is your sense of adventure? Jumping out from the window in your room and hiding the box outside isn't that bad. I'll catch you, kay?" Boruto had too much fun seeing how an expression on Sarada face turned from annoyed to terrified.  

"Are you crazy?! There's no way I am jumping out of my window!" she shrieked out. Was he that much of a bully when he liked spending time with his friends? The answer was a resounding 'yes'.   

"Don't worry, I am reasonably crazy," he decided to smile, hoping that he can put his plan into action. 

Before Sarada had a chance, he ran up to her and snatched her into his arms. He gave her the box with the letters too when he was close to the window. Luckily for him, it was open, so climbing up on the windowsill wasn't that big of a problem. Faster than lighting, he jumped through the window still securely holding Sarada that let out the loudest scream in the entire history of their friendship. Just like Boruto predicted they landed safely nearby some trees. He decided to hold Sarada in his arms longer, considering how pale she was after the sudden jumping. 

"See? I told you I am reasonably crazy." Boruto knew he played with fire here. However, it was so amusing to see the new expressions Sarada showed to him lately.  

"You are a moron! I thought I will die and you'll drop me down at the last minute!" The tears streamed down her cheeks. Damn. He didn't want for her to cry.  

"I am sorry. But isn't this whole experience valuable? Now we know that when we're jumping through the windows, I won't ever let you down!" he said, gently putting Sarada on the ground and giving her a head pat to calm her down.  

"Let's hide the box somewhere. I didn't survive this whole ordeal for it to turn out to be useless!" Uh-oh, he made her angry, or maybe not? Maybe she likes him more than she admits and his words made her embarrassed. Ha! In his dreams.  

"Yeah, let's hide it."   

And so they did, the box that gained the nickname of 'I cannot believe we jumped through my window'  from pretty shook Sarada because of Boruto executing his crazy idea.  

"I don't understand why you have fangirls with that type of character," Sarada muttered, the night sky reflecting her beauty.  

"Because I am great. Though, I don't care about fangirls opinions that much." Boruto cared just about the opinion of people that were close to him, he just left it unsaid unable to tell her such cheesy words.    

"I thought so before too. That I don't care about the opinion of strangers, but by meeting you, I very soon discovered I lied to myself." Sarada's confessing something so personal wasn't a usual occurrence. 

Boruto strangely didn't feel surprised by her sudden talkative mood. They both put it aside but were equally shocked by their parents hiding so many things written in those letters.  Sliding into friendship mode they had, delayed the matters they had eventually face head-on. Like having an honest conversation with the family members, finding something he wants to do in the future, supporting Sarada, overcoming his fears towards the commitments in romantic relationships... All of this was honestly overwhelming and tiring.  

Maybe that's why he wanted for Sarada to open-up to him so badly. He needed a person he can freely open up to without consuming him fear that his trust will be betrayed. Boruto knew his friends had his back, but his friendship with Shikadai and the rest of the group didn't feel the same after his break-up with Asami. Well, an exception was Mitsuki that joined the club after those events.  

He was hopeless, wasn't he? Allowing for this irrational fear to get in the way of his friendship with Sarada. How could she open-up and trust him when he couldn't do it in return? Running away from his problems by jumping through the window together with Sarada cannot solve anything. She was right, he really was a moron.  

"You lied to yourself? Really? What made you realise you were lying to yourself?" he asked, hiding his own inner struggle.  

"Boruto, you know? Once I asked myself about the meaning of feelings." Sarada hands were shaking when she averted her eyes from him. "I was thinking it wasn't worth it. Acting on something unreliable as emotions... But I-I...," her sudden outburst didn't finish yet.  

She looked preoccupied to convey what she means to him without lying. Boruto couldn't help but feel glad about it. That she wanted to be honest with him of all people in her life.  

At the same time, a pang of guilt hit him when listening to her words. Isn't that something he wanted? For her to open up to him and not holding any punches? But what if she bottled so many things inside he wasn't aware of until now? What if she hates him for being a bad friend? Does Sarada really think her personal feelings won't matter to him, or anyone else?  

His heart ached.  

"I was taught by you to be honest with how I really feel and to act based on those emotions. Stop lying to myself I don't feel them. Being straightforward is something I admire about you." Her smile was like a wave that washed away all of his worries.   

"Hey, Sarada?" Boruto longed to say these words to her for a long time. His cheeks heated up, hearing she admired him for being reckless. Gathering the courage to say something so cheesy wasn't like him at all! 

"Yes?" 

"Can we stand next to each other a little longer? I am glad out of all the people I've met you're my friend." Just a little while longer he wanted to savour the moment, where the feeling of peacefulness, remained in his heart. 

"Sure, I am glad out of all the people I've met you ended up as my friend too."  

Sarada's answer filled him with an unknown source of happiness. He didn't mind they will probably get a solid scolding from everything they did today from their parents.   He wanted to stay here with her just a little longer, since having her by his side felt like he could face anything he worried about head-on.  That feeling of blissfulness was the reason he realised he wanted to protect her. 

This realisation made that peaceful moment more special to him. God, he really was an idiot. But that's a secret he doesn't plan to tell anyone anytime soon.

・・・・★・・・・★ ・・・・  

AN: Hello, everyone! 

This chapter is dedicated to all of my readers. ;) I cannot believe we're on the chapter nineteen. Soon we enter the round number of twenty! Thank you for your support now and in the future.

Your Clumsy Author - Karinrumi ;)

[monstersandmaw]

Male Dullahan - ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Story - Final Part (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Here's the 4k or so conclusion to the now rather epic cyoa story! It's been a blast, and I have loved sharing it with you. D has become one of my favourite characters, as has my darling goblin boy Kravik, as you might be able to tell from this chapter. Perhaps he'll get his own story soon...? My supporters over on Patreon have already had access to this, and I want to thank them publicly for their wonderful comments and support. Now it’s everyone else’s turn. Thank you for making this epic project possible, fun, and come to life...

Anyway, without further ado, here is the final part, Part Thirteen (because 13 is actually a lucky number, I promise...)

Catch up on the full series here if you missed it: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve  

“I’m coming with you, D.”

At your response, he sucked in a sharp breath, his fingers clenched in an iron grasp around the brush in his hand. Midnight shifted uneasily, sensing his roiling emotions, and then stuck her nose out to nuzzle against his back, as though offering him encouragement. D let his shoulders drop and he sighed heavily and nodded. “Very well.”

“‘Very well’,” you snorted. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

His gaze turned from hard to pained in a heartbeat, and he lowered his eyes to the gravel of the path between you. That distance - perhaps only three or four feet - seemed an impassable gulf until he spoke again. “What am I supposed to say?” he asked softly. “I could already see that that would be your answer.”

“Aren’t you happy about it?” you demanded.

“You know my feelings on the matter,” he said flatly. “I want you safe before I want you with me; before all else.”

“Safe and sad,” you spat sourly. “Got it. I thought you were going to respect my decision,” you added, feeling your face heat up. “I thought…”

D took a step towards you and held out his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is just a big change for me. It’s a lot for me to deal with. My kind work alone, and what we do can be very dangerous at times. I told you all this already though. I just… I just hoped you might stay here, that’s all.”

The dullahan suddenly went rigid, and with a wave of his hand, Midnight and he both vanished from your sight.

“D?” you asked, stepping forwards in panic.

“Quiet,” came his rumbling voice. “I’m still here. It’s just a glamour. Someone’s coming.”

“Don’t you dare sneak off, will you?”

His touch on your elbow made you jump, and his warm breath fanned out across your cheek and neck. With a soft chuckle, he pressed a kiss onto your skin that made goosebumps skitter over your whole right-hand side, and he murmured, “I won’t sneak off, I promise.”

“We could have some fun with this, you know?” you giggled, and with a final squeeze somewhere considerably cheekier than your arm, D vanished from your perception.

A few seconds later, Kravik emerged out of the evening shadows on the road, his hands in his pockets, the little goblin whistling softly to himself as he walked. When he saw you already standing on the road in front of your house, apparently alone, he drew up short in surprise, and tilted his head. “Everything alright?” he asked as he approached.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

“I thought I’d drop in and see if you’re doing alright… You know, after your dullahan dropped by last night.”

You looked pointedly over at where Midnight had been - and probably still was - standing, and said loudly, “He’s still here.”

D took it for the invitation it was, and removed the glamour, since Kravik already knew all about him. The goblin leapt about a foot to the side in surprise as the horse materialised out of thin air, shortly followed by the tall figure of the dullahan, standing beside her shoulder. He nodded politely at Kravik, but remained silent.

“Right,” the goblin said awkwardly once he’d recovered. “Well, look, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to check you were alright. I’ll, erm… yeah…” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Wait, Krav,” you called as he turned away. “I… I do need to talk to you. Any chance you’re gonna be at the inn a bit later tonight?”

“I can be,” he said carefully, dark eyes narrowing.

“Great,” you chirped. “I’ll see you there in a bit then…”

He was clearly still very suspicious as he turned away, but he trusted you, and nodded curtly at D before he left.

About an hour or so later after discussing things in more detail with D, you headed to the Highwayman’s Secret. As you approached, you tried hard not to look too closely at the sign above the door this time, since you now knew the actual subject of the painting and the truth of the story behind the inn’s name. D remained behind at your little hut, having promised - yet again - that he would not leave town without you.

Kravik took the news of your imminent departure about as well as you’d thought he would. He was devastated. He said he understood, and that he wanted you to be happy, but his delicate, grey, tapering ears drooped visibly and his dark eyes shone with unshed tears.

“Krav, I’m sorry,” you said, seizing hold of his long, spindly fingers and squeezing him hard.

A single tear spilled from the rim of his eyes and rolled down his cheek towards his sharp chin. “I’m going to miss you so much,” he whispered, his glassy gaze fixed on your joined hands. “You’ve always been there for me.”

“I’ll still be here for you, Krav,” you said. “I’ll write to you, and I’ll visit when I can.”

“Just promise me you’ll take care,” he said, and you nodded. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know,” you said, “But soon. Maybe even tomorrow.”

His grip clenched even tighter, and he bowed his head, bringing your hands up to his brow. He pressed his forehead against your skin and sighed, silent tears now rolling freely down his cheeks.

“Krav, don’t cry,” you said, choking up. “Please…”

“Come and say goodbye before you go?” he asked, and you promised.

You spent the rest of the evening holding his slender hands and talking about everything, from the progress the goblins were making and what they would do now that the mine was closed, to your earliest childhood memories of scrumping for apples and stealing fresh-baked biscuits from the open door of the baker’s together… Most of the goblins to move away to where their family and friends worked in other mining villages and towns, while only a few were prepared to try and find different work in the same area. Kravik said that he might try and look for somewhere else, now that he knew you weren’t going to be there, and you tried not to feel too guilty. It would be a new chapter for both of you.

“You’ll have lots to tell me about when we see each other again…” you smiled. “You must let me know where you decide to go…”

As the night wore on, you were joined by the rest of your friends, and you told them that you were leaving and planning to travel. They seemed supportive and excited, though Erik said he and his brother would miss you. Only you and Kravik knew the truth, that you were going to be galloping off in the morning with a dullahan, and once you’d said all your goodbyes, you let Kravik and Erik walk you back to the hut. Erik gave you a minotaur-speciality, bone-crushing hug at the door, while Kravik just stood there looking miserable. You knelt down, knowing that he didn't mind it when you did so, and put yourself at his eye level. You drew him close to you and held his small body tightly. He was trembling softly.

“I love you, Krav,” you whispered to your life-long best friend. “I’m sorry I’m leaving.”

“I get it,” he said. “I really do; I just… I’m… I’m going to miss you.”

“I promise I’ll come and say goodbye tomorrow.”

He nodded, and you stood and walked up the stairs to your front door. Pausing with your hand on the latch, you gazed back and saw Kravik and Erik walking away, the goblin looking so miserable it almost made you change your mind.

You pushed the door open and D looked up at you from a seat by the fire, one of your favourite books in his lap. His physical head appeared still to be in its protective chest because the soft glow of his green essence flared a little brighter as you walked in. When he saw the expression on your face, however, he closed the book and surged to his feet, striding over to you and putting his hands on your shoulder and waist. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”

“I hate goodbyes,” you said glumly and closed the door behind you with a click.

“You don’t have to -”

“Don’t finish that,” you snapped, trying to blink the tears from your eyes. “Tonight was painful enough without you making it worse by changing my mind. I’m coming with you, and that’s that. Alright? We’re done talking about it.”

He nodded and leaned down to kiss your tears away. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to be an ass about this. I just wanted you to consider it thoroughly.”

“I have,” you said. “I missed you so much when I thought you were dead… But knowing you were out there, and that I couldn’t be with you, would be even worse. I think it would just about destroy me, D.”

He smiled suddenly, and you flashed him a quizzical frown. He chuckled, and said, “I love that you call me that.”

“What, ‘D’?”

“Yes,” he said, ducking low to kiss you right on the corner of your lips and making you smile. He thumbed a line across your cheekbone and drew you towards the fire to warm you up.

Instead of taking a seat opposite him, you sank into his lap, and he laughed as you leaned your body against his chest, resting the back of your head on his shoulder. “Why do you like it?” you asked in a quiet voice. The flickering and crackling of the logs in the grate were the only other sounds in the hut, and you savoured the quiet peace of it after the noise of the inn and the rush of Kravik’s emotions. “It was just a stupid thing I started calling you before I knew your name…”

“I know,” he said, sliding his arms around your waist and hugging you. “But you thought of me as an individual worth naming, not just ‘a dullahan’. You cared enough to call me something in your own mind. It’s nice, that’s all. I… I feel more…” he shrugged and your head bobbed slightly with the movement. “I feel more human, I suppose. Less… less anonymous.”

You laced your fingers through his and brought them up briefly to your lips to kiss them before lowering them once again into your lap. They came to rest on your thigh, but he soon let go of you and began to hoist your dress slowly up your leg until he had bare skin beneath his palm. You groaned and leaned harder into him, feeling him wakening beneath you, even as heat pooled between your legs. You rolled your hips just to confirm it, and he groaned sensuously in your ear. His ghostly lips brushed the shell of your ear and his breath made your skin tingle as he kissed down your neck. He was slow, taking his time, biting and sucking bruises, then kissing the brief sting away with his soft, cold lips. His hand searched beneath your dress, and he moaned when he felt how wet you were for him.

“Already?” he gasped, and you nodded, tilting your hips up to meet the touch and guide him right to where you wanted him. He made slow, torturous, loving circles around your aching clit, sliding his fingertips carefully up your inner lips, mindful always of the sharpness of his claws. When he did catch you accidentally and you hissed, he growled and cursed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to have to do something about that now, aren’t I?”

“What, about your talons or about the fact that I need kissing better?” you asked playfully. It honestly didn’t hurt much at all.

With a playful, laughing snarl, he put his hands around your waist and lifted you off him. He set you down again and began to kiss you, backing you towards your bedroom with a low, rumbling growl constantly emanating from his chest like a rakshasa’s purr.  

“I love that sound,” you gasped between kisses, your palms flat on his chest, feeling the vibrations of it.

“Good,” he hissed, “Because I can’t help it.”

He was more assertive than he’d yet been as he steered you into your bedroom and pushed you roughly onto your bed. He stripped you both - mercifully not ripping your clothes apart this time - and parted your legs with a gruff gesture that had your head lolling with the pleasure of it. He didn’t waste any time in setting his kissing lips and teasing tongue to you, sucking hard on your clit and circling it with the tip of his dark tongue until you began to shake all over.

When you made to grab his ghostly head, he deliberately evaded you, turning intangible, and you complained and whined at him while he laughed and continued to send tingling chills over your body with the ghostly touch of his tongue and the sting of his sharp claws against your thighs.

“D, please!” you begged, bucking your hips upwards in desperation.

His tongue caught that little place just below your clit that you loved, and with the heat of his mouth around you, you came hard, stomach clenching, sparks dancing in your vision, and wailing in wordless pleasure.

He kept his tongue pressed tight against you, drinking the taste of you down as you came, suckling gently at you until you jerked sharply and begged him to stop.

“Can I come inside you?” he asked as he pulled back.

“I should have asked this before, but I’m assuming we’re good on the whole ‘pregnancy’ front… right?” you asked, voice slurred and mind still spinning.

“My kind are sterile,” he said, his voice neutral. “And we carry no diseases.”

“Oh good. Then yes, you can…” you smiled, and he didn’t waste any time sheathing himself to the hilt inside you in one rapid stroke that had his spine bowing forwards and his fingers snagging on the sheets as he balled them into fists.

“Oh gods,” he whimpered in a broken voice. “You’re so tight.”

“I want you, D…” you whispered, and he began to move.

He started off with a slow rhythm, savouring the feel of your heat as you still occasionally twitched in the aftermath of your release or when the tip of his cock hit that spot inside you, but he soon started to lose himself in the sensations of your body. He grabbed your hips, plunging even deeper inside you, and you let out an earthy groan of pleasure.

“Gods,” he cursed, “You’re so perfect.”

For a while, he seemed perfectly content to rock his hips, moving in and out of you at a punishingly patient pace, but eventually his breathing began to shift and grow more ragged, and his snarling growls grew louder and more frequent. D pushed himself upright on his knees and raised one of your legs up, holding your ankle in place at his collarbone, his fingers gripping the joint while his right hand held your other leg down against the mattress. The new angle caught you deep, and he started that rhythmic growling in earnest, baring his sharp canines in a ghostly snarl of pleasure. The spidery veins of phosphorescence that spread all over his body like living marble pulsed and flared more brightly the closer he got, and as he pistoned in and out of you, breathing ragged, his growls filling the room and making your ears ring, you knew he was close.

Without warning, his hips stuttered and he pushed himself as deep inside you as he could get, spilling into you and filling you so completely you almost felt like crying. He was giving himself to you all over again, and you gazed up at him in his moment of pleasure, savouring the monstrous snarl, the inhuman colouring of his skin, the ghostly green of his head, and the beautiful way in which his muscles bunched and spasmed as he released into you.

Lowering your leg, he slumped forwards over you and laid his head beside yours, kissing your shoulder, before his head lost its opacity and you shivered as the chill of his ghostly form passed right through you. “Sorry,” he slurred, clearly trying to manifest it once again. When he couldn’t, you laughed and held him tightly to you, pulling him close.

“It’s alright,” you giggled. “You’re a dullahan. Revel in being headless for a bit, will you?”

He laughed and gave up, half crushing you with his body, unable to muster the strength to roll off you. His skin was cool against your own. Eventually he withdrew and rolled over onto his back, but not before managing to make his head tangible enough to kiss you.

You fell asleep that night beside him, and when you woke in the morning, he was still there, curled up on his side and facing you this time.

You would have been lying if you’d said it wasn’t a bit of a surprise to wake up next to a naked, chilly, headless body, but once your brain had processed it, you smiled. In sleep, D had not bothered to maintain his ghostly head, and you reached tentatively out for his neck again and ran your fingertips around the ragged, long-healed scars. He jerked the moment your skin touched his, his head flickering back into existence like a kindling flame, and his eyes found yours wide with surprise.

“Sorry,” you murmured. “I didn’t mean to wake you…”

“You startled me,” he smiled. “I’m sorry if I scared you…”

You shook your head. “You made me jump, that’s all.” You inhaled deeply and pushed him so that he rolled like a docile lion onto his back, and you could snuggle up against his chest.

The two of you stayed like that until the sun was well up, and your stomach began rumbling.

“Do dullahan eat?” you asked as you cut a slice of bread and pulled some butter and jam out of the pantry.

D, who was leaning against your small table with his arms casually crossed over his chest, shook his transparent, green head, the ghostly hair swinging down his back in the same way his actual hair did. You loved that long ponytail and the feel of his dark, silky hair. You cleared your throat before you could get too distracted, and grinned as he cocked an eyebrow curiously. The glint in his inhuman eyes told you he knew the nature of your mental tangent…

“Listen,” you said after you’d eaten. “I promised Kravik I’d say goodbye before we left. I want to leave my hut to Will. I know he’s been living at the infirmary while he’s been working there, but I think it’s important that he have somewhere to call his own, you know? Especially after everything he’s been through…” The mayor’s half-goblin son deserved some kindness in his life.

D nodded. “I’ll get Midnight ready, and load up your things into my saddlebags if you like. I’m sorry you aren’t able to take much with you.”

You shrugged. “I’ll wear my little back pack, and that fits most of my essential things in. I’ll get anything else I need as we go along.”

“I’m sorry…” D choked, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“For heaven’s sake,” you grumbled, getting up from your seat and smacking him playfully with the back of your hand on the shoulder as you cleared your breakfast things away. “Stop apologising. I knew this would be a change… it’s fine! Stop fussing…”

He nodded meekly, and you quickly penned a letter for Kravik to give to Will, explaining about the plants in the herb garden at the back, and why you were leaving the little healer’s hut to him. That done, you slipped out into the ripening day, and made your way to the other end of town where Kravik lived. The goodbye was as painful as you’d expected, but he seemed braver about it in the morning light, and maybe even a little excited about starting over somewhere new.

“I have something for you,” he said, tugging you inside his familiar home. He scuttled to a low table and grabbed something, retuning to you with a bashful expression that you weren’t used to seeing on your confident friend’s face. He held out a silver pendant with an engraved handprint on it. The handprint was noticeably not human, with longer fingers and a smaller palm. It was the handprint of a goblin. “I made it last night,” he said shyly. “So you have a piece of me to take with you.”

Tears fogged your vision and you swept him up and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his strong little arms around your neck, dangling from you in an undignified manner that would have made any other goblin deeply uncomfortable. That he was not was an indicator of just how much he cared for you.

“Don’t forget about me,” he whispered in your ear, and you felt your heart crack.

Giving him one final squeeze, you promised him that you’d write when you could, and that you would never, ever forget him. “You mean so much to me, Krav,” you choked. “I’m going to miss you so much, but I promise I’ll come and visit.”

He hitched a lopsided little smile and sniffed. “When do you leave?” he asked.

“Now…” you said, and, on glancing out of the window, you saw D sitting astride Midnight, waiting for you.

“Is he out there?” Kravik asked, and you nodded. “Put me down.”

The little goblin strode to his door and flung it open. “Show yourself, dullahan,” he barked, and, to your surprise, D obeyed. Kravik glared up at him, jabbing his long finger up at him. Midnight shuffled nervously, drawing her head back as if she expected Kravik to chuck something at her. “If you hurt her…” Kravik growled. “If any harm comes to her because of you, I will personally set fire to your horse, skin you alive, and use your head as a football in the Beltane celebrations, do you understand me?”

To your surprise, D swung down from Midnight’s back and sank down onto one knee in front of Kravik in one smooth motion, bowing his head - his physical head, as it happened. “I swear,” the dullahan rasped rasped, “That I will do everything in my power to protect your friend and keep her from harm. I would not allow you to harm my horse, but you may do anything else to me you see fit should I fail.”

Kravik looked almost as stunned as you felt, and he turned awkwardly from D to look up at you. “Well,” he croaked. “That’s… reassuring? I guess?” he laughed. And then he clapped the still-kneeling D on his shoulder hard enough to upset his balance a little, and said, “See to it that she’s happy. That’s all I ask. And that you bring her to visit her old friend once in a while…”

“Whenever she likes,” D said, pushing himself to his feet again. “But know that if I’d had my way, she wouldn’t be leaving at all.”

“She’s a stubborn little thing,” Kravik said, shaking his head as he looked you up and down.

“That she is,” D said with feeling.

You looked from one to the other of them and set your hands comically on your hips. “Well, I’m glad the two of you can agree on that, at least.”

You gave Kravik one last hug, and got D to put his necklace around your neck where it glinted in the sunlight.

“Take care,” the goblin offered as he watched D swing up into the saddle and pull you up behind him. As he did so, he let a glamour settle in place over him so that his skin warmed to a tan brown, instead of its usual slate grey, and the pulsing green lines faded almost to nothing so that unless someone looked really hard, he looked like an ordinary human. You knew, however, that underneath he was anything but ordinary.

“We will,” you promised. “And you too.”

As you closed your arms around D’s waist and he nudged Midnight into a trot and then an easy, comfortable canter, you hugged him tightly and tried not to look back.

Your new life lay ahead of you, and you had no idea what it would bring. One thing was certain, though: if you ever met Tenacity again - which you were almost certain you would - you were going to give her the sharp side of your tongue for letting you think that D had not survived his injuries. You found yourself chuckling at the thought, and D glanced back over his shoulder at you and shot you a questioning look.

“I’m just thinking that when we see Ten next, I’m going to give her as much of a talking to as Kravik just gave you.”

D’s warm laugh rippled out of him and you hugged him tighter for a moment. “Oh boy… she’s in trouble…” he chuckled. A moment later he added, “I love you.”

“Will you defend me against her?” you asked, aiming for lighthearted silliness until the sincerity of his response hit you in the chest like a club swung by a minotaur.

“And everything else,” he said. “Always.”

You had no words for that, and clung to him as he gave Midnight her head and let the night-dark mare gallop along the sandy track, following the same calling that drove him on from place to place to right wrongs and deal out the justice after which he had been renamed.

And you would remain right there beside him through all of it.

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As ever, I would love to hear what you thought of it, and now that we're at the end of this 46,688 word (!) story, I'd like to thank you for getting involved with the voting, and to thank my patrons for choosing D in the first place! I did this story as a 'thank you' to my 3000 followers on Tumblr, and it wouldn't have been the story it is without everyone’s support. So yeah. Thank you. *blushes and wibbles and sees self out*

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